Talking Points
- Cyclone Yaas left 150,000 homeless on India's east coast
- New Delhi wielded restrictive new laws against Twitter, WhatsApp
- Mutilated bodies are being used as a tool of terror in Myanmar
- Surprise! Al-Assad was reelected in Syria with 95% of the vote
- Afghan security forces surrendered to the Taliban en masse
- Evidence of war crimes emerged from Ethiopia's Tigray region
- Thousands have fled an active volcano in Congo
- Dominic Cummings slammed BoJo in an entertaining tirade
- Uber relented after a UK court granted drivers "worker rights"
- Prominent figures expressed opposition to the Tokyo Olympics
Dive deeper
Rather than ameliorating the catastrophic threat of the coronavirus pandemic, a good many people are still scratching about in the dirt looking for a cause. This week we've seen that politics and science are like, well, oil and water.
Novelty sucks
A new threat is rising against the backdrop of the pandemic. As governments responded (some slower than others) to the reality of Covid-19, something else was incubating just out of sight. The first wave emerged in America just over a year ago, but was successfully suppressed. Now it's reemerged, spreading faster than ever, and it appears to be overwhelming our best defences. Yes, be afraid: the lab-leak theory is back .
First things first. Coronaviruses are zoonotic diseases. They are quite content in their natural reservoirs (the animals that carry them safely). They only become a problem when they jump from animals to humans (who can't carry them safely). SARS came from horseshoe bats in China's Yunnan province; MERS from the dromedaries of the Arabian Peninsula. In fact, 60% of all known human diseases originated in animals; the figure rises to 75% if you look at new or reemerging diseases. There is no evidence to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 is any different.
As early as February last year, while then-President Donald Trump was busy not preparing his country for the predicted onslaught of Covid-19, a novel theory was born. According to this notion, the virus had spilled out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in a fateful accident. After all, the first outbreak being in a city where a research centre specialising in coronaviruses does seem like an implausible coincidence. For an embattled American president, it was manna from heaven. It meant someone else was responsible – either through ignorance or malice – for the thousands of Americans dying (or soon to die) in ICUs across the country.
The idea was quickly shot down by the head of the Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan facility - renowned virologist Shi Zhengli. The genome of the coronavirus that spread from Wuhan did not match the sequence of any bat samples her team had stored at the lab. But few paid heed.
Taken at faith value
During his final few months in office, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo set to work on a secret project – to evidence the theory that Covid-19 had escaped from a Chinese bioweapons facility. That was even after the conspiracy had been firmly debunked in peer-reviewed journals. Not dissuaded, a team of sleuths was drawn from the ranks of the State Department's arms control agency. And early this year the team briefed the new administration on its findings. Biden shut the program down immediately. As one former State Department official put it, the entire project was "suspicious as hell" because the investigators refused to include the work of actual experts. Was this lab-leak being put to bed?
Earlier in January a World Health Organisation team had travelled to Wuhan to investigate the source of the virus. It was a compromised trip: the WHO was denied access to sites and individuals that might have shed light on the early spread in December 2019. As a result, the final report left open a number of 'viable' possibilities, and ascribed a probability to each one. Zoonotic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was deemed to have been "likely to very likely". A leak from the laboratory was adjudged "extremely unlikely". But to the lab-leak true believers, this meant there was still a chance.
This week, a US intelligence report leaked to the Wall Street Journal revealed that as early as November 2019 a handful of staff at the Wuhan Institute of Virology had fallen sick with coronavirus-like symptoms .
Once more unto the breach
Putting aside the geopolitical rivalry, let's give this report the benefit of the doubt. What does the science have to say about lab-leak theory? Do the experts share Trump's confidence ("I have very little doubt – and I mean very, very little doubt that it came from a lab")? Not quite. A minority of scientists has argued that there is some evidence of mutagenesis (which can be a sign of artificially altered genetic information) at the furin cleavage site of the SARS-CoV-2 protein spike. Paired with the fact that the WHO team could not pinpoint the exact point of zoonotic transmission, it has been elevated from scientific uncertainty to smoking gun.
And now it has backing from America's favourite pandemic talking head, Dr Antony Fauci, "Because we don't know 100 percent what the origin is, it's imperative that we look and we do an investigation". In one short statement Fauci is wrong, right, and misguided. First off, the notion that this could be known 100% is not supported by science itself – falsifiability is paramount. Second, yes, it is valid to test all origin theories with a dispassionate methodology. Third, the idea this particular incident can be investigated dispassionately is farcical; the most voluble supporter of the lab-leak theory was China's antagoniser-in-chief for four years and he is waving about unsubstantiated claims from America's intelligence apparatus (which hardly has a strong track record of acting in good faith). Good luck trying to control the experiment in this macro environment!
The Biden administration has launched a 90-day review to test the lab-leak theory. Beijing is furious. And that, given how much credence the administration gave the lab-leak theory when it canned Pompeo's secret investigation, may well be the point.
Worldlywise
A triptych of corporate climate rebellions
As we discussed at the beginning of the month, ExxonMobil is besieged from within. The activist investor group Engine No. 1 has but a measly 0.02% stake in the gas and oil giant but has leveraged far-greater results. By coercing and cajoling much larger institutional investors (those with the most significant exposure to public pressure), the activists this week took two positions on ExxonMobil's board . It was a stunning rebuke to a company that has expressed a degree of sensitivity to climate change that can be best summed up as pig-headed denial. Don't expect too many Teslas in the executive carpark in Irving, Texas just yet – but do take heart from the fact that a committed few can win the support from the likes of BlackRock and affect change in the world.
Also in the United States, the management of multinational energy corporation Chevron was handed a similar drubbing by their shareholders. 61% of investors voted with the European activist investors Follow This to force the company to markedly reduce its emissions. It's the third victory for Follow This in a month since similar votes were held at ConoccoPhillips and Phillips 66.
So too with Royal Dutch Shell and its backers in the City. It's emerged that the £1.2tn asset management arm of Legal & General voted on Tuesday to shoot down Anglo-Dutch company's lacklustre climate transition targets. That one of the City's oldest and most venerable firms is moving with the times will hopefully engender more progress: as it stands, the UK's finance sector has a bigger carbon footprint than Canada. It was a shocker of a week for the Dutch-Anglo company – the following day a court at the Hague ordered Shell to raise its carbon emissions reductions target from 20% to 45% by 2030 .
A aerial abduction
Roman Protasevich broke his own rule last weekend. He paid for it with his freedom. For Belarusian journalists critical of president-for-life Alexander Lukashenko, there are only two career paths: arbitrary detention or exile. Protasevich chose the latter, living in Lithuania with his partner. His was a prominent voice during the sham election and popular protests against the result last year. He'd long told his friends about a personal rule: don't fly over Belarus. On Sunday, when returning from a holiday in Greece with his partner, the world found out why.
The Belarusians would have us believe that Protasevich's flight was diverted mid-flight due to a bomb-scare, and forced to land in Minsk. A Mig-29 was sent to intercept it for good measure. Witnesses onboard described a scene of profound fear. The moment the captain announced the diversion, Protasevich was up out of his seat dispersing his personal possessions to other people on the flight. He knew the unexpected stop was for him. Of course, it's all rubbish. A Swiss email provider has already shown that the alleged bomb-threat email was sent and received after the diversion . When you are engaged in such brazen air piracy as this, why bother with a little lie?
Right now Protasevich and his partner are languishing in the Minsk Detention Centre No. 1, along with some 20 reporters. It may not come as a surprise that Belarus ranks fairly close to the bottom of the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. The European Union has responded by banning flights over Belarus, but that only spurred Lukashenko's backers in Moscow to ban EU flights from crossing Russian airspace . There's talk of sanctions too, but they won't amount to much. Accurately or not, Western nations view Belarus being firmly within Russia's sphere of influence – and a meek response to last year's protests confirmed that view. Help is not on the way for Roman Protasevich.
The worst of times
Civilian leadership no match for coup plotters
This week Mali faced its second coup in a year after its prime minister and president were detained and forced to resign. After the initial coup in August, several major players had kept their roles in the civilian-led government. Two were fired on Monday in an attempt to gain the upper hand over those who had instigated the coup. In response, vice president and former coup leader Assimi Goita overthrew the transitional government on Tuesday. More instability for a country dealing with its a sizeable insurgency.
The climate threat to childbirth
As global temperatures fluctuate due to climate change, the world may see an uptick in stillbirths . A systematic review of 12 studies found that 17-19% of stillbirths could be attributed to chronic exposure to extreme temperatures. Moreover, the risk increases when temperatures go below 15°C or above 23.4°C. Of course, this is on top of the stressors climate change is already placing on vulnerable populations.
The best of times
How do you avoid detection for 100 years?
Very carefully. For over a century, the Fernandina giant tortoise was thought to be extinct. This week, though, geneticists confirmed a tortoise residing in Santa Cruz, California is a part of the species. The link was made after comparing samples of the existing chelonoidis phantasticus to one that died in 1906. Other findings of prints and feces indicate that more of the species may also still exist on Fernandina Island.
A sequel to blindness: seeing
A new technique has been used to partially restore a man’s vision. The French man was diagnosed with the rare retinitis pigmentosa almost 40 years ago, leading to his blindness. To restore his sight, fluid which carried genetic instructions on how to rebuild light-responsive proteins was injected into his eye. Then, special goggles were used to transform images into pulses of specific wavelengths. As a result, the man was able to locate, count, touch, and recognise objects.
Weekend Reading
The image
The quote
"[He] needs to get a grip."
– Samoan Prime Minister-elect Fiame Naomi Mata'afa gives her rogue predecessor a serve after he locked her out of parliament. Former PM Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi is contesting the election results on the usual grounds that incumbents do (they like their job and don't want to give it up).
The numbers
50 years young
- Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship five decades into his life. This appearance at Kiawah Island was his 113th Major appearance. Persistence is everything.
1/10,000th of 45,000 gigawatts
- Engineers behind the world's second cryptocurrency Ethereum are close to finalising a radical new blockchain verification that will reduce its carbon footprint by more than 99%. At a moment of heightened attention on the shocking impact these speculators and nerds are having on the planet, a shift from proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake system could revolutionise the industry..
The headline
"Cannibal Mice Threaten Sydney Homes and Australian Farms" – Bloomberg . Straya.
The special mention
Vale, Eric Carle . The Very Hungry Caterpillar is nothing if not sublime. Thank you.
A few choice long-reads
- A superb read from the The New York Times. Shouldn't we all have self-driving cars by now?
- A deep, deep, deep dive into Cathie Wood, ARKK, and the future of investing. Can she (almost) single-handedly usher in a new high-tech future? Businessweek with big one.
- We are fast realising that a data-driven approach has a service ceiling. Financial Times with a timely read on why data isn't enough to truly understand the world.
Tom Wharton @trwinwriting
