A new dawn has ushered in, in Bangladesh

by Anwar A Khan-Jan 2, 2019

Jan 1, 2019

A vote revolution with smiling faces of voters betided on 30 December in the national polls in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Awami League has won a landslide victory in the elections. It is a significant victory for Bangladesh’s democracy, secularism, massive development works and true spirits of our glorious Liberation War of 1971. And definitely, it has ushered in a new era in Bangladesh. Many foreign and local election observers were allowed to monitor this voting revolution in Bangladesh. International monitors have largely praised the conduct of the election.

A loud and familiar chant would soon ring out across the country when the newly elected 11thparliament will go into session. “Joy Bangla! Joy Bangabandu!” the crowds will roar in unison, echoing the ruling AL party’s election campaign slogan for PM Sheikh Hasina to get in there for the 4th time in the hope that Banglasesh’s premier will deliver a new era of democracy, prosperity and peace. She has reached out to the voters and urged the nation to look forward and work towards helping the country’s economy grow.

People hope the vision of a new and prosperous Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, we all want is a shared one and transcends political party lines. As the would be PM afresh, we hope she will pledge to act fairly and impartially, without fear or favour for people of all classes and of all religions. We believe she could see all the mistakes that she made in the past and she will learn many things from the past history and run the state affairs aright. She now has become the mother figure of our people of this land so we must put our trust in her.

We are all Bangladesh’s people; what unites us is greater than what could ever divide us. Reprobated rulers – Gen Zia, Gen Ershad and Begum Zia divided us by rehabilitating the defeated forces of 1971 in every nook and corner of the country only to serve well their fiddling gains whereas their unsavoury acts were not, at all, necessitated.

Through the engagement and re-engagement policy, the new government is opening a new chapter in our relations with the world, underpinned by mutual respect, shared principles and common values. The 11th parliamentary polls have marked a turning point in Bangladesh’s democracy. The would be PM has repeatedly pledged to lead Bangladesh to a more democratic era. Now, we believe, we are promised a new dawn; the potential, under PM Sheikh Hasina’s party command, that a warm light will shine into the dark corners of society, banishing exploitation, joblessness, corruption and crimes. We hope this will not be a delusive dawn at a time of gathering darkness. The sign of administrative dysfunction of an inability to act in a coherent and holistic way, if any, will soon go away.

Celebrated journalist and columnist Syed Badrul Ahsan on the polls day aptly said, “This morning, we celebrate our collective democratic spirit, for we have, despite every odd and every impediment, upheld the cause of democracy and have not allowed the process of elected government to be disturbed or upended by extra-constitutional means or thwarted by sinister plots hatched by elements lurking in the dark. This morning we will vote for more of democracy, for the rule of law to underpin our society, for parliament to be a full and vibrant platform for expressions of popular aspirations, for the executive to be the embodiment of every citizen’s hopes and dreams, for the judiciary to inform us that the machinery of justice stands ready to strengthen and support us when assaults are made on the liberties we enjoy in our democracy. This morning, we vote for a new dawn of promise. This morning, we vote for strong, purposeful, committed, accountable and secular leadership. This morning, we wait for a beautiful end to a day wrapped in great expectations.”

The exploited should join together to improve the lot of each and all. And in a Bangladesh context, the gaps at all levels are much greater and probably make the need and difficulty for united action greater still. But something radical is surely required when some elementary facts are taken into account. Because, far from any sign of a new dawn, the majority of Bangladesh’s people face the prospect of a chilly, lengthening and stormy economic and social night. These, and similar facts, should top the agenda, if the government’s promised economic developments are finally staged. Out of these may come some sound suggestions that may indicate, if not a new dawn, at least a glimmer of hope. We should wake up to this Bangladesh as well.    

There is a strong argument to be made for increasing public sector employment and the scope is too big here. This could be achieved by filling or creating, posts for core front line staff and for many more positions. The two principal pledges Awami League included in its manifesto are ’My Village-My Town’ and ‘Power of Youth-progress of Bangladesh.’ According to sources at AL on its election manifesto, Awami League have released a pro-youth election manifesto giving priority to balanced development of the country, quality education and employment opportunities for youth. According to the leaders, AL focused on the new voters in this election as they could bring about a major change in the election. The 2018 manifesto titled “Bangladesh on March towards Prosperity” focuses on 33 sectors to be dealt with two strategic plans — the SDG and Delta Plan 2100.

In its polls manifestos, AL has pledged 21-point programmes which include:

1.My village, my town: expansion of modern urban amenities in rural areas

2.Strength of youths, prosperity of Bangladesh: transformation of young people into skilled manpower and ensuring their employment

3. Adopting zero tolerance policy against corruption

4. Women empowerment, gender equity and children’s welfare

5. Ensuring nutrition and safe food

6. Elimination of terrorism –communalism-militancy

7. Quick and quality implementation of all mega projects

8. Strengthening democracy and rule of law

9. Poverty alleviation

10.Increasing standard of education at all levels

11.Ensuring quality health services for all

12.Enhanced use of digital technology for overall development

13.Ensuring power and energy safety

14.Modern agricultural system-mechanization

15.Skilled and service oriented public administration

16.People’s friendly law enforcement agencies

17.Blue economy and marine resources development

18.Ensuring road safety

19.Welfare for senior citizen, disabled and autistic people

20.Sustainable and inclusive development, prosperous Bangladesh

21.Increasing public and private investments

We find the best manifestos have three characteristics:

a)They are provocative. Manifestos are powerful because they interrupt the status quo. The language of manifesto or aspirational statement should stretch and challenge what currently exists. This is why we sometimes call manifestos “provocative propositions.”

 b)They are grounded. At the same time, manifestos cannot be fanciful. They have to be grounded in reality and built upon the strengths of the people, team or product they advance.     They are really desired.

c) Finally, manifestos generate results when they reflect something that is truly desired. A manifesto is for something that does excite emotion or meet a real need. It is also meant to motivate; motivation begins with desire.

Publicising a manifesto for AL was very important. Doing so serves several purposes: it cements a political party’s intention and creates accountability for project leaders and participants; it builds excitement and energy for the initiative; it creates awareness with their voters, who can show their support for the ideas or cause; and the conversations that occur are an important spark in making the future they want a reality. And all these bechanced through this just concluded ballot revolution. We know PM Sheikh Hasina and her party’s strengths, we see the best in her and AL and we are eager to live out the future they have designed together through their election pledges.

If we tot up, we must say whether political priorities will be dictated by economic motives is a matter which remains open to debate. We can only hope that heed is paid to the outstanding issues of good governance which are restraining Bangladesh from embarking on an inclusive economic development path, dictated by solid, transparent political commitments. This country stands at the cross-roads of history, after forty-seven years of independence. Forty-seven years is a long time to change the face and fortunes of a country and its people to a greater extent. In all these years, for ordinary people in Bangladesh, our political leadership has always given them reasons for hope, as well as disappointment. The next five years could be singularly consequential for our country. They bring challenge as well as opportunity. For all the past shortcomings in the past, if the AL’s manifestos are to be believed, people cannot be blamed for having the audacity to hope for more peace, progress and prosperity for the nation, it’s for all classes of people and it is for people of all religions on the same scale for the next five years.

Sheikh Hasina has enlivened people to make a difference in whatever way they can. To be the change-maker she wants, to be kind to everyone, and to always be ready with a hug, but most of all she has taught us to light up every day with a smile! She has never backed down from a challenge. We admire her perseverance; she always has kept her head up during the hardest times. We look up to her because she has the strength to never give up hope. She is a composer of politics in the landscape of Bangladesh.

Because of her unflagging work for her people to improve their lot, many international observers have also hailed her as the modern day Joan of Arc.  She may be called the “Idol of the Masses.” It is aptly said, “If Rabi Thakur is the poet of thinking, reflection and thought, if Bangabandhu is the poet of politics, then Sheikh Hasina is the poet of development.”

Premier Sheikh Hasina personifies the unbeatable spirit. Vision 2021 programme of Awami League has envisioned turning Bangladesh into a “Sonar Bangla” — Golden Bengal — as dreamt by the father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, has now become a reality.

Despite developments, many problems are still prevalent in the country which calls for dire emergency needed actions for Bangladesh to master over them including all aspects of the environment, such as, climate change, deforestation, water-logging and an increase in CO2 emissions. Corruption is a breeding ground in the country. Instead of lessening, it is growing day by day. Corruption reduces the effectiveness of efforts to reduce poverty and assist growth. A vigorous and credible programme is needed to combat corruption in Bangladesh.

The spread of power away from the centre to local branches or governments is not taken as yet by Hasina’s government. So, everything is centralised to the Metropolitan Dhaka City. Dhaka is now an unfit or unsuitable to live in it. Education is not trade. It is a cardinal necessity for the nation as a whole to develop it in tune with time in the spirit to cope up with other developed nations. Many science and technology based educational institutions for quality educations are not grown-up as expected during the 10 years’ rule of Hasina. Road safety, traffic gridlock, water-logging, etc. are not taken proper care. These state of difficulties centre round the Metropolitan Dhaka City which need to have been resolved long before, but these are no-hopers for the government. Despite some large projects being implemented, establishing more train lines, fly-overs, roads, by-pass roads have failed to draw the attention of Hasina’s government.

In short, to become a middle-income country by 2021, Bangladesh has a long way to go. Its track record of growth rather makes people hopeful of achieving the status. Bangladesh has showed significant development in many sectors that need to properly manage and nurture. To ensure growth, and faster improvement, there’s no alternative to robust investments, development of manpower and increased productivity. One may hope to address the above-noted predicaments shall find a place in AL’s would be government. Faced with urgent, economic and political problems, over the next five years, she is likely to have a challenging path to navigate in her bid to lead the country into a new era. But she has that much of courage and powerfulness like her great father to sail through her exams. And Bangladesh’s unbeatable butt in the direction of development shall continue since AL is now set to form the new government sooner. Joy Bangla. Joy Bangabandhu.

The End –

The writer is a senior citizen of Bangladesh, writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs.

World leader of the year 2018

 2018-12-31

orld leaders -- whether they come from the US, North Korea or even from Sri Lanka -- are not like us, the ordinary people. They wine and dine on the best of fare, travel in luxury and to some degree are immune from prosecution for the actions they take... quite unlike lesser mortals like you and me. As we come to year’s end, it is time to look back, ‘not necessarily in anger‘, to check out who’s been naughty and who’s been nice and whom you and I would like being adjudged as ‘Person of the Year’. 

 After all, it is ‘We the People’ who put these leaders in the seats of power they now enjoy holding. Yes, through our mighty vote, ‘We the People’, elected certain men and women to rule the societies from which they come. Among the pack of world leaders in line choice as ‘World Leader of the Year’, is President Donald Trump of the US, the country which continues to be at war in far-flung parts of the world from Afghanistan, to Syria, to Libya, to Iraq and to Palestine.

In Palestine, the US proxy -- Israel -- continues to illegally occupy Palestinian lands, uses live ammunition against unarmed Palestinian men, women and children who only seek the right to return to the lands from which Israel has evicted them. Using a variety of tactics ranging from armed attacks by Israeli citizens occupying Palestinian fields, lands and homes to outright armed incursions into supposed areas under the control of Palestinian authorities Israel continues it’s policy of grabbing Palestinian land, demolishing homes and incarcerating Palestinian civillians. 

To date, the Israeli-Palestine conflict, which commenced with the setting up of the State of Israel in what was the land of Palestine in 1946, continues unabated. The struggle has resulted in millions of Palestinians living as refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed and large areas of Palestine have been ethnically cleansed while others have been thrown out of their homes in the Israeli-occupied territories. 
The UN, the organisation which set up the State of Israel on Palestinian soil, declared Jerusalem (a holy city to Christians, Jews and Muslims) as an international city under UN protection. Today the Israelis illegally occupy Jerusalem and claim it as the capital of Israel. The Christian and Muslim clergy who travel to their places of worship in religious dress are spat upon by young Israeli children and abused by adult Israeli fundamentalist sects. 

President Trump backs the Israeli claims to the holy city of Jerusalem, recognises Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, has moved the US embassy into that city and has decided to close his eyes, ears and mouth to ongoing Israeli atrocities against Palestinians.  The US-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War saw the US invasion and military occupation of portions of Syria, in support of Syrian opposition forces.  
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), US-led coalition airstrikes have resulted in the killing of 12,596 people across Syria. In 2016, from an estimated pre-war population of 22 million, the United Nations (UN) identified 13.5 million Syrians requiring humanitarian assistance, of whom  more than six million were internally displaced within Syria, and around five million remain refugees outside of Syria.  

However, despite protests from the US military-industrial complex and shrill screams from its media, President Trump has called time on the American military adventure in Syria. To give credit where it is due, Trump had the courage to defy his generals and the munitions industry to bring to an end US intervention in Syria. 
On October 7, 2001, supported by its close allies the US invaded Afghanistan in the aftermath of Al-Qaeda attack on the US on September 11, 2001. The stated aim of the mission was to dismantle Al-Qaeda and its secondary aim was to remove the Taliban from power in revenge for its refusal to hand Osama bin Laden over to US authorities for his role in the 9/11 attack.

Today, seven years later, the Al-Qaeda leader has been killed, and US forces have overthrown the Taliban from power. Yet, the US forces still remain in that country.  It is widely believed, however, the US presence in Afghanistan continues because the country is a veritable treasure trove of minerals, precious metals and rare earths which US multinationals lust after. 

"President Trump backs the Israeli claims to the holy city of Jerusalem, recognises Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, has moved the US embassy into that city and has decided to close his eyes, ears and mouth to ongoing Israeli atrocities against Palestinians"

According to surveys carried out by US authorities, Afghanistan may hold 60 million tons of copper, 2.2 billion tons of iron ore, 1.4 million tons of rare earth elements such as lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, and loads of aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, mercury and lithium. For instance, the Khanneshin carbonatite deposit in Afghanistan’s Helmand province is valued at $89 billion, full as it is with rare earth elements. Afghanistan’s mineral resources have been valued at $908 billion, by the US task force, while the Afghan government’s estimate is $3 trillion. Not surprisingly all US Presidents are loath to leave Afghanistan.

UN figures reveal 3,179 children were killed or wounded in 2017, accounting for almost one-third of the total civilian casualties for the year. During the war in Afghanistan (2001–present), over 31,000 civilian deaths due to war-related violence have been documented; 29,900 civilians have been wounded. Over 111,000 Afghans, including civilians, soldiers and militants, are estimated to have been killed in the conflict.
Recognising the injustice of the Afghan war former President Obama campaigned on a ticket to end the war and pull US troops out of Afghanistan. But he was unable to stand up to the military and armaments industry. President Trump is not only in the process of pulling troops out of Syria, but has called for immediate withdrawal of2,000 troops from Afghanistan, seen by many as a first step toward a full draw down of US troops from that country. 

The withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan will be the first step towards reconciliation between the different factions fighting to drive the invaders out of that country and Trump’s gesture for whatever his reasons, for getting US troops out of that country needs to appreciated. 
In March 2003, the US invaded Iraq on a blatantly false accusation of Iraq possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). US troops still remain in Iraq and the US continues to treat Iraq with the contempt colonial rulers treat its colonial minions. We saw proof of this when President Trump visited US forces in Iraq without so much as by-your-leave from the Iraqi government or without even paying common courtesy of visiting the Iraqi head of State. The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) puts documented civilian deaths resulting from violence as between 173,686 – 193,965 as at April 2017.

Trump has been a controversial figure in his own country. His speeches exacerbating race differences and tensions between coloured and white Americans. He demonises migrants, referring to them as rapists and underworld characters. He calls for his political opponents to be locked up and continues attacking the media. Most shocking has been his absolute disrespect towards women. Trump has also withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and made the world a less safe place to live in through his unilateral withdrawal from the Seven-Nation Iran Nuclear Agreement and slapping unilateral sanctions on Iran. 
The Person of the Year was originally selected by the ‘Time Magazine’ . ‘Time’ features and profiles a person, a group, an idea, or an object that “for better or for worse... has done the most to influence the events of the year”. 

"President Xi has shown the imperial powers that Asians are vassal states no longer. He has also led China on the road to making it the second strongest economy and third strongest military power behind the US and Russia"

So is Donald Trump a suitable candidate for the World Leader of the Year Award? Germany’s Angela Merkel is a strong candidate. She is considered the leader of European Union (EU). Her focus and determination is believed to have saved the Eurozone from collapse after bailouts were organised three times for Greece, Cyprus, Portugal and Ireland. She has come under intense criticism for her handling of the European migrants crisis through the opening of Germany’s borders to a million or more refugees from Libya, Syria and Iraq in 2015. But has maintained she would do it all over again if she had to. 

Merkel’s leadership helped calm and stabilise the situation in Central Europe after Russia annexed Crimea and subsequent crises following tensions with the Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation. She has also been a firm supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and has effectively countered anti-NATO rhetoric from President Trump. It is expected she will continue to play key role in deciding Britain’s transition and Brexit deal when it (Britain) exits the EU in March 2019.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a charismatic politician who came to power after his party won the 2014 general election with an outright majority securing 282 seats in the 543-strong parliament. His main election pledge was to transform India’s economy. A corruption-free regime, an inclusive India, clean governance, 10 million new jobs per year and increasing farm income by 2022. 

But the promises remain a distant dream. According to Sudha Pai, a political scientist, the agriculture sector has suffered, unemployment rate has spiked, fiscal deficit is increasing, and Indian society is more polarized than ever.   
The ‘Financial Express’ of June 2017 quoting official figures said  India witnessed more than 700 outbreaks of communal violence last year that killed 86 and injured 2,321 people. The actual number, however, could be higher as many cases go unreported. 
A report by the data-based news organisation ‘India Spend’ found that “Muslims were the target of 51% of violence centred on bovine issues over nearly eight years (2010 to 2017).  They comprised 84% of 25 Indians killed in 60 incidents. As many as 97% of these attacks were reported after Modi’s government came to power in May 2014.”

The UN report of June 2018 regarding Kashmir is damning, it accuses India’s security forces of using excessive force that led to unlawful killings and a very high number of injuries. It highlights the use of pellet firing shotguns as a means of crowd control. According to official figures, 17 people were killed by shotgun pellets between July 2016 and August 2017, and 6,221 people were injured by the metal pellets between 2016 and March 2017. Civil society organizations believe that many of them have been partially or completely blinded. 

The question we must ask ourselves is: Can premier Modi be your choice and mine as ‘World Leader of the Year’? keeping in mind that the person of the year, is a person, a group, an idea, or an object that “for better or for worse... done the most to influence the events of the year”. 
Though small in size, Sri Lanka, the land described as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean has been in the international limelight since October 2018 for all the wrong reasons. President Maithripala Sirisena, the man who joined hands with his erstwhile Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe, to defeat the charismatic Mahinda Rajapaksa at the 2015 Presidential election brought into being the 19th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution. The amendment effectively divested the executive presidency of most of its executive powers, including the president’s ability to sack a prime minister or to dissolve parliament! An excellent choice one may not be blamed for thinking for ‘World Leader of the Year’.

"PM Modi’s main election pledge was to transform India’s economy. A corruption-free regime, an inclusive India, clean governance, 10 million new jobs per year and increasing farm income by 2022"

But hark, when none was stirring... not even a mouse so-to-say ‘Maithri’ as he was fondly referred to, surprised a nation preparing for its nightly slumber, when he announced, he had pulled his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) out of the ruling coalition; sacked PM Wickremesinghe and appointed former President Rajapaksa as PM. For better for worse Sirisena had plunged the country into its first Constitutional crisis. 

Premier Wickremesinghe rejected the president’s actions, accused the president of engineering a constitutional coup, and claimed he was the lawful prime minister as he enjoyed the confidence of the House. When Wickremesinghe proved his majority in Parliament, President Sirisena without much ado ordered the dissolution of parliament and called for fresh elections.The disturbed president had forgotten that he had shorn himself of his executive powers and had no power to either dissolve parliament or call for snap elections. From one constitutional mess the president had thrown himself and the country into the next constitutional imbroglio.
Challenged in the Courts of law for acting ultra vires of the Constitution, Sirisena had to eat humble pie when the Supreme Courts held his actions were unconstitutional. Sirisena was forced to swear-in the very Prime Minister he had, but 50-days earlier outed. The wheels of justice as Charles Dickens was wont to say, ‘grind slowly but surely’.

The islanders it is said, tend to see themselves as the centrepiece on any stage they enter, and so it is, little Sri Lanka has thrown up four possible candidates for a choice of World Leader of the year. It’s safe to bet no single individual has influenced events in Sri Lanka more than ex-President Rajapaksa - conqueror of the LTTE, a one-term premier, two-term President, reduced to a simple Member of Parliament and most recently a 50-day Premier.

MP Rajapaksa now awaits news of whether his days in parliament are numbered for leaving the political coalition from which he was elected to parliament, for an entity he himself created while remaining a member of that coalition of parties. What must be kept in mind is that despite his present setbacks, the former president has had the ability to influence events in the country... even if that influence seems to be fading since the events of October 26, 2018 unfolded. 

"Challenged in the Courts of law for acting ultra vires of the Constitution, Sirisena had to eat humble pie when the Supreme Courts held his actions were unconstitutional. Sirisena was forced to swear-in the very PM he had, but 50-days earlier outed"

Then we have Speaker Karu Jayasuriya who prior to the constitutional crisis overtaking the country, was probably best remembered for his cross-over from the opposition United National Party (UNP) to the ruling SLFP. Only to cross the rubicon when he rejoined the UNP once again. Sri Lankans today remember Speaker Jayasuriya as the man who upheld the dignity and office of the Speaker of the House in the face of physical threats and abuse from President Sirisena’s allies. 
And last, but not least, Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe, though tarnished by the central bank bond scam among other misdemeanours, today holds sway as the Prime Minister once more. He has to his credit the capping of the powers of the once all-powerful Executive President of Sri Lanka.

We have not included Chinese President Xi Jingping, or Russian President Vladimir Putin as they operate from a political system quite different to ours and it is difficult to judge when we do not understand. Suffice to say President Xi has shown the imperial powers that Asians are vassal states no longer. He has also led China on the road to making it the second strongest economy and third strongest military power behind the US and Russia.

President Putin has brought Russia which was reduced to a non-entity status in the wake of Boris Yeltsin’s runious era to one of the world’s foremost powers and into a position where it has faced the combined sanctions of the EU and the US untrammelled. 
So, which one of these great leaders if any would we wish to name as ‘World Leader of the Year’? 

Mali attack: 37 civilians killed in armed raid on village

Children among victims in area hit by ethnic violence in which hundreds died last year
Malian and French soldiers on patrol in Mali, where France has been aiding counter-insurgency efforts. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters

Tue 1 Jan 2019 

Armed men killed 37 Fulani civilians on Tuesday in central Mali, where ethnic violence cost hundreds of lives last year, the government has said.

Violence between Fulani and rival communities has compounded an already dire security situation in Mali’s semi-arid and desert regions, which are used as a base by jihadist groups with ties to al-Qaida and Islamic State.

The government said the attackers, who were dressed as traditional Donzo hunters, had raided the village of Koulogon in the central Mopti region and that some of the victims were children.

Moulage Guindo, the mayor of Bankass, the nearest town, said the attack occurred at around the time of the first call to prayer of the new year and targeted the Fulani part of Koulogon. He said another part of Koulogon less than half a mile away was mostly inhabited by Dogon, an ethnic group to which the Donzos are linked.

Mali has been in turmoil since Tuareg rebels and loosely allied Islamists took over its north in 2012, prompting French forces to intervene to push them back the following year. Islamists have since regained a foothold in the north and centre, tapping into ethnic rivalries to recruit new members.

 

World economy braces for global trade slowdown in 2019

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on December 03, 2018 in New York City. Source: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP

By Emma Richards | 2nd January 2019

THE world is heading for a global trade slowdown in 2019 as financial markets grow increasingly worried about the world economy, fearing things could turn ugly fast if a meaningful deal isn’t reached in the US-China trade dispute.

The World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) chief economist, Robert Koopman, told Bloomberg all indicators point to a lowdown.

“When you look at those leading indicators, they continue to weaken. It’s almost like a death from a thousand cuts,” Koopman said in an interview.

“There’s not any one big change in those leading indicators but, boy, they are starting to add up.”

SEE ALSO: Trade: G20 statements show US, China are on different pages

These indicators include purchasing manager indices from around the world, and air and sea freight numbers; all of which point to slowing global trade momentum.

“If we have an expectation that it is going to move in any direction it’s going to be down,” Koopman said of the 2019 projections.

What a difference a year makes. At the start of 2018, optimism about a robust global economic outlook was almost unanimous among economists.

But Reuters polls of more than 500 economists conducted in October showed a downgrade to the outlook for 18 of 44 economies polled, with 23 unchanged. Only three were marginally upgraded.

Shipping containers being loaded onto Xin Da Yang Zhou ship from Shanghai, China at Pier J at the Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, California, U.S., April 4, 2018. Source: Reuters/Bob Riha Jr./File Photo

Bloomberg’s own readings on its Trade Checkup tell the same story as the WTO. Of the 10 readings the business analysts use to check in on the health of global trade, most are now at the lower end of their average territory.

Chang Shu at Bloomberg Economics places the blame predominantly at the feet of the tit-for-tat trade dispute started by the United States, warning that “In 2018, the trade war was the dog that barked… In 2019, it will bite.”

But Koopman doesn’t fear the direct impacts of the trade war, so much as the knock-on effect he expects to send ripples around the world.

While China and the US account for almost 40 percent of global output, the goods trade between the world’s two largest economies represented less than 3.2 percent of global trade, according to the WTO.

SEE ALSO: US will lose the trade war – but the whole world will suffer

Instead, Koopman said, the real risk is how those trade conflicts could weigh on businesses and consumer sentiment, and spending around the world.

“The shoe that all of us are waiting to see is: Does the uncertainty – the policy uncertainty raised by this conflict – spill over into investment and consumer behaviour,’’ he said.

The US’s own Federal Reserve has expressed similar concerns, with chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday pointing to investor and business fears amid trade tensions.

Powell’s moves to prevent the US economy overheating – including raising interest rates and unwinding its bond-buying stimulus programme – has led to run-ins with President Donald Trump.

US President Donald Trump (L) signals the end of ceremony after announcing Jerome Powell (R) as nominee for Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, November 2, 2017. Source: Saul Loeb/AFP

The president’s threats to fire Powell, who he appointed himself a year ago, has lent more instability to markets that have had their worst year since the 2008 financial crisis.

China is taking a hit too as factory activity contracted in December for the first time in over two years, according to Reuters. In November, industrial output rose the least in nearly three years, while earnings growth at industrial firms fell for the first time in nearly three years.

According to Bloomberg, major businesses have begun expressing fears and warned of being hit by the mounting global slowdown. And Koopman warns there are already signs business and investment are slowing as consumers hold back on spending.

The impacts of this will go far beyond just the US and China; the problem is global, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warning, without a solution, the world will become a “poorer and more dangerous place.”

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft just visited the farthest object ever explored

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft successfully flew past the farthest object humans have ever explored in space, called “Ultima Thule,” on Jan. 1. (Reuters)

By Sarah Kaplan January 1 at 8:39 PM

As Earthlings marked the start of a new year, one of the most distant spacecraft successfully explored the farthest — 4 billion miles from Earth — and most primitive objects that humans have ever seen.
NASA received confirmation Tuesday that its New Horizons probe survived its 12:33 a.m. eastern encounter with Ultima Thule, a rocky relic from the solar system’s infancy whose name means “beyond the borders of the known world.”

The midnight rendezvous occurred in the Kuiper belt, a halo of icy bodies so far from Earth it takes more than six hours for signals to travel at the speed of light to reach the Earth.

But just after 10:30 Eastern time on Tuesday, at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., mission operations manager Alice Bowman turned to her colleagues with a wide grin.

The probe’s systems were working. Its cameras and recorder were pointed in the right direction.
“We have a healthy spacecraft,” Bowman announced. “We have just completed the most distant fly-by. We are ready for Ultima Thule science transmission — science to help us understand the origins of our solar system.”

At mission control, and in an APL auditorium where the rest of the science team was watching, people jumped from their seats and burst into cheers. The borders of the known world had expanded just a little bit more.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m really liking 2019 so far,” said the mission’s principal investigator, Alan Stern.

Though coincidental, the timing of New Horizons’ encounter – in the early hours of a new year – is “auspicious,” Stern said. At a moment when humanity marks the passage of time, looking forward and thinking back, New Horizons is doing the same. At 4 billion miles from Earth, Ultima Thule is the farthest celestial body scientists have ever viewed up close; it is a door to future exploration in a region that is still almost entirely unknown. But it is also a window to the past – a time capsule from the era when the planets formed, which might contain clues about how the Earth came to be.

Already, scientists are analyzing early data collected just before the moment of closest approach. An image taken from half a million miles away from Ultima Thule showed a blurry bowling pin-shaped body about 20 miles across.

Until New Horizons’s fly-by, no person had ever seen a Kuiper belt object as anything but a pinpoint of light in the distance. By Wednesday, the scientists at APL will receive their first high-resolution images of the distant rock, revealing whether it has craters, and whether it is one long object or comprises two small bodies orbiting each other.

As for answers to other questions about the Kuiper belt object, Stern advised patience. “This mission has always been about delayed gratification,” he said. “It took us 12 years to sell the spacecraft, five years to build it, 13 years to get here.”

It will take as long as 20 months for scientists to download and process all the data collected during that brief encounter.

But the resulting science will be worth the wait, project scientist Hal Weaver said. “Ultima Thule will be turned into a real world.”

New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern, center, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., celebrates with other mission team members after they received signals from the New Horizons spacecraft that it is healthy and collected data during the flyby of Ultima Thule, Tuesday,

Jan. 1, 2019, at the Mission Operations Center at the APL in Laurel, Md. (Bill Ingalls/NASA/AP)
New Horizons was the first mission dedicated to exploring the outermost edges of the solar system. In 2015, it took the first close-up photos of Pluto, revealing a complex and colorful world mottled with methane mountains and a vast, heart-shaped nitrogen ice plain.

When mission was first conceived in the early 1990s, no one knew what lay beyond the distant dwarf planet. But in the intervening decades, scientists discovered that the Kuiper belt – which extends from Neptune’s orbit to 5 billion miles from the sun — is home to millions of small and icy objects.

Out there, where sunlight is 0.05 percent as strong as it is on Earth and temperatures hover near absolute zero, primitive bodies like Ultima Thule have existed in a “deep freeze” since they first formed.

The Kuiper belt object, whose official name is 2014 MU69, was discovered five years ago during a sky-wide search for potential New Horizons targets after the probe left Pluto.

But the rock is so dim and so distant that even the most powerful telescopes could barely make it out. Prior to Tuesday, some of the only information about its size and shape came from coordinated observations last summer, when astronomers measured the shadow Ultima Thule cast as it passed in front of a star.

The encounter was riddled with uncertainties, making it among the more difficult feats NASA has attempted. Ultima Thule is 1 percent the size of Pluto, and New Horizons had to get four times closer to image it. At the moment of closest approach, the spacecraft was moving at a breathtaking 32,000 miles per hour. If its cameras were even slightly off track, or if scientists’ projections about Ultima Thule’s trajectory were just a little bit wrong, the probe might fail to capture useful information about its target.

Besides, New Horizons is a 13-year-old vehicle; operators must carefully prioritize their use of remaining fuel.

“This is history-making, what we’re doing, in more ways than one,” Stern said. Every image sent back from New Horizons is the most distant photograph ever taken. Each maneuver is further than anything NASA has done before.

Helene Winters, the mission’s project manager, said Monday that spacecraft operators had been subsisting on chocolate and sleeping on air mattresses at the APL so they could make the most of every minute until New Horizons reached its target. Navigators kept a watchful eye out for potential hazards, which can be hard to spot in this faraway corner of the solar system.

Asked whether she thought she would be able to sleep that night, Winters laughed. “Ask me again tomorrow.”

But as minutes to the close encounter ticked by, the atmosphere at APL was festive. Scientists and their guests munched on crudités in a room lit with sparkling blue and white lights. Small children up long past their bedtimes scurried between chairs and sneaked cookies from the buffet.

“This is like a dream come true,” said Chuck Fields, a podcast producer from Indianapolis who drove nine hours to attend Monday’s event. He was dressed in a blindingly bright blazer and tie bearing images of planets, galaxies and the sun. His wife, Dawn, wore matching pants.

LEFT: An image of Ultima Thule taken just over 24 hours before the vessel's closest approach. RIGHT: A sharpened version of the recent New Horizons photograph. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/AP)

NASA nodded to the encounter by counting down to 12 a.m. and distributing plastic cups of champagne. Astrophysicist Brian May, better known as lead guitarist for the rock band Queen, debuted a song he wrote for the occasion.

“This is an anthem to human endeavor,” he said.


Thirty-three minutes after the rest of the East Coast had already popped their champagne, the scientists at APL were still waiting.

Way out in the Kuiper belt, they knew, New Horizons was performing its riskiest observations yet.
 Particle and dust detectors were probing the chilly Kuiper belt environment. Three cameras were snapping as many images as possible in an effort to map the tiny world and determine its composition. And Ultima Thule was growing ever larger in New Horizons’s field of vision, glowing like a full moon.

“Thirty seconds to fly-by,” Stern said. “Are you ready? Are you psyched? Are you jazzed?”
Twenty seconds. Ten. And then Stern raised his hand in the air while confetti fell from the ceiling. The crowd cheered.

“New Horizons is at Ultima Thule,” Stern proclaimed.

Or so he hoped.

NASA said its New Horizons explorer spacecraft reached the solar system's outermost region on Jan. 1. (Reuters)

The following morning, New Horizons’s operators sat in mission control, anxious. Data from the Deep Space Network, a chain of radio antennas NASA uses to communicate with distant spacecraft, was displayed on their screens.

Bowman sat with her hands folded, leaning toward her computer.

“In lock with telemetry,” Bowman said.

In the APL auditorium, where the rest of the team and their families were watching, the crowd erupted.

Next came the status check: Planning — nominal. Power — green. Solid state recorders — pointed right where NASA wanted them. Every subsystem looked good. New Horizons had survived.
Thirty minutes later, members of the New Horizons mission operations team entered the APL auditorium to high-fives and riotous cheers.

“I’m not a New Year’s kind of guy,” said Mike Ryschkewitsch, the head of APL’s space exploration sector. “But I can’t think of a better reason to stay up late.”

Welcome to the World’s Least Ugly Economy

Despite inequality, debt, and a tariff war, the U.S. economy is still the strongest.

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address in Washington on Jan. 30, 2018. (Win McNamee/AFP/Getty Images)

BY MICHAEL HIRSH

 | JANUARY 1, 2019, 7:00 AM
Economic competition among nations is more of a beauty contest than a footrace. In reality, every economy performs under its own spotlight. By that reckoning, as the new year dawns, it’s already obvious which economy is likely to be crowned Miss World 2019.

Yes, it’s last year’s pageant winner, the still-booming U.S. economy. Despite the recent turmoil on Wall Street and problems with income inequality, debt, and policy paralysis—and the tariff war launched by President Donald Trump— most economists say the United States is far outpacing all rivals in growth and stability.

At the very least, “the U.S. keeps coming out tops in the least ugly contest,” said Adam Posen, the president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). “It gets uglier all the time, but it’s still winning.

“The world will be a worse place under many of the things the Trump administration is doing, and the environment for private sector investment will get worse for everybody, including in the United States. But the United States will maintain a relative lead for some time to come.”

A quick survey of other major economies around the world explains this simple reality: Everyone else’s situation is much uglier. Britain is beset by Brexit, and Europe is grappling with an exploding budget crisis in Italy (its fourth-largest economy), along with governance issues so deep that they verge on existential. China, burdened with a dangerous amount of corporate debt, is slowing to such a degree that most experts see it as a likely flash point in the year ahead. Japan’s super-slow growth rate—an annual expectation now because of its shrinking population—isn’t causing it too much trouble (1 percent growth can be adequate if fewer people are producing), but Tokyo is still saddled with high public debt.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is still holding to its assessment from last fall that the United States is set to grow faster than the other G-7 countries in 2018 and 2019, and the differences among them are only widening. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is forecasting close to 3 percent growth, though that could go as low as 2.5 percent because of the escalating tariff war and the waning effect of Trump’s 2017 corporate tax cut stimulus.

“If you just look at growth rates, the length of the expansion, the level of unemployment, and very subdued inflationary pressures, all those things look good,” said Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, the deputy director of the IMF’s research department. Europe, by contrast, “looks like it is slowing more rapidly than we had envisaged. “Now, of course, you also have a very substantial fiscal stimulus in the system, an unprecedented one for an economy at full employment.”

Some economists are more pessimistic. Late last year, the bond yield curve became inverted: Some longer-term bonds began paying less than shorter-term bonds, suggesting widening market fears that a U.S. recession could loom sometime in the next two years. Goldman Sachs’s chief economist, Jan Hatzius, predicts that after enjoying 2.5 percent and 2.2 percent growth in the first two quarters of 2019, the fading tax cut stimulus and tightening by the Federal Reserve will drive U.S. growth down below 2 percent in the last two quarters. But even a deceleration of that magnitude would still leave the U.S. economy looking a little less ugly than Europe’s or Japan’s.

Trump is all too familiar with beauty contests, of course. (He once co-owned Miss Universe.) And the president is now taking all the credit for guiding the United States to the world crown, saying his tax cut “unleashed an economic miracle.” In fact, apart from the sugar high that his tax cut and deregulatory moves gave to an already surging economy, little that Trump has done has made much of a difference. (Indeed, his trade war is creating new headwinds.) Corporate profits are up, and even long-stagnant wages are starting to rise.

All this offers yet another lesson in how a society and its politics can sometimes seem diseased—in America’s case, viciously divided by hatred and violence, political paralysis, and a widely unpopular president—without affecting the rude health of the underlying economy. As Adam Smith once noted, “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” In other words, it takes a lot of screwing up by political leaders to disrupt an economy.

The reality is that Trump is perhaps one of the luckiest presidents in decades because he is reaping the unique benefits of a host of recovery policies put in place during the preceding eight years.Together, these policies have generated one of the longest periods of continuous economic growth in U.S. history, in which January would mark the 100th straight month of job creation. That is the longest stretch since records have been kept.

Harvard University’s Kenneth Rogoff, who co-wrote what is widely considered the definitive book on financial crisis recovery, This Time Is Different, said the very factors that made the 2008 crash so devastating and enduring in impact are now helping to extend the recovery. “You’re going to see that the next 10 years will be better than the last 10 years.”

Part of the reason the boom has been so sustained is bound up with the 2008 crisis itself. Serious financial crises lead to a particular kind of recession (usually more severe, according to Rogoff and his co-author, Carmen Reinhart) and a particular kind of long-term recovery. In a normal recovery, when demand bounces back, people start to buy a lot of goods. But after a financial crash, people take a long time to deleverage and improve their personal, business, or local government balance sheets. Thus, recoveries come slower and less robust at first, but there is a longer-term payoff in stable growth.

“Once people finally have their balance sheets in a good place and their confidence up, they start to spend and invest and hire more. I think that is what we have seen here,” said Gene Sperling, who led the National Economic Council under former President Barack Obama. “Every single positive thing Trump wants to brag about was just a continuation of a trend that had been in place for years under Obama.”

Many economists, such as Posen and Rogoff, foresee problems for the U.S. economy due to social and political upheaval tied to income inequality, which is barely being addressed. “We’ve made a lot of longer-run compromises,” Rogoff said. Apart from corporations, the tax cut benefited mainly the rich, for example, while tariffs and cutting back on immigration will hurt the economy in the long run. What the U.S. economy is doing under Trump is “closer to taking steroids than sugar,” Rogoff said. “You feel good for many years until eventually things catch up with you.”

Even so, there is a broad consensus that the real economic crises in the foreseeable future lie abroad.

According to Adam Tooze, a professor at Columbia University, China and other emerging markets are the “central driver of global growth right now,” but there are serious questions about whether Beijing’s autocratic and increasingly inward-looking leader, Xi Jinping, and his bureaucracy can handle the growth slowdown or unwind the “extraordinary buildup of debt” in Chinese companies. Faced with a barrage of Trump tariffs, China’s estimated growth for 2019 has been reduced to 6.2 percent, according to the IMF. That’s good for most economies, but the authoritarian Chinese government has generally required faster growth to satisfy a restive population.

While India and countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations appear stable, Latin America is “struggling,” said Milesi-Ferretti, the IMF economist. Argentina is slowing, growth in Brazil and Mexico is subdued, and Venezuela is a catastrophe. Meanwhile, the refusal of the Italian government to bow to budget-cutting demands from the European Commission has led to the latest existential crisis in the EU, where demands for austerity by Germany, the largest economy, have put it in a seemingly permanent state of conflict with other economies.

“In the current context,” added Posen, PIIE’s president, “where there is so much anti-Europe sentiment and economic nationalism—look at Hungary, Poland, and [Marine] Le Pen continuing to snipe at [President Emmanuel] Macron’s heels in France—you have to conclude: Yeah, maybe, once again, we’re still the least ugly.”

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2019 issue of Foreign Policy magazine.

Trump’s Lies are, ever so slowly, Making Way for the Truth!

AS THE MUELLER PROBE HEATS UP . . .

by Selvam Canagaratna-December 29, 2018, 6:19 pm 

"No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it."
– Theodore Roosevelt, Address, January 1904.

With one shoe after another dropping in Special Counsel Robert Muellerʼs Trump-Russia probe, James Risen, writing in The Intercept, was of the view that the increasing pressure was inevitably prompting the President to inadvertently blurt out the truth – "or at least as close to the truth as a serial liar like Trump can get."

In late November, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty in federal court to lying to Congress about a deal to build a Trump-branded skyscraper in Moscow. Most notably, he admitted that he had misled lawmakers when he told them that discussions about the project had ended by January 2016 when, in fact, the project was still under active consideration by Trump and his business organization just as the Republican Party was about to nominate Trump as its presidential candidate in the summer of 2016.

Cohen said that he lied in order to help Trump avoid the likely political fallout from the disclosure that the candidate was still trying to cut a business deal with people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin just as he clinched the Republican nomination.

Cohen’s latest admissions, including the disclosure that he talked to Trump about the proposed deal more frequently than he had previously acknowledged and discussed it with others in Trump’s family, are very significant because they shed new light on the relationship between Trump and Russia during the height of the presidential campaign.

Cohen now admits that ʽTrump Moscowʼ was still being considered as late as June 2016, the same month that the infamous Trump Tower meeting occurred in New York. During that meeting, Trump’s oldest son Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, then his campaign chairman, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and others, including Rob Goldstone, a publicist for Emin Agalarov, a Russian singer and son of Aras Agalarov, a Russian billionaire with close ties to Putin.

Aras Agalarov had hosted Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe contest in Moscow at a concert hall he owned; he had also been involved in discussions with Trump about building the skyscraper in Moscow. It was during the Trump Tower meeting that Veselnitskaya first mentioned she had derogatory material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Faced with Cohen’s late-November admissions in court, Trump at first tried to talk his way out of the corner by saying that Cohen was a "weak person and not a very smart person." But he quickly switched gears and effectively confirmed what Cohen had said. "There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won, in which case I would have gotten back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?"

Risenʼs apt observation on Trumpʼs admission in the face of the Cohen disclosure in court: "They show the coarse, cynical approach Trump takes toward public service. But more ominously for him, they also reveal that he had much deeper connections to Russia in the midst of the campaign than he has ever previously acknowledged. It suggests that Trump will lie about his Russian connections until he realizes he can no longer get away with it, and then will quite casually admit that he has been lying all along."

Added Risen: "Of course, Cohen isnʼt Trumpʼs only problem. In fact, in the weeks since the midterm elections, a series of new disclosures has suggested that the Trump-Russia investigation is intensifying. And one sure sign that the President is worried about Mueller’s probe is the increased frequency with which Trump is now publicly attacking Mueller."

In fact, it seems that Trump’s biggest post-election nightmare has been Paul Manafort, especially after Mueller’s team said that Manafort has been lying to them in violation of a plea agreement he had reached with the prosecutors. Mueller’s team now wants a federal judge overseeing the case to set a sentencing date for Manafort, at which prosecutors say they will detail "the nature of the defendantʼs crimes and lies."

Mueller’s get-tough approach suggests that he thinks Manafort is still withholding critical information on the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia. Meanwhile, Manafort’s previous life as a longtime consultant to the pro-Russian leader of the Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, and his financial ties to a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, have raised questions about whether he had, in fact, acted as an intermediary between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

In addition to Cohen and Manafort, argues James Risen, the role of the incendiary Roger Stone has come under further scrutiny. Apparently, there is new evidence – including in a draft court document – that Mueller is continuing to probe whether Stone served as an intermediary in 2016 between WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign.

Russian intelligence operatives hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee and stole emails that were later released by WikiLeaks and proved highly damaging to Clinton. The Mueller investigation has also raised questions about whether conservative author Jerome Corsi had warned Stone ahead of time that WikiLeaks planned to release materials that would hurt Clinton’s campaign. Corsi has said that he has rejected a plea agreement with Mueller.

To top it off, George Papadopoulos, the onetime Trump campaign foreign policy aide, finally reported to prison recently. He had pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI and agreed to cooperate with Mueller in exchange for a very light sentence of just two weeks in prison. He had lied to investigators about his contacts with Joseph Mifsud, a mysterious professor who had told Papadopoulos that the Russians had thousands of emails with derogatory information about Clinton well before their existence was publicly known.

"Given all this," concluded Risen, "it’s fair to say that the thrashing the Republicans suffered in the midterm elections wasn’t the worst thing that has happened to Donald Trump."

Meanwhile, in an Op-Ed in Truthout magazine, Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, noted that as evidence of law breaking by Donald Trump continues to emerge, commentators were speculating whether a sitting President could be indicted, even though the Department of Justice had twice before opined in the negative – during the Nixon and Clinton administrations.

Her view, however, was that nothing in the Constitution would prevent Trump from being criminally indicted while he occupies the Oval Office. Trump is apparently implicated in at least three federal criminal investigations: Mueller is examining violations of campaign finance laws in connection with Trump Tower Moscow; Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have documented campaign finance violations stemming from hush money paid to Trump’s alleged paramours in order to influence the presidential election; and the New York US attorney’s office is analyzing whether Trump’s inaugural committee received illegal payments for presidential access and policy influence.

Marjorie Cohn noted that Richard Painter, chief ethics attorney in the George W. Bush administration, had recently said that Trump’s only chance to protect himself and his family from legal jeopardy was to strike a plea bargain with prosecutors. "Donald Trump is in serious trouble," Painter stated. "His lawyers ought to be telling him to negotiate a plea deal. Get him out of the White House. Have him resign, plead guilty to lower charges and let’s move on as a country."

Concluded Cohn: "The Constitution does not prohibit indictment of a sitting President. Will Mueller recognize this reality in his actions going forward?"