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As digital technology reshapes the workplace, a move toward skills-based training and employment will unlock opportunities for companies and job seekers alike. While automation and AI are already taking on many routine tasks, demand for people with technology skills is rising fast around the globe. Getting the right people into the right jobs within the right organizations is one of the biggest challenges facing the world of work. So how can it be overcome? To read some recent skills-related stories, visit Microsoft On the Issues.
In recent days, Northern Ireland has seen some of its worst street violence in over a decade. The anger has subsided a bit this week, but post-Brexit fears leave many uncertain about their future in a deeply divided land with a long history of political violence between Irish republicans and UK unionists.
Much ado about Brexit. As in Scotland, a majority of people in Northern Ireland (56 percent) voted for the UK to remain in the European Union in the 2016 referendum. Those who did not were mostly unionists closely aligned with the UK government.
The problem is that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement — which ended large-scale sectarian violence — prohibits reinstalling a physical border between Northern Ireland, which remains part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, an independent country and EU member state. For UK-EU trade, the de-facto border is now in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. As a result, unionists feel trade restrictions have isolated them from the rest of the United Kingdom.
While London and Brussels haggle over cross-border checks and trade quotas, early glitches, exacerbated by COVID disruptions, have left some Belfast supermarket shelves empty. Customs officials, facing intimidation from angry citizens, are scared to show up to work. Many loyalists now believe the Brexit agreement that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed up for has given them the short end of the stick.
But it's not all about Brexit. One of the triggers for last week's riots was unionist outrage at the non-prosecution of Sinn Féin officials who ignored COVID rules to attend the funeral of a former commander of the Irish Republican Army, responsible for most unionist deaths during The Troubles, a period of heightened sectarian violence in the early 1970s. (Sinn Féin used to be the IRA's political arm, and governed Northern Ireland in partnership with the unionist DUP until their power-sharing agreement collapsed in 2017.)
Another was a recent police crackdown on gangs led by ex-paramilitaries who have struggled to find decent jobs. Indeed, many of the rioters are youngsters with no memory of The Troubles but who live in poverty in the urban ghettos that still separate working-class Catholics and Protestants in Belfast. Pandemic-related lockdowns, job losses and education disruptions have made everything worse.
For unionists, the bigger issue is how Brexit will change Northern Ireland's future. In short, unionists fear the UK-EU split will create irresistible momentum toward Irish reunification, leaving Protestant unionists outside the UK, inside the EU, and a small and resented minority in a majority Catholic country.
A recent poll showed that 47 percent of voters prefer to remain part of the UK, compared to 42 percent in favor of joining the Irish republic. However, most Northern Irish under 45 supported leaving the UK, and if current demographic trends — Catholics have a higher fertility rate than Protestants — hold, it may be only a matter of time for Irish unity to be the majority choice.
That Brexit may end up breaking up the UK is no longer a doomsday prediction. Scotland's first minister is likely to demand a fresh referendum if pro-independence parties perform well in Scottish parliamentary elections on May 6. Republicans in Ireland will argue they have the same right. Perhaps Brexit will deliver the Irish unity that decades of violence failed to accomplish.
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Iran has vowed to avenge Sunday's attack on its Natanz nuclear facility. Tehran blames Israel, which — as in the past — has neither confirmed nor denied it was responsible. And all this happens just days after indirect talks on US plans to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal resumed in Vienna. What the Iranians do now will determine the immediate future of those negotiations, a Biden administration priority.
What happened? Natanz, one of Iran's most important sites for uranium enrichment, was hit by an explosion that affected the power system that supplies the centrifuges. The damage will likely set back the country's efforts to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels by some time. So far it's unclear whether it was a cyberattack similar to the Stuxnet malicious worm jointly developed by Israel and the US that destroyed one-fifth of Iran's centrifuges in 2010, or a bomb like the one that caused a July 2020 fire in the same facility.
Why now? The timing of the attack as US-Iran nuclear talks are ongoing is no coincidence. Israel fiercely opposed the original agreement championed six years ago by the Obama administration and was delighted when Donald Trump walked out of the deal in 2018 and later slapped crippling economic sanctions on Iran. To move talks forward, President Biden is willing to lift some of those sanctions, but Tehran, cautious about looking desperate so early in the discussions, has been playing hard to get.
The Israelis now worry that Iran has restarted enriching uranium at higher levels and that many of the deal's so-called "sunset clauses" expire in 2026, so Iran could begin to significantly expand its nuclear program while (technically) adhering to the terms of the agreement. Tel Aviv feels it's urgent to stop version 2.0 of the nuclear deal before Iran comes even close to getting the bomb.
How does it affect the US-Iran nuclear talks? It's too soon to ascertain whether the attack will diminish Iran's key bargaining chip: threatening to enrich uranium faster. What is virtually guaranteed, however, is that its aftermath will poison the domestic political environment in Iran, where any concession to "Great Satan" is always a hard sell, even more so now with a presidential election coming up in two months.
While the Americans' negotiating hand has strengthened, Natanz will further erode a mutual willingness to compromise — which is already very low after Iran stopped complying with the deal's terms on uranium enrichment in May 2019, and the high-profile assassination of a top Iranian general ordered by Trump in early 2020.
Who benefits? Clearly, Israel, for two reasons. First, whatever the full extent of the damage, it has physically undermined Iran's nuclear program, in the near term at least. Second, it has complicated a diplomatic process the Israelis would like to stop. Iran is now left to choose between a forceful retaliation that would delay any lifting of sanctions and an easing of economic hardship inside Iran, or a muted response that could make Iran's leaders appear weak just at the moment they'd like to be driving a hard bargain.
What happens next? The fallout from Natanz will put immense pressure on the Vienna talks, likely hardening Iran's position and reducing the odds of reaching an agreement before the presidential vote in June. Regardless of the election outcome, the decision on whether to rejoin the nuclear deal will be made by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Negotiations will continue. Iran's sanction-plagued economy suffered mightily last year due to the pandemic and low prices for the oil it's still able to export. Doing whatever it takes to get an agreement may not be popular for many conservatives at home, but US sanctions relief is too big an economic incentive for Iran to ignore.
In short, both the US and Iran still want to return to the original deal. That's why, unfortunately for Israel's government, the question is not if but when a new nuclear agreement will be signed.
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What We’re Watching: US withdrawal from Afghanistan, Fukushima wastewater, US stops J&J jab, big rabbit hunt
April 13, 2021
The end of "forever" in Afghanistan: The Biden administration says it'll withdraw all remaining US troops in Afghanistan by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that prompted Washington to invade the country in the first place. It's unclear how the withdrawal will affect American plans to steer intra-Afghan peace talks in the right direction under the terms of a peace agreement reached by the Trump administration and the Taliban in May 2020. Trump promised to pull out next month as long as the former al-Qaida hosts kept their end of the bargain by not launching deadly attacks (spoiler alert: they have not). Biden's move honors his campaign pledge to end a "forever war" that has claimed more than 2,300 American lives and cost the US Treasury almost $1 trillion since 2001. However, critics fear that a hasty departure could leave the Afghans helpless to prevent the Taliban from returning to power, rendering the entire mission not only expensive, but ultimately pointless.
Japan's nuclear waste problem: Japan has announced that in two years it will begin dumping treated radioactive wastewater from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster directly into the Pacific Ocean. Unsurprisingly, the decision has outraged local fishermen, environmental groups, and Japan's neighbors China and South Korea. Tokyo says the water, which has been treated, is safe, and that there is no other choice: the tanks that now store the liquid are almost full and they can't build more on current sites. Critics, in turn, argue that the Japanese government could acquire more land for the tanks, or follow the International Atomic Energy Agency's alternative recommendation to release the water into the atmosphere as vapor. Whether or not Tokyo reverses course, what to do with Fukushima's wastewater will likely be a hot-button issue in Japan's domestic politics and foreign relations over the next two years.
US hits pause on J&J vaccine: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have jointly recommended a "pause" in the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine "out of an abundance of caution" following news that six people have developed a "rare and severe" type of blood clot after receiving doses. Out of more than 6.8 million doses, six people have developed these symptoms, all of them within 6 to 13 days of vaccination. Some observers will congratulate US health officials for their abundance of caution. Others will criticize a decision to slow vaccinations over a "very rare event" at a time when vaccine rollout is critical. But even if the pause in J&J jabs is a brief one, doubts have now been raised about the safety of a vaccine already administered to millions of Americans. The challenge of persuading the vaccine-averse in the US — and elsewhere — to roll up their sleeves just got a lot bigger.
Good Rabbit Hunting: Have you seen Darius? He is the world's largest rabbit, and he's been stolen from his home in the village of Stoulton in central England. Be on the lookout, Signal readers. Darius is 4 feet 3 inches long and weighs 44 pounds. For those of you on the metric system, that's 129 cm and 20 kg. There's a reward of more than a thousand dollars/euros/pounds for his return. But we're not in this for the money ourselves - we're searching because… who wouldn't want to see a rabbit that big? Here's to Darius's rediscovery and safe return to an owner who loves and cares for him.
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Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on global politics this week on World In 60: J&J vaccine woes, Blinken warns China, Fukushima water and a large rabbit.
How will the pause of Johnson & Johnson vaccine affect the overall pandemic fight in the United States?
Yeah. Right at it, right? Well, we heard that the FDA has suspended vaccines from J&J because of blood clots. They found six in seven million cases. It's kind of like the suspension of AstraZeneca in Europe. It's likely only going to last for a few days. It's a very small percentage of the total number of vaccines that are being jabbed right now into the arms of Americans. It's not going to really slow America's ability to get everyone vaccinated, but it is going to create more vaccine hesitancy. People at the margins will say, "Is this safe? They said it was fine. Now they're saying it's not okay." I understand why there's enormous caution on the part of the FDA, but I wish, wish, wish the communications had been a little softer around all of this. Also will be a problem in terms of export, as J&J is going to be a piece of that. And again, others around the world will say, "Well, if I don't get Moderna, if I don't get Pfizer, I'm not sure I want to take it at all." So all of this is negative news, though I would still say the United States this year is looking really, really good among major economies in dealing with pandemic.
Secretary of State Blinken recently warned that China interfering with Taiwan would be a "serious mistake". What would an interference it look like?
It could be anything from cyberattack against Taiwan assets to shutdowns or constraints on Taiwanese businessmen and women who make so much of their money in mainland China. You could imagine that you could see some arrests on national security bases of some Taiwanese operating in the United States, general harassment, right? And then, most significantly would be interference with Taiwan's military capabilities. We've already seen a lot more military exercises in contested territory of mainland China, in and around Taiwanese airspace and naval space, water space. So all of this is looking more challenging, the Americans standing up for Taiwan. But Secretary of State Blinken saying very pointedly, the US will help the Taiwanese defend themselves. Did not say the US would come to Taiwan's defense. That is not part of the agreement with the United States. Chinese very aware of that.
Why is Japan dumping contaminated Fukushima water into the ocean?
Well, because they're running out of space to store it, because they've done decontamination around it, but it's still radioactive. Apparently, levels of tritium, as well as other radioactive elements still in the water. It is quite controversial as to whether this is safe or not. The original plan the Japanese government put out was approved by the International Energy Agency about a year ago. There is radioactive wastewater that is disposed of, also evaporating into the atmosphere from other nuclear plants around the world. The Japanese incredibly risk-averse population around this stuff so they're going to be very focused on whether or not this is all being done in a way that is completely unproblematic to the population at large, marine life, you name it. Anyway, I don't think we have the final word from science on this, but clearly something that the Japanese government is going to have to deal with. And by the way, they could continue to store it. They just would have to build additional storage capacity, which is going to cost them money. So, that's the question here. It's all about economics.
Optional kicker question. Where in the world is Darius, the "World's Longest Rabbit"?
Who's into this stuff? So a rabbit, it's a pet, but it's barely a pet. It's apparently the longest rabbit in the world. It's four feet long. It was in England, and it was abducted from the house of the owner. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Darius is the longest rabbit in the world. That's if Darius is still alive. We'll see. Stay tuned. Next week or not. I probably won't to talk about it again.
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Hard Numbers: Sputnik lands in India, Iran boosts enrichment, US troops go to Germany, Haitian clergy kidnapped
April 13, 2021
750 million: While struggling with one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world right now, India has approved Russia's Sputnik V COVID vaccine. Moscow has a deal in place to produce 750 million doses of the shot in India.
60: Just days after a sabotage attack on its main nuclear enrichment facility, Iran says it's upping its uranium enrichment to 60 percent. In recent months, the Iranians have been enriching to about 20 percent — far below weapons grade but well above the 3.67 percent limit established in the 2015 nuclear deal.
500: The US will send an additional 500 troops to Germany, in part to bolster Washington's cyber warfare capabilities in Europe. The move cuts against the previous administration's plans to withdraw about a third of the 36,000 American soldiers stationed in Germany.
7: At least seven Catholic clergy members in Haiti, including two from France, have been kidnapped and held for a ransom of $1 million. Amid broader political unrest, kidnappings by criminal groups have surged in recent months.
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In recent weeks, both Pfizer and Moderna have announced early phases of vaccine trials in children, and Johnson & Johnson also plans to start soon. If you know a kid who wants to learn about vaccines, how they work, why we need them, this story is just what the doctor ordered.
Watch the episode: Vaccine nationalism could prolong the pandemic
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here. Welcome to your week and I've got your Quick Take and thought I would talk a little bit about where we are with Iran. One of the Biden administration's promises upon election was to get the Americans back into the JCPOA, the Iranian nuclear deal. As of last week, negotiations are formally restarted, and pretty quickly, in Vienna, they're not direct. The Americans and Iranians are both there, but they're being intermediated by the Europeans because they're not yet ready to show that they can talk directly to each other. That's Iran being cautious in the run-up to their presidential election coming this summer. But the movement is there. So far the talk has largely been about sequencing the Iranian government, saying that all of the sanctions need to be removed before they're willing to go back into the deal, because the Americans after all, unilaterally withdrew from a deal that the Iranians were indeed adhering to, and the inspections did confirm that.
The Americans are saying, we don't care. We're much larger than you are. You have now taken steps Iran, to enrich uranium beyond the levels that they had committed to in the deal. They've stockpiled that enriched uranium, they've kicked inspectors out, so they have to show that they are actually back in the confines of the deal. And once they do that, which will take a few months, then you can in lock step bring the American sanctions off. And the Iranians are not prepared to say that they'll accept that, they will get there. And so, if this were just about the United States and Iran finding a way to get back to yes, especially because the people that are actually in the room, the negotiators working level from Iran and the United States include many of the same people that actually put together this deal to begin with, back in 2015, 2016, under the Obama administration. That makes it a lot easier.
Everybody wants to get to yes. But not everybody outside the room wants to get to yes. And we've seen, in quite spectacular fashion over the last several days, a major cyberattack. Looks like it destroyed the independent power source for Iran's nuclear facility in Natanz. One of the most important assessments are that this is taking their nuclear capabilities to develop enrich uranium off some nine months potentially, which makes it a lot harder for the Iranians to push the Americans and say, here's what we're going to do with our program if you don't come back to the deals. So, it undermines their leverage. But it also makes the hardliners in Iran say, why do we want to do this deal at all? Because we've got a big fight with the West. Here we are trying to be somewhat more accountable and they're going to hit us no matter what. The attack from Israeli sources, Iranian sources and American sources, the attack came from Israel.
Why would Israel engage in strikes to undermine the effort by its principal ally, the United States, to get back into the deal? Well, to answer that question we need to go back to 2013, 2015, and ask why then prime minister Bibi Netanyahu, in charge, just as he is right now, sort of, get to that in a second, was willing to do everything he could to individually lobby lawmakers in the United States, and even make a trip to have a speech in front of Congress, to undermine the coming nuclear deal. While Obama, the president of the United States was doing everything possible to get that deal done. So, the fact that the United States and Israel are allies does not mean that they see eye to eye on this. The fact that America is vastly more powerful than Israel and is an enormous supporter of Israel intelligence and defense, does not mean that the Israelis will align with the United States on an issue that is seen to be vastly more important to their own national security, that of a potential Iranian nuclear program, and the enrichment of the Iranian government.
And so, back in 2013, 15, Netanyahu was doing everything possible to see if they could screw up the deal on the American side. They know they can't do that now, because the Biden administration and Congress is completely supportive on the democratic side of getting this deal done. So, what they're trying to do is see if they can undermine the Iranian position. Get the Iranians so angry that they escalate and blow up the prospects of getting this deal done. We've seen some of that with some Israeli strikes against Iranian militias in Syria. We've seen some of that with Israel engaged in what looks to be mining of Iranian ships most recently in The Red Sea. And now, certainly not a coincidence, this massive cyberattack against an Iranian nuclear facility. Clearly the Biden administration is going to be very upset about this. I am sure there is no love lost between Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken and their counterparts in Israel right now.
But having said that, it's not going to kill the deal. The Iranian government isn't going to take the bait. If they engage in strikes, they will take their time and they will be targeted against Israeli targets, they will not hit the United States. It was very interesting that the foreign minister of Iran, Javad Zarif, was focused on the Little Satan, as they referred to Israel, as opposed to Great Satan, the United States. They're differentiating Satan's which is certainly an important message from Iran. So, I think this is significant. I think it's worth watching. But I also think that by the end of the year, there will be an agreement for the Americans and Iranians to get back into the deal. Keep in mind that the window for the number of years this deal applies is pretty narrow now. I mean, before the Iranians would be able to restart their production, and again the sanctions would snap back, I suspect at the very least, they're going to want to extend the number of years for which the deal applies by five, for example, that seems smart.
They won't be able to get further agreements on things like ballistic missiles and Iran's support for organizations across the region that the US considers to be terrorists. What that also means is that the United States is not going to remove all of the sanctions against Iran. This deal is important in so far as it allows Iran to produce an export, another million barrels of oil a day, that brings the price down. It's important in so far as it prevents verifiably, the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons capabilities, at least for as long as the deal is in place.
But beyond that, it does very little. It doesn't stop them from developing ballistic missiles. Doesn't stop them from engaging in attacks against the United States and its allies in the region. It doesn't end American sanctions against Iran. It doesn't open the Iranian economy for business with American financial organizations or those of other countries that want to do business with those American firms. So, that's where we are right now. It's fascinating geopolitical stuff. We are still very much on track for a deal that does matter, but not everybody is happy about it, and it's going to be pretty controversial. So, that's a little bit from me. Hope everyone is safe and avoid fewer people. We are getting there. Talk to you soon.
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