The pandemic's US death toll shows no signs of abating and the holiday season's spike will likely dwarf any surge that came before it. But in the midst of this dark winter there are glimmers of hope, as the first of the COVID-19 vaccines have nearly arrived (or, depending on when you read this, already have). On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer interviews Noubar Afeyan, the co-founder of a leading vaccine developer Moderna. They'll discuss distribution plans, the revolutionary science behind Moderna's vaccine, and how a company younger than Twitter became a frontrunner in the race to end the pandemic.
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The European Union is, for better or worse, the most ambitious experiment in human history in institutionalized multinational cooperation. Its success depends on the willingness of its members to abide by its rules.
In recent years, the populist-nationalist governments of former Communist bloc members Hungary and Poland have flouted some of those rules in order to boost their own popularity with citizens suspicious of the EU's liberal values on issues like immigration and minority rights. In response, the EU has scolded these "illiberal" governments and threatened forceful action – so far without much effect.
The fight between EU institutions and Poland and Hungary has escalated.
In Poland, the latest battle is over judicial authority. According to EU treaties, all union members are subject to EU laws and the final authority of the European Court of Justice. But Poland's constitutional court ruled last week that Poland's constitution trumps EU law, a direct challenge to the basis of EU membership.
In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has faced off with the EU over press freedom and minority rights. The latest row began when Hungary's parliament passed legislation that bans the display to minors of products that depict or promote homosexuality or gender transformation themes. The government says the law protects kids and Hungary's family values, while the European Commission says it undermines values of tolerance and individual freedom enshrined in European law.
In the past, picking fights with the EU has boosted the popularity of both Orbán and Poland's Law and Justice Party-led government, headed by Jaroslaw Kaczyński, by playing on the anger that social conservatives feel toward liberal elites in Brussels. That's the main reason these governments tend to welcome fights with the EU.
They also know that, no matter how frustrated EU officials become with challenges from Warsaw and Budapest, the EU can't kick them out. Ejection requires a unanimous vote of all 27 EU members. To protect their own interests, Poland would veto such a move against Hungary, and Hungary would do the same for Poland.
But… there are three main reasons to believe that this time it's different.
First, it appears EU officials have had enough. Poland's court ruling is too direct a challenge to EU rules to ignore, and Hungary's government has been picking fights with Brussels for years.
Second, the European leader most instrumental in persuading EU institutions to go easy on Poland and Hungary is now leaving the stage. Germany's Angela Merkel will soon be out of power, and the country's likely incoming center-left coalition government will be much less sympathetic to rule-of-law challenges from its Eastern neighbors.
Third, Brussels has a powerful new weapon. The European Commission can withhold large amounts of much-needed COVID recovery funds until these two governments prove they respect EU rules. That's 36 billion euros ($41.7 billion) for Poland and 7.2 billion euros for smaller Hungary. The Commission is already signaling that Poland and Hungary will have to offer serious and specific concessions before checks are cut. Initial disbursements have already been delayed.
The Polish and Hungarian governments have limited leverage to fight back. Opinion polls show that strong majorities in both countries favor continued EU membership — and both governments have acknowledged as much. In Poland, the court rulings sent hundreds of thousands of pro-EU Poles into the streets in protest.
And Hungary's Orbán faces a tough fight for re-election next year against a united opposition that has labelled the race a choice of "Orbán or Europe."
Both governments need only look toward the Czech Republic, where a surprise election result last weekend leaves euroskeptic, anti-immigration populist Andrej Babiš on the verge of losing power.
These fights will drag on into next year. But this time, Brussels may finally be fighting to win.
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Some of the worst sectarian clashes since Lebanon's 15-year civil war (1975-1990) broke out in Beirut this week between supporters of Hezbollah and Amal, both Shiite political parties, and Christian, far-right Lebanese Forces. Shiite protesters were rallying against the state probe into the Beirut port blast, which occurred last year. They say authorities were singling out Shiite politicians for questioning and blame. Below is our original piece on the Beirut port explosions published on August 5, 2020.
The twin explosions at Beirut's port on Tuesday were so powerful that the aftershocks reverberated as far as the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, 150 miles away. The specter of fire and smoke was such that many suggested on social media that Beirut had experienced a nuclear blast.
In the days ahead, more details will come to light about why a deadly cache of materials was haphazardly stashed at a port warehouse, and why Lebanon's government failed to secure the site. So, what comes next for crisis-ridden Lebanon?
The timing could not be worse. In recent weeks, Lebanon, one of the world's most indebted countries, has spiraled into chaos after decades of economic mismanagement.
Crime is spiking as desperate Lebanese seek scarce basics like food and medicine, while others are turning to a swarming online barter economy to survive — clothes for baby formula? The deepening economic crisis recently pushed at least 500,000 children in Beirut into poverty, an aid group warned in July.
International observers, meanwhile, have questioned whether Lebanon has already breached the "failed state" threshold.
International support. So far, countries including Australia, Canada, France, Israel, Norway, Turkey and the Netherlands have offered Beirut urgent humanitarian aid in the form of generators, medical equipment and personnel, and even some cash. The EU, for its part, is sending search and rescue teams to search for survivors, while French President Emmanuel Macron will touch down in Beirut on Thursday to offer support to his country's former colony.
While immediate humanitarian support has been forthcoming — and encouraging — the aid itself is unlikely to pull Lebanon back from the brink. There are several reasons for this.
First, humanitarian aid is one thing, but financial lifelines are another. Even before the pandemic crippled the global economy, the World Bank predicted that 50 percent of Lebanese could be living below the poverty line if current trends continued. Hoping to stave off its worst economic crisis since the 15-year civil war ended in 1990, Beirut has since appealed to international creditors like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a whopping $10 billion in financial assistance, but the IMF has refused to play ball unless the Lebanese government reforms its bloated, inefficient, and corrupt public sector. So far, Beirut's power brokers have resisted.
Reformist will is key. Even if the IMF acquiesces and doles out funds to cash-strapped Lebanon, what happens when the money gets there? Lebanon's patronage-ridden public sector and corrupted politicians, many of them former warlords of sectarian groups, have mismanaged the country's economy for decades, lining their own pockets while the middle class has plunged into poverty. IMF support does not solve long-term problems such as government paralysis, poverty and social instability that, experts warn, can only be mitigated through structural reform.
The Hezbollah equation. The political clout of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite group, further complicates Lebanon's efforts to secure external funding. In 2018, the IMF pledged $11 billion to Lebanon on the condition that the government institute significant anti-corruption and economic reforms. Washington, which, along with its Gulf Arab allies, deems the group a terrorist organization, recently accused Hezbollah of obstructing reform efforts, a view tacitly supported by other international donors.
This week's tumult also comes as the country braces for a UN court's verdict on the 2005 slaying of Lebanon's former Sunni Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, set to be handed down on August 18. The outcome in the Hariri case, which inflamed sectarian tensions across Lebanon and the region, will likely implicate Hezbollah officials. This risks further complicating efforts to secure external aid, and threatens to ignite sectarian discord amongst already-despondent Lebanese.
As negotiations with the IMF stalled in recent months, a desperate Beirut turned to Beijing for economic support, but it's walking a fine line, wary of irking Washington, a longtime ally, as US-China tensions surge.
The ball is largely in Beirut's court. The government can start working towards comprehensive reform in the hopes of lifting its floundering population out of poverty. Alternatively, it can fall back on the excuse of international donors not coming through and continue with business as usual. Which will it choose?
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From $3.5 trillion to $2 trillion: Cuts to US spending bill mean less money for families
October 15, 2021
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, shares insights on US politics:
What does it actually mean to cut $1 trillion from the Democrats' $3.5 trillion social spending bill?
President Biden has proposed one of the most ambitious expansions of federal spending in recent memory. If he gets everything he wants, it would probably be the largest expansion of government since the Great Society, but he's not going to get everything he wants. Democrats have basically said they cannot do all $3.5 trillion in spending. They're probably going to end up around $2 trillion. So what gets cut? Well, we don't know yet. There's kind of two ways to go about this. They could either cut the number of programs that have been proposed, doing fewer things with more money on a permanent basis, or they could try to do more things, each program getting less money and potentially doing them on a temporary basis. So, a future Congress would have to extend it. What does this mean for you? Well, a lot of the money in here is designed to go directly to families, either in the form of cash payments, through the tax code, the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, or subsidies for things like child care, early childhood education, and community college. And if you cut these things back, it means less money is going to go out the door to the American people. It also means less tax increases to finance it. So the implications of what's being proposed could actually end up being a big deal for a lot of Americans who would qualify for benefits under these new programs.
More American law enforcement officers have died from COVID-19 than from other work-related causes. What is happening to them?
It turns out police officers really reflect the rest of society. They tend to be a little bit more conservative than the general population, and they read the same misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine that the rest of us do. So what you've seen, as you've seen in the case of other unions and other workforces that have tried to mandate vaccines and force their workers to protect themselves against the coronavirus, is some resistance on the part of police officers, who also happen to be in a dangerous line of work. There've been many stories of unionized workforces resisting vaccine mandates. The New York teachers union protested the mandate to the mayor a couple of weeks ago. There were rumors that a slowdown among Southwest pilots that happened last weekend was related to the vaccine mandates. Although those rumors have generally been unfounded, and could have more to do with the way that Southwest manages its airline fleet. However, this is a really common theme and it's going to continue to be common as individuals push back against these mandates, putting themselves at risk of catching the coronavirus.
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How will artificial intelligence change the world and especially the job market by 2041? AI scientist Kai-fu Lee just wrote a book about precisely that, and he predicts it'll shake up almost every major industry. AI, he explains, will be most disruptive to many so-called "routine" occupations, but the damage may be reduced by shifting "empathetic" workers to jobs that require human empathy. Watch his interview on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer.
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: Is a robot coming for your job? Kai-fu Lee explains AI
The Atlantic CEO Nick Thompson believes in tech firms doing business in China because connecting with people there is a huge social good for the world. But in demanding LinkedIn de-platform certain people, he says, the Chinese government crossed a line, and "you can't justify that."
Watch Ian Bremmer's interview with Nicholas Thompson in an upcoming episode of GZERO World, airing on US public television.
Sectarian clashes in Lebanon: As Lebanese supporters of Hezbollah and Amal, both Shiite political parties, were on their way to a protest in Beirut Thursday, gunfire broke out, evidently between Hezbollah militants and those of the Christian, far-right Lebanese Forces. The protesters were rallying against the ongoing state probe into last year's devastating twin blasts at a Beirut port, saying that state authorities were singling out Shiite politicians for questioning and blame. They have called for the dismissal of Judge Tarek Bitar — who is leading the probe and on Monday issued an arrest warrant for a prominent Shiite parliamentarian linked to Amal. Each side has blamed the other for starting the violence Thursday, which killed at least six people, injured dozens more, and threw the entire city into a panic. In a grim omen, the clashes, which are among the worst in recent years, erupted along one of the old front lines (dividing Muslim and Christian neighborhoods) of the 15-year sectarian civil war that devastated the country up until 1990. With the country mired in economic and political crises, the people of Lebanon can't seem to catch a break: just last week the country was plunged into complete darkness when its decrepit power grid ran out of fuel. Meanwhile, Najib Mikati, who became prime minister designate in July after months of political deadlock, declared a "day of mourning," but civil strife continues.
Banzai! Japan gets ready to vote: Japan's newly-appointed PM Fumio Kishida has dissolved parliament ahead of the October 31 election. This is normal before Japanese go to the polls, and in the upcoming vote the ruling Liberal Democratic Party — which has governed Japan almost without interruption since World War II — is widely expected to win another majority. The most interesting thing about the dissolution, in fact, was perhaps the ceremony itself: after the speaker confirmed the resolution to dissolve, all 465 lawmakers stood up, shouted "banzai!" three times, and left. Still, while the LDP is a shoo-in to win, Kishida will be under pressure to curb rising inequality, which widened under Shinzo Abe and has gotten even worse during the pandemic. The PM, however, says he doesn't want to raise taxes or wages, and claims he can revive the economy with his vision of a "new capitalism" that'll redistribute more wealth (details are scarce).
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Hard Numbers: US dominates Bitcoin mining, WHO's "last chance" on COVID, Norway's bow-and-arrow assailant, US-Kenya face-to-face
October 14, 2021
35.4: The US has overtaken China as the country with the largest share of the world's Bitcoin mining networks, now accounting for 35.4 of the global mining presence. This comes after the Chinese government banned domestic cryptocurrency mining operations to promote its own digital yuan that would track every single transaction.
26: The World Health Organization announced Wednesday that a new panel of 26 people would investigate the origins of COVID-19 as well as other emerging pathogens. Mike Ryan, the WHO's top emergency expert who recently spoke to GZERO Media, said this panel would be "the last chance" to establish the pandemic's origins.
5: Five people were killed Wednesday in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg when a man used a bow and arrow to target random pedestrians. Norwegian authorities now say it was an act of terrorism and that the suspect's history of radicalization was known to authorities.
30 million: US President Joe Biden met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta at the White House Thursday, Biden's first one-on-one with an African head of state. This meeting comes after the Pandora Papers recently revealed that the family of Kenyatta – who paints himself as an anti-corruption warrior – stashed $30 million in offshore accounts, an issue the Biden administration said it planned to bring up.
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