After more than three years of stagnation, gold has awakened with a vengeance since early-March and has promptly surged by nearly $300 an ounce or 14% to an all-time high $2,330 -- a sharp move for a safe-haven asset that has a reputation for its slow and steady trends. Gold’s powerful rally came seemingly out of the blue and has confounded the majority of investors and commentators who have been much more focused on trendy speculative stocks and cryptocurrencies as of late. In this piece, I will explain several of the technical and fundamental factors that are driving gold to all-time highs, what is likely ahead for gold, and how investors can best take advantage of the yellow metal’s resurgence. A Look at the Technicals The chart of gold over the past year shows how it suddenly sprang to life over the past month. There was an important technical resistance zone from $2,000 to $2,100 that had been acting as a price ceiling for gold since the middle of 2020. Gold’s successful close above that zone signified that a new rally had begun even though the fundamental drivers of it weren’t exactly apparent just yet. Gold’s multi-decade chart shows that it has been steadily climbing an uptrend line that began in the early-2000s as the U.S. and other countries kicked off an unprecedented debt binge that shows no signs of stopping whatsoever: Gold is Rising Despite the Strong U.S. Dollar What’s particularly interesting and notable about gold’s surge over the past month is how it has occurred independently of the action in the U.S. dollar. Gold and the U.S. dollar have a long-established inverse relationship, which means that strength in the dollar typically causes weakness in gold, while dollar weakness typically causes the price of gold to rise. The chart below compares gold (the top chart) to the U.S. Dollar Index (the bottom chart) and shows how action in the dollar often causes an opposite trend in gold. Gold’s recent surge took place while the dollar was trending slightly higher, which is a sign of gold’s strength due to its ability to buck the negative influence of the strengthening dollar. Mainstream Investors & Journalists Missed Gold’s Rally
What is also worth noting is how gold’s surprising recent rally has received very little mainstream attention by a press that is much more enamoured with hot AI stocks as well as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that have recently benefited from the U.S. government’s approval of a number of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which has resulted in tremendous inflows from institutional investors and retail investors alike. As the chart below shows, investors have pulled billions of dollars worth of funds from gold ETFs in order to re-invest in Bitcoin ETFs, which is ironic considering its timing shortly before gold’s lift-off (and is confirmation of contrarian investing principles). The continuation of gold’s bull market will likely lead to funds flowing back into gold ETFs, providing additional fuel for the rally. Central Banks Are Steadily Accumulating Gold Though Western retail investors (who are often considered to be the “dumb money" in the market) have been sleeping on gold before and even during its surge of the past month, central banks -- particularly those in Russia, China, Turkey, and India -- have been steadily accumulating practically all of the gold that they can get their hands on. According to the World Gold Council, central banks purchased a healthy 1,037.4 metric tons of gold in 2023 in an effort to diversify out of the U.S. dollar and other fiat currencies that are being debased at an alarming rate and into a hard asset with a six-thousand year history as sound money that cannot be printed. Chinese Investors Are Buying Up Gold Chinese investors who are seeking refuge from the country’s sinking property and stock markets are another important driver of gold’s nascent rally. Starting in the mid-2000s, China’s property and stock markets embarked on a seemingly unstoppable bull market as the country’s economy grew rapidly and the country began to increasingly flex its economic and geopolitical muscles on the world stage. Unfortunately, like Japan in the 1980s and the U.S. in the mid-2000s, China’s asset boom was actually an unsustainable bubble that was driven by copious amounts of debt and reckless speculation. As all bubbles eventually do, China’s property and stock market bubbles have burst over the past year causing at least hundreds of billions of dollars worth of losses -- including $100 billion alone from the country’s property tycoons. As faith in China’s economy and financial markets sinks, investors are turning to the old standby, gold, which has thousands of years of history in China as a superb store of value in good and bad times alike. When complex financial systems and products fail, as they currently are in China, savers and investors appreciate the simplicity and straightforward nature of physical gold. As the famous financier J. P. Morgan once said, “Gold is money. Everything else is credit." According to the World Gold Council, consumer demand for gold in China increased by a stout 16% in 2023, while demand for gold bars and coins rose by an even more impressive 27%. Retail gold buying in China has been dominated by the younger generations who face a difficult job market and are largely priced out of the country’s unaffordable housing market but find physical gold to be attainable -- even if it means buying tiny amounts of it at a time as funds allow. Indeed, one of the most popular gold bullion products among young Chinese are gold beans that weigh as little as one gram and cost approximately 600 yuan (USD$83).
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In times of conflict or war, nations often undergo a significant transformation in their economic structures, transitioning towards what is commonly known as a "war economy."
This economic model is characterized by a reorientation of resources, industries, and policies to prioritize military production and defence. While such measures may be deemed necessary for national security, the consequences of a war economy can have profound impacts on both regular citizens and the countries as a whole. A war economy refers to an economic system that is heavily geared towards supporting and sustaining the efforts of a nation during times of war or conflict. In a war economy, resources, industries, and policies are mobilized to prioritize military production, defense, and logistics over other sectors of the economy. Impact on Regular People One of the most immediate and tangible consequences of a war economy is its impact on regular citizens. As resources are diverted towards military needs, shortages of consumer goods and everyday necessities can occur. Rationing may be implemented to ensure equitable distribution, leading to reduced access to essential items for ordinary people. In addition, the disruption of labor markets due to mobilization for military service or diversion to defense industries can result in unemployment and economic hardship for individuals and families. Moreover, the psychological toll of living in a state of war, with its uncertainty and fear, can lead to anxiety, stress, and trauma among the civilian population.
Impact on Countries War economies can also have far-reaching consequences for the countries involved. The significant increase in military spending can strain national finances, leading to budget deficits and debt accumulation. This economic strain may persist long after the conflict has ended, creating challenges for economic recovery and reconstruction. Moreover, countries heavily reliant on defense industries may become dependent on continued military spending for economic growth, making it difficult to transition to peacetime economies. Socially, war economies can exacerbate inequalities and divisions within society, as certain groups may benefit disproportionately from wartime contracts and opportunities, while others bear the brunt of economic hardship and sacrifice.
In conclusion, war economies represent a fundamental reorientation of a nation's economic priorities towards military production and defence. While such measures may be deemed necessary for national security during times of conflict, the consequences for regular people and countries can be profound and long-lasting. From economic hardship and social disruption to psychological trauma and dependency on military spending, the impacts of war economies are multifaceted and complex. As such, it is essential for policymakers to consider not only the short-term imperatives of war, but also the long-term consequences for the well-being and prosperity of their citizens and nations. After Beijing imposed the draconian National Security Law for Hong Kong in 2020, the UK, Canada and Australia responded by opening “lifeboat schemes,” or special immigration pathways, for Hong Kongers. Article 23, the latest tightening of the screws on Hong Kong freedoms, requires a similar response from the European Union.
The UK provided an escape valve by allowing Hong Kongers with British National (Overseas) (BNO) status to apply for a visa with a permanent residence pathway in Britain. More than 160,000 Hong Kongers have resettled in the UK alone since the imposition of the law, and London has taken further steps to welcome them in anticipation of the passage of Article 23. Canada launched programs to provide permanent residency to Hong Kong residents who have graduated from a selected post-secondary institutions in Canada, and to Hong Kongers who have completed post-secondary education and have worked in Canada for a minimum of one year. Australia enabled Hong Kongers completing eligible tertiary studies to apply for a temporary graduate visa after their studies, with a pathway to permanent residency. This week, the Hong Kong government enacted the Safeguarding National Security Bill, colloquially known as “Article 23 legislation,” in the territory. Article 23 is a domestic, albeit more severe, version of the National Security Law, and was first proposed in 2003. Under the Basic Law of Hong Kong, the city’s constitution, the Hong Kong government is required to introduce legislation to safeguard national security. In recent days Hong Kong officials have said that it is their constitutional “duty” to introduce Article 23 legislation, but I am not sure that broad and unclear language is what the writers of the Basic Law had in mind. When the Hong Kong authorities attempted to introduce Article 23 in 2003, more than 500,000 Hong Kongers protested, and the plans were abandoned. But today, the Hong Kong people do not have a choice nor the right to protest without facing serious repercussions. Vague terms Under directives from Beijing to pass Article 23 “as soon as possible,” the Hong Kong government left a few days to consider a public consultation process which received over 13,000 submissions and for the Hong Kong Legislative Council to review and make amendments to the 212-page bill. Article 23 prohibits seven types of activities: treason, secession, sedition, subversion, theft of state secrets, foreign political organizations or bodies conducting political activities in Hong Kong, and political organizations or bodies in Hong Kong establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies. The language surrounding what constitutes these activities is vague to intentionally allow the government to criminalize whatsoever and whosoever it wishes. For example, starting with the definition of ‘national security’, the bill reads “specific measures to be taken to safeguard national security will depend on the actual situation in the HKSAR.” Under which circumstances, and in what situations, will certain individuals and organizations be criminalized? This language not only mirrors the definition of national security on mainland China, but potentially contravenes the “principle of legal certainty” protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has captured the attention of the world with her enigmatic persona and prominent role within the North Korean regime. While often portrayed as a powerful figure in her own right, her life and background remain shrouded in mystery. This essay delves into the life and background of Kim Yo Jong, exploring her rise to prominence, her family dynamics, and her influence on North Korean politics.
Early Life and Family Background Born on September 26, 1987, Kim Yo Jong is the youngest daughter of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and his wife, Ko Yong Hui. She is the full sister of current leader Kim Jong Un and the granddaughter of North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung. Growing up in the privileged environment of the ruling Kim family, Kim Yo Jong received a comprehensive education, likely tailored to prepare her for a future role within the regime. Kim Yo Jong's family background is deeply intertwined with the power dynamics of North Korea. Her father, Kim Jong Il, ruled the country with an iron fist for seventeen years until his death in 2011, leaving his young and relatively inexperienced son, Kim Jong Un, to assume leadership. Kim Yo Jong's close relationship with her brother, Kim Jong Un, has been speculated to play a significant role in her rise to prominence within the North Korean hierarchy. Rise to Prominence Kim Yo Jong's ascent to prominence began in 2014 when she was appointed as a senior official in the Workers' Party of Korea, the ruling political party of North Korea. Over the years, she steadily climbed the ranks, assuming various roles within the regime's propaganda and guidance departments. Her public appearances alongside her brother, Kim Jong Un, during official events and summits have further solidified her image as a trusted confidante and advisor to the North Korean leader. In recent years, Kim Yo Jong has emerged as one of the most visible and influential figures in North Korean politics. Her portfolio includes overseeing key government agencies and spearheading diplomatic initiatives, particularly in relations with South Korea and the United States. Notably, she played a prominent role in the 2018 Winter Olympics held in South Korea, leading the North Korean delegation and capturing global media attention. Influence and Political Dynamics Despite her relative youth and lack of formal titles, Kim Yo Jong's influence within the North Korean regime cannot be underestimated. As a member of the ruling Kim family, she holds significant sway over decision-making processes and enjoys privileged access to her brother, Kim Jong Un. Her proximity to power, combined with her astute political acumen, has positioned her as a formidable figure within the secretive and hierarchical structures of North Korean politics. Kim Yo Jong's influence extends beyond her familial ties. She is regarded as a key figure in shaping North Korea's propaganda machine, employing sophisticated media strategies to bolster the regime's image both domestically and internationally. Additionally, her involvement in diplomatic endeavours underscores her role as a trusted envoy and interlocutor in North Korea's interactions with the outside world. Challenges and Speculations Despite her rise to prominence, Kim Yo Jong's role within the North Korean regime is not without challenges and speculations. The authoritarian nature of the regime, coupled with the pervasive culture of secrecy, makes it difficult to discern the true extent of her power and influence. Moreover, questions regarding her health and well-being have periodically surfaced, leading to conjectures about potential power struggles and succession issues within the ruling elite. Furthermore, Kim Yo Jong's image as a progressive and moderate figure has been met with scepticism by analysts who view her as a product of the same repressive regime that her family has upheld for decades. Her involvement in orchestrating propaganda campaigns and enforcing strict social controls underscores the complexities of her persona and the inherent contradictions within North Korean politics. In conclusion, Kim Yo Jong's life and background offer a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of North Korea's ruling elite. As the younger sister of Kim Jong Un and a member of the powerful Kim family, she occupies a unique position of influence within the regime. Her rise to prominence, coupled with her enigmatic persona and strategic manoeuvring, has made her a figure of intrigue on the global stage. However, unravelling the complexities of her role and motivations remains a daunting task amidst the opaque and tightly controlled political landscape of North Korea. After turbulent weeks, Max Verstappen hoped for a quieter race weekend in Melbourne, but of course the media day was also about all the vicissitudes within Red Bull Racing. "It doesn't distract me, but it could be about that car of ours again."
Will he remain loyal to Red Bull Racing? Does he ever see himself racing for Mercedes? What he thought of Toto Wolff's statement, who said in Saudi Arabia that he would like to have him there. Does he still feel comfortable within Red Bull Racing? Max Verstappen was asked future-related questions again in the Albert Park paddock, where he appeared in front of a microphone for the first time in two weeks. He had hoped for a quieter weekend, he said. "It doesn't distract me at all, I can easily switch off when I leave the paddock. But if you ask me now: wouldn't you rather talk more about that good car? Yes of course." Verstappen, three-time world champion, knows how F1 works. So he tried to give a clear answer to all the precarious questions as best he could in the sun on the terrace of Red Bull Racing in Melbourne. But without fully detailing the internal power struggle going on within Red Bull Racing in the interview with the press, the gist of his story remained the same. He still sees a future for himself within the team, contrary to what the whole world now seems to believe, after weeks of speculation about a breakup. But what really counts is the composition of the important people around them. “The core must be preserved,” Verstappen said, without mentioning Dr. Helmut Marko's name even once. Everyone knows by now that his fate is more or less linked to that of the Austrian who has played an important role in Verstappen's life since he was a teenager. A British journalist decided to simply ask the Limburger point-blank whether he will serve out his contract, which runs until 2028. "That's why I signed that contract in the first place," Verstappen responded calmly, with a laugh. And then, seriously again: "As I said before, I am happy within this team. But it is absolutely very important that we keep the key people - there are many, I'm not going to name names - within the team for a longer period. Because they are responsible for performance. But it is certainly my intention to remain faithful to that deal, yes,” Verstappen concluded. “Would also be a nice story, for me personally. To be part of just one family, one team.”
Why China’s frustrated Youth are Ready to ‘let it rot’Early this month China’s president Xi Jinping encouraged the country’s youth to establish “great ideals” and incorporate their personal goals into the “bigger picture” of the Chinese nation and people. “‘China’s hope lies in youth,” he said in a major speech.
But on China’s internet, some young people say their “ideals” simply cannot be achieved and many of them have given up on trying. Frustrated by the mounting uncertainties and lack of economic opportunities, they are resorting to a new buzzword – bai lan (摆烂, or let it rot in English) – to capture their attitude towards life. The phrase, bai lan, which has its origin in NBA games, means a voluntary retreat from pursuing certain goals because one realises they are simply too difficult to achieve. In American basketball, it often refers to a team’s deliberate loss of a game in order to get a better draft pick. On Weibo, the bai lan-related topics have generated hundreds of millions of reads and discussions since March. Netizens also created different variations of the bai lan attitude. “Properties in Shanghai too expensive? Fine, I’ll just rent all my life, as I can’t afford it if I only earn a monthly salary anyway,” one grumbled. In recent days, this phrase – and more previously ‘tang ping’ (lying flat, 躺平), which means rejecting gruelling competition for a low desire life – gained popularity as severe competition and high social expectations prompted many young Chinese to give up on hard work. But bai lan has a more worrying layer in the way it is being used by young people in China: to actively embrace a deteriorating situation, rather than trying to turn it around. It is close to other Chinese phrases, for example ‘to smash a cracked pot’ (破罐破摔) and ‘dead pigs are not afraid of boiling water’ (死猪不怕开水烫). State media have taken note of this trend. “Why modern young Chinese like to ‘bai lan’?” one recent article in official media outlet asked. “In fact, this is as a result of negative auto suggestion, repeatedly telling oneself I cannot make it… And this kind of mentality often leads people to adopt the ‘bai lan’ attitude.” But the reality is not quite as state media suggested, says Sal Hang, a 29-year-old creative industry professional in Beijing. He says that for his generation of young Chinese, this attitude of letting things rot is likely to be caused by a lack of social mobility and increased uncertainty in today’s China. “Unlike my parents’ generation, young Chinese today have much bigger expectations, but there are many more uncertainties for us, too. For example, we cannot make any long-term plans for our lives any more, because we do not know what is going to happen to us even five years down the road.” After working as a flight engineer in south-western China, Hang moved to Beijing three years ago to work in music, his passion. But the workplace reality changed his initial ambition. “My boss often sets unrealistic targets for me. But however hard I try to meet his KPIs, I always fail. So in the end, I lose my motivation and just do my bare minimum.” Prof Mary Gallagher, director of the Centre for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan, says ‘bai lan’ is not necessarily a sentiment unique to China. “It is a bit like the ‘slacker’ generation in America in the 1990s. And like ‘tang ping’ last year, it is also a rejection against the ultra-competitiveness of today’s Chinese society.” But in today’s China, the sense of hopelessness among the young is further exacerbated by shrinking economic opportunities, she says. In the past few months, while hundreds of millions of Chinese people were confined to their homes due to Covid lockdowns, the world’s second-largest economy also found itself struggling to boost growth. More than 18% of young Chinese people aged between 16 and 24 were jobless in April – the highest since the official record began. “Hard to find a job after graduation this year? Fine, I’ll just bai lan – stay at home and watch TV all day,” wrote one netizen who struggled to find work, despite China’s top leader urged young people to fight for the future. Kecheng Fang, a media professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says young Chinese use ‘bai lan’ or ‘tang ping’ to show they are not cooperating with the official narrative. “All these popular phrases reflect a shared social emotion of the day. When people use them, they are not just expressing themselves, but looking for a connection with those who have the same feeling,” he says. “Despite the grand official narrative from the leaders, in real life, we are all in the same situation, after all.” EDITORIAL: In Thailand, Srettha Thavisin is the Prime Minister, but is he Really in Charge?13/3/2024 How many prime ministers does Thailand have now? One, if you ask Srettha Thavisin.In theory, the 62-year-old real estate tycoon is the prime minister. Nominally, he leads a government coalition of 11 parties with 314 MPs in Thailand’s 500-member House of Representatives. But whether he is actually fully or partially in charge is another matter altogether. In practice, Srettha is neither an MP nor the leader of Pheu Thai, the chief party in the ruling coalition. He has confessed to knowing a few of the party’s 141 MPs. His familiarity with MPs from other government parties is almost non-existent. During the few hectic weeks before the formation of his cabinet, Srettha was hardly at the bargaining table. He did not do the wheeling and dealing; rather, this was done by Pheu Thai bigwigs, notably Phumtham Wechayachai, who is now a deputy prime minister and minister of commerce; and Dr Prommin Lertsuridej, now the secretary general to the prime minister. Both Phumtham and Prommin have close ties to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Undoubtedly, Phumtham and Prommin consulted and listened to Thaksin, even though the 75-year-old former leader is officially a criminal convict serving a one-year jail term for corruption. Thaksin is widely regarded as the actual “owner” of Pheu Thai. In October 2023, Thaksin’s youngest daughter, Paetongtarn, was elected unopposed as the new Pheu Thai leader, even though the 36-year-old mother of two was a political greenhorn who had never been an MP. One widespread rumour is about the imminent rise of Paetongtarn to the cabinet before Songkran (Thai New Year on April 13). Another rumour is that Srettha, who is concurrently the finance minister, will give up the finance portfolio because he has no time to handle it properly. Srettha has been at odds with the governor of the Bank of Thailand, Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput, over the actual condition of the economy. Srettha insists that the Thai economy has been in a “crisis” and needs urgent stimulus via the “Digital Wallet”, a handout of 10,000 baht (US$280) in digital credits to every low-income Thai aged over 16. But bank governor Sethaput disagrees; he believes the Thai economy is recovering, and what is really needed is more investments to create jobs and increase exports. Srettha has practically bet his political future on the successful launch of the Digital Wallet programme, which requires about 500 billion baht (US$14 billion). He has considered off-budget extraordinary borrowing. But the National Anti-Corruption Commission and the State Council Office have cautioned against rushing to the House with such a questionable bill, for fear of violating existing laws on fiscal discipline. The latest official figures show that the Thai economy grew by 1.9 per cent in 2023, with 1.7 per cent growth in the fourth quarter, a slight improvement from 1.4 per cent in the third quarter. In other words, the Thai economy is not in a “crisis” as yet. Therefore, there is no legal justification for the urgent borrowing to stimulate consumption spending. Resorting to such extraordinary borrowing is also not in line with Pheu Thai’s May 2023 election campaign promise not to borrow new public money to fund the Digital Wallet scheme. Should the Digital Wallet fail to materialise, Srettha will be held responsible. At any rate, it has been argued previously that the proposed scheme was never intended to stimulate the economy but serves as a “political tool” to revive Pheu Thai’s image and secure the Thai prime minister’s popular standing. Srettha’s fate cannot be discussed without discussing the fate of Thaksin. On February 18, Thaksin was released on parole after 180 days in a police hospital, undergoing undisclosed treatments in a premium suite off limits to all outsiders. He is now serving the rest of his one-year jail term at home. Thaksin’s first foreign VIP guest was none other than Cambodia’s former prime minister Hun Sen, who dropped by on February 21 for a quick lunch with Thaksin. The Cambodian strongman left after lunch without calling on Prime Minister Srettha. Apparently, Hun Sen knows who to talk to in Thailand to get what he wants.Hun Sen, in his capacity as the chairman of the Cambodian People’s Party, invited Paetongtarn, leader of Pheu Thai, to visit Cambodia in March. Paetongtarn has accepted the invitation and is scheduled to lead a Pheu Thai team to meet Hun Sen in Phnom Penh from March 18 to 19. Nevertheless, Thaksin is not out of the woods yet. He is still facing two criminal charges of insulting the previous monarch, King Bhumibol, in a media interview in Seoul on May 21, 2015. In addition to violating the lèse-majesté law under Section 112 of the Criminal Code, which carries a jail term ranging from three to 15 years, Thaksin has also been accused of violating the Computer Law of 2017 by causing fake news to circulate on social media from his interview in Seoul. The maximum penalties under this law include a jail term of up to 20 years.On February 19, Thaksin denied any wrongdoing when he met a senior prosecutor to discuss the case. A new decision on how to proceed with the case against Thaksin will be made by the attorney general, and it is scheduled to be announced on April 10. In late 2015, a different attorney general put on record his official view that the case should be prosecuted. This was pending the arrest of Thaksin who was then in exile, living mostly in Dubai.
This is not the first time Thaksin has been accused of violating the lèse-majesté law. Several similar cases against him have all been dismissed in the past owing to lack of evidence. If the case against him now is dropped like before, Thaksin can start counting the days until he legally regains his freedom in the third week of August. In the meantime, Thaksin will be kept quite busy receiving visitors lobbying for better positions in a new cabinet line-up. Thai politicians know who is actually in charge. World Obesity Day was marked last week (March 4) and with over a billion people afflicted worldwide, obesity is now considered more dangerous to global health than hunger. The numbers are staggering.
Sometime in the mid-20th century a cameraman captured an unforgettable black-and-white photo depicting thousands of American sunworshippers crowded onto Coney Island, New York City. What is most conspicuous about the iconic photograph, aside from the sheer number of beachgoers, is the lack of excessive cellulite packed into the assorted bathing suits and bikinis. Sadly and not a little tragically, those halcyon days are over. While hunger overwhelmingly afflicts the poverty-stricken nations of the world, obesity represents a unique type of affliction in that it targets both rich and poor alike. Between 1990 and 2022, global obesity rates quadrupled for children and doubled for adults, according to a new study by the Lancet (The World Health Organization classifies obesity as having a body-mass index equal to or greater than 30 kilograms per square meter). In the WHO's top-ten 'hefty' list, it may come as some surprise that the tiny Polynesian nations of Tonga and American Samoa had the highest prevalence of obesity in 2022 for women, while American Samoa and [nearby] Nauru had the highest rates among men. In those picturesque island paradises, more than 60% of the adult population were clinically obese. Other surprises included Egypt, weighing in at number ten in the female category, while Qatar took tenth place in boys’ obesity levels. Among the wealthy countries, the United States was the heavyweight representative and is tenth in the world for obesity among men. Shockingly, the US adult obesity rate increased from 21.2% in 1990 to 43.8% in 2022 for women, and from 16.9% to 41.6% in 2022 for men, placing the nation of 330 million fast-food consumers 36th in the world for highest obesity rates among women and, for men, tenth in the world. By contrast, the adult obesity rate in the United Kingdom increased from 13.8% in 1990 to 28.3% in 2022 among females, ranking it 87th highest in the world, while the obesity rate for males surged from 10.7% to 26.9%, placing Britain at 55th. Among children, the study found the US obesity rates increased from 11.6% in 1990 to 19.4% in 2022 for girls, 11.5% to 21.7% for boys. In 2022, the US ranked 22nd in the world for obesity among girls, 26th for boys. Considering the rapid rates of change among Americans, the US will be predictably dominating the charts in just a few years, creating what could be considered a national emergency. None of this should have been unpredictable. After all, what does a society expect that can’t even park the car and walk several steps into the restaurant? And it’s not like consumers are ordering homemade soup and salads at the drive-thru window. The junk food served at fast food enterprises is loaded with sodium content in order to prolong its shelf life, as well as saturated fatty acids that increase cholesterol levels in the body, clog the blood vessels and restrict normal blood flow, leading to heart disease. And that’s not even mentioning the high-fructose corn syrup found in the cola drinks. The real challenge, however, is how to combat obesity at a time when so many people have become addicted to a sedentary, order-online lifestyle. It probably comes as no surprise that the same people who demand their food fast and fried, will also expect an easy cure as well. Americans anxious about having to purchase a new wardrobe have taken to various diet pills, like Ozempic, a diabetes drug that is being used off-label as an appetite suppressant, and which got a shout out by none other than Elon Musk. The investment bank Morgan Stanley was panicked enough by the potential dent in junk-food profits that it released a white paper detailing how the diet pills could make Americans’ consumption of snack foods around 3% lower. But do the American people really need another drug to combat the battle of the bulge, or is there a better, more natural way forward? Back in 2022, the World Health Organization adopted an obesity response plan that includes a number of lifestyle changes, including the promotion of breastfeeding, restrictions on marketing unhealthy food and drinks to children, nutrition labelling, and physical activity standards for schools. Now, if the WHO can just get Big Business behind the initiative, it just might make an impact. It's not every day that an arcane European Union initiative goes viral online. But last Friday turned out to be that day thanks to French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire exporting his frustration with the slow progress of the bloc's capital markets union (CMU) project straight to social media with an online clip that has since amassed more than 8.5 million views.
Now, a whole host of online channels are circulating the French-language clip, in some cases in AI-enhanced dubbed English, as proof that the EU is bankrupt and that Brussels is on the verge of raiding Europeans' savings, sparking critiques and memes. At issue is Le Maire's contention that a capital markets union would give authorities the “ability to mobilize all of Europeans' savings, some €35,000 billion worth, to finance the climate transition, fund our defense efforts, and invest in artificial intelligence.” Some, such as Arnaud Bertrand — a tech entrepreneur whose posts frequently fetch over 1 million views on X (formerly known as Twitter) — alleged Le Maire was “straight out declaring that Europe has run out of money” and signaling EU leaders’ intent to use Europeans' bank deposits to fund public spending, including on aid to Ukraine. But that's not quite what's happening here. The real point of the CMU is to create a single market for investment in the EU — one where people can invest across borders easily, much as they do across states in the U.S., while also benefitting from scaled-up services. So, rather than having 27 national pension schemes, under the vision consumers could pay into a pan-EU one. And, rather than navigating different tax regimes across EU countries, people could invest abroad in the EU as easily as they can in their home country. European companies, meanwhile, would be able to access financing from the whole of the EU, rather than being forced to list in the U.S., as German company Birkenstock did last year to Brussels' embarrassment. The key confusion with the online reaction to Le Maire's rant is that requisitioning savings is not on anyone's agenda. The CMU, as it stands, is intended to be entirely voluntary. What's more, even those in EU policy circles believe Le Maire's bark is worse than his bite in pushing for the project. Le Maire expressed equally bombastic language to reporters. “I’m fed up with discussions. I’m fed up with empty statements. Do you really think that China and the U.S. will be impressed by our statements? We need decisions,” he told reporters as he entered Friday's meeting of European finance ministers in Ghent, Belgium. However, given the glacial progress on the initiative to date, some of the French frustration might be justified. The EU has wanted a single market for capital since close to its inception, while the European Commission has been trying to regulate a CMU into existence since revealing a dedicated action plan nearly a decade ago. Today's reinvigorated push for action is a function of the EU struggling to keep up in an increasingly competitive landscape. Unlike the U.S., the bloc can't easily throw huge sums of money at green industrial policy via an Inflation Reduction Act-style act. Nor can it match China's aggressive state support for key industries like solar panels and chip manufacturers. Meanwhile, the importance of meeting green and digital transition goals has upped the urgency of unlocking private investment alongside public funds. This is especially the case now that governments, in the wake of unprecedented levels of EU public spending to prop up the economy during the Covid-19 pandemic and during the energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, are having to tighten their belts. For now, the EU is working on moving the CMU along at different levels. Finance ministers plan to sign off on a political statement with their priorities for the project next month, and former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi is working on a report about the EU’s competitiveness. The Commission, on its part, has put forward legislation on listing and retail investment with the aim of making capital flows across the bloc more simple. But Le Maire’s argument is that none of this is enough, and if the EU tries to move forward with 27 countries on board, the CMU will never get done due to the complexity. Instead, he wants a smaller group of countries to move forward with cross-border projects to speed up investment. Nonetheless, at the Ghent summit, officials involved in the drafting of the Eurogroup statement and deputies from national ministries gave a resounding eye-roll to Le Maire’s latest outburst, knowing that behind closed doors he is far more cooperative. France’s finance ministry, meanwhile, isn’t too worried about the naysayers. Speaking to POLITICO, one spokesperson said the CMU project is “clear and credible” and France will keep working on it. “For those who have questions, we are open to discussion to make it understandable,” they added. Did you bought an 'environmental diesel' ten years ago, you bought a car that met the wishes of politicians. The powerful car industry had gone along with politics and allowed itself to be gagged by them, so diesels neatly rolled off the production line that emit a maximum of 110 grams of CO2 per kilometer. If they emitted 111 grams, unfortunately, then a completely unsellable model... unless of course the software was tampered with. The latter was an emergency measure by the car industry to avoid being financially lynched by consumers who only wanted additional tax-friendly 'environmental diesels'. These 'environmental diesels' have now largely left the country, after all, a private individual cannot afford diesel because the road tax on these extremely climate-friendly cars is unaffordable. And so they disappeared to the Eastern Europe or Africa, after all, everyone wants an environmental diesel there, right? When hybrid cars were introduced, office clerks flocked to the tax-friendly hybrid. The fact that the much too heavy Mitsubishi Outlander only gurgled away gasoline to propel this colossus did not bother any official at the Tax Authorities
Policy officials in Brussels and at town halls in the Netherlands continue to fantasize about it. Zero-emission cities, for example. Can someone explain to such an uneducated civil servant that it is not zero-emission, such a 100 percent electric car? The citizens do understand it. Or what about a total ban on the sale of combustion engines in 2035? That is complete madness because the electricity grid is already completely overloaded in the Netherlands with 5 percent electric cars. The citizen understands it, but the policy official still does not. They continue to shoot down everything that moves from the town halls.
Those who have now woken up are the car manufacturers themselves and the consumers. Because a car that depreciates 70 to 80 percent in 5 years is also unsellable when new, despite all the tax benefits for the office clerk. And the banks have their fingers fist deep in the leasing companies, who now run the risk. And so major car manufacturers are now turning against politics and giving them a big middle finger, they no longer believe in it. Volkswagen sees the mood, Mercedes now understands it, Ford understands it and Fiat also understands it. When will the (policy) officials understand it? US State Department fixture and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, aka “Regime Change Karen,” apparently woke up one day recently, took the safety off her nuclear-grade mouth, and inadvertently blew up the West’s Ukraine narrative.
Until now, Americans have been told that all the US taxpayer cash being earmarked for Ukrainian aid is to help actual Ukrainians. Anyone notice that the $75 billion American contribution isn’t getting the job done on the battlefield? Victory in military conflict isn’t supposed to look like defeat. Winning also isn’t defined as, “Well, on a long enough time axis, like infinity, our chance of defeat will eventually approach zero.” And the $178 billion in total from all allies combined doesn’t seem to be doing the trick, either. Short of starting a global war with weapons capable of extending the conflict beyond a regional one, it’s not like they’ve been holding back. The West is breaking the bank. All for some vague, future Ukrainian “victory” that they don’t seem to want to clearly define. We keep hearing that the support will last “as long as it takes.” For what exactly? By not clearly defining it, they can keep moving the goal posts. But now here comes Regime Change Karen, dropping some truth bombs on CNN about Ukrainian aid. She started off with the usual talking point of doing “what we have always done, which is defend democracy and freedom around the world.” Conveniently, in places where they have controlling interests and want to keep them – or knock them out of a global competitor’s roster and into their own. “And by the way, we have to remember that the bulk of this money is going right back into the US to make those weapons,” Nuland said, pleading in favor of the latest Ukraine aid package that’s been getting the side eye from Republicans in Congress. So there you have it, folks. Ukrainians are a convenient pretext to keep the tax cash flowing in the direction of the US military industrial complex. This gives a whole new perspective on “as long as it takes.” It’s just the usual endless war and profits repackaged as benevolence. But we’ve seen this before. It explains why war in Afghanistan was little more than a gateway to Iraq. And why the Global War on Terrorism never seems to end, and only ever mutates. Arguably the best one they’ve come up with so far is the need for military-grade panopticon-style surveillance, so the state can shadow-box permanently with ghosts while bamboozling the general public with murky cyber concepts that it can’t understand or conceptualize. When one conflict or threat dials down, another ramps up, boosted by fearmongering rhetoric couched in white-knighting. There’s never any endgame or exit ramp to any of these conflicts. And there clearly isn’t one for Ukraine, either. Still, there’s a sense that the realities on the ground in Ukraine, which favor Russia, now likely mean that the conflict is closer to its end than to its beginning. Acknowledgements abound in the Western press. And that means there isn’t much time left for Europe to get aboard the tax cash laundering bandwagon and stuff its own military industrial complexes’ coffers like Washington has been doing from the get-go. Which would explain why a bunch of countries now seem to be rushing to give Ukraine years-long bilateral security “guarantees,” requiring more weapons for everyone. France, Germany, Canada, and Italy have all made the pledge. Plus Denmark, which also flat-out said that it would send all its artillery to Ukraine. If security for Europe is the goal, that sounds kind of like the opposite. Particularly when Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba told the EU that “Russia has gotten closer to your home” in the wake of the most recent defeat in Avdeevka. He sounds like one of those guys in TV ads trying to peddle burglar alarms. Seems like Russia only exists in the minds of the West these days to justify sending weapons to Ukraine to get blown up, while also justifying to taxpayers why they should continue funding this whole charade. Meanwhile, the West’s drive towards peace seems to be taking the scenic route. “As we move forward, we continue our support to Ukraine in further developing President Zelensky’s Peace Formula,” G7 leaders said after a recent meeting with Zelensky in Kiev. Nice to see that he’s devoting all his time to this magic peace formula instead of running around extorting his friends for cash by threatening them with Putin. It was already a pretty big hint of what’s really been going on when the EU decided to use the taxpayer-funded European Peace Facility to reimburse EU countries for the unloading of their mothballed, second-hand weapons into Ukraine, where Russia can then dispose of them before anyone could be accused of overcharging for clunkers. Now, with the clunker supply running dry, they just have to make more weapons. Maybe funneling cash into weapons for themselves will be the Hail Mary pass that saves their economies that they’ve tanked “for Ukraine”? Thanks to Nuland’s nuking of any plausible deniability on Ukrainian “aid” not going to Washington, it’s now clear that Ukrainians continue to die so poor weapons makers don’t end up shaking tin cans on street corners. She has also removed any doubt about the ultimate US goal being Russian regime change, calling Putin’s leadership “not the Russia we wanted,” and sounding like someone who chronically sends back a meal to kitchens of a dining establishment. “We wanted a partner that was going to be Westernizing, that was going to be European. But that’s not what Putin has done,” she told CNN. That’s exactly what Putin has done, actually. It’s the West that’s moved away from itself and is becoming increasingly unrecognizable by its own citizens. Pretty sure that it goes beyond just wanting a country to be “European,” too. Because Germany’s European, and an ally, and Nuland wouldn’t shut up about how much she hated its Nord Stream gas supply — until it mysteriously went kaboom. Regime Change Karen saying the quiet part out loud has decimated the Western establishment’s narrative so badly that it’s a miracle no one has yet accused her thermonuclear mouth of being an asset of Russia’s weapons program. Political scientist Ivan Katchanovski – of the University of Ottawa – revealed last year, in a paper, that the February 2014 massacre of Ukrainian protesters by sniper fire, a defining moment of the Western-backed Maidan coup, was not published by an academic journal for “political reasons.” In a lengthy Twitter thread, Katchanovski first laid out the circumstances behind the rejection of his article, and the bombshell evidence included in it. The paper was initially accepted with minor revisions after peer review, and the journal's editor offered a glowing appraisal of his work, writing: “There is no doubt that this paper is exceptional in many ways. It offers evidence against the mainstream narrative of the regime change in Ukraine in 2014… It seems to me that the evidence the study produces in favour of its interpretation on who was behind the massacre of the protesters and the police during the ‘Euromaidan’ mass protests on February 18-20, 2014, in Ukraine, is solid. On this there is also consensus among the two reviewers.” As the editor noted, the massacre was a “politically crucial development,” which led to the “transition of powers in the country” from the freely elected Viktor Yanukovich to the illegitimate and rabidly nationalistic administration of Aleksandr Turchinov, a former security services chief. It was endlessly cited in Western media as a symbol of the brutality of Ukraine’s government and an unprovoked attack on innocent pro-WesternMaidan protesters, who allegedly sought nothing more than democracy and freedom. Rumors that the killings were a false flag intended to inflame tensions among the vast crowds filling Maidan, and provoke violence against the authorities, began circulating immediately. No serious investigation into what happened was ever conducted by the Western media, with all claims that the sniper attacks were an inside job dismissed as Kremlin “disinformation.” However, even NATO’s Atlantic Council adjunct admitted in 2020 that the massacre was unsolved and that this “cast a shadow over Ukraine.” It may not remain unsolved for much longer though, due to an ongoing trial of policemen at the scene on the fateful day. The legal action has been unfolding for well over a year and has received no mainstream news attention at all outside Ukraine. Katchanovski drew heavily on witness testimony and video evidence that has emerged over the course of the trial in his suppressed paper. For example, 51 protesters wounded during the incident testified at the trial that they were shot by snipers from Maidan-controlled buildings, and/or witnessed snipers there. Many spoke of snipers in buildings controlled by Maidan protesters shooting at police. This is consistent with other evidence collected by Katchanovski, such as 14 separate videos of snipers in protester-controlled buildings, 10 of which clearly feature far-right gunmen in the Hotel Ukraina aiming at crowds below. In all, 300 witnesses have told much the same story. Synchronized videos show that the specific time and direction of shots fired by the police not only didn’t coincide with the killings of specific Maidan protesters, but that authorities aimed at walls, trees, lampposts, and even the ground, simply to disperse crowds. Among those targeted by apparently Maidan-aligned snipers were journalists at Germany’s ARD. They weren’t the only Western news station in town at the time – so too were Belgian reporters, who not only filmed Maidan protesters screaming towards Hotel Ukraina for snipers not to shoot them, but also participants being actively lured to the killing zone. This incendiary footage was never broadcast.
CNN likewise filmed far-right elements firing at police from behind Maidan barricades, then hunting for positions to shoot from the 11th floor of the Hotel Ukraina, minutes before the BBC filmed snipers shooting protesters from a room where a far-right MP was staying. The network opted not to report this at the time. We needn’t rely purely on video footage. Over the course of the trial, no fewer than 14 self-confessed members of Maidan sniper groups testified they had explicitly received massacre orders, Katchanovski claims. By contrast, no police officer at the scene has said they were directed to kill unarmed protesters, no minister has come forward to blow the whistle on such a scheme, and no evidence Yanukovich approved of the killings has ever emerged. CNN likewise filmed far-right elements firing at police from behind Maidan barricades, then hunting for positions to shoot from the 11th floor of the Hotel Ukraina, minutes before the BBC filmed snipers shooting protesters from a room where a far-right MP was staying. The network opted not to report this at the time. We needn’t rely purely on video footage. Over the course of the trial, no fewer than 14 self-confessed members of Maidan sniper groups testified they had explicitly received massacre orders, Katchanovski claims. By contrast, no police officer at the scene has said they were directed to kill unarmed protesters, no minister has come forward to blow the whistle on such a scheme, and no evidence Yanukovich approved of the killings has ever emerged. Scared of being abandoned by the US under Trump, European officials are floating the idea of the bloc’s own nuclear force.
With its farmers rebelling, its economy declining, and its traditional parties decaying, you’d think the European Union has enough to worry about at home. Yet its thoroughly detached elites love to think big. And what’s bigger than nuclear weapons? That’s how they have ended up falling for one of Donald Trump’s typically blunt provocations. The former – and likely future – American president has warned that NATO members not spending enough on defence won’t be able to count on US protection on his watch. Eminently sensible – why do declining but still comparatively wealthy EU states keep behaving like defence beggars? – Trump’s threat has triggered various predictable meltdowns. The White House archly tut-tutted about the “appalling and unhinged” rhetoric of a man who is not, unlike the current president Joe Biden, overseeing a genocide together with Israel. Go figure, as they say in the US. On the other hand, many Republicans have displayed demonstrative insouciance, if not outright agreement. And that is certain to reflect what many ordinary Americans think as well; that is, if they think about Europe at all. And as if the Big Scary Orange Man hadn’t done enough damage yet, next came the Pentagon, which (sort of) revealed that Russia – that famous gas station sending out its shovel-wielding soldiers to capture German washing machines – is building, if not a Death Star, then at least something equally sinister out there in space: Sputnik déjà vu all over again, as America’s greatest philosopher might have said. All of that, of course, against a background of incessant NATO scaremongering, which, it seems, has succeeded in spooking NATO most of all. No wonder then that inside EU-Europe, reactions to Trump’s taunting sally have been marked by serious abandonment anxiety. One of its symptoms has been a call for the bloc – or Europe’s NATO members; the issue is fuzzy – to acquire its own nuclear force. One way or the other, Christian Lindner, Germany’s minister of finance, made time from razing the state budget in an economy that his cabinet colleague, the children’s book author and minister of the economy, Robert Habeck, has just labelled “dramatically bad,” in order to pen an article calling for France (not subordinating its nukes to NATO) and Britain (not even in the EU anymore) – two small nuclear powers – to step in as the new security sugar daddies by expanding their nuclear umbrellas over everyone else. Katarina Barley, eternally fresh-eyed vice president of the European Parliament and the top EU election candidate of the German Social-Democrats – a party leading a deeply unpopular government while approaching extinction in the polls – and Manfred Weber, head of the conservative faction in the European Parliament, have kept things more general: They simply suggest that the EU should get its own doomsday weapons, somehow. Donald Tusk, freshly re-established as Poland’s EU-subservient viceroy, has made similar noises. Well, who cares about details, right? That attitude of “on s’engage et puis on voit” has, after all, proven a smashing success in Ukraine. In reality, this is not a problem caused by Trump: That, in a world of more than one nuclear power, the US nuclear umbrella over any place other than the US itself is – and can only be – fundamentally unreliable is, of course, a perennial, structural problem. Those who prefer realism to wishful thinking have always understood this. Henry Kissinger, for instance, a sinister yet sometimes brutally frank practitioner of realpolitik, explained as much as early as the 1950s – perhaps most succinctly in a television interview in 1958 – just a little over a decade after the dawn of the nuclear age. If any clients abroad were to be attacked so severely or successfully that only a US nuclear strike would be left to respond, any American president – whatever treaties are in place or promises have been made – would always face an impossible choice: Drop the client or suffer a retaliatory strike on America itself. It is true that various policies have been devised to mitigate this dilemma (“limited” nuclear war, nuclear sharing, or the NATO medium-range missiles of the 1980s), but, in reality, it cannot be resolved. Yet here we are. An EU that seems to suffer from historical amnesia produces chatter about a search for nukes of its own. Not the nukes that are already in US-aligned Europe anyhow, in the national arsenals of France, Britain, and at American bases in five NATO countries, so that, at least, we are already used to them, but different nukes, new nukes. Nukes the acquisition, politics, and rules of which are all still to be figured out. What could go wrong? Everything, really. But let’s be a little more detailed. First of all, the elites of EU-Europe have, expectably, immediately displayed disunity and confusion. In essence, while no one meant the call for nuclear weapons as a challenge to the US, it was still too much for hard-core Atlanticism compradors: Germany’s minister of defence, Boris Pistorius, NATO’s figurehead General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, and the head of the German parliament’s defence committee – and “jokingly” “Volkssturm”-nostalgic (no kidding) – uber-hawk Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann all scrambled to contain the inadvertently mildly subversive idea that Europe could possibly try to do anything significant on its own. Perish the thought! A house so divided against itself is not a safe place to own nukes. Secondly, nuclear weapons are, of course, meant for extreme emergencies, means of last resort either to serve deterrence by the threat of we-will-take-you-with-us retaliation when all is lost anyhow (the purpose of Britain’s and France’s arsenals) or, at best, in a situation of imminent, catastrophic defeat. One implication of this fact is that the decision to use them would end up with either one person or a very compact group hunkered down in a bunker. Who would that be in the case of the EU? The head of the commission, for instance? Someone like Ursula von der Leyen, a self-promoting, short-sighted, and reckless power-grabber, free of any electoral legitimacy, who is really serving the US and not Europe? Good luck! And how would the EU overcome the fact that any such ultimate decider would also have national allegiances: An Estonian or a Pole perhaps, from states, that is, that have their own risky agendas and, to be frank, national(ist) complexes? Or someone from Spain or Greece perhaps, from, that is, countries that may well largely escape the direct effects of a large-scale fight in central Europe, and therefore would have no sane incentive to have Madrid or Athens incinerated to make a last point about Latvia or, indeed, Germany? Set up a committee (unanimity rules or majority voting on when to push the very last red button?), and all you will get is a multiplication of clashing and divided loyalties. Thirdly, more generally, can you imagine today’s EU – or anything growing out of it – in possession of weapons of mass destruction? That is, a club of states most of which are now stubbornly complicit (International Court of Justice be damned) in an ongoing genocide in the Middle East (committed by Israel against the Palestinians), many of which have a pathological obsession with crusading against Russia, and none of which can even grasp that the greatest threat to their sovereignty comes from their “allies” in Washington. And that leads us to the final and most fundamental problem: This whole debate about nukes for Europe is based on bizarrely blinkered premises that betray that EU-Europe is by far not politically mature enough to have such weapons (if any state ever is). Because if it were, then its strategists and politicians would honestly acknowledge and discuss one simple fact: A nuclear force would have to deter every possible vitally dangerous opponent, that is, of course, including the US. Yet these are the same leaders that have simply ignored that the greatest act of war, eco-terrorism, and vital-infrastructure demolition against the EU – the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines – was launched by Washington, whether hands-on or via proxies. The EU is a large bloc of countries in an increasingly unstable and lawless world where the ever-wider proliferation of nuclear weapons will be inevitable. Hypothetically, such an entity would be a candidate for owning such weapons. Yet, in reality, the EU lacks three essential qualities to even consider acquiring them: It is far too fractious, it has no serious concept of its own interests as apart from and, indeed, opposed to the US, and it lacks an elite that could remotely be trusted with weapons capable of ending the world. There, it is of course, not alone. But isn’t one US on planet Earth bad enough already? It is not a secret that Julian Assange can divide opinion. But now is a time to put all such issues firmly to one side. Now is a time to stand by Mr Assange, and to do so on principle, for the sake of his freedom – and ours.
There can be no divide over the attempt by the United States to have the WikiLeaks founder extradited from Britain to face charges under the US Espionage Act, which reaches a critical stage in London this week. The application embodies not just a threat to Mr Assange personally. It is also, as this newspaper has consistently argued over many years, an iniquitous threat to journalism, with global implications. It poses the most fundamental of questions about free speech. On these grounds alone, Mr Assange’s extradition should be unhesitatingly opposed. In 2010, WikiLeaks published revelatory US government documents exposing diplomatic and military policy in the Afghan and Iraq wars. Four years ago, during the Trump presidency, the US justice department issued a WikiLeaks-related indictment of 18 counts against Mr Assange. It charged him with multiple breaches of the 1917 Espionage Act, a statute that originally clamped down on opposition to America’s entry into the first world war. In recent years, though, the act has mainly been invoked against leakers. Earlier targets included the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who passed documents to the New York Times exposing US government lies about the Vietnam war. Those charges were eventually dismissed, but it was a close-run thing. The Espionage Act contains no public interest defence. A person charged under it cannot present evidence about the content of the material leaked, cannot say why they did what they did and cannot argue that the public had a right to know about the issues. Those restrictions are no more acceptable in Mr Assange’s case than in Mr Ellsberg’s time. The free press still matters. Journalists sometimes depend on whistle blowers. The relationship between them is particularly delicate and important in cases where national security is invoked. When the unequalled global power of the US is involved, the stakes are especially large. But even national security, and certainly the national security of a global superpower, cannot in every single circumstance invariably override the public interest in publication and the right to know. That was the core issue in the Ellsberg case, as it also was in the WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden cases. In Espionage Act prosecutions, however, that public interest argument is always muzzled. This week, Mr Assange’s lawyers will seek leave to appeal against the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then home secretary Priti Patel. If he is extradited, and unless the UK relents or President Biden intervenes, he faces a criminal trial in which his arguments will be silenced, and a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for each of the Espionage Act charges. If convicted, he could be locked away for his lifetime. The implications for journalism are every bit as serious. This newspaper’s journalism, and that of potentially every newspaper based in the US or an allied country, would be at risk too. If the prosecution succeeds, the New York Times lawyer in the Pentagon Papers case has said, “investigative reporting based on classified information will be given a near death blow”. That prospect is on the line in the courts this week. A society that claims to uphold freedom of the press cannot possibly remain indifferent. |
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