GRAND REDESIGNS....WILL TAKE PLACE

From The Economist - June 20 - 2020

Reform

Grand redesigns

The structures built in 1945 are not fit for 2020, let alone beyond it

“If you didn't have the UN you really would have to reinvent it," says Stephen Schlesinger, author of a history of its founding. Maybe, but nobody in their right mind would design it as it exists today, insiders complain of a tangle of overlapping agencies, senseless silos and barricaded budgets. "If you locked a team of evil geniuses in a laboratory, they could not design a bureaucracy so maddeningly complex," one departing official despaired. Outsiders face a forbidding confusion of agencies with acronyms. Many do great work (wfp and unhcr), others have a mixed record (who and fao), a few are useless (unido). And at the top the structure reflects the world of 1945, as if little had changed since.

This was not what the founders envisaged. Hailing the charter, Truman said it had "not been poured into a fixed mould", but would be adjusted in line with changing conditions. In fact the only changes have been minor ones, to take account of the growth of un membership. In 1965 the Security Council expanded from 11 members to 15. But whereas it included 22% of General Assembly members in 1945, it now has just 8%. Its veto-wielding P5 remain the victorious powers of 75 years ago, with no representation from Latin America, Africa or South Asia. Without change, the legitimacy gap will only grow.

This might matter less if the council were working effectively, but it is not. There have been worse periods. In 1959 the council passed just one resolution, to appoint a committee to report on Laos. "By historical standards, this is still a reasonably active institution," says Mr Gowan of the icg. But it is increasingly crippled by great-power rivalry. The relationship between the three biggest powers, America, China and Russia, "has never been as dysfunctional as it is today," says Mr Guterres.

Veto use has risen. In the past five years Russia has wielded 14 vetoes, China five and America two (Britain and France have refrained from using theirs since 1989). In response to the Ebola crisis in west Africa in 2014 the Security Council passed a resolution calling the outbreak "a threat to international peace and security". Over Covid-19 it dithered for weeks and then struggled to agree to a resolution calling for a 90-day pause in hostilities in conflict-ridden countries, as China and America quarrelled over whether to refer to the who (China said yes, knowing America would say no). Instead of putting momentum behind the secretary-general's ceasefire appeal, the council stayed paralysed.

Its credibility is slipping. The arms embargo on Libya is ignored. Russia's behaviour is a big worry. "The existential problem is that countries respect the decisions of the Security Council less and less," says Karen Pierce, until recently Britain's ambassador at the UN, now its ambassador in Washington. Normally the P5 is there to uphold the rules, says Ms Pierce, but, referring to Russia's support for Syria, "for a ps member to think it's ok to condone the use of chemical weapons is quite a major shift."

Could reform help? 

To ensure that the council remains representative, suggests Stewart Patrick of the Council on Foreign Relations, an American think-tank, "ideally you'd have something like the Premier League, with relegation and promotion." But try agreeing on a formula. For over a decade, an intergovernmental group at the UN has grappled with how the council might take in more countries. Which ones? Should they be permanent with a veto, or non-permanent without one? Or perhaps something in-between, with longer non-permanent terms?

A group of four (G4) countries with the strongest claims to the top table—Brazil, Germany, India and Japan—are keen to get a move on. Africans see it as a historical injustice that they did not get a permanent seat at the outset, but their own rivalries stop them specifying which countries they would pick, so they stick with an overall demand for two permanent seats plus an expansion of non-permanent ones. Another group of a dozen countries wary of the G4, including Argentina, Italy, Pakistan and South Korea, argue against expansion of permanent members and instead want more non-permanent ones. One approach could be to look at non-permanent ones first, and come back to the permanent ones later. But the G4 resist this as a recipe for denying their claims.

In this process, you get "some of the most creative, passionate, articulate speeches that I see permanent representatives give," says Lana Nusseibeh, the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the UN, who co-chairs the intergovernmental group, "because this issue speaks to their core national interests." And even if new permanent members were agreed to, a bigger Security Council might not be more effective. Any change needs an amendment of the charter, which requires the votes of two-thirds of the General Assembly and the approval of the current P5. In short, many stars would have to align. In the meantime, lesser changes could help. For example, many would like the Security Council to become more transparent in its work.

To be the very model of a modern multilateral

In the UN secretariat itself, reform is also a hard slog. Power rests in the member countries, which limit freedom of manoeuvre, not least over the budget. The regular budget of about $3bn (there is a separate one for peacekeeping) relies on national contributions, assessed through a formula based largely on economic size. America's share, at 22%, remains the biggest, though China's has risen fast, overtaking Japan's. Once the budget is set, countries are supposed to pay up within 30 days. But roughly 30% of the money comes in the final two months of the year, creating the risk of a cash crunch in September, just when the UN hosts its General Assembly. It has a reserve of only about $350m and is not allowed to borrow. Last year escalators were switched off for a while at the New York headquarters to conserve cash. Earlier this year payments for peacekeepers were delayed.

Worse still is the budget's rigidity. Bosses cannot use savings in one area to spend in another. Decisions have to go laboriously through the bureaucracy, with scrutiny from something called the Fifth Committee and a fun-sounding Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. Even moving a mid-level post requires the unanimous approval of all 193 countries. "It's crazy that the secretary-general doesn't have more flexibility," says one Western diplomat on the Fifth Committee.

Mr Guterres has sought to break down silos and improve coordination. But the pandemic has shown the need for a stronger form of governance, he believes. "Today we have a multilateralism that has no teeth," he says, "and wherever there are teeth, as in the Security Council, there is no appetite to bite." Multilateralism needs to evolve in two ways, he argues: it must become more "networked" and more "inclusive". By networked he means working closely with other organizations, to achieve joined-up action on interconnected issues affecting a specific region or problem.

Take the Sahel. No single organization can tackle its intertwined security, development and political troubles. Collaboration is needed with the African Union, the African Development Bank, the World Bank and other institutions. The UN's co-operation with the AU is "fantastic in all areas", Mr Guterres says, and that with the World Bank and imf deeper than ever. So he reckons this side of things is already on track. But inclusivity is not. National governments that control multilateral institutions resist letting businesses, trade unions, NGOS, cities and regional administrations have any voice. Mr Guterres is using the 75th anniversary as an excuse for a campaign to open up global governance. ■

SO  THE  WORLD  NATIONS  ARE  MOVING  WITH  THIS  AND  THAT;  BUT  MOVING  IS  NOT  EASY  BY  THE  SOUNDS  OF  THIS  ARTICLE.

INDEED  THINGS  WILL  MOVE  IN  THE  FUTURE  IN  WAYS  MOST  PEOPLE  DO  NOT  KNOW,  AND  WILL  BE  SURPRISED  AT.

Keith Hunt

COVID ECONOMY---- GERMANY LEADS THE WAY!

The Economist June 20th 2020

The Covid economy

Spending big to save jobs

Europe's furlough schemes seek to prevent mass unemployment

For many economists, the model for a Covid-19 furlough scheme has been Germany's. It already had a good record, managing to avoid big job losses during the global, financial crisis of 2008-09. Then, the German government paid the bulk of wages of people who had temporarily stopped working, rather than letting their employers fire them altogether. It did not prevent a nasty recession, but remarkably few jobs were lost.

Can other countries successfully copy Germany? German economists answer "Jein"—both yes and no. First of all, Kurzarbeit (Germany's furlough scheme) is being tested on an unprecedented scale. Whereas at the peak of the financial crisis in May 2009 just under 1.5m German workers were furloughed, 7.3m employees in Germany were on short-term work in May, according to the ifo Institute for Economic Research, a think-tank.

Second, no one knows when the effects of the pandemic will end, or whether there will be a second wave, whereas during the financial crisis it was generally (and rightly) assumed that the recession would be brutal but short. Also, Germany's scheme dovetailed well with other aspects of German corporate governance, such as workers' representation on company boards. These stopped bosses firing employees as soon as the economy turned sour.

Nearly all pundits agree that Kurzarbeit is a useful tool. Alexander Herzog-Stein of the Hans Bockler Institute, a think-tank close to trade unions, likens it to a bridge— "but there must be a shore on the other side." The German scheme is limited to 12 months. The state usually pays 60% of net wages (67% for employees with children), though the government recently decided to raise those contributions incrementally to a maximum of 80% (and 87%) for employees who have been furloughed for seven months or more. During the financial crisis many furloughed workers had well-paid jobs at manufacturing plants. This time, many come from low-paid jobs in retail or hospitality. They would find it hard to make ends meet on 60% of their pay.

The German scheme has been doing the trick. The registered unemployment rate rose to 6.3% in May, up from 5.8% in April. But mass lay-offs have been avoided. The same goes for furlough programmes in France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. France's chomage partiel was benefiting 8.6m workers at the end of April. The state pays up to 84% of net salary, to a ceiling of €4,608 a month. Employees on the minimum wage still get the full amount. As with the German scheme! it is flexible: firms can claim just a part of a worker's salary if he or she is putting in reduced hours.

These generous schemes in France and Germany have attracted crooks. The French labour ministry has spotted several types of fraud. Some companies have claimed subsidized wages for employees who have kept working (sometimes even on overtime). Others have submitted claims for more than employees actually earn. By some estimates, as much as 10% of furlough pay is lost to fraud. Muriel Penicaud, France's labour minister, has announced that 50,000 companies' returns will be scrutinized until the end of the summer.

Those sceptical of furlough schemes argue that they are costly and keep alive badly run companies that should die. The cost is indeed gargantuan, but so is the cost of deep recessions. The usual German Kurzarbeit pay is the equivalent of what, on average, people younger than 50 are paid in their first year at work. Some workers would stay in employment anyway, so the payment is wasted on them. Yet it is probably worth subsidizing them, saving tens of thousands of jobs, even if that keeps some corporate duds alive for a bit longer.

Oliver Stettes of the Cologne Institute for Economic Research says Austria illustrates why such schemes are working. The registered unemployment rate there rose to 12.8% in April (5.5 percentage points more than a year before). However, once a much improved scheme was brought in, replacing up to 90% of wages, the jobless rate steadied at 11.5% in May. Short-time work schemes are a useful way to bridge a short period of low demand for economies that do not suffer from fundamental structural weaknesses. Depending on the shape of the recovery, unemployment in Euro-zone countries may eventually rise once the money runs out—but less than it would have done without furlough schemes. ■

ONCE  MORE  WE  SEE  GERMANY  RISING  UP  AND  LEADING------

YES  GERMANY  WILL  SPEAR-HEAD  A  COMING  EUROPE  UNITY  OF  NATIONS,  THAT  WILL  SHAKE  THE  EARTH  TO  ITS  FOUNDATIONS  AT  THE  END  OF  THIS  AGE.

Keith Hunt

AMERICA---- LOOK OUT---- HERE COMES....

From  The  Economist - June 20 - 2020

Power plays

Who's in charge?

Any retreat by America from global leadership is an opportunity for China !

As America gets tired, China gets busy !

Crises can bring clarity, in the financial crisis of 2008-09, the G20 club of big economies came into its own, reflecting how economic power had spread beyond the rich world's G7. One thing the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare is an absence of global leadership. This time the G20 has done little beyond a rhetorical pledge to "do whatever it takes" and supporting debt-repayment suspension for poor countries. America, which led global campaigns to defeat hiv/aids and Ebola, has been absorbed in its internal arguments. And the UN Security Council has confirmed its dysfunctionality.

The council's five permanent members (P5) are split between the Western three and Russia and China; some suspect the authoritarian duo of having a formal pact. Russia wields its veto often, sometimes alongside China. Instead of leaping into action over Covid-i9, the council mustered its first discussion of the crisis only in April. France and Russia have both been keen for the leaders of the P5 to get together in the UN’s anniversary year, but have found this hard to arrange.

The pandemic hit when competition between America and China, the world's dominant and emerging superpowers, was already intense, stretching from trade and technology to finance and regional dominance in Asia. In America there is a bipartisan perception of China as a rival that steals intellectual property, takes advantage of America's openness and is intent on chipping away at America's lead. For its part, China is increasingly brazen in pushing back against America (or any country that resists it).

The Covid-19 crisis is proving a telling case study of this rivalry, as America blames China for causing the pandemic and China positions itself as the country most capable of dealing with it. Any retreat by America from global leadership is an opportunity for China to gain ground. Whereas America has suspended funding to the who, China has promised $2bn to fight the pandemic.

President Xi Jinping portrays China as a champion of multilateralism and talks of taking "an active part in leading the reform of the global governance system". China has been building channels of influence outside the institutions that America designed. It set up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, encroaching on the World Bank's territory. It has championed the brics (bringing it together with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa) and the Shanghai Co-operation Organization, an eight-member group that includes Russia and Central Asian countries as well as India and Pakistan. And then there is Mr Xi's Belt and Road Initiative (bri), an all-embracing infrastructure and development campaign.

China has also been methodically increasing its influence in existing institutions, not least the UN. It has raised its' financial support even as America became stingier, becoming the second-biggest contributor to both the general and the peacekeeping budgets. It has grown more assertive. "Ten years ago, China was pretty discreet, pretending to be just an emerging country," says one European diplomat at the UN. "Now I can tell you they are totally uninhibited, they want to run the system."

China has been patiently placing high-fliers to work their way up through the ranks. Chinese nationals now head four of the UN’s 15 specialised agencies, including the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome and the International Telecommunication Union in Geneva. Americans lead only one. Chinese officials toil away at inserting into documents favourable references to the bri and language friendly to their interpretation of human rights, stressing national sovereignty and development ("mutual respect and win-win co-operation"). Behind the scenes China twists arms to avoid criticism of its repression in Xinjiang or Tibet.

Small victories for China have mounted up, often in obscure documents and little-noticed forums, but occasionally raising eyebrows. In the 15-member Security Council, for example, the West and its friends can normally count on the requisite nine votes to get their way on procedural matters. But in March 2018 an American-backed proposal for the UN high commissioner for human rights to brief a formal session on abuses in Syria Avas defeated when, after Chinese pressure, Ivory Coast switched sides at the last minute.

The aim may not be to replace America as a superpower that bears burdens all around the world. More likely, China simply wants an unencumbered path for further development. "People's Republic of the United Nations", a report last year from the Centre for a New American Security (cnas), a think-tank, concluded that China was "making the world safe for autocracy". For a long time America paid little attention, but it is now pushing back. In January the State Department appointed a senior diplomat, Mark Lambert, to counter the "malign influence" of China and others at the UN. In March these efforts succeeded in thwarting China's bid for the top job at a fifth un agency, the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva.

At least such moves reflect a recognition by the American administration that multilateral institutions matter. Just as Mr Trump no longer calls nato "obsolete", as he did before coming to power, he may yet find more use in the UN. He would not be the first American president to come to believe that, annoying as international forums are, they are better than a constant free-for-all, and they can take some of the load off a superpower. But his transactional approach has unnerved allies, and badly dented their trust in American leadership.

In search of a middle way

As a result, "middle powers" have been searching for other ways to defend the liberal order. A white paper presented last year by Norway's foreign ministry to its parliament identified preventing the erosion of international law and multilateral systems as a "primary foreign-policy interest". In New York, France and Germany launched an Alliance for Multilateralism, with the aim of forging varied coalitions to take the initiative on issues ranging from fake news and responsible use of cyberspace to gender equality and strengthening international institutions.

Coalitions of like-minded countries have proliferated. After Mr Trump abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade deal, Australia, Japan and nine other countries pressed ahead on their own. The EU and Japan completed a trade agreement covering a third of the world's gdp. On defence, President Emmanuel Macron of France has gathered 13 other countries into a European Intervention Initiative and is ever keener on "strategic autonomy" for Europe. Asian countries worried about growing Chinese assertive-ness, and unsure of America's commitment, are deepening ties.

In such "minilateralist" or "plurilateralist" ventures, national governments are not the only actors. Regional states, non-governmental organizations (ngos) and business leaders are on stage too. In the response to Covid-19, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic giant, is taking a more prominent part than many governments. Several American states have been busy since Mr Trump withdrew from the Paris agreement. California's governor, Jerry Brown, hosted a Global Climate Action Summit in 2018. Totting up actions at subnational levels that collectively would amount to the world's second-biggest economy, one estimate suggests they could reduce America's greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030 by as much as 37% from 2005 levels.

Whether these scattered mid-level moves can amount to more than the sum of their parts is unclear. Michael Fullilove of the Lowy Institute, an Australian think-tank, suggests that like-minded countries should form a "coalition of the responsible", since some middle powers, such as Taiwan and South Korea, have distinguished themselves by their response to the pandemic, he also proposes "coalitions of the competent". Further bungling by the big powers over Covid-19 could make a concert of middle powers more urgent. But do not bank on this being a middle-power moment, says Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute, another think-tank. Without a dominant power to set an agenda, force momentum and provide a chunk of funding, it is very hard for co-operation among lesser countries "to reach escape velocity". At best it may slow rather than stop the erosion of the liberal order.

If middle powers are active, so are smaller ones. By clubbing together, even minnows can have influence. Under its charter the UN is "based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members", so each of the 193 countries in the General Assembly has one vote. India (uabn people) counts the same as Tuvalu (12,000).

The Group of 77, formed in 1964 and now embracing 134 members, pushes the interests of developing countries. It is less homogenous than it was but it can have influence (eg, over the choice of secretary-general) and get attention (picking Palestine to serve as its chair last year). The Alliance of Small Island States helped put the climate-change issue on the map. Samantha Power, America's un ambassador during Barack Obama's second term, made a point of visiting her counterparts from every member country at their New York missions: she managed all except North Korea's.

With just six embassies around the world, the diplomatic footprint of the Caribbean state of St Vincent and the Grenadines (population: 111,000) is tiny, but a good example of small-country influence. One of its embassies is in Taipei: it is among a handful of states that officially recognize Taiwan. Its mission in New York has been expanding, since St Vincent currently has one of the ten non-permanent seats on the 15-member Security Council. "The bedrock principle that all small states advocate for is adherence to international law," says Inga Rhonda King, St Vincent's ambassador. They're "very hard core" over sovereign equality, non-interference and non-intervention, she adds. The Security Council seat gives her a chance to press core concerns (especially climate security and relations with Africa) and, hers being a small country, to do so nimbly. Ms King would like to see similar nimbleness in the council's response to Covid-19, drawing attention to Africa as the pandemic's likely next frontier. ■

THINGS  ARE  TRULY  MOVING  IN  A  DIRECTION  THAT  CAN  LEAVE  THE  USA  OUT  IN  THE  COLD,  IF  IT  MUST  BE  SO.  CERTAINLY  RUSSIA  AND  CHINA  WILL  BE  QUITE  HAPPY  TO  SEE  AMERICA  FALL  BY  THE  WAY-SIDE  AS  A  LEADING  POWER,  OR  AS  THE  LEADING  POWER,  AS  IT  HAS  BEEN  TO  THIS  DATE  OF  JUNE  2020.

TIMES  ARE  MOVING  TOWARDS  A  SHAKE-UP  IN  MANY  WAYS,  ON  THE  WORLD  SCENE.

BIBLE  PROPHECY  IS  MARCHING  ON.  THE  NEXT  DECADE  WILL  BE  OF  IMMENSE  PORTEND!

Keith Hunt

MISSING IN ACTION---- MIGHTY NATIONS MOVING!

From The Economist - June 20 - 2020

SPECIAL  REPORT

Missing in action

Seventy-five years ago global leaders designed the peace even as they fought the war. Today's leaders need to do something similar, says Daniel Franklin

A few weeks after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour, Winston Churchill was a guest at the White House. President Franklin Roosevelt was so eager to tell him he had come up with a name for what would become a new world security organization that, the story goes, he hurried into Churchill's bedroom, to find the prime minister naked save for a bathrobe. What is striking about the origins of the "United Nations", Roosevelt's choice, is not this unorthodox manner of communication (a modern American president might have tweeted his idea) but that, in the midst of war, statesmen were already planning for the peace.

On the economic front, this led to the creation, in 1944 at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (imf). On the security side, plans for the UN were fleshed out at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, agreed to in outline by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta in the Crimea and finalized at a conference in San Francisco after Roosevelt's death. "Oh what a great day this can be in history," proclaimed President Harry Truman at the concluding session on June 26th 1945, when the founding charter was signed. Countries had put aside their differences "in one unshakable unity of determination—to find a way to end wars."

Euphoria soon gave way to frustration as the cold war set in. Yet, as the new organization’s second secretary-general, Dag Hammarskjold, observed, the UN "was not created to take mankind to heaven but to save humanity from hell". For 75 years there have been no world wars (though too many smaller ones). Unlike its precursor, the League of Nations, the UN has proved resilient. Its membership has grown from 51 countries to 193, through decolonization and the break-up of the Soviet empire. It sits at the centre of a rules-based world order, and its activities and those of its specialized agencies span almost every aspect of life.

Yet no international order lasts for ever. Over time the balance of power shifts, systems fail to adapt and the rot sets in. The peace after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 eroded slowly; that after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 collapsed fast. A change from one dominant power to another has usually meant war (the shift from Britain to America over a century ago being a rare exception).

Covid-19 is a new challenge. A vacuum exists where the world would normally look for American leadership. Instead it sees President Donald Trump making a fool of himself, suggesting wacky cures. Mr Trump has been more interested in blaming China for the pandemic than rallying an international response, his most prominent move being to suspend funding to the World Health Organization (who) and threaten to leave it. In March G7 foreign ministers could not even issue a statement because Mike Pompeo, America's secretary of state, insisted it refer to the "Wuhan virus".

China's initial response to the virus was a bungled cover-up, but since its harsh lockdown brought Covid-19 under control, it has touted its successes around the world and supplied protective kit to thankful countries. The Europeans, meanwhile, closed borders, including in their supposedly frontier-free Schengen area. A divided UN Security Council has been missing in action.

The world order was already looking wobbly. The global financial crisis of 2007-09 fed populism and a wariness of international institutions. These often reflect the realities of decades ago, not today (the Security Council's five veto-holding permanent members are the victorious powers of 1945), yet they resist reform. The rules remain, but the big powers increasingly feel free to ignore them. Russia has brazenly grabbed a piece of Ukraine. China has occupied disputed territories in the South China Sea.

America has long complained about the cost of propping up the multilateral system and fretted about "Gulliverization", being tied down by punier powers. Along with Britain it invaded Iraq in 2003 without a mandate from the Security Council. President Barack Obama, prioritizing "nation-building at home", began a semi-retreat from the burdens of global leadership. But the principal architect of the system now has a president who seems to delight in taking a wrecking ball to it.

Mr Trump has withdrawn from the Paris agreement on climate change and the nuclear deal with Iran. He has cast doubt on America's commitment to nato (though he has strengthened its forces in many parts of Europe). He has continued to undermine the World Trade Organization (wto) by blocking the appointment of new judges to its appellate body. He has called the European Union a "foe". His love of sanctions causes further friction, prompting complaints that America is abusing the "exorbitant privilege" of having the world's reserve currency and stimulating interest (among allies and rivals alike) in reducing the dollar's dominance.

At the UN, America's allies complain that Mr Trump "cherry-picks". What is new is not pulling out of an agency or two (Mr Trump has pulled out of the Paris-based education and cultural agency, unesco, and the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, complaining of anti-Israel bias), but the lack of commitment to the system. His America First rhetoric echoes the language of Henry Cabot Lodge, an isolationist senator who successfully fought against joining the League of Nations in the 1920s. It is a stark contrast with the internationalism of Roosevelt and Truman. "The future does not belong to globalists," Mr Trump told the UN General Assembly last September. "The future belongs to patriots." All this means that, far from looking forward to a happy birthday, the UN approaches its 75th anniversary in a state of high anxiety.

Its secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, a jovial former prime minister of Portugal, divides the UN’s history into three periods. The first was "bipolar", characterized by cold-war rivalry between America and the Soviet Union. Although the Security Council was largely frozen, there was a certain predictability in the stand-off, and the UN was inventive enough to expand into areas such as peacekeeping, which is not even mentioned in its charter.

After the collapse of communism came a brief "unipolar" period, when America's dominance was barely contested. The Security Council was able to function as its founders envisaged, launching a flurry of peace missions as well as authorizing the American-led liberation of Kuwait in 1991. George Bush senior hailed a "new world order". The UN developed the principle of a "responsibility to protect" populations against mass atrocities.

But, bogged down in the Middle East and Afghanistan, America has grown weary and inward-looking. In the wider world, wariness about the West imposing its values, especially by force, has increased. A revanchist Russia and a soaring China increasingly challenge America's supremacy. The Security Council is once again stuck, reflecting renewed great-power rivalry. This third period, as Mr Guterres sees it, is still unsettled. "The world is not yet multipolar, it's essentially chaotic," he says.

America, first

A degree of chaos is not surprising, given the dramatic shifts that are starting to divide the world into competing spheres of influence. 

Take the economy. Since 2000 China's share of global gdp at market rates has gone from less than 4% to nearly 16%. Its technology giants, such as Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei, are spreading Chinese digital infrastructure abroad, especially in emerging markets. China is the world's largest exporter, and although a relative newcomer (having joined the club only in 2001) now presents itself as chief defender of a wto under assault from America.

In finance, though the dollar still dominates, the yuan is poised to gain ground. At the imf, China remains underrepresented, with a quota and voting share of only 6%. But as the fund strives to support a stricken global economy, China will be a core consideration, whether in the design of debt relief (China is reckoned to have lent more than $140bn to African governments and state-owned enterprises since 2000) or in increasing quotas.

These upheavals spill over into the diplomatic and security dimensions that are the focus of this special report. Are the UN, and the collaborative global governance it embodies, doomed to be less relevant in a world of great-power competition? It is surely too soon to give up on them. But to retain its clout and character the liberal order needs restored leadership and difficult reforms.

The multilateral system has important strengths. One is that it is patently needed. The biggest problems cry out for international co-operation—as the pandemic powerfully illustrates. The world needs to work together on vaccines, on economic recovery and to support the most vulnerable countries. The head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, a former Republican governor of South Carolina, has said speedy action is necessary to prevent "multiple famines of biblical proportions". Concerted efforts are also needed on climate change, another challenge no country can tackle on its own. The risk of nuclear proliferation is growing.

A second advantage is that the UN is popular. It has made shameful mistakes. It failed to prevent genocide in Rwanda and Srebrenica, UN peacekeepers are blamed for bringing cholera to Haiti and sexual abuse to many of the places they were meant to protect. The UN’s oil-for-food programme with Iraq led to a $1.8bn scam. Yet it is more trusted than many governments, according to the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer. Across 32 countries surveyed by Pew last year, a median of 61% had a favourable opinion of the UN, against 26% with an unfavourable view. A comfortable majority of Americans think well of it, though there is a growing partisan divide: In another survey last year, by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, seven out of ten Americans said it would be best if the country took an active part in world affairs, close to the highest on record. That points to a final force that should not be underestimated: the potential for American re-engagement. America remains a more powerful economy with greater reach in hard and soft power than any rivals. It could again be the standard-bearer for a liberal world order.

It would be naive to expect sudden enthusiasm for multilateralism from Mr Trump—and even beyond him. American suspicion of foreign entanglements is as old as the republic. Frustration with the wto, nato and the rest was mounting before Mr Trump tapped into it. The divisions at home that have deepened under his presidency make leadership abroad harder. Still, victory for Joe Biden in the presidential election in November would be, if not exactly a game-changer, at least a game-restarter. "We will be back," Mr Biden promised last year's Munich Security Conference.

The UN wants to use its 75th anniversary for a grand consultation on the future of multilateralism. Covid-19 has hijacked the global agenda. But it also creates an opportunity. Rather than destroying the system, the upheaval could spur countries into strengthening it. That will require planning for the future while tackling the crisis of the present. Today's leaders need to emulate what their predecessors achieved so magnificently in 1945. ■

DID  YOU  CATCH  IT?  PRESIDENT  TRUMP  LOOKS  AT  EUROPE  AS  AN  ENEMY!

IN  THIS  PARTICULAR  CASE  HE  IS  HEADING  IN  THE  RIGHT  DIRECTION  OF  TRUTH.

THE  UNITED  EUROPE  WILL  EVENTUALLY  ARISE  TO  BE  THE  7TH  AND  LAST  RESURRECTION  OF  THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE!

IT  IS  A  WAYS  AWAY  FROM  THAT  RALITY  AT  PRESENT.  SO  IT  COULD  BE  MANY  YEARS [POSSIBLE  A  FEW  DECADES  AWAY]  BEFORE  EUROPE  WILL  BE  THE  MASSIVE  TRADING  POWER  OF  THE  EARTH,  PLUS  MILITARILY  ON  PAR  WITH  THE  USA,  RUSSIA,  AND  CHINA.

THEN  THE  ICING  ON  THE  CAKE  IS  EUROPE  WILL  BE  RIDDEN  AND  GUIDED  BY  THE  LARGEST  POPULAR  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH  ON  EARTH—— MAKING  IT  INDEED  A  HOLY  ROMAN/BABYLON  EMPIRE.

EUROPE  WILL  BE  SPEAR-HEADED  BY  A  MIGHTY  GERMANY;  WHO  IS  ALREADY  THE  MAIN  LEADER  OF  THIS  UNITY  OF  NATIONS.

THIS  COMING  MIGHTY  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE,  WILL PLAY  A  LEADING  ROLE  IN  BRINGING  THIS  WORLD  TO  THE  LAST  42  MONTHS  OF  THIS  AGE,  AND  THE  RETURN  OF  JESUS  CHRIST  BACK  TO  THIS  EARTH.

IT’S  ALL  COVERED  IN  THE  BOOK  OF  REVELATION  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  BIBLE.

WE  ARE  LIVING  IN  EVER  MORE  EXCITING  TIMES,  ALBEIT  FRAUGHT  WITH  DANGER  AND  MASSIVE  WORLD  UPHEAVALS  THAT  ARE  YET  TO  COME.

Keith Hunt

SYRIA---- WORSE THAN EVER!

Middle East & Africa

The Economist June 20th 2020

Syria

From bad to worse

Bashar al-Assad has no answers for a country in crisis

Though it has suffered through nine years of civil war, leaving hundreds of thousands dead, in some ways Syria is back where it started. Protesters in the southeast have been chanting anti-regime slogans, the same ones that triggered the fighting. "God, the nation and freedom," they cry, dropping Syria's dictator, Bashar al-Assad, from the official trinity. A reporter on state television, covering a sparsely attended counter-rally, struggled to find bystanders willing to praise Mr Assad. Most Syrians still complain of poverty, corruption and social inequality. "The grievances that sparked the uprising are even more pronounced today," says a university lecturer in Damascus.

With help from Iran and Russia, and by bombing and gassing his own people, Mr Assad has all but won the war. Idlib is the last big rebel stronghold in Syria. But the regime now faces new challenges that cannot be resolved with force. A collapsing currency is pushing ever more Syrians into poverty. A new raft of American sanctions will make matters worse. Opposition has cropped up even within Mr Assad's own ranks. He offers no solutions to the growing crisis.

When Mr Assad inherited the presidency from his father two decades ago, Syria was a middle-income country. Now over 80% of its people are poor. Last year GDP was thought to be about a third of what it was before the war. This year it will be even lower. A Covid-19 lockdown is partly to blame. Then there is the situation in neighbouring Lebanon. Syria's biggest foreign market and main supplier of dollars is mired in a financial crisis. With dollars scarce in both countries, the value of the Syrian pound has fallen to record lows. The currency traded at about 50 to the dollar before the war. Today a greenback fetches about 3,000 pounds on the black market. The rebels in Idlib recently adopted the Turkish lira to replace the pound.

The value of government salaries is also sinking, as prices rise. The upshot, says the UN, is that many people can no longer afford food. Even a local football hero posted a picture of himself on the street with his belongings. Pharmacies have run out of medicines because producers don't have enough money to pay for ingredients from abroad. Shops and cafes which reopened after the lockdown was lifted have quickly closed again for want of custom. In an effort to prop up its reserves of hard cash, the government has made things worse. Banks have been told to stop lending. They have switched off their cash machines and limited withdrawals. People wait outside in queues, hoping to recover what savings they can before the currency drops again.

Short on answers, as well as cash, Mr Assad has begun fleecing his own wealthy supporters. Many have acquiesced—but not Rami Makhlouf, Syria's wealthiest tycoon and Mr Assad's cousin. In May he began posting videos on social media in which he complained about the regime's heavy-handedness and its confiscation of his assets. Earlier this month Mr Assad seized Syriatel, the country's biggest mobile-network provider, from Mr Makhlouf.

Other former supporters are also turning their backs on the regime. Hundreds of members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam from which Mr Assad hails, have protested along the coast. The Druze, followers of a small esoteric religion, have taken to the streets of Suweida. "The regime's problem is with its loyalists, not with the opposition," says Ibrahim Hamidi, a Syrian journalist. But violence is also flaring in places such as Daraa, where the uprising began—and which the regime thought it had pacified.

On June 11th Mr Assad dismissed his prime minister, Imad Khamis. The president now relies on a diminishing circle of cronies. But his problems are growing. On June 17th America implemented tough new sanctions on Syria, under what is known as the Caesar Act (named after a former Syrian military photographer who smuggled pictures of torture out of the country). They target any person, company or institution—Syrian or foreign—that does business with or provides support to the regime. The legislation's net has been cast so wide that it is expected to deter investors and firms which hoped to participate in Syria's reconstruction.

Mr Assad is undoubtedly weak. Still, he is probably not going anywhere. His people are worn out; millions depend on him to allow the delivery of UN food aid. Four decades of sanctions have taught the regime how to cope with pressure and redirect blame. It says the West is waging an economic war on Syria, after failing to unseat Mr Assad by arming the rebels. It castigates America for handing the territory containing Syria's oilfields and its bread basket to the Kurds. It is falling back on old smuggling routes, mostly through Lebanon, and creating new ones. Most importantly, Russia and Iran continue to prop up the dictator. They are still hoping for a return on their investment. ■

WHAT  A  HUGE  SHAME  THE  WEST  [AMERICA  AND  BRITAIN]  DID  NOT  SEND  IN  A  JAMES  BOND  TO  SEE  ASSAD  WAS  6  FEET  UNDER,  WAY  WAY  BACK—— Keith Hunt

WORLD ORDER OUT OF DIS-ORDER!

The Economist June 20th 2020

Geopolitics

The new world disorder

If America pulls back from global institutions, other countries must step forward

Seventy-five years ago in San Francisco 50 countries signed the charter that created the United Nations—they left a blank space for Poland, which became the 51st founding member a few months later. In some ways the un has exceeded expectations. Unlike the League of Nations, set up after the first world war, it has survived. Thanks largely to decolonization, its membership has grown to 193. There has been no third world war.

And yet the un is struggling, as are many of the structures, like the World Trade Organization (wto) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (npt), designed to help create order out of chaos. This system, with the un at its apex, is beset by internal problems, by the global struggle to cope with the rise of China, and most of all by the neglect—antipathy even—of the country that was its chief architect and sponsor, the United States.

The threat to the global order weighs on everyone, including America. But if the United States pulls back, then everyone must step forward, and none more so than the middling powers like Japan and Germany, and the rising ones like India and Indonesia, which have all become accustomed to America doing the heavy lifting. If they hesitate, they will risk a great unravelling—much like the nightmare in the 1920s and 1930s that first impelled the allies to create the un and its siblings.

The un is bureaucratic and infuriating. Its agencies fall prey to showboating and hypocrisy, as when despots on its Human Rights Council censure Israel yet again. The Security Council gives vetoes to Britain and France, much diminished powers since 1945, but no permanent membership to Japan, India, Brazil, Germany or any African country. Alas, it looks virtually un-reformable.

Nonetheless, the global order is worth saving. As Dag Hammarskjold, a celebrated secretary-general, said, the un "was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell." Our special report this week explains how the un does that essential job, as do many other multilateral institutions. Its peacekeepers protect 125m people on a budget only a bit bigger than New York City Police Department's. It says it is helping provide life-saving assistance to 103m. For all the Security Council's flaws, it would be missed.

That is because, left to themselves, countries drift into antagonism. Witness the fatal clash of Indian and Chinese forces this week over a border dispute both sides are too proud to defuse. Multilateral endeavours like the un, nato and the npt cannot ensure peace, but they do make war less likely and more limited. France and its allies are helping contain the conflict spreading across the Sahel.

Without a multilateral effort, old problems are likely to deepen—even Syria, after nine bloody years, will one day be ready for the un envoy's plans for peace. Meanwhile new problems are more likely to go unsolved. The pandemic is an example. The virus not only calls for global solutions, like treatments and vaccines, but it also aggravates local insecurity (see International section). It is the same with climate change and organized crime.

Protecting the system from the forces of disorder is easier said than done. One threat is antagonism between America and China, which could create gridlock in global bodies, exacerbated by competing parallel financial and security arrangements. Another is that America may continue its careless treatment of multilateral institutions—especially if President Donald Trump behaves as badly in a second term as a devastating new book by John Bolton, his former national security adviser, says he has in his first (see United States section). Mr Trump has undermined the World Health Organization and the wto, and this month said that he would pull out a third of the American troops stationed in Germany, enfeebling nato and limiting America's scope to project power from Europe into Africa.

Happily, the world has not yet reached the point of no return. For decades the middling powers have depended on America for the system's routine maintenance. Today they need to take on more of the work themselves. France and Germany have created an alliance for multilateralism, an initiative that is open to other countries. Another idea is for nine democracies, including Japan, Germany, Australia and Canada, which together generate a third of world GDP, to form a "committee to save the world-order". Although America is dominant, other countries can still get things done—with or without help from the White House. Sometimes the aim is to bind in America. After a chemical-weapons attack on Sergei Skripal, a Russian ex-spy living in Britain, Western countries' imposition of sanctions on the Kremlin swept up America, too. The Quad is an emerging coalition between India, Australia, Japan and America, which are all alarmed at Chinese expansion, including in the South China Sea.

Sometimes, however, the world must work without America even if that is second-best. After Mr Trump walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a huge trade deal, the other members went ahead on their own. Stymied at the wto, countries are instead forming regional and bilateral trade arrangements, such as one between Japan and the European Union and another between 28 countries in Africa.

Defending the international order is necessary, too. China's stature is growing along with its contributions—it now pays 12% of the un budget compared with 1% in 2000. Its diplomats head four of the UN's 15 specialized agencies, and America just one. If other countries do not act, the system will come to reflect China's expansive views of national sovereignty and resistance to intervention, even in the face of gross human-rights violations. Some think the job of middling powers is triage, to keep the system goinguntil America returns to the party under a different president. It is more than that. Although polls suggest that most Americans would like to play a bigger global role, there is no going back to the "unipolar moment" after the Soviet collapse, when America ran the show singled-handed. Not only did that provoke a backlash abroad, exploited by Russia and China, but it also stirred up resentment at home.

At the time, President Barack Obama responded by asking like-minded countries to help America make the world safe. They shrugged. They must not make the same mistake again. ■

THERE  IS  COMING  IN  EUROPE  A  MIGHTY  TRADING  POWER,  WITH  GERMANY  LEADING  THE  WAY.

THE  POPULAR  CHRISTIAN  CHURCH  OF  EUROPE  WILL  RISE  ALSO  WITH  INFLUENTIAL  MIGHT,  THAT  WILL  FOR  THE  7TH  AND  LAST  TIME,   BRING  THE  WORLD  A  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE.

WHAT  ALL  OF  THIS  PORTENDS  FOR   THE  WHOLE  WORLD,  WILL  BE  UNPRECEDENTED,  IN  HISTORY.

BIBLE  PROPHECY  GIVES  ALL  THE  INS  AND  OUTS,  ALL  THE  DETAILS,  WRITTEN  IN  ADVANCE,   AND  AS  SURE  AS  THE  RISING  OF  THE  SUN.

I  HAVE  EXPOUNDED  ALL  BIBLE  PROPHECY  ON  MY  WEBSITE——  www.keithhunt.com   UNDER  “END  TIME  PROPHECY.”

Keith Hunt   

WHAT MOST OF US HAVE FORGOTTEN.....IN THIS COVID-19

From The Economist - June 20 - 2020

Global trade

Invisible hands

It is not Covid-19 that has trapped merchant seamen on their ships. It is official indifference

As you read this, over 60,000 cargo ships are on the high seas, laden with iPhones from China, dresses from Bangladesh, beef from Argentina, oil from the Gulf and much, much more. The industry likes to say that it is responsible for "90% of everything". Indeed, its ships are the circulatory system of global commerce and their 1.2m merchant seamen its lifeblood. They enable nations to turn their comparative advantage into wealth. If they were to stop, much of humanity would soon begin to starve or freeze.

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic merchant seamen have kept working. But they have been stuck on board. In a normal week around 50,000 finish their contracts and are relieved. The virus has cut that number to almost nothing. Over 250,000 mariners are stranded at sea, even though they are at least a month past the end of contracts that typically last three to nine months. Each day that total rises, and an essential job starts to look more like indentured labour.

Most merchant seamen are from developing countries, in particular India, Indonesia and the Philippines. 

They start and end their contracts in whatever port a shipping schedule stipulates. The ship-management firms that organize rosters and contracts for shipowners fly them out and back again. But most commercial flights have been grounded for months. Managers would have used charter planes, but many countries are refusing entry to non-citizens. Some are turning citizens away, too. Sailors are forbidden to disembark, and their reliefs are barred from entry.

The situation is unjust to sailors both on board and onshore. The first lot do not know when they will see their families again; the second do not know when they will next be able to earn a wage. It is also dangerous. Fatigue makes it hard to concentrate, and cargo ships are high-pressure, high-risk places. Forcing sailors to work endlessly is a recipe for accidents.

In the pandemic's early days, governments could perhaps have been forgiven for their neglect. There was much else to worry about. But their confinement has dragged on and sailors now have every right to feel bitter. After being locked down for months, seeing nobody but the odd pilot or port official, they are some of the world's least likely virus-spreaders. They know that they are being ignored simply because they can be. Lorry-drivers [truck drivers], whose goods cannot cross borders without them, were quickly classed as essential workers. Sailors, unfortunately for them, can stay on board while their cargoes are loaded and unloaded. On June 16th an industry-wide agreement allowing emergency extensions to labour contracts expired. Unless crew-changes restart, insurance contracts could lapse—a headache for the entire industry.

But it is governments, not shipowners and managers, who must solve the problem. Last month the International Maritime Organization, an arm of the UN, published a protocol for safe crew-changes in the pandemic. Almost no country has yet got round to implementing it. The most important step is to classify merchant seamen as essential workers, thus enabling them to cross borders and travel to and from ports during lockdowns. Ports and airports need holding facilities and accommodation for testing and quarantine for sailors. In ordinary times, all this might seem onerous. But the Covid-19 world is one where hairdressers sterilize their scissors between cuts and offices allocate desks on a rota to maintain social distancing. Shipping needs to adapt to these new realities, too.

Global trade's invisible hands must not be forgotten. When their work is done, they deserve to go home. ■