🔎Picks of the Week — July 10
SBA Loans, 7/7 Anniversary, Bolsonaro, UK Saudi Arms, Conflict Gold, Ivory Coast
Hello! It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another edition of Picks of the Week where we’ll dissect the most interesting and shocking news from around the world. We’ll travel from Brazil to Yemen, to Uganda, the Ivory Coast, and then return home to the UK and U.S. Before we get started, I wanted to plug next week’s podcast episode with legendary behavioural scientist Cass Sunstein, author of the widely-influential book Nudge, and one of the foremost documenters of decision making in our lifetime. I’m speaking to Cass later and it promises to be a fascinating conversation, so keep an eye out for that. Right, let’s get to it! 🤓
Big thanks to Lawson for sharing our election round up from Croatia and the Dominican Republic from this week… ☺️
Just like me god dammit!
Hello. Each newsletter takes a real long time to put together. It’s totally worth it, but if you could click the heart at the top of the page, I’ll receive additional dopamine that’ll carry me through the day. Please and thank you. 🙏
Job Corner
Deadlines this week for jobs at CBC, CTV, the Pulitzer Center, The Texas Tribune, Vox Media and Yahoo News. Spread the word. 🤜🤛
Bolsonaro Tempts Fate
We’ll start things off in Brazil where President Jair Bolsonaro has been busy on a number of fronts. On Tuesday Bolsonaro announced that he tested positive for Covid-19 after months of downplaying the severity of the virus and refusing to issue a nationwide lockdown (although there were local lockdowns in Brazil). Contracting the virus responsible for the worst pandemic in a century didn’t stop Bolsonaro from mocking wearing masks while reportedly using a homophobic slur, as part of a long-running history against the LGBTQ+ community. If that’s not enough, Facebook suspended several accounts that spread disinformation and divisive political messages by members of Bolsonaro’s team, including two of his sons. And zooming out slightly, The New Yorker’s excellent piece on how Covid-19 has highlighted the country’s flawed racial, gender and social system — the six richest men hold the same wealth as the poorest half of the entire population — that’s resulted in deaths in Brazil having overwhelmingly affected poor black and brown people.
Source: Worldometers
UK Saudi Sales
The UK has resumed arms sales to Saudi Arabia after an “official review” ruled that Saudi airstrikes using missiles made by UK companies that broke humanitarian law were just a few “isolated incidents”. The “official review” comes more than a year after the Court of Appeal ruled them unlawful because ministers hadn’t properly assessed the risk of civilian casualties. The wider context surrounding this issue involves a bloody civil war in Yemen that started in 2015, which has seen an estimated 100,000 people killed and has left approximately 24 million people in need of aid. A Saudi-led coalition has intervened with deadly airstrikes targeting the Houthi movement, with an estimated 127 missiles fired by the U.S. in 2017. As if the West hasn’t learned its lesson by now, military interventions rarely end well and often come back to haunt years later.
Source: Statis
Conflict Gold
Moving to central Africa now as an underground market of smuggled gold has emerged on the porous border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Record amounts of mined gold in Eastern Congo are being stamped with fake Ugandan certificates, and is then shipped internationally from India to Belgium. Uganda exported almost 30,000 kilograms of gold last year, despite mining just 13 kilograms. According to plane manifests seen by my Wall Street Journal colleagues, the gold is being shipped in and amongst Covid-19 aid to various countries, as the price of gold has hit record levels in recent weeks. More problematic than just exchanging hands illegally is the fact that the smuggled gold is being used to fund regional wars.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Ivory Coast
Staying in Africa as we move west to Cote d'Ivoire as the country’s prime minister died on Wednesday after suddenly falling ill following a cabinet meeting. Sixty-one-year-old Amadou Gon Coulibaly had recently returned from France where he received two months of heart treatment including a stent insertion, and had a heart transplant in 2012. Coulibaly had been chosen to become the incumbent Rally of the Republicans’ (don’t be fooled, apparently they’re liberal) chosen candidate to succeed friend and mentor Alassane Ouattara in October’s presidential election. Ouattara bucked a trend in the region in March by announcing he wouldn’t stand for a third term, so the hunt is back on for his successor.
7/7 Anniversary
Moving north to the UK now as we remember the victims of the 7/7 bombings in London 15 years ago this week. Fifty two people were murdered and 700 injured when terrorists detonated four bombs across the city in the UK’s deadliest attack in recent memory. If there is any positive news, it’s that terrorist attacks in the UK are down significantly relative to the past half a century. During the 1970s, 80s and 90s the Irish Republican Army wrecked deadly havoc as they sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland and the reunification of Ireland. The worrying news is that the New IRA, established in 2012 by members from multiple terrorist groups, have waged a new deadly war. In 2017, the New IRA claimed responsibility for the murder of journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead while covering riots in Derry.
Washington Post Sues SBA for Loans Data
And lastly this week is the news that the Small Business Administration finally disclosed data on 660,000 loans, but only after the Washington Post sued them to obtain the public data. Thanks to our friends at the Post, you can mine the data yourself, and it immediately becomes clear why the SBA did everything to keep bury the data. Per the WaPo:
Data released Monday by the Small Business Administration shows that businesses owned by members of Congress and the law practice that represented President Trump were among the hundreds of thousands of firms that received aid from the agency.
As part of its $660 billion small-business relief program, the SBA also handed out loans to private schools catering to elite clientele, firms owned by foreign companies and large chains backed by well-heeled Wall Street firms. Nearly 90,000 companies in the program took the aid without promising on their applications they would rehire workers or create jobs.