The Economist (November 19)
“Reagan’s America was optimistic: Mr Trump’s is angry. Welcome to the new nationalism. For the first time since the second world war, the great and rising powers are simultaneously in thrall to various sorts of chauvinism. Like Mr Trump, leaders of countries such as Russia, China and Turkey embrace a pessimistic view that foreign affairs are often a zero-sum game in which global interests compete with national ones. It is a big change that makes for a more dangerous world.”
Tags: Angry, Chauvinism, China, Compete, Dangerous, Foreign affairs, Nationalism, Optimistic, Pessimistic, Reagan, Russia, Trump, Turkey, Zero-sum game
Washington Post (June 9)
“Kim Jong Un is a weak leader in every respect but one: He pushes ahead relentlessly on a program to build missiles carrying miniaturized nuclear warheads.” It is likely that “the next U.S. president could confront a genuinely dangerous threat from a faraway place: a North Korean missile that could hit U.S. territory with a nuclear warhead.”
Tags: Dangerous, Kim Jong Un, Leader, Missiles, North Korean, Nuclear warheads, Threat, U.S.
Financial Times (March 22)
Many hope that negative interest rates will “encourage banks to lend more plentifully and cheaply and help support economic recovery.” This might instead prove “a dangerous experiment with diminishing positive impact.” The optimistic forecasts overlook “how financial intermediaries may actually respond.” Negative rates “erode banks’ margins. They give lenders an incentive to shrink, not grow. They encourage banks to seek out opportunities overseas rather than in their home markets. They also risk disruptions to bank funding. All go against the grain of the central banks’ desire to ease credit conditions and support financial stability.”
Tags: Banks, Credit, Dangerous, Diminishing positive impact, Economic recovery, Experiment, Financial stability, Intermediaries, Lending, Margins, Negative interest rates, Overseas
Washington Post (March 15)
“The Obama administration is moving toward what could be a dangerous showdown with China over the South China Sea…. What makes this dispute so explosive is that it pits an American president who needs to affirm his credibility as a strong leader against a risk-taking Chinese president who has shown disregard for U.S. military power and who faces potent political enemies at home.”
Tags: China, Credibility, Dangerous, Disregard, Military power, Obama, Risk-taking, Showdown, South China Sea, Strong leader, U.S.
New York Times (April 20)
“The high season of migration from Africa to Europe has begun, bringing with it a new wave of tragic drownings in the Mediterranean…. Unless Europe acts to reform its policy on migration, 2015 could be the deadliest year yet for the thousands of people who fled to Libya from conflict-torn regions across the Middle East and Africa, only to find Libya equally dangerous.”
Tags: Africa, Conflict, Dangerous, Deadliest, Drownings, Europe, Libya, Mediterranean, Middle East, Migration
Financial Times (September 18)
South Korea is increasingly turning to immigrants to fill 3D jobs considered dirty, difficult and dangerous. The “migrant worker population that has risen to around 540,000 from 49,500 in 1990” looks poised to continue growing. “With a looming demographic crunch driven by one of the world’s lowest birth rates, the reliance on foreign labour is likely to spread more broadly in this increasingly mature economy.”
Tags: Birth rates, Dangerous, Demographics, Difficult, Dirty, Foreign labour, Immigrants, Mature economy, Migrant workers, Population, South Korea
USA Today (September 4)
“As evidence mounts that permanent brain damage and dementia are legacies of some still-unknown number of NFL careers, the league faces a dilemma: Bone-jarring hits are an unavoidable part of football, but if the game gets too brutal, fans and the parents of prospective players could abandon it…. Making an inherently violent game less dangerous won’t be easy.”
Tags: Brain damage, Career, Dangerous, Dementia, Evidence, Fans, Football, Game, Hits, NFL, Parents, Players, Violent
Los Angeles Times (December 18)
“North Korea’s first successful rocket launch is a truly dangerous development. Although the North Koreans have previously detonated two nuclear devices, until now they have not demonstrated any ability to deliver them…. We can no longer afford to ignore North Korea.”
Tags: Dangerous, Launch, North Korea, Nuclear, Rocket
