Category Archives: Socio-economic Collapse

Forget the Great Reset: thats just the babbling of the red-pilled Russian bots. No, according to rocks most prescient oracle of apocalypse, you need to be prepping for the Great Transition.

Transition thats the word Id use now. As the morning staff of The Ivy restaurant in central London scuttle around, wondering if their dress code includes sci-fi bomber jackets, Matt Bellamy, at a corner table, accelerates to verbal light speed as he rockets past climate disasters, energy crises, social disorder and economic collapse, and reaches the crux of humanitys existential dilemma.

End is coming, says Muses motormouth of truth, more philosophical at 43 than the yowling young doom-monger of the 00s. The end of what, though? Its not the end of humans. Its definitely not the end of the world. Its definitely not the end of evolution. In reality, if were honest about it, its not even the end of humanity, right? But its the end of something. Its the end of a certain cycle of civilisation

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

Thoughts bubble and burble from the depths of the Muse mainframe; incisive and insightful ideas and observations on our fast-corroding planet. Over a mind-expanding hour, Matt delivers an advanced, updated take on the sci-fi meta-politics that the Devon-formed band have been making rock-like earthbound meteorites of since 1998. These are the sort of concerns that Matt largely put aside for 2018s 80s themed metaverse fantasy album Simulation Theory, but has returned to with a screeching tech-metal passion on forthcoming ninth album Will Of The People written and part-recorded remotely during the pandemic (until Matt, drummer Dom Howard and bassist Chris Wolstenholme could get together at Abbey Road to finish it) and saturated with its horrors.

Here rising populism, political manipulation, the Capitol insurrection, domestic violence, COVID, online thought control and climate disaster come across the Bellamy pulpit over 10 tracks, concluding with the unflinching assessment that We Are Fucking Fucked. Thematically we went into fantasy Metaverse fictional world a little bit on the last album, Matt says later, which I like, and I think well go back there again in the future and go even weirder, just become a bunch of avatars and download ourselves into the metaverse. But the idea was: the next one, lets make it a bit more about whats actually happening in the world right now. That was the end of 2019 [when] we made that decision. What I didnt know was what was about to happen.

The idea for this album was: Lets make it about whats actually happening in the world right now

Well come to all that. For now, Matts train of thought is still hurtling headlong towards the end of civilisations tracks.

If you look through history, its just cycles that come and go, he says, diving deep into a state-of-the-globe address with the merest provocation. Some people call them debt cycles; it relates to credit and money and how banking systems work. Cycles can last a few hundred years or they can last a few decades. Essentially its coming to a pinch point where theres going to be a disruption. Everyones doing everything they can to pretend thats not going to happen or to try and maintain the status quo [but] the longer they hold on to this, the worse its going to be when it happens. If we can just make the transition a little bit more gradual, it might happen a bit less violently.

But its gonna be a big, big shift. Youre talking about an economic collapse, shift and reinvention, total energy transition. Thats really what were dealing with here: a disruptive transition.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

Matt already sees potential triggers for major upheaval everywhere. Referring to the storming of Washingtons Capitol Building last year, he says: You have the January 6 situation in the United States and everyone for a minute there was like, That could have been it. That could have been the trigger: civil war and boom! Were off. A tipping point. Then theres a little moment where Biden comes in and everyone goes, Ah, OK, lets all pretend its normal again, but its not is it? Then some psychopath comes along like Putin and authoritarianism starts to threaten everything that the West has stood for. Its starting to get prodded. The system that were used to is now getting openly, violently prodded in our face.

Theres a line in the new albums glam metal title track that sums up Matts mindset: We need a revolution so long as we stay free. In the video, too, a group of masked post-apocalyptic insurrectionists pull down the statues of the evil old world order (played by Muse), only to remove their masks and reveal themselves as identical to the regime theyve overthrown. Its a worrying time because there is a chance here, Matt argues. Theres a window for a lovely new kind of political model or socio-economic structure that could be really good. A good change is possible, but the problem is you have these authoritarians that are realising that they can capitalise on disruption.

No prizes for guessing who he means. [Trump] represents the worst of the worst. It felt like living in another reality when we saw that stuff play out there. How can one of the richest, blatantly greedy people somehow convince the poorest people in the country to vote for them? It just doesnt make sense.

Matt Bellamy of Muse on the cover of NME

And on a bigger level what he did was destroy the country by creating massive division. By any measure, a great leader is somebody who can unify their own people against external threats, and hes done the exact opposite of that. He made them all turn against each other, and thats what actually caused the whole of the West to become vulnerable enough where Putin can do what hes doing now Its his complete lack of knowledge about the forces that unify the West like NATO and liberal democracy that has caused this chaos.

Is Bellamy saying Putin was the shadowy puppet master pulling the strings all along? Id say its more a case of Putin [thinking], Lets encourage the chaos the division, he explains. And the more he could create this dismantling of the West, the more likely he was to be able to get away with what hes been wanting to do for a long time, which is reclaim the old Soviet states.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

As climate emergency hurtles on and our leaders hide their heads in the sand (or wherever all the fossil fuel backhanders are), Bellamy has been embedded in his rightful place at the frontline of catastrophe, the very edge of chaos Los Angeles relishing the scorch of societys ash on his cheek.

Passing National Guard military trucks en route to the birth of his second child Lovella, and watching Black Lives Matter protests throng the streets of LA from the hospital window, he did wonder what is this world shes coming into?. But with Muse on a pre-scheduled break for 2020 in the wake of the Simulation Theory tour (which featured an army of abseiling cyborg dancers and a giant inflatable alien called Murph, and grossed $102 million), nurturing his new daughter through lockdown helped him come to feel comfortable, finally, in his adopted home city. Even as the wildfires licked at his windows.

One of the strange things about living in California, he says of the regular calls he gets from authorities to evacuate his family each summer, is you are on the edge of natural disaster, so you get used to it. Twice weve fully believed [the house is] gone, but then come back and discovered that only the garden burned down and it stopped just before the house. Its always in the middle of night as well. I remember it going, Get out theres a fire nearby, you must evacuate its an automated message that just repeats itself. I open up the window and look out and its raining ash. I thought it was snowing.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

Being in a risky place encourages people to take risks. California is full of dreamers and risk-takers and entrepreneurial people who are just willing to risk everything for some crazy idea. Everyone you meet is starting some Metaverse avatar company or some crazy energy solution. Theres something about that that really suits me.

Bellamy certainly isnt taking the collapse of society lying down; hes going out fighting, Blofeld style. Hes invested in a company planning to use technology under development by MIT scientists to solve the energy crisis (a major Muse concern since 2012 album The 2nd Law) by, um, firing lasers towards the centre of the earth.

It vaporises rock and it can go all the way through, Matt says, explaining the process: essentially shooting microwave millimetre beams 20km through the earths crust, followed by water, to create geothermal energy. Geothermal is basically free, non-dangerous energy. Its heat from the Earths core burning water into steam and turning turbines. Theres no carbon emissions or anything.

[Trump] represents the worst of the worst. It felt like living in another reality when we saw that stuff play out

When NME notes that weve seen this movie and the planet blows up, Bellamy laughs: Haha! You can essentially move this device and create geothermal energy anywhere you want. An existing coal factory or something, get rid of all the coal and just dig a hole directly down. Theyve already got the infrastructure in place to create the energy just from a different source. It would literally solve the worlds energy problem.

Climate change averted, we order more orange juice and set about revolutionising politics. Strap in.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

There now follows a party political broadcast by the Cydonian Meta-Centrist Uprising Party. We want a new type of revolution, Matt argues, lacking only a lectern to thump. I think everyone knows we want a revolution, but we definitely dont want a bunch of authoritarian lunatics from the right. Thats the last thing we want.

And also we dont want a total communist situation on the hard left either. I think what we want is something completely new. I dont think it exists out there at the moment, but I think theres a new type of politics that could emerge. I would call it Meta-Centrism. Its an oscillation between liberal, libertarian values for individuals your social life, the ability to be whatever gender you are, all that kind of stuff but then more socialist on things like land ownership, nature and energy distribution. Its oscillation between the two poles.

I think theres a way of doing that but theres no language that enables people to think that way. Youre either hard left or youre hard right Im not with any of these; I feel like theres a third way. Theres no existing side that describes what Im looking for yetIm fundamentally anti-authoritarian thats just my nature; I was born that way. So if I see certain things, on either side, that [make you think], Dont start telling me to do that or live like that, it doesnt matter where its coming from: I will probably resist it.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

Its a topic tackled on new futuristic synthpop track Compliance, which confronts the modern with-us-or-against-us, thought-police mentality of any group that has built itself around a set of weird, irrational beliefs. He cites gang culture, the real authoritarianism of the US Republican Party and the hard left as examples. Both sides have gone so far away from each other now that theyre both coming up with their own weird, You cant think this, you cant say this, you cant do that and after a while that becomes exhausting for people.

Compliance is the sort of future-pop freedom fighting that Muse have been doing for decades, but by featuring lines like fall into line, you will do as youre told, no more defiance, just give us your compliance and fear is controlling you, it sometimes sounds alarmingly like something Ian Brown or one of his fellow anti-vaxx disinformation rockers might come up with today, featuring Laurence Fox, Toby Young and Piers Corbyn as the Fart In Your Trousers Choir. Its an unfortunate coincidence, says a fully-vaxxed, mask-friendly Bellamy. I could have written that song in 2008 or 2005.

Being in a risky place encourages people to take risks. California is full of dreamers and risk-takers

In fact, as a figure who famously went down many a conspiracist rabbit hole in the early days of the internet the first wave of online truthers, as he puts it but emerged 10 years later with a far more balanced view of the world and its media, Matt has found it unsettling watching conspiracist ideas become so widespread during the pandemic.

People [in the 80s and 90s] felt like the mainstream media was just a big business that was in cahoots with the establishment, he recalls, so when the internet started to emerge the thirst for people saying what maybe the truth is was really strong By the time we got to the early 2010s, I came full circle. The lack of accountability [online] became obvious to me. It made me realise, OK, this is just some people who can say whatever the fuck they want. This is bullshit. Its not freedom of speech; its freedom to manipulate. Its freedom to lie anonymously. The ridiculous irony is, all these people think theyre so anti- this, anti- that, but all youre doing is making [Mark] Zuckerberg rich.

Credit: Jonathan Weiner for NME

As a band built on rousing revolutionary rhetoric and the pulling back of dark political curtains, Muse find themselves in a minefield of their own making in 2022. Compliance isnt the only song on Will Of The People with the potential to be misread in the current climate. True: the title track is clear enough, its rallying talk of jailing judges, smashing institutions and throwing the democratic baby out with the Senate bathwater obviously mocking the intentions and consequences of the Capitol rioters. Or, as Matt sneers: With every second our anger increases / Were gonna smash a nation to pieces.

Its like a populist parody, almost the antithesis to [monolithic 2009 track] Uprising, Matt says. Whereas Uprising was almost populist but taking it seriously, Will Of The People is almost, Do we know that were stupid now? Do we know how silly this sounds and looks? Inside of me, theres always been this little bit of a conflict between the desire for direct democracy and a bit more actual power to the people, but then at the same time realising that sometimes the people can be mad Because theyve had no voice for so long, [populism] ends up becoming distorted and strange and spiting everything. People end up spiting things just because they dont have any fucking say.

Piano ballad-turned-Queen rocker Liberation, though, is rather thornier. Language such as you make us feel silenced / You stole the airwaves but the air belongs to us / And violence youll make us turn to violence We have plans to take you down / We intend to erase your place in history could easily fit into a song called Stop The Steal catering to disgruntled Trump supporters. Matts a little horrified at the suggestion.

All this arguing on Twitter in 50 years, people will go, What the hell were they talking about?

Its the complete opposite of that, he insists. If anything that was more leaning towards what I felt seeing the Black Lives Matter protests. Im not gonna try to claim to have any understanding of what that cultures been through or anything, but intend to erase your place in history was that feeling of anger that emotion that you feel in the moment of revolution, where you just want to tear it down and destroy this, even to the extent of changing history itself people pulling statues down. And you stole the airwaves but the air belongs to us if anything that was a reference to what we were living through, waking up to a mental tweet every day that hijack of public discourse by one person.

Elsewhere the album delves into the more human side of the pandemic experience, with the elegiac piano glower Ghosts (How Can I Move On) empathising with those who lost loved ones and the spooktronic You Make Me Feel Like Its Halloween with victims of lockdown domestic violence. But the record inevitably circles back round to the approaching cataclysm. Were at deaths door, another world war, wildfires and earthquakes I foresaw / A life in crisis, a deadly virus, tsunamis of hate are gonna drown us, Matt intones on his latest and most desperate anthem of the apocalypse, We Are Fucking Fucked. The song advises listeners to stockpile.

Were living in a time where its really important to be able to sustain yourself through things like lengthy power cuts, cyberattacks, food supply crises, energy crisis, he says. These things are going to start playing out now. But then at the same time, we dont want to lose sight of the things that hold us together, the social connections that we have.

He leans back, as if to give himself the broadest picture possible, or to catch a metaphorical ash-flake on his tongue. All this arguing on Twitter about who said what and how they said it Im certain that 50 years from now people will look back at this point in history and go, What the hell were they talking about? How come they couldnt see the bus that was about to hit them?.

Muses Will Of The People is due for release on August 26 via Warner Records and is available to pre-order now

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Styling by Cristina Acevedo

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Muse: There's gonna be a big shift. We're dealing with a disruptive transition - NME

How do con artists get people to believe their scams in 2022? One way is to have those scams endorsed by famous influencers.

This is more or less the story of cryptocurrency. The billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is a supporter of Bitcoin and his companies Tesla and SpaceX own Bitcoin. Other celebrity promoters of cryptocurrency include Kim Kardashian, the boxer Floyd Mayweather and the basketball player Paul Pierce. All three are being criticised for their promotion, with a lawsuit filed in January of this year accusing the stars of using their celebrity to pump a coin called Ethereum Max.

Celebrity endorsements also help to explain why the present cryptocurrency crash is unlikely to deter investors looking to get rich quick. Until recently crypto advocates were proclaiming a monetary revolution. Yet crypto has proven to be another speculative bubble. From its all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021, Bitcoin has plummeted by 66 per cent; it has crashed by more than 10 per cent just this week.

Social media partly helps us to explain the popularity of cryptocurrency and similar get-rich-quick schemes. As the Channel 4 journalist Symeon Brown writes in his recent book Get Rich or Lie Trying, platforms such as Instagram serve up a never-ending feed of pyramid schemes, scams, network marketers and self-promoters making motivational posts preaching that there is no excuse for being poor in the age of social media aimed at aspirational working-class internet users.

Paradoxically, the popularity of such content of the pull yourself up by the bootstraps kind has coincided with a hollowing out of Western economies so that it has become harder than ever to bootstrap oneself out of poverty. Millennials in Britain are the first generation in more than a hundred years to be doing worse than the generation that preceded them, the Resolution Foundation think tank says. In the United States people born in 1980 have only a 45 per cent chance of out-earning their parents at the age of 30, compared with 93 per cent for those born in 1940, according to the World Economic Forum.

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This collapse in social mobility is facilitating an age of shortcuts, and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are emblematic of the phenomenon.

Some critics have called cryptocurrencies a Ponzi scheme: a type of fraud whereby investors are ripped off but the theft is masked by creating returns to clients from money contributed by newer investors. The most notorious Ponzi scheme was the Bernie Madoff scandal. Madoff drew investors in by guaranteeing high but not outrageous returns. He then cheated clients out of $65 billion over several decades and was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009. Few of Madoffs victims have been able to regain all of their losses.

Yet its not quite accurate to describe crypto as a Ponzi scheme. Bitcoin is more akin to a Greater Fool bubble whereby any value that cryptocurrency does have is founded on the belief that there is always a bigger fool who will pay you more for your Bitcoin than you paid.

Condemning Bitcoin investors as fools would be unfair for the reasons outlined above. Many of them are victims both of the socio-economic forces listed above and of actual fraud. Consumers reported losing more than $1 billion to fraud involving cryptocurrencies from January 2021 to March 2022, according to Americas Federal Trade Commission. Young people reported losing more money to crypto investments than any other type of fraud.

Young men in particular have been keen to invest in crypto. More than four in ten (43 per cent) American men aged between 18 and 29 have bought digital currency, Pew Research found. More than a fifth (22 per cent) of men say theyve used it, compared with just 10 per cent of women.

This young male demographic is sometimes disparagingly referred to as crypto-bros by the mainstream media. This forms part of a wider, unspoken war between the so-called legacy media (longstanding mainstream publications) and the internets autodidactic media ecosystem, the latter perhaps best epitomised by the Joe Rogan podcast.

Large sections of this new media ecosystem lean politically right; outlets tend to frame themselves as an alternative to the so-called liberal intellectual elite. Temperamentally distrusting of the mainstream, they can at times promote a credulous scepticism on everything from Covid vaccines to mainstream currencies.

To be sure, the allure of these channels is probably amplified by the idiotic rhetoric of some progressive activists, who are apt to cast men (young white men in particular) as a homogeneous bloc that enjoys tremendous privilege. It is also fuelled by a phenomenon we might call Young Man Syndrome. Alternative media channels are dominated by supposed life hacks catering to an audience of young males who long to believe they have some piece of inside knowledge the elites and the normies dont.

Cryptocurrency fits this bill to a tee. Elites and statists are at war with Bitcoin, cries a recent post on Reddit. Statements like this are ubiquitous among cryptos true believers. Bitcoin will create a new economic future where todays elites and statists are no longer in control, according to the popular BitcoinExchangeGuide website.

Those who have swallowed the crypto Kool Aid are unlikely to listen to journalists such as myself. They might instead pay attention to the damning words of the cryptocurrency nobility. At a conference Mike Novogratz, the chief executive of Galaxy Investment Partners (a firm specialising in cryptocurrency investments) likened Bitcoin to a pyramid scheme (a pyramid scheme, like a Ponzi scheme, is designed to con unsuspecting investors). A December 2021 article on the digital currency news website CoinDesk was promoted with the line, Yes, its a Ponzi scheme. But who cares?

Ponzi schemes and Greater Fool schemes are typically kept afloat by investors bragging about how much money theyve made. The cryptocurrency elite has been similarly unable to resist bragging about Bitcoins opaque financial structures. Yet they might also be the cryptocurrencys undoing. As the journalist Greg Barker has pointed out, such bragging brings to mind the rhetoric of the subprime era, when contemptible realtors wrote risky loans to the vulnerable, knowing they could never make payments, and sold them off to banks.

In his 1991 book The True and Only Heaven, the American social critic Christopher Lasch argued that a new theory of class had emerged which enabled the right to attack elites without attacking big business. Laschs words are just as relevant today when it comes to the Bitcoin nobilitys posturing as an anti-elitist movement. As crypto-elites amass their multi-billion dollar fortunes, it is worth asking whether it really is the ordinary man or woman in the street who has benefited from cryptocurrencys phony promise of financial autonomy.

[See also: Crypto crash: What the Terra collapse means for the future]

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Cryptocurrency is a symptom of the death of the American dream - The New Statesman

Close friends and fellow ecological researchers Sanam Shah and Ariel Spiegel have spent the past seven years investigating the cause of the worldwide decimation of the bee population, which they believe to be the result of a toxic pesticide produced by a major agro-chemical company, when Sanam, a PhD candidate in applied mathematics, discovers what might be a miscalculation in her data. It couldnt have come at a worse time. Professor Philip Hayes, who is supervising the project, is about to receive a prestigious award and to present their career-defining paper which has already been accepted for publication by an esteemed journal at a professional conference in just a few days. Will they proceed with the presentation to advance their careers, or will they acknowledge the problem, accept the ramifications, and spend another three years researching the issue which could be too late to save the rapidly disappearing bees?

Written by Madhuri Shekar, Queen the inaugural production of the NAATCO (National Asian American Theatre Company) National Partnership Project with anchor partner Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT, where it played in May is now Off-Broadway for a limited engagement at A.R.T./New York Theatres. Its an extremely intelligent work that combines discussions of such significant academic subjects as the Colony Collapse Disorder of honeybees, Bayes Law of statistical probability, and linear regression analysis with the personal backgrounds, inter-relationships, and motivations of the characters, which explain their conflicting perspectives and choices.

Aneesha Kudtarkar directs the compelling four-hander, delivered by an excellent cast starring Avanthika Srinivasan in an impressive Off-Broadway debut as Sanam, a brilliant young mathematician from a wealthy Indian family (that keeps arranging dates for her so she can find the suitable husband she doesnt really want), and Stephanie Janssen as Ariel, a struggling single mother and beekeeper devoted to saving the species from extinction. The formers steadfast adherence to proper procedures and accurate reporting of the numbers, and the latters dedication to the bees and career advancement so she can provide for her two-year-old daughter and herself, result in increasingly heated arguments that threaten their collaboration and camaraderie. The contrasting personalities (Sanam is more controlled, Ariel is more emotional) and development of the characters are well embodied by both, as their respect and support for one another shift to insults and animosity. Will they find a mutually beneficial solution, or will one become the queen bee in the competitive realm of academia?

The lead women are supported by Ben Livingston as Dr. Hayes, a cut-throat scholar who belittles his colleagues from other institutions, plays favorites with his two students, and is all too willing to have them manipulate the results of their study to his own advantage. And Keshav Moodliar, as Sanams arranged blind date and Wall Street financier Arvind Patel, adds humor to the show with his analysis of how to win at poker and his determination to marry her, move her to New York, and support her, after they just met, contrary to Sanams intent to be a self-supporting professional woman (Srinivasans reactions to it all are equally funny). He also adds another serious economic/political note in his recognition of their inherent bias against the corporate giant and pesticide producer, whose stocks he trades, with which the women approached their research, suggesting that the study was flawed from the outset.

A minimal artistic design efficiently enhances the theme without distracting from the words and message of the show. Junghyun Georgia Lees simple set of a movable table (with the audience seated on three sides of the theater) and overhead lighting by Yuki Nakase Link both take the hexagonal shape of a honeycomb. Sound effects and original music by UptownWorks (Daniela Hart, Bailey Trierweiler, and Noel Nichols) include the subtle buzzing of bees, and costumes by Phuong Nguyen are indicative of the socio-economic status of the different figures.

Queen presents an intriguing debate on a timely subject with resonant political, ecological, and ethical overtones, in a production thats both thought-provoking and entertaining.

Running Time: Approximately one hour and 45 minutes, without intermission.

Queen plays through Friday, July 1, 2022, at NAATCO, performing at A.R.T./New York Mezzanine Theatre, 502 West 53rd Street, NYC.For tickets (priced at $35), go online. Everyone must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination and a photo ID to enter the building and must wear a mask at all times when inside.

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A conflict of professional ethics and ambition in NAATCO's Off-Broadway debut of 'Queen' at ART/New York - DC Theater Arts - DC Metro Theater Arts

Prof. M. K. Othman

A hopeless future is the greatest tragedy of life. Hope develops aspiration and makes life going with a dream of a brighter future. In all the previous presidential elections of the 4th republic from 1999 to 2019, Nigerians went to the polls with hope for a prosperous future. In the 1999 election, Nigerians were too tired of the socio-economic and diplomatic upheavals brought by the misgovernance of the military era.

The internal and external forces made the military junta haphazardly and hurriedly organise the 1999 election and handed power on May 29, 1999, instead of the historic day of October 1, 1999. The pressure was so assertive that the military leadership under General Abdusalam Abubakar might not have survived it beyond May 1999. In a frantic move to find a nationally acceptable leader, the nation fished out General Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) who was in Yola prison, and handed the presidency to him.

Even OBJ was taken aback as he was reported saying how many presidents do you want to make out of me? but being a patriotic nationalist who gallantly fought a civil war to keep Nigeria one in the 1970s, accepted the offer of the presidency, albeit, reluctantly. Then, the pressure on the junta resulted from the grave and consequential annulment of June 12, the presidential election presumed to have been won by Chief MKO Abiola of blessed memory.

From 1999 to 2015, PDP ruled the country for 16 years. In the initial years, there was a new dawn in Nigeria as the country was steadily making progress in all facets of development until the politicians realised the juicy side of power and the weakness of the electorate. The hurriedness of power transition to civilians created major electorates weakness as there was no comprehensive electorate education.

Then and even now, Nigerians were not educative about the nations constitution, their power of demanding accountability, or recalling elected politicians. Politicians work tirelessly to occupy political offices through appointments or elections because of unhindered access to financial resources, weak accountability, unlimited privileges, and propensity to use and abuse public funds.

This is compounded by the near-impossible procedure to amend Nigerias constitution, which will address the anomalies and provide watertight transparency on the use of public funds. Thus, politicians work assiduously to acquire political offices and remain in power by hook or crook. This is more for what the power provides than the opportunity to serve the motherland.

With the astronomical increase in population, use and misuse of political power, and aggrandisement of public funds by some politicians, the livelihoods of people deteriorated. Nigerians were charged and democratically snatched the power from PDP and handed it over to APC in 2015.

Nigerian politicians being what they are, with acute determination to remain in power, some changed their membership from PDP to APC. The game of holding on to power, by all means, continued unabated, and so did the deterioration of peoples livelihoods. Consequently, Nigeria became a highly indebted nation, life expectancy became low, 55.44 years, among the lowest in Africa, poverty spread like wildfire and the nation became the poverty headquarters of the world.Now, another election is on the corner, without a clear strategy for arresting the poverty trend. The politicians are oblivious of the daunting developmental challenges such as economic meltdown, overpowering insecurity, destruction of the education system, dysfunctional infrastructure, and massive devaluation of the local currency. They have mastered the game of dubious power graft and they have blocked the new entrants like technocrats, youths, academia, labour leaders, etc as the game has been turned into money politics.

The price for mere aspiration to contest an election became prohibitive. A staggering sum of N100 million is required to be a presidential aspirant under the APC. Why should someone pay this large sum of money to contest for the job of presidency, which legitimately earns the person less than N60 million annually?

Another innovation is the introduction of a variant called delegates in the political power-graft equation during the primary election of the aspirants at the party level of PDP and APC, the two major parties in Nigeria.

As said in this column, theoretically, Nigeria operates a multi-party system but in reality, we operate a two-party system PDP and APC. The difference between APC and PDP is the difference between PDP and APC, and it is the difference between six and half a dozen. So, the only difference is their party names.

The way things were designed and made to be, in the next foreseeable future, Aso Rock occupants can only come from either PDP or APC. The other political parties are relatively unknown, unnoticed, and unsung in the political landscape. They are indeed political featherweights compared to the two parties.

Back to the party delegates, APC had a total of 2,322 ad hoc delegates at three delegates per local government area but 2,203 voted and elected the partys presidential candidate.

Similarly, PDP had 774 ad hoc delegates at one delegate per LGA but 752 voted. This means that 2,955 delegates produced the two candidates, one of whom will be the president of Nigeria, come May 29, 2023. It was an open secret that huge financial resources in billions of naira were expended by the aspirants that brought the two flag bearers. Money was the main and only issue of consideration while integrity, competency, experience, exposure, skill, and other important considerations were relegated to the background. Is it not theft of democracy?

Democracy is the government of the people, for the people, and by the people. Here, we redefined democracy as the government of the people, for the political parties, and elected by the delegates. The way things are, Nigerians have a very limited choice of one among the two candidates to be their president in 2023. How can the nations mounting and pressing challenges of insecurity and socio-economy be addressed? How can Nigeria address its heavy internal and external debts, recover the economy, and be placed on steady growth and ease the suffering of people? The lack of answers to these questions is making Nigerians lose hope as the 2023 election approaches.

However, the two major contenders for the 2023 presidential elections, Tinubu and Atiku, are both wealthy, have nursed long-term ambitions to be president and have wealth of experience with international connections and influence, and are capable of taking the country out of the woods. Both men are detribalised but were previously accused of corruption and they are above 70 years of age. Will they restore hope to Nigerians? Time will tell.

Last note, the generality of Nigerians should be keenly interested in how Nigeria is being governed, and be knowledgeable of the constitution, roles, and responsibilities of the electorate so that they can checkmate the excesses of the politicians. Better still, academia, technocrats, activists, and other patriotic Nigerians should venture into partisan politics to save the country from total collapse. May God prevent it.

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Nigeria-2023: Money politics and theft of democracy - Blueprint Newspapers Limited

On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation as President of the Soviet Union. One day later, the Union was formally dissolved. The Red Empire, the worlds first workers state, had broken apart into fifteen independent nation states. These events, and those of the months preceding them, were the definitive moments of the dawn of the new millennium.

The road to this geopolitical climax was long. It is generally thought to have begun with the election of Mikhail Gorbachev to the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the de facto head of state. At 54 years old, he was the only Soviet leader to have been born after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. He had inherited the largest country in the world; over 22 million square kilometers and spanning eleven time zones, with a population of some 290 million people of various ethnicities. Gorbachev would oversee the destruction of this state, a process that would last only a few years and would culminate in a failed coup dtat against him, a last, desperate gasp of the pathetic old relics of the Stalin era to conserve the Soviet Union.

Learn more about the key events, figures, and themes of these historical turning points in communistcrimes.orgs timeline on the Soviet collapse:

March 11, 1985: Gorbachev is nominated General Secretary of the CPSU. A committed communist with firm convictions around the necessity of reform, his attempts to democratise the Soviet political system and modernise the economy would ultimately see the downfall of his state.

April 26, 1986: An environmental disaster ensues after a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine explodes, dispersing a cloud of radiation across Europe. The explosion is caused by a faulty reactor design and inadequately trained personnel. Attempts by the Government to conceal the disaster directly contradict Gorbachevs policy of glasnost (openness and transparency) on the world stage, and directly harm the Soviet populace through premature death and internal displacement. This coverup would continue, in part, for years to come.

1989: Gorbachevs commitment to Soviet non-intervention in the affairs of foreign states accelerates the end of the Cold War. Two key events occur in 1989 to this effect. The first is the conclusion of the Soviet-Afghan War, a problem Gorbachevinherited from his predecessors which had raged for nine years at great human cost. The second is the wave of mostly peaceful revolutions against communist governments in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev reacts to the loss of these satellite states, which had been seized by the Soviet Union as spoils of war in 1945, with seeming disinterest. By contrast, his predecessors had fought tooth and nail to preserve them by crushing anti-communist resistance in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), and Czechoslovakia (1968).

March 1989: Elections to the new parliament, the Congress of Peoples Deputies, are held. The CPSU directly controls only one-third of the seats, making these the most democratic elections Russia has seen since 1917. This is an important step in breaking the CPSUs monopoly on power. Rather than solidifying Gorbachevs support base, voters are drawn to more radical democrats like Boris Yeltsin. The opposition also wins in many of the non-Russian republics.

August 23, 1989: The Baltic Way, a human chain between Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, is formed to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. The Pact had formed the basis for the illegal annexation of the three states by the Soviet Union in 1940. Though Gorbachev claimed we can say the nationalities issue has been resolved for our country, ethnic nationalism, partially enable by glasnosts exposition of such controversial aspects of Soviet history, undermined the legitimacy of Soviet rule in these republics. While the leadership denounced nationalist separatism, many in the Baltic states viewed continued membership of the Soviet Union as an ongoing occupation. Nationalism was also prevalent in other borderland regions of the empire.

January 1991: Soviet tanks and paratroopers undertake military operations in Lithuania and Latvia. In Lithuania alone, 14 civilians are killed, and hundreds more injured. Moscows intolerance for the ever-growing nationalism in the non-Russian constituent republics, especially in the Baltics, led to this display of force. These events, however, have the opposite effect to what was intended. Rather than intimidating the nationalist movements, the violence only strengthens their cause.

June 1991: Yeltsin was elected as the first President of the Russian Federation.

August 19, 1991: A coup dtat against Gorbachev takes place in Moscow. Acting in advance of the signing of the New Union Treaty, which was Gorbachevs initiative to preserve the Soviet Union by granting more autonomy to the constituent republics, a so-called State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) is formed by representatives of the Soviet State, KGB, CPSU, and the military-industrialists. The putschists place Gorbachev under house arrest in his Crimean dacha and, after his refusal to cooperate, replace him with Gennady Yanayev as Acting President of the Soviet Union. The coup openly opposes democratisation and liberalisation, which are blamed for the socio-economic crises plaguing the country.

August 21, 1991: The coup is broken, and the Soviet Union has just days to live. Mass protests occur in Moscow when the coup is announced, and Yeltsin famously clambers atop a tank outside the Russian Parliament to give a speech denouncing the right-wing, reactionary, anti-constitutional coup detat. Three civilians are killed in clashes with the military. The coup is undermined by the weakness, indecision, and alcoholism of its instigators. Faced with mass unrest and an increasingly unsupportive military, the GKChP calls off its tanks.

December 25, 1991: Gorbachev gives his farewell speech, announcing his resignation as President of the Soviet Union. Despite his attempts to preserve some semblance of a union and his own place within it, he is forced to concede his position to Yeltsin, the inaugural President of the Russian Federation. The Union is replaced with a much weaker Commonwealth of Independent States, which does not include many of the former constituent republics. One day later, the upper chamber of the Supreme Soviet votes both itself and the Soviet Union out of existence, formally bringing the empire to an end.

List of sources.

Edele, Mark. The Soviet Union: A Short History. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019.

Remnick, David. Lenins Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. New York: Random House, 1993.

Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, Michigan State University. Gorbachev Challenges the Party. Accessed December 14, 2021. URL: http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1985-2/perestroika-and-glasnost/perestroika-and-glasnost-texts/gorbachev-challenges-the-party/

Taubman, William and Svetlana Savranskaya. If a Wall Fell in Berlin and Moscow Hardly Noticed, Would it Still Make a Noise?. In The Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Revolutionary Legacy of 1989, edited by Jeffrey A. Engel, 6995. Oxford: Oxford University, 2009.

Taubman, William. Gorbachev: His Life and Times. London: Simon and Schuster, 2017.

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25.12: The Collapse of the Soviet Union: A Timeline of Key Events

Results are organized in two sub-sections: (4.1) Community detection from the Twitter dataset, and (4.2) Spatial patterns based on income composition data extracted from the US Census Bureau dataset.

The extraction of global communication patterns can be inferred from Twitter. Figure1 shows Twitter activity on a global scale. Nodes correspond to the physical location where tweets were sent. These nodes are displayed in a heatmap where yellow to red regions concentrate more activity. The map obviously shows certain similarity with a global population map, where the most densely populated regions are highlighted. However, some particularities are evident. China, India, and other countries located in southeastern Asia show much lower node densities in comparison to their actual demographic weight. One potential explanation is because the accessibility to the Internet is restricted for people with limited resources, but also because they have their own national microblogging services and social networks. In the case of the African continent, its actual demographic weight is clearly underestimated.

Global heatmap showing tweets location. Main hotspots are shown in red. This figure was generated using ArcGIS Desktop and Mapbox.

The interconnectivity between nodes is estimated based on mentions or retweets. It is represented by flows (Fig.2a). The spatial networks show different configurations based on the regions where tweets come from and go to. Thus, a very dense global network emerges between the United States, Europe, and some other particular hotspots. Additionally, we observe other densely connected local networks in small regions such as Japan, East Asia, India, South Africa, and some particular regions in Latin America. Zooming into the United States mainland (Fig.2b), the interconnectivity between both coastline sectors and the entire eastern half of the country becomes more evident.

Flows of interconnectivity between users via mentions or retweets: (a) global scale, and (b) the United States mainland. To make the display clearer, we apply a thinning algorithm for reducing line densities. We reduce the total number of links by 90% in (a) and 95% in (b). This figure was generated using ArcGIS Desktop and Mapbox.

These maps reflect the spatial heterogeneity of global human dynamics. The traditional dominance of some western countries is also reflected in Twitter. Nodes summarize regions where the wealth is concentrated. Thus, the global networks topology is a proxy for dominant mobility flows traced by migrations, commercial relationships, and preferred trade routes across the globe. This interconnectivity shows aspects related to cultural dominance, where the majority of the western countries share the same entertainment industry (and knowledge of a common language). Local networks represent regions with enough cultural, geopolitical, or economical affinity for ruling communication within their influence areas.

The collective identity is the common structure of beliefs, values, symbols, and behaviors that result from our association in communities. Axelrod35 argues that thecollective behavior is mostly determined by an evolving and complex process of human interactions and information accumulationover time. We learn by imitation and therefore, weare prone to become similar to those that we are exposed to and frequently interact with. Initial differences between communities behaviors are reinforced over time, which leads to their eventual divergence and the emergence of multiple cultures.

Fragmentation and clustering of thesocial space allows to detect communities where people preferably interact with each other by defining the way that trade routes are predominant. Hedayatifar et al.32 found a significant correlation between the level of communication and the topology shown by international trade networks. Geographical distances and neighborhood relationships are two relevant factors36, but not the only ones. Historical past, geopolitical relationships, and cultural influence between countries are equally important for understanding the map of global interactions on Twitter.

For community detection, we map the Twitter dataset into a lattice composed of a regular grid with 100km wide cells. We then run the Louvain algorithm to partition the whole network into regions and to identify the clusters with the highest interconnectivities. On a global scale, we identify 14 major communities (Fig.3a) and 86 minor communities or sub-communities from the subsequent fragmentation of the first ones (Fig.3b). Clusters imply specific cross-cultural, cross-national, and/or cross-linguistic associations. In the Americas, three large communities are differentiated due to language. But once we run the algorithm in successive iterations, minor communities emerge in Latin America. It is noticeable that throughout the fragmentation process some of the clusters are equivalent to nations (Brazil, India, and several European countries), whereas in the case of the United States, it is internally partitioned into different sub-communities within, showing a rich cultural diversity.

Node clustering and detection of communities/sub-communities at a global scale from Twitter dataset. We detect (a) 14 major communities and (b) 86 sub-communities. Consistent partitions were obtained over 85% of realizations. To make the display clearer, we apply a thinning algorithm for reducing line densities. We reduce the total number of links by 90%. This figure was generated using ArcGIS Desktop and Mapbox.

Further zooming into the dataset and running the algorithm for a particular region allows us to refine the results. In Fig.4, we show communities and sub-communities across the mainland United States. In this case, we overlay a grid of 10km wide cells (see Hedayatifar et al.33). As it is evident, the internal clustering differs according to the scale, showing relevant changes in both the number and size of the partitions. The reduced number of communities detected corresponds mostly to vast regions surrounding the most populated cities in the US central states (Fig.4a). Most communities are far more extensive than their own states, which is obvious as the number of communities is lower than the number of states. This effect is particularly clear with the integration of North and South Carolina into one single cluster, but also in New England. On the other hand, the state of California is internally partitioned into two different communities due to the influence of San Francisco in the north and Los Angeles in the south. At this scale, the number of sub-communities increases substantially up to 216, as shown in Fig.4b. Again, some states show a clear homogeneity with a unique dominant cluster (Maine, Montana, and Wyoming), whereas the great majority show a clear diversity of sub-communities inside.

Node clustering and detection of communities/sub-communities from Twitter dataset in the United States mainland. We detect (a) 39 major communities and (b) over 216 sub-communities. Consistent partitions were obtained over 85% of realizations. To make the display clearer, we apply a thinning algorithm for reducing line densities. We reduce the total number of links by 40%. This figure was generated using ArcGIS Desktop and Mapbox.

The Louvain algorithm for community detection dynamically fragments the territory, showing its spatial heterogeneity across different scales. Thus, to properly understand the complex reality, we must first understand the spatial context where the algorithm is applied. For instance, the human interactions captured by the Twitter dataset transcend the traditional administrative boundaries. Zooming into multiple scales allows us to understand much better such interactions, and their effect on the markets, commercial agreements, and business opportunities, or even to avoid conflicts. The scalable structure of communities was recently used for implementing adaptive responses to COVID-19 restrictions in the United States. Buchel et al. 37 proposed to consider multiscale social bubbles for lifting shelter-at-home and mobility restrictions. Dwellers created social bubbles to minimize infection rates locally, while the different US states proposed travel zones to minimize transmissibility between remote areas. The analysis of mobility patterns has contributed to define the limits of human interactions and to assess the effects of the policies adopted by authorities, providing valuable information to policy-makers for adopting more effective travel restrictions, as well as quarantine policies that minimize the disruption of socio-economic activities.

Some of the most influential factors behind the complexity of thesocial space are related to household income. From a social andbehavioral perspective, income determines our lifestyle and world perception. Eagle et al.38 demonstrated that wealthy people travel more frequently and to more places. There is also a positive payoff in some cities between commuting farther for better jobs, while keeping better housing conditions39,40. Other studies analyze the correlation between social diversity and economic prosperity. Yong41 showed how the wealthiest regions develop much more complex and heterogeneous social networks where the emergence of labor opportunities can occur more easily.

Depending on the spatial scale and level of data aggregation, income composition allows to differentiate between an urban world, increasingly dynamic and wealthy, and a rural world in crisis. However, at local scales, we can also observe how some well-known urban regions arerelatively poor, and some rural regions are relatively wealthy. In this way, the spatial scale is very relevant for properly understanding the complexity behind income-related human dynamics.

In the last few decades, the ideological and political division between rural and urban regions has escalated in the United States and other western countries42,43. Many policy experts attribute the spread of reactionary movements against globalization to the increasing confrontation between rural and urban voters. Just a few years ago, Brexit or the Trump victory in the 2016 US Presidential election were the most notable examples of these reactionary movements. Traditional division between American voters shows an evident spatial pattern that is always mentioned in media: while the Democratic Party concentrates most of its votes in the urban regions in the two coastlines, the Republican Party is the most voted in the central states. However, this spatial pattern is more complex than a simple division between the rural and urban America, especially in the face of a very polarized electoral scenario44,45.

Results from the 2016 US Presidential election showed that rural people accounted for only about 15% of the national population. Although rural voters preferred Trump and they certainly contributed to Republicans victory, they were not enough to swing the elections results on its own nor to support the media rhetoric of a rural revolt46. Instead, Trump combined rural and small city over-performance in the industrial midwest. In other words, Trump voters were not so rural. In fact, the majority of Trump voters came from suburban areas where dwellers commute to work in some medium or large city. However, this spatial pattern diverges depending on the context and other additional factors. For example, the Latino vote in Florida is different from other statesin the US. This pattern is particularly explained by the importance of Latin American voters, some of whom are residents with mediumhigh incomes living in the most important cities. Politically, neither the Blue America is so blue, nor the Red America is so red in political terms.

Figure5 shows the income composition in the United States by considering the influence of the mesh size in data aggregation. Each individual node corresponds to a census tract, whose area is roughly equivalent to a neighborhood with 25008000 people. Data aggregation is conducted by applying a circular buffer whose radius ranges from 2 up to 1000km. Mesh size considers all the nodes within the buffer, showing an interconnected effect all in all. The larger the buffer size, the higher the computational costs are.

Income composition in the United States mainland by considering different aggregation levelsfrom 2 to 1000km. Regions below national average income are shown in blue, while regions above national average income are shown in red. White-colored regions that emerge as gaps show regions with similar values to the national average. This figure was generated in Python using the library #Cartopy.

Different income compositions emerge according to the level of data aggregation. With smaller buffers, a very granular pattern shows a high entropy and spatial diversity. As buffer size increases, complete cities emerge as wealthy areas in contrast to poorer and extensive rural areas showing an evident polarization of urban versus ruralregions. Significant differences in wealth between cities emerge at a aggregation distance of 100km. Larger distances draw the Eastern and Western sectors as the only wealthy regions, whereas Central America is shown as a large economically deprived region.

On the other hand, zooming into New York City (Fig.6) we can understand much better the income composition across intra-urban scales. At short distances, neighborhoods in blue have a low average income. However, these fade with buffers larger than 20km showing the whole city as a wealthy region.

Income composition in New York City by considering different aggregation levelsfrom 2 to 1000km. Regions below national average income are shown in blue, while regions above national average income are shown in red. White-colored regions that emerge as gaps show regions with similar values to the national average. This figure was generated in Python using the library #Cartopy.

A similar approach is conducted for analyzing income composition across the United Statesover time. Figure7 shows the evolution from the year 1969 to 2017 considering six individual years and two unique aggregation levels: 100 and 1000km. The methodology used is the same as applied before, but instead of census tracts, we estimate spatial patterns using counties due to data limitations. This exercise enables us to validate the previous results obtained with the census tracts, but also to substantively reduce computational costs due to the lower number of nodes.

Income composition in the United States mainland over time by considering different aggregation levels: (a) 100km and (b) 1000km. Six years are represented: 1969, 1979, 1989, 2000, 2010, and 2017. Regions below national average income are shown in blue, while regions above national average income are shown in red. White-colored regions that emerge as gaps show regions with similar values to the national average. This figure was generated in Python using the library #Cartopy.

At an aggregation distance of 100km, we can observe the high spatial diversity between rich and poor regions. The wealth concentration is mostly dominated by the metropolitan areas showing the division between rural and urban regions. Just a few cities concentrate most of the national wealth47. In general, we can observe how poverty and wealth present a consistent structure over time. The poorest regions located in the southeastern sector remain poor, whereas the wealthiest regions located in the northeast coast corridor and California coastline remain wealthy over time. However, the boundary between poverty and wealth has been shifting over time. In particular, certain regions located in the central states have fluctuated between wealth and poverty over time. Additionally, some cities have collapsed at some point, leading to an impoverishment of the surrounding regions due to their high dependence on those cities. In network science, this demonstrates the high collapse risks in hyper-connected systems motivated by cascading effects. This is particularly significant in the Detroit region, which was wealthy in the past, but it became increasingly poor in recent years.

At larger aggregation distances, the income composition is enormously simplified showing 23 vast regions whose borders have shifted over time. Wealth is mostly concentrated on the East and West coastlines, whereas the central region is mostly distressed. In the most recent decades, industrial relocation processes and the strong attraction of the most populated cities explain the decline of vast inland regions.

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Scale, context, and heterogeneity: the complexity of the social space | Scientific Reports - Nature.com

Back in the early 2000s, I joined the staff of the Cricklewood Homeless Concern in an overnight sleepout. The CHC, as it was then known, was a charity that had dedicated itself since 1983 to looking after, mostly, elderly and homeless Irish men.

These men had arrived in London, decades earlier, lured by the promise of work in postwar reconstruction. In their later life, many had fallen through the social and economic cracks after years of unofficial employment on the lump the system that paid construction workers in cash, off the books, and as a result, no pension provision or social welfare payments were ever made on their behalf.

Our sleepout was to protest against the Catholic Churchs plans to close the CHC hostel and use the church-owned site for more profitable purposes. We positioned ourselves, along with our cardboard mattresses and our sleeping bags, on a street close to Cardinal Murphy-OConnors residence, for maximum effect. There is a happy ending to that story: the many and varied protests and objections to the sale of the site were successful and a brand-new hostel was built, opening in 2004, which now operates under the name of Ashford Place.

Run by specialist staff as well as volunteers, the hostel offers not just housing support to those clients who need it, but also keeps a focus on social inclusion, health, well-being and community action. Ashford Place is still thriving today.

*

In 2008, some five years after the first edition of An Unconsidered People was published, I made a return visit to Kilburn and Cricklewood, to Ashford Place and to the Crown on Cricklewood Broadway.

The pub namechecked by the Dubliners in the song McAlpines Fusiliers had played a significant role in the hiring of Irish day-labourers throughout the 1950s and 1960s. It closed in 2000 and reopened in 2003 as a luxury hotel.

Once the place where Irish sub-contractors had gathered in their vans to select whatever number of construction workers they needed for that day, the Crown had now been transformed into a 145-room Moran Hotel, complete with upmarket bar and dining facilities.

Even in 2008, it was clear that the demographic of the entire area was changing radically. The previously Irish shop fronts and cafes now had names from Romania, Poland, Afghanistan and the Philippines. Halal meat was on offer; the fruit and vegetables in slanting displays along the pavements were considerably more exotic than carrots and turnips. The Irish had moved on: the next immigrant families had moved in, in search of better lives, just as those before them had done. For a time, the Crown had continued to be the collection point for casual labourers, carrying on the long-established Irish tradition. But this time, it was construction workers from Eastern Europe who endured, on a daily basis, the desperation and ritual humiliation of random selection by their subbies.

*

When I conducted the dozens of face-to-face interviews that formed the basis of An Unconsidered People, I did so because I wanted to capture the personal stories of as many people as possible, before the texture of their emigrant and immigrant lives in the 1950s was lost to us for good. I recorded their voices and listened to them over and over again: often finding as much insight in their hesitancies and their ellipses as I did in the words themselves. Roslyn Oades remarks that the quality of an individual voice [is] as unique as an individuals fingerprint.

The areas of Kilburn and Cricklewood where I based my research were known as another Irish county, such were the numbers of Irish who settled there in the fifties. There is a well-known mantra, quoted by almost everyone I met: from Euston Station to Kilburn is as far as you can walk while carrying a suitcase.

The Commission on Emigration observed that leaving Ireland during the 1950s became a part of the generally accepted pattern of life. Estimates differ, but between 400,000 and 500,000 people are known to have left this country during those 10 years, in search of a better, or even a different, kind of life. Ireland was the only country in Europe, apart from East Germany, whose population declined in the 1950s.

The people I interviewed about their experiences of that decade were all generous with their time. We met at the end of the 1990s and our meetings continued into the early years of the new century. We would meet in their homes, or in neutral venues, or in Irish clubs. I drank a lot of tea. I said little and listened a lot. I was conscious that I was asking people, who were very often elderly, to recall events and feelings of some 40 or 50 years earlier. I became acutely aware of the power of reminiscence, of what Sarah OBrien calls memories in flight: that moment when relating past experiences for the benefit of an attentive listener becomes highly charged. The narrator is not just remembering events, or narrating them in chronological order rather, s/he comes close to experiencing them all over again.

Individuals memories differ, of course, and so do the meanings they attach to them. The moment of departure from the homeplace for one unwilling emigrant is very different from the departure of another who is bent on seeking adventure, or escaping the poverty of 1950s rural Ireland, or breaking free of the rigid economic, social and sexual norms and expectations of a deprived and conservative community.

While delving into statistics and economics can give us a clear picture of the push and pull factors of emigration, of the numbers of people leaving and of their destinations and their reasons for going, those disciplines cannot touch, in the ways that oral history can, the emotional and psychological impact of high levels of emigration on the family, on the community, as well as on the individual emigrants themselves.

I have no reason to believe that the many and varied personal challenges of emigration for those who left Ireland in the subsequent decades and for those who remained behind were any less painful, particularly for the individuals who emigrated due to economic or other difficulties.

One thing that was different, though, was the level of education attained by those who left in more recent decades. In the 1950s, those who went to the large urban centres in Britain were predominantly from rural Ireland, and were mostly unskilled, often with formal education ending once primary school was completed. This was to change radically with the waves of emigration that took place during the 1980s and the mid-2000s.

In the following pages, I offer a brief overview of the economic conditions in Irish society that led to these more recent waves of emigration first in the 1980s, when some 200,000 people left this country, followed by the next wave in the mid-2000s. The exodus that came about as a result of the economic crash of 2008 saw some 213,000 people leave Ireland to look for opportunities abroad. The global crash, along with the collapse of our entire banking system, had a huge impact on this society. Its reverberations are still felt today.

*

Due to increasing levels of economic activity in the 1960s, that decade did not see mass emigration on the scale of that of the dismal fifties. However, throughout the following decade, 1970s Ireland presided over huge levels of state borrowing. The enormity of this debt, coupled with the added catastrophe of a second oil crisis, laid the seedbed for the severe economic downturn of the 1980s.

In excess of 200,000 (net) people left Ireland during that decade of recession. Research shows that the 1980s labour market in Ireland was one of the worst performing in Europe. The unemployment rate rose from 7 per cent in 1979 to 17 per cent in 1986, when two-thirds of the unemployed had been out of work for six months or more, almost half for over a year.

Along with the high levels of unemployment, mortgage rates became crippling during that 10-year period. Central Bank figures record that an interest rate of 16.25 per cent was charged on borrowings in 1981 and 1982. Rates stayed high throughout the decade, ending at 11.4 per cent in 1989. Ireland had become a very expensive place to live. Housing, food, childcare, healthcare: the cost of everything was increasing, shifting out of reach for so many with young families.

Each week, as I remember, there was yet another American wake for one friend or another. The term that had originated in the 1800s felt appropriate all over again as we watched the ever-increasing numbers of people leaving the country: a mass exodus of the predominantly young from villages and towns all over Ireland.

Britain still remained the destination of choice if we can call it choice along with Canada and the United States. Many of that generation of emigrants became undocumented workers in the US entering as tourists and staying long beyond their permitted visas. The Irish Immigration Reform Movement (IIRM) estimated that in the early 1980s, no fewer than 135,000 New Irish were working illegally in Boston, New York and Chicago.

Other sources quote even greater numbers of undocumented workers. In a Dil debate in 1987, the Fine Gael TD Jimmy Deenihan noted: At this time it is estimated that between 150,000 and 200,000 out-of-status Irish emigrants are in the US. They are also categorised under the terms of illegal, unauthorised or undocumented aliens.

In 1989, at the height of the exodus, 70,000 people left this country, giving rise to a popular bumper sticker of the time: Last one to leave Ireland, please switch off the lights.

*

I still remember a 1980 address to the nation by the then taoiseach, Charles Haughey, who warned us, even at the start of that most difficult decade, that we were living away (sic) beyond our means.

Watching that televised speech again today, the ironies just keep multiplying. Although we didnt realise it, not yet, this was the decade of Charvet shirts and the economic black hole. The Moriarty Tribunal, established 17 years later, in 1997, to inquire into payments to politicians and other related matters, revealed that while Taoiseach, Charles Haughey spent approximately 16,000 of taxpayers money on bespoke shirts from the French company Charvet. The shirts arrived in diplomatic bags. The Charvet website of the day claimed their shirts to be Of almost unbelievable elegance to the most demanding clientele in the world.

Charvet for some, hairshirts for others.

Not all of us were, in Charles Haugheys words, living away beyond our means. The vast majority of the population did not need to be told to tighten our belts. The 1980s saw the collapse of the construction industry; the downturn in manufacturing; little or no recruitment to the civil service. I was teaching in a disadvantaged area during those years and I remember the way my colleagues and I shared the reluctant view that we were educating our students only to swell the dole queues. The divisions caused by intergenerational unemployment and social exclusion became ever more visible throughout that turbulent decade.

The economic black hole that emerged in the countrys finances during the 1980s was caused in part by the scale of tax evasion in the Irish business community. An article from The Irish Times in May 2001 notes that 20 years earlier the remoteness of the Cayman Islands and its no questions asked policy towards would-be depositors made it an attractive location for Irish businessmen hiding hot money from the Revenue.

Against this grim background of economic recession, the Troubles in the North of Ireland were raging. This, too, was the decade of the hunger strikes; of Reaganomics and Thatcher; of the dark cloud of political unrest. No wonder people voted with their feet and left in their thousands.

*

Typically, emigrants of the 1980s were more highly educated, often graduates, or highly skilled. I remember the public awareness of what was perceived as a brain drain from Ireland during those years. The very high rates of emigration occurring among many of the professional and technical graduates is one of the most worrying aspects of the present situation.

However, the picture wasnt that simple. It would be a mistake to see Irish emigrants in the 1980s as consisting solely of high-skills graduates ... there were still a considerable number of old wave emigrants whose profile would not have differed greatly from that of earlier generations. And that profile was, as we have seen earlier, predominantly male, rural, and either semi-skilled or unskilled on departure.

1965: A Jamaican carpenter and a group of Irish labourers drinking in the Coach and Horses, a London pub. Photograph: Val Wilmer/Getty Images

The emigrants of the 1980s were also, for the most part, young. Figures for 1981-86 showed that 68 per cent of all emigrants were in the 15-34 bracket. They also left from all parts of the country, not just rural Ireland: the propensity to emigrate is now much more equal in the eastern and western, and the urban and rural counties, than was previously the case. And on this occasion, more males than females moved abroad ... because of the construction down- turn and the increasing integration of women into the Irish labour force.

*

In the absence of any face-to-face interviews of my own with those who emigrated in the 1980s, or with those of the post- crash generation emigration, I am deeply indebted to the Emigre study. This study, authored by Irial Glynn, Toms Kelly and Piaras MacEinr of UCC, includes many observations about emigration in the 1980s, but its main focus is the experience of those who left Ireland in the wake of the catastrophic economic crash of 2008.

In examining this new wave, the studys authors devised a complex and sophisticated methodology. In addition to compiling the responses from representative household surveys, the Emigre team divided the Republic of Ireland into six clusters, ranging from sparsely populated rural areas to densely populated urban areas, and everything in between. Affluent areas, areas of high unemployment, areas with a predominance of young parents representative samples from all these clusters were surveyed and interpreted.

Researchers also attended Working Abroad Expos in March 2013, documenting levels of education of respondents, their socio-economic profile, and whether they had children. They also asked people why they wanted to move abroad, adding several valuable layers of detail to the final report.

The Emigre report also has a welcome emphasis on the personal: those in the household survey were asked for their own thoughts on emigration; whether they knew anybody who had left the country in recent years; whether emigration had affected their own community; and whether they had had any experience of emigration themselves.

I found it particularly interesting that very few responses to the surveys were received online. Just under half came via post. Instead, the authors observe: Most of our responses derived from face-to-face interactions on the doorsteps of households.

*

Ireland has a long tradition of exporting its people. There were the 200,000 Ulster Presbyterians who made their way to America in 1718 in order to escape poverty, discrimination and rapidly rising rents. They had originally migrated from Scotland to the North of Ireland in search of a better life.

There was the mass emigration of the post-Famine years, when as Dr Catherine Shannon has noted at least 1.5 million emigrants left Ireland between 1846 and 1855, with the majority travelling to America. Then in the 20th century, we had the waves of emigration of the 1930s, 1950s and the 1980s. And now, in recent years, the economic crash has seen people leave these shores in large numbers once more. And while economic pressures have always had a significant role to play in the phenomenon that is Irish emigration, many also decided to escape their lives in Ireland in search of adventure in other countries.

Women, in particular, were often not solely economic migrants. Their pattern of emigration from Ireland diverged from that of most other European countries in the 1950s, for example they often emigrated alone, rather than with husbands or families. In the decade from 1926 to 1936, significantly more women than men, emigrated to Britain. During that decade, it was estimated that almost 46,000 Irish women, as compared with 30,000 men crossed the Irish Sea. Ireland is somewhat unusual internationally in that female emigration has always been a strong component of the overall numbers and has, at times, actually exceeded male emigration.

If we focus on female emigration to Britain, a longing for change was frequently the cause. I remember the many women who spoke to me during our interviews for An Unconsidered People about that need to escape, to be free, to have opportunities that would never be theirs at home, and to avoid the destiny of their mothers and grandmothers, trapped in the grinding poverty of rural Ireland. Many young women chose to train in the UK as nurses or primary school teachers, as it was easier to secure places there than in Ireland. And while job and career opportunities were one part of the equation, the casting off of suffocating social and religious expectations was most definitely another. Reproductive choice; sexual freedom; the ability to leave a bad marriage without com- munity recrimination: these, too, were extremely important aspects of womens new lives away from home.

All of those who left, men and women alike, have contributed to the worldwide Irish diaspora which is currently estimated to be about 70 million people. This number includes those who claim even distant Irish ancestry. According to a study carried out by the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2017: The vast majority of this 70 million figure are descendants of Irish emigrants, often through several generations starting with those who left Ireland around the time of the Famine.

The largest group in this figure is the 36 million people in America who self-identified as Irish-American or Scots-Irish. The balance of the 70 million figure would be made up of large Irish ancestry populations in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

*

The era of the Celtic Tiger, however, seemed set to reverse that trend of large-scale emigration. During that economically heady 10-year period from 1997 to 2007, a transformation in the make-up of our own population was taking place. Membership of the EU meant that there was a significant increase in immigration into Ireland in that same decade.

Our Central Statistics Office tells me, for example, that there was a total of 420,000 non-Irish nationals living in Ireland in April 2006, representing 188 different countries. While the vast majority of these people were from a very small number of countries 82 per cent from just 10 countries there was also a remarkable diversity in the range of countries represented.

In 1998, the figure for non-Irish nationals living in Ireland was lower than 50,000. Eight years later, it was more than eight times that number. The numbers vary from study to study, but according to official government documents, there was an average non-Irish population of 14.9 per cent for all Irish towns over 1,500 inhabitants in 2016.

That was the average: there were, of course, several very surprised villages in rural Ireland that suddenly saw their population increase radically, and there were also towns that remained relatively untouched. Immigrants, as always, will follow the work. And their arrival brought several unexpected benefits: small rural schools on the verge of closure saw their pupil numbers increase and succeeded in staying open and thriving. Motorway construction benefited due to the influx of immigrant workers, just as it had in the UK some 50 years earlier with the [Irish]men who built Britain. And several towns and villages in Ireland saw their local GAA teams energised by the participation of new players from as far afield as Syria and Pakistan.

At the beginning of the 1990s, work was plentiful. Former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, himself an economist, outlined in July 2007 the four reasons he believed were responsible for the extraordinary economic growth and development of this country in those years.

In Ireland between 1993 and 2001, output per worker improved by almost one-half, growing by over 5 per cent a year. Elsewhere in Europe, it increased at only one-third of that rate. Second, a major factor ... was the arrival in Ireland during that eight-year period of almost 300 new mainly high-tech industrial projects. These increased almost fivefold the value of our manufacturing output, trebled the volume of exports, and, most important of all, virtually quadrupled the reported money value of the average industrial workers output.

Third, [growth] came from an unprecedented increase of almost one-half in our workforce, a process that involved bringing into paid employment very many people who had previously been outside the labour force, viz. unemployed people, students or women who had been working in the home. All these had until then been dependants, either supported by bread-winning parents or spouses, or, in the case of the unemployed, by the State through social payments.

Finally, a significant proportion of those who had emigrated during the financial crisis of the 1980s returned during this period to join the Irish workforce.

All of these processes together, FitzGerald wrote, meant that by 2001 the average worker was both producing 46 per cent more output and needed to share this increased output amongst 28 per cent fewer people.

Like everybody else living in Ireland at the time, I saw the changes that were taking place during those years. I watched in astonishment as the 1980s receded like some kind of bad dream. When abroad, I was asked constantly about the Irish economic miracle. Everybody in this country who wanted to, or could, was working. There was a collective obsession with property prices: whether the property was at home or in Alicante, in Bucharest or Budapest, in Katowice or Dubai. In a strange reversal of our history, ordinary Irish people were in the buy-to-let market: becoming landlords themselves a status hitherto reserved for the rich.

And then.

*

Early in 2008, no ordinary Irish citizen could have foreseen the extent of the economic crash that was about to happen. Just a couple of years earlier, in 2006,taoiseach Bertie Ahern had mused that the boom is getting boomier. House prices were spiralling, the Celtic Tiger was still walking the land at least in theory and unemployment stood at the all- time low of 4.3 per cent, the third lowest unemployment rate in the EU. Politicians were congratulating themselves that things had never been better; and Irish developers were buying huge tracts of land in Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria, as well as transforming urban spaces at home.

During the affluent years although they werent so for everybody the profiles of the most prominent property developers seemed to be everywhere as they morphed into the latest celebrities. There was a public appetite to read about their extravagant lifestyles, to have some sort of vicarious experience of the lives of those men and women who were moving in high society circles in the UK and elsewhere.

Media profiling of the riches and influence to be amassed through property dealings arguably fuelled the wider wave of speculative development that seized the national economy, housing sector and, indeed, the national psyche through the 2000s.

Congratulatory articles about our rich and suddenly powerful speculators appeared frequently in the media. A report from November 2007 observed: Romania is all set for a property boom, Irish style. Last week a clutch of Irish developers were in Bucharest to tell Romanian politicians, developers and financiers about Irelands experience.

An Irish consortium, headed by former Revenue inspector Derek Quinlan, bought the Savoy Hotel Group in London for 1.1 billion in 2004. Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett bought the Battersea Power Station for 400 mil- lion in 2006. Irish property magnates had now carved out a space at the centre of the London property market and were becoming international movers and shakers, for the first time ever. They were placed right at the heart of the old colonial foe, [something that] marked a significant economic and symbolic moment in the growth of the Celtic economy and a resonant moment in the progressive transformation in the international perception of Ireland and the Irish.

A couple of years earlier, in 2005, an article in The Economist had declared: [The developers] were influential in shifting both internal and external understandings of Ireland, from an image as EUs welfare-dependent poor cousin to an image as an entrepreneurial global success story, ripe with business and investment acumen.

The Department of Finance seems not to have recognised the dangers to the Irish economy posed by lack of fiscal regulation and the growth of the housing bubble in the early 2000s. However, there were others in Ireland who tried to sound a warning note about what lay ahead.

The ESRI, for one. Over the last twenty years each of the ESRIs Medium-Term Reviews has considered the medium-term outlook for the economy and the appropriate stance of fiscal policy. The introduction to each Review has referred to some relevant story from classical Greek mythology. The 2003 Review began with the story of Icarus! That publication identified the unduly expansionary fiscal policy, and the failure to control the housing market as a serious concern. The warnings became increasingly emphatic in 2005 and 2006 and this advice was picked up and widely reported in the Irish media ... After a decade of generally high growth and low unemployment there was a growing feeling among households and companies that the Irish economy was invincible many people did not want to hear the message and consider the possible remedies.

But the message from the government of the day was that any dire warnings about a crash were vastly overblown. The term soft landing gained widespread currency at that time, referring to the gradual levelling out in house prices over the coming years that was envisaged by many including the Department of Finance.

The economist David McWilliams was another to shout Stop!. He warned over and over from the early 2000s, writing hundreds of thousands of words in newspaper columns about the impending crash; he made documentaries about the subject; he wrote books on the topic.

Appearing before the Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis in February 2015, McWilliams stated: The panic of September 2008 did not have to happen. It was not anything that was pre-ordained. It could have been fixed very early. The problem is if there is no housing boom there will be no banking boom. If there is no banking boom there will be no banking crisis. If there is no banking crisis there will be no interventions, such as the [bank] guarantee, and there will be no bailout. All of these things are the consequence of bad economic policy, not the cause.

Back in the early years of the 21st century, those who presided over the Celtic Tiger did not want to listen. In 2007, addressing the Irish Congress of Trades Unions conference, Bertie Ahern observed he didnt know how people who engage in that dont commit suicide. He was referring to those who talked down the economy. At that point, the bank guarantee scheme to underwrite 400 billion of bank debt, and the subsequent IMF 64 billion bailout were both still some 18 months into the future.

When the crash came, it was devastating and the worst hit countries in Europe were the PIIGS: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, where unregulated loans to acquire property had been fuelling the ever-expanding bubble in each of those countries.

*

And when the crash did come, emigration came along with it. While some studies emphasise the fact that the correlation between economic downturn and emigration is unsurprisingly strong ... with 50,000 [emigrating] in 2008 and remaining in the 80,000 range since 2011, with a record high of 89,000 in 2013, there are many other factors that feed into the process of emigration: factors that the Emigre study highlights.

In that studys fourth chapter, Departure, the authors observe: The overall picture which emerges is a complex one. As befits a society which is now largely urban, the traditional cliche of the emigrant as rural is no longer true in terms of absolute numbers, [but] the emigration from rural Ireland is still disproportionately higher than the norm.

In terms of education, following the trend of approximately a quarter of a century earlier: the general improvement in educational standards in Ireland in recent decades is reflected in the educational attainments of todays emigrants. In fact, todays emigrants are much more likely to have a high standard of education than the population in general and arguments referencing a brain drain are not misplaced.

And consider the proportion of emigrants with a third-level qualification leaving Ireland post-crash: 62 per cent of them, while the figure for the general population was considerably lower: 47 per cent of Irish people aged between 25-34 hold a tertiary qualification of three years or more, suggesting that university graduates are represented amongst those leaving.

The authors go on to observe that 'between 2006 and 2013 gross emigration of Irish people was in the order of 213,000 persons in total, rising from just over 13,000 in 2005 to almost 51,000 in the year ending March 2013, an increase of nearly 400 per cent in the seven years from the pre-crisis period in the Irish economy to the present. In itself, this gives the lie to the notion that emigration is purely a matter of "lifestyle choice"(Italics mine).

As Ive already noted, there are many and varied reasons for emigration: economic pressure, study, advancement in careers not available at home, a longing for change and adventure. Of those who emigrated post-crash, 47.1 per cent had been in full-time employment before their departure. Their reasons for leaving included having skills that were in demand else- where, in areas such as IT or health. Some felt that they were underemployed; they were often working in jobs below the level of their skills. They saw their opportunities for advancement at home as being limited; they were attracted by the higher salaries and better working conditions elsewhere.

The economic crash caused a huge upheaval in Irish society. Donal Donovan and Antoine Murphy, quoted in the Emigre study, have argued: The scale of the economic and financial catastrophe that befell Ireland was virtually unprecedented in post-war industrial country history ... In April 2013, the IMF calculated that over 23 per cent of the Irish labour force was either unemployed or under- employed. The construction industry suffered one of the most dramatic impacts of those years: from a peak of 380,000 employed in 2006, numbers fell to approximately 150,000: from an unsustainable 25 per cent of Irish GNP to 6 per cent in 2012.

In the 1950s, four out of every five people who emigrated from Ireland went to the United Kingdom. Emigrants after the economic crash followed a similar path, the majority leaving for Britain, with Australia, the US, Spain and Germany also featuring prominently.

*

The impact of emigration on a community is profound. Parents and siblings get left behind. Friends get left behind. Decades later, sitting in rooms all over Kilburn and Cricklewood, those who left Ireland in the 1950s spoke with palpable grief about their leave-takings. They spoke of how the brothers and sisters left behind in the homeplace often resented the responsibility of caring for ageing parents - a responsibility that they felt rested unfairly with them, given the departure of one or more of their siblings. They spoke of the bitterness of both sides feeling that they had got a raw deal those who had to leave, and those who needed to stay.

A national conversation developed on the airwaves during and after the departure of all those tens of thousands after the crash of 2008. Parents spoke openly of their grief at the perceived loss of their adult children. They reminded us of how previous generations of parents, friends and sib- lings must have also grieved those who left the country in the earlier waves of emigration. They reminded us of the pain of not seeing children and grandchildren with any kind of frequency, particularly when destinations such as Australia and New Zealand came into the mix. Skype and email, WhatsApp and FaceTime might have made those separations a little more bearable but they did not make them easy.

Catherine Dunne. Photograph: Noel Hillis

There is always a complex web of emotions to be navigated for parents: not wishing to stand in the way of the adult childs advancement or economic security, yet suffering the wrench of watching their children move far away from home, perhaps for good.

In the 1980s and mid-2000s, whole villages were unable to put a GAA team together, such was the exodus of young people from rural Irish communities. COVID-19 made that loss and those distances even more painful, the loneliness more acute. Families are fractured, wondering if they will ever see each other in person again.

*

In the wider community, after the crash of 2008, years of austerity followed. Spending on public services was vastly reduced. As a result, child poverty increased, health services diminished, spending on health and education was drastically cut.

After some initial green shoots reached towards the light of recovery in 2013 and 2014,the economy began to improve, slowly. The most up-to-date prediction is that The Irish economy is forecast to grow 7.2 per cent this year and by a further 5.1 per cent in 2022, according to a new European Commission report. Are these predictions overly optimistic? Have we had similar assurances before? The debt from March 2020 to mid-2021, a year and a half of COVID-19, is massive, with its final tally still uncertain.

In July 2021, Ursula von der Leyen announced a package of 990 million in EU grants to Ireland. She said it is part of the largest recovery package that Europe has seen since the Marshall Plan in the aftermath of the second World War and it is necessary because we want to spur the recovery for Europe, and indeed Ireland, for now and for the future.

We want to be stronger coming out of this pandemic than we went into it and we want to emphasise and invest in our common objectives, she said.

*

The possibility of improving economic prospects may entice some of the Irish living abroad to return to live here particularly those raising children. The separations and losses of COVID-19 may be a factor in making that return feel more urgent. Perhaps the single biggest obstacle returning emigrants would have to face is the short supply of houses and the rapidly increasing prices of those houses once they do come on the market.

Excerpt from:

Last one to leave Ireland, please switch off the lights - The Irish Times

The supply chain crisis caused by entire countries shutting down for months over a virus that had a 99.5 percent survival rate is now being exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and new lockdowns in some producer countries,and is now causing some countries so much economic stress they are defaulting on their debts.

Sri Lanka, which is currently undergoing massive unrest due to a tanking economy, has announced that in order to preserve what dollar reserves it has in order to buy food and energy for its people, it will suspend its debt payments, likely triggering outright defaults that could produce a domino effect.

Sri Lanka warned of an unprecedented default and halted payments on foreign debt, an extraordinary step taken to preserve its dwindling dollar stockpile foressential food and fuel imports, Bloomberg Quint reported this week as the situation in the Asian nation deteriorated.

All payments to bondholders, bilateral creditors and institutional lenders that are currently outstanding have been suspended until the Finance Ministry can arrange a debt restructuring plan, according to a Tuesday statement.

Nandalal Weerasinghe, who is the newly appointed governor of Sri Lankas central bank, told a press briefing that the government is attempting to negotiate with creditors but is also warning there could be a default. Measures being taken now area last resort in orderto prevent a further deterioration of the Republics financial position, the finance ministry said.

It is now apparent that any further delay risks inflicting permanent damage on Sri Lankas economy and causing potentially irreversible prejudice to the holders of the countrys external public debts, the ministry added.

The announcement comes among calls forPresident Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, to resign, though so far both have refused to do so. Gotabaya has called instead for unity and better understanding earlier this week as he greeted citizens for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year festival amid rising angst over skyrocketing inflation that is currently running at 20 percent year-over-year and daily electricity cuts that often last as long as three hours.

Gotabayas party has also lost its parliamentary majority and bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund are likely to be delayed even further, Bloomberg Quint noted.

The Finance Ministry said that government talks with the IMF will be expedited, while officials there said they wanted to avoid a hard default.Rajapaksas government is also attempting to get financial assistance from India and China, the latter of which is one of Sri Lankas biggest creditors at present.

China has been doing its utmost to provide assistance to the socio-economic development of Sri Lanka, and will continue to do so going forward, a said Foreign Ministry representativeat a Tuesday briefing.

According to the report, Sri Lankas dollar bonds, which are due in July, fell 3 cents to a new record low of 45.73 on the dollar. In addition, the rupee also fell while the countrys stock market was shuttered this week ahead of the public holidays while trading has been truncated anyway due to daily power outages.

The market was expecting this default to come, Carl Wong, head of fixed income at Avenue Asset Management, which no longer holds Sri Lankan bonds, told Bloomberg Quint. Now we have to see how the new government handles the onshore chaos while talking to IMF.

The country has roughly $12.5 billion in outstanding euro bonds and the next payments are due April 18, according to data seen by Bloomberg. Then, the government is expected to pay out $36 million in interest on a bond that matures in 2023, as well as $42.2 million on a 2028 loan. There are a wave of other payments due for Sri Lanka this year as well, including $1.03 billion in principle and interest on a maturing note that is due July 25.

Theglobal debt of nations is worseningthanks to the ongoing crisis in the supply chain amid worsening inflation. The collapseis just a matter of time if the trajectory remains the same.

Sources include:

Ill keep this short. The rise of Pandemic Panic Theater, massive voter fraud, and other taboo topics have neutered a majority of conservative news sites. Youll notice they are very careful about what topics they tackle. Sure, theyll attack Critical Race Theory, Antifa, and the Biden-Harris regime, but you wont see them going after George Soros, Bill Gates, the World Economic Forum, or the Deep State, among others.

The reason is simple. They are beholden to Big Tech, and Big Tech doesnt allow certain topics to be discussed or theyll cut you off. Far too many conservative news outlets rely on Google, Facebook, and Twitter for the bulk of their traffic. They depend on big checks from Google ads to keep the sites running. I dont necessarily hold it against them. We all do what we need to do to survive. I just wish more would do like we have, which is to cut out Big Tech altogether.

We dont get Google checks. We dont have Facebook or Twitter buttons on our stories. We dont have a YouTube Channel (banned), an Instagram profile (never made one), or a TikTok (no thanks, CCP). Were not perfect, but were doing everything we can to not owe anything to anyone other than our readers. We owe YOU the truth. We owe YOU the facts that others wont reveal about topics that others wont tackle. And we owe America, this great land that allows us to take hold of these opportunities.

Like I said, I dont hold other conservative sites under too much scrutiny over their choices. Its easy for people to point fingers when were not the ones paying their bills or supporting their families. I just wish there were more who would make the bold move. Today, only a handful of other major conservative news outlets have broken free from the Big Tech teat. Of course, we need help.

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Governments on Road to Collapse as Global Supply Chain Crisis ...

The dissolution of Russia is a hypothetical unraveling of the Russian Federation from a unified state to various potential independent successor states.[1] The topic is the subject of hundreds of articles on the Internet.[2]

The current Russian Federation is the primary successor state of the Soviet Union. Various trends and problems which may challenge the permanence of the unified Russian Federation have been discussed publicly and in academia by figures such as Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Leontyev, Herman Gref, Maxim Kalashnikov, Sergey Kurginyan, Alexander Prokhanov, Natalya Narochnitskaya, and Dmitry Medvedev.[1]

The chief researcher of the Institute of philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, V. Shevchenko, when reviewing the article "The collapse of Russia in the early 21st century in the statements of contemporaries" by O. Yu. Maslova, noted that it contains a large collection of authors on the theme of Russian disintegration. These authors range from diehard supporters of the idea that the collapse of Russia is almost inevitable and has already begun, to supporters of the idea of artificial and deliberate attempts at making the country collapse.[1]

The main reason for the disintegration processes and the possible collapse of Russia, according to V. Shevchenko's review work, "The Future of Russia: Strategies for philosophical Understanding," is the lack of a national idea or project (such as Communism in the Soviet Union) that would unite all peoples of Russia. Russian statehood, as he sees it, is in a transitional state in which all processes have become more active: both integration and disintegration.[1]

He went on to list the accompanying reasons for Russia's possible collapse as:

In his article, his opinion is that the disintegration has in fact already begun. Signs he points to include legal extraterritoriality, the removal of persons of non-titular nationality in national republics from the state apparatus[vague], and the radicalization of Islam.[1]

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Russian government forbade Tatarstan from switching from the Cyrillic script to the Latin alphabet, fearing that such a move would disrupt internal unity and result in dissolution.[3] On the other hand, in the 2020s, Kazakhstan began moving towards the Latin alphabet, and this is believed to be to distance itself from Russian influence.[4] The Russian government strives to make all of the languages of Russia use Cyrillic to enforce unity[5].

A report to the Izborsky club, a group of analysts led by A. Kobyakov, listed the lines of division in modern Russian society that could potentially lead to the collapse of the state: socio-economic inequality, interethnic relations, alienation of elites from the people, and opposition of the "creative class" to the rest of society.[1]

The culturologist I. Yakovenko believes that the main reason for the disintegration processes is the uneven process of market modernization in different regions of Russia, which increases the economic isolation of these regions from one another. Yakovenko identifies the following regions into which in his opinion the Russian Federation may break up: North and South of Russia, Siberia, the North Caucasus and the intercontinental border.[1]

According to the mathematician Georgiy Malinetsky,[6] there are some possible reasons for the collapse of Russia:

The post-WW2 sphere of influence (the Eastern Bloc and the Warsaw Pact) collapsed in 1991 with the aforementioned dissolution of the Soviet Union. The dissolution was largely non-violent, though it has been argued that the violence of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (February 2022) resulted from the Soviet dissolution.[7] In 2022, within weeks of this invasion, some commentators predicted an eventual Russian collapse as a result, especially once it became obvious that Vladimir Putin's "special military operation" was not going to be a quick victory.[8][9][10][11] Some have been more specific, and have stated such a collapse could happen by 2025-2027[9]

In an interview with the magazine Expert in April 2005, the head of the presidential administration, Dmitry Medvedev said:[1]

If we fail to consolidate the elite, Russia may disappear as a single state. [...] The consequences will be monstrous. The disintegration of the Union may seem like a matinee in the kindergarten compared to the state collapse in modern Russia.

Dmitry Medvedev

In 2011, during a meeting of the government commission[which?] for the development of the North Caucasian Federal District in Gudermes, Vladimir Putin said what would happen if the Caucasus suddenly left Russia:[12]

If this happens, then, at the same moment not even an hour, but a second there will be those who want to do the same with other territorial entities of Russia, [...] and it will be a tragedy that will affect every citizen of Russia without exception.

Vladimir Putin

As in any country with land borders, there are many ethnicities living in Russia related or identical to the titular ethnic groups of neighboring countries. In some of these border regions, irredentist ideas are expressed about the reunification of divided peoples.

In Buryatia and two Buryat autonomous okrugs, one of which is the Ust-Orda Buryat Okrug, ideas are being expressed of joining Mongolia as part of the idea of pan-Mongolism.[13][14]

Some Kazakh nationalists wish to recover Orenburg, the former capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, and now part of Russia in the Omsk Oblast.[15]

The idea of uniting Finland and Karelia into a Greater Finland (the Karelian question) used to be popular among part of the population in Finland and Karelia.[16][17]

See the original post here:

Dissolution of Russia - Wikipedia

Good morning.

Thank you to the Institute for Human Rights of Guangzhou University for welcoming me.

I am pleased to address you all today.

I greatly value my exchanges with students. Even though I do have a long career behind me, and I am also a grandmother - I like to define myself not as old but as a person with accumulated youth.

An accumulation of parcels of passion and energy, of possibility and hope.

Your generation has experienced dramatic changes.

Some of them good, some of them more challenging.

Major demographic transformations both within your country and globally, growing economic interconnectedness, rapid digital advances, a global health pandemic and its socio-economic consequences, climate change.

And finding your place within those changes is one of the greatest challenges of all.

This is why the commitment to human rights education is so crucial.

Human rights education invites all of us to participate in a dialogue about how human rights can be translated into our own social, economic, cultural and political reality.

It provides concrete solutions to the challenges people face. It empowers individuals to identify their and others human rights, and to claim and defend them. As such, it is a strong investment in building a just, peaceful and equitable future for everyone.

We are living in a time of uncertainty and unpredictability, with the intersection of multiple global crises. Climate change, growing socio-economic inequalities across the globe, conflict and tensions in countries across the world are pushing millions from the safety of their homes and putting dignity and human life at grave risk.

The fall-out on employment, health and housing from the COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating. The World Bank had projected 198 million more extreme poor during 2022 due to COVID-19. Global food prices alone are now estimated to add a further 65 million more people to that total.

The impacts are, as always, the hardest on the most marginalised and excluded. Women, minorities, persons with disabilities, children, migrants.

But amidst all these challenges, we are also seeing beacons of hope.

We are witnessing the tremendous power of youth.

Over the course of the past few years, I have been inspired by the movements and actions of young people challenging discrimination, injustice and inequalities.

We have seen powerful demonstrations of youth commitment to equality, climate action and human rights.

Young people are influencing debates of national and international importance and prompting social change - including by demanding a seat at the table and holding governments and businesses to account for their inaction.

Their intelligence, creativity and courage is a testament to the unique value of youth in shaping not only our future but also our present.

A fundamental ingredient for youth to be able to play that role is an open civic space where they can voice their opinions and seek change.

In his Call to Action for Human Rights and in Our Common Agenda, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed how young people need space to participate in the decisions that will shape their future which is crucial for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

So how can we make sure that the gains we have achieved dont slip away?

My experience has shown me has proven to me that no country can face global challenges alone.

We need each other.

All of us not only governments, but also individuals must dare to embark on that dialogue and engagement.

While there is no magic answer to eradicate the various crises we face, we do have the tools at our disposal to emerge stronger from them.

Multilateralism creates a space for us for dialogue, both regionally and globally, in order to reach realistic agreements. It is key to advancing human rights and sustainable development for all.

When grounded in human rights be they the civil, political, economic, social or cultural rights that are inherent to us all as human beings - I am convinced that such action can allow us to make tremendous leaps forward.

Today, I wish to focus on three of the many human rights issues facing our world.

As a Permanent Member of the Security Council, the second largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget and a major troop contributing country, China can play an important role in multilateral discussions to help bring about meaningful progress in these areas.

Let me begin with the area of peace and security.

Peace is the central promise of the Charter of the United Nations and one of the principal global public goods the United Nations was established to deliver.

Yet, in all regions, we witness inter-ethnic tensions, violent coups, protracted conflicts, all exacerbated by rapidly evolving weapons technologies. The recent frontal assault on the most fundamental directive of the UN Charter should concern us all.

The past decade has seen a disturbing trend towards conflict, with the laws of war and international human rights law being flouted around the world, including in Syria, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Yemen and Myanmar to name a few.

Hospitals are attacked; indiscriminate weapons that make no distinction between soldiers and civilians, including children, are used.

Millions of people are pushed from the safety of their homes, their right to life threatened, children are deprived of access to health or education, and societies held back from safety and the ability to develop.

As I expressed to the Human Rights Council earlier this year, it is precisely at time of crisis when investment in multilateral and human rights-based action brings effective solutions.

Independent monitoring and reporting on human rights violations, with a rigorous methodology, is a decisive and unbiased way of gathering accurate information on conflicts, and their impact on people. It is through such methods that we can establish the truth and take steps towards accountability.

Prevention of future conflict also depends heavily on concrete, targeted action to protect human rights. This involves addressing systemic denials of human rights, such as long-standing discriminatory laws and practices or violations of access to economic, social or cultural rights.

The international human rights framework, and its mechanisms for implementation, are the tools we have to help States identify these gaps, and how to best address them. In addition, SDG 16 captures well the connections between peace, justice, inclusive institutions, and sustainable development.

Most crucially, an inclusive and open civic space assists States in identifying gaps and solutions on how to protect human rights to sustain peace and development.

This leads me to the second issue I wish to address today - Sustainable Development. The principles of equality and non-discrimination are at the core of the 2030 Agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. States have committed to 'leave no one behind' and reach those furthest behind first and pay special attention to marginalized groups.

The Agendas major strength is that it brings all countries of the world together, calling on each to expand their inclusive forces, so they can transform together to meet our shared challenges. However, the planetary crisis, COVID-19 and ongoing conflicts have set us back in achieving all the goals.

I am convinced that fast-tracking equality can quickly get us back on the right path.

This means ensuring we have an economy that works for everyone, especially the hardest hit: the excluded and discriminated. Those with no voice and little bargaining power.

This means budgets that work for those who have been left furthest behind, to ensure access to essential levels of health care, social protection and education for all.

This means greater transparency in budget decisions and spending, for corporations paying their fair share; for greater progressive taxation; and for structural reforms that reduce economic and political power inequalities.

Above all, this involves tackling the underlying discrimination on the basis of peoples racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic origin, or other ground. It requires the revision and amendment of laws, policies and practices that discriminate on these bases; it means investigating and preventing violations of their rights; and ensuring inclusive participation in decision-making in full respect of cultural, religious or other traditions.

Women living in poverty are also far removed from public life, weighed down by restrictions on their access to economic resources, mobility, information. Promoting their participation in decision-making must be a priority. Earlier this year, on a visit to Afghanistan, I insisted that the grave humanitarian crisis in the country could only be adequately addressed if women have a seat at the table.

Development is only sustainable if we integrate human rights and environmental protections in development policy and plans with the participation of those affected.

Chinas role here is crucial for instance, when it comes to infrastructure-related SDGs, together with development finance institutions.

According to the World Bank, developing countries need to invest around 4.5 per cent of GDP in order to achieve infrastructure-related SDGs and meet global climate change targets.

However, even in the best of times, getting infrastructure right is not simple.

In many countries, my Office has documented various human rights problems associated with transport, energy and other infrastructure projects globally.

We have observed some projects with limited transparency; or that have involved little consultation with local communities or forced evictions loss of indigenous peoples' culture and livelihoods, suppression of civil society voices, gender-based violence, gender-blind project design, unaffordable user fees, forced and child labour, and negative fiscal impacts.

In 2018 I had called upon G20 finance ministers to better integrate human rights considerations in infrastructure development. The following year, the G20 issued a set of Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment which ask that Design, delivery, and management of infrastructure should respect human rights. (Principle 5.2)

For infrastructure investment to be sustainable and resilient, we need high social and environmental standards, and human rights due diligence. So it is encouraging that development finance institutions are increasingly integrating human rights within their operational policies.

I note the important commitment in the Human Rights Action Plan of China, that the government will encourage Chinese businesses to abide by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in their foreign trade and investment, conduct due diligence on human rights, and fulfill their social responsibility to respect and promote human rights.

The Chinese Due Diligence Guidelines for Responsible Mineral Supply Chains are explicitly based upon the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and contain robust guidance on risk-based due diligence, building on the strength of international standards. These Guidelines offer an excellent model for adaptation in infrastructure sectors.

Finally, this provides a natural transition to the next issue I wish to raise this morning: climate change.

An estimated one in six premature deaths are caused by pollution. Tens of millions of people are displaced each year by climate change. Biodiversity loss threatens the collapse of entire ecosystems. The latest reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change make it clear that we are heading towards catastrophe.

The alarm bell rang a long time ago.

As with the other issues discussed today, climate change disproportionately impacts those who are already in vulnerable situations, such as women, youth, minorities and persons with disabilities. Many environmental human rights defenders are themselves indigenous peoples or members of local communities, or they represent them.

Protecting the environment goes hand-in-hand with protecting the rights of those who defend it. Their voices must be heard - and protected. Resolution 40/11 of the Human Rights Council has highlighted that the work of environmental human rights defenders is linked to the enjoyment of human rights, environmental protection and sustainable development.

The UN Human Rights Council recently recognized in its resolution 48/13 - that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a universal human right. The resolution recognized environmental degradation and climate change as interconnected human rights crises and invites governments to further consider the matter at the UN General Assembly.

Over 150 countries already recognize and protect the right to a healthy environment. I hope China will join this group. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, indeed, our health, wellbeing and survival all depend on a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.

The international community must act with single-minded purpose and solidarity to deploy every possible resource to protect and fulfil the human right to a healthy environment.

Dear all,

One of the most important ways to meaningfully put people and their rights at the centre of our action - is by ensuring the right to participate and by opening space for dialogue.

Here, I welcome the fact that the right to political participation is one of the areas of special interest of this Institute.

Why is participation so important?

When various sectors of society are brought into discussions, are included in debate, it allows for a deeper understanding of the issues. With different voices at the table, States can better identify gaps in laws and policies, to make sure they are more just.

So that laws and policies better reflect the situation of the people they are meant to serve and that conflicting interests are better balanced.

So problems can be quickly reported and solutions can be found that work for everyone and meet our equality goals.

When decisions are more informed and sustainable, public institutions are more effective, accountable and transparent.

I encourage you to read the UN Guidelines for States on the effective implementation of the right to participate in public affairs, which are a set of recommendations for States on how to make this right a reality.

You may be familiar with the three pillars of the United Nations. They are Peace and Security; Development; and Human Rights.

If we examine events around the world - as I hope I have inspired you today to do it seems to me that we can better achieve our objectives if we understand the connections between these three pillars. Through human rights, including development we can have sustainable peace. Human rights, equality and the rule of law are the levers that deliver development and peace.

I know the world is better when we work together in this way men and women; old and young; people from across societies, and between societies and countries across the world.

My Office is committed to continue its critical role in shaping human rights multilateralism and encouraging constructive engagement.

Your contribution is crucial: we need your creativity and determination to find solutions grounded in the basic understanding that all of us are equally deserving of dignity, respect and justice.

To foster a sense of our common humanity while embracing and valuing our diversities.

I look forward to having a discussion with you.

Thank you.

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Lecture at Institute of Human Rights, Guangzhou University: Human rights in the world: the role of multilateralism - OHCHR