| | | | Fareed: Is This the World's Most Successful Country? | | The Winter Olympics have just started in what, in some ways, is the most successful country in the world, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column: South Korea.
"Half a century ago, South Korea was one of the poorest countries on the planet, and nobody would have predicted that it would conjure up an economic miracle. In 1960, its per capita gross domestic product was $158, slightly less than Ghana's. Today it is more than $27,000 — almost 20 times that of Ghana," Fareed writes, adding that the country has benefited from a "basic support for markets and trade as well as a large investment in education and infrastructure."
Another factor? US security and financial backing, Fareed says.
"Americans on both sides of the aisle are weary of engaging with the world, dubious about maintaining troops in foreign countries and convinced that foreign aid is a waste of money. Over the next few weeks, as they watch the glittering games in Pyeongchang, they might want to think about how far South Korea has come — and take some small pride in having helped it get there." "In 1960, the life expectancy for the average South Korean was only 53 years. But over the years, the country has made remarkable progress: South Koreans are now expected to live as long as 82 years — nearly four years longer than the average American," they write.
"But what makes the South Korea example particularly striking is that on average, citizens in the US are far wealthier than South Koreans: The average income of Americans is $55,980 — more than double the average income in South Korea. For all its wealth over the past century, the US still hasn't cracked health."
| | What Congress Won't Tell You About That Budget Deal… | | | President Trump has signed off on a major budget deal agreed by Congress in the early hours of Friday morning. The agreement creates a new normal of trillion-dollar deficits – and is the nail in the coffin of hopes that America will ever see a balanced budget, argues Stan Collender in Forbes.
"Combined with the big tax cut enacted last December, this new agreement is such a departure from the past in terms of economic policy and American political culture and puts in place such permanent changes in taxing and spending that the deal is likely to be used by historians to mark the point when the federal government made a very sharp turn from the past and began the new normal," Collender says.
"The fact that the federal deficit will now be at least $1 trillion a year is already common wisdom in Washington…But what hasn't yet made it into the political conversation is that these will be permanent trillion dollar deficits rather than temporary spikes that result from economic downturns. These deficits will be the result of legislative increases in spending and reductions in taxing that for political reasons will be very hard to change." | | Someone Important Is Missing from Pyeongchang | | Vice President Mike Pence attended Friday's opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics. But someone important was missing – the US ambassador to South Korea. The reason, of course, is because there isn't one yet. And the timing could hardly be worse, suggests Ivo Daalder for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
"Quite simply, our interests are diverging. The White House is primarily focused on preventing North Korea from obtaining the ability to strike the continental United States with a nuclear-tipped ICBM. As Trump explained in the State of the Union, he wants to maximize pressure on Pyongyang now so that it will give up the technology that is nearing that capability. As such, the argument goes, much more pressure now, even a limited military strike, is preferable to allowing Pyongyang to have the capacity to incinerate a major American city," Daalder writes.
"But South Korea already faces an existential threat from North Korea. A sudden bombardment from North Korea would kill hundreds of thousands in South Korea, perhaps even millions — and even before the use of nuclear weapons is considered. Therefore, Seoul is first and foremost intent on avoiding a conflict with Pyongyang. Rapprochement with North Korea is necessary toward that end, and Seoul has sought renewed dialogue with Pyongyang in recent weeks — even against the protestations of the Trump White House." - On GPS this Sunday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN: Fareed discusses developments on the Korean Peninsula with Sue Mi Terry and Gordon Chang.
| | No, the War in Syria Isn't Winding Down: NYT | | The rout of ISIS on the battlefield has left the widespread impression outside the region that the war in Syria is winding down. The reality? "[T[he carnage is reaching a new peak," write Anne Barnard and Hwaida Saad for The New York Times.
"Since December, 300,000 people have fled new fighting. In one 48-hour period this week, government strikes killed more than 100 people, mostly civilians, according to rescue and medical workers, in the besieged, rebel-held suburbs just east of the capital, Damascus. The explosions could be heard and the smoke seen from the seat of power just a few miles away," they write.
"The fact is that the Syrian war, for years, has not been just one war but a tangle of separate but intersecting conflicts with a rotating cast of combatants. Much of the world cheered the collapse of the Islamic State's medieval-inspired caliphate last year. But that victory cleared the way for the war's underlying conflicts to resurface with a vengeance."
| | Up Close to the Aftermath of a Massacre: Reuters | | The Rohingya refugee crisis, which has seen more than 680,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees flee Myanmar into neighboring Bangladesh since August 2017, may have largely faded from the headlines, for now, at least. But a new special report from Reuters into an alleged massacre of 10 Rohingya captives by Buddhist villagers and Myanmar troops offers a grim, personal glimpse of the ethnic violence that has wracked the country.
"The Rohingya accuse the army of arson, rapes and killings aimed at rubbing them out of existence in this mainly Buddhist nation of 53 million. The United Nations has said the army may have committed genocide; the United States has called the action ethnic cleansing. Myanmar says its 'clearance operation' is a legitimate response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents," Reuters reports.
"Until now, accounts of the violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine state have been provided only by its victims. The Reuters reconstruction draws for the first time on interviews with Buddhist villagers who confessed to torching Rohingya homes, burying bodies and killing Muslims.
"This account also marks the first time soldiers and paramilitary police have been implicated by testimony from security personnel themselves."
| | How Europe Is Making the Refugee Crisis Worse | | Silvio Berlusconi grabbed headlines this week by vowing to deport 600,000 illegal migrants should his coalition take power following elections in Italy next month. But ugly as the comments were, Bloomberg editorializes, the European Union isn't helping matters.
"Italians feel that the rest of the EU turned a blind eye to their struggle to manage the inflow of migrants from Africa," Bloomberg argues.
"Their resentment is understandable. The Italian government has spent heavily on rescuing migrants at sea and processing their applications for asylum -- while the rest of the EU has failed to devise a system for relocating refugees, which could have helped to ease Italy's burden. Agreement on such a scheme is long overdue.
"That's a shame in itself, and the consequences could prove far-reaching. Europe's reward for its negligence may soon be an Italian government less inclined to cooperate, and not just on immigration. Looking back, the cost of more effective burden-sharing could seem like a bargain." | | | | | | |
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