Decoding Donald Trump's Davos Speech

US President Donald Trump (left) spoke at the World Economic Forum on January 21 in Switzerland. His address was designated as a special session in the official agenda for Davos.

It was a meandering 72-minute speech of dubiety, deception and delirium. 

72 minutes in which he bragged everything is going great guns in the US of A! Grocery prices, energy prices, air fares, mortgages, rents, car payments – are all coming down and they are coming down fast!

72 minutes in which Trump confused Greenland with Iceland. One a colony of Denmark; the other a sovereign country. Multiple times. While explaining why he wants to buy it. 

72 minutes in which he called Greenland “a piece of ice” on which the fate of the Earth would depend: “What I’m asking for is a piece of ice in exchange for world peace”.

72 minutes in which he threatened a NATO ally, Denmark, with these words: “You can say yes, and we’ll appreciate it. You can say no, and we’ll remember it”.  

72 minutes in which he declared that he has “100% Scottish blood and 100% German blood”. Which would make 200%. Evidently math is not his strong suit. 

72 minutes in which he claimed that the United States, after World War II, “gave Greenland back to Denmark”. Too bad that’s not true. The United States never owned Greenland. Never. In 1916 they officially recognized Danish sovereignty. During the war they only obtained temporary military bases. And in 1946 they tried to buy it by offering 100 million dollars. Denmark said no. There was no “giving back”. 

72 minutes in which he claimed that “China has no wind turbines”. China. The country that for 15 consecutive years has been the world’s largest producer of wind energy. The one that builds 45% of all wind projects on the planet. But for Trump, “they don’t have fields of windmills”. They sell them “to the stupid”. 

72 minutes in which he said that “all the big oil companies are coming with us to Venezuela”. Too bad that 3 days earlier, the CEO of ExxonMobil told him to his face that Venezuela is “not investible”. Too bad Trump got furious and threatened to exclude Exxon. Too bad the other companies are standing on the sidelines, terrified. But at Davos he said “they’re all coming”. 

72 minutes in which he claimed that “there is practically no inflation” in the United States. US inflation is at 2.7%. Above the Fed’s target. Forecast to rise because of his own tariffs. But for him, “there is practically none”. 

72 minutes in which he attacked the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, calling him “stupid” and “Jerome too-late Powell”. Live. In front of world economic leaders. 

72 minutes in which he told the story of imposing tariffs on Switzerland out of spite, because “a woman” whose name he doesn’t remember “petted him the wrong way”. 

72 minutes in which he said that “yesterday the market crashed because of Iceland”. Iceland. A country with 380,000 inhabitants. That supposedly made Wall Street collapse. 

72 minutes in which he claimed that the United States “paid 100% of NATO”. 100%. When the American share of the NATO budget is about 16%. But for him, 100%. 

72 minutes in which he mispronounced Azerbaijan as “Aber-bajian”. 

72 minutes of conveyer-belt wordiness. A smokescreen of fustian and fantasy. A clumsy catalogue of easily verifiable lies, of made-up numbers, of threats to allies, of insults to officials, of geographical flubs, of boasts contradicted by facts. 

And the world, in bemused silence, watched. 

Malaysia's King on State Visit to China

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malaysia's Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan Ibrahim is on his maiden state visit to China from September 19-22 at the invitation of President Xi Jinping. The visit coincides with the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and China.

 

“Malaysia has gone through various governments, but I am here as the King of the country. Malaysia’s foreign policy has always been in favor of strong partnership with China. Moving forward together is what we seek for”, the King said in his introduction to the meeting with Xi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A rare polar bear was spotted in a remote village in Iceland, the first one seen in the country since 2016. On Thursday, police shot and killed it.

 

Police reportedly consulted the national environment agency, which declined to have the animal relocated, according to the Westfjords police chief, Helgi Jensson.

 

“It’s not something we like to do”, Jensson said. “In this case… the bear was very close to a summer house. There was an old woman in there”.

 

The owner, who was alone, was frightened and locked herself upstairs as the bear rummaged through her garbage, Jensson said. She contacted her daughter in Reykjavik, the capital, by satellite link, and called for help.

 

“She stayed there”, Jensson said, adding that other summer residents in the area had gone home. “She knew the danger”.

 

Polar bears (Scientific name: Ursus maritimus) are not native to Iceland but there have been occasions when they come ashore after traveling on ice floes from Greenland, according to Anna Sveinsdóttir, the director of scientific collections at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History. Many icebergs have been spotted off the north coast in the last few weeks.

 

Although attacks by polar bears on humans are extremely rare, a study in Wildlife Society Bulletin in 2017 said that the loss of sea ice from global warming has led more hungry bears to land, creating a greater chance of conflicts with humans and increasing the risk to both.

 

Of 73 documented attacks by polar bears from 1870 to 2014 in Greenland, Canada, Norway, Russia and the United States – which killed 20 people and injured 63 – 15 occurred in the final five years of that period.

 

While the bears are a protected species in Iceland and it is forbidden to kill one at sea, they can be killed if they pose a threat to humans or livestock.

 

After two bears arrived in 2008, a debate over killing the threatened species led the environment minister to appoint a taskforce to study the issue, the institute said. The working party concluded that killing vagrant bears was the most appropriate response.

 

They said the non-native species posed a threat to people and animals, and the cost of returning them to Greenland, about 180 miles away, was exorbitant. They claimed they found there was a healthy bear population in east Greenland, from where any bear was likely to have come.

83 of the World’s 100 Worst Polluted Cities are in India

All but one of the 100 cities with the world’s worst air pollution last year were in Asia, according to the 2023 IQAir World Air Quality Report, with the climate crisis playing a pivotal role in bad air quality that is risking the health of billions of people worldwide. 

 

The vast majority of these cities – eighty-three – were in India and all exceeded the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines by more than 10 times, according to the report by IQAir, which tracks air quality worldwide. The study looked specifically at fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, which is the tiniest pollutant but also the most dangerous. 

 

Only 9% of more than 7,800 cities analyzed globally recorded air quality that met WHO’s standard, which says average annual levels of PM2.5 should not exceed 5 micrograms per cubic meter. 

 

“We see that in every part of our lives that air pollution has an impact”, said IQAir Global CEO Frank Hammes. “And it typically, in some of the most polluted countries, is likely shaving off anywhere between three to six years of people’s lives. And then before that will lead to many years of suffering that are entirely preventable if there’s better air quality”. 

 

When inhaled, PM2.5 travels deep into lung tissue where it can enter the bloodstream. It comes from sources like the combustion of fossil fuels, dust storms and wildfires, and has been linked to asthma, heart and lung disease, cancer, and other respiratory illnesses, as well as cognitive impairment in children. 

 

Begusarai, a city of half a million people in northern India’s Bihar state, was the world’s most polluted city last year with an average annual PM2.5 concentration of 118.9 – 23 times the WHO guidelines. It was followed in the IQAir rankings by the Indian cities of Guwahati, Assam; Delhi; and Mullanpur, Punjab. Across India, 1.3 billion people, or 96% of the population, live with air quality seven times higher than WHO guidelines, according to the report. 

 

Central and South Asia were the worst performing regions globally, home to all four of the most polluted countries last year: Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Tajikistan. South Asia is of particular concern, with 29 of the 30 most polluted cities in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. The report ranked the major population centers of Lahore in 5th, New Delhi in 6th and Dhaka in 24th place. 

 

IQAir found that 92.5% of the 7,812 locations in 134 countries, regions, and territories where they analyzed average air quality last year exceeded WHO’s PM2.5 guidelines. 

 

Only 10 countries and territories had “healthy” air quality: Finland, Estonia, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius and French Polynesia.

Countries as Supervillains

Start from the premise that there's no such thing as a guiltless country. 

 

We must admit that as human beings, we're some of the foulest and most violent specimens roaming the surface of the Earth. History is mostly filled with villains and monsters – and the truth is that no country is a goody two shoes. 

 

If the world were a wrestling promotion, everyone would be a heel. And so, Lucas Freitas decided to make AI art that personified countries as supervillains. 

 

Here’s a selection: 

 

 

Covid Cases Surge in Sweden and Iceland Despite Vaccinations

Sweden is already preparing to administer a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine this September, local media had reported on July 08, 2021. 

Speaking to Swedish daily Aftonbladet, Richard Bergstrom, the Scandinavian country's vaccination coordinator, said Covid cases are on the rise. 

Bergstrom said people have become infected after receiving two doses of vaccine, suggesting everyone must be careful. A third dose should be given, he insisted. 

And he then added that the country is preparing for a fourth dose expected to be administered in the future. 

Iceland is another country which has done very well with its vaccination rollout, with over 85 percent of the population above 16 being fully jabbed. 

Yet, I just read that the country is seeing a surge in cases, the majority of which are due to the Delta variant. 

It is set to resume restrictions at its borders, requiring a negative PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test less than 72 hours old for travellers who are fully vaccinated.

Therefore, it would be foolhardy for Malaysia to think that just because we are rushing to vaccinate everybody in order to achieve the so-called herd immunity, we'll soon be out of the woods. Not by a long shot!

On Friday, Liverpool’s pre-season game – their first over a full 90 minutes – was against Bundesliga side FSV Mainz 05 (or just Mainz) and which saw the former earning a low-key 1-0 win. 

The next match is against Hertha Berlin on Thursday.

Covid-19 Waiver

NBC News correspondent Kelly O' Donnell yesterday posted the waiver (above) that attendees to Donald Trump's events must agree to. It absolves Trump's campaign of responsibility should they get infected with Covid-19. 

It’s a likelihood given that the president and many of his closest aides had been diagnosed with the coronavirus and are really not out of the woods, besides the fact that most of the people do not wear masks nor practice social distancing. 

I reckon Trump (right) is promoting herd immunity. 

In fact, on September 16, 2020, he had touted this subject – although he had mistakenly referred to the controversial coronavirus strategy as "herd mentality". 

"It would go away without the vaccine", Trump proclaimed during an ABC News town hall in Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, USA. 

Herd immunity happens when enough of a population is immune to a disease that its transmission is interrupted. Health experts, however, have cautioned against this approach in the absence of a vaccine because it could cause hundreds of thousands more deaths. 

Note that Sweden adopted this approach, having never introduced lockdowns to try to curb the spread of Covid-19 – but it wound up with far more deaths than neighboring countries that did enforce stay-at-home orders.

Swedes Pay the Price in Infections and Deaths

There is much debate about Sweden’s coronavirus strategy. 

The question is whether trying to spare the economy was worth allowing the virus to rip through the country. 

In any case, Sweden’s GDP tumbled 8.6% in the second quarter of the year, according to a flash estimate from the country’s statistics office on Wednesday – and recording its largest single quarterly drop in modern history. 

The record decline, broadly in line with consensus, was significantly worse than even the fourth quarter of 2008 when the Nordic country recorded a fall of 3.8% during the global financial crisis.

Robert Bergqvist (right), chief economist at SEB bank, told CNBC via email that considering Sweden’s stronger first quarter, Swedish GDP in the first half of the year had declined “only by around half as much as GDP in the euro area”. 

The euro zone’s economy contracted by 12.1% in the second quarter when compared to the previous quarter and by 11.9% across the broader European Union.

David Oxley (left), senior Europe economist at Capital Economics, also told CNBC that Sweden’s sharp GDP contraction “confirms that it has not been immune to Covid, despite the government’s well-documented light-touch lockdown”. 

In direct contrast to many countries across Europe, Sweden has kept most schools, particularly for younger children, and many businesses open in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Of course, the absence of a strict lockdown has coincided with the country recording more Covid-19 infections and related fatalities than all of its Nordic neighbors combined – Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway. 

Swedes must ask themselves if the price is worth paying.

Latin America Tops 5 Million Cases

Latin America broke through five million confirmed cases of Covid-19, a Reuters tally showed, underscoring the region's position as the area of the world hardest hit by the pandemic. After all, five of the countries are in the world's Top 12!

It is also noteworthy to mention that the 12 worst-affected Latin American countries account for 98% of the continent's total. 

Elsewhere, India climbed to 1.7 million cases on Saturday, and within a day, added another 100,000 to reach more than 1.8 million.

 

The US tallied 4.8 million cases on Sunday. The Philippines too made further inroads with 100,000 cases on the same day and Iraq accumulated 130,000 yesterday.

 

In fact, the Americas account for 54% of the world total.

 

Today, I received an email which confirms that my scream has just been blasted from speakers placed in Djúpivogur, East Iceland. That's super cool!

[If you don't know what I'm talking about, kindly refer to my blog post “S-C-R-E-A-M” published July 27, 2020. I watched a recording of it at https://lookslikeyouneediceland.com/?share=71f9270d-339e-466a-82de-d66975e5d398].

 

But in my particular case, my scream was heard when it went all the way to Iceland!

Let It Out!

Presently, you may not be in a position to travel – but that shouldn’t stop your angst-driven screams. 

That’s the idea proposed by Iceland’s tourism board (visiticeland.com). It may seem super bizarre but it is backed by scream therapy (or primal therapy, whichever). 

The coronavirus pandemic has brought much of the world to its knees not just economically but also mentally and emotionally. It’s been the most difficult period of our lives with people losing jobs, savings being depleted and really, we are all getting frustrated, and even depressed sometimes. All this anxiety, emotion and tension needs to be let out.

While we are still bound by restrictions and rules, travel-lovers can record themselves yelling for a few seconds to let off steam.

Not just that as per the Scandinavian nation’s tourist board’s campaign. 

#LetItOutIceland participants can choose where their screams will be played from speakers in identified places in Iceland.

The #LetItOutIceland sounds incredibly empathetic and something might truly help people help themselves. 

The website reads: “You’ve been through a lot this year and it looks like you need the perfect place to let your frustrations out. Somewhere big, vast and untouched. It looks like you need Iceland”. 

Truer words have never been spoken.

In the next two weeks with its #LetItOutIceland, the country will take submissions from its website and play them over loudspeakers set up in beautiful, remote locations. Speakers have been set up in picturesque locations in Iceland like Festarfjall in Reykjanes Peninsula, the shores of Djúpivogur in East Iceland, and the Skógarfoss waterfall in south Iceland. Also at Viðey Island in Reykjavik, Rauðasandur in the Westfjords, the Kálfshamarsvík lighthouse, and the Snæfellsjökull glacier.

Influencers and virtual visitors are already intrigued by this interesting concept of releasing your tension and are flocking the campaign from around the world. 

Submissions have been received from the US, Canada, Ireland, the UK, and Germany. And Malaysia too because I contributed my scream yesterday and had it sent to Djúpivogur in East Iceland.

EU Seal Borders

A border police officer gestures as they check vehicles at the last toll gate entering Spain from France, following an order from the Spanish government to set up controls at its land borders over coronavirus, in La Jonquera, Spain, March 17, 2020. 

The European Union decided Tuesday, to immediately ban travelers from outside the bloc for 30 days in an unprecedented move to seal their borders amid the coronavirus crisis. 

The travel ban will affect all non-EU nationals from visiting the bloc, except long-term residents, family members of EU nationals and diplomats, cross-border and healthcare workers, and people transporting goods. 

The measure is expected to apply to 26 EU states as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. I understand UK will be invited to join in.

To think that just last month, on February 24 to be precise, the EU had dismissed the Covid-19 threat and refused to consider border control.

Notwithstanding the ban, EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen (left) wants the EU to "unblock the situation" with regards to closed internal borders because "too many people are stranded". 

The prohibition came as deaths continued to soar in Italy and Spain, and France began a strict lockdown. 

Europe has been badly hit by the virus, which has killed 8,227 globally.

Certainly, Covid-19 has become a force majeure event worldwide and Malaysia is not excluded.

We have seen a spike in Covid-19 infections and already two deaths on Tuesday.

And one consequence of the Movement Control Order (previously referred to as Restricted Movement Order) in place beginning today right up until March 31, 2020 – is that all social activities have ceased. Including Toastmasters meetings. 

And even if I still have thirteen days remaining before my eleven-year-and-nine-month Toastmaster journey comes to a grinding halt – actually, it effectively ended today.

Toastmasters club meetings that I’m scheduled to attend at EcoWorld (x2), Crystal, Shah Alam, Monash, KPP, IJM and SOHK are all aborted. 

A sobering realization that Toastmasters and I are set to divorce. Permanently.