Latest News Clips 2016.04.25

1. The $2 Trillion Project to Get Saudi Arabia’s Economy Off Oil

Eight unprecedented hours with “Mr. Everything,” Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The Bloomberg April 21, 2016

Prince Mohammed

Early last year, at a royal encampment in the oasis of Rawdat Khuraim, Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia visited his uncle, King Abdullah, in the monarch’s final days before entering a hospital. Unbeknown to anyone outside the House of Saud, the two men, separated in age by 59 years, had a rocky history together. King Abdullah once banned his brash nephew, all of 26 at the time, from setting foot in the Ministry of Defense after rumors reached the royal court that the prince was disruptive and power-hungry. Later, the pair grew close, bound by a shared belief that Saudi Arabia must fundamentally change, or else face ruin in a world that is trying to leave oil behind.

For two years, encouraged by the king, the prince had been quietly planning a major restructuring of Saudi Arabia’s government and economy, aiming to fulfill what he calls his generation’s “different dreams” for a post carbon future. King Abdullah died shortly after his visit, in January 2015. Prince Mohammed’s father, Salman, assumed the throne, named his son the deputy crown prince—second in line—and gave him unprecedented control over the state oil monopoly, the national investment fund, economic policy, and the Ministry of Defense. That’s a larger portfolio than that of the crown prince, the only man ahead of him on the succession chart. Effectively, Prince Mohammed is today the power behind the world’s most powerful throne. Western diplomats in Riyadh call him Mr. Everything. He’s 31 years old. 

  “From the first 12 hours, decisions were issued,” says Prince Mohammed. “In the first 10 days, the entire government was restructured.” He spoke for eight hours over two interviews in Riyadh that provide a rare glimpse of the thinking of a new kind of Middle East potentate—one who tries to emulate Steve Jobs, credits video games with sparking ingenuity, and works 16-hour days in a land with no shortage of sinecures.

Last year there was near-panic among the prince’s advisers as they discovered Saudi Arabia was burning through its foreign reserves faster than anyone knew, with insolvency only two years away. Plummeting oil revenue had resulted in an almost $200 billion budget shortfall—a preview of a future in which the Saudis’ only viable export can no longer pay the bills, whether because of shale oil flooding the market or climate change policies. Historically, the kingdom has relied on the petroleum sector for 90 percent of the state budget, almost all its export earnings, and more than half its gross domestic product.

On April 25 the prince is scheduled to unveil his “Vision for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” an historic plan encompassing broad economic and social changes. It includes the creation of the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, which will eventually hold more than $2 trillion in assets—enough to buy all of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Berkshire Hathaway, the world’s four largest public companies. The prince plans an IPO that could sell off “less than 5 percent” of Saudi Aramco, the national oil producer, which will be turned into the world’s biggest industrial conglomerate. The fund will diversify into nonpetroleum assets, hedging the kingdom’s nearly total dependence on oil for revenue. The tectonic moves “will technically make investments the source of Saudi government revenue, not oil,” the prince says. “So within 20 years, we will be an economy or state that doesn’t depend mainly on oil.”

2. Mitsubishi Admits Cheating on Fuel-Economy Tests
   

The New York Times APRIL 20, 2016

TOKYO — In the latest scandal to hit the automobile industry, Mitsubishi Motors said on Wednesday that it had cheated on fuel-economy tests for an ultrasmall car it produces in Japan. The company acknowledged that its engineers had intentionally manipulated evaluations.

The cheating affected about 620,000 cars sold in the Japanese market starting in 2013, Tetsuro Aikawa, Mitsubishi’s president, said at a news conference.

But the problem could stretch beyond that make of car. Mr. Aikawa said that the same testing method, which was in violation of Japanese standards, was used on other models in the country and that Mitsubishi was investigating whether fuel-economy ratings for other lines had been exaggerated as a result.

“It has become clear that improper testing methods were used to improve the appearance of fuel efficiency,” Mr. Aikawa said before he and other company leaders bowed in apology. Company executives called the manipulation of tests on the microcar, called the eK, “intentional.”

Automakers’ reports of fuel economy and pollution ratings have come under especially close scrutiny after a scandal at Volkswagen last year. The German automaker was found to have manipulated software in 11 million diesel vehicles to cheat on emissions tests.

Mitsubishi’s reputation has been battered by scandal before. In 2000, the company admitted that it had been hiding reports on vehicle defects for more than two decades. The news contributed to a sales plunge of nearly 50 percent and nearly pushed the automaker into bankruptcy.

The revelation of cheating put the fuel ratings of other Mitsubishi vehicles under scrutiny. Its shares fell 15 percent on Wednesday after the company released a brief statement saying it had engaged in “improper” fuel-economy reporting. It disclosed the details after the market closed.

3. The Guardian view on the Queen at 90: the time to discuss changes
   
   
   

The Editorial of The Guardian 20 April 2016

Elizabeth II’s long life has defined the modern monarchy. But a modern conversation about the ever-changing constitutional concordat ought to begin now

 The Queen opening a new bandstand at Alexandra Gardens, Windsor, on Wednesday. ‘She is said to believe that when the public looks at her they see someone who is honest and prosaic and not in some ways so dissimilar to themselves.’ Photograph: i-Images

There has never been, and there may never be again, a British monarch quite like Queen Elizabeth II, who celebrates her 90th birthday on Thursday. She owes most of her uniqueness to a single cause: her longevity on the throne. This queen has now ruled for longer than any of her predecessors. This queen is now older than any previous monarch. This queen has been married longer. What is more, as she reaches her tenth decade, this queen also looks good for several more milestones yet.

Today’s monarchy can appear profoundly rooted in history and tradition. But that can be misleading. In our day, this is partly because Elizabeth II is the only monarch most of us have ever known, just as Prince Philip is the only consort and Prince Charles the only heir. None of this has changed since 1952, an increasingly immense span in an era in which political leaders and cultural icons rarely stay more than a decade at the top.

The truth is that over time the monarchy has always invented itself, and has been reinvented, as it goes along. Today’s monarchy reflects Elizabeth II much more than most of us pause to consider. In particular it reflects her lifelong readiness to do dutifully and adaptably the things that she and her advisers decided were expected of her, and our acceptance of that role. But the monarchy has also sometimes been reinvented by the country, not the court.

All this has helped to make the Queen seem an object of fixed familiarity, the familiarity surely more apparent than real, like no other public figure in modern Britain. Although the monarchy can unquestionably have an infantilising effect, it is hard to think of anyone in this country other than the Queen who is more widely respected on the personal level, even by some committed republicans and reflexive defiers of authority. This has helped make her a somewhat deceptive source of the enduring in an otherwise radically changed Britain, and a perhaps improbable force for national cohesion in an era of deepening divisions.

The Queen is said to believe that when the public looks at her they see someone who is honest and prosaic and not in some ways so dissimilar to themselves. That will seem a naive view to many, yet the years would seem to have vindicated it. The Queen may not be able to point to many major achievements as monarch, but she has made incredibly few mistakes either; the rows over her tax position and the challenges posed by Princess Diana in life and death are now increasingly distant exceptions. She has public ratings any politician would die for. She has done her strange, irrational and undemocratic job with a tact and judgment few people could match.

When the earlier milestones of her life and reign had been reached, there was an understandable reluctance to spoil the national party. It has seemed churlish – perhaps even unBritish – to ask too loudly the question that Jeremy Benthamposed about any law, custom or institution: “What is the use of it?” These earlier anniversaries have been occasions to acknowledge the unspectacular woman on the throne, the respect she enjoys and the pleasure she brings, rather than to reflect on the institution she embodies or to ask where the monarchy might be heading in a more democratic era. Very large numbers will again prefer it that way as the Queen reaches 90.

Yet Britain should not forever defer the need to think about the future of the monarchy. We live in volatile times. We struggle with what it means to be British. The United Kingdom may soon pull up its drawbridge against its neighbours. It may split into some of its more ancient national components. The state religion which the monarch pledges to uphold has a weakening public hold. The longer the Elizabethan monarchy continues, the closer Britain comes to the point at which an institution that does so much to define it will also have to change.

This needs to be considered and debated. It cannot be assumed that the placid concordat between the public and the crown over which the present queen has presided will seamlessly survive under a different monarch. That would be especially true under a monarch who was a figure of controversy for any reason. It is too easily forgotten that, ever since 1688, the monarchy has evolved less to reflect the personality and whims of the monarch than to reflect the values, institutions and needs of the nation within which the monarch reigns. If such a system is to continue, or if it is to be replaced, modern Britain should now begin a modern conversation about how these inescapable changes should happen.

4. Where do earthquakes hit? 
   

April 25, 2016

Earthquakes normally occur along the edge of tectonic plates - the gigantic slabs that fit together to make up the earth’s crust. 

The plates, which are constantly moving on the earth’s surface, sometimes crash into each other or suddenly slide past each other. 

The sudden movement of the plates can cause the ground to shake, which wreaks havoc and destruction. 

What is the Ring of Fire? 

Both Ecuador and Japan are located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is the world’s most active earthquake belt. 

The Ring of Fire is a long chain of active volcanoes and earthquake sites that run around the edge of the Pacific Ocean. 

It is believed that about 90% of all earthquakes occur along the horse-shaped ring that covers several tectonic plates.

The 25,000-mile ring stretches all the way from South America and North America to Japan and New Zealand on the other side of the ocean. 

USGS

The Ring of Fire stretches from South America to Japan and New Zealand

Which country has the most earthquakes? 

Earthquakes happen all the time all over the world - but a vast majority of the quakes are too weak to be felt. 

The whole of Japan lies in very active seismic area so it records a lot of earthquakes, according to the US Government’s science bureau, the US Geological Survey (USGS).

But in fact Indonesia has more total earthquakes than Japan “by virtue of its larger size”, the USGS said. 

Powerful 7.8 earthquake kills dozens in Ecuador

Sun, April 17, 2016

An earthquake of 7.8 magnitude has killed dozens in Ecuador.