The New York Review of Books: ‘I Can’t Believe I’m in Saudi Arabia’

For middle-class urban Saudis the social changes brought in by King Salman and his powerful son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, generally known as MBS, are significant. A movie theater has been built where men and women may sit together—the first film shown was Black Panther, which proved very popular. Women have been permitted to attend sporting events, albeit in single-sex areas, but the most important decree, introduced in 2016, may have been the one curtailing the powers of the mutaween. No longer can the men tasked with “promoting virtue and preventing vice” arrest women on the streets and whip them for failing to cover themselves adequately. Their job must be carried out “in a gentle and humane way.” Robbed of the powers they used to exert with such arbitrary cruelty, they have melted away. [...]

A decade ago, James Mann’s The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression (2007) examined how Western politicians and businesspeople “foster an elaborate set of illusions about China, centered on the belief that commerce will lead inevitably to political change and democracy.” China’s continuing economic expansion coupled with its repression of those who challenge Communist Party rule has provided an object lesson to other governments: it is perfectly possible to allow certain changes that improve your citizens’ lives without letting loose pesky “Western” ideas like civil rights and free elections. In Saudi Arabia, change is designed precisely to curtail political upheaval or a demand for democracy. After the Arab Spring, which saw youth uprisings across the Middle East, King Salman understood that he had to do something for the two thirds of the population who are under thirty. Vision 2030, the ambitious economic and social plan designed by his thirty-three-year-old son, is designed to do just that. [...]

By the logic of a Saudi Arabia rather than a China fantasy, however, there is no contradiction. MBS knows that if the kingdom is to diversify its economy and reduce its dependence on oil, women must become more productive, so they need to drive and not waste their earnings on a driver. He wanted everyone to understand that women were being allowed to drive not because they had campaigned for it, but because their rulers had issued a decree. The point was clear: civil disobedience will not bring results; changes will come only from submission to a benign monarch who will decide what is best. [...]

The war in Yemen has provided many such opportunities for the state to co-opt and neutralize both modernizers and traditionalists. It is not the first time Saudi Arabia has intervened in its impoverished neighbor, but now there is an added sectarian dimension: the Houthis, who seized control of the capital, Sanaa, in early 2015 were to some extent sponsored by Shia Iran, the regional rival to Sunni Saudi Arabia. “This new military interventionism immediately became popular among many Saudi constituences, from Islamists to liberals,” writes Al-Rasheed. “By amplifying the undoubtedly genuine Iranian threat, the Saudi regime invoked both nationalism and sectarianism.”

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The New York Review of Books: Mike Pence, Star Witness

Because of these extraordinary circumstances, some of the president’s men decided that they had to take extraordinary action. I have learned that, in order to force the president’s hand in firing Flynn, two senior government officials instructed aides over the weekend that followed to leak sensitive information to The Washington Post and other news organizations in order to underscore that Flynn had likely lied about his conversations with Kislyak, and that there were concerns at the highest levels of the Justice Department and the FBI about Flynn’s conduct. These two officials believed that they were, in the words of one person familiar with the effort, “protecting Trump’s presidency from himself” and the country’s “national security from the president.” I have no information that Vice President Pence was involved in the leaking of this information, but Pence had certainly by then become a strong advocate of Flynn’s firing and, together with Priebus and McGahn, was extremely frustrated that the president had taken no action. [...]

This new information suggests that Vice President Pence could prove to be a crucial witness in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by the vice president. If the special counsel questions him, it would almost certainly be only as a witness, and it is far from certain that he will necessarily be questioned by investigators. [...]

Pence, Priebus, and McGahn then spoke with the president. All three counseled Trump that Flynn should be asked to resign, or be fired, according to White House records. Pence “took the lead” during this discussion, one well-placed source with knowledge of the matter told me. The vice president was uncharacteristically outspoken during their conversation because he no longer had any doubt that Flynn had lied to him and had done severe damage not only to the White House’s reputation, but also to Pence’s personal reputation, according to two people familiar with the matter. Attempting to depersonalize the issue, Pence said that the issue was not only that he had been lied to, but that Flynn had embarrassed the president and the administration. But as one person familiar with this presidential discussion told me, it was also about Pence himself, who felt that “for the president to not care about that aspect of it was disrespect for the vice president personally.” [...]

To date, Pence has played the part of deferential deputy to the president who, above all, demands loyalty from his subordinates. It is clear from this new account, though, that Pence interceded forcefully with the president about firing Flynn. There are few other people who know as much as Pence does about whether the president possibly broke the law. The president and his legal team have based their claim that Trump did not obstruct justice on the premise that Trump did not know that Flynn was under FBI investigation and did not know that Flynn had possibly lied to the FBI. Pence, according to the new information in this story, has some knowledge as to whether that is true. Pence also would have significant insight into the president’s frame of mind—his intent and motivation, the foundational building blocks of any obstruction case—when he allegedly pressured Comey to shut down his investigation of Flynn.

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The Atlantic: It’s a Very Awkward Time to Be a British Lawmaker in Europe

But representing Britain in an organization as it’s preparing to leave hasn’t been easy. When I met with Gill at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool this week, she told me that her last two years as a British member of European Parliament (MEP) have been some of the most difficult—and the most frustrating. “The entire process has been a disaster in terms of not just the British image abroad and the way people view us, but also in relation to just doing what we used to be very good at, which was getting our key message across to all of our representatives,” she said. Prior to Brexit, British lawmakers in Brussels might have known what the U.K.’s positions are on various issue areas. But now, with the seemingly constant infighting in Westminster over what kind of deal the U.K. should strike with the EU (or whether it needs one at all), there is no such clarity. “People would ask me, ‘What exactly does the U.K. want?’” Gill said. “And frankly, for two years I haven’t been able to give them an answer.” [...]

Gill said this type of rhetoric hasn’t helped the U.K. in its negotiations with the EU. “We’re in a difficult negotiation and you’ve got these Brexiteers who are offending all the people who we are negotiating with on a regular basis in parliament,” she said. “It’s quite different experiences, depending on where you’re at in terms of [being] pro-Europe or anti-Europe. If you’re anti-Europe, you don’t really care what goes on—you’re against everything anyway.” [...]

When I asked Gill about calls within the conference for an option to remain in the EU, she told me she was “bemused” by the reaction there. “I never imagined that I would be walking into Labour Party conference and there’d be that many big European flags flying,” she said. When she was first elected to the European Parliament in 1999, she said, Britons weren’t as opposed to the EU—but that sentiment began to change after 2000. “Looking back, I think we should have fought harder not to let Europe be sidelined,” she added. “It’s only when you’re about to lose something that you start to appreciate what it was.”

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Politico: A Frenchman joins the Battle of Barcelona

Speaking in slightly accented Spanish and Catalan — and some French — Valls spoke about his origins in Barcelona (his father was a Catalan painter exiled under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco) and his love for Catalan culture and language, which he said was spoken at home after the family moved to France. [...]

Valls is targeting both Catalan unionist voters — the liberal, pro-unity Ciudadanos, which offered him the chance to be the head of its local list, has thrown its weight behind his independent candidacy — and moderate, affluent nationalists tired of what he described as the “grave problems” of the city; namely, insecurity, drugs and illegal street vendors. [...]

Valls became involved in Spanish politics after his failed bid for the leadership of the French Socialist Party and at the peak of the Catalan independence push last year. His tough words against separatism — “unmaking Spain is unmaking Europe,” he said — played well with pro-unity audiences in Catalonia and the rest of Spain. [...]

Much is still unknown about Barcelona’s mayoral ballot, with not all candidates having declared. Some secessionists are calling for a common pro-independence ticket and others are resisting the pressure. Even if Valls ends up as the most popular candidate, a potential alliance of pro-independence parties or one of Colau and other leftist groups could deprive him of power.

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FiveThirtyEight: Science Says Toxic Masculinity — More Than Alcohol — Leads To Sexual Assault

And this is no surprise to experts who study campus sexual assault. Years of research both in and out of the lab suggests that there is a connection between young men drinking alcohol and making choices that destroy young women’s lives. But it’s not accurate to say alcohol causes sexual assault. Preventing rape will take more than simply convincing young men not to drink (let alone telling their victims to abstain). That’s because booze is only part of the problem. Every drink is downed amid cultural expectations and societally mediated attitudes about women and power. Those things — and how young men absorb them — have a stronger causal influence than the alcohol alone. When a man feels entitled to assault someone, he may get drunk before he does it, but the decision to act was ultimately his alone.

Half of all sexual assaults involve alcohol consumption — usually by both the victim and perpetrator, said Kelly Cue Davis, a professor at Arizona State University. And a 2002 review of literature found that, across a number of studies, perpetrators were more likely to report using alcohol at the time of an assault than victims — 60 to 65 percent of perpetrators compared with 30 to 55 percent of victims. Although men can be both perpetrators of sexual violence and victims, almost all the research is focused on the heterosexual paradigm of male perpetrators and female victims, Davis said. [...]

Testing what causes real-world sexual assaults is particularly complicated by the fact that the men who commit them have things in common with each other that go far beyond booze. If you compare men who have perpetrated sexual assault to those who have not, the perpetrator group always drinks more, Testa said. For example, one study found that 53 percent of men who reported committing sexual violence met a diagnosis for alcoholism, compared with 25 percent of sexually active men who did not report committing sexual violence. But the impact of these other variables — anti-social behavior, for instance, and negative views about women — are much stronger predictors of sexual violence than alcohol use. “And then alcohol is just sort of on top of it,” she said.

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IFLScience: Nepal's Tiger Population Doubles Thanks To Dedicated Conservation Work

Once found throughout the Asian continent and several Asian islands, tigers (Panthera tigris) have been wiped out of existence in many regions and are endangered in all their remaining pockets of habitat due to human activities, chiefly deforestation for agriculture and urbanization (more than 40 percent of native tiger ecosystems have been destroyed in the past 20 years alone), depletion of prey species, and poaching.

Per the IUCN Red List, tigers have disappeared from Java, Bali, southwest and central Asia, and from large areas of southeast and eastern Asia over the past 100 years. Currently, tigers inhabit about 7 percent of their former range, with evidence of breeding populations in Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Thailand, and potentially China and Myanmar. It is estimated that there were around 100,000 tigers in the wild in the early 1900s; now there are around 3,200 tigers – a figure that encompasses all subspecies.

Nepal’s success provides a model of how other nations can fulfill their pledge to meet the goal of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)’s TX2 project. Launched at the WWF’s 2010 Tiger Summit, TX2 is an ambitious research, conservation, and anti-poaching project aimed at doubling the total tiger population to 6,000 individuals by 2022 – the next Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac. Nepal and 12 other nations within the species’ range have committed to the plan.

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Quartz: Urban bees are living healthier lives than rural bees

Research published in the Royal Society B found that bumblebees living in urban areas experience healthier lives than their counterparts in rural habitats. Their colonies are larger, better fed, and less prone to disease. Urban colonies also survive longer than their country cousins. [...]

The bee colonies experienced population cycles, peaking between three and five weeks and then falling rapidly. Colonies in the city grew larger than those on the farm. [...]

While the study notes that flowers from public and private gardens offer a varied and consistent diet for bees in urban areas, it suggests fewer pesticides may be why bees thrive in the city. [...]

As with humans, cities offer insects opportunities for growth. Whether swarming Times Square, or invading Los Angeles the pollinators stay busy and multiply.

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Vox: Why US public transportation is so bad — and why Americans don’t care

Transit problems have roots in politics too. A recent Times article followed Koch-financed activists in Nashville who went door to door, recruiting locals to vote down plans to build light-rail trains, a traffic-easing tunnel, and new bus routes as part of the Koch brothers’ goals of lowering taxes and shrinking the government. (It also benefits the Koch brothers’ companies which produce gasoline and asphalt, and make seat belts, tires, and other automotive parts.) [...]

The most common myth on why Americans doesn’t have great mass transit is that the country is too spread out, but a look at Canada quickly unravels this theory. Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver all have buses, rapid transit, and commuter rails. Though sprawling, Canada still manages to have adequate transport in all its major cities. According to the aforementioned study, Canada ridership grew significantly between 2012 and 2017. [...]

Walker also says most American customers mistakenly prioritize reach over frequency; they want buses or trains everywhere, on every block, as opposed to a few trains that come all the time. “There is a distinctly American idea to have infrequent trains from the suburb into the city,” he says. “That’s an example where you put a line on map and people say, ‘Oh, [transit] exists,’ and someone who doesn’t understand frequency is going to think an area is being serviced when it is not.” Those who are more familiar with public transit understand that it’s better to have a few lines with frequent trains, rather than many lines that leave once every two hours. [...]

But Cervero says it has more to do with the economy. He believes a rise in gas prices, or “auto disincentives,” would drive up ridership more than creating more mass transit. This could look like the low-emissions zone in London, where cars are charged a fee for driving in a select area in order to limit pollution and traffic. There could also be a limit to how much car ownership growth is allowed per year, like in Singapore. Cervero suggests that even those who support investing in public transit don’t always walk the walk (or ride the ride?), and rarely is investment in public transit an effective political bargaining chip.

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Vox: How Trump could win in 2020

Up until now, Trump has governed like a very hardline conservative except on trade. But except for authoritarian views on immigration and crime, Trump doesn’t have any personal history of consistency as a conservative. And even during his 2016 campaign, he put forth a much more eclectic, heterodox version of himself than how he’s governed. [...]

One immediate consequence of this would be that it would give guys like Ben Sasse and Mike Lee, who sometimes like to position themselves as more high-minded than Trump, the opportunity to actually vote against the president sometimes. Any Trump-Pelosi deal could easily weather a dozen or so defections from the right that would allow that crew to own the brand of “true conservatives” without needing to do anything to check Trump’s corruption or authoritarianism. [...]

Trump’s electoral base wouldn’t mind a handful of ideological betrayals since rank-and-file Republicans are really here for the culture war stuff and not for the concrete policy anyway. So Trump would enter the 2020 campaign with his base intact but also with the brand as a freethinking moderate who’s at odds with the right wing of congressional Republicans. Democrats would end up nominating someone with a relatively extreme rejectionist profile, and Trump would be in a good position to improve his approval ratings and get reelected.

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