Quartz: America’s most controversial office-lobby mural has been resurrected

In 1933, an office mural caused an uprising in New York City. Man at the Crossroads, a large fresco by celebrated Mexican painter Diego Rivera, was meant for the lobby of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, but a rogue figure in the composition caused the entire mural to be censored and eventually destroyed.[...]

Haskell’s excitement is understandable. Flanking Rivera’s impressive 5 ft x 15 ft, three-panel painting are two original sketches which are being shown publicly in the US for the first time. The sketches show how Rivera, a member of the Communist party, almost imperceptibly yet radically altered his proposal, by slyly adding a portrait of Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin to the right of the central figure. [...]

“The interesting thing about the commission is that both the Rockefellers and Rivera came into the project with misconception,” explains Haskell. The Rockefellers relied on Rivera’s track record of producing murals for other capitalist enterprises with little controversy. Rivera, who was heralded as the “star of the Mexican school” and world-renowned at that point, thought his corporate patrons would cede to his artistic whim.

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Quartz: What interest rates dating back to 1311 tell us about today’s global economy

That insight comes courtesy of a fascinating working paper by economist Paul Schmelzing, which reconstructs real interest rates in advanced economies dating back to 1311. The study—what the author says is the first construction of a dataset of high-frequency GDP-weighted real rates (i.e. the difference between the nominal yield and inflation)—features a staggeringly rich collection of records culled from diaries, account books, local archives, and municipal registers and includes everything from Medici bank loans to France’s “Revolutionary loans” to the US government.

While the data available from past eras isn’t comprehensive, what it suggests is a steady fall in the average real rate since the late 1400s—a decline that spans centuries, asset classes, political systems, and monetary regimes. The slope of that trend puts long-term real rates on track to hit near-zero levels at some point in the past 20 or so years. [...]

Between 1313 and 2018, around a fifth of advanced economies were experiencing negative long-term yields, on average. In keeping with Schmelzing’s larger finding, that share has risen over time. However, the frequency of these episodes seems to be rising. For example, the average share from 1313 to 1750 was 18.6%, compared to 20.8% from 1880 to 2018. Since 2009, that share stands at 25.9% (after an unusual spate of 0% between 1984 and 2001). [...]

Then came the moral backlash. Starting in the early 1400s, states around Europe instituted a rash of “sumptuary laws” banning myriad forms of conspicuous consumption. Schmelzing hypothesizes that the luxury retail boom sucked funds away from debt markets. After sumptuary laws finally succeeded in suppressing consumer spending, that trend reversed. Though there’s no micro-level evidence on savings rates to check this against, cautions Schmelzing, this surmise is consistent with narrative accounts and research on longer-term wealth evolution. As savings rates began climbing in the late 1400s, money flowed back into bonds, pushing down rates—and setting off the centuries-long decline that continues still today.

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Quartz: Taiwan is the new home for Hong Kongers seeking political safety

Multiple Hong Kong media outlets have reported that as many as 30 (link in Chinese, paywall) protesters connected to the storming of the city’s legislature during a protest on July 1 have fled to Taiwan. The incident occurred on the anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule, amid a weeks-long series of protests against a much-maligned extradition bill. The reports say that some of the protesters are seeking ways to stay in Taiwan such as applying for school, while others are seeking asylum. [...]

The case of the Hong Kong protesters is a test of Taiwan’s commitment to human rights and progressive values at a time of ever-tightening restrictions on personal freedoms in China, and as many see Beijing’s heavy hand eroding Hong Kong’s autonomy. Tsai herself has been extremely outspoken on the recent protests in Hong Kong, which are also fueling solidarity in both Taiwan and Hong Kong against Beijing. [...]

Another Hong Kong woman, Lee Sin-yi, who was found guilty for her role in the 2016 “Fishball Revolution” riot, left the city for Taiwan in 2017 ahead of a court hearing. Having gone dark for almost two years, a recording purportedly featuring Lee surfaced in May where she warned that more Hong Kongers would be forced to go into exile in the future as Beijing tightens its grip on the city. Taiwanese media at the time said that Lee’s whereabouts were unknown after she had overstayed her visa.

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Quartz: The fallout from a church rape scandal shows the harsh reality of being a woman in Nigeria

On Sunday, June 30, Nigerian women organized a protest against sexual violence in the church following recent allegations by the wife of a popular singer that the Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) general overseer pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo raped her when she was 17 years old. [...]

Nigerian women have had a lot to protest lately. In May, there were significant protests after mass arrests of women in clubs and bars at night for alleged prostitution in Abuja, the federal capital city. It’s worth noting none of the men who were apparently being solicited shared the same fate. Soon after their release some of the women shared grim stories of rape and extortion at the hands of the police. The police promised an investigation but not before the assistant superintendent of Police in an interview justified the mass arrests because women “are not supposed to be hanging around outside clubs.” [...]

Beyond these recent happenings, Nigeria’s statistics on women’s well-being don’t make for pleasant reading. Up to19% of Nigerian girls have already started childbearing by the age of 15. By the age of 19, the number rises to 37%. Nigeria’s adolescent fertility rate in Nigeria is 120 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19 years. In its last jobs report of 2018, the National Bureau of Statistics showed that 26.6% of women – compared to 20.3% of men – able and willing to work are unemployed, which marks a 5.4% year-on-year increase from what it was in 2017.

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Quartz: Tourists love 'live like a local' travel. Do locals?

The way we travel has changed. 

Forget travel agents and hotel concierges — the modern traveler uses smartphones with GPS, Airbnb and Instagram to plan an off-the-beaten-path trip. 

And sure enough, it’s not hard to find business owners and locals who have benefitted economically from the boom. But the economic benefits of “live like a local” travel only tells part of the story. In Lisbon, the tourism boom has had ripple effects everywhere from the housing market to getting into the local lunch spot.

Quartz: Given the chance to ask anything about sex, Colombian teens had three big questions

Teens in Bogotá have questions. Around 1.5 million have logged on and asked an average of three queries since the program was launched in February 2017. The platform is part of a wider initiative to combat teen pregnancy which seems to be working: in the past three years, teen pregnancy rates in the city have dropped 22.2%, with the steepest drop last year. Sexperto is in talks to roll the program out nationally, and one multilateral organization is looking at expanding it to the entire Andean region. [...]

The problem was very real. In 2015, 43 girls under 19 became mothers in Bogotá every day. The city ministry decided any program had to cross sectors, be properly funded, and be ready to deal with the backlash of a Catholic society which does not always welcome talk about sex and sexuality. Indeed, Amelia Rey, head of community health services in the Ministry of Health says Peñalosa became the target of 100 formal inquiries from opposing political parties about the city’s teen pregnancy efforts, including Sexperto, and heavily criticized for installing 300 condom vending machines in public spaces. [...]

Something is working. In 2014, the teen pregnancy rate was 16.4%; in 2018 it was 12.2%. The median age of new mothers, in that time, has moved from 22 to 23. That is clearly not all the work of Sexperto, which is part of a larger strategy which has included condom machines, the appointment of youth leaders who are trained and work with their peers, revamped sex education in 398 public schools, and increased birth control coverage. But Rey says it’s played a big role. “Sexperto.co has definitely been part of this city-wide effort and has been the ‘brand’ and novelty item we have used to speak about this important issue within the health sector and to non-health sector interest groups.”

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Quartz: After men in Spain got paternity leave, they wanted fewer kids

Economists studying the effects of the original 2007 policy examined what happened to families that had children just before and just after the program began, and found differences in the outcomes. While the early cohort of men who were eligible for paternity leave were just as likely to stay in the workforce as the men who weren’t eligible, they remained more engaged with childcare after their return to work, and their partners were more likely to stay in the workforce as well. In that sense, the program seems to have done what policy makers would have hoped.

Unexpectedly, though, the researchers also found that families who were eligible for the paternity leave were less likely to have kids in the future. In a study published in the Journal of Public Economics (paywall), economists Lídia Farré of the University of Barcelona and Libertad González of University of Pompeu Fabra estimate that two years on, parents who had been eligible for the newly introduced program were 7% to 15% less likely to have another kid than parents who just missed the eligibility cutoff. While the difference dissipated further into the future, even after six years, parents who had been eligible for the leave were still less likely to have a child again. [...]

As the authors point out, it’s impossible to draw sweeping conclusions from this observation of a single data point in a single country. Correlation isn’t causation, and it’s possible that other factors weighed more heavily than paternity leave on men’s family preferences. (The global financial crisis, for example, hit Spain in full force about a year after the leave policy was introduced.)

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Quartz: Are the UK’s two leading political parties on the edge of collapse?

“I think it is fair to say that this is the return of at least three-party politics,” political scientist John Curtice told the BBC. “But I suspect that on 23 May”—or the date of the forthcoming European Parliament elections—”we will discover that there are more than three significant players. We may see the most fragmented British electorate since the advent of mass British democracy.” [...]

Since 2016, the year the UK voted to leave the European Union, more than 20 MPs have resigned from roles in prime minister Theresa May’s government over her handling of Brexit. Some of these ministers were literally tasked with its execution, but have found developing a plan that works for everyone, or even has majority appeal, an insurmountable hurdle. May’s repeated attempts to pass her own deal with the EU have been utterly unsuccessful. Now, with less than six months to go before the UK’s new leave date, the future of the party, and its leadership, is far from certain. [...]

The Brexit Party’s only policy is that Britain should leave the European Union, and that it should do so at once, without a withdrawal agreement. Since the party’s registration with electoral authorities in February, polling has gone from zilch to 17%. At the same time, Conservative party support has dwindled, leaving the party conclusively trailing Labour for the first time all year. [...]

But the party’s inconsistent messaging saw it punished at the polls in recent local elections. At present, Labour is pushing for a snap general election. If it wins, its job will be just as hard as the incumbent’s. With Brexiteers across the political spectrum, any deal requires bipartisan support to have a hope of being passed—including a no-deal Brexit. At present, there is no incentive for Corbyn to “sign off” on May’s Brexit. Any pro-Brexit Tory leader is just as unlikely to be prepared to compromise with Labour.

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Quartz: Photos: Thai king Maha Vajiralongkorn is crowned

King Maha Vajiralongkorn has been officially crowned as Thailand’s monarch amid Buddhist and Hindu prayers and pageantry costing over $30 million.

The 66-year-old Vajiralongkorn, also known as king Rama X, succeeded his father upon the latter’s death in October 2016. But the coronation was delayed by a year of mourning and a suitable span of time from the late king Bhumibol Adulyadej’s funeral in 2017. Today’s coronation was the country’s first in nearly seven decades.

The coronation celebrations span several days and include a royal procession on Sunday, for which rehearsals have been underway in the capital during the week. The ceremonies were preceded by Thailand unexpectedly getting a queen after Vajiralongkorn married the deputy head of his person guard force on Wednesday (May 1), making her Queen Suthida.

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Quartz: Over 13% of the homes in Japan are abandoned

Japan’s population is shrinking. Last year it fell by nearly 450,000 people. Not since records began in 1899 had so few babies been born (921,000). Before that, 2017 had also set a record. Meanwhile the number of people passing away last year set a post-war record. The figures are part of a larger pattern in which births have declined and deaths increased steadily for decades.

Less noticed is another alarming figure that’s been growing. According to the latest government statistics, the number of abandoned homes in Japan reached a record high of 8.5 million as of Oct. 1, 2018, up by 260,000 from five years earlier. As a proportion of total housing stock, abandoned homes reached 13.6%.

Some areas have been hit harder than others. Saitama, north of Tokyo, and tropical Okinawa had the lowest proportions of vacant homes. But the rate topped 20% in the Yamanashi and Wakayama prefectures.

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Quartz: Africa’s largest mosque has been completed with thanks to China

The Great Mosque of Algiers, or Djamaa El Djazair, sits on an area of 400,000 square meters and has a 265 meter (870 feet) minaret that houses observation decks. The compound’s domed sanctuary and outside courtyard overlooking the Bay of Algiers can house up to 120,000 worshippers and has an underground parking space with a capacity of 7,000 cars. [...]

With its completion, the mosque will now be the world’s third biggest by area and the largest in Africa. The two largest mosques are The Sacred Mosque of Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina: both considered the holiest sites in Islam and accustomed by millions of Muslim worshippers and pilgrims every year. [...]

The choice of building Africa’s largest mosque is an interesting choice for a Muslim-majority nation that has for years struggled with an Islamist insurgency. After the government canceled the 1992 elections where Islamists appeared to win, that triggered a civil insurgency that led to the death of 200,000 people.

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Quartz: The urban farming ‘revolution’ has a fatal flaw

They focused on New York City, where CEA has dramatically increased in the last decade. Looking at 10 farms that produce roof- and indoor-grown vegetables at commercial scales, they investigated how much food the farms are producing, who it’s reaching, and how much space is available to expand CEA into.

They found that the biggest of these 10 commercial farms is around a third of an acre in size. Most are on roofs spread across New York City, and some are inside buildings and shipping containers. Mainly, these farms are producing impressive amounts of leafy greens such as lettuce, and herbs; some also produce fish. [...]

Furthermore, the predominantly grown foods—such as lettuce—aren’t of great nutritional value for the urban population, especially those threatened by food insecurity. Most produce from CEAs is sold at a premium, something that partly reflects the cost of the real estate used to grow the food. Consequently, that produce is typically grown for high-end food stores and restaurants, meaning it’s unlikely to reach low-income urban populations who need it most.

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Quartz: How Taiwan became the most LGBT-friendly country in Asia

As far as Asian countries go, Taiwan is not very big. It is home to about 23 million people, compared to 127 million in Japan, and, you know, 1.4 billion in China. Even so, every autumn Taiwan hosts the largest gay pride parade in Asia. This year, more than 130,000 people showed up to march.

The reason such a small country hosts such a large parade is that Taiwan has become the most LGBT-friendly country in Asia. Last year, for example, its highest court declared that same-sex marriage would be legal within two years, a first in the region.

Quartz: In rich countries, the middle class is getting smaller and smaller, generation by generation

When the Baby Boomers, who were born between 1943 and 1964, were in their twenties, some 68% were in middle-income households. Only 60% of Millennials, who were born between 1983 and 2002, could say the same at a similar time in their lives.

The OECD defines the middle class as people earning between 75% and 200% of the national median annual income. Its data is an average of results from Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. [...]

Housing costs are squeezing the middle class the hardest; this now consumes a third of disposable income for middle-class households, up from a quarter in the 1990s. Housing and higher education expenses have been rising faster than middle incomes, the OECD said. [...]

Still, there are differences between countries. The OECD data show that the US middle class has shrunk as a result of both the lower and upper classes expanding, although the latter has grown by almost twice as much. In Spain, the decline of the middle class is entirely due to people falling into the lower class. In the UK, the lower class has gotten smaller, while the upper class has grown, but within the middle class, the lower-middle has grown while the mid-middle and upper-middle are in decline.

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Quartz, Students in the UK and Germany learn about the EU in entirely different ways

In the English textbooks, Europe was seen almost exclusively in political terms—with strong emphasis on the EU being a controversial issue. In one book for example, although there are references to the European Convention on Human Rights along with the European court and a brief mention of the European Economic Area, most of the limited space given to Europe is about the European Union—and about “different viewpoints on EU membership.”

In the German books there was a very different approach: Europe is seen more expansively and positively with an integrated approach to politics and identity. The German textbooks also had references to Europe being “our historical, cultural and intellectual home,” a “community of values,” and, a place where “enemies became friends.” [...]

The project was informed by previous research, particularly, work undertaken by one of the project team which involved interviewing 2,000 young people across 29 European countries. The project aimed to find out how young people in Europe construct their political identities—which we found often transcend traditional boundaries of state and nation.

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Quartz: Male refugees commonly experience sexual violence on the route to Europe

In the hopes of making migration routes safer and improving responsive care, the commission, a rights advocacy group for displaced women and children, took a deeper look (pdf) at the experiences of men and boys who identify as males, as well as gay, transgender, and bisexual men. They found that while sexual violence is one of many reasons (paywall) thousands of migrants and refugees leave their homes for Europe, it is also something they encounter—sometimes repeatedly—along the route.

Last year, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) reported that requests for care aboard their search-and-rescue ship in the Mediterranean, the Aquarius, from male sexual abuse survivors jumped from 3% of rescued males in 2017 to 33% in 2018. [...]

The Commission met with more than 50 male refugees between 15 and 40 years old and refugee healthcare providers in Italy, and heard instances of rape, castration, and sexual humiliation. The refugees said the abuse would often occur at borders or checkpoints, with guards requesting payment before crossing. Sexual violence would happen even if they had funds demanded. Sometimes, abuse was taped or aired on a call with families for ransom. [...]

The group is calling on the EU to stop deporting migrants back to Libya or their home country, where they may face sexual abuse again. They have asked the new right-wing Italian government to stop the criminalization of search-and-rescue operations and to reopen ports for rescued migrants. And they have also requested support from the UN for local organizations working with survivors of sexual violence. Enjoy this content in the new Quartz app Get the app

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Quartz: Too rich, too comfortable: Why Japan is so resistant to change even as disaster looms

Under the leadership of Shinzo Abe, it can feel as if Japan is enjoying a revolution of sorts. Sweeping economic reforms are finally shaking up its long-stagnant economy, while more foreign workers are entering the country than ever before. Soaring tourist numbers and major sporting events, like this year’s Rugby World Cup and the 2020 Summer Olympics, are also keeping “Cool Japan,” well, cool.[...]

But none of these advantages will help the country tackle its serious economic and demographic problems. That’s according to Brad Glosserman, a 12-year resident of Japan and author of a new book, Peak Japan: The End of Great Ambitions (Georgetown University Press, 2019). Glosserman, now deputy director of the Center for Rule-Making Strategies at Tama University in Tokyo, decided to write the book after the earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan in 2011. He wondered whether those calamities would be enough to shake Japan out of its comfortable, familiar stupor. His conclusion? Not so much.[...]

The nature of the challenges facing Japan, and the need to reverse those trends that everybody acknowledges are bad, requires structural shifts. And the Japanese are not prepared to do that. “We like what we have, we’re a small ‘c’ conservative country, we are not prepared to adopt a system that somebody else thinks we need when we’re not sure of it ourselves,” they say. Japan is not like a society trapped in the amber—of course it’s changing and evolving, but these are evolutionary, not revolutionary changes. What the Japanese are is very Japanese. This is a country that believes in law, resilience, stoicism, sucking it up and getting through it. That, as one politician put it to me, is an absolute brake on change in this country. [...]

For those on the right who seek reforms to realize their dream of a more powerful and influential Japan, they must balance their impact on social norms and idealized social structures. With women, the tension here is between what the government knows it has to do to unleash their economic potential in society, but there’s also the notion of a woman’s place in the household—I think Abe really does believe in that. There’s been all sorts of policy nudges that the government could have done, but they haven’t, like making childcare widely available. That tension has resulted in begrudging changes that are too late. [...]

People will look back at the emperor and think that he was an extraordinary man in so many ways. He was a voice of reason, a voice of calm and serenity. He encapsulated the very best of Japan. There’s even speculation that he actually decided to abdicate as one way of stopping the prime minister from getting his constitutional revision to Article 9.

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Quartz: The ancient connections between atheism, Buddhism and Hinduism

As a scholar of Asian religions, however, I’m often struck by the prevalence of atheism and agnosticism—the view that it is impossible to know whether a god exists—in ancient Asian texts. Atheistic traditions have played a significant part in Asian cultures for millennia. [...]

The Buddha himself rejected the idea of a creator god, and Buddhist philosophers have even argued that belief in an eternal god is nothing but a distraction for humans seeking enlightenment. [...]

According to Jainism, the universe is eternal, and while gods may exist, they too must be reborn, just like humans are. The gods play no role in spiritual liberation and enlightenment; humans must find their own path to enlightenment with the help of wise human teachers. [...]

Around the same time when Buddhism and Jainism arose in the sixth century BC, there was also an explicitly atheist school of thought in India called the Carvaka school. Although none of their original texts have survived, Buddhist and Hindu authors describe the Carvakas as firm atheists who believed that nothing existed beyond the material world. [...]

Another example is the Mimamsa school. This school also rejects the idea of a creator God. The Mimamsa philosopher Kumarila said that if a god had created the world by himself in the beginning, how could anyone else possibly confirm it? Kumarila further argued that if a merciful god had created the world, it could not have been as full of suffering as it is.

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Quartz: Air pollution is a bigger killer than tobacco use in India

In India, China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, the entire population lives in conditions where levels of the hazardous PM2.5 pollutants in the air are above the World Health Organisation’s permissible limits, the study says. It adds that 60% of the population in India is also exposed to household air pollution due to the burning of firewood and other biomass such as cattle dung cakes for cooking. [...]

In 2017, about 1.2 million people died in India due to air pollution-related illnesses such as lung cancer, type-2 diabetes, and pneumonia, the report says. This makes air pollution the third biggest national health risk, higher than even tobacco use. [...]

While it is second only to China in the number of PM 2.5-linked deaths, India also recorded the highest number of deaths caused by household air pollution in any country.

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Quartz: The most common destination for African immigrants is neither Europe nor North America

A new Afrobarometer survey of respondents in 34 African countries shows that 36% of Africans are more likely to move to another country within the continent. The trend noted in the report is also backed by reality as only 20% of African migrants who decide to emigrate from their countries actually leave the continent, according to the African Union. For example, many more people move from the Horn of Africa to southern Africa than those crossing the Sahara to north Africa to reach Europe.

The destination preferences also vary by region, the report shows. While a majority of west and north Africans prefer to move to Europe, intending immigrants in central, east and southern African largely prefer to move to another African country, specifically one within their regions. [...]

Crucially, as Afrobarometer’s report shows, 47% of respondents aged between 18 and 25 have considered moving elsewhere—the most of any age group. The trend is a consequence of unabating local unemployment which respondents cited as the leading reason for looking to emigrate.

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