The light at the end of the tunnel, the peacefulness, your life flashing before your eyes—it's all been documented thoroughly in pop culture. What usually gets left out, though, are the potential scientific explanations for what happens to your brain during a brush with death.
25 October 2017
Bloomberg: How Ukraine's Elites Are Holding the Line
The Ukrainian government, however, shows signs of lapsing into a "muddling-through" mode. The pension reform required by the International Monetary Fund to stabilize public finances has been watered down with 1,000 legislative amendments. President Petro Poroshenko and his cabinet are not pushing hard on another key element of Western aid conditionality, the introduction of a free market in land, because the immediate benefits are uncertain. The Russian market for Ukrainian agricultural goods is all but closed, the quotas for exports to the EU are tiny, and the owners of Ukrainian agricultural businesses fear that, once land can be bought and sold, foreign competitors with deep pockets will eat them alive. Privatization efforts have largely failed because of a lack of investor interest ("Corruption and war are not incentives to invest," the Chatham House report notes drily.) [...]
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian political elite is strikingly unpopular. Poroshenko is still the most popular choice for president, but according to the latest poll by the Razumkov Center for Political and Economic Research, only 9.3 percent of Ukrainians would vote for him now. Just 9.6 percent would vote for Poroshenko's party, now the biggest in parliament. That's understandable: According to the World Bank's October report on Ukraine, poverty is still higher than it was before the 2014 revolution. Ukraine traditionally runs extremely long election campaigns, and it's time for Poroshenko to prepare for the 2019 election. Both he and the parliamentary parties have strong incentives to use the fruits of macroeconomic stabilization and tax reform to boost social spending. That's already happening: The World Bank expects the public deficit to exceed its 3 percent target this year after hitting 2.2 percent in 2016. [...]
Poroshenko and his team have hit a point where neither the Western donors nor Putin can apply much pain without overreaching themselves. Last week, a group of opposition parties and civil society movements -- including some of the organizers of the original 2013 protests -- tried to stage a major rally in the government quarter in Kiev to demand "a big political reform" including tougher action on corruption. The protest, however, wasn't well-attended. Unlike in 2013, Ukrainians are not ready to rise up for pro-Western or, much less, for pro-Russian causes.
Social Europe: Europe’s Attackers From Within (Joschka Fischer)
On October 1, the Catalan government held an independence referendum in which less than half – some estimates say a third – of the region’s population participated. By the standards of the EU and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the vote could never be accepted as “free and fair.” In addition to being illegal under the Spanish constitution, the referendum did not even have a voting register to determine who was entitled to participate. [...]
The EU is an association of nation-states, not regions. Although regions can play an important role within the EU, they cannot stand in as an alternative to member states. If Catalonia were to set a precedent of secession, encouraging other regions to follow suit, the EU would be thrown into a deep, existential crisis. In fact, one could argue that nothing less than the EU’s future is at stake in Catalonia today. [...]
One can only hope that reason will prevail, particularly in Barcelona, but also in Madrid. A democratic, intact Spain is too important to be jeopardized by disputes over the allocation of tax revenues among the country’s regions. There is no alternative but for both sides to abandon the trenches they have dug for themselves, come out to negotiate, and find a mutually satisfactory solution that accords with the Spanish constitution, democratic principles, and the rule of law.
Social Europe: Dutch Aggression
On September 26, Emmanuel Macron made a speech on new a vision for Europe. He spoke about the need to harmonize corporate taxes in the European Union, tackle tax avoidance and protect our welfare states. Just one day later President Trump gave a speech on exactly the same topic, albeit with an entirely different message. He vowed to lower corporate taxation for American companies by a whopping 15 percentage points.
Unintentionally, the two speeches give an excellent illustration of the dilemma that countries, and especially EU countries, face. This is a result of a new logic in corporate taxation, in which 20th century tax systems designed for brick-and-mortar industries are no match for the 21st century developments of digitalization and globalisation. The choice is clear. Either countries work together to tackle the ingenious tax avoidance schemes ran by multinationals, or they participate in the cynical race towards the lowest tax rate. [...]
In that sense, the Netherlands sets a bad example, taking a step back from earlier solutions, and thus genuflecting towards Trump’s bogus solution. The new four-party cabinet revealed its plan to reduce the corporate tax rate incrementally from 25 to 21 percent, and even from 20 to 16 percent for the first €200K of profit. Besides that, a 15 percent tax on shareholder dividends will be removed. Any reference to an EU-coordinated effort to modernise the corporate taxation system is missing. All that said, one good thing is that the incoming government wants to introduce a source tax on royalties and interest to counter the Netherlands’ reputation for facilitating letterbox companies.
Deutsche Welle: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pledges more 'moderate' kingdom
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said his country would become more "moderate" and "open" on Tuesday and pledged to "eradicate" radical Islamist ideology from the Gulf kingdom.
"We are returning to what we were before – a country of moderate Islam that is open to all religions and to the world," the 32-year-old said at a major investment conference in Riyadh. [...]
In September, the Saudi government issued a decree that overturned a previous ban on women driving. Some officials have hinted the government may soon permit long-banned cinemas.
The young prince has also been the primary force driving "Vision 2030," an initiative designed to wean Saudi Arabia off of its traditional dependency on oil revenues by creating a more dynamic and diverse Saudi economy. [...]
Earlier Tuesday, bin Salman promised the conference attendees, which included representatives from some of the world's largest companies, that the Gulf kingdom will create a massive economic zone along the country's northwestern coastline.
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