The Atlantic: Trudeau Reaches His Breaking Point With Trump

Trudeau’s politics and worldview might not align with Trump’s, but he was among the first world leaders to congratulate the U.S. president on his election victory, noting Canada has “no closer friend, ally, and partner than the United States.” It’s a message he carried to Washington where he endured an awkward handshake with Trump, and had what was generally billed as a positive meeting with the American president. When it ended, the two men spoke warmly of each other, and Trump even said he was prepared to tweak NAFTA instead of withdrawing from it. [...]

“In closing, I want to be very clear about one thing: Americans remain our partners, friends, and allies. This is not about the American people. We have to believe that at some point their common sense will prevail,” he said in the type of language that successive U.S. administrations have used to describe recalcitrant regimes such as Iran. “But we see no sign of that in this action today by the U.S. administration.” [...]

NAFTA is being renegotiated by the three countries, but the pact looks set to go the way of the Paris climate accord, the Iran deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The advisers who advocated for Trump to remain in those multilateral pacts have long left the administration and those who remain say they support Trump’s worldview. Indeed, Wilbur Ross, the Commerce secretary, said Thursday the tariffs on Canada were being imposed because of insufficient progress on talks to renegotiate NAFTA.* Just days earlier, investors were optimistic that the three countries were close to an agreement. No longer.

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Politico: Merkel endorses Macron’s EU military plan

Merkel’s French counterpart Emmanuel Macron has been pushing for the creation of a combined EU military force that could be deployed to trouble spots around the world. The idea had so far received a frosty reception in Berlin, with defense minister Ursula von der Leyen saying the idea was “not an imminent project for tomorrow.” So Merkel’s intervention represents a significant change of tone.[...]

Merkel said the initiative “needs to fit into the structure of defense cooperation,” which she said should bring down the number of different EU weapon systems from 180 to “about 30.” [...]

The German leader also supported Macron’s idea of inviting Britain — which has the second-largest army in the EU — to join that force even after it leaves the bloc. “We can additionally open that initiative to a country like Great Britain,” Merkel said.   [...]

Asked about Macron’s proposals for closer eurozone cooperation, Merkel said she could envisage a future European Monetary Fund paying out short-term credit lines, on top of the long-term credits already provided by the European Stability Mechanism.  [...]

The German chancellor also defended the Spitzenkandidat (or lead candidate) principle for selecting the Commission president, but said the system would need to change with time. “In the long run this will only work if the lead candidate is on top of a transnational list, meaning he can be elected in all countries. Only then will he be independent from a decision of his home country’s government to nominate him.” Currently lead candidates are selected by EU-wide party groups but citizens cannot vote for them directly.

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Haaretz: What Drove a Record Number of Israelis to Suicide in the '60s?

At the end of the 1950s and in the early 1960s, relative to both the preceding years and the years that followed, and relative to their share in the population – there was a dramatic increase in the suicide rate among Jewish men aged 45 and above. (About 60 percent of this group were from Central and Eastern European countries, and were salaried practitioners of the liberal professions). The number of suicides in these years stood at 14-15 per 100,000 Jews aged 15 and above – a rise of 20 percent compared to the average of the previous decade. The increase of such incidents among European-born men accounted for most of the overall uptick. [...]

One unusual manifestation of the phenomenon in the early 1960s was family suicides. These cases occurred mainly among new-immigrant families from Central Europe. According to the weekly Ha’olam Hazeh, in the wake of these cases, “many army officers in the [neighborhoods of] Tzahala and Neveh Magen had to remove firearms from their homes in the presence of their children in order to calm them.” “Experts,” wrote editor Uri Avnery, “say that spiritual stocktaking and an analysis of the emotional life of the Israeli public are needed in order to reinforce the public’s shattered nerves.” [...]

That said, it is still possible to note several possible causes for the dramatic rise in the number of suicides in Israel of those years. The sociological explanation argues that a connection exists between rapid processes of modernization and suicide. The modern Israel of the state’s second decade, which was “over-stressed,” noisy and edgy, can be characterized as a “society in overload.” This state of affairs was often described in surveys in medical journals and other publications devoted to sociological issues. Physicians and psychologists expressed concern that high-pressured life would provoke suicide among people with that propensity, and especially in those who carried traumas from their past. [...]

The points cited so far can account for the relatively large number of suicides among those who immigrated to Israel in the 1940s and 1950s. But what is the explanation for the many suicides among native-born Israelis? We can assume that many of these victims experienced the local existential tension in Israel beginning in the 1940s: the Arab threat, the danger of a German invasion in World War II, the era of militant underground organizations, the War of Independence and the overall security tension, which lasted at least until the 1956 Sinai war. It’s possible that the relative calm that ensued when the military-security threats and the existential threats passed in the second decade, led to an increase in the suicide rate among them as well.

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CityLab: Tbilisi Comes Up for Air

In 2016, when the International Energy Agency released a report on air pollution (based on data from 2012), it named the small Eurasian country of Georgia as having the highest mortality rate in the world caused by air pollution, with close to 300 deaths per 100,000 people. By comparison, China, which is known for the bad air quality in its cities, reported slightly over 150 deaths per 100,000 people. [...]

Until recently, most Tbilisi restaurants allowed smoking indoors. Smoke emanating from metal garbage cans on street corners as a result of uncontrolled burning is a common sight. An acrid smell from vehicle emissions pervades the major thoroughfare of Rustaveli Avenue.

But two years after the IEA report, a growing number of citizens and organizations in Georgia are fighting for their quality of life. Through street protests and campaigns, television debates, and discussions on social media, Tbilisians are seeking to change the status quo. It seems that their voices are being heard, even if most people aren’t prepared to follow the lead of the Oxygen Ninjas.  [...]

Respiratory diseases caused by air pollution are becoming a public-health crisis. According to statistics released by Georgia’s National Center for Disease Control and Public Health, at the end of 2016, the number of registered cases of respiratory diseases stood at more than 225,000 in Tbilisi alone. In a city with population of 1.1 million, that is a rate higher than 20 percent. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) caused by inhaling tobacco smoke accounted for a large chunk—74 percent—of those respiratory cases.

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CityLab: The Three Rural Americas

Taken as a whole, this group of places lost nearly 14 percent of its population between 1990 and 2015, which is far worse than the 27-percent population gain of the nation as a whole. They lost young people at more than double that rate, their population of 25-to-34 year-olds plummeting by more than 30 percent between 1990 and 2015.

Their median income is far below that of the nation as a whole, $30,000 versus $54,000. Nearly a quarter of working-age men in these areas have a disability, more than twice the national share of 11 percent. Almost four in every 10 children in these places live in poverty, again, almost double the rate of the nation as a whole (20 percent). One in five adults does not have a high-school diploma.

These persistently poor rural counties suffer from chronic joblessness as well. Just 36 percent of working-age adults maintain a full-time, year-round job, and no one works at all in 28 percent of households. They have higher proportions of single-female-headed households than elsewhere, as well as a greater reliance on disability and other government benefits. Drug addiction and abuse are more pervasive. Overall, the situation of these places is comparable to distressed and persistently poor inner-city neighborhoods. [...]

The third kind of rural community is amenity-rich. These places are bestowed with natural amenities like mountains, lakes, and coastlines. As other research has confirmed, such natural advantages have allowed some rural communities to attract more affluent and educated residents and build more stable economies. [...]

Just as some cities and large metros are growing like gangbusters while others are declining, and some suburban areas are booming while others are beset by economic dislocation and poverty, so it is with rural America. Not all rural places fit the mold of decline. A subset of them is performing reasonably well, and many other places are transitioning from the old to the new economy.  

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