Pigs in China have their own deadly pandemic. Xi Jinping better beware

One little piggy went to market, one little piggy got sick, one little piggy got culled —
…and joined 40 percent of China’s little piggies that went wee-wee-wee all the way to burial pits. 

During the past 19 months, the world’s largest pork market lost almost half of its pigs to an illness that went unreported and unchecked, and is now crossing borders threatening livestock elsewhere in Asia and the world.

Global worries about the coronavirus as a global pandemic are just the latest public-health scare that took flight in China. The African Swine Fever has run rampant in the People’s Republic since 2018 and has devastated the country’s pork production and markets.

The collapse of oil prices and demand, the wildly volatile stock market, and the social disruption across America due to the Coronavirus pandemic are all serious. So is any global threat to food stocks.

Pork is a staple meat for the Chinese and a primary source of protein in the People’s Republic of China. The bad news? The hog stock has collapsed, and the pig population is decimated. There is little to do about this immediately in a country where pork production is done in conditions dominated by small farms and backyard pigsties. Industrialized production is not widespread.  READ MORE

Trump is to Obama the way FDR was to Hoover, a sad waste of ‘president power’

Presidential elections are on everyone’s minds and TV sets these days because presidents matter. In America’s democracy, presidents are its singular most important leaders. Heightened attention to their selection and performance reflects how critical they are to the nation’s strength and survival.

In February, five living presidents were celebrated — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. It is a remarkable democratic achievement and a testament to America’s confidence that the country transitions power peacefully from administration to administration regardless of political party. Republicans yield to Democrats who yield to Republicans. 

Unlike other countries, America’s previous presidents are neither hounded nor capriciously thrown in jail. Instead, our former commanders-in-chief live and travel freely. READ MORE

China’s news organizations in the United States are really spy agencies

A decade ago, I first saw signs that Chinese news organizations were operating as global spy dens and diplomatic outposts. Last week, America decided not only to call them out for what they do, but to punish them further for this activity within the United States. 

It’s about time.

It’s also time to counter China and help American journalism survive.

My 2018 book “Spin Wars & Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering” detailed how China’s global news organizations are used to advance its national interests. China — and also Russia — uses its foreign news bureaus as fronts for editors and journalists to work as both witting and unwitting spies. My research over the years shows that these news bureaus’ primary responsibility is to report to their countries’ political leadership in Beijing. READ MORE

There’s always a way to get a country’s most-wanted out of hostile territory

“Argo” was a Ben Affleck film based on the true story of how a little CIA ingenuity and stealth freed a group of hiding humans. 

A CIA team planned a low-tech, high-risk fake Hollywood movie production to sneak Americans out of Tehran. If caught, the Americans would have faced assured injustice and quickly turned from fugitives to hostages of the new Iranian regime. From Iran to China, Afghanistan to Bolivia, the story is a familiar one: Desperate individuals sometimes need to escape a foreign country’s authorities and get beyond a nation’s jurisdiction.

All countries — whether revolutionary regimes or democratic governments — pursue sovereign justice. National judicial systems reign supreme in the international system. Nations get to decide what to do inside their borders and who is guilty or innocent within their countries. President Trump’s foreign-policy doctrine defending the primacy of national sovereignty further cements this custom into practice.

In 1980s Iran, the newly formed interim government sought flimsy justice for what Iranian student revolutionaries believed were historic U.S. human-rights transgressions. The new and freshly violent Iran wanted retribution, remuneration and just plain revenge against America. READ MORE

Autocrats on the left and right are deserting Trump and embracing China

Venezuela is a bipolar nation in the eyes of the world. More than 50 countries recognize the government of interim President Juan Guaidó. The rest of the world — most significantly Russia and China — continue to support and strengthen the grip of President Nicolás Maduro.

It’s bad enough that the Trump administration has been all bark and no bite, trying to flip the failed Latin American state’s leadership with tough rhetoric and State of the Union ovations. What’s worse is that America under its current leadership has shown that there are neither significant consequences nor consequential actions that can be taken when a foreign country snubs Washington in favor of Moscow or Beijing.

The latest nation to reject President Trump’s foreign policy puffery? The former American colonyand current conflict-ridden country of the Philippines. READ MORE

From Trump to Rouhani, losers take the hit for the offenses of the powerful

Murder took place as the airplane was lifting off the runway, a lethal shot taken in the Humphrey Bogart movie, “Casablanca.” Rick Blaine pulled the trigger in front of the French police prefect Captain Renault. The Vichy official witnessed it. He allowed it. And then Renault uttered those infamous words that said everything, but meant nothing: “Round up the usual suspects.”

Murder also took place just as the airplane was taking off last month from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. Missiles were fired at the Ukraine International Airlines plane, killing all 176 passengers and crew on board. Iranian officials witnessed it. They may even have ordered it. The government then made a predictable and cowardly move by rounding up the usual suspects.

Iran’s government is the latest authority preparing a show trial intended to bring peace to the streets and some justice to the murdered victims of Ukraine flight PS 752. Street protests were launched in Tehran shortly after the commercial Boeing 737 was felled from the sky by a land-based missile. Iranian authorities eventually suggested that errant, on-edge operators brought down the jet at a moment of high tension and an anticipated American attack. The shooters will go to jail. Or worse. READ MORE

The United Kingdom leaves the European Union

The United Kingdom officially left the European Union on Friday. Markos Kounalakis, a foreign affairs syndicated columnist at McClatchy, joined CBSN to break it all down. VIEW SEGMENT

The Super Bowl teams’ mascots have some ugly history behind them

Super Bowl Sunday is a uniquely American celebration of guts and grit, cash and commercialism. It’s our annual ritual and favored sport. Thanksgiving is the only other American holiday that Super Sunday rivals.

This year it’s San Francisco versus Kansas City in Miami for Super Bowl LIV,” the 54th championship gladiator event.

But before there was the NFL, there were real 49ers who fought against actual chiefs. It was history’s Version 1.0 of a non-gridiron battle where native sons fought Native Americans. This partly forgotten fight remains a shameful part of U.S. history. That long-ago chapter is relevant today, at a time when racism and foreign immigration remain hot-button political issues. READ MORE

Democracy is a test. Impeachment may be the final exam.

Democracy is a test. You can’t just wing it and you can’t just skip it. It requires study and it is strongest when everyone participates on test day, which is every day.

That makes democracy hard, too. You can’t rely on others to take the test for you or to look over someone else’s answers to figure out how to add your unique voice and perspective.

Democracy is in retreat globally. Only 5.7 percent of the world lives in a “full democracy,” according to the just-released Democracy Index. American democracy, too, is facing a stress test in the form of impeachment. It’s time for all of us to cram around democracy’s meaning.

There are governments and systems claiming they are democratically legitimate. Some of the worst offenders use democratic tools to say that they are free and open societies. READ MORE

Meghan Markle for 2020 President!

Meghan Markle for president!

This is not a joke. 

Markle is over the age of 35, a resident of the United States for at least 14 years and a natural-born citizen. That’s more than we can say about either foreign-born John McCain or Ted Cruz.

President Obama’s birth was also questioned, of course. His birth certificate was demanded by his successor, someone rumored to have been born on another planet. 

Regardless, Markle meets all the requirements to run for president. She may be looking for a new gig now that she and her husband quit their day jobs in Sussex. READ MORE

Trump puts the bad guys on notice: Don’t mess with the ‘hitman-in-chief’

“Hitman: Agent 47” was a fictional movie about a trained assassin who killed the Nigerian warlord Bwana Ovie before his mission to take out the Russian president. It was popularly panned, but did fantastic at the box office.

Hitman: POTUS 45 is a real-time, televised and Twittered political program where the American commander-in-chief whacks Iranian terrorist Qassem Soleimani before setting his sights on the next target. The reviews are still coming in, but 45 is already doing well at the fundraising box office.

Agent 47 navigated foreign cities, used stealth to deceive well-trained security forces and put himself in vulnerable positions before he could pull off the kill. 

POTUS 45 had it relatively easy. He just gave an order to pull a metaphorical trigger.

Agent 47 had plausible deniability and no identity or nationality to make any single country accountable for his murderous actions. 

POTUS 45 made it clear to the whole world that he alone was responsible for the American high-tech hit. As a result, his actions have made it clear to distasteful foreign leaders and adversaries sitting in an office or on a tarmac anywhere that they are fair game. If U.S. advanced military technologies can get a bead on them, they might be next. READ MORE

New trade agreement with U.S. could breathe new life into Mexico's economy

Tijuana, Mexico –

Zonkeys are a unique animal inhabiting this Mexican border town and found mainly along the central commercial drag on Avenida Revolución. A zonkey is a donkey painted white with dark zebra stripes in order to stand out in its unnatural habitat and attract both sober and drunk visitors onto their saddles and into pricey tourist photos. Zonkeys are a symbol of this border town and, like so much else here, appear to be one thing but are actually quite another.

Neo Kounalakis astride an unusual beast with a bit of kick in it.

Tijuana is portrayed as crime-ridden, dirty, impoverished, and a destination for caravanning Central Americans seeking to cross the border into the USA. It is a wall and fence riven city with steel stakes that are piled not only across the polluted, national boundary crossing the Tijuana River but also along streets, onto beaches, and far into the water on the Pacific Ocean’s shore. That is the sight you see when standing on a bridge or in a high-rise building looking north. What you don’t see is actually quite different. READ MORE

How misinformation was spread ahead of U.K. election

Conservative leader Boris Johnson claimed a landslide victory in the U.K. elections. According to The New York Times, both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party spread misleading information online ahead of the election. Markos Kounalakis, a foreign affairs columnist for McClatchy, joined CBSN to discuss disinformation campaigns and electoral politics. VIEW VIDEO SEGMENT

The political spouse: It’s not a job just for women anymore

Women on the world stage are increasingly playing lead roles. Whether New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, the newest all-female Finnish government’s cabinet led by 35-year old Prime Minister Sanna Marin or the record number of American women who ran and won in the 2018 midterm elections, women are moving on up. Get used to it.

Increasingly, women have elbowed and edged their way into previously male-dominated representative chambers around the world in what were once more smoke-filled men’s clubs than curtained lactation stations. As a result, the public , too, should wake up and prepare for a new category of men who will accompany and support these freshly elected women.

Happily, I am one of them. Last year, I became California’s “Second Partner” after my wife, Eleni Kounalakis, was elected overwhelmingly the state’s first female lieutenant governor. READ MORE

Presidential candidates are rarely judged on their knowledge of foreign policy

Presidential candidates are rarely judged on their knowledge of foreign policy. They’re often governors or from states where engagement in world affairs is limited to the trade promotion of state products or produce. They’re both salespeople and promoters of their states’ workers, goods and environment, pitching their local and regional corporate interests in global markets.

Given these candidates’ limited global exposure and experience, we instead rely on future presidents to be of strong character — leaders whose judgment we trust, with nimble minds and the ability to learn quickly and think critically. If the past is prologue, then we can expect future elected leaders - whether Democrats, Republicans or Independents - to lack real experience with national security, strategic foreign affairs, and global diplomacy. READ MORE