The world continues to feel that its foundations are shaking and that collapse is a possibility at any moment.
Global Banking Crisis
The banking crisis that saw the failure of Silicon Valley Bank last week, and the moves to shore up Credit Suisse, one of the 30 ’Global Systemic Banks’ that are considered too big to be allowed to fail, resulted in it being taken over by the Swiss giant UBS – though Swiss authorities kept denying that it was a bailout.
China and Russia
As China’s President Xi Jinping met with Russia President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, it was seen as a sign of the closeness of the two countries that are united in their opposition to and disdain of the United States, but also demonstrated China’s increasing role as a geo-political rain-maker. It follows China’s success brokering a peace-deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, something that the US could not have achieved as it considers Iran a strategic enemy.
IPCC Report on Global Climate Change
The International Panel on Climate Change 2023 Report gave, once again, a stark warning that this was the very, very last chance for humanity to do something about global warming, and to put measures in place to minimise future temperature rises, which are already considerd as inevitable.
Metropolitan Police Casey Report
In the UK, the Casey Report into the Metropolitan Police was unflinching in identifying a culture that was fundamentally rotten, racist, misogynistic and violent. Commissioned following the murder of Sarah Everard by the police officer Wayne Couzens, it suggested that parts of the force were so dysfunctional that the only option was to disband them and start again.
Following a decade of radical cuts in funding personnel and resources, it feels that this is just the latest in a long line of institutional failures that is an indication of a deeper underlying malaise that seems to be infecting every part of our society.