Saudi Arabia does not tolerate criticism nor can it handle criticism. With its brutal crackdowns on Arab Spring protesters and its war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen serving as high-profile examples, the Kingdom has repeatedly demonstrated this fact. Despite giving women the right to drive, Riyadh has taken decisive action to suppress liberalization efforts by arresting advocates of women’s rights. When Canada’s foreign minister sent a series of tweets calling for the release of Samar Badawi and all other peaceful protesters, the Saudi government responded by suspending all new Saudi business investments and deals with Canada, kicking out Canada’s ambassador, and recalling its own ambassador. The Kingdom is so angry, and influential, that it has even demanded Saudi students leave Canada and banned Saudis from receiving medical care in Canada.
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Trade is a vital and complex component of the global economy as well as the economies of almost every nation. An inability to access the global economy via trade either pushes the Peoples of embargoed nations into poverty or forces their national economies to produce all of their needs, which can mean higher prices due to limited resources and limited expertise. It is why free trade has been heralded as the elixir to everything from sluggish economic growth to recession. Free trade, however, has costs. It is why trade partners are reluctant to expose their domestic industries to global competition. Unfortunately, trade partners often agree to “free trade” in principle then adopt policies that advantage their ow domestic industries over those of export countries. Today, the lack of real and perceived “fairness” in global trade has pushed the Trump Administration to initiative a trade war, which can only be resolved by recalibrating bilateral trade relations.
Trillion Dollar Apple: Even Mega Companies Must Be Socially Responsible Members of Their Communities8/3/2018 Apple has achieved a milestone as America’s first trillion dollar company. While Apple investors were the first in the US to push their company’s market value beyond the trillion dollar threshold, the likes of Google parent company Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft will soon surpass the technical hurdle. As technology firms with extremely valuable products and intellectual property, the assets of these companies likely already make each of them worth far more than a trillion dollars. Nonetheless, the trillion dollar business-era has begun. To the optimist, it is a major achievement for business leadership, a point of pride for all employees, and a sign of a thriving economy. To the pessimist, it is a sign of poverty-driving income inequality and concentration of global wealth as well as power. In truth, outside of the boardroom community and a historic footnote, few actually have a reason to care about these events, which is unfortunate for a very important reasons.
Donald Trump the politician has consistently offended and outraged large portions of the US electorate as well as the world’s population. People either outright despise the US President or feel compelled to defend his most outrageous assertions. Trump has managed to use his own brand of politics to transition from a politician capitalizing on partisan division to a force of division. He has also managed to test the limits of tolerance and the democratic culture of the United States. On the Left, which encompasses tolerance-loving progressives, there is no tolerance for Donald Trump. That is how hated he is. On the Right, this has inspired fairly valid accusations of hypocrisy, even if some of these critics do not themselves hold Donald Trump in the highest of regards. Their consensus is that angry liberals are too immature to accept dissent, which raises important questions about their commitment to democracy. If critics of Trump-haters would engage in a bit of self-reflection, however, the layers of hypocrisy on all sides and the implications to the democratic character of Anerica and the world would inspire a crucial public debate.
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