Alexei Navalny Arrested on Russian Return

Navalny reminded Russians who will take to the streets to protest his arrest on January 23, 2021, that they are demonstrating not just for him but for themselves. The strength of Navalny's anti-corruption movement derives from its nationalist identity rather than being a construct of the United States or another foreign intervention. As soon as Alexei Navalny returned to Russia on January 17, 2021, after a 5-month recouperation in Germany from Moscow-ordered nerve agent poisoning, he was arrested for violating the terms of a suspended sentence for a questionable offense. Russian President Putin is threatened by public support for Navalny's anti-corruption movement and the size of his YouTube audience. Just as the plane carrying Navalny from Germany was about to land in Moscow, it was diverted to another airport away from the group of supporters waiting to greet him. Back at Vnukovo airport in Moscow, police officers detained Novalny's supporters and associates. Also see earlier posts: "Putin's Private Siberian Project Excludes Alexei Navalny" and "Alexei Navalny's Sudden Siberian Illness."

Who Was Responsible for Pearl Harbor?

Because the FBI failed to share a German questionnaire with U.S. military leaders, Britain inadvertabtly provided a blueprint for Japan's December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. During World War II, Japan joined the Axis by signing a Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy on September 27, 1940. Less than two months later, outdated British airplanes took off from naval carriers and launched a successful night time bombing raid on Italy's well-fortified Mediterranean naval base at Taranto. According to Larry Loftis' account in his book, Into the Lion's Mouth, Japan repeatedly asked Germany to provide details of Britain's surprise Taranto attack. Berlin had different priorities: aerial bombing Britain into submission while pressure from Senator Arthur Vandenberg's isolationists kept the United States out of the war. Nonetheless, Japan's persistence paid off. In the German questionnaire a spy carried to the United States, Taranto morphed into Pearl Harbor. The airfields, airplane hangars, wharfs, submarine stations, ammunition dumps and oil supply depots Britain destroyed in Italy became the targets Tokyo wanted to identify in Hawaii. Posing as a wealthy playboy, Kusko Popov, said to be one of Ian Fleming's inspirations for the James Bond character, served as a double agent spying for both Germany and Britain. London knew what he was doing and helped furnish Germany with useless and false information. Hitler was not in on the charade. When Germany sent Popov to the U.S. to replace its inept Hawaiian spy, Loftis recounts how he came to New York in August, 1941, carrying the Japanese-inspired, German questionnaire requesting him to collect detailed information about Pearl Harbor. Along with an English translation of the questionnaire were telegrams ontaining photographically-reduced information embedded in microdots the size of periods. A period containing the German version of the Pearl Harbor questionnaire could be read under a microscope. Popov turned over the German questionnaire, English translation and telegrams with microdots to FBI representatives on August 19, 1941. London mistakenly believed the FBI would welcome counterespionage assistance from a trusted British spy like Popov and that helping William "Wild Bill" Donovan set up a new Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency, would reinforce the Anglo-American bond and help encourage President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide the military assisatnce Britain urgently needed. At the FBI, although J. Edgar Hoover received an English translation of the Pearl Harbor questionnaire by August 19, 1941, on September 3, 1941, he only shared information about the microdots with the President's military secretary. Furthermore, he gave the impression Germany's new system for transmitting information by microdots was discovered during an FBI investigation. Although the FBI had pledged to counter Axis espionage by cooperating with miltiary intelligence, Hoover was not about to allow the new OSS to threaten his agency's investigative authority and budget. Loftis concludes, none of the eight, pre-1948 investigations of intelligence failutes prior to December 7, 1941, mentioned the FBI had received, ignored and failed to share the German questionnaire Dusko Popov delivered to the United States nearly four months before Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

Putin's Private Siberian Project Excludes Alexei Navalny

Two-dimensional maps often show Russia on the far right side and the United States all the way over on the left. This separation provides the false impression the countries are far apart. But as John McCain's vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, famously observed, she could see Russia from her kitchen window. Presumably, Russia's President Vladimir Putin can see the United Staes from a Siberian window. And lately, US military planes have intercepted Russian planes snooping from the skies over Alaska. Climate change turned Siberia, once identified with Russian prison camps in an inhospitable frozen wasteland, into what President Putin calls the East Sibrian Sea's Northern Sea Route "a matter of national pride." With increased seasonal passage through Arctic waters comes faster market access for oil and gas from Russia's Yamal Penninsula and a new military option. Beginning on September, 11, 2018, Russia, China and Mongolia participated in Vostok-2018, a massive military exercise in Siberia. By the middle of 2020, Vladimir Putin, who considered the collapse of the USSR the 20th century's geopolitical disaster, felt confident. Russia tamed the Chechnya separatists in 2000 and annexed Crimea in 2014. Possible domination of Georgia and Belarus was still in play. The US was about to walk away from an Open Skies Treaty, resisted by the Kremlin ever since one was designed to prevent surprise attacks after World War II. Refusing to authorize treaty-permtted flights over Russia's military exercises and staging areas for nuclear weapons aimed at Europe provoked the US to designate a final November, 2020 participation date. Russia already interfered with US elections in 2016 and was prepared to do so again in 2020. On July 1, 2020, voters approved a referendum allowing a Russian president to serve two consecutive 6-year terms after the next election, when the current term of President Putin, age 67, ends in 2024. At this propitious moment, Putin's political nemesis, Alexei Navalny, arrived in Siberia. Mr. Navalny's anti-corruption message had gained traction in Russia's urban areas, where his slick YouTube delivery system skirted state-owned media and inspired massive protests when Putin decided to return to the presidency in 2012. By 2020, Navalny was far outside Russia's major cities schooling opposition city council candidates who won two seats and ousted the majority held by Putin's United Russian party in the student town of Tomsk in Siberia's elections on Sunday, September 13, 2020. By winning one seat in Novosibirsk and uniting with three other independent candidates, the United Russian party also seemed likely to lose its majority there. Timing favored Mr. Navalny's opposition party, since the coronavirus exposed the effect of falling oil prices on a falling standard of living, while Putin's wealthy oligarchy buddies remained untouched. On the plane back to Moscow from Siberia, Mr. Navalny became seriously ill. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, Siberia, where Alexei spent two days in a coma before the Kremlin allowed a plane to fly him to Germany on August 22, 2020. There, and also later in laboratories in France and Sweden, doctors determined he was exposed to the nerve gas chemical weapon, Novichok, the same poison that nearly killed the former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, in England. On Tuesday, September 8, 2020, a masked man threw a foul-smelling liquid into the offices of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation in Novosibirsk, Siberia. By Wednesday, September 9, German officials announced the attack on Navalny forced them to reconsider Gazprom's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Germany and Russia, which already is a source of controversy in Germany and Poland. Although Mr. Navalny came out of his coma on Monday, September 7, 2020, and could walk a short distance by September 14, German physicians remain uncertain about the extent of his long-term recovery. German doctors released Mr. Navalny from the hospital on September, 22, 2020. He will remain in Germany for rehabilitation but has expressed his intention to return to Russia, where court orders have frozen his bank accounts and, on August 27, 2020, seized his apartment to prevent it from being "sold, donated, or mortgaged." Knowing Mr. Navalny will be greeted with a rousing rally when he returns to Moscow, Putin certainly is planning to counter his reception. It is interesting to note how enthusiastic Vladimir Putin was about Siberia, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited him in 2010. He took her to a map in his dacha's private office to show her the areas where he was involved in saving Siberian tigers and polar bears from extinction. An earlier post, "North Pole Flag," also details Russia's continuing interest in the Arctic.

Tour Sites Beyond A Country's Capital

News coverage rightly focuses on the capitals of countries. In governing centers, elections, coups. terrorist attacks, and earthquakes deserve attention, because they affect the political directions and needs of a country. Nonetheless, capital-centered news draws attention away from much that a country has to offer. This realization came home to me this morning, when I heard news warning U.S. citizens to avoid travel to China during this period of trade and spying tensions.

     Consider some of the sights and activities visitors to China have discovered  in cities beyond Beijing. Find a map or globe and locate:

Yanqing - North of Beijing, visitors will see flower exhibits from over 100 countries at the International Flower Festival with the theme, "Live Green, Live Better," which begins April 29, 2019. From a nearby 4-story tower, tourists also will be able to see the Great Wall of China when smog does not obstruct the view. In 2022, this city will be the site of some Winter Olympic events.

Chongli - North of Yanqing, this city also will be the site of some Winter Olympic events in 2022.

Moving southeast from Beijing toward China's coast, locate:

Qingdao - This deep water port was annexed by Germany and used by the German navy in 1887, captured by Japan in 1914, and returned to China in 1922. Germany's lingering influence is evident in the city's famous brewery, Tsingtao; a German Protestant church; and the Governor's House Museum. Prior to September, 2019, you may have been able to see movie stars coming and going from what was expected to be this new center of Chinese filmmaking before authoritarian control caused investors to leave.

Suzhou - Farther down the eastern coast, west of Shanghai, is China's traditional cultural center for intellectuals known as "the Venice of the East" because of its picturesque canals and stone bridges. A museum here traces silk production, and the UNESCO heritage Humble Administration's Garden and the Garden of Cultivation attract millions of tourists.

Xiamen - Still farther south, west of Taiwan, the deep water harbor, also known as Amoy, was once a pirate hideaway and tea exporting port. Now, it is known for its beaches and earthen Hakka roundhouses. A ferry takes visitors to Gulangyu Island to see the former mansions of European and Japanese traders.

Haikou - At the base of China, east of Vietnam, this city on Hainan Island is a tropical beach with water sports and arcades.

In western China, there are at least two notable cities, one in the south and one in the north.

Chengdu - If you've seen a Giant Panda at a zoo, it probably came from the research and breeding center, established in 1987, that you're welcome to visit at Chengdu, far west of Shanghai.

Lanzhou - This stop on China's ancient Silk Road map is the gateway to western China. It is a multicultural city, with Chinese Han, Muslim, and Tibetan influences, at the Zhongshan Bridge over the Yellow River. Lanzhou beef noodles and barbecued meats are local specialties.

     Beyond the capital of any country, what are the other significant cities you would like to visit?

The "Where Did I Come From?" Game

Not only do genes influence the color of our eyes and other physical characteristics, but findings, reported in Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are by Robert Plomin, indicate genes also have an impact on our behavior.

    In other words, besides influencing a person's height, genetics also can have more to do with a person's plans to attend college than a household environment filled with books. Genetic tests that purport to measure innate abilities, however, do not predict if a person will find, make, or choose a way to activate an innate trait by, for example, actually attending and graduating from college.

     The realization that genetics have an impact on both body and behavior raises even greater concern about using the CRISPR-Cas9 technique to edit human genes, something that it appears Chinese researcher, He Jiankui, already has done. In contrast, what the Seleggt egg-producing company in Germany is doing, according to trendwatching.com, is very worthwhile. Seleggt is identifying the sex of male check eggs before they hatch, using the eggs for fertilizer, and eliminating previous inhumane methods of killing about 4.6 billion male chickens every year.
                                                                                                                                Editing affects not just one person's DNA; changes are passed on from generation to generation.That is all well and good, if, for example, an entire family tree inherits immunity to an infection. But mutation of a chosen gene, however well intended to be beneficial, might also cause mutation in non-targeted genes and other undesirable changes, such as deletion of sections of DNA, in the mix of chromosomes that make up a human person.

     The added realization that genes affect behavioral traits as well as physical ones means using CRISPR-Cas9 to change human genes is all the more irresponsible.

     My father used to say, "There are no fat Jautzes." Photos of relatives show whether he was right or wrong. They also show where my sister got her red hair. Just as Carl Zimmer wrote in She Has Her Mother's Laugh, we also should pay close attention to family histories of medical problems, such as fractured bones, we might share with ancestors. Looking at traits inherited from members of our family tree explains why our current generation has entrepreneurs, writers, actors, musicians, and only one scientist. In Vogue (March, 2019), I also noticed the Armenian-Syrian singer and composer, Karyyn, reported, "All of my aunts and uncles in Syria on my mom's side are artists, singers, musicians, and puppeteers."

     A young person trying to decide on a career can begin by finding out the professions their ancestors chose. On the PBS TV show that helps prominent people discover their roots, politicians often are amazed to learn of relatives who also were public servants.

     Playing "Where Did I Come From?" is fun. But, unless carefully played, using gene editing to change pieces becomes a very dangerous game.

Make Holiday Season the Best Time of the Year

It's important to make sure everyone enjoys the holiday season, since studies show it can be a very sad time for some folks.

     Excited kids and adults who need to chill in what also can be a hectic season need to work on projects together. Making holiday cookies can be as easy as slicing and baking readymade sugar cookie dough from the grocery store or as complicated as mixing, rolling out dough, cutting shapes with cookie cutters, and frosting them.

     Making a garland paper chain to trim a tree has become easier through the years. You still cut out red and green strips of construction paper, but connecting the loops of paper together has gone from using some kind of paste that slops all over to staples to a neat little 3M dispenser that rolls out glue on two sides.

     One year my young daughter and I made scented pomanders by stuffing oranges full of whole cloves. We tried it unsuccessfully another year with limes that went bad and mushy before we finished, however.

     Then, there are the potato prints you can use to make gift tags and wrapping paper. Cut a really large baking potato in half and use a star cookie cutter to press the shape into the smooth side of each potato half. Then, carefully cut away the part outside the star shape to make the star stand out. Pour poster paint: red, green, yellow, blue, or whatever colors you want to use, on two different saucers. Dip the potato star into the paint and stamp the design on heavy card stock to make gift tags (Cut the holiday cards you receive this year into usable pieces to use for gift tags next year.) or stamp the star shape all over plain tissue to make wrapping paper.

     Germany is credited with originating the custom of having a live, decorated Christmas tree at home and in the public square. St. Francis of Assisi added the custom of including a Nativity scene with Mary, Joseph, and the baby Christ child. St. Francis, who is associated with his love of animals, would be happy to see how sheep, cows, oxen, camels, and other animals often complete the manger scene.

     Singing carols is a tradition in homes, churches, schools, and even in concerts where the audience sings along. Entertainers make holiday records and CDs and host seasonal  music specials on TV.

     St. Nicholas and Father Christmas make sure there are gifts and gift drives that bring joy to the naughty and nice alike. Presents might be placed under trees, in shoes, in hanging stockings (thanks to a custom from Holland), and in bins for the less fortunate at community centers, churches, libraries, and stores.

     Presents come earlier in some countries and later in others. St. Nicholas can arrive December 6. Sweden celebrates St. Lucy Day on December 13. When days are about to become lighter, young daughters, dressed in white, wear a wreath of greens and lighted candles on their heads and carry trays of coffee and buns to family members. Elsewhere, shoes are filled with gifts from the Three Kings (Magi) on January 6.

     What is the holiday season's best gift? Good will toward each other, of course.   

   

   

Communication Today

Yesterday, I entered an elevator with a man who continued talking on his Smartphone in a foreign language. After I pushed the button for my floor, I looked toward him and was about to ask, "Where to?" He had seen the button I pushed while he was listening to someone on his phone, and he just shook his head indicating he was going to the same floor as I was.

     I have been in elevators when friends who had been speaking together in a foreign language instantly switched to English to ask the floor button they should push for me. I also have been in vans taking hotel passengers to an airport, when the Spanish-speaking driver could switch to English to ask which terminals we needed.

     One of my globe-trotting, English-speaking friends developed a technique for asking directions in a foreign country. She looks for a young woman who she assumes, usually correctly, studied English.
Of course, studying a foreign language before visiting a foreign country works, too.

     Research outcomes based on studies at the University of Pennsylvania provide some useful advice to help adults learn a foreign language and to help parents and teachers enable children to enjoy knowing a new language. I read that babies first put together the word a parent says with the object the parent shows them. A baby's eyes have to go to the object when the baby hears the word for the object. This process reminded me of the German teacher who held up a turkey statue and asked us what is was before she told us the German word for turkey. We tried our best and said something like, "grosse Vogel" to imply it was a big bird.

    The point is, language research found we progress from learning nouns to verbs and finally ideas. We have to build up a vocabulary to be able to infer more meanings. Parents, teachers, and children can begin together to learn a foreign language. Find a foreign language book or dictionary and make a list of the foreign words for objects in the home or classroom, foods, toys, and the like. Practice using these nouns with each other as you go about the day. Then, try to describe these items without each other seeing them. Use gestures and any other means you can think of to help you decide what other words you need to learn for colors, shapes, describing how objects are used or how big they are.

     Exceptions to language "rules" are a special challenge. Some verbs, for example, don't end in "ed" the way traveled and dined do. Counting introduces the need to memorize exceptions. Studies show once an English-speaking child can count to 73, he or she can continue counting indefinitely. I don't know where the so called "tipping point" for infinite counting is in other languages, but a fiend tells me it's sooner in Spanish.

     Studies indicate a child who knows how to count is on the way to mastering basic arithmetic skills. In any language, once a child knows one plus one is two he or she can buy or sell and won't be cheated out of a dime because a nickel is larger. Alexander Hamilton knew how to put the financial system of the new United States in order, because he handled shipping costs and revenue on the docks of Puerto Rico at an early age.

     As we begin to make a list of resolutions for 2019, we might think about adding learning, and helping children learn, bits and pieces of another language.

Children, Write History

Think of what we know because of the Diary of Anne Frank and Laura Ingalis Wilder's Little House on the Prairie books. Future generations will be indebted to the children of all ages everywhere in the world who write about their lives in the 21st century. Future generations also will be indebted to the parents, grandparents, teachers, and guardians who preserve these accounts and carefully tuck them away.

     A country's history molds the way citizens think about what is important to them and what they hope never happens again. History also uncovers myths. What will finding a song a 10-year-old girl writes in Saudi Arabia today reveal about her life in 2018?

     Recently, myths were dispelled, when more than 350,000 of King George III's private and public papers, stored in the Round Tower at Windsor Castle since his 1820 death, were opened to scholars. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Rick Atkinson, King George's good handwriting was easy to read. It revealed the mental illness that affected him later in life had no bearing on his thoughts and actions during the American Revolution.

     Unlike his German-born grandfather and father, George III was born in England, spoke English, understood he was a monarch who shared power with Parliament, and did not assume the divine right of kings, as France's monarch did. He loved and was faithful to his wife and the mother of his 15 children, two of whom, William IV and George IV, he took a personal interest in grooming to become future kings.

     King George considered the loss of what would become the United States the beginning of the end of the British empire in Canada, Ireland, India, and the West Indies. He read intelligence English agents gained by opening correspondence from the "New World." After he learned General Washington's rag tag troops not only launched a surprise crossing of the Delaware River that killed or captured over 900 German mercenary Hessians on Christmas Eve, but also went on to take Trenton and defeat three British regiments in Princeton, he knew General William Howe was right about a costly war lasting beyond 1777. And he would have to ask Parliament for more money. The celebration ending the Seven Years War was over.

       

World Goes to the Polls in Brazil

At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, a reporter went up into the hills to interview young boys flying kites. A translator conveyed the false notion that people living in the crowded makeshift homes above Rio preferred their friendly communities to the lonely confines of the modern homes in the city below. Those flying the kites told a different story. They saw the kites as a symbol of their dreams to escape.

     By a margin of 55% to 45%, Jair Bolsonaro was elected Brazil's new President on October 28, 2018. His concern for money laundering, financing of terrorist groups, and other suspicious transactions in Brazil led to granting more power to the country's Financial Activities Control Council (COAF). Promoted as a way to speed investigations and integrate the functions of various government agencies, others view this bureaucratic reorganization as a threat to traditional guarantees of bank and financial secrecy.

     Brazil's most popular politician was not running in the first round of voting for president on Sunday, October 7, 2018. An independent judiciary found Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010, guilty of corruption and sentenced him to prison. Like others in Brazil's political elite, Lula, as he is known, was charged with taking bribes from construction companies looking for contracts from Brazil's state-controlled Petrobras oil company. Since the Odebrecht construction company was not satisfied only to bribe itself into Brazil's political process, the world has an opportunity to prosecute its corrupt tentacles in at least ten Latin American countries, the United States, and Switzerland. (See the latest news about Odebrecht's bribery case in Colombia in the post, "Cut Off the Head and the Colombia Snake Dies?") In the United States, Petrobras itself, which trades in the US market, was fined $853 million for corruption under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

       Fernando Haddad, the former Sao Paulo mayor with degrees in economics, law, and philosophy, represented Lula's Workers Party (PT) in the first round voting of the presidential election. The PT, which once brought prosperity to Brazil under Lula from 2003 ti 2011, gave way to the mismanaged economy, recession, and bribery of his successors: Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached for hiding the country's budget deficit, and Michel Temer, who fought a charge of corruption . Haddad is tainted with his association to PT's past sins and a suspected willingness to end an investigation into corruption.

      The Brazilian rainforest, considered the world's lungs for its ability to absorb carbon dioxide and combat rising temperatures, drought, and fires, is endangered by Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain who belonged to nine different political parties during his 28-year congressional career. As expected, Bolsonaro and Haddad met again in the second round of voting. In the first round,  Bolsonaro nearly won half the vote needed to avoid a runoff

     Bolsonaro is the hero of Brazil's soybean farmers and cattle ranchers, because he would withdraw Brazil from the Paris Climate Accord and open the way to finance unlimited deforestation of the rainforest. With his running mate, General Hamilton Mourao, he shares an authoritarian approach to reversing the effects of Brazil's lingering 2014 recession: unemployment, reduced personal income, and a lack of education, health, and other government services. It also should be noted, Brazil's National Museum of historic treasures, housed in a once beautiful Portuguese palace, burned down on September 2, 2018, despite warnings about a lack of maintenance. Mourao claims the army has the ability to solve Brazil's problems, including drug-related violence, the way Brazil's military dictatorship did from 1964 to 1985.

     Bolsonaro's supporters like his outspoken attacks on indigenous rainforest communities, women, blacks, and homosexuals. During the first round of voting, Bolsonaro was in the hospital while recovering from being stabbed in the stomach at a campaign event. He claims to be Brazil's President Trump, when one is more than enough for the world.

     Brazil, once one of the promising emerging markets known collectively as the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), has fallen on hard times, but the country is too important for the world to ignore. There will be as many as 30 different political parties in Brazil's new congress. The Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) that dominates congressional coalitions has to deal with members used to receiving pay-offs in jobs, funds for pet projects, and graft in return for passing necessary reforms.

     The world's multinational corporations are in a position to exploit Brazil's political, economic, and social woes or to dream up win-win solutions for their stockholders and the country's kite flyers.

     Local farmers complain that the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) that developed maize, soybeans, eucalyptus trees, and zebu cattle to thrive in the tropical heat and acidic soils on the savanna that covers 5% of Brazil's farmland no longer helps them. Biotechnology, now in the hands of Bayer, which just acquired Monsanto, and Syngenta, a Swiss pesticide producer, serves their agribusiness interests. Meanwhile, Munduruku tribe members, who formed the COOPAVAM cooperative, watch farms press toward the patch of forest where they harvest the wild Brazil nuts they press into oil for eco-friendly Natura cosmetics and school lunch food. At the very least, multinationals could abide by government regulations requiring only 20% of forest areas should be cleared for farming.

     Boeing is in a position to honor or undercut the interests of Brazil's Embraer aircraft company employees and its metalworkers union. Young engineers are used to moving from projects on commercial aircraft to executive jets to defense projects. Since Boeing is only interested in acquiring the company's short-range, 70- to 130-seat commercial jet business in order to compete with Canada's Bombardier, Inc. and Airbus, excess employees rightly fear they would lose their jobs. Couldn't Boeing's worldwide operations offer them employment elsewhere?

     All in all, Brazil's presidential election is a world, not just a national, event worth watching.
   

Big Projects Combat Climate Change

"Oddly, few modern educational systems spend much time teaching systematically about the future," David Christian writes in his book, Origin Story: A Big History of Everything. A teach-in, modeled on the protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s, did inspire the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. What those students learned in the past half century is: environmental converts relapse. Efforts to promote fossil fuel alternatives, recycling, foregoing plastic, and organic farming have produced only marginal results.

     While enlightened solutions to environmental mischief need to continue, ideas for major projects required to combat the effects of unchanged behavior on global warming also need to begin. Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry expects temperatures of 115 degrees Fahrenheit to be five times more likely by 2050 than they were when extreme temperatures spiked in 2000. In 2016 and 2017, Kuwait and Iran began competing to break the highest reliably recorded temperature.

     

     Do work and education have to take place in the heat of the day? For religious reasons, business already is conducted at night in Muslim countries during Ramadan. Research shows teens need more sleep than they get when their bodies want to stay up until 11 pm or later and schools expect them to arrive at 7:30 am or 8. In Las Vegas, I understand some students already attend classes at night. While living in Jamaica, Noel Coward wrote a song based on his observations.

At twelve noon the natives swoon

and no further work is done.

But Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. 

     Working and learning during hotter climate changing days will require more and more air conditioning to keep people from dying from the heat and rats and insects from devouring and contaminating harvested food. To reduce the greenhouse gases and ozone pollution that air conditioning generates requires the difficult tasks of developing less toxic refrigerants and reducing the need for electricity. It would be much easier and faster to move the time for work and study to a cooler time of the day.

     Trees are recognized as climate change saviors. They produce shade, reduce pollution, and sop up greenhouse gases. China is planting a tree wall to protect Beijing from sand/dust storms from the Gobi Desert. To produce these benefits, trees (as well as crops) need a system for channeling excess monsoon water their way.

     Try asking kids who are building with blocks or computers to design a system to carry too much water from hurricanes and monsoons to drought areas. Why not locate pieces of aluminum pipe in various parts of the world that governments can fit together like LEGOs to make temporary pipes that channel overflowing lakes and rivers to forests and crop land suffering from drought? In Origin Story, Christian writes about moments in history when "Goldilocks conditions" are just right, like Baby Bear's porridge, for transitions in evolutionary change. Often these moments are "aha" insights when someone combines things that already exist in a new way.

     In an earlier post, "Gone Fishin'," I reported on the long floating plastic boom designed to collect plastic and other debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as "the blob" between California and Hawaii that forms the warm water that seems to nourish the warm, dry winters dehydrating forests along the northwest coast of North America. Could this plastic garbage be melted for use in 3D printers? Maybe it could provide insulation and furniture for the 3D houses printed for the world's 68.5 million refugees now living in makeshift camps. (See more about "building" 3D houses at the earlier post, "Necessity: Introduce Students to New Technologies.")

     Invite kids who are not bound by what is and what always has been to think about ways to solve the new challenges climate change does and will continue to present. How can solar and wind energy be stored and distributed? What can be done to reduce the amount of stuff ending up in methane-generating dumps? Students who love science fiction also might look into the solar geoengineering ideas that involve improving the ability of clouds to block or reflect sun rays. Insect control without dangerous chemicals, endangered animals, shipping and public transportation, drought-resistant crops and farming methods, all need big new plans for the best future. 

      

   

China Feels Winds of Change

Not only has the US President tired of China's theft of intellectual property and lopsided trade balance, but Malaysia's new 93-year-old prime minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, is fed up with loans for Beijing's worldwide Belt and Road Initiative. Labeling China's project "new colonialism," Dr. Mohamad traveled to Beijing to cancel the previous Malaysian government's agreement to finance a rail line and two pipelines for an inflated $20 billion (China may, however, have a way to regain these contracts, if Beijing turns over Jho Low, who was the mastermind of a financial scam in Malaysia). Sierra Leone's new president, Julius Maada Bio, also told China it canceled the previous administration's contract to build a new airport, since the existing one is underutilized.

     Despite heavy Chinese spending in support of Abdulla Yameen in the Maldives, the atolls that occupy a key position to monitor trade in the Indian Ocean, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih won a surprise victory in that country's September, 2018 presidential election.

     Chinese citizens also were none too happy in September, 2018, when they learned President Xi Jinping, at a meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, committed another $60 billion to 53 African countries after committing $60 billion in 2015. Censors quickly removed social media criticism that claimed loans would not be repaid and aid was needed for domestic projects.

     China's unabashed interest in Africa's mineral commodities and growing market is arousing dormant European competition. Following his trip to China to inquire about funding for infrastructure projects, President Buhari of Nigeria received visits by French President, Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and British prime minister, Theresa May. It was Mrs. May's first trip to former British colonies in five years.

     At home, Tiananmen Square did not end demonstrations in China in 1989. Labeled "picking quarrels and causing trouble," "public-order disturbances," strikes by workers in factories and service industries, or just plain incidents, the Communist Party still tries to tamp out what it considers threats to peace and security by arresting demonstrators and those who post social media information about the protests. Despite these government crack downs, protests continue. In 2016, for example, parents of dead children, whose only children were born during the era of China's one-child policy, took to the streets in Beijing. This year, parents protested a local government's decision to transfer children from nearby schools to distant ones. Whether land is seized by local officials, soldiers demand higher pensions, or a minority wants to practice religion, state controls continue to spark tensions.

     China fears large movements, such as members with loyalties to international  trade union organizations or religions (Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, or Christian).  The government is wary of any large gathering. Security keeps visitors out of Hongya, the Dalai Lama's birthplace in March, when in 1959, a demonstration against Chinese rule in Tibet led to the Dalai Lama's exile and the dissolution of his government there. During the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, police canceled the Norlha Basketball Invitational tournament in China's Tibetan region. The Public Security Bureau feared the large crowd of spectators the tournament would attract in the Dalai Lama's former domain. (Also see the later posts, "Challenging Chinese New Year" and "Playgrounds Welcome March Basketball.")

Globalization's Impact on Fashion

Hard to believe in times past fashion confined itself to separate French, Italian, and US markets rather than to today's cross-cultural global industry. Even when Vogue magazine has separate international editions in Arabic and for Latin America, Poland, and the Czech Republic, Vogue's original edition features a global array of designers and models, such as Somali-American Halima Aden, the Tanzanian-Norwegian twins Martine and Gunnhild Chioko, and Grace Bol from South Sudan.

     Although global e-commerce, references to no borders or boundaries, diversity, and presentations in exotic locations seem to be the mode, a former culture minister in Italy observed, "a globalized world puts greater value on the distinctions and sense of identity...." Brands with strong national identities, like Chanel and Burberry, do not shy away from projecting their heritage and point-of-view in the global marketplace. At Chanel, Hamburg's Karl Lagerfeld insured the future of the Lesage embroidery house. Japanese designer, Jun Takahashi, admits his inspiration from the British punk rock youth culture.

     Fashion will always search for what is new and different. Flappers cast off their constrictive undergarments to Charleston in short shifts that could move. Dior fashioned voluminous skirts to signal the end of fabric rationing in World War II. The man who put on a Lumumba University
 T-shirt to work out in CIA's gym wanted the attention he received.

     Today, creating an individual identity is easy. Simply incorporate a touch of another country's culture. I treasure an African "gold" necklace of straw and wax a friend brought me from Mali. On my coffee table, guests can pick up and examine the carved wooden sling shot I found at a bazaar sponsored by West African missionaries. Add stuffed dates and rice wrapped in grape leaves to your dinner menu. And when you browse through mail order magazines from a museum (store.metmuseum.org) or a nonprofit (unicefmarket.org/catalog), look for foreign items for yourself and for holiday gifts that might introduce children and older friends to a new culture and distinctive identity. 

     

Weekend Retail Therapy

Shopping for new clothes on a weekend is a favorite pastime, even when it's not raining. Around the world, I see marketers adding new twists to what some call the "retail therapy" experience.

     In a mall in Kazakhstan, shoppers find an indoor river, and they can ride an indoor monorail, just like the one at Disneyland. At the Mall of America in Minneapolis, there are carnival rides and an assortment of LEGOs kids and adults can use to build whatever they want.

     Slip on a ZOZOSUIT from the Japanese retailer, ZOZO, and the stretchy black bodysuit, with the help of a mobile app, takes perfect measurements for a new outfit. In your own home, the 150 white dot sensors covering the suit enable a 3-D scan to make, for example, custom-fit jeans for online purchase at prices starting at $58. But It's only a matter of time before in store customers also might expect to use this innovation to insure a perfect fit that doesn't require additional tailoring.

     UK retailer, ASOS, already entices customers with photographs and augmented reality (AR) showing how the same outfit looks on different body types.

     Mall customers in Chinese In Time retail restrooms can use augmented reality mirrors to test makeup products before using a mobile code to purchase Lancome, Benefit, or Shu Uemura cosmetics from the vending machine next to them.

     Brands have begun to bundle products with services. Adidas sneakers serve as metro passes in Berlin. Nike's NBA Jerseys connect wearers to digital content about their favorite teams and players. A Tuxe bodysuit comes with an offer for free online business and life coaching sessions.

     At REI Co-op, customers know the clothing, footwear, and camping gear they purchase meet sustainable business practices.

     Combat Flip Flops (combatfllipflops.com) converts objects used in warfare into flip flops and accessories. Melted unexploded ordinance (UXO) become jewelry.

     Graphic T-shirts say a lot these days. Keep looking until you find the message that suits you to a "T."

   

Freedom: Love It, Don't Leave It

A big balloon provided an unwelcoming greeting to President Trump in the UK, and comics mocked the politically-ambitions wife of a former Zimbabwe President. Such actions are reminders of the civil liberties others all over the world do not enjoy.

     North Korea and China deprive religious and free-thinking citizens in re-education camps. Beijing released Liu Xia, the widow of deceased Nobel peace poetry laureate, Liu Xiaobo, from house arrest on July 10, 2018. She was allowed to leave for exile in Germany, possibly to court good relations with a U.S. ally President Trump recently offended at a NATO summit.  But back in Beijing, Chinese authorities stand ready to arrest Liu's younger brother, Liu Hui, if Liu Xia makes any statements China considers objectionable.

     Beijing was concerned when Edward Leung, a Hong Kong proponent of independence from China, received 15% of the vote for a seat in the former British island's Legislative Council. Shortly after Leung received this minor vote of confidence, he was involved in what turned into a riot in 2016. Two years later, on June 11, 2018, he received a six-year sentence for his involvement in the uprising.

     Charged with subversion, China sentenced Qin Yongmin, to a 13-year prison term on July 11, 2018. He also had been jailed earlier for his pro-democracy demands. Along with political prisoners, China continues to detain lawyers and other activists who dare to use Chinese laws to prevent abuses of power by government officials.

     In Russia, Oleg Navalny still languishes in a penal colony for his association with the anti-corruption rallies of his brother, Alexei, who himself was re-arrested in September, 2018 two minutes after serving a 30-day jail sentence. Ukrainian film director, Oleg Sentsov, is starving on a hunger strike while serving a 20-year sentence in Siberia. His crime, objecting to Vladimir Putin's 2014 annexation of Crimea, an action for which Russia is being sanctioned.

What Happens When the World's Children Leave Home?

In the news lately, I've been struck by the growing number of children who are with parents fleeing their home countries, who wish they could escape their home countries, who attend schools in a different country, or who just seek foreign adventures.

     Brazil's super model, Gisele Bundchen, left her country and married the U.S. New England Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady. Nowadays, nearly two-thirds of those in Brazil's 16-34 year old age population also want to leave the country, even if they aren't leaving to marry a foreign celebrity.  Their motivation: escape from a slumping economy, from corruption, and from a lack of police security.

     In the recent migration from Mexico and Central America, parents brought as many as 3000 children to the United States also to escape violence, gangs, and rape and to find economic opportunities.

     Children among the six million refugees fleeing Syria try to escape the bombs, poisoned gas, and starvation inflicted on their families by the dictator, Bashar al-Assad.

     Children also are among the Muslim Rohingya refugees who have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh to avoid violence in their home country or from Yemen to get away from air attacks.

     In Nigeria, terrorists chase women and children from their villages to rape and attack them with knives.

     Latest numbers show more than 600,000 students left China last year to study in the West. Many were avoiding, not violence, but the gaokao, a test that values memorization and determines who enters China's top universities.

     Was it a youthful quest for adventure that caused 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach to ignore flood warnings and endanger their lives and those of their potential rescuers when they became trapped in a cave between Thailand and Myanmar? One of the boys showed he was a good student when he understood a British rescuer's question about how many were trapped and responded, "13," in English. Two were the first to make it out undertaking a dangerous, submerged two-mile route.

     Displaced populations pose a host of problems.They might indicate destabilization in the countries they are fleeing, and they place a burden on the services provided by host countries. Unless new arrivals are accepted and integrated into the host country's population, rising nationalism leads to protests against the government and the immigrants, especially if  refugees look different, profess a different religion, and have a different ethnic heritage.

     Nuns who work with refugees in the U.S. expect to see victims of violence and those who have suffered the trauma of long journeys, often on foot, who need counseling. Some new arrivals are afraid to go out alone because they are not used to being able to trust anyone. They are amazed when they receive donations of clothing, toys, diapers, and even furniture, such as cribs, from strangers.

     Shelters know they need to provide legal services for asylum seekers and bond for detained refugees navigating foreign court systems, where their next court dates might be three years away. When cases are not settled in 180 days in the U.S., attorneys know immigrants are entitled to work permits that enable them to find jobs to support themselves and their families. Asylum used to be granted in the U.S., if someone were escaping domestic or gang violence, but only persecution because of race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership in certain groups applies now.

     Besides legal aid, families need help learning the local language. Nuns in a U.S. shelter try to make a new language fun by letting children write English words with their fingers in shaving cream. Then, there is the help needed to enroll children in schools, to apply for health services, and to become a member of a religious congregation.

     In shelters, nuns see people begin to develop confidence about living among those who speak different languages and have different cultural practices. I remember reading about displaced families from Syria who left where they had been settled in  rural Baltic States that provided creature comforts to slip into Germany, where they could join the others who had been settled there and shared their Muslim Arabic culture.

     Practices that would seem OK in a home country might be objectionable in a host country. Smoking, spitting, stealing, and getting drunk can fall into that category. Players who join teams from other countries often need to be schooled in the ways of their new countries. For example, women in the U.S. object when Latin baseball players yell, "Hey, chickee babie."

   

   

Peaceful Matchmakers

Can the marriage of Meghan Markle from the United States and Prince Harry of Britain revive  matchmaking for peace? Perhaps their romance was inspired by the marriage between King Seretse Khama, Botswana's first president, and his British wife, Ruth Williams, the love story told in the film, "A United Kingdom." It is said, on Meghan's and Harry's trip to Botswana, they got to know each other, and rumors speculate the country is their honeymoon destination.

     In earlier centuries, monarchs adeptly used strategic marriages to achieve peace. In the 12th century, Henry II of England picked up French Aquitaine by marrying Eleanor, not by going to war. And Sicily's heiress, Constance, joined the Hohenstaufen dynasty's holdings by marrying a German Henry.

     By the 15th century, Henry VII, the first Tudor King of England, arranged his son Arthur's marriage to Catherine, the daughter of Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. His daughter Margaret was married to King James IV of Scotland, which led to a joint crown for Britain and Scotland in the 17th century.

     By 2020, China expects to have more well-educated women than better-educated men willing to marry them. Could these demographics offer an opportunity for new peaceful alliances?
   

     

China Stretches a Napoleon-Style Belt

Emperor Xi Jinping gained open-ended power, when China's Communist Party scrapped his two, five-year term limit in February, 2018. He already had launched an ambitious One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Initiative to connect China to Europe and a Maritime Silk Road (MSR) that will join China to Africa. The Silk Road term, not coined until the 19th century by a German, is well suited to the OBOR and MSR initiatives which mimic the ancient variety of land and sea routes that carried silk and other goods, as well as ideas, between Asia, Europe, and Africa. Many have observed, however, that besides a means to facilitate trade, China's port projects could serve as a way to establish worldwide influence and naval bases for China's expanding navy.

     In pinyin, the form of Chinese characters described in Roman letters, the One Belt, One Road Initiative is called yidaiyilu. The worldwide use of English and the U.S. dollar rankles China. Beijing's Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies claims globalization is now causing many words, such as xiongmao, the pinyin word for giant panda, to be recognized outside of China.

     Ever since Romans built the Appian Way, leaders have recognized how transportation binds an empire together. Yet, China's infrastructure projects will test the tight control Beijing now maintains over its citizens' telecommunication and face-to-face contacts with the outside world. Like the Chinese employees who built the railroad in Kenya, those building the new container terminal and nearby oil storage installation at Walvis Bay in Germany's former African territory of Namibia, are sealed off from the local community. They live in a closely monitored compound of barracks imprisoned by a wall topped by electrified barb wire.

     Stretching thousands of miles from Beijing, work on the OBOR and MSR cannot help but require ongoing contacts with local government officials, financial institutions, suppliers, laborers, religions, and academics in the countries the roads pass. Already, the China Democratic League, one of China's eight non-communist parties, submitted a proposal to the advisory body, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, suggesting cultural exchanges along the routes are as important as trade.

      Singapore-based Broadcom's failed hostile bid for the San Diego company, Qualcomm, might, however, signal China's determination to maintain control over vast areas by using high-speed optic fiber communications and Smartphone communication and data exchange. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) cited national security issues to block Broadcom from access to Qualcomm's wireless chips and 5G (fifth generation) high-speed mobile network technology and standards. In April, 2018, the U.S. Commerce Department placed a 7-year ban (now lifted) on sales of chips, all from Qualcomm, to China's ZTE, because the company violated a 2017 agreement not to send telecommunications equipment containing Qualcomm chips to Iran and North Korea. In Australia, (and later in the UK and Sweden) China's Huawei telecom companies remain banned from 5G networks.  Before its US-blocked acquisition of Qualcomm, Broadcom transferred its headquarters from Singapore to San Jose, California, and later purchased Manhattan-based CA Technologies, a chipmaker in the infrastructure software field. In July, 2018, China would block Qualcomm's acquisition of China's NXP semiconductor company.

     Noticeably missing from China's One Belt, One Road initiative was any reference to North Korea. But that was before members of the women's hockey players in North and South Korea agreed to play together in the 2018 winter Olympics; and U.S. President Trump accepted Kim's invitation to meet on June 12, 2018 in Singapore. Suddenly, on March 25, 2018, North Korea's dark green train carried Kim to China for a strategy session prior to the upcoming US-North Korean meeting, from which China was excluded. Subsequently, Beijing agreed to Liaoning province's $88 million plan to build roads on the North Korean side of the Friendship Bridge that connects the two countries at Dandong.

     Whether China's strategy in Africa is considered part of the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) or an extended One Belt-One Road-One Continent strategy, China already has shown interest in the Continent by its trade, military base in Djibouti, the dam its Export-Import Bank built in Uganda, and railroad projects in Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Nigeria. Other current and proposed Chinese port, rail, and airport projects ring Africa in the following countries:

• Seychelles
• Mauritius
• Tunisia
• Tanzania
• Uganda
• Rwanda
• South Sudan
• Mozambique
• Namibia
• Gabon
• Cameroon
• Ghana
• Senegal

"Don't Give Up On Us...."

Skeptics scoff at the activists in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Turkey who still cling to the belief that democracy and dignity will overcome the authoritarian rule that triumphed following the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011-2013. How can today's Rohingya Muslims fleeing their burning villages in Myanmar envision democratic rule when they lack support from Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner whose civilian party won a parliamentary majority in 2015, after the country's military regime released her from house arrest in 2010?

Perhaps the key to never giving up on democracy is believing it is not a sure thing, but, as the demonstrations in Iran suggested on New Year's Eve, 2017, neither is democracy's defeat a done deal.

Since 1961, Amnesty International has been keeping track of those subjected to human rights violations. If you have as few as five minutes to help alleviate suffering, go to amnestyusa.org and find out what you can do.

U.S. citizen Joshua Holt, a former Mormon missionary charged with spying, and his wife were arrested in Venezuela in June, 2016 when guns were planted in their apartment. U.S. citizen Alan Gross could tell them political conditions can change for the better. He was released in Cuba in 2014, when relations between the two countries improved. Mr. Holt and his wife were released in 2018.

St. Andrew Dung-Lac and his companions were martyred trying to convince North Koreans of their worth before God, but the current regime could not kill Oh Chung-Sung, the North Korean soldier who was seriously wounded when he ran to freedom across the border in November, 2017. The long tapeworms, tuberculosis, and hepatitus B his South Korean doctor found in the 24-year-old soldier tell how wounded North Korea's army already is.

China feels the need to prevent engineers building railroads in Africa from having any local contacts and to control internet access by its citizens at home. Nobel Peace Prize poet, Liu Xiaobo, and his wife had to be confined to their home to keep his pro-democracy works from inciting the public. But a year after Mr. Liu died, his widow, Liu Xia, was released and allowed to go into exile in Germany.

Hong Kong's young pro-democracy activists, who carried on knowing they faced repeated arrests after leading a 2014 protest, triumphed when an appeals court overturned their sentences in February, 2018. Despite the threat of receiving a prison term of up to three years, Hong Kong soccer fans bravely turned their backs on the playing of China's nation anthem, "March of the Volunteers," in October, 2017. Hong Kong protests that began in early June, 2019, aimed to eliminate the threat of transferring domestic criminals to the China mainland for trial. As demonstrations continued into August, both demands for democratic reforms and police intervention increased. China's slowing economy already raises Beijing's fear of an inability to control mainland dissatisfaction with a declining standard of living and seems to restrain the Xi government from further aggravating conditions by using military force against its citizens in Hong Kong. Unknown is how much broadcast and social media coverage of the Hong Kong protests reaches the restive Tibetan and Muslim populations in western China and what impact the news might be having.

In Russia, Putin's prosecutors have to rely on bogus accusations to keep the Navalny brothers, Oleg and Alexei, from running for President and using social media to mount anti-corruption proptest marches, not only in Moscow, but throughout Russia. Communist politicians lost elections in 2018, when Russia's senior citizens began protesting Putin's plan to raise the age when they could retire and claim pensions.  In TIME magazine (the May 1/May 8, 2017 issue), former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said, "I am convinced Russia can succeed only through democracy."

Classic World War II Christmas carols retain their meaning during this holiday season. We think about the spread of democracy and sing, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas...Next year all our troubles will be miles away...Some day soon we all will be together, if the fates allow."

Babies Helped with Unused Vojta Therapy

Using the Vojta (YOY-tuh) method, developed by the Czech neurologist, Vaclav Vojta, in the early 1950s, pressure applied to nine zones of a baby's body can activate muscles, mental activity, and proper breathing in those born with the motor disabilities associated with cerebral palsy and Down's syndrome.

     One medical book describes Down's syndrome as a birth defect of Mongoloid children who have "stubby fingers and hands, a flat face, slanted eyes and a sweet disposition." The book goes on to say, "Mongolism can usually be detected by sampling the amniotic fluid so that an abortion can be performed if the fetus is affected."

     Why would doctors skip to an abortion, when the development of a baby with a sweet disposition could be helped by the Vojta method, used, not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Syria?

     A Vojta therapist at the Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute in Thrissur, India,
suggests the therapy is not widely used, because there is no profit payoff. Once parents are trained, they perform the pressure therapy regularly at home with no equipment or drugs. Perhaps, there also is another answer. As in the case of blue light phototherapy found to destroy the superbugs that resist the antibiotics used to kill staph infections, Western doctors discounted research on the Vojta method conducted in a country behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War (See the earlier post, "Medical Profession Suffers from International Conflict.")

     Since the successful reduction of motor problems depends on how early the Vojta treatment begins and how efficiently it is applied, there should be no delay in trying this therapy in every country. After undergoing treatment before a baby turns 1 year old, although there is no cure for the underlying medical defects, speech problems and a delay in crawling and walking can be overcome. Most Vojta-treated children can learn to speak and walk.

   

Car Companies Match Colors to Country Moods

Automobile companies don't throw darts at color wheels to choose the shades to paint new cars. They turn to BASF (Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik) to spot the global trends and regional differences they match with the German company's technical ability to mix pigments and create new coatings. Looking ahead to 2018, BASF expects blue to be a hot color in the North American market. Not only is it calming, but it reflects a growing need to be connected to others and a community.

     Paul Czornij, head of design at BASF's Color Excellence Group, sees dual forces pulling at drivers in the global market and finds color shifting metallics an excellent way to express conflict. Metallic blues capture the tension between a car owner's emphasis on authentic self-expression and a fascination with the virtual world.

    In 2016,  BASF travelers in North America picked up a can-do, no-excuse determination to master the complex challenges of change. They considered combining two or more colors with metallics as a way to reflect this attitude and developed:

• Raingarden: Like a multipurpose smartphone serving as secretary, personal trainer, and medical monitor, this coating enables a soft metallic silver to appear subtly bluish or greenish depending on a viewer's angle.
• Primordial soup: Instead of a vague greenish-brown, Czornij connected primordial soup with the movie, music, and other personal preferences at the heart of an individual. Heart as seen by BASF colorists equals a deep, blood red color.
• Aerialist wish: A black which is silvery and mysterious is designed to capture the life young artists, designers, musicians, and professionals are bringing back to once undesirable downtown city centers.

     In Europe, black and deep red and green hues address a driver's need to hang onto a traditional identity and experience while trying to adapt to digital progress.

     In contrast, fresh light colors reflect the Asian-Pacific market's confidence in the future and traditional elegance. A sand beige metallic color and playful blue-greens are used to reveal optimism.

     Look at what you choose to wear today. What do the colors say about your mood?