It could be put off no longer: we finally talk about coronavirus (and other things...) --- The UK is attempting a novel and controversial strategy to combat the coronavirus, putting behavioural science front and centre The US has not been testing enough people, so nobody knows how big its outbreak is. Andrew Cuomo has been criticised for using prison labour to produce hand sanitiser cheaply for residents of New York State. Will we have a global recession? Nobody really knows. One thing’s for sure: the stock market isn’t doing well. There are various options to deal with the economic fallout. Coronavirus has had a dramatic impact on small businesses in Rome. OPEC wanted to slash oil production, but Russia wasn’t having it. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has launched yet another crackdown against senior royals in a bid to consolidate power. Guyana elections are disputed as huge oil kitty awaits next President Two men were sworn in as president of Afghanistan, simultaneously. Canada is pushing forward with the criminalisation of gay conversion therapy - here’s how. Lebanon has defaulted on its debts for the first time. Links not working on your podcast app? Head here: https://alexwaygood.com/2020/03/11/shallow-dive-7/

Turkey is encouraging refugees to head to Greece and the EU aren’t happy. Meanwhile climate change is only going to make the problem worse, on a global scale. Also British troops are heading to Mali. -- Turkey turns blind eye as refugees head for border. The EU’s morality is facing a severe test when it comes to refugees. Greece aren’t helping. It’s all part of a geopolitical balancing act. The climate crisis will quickly turn into a migrant crisis. The US judiciary has ruled against the ‘Remain in Mexico’ strategy but allowed it continue, for now. Here’s what it could mean for the 60,000 migrants in terrible conditions at the border. British troops are back on the front line, fighting troops in Mali. France bypassed the national assembly to get through controversial pension reforms. Australian news is changing forever. Trump tells Colombia to keep using potentially carcinogenic herbicide to destroy coca plants. Peace with the Taliban isn’t so peaceful. Authoritarian uses crisis to punish vulnerable minority – in Hungary.  SUPER TUESDAY WASN’T SO SUPER FOR WARREN

India is struck with ethnic violence , France is overrun with bedbugs, and we ask: are local councils preventing action on climate change? --- Further reading: 32 people died in Delhi as mobs attacked majority-Muslim areas of the city, following protests around a new law discriminating against Muslims. How the protests escalated. The law reformed India’s refugee policy, long one of the world’s harshest. The law is accused of delegitimising Muslim citizenship in India. India has also suffered a spate of attacks against Muslims in the countryside. WhatsApp has played a crucial role in spreading conspiracy theories that fuel the lynch mobs. Kashmir, a majority-Muslim area of India, has been under lockdown for many months. India has also been expanding a National Register of Citizens over the last few years. Trump had a confusing visit to India. Here’s what they got out of it. India is increasingly worried about China’s growing influence in the region. South Sudan has a new government. Thailand’s opposition party was dissolved by the Constitutional Court. (It has a history.) The Egyptian government is welcoming back Jews who were previously forced to flee. Slovakia goes to the polls. A neofascist party is expected to surge. Cameroon's main opposition leader returned to the country for the first time since his imprisonment. France has a bedbug problem. Joe Biden had another gaffe. Links not working? Head here http://alexwaygood.com/2020/02/28/shallow-dive-5-india-nimbys-bedbugs-biden/

The government brings out its plan for a points-based immigration system, the Democratic Party holds yet another debate in its quest to find a nominee to take on Donald Trump, and we ask: is every billionaire a policy failure? --- Further reading: UCU university strikes. The government has unveiled its new plans for post-Brexit immigration. The Economist’s analysis of the effects of the new plans. The plan will be “points-based” but will be tougher than Australia’s. There are probably fewer people looking for a job than the government is claiming. Average wages (adjusted for inflation) have only just returned to the level they were at pre-2008. Wage growth is still stagnant even so many years after the financial crash. The Brexit vote was highest in areas where immigration was low. The government has long struggled to cut migration levels – and that has little to do with our EU membership. The SNP, rather than the Labour Party, has been the most vocal political opponent of the government’s new policy. A reckless decision on the coronavirus in Cambodia? A proposed pipeline in Canada has sparked major protests. A Reuters investigation into Venezuelan special police. The New York Times’s investigation on child sexual-abuse material online, part 1. The New York Times’s investigation on child sexual-abuse material online , part 2. Former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos on what can be done to combat the problem of child sexual-abuse material online, interviewed on the Lawfare podcast. The Albanian president urges an uprising. The Democratic debate was fiery. Links not working on your podcast app? View the showpage here: https://alexwaygood.com/2020/02/20/shallow-dive-episode-4/

The rule of law is under attack everywhere, it seems, but Ecuador. Plus Donald Trump’s many questions about badgers, and we ask: should the licence fee be scrapped? ---  Further reading: Sajid Javid is out, after a cabinet reshuffle that was more dramatic than many expected. The Roger Stone fiasco. Roger Stone’s role in the Mueller investigation, explained. Roger Stone threatened to kidnap Randy Credico’s dog. Plans to reform judicial review in the UK. Poland’s ominous plans to undermine the independence of their judiciary. Ecuador’s president is undoing the damage done to the courts by the previous one.  A report from the WWF argues that climate change will be devastating to our global economy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sacks his chief of staff. A massive data breach in Israel. Armed soldiers enter El Salvador’s parliament. Matteo Salvini to stand trial over kidnapping charges. Snow in Baghdad, for the first time in ten years. The government is considering scrapping the licence fee. Donald Trump had a lot of questions to do with badgers. Links not working? View the show page here: https://alexwaygood.com/2020/02/13/episode-3-justice-badgers-and-the-bbc/

The Iowa Caucuses descended into chaos, Russian police have been convicted of busting their own drug den, and we ask: should the government step in to save Facebook from itself? --- Further reading: The Iowa caucuses were utter chaos. Doing well in Iowa is important, but only if you can get media attention out of it. Pete Buttigieg: who he is. Buttigieg controversially fired South Bend’s first African-American police chief. Buttigieg’s town-regeneration project has also come under criticism from minority communities in South Bend.  Partly as a result, Buttigeg has a major problem with nonwhite voters. Buttigieg started off with a fairly left-wing campaign, but has pivoted to the centre recently, leading to accusations of opportunism from leftists. Bernie Sanders: who he is. Sanders’s healthcare proposals are maybe half as left-wing as what the UK currently has. Romney voted to convict Trump. Nancy Pelosi tore up a copy of Trump’s speech. State election fiasco in Germany. Land grab in Vietnam. Iraqi protests shaken up. Irish elections.  Chile protests. A murder mystery in Lesotho. Iceland says you can’t name your child after the devil, apparently. Russian police convicted of busting their own drug den. Links not working? View the show page here: https://alexwaygood.com/2020/02/06/episode-2-chaos-in-iowa-and-the-case-for-regulating-facebook/

The government decides to allow Huawei into the UK’s 5G infrastructure, a rare sighting of a Bolivian glass frog, and we ask: are open borders the way to go? --- Further Reading: Johnson’s controversial decision to allow Huawei in.  The Huawei move is unpopular with his own party. British foreign policy, caught in an awkward place between the US and China.  Context to US concerns over Huawei. Huawei: a security issue? Or a trade issue?  5G technology, explained. The Chinese are not – as was asserted in the podcast – believed to have infiltrated election infrastructure in the US. They are, however, engaged in an increasingly aggressive espionage operation against the US. 5G technology might ruin our weather forecasts. Peru’s opposition leader arrested. Netanyahu indicted. Ex-King Albert of Belgium forced to take a DNA test. A job going at the Tate. A rare sighting of a Bolivian glass frog. Links not working? View the show page here: https://alexwaygood.com/2020/01/30/episode-1-huawei-the-case-for-open-borders/