…December 2024

December has brought with it that rarest of all commodities, a glimmer of hope in the Middle East with the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. At last it appears that the bloody civil war is over and the Syrian people have a chance to write their own destiny and to build a new country for all Syrians. 

Assad’s main backers were Russia, badly distracted by its ongoing war with Ukraine, and the Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, which had suffered heavy losses against Israel. The major loser appears to be Iran, which had used Syria to funnel weapons and other supplies to Hezbollah. Israel has celebrated this unexpected good fortune by carrying out over 400 air strikes against Syria and invading parts of its territory. 

Everyone is desperate to avoid Syria turning into another Afghanistan where it is now all but illegal to be female. But the British and many other western governments are still debating if the HTS rebel movement are still terrorists and whether or not it’s appropriate to help the new Syria. However, most governments did immediately start talking about repatriating Syrian refugees…

The situation in Gaza has deteriorated further following Israel’s closure of the last functioning hospital in Northern Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has appealed to the UN to sanction further attacks on the Houthi group in Yemen. There doesn’t appear to be much appetite amongst the international community to engage the Houthis even though the group poses a significant threat to international shipping in the Red Sea forcing the US, UK and EU to station warships in the area to protect shipping.

South Korea has been plunged into a constitutional crisis after President Yoon Suk Yeol attempted a military coup by declaring martial law, apparently because the opposition parties opposed some of his policies. A simple vote in the Parliament, backed up by immediate mass demonstrations, was enough to defeat the armed soldiers. It’s not yet clear if the governing party has yet understood the need to remove Yoon altogether to preserve the democracy that his breathless stupidity threatened and to reconnect with the electorate. 

North Korean troops have been actively involved alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, reportedly suffering heavy casualties. However, Russia appears to be slowly gaining the upper hand as both sides attempt to hold territory ahead of any peace talks that the incoming US president, Donald Trump, might impose.

Russia also appears to have stepped up its hybrid warfare attacks against NATO countries in the region. Ships from Russia’s sanctions-breaking shadow fleet have been accused of dragging their anchors to sabotage undersea cables in the baltic. The latest incident damaged an electricity cable between Finland and Estonia, which will lead to higher electricity prices in Estonia over the winter. 

According to UNCTAD, the UN’s trade and development body, world trade reached around $33 trillion in 2024, which reflects 3.3 percent annual growth. However, UNCTAD’s Global Trade Update warns that imports for developing countries, and south-south trade, have both fallen by 1 percent, while developed countries have seen a 3 percent rise in imports and 2 percent rise in exports from the third quarter of the year. Nonetheless, the report claims that there are opportunities for developing nations in Information and Communication Technology, as well as apparel, while acknowledging that trade in energy, metals and automotive all saw some decline. Rebeca Grynspan, UNCTAD’s Secretary-General, commented: “Trade remains a cornerstone of sustainable development.”

Sadly Britain, which still sees itself as a developed country, has not capitalised on any of this trade. This is absolutely definitely maybe nothing to do with having slammed shut the door to our closest trading partner, the EU. It does mean that government ministers and various members of the royal family have been forced to schmooze potential trading partners. Thus King Charles has been busy entertaining the Quataris and trying not to mention human rights. The Prime minister, Keir Starmer, has met with the Saudis to talk about investment opportunities and definitely not about human rights, whilst Prince William was parachuted into France to pretend to casually bump into Donald Trump at the grand reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral. 

The Office for National Statistics revised its figures downward with zero growth in the UK’s GDP for the July to September quarter. The Bank of England is now predicting that the figures for the last three months of 2024 will show the economy continuing to flatline. Consequently, the Bank opted to hold the base interest rate at 4.75 percent, citing concerns over persistent inflation at 2.6 percent, as well as some aspects of last month’s government budget and fears over Trump sparking global trade wars. 

This is backed up by a growth indictor survey from the Confederation of British Industry that found that many British companies are expecting a sharp drop in business activity at the start of 2025. This was followed by data from the British Retail Consortium, which predicted consumer spending falling by a further six points. 

This has fed into a narrative that this Labour government has wrecked the economy over the last six months by talking up the problems facing the country to justify raising taxes. That’s not really true as Britain’s economic problems are mainly down to long term structural issues, including austerity and Brexit, compounded by global problems such as the pandemic, supply chain crisis and climate change. Labour has simply removed the comfort blanket of pretending that we can blame a few migrants and that everything is just about to get better. 

More bad news for the UK with the revelation that stocks of Guinness have run so low that some pubs have been forced to ration the number of pints per customer. Worse still, there’s been a dramatic decline in the number of pubs in England and Wales, making it harder for Brits to drown their sorrows.

Fortunately, the new Tory leader Kemi Badenough continues to tour her one woman comedy show around Parliament, which this month has included her utter disdain for, er, sandwiches. Still, there are worse problems than not having any friends, as Prince Andrew has once again demonstrated. His Royal Highness mostly spent December claiming that he barely knew the Chinese business man Yang Tengbo, who has been denied entry to the UK after being identified as an alleged Chinese spy by the British security services. Yang does seem to be some kind of a superfan, having been given access to Buckingham Palace, St James Palace and Windsor Castle, as well as meeting the former prime ministers Theresa May and David Cameron.

The incident has further highlighted Britain’s schizophrenic approach in having to treat China as a military threat whilst desperately needing to open up more trade with China (and trying to avoid any mention of human rights abuses).

For its part, the US has accused China of hacking the Treasury department and three telecoms companies in separate attacks in December. The US has announced new export controls that prevent companies from exporting products to China if they contain certain types of chips. This applies to both American and foreign companies. This is mainly aimed at AI-related chips but could theoretically impact some print-related products such as DFEs. 

Trump, who has not yet become President, has amused himself by variously threatening to seize the Panama Canal, invade Greenland and annex Canada. His new bestie, Elon Musk, is fast turning into Trump’s political attack dog, one with real teeth thanks to his immense wealth and semi-autonomous role within the Trump administration. Musk has continued to bait Starmer, whilst suggesting that he might bank roll Nigel Farage’s Reform party, and all while endorsing the far right AFD party ahead of Germany’s elections. 

Meanwhile, Apple has highlighted the dangers of Artificial Intelligence with its new Apple Intelligence feature, which uses AI to summarise notifications. The system created an entirely false summary claiming that BBC News had reported that a murder suspect, Luigi Mangione, had shot himself. In reality, Mangione had not harmed himself, and there was no such report from BBC News, though the BBC did complain to Apple about the incident. 

Professor Geoffrey Hinton, who is often described as one of the godfathers of AI, has warned that the odds of AI wiping out humanity in the next 30 years have shortened. Then again, humanity seems to be doing a pretty good job of that on its own…

Still, Happy New Year!!!