5min 15sec @channel4news clip - What Scottish #independence could mean for UK #trade according to experts

2min 44sec @theeconomist clip - America v China: a new kind of cold war

text from youtube "America and China are fighting over far more than trade. If this growing rivalry is managed badly, everybody will lose.

The dispute between the United States and China is about much more than trade. For everything from blockbuster films to lunar exploration. From semiconductors to submarines.

In every domain, they’re now rivals. Superpower relations have soured. America thinks that China is stealing secrets, stealing its way to dominance. And then it looks at Chinese behaviour in the South China sea
and bullying countries like Canada and Sweden and it thinks that China’s beginning to challenge global norms.

But it looks very different from Beijing. From its point of view America is trying to block its entirely justified rise.

For everyone else it seems like the beginnings of a new kind of cold war. A cold war that everybody could lose. Of course America has fought a cold war before with the Soviet Union and it won. So why not just do the same thing again and cut China off? Isolate it economically.

Well it’s a bit more complicated than that. In the late 1980s the United States and the Soviet Union did about $2bn-worth of trade a year. Today China and the United States do $2bn-worth of trade a day. And then there are the allies who helped America in the first cold war with the Soviet Union. Well they do a lot of business with China. They want to be able to trade with it. It would cost them a lot to stop.

So to persuade them that they must choose security over their own prosperity would be very hard indeed.

The first thing is that the United States needs to build on its strengths. These are often institutions and alliances. The institutions that the United States built after the second world war. The second thing the United States needs to do is to shore up its defences. And that means defending itself militarily through cyber and space but also defending its technology. But the third thing is that the United States and China
need to learn how to live together in a low-trust world. China and America don’t have to agree about everything in order to agree that they should live by some global norms. So you need to find ways to build trust, over North Korea say, over rules for cyberwar or space war.

China is challenging America in every domain. Business and a profit motive are no longer enough to keep this relationship together. What the relationship desperately needs is the building of trust and the building of rules. Unfortunately just now both sides see rules as something to break.

2min 24sec @TheEconomist clip - #Illegal #ivory: where does it come from, where does it go?

Text from youtube "The illegal ivory trade is big business. A single shipment can be worth up to $1.3m. The vast majority of ivory poached in Africa ends up in China. 

Elephant poaching is most prolific in two areas of Africa, the savannas of Mozambique and Tanzania, in East Africa, and in West Africa, a forest region called TRIDOM, which spans Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, and Cameroon. Weak governance in these countries enables poachers to operate with relative impunity. 

Poachers are paid $80 to $100 per kilo of ivory. Research by the Environmental Investigation Agency reveals that most ivory from Mozambique is shipped from the city of Pemba. Traffickers typically bribe custom officers $70 per shipment to turn a blind eye. 

Tusks are hidden amongst legitimate cargo in shipping containers. 70 percent of the world's ivory is destined for China, but investigators have discovered traffickers use indirect routes to avoid detection. 

A typical route could be via South Korea, where the shipment is less likely to be searched by customs. Once in South Korea, corrupt freight agents take a cut of around $450,000 to help move the shipment on to its next stop, Hong Kong. Here, customs officials clear what appears to be to be a routine shipment that originated from South Korea. 

The shipment will be moved one more time, by sea, to Shanghai. On arrival, the gang will transport the tusks overland to its final destination, the Chinese city of Shuidong. Most of the world's illegal ivory comes here. 

By now, the ivory is valued at $750 per kilo. The gang can expect to make upwards of $1.3 million for their shipment. The illegal ivory trade is worth millions of dollars a year. If it's not stopped, African elephants could become extinct within decades. 

7min @TheEconomist clip - How to stop the #ivory trade

Text from youtube

"If ivory poaching continues at its current rate the African elephant could be extinct within decades. Science is being used to better map ivory-trafficking routes, but will it be enough to save the iconic animal?

The African elephant population has been decimated by poaching over the past ten years. If it continues, this iconic animal could be extinct within decades. Elephants are killed for their ivory. A single tusk can fetch upwards of $4,000 on the black market. The slaughter is disastrous not just for elephants, but for the stability of African nations.

Almost every recent African conflict has been fuelled by money from ivory. But it can be stopped. In 1989, in an attempt to save the last African elephants, the species was awarded the highest level of protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES. This meant all trade in elephant parts was prohibited.

But the CITES legislation included a clause. It stated that countries with well managed elephant populations could downgrade their elephants to a lower of level of protection. This allowed regulated trade and sales of existing ivory stockpiles. One of the biggest sales of stockpiled ivory was in 2008, when 102 tonnes was sold off. Initially, it was seen as good news for the elephants because it raised $15 million for local African communities, much of which was spent on elephant conservation.

But during the same period, undercover investigators reported a spike in ivory sales on the black market. Operating for over 30 years, the Environmental Investigation Agency, or EIA, has used undercover techniques to try to penetrate wildlife trafficking gangs. They found the legal sell-off in 2008 revived the ivory market. The legal sell-off provided the perfect cover for the illegal trade because it’s hard to tell if an individual tusk is from a legal stockpile, or has been poached.

Around 70% of the world’s ivory is destined for China where it’s revered a symbol of wealth. Intricate carvings can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. EIA investigators found that around 90% of so-called legal ivory on sale in China, was from the black market. But once they make a seizure, the EIA need evidence that the tusks have been illegally poached. Dr Sam Wasser has developed a novel way to prove where ivory tusks have come from, using elephant DNA.

Using radiocarbon dating, Dr Waser and his team are able to determine the age of the tusks. This research helps conservationists know where to focus their efforts. It also provides valuable evidence when prosecuting ivory traffickers. Stamping out the illegal trade is not just a conservation issue. The trade is run by organised criminal networks and the money funds militant and terrorist groups.

The Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab in Somali, have all been funded by money from ivory. But the time could be up on the ilegal trade. Some African countries are destroying their legal stockpiles to prevent them from ever being sold. In July 2016, President Obama near total ban on the buying and selling of ivory in America came into effect.

In December 2017 China–the world’s biggest ivory market– shut down its domestic trade. Hong Kong, in January 2018, followed suit. Britain, the world’s biggest exporter of legal ivory, is consulting on a total ban, but is yet to implement it. Closing the last legal markets will stifle demand for ivory, and remove the cover the illegal trade relies upon. "

2min 30sec @theeconomist clip - the #global #arms trade is booming

Text from you tube "The global arms trade has reached its highest point since the Cold War. We reveal which countries are buying up weapons and explain why."

why does #fairtrade mean #sustainable trade?

gross #UK #tradefigures underestimate trade with US

traditional measures of trade recording gross flows of goods and services across borders may not accurately reflect trade patterns

trade in value-added is a statistical approach used to estimate the source(s) of value (by country and industry) that is added in producing goods and services for export and import

this page has more info on value added stats and this document has the headlines for the UK which in summary are:

- UK-US bilateral trade is stronger on value-added terms than in gross terms. 

- UK bilateral trade deficit is smaller with France and China in value-added than in gross terms

- 60% of the value of UK gross exports originate from services industries. (one of the highest %'s for countries in the database) with significant services content in manufacturing export

- US remains main destination for UK exports on a value-added basis and has a much higher share of exports (16% vs 21%) than when trade is evaluated in gross terms

- trade with the US also appears stronger in value-added terms, with the United States displacing Germany as the UK’s main supplier. 

ht oecd