[BLOG] Five Marginal Revolution links

• Marginal Revolution considers if the CFA franc system is dying out, here.
• Marginal Revolution shares a link to a paper quantifying the effects of the old boys club, here.
• Marginal Revolution contrasts and compares the old NAFTA and the new USMCA, here.
• Marginal Revolution notes how Germany has access to nuclear weapons, here.
• Marginal Revolution looks at the high rate of consainguineous marriage in Saudi Arabia, here.

[NEWS] Five links from around the world: Montenegro, Donbas, Warmbier, IKEA in India, futures

• This Open Democracy article examines how, exactly, Montenegro could start a Third World War. (It would need help from the Great Powers, for starters.)
• Politico Europe notes that wildlife seems to thrive on the depopulated front line in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas.
• Doug Bock Clark writes at GQ about the sad story of Otto Warmbier, finding much evidence to confirm that he was not tortured but rather that he suffered a sadder fate.
• The New York Times takes a look at the first IKEA in India, still recognizably an IKEA but tailored to fit local conditions.
• Douglas Rushkoff writes at The Guardian about the blind alleys of nihilism and fear that at least some corporate futurists and transhumanists are racing into.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• The Citizen Science Blog notes an effort to undertake a census of the monarch butterfly this week.
• Crooked Timber’s Eric Rauchway riffs on Nolan’s Dunkirk as a meditation on the end of empire.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes that, though a good idea science-wise, interstellar probes are not coming anytime soon.
• Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog shares 13 lessons to be taken from 13 Reasons Why.
• Language Hat investigates the deeper etymology of “Lozi”, a people of Zambia.
• Victor Mair of Language Log takes a critical look at the difficulty of learning Chinese characters.
• Turning to the taxi industry, Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the extent to which the gig economy undermines immigrant and minority participation in established industries.
• The LRB Blog wonders what Brexiteers could possibly have, rightly, against the European Court of Justice. Law matters …
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer is disconcerted by the extent to which some people believe falsehoods about crime and race in the US.
• Transit Toronto notes last night’s Underground Freedom Train Ride. I’m sad I missed this.
• Window on Eurasia notes Belarus’ concern over the import of upcoming joint military exercises with Russia, here and here.

[ISL] Six links on islands, from contested geopolitics to environmental changes to Villiers Island

• In Toronto, the new Port Lands plan imagines a new island, Villiers, at the mouth of the Don.
• Brexit means, among other thing, that the EU is no longer supporting the UK on the Chagos. The Economist reports.
• VICE notes that people on Mauritius fear extensive fish farming will also boost the shark population offshore.
• The Independent notes that tides and currents have created a new sand bar-cum-island more than 1 km long off of North Carolina, Shelly Island.
• The National Post notes that sub-Arctic Vardo Island, in Norway, has moved on from its fisheries to become a NATO outpost set to watch Russia.
• Carmela Fonbuena reports for The Guardian from Thitu Island, a Filipino-occupied island uncomfortably near a Chinese base in the contested South China Sea.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Crooked Timber links the near-criminal destruction of Grenfell Tower with Thatcherism’s deregulations and catastrophes.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes that TRAPPIST-1e is slated to be among the first observational targets of the James Webb Space Telescope.
• Far Outliers shares Edith Durham’s account of an exciting St. John’s Day in Albania in 1908.
• Language Hat looks at a passage from Turgenev.
• What, the LRB wonders, will Emmanuel Macron do with his crushing victory after the parliamentary elections, too?
• Marginal Revolution wonders to what extent is Germany’s support for Nord Stream consistent with Germany’s concerns over NATO and Russia.
• Ed Jackson’s Spacing Toronto article about the need to preserve queer public history in Toronto is a must-read.
• Torontoist’s Alex Yerman notes the new activity of the Jewish left against a conservative establishment.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that modern Russia is repeating the Soviet Union’s overmilitarization mistakes, only this time with fewer resources.

[LINK] “The plot to overthrow… Montenegro?”

Leah McLaren in MacLean’s reports on the alleged Russian conspiracy to overthrown the government of Montenegro. This is, well.

Last weekend in Britain, the Sunday Telegraph trumped the weekend papers with a seismic front page splash. “Russia plotted to overthrow Montenegro’s government by assassinating Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic last year, according to senior Whitehall sources,” the headline blared.

According to the story, unnamed sources had revealed that last October the Montenegrin government had intercepted an election day coup plot to stage a mass murder in the country’s parliament that would take down the Montenegrin Prime Minister with it. Serbian nationals had planned to sneak into the parliament and open fire on the crowd of politicians while dressed in police uniform making it look like the local constabulary had turning on the government. Subsequently, the plan was to install a pro-Russian government.

This news in itself is not actually that surprising, since there were in fact a series of arrests in Montenegro last October but at the time the conspiracy was blamed on Serb paramilitaries and Russian nationalists who have long sought to steer Montenegro off its long-held pro-Western course. The Whitehall sources, however, alleged that the plot was in fact directed by Russian intelligence officers with the support of Vladimir Putin himself. The aim? An attempt to sabotage the country’s plan to join NATO—which is still on course to happen later this year.

The startling allegation emerged last week as Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, tore into NATO, dismissing it as a “Cold War institution” in his speech at an international security conference in Munich.

[LINK] “Canada will have to do more for NATO if Trump follows through on threat to withdraw from alliance”

The National Post carried Mike Blanchfield’s Canadian Press article reporting that, if Trump lived up to his rhetoric and did withdraw from NATO, Canada will have to increase its spending and its presence significantly. Canada’s development into a larger military power would certainly be a major shift.

Canada will have to contribute more to NATO if the U.S. follows through on president-elect Donald Trump’s musings on withdrawing from the alliance, says the head of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee.

Liberal MP Bob Nault cautions that Canada and its NATO partners need to see how U.S. foreign policy formally takes shape after Trump’s Friday inauguration.

But he says Canada remains committed to the 28-country alliance and can’t let it become weakened if the U.S. — its largest financial and military contributor — scales back its involvement.

“That means countries like ours will have to step up to the plate,” Nault said in an interview Monday.

Nault said the upcoming defence policy review will help Canada decide where and how it should deploy its military resources. With a federal budget coming this winter that could mean an increase in defence spending, he added.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly calls on journalists to stand up to Trump.
• Centauri Dreams looks at exocomets.
• Language Log shares an ad from the 1920s using the most vintage language imaginable.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money talks about globalization as a mechanism for concentrating wealth at the top of the elite.
• The LRB Blog talks about the ghosts of the Cold War in the contemporary world.
• Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen argues that Germany has its own responsibility in transatlantic relations.
• The New APPS Blog looks at the importance of administrative law.
• The NYRB Daily celebrates John Berger.
• Savage Minds proposes a read-in of Michel Foucault in protest of Trump’s inauguration on the 20th.
• Towleroad reports on the latest statistics on the proportions of LGBT people in the United States.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the continuing depopulation of the Russian Far East and examines the shift to indigenous naming practices in Kyrgyzstan.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly talks about the process of journalism.
• Crooked Timber features a confusing critique of Clinton from the left.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes the presence of Roman coins and at least one Persian mathematician in ancient Japan.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the Republican Party has halted preparation for a Trump victory.
• Language Hat reports on a poetic new classification system for the history of English.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on one improbable defender of Trump.
• The New APPS Blog studies North Carolina as a subject for an academic boycott.
• Torontoist reviews the Nuit Blanche just past.
• Window on Eurasia argues that the West is weak in relationship to Russia.

[NEWS] Some Wednesday links

• Bloomberg notes concerns over Northern Ireland’s frontiers, looks at how Japanese retailers are hoping to take advantage of Vietnam’s young consumers, examines the desperation of Venezuelans shopping in Colombia, looks at Sri Lankan interest in Chinese investment, suggests oil prices need to stay below 40 dollars US a barrel for Russia to reform, observes that Chinese companies are increasingly reluctant to invest, and suggests Frankfurt will gain after Brexit.
• Bloomberg View gives advice for the post-Brexit British economy, looks at how Chinese patterns in migration are harming young Chinese, suggests Hillary should follow Russian-Americans in not making much of Putin’s interference, and looks at the Israeli culture wars.
• CBC considers the decolonization of placenames in the Northwest Territories, notes Canada’s deployment to Latvia was prompted by French domestic security concerns, and looks at an ad promoting the Albertan oil sands that went badly wrong in trying to be anti-homophobic.
• The Inter Press Service considers the future of Turkey and looks at domestic slavery in Oman.
• MacLean’s looks at China’s nail house owners, resisting development.
• The National Post reports from the Colombia-Venezuela border.
• Open Democracy considers the nature of work culture in the austerity-era United Kingdom, looks at traditions of migration and slavery in northern Ghana, examines European bigotry against eastern Europeans, and examines the plight of sub-Saharan migrants stuck in Morocco.
• Universe Today notes two nearby potentially habitable rocky worlds, reports that the Moon’s Mare Imbrium may have been result of a hit by a dwarf planet, and reports on Ceres’ lack of large craters.