The Week of April 30th, 2018
Care
1. Can you hear me now?
Two of America’s largest wireless providers finally end their game of phone tag
Sprint and T-Mobile, two of America’s four major wireless providers, announced a merger plan worth $26.5 billion on April 29. With what would be a combined 127 million customers, the firms hope to rival market hegemons Verizon and AT&T as the race for developing faster connectivity speeds heats up. The providers argue that a new giant will create thousands of jobs and aid the US beating China in the race to develop 5G technology, questionable claims at best.
A merger would help cut costs and expand 5G infrastructure, areas where the better capitalized and larger competitors tend to hold the advantage. New entrants with access to millions of subscribers, such as cable providers Charter Communications and Comcast, present further challenges to the firm’s viability. T-Mobile trails Verizon and AT&T in revenues, while Sprint holds a debt of $32 billion.
Consumer advocates have indicated that fewer firms would hurt consumers, especially low-income people, as well as reduce options, especially for prepaid plans. T-Mobile and Sprint jointly account for 54 percent of the US prepaid market. Some reference a recent merger in Germany between two of the country’s four major players. There, consumers saw prince increases.
These two companies have long flirted with merging in some way. Anti-trust questions and those of control for the combined company scuttled the deal in the past. Now, after two failed past attempts, the merger looks likely, to the point that Sprint’s board announced a new CEO and acting executive chairman in preparation. Both companies will be watching closely the ruling in the proposed AT&T and Time Warner tie-up, which the Trump administration ruled to block. If allowed to go through, the US wireless market looks set to consolidate from four major players to three.
2. The heart of the matter
Iowa passes America’s most restrictive abortion bill
The Iowa legislature passed on Wednesday what is now regarded as the most restrictive abortion bill in the country, outlawing abortions that take place after a heartbeat has been detected, except in instances of rape and incest. The bill now heads to the state’s governor, Kim Reynolds. Ms Reynolds, a Republican, has not yet commented on the bill, though she made her pro-life stance clear on the campaign trail and most expect her to sign the legislation into law.
Doctors can detect a fetal heartbeat as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, well before the threshold set by the Supreme Court. In previous cases, the court has held that women can have an abortion up until the fetus could survive on its own outside of the womb. The Iowa bill violates this standard, setting the stage for a legal fight that pro-life activists, with an eye on the recent rightward title of the Supreme Court, hope to invite. Instead of pursuing a piecemeal strategy meant to erode abortion rights, conservatives have become more aggressive, looking to mount a challenge to Roe v. Wade, the original case legalizing abortion nationwide. While the bill could be struck down as unconstitutional, it represents the opening volley in a new and bolder legal strategy by anti-abortion activists bringing the culture wars to court.
3. All together now
After false starts in the past, the Korean War gets closer than ever to denouement
The Korean War, which tore the peninsula into the democratic South Korea and communist North Korea, has been in a ceasefire for six decades and represents one of the last active conflicts of the Cold War era. This week, the end of the conflict may finally be at hand, as the two countries came together to issue the Panmunjeom Declaration, which calls for a long-term peace and denuclearization in the region. This declaration commits both countries to abandon all hostile actions, slowly connect their infrastructure and economies, and gradually disarm both their conventional and nuclear weapons. While North Korea has used promises of peace in the past as a way to stall for time to advance its nuclear program, it has never committed to a peace process of this extent before. The rogue state has also accompanied this agreement with meaningful signs of goodwill, including releasing American captives held illegally for months. The peace process has even led to calls, including by South Korean President Moon, for President Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nonetheless, the Panmunjeom Declaration is only the first step to bringing about lasting peace in the region and ending North Korea’s nuclear program. Peace talks are ongoing, with a major summit scheduled in a few weeks, and South Korea has requested the US maintain its military presence until peace has been confirmed, against North Korean wishes. Skeptics fear that this may be yet another delaying tactic by North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and many note that seemingly irreconcilable differences remain between the sides that will strain a diplomatic resolution. The entire world should look on, hopefully but anxiously, at what might be the end to a potentially apocalyptic conflict, and pray those involved seize this rare opportunity.
4. At long last
Basque separatist group ETA officially disbands
The Basque separatist group ETA announced its dissolution on Tuesday, bringing an end to its 50-year armed irredentist struggle against Spain. ETA, short for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty), killed over 800 Spanish soldiers and civilians in one of the longest insurgent campaigns in recent European history. At its peak, ETA staged numerous bombings, kidnappings and political assassinations in an attempt to force the Spanish government to grant Basque independence. The group’s most infamous attack came in 1973 when it assassinated Spanish Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco with a bomb that launched the Spanish ministers car clear over a five-story building.
The Basque region, which spans the border between northern Spain and southwest France, maintains a distinctive culture and has frequently found itself at odds with the central government in Madrid. ETA enjoyed broad support when it first rose against the regime of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, but has seen its numbers dwindle due to arrests and public revulsion at its terrorist campaigns. Despite the group’s recent disbandment, victims’ groups in Spain and the Spanish government are insisting that they will continue to hunt down former terrorists and bring them to justice.
The capitulation of ETA is a welcome development for Spain and Europe. The nationalist group killed hundreds of civilians and continued its violence and brutality long after Franco was out of power and Spain had transitioned to full democracy. Former terrorists should be prosecuted to the full-extent of the law and victims fully compensated for their loss. As Spain grapples with another separatist movement (albeit a peaceful one) in Catalonia, all parties should learn from the mistakes of the ETA, and advocate for their political positions without resorting to murder.
5. Ace in the hole
Stars Group scales up just as the world’s largest economy may legalize gambling nationwide
Poker giant Stars Group is now even larger after agreeing to buy Sky Betting & Gaming, a company which focuses on sports betting. The combined company will be the world’s largest publicly listed online gambling company. Stars estimates about one-third of its revenue would come from sports betting and projects much room for growth. Sky was previously owned by CVC Capital Partners and Sky Plc. Stars now has a foothold in the UK, one of the world’s largest gambling markets, while its parent gains a major cash infusion as it is targeted for takeover by several media companies.
An additional area of potential growth for the new behemoth is the United States. While sports betting in some form is legal in just four of the 50 states, the country’s Supreme Court is currently weighing a case deciding whether the law banning the practice is unconstitutional. If overturned, it could trigger a wave of states legalizing sports gambling. A ruling is expected soon and would prove a boon to Stars and other companies of its ilk: forecasters see revenue from sports gambling rising to billions of dollars within five years, up from less than the current $500 million. While the major sports leagues have previously been opposed to wide-spread legalization as bad for business, that sentiment appears to be shifting. One league, the National Basketball Association, announced its support for legalized betting under the condition it receives a 1% cut on all wagers placed.
Don’t Care
0. Sly slides
Israeli PM releases seemingly startling Powerpoint slides
“I’m here to tell you one thing: Iran lied. Big time,” concludes Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, after a series of elaborate slides designed to reveal a conspiracy behind Iran’s ambitious nuclear program. The evidence Mr Netanyahu raises, though, only pertains to the era between 1999 to 2003, before the denuclearization deal was struck. It purports to summarize Tehran’s aspirations for nuclear weaponry, codenamed Project Amad. This information confirms simply what the entire world already knew prior to the making of nuclear deal in 2015. This outdated information may simply serve as a reminder to the world the dangers of nuclearization.
In advance of this alarming news, Mr Netanyahu’s coalition in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, voted to expand the powers of the prime minister and defense minister during times of undefined “extreme circumstances”. The previous evening, supposed Israeli F-15s destroyed a Hamas storage site in Gaza of 200 missiles and killed 16 people, 11 of whom were Iranian.
These rapid seizures of power may reveal Mr Netanyahu’s attempts to maintain power for the upcoming election. The timing of this presentation also, coincidentally, comes with President Trump currently reviewing Iran’s nuclear deal and has threatened to pull out of it. Some top US officials have met recently with their Israeli counterparts, lamenting about the state of relation in the Middle East. Middle East analyst Avi Issacharoff sees recent actions as “a coordinated Israeli–American operation to limit Iran’s military activities in Syria—simultaneously conveying the message to Moscow that Russia’s green light for Iran to establish itself militarily in Syria is not acceptable in Jerusalem and Washington.”
Whether these are merely just another of Mr Netanyahu’s power ploys or an expression of deep concern for his Israeli constituents, the presentation reveals his obsessions with dismantling his Iranian foes.
Sean Conway, Avi Dravid, Jose Trejos, Edmund Bannister, David Gernon, and Jay Yu contributed to this report.