Emerging Market Index: An Interview with Life + Liberty’s Perth Tolle

Posted on November 25, 2021 by Assistant Editor

Journal of Political Risk, Vol.9, No. 11, November 2021

Perth Tolle is depicted smiling in a white shirt and black blazer.

Perth Tolle, the founder of Life + Liberty Indexes and the creator of the Freedom 100 EM Index.

Anders Corr, Ph.D.
Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

This JPR interview with Perth Tolle, founder of Life + Liberty Indexes and creator of the Freedom 100 EM Index, was conducted via email between 14 September 2021 and the 25 November 2021.

Corr: Can you please explain what your ETF is for those who have no financial experience?

Tolle: An ETF, or exchange traded fund, is a tradable basket of securities, similar to a mutual fund. But unlike mutual funds, ETFs trade on exchanges, and are known for their transparency, tax efficiency, and lower cost.

Most ETFs track an index. And most indexes are market capitalization weighted – where the biggest companies, and countries, by their market capitalization, get the biggest allocations in the index.

There are three main categories of country classifications for global stocks – developed markets (DM), emerging markets (EM) and frontier markets (FM). Continue reading →

Solving South Africa’s Youth Unemployment Problem: Expand Small Business in the Education Sector

Posted on October 29, 2021 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 10, October 2021

South Africans and supporters gather outside the South African High Commission in London to support students and protest against police violence. Rachel Megawhat.

Stephanie Wild
University of Cape Town

The problem of youth unemployment has grown in South Africa for years, but now with the global economy having taken an all-time dip, it has emerged even further at the forefront of South Africans’ minds. Policy geared to expand small business creation in the education sector would be a two-for-one win that keeps on giving.

The crux of the problem

According to Stats SA (2021), in the first quarter of 2021, the official unemployment rate was reported as an astonishingly-high 32.6%. While the number of employed and unemployed South Africans remained rather unchanged from the last quarter of 2020, the number of discouraged work-seekers increased by nearly 7% (Stats SA, 2021). This means that the problem has not necessarily worsened between 2020 and this year. However, it persists and reveals a failure to both ameliorate the problem, and a failure to boost morale that results from the problem. Continue reading →

US Trade Leverage Against China: An Interview with the Coalition for a Prosperous America

Posted on October 7, 2021 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 10, October 2021

The image depicts two Maersk-Sealand 40' containers stacked on top of one another. Train tracks are visible in the background.

China Shipping – Maersk-Sealand 40′ Containers, Quebec, Canada, 2018. Source: Wikimedia.

Anders Corr, Ph.D.
Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

This interview with Michael Stumo, the CEO of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, was conducted between October 5-6 via email.

Corr: Why and when did the Coalition for a Prosperous America begin?

Stumo: CPA started in 2008. Domestic manufacturers, farmers, ranchers and workers agreed that the biggest threat to their well being, and that of the economy, was the large, persistent US trade deficit.

Corr: How is Biden’s ally focus going for him on the issue of trade with China? Is Biden’s outreach to allies helping him on this issue?

Continue reading →

Is The Persecution Of Falun Gong In China Tantamount To Genocide?

Posted on September 28, 2021 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 9, September 2021

A yellow destruction vehicle is depicted destroying personal possessions. A small crowd watches from the side.

Destruction of Falun Gong books during the 1999 China crackdown. Wikimedia/ClearWisdom

Helen Hintjens, Ph.D.
International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague

“Genocide is a crime for which there has to be proof of a particular hostile state of mind in an individual or in a government body towards a group that qualifies under the Genocide Convention’s or the ICC Statute’s limited set of groups against whom genocide can be committed”.[1]

Since at least 2000, at the behest of Jiang Zemin, President of the PRC from 1993 to 2003, Falun Gong have been labelled a ‘heretical (or deviated) religion’, and its members systematically persecuted through a covert ‘6-10 Office’ group of Chinese government security officers.

Continue reading →

Chinese Communist Party Cooperation with Gangs and Politicians in Canada: Book Review

Posted on May 23, 2021 by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 5, May 2021

The book cover depicts the words "Wilful blindness" in white against a red backdrop and a world map in black.

The book cover of Wilful Blindness, by Sam Cooper.

Anders Corr, Ph.D.

Publisher of the Journal of Political Risk

Wilful Blindness How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons and CCP agents Infiltrated the West, by Sam Cooper, Optimum Publishing International, 2021, $28.95 CAD.

An investigative reporter in Canada, Sam Cooper, is at the tip of the spear, where China injects money, drugs, spies, and underage prostitutes into all of North America. Cooper provides us with a front-row seat of China’s espionage, drug supercartels, support to terrorism, money laundering, and, for a pledge of support to Beijing, campaign donations to the politicians who lurk around China’s United Front groups in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa. Add to that investigations of trafficking in weapons. Heads of state, including Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau, are linked by the author to the nefarious characters from China who are doing this dirty business.

It sounds too crazy to be true.

But Cooper’s new book, Wilful Blindness, is nonfiction, and based on five years of his investigative reporting on the topic, and confidential sources in Canadian intelligence and police agencies. It vindicates, and brings up to date, a joint Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) report that in 1997 made many of the same claims. That report, called “Sidewinder”, was suppressed by Ottawa, which at time was trying to ink new trade deals with Beijing.

Continue reading →