A Less Friendly World: June 5-11, 2017

Searching the internet for a view of next week’s world (June 5-11, 2017) shows it to be a much less friendly place than it was this past week.   How do I find a map of next week’s “world” on the internet?  To those familiar with our work, you know that we take top search trends and convert them into four primary mood qualities, which in turn gives us a near future glimpse of likely types of news events and market movement.  Doing this for various countries around the world, and processing that with Geographical Information Software allows us to produce a map we call WorldMood (below).



Here are the highlights for next week:

1. The arrow between Europe and the U.S. that was marked “negotiations” last week, now says “cessation.”  There may be previous areas of commerce or communications that are abruptly terminated this week.  This could be a fallout from the pullout of the Paris Agreement by the U.S. or from something else.
2. A possible “hot spot” is where Russia meets the area of Georgia and Azerbaijan.
3. The Persian Gulf is another potential “hot spot.”  Watch for potential disruption or surprises there.  Also several countries (Iran, Yemen, Somalia, and Oman) are in the area marked “Disruptive.”  This may highlight civil unrest or an uptick in terrorist activity.
4. China is in an aggressive mood.  Hmmm….  There is also a spot of “disruption” in the Sichuan Province area.  We’ll keep an eye on that to see what might develop.
5. The U.K. is in a serious mood.  Is this grief from last week's terrorist attacks or is there something even bigger to be somber about?
6. Kazakhstan is in a serious mood.  This may be related to whatever is happening with Russia and other areas nearby.

In the midst of a troubled world, may your own world be one of peace in the week ahead.

- - - -
Update: June 5, 2017
Wow! The Persian Gulf Crisis showed up on the map BEFORE it happened! https://www.voanews.com/.../saudi-arabia.../3887058.html  (See item #3 in the "highlights for next week" list).

Update: June 7, 2017
Jeepers!  Another hit on item #3.  I thought the idea of a terrorist attack in Iran was a strange idea, but that's what we got!  http://time.com/4808655/iran-parliament-attack-shooting/