Nepal, Aug. 18 -- Summer 2019 will go on record as the hottest summer in human history. But it will also be remembered as a summer of madness when protests erupted everywhere and violence seems to be on the boil.

Who would have expected South Korea to be quarrelling with Japan? Or India taking away the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir to be replaced with direct rule by Delhi? Or the Argentine peso dropping 30 percent in one day? Why did the US put every one of their major trading partners, including Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, on their watchlist of 'currency manipulators'?

But the biggest news nearer to home is the protests in Hong Kong, shutting down the airport and tanking the economy.

When I was a young man, I had a wise mentor wh...