Unemployment in Europe has reached record highs. The austerity measures pursued by the IMF and the European Union are having a decided effect on economic growth rates: inflation rates are very low, but the price is high unemployment. The political price of these policies is both the growth of the political right-wing and the large protests which have yet to congeal into a definable political movement. But Europe is only part of the equation–economic growth rates in India, Brazil, and Canada are also declining.
The day after the Palestinian Authority was granted non-member observer state status at the UN, Israel announced that it was going to build 3,000 new settlement homes in East Jerusalem. The settlements are a major obstacle in the peace negotiations between Israel and the PA, and there is virtually unanimous legal opinion that the settlements are illegal under international law. It is likely that the Israeli announcement is more connected with the upcoming national election in Israel in January than it is to the UN vote. It nonetheless, represents an additional obstacle to the negotiations.
China has announced that, as of 1 January, it will assert the right to board and search any ship within what it regards as its territorial waters. As you can see from the map, the area of alleged control is huge (and pretty far from China’s shores).
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