World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Carbon emissions last year broke previous years’ records, increasing by 3% in 2011.  The rate of increase suggests that any efforts to prevent climate change from occurring later on in the century are likely to fail.  The climate meetings currently going on in Qatar are not even raising the issue of emission limits.  The lack of attention to this issue at the national and international level is mind-boggling.

There have been a flurry of reports today about the movement of chemical weapons in Syria.  I’m not at all sure what is going on.  One possibility is that the Syrian military is planning to use chemical weapons against civilians.  Another possibility is that the international community is emphasizing the possibility of the use of these weapons in order to justify an intervention.  We don’t know where the information is coming from (the rebels?  the US?  Israel?) and that little bit of information would tell us a lot.  Keep tuned in.

North Korea is planning on testing a long-range missile that will undoubtedly raise tensions in East Asia.  Significantly, both Russia and China have come out in strong opposition to the planned test.  The opposition will likely have little effect on the North Koreans, but the expressed opposition will calm the nerves of the Japanese and the South Koreans worried about North Korea acting as a stalking horse for the Chinese.