In what can only be described as an unfortunate choice of words, the French Defense Minister asserted that France would accept nothing less than the “total reconquest” of Mali from Islamic extremists. The French intervention in the former French colony of Mali was designed to stop the spread of al-Qaeda in Mali, and has led to the hostage crisis in the former French colony of Algeria. We still have very little solid information about the hostage crisis, but some of the confused reports suggest that the death toll from the rescue attempt was very high.
The territorial conflict between China and Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands has escalated from the sea to the air, a riskier form of challenge. The US has also been insinuated into the conflict by the Chinese belief that the US is siding with Japan (a true assessment of the American position). It is probably impossible for the US not to side with Japan, but the Chinese know this alliance is rather fixed; the Chinese would be better off insulating the conflict from American interests by pointedly ignoring the US.
Oxfam has issued a report that suggests that the combined wealth of the 100 richest individuals in the world ($240 billion) would be more than enough to end global poverty four times over. The headline is certainly provocative (and in absolute terms, true), but the real issue is the extraordinary degree of income inequality in the world. How long this economic inequality can persist without leading to political unrest is unknown.
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