World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The Philippines government has been waging a very long war against an insurgent group, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), in the southern part of the Philippines.  The discord reflects the tension between the primarily Christian north and the primarily Muslim south.   A peace treaty has been signed in 1996 which ended decades of strife, but that agreement, which ceded a great deal of autonomy to the southern provinces of the Philippines has slowly broken down.  The violence has heated up recently, and only shows signs of getting worse right now.

The Los Angeles Times has published a story which gives more context to the US position on the use of chemical weapons.  According to the story, for which there are no named citations (which indicates that all the information was provided by Obama Administration officials who did not wish to be identified–always a red flag when one is reading a newspaper story), there were as many as 11 previous uses of chemical weapons prior to the event on 21 August that led to the US ultimatum.  The information is tantalizing, but one needs to be careful with such stories.  Without attribution, there is no way to verify the accuracy of the report.   One cannot, however, simply ignore such stories since the LA Times very likely took serious steps to ensure that the story was reliable.

The German elections will occur this coming week, and the odds are that Angela Merkel will be able to retain her position as Chancellor.  There are a number of different possible party coalitions that would endorse Merkel, so her own party does not have to win an absolute majority in the Reichstag.  There is, however, an interesting development in this year’s election.  A new party, formed only last February, is gaining strength, and polls give it a shot at getting the necessary 5% of the vote to secure representation in the parliament.  The Party, Alternative for Germany, is a profoundly anti-European Union party which calls for the orderly dismemberment of the EU.  If the party does get representation in the Reichstag, it will undoubtedly make Merkel’s life very difficult in the EU.