World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

There was a protest in Saudi Arabia by women who are demanding the right to drive their own cars.   There is no Saudi law that prohibits women from driving, but the Saudi government refuses to give them licenses.  Those women who drove today were driving with licenses from other countries.  Last month “Sheikh Salah al-Luhaydan claimed on a popular Saudi website that it has been scientifically proved that driving ‘affects the ovaries’ and leads to clinical disorders in the children of women who are foolish enough to drive.”  Fortunately, there appear to be those in Saudi Arabia who support the women.

There are reports that the US bugged Angela Merkel from 2002-13.  The fury in Europe over these reports is simply incredible.  Needless to say, spying on one’s allies is a clear confession of mistrust.  Meanwhile, the American public seems to waking up to the scale of NSA surveillance and there was a protest in Washington, DC against the practice.   It seems as if Edward Snowden performed a valuable service to the people by exposing the scale of the spying by the NSA–there appears to be little justification for such broad-based and untargeted surveillance.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe asserted that Japan was prepared to defend its interests more vigorously against China.  China’s rapid rise to power has mirrored Japan’s two decade slump from power, and Abe intends to reverse that trend.   Relations between the two countries have steadily worsened, and Japan likely believes that if it doesn’t act soon, then its role in East Asia will be severely diminished.