World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Sometimes maps can convey all one needs to know about a particular conflict.  Such is the case with Ukraine which is divided between Ukrainian speaking people in the western part of the state and Russian speaking people in the eastern part of the state.  As the map below suggests, the protests in Ukraine correlate almost perfectly with this linguistic division.  How one reconciles such a division given the issue involved–a customs union with Russia or closer ties with the European Union–is difficult to imagine.  But the first step in Ukraine would be to address the issue of government corruption first.

There is growing instability in the global economy.  Turkey, Mexico, Venezuela, Ukraine, Thailand, and South Africa have all experienced sharp declines in their currencies as doubts have arisen among investors about sovereign debt payments.  The sharp declines are due to a confluence of domestic instability in some of these states as well as a concern over the health of the global economy as a whole.  The concerns are difficult to gauge.  They do not, at this time, reflect a deep lack of confidence.  But doubts sometimes build upon themselves, leading to panic.  We will have to keep an eye on this trend.