World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Israel and the Palestinian Authority–including Hamas and the Islamic Jihad–have agreed to an indefinite cease-fire.  The agreement ends 7 weeks of fighting and several broken truces.  Israel and Egypt have agreed to open up several border crossings and to allow greater humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza.  Other issues are to be picked up later on, allowing this cease fire to settle in before more contentious matters are negotiated.  Several hard-line members of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet voiced serious opposition to the cease-fire, but it appears as if this one will be more effective than the previous attempts.

The leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, has announced the creation of an Islamic Caliphate in the Nigerian northeastern city of Gwoza.   Boko Haram has been operating for years in Nigeria, and is responsible for many acts of violence in support of its desire to create an Islamic state in Nigeria’s north.   In July Shekau had voiced support for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, but there has been no reciprocal acknowledgement from the Middle Eastern Caliphate.  The Nigerian military strongly disputes that Boko Haram is in control of the city, but the military has not been able to exercise authority in the region for quite some time.

A leaked report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contains the following conclusion:

“Without additional mitigation, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts globally.”

The situation is indeed dire because the IPCC thinks that this conclusion is foregone, and that even major changes in greenhouse gas emissions right now will not avert a catastrophe by the end of this century.  We will have to wait for the complete report to assess the validity of the conclusion.