World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Female genital mutilation is a social practice that is pervasive in many countries.  Mona Eltahawy has written an op-ed piece for The New York Times on the practice and she estimates that as many as 91% of Egyptian women between the ages of 15-49 have been subjected to this practice.  There is no medical justification for the procedure, but some cultures insist that the practice is consistent with social and moral norms regarding attitudes toward sexual activity.  Even in countries that have outlawed the practice, it remains pervasive. For liberal societies, the practice is regarded as a method for subordinating the individual rights of girls and women to society as a whole.

In another op-ed in the New York Times, Steven Rattner reviews the findings of a Federal Reserve Study on income inequality in the United States.  The conclusions are devastating: the US is one of the most unequal societies of all developed economies, even after taking into account the social welfare programs maintained by local, state, and federal governments.   The finding refutes the argument that the government programs compensate for the lower incomes offered by private enterprise, and that those programs demand an inordinately high tax rate:

“Conservatives may bemoan the size of our government; in reality, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, total tax revenues in the United States this year will be smaller on a relative basis than those of any other member country.”

The study suggests that there is a clear process of income redistribution going on in the US, but from the poor to the rich.

The deadline for ending the nuclear negotiations with Iran is 24 November and, as is usually the case with high level negotiations, matters are coming to a head as the deadline nears.  It seems as if the broad outlines of an agreement are clear to both sides, but that specific details remain contentious.  Essentially, the disagreement centers around the capabilities of Iran to enrich Uranium.  It is impossible to prohibit Iran from enriching Uranium:  the non-proliferation treaty ensures the right of peaceful nuclear energy which requires enrichment, and there is no way for Iran to “unlearn” how to enrich Uranium.  But the capability to enrich Uranium also implies the capability to build a bomb.  How the enrichment process is to be monitored and controlled remains the dividing line.