Violence flared up again at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The mosque sits on that Muslims regard as the Noble Sanctuary and Jews call the Temple Mount. Violence as been endemic this year as some Jews attempt to pray at the holy site, a practice that was banned by Israeli authorities after the capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war. The controversy over the site is perhaps the most intense conflict in the world: the Israeli and Palestinian demands on the Old City of Jerusalem are profoundly incompatible.
Reports from Greece indicate how deep the split between Prime Minister Tsipras and the more radical members of his Syriza party actually was. According to published reports, the more radical members of the party had mapped out a process by which Greece could have left the euro and returned to its old currency, the drachma, in the dead of night. It was an audacious plan, involving taking over the Greek Central Bank, and suggests how difficult it has been for Tsipras to maintain control of the government. Interestingly, the plan had the virtue of being secret and the transformation would have occurred in the dead of night which would have avoided many of the critical problems associated with a return to the drachma. Nonetheless, leaving the euro would have been highly destabilizing to the Greek economy.
As Chinese power continues to increase, both globally and regionally, its military power has triggered a classic “security dilemma” in East and Southeast Asia. Robert Jervis wrote the most elegant description of the dilemma in World Politics in 1978. (Robert Jervis, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jan., 1978), pp. 167-214). What China regards as actions only designed to protect Chinese interests, its neighbors view the actions as threatening to their interests. Ultimately, Chinese power must (and will) be accommodated, but the key is to do so in the least violent manner possible.
World Politics News 
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