World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

French farmers protested last week against lower prices for their products forced by growing imports from other European countries.  The French agricultural sector has long been protected by the government: many in the country regard the rural sector to be an important part of French culture.  Others regard the farmers are a well-organized political constituency.  The protests involve blocking roads and dumping manure in front of shops that sell foreign foods.   The protests complicate efforts to stabilize the French economy which has been plagued by high unemployment.

The US Department of State has issued its Trafficking in Persons Report for 2015.  The report covers sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, forced labor, bonded servitude, domestic servitude,  forced child labor, and child soldiers.   The report makes for very grim reading.  Modern slavery is pervasive and well-disguised.  Unfortunately, it is also tolerated by a very large number of countries and corporations that close their eyes to the practice.  The number of prosecutions for the crime are pitifully small.

The criticisms of the nuclear accord with Iran continue to unfold.  Many of the criticisms are off-point: they treat the accord as something other than a non-proliferation agreement.  Leon Wieseltier is a very prominent critic of the agreement and has written a passionate critique of it in The Atlantic.   The main thrust of the critique is quite straightforward:

“This accord will strengthen a contemptible regime. And so I propose—futilely, I know—that now, in the aftermath of the accord, America proceed to weaken it. The conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action should be accompanied by a resumption of our hostility to the Iranian regime and its various forces. Diplomats like to say that you talk with your enemies. They are right. And we have talked with them. But they are still our enemies. This is the hour not for a fresh start but for a renovation of principle. We need to restore democratization to its pride of place among the priorities of our foreign policy and oppress the theocrats in Tehran everywhere with expressions, in word and in deed, of our implacable hostility to their war on their own people.”

Essentially, Wieseltier is suggesting that nothing less than a change of regime is a satisfactory conclusion.