World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

There are intense negotiations going on between Britain and the European Union.  British Prime Minister has threatened to hold a referendum that would allow the British to vote on whether Britain should remain within the European Union.  In order to forestall such a vote, Cameron has demanded many concessions from the EU.  There are principally three major demands.

First, Britain wants to be able to cap welfare payments to non-British Europeans who have moved to Britain to take advantage of Britain’s generous welfare system.  This demand would violate the EU’s position that all Europeans should be treated equally by all members of the Union.

Second, Britain wants British banks to be held to different financial requirements for banks within the EU.  Britain believes that its banks would suffer from the EU rules;  the EU believes that the exemption would give British banks an unfair competitive advantage.

Third, the British want the EU to drop its aspiration of an “ever closer union.”  The British believe that the phrase threatens British sovereignty; the other EU members believe that it should remain as the ultimate goal of the Union.

The EU is at this moment relatively weak, buffeted by the difficulties caused the the sovereign debt crisis of some of its southern members and the domestic political pressures on its most important member, Germany, caused the the refugee crisis.  Thus, the EU is likely to move toward these concessions, but it remains to be seen whether it can offer enough to Britain.

Since the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddaffi five years ago, Libya has descended into total chaos.  There are two rival factions, one based in Tripoli and the other in Benghazi, that claim to be the legitimate Libyan government, but no one is in control.  There is considerable evidence that Daesh (the Islamic State) has been planning to move into this political vacuum in case its hold on its territory in Iraq and Syria.  US warplanes attacked Daesh sites in Libya for the second time in three months indicating that the war against Daesh knows no territorial boundaries.

January 2016 was the warmest January ever recorded, and not by just a little bit but by an astonishing 0.3°F degrees.  The warmth of the month was due to two factors:  the strong el Niño  and a shift in the Arctic Oscillation that lead to about freezing temperatures in the Arctic.  According to Joe Romm:  “In January the Arctic averaged a staggering 13.5°F (7.5°C) above average.”   The effect on the ice in the region was quite dramatic as the extent of winter ice was the lowest we have ever seen.  If temperatures do not turn around dramatically, the ice melt in the summer may be the largest ever seen.  The planet may be warming faster than even the most pessimistic models have predicted.