On the basis of absentee ballots, Alexander Van der Bellen, a member of the Green Party running as an independent, beat out the far-right candidate, Norbert Hofer, for the presidency of Austria. The vote was 50.3% to 49.7% and the turnout for the election was 72.7% suggesting that voter interest was quite high. The results point out the strength of populist rhetoric in the current political environment, a genuine concern across the spectrum of polities in the world from Russia to the US to the Philippines and to Europe.
One of the last vestiges of the Vietnam War ended today as US President Obama lifted the arms embargo on Vietnam that had been put in place because of the war. Vietnam has become an important economic partner to the US, but the move signals growing apprehension in both the US and Vietnam over the growing power of China. Human rights still remain a sticking point between the two countries, but the strategic concerns over Chinese moves in the South China Sea have overridden those concerns.
We tend to focus on the anti-immigrant sentiment in the US and Europe, but that sentiment pervades many societies. One of the most long-standing examples of this hostility is the attitude of many in the Dominican Republic toward Haitian immigrants. The two countries share the island of Hispaniola and both have long histories of despotic regimes. But the Dominican Republic has made a great deal of economic progress in the last few years while Haitians are still trying to recover from a devastating earthquake, cholera, and a non-existent political system. One can see the difference in the two countries by looking at the boundary line between them Those Haitians who try to enter the Dominican Republic are often repatriated with little due process.
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