World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Migrant workers compose one of the most important elements of globalization.  They move to areas that are short of labor and send their wages back to their families in the form of remittances.  In many countries remittances comprise one of the largest capital flows in the Gross Domestic Product.   Unfortunately, migrant workers lack specified rights and they are often exploited by the host countries.   One such situation is ongoing in Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Arabia employs thousands of workers from Pakistan, the Philippines, and other countries.  It is currently going through a very difficult budget squeeze because of the decline in the price of oil and many construction projects have been frozen.  The workers are left in the lurch–they are not getting paid and have no way of returning home.

Iceland is experiencing one of the most interesting, and perhaps important, political developments in the world.  Its Prime Minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, was forced to resign because of revelations that his family was involved in disguising personal monies in offshore bank accounts.  The revelation was particularly galling to Icelanders because of the outsized role of Icelandic banks in the financial crisis of 2008. Since the resignation, the Pirate Party has slowly been gaining strength and is now leading all the polls for the upcoming national election in October.  The Pirate Party does not really have a policy platform, but it argues for direct democracy instead of representative democracy.

There is convincing evidence that the Syrian government is using chlorine gas in attacks against rebels in the fight to control the city of Aleppo.  The use of chlorine gas is a war crime, and medical authorities have been overwhelmed by people affected by the gas.  When the Syrian civil war began in 2011, US President Obama called the use of chemical weapons a “red line” that the US would not tolerate.  Despite numerous cases of the use of chemical weapons, the US and the international community have done nothing.