OPEC, the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries, has decided not to cut its production from 30 million barrels of oil a day. The decision immediately put downward pressure on oil prices which have gone from about $110 a barrel to about $70 a barrel. The downward pressure has benefited consumers, but other oil producers have been substantially hurt. Those oil exporters with large populations, such as Venezuela, Indonesia, and Nigeria, have seen their oil revenues decline. The price cuts seem designed to put pressure on oil companies in the US that employ fracking processes since fracking requires prices of about $90 per barrel to be profitable. The oil price cut also harms Russia, a strong supporter of President Assad in Syria, whose government the Saudi Arabians fiercely oppose.
Greece has endured a 24-hour general strike as workers protested the continued austerity policies of the government. Those policies have been imposed by the European Union, the IMF, and the European Central Bank to bring down a large budget deficit. But unemployment rates in Greece hover around 26% as the country enters its sixth year of economic pain. This general strike is the first of several planned strikes for the future.
As many Americans eat Turkey today, we should remember that all societies have iconic dishes. The Atlanticgives a list and brief description of some national foods, some of which sound quite appetizing , while others, like snake soup, might be hard to try for the first time.
Reaction to the non-indictment of Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO in the killing of Michael Brown last August has been largely negative. But the international repercussions of the incident have been quite damaging to the US’s reputation. It is difficult to get a representative sample of opinions from overseas, but a small sampling of the reactions suggests that the US is no longer regarded as the paragon of human rights. The event has clearly diminished America’s “soft” power. France’s Justice Minister Christiane Taubira quoted Bob Marley’s song, “I Shot the Sheriff” in a tweet: “Kill them before they grow.”
While protests are going on in the US, the Hong Kong Government is trying to remove protesters from the streets. The negotiations between the government and the protesters have yielded no agreement, and the protests are entering a new phase. Apparently the protesters are resorting to social media and trying a form of “mobile” protests, moving from street to street. The cat-and-mouse game will definitely tax both sides.
We’ve noted earlier that there have been a number of incidents between NATO and Russian forces lately. Generally speaking, these incidents are tests of both capability and will. At least that is what intended. The danger of these types of incidents is that they could mistakenly escalate due to some error or miscalculation. If you’re keeping score, the chart below gives a tally of the incidents that we know about. I am certain that there are many more that have not been reported. It’s a risky game that both sides are playing.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has stated that “[o]ur religion [Islam] has defined a position for women: motherhood”. The speech has ignited a firestorm of criticism within Turkey. Later in the speech he stated that “What women need is to be able to be equivalent, rather than equal. Because equality turns the victim into an oppressor and vice versa.” The comments follow similar comments made by the President and some of his advisers in recent days. Over the last few years, many in Turkey have protested what they perceive to be a growing authoritarianism in the Erdogan administration.
The P5+1 and Iran failed to reach an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program today, but all sides agreed to extend the negotiation period by 7 months. It is hard to interpret how close the two sides were to an agreement since details of the negotiations have been sparse. But the extension is a good sign since the alternative was to confess that an agreement was not possible. The extension poses a political problem for the US since it is clear that there are elements in the US Congress that would prefer to impose more stringent sanctions, and any move in that direction would definitely scuttle the possibility of an agreement.
One would be hard pressed to find a better example of what structural realists (neorealists) call the “security dilemma” than the situation in east Europe before and after the recent activity in Ukraine. Prior to the Russian intervention, there were four NATO jets tasked to defend NATO borders.
After the crisis, there are now 18.
NATO clearly regards the build-up as a purely defensive move; Russia undoubtedly regards the build-up as provocative. What NATO believes is defensive, Russia regards as offensive.
China is building military facilities on a reef in the disputed area of the Spratley Islands. Other countries, including the Philippines, claim the Spratley Islands, and there has been a lot of activity by all sides in the disputed area. The Chinese are quite literally building new reefs for these facilities which could be extensive enough for airstrips and harbors large enough to berth military vessels.
The Israeli cabinet has approved, by a vote of 14-7, a new law that would enshrine Israel’s identity as a Jewish state. Israel’s constitution and its Basic Laws refer to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic” state, but the new law would guarantee national rights only to Jews, although 20% of Israel’s population is either Muslim or Christian. According to The Guardian:
“The bill, which is intended to become part of Israel’s basic laws, would recognise Israel’s Jewish character, institutionalise Jewish law as an inspiration for legislation and delist Arabic as a second official language.”
The bill now goes to the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, and it remains to be seen whether it will actually become a law.
In May 2011 the Russian geostationary weather satellite took some amazing photographs of the earth and they have been processed into an extraordinary video. See the earth in all its beauty and complexity:
The Japanese economy has recently dipped back into a recession (negative economic growth). But the Japanese economy has preformed poorly for at least twenty years. The new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has tried a variety of techniques to stimulate the economy, but those efforts have failed. Unusually, Abe has called for new Parliamentary elections even though he is not required to do so until 2016. Abe clearly wishes to get a mandate from the electorate, but it’s not clear what he plans to do with it. The Japanese economy clearly requires some extra push.
Many Americans interpret extreme weather events and natural disasters as signs of what some religions regard as “the End Time” or the apocalypse. This religious interpretation of extreme events has the effect of undermining public policy measures since they are viewed as beyond human control. According to the Public Religion Research Institute:
“As of 2014, it’s estimated that nearly half of Americans—49 percent—say natural disasters are a sign of “the end times,” as described in the Bible. That’s up from an estimated 44 percent in 2011.”
Not all religions were included in the study, so it is difficult to make generalizations from the study. But the breakdown of the religions is shown in the chart below.
Although one would not know it from the Western media, the Ebola virus continues to wreak havoc in West Africa. Some countries are making progress toward control of the disease, while in others it continues to spread. The disease also spreads economic havoc. The World Bank has conducted surveys in Liberia about how the virus has effected employment and its conclusions are wretched: “Overall, only about 36 percent of previously self-employed workers outside of agriculture and about half of those originally engaged in wage labor are still working since the crisis unfolded.” The developed world needs to address this aspect of the crisis as well.
In a show of dramatic diplomatic support, US Vice-President Biden paid a visit to Ukrainian President Poroshenko and called upon Russia to obverse the terms of the cease-fire agreement reached in Minsk in September. That cease-fire has been steadily breaking down and there is substantial evidence that Russia has sent in troops and tanks into eastern Ukraine. Biden did not bring with any promises of weapons assistance or any other type of support that might contribute to a higher level of violence. Nonetheless, Russia will likely respond to the US show of support.
Much of politics is largely symbolic–it is for that reason that outsiders often misunderstand the perceived messages within a political campaign. There is a classic example of this process in England right now, as a Labor Member of Parliament has been forced to resign her position because of a seemingly innocuous photograph. It is impossible to describe all the intricacies of this kerfuffle. Read the article and see if you understand it.
As the 24 November deadline for the Iranian nuclear negotiations near, there is a real question as to what will happen if an agreement is not reached. There really is no alternative to continuing the negotiations. As Fred Kaplan points out in this essay, the Non-Proliferation Treaty assures the right of all signatories to peaceful nuclear energy. So if the negotiations end, it is likely that Iran will continue to enrich Uranium on its own schedule. There really is no reason to believe that Iran is deliberately delaying the negotiations to achieve this objective, since the evidence is that the damage from the sanctions against Iran are seriously harming the Iranian economy. So all sides should agree to extend the deadline.
ChildFund International, a consortium of non-profit organizations dedicated to the protection of children globally, released a report on the status of children and the results were sobering. In a statement on the report, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, said:
“Some 6.6 million children under 5 years of age died in 2012, mostly from preventable causes; when 168 million children aged 5 to 17 were engaged in child labor in 2012; when 11 percent of girls are married before they turn 15…”
These children ought to be protected by The Convention of the Rights of the Child, a convention that has been signed by 194 countries except for Somalia, South Sudan, and the United States.
In a trial in Egypt, a doctor and the father of a 13-year old girl who died from a female genital mutilation operation were acquitted of a crime. The case was a landmark case in Egypt since such cases are very rarely brought to trial. But the verdict delivered by a judge who failed to articulate his reasons in the case, is a setback for those who wish to strengthen the laws against the practice. Although FGM was made illegal in Egypt in 2008, more than 90% of Egyptian women under 50 have been subjected to the practice.
US-Russian relations are at perhaps the lowest point since the Cold War. Neither side, however, seems willing to open a dialogue that could resolve some of the animosity, even though both sides have mutual interests on the issue of terrorism and the Iranian negotiations. Indeed, there seems to be a willful misinterpretation of each other’s motives. For example, RT (formerly the Russian Times) has a report on a meeting between US Secretary of State Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov which suggests a high degree of mistrust.
Mistrust is also playing a profound role in the escalating violence in Jerusalem. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians are interpreting recent violent events through the single prism of religious struggle. A conflict defined in such terms defies compromise and almost inevitably escalates. Unfortunately, no outside power seems willing to step in to try to bring about a different definition of the crisis.
NASA has produced a dramatic video that shows how carbon dioxide travels through the earth’s atmosphere over a period of one year. It is an incredible video, but note how little carbon dioxide is produced in the southern hemisphere.
Six people, including the two Palestinian perpetrators, were killed in a horrific attack inside a Jerusalem synagogue. The incident is the latest in a string of violent acts in the city over recent weeks. Israel will undoubtedly respond to the attack, so the cycle of violence will continue. The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack while Hamas praised the “high-quality revenge attack”. According to the New York Times:
“Relatives identified the attackers as two cousins, Odai Abed Abu Jamal, 22, and Ghassan Muhammad Abu Jamal, 32. They were said to be motivated by what they saw as threats to the revered plateau that contains Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.”
The Institute for Economics and Peace has published its annual Global Terrorism Index. The index noted that “[o]f the 17,958 people who died in terrorist attacks in 2013, 82 percent were in one of five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria.” Contrariwise, the index noted that:
“Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2013, the report found, around 5 percent of terrorism-related fatalities occurred in the 34 wealthy countries of the OECD. In 2013 specifically, there were 113 terrorism-related deaths in OECD countries—0.6 percent of the worldwide total. Six of these took place in the United States.”
Female genital mutilation is a social practice that is pervasive in many countries. Mona Eltahawy has written an op-ed piece for The New York Times on the practice and she estimates that as many as 91% of Egyptian women between the ages of 15-49 have been subjected to this practice. There is no medical justification for the procedure, but some cultures insist that the practice is consistent with social and moral norms regarding attitudes toward sexual activity. Even in countries that have outlawed the practice, it remains pervasive. For liberal societies, the practice is regarded as a method for subordinating the individual rights of girls and women to society as a whole.
In another op-ed in the New York Times, Steven Rattnerreviews the findings of a Federal Reserve Study on income inequality in the United States. The conclusions are devastating: the US is one of the most unequal societies of all developed economies, even after taking into account the social welfare programs maintained by local, state, and federal governments. The finding refutes the argument that the government programs compensate for the lower incomes offered by private enterprise, and that those programs demand an inordinately high tax rate:
“Conservatives may bemoan the size of our government; in reality, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, total tax revenues in the United States this year will be smaller on a relative basis than those of any other member country.”
The study suggests that there is a clear process of income redistribution going on in the US, but from the poor to the rich.
The deadline for ending the nuclear negotiations with Iran is 24 November and, as is usually the case with high level negotiations, matters are coming to a head as the deadline nears. It seems as if the broad outlines of an agreement are clear to both sides, but that specific details remain contentious. Essentially, the disagreement centers around the capabilities of Iran to enrich Uranium. It is impossible to prohibit Iran from enriching Uranium: the non-proliferation treaty ensures the right of peaceful nuclear energy which requires enrichment, and there is no way for Iran to “unlearn” how to enrich Uranium. But the capability to enrich Uranium also implies the capability to build a bomb. How the enrichment process is to be monitored and controlled remains the dividing line.
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