The Egyptian military council has told Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi that he can run for President in Egypt’s upcoming election. al-Sisi was responsible for the overthrow of Mohammed Morsi, the Egyptian President after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarek in 2011, and he will almost certainly win the election. The political system of Egypt has been in near constant turmoil after the coup that overthrew Morsi and most Egyptians look to al-Sisi as the most reliable protector against a return to power by the Muslim Brotherhood. We will have to see if the election of al-Sisi will be accompanied by a decline in the protection of human rights.
The situation in Ukraine remains somewhat murky. Anti-government protesters have ended their occupation of some government buildings after a threat by the government to declare a state of emergency (which, presumably, would authorize the Ukrainian military to intervene). The EU has demanded the repeal of the recent laws passed against protesting, and it appears as if President Yanukovich has invited opposition leaders to join the government (an offer that was spurned). So there is some movement, but the direction of that movement is still uncertain.
Many international disputes are settled peacefully but peaceful resolutions rarely make the news. In a boundary dispute that goes back to the 1880s, Chile and Peru have accepted an international agreement that settles the maritime boundaries of the two states. It appears as if both sides will abide by the agreement, and the settlement addresses one of the last lingering boundary issues in Latin America.
Protesters in Thailand have been agitating for the last few months demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. The protests have grown increasingly violent as the anti-government movement believes that the Shinawatra government is corrupt and does not represent the interests of the urban population. The death of a prominent anti-government protester may force the government to cancel the scheduled election on 2 February. The protest movement does not believe that any election held under the auspices of the Shinawatra government can be fair.
NASA has released a video showing the changes in the temperature of the planet over a period of six decades. The evidence seems conclusive that temperatures have risen during that period. The video, however, does not give us any information about why the temperature has increased.
An historic agreement has been reached between the government of the Philippines and Muslim insurgents located primarily in the southern part of the country. Violence between the primarily Christian north and the Islamic south is long-standing, and the new agreement gives substantial autonomy to the southern province of Mindanao. This agreement is part of a process that was initiated in October of 2012. It is probably too soon to claim that the agreement has solved the dispute, but it is a substantial step forward.
Some people have benefited from globalization and some have suffered. Branko Milanovic, an economist at the World Bank, has compiled data which shows which groups have gained and lost income from 2988-2008. The data has been transferred to a graph which shows how income gains and losses have been distributed among different groups in different categories and regions of the world. While it is easy to make the case that the middle class in the US has suffered from globalization, the process has also created larger middle classes in other countries of the world. But the poor have not benefited at all, and the rich have gained the most by far.
Peace negotiations between the warring sides in Geneva have begun, although without any representation from Iran, a key player. It is difficult to overstate the difficulties facing the negotiations between adversaries that have been fighting for three years, and in a conflict in which so many atrocities have been committed. Nonetheless, without negotiations, there was no reason to believe that there would be any changes at all for the better.
On the third anniversary of the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, 29 people have been killed in widespread protests throughout Egypt. The unrest reflects almost a complete breakdown of political legitimacy in Egypt, as various groups compete for power. In essence, there does not seem to be a political center in Egypt today, but rather a constellation of competing factions with limited appeals to small groups within Egypt. The military government seems to have been unable to forge a consensus within Egypt about a political framework that seems legitimate. Until such a framework appears, the violence will likely continue.
Gillian Sorensen, Senior Advisor at the UN Foundation and UNA-GB members
Stoddard’s Fine Food and Ale
48 Temple Place, Boston, MA
Wednesday, February 19, 6:00 – 7:30 p.m
*Ticket price covers light appetizers. Cash bar available
Gillian Sorenson is a senior advisor at the United Nations Foundation, a national advocate on matters related to the UN and the US-UN relationship.
From 1997-2003, she served as Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations under Secretary General Kofi Annan, where she was responsible for outreach to non-governmental organizations and was the contact person for the secretary-general with parliamentarians, the academic world, religious leaders, and other groups committed to peace, justice, development and human rights.
Prior to that, she served as Special Advisor for Public Policy under Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. With her unique ‘insider’ perspecitve she explores the issues that populate headlines today and is a persuasive advocate for the UN.
Mark your calendars! Please join us for a discussion with Evyenia Sidereas, the U.S. State Department Diplomat in Residence for New England on January 29 at 4:15pm in Dwight 101.
She will be on campus to discuss State Department internships and career opportunities. Students are welcome to reviewhttp://careers.state.gov/ for information about the Department’s student programs and career paths at any time, and may reach out to Ms. Sidereas with specific questions at DIRNewEngland@state.gov if you cannot attend the session.
Ms. Sidereas has served overseas in Thailand, Kosovo, Egypt, and Iraq. Most recently, she was the acting Director for Maghreb Affairs at the State Department’s headquarters in Washington, DC. Please join us on January 29!
Sometimes maps can convey all one needs to know about a particular conflict. Such is the case with Ukraine which is divided between Ukrainian speaking people in the western part of the state and Russian speaking people in the eastern part of the state. As the map below suggests, the protests in Ukraine correlate almost perfectly with this linguistic division. How one reconciles such a division given the issue involved–a customs union with Russia or closer ties with the European Union–is difficult to imagine. But the first step in Ukraine would be to address the issue of government corruption first.
There is growing instability in the global economy. Turkey, Mexico, Venezuela, Ukraine, Thailand, and South Africa have all experienced sharp declines in their currencies as doubts have arisen among investors about sovereign debt payments. The sharp declines are due to a confluence of domestic instability in some of these states as well as a concern over the health of the global economy as a whole. The concerns are difficult to gauge. They do not, at this time, reflect a deep lack of confidence. But doubts sometimes build upon themselves, leading to panic. We will have to keep an eye on this trend.
There are many nations in the world that lack a state to protect them. These nations are usually minorities in states with majority populations that control the state (but not exclusively–there are some majority peoples who are ruled by a minority). One of the world’s largest nations is the Royingha, Muslims who live in Myanmar which has a majority Buddhist population. The Buddhists resent the presence of the Muslims who migrated to Burma from Bangladesh and live primarily in the Rakhine Province of Myanmar. Since the military government in Myanmar has loosened its domestic controls, the Buddhists have taken the new freedom as an opporunity to assert what they believe is appropriate control over the region. In recent years, the violence between Buddhists and Muslims has grown steadily worse.
A truce has been declared in the ongoing violence between the Ukrainian government and protesters. The truce comes after intense fighting yesterday, but it only holds in the capital city of Kiev and there are reports that the protests have erupted in other cities as well. Both sides seem to be well aware of the stakes involved, but it is not clear what possible points of reconciliation exist or even what is being discussed during the truce. Initial reports suggest that there were no positive results from the truce.
One of the more unsettling changes over the last two years has been the movement of Japan toward a more aggressive military posture. The change can be justified by the new military power of China as well as the nuclear policy of North Korea. But in many respects, Japan had tried not to be a “normal” country. In article 9 of its constitution, the state declared that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means to settle international disputes”. It is difficult to say how the Japanese people feel about this change in military posture–they definitely feel as if their position is more precarious, but their commitment to a more peaceful policy is also quite deep.
The International Labor Organization has issued its annual report on global employment trends, and its conclusions are grim. From the report:
Young people continue to be particularly affected by the weak and uneven recovery. It is estimated that some 74.5 million young people – aged 15–24 – were unemployed in 2013; that is almost 1 million more than in the year before. The global youth unemployment rate has reached 13.1 per cent, which is almost three times as high as the adult unemployment rate.Indeed, the youth-to-adult unemployment ratio has reached a historical peak. It is particularly high in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean and Southern Europe.
The report projects that by 2018 the total number of unemployed youth will reach about 215 million. The political consequences of such high and long-term unemployment will undermine the social and political stability of many countries in the world.
Turkey is going through a very difficult time as corruption charges have reached the highest levels of Prime Minister Erdogan’s government. In response, the Turkish economy has faltered, and the Turkish currency is falling rapidly, leading many to worry that Turkey might be forced to default on its sovereign debt. Today, the Prime Minster implemented a purge of the official investigating the charges. According to Reuters:
Ninety-six judges and prosecutors were reassigned overnight, the biggest purge of the judiciary since a graft scandal erupted on December 17 with the arrest of businessmen close to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and three ministers’ sons.
The move is likely to fail and lead to strong protests against the government. We will see if Erdogan can weather the storm.
Ukrainian police stormed the barricades of the protesters in Kiev and killed 5 protesters. The Ukrainian Prime Minister labelled the protesters as “terrorists” suggesting that the government has no intention of attempting to defuse the crisis that has been going on for about two months. The obdurate stance will no doubt inflame the tensions to an even higher level and there is no hint of a compromise.
As the diplomatic scuffles continue over the negotiations on Syria in Geneva, new evidence has surfaced indicating that the Assad regime systematically tortured and killed over 11,000 people in the three-year civil war. The evidence tremendously complicates any possible solution to the violence which may involve any possibility of conciliation with the Assad regime. The Western powers will find it impossible to treat Assad with any leniency; those who support Assad (Russia and Iran) will dig in their heels knowing that without him their influence in Syria will emphatically end. The world needs to answer the question: Is it more important that justice be served on a brutal tyrant than to find a way to end the horrific ongoing violence in Syria? The answer is not an easy one.
Globalization has had a dramatic effect on the global labor market. As is the case with all major economic transformations, there are both winners and losers–those who can adapt to the changes well will benefit and those who cannot adapt will lose. We are, however, living in the incipient stage of the latest wave of globalization and many have not had the chance yet to adapt, and questions are being raised about whether the technological changes associated with globalization really afford many opportunities for labor. The Economist has run an exceptionally perceptive essay on this particular problem–I recommend it highly.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is a privately run non-governmental organization that has been dedicated to uncovering how much money in the world is being kept secret in offshore accounts in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands. The organization has focused primarily on secret money held by western elites, but it has recently released a report on how much money is being held offshore by Chinese elites. The amount of money is truly staggering–the ICIJ estimates that almost $4 trillion has been spirited out of China and kept immune from Chinese government taxation and control. The amount of money is not only quite large, but it is also money that has been accumulated in a very short period of time. I suspect that this news will not be reported in the Chinese media.
Here’s an update on the ICIJ story: Chinese censors are scrubbing the internet to remove any references to the ICIJ report.
World Politics News 