South Sudanese rebels have seized the oil producing sections of the country which puts the government in a very difficult position.  Without the oil revenues, the government will have a difficult time maintaining its control over the country.  China, which has significant interests in South Sudanese oil, has joined a large number of countries trying to defuse the two-week crisis.   Although the violence in the country can be mapped out along ethnic lines (Nuer vs. Dinka), the real issue is control over the country and the oil wealth.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has visited the Yasukuni Shrine, a sacred site dedicated to the memorial of all the war dead of Japanese soldiers (and, indeed, of all soldiers who have died defending their countries).  But the shrine also contains the remains of several Japanese soldiers who were convicted of Class A war criminals from World War II.  The atrocities committed by those soldiers include many committed against Chinese and Korean civilians.  Thus, the visit has raised outrage in those countries, who worry that the visit signals a return to Japanese militarism.  The controversy over the shrine is long-standing so Abe knew that his visit would create a foreign outcry; his calculation is that the damage to foreign relations is outweighed by the domestic benefits of the visit.  That calculation does raise some concern over the return of Japanese nationalism.

The political crisis in Turkey has deepened as three cabinet ministers resigned from the government.  The crisis came about as Prime Minister Erdogan’s cohort has been charged with corruption.  The Turkish media has splashed photographs of shoeboxes filled with cash as corroboration for the charges.   The Erdogan government was roiled last summer as many people protested what they viewed as a growing authoritarianism in the government.  The current crisis leaves the government very fragile and likely to fall, another weakness in the overall troubled state of political stability in the Middle East.

After a suicide bombing of a police headquarters, Egypt has determined that the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered a “terrorist” organization.  The move signals a hard line against the group similar to the extreme measures used against the organization during the Mubarak years.  The Muslim Brotherhood has denied any role in the bombing and another group, closely linked to al-Qaeda, has claimed responsibility.  The political situation in Egypt seems to be drifting further away from any possibility of reconciliation and the likely imposition of authoritarian rule, an outcome that would be deplored by both the religious and the secular movements in Egypt.

This is the 99th anniversary of the famous “Christmas Truce” that occurred between Allied and German forces in World War I.  It was a remarkable event, as the soldiers who had been trying to kill each other for months, observed an informal truce and exchanged presents and played soccer on the killing fields.  The soldiers acted on their own, and their superiors were furious when they found out what had happened.  But it was an extraordinary of human solidarity in the face of desperate conditions.

Be happy, know peace, and keep smiling.

There is a widespread consensus among climatologists that climate change is occurring and that it is being driven by the emissions of greenhouse gases, primarily CO2.  Moving away from the carbon-based fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum) that drive these emissions will be very difficult, although progress is being made on a variety of alternatives.  However, one obstacle to this transition which is widely suspected–the opposition of the private and public companies that make a lot of money selling these carbon-based fuels–is difficult to measure.  Sean McElwee and Lew Daly have written an essay that gives some ballpark estimates to how much money would be lost to these companies if the world were to stop using these fuels.  The number is actually staggering, and the size of the loss explains  the vigorous efforts these companies have made trying to undermine the climate change debate.  Here is their estimate of the dollar losses to those companies that own reserves of carbon-based fuels:

If the international community is serious about limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius, carbon assets may face a $20 trillion write-down (the U.S. GDP was $15.7 trillion in 2012).

Such economic losses would have tremendous economic repercussions.  But a radically changed climate would also have extreme economic consequences.

The three members of Pussy Riot have been released from prison in an amnesty issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin.  They had spent two years in prison for their protests against Putin, and their treatment in prison was a series of humiliation and abuse.   They remain defiant, however, and have vowed to work toward Putin’s ouster.

I do not Twitter.  I do not know how to Twitter.  I do not wish to know how to Twitter.   Twitter is the Seventh Seal, and human civilization is doomed.

President Obama has announced a limited intervention in South Sudan.  The number of military personnel being sent is very small, so the intent is simply to protect American citizens in the country.  The move follows an aborted attempt to rescue three Americans which was foiled by rebel fire.  The situation in South Sudan is fragile and dangerous, and it is not clear how an outside intervention can resolve the power struggle between the Nuer and the Dinka.  But the presence of American troops will have a small stabilizing effect which might be built upon with a sustained diplomatic effort.

It is hard to comprehend climate change–the earth seems to be so vast and we, as individual humans, seem to be so insignificant.  One possible metric of the rate of change cause by global warming is to understand that human activity contributes 250 trillion Watts (Joules per second).  That translates into the amount of energy released by four Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs every second, or 400,000 such bombs every day.  That’s an awful lot of energy to release into the atmosphere.

Happy Solstice!!!!  We can all celebrate because the days will start getting longer.  Unfortunately, even though today marks the least amount of daylight for the Northern Hemisphere, it doesn’t mark the coldest time of the year–that’s still weeks away because temperatures lag behind daylight hours.  But we’re on the upward slope now!!

The apparent thaw in US-Iranian relations seems to have ended abruptly (or at least slowed considerably).  The US is blocking Iran’s participation in the negotiations on Syria scheduled for next month.  Both Saudi Arabia and the Syrian opposition to President Assad are relieved by the decision, but it certainly complicates the peace process.  Iran has a stake in the outcome of the conflict in Syria, and states should pursue the possibility that Iran could be persuaded to support an outcome that did not involve Assad.  Freezing Iran out of the negotiations does not give it a say in framing such an outcome.

The Thai opposition party, the Democrat Party, has announced that it will boycott the snap elections called for by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.  The elections were called to defuse a tense political situation as the protests have called for an immediate resignation of the Shinawatra government and its replacement by a “People’s Council.”   The opposition movement has as its objectives the continued exile of former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, the current Prime Minister’s brother.  If the boycott does occur, it is unlikely that the election will resolve any of these tensions since the opposition believes that the elections will not be run fairly.

Uganda has passed draconian anti-gay laws, including life imprisonment for the crime of “aggravated homosexuality” (it is unclear what that phrase means).  The laws were passed to protect the “traditional heterosexual family” in Uganda.  However, it seems clear that one stimulus for the new law was a clear sense of resentment toward Western groups who had been pushing for changes to Uganda’s current anti-homosexuality laws.  The Ugandan law is similar to the anti-gay laws recently passed in Russia.  The world is far away from agreement on a universal definition of human rights.

The world’s newest nation-state, South Sudan, is in danger of splitting apart.  Control of the government is being contested by rival ethnic groups, the Nuer and the Dinka.  South Sudan is potentially a very rich country since it has significant reserves of oil.  Its primary difficulty is that it needs to transport its oil through the Sudan, the country from which it seceded.  The two groups are essentially fighting over who controls the oil revenues.  As is usually the case with civil strife, however, civilians are the ones who pay the highest price.

Turkey is going through a serious political crisis as Prime Minster Erdogan has fired a number of senior police officers after they had arrested business and political allies of Erdogan.  The scandal has grown out of last summer’s political protests against what many in Turkey believe is a growing authoritarianism in Erdogan’s rule.  The scandal has also roiled Turkey’s economy as investors begin to raise questions about the viability of Turkey’s government.   Turkey has a central role in almost all aspects of Middle East politics, and its growing weakness is a worrisome development to an already fragile region.

It increasingly appears as if Syrian President Assad may stay in power, despite almost three years of constant fighting in Syria.  Assad’s future was grim in the first year of the protests against his rule, but increased infighting among the Syrian rebels has definitely weakened the anti-Assad movement.  Assad’s tactic of “divide and rule” is an old governing tactic, but in this case an effective one.  The big losers, of course, are the people of Syria, almost a third of whom have become refugees or internally displaced.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, has gone to the Central African Republic to survey the damage suffered by the people there in the latest outbreak of violence between Christians and Muslims.  It is difficult to interpret the trip: President Obama has shown little inclination or desire to contribute substantively to the peacekeeping operations there, but Ambassador Power is well known for her forceful advocacy of humanitarian intervention.  When she returns to the US, we will have a better idea of whether the US is going to become more involved in averting this tragedy.

In a bid to score favorable points from the West prior to the Sochi Winter Olympics, Russian President Putin has declared an amnesty which frees the members of the rock group, Pussy Riot, and the 30 members of Greenpeace who were arrested in a protest against Arctic oil drilling.  Putin also granted clemency to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oil baron who has spent more than 10 years in jail on essentially trumped up charges.  The moves release only about 1,700 prisoners out of an estimated 700,000 in Russian jails.  Apparently President Putin believes that the Russian image has suffered over the anti-gay legislation passed by the Russian Parliament and the Russian moves in Ukraine.  Whether these moves are sufficient remains to be seen.

Europe is gearing up to commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War I next year.  There are many things we have learned about the Great War, but Americans tend to ignore what was unquestionably the most important event of the 20th Century.  History does not give “lessons”, but history can give us insights that may be useful to contemplate.  The Economist has a short essay on the parallels between the great War and the geopolitical landscape of the 21st Century.  The insight is indeed sobering.

It was not true for South Hadley, but, globally, November 2013 was the warmest November recorded since records began in 1880.  Interestingly, one of the coolest places on Earth was New England, but if you lived in Siberia, it was incredibly warm.  The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its map of land and ocean temperatures for November:

The tense relationship between Russia and the US (or, perhaps, between Obama and Putin) is only going to become more problematic as Obama has decided not to send any high-ranking political figures to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.  Instead, he has decided to send highly visible gay individuals to represent the US at the games.  The move is in response to the draconian anti-gay laws recently passed by the Russian government, laws which have been backed up by thugs who have decided to enforce the laws with their fists. Caitlin Cahow, one of the athletes chosen, expressed the proper way to interpret the decision:

““Basically, the White House is highlighting Americans who know what it means to have freedoms and liberties under the Constitution. That’s really what we’re representing in Sochi and it’s not at all different from what’s espoused in the spirit of Olympism.”

Belgium and Poland have apparently agreed to send troops to the Central African Republic, joining French efforts to bring down the level of violence that is killing hundreds of innocents.  The situation in the CAR has deteriorated rapidly since early December, and the UN has raised concerns over the variety of problems that are crippling the country.  Several nations have sent in supplies to alleviate the starvation that has accompanied the violence, but the humanitarian intervention is necessary to provide the stability necessary to distribute those supplies.

It is difficult to interpret events in closed societies such as the former Soviet Union, Maoist China, and North Korea.  Analysts often have to resort to combing through little tidbits of information to figure out who is actually calling the shots in opaque governments.  The BBC has done a great job of interpreting two photographs of the leaders of North Korea in order to determine how extensive the recent personnel changes have been.  This type of analysis requires an incredibly detailed understanding of the structure of government and all the cultural cues that a photograph conveys.

Over a year ago, the US Congress printed a 6,000 page report on the use of torture in the “war on terror.”  It seems like many people have read the report, but the Obama Administration has thus far refused to release the document.  The refusal is hard to justify:  torture techniques are hardly national security secrets.  It is more likely that the report is highly embarrassing to the US.  Embarrassment is not a justification for secrecy, particularly to a country that should be figuring out how to conduct its national security business without the resort to inhumane techniques.