Archive for the ‘World Politics’ Category
The US and South Korea are running a joint military exercise that includes mock rehearsals for an attack on North Korea’s nuclear facilities. The exercise was planned some time ago, but there is little question that the specific configurations of some of these exercises are designed to buttress the impact of the economic sanctions the UN imposed on North Korea last week. North Korea has already announced that it is ready to launch a nuclear attack against the US and South Korea.
Libyan rebels associated with Daesh (the Islamic State) attacked a town in Tunisia near the Libyan border. The attack raises fear that Daesh is trying to take advantage of the Libyan civil war and is intent on increasing its range of influence. Tunisia has been relatively stable since the Arab Spring of 2011, but no state in North Africa is immune to the pressures fueling Daesh.
The Guardian is running a series on the demographic group known as “millennials”–those people born between 1980 and the mid-1990s. The circumstance of this cohort is different from previous generations, not jut in the US but in many rich countries. According to The Guardian:
In seven major economies in North America and Europe, the growth in income of the average young couple and families in their 20s has lagged dramatically behind national averages over the past 30 years.
In two of these countries – the US and Italy – disposable incomes for millennials are scarcely higher in real terms than they were 30 years ago, while the rest of the population has experienced handsome gains.
It is likely to be the first time in industrialised history, save for periods of war or natural disaster, that the incomes of young adults have fallen so far when compared with the rest of society.
It remains to be seen how these grim conditions affect the politics of rich countries. Typically, such economic adversity contributes to a sense of unfairness which is usually politically volatile.
Negative interest rates are difficult to comprehend. There are few historical examples to rely upon to guide predictions on their total effects, but the logic of negative interest rates is quite simple: banks punish people who save and reward people who spend. The expected spending should stimulate the economy as people spend more money. But negative interest rates also have other effects that may undermine that objective. The New York Times has an excellent article that serves as a good primer on negative interest rates.
The China Television Drama Production Industry Association has issued a new set of guidelines for what can be shown on Chinese television (if you can read Chinese, you can read the report here). According to Western media, the new rules “banned depictions of gay people on television, as part of a national clampdown on ‘vulgar, immoral and unhealthy content’.” The Hong Kong Free Press has an article which is consistent with the Western interpretation: “Depictions of homosexuality, extramarital affairs, underage love and the supernatural are no longer allowed in television dramas under new regulations in mainland China.”
On 23 December 2015 Ukraine suffered a massive electricity blackout. It is now being learned that Ukraine was the victim of a highly sophisticated cyber attack. The US Department of Homeland Security has a special branch, the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, which identified the attack as coming from a “remote region” on three facilities in Ukraine. Such attacks are devastating to a state’s industrial infrastructure and represents a dimension of warfare that is difficult to prevent.
The Turkish Government has closed two newspapers, Zaman and Zaman Today, the largest circulating newspapers in Turkey. The closures came after the police used tear gas and water cannons to shut down the dailies. The government believes that the newspapers are associated with the Cemaat movement which it believes to be a terrorist organization. Cemaat is led by the U.S.-based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who was once an ally of President Erdogan but who is now opposed to the President. The move is just the latest in a series of attempts to stifle opposition in Turkey, further alienating the country from the US and Europe.
Protests in Turkey
The “cessation of hostilities” in Syria has been somewhat working since it started last week. Fighting is sporadic and limited, and humanitarian agencies have been able to deliver some supplies. The UN is seeking an extension of the lull, and the Europeans are taking the lead on negotiating with Russia to create favorable conditions for its extension. The cease-fire has unquestionably aided the forces of President Assad. Thus, there are strategic losses associated with it, but perhaps a degree of stability will allow compromises to emerge.
The refugee crisis is currently bottled up in Greece, as Macedonia and other countries to the north of Greece have closed their borders. The refugee camps in Greece are completely full and are scenes of abject misery. Unless the European Union can come up with an acceptable policy (the continent could handle 2-3 million more people given that its total population now is about 500 million), it is likely that the Union may disintegrate. Spiegel assesses the situation in this way:
Were Europe in agreement, it would be unproblematic to accommodate 2-3 million refugees, given the Continent’s population of a half billion people. From such a perspective, the current spat actually seems somewhat ridiculous. But in the run up to next week’s EU summit, Europe is gripped by strife. Europe’s greatest achievement, the opening of its borders through the Schengen agreement, is at stake, and the increasingly toxic atmosphere between countries has reached alarming dimensions.
The crisis is perhaps the most serious ever in the history of the Union.
Slavery has hardly been eliminated. According to the International Labor Organization, there are about 21 million in slavery today, many of them in the sex trade. Of those 21 million, 5 million are children. Human traffickers make about $150 billion every year. According to CNBC: “The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) revealed that more than 136 products from 74 countries are produced by forced and child labor. These are products used by consumers worldwide every day.” The US has passed a law that takes effect on 10 March prohibits the importation of any good produced by slave or child labor, but it will difficult to enforce.
Initial satellite estimates suggest that February 2016 will be even hotter than January 2016, which was the hottest month ever recorded. Indications are that February temperatures might be between 1.15 C and 1.4 C above preindustrial averages. Temperatures in the Arctic averaged 30-35 degrees warmer than average, a level that one scientist described as “absurd” and goes on to say that “…the heat has been unrelenting over the entire season. I’ve been studying Arctic climate for 35 years and have never seen anything like this before”. The Guardian summarizes the results:
“But the pile up of records we have had in the early part of this century are significant. All things being constant, record hot years should occur once every 150 years. Yet 1998, 2005, 2010, 2014 and 2015 have all been record breakers.”
Kanhaiya Kumar, leader of the student union at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in India, has been released from jail on his charges of making “anti-India” statements. Upon his release, Kumar made an impassioned speech on freedom in India. According to Al Jazeera:
He said when students in the campus shout slogans for “Azaadi” (freedom), they are urging for freedom against “bhookhmari” (hunger), “manuvaad” (the laws of Manu which laid down the strictures of caste system) and “jaativaad” (caste discrimination).
India’s caste system is perhaps the world’s longest surviving social hierarchy and any discussion around it evokes polarised responses.
On Thursday, Kumar also charged that the student group is being targeted over its ideological differences with the Hindu-nationalist umbrella group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to which the ruling party owes its allegiance.
It is inevitable that the government of Narendra Modi will respond to the speech.
Kanhaiya Kumar
The success of Donald Trump so far in this election season has flummoxed many political scientists. But there are political scientists who have been studying the phenomenon of authoritarianism (including Matthew MacWilliams, a Ph.D student at UMass) whose findings shed a great deal of light on Trump’s success. Unfortunately, their findings indicate that the reasons for Trump’s success are enduring, suggesting that a tendency toward authoritarianism is deep in the current of American political economy today. Indeed, their analysis suggests that this tendency correlates with the rise of authoritarianism in other parts of the world.
The African Union is fifteen years old this year. It replaced the Organization for African Union and is composed of 54 countries (Morocco is the only state in Africa which is not a member due to an ongoing dispute about Morocco’s claims to the Western Sahara). The Union has scored some successes, notably in the area of peacekeeping, but it has not yet achieved the dynamism necessary to unite the nation-states of a very complex region of the world. The Union suffers from a lack of resources, and the world has not yet committed sufficient help to ensure its eventual success. Africa will undoubtedly be one of the more dynamic areas of the world over the next 25 years, and the neglect of the rest of the world is short-sighted.
African Union Flag
Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay is one of the most beautiful natural features of the planet. But in recent years the Bay has been fouled by garbage and sewage and Brazil has lagged far behind in its efforts to clean it up. The matter will receive a great deal of attention as the Bay is scheduled to be the site for some of the competition in this year’s summer Olympics. Brazil is poorly positioned right now to be the center of global attention: the pervasiveness of the Zika virus, the domestic recession, and now the poor condition of the Bay will all detract from the wonders of this magnificent country.
As the EU wrestles with the refugee problem and the question of a British exit from the EU, one of the prized policies of the EU is at risk. The Schengen Agreement, which allows free movement of people within the EU, is critically important to the economic health of the Union. If countries decide that they no longer wish to honor that agreement, experts believe that it could reduce economic growth in the Union by as much as €28 billion (about $30 billion at today’s exchange rate). That decrease would be a major hit to a European economy that is already somewhat in decline.
The World Economic Forum has published a report called “The Future of Jobs” which is both encouraging and discouraging. In terms of the skills that will be required in the future, the report predicts that
On average, by 2020, more than a third of the desired core skill sets of most occupations will be comprised of skills that are not yet considered crucial to the job today, according to our respondents. Overall, social skills— such as persuasion, emotional intelligence and teaching others—will be in higher demand across industries than narrow technical skills, such as programming or equipment operation and control. In essence, technical skills will need to be supplemented with strong social and collaboration skills.
On the other hand, it also predicts that
….current trends could lead to a net employment impact of more than 5.1 million jobs lost to disruptive labour market changes over the period 2015–2020, with a total loss of 7.1 million jobs—two thirds of which are concentrated in routine white collar office functions, such as Office and Administrative roles—and a total gain of 2 million jobs, in Computer and Mathematical and Architecture and Engineering related fields.
In other words, fewer jobs will be created than will be lost.
The UN Security Council has voted to impose harsh new sanctions, believed to be as harsh as those imposed on Iran, on North Korea for its ongoing nuclear activities. The passed resolution indicates that the US and China have reached an accommodation on how to deal with North Korea. The resolution thus represents a victory of sorts, even if it doesn’t change North Korean policy. The fact that the US and China have defined a mutual interest with respect to North Korea is a major step forward in the relations between the two countries.
There is a refugee camp near Calais, France, that has been around for some time. Many refugees attempt a very dangerous route to Great Britain by trying to hop on trucks and other vehicles as they move through the tunnel from France to England (England has more generous assistance for migrants). In the last few days, French authorities have been trying to dismantle the camps. The move reflects a hardening of European attitudes toward the refugees.
Evidence is accumulating that the global economy is slowing down. China has announced that it needs to lay off about 6 million workers in the industrial sector over the next three years due to overcapacity in the vital steel industry. Great Britain suffered a sharp decline in exports, and growth remains anemic in the other major industrial powers. The world is not yet in a global recession, but the trend line is not encouraging.
Oxfam and other NGOs have released a report that indicates that about 2.5 billion people lack a formal legal title to the land they live on and use. The lack of legal title renders these people vulnerable to dispossession and the vast majority of these people are indigenous to the land which is largely commonly held. Very few of the states in which these people live are willing to take the necessary steps to protect the people.
Happy Leap Day!!! Leap! Leap!!
The British government is warning that the British economy would face a “decade” of uncertainty if Britain leaves the EU. The report suggests that negotiating a withdrawal is much more complicated than simply saying goodbye. There would be a number of arrangements that would need to be re-negotiated. Those who support a Brexit believe that the report is nothing more than fear mongering.
The refugee crisis in Europe is boiling over as Austria and 10 other eastern European countries announce that they will no longer admit any additional refugees. Meanwhile, Greece, the first EU recipient of the largest number of refugees is demanding more help maintaining the refugee camps and has denied access to the media for many of the camps. It is unclear how Chancellor Merkel can maintain control over EU policy over this highly volatile issue.
The Philippines is asking China to honor the decision of the arbitration court in The Hague which is expected to rule soon on the territorial dispute in the South China Sea. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims on the Sea, but China has asserted that most of the Sea lies within its territorial limits. The Chinese have refused to participate in the arbitration and have publicly stated that they do not consider the issue to lie within the jurisdiction of the arbiter. The alliances within Southeast Asia are slowly shifting as a result of the competing claims.
I will only post one article today. It is a long article, but one that highlights the perils of humanitarian intervention as well as the mindset of Hillary Clinton who might well be the next President of the United States. The intervention in Libya was occasioned by a fear of a humanitarian crisis against the backdrop of American inaction in the Rwandan catastrophe in 1994, the clear evidence that the leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddaffi, was a ruthless dictator, and the sense that the turmoil in the Middle East that was called the “Arab Spring” demanded powerful Western support. Despite all these reasons, there were also voices that warned against an intervention because there was no way for the US to control the outcome. Unfortunately, the latter voices were ignored and now Libya is gripped by turmoil and poses a new security risk that did not exist before.
Thousands assembled in Russia to protest the lack of progress in solving the murder of Boris Nemtsov one year ago. Nemtsov was a vocal critic of President Putin and many in Russia believe that the President was involved in Nemtsov’s murder. The authorities have charged a group of Chechen men with the murder, but the accused men do not seem authoritative enough to have perpetrated the crime without orders from higher up. The protests reflect a broader sense of discontent within Russia as the economy has slowed down.
Early poll results in Iran indicate that reformers and moderates won handily in the national elections held on Friday. The elections were for the Assembly of Experts, which appoints the Supreme Leader, and for the national parliament, the Majlis. The early returns indicate that young people were primarily responsible for the outcome and that their major concern was over the health of the economy. The preliminary results are encouraging for those who look forward to more normal relations with the US.
Remarkably, the first day of the brokered “cessation of hostilities” (there is great reluctance to call it a cease-fire) in Syria seemed to have partially succeeded. Although there were several reports of violations, most of the major news agencies still present in Syria were reporting that the fighting had substantially subsided. The truce does not apply to Daesh (the Islamic State) or to the al-Nusra front (the affiliate of al-Qaeda in Syria), so all sides can still attack those two groups. The hope is that the truce will last long enough for humanitarian agencies to provide help. The truce also helps the government of President Assad since it silences the guns of most of his opponents.
World Politics News 