Zack Beauchamp has written a fascinating essay on the maps that help explain terrorism. He begins with the French Revolution and works through the anarchists of the 19th-20th century and finally arrives at the contemporary period. The essay is important since it shines a light on the terrorism that existed in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s–the tactic is hardly the exclusive preserve of non-Western groups.
The two main Spanish parties, the Popular Party and the Socialists, were sidelined in today’s elections as the far left Podemos Party and the Ciudadanos Party did much better than expected. The Popular Party took the largest number of seats in the Parliament, but its natural ally, Cuidadanos, did not get enough seats to form a majority. Nor did the Socialists and Podemos. So there is no “natural” majority in the next Spanish government which means that there must be an alliance of uncomfortable partners. That outcome almost invariably means a weak government. The main lesson of the election, however, is that voters in Spain, like in many other countries in the world, continue to look beyond the mainstream for their political voice.
Slovenian voters turned down a proposal to legalize gay marriage. The proposal was defeated by 63% of the voters. Gay marriage had actually been approved by the Slovenian Parliament, but the referendum overturns the law. There are 10 countries in Western Europe that allow gay marriage. So far, none of the East European countries have legalized gay marriage.
Two US B-52 bombers flew within two miles of the Spratley Islands, territory in the South China Sea claimed by China. The US claims the B-52s flew “unintentionally” that close, presumably because of bad weather. The Chinese regard the act as highly provocative and have protested what they regard a a violation of Chinese sovereignty. The US regards that area as international waters and has deliberately tested the Chinese claim in the past. There does not seem to be any movement in the direction of a negotiated agreement.
Rwandan voters have given their current President, Paul Kagame, the theoretical right to stay in power until 2034. The change in the constitution is rather unprecedented and it reflects Kagame’s current popularity among voters. Kagame is credited with aiding Rwanda in navigating the trauma of the 1994 genocide, but his critics believe that he has become increasingly authoritarian. Many Western governments have expressed concern over the possibility of Kagame remaining President for life.
A Photo of the Earth Taken from the Moon in October
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that there were about 60 million displaced persons in the world in 2015, over 20 million of which were displaced for reasons of violence and persecution. That is one out of every 122 people alive today. The number is the highest ever recorded and is an index of the distress that affects so many countries in the world. The countries most affected were Syria, Ukraine, Somalia, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq.
Former US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gave an interview to Foreign Policy on decision making in the Obama Administration. (The interview is behind a paywall, but if you are reading on a College computer, you should be able to access it). The interview casts the Obama Administration in a profoundly negative light. Perhaps the worst admission in the interview is that the US made the decision to arm Syrian rebels without, at the same time, making any decision about whether to defend those rebels if they came under attack by the forces of Syrian President Assad. Not thinking through the “what if” questions of any policy is negligence of the highest order.
Turkey intensified its attacks on Kurdish populations on southeast Turkey. President Tayyip Erdogan threatened to “annihilate” the Kurds involved in an uprising against Turkish control. The intensified attacks by both sides follow a two-year period of rather peaceful relations, but the civil war in Syria has unraveled the uneasy truce. As the Turkish-Kurdish gap widens, the Russian-Kurdish alliance strengthens. As the Russian-Turkish gap widens, the Turkish-Israeli alliance renews. The balance of power in the Middle East moves very fast–the US does not play that game very well or effectively.
The US and Russia have worked together to forge a UN Security Council Resolution that attempts to cut off the sources of funding for Daesh (the Islamic State). The resolution targets individuals and entities who have worked with Daesh selling oil and ancient artifacts. Experts estimate that Daesh pulls in about $80 million a month from these activities.
China has hosted its second World Internet Conference in Wuzhen and the different attitudes toward the internet were obvious. The Chinese prefer to allow national authorities to regulate the internet in a manner consistent with traditional conceptions of state sovereignty. In this model, China “censors topics deemed sensitive on domestic social media platforms — Tibet, the Tiananmen Square protests, the treatment of Uighur minorities in Xinjiang — while completely blocking access to Facebook, Twitter, Google, the New York Times and a host of other foreign websites.” The US and other liberal states prefer to think about the “stakeholders” in the internet which includes private and commercial interests in the network of interests to be satisfied. The struggle over control over the internet will likely continue for many years into the future.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued its annual report on the Arctic climate. The report notes that “the average surface-air temperature from Oct. 2014 to Oct. 2015 was about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 1981-2010 baseline.” The climate change is having a serious effect on the habitats of walruses and other arctic animals, and will likely have serious effects on the overall climate of the planet.
Macedonia became an independent state in 1991 after the dissolution of Yugoslavia (along with Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia). But its name has been the source of constant friction with its neighbor, Greece, which believes that Macedonia is the true name of a province in Greece. The Greeks are particularly irate since the majority population of the Republic of Macedonia is Slavic, not Hellenic. The Macedonian prime minister, Nikola Gruevski, has indicated that he is open to the possibility of a name change for the Republic.
The European Union has created a rapid reaction force of 1,500 to respond to border crises that arise when the flow of refugees overwhelms local forces. The new force is an attempt to preserve the Schengen Agreement which allows freedom of movement among the 28 nations in the agreement. But it also reflects a high degree of frustration over the inability of some of the states to manage the flow of refugees in an orderly fashion. Some members, however, fear that the new force will have the ability to infringe on their sovereignty.
The climate change agreement forged in Paris last week has been hailed as a dramatic step forward in the effort to slow down climate change. From a rhetorical and symbolic point of view, that assessment is certainly true. But many have doubts that these public commitments will be honored. Bill McKibben is someone who has been at the forefront of the effort to stop climate change, and his assessment of the merits of the agreement are not encouraging.
The Congo Research Group at the New York University has just published an essay, “The Landscape of Armed Groups in the Eastern Congo.” The Democratic Republic of Congo has experienced great violence since Belgian colonization in the late 1800s. As of today there are about 70 armed groups operating in eastern Congo and over 1.6 million people have been displaced. It is the most war-torn place on the planet, exceeding the violence we see on a daily basis in the Middle East.
Angela Merkel has earned deserved praise for her willingness to accept large number of refugees, but she has more recently been indicating that there are limits to how many refugees Germany can accept. Merkel does not accept some definitions of multiculturalism, and back in 2010 she indicated her reservations with the idea. She believes that the refugees should assimilate into German society and that Germany should not allow the development of parallel societies. She is trying to walk a very fine line in order to preserve German stability with the obligations of German power.
The massive influx of refugees into Germany has added new vigor to the country’s small right-wing. Polls indicate a high degree of political uncertainty as Germans begin to ponder what the long-term effects of the demographic shift might be. In the city of Leipzig a small demonstration by neo-Nazi supporters led to a counter-demonstration by lefties that exploded into violence. Many were injured as the police tried to restore order.
Fifty-five journalists in the world have been killed so far in 2015. Unfortunately, that number is consistent with earlier years and is testimony to the incredibly difficult conditions in which journalists work. Some of the murders, like the ones at Charlie Hebdo in Paris, get media attention. But many of the murders are not well-reported. The occupation is incredibly important for global civic society and the campaign against press freedom needs to be addressed.
Japan has a serious demographic problem: the number of elderly people is increasing dramatically and the number of young workers is not keeping pace. One way to solve this labor problem is to utilize robots as workers. One hotel in Japan has moved in that direction and one can be greeted by a dinosaur concierge or other such human substitutes.
An historic climate change agreement was signed today by 196 states in Paris. The goal is to restrict greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to prevent a 2° C. temperature increase above historical averages. Additional language was added to the agreement voicing the aspiration to limit the increase to 1.5º C. The agreement, however, is historic only because states have made the commitment. In reality, the language of the agreement does not ensure that the commitment will be realized, although it does create mechanisms to verify and monitor those commitments. There are no enforcement mechanisms, nor are there any provisions sufficient to ensure that poorer countries will be assisted in reaching the goals. But the fact that the US and China have made a public commitment is a real breakthrough.
For the first time, women have been allowed to vote in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The voting was not necessarily equal: 1.35 million men and only 130,637 women were registered to vote. According to the report: “There are 6,917 candidates, of which there are 979 women, standing for 3,159 places on 284 councils.” The results of the elections will be announced on Sunday, but no matter what the outcome, the election marks a turning point in Saudi politics.
The simmering violence in Burundi exploded on Friday as almost 90 people were killed in violent protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza. The President ran for an unconstitutional third term and the move re-triggered ethnic violence which has plagued the country for many decades. That conflict, pitting Hutus against Tutsis, has dominated that region of central Africa in many different countries. That conflict has its roots in the tensions created by colonial rule by the Germans and Belgians in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The anti-Islam hysteria that seems to affect a small but highly vocal constituency in the US is not a new phenomenon. In the 19th century, the hysteria was directed toward Catholics, stimulated by the massive inflow of Irish and Italian immigrants into the US. The sentiment crystallized into the Know Nothing Party which actually ran candidates for President and won several local offices in the northeast. The Ku Klux Klan also ran hate campaigns against Catholics (and Jews) in the 1920s (in addition to its ongoing hate campaigns against blacks). The US Congress also passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 in response to the growing number of Chinese coming into the US to work in the American West.
One of the most wanted individuals responsible for the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Ladislas Ntaganzwa, has finally been arrested. He was residing in Congo with a $5 million bounty on his head. He was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Ntaganzwa was the mayor of Nyakizu and orchestrated the killing of nearly 20,000 Tutsi. Rwanda has started extradition proceedings to bring him to trial in Rwanda.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk was giving a speech to the Ukrainian Parliament when he was assaulted by Oleg Barna, a member of the opposition party. The brawl is merely one index of the fragility of the Ukrainian political system as it is wracked by Russian-inspired turmoil in the east and by a deteriorating economy.
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