Last September, the Pew Research Center did a poll in China of the top concerns of Chinese citizens. The top three concerns were corruption, pollution, and inequality. The three issues come as no great surprise, although some might have expected the slowing economy in China to rank higher. I was also surprised to see crime as a major issue, although it probably is difficult to separate that issue form the issue of corruption.
Rami Jarrah is a Syrian journalist who has been posting photos on Instagram of the devastation of the civil war around the city of Aleppo. The photos are significantly more powerful than words in conveying the both the horrors of the war as well as the deep, deep humanity of the Syrian people. The notes he keeps of his photos are sensitive and reveal the extent to which he is only an observer of a great crime.
Although it is hard to believe, Russian airstrikes in Syria have brought about even greater destruction than the country has endured before. Resports from the ground suggest that the Russian airstrikes are massive and less targeted than the anti-ISIS coalition forces. Humanitarian agencies have suspended their efforts because of the intensity of the strikes and the inability to move around the country to bring assistance to where it is needed.
Idlib city, Syria December 20, 2015
Seymour Hersh, one of the world’s premier investigative reporters, has published an incredible essay in the London Review of Books, that argues that the US Defense establishment has been quietly nudging the Obama Administration in the direction of support for Syrian President Assad and Russian support for Assad. In the process, those analysts have argued that Turkey and Saudi Arabia are actually working hard to support Daesh (the Islamic State) and that the US should move away from its erstwhile allies. The essay has provoked a storm of controversy by Max Fisher, Steven Rosenfeld, and others. My own reading of the tea leaves suggests that Hersh is essentially correct in his assessment.
The Somali militant group Al-Shabab has been conducting a campaign of violence against Christians in Kenya. A typical tactic in the terror campaign is to stop a bus and then separate the Muslims on the bus from the Christians and then execute the Christians. On Monday, the tactic backfired when the Muslims on the bus refused to leave the bus and told the terrorists to kill them as well as the Christians. It was an incredible act of bravery and solidarity that is testimony to the resilience of a country that has seen its share of violent acts.
Sales of personal safety items such as pepper sprays, mace, and even guns, have increased dramatically in Germany this year. According to Die Welt:
“The Frankfurter manufacturer DEF-TEC Defense Technology reported this fall, an increase of 600 per cent sales of pepper spray. ‘In early September was the lot. The dealers have since been overrun downright’ says Managing Director Kai Prase.
“Especially handy models MK 8 MK MK 6 and 3, all of which are also used in non-professional use would reordered in large quantities. ‘We have never experienced anything in 21 years of company history.’ And what triggered the Run? ‘Fear. This is not rational,’ says Prase who has puzzled with dealers about the possible reasons for the weapons hype. ‘There probably falls often the word refugee crisis.'” (translated by Google)
Interestingly, the use of pepper sprays in Germany is limited only to use against dangerous animals. Even German soldiers abroad are forbidden to use pepper spray as it is considered to be a violation of the Geneva Convention against Chemical Weapons.
The UN estimates that as many as one million children in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger have been prevented from going to school by the violence perpetrated by Boko Haram. Schools have been special targets of the extremist groups and parents are reluctant to allow their children to be exposed to the violence. It is impossible to calculate how damaging this consequence of extremist violence has and will be to the future of these countries.
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.
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