World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Scientific American has a feature in which readers can pose a question about science to be answered by expert opinion.  This month the question was “Have we passed the point of no return on climate change?”  The answer is quite sophisticated but also quite sobering.  The answer is that we have not yet passed the point of no return, but it is only a few (according some, five) years away.  We are quite clearly running out of time.

Both the US and China are showing signs of an economic slowdown, raising fears that they will drag the global economy down.   US industrial production took a sharp dive last quarter and China’s economy only grew by 7%–a huge number for most other countries but a disappointment for China.  With concerns about economic growth in the emerging economies of Brazil and India, a stalled Russian economy, and a slowly growing European economy, the loss of US and China as engines of economic activity could push the global economy into a recession.

Female genital mutilation appears to be a standard practice in Indonesia and it is generally done in hospitals with exceptional hygiene.  The practice was banned in Indonesia in 2006, but the ban was repealed in 2010 due to pressure from many religious organizations.  The UN defines 4 types of female genital mutilation,  and the 4th type (which is defined as female circumcision in Indonesia) generally does not involve removing any part of the genitalia.  The practice seems to be less common than in the past, but is still fairly pervasive in Indonesia.

There is a “blob” of abnormally warm water off the Pacific northwest coast that may be partially responsible for the current drought in California.  The expanse of unusually warm water (about 5 degrees F warmer than usual) cannot yet be fully explained, but some believe that it may be responsible for the deaths of many aquatic animals (like the young sea lions who are washing up on the California coast).  The blob is just another example of weather anomalies that defy full explanation but which may also be associated with climate change.

US President Obama has taken Cuba off the list of states that sponsor terrorism, opening the possibility for a return to full diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba.   The move is long overdue–the US policy over the past 53 years will go down in history as one of the most futile diplomatic gestures ever maintained.  What is most surprising to me is the relative lack of conservative backlash over the move.  So far, Sen. Marco Rubio is the only national politician to have registered more than a token note of disapproval.

It appears as if the US Senate has reached a compromise agreement that will give Congress a voice in the Iranian nuclear agreement but which does not seem to allow any changes to the agreement that may undo it.  That compromise is a welcome change from the rhetoric of a few days ago, and represents a move away the preferred position of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu of not allowing Iran to maintain any enrichment capability.  There are signs, however, that the House of Representatives, whose members are more hawkish on the issue, may demand a voice in the matter as well.

Russia has announced that it intends to honor a 2010 agreement with Iran to sell advanced missile systems.  The Russians deferred delivery of those systems as part of the UN sanctions designed to force a nuclear agreement.  The Russians also announced that they would begin a new trade agreement with Iran, buying Iranian oil in exchange for Russian products.  The Russian move is clearly premature since the final agreement is not supposed to be signed until 30 June 2015.   The decision could have two effects on US policy.  First, it could be used as evidence that the agreement with Iran is not enforceable and therefore scuttle the agreement.  Second, it could be used as evidence that the preliminary deal is better than nothing and that no additional sanctions would have any effect on Iranian policy thereby sealing the deal.  We will see how Congress decides to interpret the move.  The Russian move will also make any military action against Iran very difficult.  The new S-300 antiaircraft missiles will make bombing Iran very problematic.

UNICEF, the UN Children’s Emergency Fund, estimates that about 800,000 children have been displaced in Nigeria as a result of the violence perpetrated by Boko Haram.  Many of these children have been kidnapped and sold as slaves by the group, and UNICEF believes that about 15,000 people have died since 2009 in the violence.  The previous government of Goodluck Jonathan was completely incompetent in dealing with the threat.  We can hope that the new President, Buhari, will be significantly more effective in restoring order.

The Financial Times is reporting that the Greek government is preparing to default on its government debt.  Greece went through similar crises in 2010 and 2012 but managed to survive those scares so it is difficult to figure out how accurate the report is.  The FT  has a paywall but here are some excerpts from the article:

“The government, which is rapidly running out of funds to pay public sector salaries and state pensions, has decided to withhold €2.5bn of payments due to the International Monetary Fund in May and June if no agreement is struck, they said.

“’We have come to the end of the road . . . If the Europeans won’t release bailout cash, there is no alternative [to a default],’ one government official said.”

The FT has an outstanding reputation for accuracy so this report should be taken seriously.

The New York Times has a very revealing series of maps on the alliances in the Middle East.  The maps highlight the alliances between the allies of Iran vs. the allies of the Saudis.  Note that the US does not appear to be a consistent ally of either side.

Pope Francis precipitated a diplomatic crisis by referring to the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey during the first World War.  Turkey recalled its Ambassador to the Vatican after the charge was made.   Turkey denies that Armenians were targeted by authorities and that only some Armenians died in the chaos of the war.  Turkish allies, such as the United States, choose not to use the world genocide for fear of alienating an  important ally.  Many analysts regard the deaths of the Armenians as the first genocide of the 20th century.

I have posted a number of articles on the issue of income inequality which I regard as one of the most important issues facing humanity today.   The Guardian has an article on how colleges in the US are contributing to the problem of inequality.  Needless to say, it is a very depressing article.

China is stepping up its ability to control information flows within the country.  A new program, dubbed “The Great Cannon,” does more than simply block sites–it sends malicious scripts to the server that sent the banned sites.  In other words, the program is not merely defensive, it is offensive as well.  Targeting sites outside of China, however, is a sophisticated form of cyberwarfare and it could be viewed as a weapon to block non-Chinese citizens from reading information.  We will have to see how the world reacts to this new tactic.

US President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro met in Panama for the first high-level discussion between the two countries in nearly 60 years.  By all accounts the meeting was conducted with mutual respect and a sense of great hope for the future.  Much still remains to be done before relations are fully normalized, but it seems clear that both Obama and Castro believe that those steps can be taken.  We will have to see how the US Congress regards the prospect of restored full relations.

Bangladesh executed Islamist opposition leader Muhammad Kamaruzzaman on Saturday for war crimes committed during the 1971 war.  The war created the independent nation-state of Bangladesh, successfully separating it from Pakistan.  About 3 million people dies in the 9-month independence struggle.   Virtually every outside observer, including the UN and the European Union, believed that the trial of Kamaruzzaman had not met internationally recognized standards and had urged the death penalty to be set aside.  We will also have to see how Kamaruzzman’s supporters react to the execution.

The United Nations maintains a large refugee camp in northeast Kenya for thousands of Somalians who have fled the violence in their country.  No one knows how many refugees live in the Dadaab camp–esitmates range from 300-600,000 making it the largest refugee camp in the world.  It was established in 1991 and Kenya has demanded that the refugees be moved back to Somalia in three months.  The demand comes after the attack on Garissa University and Kenya believes that the refugee camp allows too many security threats to Kenyan citizens.  It is impossible to imagine how such a massive population transfer could occur in an orderly fashion in such a short time frame.

One of the P5+1 has spoken out on the issue of when the sanctions against Iran will be lifted.  Germany has indicated that ti will stand with the US on the terms of the political agreement that says the sanctions will be lifted when Iran has “fulfilled its commitments.”  This position differs from the Iranian position that argues that the sanctions should be lifted when the final agreement is signed.   On the other hand, the Reuters article also indicates that German firms are eager for the sanctions to be removed which indicates that Congressional footdragging on the issue will likely not be supported by Germany.

The University of Capetown, South Africa, has temporarily removed a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the British colonizer of much of Africa, from its campus.  The statue is to be placed in a museum of South African history, but it will no longer hold a prominent place in the South African landscape.  The student body voted to remove the statue in a near-unanimous vote, but there were some South African citizens who objected to the action.  The removal of the statue raises interesting questions about how a state remembers it history when the past is so conflictual.  The debate parallels many of the discussions in the US about the display of the flag of the Confederate States of America .

The town of Troeglitz in eastern Germany had set up a center to receive refugees and asylum seekers, but the shelter was burned down in what some believe was an act of arson.  Germany has received a very large number of refugees from a large number of places, including Kosovo,  Syria, Serbia, Albania, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Right wing groups have protested against the movement of refugees into the country out of fears of large numbers of Muslims as well as fears of low wage workers displacing German workers.

In an effort to buttress its claims of ownership, China is assiduously building up Mischief Reef in the Spratley Islands.  Satellite photographs show the dramatic results of dredging efforts on the reef to create sufficient surface land to build military buildings.  The reef is close to the Philippines which also has claims to the territory, as does Vietnam in other areas of the South China Sea.  The Chinese are taking these actions in order to solidify their ability to hold the islands in the face of both legal and military opposition.

Photographs taken on January 24, 2012 and March 16, 2015.  The white areas denote the dredged sand that China is using to build up the reef.

Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times has an article on the publication of The Social Progress Index for 2015.  He examines the ranking of the US on various indices of social progress, such as life expectancy, traffic fatality rates, and suicide rates.  These rankings are sobering for Americans.  Despite the high level of economic activity in the US, it seems clear that other less-endowed countries do a much better job of making sure that their citizens lives are more stable and secure.

Iran has demanded that their interpretation of the nuclear agreement demands that all the sanctions against Iran be lifted as soon as the agreement is signed.  US Secretary of State Kerry said earlier in the week that the sanctions would be lifted in “phases.”  It is difficult to determine whether this demand is non-negotiable or whether it is simply part of Iran’s bargaining strategy.  One would expect Iran to raise issues given that the US Congress has clearly indicated that it wishes to raise issues itself.  What is interesting is that the other members of the P5+1 have not raised any additional issues to this point.  The US Congress may find that its changes are opposed not only by Iran, but also by its allies, the Russians, and the Chinese.

Iran has dispatched two warships off the coast of Yemen.  The Iranian ships join Saudi and American vessels in the same area, and arrive after the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament accused Saudi Arabia of crimes against humanity for its bombing campaign in Yemen.  Needless to say, the action has raised the tensions in the region considerably.  The US has positioned two US aircraft carriers, CVN-71 Teddy Roosevelt and CVN-70 Vinson, as well as the amphibious warship Iwo Jima near the Gulf of Aden.  Iran’s Press TV reported the move today.

Greek Prime Minister Tsipras turned to Russia for financial assistance in the current Greek standoff with the IMF.  Russian President Putin offered moral support, but no financial aid.  Greece’s overtures to Russia caused a degree of consternation within the eurozone, as it seems obvious that Russia would enjoy the prospect of exploiting divisions within the EU.  It was, however, unlikely that Russia was in any financial position to offer substantial aid to Greece.   The Greeks now have to figure out how to buy a number of creditors within the next two weeks or face the prospect of a banking collapse.

US President Obama is scheduled to attend the Summit of the Americas conference in Panama this week, and it is likely that he will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro at the meeting.  Polls indicate that President Obama is a very popular figure in Cuba, and that a reinstatement of diplomatic ties would be favored by a large number of Cubans.

Foreign aid from rich countries to poor countries totaled about $135 billion in 2014 according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.  The total amount was near record levels, but, curiously, aid to middle-income countries increased while aid to the lowest-income countries decreased.  The information is relevant as the world prepares for the third International Conference on Financing for Development which will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 13 to 16 July 2015.  The Conference will offer an opportunity to think more creatively about the effectiveness of development assistance.

China is planning a major push into robotics.  Just twenty years ago, China was able to make incredible inroads into the world’s manufacturing markets due to its low labor costs, much to the detriment of American manufacturing workers.   Now, however, China is looking to replace many workers with robots.  The shift will likely make Chinese manufacturing even more efficient and less expensive, but the effect on Chinese workers will probably be quite devastating.  China currently lacks a large enough consumer market to employ large numbers of workers in service industries.   And other countries will have to move into robotics just in order to keep up with the Chinese.  Workers everywhere will find themselves in very weak labor markets.

India’s central pollution control board has found that more than half of the country’s rivers are polluted.  India already has the record for the city with the dirtiest air (Delhi), and economic activity and population growth has led to the degradation of the environment.   Prime Minister Modi has made cleaning up the environment a top priority, but he has also dedicated many of his policies to maximizing economic growth.  Attaining both objectives simultaneously will be difficult.

American efforts to prevent its allies from joining China’s Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) have utterly failed.  The US regarded the AIIB has a potential competitor to the World Bank and was worried about the diminished role of the Bretton Woods Institutions in the contemporary world order.  What the US failed to realize is that the Chinese had a very good idea that will likely help many people all across the planet and that will likely make its investors a lot of money.  It was a serious mistake for the US to think about the AIIB as an index of American vs. Chinese power in the world.  Not everything is related to great power politics.