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.
Japan’s population has officially shrunk. According to The Washington Post: “The 2010 census showed a population of 128,057,352, but the 2015 figure, released Friday, shows just 127,110,000.” This change marks the first time a developed country’s population has shrunk. To maintain a constant population, the birth rate of a country needs to be around 2.1 births per woman; Japan’s birth rate is currently around 1.4 and almost a third of the population is older than 65 years. Japan’s experience is not unique, however, According to the UN about 48 countries will see their populations decline by 2050.
The refugee crisis in Europe manifests itself in different ways in different countries. There have been large protests in Germany; fences have been built in Hungary; and some countries, like Norway, are passing laws that are inconsistent with a long historical and humanitarian tradition. In Italy, some cities are passing laws to inhibit the development of non-Italian eateries, such as kebab restaurants, as well as the building of mosques.
One of the unanticipated consequences of the US’s preoccupation with terrorism has been the expansion of its military activities in Africa. With some important exceptions, the US very rarely sent troops to Africa, instead relying on European militaries to deal with security matters. However, the issue of terrorism, as well as the US inability to act effectively in the Rwandan genocide of 1994, led the US to establish USAFRICOM which was established in 2008 in order to give the US a military platform in Africa. Recently, the US has been increasing its special operations forces in western Africa, and has just decided to send troops to Nigeria to join the fight against Boko Haram.
The US is, by far, the world’s largest military spender. Indeed, every American citizen who pays taxes spends $3,300 per year on military equipment. Or, to put it another way, each American citizen spends more on the military than the per capita income of 70 countries.
The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, campaigned hard for a change in the constitution to allow him to run for a fourth term. Morales was elected President at a time when there were a number of leftist leaders in Latin America such as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Argentina, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Michelle Bachelet in Chile was re-elected President of Chile, but her popularity has waned in recent years. Bolivian voters, however, repudiated Morales and refused to pass the change. The left-wing seems to be losing power in Latin America, but the right-wing does not seem to be formulating a distinct alternative set of policies just yet.
The Financial Times is reporting that “…the value of goods that crossed international borders last year fell 13.8 per cent in dollar terms — the first contraction since 2009.” [Students will have to use a College computer to access this site unless she has a subscription to the newspaper] The news is particularly sobering since foreign trade usually outpaces economic growth. The decline suggests that the world may be entering a global recession or it may reflect a decline in the process of globalization. We should all keep an eye on this particular trend.
Thinking about the future is always a weird process. At times it seems threatening; at other times it seems promising. But, as we all know the future will be what me make of it. The outlook of technologists is always interesting and 800 of them were polled at the World Economic Forum and here is how they think the world will change by 2025.
India has decided to allow women to take combat roles in the armed forces. India now joins only a handful of countries which allow women to fight in combat situations. In the US, women recently got that right, but, in truth, American women have seen a great deal of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan even though that role was not officially sanctioned. Acknowledging the right to serve in combat should not suggest that women have achieved gender parity in the armed service: true parity means total and complete acceptance of women’s rights, and most of the world’s armed services are quite far from that threshold.
Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg is going to introduce legislation that will prevent refugees spilling over from Sweden into Norway. [The link will bring you to the Norwegian newspaper, Berlingske which is written in Norwegian so I would recommend that readers use Google Chrome so that it can be translated into English] The legislation will allow Norway to reject refugees who do not come directly from a “conflict area”. So asylum seekers from any European country will automatically be rejected. Such a policy contradicts international law, specifically the Geneva Convention. For Norway to violate international law is an indication of how seriously Norwegians regard the problem.
World Politics News 