A growing number of state governors–including, to my dismay, Governor Baker of Massachusetts–have announced that they will not take in any Syrian refugees. That decision is based on fear and not on any clear understanding of the nature of refugees and the overwhelming moral imperative to take them in no matter what the risks may be. It may be instructive to remember how the US opposed the admission of Jewish refugees in 1938. We should never let our fears override our responsibilities as human beings.
A bomb blast killed 32 people in the Nigerian city of Yola. The bombing had all the hallmarks of an attack by Boko Haram, the radical group in the northern part of the country. President Muhammadu Buhari, who took office last May, has vowed to stop the group but has been unable thus far to limit the violence. Since he took office, Boko Haram has killed about 1,000 people. The group has also declared its allegiance to the Islamic State and considers itself to be part of the Caliphate established by the IS.
France has invoked Article 42.7 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty which triggers off a mutual defense clause among all 27 members of the European Union. According to reports, all members of the EU have responded positively to the request, but it is not at all clear what commitments have been made. Interestingly, France has yet to invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter which has a much more binding mutual defense commitment:
Article 5
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security .
Article 5 has only been invoked once since 1949 after the attack on the US on 11 September 2001.
US President Obama gave a press conference in Turkey and was confronted with a number of questions concerning US strategy against the Islamic State. He defended his decision not to send ground troops into the Syrian civil war and offered a succinct statement of the problem of dealing with terrorism:
But understand that one of the challenges we have in this situation is, is that if you have a handful of people who don’t mind dying, they can kill a lot of people. That’s one of the challenges of terrorism. It’s not their sophistication or the particular weapon that they possess, but it is the ideology that they carry with them and their willingness to die. And in those circumstances, tracking each individual, making sure that we are disrupting and preventing these attacks is a constant effort at vigilance, and requires extraordinary coordination.
Indeed, such a task is impossible. The real question facing the world right now is whether it can accommodate the threat posed by this relatively small group of individuals without sacrificing liberties or humanity.
This year’s el Niño is proving to be one of the strongest ever recorded, and according to the World Meteorological Organization “its effects are already being seen in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Malawi, Indonesia and across Central America.” The most immediate problem is food shortages, but both an excess and a dearth of rainfall is having sharp effects throughout the planet. Many of the states affected are already precarious and the human tragedy we might be facing over the next few months could be overwhelming.
Pankaj Mishra has written a fascinating and insightful essay for The Guardian on how best to understand the rise of the Islamic State. The argument advanced is elegant and rooted in the forces of globalization and how it seems to be taking control of the choices we can make for the future. He rightly identifies the power of ideology for both the Islamic State and the great powers that are dedicated to maintaining control of the course of globalization. The most revealing sentence of the essay is:
Clashing in the night, the ignorant armies of ideologues endow each other’s cherished self-conceptions with the veracity they crave. But their self-flattering oppositions collapse once we recognise that much violence today arises out of a heightened and continuously thwarted desire for convergence and resemblance rather than religious, cultural and theological difference.
In other words, the Islamic State is simply one manifestation–out of many other contemporary movements–of the desire to retain a sense of uniqueness and solidarity in a world that seems to demand nothing less than total conformity and submission.
The negotiations in Vienna about how to end the civil war in Syria took an interesting turn today as the Russians indicated that they do not consider Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization. The US, Europe, and Israel consider Hezbollah a terrorist group because of its adamant opposition to Israel. But Hezbollah has elected representatives in the Lebanese Parliament and has worked with that government on a variety of projects. By its announcement, Russia moves closer to Iran which considers Hezbollah to be an important ally.
There really is no accurate count of how many Muslims live in Myanmar. Official statistics suggest that Muslims comprise 4% of the total population, but that figure is certainly too low. Nonetheless, no Muslims were elected to the new Parliament and no party in Myanmar fielded a Muslim candidate. The election was the first free election in many years and that one was held at all is cause for celebration. But the lack of effective representation in this Buddhist-majority state is something to regret and something that must change.
The horrific attacks in Paris yesterday has unfortunately unleashed some rather predictable backlashes: the strident calls for a more intense war against the Islamic State, foul characterizations of Islam, and self-serving promises of greater security by all governments. No one seems to be willing to ask the very simple question: what conditions make some individuals so willing to undertake such brutal actions? It seems to be a very obvious first step to solving the problem but I have yet to hear anyone in the media pose the issue. At the risk of stating the obvious, we should all remember that the issue is not “Islamic” extremism. The issue is extremism.
To reinforce the point, there was an attack by the Islamic State in Beirut the day before the Paris attacks. The bombings in Lebanon killed 43 people, but they were Shi’a Muslim (the Islamic State is comprised mainly by Sunni Muslims). Lebanon has been without a President for over a year and the government is virtually impotent. And Lebanon has been hosting about 1.5 million refugees from Syria. Lebanon is far more fragile than France at this time and the bombings have shaken the country tremendously, reminding many of the civil war that decimated the country from 1975 to 1990.
There is a lot of evidence that many economies around the planet are slowing down but we do not have a good idea of why the slowdown is happening. One prime factor for the slowing may be the downturn in trade which is predicted to fall to about 2% of last year’s rate this year. Trade is a prime generator of growth as it contributes to greater production at lower costs. Currency fluctuations, many of which have been deliberately engineered by governments, may be behind the trade decline. Governments are trying to stimulate their exports by letting their currencies devalue. But what works for one country is completely counterproductive if many countries follow suit. Right now there does not seem to be any concerted effort to stop these currency wars.
There is an on-going series of attacks and hostage-taking in Paris. At this time we have only scattered and incomplete information about the death toll or even the scale of the attack. There were at least three and perhaps four simultaneous attacks. Simultaneous attacks suggest a high level of coordination and capability which is particularly worrisome. More than likely, I will be providing additional posts in the future as more information becomes available. The Washington Post has a live blog that is posting new information every few minutes.
Chris Whipple has written a fascinating–and devastating–report in Politico on how much information the Bush Administration had prior to the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001. We knew about the 6 August memorandum before, but much of Whipple’s information was unknown to me. The conclusion seems to be inescapable: the US government was negligent in not taking stronger measures prior to a clearly obvious threat.
Opposition parties in Burundi have asked the UN to send peacekeeping troops as the situation there continues to deteriorate. The parties oppose President Pierre Nkurunziza, who ran for an unconstitutional third term, and they have been mobilizing against him. Burundi experienced a civil war from 1993 to 2005 in which 300,000 people died and the fissures that led to that crisis are still powerful in Burundi. They are the ethnic cleavages between Hutu and Tutsi, the same as that led to the 800,000 who died in Rwanda in 1994.
Kurdish forces have launched an offensive to retake Sinjar, a town taken over by the Islamic State last year. Sinjar has great symbolic significance to the control of the Syrian territory close to the Turkish border. Interestingly, the offensive is manned both by the Peshmerga which is the military arm of the Kurdish Autonomous Region in northern Iraq (supported by the US) and by the Kurdistan Workers Party (the PKK) which is considered a terrorist organization by the Turkish government and therefore not supported by the US. The US has been supporting the offensive with air power which means that the US is supporting an enemy of the Turkish state. The bewildering sets of alliances in this battle continue to nettle a systemic response by the US.
A general strike has paralyzed much public transportation in Greece. The protest is against further austerity measures proposed by the Greek government in order to comply with the bailout demands insisted upon by the troika (the EU, the European Central Bank, and the IMF). The dissent is long simmering as the Greek government has shuffled its composition several times in order to address the debt crisis. This time, however, the protest has erupted into violence as protesters battle the police and are using Molotov cocktails.
The currencies of emerging markets such as China, Brazil, India, and Indonesia are being buffeted by the prospect of a rise in interest rates in the US by the Federal Reserve. Investors, convinced that the US will raise its rates in December, are pulling their money out of emerging markets and depositing the money in the US in hopes of earning a higher return. Unfortunately, the emerging markets can ill-afford the outflow of capital right now and the weakness of their economies is aggravated by the loss of money. The weakness is being manifested by a decline in the currencies of those countries, and the devaluations will lead to an increase of inflation in the markets. If the outflow of capital increases dramatically, then many of these countries will suffer sharp downturns. This issue is something to keep an eye on for the next 6 weeks.
As we move nearer to the UN-sponsored climate change talks in Paris, we still have yet to figure out one of the most difficult issues concerning the curbing of greenhouse gases. Poorer countries such as China and India believe that there should be too schedules for the curbs: one for the already-rich countries who can more readily afford those curbs; and another for poorer countries who should be allowed a longer period of time to curb those emissions so that economic growth can continue in a manner that does not perpetuate the rich/poor divide. India, likely to have 1.5 billion people by mid-century, demonstrates that conundrum perfectly. Alternatives to fossil fuels cannot sustain economic growth as efficiently as fossil fuels do right now. Cutting back on the burning of hydrocarbons will likely slow economic growth, at least in the short run.
The Pew Research Center has done polling on global attitudes toward climate change and has come up with some interesting findings. Pew interviewed people in 40 countries and found that a global median of 54% consider climate change to be a very serious problem. But there were some interesting variations among countries, most notably among those who believe that climate change is harming the world right now.
Relations between the European Union and Israel took a turn for the worse as the EU announced that goods exported from Israeli controlled West Bank, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem settlements will no longer be simply labeled as “Made in Israel.” Instead, the goods will be identified as being made in the Occupied Territories. Israel believes that the labeling amounts to a boycott; the EU believes that the labeling will simply allow EU consumers to decide whether they wish to purchase goods (primarily fruits and vegetables) from the Occupied Territories.
British Prime Minister David Cameron sent a note to the European Union outlining his conditions for Great Britain to remain a member of the Union. The demands are as follows:
- Protection of the single market for Britain and other non-euro countries
- Boosting competitiveness by setting a target for the reduction of the “burden” of red tape
- Exempting Britain from “ever-closer union” and bolstering national parliaments
- Restricting EU migrants’ access to in-work benefits such as tax credits
The demands are ambiguous and designed to guide the debate in Britain as it moves toward a referendum in 2017. It will be interesting to see how the eurosceptics in Britain mount their attack on the Union before that date.
Reuters is reporting that Russia is working toward an 18-month political framework to resolve the civil war in Syria. Russia is denying the report, but it rings true to the diplomatic offensive that Russia has been waging to retain its influence over Syria and to bolster its presence in the Middle East. The draft document apparently holds out the possibility the Syrian President Assad could remain in power, a position adamantly opposed by the US and Turkey. But it doesn’t seem to require that Assad remain in office, so there is a little wiggle room for all sides.
Odeleite River, Portugal
The above photograph captured the attention of millions of people in China, who quickly noticed that the river was reminiscent of a dragon–an auspicious symbol in China. It has been dubbed the “Blue Dragon River” after the photo was published on Imgur.
The beginning phases of industrialization are always tough on the environment. Both London and Los Angeles were famous for their polluted air, and it is only recently that progress has been made in preventing many particulates from entering the atmosphere. China now has some of the most polluted air on the planet (although New Delhi in India is reportedly quite bad as well). The World Health Organization puts the limit on toxic air particulates at 25 micrograms per cubic meter of air over 24 hours. The recent reading in the Chinese city of Shenyang registered at 1,400 micrograms. The photos are brutal.
9 November is an important day in German history. In 1938 it was the night of Kristallnacht, when thugs roamed the streets of Germany smashing the windows of stores and homes owned by Jews. The word refers to the sound the smashed glass (crystal) made all throughout the night. That night signaled the beginning of the Holocaust although measures against Jews had already become extensive throughout Germany. In 1989 it was the day the Berlin Wall fell. The wall had divided East and West Berlin since 1961 and was a stark symbol of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. The fall of the Berlin Wall ultimately led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Kristallnacht The Fall of the Berlin Wall
Catalonia’s regional government has decided to declare independence from Spain in 2017. The Catalonians are angry with the Spanish central government since the province is one of the more economically dynamic areas of Spain and the central government takes more tax revenues out of the province than it returns in the form of governmental assistance. The central government, led by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, will vigorously resist the move, but it is likely that Spain will have to endure a constitutional crisis.
US officials are “99.9%” certain that a bomb brought down the Russian airplane over the Egyptian Sinai. The belief rests upon US, British, and Israeli intelligence services, but the Egyptians are still reluctant to accept the verdict since such a finding would jeopardize the tourist industry, one of the most reliablle sources of income for the Egyptian government. Russian teams have been sent to sour the departure area of the Sharm el Sheikh airport, suggesting that the Russians are investigating the possibility that the bomb was placed on the plane by an insider.
Myanmar held its first relatively free election in 25 years. The election was not completely free because Aung San Suu Kyi was not allowed to run, but her party, the National League for Democracy, apparently won the largest number of votes (the final results of the election will not be available for 36 hours). Additionally, about a million Rohingya Muslims were excluded from the vote, a legacy of the hostility toward the minority group by the majority Buddhist population in Myanmar. The problems notwithstanding, the election is a giant step forward for Myanmar.
The World Bank has just issued a new report on the urgent need to address climate change and global poverty in tandem. The global poor will have a very difficult time adapting to climate change and they are already subsisting on the brink of disaster. Issues such as crop failures, water shortages, the rising oceans, and temperature increases will all have negative effects on the 702 million people (9.6% of the total population of the planet) who live in extreme poverty. Climate change could force another 100 million people into the condition of extreme poverty.
World Politics News 