Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza has roiled the politics of his country by seeking a third term as President, something which is prohibited by the Burundian constitution. Protests have been going on for five days in the capital city of Bujumbura. Nkurunziza became President in the midst of a serious crisis in 2005. Burundi, like Rwanda, is populated by both Hutus and Tutsis, the same ethnic groups involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The fear is that the political protests could trigger off a spasm of ethnic violence. The dispute has been referred to the UN Security Council but Russia has adamantly opposed any intervention in the crisis.
The economic situation in Venezuela is one of the worst in the world today. The collapse in oil prices has aggravated an already sputtering economy plagued by mismanagement and corruption. Shortages of basic necessities such as toilet paper have become endemic, and the country’s pharmacy’s have been forced to adopt a rationing system, monitored by fingerprinting, in order to assure that sufficient medicines are available to the sick.
Venezuelan Inflation Rate
The BBC is reporting that the Islamic State has executed about 300 Yazidis in an area west of Mosul. The massacre is only the latest in a string of barbarities by the extremist group. But it also comes amid reports that the leader of the group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, suffered severe injuries in an allied air attack earlier in the month of March. It does not appear as if the group has been hamstrung by the injury to the leader, indicating that the Islamic State has a robust chain of command.
1 May is a traditional holiday in many societies, but it was designated International Workers Day in 1886 by the Second International, an association of socialist and communist parties in Europe. The date commemorates the riot in Haymarket in Chicago. What began as a peaceful protest on that day in support of an 8-hour work day, exploded into a riot after a bomb was thrown. The riot marks the beginning of strong support for unions and for labor protections in general. The date is not observed in the US which instead selected the first Monday in September as Labor Day. In the US, there was a strong desire not to be associated with socialist or communist movements. In Turkey today, the day was observed by riots in Taksim Square.
The Nigerian military rescued 234 women and girls from Boko Haram. It is not clear if any of those women were those kidnapped last year, but the ability of the military to enter a stronghold area of Boko Haram in the Sambisa Forest is an encouraging sign. The move comes in the latter days of the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan before the new President Buhari takes office.
A new study suggests that as many as 1 in every six species may go extinct because of global warming. Studies have found that as the planet warms, some species have moved toward the poles at a rate of about 3.8 miles per decade. Some species will find themselves pushed out of environments that are necessary for their survival. Worryingly, some studies suggest that these findings may be too optimistic as the studies did not review tropical species as thoroughly as temperate species.
Today marks the 40th anniversary of what some call the fall of South Vietnam and others call the liberation of South Vietnam. The war was easily the most contentious in American history, and we are still learning much about the war that was never obvious at the time. But the war also marks a time of great change in the US. Today the US and Vietnam are working closely together on a number of fronts, although one could not accurately characterize them as allies.
Evacuation from the US Embassy in Saigon, 30 April 1975
Spiegel conducted an interview with Alexander Zakharchenko, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine. The interview is a fascinating window into the separatist mentality of the Russian-speaking rebels in Ukraine. Their rhetoric makes clear that they have no intention of backing down from their ultimate goal of integration with Russia.
According to Iran, the cargo ship MV Maersk Tigris was ordered into Iranian waters because of a monetary dispute between Iran and the cargo company. There very well may be a legal dispute, but commandeering a ship in transit is not typical legal recourse–one usually waits until the ship is docked and legal papers can be served. US naval vessels remain nearby but there does not seem to be an emerging crisis at this point. In case you wish to follow the voyage of the Tigris, you can follow its route on a fabulous website called Marine Traffic. From this site one can locate any registered vessel anywhere on the world’s oceans.
Timothy Phillips and Nir Eisikovits have written a commentary on the attractiveness of the Islamic State and why so many young people are traveling to the Middle East to join the group. The essay is highly provocative, essentially arguing that it is the sense of spirited and dangerous commitment to a cause that draws many to the Islamic State. The actual reality of living within the Islamic State is grim–we have no real sources for such information, but the little bit we get about life under the control of the Islamic State seems quite chilling.
For the first time in US history, a Japanese leader addressed the full houses of Congress. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave a speech to the Congress in which he pressed for the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He also offered his sincere condolences “to the souls of all American people that were lost during World War II.” The sentiment fell short of a formal apology for World War II and for the atrocities committed during that war. The US, as well, has never apologized for the use of atomic bombs during the war.
The Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands-flagged commercial craft, was intercepted by the Iranian navy in the Strait of Hormuz. We do not know what the Tigris was carrying nor why the Iranians intercepted the vessel. The US navy ordered the USS Farragut, a destroyer to follow the Tigris, but we do not know if the Farragut will follow it into Iranian waters. As is obvious in the map below, the Strait of Hormuz is both narrow and highly contested. The relationship between the US and the Marshall Islands is also somewhat opaque. According to the US State Department:
After gaining military control of the Marshall Islands from Japan in 1944, the United States assumed administrative control of the Marshall Islands under United Nations auspices as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands following the end of World War II. The Marshall Islands signed a Compact of Free Association with the United States in 1983 and gained independence in 1986 with the Compact’s entry into force. From 1999-2003, the two countries negotiated an Amended Compact that entered into force in 2004.
The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) is a sovereign nation. While the government is free to conduct its own foreign relations, it does so under the terms of the Compact. The United States has full authority and responsibility for security and defense of the Marshall Islands, and the Government of the Marshall Islands is obligated to refrain from taking actions that would be incompatible with these security and defense responsibilities.
What we do not know is whether the US is obligated by the Compact to defend ships sailing under the Marshallese flag. A very curious and dangerous situation.
The Greek economic situation has not improved in the slightest, and a much more serious deadline is approaching. In June, the entire Greek government debt, estimated to be about 175% of the Greek GDP, will have to be renegotiated. John Cassidy in the New Yorker has a very pessimistic view of how those negotiations will unfold. The stubbornness of both sides is hard to fathom, particularly when the stakes are so high.
In discussions about climate change we often get confused between climate and weather. Weather is essentially a daily activity: we always have weather. Climate is a statistical probability of what kind of weather one might have at a certain time of the year. Sometimes we get cold days during summer and sometimes we get warm days during winter. Such events are not likely in any given summer or winter, but they do happen. Climate scientists wrestle with this distinction all the time. As climate models have improved, scientists believe that we can now assert that climate change will affect the probability of such unlikely events, making them more likely than was the case in the past. Since extreme events are ones for which we rarely prepare, the effects of these extreme events will likely be more noticeable and devastating. Until, of course, that we begin to expect them.
The US and Japan have clarified some aspects of their defense relationship that will undoubtedly trouble China. First, the US has stated unequivocally that the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands will be considered as the Senkaku Islands under Japanese sovereignty. This statement removes any doubts about whether the US will fill bound to defend the Japanese claim to the islands. Second, the Japanese will now interpret their constitution as allowing them to come to the aid of the US even if Japan itself is not threatened–in other words, the Japanese military will no longer be bound to a strict definition of “self-defense.” In foreign policy, clarity is often quite useful, particularly in alliance matters. Now the question is whether China wishes to test the strength of the US commitment to Japan.
As the deadline for Greek finances continues to come closer with no real resolution, the Greek Minister of Finance, Yanis Varoufakis, has been sidelined. Apparently, Varoufakis has embittered too many of his troika counterparts to be effective. It remains to be seen whether the troika will reward Greece for a more conciliatory approach. We could be watching a variation of the “good cop/bad cop” routine that is so often used in bad crime movies.
Nepal continues to struggle as aftershocks undermine recovery efforts. The death toll is now over 2000, but is likely to climb further as search teams discover more bodies. Few teams have been able to get to the earthquake’s epicenter near Lamjung where the devastation is likely to be even worse than in Katmandhu. Even in the best of circumstances Lamjung is only accessible to four-wheel drive vehicles.
The alliances continue to shift in the Middle East. The death of King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia opened the door to his successor, King Salman, who since becoming King has taken the threat of Iranian power very seriously. King Salman has reinforced Saudi support for the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra which has proven to be quite effective in the fight against Syrian President Assad. The fall of Assad would be a big blow to Iranian aspirations in the region. It would also, however, be a success for the Islamic State, a success for the US, and a defeat for Russia. It would also be a success for Israel and a defeat for Hezbollah. It is amazing how many dominoes are lined up in the region.
Nepal has been hit by a devastating earthquake which registered 7.8 on the Richter Scale. Early reports suggest that at least 1400 people died in the quake, but that number is sure to rise as rescue teams conduct search operations. The quake shook India, Bangladesh, and Tibet, and triggered avalanches in the Himalayas. The world is mobilizing aid missions, but Nepal is a desperately poor country and has likely been set back a number of years in economic development.
Roger Moorhouse has written a book entitled The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941. The book is reviewed by John Lukacs in The New York Review of Books. The book is a history of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty of 1939 in which Hitler and Stalin sign a non-aggression pact. The deal frees Hitler to attack France without fear of a Soviet counterattack; in return, the Soviet Union gets a huge chunk of Poland and the Baltic States in addition to a brief respite from a German attack. Apparently, however, according to Moorhouse, even after Hitler defeated France and then invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin did not believe that Hitler was actually breaking the treaty. According to Lukacs:
“During the ten days before the Nazi invasion—all kinds of information about the German threat notwithstanding—Stalin did his best or, rather, his worst, to affirm his faith in Hitler and in Germany. I do not know of a single instance of such abject behavior (for that is what it was) by a statesman of a great power.
“The German attack shocked Stalin into silence at first. (Molotov’s words after the German declaration of war were also telling: “Did we deserve this?”) Stalin’s first orders for the Soviet army were not to respond at all. It took him hours after the invasion—until noon—before he ordered the army to resist.”
A remarkable mistake by a master of realpolitik.
The US has been negotiating a trade deal with 11 other countries called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. These twelve countries account for about 40% of global GDP and reducing tariffs and trade barriers among them would unquestionably boost economic activity. It would also, however, cost Americans their jobs as some production would shift to low-wage countries. There is a battle brewing in Congress between Republicans and Democrats over whether President Obama should be given the authority to proceed quickly toward the trade deal.
US President Obama held a press conference yesterday in which he revealed that two hostages held by Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan had been killed in an American drone attack. Drones have been around since 2004 but President Obama has been especially aggressive in using them as their firepower and control have increased dramatically. Nonetheless, the vaunted precision of drone strikes is very difficult to assess since their is little public information about how many innocents have been killed in the strikes. There are solid reasons to be suspicious of the claims of precision.
Spiegel has published a timeline of EU discussions on the problem of migration into the EU by refugees from all over the world. The timeline is fascinating as it reveals the strong humanitarian impulse among virtually all members of the EU to take effective action but contrasts that impulse with the total lack of political imagination and will to take the action steps to resolve the problem. There is no doubt that the problem is very complicated, but one would expect that the obvious moral imperatives would move things along much faster.
Meetings in the Latvian capital city, Riga, between Greece and the troika ended with the sound of the door being slammed on Greek requests for additional delays in scheduled repayments. It seems clear the the troika have decided that a Greek default does not pose the same risks as did the possibility raise in 2012. It is difficult to parse through all the issues being discussed, but it seems as if the Greek pension system is the most contentious issue. It is the Greek policy that the troika would most like to reform, but it is also the most politically sensitive issue for the Greek government.
According to the Washington Post, there are at least 7,102 living languages in the world today, although 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 native speakers. The Post article has a number of interesting facts about languages in the world, but it also predicts, sadly, that about half of those languages will be lost by the end of this century. Chinese is by far the most commonly spoken language, and English is the language most commonly studied in the world, with about 1.5 billion people currently learning the language.
The controversy over the Obama Administration’s refusal to use the word “genocide” in describing the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 continues. In this phase of the controversy, however, the concerns take the form of a personal attack on the US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power. Power wrote a brilliant book on the Rwandan genocide that took aim at the Clinton Administration for its refusal to act on the tragedy. Now, in the face of the horror in Syria, Power represents an Administration that is also doing little to alleviate the suffering. The difference between the perspectives of a private citizen and those of an agent of a state is immense.
Calbuco volcano in Chile has erupted after over 40 years of silence. Chile is no stranger to volcanic eruptions since Chile sits on the “ring of fire” that circles the Pacific Ocean. But the eruption is truly spectacular and the photographs are eerily beautiful.
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