The last 6 years of economic stagnation in Europe has led to the rise of various right-wing movements in Europe. Economic hard times often lead to more extreme politics, but the dominance of the right-wing in expressing economic discontent has been somewhat perplexing: where is the left-wing? The left has been slow to rise in Europe, but the prominence of Syriza in Greece may change that. We may be seeing the growth of some alternative ways of thinking about economic activity in Europe over the next few months.
The Palestinian Authority, fresh from its defeat in the Security Council over a deadline to end Israeli occupation, has moved to join the International Criminal Court by signing the Rome Treaty. The move, strongly opposed by Israel and the US, will allow the Palestinians to sue the Israelis for alleged war crimes in the various wars and occupations. The move is problematic, since the PA has used tactics that violate the laws of war as well. But the Israelis do not wish to have the close scrutiny of an international organization they do not trust.
Finally, I wish everyone the happiest of all new years. Remember that we care about all these issues because we care about the future. We study hard to protect our children–all our children.
There was an anti-Putin protest in Moscow in which Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was involved. The protest occurred after Navalny and his brother were convicted of crimes in what many regarded as a political trial designed to crush Navalny’s opposition movement. The protest and subsequent arrest of over a hundred protesters represents strong disquiet within Russia over what some regard as a very corrupt government. The trial of Navalny conjured up memories of political trials during the Soviet period.
The UN Security Council has voted down a Palestinian resolution to set a 12-month deadline for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The vote was 8 states in favor, 2 against (the US and Australia) and five abstentions. The US did not need to use its veto against the resolution since the resolution did not receive the required nine affirmative votes for passage. Nigeria had been expected to vote in favor of the resolution but changed its vote to abstain at the last minute. The vote “called for an independent state of Palestine to be established within the 1967 Mideast borders — before Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — and demanded ‘a just solution’ to all other outstanding issues, including Palestinian refugees, prisoners in Israeli jails and water.”
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 60,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 22 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
China’s economic progress over the last thirty years has been the most dramatic in human history. Such unprecedented change is rarely without consequences and often the consequences are not obvious except in retrospect. One such consequence is the Chinese diet and its focus on pork products. From a situation where eating pork was once considered a luxury, China now finds itself in a situation where pork is the preferred meat for almost the entire population. China’s demand for pork products and feed for its pigs are having widespread global effects that may signal difficulties in the future if not properly managed.
James Fallows is one of the US’s pre-eminent military observers, often in the role of critic. He has published a rather long article in The Atlanticassessing the role of the American military and its relationship to the political economy of the country. It is a superb essay–judicious and straightforward. He excuses no one, and raises the fundamental question of whether the US is well-served by maintaining an arms-length military where the activities of the military are carefully insulated from the daily lives of most Americans.
The US is stockpiling a large amount of military hardware in Kuwait. The material is from Afghanistan, and is being stockpiled in Kuwait as the US makes a decision about its future role against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. President Obama has promised the American people that the US would not have a combat role against the IS, but the number of troops being deployed in Iraq has slowly crept up from the initial 350 soldiers mentioned by Obama. According to US News and World Reports:
On Friday, the Pentagon announced Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had ordered 1,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division to join other advisers and trainers at headquarters in Baghdad and Irbil, as well as facilities elsewhere in the country. Roughly 1,700 troops are in Iraq already, with as many as 1,300 more to deploy.
The ProSavana Project is a joint agricultural project in Mozambique funded by Brazil, Japan, and Mozambique. It calls for almost 100 million acres of “underutilized” agricultural land to be transformed into a massive soybean producing region. The soybeans will be exported to the rapidly growing export market for soybeans in Asia, and is modeled after the Brazilian program to transform its cerrado into a soybean exporting region. Unlike the poor soils in the Brazilian cerrado, however, the soils in the Nacala Corridor in Mozambique are very fertile and already being farmed by many rural people. Thus, there is tremendous opposition to what is perceived as a horrific “land grab”.
The release of secret documents has raised serious questions about the drone strikes employed by the US in its war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The US has systematically assured the world that its drone strikes were scrupulously targeted to avoid civilian casualties, a claim often denied by locals on the ground. These secret documents suggest that the controls over the use of drone strikes have been less stringent than we have been led to believe.
Greece is going through a slow-motion crisis. The Prime Minister has nominated Stavros Dimas as his President, but has failed to secure the necessary votes in Parliament to secure his election. After two tries, Samaras will try for the third and final time on Monday to get the 180 votes to confirm Dimas. If that vote fails, then Samaras will be forced to call a snap election. The polls for a new election are close, but some suggest that a leftist coalition known as Syriza may win the election. If Syriza does win, then its leader, Alexis Tsipras, may repudiate parts of the austerity program imposed on Greece by the EU. That repudiation would create a serious crisis for the European Union.
More than 100,000 have been forced from their homes in severe flooding in Malaysia. Flooding is not unusual in Malaysia in the Monsoon season, but these floods are unusually severe. There is much criticism of the Malaysian government, stemming from a lack of preparedness, a tepid response, and the absence of the Prime Minster (who was playing golf with President Obama in Hawaii). The Malaysian government has been much criticized in recent months, and the floods will only fuel the political discontent in the country.
In an encouraging sign, Ukraine and Russian separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine have exchanged prisoners. A 12-point peace plan is being floated to end the nearly year-long battle between the Kiev government and those who wish to break off of Ukraine and join Russia. Nonetheless, tensions also increased as Kiev stopped transportation links to Crimea which has been illegally annexed by Russia. It seems unlikely that Crimea will ever return to Ukraine.
A political crisis in Sweden has been avoided as the center-left government has reached a budget agreement with opposition parties that excludes the far-right Sweden Democrats Party. The Sweden Democrats Party is strongly anti-immigrant and it seemed as if all the major parties had earlier agreed not to cooperate with it. That arrangement collapsed month ago, and Sweden was confronted with the possibility of a snap election in order to pass a budget. The revived agreement not to participate with the Sweden Democrats will undoubtedly be tested again.
Russia has issued the latest version of its strategic military doctrine. It is largely unchanged from previous versions, but it now specifically lists NATO and the US as global enemies. Interestingly, it lists NATO because it perceives a new NATO mission as the preservation of “global functions realized with violation of international law.” Presumably the doctrine regards the UN as the only legitimate protector of international law, but the doctrine does not spell out that obligation. If the UN fails to defend international law, the doctrine does not specify an alternative. Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University, suggests that Russia will actually only function as a spoiler to international law.
Ceremonies were held all over Asia today as the region remembered the Tsunami that swept through the region 10 years ago. The Tsunami was the largest ever recorded by human beings and the devastation stretched from Indonesia to Sri Lanka to Somalia. Tens of thousands were lost, and whole villages disappeared. The recovery in some areas has been robust, but there are still many areas that are desolate. There have been some improvements in detecting tsunamis, but the world still remains largely unprepared for a similar event.
Egypt is probably further from democracy now than at any other time in its recent history, including the regimes of Sadat and Mubarak. Unlike Tunisia, which has made rapid progress toward creating a liberal civic society, the current Egyptian regime has thwarted the Arab Spring revolution and returned to authoritarian rule. The Guardian lists the laws that have been promulgated by the regime without participation by the Parliament. Unfortunately, the outside world, including most dramatically the US, has offered few objections to this betrayal of democratic principles.
Today is the 100th anniversary of an extraordinary event: the Christmas truce between British and German soldiers in the trenches of World War I. The truce was not an official one–it was one unilaterally declared by soldiers who chose to recognize their common humanity rather than the national loyalties which had been driving them to kill each other. Needless to say, the officers did not look kindly upon this fraternization, and stern orders were given to prevent a re-occurrence.
A movement known as Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (the acronym in German is Pegida) has attracted a relatively large following in Germany. According to some polls, as many as 34% of Germans believe that German society is becoming “Islamicized.” The rise of a number of groups opposed to the Muslim presence in Germany is frightening and far more extensive than is fully appreciated. The German government must become more vigilant in addressing this serious problem of xenophobia.
A group of photojournalists has started a blog called The Ebola Diaries. It is an extraordinary account of daily life in Ebola affected areas, and focuses attention on a truly horrific crisis in terms of all the issues that are faced on a daily basis by those infected and the health workers dedicated to addressing the outbreak. The use of social media in this particular way is a great example of how the new technologies can be harnessed to bring attention to issues largely ignored by the media.
There are many things about the process of globalization that are difficult to explain. The incredible popularity of Christmas in China is one such thing. The Chinese Communist Party does not encourage Christmas celebrations, nor does anyone get the day off. Yet the holiday, stripped of any religious connotations, is a big day in China–the second most popular festival of the year (after the Spring Festival). A good part of its popularity stems from the powerful interest of retailers in stimulating consumption and sales.
The Sundarbans is the largest unbroken stand of mangrove forests in the world, and is situated near the Bay of Bengal between Bangladesh and India. On 9 December two ships collided along one of the river passages in the forest, and released an incredible amount of oil. The resulting ecological devastation was extensive and will be long-lasting. But in addition to the environmental tragedy is the sad sight of Bangladeshi children scooping up the oil so that they can sell it back to the company that spilled it. The damage to the health of these children is likely irremediable.
The Institute of Modern Russia is a New York-based think tank on political developments in Russia. It is a liberal think-tank (in the traditional sense of the world) and thus is not very favorably disposed toward Russian President Putin. It has published, however, a very thoughtful and intelligent article on Putin’s popularity in Russia and how the twin issues of Ukraine and the economy are affecting his ability to rule. One of the more provocative insights of the essay is that Putin seems to have persuaded many Russians that integration into liberal or Western society is not a desirable objective.
News about the Ebola crisis in West Africa has been scarce now that those infected have been contained in the region. But the absence of Ebola in the news does not mean that the outbreak has been contained–it continues to rage in Sierra Leone and over 7,000 have died from the disease in the three most affected countries. And medical staff have been severely depleted. Sierra Leone only had 137 doctors in the country before the outbreak, and 12 of them have been infected by the virus (almost 9%). It appears as if the outbreak is beginning to be controlled, but it remains a tragic concern.
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