As the 24 November deadline for the Iranian nuclear negotiations near, there is a real question as to what will happen if an agreement is not reached. There really is no alternative to continuing the negotiations. As Fred Kaplan points out in this essay, the Non-Proliferation Treaty assures the right of all signatories to peaceful nuclear energy. So if the negotiations end, it is likely that Iran will continue to enrich Uranium on its own schedule. There really is no reason to believe that Iran is deliberately delaying the negotiations to achieve this objective, since the evidence is that the damage from the sanctions against Iran are seriously harming the Iranian economy. So all sides should agree to extend the deadline.
ChildFund International, a consortium of non-profit organizations dedicated to the protection of children globally, released a report on the status of children and the results were sobering. In a statement on the report, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, said:
“Some 6.6 million children under 5 years of age died in 2012, mostly from preventable causes; when 168 million children aged 5 to 17 were engaged in child labor in 2012; when 11 percent of girls are married before they turn 15…”
These children ought to be protected by The Convention of the Rights of the Child, a convention that has been signed by 194 countries except for Somalia, South Sudan, and the United States.
In a trial in Egypt, a doctor and the father of a 13-year old girl who died from a female genital mutilation operation were acquitted of a crime. The case was a landmark case in Egypt since such cases are very rarely brought to trial. But the verdict delivered by a judge who failed to articulate his reasons in the case, is a setback for those who wish to strengthen the laws against the practice. Although FGM was made illegal in Egypt in 2008, more than 90% of Egyptian women under 50 have been subjected to the practice.
US-Russian relations are at perhaps the lowest point since the Cold War. Neither side, however, seems willing to open a dialogue that could resolve some of the animosity, even though both sides have mutual interests on the issue of terrorism and the Iranian negotiations. Indeed, there seems to be a willful misinterpretation of each other’s motives. For example, RT (formerly the Russian Times) has a report on a meeting between US Secretary of State Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov which suggests a high degree of mistrust.
Mistrust is also playing a profound role in the escalating violence in Jerusalem. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians are interpreting recent violent events through the single prism of religious struggle. A conflict defined in such terms defies compromise and almost inevitably escalates. Unfortunately, no outside power seems willing to step in to try to bring about a different definition of the crisis.
NASA has produced a dramatic video that shows how carbon dioxide travels through the earth’s atmosphere over a period of one year. It is an incredible video, but note how little carbon dioxide is produced in the southern hemisphere.
Six people, including the two Palestinian perpetrators, were killed in a horrific attack inside a Jerusalem synagogue. The incident is the latest in a string of violent acts in the city over recent weeks. Israel will undoubtedly respond to the attack, so the cycle of violence will continue. The Palestinian Authority condemned the attack while Hamas praised the “high-quality revenge attack”. According to the New York Times:
“Relatives identified the attackers as two cousins, Odai Abed Abu Jamal, 22, and Ghassan Muhammad Abu Jamal, 32. They were said to be motivated by what they saw as threats to the revered plateau that contains Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.”
The Institute for Economics and Peace has published its annual Global Terrorism Index. The index noted that “[o]f the 17,958 people who died in terrorist attacks in 2013, 82 percent were in one of five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria.” Contrariwise, the index noted that:
“Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2013, the report found, around 5 percent of terrorism-related fatalities occurred in the 34 wealthy countries of the OECD. In 2013 specifically, there were 113 terrorism-related deaths in OECD countries—0.6 percent of the worldwide total. Six of these took place in the United States.”
Female genital mutilation is a social practice that is pervasive in many countries. Mona Eltahawy has written an op-ed piece for The New York Times on the practice and she estimates that as many as 91% of Egyptian women between the ages of 15-49 have been subjected to this practice. There is no medical justification for the procedure, but some cultures insist that the practice is consistent with social and moral norms regarding attitudes toward sexual activity. Even in countries that have outlawed the practice, it remains pervasive. For liberal societies, the practice is regarded as a method for subordinating the individual rights of girls and women to society as a whole.
In another op-ed in the New York Times, Steven Rattnerreviews the findings of a Federal Reserve Study on income inequality in the United States. The conclusions are devastating: the US is one of the most unequal societies of all developed economies, even after taking into account the social welfare programs maintained by local, state, and federal governments. The finding refutes the argument that the government programs compensate for the lower incomes offered by private enterprise, and that those programs demand an inordinately high tax rate:
“Conservatives may bemoan the size of our government; in reality, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, total tax revenues in the United States this year will be smaller on a relative basis than those of any other member country.”
The study suggests that there is a clear process of income redistribution going on in the US, but from the poor to the rich.
The deadline for ending the nuclear negotiations with Iran is 24 November and, as is usually the case with high level negotiations, matters are coming to a head as the deadline nears. It seems as if the broad outlines of an agreement are clear to both sides, but that specific details remain contentious. Essentially, the disagreement centers around the capabilities of Iran to enrich Uranium. It is impossible to prohibit Iran from enriching Uranium: the non-proliferation treaty ensures the right of peaceful nuclear energy which requires enrichment, and there is no way for Iran to “unlearn” how to enrich Uranium. But the capability to enrich Uranium also implies the capability to build a bomb. How the enrichment process is to be monitored and controlled remains the dividing line.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman declared that he does not regard building homes for Israelis in East Jerusalem as the same activity as building settlements in Occupied Territory:
“One thing should be clear: we will never accept the definition of building in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem as settlement activity…We won’t accept any limitation on building in Jewish areas of [East] Jerusalem.”
Lieberman does not speak for the Israeli government bu t his statement reflects the growing pressure by right-wing groups in Israel on Prime Minister Netanyahu. This pressure applies not only to settlement activity, but also to Israeli access to the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary. There is no activity whatsoever in peace negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.
There have been many posts on this blog in recent months about the rise of right-wing parties in Europe. The upswell in right-wing politics is often associated with bad economic conditions. However, there has also been a slight increase in the visibility of left-wing parties, although none have yet achieved electoral victories of note. Left-wing politics receded into the background after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This slight increase in popularity also reflects disappointment in economic conditions, but as of yet there has been no clear left vision that unites those parties in Europe.
The Tanzanian government has announced that it intends to go forward in selling a proposed 1,500 sq km “wildlife corridor” bordering the Serengeti national park to “a commercial hunting and safari company based in the United Arab Emirates.” In so doing, the government will evict 40,000 Maasai pastoralists from their traditional lands. In return, the Tanzanian government is promising “development projects” to aid the displaced Maasai. The hunting company is the Ortelo Business Corporation (OBC) which has close ties to the UAE royal family.
Henry Kissinger is perhaps the most well-known realist thinker in American diplomacy today. He is a controversial person, and his thinking about the US role in world affairs is distinctly colored by his understanding of 19th century European diplomacy. Spiegel conducted an interview with him and his views are worth considering, even if one has strong objections to specific policies that he advocates.
As Chinese power has grown over the last thirty years, there has been a notable reluctance on China’s part to participate more actively in international institutions. That hesitation has been diminishing lately and China has begun to take a more active role in global governance. We are therefore getting a sense of how China wishes to shape the world order. Its most dramatic proposal has been for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a competitor to the World Bank and the regional Development Banks established within the period of American dominance. Although its governance structure differs from the earlier banks, it does not appear as if China is pushing for an economic system fundamentally different from the market capitalism espoused by the US.
Last year Russia hosted the G-20 meeting in St. Petersburg and the event was well attended and Russia was highly regarded. This year, the conference is in Australia, and by all accounts, Russian President Putin has been treated like a pariah. The members of the G-20 have made their views about Russian activities in Ukraine quite explicit–indeed, the Canadian Prime Minister is reported to have said directly to President Putin: “I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I have only one thing to say to you: You need to get out of Ukraine.”
Beppe Grillo is the leader of the Five Star Movement in Italy. Grillo is a one-time comedian who organized the political party to protest against the corrupt and staid politics that have characterized Italian politics for many years (in 2007 he proposed the idea of Vaffanculo Day [Fuck you Day]). No one gave him a chance, but the Five Star Movement is the second largest party in the Italian Parliament right now. He is now proposing that Italy drop the euro and he has declared that the European Central Bank is the most serious enemy of Europe. The BBC has a video of his comments. Listening to him will give one an idea of how deeply the eurosceptic movement has penetrated European politics.
Forbes magazine is hardly a bastion of progressive thought, and it has recently run an article on how the US military is taking the issue of climate change very seriously. The quotations from very high-ranking US military officials clearly indicates that the military is way ahead of the US Congress on the issue of climate change. Whether the military can persuade the Congress to take the issue more seriously remains to be seen.
Protests in Mexico are spreading rapidly as more information comes to light about the murder of the 43 student teachers. Protests are sensitive matters in Mexico because of the bloody repression of student protests in 1968. The year 1968 saw student protests all over the world, but the way the Mexican government killed many students on 2 October 1968 in Tlatelolco was exceptionally violent and changed the character of Mexican politics in dramatic ways, particularly in terms of the role of women in politics. The Mexican government will likely try very hard to avoid a repeat of that disaster.
The leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, purportedly called for attacks on Saudi Arabia in a speech given today. The audio recording could not be verified as authentic, but some analysts believed the speaker was Baghdadi. The Islamic State also called on other groups in the Middle East to join the jihad, and groups in Egypt and Libya declared their affiliation with the IS. The threat against Saudi Arabia is new, and is an attempt to delegitimize the Saudi regime and to lay down a claim by the IS to the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.
The domestic pressures on Russian President Putin may be so intense that he may find himself forced to take more dramatic actions in support of the Russian-speaking separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine. The falling oil price has hurt Russian revenues, and investors are running away from the Russian economy as the value of the Ruble has plummeted. Putin will need some sort of “victory” in Ukraine to justify to the Russian people the necessity to endure such economic difficulties.
The New Republic has a fascinating essay on the effects of wealth on the very rich in the US. The essay is a book review of a book that identifies several psychological experiments on how great wealth affects behavior. Many of the results conform to some stereotypes, but some provide some counter-intuitive conclusions. Needless to say, money does not buy happiness.
The US and China announced an agreement to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases by the years 2025 and 2030. The rhetoric of the agreement is ambitious, but there are no concrete details of the agreement and no binding enforcement either. Perhaps a good place for the US to start addressing the issue of carbon burning would be to end official subsidies for the oil and gas industries. Recent data indicate that the US gave $5.2 billion in subsidies for the oil industry to explore for new sources of oil and natural gas. It does not really make any sense to write agreements to reduce the burning of carbon fuels while at the same time encouraging the discovery of new reserves of carbon fuels to burn.
The agreement is a breakthrough. At the Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009, China adamantly refused to set emission limits for itself, arguing that such limits would compromise its ability to develop economically. The change of heart represents an important opening for the world, since China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Without its participation, any agreement would fail to arrest the process of climate change. Perversely, China’s refusal also gave opponents of emission controls in the US leverage: they argued that the US did not need limits since China would not agree anyway. Now, the argument is no longer valid, but it does not appear as if US opposition is going to change its position. The incoming Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell just stated that he was “distressed” at the US-China deal. He is quoted as saying:
“The agreement requires the Chinese to do nothing at all for 16 years while these carbon emissions regulations are creating havoc on my state and other states around the country.”
It appears as if the US Congress may prevent the US-China agreement from being implemented.
The Economist has a devastating article on the rising wealth inequality in the US. The fortunes of the richest 0.01% of the population are fast outstripping the wealth of the rest of the population:
On the other side of the spectrum, the fortunes of the wealthy have grown, especially at the very top. The 16,000 families making up the richest 0.01%, with an average net worth of $371m, now control 11.2% of total wealth—back to the 1916 share, which is the highest on record. Those down the distribution have not done quite so well: the top 0.1% (consisting of 160,000 families worth $73m on average) hold 22% of America’s wealth, just shy of the 1929 peak—and exactly the same share as the bottom 90% of the population. Meanwhile the share of wealth held by families from the 90th to the 99th percentile has actually fallen over the last decade, though not by as much as the net worth of the bottom 90%.
The graphic says it all:
Russian President Vladimir Putin stole the show at the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) in Beijing, by placing a shawl around the shoulders of Chinese First Lady, Peng Liyuan. Apparently it was cold at the conference. Needless to say, many pundits felt obliged to comment on the act. But what is most interesting is that Chinese censors blocked the images of Putin’s gesture. I’m not sure what the state issue was, but the Chinese government took the matter quite seriously.
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