The Israeli government has decided to suspend tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority in retaliation for its decision to seek international recognition by seeking membership in 15 UN conventions. The Israeli government collects the taxes in the Occupied Territories and then disburses them to the Palestinian Authority. By suspending the transfers, Israel will effectively deprive the PA of any revenues to keep its services going. In addition, a member of the government, Naftali Bennett, has recommended that Israel simply annex all the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, effectively ending any possibility for a negotiated solution. The breakdown of the peace negotiations is not yet technically dead, but it is perilously close.
The Russian military buildup along the Ukrainian border is quite extensive, belying Russian claims that its troops are there just on a training mission. Satellite photographs clearly indicate that Russia could easily invade Ukraine if it chose to do so. The buildup is clearly meant to intimidate, but as yet there is no evidence that an invasion is planned.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is a very astute analyst of European economic affairs. This post is a few days old, but it is highly pertinent as Greece re-enters the bond market after almost four years of austerity. Evans-Pritchard fears that the many years of austerity is going to lead Europe into a deflationary cycle. Because Europe does not have a central bank capable of lending directly to banks (it is limited by treaty to lending only to sovereign governments), deflation would be extremely difficult to address in the continent. The specter of a years-long economic slowdown is not far-fetched if the trend toward deflation is not stopped.
We study world politics with an underlying assumption that much of what happens in the world occurs because of choices made by governments. There is, however, a deeper determinant of world politics and it is, generally speaking, understudied. The volcanic explosion of Tambora in what we now call Indonesis in 1815 is one such event. Slate has a fascinating essay on how that explosion change important patterns in world politics in ways that were impossible to determine at the time.
The Russian speaking people in eastern Ukraine have ratcheted up their attempts to appeal to Russia to protect them. They have taken over government buildings, and the Ukrainian government has gingerly tried to evict them, fearing that robust attempts would precipitate Russian intervention. The hostility between those who look to Russia and Ukrainian nationalists, largely from the right-wing Svoboda party, actually came to blows in the Ukrainian Parliament. The situation is highly fragile and precarious.
In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, US Secretary of State Kerry blamed Israel for the imminent breakdown of the peace negotiations. Kerry said that the impasse occurred after Israel refused to release the fourth round of prisoners and an announcement that Israel was going to build additional settlements in East Jerusalem. The statement took Israeli officials by surprise, and the US has moved to distance itself from Kerry’s comments. But they led Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to order the end of high-level contacts between Israeli officials and the Palestinian Authority. The final rupture has not yet occurred, but it difficult to see a clear road from here.
A UN human rights monitor has raised an alarm about human rights abuses against Myanmar’s minority Royingha population. The UN envoy, Tomás Ojea Quintana, suggested that the treatment of the Muslim minority could be considered a “crime against humanity.” In recent weeks, many humanitarian aid workers have been pulled from Myanmar over concerns for their security as the majority Buddhist population takes violent actions against the Royingha, whom they regard as illegal immigrants from nearby Bangladesh. The ill-treatment of the Royingha has been long-standing, but the violence against them is rising rapidly.
The IMF has issued its economic outlook for global growth and it was modestly optimistic. It predicts higher growth for the rich countries, but warned of the risks to growth in the emerging economies. Interestingly, its most dire warning concerned the risks of low inflation and the prospect of deflation (which it estimated at about 20% in the eurozone countries). It is hard to square the growth estimates with the risks of deflation, but presumably the deflation risks are determined primarily by unpredictable economic or geopolitical shocks.
This week marks the 20th anniversary of one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in human history, the Rwandan genocide. Rwanda has struggled mightily to face the reality and the consequences of that calamity, and much credit should be given to its people for their courage and forthrightness. Unfortunately, some scars can never heal, but the world has much to learn from the Rwandan pursuit of truth and reconciliation.
About 2,000 people are leaving their homes on the Cartaret Islands. They are leaving because the island, being an atoll, is sinking, but also because the seas are rising due to climate change. It’s hard to tell which factor is more important, but we may regard the residents as the world’s first climate change refugees at some point in the future when we have more data.
The official news agency of Iran, Fars, has run an encouraging story about the resumption of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1. The tone of the story suggests that Iran believes that a final agreement is possible, and given the information we have about previous negotiations, the tone leads one to believe that Iran does not consider the demands of the P5+1 to be unattainable. Much remains to be done, and we’ll need to wait and see how the P5+1 interpret the mood of the final negotiations.
Pro-Russian protesters have attacked and occupied Ukrainian government office in the three eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv. All three of the cities are close to the Russian border and government forces tried to prevent the occupations, but the protesters were described by one official as “very aggressive.” The worry is that these protesters are being organized by Russian forces, and the attacks are a signal that a more robust Russian offensive may be beginning.
Hungary has re-elected Prime Minister Viktor Orban to another four-year term. Orban’s party, Fidesz, is a center-right party, but it also gets support from a far-right party, Jobbik. This reaffirmation of right-wing and nationalist politics, is ominous for the European Union with which Orban has had serious disputes. The result also augurs ill for the upcoming election for the European Parliament because the fear is that other right=wing parties might fare as well.
As the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations continue to falter, many are asking the question: “What happens if the talks fail?” It is difficult to predict outcomes, but it appears as if Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will take strong actions if the Palestinians proceed with membership petitions in 15 UN agencies. Those sanctions would clearly worsen the economic situation in the West Bank, aggravating an already volatile situation.
The Afghan election was conducted in relative clam and over 7 million Afghans voted, a number far surpassing previous elections. The robust election is a victory for the Afghan government and has to be interpreted as a loss for the Taliban who had vowed to disrupt the election. At this point it’s unknown who won the election and it seems unlikely that any single candidate for president received a majority of votes. So there will likely be a runoff election. But the results of the preliminary election are highly encouraging.
Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera has issued an order for Japanese anti-missile systems to destroy any North Korean missiles that threaten Japan. Additionally, South Korea has announced its intentions to expand the range of its anti-missile systems. The moves come as North Korea has begun to test new missiles and has responded more belligerently than normal to US-South Korean military maneuvers. The moves suggest a deepening of tensions in East Asia.
The outbreak of Ebola fever continues in West Africa. It is a devastating disease with an untreated mortality rate of about 90%. It is only transmissible through direct contact, so, with proper procedures, the outbreaks can be contained (unlike the varieties of influenzas that continue to pop up globally). Nonetheless, the weak medical infrastructure in African states make any outbreak potentially dangerous. The only group that appears to be helping substantially is Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), a group that proves the incredible value of non-governmental organizations in world politics.
Dmitry Rogozin is the deputy prime minister of Russia who has been one of the individuals in Russia who has been targeted by US and European sanctions. He has a Twitter account and used it to goad President Obama by suggesting that the sanctions would not affect his position on Ukraine at all. His rhetoric is flowery and I recommend reading some of his tweets. My favorite? “I’ll ask you to send me your teeth ground in impotent rage”. I think Rogozin needs to get in touch with his inner child.
Afghanistan is holding its national elections on Sunday, and there are eight candidates vying for the presidency. Violence has spiked in the country as the Taliban tries to disrupt the election, deeming it an illegitimate exercise in US imperialism. The outcome of the election will determine the terms of the American withdrawal from the country. At stake is the possibility that the US will continue to support the humanitarian efforts even without direct military support.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations are not being carried out in a vacuum. The Daily Star is a highly regarded newspaper in the Middle East and its editorial today strongly urged the Palestinians to withdraw from the negotiations. If such sentiment is widespread in the Arab world, it will be difficult for the Palestinians to make any concessions in the negotiations.
The negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians seem close to breaking down completely. There are some ways the breakdown can be avoided, and one cannot dismiss the idea of a 11th hour revival–one negotiating tactic is to bring the discussions to a breaking point with a last minute “concession.” But these negotiations seem to be more opaque than most. It is impossible to figure out the difference between posturing and genuine positions. In some sense, the negotiations have also been distorted by the mediating role of the US. It seems apparent that both the Israelis and the Palestinians have lost faith in the US.
As the Indian election approaches, most polls are indicating that Narendra Modi, the BJP candidate, is likely to win. It is difficult to determine what Modi’s foreign policy might be, but Ankit Panda has written an essay on how Hindu nationalism might guide Modi’s approach to world affairs. The policy will certainly be different from traditional Indian foreign policy.
Apparently, the US has established a Twitter account to spread stories in Cuba that would undermine the regime. The US and Cuba have been enemies since 1961, and, in that year, the US placed an embargo around Cuba to place economic pressure to topple the Castro regime. Since then, the US has tried to assassinate Castro, invaded Cuba, and isolated Cuba from global interactions. All the policies of the US have failed to change the regime, and this latest attempt to induce political change in Cuba is simply an index of the futility of the policy. Normalized relations between the two states are long overdue.
Do not ever underestimate the importance of territory to the nation-state, and the signal importance of maps to buttress territorial claims. German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a gift to Chinese President Xi Jinping of a map of China that omitted some sensitive territories–the Chinese response was to publish copies of a completely different map.
Merkel’s Map
The map that the Chinese people saw:
Russia and Iran are working to complete a $20 billion oil-for-goods agreement in which Iran would sell oil to Russia. The agreement would sound a death knell to the current sanctions regime against Iran and suggests that Russia is breaking ranks with the West on the Iranian nuclear program. One can only hope that Iran will continue to negotiate in good faith or it is likely that Israel will conclude that the current negotiations have no chance of success. If it comes to that conclusion, then Israel would probably take unilateral action to disarm Iran.
We are precariously close to a complete breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Israel has not released the final batch of Palestinian prisoners it currently holds that was promised as a condition for continuing the talks. In retaliation, Palestinian President Abbas has threatened to pursue membership in 15 UN agencies which would solidify Palestinian claims to statehood (importantly, the International Criminal Court is not one of those agencies). US Secretary of State Kerry is desperately trying to salvage the negotiations, but the current atmosphere is grim.
The Council on Foreign Relations has published an excellent review of the international issues surrounding the Arctic–an emerging region in world affairs due to climate change and the melting of the ice at the North Pole. Unfortunately, the issues are surfacing sooner than expected as relations between the US and Russia. Both are interested in the Arctic and have somewhat competing claims. Additionally, ExxonMobil is exploring for oil and gas in the Arctic and he US does not wish to impose sanctions that might jeopardize those activities.
The Guardian has an interesting essay on the changing nature of protests in the world today. Specifically, it asks the question why European young people have seemingly stopped protesting. It is a curious phenomenon since the economic situation in Europe remains grim and static. But the question is worth pondering in the context of the rather large spike in protests all across the globe and the somewhat quiet period we seem to be entering.
From the Financial Times:
Europe’s banks hold more sovereign debt than at any time since the eurozone crisis, fuelling worries about the potentially destabilising interdependency between the region’s financial institutions and national governments.
Eurozone banks have added to their holdings of government debt, as a percentage of assets, nearly every month since the beginning of 2012, according to data from the European Central Bank.
Government debt accounted for 5.8 per cent of their combined assets in February, up from 4.3 per cent in January 2012, despite warnings by European regulators to tackle a swelling “sovereign-bank” nexus.
Although the data records all government bonds, analysts say most of the increases are in holdings of banks’ domestic government debt, raising the spectre that increasing numbers of lenders are simply “too big to fail”, according to Eva Olsson, director of credit strategy at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.
“‘Too big to fail’ hasn’t gone away, and it is increasing to some extent,” she said.
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