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Last January, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan met in Washington, D.C. for urgent discussions about a water project, the Renaissance Dam. While the dam would clearly benefit Ethiopia, it would also add to the growing water stresses that affect millions of Egyptians. The risks of a major violent confrontation over this issue seemed imminent until the negotiators reached an eleventh-hour agreement. While tensions have temporarily abated, the situation is unstable, as current trends point to continuous and increasingly acute water crises in the region. These crises will inevitably result in deeper tensions and more frequent confrontations.
Earthquakes destroy much, but they also reveal valuable information about the deepest layers of the earth. Similarly, pandemics cause immense pain and suffering but also teach us a great deal. And not just about biology, epidemiology and medicine. They also reveal who we are, as individuals and as a society. For example, are we, as people, more altruistic or selfish? Is it better to have a country that is open to the world or one that has closed borders? Do we trust our politicians or the experts? And what should guide our behavior: emotions or data?
Recently, US televangelist Jim Bakker interviewed Sherrill Sellman, a “naturopathic doctor,” who explained the extraordinary properties of the “Silver Solution,” a product that Bakker sells on his show’s website.
This is the equation that captures a big chunk of the forces driving the decline of liberal democracy: populism plus polarization plus post-truth lead to continuism. And what is continuism? It’s one of those words from Spanish that English lacks – but increasingly needs. Continuismo is what happens when leaders manipulate institutions, the law and even the constitution in order to grab and retain power.
In countries where snow abounds, words abound to describe it. And the same goes for corruption. Where there’s a lot of corruption, it goes by many names.
In the Sami language, spoken in Norway, Sweden and Finland, there are more than 300 words for snow. In Latin America, and in countries such as Italy, Greece, Nigeria and India, there are hundreds of words for corruption. Coima, mordida, moches, ñeme-ñeme, guiso, mermelada and cohecho are some of the words for corruption used in Spanish-speaking countries. But just as interesting as the concepts we have too many words for, are those we have none for.
In the last three years, tragic scenes of poverty and mayhem have dominated the coverage of Venezuela, a nation that used to be one of the wealthiest and most democratic countries in South America. Venezuela has become both a byword for failure and, curiously, something of an ideological hot potato, a rhetorical device dropped into political conversations around the world.
Being a superpower is not what it used to be. These days, you can do it on a shoestring.
A superpower is a country able to project its military power over great distances and, if necessary, fight more than one war at a time – and in different continents. That costs a lot of money: military bases, ships, aircraft, tanks, missiles, communications and transportation infrastructure, none of this comes cheap. Also necessary is an expeditionary force of thousands of troops prepared to go to war anywhere on the planet. And, of course, nuclear weapons.
Each year, about half-a-million people are murdered worldwide. Naturally, these deaths have devastating effects on the victims’ families and loved ones. But there are also killings that reach far beyond friends and family and change the world. These transcendental murders can turn out to be very expensive. The iconic case is the 1914 assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. His death set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I and the deaths of 40 million people.
The numbers are in. Humanity needs to cut global greenhouse emissions by 7.6 percent every year for the next decade to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target agreed upon in the 2015 Paris accord. This is just one of the alarms sounded by the 2019 Environment Emissions Gap Report recently released by the United Nations. Each year the report assesses the difference between “where we are likely to be and where we need to be” with regards to greenhouse emissions. The report also notes that, in the past decade, global emissions of greenhouse gases have increased 1.5 percent each year on average and confirms that the world has warmed more than 1 degree Celsius from what it was in pre-industrial times.
In some countries, opposing political groups figure out how to reach agreements, govern, and share power. In others, long-standing hatreds make it impossible for them to move forward. Opponents are not seen as political rivals but as illegitimate enemies with toxic agendas and unforgivable past behaviors. The mere possibility of any deal with people or groups that promote unacceptable platforms – or worse, that have been accused of crimes and abuses – becomes morally and psychologically intolerable.
Some TV enriches our lives, some TV debases us. Some television opens minds, makes us think, takes us to places we would never get to visit and brings us face to face with life’s great dilemmas. There is also television that deliberately degrades, deceives, and confuses. And of course, there is TV that simply aims to distract us. Frequently, television that seeks to educate us is unbearably boring, while the shows that try to manipulate us end up polarizing and deceiving us. In contrast, TV that only aims to entertain is politically irrelevant. Or so we thought.
Americans will not follow politicians who fit the caricature that Donald Trump and Fox News use to depict opponents of the incumbent president.
America-hating, illegal-immigrant-loving, soft-on-crime radical socialists will not do well with voters. Fortunately, these radical socialists are scarce and not very influential. Unfortunately, they are omnipresent in Trump’s speeches and tweets.
In 2011, Libya cracked into a thousand pieces. With United Nations authorization, a broad coalition attacked Libya, a mob murdered Muammar Gaddafi, his bloodthirsty regime collapsed, and the country fragmented. Eventually, two governments were formed, one based in Tripoli and another in Tobruk. Each has its own leader, armed forces, government bureaucracy and even a Central Bank that prints its own money.
In a world aflame with protest, Latin America stands out as a raging ten-alarm fire. From Bolivia to Ecuador, Haiti to Honduras, the closing months of 2019 have seen enormous, sometimes violent demonstrations prompted by a truly dizzying array of grievances, including electoral fraud, corruption, and rising fuel and public transportation prices.
International security experts often draw up lists of the most dangerous places on earth. These are not places that are just dangerous to their population, but rather places that irradiate conflict and instability to neighboring nations or even to other continents.
In recent years, the attention of energy companies, governments, investors and the media has focused on the enormous upheaval caused by new technologies which have made the exploitation of shale gas and shale oil technically and economically feasible, and these innovations have upended energy markets and traditional geopolitical structures. In particular, the United States has become not only self-sufficient in energy terms but also one of the main hydrocarbon exporters. It is not exaggeration to call the changes in the oil and gas industry revolutionary. However, this change has diverted attention from another revolution changing the world, the electrical revolution.
What do Spain, Italy, Israel, and the United Kingdom have in common? They can’t seem to form stable governments able to rule. And it’s not just these four countries where, after all, the division of powers and limits on executive power still hold. As we know, plenty of other countries are much more dysfunctional.
What do North Korea and Cuba have in common? The obvious answer is that both are dictatorships. Less obvious is that both recently held elections. On March 12, the North Koreans reported that 99.99% of their citizens had gone to the polls and that 100% of the votes were for the 687 candidates put forward by the regime. There were no others. Weeks earlier, Cubans voted in a referendum in which they were asked if they approved of a new constitution. Ninety-one percent of them said yes.
Thucydides is booming. In recent years, the ideas of this Athenian general and historian who lived around 450 BC have attracted renewed attention. He wrote on a variety of subjects, but the current interest in his work was sparked by his chronicle of the 30-year war between Sparta and Athens. Specifically, what has attracted the attention of contemporary politicians, generals and historians is his conclusion that “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.” The prediction that worries modern-day analysts is that the ascent of a rival capable of challenging the dominance of the established power inevitably leads to war. Of course, what they have in mind is China’s ascent and America’s reactions to it. Will the current frictions between the two giant nations continue to escalate and lead to a confrontation that will change the planet or will they find a way to coexist in a tense and fractious but ultimately peaceful sharing of global power?