The Caravel | Volume VI, Issue III

V O LU M E 6 | I S S U E 3

WA S H I N G TO N , D. C .

S AT U R D AY APRIL 21 , 2018

Ruling Party Candidate Wins Costa Rica’s Runoff Vote Anastasia Chacón

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Costa Ricans flocked to the polls on April 1 and overwhelmingly elected incumbent party candidate Carlos Alvarado as president over outside evangelical candidate Fabricio Alvarado.

The elections followed a divisive firstround vote in February that became a de facto referendum on same-sex marriage.

With an unexpectedly high turnout of 66 percent, likely because Election Day landed on an official national holiday, 61 percent of voters cast their ballot for Carlos Alvarado as the country’s next president, reported Reuters.

Alvarado came second in Costa Rica’s first-round election in early February, receiving only 21.6 percent of the vote and trailing Fabricio Alvarado, who won 24.9 percent of the vote. A runoff election was expected as it was

President-Elect of Costa Rica Carlos Alvarado in San José in January 2018.

unlikely that any of the 13 contenders would get the requisite 40 percent of the vote to win in the first round.

The electoral panorama changed dramatically in January when the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a binding advisory opinion that by international law obliges its signatories, including Costa Rica, to legalize same-sex marriage. The Court’s ruling came in response to a request by the current Costa Rican government.

As a result, Fabricio Alvarado—who, according to La Prensa Libre, based his platform on protecting the traditional family and anti-gay marriage discourse—rose from 3 percent support in early January to a first-round victory two weeks later. Carlos Alvarado, who positioned himself as the alternative choice, favored the Court’s decision.

See “Candidate Wins Runoff ” on p. 8

Mongolians Call for Stricter Child Abuse Laws Hungary’s Viktor Orbán Wins Third Term as Prime Minister One of the demonstrators, and D. Otgondalai, came to show Christina Lopez

uters. Fidesz leadership then signaled that they will promote “legislation to crack down on organizations promoting migrant rights” following the reconvening of the national parliament.

Although Orbán has often been described as Europe’s black sheep, the constitutional supermajority produced in national elections raises questions about this label. Douglas Wake, the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, reported the election as wholly fair, stating that “voters had a wide range of political options,” though media bias and “opaque campaign funding” constricted the space for genuine debate.

In Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, thousands of peaceful demonstrators gathered outside Parliament on March 31 to urge lawmakers to take greater action against child abuse, reports Reuters.

Earlier in March, news outlets including the UB Post reported on the sexual assault of a minor in the southeastern Dornogovi province.

The “shocking and disturbing” case drew widespread attention and led a group of seven mothers to organize the demonstration. These mothers created a Facebook group to publicly announce the event, and over 400,000 people joined.

Chuluunbaatar Odgerel, said, “Everyone was posting and writing on social media, saying that they are against abuse and sexual harassment.

But we didn’t want to just write or post. Even though we had no experience organizing a protest… we decided to do it because our intentions were clear and true,” reports WIO News.

Holding up signs emblazoned with slogans such as “Our Children, Our Future” and “Every Little Beating Heart Must Be Happy,” activists united under the theme “No More Tolerance,” Montsame reported.

Several celebrities, including Olympic medalists D. Sumiya

their support. Also present were members of the national Open Your Eyes movement, which staged multiple protests in late 2017 to raise awareness about violence against women and children, according to the UB Post.

The “No More Tolerance” marchers addressed their message to Parliament, the cabinet, and the president. Organizers reported that over 15,000 people had signed a written petition listing the group’s demands, which was then delivered to the government on April 2, Reuters reported.

THE ANCHOR, 2-3

W. EUROPE & CANADA, 6-7

MIDDLE EAST & C.ASIA, 12-13

N. & SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, 14-15

GIWPS Scrutinizes UN Sexual Violence Sanctions, p. 2

Greek Military Jet Crashes into Aegean Sea, p. 6

LATAM & THE CARIBBEAN, 8-9 Former Brazilian President Turns Himself in, p. 9

Al-Assad Accused of Launching Chemical Weapons Attack, p. 12

Sudan to Free All Political Prisoners, p. 14

E. EUROPE & RUSSIA, 4-5 Unrest in Albania Amid EU Talks, p. 5

Merkel’s Fourth Term: Enemies to the Right, Enemies to the Left, p. 7

INDO-ASIA-PACIFIC, 10-11 Duterte Threatens to Arrest ICC Prosecutor, p. 11

Qatari Emir Meets With Putin in Moscow, p. 13

C.A.R. Protesters Place Bodies at UN Headquarters, p. 15

See “Mongolians Call” on p. 6

Cooper Vardy

Hungary saw a third landslide re-election for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on April 8. Noted by Bloomberg to have “pushed the boundaries of the acceptable” in European politics, Orbán presented himself as “the defender of Hungary” throughout the election. He ran on a platform criticized by many as racist and authoritarian, specifically on the rights of immigrants, according to BBC. He echoed upon these statements during his inauguration. “The Hungarian people have defined the most important issues: these are the questions of immigration and national sovereignty,” said the Fidesz Party, as reported by Re-

See “Orban Wins” on p. 4

2 | A P R . 21, 2018

THE ANCHOR

GIWPS Scrutinizes UN Sexual Violence Sanctions Christopher Stein, Opinion

The Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security (GIWPS) released new research in April documenting the use of UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions against perpetrators of sexual violence and calling on the UN to improve the sanctions’ targeting and implementation. The Caravel sat down with GIWPS Executive Director and former-Ambassadorat-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer and report author and GIWPS Hillary Rodham Clinton Law Fellow Sophie Huvé to discuss the report, titled “The Use of UN Sanctions to Address Conflict-Related Sexual Violence.”

Verveer called Huvé’s research “the first systematic review of the Security Council’s performance” in terms of sexual violence-related sanctions.

The UNSC is granted authority by the UN Charter to “employ Chapter 7 measures, which are... coercive measures” to resolve issues of international security, according to Huvé. Sanctions fall under the umbrella of Chapter 7 measures—as

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does the use of force—but there has been dispute in the past over whether human rights and women’s rights issues could be considered to fall under the purview of the UNSC as security matters. There were plenty of others that disagreed. Huvé said, “For a lot of states, sexual violence is...a soft topic. It belongs to the human rights agenda, and it belongs to the UN General Assembly. It’s not something that belongs with the Security Council.” “Security Council Resolution 1820 threatened the use of sanctions. [Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] said that sexual violence, when used as a weapon of war, is a threat to international peace and security,” Huvé added, providing background on the UN’s adapting stance on the issue of sexual violence.

This new way of thinking was a major coup for France, the U.K., and the U.S., three of the P5 permanent UNSC members that supported a new and more interventionist theory of international law. Huvé explained that “if you’re Russia or China, you have a very different view on what the Security Council can and should do to deal with human rights violations...

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it’s an issue of sovereignty.” Huvé and Verveer both critique this way of thinking, pointing to cases of weaponized sexual violence in the the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that showed the severe, destabilizing consequences of allowing impunity where these atrocities are concerned.

They both also agreed that it was too difficult to pass new sanctions regimes on a human rights basis. “A lot of research has shown that the cases where the Security Council is most effective are the places where the P-5 do not have strong interests. If you have [a case where] some of the P5 have strong, competing interests… then you’re screwed,” Huvé said.

Verveer pointed to the case of Sudan and South Sudan, saying that China and Russia’s economic interests in Sudan (largely in the form of arms deals) have prevented effective UNSC sanctions despite a compelling security and human rights basis. The sanctions on South Sudan, by contrast, have been much more rigorously implemented because neither China nor Russia has significant economic interests in the country.

The UNSC is not the only international body concerned with human rights. Verveer also pointed to regional bodies like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and African Union and judicial bodies like the International Criminal Court as potential partners in the fight to end conflict-related sexual violence. “[The world] has multiple actors, and countries can be very effective [at sanctions],” Verveer added, noting U.S. and EU unilateral sanctions against human rights violators.

Huvé and Verveer also said that the real strength of UNSC sanctions is that they are not purely economic.

The imposition of sanctions is also intended to stigmatize the actions of perpetrators of sexual violence. Huvé warned that these soft power effects are not to be underestimated, saying, “A lot of people...were actually put on the sanctions list and then discovered their trade deal with a foreign country was off, their invitation to that party was off, their support from X, Y, or Z groups was also taken off the table, their ability to engage with other government leaders was suddenly

not here anymore.” Even when the implementation of the tangible parts of the sanctions is weak, the stigmatizing effect can restrict the ability of targeted individuals to continue their campaigns of sexual violence. This also gets to the crux of why sanctions are used: Huvé repeatedly cautioned against viewing sanctions as a form of punishment, saying instead that the goal of sanctions is “to put as much incentive on the individual as they can to trigger a change of behavior.”

The GIWPS report shows that “despite very similar conflict contexts, some of [the countries] did have human rights criteria included in the sanctions regimes, and some did not.”

The research suggests, therefore, that the inconsistency of application and implementation of UNSC sanctions is what prevents them from being a more effective tool to end sexual violence in conflict zones. Huvé and Verveer hope that the report can educate UN diplomats on the issue of sexual violence and the often complex mechanism of UN sanctions so that they can fight to end these heinous violations of the human rights of vulnerable women across the globe.

President Sirleaf Talks Democracy in Africa Theo Symonds

On March 20, the Walsh School of Foreign Service’s Global Human Development Program hosted former -President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, for a keynote speech on the future of democracy in Africa, with former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as one among many distinguished attendants of the discussion.

Drawing from her political experience in Liberia, Sirleaf discussed the many challenges faced by democratization on the continent.

The 2008 global financial crisis struck primary commodity prices in Africa, which “devastated the value of Libria’s primary exports, iron ore and rubber”. Then, the ebola crisis took a catastrophic toll on Liberian communities. Despite bouncing

back from the impacts of economic downturns and the ebola epidemic, “Liberia is still a fragile state.”

Furthermore, corruption remains an omnipresent ill in the continent, that is sure to impede democracy if not managed properly.

But Sirleaf remarked that Africa’s embrace of democracy is tied to its economic successes with development. Therefore, it is important for Western powers to give conflict-ridden fragile states the attention and support that they need.

Liberia’s poverty reduction strategy, with backing from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, provided “the impetus for negotiating debt relief,” and with direct foreign investment, “the [Liberian] economy responded by climbing to a peak of 907 percent growth” by 2008, making it one of sub-Sahara’s fastest growing

economy. However, Sirleaf shared her uncertainty about the United States’ commitment to pursuing democracy on the continent.

The speech emphasized that, while it is important to understand the challenges to democratization in Africa, it is also essential to herald the progress that has been made through development. The passion of young people in Africa, “demanding their rights… and to be heard,” gives President Sirleaf hope about the future of democracy in Africa. She concluded by saying that “democracy is never given on a silver platter… it has to be earned, defended... every day, every way, every time, everywhere... in Africa, in Europe, in the United States. There is no alternative to having the freedom we want, unless we are prepared to work and sacrifice for it.”

A P R . 21, 2018 | 3

Facebook’s Growing Dilemma Caleb Yip, Opinion Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified to Congress on April 11 and 12. The Congressional testimonies come in light of the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, where Facebook admitted that up to 87 million people had their personal data improperly used by a political campaign firm.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal, however, is only one in a long line of worrying events from Facebook, and it has become clear after Zuckerberg’s testimony that both Congress and Facebook need to take immediate steps to protect data privacy. What has also become clear, however, is that there is no solution to this pressing problem that does not require Facebook to change dramatically.

In over 10 hours of testimonies, Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook made mistakes in the Cambridge Analytica case, where the personal data of millions of Facebook users were used by a political campaign firm without their owner’s consent. He also acknowledged the role Facebook played in the 2016 Presidential election, telling lawmakers that Facebook is currently working with Special

Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe and revealing that some in the company had been interviewed by Mueller in his investigation into Russian interference.

Although Zuckerberg admitted that the company had not made the right decisions in some cases, the company has been slow to acknowledge its shortcomings. After the 2016 Presidential elections, Zuckerberg famously called allegations that Facebook helped elect President Trump through the spread of fake news “a pretty crazy idea”, according to Recode.

He further claimed that the problem was small and not party-specific. It was not until reports emerged this February of Russian-backed Internet troll factories that Facebook began to see it as a real problem, according to BBC. The New York Times stated that while Zuckerberg agreed that some kind of regulations were inevitable, he declined to support any specific legislative proposal when asked by representatives. One option that Zuckerberg proposed last week was to implement world-wide the privacy controls required by a new European data protection act. The act would change the way Facebook sets their default settings to make privacy the

default rather than public sharing. It would also require that companies ask users for permission when using their data for a new purpose. This would likely change the way Facebook’s ads are targeted, which could potentially be a problem for the company, since a large portion of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertisements.

In one interview, Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, said that users would have to pay for total privacy on Facebook. While there is no sign that the company is exploring this option, it illustrates how more stringent data privacy laws could hurt Facebook’s profits significantly.

Even after Facebook promised to better regulate the content on its pages, lawmakers worry about the role Facebook plays as a censor. Germany, for example, has passed new laws that require social media sites like Facebook to remove hate speech or illegal material within 24 hours, according to BBC. Critics, however, have said that it could lead to companies curtailing freedom of speech, while others have questioned the wisdom of giving private companies the power to decide what constitutes illegal material. In the United States, lawmakers questioned whether Facebook has a bias against

EDITOR’S NOTE: conservative material during the testimonies, citing Diamond and Silk from The Washington Post, who are two internet personalities who have accused Facebook of censoring them. Caught between a promise to do more to regulate illegal content and the danger of becoming Internet censors, it’s clear that Facebook--and other social media sites--cannot police speech on their own. Some governmental oversight is needed.

In order for that to occur, however, Facebook would have to dramatically change the way it operates. Even if it were to commit to greater data protection without Congressional oversight, it would have to become more transparent with what it does with user data, ask users to opt in to data sharing instead of defaulting to sharing data, and more aggressively regulate what third-party apps are able to do with user’s data. These options could dramatically change the company’s business model, and there is no guarantee that Zuckerberg will follow through with the promises he has made thus far. While Facebook has taken steps in recent months and has vowed to continue reforming, it remains to be seen if these steps will be enough, or if they are too little, too late.

CBO Exposes Economic Mismanagement The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released new estimates on April 9 that project that the U.S. federal deficit will pass $1 trillion in 2020, increasing public debt to almost 100 percent of GDP by 2028.

This alarming trend is attributable to stagnant tax revenues and growing spending. The CBO report shows a marginal increase in tax revenues from fiscal year 2017 to 2018 despite relatively strong projected economic growth; this is the effect of changes to the tax code enacted by the Republican-led Congress in 2017. The federal deficit has averaged just 2.9 percent of GDP since 1968 (the federal government actually ran surpluses in 1969 and from 1998 to 2001) but is expected to average 4.9 percent in the decade to 2028.

Gross federal debt of $20 trillion in 2017 is estimated to become $33 trillion by 2028, seriously imperiling the federal government, the American people, and the American experiment.

Though the global financial crisis of 2008 can be blamed for some of the massive growth of U.S. debt since the early 2000s, economic

mismanagement by both Democratic and Republican politicians is also a major contributing factor. President Barack Obama indeed inherited an economy in freefall when he was elected in 2008; the circumstances necessitated a large and immediate infusion of government cash, which resulted in deficits that exceeded $1 trillion from 2009 to 2012, according to Forbes. From there, sound management reigned in the deficit largely effectively. Then, Donald Trump was elected president.

He has overseen an economically

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Christopher Stein, Opinion

incompetent administration that has simultaneously fought for huge spending increases and big, unsustainable tax cuts. The GOP—a supposed champion of fiscal responsibility and restraint in government—has shamefully capitulated to the politically expedient path of endorsing a clearly incoherent and dangerous economic agenda.

The policies proposed and (thanks to Republican support) enacted by the president increase spending on defense while insufficiently cutting non-defense spending and, therefore,

The United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

failing to achieve balance.

Today’s politicians are too cowardly to make the difficult decisions that risk alienating old owners but are vital to ensuring the country’s future. The largest portion of federal spending increase over the next decade, the CBO report says, is entitlement spending for an aging society, specifically on Medicare and Social Security. Elderly, who not coincidentally are the most reliable voters, care about short-term economic consequences and not the long-lasting effects of the political choices they encourage. For the same reasons that we will see no meaningful action on climate change in the near future, therefore, we will also see no politicians make the responsible choice to ease spending and end tax cuts and loopholes.

The old will not foot the bill for America’s disastrous fiscal policy. They will be long dead by the time Social Security goes bankrupt. Today’s youth must organize and vote to ensure that irresponsible spending and revenuecollection patters do not continue, for if they do, they threaten the solvency of the U.S. government and the privileged status of its debt as the world’s safest investment.

Ga Ram Lee

I

n the Anchor’s last editorial column, the word uncertainty was defined as a natural phenomenon in the constantly changing arena of global affairs.

Countries have the responsibility to gradually resolve and flexibly accommodate uncertainty to ensure that it does not cause tension. But what if the uncertainty about how some powerful countries will react leads to a loss of life in one country?

Who then has the responsibility to step in first, even if it may not be an issue that pertains to one’s own country?

The issue that continues to make the headlines is the alleged chemical attack in Syria. Against this clear crime against humanity, countries such as Germany, France, Russia, and the United States have taken a stance that could ultimately decide the fate of the civilians suffering in Syria. According to DW, Germany revealed a willingness to help but vehemently argued against military intervention. Russia blocked a full Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) investigation into the alleged attack, which raised the possibility of collusion between the Russian and Syrian government to hide the truth.

France stated that it has evidence that Syrian President Bashar alAssad carried out the chemical weapons attack and emphasized that the French government will not tolerate Syria’s totalitarian regime.

From the United States, no clear response has yet been given, and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders only announced that the Trump administration is still continuing to assess intelligence and discuss options, including a military response, with allies. Due to the disagreements among prominent members in the United Nations Security Council, the response from the UN has been muddled. Meddling with the affairs of a foreign country is a serious decision, and the involved countries should not make rash, irrational choices. At the same time, however, the very uncertainty of what direction the countries with more influence and power on the world stage will take is what could change the lives of affected civilians in Syria.

The question we are left with is: with what motivation and agenda should the countries that hold the key to solving the crisis in Syria come to the discussion table?

Should they work to further their own interests or work to save the lives of those in a foreign country?

4 | A P R . 21, 2018

EASTERN EUROPE & RUSSIA Eric Schichlein Just a decade ago, the Eurozone and the entire European Union appeared at risk of collapse as the continent suffered through the economic disaster of the Great Recession. Writing in the Harvard Business Review in 2013, Bill Lee, a consumer advocate, painted an apocalyptic picture of the Eurozone unemployment crisis and the harmful austerity strategies EU officials viewed as sacrosanct. He concluded that the EU needed to begin “winding down the whole EU project as quickly as possible.”

Writing now, five years later, it is clear that Lee’s dire vision thankfully never came true. According to Business Times, as of April 5, the Eurozone’s unemployment rate stands at 8.1 percent, the lowest level since December 2008, and the inflation rate is edging closer to the target set by European Central Bank.

Admittedly, the Eurozone still faces problems, but the time has come for it to look to the future and encourage EU member states who are not yet a part of the Eurozone to join. Since the 2008 financial crisis, Latvia (2014) and Lithuania (2015) have adopted the euro, but Poland, Hungary, and Czechia have avoided setting target dates for adoption of the euro, according to Bruegel, a Belgian think tank.

In contrast, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Romania plan to apply to adopt the euro by the mid-2020s.

Joining the Eurozone entails more than just economic benefits. The split between Eurozone members and nonEurozone members divides EU decision making, complicates the bureaucracy, and risks creating an EU of haves and have nots. President of the European Commission JeanClaude Juncker proposed financial aid to encourage the adoption of the euro, a cautious yet necessary step in the right direction. The European Commission must go further and engage the people of Poland, Hungary, and Czechia to take up the rallying cry for adopting the euro.

Estonia’s Largest Military Drill Held in May Sienna Siu Estonia’s military drill Siil 2018 (“Hedgehog” in English) is scheduled to take place from May 2 to 14.

According to the Baltic Times, this will be the largest military exercise since the nation’s independence in 1991.

Over 13000 Estonian Defense Forces (EDF) members, Estonian Defense League (EDL) volunteers, reservists, and soldiers from 13 countries will take part in the exercise, according to Estonian Public Broadcasting. The Baltic Times reports that participating allies include the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Latvia, and Georgia. The exercise will take place across the country, but mainly in the southern and southeastern parts, military spokespeople told Estonian Public Broadcasting. They also mentioned that the EDL will play a central role in carrying out tasks.

The EDF wrote in an official letter that the overall aim of this exercise is to “test the mobilization mechanisms of Estonian Defense Forces and to conduct maneuvers all over the country.” There will be an evaluation of the combat-readiness of the defense

forces units, as well as rehearsals for combat task performances and cooperation between the EDL and EDF. EDF Commander General Riho

“This will be the largest military exercise since the nation’s independence.”

Terras said that a large portion of reservists and volunteers’ rehearsals will be related to territorial defense.

“Territorial defense is the security blanket whose toughness and resilience our defense capability depends upon,” he explained.

Part of the Siil exercise will be held on Latvian territory, and Gen. Terras has been discussing cooperation plans with his Latvian counterpart Lt. Gen. Leonids Kalnins, according to Postimees.

“Our Latvian colleagues participated in Estonia’s Spring Storm exercise for the first time nearly 11 years ago, and holding this year’s Siil large-scale exercise in both countries is a logical next step in such cooperation,”

said the military spokespeople, quoting Terras. “In order to protect Estonia and Latvia, it is important that good defense cooperation with our neighbor will also be practiced in the course of exercises.”

According to The Baltic Times, the last Siil exercise was held in May 2015, and more than half of the personnel were reservists. Similar to this year, the 2015 exercise aimed to inspect the performance of various units and branches within the military, increase their permanent and rapid response readiness, and carry out combat rehearsal.

Following the 2015 exercise, an article in the NATO Review Magazine suggested that NATO increase the number of major exercises that fully encompass the land, sea, and air power of its allies in the Baltic Sea region in response to Russia’s snap military exercises and hybrid warfare near Baltic borders. The exercise this year will bring about a similar effect of boosting deterrence and defense.

According to Sputnik International, NATO Secretary General promised earlier this year to increase military presence in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe in response to the perceived threat from Russia.

Wikimedia Commons

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Estonian and US Soldiers participating in the 2015 Siil Exercise.

Hungary’s Victor Orbán Wins Third Term as Prime Minister, Cont’d from p. 1 Cooper Vardy

On the national voting list, Fidesz took nearly 50 percent of the vote, a two-thirds majority in Parliament, and “firm control over courts and other state institutions,” the New York Times reports.

A variety of politicians applauded Orbán on his victory, including far-right leaders such as French nationalist Marine Le Pen and Dutch populist Geert Wilders. However, congratulatory calls from more conventional legislators, namely Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and German Health Minister Jen Spahn of the center right Christian Democratic Union, demonstrate that Orbán is once again in the mainstream of European politics, as reported by Haaretz. Spahn, predicted by many to be German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s likely successor, praised the

Hungarian prime minister’s stance on immigration. “There’s much criticism of Viktor Orbán, but he imposes European law on the border and secures Europe’s border,” Spahn said in a recent interview, according to Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, although Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has called Orbán’s policies “shameful,” the tightening of immigration policy has pushed the Netherlands further towards the same camp. The results are undeniable, with popular support for messages “equating migrants with terrorists” coupled with the continued popularity of politicians like Viktor Orbán and Austria’s Sebastian Kurz. Such trends are demonstrative of a clear resurgence of European nationalism and raise questions over the future of Europe.

“Economic crises, persistent inequality, demographic change, anxieties associated with terrorism… and perceived corruption in the EU governance system have generated some level of anxiety amongst native born populations,” says Harvard professor Bart Bonikowski in the Harvard Gazette. These people, feeling disenfranchised and perceiving a “loss of status at a group level” support the conservative right within the European Union.

Beyond this, many European nations, such as Austria, Poland, Hungary, and Italy have become frustrated with what Bloomberg Politics describes as the “FrancoGerman vision for the European project.” Mark Rutte, the centrist Dutch prime minister, warned of “ever closer union” as a threat to the future of sovereignty in Europe, cautioning that “the people of Europe are screaming to us through the ballot

boxes.”

According to BBC, Hungary’s October 2016 referendum on whether the citizens would accept the imposition of migrants by the European Union, which was met with a resounding “No” suggests that countries on the peripheries of the Union believe they have lost their sovereignty to the parliament in Brussels.

The populist wave shows no signs of stalling, and to many in Europe, Orbán is a voice of the people. The New York Times reports that Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s governing party, celebrated the appointment in a recent statement. “You can’t think about Europe’s future without Viktor Orbán… our current friendship is a shared road towards our nations being independent [from Brussels], capable of deciding our future, our own internal affairs,” he declared.

Victotoria Thomaides

Zoran Zaev and his center-left Social Democratic Union survived this week’s vote of no confidence by a margin of 22 votes, reported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Zaev’s government has faced vehement opposition, mainly from Macedonia’s nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party.

Animosity between the two parties predates the 2016 election, when a wiretapping scandal revealed the alleged illegal surveillance of Macedonian citizens by the VMRODPMNE, the ruling party at the time.

The same allegations against the VMRO-DPMNE— including illegal surveillance, judicial manipulation and interference, and unconstitutional censorship— that caused this schism three years ago are now being leveled against Zaev’s government, according to Balkan Insight. Furthermore, ethnic tensions between the minority ethnicAlbanian community and the majority Macedonian community played a role in the controversial election of Zaev and the Social Democrats.

Tensions between ethnicAlbanians and ethnic-Macedonians

erupted shortly before Zaev came to power in May 2017 with the storming of Parliament by Macedonian nationalists in April.

Before the elections of 2016, protests of nearly 10,000 people regularly rocked the stability of the nation of approximately 2.1 million people. The New York Times reports that, in 2016, controversy again threatened the stability of Macedonian democracy

“The VMRO-DPMNE party fears the growing influence of ethnicAlbanians.” when a virtual tie between the Social Democrats and the rightist VMRODPMNE pushed the Social Democrats into a coalition with an Albanian minority group, the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), in order to hang onto a majority.

The Social Democrats, in tandem with the DUI, overruled the VMRODPMNE’s slight majority in order to take control of the government. In the wake of former president Gjorge

Ivanov’s refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of Zaev’s power, the appointment of an ethnically Albanian politician, Talat Xhaferi, as speaker of Parliament incited massive protests and the infamous attack on the legislature in April 2017, according to the New York Times. The VMRO-DPMNE party fears the growing influence of ethnicAlbanians in the new government and especially the proposed legislation to declare Albanian an official language of the country.

Though the VMRO-DPMNE’s petition to oust Zaev from the government failed, political instability within Macedonia remains an obstacle against its potential integration into the European Union.

Due to economic stagnation in recent years, Zaev has pursued admittance into the European Union and NATO as a possible solution.

He sees peace talks with Greece as a potential pathway to that solution, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. However, his plans to further integrate with the EU have and will continue to be met with fervent opposition from rising nationalist groups in the Balkan state.

Unrest in Albania Amid EU Talks Ilari Papa

Protests erupted in Albania over the past week, with the opposition representatives protesting in the parliamentary session of April 12.

According to Top Channel, the Leader of the Democratic Party of Albania Lulezim Basha accused Prime Minister and Leader of the Socialist Party Edi Rama of insulting citizens protesting in the northern town of Kukes. The citizens of Kukes were protesting against the taxes the government implemented on using the Road of the Nation, one of the largest and most important highways in Albania.

Basha asked Rama to leave the plenary session, and representatives from the majority and the opposition engaged in fueled arguments. The situation escalated as opposition members threw flour, eggs, and water at their counterparts in the governing party. One of the ministers, Ditmir Bushati, reacted by throwing water back. Consequently, Minister Bushati and six MPs from the opposition are facing a prohibition from attending parliamentary sessions in the following ten days. Although Prime Minister Edi Rama defended Bushati’s

actions on Facebook, he continued by stating that the minister deserves his punishment.

The protests come against a backdrop of meetings and talks with the European Union. Top Channel reported that Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the

“The Western Balkans are Europe and will be part of the European Union’s future.”

European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Johannes Hahn, the European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, will visit Albania on April 17 to present and discuss the progress rapport. If the rapport shows positive findings, the government could expect to begin the negotiations for EU membership.

The European Union External Action Service quoted Mogherini, saying, “The Western Balkans are Europe and will be part of the

European Union’s future, of a stronger, stable and united Union. It is a matter of a shared interest and a shared responsibility with the countries of the region for the benefit of all our citizens.

This is the moment to deliver positive change in order to make irreversible and transformative progress towards the EU.” In addition, Tema has stated that Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, might visit Tirana on April 23. Prime Minister Rama will attend a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on April 25.

The hectic political agenda and Mogherini’s positive remarks demonstrate a potential willingness on the behalf of the EU to advance Albania’s membership procedure.

However, the protests occurring in the country show another reality: a lack of domestic political unity and collaboration when it comes to promoting the country’s common national interests. “We believe this would contribute to positive aspects in other fields, in particular in creating a more predictable and transparent environment for business and investors,” stated Mogherini.

Anti-Government Protests Continue in Slovakia Daniel Shlayen Over the past month, the largest government protests since 1989 have emerged in the streets of over 20 Slovakian cities, most notably in the capital city of Bratislava. According to Euronews, the protests broke out over public disapproval of the government and its alleged corruption following the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée, both of whom were only 27 years old.

Before he was murdered at his home in February, Kuciak had been researching alleged ties between the Italian Mafia and officials close to Slovakia’s former prime minister, Robert Fico. Police believe that Kuciak was killed in a contract murder.

Kuciak’s other investigations allegedly led him to find a misuse in government funds to further develop the economy and transactions between the government and a privately owned security company, reported Euronews.

The three parties in power have agreed to rearrange the political cabinet in order to restore public faith in the government institutions, with Chairman of the Smer-SD Peter Pelligrini assuming the prime ministership. In addition to the leftist and populist Smer-SD Party, the threeparty coalition includes the Most-Hid Hungarian minority party and the conservative Slovak National Party.

Peter Pellegrini believes the government will be able to maintain a calm situation in the country despite the outbreak of anti-corruption protests. According to the Guardian, Pellegrini is rumored to be Fico’s puppet, pulling the strings behind the scenes.

The protest in Bratislavia was the largest post-communism rally in the country, with over 40,000 Slovakians in attendance. More recent protests have called for the sacking of police chief Tibor Gaspar and for a law change disallowing the interior minister to

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Macedonian Vote of No Confidence Fails to Oust Prime Minsiter Zaev

A P R . 21, 2018 | 5

Former Slovakian Prime Minister, right, seen with President of the EU Commision Jean-Claude Juncker in a 2016 press conference.

Euronews reports that while two minor Slovak officials who were named in Kuciak’s report have resigned since the incident, nobody has been charged for the murders.

The two officials have denied any involvement in the murder. Although Robert Fico led the country for ten of the last 12 years through a period of economic prosperity, protests called for his resignation. Subsequently, Fico and the then Slovakian Interior Minister Robert Kalinak resigned.

However, speculations suggest that he will continue to lead the country from the sidelines as the de facto leader, according to BBC.

appoint his successor. The rallies have organized under the slogan: “For a decent Slovakia,” reflecting that the Slovakian people are fed up with the corruption and lack of transparency in the government. Activist Filip Vagac stated: “A resignation no longer suffices. It has to be them leaving public life. Go away. Enough.”

According to the Guardian, Vagac later asserted that this demonstration may have a similar effect to the 1989 Velvet revolution, which brought the end to communism in Slovakia: “I believe that this situation will also start a process that will change Slovakia.” said Vagac.

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WESTERN EUROPE & CANADA Joshua Chang

A

s an advocate of a unified continental order under the European Union, French President Emmanuel Macron has continually supported initiatives aimed at enhancing the region’s integration in matters of economics, politics, and—more recently—security.

Although many EU members are also members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the preeminent military alliance of the region, Macron has proposed further developing the EU’s own defense programs as well.

Macron’s newest proposal suggests the creation of a European Intervention Initiative (EII), which would authorize an integrated European military force to collaborate directly with the militaries of other countries.

Though ambitious in scope and intent, Macron’s European defense policy faces significant hurdles in its path. According to EURACTIV, many of the Eastern European EU states are reluctant to join this initiative due to the belief that NATO already fulfills the same purposes. Furthermore, because NATO’s credibility to effectively defend against potential Russian aggression has waned in recent years, cynicism has fuelled mistrust over European defense initiatives.

According to Carnegie Europe, another major concern relates to the level of commitment by members. Whereas Germany wants to open up these agreements to every member state, France wants only financially capable and committed states to participate.

Such tensions over European defense policy relate to broader concerns about continental unity in general. Concerns about the freeriding and disruption of national sovereignty blunt the efficacy of European cooperation on a series of issues. For figures such as Macron or German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, however, Europe needs a demonstration of firm leadership to survive a rising tide of populism, Russian aggression from the East, and U.S. complacency across the Atlantic.

Greek Military Jet Crashes Into Aegean Sea Felipe Lobo Koerich A Greek Air Force fighter jet crashed into the Aegean Sea on April 12, killing the pilot. According to the New York Times, the pilot crashed while returning from an intercept mission near Lesbos. He was sent in response to two Turkish aircraft in Greek airspace without authorization.

Greece has increased patrols in the Aegean in recent weeks due to increased tensions with Turkey, which have included near-daily interceptions and tense mock aerial warfare in airspace around Greek islands near Turkey, reports the Washington Post.

Turkey and Greece are currently in dispute regarding sovereignty over the airspace around these islands.

Two Greek servicemen held by Turkey have further exacerbated tensions between the two countries.

They strayed into Turkey’s territory and were arrested by Turkish authorities, according to the Independent Balkan News Agency (IBNA). Eight Turkish officers involved in the failed coup attempt on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan requested political asylum in Greece, also heightening tensions.

“The mission had finished and it had been on its way back with another Greek plane,” an unnamed military official told the New York Times.

Panos Kammenos, the defense minister, announced the pilot’s death after Greek navy ships and army helicopters failed to retrieve him alive.

“A Greek pilot joins the pantheon of heroes. He fell in the defense of our national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Kammenos said on Twitter, according to the Washington Post.

After the crash, the Hellenic Air Force identified the pilot as 34-yearold Georgios Baltadoros. A father of two, he was flying a Mirage 2000-5, IBNA reported.

Greek officials have not yet reported what caused the crash or if it had any connection to the jet’s intercept of Turkish planes. The Defense Ministry launched an investigation into the accident, reported IBNA. The Turkish government did not comment on or even acknowledge the incident, says the New York Times.

Anadolu, the Turkish state-run news agency, quoted unnamed military officials disputing reports of a dogfight between Turkish and Greek jets and

Tibetan Man Spies for China in Sweden Alejandra Rocha The government of Sweden charged Dorjee Gyantsam, a 49-year-old Tibetan resident of Stockholm, with espionage on fellow Tibetan exiles.

According to SVT Nyheter, Gyantsan spied for the communist regime in Beijing by collecting personal information about those of interest to the Chinese state while presenting himself as a devoted supporter of Tibetan independence.

Gyantsan had been working at the radio station Voice of Tibet, and he had been deeply involved in the local Tibetan community—a small, closeknit community of no more than 140, reported the Guardian.

“We get together and meet at each other’s places and eat together, go for demonstrations and other events together. He was at those events,” stated Jamyang Choedon, president of

the Tibetan Community in Sweden, to the New York Times.

According to Swedish State Prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist, Gyantsan had been in contact with Chinese officers in Finland and Poland. He received £5,850 (over $8,000) at least once in exchange for information, reported the New York Times.

“Refugees must be able to feel confident that they can freely use their constitutional freedoms, for example, to protest against a regime without risking persecution or other abuse,” stated Ljungqvist.

Ljungqvist classifies this is a gross offense because it “has lasted for a long time and may have caused or may cause a large number of persons serious harm.” The charge labels China as a “very resourceful totalitarian superpower,” states SVT Nyheter.

If found guilty, Gyantsan faces up to four years in prison.

denying Turkish Air Force planes were in the area.

Greek military officials said its troops fired warning shots at a Turkish helicopter flying with its lights off close to the island of Ro in the southern Aegean Sea on April 9.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim called Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on the day of the crash to express condolences from himself, his government, and Erdoğan, according to IBNA. Tsipras and Yildirim agreed to “keep communication lines open [and] strengthen dialogue between

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EDITOR’S NOTE:

the two countries in the future,” the Athens-Macedonian News Agency reported.

Political leaders in Greece also expressed their condolences in the days following the crash. Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos said the state would “never forget his contribution,” and Tsipras stated his deep gratitude for Valtadoros’s sacrifice for his country, according to the AthensMacedonian News Agency.

The Greek military announced a three-day mourning period for Baltadoros.

A Greek Mirage 2000-5 figher jet crashed into the Aegean Sea on April 12.

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Labour Reckons With Anti-Semitism Allegations Merkel’s Fourth Term: Enemies to the Right, Enemies to the Left Lauren Olosky

Avi Gabbay, leader of the Israeli Labor Party, announced on April 10 that he will cut ties with Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the U.K. Labour Party, in response to Corbyn and his office’s handling of anti-Semitism. In a letter to Corbyn, according to the Guardian, Gabbay wrote that it was his “responsibility to acknowledge the hostility that you have shown to the Jewish community and the antiSemitic statements and actions you have allowed.”

The growing backlash accuses Corbyn and the Labour Party of antiSemitism, and specifically Corbyn, of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism within his own party.

In 2016, the New York Times reported that Labour Party lawmaker Naseem Shah was suspended when controversial Facebook posts suggesting Israel’s relocation to the United States and comparing Israeli policies to those of Hitler resurfaced.

Also in 2016, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone asserted that there had been a collaboration between Hitler and Jews and that Hitler had originally been a Zionist, as reported

by Vox.

These incidents collectively triggered a public outcry. Jack Mendel, a web editor at Jewish News U.K., compiled a list of roughly 25 examples of anti-Semitism that have tainted the party.

The most recent incident to reignite the controversy was a Facebook comment in 2012 by Corbyn defending an anti-Semitic mural in East London featuring a group of caricatured Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of the poor and oppressed, the New York Times reported. In defense, Corbyn suggested that he had been defending free speech, but in many senses, it was too late.

The Jewish Leadership Council issued an open letter criticising Labour leadership The last week has featured hundreds of protesters demonstrating outside of the Labour Party’s headquarters in London, according to the Guardian.

A Labour Party spokesman said, “As Jeremy Corbyn has strongly stated, Labour is committed to challenging and campaigning against

anti-Semitism in all its forms. He has asked the new general secretary to make stamping it out her number one priority.”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council issued an open letter criticising Labour leadership on March 26. In the searing letter, published in full by BBC, the leaders wrote that “again and again, Jeremy Corbyn has sided with anti-Semites rather than Jews. At best, this derives from the far left’s obsessive hatred of Zionism, Zionists and Israel.

At worst, it suggests a conspiratorial worldview in which mainstream Jewish communities are believed to be a hostile entity, a class enemy.”

In response, Corbyn acknowledged that anti-Semitism has surfaced within the Labour Party, as BBC reported, and said he was “sincerely sorry for the pain which has been caused” and pledged “to redouble [his] efforts to bring this anxiety to an end.”

Ultimately, the party has pledged to take Labour Party member Baroness Shami Chakrabarti’s recommendations, which include strong anti-prejudice language and a call for a zero-tolerance policy, and look into the accusations of antiSemitism within the party.

FranÇois Valentin, Opinion With an incoming local election, the battle within the ChristianDemocratic Union could shape the party for years to come while deeply destabilizing Merkel and her grand coalition with the Social Democrats, according to Germany’s the Local.

Only a few months ago, the stability of the German political system offered an appealing alternative to the unstable Italian parliamentary regime and the French presidential model that failed to represent the voices of the supporters of many smaller and fringe parties. In the old dilemma between efficiency and representativeness, Germany seemed to have both, as demonstrated by research performed

by Deutsche Bank.

After the rise of the populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the September elections and the collapse of the center-right and centerleft parties to their worst standings since the 1940s, as Der Spiegel reports,

Alex White Over a month after elections on March 4, leaders of Italy’s two largest parties entered the second round of talks on April 12 to form a coalition government, according to Reuters.

In Italy’s 2018 general election, no party gained a majority. The antiestablishment Five Star Movement (M5S) led by Luigi di Maio emerged as the largest single party with 33 percent of the vote.

The conservative League coalition, consisting of smaller parties, has the most seats overall and won 37 percent of the vote, Reuters reports. Matteo Salvini leads the coalition, which includes former-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The two groups have struggled to form a government, with Di Maio refusing to enter into a coalition with Salvini unless he excludes his ally Berlusconi, whom Di Maio sees as a symbol of the corruption of the Italian political establishment.

According to the Local, this stalemate may not break until local elections at the end of April, with

neither party wanting to break their campaign promises or concede to the other, aiming to win as many votes as possible.

Some have suggested that the Five Star Movement join with the centerleft Democratic Party, the biggest loser in the 2018 election. Led by Matteo Renzi, what used to be Italy’s largest party captured only 23 percent of the vote. As a result, Renzi says he wants to be in the opposition.

Mattarella is getting impatient with the parties’ inability to form a government.

However, some in his party argue it would be better to enter into a coalition with the Five Star Movement to prevent the far-right party from rising to power. The issue may be decided after April 21, when the party selects a leader to succeed Renzi.

Meanwhile, according to Reuters, Italian President Sergio Mattarella is getting impatient with the parties’

inability to form a functional government.

He says he may appoint a neutral institutional figure to mediate among the parties. This “exploratory mandate” has been used in times of stalemate to create more flexible, informal talks aimed at creating a deal.

In response, leaders of the two largest parties have pledged to get parliament up and running “as soon as possible,” according to the Local.

To demonstrate this, they brokered a deal forming a special committee to respond to urgent issues confronting the government. A member of the League coalition has been elected to chair the special committee in the Chamber of Deputies, while a member of the Five Star Movement has been chosen to chair an equivalent committee in the Senate.

Until the League coalition agrees to break ties with Berlusconi and his party, the Five Star Movement agrees to enter into a coalition with him, or the Democratic Party opens the door to enter a coalition with the anti-establishment party, the Italian stalemate looks far from being broken.

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Italy Begins New Round of Coalition Talks

although not without receiving crucial government positions including the ministries of finance, foreign affairs, and justice.

Only a few weeks after reaching this agreement, Angela Merkel faces a new threat, this time from the right.

For many years, but especially since the 2015 migrant crisis, a large part of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) started accusing her of steering the party too far to the left. Her welcoming of one million refugees remains a sensitive issue in the conservative party, with many accusing her of providing the fodder for the rise of the populist AfD. In the past, Merkel had always managed to silence dissent within the ranks, creating a leadership vacuum in which she remained the only figurehead. This time, due to her weak electoral results, she cannot afford to push back this new generation of young and ambitious politicians.

Jens Spahn, the 37-year-old minister of health, symbolizes this

German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a divided coalition and ambitious politicians.

the German art of coalition-making seemed insufficient for Merkel to create a government. After failing to put together a coalition with the Greens and the right-wing liberals, Merkel tried to go back to the timetested grand coalition with the Social Democrats of the SPD, reported the Guardian.

According to Politico, the SPD had long pushed back against such a scenario, partly because its leadership believes its electoral losses resulted from the repeated coalitions with the right that appeared to blend both parties in the view of the electorate.

But when faced with the threat of a new election, the SPD accepted a coalition,

new generation of CDU leaders bent on pushing the CDU back to the right. Last week, according to Die Zeit, he welcomed the publication of the manifesto of a right-wing movement within the CDU that urged the party to come back to its fundamental values.

The manifesto is clear in its defense of the nation and Germany’s Christian roots as well as of the traditional family.

This increase in internal pressure results from the looming regional elections in Bavaria, where the CSU, the CDU’s conservative Bavarian ally, hopes to prove to Merkel that a rightwing focus could lead the CDU to electoral success again.

8 | A P R . 21, 2018

LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN Mexican

Dissidents of FARC Abduct Ecuadorian Journalists Dissident groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) abducted two Ecuadorian journalists and their driver in the Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas province on March 26, as stated in an article from the University of Texas. The journalists work for the Ecuadorian newspaper El Comercio and were reporting on the rising violence on the Colombia-Ecuador border. They had just passed a military checkpoint in the village of Mataje when they were abducted, reported BBC. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno released a joint statement after the abductions to address the increasing violence on the border. According to Telesur, they promised to “deepen immediate cooperation between the security and defense organisms.”

On April 3, the kidnappers released a video of Javier Ortega, Paúl Rivas, and Efraín Segarra, the three captives, proving that they were alive

and appealing to President Moreno.

In the video, Ortega said, “President Lenín Moreno, our life is in your hands.” The video was published on RCN, a Colombian news channel, and El Comercio has reported that the rebel group would like to exchange the journalists for three Colombians detained in Ecuador by the government.

So as long as there are still rebel groups that have broken off from the FARC, the peace process has not yet ended.

President Moreno has denounced the spread of the video for fear of making the hostages’ family and friends more anxious, reports the Washington Post. He also wants to keep the video from negatively impacting the search to find the journalists.

Officials announced on March 28 that they believed the group who abducted the journalists to be led by

Promotes Legalization of Marijuana

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Leticia Chacón

Tourism Minister

Austin Corona

This dissident group was previously part of the FARC.

Ecuadorian guerilla leader Walter Artízala, also known as Guacho.

According to the University of Texas article, this dissident group was previously a part of the FARC, but it has recently expressed disagreement with the FARC’s steps towards peace with the Colombian government. President Santos has offered the equivalent of $54,000 for any information that may lead to the capture of Artízala, reported BBC. This abduction, as Global Voices points out, attests to the fact that while the FARC and the Colombian government have taken steps towards peace, so as long as there are still rebel groups that have broken off from the FARC, the peace process has not yet

ended.

The Washington Post says that Ecuadorian journalists have been protesting since Ortega, Rivas, and Segarra were abducted, chanting, “Nos faltan tres!” (“We are missing three!”).

Demonstrators are also concerned that the violence among the FARC dissidents has spilled over to surrounding nations, threatening the security of innocent civilians once again.

Telesur has reported that a claim that Ortega, Rivas, and Segara were killed in captivity began to circulate on April 11. Colombia’s Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas has released a statement saying that there is insufficient proof to accept this unverified claim.

Ruling Party Candidate Wins Costa Rica’s Runoff Vote, Cont’d from p. 1 Anastasia Chacón ‘‘Costa Rica once again delivered a beautiful democratic message,’’ said Carlos Alvarado after polls closed on April 1 and his victory was definitive, reported the New York Times. ‘‘What united us is much greater than what divides us.’’

Both contenders showed willingness to work with other political parties in the two months leading up to the second-round vote. Each candidate allied himself with key members of the two traditionally prominent political parties in Costa Rica, the SocialChristian Union Party (PUSC) and the National Liberation Party (PLN), which for the first time in over 50 years was not on the voting ticket.

A coalition will be necessary if Carlos Alvarado wants to avoid legislative gridlock. His party, Citizens Union Party, only has 10 congressional representatives out of 57 seats.

Alternatively, Fabricio Alvarado’s party, the National Restoration Party (PRN), has 14 members. One of the establishment parties, PLN – which tilted towards supporting PRN in the runoff – has the most seats in Congress, with 17 representatives. The remaining spots are divided among four other political groups.

Carlos Alvarado is currently holding private talks with leaders of various political parties with the aim of drafting a national agenda to bring to the legislative assembly. He has also negotiated several cabinet positions with at least two other parties, the traditional PUSC and the leftist Broad Front.

The incoming government’s most pressing challenges include a mounting deficit, soaring unemployment, and rising crime rates.

Carlos Alvarado will be sworn into office on May 8 for a four-year term.

Mexican Minister of Tourism Enrique de la Madrid stated in an interview on April 11 that he favors the state-level legalization of marijuana, citing similar successful policies in U.S. states like Colorado, according to Reuters. De la Madrid had proposed legalization earlier in the year, though his initial comments centered specifically on Mexican tourism centers like Baja California Sur and Quintana Roo, reported El Universal.

“It’s time to act,” stated De la Madrid. The minister views Mexican prohibition of marijuana as illogical, considering California’s burgeoning legal marijuana industry, according to El Pais.

De la Madrid would prefer to see state resources in action against violent crime and not against marijuana consumption. According to the minister, marijuana’s illegality makes it a cash cow for criminal organizations.

“Keeping marijuana illegal is donating money to drug traffickers,” said De la Madrid, as reported by El Pais.

The minister’s statements coincide with the Mexican Supreme Court’s second-ever ruling in favor of legalized marijuana. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto proposed legislation in 2016 legalizing possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, but the bill failed to pass through Congress. Reuters reported that Peña Nieto’s predecessor, Vicente Fox, has proposed the legalization of opium poppies in Mexico.

Narcotics-related violence has surged to historic levels in Mexico, and as De la Madrid noted, this trend threatens to injure the country’s tourism industry. “We are going to have to become increasingly rigorous in issues like security and transparency,” said De la Madrid.

Drug policy has become a hotbutton issue in Mexican politics, and it will likely play a role in the upcoming presidential elections in July. Current frontrunner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has suggested possible amnesty for notable drug traffickers as a measure against violence, per El Pais.

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Mexico Condemns Trump’s National Guard Deployment Colin Maloney

President Trump’s decision on April 4 to send up to 4,000 National Guard troops to the southern border has sparked backlash across the political spectrum in Mexico. The move was condemned by the Mexican Senate, President Enrique Peña Nieto, and by all of the leading Mexican presidential candidates.

Trump claims the troops are needed to prevent narcotics and undocumented immigrants from crossing the border. However, Vox

reports that illegal border crossings have been relatively low over the course of the Trump Administration, and many critics have claimed Trump made this decision out of political motivation, not genuine security concerns.

Telesur reports that on April 5, The Mexican Senate voted unanimously to condemn the deployment. They also urged President Peña Nieto to suspend cooperation with the United States regarding immigration and drug cartels. All of the major presidential candidates expressed their support for

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A small fence separates Tijuana, Mexico, right, from the United States.

the Senate resolution.

The current presidential frontrunner, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the MORENA party, said, “we will not accept the use of force— the militarization of the border.

Problems aren’t solved that way; peace and tranquility are derived from justice,” reported the Washington Post.

Trump claims troops are needed to prevent narcotics and undocumented immigrants from crossing the border.

Despite the unity of the candidates’ responses to President Trump, Obrador’s comments will impact the presidential campaign, reports the Independent. Considering Obrador had already established a more aggressive stance against Trump, his comments will likely solidify his lead in the polls.

The day of the senate vote, Peña Nieto delivered a televised address to the nation in which he thanked each of the presidential candidates for

uniting despite the fractious election campaign. According to CNN, he also questioned the motives behind Trump’s actions, saying, “If your recent statements are the result of frustration due to domestic policy issues, to your laws or to your Congress, it is to them that you should turn, not to Mexicans.

We will not allow negative rhetoric to define our actions.”

Peña Nieto went on to say that over the last few decades, U.S.-Mexican cooperation has provided great benefits to both nations. However, he claimed that Trump’s latest actions and his inflammatory rhetoric about Mexican immigrants are straining the relationship between the two countries and putting these benefits at risk. He also claimed the deployment of the National Guard was meant to intimidate Mexico into offering concessions on NAFTA negotiations and on immigration. Peña Nieto promised that his government will not be cowed by such tactics.

Paraphrasing President John F. Kennedy, he declared, “we will have no fear to negotiate, but we will never negotiate out of fear.”

Former Brazilian President Turns Himself in Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva turned himself into police on April 7 on charges of corruption and money laundering and has been sentenced to twelve years in prison.

This development opens space for other candidates in the upcoming presidential election in October.

Lula was ordered to turn himself into the police by April 6, but he remained in his former union’s headquarters surrounded by hundreds of his supporters, reported National Public Radio. He claimed that he wanted to remain a free man until after his deceased wife’s memorial mass the next day. It was never a guarantee that he would turn himself in on the seventh.

According to Reuters, The “Car Wash” investigation that has caught many politicians in corruption schemes implicated Lula in several charges. Specifically, Lula provided government contracts in return for an apartment and other benefits. He is the first Brazilian president to be arrested after a criminal conviction, reports

Universo Online.

After Lula turned himself in to the authorities, a helicopter transported him to the jail in Curitiba. Individuals in the military were heard over the radio telling the pilots to “throw that garbage out the window.”

Lula’s supporters claim that this is a case of targeted prosecution against the most popular politician in Brazil. The current center-right president, Michel Temer, has been formally charged with receiving five million dollars in bribes, and remains in office, says The New Yorker. Temer orchestrated

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Sean Fulmer

the impeachment of Lula’s successor and protégé, Dilma Rousseff, in 2016 through a corruption scandal. One of the other leaders of this impeachment campaign, Eduardo Cunha, has been imprisoned on bribery charges, illustrating the hypocrisy in Rousseff ’s impeachment.

Lula, president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010, enjoyed his status as the frontrunner in the upcoming presidential elections. During his first presidency, he made significant changes to Brazilian economic policy.

The New Yorker records some estimates

Brazilian Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

that say that his policies lifted forty million Brazilians out of poverty.

Accordingly, his support among the Brazilian working class is widespread and might be what carried him close to the presidency again.

However, due to electoral reforms, politicians with a history of criminal conviction cannot be elected to office.

Lula had been free from prison until this week when the Supreme Court of Brazil ruled against his habeas corpus petition on a tense six to five vote that lasted late into the night. He can, however, still petition the electoral court to allow his name on the ballot in October.

Right-wing elements in Brazil have claimed army support in a military coup if the Supreme Court were to grant Lula a spot in the election. The commander of the army stated that Brazil needed “an end to impunity” in the lead-up to Lula’s trial. Jair Bolsonaro, another presidential candidate, actively expresses nostalgia for Brazil’s previous military dictatorship and many Brazilians fear the rise of a similar regime if he wins the presidency.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Gabriela Rodríguez

S

ix months after Hurricane María made landfall in Puerto Rico, thousands of Puerto Ricans have moved to the mainland, especially to Florida, CNN reports.

With Congressional midterm elections on their way, Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosselló aims to persuade Puerto Rican evacuees to register to vote, according to Politico.

As U.S. citizens, Puerto Ricans are allowed to register to vote if they live in the continental U.S. Despite being citizens, however, Puerto Ricans lose their right to vote if they reside on their home island.

Politico reports that with 5.6 million Puerto Ricans concentrated in a few states, Rosselló believes that voting could jump-start pressing issues of second-class citizenship, equality, and solutions for Puerto Rico.

“Puerto Rico has never had a structure like the one that we’re forming. It has never demonstrated to have the national wherewithal and political power that we hope to showcase in this election,” Rosselló said in an article for Politico.

According to Politico, Rosselló plans to organize voter registration drives in Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Texas—the main states to which Puerto Ricans have moved.

The House of Representatives Office of History, Art, and Archives states that Puerto Rico has been deemed by the Supreme Court to be “foreign in a domestic sense,” blurring the lines between citizens and migrants.

Once Puerto Ricans start educating themselves about their voting rights, they may impact swing states like Florida. Researchers from the Center for Puerto Rican Studies estimate that, by the end of the decade, 25 percent of Puerto Ricans will have moved from the island due to the fiscal crisis.

Despite President Donald Trump’s original remarks about helping the island, 55,000 Puerto Ricans still do not have electricity six months after the hurricane, Politico reports. Rosselló, a firm supporter of Puerto Rican statehood, claims that the island’s political status as a territory has to do with the slow response.

“It’s all based on one thing: political power. We don’t have it,” Rosselló said in Politico.

1 0 | A P R . 21, 2018

INDO-ASIA-PACIFIC Jia Sheng

C

hina held its largest-ever maritime military drill in the disputed South China Sea on April 12. The drill presented China’s aircraft carrier, Liaoning, and the most advanced weaponry of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for the first time.

Two days before China held the naval drill, the USS Roosevelt sailed into the South China Sea en route to Manila for a routine training exercise. According to the Navy Times, the recent deployments of U.S. fleets in disputed waters asserts “freedom of navigation…[and reassures] allies” but also encourages China to stage its own show of force.

According to South China Morning Post, the drill “sent a message to Taipei and [was] also a show of support for Russia to put pressure on the United States.”

Ironically, amid the threat of a trade war with the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to “further open the nation’s economy...in promoting international cooperation and free trade” at the Boao Forum on April 10, according to South China Morning Post. Such contradiction between Xi’s promise and the PLA’s action has demonstrated that China’s goal is to assert dominance in the South China Sea, so as to gain an upper hand in global affairs. Chinese media, however, portrayed the military drill as evidence of China’s determination to promote free trade and protect its sovereignty.

The South China Morning Post cites comments from Song Zhongping, a former-member of China’s Second Artillery Corps, to drive the point home: “The drill near the waters of Sanya in the South China Sea declare the PLA’s firm determination to defend its sovereignty in the contested area, and the navy’s capacity to protect China’s interests along the belt and road.”

Zuckerberg Called Out Over Myanmar Violence Caroline Schauder Civil society groups in Myanmar wrote an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg on April 5, criticizing Facebook’s response to the spread of hate speech that incites violence against the Rohingya Muslims in the country.

In the wake of a government crackdown, close to 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the country since August 2017, which the UN has labelled “ethnic cleansing,” according to Reuters.

Hate speech and instigation of violence against the Rohingyas “on social media is rampant, particularly on Facebook,” said Marzuki Darusman, chair of the United Nations Independent International FactFinding Mission on Myanmar, reports CNN. According to the Guardian, the Center for Social Integrity, the Myanmar Human Rights Education Network, Phandeeyar, MIDO, and Equality Myanmar issued an open letter to Facebook three days after Zuckerberg’s interview with Vox on April 2, 2018.

In the interview, Vox reporter Ezra Klein questioned Zuckerberg

over whether Facebook has helped to spread propaganda that contributes to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims. The CEO responded that the “Myanmar issues” are getting “a lot of focus inside the company.”

He cited an incident in September 2017 where false messages of an imminent Muslim attack were sent to Buddhist communities and vice versa.

Zuckerberg claimed that Facebook’s system detected and prevented the spread of these chain messages.

The Myanmar civil society groups, however, argued that such a system was not in place and the messages spread for days and caused at least three violent incidents. The misleading content was primarily flagged by organizations themselves and volunteers.

The letter commented that Facebook’s response has “an overreliance on third parties, a lack of a proper mechanism for emergency escalation, a reticence to engage local stakeholders around systemic solutions and a lack of transparency.” The group also said that a major obstacle was Facebook’s lack of Burmese-speaking staff.

“The risk of Facebook content sparking open violence is arguably

Mongolians Call for Stricter Child Abuse Laws, Cont’d from p. 1 Christina Lopez In addition to stronger implementation of existing laws and stricter penalties for offenders, some demonstrators also pressed the government to provide improved support services for survivors. On the Facebook page, others called for the creation of better sexual health education and abuse-prevention programs in schools.

In an open letter, President Khaltmaa Battulga wrote that many citizens had recently asked him to tighten the punishment for child abusers. The organizers of “No More Tolerance” do not support the death penalty, but some members of the group have advocated for restricted use.

Mongolia formally abolished capital punishment when its revised Criminal Code went into effect on July 1, 2017, according to Amnesty International.

In recent months, Battalga has worked toward partially restoring the death penalty in cases of child sexual abuse, cruelty, and murder.

Identifying child abuse as an “urgent problem in our society,” Battalga submitted an official proposal regarding the reinstatement to the Ministry of Justice and Internal Affairs on November 27, 2017 but has not received a response.

At the commencement of Parliament’s spring session on April 5, Battalga announced that he will soon submit a draft law t. He also invited the public to share their opinions with the Office of the President.

Aside from the main demonstration in Ulaanbaatar, similar protests have taken place in fourteen other Mongolian provinces, as well as countries around the globe including Hungary, Sweden, the U.S., and France.

nowhere higher right now than in Myanmar. We appreciate that progress is an iterative process and that it will require more than this letter for Facebook to fix these issues,” the letter said.

A day after its publication, the New York Times reported that Zuckerberg wrote back to the groups from his personal email address. He apologized for misspeaking and promised that Facebook was “building artificial intelligence to help... better identify abusive, hateful, or false content.”

He also claimed that Facebook had added Burmese-language reviewers to “better understand the specific local

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EDITOR’S NOTE:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

challenges and build the right tools to help keep people there safe.”

The activists claimed that Zuckerberg’s reply was insufficient, listing ten questions concerning the number of abuses, accounts banned due to violations of standards, and mechanisms to identify hate speech.

As reported by the New York Times, Jes Petersen, the chief executive of the Myanmar-based innovation lab Phandeeyar, commented that while Zuckerberg’s personal engagement is laudable, the content of his email “is not that much different from what [he’s] been saying for the past few years.”

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China Commits to Promoting Globalization New Zealand Stops In a speech in the Boao Forum on April 10, Chinese President Xi Jinping repeated his promise to open up China’s economy and promoted globalization and free trade, according to the South China Morning Post.

Xi spoke in the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province in China, which is often considered the Davos of Asia. Political and economic leaders from around the world, including Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde, gathered to discuss the future of Asia’s growing role in the global economy, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

In his speech, Xi stated that he will open up China’s market access by easing restrictions on foreign financial institutions, increasing transparency, and making China a more attractive investment destination, according to the Global Times. He also stated that he will lower tariffs, lift foreign ownership restrictions in the automobile industry, and strengthen the protection of intellectual property in China, according to the South China

Morning Post.

Although Xi did not explicitly mention President Donald Trump or the United States, many believe that his speech is partially a response to Trump’s recent declaration to implement tariffs on Chinese imports.

According to the New York Times, Trump accused China of intellectual property theft and imposing high tariffs on U.S.-made automobiles.

China sincerely wishes to increase imports from foreign countries.

Shortly after Xi’s speech in Boao, Trump tweeted, “Very thankful for President Xi of China’s kind words on tariffs and automobile barriers... also, his enlightenment on intellectual property and technology transfers. We will make great progress together!”

The South China Morning Post reports that as Xi touted the benefits of globalization and free trade, he suggested in his speech that China does not want to fight a trade war against the United States and that

China “sincerely” wishes to increase imports from foreign countries to satisfy domestic demand.

According to the Asia Times, Xi said that countries around the world should be “committed to openness, connectivity and mutual benefits, build an open global economy, and reinforce cooperation within the G-20, APEC and other multilateral frameworks” and “promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and support the multilateral trading system.”

Xi’s support for globalization and free trade stands in stark contrast with Trump’s protectionist tone in the U.S. In recent weeks, Trump has imposed various tariffs on China after accusing the country of intellectual property theft and trade imbalance, reports the South China Morning Post. In response to Trump’s tariffs, Beijing responded with retaliatory tariffs and stated that while China does not want to be engaged in a trade war with the U.S., it “will fight to the end in any trade war,” according to the Xinhua News Agency.

However, Xi’s conciliatory tone in the Boao Forum may signal an alleviation of such threats.

Duterte Threatens to Arrest ICC Prosecutor Jackson Gillette Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatend a prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on April 13 that if she “conducts activities in his country,” she will face arrest, according to the Manila Times. Citing his country’s withdrawal from the ICC in March, Duterte argued that Court officials have no jurisdiction in the Philippines: “If we are not members of the treaty, why are you fucking in this country? You cannot exercise any proceedings here without basis. That is illegal and I will arrest you.”

Duterte’s statement refers to the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC from 1998, which outlined the jurisdiction and structure of the legal body. Specifically, the treaty gave the ICC jurisdiction over four categories of crime: crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. According to the ICC, the Philippines ratified the agreement in 2011 under Benigno Aquino III. However, in March, the ICC announced that it was notified by the United Nations that the Philippines

“deposited a written notification of withdrawal” from the treaty, which will effectively terminate their ICC membership. Under the rules of the treaty, withdrawal will not officially occur until one year after the receipt of the notification, which would be March 2019 for the Philippines.

According to the Philippine Star, Duterte’s threats were specifically directed at ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. In February, Bensouda was beginning a “preliminary examination into a complaint by a Philippine lawyer accusing Duterte and top officials of crimes against humanity, and of killing criminals as a policy,” reports the South China Morning Post.

Numerous human rights nonprofits and NGOs have accused Duterte of human rights violations as a result of his administration’s violent crackdown on drug use. According to Human Rights Watch, the policy is a “Drug War” which has resulted in over 12,000 people killed by government authorities.

The conflict at hand is whether or not Duterte’s administration is under obligation by international

law to continue cooperating with the investigation. The treaty requires the withdrawing country’s continued cooperation with investigation: “[A State’s] withdrawal shall not affect any cooperation with the Court in connection with criminal investigations and proceedings in relation to which the withdrawing State had a duty to cooperate and which were commenced prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective.” Under the treaty, Duterte must comply with the examination by Bensouda and the ICC. Duterte believes, however, that the Philippines never properly ratified the treaty in the 2011 and, therefore, has never been under the jurisdiction of the ICC. According to the Manila Times, Duterte said that the country’s ratification of the Rome Statute was never published on the Official Gazette, the Philippine government website, and as a result, the Philippines was never a ratifying member. However, according to the Philippine Star, “publication in the Official Gazette is not among the usual requirements to enforce a treaty.”

Granting of Permits for Future Oil and Gas Exploration Rohan Sahu New Zealand’s government announced on its official news website on April 11 that it will stop granting future oil and gas exploration permits.

The economic exclusion zone of New Zealand, the stretch of sea over which a nation has primary right of exploitation for marine resources, covers roughly 4.3 mil square km (1.6 mil square mi), according to the international research organization Sea Around Us. This is approximately 15 times the land area of the country. Future exploration for offshore drilling in this area will no longer be permitted under the current administration.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated that although future permits will no longer be issued, the country’s 31 current active exploration permits will be unaffected and could conceivably offer access all the way up until 2030.

Responding to the change, Jacinda Ardern said that it is “a responsible step which provides certainty for businesses and communities that rely on fossil fuels.” In a speech to students in Wellington, she said that New Zealand was a potential world leader in becoming carbon neutral.

Ardern, whose Labour government came into power in September of 2017, amongst other issues campaigned on a platform of stronger environmental action to combat climate change. The government says that this most recent change to exploration rights comes as a part of a long-term plan to transition to a zero-emissions economy, according to the Labour Party website.

According to Reuters, oil and gas accounts for roughly 1.4 percent of New Zealand’s economic activity valued at NZ$2.5 billion ($1.8 billion).

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Shaun Ho

New Zealand National Party estimates claim the industry provides over 8,000 high-paying jobs. Various business leaders and opposition politicians have expressed their dismay at the potential endangerment of the sector.

In particular, the oil and gas industry is important to the Taranaki region, the center of most activities and the only region that will fall under the 2018 ban.

New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom told Radio New Zealand that the move was a “kick in the guts for the future of the Taranaki economy.”

New Zealand National Party MPs Jonathan Young and Tod Muller described the government’s decision to ban gas and petroleum exploration as “economic vandalism that makes no environmental sense.”

Although the Labour party is not in full coalition with the Green Party, it currently has a support arrangement that gives it limited access to eight out of 120 seats that the Greens represent.

Without these additional seats, the Labour–NZ First coalition does not possess a governing majority, posing serious problems for the passage of future government-backed legislation.

Additionally, after ten years of center-right conservative rule by the National party, business sentiment has fallen considerably since Labour took power. The New Zealand institute of Economic Research found that in their quarterly survey a net 11 percent of firms expected economic conditions to deteriorate in the first half of 2018.

The vocal opposition to the change in exploration rights regime underscores the difficulty the Labour Party and Ardern will fall in the coming years with keeping both the Green Party and the business community on-side.

Oil Platform P51 semi-submersed off the coast

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MIDDLE EAST & CENTRAL ASIA Emma Morris After years of civil war, the Syrian government has wrested control of nearly all of eastern Ghouta, a region in southwestern Syria containing Damascus. The city of Douma, however, remains under rebel control.

Recently, diplomatic negotiations have been replaced with government airstrikes of Douma. The Washington Post reports that on April 7, in the most recent attacks, the Syrian Air Force dropped bombs containing toxic substances in two separate attacks on Douma. After the second round of strikes, over 500 victims with symptoms of chemical exposure were ushered into nearby medical facilities.

According to BBC, the SyrianAmerican Medical Society (SAMS) and Syria Civil Defense issued a joint statement detailing symptoms including “respiratory distress, central cyanosis (blue skin or lips), excessive oral foaming, corneal burns, and the emission of chlorine-like odour.”

Reports of fatal cases included such

symptoms, in addition to coughing blood, dilated pupils, and convulsions.

BBC indicates that witnesses also reported a strong smell of chlorine.

Syria Civil Defence and SAMS suspect the presence of organophosphates, a group of chemicals used in insectides and responsible for most worldwide poisonings.

The Violations Documentation Center attributed 25 deaths to the first strike and 20 to the second. Out of these, 42 were discovered by rescuers in the victims’ homes. Overall fatality counts differ across reports, but the figures are still rising. A day after the attack, local rebel forces surrendered to the government and fled north, accompanied by 100,000 civilians.

International responses were largely condemnations of the Syrian government. The U.S., U.K., France, Turkey, and Pope Francis voiced their disapproval of the attacks and stressed the need for an investigation and response. However, the Syrian government, Russia, and Iran have all denied a chemical attack. Defending

Iran’s Rial Hits an AllTime Low

FLIKR: JORDI BERNABEU KHABIEH

Al-Assad Accused of Chemical Weapons Attack

Nikiforos Daniskas

Children watch Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid convoy drive through Douma

its ally, Iran warned that military attacks by Western countries would only embolden terrorists and hinder peace, according to Al-Monitor.

Nevertheless, in the following days, Reuters reported that Washington and allies were considering military action in response to the April 7 events. The European Union counseled European airlines to avoid Syrian airspace in case of retaliatory airstrikes. Syrian forces have been recently put on “high alert.”

On April 11, President Donald Trump tweeted that missiles “will be coming”, and on April 13, the U.S., France, and U.K. launched airstrikes on three Syrian chemical weapon facilities, New York Times reports.

In addition to denying the use of chemical weapons, Syria has prevented objective investigations of the attacks.

Humanitarian organizations have been unable to enter the area because of the entrance restriction enforced on the region since March. Alongside many nations, the deputy director of the World Health Organization demanded “immediate, unhindered access to the area to provide care to those affected, to assess the health impacts, and to deliver a comprehensive public health response,” reports the Guardian.

The Syrian government confirmed its possession of chemical weapons for the first time in 2012. Since then, there have been over two dozen reports of government chemical weapons use.

Saudi Crown Prince Tours United States Francesca Ractliffe Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Salman has been touring the United States for nearly three weeks, stopping in cities on both coasts. During his four-day visit to Washington D.C., Bin Salman sat down for an off-the-record interview with the Washington Post and assured reporters that Saudi Arabia had not established an alliance with Jared Kushner in order to influence U.S. policies towards his kingdom. Bin Salman also met with President Trump at the White House. When asked about the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, he admitted that it was “painful” for his country and that it complicates a U.S.-led peace deal.

The prince also spoke about his vision for his country to foster a more moderate Islam. He recently helped put forward a policy that would grant women the right to drive. He

hopes to steer his country towards a less conservative practice of Islam by cutting back on Saudi funding for the spread of Wahhabi ideology. However, according to CNN, analysts point out that Bin Salman also has increased domestic repression, consolidated his own political power, and ignored the issue of male guardianship, a major obstacle to gender equality.

Beyond revealing his political agenda, the main reason for the prince’s visit was to reassure U.S. investors of his kingdom’s bright future.

Throughout his trip, he has revealed snippets of his country’s domestic and foreign politics. For instance, as the guest on CBS’s 60 Minutes on March 18, he discussed his country’s stance on nuclear weapons, stating, “Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”

Iran’s currency, the rial, experienced a steep devaluation over the last week, forcing the country into a crisis, reports BBC. On April 9, the Iranian rial hit an all-time low – with the exchange rate trading at 60,000 rials for 1 U.S. dollar on the open market. This extreme devaluation forced the Iranian government to intervene and impose a single foreign exchange rate across the country in an effort to rescue the currency from a further slide.

Regarding the exchange rate, Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri stated in a broadcast speech following an emergency cabinet meeting, “We will not recognize any other exchange rate in the market. To us foreign currency sold at any other price would be illegal.”

The government hopes that its standard 42,000-rial exchange rate, up from its previous official rate of 37,000rial, will halt the depreciation and ease concerns over a possible currency crisis. The looming potential for crisis has induced panic-buying of scarce dollars, according to the Guardian.

Concurrently, the government faces the issue of combatting unregistered and illegal currency traders. Al Jazeera reports that these illicit traders exchange U.S. dollars and euros for rials at free market rates, which are higher than the static 42,000 rate set by the government and undermine the administration’s effort to stabilize the currency in the face of further devaluation.

Over the past 15 years, the rial has been steadily losing value against the U.S. dollar, with occasional sharp decreases resulting from various economic and political issues.

According to the Guardian, this devaluation has been attributed to a number of economic and political factors. The political factors include speculation regarding a collapse of the Iranian nuclear deal and a return to sanctions on the nation, which would hurt the oil-exporting nation.

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Qatari Emir Meets with Putin in Moscow Janny Zhang Al Jazeera reports that on March 26, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the status quo of Syria, Yemen, and Palestine. Additionally, Qatar discussed a defense deal with Russia, and Qatari state-owned companies met with their Russian counterparts to further cooperation and economic ties.

In June 2017, several countries in the Middle East, including Saudi

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS: CHUCK HEGEL

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in 2013

Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the U.A.E., cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing it of supporting extremist political movements in the region. Saudi Arabia and its allies also demand that Qatar shut down Al Jazeera and reduce its diplomatic relationship with Iran. Although Russia has maintained neutrality in the crisis, Qatar has sought closer ties with Russia following its diplomatic and economic isolation in the Gulf, according to Radio Free Europe.

“We count on our Russian friends, with whom we have a cooperative

relationship, knowing that Russia plays a significant role in the problems of the Arab world,” Al Thani stated at the start of the talks.

Qatar is now attempting to diversify its foreign allies.

According to Al Jazeera, Al Thani and Putin discussed several aspects of the Syrian crisis, including Qatar’s support for the Syrian rebels and Qatar’s possible role in reconstructing Syria. As the U.S. has given an ambiguous response to the Syrian conflict, Qatar is now attempting to diversify its foreign allies, reinforce its connections with Russia, and improve its relations with Russia’s partners in the Middle East, Iran and Turkey, according to Al-Monitor.

Qatar’s isolation from Saudi Arabia has already begun to shift its diplomacy in Syria, Al-Monitor reports. Qatar and Turkey pressured the rebel groups under their influence to abandon their resistance in eastern Ghouta,

which the Syrian government has besieged for months in its campaign to eliminate the last rebel stronghold near Damascus, and continue on towards Idlib. On the other hand, the Saudi Arabian-backed rebel group has held its ground in eastern Ghouta. Qatar may use its growing connections with Russia to further its role as a mediator in the Syrian conflict.

The two countries also deepened their economic ties. Reuters reports that Qatar Airways plans to buy a 25 percent stake in Russia’s Vnukovo Airport. According to Al Jazeera, Al Thani advanced negotiations on a proposed sale of 400 Russian antiaircraft missile systems to Qatar, and Qatar Petroleum discussed contracts with Russia’s state-owned oil company, Rosneft.

For Moscow, Qatar’s visit is an opportunity to strengthen its presence in the region, Al Jazeera reports. The trip was preceded by a three-day visit by Saudi Arabian King Salman in September 2017, a phone call between Putin and Abu Dhabi Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in early March, and a call between Putin and King Salman in February.

ICC Prosecutor Threatens Action Against Israel Michael Abi-Habib Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda announced that she is conducting a preliminary probe into allegations of crimes in the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reports. After almost two weeks of protest, at least 30 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds injured by Israeli forces, according to Al Arabiya.

In response, on March 8, Bensouda called for an end to the increasing violence in the region.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was introduced in 2002 to investigate the highest of crimes, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Al Jazeera explains that an ICC preliminary examination occurs in the early phases of a case and determines whether a crime committed is serious enough to warrant a full international investigation.

The ICC is launching its second preliminary investigation into the alleged crimes of the Israeli army in Palestinian territory. The first investigation was conducted in January 2015 following Palestine’s membership into the court. Although Israel is not

a member of the ICC, its citizens can still be tried for committing a crime on ICC member state territory.

Israel has received criticism since its handling of the recent border protests in the Gaza Strip. The recent protests have been peaceful and will continue until May 15. The six weeks of protests will end on Nakba Day, the day after Israeli Independence Day, to symbolize the displacement experienced by Palestinians after Israeli independence.

In response to the mass protests, Israeli forces opened fire on protesters.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 30 people have been killed and hundreds injured. This is not the first time Israel has been accused of using excessive force, the most recent case having been the 2014 IsraeliGaza conflict, during which 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed, according to Reuters.

Al Arabiya reports that in response to the accusations, Israel has stated that Hamas, the Islamic movement that has fought three wars with Israel in the Gaza Strip, is using the protest as a front to commit violent acts. In order to counter this, Israeli soldiers

are ordered to open fire whenever protesters near the border fence.

The protest committee replied by encouraging protesters to “keep dozens of meters away [from the fence] so as not to give the soldiers any excuse to shoot at the participants,” Haaretz reports.

This is not the first time Israel has been accused of using excessive force.

Following increased violence in the Gaza Strip, Bensouda reminded all parties that “the situation in Palestine is under preliminary examination. She warned that any alleged crimes will be examined and may lead to a full investigation.

“Violence against civilians - in a situation such as the one prevailing in Gaza - could constitute crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” Bensouda said.

According to Al Arabiya, Bensouda said that she will record “any instance

of incitement or resort to unlawful force” by either side in the conflict.

The recent events unfolding in the Gaza Strip have received increasing attention from parties across the globe.

The Arab League convened for a special session and approved a resolution to support the call for investigations into Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.

Al Arabiya reports that the European Union questioned whether Israeli troops engaged in “proportionate use of force.” They also asked for clarification as to whether Palestinians attempted to damage or cross the border and whether there was any violence that warranted an Israeli response.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights claimed that the individuals killed or wounded were unarmed, posed no threat, and in some cases were running away from the soldiers and border.

Despite numerous calls for a United Nations probe into the case, RT reports, the United Nations Security Council failed to pass a resolution for the investigation after the United States vetoed in a 14-1 vote.

EDITOR’S NOTE: April Artrip

A

ccording to the Huffington Post, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has not only called for the U.S. to resume the use of torture methods like waterboarding, but also oversaw military operations in Yemen as director of the CIA. In this capacity, he worked closely with the U.A.E., a partner in American operations in Yemen. The U.S. conducts drone strikes and raids in addition to cooperating with the U.A.E. in gathering intelligence.

The U.A.E. has also tortured a significant number of its detainees.

In June 2017, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism released a report describing how forces tied to the U.A.E. kidnapped men and detained them in prisons in southern Yemen. Human Rights Watch detailed how U.A.E. forces tortured the detainees with heavy beatings, electrocution, forced nudity, and threats.

Weeks later, AP reported that U.S. military officials stated that though they were confident that torture had not occurred while U.S. forces were present in the prisons, the U.S. has participated with the U.A.E. in interrogating detainees in the U.A.E.-controlled prisons. U.S. forces provided questions to U.A.E. forces and received transcripts of the interrogations. A member of a Yemeni security force organized by the U.A.E. claimed that U.S. forces were sometimes only yards away from incidents of torture.

According to AP, the U.S. may have violated the International Convention Against Torture, which prohibits the use of intelligence gathered from torture—even when gathered by a different party.

Furthermore, the Huffington Post reports that Pompeo has not commented on any of these reports, all of which were released during his time as CIA director. This silence is worrisome, considering Trump’s public desire to bring back torture methods “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” Torture is not only brutal and inhumane but also, according to a 2014 Senate report, counterproductive, and America’s continued association with torture in Yemen warrants a reaction other than empowering those complicit in its perpetuation.

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NORTH & SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Sudan to Free All Political Prisoners Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir ordered the release of all political prisoners in the country, according to state-run news agency SUNA on April 10. The exact number of prisoners to be freed remains unclear, as al-Bashir provided few details of the release.

“The decision aims to promote peace and harmony among all political parties in order to create a positive environment for achieving national goals,” the SUNA press release said.

U.S. and European embassies in Khartoum, the country’s capital, as well as various opposition political parties have called for the Sudanese government to unconditionally release the detainees. The announcement comes just weeks after anti-government protests in which many were arrested.

According to the Guardian, hundreds of activists were imprisoned following demonstrations in January reacting to a dramatic increase in bread prices.

According to Africanews, though Bashir ordered the release of 80

political detainees in March, over 50 remain in prison, including Mohamed Mokhtar al-Khatib, the leader of the Sudanese Communist Party.

While some have lauded the mass releases as a momentous first step toward achieving peace in the restive country, others remain skeptical of alBashir and whether his compassion will continue. Human Rights Watch noted that the UN Human Rights Council’s independent expert on Sudan will visit the country this week, so the releases may have more political significance than meets the eye.

“The decision aims to promote peace and harmony among all political parties.”

Bashir surged to the presidency in 1989 amid a 21-year civil war after an Islamist military coup. He is accused by the International Criminal Court of genocide, war crimes, and crimes

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Kevin Pollack

President of Nigeria Will Run for Re-Election Macy Uustal

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is set to release the country’s political prisoners.

against humanity as a result of the conflicts in the war-torn region of Darfur, making him the only sitting head of state wanted for genocide.

He has also constantly voiced his opposition to the presence of UN peacekeepers in Sudan, especially after the secession of South Sudan in 2011.

In spite of the controversy surrounding Bashir and his presidency, Sudan has recently made much progress in its diplomatic relations with the West. President Donald Trump withdrew a number of sanctions against the country, and according to the New York Times, the United States has hinted that it would consider removing Sudan from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

As al-Bashir’s reign approaches 30 years, it is difficult to predict when it will end. He appointed a prime minister for the first time in 2017 and announced that he would not seek reelection in 2020. However, his previous actions call into question the legitimacy of these promises. In 2011, Bashir stated that he would not run for reelection when his four-year term expired in 2015. He reneged on his promise and ran regardless, winning in an election that many derided as fraudulent and corrupt.

“He’s a big liar, and I don’t think he will hand over power,” Jalal Moustafa, a member of the opposition Sudanese Congress Party, said to the New York Times.

Liberian Newspaper Raid May Signal Erosion of Liberties Kate Fin Liberian officials raided the offices of FrontPage Africa, a local newspaper that published content criticizing President George Weah, on April 9.

All employees, including journalists, an expediter, and cleaners, were arrested and detained, according to the Liberian Observer.

The raid was purportedly a result of civil defamation suits brought by private businessmen against the paper. The arrests were simply an enforcement of a writ of summons for FrontPage’s journalists that had been ignored, according to Africanews.

The Press Union of Liberia (PUL) published a statement condemning the raid, deeming the civil lawsuit a “pretext” and arguing the “underlying motives are rooted in intolerance for dissent and freedom of the independent press.”

In the statement, the PUL also warned that such events could signal that freedom of the press in Liberia is eroding under Weah, addressing the raid as a “creeping return of the old tactics of using private citizens to intimidate and harass journalists.”

Weah, a former soccer star, was elected in December 2017, replacing Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a darling of the international community, who promoted peace and women’s rights in the country following a devastating 14-year civil war.

Weah’s election in December left Liberians unsure whether he would be able to continue Sirleaf ’s legacy of peace. So far, Weah has stayed out of the headlines, having done little to shake up the template that Sirleaf left him. The April 9 raid, however, could signal a distressing shift toward suppression of the press.

After months of silence, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari affirmed that he would pursue another term in office at a National Executive Council meeting of his All Progressives Congress. Soon after, on April 9, his personal assistant broke the news on social media, publicly confirming the president’s decision.

Buhari framed his re-election bid as a response “to the clamour

by Nigerians to re-contest in 2019,” despite facing mounting criticisms, according to News24. In 2017, Buhari spent a total of five months receiving treatment for an undisclosed ailment in the U.K. During his tenure, he oversaw the most extreme economic depreciation in 25 years, Bloomberg reported. Nigeria still faces security threats, particularly the Boko Haram insurgency in the country’s Northeast.

Furthermore, a secessionist movement in southeastern Nigeria advocating for the sovereignty of the historical state of Biafra has, since 2015, threatened to undermine Buhari’s attempts to unite the country, although the movement has roots in the Nigerian Civil War of the 1960s.

The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) declared that Buhari’s candidacy is a welcome development for their cause.

In an official statement, Uchenna Madu, the leader of MASSOB, stated that Buhari’s re-election bid “will finally expose the fraudulent foundation of this British colonial establishment called Nigeria. It shall mark the sudden end of Nigeria as an entity,” according to the Daily Post.

The News Agency of Nigeria reported that Buhari’s goal “is to ensure that the party tows the path of unity, legality, and cohesion and not that of division.” The Nigerian people will head to the polls in February 2019 to decide the future direction of their country.

A P R . 21, 2018 |15

Abiy Ahmed Sworn-In as New Ethiopian Prime Minister Bethania Michael Dr. Abiy Ahmed was sworn-in by the Ethiopian Parliament as the country’s 12th prime minister on April 2, ending a period of anxiety for Ethiopians after the resignation of former-Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn on February 15.

Desalegn’s resignation came after mounting pressure from Ethiopia’s marginalized ethnic groups, which are disenchanted with the ruling party and its lack of ethnic representation.

Ahmed, the former lieutenant general and leader of the ruling

coalition’s Oromo People’s Democratic Organization, is Ethiopia’s first Oromo prime minister and a relief to an ethnic group that has long felt ignored and persecuted by Ethiopia’s government.

Promoting national unity, Ahmed thanked Desalegn in a speech to the parliament and the nation “for his exemplary step in voluntarily stepping down and transferring his power to be part of the solution for the instability that has gripped the country in recent years; for believing that a new leadership is better suited to tackle these problems; for prioritizing the

WIKIMEDIA COM-

Dr. Abiy Ahmed will serve as Ethiopia’s 12th prime minister.

dignity of the country and the country’s national interests in a manner that can set precedence [sic] for our continent,” opposition site OPride reports.

The grand turn of events has led to an air of hope in Ethopia.

Expressing a desire to learn from Ethiopia’s mistakes, Ahmed asked for forgiveness from “activists and politicians who paid the sacrifice and youths who wanted change but lost their lives,” according to a recent Foreign Policy report. Ahmed also promised to ameliorate both EritreanEthiopian and Oromia-Somali relations.

The grand turn of events has led to an air of hope in Ethiopia, though there is some apprehension as to whether Ahmed can maintain all of his promises. Critics among the opposition are hesitant to call Ahmed a reformer, arguing that he has “been a party insider for too long,” BBC reports.

During the past two weeks, Ahmed set out to fulfill his promises to the nation. On April 2, Ahmed visited Jigjiga, the capital of the Somali region, to address clashes between the Oromo and Somali ethnic groups that have displaced millions, according to an Africanews report. Coverage of ethnic clashes between the Oromia and Somali regions can be found in previous editions of the Caravel.

On April 13, the prime minister visited the northern region of Tigray to address Tigrayans at the Martyrs’ Hall, answering concerns about the “free movement of citizens,” infrastructure, and the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, reported Africanews.

On April 6, Ethiopia shut-down its infamous Maekelawi prison, which had housed activists, journalists, and opponents of the ruling party.

Ahmed also restored internet service in the region of Oromia, which had been shut down by the government to quell protests. In an interview with the Washington Post, Amnesty International representative Fisseha Tekle stated that the directive “could signal the end of an era of bloody repression in Ethiopia.

C.A.R. Protesters Place Bodies at UN Headquarters Protesters placed dead bodies at the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) UN’s headquarters on April 11.

Seventeen civilians were killed during skirmishes between UN troops and rebels, according to BBC. According to the Washington Post, the protest was contesting a new UN operation. In an attempt to fight armed groups, the operation has targeted the majority-Muslim neighborhood PK5, where a Muslim militia group purports to protect civilians from ethnic cleansing. The UN says the effort was a joint operation between its peacekeepers and C.A.R. security forces, but according to ABC News, the C.A.R. defense minister stated that the country’s forces were not involved.

The operation was launched in response to residents’ complaints of “extortion and violence” by the armed groups.

UN spokesman Vladimir Monteiro claimed that the people killed were not civilians but armed criminals, saying, “They shot at our peacekeepers, and we returned fire. The bodies resulted from the clashes.” He added, “We condemn

the fact that some people are using dead bodies for a kind of propaganda.”

However, Reuters reported that Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the head of MINUSCA, the UN force in C.A.R., acknowledged that civilians indeed died during the clash. According to Lacroix, “There were, unfortunately, civilians, civilians that were armed by the irresponsible criminal gang leaders...who confronted the Central African armed forces and MINUSCA. That resulted in a large number of dead.”

Eight more bodies were placed at a mosque in the PK5 neighborhood.

On the UN side, one Rwandan peacekeeper died, and nearly 20 others were wounded.

ABC News reported that the UN Security Council condemned the violence against the peacekeepers “in the strongest terms.” The Security Council asked for “calm and restraint” and stressed its request “that all armed groups, in Bangui and in the rest of the country, cease all forms of violence and destabilizing activities, lay down their arms, and engage constructively in the peace process immediately and unconditionally.”

Violence erupted in C.A.R. in 2013 when Muslim rebels took control in the majority-Christian country.

Following the rebels’ offensive against the C.A.R. government in December 2012 the groups staged a coup in March 2013. A coalition of mostly Christian militias arose to counter brutality by the Muslim rebels, and both groups have been found to have committed war crimes.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, in 2014, the UN Security Council established MINUSCA, incorporating African

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Claire Hazbun

Union and French forces that had been deployed to C.A.R. previously.

The mission contained 10,000 troops and had a mandate to protect civilians.

The French forces, the object of many sexual abuse allegations, were in C.A.R. until their withdrawal in 2016.

Doctors Without Borders reports that the continuous violence has caused humanitarian crisis in C.A.R., with severe health needs among the population. Since 2013, 3,000 to 6,000 people have been killed in rampant executions and mutilations, and over 450,000 refugees have been displaced.

Rebels fighting in C.A.R. have been causing widespread violence since 2013.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Bethania Michael

T

he first print edition of the Caravel in 2018 included news of Israel’s warning to African migrants to evacuate its borders by the end of March, which was widely met with protest on the part of African migrants and left-leaning local civil society organizations. On February 5, Africanews reported that migrants were sent letters giving them the choice between leaving voluntarily or being forcibly incarcerated, placing the 38,000 African migrants in Israel in a dangerous situation.

However, Israel’s High Court responded to civil society organizations’ concerns and suspended the directive temporarily to respond to a petition of 120 Eritrean and Sudanese refugees, the Times of Israel reported. The ruling was criticized by members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, with Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely referring to migrants as “infiltrators” and claiming that the decision prevents “the state from deporting infiltrators to a thirdparty country” and “from dealing with one of the most difficult social issues in the State of Israel.”

In a surprise move, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported on April 2 that Netanyahu collaborated with the UNHCR on an agreement that would address protection gaps and send half of African migrants in Israel to third countries “under various programs, including sponsorship, resettlement, family reunion, and labor migration schemes, while others will be receiving a suitable legal status in Israel.” One day after the agreement was announced, however, Netanyahu reversed his decision, a move that is believed to have been motivated by political backlash to the agreement.

Explaining his decision, Netanyahu announced that he had “decided to strive for a new agreement” concerning the “infiltrators,” reported the Voice of America.

Looking back to the conclusion of the first editor’s note, which urged the international community to respond to mounting refugee issues, I am doubtful that the international community is fully committed to addressing the problems that migrants and refugees face.

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ISABELLE LAHAUSSOIS (COL ‘19)

A view of Changgyeonggung Palace in Seoul, South Korea.

Stephen Hawking’s funeral procession as it passes through the streets of Cambridge.

CAROLINE SCHAUDER (SFS ‘20)

BRYCE COUCH (SFS ‘19)

ISABELLE LAHAUSSOIS (COL ‘19)

This semester, many of The Caravel’s writers are studying abroad. Check out the photos below to follow them on their journey!

Decorations for the Lunar New Year in Hong Kong.

Bikers in Columbia taking advantage of the reserved bike lanes on the Septima on Sunday morning.