AHS Comparative Government

The Russian economy is suffering from stagflation, a result of falling oil prices and a weak ruble. Russian GDP fell 2.2% in the first quarter of 2015, and 4.6% in the second quarter; prices in Russia increased by 15.8% between August 2014 and August 2015.

Despite his country's economic problems, Russian President Vladimir Putin has significantly increased his country's involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Over the past two weeks, Russia has rushed fighter jets, surface-to-air missiles, tanks and military advisers to Syria.

Russia has longstanding interests in Syria. Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, has been a Russian client since he succeeded his father as president of Syria in 2000. (Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez al-Assad, was a Soviet client, and later a Russian client, during the thirty years that he was President of Syria). Russia, moreover, is alarmed by the success of Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq. Russia includes a number of regions with non-Russian Muslim majorities, and has faced armed separatist movements in several of them. Indeed, 2400 Russian citizens are believed to be fighting with Islamic State forces in Syria.

In this morning's New York Times, Neil MacFarquhar argues that Russia's increased involvement in the Syrian Civil War stems as much from Putin's domestic political problems as it does from Russian geopolitical ambitions. Saddled with a weak economy at home, Putin must show Russian voters that Russia remains a strong international player that other powers must reckon with:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/world/on-syria-putin-is-catering-to-an-audience-at-home.html?src=me

Polio is no longer endemic in Nigeria, though it will be at least another two years before the country can be declared polio-free.

Efforts to eradicate polio in Nigeria have faced difficulties in the past. As recently as a decade ago, many in northern Nigeria believed that the polio vaccine offered to local residents was, in fact, a Western plot to sterilize Muslims. In 2013, nine women from Northern Nigeria who were working as polio vaccinators were murdered in Kano; Boko Haram, a militant Islamist group based in northeastern Nigeria, is believed to have been responsible for the killings. Those murders, however, did not deter northern Nigerians from seeking polio vaccinations for themselves and their children; instead, the killings galvanized public support for the polio eradication program:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34328447

The Economist reports this week that there are two Mexicos: one urban, industrial and increasingly affluent, the other rural, traditional and mired in poverty.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21664939-despite-decades-reform-most-mexicans-are-still-long-way-wealth-and-modernity-cars

This week's issue of The Economist includes a profile of Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin's most effective and outspoken opponent:

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21664230-russia-after-putin-hard-imagine-right-now-one-man-trying-lonely-not-lost

Jeremy Corbyn, one of the most left-wing members of the British Parliament, has been elected the leader of Britain's Labour Party. Corbyn, who personally favors abolishing the monarchy, is now the leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition in the House of Commons.

Corbyn was chosen Labour Party leader in an election in which any member of the British public could participate by paying £3 to become a registered party supporter; Corbyn won by securing the support of ideological leftists and trade union members frustrated by years of declining living standards. Corbyn, however, is considered far too radical to win a national election by most British journalists and most Labour Party elected officials. Corbyn has said that, if he became Prime Minister, he would get rid of Britain's nuclear weapons, re-nationalize Britain's railroads and energy companies, reintroduce rent controls on houses and flats, and take measures to stimulate the economy, paying for them with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. He has also said that he cannot imagine a situation in which he would deploy British troops overseas, and that he believes that Britain should withdraw from NATO.

The strong likelihood that Corbyn would lead his party to electoral defeat in 2020 has made his selection as Labour Party leader unpopular with most other Labour Members of Parliament (MPs). A number of leading Labour MPs have declined to serve in Corbyn's shadow cabinet. At the same time, the scope of Corbyn's victory (he was elected Party leader with 60% of the vote in a four candidate race) will make it difficult for Labour MPs to remove him as Party leader -- at least until he trips up. Tom Watson, the Labour Party's newly-elected Deputy Leader, has called for Labour MPs to rally around Corbyn -- even though Watson disagrees with Corbyn on a number of issues:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/world/europe/labour-party-election-jeremy-corbyn.html?_r=0

Although all British Labour Party leaders since the 1960s have supported British membership in the European Union (EU), and nearly all Labour MPs support continued British membership in the EU, Corbyn has long been a critic of British EU membership. Corbyn's election as Labour Party leader may thus sideline the Party in next year's referendum on continued British EU membership -- and make it far more difficult for Prime Minister Cameron to convince Britons to stay in the EU.

Since 2011, more than four million Syrians have fled the civil war in their homeland. At least two million Iraqis have fled their home country, which has suffered from almost constant warfare since the US invasion of 2003. This summer, hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis have sought refuge in Europe, presenting the continent's leaders with Europe's worst refugee crisis since the immediate aftermath of World War II. They have been joined by refugees from Libya and Afghanistan -- two other countries that have suffered protracted conflict in recent years.

Wednesday's edition of The Guardian contrasts the official response to the crisis of Germany, which expects to accept between 800,000 and 1,000,000 refugees this year, with that of the United Kingdom, which has so far offered asylum to several thousand Syrian refugees and is preparing to accept an additional 20,000 asylum seekers over the next five years:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/refugees-welcome-uk-germany-compare-migration

Boko Haram is a violent jihadi group based in northeastern Nigeria; it seeks to create a caliphate (an Islamic state governed by a religious authority) in the region. The Nigerian Army's six-year effort to suppress the Boko Haram insurgency has thus far failed; in 2014, the conflict expanded to neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

Despite the long duration of the conflict, the authorities in all four countries know very little about how the group operates. For example, security forces in the region have announced the death of Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, on four separate occasions -- only to have Shekaku turn up alive:

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21663254-nigeria-has-surprisingly-little-idea-what-it-fighting-against-shadow-army

In July, Iran agreed to significant restrictions on its nuclear fuel enrichment program, and to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of its nuclear and military facilities, in return for relief from most of the economic sanctions that had been imposed on Iran by the international community. Under the agreement, Iran will receive more than $50 billion in proceeds from past sales of Iranian oil; these funds have been frozen in banks outside Iran by foreign governments. Iranians will also once again be able to receive remittances from relatives and friends living abroad.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani hopes that sanctions relief, along with his program of economic liberalization (which includes the privatization of some state-owned enterprises), will stimulate Iran's foundering economy. Iranian businessmen, however, note that Iran desperately needs foreign direct investment to modernize its infrastructure; they warn that repairing the country's economy may take years:

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21663261-enthusiasm-post-sanctions-iran-being-tempered-realism-not-so-fast