AHS Comparative Government

The production of grain on Chinese farms has risen 40% since 2013. Indeed, the output per hectare (a metric measurement of land -- there are roughly 260 hectares in a square mile) of grain in China is greater than it is in Canada. But, according to The Economist, this increase in production has been achieved through an environmentally unsound increase in the use of fertilizer and pesticides, and an unsustainable increase in the use of irrigation water. Moreover, 40% of the Chinese workforce is engaged in farming, even though agriculture constitutes less than 9% of the country's GDP. One does not have to share The Economist's enthusiasm for large-scale, Western-style farming to recognize that Chinese agriculture is going to change rapidly in the near future:

https://www.economist.com/news/china/21734394-despite-huge-improvements-maos-dire-day-farming-china-still-woefully-inefficient-why

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been barred from running for president against the incumbent, Vladimir Putin, in the country's March presidential election. Navalny's disqualification stems from his 2013 conviction on embezzlement charges widely believed to have been trumped-up. Navalny has called for a boycott of the election, in an effort to reduce Putin's ability to claim a democratic mandate for his likely fourth term as Russia's president (and his probable fifth term as the country's de facto leader):

https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21733462-vladimir-putin-bars-his-main-challenger-alexei-navalny-excluded-russias-presidential-poll

The Russian government's efforts to exclude Navalny from the contest, and thereby to deny him a platform for his views, seem unnecessary. Putin remains broadly popular and no one really doubts that Putin would defeat Navalny handily were Navalny permitted to run -- even if the election were honestly conducted.

The Chinese government is cracking down on telecommunications in China. Chinese authorities have made it much harder for people in China to use Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to reach websites blocked in China, such as the BBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Google, and Facebook. Moreover, the creators of private chat groups on instant messaging applications are now legally responsible for any untoward comments made in conversations in their private groups -- meaning that they must act as censors of those conversations. Finally, the Chinese government is planning to limit the ability of private foreign companies operating in China to encrypt their communications with their headquarters outside China:

https://www.economist.com/news/china/21734029-how-high-will-it-go-chinas-great-firewall-rising

This week, demonstrations broke out in more than 80 cities in Iran. At least 20 protesters were killed by the police, while one Revolutionary Guardsman was shot to death. Over 400 demonstrators were arrested and are currently being held by the authorities. Although protesters chanted "Death to the Dictator!" and "Death to Khamenei!" in Tehran several nights ago, The Guardian's Simon Tisdall argues that economic grievances, and not political concerns, led to the outbreak of the protests:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/04/iran-unrest-cry-freedom-platitudes-from-trump-and-his-ilk-are-foolish

Tisdall's analysis is supported by a series of BBC charts that reflect the growth of inflation and unemployment, and the decline in living standards, in Iran in recent years:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42553516

Protests are continuing in Iran for a fifth day; the demonstrations have spread to at least two dozen cities. While demonstrations have been held in some of Iran's largest cities, the protests have been concentrated in smaller cities with populations of 50,000-100,000. The protests appear to involve young Iranians from modest backgrounds angry about the country's high cost of living, high rate of unemployment and crumbling infrastructure. This distinguishes the protests from those that followed Iran's disputed presidential election in 2009; for the most part, the 2009 protests involved well educated, middle class Iranians from the country's largest cities. (Indeed, those protests often involved the sons and daughters of Iran's clerical elite). The 2009 protests were also much larger, involving hundreds of thousands of demonstrators at each demonstration; the current protests typically involve fifty to 100 protesters in small cities, and several hundred protesters in large cities.

At least 14 demonstrators and one policeman have been killed so far in the protests; several hundred protesters have also been arrested. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has taken a cautious approach, insisting that Iranians have the right to demonstrate but not to engage in violence or vandalism. The regime's hardliners, however, are growing impatient with the protests and have threatened to take tougher measures against protesters:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/world/middleeast/iran-protests.html