23 February 2021
Covid-19 Pandemic Stalls AMLO's Promised "Fourth Transformation"
Mexico has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the country has suffered one of the world's highest rates of excess deaths as a share of population. The global recession sparked by the pandemic, moreover, has led to a nearly 10% decline in Mexican GDP, and to a sharp increase in the country's poverty rate (from 35.7% to 44.5%).
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been hesitant to spend significantly to jump-start the economy or to alleviate the effects of the recession on the unemployed. Indeed, López Obrador has eliminated Mexico's conditional cash transfer program, replacing it with a scholarship program that is intended to permit Mexican families to keep their children in school or university after the age of 15 but which does not include a child benefit for all poor families.
Nonetheless, López Obrador remains popular, and his party, the Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (the National Regeneration Movement, or MORENA), is expected to do well in June's off-year elections for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. López Obrador may have a little more time, therefore, to deliver on his promise of a "fourth transformation" of Mexico:
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/02/20/mexicos-president-has-yet-to-make-peoples-lives-better
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been hesitant to spend significantly to jump-start the economy or to alleviate the effects of the recession on the unemployed. Indeed, López Obrador has eliminated Mexico's conditional cash transfer program, replacing it with a scholarship program that is intended to permit Mexican families to keep their children in school or university after the age of 15 but which does not include a child benefit for all poor families.
Nonetheless, López Obrador remains popular, and his party, the Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (the National Regeneration Movement, or MORENA), is expected to do well in June's off-year elections for the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. López Obrador may have a little more time, therefore, to deliver on his promise of a "fourth transformation" of Mexico:
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/02/20/mexicos-president-has-yet-to-make-peoples-lives-better
21 February 2021
Will Russia try to Block the Western Internet?
Under President Vladimir Putin, the Russian government has tried to control the information available to Russians. Foreign media companies may not own Russian radio or television stations, or publish newspapers or magazines in Russia. Domestic broadcast media are either state-controlled or in the hands of Putin supporters. Although there are a few dissident journals, all significant Russian newspapers and magazines support Putin. Finally, the Russian domestic internet is increasingly censored. It is also flooded with pro-Putin, anti-Western propaganda, some of it written by Russian military intelligence and some of it written by employees of corporate tycoons allied to Putin.
However, except for a brief period in which it banned the Telegram messaging app, the Russian government has been hesitant to wall Russia off from online Western news media and Western social network apps. Instead, it has tried to persuade Russians to switch to Russian social media. But Russian dissidents have recently used Western social media to great effect, and hardliners in the Russian government have begun to advocate the creation of a Chinese-style firewall to exclude Western internet sources of information from Russia:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/21/world/europe/russia-internet-censorship.html
However, except for a brief period in which it banned the Telegram messaging app, the Russian government has been hesitant to wall Russia off from online Western news media and Western social network apps. Instead, it has tried to persuade Russians to switch to Russian social media. But Russian dissidents have recently used Western social media to great effect, and hardliners in the Russian government have begun to advocate the creation of a Chinese-style firewall to exclude Western internet sources of information from Russia:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/21/world/europe/russia-internet-censorship.html
Ahmadinejad Weighs Another Campaign for Iran's Presidency
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative populist, won an upset victory in Iran's 2005 presidential election. Four years later, he was reelected with the open support of Iran's Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The circumstances of Ahmadinejad's reelection, however, were suspect and triggered massive street protests. When Khamenei announced his determination that the results of the election were legitimate, and told protesters to go home, the demonstrations continued; they were then put down with brutal force.
During his second term, Ahmadinejad fell out with Khamenei, who went out of his way to undermine and humiliate the president. Ahmadinejad left office in 2013. When he sought the presidency again in 2017, Khamenei told him that his candidacy was not in the national interest; Iran's Guardian Council then formally disqualified Ahmadinejad from running for president.
Iran will have a presidential election again this year, on June 18. The Economist speculates that Ahmadinjead may be positioning himself for another run:
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/02/20/does-mahmoud-ahmadinejad-want-to-be-president-of-iran-again
During his second term, Ahmadinejad fell out with Khamenei, who went out of his way to undermine and humiliate the president. Ahmadinejad left office in 2013. When he sought the presidency again in 2017, Khamenei told him that his candidacy was not in the national interest; Iran's Guardian Council then formally disqualified Ahmadinejad from running for president.
Iran will have a presidential election again this year, on June 18. The Economist speculates that Ahmadinjead may be positioning himself for another run:
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/02/20/does-mahmoud-ahmadinejad-want-to-be-president-of-iran-again
15 February 2021
The Danger of Legislating against Misinformation
An article in this week's issue of The Economist examines laws, adopted in many countries, that either criminalize the spread of misinformation or require social media platforms to remove misinformation. While a few democracies have adopted such laws, and have enforced them sparingly, they "set a precedent for tighter curbs on the press." Moreover, most of the countries that have adopted such laws, including Russia, Turkey and Hungary, have authoritarian or semi-authoritarian political systems. In these countries, the governments have used laws aimed at "misinformation" to deter and punish legitimate criticism:
Censorious Governments are Abusing “Fake News” Laws. The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, Ltd., 13 Feb. 2021. https://www.economist.com/international/2021/02/13/censorious-governments-are-abusing-fake-news-laws. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.
Censorious Governments are Abusing “Fake News” Laws. The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, Ltd., 13 Feb. 2021. https://www.economist.com/international/2021/02/13/censorious-governments-are-abusing-fake-news-laws. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.
07 February 2021
World Bank Forecasts Significant Increase in Extreme Poverty in Nigeria
According to The Economist, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a disastrous effect on the Nigerian economy. That economy remains critically dependent on oil exports, and the global recession resulting from the pandemic has led to sharp drops in the price of crude oil and in the volume of oil exported from Nigeria:
Covid-19 has exposed the weakness of Africa’s biggest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, which generate almost half of sub-Saharan GDP. Nigeria, the continent’s largest oil producer and home to one-fifth of sub-Saharan Africans, faces an “unprecedented crisis”, says the World Bank, which seldom uses such blunt language. More than two in three households are poorer than a year ago. By 2022 the number of Nigerians who are extremely poor is expected to rise by 20 [million], to 100 [million]."Africa’s Recovery from Covid-19 Will Be Slow." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, Ltd., 6 Feb. 2021. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/02/06/africas-recovery-from-covid-19-will-be-slow. Accessed 7 Feb. 2021.
06 February 2021
Released Uyghur Detainees Allege Torture and Rape in Xinjiang Detention Camps
This week, two press reports about China focused on the country's grim human rights record:
First, several Uyghur women who have been released from detention camps in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region, and one former detention camp guard, have alleged that the detention camps practice "an organized system of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture." Students are cautioned not to read this article if they are particularly sensitive to discussions of violence and sexual violence:
Hill, Matthew, et al. "'Their Goal is to Destroy Everyone': Uighur Camp Detainees Allege Systematic Rape." BBC News, British Broadcasting Corporation, 2 Feb. 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071. Accessed 6 Feb. 2021.
Second, teachers in Hong Kong will be required to track their students' political attitudes and behavior, and to report students suspected of holding dissident political beliefs to the authorities:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55948773
First, several Uyghur women who have been released from detention camps in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region, and one former detention camp guard, have alleged that the detention camps practice "an organized system of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture." Students are cautioned not to read this article if they are particularly sensitive to discussions of violence and sexual violence:
Hill, Matthew, et al. "'Their Goal is to Destroy Everyone': Uighur Camp Detainees Allege Systematic Rape." BBC News, British Broadcasting Corporation, 2 Feb. 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55794071. Accessed 6 Feb. 2021.
Second, teachers in Hong Kong will be required to track their students' political attitudes and behavior, and to report students suspected of holding dissident political beliefs to the authorities:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55948773
03 February 2021
Navalny Sentenced to Two and a Half Years in Prison
On Tuesday, Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was sentenced to more than two years' imprisonment. Navalny was found to have violated the terms of parole imposed in 2014 when he was convicted of embezzlement and given a suspended prison sentence. (In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Navalny's conviction was "arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable," and ordered the Russian government to pay him more than $70,000 in compensation. The Russian government made the payment, but Russian courts subsequently upheld Navalny's suspended sentence, the parole conditions imposed as a condition of the suspension, and Navalny's disqualification from seeking elective office.)
Thousands of Russians continued to protest Navalny's imprisonment Tuesday, and Russian police made nearly 1400 arrests in Moscow and St. Petersburg:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/world/europe/russia-navalny-putin.html
Thousands of Russians continued to protest Navalny's imprisonment Tuesday, and Russian police made nearly 1400 arrests in Moscow and St. Petersburg:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/world/europe/russia-navalny-putin.html
