| | | | A Hungarian Grudge and Trump's Impeachment | | After The Washington Post's report suggesting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian President Viktor Orbán may have swayed President Trump's opinion against Ukraine, Foreign Policy's Amy Mackinnon examines what Orbán has against Hungary's neighbor, to begin with. Since Hungary lost two thirds of its territory after World War I, Mackinnon writes, surrounding countries—Ukraine included—have been home to ethnic Hungarians. And their treatment, at times, has become an issue: Hungary and Ukraine traded diplomatic expulsions after a 2017 requirement that all Ukrainian secondary education be taught in Ukrainian, for instance.
Hence the grudge. Orbán is among the illiberal leaders to whom Trump has warmed, but as Mackinnon portrays things, it seems Hungary's post-World War I border disputes may have seeped into the US impeachment saga. | | Lebanon Joins the Mass-Protest Club | | As Arab Spring protests spread across the Middle East in 2011, Lebanon stayed relatively quiet: As Bilal Y. Saab writes at the Middle East Institute, citizens of the fragile country (where civil war raged from 1975 to 1990 and where power is still split, for the most part, between Christians, Sunnis, and Shiites) didn't want to upset the balance, as the region convulsed and the threat of ISIS loomed.
That's changed in recent days, as Lebanon has joined the club of countries facing mass demonstrations. In the vein of Chile's transit-fare hike, Ecuador's end to fuel subsidies, and Hong Kong's extradition bill, Lebanon's proposed $6 monthly tax on WhatsApp calls touched off a movement. As in other cases, it's about much more: "This is not about a messaging app," Saab writes. "This is about less than half the people in Lebanon being connected to official water supplies, a tiny minority getting full electricity coverage, more than a third of the country's youth being unemployed," among other grievances. "My only surprise is that it has taken so long for the anger to spill on to the streets," Roula Khalaf writes in the Financial Times, noting that reforms passed at "lightning speed" in response may not be enough.
Wildfires in the country's north added to a sense of government failure, Firas Maksad writes for Foreign Policy, but as bad as things seem, Shiites, Sunnis, and Christians have managed to keep sectarian politics out of it: "To avoid traditional social cleavages that could undermine the movement, each separate group is focused on bringing down the established political order in its own community," Maksad writes. Lebanon's protest movement is unique in the region, the FT's Khalaf points out, because there's no "regime" to take down—and yet, some think big changes could arrive. In Saab's view, Lebanon faces two possibilities: an international aid package to keep current leaders in power, or a new Cabinet of technocrats to fix the country's messes, with the assent of Western patrons like the US and France. As protesters likely would, Saab prefers the latter. | | Migrants Are Trying to Survive | | The international migration system is under strain, particularly as people flee economic collapse and violence in Central America and Venezuela. But as Alexander Betts writes in Foreign Affairs, the international community lacks the appropriate terms to describe those fleeing. Established categories of "economic migrants" and "refugees" don't fit, he argues. As people flee Central America's Northern Triangle in the largest numbers since 2014, they're not simply seeking economic advancement; and yet, they're not fleeing political, ethnic, or religious persecution either and aren't "refugees," as such, under the strict definition.
Betts proposes a different term—"survival migrants"—and argues for international cooperation in providing for them. One model could come from the region itself: At the end of the Cold War, as Latin America faced another refugee surge, an international conference dedicated more than $422 million to help, including funds for economic development in Mexican states that hosted tens of thousands who fled Guatemala. | | We Don't Know How Much Global Warming Will Cost | | | Intense storms, droughts, and coastal damage could arrive with more frequency as the planet heats up, and all would bring costs. But according to a New York Times op-ed by Naomi Oreskes and Nicholas Stern, scientists and economists can't accurately predict what those costs will be. "The last time [atmospheric C02] levels were this high, the world was about five degrees Fahrenheit warmer and sea level 32 to 65 feet higher," they write. "Humans have no experience weathering sustained conditions of this type." Which means experts have no experience with which to predict outcomes, either. Other effects, like the value of biodiversity, can't really be measured and aren't factored in, while second and third-order effects—like lost crop productivity causing malnutrition, which may reduce human resilience to a hotter planet—also don't get counted. "In effect, economists have assigned [some risks] a value of zero, when the risks are decidedly not," Oreskes and Stern write. One way or another, the world will find out. | | | | | | |
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