Week of 26 October 2020

ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN: On Friday, representatives from the two warring countries arrived in Geneva for a round of peace talks. Representatives from France, Russia and the U.S. will also participate in this latest attempt to solve the largest military confrontation in the area since the Nagorno-Karabakh War of 1991–94. In a potential breakthrough, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia would accept a return of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region (currently occupied by Armenia) to Azerbaijan, recognising that ‘there are no simple solutions’ in sight. 

FRANCE: It’s been quite a difficult week for France. On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a new nationwide lockdown to last at least until the end of November, hoping to curb the rapid spread of COVID-19 in the country. Under the new rules, all non-essential businesses will close but factories and schools will remain open. This is in addition to the curfews which have already been in force in most French cities since last week. Then, on Thursday, a man killed three people with a knife in the city of Nice in what has been described as a terrorist incident, prompting Mr Macron to raise the terror alert level to ‘maximum’. 

GERMANY: On Saturday, Berlin’s long-awaited new international airport will finally open its doors to travellers. The delays and ballooning costs of the project have caused ample debate in Germany over the years: the airport was first scheduled to open in 2011 and construction costs have exceeded initial estimates by over €4bn. It is believed that the decrease in traffic due to the pandemic will make the opening easier: when fully operative, the airport will be able to handle 58 million passengers per year, but currently Berlin’s other two airports are serving as few as 2,500 passengers per day. 

NIGERIA: The Financial Times has published a detailed special report to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Nigeria’s independence. Nigeria became an independent state on 1 October 1960, as had been agreed with the British government two years prior, and underwent long periods of ethnic tension and military rule in the following decades before emerging as a stable (if flawed) democracy. Its booming economy is Africa’s biggest, having overtaken South Africa in recent years, and its growing population – now exceeding 200 million – is the seventh-largest in the world. The Financial Times’s report sheds an interesting light on the African superpower’s strengths and challenges going forward. 

USA: Hopefully, by the time you’ll read our next weekly digest, we’ll know the name of the winner of the U.S. presidential election. President Donald Trump currently trails former Vice President Joe Biden by about nine points and might become the first sitting president to lose re-election since 1992. At the time of writing, more than 82 million early votes had already been cast in what is on track to become the highest-turnout U.S. election in a century. 

Week of 12 October 2020

ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN: Last weekend, the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan struck a ceasefire to suspend fighting over the contended region of Nagorno-Karabakh. However, fighting has quickly resumed with both parties blaming the other for breaking the truce and launching attacks on civilians. Many countries around the world, including Russia and Turkey, have urged the two countries to respect the ceasefire and initiate talks, with little success so far. 

CHINA: A long article on The Atlantic investigates how milk tea has become a symbol of anti-China sentiment and pro-democracy activism in East Asia. It started when Thai actor Vachirawit Chirawee liked an Instagram post suggesting that Hong Kong was not China. This sparked a heated debate on identity and democracy, and Thai, Taiwanese and Hong Kongese activists began to use their respective signature drinks as symbols of identity – Thai tea (made with condensed milk), Taiwanese bubble tea and Hong Kong–style milk tea, all characterised by the use of milk as opposed to the Chinese habit of drinking tea without milk. The hashtag #milkteaalliance is now extremely popular on social media.

FRANCE: President Emmanuel Macron has announced a curfew in Paris and eight other major French cities, with a total population of nearly 20 million, to curb the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases in the country. The curfew will be in place from 9pm to 6am for a minimum of four weeks, starting at midnight on Friday. During curfew, people are generally expected not to leave their homes unless they have cogent reasons to do so, such as health or professional reasons; curfew breakers are subject to a €135 fine. France registered upwards of 30,000 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday and is the second hardest-hit European country so far after Spain, with a total of more than 800,000 registered cases. 

KYRGYZSTAN: President Sooronbay Jeenbekov resigned on Thursday, in a new dramatic development in the crisis following Kyrgyzstan’s 4 October general election. The election result was annulled on 6 October amid mass demonstrations and protests due to alleged electoral fraud. The annulment prompted the resignation of PM Kubatbek Boronov, who was replaced by nationalist activist Sadyr Japarov. Following Jeebenkov’s resignation, the new PM Sadyr Japarov became acting president as well. 

USA: The confirmation process of Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, is drawing to a close. Senate hearings began on Monday and Republican leaders, who can count on a 53–47 Senate majority, expect to complete this stage by the end of next week and get a final vote before the 3 November election. During the hearings, Judge Barrett has refrained from answering some questions about her political convictions, stating that as an ‘originalist’ she will bring no political agenda to the Supreme Court. According to some observers, a Justice Barrett could potentially be key in overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion in all 50 states. 

Week of 28 September 2020

ARMENIA and AZERBAIJAN: Fighting has erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The region, largely Christian and ethnically Armenian, has been internationally recognised as part of Muslim-majority Azerbaijan since 1994, but is de facto autonomous and closely allied with Armenia. The conflict could potentially escalate due to Turkey’s alleged intervention on the Azerbaijani side on Monday, which has reportedly attracted Russian attention.

GREECE: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has visited Greece in an attempt to ease the tensions between Greece and Turkey that have marked the past few months. Relations between the two countries have been historically fraught and reached a new low point over the summer, when the Turkish research vessel Oruç Reis undertook energy resource explorations in a maritime area which Greece claims as its own. Both Greece and Turkey are NATO members.

SOUTH SUDAN: The Government of South Sudan began rolling out an e-government programme on Tuesday, making services such as passport and visa applications accessible online. South Sudanese officials claim that the move will enhance transparency and help fight corruption while also delivering public services in a contactless, Covid-secure way. This project marks a new step in the process of normalisation in the fledgling state of South Sudan, which obtained independence from Sudan in 2011 but soon fell into a bloody civil war until a deal was struck last February.

UNITED STATES: Several political commentators have called Tuesday’s first U.S. presidential debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden ‘the worst presidential debate ever’. Trump interrupted Biden virtually every time he spoke and ‘demonstrated a willingness to lie, exaggerate and mislead’ according to The New York Times fact-checkers, prompting Biden to call him ‘the worst president America has ever had’. Trump is trailing Biden by about 7 points in the nationwide polling average, with the election scheduled for 3 November. The next debate (8 October) will see Vice President Pence facing Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris.

URUGUAY: The Economist has reported on the Uruguayan government’s recent attempts to make it easier for foreigners to take up residence in the country. The value of property a prospective citizen must buy has decreased from $1.7m to $380,000, and the minimum investment for business owners has been reduced from $5.5m to $1.7m. The move attempts to address the chronic demographic crisis of Uruguay, whose ageing population has stagnated for decades. The reform has proved particularly popular among Argentine citizens, who according to the Economist consider it a way to escape their country’s political instability and high taxation.