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1. How can African nations improve their conservation efforts?
2. Should Western nations condemn Turkey’s attacks on the PKK?
3. How will the annoucned death of Mullah Muhammad Omar affect the Afghan-Taliban peace talks?
4. Is Great Britain doing enough to strengthen the security of its borders?
5. Will Angela Merkel be able to secure a fourth term?
6. Why are fewer cities willing to host the Olympics?
7. Will the TTP ever pass?
8. Is the Chinese government ill-equipped to handle an economic slowdown?
9. How should the Haitian government deal with repatriated citizens from the Dominican Republic?
10. When should Bank of England raise interest rates?
On May 27, Swiss authorities arrested seven high ranking officials of the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), the world’s governing body for soccer. The arrests were due to a United States investigation into bribery and corruption within the organization that federal prosecutors allege played a role in the awarding of television, licensing, and hosting rights to soccer competitions, notably the World Cup. In addition to the United States investigation, Swiss officials are also examining how corruption may have influenced FIFA’s decision in 2010 to grant future World Cup competitions to Russia and Qatar. Longtime FIFA President Sepp Blatter has already been forced to resign over the investigations and observers are likening the scandal to what the International Olympic Committee (IOC) dealt with in the late 1990s. The ongoing investigation into FIFA should produce some momentum to reform the organization, while potentially producing geopolitical fallout if the organization revokes Russia and Qatar’s World Cup hosting rights. The investigation will also be a test of how far the U.S. Justice Department can apply American law abroad.
On April 25, Nepal was hit by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 8,000 people and injured tens of thousands of others. The earthquake leveled thousands of buildings around the Kathmandu Valley, including several UNESCO World Heritage sites. It also triggered an avalanche on Mount Everest that left eighteen people dead. Nepal is one of the world’s poorest nations and the international community has pledged to assist it in reconstructing buildings and providing humanitarian assistance to its population. However, the nation’s political difficulties may inhibit future relief efforts as a notoriously corrupt bureaucracy has thus far failed to remedy the problems that Nepali citizens are facing.
British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party shocked political observers last Thursday when they captured a governing majority in the House of Commons. Pre-election polls predicted that the Conservatives and Labour parties would end up deadlocked, resulting in a hung parliament for the second consecutive election. This could have triggered a constitutional crisis as the party that won the most votes could have ended up as the opposition. However, when the votes were tallied the Conservatives gained twenty-four seats, enabling them the govern without their prior coalition partner, the centrist Liberal Democratic Party, and this made Cameron the first Conservative prime minister to win a governing majority since John Major did so in 1992. Cameron’s second term may give him more room to impose austerity on Britain’s public finances, but he will also face resurgent nationalism in Scotland and growing suspicion of the European Union. Handling these political and economic crises will come to define Cameron’s legacy as he has pledged not to seek a third term in 2020.