[fblike]
While concerns about border security have acquired significant attention in the United States and Europe, another border crisis has created upheaval in the Western Hemisphere. Several weeks ago Venezuelan officials closed border crossings with Colombia, citing security concerns and a need to clamp down on smugglers in the area. In addition to closing the border, Venezuela deported 1,000 economic migrants from Colombia and demolished some of their homes. While Colombia argues that Venezuela’s behavior constitutes a gross human rights violation, Venezuelan authorities insist that they have the right to police their own border and that the inability of the Colombian government to share border responsibilities is what has forced it to act.
This topic brief will outline the scope of the recent border closures, explain some of the reasons that Venezuela moved to close the Colombian border, and then analyze how the border closures could affect Venezuela’s politics, as well as future American foreign policy in Latin America.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
Last Thursday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras announced that he was resigning. Tsipras’s Syriza Party, which won the Greek parliamentary elections in January, was coming apart at the seams after Tsipras agreed with Greece’s creditors to enact more austerity reforms. When the Greek Parliament had to approve of this deal last week, Tsipras was forced to rely on opposition parties as forty-three of Syriza’s 149 members either voted against the deal or abstained. Following the vote, twenty-five Syriza members of Parliament (MPs) bolted from the party and this left it without a governing majority. Unable to survive a censure motion and likely fearing that anti-bailout leftists would soon rally against his government, Tsipras resigned and paved the way for new elections next month. The news of new elections was hesitantly received in some European capitals, with Paris and Berlin reminding Athens that it would be held to the terms of the new bailout deal regardless of who won power. Nevertheless, financial markets have been roiled by another Greek election – the nation’s fifth in six years – out of fears that Syriza could lose or that the elections will slow down much needed economic reforms.
If extempers followed global economic news over the past week, they probably remember that China’s currency devaluation was a significant topic. On Tuesday, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) announced more market-friendly reforms that will allow the nation’s currency, called the renminbi (RMB) or the yuan, to be managed less arbitrarily. The effect of this market-based move was a sudden decline in the value of the RMB, a currency that some market analysts argue has been overvalued for some time. The 1.9% decline versus the American dollar last Tuesday was welcomed by some economists, who say that it will provide a valuable market correction, but China also came under fire from American politicians and Western economists, who allege that China’s devaluation is designed to help boost the nation’s ailing exports. The move has provided ample fodder for Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, who has made anti-China sentiment a large part of his campaign. In addition, China’s devaluation may contribute to more deflationary pressures in Western economies and complicate the Federal Reserve’s decision about whether to raise interest rates by the end of the year.
Although environmental and animal rights activists have advocated for stronger anti-poaching efforts for the last several decades, their efforts never attracted sustained media attention outside of a few notable campaigns during the late 1980s and various periods throughout the 1990s. This all changed with reports about the death of Cecil the Lion, a significant tourist attraction at Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. Cecil was killed several weeks ago by American dentist Walter J. Palmer of Minnesota, who is said to have paid $50,000 for the ability to hunt and kill an African lion. The incident created a firestorm of international outrage, with people blasting Palmer on Twitter and many donating funds to wildlife and anti-poaching groups. However, the question remains over whether the outrage over Cecil’s killing will be a turning point in terms of attention paid and resources diverted to strengthening global anti-poaching efforts and protecting threatened species. Over the last fifteen years, African nations have struggled to maintain their existing wildlife and international controls on the ivory trade have weakened. Fixing both problems will be necessary if poaching efforts can be curtailed and threatened species such as lions, elephants, rhinos, and tigers can be protected more effectively.