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1. Should Israelis give Benjamin Netanyahu a fourth term?
2. How can Joaquim Levy rejuvenate the Brazilian economy?
3. Are KMT losses in local Taiwanese elections a significant blow to its engagement policy with China?
4. Is a nuclear Iran inevitable?
5. Can international sanctions end the South Sudanese civil war?
6. Should Joseph Kabila exit in 2016?
7. How should Spain deal with Catalonia?
8. Has Germany’s Left Party atoned for its past?
9. Should Moldova cast its lot with the EU or Russia?
10. Is Greece headed for early elections?
When he assumed office in December 2012 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged a radical course of action to deal with Japan’s economic downturn. Since 1990 the world’s third-largest economy has been plagued by deflation and sagging consumer confidence creating what Japanese policymakers call the “Lost Two Decades.” Abe’s program, dubbed “Abenomics,” called for a combination of expansionary monetary and fiscal policy and structural reform. Throughout 2013 the Japanese economy showed signs of recovery and inflation was moving upwards, but Abe’s decision to increase the country’s consumption tax from 5% to 8% in April has produced the country’s fourth recession since 2008. In response to disappointing economic numbers, Abe announced last week that he is postponing a future increase in the consumption tax until 2017 and he called for new parliamentary elections next month. He justified his call for new elections by saying that he needed a mandate from voters to continue his economic program and pledged to resign if his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) coalition did not win. Although the LDP is expected to triumph in next month’s vote, analysts question whether Abe has the stomach to continue major economic reforms in light of Japan’s recent recession and some criticize the upcoming election as a useless exercise.
Last Sunday, Brazilian voters went to the polls and re-elected Dilma Rousseff by the slimmest margin since the country reverted back to democracy in the 1980s. Rousseff, aligned with the leftist Workers’ Party (PT) defeated center-right candidate Aecio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) in the runoff election by a three point margin, 51.64% to 48.36%. The results show that the country is divided between its poorer, more dependent northern regions and its more prosperous, middle-class southern regions. Rousseff has promised to do more to clean up corruption, enact political reform, and rejuvenate Brazil’s ailing economy, but her campaign pledge to maintain generous social benefits and the nastiness of the general election campaign may hinder her ability to do any of these things. Since Brazil has the seventh-largest economy in the world and is part of the BRICS nations extempers should be prepared to discuss the country’s economic problems and the outcome of the presidential election at future tournaments.
Last week Canada was rocked by two terrorist attacks. On Monday, Martin Couture-Rouleau drove his car into two Canadian soldiers in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, killing one of them, and on Wednesday, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau killed a soldier guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa and wounded a guard in the Canadian Parliament. Both men were killed in their attacks and were recent converts to Islam. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper argued that the actions of Couture-Roleau and Zehaf-Bibeau were inspired by the Islamic State, which has urged its followers to attack Western nations. Harper plans to push for legislation that would grant more powers to Canadian intelligence services and strengthen authorities in anti-terrorism operations, but his opponents argue that these security reforms could do significant damage to Canadian politics and culture. These Canadians worry that Harper will push anti-terrorism measures too far and that their country will eventually have the same intrusive surveillance systems as the United States and Great Britain.
Two weeks ago, citizens of Hong Kong took to the streets to agitate for universal suffrage. In 2017, Hong Kong will be able to elect its chief executive, but the candidates for that office will be approved by a nominating committee that is sympathetic to mainland China. Once a British colony, Hong Kong reverted back to Chinese rule in 1997. Since that time it has agitated against the Chinese government’s attempts to impose greater control over some of the city’s affairs. The recent protests have caused some observers to remark that there are parallels between the agitation for wider democracy in Hong Kong and the aims of the Tiananmen Square protesters of 1989, who sought to turn China into a democratic republic. China violently suppressed the Tiananmen protests over two decades ago, but doing the same in Hong Kong could do significant damage to the country’s international reputation and economic standing.