[fblike]
1. How can Tony Abbott improve his approval ratings?
2. Will the murder of Monica Spear lead to significant changes in the way the Venezuelan government approaches the country’s high homicide rate?
3. Has Erdogan become a threat to Turkish democracy?
4. What steps does France need to take to stabalize Mali?
5. Has the world run out of answers on Syria?
6. Will General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi eventually run for the Egyptian presidency?
7. How will China’s new fishing rules in the South China Sea impact its relationship with Vietnam and the Philippines?
8. Will there be sizable political fallout for Francois Hollande after allegations of an affair with Julie Gayet?
9. What is Ariel Sharon’s legacy as it pertains to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?
10. Is an international treaty needed to prohibit private companies from claiming assets on the moon?
Last week, on December 29th and 30th, two suicide bombings in Volgograd, a Southern Russian city formerly known as Stalingrad, killed at least thirty-four people and sent at least fifty others to the hospital. The town of Volgograd is located 400 miles from Sochi, where next month’s Winter Olympics will be held. Although no group has taken responsibility for the attacks as of the time of this brief, Russian security forces and international experts believe that the suicide attacks are listen to terrorist groups in the North Caucasus region of Russia, whose Muslim population has long sought self-government. Considering that Doku Umarov, a Chechen terrorist leader, proclaimed in July that he wanted to disrupt the Olympics, there are concerns in the international community that the Sochi Olympics would become a 2014 version of the 1972 Munich Games, which were marred by the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Russian President Vladimir Putin is also facing international condemnation for his nation’s policies regarding homosexuals and the gradual erosion of democratic safeguards that were put in place after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Due to these issues, it would not be surprising to encounter questions at tournaments over the next six weeks about the Sochi Olympics and whether Russia is capable of protecting the athletes and tourists attending the event and how it should respond to international criticisms of its domestic policies.
It has been a very tumultuous year in Venezuelan politics. In March Hugo Chavez, who governed the country for fourteen years and attempted to create a vibrant socialist movement in Latin America called Bolivarian Socialism, died of cancer and his successor Nicolas Maduro, a former bus driver and union activist, barely won the presidency in a disputed April election. In the midst of high crime rates and poor economic problems, Venezuela held municipal elections for 337 mayoral seats and 2,435 city council officials on December 8th. The opposition, named the Democratic Unity alliance (MUD), called for voters to reject members of Maduro’s Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and turned the election into a national referendum. The election result ended up mixed, as PSUV won a higher percentage of ballots cast for its candidates, winning 49-43%, but the MUD won control of five of the country’s most populous cities, which include the capital city of Caracas. The next round of national elections are not scheduled until 2015 and the opposition are hoping to recall Maduro from office by 2016. However, the immediate result of the municipal elections may give Maduro some breathing room to consolidate his grip on power and handle Venezuela’s looming economic problems, which could impair the advancement of Bolivarian Socialism next year.
Two weeks ago, India launched its Mangalyaan mission to Mars. The mission, which will take ten months to reach Mars, is intended to study the Martian atmosphere and conduct scientific tests to determine if any forms of life exist on the Red Planet. If India’s mission is successful, it would become the first Asian nation to launch a successful Martian mission and it would become the first nation to successfully reach Mars in its first mission attempt. Success would also increase the prominence of the Indian space program, which launched a successful lunar mission in 2008. Since China is considered the preeminent space power in Asia, having already placed a men and women in Earth’s orbit and having more powerful rockets than India, analysts are speculating that India’s Mars mission could inaugurate a space race between both powers, setting the tone for twenty-first century space exploration..gif/490px-New_Saudi_Arabia's_traffic_sign_(women2drive).gif)
Two weeks ago, women in Saudi Arabia staged a protest against the country’s ban on female driving. The campaign that launched the protest, called Women2Drive, began in 2011 and has attempted to place pressure on the Saudi government to lift what they feel is an onerous restriction on women. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s largest oil producers and a key American ally in the Middle East. Extempers often receive questions about Saudi Arabia concerning terrorism, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and oil issues, but the issue of women’s rights may soon factor into those rounds as well. Saudi Arabia is one of the more conservative states in the Middle East and is still run by a king, with no elected national legislature. The kingdom staved off the unrest of the 2011 Arab Spring, but the government is worried that issues like women’s rights may harm the kingdom’s international profile and lead to larger protests against it in the near future.