Middle East

Thirteen people were killed and 232 wounded in clashes between Muslims and Christians outside a church in Cairo on May 7. Violence began around 5 p.m. as Muslims massed outside the St. Mena Church, prompted by a rumor that a Christian woman who married (or had an affair with—the reports disagree) a Muslim was being imprisoned in the church. These types of rumors are common in Egypt, and commonly proved false. The Copts rallied to protect their church. Both sides brought guns, and the conflict quickly turned violent. The nearby Church of the Virgin Mary was burned to the ground. Muslims have also attacked other Christian churches across the country, prompting calls for international protection from the Coptic community. Around 1,000 demonstrated outside Egypt’s state tv headquarters on May 9 to criticize the army’s handling of the clashes and call for international intervention. Watch for the Vatican to take the lead in answering that call.

Meanwhile, former President Hosni Mubarak’s detention was for a second time extended a further 15 days on Tuesday. Mubarak is currently under arrest in a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh as part of an inquiry into corruption and protester deaths. Also on Tuesday, former Tourism Minister Zuheir Garranah was sentenced to five years of jail time on charges of fraud. Last week, former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly was also convicted of corruption and given a 12-year jail sentence.

In Syria, the crackdown on anti-government protesters continues, with security forces arresting hundreds of activists and demonstrators in house-to-house raids across the country and violent confrontations continuing between protesters and security forces. The civilian death toll has reportedly reached over 700 since the unrest began in mid-March.

In Yemen, fighting and chaos continue as President Ali Abdullah Saleh and opposition figures remain at a stalemate in negotiations over when and how the Yemeni leader should step down. Opposition activists have been holding daily protests since January demanding the ouster of Saleh. On Monday, security forces opened fire on protesters in the southern city of Taiz, where Yemen’s largest demonstrations have been held. Wednesday saw the worst violence the country has seen in months, with 13 people being killed. A confrontation between protesters and government-allied army units in the capital, Sana, lasted for hours before army units loyal to the protesters stepped in and started fighting the government troops. The Financial Times reports that rival factions have moved into battle positions throughout the country and in the capital.

In the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden, it emerged that Washington did not give the Pakistani government prior notice of the operation. In the words of cia director Leon Panetta, “It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission. They might alert the targets.” The U.S.’s decision to carry out the raid without telling Pakistan exemplifies the deep distrust that already existed between the two countries and is further aggravating the tensions between them. On May 3, Pakistani officials released a statement labeling the attack that killed the al Qaeda chief as “an unauthorized unilateral action.” The statement voiced Islamabad’s “deep concerns and reservations” over Washington’s decision to conduct the operation “without prior information or authorization from Islamabad.” The rhetoric has steadily escalated since then. On May 9, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Washington that Pakistan could react to future U.S. raids on its soil with “full force.” Islamists in Pakistan already hold great sway over the country’s shaky government, and Islamabad’s growing ire toward Washington will bolster their power. Meanwhile, America’s war on terror will only become more unwinnable.

Europe

On May 3, the Spanish naval vessel Atalaya traversed British territorial waters near Gibraltar, calling on commercial ships anchoring at port to immediately leave the area. The Royal Navy responded by dispatching the armed patrol boat hms Scimitar. According to the government in Gibraltar, the Spanish boat crossed into the British territorial zone and “contacted all merchant shipping on the eastside of the Rock within British Gibraltar Territorial Waters and ordered them to raise anchors and to leave since they did not have permission to be in Spanish waters.” This was the second such violation of the British zone by the Spanish in less than two weeks. On April 23, a Spanish police vessel was reportedly damaged in a confrontation with the Royal Gibraltar Police after entering territorial waters ostensibly to pursue drug traffickers. These are just the most recent of a string of territorial incursions by Spain in recent years as Spanish authorities seek to mount pressure on the British government for the return of Gibraltar.

The European Union will next year spend £225 million on promoting itself, according to its budget. “The lavish budgets for spin doctors and propaganda will further anger the British government which has promised to block next year’s 4.9 percent increase in EU budgets and called for a ‘reality check’ in Brussels,” wrote Bruno Waterfield on Sunday in the Telegraph. If anything, the EU’s rampant spending, while national governments make cuts, will only make it more unpopular in Britain.

May 9 was Europe Day—a day observed with pageantry in Brussels but little enthusiasm anywhere else. Outside the European Union headquarters in Brussels, soldiers paraded the EU flag while the German Luftwaffe band drummed and played Europe’s anthem. In Britain, the government snubbed the EU by flying the British flag, rather than the EU one, over government buildings. This is another sign of Britain’s growing resentment of the EU.

At least eight people died as two earthquakes hit Spain on May 11. The first quake registered 4.5 on the Richter scale, the second 5.1. Both were just outside the town of Lorca.

Bavaria will not extradite a convicted Nazi war criminal, the Germany justice minister said on May 11. Klaas Carel Faber is third on the Simon Wiesenthal Center list of wanted Nazis and has been living free since he escaped from a Dutch prison in 1952. Faber was sentenced to death in the Netherlands for murdering 22 Jews, though his sentence was later changed to life imprisonment. Germany has resisted all calls to extradite him. Six months ago the Netherlands launched another attempt to bring him to justice by issuing a European arrest warrant for him, but Germany ignored this initiative. Faber served in the SS, and Hitler gave all SS men German citizenship. Germany has a policy of not extraditing its own citizens, so Faber has been able to live freely in Germany. This is another example of how Germany has failed to deal with its Nazi past.

Homosexual couples in civil partnerships must be given the same pension benefits as married couples, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on May 12. The court ruled that not doing so violated the EU’s anti-discrimination laws. Watch for the Catholic Church to work to stop Europe’s slide toward catering to homosexuals.

German exports hit an all-time high in March according to recently released figures. The country’s imports hit €98.3 billion—up 7.3 percent from February. Imports also hit an all-time high at €79.4 billion. Christian Schulx, from the Berenberg Bank, said, “Germany is on the verge of a ‘golden decade.’” Watch for Germany’s economy to continue to soar.

Asia

Russia had the seventh-largest defense budget in the world in 2009, with spending totaling around $38 billion, according to the latest report from the Russian Center for Global Arms Trade Studies, published Wednesday. Only a few years ago, Russia ranked 11th in terms of its defense spending, which demonstrates that defense is rapidly becoming a higher priority for Moscow. At present, around 20 percent of all Russia’s weaponry is new, but the goal is to boost that percentage to 70 within a few years’ time. Moscow’s recently approved long-term budget projects that Russia will spend around $700 billion on defense within the next 10 years. Russian military expert Vladimir Mukhin explained the increase, saying, “The price of weapons is constantly increasing, and this is a problem. If Russia joins the wto, all prices for defense industry production will have to meet international standards. In Soviet times the cost of weapons was not high, but we did not have a market economy then. I think if there is a well-planned program of army modernization, $700 billion will be enough. Though some experts believe we should spend even more.” The United States spends more on defense than any other nation, with a budget of $574 billion. China ranks second, with a budget of $70 billion, although analysts doubt that Beijing reports its full defense spending.

Taiwan announced on Monday that its military has begun equipping its warships with anti-ship missiles in anticipation of Beijing’s launch of its first aircraft carrier early next year. In the initial phase, 15 Taiwanese vessels will be equipped with the sophisticated supersonic ship-to-ship missiles. Eventually, mobile launch points will be set up to deploy the weapons along Taiwan’s west coast. Military analysts say the Taiwanese anti-ship missiles and a Russian equivalent are the only known supersonic anti-ship missiles on the globe. The Taiwanese missiles are three times faster than conventional anti-ship missiles and can target ammunition depots and fuel tanks on ships. At present, Asian nations’ military buildups are largely fueled by a desire to protect themselves from other Asian states, but the intracontinental tensions will soon be trumped by a collective Asian fear of a common outside enemy.

China’s expanding military power persuaded Russia and Japan in 2007 to briefly suspend their longstanding territorial dispute and to accept a more favorable view of each other, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released on Tuesday by WikiLeaks. A Japanese Foreign Ministry official said a “failure to encourage Moscow’s integration increased the risk that Moscow and Beijing might forge a closer strategic partnership—one that could provide unconstructive proposals,” according to the cable. The cable also said that Akira Muto, the Foreign Ministry official overseeing Russian matters at that time, said “Japan hoped to ‘drive a wedge between Russia and China.’” The June 14, 2007, cable also said that “according to Muto, Russia began to reevaluate Japanese bilateral ties ‘early last year’ when a new Moscow assessment raised Kremlin concerns about the growth of China.” This involved starting to view its relationship with Japan in a “security context, rather than as simply an economic one.” China’s mushrooming military growth is a source of concern for many of its neighbors and that concern will eventually prod them to band together with Beijing.

Anglo-America

The Mississippi River has overflowed its banks and flooded millions of acres from Kentucky to Louisiana. About 3 million acres of farmland lie underwater, washing away hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of corn, rice, wheat and cotton. Cities across six states also experienced the worst flooding in at least 75 years, and authorities had to blow up levees and purposefully flood certain areas in an attempt to keep population centers such as Memphis, Tennessee, dry. Floodwaters were also diverted to lakes and reservoirs near New Orleans. Besides causing millions of dollars in agricultural, commercial and residential damage, the flooding also halts river transport and endangers oil-refining capacity.

In New York, two men were arrested on Wednesday on terrorism charges for attempting to blow up a local synagogue. Although officials are not releasing details of the alleged attack yet, Islamic groups vowed revenge on America following the killing of Osama bin Laden. The death of bin Laden, far from heralding the end of terrorism, may only be a marker in a new, more dangerous, era.

British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged during his election campaign to support families in order to fix Britain’s broken families. He has failed to do this, the Center for Social Justice (csj), a conservative think tank, declared in a report published May 5. The center gave the government 2/10 for confronting family breakdown. It pointed out that Cameron has not reinstated a tax break for married couples, due to his coalition negotiations with the Liberal Democrats. “The government’s first year of action has been mixed,” said the center’s executive director Gavin Poole. “Pioneering progress in pursuing welfare reform and an encouraging new direction for drug and alcohol policy has been undermined by poor implementation of bold education plans, and compromise-driven inaction in tackling our devastating culture of family breakdown.” The Conservative government came to power promising to support marriage. This report shows it has so far failed to do that.

New “legal highs” are appearing at an “unprecedented pace,” and a large number of them are coming from Britain, the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction said in a report published this week. Forty-one new drugs were found in Europe in 2010, with 16 of these first reported in Britain—a figure four times higher than any other country. These “legal highs” are similar to other dangerous and illegal drugs, but have not technically been outlawed. Twenty-four of these types of drugs appeared on the market in 2009 and 13 in 2008. The UK is working on legislation that would temporarily ban drugs that have not been proven medically safe. However, the fact that so many of these drugs are appearing in Britain shows a deeper problem exists in the nation’s society.

This week the Wall Street Journal released a shocking report about the possibility that the famed Trans Alaska Pipeline may need to be shuttered due to rapidly falling oil production. Currently the pipeline is carrying one third the volume it carried in 1980, which means that the oil temperature in the pipeline is falling dangerously close to levels at which it could begin to congeal. Oil production in Alaska is currently declining at a rate of 6 percent per year and is in freefall. At its peak, the pipeline transported 3 percent of total world oil production. If it is shuttered, it could trap billions of barrels of potentially recoverable oil in Alaska. According to the Wall Street Journal analysis, the pipeline may be forced into inoperability sometime during 2013 if current production declines continue—which means it may already be too late to save it. It generally takes 5 to 10 years to ramp up new oil discoveries to meaningful quantities of production.

The New York Times reported this week that American men are abandoning the workforce at an alarming rate. One in every five 25-to-54-year-old working men is missing from work rolls. In 1954, 96 percent of 25-to-54-year-old men worked. Statistics show that more men avoid work in America than in any other major Western nation. Over the past 10 years, the number of prime-age working males on disability has soared 65 percent.