The Noose Tightens

Assad and his cronies have suffered a massive humiliation, the defection of Prime Minister Riad Hijab is the highest profile defection yet. Yesterday it was revealed that the PM had defected and fled to Jordan with his family, in a statement he called the Syrian government a “terrorist regime” and says he has joined the ranks of the revolution. This is a huge blow to the regime, considering the PM has only been in office for two months and removes the regime’s most important Sunni member. Many people will begin to wonder which minister will be the next defect as Hijab is unlikely to be the last.

On top on the refection, the headquarters of the state television and radio station were bombed yesterday. Although nobody is reported to have been killed, this is a sign that the rebels are trying to target Assad’s propaganda machine that is still trying to brainwash the Syrian people. We all know that Assad has lost control of most of the eastern portions of Syria, as well as many districts of Homs and Aleppo.

With the rebels basically in control of whole swathes of the country and achieving high profile defections every week I am finally seeing a comparison to Libya. Right from the start I always believed that we could not treat Libya and Syria as the same. Syria has always been a completely different situation. Things are completely different now in Syria, even to what it was like just a matter of weeks ago. Although we cannot treat them as exactly the same, I believe that the situation in Syria is such that we can look to what happened in Libya to guide us in Syria. The major obstacle to this is the UN Security Council, Russia and China decided not to block Western action in Libya, but they are fighting tooth and nail to make sure no Western action is taken in Syria.

Although I disagreed with military aid in the past, I now believe that the new situation is such that we should provide some limited resources. I would still be wary of providing weapons, due to the risk of them falling into the hands of jihadists, instead we could provide intelligence as well as communication technology as well as vehicles for transportation and food to help sustain the rebels.

We must act now if we wish to have favour in a new Syria.

Annan Quits and the UN Condemns Itself

The head of the UN special envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, has announced that he will now be renewing his position when it expires at the end of August.

Kofi Annan speaking at the press conference

Speaking in a press conference he accused he international community of a lack of action. Annan has refused to place blame on either side of the conflict, he says that both sides are to blame for the failure of his peace plan. Although he did add that the problems in Syria were further " compounded by the disunity of the international community". Annan specifically called out the UN Security Council for its lack of action, he added "when the Syrian people desperately need action, there continues to be figure pointing and name calling in the Security Council."

For me this marks the end of the chances of a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria. Although I was always very sceptical of a diplomatic and peaceful solution, this largely marks the end if the attempts. Although someone probably will take over from Annan, the exit of a seasoned negotiator shows the hopelessness of the situation. 


Following Mr Annan's announcement, on Friday the UN General Assembly voted to condemn its own security council for the lack of action to the crisis in Syria. It did so by an overwhelming majority, 133 votes to 12, with 31 abstentions. 

There is no real hope for peace in Syria. Assad knows that he would have to go in a new Syria, he has nothing to gain and everything to lose. On the other hand the rebels had nothing in the old Syria, so they have nothing to lose but everything to gain. Both sides know this, and so the fighting continues. 

The Heat Builds on Romney

"Romney has not paid taxes for ten years". This potentially devastating accusation has been levelled against presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. The accuser, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, claims to have been contacted by an investor in Bain Capital who told him the likely reason for Romney only releasing a year of tax returns, and only a partial year at that. 

The Romney campaign has been suffering for months due to accusations by Democrats that Romney's personal finances are less than savoury. He is known to currently, or formerly, have bank accounts in the tax havens of Switzerland, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. The accusation also comes after Romney's disastrous trip to Britain, Israel and Poland. The trip was supposed the show Romney's diplomacy but instead descended into farce when he and his campaign advisors insulted the British and the London Olympics, Arabs for having inferior culture and the Polish media. 

The tax returns debacle could prove politically transformative, many Americans are becoming increasingly fed up with the extravagant wealth of the top 1% when the rest of the country is suffering with economic uncertainty, unemployment and foreclosure. If the accusation if found out I be true, or partially true, then it could decide whether it not Obama gets re-elected in November. 

The whole issue is particularly poignant for Romney. His father, George Romney, when he ran for president released twelve years of tax returns. Not only did he release so many, he was the first to do so. In doing this he set a precedent for all future presidential hopefuls. George Romney is quoted to have said "Any politician who will not show multiple year taxes may be hiding something."

So what is Mitt hiding?

Mitt Romney claims to have paid taxes...
So why won't he release his tax returns?

New World Order - Africa

Population: 1.3 billion

Area: 30 million km²

GDP: $ 1.1 trillion

GDP (per capita): $ 1,200

Economic Growth: 5.16%

Democracy? Mostly no

Unlike the countries I have previously written about, Africa proves the most difficult to assess its potential. One of the biggest obstacles is the fact it is not one country, rather a continent of 54 independent nations. There is great diversity in Africa, there are more spoken languages there than any other continent and all major religions are represented somewhere. There are also major obstacles that Africa needs to tackle before it can become a great power.

Africa is a seriously unstable continent; there have been numerous conflicts since the end of the colonial era between states and within states. One of the major issues is that when the European colonists left the continent, borders of the newly independent states were largely unchanged. In terms of ethnicity, the borders made no sense; they cut through tribes and religious groupings. In a continent as poor as Africa, this was a recipe for disaster.

The following graphs should hopefully give you a visual idea of the problems faced by Africa.

The first graph represents the Human Development Index, the better the quality of life people have in a country, the higher the HDI. It is measured out of a maximum of one, the highest HDI in the world is Norway with 0.943 and the lowest is the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 0.286. HDI is calculated using data related to life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living and quality of life.

The second graph relates to how free Africa is (as rated by Freedom House). As you can see Africa is not a particularly free continent, with only a few countries being rated as free. This is a very important factor in the development of a country. If you look at the wealthy nations of the world, countries with very high HDI and very high GDPs, they are almost all free. The only non-free wealthy nations, are the Gulf States.

The third graph shows African country’s life expectancy, as you can see it is very low, no African country has a life expectancy higher than 74. In fact, the two worst nations, Mozambique and Swaziland have life expectancies that Britain would have had during the Roman Empire. That’s how bad this continent is. AIDs poses a major threat, since it first emerged as an epidemic in the 1980s, African nations have watched their life expectancies decline rather than rise! The situation of Africa’s health is horrible, and it is preventable. Most people in Africa die completely needlessly, to combat AIDs people need quick access to contraceptives. If Africa was to have clean drinking water, this would also cause a dramatic rise in the life expectancies. If you do wish to do some good, donate to WaterAid, the charity does phenomenal work to combat the lack of clean drinking water. Dirty water is a source of a whole host of diseases and we must help Africa remedy this terrible, human tragedy.

I could sit here and list you 101 problems Africa is facing that other continents simply do not face to the same degree, but I think my point has been made. Before Africa can become a world power it has some serious issues it must deal with first, poverty, the lack of democracy, education, health just to name a few.

I do not believe that Africa will become the next powerhouse, the five other nations I have reviewed will move into the spotlight. I do believe, though, that if Africa can sort out its issues, it could one day replace the countries at the top of the world. But the countries it will one day replace will not be the Western nations; it will be China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil.

New World Order - Indonesia

Population: 237 million

Area: 1.9 million km²

GDP: $ 1 trillion

GDP (per capita): $ 4,700

Economic Growth: 6.4%

Democracy? Yes

Despite being the fourth largest country in the world, when most people think of a new world order, they don’t think of Indonesia. Although it will never become a global superpower, I do believe it will one day challenge the Wests dominance.

One of Indonesia’s biggest disadvantages is how dispersed it is, it is made up of over 17,000 islands although over half (133 million) live on the island of Java. This still leaves 100 million people on other islands. This hampers Indonesia as it makes travelling within Indonesia difficult as a boat or plane must always be used. Although this could have its advantages, shipping by boat is still the most popular way to transport goods, by the nature of having many islands; no part of Indonesia is too far from the coast.

One way this could at least by partially remedied is by a series of tunnels or bridges. A bridge is already currently being constructed between the country’s two most populous islands, Java and Sumatra. It wouldn’t be unthinkable either to link Bali to Java or Sumatra to Malaysia. The latter would thus connect the capital Jakarta to the continent of Asia. Bridges or tunnels would be attractive in the above situations, but may not extend to some of Indonesia’s other large islands such as Borneo, Sulawesi or New Guinea. Here it may prove too expensive or even impossible to link these islands to the more populous southern islands.

Below is a map of Indonesia, the red islands on the map are islands that have a population greater than one million. Pink represents another country.

Indonesia’s growing economy can be seen by some recent events. Until 2009 Indonesia was a member of OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries), it had to leave the group in 2009 because domestic demand was so high that it was no longer a net oil exporter. Oil is a good measure of the wealth of a nation as it is necessary for all major industries; the more oil a country requires, the more industry and wealth a country has.

Yet like all the other developing nations poverty is still a major issue in Indonesia, at only $4,700 GDP per capita, Indonesia is still in the rank of poor nations.

Jakarta - the Capital of Indonesia

New World Order - Mexico

Population: 112 million

Area: 1.9 million km²

GDP: $ 1.2 trillion

GDP (per capita): $ 11,100

Economic Growth: 5.5%

Democracy? Yes

Mexico is the third largest economy in North America, behind the USA and Canada and the 14^th largest economy in the world. With a population of 112 million and a booming economy, Mexico should be on track to become a global power, but the fate of Mexico is uncertain. Drug cartels pose a major threat to the stability of the country, since the government crackdown on drugs began in 2006, 55,000 people have been estimated to have been killed. The only region thought of to still be safe is the tourist region around Cancún, and even that is now being threatened. Although cracking down on drug cartels was a necessity if the country is ever to move into the tier of highly influential states, in doing so the Mexican economy has been severely hampered. The country has been completely torn apart by the Drug War, which is far from over.

Mexico has a well-established infrastructure, with over 116,000 km of paved roads. Railways, although they are good, could do with a lot of improving. In fact something that could be done that would improve the whole of the region would be a railroad stretching from the USA in the north, to Brazil in the south. This would allow for the easy transport of goods through Mexico and would significantly improve the region’s outlook.

Mexico has a big advantage over the other rising nations; it has a long border with the world’s richest country, the USA. This makes trade with the USA very easy for Mexico and allows for the quick and easy movement of goods and people.

The Mexican Drug Cartels pose a major threat to the development of Mexico

New World Order - Brazil

Population: 190 million

Area:  8.5 million km²

GDP: $2.5 trillion

GDP (per capita): $13,000

Economic Growth: 2.7%

Democracy? Yes

Brazil is the largest country by both population and size in South America and already the 6^th largest economy in the world by GDP. Amongst the countries I am reviewing, Brazil has the highest GDP per capita and the economy is continuing to grow, although at only 2.7% per annum, is much slower than many Brazilians would have hoped.

Brazil is awash with resources, there are very large proven deposits of iron and manganese which are currently being exploited and very important in Brazils growing industry. Deposits of nickel, tin, chromite, uranium, bauxite, beryllium, copper, lead, tungsten, zinc, gold and numerous other minerals are also currently being exploited. These mineral deposits are very important for Brazilian exports.

One of Brazil’s major problems is its infrastructure; Brazil has around 1.7 million km of roads, but of this 94.5% are unpaved, leaving only 96,000 km of road paved. For comparison, the UK (which Brazil is 34 times the size of) has 398,000 km of paved roads, or four times the length of Brazil’s. This will constrain growth as large lorries and trucks, which are important for economic growth, need good (paved) roads to drive on. At certain times roads in Brazil can become jammed for days, this is a problem that needs tackling soon if Brazil is to move up in the world. The country also has a very low car ownership rate of only 140 per 1,000 people. The rail transport is significantly better, but far from perfect, Brazil has no high speed rail link currently, although there is one under construction between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil is probably most famous for its forest, the Amazon rainforest. This poses a massive conflict of interest, as I mentioned earlier Brazil has a massive amount of resources. The issue is many of them are underneath the rainforest, cutting down the Amazon is massively unpopular in the West and Western leaders are pressurising Brazil into not destroying the Amazon. This does have benefits for Brazil anyway, not destroying the Amazon helps to prevent floods and soil erosion. It is also well known that rainforests contain a massive diversity, so far less than 1% of the Amazon has been analysed, yet it accounts for a majority of modern medicines. The Amazon has great potential in the area of medicine and the profits from a strong pharmaceutical industry will benefit the Brazilian economy.

Yet like India and China, Brazil has a large amount of poor people, there are huge slum areas, especially around the largest city. If Brazil needs to help these people if the country wishes to become more influential.

Octavio Frias Bridge, São Paulo, a stunning tribute to modern Brazil