The World Today for April 17, 2023

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BELARUS

Belarusian authorities recently announced that Russia would station nuclear missiles in their country, placing the weapons closer to NATO members. “This will be done despite the noise in Europe and the United States,” Boris Gryzlov, the Russian ambassador to Belarus, told Belarusian state television, according to Al Jazeera.

The move, which set off fear and fury in Western capitals, is more symbolic than strategic, argued geopolitical pundit Peter Zeihan in a YouTube video. Belarus lacks the infrastructure to host a serious nuclear deterrent, said Zeihan, but the prospect of Russia deploying nukes is obviously a warning to Western leaders who have been providing diplomatic, financial, and military support to Ukraine.

Describing the move as an example of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “creeping annexation” of Belarus, a former Soviet republic that traditionally was part of the Russian empire, the Atlantic Council argued that Belarus had become a Russian “client state.” Previously, Western leaders had sought to improve relations with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in order to peel away a Kremlin ally, who was also pushing for more independence from Moscow. Now, they will likely stop trying.

Lukashenko, meanwhile, will have fewer options in dealing with Russia after the nukes are stationed in his country, added the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Russian officials defended their and Belarus’ right to deploy weaponry as they saw fit. “The collective West is not inclined to somehow recall the topic of American nuclear weapons, which are based here in Europe, around our country,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian media, according to the Anadolu Agency.

Belarus ideologically is almost a mirror image of Russia. In the same way that Putin’s brave political opponents tend to end up in jail on treason, instigating civil unrest, and similar bogus charges, Belarusian courts recently sentenced an opposition politician in absentia to 15 years in prison for joining a “conspiracy to seize power,” reported the Moscow Times.

Journalists and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, a Belarusian political activist, have also been sentenced to jail for trumped-up crimes.

Belarus has played only a small part in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however. Leaked American documents stated that Ukrainians shot down drones in Belarus, for example, The Hill wrote. Activists allege Russians who kidnapped Ukrainian children might have left them in Belarus, too, noted the state-run Ukrinform news agency. Lukashenko has also requested Russian security guarantees in case his country becomes dragged into a fight with NATO, reported Radio Free Europe.

But Belarus has not yet committed fighters – maybe because Lukashenko can’t. Observers have said Belarusian conscripts would probably desert their army rather than fight. Some are already fighting on Ukraine’s side.

In this case, the conscripts might be smarter than the generals.

THE WORLD, BRIEFLY

Battle Won, War Continues

FRANCE

French President Emmanuel Macron signed into law Saturday an unpopular reform that will raise France’s retirement age, despite mass protests against the measure and pledges by union workers to continue strikes and demonstrations, CNBC reported.

The president’s signature came a day after the country’s Constitutional Council approved a majority of the provisions in the bill that would, among other changes, increase the retirement age for most workers from 62 years of age to 64.

The changes are expected to be implemented in September.

Saturday’s signature comes following months of street protests and parliamentary opposition against the law. Macron’s popularity has taken a hit, with analysts suggesting that the pensions saga could benefit the far-right National Rally party – which mostly opposes the law.

Many labor unions and demonstrators have vowed to continue their actions against the reforms.

Labor unions and opposition politicians have criticized the legislation, saying it will impact lower-paid workers and women, while companies will report higher profits.

The government, meanwhile, countered that the changes were necessary to secure the costly pension system into the future.

Macron has acknowledged that people felt a “sense of injustice” and said he would look to make businesses contribute more. Ahead of the council’s decision, he said he would meet with unions to discuss the changes.

Analysts said the council’s partial approval of the law was the best outcome for the president, adding that Macron and unions could “negotiate some sort of new additions or reforms with a more social focus.”

In its decision, the council removed six provisions and rejected a bid to hold a citizens’ referendum on the changes.

End of the Road

SUDAN

Three days of fighting between Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the country’s main paramilitary force, have resulted in almost 100 deaths and raised concerns about destabilization in the African nation and the wider region, CNN reported Monday.

The fighting erupted amid a power struggle between the two main factions of Sudan’s military junta, the Guardian reported.

The Sudanese armed forces, loyal to Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler, and the RSF, led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a former warlord better locally known as Hemedti, have been at odds since the 2019 uprising that ousted the dictator Omar al-Bashir. The RSF, also known as Janjaweed, was founded by Bashir to crush a rebellion in Darfur, and its leaders were given military ranks and deployed to other conflicts, including Yemen and Libya.

The dispute between Burhan and Hemedti has been fueled by tensions over civilian demands for oversight of the military, the proposed integration of the RSF into the regular armed forces, and the pursuit of justice for alleged war crimes and killings of pro-democracy protesters.

The weekend clashes add a further interruption to Sudan’s road to democracy since the ousting of Bashir. Initially, civilian and army leaders formed a unity government that would usher Sudan towards democracy – but that was interrupted by a coup in October 2021.

The country’s doctors’ union put the civilian death toll from the clashes at 97 and more than 1,100 wounded, with the figures expected to rise.

The escalation of violence in Sudan poses a significant risk to the country’s stability and security, and could further destabilize the region, which is already grappling with an Islamist insurgency in Somalia and a recent peace deal between warring parties in Ethiopia, according to the Wall Street Journal. Three United Nations’ World Food Program workers were among those killed on Saturday, leading the aid agency to halt operations in the country.

The conflict also risks exacerbating Sudan’s economic crisis amid growing inflation, particularly rising prices for basic goods. Sudan is still recovering from two lengthy civil wars, with the second resulting in the independence of South Sudan in 2011.

The international community is calling for a peaceful resolution, respect for human rights, and accountability for alleged crimes.

Observers noted that the outcome of the power struggle between Sudan’s military factions will also have implications for the wider region given Sudan’s strategic location and its geopolitical significance in the Red Sea, the Sahel region, and the Horn of Africa.

Global powers such as Russia, the US, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are vying for influence in Sudan, with concerns about the potential for a Russian base on the Red Sea, which Sudanese military leaders have expressed an openness to.

Bye, Nukes

GERMANY

Germany shut down its last three nuclear plants Saturday, ending its nuclear energy era even as other countries are looking to build plants following energy concerns sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Washington Post reported.

The shutdowns conclude a long-running debate about nuclear energy in the country that began more than 50 years ago in Germany and across Europe. Calls to close nuclear plants amplified after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, when radioactive clouds spread over Germany.

But phase-out plans faced decades of wrangling and flip-flops among political leaders.

It was only after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan that then-Chancellor Angela Merkel announced plans to shut down all 17 of Germany’s remaining nuclear reactors by the end of 2022.

Her successor, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, originally planned to close the three remaining plants by December, but opted to extend the deadline following the impact of the Ukraine war that forced Germany to find substitutes for cheap pipeline gas from Russia.

The extension came amid concerns that the country would not be able to power itself through the winter. But a mild winter, a natural gas buying spree and the firing up of old coal power plants helped Germany avoid energy shortages.

Before Moscow’s invasion, Germany relied on Russia for more than half of its natural gas supply.

While anti-nuclear energy groups hailed the closures, recent opinion polls show a majority of Germans wanted to keep the reactors going. Opposition to the shutdowns also emerged from politicians, including members of Scholz’s three-party coalition.

However, analysts said the decision to end nuclear power would have a limited impact on the country’s energy stability because the last three plants only made up a small fraction of Germany’s power output.

Even so, others said the shutdowns are a kind of an anomaly because many countries have increased interest in nuclear power since the Ukraine war rocked global energy markets.

DISCOVERIES

The Slushball

The Cryogenian Period, often referred to as “Snowball Earth,” was a time in Earth’s history when the planet experienced extreme global glaciation, with ice sheets covering much of the planet’s surface.

Occurring between 720 million and 635 million years ago, this era was extremely challenging for life on Earth, as the severe cold and extensive ice cover would have made it difficult for complex organisms to survive.

Previous research had suggested that habitable areas during the Cryogenian Period were limited to tropical oceans, where some pockets of open water allowed early living things to thrive.

However, a research team found evidence that our planet was more of a “slushball Earth” because habitable marine environments were more widespread than previously thought, Reuters reported.

For their study, researchers identified fossils of seaweed in black shale in China’s Hubei Province dating from the Marinoan Ice Age – the second and most severe glaciation event of the Cryogenian Period.

Their presence during this harsh period indicates that there were areas in mid-latitude oceans that were ice-free and habitable during the waning stage of the Marinoan, which lasted from about 651 million to 635 million years ago.

This suggests that the world’s oceans were not completely frozen over, and there were refuges where early complex life forms, such as multicellular seaweed, could have survived.

The findings have important implications for our understanding of the resilience of life on Earth. It also underscores the ability of life to adapt and persist even in the face of severe environmental challenges.

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