A Venezuelan oil tanker carrying over one million barrels of oil, Nabarima, is in danger of sinking in the waters between Venezuela, Trinidad, and Tobago. If the damaged ship sinks, the resulting oil spill will be worse than the 1989 Exxon oil spill and the 2010 BP oil spill.
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On Tuesday, October 20, the United States and Russia edged closer to renewing the last major nuclear arms control treaty between the two nations. According to POLITICO, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is set to expire on February 5, 2021 and has been the subject of unpromising negotiations between the Trump administration and Putin government since the beginning of this year. This newfound cooperation and apparent will to renew New START is owed to a Russian verbal commitment to a one-year nuclear warhead freeze and a one-year extension of New START.
Read MoreOn Monday, October 5, Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuelan government won its appeal in a lawsuit filed against the Bank of England concerning access to more than $1 billion in gold bullion. With this judgement, the England and Wales Court of Appeal has reversed a lower court’s decision to block Maduro’s government from accessing its gold bullion reserves housed at the Bank of England. The BBC reports that while this is an auspicious turn of events for the Maduro government, the verdict will only grant access to the bullion pending another review of the case.
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In early October, a federal court in the United States ordered Iran to pay $1.45 billion in punitive and compensatory damages over missing ex-FBI Agent Robert Levinson. His family, as reported in Time Magazine, has called this decision “the first step in the pursuit of justice.”
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The United States reimposed what is, in effect, an arms embargo on Iran last Monday. This move is one opposed by the rest of the UN, and more specifically, the rest of the UN Security Council. The U.S. argues that it can legally do this through a “snapback,” while Iran has been critical towards the U.S. for making this move.
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Keith Krach’s recent visit to Taiwan has strained the already weakening Sino-American relationship and it has created tensions between China and Taiwan. The BBC explains that the U.S. and China have been engaged in a trade war since 2018. T The New York Times furthers this, explaining that the states have been challenging each other on a wide variety of issues, including military dominance in Asia. After the arrival of the senior U.S. envoy, Taiwan’s defense ministry reported that China sent out two anti-submarine aircrafts into the defense identification zone of the island.
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President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has stated intentions to expand business ties with Russia in response to new, crippling U.S. sanctions under the Caesar Act, according to Reuters. The Syrian economy has suffered enormously under these sanctions, as its economy was already struggling prior to implementation of the Caesar Act. According to Reuters, this has resulted in the Syrian lira losing 80 percent of its value. Most citizens are experiencing extreme poverty.
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In early September, Bill Birtles, an Australian foreign correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and China correspondent for ABC, was advised by Australian officials to leave China after the arrest and detention of another foreign journalist, reports The Guardian. Two days later, Beijing state security broke down his door at midnight to tell him that he was part of a national security investigation, was banned from leaving the country, and that he would be contacted the next afternoon to answer questions, reports BBC.
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Because Europe and the United States’ failure to establish equivalent early warning systems, these countries will be placed on the frontline of a battle without adequate resources, forced to wage a war with no end in immediate sight.
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The killing of women for simply being women, or femicide, has been sweeping the globe, and has been particularly prevalent in Mexico.
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