Foreign Digest Updates: Macedonia, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iran and Turkey

Macedonia

            Macedonia’s parliament last week ratified the name-change agreement with Greece. There will be a referendum later this summer to approve the Slavic republic’s name change from “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” to “The Republic of North Macedonia” to avoid encouraging any separatism in neighboring Greece’s northern province of Macedonia.

Nicaragua

Deadly attacks continue to be committed by the paramilitary forces that support the Marxist authoritarian Sandinista government

Ethiopia and Eritrea

Ethiopia and Eritrea have begun peace talks after Ethiopia accepted a border agreement it had signed in 2000, ending a twenty-year war that cost tens of thousands of lives.

Iran

            There have been significant daily protests over the last several days against the tyrannical Islamist Iranian regime, including against its war on behalf of the Bashar Assad regime of Syria.

Turkey

            Turkey conducted presidential elections earlier this week—under a state of emergency—that were neither free nor fair.  Despite these advantages, the Islamist authoritarian President barely managed a majority of the vote, but will now assume greater powers.  Through the state of emergency, which was imposed after the attempted military coup in 2016, he has been able to increase his consolidation of power in the presidency at the expense of the office of prime minister and to make the Turkish state less secular, as tens of thousands of Turks were fired or imprisoned.  Turkey had been founded in 1918 after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War as a modern, democratic, secular state.  The Turkish military had long been the safeguard of the state as such, but now Turkey is no longer a free country – the first such unfree member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in several decades.  Turkey’s goal of joining the European Union will not be realized, as it does not share any European values. 

           Turkey, like the Russian Federation and Venezuela, is an example of the global rise of authoritarianism, as all three elected leaders who subverted representative government, imposed autocracy and denied their

citizens liberty. 

Pennsylvania Now Requires a Civics and History Test for Students

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania now requires that students take a United States history, government and civics test, after the passage of a bill by the Republican-majority General Assembly and its signing into law by the Governor.

The test is similar to the rigorous federal naturalization test.  Students from Grades 7-12 will be required to take the test annually, but are not required to pass it in order to graduate.  Those who receive a perfect score will receive a certification.  Teachers will have flexibility on the administration of the exam.  Schools will be required to report how many students have passed the test.

Surveys have repeatedly shown an especially disturbing lack of basic knowledge of civics by both American students and even adults who are no longer students, and a less than adequate knowledge of U.S. history.  The problem has been exacerbated by the curriculum focus on English, mathematics and science, even though the purpose of obligatory education and public education is better citizenship and a more informed electorate.  In response, there has been a movement across the Union over the last few years to require civics tests for high school graduation, which I posted about in January of 2015, in The Movement Across the United States to Require Passage of a Civics Test to Earn a High School or Equivalent Diploma, https://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-movement-across-united-states-to.html.   

I would add that state and local history and civics are also necessary and even more lacking, but Pennsylvania’s new requirement is progress toward eradicating ignorance among the Commonwealth’s citizens, including its voters. 

Foreign Digest: Macedonia, Colombia and Nicaragua

Macedonia: name dispute settlement

            An accord was reached late last week between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia which ends a quarter-century-long dispute over the name of the Slavic state on Greece’s northern border since its independence in 1993.  The Macedonian Republic’s new name will be The Republic of North Macedonia.

            Greece had been concerned over separatism in its homologous province bordering the renamed Republic of North Macedonia.  The objection by the Hellenic Republic over its northern neighbor’s name blocked Macedonian entry into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Colombia: conservatives won the presidential elections

            The center-right candidate won the Colombian presidential election yesterday, keeping the presidency of the hands of the conservatives, but of the faction of the former President Alvaro Uribe, and not of Uribe’s successor.  Alvaro had disagreed with his successor over the amnesty for the Marxist narco-terrorists, whom were defeated after a more-than half-century war in large part through Uribe’s efforts, backed by the United States.  The center-left candidate was a former guerrilla.

Nicaragua: update on protests 

           The death toll from protests against the authoritarian Marxist Sandinista regime has reached 170, but a truce has been negotiated, at the urging of the Catholic Church, between the government and the protestors.

Another Follow-Up to Conservatives and Republicans Are Organizing against Trumpism

           The list of organizations of prominent conservatives and Republicans who oppose Trumpism (populism, protectionism, isolationism, white nationalism and authoritarianism) continues to grow.  See me post last month, Conservatives and Republicans Are Organizing against Trumpism, https://williamcinfici.blogspot.com/2018/05/conservatives-and-republicans-are.html, which I followed up on with an additional post later that month.  

           Republicans Fighting Tariffs https://terribletariffs.com/ opposes the protectionist policies of Donald Trump, the pretender to the American presidency, as these are tax increases that reduce economic freedom, are inherently harmful economically, in addition to inviting retaliation from trading partners, and damage relations with allies, who, in turn, are harmed economically and thus less able to import American goods.  

Foreign Digest: Nicaragua, Ethiopia and Jordan

Nicaragua

            There have been more protests and more deaths because of the oppression of the authoritarian Marxist Sandinista regime.  The Sandinistas are additionally relying upon pro-government thugs to attack peaceful protestors.

Ethiopia

            Ethiopia’s authoritarian government continues to liberalize.  It recently ended the state of emergency it had imposed last year after protests against the government.  The Ethiopian government also reached a border agreement with Eritrea, ending a military conflict by making concessions to its neighbor.  It had earlier freed political prisoners.

Jordan

           After protests against the Prime Minister’s plans to raise taxes, the King last week installed a new premier who abandoned the plan.

Italian Elections Update: Italy Has a New Left-Right Populist Government

           The Italian Republic’s new left-right populist government was sworn into office today, nearly three months after inconclusive parliamentary elections in which no party won a majority. 

The new executive is a coalition between the anti-establishment populists, who were the single party that won the most votes and seats in the March 4 elections, and the far-right anti-migrant party, which was the largest party of the right-wing bloc that collectively won the most votes and seats, edging out the conservatives, who are not supporting the government.  The third largest right-wing party is supporting the government.  The center-left, who governed, through three premierships, for a five-year term with a smaller center-right party, were the second largest individual party, well behind the populists and the right-wing bloc.  The new Prime Minister is Italy’s sixth unelected premier.  The heads of the two parties are each vice-premiers, with the right-wing one also holding the portfolio of the Interior ministry, in order to execute his plan to deport significantly more migrants fleeing war and persecution.  The new government is expected to win confidence votes soon in both chambers of Parliament.

The ruling coalition had changed its designee for Minister of the Economy after the President objected over the weekend to the designee’s secret plan to change Italy’s monetary unit from the Euro, the currency of the European Monetary Union, back to the lira, as the parties did not campaign on leaving the euro and thus had no mandate even to start such a process, in addition to the need for international obligations that would necessitate an orderly negotiated process for leaving the eurozone.  The populist party leader also gave an assurance that leaving the euro was not the incoming executive’s goal.  I had summarized the positive and mostly negative elements of the populist program in a post last month.  The coalition government has a slim majority and will likely be unstable.

With the latest developments this week, the Italian stock market and bond improved, as have international markets, as uncertainty has ended and the fears about the potential disruption of Italy’s abandonment of the euro and perhaps even of the European Union, which would likely end the project, have eased.  There remains uncertainty about the populist Italian Government’s plans to exceed E.U. spending limits, despite the massive public debt of the Italian Republic.  Italy has the eighth largest economy in the world, which is the fourth largest in Europe and the E.U., and the third largest in the eurozone, but its debt is second only to Greece’s in proportion.  The swearing in of the new government not only avoids an unprecedented summertime vote, but will allow Italy to avoid a large increase in the value added (sales) tax because of E.U. rules through the adoption of a budget.

Italy is a strong ally of the United States as both a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in the War on Terrorism.