Merkel Surges, UN Talks Boycotted, China and the South China Sea

The bronze “Fearless Girl” statue that was placed across from the Wall Street bull on International Women’s Day will stay put until 2018.

Forty Countries Boycott UN Talks to Ban Nuclear Weapons: US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced on Monday that the US would not participate in talks on an international treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Almost forty other nations, including the UK, France, Russia, and China, also boycotted the talks. The Obama administration also objected to the talks, which the UN General Assembly approved in December. The US and other nuclear powers say a complete ban won’t work, especially if countries such as North Korea are not part of such an agreement, and that gradual disarmament in the last several decades has made a difference.

More than 100 countries voted in favor of the talks, with Austria, Brazil, and Ireland leading the effort. Supporters of the ban say the threat of nuclear war is at its highest point since the end of the Cold War and that a new treaty is needed to push harder toward the elimination of nuclear weapons than has been achieved under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

German Regional Election Boosts Merkel: The party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), secured a confident victory in local elections in the country’s smallest state of Saarland. The CDU, with 40.7 percent of the votes, comfortably beat the rival Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) of left-wing superstar Martin Schulz in Sunday’s poll. The decisive win over the SPD gave a boost to Merkel, whose party has lost significant ground to the Social Democrats in recent federal polling.

The “Schulz-Hype,” as the phenomenon surrounding the new SPD leader is called, might have taken a significant blow. Since Schulz’s appointment as party leader in January, the SPD has surged 11 percent, with many pronouncing Schulz ‘unstoppable.’ Sunday’s election proves that, as with all the elections taking place around the world in 2016-17, nothing can be taken for granted.

Will China Militarize the South China Sea?: A US think tank declared that the Chinese government has completed construction of military bases on three islands in the South China Sea. China now has the ability to heavily fortify and weaponize these islands via missile launchers and combat aircraft. The islands are heavily contested by many other nations (Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Japan) and are strategically important because over half of the world’s commercial shipping routes flow through the area. Given China’s evolving but gradual expansion of military might, we won’t be surprised if China continues to grow its soft and hard power in the region while the US focuses on Russia, ISIS, and the Middle East.

Humanitarian Workers Killed in South Sudan: Attackers killed seven aid workers as they traveled from the capital of Juba to Pibor. The territory between the two cities is remote and beset with militia and armed groups. It was the worst single attack on humanitarian workers since the country’s civil war began three years ago. Four of the dead were South Sudanese, and three were Kenyans. They were part of a group called the Grassroots Empowerment and Development Organization (GREDO), which builds community-based reintegration programs that support children released from the armed forces. At least 79 aid workers have been killed in South Sudan since December 2013.

The Mediterranean Sea is the Modern Day River Styx: The Egyptian government is imprisoning 56 people for their roles in the sinking of a migrant boat last September that killed at least 200 people. Some 450 migrants were estimated to have been crowded aboard, including around 100 trapped below deck. Survivors said the departure was delayed by five days so that more migrants could be packed in. The boat was en route to Italy when it capsized 8 miles off the Egyptian coast. The UN estimates that over 5,000 refugees were reported dead or missing at sea last year–more than 90 percent of these refugees were attempting travel across the Mediterranean to Italy.

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