- By Chrisella Sagers
Welcome to Around the World! – a weekly summary of the news you might have missed and the things you need to know. Here’s the news from June 27th to July 1st, from anywhere and everywhere!
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G20 Agricultural Meeting: A Transformative Moment? G20 Agricultural Ministers, for the first time, met to discuss growing global food insecurity and to propose a plan to create more transparency in food markets. However, the G20 meeting did not include the countries most affected by food price volatility, as Marco Picardi, founding director of the Centre for African Development and Security, discusses here. |
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ICC Issues Warrant for Arrest of Libya’s Gaddafi The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi and two of his advisers on the 100th day of NATO involvement in the war. Read about it here. |
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Riots, Fear, and a Waiting Game in Greece Greece’s Parliament voted on Thursday to implement strict austerity measures, despite violent protests in the streets of Athens. If the vote had not passed, European Union members would have refused to distribute an aid package, and Greece’s government would have run out of money within weeks, causing a default with global consequences. Read an analysis of the situation here. |
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Sudan Borders on War, Again Sudan reaches the brink once again, just ahead of the official independence of Southern Sudan on July 9th. In the negotiations that ended Africa’s longest and bloodiest civil war, the status of oil-rich Abyei was not settled, and both sides claim it as their own. Finally, on May 21st, the north began bombing the region. Casey Coombs, our UN Correspondent, gives his analysis here. |
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The UN Legitimacy Series: Part 1 The UN has survived for more than 70 years, despite an often sclerotic system and numerous competing, and more nimble, regional organizations. Jean-Marc Coicaud of the United Nations University (UNU) in New York, and Ian Hurd of Northeastern and Princeton, launched “The UN Legitimacy Series,” as described here. |
Around the Web
The 2011 Failed States Index, the seventh annual collaboration between Foreign Policy and The Fund for Peace, was released. Somalia, Chad, and Sudan top the list of the world’s most dangerous and most failed, and South Sudan, not even a country until July 9th, will enter the global stage as a failed state.
Tunisia’s interim government has brought the country into the International Criminal Court, making it the 116th signatory to the Rome Statute. On September 1st, the statute will enter into force and Tunisia will become the first North African state to be a member of the international body, which investigates and prosecutes cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Communist Party of China celebrates the 90th anniversary of its founding today. On July 1, 1921, the thirteen founders of the party met in a small building in the French concession area of Shanghai, though the meeting was eventually moved to a boat on Nanhu Lake. NPR’s Morning Edition just concluded a series examining China’s growing role in the world.