Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here. March 13, 2024 | |
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"Dead bodies are rotting on the streets of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince," writes New York Times columnist Lydia Polgreen, summing up the parlous state of Haiti today. "Clean drinking water is scarce, and a cholera outbreak threatens. Hunger looms. The outgunned police force has all but disappeared." The instability is not new, but it has reached new levels. Prime Minister Ariel Henry has announced his resignation, having been blocked from returning to Port-au-Prince as gangs laid siege to the airport. (Henry had traveled to Kenya, to sign an agreement to bring 1,000 police officers to Haiti.) Gangs control around 80% of the capital, the UN has estimated. At the Independent, Evens Sanon, Pierre-Richard Luxama, and Shweta Sharma note that gang leader Jimmy "Barbecue" Chérizier has claimed responsibility for the surge in violence, which has included a mass prison break. "It is unclear how the current political crisis will be solved," Amalendu Misra writes for The Conversation. "But Chérizier has emerged from the armed insurrection as the most formidable leader in Haiti, and some suspect he may have political aspirations of his own." The BBC's Vanessa Buschschlüter identifies two other men, another gang leader and a former rebel, who also seem to be vying for power. For several years, control of Haiti has been in question. The 2021 assassination of then-President Jovenel Moïse—in the presidential palace—highlighted a dire situation in which gangs have run rampant. The next year, Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat, writing in The New Yorker, sketched life in Haiti as a perilous cocktail of gunfights, gang control, and stray bullets. While The Times' Polgreen voices some hope that a new order, and new national leadership, can arise from this crisis, there may be little reason to bet on it. In a Globe and Mail op-ed, Robert Rotberg, founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Program on Intrastate Conflict, writes that plans for an international police force from Kenya, Chad, and Benin are dubious, as the officers would speak different languages, wouldn't know the Haitian capital, and would be ill-equipped to solve Haiti's widespread hunger. "Haiti is broken," writes Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby. "But there is no outside savior, no deus ex machina, that is going to swoop in and make things better." |
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How Russia Beat the Sanctions |
Some say Russia's economy and state finances are on shaky ground. In recent Foreign Affairs essays, Andrei Kolesnikov and Alexandra Prokopenko each argued that President Vladimir Putin will struggle to fund his war on Ukraine while also lavishing enough social spending on Russians to maintain public support. Technocrats in Russia's Finance Ministry and central bank have staved off disaster so far, the argument goes, but the fundamentals of oil-and-gas sales and incomes (besides soldiers') look weak moving forward. But despite an unprecedented US and EU sanctions campaign, neither Russia's economy nor its war machine has collapsed. An economic contraction in 2022 was not followed by the big trouble some predicted. Why? The Economist cites past stimulus and large cash balances among Russian businesses and households heading into the recent rough waters. "Sanctions-busting," including imports from "friendly countries"—especially China, which is also a destination for Russian goods—have helped, the magazine writes. University of Texas economist James Galbraith offers a concise, well-rounded assessment in a short video for the Institute for New Economic Thinking. When the West sanctioned Russian oil, Moscow sold less of it but for higher prices, and revenues went up, Galbraith says. Sanctions also meant Russia spent less on imported consumer goods, helping its trade balance. As far as military hardware is concerned, Russia seemed to have it stockpiled ahead of time. For domestically produced, nonmilitary goods, Russia converted manufacturing lines to use supplies and equipment from other countries like China. "Lots of things that Russia imported from Europe or from Turkey," Gablraith says, "they have in the last eight years, and especially in the last year or so, basically re-shored or onshored to the Russian Federation itself. ... They're taking advantage of the opportunities that sanctions gave them." |
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Israel Has a 'Day After,' Too |
Many observers have asked what will happen in Gaza the day after the Israel–Hamas war ends. In a Foreign Affairs essay, Amos Yadlin writes that Israel has to consider its own "day after," too. The country is in bad shape, with citizens displaced from the south near Gaza and from the north near Lebanon, where conflict with Hezbollah simmers, Yadlin notes. Israel will need to learn security lessons from Oct. 7, rebuild relations with the US, pursue a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, and open the door to a two-state solution, Yadlin advises. |
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