November 4: Bibi and Lula - The Return Tour

In which, familiar face return to positions of influence in global politics, the whirlpool of Ukraine threatens to pull in more actors, and the uniter-in-chief continues to divide America.

Peace in Ethiopia!

There’s a lot of troublesome news in the world - war, rumors of war, etc. So, it is necessary and good that we push those troubles a little lower in this report to recognize and celebrate a ceasefire and preliminary peace deal in Ethiopia.

Two years to the day since fighting broke out between the government and Tigray rebels, negotiators reached a preliminary deal. Hopefully this one will hold. It’s not an easy road to peace.

Bibi and Lula: The Return Tour

Two big elections this last week saw the return of elder statesmen with simple syllabic nicknames.

In Brazil, Lula beat out Bolsonaro in a runoff election, which will undoubtedly see South America’s largest country swing back to the political left in reaction to Bolsonaro’s more controversial policies. As a former disgraced politician who had served time for his crimes of corruption while in office, Lula’s rescaling the heights of power in Brazil is quite impressive. 

In Israel, a shift to the right after a tight race sees Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud return to power. Like Lula, Bibi’s political goose appeared to be cooked when he left office under a cloud of controversy and an impending indictment on… wait for it… corruption charges. That indictment didn’t turn into jail time for Netanyahu, and he was free to plot a comeback similar to Lula’s.

Netanyahu returns to power with a narrow, but clear majority of conservative parties in the Knesset, which means a more right wing Israeli government, which means likely friction between Israel and the US. 

World (Proxy) War

Last week, I noted that the Ukraine war has continued to suck in other actors akin to a world war, but with a twist. Unlike prior global conflicts that saw actors sucked into the fighting and supplying weapons and soldiers to belligerent nations, the widening scope of this war has been dominantly economic as America and Europe wield their every ready sanctions to punish Russia and any who would support them. The recent example being that of Iran for supplying drones to Russia and for the brutal crackdown on protesters (who are still in the streets by the by). 

And while those sanctions are certainly biting into Russia’s oil and gas industry (and may even be contributing to capital flight from China), the global economic conflict/realignment is neither static nor one-dimensional. Indeed, it appears to be getting belligerents (both of whom are hurting for manpower) increasingly comfortable with drawing on their respective supporters for increasingly active involvement in the conflict itself.

Reports this week have Russia recruiting US-trained Afghan commandos for fighting in Ukraine and allegedly receiving artillery ammo from North Korea (more on them in a moment). Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to receive its massive amounts of aid from the US and Europe, is asking for more, and getting it from a widening group of suppliers.