Apologies if this is a double post. I posted the original earlier but was told it appears as deleted to other users. Here's hoping it works this time.
This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
Jump in the discussion.
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Notes -
Portugal
Despite the surprise resignation of its president earlier in Nov, and the imminent snap election - Portugal’s government approved its 2024 budget on Nov 29. This budget ends (via a transition plan) Portugal's Non Habitual Resident tax regime.
The regime provided very advantageous tax treatments to digital nomads (20% income tax) and retirees (10% tax on retirement plan withdrawals), for a maximum of 10 continuous years. Ending the program appears to be a well supported popular/populist decision. That's despite the programme seeming to have been hailed as a success by most. I've seen some unconfirmed claims that more than 50% of folk who entered under the program have moved to Portugal permanently.
Thanks for the update into the budget process. Do you have any insight into how the snap election will go?
It looks like the corruption scandals aren’t fully unwound, and the PS (the ruling socialist party, technically centre-left) have been consistently losing support in the polls (wikipedia), possibly losing as much as half of their seats. These seats seem to be moving, evenly split, towards the centre right and far right parties.
So I expect the trend there will continue. Which means all signs are pointing towards a coalition government being formed between the PSD centre right party and Chega! (Enough!) - the far right populists, who are considered to be a hate group by some.
Chega! had just one seat in its inaugural year (2019), went to 12 seats in 2022 (~7%), and is currently on track to likely double that in the next election. They support things like chemical castration and death penalty for certain crimes, and members have expressed views that some interpret as racist (primarily focused on Islamic and Roma immigrants).
The March timeline for the election is calculated to maximize chances to defuse some of their support. Most of the support for the PD and SPD has come from their consensus on some very careful management of the economy - eliminating debt etc…
And the hopes are that, especially as tax season comes around, the impact of their work, especially on the middle class, will be felt. Ideally this will help either the PD gain some votes back, or the SPD pull support back away from Chega!. It’s very unlikely the PD and SPD will ally with each other. So while neither wants to be forced into negotiations with Chega!, it might be the party that ends up in the lead will be forced to do so. Chega!s views are unsavoury to most of the population, unpopular within the greater EU, and, due to their more extreme views, any coalition with them is likely to be unstable.
Personally, I’m skeptical that any plans to defuse Chega! will succeed by enough margin to protect against having to deal with them. The two main parties are both centrist, and seen as not differentiated enough in some quarters. At the same time, the recent corruption scandals play directly into Chega!'s rhetoric. So there's a combination of a (perceived) lack of differentiated alternatives, mixed with it being usually almost a given these days that populist support will switch towards the right end when faced with scandals (so that’s my strong prior).
Not only that, but Chega! is also consistently seen as the “cooler, edgier” party by younger voters (ones that are just now getting or have recently gained the right to vote), and the other parties can’t seem to put a dent in that impression. That's despite their youth group being significantly more extreme in their messaging. (Portuguese youth tend to vote on the right, historically speaking, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Portuguese_legislative_election#Electorate - ie for the right leaning parties PSD+CH+IL)
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just looking at domains: nomadgate.com is not going to be really objective on very advantageous tax treatments to digital nomads
I get that the domain name seems click-baity on first pass.
I'm not sure what objective would mean in this context, though. It could be improved if it was run as a community site (and the community section of it is very informative), and it does have a transparency statement: https://nomadgate.com/transparency/
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Netherlands
Our users @Nantafiria and @MartianNight have covered the results of the Dutch election in detail in last week’s roundup. Among the possible coalitions @Nantafiria floated included an alliance between the ruling VVD (24 seats), the NSC (a splinter of the former Christian Democrat opposition party, 20 seats), and the far right PVV (37 seats). Nanta also mentioned that the former two have expressed skepticism in the latter, and this week that seems to have materialized, with VVD announcing they will not join a government with PVV. The other big winner of the election, GL/Pvda (Green Left-Labor) will not be lending their 25 votes to the PVV either. It remains unclear for now which way NSC will swing, it seems contingent on PVV toning things down a bit, which they’ve signaled some willingness to do:
A coalition between PVV and NSC would still leave them with 57 votes, several shy of the 76 needed for a majority. The farmer party BBB might also throw their 7 seats on board. Also contentious are PVV’s stance against sending aid to Ukraine; it’ll be interesting if they moderate on this as well to attract smaller parties. Hopefully our locals can provide more detail!
I guess the question is can PVV prevent the formation of a government.
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Poland
A month and a half after the election Poland has finally kinda sorta formed a government, or as Politico rather impolitely puts it:
“Poland’s zombie government shuffles into being: One former PM joked that the new Cabinet led by Mateusz Morawiecki would have a lifespan shorter than that of a house fly.”
Why so short? Well, because they lost, of course. PiS was still the biggest winner in terms of overall votes so they get the first chance to form a government, but they wouldn’t have a majority even with the far right Confederation, who has refused to work with them anyway. It’s weird, but I guess Morawiecki has two weeks to appoint ministers and run a normal government before a vote of confidence happens, which he will lose.
After that two weeks then Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition gets its chance to form a coalition, which for now is hammered out:
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Spain
I’ve covered the seemingly stillwater results of the Spanish election that happened all the way back in July. With both the left and right deadlocked and competing for third parties, things looked dangerously close to going to yet another election. However, incumbent Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has finally managed to secure another term. He did it by finally relenting to the demands of the Catalan separatist party Junts to grant amnesty for people who participated in the referendum, including the Junts leader in exile, Carles Puigdemont. This is a significantly unpopular move, even within Sanchez’ own party. Reportedly about 70% of Spanish citizens oppose amnesty and if another election was held the left would likely do much worse. However, it was the only way Sanchez stood a chance at staying in power. Jacobin adds more detail on what to expect:
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You probably remember the recent political crisis in Peru, but to recap:
In 2021 Peru had an election between two deeply unsavory individuals: the left wing Pedro Castillo and the right wing Keiko Fujimori (daughter of the more famous Alberto Fujimori, now in prison for human rights abuses). Castillo won with less than a percentage point and a minority in the legislature. Fujimori’s Popular Forces claimed the election was rigged and started trying to impeach him pretty much immediately (you don’t actually need a crime or anything to impeach a President in Peru, you can just say they’re unfit to rule). After several attempts of this he decided to launch a “self-coup,” dissolve Congress, and create a new government. Needless to say this did not work, he was finally actually impeached, arrested, and his Vice President Dina Boularte came to power.
The year following was a weird one. Castillo’s most ardent supporters took to the streets in mass protest against what they saw as a concerted attempt to violate the democratic results of the election at all costs (which to be fair is basically accurate). The institutionalists on the left, however, saw Castillo’s self-coup as simply going too far. While a member of the Peruvian Marxist left herself, current President Boularte found herself working with the center left and the conservatives against some members of her own party and the popular uprising. In the months that followed she deployed the security state against the protestors pretty brutally, which seemingly only encouraged them to fight harder. Things have calmed down now but the scars are there to stay. Boularte remains in power but her hold is fragile; her most recent opinion poll put her popularity at an abysmal 8%.
And apparently it’s not over yet. Attorney General Patricia Benavides (who spent a fair amount of time trying to get Castillo impeached) launched an eleven month investigation into police brutality and has now announced she is officially blaming President Boularte for the deaths of protestors. This is a pretty plausible outcome for the investigation, though it should be say there are some complications:
What happens now? Congress will review the allegations, and since they backed putting down the protests, it is unlikely they will attempt to impeach her (unless the right wing is feeling particularly opportunistic, which they may be). A criminal trial wouldn’t happen until after Boularte leaves office, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a former President has been charged for crimes that Congress supported after they left office (see: Fujimori). Given the weak institutions in Peru, hopefully this doesn’t encourage Boularte to stay in power specifically to avoid prosecution.
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India & the West
Reportedly the United States apparently stopped India from assassinating another Sikh separatist in June, this time not in Canada but actually on US soil.
I remain wildly uncertain of how to think about all this. It seems so out of character for the Modi government to be placing hits in allied countries, but I can’t think of much reason why the US would lie here. In every other sense the US has bent over backwards to pull India into its orbits, giving them no strings attached weapons, GE engines, and so on, without even a promise to shift position towards Russia at all. Why jettison all that now? (a question for both sides).
I sadly don’t have much to add, but want to commend you for taking the time to do these informative and helpful write ups. It’s really nice to get insight into things happening across the world and I’m grateful to you for it.
To whatever mods may see my post and think it’s low effort—I plead (somewhat) guilty. I’m not posting a top-level comment for a reason. However, I want to encourage the excellent @Soriek to continue his work, and I think an occasional comment speaks more loudly than an upvote.
In actual transnational news, I recently became aware of a Russian program to try and improve their fertility rate by offering a large sum of money (enough to buy an apartment) to young couples who have multiple kids. I do not speak Russian, but if there’s interest I could try to understand what’s happening and post about it?
Many thanks, it can definitely be time consuming prepping these so it's good to here people are enjoying them. I would definitely be interested in the Russian program; in general I feel like this place could benefit from regular updates on Russia (and China for that matter) from people more knowledgable than me.
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I'm interested in learning more about the program. Sounds similar to a Hungarian program. https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/29/hungary-offers-30-000-to-married-couples-who-can-produce-three-children
However I do not think I would be able to relocate, but good luck on your (re)searching!
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I'm interested.
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I am on the fence about whether India is actually behind this or its a opposing gang member trying to settle score, just because how grossly incompetent the so called "senior field officer" is. Intelligence agencies just don't operate so recklessly, especially when you are trying to execute a hit on US soil. The way US handled this affair is commendable and I especially appreciate the indictment they submitted(Canada please take notes). Here's a really great video explaining it- https://youtube.com/watch?v=MWco9Tjq-SI
Now for India both public and the government, tackling the Sikh separatism is very high priority and perceived as major threat. You need to take account that just last year we had an RPG shot at Police intel Headquarters in the Capital of the Sikh State of Punjab, then an arrested Sikh Separatist leader connected to this was freed by the mob and this then culminated in a nation wide manhunt for the said leader. Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the said target, was the one who claimed responsibility for the attack(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/sfjs-gurparwant-pannu-claims-responsibility-for-rpg-attack-in-mohali/articleshow/91462544.cms).
The question attached to the much bigger issue of India allegedly targeting US/Canadian citizen/asylee is what should US and Canada do about active Sikh separatist operating from their soil?
For start: are they assassinating people or publishing texts and images disliked by India?
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A country that can't protect its citizens is no country at all. This goes for Canada as well as the US- if some fucking foreign nation thinks they can send assassins to summarily execute citizens for activity that's perfectly legal in their country, they have another thing coming.
Now, if Canada or the US doesn't want citizens that are active Sikh separatists, maybe they should start screening them on the way in or pass laws to make it so that immigrants that agitate for separation lose that citizenship. As it is, they took them in, any attack on the citizens is [on its face] an attack on the sovereignty of the nation, and it's troubling as to why "this is a blatant and clear attack on our nation's security" wasn't the first thing out of anyone's mouth (in the former's case, guess that's the cost of being a "post-national" nation).
I completely agree with your logic. The thing you're missing though is dismissing Sikh Separatists as something minor. It's understandable since US and Canada both don't face any perceptible threat from them. Sadly India does and sees US and Canada's indifference as facilitation of these groups. That said I am not taking lightly the seriousness of a foreign power interference. Though how situation will change depends on realpolitik, we can be sure that the US court will examine the details of it and the facts would be aired.
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Surely the answer is “nothing,” right? If they’re US citizens, they get to enjoy US freedom of speech, no matter what India thinks of the matter.
There's a lot of difference in freedom of speech and shooting an RPG.
Then question should be "active Sikh separatist organising terrorism/uprisings from their soil?"
"active Sikh separatist" covers also entirely peaceful and legal (under USA or Canadian law) actions
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Philippines
During the Japanese occupation of the Phillipines, communist rebels called the Hukbalahaps played a large role in fighting off the occupiers. When the conflict ended they expected to have a large say in the newly decolonized country, which was naive of them considering independence was being granted by not just any colonial master, but the United States of America. Instead, the US empowered Manuel Quezon on a deal that partially included him completely marginalized the Hukbalahap. Well communist insurgency didn’t stop there, it came back in the 68 (on Mao’s 75th Birthday) and spread until the 72 when Fernando Marcos (at America’s encouragement) put the country under martial law for fourteen years. There have been various attempts at reconciliation in the successive administrations but nothing concrete.
Marcos’ son Bongbong (no, seriously) is in power now. So it is some irony that his government is finally meeting with the Communists to sit down in Norway and try to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict. If successful, this would end one of the longest insurgencies in the world (I believe the Naxalites in India are longer, but probably not much else), one that has cost over 150,000 lives.
And their liberators. Not suprisingly, the US preferred to empower factions which didn't shoot at them.
Perhaps, but as a half-Pinoy, I'm under the impression that American authority in Southeast Asia rested more with Gen. McArthur than with the elected government of the US.
Given your ancestry, you might be able to help answer a question that’s been at the back of my mind for awhile. All the Filipinos and half-Filipinos I know were and remain very pro-Marcos (the dictator, not the current president, though they like him too). Assuming you’re Filipino-American, do you have any sense as to how widespread that attitude is among Filipino immigrants? Was there some sort of selection effect, such that only the more pro-Marcos folks came to this country, or is my small sample size just not very representative?
I can't say, unfortunately; I would assume mildly anti-Marcos (my dad came over during the Marcos admin, the Marcos regime forced his dad to give up his guns, my dad was also Duterte-critical) in general.
ETA: The thing is, though, as much as that may have existed, it was probably outweighed by the opportunity afforded by immigrating to America in terms of motivation.
Thanks for the reply. I’ve found my own personal experience a bit interesting, since if anything, I’d have expected the more pro-Marcos people to stay and the more anti-Marcos to emigrate. You’re probably right that the economic prospects of immigrating to the States likely outweighed everything else.
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Sierra Leone
A confusing series of events took place this past Sunday. A group of soldiers seemingly went rogue and attacked an armory. They were driven off but headed to a nearby prison and let out all the prisoners (including, reportedly, a famous rapper LAJ who was booted from the US for various crimes). After a shootout that left over 20 people dead, the government seemingly has control of the situation. Still, dozens of the assailants are at large and the government has imposed mandatory national curfew still.
It’s still quite unclear what happened but everyone has been using the dreaded word “coup”. There have of course been a series of coups across West Africa recently and Sierra Leone itself is no stranger to coups - actually the current President even led two coups himself and has signaled willingness to do it again in the future. He won a second term recently in what was most certainly an illegitimate election, so there are plenty of people upset with the status quo, but details on the motivations of the participants and whether this was even a real coup attempt are still to be forthcoming.
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Azerbaijan
Last week the US Senate unanimously passed the Armenian Protection Act blocking military assistance from Azerbaijan. It will now need to go through the fractuous House, which can hopefully at least agree on giving less funding.
The UN International Court of Justice has also now ruled that Azerbaijan must allow ethnic Armenians to return to Nagorno-Karabakh. This leaves things in a kind of weird place. Azerbaijan didn’t actually kick ethnic Armenians out, they self-evacuated because of credible fears of violence. Just because they’re allowed back will they feel safe?
No new word on the details of the ongoing negotiations between the two countries, except Armenian PM Pashinyan saying that two countries “are speaking ‘different diplomatic languages’ even though they were able to agree on the basic principles for a peace treaty.”
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