Suchergebnisse

It's legacy-salvaging time as the embers die on the
Democrat Gov. John
Bel Edwards Administration, with a full-bore effort to turn impossibly a
sow's ear into a silk purse.

At the specific policy level, for example, you
have its Commissioner of Administration trying to stave off the undoing by
incoming governor Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry of a costly
and counterproductive taxpayer-funded parental leave scheme for state employees
while proclaiming
"History is going to look very favorably on … Edwards and what he's done." This
shilling is backed more broadly by a propaganda campaign
using tax dollars touting alleged accomplishments, if not reframing failures.

Dardenne is dead wrong: if history is kind, it
will relegate the Edwards years as a footnote; if bluntly realistic, it will
register the 2016-23 period as one where his policies botched economic growth
and development and coarsened society while privileging special interests at
the expense of Louisianans – all in all, a retreat into the past following an
agenda that disserved the state for decades. The data leave no other assessment
possible.

While Landry has yet to take office, already he
has signaled he will undo as much as he can of what Edwards inflicted. There is
not much of what Edwards did which can't be reversed in its entirety, but,
unfortunately, where he did the most damage are things that will be the hardest
to contain.

Most egregiously, he grew government at an alarming
rate, much higher than inflation. From the total spending by the state from six
months into his first term through what is budgeted through the six months after
his second term ends, total
state spending will rise 91 percent. Some of this was driven by bad choices
that force fed federal dollars into the state (which now comprise just over
half of budgeted spending), but even from state sources general
fund spending will rise 36 percent in the period while statutory
dedications will rise 72 percent and self-generated dollars will rise 50
percent. For all 50 states, the fiscal
year 2016 to FY
2022 increase was only 59 percent. Meanwhile, inflation increased
only 28 percent in the period through last month.

This spending orgy particularly was egged on by
expanding Medicaid at the start of FY 2017. It now costs Louisianans over
$450 million extra a year in state funds (using FY 2021 figures; this will
rocket higher because of Wuhan coronavirus pandemic policies for the next couple
of years which fortunately since have been discontinued), redistributing wealth
to eligible enrollees anywhere from a third to a half of whom already had
health insurance and providing a benefit that discourages work. And not that it
seems to have done much relative to other states, as its 2017 rank is the same
as its 2023 rank for public
health according to U.S. News and World Report, 45th, while
United Health Care's America's Health Rankings annual report for 2017
and 2022
shows the state slipped – from next from dead last to dead last.

Meanwhile, spurred by this ballooning of
government, the state began falling behind, if not retreating, economically.
Nowhere is this more clearly demonstrated, and is the most prominent legacy of
Edwards' policies, than in the depopulation of the Louisiana from the middle
of 2016 through mid-2022.
While the nation grew 3.2 percent and the state's southern neighbors experienced a 5.2 percent increase in residents, Louisiana lost 1.9 percent or 88,000
people as they left seeking better opportunity, if not better-run government.

Naturally enough, because of the state's relatively
poor economic performance. A lower proportion of able-bodied
adults younger than age 65 worked in last month, 59 percent, as opposed to
when Edwards' first budget kicked in in Jul., 2016, then at 60.2 percent, with
this latest figure seventh-lowest in the nation (and only as high as it is because
of the state's depopulation). Contrast this with the national rate of 62.7 percent. And the state's
rate is only as high as it is because of depopulation and aggregate job loss; since Jul., 2016 the state actually has
lost (preliminary Oct., 2023 estimate, seasonally adjusted) 6,000 jobs.

For those who did work, the Edwards' years have
been marked by falling behind. While personal
per capita income grew 39 percent from mid-2016 through last month nationally,
and in the southeast 40.7 percent, it grew just 35.6 percent in Louisiana. In compound
annual terms, the 4.6
percent growth rate ranked 35th among the states.

Regrettably, it will take time to unwind the
massive growth in government and effort to find ways to curtail Medicaid
expansion, unless it is eliminated which may be difficult politically to do
with a critical mass of individuals now hooked on redistribution of wealth to
them. Perhaps the only other consequential policy change – again, with an
overall negative impact – Edwards foisted was his criminal justice changes designed
to incarcerate fewer individuals that supposedly would save money.

People incarcerated since
the end of 2016 through Sept., 2023 have fallen around a fifth although by only
about a thousand in state prisons. Yet this was less than the over quarter
decline in all states (through
2021, the latest available data) And claims that the changes, designed to
send fewer people to prison, caused this decline are tempered
by demographic changes with the proportion of younger individuals falling
(younger males disproportionately commit crime) in this period. Nor was much
money saved, since the charge to house state prisoners in local jails increased.

Worse, despite these changes violent crime
increased in Louisiana from 2016-22,
some 11 percent. Meanwhile, violent crime across the U.S. barely budged, up
about a percent making it just 54 percent as high as Louisiana's. This lends credence
to charges by Landry and many others that the changes came at a cost of safety,
and portends they will intensify efforts over the past couple of years to clamp
down that didn't make it into law because of Edwards' vetoes.

Finally, perhaps the most insidious and tragic impact
Edwards had concerned his pandemic policy, which employed stricter measures
than in many states and, which research has demonstrated, largely
were useless in
combatting viral spread and suffering, but ending up induced misery in
other ways. In fact, running the numbers shows that Edwards'
lockdown policies cost more lives than they saved and certainly did more
damage to the economy and civil society (not
to mention the state Constitution) than did far less
heavy-handed responses from other states' governors who had access to the
very same data but who made wiser decisions.

Unquestionably, overall Edwards – aided by too few
legislative Republicans doing too little to counter him, although things would have
been worse had they not at least resisted his more egregious efforts to raise
taxes, to spend more, and to regulate more heavily – has produced a reign of error
that left the state and its people in relatively worse condition than when he
took over, if not absolutely worse in terms of residents, jobs, and lives lost.
No length to which public relations campaigns will go or amount of lackeys
trying to deflect from their own culpability in disserving the public can
change that fact.

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has meted out economic punishment both as a means of coercion and a moral warfare tool, rendering it a de facto accompaniment in the naming and shaming of various foes of the United States. The largest sanctions of all have been imposed on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine. Unfortunately, this case has also become the greatest example of the failure of sanctions to achieve their desired results. Together with the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, this has contributed to the growing belief that this war may end in stalemate, or even Russian victory.By 2021, the U.S. had already imposed over 8,000 sanctions on individuals and companies globally, targeting regional sectors in a range of countries. In the last two years, this number has seen an astronomical increase. According to a Columbia University database, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) holds comprehensive sanctions on six countries and three regions. Targeted export sanctions extend to 19 countries including Belarus, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, prohibiting under U.S. law any financial and commercial relations with designated companies or individuals. On multitudinous occasions, these U.S.-led sanction regimes have been found to inflict asymmetrical burdens on impoverished foreign citizens, hinder democratization, and in the most serious cases exacerbate humanitarian crises in violation of international law.In the days following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, President Biden introduced a series of allies-coordinated sanction packages targeting Russia's weapons industry, technology exports, foreign assets, banks, energy companies, and wealthy businessmen. Western states then went on to completely isolate Russia from the global financial market. In these measures lay a hope that such a severe sanctions regime would not only impede Russia's warmaking capabilities but cripple support from political elites so drastically that Putin's technocratic regime would collapse. Nearly two years into the war, Biden's introduction of new sanction packages every other month since February 2022 has not toppled the Russian regime or led it to agree to Western demands for a withdrawal from Ukraine. Russia's increased allocation of national GDP to defense, which is predicted to reach an all time high of 6%, stands as proof of this unpleasant truth. James Galbraith of the Institute for New Economic Thinking remarks that most Western studies on the Russian economy today begin with the question of how badly it is doing. This framework — focused on finding pain in the Russian economy and highly reliant on confirmation bias — forgoes the intellectual distance necessary to accurately pinpoint the roots of sanctions failure.There is no doubt that Russia's economy is feeling the impact of sanctions and faces a rather bleak future. Its aviation and car manufacturing sectors were particularly affected with a decline of 80% due to inaccessible components. The collapse of Western direct investment, combined with capital flight and severe brain drain, foreshadows decades of economic struggle for Russia's future generations.Still, this is nowhere near the outcome promised by U.S. officials. Claims that the Russian economy is about to collapse seem to stem from a need to reassure voters who are suffering from collateral sanctions damage, be it rising energy prices or deteriorating living standards.The most widely discussed reasons for the failure of Russia sanctions focus on issues in their enforcement: Their bypassing by southern states in complex supply chains, the loopholes of dual-use goods exports, and companies' reluctance to completely halt business with the Russian market. It is also clear that Western planners greatly underestimated the worldwide willingness (including by Western partners like India) to reject sanctions and continue buying Russian energy. Most recently, a POGO report found that even the U.S. Department of Defense has remained a loyal client of Russian oil.However, one can also credit Russian economic planning for cushioning the blow of sanctions. At the very outset of the war, the government and the Central Bank promptly reacted with a combination of restrictions on the free flow of capital and a 20% increase in interest rates. In only two months after the invasion, banks saw 90% of initially withdrawn funds returned to Russian accounts. After 20 months, a war economy has replaced Russia's pre-war export diversification and technological innovation priorities. Moscow's GDP shows a resilient growth of 2.2% this year, with the IMF only recently altering its prediction for the year 2024 from 2.8% to 1.1%. Despite severe capital flight, Russia's current account surplus grew to $16.6 billion in the third quarter of this year, reflective of a large increase in foreign trade despite Western sanctions regimes. There are, however, questions about the reliability of official figures, especially given that Russian trade statistics were made private for over a year, resuming only in March 2023. In line with Fortress Russia economics, the government recently imposed new measures compelling Russian exporters in energy, metals, and agriculture to convert their foreign currency earnings into rubles, and released new duties on non-oil exporters. Overall, anti-dollar strategies and currency swaps have pushed Russia closer to countries such as China, Iran, and Turkey, some of which share the aim of curbing American financial influence. This illustrates another danger in U.S. sanctions: Far from strengthening U.S. global power, they are in fact spurring other countries to reduce their economic dependence on the U.S.It appears therefore that the West may have to rethink its sanctions policy. As each side of the conflict begins to fathom the possibility of a non-military resolution, Western states must also face the difficult truth that sanctions (and Russia's frozen sovereign debt) could become be a necessary sacrifice in negotiations if Russia is to be brought to make peace. Indisputably, timing would be of key importance to what is perhaps still at present an unimaginable step for most U.S. officials. If proposed prematurely, an initiative to ease sanctions on Russia would also risk backfiring politically, which is why it should be broached in entirely confidential talks with Russia. Sanctions relief should come only as part of a settlement, and should be accompanied by firm and binding guarantees that the sanctions would be automatically reimposed in the event of fresh Russian aggression.The failure of sanctions against Russia echoes a long series of such failures, against Cuba (for sixty years), Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and elsewhere. While they may have some utility as bargaining leverage in negotiations, this only applies — as in the case of Russia — if the United States is prepared to lift them in return for agreement. What is more, sanction-setting betrays a pattern of stickiness: Once legislated by Congress, U.S. sanctions have historically tended to become permanent.It is high time that the United States recognized the clear lessons of modern history and modified its approach to the intermittently useful — albeit deeply flawed — strategy of economic coercion.

Western officials are starting to broach the idea of peace talks with Russia as the situation on the ground in Ukraine has devolved into a stalemate, according to a major new report from NBC News.American and European diplomats reportedly used a recent round of talks in Malta to encourage Ukraine to consider what concessions it may be willing to make — a significant shift from the public messaging around the summit, which was largely framed as an opportunity to build support for Ukraine's maximalist peace plan.Officials are now privately referring to the situation on the ground as a stalemate, and some "have privately said Ukraine likely only has until the end of the year or shortly thereafter before more urgent discussions about peace negotiations should begin," the report notes.A State Department spokesperson denied NBC's reporting on Tuesday, reiterating the administration line that "nothing should happen about Ukraine without Ukraine" and saying that the U.S. is "not aware of any conversations with Ukraine about negotiations outside of the peace formula structure that you've already seen a number of engagements take place on."The news comes at a difficult time for Ukraine as the world's attention has largely turned toward Israel and Palestine, where weeks of intense fighting has left Gaza in a humanitarian disaster. The West's differing reactions to the two conflicts have further complicated efforts to bolster Global South support for Ukraine.In the United States, President Joe Biden is now attempting to link $14.3 billion in aid for Israel to an additional $61.4 billion in funding for Ukraine, a move that House Republicans have so far rejected. The chances that there will be a gap in American funding for Kyiv have continued to grow as a potential government shutdown looms later this month.And in Europe, many leaders have begun to move away from full-throated support for Ukraine given the stalling efforts on the battlefield and the economic impact on the continent. Even Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has staked out a distinctly pro-Ukraine stance since taking office earlier this year, told Russian pranksters posing as African Union officials that "there is a lot of fatigue" in Europe due to the war."We [are] near the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out," Meloni added.None of this guarantees that Russia is prepared for talks. Some experts argue that Russian President Vladimir Putin sees a chance to wait Ukraine and the West out through a war of attrition, a serious possibility given the extent of Ukrainian losses (the average age of a Ukrainian soldier is now reportedly 43 years old) and the relatively low appetite for future funding among Republicans in the U.S.In fact, Russia appears to have already leaned into this approach with its renewed bombing campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, a move that could cause blackouts across Ukraine during its often brutal winter.If Russian President Vladimir Putin does end up pursuing his advantage, Ukraine's strongest boosters may be kicking themselves for ignoring the advice of more skeptical voices, including former Joint Chiefs head Mark Milley, who said late last year that the winter could provide "a window of opportunity for negotiation.""There has to be a mutual recognition that a military victory is probably, in the true sense of the word is maybe not achievable through military means, and therefore you need to turn to other means," Milley said.As Branko Marcetic recently argued in Compact, the consequences of ignoring Milley's advice may be severe."[J]ust as pro-peace voices had warned, Ukraine is now looking at the worst of both worlds: accepting a far inferior peace deal, while having weathered the tremendous human and economic costs of a prolonged conflict," Marcetic wrote. "Most perversely, [Kyiv] has been put into this position by those who postured as its most ardent supporters, the hawks who thought of the war as a way of humiliating Russia on the cheap."In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:— The European Union executive recommended Wednesday that Ukraine start formal talks to join the bloc as soon as next year if it completes the necessary reforms for membership, marking one step closer to Kyiv joining the EU, according to Reuters. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the move a "historic step," though it does not completely clear the way for Kyiv, which will still have to convince holdouts in Hungary and now potentially Slovakia that Ukraine should be permitted to join the EU.— The foreign ministers of the Group of 7 (G7) reaffirmed their "steadfast commitment to supporting Ukraine's fight for its independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity" following a series of meetings in Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Al Jazeera. The group, which was keen to swat down the argument that events in Gaza have pulled their attention away from the war in Ukraine, also held a virtual discussion with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. G7 members include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.— Russia formally withdrew Tuesday from a post-Cold War treaty limiting the deployment of conventional weapons in Europe, drawing condemnation from NATO, which will now suspend its participation in the pact, according to Reuters. Moscow, which said the decision was a result of NATO's eastward expansion, had already stopped active participation in the treaty in 2015.— Egypt may give military equipment to Russia after reportedly reversing a decision to sell missiles to Moscow earlier this year, according to the Wall Street Journal. After the missile deal was scuppered, the report says, Russian officials asked Egypt to give back 150 helicopter engines that it had previously sold to Cairo in exchange for forgiving some Egyptian debts and guaranteeing a continued supply of Russian wheat to the country. The report, which cites three people "with knowledge of the incident," says that Egypt has agreed to the terms and the engine shipments could begin next month.— On Thursday, Russia struck a civilian ship in a Black Sea port near Odessa, Ukraine, raising questions about the safety of a new shipping corridor that Kyiv put in place following Moscow's withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal, according to Reuters. The blast killed one crew member and injured four others. Ukraine played down the incident and said shipping traffic continues "despite Russia's systematic attacks on port infrastructure."U.S. State Department news:In a Tuesday press conference, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel defended Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's decision to delay elections, arguing that Russia's occupation of large swathes of Ukraine and its continual bombing of civilian targets would make a fair vote impossible. "We also have made clear with our Ukrainian partners our commitment to supporting not just Ukraine in its fight but our commitment to support a careful and constitutional approach to keeping democracy strong in wartime," Patel said.

With the world's eyes understandably focused on the carnage in the Gaza Strip, violent manifestations of the Israel-Palestinian conflict in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have been getting even less attention than they normally get, and less than they deserve. Amid concerns about possible spreading of the current war in Gaza, spreading already has begun in the West Bank, with the potential there of stimulating still more spread.Casualties have spiked in the West Bank since the Hamas attack on October 7. More than 100 Palestinians, including civilians, have been killed there.Most of the casualties have been incurred as part of accelerated operations in the West Bank by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in the form of raids, mass arrests, and crackdowns on protests. The stepped-up Israeli use of force has even included an airstrike on a mosque in a refugee camp in the city of Jenin — a rarity in the West Bank, where the Israelis usually rely on ground forces.Additional violence has come at the hands of Israeli settlers — some of the 670,000 Israelis whose residence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem is widely recognized as a violation of international law. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded in just the first two weeks of the current crisis 100 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian residents. The U.N. office noted that this represented an average of almost eight such incidents per day, up from a daily average of three incidents since the beginning of this year.The connection between this settler violence and the events this month in southern Israel and the Gaza Strip has two aspects. One is that Israeli anger over the Hamas attack and the blurring of such emotion into a general hatred of Palestinian Arabs has made the current moment even more of an open season on Palestinians than it was before. The second is that the current focus of attention on Gaza among the press, foreign governments, and the world generally has represented an opportunity for settlers to conduct violent and illegal business in the West Bank while drawing little notice. Mairav Zonszein, an Israel-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, notes that a difference between now and before is that the settler violence is occurring "without almost any media attention being paid to it."These developments are a continuation, in intensified form, of longer trends in the physical suffering of West Bank Palestinians. Many of the nearly 1,600 deaths of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis between 2015 (that is, since the last big Israeli attack on Gaza in 2014) and August of this year were in the West Bank. The violence accelerated in 2023, even before October 7. This year was already on pace to be the deadliest year for residents of the West Bank since the United Nations began keeping such records in 2005.The upsurge in Israeli violence in the West Bank clearly is related to the coming to power at the beginning of this year of an extreme right-wing Israeli government. Far from policing or discouraging the settler violence, the de facto Israeli response often has been to permit or condone it, with IDF soldiers standing aside or even participating in some of the violence. One of the most prominent of the extremists currently in power, minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir — himself a West Bank settler — promised to distribute as many as 10,000 free rifles to Israeli citizens, including West Bank settlers.All this is part of a longer-term process of one people, defined in ethnic and religious terms, subjugating another people similarly defined, and of the determination of successive Israeli governments to maintain Jewish Israeli supremacy over all the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Part of the formula for doing this has been to cordon off some two million of the Arab residents into the Gaza Strip and to rely on blockades, periodic "mowing the grass " with military force, and an occasional misery-alleviating sop to keep those Arabs from interfering with Israeli ambitions. The Hamas attack, of course, shattered some of the assumptions underlying that strategy.The other part of the formula has been the piecemeal displacement of West Bank Palestinians from their land. Although much of the settler violence manifests simple hatred and bigotry, much of it is a more calculated effort to make life for Palestinian neighbors so miserable — or so uneconomic, given settler tactics such as vandalism of olive groves or denial of water and pastures needed by herded livestock — that those neighbors will give up and move. The accelerated anti-Palestinian settler activity this month has included much of this kind of intimidation. The Israeli human rights watchdog organization B'Tselem reported earlier this month that in the previous week, eight entire West Bank communities, numbering 472 people, had abandoned their homes out of fear for their lives and livelihoods.The current war, replete with Israeli orders for millions of Gaza residents to evacuate what the Israeli military has turned into a free-fire zone, has raised fears throughout the region of a new Nakba or catastrophe — another installment of the war in the 1940s that caused the mass displacement of longtime Palestinian residents from what became the state of Israel. The fears gained credibility from the leak of an Israeli government planning document that calls for forcibly transferring the population of the Gaza Strip to the Sinai. Perhaps the only thing preventing Israel from trying to implement such a plan is that the Egyptian government has multiple reasons to refuse to participate in any such scheme.That scheme was about Gaza, but West Bankers probably have the most to fear from any new mass displacements or ethnic cleansing. Gaza is the open-air prison, but the West Bank, with East Jerusalem, is the prize — the land that Israeli hardliners want for, and only for, their own people.The other dynamic that has made the West Bank increasingly become a powder keg since October 7 is the unsurprising increase in anger and resentment among the Palestinians who live there. Fear of a new Nakba is part of it. The casualties from increased settler violence and IDF use of military force are part of it. And so are the miseries in everyday life that have come from roadblocks and other obstructions to movement that the IDF has increased this month.Another big part of it is anger over the death and devastation that the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip has imposed on the Palestinian brethren who live there. This is not a matter of support for Hamas. It is a matter of feeling the pain of co-nationals and of general outrage over the infliction of mass suffering.The chance of a new intifada, or popular uprising, in the West Bank, was already significant before this month and is now even higher. In the current atmosphere, a new intifada would likely be at least as violent as the last one. It would by itself represent a significant spread of the war in Gaza. And by making the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict that much larger, it would increase the chance of further spread, such as by drawing in Lebanese Hezbollah.

Venezuela once again is approaching an opportunity for change as presidential elections are scheduled for 2024 and legislative, regional and local elections for 2025. The U.S. has suggested it could ease sanctions if the government of President Nicolas Maduro makes democratic advances — for instance by improving its electoral system — and for months there have been rumors of a deal. However, no major announcements have been made, though Maduro has continued to ratchet down his authoritarian hold on Venezuelan politics. Thus, the potential for these elections to change the status quo is uncertain.The opposition primary and risk of judicial interventionIn response to calls for the need to renew its leadership, the opposition decided to hold a primary election on October 22 to determine its candidate for 2024. This is no small task in a country immersed in a deep humanitarian emergency and in which, to use the words of the United Nations Independent Fact Finding Mission, official policy is to "silence, discourage and quash opposition to the Government of President Maduro."The National Primary Commission, an independent body in charge of organizing the opposition primary election, has fought an uphill battle. In Venezuela, there is an electoral branch of government headed by the National Electoral Council. The Primary Commission sent several communications to the Electoral Council before June 5 of this year, asking for meetings to evaluate the possibility of the Electoral Council providing technical assistance, including access to the official voting centers, providing security and guaranteeing public order. However, there was no answer and on June 15, almost all the members of the Electoral Council resigned under strong pressure from the government, and an irregular process of appointment of new members took place. As a result, the Primary Commission decided it would forge ahead, independently organizing the primary. More than three months later, and exactly a month before the primary was to take place, the new Electoral Council publicly addressed the requirements of the Primary Commission. The Electoral Council recommended moving the date to November 19 and using Venezuela's automated voting system.The Electoral Council said nothing, however, about the participation of María Corina Machado, Henrique Capriles, or Freddy Superlano. These candidates were disqualified to run for public office via unconstitutional administrative proceedings by the Venezuelan Comptroller. Insiders suggest that the Electoral Council would not prohibit their participation in the primary, but that they could not control the actions of the Supreme Court of Justice. The judiciary plays a significant role in the repression of the government's opponents. It was precisely the Supreme Court that ordered the suspension and repeat of the governor's election in Barinas state when it was lost by Argenis Chávez, the brother of late President Hugo Chávez, in November 2021, saying Freddy Superlano, the winning candidate, was actually disqualified.The Primary Commission issued a public statement explaining that, with the primary elections just days away, it was not possible to change course and move the date. The Electoral Council replied with its own public statement saying that it holds exclusive competence to carry out electoral proceedings.This latest response from the Electoral Council underscores a possibility that has always been present: a judicial intervention in the opposition primary. The Supreme Court has consistently acted as an arm of the executive under Maduro and Hugo Chávez before him. If such an intervention takes place, opposition candidates will need to find another strategy to participate in the 2024 elections.Opposition coordinationOver the past 20-plus years, the opposition has struggled to coordinate behind a single strategy. There is a long history of elite divisions over who controls Venezuela's petro-state apparatus. And opposition divisions are characteristic of countries ruled by authoritarian governments — from communist Poland, to South African apartheid, to Chile under Pinochet. There have been a number of cases in Venezuela where the opposition has been able to coordinate, such as the 2015 legislative elections which it won in a landslide. The Maduro government fully understands this difficulty and does whatever it can to divide the opposition. This last-minute offer by the CNE to organize the primary election fits clearly within this strategy.There are two additional challenges. First, the lifting of the above mentioned political disqualifications had been one of the main demands by the United States in negotiations surrounding possible sanctions relief. If a deal is reached before the elections, Machado or Capriles might be able to run. If not, and one of them wins, it will likely create a period of conflict within the opposition over a plan for succession and quite possibly a move to boycott by affected candidates. Second, it is likely that candidates who are not running in the primary will nevertheless run in the presidential election, for example, comedian Benjamin Rausseo or Zulia governor Manuel Rosales. If and when they do, it could divide the opposition vote, thus allowing Maduro to win reelection with minority support.Whether these challenges are constructively met or not, it is important to take a step back to appreciate this moment. It is remarkable that, within a year of a contentious decision to put an end to Juan Guaidó's interim government, the Venezuelan opposition has unified around an electoral strategy. This has not happened since 2015. Indeed, Machado, the person who has been most opposed to an electoral solution over the years, is now the leading candidate. The primary itself has done what primaries should do – it has brought candidates in closer contact with the people and generated popular enthusiasm and engagement. Furthermore, the Primary Commission has been courageous and judicious in organizing the event. Although much still needs to be done to thicken coordination among opposition leaders and parties, and their connection to the population, these achievements are important and should be acknowledged.International engagementVenezuela's conflict and the potential for an electoral solution should be on the agenda of international stakeholders. The humanitarian emergency has forced almost eight million Venezuelans to flee, many to the United States. More than half of the population lives in poverty and faces food insecurity. Meanwhile, the oil industry and productive apparatus have suffered deeply due to corruption and mismanagement, as well as U.S. financial and oil sanctions. Also, illegal mining has proliferated, leading to increased destruction of Venezuela's pristine wilderness and the growth of armed and criminal groups. The cost of doing nothing is high. More engagement from other countries in the region such as Colombia, Brazil and even Chile, has the potential to bring the Maduro government back to the negotiation table. Working for better electoral conditions, including international observation, could in turn result in a reasonable agreement between the U.S. and Venezuela on sanctions relief.The U.S. and other countries should engage with the Venezuelan authorities, as well as with the opposition and civil society, in the search for a peaceful and democratic solution. There have been closed-door meetings between U.S. and Venezuelan officials over the past six months and repeated rumors of an imminent deal. However, major announcements have not been forthcoming and time is running out for a deal that could take advantage of the electoral context.

Parallel efforts in the House and Senate hoping to find a short-term funding solution have advanced at a snail's pace this week, and it continues to look likely that no agreement will be struck and the federal government will shutdown on October 1. Central to the major battles being fought right now between and within both chambers is the future of Ukraine aid. While majorities in both the House and Senate still support both humanitarian and weapons assistance to Kyiv, an increasing number of Republicans have expressed skepticism or flat-out oppose additional funding beyond the $113 billion allocated by Washington last year. A few have vowed to reject any government funding measures that include more aid or have pushed to attach more conditions to future support. In the latest in a series of flip-flops in recent weeks, House Republican leadership decided late on Wednesday night to remove $300 million in security assistance for Ukraine from the Defense Appropriations bill, and will vote on the aid separately, according to reporting from Juliegrace Brufke. The Senate, which has been more generally more supportive of President Joe Biden's $24 billion emergency supplemental request for Ukraine, has put forward a proposal for a continuing resolution containing $6 billion in funding for Ukraine (coming up short of Biden's ask). The trimming down of aid is likely an effort to placate skeptical Republicans. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), for example, has pledged "to do everything in [his] power to block a bill that includes funding for Ukraine," and he will likely use procedural tools that can delay the resolution from arriving on the House floor until the weekend, all but ensuring a shutdown. Even if the stopgap measure does eventually make its way through the Senate, it is likely dead on arrival in the House. "I don't see the support in the House," Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Wednesday. The Speaker reportedly told Sen. Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader in the Senate, that he would not bring a bill to the House floor that funded Ukraine while ignoring problems at the United States' southern border. McCarthy's apparent refusal to entertain the Senate proposal continues his back-and-forth stance on how to handle further aid for Kyiv. The Speaker is in a tricky political situation, balancing a desire to avoid a shutdown with the fear that he will face a "motion to vacate" — in which one member could force a vote on removing him from his job — if he ignores his right flank's demands. As a result, he has continued to be ambiguous on his own stance on aid to Ukraine. After turning down both the Biden administration's offer to hold a briefing with various high-level officials on the status of the war, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's request to address a joint session of Congress during his visit to Washington last week, McCarthy met with Zelensky in a smaller, private group. His brief comments following the meeting suggested that it was a productive one.But a few hours later, Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News posted on X that House Republicans were "considering removing any Ukraine-related funding from the Pentagon spending bill in order to attract GOP holdouts." On Saturday, the Speaker had again reversed course, saying that removing the funding was "too difficult" to do, and that it would therefore stay in, before changing his mind once more on Wednesday. The Ukraine-related funding in the DoD spending bill amounts to approximately $300 million, part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI). An amendment to the bill that would have removed this money, introduced by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), was defeated 104-330, with all votes in favor coming from Republicans.It is now unclear if McCarthy, who controls a very narrow majority, can get spending bills that contain any money for Kyiv through the House. After two failed attempts, House Republicans finally managed to vote to approve the rule that will allow them to begin debate on their defense appropriations bill (along with three other single-subject spending bills). The only dissenting GOP vote on the defense appropriations rule was from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who argued that "voting yes means more money for Ukraine." Once the rule was approved, Greene posted on X that she was "the ONLY Republican to vote NO on the rule yesterday that contained appropriation bills with unlimited funds for Ukraine." Other Republicans who voted in favor of the rule may try to strip any Ukraine funding from the legislation (as Rep. Matt Gaetz has already attempted, through the amendment process) or eventually vote against the spending bill. Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) posted a video on X over the weekend, saying "people all over the country are tired of funding never-ending wars." Appearing on Washington Journal on Friday, Biggs said that he would continue to oppose more aid, since "there is no exit plan," out of this conflict.Greene told Cami Mondeaux of the Washington Examiner that the defense spending bill was "dead on arrival" when it gets a vote on the House floor, because there are enough Republican members opposed specifically to Ukraine funding. It appears she was correct, as GOP leadership's decision on Wednesday indicates that they knew that there were not enough votes for the spending bill to pass. Greene, Crane, and Biggs are three of the 29 Republican members of Congress (six Senators and 23 House representatives) who signed a letter last week arguing that "The American people deserve to know what their money has gone to. How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were 6 months ago? What is our strategy, and what is the president's exit plan? What does the administration define as victory in Ukraine?"Until those questions were answered, the signers pledged to oppose any future expenditures for the war. "It would be an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility to grant this request without knowing the answers to these questions," they wrote. Twenty-nine members represents a small total of the GOP caucus (though earlier measures making similar demands have garnered more support). As a recent story in Semafor points out, this dynamic puts a majority of Republicans in Congress at odds with their constituents. "Among the GOP base, skepticism of U.S. involvement in the conflict runs deep," reports Semafor. "Fifty-nine percent of Republicans say the U.S. is doing too much to help Kyiv, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released over the weekend, similar to earlier results from Gallup and CNN." Republicans in Congress are slowly shifting in that direction. Gaetz's first attempt to prohibit security assistance for Ukraine had 70 Republicans voting in favor. A similar amendment introduced by Gaetz on Wednesday received 93 votes. If congressional leadership can find a way to break the logjam on other parts of the government funding debate, it's possible that bipartisan and bicameral support for new Ukraine monies will stream forward in future legislation. But the tumultuous events of the last few weeks show that the political pressure in the Republican caucus is moving against future funding, that debates over Ukraine are becoming increasingly thorny, and that the issue will remain central to political disputes for the foreseeable future.

Politics in the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, located east of Australia, can be turbulent, with constant chessboard moves among parliamentary members with fluid party ties and frequent no confidence motions. But the strategic importance of the country to the U.S.-Australia alliance and China was a factor in the recent abrupt expulsion of the 10-month-old government led by then-Prime Minister Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau.In late August, Kalsakau lost a vote of no confidence against him by opposition leader Bob Loughman, who has for years backed China's increasing influence in the Pacific nation. After disputes about the vote result, Loughman was appointed deputy prime minister in the new government under Prime Minister Sato Kilman, who took the helm on September 4. The sudden change in administration came a year after Loughman, a former prime minister, ceded his leadership after parliament was dissolved and he avoided a vote of no confidence against himself. The snap election which followed in October last year saw Kalsakau take the top job.While the government is contending with domestic issues, such as a struggling economy, unemployment and contentious debates about the minimum wage, the main trigger for the latest political crisis was a security agreement with Australia signed by Kalsakau in December last year and due for parliamentary ratification. Vanuatu is one of many Pacific Island states that do not have their own armed forces and depend on military assistance from bilateral partners when needed.For Loughman, the unratified bilateral pact, which would increase military and law enforcement, but also disaster and humanitarian relief and cybersecurity co-operation with Australia, could have risked Vanuatu's relations with China. New Prime Minister Kilman claimed there had been a lack of consultation about the pact with ministers. Yet it was not an unknown or hasty development. Discussions about the agreement had been occurring between Australia and successive governments in Vanuatu for five years. "Australia respects Vanuatu's sovereign decision-making processes, including in relation to the bilateral security agreement that began in 2018 and was signed in 2022," Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs responded. The signing of the pact followed deep concerns by the U.S. and its allies about China's security agreement with the Solomon Islands that was announced last April.Soon after taking office, Kilman vehemently denied any geopolitical reasons for the crisis, claiming that the country had always and will continue to be "neutral" in big power contests. "We are not pro-West and we are not pro-Chinese," he said. "We adopt a non-aligned policy." Indeed, Vanuatu has a spectrum of development and aid relations with Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan, and its mobile paramilitary police force has also received support from Australia, New Zealand and China.Yet, in being non-aligned, Vanuatu was swift in 2016 to declare its support for China's territorial claim to islands in the South China Sea that are at the center of a heated sovereignty dispute and military provocation between the East Asian powerhouse and several of its Southeast Asian neighbors. And, for U.S. commentators, a high-risk site for potential conflict.Despite the Pacific nation remaining outside of any direct military involvement in U.S.-China geopolitics, it has, under some political leaders, become increasingly receptive to China's political influence. Last year, Loughman signed an array of agreements with China on technology, energy, infrastructure, health and economic development and, the year before, a multi-million dollar bilateral grant agreement on economic and technical cooperation. In 2018, Chinese funding and construction of a massive port development in the provincial, but geographically strategic, coastal town of Luganville, attracted international attention. Security experts speculated that, due to its exceptional size, it could potentially be used as a warship base.In contrast, Kalsakau has been publicly critical of China's penetration of Vanuatu's political life for several years. In 2018, he told the Australian media there wasn't enough internal scrutiny of the massive inflow of Chinese loans, businesses and influence and "he feared China was pursuing its strategic interests by showering Vanuatu with largesse and deepening its influence in the country." Last year, Vanuatu's public debt totalled 40 percent of GDP. China, its largest foreign creditor, is owed more than one third of its total external debt, which totals about $314 million and constitutes 32 percent of GDP.French President Emmanuel Macron expressed additional concerns during a visit to Vanuatu in July. "There is in the Indo-Pacific, and particularly in Oceania, new imperialism appearing and a power logic that is threatening the sovereignty of several states; the smallest, often the most fragile,"Macron said.Vanuatu, like many Pacific Island states, is a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy. But its statecraft is heavily influenced by norms of Melanesian customary governance that have prevailed for centuries. The power of traditional clan leaders in island societies is determined by their ability to acquire and distribute wealth and resources to their constituencies, rather than adherence to an ideology or party-driven policies. While political cultures in the Pacific are evolving, this legacy makes politicians particularly vulnerable to China's strategies of economic largesse and coercion which entails reciprocity.During his recent tenure as prime minister, Kalsakau attempted to broaden his country's international relations, bringing in other development partners, such as Saudi Arabia, and working for wide-ranging global support of its legal probe of climate justice at the UN General Assembly. He also took steps to reform Vanuatu's controversial citizenship-selling program in response to security concerns by the EU which has had a visa waiver arrangement with the nation.There is no doubt that Pacific Island leaders are opposed to being parties in the regional U.S.-China rivalry and are reasserting their rights of sovereignty above all else. At a meeting in August of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, an inter-governmental organization of southwest Pacific Island states, leaders emphasized their refusal to take sides in geopolitical battles.But regional analysts also point to Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Samoa being located on a key geographical axis, which is crucial to maritime access into and across the Pacific Ocean by the U.S., Australia and China.Yet, despite the political upheaval, the new prime minister has not dismissed closer security ties with Australia; only that the pending agreement won't be ratified in its current form. "My view would be to revisit the agreement with both sides, the Australians and the Vanuatu government, and see if there's any sticking points and then address that," Kilman was quoted on September 4.Some Australian strategists support Vanuatu's greater scrutiny of the pact, claiming that it is a sign of democratic processes at work. But, in terms of a timeline, it is unlikely to be an immediate priority for the new leadership.

Carnival krewes often venture into politics as a
subject of their parading. But in Shreveport, politics
has ventured into carnival krewes' parading.

In great contrast to his predecessor, Republican
Shreveport Mayor Tom
Arceneaux has kept things low key and not tried to induce drama into his
governance. Until recently, when he began dictating terms to the area's two
oldest and largest Carnival krewes, sticking his head into a hornet's nest
somewhat voluntarily.

About half a year prior to their next parading,
the Krewes of Gemini and Centaur received notification of these changes. For
many years now they have marched on the first and second Saturdays of Carnival,
typically towards the later afternoon beginning at the southern end of downtown
on the Clyde Fant Parkway, then hanging a right at Shreveport Barksdale Highway
until going left onto East Kings Highway and ending up at Preston Avenue,
typically finishing around 8:30 PM. They used to start in Bossier City and
crossed over the Shreveport Barksdale Highway Bridge until city officials on
the east bank didn't like to be inconvenienced and kicked them out.

In 2024, the calendar puts Mardi Gras on Feb. 13,
and the two krewes alternate Saturdays each year, meaning next year Centaur
parades on Feb. 3 and Gemini on Feb. 10. The ecclesiastic calendar on which Ash
Wednesday and Easter Sunday is based is well established with these dates known
far into the future.

That means every so often either Saturday also ends
up as the first Saturday of February, which many governments and cultural organizations,
including Shreveport, celebrate as African American History Month. For the past
34 years – about as long as the two krewes have marched – various organizations
have put together the Shreveport African American Parade on that date. It
meanders around the downtown area and in the early afternoon, leaving little
room for physical and temporal conflict whenever krewe parade dates coincide.

Except that it does put a strain on city services,
mainly public safety, to have both happen so close to each other. This
motivated Arceneaux to declare, initially without any negotiation, that changes
would occur for 2024, in that krewe parading had to start at 2:30, it could
start only around the Stoner Avenue intersection with the Parkway, and that Centaur
could not march on Feb. 3.

Arceneaux's rationale began with increasing public
safety incidents over the years that he and police assessed would become less likely
the more light was in the sky. But bumping back the time would create greater
interference with the African American Parade, so this necessitated a different
date. Shortening the route also would create less public safety strain.

Yet that reduction made the least sense since the
area customarily used allowed for better marshalling of parade elements, and
after launch only had sparse crowds lining the route so initially it would move
fairly quickly, not saving much time. Krewes also objected to the earlier time because
floats tend to be not so gaudily decorated except for heavy emphasis on the
lights.

The date change, however, was the biggest sticking
point. At this late date, preparations focused on the traditional date already
was well under way for Centaur. Why Arceneaux didn't pursue these changes
immediately after this year's parades, which could have minimized the amount of
controversy, is unknown but betrays inattentiveness.

Crucially, a lot of marketing for tourism purposes
goes into northwest Louisiana Carnival. Admittedly, the two parades pale in
comparison to their New Orleans-area brethren, but they are two of the largest
in number of floats (not so much in float size or number of other elements) in
the state and tourism officials estimate hundreds of thousands of people line
the route, with a significant portion not from the area. Changing the date at
this late date creates all sorts of complications.

It's understandable why Arceneaux would move to a
date change, given the situation of an understaffed
police department down around 300 officers. Never publicly discussed,
however, is why preference was given to the African American Parade. After all,
it has a whole month of Saturdays from which to choose, so its rescheduling
would seem more logical and, with the possible exception of the earlier start time
designed to avoid violence along the route, would have made the need for changes
moot.

The answer may lie in electoral calculations. Only
unusual circumstances permitted Arceneaux, who is white, to triumph last
year in a majority black city with about half of voters registered as
Democrats. While he received a significantly smaller proportion of the black
vote than did his opponent, black Democrat state Sen. Greg Tarver, that was well above
historical norms for a white Republican candidate and attributed to the mixed
feelings Tarver stoked among the black electorate.

Chances are in 2026 one or more black Democrats
without Tarver's baggage will contest for the mayoralty and likely one will end
up in a runoff against Arceneaux, who would be expected to run for a final
term. That would set up difficult dynamics for a repeat triumph, so perhaps Arceneaux's
deference in this instance was an attempt to not alienate potential votes needed
in a difficult reelection task – although he should realize this isn't
something that would win him a lot of votes from that bloc.

Regardless of motivation, in net the backlash may
end up costing him votes, and has attracted the attention of the state's top
tourism officials, Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser
who is running for reelection this fall. After proclaiming the demands
non-negotiable, under Nungesser's and the public's pressure Arceneaux has begun
to soften his stance, now saying the original routes may be run and that
negotiations have started with the krewes. Nungesser and he plan to meet on the
issue on Sep. 29.

This was an unforced error by Arceneaux. Had he
undertaken this months ago, likely any conflict would have remained behind
closed doors. And if preference to the African American Parade continues, even
if the reason behind that isn't part of an electoral strategy, politically he
will have taken a hit among some city voters – krewe members, Carnival fans,
and businesses who profit from the parades – who will see him as a north
Louisiana, Republican, male, and pale version of Dorothy
Mae Taylor for the impact he will have on krewes.

Further, no matter the outcome, the public nature
of the incident's resolution only draws attention to public safety concerns, where
anything but significant progress over the next three years on this almost
certainly dooms any reelection chances that Arceneaux may have. This departure from
his overall unflashy but steady governance will prove detrimental in that
regard.

It's confirmed: Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry is pulling
away from the Louisiana gubernatorial field, rendering moot the mythology
about how little-known or also-ran politicians score surprising victories for
the state's top office.

Another media consortium has put out a poll on the
race, pegging Landry's support at 36 percent. As in the other
survey released earlier this week, former Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards
cabinet member Democrat Shawn Wilson pulls
in 26 percent, and everybody else is in single digits with 14 percent undecided,
say the likely voters. These numbers were slightly worse for Landry and
slightly better for Wilson than the previous poll, but nevertheless reaffirm a
Landry-Wilson runoff looms on the horizon where Landry will win decisively.

This provides another blow to the hopes of the anybody-but-Landry
coterie of political activists, who keep hoping somehow another non-Democrat
challenger will emerge to slip past Wilson into the runoff. The thinking is
that a large portion of Democrats, some Republicans, and about half of all
others don't like Landry enough so that he would lose in a runoff to such a
candidate.

Other data from the poll didn't exactly provide
much aid and comfort for that line of reasoning. Over three quarters of the sample
formed an opinion about Landry, with half of it approving of him and just 28
percent disapproving, suggesting he could win a runoff against any opponent, if
narrowly. Driving part of that, he grabbed 14 percent of the vote intention of
black respondents, a little below that of the previous poll but at a level
typically higher significantly than statewide GOP gubernatorial or Senate
candidates.

Again, these are dynamics difficult to change with
the amount of money the Landry campaign has at its disposal. For any single
non-Democrat to make a charge, they have to pick off non-Democrat voters, and
Landry has three-fifths of Republicans and almost a third of other voters in
his column. But with a war chest around the eight-figure range, Landry has
plenty of resources to minimize erosion of his support, while other don't have
nearly enough to chip away at him and grab from other candidates.

And they can't depend upon Democrats to help them
out. Wilson and the party brass know that, absent a live
boy/dead girl scenario, he's dead in the water, but they have to keep going
because they have to field a quality candidate to keep the party refreshed and
able to provide down ballot assistance. The debacle of 2011 they surely haven't
forgotten, when the party ended up backing an obscure schoolteacher rookie
against Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, who decimated the field. When the dust cleared,
the GOP picked up seven House and nine Senate seats from 2007, although
party-switching and special elections throughout the first three years of Jindal's
term meant in practical terms a pickup of five House and one Senate as a direct
result of the 2011 elections. Wilson has to stay in and actively campaigning if
Democrats have any chance of maintaining their Legislature numbers and to maximize
their chances in some local contests.

As Landry began to run up huge fundraising numbers
and anecdotal evidence that he was the guy to beat, background whispering among
the chattering classes emerged not to speak too quickly of his coronation. Rather,
they alleged that recent Louisiana electoral history supposedly showed front
running gubernatorial candidates often were caught by surprise opponents who started out
quite modestly.

That's never been the case. The narrative seems to
have its origins from the 1987 contest where Democrat Rep. Buddy Roemer had bumped
along in single digits until breaking out close to election day, pushing Prisoner
#03128-095, known outside the big house as Democrat Gov. Edwin Edwards, into
second place and out of a runoff when Edwards withdrew. But it wasn't that big
of a surprise because Roemer made great pains to distinguish himself from the
other main contestants – two other congressmen, one a Republican, and the secretary
of state – with a campaign of fiscal conservatism and a record to match,
unrelenting criticism of Edwards, and a base outside of south Louisiana while
the others divided that area.

It seemed reinforced in 1995 race when Democrat
state Sen. Mike Foster, up against a former governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer,
and congressman, came from relative obscurity to win. Actually, that was in the
cards long before election day as polling early on showed him with good favorable/unfavorable
numbers, as long as he could become well-known to the electorate. He did, because
of the record amount of money he threw into the campaign (a good chunk of his
own), and because he strategically switched to the GOP label upon qualifying,
just as that had become a meaningful asset in campaigning (keep in mind when
Foster first won his Senate seat in 1987, Republicans had all of 5 seats in
that chamber and 17 on the House side). The official GOP apparatus welcomed
him, abandoning not only Roemer trying for another term, but also their
official endorsee who didn't even bother to qualify.

Sometimes the scenario is attempted to be applied
to the 2003 election of Democrat Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco. But Blanco was the
front runner who didn't fade against Jindal and a Democrat attorney general,
state senator, and party head,, who always placed in the top two in polls and
who in the last four months of the year raised and spent nearly $4 million, not
much less than Jindal, to consolidate a field that gave 60 percent of its vote
to Democrats in the general election.

And the same applies to the 2015 election of Democrat
state Rep. John Bel Edwards, who, facing no significant intraparty challenge,
led almost every poll against a fragmented GOP field and spent over $7 million
(about a million of his own) to build out name recognition. The only difference
between him and Blanco was he led substantially going into the runoff but he
had to pick off some Republican general election support rather than try to
prevent erosion of second-choice votes.

There are clear lessons here. If you are a polling
front runner, have relatively lots of resources, and have decent comparative
approval numbers, you won't get caught. For those who aren't, you can catch him
the front runner only if he has soft approval numbers, you don't, and you have money
close to that of him.

None of this applies to 2023. At 50 or so days out, Landry has led every poll with good numbers and money to burn. His opponents
have no better, if not worse, approval figures with nowhere close the bucks to
alter the dynamics. Simply, it's his race to lose.

Canada has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis in its relationship to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and its offshoot, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the CPTPP (comprising Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam). Initially a disinterested and disengaged observer of the developing TPP process back in 2006–09, by 2011–12 Canada underwent a conversion to become a determined, almost desperate suitor seeking to gain entry to the TPP club. It finally succeeded, but a change of government in 2015 led to a re-evaluation of the decision to accede to the TPP, under pressure from anti-globalization forces. Effectively, Canada sat on its hands for over a year until the U.S. had determined its final position. Then, after the TPP's impending collapse, when the United States under then president Donald Trump announced its withdrawal, Canada changed tack once again and decided to work with Japan and others to rescue the agreement. However, during the negotiations to adapt the original TPP into the TPP-11 agreement (which became known as the CPTPP), Canada earned a reputation as a difficult and demanding partner, pushing its "progressive trade agenda" and slowing down the process. Indeed, Canada is often seen as trying to impose very progressive values on a region with little receptivity for such views. The cultural-exemption and auto-trade issues were of principal concern to Canada. Through its policy positions and negotiation style, Canada under the Trudeau government almost scuttled the CPTPP process and risked finding itself locked out once again. Quick action was taken to stem the damage and Canada became not only a signatory, but one of the first six countries to ratify the CPTPP, bringing it into force on December 30, 2018. Today, Canada has fully embraced the CPTPP, situating it as an important leg in its developing Indo-Pacific strategy, and is open to considering expansion to new members who are able and willing to meet the CPTPP's high standards.




Deborah Elms, in her essay "The Origins and Evolutions of TPP Trade Negotiations"(Elms, 2016, 29-49), sketches out the history of how the TPP came into being, starting with the "P4 agreement" (between Singapore, Chile, New Zealand and Brunei) in June 2005. That agreement, technically called the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, came into effect "with very little attention" (Elms, 2016, 30) and was incomplete. It did not cover investment or financial services, which were to be left for later negotiation. When the parties finally got around to discussing the two missing chapters in February 2008, the United States joined the discussions. In September 2008, a couple of months prior to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held in Lima, Peru in November, the U.S. announced that it would seek to join the agreement in its entirety. This set the stage for announcements at that meeting of other countries joining the talks, namely Australia, Peru and Vietnam. Now there were eight.
What about Canada? At the Lima summit, attended by then prime minister Stephen Harper and then international trade minister Stockwell Day, Canada expressed no interest in getting on board, much to the frustration of accompanying officials (Stephens, Conversation). Elms states (2016, 40) that Canada had expressed interest in joining earlier but had been rebuffed over concerns regarding the supply management system that it maintains for dairy, poultry and eggs. Dairy is a particular concern for both the United States and New Zealand. However, senior Canadian officials closely involved with APEC and trade policy at the time told the author that Canada had been invited to join the P4 agreement in the early days, by New Zealand, but had refused (Sloan; Plunkett). The assessment was that Canada had little to gain, as it already had an agreement with Chile, at the time was negotiating one with Singapore (which was never completed) and had little to gain from an agreement with New Zealand, given the political need to defend the dairy industry.
There are various explanations for Canada's lack of interest in 2008–09. Part of the reasoning was domestic. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper was in a minority situation and would remain so until Harper won his first majority in 2011 (after two minority governments in which he was prime minister). Despite the Conservatives' support for trade liberalization, it was a hot-button issue and anti-globalization sentiments were vocal, in Canada and in other countries. The Harper government was dealing with the 2008 financial crisis and was focused very much on the U.S. market and NAFTA. The initial coolness toward the P4 continued to apply, and from the perspective of trade negotiating resources, Canada was already fully engaged in negotiations with South Korea and the EU. There was concern that if Canada entered the TPP negotiations, it would have to make additional market concessions beyond those already conceded in NAFTA, but with little likelihood of getting additional concessions from the U.S. Yet, in the end, it was probably NAFTA that changed the position of Harper vis-à-vis the TPP.
Both Canada and Mexico had preferential access to the U.S. market through NAFTA.There was growing concern in both countries that the TPP could be a back door to the U.S. market, undermining the value of NAFTA concessions. Autos were a particular concern. Canada and Mexico concluded therefore that they needed to be at the negotiating table.In essence, Canada decided to try to enter the TPP tent for defensive reasons, although the possibility of Japan eventually joining was an additional factor, given Canada's longstanding desire to improve its access to the Japanese market and the limited prospect that a bilateral agreement would be concluded in the foreseeable future (Ciuriak 2018).




That realization kicked off a series of meetings with officials from TPP-negotiating states, since admittance of new negotiating partners required a unanimous decision of the existing members. But, as in many things, the United States played an outsized role. The U.S. initially was not helpful, especially at the officials level. It is not fully clear why, but anecdotally
the author was told by U.S. trade officials that the addition of Canada would "complicate" matters. Canada's unhelpful position on trade in dairy products was certainly a factor. Canada pushed its advocacy to the political level and Canadian participation in the TPP was a major topic of discussion between Harper and then president Barack Obama at
the 2011 Honolulu APEC summit. At that meeting, Obama "welcomed" Harper's expression of interest in seeking to join the TPP talks and initiating consultations toward that goal (White House 2011).

A year and a half ago I published an Op-Ed article and
Blog post on the great popular revolt in Cuba motivated by economic hardship
and the lack of future prospects, aggravated by the pandemic. I speculated that
since the Army was the country's most powerful and best-organized institution, some generals might try to maintain their advantageous economic
positions by avoiding participating in the repression and seeking a reformist
accommodation. This was not the case. The week after the revolt, five high-ranking
generals died without the causes being clarified and a few months later General
Luis-Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, head of the business and financial
conglomerate of the Revolutionary Armed Forces that controls the main landmarks
of the Cuban economy, including the tourism sector, and one of the most
important men in the command structure in Cuba, also died suddenly.

Cuba had experienced in July 2021 the largest
anti-government protests since the Revolution. The previous crisis, the
Maleconazo of 1994 (the subject of the documentary Balseros, co-produced
by TV de Catalunya and nominated for an Oscar) ended with 300 people arrested.
The 2021 revolt generated 1,400 detainees, 790 prosecuted and 128 sentenced to
prison terms of up to thirty years.

Between the two crises, the Cuban opposition lost its
historic leaders. Oswaldo Payá was the victim of a probable assassination
attempt; Gustavo Arcos, whom I visited in Havana, died; Elizardo Sánchez, whom
I also met, was held captive by spies and infiltrators. Cardinal Jaime Ortega
must be in Heaven.

In parallel, the exile voice in Miami has almost been extinguished
after the death of its veteran leaders and the adaptation of the next
generation born in the United States. Neither the conservative Mas Canosa nor
the social democrat Jesús Díaz, in whose magazine I collaborated, are among us
anymore, while my friend the liberal Carlos Alberto Montaner has already
written his memoirs. The last time I went to the Café Versailles on 8th Street,
it looked like an abandoned place.

According to economist Albert Hirschman, there are three
alternatives to a political regime: voice, loyalty, and exit. As I have
described, voice has been harshly repressed in Cuba for the last year and a half. But at the same time, the economic situation has worsened, and loyalty to
the regime has diminished.

Last September there was a referendum on gay marriage and
other family issues, which could have been viewed positively given the
Revolution's homophobic record. But it turned into a plebiscite on the regime
and more than half of the census did not vote or voted against, null or blank.
In November there were municipal elections in which 40% of the census did not
participate or rejected the candidates selected by the single party. This
disaffection is unprecedented in Cuba, where in Fidel Castro's time 95% voted.
In the regime's typical response mobilization, they had to get Raul Castro out
of bed, at 91 years of age and without any official position, to see if this
would revive the revolutionary spirit. 

Hirschman explains that when the voice is eliminated and
loyalty is lowered, the only alternative is the exit, i.e., emigration. Thus,
since the July 2021 revolt, some 250,000 Cubans have left the island, a figure
far higher than the sum of all previous emigration crises.

Leaving Cuba by sea is illegal without a visa. Donald
Trump dismantled the U.S. consulate in Havana and suspended the issuance of
visas. But according to the Cuban Adjustment Act, anyone who sets foot on land,
even without a visa, is considered a refugee. Faced with the massive flight, the
U.S. Coast Guard has captured at sea and returned to the island more than two
thousand Cubans trying to reach Florida this past year. At least 100 died in
the crossing.

The other way out requires traveling by plane to the
Bahamas, Panama, Nicaragua, or Mexico and attempting to cross the Mexican
border with the United States on foot. For a Cuban with an average salary
equivalent to thirty-three dollars a month, this type of journey involves a cost
of eight to ten thousand dollars, including ransoms to coyotes and polleros
and bribes to corrupt officials. Despite all this, the number of Cubans who
manage to cross the southern border of the United States has steadily increased
to 35,000 in a month.

During the year 2022, with the presidency of Joe Biden,
the US issued some 20,000 immigrant visas. A few days ago, on January 4, the
Consulate in Havana resumed its services. Long lines and hundreds of thousands
of petitions to leave the island legally are expected, the vast majority of
young people without vital expectations.

Fidel Castro repeated several times his curse that
"first the island will sink into the sea before abandoning
communism". Posthumously, he may end up succeeding.In Catalan and Spanish in daily ARA:https://www.arabalears.cat/opinio/cuba-enfonsa-mar-josep-colomer_129_4596330.htmlCOMMENTSResumen certero, conciso y por desgracia triste, de la actualidad de Cuba. Lo he circulado en mi chat hispano-latinoamericano (aún hay irredentos que creen en la revolución cubana).Saludos cordiales.RamónRamón Puig de la Bellacasa AlberolaEmbajador…Impresiona lo que cuentas sobre Cuba, en lo que te veo te has involucrado a fondo. Yo recuerdo mis amigos nicaragüenses, y ahora veo con lo que tienen que vivir, si es que no han salido del país…Víctor Pérez DiazSociólogoMuchísimas gracias por el último articulo que me has enviado sobre cuba.Un fuerte abrazoJose Manuel BandrésTribunal SupremoTerrific article. Gracias.Alfred CuzanWest Florida UniversityTriste realidad!Pedro FreyreAkerman's International PracticeMuy difícil el panorama cubano; no hay mejor metáfora que la referida maldición de Castro que citas. Acabo de regresar una semana, entre la inflación y la depauperación generalizada…Carlos-Manuel Rodríguez-ArechavaletaUniversidad Iberoamericana, MéxicoBellísima y elocuentes palabras. Gracias por abordar este tema. No había pensado lo del vacío de liderazgo miamense que mencionas.Javier CorralesAmherst College, MassachusettsGracias, Josep, por un elocuente y triste artículo.Leandro Prados de la EscosuraUniversidad Carlos IIIAgraït . Desconeixia les actuals tensions a Cuba.Josep M.BricallBarcelonaArtículo muy interesante, como todos los tuyos, que leo con devoción. Merece amplia difusión. En los tiempos que corren, visto lo que sucede en Brasil, USA y Europa, provoca gran curiosidad lo que pueda suceder en Cuba en relación con la democracia.Oscar Rodriguez BuznegoUniversidad de OviedoEnhorabuena por lo atinado de tu texto, aunque sea un escenario lamentableManuel AlcantaraUniversidad de SalamancaMolt bé Josep! El curs passat vaig ser uns mesos a RDom i ho vaig veure d'aprop. El 10 de Febrer me'n hi torno.Joan Maria ThomàsUniversitat Rovira i VirgiliMolt bon article. Important trencar el silenci.Andreu Claret SerraEl PeriodicoMuchas gracias! Un recordatorio necesarioManuel Villoria MendietaUniversidad Rey Juan CarlosExcel·lent. Com sempre.Carlos Castro SanzLa Vanguardia

Anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions are causing irreversible climate change. To address this issue, the European Union (EU) committed to strong decreases in GHGs emissions. However, to reach carbon (C) neutrality by 2050 it will also be necessary to implement atmospheric C removals by natural sinks, such as soils. To partially compensate for CO2 emissions, the 4 per 1000 initiative of 2015 proposed an annual 4‰ soil organic carbon (SOC) stock increase in the first 30-40 cm depth of the soil. Yet, the feasibility of such an ambitious target is still under debate because it may require substantial and rapid changes in agricultural practices that would be hard to achieve. The most efficient way to increase SOC stocks is to increase the C input to the soil. Pro-cess-based biogeochemical models can simulate the dynamics of SOC and are increasingly used to support decision-makers on SOC mitigation policies. Despite the numerous models available to describe the SOC dynamics, simulations are still somewhat unreliable. This is because uncertainties not only derive from the mechanistic structure of the models and the processes included, but also from the input data and the parameter values used.The objective of this thesis is to estimate the C input required to yearly increase SOC stocks by 4‰ in European croplands. To solve this problem, we build an inverse modeling approach and apply it to a multi-model ensemble to assess the uncertainties of the estimations according to different representations of the SOC dynamics. Then, to improve the simulation of SOC stocks, we test a new, statistically derived, parametrization technique.As a first attempt to provide insights for policymakers, we generate maps of the C input required to reach the 4‰ target in the whole European cropland area, under two scenarios of climate change. Our study demonstrates that there are substantial uncertainties around the C input required to reach a 4‰ target. However, a general pattern emerges at the European cropland scale, where the 4‰ target seems feasible under future scenarios of climate change, only assuming drastic increases of C input to the soil. In particular, higher C input is required in Northern Europe, while higher uncertainties are associated with the European South. The high variability of the simulated C input requirements highlights the advantage of using multi-model ensembles, in order to consider the range of uncertainty linked to their different mechanistic structures. Yet, multi-model ensembles still tend to underestimate the C input required to increase SOC stocks. Major efforts should be made to improve model simulations, especially to capture the effect of additional C input on the accumulation of SOC. At a local scale, the calibration of model parameters was necessary to fit observed SOC stock variations. When long-term SOC stock monitoring is not available, the necessity for improved parametrization techniques emerges. The calibration that we proposed at the European scale improved the simulation of first-year SOC stocks. However, it increased the divergence of predicted SOC stocks across models. Future work should focus on the reduction of model uncertainties in order to provide reliable predictions of future SOC stock variations and their related processes. ; Les émissions anthropiques de gaz à effet de serre (GES) provoquent un changement climatique irréversible. L'Union Européenne (UE) s'est engagée à diminuer fortement ses émissions de GES. Cependant, pour atteindre la neutralité carbone (C) d'ici 2050, elle devra également séquestrer du C atmosphérique dans des puits naturels, tels que les sols. Pour compenser partiellement les émissions de CO2, l'initiative 4 pour 1000 a proposé en 2015 un objectif d'augmentation annuelle de 4‰ des stocks de carbone organique du sol (COS) dans les 30-40 premiers cm de profondeur du sol. Pourtant, la faisabilité d'une telle augmentation fait l'objet de débats car elle pourrait nécessiter des changements substantiels et rapides dans les pratiques agricoles qui seraient difficiles à mettre en œuvre. Le moyen le plus efficace pour accroître les stocks de COS est d'augmenter l'apport de C dans le sol. Les modèles basés sur les processus biogéochimiques peuvent simuler la dynamique du COS et sont de plus en plus utilisés pour aider les décideurs dans leurs politiques d'atténuation du COS. Cependant, malgré les nombreux modèles disponibles pour décrire la dynamique du COS, les simulations sont encore peu fiables. En effet, les incertitudes ne proviennent pas seulement de la structure mécaniste des modèles et des processus qu'ils prennent en compte, mais aussi des données utilisées en entrée et des valeurs des paramètres.L'objectif de cette thèse est d'estimer l'apport de C nécessaire pour augmenter annuellement les stocks de COS de 4‰ dans les terres cultivées européennes. Pour cela, nous avons construit une modélisation inverse et l'avons appliquée à un ensemble multi-modèle. Nous avons ainsi évalué les incertitudes dans les estimations des entrées de C selon différentes représentations de la dynamique du COS. Ensuite, pour améliorer la simulation des stocks de COS, nous avons testé une nouvelle paramétrisation issue de dérivée statistiques.Afin de fournir un premier aperçu aux décideurs politiques, nous avons généré des cartes de l'apport de C nécessaire pour atteindre l'objectif de 4‰ dans l'ensemble des terres cultivées européennes, et ce, pour deux scénarios de changement climatique.Notre étude a démontré qu'il existe des incertitudes substantielles autour de l'apport de C nécessaire. Cependant, un profil général émerge, où atteindre un objectif d'augmentation de 4‰ du stock de COS à l'échelle des terres cultivées européennes semble réalisable pour les scénarios futurs de changement climatique seulement via des augmentations drastiques de d'apport de C. En particulier, un apport de C plus élevé est nécessaire en Europe du Nord, tandis qu'en Europe du Sud les incertitudes sont plus élevées. La grande variabilité dans les simulations d'apport de C nécessaires à l'objectif 4‰ souligne l'avantage d'utiliser des ensembles multi-modèles, afin de prendre en compte la gamme d'incertitudes liées à leurs différentes structures mécanistiques. Cependant, les ensembles multi-modèles ont encore tendance à sous-estimer l'apport de C nécessaire pour augmenter les stocks de COS. Des progrès importants doivent donc encore être faits pour améliorer les simulations des modèles, en particulier pour saisir l'effet d'un apport supplémentaire de C sur l'accumulation de COS. A l'échelle locale, la calibration des paramètres des modèles a été nécessaire pour simuler les variations observées des stocks de COS. Lorsque le suivi à long terme du stock de COS n'est pas disponible, il est nécessaire d'améliorer les techniques de paramétrisation. La calibration que nous avons proposée à l'échelle européenne a amélioré la simulation des stocks de COS de la première année mais a augmenté la divergence des stocks de COS prédits par les modèles. De futurs travaux se concentrant sur la réduction des incertitudes des modèles afin de fournir des prédictions fiables des variations futures des stocks de COS et des processus associés sont donc essentiels.

Anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions are causing irreversible climate change. To address this issue, the European Union (EU) committed to strong decreases in GHGs emissions. However, to reach carbon (C) neutrality by 2050 it will also be necessary to implement atmospheric C removals by natural sinks, such as soils. To partially compensate for CO2 emissions, the 4 per 1000 initiative of 2015 proposed an annual 4‰ soil organic carbon (SOC) stock increase in the first 30-40 cm depth of the soil. Yet, the feasibility of such an ambitious target is still under debate because it may require substantial and rapid changes in agricultural practices that would be hard to achieve. The most efficient way to increase SOC stocks is to increase the C input to the soil. Pro-cess-based biogeochemical models can simulate the dynamics of SOC and are increasingly used to support decision-makers on SOC mitigation policies. Despite the numerous models available to describe the SOC dynamics, simulations are still somewhat unreliable. This is because uncertainties not only derive from the mechanistic structure of the models and the processes included, but also from the input data and the parameter values used.The objective of this thesis is to estimate the C input required to yearly increase SOC stocks by 4‰ in European croplands. To solve this problem, we build an inverse modeling approach and apply it to a multi-model ensemble to assess the uncertainties of the estimations according to different representations of the SOC dynamics. Then, to improve the simulation of SOC stocks, we test a new, statistically derived, parametrization technique.As a first attempt to provide insights for policymakers, we generate maps of the C input required to reach the 4‰ target in the whole European cropland area, under two scenarios of climate change. Our study demonstrates that there are substantial uncertainties around the C input required to reach a 4‰ target. However, a general pattern emerges at the European cropland scale, where the 4‰ target seems feasible under future scenarios of climate change, only assuming drastic increases of C input to the soil. In particular, higher C input is required in Northern Europe, while higher uncertainties are associated with the European South. The high variability of the simulated C input requirements highlights the advantage of using multi-model ensembles, in order to consider the range of uncertainty linked to their different mechanistic structures. Yet, multi-model ensembles still tend to underestimate the C input required to increase SOC stocks. Major efforts should be made to improve model simulations, especially to capture the effect of additional C input on the accumulation of SOC. At a local scale, the calibration of model parameters was necessary to fit observed SOC stock variations. When long-term SOC stock monitoring is not available, the necessity for improved parametrization techniques emerges. The calibration that we proposed at the European scale improved the simulation of first-year SOC stocks. However, it increased the divergence of predicted SOC stocks across models. Future work should focus on the reduction of model uncertainties in order to provide reliable predictions of future SOC stock variations and their related processes. ; Les émissions anthropiques de gaz à effet de serre (GES) provoquent un changement climatique irréversible. L'Union Européenne (UE) s'est engagée à diminuer fortement ses émissions de GES. Cependant, pour atteindre la neutralité carbone (C) d'ici 2050, elle devra également séquestrer du C atmosphérique dans des puits naturels, tels que les sols. Pour compenser partiellement les émissions de CO2, l'initiative 4 pour 1000 a proposé en 2015 un objectif d'augmentation annuelle de 4‰ des stocks de carbone organique du sol (COS) dans les 30-40 premiers cm de profondeur du sol. Pourtant, la faisabilité d'une telle augmentation fait l'objet de débats car elle pourrait nécessiter des changements substantiels et rapides dans les pratiques agricoles qui seraient difficiles à mettre en œuvre. Le moyen le plus efficace pour accroître les stocks de COS est d'augmenter l'apport de C dans le sol. Les modèles basés sur les processus biogéochimiques peuvent simuler la dynamique du COS et sont de plus en plus utilisés pour aider les décideurs dans leurs politiques d'atténuation du COS. Cependant, malgré les nombreux modèles disponibles pour décrire la dynamique du COS, les simulations sont encore peu fiables. En effet, les incertitudes ne proviennent pas seulement de la structure mécaniste des modèles et des processus qu'ils prennent en compte, mais aussi des données utilisées en entrée et des valeurs des paramètres.L'objectif de cette thèse est d'estimer l'apport de C nécessaire pour augmenter annuellement les stocks de COS de 4‰ dans les terres cultivées européennes. Pour cela, nous avons construit une modélisation inverse et l'avons appliquée à un ensemble multi-modèle. Nous avons ainsi évalué les incertitudes dans les estimations des entrées de C selon différentes représentations de la dynamique du COS. Ensuite, pour améliorer la simulation des stocks de COS, nous avons testé une nouvelle paramétrisation issue de dérivée statistiques.Afin de fournir un premier aperçu aux décideurs politiques, nous avons généré des cartes de l'apport de C nécessaire pour atteindre l'objectif de 4‰ dans l'ensemble des terres cultivées européennes, et ce, pour deux scénarios de changement climatique.Notre étude a démontré qu'il existe des incertitudes substantielles autour de l'apport de C nécessaire. Cependant, un profil général émerge, où atteindre un objectif d'augmentation de 4‰ du stock de COS à l'échelle des terres cultivées européennes semble réalisable pour les scénarios futurs de changement climatique seulement via des augmentations drastiques de d'apport de C. En particulier, un apport de C plus élevé est nécessaire en Europe du Nord, tandis qu'en Europe du Sud les incertitudes sont plus élevées. La grande variabilité dans les simulations d'apport de C nécessaires à l'objectif 4‰ souligne l'avantage d'utiliser des ensembles multi-modèles, afin de prendre en compte la gamme d'incertitudes liées à leurs différentes structures mécanistiques. Cependant, les ensembles multi-modèles ont encore tendance à sous-estimer l'apport de C nécessaire pour augmenter les stocks de COS. Des progrès importants doivent donc encore être faits pour améliorer les simulations des modèles, en particulier pour saisir l'effet d'un apport supplémentaire de C sur l'accumulation de COS. A l'échelle locale, la calibration des paramètres des modèles a été nécessaire pour simuler les variations observées des stocks de COS. Lorsque le suivi à long terme du stock de COS n'est pas disponible, il est nécessaire d'améliorer les techniques de paramétrisation. La calibration que nous avons proposée à l'échelle européenne a amélioré la simulation des stocks de COS de la première année mais a augmenté la divergence des stocks de COS prédits par les modèles. De futurs travaux se concentrant sur la réduction des incertitudes des modèles afin de fournir des prédictions fiables des variations futures des stocks de COS et des processus associés sont donc essentiels.

Brazil currently lives in a new scenario of serious nutritional problems in childhood. In addition to malnutrition in several regions of the country, another nutritional disorder is raised: excessive weight. In addition to this context, in 2020, COVID-19 appears, making this scenario even more problematic. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of the pandemic on the nutritional health of children aged 0 to 10 years, in relation to their overweight, in the national territory. A cross-sectional, retrospective and quantitative approach was developed. Data for research were taken from official government websites, namely: SISVAN - Web (Food and Nutrition Surveillance), DATASUS and e-SUS Web, in which sociodemographic data from Brazil were analyzed and in its five socio-political regions. The variables analyzed were: gender, age group and zone of occurrence. The profile showed no statistically significant differences in the prevalence of children's overweight in Brazil, regardless of age group, in the period between 2017 and 2021. However, there was a clear trend, although not significant, of increased prevalence of children with overweight, except in the age groups from 0 to 6 months and from 6 months to two years, which showed a stationary trend. In relation to the socio-political regions, it was possible to identify a trend of increasing weight gain for age, in all regions, being lower in the North and higher to the Southeast region. It should be noted that this trend of increasing weight gain was only significant in the southern region, where the prevalence of overweight was significantly higher (G Test; p<0.0001) in 2021. There is no statistically significant difference between gender groups, despite the greater number of cases being male. Thus, it can be concluded that child weight gain is closely related to multifactorial causes, among which we can highlight the socioeconomic region, culture, social isolation in the pandemic and purchasing power. In this way, the importance of the nutritionist professional in the health units is reinforced, as the main propagator of actions aimed to promote, treat and rehabilitate children's health, especially through the pandemic. ; Brasil vive actualmente en un nuevo escenario de graves problemas nutricionales en la infancia. Además de la desnutrición en varias regiones del país, se plantea otro trastorno nutricional: el sobrepeso. Sumado a este contexto, en 2020 aparece el COVID-19, haciendo aún más problemático este escenario. Así, este estudio tuvo como objetivo evaluar los efectos de la pandemia en la salud nutricional de los niños de 0 a 10 años, en relación a su elevado peso, en el territorio nacional. Se desarrolló un abordaje transversal, retrospectivo y cuantitativo, los datos para la investigación fueron tomados de los sitios web oficiales del gobierno, a saber: SISVAN - Web (Vigilancia Alimentaria y Nutricional), DATASUS y e-SUS Web, en los que se analizaron datos sociodemográficos de Brasil y en sus cinco regiones sociopolíticas. Las variables analizadas fueron: sexo, grupo de edad y zona de ocurrencia. El perfil no mostró diferencias estadísticamente significativas en la prevalencia de niños con sobrepeso en Brasil, independientemente del grupo de edad, en el período comprendido entre 2017 y 2021. Sin embargo, hubo una tendencia clara, aunque no significativa, de aumento de la prevalencia de niños con peso elevado, en el año 2021, en detrimento de los grupos de edad de 0 a 6 meses y de 6 meses a dos años, que mostraron una tendencia estacionaria. Con relación a las regiones sociopolíticas, fue posible identificar una tendencia de aumento de la ganancia de peso para la edad, en todas las regiones, siendo esta, menor en la región Norte y mayor hacia la región Sudeste, aún no significativa, hasta alcanzar en la Región Sur, donde se presenta una prevalencia de casos significativamente mayor (Prueba G; p<0,0001) en el año 2021. En cuanto a la prevalencia de peso alto por sexo, se pudo verificar que no hubo datos estadísticamente significativos, a pesar de la mayor número de casos siendo hombres. Así, se puede concluir que la ganancia de peso infantil está estrechamente relacionada con causas multifactoriales, entre las que podemos destacar la región socioeconómica, la cultura, el poder adquisitivo y el género. De esta forma, se refuerza la importancia del profesional nutricionista en las unidades de salud, como principal propagador de implementaciones de acciones de promoción, tratamiento y rehabilitación de la salud infantil. ; O Brasil vive atualmente em um novo cenário de sérios problemas nutricionais na infância. Além da desnutrição em diversas regiões do país, é levantado mais um distúrbio nutricional: o peso excessivo. Além desse contexto, surge ainda, no ano de 2020 a COVID-19 tornando esse cenário ainda mais problemático. Desse modo, este trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar os efeitos da pandemia na saúde nutricional de crianças de 0 a 10 anos, em relação ao peso elevado das mesmas, no território nacional. Foi desenvolvido um transversal, retrospectivo e com abordagem quantitativa, os dados para pesquisa foram retirados de sites oficiais do governo à saber: SISVAN - Web (Vigilância Alimentar e Nutricional), DATASUS e e-SUS Web, no qual foram analisados dados sociodemográficos do Brasil e nas suas cinco regiões sócio-políticas. As variáveis analisadas foram: gênero, faixa etária e zona de ocorrência. O perfil evidenciou não haver diferenças estatisticamente significativas na prevalência de crianças com peso elevado no Brasil, independente da faixa etária, no período compreendido entre os anos 2017 a 2021. No entanto, houve uma clara tendência, apesar de não significativa, de aumento da prevalência de crianças com peso elevado, no ano de 2021, em detrimento as faixas etárias de 0 a 6 meses e de 6 meses a dois anos, que apresentaram uma tendência estacionária. Em relação as regiões sócio-políticas foi possível identificar uma tendência de ampliação do aumento de peso elevado para a idade, em todas as regiões, sendo esta, menor no Norte e mais elevada até a região Sudeste, ainda de forma não significativa, até chegar na região Sul, na qual observa-se uma prevalência de casos significativamente maior (Teste G; p<0,0001) no ano de 2021. No que tange a prevalência de peso elevado por gênero, foi possível verificar, que não houve dados significativos estatisticamente, apesar do maior número de casos ser do sexo masculino. Assim, pode-se concluir que o aumento de peso infantil está intimamente relacionado a causas multifatoriais, dentre os quais podemos destacar a região socioeconômica, a cultura, o poder aquisitivo e o gênero. Desse modo, reforça-se a importância do profissional nutricionista nas unidades de saúde, como principal agente de implementações de ações de promoção, tratamento e reabilitação da saúde infantil.

I've periodically posted draft results or season results from my two long-running fantasy baseball leagues. This is an update for one of those leagues.Since 1991, I've owned the Louisville Sluggers in the Original Bitnet Fantasy Baseball League (OBFLB), a 24 team online league that plays two seasons during each major league season. Generally, the team general manager-owners are from across the US. I've only met a few of them face-to-face, but have known many of them online for 25+ years. In this league, teams manipulate lineups to prioritize 9 hitters (at 8 defensive positions, plus DH/Utility), 5 starting pitchers (minimum 4), and 3 relief pitchers (minimum 2) at a time. Teams can actually use daily substitutes through the week, which means it is possible to have more than 5 starting pitchers and multiple players at various positions. Through the week, the teams compete in 10 categories, including on base average, home runs, stolen bases, plate appearances, runs produced average ((R+RBI-HR)/ABs), pitching wins, saves (times two) + holds, innings pitched, ERA and WHIP. We award 2 points per victory, with each team receiving 1 point for a tie.The first (half) season begins at the start of the baseball season and typically features 11 or 12 weeks of head-to-head competition by teams in four 6 team divisions. Everyone plays a double round robin schedule, plus 1 or 2 teams from the other divisions that are determined largely by previous performance with an eye toward equality. This year the season lasted 11 weeks, though the first week included a few extra games. A weekly is typically Monday through Sunday but the season started on Thursday April 1 for most major league teams and we included those first few games. The Sluggers finished with the second best regular season win-loss record in the league and thus played the #3 seed in the opening round of the playoffs, the Southern Hemispheres -- a team operated from western Australia. That owner I met once when he was visiting Louisville!  As measured by CBS's statistical Breakdown (universal head-to-head results), the Sluggers were the best team in the league and thus survived that matchup via tiebreaker -- it otherwise ended in a 10-10 tie. The top seed was the Loaded Basses, which won its playoff matchup and thus made its fourth straight World Series appearance (both of the 2019 half seasons and the only 2020 abbreviated season). The Basses are loaded with baseball stars, but both SS Cory Seager and 3B Alex Bregman were injured and did not play in the Series. Thus, in the 2021A season, the Louisville Sluggers ultimately won the championship 18-2.  Here's the line score from the World Series via CBS, our stats service:This was the Sluggers 9th World Series championship (of 12 appearances) in fewer than 60 (half) seasons of competition during the past 30 years. One other team has 8 titles and another has 6. Obviously, there was only one season in 1994 and 2020.The World Series heroes for the Sluggers played mostly on offense.  Veteran infielder Max Muncy hit 3 HRs with a  .423 OBA and .619 RP, completing his strong half season. Whit Merrifield hit 2 HR and stole 2 bases to go with a .433 OBA. Dom Smith had a weak first half, but he also hit 3 HR in the Series with a .440 OBA and .458 RP. Star 3B Nolan Arenado hit a HR and is the only player from the last Slugger championship in 2016B. All of the pitchers from that team are goneOn the pitching side, Nate Eovaldi threw 7 innings of shutout ball for a win and his Red Sox teammate Matt Barnes had a win and 3 saves. Below, you can find my regular lineup with substitutes at their primary positions. I'm putting my pre-season retained players ("keepers") in bold red text and noting draft round or free agent acquisition (or trade) status for all other players. The draft is 28 rounds, but begins with round 7 as all teams have to keep at least 6 players. I kept 11 players, so my draft started round 12. The first few rounds included some great picks, but the last 8 or 10 picks did not turn out well. I was active on the free agent market, but not many of those players contributed significantly to the season. The keepers were strong and determined the team's fate:C: W. Smith LAD   Pina MIL  (free agent)1B: Muncy LAD (eligible 2B/3B)    Tellez TOR (traded to MIL in early July) (round 17)2B: Merrifield KC (OF eligible)3B: Arenado COL   SS: Rojas ARI (acquired via trade)      Lopez KC (free agent)OF: Acuna ATLOF: D. Smith NYM (1B eligible)OF: Bradley MIL (round 21)    Wade SF (1B eligible) (free agent)    Stewart BAL (free agent)    Olivares KC (free agent)    Kelenic SEADH: McMahon COL (eligible 2B/3B)SP: Bauer LADSP: Gray CINSP: Greinke HOUSP: Eovaldi BOS (round 12)SP: Rogers MIA (round 14)SP: Taillon NYY (acquired via trade)SP: Mejia CLE (free agent) RP: Barnes BOS (round 13)RP: Fairbanks TB (round 19)RP: Staumont KC (round 25)RP: Zimmer KC (free agent)RP: Antone CIN (injured during the Series) (round 16)I released these draft picks during the season:C Sisco BAL (round 28)IF Adrianza ATL (round 26)SS Ahmed ARI (round 15)  (actually, he was traded)SS Garcia CIN (round 20) (now named Barrero)UT Tsutsugo TB (traded to LAD) (round 23)SP Peterson NYM (round 18) (released during Series after Gray recovered from injury)SP Ponce de Leon STL (round 24)SP Lucchesi NYM (round 22)RP Wendelken OAK (round 27)The trade for Rojas included some "cash" (we use fictional trading points) plus free agent pickup P Josiah Gray LAD, who is a top prospect. He was injured shortly after I acquired him just as it looked like he might join the Dodger rotation after the Dustin May injury.
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