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1Western Europe and the UK
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3UK: Brexit Talks Nearing an End as UK set to leave European Union
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5LONDON - Negotiations between the UK and the EU are set to finish up this week in preparation for the March 2019 deadline by which the UK will leave the European Union. While the breakthrough in late 2017 that would see the UK continuing to make payments to the EU and that would maintain open borders between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland spoke evidence as potentially bringing about the economically-friendly (and EU-friendly) "soft Brexit," the UK was able to take advantage of differences among the trading bloc to seek more authority over broader border and trade affairs. Prime Minister Theresa May was able, according to sources, achieve more control over UK policies, including the ability to set their own trade policies while maintaining some access to the EU Common Market, and the ability to adopt stronger border and immigration controls- policies which were at the core of the Brexit campaign in 2016. The UK will be able to open up negotiations with other countries to establish their own trading relationships; Prime Minister May has said that a deal with the U.S. is a "top priority." And while the strong deal has boosted May's stance within her party - and gave the Conservatives a bit of a boost - it's the business markets that are worried about barriers that may be raised by the UK and by the EU in non-protected areas. Major financial firms have announced that if the deal goes through that they will relocate, and the Bank of England has warned about a possible financial contraction if firms move through on their plans. 
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8SPAIN: Prime Minister Rajoy Announces "End" to Madrid Control in Catalonia
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10MADRID - Spain is set to return Catalonia's autonomy powers following an agreement to work "towards greater autonomy" after the country took full control of the region's Parliament in late 2017. After issuing, and then withdrawing, arrest warrants for Catalonian leaders, the national government worked with other elected officials in the region on a "roadmap" that might help reduce separatist sentiments in Spain's most populous and most economically powerful community. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy noted that the actions taken under Article 155 of the Constitution "were always meant to be temporary- this isn't a chance to push down needed concerns but to instead follow the due process of law." While Catalonia had run a referendum on independence, Spain's highest Court had called it illegal. Under the terms of the roadmap, Catalonia's leaders have ruled out further bids on independence while an agreement is being hammered out. 
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13ITALY: A Double-Win for Berlusconi in National Elections
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15ROME - By all accounts, it looks like controversial Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi is back in charge. The billionaire businessman was forced to resign as Italy's prime minister in 2011 over his management of the country's debt crisis and revelations of risqué parties involving actresses and models. Two years after that, he was banned from holding public office as a result of a tax fraud conviction. After appealing to the European Court of Human Rights, which found that the law used to ban Berlusconi should not have applied retroactively to earlier crimes, the billionaire took the helm of his own center-right Forza Italia Party and led it to become the largest party in the early 2018 elections. Due to success of other parties, including the anti-immigrant Northern League and the more hard-right Brothers of Italy, Berlusconi was able to set up a relatively (for Italy) strong center-right coalition; constant disorganization among the left and the center cost these parties heavily in the elections. Vowing to lead crackdowns on corruption and organized crime in the country, the Premier, once disgraced, now seems to be enjoying a new age of success in Italy.
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18VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis Says Death Penalty "Not Catholic"
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20VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has been hailed by some as a "progressive pope," but his latest documents on issues such as the deaht penalty may start putting even some of the most faithful in a bad position. In statements dating back to 2017, Pope Francis said the death penalty was "inadmissable" and that official Catholic teaching are being changed to reflect that. The Catholic Church currently teaches that recourse to the death penalty is permitted but "the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare if not practically nonexistent." It appears that the latest orders coming from the Vatican are now enshrining that statement, with the Church taking a hard-line stance against the death penalty. Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI spoke out against the death penalty, but Francis is the first Pope to suggest changing official church teaching on the issue. According to a 2016 Pew Research poll, 43% of US Catholics support the death penalty, while 46% are opposed; the new decision is putting many of those 43% in a hard position.
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23POLAND: Ruling Law and Justice Party Vows to "Maintain Sovereignty" in Light of EU Threats
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25WARSAW - While the European Union has long watched Poland's right-wing government with suspicion, recent legislative changes passed by the Sejm, the country's Parliament, may spur the 27-member bloc to action. The Sejm recently passed, and President Andrzej Duda approved (though refusing to veto), legislation that would give the parliamentary body more control over the country's court, by allowing the ruling party to appoint justices and to reduce the mandatory retirement age from 70 to 65. The ruling Law and Justice Party, a right-wing party, has said it has a democratic mandate to reform the judicial system, which it claims never was properly purged after communism fell in 1989 and which it describes as corrupt and inefficient. Under the proposed changes, new candidates for nearly 90 court positions that have opened will be put forward by other judges or citizens groups and subject to Sejm approval. "The judges will now be equal to ordinary people, they cannot be above them," President Duda said of the legislation. While it is not clear what path the EU may take, various groups, including the European Parliament, have decried the move.
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27Africa
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29ZIMBABWE: Mugabe, ZANU-PF Maintain Strong Majority Following 2018 Elections
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31HARARE - Following the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe won a sixth term in office and the ruling ZANU-PF maintains a majority of almost 2/3. While the opinion from international observers on the level of freedom in the election is mixed- African countries were quick to endorse the election results while views from the European Union were mixed- opposition candidates have vowed not to contest the results as the 94-year-old Mugabe is taking up another five year term at the helm of the impoverished African country. Anti-Mugabe forces had some hope in late 2017 when Mugabe sacked Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, which even the heads of the ZANU-PF party said was a dangerous move, but little opposition cleared the way for the President's wife Grace Mugabe to take the post. Mugabe has vowed to build off the country's agricultural reforms and building closer relationships with other African countries to develop an "African-centric" growth strategy.
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34MADAGASCAR: Plague Outbreaks Rapidly Straining Limited Health Supplies
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36ANTANANARIVO - Annual plague outbreaks, particularly of the rodent-spread bubonic variety, are no stranger in the tropical island nation of Madagascar, with approximately 800 to 1500 cases every year since 1990. However, the late 2018 - early 2019 cycle is growing to be far beyond normal, with over 3000 cases reported so far in the country's capital of Antananarivo. Health authorities in the country and in the World Health Organization are saying that the current cases- a mix of bubonic and other forms of plague- seem to be harder to treat and more resistant to normal antibiotic treatments than normal. President Hery Rajaonarimampianina has appealed to the international community, aid organizations, and even to God for assistance, and has ordered a curfew in the capital to avoid human-to-human contact which can spread the pneumonic form of the plague. The current outbreak seems to also be more deadly that previous outbreaks; while anywhere from 10-30% of previous suffers died in previous outbreaks in 2013 and 2017, current figures place an estimate of nearly 50% in the current outbreak. The World Health Organization has warned that there was a high risk the disease could spread to nine other countries in Africa and the Indian Ocean (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Seychelles, Comoros, Reunion, and Mauritius) because of frequent trade and travel with Madagascar.
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39LIBYA: Talks Between Rival Governments Break Down as Conflicts Resume Across Country
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41TRIPOLI - Talks between rival governments in Libya - the Council of Deputies and the General National Congress - that started in mid-2017 have broken down, according to UN observers and authorities that have worked to bring an end to conflict in the North African country. While the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) is still the internationally-recognized government in the country, tribal and ideological differences have prevented the GNA from asserting effective authority in the country outside of the major coastal cities, and Islamic-aligned forces as well as  have spread their own authority in more sparsely populated areas in the South. Considered by some to be a "failed state," few observers inside and outside the country expect serious resolution, with the European Union noting that the collapse of talks has led to an explosion of migrants and refugees fleeing for Europe and concerns that the country could provide a safe haven for terrorist groups operating throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
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44NIGERIA: Oil Firms Fear Government Pledge to Move Out of Resource Trap
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46LAGOS - After four years in office as President of Nigeria, and following months of negotiation with opposition leaders and with militant leaders in the Niger Delta, President Muhammadu Buhari announced this month a new plan that would expand the availability of oil wealth to impoverished communities, particularly in the volatile Niger Delta area. With nearly 35 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil reserves, the Buhari Government announce that restructuring contracts with major oil partners will help to increase the amount of money made available to Nigeria even as commodity prices themselves continue to remain relatively low. Under the proposal, which still lacks many specific policies, Nigeria would take over larger shares of current joint ventures with oil companies Chevron, ExxonMobil, and the French Total and earn larger shares of revenues. While Nigeria has not exported oil to the United States since 2014 due to the availability of similar quality oil from shale fields, the major companies are now said to be reaching out to their governments for advocacy to protect their investments and their profits in the largest producer of oil- and the largest holder of reserves- in the continent.
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48Latin America
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50MEXICO: President López Obrador Calls to Leave NAFTA, End Mérida Initiative
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52MEXICO CITY - Buoyed in large part by negative responses in Mexico to the election of Donald Trump, it was the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) that claimed a narrow victory in national elections in 2018. The populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has, in recent months, continued to call on Mexico to begin "pulling itself out" from underneath American domination in politics and the economy, and has made moves to end Mexico's participation in the Mérida Initiative. This Initiative, started in 2005, expanded financial and other aid to Mexico and other Central American states to combat drug trafficking, transnational organized crime, and money laundering in a country where cartels pull in nearly $23 billion every year according to U.S. Government sources. While various politicians and political parties in Mexico have blasted the Initiative- particularly after the revealing of the Obama Administration's Project Gunrunner, the statements and efforts by López Obrador mark the first time that the security arrangement could actually be disbanded. The first step, according to López Obrador, will be to engage in a "full review" of the program, with a decision potentially made as soon as 2020. 
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55VENEZUELA: Strikes and Protests Grow as Maduro Fails to Deliver, Elections Pushed Back Again
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57CARACAS - President Nicolas Maduro announced this week that national elections, originally scheduled for late 2018, will be pushed back again until the country "can be made ready for free and fair elections." The statement comes after another national general strike against Maduro's leadership and the poor state of the economy led to clashes that have left hundreds injured and, according to opposition sources, more than a dozen dead. The poor state of the economy- with employment at or near 20% throughout 2017 and 2018- has led to increased crime and near-weekly demonstrations against the regime; Maduro has blamed outside influences including corporations and the United States for the troubles that low oil prices have caused over the last few years. Opposition candidates, including former Maduro opponent Henrique Capriles, have said the calls to push back the election dates, supported by a Maduro-friendly parliament and National Electoral Council, are in response to polls that suggest Maduro would face the largest defeat in Venezuelan electoral history.
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60BRAZIL: Country Approves Constitutional Amendment to Define Life at Conception
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62BRASILIA - Following a number of court cases where women sued for their right to have an abortion in the socially-conservative South American Country, the Brazilian National Congress has approved a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions from the moment of conception - including in the case of rape - nationwide starting in September of this year. Opposition to abortion in the country is not new; a 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that 77% of Brazilians thought that abortion should be illegal in “all or most cases,” while 20% supported legalization. At the same time, illegal abortions are surprisingly common in Brazil, with one survey last year finding that 1 in 5 women will have had at least one before the age of 40. The study estimated that in 2015, 416,000 abortions were performed in the country, most of them illegal and generally for minority women with lower levels of education. President Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing candidate who won the election after former President Luiz Lula da Silva's prison sentence was upheld, said that the move "is a long time coming, and asserts Brazil's place as an upholder of Christian traditions and all the rights that it brings."
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64Russia and Central Asia
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66RUSSIA: Efforts to expand Eurasian Economic Union Paying "Political Dividends" for Russia
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68MOSCOW - After only coming into existence just five years ago, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), an economic union currently consisting of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrygyzstan, and Armenia, seems to moving towards a political, cultural, and military union far faster than its counterpart in Continental Europe. Seeking to add new members in the Caucuses, in Eastern Europe, and in Central Asia, the EAEU will be establishing a centralized Parliament to consider legislation and stronger powers vested in the councils of heads of state and ministers over the bloc's member countries, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin who holds the rotating Chairman of the EAEU Commission seat for the next year. The bloc is also looking at establishing a single currency- or an easily convertible currency- to help businesses and to make it easier for the trading union to enter into foreign agreements. Targeting new members in former Soviet Republics in Moldova, in Georgia, in Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan while simultaneously expanding powers of the Union has many analysts in the West alarmed given the EAEU has long been seen as a puppet of Russia. The United States has long expressed its opposition to the Eurasian Union, claiming it is "an attempt" to re-establish a USSR-type union among the former Soviet republics. Even former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke in opposition to the organization, claiming that "it's not going to be called that [Soviet Union]. It's going to be called customs union, it will be called the Eurasian Union and all of that, but let's make no mistake about it."
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71AFGHANISTAN: UN Reports that Opium Production in Afghanistan at "All-Time High"
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73KABUL - he latest stats from the UN’s annual Afghanistan Opium Survey are in, and the news is grim. Opium production in the war-torn country jumped nearly 87 percent in 2018, to record levels—an estimated 9,000 metric tons (9,921 U.S. tons). Areas under poppy cultivation rose by 63 percent, reaching a record 328,000 hectares (810,488 acres), according to the joint survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Afghan Counter-Narcotics Ministry. “It is high time for the international community and Afghanistan to reprioritize drug control, and to acknowledge that every nation has a shared responsibility for this global problem,” UNODC’s executive director Yury Fedotov was quoted in the press release on the report. However, according to some analysts, the U.S. Government has spent more than $7 billion on drug eradication efforts in the country since 2001. The problem may not be easily solved, as both the Afghan government and the Taliban rebels are both pointing fingers at each other for encouraging the opium trade. “Without drugs, this war would have been long over,” President Ashraf Ghani was quoted by the New York Times as the survey was released. “The heroin is a very important driver of this war.”
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76[b]INDIA: