The Elucidators: Decoding Global News

Much like the well-known horror film franchise (albeit with fewer hockey masks and machetes), Brexit is scary and just doesn’t seem to end. In this latest installment of UK Democracy: Endless Madness, the world will find out who the UK’s next Prime Minister will be on the appropriately (actually randomly) chosen date of Friday, December 13th.Either the right-wing Conservative Party’s controversial bon vivant Boris “BoJo” Johnson or the Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn, a socialist doing very little to pretend to be a center-left pol, will be the next resident of 10 Downing Street. And, weirdly, the socialist is in favor of maintaining free trade with the European Union, while the supposedly free-market Tory wants out… which doesn't make sense. But here we are!In this week’s episode of The Elucidators, Steve and Soumi discuss the long and winding road to this election, as well as what the potential outcomes mean for the Brexit process, the United Kingdom (and the peoples of the British Isles more generally) as well as Europe!Further Reading:1.    https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2019/12/infographic-uk-election-191207103305507.html2.    Financial Times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xi-6rzpFqw3.    https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/10/30/brexit-endgame-parliament-agrees-to-december-elections/4.    https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-election-numbers-factbox/factbox-how-will-britains-dec-12-brexit-election-work-idUSKBN1XL1125.    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/dec/08/election-polls-uk-2019-latest-opinion-poll-tracker-tories-labour

Q: What annual event is the biggest, most important, and least fun party in the world?A: It's the United Nations' Conference of Parties (COP) to combat climate change.(Fine. It's more of a conference than a party…let it go, nerd.) Through December 13th, representatives from 200-ish nations are meeting in Madrid, Spain to discuss rising carbon emissions levels, carbon trading, the financing of climate change mitigation, and other initiatives to achieve a carbon neutral world by 2050. Despite the big achievement that was the 2015 Paris Agreement… things frankly are not looking amazing right now. In this week's episode, Steve and Soumi talk about COP 25, how we got here, experimental initiatives to combat climate change, and the political and economic difficulties the United States, China, and everyone else need to overcome in order to stem the tide of a changing climate. Further Reading:   https://thebulletin.org/2019/06/gaseous-molecules-of-freedom/   https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-04/persistent-emissions-signal-global-climate-goal-out-of-reach   https://www.wri.org/blog/2019/11/cop25-climate-conference-priorities   https://www.politico.eu/article/cop25-climate-summit-6-things-to-know/   https://www.cbsnews.com/video/world-leaders-tackle-climate-change-at-cop25-summit/

Back in August, we checked in on #Hong Kong eleven weeks into the city's millions-strong pro-democracy protests. Fourteen weeks later, those protests are still rolling, with even greater intensity -- and they are now generating electoral consequences too!Local district counsel elections this past week registered MASSIVE victories for the pro-democracy movement... while the U.S. Congress has passed legislation to have Hong Kong’s back. All of which is to say Xi Jinping and the People’s Republic of China can’t be happy with the way things are headed in the increasingly restive city-state of Hong Kong.In this week's episode, Steve and Soumi discuss the past, present, and future of China's “One Country, Two Systems” policy towards Hong Kong, and what all of this might mean for China, Hong Kong, and the U.S.If you like what you're hearing, please like, share, subscribe, and rate us 5 stars on your podcast store! And if you have thoughts or questions, write us at [email protected]. We're lonely and we want to hear from you!Further reading:Brookings: Hong Kong’s precarious futureSouth China Morning Post: Eating out in Hong Kong: Protesters declare eateries ‘yellow’ or ‘blue’NPR: Warnings, Wariness Mingle With Joy After Hong Kong's Pro-Democracy Landslide

Q: What do you get when you raise fuel prices in Iran by 50-300%?A: Major protests all over the country.Q: So then what’s the government do?A: Shut down the internet and attack protesters with live ammo!Iran is two countries at the same time: a young, modern, and cosmopolitan nation of 80 million hoping to join the international community, AND a very conservative, older, and rural theocracy that wants to export its Islamic Revolution and dominate the Greater Middle East.Increasingly, these two countries do not mix, so when the Trump Administration applies "maximum pressure" in the form of extremely stringent sanctions, the results can be as violent and unpredictable as a hacked Iranian uranium centrifuge.This week on The Elucidators, Steve and Soumi discuss how Iran got here, what the United States had to do with it, and what might come next for the Islamic Republic of Iran.Further Reading:Bloomberg.com: Iran’s Protests Are About More Than Rising Fuel PricesAtlantic Council: Iran protests -- Something has to giveForeign Affairs: America’s Great Satan -- The 40-Year Obsession With Iran

If a nation’s leader loses the support of his military and resigns, but no one steps into replace him… has there been a coup?This is no riddle. It’s one of the main political questions facing Bolivians days after their long-serving and (by all accounts) effective leader Evo Morales resigned, along with his Vice President, amid (well-supported) accusations of vote rigging, as well as other attempts to weaken the country’s democratic processes. Now, Bolivia is leaderless and the country’s political future is cloudy to say the least.This week, we try to elucidate this complex challenge with the help of our friend and Latin American politics expert, Dr. Jesse Acevedo of the University of Denver’s Political Science Department.Further reading:NYT: Evo Morales and Bolivia: What We Know About the President’s ResignationWaPo: Leftists are wobbling in South America. Here’s why Bolivia’s Evo Morales may be the last socialist standing.Foreign Affairs: Why Latin America Was Primed to Explode

This week, a horrific tragedy unfolded in the high desert of Northern Mexico, where three SUVs full of women and children were gunned down with automatic weapons and subsequently burned to ashes. The fact that these folks were members of a Mormon fundamentalist sect that emigrated to the area in the late 19th century and still hold dual US / Mexican citizenship has refocused US attention on the ongoing Mexican Drug War -- an ongoing low-intensity conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of innocents (as well as plenty of not-so-innocents) and disrupted one of the world's largest economies for the past 15 years or so.Steve and Soumi peer through the lens of this outrage to examine Mexican and American policies towards the cartels; the basics of supply and demand; endemic violence and state failure; and who we think is ultimately to blame (hint: they're not in Mexico).Further reading:Bloomberg: AMLO Declines Trump's Help After Six Children Killed in Attack CNN: Amid Mounting Drug War Deaths, Mexico's President Sticks to his Strategy

On October 26, 2019, American special forces raided the compound belonging to Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi (ABaB), the leader of the Islamic State in Syria’s (ISIS) and self-anointed caliph or head of all Muslims, resulting in an explosive fatality. In this week’s episode, Steve and Soumi delve into who this guy was, where he came from, what he did, how he died, and what might be coming next from the world of jihadism.(Spoiler Alert!)***None of this would have come about without a stolen pair of underwear.Further Reading:FDD: The Battle of BaghdadiWaPo: Baghdadi hid among rivals and enemies in rebel-held Syrian province Daily Beast: How US Commandos IDed a 'Mutilated' al-Baghdadi So Quickly

On October 17th, Chilean President Sebastian Piñera was bragging to the international media about his country's status as a socioeconomic "oasis" in a sea of instability.Less than 48 hours later, violent protests were roiling Chile's major cities and the Chilean army was in the streets, shooting at protestors with live ammo and running people over with armored vehicles.What the heck happened?! Find out this week on The Elucidators, where Steve and Soumi discuss economic inequality, the Pinochet dictatorship, 21st century protest movements, populism vs. plutocracy, corrupt capitalism, and oh so much more!Further reading:ProMarket: How Economic Concentration and Crony Capitalism Lead to the Chaos in ChileBloomberg: Chile's Violence has a Worrisome Message for the WorldNYTimes: Chile Unrest Spreads, with 15 Deaths Reported in Violence

Q: What does a 275% increase in your monthly wage get you?A: If you’re a Venezuelan depending on minimum wage, it gets you the equivalent of $8.That’s enough to buy about nine pounds of meat… for the entire month. And that's after after eight previous minimum wage hikes!In this week's episode of The Elucidators, Steve and Soumi discuss the long and sad path that has led South America’s formerly most-prosperous nation into near-total economic and social collapse. Domestic corruption, incompetence, and autocracy, along with a surprisingly wide array of international actors -- including Cuba, Russia, China, India, Turkey, Iran, Hezbollah, and of course the United States -- have all played a role in bringing this oil-rich nation to its knees. Also discussed in this episode: the "resource curse" / "Dutch Disease," petrostates, narcostates, left-wing populism, and much more!Here's some additional light reading on this slow-motion disaster:Bloomberg - Venezuela’s Maduro Hikes Minimum Wage Again, This Time by 275%Council on Foreign Relations - Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a PetrostateCBS News - Understanding the Venezuelan presidential crisis: Who are Juan Guaido and Nicolas Maduro?

Q: How do you spell betrayal?A: R-O-J-A-V-A—ROJAVA. That’s the name of the nascent Kurdish state in northern Syria that’s currently being bombed by Turkey.Q: Who are the Kurds?A: The largest ethnic group in the world without an official state of their own and the warriors most-responsible for forcing ISIS out!Q: Why is Turkey doing this?A: Well…because President Trump said they could.We tackle these questions and many, many more in this week’s episode: Kurd Stomped!