2. World economy shows signs of recovery
2021 global economic growth is estimated to be 5-6%, compared with a contraction of 4.4% in 2020. Rapid vaccination and huge economic stimulus packages in “economic locomotives” like the US, Europe and China, provided the driving force for the global recovery. But after sustaining damages of 3.3 trillion USD, tens of millions of jobs lost, and global supply chains disrupted, what the world economy will look like in 2022 still depends heavily on COVID-19 pandemic developments.

3. COP26 (United Nations Conference on Climate Change)
On November 13, 197 countries attending the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26) ratified the Glasgow Climate Pact. 100 countries also pledged to end deforestation and cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. The world’s two largest emitters, the US and China, issued a joint statement, pledging to cooperate in building a long-term strategy to combat climate change. The results of the Conference offered hope that the world can still prevent the worst effects of climate change.

4. US withdraws troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war, Taliban returns to power
On August 30, the last US troops left Afghanistan, ending the longest war in US history. During 20 years of war, 3,500 American and allied troops and tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers and civilians were killed in Afghanistan. On August 15, the Taliban took control of the capital Kabul after having taken control of most of the rest of Afghanistan, making the country’s future uncertain and worrisome. The risk of Afghanistan exporting terrorism, conflict, and violence could jeopardize the security of the entire world.

5. US-China strategic competition grows fiercer, but not yet out of control
Since taking office as the 46th President of the United States on January 20, Joe Biden has worked hard to build a new coalition to deal with China, as the US-China strategic competition has become an all-out confrontation. The US has demanded that China make concessions on Chinese Taipei, the East Sea, the East China Sea, democracy, human rights, and other issues. Rather than making any concessions, China has redoubled its effort to overtake the US as the world’s strongest economy. Although they reached no compromise, both the US and China have signaled a readiness for dialogue to keep their confrontations from spiraling out of control.

6. AUKUS profoundly changes Indo-Pacific landscape
The Tripartite Security Agreement reached by Australia, the UK and the US (AUKUS) on September 15 marked a new step in the US’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific, and created a major change in the region’s strategic balance. The AUKUS mechanism tightened the relationship between the US, UK and Australia, while worsening the US-China relations, and causing rifts between the US and its European allies. With the EU and the US later announcing their separate Indo-Pacific strategies, the birth of AUKUS Alliance marks a gathering of forces and the Indo-Pacific’s growing geopolitical importance.

7. End of Merkel’s rule – a void and future expectations for Germany and Europe
Angela Merkel’s rule came to an end when Olaf Schozl was confirmed as Chancellor by the German Bundestag on December 8. During her 16 years in office, Chancellor Merkel led Germany and the EU through major crises, including the 2008 financial crisis, the 2015 migration crisis, the 2010 public debt crisis, and Brexit, made Germany a “European locomotive” and accelerated the unification of Europe. Merkel’s departure from politics raises concerns about a power vacuum in Germany and the EU, but also rekindles hopes for winds of change in the near future.

8. Political upheaval in Myanmar, Sudan, Guinea
On February 1, the National Alliance for Democracy underpinning the civilian government of Myanmar, was stripped of its power and power was transferred to the military. In Africa, Sudan was plunged into a political crisis after the military dissolved the Sudanese power-sharing government and declared a state of emergency on October 25. In 2021, Africa also witnessed coups in Mali and Guinea. These worrisome political developments reflected a trend of political and social instability in many countries.

9. Russian-Western relations on the brink of breakdown
Russia-Ukraine relations suddenly worsened with the two sides increasing military buildups near the border between Russia and Ukraine. Between problems in the Baltic Sea and Black Sea area and a migration crisis on the Poland-Belarus border, the risk of conflict between the West and Russia reached its highest level since the Cold War. On December 17, Russia published the draft of the eight-point treaty with the West aimed at easing tensions in Europe and defusing the Ukraine crisis. If a new agreement is not reached soon, Russia-Western relations could reach a dangerous tipping point.

10. First commercial space flight ushers in new era of space travel
On the evening of September 15, the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) successfully launched the world’s first private spacecraft into Earth orbit. The event marked the ambitious start of a new space tourism industry. Following SpaceX, companies Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin also launched private flights carrying passengers into space.

Source: https://vovworld.vn/en-US/current-affairs/top-10-world-events-of-2021-1061358.vov

The post Top 10 world events of 2021 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

AFTER TROOPS WITHDRAWAL, ASYLUM-SEEKER BOATS ARE LIKELY TO SET SAIL… FOR EUROPEAN SHORES -© Provided by Crikey

That period, of course, was the so-called refugee crisis. Now, Europe is facing a new refugee crisis as a result of President Joe Biden’s decision to pull US forces out of Afghanistan. Washington’s international allies have no choice but to pull out too.

“In together, out together” has been the mantra because the war was built around US manpower and equipment. Although Biden claims to have ended the Afghanistan War, nobody — especially not Afghans — is fooled, and Washington’s best friends are being left to pick up the pieces. That task will affect ordinary Europeans, who will face the political fallout of an inevitable new refugee crisis, and it could force European governments to send their troops back.

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“We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country,” Biden said on July 8, announcing the US military is on track to meet its target of completing the withdrawal by August 31.

America’s allies didn’t go to Afghanistan to nation-build either. Indeed, it was unclear to many citizens of EU and NATO member states and partners why, precisely, their troops were being sent there.

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‘Moral obligation’: John Howard intervenes to prick Payne and ScoMo’s conscience on Afghans who risked everything for us  Read More

But for nearly two decades, allies as different in size as Germany and Estonia have loyally been providing troops to a war that is called a multinational effort but is really Washington’s war. One year ago, for example, Germany provided 1300 of Resolute Support Mission’s 15,937 troops, making it Afghanistan’s second-largest troop provider after the US. The United Kingdom was third at 950 troops, followed by Italy at 895 troops. Virtually every US ally has lost soldiers in this war.

Precisely because it has been America’s war, it was perhaps unsurprising that Biden could simply decide it was over. Now, allied troops are pulling out alongside their US colleagues. On June 30, the last Bundeswehr soldiers to leave Afghanistan arrived in Germany. In his July 8 statement, Biden said he’d “made the decision to end the war”. He also promised that the US “will continue to provide civilian and humanitarian assistance, including speaking out for the rights of women and girls”.

But what matters isn’t whether Biden believes he’s ended the war: it’s whether Afghans feel he’s done so. Many seem to have made up their minds, and their decision could have a major impact on US allies in Europe.

Afghans are already fleeing to neighbouring countries; they include more than 1000 Afghan soldiers who have escaped to Tajikistan, causing that country to mobilize reservists to patrol the border. “The brunt will be felt in the neighbouring countries: Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan,” noted Stefano Stefanini, a former ambassador of Italy to NATO and former national security adviser to the Italian president.

“To some extent, the US is sheltered by distance — though Washington is providing special visas to the many Afghans who translated, drove, and worked for the Americans. But many refugees, at great cost and risk, will try to get to Europe. It might not be the most direct route, but Italy, via Libya, will be the main landing point. Then the new flow from the Hindu Kush will work its way north to Germany, Sweden, Norway, and the UK.”

In 2015, Germany and Sweden were the two most popular countries for asylum-seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Although the recipient countries have since worked hard to integrate the asylum-seekers, the challenge has been made more difficult by the fact that many asylum-seekers arrived alone. In Sweden, more than 35,000 asylum-seekers who arrived in 2015 registered as unaccompanied minors; 92% of them were men and two-thirds were Afghan.

Europe’s proximity — compared to the US — is, of course, another reason so many Afghans have fled there. The same goes for Syrians and Iraqis, who escaped there when the Islamic State conquered their home towns, another outcome of failed US wars. Vietnamese boat people, in turn, made the perilous journey not just to the US but also towards Europe when America lost the war in Vietnam.

Picture yourself as a European policymaker now facing a massive refugee challenge not of your own making. As Stefanini pointed out, “at NATO, European allies were the least enthusiastic about leaving Afghanistan unconditionally — for a reason”.

Pal Jonson, the chairperson of the Swedish parliament’s defense committee, is equally worried about the international pullout’s implications, which was triggered by the United States. Sweden is already struggling to integrate the more than 160,000 asylum-seekers who arrived during the 2015 refugee crisis among others who came in subsequent years. (In 2019, the US, with a population more than 30 times larger than that of Sweden, admitted 29,916 refugees.)

“If the security situation deteriorates further, it could certainly create a very complicated situation for us,” Jonson said. “We already have over 60,000 Afghan nationals living in Sweden, and that number has doubled since 2015. Thousands of Afghans have been living in Sweden illegally since their asylum applications were turned down by the Swedish Migration Agency.”

While the majority of refugees are law-abiding, sadly some of them have started to show up in crime statistics; 58% of people convicted for rape in Sweden between 2013 and 2018 were born in other countries, with Afghans the second most common nationality among perpetrators after Swedes.

The challenge is not just housing and looking after the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who successfully make it to Europe; it’s also handling the ones who don’t qualify for asylum. (There’s general consensus that Afghan military interpreters and their families should be granted asylum by the countries whose soldiers they worked with.)

Over the past few years, various European countries have strengthened their asylum rules, making it harder for people from Afghanistan to be approved. In Denmark, for example, 46% of Afghan asylum-seekers were approved in 2007; by 2017, the figure had fallen to 16%. That’s the lowest acceptance rate in the EU; Italy has the highest at more than 90%. Denmark and the Netherlands are also the only EU member states to return families to Afghanistan, the Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers notes. But with Afghanistan now edging back toward civil war, it may no longer be safe for asylum-seekers to return — if it ever was.

Biden has put his closest allies in a bind. Closing their doors to most Afghans would very possibly be a violation of international human rights law. Even if doing so is legal, it’s almost a moot point: on July 11, the Afghan government announced it will no longer allow Afghans who’ve been denied asylum in the EU back into the country. This will, of course, stop repatriation flights from the EU. But Sweden, Germany, Italy, and others also can’t accommodate large numbers of new arrivals, and even a less-than-dramatic increase would strengthen populist parties’ already strong position against immigration.

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He cleared landmines for Australian troops. Now he’s stuck in Kabul – Read more

I asked Mohammad, a young Syrian who arrived in Sweden in 2014 and asked that I not use his surname because he’s now a public servant, about the prospect of a new wave of Afghans. “It would be difficult,” he said. “Sweden has already received large numbers of refugees, and society hasn’t yet managed to include and integrate these people and get them to stand on their own two feet.” Mohammad would know; he now works as an integration coordinator for a Swedish municipality.

European governments will thus unsurprisingly try to prevent a new Afghan refugee wave. “It’s obviously of strategic interest for the West in general — and countries such as Sweden and Germany in particular — that Afghanistan does not implode,” Jonson said. “We need some form of plan B to assure that this does not happen.”

There seems to be only one way out: for America’s allies to deploy a new stability mission to Afghanistan. Realistically, such a mission would have to be led by the UK. I put the question to retired General Richard Barrons, who served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other conflicts before going on to lead the UK’s Joint Forces Command.

It won’t happen, he said: “There’s no public pressure for such a mission. It would be massively expensive, very difficult to do without Pakistan’s full cooperation with logistics, and Europe doesn’t even have the equipment or enablers ready for such an act at sufficient scale and endurance. There is not even a secure point of entry now that Bagram and Kandahar [air bases] have gone.”

Instead of fighting to keep refugees in Afghanistan, Barrons predicted, European countries will try to keep them out of Europe. “Europe’s only martial role will be to use specialist resources to bear down on sources of terrorism arising in Afghanistan that could threaten European homelands and interests. That is classic intelligence/special forces/Afghan partner work,” he explained.

Under such a scheme, European special forces and intelligence officers could, if invited by Kabul, apply Band-Aids to help stem terrorism. As it happens, a number of European countries have excellent special forces. Small numbers of Europeans without military muscle trying to stave off the worst in Afghanistan may seem a feeble hope — but countries facing not just refugee waves but voter unease are likely to leap at even the feeblest options.

“It’s time to end America’s longest war,” Biden said on April 14. For ordinary Americans, it may feel like the war is over when the last US troops leave Afghanistan on August 31. But it won’t feel like it for ordinary Swedes, Germans, Italians, Greeks, and other Europeans, especially with their countries and public finances already weakened by COVID-19.

Should their budgets become overstretched, integration programs fail, and populist parties sail to victory, Biden may have to extend a helping hand to America’s friends just as they did to the US 20 years ago.

Elisabeth Braw is a columnist at Foreign Policy and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on defence against emerging national security challenges, such as hybrid and grey-zone threats. She is also a member of the UK National Preparedness Commission. She tweets at @elisabethbraw

The post By withdrawing from Afghanistan, Biden could spark the world’s next refugee crisis appeared first on Crikey.

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/by-withdrawing-from-afghanistan-biden-could-spark-the-worlds-next-refugee-crisis/ar-AAMatpb

The post By withdrawing from Afghanistan, Biden could spark the world’s next refugee crisis first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.