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A Russian artist was arrested and sentenced to 7 years in prison for replacing the price labels at a local supermarket with anti-war stickers.
Hard Numbers: Russian artist pays “price” for anti-war campaign, West Bank settler violence surges, US “lawmakers” fail to live up to the name, Liberians make their choice, Starbucks employees go on strike
7: Numbers are not a crime! Except in Russia, where a St. Petersburg court has sentenced 33-year-old artist Sasha Skochilenko to seven years in prison for spreading “false information” about the Russian army. Skochilenko was arrested for replacing the price labels at a local supermarket with Hard Numbers-style stickers carrying new “prices” and descriptions like “The Russian army bombed an art school in Mariupol killing 400 people,” or “I haven’t heard from my sister in Ukraine in eight days.”
973: With the world’s attention on Gaza, attacks by Jewish settlers have driven at least 963 Palestinians from their West Bank homes since Oct. 7, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. That’s nearly double the number of expulsions that occurred in the two years prior to Hamas’ recent attack on Israel. Israel’s far-right security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, has been open about his aim to arm settlers with military-style rifles from the US.
21: What’s going on up on Capitol Hill these days? Not much, it seems. So far this year, Congress has written just 21 laws, the slowest pace for a Congress since the early 1930s. The multiple fiascos surrounding House leadership are part of it, sure, but still — you quite literally have one job, “lawmakers”! One job!
50.6: With some 87% of Liberia’s polling stations reporting, Liberian opposition leader Joseph Boakai late on Thursday had notched 50.6% of the presidential vote against incumbent George Weah’s 49.4%. The runoff is a rematch of the 2017 vote, which brought former soccer star Weah to office in the country’s first ever democratic transfer of power. Weah is credited with infrastructure improvements but has faced protests over corruption and inflation.
200: How about some frothy labor relations to go with that pumpkin spice latte? Thousands of unionized workers at as many as 200 Starbucks locations walked off the job Thursday, citing ongoing grievances about being overworked and understaffed, particularly during promotions when customer demands surge (Thursday was the annual “Red Cup” giveaway day). Starbucks Workers United represents workers at about 3% of the company’s 9,300 US locations.
A ballot box is emptied and the counting of ballots begins. In Bavaria, the election for the 19th Bavarian state parliament took place on Sunday.
What We're Watching: Three votes that matter
The first took place on Sunday in Germany. In the states of Bavaria and Hesse, voters continued a trend we’ve seen in recent years in France, Italy, and several other European countries of abandoning traditional mainstream parties of both the left and right in a shift toward new names and faces.
Inflation, a stagnant economy, and rising anxiety over migration into the country are making life tougher on incumbents. The center-left parties that now govern Germany in coalition performed poorly, but the conservative Christian Social Union, which has governed Bavaria since the 1950s, also floundered, taking its lowest vote share in the southern state (37%) in more than half a century.
Public support in Germany is now moving toward populists. In particular, the populist Free Voters weathered an antisemitism scandal involving its leader to take more than 15% of the vote in Bavaria. The far-right Alternative for Germany party has seen its approval numbers surge alongside a rising number of foreign migrants entering the country. Its 14.6% vote share in Bavaria and 18.4% in Hesse show that the party, which has built a base of support mainly in Germany’s east, is beginning to post impressive numbers in the west.
The second noteworthy vote is expected to take place later this week inside the US House of Representatives, as the Republican majority tries to elect a new speaker to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy.
For now, the lead candidates are House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio. Broadly speaking, Scalise is considered the more experienced legislator and dealmaker, while Jordan offers himself as an unapologetic partisan firebrand with the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.
It’s not clear that either man can win the 218 votes needed to become speaker this week, raising the possibility that interim speaker Patrick McHenry of North Carolina might be asked to hold down the job for several weeks, with a clearer understanding of his temporary legislative authority and its limits, as Republicans hash out their differences.
At stake is continued funding of the US government, ongoing US support for Ukraine, and a host of other critical issues.
Finally, voters in Liberia will elect a new president on Tuesday against a backdrop of the violent breakdown of democracy in several other West African countries. President George Weah wants a second six-year term, and the fragmentation of opposition support among 19 challengers might help him win in the first round.
The issues Liberian voters care about most are those that most directly impact their lives. Weah, a celebrated former footballer, can point to wider availability of affordable electricity and greater investment in new roads as accomplishments, but rising food prices have twice triggered major protests during his presidency and could again.
In this case, the vote itself will be a major accomplishment for Liberia. Just in the past five years, there have been coups or coup attempts in the West African states of Mali (twice), Niger (twice), Guinea, Gabon (twice), Burkina Faso (three times), and Sierra Leone. By contrast, Liberia has been a democracy at peace since the 2005 election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.
Weah’s election in 2017 was the first peaceful transition of power from one democratically elected president to another in Liberia’s history.
A protester near the Invalides during a demonstration against the government's pension reform plan in Paris
What We’re Watching: An encore for French protesters, Zelensky’s growing wish list, Weah’s reelection bid
Round Two: French pension reform strikes
For the second time in a month, French workers held mass protests on Tuesday against the government’s proposed pension reform, which would raise the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64. Organized by the country’s eight big trade unions, authorities say as many as 1.27 million protesters hit the streets nationwide, bringing Paris to a standstill and closing schools throughout France. (Unions say the number was higher.) Meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron is sticking to his guns, saying that incrementally raising the national retirement age by 2030 is crucial to reducing France’s ballooning deficit. (Currently, 14% of France’s public spending goes toward its pension program – the third-highest of any OECD country.) But for Macron, this is about more than just economics; his political legacy is on the line. Indeed, the ideological chameleon came to power in 2017 as a transformer and tried to get these pension reforms done in 2019, though he was ultimately forced to backtrack. But as Eurasia Group Europe expert Mujtaba Rahman points out, protesters’ “momentum is the key” and could determine whether legislators from the center-right back Macron or get swayed by the vibe on the street. This would force him to go at it alone using a constitutional loophole, which never makes for good politics. More demonstrations are planned for Feb.7 and Feb. 11.“To give me liberty, give me jets”
“Thanks for the tanks. Now we need jets.” That’s the message Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has for his country’s Western allies. Poland and the Baltics have been predictably supportive. The French, British, and Dutch have said “let’s discuss it.” Early indications from Washington and Berlin are less positive. Zelensky’s latest set of maximalist requests set off a lively debate within your GZERO team meeting, with compelling arguments on both sides. Argument 1: The guy is president of a country fighting a war for survival. It’s not his job to make life easy for American and European decision-makers; it’s to eject Russia from Ukraine, and he needs the best Western weapons to do that. Every day, innocent people in his country die. He should ask for more than everything he needs to make it stop. Argument 2: That’s all true, but there are already voters in the US and Europe who wonder how expensive (and dangerous) escalating support for Ukraine might become with a nuclear-armed power on the other side. Zelensky must understand that the elected leaders in these countries have to listen to these voters. If his demands seem exorbitant and unending, Zelensky might be doing more harm than good. We’ll be watching to see how the West responds to his latest ask.
Weah running for Liberian re-election
Former soccer star George Weah confirmed this week that he'll seek a second — and final — term as Liberia's president in the October election. Weah swept to power in 2018 after beating VP Joseph Boakai in a landslide, promising to rid the country of corruption. Almost five years later, though, graft remains widespread, with Liberia ranking 142nd out of 180 countries in Transparency International's 2022 corruption perceptions index, and last year the US slapped sanctions on Weah's own chief of staff over multiple graft scandals. The president has also come under fire for doing little to address high inflation and food shortages related to Russia's war in Ukraine. More recently, Weah got flak for going on a two-month foreign trip — including a stop in Qatar to watch his son, Timothy, play for the US at the soccer World Cup — while most Liberians live in poverty. Still, Weah, the only African to win the coveted Ballon d'Or award for world's best player, has the one thing that all the opposition candidates lack: name recognition.
If you're a soccer fan and his name doesn't ring a bell, check out this FIFA video to discover how damn good Weah was in his prime.