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Political turmoil in Israel | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Political turmoil in Israel

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:

So much happening in the world right now. I think I want to focus in on Israel. Why? Well, because it is unprecedented in scale, the demonstrations, people's power taking to the streets, particularly in Tel Aviv. This is a population of less than 10 million in Israel, and hundreds of thousands are saying that they strongly oppose the efforts by Bibi Netanyahu and his coalition government to rest control of the judiciary, allowing the parliament to overturn judicial decisions from the Supreme Court and also allowing more control of executive appointments to Supreme Court justices. This is not just about opposition from the population at large. It's also been the Minister of Defense who publicly opposed the first cabinet official to do so, in part because large numbers of enlisted men and women are saying that they will not serve in the military if this judicial reform passes, unprecedented in a country where you have an enormous patriotism around mandatory national service that all Israeli men and women participate in.

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Xi & "friend" Putin could call for Ukraine ceasefire | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Xi & "friend" Putin could call for Ukraine ceasefire

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:

The big story geopolitically is Xi Jinping's trip to Moscow, a three-day state visit, by far the most geopolitically significant summit of the year since the Russian invasion, frankly, a year ago. And also a deeply problematic geopolitical summit, in the sense that it goes strongly against the interests of the United States and all of its allies. Let's keep in mind this summit comes on the back of the International Criminal Court, that is recognized by 123 countries around the world, though not by Russia, the U.S. or China, declaring that Putin is a war criminal and that he should be arrested by any member state if he travels there. Indeed, the German government's already announced, if Putin were to go to Germany, that's it, they're arresting him. Never going to happen. But nonetheless, on the back of that, and then Putin's trip to Crimea and his trip to Mariupol occupied Ukrainian territory over this weekend. Mariupol, first time, he's been in territory the Russians have taken since February 24th.

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Did Ukraine blow up Nord Stream pipelines? | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Did Ukraine blow up the Nord Stream pipelines?

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everyone. And have you seen the latest news on Nord Stream 1, 2? It has been months since that pipeline, those pipelines were destroyed, were sabotaged, and we haven't had any information on who's behind it. Been big questions. Why would the Russians blow up their own pipelines? I've been skeptical, and the investigations that the Europeans have been engaged in, no evidence whatsoever. There was this piece by Seymour Hersh that I looked into pretty closely, one anonymous source claiming the Americans and the Norwegians were behind it. That turned out to be not standing up on its facts on a whole bunch of pieces of ostensible evidence brought in the piece. But now we have a New York Times piece that's come out with direct sourcing from US senior officials, including intelligence officials, claim that there is evidence that a Ukrainian organization was behind the explosion.

Now, I want to say, first of all, that was my view over the last few months, is if anyone was likely behind it would probably be Ukraine. And the question is, would they have the capacity? Because the interest was certainly highest. They are the ones that desperately want to ensure that the Russians don't continue to have leverage to potentially drive a wedge around European support and get that gas flowing again from Russia into Germany and into Europe.

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The future of Mexico | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Optimism about Mexico's political and economic future

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here. A happy Monday to you and a Quick Take to kick off your week. I'm just back from Mexico, Mexico City myself, and lots of fascinating meetings, lots of takeaways. Thought I would give you some of my sense of what is happening there, Mexico and Mexico's context in the world.

First thing I would say is I come away pretty optimistic about where the country is heading overall, and some of that is the context of Mexico in an environment where China-US relations are getting a lot more challenging. There is some significant national security and strategic decoupling that is happening at the behest of US administration, governors, members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans. And also, there's a lot more uncertainty about doing business in Xi Jinping's China itself, given the rapid and sudden changes on COVID, on how to do business as a technology company, on rules and regulations for the private sector, rule of law and its absence, local competition, you name it. And so, even though I still fairly strongly believe that China's going to become the largest economy in the world by 2030, the idea that US corporations will be able to take as much advantage of that is increasingly uncertain. Almost any business leader you talk to in the United States is saying, "Yeah, China is an important market for us, but we are being more cautious about how much we want to invest there, going forward. At the very least, we're putting a pause on some of the big decisions we're making." And in many cases, they're starting to reduce some of that forward looking exposure.

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China & the origins of COVID-19 | Quick Take | GZERO Media

China-US tensions over COVID origins & Russia's war

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here. Happy Monday to you. Lots going on, but I want to talk about all things China right now, there is so much at stake and at play. A few different points. First of all, over the weekend you saw that the Wall Street Journal had a report that the Department of Energy has come out, and they have a lot of expertise on this issue, that says that they believe that COVID initially originated from this lab, from this Institute of Virology in Wuhan. They now join along with the FBI in having that view. They've got low confidence in the view. The FBI has moderate confidence. That means the US government really doesn't know. We've had the National Intelligence Council and the three other intelligence agencies saying that they believe it actually came from a market, or it came from, sort of in a sense, natural environment. And the CIA says they still don't have a view.
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A diminished Russia & uncertain Ukraine | Quick Take | GZERO Media

A diminished Russia and uncertain Ukraine

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here, and it is one year after Russia's invasion in Ukraine has begun. The war, of course, continues to persist. What do we think about it and where are we going from here?

Well, first point is that in terms of the impact on the global environment so far, what we have is the Ukrainians suffering massively, the Russians expending enormous amounts of military capacity and trying to continue to rebuild it. The Europeans coming together with the United States in unprecedented fashion, NATO, the EU, the G7 much stronger and more cohesive than they were before. But also, the Europeans in particular shouldering a lot of those economic costs because they're the ones that can't do business with the Russians anymore, they have to spend much more on their own defense, and they're going to be fighting an asymmetric war with Russia as a rogue state going forward.

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Biden’s visit to Ukraine signals US commitment, but war gets tougher | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Biden’s visit to Ukraine signals US commitment, but war gets tougher

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here, and a happy Monday to you, a Happy President's Day.

I'm just back from Munich Security Conference, and of course today the big news, President Biden, with his surprise trip to Kyiv. And this is just before the first anniversary of Russia's invasion into Ukraine, last February 24th. Also, since the Russian annexation in Crimea in 2014, and their intervention in Southeast Ukraine, the first American president to visit Ukraine. That means including Obama, including Trump, including the first year of the Biden administration. This is a big deal symbolically for the US in showing continued commitment. It is a big deal for the Ukrainians in helping support their morale. It is a big deal for NATO, in helping to get them to believe that the Americans are undiminished in the prioritization of Ukraine, even after tens of billions of dollars, and a year of serious fighting.

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Let's Talk About the Balloon | Quick Take | GZERO Media

China's spy balloon chills relations with US

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and I'm at Columbia University, just about to teach my class. I just got back to New York and a Quick Take to kick off your week.

Of course, what we're talking about right now is the balloon, which was made for television. I mean, you know, you get to watch on the map as it's traveling across the country and check the popularity ratings. Democrats, Republicans, what do you think about the balloon? The reality is this is not going to be talked about in another week, but it is inconvenient, the timing for a few different reasons. First of all, because you have the State of the Union coming up tomorrow. And as a consequence, President Biden is going to have to address it in a very public way, and therefore it puts more of a chill in US-China relations.

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