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Columbia River Gorge
Hard Numbers: A river runs through US-Canada talks, Indian hackers hit CAF, Swedes supercharge Quebec investment, Unifor sets sights on GM, Canada emits mixed picture on climate progress
40: The US and Canada are in an eddy of difficult negotiations about water use from the shared Columbia River, whose dams provide half of British Columbia’s electricity and 40% of all US hydropower. Time is running out — the 1964 treaty that governs the two countries’ use of the river expires next September.
2: Canada’s bad blood with India is now spilling into the cyber realm. The website of the Canadian Armed Forces was knocked offline for two hours on Wednesday in an operation carried out by a pro-Indian hacking group called Indian Cyber Force. The group had threatened to attack Canada just days after PM Justin Trudeau accused New Delhi of involvement in the murder of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia.
7 billion: Sweden’s Northvolt, a major battery supplier to Volkswagen and BMW, has chosen a site in Quebec for a new $7 billion factory that will manufacture EV batteries. The company had been scouting locations on both sides of the US-Canada border. The deal will be the largest-ever private investment in Quebec and is the latest in a slew of EV battery production deals reached with US and Asian manufacturers.
3: After reaching a last-minute strike-averting deal with Ford, Canada’s Unifor, a trade union, is now targeting the Motor City giant’s crosstown rivals at GM. Unifor wants a 3-year contract based on the one they inked with Ford, which increased worker’s wages and pensions, while also providing more support for labor during transitions to EV production. Across the border, the UAW’s unprecedented strike against all three major US automakers continues.
2.1: Canada’s emissions rose 2.1% in 2022 compared to the year before, according to data released on Thursday. While that seems like a red flag for the country’s aim of cutting 2005 emissions in half by the end of this decade, the larger picture is greener. Emissions are down more than 6% since 2005, driven largely by the power sector, where the shuttering of coal plants has halved emissions. Still, oil and gas sector emissions are up more than 20% since then, driven largely by the boom in oil sands production over the past two decades.
Sweden at higher risk of terrorism after Quran burnings
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics.
What is the story about the new terrorist threat against Sweden?
Well, it is worrying. The security authorities back home have now elevated the threat level from three to four on a scale of five. And that's the consequences, of course, of the Quran burnings that have happened in both Sweden and Denmark during the past few weeks. And that had led to, understandably so, a very strong reaction, primarily in the Muslim countries. These are irresponsible acts done by isolated individuals. The authorities in both countries are seeing what legal actions could be taken, but in the meantime, a very difficult situation that needs to be handled by the Swedish and Danish authorities.
What is the European reaction to the different legal troubles of Donald Trump?
Well, I think Europeans are following this with interest, needless to say, without necessarily going into all of the legal details, which are quite complicated from a European point of view. But the main thing is, of course, that what we see is that Donald Trump, in spite of all of this, seems to be sailing towards being nominated to be the Republican nominee for the presidency. And the possibility that he will, in fact, be elected a year and a half from now or something like that. And that is a prospect that fills most Europeans, most, not necessarily all, but certainly most Europeans with, what can only be described as sheer horror.
A woman outside the damaged house of her son, who was killed the day before by shelling in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine.
Hard Numbers: Deadly shelling, drug kingpin's jail security, Lai sighting, Sweden soccer semi, twin takeover
7: Shelling in the southern Ukrainian province of Kherson Ukraine on Sunday killed seven people, including a 23-day-old baby girl. The attack followed denials by Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar that Ukrainian forces had engaged in Russian-occupied territory in the region.
4,000: The Ecuadorian government dispatched 4,000 military and police personnel to the Zonal 8 Detention Center in Guayas province, to “establish control over weapons, ammunition and explosives within the prison.” The jail is home to José Adolfo Macías Villamar, the drug trafficker who murdered presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio claimed had threatened him prior to his assassination. President Guillermo Lasso this weekend said Macías was relocated to La Roca maximum security prison in the same penitentiary complex.
23: Photos have surfaced of former Hong Kong newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, the first taken since 2021. They show Lai accompanied by two guards at the maximum security Stanley Prison in Hong Kong, where the pro-democracy activist is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours each day. Lai was sentenced to more than five years in prison for fraud in 2022, but he is awaiting trial on charges of endangering national security, which could lead to a life sentence.
4: Sweden’s women’s soccer team has advanced to the World Cup semi-final — its fourth big semi in four years. They reached the semi-finals of the 2019 World Cup, the 2020 Olympics, and Euro 2022, but they have yet to take home the crown. To make it to the finals this time, Sweden's women must beat Spain on Tuesday.
17: Must be something in the water. Primary schools in the Scottish town of Inverclyde, population 76,700, are preparing to welcome 17 sets of twins this fall. “Twinverclyde,” as the town has become known, has welcomed 147 sets of twins to its primary schools since 2013, an average of 13 sets a year.
NATO membership for Ukraine?
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Sweden will join NATO. Is Ukraine next?
Well, sure, but next doesn't mean tomorrow. Next means like at some indeterminate point, which makes President Zelensky pretty unhappy and he's made that clear, but he has massive amounts of support from NATO right now, and he needs that support to continue. So, it's not like he has a lot of leverage on joining NATO. As long as the Americans are saying it's not going to happen, that means it's not going to happen. No, the real issue is how much and how concrete the multilateral security guarantees that can be provided by NATO to Ukraine actually turn out to be. We will be watching that space.
Is Taiwan readying itself for an invasion by conducting its biggest evacuation drills in years?
I wouldn't say readying for an invasion. I would say, you know, sort of preparing for every contingency, and that means taking care of your people. I mean, the Americans weren't readying themselves for nuclear Armageddon by doing drills in classrooms and by, you know, having bomb shelters, but they had them because we were in a world where nuclear war was thinkable. Well, we're in a world where Chinese, mainland Chinese invasion of Taiwan is very unlikely, but thinkable. And of course, the Taiwanese have to think about it a lot more than you and I do.
Elon vs. Zuck. Thoughts?
Well, my thoughts are mostly about the battle of the social media platforms and the fact that of course you now have the big gorilla in the room with a Twitter competitor. And I've seen it pretty functional for the first several days. Obviously, massive numbers of people are on it, mostly because it's really easy to sign up. They're all coming over from Instagram and it's owned by the same person, by the same shareholders. Unclear to me who's going to win. If I had to bet, I would say that within 6 or 12 months, we're going to have a fragmented social media landscape politically, the way we do blogosphere or cable news, which is, I guess, good for consumer choice, but it's bad for civil society. What else is new?
Biden attends NATO Summit
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hey, everybody. Ian Bremmer here, and a happy Monday to you. A Quick Take to kick off your week.
And this week the big news is coming from NATO, the summit that will start within a day in Vilnius. Heads of state from all the key NATO countries, including of course President Biden. And the big topic will be Ukraine. Not the only one big question about Sweden, whether or not they're joining NATO or not. Erdogan can always decide to change his mind and cut a deal at the last minute. But the big news is what's going to happen with Ukraine, with continued military support for Ukraine that we still see expanding pretty much every week. And all, both in terms of the amount and also the types of armaments, and I'll get into that in a moment. And also as to where we stand on NATO membership and a pathway to that for Ukraine itself. Erdogan interestingly very strongly supporting Ukraine to get into NATO, also providing directly some Asov battalion leaders to the Ukrainians that, you know, he had told the Russians he wasn't going to do. This is a couple of indicators and there are many that the grain deal between the Ukrainians, the West and the Russians is not going to get extended in another week's time. Erdogan was critical to that deal. That relationship with Russia is getting more brittle by the day. At the same time, Ukraine is not about to get an immediate pathway into NATO, and Biden made that clear with my friend Fareed Zakaria. Over the weekend, Biden's perspective is, "Hey, we're fighting a war in Ukraine by proxy. We're giving all of the equipment, all the weapons, but we don't want the Americans directly fighting on the ground."
Don't want, a no fly zone with, you know, American fighter pilots defending Ukraine directly. That would both risk a direct war with the Russians, essentially, World War III is what we're talking about. And it's also just unacceptable. The Americans and other NATO allies don't want their own troops directly in harm's way. They're happy to fight a proxy war. They're not happy to fight directly. And that is not a unified position, by the way, the Polish government, the Balts, the Fins now a part of NATO increasingly willing to say, "Yes, we should be giving Ukraine membership now. And that doesn't mean we have to deploy Article 5, everybody knows we're not going to be fighting directly, but they need that security umbrella going forward. It's the only way that we can guarantee that the Russians won't invade again."
And by the way, Macron, who in the early days, the French president, of the war thought that was entirely too provocative, has flipped his view. And now in terms of NATO is aligned with the Poles and the Balts, which is very interesting, while the Americans, I think, are still closer to the German position. Be that as it may, there's an enormous amount of support that the West is providing to Ukraine militarily, the US is leading it. And I think what we are moving towards are multilateral guarantees. In other words that NATO collectively would be prepared to provide commitments to Ukraine, that going forward, they will continue to ensure that Ukrainian troops are trained, are equipped. Intelligence is provided. In other words that there are treaty obligations to Ukraine to help them defend themselves very effectively. That prevents the Russians from believing they get another bite of that apple, that they can wait NATO out, and that eventually Russia will be able to accomplish militarily what they've not been able to accomplish in the first 500 plus days of this war.
The other big thing that's being debated are the cluster munitions that are now going to be provided by the United States. They are not a signatory, of the ban of cluster munitions. And these things are banned because they are so brutally dangerous to civilians. A lot of those bomb pieces that are then on the ground and can sit around for a long time until, you know, civilian inadvertently months, years later walks, trips over it, it acts like a landmine, a kid curious picks it up, maims or kills the kid. I mean, anyone that has seen these cluster munitions in operation, and I know a lot of people that have been involved in NGOs that have tried to help clean them up in places in war zones they've been used, understands just how brutally dehumanizing these weapons are.
So, no, you absolutely don't want them in the fight. Having said that, the Russians aren't signatories. The Ukrainians aren't signatories, and the Russians have been using these weapons all the way through the war. So it's not with the fact that the Kremlin has come out and they said, how dare the Americans provide cluster munitions is just yet another point of massive hypocrisy of the war crimes that the Russians have committed. Now, I understand why Biden is doing this. The Americans are very very low on ammunition all in and want to give the Ukrainians everything they can to help ensure that the counteroffensive is successful. So far, the last couple months, very little land, Ukrainian land has been retaken by the Ukrainians, even as they have initiated this counteroffensive. Part of that reason, not all of it, part of that reason is because they lack ammunition. Part of it is they don't have any air defenses that are effective, any air cover in the region. And so as the Ukrainians take more land, they'll have a hard time defending those soldiers that'll be exposed. But be that as it may, you know, there is a question that the Ukrainians are not in the same position as NATO, you know, the Biden administration is saying, "we're going to defend Ukrainians as long as it takes that the Ukrainians are in charge of these negotiations." It makes one think that the Ukrainians are basically an American core national interest. The reality is that NATO is a core American national interest. The United States is a core national interest and long-term fighting and long-term security, long-term American ability to ensure that its values are promoted globally does mean that you don't want to be dragging yourself down to the same brutal fighting that the Russians are doing.
This has gotten the Americans in trouble in Iraq, in Afghanistan. Gotten Americans in trouble in Guantanamo, in Abu Ghraib. And so if I were Biden, would I approve these weapon systems for the Ukrainians? It would be very hard after many months of, you know, sort of thinking about it, maybe I would, but maybe that's why I'm not Biden. I mean, look, I'm never going to be elected president, but also is, I never would be interested in serving in a position like that, in part because the Americans do not have the same level of moral authority on the global stage that say, Canada does or Germany does, or Japan does. And you know, let's keep in mind, Japan and Germany, we're talking about countries that were involved in fighting World War II and actually being the initiators of World War II with massive brutality, but also systems that recognized that what they did was fundamentally inhumane and brutal and needed to be never repeated. And therefore the institutions had to grow and learn and become more morally accountable to their own people and globally. And I fear that the United States does not have that level of lesson taking from so many of its mistakes over the past several generations, you know, from Vietnam and from some of the others that I've just mentioned. And in that regard, even as it makes it harder for the Ukrainians to take additional territory in the counteroffensive, I would be a "no", on these cluster munitions. But I think it's a good place to debate and I'm more than happy to have that debate publicly over the coming weeks and months.
That's it for me. I hope everyone's doing well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Putin's Europe Problem
We're proud to announce that GZERO has won the Silver Telly Award for general political commentary for this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer (which was originally published online March 21, 2022.)
The West is already at war with Russia.
NATO boots may not be on the ground, but the US and its allies are helping Ukraine with arms and cash, and by upping the pressure on Moscow with tough sanctions. Vladimir Putin knows this, but he's fighting a 20th-century war in 2022 — and losing on global PR and social media.
Meanwhile, the ripple effects of the conflict are spreading well beyond Ukraine's borders. And one country watching very closely is Finland.
On this episode of GZERO World, Ian Bremmer talks to former Finnish PM Alexander Stubb, who explains why his country has gone from longtime neutral actor to NATO hopeful.
Stubb — who once helped broker Russia's 2008 cease-fire with Georgia — believes Putin has backed himself into a corner and won't back down on Ukraine. He also thinks we shouldn't overestimate China's appetite to deal with an increasingly isolated Russia: at the end of the day Beijing doesn't want to be Moscow's mule.
Bonus: a tale of two train stations in Berlin and Kyiv.
- Will Putin invade Ukraine? - GZERO Media ›
- Putin, Ukraine, and the Rat Story - GZERO Media ›
- Is Putin still Soviet? Wrong question - GZERO Media ›
- China is wary of supporting Russia: Finland's former PM Alexander ... ›
- Podcast: Why Putin will fail: former Finnish PM Alexander Stubb ... ›
- Russia-Ukraine war: How we got here - GZERO Media ›
- Russia-NATO confrontation is coming: Putin will escalate - GZERO Media ›
- Putin punishes Ukraine to avoid looking weak - GZERO Media ›
- Podcast: Examining Putin: his logic, mistakes, and hope for Ukraine - GZERO Media ›
- Putin has "mummified" Russia: Ivan Krastev On the Putin Effect - GZERO Media ›
- Putin couldn't declare victory in Ukraine - so he changed the "war" objectives - GZERO Media ›
- Putin’s war crimes solidify West’s military support for Ukraine - GZERO Media ›
- Putin's tragic genius: war crimes & isolated Russia - GZERO Media ›
- Podcast: Davos, meet humility: grappling with Russia & egregious violations of international law - GZERO Media ›
- The Autocrat's Curse - GZERO Media ›
Expect another Erdogan presidency for Turkey
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Stockholm, Sweden.
How was the outcome of the Turkish election?
Well, we haven't seen the end of it, but the first round, which was not decisive concerning the presidency. Erdogan just short of 50%, but his coalition did capture the majority in parliament and that will be decisive advantage when it goes to the second round for the presidency on May 28th. Erdogan managed to mobilize the nationalists more conservative, more sort of proud Turkish, somewhat more rural Turks against the more modern, Western, younger. We'll see. But in all likelihood, May 28th for Erdogan.
How are preparations shaping up for the NATO Summit in Vilnius in mid-July?
Well, first there's the question, of course, with whether Turkey and Hungary will by then have ratified the Swedish succession as well in addition to Finland. We'll see. But then is the rather controversial question of Ukraine's application for membership. One doesn't want to avoid the trauma, the failure of the Bucharest Summit of 2008, so I guess there will be afford some sort of compromise, with just short membership, not quite membership, and hopefully concentrate on the concrete need and aid and assistance that Ukraine is needing right now on the battlefield and financial for its rather depleted state coffers.
- Why is Erdogan still popular? ›
- War in Ukraine heading to "violent" new phase, warns NATO's Mircea Geoană ›
- António Guterres: Ukraine war united NATO, but further divided the world ›
- Should NATO embrace Ukraine? ›
- Hard Numbers: Iranian atheists hanged, Lithuania’s costly NATO summit, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, Russian drones over Kyiv, lollipops and wine in the Aussie bush ›
Erdogan likely to win Turkish election
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here, and a Quick Take to kick off your week. Beautiful Monday morning in New York. And elections, important elections in Turkey. We've been talking about them for a while, and the first round, results are now in. Erdogan not quite at 50%, but really close. You're going to have a second round, but it's almost certain now that he is going to win. Turnout's very high, almost 90%. That seems unheard of, inconceivable for Americans or Europeans, but actually normal turnout in Turkish elections are about 85%, higher this time around because a lot was at stake. You had consolidation around a single major opposition candidate and a lot of people unhappy with the economy, but a lot of nationalism at play too.
Also, keep in mind that Erdogan has a lot of structural advantages using the judiciary to go after and even disqualify some of the candidates that he didn't like, control of the media, almost all of which is either directly state-owned or state-aligned, and some level of influence over social media. You may have seen Twitter taking some lumps over the last few days because they were demanded to remove some pro-opposition content just literally 24 hours before the first round elections. Twitter complied. And that also, of course, has an impact at the margins. But what we're going to see here is consistency, is a leader who now has been working hard to undermine the Democratic checks and balances on his rule, some significant and credible claims of corruption, and also the ability to play a balancing role geopolitically between the United States and Europe and Russia. And that's despite the fact that Turkey is a NATO member. Geopolitically, Turkey's role has been increasing as we see more fragmentation more broadly in the region.
They have managed to improve and rebuild their relations with core Gulf states, for example, they've managed to stabilize their relationship with Syria to a degree, especially a place they've had a lot of fighting on the ground, and they've also played one of the few diplomatic roles of moderation between Russia and Ukraine. Now, one of the big stories that we've seen from Turkey internationally over the past months was their willingness to veto potentially a Swedish accession into NATO. Now that this election is going to be over in two weeks, and again, I think at this point, Erdogan is basically a layup, even a slam dunk, at that point, I think that Sweden, their objections will be removed, you will have that additional accession into NATO.
But they expect in return not only some support from Sweden in terms of the way that would-be Kurdish nationalists are treated on the ground inside that country, but also they expect a reduction of sanctions from the United States, which would also allow the Turks to purchase advanced fighter jets that they want, that are aligned and interoperable with other existing systems they have as a NATO ally, but that Washington has been unwilling to provide. I expect all that's going to happen. So Erdogan is not going to become a closer friend to the West, he will continue to be the most obstreperous of NATO allies, continue to look to use geopolitics in his favor, continue to undermine Turkish democracy, erode its institutions, month after month, year after year. And as well, the Turkish economy is in a hell of a lot of trouble. But the fact is that he was still able to pick up that election.
And final point I'd make here is that we didn't see significant shenanigans in the actual vote count itself. In the early measures, early hours of the day, the opposition was coming out with results that very much favored them, and they did that despite the fact that they hadn't been confirmed yet. While the government was contesting outcomes and they waited until those outcomes were confirmed, the interesting point here is that as we saw the final results from district to district, both opposition, as well as government, basically aligned on the same outcome. And Erdogan did say that he would accept the outcome no matter what. Frankly, that's more than Trump would do in his CNN Town Hall last week. So at the end of the day, there are structural challenges with making it an unfair election, but you would say that the election was free, and that's more than a lot of people might have presumed even a few weeks ago.