Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Subscribe here. June 29, 2021 As the Delta variant spreads, parts of the world are returning to lockdown, while others open up.
As the US and UK proceed into post-pandemic life, Malaysia and Australia are implementing restrictions amid Covid-19 spikes, The New York Times reports. South Africa has banned gatherings and alcohol sales, and The Economist writes that the continent could suffer its worst wave yet, according to WHO Regional Director for Africa Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, due in part to short vaccine supplies and their uneven global distribution. "[J]ust over 1% of Africans have been fully vaccinated, most of them north of the Sahara," the magazine notes. "Of the nearly 3bn [Covid-19 vaccine] doses administered globally, less than 2% are in Africa."
As for the qualities of Delta itself, research has shown it to be significantly more transmissible than even the Alpha variant, first discovered in the UK and known for its enhanced transmissibility, but scientists aren't so sure Delta is any more dangerous to those who contract it, Katherine J. Wu writes for The Atlantic.
At the London Review of Books, Rupert Beale offers a pessimistic view of the future of variants, positing that Covid-19 could indeed morph into a form that's both notably more transmissible and more deadly. Delta may be it, Beale writes, predicting a destructive progression through the Greek alphabet. 'The Emerging Biden Doctrine' Does US President Joe Biden have a foreign-policy doctrine? Hal Brands writes for Foreign Affairs that one is emerging, as Biden embraces international competition, viewing it "as part of 'a fundamental debate' between those who believe that 'autocracy is the best way forward' and those who believe that 'democracy will and must prevail.'" Brands paints Biden as a liberal-democratic ideologue while noting echoes of former President Donald Trump's "America First" mantra in parts of Biden's economic approach. Iran's Society Has Liberalized. Will the Regime Do the Same? The election of President-elect Ebrahim Raisi has unleashed predictions that more conservative policies will emanate from Tehran, but in a Financial Times essay, Andrew England and Najmeh Bozorgmehr depict a society broadly at odds with the regime.
"A young couple hold hands as they take a night-time stroll along a Tehran street in a public display of affection, passing a polling station they had no intention of entering on election day," England and Bozorgmehr write. "In an upmarket restaurant, women, hijabs draped around their shoulders when they are supposed to be covering their heads, draw on cigarettes through manicured fingernails as they chat above western music. In their own ways, each represents an act of defiance against the austere Islamic system that they, and more than half of Iran's 85m population, were born into."
Turnout in Iran's recent presidential vote was low—48.8%, the lowest since the 1979 revolution; England and Bozorgmehr cast that as a stark rebuke to the regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, citing predictions that hardliners will have to offer Iranians more personal freedom if they're to stay in power. Western Water: A Preview of Climate Strife? As the Western US confronts a historic drought and an extreme heat wave, Amanda Little writes for Bloomberg that Western and even Midwestern states may need to reconsider how they apportion water rights, as access disputes arise amid a shortage that could get worse in decades to come.
"Water is the lifeblood of any economy—without it, there can be no agriculture … no food sovereignty, no renewable hydropower and no economic growth," Little writes. "If we don't plan ahead, many American states in and beyond the West will be embroiled in resource wars." Bollywood's Dance With Censorship Bollywood films are known for their popular appeal, but the industry's "genius lies in the ability to weave serious issues—social justice, women's rights, gay rights, interreligious marriage—into entertainment," Aatish Taseer writes for The Atlantic. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that tradition has come under intense attack, Taseer writes, as filmmakers face pressure to avoid sensitive religious and social topics and as the suicide of a young actor has been used by Modi's party, the BJP, to depict Bollywood as dangerous and decadent.
While Taseer asks if Bollywood can survive Modi's reign, Karan Mahajan writes for The New York Review of Books that Indian filmmakers have taken advantage of a lack of government censorship on TV shows and films released on international streaming platforms; the result has been a flowering of edgy, realistic stories. That said, "it might be that the brief aperture of freedom offered by the streaming platforms is closing up," Mahajan writes, as censorial pressure reemerges. "The 'golden age' of Indian TV might be over just when it had started. Still, these shows—Paatal Lok, Sacred Games, Made in Heaven—will remain examples of what Indian writers and directors are capable of when they aren't contending with the single largest threat to their voices: the Indian state." |
