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 6, 2021 On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET:
First, Fareed gives his take on Israel's new governing coalition and the state of liberal politics worldwide, as center-left parties seek an answer to authoritarian, right-wing populism.
Israel's disparate new coalition may not agree on much, Fareed says, but it may indeed hold together, as its members were united "by more than just a personal dislike" of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "They appear to have been genuinely concerned about his alleged abuses of power and the degradation of Israeli democracy under his watch." In the US, President Joe Biden seems to have found a winning strategy against America's enduring Trumpism: avoiding culture wars and plodding ahead with his agenda.
But despite these successes for liberals, Fareed warns that the populist right remains a force in global politics. "The left is basking in its recent victories, from America to Israel," Fareed says. "But if they don't learn the correct lessons and overplay their hand, that success could prove very temporary."
Next, Fareed takes a geopolitical tour with former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who discusses Russia, China, the G7 meeting being hosted by the UK next week, and the great difference between how the world's governments collectively responded to financial crisis and how they are responding to the pandemic.
As Israel's Netanyahu era seems to be coming to an end (for now), Fareed asks Israeli journalists Anshel Pfeffer and Lucy Aharish what comes next for Israel, for Palestinians, for the region and the world.
After that: Summer has unofficially begun, and that means hamburgers, hot dogs, and barbecue. New York Times columnist Ezra Klein tells Fareed that we should think twice before eating meat—for both ourselves and for the planet—and explains the meatless-meat "moonshot" he has advocated.
Finally, Fareed examines a burgeoning spat between Spain and Morocco, neighbors across the Strait of Gilbratar. What in the world is going on?
For Some Countries, the End Is in Sight In wealthy countries, especially, Covid-19 vaccination has proceeded at an impressive pace: In Israel, some 58% of the country is fully vaccinated, while in the US that number topped 40% this week. The UK lags roughly a percentage point behind. Chile narrowly leads both the US and UK.
At Foreign Affairs, Rajiv J. Shah writes that the pandemic is entering a phase of vaccine haves and have-nots, as many developing countries are left behind in the inoculation rush. At The Guardian, meanwhile, University of Edinburgh global public-health chair Devi Sridhar writes that for countries with high vaccination rates, even if Covid-19 becomes endemic and remains, measles-like, in muted or sporadic form, the crisis chapter of the pandemic may soon be over.
"Covid-19 won't end with a bang or a parade," Sridhar writes. "Throughout history, pandemics have ended when the disease ceases to dominate daily life and retreats into the background like other health challenges. Barring a horrific new variant, rich countries such as Britain and the US may be within months, if not weeks, of what their citizens will see as the end of the pandemic." Mexico's Deadly Campaign Season Mexicans will vote today in elections for national-legislative seats, local offices, and nearly half of the country's governorships. The vote figures to be a pivotal one for controversial, left-leaning populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who could cement his agenda or be rebuked heading into the final years of his presidency. (AMLO, as he is known, will encounter a term limit in 2024.)
But the campaign season has had a dark and disturbing side, as CNN's Natalie Gallón and Matt Rivers report on a spate of candidate murders: "At least 88 politicians or candidates for office have been killed since last September, according to Mexican consulting firm Etellekt Consultores." David Agren reported for The Guardian on Monday that "[t]he attacks have been brazen. Earlier in May, a former state prosecutor was gunned down on a street while campaigning for mayor in northern Sonora. On Tuesday, Alma Barragán was killed while holding a rally in the conflict-riven state of Guanajuato." Is Israel's Consensus Shifting? Commentators are still mulling the political ramifications of Israel's latest air war with Hamas and the intercommunal mob violence that spread through the country's "mixed" cities. At The New York Review of Books, David Shulman writes that the cause of Palestinian statehood is seeing a revival—and that Israeli attitudes seem to be changing.
Shulman cites emerging "fissures in what is usually called the Israeli consensus. The great majority of Israelis still profess strongly right-wing opinions … But we are now hearing more skeptical voices … Telling evidence of public dissent is the lucid essay published in Haaretz by Menachem Mautner, a professor of law at Tel Aviv University, on May 20," arguing (as Shulman describes it) that "Israeli parents should consider trying to keep their sons and daughters out of combat units in the army, lest they be killed for no intelligible purpose in another avoidable war." Shulman notes the unity displayed by some Israelis and Palestinians who protested for peace during the recent fighting, writing that he chooses to take that display as an "emblem" of this recent round of turmoil. Tesla is now the most valuable car company in the world, worth some $600 billion, The Economist notes—and a panoply of companies would like to follow its success, as the electric-auto market has seen a flowering of smaller, upstart producers reminiscent of the American car-manufacturing boom of the early 20th century. With Tesla having cornered the upscale segment, there could be room for entrants with other bents, such as those focused on light trucks, the magazine suggests, as entrepreneurs seek new sweet spots.
One of the new-ish companies, Arrival (founded in 2015 and based in the UK and US) "and several of the American firms have used mergers with special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, as a shortcut to public markets—and to valuations in the billions," the magazine writes. "Patrick von Herz of Lincoln International, an investment bank, calls it a 'global feeding frenzy.'" He Xiaopeng, the cofounder, chairman, and CEO of the Chinese electric-car maker Xpeng (also founded in 2015) "has said he expects the market to swell to 300 or so firms before settling at around ten." |
