countries in crisis 2019

To be clear, the government does not give consumers money. Instead, populist leaders offer them scapegoats: minorities, migrants, the courts, the media, the EU itself. First, in line with its traditional emphasis on the rule of law, the EU should leverage Pakistan’s concerns about its international standing to urge the government to ensure due process in prosecuting cases against opposition leaders and thus help defuse political tensions. It appears to have backtracked.

UN backing for such initiatives could be supplemented by the AU panel in-country, building on contacts it already has with armed groups. It can also maintain its dialogues with Tehran on Yemen (there were four rounds of discussions that France, the EU, UK, Germany and Italy held with Iran in 2018) while exploring wider avenues of engagement on both regional and domestic issues.

The contradiction between the U.S.’s formal policy emphasis on its great power rivalry with China and its broad assertion of national security interests throughout the continent, on the one hand, and the U.S.’s actual retrenchment on its security commitments and political engagement, on the other, is producing uncertainty in many parts of Asia.

Declining morale in Burkina Faso’s armed forces, whose members are tired of watching comrades die in what seems to be a losing battle against insurgents, is a threat to watch in 2019. But they balance that against the interests of their pastoralist and trading communities or allied armed groups in border areas. Exploiting popular sentiment about blasphemy, Labaik won 2.2 million votes and emerged as the third-largest party in parliament after the PTI and PML-N. Earlier, in March 2018, it struck the army headquarters and French embassy in Ouagadougou – the third major attack in the capital over recent years.

In defining responses, the EU and its members face difficult policy choices as they seek ways to secure and stabilise the region. If there is a military rupture, these countries will have to handle a potentially chaotic collapse of the government that could, in the best-case scenario, enable a transitional administration to take power and create the conditions for elections in the short term. The attack, which violated a 2003 agreement between the two countries, marked the culmination of a months-long Russian effort to assert ownership of these shared waters, involving regular, costly detentions of Ukrainian commercial boats as well as foreign vessels corresponding with Ukrainian ports. It should also encourage political parties to reach agreement in parliament about the composition of the Constitutional Court, thus enabling its establishment.

But because of its manner: although both France and the UK sent forces to Syria’s north east at Washington’s request and suffered casualties while engaged in a common pursuit, they were informed of the decision after President Erdoğan of Turkey. It follows that, despite the disappointing pace of economic and political reforms (pension reform, reducing the public-sector payroll, improving the business climate, greater fiscal transparency, advancing negotiations about the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, creating the Constitutional Court and replacing four members of the Independent High Authority for Elections so that this body can move forward with organising the legislative and presidential elections of late 2019), the EU should continue to provide macro-economic support to prevent the situation from deteriorating even further.

On the Korean Peninsula, prospects for a deal to resolve the crisis related to the North’s nuclear program are highly uncertain despite President Trump’s summit diplomacy. The popular perception that politics has failed comes in part from the fact that, although a Rakhine political party won a large majority of elected seats in 2015, Naypyitaw imposed a minority National League for Democracy government; subsequently the top Rakhine political leader was arrested for high treason and remains on trial facing a possible death sentence.

Since June 2017, the AU, backed by African countries and the UN as well as the EU and its member states, has tried to mediate between the government and fourteen armed groups including ex-Seleka factions, anti-balaka groups and community self-defence militias, which in many cases have competing sets of interests and goals. Trump thankfully walked back from a crisis largely of his creation, and his current embrace of diplomacy is welcome. Such conversations may be crucial for eventual talks on building on the nuclear agreement, not least if the U.S. chooses to re-engage diplomatically in due course. Four years into the conflict, the Huthi movement is internally divided and fearful of making a move that would leave its forces exposed.

Tensions between Iran and Israel are of particular concern, with Israel acting more frequently to counter what it perceives as Tehran’s rising influence across the Levant. Whether the cautious momentum toward a political settlement in late 2018 will last is uncertain, but the EU – which enjoys ties to virtually all parties involved in the conflict –  could help sustain it.