International Politics Thread

[Bad Player]

Anyway, populism, extreme right and xenophobia are on rise everywhere in Europe and that's what I don't like.

It's the same here, the States. The country is turning to the extreme right, and they're most likely going to take the economy down with them.

Well, to get rid of our budget deficit, we're going to need smaller government and higher taxes. So reducing the size of the government wouldn't be bad... but hopefully they'll also do the right thing with taxes >_>

I think this is feeding into the "Americans'" xenophobia. Like the "Buy American only!" type of movements. First of all, this is a global world, a global economy. If you keep having that protectionist attitude, you're going to shoot yourself in the foot many times until you can't walk. It has NOT worked in the beginning of our country *coughjeffersoncough* What makes you think it'll work now. And that's what I think Greyson is trying to do, for i don't know what, but it doesn't seem like a legitimate reason.

I don't think he was against trade or globalization or anything, just something along the lines of "Why are we giving(/lending) money to foreign countries, when Americans need that money right now?" (Basically drawing a distinction between trading and loaning, I guess.)

[Singidava]

Funny fact about True Finns: Even though I like to call them right-wing populists they are actually not. They're left-wing populists (yay, now you Americans can insult them communists too!). Why am I calling them right-wing populists then? Because most of the conservative populist parties around the world are right-wing the name seems to have become a synonym for it. So, when I say "right-wing populist party" I actually mean "conservative party". "Conservative" in Finland means a slightly different here, since Finnish politics have always been rather left leaning at least compared to other Western countries.

And as you may know they didn't succeed at wrecking EU's plan for Portugal bailouts~! And they aren't even going to be in the next goverment because they couldn't accept the other parties' EU policies. Now, I'm not very sure how I feel about this... Here we have a saying "the best way to kill a populist party is to let them into the goverment" (or "embracing to death" like some foreign media called it during last elections). That is because if they get into the goverment people can see populists can't make a difference. It worked last time (SMP - Timo Soini's former party led by Veikko Vennamo) and that's why I wouldn't have minded if True Finns made it to the next goverment as the third biggest party because I hate them.

Anyway, lately the only topic around here seems to be ice hockey. You may wonder why we are making that big a deal over something like ice hockey world championship so I'll give you my opinion about it~


^Finnish hockey team is usually called "the Lions"

Seriously. Finns, who are usually considered quiet and reserved go crazy every time something like this happens. Let me give you a few examples:
We have a population of 5 million people. Ice hockey final had average of over 2,5 million watchers (in Finland). You can literally say that the most of Finns watched that match.
Yesterday, there was a nice little party to celebrate the victory. A party of approximately 100 000 people. And yes, Finland still has only about 5 million inhabitants AND a low population density (17,64 inhabitants per kilometer). That party had 2% of overall population of Finland attending (some travelled literally hundreds of kilometers to get there and it wasn't even a holiday) and 1,5 million people (30% of the population) watching it via television.
I know that some football hooligans like to run around naked and, of course, people did that too. Another popular method of celebrating is bathing in the fountains in the middle of Helsinki. Well, that wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact it was after midnight when temperature is around 0 C! Even I know people who did that. It's that popular.

So, why is winning in ice hockey so important? Well, when we won the championship in 1995 Finland's economy was suffering after effects of a very severe and long lasting depression (mostly caused by the fall of Soviet Union). At first, the economic growth helped only the rich while the mid-class and especially the poor were still suffering. The groups weren't really getting along and you could say it was the worst rift among the people since the Finnish Civil War (in 1919. The opposing sides managed to work together only after the Winter War in 1939 - 1940). Anyways, -95 ice hockey championship was something everyone could celebrate together. Of course, it didn't change anything but after the champioship the economy began to grow even more and Nokia got famous and pulled us out of the depression. That's why the -95 win still has a symbolic value of hope, even today.

Why people are so excited about the new win is largely because of nostalgia. Even the situtation is similar to the one 16 years ago. Yes, there is a slump (though a lot less severe than back then) and the recent elections made a new rift to appear. True Finns haven't exactly been good to Finnish national identity and this time people are fighting about politics. Oh, and did I mention Sweden was against Finland in the final back then too? There are just way too much similarities.
People here are hoping for the same miracle that happened 16 years ago.
Kinda sad.

[Bad Player]

Is that an... Edward Elric!lion? .__.

[Singidava]

xDDD
It's a lion from Finnish Coat of Arms~ You know... he is a 'special' lion~
(Picture by humon.)

[E.D.Revolution]

I'm going to make fun of how politicians here are received.

These are two Tea Party supports, obviously both Republican.

A Tale of Two Politicians

Sarah Palin, R-Alaska.
Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota.

Here's the story. So at one time, both of them were delivering a speech in Massachusetts, and part of their speech included references to Paul Revere, who signaled to the colonists in Massachusetts "The British are coming!" I'm not going to bother with the facts. You can search them up on your own. :p

Sarah Palin got a lot of her facts wrong, even when she did the research. The mainstream media and Internet go on her case like a papparazzi. Late night comedians, like Jay Leno, made fun of her.

Michele Bachmann got a hell of a lot of her facts wrong in her speech. Some of the media went after her for her "mistake." Guess what else? She got OWNED by a 12 year old girl!

I wonder who you'd rather be when you make the SAME mistake in the SAME place... *strokes beard, Gen style*

[Reyson]

They need to get their facts right.

[WhiteZekrom]

Anyone here know of Puerto Rico and the political problems it has?

[E.D.Revolution]

^Ask Ryu Ushiromiya, who has yet to return to the forums (but has returned to AAO xat).

[Singidava]

You were sadly mistaken if you thought I wouldn't bring this up. Neighbouring country is a neighbouring country, after all.

So! In the unlikely case you haven't already heard about this I'll tell you. A bomb went off yesterday in central Oslo (which is the capital of Norway) near the prime minister's offices. Soon after, a man in a police uniform started shooting on the island of Utøya where a Labour Party summer camp for youths (for 14-19 years olds) was taking place.

7 people from the bomb and 85 people from the shooting are confirmed to be dead. Some are still missing.

Terrorism? Yes. However, this has absolutely nothing to do with Muslims or Al Queda as the suspect is Christian (and extreme one at that I might add). Well, maybe that's not completely appropriate as the suspect admittedly hates Muslims, immigrants and multiculturalism. Yes, he is extreme right wing and nationalist too.

On more personal level... Obviously, my parents freaked out as this happened in neighbouring country and a fellow Nordic (thank you for full points in Eurovision btw). Though, of course, this is the hardest for the youth as the most of the victims were still in their teens.

Tomorrow the flags are going to be half-mast here.

Hmm... I wonder how this is going to affect True Finns' popularity here~ *cough* No, really, what did I say about rise of the extreme right wing in Europe..? I remember you once asked why nationalism has such a bad ring in Europe. Simple. We just always think incidents like this when that topic comes up.

[Holhol]

That's really made me sad, Singi. Too much depressing news today.

Isn't it sad that most wars are started over religion? Does it even matter who people worship, or if they chose to worship or not?

[deHughes]

85 in the shooting?! I heard like, 11 on the news yesterday when this was covered... shit. Not to mention the were talking about Al Queda; but hey, they reported based on what they had at the time I guess. I hope that bit is cleared up in the news now. Devestating news none the less.

[SwagmaWampyr]

This news is shocking, eye-opening, and tragic all at once.

[Tap]

Around two hours ago, the High Court of Australia (the last avenue for appeal on any government legislations, or country-country deals) extended the temporary injunction that was filed against the Australia-Malaysia refugee deal swap that was signed last month. This is fantastic news for refugee and asylum seeker supporters, which includes myself. I don't know if it's been covered in any international news lately other than in the UK (there are several articles from Reuters and the BBC floating around at the moment), so if you're wondering what I'm talking about, well...

Australia has been receiving many asylum seekers (or 'boat people' as they're referred to sometimes, but the term is derogatory) for many years now. There is a mandatory detention policy that has been active since 1992. Anyone who enters the country illegally without a visa, whether as an asylum seeker or a traveller are automatically put into mandatory detention in a facility. In 2001 ~ 2007, the Government enforced a policy called the Pacific Solution which transported asylum seekers to detention camps on off-shore locations (island locations in the Pacific Ocean such as Christmas Island & the tiny island nation Nauru) rather than allowing them to land on the Australian mainland. This policy was abandoned when the opposition, the Labor Government, won the election in 2007. With the abandonment, this led to the issue of how the Government was going to solve the problem, which led to a new proposal.

If some of you were following international news last year in June, 2010, then you might remember that the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, succeeded the former PM, Kevin Rudd (now the Minister for Foreign Affairs) after he stepped down when Gillard announced she would contest his leadership in a caucus ballot. The first issue she addressed was the unauthorised arrival of asylum seekers, and suggested that they would build a regional processing centre in East Timor. However, the East Timor parliament rejected it at first, and then said "no" again towards it after the 2010 election. We then jump to May, 2011 when the PM announced that Australia and Malaysia were finalising a bilateral agreement to exchange asylum seekers (which included unaccompanied minors!). How it works is that Malaysia would accept 800 asylum seekers who arrive by boat, while Australia would agree to take in 4000 people who have been already assessed as refugees. It was signed last month despite the controversy, as well as the fact it failed to pass through parliament twice. The UN has raised humanitarian concerns about the 'deal', which have been echoed by refugee advocates. Malaysia has never signed, and shows no intention of signing the Refugee Convention amongst other conventions. The reason for the concerns also comes from the known Malaysian treatment of asylum seekers and refugees which includes, but is not limited to whipping, inadequate living conditions and even deportation to other countries. You can see why the UN and refugee advocate groups have strongly opposed this plan...

Despite all of this evidence, the Government signed it and today at 11:30 AM, the first 16 asylum seekers were due to be sent to Kuala Lumpur, however a refugee advocate lawyer was successful in filing for a temporary injunction late last night. The High Court of Australia delayed the deportation by five hours. The High Court in Canberra heard the case today, and extended the injunction until August 22 when the full bench of the court will hear the case and decide whether Malaysia has sufficient human rights protection for asylum seekers who are deported there. This is fantastic news since I, along with the majority of the Australian population disagree with the deal. The Gillard Government is now under much more fire than it was before, especially Immigration Minister Chris Bowen who is considered to be the legal guarding of any AS who are minors. He gave approval to allowing unaccompanied minors to be deported to Malaysia under this deal, which is atrocious...

[Singidava]

For the past two hours I've been reading how Finland gets brutally bashed (exgerration, of course~) by Austrian and Dutch media. I didn't read any Slovenian articles though since, well, obviously I can't read any Slovenian.

Anyway! So this is about the EU debt crisis again~ Finland made a bilateral agreement with Greece about the collaterals for the loans. However! Some other countries, specifically Austria, Netherlands, and Slovenia, want collaterals too if Finland gets them! But! Greece has said they're not making the deals with anyone else. Thus envy.

The deal itself is... well, rather selfish. Many newspapers have quite rightfully made fun of it saying that Finland gives as much it can take in return. Basically it involves Greece ginving money for Finland to invest and it only gets it back (with the possible revenue) if it's able to pay Finland back the bailouts. Yup, it doesn't make much sense, does it? However, the Finnish goverment feels forced to get at least some kind of collateral...

People seem to fear that if they let Merkel and Sarkozy do as they wish EU is going more and more towards becoming a commonwealth country rather than just staying as a union. And this is, of course, a big no-no for Finland (especially with True Finns around who'd want to have as little to do with EU as possible. The funny thing is that they're all for Nordic cooperation because, you know, Scandinavians and Icelanders are not foreigners, apparently.) and thus politicians here wanted an alternative resulting an independent deal with Greece.

You see during the last elections True Finns became really popular. Generally, there has been three equally big parties in Finland but True Finns just managed to squeeze in becoming the third biggest party. Anyway, with that EU criticism became considerably more severe. Here there has never really been any feeling of cohesion with EU anyways. People think that it's "somewhere far South from here" instead of thinking themselves as a part of it. Now the current Financial Minister is from Social Democrats which is one of the old big three. However, all three lost a considerable number of voters to True Finns and are feeling pressured by them. Thus the Social Democrats became more EU critical and promised in the last elections that they'd insist on getting a collateral. Now they're just trying to keep that promise, because if they won't, as the second biggest party, they're going down next.

In short all this fuss about collaterals is the result of Finnish national politics. That's why the current goverment is going to get them as if their life depended on it.

Anyway, the other EU countries need to give a permission for Finland to have this deal with Greece. We'll see if it even goes through... Especially Austria has been really against it.

Really, the current political climate here is quite horrible. You can really feel the pessimism in the air. Here is a couple of comments from a Finnish news site:

This is good. If Austria shoots down Finland's collateral-nonsense Finland's goverment is not going to give any bailouts. Then either bailouts or the goverment of Finland is going to collapse.
If this doesn't happen we're going to see the European Championships in U-turns again.

You get the collateral by taking money as much as you give. What's with EU, but let's do it as Jutta [the minister of finance] says, maybe that's good for the union. At least it's going to fall if nothing better.

[Tap]

snip - Refugees

I'm a bit late about posting it, but I don't know whether or not it's been reported in international news, but two days ago at around 2:30 PM (Wednesday), the High Court ruled that the Malaysia Solution was a violation of humanitarian and asylum seeker rights, and that the Minister of Immigration does not have the power to declare another country safe for offshore processing when they are not parties to the UN Refugee Convention amongst other treaties. This is fantastic news!