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Hello and welcome back to the Daily Review. |
Scroll down for what we’re covering at WPR today, and a few other developments that we’re keeping an eye on. |
A quick programming note: Starting next week, we’ll be making some changes to the Daily Review. Judah Grunstein, WPR’s editor-at-large, will take over as the main author, and other members of our staff will also come onboard to help out in the near future. I’ll still jump back into the mix from time to time, but for now I’m excited to pass the baton to Judah. |
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The Strait of Hormuz has long been treated primarily as an energy chokepoint, with oil markets historically dominating the headlines whenever tensions escalated across the Gulf region in the past. Yet the most consequential effects of the current disruption of maritime traffic through the strait have been felt far beyond the price of crude oil, due to the fertilizer flows on which tightly synchronized planting cycles in agricultural systems across South Asia and parts of Africa depend. In many ways, the worst of those impacts has yet to be felt, Luca Mattei writes. |
 | The Coming Food Security Shock | Disruptions to global fertilizer supply due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are rippling through commodity markets, with the worst impacts yet to come. |
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that Washington has backed away from mediating negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv to end the war in Ukraine. In doing so, he acknowledged the failure of a diplomatic initiative that was once a priority for President Donald Trump but had long since been on life support. While it is too soon to know how this will impact prospects for ending the war, there is another lesson that can be drawn from the year-long saga of U.S. efforts to broker a peace deal in Ukraine: the dangers of working with amateurs, Paul Poast writes. |
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Europe, Russia: Authorities in Romania, a member of NATO, said that two people were wounded after a Russian drone struck a residential building in the port city of Galati. Drone incursions into NATO territory have become increasingly common as the war in Ukraine spills over into other parts of Europe, but this was the first time that a Russian drone had caused damage and injuries in a major urban area within the territory of the trans-Atlantic alliance. |
As WPR’s Ulrike Franke wrote earlier this month, the inability of European nations to intercept drones flying into their airspace remains a big problem. “Almost a year after proclamations of a ‘European drone wall’ and various efforts by Eastern flank countries, Europe’s eastern border remains porous and vulnerable to aerial threats,” she wrote. |
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Hungary: The European Union will unlock 16 billion euros in funding for Hungary after newly elected Prime Minister Peter Magyar enacted rapid reforms in areas like judicial independence, media freedom and anti-corruption. The decision was announced Friday by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who had been in negotiations with Magyar over releasing the funds, which are desperately needed to prop up Hungary’s struggling economy. |
The speedy reforms were made possible by Magyar’s landslide victory in the April 12 elections that ended the 16-year rule of Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party. Unlike his counterpart in Poland, Donald Tusk, whose efforts at democratic reforms have been hamstrung by opposition presidents, Magyar’s parliamentary supermajority has given him “the legal tools to act and the political logic to act fast, before Fidesz recovers its footing and institutional resistance calcifies,” Amanda Coakley wrote in WPR May 6. |
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Colombia: Colombians will go to the polls Sunday to elect a new president. There are 14 candidates on the ballot, with three leading contenders: Ivan Cepeda, the preferred successor of leftist incumbent Gustavo Petro; Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer running as an outsider with a far-right agenda; and Paloma Valencia, a senator from the conservative Democratic Center party. |
Both de la Espriella and Valencia have promised to suspend peace talks with rebel groups and return to a strategy of military confrontation. The election is being widely viewed as a referendum on Petro’s “Total Peace” agenda of negotiations with armed guerilla groups. If no candidate gets at least 50 percent of the vote, which currently looks likely, there will be a runoff next month. |
As Oliver Lawson wrote in WPR on Wednesday, the election “will be an opportunity for Colombians to weigh in on whether to continue down the path of negotiation with armed groups or, in the words of populist candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, ‘declare all-out war, without truce or negotiation, against narcoterrorism.’” |
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Thailand: The popular head of a progressive political group was acquitted Thursday on charges of defaming the king and violating the law on online activity. Thanathorn was the co-founder of Future Forward, a progressive political party that has changed its name several times due to legal actions against it. The party’s current incarnation, the People’s Party, underperformed in a general election in February. For more on the challenges facing Thai progressives going forward, read this WPR report by Chiang Mai-based reporter Andrew Nachemson. |
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Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.