Choosing a Direction
NEED TO KNOW
Choosing a Direction
ROMANIA
Romanian voters are set to elect a new parliament and president over the next few weeks in races that could make a big impact on the Western alliance against Russian influence in Europe.
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, a leftist, is expected to win more than 25 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections on Nov. 24. His rival, populist right-wing leader George Simion of the Alliance for Uniting Romanians is forecast to garner about 20 percent of voters. They will likely face off in a runoff on Dec. 8, reported Reuters.
Simion, a former football hooligan, was heartened by former US President Donald Trump’s success in the recent American elections, saying Trump’s “victory for patriots over globalists” demonstrated the appeal of “America First” approaches and the failure of “neo-Marxist” ideologies, reported Romanian-Insider. “I expect all this neo-Marxist, woke, transhumanist ideology to stop there and be left alone,” Simion wrote on Facebook.
Meanwhile, he likes to portray himself as a patriot in the vein of the 15th-century prince, Vlad the Impaler (Dracula), and wants to “make Romania great again,” the Financial Times wrote.
Ciolacu, meanwhile, was meeting British Premier Sir Kier Starmer in London to burnish his image as a respected member of the European establishment with the signing of a new defense agreement between the two countries.
A former Soviet vassal that was nevertheless relatively independent of Moscow compared with other East European countries, Romania today is an important member of the European Union and NATO that borders Ukraine.
Like neighboring Moldova, where the BBC detailed how voters recently elected a pro-European Union candidate in a competitive election against a pro-Russian rival, Ciolacu and Simion have become locked in a debate about their country’s future relations with Russia. Ciolacu represents the pro-Western camp while Simion allegedly favors protecting Russia’s interests.
As Euractiv explained, Simion was banned from Moldova for five years due to his alleged ties to Russia and his proposal to unify Romania and Moldova, a former Soviet republic where most people speak Romanian. Russia now keeps troops in Moldova to protect ethnic-Russian breakaway regions there.
Accordingly, Russia has been seeking to meddle in the Romanian election through proxy organizations, influence peddling operations, bribery, and digital propaganda campaigns that deploy bots to spread misinformation and/or support for Simion, wrote Ukrainian Pravda. It used the same tactics in Moldova’s elections last month but failed to sway voters.
Simion might gain from a ruling by the country’s top court that pro-Russia leader Diana Șoșoacă’ of the S.O.S. România political party – an offshoot of Simion’s Alliance for Uniting Romanians – was ineligible to run for president due to inconsistencies in her campaign papers and doubts that she would uphold the constitution.
Regardless, Ciolacu appears ahead, according to the Robert Schuman Foundation.
As a result, Romania might follow Moldova – this time – but that’s not a certainty, wrote Politico.
“The electoral outcome may keep Romania on its mostly pro-European, centrist path,” the news outlet wrote. “Or (it may) tip it toward more nativist policies that would sound alarm bells in Brussels because of the country’s strategic proximity to Ukraine and its role as a key southeast European economy.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Growing Teeth
ISRAEL/ WEST BANK & GAZA STRIP
The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war in the Gaza Strip, Axios reported.
The warrants mark the first time the United Nations court has issued warrants against the leader of a democratic country and a close ally of the United States, a move that could further isolate Israel internationally and intensify calls for an end to the conflict.
The ICC judges announced there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medical supplies,” from October 2023 to May 2024. They alleged that these restrictions disrupted the delivery of aid, caused widespread malnutrition, and forced doctors to perform surgeries without anesthetics.
Netanyahu and Gallant were also accused of failing to prevent attacks that targeted civilians.
Netanyahu’s office rejected the accusations as “false and absurd,” calling the ICC a “biased and discriminatory political body.” It accused ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan – who is currently under investigation on an allegation of sexual harassment – of trying to deflect attention with the warrants.
The international tribunal also issued an arrest warrant for Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, accusing him of crimes that included murder, torture, and rape during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 assault on Israel. That attack killed around 1,200 people and saw more than 250 others taken hostage.
Deif, whom Israel claims to have killed in a July airstrike, is accused of overseeing crimes against humanity, including extermination, sexual violence, and outrages upon personal dignity.
Hamas welcomed the decision as “a step toward justice,” but made no mention of Deif’s arrest warrant. The armed group has not confirmed whether the elusive commander is dead, CBS News noted.
Observers said the warrants mean that Netanyahu and Gallant risk arrest while traveling to any of the 124 countries that are party to the Rome Statute which established the ICC.
The Netherlands has indicated it is prepared to enforce the warrants, while US officials condemned the court’s actions.
Analysts suggested the ICC warrants could further isolate Israel diplomatically and further complicate relations with Western allies. They could also intensify domestic criticism of Netanyahu, who is accused of prioritizing political survival over humanitarian and security concerns.
Some Israelis are also furious that he has not done more to secure the release of the hostages.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Netanyahu offered $5 million and safe passage to anyone returning a hostage, a move that drew backlash from victims’ families, CNN added.
The Cutters
MEXICO
Mexican lawmakers approved a constitutional reform this week to eliminate a number of autonomous regulatory bodies, a move that supporters say will save public funds but one that critics warn could undermine transparency, democracy, and compliance with international trade agreements, Reuters reported.
The lower house of Congress – dominated by the ruling Morena party – passed the reform bill with 347-128, with no abstentions, after hours of heated debate.
Specific amendments were debated and approved in a final vote Thursday with the bill now to advance to the Senate, where Morena needs just one more vote to reach the two-thirds majority required for passage.
The proposal will see the abolition of seven oversight organizations, including the antitrust regulator, the telecom watchdog, the energy regulator, and the transparency institute.
The roles of these organizations are to be transferred to government ministries, the electoral authority and other state offices.
The reforms were pushed by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and backed by his successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Officials have claimed that the changes will streamline the government and save $5 billion annually. However, critics, opposition lawmakers and analysts warned that the proposed reforms jeopardize institutional independence and consolidate power with the executive.
The decision has also raised concerns about potential violations of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which requires an independent telecom regulator.
While Sheinbaum has promised to maintain “technical independence” for certain functions, analysts worry that the changes could risk Mexico’s trade relationships and credit ratings.
Opposition lawmaker Verónica Martínez García called the proposed changes “another blow by Morena to our rights and democracy,” Bloomberg wrote.
The recent reform follows a series of controversial state overhauls under Morena, including changes to the judicial and public energy sectors.
Collateral Damage
LEBANON
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) held an “extraordinary session” in Paris this week focusing on protecting world heritage sites in Lebanon following growing concern from prominent archeologists, academics and Lebanese officials about their destruction from intensifying Israeli strikes, Art Forum reported.
During the meetings, UNESCO officials said they will add 34 Lebanese cultural properties to the International List of Cultural Property under Enhanced Protection and provide funding and technical assistance to ensure the security of the sites, which have “outstanding value to humanity,” according to UNESCO.
As a result, these sites will receive “immunity against attack and use for military purposes,” according to UNESCO. Non-compliance would constitute “serious violations” of the 1954 Hague Convention on cultural heritage in conflict and could lead to prosecution.
For more than two millennia, the Roman temples and other structures at Baalbek in eastern Lebanon have stood as some of the finest examples of Roman architecture anywhere in the world, the BBC wrote.
But earlier this month, a car park just a few feet away from the UNESCO World Heritage site was hit by an Israeli air strike.
The strike, which left the Roman temples and other structures untouched but destroyed a centuries-old Ottoman building, highlighted what archaeologists say is the risk of irreparable damage to historical sites across Lebanon. That’s because the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which intensified starting in September, has moved beyond the targeting of southern Lebanon, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley, traditionally Hezbollah strongholds, to threaten Baalbek and other areas.
That has set off panic among archeologists.
“Baalbek is the major Roman site in Lebanon – you couldn’t replace it if someone bombed it,” Graham Philip, an archaeology professor at Durham University in the UK, told the BBC. “It would be a huge loss. It would be a crime.”
Another site at risk is Tyre, a major port of the Phoenician Empire around 2,500 years ago, which also hosts Roman ruins. It has been a target of airstrikes repeatedly in the past few weeks.
UNESCO hopes that this move not only enshrines the protection of the sites but also “helps send a signal to the entire international community of the urgent need to protect these sites,” reported Radio France Internationale.
DISCOVERIES
Universal Cues
While traveling, it may be necessary to communicate without the ability to speak one of the estimated 7,000 languages that exist around the world. As a result, humans often rely on context clues, hand gestures or facial expressions in the hopes that some aspects of human communication might be universal.
It turns out, some are, according to new research published this month in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
In the study, an interdisciplinary research team of linguists and bioacousticians led by Maïa Ponsonnet, Katarzyna Pisanski, and Christophe Coupé aimed to explore how certain emotions show regularities in their vocal expression across languages, hoping to shed light on the origins of human speech, according to Phys.org.
“Why did we humans start to speak, and other primates didn’t,” asked Ponsonnet. “We all produce laughter, and hundreds of species produce play-like vocalizations. Yet we are the only species that evolved spoken language. Looking at these commonalities across species can help us understand where humans diverged and how.”
To do this, the researchers analyzed vowels in interjections from 131 languages, comparing them with 500 vocalizations stemming from painful, joyful, or disgusting contexts.
The team found commonalities in speech, especially with vocalizations. Cries screams, and laughter have the same acoustic patterns for emotions such as pain, joy, and disgust across cultures. But interjections such as “Wow!” or “Ouch!” showed cultural variability, especially for joy and disgust, implying that these linguistic forms are less universal than raw vocal expressions.
Also, pain interjections featured similar open vowels, such as “a” and wide falling diphthongs, such as “ai” in “Ayy!” and “aw” in “Ouch!” For joyful or disgusted emotions, the interjections lacked commonalities between languages, contrary to the researchers’ predictions.
“Critically, by comparing interjections to vocalizations expressing the same emotions, we can test whether the acoustic patterns we observe in interjections can be traced back to vocalizations,” Ponsonnet said.
Meanwhile, the team added that vocalizations reflect adaptive or social functions.
“For example, babies’ cries tend to be loud and harsh, evolving to annoy parents enough to stop the aversive signal,” said Pisanki. “We expect vocal expressions of pain, disgust, and joy to reflect their functions, too.”
The team aims to build upon this research across more languages and cultures to understand how widespread vocal expressions arise and where they originate from.