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NATO likely to respond if Russia sends North Korean troops to Ukraine
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
With reports of North Korean troops in Kursk, what is the likelihood of NATO directly intervening in the Ukraine-Russia war?
I do think that North Korean troops fighting in the Russia-Ukraine war is a major escalation, will lead to tougher sanctions, will lead to greater likelihood the Americans decide to allow for Western missiles to be used to target targets inside Russia. But the ultimatum that's been given is that if Russia deploys North Korean troops inside Ukraine itself, then NATO will respond with combat troops in Ukraine. That is a major escalation in this war. It is meant for the Russians to take it very seriously. I hope that Putin accordingly decides to keep those North Korean troops in Russia itself. And I know that the Chinese also are very concerned about where this is going. So, we'll watch this very closely.
Moldova's pro-Western President secured a second term after narrow runoff win. Does her victory reflect Western strength against Putin?
I'm not so sure. I mean, first of all, of course, lots of efforts by the Russians themselves to interfere monetarily, disinformation in this election, the way they did successfully in Georgia. In the case of Moldova, you have an awful lot of Moldovans voting that were outside Moldova legally, but that's what turned this race. It wasn't the people on the ground. And it was, as mentioned in the question, very tight indeed. This helps them stay on track with the European Union membership. But there's a very large Russian population in breakaway Transnistria with Russian troops on the ground. And I suspect that Putin and the Kremlin has no interest in giving up on this. So, it's going to keep going in the coming years.
How is the political rift between Bolivia's government and the former President Evo Morales affecting the country's stability and economy?
Well, Bolivia, extremely mountainous, very easy to shut down the economy. Just roadblocks in some of the mountain roads that are hard to move along and that means that you can't get goods through and massive inflation. And that's what's happening right now. And he, though he's from the same party as the president, believes that he's being mistreated. They're going after him for all style of corruption. Does appear to be legitimate charges, but he has leverage with a lot of Bolivians that are turning out in his favor. So I suspect if they don't come to some kind of compromise, this is going to hurt the economy there quite a bit. Not the only place we have instability in the world. And then we'll see what happens in the US later today. Be good and I'll talk to you all real soon.
What We're Watching: Haiti's investigation, Iran watching Afghanistan, pro-EU party leads in Moldova, Seoul battles the COVID beat
Who killed Haiti's president? It's the stuff of heist movies: A presidential assassination. Foreign mercenaries. Sabotage. A chaotic struggle for control. The story of what happened to Haiti's president Jovenel Moïse, shot at his residence last week, is still extremely unclear. Haitian police and military say that a handful of mercenaries from Colombia were hired by military contractors (possibly at the behest of Haitian oligarchs) to kill Moïse, who was trying to break a corrupt elite's grip on the country's affairs. At least two of those Colombians were killed in a shootout with police in Port-au-Prince over the weekend. (The plot thickens: their families say that the men were actually brought into Haiti to protect the president and other high-ranking officials.) At least two dozen people have now been arrested in connection with the hit, including a Florida-based doctor with Haitian roots who reportedly had ambitions to return to Haiti and assume the presidency. The US has sent a team to help with the investigation, though the Biden administration hasn't agreed to the Haitian PM's request to send US troops to help keep order. Haiti is now on the brink of full blown implosion in the absence of a functioning government, supreme court, or economy.
Watching Iran watch Afghanistan: Many countries are closely watching Afghanistan as the US withdraws and the Taliban gains ground. Chief among them is Iran, which shares a 920 kilometer border with the conflict-ridden country. Iran, dominated by Shiite clerics, is ideologically opposed to the Taliban, which follows an extreme Sunni interpretation of Islam. The last thing Tehran wants is more Sunni militancy in the region — but that's precisely the way things are headed. On Friday, the Taliban seized control of the lucrative land border between the two countries, a massive feat for the terror group. As the Taliban has swept across the country in recent months, the Iranians have tried to make diplomatic overtures to them, a sign of the perceived inevitability of a full Taliban takeover. But critics say that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and newly elected President Ebrahim Raisi, should hold the Taliban responsible for crimes against Shiite minorities in Afghanistan in recent decades. At least 53 percent of all Afghan districts are already under Taliban control, and Iran fears a mass spillover of Afghan refugees in the near-term.
Pro-Europe party leads in Moldovan snaps: The party of pro-EU President Maia Sandu is on track to win Sunday's snap election in the small, impoverished former Soviet republic of Moldova, which lies between Ukraine and Romania. As of late Monday, Sandu's center-right Action and Solidarity party had taken almost half of the vote, against about a third for a pro-Russian coalition led by two former presidents with close Kremlin ties. Several hundred thousand outstanding diaspora ballots could open up an even bigger lead for Sandu. The 49-year old former World Bank economist won the presidency in November 2020, promising to root out corruption and bring the country of 2.6 million closer to the European Union. That rankled Russia, which sees the country as part of its sphere of influence and has supported a separatist enclave there called Transnistria since 1991. Sandu called the snap election to shore up her position — looks like it paid off, but keep an eye on Russia's response…
Seoul battles the beat to stop COVID: If throbbing, fast-paced techno bangers get you into the ZONE at the gym, you're going to have to skip that spinning class in South Korea now. In a bid to stop the spread of COVID-19, the government has prohibited gyms from playing any songs that are faster than 120 beats per minute in group fitness sessions. Authorities say that this is the only way to keep gyms open safely: the faster tempos get people too hyped up, causing them to sweat and breath on each other more, they say. The new ruling means that the most famous song ever to come out of Korea — PSY's Gangnam Style — is ruled out (132 bpm), but K-pop sensation BTS' current chart-topping single Butter is in the clear at a sluggishly "safe" 110 bpm.