And it does the already tetchy relationship between Washington and Moscow little good when the latter is giving asylum to America’s now best-known fugitive. web companies could lose billions of dollars as international users turn to products they think are less prone to spying eyes. The repercussions echoed far outside the intelligence community: U.S. and then, later, complained before a global audience at the UN about the “affront” to her country’s sovereignty. There was White House ally German Chancellor Angela Merkel, demanding answers on allegations that the NSA had tapped her cell phone, and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff who canceled a trip to the U.S. relations with some key international players, who claimed in public to be furious with the U.S.’s snooping in their own countries. espionage operations in various parts of the world and threatened to damage U.S. The cache of documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden shed light on the extent of U.S. Glenn Greenwald / Laura Poitras / The Guardian / Reuters And in November, France announced that it would beef up its troop presence in another former colony, the Central African Republic, where the onslaught of rebel factions that are dominated by Muslim fighters has put the country on “the verge of genocide,” according to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. established a regional drone base for the Sahel in Niger in February and has attempted special operation raids in Libya and Somalia, including a failed attempt against a top al-Shabab commander who was said to be behind the Westgate Mall attacks. The violence has drawn the attention of Western powers. Instead, French involvement, though largely successful, has lasted through the year-and 2013 has seen a rise of Islamist extremist-fueled terrorism across Africa, including a hostage crisis at an Algerian oil field that left 39 foreigners dead repeated ruthless attacks by the Boko Haram terror group in Nigeria and the assault on an upscale Nairobi mall by al-Shabab, a Somali al-Qaeda affiliate, that killed at least 68 people. As are the geopolitical tensions simmering beneath.įrance’s January intervention in Mali to push back advancing Islamist forces was supposed to be a quick blow against a separatist insurgency. The Chinese didn’t react, but the zone is still nominally-for now-in place. entered the fray by flying two B-52 bombers, unannounced, through the zone just days later. The quarrel came to a head in November when China declared an “East China Sea air-defense identification zone” over the mostly bare islands, which the Japanese Foreign Minister said could “trigger unpredictable events.” The U.S. The situation is perhaps even more intense between rivals Japan and China, where a long-simmering contest over a string of islands administered by Japan in the East China Sea ignited massive anti-Japan protests in 2012. That is hotly contested by a number of Southeast Asian states, especially neighboring Vietnam and the Philippines. ![]() In January the Philippines said it would take China to a UN arbitration court over heavily disputed claims - China considers the vast majority of the South China Sea (and likely the lucrative gas reserves beneath its waters) as its own immediate sphere of influence. In both the South China Sea and to China’s East, enduring disputes over maritime territory - often uninhabited spits of reef and rock - have threatened to blow up into a regional crisis this year. ![]() The most glaring test lies in the waters surrounding the Chinese mainland: and Beijing has not quite passed with flying colors. ![]() One of the most vexing challenges presented by China’s emergence as a budding superpower has to do with the Asian giant’s ability to get along with its neighbors. seized on an opportunity to put its geopolitical Asia “pivot” into action, promising $37 million in aid over the following days and dispatching an aircraft carrier to support relief efforts. The Chinese, on unfriendly terms over disputed maritime territories, were criticized for offering, at first, a paltry $100,000, or one-seventeenth of what New Zealand was giving. Money and supplies streamed in from the international community in a show of goodwill-and diplomacy. Nearly 2 million people were left homeless. Despite preparations, including the evacuation of nearly 800,000 people, more than 5,000 people were killed as the storm wreaked havoc in central Philippines and leveled entire parts of the coastal city of Tacloban. ![]() The deadliest storm to hit the Philippines since at least Typhoon Tehlma in 1991, Haiyan smashed into the archipelago with wind speeds as high as 170 mph (more than 20 mph faster than Hurricane Katrina’s worst gusts) and surging sea levels up to 20 feet.
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