This week's #Winners and #Losers around the world.
Leaders of the Free World
Winner: German Chancellor Angela Merkel—the leader of the free world, by default. #OurNationTurnsItsLonelyEyesToYou
Loser: Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg—Zuck is 100% sure that Facebook had nothing to do with the election results, thank you very much. So what if 44% of American get their news from Facebook? They should find better Facebook friends. This one’s on you, America. #HeDothProtestTooMuch
The Running of the Chiefs
Winner: Trump Senior Counselor and Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon—the former executive chairman of Breitbart News might be miffed that he didn’t get the coveted chief of staff position in the Trump White House. On the other hand, now he gets to focus on the big picture stuff. Which is actually sort of worrying given that people like Glenn Beck refer to him as “terrifying” and compare him to Joseph Goebbels. #Yikes
Loser: Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus—the former chair of the Republican National Committee gets the nod for chief of staff, to the delight of establishment Republicans. From Trump’s perspective, it makes sense. He’ll have an establishment patsy to blame when things go sideways. #AndTheyWillGoSideways
Learning From Past Mistakes
Winner: Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos—after seeing his original peace deal with the FARC rebels voted down by the Colombian people in a referendum six weeks ago, Santos announced a revised pact that addresses 56 of the 57 points opponents criticized. This time there won’t be a referendum though. #DontTemptFate
Loser: Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi—Renzi has been focused on passing much-needed constitutional reforms, which will be put to a referendum next month. Taking a cue from UK PM David Cameron, Renzi promised to resign if the referendum fails. Now polls show that the referendum looks poised to fail simply as a protest vote. #Fanculo
The Week in Justice, Russia Edition
Winner: Ukraine—The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced this week that Russia’s annexation of Crimea constitutes an “occupation.” The very next day, Vladimir Putin signed a decree to formally remove Russia’s signature from the ICC treaty. Russians may still not be spared from prosecution since Ukraine remains a member of the court.
Loser: Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev—the economic liberal was charged this week with accepting a $2 million bribe, becoming the highest ranking Russian to be charged with corruption since the end of the Soviet Union. He was promptly dismissed by Putin. #BusyWeekForPutin
Switching Career Lanes
Winner: Ivana Trump—announces in an interview with the New York Post that she wants her former husband to appoint her American ambassador to the Czech Republic, her home country. As far as nepotism goes, one of the better moves Trump can make—Ivana was endorsed by Czech President Milos Zeman, who says the Donald “could not send a better US ambassador to Prague.”
Loser: Former Belgian Prime Minister and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy—guest stars on a track with Flemish artist Dana Winner entitled “Love Always Wins”, spitting such truths as“You asked me: ‘Where are the flowers.’ But you did not wait for an answer. Because now you know there is only one thing, which is stronger than hatred and all things bad.” #LoveTrumpsHate
Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group, foreign affairs columnist at TIME and Global Research Professor at New York University. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Global Sales Analytics Lead at Meta
7 年Professor Ian Bremmer , I am wondering why there is not an email subscription for this amazing weekly column - 'winners/losers'. ( if such thing exists for your articles, please share). There can also be some infographic videos( 3-7 mins) explaining this useful information with millennials like me (63% of adults in US rely on social networks for news -source: PeW research,2015 and the authenticity of that news is a hot topic now). P.S: This is high time World needs to know all this useful information to continue the peaceful century of humanity! - A Learner
Attended The City College of New York
8 年Regardless of how you feel about the election outcome, doing this will quell the protests and give room for the American public to move on. In the event this favors Trumps those who oppose his presidency can (maybe) find some comfort in its legitimacy.
Cable Plant/Operations/Production - solution provider!
8 年Ian how can you say Angela Merkel is "Leader of the free world" when along with Hollande is creating an undemocratic, corrupt, politically motivated Federal State called the EU where no country, apart from the UK, has had the opportunity to vote democratically for continued membership of this organisation. A fraudulent organisation that has been built by dictatorial politicians changing the rules of the democratically created "Common Market". Where is the free world in that? This is not the democratic way of life my parents fought for in WW2 and yet you choose to call it the "free world", which goes to show you don't know what freedom is and therefore don't know what you are talking about.
as a merchant at at Lubuk Linggau Sumatera
8 年INDONESIAN'S TAX AMNESTY ::: This week's #Winners and #Losers around the world.
Database Administrator at Data2050
8 年Lovely!!