Pick your global crisis

NORTH KOREA test-fired a ballistic missile on Friday that for the first time put the continental United States in range (say, Denver). The United States responded over the weekend—with B-1 bombers over the Korean Peninsula and a missile firing over the Pacific Ocean. The point person to watch on this one seems to be UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.

RUSSIA: President Vladimir Putin is demanding the United States cut 755 diplomatic staff from its embassy and consulates in Moscow in retaliation for passage—and an expected Trump signature today—of legislation imposing new sanctions on Russia over its meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. However, most of the United States’ more than 1,000 employees in Russia are local.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is in the Baltics, reassuring allies that “Russia’s destabilizing activities, its support for rogue regimes, its activities in Ukraine, are unacceptable.”

PAKISTAN: The scandal you aren’t hearing about involves the arrest last week of Pakistani aide to Florida Democrat and ousted Democratic Party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz—who attempted to wire $300,000 to Pakistan in what looks like an effort to dispose of evidence. Imran Awan and family members may have gained access to classified information via his ongoing work as a Democratic IT guy, despite a months-long criminal investigation.

Pakistani opposition leader Imran Khan is calling for a “real democracy” after a Friday Supreme Court decision led to President Nawaz Sharif’s ouster. Last year’s Panama Papers, while not naming Sharif, did implicate his children and him in offshore dealings that led to a corruption ruling against him.

CHINA: Apple is removing virtual private network services, or VPN, from its app store in China to comply with the government’s heightened censorship regime.

STATE DEPT: Last week’s rumors had Secretary of State Rex Tillerson resigning, and this week’s grapevine suggests he is building a shadow department alongside Foreign Service careerists.

Resigning from the Department of Homeland Security is George Selim, an Obama holdover long known for courting Islamic fringe groups—just one day after he testified before a House panel on a strategy conservatives have opposed.

VENEZUELA: Perhaps it’s time for an international rescue of Venezuela, with its crisis entering a new phase after Sunday’s staged vote to replace its opposition-led legislature with one favorable to President Nicolas Maduro. Delta Air Lines has suspended flights there.

BELGIUM: One hundred years ago today, three months of fighting commenced to gain the Flanders village of Passchendaele in horrific muddy conditions—a battle that claimed half a million allied and German lives, for the gain of only a few miles of territory—opening one of the most horrific chapters of World War I. British and Belgian royalty were on hand in Ypres Sunday for a ceremony marking the occasion.

Prince William’s remarks, plus my thoughts from Menin Gate a year ago.

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