In this week’s review, our regular correspondent Tom Arms looks at yet more mass shootings in America and the struggle for stronger gun control. He turns his attention to events in Israel and the failed Sino-American summit in Alaska. Europe has been at times teetering on the edge of vaccine wars and it is the 50th anniversary of the seventh fastest growing economy in the world, Bangladesh.

Two more mass shootings in America. Another 16 dead bodies. And another round of calls for gun control. Of course, gun control in America means something different than everywhere else in the world. It does not mean – as in most developed countries – the virtual outlawing of the sale of weapons to the general public. No, in the case of the United States it means banning the sale of semi-automatic and automatic assault rifles, weapons with multiple cartridges and thorough background checks on potential buyers. President Joe Biden wants these controls. He may manage to achieve two out of three. Opposing him are the National Rifle Association, and the die-hard proponents of the Second Amendment who have captured the Republican Party and turned gun control into a bipartisan issue. Combined with the power of the filibuster, this means that Biden’s hopes are blocked by the fact that he needs 60 Senate votes. So, your average American will be able to continue to buy sub-machine guns. They can even buy tanks and grenade launchers (but not grenades). However, the president is expected to win on the less thorny issue of background checks on potential buyers. And if the Senate refuses to work with him, there are signs that Biden is prepared to use executive decrees. This would mean tightening rules on who is allowed to sell guns and banning the import of certain guns and gun parts.

The world this week continued its slide into East-West Cold War style camps. Following the disastrous Sino-American summit in Alaska, Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged a meeting of NATO foreign ministers to turn their attention to China and the Asia-Pacific. On Thursday, the message was reinforced when Joe Biden addressed a virtual summit of EU leaders. On the other side of the political equation, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov met and issued a joint statement saying that they rejected Western criticisms of their foreign and human rights policies, attacked sanctions against them and agreed to coordinate activities against the US and Europe. Wang Yi, meanwhile, is preparing for a foray into a US-dominated region with a tour from next Tuesday of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. It all looks distressingly familiar.

Gathering a political armoury for a vaccine war with Britain was the main agenda item at this week’s Europe summit. But the EU is unlikely to use the assembled weaponry. Commission President Ursula Van Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron pushed through a proposal to block exports of coronavirus vaccines to Britain and other countries until the mainly British-produced Astra Zeneca honours its commitments to EU countries. The pronouncement is a political necessity for new commission president van Leyen. EU bureaucracy fouled up the early stages of its vaccine programme which is now lagging far behind the UK and US and suffering a deadly third wave of coronavirus cases. The EU had to be seen to act. But as former commission president Claude Juncker said it would be “stupid” to use the new powers and would cause “major reputational damage to the EU”. Belgium and the Netherlands have also announced their opposition to the use of a vaccine export embargo. And in the next few days Dutch Prime Minister and British counterpart Boris Johnson are expected to attempt to head off any action with an announcement about increased production of Astra Zeneca in the Netherlands. In the meantime, precious few of the doses are reaching the underdeveloped world where the number of cases are growing exponentially. Kenya this week literally ran out of hospital beds. The World Health Organisation has heavily criticised the US, UK and EU for hoarding supplies.

How is this for a scenario: An Arab political party maintains Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu in power. It sounds impossible. But in the Alice through the looking glass world of Israeli politics the most unlikely scenarios are feasible. The cause of this seemingly outrageous possibility is this week’s deadlocked election results – the fourth in two years. Once again Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud Party and his allies in the main Orthodox Jewish parties won the most seats with 59, but they need 61 to form a majority government. A fragmented opposition coalition of centrist and left-wing parties secured 57. Holding the balance of power is Mansour Abbas, whose United Arab list or Raam has secured four seats. Palestinian Arabs still comprise 20 percent of Israel’s population, are represented in the Knesset, and, surprisingly, Mansour Abbas has said that he is prepared to join a coalition with Palestinian arch-enemy Benjamin Netanyahu – on the right terms, of course. He has also said he could swing the other way. The two deciding issues are likely to be the West Bank and the forthcoming trial of Netanyahu. Abbas will want Netanyahu to shelve plans for his annexation of the West Bank. Netanyahu will want Abbas to help block his trial next month on bribery and fraud charges. There is another possibility. One of Netanyahu’s erstwhile allies, former defence minister Natalfi Bennett has hinted he could shift his allegiance leftwards, taking seven Knesset members with him. A prediction is impossible in unpredictable Israel.  

Happy Birthday 50^th birthday Bangladesh. And the South Asian nation has a lot to be happy about. And a lot to be unhappy about. But let’s start by focusing on the good news. Bangladesh is the seventh fastest growing economy in the world. In 1972 – the year after Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan in a war costing three million lives – its GDP was $62 billion. In 2019, it was $305 billion and is expected to be around $600 billion by the end of this decade. Then there are social advances. Ninety-eight percent of children finish primary school and life expectancy is the highest in South Asia. The United Nations Committee for Development Policy recently recommended that Bangladesh be promoted least developed country designation to developing country. Now for the really bad news. Seventy-nine percent of Bangladesh’s 166 million people are crammed into the low-lying delta region which empties into the Bay of Bengal. The average height of this region – two thirds of the land area of Bangladesh – is less than five metres above sea level. Because of climate change, between 12 to 15 percent of the land is expected to disappear under rising sea levels by 2050. It is estimated that 20 million people will be displaced. The political story is also dire. The country has spent 50 years lurching from dictatorship to democracy to military rule. Current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina secured her fourth term in 2018 with an election marred by violence and extensive vote rigging. The dominant Awami League has been criticised by the think tank Freedom House for consolidating “its power through sustained harassment of the opposition and those perceived to be allied with it.” At best, the country is a quasi-democracy.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopedia of the War” and the recently published “America Made in Britain". He has a weekly podcast, Transatlantic Riff.