Here’s one big foreign policy implication of today’s Canadian election. “On Oct. 19, Canadians will vote in one of the tightest elections in the country’s history. The Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, are polling so close with Justin Trudeau’s more progressive Liberals that it’s impossible to call who will come out ahead in Monday’s vote. The further-to-the-left New Democratic Party, led by Thomas Mulcair, is in a close third. “No disinterested source is predicting a majority for anyone,” former newspaper publisher Conrad Black wrote in the National Post last week. And though climate change has not loomed large in the election, if Harper’s Conservatives lose their ability to govern, the country would likely find itself with a profoundly different climate policy — and one that could potentially influence how world powers choose to negotiate and implement a post-2020 global climate change agreement at the COP21 summit in Paris this December. (FP http://atfp.co/1GdwOyb )
Live Updates from the Globe and Mail http://bit.ly/1Gdx007
And What an Adoption Day it Was! ”Sunday, October 18, marked “Adoption Day” for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or the Iran Deal) between Iran and the group of powers known as the P5+1, comprising the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China. Per the Iran deal, “Adoption Day” is the date “90 days after the endorsement of this JCPOA by the UN Security Council” (otherwise known as “Finalization Day”). The Security Council adopted a resolution on the deal on July 20, 2015. On adoption day, the JCPOA comes into effect. Basically, starting Sunday, the terms of the Iran deal are binding on its participants and the deal moves from paper to reality.” (The Diplomat http://bit.ly/1Gdx9AV)
Next to Last Chance…Climate talks kick off in Bonn, Germany today. This is the last round before the Paris talks next month and things are off to a rocky start. “Delegates on Monday were supposed to start line-by-line editing a 20-page draft that contains multiple options on how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet. But the African countries, many of which are among the most vulnerable to climate impacts such as desertification and sea level rise, said the draft “cannot be used as a basis for negotiation, as it is unbalanced, and does not reflect the African Group positions, and crosses the group’s redlines.” (AP http://yhoo.it/1LXSa4D)
Africa
Six men were injured in clashes between police and opponents of a planned referendum to allow Republic of Congo’s longtime president to run for another term, a local official said. (AP http://yhoo.it/1LXSh00)
Guinea’s President Alpha Conde won re-election with around 58 percent of votes cast, according to a tally on Saturday of full results announced by the electoral commission. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1Lvm9eN)
The African Union’s peace and security council on Saturday recommended the organisation hasten plans for sending troops to Burundi if violence in the central African nation worsens and called for investigations into rights abuses there. (Reuters http://bit.ly/1LXSald)
In Sierra Leone, the issue of child marriage is a growing concern. (VOA http://bit.ly/1VZ7xJv)
MENA
A “safe zone” in northern Syria, a proposal long championed by Turkey but which has gained little international traction, is badly needed if the flow of refugees is to be stemmed, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Sunday. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1LXSfoV)
A battalion of Sudanese troops arrived in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden on Saturday, military officials said, bolstering Saudi-led Arab forces trying to keep out the Iran-backed Houthis and curb the growing presence of Islamist militants. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1Lijwiq)
Asia
Slow-moving Typhoon Koppu weakened after blowing ashore with fierce winds in the northeastern Philippines on Sunday, leaving at least two people dead, displacing 16,000 villagers and knocking out power in entire provinces, officials said. (AP http://yhoo.it/1LvoGWf)
The head Doctors Without Borders, whose hospital in northern Afghanistan was destroyed in a U.S. airstrike, says the “extensive, quite precise destruction” of the bombing raid casts doubt on American military assertions that it was a mistake. (AP http://yhoo.it/1LXSdgW)
Angry crowds gathered Saturday in New Delhi to accuse police of failing to act over the rape of a toddler, with outrage mounting after the gang-rape of a five-year-old girl in a separate attack. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1LijyHj)
A total of 182 ethnic Rohingya have fled their encampment in Indonesia’s Aceh province, with government officials suspecting they may have been persuaded by human traffickers to flee, an official said Saturday. (AP http://yhoo.it/1ZO6lNW)
A German aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan in August has been released safely, the German development agency GIZ said in a statement. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1ONl1aW)
The Americas
The Colombian government and FARC rebels reached a deal Saturday on searching for the thousands missing and presumed dead in their decades-long conflict, in a further step toward peace, diplomats said. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1LXRU5C)
A small plane crashed into a residential area of Bogota shortly after taking off from the capital’s airport Sunday, setting a bakery on fire and killing five people and injuring seven, including two in critical condition, authorities said. (NYT http://nyti.ms/1Gdxvr0)
US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Saturday that climate change was a threat to global security and has inflamed volatile situations from Europe’s migration crisis to the Syrian conflict. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1LijyHe)
…and the rest
A German mayoral candidate active in helping refugees was seriously wounded on Saturday in what police described as a stabbing with a “racist, political” motive, heaping further pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel over the migrant crisis. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1LXShNP)
A group of 84 Church of England bishops have written to British Prime Minister David Cameron to urge him to increase the number of Syrian refugees the country will take in by 2020 to at least 50,000. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1VZ7ygL)
Migrants streaming across the Balkans reached Slovenia on Saturday, diverted overnight by the closure of Hungary’s border with Croatia in the latest demonstration of Europe’s disjointed response to the flow of people reaching its borders. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1ONl1HS)
Opinion/Blogs
Is Obama Kicking the Can Down the Road on Afghanistan? (VOA http://bit.ly/1LXQjNg)
What Makes A Do-Gooder Do Good? And How Come We Sometimes Resent Them? (Goats and Soda http://n.pr/1ZO8ZDn)
Building resilience in Nepal through public-private partnerships (ODI http://bit.ly/1LXTe8K)
Sudan to Chair UN Food Agency Despite Blocking Rations to Peacekeepers (Enough http://bit.ly/1LXb4SU)
The World Is Not As Hungry As You Might Think (Goats and Soda http://n.pr/1ZO9kpI)
Divine Intervention as a Development Strategy (Cherokee Gothic http://bit.ly/1ZO9xZN)
What would UK aid look like under Jeremy Corbyn? (Devex http://bit.ly/1LikMCq)
The role of fear in the Ebola response (ODI http://bit.ly/1ZO9sFt)