A severe national gender imbalance, an ageing population and a shrinking workforce: this is the modern legacy of China’s one-child policy. The policy, first implemented in 1979, aimed to ensure that population growth did not outpace economic development, exhaust environmental resources or exceed natural assets. It was enforced through the provision of mandatory contraceptives and, as its name suggests, limited couples to having only one child. However, by 2016, and the prevention of an estimated 400 million births later, China was in a growing crisis.

In 2013, Deputy Director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, Wang Peian, commented that China’s population would not grow substantially in the short term. And so, by 2015, the government-mandated one-child policy officially ended; in its stead in 2016, came the two-child policy. Then, in May 2021, another revision was made to the Population and Family Planning Law. This brought the three-child policy into effect. But it is increasingly clear that the one-child policy and been extremely successful in reshaping people’s behaviour and will not be easily forgotten: in 2016, of the 11 million couples eligible for children, only 800 000 applied.

In the decades since the one-child policy was introduced, adhering to it by undergoing sterilisation or having an intrauterine device (IUD) inserted came to be viewed as a woman’s duty, both in rural and urban communities. Between 1980 and 2014, 324 million women had IUDs implanted and 108 million were sterilised. Consequently, both birth and fertility rates steadily decreased. Despite exemptions made for couples during both the one and two-child policy era, these rates have continued to decline.

Birth and fertility rates have been one casualty of the one-child policy. Another is women’s rights. Simply, the one-child policy prioritised China at the expense of its women, compromising female sovereignty, autonomy and empowerment. Numerous aspects of the one-child policy, and its successors, battered the notion of women empowerment. The policy institutionalised the female body in law and culture; children could not be born, and women could not be pregnant unless sanctioned by the government. The most widely used contraceptives were geared towards women, and any objection they made was deemed to be dishonourable.

The three-child policy comes as a double-edged sword for women empowerment. It allows added room for family planning and female autonomy – but on the flipside, the circumstances surrounding the amended policy are steeped in necessity, and therefore, it is laden with traditional implications. If formerly it was a woman’s duty and responsibility to have only one child, enforced by the pressures of social norms, would a woman then have to have three children under those same circumstances? And if she did not, would she then bring shame to her family?

To add fuel to the fire, the incredibly high cost of living in China has created a generation of working women. Bloomberg reports that more than 40% of working women do not want children; of those who already have one, do not wish for a second. As of 2019, women were estimated to make up 43.7% of the labour workforce. And despite a 98-day work leave for new mothers, their absence is often met with workplace discrimination and their employment is sometimes terminated. A 2018 study by Catalyst found that 19% of civil service job listings explicitly outlined their preference for male applicants. And, Catalyst continued, women made up only 9.7% of the board of directors for Chinese companies. So, not only is it difficult for women in China to find a job, let alone get hired - it is even harder for a woman to acquire a good job, and harder still to have a good job and keep it if they fall pregnant.

The three-child policy, then, has not emerged from women’s pleas. The Chinese population is estimated to reach its peak in 2038 and the government is desperately trying to revive the national birthrate; however, it is clear, women do not want to have children. Under the weight of China’s economy, women are yet again being forced into a corner. The three-child policy has re-institutionalised women without accounting for the social and financial situation of the modern woman. Although it does not demand that women have three children, it places them under the immense pressures of traditional and social gender norms, detracting from female autonomy and women’s empowerment.

Qatar has continued to set political and other trends in the Middle East. The small oil and gas rich Gulf state launched Al Jazeera TV in 1996, for example, which has grown to become a multimedia news network admired and loathed in almost equal measure by governments in the region. When violence erupted in Sudan's Darfur province, Qatar was amongst the first countries to try to find a political solution. In 2011, it brokered a peace deal between Sudan and the small Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM).

The government in Doha supported the Arab Spring, with the effective deployment of its media arsenal, diplomatic activism, financial support and even military backing. The latter has been seen in Libya and Syria. This, though, had an impact on Qatar's relations with other states in the region. When the government of President Mohamed Morsi, the first to be democratically-elected in Egypt, was toppled by a military coup on 3 July 2013, Qatar and Turkey gave refuge to hundreds of members of the Muslim Brotherhood. In March 2014, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE withdrew its ambassadors from Doha. Qatar's "maverick foreign policy" faced a full backlash in 2017 when Egypt joined Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE in a blockade of their Gulf neighbour. Overnight, Qatar was isolated and scrambling to provide basic essentials before Iran and Turkey came to the rescue.

That foreign policy has seen Qatar adopt a "deep pocket" approach, using its financial muscle to forge a specific political trajectory in the Arab world. It is the only country in the Middle East to have formal representation with the Taliban. The Afghan movement officially opened an office in Doha in June 2013. The Afghanistan government, unsurprisingly, objected, not least because the Taliban adorned its office with a Taliban flag under the name of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan".

Qatar has been persistent in trying to bring the movement into formal political circles. The facilitation of the Afghanistan peace talks in Doha stand as testament to that commitment. There are a number of reasons why Qatar has invested its resources in this process. Apart from the general effort to encourage peace and stability in the region, it is also keen to promote pluralism, political change and grassroots movements.

The talks between the Afghanistan government and the Taliban gained momentum when it was announced that US troops were being withdrawn from the country. It has been argued that pressure was imposed on Qatar to cut its support for Afghanistan. However, where most people saw adverse politicking, the business approach to politics adopted by Donald Trump realised that there was an opportunity there to be taken. Qatar convinced the Taliban to engage in talks while the US put pressure on the government of Ashraf Ghani in Kabul to do the same. For Trump, it was a win-win situation; American troops would leave Afghanistan with a semblance of peace and normality; he would be hailed for his efforts; and the US could claim "mission accomplished".

However, it didn't work out that way, and Trump's successor, Joe Biden, was left to complete the task. Instead of waiting for the symbolic 11 September 2021 withdrawal deadline — the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — Biden pulled the troops out earlier this month; the infamous Bagram Air Base was, literally, abandoned overnight, angering Kabul, which was not told about the move. The US troops left everything behind in Bagram, from energy drinks to armoured vehicles.With US military advisers set to stay in Afghanistan, the fighting continues. Taliban fighters have advanced and taken control of most strategic locations and almost half of Afghanistan's four hundred or so districts. Reports suggest that they could reach Kabul before the end of the year if the talks in Doha fail to yield tangible results. Amid fears that the Americans could get drawn back into the protracted conflict, Washington has given its support to the Doha talks with renewed enthusiasm. The latest round of the talks are extremely important for the government of Afghanistan, which has its back against the wall. It knows that if the Taliban reaches Kabul, any agreement reached in Doha may simply be ignored by the movement's emboldened fighters on the ground. Even the Taliban leadership negotiating in Qatar would find it difficult to persuade the fighters to lay down their arms. Why should they accept "a deal" with the government given their current superior political and military positions? This is where Qatar's "deep pocket" diplomacy comes in. A positive result of the peace talks could lead to investment in Afghanistan, which is needed desperately to repair infrastructure destroyed by decades of war. For the sake of the people of that fractured country, I sincerely hope that such a miracle is forthcoming

Thembisa Fakude | Senior Researcher and Director Afrasid

Thembisa holds Masters degree in Politics. He is a columnist with the Middle East Monitor in London. He is a research fellow at Al Sharq Forum in Istanbul, Turkey. He serves on the board of Common Action Forum in Madrid, Spain and on the board of Mail and Guardian publication in South Africa. He is the former Bureau Chief of Al Jazeera Media Network for Arabic and English Channels in Southern Africa

The current stand-off between former South African president Jacob Zuma and the authorities has wider political ramifications for South Africa's fledgling democracy. The 79- year-old Mr Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison by the Constitutional Court, the country’s highest court, after he was found guilty for being in contempt. This followed his refusal to appear before a corruption inquiry presided over by South Africa's deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo. The inquiry's official name is the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. It was set up a few years ago primarily to investigate allegations of corruption involving Mr Zuma's family friends, the notorious Gupta brothers, and their allegedly undue influence over government officials in return for lucrative contracts. 

In response to the Constitutional Court's ruling, throngs of Mr Zuma's supporters descended upon his village – Nkandla, in the coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal province - to prevent him from being arrested. Some of the supporters were armed to the teeth with rifles, pistols, spears and machetes, chanting pro Zuma slogans such as "Wenzeni uZuma; (What has Zuma done) and "we are prepared to die for Zuma!" Mr Zuma has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He claims instead that the inquiry is a political witch hunt against him, his family and those around him. Since he left his position as head of state in 2018 he has not been sitting in a rocking chair enjoying the beautiful sunsets over the rolling hills of Kwadakudunuse, his homestead. Instead, he spends most of his time with legal counsels working on voluminous court documents, defending himself against accusations of corruption. 

However, the "unappealable" sentence by South Africa's apex court has indeed brought matters to a head. Some said he had reached a dead end while others praised him for finding every loophole in the justice system to challenge even the Constitutional Court's ruling. Mr Zuma insists that he has been treated unfairly. When the Harvard University-educated Justice Sisi Khampepe delivered the majority verdict of seven constitutional judges, with only two dissenting, she did not mince her words. "The Constitutional Court went to great lengths to safeguard Mr Zuma's rights. Consequently, there is simply no sound nor logical basis on which he can claim to have been treated unfairly” she said.  

Apart from a potential bloodbath, the Nkandla stand-off threatened to undermine the rule of law. There are serious implications this could have had on other litigants in future including possibly hundreds absconding from courts and ignoring legal judgements. It would have been a precedence detrimental to SA’s young democracy. Justice Khampepe emphasised this point in his judgement,"it is disturbing that he who twice sought allegiance to the republic, its laws and its constitution has sought to ignore, undermine and in many ways destroy the rule of law altogether." The sentence has created a split within the political opinion of the governing African National Congress (ANC). The ANC of Nelson Mandela is now tearing itself asunder, in part because of these developments. In fact, most of the angry supporters who camped outside Mr Zuma's multi-million- dollar compound were ANC members. They were wearing ANC t-shirts bearing the face of Mr Zuma. What President Cyril Ramaphosa describes as a unity movement is slowly slipping away through his fingers. The 109- year-old liberation movement is now in disarray. Trying to unify the ANC is like trying to nail jelly to the ceiling. However, it is not just judicial institutions that are affected, the integrity of the South African Police Services (SAPS) was also hugely impacted. Police stood by as hundreds gathered at Nkandla without masks and in total violation of Covid-19 regulations. The minister of SAPS Bheki Cele defended police’s inaction citing lessons from the Marikana mine massacre when striking miners were gunned down in a daggers drawn stand- off with public order police in August 2012. "We are very glad to absorb any criticism (rather) than dealing with blood, that would have been spilled there. We implemented some of the Marikana Commission recommendations to save lives. So, no bloodshed - for now” Cele told journalists. Furthermore, Zuma challenged the majority judgement of the Constitutional court, the highest court in the land, setting a new precedent by applying to the lower court; in this case the High Court in Pietermaritzburg for the stay of execution of his arrest. In the meantime, pending the outcome in the High Court in Pietermaritzburg; Jacob Zuma surrendered to the police just before midnight on 06 July. His surrender emphasises the fact that “no one is above the law.  

In conclusion, given that South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world with high unemployment and poverty rates, it goes without saying that the internal squabbles within the governing ANC will only exacerbate an already precarious situation. Having said that, the events of the past week in Nkandla have strengthened democracy in SA. Importantly, they have further exposed many South Africans to mechanisms of the judicial systems and the importance of its independence. 

Changes in the makeup of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, hardly cause for Palestinian optimism, even at the best of times. All governments of Israel since 1948 have pushed the Palestinians and their legitimate aspirations to near oblivion. The ousting of now-former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday was received with little outward enthusiasm in occupied Palestine. As many people pointed out, it is the "same old same old".

However, for some supporters and observers beyond Palestine and Israel, the political change in the occupation state is likely to have an impact on a number of issues in the region. There is a clear mandate for new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to re-establish national cohesion which crumbled under Netanyahu. Bennett has apparently made this his priority.

The coalition deal is that he will be prime minister for two years before handing over to Yair Lapid, the leader of Yesh Atid, for the remainder of their term in government. Lapid is the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the interim. Responsibility for foreign affairs has traditionally rested within the office of the prime minister, especially under Netanyahu.

As the leader of the second-largest political party in the Knesset, Lapid is credited with bringing together the most diverse governing coalition in Israel's political history. It includes, for the first time, an Arab Israeli party, Ra'am. It is hoped that Netanyahu's exit will signal an end to political stagnation in terms of the country's policies towards the Palestinians.

Although Bennett is both right-wing and an ultra-nationalist, there is a glimmer of hope. For a start, the change in government is likely to ease the pressure on those involved in the ongoing discussions about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran's nuclear programme. The "P5+1" agreement involves the US, China, France, Russia, the UK, and Germany, as well as the EU.

Lapid is supposed to be a centrist, although such terminology is always relative in increasingly right-wing Israeli politics. This could change the dynamics in Israel regarding its attitude towards Iran and the JCPOA. Unlike his predecessors as foreign minister, Lapid is likely to be an active driver of foreign policy under the new government. This could produce some surprises, including direct talks with Iran and the appointment of the first Palestinian citizen of Israel in the cabinet.

Bennett's political style, however, is likely to impede his interaction with the international politicians leading the new "world democratic project" under US President Joe Biden. His unashamed ultra-nationalist approach raises doubts about whether his politics will resonate with democratic revivalist attitudes and rhetoric, as expressed at the G7 meeting in Britain at the weekend.

It is in all likelihood, therefore, going to be Lapid who will be the new international face of Israel, with Bennett being the "domestic prime minister" with limited interaction on the world stage. Lapid's politics presents a window of opportunity not only for the JCPOA but also in helping Israel to recalibrate its relationship with the world. Importantly, he is committed to reviving negotiations with the Palestinians. If that happens, it could bring Israel back into the international spotlight for something positive rather than the bombing and maiming of innocent women and children, and attacks on peaceful worshippers in Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The ousting of Netanyahu thus sends an important message and provides a lesson for future Israeli leaders: pinning political hopes on brutality towards the Palestinians does not work. His default aggression, towards Gaza especially, is out of favour, and international opinion has swung against Israel and its colonial narrative.

Moreover, as pressure mounts for more Arab countries to normalise relations with Israel, the change in government in the occupation state could see a change in attitudes towards links with Tel Aviv. Instead of having to toe the line laid down by Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Arab governments may well be able to push for a better deal for the Palestinians as their condition for normalization.

When Donald Trump assumed office, he used his own Facebook and Twitter accounts instead of that of the President of the United States (POTUS), a trend started by Barack Obama. Must leaders use personal Facebook and Twitter accounts during their tenure as heads of state, what must become of those accounts after their tenure ends? Shouldn’t the rule applicable to emails also apply to Facebook and Twitter? Hillary Clinton was berated for using private emails at some point in her capacity as the Secretary of State, correctly so. All her official emails after she left office became the property of the government. Why must that general rule not apply to Facebook and Twitter? Donald Trump would have basically inherited wealth of information from his Facebook and Twitter accounts if they were not suspended. Over the period of 4 years he literally conducted the business of the state and foreign policy on Facebook and Twitter. Moreover, he unduly benefited from crowd sourcing as the President of the US, making him one of the most popular personalities on these platforms, a lucrative position these days. Trump was undoubtedly good for business too for both Twitter and Facebook. According to his former digital director Brad Parscale, Facebook was influential in their victory, not because it was tipping the scales with fake news, but because it helped generate the bulk of the campaign’s $250 million in online fundraising. “Our biggest incubator that allowed us to generate that money was Facebook,” Parscale retorted.

Views have varied since Facebook and Twitter announced their suspension of Donald Trump from their platforms. Last week Facebook announced that it decided after review to uphold the suspension. Twitter is also expected to make a similar pronouncement soon. Facebook and Twitter suspended Donald Trump from their respective platforms following violent events in the Capitol Hill on 06 January 2021. Hundreds of Trump supporters bridged security barriers of the Capitol Hill, intimidated those inside the building and destroyed property in the process. These events occurred during the joint seating of the congress to certify the results of the 2020 elections. Earlier on the same day Donald Trump addressed hundreds of his supporters and repeated claims that the elections were rigged. Trump’s address of his supporters earlier in the day is largely blamed for the subsequent violence at the Capitol Hill. The violence was condemned by politicians from both sides of the isle in US. Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook said he had decided that Trump’s attempts to incite violence and undermine the democratic process were grounds for an indefinite suspension. However some believe Facebook and Twitter used the opportunity to absolve itself from “a beneficial yet undesirable relationship” it enjoyed in the past with Trump. Trump’s suspension did not stop his surrogates, particularly his son Donald Trump Jnr, from making further inflammatory remarks and false claims regarding the validity of the election. Donald Trump Jnr hasnevertheless continued on with his tirade, indicting the media as a key contributor to Biden’s “illegitimate” win.

Notwithstanding reasons provided as well as obvious imperatives to suspend Donald Trump, the decisions deserve a second look. First, there is an acceptance in news media that offensive material should be removed as soon as they become apparent. There is also a general acceptance that each story must be judged on its own merits. Therefore, the prudent course of action would have been to deal with the apparent violations not a blanket gagging of Donald Trump. Second, the decision could set a serious precedence which could introduce new forms of censorship in the social media space in general. Importantly, this decision grants social media platforms unprecedented power; to control access to constituencies and voters in future. Social media platforms could become new gatekeepers. Giving such powers to social media could lead to infringement of basic human rights. Already, the uncontrolled monopoly Facebook and Twitter currently commands presents an additional challenge to democracy. Facebook and Twitter have become wholesale publishers. The distribution and dissemination of most news media publications largely depend on these platforms especially in places where internet is controlled by the state. This has led to unchecked powers and “privatization of freedoms” i.e. only those allowed and sanctioned by these platforms can publish. This in the process could deprive millions people essential information necessary to make informed decisions.

There is a general acceptance that freedom of expression should not be absolute. Harmful information as already alluded, must be removed whenever is identified. Blanket gagging of individuals because of isolated violations shouldn’t lead to suspensions and gagging of individuals. Furthermore, Twitter and Facebook can’t be a player and referee at the same time. They should rather allow for the establishment of an independent body to perform the tasks of adjudication. The mainstream media is subject to independent ombudsman and similar institutions. These institutions assist the industry to adjudicate complaints and violations of media ethics. Why not establish similar platforms for social media? It is important especially as social media develops and matures.

Finally, whilst it is tempting to celebrate the suspension of Donald Trump, we should take a moment and ponder; today it be might be Trump who will it be tomorrow and how will we feel about it?

Thembisa Fakude | Senior Researcher and Director Afrasid

Thembisa holds Masters degree in Politics. He is a columnist with the Middle East Monitor in London. He is a research fellow at Al Sharq Forum in Istanbul, Turkey. He serves on the board of Common Action Forum in Madrid, Spain and on the board of Mail and Guardian publication in South Africa. He is the former Bureau Chief of Al Jazeera Media Network for Arabic and English Channels in Southern Africa