Jueves, 22 de junio de 2023

Quizá la forma más didáctica de explicar la diferencia entre violencia machista y violencia intrafamiliar consista en recurrir, como hacía Pablo de Lora hace unos días, a la teoría de los conjuntos y al diagrama de Venn: presentar ambos problemas como dos circunferencias que no se solapan del todo y comparten la superficie de su intersección.

Por su sencillez y utilidad, el diagrama de Venn resulta muy práctico para enseñar a los niños a utilizar el pensamiento lógico. Seamos niños por un momento y apliquemos la lógica libre de prejuicios promovidos interesadamente desde las dos trincheras de la guerra cultural. Si dentro de la circunferencia A incluimos a las víctimas de violencia machista y dentro de la circunferencia B a las víctimas de violencia intrafamiliar o violencia doméstica, encontraremos en la intersección compartida a mujeres que son víctimas de violencia dentro de la pareja con la que conviven y, además, a los menores a cargo de esa pareja.…  Seguir leyendo »

Supervivientes del naufragio del 'Adriana', en un almacén del puerto de Kalamata, Grecia, el pasado 14 de junio.Thanassis Stavrakis (AP)

La avalancha de condolencias de los líderes europeos tras el naufragio de un pesquero procedente de Libia frente a Grecia el pasado miércoles es una buena muestra de hipocresía si tenemos en cuenta las políticas migratorias de la UE.

Los 82 muertos y los cientos de desaparecidos en el mar —la Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM) calcula que viajaban más de 700 personas en la embarcación entre hombres, mujeres y menores— podrían haberse evitado si la vieja e ilustrada Europa ofreciera precisamente lo que sus políticas niegan: vías seguras para aquellos migrantes, refugiados y solicitantes de asilo que huyen del hambre, de la pobreza y de la violencia.…  Seguir leyendo »

Qué otro mundo era posible

El fracaso moral y económico del socialismo real obligó a la izquierda a buscar un modelo con el que oponerse al orden salido de la Guerra Fría. Los que trabajamos en departamentos de ciencia política fuimos testigos de un 'casting' infructuoso de teorías e ideologías que pudieran erigirse en una alternativa a las democracias liberales capitalistas. Así, cuando la crisis financiera de 2008 generó unos niveles de descontento que Occidente no había conocido en décadas, la izquierda se hallaba aún sumida en el desconcierto, incapaz de ofrecer una propuesta creíble. El ciclo de protestas que inauguró el 15M representó el paroxismo de esta desorientación.…  Seguir leyendo »

Manifestación antisemita en los Estados Unidos. Reuters

El incremento del antisemitismo ha generado alarma en todo el mundo. Las señales están por doquier. Más agresiones antisemitas, más manifestaciones de antisionismo y más vandalismo contra los judíos. Pero para comprender la magnitud del problema necesitamos datos sobre los incidentes y la seguridad, sobre cómo afectan los prejuicios a las comunidades judías en la diáspora y sobre cómo perciben los no judíos a los judíos.

La Liga Antidifamación (ADL) ha sido a lo largo de varias generaciones una organización que trabaja a partir de datos. Los datos promueven las políticas. Si comprendemos la omnipresencia del antisemitismo y cómo se manifiesta podremos centrarnos en las acciones gubernamentales y sociales necesarias para combatirlo con eficacia.…  Seguir leyendo »

Deuda por naturaleza, una línea salvavidas

La Cumbre para un Nuevo Pacto Financiero Mundial, organizada por el presidente francés Emmanuel Macron, se llevará a cabo esta semana en París y es una oportunidad histórica para lograr profundas reformas financieras que apoyarán al desarrollo y reforzarán la lucha contra el cambio climático. Pero al foco de la cumbre —el clima, el desarrollo y la deuda— parece faltarle algo: la naturaleza.

La pérdida de biodiversidad y la degradación ambiental sin precedentes plantean un riesgo existencial a la vida en la Tierra debido al agotamiento de los recursos naturales (entre ellos, el agua); los trastornos en la formación del suelo y, con ellos, en la producción de alimentos; la prolongación del tiempo de recuperación para los desastres naturales; y posibles conflictos por el clima y los recursos.…  Seguir leyendo »

Maximizar la inversión del dinero

La innovación puede tener un efecto profundo en nuestras vidas. Gracias a los avances tecnológicos que redujeron el precio de la energía solar casi el 90% entre 2009 y 2019, la transición a energías verdes está a nuestro alcance. Asimismo, la innovación agrícola ha ayudado a triplicar la cantidad de alimentos cultivados por hectárea desde 1960, reduciendo drásticamente el hambre a pesar, inclusive, de que la población mundial cuando menos se duplicó. Y la tecnología de vacunas ARNm ha salvado incontables vidas durante la pandemia del COVID-19.

Las sociedades han establecido diversos mecanismos para fomentar la innovación. Uno de ellos es el sistema de mercado: las empresas pagan por investigación y desarrollo con la esperanza de vender innovaciones y ganar dinero a cambio, y los inversores respaldan a las empresas si piensan que sus productos o servicios se venderán bien.…  Seguir leyendo »

Cómo transformar la financiación del desarrollo

En un mundo asediado por temperaturas en ascenso, pautas meteorológicas extremas y una escalada de desastres naturales, la urgencia de emprender acciones decididas en relación con el cambio climático y la amenaza de futuras pandemias es más evidente que nunca. Ambas amenazas nos afectarán a todos. Pero los países situados entre los trópicos de Cáncer y Capricornio (incluidos los estados del Caribe y del Pacífico, y partes de América Latina, África y Asia donde vive otro 40% de la población mundial) están experimentando el cuádruple de pérdidas y daños que otros lugares.

Mientras enfrentamos estos enormes desafíos, tenemos que establecer sólidas alianzas basadas en la confianza y el respeto.…  Seguir leyendo »

From left, European Council President Bertie Ahern, European Commission President Romano Prodi, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, President George W. Bush and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Sea Island, Ga., at the Group of Eight summit on June 9, 2004. (Martin Cleaver/AP)

Dictatorial regimes can come to power in different ways. Sometimes, it is through years of civil war, as with the Bolsheviks in Russia after 1917. Sometimes, it is through democratic procedures, as in 1930s Germany. Or, as in Chile in 1973, it can happen as the result of a military coup.

Vladimir Putin achieved power in 1999 by a backroom deal in the top ranks of President Boris Yeltsin’s administration. But the new Kremlin leader needed time to transform Russia’s imperfect democracy into the seamless authoritarian system it is today. No one can pinpoint the precise moment Russia ceased to be democratic.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Real Origins of the Border Crisis

In April 2023, New York Mayor Eric Adams gave an unusually testy press conference about the Biden administration’s border policies. Over the previous year, more than 57,000 asylum seekers had come through New York’s already overstretched shelter system, and they were still arriving at a rate of about 200 people a day. The city had taken over 103 hotels as emergency shelters. More than 14,000 migrant children had been enrolled in public schools. Calling it “one of the largest humanitarian crises that this city has ever experienced”, Adams said that the cost of assisting the new arrivals had soared to $4.3 billion over two years, forcing him to make across-the-board budget cuts in other city services.…  Seguir leyendo »

China Is Ready for a World of Disorder

In March, at the end of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin stood at the door of the Kremlin to bid his friend farewell. Xi told his Russian counterpart, “Right now, there are changes—the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years—and we are the ones driving these changes together”. Putin, smiling, responded, “I agree”.

The tone was informal, but this was hardly an impromptu exchange: “Changes unseen in a century” has become one of Xi’s favorite slogans since he coined it in December 2017. Although it might seem generic, it neatly encapsulates the contemporary Chinese way of thinking about the emerging global order—or, rather, disorder.…  Seguir leyendo »

Marshall Plan funds are used to repair war damage at Titania-Palast, West Berlin's largest cultural venue, in the late 1940s. Bettman via Getty Images

When the Truman administration announced the European Recovery Program—known as the Marshall Plan after its originator, then-U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall—in 1947, a majority of Americans had never heard of it. And those who had weren’t too enthusiastic about a U.S. commitment to rebuild a shattered post-World War II Europe and reintegrate it into the trans-Atlantic economy. To combat widespread skepticism, the Truman administration launched a national campaign to convince the American public of the program’s importance. Speaking tours were organized with civic and trade groups. By 1948, when the Marshall Plan was signed into law with bipartisan support, opinion polls had swung in its favor, with more than 56 percent of Americans viewing it favorably.…  Seguir leyendo »

U.S. President Joe Biden walks with France's President Emmanuel Macron and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva during their visit to a mangrove conservation forest on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Nusa Dua, on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Nov. 16, 2022.

Consider Zambia, and a tale of great potential being crushed by the millstone of debt. Until recently, this southern African country with a population of 19 million had for three decades been (for the most part) a functional multiethnic, multi-party democracy. With its wealth of raw materials and its booming capital, Lusaka, it long looked set to be one of the more successful states of Sub-Saharan Africa. But reckless borrowing, combined with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, saw Zambia default on its debt in November 2020. The cost of essentials such as food, energy, and transportation soared; businesses laid off workers; public-sector salary payments were delayed.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters carry a banner during a protest march at the port of Piraeus near Athens, on June 18. Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP via Getty Images

In Europe, we take photos of migrants before they die.

On June 13, aircraft from both the European border agency Frontex and the Greek coast guard equipped with cameras flew around a dangerously overcrowded fishing vessel around 50 miles off the coast of Pylos, a town on Greece’s southern Peloponnese peninsula. On June 14, by the time the ghostly images had circulated online, most people in the photos had perished after the boat capsized. But even before we knew who they were, and who had survived, Greek authorities very quickly made it known that the people on the boat had “refused assistance”, as their goal was apparently to continue sailing to Italy.…  Seguir leyendo »

Digresiones sobre la muerte de Daniel Ellsberg

La noticia de la muerte de Daniel Ellsberg me sorprendió en París, y en esa casualidad hubo para mí una suerte de simetría privada. Ellsberg, como lo sabrán sin duda quienes hayan seguido la prensa de estos días, se hizo célebre para siempre en 1971, cuando decidió filtrar a los grandes diarios de Estados Unidos 7.000 páginas de documentos clasificados. Para ser precisos, se trataba de 3.000 páginas de análisis histórico y 4.000 de documentos del gobierno, todos organizados en 47 volúmenes. Y lo que había en ellos era un estudio secreto de la historia norteamericana en Vietnam: un encargo del secretario de Estado, Robert McNamara, que no se hizo con la intención de que viera la luz, a pesar de lo que se alegó más tarde.…  Seguir leyendo »

Liubov, 70, looks at the remains of her house in the Ukrainian village of Rus'ka Lozova on June 20.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought with it atrocities on a scale not seen in Europe since World War II. Critical civilian infrastructure including schools, hospitals, and homes have been intentionally targeted. The destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam serves as the most recent reminder of a deliberate, callous, and systematic dismantling of the country.

Ukraine lost 29 percent of its GDP in 2022—13 million citizens have been displaced. Reconstruction costs are running over $400 billion—not including those areas to the south and east of the Dnipro occupied by Russia.

In November 2022, the United Nations formally acknowledged that Russia must bear the legal repercussions of its internationally wrongful actions, including making reparations for damages inflicted upon Ukraine and her people.…  Seguir leyendo »

Emmanuel Macron receives Mr. Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saoud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, June 16, 2023. (Photo by Christian Liewig - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

The Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, to be hosted by President Macron on 22–23 June, will address many important issues surrounding an enormous global challenge: how to scale up climate finance to the levels needed to achieve net zero and protect vulnerable countries from the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

According to one estimate, $2.4 trillion per year will be needed in low income and developing economies (not including China) by 2030. The Macron summit will seek to build a consensus on how to increase both the volume of public international finance and the speed with which it is delivered, including through reform of the multilateral development banks.…  Seguir leyendo »

US President Joe Biden talks with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the opening of the G20 Summit in Bali, in November. The world leaders will meet again at the White House on Thursday. Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images

The images the world will see this week as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the United States could serve as a turning point in one of the world’s most important relationships. That, at least, is the potential for this eventful week.

Though the US and India had already been on good terms, the planned state visit signals that US leaders are interested in propelling a relationship that could rearrange the global chessboard.

The visit starts on Wednesday, when Modi will lead Yoga Day at the United Nations. But it is Thursday when Washington’s spotlight will bathe him.

First, he will have a quick welcome at the White House and then a speech to a joint session of Congress.…  Seguir leyendo »

An internet meme keeps on turning up in debates about the large language models (LLMs) that power services such OpenAI’s ChatGPT and the newest version of Microsoft’s Bing search engine. It’s the “shoggoth”: an amorphous monster bubbling with tentacles and eyes, described in “At the Mountains of Madness”, H.P. Lovecraft’s horror novel of 1931. When a pre-release version of Bing told Kevin Roose, a New York Times tech columnist, that it purportedly wanted to be “free” and “alive”, one of his industry friends congratulated him on “glimpsing the shoggoth”. Mr Roose says that the meme captures tech people’s “anxieties” about LLMs.…  Seguir leyendo »

The World’s Digital Memory Is at Risk

A constant hum drones out of a former church in San Francisco. It is the sound, from hundreds of fans cooling hundreds of computer servers, of the digital past being kept alive. This is the Internet Archive, the largest collection of archived web pages in the world and a constant reminder of the fragility of our digital past. It is also, thanks to a March ruling in a federal court, which found that the archive’s lending practices violate publishers’ rights, just one battlefield in a growing struggle that will define how humanity’s collective digital memory is owned, shared and preserved — or lost forever.…  Seguir leyendo »