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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague against issuing arrest warrants for Israeli leaders and commanders after its investigation into the war in Gaza. Ronen Zvulun/Reuters/File

MundoOriente Próximo,

The signs are mounting that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is weighing an indictment against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials over Israel’s conduct of its war against Hamas in Gaza. This would be an earthquake and could be seen as a case of selective justice that ends up helping the beleaguered prime minister politically.

The ICC, which was established in 2002, is more of a club of about 125 countries that tries to make the rules than a true manifestation of consensual “international law” — and it occupies a rather fuzzy position vis-à-vis non-member states like the United States and Israel.…  Seguir leyendo »

The End of TikTok Is a Propaganda Win for Beijing

MundoAméricaMundoAsia, ,

When President Biden signed a bill requiring that TikTok be divested from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, members of Congress hailed the law as a blow to Beijing. They shouldn’t be so quick to celebrate. The law would at best partially mitigate the hazards of misinformation or the risks to national security posed by China. The Communist Party, meanwhile, looks forward to a propaganda windfall, prizing off Washington’s mantle as champion of a free and open internet.

America’s moral authority on maintaining open internet platforms will look very different if it bans TikTok. After years of enduring American sermonizing about free speech and open trade, autocrats would now be able to cite Washington’s own example when they interfere with speech platforms that displease them.…  Seguir leyendo »

A vendor at an open-air market in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, last month. (Tiksa Negeri/Reuters)

MundoÁfrica

The United States, Mexico and Canada trade with one another under a pact that replaced the long-standing North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. The Europeans have their single market and common currency. Southeast Asian countries have a free-trade agreement. And 11 Pacific Rim countries have formed their own free-trade group with the unwieldy acronym CPTPP.

But what stands to be the behemoth of global trade pacts is one you’ve probably not heard of: the African Continental Free Trade Area, or AfCFTA.

Its scope is enormous, comprising 54 countries, 1.3 billion people and a combined gross domestic product of $3.4 trillion.…  Seguir leyendo »

Israeli military personnel inspect the apparent remains of an Iranian ballistic missile near Arad, Israel, April 2024. Amir Cohen / Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo

The volley of attacks and counterattacks between Iran and Israel in the first two weeks of April drastically changed the strategic landscape in the Middle East. On April 1, an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, including two generals. Two weeks later, Iran retaliated with a barrage of drones and missiles, almost all of which were intercepted. Israel swiftly responded with its own drone and missile attack on an airbase in Iran. The exchange brought the shadow war the two countries have been fighting for more than a decade into the open.…  Seguir leyendo »

A suspect from the Crocus City Hall attack in court in Moscow, March 2024. Yulia Morozova / Reuters

MundoAsiaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional,

In March, terrorists affiliated with Islamic State Khorasan, also known as ISIS-K, attacked Moscow’s Crocus City Hall, killing 145 people and wounding several hundred. The authorities swiftly arrested 12 young men, all of whom were from Tajikistan, the most southern and poorest republic of the former Soviet Union. Tajikistan’s economy is moribund, and the combination of a low growth rate and a youthful population has created an immense diaspora: at least a quarter of Tajikistan’s working-age men live abroad. The country they left behind is repressive, with a government as hostile to many forms of Islam as it is to any signs of dissent.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

La montée en puissance de l’Inde commence à modifier la place des affaires internationales dans la compétition électorale ouverte le 19 avril et qui sera close le 1er juin. L’idée selon laquelle la politique étrangère n’est pas la préoccupation majeure des électeurs reste sans doute fondée, mais quelque chose se transforme, car la construction du récit nationaliste hindou a pris, sous Narendra Modi, au pouvoir depuis dix ans, une coloration internationale d’ampleur inédite. Une triple rhétorique électorale est ainsi à l’œuvre.

Un premier volet du discours prend acte de cette montée en puissance, l’Inde étant désormais le pays le plus peuplé du monde.…  Seguir leyendo »

Aerial view showing the construction works in the area where the Chinese company Cosco Shipping is building a port in Chancay, some 80 km north of Lima, on August 22, 2023. Ernesto Benavides/AFP via Getty Images

MundoAméricaEuropa, ,

Pity the Peruvian negotiators who, five years ago, signed an agreement with the Chinese giant Cosco Shipping Ports. The agreement was about the Port of Chancay, located near Lima, which was to become a megaport and “the gateway from South America to Asia”, as one Cosco manager told The Associated Press. But now, as the massive port nears completion, an “administrative error” by unnamed officials in Peru has given Cosco Shipping Ports exclusivity over operations at the Port of Chancay, the Peruvian port authority (APN) announced in March. Other infrastructure operators still hoping for large Chinese investments should pay heed.

That’s bad news, because the two-terminal construction is be completed later this year, and Peru has great expectations.…  Seguir leyendo »

Journalists protest in support of Palestinians in front of the Egypt Journalists Syndicate in Cairo, Egypt, on December 13, 2023. (Photo by Mahmoud Elkhwas/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

MundoOriente Próximo,

So far, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) operation in Rafah remains ‘ limited’, meaning it is still under the threshold of a major military incursion like the previous bloody assaults on Jabaliya, Gaza City, and Khan Younis.

This should be good news for Egypt’s security. However, the reality is far from it. The operation, launched on 7 May, creates two major threats for Egypt.

Refugees

The first is a potential mass exodus of Palestinian refugees into Sinai. For Egypt, this has been a ‘ red line’ since the start of the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government seems to take Cairo’s concerns seriously.…  Seguir leyendo »

Varios palestinos buscan algo de valor entre los escombros, el pasado viernes en Ciudad de Gaza.Anadolu (Getty)

MundoOriente Próximo

Frente a la impotencia de la guerra y la devastación de la franja de Gaza, el llamado mundo libre debería estar muy agradecido a lo s estudiantes universitarios de Estados Unidos. Muchos europeos contemplamos al principio con cierta decepción las tímidas protestas que se producían en nuestros campus, pero la realidad es que les tocaba a los estadounidenses dar la primera voz de alarma contra esta situación porque lo que está en juego no es solo el posible fracaso de Biden para ser reelegido. Las voces que protestan contra la agresividad del Ejército de Netanyahu apelan a un estado de cosas mucho más profundo que la batalla electoral entre republicanos y demócratas.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

El movimiento de protesta contra Israel y a favor de Palestina comenzó, como no podía ser de otra manera, en la Universidad de Columbia, en Nueva York. El tema de la protesta es extremadamente sencillo: los manifestantes exigen la retirada de Israel de Gaza, e incluso la desaparición del Estado de Israel, sustituido por un Estado palestino cuyas fronteras se extenderían desde el río Jordán hasta el mar Mediterráneo. Los eslóganes de los alborotadores van desde las reivindicaciones más moderadas, como la liberación de los rehenes o el reconocimiento de un Estado palestino, hasta la eliminación definitiva de todo lo que se parezca a Israel, el sionismo o incluso el judaísmo.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

A unos cientos de metros del recinto que guarda los magníficos templos de Kajuraho, el turista se encuentra con la misma miseria y la misma basura de la India de siempre, Entre tanto, su economía es la quinta del mundo, con un crecimiento que supera al de China. Tal éxito garantiza la reelección por una mayoría abrumadora del líder hinduista Narendra Modi, que ya barrió en 2019. A principios de junio se conocerán los resultados de las elecciones iniciadas el 19 de abril y que se desarrollan en siete fases. La campaña de Modi registra una sucesión ininterrumpida de aclamaciones, concentraciones masivas y lluvia de flores a su paso.…  Seguir leyendo »

A woman stands with an Israeli flag during a two-minute siren in memory of victims of the Holocaust, in Jerusalem, May 6. (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)

MundoOriente Próximo,

As Israel marks its 76th anniversary this week under the shadow of the Oct. 7 massacre and the Israel-Gaza war, the country’s underlying Zionist ideology is being called into question. Various groups distort and weaponize the term “Zionism”, depicting it as a malignant form of tribalism or even racism. To understand current developments in Israel, as well as the country’s tumultuous history, it is necessary to clarify what Zionism has really meant over its 150 years of existence.

Born in the late 19th century, modern Zionism is a national movement similar to the ones that arose during the same period among Greeks, Poles and many other peoples.…  Seguir leyendo »

Palestinian children stand in a camp for displaced people in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in April. AFP/Getty Images

MundoOriente Próximo

Note: This article includes descriptions of disturbing impacts of violence.

A child shrieks in pain in a medical tent at a field clinic in southern Gaza. He’s 7, with severe burns on his back that are being cleaned and slathered with balm. It’s an excruciating process that would be done under anesthesia, in the sterile setting of a hospital, in ideal circumstances. But after nearly seven months of bombing and shelling in Gaza, conditions of any sort have ceased to be even adequate, let alone ideal.

I’m in Gaza on a humanitarian mission with my charity, International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance, which I established in 2015 when I was still a senior correspondent for CNN.…  Seguir leyendo »

Viajar a Ítaca de la mano de Laurent Cantet

MundoAmérica,

Cinco amigos se reúnen una noche en una azotea de La Habana desde la que es posible contemplar un abigarrado paisaje de azoteas plagadas de antenas y palomares y desde la cual también se puede ver el mar, más allá de ese muro del Malecón que física y simbólicamente marca el principio y el fin de la ciudad o de la isla. Los ha convocado el regreso del único de ellos que ha partido al exilio, Amadeo, radicado por 15 años en España. La noche será larga, bien bebida y comida, y de la evocación de recuerdos y el conteo de experiencias, con el paso de las horas se transita hacia las confesiones, con encalladas acusaciones incluidas, y la dolorosa revelación de pérdidas, culpas y verdades nunca antes compartidas.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Egyptian security detail escorting the UN Secretary General at the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, Sinai, October 20, 2023. Los Salah/AFP/Getty Images

MundoOriente Próximo,

In February satellite photographs of a new militarized buffer zone along Egypt’s border with Gaza circulated online. The Egyptian government was silent about the matter for a few days, then said that the area was being prepared so that aid trucks could enter the besieged Palestinian territory through the Rafah border crossing. Unnamed Egyptian officials also told NPR and other media outlets that the government planned to contain up to 150,000 people there in case of a mass breach by Palestinians trying to escape Israeli assaults.

From October until May Israel systematically pushed Palestinians from across Gaza southwards into Rafah, against the refortified Egyptian border, where 1.3 million people, 600,000 of whom are children, now shelter, mostly living in tents.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaInternacionalEconomía

On separate visits to Beijing last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen bore a common message: Chinese manufacturing overcapacity is flooding global markets with cheap Chinese exports, distorting world trade and leaving American businesses and workers struggling to compete.

Not surprisingly, China’s leaders did not like what they heard, and they didn’t budge. They can’t. Years of erratic and irresponsible policies, excessive Communist Party control and undelivered promises of reform have created a dead-end Chinese economy of weak domestic consumer demand and slowing growth. The only way that China’s leaders can see to pull themselves out of this hole is to fall back on pumping out exports.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ursula von der Leyen acompaña a los presidentes Emmanuel Macron y Xi Jinping en París. REUTERS

MundoAsia

"Cuando China despierte... el mundo temblará". Esta frase atribuida a Napoleón condensa un sentimiento muy generalizado en Europa tras la recién concluida gira del Presidente Xi. El Imperio del Medio llevaba más de diez lustros despertando y proyectando un relato de emergencia tranquila, que hoy carece de virtualidad en el panorama pos-COVID; en nuestro territorio transido de incertidumbre de futuro por la invasión rusa de Ucrania. El agorero anuncio decimonónico es, asimismo, el título de un libro que cayó en mis manos allá a principios de los 70, memorable porque fijó un interés personal de por vida. Su autor, Alain Peyrefitte, fue enviado a Pekín por De Gaulle para desbrozar negociaciones, con una misión clara: "[...]…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo

Une solution à deux Etats en Israël-Palestine peut-elle encore voir le jour, et à quelles conditions serait-elle viable ? Un mot optimiste d’abord : il existe en Israël comme en Palestine de nombreux mouvements citoyens pour la paix qui défendent avec ténacité et imagination des solutions pacifiques et démocratiques. Ces groupes sont malheureusement minoritaires, et sans un puissant soutien extérieur ils ont peu de chances de l’emporter.

Pour sortir de l’impasse, il est temps que l’Union européenne et les Etats-Unis, qui à eux deux absorbent près de 70 % des exportations israéliennes, mettent leurs actes en accord avec leurs discours. Si les gouvernements occidentaux soutiennent vraiment la solution à deux Etats, alors il faut imposer des sanctions au gouvernement israélien, qui piétine ouvertement toute perspective pacifique en poursuivant la colonisation et la répression et en s’opposant à la reconnaissance de l’Etat palestinien.…  Seguir leyendo »

Israel’s Rafah Incursion Helps No One Except Netanyahu

MundoOriente Próximo

Three days after it began, Israel’s operation in Rafah looks like a microcosm of its seven-month-long fight in Gaza: an attempt to check a tactical box rather than a strategic move with a definitive goal in the fight against Hamas.

As a limited incursion, it could be the least bad of Israel’s bad options, and even prove successful if it helps achieve a more favorable hostage deal or a cease-fire agreement. However, judging by the war’s conduct to date, it’s more likely that the operation will, in the end, backfire.

So far, the Israel Defense Forces has ordered the evacuation in the eastern outskirts of the city, taken over a two-mile-long section of the so-called Philadelphi Corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt and occupied the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, which is not actually in the city of Rafah.…  Seguir leyendo »

El presidente de México, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, en la Casa Blanca con el entonces presidente de EE. UU. Donald Trump, en 2020. López Obrador manejó la relación con Trump aceptando la naturaleza transaccional de la misma. Anna Moneymaker para The New York Times

MundoAmérica, ,

Queda menos de un mes para las elecciones en México. Y medio año para que Estados Unidos elija a su próximo presidente. En ambos lados de la frontera, funcionarios y políticos se preparan para el cambio de gobierno y también para una potencial victoria de Donald Trump, cuyo tiempo en la Casa Blanca se caracterizó por una retórica confrontativa y amenazante.

Estudian sus entrevistas, se preparan para deportaciones masivas y elaboran propuestas de políticas para llevar a la mesa de negociaciones.

Mientras México se dirige a sus elecciones presidenciales, programadas para el mes que viene, funcionarios y asistentes de campaña también se están preparando para otros comicios: una votación en Estados Unidos que podría llevar de vuelta a Donald Trump a la presidencia.…  Seguir leyendo »