Articles in English

Demonstrators hold a Georgian flag during a protest against the “foreign agents” bill on May 15, 2024 in Tbilisi, Georgia. (Photo by Nicolo Vincenzo Malvestuto/Getty Images)

MundoCáucaso

Eduard Shevardnadze – Soviet foreign minister and the second president of independent Georgia – is spinning in his grave. Deposed in the country’s Rose Revolution in 2003 for his government’s corruption and bygone-era politicians, he was nonetheless a proud Georgian who would not have mortgaged his country’s destiny, as the current leadership is doing.

Once the poster child for progress towards Euro-Atlantic integration and democracy, Georgia is a reminder that a country’s ‘progress’ is neither linear nor inevitable.

Atrophy and capture are just as possible. It is the South Caucasus state’s appropriation – by a small section of the Georgian elite and effectively by Russia – that is of the most concern today.…  Seguir leyendo »

Palestinians gather on May 19 in the hope of obtaining aid delivered into Gaza through a U.S.-built pier. (Ramadan Abed/Reuters)

MundoOriente Próximo,

In Gaza City last November, I watched thousands of Palestinian civilians slowly march south from their shattered homes toward what Israel promised would be food and shelter in Rafah.

Now, with Rafah a military target, many of those Palestinians are again on the move fleeing conflict — their plight nearly as desperate as before. Israel, prodded by the United States, must fulfill its repeated promises to provide adequate humanitarian assistance — so that the next phase of the war in Gaza doesn’t become an even deeper tragedy.

Helping civilians ought to be the easy part of this terrible conflict. But more than seven months into the fighting, supplies of food, medicine and other essentials are still woefully inadequate.…  Seguir leyendo »

People walk past the rubble of destroyed buildings in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on May 14. (AFP/Getty Images) (-/AFP/Getty Images)

MundoOriente Próximo

The United Nations recently roiled discussions of the Gaza death toll when the organization altered the way it cites reporting on those killed in Israel’s counterattack against Hamas. The number of women and children killed, in the tally offered by the United Nations, suddenly dropped by nearly half, even as the overall death toll was almost unchanged. Yet the revision was neither a stunning rollback, as some claimed, nor an inconsequential shift, as others insisted.

Rather, the adjusted numbers reflect a combination of U.N. missteps in evaluating conflicting information reported by Hamas-run authorities, nontransparent casualty-counting techniques and the difficulty of counting deaths in a chaotic urban conflict.…  Seguir leyendo »

The front door of number 10 Downing Street, the home of the British prime minister, on the 15th of November 2023 in London. (Photo by Andrew Aitchison / In pictures via Getty Images).

Europa,

Rishi Sunak’s choice of a 4 July general election appears to have been driven by his judgement that economic news on inflation and interest rates is as good as it is going to get. Yet it was striking how much he emphasised the dark and ‘dangerous’ world environment that is the backdrop to these polls. His words accurately capture many people’s mood of fear in times of great uncertainty. One effect will be to thrust foreign policy further forward in this election than it would normally be.

His decision, coming at the same time as a new release of figures from the Office for National Statistics, appears overwhelmingly to have been shaped by inflation numbers that he could claim had got back to ‘normal’ but nonetheless contained in them reason to worry about persistent underlying inflation in services, and were not as good as hoped.…  Seguir leyendo »

Members of the Sudanese Armed Forces parading in Karima city, Northern State, in May 2024. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

MundoÁfrica,

The war in Sudan has become one of the worst ongoing humanitarian crises in the world. In a little over a year of fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), there have been 6.8 million people internally displaced, 2 million fleeing the country, and 24.8 million, almost half the population, in dire need of humanitarian assistance.

The United Arab Emirates is the foreign player most invested in the war. In fact, without its direct and all-around support, the RSF would not have been able to wage war to the same extent.

Sudan is key to the UAE’s strategy in Africa and the Middle East, aimed at achieving political and economic hegemony while curbing democratic aspirations.…  Seguir leyendo »

Watch List 2024 – Spring Update. Helping Keep Bosnia and Herzegovina Together

Europa

Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereafter, Bosnia) is at its most fragile moment in years. Republika Srpska (RS), the smaller of its two ethnically divided parts, is taking cautious but steady steps to break away, due to grievances with the country’s international supervision. A dispute about who should supervise local elections due on 6 October created a confrontation pitting RS leaders against High Representative Christian Schmidt, the international overseer appointed under arrangements that have secured the country’s tenuous peace for nearly three decades. That crisis erupted just days after 21 March, when European Union member state leaders approved opening accession talks with Sarajevo.…  Seguir leyendo »

At a funeral for Raisi and others killed in a helicopter crash, Tehran, May 2024. Majid Asgaripour / West Asia News Agency / Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo

The sudden death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in helicopter crash on May 19 marked a momentous day for the Islamic Republic. His presidency ushered in a new era for his country, characterized by increased militarization abroad and growing tumult at home. Not since the 1979 revolution had Iran’s political system faced such a fast-paced transformation. Externally, the country surprised the world with its military capabilities and its willingness to deploy them. Internally, Iran grappled with rising secularization, putting society at odds with the government. These shifts meant that the Iran that exists today is very different from the one that existed when Raisi came to power just three years ago.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión EuropeaDefensa y Seguridad

Earlier this month, outside the small Lithuanian town of Pabradė, alongside Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda, I witnessed German Boxer tanks roaring over a sandy plain. Less than 10km from the border with Belarus, deafening mortar shells were being fired. Bushes and trees were cast in thick layers of smoke. And yet the contrast could not have been greater compared to the time when Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht marched into Lithuania 83 years ago and turned that country and the other states of Central and Eastern Europe into “bloodlands”—a term aptly coined by Timothy Snyder, a historian. This time, German troops came in peace, to defend freedom and to deter an imperialist aggressor together with their Lithuanian allies.…  Seguir leyendo »

Watch List 2024 – Spring Update. President's take: a pivotal moment for EU Foreign Policy

EuropaUnión EuropeaPolítica Exterior

As the spring of 2024 draws to a close, the peace and security situation in and around Europe is as fraught as it has been in decades. Russia is pressing its advantage in Ukraine, moving into the Kharkiv region, which Kyiv liberated in 2022, and showing signs of increasing confidence. The western Balkans’ fragile peace is under increasing strain: in Bosnia, the Serb-majority Republika Srpska is inching closer to secession and lingering disputes between Kosovo and Serbia are a continuing source of friction. Farther afield, Israel continues its harsh campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s attacks of 7 October 2023 – a war that has killed upward of 35,000, pushed the strip to the brink of famine and created serious risks of escalation elsewhere in the Middle East.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Death of Iran’s President Could Change the World

MundoOriente Próximo

The uncertainty ushered in by the death of Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, in a helicopter crash, just weeks after an unprecedented exchange of military attacks with Israel, has brought a chilling question to mind: Is 2024 the year that Iran finally decides it can no longer take chances with its security and races to build a nuclear bomb?

Up to now, for reasons experts often debate, Iran has never made the decision to build a nuclear weapon, despite having at least most of the resources and capabilities it needs to do so, as far as we know. But Mr. Raisi’s death has created an opportunity for the hard-liners in the country who are far less allergic to the idea of going nuclear than the regime has been for decades.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Giant Crater in Siberia Is Belching Up Russia’s Past

EuropaReflexionesNaturaleza, ,

As the world warms, permafrost is thawing across two-thirds of Russia, threatening cities and towns that were constructed to house miners sent to dig up a subterranean trove of oil, gas, gold and diamonds. Even the roads are buckling, cracking and collapsing, as if in a slow-motion earthquake. And outside a small town called Batagay, deep in the Siberian hinterland, a crater is rapidly opening up — known to local residents as the gateway to the underworld.

From space, it resembles a stingray impressed on the coniferous forest. Already more than half a mile deep and about 3,000 feet wide, the Batagaika crater is growing as the ground beneath it melts.…  Seguir leyendo »

Smoke billows after Israeli bombardment in Gaza City on Tuesday. (AFP via Getty Images)

MundoOriente Próximo

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing increased pressure to agree to a hostage and cease-fire deal, including from close allies like President Biden, Benny Gantz and Yoav Gallant. But key to any long-term cease-fire is the question of who will police the Gaza Strip the next day. In some ways, it is easier to imagine a “day after the day after”. It entails a reformed, legitimate Palestinian Authority that takes control of both the West Bank and Gaza and engages in serious negotiations for a two-state solution. But how to get there? How will the transition between a cease-fire and the establishment of a revitalized Palestinian Authority be managed in Gaza?…  Seguir leyendo »

Displaced people taking shelter at a school wash their clothes in Nairobi on April 25. (Daniel Irungu/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

MundoÁfrica,

If you’ve donated clothing to a local charity or tossed your stained shirts in a drop-off bin, chances are your discarded items will be dumped in Africa, winding up in landfills, water and eventually breaking down into microplastics. Your castoff T-shirt will be among millions of items harming human health, marine life and local economies. In 2021, the United States was the leading exporter of secondhand clothing, according to United Nations data, and Africa was one of the main destinations for these goods. The intention is for vendors to sell at African markets, but the quality of the used clothing — referred to as mitumba — is often so poor and soiled that the items are dumped or burned as fuel.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesting weapons shipments to Israel in front of the White House, Washington, D.C., May 2024. Craig Hudson / Reuters

MundoAméricaMundoOriente Próximo, ,

On May 8, the Biden administration confirmed that it was withholding a major weapons shipment to the Israel Defense Forces. It was the biggest step that the United States has taken in decades to restrain Israel’s actions. The decision concerned a consignment of 2,000-pound bombs—weapons that the United States generally avoids in urban warfare, and which White House officials believed that Israel would use in its Rafah operation in the Gaza Strip—and did not affect other weapons transfers. Nonetheless, the administration’s willingness to employ measures that could materially constrain Israel’s behavior reflected its growing frustration with Israel’s nearly eight-month-old war in Gaza.…  Seguir leyendo »

The tractors of protesting farmers parked in Berlin, December 2023. Christian Mang / Reuters

EuropaUnión EuropeaUE a debate

From late 2023 until the spring of 2024, farmers across Europe flooded capitals to voice their disapproval of national and European Union policies. Tractors rolled down boulevards as protesters blocked streets and caused havoc. The anger reached the heart of the EU, where demonstrators brought the Brussels city center to a standstill and pelted the European Parliament building with eggs.

The protesters had a multitude of concerns, but chief among them was the European Green Deal, launched by the European Commission in 2019, a package of policy initiatives that included new restrictions on the use of pesticides, bans on combustion engines, and the protection of biodiversity—all measures that came with costs for farmers.…  Seguir leyendo »

Kenyan President William Ruto gives an address at the State House in Nairobi on 9 May (Photo by TONY KARUMBA/AFP via Getty Images)

MundoÁfrica

Kenyan President William Ruto’s arrival in Washington on 22 May ends a historic drought. No African leader has made a state visit to the US since John Kufuor of Ghana in 2008 – three times longer than the previous record gap, but a period that has also seen three US Africa Strategies (2012, 2018 and 2022) and two US–Africa Leaders’ Summits (2014 and 2022).

The latest of these strategic resets in 2022 encouraged a somewhat more engaged US administration, reflected in an uptick of visits by officials to the continent.

Yet competing international priorities and the looming US elections risk Washington slipping back into a status quo of complacency on Africa – illustrated by Joe Biden’s failure to make a promised trip to the continent in 2023.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

When I was mayor of Mexico City, I led a comprehensive strategy to improve the security of the capital’s residents. The results were impressive: between December 2018 and June 2023 the average daily number of intentional homicides fell by 51%, returning to levels seen before the four-year spike that immediately preceded the new strategy. Crimes classed as “high-impact” fell by 58% and violent vehicle theft by 69%.

The strategy that made these achievements possible rested on four pillars. The first involved focusing on the cause of insecurity with youth programmes introduced by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and other social programmes I implemented in Mexico City to improve well-being and break the vicious cycle of violence.…  Seguir leyendo »

A customer at a kiosk advertising M-Pesa, Safaricom's mobile money service, in Nairobi, on September 14, 2023. (Photo by SIMON MAINA/AFP via Getty Images)

ReflexionesNuevas Tecnologías

This week’s AI Seoul summit offers an opportunity to broaden the conversation on AI from a narrow but important focus on safety, to one that further explores the technology’s potential benefits.

The Seoul summit convenes governments and select global industry, academic and civil society leaders, not only around efforts to ‘ensure AI model safety’ but to support ‘ innovation and inclusivity’.

The UK is a co-host of the summit, and hosted the first AI Safety Summit in November 2023, consistently championing AI safety. But it has coupled that with a focus on how AI can bring benefits to poorer countries – announcing an £80 million AI for Development programme at the 2023 summit.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

In recent years Mexico has found itself grappling with a deep security crisis, threatening its very democratic foundations. As criminal organisations cast a shadow over society, the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has failed to fulfil its basic responsibility of protecting the life and freedom of citizens. Criminal violence remains unchecked, and the government increasingly resorts to post-truth politics and unlawful, undemocratic means to maintain power.

At the heart of Mexico’s democratic woes lies the pervasive influence of organised crime. While my country has long struggled with criminal impunity and violence, Mr López Obrador’s time in office has seen an unprecedented escalation in the power and reach of these illegal networks.…  Seguir leyendo »

A resident waiting to be evacuated from Vovchansk, as Russia continues its offensive in Kharkiv oblast. Photograph: Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images

Europa, , ,

The Russian offensive on the Kharkiv region this month has, after 20 months of relative peace, again placed many of the villages where my charity works, repairing homes destroyed by bombs, at the forefront of the war.

I began volunteering in Kharkiv two years ago, having dropped out of my master’s degree in Russian literature and set up the charity to support Ukrainians. After the region’s liberation in September 2022, hundreds of thousands of people had started to return to Kharkiv city and the wider region from other parts of Ukraine, and countries that had taken them in as refugees. The villages where I work were reawakening, the craters that lined the streets had been filled, shops were reopening, electricity was back on.…  Seguir leyendo »