Articles in English

A protester waves a Palestinian flag during a pro-Palestinian “Nakba 76” rally in Washington, D.C., on May 18. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

MundoOriente Próximo

This week, as several European governments announced their plans to formally recognize the state of Palestine, the United States continued to press against the current. Earlier this month, the United States stood almost alone in its refusal to grant the Palestinian people an equal seat among the community of nations. The United Nations General Assembly approved its support of Palestinian statehood 143 to 9, with 25 nations abstaining. The thunderous applause that followed the vote marked both a celebration of international support for Palestinians and a protest against Israel and the United States.

Yet that vote was mostly symbolic. Full membership must first be approved by the U.N.…  Seguir leyendo »

Opposition politician Victoire Ingabire speaks to the media outside the High Court in Kigali on March 13. Guillem Sartorio / AFP

MundoÁfrica,

This July, Rwanda will conduct its presidential election—an event that should represent a celebration of democratic principles. Instead, it already promises to entrench the persistent suppression of opposition voices by the current government in Rwanda. As a victim of this suppression, I find myself once again barred from participating in an electoral process that I, as a Rwandan, have a right to take part in.

In January 2010, after 16 years in exile, I returned to Rwanda, hopeful and determined to contribute to the country’s political landscape through peaceful and democratic change. My intention was to register my political party and run for president in the elections scheduled for later that year.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iranians mourn late president Ebrahim Raisi at the Imam Reza shrine during the funeral ceremony in the city of Mashhad on May 23, 2024. HOSSEIN MOAMERI/FARS NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images

MundoOriente Próximo

The helicopter crash that claimed the lives of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and six others has introduced a new crisis for Iran amid regional turmoil and continued severe U.S. sanctions. This event raises questions about the Islamic Republic’s ability to navigate the transition of its presidency at a time of widespread public discontent and a struggling economy.

The reaction to Raisi’s death within Iran has been deeply polarized, reflecting the country’s divisions across social and political ideologies as well as levels of religiosity. Many Iranians do not mourn his passing, viewing him as a symbol of repression due to his long tenure in the judiciary, his involvement in the mass executions of the Mujahedin-e Khalq and leftist political prisoners in 1988, and his harsh crackdown on the “Women, Life, Freedom” demonstrations in 2022.…  Seguir leyendo »

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 »

Two women give their identity documents to Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) officials to be registered as voters ahead of the 2024 general elections at a voting station in Soweto on 18 November 2023. Photo by LUCA SOLA/AFP via Getty Images.

MundoÁfrica,

South Africa’s 29 May election has been tipped as the most important since the first democratic poll in 1994 and an important inflection point. Most polls have indicated that the ruling ANC will lose its majority but retain a leading role in national government and most of the provinces.

The results could be close. In particular, there could be marginal differences between smaller parties and independent candidates who are able to run for the first time in this election. Small margins could be the difference between getting access to political resources – and economic resources – or not. As with elections across the world, losers will look to blame the process.…  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 »

US President Joe Biden boards Air Force One before departing Manchester-Boston Regional Airport on May 21, 2024 in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

MundoAméricaMundoOriente Próximo, ,

The temperature has been steadily rising on US–Israel relations this month. President Biden warned on 8 May that he would halt certain weapon deliveries if Israel launched a major ground invasion of Rafah. But new polling suggests this did little to improve his approval ratings and that he may be losing momentum in key swing states.

Meanwhile Gaza war protests were surging across US college campuses, underscoring a generational change in attitudes among Jewish Americans, with younger American Jews less wedded to supporting Israel than their elders. Younger Jewish Americans are, for example, far less willing to support sending aircraft carriers to defend Israel and less supportive of Biden visiting the country.…  Seguir leyendo »