Worldcrunch
The revelations of the alleged war crimes in Bucha are making Russia’s war more complicated for the leaders of China, who could have supported a victorious Moscow without hesitation, but a humiliated Moscow is a different matter. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s shared ambitions of a new world order is at stake.
After the surprising arrival of Emmanuel Macron five years ago, followed by protest movements, COVID-19 and now Ukraine, a sense of indifference has spread among voters. This could lead to a surprise victory of the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has rekindled the Nordic debate over the possibility of joining NATO, prompting Russian threats. It’s a microcosm for the conflict itself.
Less than a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a new cleavage in international affairs, U.S. President Joe Biden outlined a vision for confronting Moscow as necessary for the pursuit of America’s ambitions at home and abroad.
Russia’s president is neither clearly right-wing nor left-wing. As his dubious allies around the world suggest, he simply hates Western liberal democracy and seeks to expand his personal power, at home and abroad, by sowing unrest and conflict.
It’s not the presence of Western weapons that scares Moscow, it is the idea of freedom. And yet by threatening Ukrainians with invasion, his neighbors and rivals in the West rally around that same idea. Has the would-be strategic mastermind in the Kremlin finally painted himself into a corner? Unfortunately, that’s a dangerous place.
Western states are taking democratic governance for granted and responding feebly to threats in their midst. With the crisis at the Ukraine-Russia border coming to a head, the 1930s offer lessons on the dangers of complacency in the face of a kind of semi-democracy.
As Russia and China push their way to the top of the power heap, and the United States balks at playing global police force, expect fundamental changes to accepted norms governing international affairs.
Imagine self-organized forms of building, from remodeling existing structures to building entirely new spaces to accommodate individual liberty and radical change in social organization. It’s a movement whose time may be coming.
The number of political leaders who have science or technology backgrounds is disturbingly low. It’s not just the specifics of issues such as climate change, cybersecurity and COVID-19, but rather democracy itself and being able to dialogue with those who have lost trust in the facts that the governments are giving us.
Twenty years later the Islamist group is back in power in Afghanistan, but trying this time to win international support. Now that several months have passed, experts on the ground can offer a clear assessment if the group has genuinely transformed on such issues as women’s rights and free speech.
Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang says that the tech giant knowingly facilitates undermining democracy in India. Fair voting cannot be guaranteed if real people’s voices are drowned out by armies of fake online commentators.
It took firefighters nearly three days to extinguish the blaze at the historic building in Cape Town, and the damage will persist as South Africans try to figure out how this happened, and what it says about the country’s struggle to reinforce its young democracy.
The jail sentence against the opposition leader is a clear sign that strongman Lukashenko is not looking back.
Can the countries the United States have invited to an exclusive summit on democracy safeguard and spread a system that is inherently flawed and fragile?
Over the past few weeks, the offspring of two of the 20th centuries most ruthless strongmen have announced they’d like to become the (democratically elected) leaders of Libya and the Philippines.
The military has seized control in one of Africa’s largest countries, which until recently had made significant progress towards transitioning to democracy after years of strongman rule. But the people, and international community, may not be willing to turn back.
Once meant to protect the royal family, the century-old law has become a tool for the military-led government in Bangkok to stamp out all dissent. A new report outlines the abuses.
People used social media to help organize the large, anti-government protests that took place on the island last July. And yet, unlike their counterparts in China, Cuban authorities are loath to prohibit access to such sites. Do the math.
Becoming a democracy is not something willed upon a nation, especially by another country.
North Africa correspondent Frédéric Bobin analyzes Tunisian President Kais Saied’s recent decision to suspend parliament and sack Prime Minister Mechichi and what it means for the legacy of the Arab Spring — for Tunisia and for the region.
Mexico’s socialist president is determined to restore a ‘strong’ presidency he believes will put things right in Mexico. To many, he is starting to look like another tropical dictator of sort.
From the viewpoint of an economist specializing in social protection issues, France’s move toward vaccination mandates comes with major risks.
The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sets off youth groups to enforce lockdowns and wants to control the ‘demand’ for oxygen cylinders.
The region’s democratic states must close ranks and work with the United States to protect the rule of law at home and abroad against ‘an authoritarian onslaught,’ Rubén M. Perina* writes in Clarín.
Murky definitions of national identity were igniting worldwide debates long before COVID, but travel lockdowns have shifted the cards. And what if I wanted to become French?
Authoritarianism allows for swift, decisive action, and when it comes to controlling a viral outbreak, that may be an advantage. But that’s only part of the equation.
The contemporary crises of our world – climatic, democratic, technological, economic, epidemic – can no longer be understood or contained within the logic of nation states.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/T4ZOY2_Frso expand=1] On February 1, Myanmar’s military seized power and declared a year-long state of emergency, with commander in chief Min Aung Hlaing taking charge. The coup d’etat follows the national election victory of the party of leader Aung San Suu Kyi, which the armed forces refused to recognize. Suu Kyi and her party […]
Of Italy’s 58 prime ministers since World War II, you probably don’t remember the name Lamberto Dini. He took office on Jan. 13, 1995, several months after uncertain general election results, as the country grappled with an ongoing corruption scandal and billionaire businessman Silvio Berlusconi“s recent entry into politics. The Italian establishment had turned to […]
For many people, the lesson from the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 – and more broadly from the experience of the last four years – is that American democracy has become newly and dangerously fragile. That conclusion is overstated. In fact, American democracy has always been fragile. And it might be more precise to diagnose the United States as a fragile union rather than a fragile democracy. As President Joe Biden said in his inaugural address, national unity is “that most elusive of things.” Certainly, faith in American democracy has been battered over the last year. […]
MILAN — The first day of Joe Biden’s presidency bore clear traces of some of the recent wounds inflicted on the United States. After being sworn in, Biden arrived at the White House protected by thousands of troops and barricades just two weeks since deadly violence engulfed the Capitol. Thousands of flags stood in for […]
A motley crew barging into the U.S. Capitol can hardly be considered to be an attack on democracy in a country where capitalism has already systematically squeezed the rights of common folk.
When I was a kid — 12,13 — my dad’s shrink friend was a frequent guest in our house. His usual business on these visits was to review for us the degenerating state of the world, and list the ways it all made his profession difficult. “Wanna catch a glimpse of the future?” he asked […]
At 6 p.m. local time Wednesday in Rome, while much of the world was transfixed on Washington, D.C., Italian reporters were huddled in a vast room of the nation’s Parliament to witness another political crisis unfolding. Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced that his minor party would pull out of the government, plunging Italian […]
The assault on the Capitol wasn’t an attempted coup, per se. But the ramifications of how to hold Trump responsible are fundamental for the future of the American democracy.
A dictator-in-waiting orchestrates a violent assault on the seat of government. Shots are fired. A stunned world watches what most agree is an attack on democracy itself, a rejection of what had long seemed self-evident: that a nation’s health and prosperity depend on an orderly transfer of power from one elected leader to another. Two […]
The raid of Congress by a crowd of Donald Trump supporters is the culmination of a tumultuous presidency that has deeply fractured the American political system.
In addition to coronavirus-related deaths, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) recorded 42 murders of journalists and media workers since the beginning of 2020 in targeted attacks, bombings and shootings.