Tag: geopolitics

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In The News

Shift To Asia? Africa Rising? Big Questions To Track For 2019

Looking ahead from South Korea
Looking ahead from South Korea Yonhap News/Newscom/ZUMA

-Analysis- NEW YORK — As 2018 comes to a close, attention is turning to what is likely to happen in 2019. I have no idea. But if you follow these questions, you will have your finger on the pulse of the world to come: What will happen with Chinese civil society? Five to 10 years ago, China had a proliferating and diverse group of non-profit groups, think tanks and cooperative civil society institutions, such as charities and clubs. They never stood on a firm legal foundation, but in the last few years they have been subject to a severe crackdown, […]

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Economy Eyes on the U.S. Food / Travel Future Ideas Society

The 2018 Dozen — Our 12 Most Popular Stories Of The Year

How was your year?
How was your year? Katya Austin

LE MONDE Full Translation Of French Anti-#MeToo Manifesto Signed By Catherine Deneuve Some 100 prominent French women artists and intellectuals have issued an open letter in Le Monde condemning the movement to call out inappropriate male behavior that erupted in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. CLARIN Interview With A Recovering Hippie Named Paulo […]

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Economy

Africa Awakens From Its China Naivety

Chinese infrastructure in Kenya
Chinese infrastructure in Kenya Peter Usher

The letter bearing the reference “MC/19/3” represents a novelty in Chinese-African relations. Kabineh Kallon, Sierra Leone’s Minister for Transport and Aviation, explains in sober tones that, after careful consideration, no new airport in the capital city of Freetown will be built. China had promised a loan and construction works worth $318 million. But Freetown already […]

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In The News

Reading Tea Leaves In Pyongyang

Kim across the table from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Pyongyang.
Kim across the table from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Pyongyang. Kcna/Xinhua via ZUMA

WASHINGTON — When Kim Jong-un came out in the open, analysts, spies and all kind of experts were running through the footage, sound bites, testimonies, intelligence reports and open-source information collected during the few hours the North Korean dictator visited South Korea, Pyongyang’s staunch enemy since 1953. Since that year, not a single member of […]

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In The News

The World Needs A Strong France-Germany Alliance More Than Ever

Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, Europe's power couple
Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, Europe's power couple Wiktor Dabkowski/ZUMA

In a time of Trump, Putin, and Xi Jinping, Europe represents a democratic ideal alone—respectful of both humanity and the planet. And Europe needs a revival of the Berlin-Paris alliance to make it possible.

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Ideas Trump And The World

North Korea: Hailing Trump’s Biggest Win So Far, With Caution

Thumbs up, for now?
Thumbs up, for now? Marc Nozell

WASHINGTON — For the moment, at least, it appears to be a clear-cut victory — the biggest foreign policy win of his young administration. President Donald Trump has brought his arch-nemesis, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a.k.a. “Little Rocket Man,” to the table to negotiate away his nuclear arsenal. Optimists declared a major breakthrough. Even pessimists acknowledged that Trump’s hard line against Pyongyang, after decades of less forceful U.S. effort, played a significant role in moving one of the world’s most vexing and threatening problems in a potentially positive direction. But in the afterglow of the surprise announcement — […]

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In The News

Can India And Iran Rekindle Their 1990s-Era Romance?

Modi and Rouhani in Tehran in May 2016
Modi and Rouhani in Tehran in May 2016 Narendra Modi's official Flickr account

After a difficult 15 years, relations between New Delhi and Tehran are in need of improvement. The recent visit in India by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was key first step.

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In The News

Post-ISIS, U.S. And Russia (And Oil) Are Key To Syria’s Future

Oil field in Deir ez-Zor, Syria
Oil field in Deir ez-Zor, Syria Andree Kaiser/TNS/ZUMA

DAMASCUS — It is across an immense desert, between oil fields and Mesopotamian archeological sites overlooking the Euphrates, where Syria’s future may be decided. The question, as Damascus makes more and more ground against ISIS and jihadists fighters, is the following: After seven years of a devastating war will the nation remain united? Or will […]

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In The News

Striking Politics When Drilling For Gas In Mediterranean

Striking Politics When Drilling For Gas In Mediterranean
@SmcManus22/Instagram

-Analysis- PARIS — Drilling operations have begun off the coast of Cyprus despite Ankara’s threats against the Cypriot government. And for French oil and gas multinational Total and its Italian partner, ENI, hopes for a huge payout are running high. As IHS Markit reported earlier this year, the “Onisiforos’ operation, as it’s known, is expected […]

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In The News

Paris Will Always Be Paris, Trump Will Always Be Trump

Landing in Paris on July 13
Landing in Paris on July 13 Gisele Tellier/Future-Image/ZUMA

-Analysis- PARIS — “Paris sera toujours Paris …” When French singer Maurice Chevalier first released the classic tune in 1939, the aim was to brighten the mood of the curfew-burdened French capital as war approached, assuring them that “Paris will always be Paris.” Fast-forward nearly eight decades and another kind of showman has been trying […]

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In The News

India, Israel And Iran: Three’s A Crowd?

Netanyahu welcomes Modi in Israel on July 4

For the first time since India established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992, an Indian prime minister traveled to Israel. Narendra Modi’s historic three-day visit began today in Tel Aviv, where Benjamin Netanyahu personally welcomed him at Ben Gurion airport — a rare airport greeting from the Israeli prime minister. The airport pickup signifies the considerable elevation at which Indian-Israeli relations have been lifted to. The Asian giant has traditionally walked a tightrope between Israel and Muslim-majority nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have supplied it oil. India has also long lent support to the Palestinian cause, particularly under […]

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In The News

Trump v. Merkel, In Any Language

Trump and Merkel in Taormina on May 27
Trump and Merkel in Taormina on May 27 Michael Kappeler/DPA/ZUMA

The ruins left behind by President Donald Trump’s first foreign trip don’t look anything like the archeological wonders in Taormina, Sicily, site of this past weekend’s G7 summit. The rubble left in Trump’s path can be reassembled in brutal words of German, French, Italian, English and other languages spoken and written in different European and […]

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In The News

Arming Syrian Kurds, A Nasty Thorn In U.S.-Turkey Relations

Kurdish fighter during anti-ISIS operation
Kurdish fighter during anti-ISIS operation Kurdishstruggle/Planet Pix/ZUMA

As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with U.S. President Donald Trump, mutual objectives may be overshadowed by the Kurdish question.

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas Trump And The World

Duterte And Trump, When Tough Talk Leads To Deadly Action

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Rouelle Umali/Xinhua/ZUMA

WASHINGTON, D.C. — During his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump boasted that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” On the 100th day of his presidency, Trump invited Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has said that he used to roam the streets on a motorcycle looking for criminals to kill, to the White House. A Duterte state visit to Washington or Mar-a-Lago would be a ghastly spectacle, given the way the Philippines have pursued a war on drugs even more literal than the one in the United […]

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Geopolitics Ideas

Brexit And The Falklands: Isolated UK Is Opportunity For Argentina

A man passes by a store in the Falklands
A man passes by a store in the Falklands Martin Zabala/ZUMA

Brexit could isolate Britain in its dispute with Argentina over the Falklands, though leaders in Buenos Aires need to think and speak clearly, or risk keep the status quo.

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Geopolitics The Endless War

Middle East, Of Political Dead-Ends And Scientific Hopes

In Bethlehem
In Bethlehem Dawei DING

-Analysis- Will the world’s oldest conflict ever be resolved? There have been a few fleeting occasions over the past 25 years when both Israelis and Palestinians appeared eager to negotiate, and a solution seemed within reach. Alas these are now mere memories — so distant that their effects have largely worn off. Perhaps there has […]

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Geopolitics True Fiction Trump And The World

True Fiction: When President Trump Meets President Macron

Bienvenue!
Bienvenue! Worldcrunch montage/Prisma

It’s October 2017. The spring’s French presidential elections had been won by a fresh-faced ‘Anti-Trump.’ Now it’s time for the two men to meet.

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In The News

International Justice Denied

Your daily update of the latest news from around the world, brought to you by Worldcrunch. To get it in your inbox each morning, sign up here. Is this the end of the road for the International Criminal Court? Yesterday’s announcement by Russia that it was formally withdrawing its signature from the ICC’s founding Rome […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Flaws And All, The World Will Miss Barack Obama

Bye bye Barack
Bye bye Barack White House

President Obama was, on many levels, a major disappointment. But his legacy is one of grace and integrity in a political world that grows uglier by the day.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Philippines, Underestimate Rodrigo Duterte At Your Peril

Rodrigo Duterte in Jolo, Philippines, on Aug.12
Rodrigo Duterte in Jolo, Philippines, on Aug.12 Rey Baniquet/Planet Pix/ZUMA

The controversial new Filippino president, who arrives in China today, has mostly garnered attention for his brutal crackdown on drug dealers. But his ambitions go far beyond.

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Geopolitics

Exclusive: North And South Korea Together At Swiss Summit

Glion, Switzerland
Glion, Switzerland cedric

Amid extraordinarily high tensions on the Korean peninsula, Switzerland managed to get diplomats from Pyongyang to sit down with counterparts from Seoul.

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blog

Connecting The Dots, French-Style

The crew here at Worldcrunch is busy scouring the best foreign-language journalism in search of untold local stories and points of view from different countries: like this German story from deep in Bavaria or a Chinese op-ed about China’s Olympic performance. Sometimes, though, it’s also useful to zoom back out, and weave together the whole […]

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Geopolitics

A Look At International Relations From A Russian Viewpoint

Putin facing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Putin facing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Alexei Druzhinin/Planet Pix/ZUMA

Aleksei Arbatov, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, analyzes Kremlin’s foreign policy and offers an inside look at where international relations are headed.

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Geopolitics Syria Crisis

Aleppo Is Even Worse Than Srebrenica — So Is Western Apathy

Survivors of Russian airstrikes in Aleppo earlier this year
Survivors of Russian airstrikes in Aleppo earlier this year Louai Barakat/ImagesLive via ZUMA

The humanitarian drama of the besieged city deepens. The people are simply not able to trust the alliance between Assad, Russia and Iran. And the West just looks on.

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blog

Turkey And Russia, Reunited Against The West

SPOTLIGHT: TURKEY AND RUSSIA, REUNITED AGAINST THE WEST Russia and Turkey have historically straddled East And West, often in different ways and with different degrees of influence over the centuries. Right now, both countries appear crucial — and unpredictable as ever, each in the hands of imperious rulers. Thus all eyes today are on a […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas Trump And The World

What Putin Would Do With A President Trump

Putin and Trump caricature by Donkey Hotey
Putin and Trump caricature by Donkey Hotey Wikimedia Commons

-OpEd- So let’s stipulate: Donald Trump is not Vladimir Putin’s willing agent, and it’s not certain if or to what extent Putin is trying to elect Trump president. The real issue is that Trump and Putin share the same nihilistic approach to international relations. Together, they could transform our world. Putin already has fostered a current of ruthless, cynical and utterly unprincipled opportunism in what, before his arrival, was thought of as an increasingly cooperative and rational international community. The Russian president has embraced and perfected the use of lies for geopolitical advantage, pursued and murdered his opponents in foreign […]

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Society

Euro 2016 Lessons: How Great Soccer And Good Nationalism Can Save Europe

The singular French joy of beating the Germans.
The singular French joy of beating the Germans. Guo Yong/Xinhua via ZUMA

-Analysis- PARIS — Call it the “glorieuse incertitude du sport” — the glorious uncertainty of sports. During the finals of soccer’s just completed 2016 European Championship, Portugal saw its singular star Ronaldo taken out of the game after an injury, but won anyway against a favored host French team that had overcome its eternal nemesis, […]

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Future Geopolitics

This Video Game Grooms Future World Leaders

Power & Revolution screenshot
Power & Revolution screenshot Eversim/Facebook page

Power & Revolution, a simulator that mirrors real world events, is used by some countries to select potential diplomats and train them.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

From Hiroshima To Iraq, America’s Long History Of Not Apologizing

From Hiroshima To Iraq, America's Long History Of Not Apologizing
Pete Souza/White House/ZUMA

This week, President Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, the Japanese city that the United States nearly destroyed with a nuclear bomb in 1945. While the bombing is estimated to have killed as many as 150,000 people, Obama is not expected to apologize during his visit. It’s reasonable to ask, after more than 70 years, why not apologize for Hiroshima? One well-worn argument is that the bombing of the city (and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki that followed) was morally justifiable as it was the quickest way to end World War II — a conflict […]

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Economy Geopolitics Ideas

Why An Imperfect China Is The World’s Last Best Hope

Investors are seen in a stock trading hall in Beijing, China, in 2009.
Investors are seen in a stock trading hall in Beijing, China, in 2009. Li Xiaoguo

From the Middle East to Europe and the United States to Asia, from geopolitics to economics, the world has fallen into widespread chaos. But there is cause for hope.

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blog

Syrian Chaos, Nikkei Soars, John Paul II’s Special Friend

Syrian Chaos, Nikkei Soars, John Paul II's Special Friend

PRE-CEASEFIRE, SYRIA FIGHTING ESCALATES Fighting has intensified in Syria just days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov announced that an agreed ceasefire would begin by the end of this week. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital 70 […]

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blog

War And Planes: Russian Weekly’s Ominous Cover

“If War Comes Tomorrow,” read this week’s edition of Moscow-based magazine The New Times, quoting the title of a famous 1938 Russian propaganda movie on a very Soviet-looking cover, as it wonders what the consequences a new “big war” would be for Russia. The weekly magazine focuses on the dangers of what it calls “the […]

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Geopolitics Society

Tehran Is A Poem — Art And Uncertainty In The Iranian Capital

Young Iranians in Nahjul Balagha
Young Iranians in Nahjul Balagha Majid Saeedi/TNS/ZUMA

TEHRAN — Repeating something Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, said years ago — long before Iran’s latest clash with Saudi Arabia — Moussa reveals much about the current mindselt in the streets and cafés of the Iranian capital: “With the Great Satan we could forgive and forget,” he says. “But with the Ibn […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics Ideas

Origins Of ISIS, Imagining If Saddam Was Still In Power

What if...?
What if...? Iraqi Special Tribunal/ZUMA

Many now blame the U.S.-led Iraq invasion of 2003 for the spread of terror in the Middle East. But what would the region look like today, if the Iraqi dictator hadn’t been ousted?

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Geopolitics Ideas

Turkey In Iraq, Erdogan Reveals His Sunni Agenda

Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers training near Erbil, Iraq
Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers training near Erbil, Iraq Spc. Tristan Bolden/Planet Pix/ZUMA

After its standoff with Moscow over the downed Russian fighter jet, Ankara is making waves with its troop presence in Iraq. But Turkey does not want Shia militia to be the heroes to “rescue” Mosul from ISIS.

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Geopolitics Ideas Syria Crisis

Obama Plays Chess, Putin Plays Poker

Putin and Obama at the UN on Sept. 28, 2015
Putin and Obama at the UN on Sept. 28, 2015 Chip Somodevilla/CNP/ZUMA

Where the Russian leader lacks any real strategy, his American counterpart is short on nerve. They’re playing two different games and following very different rules.

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Economy

The “Perfect Storm” That Could Wreak Havoc On World Economy

The "Perfect Storm" That Could Wreak Havoc On World Economy
Diego Torres Silvestre

Three key factors in the world’s leading economies may slow growth again, and emerging economies could bear the brunt.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Why The Whole World Looks Like Africa, And How To Fix It

Anti-government protests last year in Thailand
Anti-government protests last year in Thailand Jack Kurtz/ZUMA

Too many nations and peoples with too many grievances. A wealth divide that grows deeper. A new (new) world order is needed, with the U.S. and China firmly in charge.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Never Again, Never Criticize: Why Germany-Israel Relationship Is In Peril

Merkel and Netanyahu have maintained good relations.
Merkel and Netanyahu have maintained good relations. Saeed Qaq/APA Images/ZUMA

Jerusalem and Berlin have strong ties in no small part because German officials virtually never criticize Israel. But that may be the seed of creeping estrangement.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Cover Your Eyes, Yemen Is Dying

Digging graves after a Saudi airstrike in Yemen's Bani Matar district on April 4
Digging graves after a Saudi airstrike in Yemen's Bani Matar district on April 4 Hani Ali/Xinhua/ZUMA

A view from Turkey on the new conflict that is not only shaking the map of the Middle East, but costing the lives of innocent victims.

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