Uganda’s new law that calls for life imprisonment for gay sex is part of a wider crackdown against LGBTQ+ rights that is particularly harsh on the African continent.
Tag: west
Iran and Saudi Arabia have announced they will restore diplomatic relations. The news may have proved startling — especially China’s role — but is unlikely to dispel long-standing distrust between two regional rivals.
The Munich Security Conference of 2023 takes place this weekend. The 2007 edition was a turning point for the world, where Vladimir Putin made his intentions clear — and today it all looks destined to arrive at the invasion of Ukraine.
Inside Iran, people are risking their lives to fight the oppressive Islamic Republic. Now, they need support from compatriots abroad and Western democracies to bring an end to this decades-long fight for democracy.
The Russian military is systematically committing war crimes – now for all to see in the middle of Kyiv. It is shameful that the West is not helping adequately, for example with appropriate air defense systems. The time for political excuses is over.
The exit of top international companies from the Russian market in response to the invasion of Ukraine has led to an unraveling of Moscow’s intellectual property standards.
Hit by EU sanctions, Russia is working hard to spread its own propaganda through neighboring countries. A new study breaks down exactly what that disinformation campaign is saying — and whether it’s working.
It’s been more than 150 days of Putin’s relentless invasion, and a clear-eyed view of the war now is neither side is winning. This will make bold decisions by Ukraine’s allies essential to any hope for victory.
The longer the war in Ukraine continues, the louder calls will grow for a ceasefire . Stockholm-based analysts explain how the West can reach a viable deal on this: primarily by avoiding strategic mistakes from last time following the annexation of Crimea.
African countries have mostly stayed quiet on the war in Ukraine. And with good reason. Western influence is diminishing on the continent, and Russian President Vladimir Putin knows how to push the right buttons of African autocrats.
Western leaders have given mixed messages on ending war in Ukraine. They fear the fallout of a power change in Moscow, and when it comes to Putin, it may be a case of “better the devil you know.”
Boris Johnson’s resignation is another example of the political crises in the democratic world. But that does not necessarily mean that dictators and despots will win.
The head of the Kremlin boasted at the recent forum in St. Petersburg International Economic Forum about Russia’s economic resilience against Western sanctions. But behind the scenes, Russian business leaders tell a different story.
After years of ignoring or downplaying domestic protests in Iran, Western states and media have begun to imagine — and even prepare for — the still slim but growing possibility of a regime change in Tehran.
We know them from the movies: the heroes who save the world from disaster in the nick of time. In real life, you sometimes look for them in vain. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows that the West needs new heroes.
Russia’s invasion has created a stark global divide: them and us. On one side are the countries refusing to condemn Moscow, with the West on the other. It’s a dangerous split that could have repercussions far into the future.
Russia continues to shrink its ambitions in Donbas, as Ukraine doubles down on its strategy of guerilla attacks, interrupting supply and communication contacts and ultimately undermines the morale of the enemy.
Can you believe Poles are happy to see Germans re-arming? It is just one of a series of examples of how the world has turned upside down since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, completing a shift begun during the pandemic toward less interdependence and more uncertainty.
In the agricultural region of Mordovia, south of Moscow, people live in their own reality, far from Western news and the bloodshed of Ukraine. And Vladimir Putin is like a father.
The war in Ukraine has set off the dynamics of a new Cold War: a standoff between democracy and authoritarianism, whatever the ideological stripe. Faraway parts of the world will be affected by what happens on the ground in Ukraine.
Putin may seem an irrational actor, but he is clearly staging a wider war against the West and the U.S. Even if Russia couldn’t survive an urban guerrilla battle in Ukraine, it has China’s silent support.
More than 300 companies have announced plans to close stores, reassign staff or stop selling products in Russia since the Feb. 24 invasion. These decisions fit in with a recent trend of companies listening to customers, though the geopolitical factors are a new twist.
By deciding to invade Ukraine, the President of Russia did so believing that money would protect his country. By trying to prove him wrong, the West is facing its own potential crash.
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.
Whether out of cynicism, greed or basic lack of knowledge, the West has willingly embraced the fabricated vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a slightly unruly, but essentially legitimate government with which it can do business.
Becoming a democracy is not something willed upon a nation, especially by another country.
The fall of the Afghan national government may be a calamity for the Afghans but not for the world’s big-money interests, which prefer to deal with ruthless, incompetent regimes that will sell out their countries.
As France and its overseas departments mark 200 years since Napoleon’s death, his role in spreading slavery to the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique is prompting more and more to reverse his heroic legacy.
Also known as al-Khalil — the friend — the historic, contested city is steeped in enmity and overshadowed by Israel’s commanding military presence.
They shall not pass: Since July, soldiers have stepped up patrols along the country’s 1,600-km border with Mali and Burkina Faso.
A Manifesto for Tali’at, a new movement seeking to put the feminist cause at the center of the battle for Palestinian rights.
There is much to admire about Germany’s nearly 70-year-old constitution. But it also contains a serious flaw.
We should not be proud of of the insufficient response against the Damascus regime, but total inaction would be even worse.
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Mother Russia And Us, What Now?
The result came as no surprise: Vladimir Putin won yesterday’s Russian presidential election and will serve a fourth term. More importantly for the Kremlin leader, he obtained the comfortable result he was seeking, with 76.6% of the vote, up from 63.3% in the last election six years ago. Yes, nearly two decades after emerging from […]
The moderate president symbolizes the hope of rapprochement with the West in nuclear talks, but he must also deal with the regime’s hardliners. Can he manage to strike a deal with the enemy?
The risk is real of armed conflict between the West and Moscow on European soil. Searching for a way out means learning the lessons of Finland, and counting on leadership from France.
Nestled in between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea, far from mainland Russia, Kaliningrad feels much more like Europe, and its residents are proud of its Western-like values.
–Commentary– BERLIN — There are photographs of Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul, taken in the 1960s, that show elegantly dressed women sitting in street cafés. There are similar photos from the period shot in Ankara, Cairo, Damascus and Karachi. A half-century later, comparable scenes are nowhere to be found in many of these cities. Ankara is […]