Worldcrunch
For the third year in a row, Nahid Taghavi, a retired architect and German citizen, is in Tehran’s brutal Evin Prison, where she has been mistreated after being wrongly convicted on trumped up charges as the Iranian regime exploits her foreign citizenship for money and influence.
There is a long history of mining in Egypt that goes back thousands of years, but has largely been dormant over the past century. But it’s picking up now, with troubling ramifications.
Is the Biden administration following President Obama’s counterproductive recipe of handing Tehran large sums of cash hoping for good conduct and a tepid détente?
Veterans of Wagner PMC, the mercenary group run by now-deceased Yevgeny Prigozhin, are scattered all over Russia. Many are now threatening to exact their revenge. But it is Russian President Vladimir Putin who wields the power, and there are plenty inside and outside Wagner who may be in his sights.
Yevgeny Prigozhin is gone, two months to the day of his aborted insurrection against the Russian military. The Wagner Group chief was likely killed in a plane crash on orders from the Kremlin. A piece written after Wagner’s coup offers a reminder that Russia is in the hands of a man obsessed with control, who wields his cowardice as a weapon.
Narendra Modi’s fixation with unflinching loyalty from those close to him is a worrying trait that betrays the Indian prime minister’s own insecurities.
The manufacture of a chip requires 500 operations on three continents. Both the U.S. and China want to master this incredible logistics chain. And with Taiwan crucial to the supply chain, there is both a cause and effect to try to calculate.
The war in Ukraine has become globalized, with its effects being felt from Africa to China. The only hope of de-escalation is in a potential diplomatic summit between the U.S. and China this autumn.
A scandal of the secret gay life of a senior Tehran official set off ricocheting accusations in the regime. Now compromising photos have emerged of a top state broadcasting manager with a female employee, who nonetheless kept her hair covered. The piousness of the Islamic Republic is ever more called into question.
Illegal punishment through the use of torture is increasingly common in Mongolia’s military, where 44 soldiers have died and 468 violations have been reported in the last decade, according to a 2022 report. Many former soldiers have been physically abused and harassed. After hearing recent reports of torture, the commission has begun training mental health professionals to serve in the military to help.
China’s economy is struggling, partly driven by a deepening economic rift with the U.S. That does not bode well for the rest of the world, particularly countries in the Global South, writes Argentine daily Clarín.
A lack of action by countries in the Western Hemisphere could increase the risk of Haiti truly turning into a failed state.
As a key regional member of NATO and neighbor of Ukraine, Poland is of particular interest to the Kremlin, and the usual misinformation weapons used by Russia also feature allusions to Jews and Americans — and may now include attempts to recruit Poles by the Wagner Group.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sparked an anti-Moscow nationalist upsurge in Latvia, which is now seeking to reduce the use of the Russian language in the public sphere in a country where almost 40% of the population are Russian speakers. While support for Kyiv is widespread, tensions in the country are growing, including on the language front.
Alexei Dyumin, a former bodyguard of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been touted as a likely successor to the man he once protected. Russian independent news outlet Important Stories takes a closer look at a man who prefers to keep a low profile.
Colombia’s leftist president claims Russia and the United States act in “much the same” way in the world, disregarding the fact that only one of those states poisons or throws critics out the window.
Beijing is obsessed with absorbing the “rebel island,” but a peaceful reintegration seems more and more unlikely. Despite the risk of an economic, and maybe military, confrontation with the U.S. and allies, an attempt by China to take Taiwan by force is probable, sometime between 2027 and 2049.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump has just pleaded “not guilty” criminal charges linked to his push to overturn 2020 election results. Indicted for the third time in four months, he is still somehow able to use the situation to fuel his campaign for re-election in 2024. The future election, American-Canadian scholar and cultural critic Henry Giroux writes, is a choice between democracy and the further criminalization of U.S. politics.
In recent days, multiple drone attacks targeted and hit skyscrapers in Moscow’s business district. These strikes are thought to have been led by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), reportedly belonging to a new category of “Beaver” drones. Here’s what we know about them.
The Israeli government’s aggressive bid to curb judicial powers fits into a bigger picture of the degradation of liberal democracy worldwide.
The presence of Russian Wagner paramilitary troops near the Polish border has sent the country’s prime minister into a panic, while on the campaign trail. But are worries about the presence of a mere 100 mercenaries justified or is it somehow part of Mateusz Morawiecki’s scare tactics, as in 2015?
Saudi Arabia is set to host non-Western countries to discuss how to initiate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Moscow-based daily Kommersant takes an in-depth look at what the high-level talks, slated for Aug. 5 in Jeddah, mean for Russia — who wasn’t invited to the summit —, Ukraine and the world.
Just days after the military seized power in Niger last week, the new junta has already been the target of sanctions by Brussels and Washington. What that means for the 1,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Niger, among other things, remains unclear.
The images of World War II have been used many times when describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But memory can deceive — many Ukrainian victims were forgotten as the Soviet Union spun history for its own purposes.
With the suppression of last year’s anti-regime protests in Iran, its people can barely stomach the West’s resumption of its business-as-usual approach with the Islamic Republic. The key to challenging the renewed status quo, the author writes, may very well lie with the country’s women.
Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and longtime ally Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko have issued statements accusing Poland of having territorial ambitions in Ukraine. It’s a worrying development that opens the door to military confrontation with NATO — and the looming presence of Wagner troops isn’t making things easier.
The country finds itself without a clear majority following yesterday’s parliamentary elections. Amid such inconclusive results, what are the country’s best options to avoid prolonged political limbo?
With Poland’s parliamentary election approaching, a controversial far-right political alliance, Konfederacja, has made its way to third place in national opinion polls. With a series of past scandals, a strong presence on social media and steadily increasing numbers in the polls, Konfederacja and party leader Sławomir Mentzen may be headed for a king-making role.
Polish Judge Joanna Knobel has became the victim of a hate mail campaign targeting, among other things, her Jewish background. With new threats being sent to other judges in recent weeks, the country is faced with a dangerous deepening of the divide that puts the institution of a free judiciary.
India goes to the polls next year, with a united opposition hoping to unseat Prime Minister Modi after 10 years in power. Mallikarjun Kharge, who may be the best candidate, is from India’s “lowest” caste system.
Ukraine was promised fast-tracked NATO membership last week. But promises often are overtaken by politics, and voices in and around the U.S. government are looking for softer ways out of the Ukraine war, including freezing the conflict like what was done between the two Koreas 70 years ago.
While the 1,600-kilometer border between India and Myanmar has seen waves of Burmese refugees fleeing to India as the civil war and air strikes have intensified, the Chinese government has been vocal about its support of Myanmar’s military junta. Inevitably, already tense relations between China and India
In a deep-rooted divide that has plagued Poland for years, the role of non-Jewish citizens in the Holocaust remains a much debated issue. But now the increasingly popular far-right party Konfederacja is toeing the line of blatant Holocaust denial.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the guest of honor for the July 14-Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, a choice that has benefits and risks for both France and India, two medium-sized powers cultivating their relative independence.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva’s goodwill toward the Venezuela’s President Maduro, in spite of the signs Maduro might hijack the 2024 general elections, suggests Lula has a problem with Western-style liberal democracy, even after he has criticized his predecessor for the same thing.
The prospect of Ukraine joining NATO has been postponed. Vladimir Putin will be pleased, knowing that Russia’s best hope is for a long war.
After a rocky start, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had reason to be happy after this week’s NATO summit. The military bloc pledged fast-tracked membership once the war is over, as well as military support from the entire G7 block for the duration of the conflict.
The NATO Summit in Vilnius will confirm that Ukraine’s entry to join the alliance must be delayed. U.S. President Biden has implied Ukraine could get similar security guarantees and support as Israel. There are clear pros and cons of such a security model, which did not happen overnight.
Mass protests which lasted for months in Iran last year galvanized Iranians at home and abroad, in a way not seen since the 1979 revolution. That unity must be maintained as political capital for the next time Iranians challenge the Islamic Republic.
The Israeli army’s operation last week in the Jenin camp was particularly striking in its scale and violence, further undermining any hope of appeasement in the region or the newfound alliance with Arab countries, or even among American Jews. What if Israeli politics, instead, was inspired by the nation’s Netflix series scriptwriters?