Tuesday’s deadly explosion couldn’t have come at a worse time for Lebanon, which is also struggling with high inflation, the collapse of its currency and a new wave of coronavirus infections.
Category: Geopolitics
The Islamic Republic foreign minister made a series of trips recently to shore up support among his country’s few remaining allies. He returned empty handed.
The Amazon jungle provides benefits that extend well beyond the river basin itself. It stands to reason, therefore, that countries like Colombia be paid to protect it.
Welcome to Monday, where Tunisia’s prime minister is sacked over handling of pandemic, U.S.-China talks are off to a rocky start and a 13-year-old skateboarder wins the first Olympic gold medal. German daily Die Welt also looks at the geopolitics behind the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline deal between Russia and Germany. • Tunisia PM […]
The European Union has reached a historic accord, de facto unifying as one state by agreeing on a common debt. The EU now is a new form of society, in which sovereignty is shared reciprocally.
Welcome to Thursday, where China rejects WHO’s plans to look into its “Wuhan lab leak” theory, U.S. & Germany reach a deal on Nord Stream 2 and two Swedish hostage takers have the weirdest ransom demand. Hong-Kong based media The Initium also explains why young people in China are still drawn to the prospect of […]
Slovenian-born writer Andrej Mrevlje tries once again to get a read on the fiercely reserved first lady, this time with the help of new book called The Art of Her Deal.
There are important lessons to be learned from how the world mobilized to contain the novel coronavirus.
Welcome to Monday, where an international probe reveals spyware has been used to target thousands of journalists and activists around the world, South Korea’s president is protesting the Olympics after a diplomatic spat and a Slovenian cyclist wins the Tour de France for the second time in a row. The Initium also looks at how […]
Latin America can do a lot more to right history’s wrongs than topple the bronze effigies of its conquest-era villains.
The country’s ‘principled’ approach to data collection does a disservice to people dealing with real and consequential discrimination.
An outright ban on wildlife trade may exacerbate the situation. Could carefully controlling these animal markets be the best answer?
The long lockdown period has only added to the frustrations people feel about their country’s unresolved class disparities, crass politics and history of violence.
Leaders like Trump and Bolsonaro don’t just bend the truth. By using lies as a consistent political tool, they try to destroy it — as did the fascist regimes of the last century.
Welcome to Monday, where thousands of Cubans join rare protests against the government, Jordan arrests suspected coup organizers and it’s a full-blown festa in Italy after the national soccer team’s Euro win, as racists make loss even worse for England. With the Cannes Festival red carpet out, Les Echos looks at how Netflix and other […]
The socialist strongman has plenty of critics. But he also has a remarkable amount of staying power, in part because of the tacit support he receives from certain fellow presidents.
Welcome to Friday, where Tokyo bans Olympic spectators, at least 28 people are thought to be behind Haiti President assassination and a 14-year-old girl makes Spelling Bee history. Worldcrunch also takes you on a world tour of dying languages that are being rescued by the very tech that puts them at risk. • Tokyo Olympics […]
-Analysis- LONDON — “We’re at the end of our rope,” is a phrase you may hear these days among lower-income Iranians struggling to survive in a country heaving under economic sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic. It’s also a statement recently issued by a national pensioners association, which has been seen as a “warning” to a […]
Grief and catastrophe in and around the Italian city that became a symbol of the swiftness of the pandemic’s death and destruction.
-OpEd- Chinese tanks have not rolled through the streets of Hong Kong, but Beijing’s legislative coup Tuesday, on the eve of the 23rd anniversary of the territory’s handover to China, is provoking a similar fear. Pro-democracy business owners have hastily removed the slogans that lined their storefronts and thousands are applying to emigrate, with Australia […]
The protests, pandemic and poor U.S. jobs numbers all seem to spell trouble for President Donald Trump. But his challenger has a few disadvantages of his own.
Even as the total number of cases of COVID-19 decreased In Italy, an outbreak flared up in the southern province of Caserta among migrant agricultural laborers. Writing in the Italian daily La Stampa, Mattia Feltri recounts how, once again, the pandemic is bringing long-simmering tensions, economic inequity and social injustice to the surface. Almost all […]
“The nation-state on its own has no future… ” Angela Merkel’s apparently ominous declaration in late May was actually part of what might be the strongest vote of confidence in recent memory to ensure the future of the European Union. After years of touting austerity and protecting national fiscal sovereignty, the German Chancellor has suddenly […]
Beijing seems to be abandoning the very strategy that allowed it to not only survive the collapse of the USSR, but also prosper.
-OpEd- Let’s talk about the words that are at the center of this wake-up-call of a debate. There’s the word “racism,” for starters. It’s a garbage dump of a word, one that embodies a stinking reality, that brings to mind filth like Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan. That’s what comes to the mind of […]
Welcome to Wednesday, where the toll of Canada’s record heatwave is multiplying, Tigray rebels dismiss a government ceasefire and a British rock legend gets to keep his railroad jingle. As Pride Month draws to an end, we also look at how LGBTQ+ activists in several African countries confront the challenge of overcoming conservative attitudes and […]
Argentine food production is doing fine and needs no ‘progressive’ state intervention to assure supplies.
Which leaders will be remembered from this moment in history? So asks Catherine Chatignoux.
In Arab countries, the death of George Floyd has reignited the debate about racism against Blacks, a discrimination that worsens as it descends the social ladder.
Unlike the SARS and H1N1/09 outbreaks, which caused friction between the two countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has, if anything, improved Chinese-Mexican relations.
-OpEd- BUENOS AIRES — Anti-racism protestors who’ve demonstrated in recent weeks, and in countries all over the world, are taking their frustrations out on historic figures, toppling or defacing statues of people who embody past injustices. And one of the more typical targets in all this is the man who, back in 1492, famously sailed […]
Anti-racism and anti-colonial protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd raise new questions about how societies fill their public spaces.
The chief foreign policy correspondent for Die Welt chimes in on Trump’s decision to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Germany from 35,000 to 25,000.
Welcome to Friday, where the global COVID-19 death toll exceeds 4 million, ousted Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo is back in town and Joe Biden makes Juneteenth official. We also go to Hong Kong where so-called “vaccine hesitancy” is particularly high as a direct result of rising mistrust of the government. • Global COVID-19 death […]
Latin American media have joined the chorus that has condemned institutional racism in the United States, but rarely denounce discrimination and violence targeting non-white groups in their own countries.
MILAN — In our pandemic times, face masks are politics. Last Thursday, the debate arrived with fury at the Culture Commission of the Italian parliament. “I won’t be gagged and I won’t wear it!” barked Vittorio Sgarbi, a Parliament member from the center-right Forza Italia party. The obligatory face mask policy inside the Parliament, he […]
Beijing imposed a national security law in Hong Kong on May 28 to counteract its secessionist tendencies. What is at stake here for the former British colony?
The movement rising up in the wake of George Floyd’s death is built on a question of identity and shared history, not a unified community of interests and experiences.
Welcome to Thursday, where President Biden has begun his first foreign trip, Aung San Suu Kyi faces new corruption charges and a South African woman gives birth to what may be a record number of babies. We also scrutinize how facial recognition is being used around the world, not just as a surveillance tool. • […]
Compared to other EU member states, Poland was barely affected by the international financial crisis or the refugee crisis of 2015. Now, the country could emerge from the coronavirus pandemic in a stronger position than before.