Helmut Sorge
| Posted : July 01, 2019
One week ago, Bahrain has hosted the "Peace to Prosperity" workshop to discuss what the United States has described as the economic part of President Donald Trump's "deal of the century", his proposal for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian leadership boycotted the meeting on June 25 and 26 in Manama, leading critics to question the credibility of the event.
Below is an international press review of events preceding the workshop by Helmut Sorge, former Foreign correspondent, Foreign editor, and Middle East expert for Germany's leading newsmagazine "Der Spiegel".
Raphael Camargo
| Posted : June 26, 2019
The author is an alumnus of the 2016 Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program
Five brief bullet points: this was the entire contents of President Jair Bolsonaro’s political plan presented during the 2018 Brazilian Presidential race detailing his foreign policy ambitions. Besides the pro-Trump rhetoric, little was known regarding Mr. Bolsonaro’s international relations plan. Elected with 55.13% of the valid votes in a second-round turn, the victory of the Social Liberal Party (PSL) candidate shifted Brazil to the far-right, breaking the Workers' Party electoral winning streak and brought about a new era in Brazilian foreign affairs.
Pedro da Motta Veiga, Sandra Polónia Rios
| Posted : June 24, 2019
The cooperation between Brazil and Morocco dates back to the 19th century, when Moroccan migrants came to Brazil attracted by the then booming exploration of rubber in the Amazon rainforest. In 1861, the Brazilian government opened its first consulate in Tangier. But it was only since 1961, with the Moroccan independence, that the bilateral relations began to diversify.
Helmut Sorge
| Posted : June 21, 2019
The New York Times reported this morning that after the shot down of an U.S. drone by Iranian forces, President Trump ordered military retaliation, but called it off in the early phase. Below is a facts' review through the international press perspectives.
Marcus Vinicius de Freitas
| Posted : June 20, 2019
The world is navigating through turbulent waters, witnessing one the most significant transitions ever in its history. With the ascension of China and the steady decline of the United States, there is a general sense of insecurity and fear about the future and the unknown. Change is never a comfortable period due to the turmoil it frequently generates. The relationship between the United States and China will never be the same, but it will not end up in war, as some expect. China is not Russia. The Cold War ended in 1989, despite some still profiting from it.
Abdelhak Bassou
| Posted : June 19, 2019
Les Etats-Unis ont alternativement défendu le système westphalien et fustigé ses principes d’équilibre des forces et de non-ingérence dans les affaires intérieures d’autrui en les prétendant immoraux et démodés. Il leur est même arrivé de faire les deux à la fois. Ce qui ne les empêche pas de continuer à affirmer la validité universelle de leurs valeurs pour l’édification d’un ordre mondial pacifique et de se réserver le droit de les soutenir à l’échelle planétaire.
Henri Kissinger (L’ordre du monde, 2014)
Helmut Sorge
| Posted : June 12, 2019
The illusion ended in an agricultural hamlet, a forgotten place in Eastern Syria named Baghuz Al-Fawqan. A fantasy, the resurrection of Islamic greatness and rules of a caliphate, known thirteen hundred years ago, reduced to a junkyard, a sober, disturbing, memorial of betrayal and misapprehension. Publicly the self-appointed caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al Baghadi, did not order his fighters to resist to the end, accept the fate of martyrs, promised to ascent to paradise. 1300 IS fanatics fought to death, sacrificing themselves in and around Baghuz, 1.5 square miles of savagery, a minor Stalingrad near the desert. During the final hours of the assault, the sky was brightly lit, and napalm, bombs, rockets hit the area with such ferocious precision and devastation that CNN war reporter Ben Wedeman concluded,” it is hard to imagine anyone is still alive”.
Otaviano Canuto
| Posted : June 10, 2019
This article was originally published on Center for Macroeconomics and development's website
Friday night, US President Donald Trump announced by Twitter that he would suspend the implementation of tariffs on Mexican imports, which would start with 5% on Monday, June 10, to reach 25% in October. A signed agreement between the two countries, also confirmed by Twitter by Mexico’s foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard, would have included Mexican government’s commitments to take “strong measures” to “reduce – or eliminate – illegal immigration to the United States,” in Trump’s words.
Uri Dadush
| Posted : June 03, 2019
In a recent brief, titled” The Crisis in World Trade”, my co-authors and I conclude that whether we still have a rules-based system a few years from now depends on the answer to three questions: Can the WTO be revitalized? Is protectionism in the United States a temporary aberration? Will China reform and fit the liberal economic order? If the answer to these three questions is yes, the system will likely endure. If the answer is no, we will return to the power based non system that we had up to around 1950.
Naakoshie Mills
| Posted : May 31, 2019
The author is an alumnus of the 2016 Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders program
People centered development is the crux of the African Union’s (AU) new Agenda 2063 initiative. Its overall goal is a Pan African transformation and development of its member countries, while reframing the continent’s presence on the global stage. Fortunately, women’s equality is one of its aims, addressing discrimination, gender-based violence, and empowerment, to name a few. As developed nations like the United States and France still struggle to elect a female head of state, ten African countries have already done so, demonstrating that women’s leadership and inclusion has a historical precedent for many Africans. In many ways, the Agenda also mirrors the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, demonstrating African leaders’ determination for progress in the 21st century and beyond. The question remains, what is the impact of furthering women’s representation and leadership in the AU on actual lived experiences of African women?
