The sobering historical moment we are living through presents a chance to reflect and to renew our resolve to take action to save lives, improve livelihoods, and build resilience.
The unshaven man, who did not let go of his Kalashnikoff while we talked, had been wounded in battles with Israeli troops, and was now hiding in the land that those troops had occupied—the Jordan Valley. Yasser Arafat, whom I met for the first time in the spring of 1968 at his secret base, was then still known as Abu Ammar, willing to sacrifice his life for the liberation of his people dispersed by around the world, particularly in neighboring Arab nations. The 1968 interview, Arafat’s first extensive one-to-one with a foreign publication, documented an optimistic leader of El-Fatah, 38 years old and certain of triumph. “I believe in our revolution and victory, and I am certain that we will recover our stolen land”, said Arafat, later honored with a Nobel Peace Prize for his struggles to achieve peace with Israel. “History is on our side”.
Sur fond d’accusations mutuelles d’absence de volonté politique pour faire aboutir les négociations tripartites impliquant l’Egypte, l’Ethiopie et le Soudan, sur la mise en service du “Grand Barrage de la Renaissance Éthiopienne” (Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam -GERD), l’Egypte et l’Ethiopie continuent d’alterner des signaux de provocation et d’apaisement.
Unless trade wars end around the globe, the world is headed for the biggest recession in living memory. The crisis arising from the coronavirus will hit fragile economies in Africa, the Pacific, and the Caribbean the hardest. At such a time, the world should be dropping barriers but, instead, new barriers are being built.
La jeune démocratie tunisienne a réussi le double pari de juguler la propagation de la pandémie de la Covid-19, tout en s’érigeant en un modèle régional de gestion de la crise sanitaire. Désormais, le pays doit remédier aux chocs économiques engendrés par la pandémie et pourrait connaitre la pire récession de son histoire. Dans cette tempête annoncée, l’accélération de la transition économique s’avère nécessaire, non seulement pour refonder le système économique, mais aussi pour préserver le régime démocratique tunisien.
At the beginning of June, officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, usually active on America’s periphery, were deployed to Washington D.C., where President Donald Trump had sighted an internal threat posed by “anarchists, agitators, looters, or lowlifes”. In reality, American citizens were protesting, mostly peacefully, against police brutality, and the killings of African-Americans by cops.
Peace was near, most of the 5000 Taliban fighters were released—one condition for serious peace negotiations—and a city was selected for the negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government: Doha, Qatar. But an invisible enemy committed sabotage. COVID-19 brought down members of both sides. Worse: the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada was rumored to be on the threshold of death. NATO’s new senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, Stefano Pontecorvo, confirmed to Radio Free Afghanistan that COVID-19 was “impacting on all levels. It’s impacting on the levels of forces on both sides. It’s impacting the leadership” The new date of the Intra-Afghan talks will be announced as soon as the quarantined members of the negotiation teams reach Doha and test negative.
Born in 1984 in Peru and trained as a scientist, Clarissa Rios Rojas has a PhD in molecular biology, but also a clear taste for exploring beyond her field to see the bigger picture.
إن حسن تدبير فترات الاختبارات و المحن و الأزمات كان دوما مصدر السمعة الطيبة دوليا للكيانات الوطنية. إذ أن هذه الأخيرة توظفها في التأقلم مع التحولات التي تتولد عن هذه الفترات الحرجة و تساعدها على المساهمة في كتابة المستقبل.
À l’heure actuelle, l’humanité baigne dans une crise profonde dont la portée est universelle. Le constat est sans appel : la pandémie Covid-19 a enclenché une panique immense impliquant l’ordre social, les structures économiques et politiques, pour ne citer que ces aspects. S’agissant du volet politique, il est évident que les incidences de cette pandémie traversent aisément les frontières. En ce sens, une question se pose immanquablement : quel est l’impact de la crise sanitaire sur l’avenir des relations internationales ?
