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Editor’s note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Middle East Memo, which takes a look at what’s happening, what’s being said and what’s on the horizon in the Middle East. Subscribe to receive it by email every Monday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it. The United States’ partners in the Middle East continue to enjoy impunity when it comes to Washington’s responses to their human rights abuses. Witness the ease with which Saudi Arabia escaped accountability for the murder in 2018 of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist who lived in exile in the […]

For decades, market fundamentalists pitted capitalism against environmentalism, as if the global economy could be insulated from shocks to the health and stability of the biosphere. At last, those days are ending, and economists and corporate leaders are recognizing the costs of running down Earth’s natural capital. Last week, the nonpartisan business group Environmental Entrepreneurs announced that in 2021 alone, “climate change-related natural disasters inflicted nearly $150 billion in damage to America’s economy.” The U.S. plight is part of a broader pattern. On April 26, the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reduction, or UNDRR, declared that the world as […]

As of last week, NATO seemed well on its way to expanding, when Finland and Sweden formally submitted their applications for membership. When they officially join, becoming the 31st and 32nd member of the alliance, it could potentially mark the fastest accession process in the alliance’s history. This is reflective of the sudden about-face in the two countries’ foreign policies in the months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Both went quickly from countries content with a posture of non-alignment marked by occasional cooperation with NATO, to expressing increasing support for the alliance, to applying for full membership. It is not […]

Over the past month, a series of violent episodes on Afghanistan’s borders have put the country’s relations with its neighbors in the spotlight. Some incidents involved Taliban fighters, such as clashes on the border with Iran. Others, like the Islamic State’s rocket attacks on Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, highlighted the Taliban’s inability to control Afghanistan’s borderlands. And a wave of violence in Pakistan by militants based in Afghanistan has grown so intense that in mid-April Pakistan conducted reprisal airstrikes on Afghan territory, killing dozens of civilians and turning up the diplomatic heat between Islamabad and Kabul. Inflamed tensions between the struggling […]

U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in South Korea yesterday, where he will spend the weekend meeting with the country’s new president, Yoon Suk Yeo, and visiting U.S troops based there. Biden then heads to Japan on Sunday for a three-day stop that will culminate in the second in-person leaders’ summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, comprising the U.S., Japan, Australia and India. As a candidate, Biden had expressed his intention of shoring up ties with U.S. allies in Europe and Asia, which suffered during Donald Trump’s presidency, should he be elected. Upon taking office, he followed through almost […]

President Umaro Sissoco Embalo dissolved Guinea-Bissau’s parliament this week and called for snap parliamentary elections to be held at the end of the year, in the latest twist to a long-running political crisis in the country. In a televised address to the nation, Sissoco cited “persistent and unresolvable differences” with parliament as the main reason for his decision. He also accused lawmakers of corruption and embezzlement, saying that several parliamentarians had “turned the people's national assembly into a place of political guerrilla warfare and conspiracy.” Sissoco’s party, MADEM-G15, currently holds a minority of legislative seats; the historically dominant and former ruling African […]

On Wednesday, more than 250 Ukrainian soldiers who were hiding out in a steel plant in Mariupol surrendered to Russian forces and were swiftly detained. Speculation about what will happen to them has been intense, given Russia’s poor adherence to the Geneva Conventions since its troops invaded Ukraine in February. According to Reuters, at least one Russian negotiator involved in talks with Ukraine has called for the prisoners to be executed, an act that is expressly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. Ukrainian officials, as well as the soldiers’ families, have expressed hopes for a prisoner exchange. Another possibility, though, is […]

Earlier this month, Journalists Without Borders’ annual World Press Freedom Index placed Greece last among European Union countries for press freedom, citing a number of challenges faced by journalists in the country. The index suggests that Greece is a country in which democratic norms are in serious crisis. Journalists covering refugee pushbacks—in which Greek security forces illegally expel refugees and migrants that have reached Greek territory and waters—have had their phones tapped without explanation; others were monitored with spyware by the Greek authorities without any justification from the government. Meanwhile, a new law, which according to the government was passed to combat COVID-19 disinformation, makes it an offense for citizens […]

The European Commission yesterday unveiled a watershed proposal to shore up the European Union’s ability to coordinate military decision-making among the bloc’s member states. The proposal to strengthen the union’s defense coordination powers takes on added significance against the backdrop of Turkey blocking Sweden’s and Finland’s bids to join NATO, underscoring the urgency of an upgraded EU military framework in the interim. The commission’s proposal to analyze and coordinate defense spending among EU member states, including a collective defense acquisition framework similar to its joint vaccines procurement strategy, came in response to a request made by EU national leaders during […]

President Joe Biden has finally learned the lesson that each of his 11 predecessors had to grudgingly accept when it comes to Cuba: Some U.S. interests can only be advanced by engaging with Havana. After a policy review that lasted 15 months, during which former President Donald Trump’s draconian economic sanctions remained in place, the State Department recently announced it will relax the measures that have had the greatest direct impact on the Cuban people. The change comes at a moment when irregular migration from Cuba is aggravating the crisis on the U.S. southern border and Latin American heads of […]

As cryptocurrency investors nervously watched the value of their assets sink, one of Bitcoin’s greatest boosters announced this week that he was doubling down. Nayib Bukele, the hip, young president of El Salvador, hosted a meeting Monday with representatives of 44 countries to discuss the “benefits in our country” of using Bitcoin—another questionable move for a man who has put his country’s economy at risk to gamble on digital money. Bukele, a former public relations executive who now leads one of the hemisphere’s poorest nations, has been touting the so-far-elusive benefits El Salvador has gleaned from his controversial move last September to make Bitcoin the country’s […]

A growing number of Chinese middle- and upper-class citizens are seeking to emigrate, citing disillusionment with Beijing’s heavy-handed “Zero COVID” pandemic restrictions. The sense of despair and desperation driving their planned departures stand in contrast to the overwhelming sense of optimism that characterized public sentiment during China’s rise as a global power over the past two decades. On the Chinese social media platform WeChat, search entries for the word “immigration” increased more than fourfold between early and mid-April, the Economist reported. “It’s like an alarm bell has gone off,” said Miranda Wang, a Chinese videographer based in Shanghai, where a seven-week […]

As Ukrainian society faced the shock of Russia’s seizure of Crimea in March 2014, separatist protests coordinated by Russian intelligence services in Donetsk and Luhansk generated mockery across much of Ukrainian social media. With every escalation of tensions around the Donbas region in the months that followed, demands from Russian President Vladimir Putin for a so-called federalization of Ukraine triggered a torrent of angry memes from Ukrainian social media users satirizing proposals that would have meant the de facto partition of the Ukrainian state. One such image was a map proposing the partition of Russia into a dozen self-governing regions that applied […]

The assassination of a top Paraguayan prosecutor while on vacation in Colombia last week has raised major concerns about the strength and influence of organized criminal groups in the country, one of the world’s top marijuana producers and a key transit point for Andean cocaine. Marcelo Pecci, an organized crime specialist, was shot dead on May 10 on the island of Baru, south of the Colombian city of Cartagena. Pecci was on honeymoon with his pregnant wife when two assailants arrived on jet skis and gunned him down. He died on the spot from three wounds to his face and torso. […]

Lebanon’s parliamentary elections produced some heartening news for critics of the political establishment, with protest candidates performing better than expected in Sunday’s polls. Initial results show that no fewer than 10 anti-establishment candidates won seats in parliament. This wouldn’t be enough to create a sizable counter-establishment bloc in the 128-seat parliament, but it would be enough to give a real platform to many dissenting views. Hezbollah and its allies, which are collectively known as the March 8 bloc, lost ground, winning at least 61 seats, compared to 71 in the previous elections. Some of the candidates who won seats as independents will ally with […]

Semiconductors, the tiny chips that power everything from Apple iPhones to F-35 fighter jets, are a true product of globalization. Their technological sophistication is matched only by the logistical complexity of their supply chains, which stretch across the planet. It should be no surprise, then, that these chips are feeling the impact of accelerating deglobalization. Over the past several years, manufacturers of everything from shoes to home appliances have moved to reshore production, encouraged by protectionist governments erecting trade barriers to protect domestic economies from geopolitical forces. Gradually, the “just-in-time” supply chains of the globalized world, which outsourced aspects of […]

The Transforming Education Summit is fast approaching. Many in the education community and at the United Nations, as well as impassioned young activists around the world, have begun to mobilize for the event, which is scheduled to coincide with the U.N. General Assembly in September. And according to the world body’s deputy secretary-general, Amina Mohammed, the summit aims at nothing less than “averting a generational disaster” by “rethinking education systems.” However, little attention is being paid to this summit outside of those circles. In many ways, this isn’t surprising: Conferences and summits are an almost daily fixture on the international calendar, and […]