Honduras to establish diplomatic relations with China
Honduras’ President Xiomara Castro has announced Tegucigalpa’s decision to establish diplomatic ties with China, in a move that would end its official relationship with Taipei. “I instructed Foreign Minister Eduardo Reinato to begin the process of recognizing the People’s Republic of China,” Castro tweeted March 15. During her presidential campaign in 2021, Castro had said in a foreign policy manifesto that...
Investigation belies UK claim that no civilians were killed in Iraq-Syria bombings
By Brett Wilkins British airstrikes targeting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria likely killed dozens of noncombatants despite claims by U.K. military leaders that no civilians died during such bombings, a major investigation by the monitor group Airwars and The Guardian revealed on March 21. ‘Britain claims a ‘perfect’ war against Islamic State in Iraq. Thousands of missiles fired, thousands of fighters killed, and...
Pakistan: 10 million deprived of safe drinking water in flood-affected areas
Six months after catastrophic floods struck Pakistan, more than 10 million people, including children, still lack access to safe drinking water, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on March 21. The crisis has left families in the flood-affected areas with no choice but to use potentially contaminated water. “Safe drinking water is not a privilege, it is a basic human right,” said...
Ethiopian lawmakers remove Tigray group from terror list
NAIROBI, Kenya—Ethiopian lawmakers have removed the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front from the country’s list of designated terror groups more than four months after a peace agreement ended a conflict that killed hundreds of thousands of people. The March 22 decision highlights the improving relations between federal officials and Tigray regional ones and moves the region closer to the establishment of an interim...
Africa’s place in global diplomacy defined by colonial and post-colonial history
Africa’s placement in global diplomacy has almost always been informed by its “colonial and post-colonial history,” wrote Takudzwa Hillary Chiwanza, a barrister, journalist and social media content professional. “When African countries got independence, they inherited the colonial power structures of the colonizers without fundamentally altering them, thus perpetuating the dominance of capitalism to the detriment of the masses: the urban...
Saudi Arabia and Iran close ranks in a move toward reestablishing ties
The recent wave of global realignments among nations has taken an unexpected twist with a China-brokered accord between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The longtime geopolitical foes signed a treaty ending a seven-year rift in relations. The March 10 détente restored diplomatic ties with the reopening of embassies in both countries by May....
Garbage tarnishes Paris luster as pension strike continues
PARIS—The City of Light is losing its luster with tons of garbage piling up on Paris sidewalks as sanitation workers were on strike for a ninth day on March 14. The creeping squalor is the most visible sign of widespread anger over a bill to raise the French retirement age by two years. The stench of rotting food has begun escaping from...
The work of the Revolution has a people to defend it
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, rejected the “new hypocrisy and complicity” of transnational consortiums “with a known history of disinformation and destabilization operations in digital platforms against Cuba.” From his Twitter account, the president stressed that “the work of the Revolution has a whole...
Netherlands repatriates Indigenous remains to Caribbean isle
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—The Netherlands has returned the remains of nine indigenous people that archaeologists found more than 30 years ago on the tiny Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius, officials said. The request for repatriation was made by the island’s Culture Department as part of a new push to recover artifacts and human remains held by former colonial powers...
U.S. Anti-Semitism campaign funded by a South African who made fortune under Apartheid
The fight to suppress Palestinian rights and the fight against what is labeled “anti- Semitism” has strange bedfellows. One source of this apparent link is 92-year-old billionaire Nathan Kirsch, an entrepreneur, “philanthropist” and ardent supporter of the Zionist State of Israel. His fortune was first developed under South African apartheid. In a piece that appeared in a 2014 edition of...