Experts discussed the new geopolitics of energy at the 2022 Aspen Security Forum on July 19-22 in Colorado in the US.
Produced in collaboration with the Aspen Energy and Environment Program, this discussion on The New Geopolitics of Energy involved Jason Bordoff, Founding Director, The Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University; Meghan O’Sullivan, Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University; and Daniel Poneman, Former Deputy Secretary, US Department of Energy. The moderator was Joseph Nye, Co-Chair, Aspen Strategy Group and Dean Emeritus, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University.
If Russia decides to mount a nuclear strike on the United States, it will succeed, according to David Wurmser of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy.
“I don’t think most Americans perceive that, because their elites have convinced them that there is no such option,” Wurmser tells Caroline Glick on this week’s “Mideast News Hour.” “I think there is a misperception out there in America of our own power and strength.”
As a nation, the United States still possesses tremendous latent strength, “but latent strength does not win wars,” he continued. “So, America right now is in a bad place, where we’re intoxicated with our words, we’re cashing in on a legacy of power that we no longer are willing to pay for societally, economically, or in terms of assertion of American power and sacrifice.”
Glick and Wurmser focus their discussion on the fallout from President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel and the Middle East.
Every state in the Middle East, friend and foe—except Israel—realizes that Biden’s visit to the region was a failure, they say.
Only Israel thinks Biden’s visit was a success
Israel’s caretaker government under Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz is still insisting that Biden’s visit was a success. This even as Biden refused to put forward any option for preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed state.
The Saudis, Emirates and Egypt all responded to Biden by looking for ways to normalize their ties with Tehran. Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to Biden’s failure by holding a summit in Tehran with Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei and Turkish President Recep Erdoğan.
Wurmser explains that Biden’s refusal to green-light an Israeli attack on Iran or consider any option but continuing down his current sure path of enabling Iranian nuclear armament should have sufficed to convince Lapid and Gantz that Israel needs to ignore the United States and move forward with its regional partners to either take out Iran’s nuclear installations by force or take down the regime, or both.
Instead, Lapid responded by putting a framed copy of his Jerusalem Declaration with Biden on the wall of the security cabinet meeting room. That is, he doubled down on his faith that the United States will keep its word and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Gantz, for his part, went one further. He flew to the United States this week to meet again with Biden’s top advisors. Speaking in Aspen, Gantz insisted that Biden’s pledge to prevent Iran from acquiring Iran from becoming a nuclear power was a significant event.
Why America refuses to stop Iran
Wurmser and Glick delve into the deeper reasons for Washington’s refusal to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. They show that the failures of the United States are structural and conceptual, and as a result unlikely to be corrected in a timeframe relevant to preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed state.
Finally, they move to Israel itself, and the stakes in the coming election. They talk about what is liable to happen before the elections in the United States and Israel, and the important signal that Israel is sending both through its continued operations in Iran and through strategic messaging from opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. They explain how those messages and actions are likely to impact events, for better or worse, in the coming months.
Le président du Groupe de la Banque africaine de développement (BAD), Akinwumi Adesina, a rassuré les investisseurs américains : l’Afrique est un marché sûr, compétitif et rentable. C’était à l’occasion du Sommet des affaires Afrique- Etats-Unis, à Marrakech, au Maroc, sur le thème « Building forward together (Bâtir l’avenir ensemble »). Un sommet Etats-Unis-Afrique se tiendra du 13 au 15 décembre à Washington.
Ont pris part à l’événement, le président du Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, la vice-présidente des États-Unis, Kamala Harris, le ministre marocain des Affaires étrangères, Nasser Bourita, la directrice générale du Millennium Challenge Corporation américain, Alice Albright, le président de la Confédération générale des entreprises du Maroc, Chakib Ali, et la directrice générale du Népad, l’agence de développement de l’Union africaine, Nardos Bekele-Thomas, ainsi que 450 représentants d’entreprises et de gouvernements. Ils ont échangé sur le renforcement des liens commerciaux, d’investissement et de commerce entre les États-Unis et l’Afrique. Dans son discours d’ouverture, le patron de la diplomatie marocaine, Nasser Bourita, a rappelé que jamais le moment n’avait été aussi opportun pour renforcer la coopération entre l’Afrique et les États-Unis. « Il est temps pour l’Afrique de récolter les fruits de ses potentialités, de jouer un rôle central et naturel sur la scène internationale et dans les développements majeurs qui se produisent au niveau mondial », a-t-il déclaré.
Le patron de la BAD, Akinwumi Adesina, a exhorté les investisseurs américains à considérer l’Afrique comme une destination d’investissement logique et à s’y engager dans un partenariat gagnant-gagnant. Selon lui, les investissements américains sont essentiels pour accélérer le développement des infrastructures sur le continent. « C’est un moment opportun pour les investissements américains en Afrique, et ce, à grande échelle », a-t-il dit, mais : « Le futur n’attend pas. L’heure de l’Afrique est venue, l’avenir de l’Afrique est radieux. Nous sommes ouverts aux affaires, et nous vous accueillons à bras ouverts », a-t-il rappelé. La vice-présidente des Etats-Unis, Kamala Harris, a déclaré : « Nous nous concentrons sur le besoin urgent d’augmenter la production et les exportations alimentaires avec et au sein de l’Afrique », soulignant le rôle clé des partenariats public-privé, et du renforcement des relations États-Unis-Afrique : « Le président Biden et moi-même sommes impatients d’accueillir les dirigeants de tout le continent africain à Washington, du 13 au 15 décembre, à l’occasion du sommet des dirigeants États-Unis–Afrique », a-t-elle ajouté.
Akinwumi Adesina a énuméré quelques investissements en Afrique, ce qui témoigne le potentiel du continent, notamment la raffinerie de pétrole et le complexe de production d’engrais du groupe Dangote, au Nigeria, d’une valeur de 20 milliards de dollars, et le groupe MTN d’Afrique du Sud. Malgré la pandémie de Covid-19 et son impact sur les économies, le nombre d’opérations de capital-investissement en Afrique est passé de 230 en 2019 à 255 en 2020, a ajouté le président de la BAD. Malgré les turbulences, les opportunités ne cessent d’abonder en Afrique, a souligné Akinwumi Adesina, précisant que sur les six dernières années la BAD a engagé plus de 44 milliards de dollars dans les infrastructures du continent (transports, énergie, eau et assainissement), reconnaissant toutefois que l’Afrique est toujours confrontée à un déficit annuel de financement des infrastructures de l’ordre de 68 à 108 milliards de dollars.
« Nous sommes tous ici mobilisés pour créer davantage de voies vers la prospérité sur le continent africain », a déclaré Alice Albright, du Millennium Challenge Corporation. Grâce à « Prosper Africa », une initiative des Etats-Unis, lancée il y a deux ans, visant à accroître le commerce et les investissements et à promouvoir le développement durable sur le continent, 800 accords de commerce et d’investissement bilatéraux dans 45 pays d’Afrique ont été signés, pour une valeur estimée à 50 milliards de dollars.
Un sommet Afrique-Etats-Unis aura lieu du 13 au 15 décembre à Washington
L’annonce a été faite par le président américain, Joe Biden, où seront discutés des défis allant de la sécurité alimentaire au changement climatique. Il promet des « milliards de dollars » d’investissements, avec le secteur privé, qui démontrera « l’engagement durable des États-Unis envers l’Afrique et soulignera l’importance des relations entre les Etats-Unis et l’Afrique et d’une coopération accrue sur des priorités mondiales communes ». Selon un responsable américain, s’exprimant sous couvert d’anonymat, une cinquantaine de dirigeants africains devraient y participer. Depuis sa prise de fonctions en janvier 2021, Joe Biden ne s’est pas encore rendu en Afrique en tant que président des États-Unis. « Nous pensons que les Etats-Unis offrent un meilleur modèle, mais nous ne demandons pas à nos partenaires africains de choisir », a-t-il précisé. Le sommet de décembre vise « à établir un nouvel engagement économique, à promouvoir la démocratie et les droits humains, à faire progresser la paix et la sécurité et à relever des défis, tels que la sécurité alimentaire et le changement climatique ainsi que la pandémie de Covid-19 », a indiqué Joe Biden.
Lire l’article original sur le site de ADIAC Congo.
Dans un entretien exclusif accordé à TV5 Monde, la secrétaire générale de l’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), Louise Mushikiwabo, a annoncé qu’elle est candidate à sa propre succession.
La Rwandaise Louise Mushikiwabo veut briguer un nouveau mandat à la tête de l’OIF. « Je suis candidate pour un nouveau mandat à la tête de la Francophonie », a-t-elle annoncé au micro de TV5 Monde.
Pour sa première candidature, la diplomate rwandaise de 61 ans a notamment reçu l’appui du président français Emmanuel Macron, désireux de voir la direction de l’OIF revenir à un Africain. Elle s’est également vue assurer en juillet du « soutien collectif » des dirigeants de l’Union africaine (UA).
Née le 22 mai 1961 à Kigali, Louise Mushikiwabo est une femme politique rwandaise. Ministre de l’Information puis des Affaires étrangères du Rwanda de 2009 à 2018, elle est élue secrétaire générale de l’Organisation internationale de la francophonie en octobre et 2018 est entrée en fonction en janvier 2019.
Lire l’article original sur le site de Bénin Web TV.
Author: Kishore Mahbubani, Asia Research Institute, NUS
Populations in Western countries are angry. Western elites, who are supposed to lead their societies in the right direction, are instead leading them in the wrong direction on Ukraine. There is a wiser course of action.
This wiser course of action is based on a simple principle — that the perfect is the enemy of the good. G7 countries should accept imperfect solutions that will make their people happier. That will also help the billions of poor people in the Third World who are suffering from higher food and energy prices.
Moral priority has to be given to the sufferings of the poor — the bottom 10 or 20 per cent of the world’s population.
The greatest American political philosopher of recent times, John Rawls, emphasised that the most just society was the one that took care of the bottom 10 per cent. As he outlined in his seminal work, A Theory of Justice, any social or economic inequalities, if they are to satisfy the principles of justice, ‘are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society’.
The global poor are suffering today for three main reasons. The massive post-COVID-19 stimulus packages, especially in the United States, have unleashed global inflation. Financial Times economist Martin Wolf recently wrote that ‘the combination of fiscal and monetary policies implemented in 2020 and 2021 ignited an inflationary fire’.
The illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine, followed by massive on Russia, have led to a huge spike in energy and food prices. And despite these sanctions, the EU has paid more money for Russian gas. Since the war began on 24 February 2022, Europe has paid more than US$60 billion for Russian oil and gas, while complaining that India and China were buying too much Russian oil. This led to the now famous quip from the Indian Foreign Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who said ‘our total purchases for the month would be less than what Europe does in an afternoon’.
The Omicron strain of COVID-19 has broken through the defences of China’s zero-COVID policy. This led to massive shutdowns, including lockdowns in Shanghai since March 2022. Since China is the factory of the world, have also contributed to global inflation.
What is the rational response? To find a perfect solution? Or to accept an imperfect solution that alleviates the suffering of many people, including the people of Ukraine and the large number of poor people in the world? The West has been pushing for a perfect solution. The rest of the world would prefer to decrease their suffering with an imperfect solution.
What is the perfect solution? It is what the West is pursuing in Ukraine — the total withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine. No compromise. If the West could accomplish this, it should go for it. But the prospects of achieving this perfect solution in Ukraine are zero.
World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said ‘the war in Ukraine has created immense human suffering, but it has also damaged the global economy at a critical juncture. Its impact will be felt around the world, particularly in low-income countries, where food accounts for a large fraction of household spending … Smaller supplies and higher prices for food mean that the world’s poor could be forced to do without.’
So what is the imperfect solution for Ukraine?
The first step is to call for an immediate ceasefire. Hundreds die each day that the war continues. If Ukraine is going to feed the world again in 2023, it needs to get fertiliser so its farmers can start planting in 2022. More food in 2023 equals less suffering for the global poor.
The second step is to start talking to Russia. There should be two levels of talks. The first should be between Ukraine and Russia. The second should be between the West and Russia. Ukrainian lives would be saved and the whole world would breathe a sigh of relief.
Then comes the hard slog. Given the huge chasm between Western and Russian positions on Ukraine, there will be no immediate long-term solution. But we’re more likely to get one if talks begin, especially if we can get more countries in the world to talk to Russia.
It would be a huge strategic mistake by the West to get Indonesia, as the host of the G20 meeting on 15–16 November, to disinvite Russian President Vladmir Putin from the meeting. It would be an even bigger mistake for the West to boycott the G20 summit if Putin should attend.
There is one statistic that every Western leader should memorise and repeat each night before going to sleep — the West only comprises 12 per cent of the world’s population.
If Putin comes to Jakarta in November 2022, as he should, he will hear the views of the West and he will hear the views of the rest. Putin is not likely to listen to the West since there is zero trust between Russia and the West. But he will listen to the rest, so the West is stabbing itself in the foot by calling for Putin to be disinvited.
The West is pushing for Putin to be excluded because it is pushing for the perfect solution of trying to defeat Russia. But that is a solution that will never come about.
The West should listen to Indonesia and other non-Western members of the G20 and try to find some kind of compromise solution for Ukraine. Such a solution will save the lives of Ukrainians and it will alleviate the sufferings of the hundreds of millions of poor people in the world.
In short, the pragmatic solution is also the ethical solution.
Even before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war against Ukraine and set off a global scramble for fossil fuels, the battle against climate change was being lost. With national leaders and international diplomacy proving ineffective, is there any hope of saving ourselves?
NEW YORK – t is often said that no one wins a war, just that some lose less than others. Russia’s war against Ukraine promises to be no exception. One clear loser is already evident: the planet.
The war has become the international priority for policymakers and publics. And rightly so: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine threatens a pillar of international order, namely the prohibition on changing borders by force. But the war has also triggered a global scramble for sufficient supplies of energy in response to sanctions against Russian energy exports and the possibility that Russia will cut off supplies. Many countries have found that the easiest and quickest route is to secure greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels.
CHRONIQUE – Notre pays est la seule puissance qui souhaite sincèrement la réussite du développement africain.
Pour le deuxième déplacement international de son deuxième mandat, du 25 au 28 juillet 2022, Emmanuel Macron a décidé de se rendre en Afrique (Cameroun, Bénin, Guinée-Bissau). Le président de la République estime, à juste titre, que les destins de la France et du continent africain sont étroitement liés.
Qu’est-ce à dire? La réponse est simple: quand la France réussit en Afrique, c’est bon pour l’Afrique et quand l’Afrique se développe, c’est bon pour la France.
La politique du «pré carré», qui consiste pour Paris à s’intéresser en priorité aux pays issus des anciennes Afrique occidentale et Afrique équatoriale françaises (AOF et AEF) est-elle condamnable? Absolument pas. Les liens historiques, politiques, économiques, linguistiques, culturels, et disons-le tout net, affectifs, tissés avec ces territoires depuis Jules Ferry, ont forgé un magnifique patrimoine humain commun qu’il serait honteux de laisser en déshérence.
Lire l’article dans son intégralité sur le site du Figaro.
UAE, Kuwait expected to send their envoys back to Tehran in coming days, says Iranian foreign minister
Syed Zafar Mehdi | 22.07.2022
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian
TEHRAN, Iran
Iran’s foreign minister said Saudi Arabia has expressed its readiness to advance the tension-easing talks between the two estranged neighbors from the security to the political level.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in an interview with Iran’s state TV late on Thursday, noting progress in the Baghdad-brokered talks that have been underway since last April.
Iran’s top diplomat said they received a message from Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein last week, who said that the Saudis were ready to advance the talks to the “political and public level.”
Iran, he added, also expressed its readiness to continue the ongoing talks brokered by the Iraqi government to the political level to restore their diplomatic ties.
The two Persian Gulf neighbors severed their diplomatic relations in 2016 after protesters stormed Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad over the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia.
After almost five years, the two neighbors last year agreed to hold peace talks mediated by Baghdad. While both sides have noted progress in the talks, a significant breakthrough has been eluding.
Amir-Abdollahian said the two countries have reached some agreements in the five rounds of talks, including on the reopening of embassies, lending credence to reports already doing rounds.
Pertinently, last week, after the Jeddah summit, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan said Riyadh has “extended a hand of friendship to Iran.” The comments were welcomed by Tehran.
Iran’s top diplomat also announced that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait would be sending their ambassadors to Tehran “in a few days,” saying the two countries introduced their envoys, and Tehran agreed with the choices.
His remarks came almost a week after UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said Abu Dhabi was considering reinstating its ambassador to Iran, seeking enhanced economic ties with the country.
“We are now indeed considering sending an ambassador to Iran,” Gargash told journalists. “The next decade cannot be like the last decade. It is a decade where ‘de-escalation’ should be the keyword.”
Amir-Abdollahian also informed that Kuwait, which also snapped its diplomatic ties with Iran over the same incident in 2016, will be sending its envoy back to Tehran in the coming days.
In May, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi called for the restoration of Tehran-Kuwait relations to “their true capacities” amid his government’s outreach to Iran’s neighbors.
What effect does having women in executive roles have on the bottom line?
A survey of 21,980 publicly traded companies in 91 countries demonstrated that the presence of more female leaders in top positions of corporate management correlates with increased profitability of these companies, according to a paper published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The 35-page report, “Is Gender Diversity Profitable? Evidence from a Global Survey,” was written by Marcus Noland, Tyler Moran, and Barbara Kotschwar and supported by a major research grant from EY. The research is made up of rigorous data analysis of gender diversity and corporate profitability.
The study shows that the extent of gender diversity and its relationship to profitability varies robustly by country, sector of the economy, and by policies towards female work opportunities. The research finds no evidence that, by itself, having a female CEO is related to increased profitability, but there is some evidence that having women on a board may help—and robust evidence that women in the C-level (as in CEO, CFO and COO of management) is associated with higher profitability. In 2014 data, the study finds that nearly a third of companies globally have no women in either board or C-suite positions, 60 percent have no female board members, 50 percent have no female top executives, and fewer than 5 percent have a female CEO.
The PIIE report also found strong positive correlations between gender diversity in company size, the size of the company as well as national policies for women’s education, family leave, and the absence of discriminatory attitudes toward female executives. The study found that national averages for women’s participation on boards range across countries from 4 percent to roughly 40 percent, and that there is greater female representation on board and corporate leadership positions in the financial, healthcare, utility, and telecommunications sectors than in sectors such as basic materials, technology, energy, and industry. This is consistent with the authors’ interpretation that what matters most for gender diversity is creating a pipeline of women into corporate management, from elementary education through child-bearing years.
“We have found that some policy initiatives are more promising than others to deliver benefits while promoting gender equality, and that the emphasis should be on increasing diversity in corporate management broadly,” said Adam S. Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “At a minimum, the results from our unique global study, generously supported by EY, strongly suggest the positive impact of gender diversity on firm performance and identify in which sectors and countries the most progress on diversity needs to be made.”
“The impact of having more women in senior leadership on net margin, when a third of companies studies do not, begs the question of what the global economic impact would be if more women rose in the ranks,” said Stephen R. Howe, Jr., EY’s US chairman and Americas managing partner. “The research demonstrates that while increasing the number of women directors and CEOs is important, growing the percentage of female leaders in the C-suite would likely benefit the bottom line even more.”
Après le bombardement russe du port d’Odessa samedi, l’accord conclu la veille entre l’Ukraine et la Russie, et prévoyant des couloirs sécurisés pour exporter par la mer Noire 20 à 25 millions de tonnes de céréales ukrainiennes, est fragilisé, sinon caduc. De quoi doucher les espoirs des pays africains de voir se calmer les prix de leurs importations alimentaires et de leurs engrais.
L’Afrique pouvait attendre de l’accord entre l’Ukraine et la Russie une baisse des cours mondiaux des céréales, en particulier du blé. Mais selon le spécialiste des matières premières, Philippe Chalmin, le bombardement d’Odessa remet en cause les espérances du continent. « C’est vrai qu’avec un accord, les prix auraient eu logiquement tendance à baisser. Et qu’à la suite du bombardement du port d’Odessa, le mouvement [de baisse] va être enrayé. Manifestement, ce n’est pas demain ni même après-demain que des céréales ukrainiennes vont pouvoir librement sortir des ports ukrainiens », estime-t-il.
Faire pression sur l’Union européenne
Grâce à l’accord, l’embargo sur les engrais russes aurait dû être levé, ce qui aurait entraîné une baisse des prix des fertilisants, déjà très chers à cause de l’envolée des prix du gaz qui les compose. Il est urgent, souligne Philippe Chalmin de mettre en place des routes alternatives terrestres pour les céréales et les engrais ukrainiens.
« L’Afrique n’a pas grand-chose à espérer de ces mouvements diplomatiques. Et il me semble qu’il vaudrait mieux qu’elle fasse pression sur l’Union européenne pour que celle-ci finance – ce qui ne serait pas très élevé d’ailleurs – les capacités terrestres, notamment ferroviaires, pour sortir par la terre les céréales ukrainiennes, les amener sur le Danube, et pouvoir les exporter au départ des ports roumains ou bulgares. »
Les États africains devront aussi, selon le chercheur, mettre en place des politiques agricoles réduisant leur dépendance alimentaire.
U.S.-Chinese Competition Is Getting Sharper—but Doesn’t Necessarily Have to Get More Dangerous
By Kevin Rudd
In the year and a half since President Joe Biden took office, competition between the United States and China has only intensified. Rather than dismantle former President Donald Trump’s tough policies toward Beijing, Biden has largely continued them, underscoring that the two powers are almost certainly headed for a protracted period of sharp and militarily dangerous strategic rivalry. But that doesn’t mean that the United States and China are moving inexorably toward crisis, escalation, conflict, or even war. To the contrary, Beijing and Washington may be groping toward a new set of stabilizing arrangements that could limit—though not eliminate—the risk of sudden escalation.
Assessing the state of U.S.-Chinese relations at any given time is never easy, given the difficulty of distinguishing between what each side says about the other publicly—often for domestic political effect—and what each is actually doing behind the scenes. Yet despite the harsh and often heated rhetoric, some early signs of stabilization have emerged, including the tentative reconstitution of a form of political and security dialogue aimed at managing tensions.
Such stabilization falls well short of normalization, which would mean restoring comprehensive political, economic, and multilateral engagement. The days of normalization have been consigned to history. But stabilization would nonetheless be significant. It would mean the difference between strategic competition that is managed through steadying guardrails and competition that is unmanaged—that is, driven by a process of push and shove, primarily by each country’s military, in the hope that on any given day no one pushes too far. The question for both sides, and for the countries that are caught in the middle of this titanic struggle for the future of the regional and global orders, is what kind of strategic competition they will pursue.
A trilateral meeting of the leaders of Iran, Russia and Turkey seemed to suggest a new anti-American alliance. But there are major fissures between the countries, too.
By Steven Erlanger
BRUSSELS — Commenting on the visit of Vladimir V. Putin to Iran, a member of the Russian Parliament and television talking head, Yevgeny G. Popov, said that the two countries hoped to form an “axis of good,” mocking former President George W. Bush’s description of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil.”
Trolling American foreign-policy blunders and rhetoric is a popular sport in Russia, from Mr. Putin, the president, on down, but the growing affection between Russia and Iran is that of two isolated, sanctions-stricken countries whose main connection is their active opposition to the United States, its allies and its domination of the multilateral world order.
While the United States likes to wrap its alliances in grandiloquent words about shared values and democracy, Russia, Iran and China, Moscow’s other openly supportive pal and American rival, are far more transactional in their connections.
But transactional relations do not make for lasting alliances or disguise the strains within them.
“Russia is isolated on the global stage in a way it’s never been,” said Charles A. Kupchan, a former American official who is a professor at Georgetown University. “Putin is looking for recognition and acceptance wherever he can get it, and that he can get it in Tehran speaks volumes.”
Even China, which has stood by its anti-American partnership with Russia, “has carefully kept its distance from the war in Ukraine,” Mr. Kupchan said. “And even though the lion’s share of the world’s countries aren’t enforcing the sanctions regime against Russia, they get it: that Russia’s invasion was a bald act of aggression.”
Read the full article on the site of the New York Times.
Following the wake of the war in Ukraine, a global panic has set in with the rising cost of living and prophets of doom predicting swelling inflation.
While the alarm bell is ringing for many, a former World Bank chief says anxious rhetoric could make matters worse and that the global economic model must be reinvented to prevent rising inequality.
The world order shifted after Russian president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in late February, prompting the West to slap sanctions on Russia which in turn have caused Putin to weaponise Russian gas exports to Europe.
“The issue is that the more you repeat things, the more central banks move in that direction, the more it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Bertrand Badré, who was also the chief financial officer of the World Bank, said in an interview with Euronews Next at the International Financial Forum in Paris.
“We have to kind of see what’s going on, not ignore the signals. Be cautious but also not just jump to conclusions,” he said.
But those signals point to a downturn that was worse than predicted.
Last week, the European Commission revised its inflation forecast for 2022 from 6.1 per cent to 7.6 per cent.
Many economists are predicting a recession for the eurozone but for the moment, European officials are keeping tight-lipped on that possibility. However, Badré does not believe the current economic woes will be as bad as the 2008 financial crisis.
“I don’t think there is a Lehman Brothers in the making,” he said.
“So, there are tensions; obviously, there’s a war in Ukraine. But at the same time, the pricing of agricultural and energy products are coming a little bit down”.
Badré, who authored the book Can Finance Save the World, said governments should be working together and not build walls during this period, which is not happening at the moment.
“I think none of these issues will be solved by a country alone,” he said, adding that if countries isolate themselves it will be “damaging for everybody”.
“Now is the time for some relocation of production, now is the time for being more cautious with your supply, but it’s also time to work together”.
After his tenure at the World Bank, Badré founded and is the chief executive officer of BlueOrange Capital, an investment fund that aims to finance the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The 54-year-old said as the world order changes and the current model of globalisation is questioned, people should also be thinking about what he calls “planetarisation,” issues the planet is facing such as climate, biodiversity and refugees
“We should not move away from the planet. We have to move away from a certain form of globalisation which was put together over the past 50 years. I think it is responsible for the limits we see today,” he said.
Asked if the financial worries could impact investment on green and sustainable investment, Badré said this is the ultimate “acid test” and that this is the moment “to stay firm” and not deviate from sustainable goals.
How to solve inequality
The global economy was already battered by the impact of lockdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic before the ripple effects of the war in Ukraine hit the world’s financial systems.
Commodity prices have as a result reached record highs, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in April said food prices are 34 per cent higher than this time last year, and have never been this high since FAO started keeping record.
Rising food prices, energy prices and tightening financial conditions have caused inequality to increase.
Badré said stopgap measures, for instance, government cash handouts to those most affected or systems such as a universal basic income or taxing the rich, only really work on the surface.
He believes the whole economic model needs reinventing to prevent inequality.
“Quick fixes are like the pediment sequences from Rome. ‘Give them something so they don’t bother us,’ though I think it’s not respectful at all,” Badré said.
The real solution, he says, is to work on education, training and salaries, which he calls the “bread and butter of the economy between the 1940s and 1980s” which have been dismantled.
“The quick fixes are worth being discussed but I think it’s mostly symbolic or marginal,” Badré said.
“The real fix would be to really provide opportunities for everybody within the system, not repair from the outside”.
Read the original article on the site of euronews.
La société russe Gazprom doit rouvrir jeudi le gazoduc Nord Stream I après une maintenance de dix jours. Si ce n’est pas le cas, l’Europe doit se préparer à des mois difficiles, explique Philippe Chalmin.
« Si vraiment la Russie ferme le robinet » du gaz « l’Europe sera très mal à l’automne », prévient Philippe Chalmin, spécialiste des questions énergétiques, sur franceinfo mercredi 20 juillet. « On va le savoir dans quelques jours », précise le spécialiste. La maintenance, en cours depuis le 11 juillet, sur le gazoduc Nord Stream I doit se terminer normalement jeudi. Si le robinet n’est pas rouvert, l’Europe doit se préparer à des mois difficiles : « Nous n’aurons pas suffisamment de gaz. La sobriété devra s’imposer aux Européens. » Le porte-monnaie des ménages pourrait aussi souffrir de cette crise énergétique qui touche la France, car « le prix de l’électricité est à peu près corrélé au prix du gaz naturel », explique-t-il.
La Russie peut-elle vraiment nous couper totalement le gaz ?
Philippe Chalmin : C’est tout à fait plausible et à la limite, on va le savoir dans quelques jours. À l’heure actuelle, la Russie a coupé le gaz vers l’Europe pour des raisons techniques. Chaque année, le gazoduc Nord Stream I est en maintenance. Elle a commencé le 11 juillet et se termine normalement le 21 juillet. La grosse interrogation est de savoir si les Russes vont reprendre leur livraison ou s’ils vont arguer de nouveaux problèmes techniques.
Gazprom, la société d’État russe qui est l’interlocuteur des gaziers européens, leur a envoyé le 14 juillet une lettre disant et arguant de la probable difficulté de livrer du gaz pour des raisons techniques et veut faire état de ce qu’on appelle la situation de « force majeure ». « Force majeure », c’est lorsque vous n’êtes pas en état de respecter un contrat. On voit que Gazprom essaye de maintenir les formes, mais manifestement, le gouvernement russe utilise l’arme du gaz et surtout fait tout son possible pour éviter que l’Europe ne continue à remplir ses capacités de stockage pour essayer d’aborder l’hiver avec le plus de stock de gaz possible.
Quelle peut être la riposte européenne ?
On n’a pas grand-chose. Très franchement, les solutions, on les connaît. On a des centrales à charbon, on essaye de louer le plus possible de terminaux flottants pour recevoir du gaz naturel liquéfié, le gaz de schiste américain. On n’est plus du tout regardant. De toute manière, si vraiment la Russie ferme le robinet, l’Europe sera très mal à l’automne. Nous n’aurons pas suffisamment de gaz ou du moins, nous n’aurons pas suffisamment de gaz dans les endroits où il en faut, notamment en Allemagne. Il y aura des problèmes régionaux d’approvisionnement de gaz.
D’autant plus que notre réseau de distribution du gaz en Europe, les gazoducs, n’est pas équipé pour ce type de situation. On a un réseau à l’intérieur de l’Europe qui est conçu essentiellement avec l’arrivée de gaz venant du nord de l’Europe. Nous avions essentiellement du gaz russe qui passait au départ par l’Ukraine, la Pologne et qui maintenant passe pour l’essentiel par ce célèbre gazoduc Nord Stream I qui passe sous la Baltique. En plus, nous n’avons pas les sites de regazéification où arrivent les méthaniers qui apportent du gaz naturel liquéfié. Ces sites sont plutôt dans la péninsule ibérique. On en a en France, mais il n’y en aurait pratiquement pas dans le nord de l’Europe. Il n’y en a pas en Allemagne non plus.
La sobriété va forcément s’imposer à nous ?
C’est évident. La sobriété et au passage, il faut quand même le signaler, une contrainte de prix. Le gaz naturel dans les années 2010, donc de 2010 à 2019, ça valait sur le marché entre 5 et 15 euros le mégawattheure. Aujourd’hui, nous sommes à 150 euros. Nous ne le ressentons pas, nous les ménages, puisque le prix du gaz est plafonné en France. Mais il ne faut pas se faire d’illusions. Les entreprises commencent déjà à payer le prix du marché. Et puis, un jour, ce sera peut-être aussi le tour des ménages. Derrière le gaz, il faut se rendre compte qu’il y a aussi le prix de l’électricité puisque grossièrement, le prix de l’électricité est à peu près corrélé au prix du gaz naturel.
In seeking to build a lasting peace after decades of mass violence, the World War II generation declared aggression the highest international crime, and made territorial integrity the foundation stone of the global order. Nothing good could come from allowing these principles to be eroded.
STOCKHOLM – After World War II, global diplomatic efforts sought to create a new international order that would prevent the world from descending into war, chaos, and anarchy again. A major part of that project was to refine the international legal order by establishing tribunals to prosecute war crimes. Hearings held in Nuremberg and Tokyo established that aggression is the “supreme international crime” – one for which leaders from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were sentenced to death.
The Nuremberg Tribunal’s judgment was very clear on this point: “To initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Since then, the international order has rested on the territorial integrity of states. To challenge this core principle with a violent act of aggression – the supreme international crime – is to put the entire world at risk of sinking into disorder, chaos and war.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union started membership negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia on Tuesday, a long-delayed step in the Balkan nations’ paths toward EU membership that gained momentum amid the war in Ukraine.
Officially, the process kicked off with the presentation of the negotiating frameworks, which allow the bloc’s head office to screen how prepared each country is to take on all the EU’s laws, rules and regulations.
The move comes at a crucial time for the EU, which in June made Ukraine and neighboring Moldova candidates for membership even though Western Balkan nations were kept waiting in line for a long time. North Macedonia and Albania became EU candidates 19 years ago, but their accession talks never commenced.
“This is not the beginning of the end, it is just the end of the beginning,” Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said. “We need this to continue to build a strong, democratic, European Albania and a strong, democratic, Western and open Balkans.”
Any expansion beyond the 27 current EU members is likely to still be years off. Despite the delay, the Western Balkan nations have maintained their ambition to become part of the world’s most important trade bloc and pushed for progress.
“Today, Albania and North Macedonia open accession negotiations with the EU. This historic moment is your success. The result of your hard work,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Rama and Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevski of North Macedonia, .
Especially for North Macedonia, the past years have been trying. Disputes with Greece and then Bulgaria prevented the country’s bid from moving forward because any move by the EU to add new members requires unanimous agreement from existing ones.
It was only last week that the North Macedonian parliament approved an agreement overcoming Bulgaria’s objections and cleared the way for the negotiations to start, Bulgaria had held up any progress on the accession talks, accusing North Macedonia’s government of disrespecting shared cultural, linguistic and historic ties.
Kovacevski said he was particularly enthusiastic about promoting his country’s language.
“This opens doors for our Macedonian language to become one of the official languages of the European Union, something that I personally see as the greatest achievement, the greatest success,” he said.
U.S. President Joe Biden hailed the launch of Albania and North Macedonia’s accession talks and said Washington would “continue to be a strong and reliable partner as those nations work to defend human rights, strengthen democratic reforms, and uphold the rule of law.”
“In a moment when Russia has shattered peace in Europe, it is more important than ever to support the aspiration for a Europe whole, free, and at peace,” said Biden. “A democratic, secure, and prosperous Western Balkans remains essential to this vision.”
When G20 Finance Ministers meet this weekend in Bali, their meeting will likely be no more harmonious than their Foreign Minister counterparts managed ten days ago. But the world, and developing countries in particular, deserves better. The reality for the world’s poorest countries is getting bleaker by the day, and decisions taken by G20 Finance Ministers can avert complete collapse.
An economic tsunami is about to engulf the developing world and many poor countries are simply not prepared to deal with the economic, social, and political consequences. When daily life is disrupted by fuel and medicine shortages, power supply is turned off because every kilowatt hour sold costs more than consumers can afford to pay, and rising food bills consume much of meager household incomes, any spark can trigger a blaze of discontent. Sri Lanka is a visible example of how quickly economic crisis can lead to societal collapse. But sporadic protests are breaking out in many countries where governments are struggling to balance popular expectations with harsh financial realities.
The first responsibility for weathering the storm is with the leaders of the countries most at risk. Many of them had set forth 2022 budgetary plans to launch the recovery, increase investments, build reserves and pull back on COVID-19 induced spending. Others have been slower to act and will be more vulnerable. But all of them are constrained by a common reality: this crisis comes sharp on the heels of a devastating pandemic from which they have not yet emerged and during which they used up what little financial space existed to support households and firms. Unlike many in the G20, these poor countries cannot just print more money or borrow from international financial markets at concessional rates. They stand naked in the face of this onslaught.
G20 leaders cannot make the storm go away but they can help the poorest countries get better prepared to face it. Even as they struggle to find common ground on much else, here are five decisions they could make this weekend to positively improve the lives of a billion people living in the poorest countries in the world.
First, fund the World Food Program and avert the worst famine in a decade. According to WFP’s latest analysis, a record 345 million people are on the brink of starvation and 50 million are on the brink of famine. As the fallout of the war in Ukraine compounds hunger caused by conflict, climate shocks, the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and rising food prices, WFP needs $22 billion to avert catastrophe. Hard-earned development gains and millions of lives are at stake.
Second, immediate liquidity is needed for the developing countries which are now facing a more severe economic shock than faced during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fastest way to do this is by deferring debt repayments. The G20 can itself extend to end-2023 the bilateral Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) it so wisely put in place in 2020. However, we can also learn from two years of implementation and extend the repayment period over three years so countries do not face a steep bullet in 2024. This could defer at least $15 billion in debt service payments which could be used to provide safety nets for the most vulnerable. An enhanced DSSI initiative would go further by securing more robust creditor participation from all G20 creditors and the private sector.
Also on debt, the IMF should be asked to restart its own debt service relief program through the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT), which provided nearly $1 billion of relief during the pandemic to 31 vulnerable countries.
Third, developing countries urgently need more grant and concessional resources. An immediate step would be to ask the International Financial Institutions to respond to this crisis with the same scale and urgency as they announced for the pandemic. The IMF still has a formidable $700 billion of unused resources that could be deployed to contain the worst impact of the crisis. For the World Bank, IDA could be accelerated to reach $50 billion IDA program this year, and its equity could be used more aggressively to go even further. The G20 can also give a green light to some of the proposals for channeling surplus SDRs to the countries that need them most. A bolder step bring advocated by African Finance Ministers is the issuance of a second round of SDRs to shore up country reserves and strengthen their currencies.
Fourth, it is time to accept that the current debt management and resolution system is not working, largely because the G20 cannot agree among themselves on burden sharing, particularly with new creditors like China. As a result, the Common Framework is stuck and the three countries that have entered into a Kafkaesque process see no light at the end of the tunnel. The World Bank thinks as many as a dozen countries will need some form of debt treatment. Unless they can be offered a fast-paced and more predictable debt resolution framework, they will likely allow economic problems to fester and delay coming for the help they clearly need to get out of the crisis. Well defined proposals are already on the table to make the Common Framework fit for purpose: – including the IMF conducting transparent assessment of the debt relief needed, introducing comparability of treatment, and giving greater ownership of the process to new creditors. The IMF could introduce lending into arrears for countries undergoing restructuring – acting as a liquidity support tool – while implementing a full moratorium on payments during debt restructuring negotiations could also provide needed liquidity. The Bali meeting is the moment for G20 ministers to seize the mantle and adopt these proposals.
Finally, the G20 needs to agree how to get grain, fertilizer, and fuel shipping again from Russia and Ukraine. Costs for these products have as much as tripled, leading governments to spend substantial amounts on subsidies for food and fuel, placing stress on national budgets – and taking away from social protection programs. High fertilizer costs also jeopardize the productivity of planting seasons, further decreasing future food supplies. The sooner these products can flow again, the sooner prices will ease for essential imports.
The G20 acted swiftly and decisively during the COVID crisis. Today, the poorest countries are confronting a challenge which is bigger, more damaging and whose scarring potential is immense. The leaders know the remedies and have the authority to deploy them to demonstrate true solidarity with the poorest countries. They must make the meeting in Bali meaningful for all.
TOKYO — U.S. security allies in Asia and Europe are now closer to each other than ever, as seen in the first participation of Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand in a NATO summit late last month.
Le samedi 09 Juillet dernier en Sri Lanka, des milliers de manifestants en colère ont envahi le palais présidentiel obligeant le chef de l’Etat à prendre la poudre d’escampette. Cette actualité ne laisse pas indifférent le banquier d’affaire, Lionel Zinsou qui a exprimé son inquiétude sur la fragilité des démocraties émergeantes dans le monde.
Dans un entretien accordé au site Suisse Brick et rapporté par le quotidien « LNT », l’ancien premier ministre béninois Lionel Zinsou s’est prononcé sur la situation en Sri Lanka qui selon lui est l’expression de la fragilité des démocraties émergeantes dans le monde.
En effet, excédés par la crise économique dont l’une des causes est la grande corruption au sommet de l’Etat, des manifestants ont investi le palais présidentiel contraignant le président Gotabaya Rajapaksa à fuir son lieu de travail. Evoquant la situation dans ce pays à régime démocratique socialiste, le banquier d’affaire Lionel Zinsou pense que la situation en Sri Lanka concerne tout le monde « et ne doit surtout pas laisser indifférent ».
« Dans le cas du Sri Lanka, le régime autoritaire des Rajapaksa n’était plus en mesure d’assurer le maintien de l’ordre. Or, cette question se pose dans d’autres pays, y compris les démocraties comme l’Afrique du Sud« , a fait remarquer le banquier d’affaire pour qui, le pire de la situation mondiale actuelle, est la fragilité des démocraties émergeantes.
La situation de Sri Lanka guette la Tunisie…
Pour l’économiste franco-béninois, les situations comme celles du genre actuellement en cours en Sri Lanka prennent leur source dans la crise surtout économique. A croire le banquier d’affaire, lorsque les populations sont à bout de souffre et n’arrivent plus à s’en sortir, il faut des institutions assez fortes pour résister.
Dans ce genre de contexte, plusieurs régimes surtout les régimes totalitaires font usage de la force pour empêcher les populations de manifester. D’autres régimes comme c’est le cas en Afrique du Sud font l’option du dialogue. Dans tous les cas, prévient l’ancien premier ministre béninois, la situation ne doit laisser indifférente personne.
Il pense même que la Tunisie est menacée par ce qui s’est passé en Sri Lanka si rien n’est fait pour améliorer la situation dans ce pays. L’économiste trouve quand même des situations atténuantes en Tunisie. A le croire, « les tunisiens ont des ressources , pétrole et phosphate qui pourraient être bien mieux valorisées et rapporter bien plus à la collectivité« .
Économiste et entrepreneur, co-fondateur de GlassView, une plateforme de Neuro-Powered MediaTM, et membre du conseil d’administration de l’École d’économie de Paris. Président du Club Praxis et conseiller du commerce extérieur à New York. Il est co-auteur du Capitalisme contre les inégalités (PUF, 2022), qui a été récompensé du 36e Prix Turgot et du Prix Louis Marin. En 2018, il a reçu de l’Académie des sciences morales et politiques, le Prix spécial de la section Économie politique, statistique et finance pour son livre Le gouvernement des citoyens (PUF) ainsi que pour les travaux qu’il a menés au Club Praxis, un club de réflexion qui promeut l’utilisation du Big Data dans l’élaboration des politiques publiques, en particulier dans la refonte du système fiscal et social. En 2024, Yann Coatanlem a fait plusieurs contributions au débat sur l’innovation disruptive et le coût de l’échec en Europe, notamment dans le rapport Draghi. Il est diplômé de l’ENSIMAG et d’HEC Paris. Il est décoré de l’Ordre National du Mérite, de la Médaille d’Or de la Renaissance Française et de la Médaille d’honneur des Conseillers du commerce extérieur.
Louise Mushikiwabo was named as secretary general of L’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) in 2018. Rwanda is in the unique position of having temporary stewardship of arguably both the most influential English and French speaking organisation in the world. File photo
As Kigali hosted the 47th l’Assemblée Parlementaire de la Francophonie (APF) which concluded on 9th July 2022, the conference was a timely reminder of the need to maintain and rebuild the usage of French in schools and in every day life in Rwanda and cement the country’s status as a multilingual country.
In 2018, former foreign minister, Hon Louise Mushikiwabo was named as secretary general of L’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), an organisation with 54 full members containing a population of one billion people, dedicated to promoting the French language and cultural and linguistic diversity, peace, democracy and human rights; to support education, training, higher education and research; and to foster economic cooperation to bolster sustainable development.
The move came after an eight-year cooling of relations between Kigali and Paris following Rwanda accusing France of being complicit in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi which culminated in Rwanda dropping the French language from the school syllabus.
Upon her appointment in 2018, Mushikiwabo said, “As secretary-general, I intend to give importance to French in an increasingly multilingual world because I am convinced that French has its place among other languages and for the good of the world.”
Following President HE Paul Kagame’s taking over the chairmanship of The Commonwealth during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which took place in Kigali the previous week, Rwanda is in the unique position of having temporary stewardship of arguably both the most influential English speaking organisation in the world and the most influential French speaking organisation in the world.
This puts Rwanda in a strong position to achieve its strategy of becoming an international hub for business, particularly as a location for businesses to place their African headquarters.
The recently established Kigali International Financial Centre (KIFC) seems to be the main conduit to turn this ambition into a reality.
It has legal and regulatory standards for compliant and safe financial transactions comparable to world leading financial centres enabling the use of investment vehicles which address the needs of the local ecosystem and structuring of cross-border transactions.
With an average annual growth rate of 8.6 per cent over the past ten years, Rwanda is one of Africa’s fastest growing economies which with the addition of the KIFC is now poised to become one of the continent’s leading financial centres.
Rwanda is ranked second in sub-Saharan Africa in the World Global Rule of Law Index and second for ease of doing business. Rwanda is also recognised as among the least corrupt and safest countries on the continent.
Rwanda has established a strong Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) network with many countries and the country is extending its network in Africa and with leading developing economies and entered into Investment Protection Agreements with several other countries.
The country’s position in holding temporary stewardship of both The Commonwealth and L’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie allows the opportunity for Rwanda to act as the gateway for Anglophone businesses to open up opportunities in Francophone Africa and for Francophone businesses to open up opportunities in Anglophone Africa.
The only other countries in Africa listing both English and French as official languages are Seychelles and Mauritius* (*Mauritius’s constitution gives no mention of an official language but members of parliament are also allowed to address the national assembly in either English or French) which are both strong international financial centres, but unlike Rwanda, lack direct air links into most of Africa; Cameroon, where French and English is spoken depending on region; and Burundi, which recently added English as an official language, but has an underdeveloped financial sector and has the world’s lowest GDP per capita according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Rwanda must do its best in not only promoting itself to Anglophone and Francophone businesses with an interest in Africa during this period, but also promoting the use of both languages in schools to maximise the benefit that ordinary citizens can also derive from Kigali becoming an Anglophone and Francophone and international financial centre.
The importance of Swahili cannot be downplayed as both a regional language and one that is evolving to become an African lingua franca. It is a recently recognised official language in Rwanda as well as an official language in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as well as official language of the African Union (AU), East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC), as well as a recognised minority language in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mozambique and spoken in parts of Comoros, Madagascar, Malawi, Mayotte, Somalia and Zambia.
Botswana, Ethiopia, South Africa and South Sudan are non-traditionally Swahili speaking countries which have added the language to their curriculum.
Promoting English, French and Swahili nationally can help Rwanda to claim pole position for companies wishing to trade with both Anglophone and Francophone Africa whilst also stimulating trade within East Africa and allowing citizens to derive the benefits of these developments through employment, business and trade opportunities.
In an indication that Russian forces were ending what they called an operational pause in their invasion of Ukraine, the defense minister of Russia, Sergei Shoigu, on Saturday ordered his forces to intensify attacks “in all operational sectors” of the war.
As the Ukrainian government disclosed modest new ground attacks by Russian forces, the Russian defense ministry said in a statement that Shoigu had instructed that combat be intensified to stop Ukraine from shelling civilian areas in Russian-occupied territory.
After deadly Russian missile strikes across Ukraine in recent days that killed civilians, the statement was a new signal from Moscow that its invasion may be entering a more aggressive phase.
Shoigu’s statement appeared to be a response to Ukraine’s new ability to hit Russian targets in occupied areas due to more advanced, longer-range Western weapons, including the U.S. HIMARS precision-guided rocket systems and the French Caesar artillery pieces. Ukraine claims to have hit at least 30 Russian ammunition and logistics sites with the new longer-range weapons in the past two weeks.
Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested to lawmakers that Russia would escalate the war. “Everyone should know that, by and large, we have not started anything seriously yet,” Putin said.
The wreckage of a car burns in a crater after a Russian missile strike in Dnipro, in central Ukraine, on Friday. Indiscriminate Russian attacks on civilian areas have become a hallmark of its invasion, and this week, an international conference in The Hague sought to coordinate an approach to the overwhelming allegations of war crimes in Ukraine. | DANIEL BEREHULAK / THE NEW YORK TIMES
There were signs of new ground fighting in the hotly contested Donbas region, where Russian forces have taken one of its provinces, Luhansk, and are trying to take the rest of another, Donetsk, as well. Ukrainian military and regional officials reported five probing attacks along the crescent-shaped front line in the Donbas.
Ukrainian troops using “heavy fire” repelled a renewed overnight ground assault to capture the main road link between the cities of Lysychansk and Bakhmut, said Serhii Haidai, military governor of Luhansk, an assertion echoed in a report Saturday by Ukraine’s general staff. The road has been bitterly contested for months.
The latest analysis by the Institute for the Study of War said Russian forces were “likely emerging from their operational pause,” citing a series of limited ground assaults northwest of Sloviansk, southeast of Siversk, along the Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway and southwest of the city of Donetsk. “These assaults may indicate that Russian forces are attempting to resume their offensive operations in Donbas,” the analysis said, while noting that “the assaults are still small-scale and were largely unsuccessful.”
Some soldiers serving on front-line positions in the Donetsk region question whether the Russians ever actually paused, saying they have been under constant attack on the ground and with artillery and aerial bombardment.
The sound of heavy explosions is often audible from the front-line cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut. Smoke from fires dots the horizon south and east of Bakhmut, where Russian forces have been trying to advance.
A rocket hit a small fruit-and-vegetable market in Bakhmut on Friday afternoon, wounding several people. Early Saturday, three more rockets struck a factory and a house in Kostiantynivka but without causing any casualties. “My cafe is broken. Factories are smashed. Everything is closed,” said Vitaliy, 40, as he repaired the boards on his cafe windows the day after the blast. “There is nothing left. What will the people buy?”
A shop hit by shelling Saturday in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on Saturday, where Russian troops are trying to advance. Ukrainian military officials said Ukrainian troops repelled an overnight assault by Russia to capture the main road link between the cities of Lysychansk and Bakhmut. | MAURICIO LIMA / THE NEW YORK TIMES
In the early hours of Saturday, at least three civilians were killed and three more were injured in a Russian rocket strike on the northern Ukrainian city of Chuhuiv, about 75 miles from the Russian border, regional police said.
In the neighboring Sumy region, one civilian was killed and at least seven more were injured after Russians opened mortar and artillery fire on three towns and villages not far from the Russian border, the regional governor said Saturday.
In Donetsk, seven civilians were killed and 14 more injured, the regional governor said Saturday.
The major strike came Thursday, when a Russian submarine fired cruise missiles into the heart of Vinnytsia, a city of 370,000 people about 125 miles southwest of Kyiv, the capital.
Ukrainian officials said that strike killed at least 23 people, including a 4-year-old girl with Down syndrome, causing outrage in Ukraine and the West.
A Ukrainian soldier plays with a puppy as he speaks on his phone near the front lines in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on Thursday. | MAURICIO LIMA / THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Russian defense ministry said the strike on Vinnytsia was directed at a building where top officials from Ukraine’s armed forces were meeting foreign arms suppliers. Ukrainian officials have denied that the building contained military targets.
The war is causing significant economic stress in the rest of the world, reducing global growth both this year and next, Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, told a hybrid meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers and heads of central banks.
“The war in Ukraine has intensified, exerting added pressures on commodity and food prices,” she said in a statement Saturday. “Global financial conditions are tightening more than previously anticipated. And continuing pandemic-related disruptions and renewed bottlenecks in global supply chains are weighing on economic activity.”
Adding to the stress in Germany, which has been dependent on Russian energy, was a new statement by the Russian gas monopoly, Gazprom, urging German company Siemens to return a turbine it has repaired in Canada to ensure the Nord Stream 1 pipeline delivering gas to Europe can resume working after a 10-day maintenance period that began Monday.
Despite Western sanctions on Russia, Canada has agreed to grant what it has described as a time-limited and revocable permit for Siemens Canada to allow the turbine’s return. But Gazprom claims it has received no guarantees that the unit will be returned.
Germany was already coping with a 60% reduction in gas supplies through that pipeline, amid fears that Russia will not resume deliveries after maintenance. Conservative politicians have revived debate on extending the life of the country’s three remaining nuclear power plants, which produce about 6% of Germany’s electricity, a sensitive topic for the Greens, now in government. The plants are supposed to be shut down by the end of this year.
A resident walks by the entrance of a destroyed bazaar hit by shelling Saturday in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on Saturday, where Russian troops are trying to advance. Bakhmut has been battered by shelling this week, as Russia seeks to take the remaining Ukrainian-held areas of Donetsk province. | MAURICIO LIMA / THE NEW YORK TIMES
The European Union has banned the import of Russian coal, but a ban it imposed on oil imports is only gradual and partial. And there is no agreement on banning imports of natural gas. Brussels has also compromised on allowing Gazprom to be paid effectively in rubles, as Russia has demanded, with euro deposits into Gazprom’s own bank immediately shifted into rubles.
The EU has also backed off on enforcing full sanctions on goods moving from mainland Russia to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. The enclave is separated from the rest of Russia by Poland and Lithuania; Lithuania created tensions with Moscow by announcing that it would impose EU sanctions on Russian goods traveling by train to Russian Kaliningrad through Lithuania.
After fierce Russian complaints, Brussels “updated” its guidelines and said Russia would be allowed to transport civilian-use goods on the sanctions list through Lithuania by rail — though not by road — in amounts comparable to pre-invasion deliveries over the past three years.
There can be targeted checks, Brussels said, to ensure that sanctioned military and dual-use goods and related technologies are not part of the rail shipments.
As Russia seeks more answers to counter the newer NATO mobile artillery systems, it has turned to Iran to explore buying that country’s sophisticated armed drones, the U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said last week. On Saturday, a senior American official said that satellite images showed a Russian delegation visiting Iran to view unmanned, weapons-capable drones that could be purchased for use in the war in Ukraine and that could be used to better target the new NATO artillery in counter-battery strikes.
Plus de 20 millions de tonnes de céréales sont bloqués dans des silos ukrainiens. Le chef de la diplomatie européenne Josep Borrell appelle à trouver une solution de toute urgence.
La reprise des exportations de céréales depuis l’Ukraine est une « question de vie ou de mort » et nous avons « espoir » qu’un accord soit trouvé cette semaine pour débloquer le port d’Odessa, a déclaré lundi le chef de la diplomatie européenne, Josep Borrell.
« La vie de (…) dizaines de milliers de personnes dépend de cet accord » en train d’être négocié entre la Russie, l’Ukraine, la Turquie et les Nations Unies, a-t-il expliqué à son arrivée à Bruxelles pour une réunion des ministres des Affaires étrangères de l’UE consacrée à la guerre en Ukraine.
Le projet d’accord vise à faire sortir par la mer Noire quelque 20 millions de tonnes de céréales bloquées dans des silos ukrainiens à cause de l’offensive menée par Moscou. Il doit aussi faciliter les exportations russes de céréales et d’engrais, affectées par les sanctions occidentales qui frappent les chaînes logistiques et financières russes.
Les sanctions, une erreur?
La Russie a annoncé un « document final » pour une réunion organisée cette semaine par la Turquie. L’Union européenne entend poursuivre sa pression sur Moscou avec de nouvelles sanctions ainsi qu’un soutien financier et militaire à l’Ukraine, a annoncé Josep Borrell.
« Certains dirigeants européens ont déclaré que les sanctions étaient une erreur, une faute. Je ne pense pas que ce soit une erreur, c’est ce que nous devons faire, et nous continuerons à le faire », a-t-il affirmé en réponse à une déclaration du Premier ministre hongrois, Viktor Orban.
Ce dernier avait dénoncé les sanctions vendredi, y voyant « une erreur » car « elles n’ont pas atteint leur but, et ont même eu un effet contraire ». « L’économie européenne s’est tiré une balle dans les poumons et est asphyxiée », avait-il affirmé dans une allocution.
La Commission européenne a présenté vendredi de nouvelles mesures, dont un embargo sur les achats d’or à la Russie. Les ministres doivent par ailleurs se prononcer sur le déblocage d’une cinquième tranche de 500 millions d’euros de la « Facilité européenne pour la paix » pour financer les équipements militaires et les armes fournies à l’Ukraine.
TOKYO — Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s contribution to diplomacy and security cannot be underestimated. While having significantly reinforced the Japan-U.S. alliance, his Indo-Pacific initiative has prompted major nations to rethink their geopolitical strategies.
While the West has largely ignored Latin America, or tried to force the region to bend to its will, China has been offering regional actors huge perks, with none of the conditions (at least not up front). Unless the US and Europe change tack, they could end up losing a critical region – and the new cold war.
Is the West losing Latin America? During the Cold War, this question was feverishly discussed in Washington, DC, and beyond. Now, the return of great-power competition and the potential revival of spheres of influence – together with the recent wave of left-wing electoral victories in the region – are giving it renewed salience.
For the West, the looming specter of hot conflict with authoritarian regimes, from Russia to China, has again highlighted Latin America’s importance as a partner. At the same time, however, the United States and its allies are preoccupied by the war in Ukraine, including, not least, its implications for energy markets and economic prosperity.
Directeur de l’Institut de santé globale à l’Université de Genève. Il est professeur en santé publique à la Faculté de médecine de l’Université de Genève. En 2019, il a été élu co-directeur de l’École suisse de santé publique à Zürich. Précédemment, il était directeur de l’École des hautes études en santé publique (EHESP), le co-directeur de l’European Academic Global Health Alliance, et le président de l’Agence d’accréditation de l’éducation à la santé publique. Il a mené ses recherches en modélisation mathématique des maladies transmissibles et a présidé le centre collaborateur de l’OMS pour la surveillance électronique des maladies. Il est membre de l’Académie suisse des sciences médicales et membre correspondant de l’Académie nationale de médecine à Paris. Docteur en médecine et en biomathématiques. En mars 2024, il a publié le livre Prévenez-moi ! Une meilleure santé à tout âge aux Éditions Robert Laffont.
Analyste des politiques et commentateur sur le développement international et le commerce, les économies asiatiques, les communications et la prospective stratégique. Édes est senior associate au Center for Strategic and International Studies, Distinguished Fellow de la Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada et est Professor of Practice en développement international à McGill University. Entre 2001 et 2020, il a occupé divers postes de gestion à la Asian Development Bank, supervisant l’engagement des parties prenantes, l’éducation, la santé, la technologie pour le développement, les entreprises inclusives, la gouvernance, l’égalité des sexes, le développement social, la gestion des connaissances et les relations avec l’Amérique du Nord. Dans des rôles antérieurs, Édes a été agent principal des communications à l’Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques; entrepreneur médiatique, journaliste et chercheur économique en Europe centrale; et économiste spécialisé dans le commerce international américain et les politiques d’investissement direct étranger. Il est titulaire d’une master’s degree de l’University of Michigan et bachelor’s degree (Government) de Georgetown University.
OPINION. L’ancien ministre français des Affaires étrangères Hubert Védrine, propose une cogestion des flux migratoires économiques entre les pays de départ, de transit et d’arrivée, par la fixation périodique de quotas par métier
On pourrait évidemment prendre la question migratoire de façon manichéenne. Ce serait plus facile! Soit considérer que les pays d’Europe doivent se fermer complètement à tous les mouvements migratoires et que les demandeurs d’asile ne sont que des immigrants illégaux à refouler de toutes les façons, et exciter les foules contre ces invasions. Soit, au contraire, considérer que tous les immigrants (rebaptisés réfugiés), méritent de trouver asile, au sens le plus élargi du terme, dans les différents pays d’Europe et pourchasser de façon vindicative, par des déclarations morales grandiloquentes et des guérillas judiciaires, tous ceux qui n’acceptent pas ce principe d’ouverture généralisée.
CHRONIQUE – La leçon de morale est un instrument diplomatique périmé à l’ère numérique. Ce qui compte, c’est le soft power décrit par Joseph Nye.
A l’occasion du bouleversement stratégique que constitue la guerre d’Ukraine, les Occidentaux commencent à comprendre que leurs leçons de morale ne sont plus entendues par la majorité des populations de la planète. L’Occident, ce grand bloc de démocraties libérales industrialisées (Amérique du Nord, Europe, Japon, Corée du Sud, Australie), est seul à avoir pris des sanctions contre la Russie, pour la punir de la guerre qu’elle fait à l’Ukraine depuis le 24 février 2022.
Est-ce à dire que les pays d’Afrique, d’Asie et d’Amérique latine approuvent l’invasion de l’Ukraine par les forces russes? Non. Car ils sont très attachés à la charte des Nations unies, qui sacralise la souveraineté, l’indépendance et l’intégrité territoriale de tous ses membres, petits comme grands, jeunes comme anciens. Or l’Ukraine est un pays souverain, reconnu comme tel par les Russes depuis trente ans. Au sommet du G20 des ministres des Affaires étrangères, qui s’est tenu à Bali les 7 et 8 juillet 2022, ces pays extra-occidentaux…
L’UE refuse que la Russie se serve des réunions du G20 en Indonésie comme d’«une plateforme pour sa propagande» sur le conflit en Ukraine, a averti jeudi la porte-parole du chef de la diplomatie européenne Josep Borrell.
Une rencontre des ministres des Affaires étrangères des pays du G20 se déroule dans l’île de Bali jeudi et vendredi pour préparer le sommet des dirigeants des vingt puissances prévu pour novembre au même endroit. Josep Borrell n’a programmé aucune rencontre avec le chef de la diplomatie russe Sergueï Lavrov pendant ces deux journées, ont indiqué ses services.
«Une menace pour la crédibilité»
«La guerre effroyable contre l’Ukraine et les conséquences de l’agression de la Russie seront abordées au cours de ces réunions, mais nous ne permettrons pas que Moscou utilise le G20 comme une plateforme pour sa propagande», a déclaré sa porte-parole, Nabila Massrali, au cours du point de presse quotidien de la Commission européenne. «La participation de la Russie à un haut niveau peut constituer une menace pour la crédibilité, l’efficacité et la pertinence du G20», a-t-elle mis en garde.
L’Indonésie a invité le président russe Vladimir Poutine au sommet de novembre à Bali, malgré la pression occidentale, notamment des États-Unis, pour l’isoler. En guise de solution de compromis, Jakarta a également convié le président ukrainien Volodymyr Zelensky. «Il n’est pas question pour l’UE de boycotter le G20, car il reste un forum essentiel. Nous devons nous assurer que le multilatéralisme peut fonctionner en temps de crise», a ajouté la porte-parole, alors que le monde est confronté à des menaces de famine, à la flambée des prix de l’énergie et de l’alimentation et à l’emballement des risques climatiques.
Le G20, le club des 20 plus grandes économies du monde, compte dans ses rangs des États occidentaux qui ont imposé des sanctions à Moscou, mais également d’autres pays plus réservés, comme la Chine, l’Inde et l’Afrique du Sud.
NEW YORK – t is often said that no one wins a war, just that some lose less than others. Russia’s war against Ukraine promises to be no exception. One clear loser is already evident: the planet.
The war has become the international priority for policymakers and publics. And rightly so: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine threatens a pillar of international order, namely the prohibition on changing borders by force. But the war has also triggered a global scramble for sufficient supplies of energy in response to sanctions against Russian energy exports and the possibility that Russia will cut off supplies. Many countries have found that the easiest and quickest route is to secure greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuels.
Read the entire article on Project Syndicate.