In April, the UK House of Commons formally approved a new directive requiring Northern Ireland’s Department of Health to take “concrete steps” to ensure full abortion services in the north before summer. The directive, which came after years of pressure from inside and outside the north, is the result of the Northern Ireland executive’s delay in commissioning services that were formally decriminalized in 2019.
Media commentators initially gave good ratings to US President Joe Biden after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They expressed a sense of relief, in large part due to the contrast in tone with Donald Trump’s performance in similar situations, guaranteed to produce a sense of unexpected drama. Biden confirmed his image of a seasoned diplomat capable of engaging in civil dialogue, setting the stage for eventual problem-solving.
Donald Trump, the 45th US president, broke with decades of a relatively bipartisan foreign policy consensus by wreaking havoc on US bilateral relations with China and the European Union. Latin America was an exception to the Trump playbook.
The US Senate recently demonstrated that the only adhesive capable of uniting the two parties is a good, old-fashioned enemy. Although the Democrats and Republicans continue to bicker over the Biden administration’s infrastructure legislation, they achieved rare accord in passing a major technology bill that directs investment into key sectors of the economy.
Well before his trip to Europe, Joe Biden’s team worked out the strategy for its messaging that would color everything connected to foreign policy. Vox summed up the drift with this title: “Biden sees his presidency as proving democracy — not authoritarianism — right for the world.” It is now common for pundits to lament that democracy appears to be under threat, though few agree on the nature of that threat.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche didn’t have the afflictions of athletes in mind when he wrote this, though many athletes who have surfaced from depression actually appear to be fortified by the ordeal. Others suffer, often in silence, and never fully recover.
US President Joe Biden used the occasion of his trip to Europe for the G7 summit to attend his first NATO meeting. His influence on the meeting appeared unambiguously when a communiqué by the NATO alliance designated China’s influence on the world stage as a military challenge.
The United Arab Emirates is one of the world’s major gold trading hubs. In 2019, it was the fifth-biggest importer and fourth-biggest exporter globally. During the COVID-19 pandemic, international demand has surged. But as Reuters reported in 2019, much of this gold is smuggled from West Africa and produced by artisanal and small-scale gold mining, a trade that funds armed conflict, costs producing countries in lost tax revenue and has significant consequences on public health and the environment.
As a columnist for The Washington Post, Megan McArdle works for the Post’s owner, a man named Jeff Bezos. Over the past two decades, McArdle has had numerous other prestigious bosses. She boasts a solid career in high-level journalism, having worked for The Atlantic, Newsweek, The Economist and Bloomberg, among others. Bloomberg View’s executive editor, David Shipley, once called her “an extraordinary writer and thinker.”
In early May, the eastern Indian state of West Bengal went to the polls. The state elections attracted global attention. The BBC’s analysis of the election was headlined, “West Bengal Election: Modi Loses a Battle in the ‘War for Indian Democracy.’”
