Egypt’s fears about Ethiopia’s mega-dam haven’t come to pass: moving on from historical concerns would benefit the whole region: A new round of angry exchanges has broken out between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). On September 1, Cairo wrote to the UN security council to protest against Ethiopia’s continued filling …
Gaza war: Israel using AI to identify human targets raising fears that innocents are being caught in the net: Death by algorithm: increasingly AI is being used to identify targets, as in Gaza. TSViPhoto/Shutterstock A report by Jerusalem-based investigative journalists published in +972 magazine finds that AI targeting systems have played a key role in …
Houthi militant attacks in the Red Sea raise fears of Somali piracy resurgence: Renewed attacks on ships by suspected Somali pirates since November 2023 have fuelled fear of a new threat of piracy off the east coast of Africa. The area at risk stretches from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the …
Attack on Gaza: Israeli rhetoric fuels fears of ethnic cleansing as IDF assault continues to push south: Over the past eight weeks, with only a brief pause, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have carried out a relentless attack on Gaza. Day by day the death toll has grown. According to the latest figures from Gaza’s …
Palantir: privacy fears over handing NHS data to US defence provider show how lack of trust is holding back much-needed reform: Shutterstock/Marian Weyo Controversial US tech company Palantir has been awarded a £330 million contract to create a new system for sharing data – including patients’ medical details – within the NHS in England. The …
Lion farming in South Africa: fresh evidence adds weight to fears of link with illegal bone trade: GettyImages In South Africa an estimated 8,000 lions are bred and kept in captivity for commercial purposes in more than 350 facilities. This is far more than the country’s wild population, estimated at 3,500 individuals. These big cats …
Ukraine war: ‘joke’ about Wagner Group invading Poland highlights regional security fears of rogue mercenaries: Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko reportedly remarked – suppposedly in a joking tone – during a recent meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg that Wagner mercenaries are eager to move into Poland. While Lukashenko may not have …
North Korea: fears of a new famine after three years of COVID isolation and harsh repression: Three years after COVID-19 hit, people around the world have regained their freedom to move between countries. All except in one country: North Korea, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In January 2020, Kim Jong-un decided to …
Joe Biden: slips of the tongue can project our own hidden thoughts, fears and anxieties: Joe Biden is proud of his Irish heritage and they say that he has “the gift of the gaffe”, given how many slips of the tongue he makes (and has been making long before he became president). In various speeches, …
Mongolia: squeezed between China and Russia fears ‘new cold war’: Founding father: a statue to Genghis Khan in Tsonjin boldog, Mongolia. Chris Piason via Shutterstock Mongolia’s prime minister, Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, recently expressed his country’s fear that the world is heading towards a new cold war as the relations between Russia and China and the west …
Israel protests: Netanyahu delays judicial reforms over fears of ‘civil war’ – but deep fault-lines threaten future of democracy: Despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to delay the planned judicial reforms that have so destabilised Israeli society, the country’s crisis of democracy is far from over. Protests at Netanyahu’s plan, which have rocked Israel for weeks, redoubled …
Ukraine recap: fears of escalation after US drone downed over the Black Sea: There was another of those moments when the world held its breath this week when news broke on March 14 of an incident between a US drone and two Russian jets. The unmanned US Reaper MQ-9 drone, reportedly on routine surveillance duties …
Mexico protests: fears for democracy prompt mass demonstrations: Electoral reforms proposed by the Mexican government have sparked huge protests across the country. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in more than 100 towns and cities in opposition to legislation passed by the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The reform will slash …
Ukraine war: ‘soccer plot’ raises fears of fresh Russian attempts to destabilise neighbouring Moldova: Moldova has been sliding into yet another crisis following the resignation of its prime minister, Natalia Gavrilita, and fears that Russia was plotting a coup to overthrow the pro-western president, Maia Sandu. At a press conference in the Moldovan capital Chisinau …
North Korea: record number of missile tests in 2022 has raised fears of nuclear confrontation with the South: North Korea began 2023 as it had ended 2022 – with some characteristic sabre-rattling in the form of missile tests. Having launched more missiles in 2022 than in any other year, on the morning of January 1 …
Ukraine recap: Putin’s trip to Minsk fuels fears of a bleak and bloody new year: Volodymyr Zelensky has been on his travels this week, leaving Ukraine for the first time since the invasion to fly to the US to meet with Joe Biden and address a joint sitting of Congress. The Ukrainian president impressed with …
Ukraine war: this map holds an important clue about Kremlin fears of Nato expansion: As Russian forces withdrew in the face of the recent Ukrainian counteroffensives, the Kremlin repeated its claim that its military only invaded because of the threat of Nato’s possible expansion. This has been a constant refrain of Kremlin military briefings. For …
Taiwan: Beijing reacts to Pelosi’s visit with live-fire exercises prompting fears of escalation: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has reportedly fired several DF-15B ballistic missiles into the seas around Taiwan as part of large scale military drills announced in response to the visit this week by the speaker of the US House of Representatives, …