{"id":20152,"date":"2020-09-18T14:34:48","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T14:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/?p=20152"},"modified":"2024-01-09T13:32:49","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T13:32:49","slug":"the-week-in-foreign-policy-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/2020\/09\/the-week-in-foreign-policy-17\/","title":{"rendered":"The week in foreign policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re back with the week in foreign policy \u2013 exploring what\u2019s happening away from the front pages, and key developments in global affairs that have caught our eye.<\/span><\/p>\n

The foreign policy headlines have been dominated this week by news that, with the support of America, the UAE and Bahrain have signed agreements fully normalising their relationships with Israel. Whilst the move has been celebrated by some as a historic and extraordinary triumph, <\/span>The New York Times\u2019 Editorial Board<\/span><\/a> have argued that, whilst this is \u201con the face of it, <\/span>a good and beneficial development\u201d, \u201cthe agreements…made only a perfunctory nod to what \u2018Middle East peace\u2019 has long referred to: peace between Palestinians and Israelis.\u201d They argue that: \u201cA true Middle East peace deal will require an accommodation with the 4.75 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, a people who have been denied a homeland for more than seven decades\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia has also had a big week an<\/span>d <\/span>Vladimir Soldatkin<\/span><\/a> reports in <\/span>Reuters<\/span><\/a> that: \u201c<\/span>Russian President Vladimir Putin bestowed a $1.5 billion loan on Belarus on Monday in a gesture of support for its leader Alexander Lukashenko, who flew to entreat his patron for help after five weeks of mass protests demanding his resignation.\u201d Furthermore, Ivana Stradner and Milan Jovanovi\u0107 discuss in <\/span>Foreign Policy<\/span><\/a> how the recent parliamentary election in Montenengro, which saw the <\/span>pro-Western Democratic Party of Socialists replaced by newly formed coalition of opposition parties, could \u201chave outsized repercussions for the international order\u201d. They argue that: \u201cIt\u2019s high time the EU wakes up and does something to stem Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s creeping influence in the Balkans.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Japan is also preparing for a period of new leadership with <\/span>Yoshihide Suga becoming Japan\u2019s new Prime Minister. William Sposato discusses what can be expected from the Prime Minister in <\/span>Foreign Policy<\/span><\/a>, describing him as a \u201c<\/span>policy wonk short on charisma (who) is best known for the blandness of his daily press briefings.\u201d <\/span>He argues that: \u201c<\/span>As the ultimate fixer, Suga has already made clear that his goal is stability, not innovation.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Barbados has declared that it will remove the Queen as head of state and become a Republic stating that <\/span>\u201cThe time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,\u201d. However <\/span>The Economist<\/span><\/a> warns that whilst the Prime Minister \u201c<\/span>will have no problem mustering the two-thirds majority in both houses needed to dump the monarchy\u201d, \u201cmany former British colonies have contemplated the republican idea, only to discover that it is hard to execute. Barbados (has) dithered for nearly a quarter of a century.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, in the human rights sphere, Borzou Daraghi in <\/span>The Independent<\/span><\/a> discusses the hanging of <\/span>27-year-old Navid Afkari, a former Iranian wrestling champion. \u201cThe 85,000-member World Players Association accus(ed) Iran of using him as a \u201cpawn\u201d in their domestic political calculations, demanding that Iran\u2019s participation in the Olympics, world wrestling and international football be reassessed should the death take place\u201d. Meanwhile, Madeline Wattenbarger describes in <\/span>The Guardian <\/span><\/a>how women in Mexico have seized a \u201c<\/span>human rights office to force President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador to tackle grim toll of rape and murder.\u201d Similar occupations outside of Mexico City have been met with force, with police entering occupations, \u201cbeat(ing) the women and children with them, before taking them away in unmarked vehicles to the prosecutor\u2019s office\u201d. Police have also attacked crowds outside the occupations.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our Evie Aspinall explores the stories behind the headlines in the week in foreign policy – including current events in Israel, Russia, Barbados and more. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":21281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bfpg.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}