Sergio Guzmán, GA
The reactions to former President Uribe's arrest hints toward deep divisions within the country, the body politic, and within families across Colombia.
Dasha Afanasieva, Reuters
LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Here is a joke doing the rounds in Belarus, where protesters over President Alexander Lukashenko’s reported landslide victory in the Aug. 9 election threaten to end his 26-year reign. Policemen arrest a man in Minsk, the capital. “But I voted for Lukashenko,” he declares. “Don’t lie,” the police retort, “nobody voted for him!” Lukashenko’s potential departure is no laughing matter for the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Jacopo Barigazzi, Politico
Leaders aim to send clear message but avoid giving Vladimir Putin pretext to intervene.
Dan Haverty, Foreign Policy
Leaders across the world condemned the mutiny, but anti-government protesters cheered the apparent coup.
Economist
The drills come as America and China are locking horns across Asia
Carl Bildt, Project Syndicate
While many Western observers have seized on Ukraine's 2004-05 and 2014 revolutions to understand the mass protests in Belarus, a much better analogy is to Armenia's democratic transition in 2018. Armenians demanded a change in domestic governance, not in the country's geopolitical orientation, and that made all the difference.
Zack Cooper & Derek Scissors, RealClearWorld
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently suggested the United States should approach China with a “distrust and verify” mindset. If the secretary speaks for President Donald Trump, the phase-one trade deal with China is on its last legs. The question should be what comes next. The best answer is targeted retaliation to deter China’s predatory economic and security behavior. It is certainly not more grand bargains.
Читать дальше...
Elsie Eyakuze, The East African
Sometimes — not always but sometimes — it is good to have low standards. That way you can find any reason to congratulate yourself on winning.
Roger Boyes, Times of London
Erdogan’s constant search for scapegoats and enemies is leaving him friendless in the region
E. Alden, WPR
The global economic map is reshuffling, and predictions abound on where the pieces will land. As companies scramble to protect themselves from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade wars, the growing technology rivalry between the United States and China, and the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, will the long-promised “reshoring” of manufacturing back to higher-wage countries finally take place? Will the U.S. and China “decouple” their economies, particularly for the technologies of the future? Читать дальше...
NYT
Senators divided along party lines about whether to conclude that the Trump campaign coordinated with the Kremlin's election sabotage operations.
Stephen Sestanovich, CFR
Vladimir Putin is no fan of democracy movements in Russia’s neighborhood, but trying to turn off the protests in Belarus will be risky.
K. Sonin, Mos. Times
A quick change in the economy will prove to be disastrous without a professional state.
Hilal Khashan, GP Futures
On Aug. 13, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a historic peace treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, two countries that do not share borders and have never gone to war against each other. The agreement formalizes relations that have been improving since 2004, when Mohammed bin Zayed – the architect of the UAE’s interventionist foreign policy – became crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the deputy supreme commander of the Emirati armed forces, and, thanks to the poor health of his half-brother... Читать дальше...
Brad Glosserman, Japan Times
When I joined Pacific Forum, a Honolulu-based think tank, in 2001, the transition to a tripolar world was finally gaining traction. Some far-sighted individuals envisioned the rise of Asia (and not merely a few countries within the region) in the 1970s and ’80s, but serious discussions of power and politics remained focused on the trans-Atlantic space. Asia was largely viewed as a secondary theater.
Mark Leonard, CapX
Despite what some leaders think, there is no appetite among EU citizens for a United States of Europe
Mathieu von Rohr, Der Spiegel
It took days for Europe to say anything of consequence about Belarus. And the bloc doesn't seem to have any foreign policy guiding light elsewhere, either. That is dangerous.
