International Affairs

Clockwise: Inset Ela, Orna and Itzik

A Nation at War: Five Days in Israel

International Affairs /

As Flight ET 404 approached Ben Gurion… I thought, what if a stray rocket hit us? It may sound like the product of an overwrought mind contaminated by familiarity with bad news. But after Hamas killed more than 1,139 people, including women and children, on October 7 and took 364 hostages, many of the victims at a peace party in Nova, southern Israel, overthinking the worst appears to be the standard way of life

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a photo of a triumphant donald trump and a defeated kamala harris

Unusual Reasons Africa Wanted Trump to Win

International Affairs, politics /

Trump 2.0 will do at least two things for the world. It would further hasten the internal decay of the US by aggravating racial tensions and emboldening right-wing excesses. Two, Trump’s America First ultra-
insularity and his off-the-fly foreign policy style will distance the US from its traditional allies and enable crazies around the world, like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, to run amok. This sounds more like saying that if US voters were happy to be seduced by their worst selves, they deserve what they get.

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michelle obama reading a letter with the faces of donald trump and kamala harris in it

Tight Race: Letter from Abroad to Michelle Obama

International Affairs, politics /

An inconvenient point, dear former First Lady, is that Kamala Harris is part-paying a backlash from Barack Obama’s era that your husband didn’t do enough for people of colour, especially blacks. This is a race of margins, and despite his charm and eloquence, your husband and former president has struggled to convince black male voters that Harris will serve them well

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How Africa is Paying for Pursuit of the Last Hamas

Africa, International Affairs /

Nigeria, the continent’s largest economy and its most populous, has offered a muted, somewhat confused response to the Israeli-Hamas war. The official line, worn for use after decades of lip service and repeated at this year’s UNGA, is a two-state solution. That’s also the official position of the African Union (AU). However, the precarious, almost 50-50 Muslim-Christian population leaves the Nigerian government walking on eggshells in Israeli-Palestinian matters

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an image of donald trump with a bandaged ear and kamala harris hugging biden

In This Difficult Marriage, Democrats Must Love Biden

International Affairs, politics /

Teflon Trump thrives in scandals. Today’s Feeble Joe is not the same Biden who faced Trump four years ago and got away by the skin of his teeth. While he is weaker, frailer and poorer even at sharing his accomplishments in the last four years, his opponent, Trump, has been emboldened by his worst excesses. The race for the US presidency is a match-up between horror and uncertainty

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an image of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer imposed on a backdrop of the British parliament interior

Rishi Sunak’s Next Life

International Affairs, politics /

When it was time to replace Boris Johnson, the country that copied Piper’s art from Egypt and popularised it didn’t need anyone to tell the Tory party that handing over the keys of Number 10 to Sunak could signal the echo of an unfamiliar tune. They kicked the idea of having Piper Sunak further down the road. Instead, they settled for Liz Truss, a former rebel and basher of the Crown, but a Brit, through and through, to lead the party. Truss didn’t last; her incompetence threatened to bring Britain to its knees. The Tories soon got rid of her, but apart from further endangering the British economy, her brief reign had also emboldened the Labour Party. Keir Starmer, Labour leader and the next British Prime Minister, is a gift to Britain from Tory hubris

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an image of a natural woman and the same image of her heavily photoshopped

Photoshopping Princess and The Perils of Manipulation

International Affairs /

What’s the point of it, really? Since the outbreak of the so-called Kate pic scandal, I have been brooding over images that I see very often as DPs and also on WhatsApp Status. I’m keeping myself to that microblogging site and the mainstream press. No need to bother with Insta, probably the worst photographic crime scene since Joseph Niepce invented the camera

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