Given the elections for the European Parliament to be held on 6-9 June 2024, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) has issued a statement inviting all citizens, especially Catholics, to prepare for the elections and vote responsibly “promoting Christian values and the European project”. Below is the statement. We, bishops…

About 53% of Africa’s population lives in rural areas. Six decades ago, it was 85.38 percent. The percentage varies greatly from country to country: 85.58% in Burundi, 83.11 in Niger, 82.28 in Rwanda, 9.27 in Gabon, 18.70 in Libya and 21.62 in Djibouti. These data show that more and more people are migrating to cities…

Democratic states are all alike; every autocratic state is autocratic in its own way.  Democracies are alike in featuring universal suffrage, striving for a body of robust accountable institutions and political practice, and sustaining a vibrant civil society.  Autocracies, however, have strikingly distinctive features. Take Iran and China.  Despite common features for example, Iran like…

By opening the Red Sea front, the Houthis have taken the lead of the Palestinian cause and of anti-Americanism in the region. They address now an Islamic audience broader than the axis led by Iran. Doing so, the Houthis are capitalizing on traditional anti-Israel and anti-US slogans and symbols of the Iranian galaxy but this…

On January 13, approximately twenty million Taiwanese went to the polls to elect the new President and the country’s unicameral Parliament (Legislative Yuan). The selected candidate, elected with 40.1% of the votes, was Lai Ching-te, known as William Lai, a leading exponent of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and former vice president alongside Tsai Ing-wen.…

The US and UK have stepped up airstrikes against  Yemeni Houthi militias. The Anglo-American air strikes were a direct response to the long series of Houthi attacks against civilian ships and boats (merchant and container) crossing the Strait of Bab al-Mandeb, in the Red Sea, in retaliation for the Israeli invasion of Gaza. The drone…

Recent Houthi piracy attacks heighten global maritime security concerns in the Red Sea, despite international efforts of deterrence. The issue of maritime security and insecurity in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb area is primarily tied to Yemen’s militarized islands. Since 2015, Yemeni islands are mostly controlled, as for its coastline, by armed groups:…

Electoral events refer to issues, problems, or challenges that influence elections and voters’ choices. Inherent in the democratic process, they vary depending on the political, economic, social and cultural context of a particular country. In short, they often include issues of democracy, transparency, access to information, political participation, representativeness, good governance, human rights, and so…

European countries have a history of differing views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Recent disagreements among EU leaders highlight the complexity of the issue, but a political solution necessitates the involvement of various stakeholders. The recent ‘cacophony’ of EU voices – as some defined it – over the Israel-Gaza conflict should not come as a surprise.…

Following the attack launched on Saturday 7 October by Hamas militiamen against Israel, diplomats from all over the world have expressed the positions of their respective states on the incident and, more generally, on the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the Asia-Pacific region, one of the first actors to intervene in support of Israel was Narendra…

In September, the United States undertook a series of initiatives aimed at reviving its complex relationship with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The latter, in fact, has not appeared among the priorities of the American Administration for some time, which does not mention Pakistan in any of the latest strategic documents produced, including the strategy…

What happened in Gabon on 30 August was only the latest coup attempt in Africa, a continent that has seen eight in the last three years. The first took place in Mali, a country that suffered two coups in nine months between 2020 and 2021, while the last one before Gabon’s took place in Niger.…