Podcasts

The maxim that in adversity we find unity has never truly materialized following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Despite fighting a common enemy, individual societies have turned inwards, moved by a self-preservation instinct that prioritizes individual over collective well-being. Outbursts and demonstrations of solidarity have punctuated national and international responses to COVID-19, but the virus has also often exacerbated structural inequalities, reopening ol ...

“When I got home late that night, the house was dark and Michelle was already asleep. After taking a shower and going through a stack of mail, I slipped under the covers and began drifting off. In that luminal space between wakefulness and sleep, I imagined myself stepping toward a portal of some sort, a bright and cold and airless place, uninhabited and severed from the world. And behind me, out of the darkness, I heard a voice, sharp and clear, as if someone were right next to me, ...

As President elect Biden prepares for the enormous responsibility of becoming President of the United States (US), there is one question I want to ask him, writes Stephen Young, Washington Representative and Senior Analyst of the ”Union of Concerned Scientists” on November 7th, 2020: “Sir ,are you a fan of nuclear arms race? Because you are being handed one, a burgeoning nuclear and technology arms race waged by Russia, China and the United States.” Two weeks after Joe Biden will be ...

The Trump Administration “America First” policy changed U.S. foreign policy towards the African continent. Trump opposed trade agreements with several countries, considering them to be unfavorable to the U.S., given the nature of the African market. He shifted the U.S. concern in Africa from fighting against violent extremism and terrorism to a direct competition with other great powers—China and Russia—which had already extensively implemented African strategies. He endeavored to r ...

Le mandat du président Trump qui, sauf miracle, s’achève en janvier 2021, avait soumis à rude épreuve les alliances des Etats-Unis d’Amérique avec plusieurs pays et entités européens et asiatiques. Plusieurs de ces alliés stratégiques des Etats-Unis avaient, alors, perdu confiance en l’esprit de solidarité qui a toujours empreint l’action étasunienne à leur égard, et amorcé des réflexions sur la construction de leurs propres systèmes de défense. L’arrivée à la Maison Blanche d’un no ...

Whether President Trump is reelected or not, the United States will, sooner or later, revert to a traditonalist foreign policy of openness and alliances. If Joe Biden beats Donald Trump on November 3, as he is expected to do, the United States will return to a traditionalist brand of foreign policy: one of openness, support for multilateralism, and constructive engagement with allies. But even if Biden doesn’t winwhich is possible—and four more years of Trump’s America First polici ...

Bank robbers are now and then caught because banks, insurance companies, or robbed personalities promise rewards for the arrest of criminals. In the past, Hollywood took the lead in dreaming up such scenarios. But in early August, the U.S. State Department offered a $10 million reward for information leading “to the identification or location of any person, who works with or for a foreign government for the purpose of interfering with U.S. elections through certain illegal cyber act ...

At the beginning of June, officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, usually active on America’s periphery, were deployed to Washington D.C., where President Donald Trump had sighted an internal threat posed by “anarchists, agitators, looters, or lowlifes”. In reality, American citizens were protesting, mostly peacefully, against police brutality, and the killings of African-Americans by cops. Nevertheless, the urban revolt seemed grave enough for the Trump Administration to ...

The United States has suffered more COVID-19 casualties than any other country and continues to report large numbers of new cases and deaths, and – as evident recently in stock markets – investors remain extremely sensitive to the epidemic’s shifting trends. As every state reopens, including most recently the New York epicenter, the fates of the American economy and of the global economy depend on whether the United States has put the worst of the epidemic behind it, or whether it w ...

Les tensions dans les relations entre les Etats-Unis et la Chine sont un sujet de préoccupation pour le monde. En dépit des quelques ouvertures éphémères, qui donnent parfois espoir à la détente, la tendance de ces derniers temps est plutôt vers l’escalade. Il ne se passe pas un mois, voire une semaine sans qu’actions, déclarations ou positions de l’un des deux pays contre l’autre ne fasse la Une de l’actualité. Des incidents les plus dangereux en Mer de Chine méridionale, aux mesur ...