Best of the week - 28 May 2021
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Each week BISA Director, Juliet Dryden, scours the internet for IR-related content that might interest you. Here she brings you this week's best readings and podcasts to keep you up to date with what's happening around the world.
Getting reading ready for COP26
- Britain has promised net zero but it’s on track to achieve absolutely nothing. George Monbiot inn the Guardian
- There’s a simple answer to climate change – regrowth. Bill McGuire for Prospect Magazine
- Podcast: Hydrological uncertainty. A look at the global water crisis, from the severe droughts of Cape Town to the sinking of Mexico City and the damming of the Nile, and the need for all countries to prepare for future shortages. A London Review of Books podcast.
Covid-related
- The covid lab theory is looking increasingly plausible. Matt Ridley in the Spectator.
The United States
- The home front. Why an internationalist foreign policy needs a stronger domestic foundation. Charles A Kupchan and Peter L Trubowitz in Foreign Affairs
- Sanctions deadline looms ahead of Biden’s summit with Putin. Amy Mackinnon in Foreign Affairs.
UK, Europe and Russia
- Culture wars uncovered. Most of the UK don’t know if woke is a compliment or an insult. Bobby Duffy and Ben Page for The Conversation
- The West is failing Belarus. Yasmeen Serhan in the Atlantic
- Lukashenko has no limits. Natalia Antonova in Foreign Policy
- Roman Protasevich enrages Europe’s last dictator. Jennifer Mathers in The Conversation
- Hansel and Gretal in Belarus. Jaraslaw Anders in the New York Review of Books
- Greece – Europe’s unlikely model student? Read the view from the Economist
- Nagorno-Karabakh: in the aftermath of war, Armenia faces an unpalatable choice. Kevork Oskanian in The Conversation.
Middle East and Africa
- The myth of coexistence in Israel. Diana Battu in the New York Times
- Youth activists are reframing the Palestinian causes as the Palestinian Authority remain silent. Dalia Hatuqa for Foreign Policy
- The Israeli lie about Gaza. Noa Landau in Haaretz
- How Israel lost the culture war. Alla Brahimi in Foreign Policy
- Ghosts in the Land. Adam Shatz on the war in Israel-Palestine in the London Review of Books.
- Why Netanyahu thinks America is stupid. Marwan Bishara for Al Jazeera
- Israelis problems are not like America’s. Matti Friedman for the Atlantic
- It’s time to end the special relationship with Israel. Stephen M Walt in Foreign Policy
- Did Jordan’s closest allies plot to unseat its King? Martin Chulov and Michael Safi in the Guardian
- Mob boss ‘Assad’s dynasty tightens grip of power over husk of Syria'. Martin Cholov in The Guardian
- Bullets in the Mail: Reform and repression in Saudi Arabia: Post Khashoggi. Krithika Varagur in the London Review of Books
- Podcast: After the ceasefire. A look at the crisis in Israel-Palestine, the significance of the ceasefire, the context of the war, the politics inside Israel and the Gaza Strip, and the response in Washington. From the London Review of Books
- Podcast: Ceasefire in Gaza, but occupation continues. With Israeli police once again storming the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, it is clear that for Palestinians a ceasefire does not mean peace. From Novara Media
- Back from the brink. Somalia’s political crisis explained. Amanda Sperber in The New Humanitarian
- In Darfur. Jérôme Tubiana in the London Review of Books
- Inside Mali’s coup within a coup. Boubacar Haidara in The Conversation
- The roots of Rwanda’s genocide. Helen Epstein and Claude Gatebuke in the New York Review of Books.
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