Best articles: International NEWS 1917 August 2019 THE WEEKMoscow’smisadventuresin AfricaDaily Maverick
(Johannesburg)Vladimir Putin’s strong-arm approach to foreign policy is having little success in Africa, says Simon
Allison. Russian activity on the continent came to light last year when three journalists were killed
while investigating the shadowy Wagner Group,aMoscow security firm with links to the Kremlin.
Now, leaked documents show Russian operatives trying to bolster the country’s presence in at least
13 African countries, striking military deals and grooming new leaders beholden to Moscow. It’s all
designed to boost Russia’s superpower status and to develop new markets. But compared to other
players, Russia isa“clumsy latecomer”. The US already hasa“vast network of secret military
bases” in Africa, while China is “building bridges and Confucius Institutes atafurious rate”. By
contrast, Putin’s gambits have foundered. He cultivated former South African president Jacob Zuma,
hoping to clinchanuclear deal, but Zuma “embarrassingly” failed to get it through; efforts to keep
Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir in power “backfired spectacularly”; and Moscow-funded candidates in
Madagascar all lost too. If Putin really wants to make an impact here, he’ll “have to think again”.An act of
environmental
vandalism
T
(Istanbul)
Desperate to find new sources of cash, Turkish rulers have sanctioned an “environmental massacre”,
says Yalçin Dogan. The northern Kaz mountains constitute one of the country’s most richly forested
regions; Mount Ida, near the ruins of Troy, is the scene of mythic events recounted by Homer. A
2009 court order banned gold-mining there, to protect the area’s diverse wildlife, but the government
has blithely ignored it, grantinga15-year permit toaCanadian firm, Alamos Gold. Its jubilant
president, John A. McCluskey, says the deposits are worth $4.2bn. Some of that will be pocketed by
the state, while local Turks will get jobs moving earth and rocks. But at what cost? Satellite photos
suggest 195,000 trees have already been felled, destroying an entire ecosystem.Avast cyanide pool,
needed to separate ore from rock, could cause devastation if it leaks. Thousands of demonstrators
are now camping out on the site to try to stop the mine going ahead. But they’ll struggle to prevail
against politicians who “care only about money and nothing for the consequences”.According toanew survey, trust in the European Union is rising across the continent, says Philippe
Huguen–but that’s not the case in Italy, where 55% of people agree with our populist leaders that it
is holding us back. Italians might be more humble if they knew how badly they lag behind the rest of
Europe. The latest figures from Eurostat show we’re bottom not just in terms of GDP growth but in
ahost of other measures too: only 19.3% of Italians haveadegree (compared with an EU average
of 32.3%); criminal justice cases generally take nearly four years (against an average of one); and
southern Italy remains one of the continent’s poorest regions, despite lavish EU funding. None of
this has anything to do with obstruction by eurocrats. One area in which you’d think we’d excel
is repatriating illegal immigrants–ify ou listen to interior minister Matteo Salvini’s strident rhetoric.
But it turns out we even do that badly: we rank sixth for numbers deported, way behind France and
Spain. Perhaps Mussolini’s “nation of poets, saints and navigators” has little to be proud of after all.How Italy is
losing Europe’s
numbers game
Linkiesta
(Milan)
SOUTH AFRICATURKEYITALYAhorrific event in Frankfurt last
month has shocked Germany, said
Erkan Arikan inDeutsche Welle
(Bonn).Att he city’s main railway
station, an eight-year-old boy and his
mother were thrown in front of an
oncoming express train–she rolled
clear, but he was killed outright. The
perpetrator, who was chased and
caught, proved to be an Eritrean
migrant–adetail which has come
to define this tragic story. The attack
was the latest inaline of violent
incidents involving foreigners–and
the far-right Alternative for Germany
party has since been busy stoking the fires of hatred, blaming
Angela Merkel’s refugee “welcome culture” for putting German
lives in danger. The resulting atmosphere of hostility is making
life impossible for foreigners who live here peacefully. My
Nigerian neighbour has stopped taking buses and trains, as he
keeps getting dirty looks–and even German nationals with
Muslim backgrounds like me are viewed as potential murderers.
It’s wearying having constantly to convince people that we’re
just as appalled by the violence as they are.Germans have indeed been “stunned” by the recent spateof
apparently motiveless attacks, said Hans-Jürgen Maurus in
Tages-Anzeiger (Zurich).Days earlier,aGerman of Serbian
heritage allegedly killeda34-year-old woman by pushing her
in front ofatrain inasimilar attack in the town of Voerde.
It turns out the Frankfurt killer, who had been living in
Switzerland since 2006, having been granted asylum, may havesuffered from mental illness relating
to his war experiences in Eritrea.
But other incidents seem to have had
clearer causes:aGerman Kazakh
was butchered byasword-wielding
Jordanian as the result ofaquarrel
in Stuttgart, andapool in Düsseldorf
had to be closed afterabrawl broke
out among hundreds of mainly North
African customers. Although there’s
no connection between these incidents,
their sheer number has plunged the
country into “turmoil”, feeding a
sense ofa“loss of control”.The difficulty is knowing what to do about it, said Matthias
Alexander inFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.German
politicians are always demanding better integration of refugees –
but it is reported that Habte Araya, the Eritrean involved in the
Frankfurt attack, was well-integrated at home in Switzerland.
Nor would stronger border checks, pledged this month by
interior minister Horst Seehofer, have helped: Araya travelled
from Switzerland to Germany perfectly legally. And simply
blaming refugees isn’t the answer either–far-right xenophobia
is every bit as muchacause of violence. In July, an Eritrean was
shot and injured byaGerman man, who later killed himself –
while in June,aliberal politician, Walter Lübcke, was assas-
sinated in what looked like an extremist “execution”. Migrants
will rightly be just as fearful of attack as German nationals. But
politicians must find some way to restoreasense of security.
“Something valuable is breaking in Germany,” and “cheap
appeals for tolerance will not be enough.”Flowers at Frankfurt’s railway stationViolence in Germany: anation plunged into “turmoil”?