The Week That Was: Global News in Review
Foreign Policy #163 | By: Ibrahim Castro | October 14, 2024
Featured Photo: apnews.com
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Mexico inaugurates its first woman president
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum receives the presidential sash during the inauguration ceremony at the Congress of the Union in Mexico City on Tuesday.Alfredo Estrella / AFP – Getty Images
Claudia Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City and climate scientist, was sworn in as Mexico’s first female president last week. Sheinbaum takes the reins of the world’s largest Spanish speaking country riding the popularity of her predecessor’s social programs but also facing challenges that include increasingly high levels of violence. Sheinbaum rose to victory in the June presidential elections with 60% of the vote. The inauguration of the new president comes on the heels of an ongoing war between factions of the Sinaloa cartel that have clashed in the state capital of Culiacan. The war between the different factions is a fight for power in the region since two of its leaders were arrested in the US in late July. As Sheinbaum steps into power, she faces a battle to retain her predecessor’s popularity, addressing the violence crisis, aid the nations ballooning budget deficit, deal with a fossil fuel focued climate policy, and navigate tensions with its biggest trade partners to its north.
Israel invades Lebanon
A plume of smoke billows following an Israeli air strike on the village of Khiam in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel on October 7, 2024. | AFP via Getty Images
While the war in Gaza continues, fears of the conflict spreading have materialized and show no signs of abating. Israel has begun an invasion into neighboring Lebanon over the last two weeks. The Israeli forces have displaced more than 1.2 million people from their homes in the Southern part of the country. Israel’s offensive, as stated by Israeli officials, is carried out in order to remove the armed group Hezbollah, and emnable 60,000 displaced Israelies in the country’s North to return to their homes. Since last year Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah have exchanged cross-border fire, resulting in the displacement of people on both sides of the border. Yet in recent weeks these exchanges significantly escalated in intensity. Israel then conducted a large-scale attack within Lebanon that targeted pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah personnel and civilians., killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike, and executed a series of aerial offensives that caused the deadliest day in Lebanon in decades.
To date, over 2,000 civilians have been killed by the Israeli incursion, including 127 children. Strikes have also hit ambulances and healthcare workers, leading to the death of nearly a hundred healthcare and emergency workers. Israel has recently received widespread condemnation for attacking the the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon or UNIFIL. The UN says that twice now their peace keeping forces in the country were fired upon by the Israeli military and Israeli PM Netanyahu has warned the peacekeepers to leave or face more violence. The actions have drawn condemnation from the international community, such as Indonesia, Italy, France, Spain, Ireland, Turkey, the EU and Canada. This escalating violence in Lebanon is now another warzone in the region where the situation continues to deteriorate.
United Kingdom agrees to give Chagos Islands back to Mauritius
Chagossians attend a protest to response the U.K. announcement to agree to hand sovereignty of the long-contested Chagos Islands to Mauritius and against their “Exclusion” Kin Cheung/Copyright 2024 The AP Photo.
After nearly 60 years the last vestige of the British Empire in the Indian Ocean is set to be handed over to the East African Island nation of Mauritius. The Chagos Islands are a group of more than 60 islands in the Indian ocean and the deal to return the territory comes after a non-binding 2019 International Court of Justice ruling that stated the UK had unlawfully carved up Mauritius in the late 1960s. The UN General Assembly followed with a resolution demanding that Britain end its “colonial administration” of the Chagos Islands and return them to Mauritius. Under the recent return deal, the military base on the Island of Diego Garcia (the largest Chagos island), where most Chagossians are from, would remain under the joint UK-US control on a 99-year lease.
There have been mixed reactions to the decision. It has been welcomed by the African Union as a historic political agreement. Chair of the African Union, Moussa Mahamat, described the deal as a “major victory for the cause of decolonization, international law, and Mauritian self-determination.” Yet the deal has received condemnation by many Chagossians, as the deal makes no mention of a right to return for its original inhabitants and sees the largest island remaining under foreign administration. The islands original Chaggosian population today reside predominantly in Mauritius, the Seychelles and Britain, following their forced removal from their home islands to make way for the Diego Garcia military base by the UK and US between 1965 and 1973.
Record breaking fires in the Amazon Rainforest
A drone view shows smoke rising from a forest fire in the Amazon in an area of the the Trans-Amazonian Highway BR230 in Labrea, Amazonas state, Brazil, September 4, 2024. REUTERS/Bruno Kelly/File Photo
The Amazon Rainforest has seen record breaking fires in the last few weeks. The blazes have affected multiple countries, Brazil and Bolivia have dispatched thousands of firefighters to attempt to control the fires, but remain mostly unsuccessful in their attempts. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon remains at a six-year low. However, though under-reported, the fires in the Amazon have surged dramatically. The blazes are often started by illegal loggers and miners and made worse by a historic drought affecting Brazil. The drought is affecting nearly 60% of the massive South American country and river and lake levels have dropped to historic lows. Fires detected by satellite imagery show that the current fire season in Brazil is the worst in a decade. Over 24,000 miles have burned this year already, an area larger than countries like Sri Lanka or Costa Rica.
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