Let’s talk about foreign policy’s new normal and anti-Russian sentiment – Beau of the Fifth Column

Democracy in decline worldwide

For the first time since 2004, the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) has recorded more autocratic states than democracies around the world. Civil society activists often represent the last bastion of resistance. Autocracies such as Russia and China on the one hand; democracies like the USA or Germany on the other. Is that the great conflict

Democracy slipping away at record rate, intergovernmental body warns

A greater number of countries are sliding towards authoritarianism, while the number of established democracies under threat has never been so high, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said on Monday. Populist politics, the use of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions to silence critics, a tendency of countries to mimic the anti-democratic behaviour of

European Union-style bloc pitched for Latin America, Caribbean

Latin American and Caribbean nations should aspire to a bloc like the European Union, Mexico’s president and other leaders said at a summit on Saturday, in a bid to wrest influence away from the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS). For years, a few of the region’s leftist standard-bearers who attended the gathering of the

Former Haiti gov’t officials identified as latest suspects in president’s assassination

A former Haitian senator, a fired government official and an informant for the U.S. government are the latest suspects identified as part of a sweeping investigation into the killing of President Jovenel Moise. The men are among five fugitives whom police say are armed and dangerous as they continued Wednesday to track down those suspected in the

Haiti: Key suspect arrested over assassination of President Moise

The suspect, who is accused of working with the men who carried out the assassination, is a Haitian national living in Florida and claims to be a doctor. He was critical of the corruption among Haitian leaders. Police in Haiti arrested a man on Sunday who is accused of being a key figure in the

Colombians held in Haitian president’s assassination claim ties to Miami-area security firm

The Miami area is looming ever larger as investigators question the men held in the plot to assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. Seventeen Colombians and two Haitian Americans from South Florida are in custody in Haiti. A person who interviewed the detained Colombians in Haiti told the Miami Herald that the men claimed to have

Myanmar coup displaces thousands as global refugee numbers rise

Number of refugees worldwide increases for a ninth year in a row as people continue to be displaced amid the COVID crisis. A record 82.4 million people have been displaced around the world in 2020 due to violence and persecution, including an estimated 680,000 in Myanmar following ethnic conflict and the recent military coup, according

‘In the middle of a war zone’: thousands flee as Venezuela troops and Colombia rebels clash

Nearly 5,000 refugees holed up in small Colombian town of Arauquita, having fled intense and continuing battles Lizeth Iturrieta, a journalist in the small town of La Victoria on Venezuela’s western border with Colombia, was woken by the rumble of armoured vehicles rolling past her home. Hours later the sounds of gunfire and explosions shook

Venezuelans protest femicide after three women killed

More than 300 demonstrators gathered in Venezuela’s agricultural Portuguesa state Saturday following the murder of three young women last week, in a protest against femicide, the gender-related killing of women and girls. Chanting for “Justice” and holding balloons with the phrase “Not one more” written in black marker, women and men marched peacefully in the