Foreign policy, links to articles

The US. military is escalating its attacks against Iran-backed militias in Iraq. China is expelling American journalists in response to the Trump administration's controls on Chinese media in the United States. Vladimir Putin is maneuvering to serve as Russia's president until 2036.

Otherwise, there is only one story in the world press: the coronavirus.

This week at Foreign Policy In Focus, Ariel Gold and Medea Benjamin argue that U.S. sanctions on Iran not only put that country at greater risk during the coronavirus crisis but, because of the way the pandemic spreads, endangers the world as a whole.

Emanuel Pastreich pillories the global media's coverage of the pandemic for focusing on the numbers instead of the science, ignoring the ongoing privatization of medicine that compromises the capacity to respond to such crises, and generally elevating profit over the public duty to inform.

And in my World Beat column, I look at how four different countries -- China, South Korea, Italy, the United States -- have handled the coronavirus, revealing the virtues and drawbacks of their respective political systems.

Finally in FPIF this week, my colleague Phyllis Bennis evaluates the peace deal in Afghanistan, arguing that real peace is unlikely but a reduction in violence is still worth the effort.