This week, leaders and representatives of the member states that comprise the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation will gather in Belgium for the annual summit of the most formidable security alliance in human history. Tension suffuses the air in Brussels. Not since the group's foundation in 1949 have graver doubts been expressed about its utility. As a candidate for the American presidency, Donald Trump dismissed Nato as "obsolete". After entering the White House, however, he hastily recanted that remark and affirmed his commitment to the alliance. But not everyone is persuaded.
The conditions in which a transatlantic security pact was forged seem too remote to too many people at a time when isolationist nationalism is once again gaining popularity – but it would be a profound mistake, a deadly delusion, to believe that the challenges and threats that necessitated Nato's formation have dissipated or disappeared. The Second World War concluded with the Soviet Union's footprint spread across vast swathes of Europe. Democratic voices were muzzled, nations invaded, human aspirations ruthlessly stamped on as the Iron Curtain fell over lands that had just emerged from history's bloodiest confrontation. If the Marshall Plan embodied Washington's vision to prevent another conflict by rebuilding Europe and bringing prosperity to its peoples, Nato expressed the rock-hard determination of the US and its allies to defend themselves against aggression. Its presence, serving as a deterrent, averted an outright clash between the superpowers during the Cold War.
The collapse of the USSR, however, did not make Nato redundant; it infused it with fresh purpose. Nato’s membership of 29 states includes a dozen former communist nations. To them, the organisation is much more than a security alliance. Their acceptance into it is still regarded as a fulfilment of a long yearning for freedom, and many of them have made tremendous sacrifices to uphold its mission.
Nato's intervention in the former Yugoslavia halted what was poised to be yet another genocidal campaign by Serb nationalists. The fact three former constituent republics of Yugoslavia – Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro – are now members of Nato is a measure of the distance Europe has travelled under the blanket of security provided by it. The attacks of September 11, 2001, prompted Nato to invoke Article 5 – which calls for collective action – for the first time. And Nato soldiers subsequently laid down their lives in Afghanistan.
Despite this history, a serious deficit of trust overhangs Nato. Europeans, operating against the menacing milieu of a resurgent Russia, are anxious that Mr Trump is more receptive to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, than Washington's most steadfast allies. Although Mr Trump's demand that Europeans raise their defence expenditure to meet Nato's guideline of 2 per cent by 2024 is not without merit, there has never been a time more ill-suited to the display of difference.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
Building boom turning to bust as Turkey's economy slows
Deep in a provincial region of northwestern Turkey, it looks like a mirage - hundreds of luxury houses built in neat rows, their pointed towers somewhere between French chateau and Disney castle.
Meant to provide luxurious accommodations for foreign buyers, the houses are however standing empty in what is anything but a fairytale for their investors.
The ambitious development has been hit by regional turmoil as well as the slump in the Turkish construction industry - a key sector - as the country's economy heads towards what could be a hard landing in an intensifying downturn.
After a long period of solid growth, Turkey's economy contracted 1.1 per cent in the third quarter, and many economists expect it will enter into recession this year.
The country has been hit by high inflation and a currency crisis in August. The lira lost 28 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2018 and markets are still unconvinced by the readiness of the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to tackle underlying economic issues.
The villas close to the town centre of Mudurnu in the Bolu region are intended to resemble European architecture and are part of the Sarot Group's Burj Al Babas project.
But the development of 732 villas and a shopping centre - which began in 2014 - is now in limbo as Sarot Group has sought bankruptcy protection.
It is one of hundreds of Turkish companies that have done so as they seek cover from creditors and to restructure their debts.