News & Comment

You've had a lack of preparedness and resilience in Ecuador, a lack of investment in key institutions and poor management of ports and prisons. So you've seen Ecuador really be open to this displacement of routes from Colombia and it is playing an increasing role in these international (cocaine) supply chains."

So far the Russians have leant into their worst instincts and...at this point, when I look at the Russian system, I see less capacity to solve some of the problems that they previously could have addressed, which gives me much more confidence that the existing trend lines that are favourable to Ukraine will continue."

If it's a main armament of a the warship, you'd absolutely do a notice to mariners. You make broadcasts on the radio to let seafarers in the vicinity know what was happening. That's not at all the case with routine small arms firing...I think if I was on a boat 300m away and heard some some shots being fired, I would find that pretty pretty startling until I found out what was going on...[but] I don't think this appears to be an incident where the French are actively trying to intimidate a British politician or the BBC."