The latest phase of Poland’s political crisis might lead to Tusk manipulating Duda’s nationalist views and shared pathological fear of Russia into having him sign off on a conventional intervention in Ukraine in order to distract from domestic turmoil. One of the most profound developments in Europe over the past three months apart from the NATO-Russian prox...
Anna Chapman has resurfaced. It had been a while since the erstwhile Russian spy (Anna Vasilyevna Kushenko) had been in touch. A long-time sleeper agent sheltering in Rip van Winkle country on the Hudson River, she had been exposed in Bloomingdale’s lingerie department by a sharp-eyed FBI agent. Repatriated, Anna serves in a shadowed corner of the Kremlin as...
African and Caribbean leaders are uniting to pursue reparations for horrendous atrocities perpetrated during transatlantic slavery and colonialism (here). On 30th January 2024, the Ghanaian Times published an article featuring the Guyanian president’s appeal to African leaders to expedite mechanisms for reparations for slavery and colonization (here). Simila...
One would think that the claimed retirement of Victoria Nuland, the so-called “beacon of democracy” would be a cause for relief and celebration. Unfortunately, her replacement does not give much hope for any change in the policy of the US. Initially, there was much rejoicing when the news came in that arch neocon, Russophobe, organizer of coups, and mass mur...
The possibility to organize a national referendum on Turkish membership to the European Union (EU) has opened many questions. A current European political concern is whether or not to accept Türkiye as a full member state (being a candidate state since 1999). Türkiye is governed as a secular democracy by moderate Islamic political leaders seeking to bridge...
Failed efforts to achieve a Gaza ceasefire on the eve of Ramadan [March 11-ed] leave innocent Gazans in the lurch, highlight the gap between Israel and Hamas’ demands in negotiations, and raise the stakes for the United States. At the core of the stalled negotiations is Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing Israel’s assault after a cea...
Western leaders are experiencing two stunning events: defeat in Ukraine, genocide in Palestine. The first is humiliating, the other shameful. Yet, they feel no humiliation or shame. Their actions show vividly that those sentiments are alien to them – unable to penetrate the entrenched barriers of dogma, arrogance and deep-seated insecurities. The last are pe...
A recent op-ed appearing in Foreign Affairs titled, “The Taiwan Catastrophe,” helps paint a clear picture of US motivations behind its growing confrontation with China and the increasingly unrealistic nature of Washington’s desired outcome. The premise of the op-ed is built on a now declassified top-secret memo by US General Douglas MacArthur in 1950 describ...
A long-standing Israeli-Palestinian battlefield, food has moved centre stage. For Gazans, who are on the verge of starvation, the food fight is existential. For Israelis, preventing the flow of food and desperately needed medical supplies into Gaza, is continuing a cynical and cruel policy that five months into the Gaza war has proven to be a failure. In co...
Western leaders, while declaring that war itself is bad, claim that it is indispensable today in the face of aggression from Russia and Hamas. According to them, Russia, or rather its president Vladimir Putin, dreams of seizing our property and destroying our political system. After invading Ukraine, he will invade Moldavia and the Baltic states, then contin...
The visit made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Egypt in mid-February [Feb 14-ed] lived up to expectations and produced positive results. The visit was aimed at restoring relations between Cairo and Ankara. The aim was to bring them back to the level they were at ten years ago. After the talks, the two parties signed a joint declaration that incl...
President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s tenure will be over by November 2024. Constitution Section 31.3 stipulates that “not less than one month and not more than two months before the expiration of the term of office of the President” the notification for the presidential poll must be issued. In the present context, the deadline for election notification is due be...
The end of WWI resulted in significant changes concerning the political boundaries of Central, East, and South-East Europe. Because of the extent of these changes and the new regional wars over land distribution that erupted in several mini-regions in the eastern portion of Europe, it was to take around five to six years before new borders between the states...
After the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 and the end of the Cold War in 1991, the winds of the variable geometry of Western democracy swept across the world, giving rise to new concepts on the world stage. It was the globalisation of ideas and the globalisation of cultures. The liberation struggle and decolonisation of African countries was a maj...
News of the death of Alexei Navalny [Feb 16, 2024-ed] in a Russian prison very quickly spread across the Western media, while condemnation of Russia over his death emanated from behind the podiums of Western leaders. Before any investigation could possibly be mounted, the collective West concluded that the Russian state was responsible for Navalny’s death. T...
Across Western and Central Europe, farmers are demonstrating. First in the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland and Romania, now in Spain, France, Germany and Poland. This continent-wide uprising is against the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). When the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community was signed in 1957, the six foundi...
Two recent high-profile Arab events honouring Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest and most moderate Muslim civil society movement, highlight a subtle tug-of-war over who will define ‘moderate Islam’ in the 21st century. At the core of the tug-of-war is whether Islam in the 21st century will foster religiously and politically pluralistic societie...
Last Sunday afternoon [Feb 25-ed] at 1 p.m., when many Christians are enjoying a leisurely lunch after their Sunday church service, USAF Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell, in what he expressly called an act of “extreme protest,” immolated himself at the gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. This was the first such self-immolation to be recorded and post...
The retaliatory ongoing full-scale Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip indicates a gross miscalculation by Hamas. Tel Aviv showed that after all these years it still has the will and determination to go after militants who seek to harm its population. Tel Aviv has also shown that despite cries of anguish not only of the Gazans but also of a consider...
The acquisition of land in Palestine was essential to the Zionist settlers’ dream: “A land without people for a people without land.” (United Nations: The Origins and Evolution of the Palestinian Problem Part I: 1917-1943). In 1901, the Fifth Zionist Congress established the Jewish National Fund (JNF), founded by Theodor Herzl, to buy land in what was then ...