President-elect Donald Trump with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy at Mar-a-Lago, Florida on Saturday Jan. 4, 2024 ESTRAGON: Don’t touch me! Don’t question me! Don’t speak to me! Stay with me! VLADIMIR: Did I ever leave you? ESTRAGON: You let me go. — Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett One great transformation of the …
Ukraine’s complicated history with neighbours
Poland’s government announced last year the discovery of a mass burial pit in Ukraine containing remains of ethnic Poles murdered by pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalists in waves of World War 2 massacres. A bizarre geopolitical thesis in the Indian media last week characterised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent 7-hour trip to Ukraine via Poland as part of an …
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Palestine: EU’s Borrell bats for US
Video image of a Hezbollah anti-tank guided missile hitting a radar dome at Israeli air base on Mount Meron, Jan. 6, 2024 The diplomatic arena of the Middle East was dominated in the past week by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s regional tour to Türkiye, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West …
Ouster of the populist-nationalist government in Poland is highly consequential
Massive Polish opposition rally ahead of Sunday’s election, Warsaw, October 1, 2023 There is no question that Sunday’s surprising vote in Poland is going to be the most consequential election in Europe this year. It is a game changer for Poland’s democracy and a tipping point geopolitically for the European Union, the Ukraine war and …
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Iran warns Israel against its apocalyptic war
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the graduation ceremony of the country’s military academies, Oct. 10, 2023 Amidst growing speculations in the US about Tehran’s involvement in the Hamas’ attack on Israel last Saturday and the reported move by the Pentagon to despatch by the weekend a second aircraft carrier to the East Mediterranean, Iran’s …
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War Fatigue Complicates West’s Aid to Ukraine
Left-winger former prime minister Robert Fico emerged as winner in Slovakia’s parliamentary election, Bratislava, Sept 30, 2023 A pall of gloom descended on Europe as the long-feared uncertainty set in over the weekend as to how long would the collective West underwrite the proxy war in Ukraine. To lift their sagging spirit, some European foreign ministers …
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Russia scrambles as EU surges in Caucasus
Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan (above) is turning to the West Armenia no longer disputes that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan. The prospect of peaceful resolution of a regional conflict ought to be good news, but this is an incredibly complex situation with an external environment where a brutal war is raging with no end in sight, …
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The rise and rise of far-right in Germany
Germany’s far-right protesters fly national flag at demonstration The political class in Germany is stunned by the findings of a YouGov poll published on Friday that 20 percent of German voters would give their vote to the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany), making it the second-strongest party behind the centre-right CDU (28%) and ahead of …
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Turkiye rallies behind Erdogan
It comes as no surprise that the United States and the European Union didn’t have the face to commend the performance of Recep Erdogan and his party in the presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkiye on Sunday. The election results do not serve the geopolitical interests of the US and its European allies. It is …
Ukraine war: The short view
Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky has somewhat eased the suspense by his remark to the western media on Thursday that his army needs to wait and still needs “a bit more time” to launch the much-anticipated counter-offensive against Russian forces. He acknowledged that Ukraine’s combat brigades are “ready” but would reason that the army still needed …