The enormous financial means that West Germany is still transferring to East Germany, 30 years after re-unification, suggest that Moscow’s grab of Crimea in 2014 has been an ill-calculated adventure. Sustaining over a long period of time the highly-subsidised economy of the annexed peninsula will be beyond the capacities of a more and more crisis-ridden […]
by Pavlo Klimkin and Andreas Umland Deliberations on the political repercussions of the ongoing pandemic for international relations and Ukrainian foreign affairs In their seminal 2012 study Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, Daren Acemoglu and James A. Robinson identified the Bubonic Plague of 1346-1353 not only as one of the greatest […]
Two important international events for Africa took place over the last 10 days of January 2020: the World Economic Forum in Davos and the UK- Africa Invest Summit. The first event stuck in memory only by Patrice Motsepe’s ‘Africa loves Trump’ comment. But the London summit gave fruitful results for both parties. Direct results of […]
Iraqi human rights activist Ammar Al Hamadani is a strong supporter of the State of Israel and seeks the establishment of an Israeli Embassy in Baghdad. He also supports compensation for Jewish refugees from Arab countries and has done much work in order to promote improved Israeli-Iraqi relations. Given his strong sympathy for the Jewish […]
Ethiopia has been building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile River since 2011. During this period relations between Egypt and Ethiopia became strained with mutual threats and accusations. Moreover, there is a risk of water conflict in Africa, which would completely destabilize East Africa. After construction, GERD will be the largest […]
My earliest memories of Israel go back to the October 1973 war, a child, I already “knew” Israel is an invader in what was a sleepy part of planet earth. Despite radio and tv stations everywhere claiming Arab victories, even then I knew this was fake news, kids know liars from their intonation. It’s hard […]
Seamless border at risk: on the left, County Armagh, NI, UK; on the right, County Louth, Republic of Ireland (Google Maps) The timing of elections in Ireland could be decided in early January The leaders of Ireland’s main political parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, will meet in early January to decide the date of […]
Africa welcomed 2019 with reports about the coup in Gabon and ushered it out with elections in Guinea-Bissau. In the meantime, there have been enough challenges since January 2019. In order to analyze the main political events in Africa, they are divided into 5 categories: political situation and elections, security background, peace initiatives, regional integration […]
If one watches CNN, the Trump impeachment hearings and the British elections dominate headlines. Next down on the list is the earthquake that recently struck Albania and global warming. It as if with the collapse of the ISIS Caliphate, the world believes that Christians are no longer being persecuted and it is time to […]
The recent 35th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and other related summits in Bangkok fell below expectations, providing fodder to armchair sceptics who believe such summits are a waste of time. But on closer inspection, these summits can still be viewed as a glass half-full in reasserting ASEAN’s regionalism in the Indo-Pacific. […]
While Venezuelans are still suffering from the economic and political collapse of their ever diminishing democracy, the rest of Latin America has been mired in their own types of political problems. What are likely the most striking events have occurred recently in Chile. With a high cost of living and large divide between the wealthy […]
Following years of unrelenting repression and humiliation of Kashmiris, India has finally extinguished their last ray of hope by repealing Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution – both of which had granted Kashmir a special status. India did so in violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions that forbade annexation of the […]
On October 23-24, the Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum took place in Sochi. Over 10 000 participants and representatives of 54 African countries took part in the event. The participants signed more than 50 deals, at a total value of more than 800 billion rubles. Moreover, African countries received 300 cooperation offers in different fields. […]
Referring to the latest crisis between Iran and Saudi Arabia, President Trump said that he is not interested in going to war with Iran. I believe him. He has not shown an interest in starting new wars (although he has been quite willing to escalate ongoing ones on occasion). The real problem here, I believe, […]
The ongoing pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong put the question directly to Americans: just how important is freedom to us? There can be no mistake that the demonstrators aim for democratic rule, that they have reason to expect it, and that China denies it to them. The formal structure of the Hong Kong government, […]