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Forgotten Flash Point: East China Sea

Forgotten Flash Point: East China Sea

Beijing’s expanding military presence in the South China Sea (SCS) continues to attract the world’s attention. Tensions over the ownership of islands and the legitimacy for building artificial ones escalate, with some outsiders also joining the battlefield, including the U.S. and Japan. However, the dispute over SCS pales in comparison to the crises that happened […]

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What will be Trump’s next step on the Israeli-Palestinian front?

What will be Trump’s next step on the Israeli-Palestinian front?

Egyptian Jewish activist Levana Zamir believes that Trump’s next move will be to set up an international fund to compensate both Jewish and Arab refugees from the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. In recent days, US President Donald Trump has taken a number of steps in favor of the State of Israel. Firstly, he relocated […]

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The Glazyev Tapes, Origins of the Donbas Conflict, and Minsk Agreements

The Glazyev Tapes, Origins of the Donbas Conflict, and Minsk Agreements

What are the origins of the armed conflict that has been raging in eastern Ukraine since 2014? Which role did Russia play in the emergence and escalation of the originally unarmed confrontation, in the Donets Basin (Donbas), after the victory of the Euromaidan revolution? When, how and to what degree exactly did Moscow get involved? […]

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Trump Sanctions: The Latest Disappointment for the Advocates of Iran-US Reconciliation

Trump Sanctions: The Latest Disappointment for the Advocates of Iran-US Reconciliation

When President Donald Trump announced on 8th May that the United States would not be a party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran deal, anymore, it was easily predictable that new tensions between Tehran and Washington will emerge soon. It didn’t take long for the European Union to voice […]

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Whom Does Crimea Belong to? Russia’s Annexation of the Ukrainian Peninsula and the Question of Historical Justice

Whom Does Crimea Belong to? Russia’s Annexation of the Ukrainian Peninsula and the Question of Historical Justice

[Translated from Ukrainian, by VoxUkraine.] The Kremlin media’s well-known narrative of a supposedly almost unanimous support among Crimea’s population as well as of the allegedly profound historical justification for the annexation has many supporters not only in Russia, but also among numerous Western politicians, journalists, experts, and diplomats. Often, these commentators consider themselves – in […]

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Transformation Euphoria in the Horn of Africa

Transformation Euphoria in the Horn of Africa

The political transformation in the Horn of Africa is arguably the most counterintuitive development in the 21st century so far. Ethiopia has steered away from implosion and, for the first time in its history, appointed an Oromo Prime Minister with an Islamic name and heritage, ending the 20-year-long conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Nonetheless, Abiy […]

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Gaza truce? It’s Complicated

Gaza truce?  It’s Complicated

In recent days, various Israeli media outlets have reported that a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas is imminent. According to a foreign source, such a truce was discussed between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US National Security Advisor John Bolton. The question remains, what incidents have prompted the negotiation of this truce, what […]

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Re-Imagining and Solving the Donbas Conflict: A Four-Stage Plan for Western and Ukrainian Actors

Re-Imagining and Solving the Donbas Conflict: A Four-Stage Plan for Western and Ukrainian Actors

Since spring 2014, Ukraine suffers from a full-scale war in the Donets Basin (Donbas). For the solution of the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation, Western and Ukrainian political analysts, opinion- and policy-makers, civic activists as well as diplomats need to jointly implement an agenda of re-imagination, prioritization, pacification and re-integration. The Donbas conflict should be understood anew, approached […]

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Yemen’s Fateful Twinship With Somalia

Yemen’s Fateful Twinship With Somalia

On the global scale of human suffering, Yemen outweighs all other countries. In its fourth year, the Yemen war – fueled by regional and other hegemonic powers – is nowhere near its end. Neither the coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which has been accused of war crimes, nor the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, accused of recruiting […]

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How to Solve Ukraine’s, Moldova’s and Georgia’s Security Dilemma? The Idea of a Post-Soviet Intermarium Coalition

How to Solve Ukraine’s, Moldova’s and Georgia’s Security Dilemma? The Idea of a Post-Soviet Intermarium Coalition

Co-written with Kostiantyn Fedorenko After the break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, a geopolitical gray zone emerged between Western organizations on the one side, and the Russia-dominated space on the other. This model was always fragile, did not help to solve the Transnistria problem in eastern Moldova or the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in […]

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Iranian regime funds the horrific abuse of Palestinian children’s rights

Iranian regime funds the horrific abuse of Palestinian children’s rights

According to research conducted by the Center for Near East Policy Research, Palestinian youngsters currently attending Hamas summer camps are learning methods of attacking and killing Jews. This is a blatant violation of children’s rights. Palestinian children living in Gaza should be given the opportunity to reach their full educational potential. According to the Universal […]

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Trump Sanctions: The Latest Disappointment for the Advocates of Iran-US Reconciliation

Trump Sanctions: The Latest Disappointment for the Advocates of Iran-US Reconciliation

When President Donald Trump announced on 8th May that the United States would not be a party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran deal, anymore, it was easily predictable that new tensions between Tehran and Washington will emerge soon. It didn’t take long for the European Union to voice […]

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Op-Ed: Why the US is correct in re-imposing sanctions

Op-Ed: Why the US is correct in re-imposing sanctions

The Iranian regime poses a strategic threat to the entire world and thus, it is critical for the US to act against this threat. Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov once proclaimed, “A country that does not respect the rights of its people won’t respect the rights of its neighbors.”  If one carefully examines Iran’s activities across the […]

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The Belt and Road Initiative: Shaping the Narrative of a China Story

The Belt and Road Initiative: Shaping the Narrative of a China Story

Mapping the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), one can easily get lost in the amount of information available. Hundreds of projects and nearly a trillion dollars’ worth of investments currently exist in over 60 countries. A serious analysis of each project must take into account a variety of factors, including funding sources, implementing partners, budget […]

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UK Consumer Debt: A cause for alarm?

UK Consumer Debt: A cause for alarm?

As consumer debt in the UK reaches pre-2008 financial crisis levels within a new low interest rate austerity dynamic, we examine whether there is reasonable cause for concern and how the Government and Bank of England mitigate the risk. Consumer debt is an individual form of debt which is composed primarily of credit card, household, […]

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