Month: February 2024

There seem to be two very different but parallel universes shaping up in the world, one represented by the so-called trans-Atlantic world and its military-financial complex, and the other, the “non Western world” or the Global Majority. The first is that of the “rules-based order”, of a dying empire which is increasingly discredited and whose financial system is hopelessly bankrupt, […]

Intense negotiations are ongoing to reach a deal between Israel and Palestine on at the very least a temporary ceasefire to allow the gradual release of the hostages taken by Hamas and prisoner swaps. The Palestinian side, for which Qatar and Egypt are acting as mediators, insist that Israel commit to put an end to the war and remove its […]

“Netanyahu’s Messianic Coalition Partners Want an All-out Regional War. Gaza Is Just a First Step.” That is the evaluation of Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister of Israel from 2006-2009, published in the Feb. 22 Haaretz. “The supreme aim of the far-right duo National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is not the occupation of the Gaza Strip”, he […]

On Feb. 26, the one-month deadline given to Israel by the International Court of Justice to submit a report on the measures it had taken to prevent the commission of genocidal acts in Gaza and to ensure delivery of humanitarian aid and services to Palestinians, expired (cf. SAS 6, 8/ 24). According to Israeli press reports, a report was in […]

The gap between reality and narrative on the Ukraine war is growing wider and wider in the West, as seen on the second anniversary of the conflict. Italian PM Giorgia Meloni wanted to inaugurate the Italian chairmanship of the G7 by holding the group’s meeting in Kiev, with questionable success. While she traveled there with EU Commission head Ursula von […]

In the week between the Munich Security Conference (MSC) and the Ecofin meeting of EU Finance Ministers, a strategy for rearmament started to take shape in Europe. It began with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who announced in Munich a target of 3.5% of GDP for the defense budget to be reached in the next years, way over the 2% […]

A decisive development in the ferment among farmers is the close coordination and cooperation between farmers of Eastern European countries who, in addition to opposing the EU-Ukraine preferential duty-free deal, also denounce the EU Commission’s “Green Deal”. That issue was primarily taken up by Polish farmers, then joined by colleagues from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The pressure was so […]

There were also forceful protest actions by farmers last week in Spain, Greece and Italy. Italian tractors were out in force on Feb. 24 and 25 in many cities throughout the peninsula, including two thoroughfares in Rome, the Via Aurelia and the Via Nomentana. The protest, clearly directed against the EU Green measures, is organized outside of established trade unions, […]

At an emergency session held last weekend, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) lifted the economic and travel sanctions it had imposed on Niger last July after the country’s military leaders removed President Mohamed Bazoum. At the same meeting, it was decided to lift the financial and economic sanctions on Guinea, and to cancel a ban on the […]

A delegation from the Schiller Institute and the Ibn Sina Center for Research and Development delivered on Feb. 22 a petition to UNESCO world headquarters in Paris, calling on the UN agency to re-establish relations with Afghanistan in order to help save the numerous cultural relics in the country. It urges UNESCO to restore activities of cultural cooperation with all […]