Author: Christine Schier

The holiday season and transition to the new year brought no respite for the population of Gaza, where the death toll now exceeds 30,000. The bombing continues, as the lack of water, food, medicine and electricity only worsens. What is most troubling for people in the West is how their governments can condone – or even worse approve of — […]

The new year is re-introducing the debt rules for the European Union, which had been suspended due to the COVID pandemic. The reformed rules of the Stability and Growth Pact, decided by the European Council on Dec. 20, are a revival of the pre-pandemic austerity a la Brüning (the German Chancellor who helped pave the way for Hitler), and of […]

France and Germany decided on the new debt rules in a meeting between their foreign ministers, without taking into account Italian requests for counting capital expenses in a separate budget. As a result, the Meloni government adopted Plan B, which envisioned a veto to the reform of the EU bank-bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism. The day after the decision […]

Of all the different protest actions in Germany in 2023, the tractorcades of the farmers in the weeks before Christmas have been the most effective, in particular the pattern of road and highway blockades. The ferment in Germany may very well spread to neighboring countries, both East and West, where the agricultural policy imposed by Brussels threatens the existence of […]

In his “2024 New Year Message,” China’s President Xi Jinping detailed the achievements of China during the course of the year and congratulated the Chinese people on their accomplishments: “In 2023, we have continued to forge ahead with resolve and tenacity. We have gone through the test of winds and rains, have seen beautiful scenes unfolding on the way, and […]

The Julius Nyerere Hydroelectric Power Project (JNHPP), one of Tanzania’s mega projects, is to be completed and commissioned by mid-February 2024. Under construction since 2019, it aims to produce 5,920 GWh of electricity annually, in addition to improving overall water management. Even more impressive, the 94%-completed project is truly an all African project. Financed by the Tanzanian government, its major […]

This holiday season in the trans-Atlantic world traditionally brings forth more profound reflections on the purpose of life and the love of humanity. It was in this spirit that the leaders of the major Christian communities in Bethlehem, including Greek Orthodox, Syriac, Armenian, Catholic and Lutheran denominations, composed a letter to U.S. President Biden in late November asking him to […]

At a time when many world leaders do their best to avoid facing questions in public, Russian President Putin held a press conference for nearly four hours on Dec, 14, which was broadcast on all national television channels in Russia. The questions came from reporters and from ordinary citizens, with topics raging from the special military operation in Ukraine, to […]

The decision taken on Dec. 15 by the European Council (minus Hungary, whose Prime minister Viktor Orban left the room before the vote) to start negotiations on Ukraine’s entry into the European Union is, at best, divorced from reality and, at worst, a cruel deception. Immediate aid to Ukraine was blocked, while the process of entry into the EU, if […]

Farmers throughout the European Union have been up in arms for the past couple of years against the European Union’s insane “Farm to Fork” policy, which provides for radical cuts (up to 50%) in the use of pesticides and fertilizers, as well as the reduction of farmland available. This has already had political consequences in the Netherlands, where farmers founded […]