STRATEGIC ALERT Service

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 […]

On February 16, the expected turning point in the Ukraine war likely occurred, with the defeat of the Ukrainian Army in the strategically key town of Avdeyevka. De facto, no obstacle now stands in the way of the Russian Army’s reaching the administrative borders of the Donbass region. Thus, the end of the war may be near given the military, […]

One real hero of democracy, on the contrary, is Julian Assange, who is facing a verdict of extradition to the United States in a British High Court as we are writing. Assange’s crime is to have done his job as a journalist, by publishing official information on Wikileaks exposing crimes committed by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. For that, […]

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was the one representative of a major power to go against the narrative put out by the organizers of the Munich Security Conference. Speaking on Feb. 17, he stated that in the face of all the current crises, China is committed to remaining a force for stability “in a turbulent world”. The Chinese approach, he […]

The International Court of Justice opened one week of hearings on Feb. 19 on the request of the UN General Assembly for an Advisory Opinion on “Israeli practices affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People in the Occupied Territory, including East Jerusalem”. This case is pursuant to the request submitted in Dec. 2022 and is separate from the complaint […]

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, has charged Israel with carrying out a “concentrated campaign, which is aimed at destroying UNRWA”. In an interview with the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger, he added that Israel apparently believes that “if the aid agency is abolished, the status of the Palestinian refugees will be resolved once and […]

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell suggested Feb. 12 that if Joe Biden really thinks that Israel’s response to the Hamas Oct. 7 attack is “over the top,” as the U.S. President reportedly said last week, then he should stop the flow of weapons to Israel. “But let’s be logical”, Borrell asked media in Brussels, “how many times have you […]