International

India-Russia ties take a quantum leap in the fog of Ukraine war

by M. K. Bhadrakumar,* India

(26 July 2024) The lodestar of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on July 8-9, it must be the disclosure by the Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration in the Kremlin Maxim Oreshkin that the two leaders discussed the topic of cash payments with the use of cards of national payment systems as an important element of trade support infrastructure and interaction in general.

Uncertain hope for a good future

by Karin Leukefeld,* Germany/Syria

(19 July 2024) Crises and wars in the Middle East undermine the right to education. Aleppo, June 2024: The school year is coming to an end. Before the long summer holidays, pupils in Syria are preparing for their exams. For the older ones, it’s about the university entrance, the Baccalauréat, for the others it’s about the end-of-year certificates. The centralised school system is a relic from the time of the French mandate (1920-1946), which the Syrians, like the Lebanese, have retained. In other parts of the Arab world, which were defined by the British Mandate or – after the Second World War – by the USA, the British or US school systems prevail.

Destroying Ukraine with Idealism

Why Ukraine should not have the “right” to join NATO

by Glenn Diesen,* Norway

(19 July 2024) Political realism is commonly and mistakenly portrayed as immoral because the principal focus is on the inescapable security competition and it thus rejects idealist efforts to transcend power politics. Because states cannot break with security competition, morality for the realist entails acting in accordance with the balance of power logic as the foundation for stability and peace. Idealist efforts to break with power politics can then be defined as immoral by undermining the management of security competition as the foundation of peace. As Raymond Aron expressed in 1966: “The idealist, believing he has broken with power politics exaggerates its crimes”.

How the USA removed Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan, from power

Insights from Jeffrey Sachs

(12 July 2024) In a five-minute video,1 Jeffrey Sachs describes how the USA ‘removed the democratically elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, from power’. “This is the way America conducts foreign policy” – says Jeffrey Sachs.

“The Ukraine War & the Eurasian World Order”

Prospects for the second half of the 21st century

by Glenn Diesen,* Norway

(5 July 2024)The Ukraine War was a predictable consequence of an unsustainable world order and became a battleground for charting a future world order of either global hegemony or Westphalian multipolarity. The objectives to defeat Russia militarily, economically, or politically by isolating it in the world all failed.

Press Release

Shelling of an ICRC facility in Gaza

(5 July 2024) (CH-S) Article 18 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 states: “Civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.”