International

Afghanistan: An infuriating, man-made catastrophe points toward massive suffering for Afghan families

The following is a statement from Dominik Stillhart, the director of operations for the «International Committee of the Red Cross», at the end of a six-day visit to Afghanistan:

(8 December 2021) I am livid. Pictures viewed from afar of bone-thin children rightly elicit gasps of horror. When you're standing in the paediatric ward in Kandahar's largest hospital, looking into the empty eyes of hungry children and the anguished faces of desperate parents, the situation is absolutely infuriating.
Reflections on Events in Afghanistan – 35

Taliban government is steadily consolidating

by M. K. Bhadrakumar*

(9 December 2021) The acknowledgement of “shared interests” with Russia regarding Afghanistan by the new US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West following his discussions in Moscow on November 14 with the Kremlin’s Special Presidential Representative Zamir Kabulov and Security Council’s Deputy Secretary Alexander Venediktov is an important step forward.

The myth of American democracy

by Alfred de Zayas

(9 December 2021) In a world of fake news, fake history, fake law, fake diplomacy, it is no surprise to encounter fake democracy along the way.

Cold War Reloaded: US missiles are threatening Moscow from Germany

by Wolfgang Effenberger*

(10 December 2021) Following the Western-orchestrated coup in Kiev at the end of February 2014, the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) pamphlet 525-3-1 “Win in a Complex World: 2020–2040” was adopted in October 2014.

Sino-Russian collusion over Taiwan and Ukraine seems improbable but isn’t

by M. K. Bhadrakumar*

(30 November 2021) The “feel-good” from Tuesday’s virtual meeting1 [16 November] between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping leaps out of the US-Russian summit in Geneva in June. Biden’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently sought to create a “stable and predictable” relationship with Russia but there is talk of war today.

Two times twenty years

The new treaty between China and Russia

by Wilfried Schreiber,* Germany

(18 November 2021) In view of the disaster of the twenty-year Western military presence in Afghanistan, an event on the political-diplomatic level has gone unnoticed in this country, but its geostrategic dimension is just as significant. It is the extension of the "Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China" for another 20 years. The treaty extension of June 2021 and the joint declaration of both countries could be useful in coming to terms with the war in Afghanistan.