Europe EU: leadership stalemate EU leaders met several times throughout June in order to determine who will become the new head of the European Commission. The recently elected new European Parliament will have to approve the successor to Jean Claude Juncker. At the end of June, German politician Manfred Weber, previously considered the main contender for the post, dropped out ...
Europe Assange arrested On April 11, Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, was arrested in London after Ecuador revoked political asylum earlier granted to the journalist. Since 2012, Assange has been held in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Britain is likely to extradite Assange to the US against Assange’s wishes. Assange is accused in the United States of cyber ...
Europe Brexit is delayed… again The United Kingdom and the European Union approved the postponement of the beginning of the UK’s exit process. It was originally scheduled for the end of March 2019. However, the British Parliament did not approve Prime Minister Theresa May’s version of the plan. Now, there are three important dates for Brexit: April 12 and May ...
Europe Munich Security Conference On February 15-16, an international security conference was held in Munich. Many world leaders did not attend: the most senior and influential figure was German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The conference organizers noted the collapse of the unipolar system and the transition of the world to an era of competition between great powers. They also witnessed the ...
The 55th Munich Security Conference (MSC), broadly known as an important platform for discussing security policies, was held in Germany from February 15 through February 17, 2019. It evidenced some dramatic debating this year. The list of participants featured 500 persons, including forty heads of state and/or government and a hundred ministers. They considered the possibility of a new nuclear arms ...
On the one hand, the end of the Cold War signaled the beginning of liberalism’s unipolar world domination, and the end of any possibility for competing ideas. On the other, the balance of power maintained by the Cold War was upended, opening a geopolitical Pandora’s box. To date, Francis Fukuyama’s prematurely announced “end of history” has not arrived, and its ...
After more than nine months of delay, the Europeans have announced the registration of their so-called economic package to convince Iran to stay in the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which was signed between Iran and the P5+1. The package which should have been called SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle for Iran) is now called INSTEX (Instrument in Support of ...
In September 2018, National Security Advisor John R. Bolton reportedly called on the ministry of defense to formulate an attack on Iran in response to a mortar attack on the American embassy in Basra, Iraq. Would the US actually be able to launch a direct attack on Iran? The White House has put forward three options for creating regime change ...
Europe Merkel’s successor elected On December 7, the Christian Democratic Congress was held in Germany. A new party leader was elected by a majority of votes to take over after Angela Merkel. Merkel’s successor will be Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the former Prime Minister of the State of Saar and the Secretary-General of the CDU. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is personally close to Angela ...
Europe Preparing for Brexit On November 25th, a summit on Brexit was held by EU leaders. The attendees approved British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan which had been previously agreed upon by the European Commission and the UK government. However, the adoption of this document caused uproar within the UK and cost May two ministers who resigned in protest. ...