Eastern Europe

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan invited Ukraine’s leader, Volodomir Zelensky, to Istanbul for consultations. Zelensky arrived late on Friday and met for two and a half hours with Erdogan at the Vahidettin Palace, the old residence of the last Ottoman emperor. In remarks after the meeting, Erdogan deplored the continuing war […]

Russia

P.O.V: Negotiate for Peace in Ukraine

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – A sign hung in a Greenfield, Massachusetts storefront window: “Negotiate for Peace in Ukraine” – the most direct of the many “Peace,” “and singular “Make Tea Not War;” “Food For All, Not War; “Books Not War;” “Brew Beer Not War;” “Solar Not War;” “Shoes Not War;” “Art Not […]

China

Peace for Ukraine Courtesy of China? Another Step in Beijing’s Rise to Global Power

Alfred W. McCoy

( Tomdispatch.com ) – All wars do end, usually thanks to a negotiated peace agreement. Consider that a fundamental historical fact, even if it seems to have been forgotten in Brussels, Moscow, and above all, Washington, D.C. In recent months, among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s followers, there has been much talk of a “forever war” […]

China

Sudan conflict: how China and Russia are involved and the differences between them

The Conversation

By Marcel Plichta, University of St Andrews and Mateja Peter, University of St Andrews | – As clashes continue between the Sudanese military and rapid support forces, the current and historic role of foreign governments in Sudanese affairs is under close examination. Unsurprisingly, the Sudan conflict has amplified concerns from the US and other countries […]

Pentagon

The Compulsion to Intervene: Why Washington Underwrites Violence in Ukraine

Andrew J. Bacevich

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Allow me to come clean: I worry every time Max Boot vents enthusiastically about a prospective military action. Whenever that Washington Post columnist professes optimism about some upcoming bloodletting, misfortune tends to follow. And as it happens, he’s positively bullish about the prospect of Ukraine handing Russia a decisive defeat in […]

Environment

Environmental Hazard: How Russia’s War in Ukraine Threatens the Planet

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has resulted in the deaths so far of more than 8,700 Ukrainian civilians, including more than 500 children. It has caused a massive drop in the country’s economic output, with GDP declining by 29.1 percent. And it has had widespread consequences for the […]

Bangladesh

Iran leads charge for De-Dollarization at Asian Banks Meeting

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Asian Exchange Union is not a famous international organization, but its meeting on Tuesday in Tehran may have started the ball rolling on a momentous change in global finance, since it dealt with the possibility of de-dollarization. According to the Iranian press, banking representatives from Iran, Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan, […]

China

Goodbye to the American Century: China India and the Emerging New World Order

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com) – Not so long ago, political analysts were speaking of the “G-2” — that is, of a potential working alliance between the United States and China aimed at managing global problems for their mutual benefit. Such a collaborative twosome was seen as potentially even more powerful than the G-7 group of leading Western […]

China

Can the U.S. Adjust Sensibly to a Multipolar World?

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink) – In his 1987 book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy reassured Americans that the decline the United States was facing after a century of international dominance was “relative and not absolute, and is therefore perfectly natural; and that the only serious threat to the real interests […]