Ukraine’s Poroshenko implicates NATO in his duel with Putin

Ukraine, once the breadbasket of central Europe and now the miserable wartorn offspring of the breakup of the ex USSR, keeps confirming her reputation for being a deeply divided country and society. The current governing oligarchy under President Petro Poroshenko supported by the West, having succeeded under obscure conditions the Moscow controlled administration of Viktor […]

How energy infrastructure is shaping geopolitics in East Asia

This article is brought to you thanks to the strategic cooperation of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Miyeon Oh, Director and Senior Fellow of the Asia Security Initiative, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council Large-scale, cross-border energy infrastructure connects states in long-term relationships. A choice of a pipeline route or a decision about […]

The Europeans back Russia-Turkey on Syria: A ‘Waterloo’ for Saudis and their Crown Prince

France and Germany have put their weight behind the Russia–Turkey agreement for a lasting ceasefire in Syria. The four leaders also said they agreed to put together a committee to draft a constitution for the political rehabilitation of the devastated country. Last Saturday, the French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Russian […]

Strong multilateral institutions key to tackling world’s dramatic challenges, UN chief says In Moscow

This article is brought to you in association with the United Nations. In Moscow on Thursday, Secretary-General António Guterres said multilateralism was vital to tackling climate change, terrorism and other dramatic challenges, and that the United Nations and Russia would continue working together to make global institutions stronger and better able to serve the public good. […]

At last Germany to negotiate the costs for a really cohesive Eurozone

Finally, Germany blinked. Chancellor Angela Merkel at last decided  to clearly respond and, up to a certain degree, uphold French President Emmanuel Macron’s ideas, about reforming the Eurozone, in order not only to save it from unraveling, but, if  possibe, to make it more cohesive and stronger. In an interview to last Sunday’s issue of […]

Macron in St. Petersburg didn’t oppose Trump on Iran, in Putin’s presence

Emmanuel Macron, the French President, who has regained the European political initiative for his country, traveled to St. Petersburg, in Russia last Thursday. This was not an official state visit though. Macron just decided to participate in St. Petersburg’s annual International Economic Forum (SPIEF). A high end business delegation accompanied him. Macron met Putin only […]

Is Germany closer to Russia than the West? Nord Stream II and Iran count more

Last Friday, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, rushed to Sochi, the Black Sea seaside Russian resort to meet Vladimir Putin. It was the first visit by a Western leader to meet him at home, after his fourth inauguration on 7 May as President of the vast country, this time for six more years. Looking through […]

Macron crowned king of Europe in Washington D.C.; just a working meeting with Trump for Merkel

A rare service Donald Trump is currently doing for the Europeans is that he offers them a platform for important common action to be undertaken by the French President Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They are both visiting the White House this week, but expect quite different reception from Trump; pompous state […]

The West cannot ignore Russia; dazed Germany sitting on the fence

After the missile attacks by the Western trio of US, Britain and France against Damascus and other positions in war torn Syria, the Russian overlords and Assad regime in that part of the world, continues pursuing their agenda, as if nothing happened. From a certain angle truly nothing has changed regarding the military and political […]

The missiles fired against Damascus, Syria divided Europe deeply

Last Friday night till the early hours of Saturday morning the US-France-Britain alliance attacked the Assad/Putin regime of Damascus, with a precipitation of missiles. Seemingly though, the hits have had a greater political impact on Europe than in Syria itself. Germany and Italy, the other two major European Union countries with strong interests in the […]

A new catastrophic phase in the Syrian carnage

At a time when Donald Trump, the US President of ‘America first’ had just urged his military to leave Syria, the gas attack in Douma, near Damascus seems to change the prospect for Washington abandoning this country to Assad, Putin, Erdogan and the Iranians. Last Saturday, more than 60 people died and about 1000 were […]

Putin becomes the ‘perfect enemy” for the West

Putin, after having won last Sunday’s presidential election in Russia with a landslide of 76.7% is now turning to the West for détente. According to Reuters, he said “had no desire for an arms race and would do everything he could to resolve differences with other countries”. Only a few days ahead of election Sunday […]

Russia – US in Syria: Selling Afrin to Turkey but facing off ruthlessly for Ghouta

How many more dead and wounded human beings are needed to convince Russia and the US that they must come to terms about the future of Syria? At a time when the mainstream western media are extensively and exclusively reporting the woes of the desperate inhabitants of Ghouta, at another Syrian front in Afrin, the […]

Erdogan’s Turkey in dire straits for flip flop policies in the Middle East

Last week a US federal court convicted Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive of Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank. This is a major financial institution of this country, controlled directly by the government. Attila found guilty on five accounts, for evading the American sanctions imposed on Iran. Most of those punitive measures were lifted in April 2015, in […]

Trump’s Russian affair spills over and upsets Europe

The turmoil in the American political system, caused by President Donald Trump’s Russian affair is having spillovers in Europe. Of course, it’s not the first time that Trump and his out of control political ‘inspirations’ instigate trouble for the Old Continent and the rest of the world. This time however, the US Congress prepares new […]

Trump ‘used’ G20 to side with Putin and split climate and trade packs

While protesters were dynamically trying to reach the part of Hamburg where the G20 leaders of the largest economies of the world were gathered, the most powerful politicians of the globe were reduced to the status of viewers, in the Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spectacle of rapprochement. Trump also ‘used’ the G20 to tell […]

Trump enrages the Europeans and isolates the US in G7

Last Thursday, Donald Trump, at a superb hall in the new glass and steel NATO building in Brussels, delivered an unruly speech, after having pushed aside Prime Minister Dusko Markovic of Montenegro (the related video has become viral) while walking towards the rostrum. He came out with a blatant and derogatory account aimed at 23 […]

Macron plans for Europe, Brexit and banks but vague on France

Emmanuel Macron, after yesterday’s quasi formality of the second round of the election, is the new President of France, having defeated Marine Le Pen by 65% to 35%. He commands the military forces of his country, including the not at all small nuclear arsenal of France, he appoints and dismiss the prime minister and can […]

Trump’s Syrian hit the softest option vis-a-vis Russia

All the major English language media interpreted last week’s US strike of the Syrian air base with Tomahawk missiles, as a serious geostrategic action by Donald Trump carrying messages not only to Russia, but also to North Korea and even China. Nothing is less true than that. This was the least the new US President […]

Trump’s Russophiles under investigation, Europe remains ‘en garde’

Last Friday U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the ongoing FBI probe of the case of the Russian interference in the US Presidential elections favoring Donald Trump. He said “I have recused myself in the matters that deal with the Trump campaign.” Last September, the US intelligence agencies collective, in a joint paper, […]

Elections in Europe: No risks for the EU, leaders readying to face Trump-Brexit

Some political analysts in mainland Europe but many more in Britain and on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in the US, have rushed to call 2017 the year that can make or break the European Union. They basically argue that the three crucial legislative elections due in Holland next month, in France in […]

The four top Americans who flew to Europe perplexed things about Trump’s intentions

Four top ranking Washington bigwigs – who flew to Munich, Brussels and Bonn to mend fences with Europe, after Donald Trump termed NATO ‘obsolete’ and rejoiced the unraveling of the EU, left the Europeans bewildered with the dangerously diverging stories they had to narrate. Only the extreme right wing, Polish Defense Minister Anton Macierewicz seemed […]

Trump stumbles badly on his Russian openings; Europeans wary of Putin

In the fourth week of the Trump Presidency things have become more hectic. Those around the boss are now people of authority, and their actions directly affect America and the world. It’s not only that the chief himself changes his mind from one day to the next about crucial global issues, like the ‘one China’ […]

Syria: A bloody tracer of Trump – Putin rapprochement

Despite the dreadful fact that the fighting and the bloodshed continues on many spots on the ground, the Astana agreement for a truce in Syria backed by Russia, Turkey and Iran seems to present a good chance for peace. Last Tuesday, the above three foreign powers and their proxies implicated in the Syrian civil war, […]

Turkey caught in a vicious Syrian circle bringing terror and war at home

The Turkish government, under the iron hand of the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, felt obliged to further challenge the Americans in the troubled region of the Middle East this past week. Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak and Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin questioned the presence of the US led coalition forces at the key air […]

Fear casts again a cold, ugly shadow over Europe; Turkey sides with Russia

The deadly attack in a Berlin Christmas market and the assassination of the Russian ambassador in Ankara, may not be closely connected or plotted by related terrorist circles, but they aim at the same target; to terrify entire populations and block what could lead to a solution in the Syrian mess. Add to that the […]

A shortened EU Summit admits failures, makes risky promises

Last Thursday, 15 December, the cut down to one day European Summit, confirmed that Europe continues on the wrong path. The 27 + 1 leaders acknowledged the complete failure of key policies regarding Syria and Turkey and kept making promises to Ukraine and Georgia they cannot honor. Unfortunately, Brussels refuses to learn the lessons still […]

What will the US look like under Trump? Was his election campaign a big scam?

Everybody agrees now that the President – elect Donald Trump won the 8 November election, by promising he will take good care of the Americans who are left behind in the era of globalization and of the global financial rackets. The first signs though indicate the opposite. His choices for the top Washington jobs are […]

Europe moulds global defense and security chart given US new inward vision

Europe takes very seriously Trump’s rhetoric about limiting US commitment to NATO and Old Continent’s defenses. In view of that, Federica Mogherini, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, speaking at a conference entitled “The Future of EU-NATO Cooperation“, found a great opportunity to address the dawning US […]

Trump questions US – Europe kinship, approaches Russia

In a peculiar way, the five EU leaders who gathered last week in Berlin for a farewell meeting with Barack Obama, closely followed the outgoing American President in his hard line stance against Russia and Vladimir Putin. The Obama administration has been persistently pressing the Europeans to impose more sanctions on Russia on various reasons […]

Trump beats Clinton but Americans will learn the hard way that the US can’t change with an election

With a large part of voters disgusted from this US Presidential race, which reached unseen before heights of bitterness, hatred, toxic recrimination and another part of Americans ready to contest the result, had Donald Trump lost the race. In the end, he achieved a landslide win and will become the next President of the USA. […]

Solitary Britain sides with US aggressing Russia and chooses hard Brexit

Last Sunday Britain surprised Europe by surpassing even the Americans in condemning and threatening Russia over the fight of Aleppo, imminent to be lost for the West. British Foreign minister Boris Johnson went past the US Secretary of State John Kerry, in pointing a finger at Russia. While Kerry threatened Moscow with more economic sanctions, […]

The impossible end of the war in Syria

The United States and the Russian governments without the slightest remorse announced that it was with their guns the Syrians have been killing each other for the last six years. This is the translation in plain English of last weekend’s news, which is that Washington and Moscow agreed on a truce in Syria, after very […]

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