by Alan MacLeod,*
(9 August 2024) Much to the chagrin of the U.S. government, socialist candidate Nicolas Maduro won a third successive term in office on Sunday [28 July], convincingly beating his U.S.-backed opponents, Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado, by seven points.
Commentary by Norman Paech,* Germany
(3 August 2024) This opinion should come as no surprise to anyone. Everyone in government, parliament and the media has known for years that Israel’s occupation, including the settlements, is illegal and must therefore withdraw from the occupied territories. Even in its first judgement in 2004, when the International Court of Justice declared the construction of the wall illegal insofar as it encroached on Palestinian territory, it left no doubt about the illegality of the occupation and the settlements.
by Rudolf Hänsel*
(26 July 2024) “Where I feel well, there is my fatherland,” says a popular saying. For the author, Serbia has been his adopted country for years. Serbia has long been labelled a “rogue state” in the Western press. During the time of Slobodan Milošević, the Balkan state was considered an enemy country par excellence – now President Aleksandar Vučić is not sufficiently resolute in distancing himself from Vladimir Putin, refusing to engage in aggressive enemy rhetoric and instead calling for peace.
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.
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.
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”.