The first of 350 British marines have flown to Poland to bolster NATO’s eastern flank amid tensions over a Russian military build-up around Ukraine. The same day, Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Poland to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the region with his Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki.
After Germany’s trade volume with Russia rose by more than a third in 2021, businesses have called on the government to maintain good economic relations with President Vladimir Putin.
Easing tensions with Russia would be key to continuing the upward trend in Germany’s Eastern trade, the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations – a business organisation that aims to improve the framework conditions in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia – said on Thursday.
The Biden administration on Friday escalated dire warnings of a possibly imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying it could happen at any moment, even as emergency diplomatic efforts continued. U.S. officials said the United States is preparing to evacuate its embassy in Kyiv, and Americans in Ukraine are being told to leave within the next 48 hours.
With Russia carrying out a massive military buildup near Ukraine and the West roundly rejecting Moscow’s security demands, a window for diplomacy in the crisis appears to be closing.
But even as Moscow continues to bolster its forces and holds sweeping war games, President Vladimir Putin is keeping the window open for more negotiations in a calculated game of brinkmanship intended to persuade Washington and its allies to accept Russia’s demands.
Chinese banks provided more loans to fund developmental projects in sub-Saharan Africa than some of the world’s greatest economies combined from 2007 to 2020, according to a new study.
Under the leadership of President Xi Jingping, China has been pouring resources into its military arsenal in pursuit of a technologically advanced, integrated force.
Russia seeks to restore its former position in the world and has repeatedly shown under Putin that it has the ability to destabilize international order. While Russia lacks the military power to challenge the United States’ superiority, Europe does not underestimate its capabilities. Moscow’s use of arms sales and military engagement to build ties with Asia, Africa, Latin America, and especially the Middle East, and the mass export of fossil fuels to Europe have given Russia more leverage to shape power dynamics in various regions. Russia’s growing share of the natural gas market, previously a major player in the oil market, has further extended Russia’s influence but after the Corona pandemic, sanctions of Western countries as well as Putin’s failure to diversify the economy and can put him in trouble.
Among EU countries, perhaps no issue is as divisive as “energy policy”. In Europe, every country now has its own strategy for fossil energy, nuclear energy and renewable energy to meet their national interest. From France, which gets more than 50 percent of its energy from nuclear fission, to Germany, which shuts down its nuclear power plants one after another, rely more and more on energy imported from Russia, contrary to the interest of other allies.
The Past
The Horn of Africa States was from time immemorial a trading partner of Egypt up and until Mohamed Ali Pasha, which coincides with the opening of the Suez Canal by the renowned French Diplomat, Ferdinand de Lesseps. Mohamed Ali Pasha, the Albanian working for the Ottoman Empire who ruled Egypt on their behalf, was over ambitious and wanted to conquer the region sending expeditions, which finally left the region in 1875 after a short stay in Zeila, Berbera and Harar and the coastal ports of Eritrea today, Assab and Mussawa.
Poland has declared its ambition to become the strongest military power in Central Europe. A NATO spending-leader already, Warsaw is eying a two-fold expansion of its armed forces, even though this will entail huge costs and defy demographic trends. Can it succeed?