In the war zone:
Russian proxies launch 86 attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol sectors, incl heavy artillery and weapons banned by Minsk, reports JFO.
Efforts to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal cannot succeed unless Washington lifts “major” sanctions, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday, as sources said indirect talks between Iran and the United States were reaching a final stage.
Syria supports the decision of its ally Russia to recognise two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, Syrian state TV quoted the Syrian foreign minister as saying on Tuesday.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has alleged mercenaries from Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina have been recruited and transferred to Donbas in Ukraine to fight against Moscow-backed rebels, something vehemently denied by local governments. The Russian embassy in Tirana however, did not respond to requests for clarification.
Moscow still has the initiative in a crisis it provoked but apparent Russian failure so far to engineer a phony “internal” Ukrainian opposition leaves the situation literally on a knife’s edge. Russian propaganda is attempting to claim victory already by portraying post-Afghanistan America as “exhausted” but Moscow has struggled to provoke Western diplomatic disarray. For its part, the United States has lurched from a chaotic Trump Administration to the chaos of Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and finds itself having to react to Vladimir Putin’s moves all around the former Soviet periphery. Still, Washington’s stern public warnings about Russian preparations seem to have surprised Moscow and out Putin on the back foot.
Last week’s events will be remembered for many reasons but for us, the major market mover was the International Energy Agency’s admission that global oil demand is wickedly higher than what the agency was willing to admit previously.
With the Ukraine crisis increasingly acute, there is growing danger of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, involving a significant possibility of escalating into a full-scale war between Russian and the NATO. At the core of the crisis is how to strike an agreement on durable geopolitical order to which Ukraine is central as a crucial strategic buffer between Europe and the Eurasia, or between a peninsula and a landmass. Thus, prescribing a geopolitical settlement is more necessary than ever.
Exploited and abused for generations by white colonial powers and manipulative economic structures, there is a growing feeling of solidarity within parts of the African continent, as exemplified by the #NoMore movement. Covid vaccine inequality and environmental injustice, together with recent events in Ethiopia have galvanized people.
A ground-breaking initiative has been launched to expose Syrian crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court. For the first time, a primary focus is the culpability of Iran and its proxies.
Lawyers have said that Tehran’s support for Assad had come “at the cost of hundreds of thousands of killed, injured and displaced Syrian civilians.” Evidence will show how Iran-backed militias deliberately targeted non-combatants, forcing thousands to flee and significantly contributing to the more than 13 million Syrians who have been displaced. Meanwhile, observers have documented Russian forces in 2022 systematically displacing citizens through indiscriminate airstrikes against residential areas and civilian infrastructures.
Introduction
In this paper, I will attempt to analyze the downward trend of collective intelligence among Ethiopia’s political leaders and elites. (1) The analysis covers a historical period that begins with the reign of Emperor Menelik II (2) (r. 1889–1913) until the premiership of Abiy Ahmed (since 2018). The study will therefore also cover two other monarchical periods: the era of Empress Zewditu (r. 1916–1930) (3), who was modern Ethiopia’s first female head of state, as well as the period of Emperor Haile Selassie (r. 1930–1974). Subsequently, the analysis will move on to the country’s conflicting experiments with republican governance: the military regime of Socialist Ethiopia, or Derg, (in power from 1974 to 1991) and the ethnic-federalist regime of the EPRDF/TPLF (1991 to 2018). It will conclude with the current regime, in power since 2018.