The EU does not know what to do with the Western Balkans
The 20th anniversary of the signing of the Thessaloniki Declaration[2] was recently celebrated in Thessaloniki, followed by the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF), and the summit of the Brdo-Brioni process in Skopje, while the summit of the Berlin process will be held in October in Tirana.
Les combattants du Cadre stratégique permanent, (CSP), une coalition de groupes armés du Nord malien, se sont retirés de la ville de Léré (Nord) par crainte d’éventuels bombardements de l’armée malienne, ont confirmé plusieurs sources civiles locales ainsi qu’un porte-parole de cette coalition.
Des milliers de migrants, en majorité des ressortissants subsahariens, campent au nord de Sfax, en Tunisie, dans l’attente d’une traversée vers l’Italie, après avoir été chassés par les forces de sécurité, selon des organisations humanitaires et des témoignages à l’AFP.
On Tuesday September 19, 2023, the Republic of Azerbaijan launched a military operation against terrorist Armenian forces in Karabakh region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan sovereign territory but has been ruled by an ethnic Armenian “so called government” since 1994.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which controls Idlib, is taking advantage of the difficult living conditions of the people to attract more people into its ranks by offering high salaries.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is still the largest and most dominant faction in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, amid its continuous attempts to control other areas to expand its influence, despite the existence of other factions supported by Turkey.
The Afrin Liberation Forces, which has escalated attacks against the Turkish-backed opposition in the Aleppo countryside, is being secretive about the sources of its support, weapons and training.
The Afrin Liberation Forces, a group of Kurdish fighters from Afrin also known as Hezen Rizgariya Efrine (HRE), recently stepped up their attacks against the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Turkish army in the countryside of Aleppo. The attacks suggest HRE is a well-trained and organized group.
An ailing economy and tough border measures elsewhere along Africa’s north coast are to blame
THE ITALIAN island of Lampedusa is home to around 6,000 people. In the past week most of the 14,000 migrants who reached Italy have arrived on its shores. Hundreds more have died trying to make it there by sea in the past year, including a newborn baby whose body was recovered on September 16th. The following day Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, visited the island with Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister. Mrs von der Leyen promised a “co-ordinated response” by the EU to the surge in arrivals on Lampedusa.
Revolutionary developments are afoot for strategic control of major trans-Middle East transport routes. Kuwait and Iraq are tussling over control of Gulf waterways, amid plans for a route from Faw port through to Turkiye, and progress on an Iraq-Iran rail link.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili’s recent visit to China and his meeting with President Xi Jinping heralded the establishment of a strategic partnership between China and Georgia. Garibashvili called his visit historic. Moreover, he expressed Tbilisi’s willingness to deepen its relationship with Beijing and support all the global projects—the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Global Civilizational Initiative, Global Development Initiative, and the Global Security Initiative—China is invested in to reshape international rules and norms and revise the world order.
Relations between Belarus and its NATO neighbours deteriorated further over the summer. Troops have been deployed on both sides of the Belarus–Poland border, and each country has accused the other of escalating tensions. Lithuania this month closed two of six border crossings with Belarus. Belarus’s defence minister, Viktor Khrenin, went as far as suggesting that ‘the possibility of a direct military clash with NATO in the future has become quite obvious’.