Kissinger, Soros, Friedman: Trei viziuni, o singură realitate (I)

Henry Kissinger, George Soros și George Friedman sunt cu toții susținători ai ideii că omenirea are nevoie de o ordine globală care, pe deasupra frontierelor culturale, să stabilească și impună persoanelor fizice și vechilor entități politice create de ele, reguli de comportament apte a duce la evitarea războiului, într-un univers în care interdependențele obiective generează solidaritatea intereselor, lăsând în urmă independența și competiția între națiuni.

Bosnian Serb leader plans to meet Lavrov, Putin

Secessionist Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik plans to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Belgrade on Tuesday and President Vladimir Putin on 17 June in Moscow, istraga.ba reported.

“This may provoke some people in the West, but what I can do. My task is to provide stability for my people,” Dodik said in a short speech, interrupted by applause.

Serbia, Russia agree to gas deal in principle, Lavrov says

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Russian President Vladimir Putin have discussed the terms of gas supply arrangements and reached an agreement in principle, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Bosnian Serb entity TV on Sunday in an interview.

The agreement should be elaborated within the companies involved, Lavrov added.

Erdogan wants Swedish PM to fire defence minister

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson should dismiss Defence Minister Peter Hullqvist, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the newspaper Expressen reported on Saturday.

Erdogan’s demand is based on a speech Hulqvist gave at a party 10 years ago where he celebrated the Kurdistan Workers’ People, PKK, and its imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan, according to the sources cited by Expressen.

Austria releases oil stocks after refinery malfunction

A technical issue at oil giant OMV’s Schwechat refinery on Saturday forced the government to release strategic gasoline stocks while OMV considers what to do about its investments in Russia.

The government announced a release of 112,000 tonnes of petrol and 56,000 tonnes of diesel. The release will cover a period of about 14 days, while OMV had so far not been able to determine for how long the refinery’s “technical malfunction”, which has damaged the main distillation unit for crude oil, would last.

Turkey’s Nordic demands spark Western Balkan déjà vu

Turkey’s move to pressure Sweden and Finland into extraditing alleged “terrorists” they harbour is a method Ankara used for several years against countries in the Western Balkans, including EU candidate countries, under the idle gaze of Brussels.

While Turkey wields investment and aid as a sword of Damocles over the heads of poorer, less powerful countries, when it comes to the Nordic duo, it is their NATO application filed in May that hangs in the balance.

SOS: Is The Pentagon Losing the U.S. to China?

“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion.” — Nicolas Chaillan, former first Chief Software Officer for the Air Force, who resigned in protest over the Pentagon’s slow pace of technological development, citing China’s fast advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and general capabilities in cybersecurity, Financial Times, October 10, 2021

When Politics Is Local In The Middle East

As the old adage has it, all politics is local. That might seem a quaint idea in an age of social media and global connectivity. And yet, as a study co-led by an MIT political scientist finds, it may describe Middle East politics more accurately than many people realize.