Russia and Ukraine said they had failed to reach any breakthrough in a day of talks with French and German officials aimed at ending an eight-year separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The lack of progress marked a setback for efforts to defuse the wider Ukraine crisis in which Russia has massed more than 100,000 soldiers near Ukraine’s borders, raising fears of a war.
Many readers will know that the current annual inflation rate, from January 2021 to January 2022, came in at 7.5%, which continues the upward trend we’ve seen for the past year. Prices rose 0.8% in the month of January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Given its geographical remoteness, the Maghreb did not constitute – unlike the Middle East – a pole of major strategic interest for the Soviet Union, and this until the period of decolonization in the 1950s. From this point on, and especially with the Algerian war of independence, Moscow began to invest in this sub-region of the Arab world. In fact, as in the Mashreq, the Soviet position strategic criteria, which explained the choice of a partnership with Algeria as early as 1962, (1) and then, to a lesser extent, with Colonel Qadhafi’s Libya after he took power in 1969.
Recent moves by the Republika Srpska (RS, Serb entity) authorities to introduce a Law creating a parallel High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) are a clear attempt by the entity to unilaterally assume the constitutional responsibilities of the State, which would represent a violation of the constitution and legal order of BiH, Peace Implementation Council (PIC) announced.
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.