Category: TRENDS IN GEOPOLITICS

October will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan. The war was launched under the guise of capturing Osama Bin Laden and ridding the nation of its Taliban leadership because they both were, allegedly, responsible for the 9/11 attacks.  The U.S. government, however, contends that 15 of the 19 hijackers were...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced last week it was investigating the Gaza War, or Operation Protective Edge, named by Israel when the war was launched in 2014 after the court determined it maintains jurisdiction over the territories.  Israel called the ruling a political move without legal standing while Palestinians praised the investigation. Axios reported that Tel...

Iran and South Korea announced last week an agreement was reached to release the crew of a 9,797-ton oil tanker seized last month as it sailed the Strait of Hormuz, but there seem to be lingering issues. The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last week that the ship’s 19-person crew will be able to...

Thousands of people in Myanmar took to the streets over the weekend, decrying the military coup that we reported last week when Myanmar’s military detained the country’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and declared a state of emergency. This past weekend, the protests escalated with tens of thousands more participating in protest marches....

China’s President Xi Jinping held a virtual call with Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam and vowed to assist the city during its fight with COVID-19 but insisted it is important that the city is controlled by “patriots.” “Hong Kong’s significant change from chaos to peace again showed an important rule: we must insist on patriots...

The U.S. flew a B-52H Stratofortress from a base in Louisiana over the Middle East and back to deter “any aggression in the region” and to “reassure” allies, the Wall Street Journal reported. The move comes as tension between Washington, D.C. and Tehran continues. There has been U.S. media hype of “chatter” from “government officials” that Iran...

Thousands of Poles protested last week over Warsaw’s decision to implement a constitutional court ruling considered an almost outright abortion ban, which puts new limits in place for access to abortions when there are fetal abnormalities. The government waited months to implement the 22 October Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling that essentially bans all abortions after two...

Youth in Tunisia took to the streets last week to express their frustrations over economic woes and anger of police brutality in the country that launched the Arab Spring a decade ago when Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who ruled the country for a quarter-century, was ousted from office. Out of work, out of money, with...

It happens all the time: peaceful protests turn ugly. We note this since the Battle of Seattle, back in 1999, when demonstrators took to the streets protesting the World Trade Organization meeting that was being held in the city. It was by far the largest demonstration in the United States when over 40,000 people marched...

It was reported Chinese military aircraft conducted an exercise that simulated an attack on a U.S. aircraft carrier as tensions in the region continue to simmer after Beijing announced last week that Taiwan’s independence would mean war. The Financial Times, citing intelligence officials from the U.S. and other countries, reported the pilots in the H-6...