Europe and Australia

Erdogan taunts Obama over coup attempt in Turkey

Source. Asia Times. The Turkish President Recep Erdogan’s sensational demand on Saturday to US President Barack Obama to extradite the Islamist preacher Fetullah Gulen living in exile in Pennsylvania does not come as surprise. It had to happen sooner or later. Turkish President Recep Erdogan told his supporters on Saturday that although […]

Turkey: The sick man of Europe, once again

Source. ATimes The outcome of tonight’s apparent coup attempt in Turkey remains unclear, but the motivation for regime change in Turkey has been building under the surface for years. Turkey faces a perfect storm of economic, political and foreign policy problems. First, Turkey’s much-heralded economic growth spurt of the 2000’s […]

Russia-Turkey: Making nice sans trust comes easy

Source. A Times. A prejudice against Turks as being self-serving and untrustworthy – although exotic – is deeply embedded in the European psyche. In William Shakespeare’s play, Othello used the word “Turk” in that sense.A recent poll found that only 9% of Germans consider that Turkey can be a “trustworthy […]

Russia Is Building a Nuclear Space Bomber

Source: The Daily Beast The Russian military claims it’s making progress on a space plane similar to the U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B robotic mini-shuttle. That in itself isn’t terribly surprising or even, for the United States, particularly worrisome. Lots of governments and even private companies are working on space planesthat […]

Eastern Europe Must Grasp Its UN Moment

Source. Balkan Insight Among all criteria which may be of interest for the UN members, there is a strong international movement to elect for the first time a woman Secretary-General. That element in the complex election puzzle should not be ignored. The global trend in this aspect will have its […]

After Brexit Germany exposing its Military Muscle

Zubair K Khan During current NATO summit in Warsaw, Germany showed willingness to pledge to station rotating military battalions in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from 2017 as a collective deterrent against Russian adventurism which clearly indicates Europe’s most populous country wants to assume a bigger defence role, within the frameworks […]