On February 24, 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine. It was planned as a lightning strike which would subsume the smaller neighbour in two weeks. That did not happen and a year on, what lies ahead? More bloodshed, a peace deal or a ceasefire?
From messy, divisive politics to a series of mass shootings, and now black officers brutally beating another black man to death as seen in bodycam videos, America’s domestic convulsions are cause for serious introspection.
The US Congressional probe into President Trump’s coup against his own government is like the movie about the steamship Titanic hitting an iceberg. Despite knowing the ending—it sank—we remain fascinated with the story of exactly how it happened.
Biden’s speech this week on the Ukraine crisis was well received by people who usually have nothing good to say about a Democrat, so polarized are the two political parties. Republican senators and conservative pundits were in strange territory compared to their criticism of Biden.
The terror bombings and killings around Kabul’s airport have once again focused world attention on the “sudden” American pull out. Actually, President Joe Biden’s “new” Afghanistan policy is old wine in new bottles.
However, an in-person audience limited in size by pandemic social distancing requirements was a reminder that even massive vaccination success in 100 days has only slowed the pandemic.
In what promises to be a great precedent, two Yemeni men have appealed to a German court, saying that US drones, which took off from a German air-base operated by the US, killed their family members in Yemen, and that Germany should be held responsible to a large extent for this.
There is a good deal of premature enthusiasm in America because some of the pandemic responses are being lifted, despite concerns about viral variants and super-spreader events.