On June 23, the European Union decided to put Ukraine on the route to EU membership, acting with unusual speed and unanimity to drive the embattled country further away from Russia’s influence and closer to the West. At a summit in Brussels, leaders from the EU’s 27 member states obtained the necessary unanimous agreement to award Ukraine candidate status. This …

On February 24, 2022, Russia initiated an undeclared war on Ukraine. The US and other nations have criticized Russia’s unprecedented military attack as “unprovoked and unjustifiable.  Members of legislatures, local governments, corporations, and the public in the United States and internationally have backed Ukraine and criticized Russia’s aggression. Hundreds of companies from the United States and other countries have withdrew, halted, or …

In Europe, the past months have been regarded as showcases of the extents of humanitarian and governmental solidarity, as millions of refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine were welcomed across the continent. Such openness towards Ukrainians, however, bitterly highlights the hypocrisy inherent in the differences in treatment of asylum-seekers of other provenances, of which the latest refugee policy of the …

At its meeting at the end of March 2022, the European Council adopted a strategic compass for security and defence. Compared to the policy outlining the Union’s main strategic lines, meaning the European Security Policy from 2003, the strategic compass presents a real opportunity for concrete progress in security and defence. Based on an analysis of the dangers carried out …

Following the suspension of Russian gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has accused Moscow of blackmail. But she said the EU was prepared for this scenario and would “provide a collective response”. They are in close contact with all EU states and have been working to secure supplies from other countries, she said before …

Sweden and Finland have pursued a policy of neutrality since World War II, refusing to officially join either side in the Cold War, and pursuing foreign and security policies coherent with this posture. After the end of the Cold War, this strict neutrality was already broken, with both countries joining the EU in 1995 and signing various agreements with NATO …

The oil market currently is experiencing a crisis that is beginning to reach the levels of the 1973 oil crisis, with barrel prices circulating above the 100 US dollar margin. The COVID-19 pandemic in correlation with the Russian invasion on Ukraine have both taken its toll on the oil market and the supply thereof. The world is now facing a …

As David Axelrod once said, “the one corrective in a democracy is the vote”. The next time the American people will have a chance to correct their democracy is on November 8, 2022. All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats are up for election. Democrats have a very slim majority in both chambers – House[i] and the Senate[ii] – of the …

Over decades, Vladimir Putin has been holding tight – quasi strangling the presidency in Russia. It begs the question, what has this ‘president’ being doing for so long? The answer might sound simplistic but causing trouble would fit comfortably into a spontaneous answer. Where shall one begin, from backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian Civil War; Salisbury’s poisonings …

It’s nothing new that the African continent is more vulnerable to crises than other parts of the world (the Western world in particular). This is also true for the most talked-about problem of climate change, which challenges countries that have few means to respond either because of a lack of money or because of their unstable socio-political conditions. According to …