«Today, the government takes the decision to recognise the state of Palestine», this is the announcement made by Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallstrom. Swedish government has been considering this move since early October and today (October 30, 2014) the decision is official.
“There can be no reasoning, no negotiation, with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force”[1]. With these words US President Barack Obama addressed the 69th UN General Assembly while talking about Islamic State issue adding that “the United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death”[2].
Scottish independence referendum produced its verdict: people chose to keep the “status quo”. In fact, 55,30% of Scottish voters (about 2 million votes) answered “no” to the question “do you want to obtain independence?” . This result would mean a missed chance to someone and the triumph of tradition to someone else. It’s pretty obvious though that many were relieved in the City: to understand why, it would be enough to think about how many problems would have arisen over Her Majesty army bases management if Scotland had voted in favour of independence.
The Isis has a very diverse staff consists of former military personnel and specialists coming from extreme Islamist Middle East Asia and Europe, as well as their acceded to the Caliphate, even non-experts who recruited through the known channels, pseudo-religious, after a brief training (three to six months depending on your needs) are placed in the ranks of the rebels; make an exact estimate of the number of members is currently impossible, however, we can assume a number that fluctuates between 28,000 and 40,000 men.
After meeting this morning between the prime minister Renzi and the leaders Iraqis and Kurds, sending weapons to the Italian Kurdish guerrillas is a done deal and the vote of the Italian Parliament on the issue is only an exercise in rhetoric. Moreover, the time to think on the subject is no longer there if you want to stop the advance of ISIS. The bulk of the weapons that Italy is going to send is part of a seizure occurred during the Balkan war of a substantial quantity of AK 47 guns and also laser pointers, body armor and communications systems.
Europe belatedly stands ready to provide the peshmerga arms to oppose the advance of the jihadists ISIS. Today Italy has officially moved and as pacifists unstuck from reality criticize the Italian action at least we went out hypocrisy.
Ukraine has fallen into chaos. This seems to be the harsh reality after last two-day events. The umpteenth separatist action took place on Tuesday and it consisted in the occupation of prosecutor's office in Donetsk. Kiev made her move on Friday and launched a large-scale operation aiming to reconquer Slavyansk, a town belonging to Donetsk Oblast that has been under separatists control since early April and where OSCE observers were thought to be kept as hostages[1]. While the army was surrounding the city and trying to reach its centre (operation that has been impeded by civilians, which are openly supporting separatist forces), new clashes between pro-Russia and pro-Kiev supporters burst in Odessa: 42 people were killed and other 125 were injured[2].
What happened to the European willingness to intervene in Central African Republic to solve the humanitarian crisis? Hard to say, but it seems that things are not going as they were intended to. On the 10th of February the European Union Council authorised the peacekeeping military mission EUFOR RCA[1] but nothing concrete has been achieved yet.
Russia's role in international affairs has declined, at least temporarily, Moscow was de facto excluded from the Group of 8 industrialized powers .
The attempt by President Vladimir Putin of using the BRICS emerging powers in order to mitigate the isolation imposed by the West failed because of disputes with China and India about Tibet and Kashmir.
The European Union is ready to deploy a military mission (EUFOR RCA Bangui) in Central African Republic (CAR). The European Council unanimously reached the decision on the 20 of January and the United Nation gave their approval eight days later.
