March
19, 2015
Imperative
of an EU-Russia strategic reset
Eirini Patsea
Russia vs. the European Union. It is relationship
based and built upon a long history of protracted political
conflict. Lately, with the crisis in Ukraine and the subsequent
sanctions imposed to Russia, the diplomatic relations between the
two sides have reached a new historical low. But more importantly,
the mistrust among the peoples residing in both sides has reached a
new high. Unavoidably so. Since the Western and Russian media
started to be viciously launching campaign-like news reports, there
is nothing but confusion and loss of perspective by both the peoples
and their representatives. The big question is whether this would be
the case if the US politics were not involved in the game. Would
still Russia and the EU have so many excuses to be driven apart;
politically, culturally and ideologically?
After the warmhearted welcome by Peter Haider, UPF
Austria President, Prof. Bajrektarevic made more than a challenging
opening:
“The lonely superpower (US) vs. the bear of
the permafrost (Russia), with the world’s last cosmopolite
(EU) in between. Is the ongoing calamity at the eastern flank of
the EU a conflict, recalibration, imperialism in hurry,
exaggerated anti-Russian xenophobia or last gasp of
confrontational nostalgia?
Eirini Patsea is a
Guest Editor in ModernDiplomacy, and specialist in Cultural
Diplomacy and Faith-based Mediation.
First published by
www.moderndiplomacy.eu
Read more on the next page:
March 3, 2015
All European shades
of ISIL colour black: Neonazism of Europe and Fascism in the Arab
World
By Allan Bogle
How did Europe manage to drag Arabs to the wrong side
of history – a confusion, pride, shame and denial – all which
resurfaces again, 75 years after. How is this possible that the
‘never-again’ takes place today? Do we fake our surprise? How
expensive is our European denial, and Monarchist Arabs claim of
innocence?
Read more on the next page:
March 4, 2015
Greed is good…but
only for cancer
Amna Whiston
Amna Whiston is a London-based writer specialising in moral
philosophy. As a PhD candidate at Reading University, UK, her main
research interests are in ethics, rationality, and moral psychology.
Don’t be bad with 1%, don’t accuse them for having it all
and doing nothing to earn it. 99% firmly believes that a greed is
good… Spoiling mood, but being good for your food, as it should?
**
** ** **
Amidst the many maladies of today’s global
society, a tide of optimism brought by the latest cancer research
news reflects a defiant response to one of the biggest challenges
facing humanity. But although massive investments that involve
venture capital companies and funds may be necessary for the pursuit
of current and future large-scale scientific projects and ambitions,
it is still sensible to ask the following questions: To what extent
should capitalism be credited for rapid progress in cancer research
and treatment? Moreover, can the profit motive, being an essential
feature of capitalism, justify future investments in bioscience and
related fields?
Read more on the next page:
14.02.2015
70 years after
Auschwitz – deliberate attempts to rewrite history
MD Editorial Board
The
last week’s Auschwitz ceremony marking 70 years since the notorious
death camp’s liberation had a huge turnout. Three hundred survivors
of the camp attended. Given the age of Holocaust survivors, the
importance of passing their story on to new generations has never
been greater. Comparing politicians to Hitler or countries to nazi
Germany has become a commonplace insult. But the unspeakable horrors
unleashed by history’s most vicious regime bear no comparison.
The Holocaust marked a systematic effort to exterminate entire
ethnic groups — most prominently the Jews but also the Roma and
Sinti — alongside the slaughter of homosexuals and the disabled.
Millions of prisoners of war from the Soviet Union, Polish civilians
and political and religious opponents of the nazis including
communists, trade unionists, Freemasons and Jehovah’s Witnesses were
also exterminated.
The world anti-fascist war which defeated the nazis resulted in
efforts to ensure such atrocities would never happen again. But the
collapse of the Soviet Union — which played by far the greatest part
in defeating the fascist menace, as well as being the liberator of
Auschwitz — has seen a deliberate attempt to rewrite history.
The European Parliament sponsors a Day of Remembrance for Victims of
Stalinism and Nazism, a pernicious attempt to equate communism with
fascism. As Russian communist Il Melnikov said yesterday, virulently
anti-Russian regimes in the Baltic states openly celebrate Waffen SS
veterans.
Read more on the next page:
11.02.2015
Géométrie variable
of a love triangle – India, Russia and the US
Written by the MD’s Board Member Rakesh Krishnan Simha
The Modi-Obama romance
won’t last as India’s relationship with the US does not have the
kind of strategic dimension and weight that marks New Delhi’s ties
with Moscow.
**** *****
******
Russia
is a country with which India has had a strategic relationship for
decades. America is a place where Indians migrate to for a better
lifestyle. That is how Indians view the world’s two leading powers.
It’s as simple as that. US President Barrack Obama’s recent visit to
India will not change that reality, and those speculating about
dramatic changes in India's foreign policy are either fools or
amateurs – or both.
“Good relations with the US reflect aspiration, ties with Russia are
hard reality,” says Bharat Karnad, professor of national security
studies at the Centre for Policy Research. “No substantive shift in
policy is on the anvil, certainly nothing at the expense of India's
relations with Moscow, especially because, unlike the US, Russia has
partnered, and continues to partner, India in strategically
sensitive technology projects ranging from missiles, ship
submersibles, ballistic, nuclear submarines to the Fifth Generation
Fighter Aircraft,” he told Defense News.
Over the decades a clutch of US presidents has visited India.
Likewise, Indian prime ministers have been to America. But the
dynamics of the India-US relationship hasn’t changed much. And why
would it? The US is the leader of the western world whose prosperity
largely rests on the domination of the rest of the world. India, on
the other hand, is a member of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India,
China and South Africa) grouping that aims to end the American-led
bloc’s dominance.
Modi’s operandi
Read more on the next page:
11.02.2015
Europe of the human
face… with a little help from Greece
by Dimitra Karantzeni
Days
after the last parliamentary elections, something is eventually
moving in Greece. People are hesitant and restrained, do not want to
get too excited. However, one can see that a humble smile, between
hope and faith, is on faces of Greeks. For the first time in the
post-dictatorship period, a leftist government took over the
leadership of the country, insisting on its pre-election commitments
to overthrow the corrupt political system and reverse the economic
disaster.
During the pre-election campaign, voters were bombarded with
terrifying messages concerning the day after Syriza’s victory,
describing more or less a socio-economic chaos, with banks with no
liquidity, a paralyzed public sector and markets out of stock.
However, the overall propaganda of terror and intimidation of
citizens by the predominant political Parties not only failed to
limit the social impact of SYRIZA’s actions, but it also seems that
the will of determination of the new government somehow managed to
positively affect the rest of Europe.
The negotiation process is still ongoing but what Syriza has
achieved so far is that its well prepared anti-austerity plan today
gives the impression not of just a grand-standing utopic program but
of a specific project built on realistic bases.
What is of high importance though is that this political change in
Greece has stimulated a great wave of active support from various
European leftist political parties, helping Syriza to immediately
avoid the risk of diplomatic isolation. Furthermore, for different
reasons of geopolitical importance both the US and Russia have a
very positive attitude towards the new Greek government,
strengthening its negotiating power against EU lenders. On the one
hand, a closer cooperation between the two orthodox countries would
benefit the development of Greek energy sector, even set Greece as a
major strategic player in the international negotiations field about
energy and at the same time provide Putin with a valuable European
ally. Besides, Greek refusal to approve an EU statement aiming to
expand sanctions against Moscow is a first good step in that
direction. On the other hand, Washington couldn’t but respond to
this diplomatic game by supporting the end of austerity, recalling
US bad fiscal experiences and expressing its concerns about EU,
which is currently lacking a tangible plan for growth in Europe.
Read more on the next page:
11.02.2015
The International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies
(IFIMES) in Ljubljana, Slovenia, regularly analyses events in the
Middle East and the Balkans. IFIMES has analysed the current
situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina in view of the delayed process
of setting up the government following the general election that
took place on 12 October 2014. The most interesting sections from
the analysis entitled “Bosnia and Herzegovina: German-British
initiative overshadowed by party political games” are published
below.
Bosnia and
Herzegovina:
German-British initiative overshadowed by
party political games
JOINT ACTION BY SNSD AND SBB
A delay in setting up the government in Bosnia and Herzegovina
following the general election that took place on 12 October 2014 is
mostly the result of obstructions caused by Milorad Dodik's Alliance
of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) from Republika Srpska (RS)
and Fahrudin Radončić's Union for a Better Future (SBB) and the
Social Democratic Party (SDP) from the Federation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina (FBiH). While SNSD is aguishly trying to enter the
government at the state level, SBB – being excluded from the
post-election coalition forming – is concocting plans to get hold of
power, even using its Avaz daily newspaper to create a negative
political atmosphere in Bosnia and Herzegovina, inciting riot among
the citizens and preparing last year's February protests scenario.
Clearly SNSD and SBB are making a joint action - their delegates
carried out a joint attempt to overthrow the President of the House
of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and
Herzegovina Šefik Džaferović (SDA). Moreover, analysts have related
the activities of the outgoing Vice President of the Federation of
Bosnia and Herzegovina Mirsad Kebe with attempted obstructions aimed
at slowing down or preventing the formation of government by SDA-HDZ-DF-Alliance for Changes, thus promoting the formation of
another parliamentary coalition composed of SNSD, SBB and even SDP.
Read more on the next page:
January 31, 2015
On history and humility: What students need to know ?
Rattana Lao
Rattana
Lao holds a doctorate in Comparative and International Education
from Teachers College, Columbia University and is currently teaching
in Bangkok.
BANGKOK – Not so long ago, some Thai university students used
Hitler image as the poster child for superhero and just recently,
the Thai state used Nazi symbol in their propaganda for education.
This short documentary intends to promote the 12 values of
education. These values include respect seniority, desire for
knowledge and understand democracy.
Democracy and Hitler?
To make things worse, the director of the film gave public interview
seeing nothing wrong with it.
Kulp Kaljaruek, the director, said to Khaosod, one of the Thai
newspapers that “ I didn't think it would be an issue. As for
Hitler's portrait, I have seen so many people using it on T-Shirts
everywhere. It's even considered a fashion. It doesn't mean I agree
with it, but I didn't expect it to be an issue at all."
Seriously?
The Ambassador of Israel to Thailand, His Excellency Simon Roded,
issued a public statement on the 10th
of December 2014. It read:
“I was surprised that throughout the screening
process this movie must have gone through to be approved for public
broadcast, none of the smart, well educated people checking it had
identified it as being problematic and offensive.”
In an interview with Thailand's renown historian, professor Thanet
Aphornsuwan, the problem that has happened reflects an endemic
problem in Thailand.
Read more on the next page:
January 24, 2015.
GLOBAL MARKETS OF MISERY
Marján Attila[1]
– Szuhai Ilona[2]
Is our
The global humanitarian system in
transition? If so, what are the key issues b – Before the 2016 World
Humanitarian Summit
"Today's needs are at unprecedented levels and without more support there simply
is no way to respond to the humanitarian situations we're seeing in region after
region and in conflict after conflict."
António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Abstract
The international community is preparing for the World
Humanitarian Summit. The United Nations will host the event in Istanbul, in
2016. Before the meeting, regional consultations are held in several parts of
the world. Expectations are high since the historical moment of changing the
twenty-five-year-old humanitarian system is approaching. Growing conflicts
demand growing funds for humanitarian action. The change in the trends of
conflicts demands more effective humanitarian solutions. 2014 was a dramatic
year in the number of people affected by conflict and of being forced to flee.
Unprecedentedly, more than 100 million people became dependent on humanitarian
aid for their survival. This rise is reflected in the inter-agency strategic
response and regional response plans as global financial requirements to cover
humanitarian needs rose to the highest amount ever requested in a single year.
The study forecasts how the EU can continue the donor activities in the future.
Read more on the next page:
January 24, 2015.
Human rights violations inside EU
What is the Ostrich Protocol?
H.E. Dr. Walter Schwimmer
How the EU member states play ostrich when it comes to
human rights violations inside EU?
H.E. Dr. Walter Schwimmer -
Vice Chair of the Modern
Diplomacy Advisory Board, Former Secretary General of the Council of
Europe -
Chairman of the International Coordinating Committee of the World
Public Forum – Dialogue of Civilizations
The
Treaty on the European Union, in its current format also known as
the Lisbon Treaty, as well as the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
claim to establish an area of freedom, security and justice, founded
on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy,
equality, the rule of law and the respect for human rights[1].
That sounds perfect. After centuries of inhuman treatment of people
very often by their own governments, culminating in the tyrannies of
communism and Nazism in the 20th century, EU citizens should be able
to feel safe from brutal attacks and illegal operations of a violent
state, if not ....If they are not refugees from another EU member
state and they do not try to look for protection because they were
subject in their own state to political persecution, inhuman
treatment or even torture.
The Geneva Convention about status of and asylum for
refugees, persons subject to political persecution, is one of the
great international achievements in the field of human rights. The
European Union as a successful project of peace, freedom and justice
promises in Art.18 of its Charter that "the right to asylum shall be
guaranteed with due respect for the rules of the Geneva Convention..[2]"
But why is this guarantee denied when the asylum seeker comes from
an EU country?
Read more on the next page:
January 19, 2015
FUTURE OF DAVOS IS IN
KYRGYZSTAN
Francesco Brunello
Zanitti
Francesco Brunello Zanitti,
Southern Asia Research Program’s Director, and one of the Scientific
Directors of the Italian Institute for Advanced Studies in
Geopolitics and Auxiliary Sciences (Istituto di Alti Studi in
Geopolitica e Scienze Ausiliarie – IsAG, Rome). Member of Editorial
Committee of “Geopolitica” (IsAG’s journal) Rome.
Is the new Russian
approach towards China and India, vector for a multipolar world
order? Will the new Davos – gathering between vanity fair and summit
of the mightiest – in future take place in Kyrgyzstan – Central
Asian country surrounded by the most prosperous and promising
powers?
The last months of 2014
were marked by a series of significant bilateral agreements and
summits involving Russia, India and China. According to many
international analysts, the research of better relations with the
two Asian giants by Moscow represents another further step towards
global transformation from an unipolar order ruled by United States
to a multipolar one.
A key point in order to
analyze the fundamental reasons of Moscow’s approach towards China
and India is connected to difficulties emerged in the last year with
European Union and United States. Complications in Russia-West
relations are clearly exemplified by the Ukrainian imbroglio.
However, it’s also
necessary to dwell on long-term strategic interests of the countries
involved. Despite the current shaky situation of Eastern Europe and
Middle East, generally speaking Beijing and New Delhi look at Russia
as a reliable partner with whom it’s fundamental continue to
dialogue, cooperate and trade. China-Russia dialogue is growing from
mid-nineties, while Indian strategic relationship with Moscow is
heir of the one established during Cold War with Soviet Union.
Moreover, it should not to be underestimate the fact that Russia,
India and China are already actively cooperating in other
multilateral organizations, such as BRICS forum (Brazil, Russia,
India, China, South Africa), and have the opportunity to develop new
platforms for political, economic and military cooperation, for
example within the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
(SCO). The strategic triangle Russia-India-China (RIC), taken into
account difficulties of relations especially considering
Indo-Chinese bond characterized at the same time by cooperation and
competition, could therefore be an interesting model of dialogue in
the new multipolar world order.
Read more on the next page:
January 14, 2015
The Paris Killings: Who
Are the Real Heroes of Press Freedom?
By
Jamil Maidan Flores
 |
By
Jamil Maidan Flores |
Placards are seen placed amongst other tributes to the satirical
magazine Charlie Hebdo on the statues at the Place de la Republique
in Paris on Saturday. (Reuters Photo/Youssef Boudlal)
In the wake of the terrorist assault last week on the
offices of the French magazine “Charlie Hebdo,” in which 12 persons
were killed, many people all over the world were moved to say, in an
outpouring of anger at the perpetrators and sympathy for the
victims, “I am Charlie.”
Apart from two police officers, who were slain as
they responded to the attack, the victims were cartoonists and
editors marked for death by Muslim extremists because of their
slanderous depiction of the Prophet of Islam in past issues of the
magazine.
Read more on the next page:
January 12, 2015
Denazification – urgently
needed in Europe
Anis H. Bajrektarevic,
There
is a claim constantly circulating the EU: ‘multiculturalism is
dead in Europe’. Dead or maybe d(r)ead?... That much comes from
a cluster of European nation-states that love to romanticize their
appearance thought the solid Union, as if they themselves lived a
long, cordial and credible history of multiculturalism. Hence, this
claim is of course false. It is also cynical because it is purposely
misleading. No wonder, as the conglomerate of nation-states/EU has
silently handed over one of its most important debates – that of
European anti-fascistic identity, or otherness – to the
wing-parties, repeatedly followed by the selective and
contra-productive foreign policy actions.
The Paris shooting, terrible beyond comprehension,
will reload and overheat those debates. However, these debates are
ill conceived, resting from the start on completely wrong and
misleading premises. Assassins in the Parisian Satirical Magazine
are Islamofascists. The fact that these individuals are
allegedly of the Arab-Muslim origins does not make them less
fascists, less European, nor does it abolish Europe from the main
responsibility in this case.
Fascism and its evil twin, Nazism are 100% European
ideologies. Neo-Nazism also originates from and lately unchecked
blossoms, primarily in Europe. (Some would say, über-economy
in the center of continent, surrounded from all sides by the
recuperating neo-fascism.) The Old continent tried to amortize its
deepening economic and demographic contraction by a constant
interference on its peripheries, especially meddling on the Balkans,
Black Sea/Caucasus and MENA (Middle East–North Africa). What is now
an epilogue? A severe democratic recession. Whom to blame for
this structural, lasting civilizational retreat that Europe suffers?
Is it accurate or only convenient to blame a bench of useful idiots
for returning home with the combating behavior?
Read more on the next page:
http://moderndiplomacy.eu/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=481:den&Itemid=569
January 8, 2015
Paris Massacre and Islamic Terror
World Security Network reporting from Paris in France, January 7, 2015
Dear Friends of the World
Security Network,
What should we do, after three heavily armed and
professional gunmen killed twelve and wounded seven in the office of the French
satire magazine Chalie Hebdo today as „revenge for the Prophet“?
I.
The silent majority of 1.6 billion Muslims must stand up against the tiny, but
active and dangerous minority of the radicals of maybe five percent openly and
defend the true, peaceful Islam, their Prophet and the Holy Qur’an.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi did so on New Year’s Day at the
famous Al Azhar University in Cairo, demanding „a religious revolution in
Islam“. „It is inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should
cause the entire Islamic World (umma) to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing
and destruction for the rest oft he world. Impossible!“
Without fear Jordans beautiful and wise Queen
Rania told the Abu Dhabi Media Summit 2014, November 18th:
Read more on the next page:
Dr Hubertus Hoffmann
President and Founder
World Security Netw
January 7, 2015
![Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Assos. Prof.[1] Nguyen Linh[2]](images/Prof_Dr._Nguyen_Anh_Tuan_140.jpg)
