While Sun Tzu was storming Wall Street [1], on a very special Thursday for the stock market, the United States and Russia were negotiating constructively in Istanbul [2], and the next day, Steve Witkoff (SW), Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East and Russia, held a successful four and a half hour meeting with President Putin and…
Voltaire Network | 18 April 2025 Our director of publication and editor-in-chief directed French magazines several years ago, and has won journalism awards abroad. He has regularly contributed to some fifteen major dailies and magazines around the world. Voltaire, International Newsletter is available by subscription for €500 a year, is published 42 times a year…
Soon after arriving in Oslo, my taxi zigzagged through the city’s well-organized streets and state-of-the-art infrastructure. Large billboards advertised the world’s leading brands in fashion, cars, and perfumes. Yet, amid all the expressions of wealth and plenty, an electronic sign by a bus stop flashed the images of poor-looking African children needing help. Over the…
At a recent Istanbul conference that brought many Palestinian scholars and activists together to discuss the search for a common narrative on Palestine, a Palestinian member of the audience declared at the end of a brief, but fiery intervention, ‘we are not red Indians’. The reference was a relatively old one. It was attributed to…
The moment that Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was ousted by his own former military colleague, Captain Ibrahim Traore, pro-coup crowds filled the streets. Some burned French flags, others carried Russian flags. This scene alone represents the current tussle underway throughout the African continent. A few years ago, the discussion regarding the geopolitical shifts in Africa…
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY (Scheerpost) — The fawning adulation of Queen Elizabeth in the United States, which fought a revolution to get rid of the monarchy, and in Great Britain, is in direct proportion to the fear gripping a discredited, incompetent and corrupt global ruling elite. The global oligarchs are not sure the next generation of…
Anyone in the UK who imagined they lived in a representative democracy – one in which leaders are elected and accountable to the people – will be in for a rude awakening over the next days and weeks. TV schedules have been swept aside. Presenters must wear black and talk in hushed tones. Front pages…
The ‘West’ is not just a term, but also a concept that acquires new meanings with time. To its advocates, it can be analogous to civilization and benevolent power; to its detractors, mostly in the ‘East’ and ‘South’, it is associated with colonialism, unhinged violence, and underserved wealth. The current, seismic shifts in world affairs,…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent tour in Africa was meant to be a game changer, not only in terms of Russia’s relations with the continent, but in the global power struggle involving the US, Europe, China, India, Turkey and others. Many media reports and analyses placed Lavrov’s visit to Egypt, the Republic of Congo,…
The visit by newly-elected Tunisian President Kais Saied to France on June 22 was intended to discuss bilateral relations, trade, etc. But it was also a missed opportunity, where Tunisia could have formally demanded an apology from France for the decades of French colonialism, which has shattered the social and political fabric of this North African…
The slow, agonizing death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the torturous murder of Iyad Halak in Jerusalem have a great deal in common. Testimony I heard from a member of Iyad’s family who wished not to be identified is chilling. That testimony doesn’t make up for the video footage that Israeli police refuse to release…
In the past, whenever I went to (or more precisely, ‘through’) Israel, it was for some antagonistic purpose: to write about the brutal suppression of the intifada in Gaza or Hebron, to comment on the insanity of the land grab around Bethlehem, or to report from the eerie and de-populated Golan Heights, which Israel occupies…
For a decade we have been revealing the incongruity of the French desire to re-establish its authority over its old colonies. This was the logic behind the nomination by President Nicolas Sarkozy of Bernard Kouchner as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Kouchner replaced the French Revolutionary idea of “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and…
MALTA — (Report) The standoff in June between Malta and Italy over the fate of over 600 migrants on board the Aquarius — a rescue boat operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) — made headline news for the wrong reasons. As both countries prioritized populist rhetoric, with Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and Maltese Prime…
While Sun Tzu was storming Wall Street [1], on a very special Thursday for the stock market, the United States and Russia were negotiating constructively in Istanbul [2], and the next day, Steve Witkoff (SW), Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East and Russia, held a successful four and a half hour meeting with President Putin and…
Voltaire Network | 18 April 2025 Our director of publication and editor-in-chief directed French magazines several years ago, and has won journalism awards abroad. He has regularly contributed to some fifteen major dailies and magazines around the world. Voltaire, International Newsletter is available by subscription for €500 a year, is published 42 times a year…
In the space of a week, a cascade of petitions from the military has suddenly demonstrated the realization by Israeli society that the Netanyahu government’s strategy in Gaza would neither bring back the hostages nor defeat Hamas. The Israelis are beginning to become aware of the horrors experienced by the Palestinians, but they are currently…
Workers World Party salutes the 50th anniversary of the stunning victory of the long struggle in Vietnam for national liberation and an end to imperialist occupation. On April 30, 1975, the last U.S. collaborators, contractors and advisers fled Saigon, literally hanging onto the skids of U.S. evacuation helicopters as the victorious National Liberation Front forces…