Nothing better illustrates the utter ineptitude of the Biden administration’s dealings with the Middle East than Saudi Arabia’s decision to forge a strategic alliance with China. Biden set the tone for his strained relationship with the Saudi royal family during the 2020 presidential election contest when he denounced the kingdom …

On November 1, the deputy director of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation downplayed remarks made on October 30 by an agency official, who warned of Western weapons bound for Ukraine being smuggled into Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Nonetheless, the affair generated significant attention and reflected previous concerns expressed by European authorities over …

The Islamic State continues to carry out attacks in northern Iraq, creating serious security challenges for the country. At least nine members of the Iraqi security forces were killed and three others were wounded on Sunday in a bomb attack targeting their convoy in the Kirkuk governorate of northern Iraq. …

Les suspects rassemblaient des informations sur des Palestiniens. Les services turcs des renseignements ont démantelé dans la mi-décembre 2022 un réseau de 44 espions qui activent pour le Mossad israélien, a informé l’agence médiatique turque. Les suspects devaient récolter semble-t-il des informations sur des Palestiniens présents sur le territoire turc. …

This week, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) marked the 27th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA), which ended the three-and-a-half-year (1992-1995). Since then, BiH, a war-ravaged country, has struggled with overcoming the past and moving forward toward genuine cooperation and reconciliation, which requires recognizing the past, finding …

Iraqi officials are blaming the Islamic State (IS) terror group for an attack Sunday that killed at least nine police officers in the northern province of Kirkuk. A bomb struck a police vehicle on patrol in the southern part of Kirkuk, Iraqi state media reported. The explosion was quickly followed …

Colossal structural shifts are taking place in the global economy, as evidenced by the huge challenges during the ongoing year. In 2023, China seeks recovery, but the West – the US, the Eurozone and the UK, and Japan – will cope with recession and the specter of a debt crisis. …

Anatoly Nesmiyan, who blogs under the screen name “El Murid,” says that Putin is putting in place “a mechanism for conducting permanent war since his regime cannot exist in a peaceful form” and must find enemies in order to justify the kind of rule the Kremlin leader prefers in Russia. …

Switzerland has been hosting discreet meetings between officials of Kosovo and Serbia in an effort to defuse tensions in the Balkan region. A stand-off has developed in northern Kosovo with its Serbian neighbours as an incident over car number plates has escalated. Members of the local Kosovar police force resigned …

Since the early 1990s, Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries in the South Caucasus, have been in conflict. Sometimes this conflict has been “frozen,” while at others it has been “hot” — for example, during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 when 44 days of intense fighting left thousands dead on …