January, 2022

• 6 January

  Escalating to Deescalate? Why Turkey Is Targeting Syria’s Army

  

  For the first time in Syria’s nine-year war, the Turkish military this week launched direct attacks on the Syrian army. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that he ordered howitzers and F-16 fighter jets to hit President Bashar al-Assad’s forces near the Turkish border in response to the killing of …

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• 6 January

  Erdogan’s Africa Diplomacy Puts Turkey’s Ambitions to the Test

  

  Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan touched down in Luanda, Angola, for the first leg of a four-day, three-nation diplomatic tour of Africa. After meeting with Angolan President Joao Lourenco, the Turkish leader continued on to West Africa, where he met with his Togolese counterpart, Faure Gnassingbe, before concluding …

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• 6 January

  Turkey’s Former Economy Czar Looks to Unseat Erdogan and the AKP

  

  In a major political shake-up in Turkey, Ali Babacan, a former economy minister and once-close confidante of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently ended months of speculation and formally launched a new political party to challenge his old boss. Babacan, who resigned last July from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or …

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• 6 January

  Erdogan’s Weaponization of Religion Is Losing Its Edge

  

  For more than three months, Turkey has been rocked by rolling protests centered in Istanbul. Following President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s controversial appointment of businessman Melih Bulu as the new rector of Bogazici University in January, students and professors began holding rallies to denounce the pick. They see Bulu as an …

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• 6 January

  The Global North Is Closing Its Doors to Migration

  

  In July, British Home Secretary Priti Patel announced that the U.K. had agreed to pay France roughly $72 million to fund border personnel and equipment that would be used to stop asylum-seekers from crossing the English Channel. The deal came amid a dramatic rise in the number of channel crossings. …

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• 6 January

  NATO-Russia Talks Set On Moscow’s Ukraine Border Troop Buildup

  

  NATO said Tuesday that Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has scheduled a meeting next week between Western ambassadors and Russian officials to try to defuse tensions over Moscow’s troop buildup along Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia. The NATO-Russia Council meeting is set for January 12 in Brussels, two days after U.S. and …

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• 6 January

  Warfare Evolved: Drone Swarms – Analysis

  

  Unmanned systems with a variable degree of autonomy, generally known as ‘drones,’ have become commonplace in the world’s advanced militaries. In their various aerial, maritime, and ground forms, these vehicles are used to perform a wide spectrum of roles. Yet advances in new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, …

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• 6 January

  Streit gehört dazu

  

  EU-Befürworter:innen, die Atomkraft ablehnen, bringt die Idee einer klimafreundlichen Atomenergie in ein Dilemma. Der Kampf muss weitergehen. Es ist ein echter Schuss vor den Bug von Grünen. Ausgerechnet die hierzulande größten Fans des europäischen Projekts müssen nun wegstecken, dass ihre geliebte Europäische Union der Atomkraft ein formidables Greenwashing verpasst. Die …

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• 6 January

  BHL – Drapeau européen sous l’Arc de Triomphe : les deux étendards

  

  BLOC-NOTES. Le drapeau européen n’efface ni ne parjure rien, rappelle le philosophe à ceux qui s’indignaient de le voir flotter sous l’Arc de Triomphe. Que s’est-il passé, au juste ? La France se prépare, comme il advient tous les treize ans, à la présidence tournante du Conseil de l’Union européenne. …

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• 6 January

  Iran believes that maneuvering missiles, drones will evade air defense

  

  Iran’s interest is in learning from Chinese military technology. The Islamic Republic is seeking to improve its missile and drone capability to tap into the latest technology from Russia and China and learn how to get around the latest air-defense systems, according to Iranian military analysts who were cited in …

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