News

The Soviet Union has been history for 30 years. But thought patterns and political claims have remained - the Russia-Ukraine conflict shows this in the most glaring way. Exactly 30 years ago the Soviet Union disintegrated. The dissolution of the USSR was carried out almost silently in the last days of December 1991. After the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk, and the Belarusian parliamentary chairman Stanislav Shushkevich agreed on the end of the USSR on December 8, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991. Shortly afterwards, the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin and replaced by that of the Russian Federation. Russia thus became the international legal successor to the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union was officially history. Israel's Plans To Expand It is less this historical moment at the end of 1991 than its dramatic prehistory that determines the memory of this time: The reform process of perestr...

Prime Minister Naftali Benett wants to build new settlements on the rocky plateau. The Foreign Ministry in Damascus calls the project dangerous and unprecedented. Syria has criticized Israel's plans to expand settlements in the Golan Heights. Israel wants to cement its occupation of the area with this dangerous and unprecedented act, announced the Foreign Ministry in Damascus. Syria feels an obligation to its compatriots who live in the area and who have steadfastly resisted occupation and annexation. The Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced in a special meeting of the government on Monday that the number of settlers on the Golan Heights would be doubled and about one billion shekels (about 280 million euros) would be invested in the development of the area. Two new quarters are planned in the city of Katzrin. In addition, two new settlements were to be built on the Golan Heights, Assif and Matar. Bennett said the region is set to become Israel's renewable energy te...

In competition with the US, China continues to expand its military. It already has the largest navy in the world. The goal: to become a superpower by 2049 at the latest. The enemy is in China's desert: two US warships can be seen there; instead of water, they have sand under their bugs. In the northwest of the People's Republic, in the Xinjiang region, the People's Liberation Army has had models of US warships installed. The dummies are probably used by the military for attack training and location exercises. In November, experts in the United States used satellite images to identify the outlines of an aircraft carrier and at least one destroyer , which can probably be moved on tracks. A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said they had no information on the pictures. Which doesn't even amount to a denial. It is well known that American aircraft carriers near their own coastal waters worry the government in Beijing, as is that countermeasures have long been devel...

Israel’s new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is ruling his country unusually calmly and efficiently. What does this mean for the country that has been plagued by the permanent political crisis? If you ask Israeli journalists about the biggest change Israel's Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has faced with his country, it is often said that politics has become boring since he took office six months ago.   Hardly anyone complains about that here, on the contrary. The fact that Israel, which is characterized by crises and wars, is suddenly being ruled with little noise under Bennett, makes many a sigh of relief. How different the political atmosphere has become in Israel can only be understood if one looks at the late term of office of his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu. A year agoand after just a few months, the center-right coalition between Netanyahu and his one-time challenger Benny Gantz broke up. Netanyahu and his Likud party prevented the state budget from being passed and provoke...

In the east of the country, the military is said to have killed and burned members of the Karenni minority. Two Save the Children employees have been missing since then. The remains of more than 30 people have been found in eastern Myanmar , according to reports from human rights groups. The people, including the elderly, women and children, are said to have been killed and then burned. According to the human rights group Karenni Human Rights, the victims are civilians who tried to flee their villages in Kayah state because of fighting. The Karenni are an ethnic group in the multi-ethnic state of Myanmar. The NGO said it found the bodies near the village of Mo So in the Hpruso municipality. A representative of the People's Defense Forces rebel group (PDF), which is fighting the military junta, also said that their fighters had found the vehicles with the bodies in the municipality of Hpruso in the eastern state of Kayah.   Taliban Dissolve Electoral Commission & Turk...

In addition to the IEC Independent Electoral Commission, the Electoral Complaints Committee was also dissolved. There is no need for these bodies, it said. A good four months after taking power in Afghanistan, the radical Islamist Taliban dissolved the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and the Commission on Election Complaints. There is no need for these bodies, said Taliban government spokesman Bilal Karimi. He has also said that the Ministries for Peace and Parliamentary Affairs have recently been abolished. The election commission, established in 2006, had the task of organizing and monitoring presidential and other elections in Afghanistan. Former Afghan government representative Halim Fidai condemned the dissolution of the commission. The decision shows that the Taliban "do not believe in democracy". He accused the radical Islamists of securing their power "through bullets and not through elections". Mikhail Gorbachev Accuses The USA.... The Taliban had re...