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LONDON: Confusion is the order of the day among Europe’s core capitalist powers. We should not let it run rampant in the working-class movement. It has been an epoch-shifting fortnight, with the US blindsiding the rest of NATO with an about-turn on Ukraine.

NEW YORK: Two years and ten days after a mob of his partisans invaded and trashed Brazil’s houses of government, the law has come for Jair Messias Bolsonaro. The former far-right president of Brazil stands accused, in concert with thirty-three of his closest allies, of leading a criminal conspiracy to carry out the “violent abolition” of Brazil’s democratic order, as well as planning the assassination of President LuizInácio Lula da Silva and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. If convicted, the sixty-nine-year-old could face more than forty years in jail.

With just two days left for the national elections in Germany scheduled for next Sunday, February 23, all opinion polls suggest a near ten point lead by the conservative CDU/CSU combo as against the far right AFD which is threatening to take over power in European Union’s richest economy with the open backing of the U.S. President Donald Trump and his accomplice Elon Musk.

NEW YORK: Senator Bernie Sanders spoke in the U.S. Senate last week warning of the “authoritarianism” of “modern day kings,” namely President Trump and Elon Musk. He highlighted violations of the U.S. Constitution and abuse of American workers.

February 2025 is not just the moment of truth for the European nations and NATO members but also time for reckoning for the Global Left and the peace movement which are still sizing up the dimension of the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s emergence as a peacenik to end the three year old Ukraine war after imposing a ceasefire (though temporary) between Israel and Hamas just on the eve of his inauguration as President for the second term on January 20 this year.

NEW YORK: Gabriel Filippelli got the form letter from the U.S. State Department on a Monday morning two and a half weeks ago. Since October, Filippelli has been teaching students and faculty in Pakistan how to use air quality devices to monitor air pollution exacerbated by rising temperatures — a consequence of climate change. The letter from the State Department, which had awarded the $300,000 underpinning the collaboration, said the funding was suspended, effective immediately. The project, it said, “no longer effectuates the priorities of the agency.”

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has already achieved a very big objective of his diplomacy — isolating Europe from the United States. Now with the US President’s latest statement from his clubhouse, Donald Trump seems to have dumped the traditional diplomatic tie up between Western Europe and America.

For decades, U.S. alliances have been the backbone of global stability, fostering economic cooperation and collective security. NATO, economic partnerships with European and Asian allies, and engagement in international organizations have cemented America’s leadership in world affairs. However, under Trump’s second term Presidency, these traditional alliances came under significant strain. His "America First" approach represented a dramatic departure from the multilateralism that had defined U.S. foreign policy for decades, favouring a more unilateral and transactional approach.

DAMASCUS: As the smoke settles on the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and its replacement by Islamist leadership under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), it is clear that Turkey’s far-right governing bloc has emerged from the tumult strong and emboldened. What is less clear is whether this will mean that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will be able to project influence across the region without constraint.

LONDON: Donald Trump’s demand for a $500 billion “payback deal” forcing Ukraine to hand over control of its natural resources has been exposed by the Telegraph.