Statement by MEPs on China

The following statement was issued today by leading MEPs following the decision by Chinese authorities to sanction the Subcommittee on Human Rights and other European entities and officials. “We take note of the decision by the Chinese authorities to impose sanctions in retaliation to the Council’s decision of 22 March to impose sanctions on four Chinese officials…

Interview with Ambassador of Uzbekistan

Interview with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the Benelux Countries, Dilyor Khakimov,  on the development of the relations between Europe and Uzbekistan in the course of deepening reforms in Uzbekistan. Q: It has been 3.5 years since you started your career as Ambassador to the Benelux countries. How have…

Bleak Foreign Policy Outlook for Russia

Externally, the arrest of Ukrainian journalist Vladislav Esipenko in Crimea is not connected with the sensational statement of US President Joe Biden about Russian President Vladimir Putin. The events are separated by some time interval. But, there is actually a connection, as there is with the date of the seventh anniversary of the commemoration of…

How China Has Crushed Hong Kong’s Democracy

And the worst part is, it’s not even done yet.  On March 11, an annual confab of functionaries rubber-stamped a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) plan to gut most of what is left of Hong Kong’s democratic processes, write Aaron Rhodes and Jianli Yang. At the “Two Sessions” meeting, or Lianghui, over 5,000 members of the CCP elite —…

Chinese Communist Party Sues Dr Zenz

The Chinese Communist Party recently announced it is suing renowned China scholar, Dr. Adrian Zenz, Senior Fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, in its latest attempt to cover up its crimes against Uyghur Muslims and other religious minorities in Xinjiang. The lawsuit, filed by Beijing-controlled courts, follows the extensive research published…

World’s Largest Military

China has world's largest navy

China has been revealed as the strongest military in the world, scoring 82/100 points in a new study from Military Direct. Russia are 2nd with 69 and UK is 9th with 43 – higher than Germany (39) but below France (58) USA scores highly for its budget of $723bn In a conflict China would win by…

Russian Authorities Arrest Demonstrators

The police detained all 193 participants of the first Municipal Russia Forum in Moscow. The Forum was organized by United Democrats, a project that supports competitive elections in Russia at the municipal level. The organizers aimed to create a platform where incumbent municipal deputies from over 50 Russian regions could exchange experiences in order to improve lives of citizens. Despite the ongoing…

NATO Defence Expenditure Published

NATO collects defence expenditure data from Allies on a regular basis and presents aggregates and subsets of this information. Each Ally’s Ministry of Defence reports current and estimated future defence expenditure according to an agreed definition of defence expenditure. The amounts represent payments by a national government actually made, or to be made, during the…

Cargo Up, Passengers Down

Brussels Airport welcomed 165,000 passengers in February, a decrease of 90% Cargo volumes record a 21% growth 165,456 passengers passed through Brussels Airport in February, which corresponds to a mere 10% of the number of passengers in February 2020. The ban on non-essential travel which applies since the end of January has had a severe…

Rule of Law

Renew Europe has reconfirmed its commitment to do ‘whatever it takes’ to ensure that the European Parliament and the European Commission defend the Rule of Law conditionality regulation and ensure its long overdue application. At the initiative of Renew Europe, a resolution on the application of the Rule of Law conditionality mechanism has been tabled…