The year 2024 is a huge year for elections and seen as a global test for democracy. More than two billion people across 50 countries are expected to go the polls this year and it is not only November’s USA presidential election that counts. International observers, including the European Union, will be in Senegal for…
Russia will hold another presidential election in March 2024. Given the totalitarian reality of Russia, there is no doubt that Putin will be re-elected for another 6 years, and that this will herald a period of geopolitical turbulence for Europe. Holding such elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine is a challenge for the…
Photo by Håkon Grimstad on Unsplash Irene Shashar, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, has addressed MEPs in a plenary session in Brussels to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On a highly-charged occasion on Thursday she described how she survived the horrors of Nazism in Warsaw as a “Holocaust Hidden Child”. This involved fleeing through a sewer to…
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash The protests against alleged fascism in Germany are “continuing the trend of mobilisation against the far right seen earlier in Spain and Poland,” according to the co-chairs of the European Green Party. The comments comes with tens of thousands of people protesting after “Correctiv” is said to have revealed a “secret conspiracy…
Photo by Liza Pooor on Unsplash Statement by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the case of Alexei Navalny and other political prisoners. “Today marks three years since Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny returned to Russia. He was arbitrarily arrested, prosecuted and sentenced following his return from Germany, where he was receiving medical treatment…
The European Parliament has been awarded the Freedom Prize of the Republic of Lithuania. The parliament’s President, Roberta Metsola,has also been given the Grand Cross of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas. Last Friday, President of the Republic of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda made the award to Metsola “for her leadership and personal will…
Photo by ulziibayar badamdorj on Unsplash A senior MEP has warmly greeted the outcome of presidential elections in Taiwan. In the poll Taiwan voted for Lai Ching-te to be its next president, paving the way for a historic third term in power for the pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive party (DPP). The result is likely to anger Beijing and heighten…
The Russian Air Force has used North Korean ballistic missiles at least three times in massive strikes on Ukraine’s rear infrastructure. But against the backdrop of a full-scale war with Ukraine, Russia is intensifying its range of ties with North Korea, and this Moscow-Pyongyang dialogue is a direct threat to the West. Ukraine is only…
The transfer of long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine is key to the security of Eastern Europe. From the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has systematically terrorised the civilian population of Ukraine with missile and drone attacks, in breach of international law and conventions governing the conduct of war. Neither sanctions nor any other…
Photo by aboodi vesakaran on Unsplash On a continent hit by a spate of coups and hindered by leaders resistant to stepping down at the end of their constitutional terms, Senegal stands out as a democratic beacon. Among other democratic credentials, they have in President Macky Sall a leader who believes in transition and the country’s life after…
