The once-vaunted unity of the V4 has been shattered by the war in Ukraine and Poland and Hungary’s diametrically opposed views on it. 2023 holds out little hope of a rapprochement. Central Europe’s regional grouping of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia was formed originally to coordinate positions before EU accession, …

The war in Ukraine has stoked inflation and increased the number of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion throughout Europe. With food and energy prices remaining high in 2023, experts expect more people to fall below the poverty line. At the end of 2021, 95.4 million people in …

While the world has been distracted, even amused, by the diplomatic tussle around China’s recent high-altitude balloon flights across North America, there are signs that Beijing and Washington are preparing for something so much more serious: armed conflict over Taiwan. Reviewing recent developments in the Asia-Pacific region raises a tried-and-true …

There’s something irrational about President Biden’s knee-jerk dismissal of China’s 12-point peace proposal titled “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.” “Not rational” is how Biden described the plan that calls for de-escalation toward a ceasefire, respect for national sovereignty, establishment of humanitarian corridors and resumption of …

The catastrophic earthquake that hit Turkey earlier this month has put mounting pressure on embattled Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of key presidential and parliamentary elections due to be held on May 14. It has also served to spotlight Erdogan’s problematically close ties with Moscow. As Erdogan is one …

The lists of Russia’s war dead may be hundreds and thousands of names long but some casualties stand out to the journalists who painstakingly compile them. Olga Ivshina, a senior reporter at the BBC Russian Service, can instantly recall Mikhail Shuvalov, a retired power plant worker who volunteered to fight …

The United States and Russia met in their highest face-to-face contact since the invasion of Ukraine last year on the sidelines of a G20 meeting that ended in disarray due to divisions over the conflict. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke briefly at …

Moscow claimed that a group of Ukrainian saboteurs crossed into Russia and opened fire on civilians on Thursday, an allegation denied by Kyiv as a “deliberate provocation.” While Russia claims its regions bordering Ukraine are routinely shelled by Ukrainian forces, the alleged incursion, if confirmed, would be a rare instance …

Even as the Iran-backed Houthi rebels pursue back-channel talks with Saudi Arabia as Riyadh looks for a major de-escalation in the coming weeks, they have also been ratcheting up the pressure on the internationally recognized Republic of Yemen Government (ROYG). On Feb. 16, 2023, the ambassadors of the United States, …

Deep in the world’s oceans and seas lies a network of submarine communication cables connecting continents and regions. This critical infrastructure, owned mostly by international consortia of private telecommunication companies, spans, in total, more than 1.3 million kilometers and handles over 95% of the world’s data. The rise of projects …