It may not have been planned or coordinated but efforts by Middle Eastern states to dial down tensions serve as an example of what happens when big power interests coincide. It also provides evidence of the potentially positive fallout of a lower US profile in the region. Afghanistan, the United …

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus was the rare former Soviet state that remained strategically aligned with the Russian Federation. In 1999, Russia and Belarus reached an agreement to become a “union state,” which aimed to create a USSR-like federation with a similar government, currency, flag, and army. …

China wants to invest billions of dollars in Afghanistan if the Taliban guarantee security for their workers and their assets. This, according to the Taliban’s acting Deputy Minister of Information and Culture Zabihullah Mujahid, who also said his government is ready to deliver. In a television interview with VOA’s Ayesha …

In Mosul’s Old City, the rule of the Islamic State group is not a distant memory of horrors long past. On every block are reminders: bombed out houses, piles of rubble and families toiling daily, just to survive. “An IS family lived over there,” says Sahara Mahmoud, a mother of …

The top French intelligence official, who is visiting Washington this week, said QAnon and other conspiracy theories were spreading to Europe. Right-wing extremist groups in the United States have been influencing French groups, spreading antigovernment conspiracy theories in Europe, the top French intelligence official said on Wednesday. The official, Laurent …

Moscow has categorically stated that it will not accept a US military presence in the Central Asian region. This reiteration has come at the level of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov who told Tass that Afghanistan had been discussed at a meeting with Victoria Nuland, the visiting US Undersecretary …

Recent weeks have seen mounting conflicts between Washington and the European imperialist powers over China. Last month, Australia suddenly repudiated a €56 billion French submarine contract to sign instead the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) alliance targeting China, and European countries this month successfully overrode US accusations that IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva improperly …

In August, a French counterterrorism operation in northern Mali killed the leader of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), avenging four U.S. troops who were killed in Niger in 2017. French President Emanuel Macron revealed in September that a French drone strike killed Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, the …

The UN Human Rights Council has quashed an ongoing investigation into possible war crimes in Yemen. The HRC rejected a draft resolution on October 7 which would have continued the mandate of the UN Group of Eminent Independent and Regional Experts on Yemen (GEE) to investigate war crimes and human …

Ayse Ozdogan, an imprisoned end-stage cancer patient, has been denied release, despite a recommendation by a government-run hospital. A well-known saying of the Prophet Mohammed intones, “Allah has no mercy for him who has no mercy for his fellows.” It appears to be lost on Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development …