Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict in their home country have come up against a less than accommodating “Fortress Europe”.
“The Marine Protected Area (MPA) created around the Chagos archipelago is a new obstacle that the British government has placed in our path to prevent us from going back to our homeland,” claims Olivier Bancoult, leader of the Chagos Refugees Group (CRG).
U.S. President Barack Obama indicated Friday he would soon conduct what he called "very limited" military action against Syria to punish its alleged use of chemical weapons which, according to the White House, killed more than 1,400 people in several Damascus suburbs last week.
The British government has published internal legal advice which it said showed it was legally entitled to take military action against Syria, even if the United Nations Security Council blocked such action.
When the administration of President George W. Bush launched a military attack on Iraq in March 2003, it was nearly 18 months before Kofi Annan, then-U.N. secretary-general, described the invasion as "illegal" and in "violation of the U.N. charter" because the United States did not have Security Council authorisation.
Developed countries report that they delivered more than 33 billion dollars in Fast Start Finance (known as FSF), beyond the pledges they made at COP 15 in Copenhagen in 2009. Recent analysis suggests that the funding delivered may have exceeded 38 billion dollars. But that is not the whole story.
Between 2010 and 2012, 868 million people worldwide were deemed hungry by a conservative definition. This figure represents only a small fraction of the world’s population whose health and lives are blighted by malnutrition.
The global economy is awash with successive waves of liquidity generated over the past few years by the four most advanced economies, viz., the United States, the European Union, (EU), Japan and the United Kingdom, known as the G4. This liquidity has taken the form of “quantitative easing” (QE).
Commentators and business leaders in South Africa believe that the recent announcement of an end to the United Kingdom’s aid programme to South Africa may be the start of a new trend to cut back on aid to this country, and possibly to the rest of Africa.
Having survived the announced end of the world on Dec. 21, we can now try to foretell our immediate future, based on geopolitical principles that will help us understand the overall shifts of global powers and assess the major risks and dangers.
As India forges ahead with a host of trade agreements with various European countries, including France, some Indian commentators say the country can well do without the “paltry” sum in financial aid it currently receives from the United Kingdom.