Russia in the World

As the year 2017 came to the closure, one couldn’t help but notice the deep wounds that it left on the face of this world. Among those one can mention the never-ending horror of the Syrian war, conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Ukraine, that are claiming thousands of innocent civilians, while affecting elder people, women and children the most. The victims of these conflicts won’t live to see the peaceful future tomorrow, if there’s one after all that killing.

It has been all very ugly, aggressive and often distinctly vulgar: the way the British Foreign Secretary has behaved before and during his official visit to Moscow.
Mr. Johnson described Russia as “closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic” concluding that it could not be “business as usual”.
He did not define what the UK has become, and the Russian hosts were too polite to explain.
The “business as usual” it was not.

The $27 billion Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility just established in Russia’s Artic Yamal Peninsula may seem like just another energy project. However, it should not be glossed over. This new LNG facility is example of how an alternative economic order is emerging in the world.

The withdrawal of Russian military forces from parts of Syria and its consequences caused numerous responses in the political and media circles of the Middle East.
Yahya Al-Aridi, the official representative of the Syrian opposition at Geneva-8 peace talks, announced in this respect that the opposition welcomes any step contributing to the reestablishment of peace in Syria.

Today is one rare day: Not only did a Democrat win a special election in Alabama, sparing the US the embarrassment of having to seat a child predator in the US Senate; despite Donald Trump’s recent claim that talking to Rocket Man would be a waste of time, Rex Tillerson announced that the US would meet with the North Korean president without preconditions, after Vladimir Putin offered to mediate.

Now that RT is no longer available on television in Philadelphia, I watch more France 24 than before, when I divided my TV-watching between those two and MSNBC. The difference in offerings never ceases to amaze me, but while ‘Putin’s bullhorn’ tended to focus on non-typical Russian subjects and America’s failings, France’s English language channel concentrates heavily on the Middle East and Africa.