In this article, we set out to look at prisons as potential sources for the expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are taking into account the special status of prisons and the informal rules, which set the ground for life behind bars. We are referring to the dynamics of entries and exits from the penitentiary, in order to identify possible preventive and management measures, should a COVID-19 outbreak occurs.

Twice in the last decade, Orwell’s seminal dystopia 1984 topped best-sellers list. In 2013, after Edward Snowden leaked revelations about the NSA’s widespread surveillance operations, 1984 sales rose dramatically amid an explosion of references to the book’s totalitarian, tentacular entity, the “Big Brother” . It spiked again, by more than 9500%, in late 2017, when a White House aide casually evoked the existence of “alternative facts” when faced with her own previous erroneous statements.

The Versailles system of treaties between 1919 and 1920, following World War I, replaces imperialism with nationalism and practically ends the process – which lasted for the whole 19th century – of the formation of the modern European states. The first country to separate from the Ottoman Empire was Greece, after a long Russian-Ottoman war, which ended with the Adrianopolis Peace Treaty in 1829 and recognised the autonomy of the newly emerged state.

After 18 years of war, the USA and the Taliban insurgents decided to conclude an agreement that many analysts considered as having a historical dimension and significance. It is meant to pave the way for the withdrawal of the US and NATO troops, as well as for the start of a peace process between the insurgents and the government in Kabul led by the president Ashraf Ghani – who wasn’t present in Doha for the negotiations, as it is seen by the Islamist Taliban as a “US and Western puppet”.

In the history of wars – whether large or small – there is a stylistic and methodological tendency to overstate some of their episodes, most of the times subjectively chosen. Remembered as such either after the names of enemy commanders or the locations where confrontations took place, many of these martial actions were ennobled with epithets such as “historical” or “memorable”. Those labelled as “historical” especially, being scarcer, remained in the collective and historical memory as defining landmarks of the entire war.
Starting late 2019, we have been witnessing a new “historical episode” in Syria, where everybody is involved whether they want it or not, and if they want it they do it away from the spotlight and the public eye – whether Syrian, Arab, regional or international. And this episode is called Idlib, where for a few weeks now there has been a real war, which has already produced around one million refugees.

From the Editor

Valentin Naumescu, a professor at the Faculty of European Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca and President of the think tank Initiative for European Democratic Culture, made an account of this year’s Munich International Security Conference, the most prestigious international security forum, while being interviewed by Vladimir Adrian Costea, for the Geostrategic Pulse.

In the beginning of the document which includes his peace plan, president Donald Trump states that throughout history there have been conceived several peace plans for the Palestinians and the Israelis, however, none of them took into account the actual situation. He claims his plan is different. Nothing could be further from the truth, though. Completely built from clichés and lies, the so called plan, just like the others before it, ignores the national aspirations and rights of the Palestinians. Even though Donald Trump claims the plan is realistic and achievable, it favours one side only - the Israeli.

Wars, long-term conflicts, the fight against foreign occupations, the feeling of solidarity with the people of the oppressed community are just a few of the factors that have determined, in history, the evolution of the "foreign fighter" phenomenon. Heroes ready to sacrifice themselves for "noble" causes have been on the battlefield since the emergence of nineteenth-century nations in countries like Greece, the United States, Spain, Palestine, Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia and Somalia (Colgan & Hegghammer, 2011; Hennessy, 2012). But this was only the first stage of the phenomenon.

At the Berlin International Air Show in April 2018, Dassault and Airbus announced the launch of the”Future Combat Air System (FCAS)/ ”Système de combat aérien futur (SCAF)”, which includes a sixth generation combat aircraft, a new generation weapons system and other elements integrated into the operational airspace.