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.

We shall wrongly understand the political meaning of Brexit if we fail to make reference to the timeline of the Brussels-London negotiations, and to the economic, social and political evolutions specific to the United Kingdom. An overall analysis of the evolution of the United Kingdom towards its withdrawal from the EU and Euratom helps us understand the contrast between the initial concept of a lesser Europe and the dire need to cooperate after Brexit.

In the wake of last month’s (December 2019) “Normandy” summit (see EDM, December 11, 12, 2019), and awaiting the same forum’s April 2020 top-level meeting, Ukrainian officials are airing proposals to revise the Kremlin-imposed Minsk “accords” of 2014 and 2015. The “accords,” designed to legalize Russia’s control of the Donetsk-Luhansk territory and to disrupt Ukraine farther afield, remain unimplemented to date thanks to the previous Ukrainian government’s successful maneuvering and stalling. That work has made it possible for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration now to call for revising the Minsk “accords.”

After two years of wait, controversies, scenarios and contradicting hypotheses, on the 28th of January 2020 president Donald Trump revealed, at the White House, the contents of the long-awaited US plan regarding the achievement of a peace solution to the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, which the US president emphatically called “the Deal of the Century”. The ceremony took place in the presence of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, White House officials, including the team (led by the son-in-law and presidential advisor Jared Kushner), who had been working for two years to develop and finish the massive dossier regarding the US peace initiative. Neither having been informed nor consulted when the US initiative was launched and – , developed, the Palestinians were not present when this “peace plan” was made official, a plan they had been contesting and rejecting since its inception.

Since its establishment in 1948, the state of Israel has experienced many security incidents, some of which have posed a threat to its very existence. One of the prominent existential threats was the scenario of a hostile enemy state acquiring military nuclear capabilities, which would lead to an intolerable situation for the Jewish state. For the Israelis, such a scenario has repeated itself three times already: first, when Israel decided to destroy Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981; second, when Israel demolished the nuclear reactor built in Syria in 2007, and third, when the Israeli leadership confronted the question whether to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program in 2010-2011, but eventually refrained from this action. Empirically, these three incidents clearly demonstrate how Israel has responded to existential threats, taking into account its relationship with its main ally, the US.

At the end of the second millennium of its Christian history, Europe has changed.
After a nearly half-century long grim battle, communism abandoned the place, and suddenly vanished like an ugly nightmare at sunrise.
And capitalism has returned.

In the beginning of January 2020, the UN General Assembly announced that, according to Article 19 of the UN Charter the Lebanon’s right to vote in the General Assembly was suspended for not having paid its financial contribution (to the organization) for the past two years - a total amount of 459,000 USD. The Lebanese foreign minister, Gebran Basil, president Michel Aoun’s son-in-law and leader of the political party Free Patriotic Movement established by the current head of state, rejected any responsibility of his Ministry’s on the matter, which led to a denigrating polemic with his colleague in the Ministry of Finance. The resolution of the international organization and the conflict between the two departing Lebanese ministers was but a tip of the iceberg which hid the state of chaos Lebanon and the Lebanese had been in for these past months. Lebanon was not the only country incapable of paying its contribution to the UN - less than half a million dollars. Lebanon, which in the eye

With the two front men of the Libyan civil war in the spotlight - Fayez Sarraj, the leader of the “Government of National Accord” recognised by the international community and headquartered in Tripoli, and the field marshal Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the so called “Libyan National Army” which controls the eastern part of the country - on the 19th of January 2020, and after long and difficult preparations, Berlin hosted the international peace conference on Libya.

A ticking clock and a shutting trap seem appropriate metaphors for the predicament of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his team hoping against hope for “peace” with Russia.