By Ahmed Adel | July 11, 2023

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the European Union on July 9 to open the doors for his country to join the bloc if they want to secure support for Swedens accession to NATO. His blackmailing of the EU, which ultimately produced results, comes only days after he controversially broke an agreement with Moscow by releasing neo-Nazi Azov Battalion members under Turkeys custody to Ukraine.

Turkey has been waiting at the door of the European Union for over 50 years now, and almost all of the NATO member countries are now members of the European Union. I am making this call to these countries that have kept Turkey waiting at the gates of the European Union for more than 50 years, Erdogan said. First, open the way to Turkeys membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland.

Turkey has been an EU member candidate since 1999. Since 2016, negotiations on a visa-free regime between Turkey and the EU have been on hold. The countrys bid for EU membership has been stalled due to democratic backsliding and an unrelenting occupation of the northern portion of EU-member Cyprus since 1974.

Ultimately, Erdogan backflipped just mere hours after issuing his blackmail.

Im glad to announce that President Erdogan has agreed to forward the accession protocol for Sweden to the grand national assembly as soon as possible, and work closely with the assembly to ensure ratification, said NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg on the eve of the alliance summit in Vilnius, which will be held on July 11-12.

Finland and Sweden applied to join the bloc in May 2022. Finland gained its membership on April 4, 2023, while the Swedes await approval from Hungary and Turkey. As Turkey will never surrender its occupation of northern Cyprus, its EU membership will be forever stalled, making Erdogans ultimatum either a desperate action or a calculated manoeuvre to advance other interests.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrm told public broadcaster SVT that he expects Turkey will eventually signal that it will let Sweden join the alliance, though he could not say whether that would happen at the NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital. Swedens top diplomat said he expects Hungary, which also has not ratified Swedens accession, to do so before Turkey.

Turkey and Hungary remain the only NATO members still standing in the way of Sweden becoming the 32nd member of the US-led bloc, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban strongly signalling he will follow Erdogans lead and approve Swedens membership only if Turkey does the same.

Now that Erdogan has reportedly unblocked Swedens path, the question is what was offered to appease the Turkish leader. Presumably, Erdogan would have only unblocked the accession process with the promise of rec......

Human Wrongs Watch

By Baher Kamal

Credit: United Nations

According to the Napoleonic French Revolutions three pillars, Liberty means freedom for an individual to do what he/she wants to do without harming others Liberty. Equality means equal opportunity to all the citizens irrespective of their caste, religion, race, gender.

Fraternity means an environment of brotherhood among the citizens of a nation.

Not true that all humans are equal

These concepts have also been clearly reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the actual umbrella of all the other international laws and agreements, such as the 2030 Agenda, which was adopted in 2015 by all countries -including the richest ones, those who now violate their own principles.

Instead, the extremist ideology promoted by Europes right and far-right politicians is pushing either openly or surreptitiously for the suppression of many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established in the worldwide adopted 2030 Agenda under the principle:Leave No One Behind...

As 2023 unfolds, Sri Lanka is wrestling with a series of political and economic crises, with growing fears of insecurity for the island. A narcotics and arms bust by Indias National Investigation Agency (NIA) in April identified a Pakistani criminal network associated with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the terrorist outfit Lakshar-e-Taiba (LeT) as responsible for an uptick in shipments between India and Sri Lanka. Further investigative details on the case also indicated a desire by the criminal group to revive the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the prominent militant group that engaged in a decades-long civil war with the Sri Lankan government until its defeat in 2009.

In addition to the NIAs bust, a sensational claim in February 2023 by a Tamil nationalist suggested that the LTTEs founder and former leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, long believed to be deceased, was still alive. Though still unproven, this claim and the NIA bust has renewed debate over a potential revival of the LTTE. Compounding these concerns is an economic recovery effort in Sri Lanka that continues to lag.

Historical context

The LTTE emerged in the context of deep-seated ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils, becoming the most prominent group advocating for Tamil rights and, eventually, for a separate state known as Tamil Eelam. The Tamil Tigers distinguished themselves with a high degree of efficacy and sophistication in their attacks, proving their capability as a formidable non-state military force with naval and air power at its peak.

The post Sri Lanka: Tamil Tigers Making a Comeback? appeared first on Geopolitical Monitor.

Revolver July 8, 2023

Interestingly, race relations in Africa seem to be spiraling, despite the common narrative that its white folks stirring up racism. Zimbabwes black president is now pointing fingers at Indian shop owners, blaming them for stockpiling goods and hiking prices. Hes even hinting at seizing everything they own.

The Zimbabwean:

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has issued a stern warning to the business sector and specifically targeted Indians, accusing them of stockpiling basic supplies to create artificial shortages and boost prices.

Only the corrupt African governments are allowed to hoard and price gauge how dare the Indians jump in on the action?

We are being attacked currently by price hikes. Why, just when we announced that we are going for general elections? Our enemies decided they must cause problems among our people and started hiking prices such as Innscor, Mnangagwa said, although Innscor had provided some of the food that people ate at the rally and had also displayed their banner alongside Zanu PF banners.

President Mnangagwa singled out businesspeople of Indian origin and said he had information that they were illegally hoarding basic commodities.

Lets bet on how long itll be before this shady government decides to swoop in and take everything away from these Indian folks, just to stash it away and jack up the prices even more.

I have been told today that some Indians in Harare are stocking basic goods in warehouses. They buy sugar from Chiredzi, all the basic goods like flour and so on to stock in their warehouse then raise the prices, let me warn them, he said and added that his team was investigating this issue and would proceed to confiscate the goods.

If it is true, we shall confiscate, not only the warehouses but the things inside them and give it to you and distribute to people.

The president said if foreign businesspeople based in Zimbabwe wanted to hoard goods, they should go back to their countries.

Our government will never tolerate such activities in an independent Zimbabwe, Mnangagwa said.

Mnangagwa accuses Indian business people of hoarding basic goods, threatens to confiscate them#Asakhe pic.twitter.com/wmjY1Az4ru

CITE (@citezw)...