John Metzler

President Donald Trump lambasted the United Nations on opening day for its failure to stop global crises in the midst of major regional wars, humanitarian disasters, looming security threats, never mind costly bureaucratic waste. But like a stern professor, yet as the leader of the most prominent and founding UN member state, he then added that the world organization isn’t living up to its potential, and scathingly challenged, “What’s the purpose of the United Nations?”

Presidents, prime ministers, kings and potentates are converging on New York for the United Nations General Assembly session.

The Chinese communists put on a massive military parade in Beijing to both commemorate the 1945 victory over Japan as well as to reinforce the rule and strategic vision of Supreme Leader Xi Jinping.

President Donald Trump has had it with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Gone are the days where it appeared that the Russians were ready for a negotiated “deal” or “ceasefire’ in the bloody Ukraine war.

Tis’ that time of the year when the BRICS economic Summit comes round to state the obvious; “We are the Rest of the World,” and powerful members of the global developing economies too.

Amid wars, global strife and massive refugee dislocations, the current global scene is overwhelmed with crises ranging from the Middle East to Ukraine and a dozen African conflicts which rarely make the news.

The die has been cast. American stealth B-2 bombers swooped down on Iran’s nuclear weapons enrichment targets and dealt a presumably knock-out blow to the Islamic Republic’s longtime dream of possessing a nuclear weapon.

The stunningly successful Ukrainian drone attacks on multiple airbases across Russia’s deep interior last week by hitting and likely destroying a sizable portion of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet, proved the audacity of the beleaguered Kyiv government not to surrender.

Speaking out to break the information barrier inside the hermetically sealed North Korean dictatorship is in itself nothing new, and usually quickly forgotten.

With the staging and showmanship of a Cecil B. De Mille saga, President Donald Trump’s State visit to three Arabian Kingdoms was uniquely paired with pomp and joint business incentives which focused in transforming the narrative from conflict to commerce and cooperation.

In what was akin to a celebration of global dictators and political rogues, Venezuela’s Marxist dictator Nicholas Maduro visited Moscow to join Vladimir Putin in celebrating Russia’s May 9th Victory Day Parade, the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany.

A long smoldering fuse to wider conflict has reignited in the wake of a terrible terrorist attack killing 27 tourists in the mountainous Pahalgam region in disputed Kashmir.

The tides of history, the tears of remembrance. Fifty years ago, on April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese military units surged into Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, forcibly reuniting the country, thus ending twenty years of conflict.

The Four Horsemen of the apocalypse are stalking Sudan; Brutal civil conflict, widespread devastation, humanitarian disasters, and the displacement of millions of refugees.

A flurry of accusations, finger pointing and political grandstanding dominate the headlines as the trade war with China escalates.