John Metzler

We have witnessed a modern-day miracle. The splendid Notre Dame Cathedral, the heart and soul of France which was scarred and damaged by the terrible fire of April 2019, has been rebuilt, renovated and revitalized, through an amazing and painstaking restoration effort encompassing both the private and public sector.

Showdowns loom in the new year as New York Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has been nominated to serve as United Nations Ambassador by President-elect Donald Trump.

The apparent dispatch of elite North Korean military units to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine appears at first surprising but actually is quite logical given the historic and comradely ties between Pyongyang and Moscow. After all, North Korea’ s isolated Kim Jong-Un regime has forged increasingly close ties with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the cash-strapped North Koreans have shipped more than eight million 122mm and 152mm artillery shells to Russia in the past year.

Powerful thunderclaps from the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan rumbled as a dire greeting to the opening UN General Assembly session in New York. Winds from ongoing but unresolved humanitarian crises the world over from Sudan to Syria and Somalia swirled. And a nervous atmosphere of widening conflicts, some still yet to happen, settled over assembled delegates.

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Kings and potentates are converging in New York for the 79th annual General Assembly of the United Nations. As the 193 member states meet amid the pomp, splendor and promise of a renewed challenge to settle conflicts and solve humanitarian crises, which have stubbornly eluded diplomats over this past year of widening strife, there remain deep political divisions along historic, East/West, and emerging North/South geopolitical fault-lines.

The world is entering a new more dangerous security phase; the winds of war which have been lashing parts of the planet for the past few years could well go to gale force and bring us to the verge of a global conflict. Though both the major land clashes in Ukraine and Gaza appear to be largely locked in bloody stalemate, these conflicts could easily escalate and spillover regionally.

The three-day visit of U.S. National Security advisor Jake Sullivan to Beijing had a clear message; “Don’t Rock the Boat.” Chinese/American relations remain very sensitive over trade tariffs, strategic issues, and Beijing’s continuing military threats to democratic Taiwan and the Philippines.

Who remembers Libya? Who recalls how we became embroiled in this civil war only then to quickly lose interest?

The collapse of Afghanistan to the Taliban Islamic fundamentalists three years ago on Aug. 15th, signaled an inflection point on the geopolitical scene.

In what’s described as a thunderclap in French North African policy, the Paris government recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the long disputed Western Sahara, a region long contested by rival Algeria and a lingering subject of endless United Nations deliberations.

France is facing continuing political chaos in the wake of President’s Emmanuel Macron’s vain and failed gambit in calling for unnecessary legislative elections to counterbalance the expected but riveting results of the rightist surge in June’s European Parliamentary voting.

Ten minutes into the debate the Curtain, as in the mythical Kingdom of Oz, was torn back and we saw the President stumble and slip through pretty simple questions from the CNN moderators. By the end of the debate two things were clear; Donald Trump had convincingly won and the Democrats were in meltdown panic mode over the president’s performance.

The somber but uplifting commemorations of the D-Day landings in Normandy, now eighty years ago, shed light on the historic Allied victory of arms, men and spirit.

This year has turned out be the time of major elections; Mexico, South Africa, Taiwan, European Union, Pakistan, Russia, soon the United Kingdom and in November the United States.

New Caledonia, a remote French overseas territory in the South Pacific, is not often in the news. It’s even less common when you see the truly unexpected cast of characters placing this small island group into an unwanted limelight.