John Metzler

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John J. Metzler is a longtime U.N. correspondent who has reported from fifty-five countries and regularly visits Europe and the Far East to observe national elections, conflicts, and economic development.

He is the author of Divided Dynamism; The Diplomacy of Separated Nations Germany, Korea and China (University Press of America, 1996). Mr. Metzler writes weekly for Free Press International.

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78th UN General Assembly opens amid myriad of crises

Presidents, prime ministers, kings and potentates are converging on New York for the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly. The 78th annual Assembly of the world organization presents both a global gala and expanded Summit meeting to try to solve a myriad of crises facing the international community.

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In 2023, global conflicts widen, endure and spread

The tragic collapse of Kabul to the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban signaled the last sordid chapter in the Biden Administration’s appalling and shambolic “withdrawal” from America’s longest military commitment. But beyond the perceived American weakness and strategic myopia it glaringly manifest, the Afghan debacle incentivized what political scientists dub as “bad actors” such as Russia and Communist China.

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UN shines a light on Kim dynasty's rights violations

Most countries politely prefer to look the other way when it comes to confronting widespread reports of North Korean human rights violations. After all what can you do about what goes on in one of the world’s most closed and repressive communist regimes [headed by the dynasty of Kim Il-Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong-Un]?

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Russia's expanding footprint seen in Niger coup

The recent military coup d’etat in Niger, a vast and arid land on the southern tier of the Sahara, underscores the widening political crisis in Africa’s Sahel region, where instability, dire poverty and Islamic jihadi terrorism, have stalked the land.

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Security concerns as countdown to 2024 Paris Olympics begins

The one-year countdown for the opening of the Paris Summer Olympics has begun.

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Ukraine: Putin playing 'hunger games' with world food supply

The Russians are acting more and more like Soviets. Their brutal war in Ukraine underscores the point that Moscow’s military ambitions have counter-humanitarian consequences.

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North Korean regime carries out 20th missile launch this year

North Korea’s unannounced launch of another ballistic missile has nearly become a ho-hum event given the rash but predictable actions of Pyongyang’s rulers. After all we have seen this bellicose stunt many times before and thus have become dangerously numb and nearly indifferent to its ultimate threat and consequence.

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Team Biden gets U.S. back in UNESCO; Pay at the door

The United States has long had a tumultuous relationship with UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization.

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Human trafficking: 108 million worldwide

As chaos and conflict seem to be the tragic trend in many parts of the world, a sad parallel follows: Large numbers of people are fleeing and being displaced by the violence.

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Singapore dealers helped China, Russia arm Burma regime

It’s hardly a surprise, but an affirmation of the obvious. Burma’s military regime is being backed, supported and protected by both Russia and China.

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Erdogan still standing as Turkey weighs its destiny

Another earthquake has jolted Turkey. But contrary to the seismic calamity which devastated large parts of eastern Turkey in February killing more than 50,000 people this was an electoral jolt whose political shockwaves and aftershocks continue to rattle the entire country from Istanbul, through the Anatolian plain to far off Mt. Ararat on the Armenian frontier.

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Wake up call: Japan abandons post-WWII defense posture

There’s a significant sea change affecting Japanese defense policy. Some would say it’s the result of a political tsunami. Others would argue it’s a long overdue wake up call.

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Castros are dead, but the people still 'want out'

It’s all about the timing. Ana Belen Montes, an American who served a more than twenty years in federal prison for spying for the then-Castro regime while serving as a senior analyst in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Washington, has been released. But this case is hardly the ho-hum end to another Cold War espionage story.

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2023 look ahead: Key conflicts and potential crises

Our world remains an increasingly tumultuous place and the tragedy of expanding conflicts is only surpassed by the waves of refugees fleeing those troubles.

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Iran booted from UN Women’s Rights Commission

In a hugely symbolic but stinging rebuke, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been expelled from the UN’s Commission on Women’s Rights. The vote in the 54-member Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) came amid growing global outrage at the Iranian regime’s brutal and bloody crackdown on widening demonstrations across the country in protest to the theocratic regime’s restrictions on women’s rights and freedoms.

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