John Metzler

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

A powerful wind from the East is blowing across the Arabian desert. During a significant but overlooked three-day visit to Saudi Arabia, China’s leader Xi Jinping has scored a “strategic partnership” with oil rich and strategic Saudi Arabia.

During the Thanksgiving holiday, the Biden Administration announced it was quietly reversing policy and allowing limited petroleum imports from Venezuela.

The women’s led uprising against Iran’s Islamic Republic continues. Under the inspiring slogan Woman, Life, Freedom, the movement confronting Teheran’s theocratic regime is widening and now had gained vital political support from key Western countries many of whom long rationalized their political and business links with Iran.

Some good news from war weary Ukraine! And actually even better news for many developing countries dependent on Ukrainian food and fertilizer shipments which faced Russian naval blockades until mid-Summer.

The UN General Assembly just concluded its election for fourteen new members in the Human Rights Council.  Delegates have chosen a conclave of candidates who sit in somber judgement of global freedoms and virtues, though ironically, many of these new members selected are actually among the very abusers and rights violators the Council is presumably monitoring.

In a strange but not unexpected twist to a world in turmoil, North Korea’s bellicose leadership has carried out a series of missile tests, not seen since 2017.

Massive and spreading protests have rocked Iran in the wake of widening social discontent following the death of a woman Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody. Her crime? Not wearing the obligatory headscarf properly.

The Queen has died; the page of history has turned. The passing of Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest serving monarch, has shocked and saddened much of the world despite the sovereign’s declining health and her 96 years of age. Just months after having joyfully celebrated her platinum Jubilee commemorating 70 years on the British throne, she has passed.