John Metzler

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.

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Potentates and Kings have assembled in New York for the opening sessions of the 77th UN General Assembly. The annual event, which was sidelined and subdued by the COVID pandemic, seems to be back in stride but lacking a bit of the buzz and expectations of previous years.

One year after the appalling collapse of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban insurgents, the humanitarian crisis in that beleaguered South Asian country has gone from bad to worse. 

As Vladimir Putin’s war continues against Ukraine, there’s now a grim acceptance of tragedy; targeted civilians, wrecked cities and the threat from Russia’s nuclear weapons.

It’s been a strange and uncertain summer, bookmarked by high temperatures, torrid inflation, and a very hot war on Europe’s eastern doorstep.

Despite their huffing, puffing, and threatening, regarding the short but symbolic visit of U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to what China deems a “renegade province,” Taiwan, the Beijing Dragon blinked.

In what he optimistically called a “beacon of hope” in a world that desperately needs it, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres helped broker a complicated diplomatic deal between warring parties Russia and Ukraine.

This was a crisis waiting to happen. Europe’s unfolding energy emergency was long in coming but at the same time widely encouraged by Western European states all too eager to embrace Russia’s cheap and available natural gas delivered to the European Union’s doorstep by a spiderweb of pipelines some dating from the Soviet era.

The jolting but not unexpected wake-up call came from London.

Just a year ago, the political odds of comfortably neutral Sweden and Finland joining NATO were a long shot; Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine changed the military threat and jolted the political calculus.

How time flies. It’s been 25 years since Hong Kong returned to Chinese control, a quarter century since the prosperous British Crown Colony became a semi-autonomous part of the People’s Republic of China, the world’s largest dictatorship.

Is China drawing yet another provocative red line, this time in the narrow but strategic Taiwan Strait?

Foreign investment flows worldwide have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels reaching nearly $1.6 trillion. That’s the good news. Yet as a new report warns, the war in Ukraine and widening global uncertainty make the prospects for expansion appear grim.

It was time to celebrate! The 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s accession to the throne in 1952 makes her the longest serving Monarch in British history. Thus, the grandly named Platinum Jubilee has not only dazzled the country with its Royal Pomp and circumstance, but as importantly invigorated it with its joyous celebrations of unity across the land.

Our world is beset by unthinkable tragedy; brash military aggression, widening instability and grinding humanitarian suffering.