Seat of the government in Skopje. Picture: F. Bull

President Triggers Migration Crisis in Macedonia, Contrary Interpretation Abroad

Nikola Gruevski, leader of the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party, has ruled Macedonia for almost ten years. Before his enforced resignation in January 2016, he created an "Skopje 2014" urbanistic monument with the project. Around Macedonia Square in the center of the capital, dominated by an equestrian monument to Alexander the Great, countless statues and cream-pie-like museum and government buildings testify to Gruevski’s desire to give the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), which he governs, a self-contained historical-heroic worldview.

The Bayerischer Hof hotel hosts the Munich Security Conference every year. Photo: Harald Dettenborn. License: CC BY 3.0

Merkel, Pence and Mattis at the Munich Security Conference

The Bavarian State Chancellery has neither confirmed nor denied a report in Der Spiegel that Minister President Horst Seehofer plans to meet with new U.S. President Donald Trump. Instead, the general message was that it was "The Prime Minister announced that he would try not to let the thread of conversation with his international partners wear away", but concrete meetings will only be decided upon when "if there are concrete dates".

Jon Inarritu. Image: EH Bildu

The situation is further confused, as Pedro Sanchez has not really negotiated and is also vetoing his potential alliance partners

The leader of the Spanish Social Democrats, Pedro Sanchez, had played a dangerous game in the spring, provoking new elections because he was not prepared to make concessions to those who had brought him to power in June 2018 by means of a constructive motion of no confidence. He failed to get his budget through parliament and therefore had to call new elections on 28. April schedule. He hoped not to have to rely on Catalan votes in parliament again afterwards.

Dreyer and Klockner. Image: Olaf Kosinsky/CC BY-SA 3.0 EN

In Mainz, the Social Democrats – and the AfD – sing and laugh

Sahra Wagenknecht of the Left said in an interview the sentence: "Today, people always choose different coalitions, but politics hardly changes at all. And there is hardly any debate about fundamental alternatives." The cleanup is as elementary as it is vague. The political experts on television hardly bother with it. In other public spheres and in private life it looks different. There is first time agreement for this estimation, already for years.

Graphic: Kemmi.l, User:My name, Zesel. License: CC BY-SA 3.0

ozdemir makes advances to Union

Yesterday at noon, German President Joachim Gauck announced that he will not run for a second term in office. An understandable decision: The 217.000 euros high "Honorary salary for life" and other benefits are due to him after only one term in office. Only a premature resignation had endangered the payments – but also here Gauck’s predecessor Wulff had shown how to implement this regulation with reference to "political grounds" can circumvent the resignation.

Ulf Kristersson, the chairman of the conservative-liberal party "The moderates", was entrusted with the formation of the government. Image: News Oresund/CC BY-2.0

Sweden’s government formation has begun. The winner of the current difficult political situation could be the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats (SD)

Last Tuesday, the President of the Swedish Parliament, Andreas Norlen, entrusted the leader of the conservative-liberal party with the election "The moderates" (M), Ulf Kristersson, with the formation of the government. The latter has since had two weeks. But success seems doubtful.

The final round of preparations for the World Summit on the Information Society has begun in Tunis

The closer the 2. As the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) got underway, the media debate over Internet governance became more controversial. "Wall Street Journal" and "New York Times" put the topic on their front pages. The former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt criticized in the "International Herald Tribune" the EU for a diplomatic blunder. EU Commissioner Vivien Reding renewed European reservations about unilateral U.S. control. U.S. Senator Coleman raised the specter of the UN taking over the Internet. And Kofi Annan, for his part, wrote in the "Washington Post", that the UN does not want to take over the Internet, but that a majority of states would like to see the existing system develop further. The question of who should govern the Internet of the future and how heated tempers flared to such an extent that the sparks flew even between Brussels and Washington. During his visit to the White House, U.S. President Bush asked Barroso, President of the EU Commission, how the U.S. would react to the EU’s proposal for a "new model of cooperation" for the Internet, and whether this is not an indirect invitation for "Rogue states", Censor the Internet.

When at noon on Sunday the 2.000 negotiators in the confined space "Sidi Bou Said" met for the first time at the Tunis Crane Center for the end-game of negotiations, it seemed at first that the soup would not be eaten as thick as it had been cooked on both sides of the Atlantic in recent weeks. Relatively quickly, agreement was reached on key principles for future Internet management, such as the principle of multistakeholderism, openness to innovation, market orientation, security and stability, freedom and human rights, and so on. And by the time midnight rolled around, it also almost looked as if some kind of horse-trading could take place: If the rest of the world refrained from demanding a new oversight regime for the management of the Internet’s core resources, the Americans could agree to the idea of creating a new global Internet forum.

How the Great Powers are heading for a new gross conflict with their neo-imperialist Great Game. Crisis Imperialism – Part 2

What does the struggling and unstable capitalist One World need most at the moment? Better nuclear weapons self-evident! In mid-November, the U.S. Department of Defense announced plans to invest $355 billion over the next decade to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal. (Part 1)

The U.S. is not alone in its effort to upgrade its nuclear weapons of mass destruction to the latest technology. The United States "must remain credible", declared Maj. Gene. Sandra Finan, commander of the U.S. Air Force’s nuclear forces on the occasion of the announcement of this modernization program, as "rival powers are investing billions in improving and modernizing their nuclear systems". Finan was referring to Russia’s military program, which foresees military spending of about $560 billion over the next six years – about 25 percent of which is earmarked for Russia’s military nuclear program. Last September, Russia conducted a successful test of a new intercontinental ballistic missile.