From June 28 to July 1, 2024, the DPRK held “extended session of the 10th Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, contributing to the successful implementation of the priorities and all tasks of the Party and state policy for 2024.” The plenary meeting summarized the results of work for the first half of the year and discussed “a number of next important issues in the continued rise of the phase of comprehensive rejuvenation of socialism in line with the Korean model.”

While international relations were organized around two poles of power (East and West) after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the illusion of the end of the Cold War in 1991, the emergence of new centers of power in the Global South changes the situation. It is in this spirit that the prestigious think tank that we agree to call in other words “the Valdaï discussion club ”, based in Moscow, is organizing its second Russian-African conference (July 24, 2024 in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania), one year after the second Russia-Africa summit in Saint Petersburg (here).

The massacre of Palestinians continues into its tenth month. According to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM), the death toll has exceeded 38,000, but these figures are conservative as medics only count those admitted to hospitals. Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble of destroyed neighbourhoods that have yet to be rebuilt.

The United States of America, my beloved homeland, has been taken over by an elite mafia capable of anything and everything. I do not think many of my countrymen would disagree, given the events of the past couple of decades. Today, it seems as if killing has become the key to our leadership’s domestic and foreign policy.

Kenya’s antigovernment protests continues into the second month and are similar to Ghana’s in 2022, as both started from over taxation and worsening living standard, problems absent in South East Asia (e.g. Vietnam), which was also colonized. Kenya, Ghana, and Zambia have attempted development for 6 decades but lag behind Vietnam, which started developing under 4 decades ago. Clearly, Kenya and African countries need to change their development model from the World Bank/IMF’s neoliberal Ponzi for enriching western corporations.

The recent attempt on Donald Trump’s life, just days before he became the official Republican candidate for President, should be a wake-up call as to just how much American society is divided these days. The candidate or public person, NGO leader, Clergy, even Spiritual Leaders, often represent all those ideas and values that many others hold, or come to hold, in high esteem.

The helicopter crash that resulted in the death of the eighth President of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, and the early elections of the ninth President, which resulted in the unexpected victory of the only reform-oriented candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, has changed the political landscape in the country.

As per report, at least, 40000 Palestinians have lost their lives since October 7, 2023. The war crimes and genocide committed by the Israeli forces against the Palestinian civilians, since the start of the Israel-Hamas War, have been condemned by the majority of the world’s people and states. However, the response from the Muslim countries to Israeli war crimes has not been impressive. On 19^th July 2024, Pakistan emerged as one of the few Muslim countries to have taken a hardcore approach towards Israel.

Recent developments on the African continent show that the tide is turning away from francophone West Africa, which has seen 9 military coups in the last 7 years, and towards the Horn of Africa. Signs of impending instability are most visible in Ethiopia.

NATO’s plans to establish a foothold in Asia to counter China better is nothing more than a sure recipe for disaster. Coming to Asia and beating war drums against a country that has not attacked anyone is akin to pushing it to take any and all necessary steps to protect its interests. NATO, thus, is pushing China to shun its regionally focused pacificism in favour of a more belligerent stance. A more aggressive China will, in NATO’s calculation, push Asian countries to move more towards the US out of their common fear of Beijing as the hegemon…

Many global media outlets have published reports about an imminent invasion of Lebanon by Israel. Several Western governments have advised their citizens to leave Lebanon. Bild, Germany’s largest daily newspaper, citing diplomatic and military sources in the Middle East, has published an article claiming that Israel may embark on a large-scale military invasion of southern Lebanon towards the end of July.

A recent article appearing in the US-based Business Insider titled, “Russia’s showing NATO its hand in the air war over Ukraine,” would provide a showcase of the deep deficit in military expertise driving increasingly unsustainable, unachievable foreign policy objectives. The article summarizes a number of interviews conducted with Western “airpower experts,” exhibiting a profound misunderstanding of modern military aviation, air defenses, and their role on and above the battlefield.