Headlines

Barcelona, Oct.9.– Pressure mounted on Monday against Catalan plans to declare independence after hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied to defend Spanish unity.

The protests followed days of soaring tensions after police cracked down on voters during a banned 1 October Catalan independence referendum, prompting separatist leaders to warn they would unilaterally break away from Spain in days.

Terrorism, oil, the crisis in Iraq, the Syrian civil war and geopolitics all weigh against the birth of a new Kurdish state.  

The recent referendum for the independence of Kurdistan, only applies to the white region (Basûr) in the map

Oct. 4.– The Kurds have been scourged by history (as well as by British and French imperial designs, with their 1920s “peace to end all peace,” as David Fromkin termed it in his remarkable 1989 book).

In drawing up the borders that followed the First World War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, despite earlier promises, left them stateless, split between Turkey, Syria, Iran and the – by now – fictitious country that is Iraq. But the stability of the latter has become crucial to the entire region.

 A dynamic Emmanuel Macron and a diminished Angela Merkel point to a new order in Europe

Brussels, Sept.30.– Who leads Europe? At the start of this year, the answer was obvious. Angela Merkel was trundling unstoppably towards a fourth election win, while Britain was out, Italy down and stagnating France gripped by the fear that Marine Le Pen might become the Gallic Donald Trump.

This week, it all looks very different. Mrs Merkel won her election on September 24th, but with such a reduced tally of votes and seats that she is a diminished figure (see article). Germany faces months of tricky three-way coalition talks. Some 6m voters backed a xenophobic right-wing party, many of them in protest at Mrs Merkel’s refugee policies. Having had no seats, Alternative for Germany, a disruptive and polarising force, is now the Bundestag’s third largest party.

 German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been re-elected for a fourth term while nationalists have made a historic surge in federal elections. 

Berlin, Sept.25.– Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU bloc has seen its worst result in almost 70 years but will remain the largest in parliament.