John Metzler

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.

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.