Daily Archives: 15 November, 2015
The Eastern Mediterranean arc of fire and Europe*
Geography and history, modern and older, internal fault lines as well as external interventions, have given rise to a perfect storm in the Eastern Mediterranean. In an arc of fire that stretches from Libya to Syria and can be extrapolated further North, all the way to Russia and Ukraine, a series of conflicts have made this an area of particular instability, for the world as a whole and more immediately for nearby Europe…
Terrorism will not prevail
The terrorist attacks in Paris, in the night of Friday, 13 November, have shaken France, the rest of Europe and beyond. Although not the first major attack on the French capital in the course of this year, with the Charlie Hebdo massacre only some ten months earlier, this took terrorism to another level, in terms of audacity and coordination on the part of the perpetrators, and number of victims. With more than 120 people dead and almost one hundred more fighting for their lives, several suicide bombers and indiscriminate killings, this was a scene of Baghdad or Beirut enacted in the heart of Europe, like never before…
