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The East European nation Romania is in a big political turmoil following the postponement of the final round of the Presidential elections and also the holding of the national elections n December 1. Rival political parties in Romania agreed on December 12 to form a majority government made up of groupings that were traditionally on opposite sides. The move shuts out far-right nationalists who made significant gains in the national elections on December 1.

NEW YORK: Voters in the West African nation of Ghana repudiated the right-wing government of President Nana Akufo-Addo with a historic, massive win for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in elections on December 7.

The rapid advance of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other armed factions led to the fall of Bashar al- Assad’s government in Syria. With this, the US has succeeded in toppling the last of the secular regimes in West Asia. US military interventions resulted not only in the fall of secular regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria in the West Asia-North African region, but also created deep sectarian fissures in the region. The destruction unleashed by the US and the Frankenstein religious fundamentalist/extremist groups it helped create, is threatening peace and stability everywhere.

The dramatic toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime at the hands of rebel forces this weekend could have far-reaching consequences for Syria, global and regional powers, and alliances. It also may prove to be a replay of earlier events in Iraq courtesy the western powers.

LONDON: Israel has invaded Syria, its tanks moving beyond a “buffer zone” adjacent to the illegally occupied Golan Heights to within a few miles of Damascus. Its Defence Minister Israel Katz boasts that its bombers have entirely destroyed the Syrian navy as it sat idle in dock. It is conducting hundreds of other bombing raids over Syria, destroying the weapons stocks and military infrastructure of a country with which it is supposedly at peace.

Syria, a relatively minor player in terms of oil production, has emerged as a key player in regional geopolitics. The country’s strategic position in the heart of the Middle East, combined with its deepening ties with Russia and Iran, places it at the centre of ongoing tensions. These dynamics are not only significant in terms of regional power struggles but are also influencing the global oil market.

Just as the first Christmas tree of the season is going to be lit up in New York’s iconic Rockefeller Plaza, a popular American TV channel was holding an interview with maker of native Christmas trees for decorating American homes. Lo and behold, what the interview about. It was on imposing import tariffs on Christmas trees.

The late summer and autumn of 2024 may well go down in history as the Berlin Wall moment for the Middle East as the collapse of the Assad dynastic dictatorship will have a seismic geopolitical fall out across the region. Iran has lost its land bridge/weapon supply conduit to its proxy militia Hezbollah, itself decapitated and militarily degraded by the IDF in Lebanon. Baathist Syria was Iran's oldest ally in the Arab world, a relationship forged by Hafez al-Assad with Ayatollah Khomeini in a bid to end his diplomatic isolation after Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords with Israel and his ideological archrival Saddam Hussein launched a bloody war of attrition in a failed attempt to crush the Iranian revolution in 1980.

LONDON: The annulment of the first round of Romania’s election marks a new phase in European authoritarianism. Given the growing alienation of populations across the West from “mainstream” politics — Britain is no exception to this — the precedent Romania sets is dangerous. This is the first case in which social media influence has been officially used to annul an election.

BERLIN: Germany’s Die Linke was once the shining light of the European left. Created in 2007 as a merger between the post-communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and a pro-labour breakaway from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), in its first decade Die Linke became a major force in national politics. In the East, it represented left-behind young people and pensioners and drew attention to the inequalities bequeathed by reunification. In the cities, it was the obvious political home for left-wing students, radical trade unionists, and activists of all kinds. At its height, it routinely scored around 10 percent nationally and nearly 30 percent in many former eastern states, even entering government there.