By Davis VanOpdorp (Deutsche Welle) – Criticizing the US Middle East peace plan, the EU’s foreign policy chief said the bloc needs a strategy to end unrest between Israelis and Palestinians. He said he hopes both sides could accept the EU as a mediator.   In light of US President Donald Trump unveiling of his…

By Christoph Strack (DW) - The pope is striving for a different kind of Catholic Church — one that commits to ecology and the poor. But he is reluctant to institute the reforms hoped for in Europe and North America. “Querida Amazonia” (Beloved Amazon), the Catholic Church’s Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Amazon region,…

By Tom Allinson and Imane Mellouk (DW) - A Russia-backed government offensive in Syria’s Idlib has brought Turkish forces into direct confrontation with President Bashar Assad’s troops. That threatens to unravel a fragile agreement between Turkey and Russia. Turkish-backed Syrian fighters gather for an offensive against rebel bastions near Idlib. De-escalation talks between…

Viewpoint by Mary Church* - EDINBURGH (IDN) – The outcomes of the longest ever meeting in the history of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – the COP25 negotiations in Madrid – have failed to reflect the urgency of the crisis or any grasp of the real solutions to the climate…

By Julian Ryall (Tokyo – DW) - While cinema aficionados have long acclaimed the work of South Korean directors, South Korean films have been glossed over at the global level. Bong Joon-ho’s fourfold Oscar win for “Parasite” marks a watershed change.   When Parasite director Bong Joon-ho accepted the Oscar for best picture at Sunday’s 92nd…

By Christoph Strack (DW) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s grip on her Christian Democrats party is loosening. The CDU is in crisis — and so is German Democracy. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer’s announcement that she will step down as the leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and not run for the chancellorship dealt a…

By Ramesh Jaura - BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) – Bob Dylan in “Blowin’ in the Wind”, one of the ‘Greatest Songs of All Time’, poses a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war, and freedom. The refrain “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind” has been described as…