At the end of June, Georgia was swept by a wave of demonstrations unprecedented since the early 1990s. What were they protesting against? Against the EU's refusal to admit Georgia as a candidate country.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of two "matches of the century". Although I was only nine years old in 1972, I remember them both very well, because they were indeed events that will be etched in my memory for the rest of my life.
It is a peculiarity of Latvian political life that shortly before elections, parties actively recruit popular figures to their lists. Just now, Development/For! (Attīstībai/Par!) has announced that its list will include the well-known doctor Anatolijs Danilāns, the spouse of the former Estonian president Ieva Ilves and the TV actor Andris Lielais, the actor in Solovyov TV who defected from Russia.
Defense Minister Artis Pabriks' remarks on the necessity of introducing compulsory military service have sparked a justified debate, as there are many unclear issues. Let us not speculate on how much this move by Pabriks has been aligned with the upcoming elections and how much with the real need. Perhaps the two coincided. Let us talk about the controversial issue of women's service. Why is women's service voluntary?
Prices are rising sharply all over the world, but Latvia is one of the euro area countries that has taken the lead. In May, annual inflation in Latvia was 16.9%. Data for June will be published tomorrow, but no significant changes are expected. What do these figures mean, and what can we expect in the future?
The long-awaited and already historic NATO Madrid Summit has come to an end. While it can always be said that it could have been better, overall we can be satisfied with the decisions taken there. The main result was the new NATO strategy, which identifies Russia as the main threat.
Late on Saturday evening, traffic was blocked in central Moscow to allow the presidential motorcade to enter the Kremlin at high speed. Immediately, rumors spread that a special, extraordinary announcement was being prepared.
On June 24, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled to overturn earlier rulings of the same Supreme Court that prohibit banning abortion. Now each US state will once again be able to decide on abortion issues on its own, according to the discretion of the majority of its citizens.
On June 18, Lithuania introduced rail transit restrictions to the Kaliningrad region for Russian goods included in the EU's fourth sanctions package. This decision has caused a storm of indignation and veiled threats in Russia. How serious is the situation?
The much-criticized leaders of France, Germany and Italy - Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Mario Draghi - together with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, finally arrived in Kyiv last Thursday for a solidarity visit. The first visible results seem promising.
On June 8 this year, Russian State Duma deputy Yevgeny Fyodorov submitted a draft law to "parliament" which would annul the decision of the USSR State Council of September 6, 1991, on the recognition of Lithuania's independence. In response to this international outburst, some Lithuanian jokesters proposed to annul the 1634 Treaty of Polyanovka, by which the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceded the Smolensk area to Russia.
On the eve of the Bucharest meeting of the leaders of NATO's eastern flank, Putin has come out with yet more ruminations on history and fantasies about his place in today's world. To call a spade a spade, he openly threatens Latvia, the Baltics and the whole world.
Optimistic headlines announce the government's decision - Latvia will finally move to an education system in the national language only. Kārlis Šadurskis, a political activist of the Unity (Vienotība) party and former Minister of Education, writes: "The work I started in 2004 has finally been successfully completed." Is it really completed?
When in 2014 the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, after a conversation with Putin, complained to then US President Barack Obama that "our friend" Vladimir was living in a parallel reality, no one in the West, including here, even thought to examine Merkel's phrase through the prism of "critical thinking".
On Thursday, the Saeima blocked the third reading of the Civil Union Law, but this does not mean that the issue is off the table. It will be put back on the agenda again and again, trying to get it through by whatever means.
After a month of discussions, the EU's sixth sanctions package has finally been adopted. It would be more correct to write "after a month of fumbling", but let's stick to the principle - better late than never.
On the last day of May, US President Joe Biden published a programmatic piece in the guest column of The New York Times on the US position on the Russia-Ukraine war. The title of the article says a lot: "What America will and will not do in Ukraine".
On Thursday, the Saeima was addressed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who stressed that "we must restore full respect for the fundamental values on our continent. We must fight absolutely clearly and at all levels for the principle: every nation matters".
Henry Kissinger, once a superstar of diplomacy, at the age of 98 (he turns 99 today), spoke at the Davos Economic Forum with his proposal for a solution to the Ukraine war.
Yale University professor Timothy Snyder's article "We should say it. Russia is fascist" in the influential The New York Times was a worldwide sensation.
The world is not ready for a "new era of risk", according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's (SIPRI) annual report "Environment of Peace" on the level of threats to global peace, published yesterday.
