On taking office as President of the EU Commission in 2019, Ursula von der Leyen said she wanted to create a ‘geopolitical Commission’: “We have enormous tasks ahead of us: Brexit, climate change, 5G expansion, the rise of protectionism, and the reform of the European asylum system – to name just a few. To manage these upheavals, Europe must stand united and assert itself more globally.” Her goal, she said, is to achieve ‘strategic sovereignty’ for the EU on a par with the US, China, and Russia. Since the Ukraine war in February 2022, the EU grandees have outdone themselves with buzzwords on the topic of geopolitics. Recently, EU ‘geopolitical subsidies’ were also announced.

Is the EU capable of becoming a world power? Or is this merely wishful thinking on the part of its leaders? I try to give a concise and very rough sketch on these issues.

Argues that it's time for professional organizations, and especially in sociology, to quit their "business as usual" operations and focus on the climate change crisis.ies

On July 29, 2022, Omali Yeshitela and his wife, Ona Zene, awoke at 5 o’clock in the morning to the sound of flash grenades and drones, as heavily armed FBI agents stormed into their home searching for evidence of organizational ties to the Russian government. Yeshitela is the 80-year-old chair of the African People’s Socialist Party, a Pan-Africanist political party founded in 1972 and headquartered in Florida. His wife is the deputy chair.

Last week, nine months after the raid, the Department of Justice unsealed new grand jury indictments against Yeshitela, as well as Jesse Nevel, Penny Hess, and Gazi Kodzo—national chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, chair of the African People’s Solidarity Committee, and cofounder of the Black Hammer Party, respectively—naming them as co-conspirators in an alleged plot to promote the political interests of Russia within the United States.