Photo source: The New Arab By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront By tightening national and security protocols, Greece is using Middle Eastern and South Asian refugees to carry out extrajudicial deportations. In a report by Human Rights Watch in April 2022, asylum seekers who crossed the Greco-Turkish border were stripped, beaten, robbed and forced to wade through chest-high freezing water back to Turkey. This is a sadistic twist on the European border regime. Known as refugee commandos, they work not on money, but on the promises of asylum. No one should be surprised that the securitisation of Europe’s border has directly depended on the violence and humiliation of refugees. Since the Arab Spring happened, the European Union has shaped its border policy in such a way that it deflects people seeking safety inside Europe. No European leader condemns this. Member states are banding together their border defence forces which are now stronger than Frontex, the EU’s own border agency. The...

Photo source: Fair Observer By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront T here had been reports that Denmark’s military agency had helped the United States to spy on leading European politicians, including Angela Merkel. As a reaction, the European Union had been demanding answers. 'Danmarks Radio', a Danish public broadcaster, revealed that US National Security Agency (NSA), whose alleged tapping of Merkel’s phone was made known by Edward Snowden, in 2013, also used Danish Defense Intelligence Service ( Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste ) to spy on officials in Sweden, France and Norway. There is an insider-classified report on FE’s role in the surveillance partnership agreement with NSA from 2012 to 2015. The Danish broadcaster cited nine unidentified sources familiar with the investigation. NSA had apparently used Danish information cables to spy on senior officials, including the former German foreign minister, Frank Walter Steinmeier, and then opposition leader Peer Steinburck. ...

Photo Source: The Economist By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront W hen Islamic extremism spilt over to Europe, after 9/11 attacks, the Islamic war had truly become global. Britain, France, Germany and Spain were attacked mercilessly and randomly. But Italy has all along avoided the Islamic war on its soil. However, the rising threats of Islamic war that Italy can face in future can no longer be undermined. In August 2017, when a video was circulated by al-Hayat, a pro-ISIS organisation based in the war-ravaged city of Marawi, Philippines, the ISIS sympathisers threatened Vatican and Rome, while tearing the image of Pope Francis in a sacked Roman Catholic Church. The video had been directed towards jihadi sympathisers based in Italy that showed militants wrecking statues of Jesus, Mary, St. Joseph and ripping pictures of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI. A graphic illustration of a young man holding a knife with Italian phrase ‘Devi Combatterl...

By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront ANGELA MERKEL’S ACHIEVEMENT in winning four consecutive federal elections in Germany was remarkable by any democratic standard. Few leaders in modern Europe have managed such longevity in office. Yet remaining in power for so long should not be confused with unqualified success or ideological clarity. Merkel’s leadership was defined less by sweeping vision than by caution, pragmatism, and an ability to endure crises without fully owning their long-term consequences. Her strength lay in survival rather than transformation, and this distinction is crucial to any serious assessment of her legacy. Internationally, Merkel was often portrayed as a moral counterweight to the rise of authoritarian leaders. In the Anglo-American press she was frequently described as a stabilising figure and, following the election of Donald Trump in 2016, was often characterised as a potential ‘leader of the free world’—a label she herself never embraced. The phrase...

Photo Source: Al Jazeera By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront AT THE HEART OF THE MIGRANT CRISES of our age lies a dangerous convergence of power and division, where political ambition hardens into dogma and dogma into fanaticism. The greatest burden falls not on those who wield power, but on families stripped of home, heritage, and belonging. Their journeys—fraught with uncertainty—demand resilience, hope, and often sheer luck to secure even the most basic sustenance. As The Guardian observed, ‘the refugee crisis is not only about numbers but about human dignity and survival.’ Recent conflicts have produced displacement on a staggering scale, with violence in Iraq’s Ramadi alone forcing millions from their homes. Since the beginning of 2014, fighting displaced about 2.8 million Iraqis, according to UN figures reported by BBC News. In 2013, about 40,000 South Sudanese were waiting to be transported from Sudan, where they lived in appalling conditions in Khartoum squatter camps. ...