Eisschilde schmelzen, Plastik findet sich in den entlegensten Ecken der Erde und Arten sterben. Längst sind Klima- und Umweltkrisen nicht mehr nur Kulisse politischer Konflikte, sondern führen zu Unsicherheit und Konflikten und bedrohen Existenzen. Die neueste Folge des PRIF talk taucht ein in das Anthropozän – das Zeitalter, in dem der Mensch zum langfristig prägenden Faktor der Erde geworden ist. Patrick Flamm leitet eine neue Forschungsgruppe zu den Zusammenhängen zwischen Ökologie und…

Since the end of the last Bundestag session it has become clear that although projected in the coalition agreement, the Scholz government has not taken significant steps towards dealing with Germany’s colonial past in Namibia. A Joint Declaration fell victim to the early elections in Germany. This spotlight presents data from a representative survey showing that dealing with the colonial past in Namibia has no priority for Germans, which might explain why the Scholz government shied away from…

Following the collapse of the recently renovated Novi Sad train station, which resulted in the death of 15 people, students across Serbia have been leading one of Europe’s largest protest movements. After months of anti-corruption demonstrations demanding justice and government accountability, hundreds of thousands gathered in Belgrade on March 15, 2025, in what some call the largest mass protest in Serbia’s history. While unprecedented in scale, these protests build on previous uprisings since…

Wenn westliche Stimmen den russischen Überfall auf die Ukraine im Februar 2022 als Angriff auf die „regelbasierte“ oder „liberale“ internationale Ordnung beschrieben haben, schwang dabei stets mit, dass es westliche Staaten und insbesondere die USA waren, die nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg das Völkerrecht sicherten. Es waren jedoch vor allem afro-asiatische Staaten, die während des Kalten Kriegs die regelbasierte Ordnung verteidigten, wenn Aggressionen die Unverletzlichkeit internationaler Grenzen…

Antarctica is often celebrated as a continent of peace and science. All ‘measures of a military nature’ – other than logistic and technical support for scientific endeavours – are prohibited by the Antarctic Treaty, which remains widely observed some 66 years after it was negotiated in 1959. However, conversations about ‘Antarctic security’ appear to be increasing in frequency and salience. Rather than chasing military and national security spectres at the South Pole, we should invest more in…

On March 5, 2025, the caretaker foreign minister of Syria, Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, delivered a speech at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in which he promised that his government would eliminate the Syrian chemical weapons programme and bring the country back into compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). If implemented, this would end over a decade of Syrian violations of the CWC, offer the opportunity to hold those responsible to account, and…

In a major shift in U.S. cybersecurity policy, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to halt all planning against Russia, including offensive cyber operations. This policy change, made behind closed doors, represents a significant reversal of the approach taken under the Biden administration, which had identified Russia and China as the most significant intelligence threats to the United States. The decision aligns with the broader foreign policy direction of the Trump…

After years of efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC), former President Rodrigo Duterte was finally arrested by the Philippine National Police and transferred to The Hague. What at first glance appears to be positive news, on the other hand, demonstrates the lack of will and abject failure of Philippine politics and authorities to prosecute the former president on their own soil. While the arrest is a first step to accountability and justice, it is also a dramatic testimony to the…

Maha Kumbh is a major Hindu festival in India, noted as the largest human gathering by UNESCO. Occurring every 144 years, in 2025 it was held in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh (UP), with an estimated 600 million attendees worldwide. This article examines the symbols of the festival, their political significance, and the blending of faith and politics under the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. The focus of the study is on methodologies for achieving political goals, as opposed to…

February 24 marked the third anniversary of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Various options for peace are being debated internationally, often without focusing on Ukrainian perspectives and interests. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, PRIF researcher Clara Perras conducted a written Interview with Olena Zinenko, a Ukrainian feminist peace activist and researcher from Kharkiv who currently lives and works in Bochum. She is lecturer at Karazin Kharkiv National University…