There has been a change at the top of NATO as former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg finally stepped down after an almost unprecedented 10 year tenure as Secretary General.
New Secretary General of NATO appointed
His term was unilaterally extended due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine but he has now stepped down to be replaced by Mark Rutte, a former Prime Minister of The Netherlands.
As the official handover took place at the NATO Headquarters building in Brussels, the two individuals gave a joint press conference voicing concern over the escalation of violence in the Lebanon and expressing their hopes for peace.
Subsequent to that, it was confirmed that Iran had launched 180 missiles and drones against Israel but, thanks in part to action undertaken by both the US Navy in the Eastern Mediterranean and the British RAF based in Cyprus, the damage done to Israeli targets was negligible.
Possible difficult time for NATO if Donald Trump re-elected
Mr Rutte faces an interesting term, especially due to the impending US Presidential Elections as it is no secret that during his first tenure as President, Donald Trump was very critical of NATO as an organisation and if re-elected could become a negative factor.
Interestingly, there has never been a NATO Secretary General from the USA even though that country and Canada were both founding members of NATO in 1949.
More than 110 armed conflicts across the world
Latest estimates suggest that there are more than 110 armed conflicts taking place across the world with the only continents that are not seeing conflict on their soil are Antarctica and North America.
Some of these conflicts have been waged for many years whilst others are either sporadic or have emerged anew over the past two years but each and every one is guaranteed to cause physical and mental pain and anguish to those affected.
