In today’s polarized geopolitical landscape, Indonesia’s dependence on traditional partners such as the US, China, and the EU creates structural vulnerabilities that constrain its strategic autonomy. A strategic partnership with Belarus offers an alternative path – a bridge to the Eurasian region that has so far been on the periphery of Indonesia’s trade...
President Trump’s Monday announcement that the United States would become “The Guardian of the Hormuz Strait,” charging a 20 percent fee on cargo transiting the strait, arrived less than a month after his own administration insisted no country had the right to do exactly that. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in June that charging tolls on an internationa...
7-day-long funeral rites for the late Supreme Leader of Iran have proceeded despite the Trump administration’s reported efforts to keep away foreign delegations, veiled threats to bomb mourners, and bombing the country during the period. This shows that Iranians and their allies have decided to carry on despite Washington’s...
For generations, the strategic bargain between Washington and the Persian Gulf monarchies was strikingly straightforward: The United States guarantees the territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. In return, these kingdoms keep global oil markets relatively stable and price their crude in dollars - bolstering America’s energ...
I explained that the tit-for-tat game that Iran and Washington are playing works perfectly for Israel. Israel is the source of the violence. Washington is merely acting for Israel. It is not Washington that gains from war with Iran. The war is in behalf of Israel’s agenda of Greater Israel. Israel is again attempting have Washington destroy Iran and again to...
On paper, the latest collapse looks almost bureaucratic. The June memorandum of understanding that ended the seven-month US-Israel war on Iran committed Tehran, under Article 5, to “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels” through the Strait of Hormuz. That single clause has been read two entirely different...
The NATO summit in Ankara was advertised as a moment of unity. Instead, it laid bare the alliance’s fractures and hollow rituals: a U.S. president openly antagonistic toward Europe, a gaping missile-defence deficit, and a Turkey that has become...
In June 2026, North Korea issued a series of significant statements demonstrating its desire to revise its position on the international stage. The key idea was that denuclearization is not on the country’s agenda and that its nuclear status is...
In a significant intervention, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court comprising Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan V. and Justice K.V. Jayakumar reprimanded the administration of the Koodalmanikyam Devaswom for decades of financial mismanagement, unresolved audit objections, and failure to comply with statutory obligations under the Koodalmanikyam Devaswom Act,...
Total hybrid war is not merely a new form of conflict. It is the symptom of a world that no longer knows how to produce peace except by administering war. When the media, institutions, universities, platforms, currencies, norms, narratives, and health, energy or information crises become fields of operation, we are no longer simply witnessing an extension of...
The visit of Japan’s new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, to India on July 1-3 was marked by numerous significant agreements on expanding cooperation in the fields of security and defense, as well as in areas such as trade, investment, technology, innovation, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, energy, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, critical materials, lo...
The signing of memorandums between Turkey and Saudi Arabia to revive the historic Hejaz Railway and establish a fibre-optic corridor marks the beginning of a major transport project that could reshape the Middle East’s logistics map and challenge existing routes through Iran, Iraq, and...
The Presbyterian Church voted last week to recognize the genocide in Gaza and supports an arms embargo and divestment from Israel. “The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), also known as the PCUSA, voted to officially adopt a resolution that will have the institution identify Israel’s war on Gaza as a genocide, lobby US Congress for an arms emb...
The month end saw Daily Mirror blaring “More arrests of lawyers, politicians and senior police officers are likely in the near future” following the arrest of Nadun Chinthaka Wickramaratne alias Harak Kata and the uncovering of his criminal network. His deeply entrenched criminal network centred around notorious drug kingpin highlights a dangerous nexus betw...
While the Arab states of the Persian Gulf concluded from the war against Iran that Israel was a predator and the United States was not the world’s policeman, Americans still do not know what to make of Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition. “Revisionist Zionists” are attempting to introduce pro-Israel candidates into the Republican and Democratic...
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s three-day visit to the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain (June 23-25) is being framed by Washington as a consultative exercise: a chance to brief Gulf partners on the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), discuss freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, and reaffirm shared regional priorities. In Bahrain, Rubio also me...
Trump has made a U-turn. Instead of his usual TACO, he chose TITS – Trump Illustrates Terrific Sanity, as said an internet wit. He switched off the Purim War Against Iran, like a housewife turning off her gas stove. The wily Iranians followed Trump’s U-turn, ensuring it’s actually done. The most important result of this debacle: the frog of Israel that tried...
At the beginning of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condoled the assassination of Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and described the US and Israeli attack on Iran as a clear violation of international law. In contrast, he considered Iran’s retaliatory attacks on the Persian Gulf countries...
The US-Israel war against Iran has officially ended with a deal signed in Switzerland. However, reports suggest that Israel is not going along and has publicly expressed its opposition which makes the deal tenuous. However fragile the deal itself may be, it has come as a welcome relief for all, particularly the rest of world who have been subjected to unprec...
HERAKLION, Crete - The cafe owner here doesn’t watch CNN anymore. He checks Al Jazeera for regional news, follows Chinese state media for economic developments, and laughs when he reads Western predictions about Russia’s collapse. “They’ve been predicting this for three years,” he tells me, as he hands me a cappuccino and a cheese pie. “Maybe they should acc...