From the editor: Ex-MP Oleg Tsarev was the last truly “Pro-Eastern” politician in Ukraine who attempted to act through democratic channels, e.g. running in a presidential election against Poroshenko. After he was severely beaten by a nationalist mob in Kiev, he withdrew his candidacy and called on all men of honor to do the same, saying the election is unde...
US-Iranian Relations Emerge from a 30-Year Cold War: Don’t sweat the details of the July nuclear accord between the United States and Iran. What matters is that the calculus of power in the Middle East just changed in significant...
The grand success of the Telugu movie, Bahubali, at the box-office has brought the spot-light on to the Telugu film industry. In the past, many popular Telugu movies were remade, dubbed in Hindi and Tamil, particularly in last few decades; but the success of Bahubali is altogether at a different level.
The movie has set new benchmarks with all time records...
Given the sharp and rising levels of agrarian distress in the country, the Centre has been wise not to press the land acquisition bill in the monsoon session (likely to be a washout unless the Speaker suspends the disruptive MPs) and to wait for the report of the joint panel. Over 650 farmer organisations and leaders have opposed The Right to Fair Compensati...
The Oxford Union/Social media debate on whether the British owe reparations to their former colonies is notable for the alarming display of Indian ignorance of basic facts and interesting in its timing. Items:
1] The British did not rule India for 200 years (as the Oxford debaters, including Shashi Tharoor, said repeatedly).
Consider the following...
Let’s start with the geopolitical Big Bang you know nothing about, the one that occurred just two weeks ago. Here are its results: from now on, any possible future attack on Iran threatened by the Pentagon (in conjunction with NATO) would essentially be an assault on the planning of an interlocking set of organizations - the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, In...
In my “Net Assessment of the World,” I argued that four major segments of the European and Asian landmass were in crisis: Europe, Russia, the Middle East (from the Levant to Iran) and China. Each crisis was different; each was at a different stage of development. Collectively the crises threatened to destabilize the Eurasian landmass, the Eastern Hemisphere,...
Obama is being praised as a man of peace for the nuclear agreement with Iran. Some are asking if Obama will take the next step and repair US-Russian relations and bring the Ukrainian imbroglio to an end?
If so he hasn’t told Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland or his nominee as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Paul Sel...
“Greece’s debt can now only be made sustainable through debt relief measures that go far beyond what Europe has been willing to consider so far” - International Monetary Fund
Greece’s lesson for Russia, and for China and Iran, is to avoid all financial relationships with the West. The West simply cannot be trusted. Washington is committed to economic and po...
The dramatic developments in India-Pakistan relations after the Ufa accord do not come as a surprise to those who know what forces that dictate Pakistan’s relationship with India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attempt to revive the stalled dialogue process was laudable. This is why he met Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the sidelines of the SCO Summ...
I love Russia’s vetoes. Sparse, strong, hard hits, they mark the limits of the Empire’s power. They said “No”, and Zimbabwe remained at peace, its old maverick Robert Mugabe still alive and kicking and proposing Obama his hand in marriage. They said “No”, and Burma [Myanmar – ed] could grow at its own pace. They said “No”, and Syria… well, Syria still suffer...
United States: By the time Ashraf Ghani took office, the security situation had become complex and a firm date for withdrawal of American troops was no longer a priority; indeed, one of his first acts was to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the US and the multilateral security agreement with NATO, which Karzai had resisted. This was urgently ...
China, Pakistan and India: In a bid to expand its influence in Asia, and pursue its Silk Road project, China took a seat at the Afghan high table by inviting the Taliban to Beijing (November 2014) and urging them to negotiate with the elected government; it appointed a special envoy for Afghanistan. China maintained diplomatic ties with the Taliban when it r...
A 21st century version of the Great Game is unfolding in Afghanistan, even as its internally fractured regime strives to stabilise a land ravaged by 14 years of war that has not yet ended. Once the arena of intense rivalry between the British Indian Empire, Tsarist Russia and the Chinese authorities, with Persia a keen watcher on account of the...
Greece is under a global microscope focused on it by the same forces that have put it in the laboratory: the regime of international financial dominators, which has been conducting policies of neo-liberal austerity for the past generation in every country under its...
Considering that journalists work in the service of peace, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution designed for their protection in combat zones. However, only two weeks later, the US Department of Defence published instructions for the arrest of media professionals who engage in espionage – an initiative which could harm journalists from th...
In Western political and mainstream media circles the great debate about what must be done if perverted and barbaric Islamic fundamentalism (PBIF) is to be contained and defeated is heating up. But nobody participating in this debate (be it President Obama or Tony Blair or whoever) wants to come to grips with the real issue. In my view the question that take...
An ugly controversy has been created over an alleged plan to rewrite school textbooks by the new government. The insinuation is that teaching aspects of ancient (read Hindu) culture, or episodes embedded in majority consciousness, would shatter the social fabric. By a strange quirk, these polemics coincide with a fresh engagement with our Muslim neighbourhoo...
The response by Tel-Aviv and Riyadh to the US-Iran negotiations can be found in the extension of Saudi financing of the war against Gaza in 2008 – the alliance between a colonial state and an obscurantist monarchy. While the Near East is preparing for a ten-year change in the rules of the game, Thierry Meyssan reveals here the contents of the secret negotiat...
The chronic want of food and water, the lack of sanitation and medical help, the neglect of means of communication, the poverty of educational provision, the all-pervading spirit of depression that I have myself seen to prevail in our villages after over a hundred years of British rule make me despair of its beneficence. — Rabindranath...
A while ago I had the pleasure of hearing Sergey Glazyev - economist, politician, member of the Academy of Sciences, adviser to Pres. Putin - say something that very much confirmed my own thinking. He said that anyone who knows mathematics can see that the United States is on the verge of collapse because its debt has gone exponential. These aren’t words tha...
I doubt that there will be a Greek exit. The Greek referendum, in which the Greek government’s position easily prevailed, tells the troika (EU Commission, European Central Bank, IMF, with of course Washington as the puppet master) that the Greek people support their government’s position that the years of austerity to which Greece has been subjected has seri...
Greece is the pearl of Mediterranean, the place generations of foreigners from Lord Byron to Graves to Fowles have fallen in love with. From philosophy to feta, from history to yoghurt, from poetry to honey they provided the example to follow. Their priests preserve the pristine faith; their fighters defeated Mussolini; their Helen is the epitome of female...
Okay, now that we have all celebrated the beautiful Greek “NO!” to the EU plutocracy, we need to get real again and look at the Empire’s options. Or, in fact, at the Empire’s option (with no ‘s’ at the end).
The Empire is extremely predictable. The example of Greece is a textbook case of how the Empire uses banks to strangle a country with debt, creates a...
Mark Twain, one of the most respected writers of the West, described India as “the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition” [1]. As any historian, philosopher, linguist, mythologist, mathematician, scientist, and psychoanalyst worth their salt should ac...
It looks like the “no” vote has won in Greece by a landslide, something in the range of 61% vs 39%. This is most definitely good news for Greece, for Europe, for Russia and the rest of the world. No, I am under no illusions about the kind of pressure and blackmail Greece will now be subjected to, and I have no blind trust in either Tsipras or Varoufakis. I...
The Eurasian concept that was once considered dead and gone after the Cold War is set to revive. This time the Russian township, Ufa, will work wonders. South Asia is slated to be an active partner in the Eurasian concept. India along with Iran and Pakistan who were in the queue will get full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – a Eura...
There has been a surge in the growth of jihadi elements in Tamil Nadu in the last two decades. When a countrywide ban was enforced on the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the Tamil Nadu unit took on the avatars of “Al Umma” and “Jihad Committee”; Al Umma made its first major strike at the RSS Hqrs in Chennai in November 1993, killing...
On the night of Saturday, 27 June 2015, organised violence was unleashed on the Chennai-Bengaluru highway and connected roads by a mob from Ambur, a town in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu. The violence targetted the police force and caused serious injuries to over 50 personnel and an equal number of members of the general public (mainly bus passengers), some...
The Greek situation - having perhaps outlived the term “crisis,” now that it has taken so long to unfold - appears to have finally reached its terminal point. This is, of course, an illusion: It has been at its terminal point for a long time.
The terminal point is the juncture where neither the Greeks nor the Germans can make any more concessions. In Greece...
Back in January upon coming into office, Syriza probably could not have won a referendum on whether to pay or not to pay. It didn’t have a full parliamentary majority, and had to rely on a nationalist party for Tsipras to become prime minister. (That party balked at cutting back Greek military spending, which was 3% of GDP, and which the troika had helpfully...
Russia wasn’t bluffing when it said that Turkish Stream would be the only route for Ukrainian-diverted gas shipments after 2019 , and after dillydallying in disbelief for over six critical months, the EU has only now come to its senses and is desperately trying to market a geopolitical alternative. Understanding that its need for gas must absolutely continue...
Hail, fire and brimstone, new sanctions or the US tanks on its borders, Russia takes things in stride. President Putin could adopt the motto of William of Orange: saevis tranquillus in undis, calm amidst the tempest. The tempest is all around. American tanks moved into the Baltic states. American warships sail up the Black sea. The EU sanctions against Russi...