Europe today faces a demographic crisis. It is the great unmentionable in the current furore over migration from North Africa and the Middle East by persons seeking a better life, as they perceive it, in Europe. That migration is receiving significant resistance from a number of countries, although their demographic position would be much worse were it not f...
The situation in the country remains tense ahead of Libya’s first-ever presidential elections, scheduled for December 24. On November 12, an international conference on Libya was held in Paris to resolve the crisis in the North African country. Participants, who came from more than 20 States, reviewed the progress made in the political process and the implem...
Twenty-three-year-old Mohamed Rasheed was at a loss after returning to Iraq from a grueling failed attempt to cross the Belarus-Polish border. “There’s no life for us here. There are no jobs; there is no future,” he told a Washington Post reporter. Another man, who had just disembarked from a repatriation flight from the Belarus capital of Minsk to Erbil in ...
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Andrei
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27 Nov 2021
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Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has declared today [November 21-Ed] that a Biden-Putin summit was being worked on and that it could take place before the end of the year. If true, then this is, by definition, very good news. What this news item also seems to suggest is that there is some very serious infighting taking place amongst the...
Turkey and Iran, whose cooperation and potential conflict are closely intertwined despite the occasional disagreement and contradictory views on world events, are still trying to maintain a complex balance between themselves to prevent a significant escalation of tension. Indeed, any shift in the balance of power between these two critical poles in the Middl...
The Ethiopian National Electoral Commission postponed the September 2020 parliamentary elections because of the Covid epidemic. The TPLF (the main Tigrayan political party) has nevertheless decided to hold the elections in its region of Tigray, thus clearly seceding from the rest of the country. The federal government obviously did not recognise these electi...
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has tamed his kingdom’s ultra-conservative religious establishment and made hyper-nationalism rather than religion a pillar of a new 21st century Saudi identity. But the first beneficiaries of a recent decree to give citizenship to high-end achievers in law, medicine, science, technology, culture, and sports suggests th...
In the urban expanses of Delhi, the most recent magic wand is Transit Oriented Development, or TOD. This is likely to be followed in other cities of India, and is being sold as something which will eradicate all woes of Delhi-ites. This is not a novel idea. Rather, it is a takeaway from the West, just as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) was; it is being implement...
James Bond “usually arrives at the climax of his highly lucrative films strapped to a doomsday device, desperately trying to figure out which coloured wire to pull to turn it off, while a red digital clock mercilessly sounds a blast that will end human life as we know it (...) We’re pretty much at the end of the road. We are in much the same position, my fel...
1] Russia is NOT preparing an invasion. Washington and its vassals are shouting ‘WOLF’ because that are panicked that the internal situation in Ukraine is spinning out of control – and they’re setting up Putin as the scapegoat in the event that the crazies in Kiev launch their own assault on the secessionist Donbass provinces.
2] Ukraine is well on its way...
Punjab is going through one of the most unfortunate and dangerous phases in its long and noble history. The current phase is unfortunate because the land and its people are beset with huge problems, including lack of employment, faltering economy, dangerously deteriorating environment, drug addiction, an exodus of youth due to unfettered migration, control o...
In the last months, much has been published and broadcast on the upcoming report on the ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’, popularly known as UFOs that the US Congress required from the Pentagon in a bill passed last December. In response, a 73-page classified document jointly prepared by all the major Defence and Intelligence agencies has been communicated to...
An Indonesian promise to work with the United Arab Emirates to promote ‘moderate’ Islam raises questions of what constitutes moderation and how it can best be achieved. The pledge, made by Indonesian President Joko Widodo during a three-day visit to the UAE (November 4-6, 2021) to solicit Emirati investment in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority state,...
The Tricolour flying proudly in Lal Chowk in Srinagar and other places across the valley is a joyful sight indeed. It brings a feeling of relief at the prospects of the trouble torn region, at last, moving towards normality. While admitting that the desired end state is yet to be achieved, there is a fair degree of positivity among the people with regard to ...
Back in the days when the New York Review of Books took seriously its reputation as the stellar journal of English-reading intellectuals, the editors upon occasion published long, prolix essays on the recondite topic of the Mind-Brain relationship. I recall John Searle of Berkeley as one of the protagonists. Through dint of supreme effort and disciplined con...
The question of what constitutes ‘thinking’ overlaps the issues of MIND/BRAIN. Defining, delineating and explicating self-awareness, rationality, and logic has been a perplexing challenge since time immemorial. ‘’Discovery’ of the subconscious has enormously complicated these tasks. Advances in neurology add a new dimension to the discourse. A finitude of ti...
Today, during a walk not far from home, I came across a group of children on an outing from their orthodox Jewish school. Their teachers and they all wore the ritual kippas. I caught myself noticing that they were possibly flirting with illegality since ‘ostentatious’ religious symbols are held to violate the supposedly strict secularism of the French State....
Sudan is the exception to the rule in the United Arab Emirates’ counterrevolutionary playbook. In contrast to Egypt or Yemen, where it went out of its way to help roll back the achievements of popular revolts, the UAE was happy to see the back of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir. Mr. Al-Bashir was toppled in April 2019 by the country’s military as mass anti...
Remember, in the 2000s, there was a very deadly conflict between the south and north of Sudan. Appearances were deceptive as US private military companies, notably DynCorp International, fought there disguised as natives. In the end, the self-proclaimed “Friends of Sudan” (US, Norway, UK) imposed the Naivasha Agreement, which led to the secession of South Su...
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan may have averted for now further violence by caving in to demands of a militant, supremacist religious group. But in doing so, Mr. Khan is allowing radical ultra-conservatism to fester, undermining social cohesion, threatening economic development, and giving militants a say in foreign policy. The government’s surrender to...
Around fifty years ago the American singer Lovelace Watkins, who hadn’t made the expected impact in his own country, became a big star in the UK. A big, powerful black man with a booming voice who sang popular romantic songs, his earthy appeal made him very popular with the ladies, and he performed a number of sold out cabaret shows and released several reco...
Barely three months after the Taliban claimed victory in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the second most populous Muslim-majority state, is moving to join Kabul in becoming an outpost of religious intolerance and Muslim supremacy. In doing so, Pakistan, alongside Afghanistan, has come down on the side of countries like Turkey and Iran that advocate various forms of p...
Happenings in Sri Lanka during the month of October 2021 can be summarised as “Politics of Majoritarianism, Security and Scams.” President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is known for goal-oriented action. But two of his recent decisions, abolition of the use of chemical fertilizers and introducing “one country one law” are having ripple effects not only on economy and e...
The so-called ‘QUAD 2’, or the West Asian QUAD, comes at a time when, on the one hand, the US is facing an unprecedented global challenge from China, and on the other, when the US’ European allies continue to refuse to support the US in its tussle with China. While European powers do consider China a rival, it remains that – and it is more evident now than e...
Another serious warning sign of Washington’s interest in expanding its campaign of global interference was sounded during a hearing in front of the US Congress featuring Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. While at face value it appears to be a promising step in the direction of reining in Facebook’s abusive monopoly over the flow of information and how p...
“We are heavily outnumbered... I shall not withdraw an inch but will fight to the last man.” These historic words need to be indelibly etched in the memories of all Indians since they framed the destiny of the nation post-Independence. They were spoken by Major Somnath Sharma, Param Vir Chakra (PVC), Posthumous, on 3 November 1947, when he, along with his br...
The Taliban and Pakistan, both viewed warily by the West and others in the international community, appear to be benefitting from mounting concerns about the humanitarian and security situation in Afghanistan. The European Union, in a move that could put the United States in an awkward position, is close to reopening its mission in the Afghan capital and off...
The implementation of the conclusions of the US-Russia summit in Geneva (known as “Yalta II”), held on June 16, 2021, continues. It seems that the concessions made by Washington to Moscow are much more significant than previously thought. President Vladimir Putin continues to put the world back in order not only in the wider Middle East, but also in...
In a stark assessment of U.S. international policy and that of its allies, Prof. Michael Brenner says there is an abject failure of political leadership and strategic thinking. This is clearly seen with regard to Washington’s persistent antagonism of China and its inability to conduct meaningful dialogue and diplomacy with Beijing for resolving major issues....