Chinese President Xi Jinping (standing) with foreign minister Wang Yi (C) and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov (R) at the recent BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa The Modi government is not perplexed by the absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the G20 Summit on September 9-10. Its intuitive …
Russia inherits Prigozhin’s African odyssey
Russia’s Deputy Defence Minister Colonel-General Yunus-bek Yevkurov (L) presents a pistol as gift to Libyan military commander Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar (C), Benghazi, Libya, August 24, 2023 Africa, especially west Africa, has a strong sense of collective identity. Trends in one country have a way of spreading across the continent. Therefore, It might or might not be …
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India, the reluctant BRICS traveller
( L to R) Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at BRICS Summit, Johannesburg, Aug 23, 2023 India became a beacon of hope for the Western media for a short while in the run-up to the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg — a …
Who’s afraid of Prigozhin and Wagner?
Yevgeny Prigozhin speaks to camera in an image taken from video released on Wagner-linked Telegram channels on Aug. 21, 2023 There has been an avalanche of western media reports within minutes or hours of the ghastly death on Wednesday of the head of the Wagner organisation of Russian military contractors, Yevgeny Prigozhin, which pointed the …
Niger revolution takes Bonapartist turn
General Abdouramane Tchiani who assumed power in Niger on August 26, 2023, previously headed the elite Presidential Guards The 4-week old turmoil in the West African state of Niger is taking a curious turn that no longer allows a binary vision of “neo-colonialism and imperialism” versus “national liberation”. Niger’s coup leaders are making overtures to …
India doesn’t want BRICS to dismantle the world order built by the West
If the BRICS group of rising powers tries to usurp global governance, it will collapse under its own weight… A famous incident narrated by Bob Woodward in his book Obama’s Wars comes to mind: President Barack Obama, disregarding the protestations of Chinese protocol officials, burst into a closed-door meeting of Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders …
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France’s colonial legacy, US’ security concerns intersect in Niger; Russians at the gates look for new hunting grounds
Supporters of the M62 movement in Niger in a demonstration to demand the departure of foreign forces [File photo] The military coup in Niger is already three weeks old. The putschists are cementing their rule, having gained the upper hand in the shadow play with the Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS] backed by …
AUKUS, QUAD transforming alliance-like
US President Joe Biden, Australian PM Anthony Albanese, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida and Indian PM Narendra Modi held a QUAD meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, 20 May 2023 This week augurs an acceleration of strategic realignments among the big powers amidst growing signs of a new cold war globally with particular focus on the United States’ …
West is paranoid about BRICS Summit
Reuters carried a speculative report last week that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi might not attend the BRICS summit in Johannesburg in person and, furthermore, that India disfavoured an expansion of the grouping. Reuters’ long history of cold war skulduggery notwithstanding, the gullible Indian media fell for the rumour mongering. And it created some confusion, …
Niger rejects rules-based order
The coup in the West African state of Niger on July 26 and the Russia-Africa Summit the next day in St. Petersburg are playing out in the backdrop of multipolarity in the world order. Seemingly independent events, they capture nonetheless the zeitgeist of our transformative era. First, the big picture — the Africa summit hosted …