Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield (File photo) For more than one reason, the US President Joe Biden’s call with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday is hugely consequential. This has been Biden’s second phone conversation with Bennett in four weeks. On March 30 Biden called to express his “deepest condolences” following the terrorist attacks …
US narrative won’t survive defeat in Donbass
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) with visiting UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, New Delhi, April 22, 2022 An extraordinary thing about British diplomacy is that it continually looks for ways to stay ahead of the curve and provide added value to its customer across the Atlantic, the United States. That makes the remarks on …
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Migratory birds of mass destruction
Albatross, famous migratory bird, is also a love bird. It is known for being monogamous, forming long-term bond with one partner that is rarely broken. Mated pairs never split up until one bird dies. The UN Security Council held an extraordinary event on April 6 under the rubric Arria Formula Meeting on Biological Security regarding …
Russia pushes back western sanctions, revs up operation in Eastern Ukraine
Russian special operation in Donbass entered new phase The Russian President Vladimir Putin said defiantly on Monday that the western sanctions have proved to be “ineffective” in meeting their objective. In his words, “They (US and EU) expected these sanctions to rapidly produce a devastating effect on Russia’s finances and economy, sow panic in the markets, bring about a collapse in the banking system …
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Pakistan stirs up Pashtun hornet’s nest
Afghans protest against Pakistani air strikes, Khost, April 16, 2022 The Pakistani air strikes on Saturday on the eastern Afghanistan provinces of Kunar and Khost killing dozens of people may seem at first glance a crude knee-jerk reaction to the ambush in North Waziristan the previous day in which seven Pakistani soldiers were killed. But …
Battle for Mariupol is ending
The Russian Ministry of Defence offer of surrender terms to the personnel of the extreme nationalist neo-Nazi battalions and foreign mercenaries in the Azovstal iron and steel works to end hostilities by 1.00 pm Moscow time on Sunday would only have been a proforma gesture. Moscow’s statement said, that radio interceptions at Azovstal — as …
Russia’s Ukraine operation has no deadline
Fall is imminent of Azovstal iron and steel works, Mariupol, where thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and NATO officers are trapped. In his first extended remarks in nearly a month about the conflict in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that peace talks had reached a “dead end” and pledged that Russia’s “military operation …
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Asian fault lines of Biden’s war on Russia
As relations with Tokyo sour, Moscow beefs up the coastal defence systems on the Kuril Islands that Japan claims as its own The tremors of the United States’ tensions with Russia playing out in Europe are being felt in different ways already in Asia. The hypothesis of Ukraine being in Europe and the conflict being …
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Iran-backed Houthi is the winner in Yemen
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) received Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council , Riyadh, April 7, 2022 These are early days and Yemen has witnessed many a ceasefire in its tortuous civil war that began in September 2014 when Houthi forces took over the capital city Sanaa, which was followed by a rapid Houthi takeover of …
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Israel reaches out to China, again
The Bay Port at Haifa on the Mediterranean, will be operated by Shanghai International Port Group for a 25-year period The phone call to the Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday by Israel’s alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid adds to the tectonic shifts in the geopolitics of the …