Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and US President Joe Biden shake hands before their summit in Geneva, June 16, 2021 On the diplomatic stage, there is nothing to beat Russian-American summits in sheer theatrics. When the leaders of the two most powerful nuclear powers on earth sit face to face, anything can happen. What happened in …
NATO declares China as global security challenge
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit in Brussels on Monday reminds us once again of what a hoax the United States had perpetrated on the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 by assuring him that the western alliance would expand “not one inch eastward” once Moscow allowed German Unification and disbanded the Warsaw …
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US accent is on bilateral track to China
The G7 leaders celebrated that the tumultuous Donald Trump presidency is over. French President Emmanuel Macron (L) sharing happy moment with President Biden, Cornwall, UK, June 12, 2021 (The first part of this essay titled G7 and China: Fault lines in the world order is here.) The European countries have their own plans, while welcoming the …
G7 and China: Fault lines in the world order
G7 leaders at their summit in Cornwall, UK, June 12-13, 2021 The G7 has come a long way since its inception in the mid-1970s at the initiative of then French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt to discuss the world economy and consult on an international economic policy following the first …
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US reclaims Turkey for the western alliance
The first components of Turkey’s S-400 air defence missiles arrived from Russia in Ankara in July, 2019. (File Photo) Less than forty-eight hours separate the US President Joe Biden’s meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan in Brussels from his summit with Vladimir Putin at Geneva on June 16. In between falls the shadow of the …
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Congress reset transforms Kerala politics
K Sudhakaran, Member of Lok Sabha, has been appointed as the president of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, June 8, 2021 (File photo) The long-awaited decision by the Congress high command in Delhi to appoint party veteran K Sudhakaran, a sitting member of the Lok Sabha, as the next president of the Kerala Pradesh Congress …
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What to expect when Biden, Erdogan meet
Expectations are soaring in Ankara over the forthcoming meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Brussels on June 14. Erdogan said recently, “I believe that our meeting with Mr. Biden at the NATO summit will be the harbinger of a new era.” …
Biden clears the air on Russia ties
The US President Joe Biden’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post My trip to Europe is about America rallying the world’s democracies will draw wide attention in world capitals from Brussels to Beijing. He says right at the outset that this weeklong trip to Europe, the first overseas trip of his presidency, is “about realising America’s …
India’s ‘westernism’ is its undoing in vaccine strategy
A full week after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s extended four-day visit to the United States, the country is still in the dark as to the Biden administration’s generosity to spare some of their surplus stockpiles of Covid-19 vaccines. We leap out of the famous Samuel Becket play Waiting for Godot — of two tramps …
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Israeli politics breaks through glass ceiling
The incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lost his last-minute legal challenge to stall government formation by opposition right wing politician Naftali Bennett and his potential coalition partner, centrist politician Yair Lapid. Bennett and Lapid have a Wednesday midnight deadline to formally submit the bid for the newly proposed government coalition before President Reuven …
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