A Renaissance like photograph with a hint of Caravaggio: General Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte surrounded by his military staff after the US-backed coup of 11th September 1973 , Santiago The instances of cabinet officials being fired have become such a whimsical affair in the Donald Trump presidency that novelty has worn off. Yet, …
Continue reading “Trump retrofits history, takes Pinochet route”
Vladimir Putin (R), then Russian prime minister, met with US Vice President Joe Biden (L) in Moscow, March 10, 2011. The conspicuous reticence on Moscow’s part to congratulate Joe Biden on his spectacular victory in the US elections was bound to get noticed internationally. That prompted Moscow to explain its stance. The Kremlin explanation is …
Russia will be hosting the 20th summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in virtual format on November 10, 2020 The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s summit meeting on November 30 has a surreal setting. Being a ‘virtual’ meeting, the event spares the eight SCO statesmen of the embarrassment of having to accost each other or exchange …
Prime Minister Modi (L) invested on eight years of US President Trump (R) in the White House but expectations fall short. (File photo) From the Indian perspective, the prospect of a Joe Biden presidency becomes a moment of ‘memory mixing with desire’, to borrow from TS Eliot’s famous words from The Waste Land. Prima facie, …
President Donald Trump walks toward sunset at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, North Carolina, Nov 1, 2020. Into the final stretch of the US elections, a Joe Biden presidency is lurking on the horizon. Votes are still being counted in Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada. The races are too close to call. However, as …
Armenian shelling on Ganja, Azerbaijan, near Iran’s border Iran has unveiled a regional initiative to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi returned to Tehran in the weekend after a regional tour to Azerbaijan, Russia, Armenia and Turkey to discuss the peace plan. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has since explained Tehran’s thinking. …
The Modi government has earned the distinction as the “first non-western” voice to come out in support of French President Emmanuel Macron over the recent horrific killings in that country. This distinction apparently presents itself as too good to miss. The Rajya Sabha TV slotted a programme to castigate “Islamist terrorism” in France. Religious fundamentalism …
Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (R) received US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L), Colombo, October 28, 2020 Third-country cooperation is highly complex, unpredictable phenomenon. Not even the closest allies can pull it off easily. Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, denied that oil interests influenced policy in Iraq, but archives show that the British …
Indonesian President Joko Widodo (R) received US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L), Jakarta, October 29, 2020 On the eve of the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s arrival in Jakarta on October 28, the senior editor of the leading Indonesian daily Jakarta Post Kornelius Purba wrote a taunting op-ed dwelling on what the heavyweight …
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India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh (R) and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) at media briefing, New Delhi, October 27, 2020 The ‘2+2’ Ministerial Dialogue with the United States has ended leaving a trail of uncertainties. In substantive terms, there has been no real outcome. Words, words — that’s all we have, words that …
