Foreign Ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation at Dushanbe with Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon, July 14, 2021 The ministerial meeting at Dushanbe last week of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the SCO contact group with Afghanistan left a trail of disappointment. The SCO statement on Afghanistan was a baby step — significant, nonetheless, considering the …
Pegasus Project: Why I am hesitant to defend the government but must
Pegasus Project: Activists, journalists, politicians have been spied on allegedly using mobile phone malware developed by Israel. The so-called Pegasus Project, which hit media headlines, has highlighted India in a clutch of countries where snooping of the telephones of citizens is widely practised as state policy. The Washington Post, which spearheaded the Pegasus Project, proposes …
Continue reading “Pegasus Project: Why I am hesitant to defend the government but must”
Pakistan’s geo-economics is working well
When the whole world is lamenting that the US is quitting Afghanistan in ignominy, the Biden Administration is snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. What an audacity of hope! The agreement reached in principle in Tashkent on Friday between the representatives of the United States, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan “to establish a new quadrilateral …
Transitional period ahead in US-China relations
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) paid an ‘official working visit to White House and held talks with President Joe Biden (R), July 15, 2021 The ‘official working visit’ by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the White House on July 15 has been most conspicuous for its subdued tone regarding the most fateful topic of …
Continue reading “Transitional period ahead in US-China relations”
Takeaways for Russia, India from Merkel’s US visit
German Chancellor Angela Merkel to visit White House on July 15, will be the first European leader to do so during Biden presidency A caveat must be added to the famous line by Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General and Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during the Second World War, that the purpose …
Continue reading “Takeaways for Russia, India from Merkel’s US visit”
China opens the SCO pathway to Kabul, India should go along
Amidst reports that Taliban fighters have entered Kandahar City, Afghan forces guarding a road, Afghanistan, July 9, 2021 The untimely remarks by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on the situation in Afghanistan during a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at Moscow on Friday does no good for his reputation as a …
Continue reading “China opens the SCO pathway to Kabul, India should go along”
Biden avoids diplomacy with Russia
The guided-missile destroyer USS Ross enters the Black Sea to participate in Sea Breeze 2021 exercises, June 26, 2021 The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov exhorted today in an extraordinary statement that the state authorities and the society at large must mobilise their resources amid the West’s pressure. Addressing an audience in Vladivostok, Lavrov said, …
Fizz is gone from Biden-Putin summit
The morning after a Russian-American summit is most critical to know whether the previous day’s bonhomie was real, surreal or unreal. Surveying the Geneva Summit (June 16) between presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, I cautiously assessed the next day, “Does Biden have the political capital to press ahead with a project to create “stability and …
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 …
Continue reading “NATO declares China as global security challenge”
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 …