In a few hours from now, by this evening per IST, it is expected that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will rule on the South African request for provisional measures to stop what it argues is Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. It is a poignant moment: an ex-apartheid country is censuring an …
Geopolitics is moving North Korea’s way
President Vladimir Putin (3rd from Right) met North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui (3rd from Left), Moscow, Jan. 16, 2024 In less than three years, the erosion in the US hegemony that began cascading with the defeat in Afghanistan in August 2021 spread to Eurasia, followed by the massive eruption in West Asia by …
Regional opinion urges Iran-Pakistan amity
Unsurprisingly, the eruption of tensions in the Pakistan-Iran diplomatic ties on Tuesday following Tehran’s air strike across the border against Baluchistan is subsiding, which testifies to the political maturity of the two countries. Neither side wants the tensions and both are astute observers of the regional and international environment. Their chosen path of reconciliation becomes …
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Decoding Iran’s missile, drone strikes
The building described as ‘Mossad Headquarters’ in Iraqi Kurdistan with underground facilities for conducting covert operations hit by Iranian missile attack, Erbil, Northern Iraq, January 15, 2024 The stunning missile and drone strikes on three countries — Syria, Iraq and Pakistan — over a period of 24 hours and Tehran taking the extraordinary step of …
An anniversary West would rather forget
On the 75th anniversary of the battle that lifted the Siege of Leningrad in World War 2, people walk in snowfall to the Motherland monument to place flowers at the Piskaryovskoye Cemetery where the victims were buried, St. Petersburg, Russia, January 26, 2019 An epochal anniversary from the annals of modern history is coming up …
Taiwan: cross-strait brinkmanship to continue
Taiwan’s electoral laws provide for the candidate with the highest number of votes becoming the winner on a first-past-the-post basis, and it is a moot point that the incumbent Vice President William Lai from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who secured only 40 percent of votes is still elected as the next president. The DPP …
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India gets a rude awakening in West Asia
Britain’s HMS Diamond deploys missiles to attack Yemen From the standpoint of affirming ‘solidarity’ with the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the October 7 attack, India has swung away to the far horizon and has unceremoniously dumped the US-Israeli axis, which provided beacon light to Delhi’s West Asian policies in the past few …
Palestine: EU’s Borrell bats for US
Video image of a Hezbollah anti-tank guided missile hitting a radar dome at Israeli air base on Mount Meron, Jan. 6, 2024 The diplomatic arena of the Middle East was dominated in the past week by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s regional tour to Türkiye, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West …
Blinken’s window dressing tour of Arab capitals
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in AlUla, January 8, 2023 The expectation raised by the United States in allowing a UN Security Council resolution on Gaza pass through on December 22, 2023 without having to exercise its veto — albeit a watered-down one that stopped …
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India-Russia ties get a makeover
India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (L) and President Vladimir Putin (R) in Moscow during a five-day visit to Russia (Dec 24-29, 2023) The visit by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to Russia on December 24-29 presented an extraordinary spectacle reminiscent of the halcyon days of Indo-Soviet relations. There …