Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Chinese President Xi Jinping after their talks, Kremlin, Moscow, June 5, 2019. The initiative by Beijing to propose a virtual meeting between President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday radically transforms the geopolitics of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s relentless eastward expansion and the Western military …
Continue reading “Russia-China alliance at the tipping point”
Mirage-2000 over Black Sea on Dec. 8, as NATO spy planes crowd Russia’s borders. Russian Defence Ministry daily Krasnaya Zvezda said on Dec 13 radars have tracked over 40 aircraft conducting reconnaissance near Russia’s borders over past week. Russia is reiterating its ‘red lines’ seeking long-term legal guarantees against NATO’s further advancement to the east …
Continue reading “Week after Biden-Putin meeting, crunch time is coming”
US President Joe Biden (R) and aides talking with Russian president Vladimir Putin, December 7, 2021 This must be a rare occasion when Russian President Vladimir Putin during his 18 years in the Kremlin came out second best in an encounter with an American president. And it had to be at the hands of President …
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) greets French President Emmanuel Macron upon his arrival in Jeddah, Dec 4, 2021 What distinguishes great powers like France is their sense of history and their profound understanding of the temporality of historical experience — or, how their past, present, and future are thought to be connected in …
US President Biden dismisses Russia’s red lines on Ukraine What has unfolded in the past 24 hours in the US-Russia diplomatic tango can be seen as a foreplay of the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden, which is slated for Tuesday evening. Russia has got what it has been keenly …
Prime Minister Modi and Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina In the life of a nation, perhaps, the first fifty years ought to be regarded as marking the rites of passage through adolescence. India can congratulate itself for helping navigate Bangladesh through a difficult childhood. Parentage of a precocious child isn’t easy and Bangladesh can be opinionated, …
Continue reading “India-Bangladesh ties at inflection point”
Iran’s Dy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani (C) with diplomatic adviser to UAE President Anwar Gargash (L) and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khalifa Almara, Abu Dhabi, Nov. 16, 2021 The terrible secret about Faustian deals is that they need a Mephistopheles to nurture them. That said, Goethe’s Mephisto is very different from the …
Continue reading “As UAE embraces Iran, fizz goes pop for Abraham Accords”
President Vladimir Putin remarked on Sino-Russian partnership at ‘Russia Calling! Investment Forum’, Moscow, Nov 30, 2021 The Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times has disclosed, citing high-level “source”, that Beijing had no intentions to invite US and Western politicians to the 2022 Winter Olympics on February 4-20. This followed the US President Joe Biden’s innuendo …
Afghans sit beside sacks of food grains distributed as aid The three-week long “anti-terror operation” undertaken by the Indian Army from October 11 in the Bhatta Durrian forest in Poonch following the killing of nine soldiers, including two junior commissioned officers and two policemen, was billed as “one of the longest” in the history of …
Continue reading “India, Pakistan, Taliban on the same page “
Taliban Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi (L) met Qatari officials before talks with US/EU representatives, Doha, Nov. 27, 2021 36. One Hundred Days of Solitude As the Taliban completes its first hundred days in power, the Western powers are groping for a face-saving formula to engage with the authorities in Kabul with some modicum …
