‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a handout photograph released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on December 6, 2023 At the year-end news conference on Thursday lasting four hours, Russian President Vladimir Putin made some key remarks on the conflict in Ukraine which throw light on the …
Diplomatic blow to India as Biden turns down invite
Happy Days: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L), US President Joe Biden (C) and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (R) at 48th summit of G7, Bavarian Alps, Germany, June 26-28, 2023 It is easy at once to exaggerate or underestimate the sensational case of the aborted assassination attempt on Sikh separatist leader and US citizen, Gurpatwant …
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Russia readies for a brave new world
The ceremony marking presentation of Gold Star medals to Heroes of Russia, St George Hall, Kremlin, Moscow, December 8, 2023 The announcement on Friday by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will seek reelection for a fifth term in office came as no surprise. That he chose the occasion of a Kremlin ceremony conferring the Hero of Russia …
Indian-Russian convergence in Bay of Bengal
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) met with Chairman of State Administration Council of Myanmar Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, Vladivostok, Sept. 7, 2022 Timing is almost everything in diplomacy in the pursuit of foreign policy strategies. The foreign office consultations during the past fortnight that India hosted with two of its crucially important neighbouring countries Bangladesh …
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Ukraine war is undergoing mutation
Ukrainian officials claim to have blown up railway connections linking Russia to China in a strike deep into enemy territory The Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky’s video conference with the US senators on Tuesday is expected to be a turning point in the Ukraine war for three reasons. First, the Biden Administration has not written him off …
How Saudis overcame “reputational damage”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman, New Delhi, Sept 11, 2023 European Union’s super bureaucrat Ursula von der Leyen chose April Fools’ Day last year to threaten China that it would suffer “reputational damage” in the world community for backing Russia’s Ukraine war. Being a civilisational …
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Tread softly on Hamas — for good reason
Call them pests or pushers — or simply as Rottweilers — the Israeli diplomats have gained notoriety over time as a unique breed in the international circuit who have no time or patience for niceties or propriety when Tel Aviv instructs them to go for the jugular veins of the host country where they are …
The Middle East at an inflection point
US President Joe Biden (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct 18, 2023 It has been a perennial hope and expectation that Israel would abandon the path of repression, colonisation and apartheid as state policies and instead accept a negotiated settlement of the Palestine problem under pressure from …
India’s BRICS quandary deepens
Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar (L) met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the 3rd Belt and Road Forum, Beijing, October 18, 2023. The inevitable is finally, inexorably, happening as the government’s 9-year old strategy to isolate, demonise and brand Pakistan as a state sponsoring terrorism collapses in front of the global …
US embarks on proxy war against Iran
Aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower transits through the Suez Canal towards the Persian Gulf , November 4, 2023 A massive US naval deployment in a wide arc of the so-called Greater Middle East is under way — stretching from Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean, into the Red Sea and the Bab el Mandeb and …