Nepal is the fifth, but most pivotal, actor affecting the dynamics of the ongoing Donglang Drama that the US helped create between China, India, and Bhutan, and Kathmandu’s unseen hand could determine the future geopolitics of South Asia. The Bhutanese Border Imbroglio China and India have been engaged in a tense standoff over the past …
Continue reading Kathmandu’s The Kingmaker in the Donglang Drama
The draconian deadline by the Saudi axis on Qatar failed to force surrender. Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have now extended the deadline till later this week. In a battle of nerves, the Saudi rulers blinked first. This is partly because the Saudi-led coalition of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt have over-reached in their …
One experiment: What happens to two million human beings when they are deprived of electricity nearly all the time, day and night? One of the biggest experiments involving human subjects ever conducted anywhere is taking place right before our eyes, and the world is silent. The project is at its peak and the world shows …
A recent series of military confrontations between Chinese troops on one side and Indian and Bhutanese troops on the other in a remote tri-border area in the Himalayas threatens to become a wider conflict unless wiser diplomatic heads prevail. With the eclipse of the United States as a major player in international relations, particularly in …
Continue reading Conflict Danger Atop the ‘Roof of the World’
Nothing really puts you in your place quite like getting shot at in another country. All gringo arrogance vaporized in an instant. Choking from teargas. Lungs aflame. Reeling blind through unknown streets just ahead of the death squads. Abandoned by your fellow correspondents, who were all shrewd enough to have put on their gas masks …
Continue reading Inside Trump’s Disastrous ‘Secret’ Drug War Plans for Central America
The battle for Mosul is a ferocious struggle that has now been going on for 256 days, or two months longer than the battle of Stalingrad. The fighting between Iraqi government forces and ISIS is much smaller in scale than in Russia 75 years ago, but is comparable in its savagery and the importance with …
Continue reading The Fall of Mosul is a Defeat for ISIS, But It Remains a Deadly Force
Aside from the profound irony of a US spokesperson accusing another country of not being capable of good-faith negotiations, Nikki Haley’s recent comparison of Iran to the scorpion in the frog-and-scorpion fable is the latest example of overt racism being used to channel public support in favour of a war of aggression. Full of righteous …
Turkish military actions against US-allied Syrian Kurdish forces could threaten to upend plans for unseating the Islamic State (IS) in Raqqa, Syria, and for what comes next. “Though pointing to Idlib as the next destination,” Fehim Tastekin reports, “Turkey’s field operations signal double objectives. First, Turkey wants its own troops in the de-conflicting, or 'safe,' zones determined during peace …
Continue reading Does the US Have Answer for Turkish Threats Against Syrian Kurds?
US-backed Arab-Kurd alliance last week sealed off Islamic State militants’ last escape route. US-backed fighters pierced militant-held Raqqa from the south for the first time on Sunday, crossing the Euphrates River to enter a new part of the Syrian city, a monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have spent months closing in on the …
Continue reading US-Backed SDF Forces Enter Syria’s Raqqa from South
