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…
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…
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…
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…
