For several weeks, Indian news outlets have erroneously reported that Pakistan had made Mandarin one of its official languages in an attempt to show solidarity with its close Chinese partner. The story had no basis in truth, but in spite of this, the Senate of Pakistan had to formally debunk the fake news in order…
The Quad – comprising the United States, Japan, India and Australia – was set up a decade ago, ostensibly as an Asia-centered security cooperation mechanism. Funnily enough, Beijing always suspected it actually represented a containment strategy. Last November, in Manila, the Quad met on the sidelines of the Asean and East Asia summits. Their topic…
In hoping to play the “lesser evil” of the “federalist” Kurds off against the “greater evil” of the invading Turks, Damascus might have inadvertently committed a grave mistake by opening the Afrin gates to the most radical members of the YPG who stand to reverse any “pragmatic” agreements that the government thought they had achieved…
`We will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists, but great-power competition – not terrorism – is now the primary focus of US national security.’ Henceforth Russia and China will be America’s main enemies, with Iran and North Korea thrown in for good measure. So declared US Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, last week in…
Kurdish media reports that latest Turkish airstrikes have killed three Syrian NDF fighters on the Turkish-Kurdish frontline in northwestern Syria near the Kurdish-held town of Afrin. Earlier this week hundreds of Syrian NDF militiamen from the nearby Shia Arab area of Nubl and Zahraa crossed over into YPG-held Afrin enclave and put themselves at the…
Western governments, their corporate news media, and even the United Nations’ chief Antonio Guterres are once again playing a disgusting, emotive propaganda game over the Syrian war. UN Secretary General Guterres told the Security Council this week that the East Ghouta enclave near the capital Damascus was “hell on Earth” and called for an immediate ceasefire. His…
