After a series of high-level meetings between officials from Seoul and Pyongyang, the proposal for a face-to-face meeting between the American and North Korean leaders appeared before President Trump, who without much hesitation accepted, upsetting the last 50 years of relations between the countries. Donald Trump tweeted: “Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South…
There are few countries on earth more oppressive than Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy shaped by Sunni theocracy. It stones adulterers and hurls gay men off buildings by judicial decision. The State Department routinely, matter of factly, reports widespread human rights abuses in the country. International human rights organizations use Saudi Arabia as the poster…
Pompeo at State and Bolton as Trump’s national security advisor completed the neocon takeover of Trump’s geopolitical agenda – Wall Street running domestic affairs. The combination represents a major setback for world peace and stability, greater aggression likely, along with the triumph of neoliberal harshness over social justice – a dismal and frightening state of…
With John Bolton’s appointment as Trump’s new national security adviser, the circle closes on any remaining hope of the 45th President of the United States embarking on a different course from every other president that has preceded him in the Oval Office in recent years, when it comes to foreign policy. A devoted disciple of the…
One must marvel at the first few paragraphs of Amnesty International’s recent press release: “The international community’s catastrophic failure to take concrete action to protect the people of Syria has allowed parties to the conflict, most notably the Syrian government, to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with complete impunity, often with assistance of…
Recent inter-communal riots in Sri Lanka have highlighted the problem of religious extremism, particularly among Asia’s Buddhist population. But the Buddhist nationalist point of view has been largely ignored in favour of a discourse which demonises Buddhists as aggressors and portrays Muslims as innocent victims. The reality is far more complex. Part I A state…
