Comment & Briefs

The Joint Communique issued by the recent NATO summit, held on July 8-9 in Warsaw, appears to have sown the seeds of a renewed confrontation with Russia.

China’s push for influence among the Caribbean political elite has been replicated with an equally determined effort to court the military and the bureaucratic elite in the region, often deftly stepping in to take advantage of senseless overreactions on the part of the United States.

The coup has seriously dented Turkey’s image as a stable, secular, progressive and prosperous country. And Erdogan's witch-hunt has tarnished the country's reputation and credibility. Turkey’s polity and economy will take a long time to recover from the crippling attrition of recent days.

While a higher volume of trade through Petrapole should benefit both countries, this new ICP mechanism needs to be suitably leveraged to ensure that the north-east also derives benefits.

India must avoid policy incoherence and inconsistency on PoK that has spanned decades, and navigate a course that helps reshape the domestic as well as external discourses on PoK and pursue Indian claims in a firm, consistent manner.

It is early days to speculate on the likely outcome and possible trajectory in Saudi-Israeli engagement, but Eshki’s visit has so far been the clearest indication of Saudi willingness to engage with the Jewish state.

The political reality in PoK is that ‘azadi’ is a chimera, and substantive control of the area is shared between terrorist organisations such as the LeT and HM and the political elite of Islamabad. However, a narrative has been fed in the Kashmir Valley that Pakistan is a more favourable option than India.

This backgrounder offers an overview of the two most challenging concerns for Myanmar’s democracy – ethnic unrest and economic hardships – and how the new government is planning to address these issues in particular and also more generally the influence of the Tatmadaw in politics.

On July 27, 1990, Trinidad experienced its own day of infamy when the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen staged an armed insurrection and held hostage the then Prime Minister, most of his cabinet and several opposition MPs, plus the staff of the television and radio networks.

Application of AFSPA and DAA provisions to the eastern districts of Nagaland and to districts or select areas bordering Arunachal Pradesh and the Myanmar frontier would have sent an appropriate message to shore up public confidence for an overall settlement of the Naga issue.