China’s growing involvement in Afghanistan may also create tensions in the Sino-Pak relationship. Here’s the thing: China’s main goal in Afghanistan is ostensibly to keep the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) out, while Pakistan’s is to keep India out. Read Here – Dawn
After becoming prime minister, Imran Khan received a goodwill message from the president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani. It read like a routine gesture, but both Kabul and Islamabad have reached a point in their deadlocked relationship where they want “real peace”, that is, for the Taliban to end their aggression. Read Here – The Indian Express
For eons, the earth has had the same amount of water—no more, no less. What the ancient Romans used for crops and Nefertiti drank? It’s the same stuff we bathe with. Yet with more than seven billion people on the planet, experts now worry we’re running out of usable water. The symptoms are here: multiyear […]
Pakistan Foreign Office’s attempts to fast-track the normalisation of relations with Afghanistan, India and the United States are already encountering problems. In a seeming frenzy to meet the 100-day reform target set by the newly-elected leadership, blunders are being made one after another. Read Here – Asia Times
For many emerging economies, it is imperative to pursue a rebalancing of growth patterns, with a more active approach to managing debt and capital flows and their effects on asset prices, exchange rates, and growth. Otherwise, the dangers of unsustainable growth patterns will bring expansion to an abrupt halt. Read Here – Project Syndicate
To be fair, it is not clear that Imran Khan will have much choice regarding nuclear policy. For Pakistani politicians, the options largely come down to either support the Bomb, or keep quiet about it. Like other prime ministers before him, Imran Khan may go and have his picture taken with the missiles that will carry nuclear […]
Making inroads into Iran has become a priority for both China and India, with both nations seeking to expand influence in their respective regions. Located at a critical juncture, Iran links Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East. Furthermore, Iran’s abundant resources provide a significant amount of energy to China and India. Read Here […]
The reaction to this week’s announcement by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of a US$113 million infrastructure fund is that it was more than a tad underwhelming. When set against potentially upwards of US$1 trillion in financing for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – to which the new US fund is a thinly veiled response – that […]
There is little indication that Putin views India in sentimental terms, unlike an earlier generation of Russian officials exemplified by former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov or the late Russian envoy Alexander Kadakin. India’s high-profile and sustained outreach to Moscow in 2018 is not a reversion to an imagined past. Read Here – The Hindustan Times
