A muscular, Hindu-dominant India is re-creating its Gods in its attempt to show the new, raw power that many Indians would want to associate with the new government that in it own way espouses a different set of social paradigm. Read Here
Why would China fear a nation it could traumatize tomorrow by dumping its debt or shifting its iron ore, coal and copper orders elsewhere? That’s a good question for the United States to ask itself. Read Here – Bloomberg
In the 1930s travellers returned from Mussolini’s Italy, Stalin’s Russia, and Hitler’s Germany praising the hearty sense of common purpose they saw there, compared to which their own democracies seemed weak, inefficient, and pusillanimous. Democracies today are in the middle of a similar period of envy and despondency. Authoritarian competitors are aglow with arrogant confidence. […]
China will realize that its presence in the region will cost more than planned and regularly ensnare it in conflict. Read Here – The Diplomat
the majority of Pakistanis were convinced that the eight years Mr Sharif had spent in forced exile had matured and mellowed the man. They believed he had returned home determined to create a legacy of betterment for his deeply conflicted country, and looked forward to five years of his governance with a sense of optimism. […]
Irrespective of its rhetoric to the contrary, throughout the last four decades, the Egyptian government’s policies towards the Palestinians have signalled a marked departure from its historic reputation as a regional leader determined to challenge Israeli hegemony. Read Here – AlJazeera
The arrival of Hamid Karzai, on the heels of the U.S. invasion in 2001, promised Afghans a break from the recent bloody past. Karzai’s lack of involvement in the long, brutal civil war that followed the Soviet retreat in 1989 raised the possibility of a unified country after a decade of battling fiefs. Read Here […]
Iraq is really three separate geographical regions, now contested by Kurds and Arabs ethnically, Arabic and Kurdish speakers linguistically, and Sunni and Shiite Muslims religiously. Ethnically Iraqis are approximately 75 percent Arabs, 20 percent Kurds, and 5 percent Turkmen and Assyrians. Religiously they are 65 percent Shiite Muslims, 30 percent Sunni Muslims, and 5 percent […]
The smoke rising from the Iraqi city of Baiji—so dark and thick that it’s visible from U.S. weather satellites—is evidence of one thing: The jihadist conflict engulfing Iraq is fueled by oil. Read Here – Businessweek
Iraq’s poorly led but far larger and more heavily armed government forces may eventually roll back the Sunni advance. For now they man a ragged defensive arc around the northern and western approaches to Baghdad that is 60-90km deep, writes The Economist
looking beyond borders 