Arguably the biggest news of last week – all over the papers, everywhere I looked – was the announcement of the creation of the state of Telangana. So India may have 29 states now – no, not just yet. Is Telangana a good thing or a bad thing – I feel there is no right answer – just problems...
Read MoreThe Arab Spring, from 2011 if you remember, was massively hyped and publicized – a series of events and revolutions that would change the world etc. etc. – but has there really been that much change. And has this change been for better or for worse? In the recent Egyptian second revolution (Issue 7) and the Syrian civil war,...
Read MoreAfghanistan, on whom we reported last week, experienced historic moments, as the security of the country was handed over to the recently formed, 350,000 strong, Afghan army, after being in the hands of international forces for the past 12 years. But the handover itself was not as momentous as the response from the militant terror group the Taliban, who...
Read MoreThe G8 Summit (Group of Eight – meeting of 8 of the world’s 11 richest countries) scheduled next week will be dominated by the argument on whether Syrian rebels should be armed, as US announced this week its plan to do the same. President Obama explained that the US has found evidence of usage of chemical weapons by Assad’s...
Read MoreAfghanistan. War-torn, terror infested, corruptly governed Afghanistan. This is how we normally picture the country that has been plagued by the Taliban since 1992, and has nearly fallen in to complete disarray many times in the last 20 years – at the hands of its warring tribes and Islamist militants. But it hasn’t. The country has survived. And what’s...
Read MoreIn the last couple of weeks, Istanbul, the capital of the world’s most secular and modern Islamic country, Turkey, was rocked by massive protests, which surprised the world, and has created talk of a Turkish Spring. The protests are targeted straight at Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who has constantly denied any possibility of a Turkish Spring, saying that Turkey...
Read MoreRebels vs Dictator Assad Finally, the European Union’s arms embargo has lifted – allowing European nations to supply arms to the rebels – while hopes for peace talks organized by US & Russia increase as both sides grow weary of the stalemate that has been on for 2 years. But is it too little too late? 70,000 lives have...
Read MoreThis week Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited New Delhi, for discussions with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and the talks concluded with an announcement emphasizing on general friendship between the 2 countries. The visit-and- announcement was a rare sign of goodwill from a country that has shown animosity in every way in the past. Although the visit was shadowed...
Read MoreThe situation in Syria, or rather the horrific Syrian civil war, has gone from worse to worst as the death toll rises to a shocking 70,000. The tyrannical dictator, Bashar Assad continues to hold out against the rebels in a brutal stalemate that has reached the capital, Damascus, which was rocked by more bombings this week. The country’s financial...
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