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When you are pitted against a superpower like the United States, as Julian Assange and his WikiLeaks organisation are, your odds of escaping that net are pretty low. Assange’s supposed crime is that by allowing WikiLeaks to release a multitude of US diplomatic cables, as well as the sordid crimes of its military in the […]

At times it would appear that Pakistan is being torn apart by internal warfare. And its most disturbing manifestation is a string of attacks on military installations to avenge the killings of Osama bin Laden and other terrorist icons for which the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has often claimed responsibility. The most recent target was the Kamra […]

Terror struck Belgium recently with more than 30 dead and many more injured. It had happened before in Paris, last November, with 130 fatalities. Both appear to have germinated in Brussels, with its ring leaders/suicide bombers able to plan and move around Belgian/French borders with ease. What has come out is that Molenbeek district in […]

Russia’s surgical military intervention in the Syrian conflict by way of bombing rebel and terrorist targets, starting September 30, has bolstered up the Assad regime’s position, giving it an advantage in any kind of parleying for a political solution. Before the Russians intervened in a big way, the Assad regime was looking increasingly shaky losing […]

Early in this century, Turkey looked like making a healthy transition to democracy. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, now Turkey’s president, became the country’s prime minister after his party won a landslide victory in the 2002 parliamentary elections. The economy started to pick up and Turkey was held as a model for other Muslim countries. For once, […]

The project Europe to integrate European countries into a tight regional union — European Union (EU) — is in trouble. It was doing fine as long as it was on an upward economic curve. But then the credit bubble that sustained it burst and the emphasis shifted from easy credit to tight austerity, leading to […]

There seems a palpable shift in thinking in the US, which would suggest that the US might be in Afghanistan for the long haul. President Obama had come to office to disengage from Afghanistan and Iraq, making sure that in both countries the new political order would be able to sustain itself with their newly […]

Australia is not a high roller internationally, except by virtue of its delicate position as China’s biggest trading partner and one of US’ closest allies. This makes Canberra tread warily between the two in the midst of the storm clouds gathering over South China Sea Islands, where China is expanding its territorial control and strategic […]

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to believe that not only is he the country’s strongman but also its saviour. And that image was further reinforced when his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the November 1 parliamentary elections. Earlier, on June 7, the ruling party lost its parliamentary majority though it still had […]

The US’ political theatre is on the road these days with presidential contenders from both the Democratic and Republican sides making their respective sales’ pitch. The Republican side started with a crowded field. On the Democratic side, the contest for nomination is between Senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Clinton missed out in 2008 when […]