Africa’s renaissance is already underway through partnerships with Eurasian powers Russia and China, whose significant contributions are already visible in security, economic, and institutional sectors throughout the continent. First published in THE CRADLE September 19, 2023 In Africa, injustice looms large, marked by poverty, warfare, and famine. Despite post-WWII political gains, economic independence, a vital Continue reading »
International Relations
Seemingly out of nowhere, Canada and India are embroiled in an escalating diplomatic crisis after PM Justin Trudeau implicated India in the June 18 killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent British Columbia (BC) Sikh leader. India has strongly rejected the ‘unsubstantiated’ charge as ‘absurd’. I fear Sam Varghese has allowed his anti-Modi animus to Continue reading »
Tuesday 26 September is the anniversary of the Biden administration’s destruction of three of the four pipelines of Nord Stream 1 and 2. There is more I have to say about it, but it will have to wait. Why? Because the war between Russia and Ukraine, with the White House continuing to reject any talk Continue reading »
There’s little doubt that the American government has decided to slow China’s economic rise, most notably in the fields of technological development. To be sure, the Biden administration denies that these are its goals. Janet Yellen said on April 20, 2023, “China’s economic growth need not be incompatible with U.S. economic leadership. The United States remains the Continue reading »
Okinawa governor Denny Tamaki has implored the UN for international backing in his opposition to the prefecture being overrun with US military bases. The Japan Times reports: “I am here today to ask the world to witness the situation in Okinawa,” Tamaki told a session of the world body’s Human Rights Council, arguing that the Continue reading »
Former Liberal party leader John Hewson, in a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, enquired why the United Nations was not acting on proposals to deal with a series of well documented and interacting catastrophic threats. Three recent books, two of them by Australians, have highlighted the predicament our human Continue reading »
Australia’s existing relationships and collaborations with China give Australian Industry and consumers a head start in the cost-effective use of some of the most important technologies of the future, including those vital to achieving net zero emissions. Most countries would give anything to be at the forefront of such developments, but Australian University researchers are Continue reading »
President Ranil Wickremesinghe also derided the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ as an artificial framework with an inconsistent definition. He also countered recent claims by New Delhi that Beijing was sending ships to Sri Lanka to spy on India. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday declared the Aukus security pact between Australia, Britain and the US “a mistake” Continue reading »
NATO’s military intervention in Libya in 2011, which overthrew the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, resulted in a chaotic and murderous failed state. Libyans pay a horrific price for this catastrophe. “We came, we saw, he died,” Hillary Clinton famously quipped when Muammar Gaddafi, after seven months of U.S. and NATO bombing, was overthrown in 2011 and Continue reading »
In Asian media this week: Canada, India tensions have sorry history. Plus: BRI shows most countries shun ‘decoupling’; Myanmar rebels ‘will never give up’; China to dominate green car market; Putin and Kim lead ‘axis of outcasts’; China decline the fashionable chatter in Washington. By the time of this month’s G20 summit in New Delhi, Continue reading »