Even as one circus of the absurd has ended in Pakistan, another has begun. The farcical nature of the electoral exercise in the country has produced an even more farcical outcome. Even as Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-backed independent candidates continue to maintain their lead on the victory board, Nawaz Sharif has gone ahead and given a victory speech.
In recent decades, six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE have emerged as pivotal in West Asia due to their huge sovereign wealth and Petro dollars, reformist policies and fast-moving diversification of their economies and interests beyond the hydrocarbons and regional heft as they continue to play a much bigger role in the global scheme of things.
The possible path to peace and justice in Palestine
India and Iran do have a civilisational and strategic partnership which had fallen into disuse due to the consistent US pressure through CAATSA and bilateral negotiations.
The projected return of Trump to the White House has serious implications for US domestic politics as also for the US leadership (or lack of it) in world affairs.
The world is passing through a phase of disorder, which is posing serious policy questions for nations big and small. But the one country that should have been at the center of shaping these conversations is entangled with its own domestic political challenges. The US is struggling to find some meaning in the spectacle that is passing for American democracy these days.
President Xi Jinping has repeatedly asserted that unification is China’s “core interest” and it is increasingly seen as likely that he will make an attempt before 2027, the 100th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army.