“Desperate men do desperate things”. These words ring in one’s ears with regard to the series of misadventures China is indulging in the critical COVID-19 environment. Apart from its international isolation due to its management of COVID-19, China is facing an existential crisis on several fronts including shortage of food for its huge population, falling de...
The economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic for Gulf States has done far more than play havoc with their revenue base and fiscal household. It has propelled massive structural change to the top of their agenda in ways that economic diversification plans had not accounted for. Leave aside whether Gulf States can continue to focus on high-profile, attenti...
A few days back I received two messages through WhatsApp from an activist friend of mine. One of them was about the ordinary folks’ penchant for cheap stuff, even in the matter of food stuffs which may be injurious to their health. He specifically mentioned coconut oil. He has a coconut farm and says that it costs Rs 250/- to market a kilogram of pure cocon...
One of the consequences of the Coronavirus epidemic is that Westerners have realised their dependence on Chinese manufacturing capacity. Neither the Europeans nor the Americans were able to manufacture the millions of surgical masks they urgently wanted to distribute to their population. They had to buy them in China and often fought among themselves on the ...
Hacking is back in the headlines. The Chinese are accused of breaking into the computers of unnamed American labs – corporate &/or non-corporate - doing research on a coronavirus vaccine. The operative words are ‘China/Chinese’ and ‘hacking’. The two go together like gin & tonic. That’s a sign of upper mobility for the Cathay crowd; just a short time ago, Ru...
The Saudi-Iranian dispute may dominate headlines but a similar rivalry between Turkey and the United Arab Emirates is equally wreaking havoc in the Middle East and North Africa. While Saudi Arabia may in some ways have a leg up on Iran, Turkey and the UAE are at a virtual draw. In Libya, forces of the Turkish-backed, Tripoli-based internationally recognized ...
The human and economic devastation caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented and difficult to imagine. It has affected more than 5 million people all over the world and already killed more than 339K people. In the US alone, more than 96K people have died. The sufferings and hardships of people the world over continue unabated, even as its full ...
I like conspiracy theories; they attempt to inject meaning into otherwise meaningless sets of assorted facts. They bring Logos into our life, as our friend E. Michael Jones would say. An enemy of conspiracy theories would write in the New York Times denouncing Sir Isaac Newton as a notorious conspiracy theorist: out of totally disconnected facts (apple fall,...
As the highly contagious Covid-19 torments the nation, some “eminent” economists advised the Centre to nationalise all private assets of above-poverty-line citizens (cash, real estate, property, bonds, etc.) to fund their ideas. One doesn’t know if this negates that other great panacea for all economic ills – privatization of public sector assets – but...
Big-Pharma – guilty of lying, cheating, stealing, bribery, and a history of exposing the public to dangerous and even deadly drugs – is being given billions to develop a Covid-19 “vaccine.” Would you trust your health to these criminals? Coronavirus Disease 2019 or “Covid-19” hysteria is sweeping the globe – with mass media-induced public panic paralyzing en...
Not only are the coronavirus models being used by WHO and most national health agencies based on highly dubious methodologies, and not only are the tests being used of wildly different quality, that only indirectly confirm antibodies of a possible COVID-19 illness. Now the actual designations of deaths related to coronavirus are being revealed to be equally ...
The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw Patriot anti-missile defense batteries from Saudi Arabia is likely to fuel an already brewing arms race as the kingdom attempts to catch-up with Iran’s nuclear development as well as its space, ballistic missile, and drone capabilities. In 2019, the US sent Patriot missile batteries to Saudi Arabia to bolster i...
The political structure of Kashmir changed dramatically in mid-2019 (August 5) due to the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories. Local leaders predicted a massive backlash, especially in Kashmir. There was, however, no hostile public response. This situation has given credence to a thought process that the people w...
Japan is a highly developed industrial nation that also depends heavily on trade. It lacks many raw materials needed for its industry and power generation - such as oil, coal, iron ore, copper, aluminum and wood. Japan must import most of these goods. And to pay for these imports, Japan must export a variety of manufactured goods to other countries. Japanese...
Prior to and following the demise of the Soviet Union and the emergence of China as a world power in Asia there was no active effort in either New Delhi or Tokyo to build a mutually beneficial relationship. This was the case for a variety of reasons. Today, however, the ground situation has changed dramatically in the region. Now the historic requirement of ...
The concept of International Security emerged as a measure to ensure the mutual survival of states and their safety. The notion gained traction after the Second World War and the formation of the United Nations. While traditionally the concept of security was focused on individual states and their militaries, the decades post the Second World War saw the foc...
On 17 July 2014 MH 17, a Malaysian airlines flight en route from Amsterdam in The Netherlands to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia was shot down while in transit over Ukrainian airspace. Although there were no admissions as to culpability and at least initially very little factual data available, it did not stop an immediate blame game being promoted by the Dutch, Uk...
Whether believed the subject of hysterical conjecture or conspiratorial creation, the fact is that we face a new and different virus that may threaten life more than previous forms. It is also true that up to the moment that includes more than a quarter million victims, most who suffer the illness survive and they represent the overwhelming majority. Neverth...
The believers vouch that the Faith is tremendous and powerful. They claim the Faith can do incredible things like raising the dead, healing the sick, making the blind see and the lame walk, besides being the singular panacea for all the world’s ills. In fact they teach that we were all created for the benefit of the Faith. Holy shit! And we believe it. This...
Some people enjoy isolation and self-seclusion. The Jewish billionaire David Geffen is one of them. He posted a picture of his yacht onto Social Media saying: “Isolated in the Grenadines avoiding the virus, I’m hoping everybody is staying safe.” It is probably very different from your self-seclusion, and surely different from the seclusion imposed on a slum-...