Part I expounded upon the theory that Mideast developments can be understood through the prism of four ideologies (and three subcomponents), and now it’s time to test the idea by seeing if it can accurately explain key events in regional history. Those concerning Egypt, Turkey, and Yemen were already addressed, so let’s look at the Arab-Israeli Wars, the Leb...
The politics of the Mideast are intimidatingly complex, with many observers struggling to understand its dynamics and instead falling victim to false simplifications of “Sunni vs. Shiite”. The reality is a lot different than surface stereotypes let on, as the region’s processes are actually determined by the interplay between four official ideologies – Israe...
The reservation system has been a deeply contentious and polarizing issue in Indian society and politics. Reservations for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, in the Parliament and State Assemblies, were initially introduced in the Constitution through Article 334 for a period of ten years and later through amendments the period was extended multiple time...
It was a Friday fifty six years ago (to be exact on September 25, 1959) at around 10.30 a.m. in the morning when I was in the classroom listening to Mr H.P. Jayawardena’s English lesson in our final year at Royal Primary School, that my eye caught a movement in the corridor adjoining the class. When I looked sideways to my left I saw young Anura Bandaranaike...
Anyone who has become interested in Romani issues during the past 15 years has probably come across the Roma Virtual Network (RVN) online, a set of 33 listservs in 20 languages, Romani included, that aggregates online information about Romani issues and shares it with more than 10 000 subscribers. News server Romea.cz interviewed RVN’s editor, Valery Novosel...
It stands to reason that Brussels does not have any direct political and legal mechanisms to impose a mandatory refugee allocation quota system on Serbia. At the disposal of the European Commission, however - which is currently Germany-centric in every way possible - is an even more sophisticated way to use the territory of Serbia in its own interests: to tu...
The intervention of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation) against terrorism in Iraq and Syria may be the beginning of a world order based on the cooperation and defence of civilian populations, or, on the contrary, a period of East-West confrontation in which the West openly supports terrorism. Contrary to popular belief, this military deploymen...
By the day it’s becoming clearer that what I have recently been saying in my writings is coming to be. The OPEC oil-producing states of the Middle East, including Iran, through the skillful mediation of Russia, are carefully laying the foundations for a truly new world order. The first step in testing this will be if they collectively succeed in eliminating ...
Sri Lanka’s national unity government comprising the United National Party and Sri Lanka Freedom Party faces its first major challenge in the UN Human Rights Commission’s report on war crimes committed by both sides in the protracted war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. With President Maithripala Sirisena’s and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesingh...
After the abject failure of the constituent assembly of 2008 and the inability to achieve unanimity in the assembly elected in 2013, Nepali lawmakers have understandably opted to end the impasse by voting for a draft approved by the three major parties, viz., Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and Unified Communist...
[Israel Shamir predicted the current refugee crisis in Europe way back in 2005; this article of 13 June 2005 still makes interesting reading – Ed.]
IV : A Mammonite senator for California, Diane Feinstein, imports more and more poor Mexicans into her state. They give her the vote, stay out of politics for many years, they agree to work for less, they underm...
[Israel Shamir predicted the current refugee crisis in Europe way back in 2005; this article of 13 June 2005 still makes interesting reading – Ed.]
In the early autumn, when the pomegranates ripen, I embark for the ruins of the destroyed Palestinian village of Saffurie. The native city of Mary’s mother, it still guards the Crusader church of St...
Recently I worked in another Maine city and was astonished at the number of patients I encountered who were using heroin. I had never seen anything like it, during a lifetime practicing medicine. In New Hampshire, it was said, deaths from heroin now exceed deaths from car accidents. Nationwide, CDC noted, “Between 2002 and 2013, the rate of heroin-related ov...
A Strange Place Indeed
I began to see Jeddah as a very strange place filled with people I really knew nothing about, who conducted themselves in a remarkably odd fashion. Questions got me nowhere. No one could explain to me what really went on inside the consulate.
Before I left Washington for Jeddah, I wrote to Greta Holtz several times, asking about my j...
Spook Busters
While the Foreign Service is filled with people who do not work for the Department of State, Jeddah was my first experience with a majority-spook post.
According to a former CIA station chief who asked not to be named, and Jay Hawley, a retired FSO (Foreign Service Officer), the average ratio of intelligence officers to real diplomats at a gi...
Michael Springmann was, to all appearances, your run-of-the-mill junior level consular employee, but he was not in a usual place, nor in a usual time. His government sent him to Saudi Arabia right as it was preparing for a battle royale with the USSR in Afghanistan. In this excerpt from his book, Springmann describes a consulate teeming with CIA personnel, a...
Watching yesterday’s [Sept 12] stunning victory for Jeremy Corbyn unfold, I really had to resist the urge to pinch myself, and a voice continually went through my head saying that this can’t be happening. There was so much about it that was unreal. Firstly, there was the barely-believable fact that the most consistently and passionately left-wing MP of his g...
[An interesting reading of the current stalemate between the East and West, notwithstanding some issues of grammar and syntax- Ed]
Russia is not only a great military power, an old nation, which, from the arrival of Vladimir Putin at its head, has endeavored to balance the relation of geopolitical and economic forces. It is also a natural bridge, to varying...
While the European media arouse emotion by showing photographs of a drowned child and reports of crowds of refugees crossing the Balkans on foot, Thierry Meyssan demonstrates that these images have been fabricated. It’s certain that they serve the purposes of the head of the Federation of German Industries, Ulrich Grillo, and also NATO. But they do not...
Existing Unilateral Initiatives: In their quest to stabilize Myanmar according to their long-term strategic visions, each of the three examined actors has unilaterally taken significant (and in most cases, counter-productive) strides in trying to achieve this. Here are the most impactful actions and their results:
India:
By far the most important thing tha...
The Southeast Asian state of Myanmar is beleaguered by creeping threats that risk returning the country to the dark days of full-scale civil war. Neighboring powers India and China have no interest in seeing this scenario, as such an event would spoil the role that they expect a stable Myanmar to fill vis-à-vis their strategic vision for the country. In what...
The powerful political duo of President Maithripala Sirisena and incumbent Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe defeated former president Mahinda Rajapaksa for a second time in six months, thwarting his bid to stage a comeback to power with the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) in the parliamentary election held on August 17. The UPFA lost by 3.8 per cen...
“Grand Liban” or Grand Lebanon i.e. Lebanon in its current internationally-acknowledged state borders, is the love-child of France and a byproduct of the infamous Sykes-Picot Accord that decimated the Levant to first partition it between France and Britain, and to break it up further before granting it its...
The Supreme Court’s decision to stay the Rajasthan High Court’s astonishing order declaring Santhara (also Sallekhana) a form of suicide punishable under law gives respite to the tiny Jain community for whom the judgment came as a lightning bolt. It is a setback to the agent provocateurs who, unmindful of the profound philosophy behind the Dharma, were hell-...
Of all the problems currently facing Indian agriculture, the vexatious Land Acquisition Bill and Ordinance have mercifully been dropped. In a major embarrassment to the NDA government, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and about 50 farmers’ organisations opposed the ordinance and the proposed changes to the original 2013 Land Acquisition Act before the Joint Parliam...
Despite doubts and denials, Russia is about to embark on an ambitious expansion of its Syrian presence, likely to change the game in the war-torn country. Russia’s small and dated naval repair facility in Tartous will be enlarged, while Jableh near Latakia (Laodicea of old) will become the Russian Air Force base and a full-blown Russian Navy base in the East...
This entire project led by Dr Amartya Sen must be made the basis of a wide ranging discussion in the Buddhist world in respect to the direction, organisation, content of teaching, and aims and objectives that this proposed Nalanda International University is being encouraged to adopt.
The historic Nalanda University was essentially a Mahayana Buddhist Centr...
Some speculation is weaving through the airwaves that once its US-imposed sanctions are lifted in several months, Iran will shift its existing allegiance with Russia and instead double-cross the Great Russian Bear by doing gas and oil export deals that directly undercut Russia, especially Gazprom’s Turkish Stream gas pipeline aimed at the southern EU states....
I had planned to write on the struggle in the US congress in which the Israel Lobby seeks to override the president’s veto. This is likely to cause a new war in the Middle East, send out a new wave of refugees, and destroy the cradle of our faith and civilization. However, the most dangerous trend we are facing springs from our arrogant desire to override th...
On Aug. 21, Israeli Channel 2 Television aired a recording of Ehud Barak, Israel’s former defense minister and former prime minister, saying that on three separate occasions, Israel had planned to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities but canceled the attacks. According to Barak, in 2010 Israel’s chief of staff at the time, Gabi Ashkenazi, refused to approve an a...
After the ritual row over Lord Jagannath’s Nabakalebara including the Brahma Paribartan fiasco, and the matter of the alleged involvement of ruling party leaders with the fake godman Sarathi Baba, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s sleepless nights are not over. The state is faced with a breakdown in the law and order and security...