The advance of the Al-Qaeda splinter group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and its allies towards Baghdad appears to have been "stalled" but the "grave" situation in Iraq needs to be dealt with militarily as well as politically, a top UN official has said.
The groups were asking for Shashank's ouster over a row on allowing Bru voters lodged in Tripura relief camps to exercise their franchise from there.
On December 10, Kissinger began to encourage the Chinese to take action against India: 'If the People's Republic were to consider the situation on the Indian subcontinent a threat to security, and if it took measures to protect its security, the US would oppose efforts of others to interfere with the People's Republic.' On the 50th anniversary of India's greatest military victory, Claude Arpi recalls how the US suggested that China intervene militarily on Pakistan's side.
Thousands of people have lost their lives and thousands more displaced in the violence in South Sudan. The United Nations mission and humanitarian agencies are under strain to protect camps and to provide internally displaced persons with water, food and other emergency relief. What flared up as a political conflict in South Sudan is now assuming an ethnic character.
'What needs to be watched is that the border incidents at Dokalam in 2017 and Galwan in 2020 are triggering nascent Chinese nationalism against India,' asserts Srikanth Kondapalli, the leading China expert.
'For the Tamil Nadu protestors to openly ask popular film actor Vijay Sethupathi not to don Murali in 800 is a travesty in every sense. It may have given them a cause to tell the world, and the governments in New Delhi, Colombo and Chennai, that the Sri Lankan ethnic issue was still alive in the state -- more so, during the current run-up to two major events in the first half of 2021,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
This was in retaliation for the torching of 58 houses and destruction of property in two Dimasa villages in a pre-dawn\nattack on Saturday, the SP said.
At $37 per dose, the Pfizer vaccine is much more expensive compared to $3 per dose for the Covishield.
Chinese police have killed 28 terrorists responsible for a deadly attack on a coal mine that killed 16 people in restive Xinjiang province.
It is time the current leaders who swear by 'cultural nationalism', that is religion neutral, assert that Bharatiyata is at the core of our nationalism and India was never a 'Hindu Rashtra', argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
As Afghans head to the polling booths to elect a new president, a contested and fraud-marred elections could potentially throw Afghanistan into a renewed cycle of violence and instability, says Dr Shanthie Mariet D'Souza.
ISI chief Faiz Hameed coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government guaranteed to preserve Pakistan's control over the levers of power in Kabul, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In a sharp reaction to a question about Modi's characterisation of Pakistan at the BRICS Summit in Goa, spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry Hua Chunying said China is opposed to linking any country to terrorism.
Polling started in Pakistan's National Assembly and four other provincial centres on Tuesday to elect a new president who will replace incumbent Asif Ali Zardari in September.
A decision on this could be taken before Christmas, which might not necessarily result in a formal announcement as that could be delayed till the next year, people familiar with her thinking process said.
The United Kingdom on Wednesday became the first country to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19, paving the way for mass vaccinations against the deadly novel coronavirus.
The DMK feels its genuine gestures have had no bearing on the governor's politico-administrative conduct, which is 'more political and politicised than administrative and Constitutional', observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The violence that shook Assam was a direct outcome of the state's ethnic problem... The tension that created a rift between the Bodos and the non-Bodos for years found a blood-spattered expression.' Former NSG chief Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary, the Trinamool Congress candidate from Kokrajhar, speaks to Indrani Roy/Rediff.com about last week's carnage in Assam.
'What happened last Sunday is a great tragedy, an insult to humanity'
The rankings were prepared after examining the volume of terrorist and rebel alerts, messaging traffic, videos, photos, incidents and the number of killed and injured in a country over the past 30 days.
'...but from those who control the narrative.' Powerful nations have mastered this art of narrative building. Those nations who aspire to become global powers must do so, observes Shanthie Mariet D'Souza.
China on Tuesday said that the Dalai Lama can improve ties with it only by giving up wish for Tibetan independence and publicly announcing that Tibet is an inalienable part of the country.
This is the first time China-Pakistan began joint patrols in recent years though Chinese troops have been conducting patrols in the area since 2014.
'No other terror organisation has valued popular consensus as the Islamic State does -- instead of repressing people, IS wants to gain their support. This is a major innovation in terrorism,' says terrorism expert and author Dr Loretta Napoleoni in an interview to Archana Masih and Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.
Violence erupted on Monday following which police imposed curfew in the Theldeniya area.
'The one thing India has over these two States, whose toughness awes us, is our ability to embrace diversity with ease. 'The way ahead lies in learning from Vajpayee's method, not in Xi Jinping's,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The Mamata Banerjee-led party, which has often been mocked by opponents for not having a well-defined ideological plank, seems to have finally found its calling in Bengali sub-nationalism, as a section of top party leaders feel only an 'inclusive message of regionalism, which the Bengalis can identify with, will counter the aggressive nationalism and Hindutva practised by the saffron camp'.
'Why did your generals try to grab a few square kilometres of Indian territory in Ladakh?' 'And what happened to the hard work that you and Prime Minister Modi put into the Wuhan and Mamallapuram meets?' Claude Arpi writes a letter to Xi Jinping, China's self-styled supreme leader, who turns 68 today, June 15.
It was Obama's eighth and final address to the UN General Assembly as the US President
Indians at large harbour a notion that their country is cherrypicking out of the American basket of goodies, but the policymakers in Delhi and the political leadership are well aware that it can only be a pipe dream since a military alliance with a superpower is a profound irrevocable commitment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Apprehending trouble in the state especially in violence-affected Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas in the aftermath of declaration of results of election in the state on Friday, the Assam government has requested the army to be in stand by for quick deployment, if the need arises while helicopter surveillance is being continued in vulnerable areas of the violence-affected BTC areas and along India-Bhutan border.
The Naga Rengma Hills Protection Force has claimed responsibility for the killing of nine people of the Karbi community, all residents of Assam's Karbi Anglong district on December 28.
The world must hang its head in shame for being a mute spectator to the 'cultural holocaust' in Tibet, says Major General Mrinal Suman (retd).
There is growing alarm at the inexorable rise of China, both of its military prowess and its aggressive bullying of other countries plus its subjugation of whole portions of its own population.
The victim, identified as 39-year-old Deep Rai, was working on his vehicle outside his home in Kent, Washington when the unidentified man shot him in the arm.
The battle against militants fighting for separation of China's volatile Xinjiang province, bordering PoK and Afghanistan, is getting "tougher, fiercer and crueler than ever" due to the revival of pan-Islamic extremist groups, top Chinese leaders from the province said.
Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists in police uniforms on Wednesday gunned down 47 Shia Ismaili Muslims, including 16 women, shooting them in the head as they attacked their bus in Pakistan's volatile Karachi city in the latest sectarian violence claimed by the dreaded Islamic State terror group.
'While the fears in Assam and other north eastern states are natural given their experience since 1947 when successive governments and even political leaders in Delhi have repeatedly let them down, the intent and provisions under the Citizenship Amendement Bill -- when examined closely -- should remove those apprehensions,' says Nitin A Gokhale, the well-known commentator who lived in and reported from the north east between 1983 and 2006.
'Sirisena will keep both Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe on tenterhooks till the next general election due in 2020,' says Aditi Phadnis.
Bhattarai said his party 'Naya Shakti Nepal' would bear the "historic responsibility" of making Nepal prosperous and developed.
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