Global affairs | The Daily Star

  • Fresh churnings in Congress after Delhi debacle

    Nine months after its meltdown in the national elections, India’s main opposition the Congress Party led by Sonia Gandhi, finds itself in fresh in-house churnings over the issue of top leadership.

  • Is Pakistan’s press freedom under threat?

    Sweeping new regulations restricting social media in Pakistan put freedom of expression and the media at the heart of the struggle to counter both civilisationalist and authoritarian aspects of an emerging new world order.

  • What the Deal of the Century tells us about the world we live in

    The real issue with US President Donald J. Trump’s “Deal of the Century” Israeli-Palestinian peace plan is not whether it stands a chance of resolving one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. It doesn’t.

  • Will the new Bodo accord give peace a chance in Assam?

    The signing of the tripartite peace agreement among different factions of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), the Indian government and the Assam authorities on January 28 has set the stage for an end to one of the longest-running insurgencies in the northeastern state of India.

  • IRAN CRISIS TEST & Trump’s foreign policy

    At the core of US President Donald J Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran lies the belief that Iran can be forced to negotiate terms for the lifting of harsh US economic sanctions even if it has no confidence in US intentions and adherence to agreements.

  • Welcome Madam POTUS?

    The high point of drama during last week’s Democratic presidential debate was the public sparring between Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

  • The UAE calls the shots

    This week’s inauguration of a new Red Sea Egyptian military base was pregnant with the symbolism of the rivalries shaping the future of the Middle East as well as north and east Africa.

  • Back in the assassination business

    US President Donald Trump’s recent decision to assassinate top Iranian military leader Qassim Suleimani has brought the US back into the business of killing foreign leaders.

  • Stage set for battle for Delhi

    The bugle has been blown for the elections to the Delhi legislative assembly with the Indian Election Commission announcing the poll schedule on January 6.

  • Iran plays chess, the US plays backgammon

    Iranians play chess and Americans play backgammon when it comes to warfare, military strategy and conflict management.

  • Rule of law or rule of the jungle?

    International law may not be a major consideration in debates about the US killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani

  • US military strikes in Iraq stir regional hornet’s nest

    The United States stirred a hornet’s nest that stretches far beyond Iraq when it attacked an Iranian-backed militia on the weekend.

  • Developing countries must seize the tech frontier

    Rapid technological transformation will be a key feature of the economy well into the future. At the national, regional, and global level, frontier technologies are offering promising new opportunities, but are also introducing new policy challenges.

  • Can America be saved?

    On December 23, Heidi Sloan, running for US Congress in Texas 25, tweeted (referring to one of Trump’s Presidential Campaign advertisements), “This ad should terrify us. Donald Trump has a movement capable of winning re-election.

  • Argentina’s bright young hope

    Judging by his appointment of a first-rate economist to his cabinet as Minister of Economy, Argentina’s new president, Alberto Fernández, is off to a good start in confronting his country’s economic problems.

  • Okay Boris, you won. Now what?

    The results of the recent elections in the United Kingdom took me back to another ghastly political moment.

  • Certainty over Brexit, yet uncertainty remains in the Kingdom

    One would not expect, least of all in western democracies, to see people taking to the streets immediately after a new prime minister takes office with a landslide victory.

  • A little more than just an ‘internal’ issue?

    The controversial Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019 (CAB) has been finally passed through both the lower and upper houses of the Indian Parliament this week amidst protests and questions being raised regarding its constitutional validity.

  • Riding the wave of technological innovation

    Recent economic develop-ments in Bangladesh have been remarkable. Over the past decade, GDP per capita has almost tripled, reaching USD 1,700 in 2018.

  • Johnson-Corbyn debate revisits Brexit division

    Friday night’s election debate has once again exposed how divided the British nation is. The Sky poll conducted by YouGov shows 52-48 difference between the two main contenders vying for No 10 Downing Street—incumbent Boris Johnson and challenger Jeremy Corbyn.

  • As the terrible denouement unfolds

    Here’s the awful truth in a nutshell.

  • A microcosm of Iran’s domestic problems, port city bears brunt of crackdown

    The Iranian port city of Bandar-e-Mahshahr has emerged as the scene of some of the worst violence in Iran’s brutal crackdown on recent anti-government protests.

  • Doomsday Clock: It is now two minutes to midnight

    The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by the Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. Original members of the Board were a group of scientists who worked under the auspices of the Manhattan Project, the secret scheme responsible for developing the first nuclear weapons.

  • Global turmoil: Ethics offer a way out of the crisis

    Rarely is out-of-the-box thinking needed more than in this era of geopolitical, political and economic turmoil.

  • All The President’s Crooks

    It’s not exactly breaking news that another accomplice of US President Donald J Trump has been found guilty and is contemplating at jail time. This is something, alas, that has been occurring from time to time for a while.

  • India should rethink its decision on the agreement

    India on November 4 decided not to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a free trade deal involving the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, China, South Korea, Japan, and New Zealand.

  • A tug of war over who has the longer breath

    Mass anti-government protests in several Arab countries are turning into competitions to determine who has the longer breath, the protesters or the government.

  • Salvaging international law: The best of bad options

    These are uncertain times with trade wars, regional conflicts and increased abuse of human and minority rights pockmarking the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world.

  • Trade liberalisation for development?

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), all dominated by rich countries, have long promoted trade liberalisation as a “win-win” solution for “all people—rich and poor—and all countries—developed and developing countries”, arguing that “the gains are large enough to enable compensation to be provided to the losers”.

  • Popular protest: How effective is it?

    If there is one theme, beyond corruption and a host of economic and social grievances, that have driven protests—large and small, local, sectoral and national—across the globe, it has been a call for dignity.

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