Global affairs | The Daily Star

  • 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.

  • To end poverty, we need peace and justice first

    Today we live in a world that is more divided than ever. It’s filled with hatred, double standards and hypocrisy, conflict, war, uncertainties and many other

  • Reasons behind Trudeau’s slim victory

    A second term in office awaits the incumbent Canadian prime minister, as the centre-left Liberal Party managed to secure enough parliamentary seats to ensure that a

  • Lebanese and Iraqi protesters transcend sectarianism

    Protests in Lebanon have evolved into more than a fight against failed and corrupt government that has long stymied development in the Middle East and North Africa.

  • Many uses of Al Baghdadi: Why did they kill him?

    In these dark days when terrorism has become a strategic asset, to bump off a superior practitioner like Abu Bakr al Baghdadi has implications.

  • Vive la Canada! Three cheers for our northern neighbour

    it is fair to say that given the political mess, leading Anglophone countries are drawing a mixture of horror and derision from the rest of the world. Both are richly deserved. While you’re at it, throw into the mix a queasy, disquieting feeling about a disaster waiting to happen.

  • Islamists march on the Pakistani capital

    Pakistan, long viewed as an incubator of religious militancy, is gearing up for a battle over the future of the country’s notorious madrassas, religious seminaries accused of breeding radicalism.

  • Turkey and China tie themselves in knots over Syria and Xinjiang

    Turkey’s ambass-ador to China, Emin Onen, didn’t mince his words this week when he took his Chinese hosts to task for failing to support Turkey’s military campaign against a Kurdish militia in Syria.

  • Kashmir: The Desecrated Crown

    "Boys and girls can now talk to each other,” declared the governor of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) on October 14.

  • Turkey and the Kurds

    Turkey, like much of the Middle East, is discovering that what goes around comes around.

  • Delhi needs to do more to protect and deepen ties with Dhaka

    Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister of Bangladesh, made a four-day official visit to India from October 3 to 6.

  • A self-inflicted wound: Trump surrenders the West’s moral high ground

    For the better part of a century, the United States could claim the moral high ground despite allegations of hypocrisy because its policies continuously contradicted its proclaimed propagation of democracy and human rights. Under President Donald J Trump the US has lost that moral high ground.

  • Tackling the global refugee crisis

    For a moment, imagine yourself being forced out of your country. You are running for your life, leaving everything behind.

  • Learning lessons: Protesters stay one step ahead of rulers

    There’s a déjà vu feeling to this year’s wave of protests across the Arab world.

  • How to impeach a US president: A brief primer

    The possible impeach-ment of US President Donald Trump is the talk of the town. However, many people, particularly those outside the US, have better things to do than delve into the minutiae of US politics and history. Here’s a brief primer on how the process of

  • Saudi policy shift: A rare Trump foreign policy success

    By the law of unintended consequences, US President Donald J Trump’s mix of uncritical and cynical embrace of Saudi Arabia and transactional approach towards relations with the kingdom may be producing results.

  • Sonia Gandhi’s deja vu moment

    It could be a déjà vu moment for Sonia Gandhi. Just a couple of months after returning to helm of the Congress, at a time of its existential crisis following the drubbing in April-May national elections, she faces a crucial test of her leadership in the October 21 assembly polls in Maharashtra and Haryana against a surging Bharatiya Janata Party.

  • Trump, Johnson and globalisation’s discontented

    One wonders with a resigned sigh: Is life not depressing enough? Here we are, in the United States, saddled with President Donald J Trump, the leader of the free world who on any given day can blithely contradict in the afternoon what he says in the morning.

  • Attacks on Saudi oil facilities could trigger more conflicts

    The drone attacks on two Saudi Arabian oil facilities last Saturday could have serious regional and global consequences. The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (or Saudi Aramco) that was targeted is a global energy giant and perhaps the world’s most valuable company.

  • Eurasia’s Great Game

    Eurasia’s Great Game is anything but simple and straightforward. A burgeoning alliance between China and Russia that at least for now is relegating potential differences between the two powers to the sidelines has sparked a complex geopolitical dance of its own.

  • India-Russia bonhomie in a changing world

    When it comes to treading previously unexplored or seldom traversed areas of domestic and foreign policies, one can safely bet on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At home, he had undertaken demonetisation in a shock move in November, 2016 and in August

Top