Global affairs | The Daily Star

  • Thank You, Donald Trump! (And you too, Fox News)

    Today, Americans are terrified of a pandemic virus whose infection rate has spiked up again. With just four percent of the world’s population, the US already has a quarter of the world’s Covid-19 deaths.

  • Pompeo-Espar visit to India: China and beyond

    China loomed large over the in-person visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary Mark T Esper to New Delhi on October 26-27.

  • Racism in America: Police Chokehold is Not the Issue

    The American project was founded on rank hypocrisies. On the one hand, President Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the stirring words in the Declaration of Independence that upheld “these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”, did not free his own slaves (not even Sally Hemings, who bore him six children).

  • Trump is Not Down Yet

    Think about this, almost half of Americans thinks he’s handling this pandemic swimmingly according to a recent CNN poll that puts him closer to 45 percent.

  • Covid-19 In India: Road ahead for the world’s largest quarantine

    “Extraordinary times require extraordinary solutions”—that is how Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi summed up the worldwide response to the coronavirus pandemic during a video conference on March 30 with the heads of all of India’s embassies and high commissions across the globe.

  • West First policies expose myths

    As the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic shifts from China to the developed West, all too many rich countries are acting selfishly, invoking the “national interest”, by banning exports of vital medical supplies.

  • Biden, Sanders, or Trump: US policy towards the Gulf will change regardless

    The fight in this week’s Democratic primaries may have been about who confronts Donald J Trump in November’s US presidential election, Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden.

  • Iran and the USA don’t have to be enemies

    The contradict-ion couldn’t be more striking.

  • Not a pretty picture

    Television news summarises daily what a new world order shaped by civilisationalists entails. Writer William Gibson’s assertion that “the future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed” is graphically illustrated in pictures of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of desperate Syrians fleeing indiscriminate bombing in Idlib, Syria’s last rebel stronghold, with nowhere to go.

  • Bernie or Bust?

    The primary process for choosing a presidential candidate in the US can be inordinately long drawn and unwieldy.

  • The uncomplicated legacy of Hosni Mubarak

    Internatio-nal media is saturated with the news of ex-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s death at the age of 91 and his military funeral, complete with three days of mourning and a statement from the current Egyptian presidency calling him a “military leader and a war hero”.

  • 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.

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