Xinjiang to China is, perhaps, what Chechnya is to Russia. In no field is the comparison more striking than the oil and pipeline business. Both Chechnya and Xinjiang have oil. Moreover the two provinces are strategically located for oil pipelines. It is through a network of pipelines that wind across Chechnya that Russia and the countries in Central Asia and …

Vice President Joe Biden, apparently speaking on behalf of the Obama administration, has just given Israel the green light to bomb Iran. “Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else,” he told ABC’s “This Week” in an interview broadcast Sunday. “Whether …

“Dawn” — – While we’re still arguing about whether there’s life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By democracy I don’t mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are. …

The saga of the June 12th presidential elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran which started as a roar has for all purposes faded into a whimper and is dying off if not dead. The Western powers mounted an unrelenting massive propaganda blitzkrieg using its media mafia to support the opposition led by Mir Hussein Mousavi and denounced the elections …

I refer to Kath Noble’s letter in the Island of July 1, in which she writes that the image she projected of me as holding David Miliband’s bag while he gave Sri Lanka a good slap wasn’t based on a general impression that I am a great fan of DM, after which she goes on, “I was pointing out that …

The statement of Nicholas Sarcozy that Burqa is not welcome in France, that it is a symbol of oppression and not of religion has raised serious debate all over. It is France again where five years ago the display of religious markers, head scarf, Sikh turban, and Jewish skull cap in schools was banned. Public servants cannot use the same …