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Recall the story about the explorer who encounters an aboriginal tribe for the first time. “Are there cannibals among you?” he asks. “No,” they reply, “We ate the last one yesterday.” To constitute a civilised community by eating the last cannibal, the final act must...

Israel’s missile attack 2 January on the Damascus International Airport of Syria, the second in seven months, is in a sense a continuation of hostilities between the two countries. Yet, the timing is significant. It occurred four days after Benjamin Netanyahu had been sworn in...

The Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr’s three-day visit to China from 3 January when he will meet China’s President Xi Jinping and other top leaders will be a test of his policy of “friend to all and enemy to none.” The exchanges will influence...

The world is faced with new challenges to tackle as the New Year begins. The dying days of 2022 gave ample indications of the shape of things to come. Now, the contours are being clearly drawn. Things the world thought had been safely buried during...

In concluding his chapter on intelligence agencies and their manner of functioning, former RAW chief AS Dulat wrote in his recent book that RAW is ‘pretty good, better than the ISI’. He left it at that, without explaining in what way and it would be...

The Modi sarkar is devoting a lot of thought to the 100 years of independence in 2047, with several task forces charged with drawing up a roadmap for the future. Among these, the Group of Secretaries on Governance headed by I&B Secretary Apurva Chandra is...

In late November, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution met for the first time. The INC was established by the United Nations Environment Assembly with a well-defined mission: to create the first-ever legally binding global agreement on plastic pollution. The fact that delegates and...

Disturbing reports are coming from Israel, Afghanistan and Iran where new measures are being taken to deny freedom and gender equality to their women. In a significant development, Israel’s incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party gave its word in its coalition agreement with Far-Right...

A significant development in the Russia-Ukraine war raging since 24 February 2022 is the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent visit to Washington. Predictably, Russia has branded the exchanges between Zelenskyy and US President Joe Biden as an exercise in perpetuating war rather than a peace...

The mystery surrounding the origin of coronavirus, supposed to have either leaked from a laboratory in China’s Wuhan or from sea food sold in the markets there, is yet to be unravelled due to China’s persistent denial and noncooperation. Now, it is China again that...