Agora Dialogue A marketplace for ideas

Hissing cousins Three score and ten years after their acrimonious split, India and Pakistan remain at daggers drawn. Max Rodenbeck asks if they can ever make up The Economist EVERY AFTERNOON AT sunset, at a point midway along the arrow-straight road between Amritsar and Lahore, rival squads of splendidly uniformed soldiers strut and stomp a 17th-century British military drill known as Beating… Barked commands, fierce glares and preposterously high kicks all signal violent intent. But then, lovingly and in unison, ... Read More »

More than 20% of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining revenue is being lost due to corruption and mismanagement, a campaign group says. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40680795BBC According to a Global Witness report, the money is being distributed through corrupt networks linked to President Joseph Kabila. At least $750m (£580m) has gone missing over the past three years, it says. The government has not commented but has previously denied allegations of corruption in its mining… Congo’s mining revenue… Read More »

More than 360,000 suspected cholera cases have been recorded over just three months in war-ravaged Yemen, says charity. Al Jazeera and news agencies An ongoing cholera epidemic which has swept war-ravaged Yemen is the “largest ever recorded” in a single year, with more than 360,000 suspected cases in the three months since the… Since cholera began to spread in April, the epidemic has killed more than 2,000 people, while the country grapples with death, starvation, malnutrition and… Yemen’s cholera epidemic… Read More »

The Australian dollar slid back below US79¢ on Friday after Reserve Bank deputy governor Guy Debelle said there was no automatic reason for rates to rise after a recent outbreak of hawkishness by global… Eryk Bagshaw with Reuters and Bloomberg The Canberra Times The Australian dollar dropped about half a cent to US78.77¢ following the comments, having touched a high of US79.92¢ earlier in the week. “Just as the policy rate in Australia did not need to decline to the very ... Read More »

Liu Xia has been detained at home since Liu Xiaobo won the peace prize in 2010 Clifford Coonan in Beijing The Irish Times International pressure is growing to allow Liu Xia, the wife of the late Nobel Peace Prize-winner Liu Xiaobo, to leave the country if she wants to go abroad. She has been under house arrest for years. Diplomatic sources in Beijing say intensive discussions are under way with Chinese authorities to grant permission to allow Ms Xia, a ... Read More »

France’s top military chief resigned on July 19 after a war of words with Emmanuel Macron over budget cuts that tested the new president’s… Hurriyet The row between Macron and General Pierre de Villiers erupted last week when the chief of staff told a parliamentary committee he would not allow the armed forces to be “screwed” by the government’s plans to slash 850… Macron, 39, slapped down the 60-year-old five-star general in front of army chiefs at their annual summer ... Read More »

20 July 2017 marks the two-year anniversary of a collapsed ceasefire that previously held for two-and-a-half-years between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Berkay Mandıracı ICG Crisis Group’s new analysis of open-source data reveals that the ongoing cycle of violence has now killed three times as many as the 2011-12 escalation. On 20 July 2015, an Islamic State (ISIS) suicide bomb attack killed 33 and injured more than 100 mostly pro-Kurdish young activists in… Turkey’s PKK Conflict… Read More »

The Government advises that the safe level of the bacteria in water used for human consumption is zero Ben Chapman Independent Faecal bacteria has been found in ice at McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King. The BBC’s Watchdog programme tested samples from 10 random branches from each of the fast food chains across the UK. Tests revealed bacteria known as faecal coliforms were present in three of the McDonald’s samples, six… McDonald’s, KFC and… Read More »

As NATO exercises in the Black Sea Russia welcomes the Chinese navy A Chinese naval squadron has sailed into the Baltic Sea to join the Russian navy for annual two-nation drills. RI The Chinese squadron consists of a supply ship, missile frigate and a Type 052D destroyer. The latter is the most advanced guided missile destroyer in Chinese service which is highly significant: “By sending its most advanced guided-missile destroyers, China is expressing its sincerity to Russia and… Chinese Warships Enter… Read More »

The need for the U.S. to understand China is obvious. The Chinese economy is on track to become the largest in the world by 2030, Chinese leadership may be the key to resolving the nuclear crisis with North Korea and China has military and economic ambitions in the South China Sea and… Bryan W. Van Norden The Conversation Meanwhile, the Trump administration has shown (repeatedly) that it’s not even clear on the difference between the People’s Republic of China (the ... Read More »

Archaeologists have found the first evidence to suggest that Aboriginal people have been in Australia for at least 65,000 years. BBC The discovery indicates their arrival on the continent was up to 18,000 years earlier than previously thought. It was made after sophisticated artefacts were excavated from a rock shelter in the Northern Territory. Researchers unearthed what they say are the… Australia human history… Read More »

Smashing the two party paradigm Noam Chomsky called out deep state democrats and republicans alike for using Trump as a distraction to destroy America. Jay Syrmopoulos The Free Thought World-renowned intellectual giant and respected academic, MIT professor Noam Chomsky recently sat down for an interview called ‘A Continuing Conversation with Geographers’. In the interview, he clearly makes his thoughts known regarding the… Chomsky: Trump is… Read More »

North Korea is facing severe food shortages after being hit by its worst drought since 2001, a report from the United Nations says. BBC Crop production in the country has been hampered by a prolonged dry period and food imports are now urgently required to fill the gap, the UN has warned. The most vulnerable, such as children and the elderly, will be worst hit. In the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are believed to have died… North ... Read More »

The secret is out: the ascension of Mohammad bin Salman, displacing CIA favorite Mohammad bin Nayef as Crown Prince, was in fact a white coup… Pepe Escobar  Asia Times What has been an open secret across the Arab world is not a secret anymore even in the US: What happened last month in the deep recesses of the House of Saud with the ascension of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, aka MBS, was in fact a white coup. Nearly a ... Read More »

Με αφορμή την πρόσφατη παραίτηση του Αρχηγού των Γαλλικών ΕΔ στρατηγού Βιλιέρ, ίσως, επί τέλους, είναι καιρός το κράτος μας να εστιάσει με υπευθυνότητα στο ιδιαίτερα σημαντικό θέμα των πολιτικοστρατιωτικών σχέσεων (το οποίο δεν αφορά πρόσωπα αλλά είναι δομικού χαρακτήρος), με αποκλειστικό γνώμονα τα εθνικά συμφέροντα. Βασίλης Μαρτζούκος Η πρωτοκαθεδρία της πολιτικής και ο πολιτικός έλεγχος των ΕΔ είναι αυτονόητος για κάθε πολίτη με σώας τας φρένας αλλά και για κάθε στέλεχος των ΕΔ, το οποίο γαλουχείται ανάλογα εδώ και ... Read More »

Στα άκρα οδηγείται η κόντρα Βερολίνου-Άγκυρας με αφορμή τις συλλήψεις γερμανών ακτιβιστών και δημοσιογράφων Real Ο Γερμανός υπουργός Εξωτερικών, Ζίγκμαρ Γκάμπριελ, ανακοίνωσε μέτρα κατά της Τουρκίας ως απάντηση στην προφυλάκιση ενός Γερμανού ακτιβιστή για τα ανθρώπινα δικαιώματα, στέλνοντας το μήνυμα μιας πιο σκληρής στάσης στον σύμμαχό της στο ΝΑΤΟ έπειτα από μία κλιμάκωση των… Ο Ζίγκμαρ Γκάμπριελ δήλωσε πως η Γερμανία θα μιλήσει με τους εταίρους της στην… Γερμανοτουρκικός πόλεμος – Η… Read More »