After decades of conflict and military occupations, Afghanistan has yet to emerge from its ongoing humanitarian crisis. The main culprits at this juncture are the poor governance of the ruling Taliban as well as the remarkably hostile policies of the United States and its allies, which are, in effect, waging economic warfare against one of the poorest nations on Earth.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is defending a trip to mainland China made by party Vice-Chair Andrew Hsia which provoked criticism from within the opposition party itself as well as from the Taiwanese government.
South Korea’s new President Yoon Suk-Yeol is reinstating his nation’s “Kill Chain” strategy, which aims to deter an attack from North Korea by brandishing a highly aggressive military doctrine.
Israeli forces raided, ransacked, and shuttered the offices of top Palestinian civil society groups in the West Bank, a move the organizations denounced as retaliation for their efforts to end the decades-long occupation and hold Israel accountable for its ongoing war crimes.
Hours after India Housing Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced that Rohingya refugees from Myanmar would be provided apartments in the Bakkarwala area of outer Delhi, the Home Ministry denied that any such policy had been decided. By the same evening, Puri reversed himself.
Although it usually hits the global headlines due to tensions with mainland China, Taiwan is also known for its relatively progressive stance on LGBT issues, which in turn is not unrelated to its government strategies.
US Representative Ilhan Omar narrowly fended off a Democratic Party primary challenger whose campaign was bankrolled in part by a Republican Party operative, corporate lobbyists, and prominent Minnesota businessmen.
Pentagon contractors operating inside Afghanistan over the past two decades raked in nearly US$108 billion—funds that “were distributed and spent with a significant lack of transparency,” according to a new report. However, even this figure is just a fraction of the over US$14 trillion which the Pentagon spent in order to lose the war in Afghanistan.
Mobile internet services have been suspended and orders banning public assembly imposed in some areas of Manipur, a small Indian state bordering Myanmar, in the wake of a blockade of two national highways organized by a students’ group, and a street battle on August 6 with police in West Imphal in which about thirty students were injured.
Western nations have recently taken up a mantra that claims they will never allow “changes to the status quo by force,” but when it comes to the dangerous crisis in the Taiwan Strait, it’s not entirely clear that all Western commentators even understand what the diplomatic “status quo” is all about.
