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WASHINGTON: After Nato’s catastrophic, illegal invasions of Yugoslavia, Libya and Afghanistan, on July 9, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation(NATO) begins its three day summit in Washington. The British will not burn down the US Capitol as they did in 1814, and the Germans are still meekly pretending that they don’t know who blew up their Nord Stream gas pipelines. So expect smiling photo-ops and an overblown orgy of mutual congratulation.

On Thursday, June 26, troops occupied Plaza Murillo in La Paz, where the Bolivian government headquarters is located. Commander Juan José Zúñiga, head of the army, invaded the plaza with a hundred soldiers and a group of armoured vehicles, breaking down the door of the Palacio Quemado, where President Luis Arce and his ministers tried to resist by blocking the entrances with furniture.

French voters made history in the second round of national elections on July 7 by dashing all hopes of the far right party of Marine Len Pen RN to grab power by giving the highest number of seats — 182 to the New Popular Front (NFP) followed by President Emanuel Macron’s centrist alliance at 163 by pushing the far right RN to the third position at 143 seats. Thus, in a house of 577, the Left and the Macron led centrists have a total strength of 345 as against the majority figure of 289..The other parties including right and fringe left groups have together got the remaining 89 seats.

It may look odd that India aspiring to be an industrial powerhouse and a major global economy received a total foreign direct investment (FDI) of only US$28 billion, last year, compared to tiny Singapore receiving $160 billion and Hong Kong $113 billion. According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), FDI inflows to India plummeted by 43 percent against a global decline of two percent to $1.3 trillion amid economic slowdown and rising geopolitical tensions. India would need at least $150-200 billion annually for the next 10 years to become a truly strong economy. The coming annual budget by the new National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government must try sincerely to remove all obstacles to large FDI flows to the country.

U.S. President Joe Biden's underwhelming performance in the 2024 presidential debate last week raised concerns due to his apparent fatigue, forgetfulness, and confusion. This has caused uncertainty among supporters despite Biden's attempts to reassure them in the post-debate period. Even last week, during a speech in Madison, Wisconsin, he initially said he would "beat Donald Trump again in 2020" before correcting himself to "2024," which added to the uncertainty.

A 2012 government note said that the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha is the “Shadow Prime Minister of India”. Does Raebareli Congress MP Rahul Gandhi know he is the “Shadow Prime Minister of India”? Modi has been Rahul Gandhi’s target inside and outside Parliament ever since June 4. So much so, after Rahul Gandhi became LoP, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla had been forced to defend Prime Minister Narendra Modi from repeated Rahul attacks.

Chief Minister of Jharkhand Hemant Soren’s winning trust motion on July 8 was on expected line, but its significance goes beyond just a formality in the Vidhan Sabha and a foregone conclusion. No vote was cast against the motion amidst BJP’s walk-out from the House, signifying a total unity among the INDIA bloc allies on the one hand, and the utter failure of the alleged ‘operation lotus’ to break up the allies or the parties therein on the other. Additionally, BJP’s walk-out is indicative of its waning political strength both in the House and in the state, at a time when Vidhan Sabha elections are scheduled to be held by 2024 year-end.

Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist candidate, won Iran's presidential election on Saturday, July 5. He defeated the hard-line candidate Saeed Jalili, securing over 53.3% of the votes from more than 30 million ballots. This snap election was held after the previous president, Ebrahim Raisi, tragically died in a helicopter crash in May.

BHOPAL: History repeats itself. We expected that BJP in Madhya Pradesh may prove that this saying is untrue. During last 24-years' rule, BJP could not complete the duration of the Assembly sessions. The session invariably ended without transacting the business approved by the Business advisory committee. Before the commencement of the newly elected Assembly the BJP promises longer sitting. But they could not fulfil this promise in the very first session.

Recently, cryptocurrency entrepreneur and investor Balaji S Srinivasan posted a small cryptic message about the US presidential election on X (formerly Twitter). He wrote “Polymarket is the news,” and shared a screenshot of the prediction betting website, where the chances of Joe Biden winning the election was shown to be 25% while his chances of losing was 70%.