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The interim Government in Bangladesh led by Dr. Muhammad Yunus has achieved big success in the last few days in persuading the Biden administration to help in bailing out the country’s ailing economy to meet the immediate challenges of the post-Hasina administration.

Balochistan, the biggest province of Pakistan is on the boil. Ever since August 25, Majeed Brigade, a guerrilla group of Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) launched attacks at six different spots, it marked the end of the lull before the storm.

LONDON: German regional elections amplify a message we’ve heard loud and clear from Britain and France already this summer: the far right is a rising danger. The Alternative for Germany (AfD’s) first place in Thuringia (it came a close second in Saxony) is especially alarming given the Nazi-channelling antics of its serially offensive leader in the state, Bjorn Hocke.

China has just celebrated the 120th birth anniversary of Deng Xiaoping, the man who is the creator of modern China. Mao Zhe Dong had founded the Communist Party of China —ubiquitously the CPC— and swept away centuries of cobwebs in the country. He was the maker of Communist China. But Mao had committed huge excesses and with his idiosyncratic ideas inflicted unbelievable costs on the country.

As the US presidential election approaches, Kamala Harris stands on the brink of making history. With approximately 70 days left in a compressed campaign, Harris is poised not only to become the first woman to ascend to the presidency but also to be the first president of Black and South Asian descent. Despite the significance of these firsts, Harris has made it clear that her identity is not the focal point of her campaign. Instead, she has chosen to transcend these aspects, focusing on broader themes of unity, patriotism, and a shared American future.

The political situation in France is in turmoil as the French President Emanuel Macron has still not issued any invitation to the Prime Ministerial candidate of the New National Front (NFP) Lucie Castets to form the new government in France. The NFP a coalition of the left parties and the socialists, has emerged as the single largest party in the July 7 national polls with 183 seats as against 163 of Macron’s Ensemble and 143 by the far right National Rally (RN) led by Marine Le Pen.

The spectre that once haunted West Germany was exorcized some thirty-five years ago as the breach in the Berlin Wall opened the way to reunification. This eradicated the spectre’s spookiest haunting grounds — the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) — and nailed it into what was hoped to be a shatterproof, Krupp-steel coffin.

During Narendra Modi’s visit to Ukraine (why he visited Ukraine at all at the present time remains a mystery), Zelensky asked India not to purchase fuel from Russia in violation of western sanctions, that is, to fall in line with the “unilateral” western sanctions. Let us for a moment forget the identity of the person making this suggestion, the fact that he rules Ukraine with the help of the followers of Stepan Bandera, the notorious Nazi collaborator during the second world war; let us also forget the present context there: a war brought on by NATO’s insistence on extending itself eastwards right up to the Russian border in violation of the promise made by Bush to Gorbachev at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, a war moreover that could easily have been prevented if the Minsk agreements, arrived at through negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, had not been repudiated by the latter on Anglo-US “advice”. Let us also forget about India’s own “self-interest” in breaking the sanctions by purchasing Russian oil. Let us talk only of the ethics of “unilateral” sanctions.

Demand for electric vehicle batteries is on the rise as the world shifts towards a greener future. Together with it, the requirement for lithium, a key component in electricity vehicle batteries and renewable energy storage has skyrocketed.

First the Zaporizhzhia and now the nuclear power plant in Kursk under threat are issues of extreme concern. UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi on August27 warned during a visit to Russia’s Kursk nuclear plant that situation is very grave because the plant is situated hardy 50 kilometre from the war zone. “At the end of the day, again, this may sound common sense and simple: Don’t attack a nuclear power plant” he warned. The IAEA has issued several warnings about threat to the nuclear power plants particularly after the Russian forces seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine.