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This is Qatar's year to put its best foot forward. A major producer of natural gas, the tiny Gulf state is under the magnifying glass as it enters the final phase of hosting the 2022 World Cup later this year and emerges as a potential part of efforts to reduce European dependence on Russian energy.

The emergence of Sri Lanka as a template for the fallout of infrastructure development with Chinese funding will save thousands of diplomatic man-hours for India in checkmating the Chinese ‘String of Pearls’ agenda. New Delhi has tried to counter the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative with its own ‘Look East’ policy, but has not been particularly successful so far. Lanka certainly provides a new window of opportunity.

The West is agreeable so long as the world runs by its wits though the world for the West is limited to the United States, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and the Nato-wired European Union. The rest of the planet can go to hell, or remain consigned to conditions similar to hell. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has completely exposed the West, and the western media’s fake-democracy agenda.

India and China would be the most exposed countries in the world to shutting down of fossil-fuel infrastructures in the mitigation pathways to climate change, and if the existing units would continue to be operated as historically, they would entail CO2 emissions exceeding the carbon budget for 1.5 degree C, a new flagship UN report on climate change released on April 4 has warned. It insisted that global greenhouse gas emission would have to peak “before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43 per cent by 2030.”

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Kaptaan Imran Khan is in an existential crisis that pushed him personally into a political quagmire. His stature worsened further following the crucial observation by the Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial during the hearing of a suo moto matter following the dismissal of National Assembly of Pakistan on Sunday by the President Arif Alvi on the prime minister's advice that the NA Speaker erred in rejecting the no-confidence motion. The meaning is clear that reference to Article 5 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan is incongruent.

After an economic crisis, Sri Lanka has plunged into a political crisis now. On Monday morning, news reports said that the entire Sri Lankan Cabinet has resigned. There were also rumors that Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa had resigned or would resign soon but his office denied the rumours. Another rumor that India had sent its military personnel to help the Sri Lankan authorities maintain peace and order was also denied. Various rumours are doing the rounds in an environment when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has imposed a state of emergency, had banned people from coming out of their homes from Friday evening to Monday morning, and briefly suspended social media.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this month the European Union unveiled plans to slash Russian gas imports by two-thirds over the next year and to cease all fossil fuel imports from the country “well before” 2030. Officials acknowledged that to meet such ambitious targets, the EU will initially depend largely on imports of the more carbon-intensive liquefied natural gas and domestic coal power production — leading the Financial Times to ask, “Will the Ukraine war derail the green energy transition?”

A straightforward message emerged from this week’s meeting in the Negev desert of the foreign ministers of four Arab countries, Israel and the United States: Israel is key to the security of Gulf autocracies and continued US engagement in the Middle East.

Amid the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, one organization has come to focus that is NATO. This organization can be seen all over the conflict. This infamous organization is the North Atlantic Treaty Association commonly referred to as NATO. Formed in the aftermath of the Second World War, NATO’s formation was the response of the Western world to the rise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). As a planned socialist economy, the USSR made rapid all-round progress. The blood and sweat of Russians ultimately triumphed over the abominable ideology of Nazism and fascism. The red flag in Berlin made the capitalists uneasy and insecure the world over.

The global pandemic has been a catalyst for digital acceleration across all industries. As we continue to adapt to the hybrid workplace era, some businesses may believe an easy solution is a full-scale return to the office. However, many employees are not ready to give up the freedom. A hybrid meeting survey which was launched at the beginning of the year found that a third of workers said they are more likely to join companies with a more clearly defined hybrid work policy. As many continue to search for greater purpose in their careers, some changed professions, with many more realising that work could at least partially be done remotely.