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The dramatic events of last week in Syria have only boosted President Erdogan's role as the preeminent regional powerbroker in the heart of the Arab Levant as Turkish armed/financed Sunni militias engineered their collapse of the 54-year-old Assad dynastic tyranny in Damascus. Syria is once again a de facto Turkish protectorate, as it was in the five centuries since Sultan Selim Yavuz vanquished its Mamluk rulers and conquered Egypt, Syria and the Hijaz for the Ottoman sultanate. Selim deposed the titular Abbasid Caliph in Cairo and became Islam's first Turkish Amir Al Momineen or Commander of the Faithful. The Ottoman caliphate lasted from 1517 to 1924 when Kemal Atatürk abolished it, which was supported by Jinnah but opposed by Gandhi (go figure!). Atatürk declared a secular Turkish Republic and purged the Turkish language of its Arabic alphabet and literary heritage.

The politics in South Africa underwent a significant change on Thursday December 12 when the general secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) Solly Mapaila announced the decision of his Party to fight solo in the local elections in the country in 2026 breaking the alliance with the main ruling party African National Congress (ANC). The SACP and the ANC have been the partners of the tripartite alliance that ruled the nation since 1994 when Nelson Mandela became the first president of the free nation after the holding of free elections.

Rudyard Kipling famously writes, “If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.” This quote perfectly captures the book under review.

Halt all fresh suits, proceedings, and orders in relation to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991, ordered a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India on December 12, implications of which will be far reaching since it would transcend beyond the legal boundaries to the social and political life of the people of the country. The order has kindled a new hope of survival of secularism in its battle with communalism being attacked socially, politically, and legally by the Hindutva forces, though the Places of Worship Act has a bar against raising such issues.

The recent news of China deploying private security companies to protect its infrastructure and other projects in Myanmar is alarming. Myanmar has been embroiled in a civil war since the 2021 coup, creating a politically volatile environment. The entry of Chinese nationals as security guards represents a significant escalation. It suggests that traditional diplomatic channels have failed to provide adequate security assurances to Chinese investors and the government. This deployment of private security personnel introduces a new and complex dimension to the ongoing crisis in Myanmar.

Liberal opinion holds that the international monetary and financial system is a device for promoting the interests of all participating countries by providing a convenient payments arrangement within which trade can be carried on. The reality however is altogether different: the international system is founded upon the hegemony of western imperialism, and in turn sustains this hegemony. Since the US dollar is the lynchpin of this international system, one can say that the hegemony of the dollar in the international economy is both sustained by and in turn sustains, the hegemony of western imperialism; and this hegemony even comes in the way of mutually convenient trade between participating countries.

The East European nation Romania is in a big political turmoil following the postponement of the final round of the Presidential elections and also the holding of the national elections n December 1. Rival political parties in Romania agreed on December 12 to form a majority government made up of groupings that were traditionally on opposite sides. The move shuts out far-right nationalists who made significant gains in the national elections on December 1.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There is absolutely no let-up in the Union Government’s attempts to deny funds Kerala is entitled to despite judicial raps.

NEW YORK: Voters in the West African nation of Ghana repudiated the right-wing government of President Nana Akufo-Addo with a historic, massive win for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in elections on December 7.

The rapid advance of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other armed factions led to the fall of Bashar al- Assad’s government in Syria. With this, the US has succeeded in toppling the last of the secular regimes in West Asia. US military interventions resulted not only in the fall of secular regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria in the West Asia-North African region, but also created deep sectarian fissures in the region. The destruction unleashed by the US and the Frankenstein religious fundamentalist/extremist groups it helped create, is threatening peace and stability everywhere.