Headlines

The West’s pivot to Asia has heightened tensions in the Indo-Pacific. With the US and China vying for predominance and increasing their military presence, the region’s nations face a difficult balancing act to secure their interests.

Paris, June 26.– France has 7,000 troops, 15 warships and 38 aircraft permanently stationed in the Asia-Pacific region, Rear Admiral Jean-Mathieu Rey recently revealed. Between late March and early June they were joined by the nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, the nuclear attack submarine Émeraude, several more planes (including four Rafales and an A330 air-to-air refuelling aircraft), the Jeanne d’Arc amphibious battle group, the amphibious helicopter carrier Tonnerre, and the stealth frigate Surcouf, for joint exercises with the US, Australia, Japan and India.

• The summit gave the leaders a chance to size each other up, but Putin deflected questions about thorny issues, including opposition figure Alexei Navalny
• Putin broke one of his own rules of engagement with world leaders. He showed up on time.

Washington DC, June 16.– President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin concluded their first in-person summit in Geneva on Wednesday, with both leaders saying the meeting had been constructive but with divisions between the two countries clearly on display.

The meeting, which took place at an 18th century villa, lasted three hours and gave the two leaders a chance to discuss a range of issues including cyberattacks, Moscow's crackdown on supporters of democracy and Russian interference in U.S. elections.

"I told President Putin that we need to have some basic rules of the road that we can all abide by," Biden told reporters in a solo news conference after the meeting.

Biden said he emphasized areas where "there's a mutual interest for us to cooperate for our people – the Russian and American people – but also for the benefit of the world."

Putin, speaking through an interpreter, called the meeting "a fundamental one" and said ...

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June 11.– "There is only one thing, which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression,” once wrote an English philosopher, John Locke. Once again, as the country marks ‘Democracy Day’ on Saturday, June 12th, the malignant ghost of the criminal annulment, 28 years ago, of the presidential election hovers over the land. In the struggle that followed the abrupt voiding of the result by the military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, hundreds of innocent people were killed, and media houses proscribed. It was, really, an ugly time for the country.

Yet, almost three decades down the road, Nigeria’s rulers, like the Bourbons, appear to “have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” Instead of the promised bright summer of liberty, unity and prosperity built around the June 12, 1993 election, anger, division, despair, and insecurity are palpably evident now. Chosen only last year as Democracy Day, June 12 will be celebrated amid mass discontent, devoid of the great hope of inclusive, participatory democracy that the election signposted.

 June 7.– Talks to extend the agreement allowing UN inspectors to monitor Iranian nuclear activity are becoming increasingly arduous, the head of the organization’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said.

In May, the nuclear watchdog and Iran agreed on a one-month extension to the monitoring deal until June 24 after the original three-month agreement expired.