Life for the Afghan people has never been easy but having suffered war for nearly four decades, they want some peace and security. These are denied them because of the conflicting interests of external players.
Peace in Afghanistan is vital for the region but there are players that want to disrupt it, especially members of the Afghan Northern Alliance because they believe such an outcome would diminish their influence and clout in the country.
It appears that neither Russia or China is prepared to allow NATO countries led by the US to create another Libya-type scenario in Syria. The stakes are too high for both. Given US duplicity in fighting against the takfiri terrorists (actually non-fighting), Russia and China have decided to go after the terrorists for their own reasons. Iran and Hizbullah are also helping the Syrian government to confront the terrorist threat...
The US has maintained its dominance of global affairs through militarism and the dollar. If the dollar were retired as a global currency, US militarism and aggression would be dealt a severe blow.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif seems to have hit a jackpot. The Chinese plan to invest $46 billion in Pakistan’s infrastructure—roads, railways and power plants—to facilitate transport of Chinese goods to markets worldwide.
The US economy has taken a tumble faster than anticipated. This was confirmed by the International Monetary Fund when it released figures on December 4 showing that China has surpassed the US as the world's largest economy. America had been the world's dominant economic power since 1872. No more.
China's security arrangement proposal with Russia and Iran has caused panic among warmongers in Washington DC. The US is definitely on its way out as other powers assert themselves.
As the US has been defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has shifted its focus to the Pacific region to contain the rising power of China. General Mirza Aslam Beg, former chief of the Pakistan Army, argues that countries like Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan are well-placed to assert their rights in this new architecture.
Mali is being targeted as much for its mineral wealth as to keep China from developing close links with Africa. The struggle for influence between the west and China is being fought on the backs of the African people.
China is gearing up to fill the vacuum.
China's Muslim Hui Community: Migration, Settlement and Sects by Michael Dillon. Pub: Curzon Press, Richmond, UK, 1999. Pp: 208. Hbk: UK40.00.
The “ethnic violence” in East Turkestan, now referred to as China’s Xinjiang province which was first reported on July 5, again brought into light the plight of a forgotten section of the Ummah...
It was widely expected that the reconciliation-congress chaired by the ineffectual transitional government, headed by the former warlord and nominal president Abdullahi Yusuf, would fail almost as soon as it began on July 15. What was not expected was China’s decision to secure a contract with the nominal head. Not only is there no chance to find and extract oil, because of the endemic unrest all over the country, but China’s expected involvement in the federal government’s schemes is bound to contribute to the violence.
For some time Sudan has been under great pressure from the UN and the ‘international community’ (led by the US) to grant independence, not merely self-rule, to its constituent regions, such as Darfur. The pressure has already forced Khartoum to grant Southern Sudan self-rule and the right to choose between full independence and membership of an federal Sudanese state, and has induced the rebel groups in Darfur to abandon the peace agreements they signed with Khartoum
At the very time China was engulfed in a trade dispute with the US and the European Union – centred on the large imbalance between China’s vast exports to those countries and its imports from them – Beijing has unveiled a programme to multiply its already strong economic ties with African countries, and to establish "strategic links" with them.
Even before the annual meeting of heads of member-states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) opened on June 15, officials in Washington were pulling their hair at what they perceived as a challenge to US hegemony in the vital Eurasian region.
China’s growing status as a new superpower and its role in the US-led “war against terrorism” have left Chinese Muslims to the dubious mercies of Beijing...
The presidents of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan met in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, on June 16 to reinforce their alliance against Islamic activism in the region...
Muslims in the Russian Federation and in China – who are pursuing their ‘universal right’ to self-determination in the face of horrendous opposition – were probably not surprised by the abrupt way in which moves in the UN to condemn violations of human rights in China and by Russia were blocked...
