Eurasian Heartland Rises to Challenge the West

Pepe Escobar President Xi Jinping telling President Putin at the end of their summit last March in Moscow that we’re now facing “great changes not seen in a century” directly applies to the new spirit reigning across the Heartland. Cue to the China-Central Asia summit last week in Xian, the former imperial capital, where Xi…

The Day After the Dollar

Emanuel Pietrobon In a growingly multipolar world, where the United States is slowly ceasing to be the primary pole of power, it is not strange, but absolutely normal and physiological, to witness a worldwide process of reserve currency diversification, writes Valdai Club expert Emanuel Pietrobon. Brazil and China have recently struck a multi-billion-dollar currency swap agreement…

De-dollarisation Clashes with India-China Border Dispute

Saheli Chowdhury The global de-dollarisation trend is not totally a bed of roses, or at least there are thorns in the roses that have to be taken into account. While de-dollarisation seems to be an irreversible trend on the global scale, at regional levels it is running into bilateral or regional political tensions. In this…

The Inside Story of Russia-Iran-India Connectivity

Pepe Escobar The G7 is stupefied by the dynamic progress of the multipolar order embodied by the Russian-led INSTC and the Chinese-led BRI, with Iran’s strategic port of Chabahar now poised to play a transformative role. Make no mistake about what the G7’s Hiroshima Communique is all about. The setting: a city in neo-colony Japan nuclear-bombed 78 years…

Led by China and India: The Global South is Trying to Fix the UN

Ramzy Baroud In anticipation of next month’s United Nations Security Council talks on reforming the inherently archaic and dysfunctional political body, China’s foreign policy chief, Yang Yi, stated his country’s demands. “The reform of the Security Council should uphold fairness and justice, increase the representation and voice of developing countries, allowing more small and medium-sized countries to…

Modi at Hiroshima: Optics, Politics, Reality

M. K. Bhadrakumar Family photo of Prime Minister Modi (4th from left) & special invitees to G7 Leaders’ Summit, Hiroshima, Japan, May 21, 2023 Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visits abroad are carefully choreographed events, given their optics domestically. Perhaps, this is even more so today as general elections loom ahead and in Hiroshima, Modi was…

G7: Indian Diplomacy in Overstretch

M. K. Bhadrakumar G7 Summit leaders at “working lunch” session, Japan, 19 May, 2023 The Foreign Secretary’s special briefing on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Asia-Pacific tour (May 19-24) dovetailed skilfully into three summit meetings, and brings to mind an institution of the Middle Ages known as the “wandering minstrels”.  Wealthy people used to employ minstrels to entertain…

Kerala’s Kudumbashree: A Model to Emancipate Women

25 years ago, in May 1998, the Left Democratic Front government of the Indian state of Kerala started the Kudumbashree program as part of the State Poverty Eradication Mission. The program aimed to socially and financially emancipate women by providing them employment opportunities and space to enter decision making bodies. Today, 25 years on, the…

Unrest in South Asia

Vladimir Terehov Yet another narrative on the situation in one of the key regions, where the current stage of the “Great World Game” is taking place in its most intense form, will start with (yet another) statement of the conventionality of the terminology used. By the way, let us note that varying degrees of conventionality…

Conditions Are Maturing for the Final Defeat of Neo-Colonialism

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Keith Bennett spoke at the Global Conference on Multipolarity, held online on Saturday April 29. The conference, which was jointly convened by organizations from China, Türkiye, Russia, Brazil and elsewhere, and coordinated from Moscow, was addressed by more than 120 speakers from over 60 countries. Addressing the theme of neo-colonialism, Keith…

Will SCO Become New United Nations for Non-Western World?

Ekaterina Blinova The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian political, economic, and security bloc founded in 2001, has great potential to become a United Nations for the non-Western world, according to Robinder Sachdev, geopolitical and economic diplomacy analyst and founder president of the Imagindia Institute. The two-day summit of the SCO foreign ministers kicked off…

Russian Oil Floods Global Markets via Major Asian Intermediaries

F.M. Shakil Despite western sanctions, there is more Russian fuel being exported around the world than before the Ukraine crisis. It’s just coming via Saudi Arabia, India, China, and other trading states – with steep commissions. Despite western sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict, some Asian and specifically West Asian economies are importing significant…

Russia and India: Developing Soft Power

Tatiana Bokova Soft power is a significant aspect of foreign policy for any country. American political scientist Joseph Nye originally proposed the concept of “Soft power” in the early 1990s. Nye defined soft power as a form of political power that is based on “intangible” factors: cultural traits, value systems, voluntary participation, sympathy, etc. Soft…

How Africa is Facilitating Multipolar World

Salman Rafi Sheikh The military conflict between Russia and Ukraine (as also Ukraine’s NATO allies) has brought some very interesting changes to the international political economy. Whereas this conflict has led Europe – working under immense pressure from the US – to stop its purchase of oil and gas from Russia, it has also allowed…

Indian Farmers’ Long March Triumphs as State Government Accepts Demands

Peoples Dispatch Farmers in the Indian State of Maharasthra who held a long march. Photo: Mohit Sauda Thousands of farmers took part in a long march in the Indian State of Maharashtra forcing the government to accept their demands, including an increase in subsidies and loan waivers. The march was led by the left-wing All…

Dr. Aleida Guevara On the Cuban Experience, Resistance, and Struggle

Dr. Aleida Guevara, Cuban physician and daughter of revolutionary Che Guevara, spoke to Peoples Dispatch and Newsclick about her experience during her current visit to India. She talks about the love Indians have for Cuba and Che Guevara, how Cuba responded to the pandemic with the help of global solidarity in the face of the…

Aleida Guevara: “Cuba will Continue to Resist Inhuman US Blockade”

Peoples DemocracyIN the last of the series of meetings as part of Aleida Guevara’s whirlwind tour in India organised by the National Committee for Solidarity with Cuba held in Delhi, hundreds of young students and general public enthusiastically participated. The meeting was held to extend solidarity of the Indian people with Cuba and oppose the…