Against the backdrop of senior Israeli politicians and army officers avoiding visits to European countries fearing arrests for war crimes under universal jurisdiction laws, a new website has published names and photographs of 200 soldiers whom it said were involved in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza two years ago. The site, which Israeli media reported was initiated by anonymous British activists and hosted by a US-based internet service, dubbed the soldiers listed as ‘war criminals’. The website drew wide coverage in Israel because, unusually, it listed not only the army's top-ranking officers, but also commanders of battalions, companies and platoons, and even conscripted soldiers, The National newspaper said. " From now on, European travel may entail some risk even to a young platoon commander from the paratroopers' brigade, who may have in the meantime been released from the army and was considering studying abroad," wrote Amos Harel , a commentator in the Haaretz newspaper.
“Modern diasporas challenge notions of how political life should be organised. … Such transnational engagement is likely to grow as a part of political life in the coming decades.” “Diasporas linked to states and those that are stateless have distinct differences. Some of the most highly mobilised networks support movements to liberate a homeland, as among the Tamils, Eritreans, Palestinians, Irish, Armenians and Kurds." " In these cases the perceived danger to one’s kin and the absence of a state to organise the nation’s defense foists that responsibility onto those in the diaspora who can...
“A rising India - with its robust democracy, thriving entrepreneurial capitalism, and expanding global interests - is bound to acquire a new identity as a champion of liberal international order”. India needs to move from ‘strategic autonomy’ to strategic cooperation with the United States, senior Indian analyst C. Raja Mohan writes in the journal Foreign Policy . The problem for India's strategists, he says, is how to secure equitable terms in a grand bargain with the United States. "It is also how to bring along a political elite and bureaucracy that are adapting too slowly to the new...
China’s funding of Sri Lanka's Hambantota port development, and similar projects in other countries, has been interpreted by some Western and Indian analysts as part of a grand geostrategic design. The ‘ string of pearls ’ argument, first made by a few US military analysts, has not only become explanation for, but also ‘evidence’ of, China's supposed military ambitions in the Indian Ocean. This logic, while ignoring important related developments elsewhere, has also prevented serious consideration of alternative explanations. It cannot, for example, account for China investing seven billion dollars to develop three other ports in … Italy.
“A whole generation of young people who have grown up in a grid of checkpoints, bunkers, army camps and interrogation centers, whose childhood was spent witnessing ‘catch and kill’ operations, whose imaginations are imbued with spies, informers, ‘unidentified gunmen,’ intelligence operatives and rigged elections, has lost its patience as well as its fear.” The Indian activist and novelist Arundhati Roy sees firsthand ‘Kashmir’s fruits of discord’ .
Japan and the Tamil Nadu government have signed a memorandum of understanding to take forward the Chennai-Bangalore industrial corridor project. Since 2000, Japanese companies have invested around US$5.3 billion in Tamil Nadu.
China’s largest networking and telecommunications equipment supplier is to invest US$500m in Tamil Nadu to set up an equipment manufacturing facility near Chennai. Huawei Telecommunications, one of the largest telecom equipment manufacturers in the world, expressed its intent to a delegation of Tamil Nadu officials which visited China last month, rediff reported.
In the past five years, the Sino-India Education and Technology Alliance (Sieta) has worked to place Chinese students into universities in south India, with a special focus on Tamil Nadu’s Vellore Institute of Technology, which admitted at least 360 Chinese students this year alone.
With the unequivocal backing of the United States for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, India’s two-year temporary term, due to end in December 2012, will continue well after that, the Hindustan Times reports . “We have no intention of leaving the Security Council. We are working to dovetail one into the other,” a senior Indian diplomat told the paper, referring to Delhi's present temporary and future permanent seats. India’s case will be bolstered by additional endorsements in the weeks ahead from both French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, the paper said. Meanwhile, interestingly, US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns wouldn't say if the US backed veto power for India, the Wall Street Journal reported .
China favours “democratic and patient consultations” on the question of reforming the United Nations Security Council, the government said a day after United States President Barack Obama endorsed a permanent seat for India, The Hindu newspaper reported Tuesday. While China supported "reasonable and necessary" reforms which “give priority to developing countries”, the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said it “understood India’s aspirations” to play a greater role in the UN, repeating its earlier position of not directly supporting India's candidature. China was “ready to keep contact with India...