Xi’s bid for absolute power
Xi Jinping is undoubtedly one of China’s most influential leaders in decades. But he is now poised to emerge as an even more formidable force as the country gears up for a once-every-five-years leadership reshuffle in October. The date has been set for Beijing’s most important political event, and Xi is widely expected to be re-elected as party general-secretary for another five years.
What’s more is that Xi is likely to put his own political philosophy in the party constitution, and that would put him on a par with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. It’s not as though there is no resistance to Xi’s bid for absolute power.
“We could see signs of compromise and internal resistance against his efforts to achieve absolute personal authority,” says a political analyst.
UN says Iran is complying with nuclear deal, but Trump could still scrap it
It just became harder for the US to sustain its attacks on Iran. On a day when the US Ambassador chided Iran for “showing its true colours” over blossoming ties with Hamas, the global nuclear weapons watchdog took its side. Nuclear inspectors said that the latest inspections in Tehran found no evidence that the country is breaching the two-year old agreement with the US and five other countries.
The IAEA statement also comes only a week after Nikki Haley went to Vienna and pressed the agency to be more aggressive towards Iran. Donald Trump has made no bones about wanting to scrap the accord, which he thinks is a “terrible deal”.
So what options does Trump really have? He could very well scrap the deal. It’s not hard to argue that while Tehran is following the accord in letter, it isn’t doing so in spirit.
Pakistan must stand up for its “missing”
Keep waiting, keep hoping against hope. This is what the family of a missing social activist-journalist from Lahore was told by the government again. Zeenat Shahzadi is only one of the hundreds of Pakistan’s “missing persons”. The country is in the grip of a spate of enforced disappearances, and while the problem is not new, the phenomenon has acquired a more “sinister dimension”.
According to a human rights body, in Sindh alone, 84 persons have gone missing since August this year. Given the growing magnitude of the problem, it is incumbent upon the state to ascertain if those who have gone missing have been picked up for their political affiliations or views.
US foreign policy is taking on water
He threatened South Korea, telling them to pay for a missile defence system. Then he suggested that Seoul and Tokyo develop nuclear arsenals of their own. He also jumped into the Gulf crisis and encouraged the Saudis to further isolate Qatar.
He keeps complaining about the “terrible deal” with Iran and how he would have had them non-compliant long ago. He vows to rain down “fire and fury” on North Korea. And finally, in what comes as a surprise to his own military, the US president calls for a ban on transgender people from the military.
When it comes to misspeaking, an editorial says that Donald Trump is a habitual offender, a “rogue cop” who has done everything to wreck his country’s foreign policy – only to have aides scramble for explanations. Trump might still be in campaign mode, but as the editorial suggests, “what worked during a campaign is the height of irresponsibility in office”.
compiled by Sanya Dhingra