Photo source: Business standard By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront L ike Bush, Barack Obama wanted to win the war in Afghanistan ‘at all costs’. He deployed hundred thousand troops during the surge in 2010, which gradually went down, but the presence remained there. Trump’s policy, however, was of a contradistinction, where he wanted to end the ‘forever war’. The Biden administration took a step further, and announced a decision of withdrawal, as  he intended to extricate some 2,500 American troops, who are on the ground in Afghanistan, leaving a small force to guard the US diplomatic mission in Kabul.  Comparisons of US leaving Afghanistan have been made to the US withdrawal from Vietnam, just like in the Iraq war in 2011.   President Biden in April 2021 had announced that all American troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan   by September 11, 2021.   Unlike Trump, Biden had included NATO in making his decision to withdraw, and dispatched his Secretary...

Photo source: SBC News  By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront T here were protests in Gambia when President Adama Barrow refused to step down in December 2019 after three years, as he didn't hold on to his promise. It is because Barrow had changed the rules within his coalition. But, Gambians believed in a legality versus moral debate. Thus, the people had taken to the streets, but the president repudiated that he ought to serve a full five years in office, as per the constitutional guidelines. It led to a new grassroots Gambian movement called ‘Three Years Jotna’, which means ‘enough’ in the local Wolof language.    As a response, hundreds of protestors had stormed into police barricades, and chanted that they planned to oust Barrow. In many protests, the attendance was in thousands. With the result, the government had decided to ban Three Years Jotna, and had several of its executive members imprisoned. Gambian officials called the political advocacy group ‘a subversi...

  Photo source: Guardian  By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront Blood had flowed through the streets of Burundi, in recent memory, but the world, largely, is not aware of it. During the reign of Pierre Nkurunziza, which was an extended fifteen year authoritarian rule, a series of political crises were set off that displaced thousands of people to neighbouring countries. Nkurunziza would be best remembered, not as a devout Christian, or as a rebel leader in the past, but for his last five years, since 2015, during which he won a third term in office that his critics called unconstitutional. Infact, he was eyeing to stay in power till 2034 through a referendum. The power grab marked mass protests, a failed coup, and a crackdown on civilians. It soon morphed into a humanitarian disaster as more than four hundred thousand people were displaced to Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo, although Tanzania holds around sixty percent of the caseload. Bodies were of...

Photo source: International Community of the Red Cross By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe UpFront In 2018, Armenia underwent a peaceful revolution, called Velvet Revolution, sweeping long-time ruler Serzh Sargsyan from power, where protest leader Nikol Pashinyan became the prime minister after free elections.   It was a revolution akin to revolution in other post Soviet states. But, in August 2019, Pashinyan told crowds of ethnic Armenians assembled in the main city in Karabakh, Stepanakert that ‘Artsakh is Armenia, full stop’. Artsakh is the Armenian name for Karabakh. The remarks angered Azerbaijan, and were repeatedly condemned by President Aliyev.   Pashiyan's statements led to the escalation of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Fighting then eventually broke out in July 2020, on the international border, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, some 300km away from Nagorno-Karabakh. During the war,  Armenia had introduced marital law and total  mobilisation,  while Azerbai...

Photo source: Al Jazeera By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront After Ebrahim Raisi won the Iranian presidential election 2021, the reformist illusion, which the West subscribed to, seems to be over. It is because there was never a strong reform movement really existing in Iran that could challenge the supreme leader.  Infact, it was the greatest trick that the ultra conservative clergies ever pulled. Iranian politics has been filled with these illustrations. In the past, when Mohammad Khatami was elected president in 1997 and elected again in 2001, his elections were hailed in Iran, and the West, as a victory for reform movement because  he promised to transform the Islamic Republic into a fully democratic state, wanted to palliate the political, social and religious restrictions, and initiate modernising of the economy. He even called for improvement of relations with the neighbours, the far outside world, and attracting foreign investments. But, his rule resulted in the sam...

Photo Source: BBC By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront For flimsy allegations of voter fraud, after National League for Democracy won an election with a landslide victory, in November 2020, the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, had set in motion an early morning coup in February 2021, for a year long emergency. It had transferred power to Commander in Chief of Defence Services Min Aung Hlaing, who had played a role in the Rohingya pogroms, and other ethnic tensions. According to human rights groups, around eight hundred civilians were killed, and more than four thousand had been imprisoned. The military generals had ordered the press not to use the terms such as ‘coup’, ‘junta’  or ‘regime’.  Since then, Myanmar had been rocked by hundreds of small bomb blasts, according to Reuters. Most of the explosive attacks involved hand grenades, mine attacks, and parcel bombs, which had targeted areas connected to the junta, such as police and administrative offices. Analysts believe that...

Photo Source: The Guardian By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront As a slew of legal changes swept the Indian archipelago of Lakshadweep in May 2021, it led to a simmering disgruntlement among its locals. They believe that these regulations do not reflect its social, political and environmental realities.  The locals feel bitter about the new draft statute for the Lakshadweep Development Authority (LDA), which they think might have been issued at the behest of ‘real estate interests’, seeking to oust the small holdings of property owned by the islanders, a majority of them (94.8% as per the 2011 census) belonging to the Scheduled Tribes. Hundreds of islanders had written to the new administrator, demanding that the nominated ruling, which gives 'provision for the orderly and progressive development of land in both urban and rural areas and to preserve and improve the amenities thereof; for the grant of permission to develop land and for other powers of control over the use of land;...