Photo source: Indian Express By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe UpFront For quite some time, China has been in the quest for political, military and economic espionage. This has been done through a network of installations known as the ‘String of Pearls’.  It is aimed to project a dominating presence in littoral South Asia. One such aim exhibited by the ‘String of Pearls’ strategy is the maritime dominance. By embarking on this approach, China wants to counter other superpowers such as the United States. There are some who support China’s geopolitical rise against American hegemony for a needful balance of power. In fact, what China wants to do, has been already done in the past by the British, Portuguese, Dutch and Spaniards, during the colonial times.   Indian strategists fear that Chinese economic buildup, due to the advent of ports in Colombo, Sri Lanka (Sri Lankan government leased Hambantota port for a 99-year lease to the Chinese, where the latter agre...

Photo source: ABC News By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe UpFront The campaign of 2018 Mexican Presidential election was the bloodiest its people have seen in decades. It is because one hundred thirty individuals were  killed, in recent times, during the campaigns.  At the same time, it had been the largest election in Mexico’s history, with about 3,400 posts up for grabs. This time around, voting had been done in over 3000 districts. A grey-haired, baseball buff, Lopez Obrador won around 53% of the total vote. The Associated Press called it a ‘landslide win’. The press wanted sensationalism at his win, but mixed reactions have come. Some regional analysts call him a ‘populist’ and ‘autocrat’, who doesn’t understand the complexity of Mexican politics, with its different economic and political approaches, in the last thirty years. Others fear that he might eventually turn around as the next Hugo Chavez, a protectionist, and a supporter of nationalisation. On t...

Photo Source: Political World By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront South Korea has its own problems of genocide, in its past history. It is mainly due to the fact that the country has hosted several military dictatorships. For decades, the Bodo League massacre, an unknown massacre, is part of lost political history, in the minds of historians, had become unknown to the world. It was actually part of South Korea’s least known ‘the forgotten war’, and had happened in a place called Daejon, mainly in October 1950, now an industrial city. Some people believed this systematic massacre was started two months earlier. During 1991, a construction worker preparing for a concrete foundation at some place, south of the city, discovered something, which shattered the fabric of the South Korean society in the times to come. Amidst the soil, he found a human skull of a child with several bullet holes. This human remain were not the last one in the debris to be unburied from beneath. After ...

Photo Source: Foreign Policy By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Up Front The historic ceasefire in Afghanistan in June 2018 was a respite for men with arms from both sides. It allowed them to visit their homes and family. Since this brief interlude of peace, people hoped for a longer ceasefire, so that both parties involved could think of peace and reconciliation in the longer term. The calm of Eid-ul-Fitr gave an impression of the peace that Afghanistan could have in the future. The three-day truce was something historical because it happened nearly after a decade. Since the US invasion of Afghanistan, despite the highs and lows of Taliban insurgency, it finally seems that the Taliban is dominant in the country, exerting its rebel and political influence. The US, on the other hand, cannot think of wiping out Taliban, sooner or later. The only way out right now is a sustained political dialogue. Compromises have to be made by either of the parties involved. But...

Photo Source: Crises Group By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe UpFront At one point in time, the war of words between North Korea and the United States gave looming dangers of a possible armed escalation between the two countries. The development of a nuclear arsenal in North Korea was met with several diplomatic challenges before. Trump, at one point in time, believed that his nuclear button was ‘more powerful’. The US is already in the arms race for acquiring supersonic missiles, notorious for travelling faster than the speed of sound that could hit its target faster than ICBM missiles. Trump once called Kim Jong Un ‘a madman’, while as Kim ensured of destroying any United States aircrafts such as B1-B Lancer before they entered the North Korean airspace. The war of words had put millions of lives at stake. At one point in time, it seemed almost inevitable that North Korea would hit the US territory first. The US didn't have the first to attack policy anyway. It d...

Photo Source: Amnesty By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Up Front Whenever there has been a military junta ruling a country, and making amendments to the constitution, a repression is almost inevitable. The regime in Thailand seems one of those brutish examples: the Thai regime had attained power in May 2014. Before this, 2006 military coup made news headlines. A year later, in March 2015, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-Ocha replaced the Martial Law Act of 1914, with Section 44, which made him enjoy full impunity, without any accountability from the judiciary, administration and the legislature. The Thai government, in their official narratives, argues about the freedom, they have given to their people, through the constitution, most notably, in the 1997 amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees an addition of forty rights, as compared to fewer rights that were drafted in the 1932 Constitution. However, many countries including the United States, Japan, the European Union...

Photo Source: Sky News By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Up Front Jordan has witnessed its worst political unrest in five years, in May 2018. The public anger sums it all, which reflects a prolonged frustration. There were chantings of local folklore and slogans, similar of what was heard during the 2011 Arab Spring such as "the people want the fall of the government" and "I strike today to live tomorrow." This fury of protestors has prompted King Abdullah II to oust the current Prime Minister, Hani Mulki through a decree from the royal palace. The main difference between 2018 protests and the protests in 2011 is that during the Arab Spring, the far-flung tribes were at the centre stage in holding the protests. This time around, city dwellers coming from Irbid, Aqaba, Al-Zarqa and Salt, in addition to the capital have recorded a high participation. Omar Razzaz will replace Mulki, a Harvard educated former World Bank Official previously based ...