December 19, 2021 South East Asia
The crown jewel of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) increasingly looks like a powder keg that has exploded. Mass protests have for the past month swept Gwadar, a Chinese-dominated Pakistani port city 90 kilometres from the border with Iran that has long been plagued by intermittent protests and Baloch …
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December 19, 2021 South East Asia
The Chinese military has been holding more live-fire drills in the contested South China Sea this week, state media reported, while accusing the United States of “saber-rattling and making provocations.” The military exercises come as Washington has amplified its concerns about China’s “aggressive actions.” This week the top U.S. diplomat …
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December 19, 2021 Eurasia
NATO has wrestled with how to defend its Baltic member states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania ever since their accession to the Alliance in 2004. All three militarily weak countries sit uncomfortably close to NATO’s main adversary, Russia. Making matters even worse, they are tenuously connected to the rest of …
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December 19, 2021 Eurasia
A fateful week is ending today for international security with the Russian Foreign Ministry releasing the two documents on security guarantees that Moscow had proposed to Washington as the basis for discussions to ease the tensions over NATO’s eastward expansion and to cease the alliance’s deployments close to Russia’s borders, …
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December 19, 2021 Africa, Eurasia
Le président français a reporté in extremis son déplacement au Mali, prévu le 20 décembre prochain, au cours duquel il devait rencontrer le président putschiste, le colonel Assimi Goïta Un conseil de défense sanitaire s’est réuni vendredi après-midi autour d’Emmanuel Macron en vue de prendre de nouvelles décisions pour tenter …
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December 19, 2021 Eurasia, South East Asia
India’s regional strategic planning was thrown into disarray by the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. China has been a growing focus of India’s planning, but the Taliban takeover returns India’s attention to the historic rivalry with Islamabad. Pakistan’s close relations with the Taliban give Pakistan long sought “strategic depth” against New …
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December 19, 2021 Middle Orient
The Islamic State core in Iraq and Syria continues to evolve and could be in the process of an operational evolution focused on fewer but more sophisticated attacks At present, it remains unclear just how closely involved central Islamic State leadership is with its global network on a regular basis. …
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December 19, 2021 South East Asia
The alleged mastermind of the Bali bombings put Southeast Asia’s violent extremists on a collision course with the US and its allies Two decades on, his actions continue to reverberate – not least in the Jemaah Islamiah-linked schools that are the ‘Ivy League’ of Indonesia’s jihadi universe Two decades after …
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December 19, 2021 Afghanistan, Eurasia
Cooperar con los talibanes? La comunidad internacional enfrenta un dilema sin fácil solución en su lucha contra la amenaza yihadista en Afganistán, especialmente la filial local del Estado Islámico (EI), sin atreverse a cooperar por ahora con el nuevo poder en Kabul. Por un lado, el emirato islámico de Afganistán …
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December 19, 2021 Middle Orient
There are growing signs that countries in the Middle East are prepared to accept the normalization of Assad’s regime, even after the ten-year civil war in Syria. Many countries, including the U.S. and Qatar, have been outspoken in their opposition to normalizing relations with Assad, while the United Arab Emirates …
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