Tag: East

CCMB research confirms ancient trade between India, Middle East

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Hyderabad: The recent evidence from the archaeological site at Pattanam, on the South-Western coast in Kerala’s Ernakulam district, and their ancient DNA analyses strengthen the belief of historians that Pattanam played an “instrumental role” in trade and cultural exchanges between India and the Middle East and others, scientists said on Friday.
The archaeological site at Pattanam is believed to be part of the ancient port city of the Muziris.
Historians consider the city of Pattanam to have played an instrumental role in trade and cultural exchanges between India and the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean regions.

The belief stems from the classical Greco-Roman records as well as Tamil and Sanskrit sources.
“The recent and more conclusive archaeological evidences from Pattanam, and their ancient DNA analyses led by chief scientist at CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) Kumarasamy Thangaraj and PJ Cherian strengthen the belief, and is now published in the journal, Genes,” the city-based CCMB said in a release.
At the Pattanam Archaeological Site, scientists and archaeologists have found, among others, human bones, storage jars, a gold ornament, glass beads, stone beads, utilitarian objects made of stone, copper, and iron, pottery, early Chera coins, brick wall and a six-meter-long wooden canoe parallel to the wharf structure about 2.5 m below surface level, it said.
“These structures indicate a vast ‘urban’ settlement. The excavations suggest that the site was first occupied by the indigenous “Megalithic” (Iron Age) people, followed by the Roman contact in the Early Historic Period. It appears that the site was continuously occupied at least from the 2nd century BC to the 10th century AD,” said PJ Cherian, from PAMA Institute for the Advancement of Transdisciplinary Archaeological Sciences, Ernakulam district of Kerala.
Scientists used the DNA from the human skeletons to pinpoint the genetic ancestry of the people found in the region.

Niraj Rai, co-corresponding author of the paper, and a Senior Scientist, DST-Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow said, “We have analysed the mitochondrial DNA of 12 ancient skeletal samples. We found that these samples show the presence of both South Asian and West Eurasian-specific lineages.”
The harsh climatic conditions of India are not always favourable to ancient DNA research.
“Most of the excavated skeletal remains from the Pattanam site were in a very fragile state due to the tropical, humid, and acidic soil conditions. However, we have adopted the best practices in the field of ancient DNA and successfully analysed the samples. The unique imprint of West Eurasian and Mediterranean signatures found in these samples exemplify a continuous inflow of traders and multicultural mixing in ancient South India,” said Kumarasamy Thangaraj.
“This is the first genetic data generated, so far, to infer their origin and genetic makeup of Pattanam Archaeological Site. And the findings reinforce the early historical occupation of culturally, religiously, and ethnically diverse groups at the Pattanam Archaeological Site,” said Vinay Kumar Nandicoori, Director, CCMB.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 29, 2023
‘The GDR was safe for me’: Disney drama tells story of former East Germany’s first black police officer

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In the dying days of the German Democratic Republic, a group of peace activists gather in a church in Dresden to discuss the more bottom-up, less authoritarian country they would like to see emerge out of the crumbling socialist state.
A mixed-race man on one of the back rows speaks up. “You have no idea of the rage that’s out there”, he says. “If you lock people up in a cage for life then at some point they will find someone to blame for that. Someone who’s different. And you want to abolish this state? The last bit that keeps people from going crazy?”
The scene, from the opening episode of Sam: A Saxon, a seven-part mini-series that premieres on Disney+ on Wednesday, is designed to explain what could have motivated the young man on the back row to do what he did next.
Samuel Meffire, the real-life inspiration for the character played by the German actor Malick Bauer, went on to join the police, becoming the first officer of African descent in the former East Germany, which at the time was notorious for racist violence, and the face of a poster campaign to show a different side to the former GDR. He would soon grow frustrated with his employer’s sluggish bureaucracy, switch sides and end up on Germany’s most wanted list for armed robbery.
The series – Disney’s first original series produced in Germany – does not aspire to challenge storytelling conventions, but it manages in unexpected ways to cut across the often told story of the “peaceful revolution” of 1989 – as well as contemporary debates about law enforcement’s treatment of black people.
“The GDR was not colour-blind,” Meffire, 52, said in an interview with the Guardian. “But it made public spaces colour-blind enough that I could move safely in them. No one would have dared do me harm in public because they would have known that the men with the iron brooms would have swept them up if they did.”
“Of course, that’s an incredibly fine line, to sing a hymn to law enforcement in a dictatorship,” he added. “I don’t mean to sing the praises of a dictatorship, but of the fact that it was safe for me. And I want our democratic state to make us equally safe, wherever we go.”
Now living in Bonn, in western Germany, he said he would not take his two children on a holiday to the eastern state where he grew up.

About 95,000 migrant workers from socialist “brother states” such as Mozambique, Angola, Cuba and Vietnam were registered as living in East Germany in the year that the Berlin Wall fell, though their stay was strictly limited and social mixing with the local population was discouraged by the regime.
Meffire’s father, a Cameroonian engineering student, died two hours before he was born in July 1970, in circumstances that remain unclear: one theory proposed by his mother is that he was poisoned by officials who tried to chemically castrate him.
For “Ossis [East Germans] of colour” such as Meffire, the end of the old regime nonetheless brought a dramatic loss of personal safety. In his memoir, Me, a Saxon, published in English translation by the British publisher Dialogue Books this spring and co-written by the playwright Lothar Kittstein, Meffire, a self-described “fantasy nerd”, describes the outbreak of racist violence in starker, quasi-apocalyptic terms.
“The neo-something is now part of the normal cityscape during the day, too,” he writes. “The vampires are bound to the night no longer. They have acquitted themselves from this spell. And the well-behaved, demoralised citizens applauded them.”
A string of racist attacks in the old eastern states made the east’s problem with the radical right hard for the reunified country to ignore. In September 1991, neo-Nazis rioted for five days in the Saxon town of Hoyerswerda, their attacks on an apartment block housing asylum seekers cheered on by some of the locals.
A western German PR company hired to improve Saxony’s image after these attacks seized on Meffire: a photograph of the shaven-headed police officer in a black rollneck underneath the words “A Saxon” was printed on billboards around Dresden and in newspapers across the entire country.
A scene from Sam: A Saxon, launching on Disney+ this week. Photograph: Yohana Papa Onyango
A friendship with Saxony’s reformist interior minister Heinz Eggert further boosted Meffire’s status as the poster boy for Saxony’s police force, but also made him new enemies among his colleagues. Two years after the publicity campaign, he left to set up his own private security agency but struggled to make the business pay.
In 1995, Meffire was involved in a string of armed robberies and went on the run in France and what was then Zaire – now the Democratic Republic of the Congo – where he was caught up in the first Congo war and eventually extradited to Germany. After serving seven years in prison, he now works as a social worker, security contractor and author.
Both the written and the filmic treatment of Meffire’s story explain his rapid disillusionment with the police by hinting at old political networks that held a protecting hand over the neo-Nazi scene. His verdict on his former colleagues, however, is surprisingly positive. “Hate stories and racism?” he writes. “Not towards me.” One officer who made abusive remarks about his skin colour was quickly reprimanded by his colleagues.
The Disney series, which Meffire and the film-maker Jörg Winger unsuccessfully pitched to Germany’s public broadcasters in 2006, achieves two rare feats for a German production, telling a story with a mainly afrodeutsch set of main characters, without presenting their experiences in a one-dimensional way.
In the third episode, Meffire falls in with a group of black East German men who have little time for black political activists from the west, who they dismiss as “beaten-down dogs”. That division, Meffire says, still runs through Germany’s black communities.
“When it comes to the police, there are two perspectives,” he said. “I am a victim – of state despotism, of racial profiling, or at the very least of an … ignorance towards things that shouldn’t take place.
“And then there’s the other view, which is absolutely a minority, that says if we want a diverse police force then we have to step up and shape that police force. And that doesn’t just apply to the police, but also the intelligence community, the military, the judiciary. Because speaking for myself, I don’t know a single black German public prosecutor and not a single black German judge.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 25, 2023
Avg monthly rent in north, east Bengaluru rises up to 24% in Jan-Mar: Anarock

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New Delhi: North and east Bengaluru have witnessed maximum appreciation of up to 24 per cent in average monthly rent for a 1,000-square feet two-bedroom apartment in the last one year among seven major cities, according to property consultant Anarock.
In its report released on Thursday, real estate consultant Anarock said that Thanisandra Main Road and Marathahalli-ORR in Bengaluru recorded highest residential rental growth of 24 per cent each year-on-year in January-March period for a standard 2BHK home of 1,000 square feet area.
Whitefield and Sarajpur in Bengaluru were at second and third positions with 21 per cent and 20 per cent growth, respectively, in rental between January-March 2022 and January-March 2023.

The consultant said that areas in east and north Bengaluru have seen a spurt in rental demand.
Bengaluru currently has the highest rental yield of 4.1 per cent among all major cities, followed by Mumbai with 3.9 per cent.
Prashant Thakur, Sr Director & Head – Research, Anarock Group, said, “When it comes to rental demand and zooming rents, Bengaluru currently stands out among the top 7 cities, with east and north Bengaluru the biggest blips on the rental radar map owing to the IT/ITeS belt there.”
Abhishek Tripathi, co-founder, Settl, said: “In a place like Bangalore during the pandemic, huge capital was deployed into hiring talent, especially in the IT sector and startups. During the same time, due to labour shortage, the increase in building supply was restricted and when the lockdown restrictions were removed and offices started to open up, people started moving to tier-I cities and settling down.”
“This disparity has created a housing crisis, especially in tier 1 cities in Bangalore. Hence, the increase in rent is a result of these multifarious factors,” Tripathi said.

As per the report, average monthly rentals for a standard 2BHK home of 1,000 sq ft at Thanisandra Main Road increased from Rs 21,000 per month in Q1 (January-March) 2022 to Rs 26,000/month in Q1, 2023.
At Marathahalli-ORR, average monthly rentals increased from Rs 22,500/month last year to Rs 28,000/month in Q1 2023.
The data showed that Pune’s three standout markets with high rental growth between Q1 2022 and Q1 2023 are Hinjewadi, Baner and Wagholi, which witnessed rental value growth of 19 per cent, 15 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively.
In Chennai, the top 3 markets to witness high rental values growth are Pallavaram, Perambur and Oragadam, with rents in this period growing by 16 per cent, 10 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.
In NCR, the top three markets were Sohna Road in Gurugram (rental values increased by 13 per cent), Sector-150 in Noida (15 per cent growth) and Dwarka in Delhi with a rental value growth of 10 per cent.
In MMR, the top three markets for rental value growth were Chembur, Ghodbunder Road (Thane) and Mulund, which saw 17 per cent, 14 per cent and 14 per cent growth, respectively.
Kolkata’s top three markets with high rental value growth between Q1 2022 and Q1 2023 were EM Bypass, Joka and Rajarhat, where rents rose by 13 per cent, 11 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.
In Hyderabad, the top three markets were HITECH City and Kondapur, which saw rental values increase by 12 per cent each, and Gachibowli with 11 per cent growth.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 20, 2023
Will Saudi-Iran accord trigger a domino effect and stabilize Middle East?

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Nicosia: Last Thursday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, held in Beijing their first meeting in seven years and formalized the agreement to restore diplomatic relations and bury the hatchet between their countries.
They discussed the appointment of ambassadors, a visit by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Riyadh, the issuing of visas to each other’s citizens and the resumption of flights between the two countries.
The Chinese-brokered landmark accord between two countries that were bitter rivals for years may have a domino effect on other Middle East countries like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, where the two countries supported opposing sides, and could play a big role in stabilizing the region.

Furthermore, it is indicative of China’s new role as a diplomatic and strategic player in the Middle East and causes uneasiness to Washington, which sees Beijing’s economic and soft power increasing and its own influence diminishing in this strategic region of the world.
It looks like the bloody war in Yemen, where the Iranians backed the rebel Houthis and Saudi Arabia the internationally recognized government, will come to an end. The war in Yemen has claimed the lives of more than 233,000 people, while about five million people are at risk of famine and a cholera outbreak has affected over one million people.
Last year, a ceasefire was brokered by the United Nations, which was largely observed by the two sides. Now, following the accord between Saudi Arabia and Iran, under which the two countries agreed to stop their involvement in the war, the ceasefire is expected to become permanent.
Moreover, the Saudi government expects that it will no longer have to worry about Houthi missile and drone attacks against its oil installations and will not have to spend additional billions of dollars on sophisticated air defence systems.
The agreement represents a major success for internationally isolated Iran as it has managed to mend relations with Saudi Arabia, one of its two main enemies in the Middle East (the other enemy is Israel) and what is more this was achieved without Tehran’s prior deal on its nuclear program, which was generally believed to be a prerequisite for any improvement of relations with Riyadh.

Hussein Ibish, of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, points out that the accord “for Iran represents a successful effort of trying to push back against regional isolation without major changes to its policies, which adversaries like Saudi Arabia had previously been demanding.”
As regards Syria, for many years Saudi Arabia had been actively supporting insurgents trying to topple the Bashar al-Assad regime, while Iran sent thousands of troops to prevent its collapse. Currently, pro-Iranian militias continue to control several Syrian provinces.
However, due to the military support given by Russia to Damascus, it became apparent to Riyadh that the Assad regime will stay in power. So, the Saudis changed their policy on Syria. They discontinued assistance to the insurgents and now they are talking about Syria’s return to the Arab League.
For many years now, the pro-Iranian armed group Hezbollah has been a formidable force in Lebanon that exercises a big influence in the military and political affairs of the country. It has gradually become a hybrid terrorist organisation that occasionally fights Israel, while it provides social welfare to thousands of citizens who suffer due to the unprecedented economic crisis facing the country.
Lebanese politics have been broadly split for years between Hezbollah and a pro-Saudi coalition.
More many months now, Lebanon is facing an economic meltdown, without a president or a fully empowered cabinet, while the opposing sides fail to reach an agreement almost on all burning issues facing the country.
The restoration of relations between Riyadh and Tehran has sparked some hope that this could lead to an end to government paralysis. Nabih Berri, the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, recently described the accord achieved in Beijing as “historic” and said the “positive reading of the news should also prompt Lebanon’s politicians to quickly elect a president.”
With regard to Iraq, following the US-led invasion of 2003 and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, various militias with ties with Tehran joined the reconstituted Iraqi Army. After the advance of the Islamic state into northern Iraq in 2014, Iran provided technical advisers to the Iraqi government, troops to fight ISIL and weapons to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, sparking Saudi alarm.
In 2020 there was a limited thaw in relations between Iraq and Saudi Arabia and the two countries reopened a crossing between them. Now with the Chinese brokered accord, relations between Tehran, Riyadh, and Baghdad are expected to improve even more.
Clearly, Israel is the country that is most unhappy with the restoration of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, as it sees its hopes of establishing diplomatic relations with Riyadh and even forming a coalition against Iran vanish into thin air.
The threat of a possible Iranian attack against Saudi Arabia has now receded and there is no more a powerful incentive for Riyadh to think about improving relations with the Jewish state.
Another country that is not thrilled about the Chinese-brokered deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran, is the United States, which sees its general plans for the Middle East as failing. A State Department spokesman, commenting on the Riyadh- Tehran accord, said: “If this dialogue leads to concrete action by Iran to curb its destabilizing activities in the region, including the proliferation of dangerous weapons, then of course, we would welcome that.”
Furthermore, the US is not happy about China’s growing influence in the Middle East, while Washington’s influence diminishes. It realizes that it is now unlikely to achieve a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, while Iran forges ahead with enriching uranium to nuclear weapons grade, and instead of facing increased international isolation, it is improving its relations with a formerly implacable rival.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 10, 2023
DOJ sues Norfolk Southern over East Palestine derailment

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The DOJ is seeking injunctive relief, cost recovery and civil penalties to “ensure it pays the full cost of the environmental cleanup,” according to the lawsuit.
“As a result of this incident, hazardous materials vented into the air and spilled onto the ground. These substances contaminated local waterways and flowed miles downstream,” the prosecutors wrote in the suit.
The derailment, involving a freight train traveling near a small town along the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, sent 38 cars off the track, spilling hazardous chemicals. Some of the tank cars had been compromised and required a controlled release of toxic vinyl chloride, which was burned off and forced the town’s evacuation.
Federal officials have insisted that the area and its water are safe now, but residents continue to complain of foul smells and worry about long-term health concerns, as well as depressed home values.
Earlier this month, Alan Shaw, the railroad’s CEO, appeared before Congress to apologize for the derailment and promise accountability, telling lawmakers that “we won’t be finished until we make it right.”
The company has come under intense scrutiny from the industry and lawmakers, who have pressed for more stringent safety precautions as they suspect an overheating wheel caused the derailment. Norfolk Southern has since announced a handful of new safety measures, as has the industry as a whole.
Lawmakers from both parties, including a heavy contingent from Ohio and Pennsylvania, are pressing forward with legislation intended to shore up rail safety, but so far have yet to gain broad traction.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 31, 2023
Showroom owner robbed of Rs 40,000 in east Delhi by gun wielding robbers

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New Delhi: Two helmet-wearing men robbed a 40-year-old showroom owner of Rs 40,000 in east Delhi’s Preet Vihar area, police said on Thursday.
The victim, Rajat Gupta, a resident of Vasundhara Sector-5, UP, runs a showroom of ready-made garments in Shankar Vihar.
He was in his showroom with his three employees when two persons wearing helmets and carrying pistols entered it and one of them fired a warning shot, a senior police officer said.
The robbers asked about the cash box and forced him to open it. They took Rs 40,000 from it and some papers kept on the cash counter before fleeing, the officer said.
A case has been registered at Preet Vihar Police Station and a hunt is on to nab the accused, they added.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 23, 2023
Saudi deal with Iran worries Israel, shakes up Middle East

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In Israel, it caused disappointment — along with finger-pointing.
One of Netanyahu’s greatest foreign policy triumphs remains Israel’s U.S.-brokered normalization deals in 2020 with four Arab states, including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. They were part of a wider push to isolate and oppose Iran in the region.
He has portrayed himself as the only politician capable of protecting Israel from Tehran’s rapidly accelerating nuclear program and regional proxies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel and Iran have also waged a regional shadow war that has led to suspected Iranian drone strikes on Israeli-linked ships ferrying goods in the Persian Gulf, among other attacks.
A normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, the most powerful and wealthy Arab state, would fulfill Netanyahu’s prized goal, reshaping the region and boosting Israel’s standing in historic ways. Even as backdoor relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia have grown, the kingdom has said it won’t officially recognize Israel before a resolution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Since returning to office late last year, Netanyahu and his allies have hinted that a deal with the kingdom could be approaching. In a speech to American Jewish leaders last month, Netanyahu described a peace agreement as “a goal that we are working on in parallel with the goal of stopping Iran.”
But experts say the Saudi-Iran deal that announced Friday has thrown cold water on those ambitions. Saudi Arabia’s decision to engage with its regional rival has left Israel largely alone as it leads the charge for diplomatic isolation of Iran and threats of a unilateral military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The UAE also resumed formal relations with Iran last year.
“It’s a blow to Israel’s notion and efforts in recent years to try to form an anti-Iran bloc in the region,” said Yoel Guzansky, an expert on the Persian Gulf at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank. “If you see the Middle East as a zero-sum game, which Israel and Iran do, a diplomatic win for Iran is very bad news for Israel.”
Even Danny Danon, a Netanyahu ally and former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. who recently predicted a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia in 2023, seemed disconcerted.

“This is not supporting our efforts,” he said, when asked about whether the rapprochement hurt chances for the kingdom’s recognition of Israel.
In Yemen, where the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran has played out with the most destructive consequences, both warring parties were guarded, but hopeful.
A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen’s conflict in 2015, months after the Iran-backed Houthi militias seized the capital of Sanaa in 2014, forcing the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia.
The Houthi rebels welcomed the agreement as a modest but positive step.
“The region needs the return of normal relations between its countries, through which the Islamic society can regain security lost from foreign interventions,” said Houthi spokesman and chief negotiator Mohamed Abdulsalam.
The Saudi-backed Yemeni government expressed some optimism — and caveats.
“The Yemeni government’s position depends on actions and practices not words and claims,” it said, adding it would proceed cautiously “until observing a true change in (Iranian) behavior.”
Analysts did not expect an immediate settlement to the conflict, but said direct talks and better relations could create momentum for a separate agreement that may offer both countries an exit from a disastrous war.
“The ball now is in the court of the Yemeni domestic warring parties to prioritize Yemen’s national interest in reaching a peace deal and be inspired by this initial positive step,” said Afrah Nasser, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Arab Center.
Anna Jacobs, senior Gulf analyst with the International Crisis Group, said she believed the deal was tied to a de-escalation in Yemen.
“It is difficult to imagine a Saudi-Iran agreement to resume diplomatic relations and re-open embassies within a two-month period without some assurances from Iran to more seriously support conflict resolution efforts in Yemen,” she said.
War-scarred Syria similarly welcomed the agreement as a move toward easing tensions that have exacerbated the country’s conflict. Iran has been a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, while Saudi Arabia has supported opposition fighters trying to remove him from power.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry called it an “important step that will lead to strengthening security and stability in the region.”
In Israel, bitterly divided and gripped by mass protests over plans by Netanyahu’s far-right government to overhaul the judiciary, politicians seized on the rapprochement between the kingdom and Israel’s archenemy as an opportunity to criticize Netanyahu, accusing him of focusing on his personal agenda at the expense of Israel’s international relations.
Yair Lapid, the former prime minister and head of Israel’s opposition, denounced the agreement between Riyadh and Tehran as “a full and dangerous failure of the Israeli government’s foreign policy.”
“This is what happens when you deal with legal madness all day instead of doing the job with Iran and strengthening relations with the U.S.,” he wrote on Twitter. Even Yuli Edelstein from Netanyahu’s Likud party blamed Israel’s “power struggles and head-butting” for distracting the country from its more pressing threats.
Another opposition lawmaker, Gideon Saar, mocked Netanyahu’s goal of formal ties with the kingdom. “Netanyahu promised peace with Saudi Arabia,” he wrote on social media. “In the end (Saudi Arabia) did it … with Iran.”
Netanyahu, on an official visit to Italy, declined a request for comment and issued no statement on the matter. But quotes to Israeli media by an anonymous senior official in the delegation sought to put blame on the previous government that ruled for a year and a half before Netanyahu returned to office. “It happened because of the impression that Israel and the U.S. were weak,” said the senior official, according to the Haaretz daily, which hinted that Netanyahu was the official.
Despite the fallout for Netanyahu’s reputation, experts doubted a detente would harm Israel. Saudi Arabia and Iran will remain regional rivals, even if they open embassies in each other’s capitals, said Guzansky. And like the UAE, Saudi Arabia could deepen relations with Israel even while maintaining a transactional relationship with Iran.
“The low-key arrangement that the Saudis have with Israel will continue,” said Umar Karim, an expert on Saudi politics at the University of Birmingham, noting that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank remained more of a barrier to Saudi recognition than differences over Iran. “The Saudi leadership is engaging in more than one way to secure its national security.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 12, 2023
Game-changing moment for Middle East as Iran and Saudi Arabia bury the hatchet

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When Saudi Arabia and Iran buried the hatchet in Beijing, it was a game-changing moment both for a Middle East shaped by their decades-old rivalry, and for China’s growing influence in the oil-rich region, the media reported.
The announcement on Friday was surprising yet expected. The two regional powerhouses have been in talks to re-establish diplomatic relations for nearly two years. At times, negotiators seemed to drag their feet, the deep distrust between the two countries appearing immovable, CNN reported.
Iran’s talks with Saudi Arabia were unfolding at the same time as negotiations between Iran and the US to revive the 2016 nuclear deal were faltering. The outcomes of both sets of Iran talks seemed interlinked Riyadh and Washington have long walked in lockstep on foreign policy.
But a shift in regional alliances is afoot. Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the US has become strained in recent years, while China’s standing has risen. Unlike Washington, Beijing has shown an ability to transcend the many rivalries that criss-cross the Middle East. China has forged good diplomatic relations with countries across the region, driven by strengthening economic ties, without the Western lectures on human rights, CNN reported.
In retrospect, Beijing has been poised to broker the conflict-ridden Middle East’s latest diplomatic breakthrough for years, simultaneously underscoring the US’ diminishing regional influence, CNN reported.
“While many in Washington will view China’s emerging role as mediator in the Middle East as a threat, the reality is that a more stable Middle East where the Iranians and Saudis aren’t at each other’s throats also benefits the United States,” Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Washington-based Quincy Institute, tweeted Friday.
Parsi argues that the development should trigger a moment of introspection on Washington’s Middle East policy. “What should worry American decision-makers is if this becomes the new norm: the US becomes so deeply embroiled in the conflicts of our regional partners that our manoeuvrability evaporates and our past role as a peacemaker is completely ceded to China,” he added.
Friday’s agreement could herald the end of a blood-drenched era in the Middle East. Riyadh and Tehran have been at ideological and military loggerheads since Iran’s Islamic Revolution installed an anti-Western, Shia theocracy in 1979, CNN reported.

Those tensions began to escalate into a region-wide proxy war after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq spiralled into civil conflict, with both Iran and Saudi Arabia vying for influence in the petrol-rich Arab country.
Armed conflict that pitted Saudi-backed militants against Iran-backed armed groups washed over much of the region in the decade and a half that followed.
In Yemen, a Saudi-led coalition military campaign to quash Iranian-backed rebels triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In Syria, Iran supported President Bashar al-Assad as he brutalised his own people, only to find his forces facing off with rebels backed by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, CNN reported.
In Lebanon too, Iran and Saudi Arabia have backed different factions, contributing to a two-decade-long political crisis that has exacted a huge economic and security toll on the tiny eastern Mediterranean country.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 12, 2023
The Real Wakanda: How an East African Kingdom Changed Theodore Roosevelt and the Course of American Democracy

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Roosevelt was drawn to Buganda’s culture of political procession, royal decorum and military ceremony. Upon his arrival that December, the former president watched as chiefs and royals — donning locally-crafted barkcloth and flowing robes imported from the Indian Ocean World — moved in and out of the capital, negotiating labor, power and state resources. It was a kingdom with wide roads interlocking government posts, military frontiers, markets, banana groves, farms, mines, smelting sites and estates.
Roosevelt met with military leaders of the kingdom, who managed a powerful navy and army. Buganda’s army of 10,000 warriors had successfully expanded the kingdom’s interests throughout the nineteenth century. The army’s size and power ensured that the British Empire did not openly conquer Buganda (or Uganda more broadly). And Buganda’s naval interests reached throughout the region’s lakes and rivers, giving birth to a vibrant culture of wartime canoes. During the 1890s alone, over 30,000 trees were harvested to produce 10,000 vessels. While these canoes varied in size, the most prominent class was around 25 feet long and 5 feet wide, designed to carry around half a ton. Roosevelt, a former assistant secretary of the Navy, was shocked by what he saw.
Roosevelt’s avowed interest in other cultures, however, had yet to dim his sense of white supremacy. He agreed with notions that Filipinos, whose country was then under the control of the United States, were too backward to participate fully in their own governance. He helped arrange exhibitions that treated indigenous peoples from other countries almost like caged animals. And he was an apologist for European colonialism.
But what he saw in Buganda that Christmas changed him. Roosevelt’s political language and approach to Black politics began veering in a new direction. Here in the heart of Africa was a highly functioning political state with a level of order exceeding that in many European countries or anything he had encountered during his extensive travels. The reality of Buganda’s political sophistication commanded not only his respect. Buganda compelled Roosevelt to rethink his fundamental assumptions regarding Black progress and civilization. As he would note in one speech shortly after his visit, Baganda stood “far above most … in their capacity for progress towards civilization.”
That observation was to alter not only his own views on Africans, but on African Americans. And his changed attitude toward race would reverberate through the country he had led and would seek to lead again.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 10, 2023
Video: Bengaluru auto driver harasses Rapido driver from north east

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A Rapido motorist, reportedly hailing from North East, was harassed by an autorickshaw driver in Bengaluru after the latter smashed the former’s phone on the ground and called him racist slurs.
In the video, the autorickshaw driver yells about how their business is being affected because of motorists like him.
“Friends, take a look at how the illegal Rapido business is happening. This fellow has come from another country and drives around like a king. He, who is from some other country, has come to pick up a girl despite having a whiteboard,” the autorickshaw driver yells as the Rapido motorist looks visibly scared.
The incident took place near Indira Nagar metro station on March 6.
Indira Nagar police station took account of the incident and assured the public that strict action will be taken against the autorickshaw driver.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 9, 2023