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News18
16-07-2025
- Business
- News18
Trump Now Playing 'Russian Roulette' With Tariff Talks: What Does This Mean For India, The World?
The US President has threatened to impose 100 per cent 'secondary tariffs" on countries trading with Russia, with an exception if Moscow agrees to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days. Trump's dissatisfaction with Russia's lack of progress towards a peace deal is well-known. He has already expressed his displeasure alongside NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House. Trump stated that the tariffs would be 'biting" and 'very, very powerful", adding, 'We're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100 per cent—you'd call them secondary tariffs." The Kremlin has indicated its willingness to negotiate but has warned that Russia will not respond positively to ultimatums. Interestingly, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has echoed the US President's sentiments, particularly as the US-NATO weapons purchasing scheme has just been established between Trump and Rutte. Trump has declared that the Patriot missile defence systems should arrive in Ukraine very soon, despite resistance from some high-profile figures in the MAGA movement who oppose US support for Ukraine. Kyiv has reasons to celebrate as Washington resumes military assistance to Ukraine. On expected lines, the NATO chief has warned that Brazil, China, and India could be hit very hard by secondary sanctions if they continue to do business with Russia. Rutte has urged Russia's BRICS allies, India, Brazil, and China, to make that phone call to Putin to avoid the sanctions. Countries that stand to lose are Russia's allies, and mostly the partner nations of BRICS. India and China have become the top two destinations for Russian oil, with India alone importing about 1.6 to 1.7 million barrels per day, which accounts for around 35 per cent of India's daily oil needs. Though not a major buyer of Russian oil and energy, South Africa does import some goods from Russia, including cereals, mineral fuels, inorganic chemicals, and salt. Brazil, a major agricultural economy, is one of the largest buyers of Russian fertilisers, a key input for its production of soybeans, sugar, and coffee. In West Asia, the United Arab Emirates, a significant BRICS member, functions as a financial conduit for Russian energy transactions. Dubai may not be a primary consumer of Russian oil, but it has become a financial sanctuary for Russian capital and oligarch wealth. Another BRICS member, Vietnam, also maintains energy and defence ties with Moscow. Interestingly, Turkey, a NATO member, remains heavily reliant on Russian fossil fuels, including both crude oil and natural gas. It should be noted that Trump has been targeting BRICS ever since the Rio summit concluded. Whether it was the BRICS' joint declaration condemning US airstrikes on Iran or Trump's rising tariffs, the US President has been warning BRICS nations against de-dollarisation too. The result? Trump's tariff tirade continues, and the latest threat of sanctions is not just to bring Moscow to the negotiating table but also to challenge a grouping like BRICS that represents emerging economies and the Global South, which is a significant counterweight to the G7. The timing stands out even more after NATO's choreographed commitment to raise their annual defence budgets to 5% of national income within a decade, a tribute to a president prone to flattery.
The Hill
14-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Sending Ukraine offensive weapons ‘could move Putin to the negotiating table,' says ex-NATO commander
Sending Ukraine offensive weapons could push Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, retired Adm. James Stavridis, the former NATO supreme allied commander, said on Monday. Speaking ahead of the announcement of the US-NATO weapons deal for Ukraine, Stavridis said he was hoping the deal would 'move beyond strictly defensive weapons, such as the Patriot missiles, which are the air defense systems that the Ukrainians desperately need.' 'What I would like to see is a provision for the United States to send more harpoon missiles to go after the Black Sea fleet, more HIMARS, surface-to-surface weapons that can reach deep behind Russian lines, more offensive cyber capability, and Kate, maybe some more F-16 aircraft, all of which are very capable offensively,' Stavridis said in an interview with CNN's Kate Bolduan on Monday. 'I think that is what could move Putin to the negotiating table, which is what we want on our side,' he continued. Trump announced Monday he brokered a deal to send more weapons to Ukraine without burdening the United States. Under the deal, weapons would be sourced from NATO allies in Europe that just agreed to step up their defense spending at a summit Trump hailed as a success. While Trump said these deals would include Patriot missile defense batteries critical for Ukraine to guard its skies under increasing Russian bombardment, there was little information on what other weapons systems Trump is greenlighting for countries to purchase or what is being prioritized. 'It's everything. It's Patriots. It's all of them. It's a full complement with the batteries,' Trump said, adding that the batteries could arrive in Ukraine within days. Trump on Monday also threatened Putin with sanctions if there is no deal to end the war in Ukraine in 50 days—which Stavridis said earlier on Monday he had been hoping to see. 'That sanctions bill that Lindsey Graham is pushing — that will have the effect of keeping Putin backing up,' Stavridis said earlier Monday. 'That's what we need to see.'
Express Tribune
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Opposition in Afghanistan
The writer is a retired major general and has an interest in International Relations and Political Sociology. He can be reached at tayyarinam@ and tweets @20_Inam Listen to article In international relations, states need to 'consolidate' as cohesive units, academically speaking, to become useful members of the international community. Modern states come into existence either from evolution or through revolutions and ultimately must adopt the trappings of modern statehood like elections, executive, judiciary and legislature. States also have to be sensitive to media, public perceptions and national aspirations like national will, aim, purpose, objectives and interests, vital as well as peripheral. Good governance reflecting sensitivity to citizenry's rights is also a prerequisite for modern states. National governments in violation of any of the above notions are censored internationally. Afghanistan's modern political dispensation, run by the IEA after seizing power militarily in 2021, is a quasi-tribal arrangement with Pashtun religo-ethnic nationalism as dominant force/strand. Within the IEA, Qandahar represents the puritanical Islamic worldview, wed inextricably to Pashtunwali. It is the spiritual mover and shaker of the Taliban movement under Moulvi Haibatullah Akhundzada. Qandahar takes a longer religious view of international, foreign relations and domestic policy. It sees everything through a religious angle that is frighteningly rigid for the common Afghans and foreign detractors, as it seems out of sync with modern life. Within the broader Deobandi-Taqleedi (conformist) schools of Islamic theology, Qandahar wants to turn the clock back to the golden days of Islam, under the Khulafa-e-Rashideen (the Righteous Caliphs). IEA's military successes against the USSR and the US-NATO combine further reinforce this thinking. And this is not changing anytime soon. From a purely religious point of view, it is hard to validate or otherwise, Qandahar's world view. Loya Paktia in the Zadran-dominated northern Afghanistan under Haqqani suzerainty sees things more pragmatically. Being host to the TTP, Khalifa et al believe in pragmatism, alliances of convenience and power grab. Savvy in PR, they would want to keep Pakistan, the US, West and Arab interlocutors in good humour with or without Qandahar, but under nuances, specific to Afghan sociology. However, for both the puritanical Qandahar as well as pragmatist Haqqanis, unity is imperative and so is the necessity of presenting a united front to the outside world. In the Afghan political matrix, the third element remains the joint but discredited opposition to the IEA. This group includes the deposed functionaries of the First Republic under US-NATO; the rank and file of the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF); the sleeper cells of CIA and other foreign intelligence services; intelligentsia comprising the intellectual and media cohort opposed to the Taliban rule; ISIK; the foreign Afghan diaspora and the remnants of Northern Alliance (NA), the last being militarily more potent. NA was formed by retreating members of the government i.e. the ousted president Burhanuddin Rabbani and his defence minister Ahmad Shah Masoud in the mid-1990s in Mazar-e-Sharif (Badakhshan). It was confined to the fabled Panjshir Valley, when IEA forces seized control of Mazar in 1998. Its new formulation under the Afghan Freedom Front (AFF) is presently led by Yasin Zia, a former Afghan Army CGS; Ahmed Zia Massoud, brother of the slain Ahmed Shah Massoud; and Massoud's only son Ahmed Massoud, a Sandhurst graduate. They receive intelligence attention by the West Plus and moral and material support from Tajikistan due to their Tajik ancestry. Tajiks dominated ANDSF and the first republic. There were Uzbek opposition groups under Rasheed Dostum, the famous killer of Sheberghan who is a protégé of Turkey. Ismail Khan in Herat, Ustad Atta Muhammad Noor of the Jamiat-e-Islami, Haji Mohaqiq of Hizb-e-Wahdat were some other resistance leaders in opposition to the IEA. According to the UN, since September 2022, some 22 armed groups are operating against IEA in 26 provinces under the AFF umbrella that is also in alliance with National Resistance Front (NRF) and Afghanistan Liberation Movement (ALM). The Dushanbe-based NRF, led by Ahmed Massoud, claims some territorial control and ability for hit and run guerrilla attacks in parts of Panjshir, Badakhshan, Takhar and Baghlan. However, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (IS-KP, ISIS, IS-K, Da'esh) and NRF are two main armed opposition groups that are feeding the twin anti-Taliban insurgencies. Interestingly IS-K also gravitates towards Tajikistan as their recruitment patterns and attacks demonstrate. But resistance to the IEA is mostly disjointed, lacking harmony, coordination, resources and robust international support. Afghanologist Andrew Watkins conceded to the Swedish Migration Agency that by April 2023, Taliban had unprecedentedly monopolised violence, which also brings to the fore their obligations under international humanitarian law. Although sporadic reporting indicates less than full control of IEA in the northern Afghanistan. Out of NRF and IS-K, the latter is Kabul's main foe, given its ability to woo IEA and TTP rank and file. Putting it all together, although no serious challenger to the IEA rule exists now or in near future other than IS-K/NRF, continued disregard to human rights, chasm over female right to education and work, a teetering economy and endemic poverty, and less than wise handling of TTP may tilt the balance of power against the Emirate in the mid to long-term. As every good thing comes to an end. The perception of the present regime as 'oppressive' may work overtime to undercut its appeal, popular support and cohesion. Internal chasm between Qandahar and Paktia may surface if powerful external forces are unable to steer IEA towards more inclusivity and respect for regional peace by reining in the TTP. As of now, unity in Afghanistan under any political dispensation seems in the larger regional interest and is especially important to Pakistan. Afghan leadership realises this existential paradox, hence their desire to mend fences quickly as witnessed during Khalifa Siraj Haqqani and Mulla Yaqub's recent chasm with Qandahar. But there are many powerful variables at work to calculate the utility of the present Afghan enterprise in the larger scheme of things. Revolutionary organisations like the IEA find it perplexing to transit from warfighting to good governance, given the complexity of the undertaking. And that is where such movements are vulnerable to penetration, manipulation and nimble controlling. Success has limited hours and as things change, change is the only constant. One would hope that there is no more instability in Afghanistan and no more headaches for the region!
See - Sada Elbalad
19-03-2025
- Business
- See - Sada Elbalad
Turkish Lira Fell more than 14.5% in Early Trading
Taarek Refaat Turkish financial markets experienced severe turmoil on Wednesday after authorities arrested Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul and one of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's most prominent political rivals, on charges of corruption and association with a terrorist group. The Turkish lira fell more than 14.5% in early trading before paring its losses to 7.4%, trading at 39.40 lira to the dollar. Also, dollar bonds due in 2045 fell 1.6 cents to 85.078 cents, their biggest daily drop since early 2024. Major Turkish stocks fell around 6%, their worst daily performance since late 2023. Wolfgano Piccoli, co-president and director of research at Teneo in London, commented on the developments, saying: 'We must wait and see if Turkey is moving toward a political environment more like Russia, where democracy and elections are under increasing pressure. This is not just an attack on the political opposition, but also on the major economic groups that play a pivotal role in the Turkish economy.' Frantisek Taborski, currency and fixed income strategist at ING in London, confirmed that Imamoglu's arrest is putting significant pressure on Turkish bonds and the exchange rate, adding: "The Turkish lira is currently the most widely used currency to take advantage of interest differentials in emerging markets, and any sharp movements could lead to further capital outflows. However, local banks may intervene to provide some support to the currency." The effects of the Turkish crisis were not limited to local markets. Jane Foley, head of currency strategy at Rabobank in London, explained that the unrest in Turkey had an impact on global currency markets, saying: 'The news coming out of Turkey has impacted major currencies and risk markets, but this impact is likely to fade gradually once markets better absorb developments.' She added that Turkey's strategic location makes it of particular interest to European markets, noting that there is speculation that Türkiye may attempt to play a greater role in international politics amid the fluctuations in US-NATO relations. read more CBE: Deposits in Local Currency Hit EGP 5.25 Trillion Morocco Plans to Spend $1 Billion to Mitigate Drought Effect Gov't Approves Final Version of State Ownership Policy Document Egypt's Economy Expected to Grow 5% by the end of 2022/23- Minister Qatar Agrees to Supply Germany with LNG for 15 Years Business Oil Prices Descend amid Anticipation of Additional US Strategic Petroleum Reserves Business Suez Canal Records $704 Million, Historically Highest Monthly Revenue Business Egypt's Stock Exchange Earns EGP 4.9 Billion on Tuesday Business Wheat delivery season commences on April 15 News Egypt confirms denial of airspace access to US B-52 bombers News Ayat Khaddoura's Final Video Captures Bombardment of Beit Lahia News Australia Fines Telegram $600,000 Over Terrorism, Child Abuse Content Lifestyle Pistachio and Raspberry Cheesecake Domes Recipe Videos & Features Bouchra Dahlab Crowned Miss Arab World 2025 .. Reem Ganzoury Wins Miss Arab Africa Title (VIDEO) News Ireland Replaces Former Israeli Embassy with Palestinian Museum News Israeli PM Diagnosed with Stage 3 Prostate Cancer Lifestyle Maguy Farah Reveals 2025 Expectations for Pisces News Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly Inaugurates Two Indian Companies Arts & Culture New Archaeological Discovery from 26th Dynasty Uncovered in Karnak Temple
