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PETER YOUNG: Maintaing Indo-Pacific peace is focus of AUKUS in face of assertive China
WITH the publicity surrounding last week’s San Diego meeting about the AUKUS agreement, I wonder how many people will have recalled one of US President Biden’s famous gaffes. T
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Sir Randol, MLK and Garvey
There is one striking similarity between Sir Randol Fawkes, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, and Jamaican National Hero Marcus Garvey that caught my attention after reading their biographies.
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Man in Cuban prison pleads for Bahamian jail transfer
A BAHAMIAN man being held in a Cuban prison on drug charges is pleading for the families of the Bahamian prisoners in detention there to peacefully protest outside the Cuban Embassy in an effort to get transferred to The Bahamas to serve their sentences.
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PETER YOUNG: Could supply of tanks to Ukraine be a turning point?
AS the first anniversary approaches of the worst conflagration on European soil since the Second World War, there has been widespread reporting in the international media this past week of plans by Western countries to supply tanks to Ukraine. With differing numbers being bandied about, the latest information from Kyiv’s ambassador to France is that “numerous countries have officially confirmed their agreement to deliver 321 tanks (to Ukraine)”.
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A massive U-turn in China
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Having maintained a strict zero- COVID policy for almost three years, the Chinese government had become a prisoner of it. The strategy was designed to address the low vaccination rates of the elderly population (80 million people aged 80+ years are not vaccinated and 44% of the population did not receive the third dose, this percentage rising to 60% among people aged 80+ years). And, although studies in Hong Kong comparing CoronaVac with BioNTech’s vaccine have not been conclusive, the Chinese government did not seem to have much confidence in the degree of immunity provided by their own vaccines.
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STATESIDE: Still a distance to go on women's equality
1972 is usually regarded as a seminal moment in the American women’s movement for greater equality of opportunity, since that was the year of what has simply become known as Title Nine.
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PETER YOUNG: Rarely seen protests in communist state
CHINA has been much in the news recently. Public protests about the nation’s zero-COVID policy have hit the headlines, not least because in an authoritarian state dominated by the CCP - the Chinese Communist Party - such dissent, including calls for freedom and for President Xi Jinping to stand down, is unprecedented. Amidst violent clashes, there has been a massive police presence and heavy crackdown in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai and stiff penalties imposed on those concerned.
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China aims for extra investment
THE Chinese Embassy yesterday announced the country hoped to form better linkages and create new investments in The Bahamas following China’s 20th National Congress of China’s Communist Party.
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PETER YOUNG: Fast-moving crisis in UK
MINDFUL of the guidance to columnists to avoid repetition at all costs, I hesitate, after covering the subject for two weeks running, to write again about the astonishing political turbulence and economic turmoil in Britain.
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STATESIDE: Put the beer in the fridge, it’s almost election game time
American voters have about six weeks to wait before the next Congressional elections. Pundits, operatives and commentators from across the political spectrum are all weighing in on what they think is going to happen. It all makes for interesting speculation and if you basically see politics as theatre, it’s almost as much fun to read and listen to all this pontification as it is to follow your favourite NFL team. Politics also has winners and losers and endless speculation, just like football.
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PART III: ‘A pawn on the grand chessboard’
‘WHY A SMALL ISLAND IS CENTRAL TO THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL BILATERAL RELATIONSHIP IN THE 21ST CENTURY’
NO other issue has such a central position or fundamental impact on the direction of China-US relations as the Taiwan question. Over the past seven decades and more, the U.S. has found in Taiwan a convenient card to play in a larger geopolitical game with China, aimed at maintaining and perpetuating its global strategic supremacy. Till this day, the shifting US approach to Taiwan and China’s reaction to it has profoundly shaped China-US relations and the strategic environment of the Asia-Pacific region.
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PART II: ‘Why reunification between the mainland of China and Taiwan is the only viable option’
THROUGHOUT China’s history, there has been a great yearning for unity and stability among the Chinese people. China had seen some of its best times, as a united, powerful and prosperous country leading the world in many ways. And among its worst nightmares were those internecine wars and conflicts inflicting destruction and misery upon its own people and inviting foreign aggression.
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PART I: Small island, huge impact - historical facts and truths about Taiwan
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan was provocative, reckless and dangerous. The visit, which was the culmination of misguided US moves to challenge China’s core national interests, left the political foundations of China-US relations shaken and drew an expectedly strong reaction from China.
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PETER YOUNG: Gorbachev reforms in Russia short-lived
AMIDST the huge international media coverage of the passing last week of the former president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, perhaps one of the most telling headlines was one by the BBC calling him ‘a warm-hearted, decent and generous man’.
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STATESIDE: Difficult choices for undecided voters
ACCORDING to the venerable Gallup Poll, over the past two years, forty percent of surveyed voters have consistently identified their political affiliation as “independent.” Roughly thirty percent said they were Republicans and a similar percentage declared themselves to be Democrats.
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FRONT PORCH: Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan showcased rivalry and worldviews
THE ill-advised trip to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of US House of Representatives, showcased the deep-seated tensions and intensifying rivalry between the world’s two leading powers. It also revealed the mindsets of the leadership classes and the domestic politics of both nations.
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PETER YOUNG: What on earth was Pelosi’s end game?
The damaging fallout from the high-level visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi has been extreme, and it is continuing. Relations between the US and China have been tense for some years but have now deteriorated sharply.
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Distress in South China Sea region
Nancy Pelosi, America’s Speaker of the house has visited Taiwan, to Communist China’s chagrin.
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PETER YOUNG: The games deliver on cherished friendships
The Commonwealth Games are a unique event. They are based on the strength of the Commonwealth itself and are underpinned by the common core values of equality and mutual respect of this 56-member voluntary association and the support and assistance it provides.
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PETER YOUNG: A breakthrough of sorts - but will the Russians stick to it?
A major development in the war in Ukraine has raised faint hopes of peace in the longer term. An agreement with Russia was signed last week to restart the export of grain, though there is a danger that it may have already been derailed because of the firing of missiles at the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa over the weekend.
