Narendra Modi is no stranger to genocides. He acquired the moniker ‘Butcher of Gujrat’ for presiding over anti-Muslim pogroms as chief minister in 2002. By undertaking a highly choreographed official visit to Tel Aviv, Modi is both rubber-stamping the Netanyahu regime’s genocidal assaults on Gaza and cementing the alliance between the fanatical creeds of Hindutva and Zionism.
The Christian Right has already upended ‘normal’ politics in the US
by projecting a millenarian vision of the world that can only be
achieved by totalitarian and violent means. Trumpism is now an
entrenched, grassroots phenomenon that will very likely outlive Donald
Trump. Meanwhile, various shades of both secular and religious right are
running riot across Europe, with fearmongering about cultural invasions by the proverbial immigrant.
Despite their best pretensions, Muslim countries do not buck the
trend. Reactionary politics and repressive state nationalism are
the order of the day across large swathes of the Arab world, Southwest
Asia and the world’s largest Muslim state, Indonesia. The current hybrid
regime in this country presents itself as a leader of this putatively
coherent bloc of countries.
Some believe that this notional ‘Muslim’ bloc, along with other
constituent parts of the ‘Global South’, can become a bulwark against US
imperialism, Zionism and Hindutva. An ostensibly pro-people group of
countries can now even rely on a superpower, China, to both resist the
US-Israel-India axis and even usher the world towards a new tomorrow.
Reactionary politics and repressive state nationalism dominate.
The hypothesis is backed up by reference to some recent developments. Most notable was Pakistan’s successful deployment of Chinese-made aircraft to down India’s French-made fleet (and its armoury of Israeli drones). The subsequent defence agreement
between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, as well as the former’s growing
export of arms more generally, is also present as evidence of a
burgeoning security alliance to resist Zionist aggression. There is even
an argument that Iran has, as yet, not suffered a major assault because
the ‘Muslim’ bloc, China and other countries have stood firm in its
defence.
The fundamental problem with this hypothesis is that there are just as many, if not more, examples that disprove it. To begin with, the notional bloc is united in its desire to win the good graces of the Trump White House. The calamitous ‘Board of Peace’ is just the tip of the iceberg. Military contracts and cooperation between Muslim countries and the US are old news. Pakistan’s militarised ruling class, like many of its ‘Muslim brethren’, is inking all sorts of minerals, crypto and other deals with the US. The Gulf states do big business with India, not to mention happily call it a strategic partner. The UAE even boasts annual bilateral trade with Israel in excess of $3 billion.
On the other end of the planet, Venezuela and Cuba are amongst the few states in our world that clearly articulate an anti-imperialist policy. How many countries stood up for Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro when he was kidnapped by US commandos in broad daylight? He still languishes in a New York jail.
Yakut Mahal remains the only single screen theatre of the Nizam’s era IMAGE/ Facebook
Yamini Krishna traced Hyderabad’s cinematic history, drawing attention to film cultures in Nizam’s era
If you walk into a multiplex in Hyderabad today, the dominance of the
Telugu film industry feels ancient and natural. But according to the
researcher and author, Dr C Yamini Krishna, this is a narrative that
began only a few decades ago.
Speaking to Siasat.com on the final day of the History Literature Festival
at Hyderabad Public School, Yamini Krishna traced Hyderabad’s cinematic
history beyond the familiar Telugu timeline, drawing attention to Urdu
film cultures that existed long before the industry arrived in the city.
The author of “Film City Urbanism in India,” Krishna was in Hyderabad as a speaker at the festival’s session “Cinema of Hyderabad: Pasts and Futures,” alongside SV Srinivas and Srinivas Kondra. Her work, grounded in extensive archival research, focuses on cinema in Hyderabad before 1948 and the cultural shifts that followed.
A mother and son walk near a building in Tehran, Iran, destroyed by a US/Israel strike IMAGE/File:Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters/Al Jazeera
Ground invasion? Doubtful
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the US President Donald Trump were hoping for a quick victory when they went to war against Iran on February 28, 2026. They heavily bombed that country and assassinated its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei and several other leaders in hope the government will fall. In the ensuing chaos, the US and Israel or “USrael,” Dr Niaz Murtaza’s term, wanted to install a pliable person. Iran continues to suffer great losses, but the government has survived.
Trump doesn’t take defeat easily, and it seems he wants to fight back. Of course, it will be at the expense of the lives of thousands of Iranians’ and a few US soldiers.
Just recently, 10,000 more US troops have joined the already stationed 40,000, making a total of over 50,000 US troops in the Middle East. This excludes the 4,500 troops on U.S.S. aircraft carrier Gerald Ford.
While addressing the US public (and the world) on April 1, 2026, the 30th day of the USrael’s illegal/criminal war against Iran, Trump warned:
“We are going to hit them [Iranians] extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages [<1>], where they belong.”
Trump wants to end the war but is frustrated by his inability to break the will of the Iranian government. Sending US troops is risky and so Trump wants to avoid it. But, as they say, the loser doubles the bet. USrael is bombing bridges, medical research center, steel mill, and anything they want.
No Israeli ground troops
It is Israel’s war that the US is fighting but Israel has refused to send its soldiers for ground invasion in Iran. Netanyahu’s son Yair (July 1991 born) has been living in Florida since October 2023 to avoid joining the army. His mother Sara is with him now.
Former White House official Howard Stoffer questioned why Nair hasn’t joined IDF (Israeli Defense Force) like his fellow citizens. He also warned that Yair’s presence in the US could make him “highly vulnerable target for an attack or kidnapping.”
In October 2024, the cost to protect Yair was 2.5 million shekels – nearly $700,000. The security is provided by Shin Bet, AKA the Israel Security Agency (ISA), something like the US CIA. The cost is probably much higher now.
Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, a right winger, who had opposed war against Iran, blasted Yair:
“Netanyahu’s kid down in Miami, turf him out tomorrow. Where’s DHS [Department of Homeland Security] when we need them? Throw him out. Get him back there. Put a uniform on him. Let’s have him in the first wave.”
“I want UAE…MBZ, who’s the best they got over there, and he’s got a real army…it’s not huge, but they actually know how to fight. Kharg Island, there’s your objective, go!”
He further added:
“And throw in a couple of Qatar princes. Throw in the Saudi princes in there, too. Get them out of London. Get them out of the casinos and whore houses in London.”
“And get them back to the Gulf.”
Pope opposes US/Israel war
On Palm Sunday in St Peter’s Square in Vatican City, Pope Leo told a large gathering of people he is opposed to people using Jesus to justify war:
“This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war.”
“(Jesus) does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: ‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood’.”
People protests against US/Israel war
On March 28, “No Kings” protests were held in many US cities and towns in where about 8 million people took part in more than 3,300 locations — hundreds of those locations were rural, where Republican-leaning communities live. According to the Democratic Party-aligned 50501 Movement, it was “the largest single-day protest in modern American history.” The second most used slogan After “No Kings” was “No ICE, No wars” reflecting people’s “understanding that dictatorship at home and imperialist violence abroad are two sides of the same class policy.”
As always is the case, when the Democratic Party is involved in protests, it can never convey a pure no war message but a polluted one where only coverage of the wars against Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon, are silenced. The polluters, as usual, are the AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee) one of the main Israeli lobbies, and the liberal Democrats.
Michael Leonardi points out that No Kings protests were more frank in Italy than in the US:
The U.S. Version: Liberal Theater with AIPAC Guests
Protests are brilliant if they are not polluted with AIPAC and imperialist forces, and if they can succeed in forcing the president to reverse wrong decisions; and, force him to do things that are good for the people.
But we have seen often that in the Western world people are allowed to protest, but the leaders are allowed to adamantly refuse to listen. During the 2nd US war against Iraq in 2003, the New York Times wrote that half the world was opposed to George W. Bush‘s Iraq war. Did Bush pay any attention? No. He went to war and destroyed that country.
(In 1991, Bush’s father, George H. W. Bush, had gone to war against Iraq.)
Diplomatic efforts
After meeting his counterparts from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, regarding the current Middle East situation, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said the following:
“The foreign ministers advocated dialogue and diplomacy as the only viable pathway to prevent conflict and to promote regional peace and harmony. They called for upholding principles of United Nations Charter, including respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states.”
A couple of days later, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi told Trump:
“I tell President Trump: nobody can stop the war in our region in the Gulf but you.”
March 31 Pakistani newspaper Dawn‘s editorial stated the same thing:
“The fact is that the key to de-escalation lies in Washington’s hands. It was America that started this disastrous war, and only America can and should end it, even if it means eating humble pie.”
This is a fact; only Trump can stop the war. One wonders: why the hell, the four ministers met in Pakistan, rather than directly going to Trump and asking him to consider halting the war, as otherwise the region is going to burn for a long time with economic, social, political, and environmental consequences for the entire planet.
The war’s first fourteen days has released 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide — the amount equals to the combined emissions of 84 countries!
On March 31, Dar met his Chinese counterpart Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi. they issued a Five-Point Initiative:
Immediate Cessation of Hostilities
Start of peace talks as soon as possible
Security of nonmilitary targets
Security of shipping lanes
Primacy of the United Nations Charter
Dar wasted fuel and added to the pollution by traveling to China at a time when the already poor Pakistan is experiencing fuel shortages.
When the Indian opposition reminded India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar that Pakistan’s role as a mediator is a setback for India, Jaishankar said India is not a “dalal nation” like Pakistan. (“Dalal” is sometimes regarded as a derogatory term in many South Asian languages, it means broker and it also means pimp. <2>
Diplomacy is good when the person/party to be convinced has ears open to critical feedback. That is not the case with Trump — his ears are open only to hear praise and things he wants to hear. What Trump has is a big oral member which spews hate, violence, rubbish constantly.
Can the ongoing mayhem be stopped?
Yes. Definitely. But only when the people with power decide. One example:
On March 29, 2026, Israeli police denied Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Rev. Francesco Ielpo entry into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to commemorate Palm Sunday Mass. The Church is located in Jerusalem’s old city, where Christians believe Jesus was crucified. In centuries, this is the first time that the mass couldn’t be celebrated in a timely manner.
Under heavy international pressure, Israel relented. <3>
The same pressure is needed to stop the insane Trump/Netanyahu’s inhumane and vicious war.
Mind you, it is not easy.
Even though Trump came to power with a US first platform, he’s working for Israel.
“Trump promised to put “America First,” in actuality, it is Israel-first donor’s agenda: billionaires like Larry Ellison, Bill Ackman, Alex Karp, Miriam Adelson, Haim Saban, Michael Dell ,,, etc. Their Israel-first wish list, supersedes America First.”
“Trump’s off-ramp is elusive. And Israel will do its level best to make sure it stays that way.”
There are many Israeli agents in the White House who are not letting Trump get the real picture of the war. A couple of White House sources told Time magazine that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was worried because Trump was being provided “a rose-colored view” of the war rather than the true picture. She has asked her colleagues to be “’more forthright with the boss‘” about the economic and political threats.
Three things can stop the war
(1) Major countries should voice their extreme opposition to the naked USrael war and violence on Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon. One country has shown that courage.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told the Spanish Congress:
‘This is not the same scenario as the illegal war in Iraq. We are facing something far worse. Much worse. With a potential impact that is far broader and far deeper.’
‘This time, it’s an absurd and illegal war. A cruel one that sets us back from achieving our economic, social, and environmental goals.’
‘It is not fair that some set the world on fire while others bear the ashes. It is not right that Spaniards and other Europeans should pay out of their own pockets for this illegal war.’
Switzerland invoked its neutrality laws in prohibiting US war flights.
If other European countries were to act in a way as Spain did, it could make some difference.
If the Gulf countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE) realize that Israel, the nuclear power, is waging war against Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians, and others, for regional hegemony and beyond. They should withdraw their friendship with Israel and ask the US to remove its bases from their countries.
(2) the Catholic Pope Leo should ask Christians, at least, Catholics <4>, in the US, including Vice J. D. Vance to oppose the war. Vance was not in favor of the war but went along with Trump.
The Pope himself should announce a visit to Iran at his earliest, forcing the USrael to stop the war.
(3) Those opposing war against Iran, such as Bernie Sanders and others, should ask businesses to shut down till US stops the war. Of course, the businesses supportive of Trump won’t join but Sanders and other leaders should ask their supporters to boycott those businesses.
All else — protests, diplomatic efforts, and Pope’s statement are exercises in futility, while people keep on being bombed, killed, orphaned, wounded.
Notes
<1> It was US Air Force officer Curtis LeMay who used the phrase “bombing back to the stone ages” for the first time in regards to the US war against Vietnam.
On January 9, 1991, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz was threatened by the US Secretary of State James Baker that if Iraq did not vacate Kuwait, the US would bomb Iraq “back to the Stone Age.”
A US official Richard Armitage warned Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that if Pakistan refused to join US in its war against Afghanistan, Pakistan would be “bombed back to the Stone Age.”
<2> India’s extreme closeness to Israel and US and it’s marked indifference towards Iran has created room for Pakistan, which has good relations with Iran and the US, to offer mediation.
Indian politician Pawan Khera reminded the Modi government:
“Was India a “Broker Country” when Modi was desperate to mediate between Russia & Ukraine? Selective brokering or selective memory?”
“Diplomacy is Jaishankar’s family profession. His father was also a diplomat, so if we’re “dalal,” he’s a khandaani dalal.”
Khandani means hereditary.
<3> When the Western world wants Israel not to cross its limit, Israel understands.
Surprisingly, the US ambassador to Israel and a supporter of Israel’s plan for “Eretz Israel” or “Greater Israel” and its war crimes, Mike Huckabee criticized such a move:
“… the action today by the Israel Nat’l Police to deny Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and 3 other priests from entering the Church to offer a blessing on Palm Sunday is an unfortunate overreach already having major repercussions around the world.”
“… Preventing the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Custos of the Holy Land from entering, especially on a solemnity central to the faith such as Palm Sunday, constitutes an offence not only against believers but against every community that recognises religious freedom.”
“We condemn this unjustified attack on religious freedom and demand that Israel respect the diversity of faiths and international law. Because without tolerance, coexistence is impossible.”
Among the major Western European powers, Spain is an anomaly. Sanchez openly prohibited US from using Spain’s territory in war against Iran.
After global outrage against the Israeli action, Netanyahu government lifted the ban and granted permission to the Latin Patriarch to enter the Church.
<4> Between 19% to 22% of the Christians in the US are Catholics. There are 1.3 billion Catholics in the world, making them the largest of Christian denomination. They make up 17.8% of the world’s population. With 2.3 billion followers worldwide that makes Christianity the world’s largest religion.
B. R. Gowani an be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com
The Cayman Islands is a major financial hub. IMAGE/X Screengrab
Cayman Islands sits at the heart of a secretive British financial network that manages trillions in global assets
China, which was the largest holder of US government debt as recently as 2019, has cut its holdings to the lowest level since 2008, driven by changing trade patterns, geopolitical concerns, and domestic economic pressures.
The Cayman Islands has emerged as an unlikely place to fill the gap.
This small British overseas territory held US$427 billion in US
Treasuries as of November 2025, making it the sixth-largest foreign holder.
But a 2025 Federal Reserve analysis revealed that the total figure was actually closer to $1.4 trillion by the end of 2024—with some estimates reaching as high as $1.85 trillion—after nearly 40 percent of new treasury notes and bonds were purchased in the Cayman Islands after 2022.
While these figures suggest that the territory is the largest foreign
holder of US debt, the main buyers are not Caymanians or the
government, but hedge funds.
After the territory passed its Mutual Funds Law in 1993 amid the 1990s hedge fund boom,
these vehicles began incorporating in large numbers, drawn by flexible
regulation and low taxes. The Cayman Islands today is home to roughly three-quarters of the world’s offshore hedge funds.
Many have used so-called “basis trades,”
borrowing heavily to profit from small price gaps between US Treasury
bonds and their future equivalents. The strategy has grown so large and
opaque that it has triggered a Federal Reserve investigation.
Emergence and evolution of a financial hub
The Cayman Islands has played a major role in global finance since the 1960s,
operating as a center for tax evasion and asset parking. Mostly
European banks trading in dollars outside the US, nicknamed Eurodollars,
could lend these dollars beyond the reach of American regulations and
capital controls. As the market grew, the Cayman Islands became a
central place to store and use these Eurodollars.
Local Cayman lawmakers also passed financial laws
to attract international businesses in the 1960s, including having no
direct taxes on individuals, corporate profits, or capital gains, which
helped cement the islands’ role as an offshore financial center.
The legal system, based on English common law,
offered clear rules, modern legislation, and independent courts.
Packaged into a simple, finance-focused framework, it gave investors
confidence and turned the territory into a quiet financial powerhouse.
Despite the Cayman Islands’ own elected government led by a premier, key powers remain with the United Kingdom. Final appeals in major cases are heard in London, while a governor appointed
by the British monarch, on the advice of the British government,
oversees internal security and coordinates foreign affairs with London.
In theory, Britain can also intervene in the territory’s governance,
providing a level of political stability valued by outside investors.
The Cayman Islands’ success has come from
a “collaborative policymaking process that involved local leaders,
expatriate professionals, and British officials,” according to a working
paper by the University of Alabama, along with embracing financial
trends. Home to more than 120,000 companies as of 2025, including thousands registered at the five-story Ugland House, hedge funds are just one of several recent financial booms.
The parent company of Theleme Partners LLP, a hedge fund linked to
former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, “lists the notorious Ugland House
as its address. The small office is the registered home to approximately
40,000 entities,” stated the Good Law Project.
Female friends taking selfie with smart phone while sitting at bar IMAGE/Getty Images/Thomas Barwick
The pressure to document the most interesting parts of their lives comes with a price tag
The phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” first appeared in 1850 in The New Yorker,
describing how the neighbors of Elizabeth Schermerhorn Jones, a wealthy
New York socialite, were so intimidated by her summer home in the
Hudson Valley that many were prompted to renovate their own properties to, as the magazine put it, keep up with the Joneses.
Since then, the idiom has found a home in the competitive arena of middle-class America.
For years, “keeping up with the Joneses” has conjured up images of a
typically white, straight American family — husband, wife, two kids, a
dog — standing on their front lawn, waving to their neighbors, the
husband smiling as he clocks the neighbor’s new car and the wife
wondering if the neighbors’ kids are dressed better than their own. It’s
a nod to the pressure that comes when your home, family and a few key
material possessions are treated as vital parts of your public presentation.
But for those who grew up on smartphones, social media
has dramatically expanded what’s expected from their public
presentation. Today’s young adults feel pressure to document every
element of their life, big and small — breakfast, lunch, dinner, side
hustles, weekend plans, vacations, friends, partners — in order to
present a digital amalgamation of a fully-formed person, checking off
the same material and experiential boxes of people not only on their
street or in their neighborhood, but all around the world.
New research shows that keeping with the digital Joneses, and making purchases based on pressures from social media, is driving a significant portion of young Americans into debt.
“Minds on Money,” a new survey from Ally Financial of more than 1,000
U.S. adults, found that 40% of Gen Zers regularly take on debt for
impulsive purchases of items or experiences they saw on social media.
But social media isn’t just driving the purchase — it’s a key part of
what comes next, with just as many Gen Zers saying that these purchases
are made, in part, to be shared on social media.
“That blew my mind,” Ally Bank’s Jack Howard
told Salon. She’s the bank’s head of money wellness, a new division
focused on behavioral financial education and the intersection of
psychology and money. Howard spent years developing it at the bank
before its 2023 launch.
Three months before taking power in 1949, Mao Tse-tung wrote of
the solidarity required for the Chinese people’s revolution, remarking
that a “principal and fundamental experience” was to “unite in a common
struggle with those nations of the world which treat us as equals and
unite with the peoples of all countries.” Mao warned, though, of
“domestic and foreign reactionaries, the imperialists and their running
dogs.”
Fast forward to last week (March 9), as Indian writer Arundhati Roy rebuked Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s government: “Some of you will remember how we
used to joke about that florid, overblown Chinese communist term,
‘Running Dog of Imperialism.’ But right now, I’d say, it describes us
well.”
Are BRICS rising? Or spalling? Or running (dogs)?
Does the critique of Modi’s allegiance to Donald Trump and Benjamin
Netanyahu apply more broadly, when we consider the
Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) bloc, now adorned with
five (or six) others? In 2023 at the Johannesburg summit, new BRICS were
added: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with
Saudi Arabia an ambiguous invitee (Riyadh has never formally accepted).
In early 2025 another new full member joined: Indonesia.
And at the Kazan Summit in 2024 hosted by Vladimir Putin, there were
more ‘partner’ invitations – a category reflecting the bloc’s
indigestion after the 2023 expansion – offered to Belarus, Bolivia,
Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and
Vietnam, all of which were accepted. (Only Algeria and Turkiye turned
down partner status.)
As a result of the apparent strengthening of the bloc, by July 2025, geopolitics podcaster Ben Norton could remark with unparalleled BRICS-hype:
“The Non-Aligned Movement was founded in the 1960s by
former formerly colonized countries almost all with socialist
governments, the initial founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, saying
that they refused to go along with US imperialism in the first cold war
against the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. So, BRICS is now
bringing back this anti-colonial mantle. They’ve picked up the
anti-colonial mantle and they’re fighting against US dollar hegemony
which is a which is a form of imperialism. They’re fighting against
western imperialism.”
But the BRICS bloc is not up for this fight, it is now apparent. In a
March 9 Johannesburg discussion with leading local political
broadcaster Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, Tricontinental director Vijay Prashad warned,
“If the BRICS countries don’t wake up to the reality of
trying to stop this conflict by any means possible, trying to stop this
conflict now, if they don’t recognize this reality, the entire project
of peace and development is in jeopardy.”
Likewise, just after the Trump-Netanyahu regimes began bombing Iran, ambitious hopes for BRICS were promoted by renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs on March 2:
“It’s not only Trump but there’s no brake, there’s no
foot on the brake. This is only an accelerator towards expanded war
right now. And the only way that it can stop is if the BRICS countries –
and that means India, that means Brazil, that means Russia, that means
China, that means South Africa and others – and it’s Iran, which is a
member of the BRICS, says, ‘This is not the way the world can
work.’ They have to stand up to American hegemony. This is the only way
the world can be safe. And so this is actually a responsibility of the
BRICS right now, which is the only standing bulwark against America’s
global empire.”
This ‘only standing bulwark’ is, in reality breaking up, or ‘spalling,’ i.e. (as I’ve mentioned before),
a construction-industry term referring to a process in which – mainly
due to the freezing-thawing cycle – “a wall’s masonry and bricks crack,
crumble, flake, and even pop out of the wall.”
Expel running-dog India, along with any other Israel-collaborationist
From hype to hope to helplessness seems
like the inevitable emotional slide-away for BRICS-watching
multipolaristas. By March 11, one of the most ebullient of multipolar
journalists, Thailand-based Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar, despaired
– on Danny Haiphong’s podcast – that the BRICS bloc was now spalling
beyond repair. So Escobar boldly recommended that one in particular be popped out by the others:
“India betrayed two top BRICS sequentially, Russia and
Iran. That’s extremely serious. This would be grounds for expulsion of
India from BRICS… The problem is what’s going to happen to BRICS this
year, considering that India is the BRICS chair in this year when they
betrayed two BRICS.”
The next day, Escobar told a podcast hosted by a former Fox News legal commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano,
“BRICS would have grounds to expel India considering that
India betrayed sequentially two top BRICS, founding member Russia and a
new member Iran in several levels because of American pressure. When
the Trump administration told India you cannot buy Russian oil, the
Indian said okay, okay, master.”
(Tehran was forgiving:
on March 14 two tankers carrying liquefied natural gas to India were
allowed through the Strait of Hormuz. Perhaps this reflected
compensation for both countries’ pain when Tehran’s battleship
Dena was sunk by a U.S. submarine’s torpedo on March 4 – killing 87
Iranians – just after it left naval exercises in the Indian city of
Visakhapatnam. As a former Indian military officer, Arun Prakash, complained to The Guardian,
“The U.S. navy could have sunk this ship anywhere on the way back to
the Persian Gulf. We are supposed to be friends and partners of the USA.
To bring the war to right to our doorstep was a perverse act.” But one
that New Delhi didn’t have the guts to criticise.)
On March 11, Escobar diagnosed the bloc’s feebleness:
“At the moment, BRICS is in a coma. It’s very painful to
admit it, but we have to be realists. It’s in a deep, deep coma, blown
up by one of its founding members. And obviously, don’t expect anything
coming from Brazil or South Africa.”
“48 hours before the decapitation strike that killed
Ayatollah Khamenei and very important people at the top of the
government in Tehran, Modi was in Israel being best buddies with the war
criminal Netanyahu. Because he wanted to clinch weapons deals with
Israel, which they did, by the way. So we have a founding BRICS member
completely aligned with Israel, which for the other BRICS, practically,
all the other ones and the partners as well, this is unthinkable.”
But sadly, it’s not so ‘unthinkable’: the harsh realities of economic alignment
to the Tel Aviv genocidaires can be discerned when BRICS hucksters open
their minds and finally question the actual content of
supposedly-multipolar ‘thinking’, which is oriented first and foremost to profiteering.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is seen as he listens to speeches at the Great Hall of the People on March 5, 2026 in Beijing, China IMAGE/Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Beijing’s muted response shows that when core interests are at stake, even close partners are expendable.
February 28, 2026, will be remembered
as the day the law of the jungle returned. On that fateful day, the
United States and Israel, in flagrant violation of international law and
the United Nations Charter, launched Operation Epic Fury, “raining
death and destruction” on Iran.
Although
it was not the first time that the US and its Israeli ally had used
negotiations to lull an enemy into a false sense of security before
attacking, the US-Israeli assault nonetheless caught Iran off guard.
Several high-ranking Iranian officials were killed in the strikes,
including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Yet the attacks failed to achieve
the regime change the US and Israel had anticipated. The Iranian
government, bruised and bloodied but undefeated, endured.
In response, Iran attacked US
military installations and diplomatic missions in the Middle East and
Israel with drones and missiles. While the retaliation inflicted some
damage, it fell short of deterring further attacks in the face of the
other side’s overwhelming military superiority. On the contrary, US
strikes intensified, culminating in the largest yet on March 10. With
Iranian missile stockpiles and launchers falling dangerously low, it has
become apparent that without outside intervention, Iran is fighting
what could be its last stand.
China’s muted response
With Russia preoccupied with its own war, Iran waited to see whether its only other ally capable of going toe to toe with the US, China, would come to its aid. The answer came quickly. Two days into the war, during a regular news conference at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, business continued as normal, as if the US and Israel had not just attacked one of China’s comprehensive strategic partners. When it became clear that China would remain silent, an Iranian journalist protested. Only then did the ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, reluctantly condemn the US-Israeli assault.
In
the days that followed, China became a vocal critic of the attacks.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi argued, “Might does not make right,”
warning that the attacks proved that “the world has regressed to the law
of the jungle.” Yet for all his strong words, Wang stopped short of
explicitly naming the US or Israel as the aggressor, even if there was
little doubt which countries he meant. Furthermore, China offered Iran
little substantive assistance beyond rhetoric.
While
China contacted several Middle Eastern countries and sent a special
envoy on a diplomatic tour of the region, a move that helped prevent
Iran’s neighbours, many caught in the crossfire, from joining the fray,
it made no attempt to directly confront the US, the country ultimately
responsible for the war, let alone send Iran military aid.
China’s
response remained muted even when Iran, in a bid to provoke
international intervention, closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital
maritime corridor through which 40 percent of China’s imported oil
passes each day. Faced with a direct threat to its economic lifeline,
Beijing’s only response was to call for all parties to cease hostilities
and return to the negotiating table. Its priorities were clear.
That priority, of course, is Taiwan.
Iran is not as important
One
month before the US-Israeli attacks, during the largest US military
build-up in the Middle East since its 2003 invasion of Iraq, Chinese
President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump held a phone call. In
the US readout, the conversation covered a range of topics, including
rising US-Iranian tensions.
In
the Chinese version, however, the focus was on China-US relations and
Taiwan while rising US-Iranian tensions were omitted. Xi reiterated that
Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, stressed its importance to
China and China-US relations, and drew a red line at its independence.
Xi also warned Trump that the US must proceed with utmost caution
regarding planned arms sales to Taiwan.
Tibetan fabric painting from the 17th or 18th century depicting a Bardo Cycle deity, representing transitional states between death and rebirth in Tibetan Buddhist belief. IMAGE/Dea/ V. Pirozzi/DeAgostini via Getty Images
You’ve seen it in bookstores – the metallic turquoise spine peeking
out from the shelf under “Eastern Religions.” Or, perhaps, another of
its more understated editions
rendered in muted tones. It is “The Tibetan Book of the Dead,” arguably
the most well-known Tibetan Buddhist text outside Tibet.
In the Princeton University series “Lives of Great Religious Books,” there are only two texts representing Buddhism. One is the “Lotus Sutra,”
the most popular Buddhist scripture on universal compassion, flexible
teaching methods and potential for Buddhahood for all beings; the other
is “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.”
Originally, the book was not even called “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” – and this book is not just about death.
The full title of the original Tibetan text from the 14th century
translates as “The Great Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate
States.” In Tibetan, it is shortened to “Bardo Thodrol,” which loosely
translated to “liberation upon hearing.”
The English title took off with Evans-Wentz’s first translation. But
Evans-Wentz translated only a part of the book, and the translation was
based on oral commentary rather than the Tibetan text.
The first full translation was done in 2007 by scholar and translator of Tibetan Buddhism Gyurme Dorje.
It has been endorsed through an introduction written by the Dalai Lama,
the most recognized Tibetan Buddhist leader of our time.
The 11 chapters of the book teach one how to seize every opportunity
to become enlightened, even in the least possible place. It all starts
with the teaching of bardo.
The six ‘bardos’
The Tibetan word bardo means “intermediate state” or “the state of
being in-between.” In its origin in Indian Buddhist teachings, the
bardo, or “antarabhava” in Sanskrit, refers to the time period between
the end of this life and the beginning of the next.
“Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,” said the families of young Palestinian men to Swedish journalist Donald Boström
when they saw their dead bodies stitched “from the abdomen to the
chin.” Israeli soldiers had returned their bodies days after they
disappeared from Gaza and the West Bank during a 1992 organ donation
campaign in occupied Palestine, launched by Ehud Olmert, then Israel’s
minister of health.
More than three
decades later, the same suspicions have resurfaced. Last month, more
than 1,000 kidney donors gathered for a group photograph during a
ceremony celebrating 2,000 living kidney donations in occupied
Palestine. The event was organized by the Israeli nonprofit Matnat Chaim
(gift of life) which applied to the Guinness World Records for official
recognition.
The application was
not initially welcomed. In December 2025, when Matnat Chaim first
contacted Guinness to register the record, it was rejected for
“political reasons.” In a statement
at the time, Guinness said it was aware of “just how sensitive this is
at the moment,” adding that it had stopped processing applications from
the Palestinian Territories or Israel since 2023, except for those
submitted in cooperation with a UN-affiliated humanitarian relief
agency.
According to Israeli media,
the position of Guinness has since changed following legal pressure to
resume submissions from Israel. While the annual record-keepers of the
“greatest of human achievements” have not yet officially certified
Israel’s record, zionist media have promoted the ceremony as evidence
that organ donation rates inside the settler population are now among
the highest in the world.
Dr.
Munir Al-Bursh, Director-General of the Palestinian Ministry of Health
in the Gaza Strip, has called for an independent international
investigation rather than international accolades.
Taking
into consideration the religious restrictions over organ donations and
the small settler population of Israel, this issue poses questions over
the accuracy of such a milestone. So where do all of these donations
come from?
“The
same authority withholding Palestinian bodies for years now boasts
unprecedented ‘donation’ figures,” Al-Bursh said. “Did this generosity
appear overnight? Or are there silent bodies excluded from the
celebration? The occupation has stolen organs from the bodies of
Palestinian martyrs.”
These accusations
intensified during the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Medical teams and
rescue workers tasked with exhuming bodies from mass graves reported
signs of organ removal. At Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, out of the 392 bodies found, 165 disfigured bodies remained unidentified.
“The
bodies arrived stuffed with cotton, with gaps suggesting organs were
removed. What we saw is indescribable,” a doctor at Nasser Medical
Complex said, calling it a “violation of the sanctity of the dead and
human dignity.”
The
allegations first surfaced during the First Intifada. In 1990, Dr. Hatem
Abu Ghazaleh, then chief health official in the occupied West Bank,
told reporters that organs, particularly eyes and kidneys, were being
removed from the bodies of Palestinian martyrs.
Euro-Med Monitor
has documented similar cases across the Gaza Strip. It reported that
the Israeli army confiscated bodies from Al-Shifa Medical Complex, the
Indonesian Hospital, and areas along Salah al-Din Road, a route
designated for displaced civilians heading to the central and southern
parts of the strip. While the organization said dozens of bodies were
later transferred via the International Committee of the Red Cross for
burial, it warned that Israeli forces continue to withhold many others.
Medical
examinations of some of the returned bodies revealed signs of organ
removal, including “missing cochleas and corneas as well as other vital
organs like livers, kidneys, and hearts,” confirmed the organization.
The allegations first surfaced during the First Intifada. In 1990, Dr. Hatem Abu Ghazaleh,
then chief health official in the occupied West Bank, told reporters
that organs, particularly eyes and kidneys, were being removed from the
bodies of Palestinian martyrs. At the time, international media ignored
the testimony from Palestinian medical officials, a pattern that will
repeat itself in the years to follow.
The
issue resurfaced in 1999 when US anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes
launched an investigation into organized “transplant tourism.” Her
research led her to Yehuda Hiss, a pathologist and forensic specialist
at Israel’s Forensic Institute Abu Kabir.
In a July 2000 interview,
Hiss admitted to harvesting skin, bones, corneas, cardiac valves, and
other tissues from bodies undergoing autopsies. He acknowledged that
consent was only required for autopsies, while families were never
informed of the organ harvesting that was conducted during autopsy.
“Whatever was done here was off the record, highly informal,” Hiss said.
“We never asked permission from the family.”
