THE Indian Workers’ Association Great Britain (IWA-GB) has taken serious note of the new immigration bill which proposes removal of article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights that protects an individual’s right in regard to private and family life. If this bill becomes an act, the IWA-GB fears that it will add to the current legislative discrimination, further contribute to the breaking of families and deprive children of their parents’ love.

THE visit of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to India in the second week of December came at a time when negotiations with the Americans on the future of their forces in his country were poised at a critical stage. Before Karzai landed in Delhi, there were reports that the Obama administration had asked India to intervene on its behalf and persuade President Karzai to put his signature to the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) on the presence of US troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

THE preliminary nuclear deal which Iran and the P-5+1 (the US, Russia, China, France, UK and Germany) finally signed in the last week of November, has partially lifted the sanctions on Iran for six months. The groundwork for the agreement was laid much before the formal agreement was announced. Secret talks between American and Iranian officials have been ongoing since last year. The contacts were intensified following the election of the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, who had won the elections with a massive majority earlier in the year.

AMIDST continuous violence and refusal of the main opposition party BNP and allies to participate in the poll, Bangladesh is going for election to constitute its 10th parliament on January 5, 2014 next. Ruling Awami League leaders said without the participation of the main opposition party, elections to national parliament is not a happy thing. But there is no other alternative other than going for election as the tenure of the present parliament will end on January 24 next. To avoid a constitutional crisis, elections have to be held before the tenure of the present parliament expires.

LATEST revelations emanating from the dossier compiled by the American whistleblower, Edward Snowden, have provided irrefutable proof that the Obama administration has been spying on friends and foes, on its own citizens and foreigners alike. The international community is now fully aware that the American security agencies, if they so wish, can decipher the political and social tendencies of millions of global citizens at a flick of a button.