NORTH and South Korea have been in the news a lot lately and mostly for the wrong reasons. Till recently, it was South Korea which was hogging most of the headlines due to the impeachment proceedings against the country’s president, Park Gyeun-hee on charges of corruption. The arrest of Jay Y Lee, the head of Samsung conglomerate, South Korea's biggest by far, on charges of bribing the country's top officials, including the president, is already having an impact on the country's booming economy. If the fortunes of Samsung are hit, the South Korean economy is sure to suffer.

WHEN Narendra Modi sat in the wilderness of American political opinion, sections of the NRI community came to his defence. Graphic human rights reports on the pogrom in Gujarat had turned the US State Department against Modi. He was denied a visa to enter the United States. It did not help Modi that there was clear evidence of discrimination against Christians in Gujarat, most notably in the Dangs region where Modi’s allies used violence against Christian missionaries. This did not sit well with the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

THE unexpected pardon that the former American president, Barack Obama, has given to the whistle blower, Chelsea Manning, has come as a welcome surprise for human rights activists and millions of ordinary Americans, who had demanded his release. Obama has not extended the same gesture to Edward Snowden, the other famous whistle blower, who exposed the widespread State surveillance by US intelligence agencies. The Obama administration has arrested more whistle blowers on charges of espionage than any previous administration.

IN the last week of December, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted resolution 2334 reaffirming that Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and Jerusalem are illegal. The United States this time did not veto the resolution. A similar resolution was vetoed by the Obama administration in 2011, despite the US characterising itself as “an honest peace broker” in the Israel-Palestine dispute and terming the settlements as “illegal”. The US has in fact been indirectly subsidising much of the illegal settlement activity.

THE Parties of the Working Group of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties denounce once again in the strongest possible terms the attempts to ban the Communist Party of Ukraine in view of the relevant trial due to take place tomorrow (08.02.17) in Kiev. This parody trial aims at annihilating the CP Ukraine through a process that is contrary to the principles of International Law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international principles and conventions.