No more hapless dependents!

Is it time for the U.S. and India to form a security alliance? Doug Bandow says no in the American Spectator. He points to the lack of strength of our NATO allies. He wants the U.S. to encourage and assist India in strengthening their military and economy so they can cope with the threat from the Chinese Communist Party. Read more here.

Visiting India

The big geopolitical picture

Sundance writes at The Conservative Treehouse,

Remember, when President Trump gave truthful and rightful, ownership of the Muslim Brotherhood’s extremism to the Arab Gulf States? Their first response was to refute the position. Quickly they accepted reality; and now the GCC, led by Saudi Arabia, is confronting MB’s enabler, Qatar.

Remember, when President Trump gave truthful, and rightful, ownership of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions to China? The first response was Beijing refuting the position. Eventually, they accepted reality; that process is ongoing.

...Chemical weapons stopped in Syria. Financing of the Muslim Brotherhood stopped in Qatar. Nuclear threats stopped from North Korea. And now getting the Taliban up to the table of negotiations within Afghanistan…

...There’s no downside to Pakistan being directly linked to Afghanistan/Taliban, simply because Pakistan is directly linked to Afghanistan/Taliban. Additionally, inherent in the Trump Doctrine of economics and trade used to secure national security objectives, there are going to be ‘winners’ and ‘losers’; ‘allies’ and ‘adversaries’.

In the BIG geopolitical picture, people get nervous because Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Fair enough. However, Pakistan’s #1 economic ally is China. China has massive investments in Pakistan. China is attached to Pakistan. Both China and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. Dealing with China and Pakistan is congruent.

Meanwhile, India has nuclear weapons. Afghanistan’s #1 economic ally is India. India has massive investments in Afghanistan. India is attached to Afghanistan. India has nuclear weapons. President Trump is positioning India as a favored nation to the United States, and Trump is also accepting China and Pakistan are connected.

Read more here.

Pakistan threatens to nuke India

Sara Kamouni reports at The Sun,

PAKISTAN’S Defence Minister has threatened to “destroy” India – after India said on Thursday it had carried out “surgical strikes” on suspected militants preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-ruled Kashmir.

The strikes, which were a response to shots fired across the de facto border through the disputed Himalayan territory, could lead to a military escalation between the two nuclear-armed neighbours – risking a ceasefire agreed in 2003.

Responding to India’s latest strikes, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said: “We will destroy India if it dares to impose war on us.

“Pakistan army is fully prepared to answer any misadventure of India.

“We have not made atomic device to display in a showcase.

“If a such a situation arises we will use it and eliminate India.”

Read more here.

Will ISIS get a nuclear weapon from Pakistan?

India is concerned that Islamic State militants (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) could get their hands on a nuclear weapon from its regional foe and fellow nuclear power Pakistan.

Hatf IX (NASR) missile being fired during a test at an undisclosed location in Pakistan (Reuters / Pakistan Military Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) via Reuters TV / Handout) / Reuters
Read more here.

A question for Pope Francis

Hey Pope Francis: Are you going to take your globull warming message to China and India? No nation on earth has as many environmental protection regulations as the United States of America. After you give your message in China and India, please feel free to come back and talk to us.

Obama Rebuffed As Superpowers Refuse To Sign Arctic Climate Agreement

Russia Today reports,

The US-led GLACIER environmental conference in Anchorage ended with a joint declaration calling for more international action to tackle climate change. But Russia (the world’s leading oil and gas producer), China (the world largest producer of goods), and India with its huge emerging economy opted not to sign the document, however nonbinding it might appear. For China and India reducing emissions entails huge expenditure and loss of economic effectiveness, and for Russia the upcoming environmental deal brings additional costs to the oil and gas extraction industries. Moscow is boosting Russia’s presence in the Arctic, including militarily, for at least two reasons: future hydrocarbons extraction and the Northern Sea Route, a much shorter way from Asia to Europe, which could soon be operable year-around because of less ice in the Arctic Ocean.

Read more here.

Jennifer Griffin reports for Fox News,

While visiting Alaska and becoming the first American president to enter the Arctic Circle, President Obama announced Tuesday he would speed up the acquisition of icebreakers to help the U.S. Coast Guard navigate an area that Russia and China increasingly see as a new frontier. The announcement is the latest power play in the Arctic north, where melting ice has led to a race for resources and access. Forty percent of the world’s oil and natural gas reserves lie under the Arctic. Melting ice also would lead to new shipping routes, and Russia wants to establish a kind of Suez Canal which it controls. More than a Cold War, Russia may be preparing for an Ice War, and the Pentagon is taking note.

read more here.

Window of Opportunity

In India

Students around the country have been taking the class 10 and class 12 board exams this month, inspiring obsessive news recaps. Students must pass the class 10 exams to move on to upper secondary school and to eventually have a chance at university.

Sonali Kohli writes in Quartz

In the ultimate act of enabling, hundreds of parents and family members in Bihar were caught on camera brazenly climbing walls and standing on window ledges to pass papers to students taking the state’s class 10 standardized test.

Read more here.

Iran no longer using US dollar in foreign trade

Did you know that Iran no longer uses the US dollar in foreign trade transactions? They aren't alone. Russia, China, India and Turkey often pay for products in gold or other agreed on currencies. Read more here.

Drug counterfeiters

Do you know where your prescription drug is coming from? Gardiner Harris writes

India, the second-largest exporter of over-the-counter and prescription drugs to the United States, is coming under increased scrutiny by American regulators for safety lapses, falsified drug test results and selling fake medicines.

India’s pharmaceutical industry supplies 40 percent of over-the-counter and generic prescription drugs consumed in the United States.

“If I have to follow U.S. standards in inspecting facilities supplying to the Indian market,” G. N. Singh, India’s top drug regulator, said in a recent interview with an Indian newspaper, “we will have to shut almost all of those.”

The World Health Organization estimated that one in five drugs made in India are fakes.

In one recent example, counterfeit medicines at a pediatric hospital in Kashmir are now suspected of playing a role in hundreds of infant deaths there in recent years.

One widely used antibiotic was found to contain no active ingredient after being randomly tested in a government lab. The test was kept secret for nearly a year while 100,000 useless pills continued to be dispensed.

More tests of hospital medicines found dozens more that were substandard, including a crucial intravenous antibiotic used in sick infants.

“Some of the fake tablets were used by pregnant women in the post-surgical prevention of infections,” said Dr. M. Ishaq Geer, senior assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Kashmir. “That’s very serious.”

Investigations of the deaths are continuing, but convictions of drug counterfeiters in India are extremely rare.

80 percent of the seafood consumed in the United States, 50 percent of the fresh fruit, 20 percent of the vegetables and the vast majority of drugs come from outside the United States.

American businesses and F.D.A. officials are just as concerned about the quality of drugs coming out of China, but the F.D.A.'s efforts to increase inspections there have so far been frustrated by the Chinese government.

Using its new revenues, the F.D.A. tried to bolster its staff in China in February 2012. But the Chinese government has so far failed to provide the necessary visas despite an announced agreement in December 2013 during a visit by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said Erica Jefferson, an F.D.A. spokeswoman.

The United States has become so dependent on Chinese imports, however, that the F.D.A. may not be able to do much about the Chinese refusal. The crucial ingredients for nearly all antibiotics, steroids and many other lifesaving drugs are now made exclusively in China.