In mid-June 2025, ‘Pro-Khalistan’ group Sikhs for Justice supporters packed Calgary’s City Hall square, waving Khalistan flags and chanting “Kill Modi politics” while demanding that India be “Balkanised” as Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the G7 summit nearby (Global News, Canada, June 16).
The incident of poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence official, and his daughter on March 4, 2018, in Salisbury, (United Kingdom) allegedly by the Russians have caught the attention of the world. Two months after the notorious incident, on May 18 Russian President Vladimir Putin said that ‘Sergei Skripal would be dead if military grade toxin was used’. With this remark, Putin pushed the investigations of the alleged use of nerve agent ‘Novichoks’ against Sergei Viktorovich Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal into complete disarray.
Lately, the United States and some European nations have lifted oil and other financial sanctions on Iran and have also released roughly $100 billion of its assets after international inspectors concluded that Iran had complied with its promises to dismantle large sections of its nuclear programme. To signal that the relations are now moving towards friendship, just a few hours before the implementation of the nuclear accord five Americans were released from Iran’s prison.