By Unorthodox Black Sheep VN (aka A Vietnamese Reader) for The Saker Blog In my late article “What Wrong With Vietnam Today?”, I had underestimate the power of the pro-US faction in Vietnam. After my observing and investigating in the recent months, I found out they are in fact very powerful than I thought. Despite the fact that pro-China faction are very powerful because they are the corrupted officials
Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog The readers at the international-news site South Front tend to be technologically far more knowledgeable about the internet than most people (including myself) are, and so their responses to a news-report that I did on December 17th, titled “Former NSA Tech Chief Says Mueller Report Was Based on CIA-Fabricated ‘Evidence’”, not only corrected a misspelling of a particular spoken acronym (my “PHAT” there should
The version from RT on Twitter is the best one available currently: https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1dRKZLQDDYDJB English Soundtrack: Transcript : http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/62366
By Ramin Mazaheri – for The Saker Blog Western economies have not colluded separately to devalue their currencies as in the past, but instead have collectively colluded in order devalue their economies. They have manipulated the Great Recession to devalue their economies in order to reduce labor costs back to 19th century standards – if it means reducing the quality of their infrastructure, commercial products and technological innovation to do
By Ramin Mazaheri – crossposted with PressTV with permission Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of the books ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’ and the upcoming
by Dean W. Arnold for The Saker Blog “No women allowed” was hand-painted on a small wooden sign as I approached the monastery in Axum, Ethiopia, just a few yards from the building that this African nation claims to contain the Ark of the Covenant. A diminutive monk, looking old but spry, helped me in the front door. The building was centuries-old, rather stark and plain. It resembled an old
Hezbollah poses a considerable threat to the scenarios developed by the United States and the Israeli regime to be implemented in the Middle East, says the secretary general of Lebanon’s resistance movement, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. “The US is doing its utmost to depict Hezbollah as a threat to Lebanon. Americans are actually vying for their own interests and those of Israel. The interests of the Lebanese nation are not a
By Pepe Escobar, On the Pamir Highway, Tajikistan – Posted with permission A privileged microcosm of what is evolving as the intersection between the New Silk Roads and Greater Eurasia This is the second of 2 parts. See part 1 here. Traveling the Pamir Highway, we’re not only facing a geological marvel and a magic trip into ancient history and customs. It’s also a privileged window on a trade revival
By Pepe Escobar, Pamir Highway, Tajikistan – Posted with permission These are the ancient Silk Roads the Taliban will never be able to reach Part 1 of a 2-part series This is arguably the ultimate road trip on earth. Marco Polo did it. All the legendary Silk Road explorers did it. Traveling the Pamir Highway back to back, as a harsh winter approaches, able to appreciate it in full, in
By Chris Faure – for The Saker Blog Empire is still strong, but fast becoming toast. We can only look at the very last few happenings in our world to see that the only weapon that they have left is to try to pump glue into the global systems fast, and they hope this will give them leverage or maintain control. If nothing works, then just maybe they can grab
By Pepe Escobar – posted with permission A fuel tax hike set the country ablaze and triggered a social backlash On November 15, a wave of protests engulfed over 100 Iranian cities as the government resorted to an extremely unpopular measure: a fuel tax hike of as much as 300%, without a semblance of a PR campaign to explain the reasons. Iranians, after all, have reflexively condemned subsidy removals for
By Pepe Escobar, Khorgos, Kazakhstan : posted with permission Central Asia, between China and Europe, is bustling We are cruising on a pristine, 380 km-long four-lane superhighway from Almaty to Khorgos – finished in 2016 for $1.25 billion, 85% of the cost covered by a World Bank loan. And then, suddenly, riding parallel to us, there’s the real superstar of New Silk Road connectivity. Meet Yuxinou, the container cargo train
By Pepe Escobar, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan : posted with permission The pros and cons of being the Heartland in the 21st century Crossing Tajikistan from west to northeast – Dushanbe to the Tajik-Kyrgyz border – and then Kyrgyzstan from south to north all the way to Bishkek via Osh, is one of the most extraordinary road trips on earth. Not only this is prime Ancient Silk Road territory but now is
By Pepe Escobar, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan – posted with permission Foreign Minister Zarif sketches Iran-US relations for diplomats, former presidents and analysts Just in time to shine a light on what’s behind the latest sanctions from Washington, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a speech at the annual Astana Club meeting in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan delivered a searing account of Iran-US relations to a select audience of high-ranking diplomats, former Presidents and
By Pepe Escobar, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan – Posted with permission Kazakhstan’s first president has road map for 21st century: global alliance of leaders for nuclear-free world The Astana Club is one of the most crucial annual meetings in Eurasia, alongside the Boao forum in China and the Valdai discussions in Russia. China, Russia and Kazakhstan are all at the forefront of Eurasia integration. No wonder, then, that the 5th meeting of
By Pepe Escobar – Posted with permission Better not mess with the former Brazilian president; Putin and Xi are his real top allies in the Global Left He’s back. With a bang. Only two days after his release from a federal prison in Curitiba, southern Brazil, following a narrow 6×5 decision by the Supreme Court, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a fiery, 45-minute long speech in front
by Pepe Escobar : posted with permission US-Australia-Japan alternative to Belt and Road helps explain why the US sent a junior delegation to Thailand and why India opted out of RCEP Chinese President Xi Jinping six years ago launched New Silk Roads, now better known as the Belt and Road Initiative, the largest, most ambitious, pan-Eurasian infrastructure project of the 21st century. Under the Trump administration, Belt and Road has
