by Rachana Raizada for The Saker Blog A few days ago, I walked down the street to the supermarket to buy food past glittering skyscrapers, the seat of Lombardy’s regional government. According to an interview in the New York Times [1] with the region’s President Attilio Fontana, on the sixth floor, “two dozen epidemiologists and public health experts form the nerve center of the effort to contain a coronavirus outbreak
One Russian Airbase Could Take Down Turkey’s Entire Fighter Fleet? New Assessment Shows a Favourable Military Balance in Syria Underlying Moscow’s Success by Aspelta for The Saker Blog While much uncertainty remains surrounding what exactly was agreed to in Moscow regarding the ceasefire agreement in Syria’s Idlib province, or how long Turkey intends to adhere to the new ceasefire agreement, it is clear that despite its bellicosity towards Damascus, Ankara
by Pepe Escobar – posted with permission Is the planet under the spell of a pair of black swans – a Wall Street meltdown, caused by an alleged oil war between Russia and the House of Saud, plus the uncontrolled spread of Covid-19 – leading to an all-out “cross-asset pandemonium” as billed by Nomura? Or, as German analyst Peter Spengler suggests, whatever the averted climax in the Strait of Hormuz
by Pepe Escobar – posted with permission Once again it was Russia that just prevented the threatened ‘Muslim invasion’ of Europe advertised by Erdogan At the start of their discussion marathon in Moscow on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with arguably the most extraordinary diplomatic gambit of the young 21st century. Putin said: “At the beginning of our meeting, I would like to once
by Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog Hillary Clinton, of course, received the Democratic Party nomination in 2016 and was widely expected to beat Trump but she lost to him (though she won California by 4,269,978 in the popular vote, and so beat Trump by 2,864,974 in the nationwide popular vote, while she lost all other states by 1,405,002 votes, and so she would have been California’s President if she
By Pepe Escobar : posted with permission As Putin meeting looms, no one in Moscow believes any word, promise or cajoling from Erdogan anymore The latest installment of the interminable Syria tragedy could be interpreted as Greece barely blocking a European “invasion” by Syrian refugees. The invasion was threatened by President Erdogan even as he refused the EU’s puny “offer you can refuse” bribe of only one billion euros. Well,
G.H. Eliason for The Saker Blog Recently, I had the chance to sit down with the Deputy Director of the Institute for International Cooperation at DonNTU (Donetsk National Technical University) and had a frank discussion about the state of higher education at the university today. This is the first interview in what will be an ongoing series covering all the different aspects of nation-building in both Lugansk People’s Republic and
By Jimmie Moglia for The Saker blog Men judge by the complexion of the sky, the state and inclination of the day. Yet, to the perplexed observer it was difficult, in 2013, to guess what Pope Bergoglio was up to. For one, the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI was puzzling. After all, the last Pope to resign, 719 years earlier, was Celestine V, five months after his election, in 1294
Paul Schmutz Schaller for The Saker Blog During the last days, we saw dramatic changes in the Syrian situation. For the fourth time in the last years, Turkey invaded Syria. But the actual invasion is quite different since it is directly targeted against the Syrian army. This was confirmed, on March 1, by the Turkish defense minister and, on March 2, by Erdogan. The Turkish aggression is carried out by
by Mansoureh Tajik for The Saker Blog Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim, “In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.” Novel Corona virus, nicknamed 2019-nCoV, is the latest global celebrity puffed up and propped to exact fear in some, to divert attention from others, to settle a few economic and political scores among adversaries, and to make a few bucks selling diverse prophylaxes along the way. Mainstream and alternative media, social
by Ghassan Kadi for The Saker Blog The root of the military conflict in Idlib is not something that arose from contemporary times. And with all due respect to Sputnik, the cause did not start 80 years ago https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/202002291078432455-the-stolen-province-why-turkey-was-given-a-corner-of-syria-by-france-80-years-ago/ Actually, the seed of the conflict was sown five centuries ago and, its germination could have been prevented a century ago. However, the colonialists had other plans; and they implemented them
Eric Zuesse for The Saker blog The spokesperson for the Islamist party of Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan has called upon all of NATO to go to war against Syria for Syria’s having killed dozens of Turkey’s troops in order for Syria to defeat Turkey’s invasion and military occupation of Syria’s Idlib Province, which borders on Turkey. Going to war against Syria would mean going to war also against Russia, which
By Aram Mirzaei for the Saker blog The two months long Syrian Army offensive in the Idlib and Aleppo provinces culminated in Aleppo’s complete liberation from the jihadist terrorists of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and their friends. In a matter of weeks, the Syrian Army, backed by the Russian Air Force managed to liberate hundreds of towns and cities across the two provinces, including the important cities or Saraqib and
by Pepe Escobar and crossposted with Consortium News It’s quite fitting that the – imperially pre-determined – judicial fate of Julian Assange is being played out in Britain, the home of George Orwell. As chronicled by the painful, searing reports of Ambassador Craig Murray, what’s taking place in Woolwich Crown Court is a sub-Orwellian farce with Conradian overtones: the horror…the horror…, remixed for the Raging Twenties. The heart of our
by Ghassan Kadi for The Saker Blog The new Lebanese Government has been pre-destined to fail; and for no wrong doing on its part. Actually, PM Diab formed the cabinet on the 22nd of January 2020, and as I sit down to write this on the 26th of February, I would have to say that, irrespective of the conditions upon which Diab was chosen to be the new PM, he
A. B. Abrams on Today’s Great Power Conflict for The Saker Blog “A. B. Abrams is the author of the book ‘Power and Primacy: A History of Western Intervention in the Asia-Pacific.’ His second book covering the history of the United States’ conflict with North Korea is scheduled for publication in 2020. He is proficient in Chinese, Korean and other East Asian languages, has published widely on defence and politics
Pepe Escobar for the Saker Blog : Posted with permission As far as realpolitik Afghanistan is concerned, with or without a deal, the US military want to stay in what is a priceless Greater Middle East base to deploy hybrid war techniques Nearly two decades after the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan post-9/11, and after an interminable war costing over $ 2 trillion, there’s hardly anything “historic” about a possible
Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog Here are the most informative excerpts that I have noted from the best news-reporting from journalists who have been attending at the trial: CRAIG MURRAY, “Day 2”: For the defence, Mark Summers QC stated that the USA charges were entirely dependent on three factual accusations of Assange behviour: 1) Assange helped Manning to decode a hash key to access classified material. Summers stated this
Pepe Escobar : Posted with permission and x-posted with Strategic Culture Foundation The New Silk Roads – or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – were launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013, first in Central Asia (Nur-Sultan) and then Southeast Asia (Jakarta). One year later, the Chinese economy overtook the U.S. on a PPP basis. Inexorably, year after year since the start of the millennium, the U.S. share of the
By Nat South for The Saker Blog I am interested in the way that narratives that shape individual events are crafted, curated and disseminated, because ultimately there is a tendency to focus mostly on specific events and ignore the wider context. Ultimately, we end up with being presented with a series of disjointed events, not really understanding the history or the detailed framing of these events. One such example would
