By Pepe Escobar – Posted with permission After years of reporting on the Great War on Terror, many questions behind the US attacks remain unresolved Afghanistan was bombed and invaded because of 9/11. I was there from the start, even before 9/11. On August 20, 2001, I interviewed commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the “Lion of the Panjshir,” who told me about an “unholy alliance” of the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the ISI
by Jon Hellevig for The Saker Blog It’s a two and a half hour flight from Moscow to Sochi and when you land you are in another world. Sochi is absolutely unique and like no place else in Russia, a gem in its own right. Sheltered by the Caucasian mountains from the severe northern winds which sweep over most of Russia in wintertime and tempered by the Black Sea breezes
By Chris Faure for The Saker Blog If you thought that the demonization of Russia and incessant Russophobia over the past years from the West, with hardly a highly likely shred of evidence, was unconscionable and the absolute pinnacle of all demonization campaigns ever, get ready for the demonization of China. In true Hollywood Blockbuster style, the China Fear campaign promises to be bigger and better theater than the complete
by Pepe Escobar from Curitiba, Brazil – Posted with permission This is the last of a three-part series from a world exclusive interview with Lula, the former Brazilian president, who remains in jail. Lula on fights with Hillary, talks with Ahmadinejad, Obama ‘good but nervous and too young’ As we advanced past the first hour of a historic interview – see here and here – at a Federal Police building in Curitiba, southern Brazil,
by Pepe Escobar – posted with permission Modi and Putin discuss business and joint ventures at an economic conference in the Far East There’s no way to follow the complex inner workings of the Eurasia integration process without considering what takes place annually at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. BRICS for the moment may be dead – considering the nasty cocktail of economic brutalism and social intolerance delivered by
By GH Eliason for The Saker Blog What happens when Intel community figures decide to make you an enemy of the state? How about if they aren’t satisfied with the elected government? Dive in and let’s find out. Lawsuits and Jail Time Take the clear examples shown below to heart. Your congressmen and senators hire cyber terrorists to manipulate their own constituents in ways that only benefit lobbyist’s clientele and
by Pepe Escobar, Curitiba, Brazil – posted with permission Former Brazilian leader wishes emerging economies were closer, recalls Obama ‘crashing’ Copenhagen climate meet In a wide-ranging, two-hour-plus, exclusive interview from a prison room in Curitiba in southern Brazil, former Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva re-emerged for the first time, after more than 500 days in jail, and sent a clear message to the world. Amid the 24/7 media
by Denis A. Conroy for The Saker Blog Stockholders aboard the good ship “Queen of the Capitalist West” appear to be experiencing a “shiver me timbers” moment. The portentous stockholders aboard the “Queen of the Capitalist West” had come to believe that it was their divine right to assume that only they had the right to dictate who could have skin in the global trading game. But lo and behold,
by Jon Hellevig for The Saker Blog Last week was full of portentous events. Only somebody who has not been awake for the last few years will fail to realize how these at first sight unconnected events are part of the same matrix. There was the ever louder talk in mainstream media about an approaching global recession, inverted yield curves and the negative yields, which tell us that the Western
Meanwhile, fires rage in the Amazon and Brazilian President Bolsonaro has become a target of global indignation. By Pepe Escobar from Brazil – posted with permission Brazil has always been a land of superlatives. Yet nothing beats the current, perverse configuration: a world statesman lingers in jail while a clownish thug is in power, his antics now considered a threat to the whole planet. In a wide-ranging, two-hour, world exclusive
by Paul Schmutz Schaller for The Saker Blog Some weeks ago, I was convinced that Trump would be quietly re-elected in 2020. His position was very confortable. His political program “Make America great again” has made its way. He has finally taken the reins in his government. And in the relations of the USA with the other countries, he has established the style “as long as you dance to my
by Peter Koenig for The Saker Blog On 28 October 2018, Jair Bolsonaro was elected President of Brazil with 55.1% of the vote – and with a gigantic help from Cambridge Analytica. At the World Economic Forum (WEF) in January 2019 in Davos Switzerland, Bolsonaro made a sumptuous presentation, “We Are Building a New Brazil”. He outlined a program that put literally Brazil up for sale, and especially the Brazilian
by Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog What can explain these recent instances, proven by Agence France-Press, in which outright frauds — lies (in the form of faked photos and videos) — are being spread online to support the agenda of breaking off, from China, Hong Kong (which has historically always a part of China), so as to make Hong Kong an ‘independent’ nation?: —— https://factcheck.afp.com/ This video actually shows
by Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog The last leg of the Russiagate hoax to become exposed was on August 16th, when Gareth Porter bannered at The American Conservative, “U.S. States: We Weren’t Hacked by Russians in 2016”. He revealed there that, “A ‘bombshell’ Senate Intelligence Committee report released in July repeated the familiar claim that Russia targeted the electoral websites of at least 21 states — but statements from
by Ghassan Kadi for The Saker Blog Abou Omar, a close friend of mine, is one whom I have so much in common. Not only he was my boss many moons ago, but we were both brought up in political families that endorsed and advocated the unity and integrity of Syria. When I caught up with him recently after many years, I was not surprised that our thoughts had many
The ultimate American imperial dream is to engineer a Chinese vassal state By Pepe Escobar, from Cambodia – Posted with permission There must be some kind of way outta here Said the joker to the thief There’s too much confusion I can’t get no relief Business men, they drink my wine Plowmen dig my earth None were level on the mind Nobody up at his word -Bob Dylan, All Along
A South African writer for The Saker Blog Let’s set the social scene with a video from Vesti News: People are getting accustomed to living this way. The Neo-Chiefs in the Ruling Party do not care for the minorities, and neither do they care for their own. In the final section, we will return to social issues. Mentioning a second introductory point may be timely for a watch list. If
By: Jeff J. Brown for The Saker Blog Crosslinked with: https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/08/14/upside-down-or-right-side-up-comparing-chinese-vs-western-civilizational-hierarchies-china-rising-radio-sinoland-190814/ https://youtu.be/rYmvCRQBybk https://soundcloud.com/44-days/upside-down-or-right-side-up-comparing-chinese-vs-western-civilizational-hierarchies Pictured above: no wonder Chinese and Westerners don’t understand each other. They look at the world and their societies with diametrically opposed points of view. It’s like two peoples staring at each other through the opposite ends of a telescope. Everything is distorted. To paraphrase the great American poet Robert Frost, “And that my friends, makes all
by George Eliason for The Saker Blog What are Cyber Privateers and should you be afraid of them? Cyber privateers and cyber bounty hunters are criminals that are not covered under international law as government agents. In reality, this almost nullifies the chance for war to start over any particular hacking or compromised data event. The problems hired or volunteer contractors create include a projectable legal attribution. You don’t have
by Jimmie Moglia for The Saker Blog Scratching the surface of things is akin to scratching a lottery ticket. The results are routinely disappointing, sometimes unexpected, sometimes exceptional. I recently attended an online conference, held by an Italian researcher named Mario Biglino. Mr. Biglino has dedicated many years to producing a new translation of the Bible. His effort centered on verifying and correcting official translations of the Bible from the
