After much uncertainty and a turbulent election, Thailand now has a new government led by its newly elected prime minister, Prayuth Chan-o-cha. This bodes well for Thailand’s stability and development as well as its growing ties with its ASEAN neighbours as well as with China. For the US and its attempts to reassert “primacy”…
Politics
Southeast Asia - Thailand
16.06.2019
Is it Washington's Turn to Occupy Poland?
Washington’s latest decision to deploy a reinforced contingent of military forces to Poland has been received with an outcry of disappointment by the European pro-democracy public, as it means the US is willing to roll back obligations it assumed back in 1997 within the NATO framework, thus undermining one of…
Europe
16.06.2019
Mongolia Playing Stabilizing Role in Situation on Korean Peninsula
First, a short history lesson. According to records, the relationship between Mongolia and Korea spans 800 years. Mongolian annals from the 13th to 14th centuries mention Korea’s (at the time known as Solongos) role in Genghis Khan’s conquest of China. In the years preceding 1990…
Central Asia - Mongolia
15.06.2019
Trump and the Taiwan Gambit
Taiwan has become a new “eastern pivot” for Donald Trump. Against all international laws and UN charters, he is approaching Taiwan, as indicating to the world that regardless of the established world rules which make Beijing, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), the official and legitimate Authority of China, with Taiwan being a part of China – the self-styled…
Eastern Asia - China
14.06.2019
Is the US on a Major About-turn on Iran?
In May 2018, more than a year ago, when the US threw the hard-negotiated nuclear deal with Iran out of the window of the Oval office, it did not come as a surprise, for Donald Trump was only fulfilling the promise he had made to his voters during his presidential election campaign the year before. When the deal was thrown out…
USA in the World
14.06.2019
Without the I Word, Beware B and P
As Nancy Pelosi struggles to contain increasing demands for the Congress to impeach President Trump, his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo ratchets up tensions in the Gulf of Oman, as it has done in countless other historical circumstances, making war with Iran look imminent. Now more than ever, Americans need to know that…
Middle East - Iran
14.06.2019
Emir of Kuwait - an Illustrious Leader in the Arab World
Currently in Kuwait, a small state surrounded by emerald-green waters of the Persian Gulf, there are ongoing active preparations for celebrating the 90th birthday of its Emir, Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. The current energetic ruler of Kuwait, or the pearl of the Persian Gulf as the nation is sometimes called, will really turn 90…
Middle East
Economics
16.06.2019
Will China Autos Trigger Next Economic Downturn?
Sales of new cars in China, today the world’s largest automobile market, plunged a dramatic 16.4% in May, making the worst month in the history of the relatively new China auto industry. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), the disastrous May sales came after declines of 14.6% in April and 5.2%…
Eastern Asia - China
09.06.2019
What direction is China’s OBOR Initiative Moving in and How is it Progressing?
Discussions, meetings and banquets at the 2019 Belt and Road Forum in Beijing have finally come to an end. More than 150 delegates attended this event. What can we discern about this project at this stage? Have any new sceptics, opponents or proponents of China’s global initiative, which celebrated its 5-year anniversary last year, emerged?..
Eastern Asia - China
08.06.2019
The Geo-Port-Politics of Gwadar and Chabahar
In a highly surprising move, Iran’s foreign minister, on an unscheduled and unannounced visit to Pakistan on Thursday (May the 23rd), announced the proposal to link Pakistan’s port of Gwadar with Iran’s Chabahar port. This announcement signals tectonic geo-political shift taking place in the region in the wake of increasing tensions between the US and Iran. The US has…
Southern Asia - Pakistan
06.06.2019
Europe Has no Freedom But to Choose "Freedom Gas"
The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently renamed US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports “freedom gas.” But freedom for who? For Europe who already has a cheap and reliable source of natural gas, but is being forced to switch over to more expensive US gas under the threat of sanctions? Certainly not. Or freedom for Russia who supplies Europe with much of its natural…
Europe
04.06.2019
US War on Huawei is a War on Tech Sovereignty
Unable to compete on equal terms with Chinese telecom giant Huawei, the United States and the corporations that influence its domestic and foreign policy have decided instead to simply cut Huawei off from its many monopolies including chip manufacturing and mobile phone operating systems. But US measures come at a time when Huawei is already well on its…
Eastern Asia - China
31.05.2019
Do We Face a Global Food Disaster?
No, this is not at all an endorsement of the apocalyptic scenarios of AOC or that famous young Swedish climate expert, Greta. It is, however, a look at unusual weather disasters in several key growing regions from the USA to Australia, the Philippines and beyond that could dramatically affect food availability and prices in the coming year. That in turn could have major…
Russia in the World
26.05.2019
Are Rare Earths China’s Ultimate Weapon?
In the dramatic escalation of tariff escalations and trade war tensions between China and the USA, China President Xi Jinping made a well-timed visit to see the JL Mag Rare-Earth Company Ltd., a state-owned complex in Ganzhou. Though he did not openly threaten, he sent a clear psychological message to Washington that China has more weapons in its arsenal to pressure…
Eastern Asia - China
Society
17.06.2019
In Indonesian Borneo: Humiliate Native People, then Loot their Land
You will never read about it, but Dayak people, the “First Nation” of the enormous island of Borneo, are broken, robbed and brainwashed. “Unity in diversity” it says; the motto of Indonesia. But it could be argued that the opposite is true. There is very little unity, and less and less diversity, as…
Southeast Asia
16.06.2019
When the Deep State Controls Deep Thinking and Russophobia
As citizens interested in policy, we can learn a great deal from the quasi-academic studies on Russian foreign relations strategies. A cursory review of any English language archive of academic papers on Putin, Russia, or even the word “oligarch” will produce a score of experts with doctorates who “know” exactly what Russia and…
USA in the World
15.06.2019
US-backed Agitators Go "Missing" in Asia - Why?
The Western media along with multiple US and European funded “rights” groups have sounded the alarm over what they claim is a wave of assassinations and physical attacks on “activists.” The particular target of these claims is Thailand. Articles like the Sydney Morning Herald’s “‘They sent an assassination squad': Thai exiles speak of life in fear,” allege: The attacks on…
Southeast Asia
10.06.2019
ECHR Remains Happy to Do the Bidding of Western Special Interests
In recent years, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), just like the European Union and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have deviated from their initial principles, transforming in a tool for punishment of those disobedient states that would try to defy the so-called rules-based international order…
Europe
08.06.2019
YouTube and the War on Truth
As of June 2019, YouTube, owned by Google Corporation, with a long history of peddling “big data” to spy agencies and right-wing extremist groups, is going to “clean house.” Their claim, that they will remove all “hate speech” and unspecified other “objectionable material” is a huge threat against free speech around the world. You see, Google’s YouTube has actively molded a world of its own, financially partnering…
USA in the World
06.06.2019
North American, European Public: Finally Wake Up, Damn It!
Year after year, month after month, I see two sides of the world; two extremes which are getting more and more disconnected: I see great cities like Homs in Syria, reduced to horrifying ruins. I see Kabul and Jalalabad in Afghanistan, fragmented by enormous concrete walls intended to protect NATO occupation armies and their local puppets…
Europe
04.06.2019
How Lucky is Italy to Have Matteo Salvini?
The EU promise of equality in economics and justice for all is just not panning out. Nowhere is this more evident than in Italy, where new Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is fighting back at a system of unequal democracy. Salvini’s La Lega Party just smashed the doors in on the European banker’s stronghold on politics in the zone by snatching…
Europe
