The fate of the ASEAN Plus Six project has become a key issue at the annual ASEAN summits, the latest of which was held in Bangkok in early November. The proposed project would see the formation of the world’s largest free trade zone, made up of the Association’s 10 Southeast Asian member states (ASEAN itself), plus partner states…
Politics
Southeast Asia
13.11.2019
Israel’s Political Soap Opera Stains Rabin Assassination Memorial
After drifting for weeks in dead end attempts to form a new government, the Israeli political drama sunk to an even lower partisan level. Past decorum could not even be maintained at the solemn service of the murdered Prime Minister Rabin, where even the Rabin family jumped into the fray, not to be denied their moment at the microphone…
Middle East - Israel
13.11.2019
Yemen: A Beleaguered Saudia Opting for a ‘Political Solution’?
While originally a war waged by a Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis, Yemen quickly turned into a war being fought as much between the Houthis and the coalition as within the coalition itself, particularly between Saudi Arabi and the UAE. Mutually conflicting interests within the coalition rather than the alleged Iranian support for the Houthis were…
Middle East - Saudi Arabia
13.11.2019
USA Bolsters Anti-Chinese Efforts in the Indo-Pacific
In response to China’s increasing political and economic clout in the region of South Asia, Washington has intensified its efforts to promote its concept of the free and open Indo-Pacific. Donald Trump’s administration has borrowed this expression from Prime Minister of Japan Shinzō Abe, who described his vision for the Indo…
Eastern Asia - China
12.11.2019
BC: The American Shakedown
The American shake down of its allies continues as President Trump and his Defence Minister, James Mattis attend the NATO summit in Brussels on July 11. The Americans are once again complaining that their allies in the NATO war machine don’t contribute enough to NATO, meaning the US, to fight America’s wars. Trump is really saying in so many words…
USA in the World
12.11.2019
CSTO Strengthens Military Brotherhood
Challenges and threats facing the world today, first and foremost linked with international terrorism, are forcing all the nations to increasingly concern themselves with issues of security and military cooperation with their partners. Countries in South Asia and the Middle East where international terrorist units are particularly active pose an immediate and direct…
Russia in the World
12.11.2019
US is the Source of, Not "Solution" to Syrian War
After the supposed US “withdrawal” from Syria – Western media outlets have causally reported on US troops now preparing to occupy Syria’s oilfields east of the Euphrates River. Articles include carefully selected “experts” who avoid any mention of how illegal or indefensible the presence of US forces in Syria is to begin with, let alone any mention of “why” US…
Middle East - Syria
Economics
14.11.2019
From Legos to Rockets: Technology is Disrupting Western Monopolies
At first glance the Danish toy company Lego doesn’t seem to have much to do with paradigm shifts in technology. Yet a recent incident illustrates the march forward of modern technology and the threat it poses to not only well-established but inflexible companies like Lego, but to entire industries and their collective impact on global…
USA in the World
09.11.2019
Russian Helicopters Conquer the Southeast Asian Region
Russia is known for its aviation, helicopter technology in particular. Russian helicopters are popular in many countries. According to Russian Helicopters (a holding company that unites Russian firms specializing in helicopter-building), more than a hundred countries, besides Russia itself, utilize over 8,000 helicopters constructed in…
Russia in the World
08.11.2019
Russia’s Short March to Food Security
When I wrote my China’s long march to total food security NEO article last month, I had intended to dovetail it with Russia’s accomplishment of being more self-dependent on feeding its people. What they both shared was having to deal with US sanctions before they reached their goal. While China’s sanctions came compliments of Mr. Trump, Russia…
Russia in the World
06.11.2019
Is Russia Right About US Shale Energy?
In recent remarks to a Pennsylvania shale oil producers’ convention, US President Donald Trump, noting the spectacular growth in shale gas as well as shale oil over the past decade, remarked that unconventional shale energy had made “America the greatest energy superpower in the history of the world…
USA in the World
06.11.2019
Russia and South Korea: a Promising Partnership
The Republic of Korea (ROK) is one of Asian Dragons, i.e. the four nations in Asia whose economies, industrial sectors and research and technology spheres developed rapidly during the second half of the 20th century. Once the Cold War ended, the ROK launched its Northern Policy aimed at forging closer ties with North Korea…
Russia in the World
04.11.2019
BC: Drive to Replace Russian Gas Supplies to EU Intensifies
The US is intensifying its efforts to replace Russia as one of the EU’s largest energy suppliers, hoping to provide gas from the US itself to Europe, in addition to exploring regional players as possible suppliers. As Sputnik reported in an article titled: US will be Able to Supply Gas to Ukraine in Two Years…
Europe
03.11.2019
Nord Stream 2 Crosses the Danish Finish Line
‘With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half’…Otto von Bismark, Prussian statesman Nord Stream 2 got the green flag from the Danish government to connect with the landing station at Lubmin, Germany. The decision was melodramatic from the Danes, with a route just outside its territorial waters…
Europe
Society
13.11.2019
BC: The French 9/11: Reasons and Lessons
The policy of double standards and blatant hypocrisy of the European Union have led to what would have happened sooner or later – international terrorism striking back in the center of civilized world – Paris. On November 13, terrorists launched 7 separate attacks in the French capital, that claimed the lives of over 150 people. The attack in the Bataclan…
Europe
12.11.2019
Abandoning Jakarta, Moving Capital to Borneo – Cynicism, Corruption, Murder
It is wrong, totally wrong to abandon Jakarta and try to build some Potemkin village in the middle of Borneo, an island known in Indonesia as Kalimantan. There are many reasons why, and we will be addressing at least some of them here. But before we begin, let us state the obvious: the cowardly and…
Southeast Asia
11.11.2019
Building a Lasting Peace in Yemen by Getting Ahead of the Generational Gap
While Yemen remains locked in a grand political dispute, its people bound by the competing ambitions of various factions and militias as they each argue power, legitimacy, and righteous politics, it is likely that peace will require more than a coming together of those warring parties … Peace as it were, will…
Middle East - Yemen
10.11.2019
November 8th, 1989
Around eight o’clock on November 8th, 1989, I stepped into a taxi at the Gare de Lyon in Paris carrying the first copies of a book I had written that included a plan for the reunification of Europe. I gave the driver my address, annoyed that he had the radio on. Suddenly, I heard the newscaster saying that the Berlin Wall had fallen! Before climbing up to my fifth…
Europe
10.11.2019
Stick a Fork in Detente: We’re Just About Done
Our world is burning down around us, but we’re so accustomed to smoke and flames we only feel the heat warming us. Every day for a decade now I’ve researched and analyzed the media, geopolitics and public relations, and I’ve decided we cannot save Earth. For a moment there was hope. The defiant strength of Russia’s…
USA in the World
09.11.2019
Why America is a Threat?
The announcement in October 2019 that the United States was “keeping” Syria’s oil for itself, opened the eyes of millions of Americans blinded by 20 years of absolute censorship, total propaganda and political turmoil. What became clear is that the US government itself has no ability to trade in oil, it runs no refineries, owns no gas stations, no pipelines. The oil was going…
USA in the World
07.11.2019
From Occupy to Yellow Vests in Tahrir’s Around the World
With not enough jobs or basic necessities to go around, governments survive by looting, and populations demand self-rule. That’s easier said than done, when governments have a monopoly on force, and violence turns those who are managing against protests. Ever since the founding of the United States of America, struggling populations around…
USA in the World
