North Korea is considered to be one of the poorest countries and many believe that it is behind the rest of the world in the IT sphere. But is this true? Mobile phone and computer penetration As of November 2019, there were 6 million mobile phones (on average costing $100-200) in use in the DPRK. But they cannot be used to make international calls. There are two telecommunication providers…
Politics
Eastern Asia - DPRK
31.03.2020
The Israeli-Indian Arms Deal
With Covid-19 dominating everyone’s thoughts and actions, it is also dominating the news media. At first glance, this would seem obvious. But is it? Clearly people need to be updated with the latest information about this killer virus, particularly when governments are trying to wreck lives and economies over it, and blaming their citizens for breathing rather than their own lack of preparation. But…
Southern Asia - India
31.03.2020
COVID and the Terror of Uncertainty
There are two worlds, in a way never before imagined, one of people and jobs, of life and experience, the other a shadowy world of deceit and terrorism. As the month of March 2020 comes to an end and April begins, the entire planet is being tested. As expected, as promised as any idiot might guess, political leadership has failed and the organizations intended…
USA in the World
31.03.2020
Terrorist Enclave Run by Mercenaries from Syria is being Created in Tunisia
Terrorists who have fled Idlib (in Syria), in part due to actions taken by Turkey, are dispersing throughout Africa thus posing a security threat to the entire North African region. Their numbers are especially high in Libya and Tunisia today. According to many commentators, Turkey, in its desire not to sacrifice its military personnel to protect its own…
Africa
30.03.2020
The Invisible Bug That Killed an Empire
The liberal world order is a shambles. The coronavirus pandemic will spell the end of full-spectrum dominance by Britain, the United States, and those in the European Union tethered so inextricably to the NATO alliance. A quote below from a Reuters report citing French President Emmanual Macron, it sums up the fall of the…
USA in the World
29.03.2020
Coronavirus: the Reactionaries from USA
Coronavirus is spreading to more and more countries and leaving an increasing number of deaths in its wake. It is about time experts and the common men asked legitimate questions: “Where did this deadly virus come from, in what laboratories was it created, and who is behind the pandemic?”. We will try to answer them as objectively as possible. The first country where…
USA in the World
28.03.2020
How can Russia, China, and the United States Change the World?
There are some serious changes taking place in the international order that has prevailed since the end of World War Two. After what has been almost three decades of Washington openly expressing its desire to establish a world order with a clear-cut US hegemony to serve its own interests, the policies of Russia and China have recently been…
Russia in the World
Economics
30.03.2020
Going Down with the Ship
The mightiest Empire ever to have existed is being brought down by a bug. Aesop had nothing to say about this, but someone out there will know whether the situation is unique. (I breathed a sigh of relief upon learning that the former British Foreign Secretary, one of the ubiquitous Cameron brothers, is heading the International Relief Center for the Corona Response in camps where refugees from…
USA in the World
27.03.2020
Covid-19 Hysteria Vs. Your Actual (Very Low) Chance of Dying
How likely are you to die from Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19)? Based on the hysteria spreading across the globe, it would seem like the chances are fairly high. But Statnews.com would report on the actual projected death rate of those who contract Covid-19 based on US Center for Disease Control (CDC) data, noting…
USA in the World
26.03.2020
Japan’s Nuclear Power Industry: a Bumpy Road after Fukushima
Japan is the third most economically developed country in the world and one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet. Up until 2011, it was also among the world’s leaders in nuclear power. There were 54 nuclear power reactors operating throughout the country that generated 30% of the energy consumed…
Eastern Asia - Japan
24.03.2020
Riyadh’s "Oil War" on Russia has some Global Objectives
The on-going Saudi ‘oil war’ with Russia has its roots in the logic of increasingly using natural resources for geo-political and geo-economic purposes. While this is not something entirely new, the latest push comes against the backdrop of increasing competition between the US and Russia for global leadership roles and the former’s attempts at forcing the latter out…
Russia in the World
24.03.2020
Only Hard Times Ahead for Saudi Arabia
The revenue generated by state-owned Saudi oil company Saudi Aramco accounts for up to 80% of the kingdom’s fiscal budget. The company did not hide its losses, and officially reported a decrease of $22.9 billion in net income in 2019, and there have also been serious spending cuts on development, i.e. on maintaining and increasing production. The report…
Middle East - Saudi Arabia
23.03.2020
Russian-Japanese Relations Developing Despite Dispute over the Kuril Islands
Relations between Russia and Japan are not all blue skies: the dispute over the Kuril Islands has hung over them like a dark cloud for many decades now, which is why two countries never signed a peace treaty after World War II. The most recent minor flare-up in tensions was in January 2020 in response to Japan’s National…
Russia in the World
16.03.2020
Is COVID-19 Devouring What’s Left of the Trump Presidency?
Does anyone remember the scene in the original film Jaws in 1975 when Captain Quint gets devoured by the shark? Well, the COVID-19 situation in the US makes me imagine Donald Trump being devoured by a gigantic coronavirus. Or perhaps, the shark’s role could be played by western mainstream media? Either way, there is some Trump munching going on. Whatever Hollywood special…
USA in the World
Society
31.03.2020
“The Russians are Coming”
“The Russians are coming”, a phrase allegedly uttered by US Secretary of Defense James Forrestal while suffering from mental illness in 1949, is still in use today by certain media outlets (at the behest of, as conspiracy theorists would say, American and British intelligence agencies). And recently, this “prophecy” has indeed come to pass. The author believes that demand for underground bunkers…
Russia in the World
30.03.2020
Will the Coronavirus be the Demise of the European Union?
More and more people have recently begun talking about the end of the European Union. Moreover, while many observers used to cite Brexit as a sign that the European Union is on the brink of collapse, it is now clear that Brexit was just one of many blows the EU has been dealt, which has been suffering with underlying problems since it was established…
Europe
25.03.2020
Covid 19: The Ultimate Foreign Affair
A media that justifies its failure to cover the world by claiming that Americans are ‘not interested’ in foreign affairs, now mocks Trump supporters for repeating his claim that Covid 19 is a ‘Chinese’ virus, a ‘foreign’ problem they need not worry about. It also criticizes China for having an authoritarian regime, WITHOUT admitting its superiority when it comes to meeting…
USA in the World
24.03.2020
It is Not China, but the Western World that should be Defined as the “Real Sick Man”
Not long ago, the Wall Street Journal insulted China, calling it “the Real Sick Man of Asia”. China retaliated, and then the U.S. counter-retaliated. Emotions have been running high, journalists got deported. Suddenly, various Chinese officials expressed publicly what many in both China and Russia have been, for weeks, articulating…
Eastern Asia - China
23.03.2020
WaPo Admits Crimeans Are Happy Russians
The Washington Post – an inveterate keystone of US foreign policy propaganda – made a surprising admission recently. The people of Crimea – allegedly “annexed” by the Russian Federation – are vastly satisfied under Moscow’s governance. The Washington Post article titled, “Six years and $20 billion in Russian investment later, Crimeans are happy with…
Russia in the World
20.03.2020
The Age of Anxiety Redux
In 1948 the poet, W.H. Auden, published a long poem he titled, The Age of Anxiety, in which four characters express their anxiety about their place in a world that has been destroyed by two world wars and was threatened by a third, and nuclear, world war. He described the faces in the bars, the people trying to cling to average days that no longer existed, all hoping that the lights wouldn’t go out, that the music…
Europe
20.03.2020
Information Pandemic over the Coronavirus
The number-one topic making the news today and being discussed by the general public all around the world is the development of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, and the impact this epidemic will have on the economy and international relations in general. Perhaps one of the most hopeful messages to be heard in the international news thus…
Europe
