Andre Vltchek

They say he came from a humble background, and worked himself up the ranks, becoming, as many believe, the second most powerful man in Iran. They say he had the chance to become the next Supreme Leader of the country. Whenever I visit Iran, I am told how much he is loved by his people. He became the symbol of resistance against…

Once in a while, people ask me: “Why did you accept the US citizenship, many years ago?” “After all,” they say, “now you are one of the most vocal critics of the United States, and of the West in general.” Perhaps I never explained, or I did, some time ago, and now it is forgotten. So, let me try again, now that the world is facing destruction…

I constantly receive such letters; letters which repeat, again and again, year after year, basically the same thing: “If only we would have an opportunity to vote out our damn system!” Such letters, emails and messages keep coming to me from the United States, but also from the United Kingdom. Particularly, after certain events, like when the Western empire overthrows…

When visiting China, when working there regularly, things all of a sudden appear to be extremely familiar. I feel here like I did in Russia, during the end of the reign of Boris Yeltsin. Many people then, used to welcome everything European and North American with open arms. All that the Soviet Communists used to say was suddenly considered…

It is amazing how easily, without resistance, the Western empire is managing to destroy “rebellious” countries that are standing in its way. I work in all corners of the planet, wherever Kafkaesque “conflicts” get ignited by Washington, London or Paris. What I see and describe are not only those horrors which are taking place all around me; horrors that…

Good bye, Lebanon, metaphorically and truly. Good bye to a country which, many believe, actually has already ceased to exist. For five long years I have been commuting between the Asia Pacific and the Middle East.And Beirut, for all that time, was one of my homes. I arrived in Beirut when the situation in the region was beginning to be unbearable; when destabilized…

After my work in the Middle East had finished, at least for the time being, I was waiting for my flight to Santiago de Chile. In Paris. I could count on a few ‘free’ days, processing what I had heard and witnessed in Beirut. Day after day, for long hours, I sat in a lounge, typing and typing; reflecting and typing…

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…

There seems to be no limit to Qataris tossing around their wealth. This tiny kingdom with 2.6 million inhabitants is full of ridiculously lavish gold-plated palaces, most of them built with terrible taste. It is overflowing with Lamborghini racing cars and Rolls Royce limousines, and now, even with ludicrously wasteful air-conditioned sidewalks (cold air blows from below, into the 35C heat…

Tires are burning, smoke is rising towards the sky. It is October, the 18th day of the month, the capital city of Lebanon, in the past known as the “Paris of the East”, is covered in smoke. For years I was warning that the country governed by corrupt, indifferent elites, could not hold together, indefinitely. For all those five years when…

Almost all of the prominent US neocons have been madly snapping at everything and everybody who opposes the Western right-wing dogmas, be they Chinese or Russian leaders, local opposition figures, or, lately, even the Pope. Individuals like Steve Bannon, often greatly influence leaders like President Donald Trump…

At J. Nehru University, most students know about China and Russia only from the BBC, Reuters and other Western media outlets. Even those individuals who claim they belong to the left are not immune; influenced mainly by the British propaganda. It has been like this for years: usual confusion, all around India: tough nationalistic, even chauvinistic rhetoric…