Hussein Askary, chairman of the European Labor Party in Sweden, has for years discussed water development projects across the Mideast and North Africa with engineers, development experts, and political leaders. In an interview with Ramtanu Maitra, Askary said, “The existing and expanding deserts are the greatest obstacles to economic development in those reg...
The Greek crisis is moving toward a climax. The issue is actually quite simple. The Greek government owes a great deal of money to European institutions and the International Monetary Fund. It has accumulated this debt over time, but it has become increasingly difficult for Greece to meet its payments. If Greece doesn’t meet these payments, the IMF and Europ...
A recent month-long stay in Paris brought back to my mind a prophetic book penned in 1947 by the illustrious conservative thinker and author George Bernanos, entitled La France contre les Robots, which predicted many aspects of the present situation, characterized by the growing control of society by global finance served by ever more powerful and sophistica...
After the fall of the Soviet Union, former US president and one-time Cold Warrior Richard Nixon devoted the last few remaining years of his life to ensuring that Russia found its proper place in the international community. Nixon advised then-president Bill Clinton on the proper way to deal with the Russian Federation, the internationally-recognized successo...
At a time when China is busy in extending its ‘String of Pearls’ in the Indian Ocean with an intention to encircle India, New Delhi has worked out an alternate strategy to checkmate Chinese ambition by inviting Trans-Atlantic powers in the region. President Xi Jinping on his recent visit to Pakistan signed a $46 billion agreement for 3,000 km China-Pakistan ...
India is not a water-short nation. Monsoon rains and ice-melt of the Himalayan glaciers during summer provide its rivers with more than adequate water; and yet, millions of Indians, mostly women, spend the greater part of their daily lives procuring water manually from a distance, to enable their families to survive. This condition is intolerable, and...
I’m not a well-known Romani figure and I’m not particularly well-educated, but with news this month of a new Romani initiative – the European Roma Institute – I’ve come to understand something: I am not just Romani (Roma, Roma Gypsy, Gypsy); I am an embodiment of all that needs fixed within Europe; I am a political statement. It has also become clear,...
As it is almost certain that Netaji Subhas Bose lived in Siberia at the mercy of Josef Stalin and his heirs (most likely died/killed in 1956), it seems apt to recall Osip Mandelstam’s musing if a man would ever find the courage to look into the eyes of the epoch and glue together the vertebrae of two centuries with his blood (poem The Age, 1922,...
Twelve Years Later, We Know the Winner in Iraq: Iran
The US is running around in circles in the Middle East, patching together coalitions here, acquiring strange bedfellows there, and in location after location trying to figure out who the enemy of its enemy actually is. The result is just what you’d expect: chaos further undermining whatever’s left of the...
When a group of weary diplomats announced a framework for an Iranian nuclear accord last week [2 April-ed] in Lausanne, there was one diplomat in the mix whose feigned enthusiasm was hard to miss. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov left the talks at their most critical point March 30, much to the annoyance of US Secretary of State John Kerry, who apparen...
It is pretty clear that the chances of peace, which were always tiny, are getting worse and worse by the day. I personally never believed that the Minsk-2 Agreement (M2A) would be implemented by the Kiev junta and I am not in the least surprised. The most what the junta could do was to withdraw some (not even most!) of its heavy weapons and then bring news...
Hillary Clinton has announced her candidacy for President of the United States. While the European press showers her with praise without thinking, Webster G. Tarpley recalls her balance sheet: in all circumstances, she supported war and corporate interests.
As the National Journal reported in 2014, even the pathetically weak anti-war left is not ready to re...
In the recent days there has been considerable furore on the issue of the return of Kashmiri Hindus inside the J&K Legislative Assembly and outside on the streets of Srinagar valley. The separatists in the valley are orchestrating violence on the streets, raising slogans against the central government’s move to build exclusive housing colonies for ousted Hin...
The recent interim deal with Iran and the western powers has given the country a chance to come out of its economic isolation. Tehran has been facing a series of sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council since 2006, on the basis of IAEA reports relating to its non-compliance with its safeguards agreement under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Further...
This article was published by The Pioneer, New Delhi, on 16 January 2001. Given the new interest in the Netaji mystery, we are reproducing it below.
Amartya Sen’s ill-conceived decision to lend the glamour of his Nobel Prize to bolster the vested interests of Leftist historians and politicians at the recent Indian History Congress in Calcutta, served only t...
Cold War 2.0, part I: In last month’s Anti-Empire Report I brought you the latest adventure of US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki trying to defend the indefensible. She said then: “As a matter of longstanding policy, the United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means,” which prompted me to inform my readers: “If you ...
The edit page of The Hindu is a far cry from the shouters of Times Now but there too punditry can be misleading noise. The latest case in point is Suhasini Haidar’s analysis of “The West and its flawed anti-IS strategy” published appropriately enough on 1 April.
Here are some of its errors:
1] Throughout the piece there are references to “the West,” as if ...
The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became very uneasy when the Yemenese or Yemenite movement of the Houthi or Ansarallah (meaning the supporters of God in Arabic) gained control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa/Sana, in September 2014. The US-supported Yemenite President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi was humiliatingly forced to share power with the Hout...
“Whoever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean would be a prominent player on the international scene.” (US Navy Geostrategist Rear Admiral Alfred Thayus Mahan, 1840-1914)
The Yemeni archipelago of Socotra in the Indian Ocean is located some 80 kilometres off the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres south of the Yemeni coastline. The islands of Socotr...
Article 25 of the Indian Constitution guarantees its citizen the right to practice and propagate their religion. It doesn’t mean total destruction of the other man’s religion or non-hierarchical unorganized religions. This right is not conferred only to a particular religion; it is applicable irrespective of all religions and religious practices of India. It...
In today’s multipolar world several key actors are engaged in defining their spheres of influence. The two main pillars in this game of evolving geo-politics are trade and security. While geo-politics is the driving force, geo-economics is being designed to be its base. A number of mega regional trade arrangements (RTAs) are being floated by the main actors....
Inclement weather has wreaked havoc on the winter harvest in large parts of northern India, aggravating rural indebtedness, triggering farmer suicides, and ending the period of quiescence that follows the ascent of a new regime. Prime Minister Narendra Modi acknowledged as much when he dwelt on farmers’ issues at the Bengaluru rally and national executive...
Last week [ended March 31- ed], a coalition of predominantly Sunni Arab countries, primarily from the Arabian Peninsula and organized by Saudi Arabia, launched airstrikes in Yemen that have continued into this week. The airstrikes target Yemeni al-Houthis, a Shiite sect supported by Iran, and their Sunni partners, which include the majority of military force...
Then came the direct attack on Russia in the form of intervention in Chechnya by the Saudi-British-Pakistan combo. One of the key figures in this was Ibn al-Khattab, a collaborator of Osama bin Laden. Ibn al-Khattab, whose real name was Samir bin Salakh al-Suwailim, often referred to as Emir Khattab or simply Khattab, is a key player in the...
Following West’s successful campaign in defeating the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s with the help of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, Britain and Pakistan, with the tacit approval of the United States, began to weaken Russia to break up the Federation further. The weapon they chose to use in their...
The role of ethnic Caucasian fighters in Syria, and their subsequent contribution in helping the other Islamic State (IS) fighters to secure and control a large swath of Syrian and Iraqi land under Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been documented. A large number of analysts, experts and observers have reported on their superior fighting abilities. Ilya Rog...
Brussels may not be willing to oblige India by inviting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as it is perturbed over the delay in rendering justice to two Italian marines who allegedly shot down two Indian fishermen in the country’s waters. But France and Germany have taken a different view and are set to welcome the Indian Prime...
I have been around for a long time and have experienced more than most. The current situation in my experience is the most dangerous time of all for humanity. Nuclear weapons are no longer restrained by the Cold War MAD doctrine. Washington has released them into pre-emptive first strike form. The targets of these pre-emptive strikes – Russia and China – kno...