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The World after 2019-nCoV
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nCoV, the little troublemaker nobody anticipated... The trade agreement between China and the USA is about to become irrelevant due to a microscopic saboteur called the coronavirus 2019-nCoV. (Click to enlarge.) (© Satrapia) While international organizations such as the IMF, the OECD or the ADB are not commenting so much on the potentially devastating economic consequences of the pandemic for both China and the entire planet, no one is so naive as to believe that we could get out of this crisis without a scratch. World leaders, starting with Donald Trump, are trying to reassure people and markets to prevent uncontrollable panic attacks. They are counting on Beijing’s brutality to confine people and the virus, while keeping their fingers crossed that the epidemic will not reach their own countries. For once, China will not be blamed for being authoritarian. For my part, I side with Babak Khandani, who believes that as of January (...)
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Coronavirus and Central Asia
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For more than twenty years, China has been expanding its economic and physical presence in Central Asia, which, in addition to its mining and oil resources, is the only way to bypass the seas entirely dominated by the navies of Western countries. Black Death (Click to enlarge) The negligence of the Central Asian governments could serve as a breach for the virus to spread explosively to the rest of the World. Two countries in particular should be closely monitored: Afghanistan and Iran. There is no need to remind our well-informed readers of the presence of Chinese companies in Afghanistan, particularly in the exploitation of the (...) -
Russians Worried about Regime Change in Iran
Leonid Slutsky According to Slutsky, that was “a response to new US anti-Iranian sanctions and the EU’s inability to launch the promised financial mechanism to bypass them and compensate for losses from Washington’s policy to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero.” “The United States is pursuing an obvious objective: to force Iran to abandon the nuclear deal altogether and therefore push Europeans towards restoring the anti-Iranian package of restrictive measures under US control. The White House hopes to achieve a regime change in Tehran by re-imposing the US and EU sanctions, strengthening Iran’s political isolation and whipping up tensions (...)
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Eurasia’s Great Game
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The Russian fortress Albazin stormed by Manchu/Chinese Qing forces Qing dynasty siege of the Cossack fort of Albazin (1686) resulting in the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 xhich gave the land to China. (Click to enlarge) Zbigniew Brzezinski hosts a dinner for Chinese Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping 28 January 1979. (Click to enlarge) Addressing last (...) -
The Peace Puzzle
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The Peace Puzzle (PDF) Click to download the entire article in PDF format. (Best result on A4 sheet paper) President Hamid Karzai, by initiating the High Peace Council in 2010, offered the Taliban a peace deal, which included the removal of their names from terrorist blacklists, if they renounced ties with the al-Qaeda, abandoned violence, and (...)
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China’s Silk Road Economic Belt
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The Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) initiative put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his Central Asia visits in September 2013 is considered as one of the two diplomatic initiatives by the new Chinese leadership, with Central Asia the centrepiece of the Belt. Silk Road Economic Belt routes (Credit: kommersant.uz — Click to enlarge) The success of the SREB will to a large extent depend on how well Central Asian countries and the region’s dominant power, Russia, respond to China’s initiative. While official statements tend to suggest that all Central Asian (...) -
Economic Consequences of the US Withdrawal from the Nuclear Deal
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The Economic Consequences of the US Withdrawal from the Nuclear Deal (PDF) (Click to download) The Economic Consequences of the US Withdrawal from the Nuclear Dealn Murat Aslanr Center for Iranian Studies in Ankara — İRAM (September 2018) ISBN-13: 978-605-7559-02-9 Last May, Donald Trump announced the American withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, a decision that opens a period of great uncertainty on the international relations front. Concluded in 2015 in Vienna between the Islamic Republic and the so-called 5+1 group (China, France, Germany, Great (...) -
Do not Ride the Bomb
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Some reports said the victims included the personal facilities commander of the Revolutionary Guards in the Khuzestan region, as well as a Revolutionary Guard colonel and military personnel who were said to have fought on Syrian and Iraqi fronts. Although some attributed the attack to the separatist Al-Ahwaz (الأحواز) organization, carried out by a sympathetic group who published videos of the supposed perpetrators, but no further details on how the attack was carried out was given, neither whether the attackers came to Iran from neighbouring countries or from within Iran (...)
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