• A New War in the Middle East in Perspective

    by Babak KHANDANI

    Nevertheless, if I were in the place of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and his President, Rouhani, I would not be so relieved because two things inevitably await the Iranian regime: The collapse of the World economy War with Saudi Arabia Let’s examine these two outlooks in sequence. The crash of 2022 President Trump had better leave his seat to his rival without delay, as the man who will occupy the White House in September 2022 will bear full responsibility for the systemic collapse of the World economy starting on that date. This crash is inevitable, yet the economic, social and monetary policies of the Democrats will not help. Throughout the year 2021 governments, including those of the most industrialised countries, will do everything possible to keep their economies in a state of artificial life support. But massive injections of cash will eventually finish off the sick, much like those suffering from septicaemia who (...)

  • ADB Assesses Economic Losses in Kazakhstan

    Interfax-Kazakhstan (IK) — Mr. Capannelli, in your opinion, what is the difference of the current crisis from the crises in 2008 and 2015? Giovanni Capannelli Country Director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) , Kazakhstan Resident Mission. Giovanni Capannelli (GC) — The crisis we are facing, in Kazakhstan and globally, is of a different nature from previous economic and social crises we experienced in recent times. While the 2008-09 global financial crisis originated from subprime real estates and toxic assets in banks’ portfolios and the 2014-15 crisis was induced by the lowering of commodity prices and economic slowdown in major trading partners, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is of a more fundamental nature as it affects human (...)

  • Asia Is Lying

    by Babak KHANDANI

    In our pseudo-scientific age, numbers and statistics are truths in themselves. It is sufficient for any organization to publish any data to be taken up as the gospel word and repeated indiscriminately. These repetitions simply amplify the pseudo-truths of the initial ineptitude to the point where challenging them would be like challenging the laws of physics. As far as I am concerned, fortunately God has given me a brain and put a certain amount of intelligence into it in order to refuse accepting anything that contradicts the rules of logic and the laws of nature, no matter how much the Lord Himself says so. Either the Chinese and other Asians have found a cure for COVID-19 and are keeping it jealously to themselves, or they are (...)

  • What Erdogan Wants

    by Babak KHANDANI

    So Turkey seems to be a safe haven, and its leader could therefore have his hands free for his Ottoman adventures by attacking both Russia (through Syria) and Europe (through Greece). Or maybe things are going very badly for Erdogan and he would have only one solution to save himself from bankruptcy: robbery and blackmail. The coronavirus has one merit: it does not discriminate. Yellow, black, white, poor, rich, humble, powerful, it attacks them all without any racial, ethnic or social consideration. It is also deaf to propaganda and is incorruptible. He moves forward undisturbed by the gesticulations and the make-up of the figures that all have been used to for decades. Indeed, the cornavirus complies only with the natural laws of (...)

  • Iran as Central Asia’s Hub

    by James M. DORSEY

    Rahmon, President of Tajikistan Torn between a desire for secularity and an Islamic reality. Saudi Arabia may have been getting more than it bargained for when authorities in Khujand, Tajikistan’s second largest city, ordered that the city’s largest and most popular mosque be converted into a cinema. The order followed the closure of some 2,000 mosques in the country in the last three years and the arrest last month of scores of Muslim clerics and teachers, many of whom were accused of being members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that is banned in both Tajikistan and the kingdom. Fewer men sport beards in Tajikistan after being (...)

  • The World after 2019-nCoV

    by Nazar TAMASHEVSKA

    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 (...)

  • Coronavirus and Central Asia

    by Babak KHANDANI

    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 in the Persian Gulf region in general”, he stressed. Slutsky is certain that Washington’s statements regarding (...)

  • Eurasia’s Great Game

    by James M. DORSEY

    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 year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, then US defence secretary Jim Mattis dismissed fears first voiced in 1997 by Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of America’s greatest 20th century strategists who advised US presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter, that long-term US interests would be most threatened by a “grand coalition” of China and Russia “united not by ideology but by complimentary grievances.” On (...)

  • The Peace Puzzle

    by Mohammad Mahdi ZAKI

    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 pursued their political goals in accordance with the Afghanistan Constitution. The Taliban rejected Karzai’s overtures and responded with renewed campaign against the government. The National Unity Government under Ashraf Ghani made a peace offer to the Taliban that included recognition of the group as a political party, the removal of sanctions, release of prisoners, and a review of the constitution. (...)

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