Putin Warns the US and Draws a Line in the Sand

State sovereignty and territorial integrity are fundamental values. However, the very notion of state sovereignty is being washed away. Countries that conduct an independent policy or that simply stand in the way of US interests…

Foundation of the US Empire: Axes of Evil

Empires are not easy to sustain given the multiple enemies that they provoke: at the international level (imperial rivals and emerging new powers), at the national level (national resistance movements, unreliable clients and untrustworthy ‘Sepoy’…

It's Putin's Missile! Because CIA Said So

And here’s the spin war verdict: the current Malaysia Airlines tragedy – the second in four months – is “terrorism” perpetrated by “pro-Russian separatists”, armed by Russia, and Vladimir Putin is the main culprit. End of story. Anyone who believes otherwise, shut up. Why? Because the CIA said so. Because Hillary “We came, we saw, he died” Clinton said so. Because batshit crazy Samantha “R2P” Power said so – thundering at the UN, everything duly printed by the neo-con infested Washington Post. [1] Because Anglo-American corporate media – from CNN to Fox (who tried to buy Time Warner, which owns CNN) – said so. Because the President of the United States (POTUS) said so. And mostly because Kiev had vociferously said so in the first place.

BRICS against Washington Consensus: Death Sentence for the Neoliberalism?

The headline news is that this Tuesday in Fortaleza, northeast Brazil, the BRICS group of emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) fights the (Neoliberal) World (Dis)Order via a new development bank and a reserve fund set up to offset financial crises. The devil, of course, is in the details of how they’ll do it. It’s been a long and winding road since Yekaterinburg in 2009, at their first summit, up to the BRICS’s long-awaited counterpunch against the Bretton Woods consensus – the IMF and the World Bank – as well as the Japan-dominated (but largely responding to US priorities) Asian Development Bank (ADB). The BRICS Development Bank – with an initial US$50 billion in capital – will be not only BRICS-oriented, but invest in infrastructure projects and sustainable development on a global scale. The model is the Brazilian BNDES, which supports Brazilian companies investing across Latin America. In a few years, it will reach a financing capacity of up to $350 billion.

Jordan Kingdom of Shadows and Submissiveness

“A brilliant place for shopping”, a European expatriate, a U.N. expert living in Amman, tells me. “I get here anything I want. Life is good…” “We have no water”, laments a Bedouin refugee, embracing his…

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: Bin Laden Won

Osama Bin Laden’s goal in 9/11 was to suck the US into Afghanistan and Iraq, sparking a regional conflagration that would sweep away the imperial legacy and establish a new caliphate. Over a decade later,…