Category: ENGLISH

It has now come out that what likely caused the near-meltdown of the financial system in September 2019, avoided only by the Fed “nationalization” of the repo market, was the blowout of a $2.7 billion credit derivative contract owned by insolvent tour operator Thomas Cook. The latter filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection on Sept. 16, triggering a general panic […]

In his first speech in the Bundestag as Germany’s Economy and Climate Minister, Robert Habeck of the Greens confirmed his ideologically-driven agenda. In view of rising energy prices, he said, Germany must become less dependent on raw material imports, and to achieve this, renewable energies from wind and sun would have to be expanded much faster than planned. He blamed […]

Following the attempt to launch to launch a regime change operation in Kazakstan earlier this month, much more information has emerged on how the international operation worked (cf. SAS 2/22). Once the popular protests, originally directed against soaring gasoline prices, turned violent, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev quickly called on the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to help quell the well-prepared […]

China kicked off its diplomatic activity for the new year, as is traditional, in Africa. This year, it began with the “Initiative of Peaceful Development in the Horn of Africa,” a region plagued by civil war, terrorism and a humanitarian catastrophe. The policy was presented by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his four-day visit to Eritrea, […]

At an event in Damascus last week, Syria announced its participation in the Belt and Road Initiative through a memorandum of understanding signed by Syrian Planning and International Cooperation Authority Chair Fadi al-Khalil and the Chinese Ambassador to Syria, Feng Biao. The agreement follows Xi Jinping’s phone call with Syrian President Assad in November, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s trip […]

This week began with the first of a dense schedule of strategic discussions between high-level officials of the Russian government and Western powers. Unfortunately, but not so surprisingly, during and after the U.S.-Russia meetings in Geneva on Jan. 10–11, concerning NATO expansion in Eastern Europe and the Ukraine crisis, the personal diplomacy between Presidents Biden and Putin which seemed to […]

In 2019, the RAND Corporation, which is a major component of the U.S. military-industrial complex, published a report titled Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground, which offers a sort of updated gameplan on how to destabilize and weaken Russia. The website Moon of Alabama devoted an article to the report on Jan. 6 in the context of the riots ongoing […]

Following the publication on Jan. 5 of the protocols of the last Federal Reserve Board meeting in December, during which several board members pointed to the seriousness of the inflation wave, financial media and institutions are speculating about an interest rate increase soon, perhaps in Spring. Such a move would have a similar effect on the financial system as cutting […]

Power blackouts, albeit on relatively small and local or regional scales, have become a daily pattern in many European countries over the past years. They were caused, to a large extent, by so-called “repercussion disturbances” triggered by problems in coordinating calculable flows of electricity or gas between the hundreds of different operators in the grid. Before the European Commission’s first […]

Could it be just a coincidence that a little over one week before the beginning of a crucial round of strategic talks between Russia and the West, starting Jan. 10, violent protests broke out in Kazakhstan? That is hard to believe, especially given the strategic importance of this Central Asian nation. The events began with boisterous but peaceful demonstrations, most […]