Oriental Review

Blackwater Rebranded ‘Academi’ Wants Back in Iraq

By VOLTAIRE NETWORK

Say goodbye to Xe. The company formerly known as Blackwater — the world’s most infamous private security corporation — has jettisoned the name it chose in its 2009 rebrand and adopted the new name of “Academi.” The “security solutions provider” wants to wash away the taint of what came to be known as the Blackwater [...]

Continue reading...

Obama’s Byzantine Style in the ‘Greater Middle East’

By ORIENTAL REVIEW

For the last few years the incumbent US administration was getting adhered to a new, more sophisticated principle in foreign policy: to act overseas by means of its allies and to promote American initiatives as multilateral through the international organizations. Thus, the war against Libya was unleashed by France, and the US was carrying out [...]

Continue reading...

America Just Says No to the Rule of Law

By David KERANS (USA)

A society is in serious trouble when its political pariahs have at the core of their demands a return to the rule of law. This inversion, with our political and cultural outcasts demanding a respect for law, highlights the awful fact that the most radical and retrograde forces within the body politic {the Right—D.K.} have [...]

Continue reading...

Russia – India: Expecting Positive Changes to Come

By Andrei VOLODIN (Russia)

December 15 Prime Minister of India Doctor Manmohan Singh starts an official visit to Russia. As assumed the nature of business is to be emphasized: the leaders of two countries are to sign a number of agreements of long term nature. Further extension of cooperation in the field of nuclear energy (energy security tops the [...]

Continue reading...

Coup d’etat in Disguise: Washington’s “Democratization” Template

Irina LEBEDEVA (USA)

The “global” protest action for “just Russian elections” set for December 10 by its coordinators has started to encompass the European capitals and, as should be expected, the major US cities. I’m writing these lines from Boston. I can see here the “Fair vote” pages on the Facebook full of things like: “Anybody we have [...]

Continue reading...

Smashing Greater Central Asia (III)

By Peter CHAMBERLIN (USA)

Part I Part II Representatives from all of the secret agencies of the Stans, except for Turkmenistan, have come together in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to identify a common threat in Central Asia, emanating from a non-existent terrorist underground (SEE: Secret services say about the presence in Central Asia, domestic extremist underground). This consensus on a common [...]

Continue reading...

International Rating Agencies Back Up US Dollar

By Elena PUSTOVOITOVA (Russia)

Standard and Poor’s is warning that a credit rating downgrade might loom on the horizon for the EU as a whole, which is predictable news considering that 15 Eurozone countries have already ended up on the agency’s review list. The current round of hammering Europe is taking from the US rating agencies leaves little doubt [...]

Continue reading...

US Drug War Against Russia Waged From the Asian Foothold

By Nil NIKANDROV (Russia)

The US intelligence community launched its first drug attacks against Russia in the early 1990s, an epoch when drastic reforms were bleeding Russia’s law enforcement agencies and the borders of the formerly insulated country became easy to cross for envoys of Western drug cartels. The Russian customs and border-guard services which inherited from the Soviet [...]

Continue reading...

Karzai’s Loya Jirga

By Najmuddin A. SHAIKH (Pakistan)

President Karzai and his government hailed the Loya Jirga, a 2030 strong assemblage of parliamentarians and notables from across the country, as a great success. Certainly it could be deemed a success that the Taliban despite the threats they held out were not able to prevent participation nor were they able to launch any attacks [...]

Continue reading...

Egypt After «Revolution of January 25»

By Boris DOLGOV (Russia)

The first round of parliamentary elections in Egypt has been completed. The elections to the Egyptian parliament (the lower house or People’s Assembly and the upper house or the Shura Council – the Senate) are held in three rounds. First round: from November 28 till December 5, second round: from December 14 till December 21 [...]

Continue reading...

Cost of Intervention in Syria Rises

By M K BHADRAKUMAR (India)

The Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov’s statement today re-affirmed Moscow’s rejection of arms embargo against Syria. It comes on a day EU FMs met in Brussels and tightened the sanctions against that country. But what makes the Syrian situation rather interesting is that Moscow also let it be known today that it is [...]

Continue reading...

Washington’s European Strategy

By Pyotr ISKENDEROV (Russia)

The November 28 US-EU summit deserves to be called a milestone in the recent geopolitical history, considering that during the forum the US dictatorial handling of Europe was disguised so thinly for the first time since President Obama moved into the White House. Moreover, the US Administration openly cited its domestic-policy regards – the prospects [...]

Continue reading...