28 July 2012 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Fight in Mountainous Badakhshan
27.07.2012 | 09:52 | Aleksandr SHUSTOV
By the end of July the situation in the Mountaneous Badakhshan (Gorno-Badakhshan) autonomous region abruptly exacerbated. Gordo-Badakhshan is a highland area in the south-eastern part of Tajikistan, making up almost a half (45%) of the territory… In response to the killing of Abdullo Nazarbaev, special services General, the authorities launched a military operation to eliminate the criminal organization responsible for the crime… The fact that there were armed people from Afghanistan taking part in hostilities evokes special concern… The events make remember that the dividing of Tajikistan along ethnic and religious lines after the 1997 peace accords still tells, the existing divisions may be rather easily be used to destabilize the country… The further conflict escalation is not excluded.
Prospects for a Populist Comeback in Honduras Worry the US Intelligence Community
27.07.2012 | 00:00 | Nil NIKANDROV
A friend of mine, a Mexican journalist who often criticizes the US over its untamed ambitions in Latin America, recently shared with me a printout listing the staff of the US embassy in Honduras. Many of the names were marked up to identify members of the US intelligence community or those who work for the Pentagon. In my friend’s words, Americans appear hyperactive in Honduras these days even compared to the 1980ies epoch when Washington used the country as a Latin American foothold in an extensive anti-guerrilla campaign. The US objectives at the moment are not deeply hidden: populists are regaining weight in Honduras, ousted president M. Zelaya is clearly bracing for a comeback, and the Empire’s response strike is only a question of when and where…
Cuba: to Preserve the Gains of Revolution
26.07.2012 | 09:54 | Nil NIKANDROV
On July 26 1953 in the morning a group of revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro stormed the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba. The first attack against the Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship failed, but a signal to start fighting the regime was sounded… The guerilla war ended up in a triumphant march of the insurgents coming to Havana on January 1 1959… The economic blockade of the island led by Washington was a demonstration of reprisal against the “communist regime” aimed to incite hunger rebellions and counterrevolution. No way. The Fidel’s team was staunch… The US policy aimed at international isolation of Cuba has long ago failed without fame. The evidence – the annual voting in the United Nations on the issues of economic blockade imposed by the United States. Actually only the USA and Israel vote for it…
UN and Balkans: Crisis of Genre (II)
26.07.2012 | 00:00 | Pyotr ISKENDEROV
The major objective of the European structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a lot more complicated than strengthening the self-proclaimed statehood in Kosovo. There is an attempt to make three peoples: the Muslims, the Serbs and the Croats – live in one state, something they perceive quite differently. The Islamist aggressive behavior, the Croatian nationalism fuelled by Zagreb, the bugaboo of Great Serbian threat invented by the West – all these factors aggravate the situation there…
The Case of Iranian Diplomat and the Western Double Standards
25.07.2012 | 09:28 | Kourosh ZIABARI
The splendid concepts of human rights, international law, freedom and democracy can easily become the subject of mockery and derision by the Western propaganda and misinformation machinery overnight when these principles are going to be applied to countries like Iran…
London Olympics Jeopardized?
25.07.2012 | 00:00 | Igor IGNATCHENKO
The chilling Rockefeller Foundation report published in May 2010 has added anxiety concerning the prospects of the Olympics-2012. According to its predictions the terror acts would take place during the event. The document called «The Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development» says on page 34 that: «The years 2010 to 2020 were dubbed «the doom decade» for good reason: the 2012 Olympic bombing, which killed 13000, followed closely by the earthquake in Indonesia killing 40000, a tsunami that almost wiped out Nicaragua, and the onset of the Wet China Famine caused by a once-in-a-milleneum drought linked to climate change». Taking into consideration the forecast ascribed to David Rockefeller the document states: «All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order».
UN and Balkans: Crisis of Genre (I)
24.07.2012 | 09:58 | Pyotr ISKENDEROV
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon started an unprecedented Balkans tour on July 20 coming straight from China. In a week – till July 26 – he’s to visit Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and the Serbian region of Kosovo unrecognized as an “independent nation” neither by Serbia, nor by Russia, as well as many other states… Since 1999 the United Nations policy in the Balkans has become a hostage of the NATO military operation against Yugoslavia that pushed it to the sidelines of regional political processes… Moreover, as the classified documents that have been made public show, it is Ban Ki-moon who was at the origin of the self-proclaimed independence of Kosovo…
Syria Fighting Off Terrorism
24.07.2012 | 00:00 | Boris DOLGOV
The July 18 terrorist attack in Damascus marked the opening of a new phase in spiraling Syrian crisis…The strengthening of the Russian military presence in the region is of key importance at the moment. It would be a timely move to reinforce the military facilities Russia maintains in Syria‘s Tartus, perhaps to the point of converting them into a full-scale military base to be used to ensure the permanent Russian military presence in Syria and the wider Mediterranean region…
Hissen Habre Trial: “Extradite or Prosecute”
23.07.2012 | 00:00 | Alexander MEZYAEV
On July 20 the UN International Court of Justice ruled on the case of former President of the Republic of Chad Hissen Habre, who is in exile in Senegal. According to the ruling this country must either extradite him to Belgium or begin trial proceedings immediately… Africa is refused the right to consider its cases independently…Finally, the so called “universal jurisdiction” is given green light. The July 20 precedent lays down a foundation for “punishment” of one state by any other even if the last one has no relation to the case.
Assad Family Has Been in the U.S. Cross-Hairs for Decades
22.07.2012 | 09:14 | Wayne MADSEN
…Bashar al-Assad and the assassinated Syrian intelligence chief Asef Shawkat, like the deceased Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, faced coordinated action by the United States, NATO, and Israel to topple their regimes. The lesson for any leader, democratic or otherwise, and including the Assads; Saddam Hussein; Hosni Mubarak and his intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who died during medical “tests” in Cleveland within hours of the bomb assassination of Shawkat in Damascus; Qaddafi; and Manuel Noriega is that one plays with fire and their own lives any time they make a deal with the CIA and an American president…
Sui Generis? Comments on Indian Foreign Policy
22.07.2012 | 06:13 | Andrei VOLODIN
Which Indian political institution is finally responsible for foreign policy? Isn’t there some “non-constitutional center of power” hidden from public view in the bowels of “the world’s largest democracy” that has been gradually but irreversibly revising the foreign policy strategy of the “Nehru course”? Naturally it is being done under the guise of “updating” or “making it more relevant to the realities of the XXI century”…
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The New Dark Age 