The cold war has never ended after the bifurcation of the former USSR rather it has taken a new shape by entering new players into the arena. The world has now converted from unipolar to multipolar world with the rising China. Along with other areas of the world the Middle East has become a new battlefield of cold war between America and China.
New report from Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime says the Western Balkans has become a key gateway for Russian cash to flow illicitly across borders thanks to the weak rule of law and high presence of orgnised crime there.
I recall vividly the latest NATO Summit that took place in Vilnius and was given a lot of coverage on the Russian TV. As a result of digesting daily news I can instantly visualise a huge gathering of Western politicians, military officials and diplomats.
The U.S. Empire has its iron rules, and you cannot expect that it doesn’t use its power to pursue its interests. But the means can vary a lot.
European media are fanning the flame of war in Ukraine, apparently unaware that it would happen in their courtyard. As with the Euro missiles crisis at the end of ’70, Washington is always delighted to sacrifice Europe, playing it against Russia. Informed to dead by too much news, the people are often unable to check the accuracy, especially when blatant propaganda depicts the sources as trustable by default.
Despite sanctions and efforts to curtail the Wagner Group’s illicit activity, the group has successfully evaded financial sanctions through a series of facilitators and front companies around the world.
$5 billion: That’s how much the Wagner Group has made since 2017 mainly from mining, illicit gold trade, and forestry business in Africa, as well as funding from the Russian state.
With geopolitical confrontation and tensions deepening, the key global players are swiftly turning their focus on Africa. In practical terms, African leaders are also making strategic choices based on their development paradigms. These leaders are forced to work on their election campaign promises, especially those relating to economic development and set comprehensive targets for improving performance. After the presidential terms, it is necessary to show success and achievements to the electorate as a guarantee for holding the high-political positions.
Opponents of the Kremlin, as well as independent political scientists, have rightfully emphasized the enduring ramifications of the Prigozhin’s rebellion, an event that has captivated attention in June 2023.
While experts believe that its impact will be enduring, the failed uprising has already provided a revealing glimpse into the evolving landscape of the legal framework in Russia. It has become evident that the once formidable criminal laws, often weaponized against perceived “enemies of the state,” are now nothing more than a facade. Today, the anti-terrorist statutes within the Criminal Code have proven ineffective against the rebel faction. In the near future, they will similarly fail to withstand the actions of ordinary activists who bravely display banners advocating for change in close proximity to the Kremlin.
The fundamental dogma of all brands of socialism and communism is that the market economy or capitalism is a system that hurts the vital interests of the immense majority of people for the sole benefit of a small minority of rugged individualists. It condemns the masses to progressing impoverishment. It brings about misery, slavery, oppression, degradation and exploitation of the working men, while it enriches a class of idle and useless parasites.
In the lead-up to his toughest election battle in two decades, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not hesitate to bash Western allies and principles, seeking to bolster support from conservative and nationalist voters and distract them from his dismal economic record in recent years.
My article “The Education of the Modern Socialist” deserves a follow-up. The first part showed that a change has occurred in the definition of “socialism”—a necessary change in view of the failures of this ideology during the last century. Socialism today is based on the ideology of “statism”—the conviction that the state must play a fundamental role in society. Ludwig von Mises’s wider definition of socialism as state intervention implies a modern social state that is involved in most if not all of the activities of society, whether commercial or not.