Regardless of the overlapping of terms, whether the region in question is called West Asia or the Middle East, we can say that West Asia is a region that can be defined as an area where states believe they have a particularly close set of relations due to history, culture, and geography. It consists of the states of the Arab League plus Iran and Egypt, with some states belonging to more than one region.

As for Israel, although it belongs to the West Asian region and part of the Middle East geographically, it is closer to Europe politically and culturally; it has connections to European countries and takes part in European events.

West Asia enjoys an important geostrategic location, linking East and West by land and sea, includes the most important international waterways, and holds an economic and political weight in the world.

It has remained at the heart of global security concerns throughout the last decades and has multiple disputes, often with significant involvement from outside powers. Since 2010, at least 7 countries in the region used military force in combat on their own territory, and 11 used it on the territory of other countries.

West Asia is the only region of the world that does not have an inclusive regional security system. Attempts to create such a system have always foundered on the regions myriad tensions and complexities. For that, the issue of security and stability in the region constitutes an urgent and critical question in one of the most turbulent regions in the world, where chaos enhances the security dilemma, due to the complex relations among regional powers, external intervention, and lack of trust between the political players.

The question then is whether the dramatic events that have occurred in the region in the past few years made the current moment ripe, at least, for beginning a process of establishing a comprehensive security system. Much has changed since the so-called Arab Spring outbreak, the emergence of terrorism and other new forms of religious extremist groups, and the perception that America is not so fully committed to regional stability as it was in the past, along with the rise of China and Russia as competing powers in the area.

Under these circumstances, one might ask about the necessary steps to start establishing a comprehensive and cooperative regional security system. In fact, it is hard to believe that a regional security system can be formed easily and quickly because in all cases there will remain disagreements that cannot be fully agreed upon, and many disputes will appear when taking the initial steps to setting up such a system.

Nevertheless, I can say that setting up a comprehensive and sustainable security system to achieve the highest level of stability and cooperation is possible if there is political will. I believe political will and popular desire to achieve this is looming on the horizon. In addition, some historical precede...

The news regarding the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) implementing their plan to create a new international currency has gained momentum. The currency will be backed by gold, as announced on July 7, 2023. In a recent meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, the foreign ministers of the BRICS countries, along with Continue reading Russia Confirms BRICS Will Create A Gold-Backed Currency

Rep. Mike Gallagher Fox News July 17, 2023

As part of a push to sinicize religion, the Chinese Communist Party has embarked on a 10-year project to rewrite the Bible and other religious texts.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus famously confronts the accusers a woman caught committing adultery, saying let the one among you who is guiltless be the first to throw a stone at her.

The chastened accusers slink away and Jesus says to the woman, Has no one condemned you? No one, sir, she replied. Neither do I condemn you, said Jesus. Go away, and from this moment sin no more.'

A beautiful story of forgiveness and mercy.

Unless youre a CCP official. Then its a story of a dissident challenging the authority of the state. A possible sneak preview of what a Bible with socialist characteristics might look like appeared in a Chinese university textbook in 2020. The rewritten Gospel of John excerpt ends, not with mercy, but with Jesus himself stoning the adulterous woman to death.

Across Henan province, local CCP officials forced Protestant churches to replace the Ten Commandments with Xi Jinping quotes. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me, became diktats like: Resolutely guard against the infiltration of Western ideology.

The 10-year project to rewrite the Bible, Quran and other sacred texts is all part of Xi Jinpings quest to make the faithful serve the party rather than God.

At the 19th Party Congress, Chairman Xi declared We will insist on the sinicization of Chinese religions, and provide active guidance for religion and socialism to coexist.

Let me translate: Xi Jinping has no problem with the first commandment, just so long as he and the CCP are playing the role of God.

You might expect the Vatican, the leaders of the largest Christian congregation in the world, to be incensed and defiant. Unfortunately, youd be wrong.

In a secret 2018 negotiation, the Vatican agreed to allow the CCP to select Catholic bishops in China, supposedly in exchange for vague reassurances of safety for some Catholic congregations which were immediately abrogated.

The CCP wants the authority to select the next Dalai Lama, a sacred tradition in Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhists are attempting to stand up to CCP coercion, but Beijing counters that even Pope Francis, leader of the mighty Catholic Church, accepts their authority over Church leadership.

Religions power is tantalizing to the CCP what better demonstration of party supremacy than bringing global religions to heel?

Th...

Orientation

How long has capitalism existed? Has it always been with us all the way back to tribal societies or is it a product of the modern age? Is there any pattern to its evolution? Is it cyclic,  spiral-like  or random? What is the nature of capitalist crises? Why does capitalism grow flush in certain parts of the world, die out in others and yet seemingly reignite itself in another part of the world? What can world-systems theory tell us about the current battle between the Anglo-American empire and the multipolarists of China, Russia and Iran?

What is capitalism?

Capitalism is a historical economic system that arose in Europe in the 15^th century.  Over a 600-year period its leading hegemons were first the Italian city-states of Genoa and Venice. In the 17^th century these city-states were superseded by the Netherlands. The British overtook the Dutch in the 18^th century and the United States crowded out the British well before World War I. Capitalism is characterized by a law-enforced right of private property (as opposed to state or community ownership) in the areas of:

• raw materials (land)
• means of production (tools and methods of harnessing energy)
• labor (who uses the tools and the methods of harnessing energy to work on raw materials)
• commodities (finished products and services)
• money which is transformed into capital stocks, bonds and derivatives
• power settings in which decisions about the economy are made (political settings). These include The National Association of Manufacturers and The Business Round Table. Internationally the Council of Foreign Relations, the World Economic Forum and the G7 are examples.

The purpose of capitalism is to make a profit which is unlimited in scope, protected by law, and if necessary, by the military. According to world-systems theorist Immanuel Wallerstein capitalists derive their profits by two processes:

• broadening its reach, colonizing the periphery counties for its natural resources, inducing it to produce a single cash crop while paying wages far below wages of the workers in the core countries.
• deepening its re...

Hungary has found allies outside of Europe for its pro-peace position

BY JOHN CODY REMIX NEWS JULY 18, 2023

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn took to Facebook on Tuesday to proclaim that Hungary and Latin America both have a pro-peace stance regarding the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and want the war to end as soon as possible.

Most of the world is tired of war. Today, we argued for an immediate ceasefire and peace, and this time the leaders of Latin America joined us! wrote Orbn on Facebook following the meeting of the leaders of the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (EU-CELAC) summit in Brussels.

Although Orbns pro-peace stance is a minority position in Europe, he has found broad support from nations with a similar outlook toward the war elsewhere in the world, including India, China, and countries in Latin America. China, for example, has put forward a peace plan that Hungary has backed.

Within Latin America, there are a number of nations directly aligned with Russia, including Venezuela and Cuba, but more broadly speaking, there are many more nations skeptical of the Western war effort in Ukraine that have called for an immediate ceasefire. Countries like Brazil and Mexico have also refused to back sanctions against Russia, arguing it is not in their economic interest. Full article

By Drago Bosnic | July 18, 2023

In late November 2022, Washington DC admitted that it was unable to account for approximately $20 billion in weapons sent to the Kiev regime. At the time, the newly elected Republican-dominated Congress vowed to conduct impending audits as soon as they took over in January. Officially, the GOP wanted audits to determine and then release information on the massive weapons shipments from the United States to the Kiev regime and how much of that aid was ending up where its supposed to be. Republicans promised to hold the government accountable for spending US taxpayers dollars for the sake of the deeply corrupt Kiev regime.

At the time, major news media, such as Fox News, claimed that the Biden administration inspected only 10% of approximately 22,000 weapons sent to the Kiev regime from late February to November. However, oversight issues also extended to other theaters of operation, such as Taiwan, where approximately $19 billion in weapons sales for Chinas breakaway island province were missing. In late August, a Defense News report claimed there was a $14 billion backlog in weapons sales to Taiwan. However, the November data indicated that the actual number was nearly $19 billion in delayed deliveries, according to The Wall Street Journal.

US government and congressional officials fear the conflict in Ukraine is exacerbating a nearly $19 billion backlog of weapons bound for Taiwan, further delaying efforts to arm the island as tensions with China escalate, the WSJ report claimed. The US has pumped billions of dollars of weapons into Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February, taxing the capacity of the government and defense industry to keep up with a sudden demand to arm Kiev in a conflict that isnt expected to end soon, the authors added in an admission rarely seen in mainstream media.

And yet, close to eight months since promising to conduct the aforementioned impending audits, the Republican-dominated Congress never did anything of sorts, while the so-called aid has swelled to over $170 billion, according to the data released by the...

In the global chessboard of geopolitics, rare earth elements (REEs) are the new power pieces. Their strategic importance continues to escalate, especially for nations like India with a burgeoning technology sector. This is underscored by the Indian governments recent unveiling of a list of 30 critical minerals integral to national security and active efforts to establish a domestic semiconductor manufacturing plant. Essential to hi-tech and renewable energy industries, REEs dominance by Chinawhich controls over 80-90% of the global marketposes a significant challenge, leaving nations like India in an uncomfortable position of dependence on their eastern neighbor.

Africa the sleeping giant of REE reserves remains largely underexplored. Its rich REE deposits in countries like Burundi and Tanzania wait in the wings due to lack of technology and investment. However, the narrative is rapidly changing with China weaving its intricate web of influence in Africas REE sector. Yet Chinas largesse comes with a price. Its notorious debt-trap diplomacy ensnares economically vulnerable nations into an unending cycle of debt, exemplified by Zambia, Djibouti, and Angola.

In stark contrast to China, India has always aimed to pursue a non-extractive and sustainable approach in all its engagements. Indias External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, recently reaffirmed Indias non-expansionist and inclusive approach towards Africa. Thus, India, not China, at least over the longer term, clearly emerges as the preferred partner for Africa, setting the stage for a strategic repositioning of Indias influence in the continent.

 

The Winning Factor

An underappreciated facet of Indias connection with Africa is the vibrant Indian diaspora, which numbers over 3 million. Integrated into Africas socioeconomic fabric, the Indian diaspora has proven its mettle in the trade, manufacturing, and services sectors. This network, with its deep-rooted ties and understanding of local contexts, could be the catalyst for Indias enhanced engagement with the African REE sector.

History, as it often does, offers lessons on how diasporas can contribute to their home countries economic prosperity and strategic security. The Chinese diaspora, for instance, has been a driving force behind approximately 70% of Chinas direct investment in Southeast Asia. Likewise, the Jewish diaspora annually remits approximately $3.8 billion to Israel. Its evident that diasporas can significantly contribute to their home economies and strategic security, and Indias diaspora in Africa is no exception. The task for India, then, is to draw upon this playbook...

With over 20 million inhabitants each, Shanghai and Beijing are among the hypercities of the Global South, including Delhi, So Paulo, Dhaka, Cairo, and Mexico City, far surpassing the megacities of the Global North like London, Paris, or New York.¹ Walking the streets in Chinas cities, you will however, quickly notice one marked difference the absence of large slums or pervasive homelessness that is so common to most of the rest of the world.

Slums were not uncommon in Chinese cities a few decades ago, from the precarious working class districts of 1930s Shanghai to the shanty towns of British-occupied Hong Kong in the 1950s onwards. How did China manage to develop in a way that decreased mass housing precarity?  What are the structural reasons behind it?

This issue of Dongsheng Explains looks into how the Chinese government deals with homelessness, how this issue relates to socialist construction, and how China confronts the challenges posed by rapid economic development, urbanization, and the migration of recent decades.

Why did mass urbanization not create large slums in China?

When reform and opening up began in the late 1970s, 83 percent of Chinas population lived in the countryside. By 2021, the proportion of the rural population had fallen to 36 percent. During this period of mass urbanization, over 600 million people migrated from rural areas to cities.

Today, there are 296 million internal migrant workers (, nngmn gng), comprising over 70 percent of the countrys total workforce.² Migrant workers became the economic engine of Chinas rapid growth, which created the worlds largest middle class of 400 million people.

...

Again, he was at it, that charming show on two legs, playful and coy.  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been burning the charismatic fuel of late, making the necessary emissions in visiting friendly countries.  Each time, he seems to be getting away with more and more, currying (pun intended) favour with his hosts and landing the necessary deals.

For all the excitement of going to a fellow cricket loving state such as Australia, no one was under any illusion about the prize.  Easy gains there on matters of commerce, education and security: a pliant PM, a pliant Cabinet, a political and business class hungering for access to a country which recently passed China as the most populous on the planet.  In all of this, Modi had the audacity to urge Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to do something about reported acts of vandalism against Hindu temples in Melbourne.

In scale, nothing was going to compare to courting the superpower that, for all its might, teeters.  On his June visit to the United States, Modi was building on earlier efforts to show India as a viable partner in a number of areas.

The Modi visit exemplified the calculations of the moment.  The US has been rather clumsy of late, engaging in a foreign policy described by former US Secretary of the Treasury, Lawrence Summers, as a bit lonely.  US foreign policy makers have tended to miss a bit or two, not least understanding the value Indian officials place on their military relationship with Moscow.  The Indian political establishment is also mindful about how useful New Delhi is seen in Washington, the traditional counter to Beijing. That counter, however, is seen as subordinate to maintaining US supremacy under the lecturing guise of the rules-based order.

Such poses are simply not acceptable in either the Modi worldview or those of Indian policy makers.  As Indias External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has opined with a tart frankness, Washingtons power can be described as a transient moment of American unipolarity.  To assume, arrogantly, that history was at its end at the conclusion of the Cold War was a Eurocentric analysis jettisoned by nationalism. It is exactly such nationalism that Modi brims with.

The joint statement from the two countries made familiar, and predictable assumptions.  Much of it was frothy.  Both Biden and Modi affirmed a vision of the United States and India as among the closest partners in the world a partnership of democracies looking into the 21^st century with hope, ambition, and confidence.  Naturally, there is no mention of Modis nationalistic...

This weeks News on China.

CATL develops and researches electric batteries in Germany
More support measures for the real estate sector
Clean energy targets achieved 5 years ahead of schedule
China Railway completes 453 km/h train tests

Czech defector Gen. Jan Sejna

HenryMakow.com July 16, 2023

By now, the Marxist Biden Regime (which is 95 percent Zionist or Bolshevik-Zionist) has wholly succeeded in depleting the USAs stock of arms and ammunitions, by using the ploy of the Ukraine War and by collapsing the supply chains (notably from China) so that the USA will soon have great difficulty in replenishing its stocks of arms and ammunition.

In the plan of the satanic CHABAD, the age of the Antichrist is intended to coincide with the genocide of most Christians.

by Patrick OCarroll (henrymakow.com) 

In 1968, Gen. Jan Sejna tipped off Czech leader Alexander Dubcek that Russia was about to invade Czechoslovakia; then Sejna promptly defected to the USA (via the US Consulate in Trieste-Italy) to become one of the most prominent Eastern Bloc functionaries to ever defect during the entirety of the staged cold war. Sejna later became a counterintelligence analyst for the Central Lack-Of-Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley VA.

In his 1982 book We Will Bury You, Jan Sejna warned that communism was soon about to fake its own death by collapsing the Warsaw Pact but also by ultimately disarming the USA and NATO. In a way, Sejna was proven right, but with some reservations.

He was RIGHT about communism faking its own death but not going away: He was also RIGHT about communism disarming the USA:

By now, the Marxist Biden Regime (which is over 95 percent Zionist or Bolshevik-Zionist) has wholly succeeded in depleting the USAs stock of arms and ammunitions, by using the ploy of the Ukraine War and by collapsing the supply chains (notably from China) so that the USA will soon have great difficulty in replenishing its stocks of arms and ammunitions. Recently, analyst Steve Quayle highlighted this alarming fact.

But he was WRONG about true communism: Britains Marxist Fabian Society in London has been a key organization directing the spread of communism throughout the world since 1884.

George Orwell was a committed Fabian and a top-degree Freemason....