The latest Nagorno-Karabakh Crisis has brought a lot of attention to Russian strategic calculations in the South Caucasus. Being Armenia’s mutual defense ally through the CSTO, observers fear that the uncontrollable escalation of the ongoing conflict could lead to the worst-case scenario of a clash between this bloc and NATO […]
Month: September 2020
Assange’s Sixteenth Day At The Old Bailey: Special Administrative Measures, Unreliable Assurances And Espionage
September 29. Central Criminal Court, London. Julian Assange’s defence team spent the day going over, reemphasising and sharpening the focus on what awaited their client should he, with the blessing of Her Majesty’s Government, make his way to the United States. Not only will he confront 17 charges under the […]
Assange’s Fifteenth Day At The Old Bailey: Solitary Confinement And Parlous Health Care
September 28. Central Criminal Court, London. Throughout the sham process formally known as the Julian Assange extradition trial, prosecutors representing the United States have been adamant: the carceral conditions awaiting him in freedom’s land will be pleasant, accommodating and appropriate. Confronting 17 charges under the US Espionage Act and one […]
Russia Has Key Role To Play In Iran Issue
In what must be one of his sharpest rhetorical outbursts against the Trump administration, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused the United States on Saturday of “savagery” for inflicting $150 billion of damage on Iran due to sanctions. In televised remarks, his voice shaking with anger, Rouhani said, “With their illegal […]
Is There A Coup Brewing In The US?
In August, a curious document emerged in the US entitled “Preventing a Disrupted Presidential Election and Transition“. It was prepared by a group called the Transition Integrity Project, which includes more than one hundred current and former senior US officials alongside experts from various fields. The group announced that they […]
Assange’s Fourteenth Day At The Old Bailey: Elections, Cracking Passwords And Failures Of Proof
September 25. Central Criminal Court, London. On this Friday, the Assange trial moved into the rarefied realm of computer hacking and the less than rarefied world of when final arguments will be made. The WikiLeaks publisher is confronting the prospect of extradition to the United States for 17 charges under […]
Creating Christian Counter-Culture
Every week I meet with our catechumens, inquirers, and other faithful for a time of instruction, which includes a Q & A session. Lately we were talking about how Christians were to live differently than the world around them, and one of the catechumens asked the excellent question, “How do […]
How’ll Covid-19 End? With A Bang Or A Whimper?
The number of people who have died of coronavirus in the United States has crossed 200,000, by far the highest figure for any country in the world. One way of looking at the figure is that America is a large country and a superpower where everything assumes a larger-than-life proportion. In […]
Assange’s Thirteenth Day At The Old Bailey: Mental Health, Managed Risk And Publication Chronologies
September 24. Central Criminal Court, London. The lion’s share of today’s Old Bailey proceedings in Julian Assange’s extradition trial was spent on battles over mental health and dire risk. The prosecution continued its attempt to minimise the dangers facing Assange were he to be extradited to the United States for […]
Israel And The Emirates Sign The “Abraham Accords”
he situation in the Middle East has been blocked since the Oslo Accords signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993. They were supplemented by the Jericho-Gaza Agreement, which recognizes certain prerogatives of the Palestinian Authority, and the Wadi Araba Agreements, which concluded peace between Israel and Jordan. At […]
Assange’s Twelfth Day At The Old Bailey: Autism, Suicide And Prisons
September 23. Central Criminal Court, London. Following the script sheet of the previous day, the non sequitur, pop medical view of the prosecution was again in sharp evidence at the Old Bailey. In an effort to make the road for Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States for 17 charges […]
The Sino-Russian Alliance Comes Of Age (III)
The first part of the three-part essay is here. The second part is here. Discourse of shared legacies The disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991 was a geopolitical disaster for Russia. But the watershed event, paradoxically, prompted Moscow and Beijing, erstwhile adversaries, to draw closer together, as they […]
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