Nearly as suspenseful as the Taliban’s meteoric return to power after the final withdrawal of American armed forces from Afghanistan is the uncertainty over what will come next amid the fallout. Many have predicted that Russia and China will step in to fill the power vacuum and convince the facelift Taliban to negotiate a power-sharing... Read More

In May, the HBO television network aired a new two-part documentary exploring America’s ongoing opioid epidemic entitled The Crime of the Century. The first episode summarized the role of the pharmaceutical industry in the crisis, specifically that of Sackler family drugmaker Purdue Pharma and its deadly prescription painkiller, OxyContin. Part one also thoroughly investigates the... Read More

As American economic power continues to decline, a division has emerged within the U.S. political establishment as to which of its designated adversaries is to blame for the country’s woes — Russia, or China. The dispute came to a head during each of the last two presidential elections, with the Democratic Party first blaming Moscow... Read More

In the final week of September, an Azerbaijani offensive renewed hostilities in the perennial armed conflict and territorial dispute in the South Caucasus between Armenia and its neighbor over the Nagorno-Karabakh (“Mountainous Karabakh”) region. By October, the clashes had escalated past the state border between Azerbaijan and the internationally-unrecognized Republic of Artsakh which suffered heavy... Read More

In 2017, explosive allegations first emerged that the authorities of the Chechen Republic were reportedly interning gay men in concentration camps. After a three year period of dormancy, the accusations have resurfaced in a new feature length documentary by HBO Films entitled Welcome to Chechnya. Shot between mid-2017 and early last year, the film has... Read More

It has been 75 years since the surrender of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II in Europe. Amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Russia postponed its annual Victory Day celebrations last month due to the health crisis as did other former Soviet states, with the sole exception of Belarus which went ahead with... Read More

As the global pandemic grips world attention, completely unnoticed by mainstream media was the release of a final report of an academic study pertaining to another previously calamitous event of international significance. On March 25th, the conclusion of a four year investigation by researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was published which determined that... Read More

On March 11th, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the ongoing outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to be a global pandemic, the first since the H1N1 swine flu in 2009. Initially reported in the city of Wuhan in Central China in December, just four months later there are now over 150,000 cases in... Read More

When the Pentagon confirmed the assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, U.S. President Donald Trump took to social media to post a single image of the American flag to the adulation of his followers. Unfortunately, most Americans are ignorant of the other flag synonymous with U.S. foreign policy, that of the ‘false flag’ utilized... Read More

The October decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to withdraw American troops from northeastern Syria did not only precipitate the Turkish offensive, codenamed ‘Operation Peace Spring’, into Kurdish-held territory which followed. It also sparked an outcry of hysteria from much of the so-called “left” that has been deeply divided during the 8-year long conflict over... Read More

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in an overwhelming bipartisan majority to officially recognize the Armenian genocide more than a century after the atrocities were committed. The motion was a departure from decades of U.S. government refusal because of its ‘realpolitik’ considerations of regional ally and fellow NATO member, the Republic of Turkey.... Read More

Last month marked three decades since the conclusion of the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations in China. The anniversary is opportune for Washington and its Western partners to ramp-up their Sinophobic smear campaign while recycling the hoax they have propagated ever since the June Fourth incident occurred. Coverage of the commemoration has been wedded with the... Read More

Last month, 2020 U.S. presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders stirred controversy at a CNN town hall after answering a loaded question about whether his position on extending voting rights to incarcerated felons barred any exceptions such as the Boston Marathon bomber currently on death row. It was impossible for Sanders to respond honestly without being entrapped... Read More

Ever since the news broke on March 15 of two consecutive mass shootings at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, corporate media has been determined to establish that suspect Brenton Tarrant acted alone in the terrorist attacks that took the lives of 50 innocent Muslim worshippers and wounded 50... Read More

Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of Edward W. Said’s pioneering book, Orientalism, as well as fifteen years since the Palestinian-American intellectual’s passing. To bid farewell to such an important scholar shortly after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which Said fiercely criticized until his dying breath before succumbing to leukemia, made... Read More

In a surprise turn of events, last month U.S. President Donald J. Trump made the abrupt unilateral announcement that American troops would begin to withdraw from Syria. The unexpected decision provoked the wrath of the foreign policy establishment and bipartisan ‘war party’ in Washington who immediately denounced it as a premature, reckless move that would... Read More

In less than two months, the yellow vests (“gilets jaunes”) movement in France has reshaped the political landscape in Europe. For a seventh straight week, demonstrations continued across the country even after concessions from a cowed President Emmanuel Macron while inspiring a wave of similar gatherings in neighboring states like Belgium and the Netherlands. Just... Read More