Selected articles (June 1, 2023)
‘Rescuing Assange: The End Game’
Julian Assange’s Australian lawyer, Stephen Kenny, speaks to CN Live! about the “end game” to free the WikiLeaks publisher. With U.S. constitutional lawyer Bruce Afran. Watch the replay.
By Consortium News
May 28, 2023
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/05/28/watch-cn-live-rescuing-assange/
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China takes leadership role in Central Asia
By M. K. Bhadrakumar
May 30, 2023
One of the pleasures of the post-Cold War strategic discourses is that geopolitics is back with a bang. Earlier, the former Soviet Union and Communist China used to be in denial mode, as geopolitics didn’t fit into their Marxist-Leninist lens — although, arguably, Marx might have adapted himself a long time ago already.
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China builds global alternative as US-led financial order decays
An analysis of how China is building a global economic alternative, while the US-led neoliberal financial order decays.
By Radhika Desai, Michael Hudson and Mick Dunford
May 28, 2023
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/05/27/china-economic-alternative-us-led-financial-order/
PDF: RD 28.5.2023
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ASEAN Pushing Itself Away from the US
By Salman Rafi Sheikh
May 30, 2023
https://journal-neo.org/2023/05/30/asean-pushing-itself-away-from-the-us/
In the 42nd ASEAN summit held in Indonesia in May, the group decided to “not become a proxy for anyone.” This was with reference to the increasing pressure the group on the whole is currently facing from the US to counter and contain China in the Indo-Pacific region. This comes on top of the idea that Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim recently floated to create the Asian Monetary Fund alongside a regional payment mechanism that promotes the use of local currencies. This, in a nutshell, is a step towards the de-dollarisation of ASEAN – a move that effectively shows how ASEAN as a region is resisting becoming a pawn in the US geopolitics of building a global coalition against China. In fact, the move shows how ASEAN is pushing itself away from the US-led great game.
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Post-Bakhmut scenario in Ukraine war
By M. K. Bhadrakumar
May 28, 2023
[…] The upcoming NATO exercise codenamed Air Defender 23 (June 12-23) will be the most significant military exercise ever carried out over the European skies and the most extensive deployment exercise of air forces in the history of the western alliance — involving 25 NATO countries, 10,000 military personnel and approximately 220 aircraft. […]
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Believing Impossible Things
By Alastair Crooke
May 29, 2023
The endless bitter antagonism to Putin and to Russia has allowed a self-imagined reality to detach, ultimately becoming a delusion.
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/05/29/believing-impossible-things/
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Iran cenbank chief headed to US capital for talks with IMF
The IMF predicts Iran’s economy will grow by two percent this year at a time when the nation is leading the charge toward de-dollarization
By News Desk, The Cradle
May 30, 2023
https://thecradle.co/article-view/25407/iran-cenbank-chief-headed-to-us-capital-for-talks-with-imf
More news and analysis about Iran
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Amir Mortasawi (alias Afsane Bahar) (امیر مرتضوی (افسانه بهار 