In Depth

Armenia is facing a serious political turmoil. The country’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has accused top military officers of attempting a coup after the army reportedly demanded his resignation. How will the situation in the Caucasus unfold? By Nikola Mikovic Pashinyan has been in trouble after he fired a high-ranking …

Iran seeks to join the Russia-led Eurasian Union. The Islamic Republic already signed a free trade agreement with Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in October 2018 and now Tehran aims to additionally increase its business ties with this supranational entity. Are the EAEU member-states ready to let Iran into the post-Soviet …

“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” Harvey Dent, district attorney of Gotham City said in “The Dark Knight”. Introducing a fatalistic idea that being a hero comes with a certain responsibility and is sometimes a dangerous task. For outsiders former …

Ukraine has been firmly in the United States’ sphere of influence ever since Maidan protests in 2013-2014, that resulted in the overthrow of the allegedly pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. Even though the Kremlin-backed Opposition Platform for Life (OPFL) approval ratings are rising, there is no danger for the former Soviet …

Relations between Russia and the West are expected to go from bad to worse. As soon as Russian opposition politician and the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was sentenced by a Moscow court to almost threes in a penal colony for breaking probation rules while in Germany, Western leaders called for …

The United States and the European Union will use the case of Alexey Navalny – Russia’s prominent opposition figure who has been detained upon his return to Moscow from Germany – as an additional pressure on the Kremlin. By Nikola Mikovic Sanctions against Russia will grow, even if Russian authorities …

In a statement released mid-December the World Health Organization (WHO) finally admitted what 10’s of thousands of doctors and medical professionals around the globe have been saying for months: the PCR test used to diagnose COVID-19 is unsuitable and creates way too many false positives. If the PCR test is …

Authoritarian tendencies in Central Asia continue to grow. The region lacks democratic traditions and its clan-based societies overwhelmingly prefer some form of despotism rather than Western liberal democracy. By Nikola Mikovic Voters in Kyrgyzstan recently decided to abandon parliamentary democracy. The former Soviet republic is returning to the presidential political …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     “Fucking men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you’re so creative. You don’t know what it’s like to really create something; to create a life; to feel it growing inside you. All you know how …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     “We are what we are because we have been what we have been, and what is needed for solving the problems of human life and motives is not moral estimates but more knowledge.” — Freud   “A woman is a mystery to guide …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     Lieutenant Commander Data: “I wonder. What would Dr. Freud say about the symbolism of devouring oneself?” Counselor Deanna Troi:  “Data – sometimes a cake is just a cake.” — Star Trek: TNG, “Phantasms”, S07E06   “I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t …

Russia and Turkey – both partners and opponents – are reportedly negotiating the fate of the strategically important town of Ain Issa in northern Syria. An area currently controlled by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). By Nikola Mikovic Moscow demands from the Kurds to hand over the town to …

A month after Armenia lost the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the country’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is facing mass protests and civil disobedience. The opposition demands his resignation and threatens to radicalize protests while Russia, Yerevan’s only ally, is putting pressure on both Armenia and its archenemy Azerbaijan. By Nikola Mikovic …

President Trump is once again charging that last month’s presidential election was rigged and rampant with fraud. In an address posted on his Twitter and Facebook pages that the president described as possibly “the most important speech, I’ve ever made.” By the Levant News newsdesk Trump charged that “lots of …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     I remember a time when a cabbage could sell itself by being a cabbage. Nowadays it’s no good being a cabbage – unless you have an agent and pay him a commission. Nothing is free anymore to sell itself or give itself away. …

Russia and Belarus are expected to redefine their relations in the foreseeable future, primarily in terms of energy. After mass protests against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko erupted in August, following the controversial presidential election, the Eastern European country abandoned its multi-vector foreign policy and pushed for closer ties with Moscow. …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, “My country, right or wrong.” In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, …

Sidney Powell, the lawyer for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who is now helping uncover the evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election, warned states not to certify the November election results. “They should rethink it very seriously. What they are certifying is their own complicity and fraud.” …

The FBI has an investigative team that is looking into the U.S. presidential election after substantial evidence was brought forward by the lawyers of president Donald Trump’s legal team, FOX News Lou Dobbs revealed Monday night citing a ‘credible’ source in the FBI. By Arthur Blok Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell …

Sidney Powell, the lawyer for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who is now helping uncover the evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election, said President Donald Trump won the elections in a landslide. “There needs to be a massive criminal investigation.” By Arthur Blok During an interview with …

Azerbaijan won the war in Nagorno-Karabakh with the help of its ally Turkey. It’s archenemy Armenia did not get similar support from Russia and was forced to sign a humiliating peace deal which is a de facto capitulation. By Nikola Mikovic Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh, is part of Azerbaijan …

President Donald Trump posted a tweet this week stating that that Dominion voting machines across the nation deleted 2.7 million Trump ballots. He added that further data analysis found that 221,000 Pennsylvania votes switched from President Trump to Biden. By Arthur Blok Records from the Federal Election Commission showed that …

Non-partisan political website RealClearPolitics (RCP) rescinded its call earlier this week of Joe Biden winning the state of Pennsylvania. Bringing him back down below the 270 threshold to 259 Electoral Votes. The recall came at a moment that votes are still being counted and many lawsuits were filed by the …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD     I advise you to throw out altogether § 3—the “demand (women’s) for freedom of love”. That is not really a proletarian but a bourgeois demand. — Vladimir Lenin, in a letter to Inessa Armand, dated 17 January 1915       For once I’m …

The embargo on conventional arms shipments to Iran, that expired on October 18, could result in Teheran purchasing Russian weapons. Iranian officials already expressed interest in acquiring the latest state-of-art Russian military technology, such as the S-400 missile system, or the Su-30 aircraft, the Kremlin seems to prepare an excuse …

The World Health Organization’s special envoy on COVID-19 urged world leaders earlier this month to reconsider ‘using lockdowns as the primary control method’ of battling Covid-19. After first creating global panic by putting the Covid-19 mortality rate higher than 3 percent and urging governments in an unprecedented move to lockdown …

Kyrgyzstan seems to be on the brink of civil war. The Central Asian country is the third Russian ally that has been heavily destabilized in the past three months, as Moscow warns it has obligations to prevent total breakdown in the former Soviet republic. By Nikola Mikovic Following the parliamentary …

By JARRETT BLANC   In September 2003, I moved from Afghanistan to Iraq, where I would spend a year and a half establishing new electoral institutions and helping Iraqi authorities manage their first elections. The job was demanding, and the environment was difficult—each of the hotels that housed us were …

The frozen conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh turned into a hot war. The Turkey-backed Azerbaijani army is attempting to capture the region, and even though it has the upper hand in terms of high-tech military kit, Armenia-sponsored Nagorno-Karabakh forces so far managed to repulse …

Russian influence in Belarus continues to grow. Since mass protests that erupted after the controversial August 9 presidential election did not result in a regime change, President Alexander Lukashenko managed to consolidate his power with the help of Russia. Will relations between Minsk and Moscow go from strength to strength? …

Under pressure of the United States, Serbia announced last week it will designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization. This unexpected decision came after Serbia and Kosovo, under the US President Donald Trump’s auspices, signed a controversial ‘historic deal‘ on economic normalization in Washington. By Nikola Mikovic On …

The Arab Muslim world struggles with sectarian and ideological conflicts that affect the stability and progress of the region’s states and count loss in human lives and economic devastation among their consequences. Sectarian conflicts are not exclusive to the Muslim world. By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem Both the Christian West and …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD   CONTINUED from yesterday…   A Parting of Genders, a Meeting of Minds? When I began to dream up this article some time ago I’d stumbled onto a fan of MD’s on Twitter, a fellow Arab, Nayli Yasmeen (@nayli_yasmeen), and we got to talking about …

 By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD   CONTINUED from yesterday…   Everybody’s ‘Bestest’ Big Sister Now Christian Papierniak’s little masterpiece Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town (2017), which he also wrote. I could write a whole book about the movie and still not get completely to the bottom of it. I …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD       “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.” — Rebecca West   “The more identities …

Lebanon’s security forces used excessive levels of violence against tens of thousands of protesters who had gathered in downtown Beirut on August 8, 2020, to express their rage and frustration over the government and political elites’ incompetence and corruption. The ruling elites’ incompetence is widely considered to have led to …

The Beirut explosions on August 4, resulting from 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate igniting along with other explosive materials present in far lesser quantity in a warehouse, left more than 200 dead, dozens missing and around 300,000 homeless. The explosions raised global concern and empathy for Lebanon. Importantly, the explosions …

A secret push by President Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner to sell advanced arms — including F-35 stealth fighter jets — to the United Arab Emirates has caused confusion and frustration among agencies and congressional committees that would normally be involved in such a sale but have been left …

The explosion in Lebanon leads back to an abandoned ship in Beirut that had arrived in the city carrying 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate. Reporting by DER SPIEGEL and OCCRP has determined that the ship’s owner has connections to Hezbollah’s bank. By Maximilian Popp, Christoph Reuter und Fritz Schaap In …

More Arab nations are on a path to normalising ties with Israel, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar Gargash said on Thursday, a week after the UAE agreed to a peace accord with Israel. Dr Gargash said a normalised relationship with Israel under the Abraham Accord would be …

We don’t hear many good news stories out of the Middle East, particularly recently, in the midst of the despair over Beirut, regional conflicts and the ravages of covid-19. But on Thursday there was a hopeful development: President Trump announced a historic peace agreement that will normalize relations between the …

By DAVID ROMANO   So, Lebanon’s prime minister and leading government ministers announced their resignation on Monday evening. They evidently preferred to fall on their swords after demonstrations in Beirut featured effigies with nooses around the necks of Hassan Diab, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and others. The question is, will …

by James M. Dorsey | Jul 30, 2020 Saudi support of religious ultra-conservatism in Indonesia contradicts Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s promotion of an undefined form of moderate Islam intended to project his kingdom as tolerant, innovative, and forward-looking. It also suggests that Saudi Arabia is willing to work with the Muslim Brotherhood …

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called this week to discuss peace talks to end clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan that broke out mid-July. Both Russia and Turkey are fighting proxy wars in Syria and Libya, and if the situation in the Caucasus escalates the …