We were always told what to think; what is correct and what is wrong. By the white dudes living in or coming from Europe and North America. They knew everything. They were the most qualified. When I write “white,” I don’t mean just their race or color of their skin. To me, “white” is their culture, where they belong. Yes,[Read More…]
It often happens this way: extreme right-wingers, or call them ‘ultra-conservatives,’ either in the United States or Europe, suddenly fall from grace, after committing the most heinous crimes. Sometimes it is child abuse or sexual harassment, but most of the time, it is a corruption of tremendous proportions. In theory, in their own theory, it is not supposed to be[Read More…]
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek (Reportage from Minneapolis) The city of Minneapolis is where it all began. It is where the last drop fell on the surface of a proverbial overflowing lake, causing the dam to burst, consequently starting to destroy the foundations of the empire. A death of just one single man can, under certain dreadful circumstances, put into[Read More…]
To see Beirut and its port area with a huge mushroom cloud hanging above is a truly surreal sight. But what is not surreal in battered Lebanese capital? A big part of the downtown looks flattened, thoroughly ruined. One of my Japanese friends based in Beirut exclaimed: “It looks like Hiroshima!” It does. Who is behind the carnage? What really[Read More…]
It is time to stop irresponsible finger-pointing. All over the world, as this essay is being written, well over 17 million COVID-19 cases have been reported, and 676,000 people died. And instead of concentrating on serious research, trying to save human lives and attempting to stop the global calamity, ‘residents’ of the White House are spending all the energy on[Read More…]
Recently, when a retired Chilean U.N. employee tried to enter ECLAC (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Santiago de Chile) to claim her pension in a bank inside the compound, her car was stopped by a U.N. security officer. She was asked to complete formalities. To her taste, the process was taking too much[Read More…]
Some twenty years ago, when I moved to Hanoi, the city was bleak, grey, covered by smog. The war had ended, but terrible scars remained. I brought my 4WD from Chile, and insisted on driving it myself. It was one of the first SUVs in the city. Each time I drove it, it was hit by scooters, which flew like[Read More…]
Lying about world history is one of the main weapons of the Western imperialists, through which they are managing to maintain their control of the world. European and North American countries are inventing and spreading a twisted narrative about almost all essential historic events, be they colonialism, crusades, or genocides committed by the Western expansionism in all corners of the[Read More…]
For months, this has been a story that I want to share with young readers in Hong Kong. Now it seems to be the really appropriate time when the ideological battle between the West and China is raging, and as a result of it, Hong Kong and the entire world is suffering. I want to say that none of it[Read More…]
For almost a decade, I have been covering “Color Revolutions” in virtually all parts of the world. While making a film for TeleSur, I was facing Egyptian tanks, risking my life under sniper fire, getting roughed-up in the middle of clashes of the supporters of al-Sisi and Morsi. Together with Syrian commanders, I was also facing the terrorists in Idlib;[Read More…]
While I am following closely various discussions on Western mass media and social media, simultaneously engaging in several direct exchanges, one overwhelming leitmotif that I see is clearly emerging: “What is happening in the United States (and the UK, France and other parts of Western Empire) is not really about the race. Let us protest peacefully, let us not allow[Read More…]
Erkin Oncan interviews Andre Vltchek EO: How do you evaluate the George Floyd protests? Do these actions lead to a positive permanent change in the country? Is there a possibility like that? AV: George Floyd’s death was the last drop, at least for many. The country has exploded. Or more precisely, many of those who were, for years and decades[Read More…]
In Jakarta, doctors are dying, while common people do not know which data to believe, anymore. It appears that even some government officials do not trust government statistics. People in the slums are attacking ambulances, preventing patients infected with COVID-19 from being taken to hospitals. The novel coronavirus is a stigma. Tests are resisted, death certificates falsified. Social distancing, even[Read More…]
Happy Birthday Comrade Lenin! 150 years ago, on April 21, 1870, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, alias Lenin, was born. According to many, he was the greatest revolutionary of all times, a man who gave birth to both internationalism and anti-imperialism. It is time to “revisit Communism”. It is also time to ask some basic, essential questions: “How is it possible that[Read More…]
More than two centuries of lies are now getting exposed. Bizarre tales about freedom and democracy are collapsing like houses of cards. One man’s death triggers an avalanche of rage in those who for years, decades and centuries, have been humiliated, ruined, and exterminated. It always happens just like this throughout the history of humankind – one single death, one[Read More…]
It is not only about physically surviving the pandemic. People miss people, and places, sometimes desperately. And they die, when separated. We are bombarded by briefings and numbers. We are scared into submission by horrifying medical stories, by shocking images, and then, simultaneously, by predictions of economic and social downfall. Day and night, day and night. But somehow, so often[Read More…]
How could the Great Patriotic War in which the Soviet people (including many members of my own family) lost at least 25 million lives, have anything in common with the latest outbreak of the novel coronavirus? You think this is an absolutely insane question? However, before you dismiss it, think twice. There are similarities how they are being portrayed. There[Read More…]
It is getting ugly, extremely ugly. It is increasingly looking like a war – at least a new ‘cold’, ideological war. But in the shadow of COVID-19, it goes almost unnoticed. The blind horseman, who hates China intuitively, without knowing hardly anything about it, is leading the pack, pushing his president into a confrontation with the most populous country on[Read More…]
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek and Mira Lubis An old road between Balikpapan and Samarinda passes through the poor villages, through rural slums, as well as stalls selling second-rate local fruits. The cheap, unhygienic eateries, are now half-empty. While the traffic is still heavy here, the ‘real action’ is somewhere else; a few kilometers away, where the new motorway is[Read More…]
For decades, the United States has been antagonistic to the most important international organization on Earth – the United Nations. It is because the organization has periodically rebelled and refused to take direct diktats from Washington. Although greatly influenced by the West, the U.N. has always insisted on a certain degree of independence, for which it has been criticized, bullied[Read More…]
For many years now, it has been obvious that in both North America and Europe, smearing and provoking China has become an extremely lucrative business, even career. There are entire ‘institutes’ and NGOs dedicated strictly to such activities, and there are individuals who are groomed to become anti-Chinese warriors. Peter Navarro, a neo-con and a right-wing combatant, has been, for[Read More…]
Soon, there might be silence. The liberation of Prague, as well as the liberation of Auschwitz and or Warsaw by the Red Army will be forgotten. At least in Europe, even in Eastern Europe, where it took place. This is where it is all leading to. Perhaps, one day, East European governments will issue new orders to desecrate cemeteries[Read More…]
Now, that almost all of us, all over the world, have been forced into staying in what could be easily defined as house arrest, there is suddenly plenty of time to read books, to watch great films, and to listen to splendid music. Many of us, for years, have been sadly repeating again and again: “if only we would have[Read More…]
The Western mass media is extremely busy frightening its own citizens and the entire world with statements like: “A leaked government document has suggested up to 500,000 people could die from coronavirus if the disease is able to infect up to 80 per cent of the country.” That’s what The Independent wrote on 26 February 2020. And that horrifying number of[Read More…]
Fabrizio Verde of L’Antidiplomatico interviews Andre Vltchek [During this exchange, both men are “locked up”. Verde in Naples, Vltchek in Santiago de Chile] * FV: How will be the world after the Covid-19? AV: Totally different and I’d like to believe, much better. But before it gets better, millions of people will lose their lives, and perhaps hundreds of[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Imagine that you are in Hong Kong, in a city where “you are actually not supposed to be”, in the first place. You are ready to go home, to South America. But just two days before your departure, via Seoul and Amsterdam, your first Sky Team carrier, Korean Air, unceremoniously decides to cancel all flights[Read More…]
The U.S. is insulting the Chinese media. It is affecting both countries. My colleagues in Beijing believe, correctly, that Washington should have tried to increase communication, not to bring it to a halt. Twist what is happening; reverse facts. That is what the Western media does when “dealing with” China, Russia, Iran or several “unfriendly” Latin American countries. It is[Read More…]
Frankly and in summary: recently The United States of America has crossed several lines, committing atrocities, in many parts of the world. In the past, no country could get away with this; such situations would inevitably lead to war. Presently, war is “avoided” only because the world is too frightened of Washington and its mafia-style deeds. Countries on all continents[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek So far Turkey, militarily the second mightiest NATO country, has been able to get away with virtually anything it has chosen to brew in the Middle East. The reason why, is simple: to confront Turkey’s bullying and expansionism militarily would be like confronting the United States or Israel; thousands of innocent people would die as[Read More…]
Now what? President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines is outraged. He wants an end to the U.S. military presence in his country. He wants to curb all cooperation with the U.S. armed forces. He hits hard, talks big. And his people seem to be behind him, no matter what – his popularity rating is high and rising, now around 87%,[Read More…]
Now it is becoming obvious who China’s friends are, and who her enemies are. In the West, many nations and individuals are celebrating the short-term difficulties that the Chinese nation is facing, pouring salt into the wound, while giving birth to anti-Chinese sentiments. Even the WHO (World Health Organization) has been warning not to impose travel bans against the countries[Read More…]
Steve Bannon, a former White House strategist and Breitbart editor,was finally kicked out of an Italian monastery, which even Newsweek wittily described as a“far-right boot camp”. This author, along with a few others, has been warning for some time that the former Trump’s top advisor had crossed all lines, and began directly interfering in the internal affairs of the European[Read More…]
Testimonies from inside China China has been hit by coronavirus as if by a brick over the head; heavily and mercilessly. Instead of help, Beijing has received criticism, even verbal attacks. In spite of doing tremendous job fighting the epidemy, China is getting almost no tributes for its performance. Now Bangkok, Jakarta and other regional capital are in panic.[Read More…]
There are obviously some serious linguistic issues and disagreements between the West and the rest of the world. Essential terms like “freedom”, “democracy”, “liberation”, even “terrorism”, are all mixed up and confused; they mean something absolutely different in New York, London, Berlin, and in the rest of the world. Before we begin analyzing, let us recall that countries such as[Read More…]
In the West, there is a new wave of political correctness at work: it is all about one’s sexual orientation; who has sex with whom, and how.Suddenly, the mass media in London, Paris and New York is greatly concerned about who has the right to change his or her sex, and who does not want to belong to any ‘traditional’[Read More…]
They say he came from a humble background, and worked himself up the ranks, becoming, as many believe, the second most powerful man in Iran. They say he had the chance to become the next Supreme Leader of the country. Whenever I visit Iran, I am told how much he is loved by his people. He became the symbol[Read More…]
Once in a while, people ask me: “Why did you accept the US citizenship, many years ago?” “After all,” they say, “now you are one of the most vocal critics of the United States, and of the West in general.” Perhaps I never explained, or I did, some time ago, and now it is forgotten. So, let me try again,[Read More…]
In one of the poorest neighborhoods of Bogota, Belen,I saw two people bleeding in the middle of the road. One person was clearly dead. A group of onlookers was moving frantically, shouting loudly. There was an attempt to resurrect an injured man. I asked the driver to inquire whether our help was needed, but he was told something insulting by[Read More…]
I constantly receive such letters; letters which repeat, again and again, year after year, basically the same thing: “If only we would have an opportunity to vote out our damn system!” Such letters, emails and messages keep coming to me from the United States, but also from the United Kingdom. Particularly, after certain events, like when the Western empire[Read More…]
It is amazing how easily, without resistance,the Western empire is managing to destroy “rebellious” countries that are standing in its way. I working all corners of the planet, wherever Kafkaesque “conflicts” get ignited by Washington, London or Paris. What I see and describeare not only those horrors which are taking place all around me; horrors that are ruining human[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Bolivia, December 2019, three weeks after the fascist coup. It is devilishly cold. My comrade’s car is carefully navigating through the deep mud tracks. Enormous snow-covered mountain peaks are clearly visible in the distance. The Bolivian Altiplano; beloved, yet always somehow hostile, silent, impenetrable. So many times, in the past I came close to death[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Good bye, Lebanon, metaphorically and truly. Good bye to a country which, many believe, actually has already ceased to exist. For five long years I have been commuting between the Asia Pacific and the Middle East.And Beirut, for all that time, was one of my homes. I arrived in Beirut when the situation in the[Read More…]
After my work in the Middle East had finished, at least for the time being, I was waiting for my flight to Santiago de Chile.In Paris.I could count on a few ‘free’ days, processing what I had heard and witnessed in Beirut. Day after day, for long hours, I sat in a lounge, typing and typing; reflecting and typing.[Read More…]
They pledged to do it, and they did – Bolivian feudal lords, mass media magnates and other treasonous “elites” – they overthrew the government, broke hope and interrupted an extremely successful socialist process in what was once one of the poorest countries in South America. One day, they will be cursed by their own nation. One day they will[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek It is wrong, totally wrong to abandon Jakarta and try to build some Potemkin village in the middle of Borneo, an island known in Indonesia as Kalimantan. There are many reasons why, and we will be addressing at least some of them here. But before we begin, let us state the obvious:the cowardly and spineless[Read More…]
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek There seems to be no limit to Qataris tossing around their wealth. This tiny kingdom with 2.6 million inhabitantsis full of ridiculously lavish gold-plated palaces, most of them built with terrible taste. It is overflowing with Lamborghini racing cars and Rolls Royce limousines, and now, even with ludicrously wasteful air-conditioned sidewalks (cold air blows from[Read More…]
Tires are burning, smoke is rising towards the sky. It is October, the 18th day of the month, the capital city of Lebanon, in the past known as the “Paris of the East”, is covered in smoke. For years I was warning that the country governed by corrupt, indifferent elites, could not hold together, indefinitely. For all those five[Read More…]
Individuals like Steve Bannon, often greatly influence leaders like President Donald Trump.Then they fall out of grace, sometimes because of some personal quarrels, and “get fired”. But, regularly, at least some of them, bounce back. And, even if they do not return to the White House, do they disappear into thin air? Hardly. Their destructive legacy marches on. Mr.[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Student protests, West Papua independence struggle, monstrous forest fires, an assassination attempt against Coordinating Minister, sinking capital city, earthquakes and a collapsing economy – the increasingly religiously fundamentalist Indonesia is suddenly facing too many disasters. It cannot cope with any of them. Nothing seems to be going well for Indonesia, these days. People in[Read More…]
MOSTAFA AFZALZADEH INTERVIEWS ANDRE VLTCHEK FOR FARHIKHTEGAN Q: Do we see an increase in the number of countries resisting the bullying of the United States and its allies? What makes this resistance happen? A: I believe that there are two main factors. The first one is the ‘moral one’: People are more and more aware of the brutality of the[Read More…]
It is very popular these days to talk and write about the “trade war” between the United States and China. But is there really one raging? Or is it, what we are witnessing, simply a clash of political and ideological systems: one being extremely successful and optimistic, the other depressing, full of dark cynicism and nihilism? In the past, West[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is opening up to the world. It used to be absolutely impossible to get a visa to enter, unless you were a religious pilgrim (therefore officially a Muslim), NATO military personnel, or a businessman or woman, invited by a local company or by the Saudi government.Even if you secured[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Happy Birthday, People’s Republic of China! Heartfelt Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday, and thank you for being here, for standing, for not bending down and never surrendering. The capitalist world is in decay. The West is rotting. Anger and nihilism are pouring from the imperialist empire whose citizens are frustrated; not at peace with themselves. Imperialist[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Hong Kong is losing to Mainland China. Its poverty rates are high, it suffers from corruption and savage capitalism.It is now the most expensive city on earth. People are frustrated, but paradoxically, they are blaming socialist Beijing for their problems, instead of the legacy of British colonialism. ‘Across the line’, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, Xiang and[Read More…]
The new generation of “pro-Western heroes” and “saints” is clearly failing to impress the world. Juan Guaido and Joshua Wong are definitely as right-wing as Mother Teresa was, but not as “credible”. * A long time ago I visited a place in Calcutta, India, where Mother Teresa used to operate.According to the Catholic Church and Western propaganda apparatus, she[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek It was once a British police station, as well as the Victoria Prison Compound. Hong Kong inhabitants used to tremble just from hearing its name mentioned. This is where people were detained, interrogated, humiliated, tortured and disappeared. Now, after Hong Kong ‘returned to China’, it was converted into the Tai Kwun Center – one of[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Whenever Hong Kong protesters are destroying public property, there are no cameras of Western media outlets in sight. But when police decide to intervene, protecting their city, Western media crusaders emerge in full force. On September 08, 2019, huge US flags were waving in the air. A massive demonstration, consisting of mainly young people, was[Read More…]
There are rare moments in history, when even the most determined enemies can suddenly recognize the futility of battle. Sometimes, just for a moment or two. Sometimes, for longer. Such moments of sanity may save thousands, even millions human lives. And, such moments are not expressions of weakness or cowardice; on the contrary; they are embodiments of courage. I want[Read More…]
Many have already noticed: The U.S. really, really doesn’t feel like the world leader, or even as a ‘first world country’. Of course, I write that sarcastically, as I detest expressions like ‘first world’, and the ‘third world’. But readers know what I mean. Bridges, subways, inner cities, everything is crumbling, falling apart. When I used to live in New[Read More…]
More than ten years ago, in Nadi, Fiji, during a UN conference, I was approached by the Minister of Education of Papua New Guinea (PNG). He was deeply shaken, troubled, his eyes full of tears: “Please help our children,” he kept repeating: “Indonesian army, TNI, is kidnapping our little girls in the villages, raping them, and then… in the most[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek After the recent Israeli attacks against Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, the Middle East has found itself in the midst of undeclared war. Almost everyone in Lebanon appears to agree. “This time Israel went too far. In just two days, it bombed three countries,” I am told by a local UN staffer based in Beirut. The[Read More…]
On August 25th, 2019, Israel attacked Lebanon. It has done it again. Just as it attacked Syria, the same night. RT reported the same day: “Israeli drone flights were “an open attack on Lebanese sovereignty” and an assault on UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, Hariri said on Sunday, just hours after reports of two Israeli UAV incidents[Read More…]
It used to be done regularly and it worked: The West identified a country as its enemy, unleashed its professional propaganda against it, then administered a series of sanctions, starving and murdering children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups. If the country did not collapse within months or just couple of years, the bombing would begin. And the nation, totally[Read More…]
Text and Photos by Andre Vltchek Most of the people in the West or in North Asia usually never think about it, but Southeast Asia is one of the most depressed and depressing parts of the world. It has been through genocides, wars and atrocious military regimes. Then, those monstrous income disparities. According to The Bangkok Post, in 2018,“the 10%[Read More…]
There are stories that are unrelated to the news, but can explain much better than many combat reports, why people like meare fighting against the Empire and imperialism, with such determination and vehemence. Not all stories are ‘big’ or ‘heroic’; not all include famous people or iconic struggles. Not all take place onbattlefields. But they ‘humanize’ the struggle. Once in[Read More…]
PREFACE TO MY RUSSIAN BOOK I am Russian. That’s how I feel and therefore, that’s what I am. I was born in Russia, in the Soviet Union – in what was and still is a stunningly beautiful city on the Neva River called Leningrad. For some reason, out of the almost 20 books that I have written, only 2[Read More…]
As I pen this short essay, Iran is standing against the mightiest nation on earth. It is facing tremendous danger; of annihilation even, if the world does not wake up fast, and rush to its rescue. Stunning Iranian cities are in danger, but above all, its people: proud and beautiful, creative, formed by one of the oldest and deepest cultures[Read More…]
It used to be comical, but suddenly it is not, anymore. In the past, blind hatred towards China could had been attributed to ignorance, or at least to indoctrination by the Western propaganda and mass media outlets. But now? China’s tremendous leap forward, its excellent, humane social policies and determined people-oriented scientific research, as well as its march towards[Read More…]
Almost every day we read about the latest outbursts in Europe, targeting pro-immigration policies. There are protests, even riots. Right-wing governments get voted in, allegedly, because the Europeans “have had enough of relaxed immigration regulations”. That is what we are told. That’s what we are supposed to understand, and even sympathize with. Anti-immigration sentiments are even pitched to the[Read More…]
The United States believes that it is so invincible, exceptional and so frightening that no one would ever dare to protest, let alone defend its people against constant humiliation, economic embargos and military threats. It used to be like this for quite some time. In the past, the West used to bully the world before and after each well-planned assault.Also,[Read More…]
No one is talking about it openly, but, let us face it: those U.S.-made planes are crashing;the performance of Apple phones and computers is falling far behind those made by Huawei and other Chinese companies. Lenovo took over IBM and is doing extremely well. NASA is absolutely incapable of building decent rockets that would be able to deliver people or[Read More…]
Former President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, had finished his 15-minute discourse in a courtroom, while being locked inside a sound-proofed cage. He read a poem about his love for Egypt, and then collapsed, and died. His demise sent shock-waves all over Egypt, the region and the Muslim world. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to accept the official story, claiming[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek You will never read about it, but Dayak people, the “First Nation” of the enormous island of Borneo, are broken, robbed and brainwashed. “Unity in diversity” it says; the motto of Indonesia. But it could be argued that the opposite is true. There is very little unity, and less and less diversity, as the country[Read More…]
While the United States has been intimidating dozens of countries all over the world, two cuddly Chinese giant pandas – a three year old male called Ru Yi, and a female one year younger, named Ding Ding – were settling down in their new home, inside the legendary Moscow Zoo. Chewing bamboo shoots, and obviously enjoying the unprecedented attention, two[Read More…]
Year after year, month after month, I see two sides of the world; two extremes which are getting more and more disconnected: I see great cities like Homs in Syria, reduced to horrifying ruins. I see Kabul and Jalalabad in Afghanistan, fragmented by enormous concrete wallsintended to protect NATO occupation armies and their local puppets. I see monstrous environmental[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek It truly looked grand, impressive– the fourth most populous country on earth voted in general elections, which were held on 17 April 2019. Hundreds of positions were for grab:that of the president, the vice president, members of the People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR), and members of local legislative bodies.There were 190 million eligible voters in the country,and sixteen parties, including four[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Europe, an “old” colonialist continent, is decaying, and in some places even collapsing. It senses how bad things are going. But it never thinks that it is its own fault. North America is decaying as well, but there, people are not even used to comparing. They only “feel that things are not going well”. If[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek In the past, whenever I went to (or more precisely, ‘through’) Israel, it was for some antagonistic purpose: to write about the brutal suppression of the intifada in Gaza or Hebron, to comment on the insanity of the land grab around Bethlehem, or to report from the eerie and de-populated Golan Heights, which Israel[Read More…]
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek In Indonesia, both presidential candidates have declared victory, just a few days after the elections that were held on 17th April, 2019. Both of them are pro-business, both Muslim, and both insist that the Communist Party should continue to be banned. Neither of them is even thinking about stopping their country from committing one of[Read More…]
Ed Lehman is a Canadian Communist,and a comrade of mine. I don’t say such things often or lightly, especially about Westerners. But he became my comrade, and we struggled shoulder to shoulder, for five days. Not in the South American wilderness, not in Afghanistan or Syria, but in Regina, a small Canadian city, the capital of the province of Saskatchewan.[Read More…]
The second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation is about to open in Beijing. It will take place from 25th to 27thApril, 2019. The Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to deliver the keynote address. It is expected to be an event of tremendous proportions and importance: leaders from 37 countries will participate, including Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and[Read More…]
What is the ‘Monroe Doctrine’? In brief, it is a document which defines the entire Western Hemisphere as a ‘backyard’ of the United States. It ‘philosophically’ justifies Washington’s neo-colonialism, and the most barbaric coups it has been triggering, as well as covered and open interventions in the Caribbean, and in Central and South America. And now, National Security Advisor John[Read More…]
Throughout history, dark and reactionary forces have always attempted to control the world; by violence, by deceit, by kidnapping and perverting the mainstream narrative,or by spreading fear among the masses. Consistently, brave and honest individuals have been standing up, exposing lies, confronting the brutality and depravity.Some have fought against insane and corrupt rulers by using swords or guns; others have[Read More…]
I hear this again and again, whenever I speak in the West: “What kind of Communism is that, in China? In all big cities, they have Prada and Gucci in every major department store.” Western leftists are obsessed with this topic. They do not even realize how ridiculous, how racist their arguments actually are! China, with some 6,000 years[Read More…]
Several years ago, the renowned linguist and thinker, Noam Chomsky, asked me, point blank, as we were working on our book:“On Western Terrorism – From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare”: “Do you think it is possible that most of Europeans really don’t know about crimes their countries committed all over the world?” “They don’t know… They don’t want to know… They[Read More…]
Yes, the latest research confirms that Venezuela is so rich in natural resources, that it could single-handedly satisfy all global demand for oil, for over 30 years. And it has much more than oil to offer, in its Orinoco basin and in other areas of the country. But it is not all ‘about oil’; actually, far from it. Those[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek No one can agree how high above the sea level that La Rinconada really lies at: 5,300 meters or 5,200 meters?On the access road, a metal plate says 5,015. But who really cares? It is indisputably the highest settlement in the world; a gold mining town, a concentration of misery,a community of around 70,000 inhabitants,[Read More…]
Well, not exactly like that, but in a way, yes. Now, finally, ‘the gloves are off’. The U.S. is openly threatening the historically timid ICC (International Criminal Court) and its judges. And unexpectedly, the ICC is hitting back. It refuses to shut up, to kneel, and to beg for mercy. Suddenly, even the Western mass media outlets cannot conceal[Read More…]
Does it pay ‘to be good’? Is it still possible to play by the rules in this mad world, governed by brigands? What if the rules are defined and ratified by all countries of the world, but a small group of the strongest (militarily) nations totally ignores them, while using its professional propagandists to reinterpret them in the most bizarre[Read More…]
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek For a while, all the guns have fallen silent. I am near Idlib, the last stronghold of the terrorists in Syria. The area where the deadliest anti-government fighters, most of them injected into Syria from Turkey, with Saudi, Qatari and Western ‘help’, are literally holed up, ready for the final showdown. Just yesterday, mortars were[Read More…]
I am surprised that no one else is saying it, writing it, shouting it at each and every corner: It is not Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Iran that are in dire and crucial need of ‘regime change’. It is the United States of America, it is the entire European Union; in fact, the entire West. And the situation is urgent.[Read More…]
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek Snow is falling on the wide sidewalks of the historic city of Xi’an, but people don’t seem to be troubled by the bitter cold. One of the oldest cities in China, Xi’an, is now vibrant, optimistic and stunningly beautiful. Sidewalks are paved with expensive stones and have more than enough space for pedestrians, electric bicycles,[Read More…]
It may sound incredible, but it is true: in countries that have been damaged, even totally robbed and destroyed by the West, many people are still enamored with Europe and North America. For years, I have been observing this ‘phenomena’, even in the most plundered, devastated war zones and slums. Often I was shocked, other times thoroughly desperate. I did[Read More…]
Enough is enough! There have been plenty of empty talk and peace conferences, more than enough of begging: “Please, West, stop murdering people, stop your genocides, stop robbing all continents of their resources, stop enslaving billions!” Look where it has ended up! Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.The more people begged, the more they protested, the harder the West hit. Rulers in Washington,[Read More…]
Gong Xi Fa Cai: happy year of the Pig 2019! Congratulations, the Year of the Pig has arrived! “According to the Chinese astrology, 2019 is a great year to make money, and a good year to invest! 2019 is going to be full of joy, a year of friendship and love for all the zodiac signs; an auspicious year because the[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek It is truly an amazing site: monstrous US hotels and casinos, just few hundred meters from the Mainland China. All that kitsch that one usually associates with Las Vegas or Atlantic City, but bigger, much bigger! In fact, Macau is the biggest casino sprawl in the world. Casinos, most of them confined inside the US[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Come to Southeast Asia and enjoy beaches, cheap sex and raunchy massage parlors. Hang around this part of the world in whichever way you like;wearing flip-flops, shorts and t-shirts. You were told that ‘everything is easy here, that things are cheap and people are friendly and happy’. Do what you want, as almost everything is[Read More…]
It is new and it is not new, but it is tremendously wicked and deadly – the latest type of coup the US invented and is now applying against Venezuela. Of course, coups and attempted coups are what could be described as the ‘West’s specialties’, and have been utilized by the U.S., U.K. and other imperialist countries against innumerable[Read More…]
Lately, I have been asked this question on several occasions. “Can our humanity really survive?” “Am I an optimist or a pessimist?” My replies vary, as I don’t think there can ever be one single answer to this most urgent, the most important query. Sometimes my answer gets influenced by location: where I am at that moment, or where I[Read More…]
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek There used to be a pair of beautiful swings for children, not far from an old rural temple in Mie Prefecture, where I used to frequently power walk, when searching for inspiration for my novels. Two years ago, I noticed that the swings had gotten rusty, abandoned, and unkempt. Yesterday, I spotted a yellow ribbon,[Read More…]
Text and Photos by Andre Vltchek Syria and Afghanistan. Two terrible wars, two mighty destructions, but two absolutelyopposite outcomes. In Syria, it may be autumn now, but almost the entire country is blossoming again, literally rising from ashes. Two thousand miles east from there, Afghanistan is smashed against its ancient rocks, bleeding and broken. There, it does not really matter[Read More…]
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek How low can a country governed by an unbridled greed, a notorious lack of morals and ubiquitous servility to its neo-colonialist masters, really sink? And how can people tolerate lies, the naked cynicism and fanatical incompetence of the rulers? Can the regime in Indonesia, which was created in 1965, and then nurtured by the West,[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Believe it or not, but not long ago, Cyprus used to be the only country in the European Union that was governed by a Communist Party. And it was not really too long ago – between 2008 and 2013. Also, relatively recently, unification of the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish administered northern part of[Read More…]
What if protesters in Paris win, and the French government gives in to all their demands? What if taxes are reduced, wages increased, President Macron steps down? I am not talking only about the fuel tax; attempts to impose it have been already abandoned. I am not talking about increase of the minimum wage – the government already agreed to[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Yes, there is rubble, in fact total destruction, in some of the neighborhoods of Homs, Aleppo, in the outskirts of Damascus, and elsewhere. Yes, there are terrorists and ‘foreign forces’ in Idlib and in several smaller pockets in some parts of the country. Yes, hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives and millions are[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Believe it or not, but decades ago, Indonesia was a socialist country, the cradle of the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’, with the progressive and fiery President Soekarno leading the nation. The Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) was then the third largest Communist Party in the world, after those of China and the Soviet Union, and was it[Read More…]
Binu Mathew, Editor of Countercurrents.org interviews Andre Vltchek BM: You are one of the foremost critics of imperialism. Can you tell us how you came to be who you are? Can you tell us about your formative years? AV: Formative years… There were many of them, and actually, I feel that I am still evolving, until now. People always do,[Read More…]
L’Antidiplomatico Interview AB: Let’s start from today’s crisis in the Sea of Azov. The European Union and NATO have given full support to Ukraine after the violation of Russian sovereignty by two Ukrainian vessels. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave his full support to Poroshenko, who declared martial law. What does a country like Italy risk in continuing its[Read More…]
Most of those who have had a chance to witness Chinese internationalist mega-projects, clearly understand that the West is near to collapsing; it will never be able to compete with tremendous enthusiasm and progressive spirit of the most populous country on earth, which on top of it, is built on socialist principles (with Chinese characteristics). Writing this essay in[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek It is strange that when you come from the south, near to the DMZ (De-militarized zone, which divides Korea into two parts), you will see many flags and sentimental ‘peace’ slogans, but nothing that would represent the points of view of the North Korean people. All the flags are those of ROC (Republic of[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek It stinks, it is the most polluted city on earth, but that is not the most terrible thing about it. You can drive for ten or even twenty kilometers through it, and see only ugliness, fences and broken pavements. But there are many miserable cities on this planet, and I have worked in almost all[Read More…]
It appears that the KSA has crossed all lines of decency, if there were ever any. In the eyes of many in the West, it crossed them not because it has been brutally killing tens of thousands of innocent people in Yemen, not even because it keeps sponsoring terrorists in Syria, (and in fact all over the world), often on behalf[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek You all know how the saying goes: “Poor Mexico – too far from God, too close to the United States”. This proud, beautiful and deep part of the world has been plundered, ravished and humiliated for many centuries, first by the Europeans (both the Spaniards and French), then by the Norteamericanos. The vulgarity and brutality[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek It is one of those complex stories that are so difficult to tell, and yet they should, they have to be shared. Imagine the splendid Mekong River, as it flows not far from an ancient capital of Laos,Luang Prabang. The river is powerful, with muddy banks, surrounded by lush mountains. Imagine poor villages and old[Read More…]
The insanity and vileness of Western anti-Chinese propaganda used to make some of my Chinese friends cry late at night. But things are changing. The lunacy of what is said and written about China (and Russia, of course), in the US and Europe, is now clearly reflecting frustration and the bad manners of sore losers. One could almost be[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek As I was reading, on board an Air Canada flight from Mexico City to Vancouver, The Globe and Mail coverage of the horrors that have been unraveling for several days on the island of Sulawesi, I felt two powerful and contradictory emotions: I wanted to be there, immediately, ‘on the ground’, in the city[Read More…]
Text and photos by: Andre Vltchek After decades of stagnation, corruption and deadly dependency on the United States, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is considered by many ordinary people, as well as by intellectuals, to be the last chance for Mexico. Two important news developments are circulating all over North America: US President Donald Trump will not attend the inauguration of[Read More…]
How could a country win her fight against Western imperialism, how could it become truly independent, if its people are fully conditioned, through the mass media and education, by the North American and European doctrines and world view? Wherever I work and struggle in this world, I am always amazed, even shocked, by how powerful the Western tools of indoctrination[Read More…]
Text and photos: Andre Vltchek Imagine a country with 5.6 million inhabitants (of which around 4 million are citizens), surrounded by a collapsing giant – Indonesia – in the south and south-west, by the historically hostile Malaysia in the north, and that proverbial deep blue sea (Strait of Malacca, full of nasty pirates) over the horizon. Officially Indonesia has 250[Read More…]
I’m sitting at the splendid building of the Singapore National Library, in a semi-dark room, microfilm inserted into a high-tech machine. I’m watching and then filming and photographing several old Malaysian newspapers dating back from October 1965. These reports were published right after the horrible 1965 military coup in Indonesia, which basically overthrew the progressive President Sukarno and liquidated then[Read More…]
Indonesia (RI), the 4th most populous nation on Earth and the country with the largest Muslim population is, and since the 1965 US-orchestrated anti-Communist coup has been, the most radically pro-Western and anti-socialist place in Asia. This is where you could end up in prison for publicly declaring that you are a Communist, or just an atheist. And this[Read More…]
My friend, a senior UN official based in Amman, Jordan, recently received a newsletter from an Israeli institution – “IMPACT-se”. Their report was called, ‘modestly’, “Reformulating School Textbooks During the Civil War”. It is full of analyses of the Syrian curriculum. Interesting stuff, without any doubt:Manipulative, negative, but interesting. It made it to many other places in the Middle East;[Read More…]
Without understanding what happened to the Herero and Nama people, it is impossible to understand what occurred right before and during World War II Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek In 2014, after I published my report about Namibia, exposing the German ‘semi-denial’that it had committed a Holocaust in its former Southwest African colony; a renowned German university sent me a[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Have you ever considered the possibility that almost everything that you have been told about the world by the Western mass media is a lie and fabrication? I am sure you have, at least lately, when the insanity of Western propaganda is becoming very clear and obvious. But what about the extent of indoctrination you[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Where precisely,is Jordan now? Is it with the West, or with the Arab world? How independent is it, really, and what future lies ahead? Recently, in the middle of the capital city – Amman – several sleek 5-star hotel towers grew towards the sky, including the trendy “W” and Rotana. Dressed to kill women from[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Do you want to see perhaps the spookiest island on earth – Hashima (also known as Gunkanjima–the Battleship Island) – which is located just 30 minutes by speedboat from the historic Japanese port city of Nagasaki? Now you can. Just book online, pay the equivalent of US$40, and then hop on one of those shiny[Read More…]
It has been happening for quite some time, but no one has been paying much attention: Western academia, mainstream media, and the most visible propagandists, were trying to convince the world that 1) ideology has died, or at least became irrelevant 2) in case it did not die, the Left is actually… hold your breath…right-wing! Especially the Left that is[Read More…]
Here it is – my short film about North Korea. No need to drag it, to prolong it – let’s just watch it all together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV2RQCZqsTk&feature=youtu.be This is my 25-minutes piece about the DPRK (North Korea) – country that I visited relatively recently; visited and loved, was impressed with, and let me be frank – admired. I don’t really know[Read More…]
Why is Europe full of hate for Donald Trump? Is it, perhaps, because millions could soon die in yet another of the senseless and horrible wars unleashed by the Western empire? Or is it because Europeans suddenly ‘saw the light’ and realized that they mistreated billions of innocent people throughout history; that actually all people on Earth are equal and[Read More…]
Text Andre Vltchek and Rossie Indira, Photos: Andre Vltchek This time it was really supposed to work! The turbo-capitalist, anti-Communist and obedient Indonesia got so used to hearing bizarrely inflated compliments from its Western handlers, that it began to believe that it finally could do it – to build at least one dignified, livable urban center complete with sidewalks, public[Read More…]
When we first met in 2017, the Turkish poet, Mustafa Goren, stood proudly and defiantly next to a monstrous concrete wall built on orders from Ankara. The partition has just recently separated two towns with the same culture: Turkish Karkamis and Syrian Jarabulus. The poet then read some of his verses, and my friend, a translator of my books, originally[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek and Mira Lubis Would you ever think of the third largest island on Earth – Borneo (known as Kalimantan in Indonesia) – as one of the cradles of the world’s democracy? Perhaps you wouldn’t, but you should. While Europe was engaged in myriads of internal as well as expansionist wars, in the once lush, tropical[Read More…]
It appears that the Western public, both relatively ‘educated’ and thoroughly ignorant, could, after some persuasion, agree on certain very basic facts – for instance that Russia has historically been a victim of countless European aggressions, or that countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Iran or North Korea (DPRK) have never in modern history crossed the borders of foreign nations in order[Read More…]
Despite tremendous hardship which the Venezuelan people are having to face, despite the sanctions and intimidation from abroad, President Nicolás Maduro has won a second six-year term. Two weeks ago, at the Venezuelan embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, where I addressed several leaders of East African left-wing opposition, an acting Charge d’ Affaires, Jose Avila Torres, declared: “People of Venezuela[Read More…]
Dedicated to my friend, a philosopher, John Cobb, Jr. The West likes to think of itself as a truly “peace-loving part of the world”. But is it? You hear it everywhere, from Europe to North America, then to Australia, and back to Europe: “Peace, peace, peace!” It has become a cliché, a catchphrase, a recipe to get funding and[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek When the Saudi Crown Prince gave an interview to the Washington Post, declaring that it was actually the West that encouraged his country to spread Wahhabism to all corners of the world, there was a long silence in almost all the mass media outlets in the West, but also in countries such as Egypt and[Read More…]
First of all, the British Airways is not in the league of airlines such as Singapore Airlines or Cathay Pacific. Many of its intercontinental planes are old and unkempt; monitors are onlybit bigger than a pack of cigarettes, and the selection of films thoroughly pathetic for a ‘global carrier’ – just a mainstream diet of Hollywood and British blockbusters. While[Read More…]
Do you think it is that simple to travel around the Middle East? Think twice! Ask Palestinians, about trying to get from a point A to a point B in their own nation. Some time ago, sitting in an old Ottoman hotel in Bethlehem, I asked a waiter what it takes to travel from there to Gaza, where he said,[Read More…]
Andre Vltchek & John Cobb Jr There is no time for long introductions. The world is, possibly heading for yet another catastrophe. This one, if we, human beings will not manage to prevent it, could become our final. The West is flexing its muscle, antagonizing every single country that stands on its way to total domination of the Planet. Some[Read More…]
On April 9, 2018 at least 14 people were killed during the murderous strike bythe Israeli air force on the Syrian T-4 airfield at Homs. Israeli F-15 fighter jets flew over Lebanese airspace, as they have done on many previous occasions, in total disregard of international law. Both Israel and Lebanon are still technically at war, and the latest action[Read More…]
The Empire Is Obsessed with Perverse Types Of Punishment Western culture is clearly obsessed with rules, guilt, submissiveness and punishment. By now it is clear that the West is the least free society on Earth. In North America and Europe, almost everyone is under constant scrutiny: people are spied on, observed, their personal information is being continually extracted, and[Read More…]
There is nothing sadder and more pathetic, than a notorious liar shouting, spitting saliva, insulting normal people left and right, whileterrorizing those who are telling the truth. Lately, the West has gone clearly berserk. The more it is scared of losing control over the brains of billions of people in all corners of the world, the more aggressively it is[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek People in the Middle East are joking,cynically: “From Incirlik, Turkey to Al-Azraq, Jordan with love.” That is, if they pay any attention to the movement of NATO troops in this part of the world. They should. At least one substantial part of an incredibly deadly and aggressive force has beengradually relocated, from an ‘uncertain’ and[Read More…]
When it comes to Russia or the Soviet Union, reports and historical accounts do get blurry; in the West they do, and consequently in all of its ‘client states’. Fairytales getintermingled with reality, while fabrications are masterfully injected into sub consciousness of billions of people worldwide. Russia is an enormous country, in fact the largest country on Earth in terms[Read More…]
When an airplane is approaching Singapore Changi Airport, it makesthe final approach either from the direction of Peninsular Malaysia, or from theIndonesian island of Batam. Either way, the scope for natural disaster under the wings is of monumental proportions. All the primary forest ofthe Malaysian state bordering Singapore –Johor – is now gone and the tremendous sprawl of scarred land,[Read More…]
Lebanon, as so often in the past, is facing mortal danger. Saudi Arabia is putting great pressure on the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, a powerful but controversial figure who holds dual nationality – Saudi and Lebanese. Riyadh expects Lebanon to play by its own rules, sidelining Hezbollah, ending Iranian influence in the country, and promoting Saudi business and political[Read More…]
Andre Vltchek They say Propaganda! In the West, both the mainstream media and even some of the so-called progressive outlets are shouting: “Those Russians and Chinese and the others like them, they are at it again! Their vicious propaganda is infiltrating our democratic, freedom-loving countries, spreading confusion and chaos!” Yes, ban or at least curb RT, contain TeleSur, and if[Read More…]
It really is a shame, and it is tiring, but it is actuallynothing new: there is now total disarray amongst those countless‘progressive’ and ‘semi-left’ Western intellectuals, publications, movements and political parties. Cowardice, bloated egos, lack of discipline and intellectual pettiness are often to blame, but that is not all. It is now absolutely clear that the Western left lost patently[Read More…]
It could be truly comical, if it were not to be so dangerous for millions of people living all over the world. The Empire, once mighty, ruthless and frightening is now jumping around like a dog infected with rabies; it is salivating, barking loudly, its tale is stiff between its legs. It snaps left and right, and periodically it[Read More…]
Afghanistan is now facing mortal danger. It has to survive, but it is not clear how it can manage. Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul, which was attacked by gunmen last Saturday, used to fit like a glove, like a grandmother’s couch. Outside, the war has been raging. Millions of Afghan lives were aimlessly broken, hundreds of thousands lost. The price of[Read More…]
Here it goes again! Several countries of Oceania (also known as South Pacific Nations), or however you want to call that vast, beautiful but thoroughly devastated part of the world, have voted “for Israel”, “for the United States’ proposed resolution at the United Nations”, and therefore, “against Palestine”. As reported on December 22, 2017 by Al Jazeera: “The United[Read More…]
Protests in Iran are winding down, and the streets in most of the cities are becoming quiet again. But the question remains: who was behind the ‘events’ that took at least 22 human lives? The diplomatic and media storm is far from abiding with questions about the origin of the protests. What really took place in Iran at the very[Read More…]
Sometimes it is useful to take a break from news bulletins and newspapers, and even from ‘friendly’ Internet publications. Occasionally it is good to realize that there are actually two parallel realities that are constantly competing for the ‘hearts and minds’ of people living all over the world. There is real life and ‘fake life’. There is reality and[Read More…]
It has been all very ugly, aggressive and often distinctly vulgar: the way the British Foreign Secretary has behaved before and during his official visit to Moscow. Mr. Johnson described Russia as “closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic” concluding that it could not be “business as usual”. He did not define what the UK has become, and the Russian hosts were[Read More…]
From Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Samarinda and Pontianak text and photos: Andre Vltchek * Several years ago, a prominent Indonesian businessman who now resides in Canada, insisted on meeting me in a back room of one of Jakarta’s posh restaurants. An avid reader of mine, he ‘had something urgent to tell me’, after finding out that our paths were going to[Read More…]
I have already written a lot about Cambodia, but each time I return to this ancient and scarred country, I get so outraged by the cynicism that confronts me there, at every corner, that I have to start writing again, re-addressing the same essential issues that I have already been covering for years and decades. One question always comes[Read More…]
In Siem Reap: A table was set up for two, an advertisement table,a table with a photo of a giant turkey, two elegant plates, and a U.S. flag sticking out into the air. “Thanksgiving at Angkor Royal Cafe”, a flier read. And: “23rd November… Join us for a traditional Thanksgiving Feast”. This was at one of the international hotels inSiem[Read More…]
By Andre Vltchek and Mira Lubis From Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan): She was just standing there, in the middle of burning land, surrounded by stumps of trees, fire everywhere, smoke rising towards hopelessly gray sky. The expression on her face was mischievous, almost girlish. I had no idea how old she was: she could have been 28, just as she couldeasily[Read More…]
The world is in ruins. It is literally burning, covered by slums, by refugee camps, and its great majority is ‘controlled by markets’, as was the dream and design of individuals such as Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Führers like Kissinger and Brzezinski, sacrificed tens of millions of human lives all over our planet,[Read More…]
What just used to be rumors, suddenly,became official facts. The Government of the United States of America, which for years and decades has been sick and tired of the ‘rebellious UN agency’, decided to leave it, slamming the door behind its back. In its official Press Statement, the U.S. Department of State declared: “On October 12, 2017, the Department[Read More…]
Co-Written By Andre Vltchek and Rossie Indira From Yogyakarta and KarangKlethak Village: Djokopekik (who uses only one name, as is common in Java) could easily be described as the greatest living Indonesian painter. He is something of an anomaly in his country, where vulgar pop art, pop music and almost absolute submission to Western pro-market dogmas, religious rituals, and feudal[Read More…]
From Jakarta and Yogyakarta: It was once again a hot, muggy day in Jakarta. The air was full of pollutants, epic traffic jams blocking entire center of the city. Biasa, as locals would say, or in a lax translation, ‘business as usual’. It is September 29th, 2017, Friday, just one day before the most sinister anniversary in the[Read More…]
It is all done in a fully barefaced manner. Those who are not part of this world could never even dream about such a ‘perfect’ design. You come to your club, in my case to The Foreign Correspondent Club of Thailand (FCCT), and immediately the long arm of indoctrination begins stretching towards you. You place yourself on a comfortable couch,[Read More…]
Interview with ANDRE VLTCHEK by ALESSANDRO BIANCCHI, Chief Editor of Anti-Diplomatico 1) AB: The geographic location of Afghanistan has always occupied a central role. The April peace talks between Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Russia and China seemed to have put an end to the persistent and dominant American presence in the country. What’s your opinion? AV: What you have mentioned is extremely important,[Read More…]
Whatever the West may think, and no matter what the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri may say publicly, the Lebanese army, in clear coordination with Hezbollah (which is outlawed in many Western countries) as well as with the Syrian army, is now pounding the positions of deadly ISIS/Daesh, right at the border region. The army began the operation on[Read More…]
From Lebanon, text and photos: Andre Vltchek It came unexpectedly, rapidly and with great force: on 21 July 2016, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Syrian army from their side, in unison, attacked positions of the malevolent terrorist group,Jabhat Fatah al-Sham(formerly known as Al-Nusra Front),in the mountainous province of Jroud Arsal in Bekaa Valley, on the border of two countries.[Read More…]
INVESTIG’ACTION interview with ANDRE VLTCHEK Q1:You are preparing a new documentary film about a big island, Borneo, which is shared by three Asian countries. Which was the triggering factor for making this film now? AV: The triggering factor was a simple shock. I’m not what you’d call an environmentalist. Of course I care about our planet, about our wonderful creatures, plants,[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek It often appears that “true Afghanistan” is not here in Kabuland not in Jalalabad or Heart either; not in the ancient villages, which anxiously cling to the steep mountainsides. Many foreigners and even Afghans are now convinced that the “true” Afghanistan is only what is being shown on the television screens,depicted in magazines, or what[Read More…]
Covering the recent battle for the city of Marawi on Mindanao Island in the Southern Philippines, the Western media has been grossly exaggerating unconfirmed reports and rumors. It has been spreading twisted information and ‘facts’. At the beginning of July, I visited Mindanao as one of only a few foreigners allowed inside the besieged city of Marawi and to its[Read More…]
There is a small courthouse from the ‘British era’, standing right in the center of Hong Kong. It is neat, well-built, remarkably organized and some would even say – elegant. Earlier this year I visited there with an Afghan-British lawyer, who had been touring East Asia for several months. Hong Kongwas her last destination; afterwards she was planning to[Read More…]
Text And Photos: Andre Vltchek It was late at night but the new Terminal 3 at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport outside Jakarta was still bustling with families and friends waiting for their loved ones returning from abroad. My friend Noor Huda Ismail was just arriving from Singapore, and I decided to pick him up and discuss ‘certain issues’ with him in[Read More…]
How destructive can man get, how ruthless, in his quest to secure maximum profit, even as he endangers the very survival of our planet? The tropical forests of Kalimantan (known as Borneo in Malaysia), the third largest island in the world, have almost totally disappeared. Coalmines are savagely scarring the hills; the rivers are polluted, and countless species are[Read More…]
Watch blockbuster movies from the “south” and chances are you will start to believe that the world is not really such a desperate place. Perhaps you might even get convinced that under the present imperialist and turbo-capitalist global arrangement things can always get better. If you live in a gutter somewhere in Sub-Continent or Africa, you could simply try[Read More…]
You say that you want facts – facts and more facts, before you can commit. Before you finally decide to become part of something: a political party, a movement or another human being. You already have plenty of them: an avalanche, a tsunami of facts. “In fact”, your life is overflowing with facts. Most of them are brought directly[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Palestinian refugee camps are up in flames, across the country, a result of the disputes between the rival factions, but also of ‘unsavory’ influences from abroad. As everyone knows here, there are, for instance,the Al Qaida-affiliated militants hiding in the South. There are Israeli incursions into Lebanon, both by land and by water. There are[Read More…]
In Cairo, Pope Francis, once again, did what he usually does best: he snapped at the state of immorality and selfishness, which is governing the world, particularly in the West. The message to Egypt’s priests couldactually be directed at the population of the European and North American cities: “The first temptation is to letting ourselves to be led, rather[Read More…]
Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek Dr. Gus Abu-Sitta is the head of the Plastic Surgery Department at the AUB Medical Center in Lebanon. He specializes in: reconstructive surgery. What it means in this part of the world is clear: they bring you people from the war zones, torn to pieces, missing faces, burned beyond recognition, and you have to[Read More…]
When I think about North Korea, what first comes to my mind is a mist over the calm and majestic surface of the Taedong River near Pyongyang. Next I always recall two lovers, locked in a tender and almost desperate embrace, sitting side by side on the shore. I saw them every day, while taking brisk walks at dawn. Now[Read More…]
Scenario ONE: Imagine that you are on board a ship, which is slowly sinking. There is no land in sight, and your radio transmitter is not functioning properly. There are several people on board and you care for them, deeply. You don’t want this to be the end of ‘everything’. What do you do? A) You fix for yourself[Read More…]
Ms. Yayoi Segiis based in Beirut, Lebanon, and she has worked in Syria for almost 3 years. She is extremely passionate about the country, which she admires and tries to support in her position as an accomplished specialist in national education development. She agreed to share her collection of personal photos from Damascus, Homs and Aleppo.
How dreadfully depressing life has become in almost all of the Western cities! How awful and sad. It is not that these cities are not rich; they are. Of course things are deteriorating there, the infrastructure is crumbling and there are signs of social inequality, even misery, at every corner. But if compared to almost all other parts of[Read More…]
WINTER It is now winter in Kabul, end of February 2017. At night the temperature gets near zero. The mountains surrounding the city are covered by snow. It feels much chillier than it really is. Soon it will be 16 years since the US/UK invasion of the country, and 16 years since the Bonn Conference, during which Hamid Karzai was[Read More…]
Despite certain economic and social setbacks, the Western Empire is doing remarkably well. That is, if we measure success by the ability to control the world, to condition the brains of human beings on all continents, and to crush almost all substantial dissent, at home and abroad. What has almost entirely disappeared from life, at least in such places[Read More…]
Outside Southeast Asia, few people know of Palembang, a city on Sumatra, the sixth largest island in the world. A gloomy and immense city, with almost two million inhabitants, most of them living in cramped and squalid conditions. The tropical River Musi bisects the city, a desperately polluted waterway, bordered by slums built on stilts and a few old colonial[Read More…]
At the end of December 2016, both Taiwan and the world were shaken to the core, when images appeared inthe local press and online, depicting students paradingin Nazi uniforms proudly raising their hands in salute, an act banned in most of countries of the world. Mail Online reported: “A school in Taiwan has been condemned after students waved Nazi flags[Read More…]
Text and photos by Andre Vltchek From Manila and Davao: When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ascended to power in 1999, almost no one in the West, in Asia and even in most of the Latin American countries knew much about his new militant revolutionary anti-imperialism. From the mass media outlets like CNN and the BBC, to local televisions and newspapers[Read More…]
On November 30th, I walked into the historic building housing the Cuban Embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam. It was getting cold and it was drizzling. Several Vietnamese guards stood silently at the entrance. Flowers were everywhere and a big black photo of Comandante Fidel was facing a busy street. I explained who I was, and an embassy official first let[Read More…]
From Manila and Davao: There is a sense of change in those narrow and desperate alleys of the Baseco slum in the Philippines’ capital Manila. For the first time in many years a beautiful, noble lady visited; against all odds she decided to stay. Her name is Hope. Baseco is a tough, crime-ridden region built from cartons and metal sheets, even[Read More…]
Common wisdom says that after Donald Trump got elected in the United States, Vietnam should be in panic. True, there could be some ‘objective’ reasons for alarm, if one is truly obsessed with the ‘free’ trade agreements. The Trans-Pacific Partnership may soon go to the dogs and at least onesizeable part of the Vietnamese leadership was counting on it, hoping[Read More…]
Many years ago, Fidel declared: “Men do not shape destiny. Destiny produces the man for the hour.” It did; destiny shaped them all, los Barbudos, and threw them right into the center of the whirlpool of world history. As they fought for the freedom of Cuba, of Latin America and the entire oppressed world, they actually managed to defy[Read More…]
Only citizens can vote in the US Presidential elections, yet the impact is global. The world is suddenly in disarray, in panic. A man notorious for his bigoted rhetoric, a man who believes in American exceptionalism, who wants to build the walls and to ‘restore order’, has been elected the 45th President of the mightiest nation on Earth. Hiscountryis[Read More…]
Since the results of the latest Presidential elections were announced, I am longing for silence, while the overwhelming cacophony of deafening noises is assaulting my ears, and in fact all my senses. Suddenly everyone around me wants to speak, to shout, and to declare. Lately, peoplewho are surrounding me, as well as those who are far away from me are[Read More…]
You say “European cultural institutions”, and what should come immediately to mind are lavish concerts, avant-garde art exhibitions, high quality language courses and benevolent scholarships for talented cash-strapped local students. It is all so noble, so civilized! Or, is it really? Think twice! I wrote my short novel, “Aurora”, after studying the activities of various Western ‘cultural institutions’, in[Read More…]
Khartoum, Sudan: “What could be the most striking image, one that would clearly illustrate the destructive involvement of the United States in Sudan?” I ask. “In short, what should I photograph, that could show the suffering of the Sudanese people?” “Let’s go and photograph what is left of the Al-Shifa factory,” I am told. “It is terrible, and truly symbolic.”[Read More…]
Rodrigo Duterte, the outspoken President of the Philippines has by now, most likely, joined the concealed, prestigious and permanent hit list of the Empire. The hit list isvery long; it hasalready been long for several decades. One could easily lose count and get confused: how many personalities have been marked and secretly condemned to death? How many of them actually[Read More…]
It is tough to fight any real war. And it takes true guts, discipline and determination to win it. For years and decades, the so-called ‘left’ in the West has been moderately critical of North American (and sometimes even of European) imperialism and neo-colonialism. But whenever some individual or country rose up and began openly challenging the Empire, most of[Read More…]
In Europe, oppression is never really called by its true ugly name. It is constantly concealed by lofty slogans such as culture, even tolerance. Repression, discrimination and harassment are administered in order for the ‘entire society to be free’. Or so at least the official narrative goes. In France, recent and ugly row overso-called burkinis, a swimsuit used by[Read More…]
Yesterday I watched Ms. Clinton on television screen, stumbling towards her van, after attending a ceremony at the WTC in New York City. She had to be grabbed by both arms by her aids, and then literally pulled into the vehicle. Embarrassing? Not really. People get exhausted; they get sick and sometimes they can even hardly remain standing on their[Read More…]
It is now September 2016, just two months before the Presidential elections, and both political camps have already managed to disgust a great number of the US voters, by offering almost no comprehensive political or economic program, by offering… close to nothing! While Donald Trump is lashing out at the ‘enemy within’, during his dark moments that are increasingly resembling[Read More…]
Btaaboura is a tiny village in the mountains of northern Lebanon. It is connected to the main motorway by a narrow winding road. It could be just anywhere in the Christian part of this country: white stone houses, olive groves, wine grapes, bare hills. Like elsewhere, the wealth is hardly backed by hard work. It is mainly sustained by remittances[Read More…]
If the West in general and the United States in particular, left the Arab and Muslim world alone and in peace, we would most likely never see all those terrorist attacks, which are rocking the world from Indonesia to France. There would be no Mujahedeen and its mutation into al-Qaida; in Afghanistan or elsewhere. There would be no traces of[Read More…]
When some time ago Noam Chomsky and I met at MIT, in order to write a book “On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare”and to produce a filmwith the same titletogether,the topic we mainly aimed at discussing was that of the countless genocides the West has committed all over the world since the end of the WWII. The second[Read More…]
So many would like this to happen – to see Turkey go, to leave NATO, to break its psychological, political and economic dependency on the West. Now that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his allies are quarreling with the United States and the EU, there is suddenly great hope that Turkey may thoroughly re-think its position in the world, strengthen its[Read More…]
Once upon a time, there was a man called James Buchanan. He was a Democrat, a Secretary of State and then the President of the United States. A good friend of mine, a historian, told me about him. Buchanan was the last U.S. President who previously served as Secretary of State. He was a Pennsylvania native, and he took his[Read More…]
Possibly I have spent too many years ‘abroad’, outside of North America and Europe. Perhaps I don’t feel ‘white’, or ‘Western’ anymore. Or who knows, maybe I never really felt too ‘Western’ anyway, thanks to my Russian and Chinese blood. That could help to explain why, when I listened to the acceptance speech delivered by Donald Trump at the Republican[Read More…]
New Cold War is now in full swing and the West is using both old and new tactics, in order to demonize and discredit all of its opponents: from Russia to China, Venezuela, North Korea, South Africa and Iran. Our anti-imperialist media outlets, including those of the RT, TeleSUR, Press TV, CCTV and Sputnik are being labeled as ‘propaganda’[Read More…]
China is fuming. It hasobviously had enough, it is reaching the limit. For decades it tried to appease the West, to play by international laws, to be a good and responsible member of the international community. And for decades it never interfered in the internal affairs of other countries, it sponsored no coups and attacked no foreign lands. Even its[Read More…]
Imagine Moscow being taken over by someinternational corporate cartel.By a monster which has its own factories and office buildings, security services, private prisons, re-education (‘training’) centers, and its obedient mass media outlets. Imagine that it also has detailed databases on almost everyone who really matters in the capital. Imagine that human lives suddenly don’t matter. People are only expected to[Read More…]
In a powerful short novel by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, “No One Writes to the Colonel” (El coronel no tiene quien le escriba) set during the period of “La Violencia”, an old retired colonel struggles to survive, forgotten by the government which promised him a substantial pension some fifteen years earlier. The state is corrupt and brutal, and[Read More…]
Oh that poor old United Kingdom! Armies of political commentators based on all continents are now feverishly trying to define to what extent the Brits got fooled, or how severely they will soon get punished for their ‘bold move’. All over Europe, the neo-Nazis and other right-wingers are celebrating, while most of ‘liberals’ are panic-stricken, running around like a[Read More…]
Write that ‘Japan is part of the neo-colonialist clique’, and you will never again be invited to participate in any public debate conducted by Japanese mass media outlets. And that is exactly what I wrote several months ago, after being approached by an important publication based in Okinawa.
The AntiDiplomatico(Italy) interviews philosopher, Andre Vltchek: “Russia and China are forming an incredible defensive wall to protect humanity from Western terrorism.” By Alessandro Bianchi Interviews Andre Vltchek Andre Vltchek has become renowned in Italy for being the co-author, along with Noam Chomsky, of the famous book “Western Terrorism” (Ponte alle Grazie). A documentary filmmaker, novelist, essayist, philosopher and intellectual, multi-faceted Vltchek[Read More…]
Why Avoiding Catastrophic War is the Biggest Priority Today 
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Kerala’s New Public Health Bill 2023: Subservient to Market Forces rather than Deliberative Democracy 
The Piracy of Development – The 3-Ds: Dispossession, Displacement, Destitution 
The Contemporary Relevance of Rosa Luxemburg 
Does Court Judgement on Rahul Gandhi Breach Human Rights (Freedom of Expression) 
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Nord Stream sabotage was to undercut Germany, says Seymour Hersh 
It Will Be Hard And Cost A Lot Of Blood For Ukraine To Kick Out Russians, Says Top U.S. General 
Saudi – Iran rapprochement: A chance for peace 
Day 30 of the NREGA Protest: Students and Activists Detained by the Delhi Police An Irrational Verdict? 
Trump Rot at the EPA 
AUKUS, the Australian Labor Party, and Growing Dissent 
Palestinians Don’t Exist? 
The Long Arm of Washington Extends Into Africa’s Sahel 
Radio Fatherland!! 
Bellies of the Rich Swell Further on the Back of Hunger 
The Big Picture And The Small – Part II 
2500 people urge Chief Minister of Karnataka to protect farmers, pastoralists and Dalits from Supreme injustice 
Our Global Water Crisis 
3.5 Million March Across France Opposing Macron’s Pension Reform 
Election Commission of India must question the presence political nominees on BEL’s and ECIL’s Boards 
Ihan Omar Introduces Legislation to Combat Islamophobia 
Narendra Modi’s Cricket Coup 
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How the Cuban Government and Its People Collaborated on the Family Code 
Stop Criminalizing Journalism and Human Rights Activism: Release Irfan Mehraj and Parvez Khurram 
Politics of Bhagat Singh’s trial 
The Tragedy of Footpaths: Impressions of a Pedestrian in Bangalore 
Altruism exists in nature, Reciprocal altruism in humans U.S. Trying To Cover Up Its Role In Nord Stream Sabotage, Says Seymour Hersh 
Open Letter To Rahul Gandhi, Indian National Congress Party 
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Sri Lanka’s unconvincing response to Universal Periodic Review’s forthright findings 
Kisan Mahapanchayat stages massive rally in Delhi 
Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
