A recent Politico article, citing unnamed US officials, claims that China is “ghosting� the US, ignoring American attempts to re-establish diplomatic communications after they broke down in February. If you aren’t familiar with the term, ‘to ghost’ someone is social media-era slang that means to leave a conversation hanging by suddenly ceasing to reply. This,... Read More

Twenty years ago, the world was shaken by one of the major geopolitical events of this century. On the morning of March 20, 2003, the US officially launched its illegal invasion of Iraq. The rationale was based on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties with terrorists, and intelligence regarding the presence of weapons of mass... Read More

While the US, Russia and most European governments have reserved judgment as to who might be behind Monday’s explosion that damaged both Nord Stream pipelines, former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski had no such qualms. “Thank you USA,� Sikorski tweeted on Tuesday, alongside a photo of the massive gas leak in the waters of the... Read More

President Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden, Russia’s TASS news agency confirmed on Monday. The American’s name was included without fanfare on a list of 72 foreigners who became citizens. Snowden, who applied for citizenship in 2020 upon receiving permanent residency rights, has not commented on... Read More

Twitter has temporarily suspended the account belonging to Russia’s foreign ministry, officials in Moscow have revealed. According to the ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, the punitive measure was imposed after the diplomats cited a Russian military commander, who had alleged the US could have been behind the Covid-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, Zakharova posted a message on... Read More

Russia’s Defense Ministry says it’s investigating the possible role of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the creation of the Covid-19 virus. In a press briefing on Thursday, the head of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, claimed that US-backed bio-laboratories in Ukraine had been conducting questionable research and... Read More

My personal journey into the drama-infused existence of Gonzalo Lira began in mid-February 2022, when I appeared as part of a panel discussion organized by Joe Lauria of Consortium News (CN), which included the British writer Alexander Mercouris. It was just prior to the Russian “special military operation� kicking off in Ukraine. Alexander and I... Read More

Big Tech’s moves to muscle President Donald Trump off social media have been heralded by some as victory. But a corporate-run state with politicians serving as mere figureheads amounts to the very fascism they claim to oppose. The smug, palpable air of ‘mission accomplished’ emanating from Facebook, Twitter and Google in the weeks after the... Read More

US Congress heavyweights like Adam Schiff deeply misunderstand Russia but keep on bashing Moscow because it has become “politically advantageous� in Washington, Russia researcher Stephen Cohen said. “Being highly-critical of Russia is good politics in the United States,� Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University, told the Grayzone's Aaron... Read More

The wide-ranging Xiamen Declaration, issued in conjunction with the just wrapped-up annual BRICS summit, shows that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, although facing internal challenges of their own, may be about to step up their collective game, big time. And they won’t be intimidated/derailed by the crumbling unipolar order. Xiamen made it clear... Read More

History will record the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing marked the juncture where the 21st century New Silk Roads assumed their full character of Globalization 2.0, or “inclusive globalization,� as defined by President Xi Jinping in Davos earlier this year. I have dealt with the monumental stakes here and here. Terminology, of course, remains... Read More

Let’s cut to the chase: Ankara 2016 is not Sarajevo 1914. This is not a prelude to WWIII. Whoever plotted the assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov – a cool, calm, collected old-school diplomat - risks a mighty blowback. The assassin, Mevlut Mert Altintas, was a 22-year-old police academy graduate. He was... Read More

Did President-elect Donald Trump turn a 10-minute phone call with the president of Taiwan into a Hellfire missile, instantly vaporizing the US’ 'One China' policy? Of course not. This is a riddle inside an enigma. Let’s start with a cool-headed interpretation, as published in a report by the National Academy of Development and Strategy at... Read More

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is no more. The temptation is inevitable to ascribe the end of this lucky opportunist’s thousand days in the limelight as a verdict on the euro and the EU. As with all things Italy, it’s way more complicated. The Italian referendum this Sunday was indeed a resounding No to Renzi... Read More

He came (from behind); he saw; he won. Francois Fillon will be the candidate of the French Right in the 2017 presidential elections, and he stands a very good chance of winning, in the second round, against Front National (FN) leader Marine Le Pen. Fillon is an ultra-traditionalist, family values, “Christian roots of France� kind... Read More

Beijing and Moscow have arrived at the conclusion that President-elect Donald Trump is not an ideologue in the neocon sense of the term; he’s a pragmatist. Therefore, resets are inevitable, as well as surprises. In yet another spectacular chapter of his running Marco Polo in reverse saga, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a strategic stop... Read More

Both parties in the US, Wall Street and big corporate media were absolutely certain Hillary was going to win by 98 percent, but with his mantra “Make America Great Again� Trump proved them all wrong, political analyst Pepe Escobar told RT. As soon as the polls started to close, stock markets worldwide struggled to handle... Read More