(Paid content)

For the last weeks the world’s geopolitical situation has been deteriorating because of the tensions around North Korea and renewed talks about re-imposing sanctions against Iran. The sanctions imposed against Kim Jong Un’s regime do not affect Europe or the United States, but are unacceptable for China, which is North Korea’s almost exclusive supplier of goods. We did not need to wait long for the response: China introduced oil futures contracts, payable in the yuan, which could be exchanged for gold on stock exchanges in Shanghai and Hong Kong. By using these contracts the United States dollar as well as the economic sanctions against Russia and Iran can be bypassed. Read more subscribe:

Gianandrea Galiani interviewed by Daniel Moscardi

Gianandrea Gaiani is the director of the highly respected online magazine analisidifesa.it and an expert on immigration. He is a regular contributor to a number of Italian newspapers and appears frequently on numerous TV channels as an on immigration and security topics. He’s also the author (together with Giancarlo Blangiardo and Giuseppe Valditara) of the recent book (in Italian) Immigrazione, tutto quello che dovremmo sapere (Immigration. All you need to know about”).

Gefira asked Gianandrea Gaiani in an exclusive interview about his views on the latest developments in the arrivals from Libya and Tunisia and the current approach of the Italian government. Outspoken and anything but politically correct, Gaiani hits the spot about the recent change of policy of the Italian government on the NGO’s code of conduct as well as Italy’s achievements and (so called) “partners” in Libya.

GE: What caused last summer’s change of course by the Italian government and its approach toward the NGOs and the arrivals from Libya in general?

GG: The answer is quite simple. The disaster for the PD (Partito Democratico), leader of the current government, at the June administrative elections, sounded an alarm, showing clearly that when it comes to immigration, many center-left voters steer clearly to the right. A swift change of course was badly needed, with the obvious intent of reassuring disenchanted and alarmed Italians that the government was in charge of the situation.

GE: The numbers show that the arrivals have diminished significantly but that’s just that. We are still very far from the pre-2011 numbers.

GG: That’s because the government, on the other side, has to keep being complacent to the industry of immigration. It’s a network that profits – and thrives – on new arrivals, and this network galaxy is NOT happy if the arrivals complete stop. And their votes are also badly needed by the current government.

GE: A network made of? Continue reading →

War is merely the continuation of policy by other means, according Clausewitz. As the last blow to the relations between Turkey and Europe, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has said EU states will cut pre-accession funds to Turkey.The US and Europe’s leadership is uncompromising in its dealings with Ankara. Germany quit Incirlik Air Base this summer and the Dutch authorities deployed a heavily armed unit to the streets with permission to ”shoot in case of need” during an unofficial visit of the Turkish Minister Kaya this spring. The minister wanted to hold a political rally for the Turkish diaspora. Officially, Turkey is a NATO member, but de facto the alliance does not exist anymore. However, nobody in Brussels will admit this because without Turkey the coalition is like a bucket without a bottom. If Clausewitz is right, war within the alliance seems inevitable. Continue reading →

May the First in Moscow, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, East Berlin or Bucharest. People, i.e. workers and peasants with flowery tributes and posters are marching along the tribune atop which they can see their beloved leaders, first or general secretaries of the communist or socialist workers’ or people’s parties, surrounded by trusted and battle-hardened comrades of the international Marxist-Leninist movement. The radiant people in the parade are waving red flags and carrying huge portraits of the holiest of the holy – Marx, Engels, Lenin – hand in hand with large puppets of the damned: Josip Bros-Tito, Harry Truman, Konrad Adenauer and many others. The demonstration is held in support of, yes, you guessed it right, peace and democracy as well as social justice and against such backward ideas as bigotry, fascism, Nazism, nationalism, religious faith, tradition, authority (Marx, Engels, and Lenin excluded), and the traditional family.

It’s not a May Day parade this time. It is a carnival parade. And it is not Moscow, Warsaw or East Berlin in the late forties or early fifties. It’s fifty or so years later in the West. In Dusseldorf, to be precise. A similar parade held every year and well-attended by the citizens of, as they firmly believe, a free world. A parade in favour of, yes, again you guessed it right, democracy, progress and freedom. A parade against those who endanger these values. Against the present-day Trumans, present-day Adenauers, the present-day Titos, traitors to the sacred cause. Continue reading →

It is sometimes claimed in the 80ies Poland delivered a death blow to the Soviet system that was in place then in central Europe. At that time the spark was struck by a religious event: the visit by the Polish pope, John Paul II, to his homeland. Today another religious event has attracted hundreds of thousands of people. Will Poland do the same to the EU system?

About a hundred people at the foot of the Karkonosze Mountains in south-western Poland. The border with Czechia is just a kilometer away, across the rocky crests. A group of people, young and old, men and women, families and singles, of all professions and walks of life are praying the rosary, repeating two hundred times Hail Mary, interwoven with Our Father and interspersed with short meditative texts. The group is headed by a professional female tourist guide. It all takes up full two hours, out there, in a romantic setting of a forest, with towering mountains.

It’s not an isolated group. There are approximately four thousand of them around Poland, posted along the 3.500-kilometer-long Polish border, gathering altogether at least one million Catholic men, women and children, which is a modest estimate, given by the mass media not particularly close to the Catholic Church. The prayer action had long been promoted by well-known celebrities from the world of sports, entertainment, and politics who also take part in it. Poland’s Prime Minister Beata Szydło, whose son is a priest, expressed her support for the action by way of Twitter. People pray in the open, in churches and chaplets, on mountain tops, on the beaches and on boards of boats and ships. Continue reading →

After 80 years, the civil war in Spain has found its conclusion in the current attempt of tearing away Catalonia, ruled by successors of the republicans, from Spain. The referendum and the secession is clearly a retaliation on the part of the left for the defeat suffered in the years 1936-39 and for General Franco’s long rule.

The violent independence referendum in Catalonia, in which the vast majority voiced their support for secession is a part of Catalan tradition of rebellion against the conservative rulers and monarchs in Madrid.

Some of the commentators are of the opinion that Catalans wanted to stop Madrid from redistributing the wealth produced in this province and assigning it to poorer parts of the country; some others look at the phenomenon from a political or ideological perspective. For a long time Spain has been the battlefield between adherents of the political right and left. In 1909 during the Tragic Week (la Setmana Tràgica) the anarchist, anti-militarist, and anti-colonialist rebellion in Barcelona was crushed with heavy-handed methods. General European condemnation in the press was immediate. During the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War Catalonia was a “republican” stronghold, supported by the Soviet Union and communist volunteers from across Europe. Continue reading →