The West has tried to outshine Beijing’s grand trade route multiple times, but can’t muster the will to do it
On the sidelines of the G20 Summit at the weekend, the United States and India unveiled proposals for what has been termed the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) with the backing of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Jordan, as well as officials from the EU.
The project, billed as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), seeks to build a commercial route from India through to Europe via the Arabian Peninsula, Israel, and then the Mediterranean Sea. Unsurprisingly, the project’s significance was inflated by the press as “historic” and a “blindside” challenge to Beijing that would doom China’s own mega-infrastructure project.
But such conclusions are misleading, for many reasons. First, not every participant in this new initiative is squarely opposed to China and sees it, as the US does, as a zero-sum game. The Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan, are not anti-Beijing at all and are part of the BRI themselves. These countries, seeking to diversify their economies from dependency on oil revenue, are seeking new options to consolidate their wealth and thus courting large-scale foreign investments, including from China itself. They want to make themselves the “crossroads” of the world, they do not see such a project through the lens of containment or even geopolitical rivalry, but as creating more benefits for themselves. If Saudi Arabia can get Chinese and Indian cargo going through their country, that’s a double win – it never had to be an “either-or” arrangement for Riyadh......more below
https://www.rt.com/news/582912-us-alternative-china-belt-and-road/
The recently-released tranche of additional documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein include remarks by a woman identifying as one of the victims of the late disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker, in which she refers to Donald Trump as a witness to the killing and disposal of the body of her infant.
The US Department of Justice released the documents numbering tens of thousands, which include FBI tips and complaints implicating Trump, on Wednesday.
Reports emerging on Friday across various outlets, including the UK edition of American online newspaper The International Business Times, pointed to inclusion in the documents of an FBI intake form dated March 3, 2020 recording a complaint from the unnamed woman.
The complainant said she had been trafficked at age 13 in the early 1980s and described an incident in 1984 involving the killing of her newborn child aboard a yacht in Mona Lake, Michigan.
According to the document, the woman said her uncle had carried out the killing and disposed of the ...
The Russian leader said in 2008 that it could lead to “long-term conflict” with Washington, according to transcripts of the talks
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned his then-US counterpart, George W. Bush, almost two decades ago that attempts to make Ukraine a member of NATO could split the country apart and result in a confrontation between Moscow and Washington, records of conversations between the two leaders have revealed.
On Tuesday, the US National Security archives published verbatim transcripts of several exchanges between Putin and Bush throughout the 2000s.
During their first meeting in Slovenia in June 2001, the Russian president questioned the need for NATO’s enlargement, but stressed that he “can imagine us [Moscow and Washington] becoming allies,” according to the files.
His tone stiffened significantly by the time of their last meeting in the Russian city of Sochi in April 2008, a year after Putin delivered his famous speech at the Munich Security Conference, ...
Senator Rand Paul has published his annual Festivus report detailing wasteful spending and record debt payments
The US government has spent over $1.6 trillion this year on wasteful programs, such as teaching ferrets how to binge-drink alcohol and dosing dogs with cocaine, according to Senator Rand Paul’s latest annual ‘Festivus Report’.
The Kentucky Republican’s 2025 edition notes a total of $1,639,135,969,608 in waste, including $1.22 trillion spent on interest payments for the US national debt, which has reached nearly $40 trillion.
Specific expenditures criticized include $2.1 million for researchers to collect saliva samples and survey partiers at EDM festivals in New York City about drug use. The National Institutes of Health spent $5.2 million to dose dogs with cocaine, while over $13.8 million funded experiments on beagles.
Other highlighted projects involve $14.6 million to make monkeys play a ‘Price Is Right’-inspired video game, a process that involved screwing metal ...
