Kalashnikov

Authored by Pepe Escobar of The Asia Times, via RT.com,

BAGHDAD – On a sandstorm-swept morning in Baghdad earlier last week, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, the legendary deputy leader of Hashd al-Shaabi, a.k.a. People Mobilization Units (PMUs) and the actual mastermind of numerous ground battles against ISIS/Daesh, met a small number of independent foreign journalists and analysts.

Via GEFIRA,

The Catalan fight for independence is not how conflicts are fought throughout history, let alone how they are won.

Some movements for national independence have succeeded in history, others have not. Presently, it seems that the Catalan bid is destined to fail. Maybe in the future Catalans will change their strategy and achieve their goal, but at the moment of writing the Catalan independence movement can be described as a storm in a teacup.

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

In talking with American clients about their need to prepare themselves for the upcoming socio-economic/political upheaval in their country, my advice to them primarily revolves around the concept that, if you’re living in a bad neighbourhood, the obvious solution is to leave.

Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani announced his resignation Sunday after the biggest gamble of his 12 years as president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) not only failed, but utterly backfired as territorial reversals reduced KRG power to its weakest position in decades. Though his push for an independence referendum had overwhelming support among Iraq's Kurds, and with even the encouragement of some external allies, the decisive military response by the Iraqi national government resulted in rapid forced handover of Kurdish-held oil rich areas and a return to pr