Rania Khalek Dispatches

The historic deal brokered by China for a Saudi-Iran rapprochement reflects not only a changing region, but a shifting world order. While the US focuses on its proxy war in Ukraine, with US officials essentially blocking meaningful peace discussion both there and in Yemen, its “strategic competitor” China now looks like the adult in the room. Its diplomatic initiatives have become a force for stability in the biggest conflict regions, from Yemen to Syria.

To better understand what's going on and what we can expect, Rania Khalek was joined by Mohammad Marandi, professor of English literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran, Iran.

This is just the first half of this episode with Professor Marandi. The second half is available for Breakthrough News Members only. Become a member at Patreon.com/BreakthroughNews to access the full episode and other exclusive content.

Western governments along with their loyal media and think tanks warn that China is colonizing, exploiting, and forcing Africa into a debt trap. Is this true? Or is it Cold War propaganda? What is China’s actual role in Africa and how does it compare with the West’s?

To help us understand what's really happening, Rania Khalek was joined by two leading African leftists: Mikaela Nhondo Erskog, an educator and researcher with Pan Africanism Today, a researcher at the Tricontinental Institute, and a member of the organizing committee of No Cold War. And Kambale Musavuli, an activist, writer, and analyst with the Center for Research on the Congo.

Read the report Erskog worked on, “Defending Our Sovereignty: US Military Bases in Africa and the Future of African Unity”, here: https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-42-militarisation-africa/

Does Israel really have the “right to defend itself” against people it occupies? What about Palestinians, don’t they have a right to defend themselves from their occupiers? How serious is South Africa’s case charging Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice? Is there even any meaning to international law anymore?

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, joined Rania Khalek Dispatches to discuss this and more.

Listen to the full interview on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/full-audio-china-89625885
Four of the six new BRICS countries - Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE - are in the Middle East. What does this mean for the region, for multipolarity, for the Cold War between the US and China and for the future of the Saudi-Iran rivalry? How does a country like Saudi Arabia, which has such a long record in service of the West, fit in? How might it impact Israel? How will Washington react now and what does it mean for the “geostrategic control” that they’ve spent decades, and multiple wars, trying to secure?

To discuss this and other regional developments, Rania Khalek was joined by Giorgio Cafiero, the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy.

This is just the first half of this episode. The second half is available for Breakthrough News Members only. Become a member at https://www.Patreon.com/BreakthroughNews to access the full episode and other exclusive content.

Are Russia & China imperialist like the US? Will the decline of the west lead to more fascism in the global north? What is sovereignty? Is every country entitled to it? Where do sanctions fit in? What does it mean that the Global South is refusing to get on board with them? And what are the alternatives to the current so-called rules-based international order?

To discuss this and more Rania Khalek was joined by Bikrum Gill, who teaches at the department of political science at Virginia Tech.

Follow Bikrum on Twitter @bikrumsinghgill: https://twitter.com/bikrumsinghgill

Listen to every episode of Rania Khalek Dispatches anywhere you get podcasts.

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TIME CODES

0:30 Intro

2:06 Relevance of imperialism

6:32 China as an alternative: Is China imperialist?

11:14 Projecting European colonialism onto China

15:34 Ukraine proxy war & Western decline

19:39 Is Russia imperialist in Ukraine?

26:02 A changing Global South?

37:19 Resistance movements

40:33 Sanctions

45:20 Racial Capitalism

50:21 Sovereignty

1:00:00 Reparations for imperialists?

1:09:22 Disempowered Americans

1:19:16 Alternatives?