Tuesday, 4 February 2025

 

Ukrainian President Zelensky Demands the West Provide Ukraine with Nuclear Weapons (VIDEO)

Zelensky and bombs – grok image

Crazy maniac wants nukes and wants the West to turn them over.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sat down with Piers Morgan for an interview this week on Piers Morgan Uncensored.

During their discussion, Zelensky demanded that the West provide Ukraine with nuclear weapons.

Piers Morgan:  As you know, what he tells his people is that he’s doing this for the protection of the national security of Russia.  That he couldn’t have Ukraine joining NATO because that would present an existential threat to his an existential threat to the security of the Russian people. I don’t agree with that, and that’s what he tells his people.

I’m moving forward to when you’re all sitting around a table and you’re trying to negotiate your way to an end of the hot stage of the war, I just don’t see any way he allows you, as part of that settlement, to become a full member of NATO. That’s why it’s interesting to me that you’re now outlining a potential plan B, if you like, which involves enough guarantees of security, particularly with the military, that you’re able to deter him from attacking again. I think that’s, is that a correct understanding of your position?

Volodymyr Zelensky:  NATO is not today, but in some time in the future, then all this process when we go to NATO, all this time when we are waiting, no matter how long it takes, and unfortunately, it does not depend on us. If this process is protracted for years or decades, not because of us, but because of partners, then we have absolutely just question, what will be defending us against this evil for this whole time on this whole path?

Which support package, which missiles? Will we be given nuclear weapons? Then let them give us nuclear weapons. Will they give us the missiles in the quantities that we can stop Russia? I’m not sure of that, but I think it would help. Otherwise, what missiles can stop Russia’s nuclear missiles? That is a rhetoric question. Let’s do it the following way.

Give us back nuclear arms, give us missile systems, partners, help us finance the 1 million army, move your contingent on the parts of our state where we want the stability of the situation so that the people have tranquility. If we’re not speaking about this, okay.

But here the question arises that I mentioned to you, if we are not in NATO, why is he on our soil? If we’re not in NATO, and America says that we are not ready to take Ukraine to NATO, then, Putin must fully retreat from our territory. That is logical. Then we will speak about everything else. Financial compensation for all the losses we’ve suffered. Because there must be logic. He invaded because he was afraid we’ll become NATO members. Okay, we’re not NATO members. Go back off our land. It must be viewed like that. Because what else?

Here is the exchange 

Never give nukes & advanced weaponry to a corrupt cokehead that’s lost track of +$100B in US aid/arms/support 

Ukrainian President Zelenksy:

"Give us… nuclear arms." https://t.co/bBlag6twbEpic.twitter.com/P5OOm9HZKp

— Prodigal (@ProdigalThe3rd) February 4, 2025

“>from Twitter.

 

What's Happening Is Breathtaking...

Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,

These are extraordinary times, and I mean that in every literal and historical sense I can muster.

Trump has started a revolution, it’s underway, and I am 100% here for it.

The short story is this is seismic.  None of us have lived through what’s unfolding.  Trump’s team is operating as if they are battling an internal foe that has taken over America and which seeks its destruction.  If this is the case, then my view is they have correctly diagnosed the disease.

Things are breaking very quickly, but fortunately drinking from a firehose is my specialty.  As I did during Covid, I will do my best to both catalog and explain the enormous impacts of what we’re currently experiencing.

Consider the issues we faced that nobody seemed to know what to do about, or how to even begin fixing.

  • The US has the least healthy, shortest-lived population out of every developed country.

  • The US spends the most, by roughly a factor of 2x more than all other developed countries on its health care, more accurately called sickcare.

  • US public high school students test out extremely poorly compared to other developed countries in math and reading.

  • The US government taxes heavily yet still slips $2 trillion deeper in the hole every year, and is more than $36 trillion debt.

  • Every year on an accrual basis the Social Security and Medicare/caid liabilities expand by many trillions and now total somewhere north of $200 trillion.

In other words, the US is broke, stupid, and fat. And it was getting worse with every passing year.

This is what the last election was actually about.  A majority of people said, “Enough!” and voted for real change.  Along the way the people who like the system exactly the way it is got nervous about Trump’s chances and tried to kill him in Butler PA on July 13th, 2024.

They missed.

And now the wrecking crew has arrived and is dismantling that sordid, pathetic, anti-American deep state apparatus.  That’s what’s actually happening right now.  You are living through an extraordinary time.

It’s going to be quite chaotic, possibly very expensive, and may well be have to go through an extensive period of dismantling before we can even begin to rebuild and repair all that has to be torn down.

Let’s consider the case of just the USAID entity.  Started by Executive Order by John F. Kennedy, the idea was to dedicate some US funds to helping other countries get ahead.  As with all things run by the US government, this noble beginning quickly morphed into a murky amalgam of CIA-run color revolutions, extensive funding of shadowy NGOs with bland names but dark objectives, and the usual fare of DC insider kickbacks and grifts.’

I’m sure it managed to do some helpful things too, but it mainly operated in stick vs carrot mode as it enforced US interests abroad.

A simple idea became a 10,000-person organization with a $40 billion budget.

Enter Trump and Elon Musk.  This is the most astonishing of all possible headlines and stories to wake up to:

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Agency for International Development closed its headquarters to agency personnel on Monday following moves by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to exert control over the foreign-aid organization.

An email to USAID personnel said that the move was taken by “Agency leadership.” The message said that replies should be directed to an email address that appears to be associated with Gavin Kliger, whose LinkedIn profile identifies him as a special adviser to the director of the Office of Personnel Management and who works for DOGE.

“At the direction of Agency leadership, the USAID headquarters at the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D.C. will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, February 3, 2025,” the email states.

Kliger and DOGE didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Source)

Boom!

If you are worried that there’s fraud in an accounting department, you have security march in, and tell everyone to stand up and leave the room because you don’t want to give the fraudsters the chance to clean the files.  This is Trump & Elon’s way of saying that they think there’s some real dirt here which they want exposed.

Okay, that means it’s Game On!

The Deep State has been identified and USAID was like the left ventricle of that beating rotten heart.

Continuing with the WSJ article above, nobody was willing to go on record so the WSJ fell back on the old “unnamed officials” mode of weak-assed journalism that we’ve all grown to hate:

“It’s a coup,” said a current USAID official. It was unclear when, if ever, the agency would be up and running again, the official added.

From my perspective, the coup happened when JFK was shot and nobody was held to account, and ever since it’s been one long unbroken string of DC swamp creatures doing unspeakable things for fun and profit.

So, yes, there’s been a coup, but it’s not the one the “unnamed official” is complaining about.

As a reminder, the government is supposed to serve THE PUBLIC and be both responsible and accountable to the public.  The USAID folks are aghast that suddenly the public might take a peek at what they’ve actually been up to.

The early results are not pretty.

USAID gave money lavishly to support violent mobs all over the globe, in this case Mike Benz revealing that Africa was a routine target:

If you’re wondering what that must have been like for those poor African nations suddenly beset with mob violence, look no further than various US cities during the 2020 BLM astroturf riots:

I will bet a large pile of money that we’re going to discover that somehow USAID money flowed into these riots.  That’s a pretty safe bet given all the other things we’ve already learned including the fact that a FOIA document dump in August of 2024 revealed that USAID has been a hot bed of funding child sex trafficking, labor abuse, and  social media threats:

(Source)

Full stop; this is morally repugnant.

(Source)

From the same WSJ article already linked above, we have this totally appropriate quote by Elon Musk:

Musk said earlier Monday that Trump agreed with him that USAID should be closed, telling a live audience on his social-media site, X, that he “went over it with him in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down.”

Musk, during that same appearance, said that the administration was closing the agency because “as we dug into USAID, it became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it, but we have actually just a ball of worms.”

“There is no apple. And when there is no apple, you just got to basically get rid of the whole thing, that’s why it has to go, it’s beyond repair,” he said

There is no apple.  There is only a ball of worms.

In the real world, sometimes it’s just way faster and cheaper to start over.  You don’t try and make something that is beyond repair better by pouring more into it.  You have to burn it down and start over.

So if I were a USAID staffer, I’d be spiffing up my C.V. while thinking of Elon’s first arrival in the Twitter lobby after purchasing it:

Do we really doubt that the man who wrestled Twitter back from being an overt tool of Deep State censorship and ended up firing 80% of the existing staff while keeping the whole thing running smoothly is going to be any different while tearing apart USAID?

This is exactly what a majority of people voted for in 2024.

But Elizabeth Warren sure hasn’t managed to figure that out:

Yes, Liz, we did elect Elon too.  That was part of the deal.  We knew exactly who and what we were voting for.

If you are suddenly worried about unelected people doing things that might cause harm to people, then why were you (and continue to be) completely silent about the fact that USAID funneled tens of millions of dollars of direct monetary support to a Chinese research scientist working on coronaviruses who ended up being Patient Zero?

(Source)

Kind of weird, right?  You’d think something that was blamed for killing 1,000,000 Americans would somehow make your radar screen, but not old Liz Warren!  No sir!

She’s worried that Elon might poke around in the USAID pile and discover that some of her pet disbursement schemes come under public scrutiny.

There’s a LOT more to unpack here, but the point is this.  There’s a revolution underway and Trump is running it, and various odious DC swamp creatures are now scurrying like cockroaches after the kitchen light has been flicked on.

The Covid debacle ties back to 2014 which, coincidentally, is the year to which Team Biden backdated Fauci and Hunter’s pardons.  That’s the same year, again coincidentally, that USAID began funneling money to Wuhan and Ukraine’s biolabs opened up.

It’s a ball of worms, and it’s about to have an entire box of salt dumped on it.

All of which is to ask, have you planted a garden?  By which I mean are you ready?  Because this is going to get really bumpy.  The economy and financial systems may well crash or seize up.

And that’s if things go well.  If the neocon/Deep State raccoons feel like they need to detonate something to survive, trust me, they will. That’s the wild card in all this, and why I continually beg, plead, and cajole people to consider taking steps to build their personal resilience.

 

Jared Kushner says Gaza’s ‘waterfront property could be very valuable’

Gaza's waterfront property could be 'very valuable', says Jared Kushner – video

Jared Kushner has praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property” and suggested Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the strip.

The former property dealer, married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, made the comments in an interview at Harvard University on 15 February. The interview was posted on the YouTube channel of the Middle East Initiative, a program of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, earlier this month.

Kushner was a senior foreign policy adviser under Trump’s presidency and was tasked with preparing a peace plan for the Middle East. Critics of the plan, which involved Israel striking normalisation deals with Gulf states, said it bypassed questions about the future for Palestinians.

His remarks at Harvard gave a hint of the kind of Middle East policy that could be pursued in the event that Trump returns to the White House, including a search for a normalisation deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable … if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” Kushner told his interviewer, the faculty chair of the Middle East Initiative, Prof Tarek Masoud. Kushner also lamented “all the money” that had gone into the territory’s tunnel network and munitions instead of education and innovation.

“It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” Kushner said. “But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards.”

Masoud replied that there was “a lot to talk about there”.

Kushner also said he thinks Israel should move civilians from Gaza to the Negev desert in southern Israel.

He said that if he were in charge of Israel his number one priority would be getting civilians out of the southern city of Rafah, and that “with diplomacy” it could be possible to get them into Egypt.

“But in addition to that, I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there,” he said. “I think that’s a better option, so you can go in and finish the job.”

He reiterated the point a little later, saying: “I do think right now opening up the Negev, creating a secure area there, moving the civilians out, and then going in and finishing the job would be the right move.”

The suggestion drew a startled response from Masoud. “Is that something that they’re talking about in Israel?” Masoud asked. “I mean, that’s the first I’ve really heard of somebody, aside from President Sisi [Egypt’s leader], suggesting that Gazans trying to flee the fighting could take refuge in the Negev. Are people in Israel seriously talking about that possibility?”

“I don’t know,” Kushner replied, shrugging his shoulders.

“That would be something you’d try to work on?” Masoud asked.

“I’m sitting in Miami Beach right now,” Kushner said. “And I’m looking at the situation and I’m thinking: what would I do if I was there?”

Israel should ‘finish the job’ by moving Palestinians to Negev, says Kushner – video

Asked by Masoud about fears on the part of Arabs in the region that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, would not allow Palestinians who flee Gaza to return, Kushner paused and then said: “Maybe.”

He went on to say: “I am not sure there is much left of Gaza at this point. If you think about even the construct, Gaza was not really a historical precedent [sic]. It was the result of a war. You had tribes in different places and then Gaza became a thing. Egypt used to run it and then over time different governments came in.”

Responding to a question about whether the Palestinians should have their own state, Kushner described the proposal as “a super bad idea” that “would essentially be rewarding an act of terror”.

This article was amended on 20 March 2024. An earlier version said that Jared Kushner made the comments about Gaza’s “waterfront property” in an interview at Harvard University on 8 March. In fact, the interview took place on 15 February and the video was posted online on 8 March.




❗️BREAKING | Trump: "The US will take over the Gaza Strip."

https://t.me/thecradlemedia/29501



 

US Media and Israeli Military

All in the Family

Alison Weir
CounterPunch
ZNet
February 25, 2010

Recent exposés revealing that Ethan Bronner, the New York Times Israel-Palestine bureau chief, has a son in the Israeli military have caused a storm of controversy that continues to swirl and generate further revelations.

Many people find such a sign of family partisanship in an editor covering a foreign conflict troubling – especially given the Times’ record of Israel-centric journalism. 

Times management at first refused to confirm Bronner’s situation, then refused to comment on it. Finally, public outcry forced Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt to confront the problem in a February 7th column.

After bending over backwards to praise the institution that employs him, Hoyt ultimately opined that Bronner should be re-assigned to a different sphere of reporting to avoid the “appearance” of bias. Times Editor Bill Keller declined to do so, however, instead writing a column calling Bronner’s connections to Israel valuable because they “supply a measure of sophistication about Israel and its adversaries that someone with no connections would lack.”

If such “sophistication” is valuable, the Times’ espoused commitment to the “impartiality and neutrality of the company's newsrooms” would seem to require it to have a balancing editor equally sophisticated about Palestine and its adversary, but Keller did not address that.

Bronner is far from alone

As it turns out, Bronner’s ties to the Israeli military are not the rarity one might expect.

  • A previous Times bureau chief, Joel Greenberg, before he was bureau chief but after he was already publishing in the Timesfrom Israel, actually served in the Israeli army.
  • Media pundit and Atlantic staffer Jeffrey Goldberg also served in the Israeli military; it's unclear when, how, or even if his military service ended.
  • Richard Chesnoff, who has been covering Mideast events for more than 40 years, had a son serving in the Israeli military while Chesnoff covered Israel as US News & World Report's senior foreign correspondent.
  • NPR's Linda Gradstein’s husband was an Israeli sniper and may still be in the Israeli reserves. NPR refuses to disclose whether Gradstein herself is also an Israeli citizen, as are her children and husband.
  • Mitch Weinstock, national editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune, served in the Israeli military.
  • The New York Times’ other correspondent from the region, Isabel Kershner, is an Israeli citizen. Israel has universal compulsory military service, which suggests that Kershner herself and/or family members may have military connections. The Times refuses to answer questions about whether she and/or family members have served or are currently serving in the Israeli military. Is it possible that Times Foreign Editor Susan Chira herself has such connections? The Times refuses to answer.
  • Many Associated Press writers and editors are Israeli citizens or have Israeli families. AP will not reveal how many of the journalists in its control bureau for the region currently serve in the Israeli military, how many have served in the past, and how many have family members with this connection.
  • Similarly, many TV correspondents such as Martin Fletcher have been Israeli citizens and/or have Israeli families. Do they have family connections to the Israeli military?
  • Time Magazine's bureau chief several years ago became an Israeli citizen after he had assumed his post. Does he have relatives in the military?
  • CNN's Wolf Blitzer, while not an Israeli citizen, was based in Israel for many years, wrote a book whitewashing Israeli spying on the US, and used to work for the Israel lobby in the US. None of this is divulged to CNN viewers.
  • Tikkun's editor Michael Lerner has a son who served in the Israeli military. While Lerner has been a strong critic of many Israeli policies, in an interview with Jewish Week, Lerner explains:
“Having a son in the Israeli army was a manifestation of my love for Israel, and I assume that having a son in the Israeli army is a manifestation of Bronner’s love of Israel."

Lerner goes on to make a fundamental point:

"...there is a difference in my emotional and spiritual connection to these two sides [Israelis and Palestinians]. On the one side is my family; on the other side are decent human beings. I want to support human beings all over the planet but I have a special connection to my family. I don’t deny it.”

For a great many of the reporters and editors determining what Americans learn about Israel-Palestine, Israel is family.

Jonathan Cook, a British journalist based in Nazareth, writes of a recent meeting with a Jerusalem based bureau chief, who explained: “... Bronner’s situation is ‘the rule, not the exception. I can think of a dozen foreign bureau chiefs, responsible for covering both Israel and the Palestinians, who have served in the Israeli army, and another dozen who like Bronner have kids in the Israeli army.”

Cook writes that the bureau chief explained: “It is common to hear Western reporters boasting to one another about their Zionist credentials, their service in the Israeli army or the loyal service of their children.”

Apparently, intimate ties to Israel are among the many open secrets in the region that are hidden from the American public. If, as the news media insist, these ties present no problem or even, as the Times’ Keller insists, enhance the journalists’ work, why do the news agencies consistently refuse to admit them?

The reason for media obfuscation

The answer is not complicated. 

While Israel may be family for these journalists and editors, for the vast majority of Americans, Israel is a foreign country. In survey after survey, Americans say they don’t wish to “take sides” on this conflict. In other words, the American public wants full, unfiltered, unslanted coverage.

Quite likely the news media refuse to answer questions about their journalists’ affiliations because they suspect, accurately, that the public would be displeased to learn that the reporters and editors charged with supplying news on a foreign nation and conflict are, in fact, partisans.

While Keller claims that the New York Times is covering this conflict “even-handedly,” studies indicate otherwise:

  • The Times covers international reports documenting Israeli human rights abuses at a rate 19 times lower than it reports on the far smaller number of international reports documenting Palestinian human rights abuses.
  • The Times covers Israeli children’s deaths at rates seven times greater than they cover Palestinian children’s deaths, even though there are vastly more of the latter and they occurred first.
  • The Times fails to inform its readers that Israel’s Jewish-only colonies on confiscated Palestinian Christian and Muslim land are illegal; that its collective punishment of 1.5 million men, women, and children in Gaza is not only cruel and ruthless, it is also illegal; and that its use of American weaponry is routinely in violation of American laws.
  • The Times covers the one Israeli (a soldier) held by Palestinians at a rate incalculably higher than it reports on the Palestinian men, women, and children – the vast majority civilians – imprisoned by Israel (currently over 7,000).
  • The Times neglects to report that hundreds of Israel’s captives have never even been charged with a crime and that those who have were tried in Israeli military courts under an array of bizarre military statutes that make even the planting of onions without a permit a criminal offense – a legal system, if one can call it that, that changes at the whim of the current military governor ruling over a subject population; a system in which parents are without power to protect their children.
  • The Times fails to inform its readers that 40 percent of Palestinian males have been imprisoned by Israel, a statistic that normally would be considered highly newsworthy, but that Bronner, Kershner, and Chira apparently feel is unimportant to report.

Americans, whose elected representatives give Israel uniquely gargantuan sums of our tax money (a situation also not covered by the media), want and need all the facts, not just those that Israel’s family members decree reportable.

We’re not getting them.

 

Syria's Al-Qaeda Branch Dissolves, Says Goals Completed By Regime Change

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The Salafi jihadist group Hurras al-Din, Syria’s official al-Qaeda affiliate, announced this week that it was dissolving, saying its goals were complete following the regime change that ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"[T]he sons of the Al-Qaeda Jihad organization rushed to support the people of the Levant and assist them in removing injustice from them until God permitted this Sunni Muslim people to triumph over one of the most unjust tyrants of the modern era," Hurras al-Din said in a statement.

Masked terrorists in Syria. via Getty Images

The group said al-Qaeda had ordered it to dissolve. "In light of these developments on the Levantine scene, and by an emir’s decision from the general command of al-Qaeda in the Levant organization, we announce to our Muslim nation and to the Sunnis in the Levant the dissolution of the Guardians of Religion Organization (Hurras al-Din)," the group said.

Hurras al-Din formed in 2018 as an offshoot of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the militant group that led the offensive against Assad and now rules Syria. HTS was previously the official al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria when it was known as the al-Nusra Front, but it rebranded in 2016 to gain international support.

Over the years, there have been tensions between HTS and Hurras al-Din, which were both based in Syria’s northwest Idlib before HTS took Damascus. In 2020, HTS began arresting some senior members of Hurras al-Din. The US had also waged a drone war against Hurras al-Din and bombed them in Idlib as recently as August 2024.

Hurras al-Din told its members to keep their weapons and urged Syria’s new leaders to keep Sunni Muslims armed.

"We advise them to keep the weapon in the hands of the Sunnis in the Levant in order for a nation to remain carrying weapons so that no tyrant will enslave it, and no occupier will covet it," the group said.

Hurras al-Din’s fighters may merge with Syria’s new HTS-led military, which has appointed foreign jihadists to senior positions. The dissolution announcement came after HTS’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, now known by his real name Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, said there would be no armed groups outside of the new HTS-led government’s control.

In the meantime, the Pentagon announced the following development:

Sharaa, the founder of al-Qaeda in Syria, was declared the president of Syria on Wednesday. The US, under President Biden, helped Sharaa and HTS take over Syria despite their al-Qaeda history and the fact that HTS is listed by the US as a terrorist organization.

 

Growth de profundis: “inaccessibility corridors” for the world economy

“No region and no one should be left behind in the march toward common prosperity.” – Xi Jinping (President of China)

“We must move the heart of our nation inward, breaking the chains of geography to unite our people and economy.” – Juscelino Kubitschek (Former President of Brazil)

“It is only by spreading the benefits of progress to the remotest corners that a nation can truly prosper.” – Jawaharlal Nehru

The paradigm of global economic development in the past centuries largely focused on the accelerated expansion of the coastal regions of the world that were the main drivers of international trade. According to existing estimates, twelve of the world’s fifteen megacities are located along coastal areas, while the global distribution of economic activity points to economic activity being largely concentrated along coastal areas and navigable waterways[1]. The share of GDP in “near regions”/coastal regions (accounting for 18.4% of the world’s landmass) amounted to 63% in 2018[2]. Such a concentration of economic activity is fraught with the risks of regional inequality and the rising susceptibility of the world economy to the effects of climate change. There may also be political and electoral implications from such imbalances, with voters in inland regions typically becoming more averse to globalization.

The continental poles of inaccessibility

One of the ways to deliver a stronger impulse to the development of inland regions is via infrastructural connectivity and regional economic integration. In this respect, connecting some of the most remote regions in the different continents of the world economy could strengthen such a rebalancing momentum while addressing socio-economic disparities at the national, regional and global levels. The most remote regions in the respective continents could be represented by the continental poles of inaccessibility (locations in the respective continents that are the farthest from the ocean and any coastline) that include the following (phase A):

· Eurasia: Near Ürümqi, China (China-Mongolia-Russia-Kazakhstan border area)[3]

· Africa: Near Obo, in the Central African Republic

· South America: Near Arenapolis, in Brazil’s Mato Grosso region

· North America: Near Allen, in South Dakota, USA

· Australia: Near Alice Springs, Northern Territory

· Antarctica: The “Southern Pole of Inaccessibility”

A platform of economic cooperation among such remote regions of the world economy could involve the creation of “inaccessibility corridors” directed at the development of trade and transportation routes as well as the digital and institutional connectivity. There may also be scope for the platform to facilitate the exchange of best practices and cooperation in the energy sphere, including solar and other sustainable energy generation. Other benefits in connecting some of the most remote areas with regional peers and with the global economy may have to do with the creation of new growth centers/growth poles, the diversification of economic activity and building more robust climate resilience.

An alternative way (phase B) to build a network of inaccessibility corridors would be to connect the continental nodes that lie at the juncture of the border crossings of in-land regions and landlocked economies in the respective continents. In this respect, there is an intriguing pattern of the proximity of the continental poles of inaccessibility to such nodes that lie at the border crossing of landlocked countries across the three continents of the developing world – Africa, Eurasia and South America:

  • In Eurasia, the continental pole of inaccessibility lies close to the intersection between four regional economies: China, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan (two of them – Kazakhstan and Mongolia – being the largest landlocked economies by area size in the world).
  • In South America, the regional pole of inaccessibility is not too far off from the intersection of the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia (the latter two being the landlocked economies in South America).
  • In Africa, the continental pole of inaccessibility lies close to the juncture that connects South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the former two being landlocked, with latter having large swathes of remote regions).

The respective border regions lying close to the continental poles of inaccessibility include:

· Eurasia: Near Ust’-Chindagatuy, Kazakhstan (China-Mongolia-Russia-Kazakhstan border area)

· Africa: Near Ezo, South Sudan

· South America: Near Puerto Suarez, Bolivia or Bahia Negra, Paraguay or Corumba, Brazil

The resulting “inaccessibility corridors” of the Global South could then have a multiplier effect in addressing connectivity needs of several landlocked economies in the region via infrastructure development, trade diversification (most notably in the direction of South-South trade), and greater connectivity not only to regional but also global counterparts. There could also be scope for creating Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in such border areas in remote locations for the integration of such regions into the world economy and for attracting capital and labor to the new emerging growth poles. Connecting such SEZs at the global level via a cooperative platform may allow for pooling of resources and international policy coordination to expand the geography of economic development.

Bringing it all together

A further improvement (phase C) on the above frameworks for “inaccessibility corridors” is the connection of the key inland hubs with proximity and infrastructural connectivity to as many landlocked regions/countries of the respective continents as possible. Rather than basing the regional node on solely geographic principles of remoteness, greater weight in determining such connectivity nodes would have to do with the regional economic role of the urban center and its ability to facilitate the connectivity and economic integration of neighboring landlocked and remote regions. The respective key nodes that could address these goals may be:

· Eurasia: Almaty, Kazakhstan or Tashkent, Uzbekistan

· Africa: Ndjamena, Chad – in view of the relative proximity to the landlocked economies in Western and Central Africa

· South America: Santa Cruz, Bolivia or Campo Grande, Brazil

· North America: Kansas City, USA or Winnipeg, Canada

· Australia: Alice Springs, Northern Territory

There may be further modalities in building the “inaccessibility corridors” across the global economy by exploring the potential for digital connectivity and environmental development (most of the border junctures and inaccessibility poles in Africa, South America and Eurasia are close to Nature Parks and Reserves). Geographically, there is also scope to further expand the network of “inaccessibility corridors” via targeting regional and sub-regional nodes of remote regions in South Asia, Middle East, Northeastern/Northern Eurasia. Such an approach to development may improve the prospects of some of the ongoing connectivity efforts and corridors such as the Northern Sea Route or the International North-South Corridor in Eurasia.

Overall, the above modalities of the inaccessibility corridors could all be incorporated into one single global framework of connectivity and inclusive development. The first step would involve the implementation of phase C, whereby connectivity corridors are created among the established and prominent regional hubs across the main continents of the world economy. The second phase may involve the realization of phase B – the creation of SEZs in the border areas connecting landlocked economies and incorporating these nodes into the network of phase C corridors. The implementation of phase A would further raise the penetration of such a network of corridors to the more remote inland areas. The missing link within this framework (let’s call it phase D) would be the corridors connecting the phase C nodes with inland routes and coastal ports/hubs that have advanced/established infrastructure or with logistical hubs that could be created to improve the efficiency of the resulting transportation framework.

The pursuit of the development of inland regions via connectivity projects dovetails initiatives such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that have contributed significantly to addressing the “connectivity gaps” in the heart of Eurasia, most notably in Central Asia. China has also been active in shifting its regional economic policy from the prioritization of the growth in coastal regions toward developing inward regions/areas. This inward drive by China may have accounted for some of the growth in the share of the inland regions in the global economy’s GDP – by 2018 it increased from 32.75% in 2000 to 36.98% in 2018[4].

With intra-continental efforts to build gateways and connectivity to remote inland regions likely encountering resource constraints and limitations (particularly in Africa and South America), there may be potential dividends from building a global network for the modernization of such regions. The framework of “inaccessibility corridors” could also serve as a platform for development institutions (globally and from the Global South) that could co-finance large-scale connectivity projects in view of their high financing requirements as well as environmental concerns that this sizeable connectivity effort may entail. Such cooperation among the regional development institutions could also focus on reconciling the various connectivity projects such as the BRI, B3W, Global Gateway. The creation of a platform for remote regions and the development of inaccessibility corridors may also allow for a greater penetration of global growth and coordinated stimuli (such as the G20 stimuli) to reach some of the most remote inland parts of the world economy.

Remote regions as start-ups

The framework of inaccessibility corridors offers the possibility of relaunching the development of the global connectivity framework making it more pre-meditated/planned/coordinated compared to the system that has evolved thus far. It also offers a de novo paradigm for globalization that may allow for a more sustainable and technologically advanced connectivity system to emerge in case it is accompanied by the creation and advancement of “smart cities”, digital clusters and renewable energy hubs in these remote locations. This de novoframework of connectivity would take the pressure from the overloaded existing hubs (such as Suez or Panama canals) and provide greater optionality in the system of global transportation logistics.

The pattern of growth impulses emanating de profundis from inland regions may hence provide a new growth track for the world economy – higher growth may emanate not only from greater investment, but also from the catch-up growth of the remote areas with relatively low starting levels of development. There may also be important “multiplier effects” for the wider region from the propagation of growth impulses across bordering inland countries and regions via trade and connectivity channels. With due transportation infrastructure development, incorporating such remote regions into the regional and global value chains may render growth more inclusive, while also providing scope for more of the growth impulses to be shared across the neighboring regions and economies. Stimuli that target the development of inward/inland regions may also be associated with lower leakage and greater multiplier effects compared to similar stimuli in the more open and accessible coastal regions.

The framework of inaccessibility corridors may provide a basis for accelerated catch-up development of new environmental and digital economies, with remote regions allowing for de novo development that is not encumbered by “legacy systems” of the “old economy”.  With future economic growth becoming increasingly digital and in need of being sustainable and ecological, remote regions may exercise a comparative advantage vs the more populated, congested and developed regions in launching de novo impulses of economic transformation in the sphere of digital and environmental development. To make the comparison between the regional and the corporate worlds – if the coastal developed regions may be considered as “incumbents”, remote inland regions may be likened to potential start-ups. The “inaccessibility corridors” approach may thus enable the world economy to close some of the key gaps and imbalances in global economic development – such as the “digital gap”, “the infrastructure gap”, as well as address the lingering “voids of economic integration”.

Overall, the pursuit of the “inaccessibility corridors” project for the global economy as well as the Global South could mark a turning point in the paradigm of economic development, whereby rather than the coastal regions being the main focal points of connectivity internationally, there is more scope provided to inland regions to drive such connectivity. This paradigm would rebalance the distribution of economic activity and GDP across regions (between coastal and inland regions) and would contribute to greater economic convergence. It would also render the global economy more resilient to the adverse effects of climate change that disproportionately affects the coastal regions of the world. A global platform for building “inaccessibility corridors” would also bring together the countries of the Global South (most notably China, Brazil) with the advanced economies (US, Australia). Perhaps most importantly, the pattern of economic development would be rendered more inclusive, balanced and supportive for regional economic integration in some of the more isolated regions of the world economy.

Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics

Image by TheDigitalArtist via Pixabay


[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02234-4#:~:text=However%2C%20the%20proportion%20of%20GDP,36.98%25%20in%202018%20(Figs.

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02234-4#:~:text=However%2C%20the%20proportion%20of%20GDP,36.98%25%20in%202018%20(Figs.

[3] The continental pole of inaccessibility in Eurasia is also the global pole of inaccessibility.  

[4] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02234-4#:~:text=However%2C%20the%20proportion%20of%20GDP,36.98%25%20in%202018%20(Figs.

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