EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Have you heard lately of the meme of a currency war that’s going on? Well, Pepe Escobar, the “roving eye” correspondent of Asia Times, tells you about the real currency, gold and energy war that is now raging in Mali, as the overall Global War on Terror needs new battlefields to perpetuate itself as “The Long War.”
By Lars Schall
Pepe Escobar, who was born 1954 in Brazil, is one of the most outstanding journalists of our time with three decades of experience in covering politics and conflicts around the globe. He works for Hong Kong/Thailand-based Asia Times as “The Roving Eye.“ Moreover, he is the author of three books: “Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War,“ “Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge,“ and “Obama does Globalistan.“
Mr. Escobar has been a foreign correspondent since 1985, based in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, and Bangkok. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in covering geopolitical stories from the Middle East to Central Asia and has reported during this decade from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, the Central Asian Republics, China and the U.S.A.
He was in Afghanistan in Summer of 2001 and interviewed the military leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Masoud, just a few weeks before his assassination, and he has been one of the first journalists to reach Kabul after the Taliban’s retreat. He is a renowned expert on the network of pipelines hardwiring the countries of the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia, and Europe that he has dubbed “Pipelinestan.” Mr. Escobar lives in Sao Paulo, Bangkok, and Hong-Kong.
The Real Currency, Gold and Energy War in Mali
For further reading see these three articles on Mali by Pepe Escobar:
“Burn, burn – Africa’s Afghanistan”
For German-speaking readers:
Good interview Lars,
Thanks for the interest on a place we don’t know much about
Must listen. Always worthwhile — thanks for putting this together!!