Podcast Interview (34 minutes): On occassion of a recent lecture that he gave in Berlin, Asia Times Online’s foreign correspondent Pepe Escobar sat down with Lars Schall for Matterhorn Asset Management to discuss current issues such as how the “New Great Game“ is being played in Eurasia, Russia’s intervention in Syria, and the West’s response to it.

By Lars Schall

The following interview was conducted for and originally published here by Matterhorn Asset Management in Zurich, Switzerland

In addtion to the interview, please read Pepe Escobar’s article on his trip to Berlin for Asia Times Online, “A Syria/Berliner ensemble“.

The Dadaists Could Not Come Up With That!

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 Online as “The Roving Eye.“ Moreover, he is the author of four 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.“

His latest book is “Empire of Chaos: The Roving EyeCollection”

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, Paris, Bangkok, and Hong-Kong.