ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Each country has its own spending needs that vary with the priorities of the size of the population, age of the population and political involvements of that country. Some of the largest expenditures of governments are the military, health care and education. At a time when cutbacks are being made across the world in order to reduce countries deficits and attempt to stop the world slipping back further into recession, there is the concern about how countries actually spend their money. How do they decide what sectors receive the most money? Each country decides what is important in relation to its size, population of the country, the age of those residing in the country and on the political involvements of the country. You would like to think that your country would spend more onEducation than the likes of Warfare, and while some countries do, others place warfare spending above that of spending on health and education.

According to the UN, world heroin production stands at 430-450 tons, of which only 340 tons actually reach the market, the rest being seized or destroyed [1]. Top heroin producing countries are: Afghanistan (at least 380 tonnes), Myanmar and Laos (at least 50 tonnes). According to John F. Sopko, the US government’s special inspector general for Afghanistan, the reconstruction efforts undertaken by Afghanistan have collapsed in the face of the continued expansion of drug cultivation drugs and criminal organizations. Afghan farmers reportedly earned some $ 3 billion in 2013 [2]. Since 2010, the Russian authorities have consistently accused NATO of exporting Afghan heroin to Europe [3]. The switch from using drugs planes run by NATO to those controlled by the Islamic Emirate confirms the links between the two organizations. This came just after President Hamid Karzai left office, September 29, 2014 [4]. The Islamic Emirate uses a cocktails of drugs to condition its fighters according to

by Thierry Meyssan The best-kept secrets must be revealed in the end. The mafia cartel which governs Bulgaria has been caught supplying drugs and weapons to Al-Qaïda and Daesh, at the demand of the CIA, both in Libya and Syria. The affair is all the more serious since Bulgaria is a member of NATO and the European Union. Head of one of the two Bulgarian mafia cartels, the SIC, Boïko Borissov has occupied the post of Prime Minister since 2014. While his country was a member of both NATO and the European Union, he supplied drugs and weapons to Al-Qaïda and Daesh in Libya and Syria. It seems that everything began by accident. For about thirty years, fenetylline was used as a performance-enhancing drug in the West German sports world. According to trainer Peter Neururer, more than half of the athletes took it regularly [ 1 ]. Bulgarian drug dealers spotted an opportunity in this situation, and from the dissolution of the Soviet Union until Bulgaria’s entry into the European Union, they b

While the Saud family enjoys the last few moments of its dictatorship, the decapitation of the leader of the opposition, Nimr al-Nimr, deprives half of the Saudi population of all hope. For Thierry Meyssan, the fall of the kingdom has become inevitable. It will probably be accompanied by a long period of extreme violence. By Thierry Meyssan In one year, the new king of Saudi Arabia, Salman, 25th son of the founder of the dynasty, has managed to consolidate his personal authority to the detriment of other branches of his family, including the clan of Prince Bandar ben Sultan and that of the old King Abdallah. However, we don’t know what Washington has promised the losers in order to dissuade them from making attempts to regain their lost power. In any case, certain anonymous letters published in the British Press lead us to believe that they have not abandoned their ambitions. Forced by his brothers to nominate Prince Mohamad ben Nayef as heir, King Salman quickly isolated him and restr

Iran said a US aircraft carrier “acted provocatively and unprofessionally” after its Revolutionary Guards seized two US boats that strayed into Islamic Republic's territorial waters. The USS Harry S. Truman, which is currently deployed in the Persian Gulf, has been conducting improper maneuvers in the wake of the detention of the boats, a top Iranian naval commander claimed. Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, the chief of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Navy, talked about the incident with the American boats in a live interview on state TV. Fadavi dismissed reports that the ten American troops detained by the IRGC would soon be released as “speculation.” He said they would be questioned and warned that Iran would “act properly” if it concludes that the boats entered Iranian waters on an espionage mission rather than by accident. He confirmed that US Secretary of State John Kerry had talked with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif. Zarif demanded a formal apology for the breach of Ir

By Michael T. Klare As 2015 drew to a close, many in the global energy industry were praying that the price of oil would bounce back from the abyss, restoring the petroleum-centric world of the past half-century. All evidence, however, points to a continuing depression in oil prices in 2016 -- one that may, in fact, stretch into the 2020s and beyond. Given the centrality of oil (and oil revenues) in the global power equation, this is bound to translate into a profound shakeup in the political order, with petroleum-producing states from Saudi Arabia to Russia losing both prominence and geopolitical clout. To put things in perspective, it was not so long ago -- in June 2014, to be exact -- that Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, was selling at $115 per barrel. Energy analysts then generally assumed that the price of oil would remain well over $100 deep into the future, and might gradually rise to even more stratospheric levels. Such predictions inspired the giant energy com

In an interview with RT, Virginia state Senator Richard Black says that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the two biggest threats to world. “It is Saudi Arabia, through the Wahhabist doctrine, that is spreading terrorism across the globe. It’s not Iran, it’s not Syria or any other country.” Meanwhile, Turkish President Erdogan intends to impose an absolute dictatorship, the senator says.

On New Year’s Eve, 3,000 emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server were released. One of them confirms – an email dated April 2, 2011 to Clinton from her close confidante Sidney Blumenthal – that: Qaddafi’s government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver. *** This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French. franc (CFA). (Source Comment [This is in the original declassified email, and is not a comment added by us]: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya. According to the