The Saker
It is still a little early to call this day over, especially considering the time it takes for the information to seep out of the eastern Ukraine and make it to the Internet. Furthermore, we have to be extremely cautious with the news not only because truth is the first casualty of war or because all the information sources have a vested interest in getting out the "right" information "correctly" presented, but because today, just as yesterday, the main characteristic of the situation in the Ukraine is complete, total, chaos.With these caveats in mind, we can still say the following with a strong degree of certitude:
Something really amazing happened today in Kramatorsk. It appears that a column of Ukrainian paratroopers entered the city unopposed, some of them put Russian flags on their Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV), others Saint George ribbons. When they made it to the city center they were greeted by the civilians who brought them flowers and food. Then, some of them apparently left, possibly on their IFV though that is still unclear to me. It appears certain that 6 IFV of the BMD-2 types (Airborne IFV) were given to the local self-defense forces. It is unclear to me what happened to the crews. Some reports say that they purchased civilians clothes and returned to their base, but that makes absolutely no sense. Strictly speaking, handing over their IFV to "terrorists" in a "battle situation" could get them summarily executed on the spot. At the very least this should land them in front of a court martial. So my guess is that the crews either deserted completely, or stayed around and join the locals. What is certain is that the local defense forces now have 6 armored vehicles armed with the formidable 30mm 2A42 multi-purpose auto-cannon which can tear into pretty much anything short of a main battle tank. The BMD-2 is also *ideal* for urban combat: relatively compact, well armored, highly mobile and with that formidable gun (which can shoot armor piercing rounds), it is just about the best kind of vehicle to use inside a city (it also has a machine gun and a guided anti-tank weapon).
By the way, these units came from the same 24th Airborne Brigade I mentioned yesterday, probably one of the few more or less well trained units in the entire Ukrainian military.
Another less noticed event was an attempt by unidentified paramilitaries to attack or break through one of the checkpoints near the city. The attack failed, the number of casualties is still undetermined. The locals blame the Right Sector thugs for this one.
All the other info coming out of the eastern Ukraine are just rumors and it makes no sense to repeat it here, much less so use it as a basis for making conclusions.
What appears to be pretty certain is that nothing major happened today, most definitely no big combat operations. If yesterday was chaos with local violence, today seems to be only chaos, which is not a bad sign I suppose.
Finally, this "just in" from RT. Unverified, by consistent with what we know:
Reports from Slavyansk say that the army troops sent to the eastern Ukrainian city for an “anti-terrorist operation” are leaving en masse. Some troops are openly voicing support for the eastern Ukrainians, while others are speaking out against a war. According to Interfax, citing local self-defense activists, some 300 Ukrainian troops agreed to lay down their weapons and “go home” following negotiations in Slavyansk.If that is so, this might be the beginning of the end for the "anti-terrorist" operation. Why? Because enough of the military switches sides, or at least lays down arms or refuses to obey, no other force can challenge it. The Paratroopers can easily make minced meat out of any police, SWAT, SBU or even regular military unit. They could even hold their ground against an armored attack (holding ground is what these paratroopers are trained for). If the 24th Airborne Brigade switches sides (which has not happened yet!!), then that is the end of the entire "anti-terrorist" operation. But this is a big "if" and we should not assume something about the entire brigade just on the basis of what one single company did.
Stay tuned, I will try to keep you posted,
The Saker
Ukraine SITREP April 15, 18:30 EST update 1 (Ukrainian civil war day 1)
The first day of what will become the Ukrainian Civil war has finished and since by tomorrow morning a lot can happen, I have decided to provide this intermediate SITREP update tonight rather than to wait for tomorrow.
The short summary of the day is: absolute chaos and local violence.
A couple of things stand out:
The Ukrainian military is told that it has to stop "terrorists". Regardless of whether they believe it or not, the Ukrainian commanding officers are more or less willing to execute that order. What they seem to be unwilling to do is kill many civilians or, even less so, take a city by force. So they stop in the outskirts and conduct very tense and unpleasant dialog with very hostile and suspicious civilians.
The Ukrainian security services are probably more willing to shoot civilians, but they seem to be really weary of entering the rebel cities, and I can't blame them. Unlike most of the barricades around the cities which are manned with civilians (including women and senior folks), some barricades and buildings inside the city are defended by armed men, some definitely with military experience, and supported by many civilian demonstrators. Any SBU force seen shooting civilians risks being killed by a lynch mob.
The Right Sector thugs would love to kill as many of the accursed Moskals as possible, but they have neither the training nor the numbers to seize a town. And should they be caught they have no hope whatsoever to make it out alive. They will be literally torn into pieces by the locals.
So, to sum it up so far:
1) The Ukrainian military only pretends to participate in the so-called anti-terrorist operation. While some units from Galicia might try it, most units are probably unwilling to shoot many civilians.
2) The cops, SWAT teams and SBU special forces probably would not mind shooting into a crowd, but they would be fearful to enter inside the urban environment of a city and storm buildings while having a furious mob all around them.
3) As for the neo-Nazi thugs and common criminals hired by the oligarchs, they have neither the training nor the means to put down a city.
Thus, the first day of that civil war is one of total chaos and confusion with only localized violence. Even if 11 civilians were killed, this is nothing compared with what would happen in the Ukrainian military decided to attack a city with Multiple Rocket Launchers like the Georgian did with Tskhinval in 08.08.08.
A few words about the Russian speaking opposition now.
I have watched as much video footage today as I could and here is what I see:
1) Lots of real civilians, unarmed, including women and seniors. They seem both frightened and very angry. Their plan is to form a human shield to stop the Fascist assault.
2) Lots of determined and solid looking men, many of the coal-mine workers. They are armed with metal rods, sticks and a few Molotov cocktails. Any trained force armed with real assault rifles could easily kill them, but they would probably make minced meat our of Right Sector thugs. These are simple but *very* tough men, and boy do they look mad....
3) An assortment of self-organized armed groups, mostly equipped with handguns and assault rifles, they have some real firepower, but are poorly trained and poorly commanded. They could not stop a determined assault either, but they could provide enough firepower locally to scare off the cops.
4) A few small groups (3-5 men) here and there who look like they know what they are doing. Some are former paratroopers, others have served in other well-trained units. They seem to be trying hard to get a more or less organized resistance going and they probably could mount an intelligent attack on an enemy column (as happened over the week-end in one case). I don't think that these groups are very numerous, but they could show up anywhere and they are therefore a real threat to any attacking force.
Taken separately, none of these defenders amount to much of a force to protect even a small city. However, the combination of these very different type of defenders might present a real problem for the Ukrainian command, especially considering the morale problems on the Ukrainian side and what appears to be a fierce determination triggered by rage and fear by the Russian-speakers.
Besides, urban assault operations are always and inherently very difficult and very dangerous. During such operations the most typical scenario is one where the initial attack appears easy and victorious and then all hell breaks lose and what appeared to be a success turns into a nightmare. It takes not only a lot of firepower to prevail in an urban environment, but also a very strong determination and the willingness to kill a lot of civilians. In the eastern Ukraine almost every civilian runs around with a cellphone or camera so there are "eyes" everywhere and every event is filmed, some are even streamed live on the Internet. Not good for the attackers either.
One more thing: I think that a red line has been crossed today and that now that the entire population in the eastern Ukraine has been assimilated to "terrorists" while the two main candidates to the Presidential elections have been assaulted (and one, Tsarev, charged with, I kid you not, hooliganism and sedition!) there are no more hopes for a federalized unitary Ukrainian state. When civilians were shot today in an official andauthorized army attack, which was ordered by the so-called "interim President" and which was praised by the USA for its "restraint" a qualitative change in the struggle occurred. Short of a miracle, my personal conclusion is that Ukrainian experiment has crashed and burned. It's over for "the Ukraine".
For several days I have spoken of an "escape velocity" and I think that today it was reached. To paraphrase a well-known English nursery rhyme:
The Independent Ukraine sat on a wall,
The Independent Ukraine had a great fall.
All the West's money and all the West's men
Couldn't put that Ukraine back together again
The only question now is what human price will the West and its neo-Nazi puppets in Kiev extract from the Ukrainian people before accepting the inevitable?
Stay tuned.
The Saker
The short summary of the day is: absolute chaos and local violence.
A couple of things stand out:
- The same source who reported that the CIA Director John Brennan visited Kiev on Sunday or Monday also say that the US plan is to use the Ukrainian military to blockade the rebel cities and to use special units (national guard, SBU SWAT, a newly created unit called "Shtorm" and Right Sector gangs) to actually do the repression.
- In a rather bizarre incident, some Ukrainian officers were told that 30 armed terrorists had seized an airport near Kramatorsk. They landed there supported by APCs and helicopters only to find out that only civilians were present. Rumors say that "several" to "eleven" civilians were killed in that operation. The amazing thing is that the officers really seemed to believe that they would be fighting some kind of military force. When they realize that this was not the case, most of the forces were evacuated and only a smaller force was left at the airport. It is currently surrounded by civilians who are blocking all exists.
- Same thing happened to the recon battalion of the 24th Airborne Division which was sent in to locate "terrorists". When the saw that only civilians were present they refused to continue their mission, turned around and left.
- A convoy of Right Sector militants disguised as pro-Russian forces (they were wearing Saint George ribbons) were stop and searched by civilians. Soon, after some brutal interrogations the truth became obvious, the trucks full of weapons confiscated and the drivers beat up.
- In Kiev the Right Sector has given the so-called President and his regime 24 hours to take action. If not, they promised to overthrow him. In other words, the small, disorganized and demoralized leftover of the Ukrainian police now might be told to put down both the Russian-speakers in the East and the Galician freaks in Kiev.
- As for the always amazing White House, its press secretary has declared that the USA "praises" the neo-Fascist regime for its "restraint".
The Ukrainian military is told that it has to stop "terrorists". Regardless of whether they believe it or not, the Ukrainian commanding officers are more or less willing to execute that order. What they seem to be unwilling to do is kill many civilians or, even less so, take a city by force. So they stop in the outskirts and conduct very tense and unpleasant dialog with very hostile and suspicious civilians.
The Ukrainian security services are probably more willing to shoot civilians, but they seem to be really weary of entering the rebel cities, and I can't blame them. Unlike most of the barricades around the cities which are manned with civilians (including women and senior folks), some barricades and buildings inside the city are defended by armed men, some definitely with military experience, and supported by many civilian demonstrators. Any SBU force seen shooting civilians risks being killed by a lynch mob.
The Right Sector thugs would love to kill as many of the accursed Moskals as possible, but they have neither the training nor the numbers to seize a town. And should they be caught they have no hope whatsoever to make it out alive. They will be literally torn into pieces by the locals.
So, to sum it up so far:
1) The Ukrainian military only pretends to participate in the so-called anti-terrorist operation. While some units from Galicia might try it, most units are probably unwilling to shoot many civilians.
2) The cops, SWAT teams and SBU special forces probably would not mind shooting into a crowd, but they would be fearful to enter inside the urban environment of a city and storm buildings while having a furious mob all around them.
3) As for the neo-Nazi thugs and common criminals hired by the oligarchs, they have neither the training nor the means to put down a city.
Thus, the first day of that civil war is one of total chaos and confusion with only localized violence. Even if 11 civilians were killed, this is nothing compared with what would happen in the Ukrainian military decided to attack a city with Multiple Rocket Launchers like the Georgian did with Tskhinval in 08.08.08.
A few words about the Russian speaking opposition now.
I have watched as much video footage today as I could and here is what I see:
1) Lots of real civilians, unarmed, including women and seniors. They seem both frightened and very angry. Their plan is to form a human shield to stop the Fascist assault.
2) Lots of determined and solid looking men, many of the coal-mine workers. They are armed with metal rods, sticks and a few Molotov cocktails. Any trained force armed with real assault rifles could easily kill them, but they would probably make minced meat our of Right Sector thugs. These are simple but *very* tough men, and boy do they look mad....
3) An assortment of self-organized armed groups, mostly equipped with handguns and assault rifles, they have some real firepower, but are poorly trained and poorly commanded. They could not stop a determined assault either, but they could provide enough firepower locally to scare off the cops.
4) A few small groups (3-5 men) here and there who look like they know what they are doing. Some are former paratroopers, others have served in other well-trained units. They seem to be trying hard to get a more or less organized resistance going and they probably could mount an intelligent attack on an enemy column (as happened over the week-end in one case). I don't think that these groups are very numerous, but they could show up anywhere and they are therefore a real threat to any attacking force.
Taken separately, none of these defenders amount to much of a force to protect even a small city. However, the combination of these very different type of defenders might present a real problem for the Ukrainian command, especially considering the morale problems on the Ukrainian side and what appears to be a fierce determination triggered by rage and fear by the Russian-speakers.
Besides, urban assault operations are always and inherently very difficult and very dangerous. During such operations the most typical scenario is one where the initial attack appears easy and victorious and then all hell breaks lose and what appeared to be a success turns into a nightmare. It takes not only a lot of firepower to prevail in an urban environment, but also a very strong determination and the willingness to kill a lot of civilians. In the eastern Ukraine almost every civilian runs around with a cellphone or camera so there are "eyes" everywhere and every event is filmed, some are even streamed live on the Internet. Not good for the attackers either.
One more thing: I think that a red line has been crossed today and that now that the entire population in the eastern Ukraine has been assimilated to "terrorists" while the two main candidates to the Presidential elections have been assaulted (and one, Tsarev, charged with, I kid you not, hooliganism and sedition!) there are no more hopes for a federalized unitary Ukrainian state. When civilians were shot today in an official andauthorized army attack, which was ordered by the so-called "interim President" and which was praised by the USA for its "restraint" a qualitative change in the struggle occurred. Short of a miracle, my personal conclusion is that Ukrainian experiment has crashed and burned. It's over for "the Ukraine".
For several days I have spoken of an "escape velocity" and I think that today it was reached. To paraphrase a well-known English nursery rhyme:
The Independent Ukraine sat on a wall,
The Independent Ukraine had a great fall.
All the West's money and all the West's men
Couldn't put that Ukraine back together again
The only question now is what human price will the West and its neo-Nazi puppets in Kiev extract from the Ukrainian people before accepting the inevitable?
Stay tuned.
The Saker
Personal announcement: there is good news, and there is bad news (and one idea)
Dear friends,
Today, as people often say, I have some good news and some not so good news.
The good news is that a number of kind people have reach out to me in different ways to help me assure the survivability of this blog. The idea is to make the blog available in sufficient number of duplicates located in different places of the planet to prevent the "Axis of Kindness" from shutting it down. This is what we have done so far. The following two locations are available as "reserves" to be used in case of an "accidental" deletion of this blog here:
https://vineyardsaker.wordpress.com/
http://thesaker.ucoz.com/blog
Right now, these locations are not used or updated and I will keep them "frozen" until and unless an emergency happens.
The following two sides have a partial backup of the pasts posts of this blog:
https://thesaker.wordpress.com/
http://info.scoop.co.nz/Saker_Analytics
I am in contact with several folks who are trying to work out a way to backup the full blog in one location and then provide automatic "mirroring" of what is posted here. That would be the ultimate solution, but it takes a little more time to setup.
Stay tuned, and I will keep you posted when this option is available, hopefully in more than one location.
The other good news is that the number of visitors to this blog is steadily rising and on Sunday it reached just a hair short of 20'000 (19,936 exactly) - not bad at all for a week-end day! Also, I am getting daily reports about posts of this blog being published elsewhere, from Brazil, to India, to New Zealand, to Russia to the USA. In other words, our joint efforts (at least 60% of the credit for the quality of this blog goes to you all, I could never hack this alone!) are paying off and we are kicking the presstitutes right were they deserve it. So please continue commenting, posting links, reporting events, translating, proof-reading my horrible writing, discussing topics at length and everything else you have been doing. We make a difference, however small.
Now the bad news.
Guys, I cannot accept money orders or checks. While I do not distrust any specific person amongst you, I am trying to keep my "thin anonymity" up as long as possible. Once my read identity comes up (which I know will happen sooner or later), it will be a major distraction and a pain in the a** for me to deal with. I want to keep focusing on issues and topics, not personalities. If I start accepting money orders or checks even this very "thin" anonymity of mine will go down the tubes real fast. So all I can only suggest is this:
If you really hate PayPal to the point of never wanting to use it I fully understand. Then use snail mail and send me cash or gift cards or anything else you feel comfortable sending.
Somewhere down the road, if the donations keep on coming, I might consider opening up a non-profit, but at this point in time this makes no sense at all.
Sorry for the frustrating bad news.
One more thing:
I think that it might be extremely useful to create a group of "correspondents" of this blog. Here is what I mean by that:
The fact is that I am the proverbial "armchair strategist", with all the flaws which derive from that situation. This weakness is partially mitigated by the fact that I used to be a *professionally trained* armchair strategist: this is the guy who in peace time sits at the top floor of a sombre looking building and who in war time sits very deep inside a bunker. He rarely wears a uniform, even more rarely combat fatigues, but he is always surrounded by lots of electronics and communication gear and each morning he gets a big pile of paper and secure emails which he plows through and then works with big databases to assess the data which just came in to evaluate it. The closest he ever gets to a firing tank or artillery piece is on his computer screen, usually during command-staff exercises. You know the type, right? In Russian they are called "staff rats/bitch" (shtabnaia krysa/suka, штабная крыса/сука). Not a very popular type with the frontline folks. The polite word of us is simply "analyst".
One of the things which such an analyst has is the possibility to contact somebody in the area he is trying to evaluate to ask a question, get a detail, ask for a translation, etc. In my case, however, my needs are even more basic:
I need local folks to go through the local Internet resources (not the big national news, those I parse myself) to seek out interesting stuff and then simply send me the links. Though a commentary or evaluation of these links could be helpful, the links alone would be helpful enough. Here are the languages which I can read more or less decently: very easily: French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, and English, of course. With some difficulties Portuguese, and Dutch. Slowly and preferably with the help of a machine translator, can also understand a text written in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Afrikaans, Slovak and Macedonian.
Also, there are four languages which I don't know at all and with which I would really need a person willing to translate or even just summarize interesting articles in the local Internet (in order of priority): Arabic, Chinese, Farsi and Hebrew.
Should that work, my goal would be to completely bypass the AngloZionist media and to offer the readers of this blog information from the small news sources which are little known but which are trying hard to become more visible. Sure, we all know about RussiaToday, PressTV or TeleSur, but who knows what kind of interesting stuff is published on the local Internet in Omsk, Isfahan or Cochabamba?
Tlaxcala does a great job of translating "alternative" information in many languages and IPS tried to being local information sources. But for the former does not use local correspondents or specialize in English-language information while the latter has, shall we say, a "not always adequate political agenda" with some pretty darn big blind spots.
So here is my idea: if some of you are interested in becoming "Saker correspondents" we could have your just scan the local press in your area (it don't need to be in Timbuktu - the local press in France or Romania might be very interesting too) and send me the links. I could then either publish the full article if it is worth it, or just post a few links so those interested can read it for themselves, or simply read the stuff myself to help me understand a region or a current event. If there will be Arabic, Chinese, Farsi or Hebrew speakers willing to be "Saker correspondents" then they would work somewhat differently: they could email me and say, "the local website has a reader's forum where one guy just posted his impression after a 3 day trip to the town of X and he is describing something interesting. Do you want a summary or full translation?" Depending on the place, situation and source I would have to decide whether this is worth the correspondent's effort.
Alternatively, you could bypass me completely and contact each other directly and jointly decide to try to get the local information sources to the English-speaking world, either through my blog or through any other outlet you like (God knows there are many very good ones today). Then my role would be just to help put you in touch with each other and then you could work without intermediaries.
Just think about it. All I know is that there are regular readers here from all over the planet, with lots of languages and excellent expertise and education. Not to flatter you all, but there is *a lot* of brainpower available which we could put together if you guys are interested.
If not, no problem. I regularly have goofy ideas and I don't expect a standing ovation every time a share them with others :-)
Again, sorry for the stupid situation with donations, but I tried my best within the time that I have and the laws, regulations and practices I have to comply with. I can't afford doing something even remotely not 100% legal and 100% ethical.
Kind regards and many thanks,
The Saker
PS: there is a strong possibility that the international situation will take a sharp turn for the worse and there is a not trivial possibility that some kind of conflict or war may start in several locations on the planet (the Ukraine, DPRK, South China Sea, Venezuela, Iran, etc.). So whatever we decide, let's try to stay in touch and try to make sense of what is going on together, okay? The Saker
Today, as people often say, I have some good news and some not so good news.
The good news is that a number of kind people have reach out to me in different ways to help me assure the survivability of this blog. The idea is to make the blog available in sufficient number of duplicates located in different places of the planet to prevent the "Axis of Kindness" from shutting it down. This is what we have done so far. The following two locations are available as "reserves" to be used in case of an "accidental" deletion of this blog here:
https://vineyardsaker.wordpress.com/
http://thesaker.ucoz.com/blog
Right now, these locations are not used or updated and I will keep them "frozen" until and unless an emergency happens.
The following two sides have a partial backup of the pasts posts of this blog:
https://thesaker.wordpress.com/
http://info.scoop.co.nz/Saker_Analytics
I am in contact with several folks who are trying to work out a way to backup the full blog in one location and then provide automatic "mirroring" of what is posted here. That would be the ultimate solution, but it takes a little more time to setup.
Stay tuned, and I will keep you posted when this option is available, hopefully in more than one location.
The other good news is that the number of visitors to this blog is steadily rising and on Sunday it reached just a hair short of 20'000 (19,936 exactly) - not bad at all for a week-end day! Also, I am getting daily reports about posts of this blog being published elsewhere, from Brazil, to India, to New Zealand, to Russia to the USA. In other words, our joint efforts (at least 60% of the credit for the quality of this blog goes to you all, I could never hack this alone!) are paying off and we are kicking the presstitutes right were they deserve it. So please continue commenting, posting links, reporting events, translating, proof-reading my horrible writing, discussing topics at length and everything else you have been doing. We make a difference, however small.
Now the bad news.
Guys, I cannot accept money orders or checks. While I do not distrust any specific person amongst you, I am trying to keep my "thin anonymity" up as long as possible. Once my read identity comes up (which I know will happen sooner or later), it will be a major distraction and a pain in the a** for me to deal with. I want to keep focusing on issues and topics, not personalities. If I start accepting money orders or checks even this very "thin" anonymity of mine will go down the tubes real fast. So all I can only suggest is this:
- PayPal (flattr basically does not work for me)
- Snailmail to either Europe or the USA (see exact addresses on the left)
If you really hate PayPal to the point of never wanting to use it I fully understand. Then use snail mail and send me cash or gift cards or anything else you feel comfortable sending.
Somewhere down the road, if the donations keep on coming, I might consider opening up a non-profit, but at this point in time this makes no sense at all.
Sorry for the frustrating bad news.
One more thing:
I think that it might be extremely useful to create a group of "correspondents" of this blog. Here is what I mean by that:
The fact is that I am the proverbial "armchair strategist", with all the flaws which derive from that situation. This weakness is partially mitigated by the fact that I used to be a *professionally trained* armchair strategist: this is the guy who in peace time sits at the top floor of a sombre looking building and who in war time sits very deep inside a bunker. He rarely wears a uniform, even more rarely combat fatigues, but he is always surrounded by lots of electronics and communication gear and each morning he gets a big pile of paper and secure emails which he plows through and then works with big databases to assess the data which just came in to evaluate it. The closest he ever gets to a firing tank or artillery piece is on his computer screen, usually during command-staff exercises. You know the type, right? In Russian they are called "staff rats/bitch" (shtabnaia krysa/suka, штабная крыса/сука). Not a very popular type with the frontline folks. The polite word of us is simply "analyst".
One of the things which such an analyst has is the possibility to contact somebody in the area he is trying to evaluate to ask a question, get a detail, ask for a translation, etc. In my case, however, my needs are even more basic:
I need local folks to go through the local Internet resources (not the big national news, those I parse myself) to seek out interesting stuff and then simply send me the links. Though a commentary or evaluation of these links could be helpful, the links alone would be helpful enough. Here are the languages which I can read more or less decently: very easily: French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian, and English, of course. With some difficulties Portuguese, and Dutch. Slowly and preferably with the help of a machine translator, can also understand a text written in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Afrikaans, Slovak and Macedonian.
Also, there are four languages which I don't know at all and with which I would really need a person willing to translate or even just summarize interesting articles in the local Internet (in order of priority): Arabic, Chinese, Farsi and Hebrew.
Should that work, my goal would be to completely bypass the AngloZionist media and to offer the readers of this blog information from the small news sources which are little known but which are trying hard to become more visible. Sure, we all know about RussiaToday, PressTV or TeleSur, but who knows what kind of interesting stuff is published on the local Internet in Omsk, Isfahan or Cochabamba?
Tlaxcala does a great job of translating "alternative" information in many languages and IPS tried to being local information sources. But for the former does not use local correspondents or specialize in English-language information while the latter has, shall we say, a "not always adequate political agenda" with some pretty darn big blind spots.
So here is my idea: if some of you are interested in becoming "Saker correspondents" we could have your just scan the local press in your area (it don't need to be in Timbuktu - the local press in France or Romania might be very interesting too) and send me the links. I could then either publish the full article if it is worth it, or just post a few links so those interested can read it for themselves, or simply read the stuff myself to help me understand a region or a current event. If there will be Arabic, Chinese, Farsi or Hebrew speakers willing to be "Saker correspondents" then they would work somewhat differently: they could email me and say, "the local website has a reader's forum where one guy just posted his impression after a 3 day trip to the town of X and he is describing something interesting. Do you want a summary or full translation?" Depending on the place, situation and source I would have to decide whether this is worth the correspondent's effort.
Alternatively, you could bypass me completely and contact each other directly and jointly decide to try to get the local information sources to the English-speaking world, either through my blog or through any other outlet you like (God knows there are many very good ones today). Then my role would be just to help put you in touch with each other and then you could work without intermediaries.
Just think about it. All I know is that there are regular readers here from all over the planet, with lots of languages and excellent expertise and education. Not to flatter you all, but there is *a lot* of brainpower available which we could put together if you guys are interested.
If not, no problem. I regularly have goofy ideas and I don't expect a standing ovation every time a share them with others :-)
Again, sorry for the stupid situation with donations, but I tried my best within the time that I have and the laws, regulations and practices I have to comply with. I can't afford doing something even remotely not 100% legal and 100% ethical.
Kind regards and many thanks,
The Saker
PS: there is a strong possibility that the international situation will take a sharp turn for the worse and there is a not trivial possibility that some kind of conflict or war may start in several locations on the planet (the Ukraine, DPRK, South China Sea, Venezuela, Iran, etc.). So whatever we decide, let's try to stay in touch and try to make sense of what is going on together, okay? The Saker