All right, we're live. How's everybody doing?

I am live here in the swamp, Washington, D.C., and we're talking to Pepe Escobar, who has just returned

home to Paris, has been on the road, and is someone who knows the subject that we're going to be tackling today very well,

knows it from the ground level.

Ben Norton, my co-host podcast partner, is not here right now, but he's going to be with us shortly.

He's just experiencing some transportation problems

in Nicaragua. Apparently, the Belt and Road Initiative could not come soon enough to get

Ben here in time on some high-speed rail. But I think we can just give the floor to Pepe. How are you

doing today, Pepe? Hi, Max.

A great pleasure to see you.

Great pleasure to see you all, in fact.

And yes, Nicaragua, New Silk Rose.

But not been, not yet.

Not yet.

Well, maybe we'll talk about that.

I mean, there's so much on the agenda.

But first, we did want to talk about that. I mean, there's so much on the agenda. But first, we did want to talk about Kazakhstan, and you've written a series of pieces following what became apparently a failed color revolution.

I guess I would just want to ask you to sort this out because what we saw appeared to be popular protests

against a corrupt figure in Nazarbayev who has been just feasting at the trough of Chevron

and was widely hated. He's been replaced, but somewhere along the line, it appeared that those popular protests

as so often happens morphed into, as I mentioned, a kind of color revolution and you've

been writing about the NATO rat lines participation.

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