Pepe Escobar

Emilio "Pepe" Escobar (born 1954 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian journalist. He is known for his association with online alternative media, and his works have appeared in publications such as Asia Times, Mondialisation.ca, CounterPunch, Al-Jazeera, Press TV, Russia Today, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Guancha. He started as a music critic in Brazil where he has written for the newspapers Folha de S.Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo and Gazeta Mercantil, the magazine CartaCapital, the online news portal Brasil 247 and has appeared as a commentator on TV 247. In the late 1980s, he started working as a foreign correspondent and has since written about Asia, the Middle East, Russia and U.S. foreign policy. He served as a correspondent from Afghanistan and Pakistan during the War in Afghanistan, writing about Osama bin Laden before 9/11 and interviewing Afghan leader Ahmad Shah Massoud prior to his assassination. He coined the term "Pipelineistan" which refers to the network of oil and gas pipelines in crucial geopolitical regions, especially Central Asia. He suggests that Western actions in these areas are largely driven by a desire to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian energy and Western dependence on OPEC. This theory has faced criticism, particularly regarding its application to the Syrian civil war.