๐๐Global Eyes ๐บ
๐งญ A quick journey around the world, from Latin American inflation statistics to the Sodomite power of the collective West.
ClaireโOn account of my having promised to explain Realism and Liberalism in International Relations theory, todayโs Global Eyes is exceptionally comprehensive. I decided that carefully reading every news organ cited here was more urgent than actually writing what I meant to write. But thatโs okay. Thereโs lots of interesting and important news here, and the IR theory will be even better tomorrow, once youโve worked up an appetite for itโClaire.
๐บ๐ฆ War in Ukraine
From the Institute for the Study of War:
The Ukrainian counteroffensive in northern Kharkiv took further ground and may be within 10 kilometers of the Russian border.
Belarusian authorities are escalating rhetoric accusing NATO and the US of threatening Belarusian borders, but Belarus remains unlikely to join the war.
Russian operations around Izyum remain stalled.
DNR and Russian forces are advancing efforts to consolidate their control of the ruins of Mariupol, including reportedly attempting to reopen steel plants to produce military equipment.
Russian forces in eastern Ukraine continued attempts to encircle the Severodonetsk area and reportedly reached the Donetsk-Luhansk administrative border from Popasna.
Russian and Ukrainian forces did not conduct any significant attacks on the southern axis.
US President Joe Biden signed into law the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022.
โI commanded US Army Europe. Hereโs what I saw in the Russian and Ukrainian Armies.โ
Preventing human trafficking of refugees from Ukraine: A rapid assessment of risks and gaps in the anti-trafficking response.
The House passed a US$40 billion military and humanitarian aid package for Ukraine in a 368 to 57 vote.
Ukraine stopped the flow of Russian natural gas on Wednesday through a hub that feeds European homes:
The practical impact of Wednesdayโs gas cutoff for European households was not immediately clear: Ukraineโs pipeline operator said it would switch supply to another hub, and an analyst said transit should not be affected. โฆ But the move could hold symbolic significance as the first time Ukraine has disrupted the flow westward.
NATO leaders fear a stalemate in which Ukraine remains a deadly European battlefield and a source of continental and global instability for months or years.
The US Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, spoke before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. Key assessments:
The decision to concentrate Russian forces in the eastern Donbas region is โonly a temporary shiftโ after the failure to capture Kyiv.
Putin is determined to build a land bridge to Russian-controlled territory in Moldova.
Russian forces intend to win territory across the Black Sea coast, in part to secure water resources for Crimea.
Putin is settling in for a long conflict. โPutin most likely also judges that Russia has a greater ability and willingness to endure challenges than his adversaries, and he is probably counting on US and EU resolve to weaken as food shortages, inflation and energy prices get worse.โ
Russian forces are not large or strong enough to capture and hold this territory without a general mobilization of troops and resources.
โThe current trend increases the likelihood that President Putin will turn to more drastic means, including imposing martial law, reorienting industrial production, or potentially escalatory military options to free up the resources needed to achieve his objectives.โ
The IC doesnโt assess that Putin is prepared to use nuclear weapons. Putin uses nuclear โrhetoricโ to scare the West, she said.
Russia might launch a new nuclear forces exercise involving the dispersal of his land, air and submarine nuclear threats.
Putin would, she said, only approve the use of tactical nuclear weapons if Russia itself was under โexistential threat.โ Moscow would escalate its signaling to make it clear when it would use a nuclear weapon.
The intelligence officials were also raked over the coals for having misjudged the durability of governments in both Afghanistan and Ukraine. Senator Angus King interrupted when the head of the DIA said he thought the intelligence agencies had been doing โa great job.โ
General, how can you possibly say that when we were told explicitly, Kyiv would fall in three days and Ukraine would fall in two weeks? Youโre telling me that was accurate intelligence?
What victory will look like in Ukraine:
This will be the hardest task of American statecraft going forward: dealing with a Russia reeling from defeat and humiliation, weakened but still dangerous, isolated but not without sympathizers or at least willing collaborators around the world. Containment in its original form presupposed a Soviet Union dominated by a rationalist ideology that would, sooner or later, perish of its own recognized failure to deliver the goods. This will be much more like dealing with a rabid, wounded beast that claws and bites at itself as much as it does at others, in the grip not of a millennial ideology but a bizarre combination of nationalism and nihilism.
Russian proxies will ask Putin to annex Kherson Oblast. Kirill Stremousov, a leader of the Kremlinโs proxies in Ukraineโs Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast, said no referendum is needed to transform Kherson into a so-called โpeopleโs republic.โ They instead seek outright annexation.
๐ท๐บ Russia
๐งต Typical comments:
- โDeath penalty for all the khokhols, thereโs no place for them in the world, time to destroy this fucking raceโ
- โDestroy the satanists, no mercy.โ
โWeโve Got to Kill Themโ: Responses to Bucha on Russian social media groups.
Why a palace coup is highly unlikely to remove Putinโand why weโre nowhere near the critical mass required for a popular revolt:
Apocalyptic thinking in the Kremlin. RFE/RL interviews Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist who covers Russiaโs security services:
As an example, I checked recently [on] some polls conducted by Telegram channels [that] are really close to the Russian military and [they were] quite astonishing to me. They asked questions about what [soldiers thought] an acceptable objective to declare victory for this war [would be], and you have around 25 percent saying that [they would] need the complete capitulation of Ukraine and more than 30 percent saying they would want to get Russian troops to the border with Poland. But the most astonishing number is that only 6 percent said they would be happy with only [taking the] Donbas. That is very worrying. It means that the objectives pronounced by Putin at the beginning of the war are not necessarily the same ones the military sees as appropriate and acceptable.
Demented Russian propagandists redefine โNaziโ and โanti-Semitism,โ writes Cathy Young:
Of course, those familiar with Soviet historyโand Soviet historiographyโwill easily see that the Judenrein version of Nazism being pushed by Kremlin propaganda today is little more than an updated version of Judenrein Soviet narratives of World War II.
โฆ Russia has always excelled at conducting operations and attacks against the West, where it enjoys plausible deniability. Despite endless, splenetic propaganda and lies about imminent attacks by Ukraine and the West, Putin is showing caution when dealing with actual events. His Western opponents should have a careful think about the implications of this.
๐ช๐บ๐ฌ๐ง Europe
Lithuania recognizes Russiaโs war against Ukraine as genocide, Russia as terrorist state. The Lithuanian parliament voted unanimously on a resolution stating that Russiaโs intent is to wholly or partially destroy the Ukrainian nation:
According to the document, the intent is to wholly or partially destroy the Ukrainian nation and break its spirit by killing entire families, including children, abducting and raping people, and mocking them and the bodies of the murdered. โThe Seimas recognizes the full-scale armed aggressionโwarโ against Ukraine by the armed forces of the Russian Federation and its political and military leadership [...] as genocide against the Ukrainian people.โ
Russian Foreign Ministry accuses Lithuania of โextremism.โ
Leader of Pussy Riot escapes to Lithuania:
โฆ in April, as Mr. Putin cracked down harder to snuff out any criticism of his war in Ukraine, the authorities announced that her effective house arrest would be converted to 21 days in a penal colony. She decided it was time to leave Russiaโat least temporarilyโand disguised herself as a food courier to evade the Moscow police who had been staking out the friendโs apartment where she was staying.
Boris Johnson is visiting Sweden and Finland to discuss the war in Ukraine and the debate within both nations about joining NATO.
Hungary has rejected the EUโs proposed Russian oil embargo as โunacceptable.โ
The UK pledged to come to Swedenโs aid if the country came under attack. Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Magdalena Andersson have signed a security assurance deal. The deal will involve intelligence sharing and cooperation against both cyberattacks and conventional military threats.
Boris Johnson is facing a parliamentary revolt over a plan to unilaterally override the Northern Ireland Brexit deal as European leaders warned the prime minister not to touch the agreement:
Johnson faces obstacles to getting the plan through parliament, with senior Tories warning that he would face a rebellion. โEven if it gets through the Commons, it will be mullered in the Lords,โ one former minister said. Another added: โThere are a lot of colleagues who will not support this. We canโt go around ripping up international agreements that we donโt like.โ
Joe Biden calls on Boris Johnson not to rip up the protocol agreement:
This week meetings in Washington are to take place between White House officials and Northern Ireland junior ministerย Conor Burns, the UK governmentโs envoy on the protocol. He now faces a more frosty reception after โblindsidingโ the State Department, who were unaware that the UK was about to pull the plug on the negotiations.
An unlikely peace process is taking shape to normalize relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Turkey. It appears to have the support of both the United States and Russia.
A Paris appeals court has condemned former French Prime Minister Franรงois Fillon to four years in jail, with an obligation to spend 12 months behind bars, for defrauding the French state of more than a million euros.
French authorities have opened a case against Interpol president Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi, who is from the United Arab Emirates and who has been accused of torturing and arbitrarily detaining two Britons.
๐ง Middle East
Israelโs prime minister loses his grip on his party:
The demise of the coalition is a direct result of the wave of terrorism striking Israel for the past two months. The Islamist Raโam party suspended its coalition activity in reaction to the riots on the Temple Mount. The ongoing security situation also cast ak shadow over Yamina, with growing pressure on its members to quit the government. Most of this pressure comes from the right, including some who once supported Bennett, claiming that he was more right wing than Netanyahu himself. They now claim that he cannot take any action against Palestinian terrorism as long as his coalition includes an Islamist Arab party.
An Al Jazeera journalist and US citizen was killed in the West Bank:
The broadcaster and a reporter who was wounded in the incident blamed Israeli forces, while Israel claimed there was evidence the two were hit by Palestinian gunfire. Shireen Abu Akleh, a well-known Palestinian reporter for the broadcasterโs Arabic language channel who is also a US citizen, was shot and died soon afterward. Ali Samoudi, another Palestinian journalist, was hospitalized in stable condition after being shot in the back.
The Biden administration imposed economic sanctions on five Islamic State financiers in Turkey, Syria and Indonesia.
What happens if Iran starts executing Western hostages?
A court in Sweden is preparing to issue a verdict in the war crimes trial of Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian official who is implicated in the mass execution of dissidents. Seemingly in response, Iranโs judiciary announced last week that it intended to carry out the execution of a Swedish citizen sentenced to death on unfounded charges.
โThe Iranian judiciary by announcing its intention to execute Djalali has made it clear that he is a hostage and his life is being used to influence the judicial decision in Sweden.โ
Iranโs Intelligence Ministry says it detained two Europeans shortly before the European Union envoy met Iranโs nuclear negotiator in Tehran over last-ditch attempts to salvage Iranโs nuclear deal with world powers:
The Intelligence Ministry gave scant details about the detained Europeans, saying only that they shared the same nationality, which was not identified, and sought to โtake advantageโ of the protests springing up in several Iranian provinces as laborers and teachers press for better wages. The two Europeans are being held on vague charges of planning to cause โchaos, social disorder, and instability,โ authorities said.
The head of the IAEA says he is โextremely concernedโ about Iranโs lack of cooperation regarding its nuclear activity:
โI am referring to the fact that we, in the last few months, were able to identify traces of enriched uranium in places that had never been declared by Iran as places where any activity was taking place,โ he said.
โThe situation does not look very good. Iran, for the time being, has not been forthcoming in the kind of information we need from them โฆ We are extremely concerned about this.โ
๐ Africa
Crystal meth abuseย is adding to a host of social problems in Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the Covid19 pandemi. Fatalities are steadily rising.
The government of Zimbabwe has been accused of deporting several dozen refugees and asylum-seekers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to cover up corruption at one of the nationโs largest refugee camps. โTheir real crime was seeing too much.โ
In The Gambia, parliamentary and presidential elections use marbles instead of paper ballots or voting machines. Itโs simple and it militates against voter fraud and voter suppression.
Accused of genocide, Rwandaโs former police chief is on trial in Paris.
The UN Secretary General says Mali could collapse if theย UN withdraws its peacekeeping mission there. He proposes replacing it with an African Union force backed by a tougher operating mandate.
Nine Ugandan journalists have been arrested for โoffensiveโ communication and and โpromoting hate speech.โ
A Ugandan court has ordered the government to reconsider its decision to suspend the countryโs most prominent rights organization, Chapter Four. The group was forced to halt its operations during a sweeping crackdown on the opposition. Its executive director, Nicholas Opiyo, is Uganda's most prominent human rights campaigner.
Sub-Saharan Africa is losing the race to vaccinate its population against Covid19.
As of November 15, only about 4 percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa has been fully vaccinated, up from merely 1 percent three months ago. It took 27 and 56 days to achieve the same milestone in advanced economies and other emerging markets and developing economies, respectively.
Sub-Saharan African countries find themselves facing another severe and exogenous shock:
Russiaโs invasion of Ukraine has prompted a surge in food and fuel prices that threatens the regionโs economic outlook. This latest setback could not have come at a worse time.
Russian forces in the Central African Republic appear to have summarily executed, tortured, and beaten civilians since 2019:
โThere is compelling evidence that Russian-identified forces supporting the Central African Republicโs government have committed grave abuses against civilians with complete impunity. The failure of the Central African Republic government and its partners to forcefully denounce these abuses, and to identify and prosecute those responsible, will most likely only fuel further crimes in Africa and beyond.โ
๐ Asia
South Koreaโs new president took office and called on North Korea to โgenuinelyโ move toward denuclearization even as Pyongyang shows signs of preparing for a new nuclear test and is rapidly pursuing an ambitious weapons program.
Trumpโs Korea policy was even more reckless than we thought, writes Josh Rogin:
Trump brought up the complete withdrawal of US forces from South Korea several times during Esperโs 15-month stint as defense secretary, Esper told me in an interview. The consequences of such a move, Esper argued to Trump, would be disastrous, including losing the ability to deter North Korea. The move would also surely be welcomed by China, which has long sought to push the US military out of Asia. โฆ
โฆ Just a couple of months after Esper became secretary of the army in late 2017, Trump began publicly taunting Kim Jong Un by bragging on Twitter about the size of his โnuclear button.โ A few weeks later, Esper received a call from the Pentagon telling him Trump was about to publicly announce that all US military family members were ordered to leave South Korea immediately. Esper was shocked, knowing that this could be interpreted by the North Koreans (wrongly) as a prelude to an attack, which could prompt North Korea to strike first. Even if that didnโt happen, the news would likely cause panic in the region and tank South Korean markets.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr. won more than 31 million votes in one of the strongest mandates for a Philippine president in decades. โTo the world: Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions,โ he said. His running mate, Sara Duterte, is the daughter of outgoing leader Rodrigo Duterte, known for the policy of summarily executing drug dealers:
The election outcome was an astonishing reversal of the army-backed but largely peaceful โPeople Powerโ uprising that ousted Marcosโs father in 1986โa democratic triumph in an Asian region considered a human rights hotspot where authoritarian regimes flourish. โฆ Marcos Jr. has steadfastly defended his fatherโs legacy and refused to apologize for the massive human rights violations and plunder under his rule.
Fear grips Sri Lanka after an explosion of violence:
The chaos began when Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa summoned his supporters to the capital, seemingly a last-ditch attempt to cling to power. By the end of the day, Rajapaksa had resigned and the country was in turmoil.
Sri Lankaโs economic collapse has pushed the government into a deep crisis:
The island is struggling to import basic necessities for its 22 million people because of diminishing foreign reserves and crippling debt, spurring weeks of anti-government protests that recently turned violent and led to the prime ministerโs resignation.
How one powerful family wrecked a country. There are falls from grace and then thereโs whatโs happening to the former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.
India denies the deaths of millions of Covid victims:
The Indian government has rejected the WHOโs methodologyย for calculating Covid19 deaths using mathematical models andย attempted to stall the release of the global data. The significant increase in the Covid19 death toll counters the governmentโs triumphalist narrative on its response to the pandemic and follows its egregious statements, like its claims that no deaths occurred during the second wave due to a lack of oxygen.ย
Shanghai reaffirmed its commitment to a zero-Covid policy even though the World Health Organization said it wasnโt sustainable and urged China to change strategies:
People in some areas have been ordered to stay home again after having been let out for limited shopping in recent weeks. On Tuesday, service was suspended on the last two subway lines that were still operating. Complaints have centered on shortages of food and other daily necessities and the forced removal of thousands of people to quarantine centers after having tested positive or having been in contact with an infected person, standard procedure in Chinaโs zero-Covid approach.
Beijing is battling a worsening outbreak. Residents fear they may soon find themselves in the grip of the same draconian measures.
China cracks down on feminist activism:
On 12 April, the Communist Youth League of China (โYouth Leagueโ), the youth political branch of the Communist Party, lashed out at โextreme feministsโ after being questioned for its post on Weibo (one of the most used social media platforms in China) of pictures on a historic moment since the images lacked female representation.
"โExtreme feminismโ has become more and more rampant and virulent. It is urgent to excise this malignant tumour and restore the peaceful online environment!โ the post wrote. Youth League referred to the feminists as โfeministsโ fistsโ because womenโs fists (ๅฅณๆณ) and womenโs rights (ๅฅณๆ) are pronounced the same way and it is a satirical way to describe radical feminists swinging their โfistsโ on social media. The Youth League also warned that people who always link everything to womenโs rights are creating โgender antagonismโ to attract views and to make money from it.
On a phone call with Xi Jinping, Macron welcomed Chinaโs ratification of two International Labor Organization conventions on forced labor. He said that ILO rules โshould now be fully implemented throughout China, especially in Xinjiang.โ
Aย Hongย Kongย scholar who helped run a now-disbandedย defenseย fundย for democracy protesters was arrested at the airport under the new national security law Beijing imposed in the wake of massive protests three years ago. He was on his way to take an academic job in Europe. He was arrested for โcollusion with foreign forces.โ The charge carries a potential life sentence.
Lights Out: Is this the end for Hong Kongโs media?
Hong Kong has changed irrevocably in less than two years. It is no longer the open, press-friendly, and freewheeling city where journalists enjoyed broad freedoms, where sources would meet and talk without inhibition in โon-the-recordโ conversations, and where newspapers and magazines offered a range of opinions from across the political spectrum.
In place of that once open city, Beijing and its handpicked leaders in Hong Kong are constructing a city of fear, where open discussion is stifled, where individual journalists and press groups are cowed into censoring themselves and toeing the line, and where a draconian National Security Law can be wielded against anyone who publicly challenges the official narrative. In other words, they are turning Hong Kong into just another mainland Chinese city.
Nearly ten million children in Afghanistan are going hungry every day owing to economic collapse, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and the ongoing drought:
The figures show that despite a significant amount of food aid provided to families in recent months, 19.7 million children and adultsโalmost 50 percent of the populationโare still going hungry and need urgent support to survive. From March to May alone, 20,000 people were pushed into famine.
When the Taliban took control in August last year, the international community responded largely by freezing assets and suspending development assistance to mitigate the risk of indirectly providing funds to the de-facto Taliban administration. Afghan children are now bearing the brunt of the international communityโs policies, which have starved the country of cash, and sent the economy into a downward spiral. Poverty, unemployment and food prices have dramatically increased, forcing parents to take desperate measures to feed their children.
๐ Americas
Why do journalists in Mexico keep getting killed?
Marcelo Pecci, a prosecutor against organized crime in Paraguay, was murdered on a beach in northern Colombia, shocking both countries. (Spanish.)
Well-known Cuban opposition figures have been going into exile in Madrid, which now rivals Miami as a refuge for Latin American dissidents.
Former Brazil president Luiz Inรกcio Lula da Silva has launched his presidential campaign, denouncing Jair Bolsonaroโs โirresponsible and criminalโ administration:
โWe need to change Brazil once again ... We need to return to a place where no-one ever dares to defy democracy again. We need to send fascism back to the sewer of history, where it should have been all along,โ he told a cheering crowd of thousands.
At the Bulwark, Charlie Sykes catalogues the former Trump officials who have described Trump as a danger to democracy:
two (!) secretaries of defense
a secretary of state
two (!) chiefs of staff
two (!) national security advisors
a secretary of the Navy
a communications director
a press secretary
cabinet members, including the secretary of transportation
US authorities charged the leader of a Haitian gang with conspiracy to commit hostage-taking for kidnapping 16 American missionaries in Port-au-Prince.
Three decades after cartel boss Pablo Escobar was shot dead by police on a rooftop in Medellรญn, the city is ravaged by drugs:
Junkies frequent hundreds of sales points dotted around Colombia's second city, which has become the epicentre of the domestic drug trade. โEasy access? Yes, absolutely. In Medellรญn you can find it anywhere. Even on the floor you find drugs,โ said Manuel Morales, an out-of-work engineer and chronic user of โbasucoโโthe cheapest drug on the market.
Colombiaโs top military echelon has broken a longstanding rule of political neutrality to lash out against Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla fighter whom it perceives as leftist threat. The army chief and defense minister have called him a corrupt โliarโ on social media.
Nina Jankowicz advanced Russian propaganda about the Czech Republic. Why has she been picked to lead DHSโs new anti-disinformation board?
There is reason to be skeptical that an American-educated twentysomething with a year and a half of postgraduate work experience in Washington (per Jankowiczโs own account) would serve as much of an โadviserโ on counter-disinformation strategy for the government of a country that has been on the front lines of Russian information warfare for decades.
The US president described inflation as his โhighest priority.โ
Inflation in the US showed signs of decelerating in April. Prices rose 8.3 percent compared with a year ago and 0.3 percent compared to the month before.
Inflation in the five largest Latin American economies has reached a 15-year record. Here are the figures. (Spanish.)
Argentina: 55 percent
Bolivia: 0.77 percent
Brazil: 11.3 percent
Chile: 9.4 percent
Colombia: 8.5 percent
Ecuador: 2.6 percent
Mexico: 7.4 percent
Peru: 6.8 percent
Uruguay: 9.4 percent
Venezuela: 284.4 percent
In Uruguay, a country known for its high quality of life, the number of children experiencing homelessness for at least one night doubled last year as the inflation rate nears 10 percent. (Spanish.)
Inflation in Brazil has passed 11 percent, doubling the price of food and fuel. The average Brazilian income has dropped by 13 percent compared to 2020.ย (Spanish.)
Brazilian families have never been in so much debt. Low incomes, inflation, and soaring interest rates have sent household debt soaring to 77.7 percent.
Argentina closed a new agreement with the IMF. The impact of the war in Ukraine has hit the economy like a tsunami, bringing back painful memories of the massive financial crisis two decades ago:
โฆ although the role of the state has changed since the 2001 neoliberal administration, the agreement with the IMF represents, once again, a heavy toll on Argentinaโs economy. The economic growth between 2005 and 2015 strengthened the middle class. But, since 2016, the successive devaluations and the pandemic have threatened the domestic economy, andย the average income has decreased from US$584 to US$323 in five years.
With inflation rising, millions in Argentina are now reliant on food aid.
Prices have risen by 55.1 percent in the past year in Argentina. The cost of food, housing and education has soared. (Spanish.)
Chileans say their top concern is crime and violence, followed by inflation. Chileโs inflation rate is also nearing 10 percent. (Spanish.)
In Venezuela, which is barely overcoming hyperinflation, wages are dropping and malnourishment growing. Nearly 90 percent of the elderly live in poverty, and 40 percent are in extreme poverty. (Spanish.)
The broken dream of transformative government in Peru. Inflation is adding to the political travails of President Pedro Castillo, who has faced two impeachment trials since the beginning of his term less than a year ago:
Eight months in, the administration of Pedro Castillo, whose victory in the 2021 elections was once a symbol of transformation and hope, is now closer to a nightmare. The dream of a government that could have laid the foundation for a process of structural transformation seems unattainable. This is a severe blow to the Left, just as it is for voters who share the current presidentโs background, habits, cultural practices, and common struggles.
Boliviaโs Consumer Price Index has remained surprisingly stable. It even recorded a 0.1 percent drop in prices between February and March. No one is quite sure why, but the country seems to have benefited from a package of economic measures, including a fixed dollar-based exchange rate, export restrictions, and subsidies for fuel and food.
The Biden administration is working on a proposal to bolster economies in Latin America and strengthen USย ties to the region before a regional summit the United States will host next month. It hopes this will mitigate the rising tide of migration and counter Chinaโs growing influence in the region:
The proposed economic framework, still in the early stages, will address issues including so-called nearshoring and supply-chain vulnerabilities revealed by the pandemic โฆ The framework would seek to set a new course for economic integration with the region and create an environment of stability to help attract private investment in countries where a lack of development and opportunities have spurred millions of people to migrate to the United States.
Mexican President Andrรฉs Manuel Lรณpez Obrador has threatened to boycott this summit unless Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are invited.
Political prisoners to Ortegaโs narrative:
โฆ The trials were held behind closed doors, behind the bars of El Nuevo Chipote. But Ortega has had no problem whatsoever with the leaking of stories that describe the proceedings. He needs them to spread terror. They are part of the inner-workings of the system he put in place after repressing the April 2018 rebellion. It doesnโt matter that the scales of justice are ostensibly tilted. The law only complements state violence, and that is why the laws have expanded the scope of criminalized behaviors.
In these trials, evidence is fabricated and prosecutors have an endless army of witnesses made up of police officers and other public employees. The arbitrariness is also part of the campaign to sow fear, which is likely informed by the fact that the laws supporting sentences have been inspired by laws of the Russian Federation. Laws regulating foreign agents were established almost simultaneously in Nicaragua and Russia. The cybercrimes law is inspired by Russiaโs โSovereign Internetโ law, although without the pretenseโfor the time beingโof disconnecting the country.
Russiaโs top propagandist in Latin America has a change of heart:1
๐ Global
The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for the Czech Republic to replace Russia on the Human Rights Council because of Russiaโs โgross and systematic violations and abuses of human rightsโ in Ukraine.
Google and Metaโs new subsea cables mark a tectonic shift in how the internet works, and who controls it:
The internetโs initial promise was to decentralize telecommunications, releasing consumers from the monopoly grip of telecomms incumbents. Over the last 30 years, the internet has done that, and much more. But undersea cables, owned by the internetโs behemoths, hint at a return to where we started: a near future in which a select group of massive corporations have not merely tightened their hold on our online activity but have deliberately rebuilt the internet for their own use, according to their own specifications, from the ocean floor up. โThat something that is so profound for public communication is completely controlled by a private company is worrisome.โย (The authors of this article are up in arms over the idea that this infrastructure will be controlled by a โprivate company.โ Iโd like to know just how they imagine such things would be built absent private enterpriseโClaire.)
Long Covid is emerging as the next phase of the global health crisis, afflicting millions of people with neurological issues, cognitive difficulties, breathing problems and organ damage months after they fell ill.
The UNโs COP 15, against desertification, has begun in Abidjan.
For some, rising oil prices may echo the 1970s, when geopolitical tensions also caused fossil fuel prices to spike. Memories of the high inflation and slow growth that followedโknown as stagflationโhave fueled concerns about a possible repeat. Importantly, though, times have changed. โฆ
โ๏ธ By the Cosmopolitan Globalists
The demolition of Kharkiv, by David Patrokarakos:
I stop outside a ruined building, black smoke still billowing from its windows. Suddenly, I hear a scratching sound and from beneath a concrete slab emerges a kitten. It scampers over to its mother and siblings. Cats are a constant feature of bombed-out ruins on the frontlines. Unlike dogs, which are too nervous, they donโt mind the sound of shelling. โYou never see a thin cat in a warzone,โ says Nataliya. Later, we pass a dead pigeon on the road. โThey, on the other hand, just drop dead. Their hearts literally burst from the roar of the shelling,โ she explains with mild contempt. โItโs why they had to stop using carrier pigeons in the First World War.โ
How Germany finances Putinโs war machine and why this has to be stopped, by Robert Zubrin:
Through its natural gas purchases, Germany is currently funding Russia at a rate of US$160 million per day, or US$58 billion per year, a sum almost equal to the aggressorโs entire US$64 billion annual military budget. Germany is not only funding Russiaโs war on Ukraine, but all its military expenditure, including the forces it maintains to menace the Baltic States, those it is using to commit genocide in Syria, and its escalating nuclear weapon and hypersonic missile programs with which it is currently threatening the world. โฆ To put the matter simply, inadvertently or not, Germany today is by far the worldโs leading funder of terrorism.
Also by Robert Zubrin: Part II of his outstanding III-part series on clean energy: Is nuclear power safe?
Close to a thousand pressurized water reactors have been operated on land and sea for the past seven decades without causing harm to a single member of the public. No other major power source has a safety record that is even remotely comparable. Moreover, it is clean and unlimited. Yet because of a scare campaign mounted by opponents motivated by ignorance, ideology, or interests, we have been denied the immense benefits that it offers.
Robert Zubrin also writesโheโs having a prolific weekโKeep Bidenโs anti-nuclear zealot out of the government. โA professional nuclear-industry wrecker like Bradley Crowell should not be placed in charge of the nuclear industry.โ
Why we must design the future of Ukraine now, by Nicolas Tenzer:
Russiaโs criminal aggression against Ukraine is developing with ever more lethal intensity and many these days see no limit to the war. โฆ Talking about the future of Ukraine may seem to many premature. It is this misconception that I will undertake to refute here.
And by Nicolas Tenzer, too: In Ukraine, the West cannot allow itself to sleepwalk into another Syrianย catastrophe:
โThe solution to the crisis can only be political,โ [we are told], albeit in a less explicit fashion than before. Besides the fact that this is not a crisis, but a war, we know where this language led to in Syria.
๐คฌ๐จ๐ณ Your Daily Scolding from the CCP
China has capability to tackle USโ double-faced trade tactics:
โฆ Clearly, the US is deploying double-faced tactics with China. But China is no stranger to such tactics. After the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), due to the inopportune conditions for launching a civil war, the Kuomintang played the double-faced trick by claiming to negotiate peace, while using US military assistance to deploy troops by sea, land and air in preparation for a full-scale civil war. Despite the strong enemy, a tit-for-tat strategy eventually helped the Communist Party of China win final victory in the Chinese civil war.
โฆ๏ธ ๐ชYour Daily Blast of Tsargrad Batsh*t
Tsargrad, a mouthpiece for the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church, really deserves a regular feature of its own. I hereby inaugurate it. (In Russian.)
MARIUPON RESIDENTS HAVE BEEN TESTED IN US EXPERIMENTS WITH CHOLERAโRussian Defense Ministry.
Recall that representatives of the States have previously recognized the presence of biolaboratories in Ukraine. According to preliminary data, the purpose of these objects is to create a bioweapon that would operate on a genetic basis. That is, it did not amaze [sic] everyone, but only representatives of a certain ethnic group, for example, the Slavs.
RUSSIA IS GROWING INTO TERRITORIES, AND THIS CANNOT BE STOPPED: KHERSON IS NEXT IN LINE:
โThis decision means the followingโthat it is necessary to knock out on the territory of Russia with huge letters visible from any continent, as well as from space: โWE DONโT CARE WHAT YOU THINK OF US. WE DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT US.โ
SKELETON OF A LITTLE GIRL IN THE CLOSET: THE MAIN PERSONAL SECRET OF THE NATO LEADER:
Jens Stoltenbergโs term as Secretary General of NATO, which he has held since 2014, is coming to an end. He must vacate his chair by the end of September, and he is given a new warm placeโthe post of head of the Norwegian Central Bank. This pale and โcautiousโ politician distinguished himself neither in Norway, where he was Prime Minister, nor as Secretary General of NATOโexcept for empty protocol statements. However, there is one โhighlightโ that few people know about and which probably explains why this character jumps so easily from one important place for the collective West to another. NATO Secretary General is directly related to pedophilia. He could not have taken the place of NATO Secretary General had it not been part of the Sodomite power of the collective West.
I am King of the Sodomite power of the collective West! Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
๐ Animals to cheer you up
๐ฃ One more story to cheer you up
All of these nonuplets survived and they just celebrated their first birthday.
Donโt forget that you can switch the subtitles to English. The procedure for this is trickier than it ought to be. Go to CC and switch on captions, then choose โauto translate,โ then pick the target language.
Wait, who made you Queen Of The Gays? We usually have a dance off/Milli Vanilli Lip Sync contest to decide.
How does Ecuador have inflation of 2.6% when it uses the US dollar?