Your Speech Is Only As Free As Your Mind...,

caityjohnstone  |  None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

None are more hopelessly ignorant than those who falsely believe they’re informed.

None are more hopelessly propagandized than those who don’t know they are propagandized.

Living in a liberal western democracy means having the freedom to criticize the tyranny of your government, but instead spending your time criticizing the tyranny of foreign governments who your government doesn’t like.

Free speech in a liberal western democracy means you have the freedom to say whatever you want about the abuses of your government, and the press has the freedom to hammer you with propaganda to ensure that you never do.

In a liberal western democracy you are free to criticize your government, but instead you are propagandized into criticizing the impotent puppets who get rotated in and out of office while your government continues doing all the same evil things regardless of who gets elected.

In liberal western democracies you are free to call the president “Drumpf” or “Brandon”, but you are not free to know who’s actually calling the shots in your country underneath the official government.

In liberal western democracies people say, “I’m so glad I don’t live in a country like Russia or China where people are forbidden to criticize their government. I live in the west, where I’m free to criticize Russia and China all I want.”

It doesn’t matter if you have freedom of speech if those in power can control what you will say. And in liberal western democracies, this is exactly what happens.

We grow up saturated with US empire propaganda in the west. We marinate in it. It pervades our consciousness. But because it’s all we’ve ever known, most of us don’t even notice it.

We think it’s normal that we’re always told our government is on the good and righteous side of every international conflict. We think it’s normal that we hear constantly about the tyranny of foreign governments while only occasionally hearing about bad things our own government did years ago (but it was an innocent mistake and it’ll never happen again).

“If we were being propagandized, I’m sure we’d have heard about it in the news,” we tell ourselves.

But the news is the propaganda. And it will never report on that bombshell story.

Propaganda is the single most overlooked and underappreciated aspect of our society. In controls how the public thinks, acts, votes and behaves, but hardly anyone ever talks about it. Because the sources they’ve been trained to look to for information never say anything about it.

So people say what’s on their mind, after what’s on their mind has been carefully curated by the imperial narrative managers who are responsible for controlling what information goes into their mind.

It's Not That Hard For The Bad Guy To Convince Himself He's The Good Guy

responsiblestatecraft  |  With an article in The National Interest entitled “Don’t Rule Out Intervention in the Solomon Islands,” Julian Spencer-Churchill provides such an example. The piece — which makes the case that Australia and the United States ought to consider military intervention to topple the government of the Solomon Islands in the wake of the small nation’s adoption of a security pact with China — presents an inartful mix of threat inflation, outright factual error, and regurgitations of basic international relations theory, and is not particularly worth engaging with in and of itself.

Yet Spencer-Churchill’s argument is useful in that it draws out some important contradictions in the strategy of liberal hegemony that drives U.S. foreign policy, and the “rules-based international order” it supposedly upholds.

The piece begins with a brief recitation of the origins and importance of self-determination and state sovereignty to the international system. This is immediately followed by a claim on behalf of the “coalition of democracies” to a right to violate these principles more or less at will.

This coalition, Spencer-Churchill writes, has “legally and morally valid justifications for intervention in a foreign country” first, “when there is a dire security threat that emerges within its sphere of influence” and second, “because liberal democracies have an unprecedented understanding of the world population’s aspirations for human rights-based rule of law and innovation-based prosperity for middle-income countries.” The policies of liberal democracies, he asserts “are moving in the broader direction of history.” The citation for this last statement is a link to a brief summary of Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History.”

The first claim bears a notable resemblance to Russia’s justifications of its ongoing aggressive war against Ukraine. Such claims of “dire security threats” can be asserted by great powers with little evidence and no need for ratification by any third party, and, as Spencer-Churchill demonstrates, it is easy to gin up a grave security threat out of developments that pose no significant danger.

The second claim is even more striking. In essence, Spencer-Churchill argues that all peoples self-evidently desire liberal democratic capitalism, and therefore capitalist democracies like the United States have a right to deliver this system to them by force, whether asked for or not.

This contention, of course, is nothing new. It has helped sell numerous U.S. military interventions since the Second World War and itself is only a refinement of the “civilizing missions” of earlier European imperialisms. Yet, in a year when the United States has rallied global opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the name of upholding the rules-based international order, state sovereignty, and self-determination, the absurdity of Spencer-Churchill’s claims is shown in stark relief. 

In Spencer-Churchill’s formulation, the United States and its allies serve as the guarantors of a rules-based international order, but also enjoy license to violate these rules under broad circumstances of their own determination. While it is not often laid out so bluntly, this is largely how American foreign policy has operated for over seven decades. The United States points to a liberal order as the justification for and result of its predominant military power and global influence, and will invoke that order in the face of other parties’ abuses, but will accept no restraints on its own freedom of action. 

This is well demonstrated by Washington’s habitual rejection of international treaties produced by the United Nations system (the creation of which, of course, was led by the U.S. itself). The U.S. will nonetheless wield these treaties against the behavior of other nations, as it does with China’s maritime claims and the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the United States has neither signed nor ratified. 

When proponents of liberal hegemony acknowledge this tension, some argue that it is necessary, even beneficial to the project of building a stable, liberal world order. The international system is anarchic and actors worse than the United States abound, ready to fill any power vacuum left vacant by Washington or its close allies. Such an order needs a powerful state to enforce it, and sometimes it may be necessary to bend or even break rules in defense of higher principles.

In a recent article for The Atlantic, journalist Tom McTague made such a case, examining the “idea that convinces U.S. leaders that they never oppress, only liberate, and that their interventions can never be a threat to nearby powers, because America is not imperialist.” McTague recognizes that this – the notion that the U.S. is driven by universal values and acts in the universal interest – is both a “delusion” and “lies at the core of [the United States’] most costly foreign policy miscalculations.” Yet McTague asserts that this delusion is necessary to sustain America’s commitment to upholding global order and keeping more malicious powers at bay.

Dealing With Globo-Fascist Neo-Nazis Has Always Been A Dark, Dirty, And Dangerous Business...,

thecradle |  The cold-blooded assassination of Darya Dugina – terrorism at the gates of Moscow – may have fatefully coincided with the six-month intersection point, but will do nothing to change the dynamics of the current, work-in-progress, historical shift.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) appeared to have cracked the case in a little over 24 hours, designating the perpetrator as a neo-Nazi Azov operative instrumentalized by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) – itself a mere tool of the CIA/MI6 combo that de facto rules Kiev.

The Azov operative is just a patsy. The FSB will never reveal in public the intel it has amassed on those that issued the orders, and how they will be dealt with.

One Ilya Ponomaryov, an anti-Kremlin minor character granted Ukrainian citizenship, boasted he was in contact with the outfit that prepared the hit on the Dugin family. No one took him seriously.

What is manifestly serious, however, is how oligarchy-connected organized crime factions in Russia would have a motive to eliminate Alexander Dugin, the Christian Orthodox nationalist philosopher who, according to them, may have influenced the Kremlin’s pivot to Asia (he didn’t).

These organized crime factions blamed Dugin for a concerted Kremlin offensive against the disproportional power of Jewish oligarchs in Russia. So these actors would have both the motive and the local know-how to mount such a coup.

If that’s the case, it potentially spells out a Mossad-linked operation – especially given the serious schism in Moscow’s recent relations with Tel Aviv. What’s certain is that the FSB will keep their cards very close to their chest – and retribution will be swift, precise and invisible.

The straw that broke the camel’s back

Instead of delivering a serious blow to Russia’s psyche that could impact the dynamics of its operations in Ukraine, the assassination of Darya Dugina only exposed the perpetrators as tawdry killers who have exhausted their options.

An IED cannot kill a philosopher – or his daughter. In an essential essay, Dugin himself explained how the real war – Russia against the US-led collective west – is a war of ideas. An existential war.

Dugin correctly defines the US as a “thalassocracy,” heir to “Britannia rules the waves.” Yet now the geopolitical tectonic plates are spelling out a new order: The Return of the Heartland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin himself first spelled it out at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. China’s Xi Jinping put it into action by launching the New Silk Roads in 2013. The Empire struck back with Maidan in 2014. Russia counter-attacked by coming to the aid of Syria in 2015.

The Empire doubled down on Ukraine, with NATO weaponizing it non-stop for eight years. At the end of 2021, Moscow invited Washington for a serious dialogue on “indivisibility of security” in Europe. That was dismissed with a non-response response.

Zionist Neocon Sugar Mama Of Anti-Muslim Hate Calls Upon Chinese Compradors...,

gatestoneinstitute  |  Can Americans of Chinese descent be loyal to both America and China?

No. China's Communist Party has made itself an existential threat to America and every other society. The Chinese regime, especially in recent years under General Secretary Xi, has been pushing the notion that it holds the Mandate of Heaven to rule tianxia, "All Under Heaven." The promotion of tianxia means, among other things, that the Party views the U.S. government as illegitimate and America as nothing more than a tributary society or colony.

To make matters worse, the Chinese state has been open about its hostility to the United States. Among other things, in May 2019 People's Daily, the Party's self-described "mouthpiece" and therefore most authoritative publication in China, declared a "people's war" on America.

Let me end on a personal note, as dragon blood proudly flows in my veins. My dad, who arrived in this country in early 1945, came from a small farming village in Jiangsu province, across the mighty Yangtze River from Shanghai. My mother's family traces its roots to Dundee, in Scotland, but I have not identified with that half of my heritage. I grew up in New Jersey, steeped in Dad's stories of the Yellow Emperor and of course tales of dragons.

Nonetheless, my story-telling dad never missed an opportunity to vote or tell his four children how wonderful his adopted country was. He always said "China is my birthplace but America is my home."

We "Chinese-Americans"—I abhor the term—need to remember where we now live. We cannot remain oblivious, as we so far have had the luxury of doing.

Although we technically do not have an obligation to prove our loyalty to America, we must, as a group, understand that a hostile power is trying to weaponize us. Xi Jinping has openly called on us to become a subversive force, to help him destroy the country we now call home.

It is time, therefore, for us to begin cleaning our own ranks. This means, among other things, not tolerating displays promoting Chinese communism in our country. Moreover, it means not shouting "racism" every time law enforcement arrests someone of Chinese descent. If we do not take the lead in these tasks, others will naturally do that for us.

We may think it unfair, but we now have to make a choice.

After all, our country—the United States of America—is in peril because a foreign state—the People's Republic of China—is attacking it and hoping to use us to take it down.

The Communist Party of China refers to us as "overseas patriotic forces." People in our communities will want to know to which country we feel patriotic.

Globo-Fascist Neo-Nazis Strongly Disapprove Of The Old-Fashioned Nationalist Kind...,

FP  |   Modi’s BJP government is also undercutting India’s institutions in unprecedented ways. It has made a mockery of India’s rich tradition of civil liberties by charging activists and dissidents with crimes under colonial-era laws. One egregious example is the case of left-wing activists detained under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for alleged links to Maoist groups and allegedly fomenting riots. One of the accused, lifelong Jesuit activist Rev. Stan Swamy, died in custody last year. Furthermore, Modi and the BJP have co-opted much of the media and important private sector actors. Journalists have faced intimidation and harassment; prominent nongovernmental organizations have been cut off from foreign funding while others can receive overseas money only into accounts with a government-owned bank.

Unfortunately, the most important lessons from the independence movement seem to be lost on India’s contemporary leaders, as shown by their approach to religious pluralism and democratic institutions. Although India’s leading revolutionaries were committed to nonviolence, tensions between Hindus and Muslims marred the independence movement. These tensions pulled the British Raj apart, and two new countries emerged in its place: India and Pakistan. This week also marks the anniversary of the Partition of India, which triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters as Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs were forced to flee in different directions across the new border. A few months later, India and Pakistan went to war over the status of Jammu and Kashmir—a disagreement that still plagues the subcontinent.

In the face of these tensions, India and Pakistan’s leaders charted opposing courses. India’s leaders advanced a progressive and modern vision for their new country, eschewing a national Hindu religion in favor of a secular identity. They worked hard to minimize religious tensions by speaking against communal strife and promoting religious protections. When Gandhi was assassinated in 1948—for supposedly being a supplicant to the Muslim community—his political heirs continued to push for a liberal vision of India. Working with the opposition, they produced a constitution that enshrined a liberal and secular democracy that remains in force today.

On the other hand, Pakistan struggled. The country’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, led the Muslim League that split from the Indian National Congress. But he was rarely clear in his vision for Pakistan: There is some evidence that he wanted a secular state, but he also called for an Islamic republic. When Jinnah died in 1948, he left behind a political mess. Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first prime minister, rejected amendments offered by the opposition in his own founding document, which became a precursor to the country’s 1956 constitution that gave Islam its pride of place in the project of Pakistan. By turning to communalism, Pakistan has suffered as political actors stir religious tensions to benefit their own ends. Without credible institutions or norms that allow political differences to be resolved, the country has not been able to maintain political order.

Modi’s speech reflects how he and the BJP appear to embrace some of these traits. By lionizing fringe actors from the independence movement—including those who exacerbated religious tensions—they are rewriting history to suit their own political agenda. They have undermined civil liberties and shown basic disregard for political opposition. Taking a page from Jinnah’s book, Modi has ensured that any substantive decision must come through him. Such a system may work in the short term, but what happens when Modi is no longer prime minister?

The contrast with then-Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s epic “A Tryst With Destiny” speech, delivered on Aug. 14, 1947, couldn’t be starker. Nehru said he sought to “bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic, and progressive nation.” Most poignantly, he highlighted that India’s religious pluralism was integral to the newly founded country: “All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India, with equal rights, privileges, and obligations.”

India’s Independence Day has traditionally provided an opportunity to reflect on the horrors of colonialism and the dangers of religious discord while also celebrating the vibrance of the country’s democracy. Modi’s speech this week reflects the departure that India’s contemporary leaders have made from these foundational values.

The Predicament Of Mankind

The Club of Rome published “The Limits to Growth” in 1972.

It was funded by industrialists. They’ve been acting profitably on this information since they got it. The inherent short term interest of capitalism has always made it a death cult and everyone who sees capitalism as an organizing principal for an economy is buying into this cult. The death cult has recently become a totalitarian one in the West as the US attempts to make its surveillance capitalism a universal system.

Capitalism may have a place in a sustainable future, but only as a carefully controlled, constrained system for fostering technological competition contained within pro-social, pro-ecological governing structures. We’ve probably moved beyond that possibility already.

I think part of it is that ruling elites have a very difficult time imagining how a society can hold together without the hamster game of work, debt and consumption. One of the things constricting their imagination is the fact that a different system, one less reliant on the radical individualism that seeks to justify outrageous levels of inequality, would eliminate much of their power and privilege.

By now - it should be obvious to even the most psychopathic and parasitic of our elites - that as they make the hamster game harder and harder, that radical individualism twists itself into Free-Dumb to such an extent that society becomes ungovernable. 

When you look at the actions of the Western colonial nations you can see that their intent is to keep the poor countries poor so that they won’t be able to have the high consumption lifestyles of the West. The elites know that there isn’t enough to go around, and they are hoarding what is available. Drilling down a bit one sees that in individual nations in the West the wealthy keep the poor poor so that they too won’t be able to compete for what the wealthy have. It is truly dog eat dog at every level of society. Propaganda is used to make the poor (and increasingly the middle class) think that they too can live the high life if only they get the right credentials and work hard enough. Because it is a zero sum game the wealthy won’t actually allow the poor and middle class to impinge on their lifestyles, but they certainly try to convince them that it is in reach provided…

Pierre Trudeau and the global jet-set are being hoisted on their own petards. No business can build and operate an ocean terminal in Canada to ship Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe in the next six months. They have turned the world into a free trade scheme whose organizing theory relies exclusively on markets - and - whose sole purpose is to increase corporate profits. Russia, China and Iran are trying to break free of this new world order.

The only response in the West to the shortages and workers missing due to the Ukrainian proxy world-war  - and - ongoing unmitigated coronavirus and monkeypox pandemics - is to raise prices. The globalist bubble is so impervious that it is of no matter that the rising energy prices for most will be unaffordable and many expendable proles will face an unheated winter. No one is thinking of the consequences.

The 2021 Texas Freeze power outages only lasted for one week . These market-driven outages led to: 

• Widespread damage to homes and businesses
• Foregone economic activity
• Contaminated water supplies
• The loss of at least 111 lives

Early estimates indicate that the freeze and outage may cost the Texas economy $80–$130 billion in direct and indirect economic loss” (for example, frozen pipes and water damage to homes and apartments). 

If this happens next Winter in Europe, it will collapse the EU and Western Europe. Yet, there is no talk of an armistice or opening NORD Steam 2 gas pipeline from Russia. The West is at war but with no working sovereign and representational governments. All the West can do is to send money and armaments to Ukraine – ignoring the looming disasters that await.

WW-II Never Ended - But Its Historical Narrative Is Controlled By The "Victor(s)"....,

gilbertdoctorow  |  To be sure, the demand that all Russians be barred from Europe as punishment for their war on Ukraine has not met with universal approval within the EU. Even Germany came out against the initiative, with Scholz saying that exceptions must be made for humanitarian reasons. Others have debated the legality under EU law of such generalized prohibitions directed at an entire population.  But the debate rages on.

Finally, a statement made yesterday by Latvian President Egils Levits got the full attention of Moscow. He said that Russian-speaking residents of Latvia should be ‘isolated from society’ if they oppose his government’s policies with respect to the war in Ukraine.  Just what is meant by “isolate” is not clear. Does Levits intend to intern them in concentration camps?  Given the absolute failure of Latvia to respect EU human rights norms going back from the first days of the country’s independence from the USSR in 1991, such an atrocity would not be out of character.

I have dealt with precisely this issue in essays going back to 2014 which were included in my collection Does Russia Have a Future?:  see chapter 22 “Latvia’s 300,000 Non-Citizens and the Ukrainian Crisis Today” and chapter 33 “Latvia’s failed U.S. inspired policies towards Russia and Russians.” I further explored these issues in my 2019 book A Belgian Perspective on International Relations, chapter38 “Republic of Latvia, Apartheid State Within the EU.” 

The point is that upon achieving independence thanks to the active support of many of its Russian-speaking citizenry, the government of Latvia turned around and stripped 400,000 of them of their citizenship, close to 40% of the total population at the time, and offered them a path to regain passports that only a tiny fraction of them could follow.  When President Levits speaks today of Russian-speaking “residents” of Latvia, he has in mind those who were deprived of civil rights including passports and remain stateless up to the present time.  Everything that Latvia did to its Russian-speaking population going back 30 years set the precedents for Kiev’s repressive policies towards its own 40% who are Russian speakers after the nationalists from Lvov came to power in 2014.

These various developments were the main topic for discussion in yesterday’s Evening with Vladimir Solovyov political talk show, which stood out as especially valuable.  Although I have made reference to this particular talk show frequently over the years as a good source of information about what Russia’s political and social elites are thinking, I freely acknowledge that the presenter cannot and does not fill every program with material and panelists worth listening to.  Indeed, there is a lot of sludge on air between the gems. By ‘sludge’ I mean the kind of ‘kitchen talk’ in which expert panelists talk the same non-facts-based drivel that ordinary Russians will engage in when they follow the principle of socializing described by Chekhov in Act Two of The Three Sisters:  “They are not serving us tea, so let’s philosophize.”

In any case, last night’s Solovyov was definitely worth listening to. The question of neo-Nazism in Europe was the glue binding together different elements of the discussion, ranging from Levits’ obnoxious declaration of the same day to the fate of ordinary Russians in Kazakhstan and Central Asia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and what to do about all of these challenges to the Russian World.

The overriding point was that the Russophobia and ‘cancel Russian culture’ movements that have swept Europe during 2022 mean that Russians are the Jews of today. They are what the Hitlerites called Untermenschen, against whom all manner of rights violations if not outright murder can be practiced. This arises in its worst form in Ukraine, where Russians as a people are systematically dehumanized in statements from the top leadership of the country.  In Ukraine, the ultra-nationalists call Russians “Colorado,” a reference to the bugs that infest potato crops. These insects carry the orange and black colors of the St George’s ribbons that patriotic Russians wear. This is the same logic that made possible the biological weapons attack on Russian soldiers in the Zaporozhie that was carried out last week by Ukrainian forces, sending the victims to intensive care treatment for botulism poisoning. That development probably did not get coverage in your daily newspaper.

The conversation on Solovyov was particularly interesting in the ‘what is to be done’ segment. Acknowledging that a ‘special military operation’ against Latvia is not practicable yet given Latvia’s membership in NATO, a panelist who heads the State Duma committee on relations with the Former Soviet Union states, said that those Russians who profited from the transit business between Russia and Latvia for decades should now pay up and contribute financially to relocating the Russian speakers in Riga to the Russian Federation, meaning providing good housing and jobs that till now were never on offer to incentivize immigration. A fellow panelist broadened the proposed assistance to suggest a government program of resettlement modeled on what Israel did some decades ago to facilitate the relocation of certain Black African Jews from their country of persecution to the State of Israel.  And it was suggested that similar relocation offers should be extended to Russian speakers in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries where they have all been second class citizens since these countries became independent of the USSR.

Can You Imagine Liberal Media Telling Us The Real Energy Story?

ourfiniteworld  |  The economy is something that grows through the “dissipation” of energy. Examples of dissipation of energy include the digestion of food to give energy to humans, the burning of fossil fuels, and the use of electricity to power a light bulb. A rise in world energy consumption is highly correlated with growth in the world economy. Falling energy consumption is associated with economic contraction.

Figure 4. Correlation between world GDP measured in “Purchasing Power Parity” (PPP) 2017 International $ and world energy consumption, including both fossil fuels and renewables. GDP is as reported by the World Bank for 1990 through 2021 as of July 26, 2022; total energy consumption is as reported by BP in its 2022 Statistical Review of World Energy.

In physics terms, the world economy is a dissipative structure, just as all plants, animals and ecosystems are. All dissipative structures have finite lifespans, including the world economy.

This finding is not well known because academic researchers seem to operate in ivory towers. Researchers in economic departments aren’t expected to understand physics and how it applies to the economy. In fairness to academia, the discovery that the economy is a dissipative structure did not occur until 1996. It takes a long time for findings to filter through from one department to another. Even now, I am one of a very small number of people in the world writing about this issue.

Also, economic researchers are not expected to study the history of the many smaller, more-localized civilizations that have collapsed in the past. Typically, the population of these smaller civilizations increased at the same time as the resources used by the population started to degrade. The use of technology, such as dams to redirect water flows, may have helped for a while, but eventually this was not enough. The combination of declining availability of high quality resources and increasing population tended to leave these civilizations with little margin for dealing with the bad times that can be expected to occur by chance. In many cases, such civilizations collapsed after disease epidemics, a military invasion, or a climate fluctuation that led to a series of crop failures.

Is There Enough Metal To Replace Oil?

counterpunch |  Nations of the world are only too aware that fossil fuels need to be phased out for two reasons. First, oil is a finite commodity. It’ll run out in time. Secondly, fossil fuel emissions such as CO2 are destroying the planet’s climate system.

However, a recent study puts a damper on the prospects of phasing out fossil fuels in favor of renewables. More to the point, a phase out of fossil fuels by mid century looks to be a nearly impossible Sisyphean task. It’s all about quantities of minerals/metals contained in Mother Earth. There aren’t enough.

Simon Michaux, PhD, Geological Survey Finland has done a detailed study of what’s required to phase out fossil fuels in favor of renewables, to wit:

“The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues.” (Source: Simon P. Michaux, Associate Research Professor of Geometallurgy Unit Minerals Processing and Materials Research, Geological Survey of Finland, August 18, 2022 – Seminar: What Would It Take To Replace The Existing Fossil Fuel System?)

Metals/minerals required to source gigafactories producing renewables to power the world’s economies when fossil fuels phase out looks to be one of the biggest quandaries of all time. There’s not enough metal.

Michaux researched and analyzed the current status of the internal combustion engine fleet of cars, trucks, rail, maritime shipping, and aviation for the US, Europe, and China, accessing databases to gather information as a starting point for the study.

Michaux’s calculations for what’s required to phase out fossil fuels uses a starting point of 2018 with 84.5% of primary energy still fossil fuel-based and less than 1% of the world’s vehicle fleet electric. Therefore, the first generation of renewable energy is only now coming on stream, meaning there will be no recycling availability of production materials for some time. Production will have to be sourced from mining.

When Michaux presented basic information to EU analysts, it was a shock to them. To his dismay, they had not put together the various mineral/metal data requirements to phase out fossil fuels and replaced by renewables. They assumed, using guesstimates, the metals would be available.

The Douche-Nozzles Ruling You Are Either Mentally Retarded - Or - They Just Plan To FUCK YOU!

RT  |  The US will not be able to replace Russian uranium in the event of an import ban, Assistant Secretary of Energy Kathryn Huff has warned, saying Washington must develop enrichment capabilities domestically. 

"Worldwide, there's not enough capacity to replace that gap from trusted sources," Huff told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday, adding that it was the US’s responsibility to “encourage and incentivize that enrichment and conversion capability” on American soil.

Huff told the Examiner that US reliance on Russian-sourced uranium posed unique energy security and national security risks, and noted that Russia still provides about 20% of the low enriched uranium at existing US reactors.

“We have the largest nuclear fleet in the world, and we currently do not have the capability to provide fuel for all of our reactors,” she said, claiming that Russia is “no longer a trustworthy source of our fuel, and we need to find alternatives here and build up that supply chain.”

Russia reportedly accounted for 16.5% of the uranium imported into the US in 2020 and 23% of the enriched uranium needed to power the country’s commercial nuclear reactors. Currently there is nowhere else to turn to fill the gap if uranium imports are banned, Huff said. 

Legislation before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee would indeed ban Russian uranium imports, just as Congress previously banned imports of Russian fossil fuels following the launch of Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine in February. 

Huff, who has a PhD in nuclear engineering, said a "tiger team" at the energy department was currently strategizing how to expand the domestic supply chain.

US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has also previously called Washington's reliance on imports from Moscow a "vulnerability" for economic and national security.

The US maintains the capacity to mine uranium, but relies heavily on Russia for enrichment. Kick-starting the domestic uranium industry is not a simple process, the department said previously, given that the country has only one commercial enrichment facility remaining — a plant run by British-German-Dutch consortium Urenco in New Mexico.

 

It's Against The Law For The Government To Violate Your Rights Via Corporate Proxie

Jim Hoft and The Gateway Pu... by Jim Hoft

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FBI Cautioned Facebook/Meta To Censor Hunter Biden's Laptop As Russian Disinformation

jonathanturley |  Recently, I wrote about the disclosure of an alleged backchannel between the CDC and Twitter on censoring critics of the agency and its recommendations. Now, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed how the FBI warned Facebook about “Russian propaganda” before the Hunter Biden laptop story dropped in 2020. This follows reports that the FBI told agents not to pursue the laptop and to slow walk any investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged influence peddling schemes.

Zuckerberg stated on The Joe Rogan Experience that “The FBI, I think, basically came to us – some folks on our team – and was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, like, you should be on high alert…  We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election. We have it on notice that, basically, there’s about to be some kind of dump of that’s similar to that. So just be vigilant.’”

It is not clear why the FBI considered this type of media outreach was part of its responsibility as a law enforcement agency. This was before the presidential election and actively discouraged a major platform to allow discussion of major allegations of corruption. The use of the FBI for such a role gave Facebook officials ample cover to expand their censorship operations.

The company only recently allowed customers to discuss the lab theory of the origins of Covid after years of biased censorship. Facebook’s decision to allow people to discuss the theory followed the company’s Oversight Board upholding a ban on any postings of Trump, a move that even figures like Germany’s Angela Merkel and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) have criticized as a danger to free speech.  Even Trump’s voice has been banned by Facebook. Trump remains too harmful for Facebook users to hear . . . at least until the company decides that they are ready for such exposure. Facebook has tried to get customers to embrace censorship in a commercial campaign despite its long record of abusive and biased “content modification.”

Zuckerberg just shrugged when pressed on his company effectively joining the effort to kill the story before the election: “Yeah, it sucks. It turned out, after the fact, the fact-checkers looked into it. No one was able to say it was false.”

As with the earlier column on the CDC’s work with Twitter, there is a growing concern over the use of such backchannels for censorship by surrogates in these social media companies.

On Huntergate - DOJ OIG Horowitz Tells Sen. Ron Johnson "Investigate Deez Nutz!!!!"

DailyMail |  The FBI deliberately dragged its feet on the Hunter Biden investigation and told agents not to look into the Hunter Biden laptop, according to new whistleblowers who spoke with Sen. Ron Johnson.  

Johnson, R-Wisc., sent a letter to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Tuesday bringing forth the new whistleblower claims. 

'Recently, my office heard from individuals with knowledge of the FBI’s apparent corruption,' Johnson said. 

'After the FBI obtained the Hunter Biden laptop from the Wilmington, DE computer shop, these whistleblowers stated that local FBI leadership told employees, "you will not look at that Hunter Biden laptop" and that the FBI is "not going to change the outcome of the election again,"' Johnson wrote to Horowitz. 

Johnson is demanding Horowitz look into the FBI's handling of the Hunter Biden laptop. 

'While I understand your hesitation to investigate a matter that may be related to an ongoing investigation, it is clear to me based on numerous credible whistleblower disclosures that the FBI cannot be trusted with the handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop,' Johnson said. 

'I hope you understand that the longer your office stands on the sidelines and delays investigating the FBI’s actions, the harder it will be for you to uncover the truth and hold individuals accountable for wrongdoing.' 

Horowitz told Johnson in February 2021 that the OIG would not investigate the FBI's handling of the laptop so as not to interfere with the Department of Justice's investigation into Hunter Biden's tax affairs.  

The new claims come after whistleblower allegations emerged in July that in the lead-up to the 2020 election the FBI labeled the laptop as 'disinformation.'  

In October 2020, one month before the election, 'an avenue of derogatory Hunter Biden reporting was ordered closed' by Timothy Thibault, a senior FBI agent at the bureau's Washington Field office, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who fielded the whistleblower complaints, claimed in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Thibault shut down the investigation despite evidence that some of the details were true, according to that whistleblower.  

 'Allegations provided to my office appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation,' Grassley wrote.

Using "Litigation By Leak" - DOJ Seeks To Prosecute Trump In The Court Of Public Opinion

jonathanturley |  One of the most glaring contradictions in the Mar-a-Lago controversy has been the Justice Department demanding absolute and unwavering secrecy over the FBI raid while officials have been leaking details on the raid. The latest example is a report in the New York Times that the Justice Department recovered more than 300 documents with classified markings, citing multiple sources connected to the investigation. Most judges would be a tad annoyed by the contradiction as the government continues to frame the public debate with its own selective leaks while using secrecy to bar other disclosures. That includes sections of the affidavit that detail the communications with the Trump team, information that is already known to the target.

Someone is clearly lying. The Trump Team said that it was cooperating and would have given access to the government if it raised further objections. The Justice Department has clearly indicated that time was of the essence to justify this unprecedented raid on the home of a former president. Yet, Attorney General Merrick Garland reportedly waited for weeks to sign off on the application for a warrant and the FBI then waited a weekend to execute that warrant. It is difficult to understand why such communications could not be released in a redacted affidavit while protecting more sensitive sections.

Previous leaks discussed various undisclosed facts that are presumably part of the affidavit, including the government was seeking vital nuclear weapons materials and then how video camera evidence outside of the Mar-a-Lago storage area led the FBI to act without delay.

The latest leak to to the New York Times offers details on what was gathered from Mar-a-Lago. Officials state that they collected more than 150 documents marked as classified in January with another 150 being gathered in June and then in the August raid.

Washington has long floated on a sea of leaks but this is notable in that the government is opposing even modest disclosures from the court while it has steadily leaked details to its own advantage. It undermines the credibility of the government and raises questions of the motivations behind the absolute secrecy claims.

The level of detail is extraordinary including the very account of past dealings that some of us have argued could be released in the affidavit as well as the contents of the boxes. The leaks describe the June meeting in Mar-a-Lago and reveals that Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterespionage section of the national security division of the Justice Department, met with two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb. He then went through the boxes himself to identify classified material. (The Trump motion this week also described this meeting with Bratt, which again raises why the same information in the affidavit cannot be disclosed).

This information is likely contained in the affidavit, which the Justice Department claimed could not be released without harming its investigation and endangering national security.

Any Lie, Any Action Is Ethical Pursuant To The Destruction Of Trump...,

americanmind |  A week after the invasion and nine-hour occupation of former President Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, it is becoming clearer every day that there was no plausible legal reason for it.

It may have been, as has been widely alleged, a fishing expedition to try to find something useful for Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 kangaroo court inquiry into the “insurrection,” but if so, this was a desperation play, and since no such objective was specified in the warrant nor presumably mentioned in the affidavit supporting the warrant, such a fishing expedition is not legal, though on recent precedent, legal relevance is the last criterion this regime would take into account.

These are, if not the identical authors, certainly kindred spirits in the law enforcement bureaucracy of those who inflicted upon the much-wronged and disserved people of the United States the Trump-Russia collusion fraud, the whitewash of Hillary Clinton’s destruction of 33,000 subpoenaed emails and reckless and illegal use of a home server for confidential official information, the two spurious impeachments, and the scandalous mishandling of the Biden family’s financial shenanigans, and many other triumphs of malice and incompetence.

The burden of the deluge of semi-official leaks pipelined through the docile Trump-hating media last week gradually back-pedaled from the lofty insinuations of those elusive “high crimes and misdemeanors” equivalent to treason, to an archival dispute of the kind that all departing presidents have. The climb-down spiked briefly with the absurdity of misuse of nuclear military information in contravention of the Espionage Act, and wound up the week as a toothless, general-purpose, normal legal precaution. The normal Democrat practice in this kind of perversion of the prosecutorial apparatus is to rely upon the docile and rabidly partisan national political media to transmit a Niagara of dishonest official leaks. The New York Times, usually reliable as an administration source, has revealed that President Biden pressured the attorney general to prosecute Trump. The best he could do, apparently, was this burlesque of due process, with a feeble and belated acknowledgment that he had approved the invasion and that, of course, the fact of an investigation in progress prevented him from saying anything about it.

In this case, the spigots of leaks shut down after a few days, and in an agile act of improvisation, the anti-Trump media has taken to accusing the former president and his followers of inciting disrespect for the justice system and betraying a sense of unease at having Trump’s papers and conduct closely examined, thus inciting the inference that he must have been guilty of something. This is the familiar reasoning of people so possessed by hate that they wish to charge somebody with something, and in failing to find any useful evidence, they cite the absence of the evidence as illustrative of the fiendish cunning of the targeted person, in hiding or destroying the evidence.

This was the basis of the late Christopher Hitchens’ accusation against Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger of being responsible for the death of Chilean president Salvador Allende in 1973. And it was the essence of journeyman historian Michael Beschloss’ comments that while it was true that what was being done to President Trump was unprecedented, that was only because Trump was so obviously more criminally dishonest in his behavior than any previous American president, and so there was no need to elaborate upon it.

The fact that there is no evidence against Trump of having done anything illegal, despite years of obsessive and frequently illegal official persecution of him to unearth such evidence, merely confirms the satanic depths of his wickedness. Next we will have historian-for-hire John Meacham give us another chorus about Joe Biden’s resemblance to Franklin D. Roosevelt (who in four terms as he led the country out of the Great Depression and to the brink of victory in World War II never had one day of a negative public approval rating).     

The Wall Street Journal, which has been quite professional and even-handed in its treatment of Donald Trump as a politician, warned on the weekend that it would damage his credibility if he objected to the publication of the warrant for the intrusion at his house. They need not have worried: Trump was happy to have it made public and the shoe was now on the other foot, as the Justice Department is reduced to lame excuses for not releasing the affidavit on the basis of which the judge-shopped, professedly Trump-hating, magistrate to whom the affidavit was submitted, authorized the intrusion.

Legally, it need now hardly be pointed out that the execution of the search warrant at Trump’s home was an outrage. Justice should have proceeded by subpoena, and cannot explain why it waited for 19 months since Trump left office, during which Trump claims he cooperated entirely with it, to take this step. Even if there was some dispute on the matter of the subpoena, one hardly needs to launch a major raid to handle the disposition of such a non-urgent matter. Since a president can declassify anything he wants, the regime’s media apologists are reduced to claiming he must have declassified some things incorrectly.

C'mon Man! Biden White House ORCHESTRATED Criminal Fishing Expedition Against Trump

justthenews |  Long before it professed no prior knowledge of the raid on Donald Trump's estate, the Biden White House worked directly with the Justice Department and National Archives to instigate the criminal probe into alleged mishandling of documents, allowing the FBI to review evidence retrieved from Mar-a-Lago this spring and eliminating the 45th president's claims to executive privilege, according to contemporaneous government documents reviewed by Just the News.

The memos show then-White House Deputy Counsel Jonathan Su was engaged in conversations with the FBI, DOJ and National Archives as early as April, shortly after 15 boxes of classified and other materials were voluntarily returned to the federal historical agency from Trump's Florida home.

By May, Su conveyed to the Archives that President Joe Biden would not object to waiving his predecessor's claims to executive privilege, a decision that opened the door for DOJ to get a grand jury to issue a subpoena compelling Trump to turn over any remaining materials he possessed from his presidency.

The machinations are summarized in several memos and emails exchanged between the various agencies in spring 2022, months before the FBI took the added unprecedented step of raiding Trump's Florida compound with a court-issued search warrant.

The most complete summary was contained in a lengthy letter dated May 10 that acting National Archivist Debra Steidel Wall sent Trump's lawyers summarizing the White House's involvement.

"On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel's Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes," Wall wrote Trump defense attorney Evan Corcoran.

That letter revealed Biden empowered the National Archives and Records Administration to waive any claims to executive privilege that Trump might assert to block DOJ from gaining access to the documents.

"The Counsel to the President has informed me that, in light of the particular circumstances presented here, President Biden defers to my determination, in consultation with the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, regarding whether or not I should uphold the former President's purported 'protective assertion of executive privilege,'" Wall wrote. "... I have therefore decided not to honor the former President's 'protective' claim of privilege."

Bureaucrats Not Accountable To Politicians Not Accountable To Constituents...,

townhall |  As the FBI raided President Trump's Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, the White House was unaware that any federal law enforcement activity was afoot — or at least that's what unnamed sources were spinning to mainstream outlets Monday evening. 

According to one of those infamous "source familiar" people who runs their mouth without any accountability, senior White House officials found out about the FBI's raid on Trump's "Southern White House" like the rest of us and had no prior notice. The New York Times described the White House's discovery of the raid, reporting "Aides to President Biden said they were stunned by the development and learned of it from Twitter." Stunned. How convenient.

Suffice it to say, that claim or explanation isn't going to fly with a lot of Americans. The principal law enforcement agency of the federal government, the definition of executive power, decided to raid the home of the former president, and the White House didn't know anything about it until people started tweeting? 

That sounds like either the White House is lying or the FBI was shielding the White House from prior knowledge of the raid/scavenger hunt in Palm Beach — neither of which is a terribly good image for the FBI and Biden administration to be putting forward. 

What's more, if the White House really didn't know anything about the plans to raid Mar-A-Lago, who is overseeing the FBI and providing accountability for any of its other actions? 

Whether the Democrats and mainstream media cheering this on are excited by the idea that 1) the FBI is going rogue wherever it wants and returning to some of its J. Edgar Hoover roots or 2) thrilled that a Democrat administration is using federal law enforcement to target political adversaries is anyone's guess. Vespa had a great writeup of their giddiness here.

In the days ahead, there are sure to be calls for the White House, DOJ, and FBI to clarify how the raid came to be, who knew about it, and what its aim was. Certainly Karine Jean-Pierre isn’t looking forward to her next White House press briefing.

 

America Needs To Stop Lying About Russia And China

johnmenadue |  The world is on the edge of nuclear catastrophe in no small part because of the failure of Western political leaders to be forthright about the causes of the escalating global conflicts. The relentless Western narrative that the West is noble while Russia and China are evil is simple-minded and extraordinarily dangerous. It is an attempt to manipulate public opinion, not to deal with very real and pressing diplomacy.

The essential narrative of the West is built into US national security strategy. The core US idea is that China and Russia are implacable foes that are “attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” These countries are, according to the US, “determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their. militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.”

The irony is that since 1980 the US has been in at least 15 overseas wars of choice (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Panama, Serbia, Syria, and Yemen just to name a few), while China has been in none, and Russia only in one (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union. The US has military bases in 85 countries, China in 3, and Russia in 1 (Syria) beyond the former Soviet Union.

President Joe Biden has promoted this narrative, declaring that the greatest challenge of our time is the competition with the autocracies, which “seek to advance their own power, export and expand their influence around the world, and justify their repressive policies and practices as a more efficient way to address today’s challenges.” US security strategy is not the work of any single US president but of the US security establishment, which is largely autonomous, and operates behind a wall of secrecy.

The overwrought fear of China and Russia is sold to a Western public through manipulation of the facts. A generation earlier George W. Bush, Jr. sold the public on the idea that America’s greatest threat was Islamic fundamentalism, without mentioning that it was the CIA, with Saudi Arabia and other countries, that had created, funded, and deployed the jihadists in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere to fight America’s wars.

Or consider the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, which was painted in the Western media as an act of unprovoked perfidy. Years later, we learned that the Soviet invasion was actually preceded by a CIA operation designed to provoke the Soviet invasion! The same misinformation occurred vis-à-vis Syria. The Western press is filled with recriminations against Putin’s military assistance to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad beginning in 2015, without mentioning that the US supported the overthrow of al-Assad beginning in 2011, with the CIA funding a major operation (Timber Sycamore) to overthrow Assad years before Russia arrived.

Or more recently, when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recklessly flew to Taiwan despite China’s warnings, no G7 foreign minister criticised Pelosi’s provocation, yet the G7 ministers together harshly criticised China’s “overreaction” to Pelosi’s trip.

The Western narrative about the Ukraine war is that it is an unprovoked attack by Putin in the quest to recreate the Russian empire. Yet the real history starts with the Western promise to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not enlarge to the East, followed by four waves of NATO aggrandisement: in 1999, incorporating three Central European countries; in 2004, incorporating 7 more, including in the Black Sea and Baltic States; in 2008, committing to enlarge to Ukraine and Georgia; and in 2022, inviting four Asia-Pacific leaders to NATO to take aim at China.

Nor do the Western media mention the US role in the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych; the failure of the Governments of France and Germany, guarantors of the Minsk II agreement, to press Ukraine to carry out its commitments; the vast US armaments sent to Ukraine during the Trump and Biden Administrations in the lead-up to war; nor the refusal of the US to negotiate with Putin over NATO enlargement to Ukraine.

Of course, NATO says that is purely defensive, so that Putin should have nothing to fear. In other words, Putin should take no notice of the CIA operations in Afghanistan and Syria; the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999; the NATO overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi in 2011; the NATO occupation of Afghanistan for 15 years; nor Biden’s “gaffe” calling for Putin’s ouster (which of course was no gaffe at all); nor US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin stating that the US war aim in Ukraine is the weakening of Russia.

At the core of all of this is the US attempt to remain the world’s hegemonic power, by augmenting military alliances around the world to contain or defeat China and Russia. It’s a dangerous, delusional, and outmoded idea. The US has a mere 4.2% of the world population, and now a mere 16% of world GDP (measured at international prices). In fact, the combined GDP of the G7 is now less than that of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), while the G7 population is just 6 percent of the world compared with 41 percent in the BRICS.
There is only one country whose self-declared fantasy is to be the world’s dominant power: the US. It’s past time that the US recognised the true sources of security: internal social cohesion and responsible cooperation with the rest of the world, rather than the illusion of hegemony. With such a revised foreign policy, the US and its allies would avoid war with China and Russia, and enable the world to face its myriad environment, energy, food and social crises.

Canada Should Organize A Team To Counter Its Own Lies And Misinformation

torontosun  |  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled plans to create a special team focused on countering Russian disinformation and propaganda on Tuesday, as Ukrainians prepared to mark the six-month anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of their country.

The prime minister announced the new initiative as part of a package of new Canadian measures designed to support Ukraine and punish Russia for launching a war that has killed tens of thousands and whose impacts are being felt around the world.

Canada is also imposing sanctions against 62 more people, including those the government described as several Russian regional governors and their families, as well as a Russian company whose products include anti-drone equipment.

Ottawa is also planning to spend nearly $4 million on two projects to bolster Ukraine’s military and police services, including training to help Ukrainian police officers better handle cases involving sexual trauma as well as mental-health programs.

Trudeau revealed the package during a special meeting of leaders from countries that have been supporting Ukraine since Russian forces first crossed into the country on Feb. 24, launching Europe’s largest conflict since the Second World War.

Notionally intended to discuss Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, the meeting also came as Ukrainians prepared to mark on Wednesday the anniversary of their country’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Appearing via videolink from Toronto alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is in the midst of a three-day visit to Canada, Trudeau accused Russia of falsely blaming western sanctions for escalating food prices and shortages around the world.

While Russian officials have blamed the sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine for the food crisis, Canada and its allies say Moscow is responsible for having disrupted critical Ukrainian food production and exports.

“I want to repeat yet again, that there are no sanctions on food. When the Russian regime blames sanctions for the food crisis around the world, they’re engaging in disinformation,” Trudeau said.

“We need to continue fighting Russian disinformation. That’s why Canada will create a dedicated team to help increase our capacity to monitor and detect Russian and other state-sponsored disinformation.”

 

 

U.S. State Dept. Funds Ukrainian Declaration Of Truth Tellers As "War Criminals" And "Information Terrorists"

CTH  |  Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously took control over all broadcast media discontinuing any media that was not under government control.  Taking the anti-democracy movement another step further, Zelenskyy then banned any political opposition party and confiscated the funds of his political opposition.

These totalitarian actions were taken while the U.S. State Department was simultaneously claiming defense of Ukraine as vital to democracy.  Meanwhile, U.S. taxpayers are being forced by congress to send $60 billion in aid into the corrupt country in order to cover the wages, salaries and benefits of Ukraine government officials. Apparently, a strange and twisted definition of democracy exists in the dictionary of Washington DC.

The latest anti-democracy revelation is even more stark.  The U.S. State Dept funded a govt/NGO Ukraine conference on ‘disinformation’.

Representatives of public authorities, NGOs, the media and international experts took part in a round table on countering disinformation. The participants discussed the methods used in Ukraine and abroad, as well as the legal framework and features of interaction between civil society and government agencies to counter fakes and disinformation in the context of cybersecurity.

During the discussion, Acting Head of the Center for Countering Disinformation Andriy Shapovalov insisted that persons who deliberately spread disinformation are information terrorists. He noted that in order to protect the information space, it is necessary to amend the legislation.

“Information terrorists need to know that they will have to answer to the law as war criminals,” he said.

Also during his speech, the acting Head of the Center noted that Ukraine is confidently winning the information struggle.

The round table was organized by the National Academy of the Security Service of Ukraine, the US Civil Research and Development Fund (CRDF Global Ukraine), the NGO “International Academy of Information”, the coordination platform “National Cybersecurity Cluster”. The event was supported by the U.S. Department of State.

 

China Forgives Loans And Seeks To Expand Win-Win Trade With Africa

multipolarista |  The Chinese government has announced that it is forgiving 23 interest-free loans for 17 African nations, while pledging to deepen its collaboration with the continent.

This is in addition to China’s cancellation of more than $3.4 billion in debt and restructuring of around $15 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019.

While Beijing has a repeated history of forgiving loans like this, Western governments have made baseless, politically motivated accusations that China uses “debt-trap diplomacy” in the Global South.

The United States has turned Africa into a battleground in its new cold war on China and Russia. And Washington has weaponized dubious claims of Chinese “debt traps” to try to demonize Beijing for its substantial infrastructure projects on the continent.

For its part, China has pushed back against the US new cold war.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a meeting with leaders from various African countries and the African Union on August 18.

In the conference, Wang condemned the West’s “zero-sum Cold War mentality.” He instead proposed a model based on “multi-party cooperation” with Africa that brings “win-win results” for all sides.

“What Africa would welcome is mutually beneficial cooperation for the greater well-being of the people, not major-country rivalry for geopolitical gains,” he said.

Wang revealed that Beijing will support the African Union in its efforts to join the G20.

The foreign minister also announced that “China will waive the 23 interest-free loans for 17 African countries that had matured by the end of 2021.”

 

 

Multi-Polarity Is The Achilles Heel Of American Imperialism

BAR  |  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s International Trade Administration encourages  U.S. companies to do business in the DRC, citing “tens of trillions of dollars” in mineral wealth.

“The DRC is one of the most blessed places on Earth,” said Taye. “Sadly, the agents in the neighborhood—Kagame and Museveni—are facilitating the looting of Congo for the West.”

Non-governmental organization Global Witness reported in April that 90 percent  of minerals coming out of one DRC mining area were shown to have come from mines that did not meet security and human-rights standards. Companies relying on minerals from such mines include U.S.-based Apple, Intel and Tesla.

“Aid that comes in the front door with tens of millions of dollars is a mirage,” Carney said. The United States has disbursed $618 billion  in aid to Uganda since 2001. “Billions go out the back door in the form of extractions [of resources].”

‘Africa Is Going to Be Punished’

Conference moderator Joseph Senyonjo said the NUPUSA (the party’s U.S. arm) has attempted to engage U.S. Representative Karen Bass (D-CA), chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“She has done nothing,” he said.

Senyonjo added Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) has been unhelpful. Meeks chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and has introduced a U.S. House bill  that would punish African countries for bypassing U.S. sanctions on Russia. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in an August 5 speech  in Ghana that U.S. sanctions are not to blame for the global wheat shortage, all while threatening action if African countries buy Russian fossil fuels. However, cutting off Russia from the SWIFT global payments system prevents it from trading wheat, a major Russian export.

What does that mean for African countries that have relied on Russia for 32 percent  of their wheat imports?

“Africa is going to be punished,” Senyonjo told conference attendees.

‘We Can’t Be Timid’

Netfa Freeman, the keynote speaker, warned attendees of approaching the U.S. government from a weak position and with the intent of appealing to the conscience. He said the United States cannot recognize human rights because it was built by violating the human rights of the Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans. Now, it holds one-fifth  of the world’s prisoners, including the longest-held political prisoners in the world.

“Convincing them cannot be the goal,” said Freeman, an organizer with Pan-African Community Action, a grassroots organization based in southeast Washington. He also is a member of the Black Alliance for Peace Coordinating Committee and hosts a local radio program.

Freeman added officials such as Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd mirror the comprador class that holds power in various African countries. A comprador appears to independently operate as a leader, but answers to colonial powers.

Freeman encouraged conference attendees to widen the scope of their solidarity to include Afro-descendants in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, for example, because they, too, suffer under U.S. sanctions and threats of invasion. He connected events that took place during the same timeframe on the continent—the assassination of DRC Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the driving into exile of Ghanian Prime Minister and President Kwame Nkrumah—with the assassinations of Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.