Stefania Maurizi is an investigative journalist working for the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano. She has worked on all WikiLeaks releases of secret documents and partnered with Glenn Greenwald to reveal the Snowden Files about Italy. In an interview with Eresh Omar Jamal of The Daily Star, she talks about her latest book, Secret Power: WikiLeaks and Its Enemies, and how WikiLeaks revolutionised the world of journalism.
Eresh Omar Jamal: What is this “secret power” that you are referring to in the title of your book, and why does it consider …
Starting December 12, an evidentiary hearing before the US Southern District Court of Florida is considering a case of historic importance. Is the US above international law? Can international conventions on diplomatic immunity be violated by US courts and prosecutors? The fate of Alex Saab, a special envoy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is being contested, but larger questions that could affect the lives of diplomats around the world will be decided.
Most prisoners with a get-out-of-jail-free card would have played it, but not Alex Saab. The Venezuelan diplomat has been incarcerated for two and a half years.
Once upon a time Dostoevsky wrote a passage in The Idiot (1868) about an abused donkey passed from owner to owner which inspired Robert Bresson’s classic 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar.
Polish film director Jerzy Skolimowski, 56 at the time, watched the Bresson film and it became the first, last and only movie that ever made him cry.
Now, at age 84, Skolimowski and his co-writer and wife Ewa Piaskowska give the world EO, a partial homage to Au Hasard Balthazar and the most broad-based attack on speciesism in a feature film. EO is making plenty of audiences cry.
Yes, it’s difficult for people to think it’s dry in Oregon, along the coast, along the Central Coast range. But it is, and it’s wet in the winter, too. Breweries, shrimp industries, hotels, they use a lot of fresh water.
But the reality is clear — America is so dysfunctional, that those trillions thrown at billionaires and military et al., well, not for the people, by the people, because of the people. Remember, this story about Newport, around 10,000 folk, with a swelling of …
Refreezing the Arctic sounds like a crazed impossible idea, but a knowledgeable group of scientists believe it has the potential to be the best most efficient quickest way to reduce manifold risks of a climate system that’s already in shaky condition.
For eons the world’s biggest reflector of incoming solar radiation has been the Arctic’s multi-year ice pack 10-20-30 feet thick. Now it’s merely a shadow of its former self whereas it used to reflect 80%-90% of solar radiation back into outer space. But a lot of that solar radiation is now absorbed by the planet. This loss of mojo is …
In part because the 1960s was still a period of capitalist abundance, there were few socialists in Yankeedom who pointed to the economic contradictions of capitalism as a motivator for the coming revolution. “Western Marxists” ignored the economy, imagining capitalism could go on forever. As first anarcho-communist and then as Situationists, the group I was in never talked about any economic laws that would drive the economy into a crisis. But a couple of my comrades, one from France, had been closely studying a book by …
The Real Goal of Fed Policy: Breaking Inflation, the Middle Class or the Bubble Economy?
by Ellen Brown / December 10th, 2022
“There is no sense that inflation is coming down,” said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at a November 2 press conference, — this despite eight months of aggressive interest rate hikes and “quantitative tightening.” On November 30, the stock market rallied when he said smaller interest rate increases are likely ahead and could start in December. But rates will still be increased, not cut. “By any standard, inflation remains much too high,” Powell said. “We will stay the course until the job is done.”
The Fed is doubling down on what appears to be a failed policy, …
According to a December 6th report by the Congressional Research Service, the United States Government is, and since May has been, offering inducements to foreign countries that are not yet bases from which the U.S. is being allowed to position and launch missiles against Russia and/or China, to become such bases, which would make those nations become additional targets for Russian and/or Chinese missiles. The U.S. is seeking to spread Russia’s and China’s military targets to countries that aren’t yet such targets. Doing this would increase the amounts of weaponry that are being sold, and that …
by Graylan Scott Hagler and Ariel Gold / December 10th, 2022
We don’t know what dishes were served at the dinner Trump hosted last month for Ye (aka Kanye West) and Nick Fuentes, but the meal has given much of the country indigestion. Real or feigned, following Trump’s dining with Fuentes, who describes himself as being “just like Hitler” and diminishes Jim Crow, numerous leaders of the Republican Party offered sanctimonious denunciations and apologies.
The breakneck speed with which GOP leaders made condemnations might have caused someone not paying much attention to think the Republican Party suddenly, and with horror, had become “woke” to the damages …
• China bids farewell to Jiang Zemin
• China expands social welfare
• New trends in Chinese literature
• Chinese tea, Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
On 15 November 2022, during the G20 summit in Bali (Indonesia), Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told journalists that his country ‘seeks a stable relationship with China’. This is because, as Albanese pointed out, China is ‘Australia’s largest trading partner. They are worth more than Japan, the United States, and the Republic of Korea… combined’. Since 2009, China has also been Australia’s largest …
On December 6, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosted Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles. It was the 32nd occasion the countries had met in this setting.
The Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) is really a chat fest held between Australian Ministers for Defence and Foreign Affairs along with the US Secretaries of State and Defense, accompanied by officials of touted seniority. Advertised as an occasion for the states “to discuss and share perspectives and approaches on major global and regional political issues, and to deepen …
Legislating heterosexuality is laws that impose penalties for being or publicly expressing non-coercive or “mutually consensual” sexuality of other than the heterosexual type. Such laws can affect lots of people — especially young people, and here is why we know that they hit especially the young:
On 16 August 2015, Britain’s YouGov polling firm headlined “1 in 2 young people say they are not 100% heterosexual” and opened: “Asked to plot themselves on a ‘sexuality scale’, 23% of British people choose something other than 100% heterosexual – and the figure rises to 49% among 18-24 year olds.” …
Events continue to unfold at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we asked Scott Ritter for his current thoughts. We focus on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real time, specifically addressing the role of the U.S. in the tensions and its capacity to reduce them.
John Rachel: We are grateful to Scott Ritter for sharing his valuable and thought-provoking views. The interview was arranged by John Rachel, Director of the Peace Dividend Project. The Peace Dividend strategy is not a meme or a bumper sticker. It is an end-to-end methodology for challenging …
When Grover Cleveland (Democrat) was elected U.S. president in 1884, the parasitic Robber Baron, Jay Gould, wired him: “I feel that the vast business interests of the country will be entirely safe in your hands.”
For anyone wondering if Gould was right, bear in mind that one of Cleveland’s chief advisers was William Whitney, a millionaire corporate lawyer who married into the Standard Oil fortune.
Four years later, Cleveland was ousted by Benjamin Harrison (Republican), a man whose main qualification was working for the …
The Empire of the Humanities: An interview with Dr Robert Merrill, Professor of Humanities emeritus Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore
by T.P. Wilkinson / December 6th, 2022
Perhaps one of the most amazing phenomena of the 20th and now 21st century is not Anglo-American empire, understood as military and economic power. Far more remarkable is the fact that in the scope of some two hundred years the English-speaking world; i.e., the British Empire and the American Empire, have produced a cultural and propaganda machine which has completely overwhelmed and occluded two of the oldest extant cultures in the world that of Russia and China. Andre Gunder Frank argued in ReOrient that, in fact, until the middle of the 19th century the de facto centre of the world …
Low-performing charter schools in the U.S. are nothing new, they are everywhere. Recently, for example, 25% of charter schools in Duval County, Florida received a D or F, while 70% of North Carolina’s 200+ charter schools received a C or lower. In addition, more than 50% of the 65 charter schools in New Orleans are D and F schools. This has been a common pattern across the country for decades. These numbers are especially significant given the discriminatory enrollment practices found in many charter schools.
On November 30, the French baguette was formally added to the United Nations’ Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The bureaucrats had finally gotten hold of a glorified bread stick, adding it to their spreadsheet list of cultural items worthy of preservation. A delighted French President took the moment to gloat at the French Embassy in Washington. “In these few centimetres passed from hand to hand lies the spirit of French know-how,” stated a glowing Emmanuel Macron.
The list, for which UNESCO is responsible for observing, includes some 678 traditions from 140 countries. The Slovenians have beekeeping, for instance; Tunisia has …
“Ditto,” said Tweedledum.
“Ditto, ditto!” cried Tweedledee.
– Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking-Glass, December 27, 1871
Sometimes a trifling contretemps can open a window onto significant issues.
As a case in point, The New York Times, a newspaper that regularly publishes U.S. propaganda without a bit of shame or remorse, recently reported on a controversy involving Simon & Schuster and Bob Dylan’s new book, The Philosophy of Modern Song. The report with the same information was repeated across the media.
The publishing company had offered limited-edition, authenticated, hand-signed copies of the book for $600 each. Nine Hundred collectors and die-hard fans bought a copy, …
Fallout from Tsai Ing-wen’s massive defeat in the Nov 26 Taiwan Local Elections
by John V. Walsh / December 5th, 2022
In recent local elections in Taiwan, the Party of President Tsai Ing-wen, the US-allied, pro-secessionist candidate lost badly. We have obtained a recording of a phone conversation that she received from Ukraine’s Volodymor Zelensky in the wake of that defeat.
Volodymor Zelensky: Tsai, how are you doing? We have not spoken in months. Sorry for the delay in answering your call earlier. We were in another photoshoot for Vogue.
Tsai Ing-wen: (Sobs into the phone). Hello, Voldodya.
Zelensky: Get hold of yourself, Tsai. Why are you crying? Last time we spoke, …
As western countries are floating the theory that Russia could escalate its conflict with Ukraine to a nuclear war, many western governments continue to turn a blind eye to Israel’s own nuclear weapons capabilities. Luckily, many countries around the world do not subscribe to this endemic western hypocrisy.
‘The Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction’ was held between November 14-18, with the sole purpose of creating new standards of accountability that, as should have always been the case, be applied equally to all Middle Eastern countries.
The US military industrial complex has made news with another eye-wateringly expensive product, a near totemic tribute to waste in a time of crisis. The $700 million B-21 Raider stealth bomber was unveiled by Northrop Grumman Corp. and the United States Air Force on December 2 at Airforce Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
There was much slush and fudge about the project, with its release being treated as something akin to the Second Coming. Those in public relations were kept particularly busy. Social media was shamelessly used to advertise the event, which was livestreamed. “Join now for our live reveal of …
