The principal perpetrator, in what AP News called “one of the most extensive bribery scandals in US military history,” popped up in Venezuela of all places. Leonard Glenn Francis bilked the US Navy out of at least $35 million.
The culprit goes by the moniker “Fat Leonard.” He tips the scales at 350 pounds, according to the US Marshals wanted poster.
ABC News reports that Navy commanders “passed him classified information and steered their ships, mostly from the Navy’s 7th Fleet to ports he controlled” in exchange for “Kobe beef, expensive cigars, concert tickets and wild sex parties at luxury hotels.”
Óscar Muñoz (Colombia), Li?nea del destino (‘Line of Destiny’), 2006.
Each year, in the last weeks of September, the world’s leaders gather in New York City to speak at the podium of the United Nations General Assembly. The speeches can usually be forecasted well in advance, either tired articulations of values that do not get acted upon or belligerent voices that threaten war in an institution built to prevent war.
However, every once in a while, a speech shines through, …
Now it so happened, as Goethe told it, that a sorcerer of superlative technical skills took on an apprentice, eager and diligent in his study of the master’s teachings. One day, while the master was away, the apprentice, perhaps overly confident in his newly-acquired command of certain techniques, decided to use these powers for a practical, if mundane, purpose. As a pupil, he was obligated to perform certain tedious household chores, most detestably the endless hauling of pails of water from the nearby stream. Why not animate, say, a broom to …
It all caused a flutter amongst the ignorant and expectant on September 21. China, it was said, was in the grip of an intriguing internal crisis. Air traffic had dramatically altered, with some 9,583 flights cancelled. There were talking heads aflame with interest on the latest social media morsel, minute and yet profound.
The issue of flight cancellations was then spuriously linked to claims that President Xi Jinping had gone absent on his return from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Uzbekistan. To this could be added two unconnected facts. General Li Qiaoming, after having occupied his post …
There are many western commentators who, apparently in profound dismay that a country which holds up the banner of socialism could be so economically successful, tiresomely deny that China practises socialism and insist that it is instead capitalist.
Author Jeff Brown wrote that China is “history’s most successful socialist and communist country.”
This conflation of communism and socialism is common but inaccurate. It fudges that, according to Marxist thought, socialism is an earlier stage in the process of reaching the end goal of communism.
That writer Ron Leighton asserts in his piece that “China is …
This is the weirdest part of the PSYOP. It’s like the morning after an office party on which you wake up almost terminally hungover to hazy memories of having performed a Tequila-fuelled blowjob on Bob in Accounting in what was either the 9th Floor Reception Area or possibly the downstairs lobby of your building while someone vaguely resembling that smirking kid in the Mail Room filmed it on his phone.
Yes, it’s the Morning After … that revolting regurgitant chorus you’re hearing is the sound of millions of Covidian Cultists down on their knees in their gender-neutral bathrooms praying to the …
It should now be quite clear to any reasonable person that the Biden administration is hell-bent on destroying Russia and will risk nuclear war in doing so. It has already started World War III with its use of Ukraine to light the final match. The problem is that reasonable people are in very short supply, and, as Ray McGovern recently wrote in “Brainwashed for War with Russia,” the Biden administration and their media lackeys
… will have no trouble rallying Americans for the widest war in 77 years, starting in Ukraine, …
As economic crises, climate catastrophe and war crimes become increasingly normalized, a creeping nihilism is starting to take hold.
In Lebanon people have had enough of rampant corruption, inflation and limits on bank withdrawals. Without any other options, they’ve resorted to robbing banks for their own money, to the cheers of supportive crowds.
Next up in Haiti recent fuel hikes have exploded in a powder keg of rioting and looting in the capitol city of Port Au Prince.
Finally in Mexico, some revenge for family members of 43 students who went missing in 2014 and a poorly named police station gets the attention …
Things are not getting better for Optus, a subsidiary of the Singapore-owned Singtel and Australia’s second largest telecommunications company. Responsible for one of Australia’s largest data breaches, the beleaguered company is facing burning accusations and questions on various fronts. It is also proving to be rather less than forthcoming about details as to what has been compromised in the leak.
First, for the claimed story, which has been, at points, vague. On September 22, the telecommunications company revealed that details of up to 9.8 million customers had been stolen from their database. Dating back to 2017, these include names, birth …
Russia wants a peaceful Ukraine, Americans prefer one at war.
— Israel Shamir, “Putin Prefers a Bad Peace”
Even before the current round of nuclear brinksmanship in Ukraine, U.S.-Russian relations had descended to a lower point than U.S.-Soviet relations reached during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We’ve been courting nuclear annihilation for some time.
Those who would like to exempt Washington from blame now will have to account for U.S. hostility towards Russia and the USSR, both of which long pre-date anything that could remotely be construed as provocation by Putin. After all, the United States invaded and occupied parts of the former USSR …
Speech by KJ Noh at the Friends of Socialist China webinar “China encirclement and the imperialist build-up in the Pacific,” held on 24 September 2022.
The event addressed the rising aggression of the US and its allies in the Pacific region, including the Biden administration’s increased support for Taiwanese separatism; Western power projection in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits; the hysteria surrounding China’s security agreement with the Solomon Islands; the AUKUS nuclear pact; developments in Korea and Japan; and more.
While it would be expected for Western media to report fully on civilian life taken in the Ukraine by the military of US designated enemy Russia, and for CIA managed Western media ((“Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A,” December 26, 1977, New York Times.)) to avoid reporting civilian loss of life caused by US/NATO military throughout the Third World, people in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America are surely noticing an element of racism with so much media attention given White European lives lost reminding them of the complete absence of compassionate media coverage of the …
Last February, Emily Maitlis left her role as presenter of the BBC’s Newsnight programme to join rival media group Global. In a recent speech, Maitlis made a surprising reference to Theresa May’s former communications director Sir Robbie Gibb:
‘Put this in the context of the BBC board, where another active agent of the Conservative Party – former Downing Street spin doctor and former adviser to BBC rival GB News – now sits, acting as the arbiter of BBC impartiality.’
Outraged by this whistleblowing, someone at the BBC activated the …
Excessive attention to the 80 year old World War II Holocaust prompts questions: “Why have constant reminders of the World War II Holocaust failed to halt contemporary holocausts; has the attention distracted from careful watching of ongoing genocides, and has it enabled Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian community?” Public Broadcasting’s documentary, The U.S. and the Holocaust, adds to the controversy ? presenting a spurious narrative that insults the dedication of the American people in freeing the world of German, Italian, and Japanese oppression, which saved hundreds of millions of people who would have suffered if that …
People from the Danish Defence Academy, other military experts – e.g. those of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation – most major Danish media and – of course – the Ukrainian President’s advisor uniformly point – to Russia as the saboteur of the Nordstream gas pipelines near Bornholm, the Danish island south of Sweden.
The Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen and Defence Minister Bødskov, however, are a little lower than usual on Russia, pointing out …
Source: Wikimedia Commons
This article addresses the most current research on sea level rise, as well as adaptation measures being taken around the world. Of special interest, brilliant adaptation measures are taking place in the face of higher seas.
“Sea level has been fairly stable for 6,000 years, which is most of human civilization… but its risen eight (8) inches or twenty (20) centimeters in the last century, and the rate is tripling right now.” ((John Englander, Expert on Sea Level Rise, Talks with US Harbors About Changing Coastal Waters, July …
In this video, Activism Munich journalist Taylor Hudak speaks at the Better Way Conference in Vienna and gives a compact overview of the United States’ persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The same ‘market discipline’ currently giving Britain’s PM a bloody nose would have crushed a Corbyn programme if he’d won power
by Jonathan Cook / September 30th, 2022
There are two lessons to learn from the UK’s current economic meltdown – and commentators are obscuring both of them.
The first, and more obvious conclusion, is that Britain has a completely dysfunctional political and media system that has allowed two mediocre, clueless careerists like Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng to reach the pinnacle of the power pyramid – and then car-crash the economy because they refused to listen to economic advisers whose sole job was to stop them sabotaging a system carefully calibrated to maintain a transatlantic Ponzi scheme designed to enrich a wealth elite while trashing …
According to official [sic] statistics, despite all of the advanced medical knowledge in the Home of the Brave™, 95.8 million cases of Covid-19 occurred in the U.S. — of which, a total of 1.05 million people died.
According to official [sic] statistics, only 68.3% of Americans are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
According to Science™ [sic], those unjabbed Americans are surely to blame.
Now dig this: According to the CDC, only 21.6 percent of all Africans are fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Here are some …
If ever there was a blatant statement of realpolitik masquerading as friendliness, the latest US-Pacific Island declaration must count as one of them. The Biden administration has been busy of late, wooing Pacific Island states in an effort to discourage increasingly sharp tilt towards China. It has been spurred on, in no small way, by Beijing’s failure in May to forge a trade and security pact with Pacific Island countries.
In July, Vice President Kamala Harris was given the task of spreading the good word to those attending the Pacific Islands Forum that the US “is a proud Pacific …
Earlier this week an incident occurred that represents a new and alarming threat to peace in the world. I am referring of course to the attack upon two Russian pipelines that occurred in the Baltic Sea. The pipelines, named Nord Stream I and II were designed to bring Russian gas to the European market. Nord Stream II was currently inoperable, its German recipient having made the decision (or was it made for them?) to not accept the gas that it bought.
There has been intense speculation online about who was responsible for what can only be described as a terrorist attack. …
1—Stayers and movers
In the media and politics, we hear constantly about the problem of assimilation. How will “migrants” assimilate to our culture? How do we encourage people who have moved here to adapt to our way of life? How do we encourage “refugees” to become part of the local culture?
One problem with these anxieties is that they presume there is a unified identity within certain borders. If we wonder how migrants will adapt to German culture, we presume that “German culture” is a real referent, that there is something that unifies …
by John Philpot and Roger D. Harris / September 29th, 2022
Ambassador Alex Saab, a victim of the US economic war to achieve regime change in Venezuela, has been under arrest for over two years. This article recounts the developments in the diplomat’s court case. Saab is fighting against his illegal detention and extradition before the 8th District Court in Miami.
As Venezuela’s special envoy and a deputy ambassador to the African Union, Saab has diplomatic immunity from arrest and detention under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Although a party to the convention, the US has flouted this principle of international law.
even suggesting that Russia may have blown up its own pipeline, the NYT is killing its last vestige of credibility.
You know exactly this is a lie.
The only force that has a vital interest in doing so is the US/NATO conglomerate — to make sure there is no way Germany could change its mind and go back on its decision to let its people freeze to death this winter, and to economically destroy Germany, THE economic force and leader …
Capitalism has always had a chorus of sirens that have striven to allure Homo sapiens from thinking they had any chance to escape its clutches. Margaret Thatcher proclaimed ‘there is no alternative’ in 1980. In the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Francis Fukuyama declared the ‘End of History’ in 1992. Given the fall of the Soviet Union, the decline and isolation of the Cuban economy, and the dominance of the ‘Washington Consensus’, the decade after the Cold War was one of capitalist triumphalism. It was during that time the Marxist literary critic Frederic Jameson famously wrote that ‘it is …
