Urumqi Fire and New Covid Outbreak
This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.
• Urumqi Fire and new Covid outbreak
• Pop singer sentenced to 13 years in prison
• Local elections in Taiwan
• New findings from the frontal region of the brain
Latest articles
The Veracity of Vaccine Makers
The shots are produced, owned and distributed by the Department of Defense in the US and other military departments world wide and are property of the DOD until they are injected into people.
The Volatility of US Hegemony in Latin America (Part III)
Challenges Ahead for the Pink Tide
A surging Pink Tide has brought left electoral victories in Latin America and the Caribbean protesting the neoliberal model imposed by the US and its collaborators. Neoliberalism has failed to meet the needs of the peoples of the region and is losing its legitimacy as a prototype for development.
However, the countries of the region must of necessity engage in a world financial order dominated by the US, which limits the possibilities of developing their economies successfully.
Troubled waters
US and other western central banks – what Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega calls the “gang of assassins who control the global economy” …
The Volatility of US Hegemony in Latin America (Part II)
Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, and China
The US has long considered Latin America and the Caribbean to be its “backyard” under the anachronist 1823 Monroe Doctrine. And even though current US President Biden mistakenly thinks that upgrading the region to the “front yard” makes any difference, Yankee hemispheric hegemony is becoming increasingly volatile. A “Pink Tide” of left electoral victories since 2018 have swept Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, Chile, Columbia, and Brazil. At the same time, China has emerged as an economic presence while tumultuously inflationary winds blow in the world economy.
In this larger context, the socialist triad of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are …
Whales and People: A Tragedy!
A close look at the ecology and health of Pacific Coast Feeding Group gray whales in Oregon waters
It was a good live crowd — over a hundred folk, November 30, at Hatfield’s new classroom building, Gladys Valley Marine Studies Building Auditorium. And another 100 in “attendance” on the Zoom Doom.
I’m a member of the Cetacean Society International, and the American Cetacean Society, and unfortunately for the Oregon group, their meetings and live speakers have retreated to the digital dungeons, never having face-to-face meetings anymore in Newport. That is the sham and the shame of this new abnormal. Even this OSU event had the live component, with a bistro in this overpriced …
Noam Chomsky Interview
An Objective Look at U.S. Foreign Policy
Events continue to unfold at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we asked Noam Chomsky for his current thoughts.
Noam Chomsky needs no introduction. He has devoted his whole life to calling out the abuses of power and the excesses of U.S. empire. At 94, he still is actively engaged in the national conversation. We are, of course, honored that he took the time to talk to us and share his views.
We focus on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real time, …
Montreal Biodiversity COP15 December 2022
What is it about a bunch of high-ranking people getting together at a Conference of the Parties (COP) at some major metropolitan center with plenty of 4-star and 5-star hotels in order to figure out how to save the planet, but it never works!
For example, the tenth (10th) meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity was held in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan from October 18-29, 2010. More than 13,000 delegates from around the world. The Aichi targets were designed to help, or in the best of cases, save or revive biodiversity.
Zoom forward twelve years …
Euthanasia “life now reflects art”
Canadian clothes retailer Simons is actually using suicide to market their products.
No, this isn’t made up. It’s part of a sweeping effort to introduce medically assisted suicide as a treatment for mental illness, PTSD and even children with defects in Canada.
Life Beyond 1.5C
Headlines describing the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties (COP) of UNFCCC more commonly referred to as COP27 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt sent troubling messages: “The Greenwashing Scam Behind COP27’s Flop” (In These Times) “COP27 Climate Summit Missed Chance for Ambition on Fossil Fuels” (Reuters) “COP27 Is Full of Politicians and Policymakers” (The Guardian). None of the headlines spotlight climate scientists because they have been pushed into the background.
At issue, nation-state commitments to reduce CO2 emissions routinely fail. It’s been over 30 years. As a result of inaction, the impact of global warming at only 1.2°C …
Transformation of Political Language (Part 1)
Is anybody communist? (Interview with Jeff J. Brown)
In response to Jeff J. Brown’s article “The Myth of Chinese Capitalism,” Ron Leighton wrote an article published at Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, and elsewhere. Dr. T. P. Wilkinson has interviewed Jeff J. Brown about his article and much more.
*****
The debate about what system actually governs the People’s Republic of China has continued since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. The significance of this controversy increased after 1989 when the Soviet Union was destroyed along with the governments that had prevailed in the Comecon ((Comecon, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, was formed …
Gallic Rebuke: France and the US Rules-based Order
Gérard Araud was not mincing his words. As France’s former ambassador to Washington, he had seen enough. At a November 14 panel hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft titled “Is America Ready for a Multipolar Word?”, Araud decried the “economic warfare” being waged by the United States against China, expressing the view that Europe was concerned by the evident “containment policy” being pursued.
Araud is very much the diplomat establishment figure, having also served as French representative to the United Nations from 2009 to 2014. But despite his pedigree, he was most keen to fire off a few …
The Volatility of US Hegemony in Latin America (Part 1)
The Pink Tide Surges, 2018-2022
Latin America and the Caribbean have again began to take on a becoming pink complexion, all the more so with June’s historic electoral victory in Colombia over the country’s long-dominant US-backed right-wing and a similar reverse in Brazil in October. These electoral rejections of the right-wing followed left victories last year in Peru, Honduras, and Chile. And those, in turn, came after similar routs in Bolivia in 2020, Argentina in 2019, and Mexico in 2018.
This electoral wave, according to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, speaking at the Climate Summit in November, “open[s] a new geopolitical age to Latin America.” This …
Behind the Decline of the US Left
The left has not become marginalized because of exhaustion or infighting. Its decline was caused by the US government’s more than century long police state operations, purging the left from its historic home in the working class movement, so that it now has only tenuous connection with the organized working class. The national security state – the actual US government – has constantly worked to neutralize anti-imperialist and class conscious working class voices, and instead promoted a “compatible left” in their long-term strategy to divide and control the left.
The working class, particularly the sector in industrial production, had significance for …
Julian Assange and Albanese’s Intervention
The unflinching US effort to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange for 18 charges, 17 of which are chillingly based upon the Espionage Act of 1917, has not always stirred much interest in the publisher’s home country. Previous governments have been lukewarm at best, preferring to mention little in terms of what was being done to convince Washington to change course in dealing with Assange.
Before coming to power, Australia’s current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had made mention of wishing to conclude the Assange affair. In December 2019, before a gathering at the Chifley Research Centre, he described the publisher as a …
Hey CIJA! Conflating Jews with Israel is Racist
Charges of “antisemitism” have been degraded to the point where they often sound like a 6-year-old telling other kids not to play with Johnnie because he has cooties.
Recently federal NDP executive member Ryan Painter quote-tweeted me saying “Don’t listen to anything Yves Engler says. He’s Canada’s leading antisemite and doesn’t want anything more than to spread Jew hatred.” The Senior Director at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) Nico Slobinsky, American Jewish Committee Campus Board Member Nati Pressmann and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center Policy Director Jaime Kirzner-Roberts all liked the tweet from the chair of the …
Xi vs Trudeau: How China is Rewriting History with the Colonial West
Though brief, the exchange between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia on November 16 has become a social media sensation. Xi, assertive if not domineering, lectured the visibly apprehensive Trudeau about the etiquette of diplomacy. This exchange can be considered another watershed moment in China’s relationship with the West.
“If there was sincerity on your part,” the Chinese President told Trudeau, “then we shall conduct our discussion with an attitude of mutual respect, otherwise there might be unpredictable consequences.”
At the end of the awkward conversation, Xi was …
A short tale of two peace agreements
Comparing the conflict in the north of Ireland (late 1960’s – 1998 with the conflict in Donbass (2014 – early 2022):*
In the north of Ireland, the conflict lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998.
More than 3,500 people were killed, of whom 52% were civilians, 32% were members of the British security forces and 16% were members of paramilitary groups. Republican paramilitaries were responsible for some 60% of the deaths, loyalists 30% and security forces 10%.
The area of the north of Ireland is 14,130 km2 and the population around 1.9 million.
At the end of 1993, the Joint Declaration on Peace, …
Tuvalu, Climate Change and the Metaverse
When lost to climatic disaster and environmental turbulence, where does a whole nation go? History speaks about movements of people, whether induced by human agency or environment, finding sanctuary and refuge on other terrains, or perishing altogether.
In the case of the Pacific Island state of Tuvalu, the response is seemingly digital or, as its officials prefer to call it, creating the Digital Nation. This particular entity, according to its government, will operate in the increasingly fashionable idea of the metaverse, a 3D virtual space marked by avatars of ourselves roaming through immersive experiences.
This does not sound particularly useful for flesh …
Black and Blue: The Many Ways of Domestic Violence World
We are in a rape culture. We have a million examples in this neoliberal and neocon country of that. We have the fact of one out of 12 or 15 girls and women losing their viriginity through sexual assault. We have what — one out of five in this country experiencing sexual assault by the time they hit 40 years of age.
The reality is we have Clarence Thomas as one of the Supremes, with his sick attack on Anita Hill, as well as girls and women at large, and then the frat boy Kavanaugh, more male human stain. Dr. Christine …
Cold, Technical Language
Why they don’t call it like it is.
Enough Science, Gimme Some Truth
I’m sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
Science is a sacred cow. People tend to get real punchy when you blaspheme a sacred cow.
Understood.
However, in the name of what is called good science an objective lens might be helpful to see if this sacred cow is worth revering. Scientific thought and its applications should be able to hold up to some scrutiny when put under the microscope, yet the empirical evidence clearly shows our industry-driven approach to science is doing …
Football Capitulates at Qatar
It did not take much. The initial promises of protest from a number of footballers and their teams at the Qatar FIFA World Cup were always suspect and hollow. There was Denmark’s less than impressive form of camouflaged protest via merchandise, supposedly defiant with its logo free monochrome colours. There was the barely threatening promise that armbands about love would be worn.
Then came Australia’s own uniquely celluloid performance: videos from the players claiming sympathy with the various efforts made by Qatar in improving the record on human rights in various areas yet frowning about the fact that more could be …
Qatar World Cup and Panda Diplomacy
This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.
• New international mediation center in Hong Kong
• Growth of state-owned enterprise assets
• Scientists clone mutant gene of a corn variety
• Qatar World Cup and panda diplomacy
The Foreboding Hyperthreat Looms Large
The hyperthreat is a combination of impending ecological carnage influenced in large measure by hidden behind-the-scenes human forces that drain the vigor and lifeblood of reasonable solutions.
A major exposé of the hyperthreat is the essence of a recently released book by E.G. Boulton, PhD: Cancelled Woman, Destination Safe Earth Publishing, 2022.
Dr. Boulton introduces the concept of hyperththreat by reflecting on how “people in the past responded when their worlds started to descend.” Now society once again is at a crucial crossroads like what brought on The Ballarat Reform League Charter of …
Getting Along
“Why Vaccine Passports Are Not Going Anywhere”
If you thought Vax Passports were over — think again — they’re just getting started.
Wrong and Right
Some are wrong, and some are right.
73% of the World’s Population Did Not Call for Russian Reparations to Ukraine
On November 14, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution (A/ES-11/L.6) calling for Russia to pay war reparations to Ukraine:
[The General Assembly…]
Reaffirms its commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine and its demand that the Russian Federation immediately cease its use of force against Ukraine and that the Russian Federation immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, extending to its territorial waters;
Recognizes that the Russian Federation must be held to account for any …
American Democracy: Buying and Selling Elections
This was the most important election in American history, as was the previous one, the one before that, and all previous exercises of marketing that pose as democratic rule in our great example of how to fool most of the people most of the time. Of course, this election, as all others, cost more money than the previous marketing fiasco, when more than 14 billion dollars were spent on the 2020 purchase of the white house and congress which rose to more than 16 billion for this cycle of shopping center lesser evilism that cost even more just to purchase …
The Medium: An Appeal for Support
On November 15, as 90 Russian cruise missiles struck at Ukraine’s energy network, a companion US-UK propaganda blitz blamed the Russian missiles for the deaths of two workers on a farm in Poland.
This was a big deal. Poland is a member of Nato and Article 5 of Nato’s treaty reads:
‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all…’
The fear being, obviously, that treating a Russian attack on a Nato member …