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By Juan Cole

23 Oct 2025 – The International Court of Justice, established by the UN to adjudicate issues among nations, issued an advisory opinion yesterday branding the Israeli blockade on food and medical aid into the occupied Gaza Strip illegal.

I mean, surely this conclusion is simple common sense. You can’t starve people. That’s not only illegal, that is the height of immorality and cruelty. The war criminals who head up the Israeli government hold that they can do whatever they want to people on the grounds that they are Palestinians, or that millions are terrorists, or that there are no innocents among certain populations. No one with a heart and a mind agrees with them. Unfortunately, there are lots of heartless mindless people in the world, some of them extremely powerful.

In a world where International Humanitarian Law is increasingly brazenly flouted, as a way of undermining it and ensuring that its violators retain impunity, the Court upheld the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 on occupied populations, as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights of 16 December 1966 (hereinafter the “ICESCR”), a UN instrument that Israel signed.

The Court reminds us, “As an occupying Power, Israel is obliged to ensure the basic needs of the local population, including the supplies essential for their survival. Obligations to this effect are set out in Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” The obligation is also implied by the UN Charter, to which Israel is a signatory.

The Court adds, “Israel is not only required to perform the positive obligation to ensure essential supplies to the local population “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”, but it is also under a negative obligation not to impede the provision of these supplies or the performance of services related to public health.”

Instead of fulfilling these obligations, the Israeli government created a famine in Gaza by blocking the entry of UN food trucks: “According to the IPC, by 12 May 2025, half of the population of the Gaza Strip faced emergency levels of food insecurity . . . and nearly half a million people faced catastrophic levels of food insecurity.”

Israel also has an obligation to avoid killing aid workers. Even where an aid worker might engage in resistance activities, Israel can only kill this person while they are actively engaged in warfare, not while they are in scrubs operating on a patient. The ICJ notes, “that, according to the United Nations, between 7 October 2023 and 20 August 2025, at least 531 humanitarian workers, including 366 United Nations personnel, were killed in the Gaza Strip . . .”

That is, Israeli has a positive obligation to ensure that the population it occupies is well-fed and gets health care. But it also has a negative obligation, where it fails in the positive one, to avoid interfering with the provision of such aid by the UN, UNRWA and other aid agencies, to ensure Palestinians are not malnourished or deprived of medical care.

The Court notes that the Geneva Convention prohibits the forcible expulsion of civilian populations from occupied territories, as does the UN Charter.

But, “According to some participants, including the United Nations, the Israeli military has issued numerous displacement orders, ‘forcing hundreds of thousands of people into overcrowded areas and restricting the United Nations’ ability to deliver urgently needed essential supplies.”

The Court upheld the UN-mandated role of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in providing aid to Palestinian refugees. It quotes a UN document that

Israeli officials alleged that UNRWA was extensively penetrated by Hamas. The Court did not find these allegations credible, writing, “the Court finds that Israel has not substantiated its allegations that a significant part of UNRWA employees ‘are members of Hamas . . . or other terrorist factions.’” UNRWA had 17,000 employees in Gaza and the Court could not rule out that a handful were dirty, but it finds that the UN and UNRWA investigated all credible charges and that the organization’s neutrality is not in doubt.

The Likud-led government of Israel throws the accusation of “terrorist” around without any evidence at all almost as indiscriminately as it does the accusation of “antisemitism.” In fact, virtually anyone who gets in the way of Likud schemes is smeared with both adjectives. The problem for this extremist Israeli propaganda is that it cannot stand up in the eyes of seasoned jurists, who make their judgments not out of fear or tribalism or emotion but out of a gimlet-eyed review of the evidence.

From my own point of view — the ICJ did not come out and say this, though it perhaps implies it — the Likud officials wanted to starve the Palestinians of Gaza. UNRWA got in the way of this genocidal project. They therefore slandered and banned UNRWA.

The Court pointed out that no other organization has UNRWA’s capacity to deliver aid to the Palestinians in Gaza. It admits that it would be permissible for Israel, as the occupying power, to ensure the health and well-being of the Palestinians it occupies using other organizations. The ICJ points out, however, that Israel has not in actuality provided any such mechanism, and that the now-disbanded “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” was fairly useless and certainly did not replace UNRWA. The Israelis cared so little about actual food aid that this past summer the UN concluded that they had fostered a famine in Gaza.

In the end the Court concurred with UN Secretary-General António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres that ” “there is currently no realistic alternative to UNRWA that could adequately provide the services and assistance required by Palestine refugees.”

Israel may also not keep out other aid organizations (as it has done): “Article 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention refers to aid provided by ‘States or by impartial humanitarian organizations’. Thus, as long as the population remains inadequately supplied and Israel is not itself operating a system of humanitarian support that is in accordance with its obligations under international humanitarian law, Israel is obliged under Article 59 to agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by third States or impartial humanitarian organizations such as the ICRC.”

In the end, the Court found that it has jurisdiction over Gaza; that it has the prerogative of issuing this advisory opinion; and that it is doing so.

It unanimously finds that Israel has the duty:

“to ensure that the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory has the essential supplies of daily life, including food, water, clothing, bedding, shelter, fuel, medical supplies and services;”

It also finds that Israel has an obligation to let UNRWA do its job in Gaza.

Of 11 justices, only the Ugandan Christian Zionist Julia Sebutinde dissented on this one.

Also, Israel has to stop destroying hospitals and killing or abducting doctors (this one was also unanimous.)

The Israelis have to stop mass expulsions of Palestinians (unanimous).

Basically, the ICJ found that the entire conduct of the war on Gaza by Israel has been carried out in an illegal manner.

Shamefully, the US State Department under Marco Rubio denounced the ICJ advisory opinion. The US after WW II showed itself a leader in erecting the structure of International Humanitarian Law, in hopes of forestalling another global conflict. Some 64 million people were killed in WW II, almost the entire population of today’s UK or France. Now America is tearing down the edifice of law that it helped build. And that will come back to bite us on the posterior.

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment.

27 October 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Dr. Ramzy Baroud

16 Oct 2025 – A single, candid statement by US President Donald Trump during a Fox News interview on October 9 may illuminate the true calculus behind Israel’s decision for a ceasefire in Gaza, following a relentless, two-year genocidal campaign that has tragically killed and wounded nearly a quarter of a million Palestinians.

“Israel cannot fight the world, Bibi,” Trump declared during the interview, a direct warning he said to have previously delivered to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The stark reality is that very few people around the globe currently support Netanyahu. Crucially, a significant segment of his own populace has already held him in contempt, a resentment that predates the war on Gaza — a war which he treated as a desperate, personal quest for renewed domestic popularity.

Yet, his delusion persists. Even as millions globally protest his systematic extermination of innocent Palestinians, Netanyahu has seemingly convinced himself that world opinion is miraculously shifting in his favor — a shift that would require the world to have liked him in the first place.

But what precisely did Trump mean by, “You cannot fight the world”?

The term ‘fight’ here clearly transcends physical combat. Gaza, besieged, starved, and devastated, was the entity enduring the physical confrontation. Trump’s reference is unambiguously to the combative surge of anti-Israel sentiment worldwide: the official sanctions imposed by nations like Spain, the critical legal proceedings initiated at the world’s highest courts, the widespread demands for boycott, the organizing of freedom flotillas, and more.

It is profoundly significant that, in the minds of both Washington and Tel Aviv, these global events have registered as a serious strategic concern. Future historians will likely designate this moment as the definitive turning point in global attitudes toward the Israeli occupation of Palestine. If deliberately and strategically fostered by Palestinians, this burgeoning solidarity movement holds the potential to fully isolate Israel, compelling it to finally relent and free the Palestinian people from its enduring system of colonialism and apartheid.

However, ‘Bibi’ is not merely losing the world; he is fundamentally losing America itself. For decades, the United States has operated as Israel’s indispensable benefactor, underwriting every war, financing every illegal settlement, justifying every act of violence, and consistently blocking any international attempt to hold Israel accountable.

The reasons for America’s decades-long, unwavering commitment to sustaining Israel are profoundly complex. While the overwhelming influence of the powerful pro-Israel lobby in D.C. and Israel’s disproportionate sway over major media are correctly cited as factors, the dynamic is far deeper. The prevailing, mutually reinforced narrative in both nations has consistently framed Israel not merely as an ally, but as a crucial, essential extension of America’s political identity and core values.

Yet, cracks in this political edifice began to appear with unmistakable clarity. What were once marginalized dissenting voices, often labeled as ‘radicals’ within the American left, gradually solidified into mainstream dissent, particularly within the Democratic Party. Poll after poll demonstrated a mass shift, with the majority of Democrats turning against Israeli policy and lending their support, instead, to the Palestinian people and their rightful struggle for freedom. One of the most telling polls was conducted by Gallup in March 2025. It found that 59 percent of Democratic voters say they sympathize more with Palestinians, while only 21 percent say they sympathize more with Israelis.

The Israeli genocide in Gaza catalyzed more than just dissent within one of America’s two major political parties. Outright opposition to Israel has rapidly become mainstream, transcending traditional political lines — a rupture that has profoundly alarmed those determined to maintain the illusion that Israel can act with impunity, free from American objection.

The pro-Israel media apparatus in the US fought a shameful war to obscure the extent of the Israeli genocide. It consistently sought to blame Palestinians for Israel’s actions and brazenly promoted the insidious notion that the war against Gaza’s innocents was a necessary component of the ever-elusive ‘war on terror.’

But it was ordinary people, powerfully amplified by countless social media platforms, who collectively fought back. They successfully defeated a mainstream propaganda machine that had, for decades, served as the primary defense line for Israel.

A particularly troubling fact for Israel was the erosion of its newly established base of support: the Evangelicals and the broader Republican party. Polling indicated a significant exodus, especially among young Republican voters. A survey conducted by the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll in August 2025 found that only 24 percent of Republican voters aged 18–34 said they sympathize more with Israelis than with Palestinians.

According to Politico, Israel even attempted to manipulate social media by paying influencers significant sums of money to circulate Israeli fabrications and deception. That campaign employed roughly 600 fake profiles posting over 2,000 coordinated comments per week, targeting more than 120 US lawmakers.

But can Israel possibly swing the narrative back in its favor? While vast sums of money will, undoubtedly, be committed to launching sophisticated campaigns aimed at polishing Israel’s severely tarnished image, the efforts will prove futile. The once-marginalized Palestinian narrative has surged, becoming a powerful, compelling moral authority worldwide. The strong, unyielding, and dignified resilience of the Palestinian people has garnered global sympathy and galvanized support in ways unprecedented in history.

This new reality may very well represent hasbara’s final stand, as truly no amount of money, newspaper coverage, or Netflix specials can ever successfully polish the image of a state that has so openly committed a genocide, one of the most thoroughly documented in recorded history.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

27 October 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Ben Norton

20 Oct 2025 – The United States is waging war on Venezuela. This is not a hypothetical; it is happening.

The Donald Trump administration is using extreme violence to try to overthrow Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.

The US military has killed dozens of Venezuelans in strikes on boats in international waters without charge or trial. UN experts have publicly condemned these attacks as “extrajudicial executions” that violate international law.

It is not only Venezuelans who have been executed by the US military. Among the victims of these illegal US attacks have been fishermen who were citizens of Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago.

Family members of the victims, from a Trinidadian fishing village, were interviewed by The Guardian, and they condemned Trump for “killing poor people”, arguing that he simply wants to take their “gas and their oil”.

In other words, the Trump administration is killing innocent people from multiple countries as part of its war on Venezuela.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAkNZCjstVI]

US military threatens Venezuela with B-52 bombers

Week by week, Trump is ratcheting up the US war on Venezuela.

The US military has approximately 10,000 troops in the Caribbean, along with eight warships and a submarine, all preparing to escalate.

The Trump administration has ordered three B-52 bombers to fly off the coast of Venezuela, threatening to bomb the country.

ABC News published a report on 16 October, writing (all emphasis added):

In less than a week, President Donald Trump has threatened to attack inside Venezuela, confirmed ongoing covert operations inside the country, and ordered bombers capable of dropping nuclear weapons to fly in circles off its coast in what appears to be an unprecedented show of force intended to pressure the Venezuelan president to step down.

Trump orders the CIA to carry out “lethal operations” to provoke regime change in Venezuela

Meanwhile, Trump has admitted that he has authorized the CIA to carry out destabilization operations inside Venezuela.

The public narrative of the US government is that it is supposedly targeting “drug traffickers”. This is not true. The real goal is regime change.

The New York Times interviewed members of the Trump administration, and reported, “American officials have been clear, privately, that the end goal is to drive Mr. Maduro from power”.

Trump has ordered the CIA “to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela”, the Times noted.

“The Trump administration’s strategy on Venezuela, developed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with help from John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, aims to oust Mr. Maduro from power”, the Times added.

Rubio is a lifelong neoconservative war hawk. He has spent his entire political career pushing for regime change not only in Venezuela, but also in Cuba and Nicaragua.

During Trump’s first term, when the US launched another coup attempt, Rubio was not in the administration, but he lobbied Trump to invade Venezuela.

Trump discussed his attacks on Venezuela in a press conference at the White House on 15 October.

“Why did you authorize the CIA to go into Venezuela?” a journalist asked the US president.

Trump gave two excuses, falsely claiming that it is because Venezuela is supposedly sending criminals to the US and that he wants to stop “drug trafficking”. Both allegations are not true. They are demonstrable lies that the Trump administration is using to try to justify a war of aggression.

The journalist then asked Trump, “Does the CIA have authority to take out Maduro?”

The US president replied, “Oh, I don’t want to answer a question like that. That’s a ridiculous question for me to be given. Not really a ridiculous question, but wouldn’t it be a ridiculous question for me to answer? But I think Venezuela is feeling heat”.

The CIA’s history of terrorism and coups in Latin America

The CIA has carried out myriad crimes against humanity in Latin America. The US spy agency has armed and trained death squads who have burnt down schools and hospitals and tortured and massacred civilians, like the Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

The CIA has also committed war crimes directly. The CIA put mines in Nicaragua’s ports in the 1980s, in a flagrant violation of international law.

Nicaragua took the United States to the International Court of Justice, the UN’s top judicial authority, in 1984, and it won the case in 1986. The Hague ruled in support of the people of Nicaragua, determining that the US government, and specifically the CIA, had violated international law in its attacks on Nicaraguan civilian targets.

However, Washington ignored the ICJ ruling and vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that demanded it be respected.

To this day, the US rogue regime refuses to pay the reparations that it legally owes to Nicaragua.

The CIA has also sponsored dozens of coups d’etat against democratically elected left-wing leaders in Latin America.

In 1954, the CIA overthrew Guatemala’s democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz on behalf of US corporation the United Fruit Company (now known as Chiquita).

Then, on 11 September 1973, the CIA toppled Chile’s democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende, and put in power the fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet, who killed thousands of people and maintained an iron grip on power for nearly two decades.

Trump is now clearly giving the CIA a green light to try to do the same in Venezuela, to overthrow the leftist Chavista government of President Maduro and install a right-wing puppet regime that will privatize the country’s massive oil and gold reserves and other natural resources and sell them off to US corporations.

Trump lies about “drug trafficking” to push regime change

The false narrative that the Trump administration is using is that it is attacking Venezuela supposedly in order to stop the “flow of drugs” into the US. This is a lie that has been debunked by multiple sources.

The Financial Times published a lengthy report, citing US officials and Venezuelan opposition figures who have been working closely with the Trump administration, and they admitted that the real goal is regime change.

The US government’s priority “is to force the departure of top Venezuelan government figures, preferably via resignation or an arranged handover — but with the clear threat that if Maduro and his inner circle cling to power, the Americans may use targeted military force to capture or kill them”, the FT wrote.

The Trump administration’s unsubstantiated accusations that Venezuela is a major center of drug production are clearly contradicted by the data compiled by UN experts.

Venezuela is not a major source of drugs, nor is it a key transit country.

According to 2022 data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 65% of the cocaine in the world is produced in Colombia, which has historically been the closest US ally in Latin America and has been dominated by right-wing, pro-US politicians linked to cartels.

Peru is the second-largest source of cocaine, providing 27% of the global total, followed by Bolivia at 8%. Venezuela’s role is so minor it is insignificant.

US government-funded coup leader María Corina Machado pledged to privatize Venezuela’s oil

The Financial Times noted, “At stake in Venezuela are the world’s largest proven oil reserves and valuable deposits of gold, diamonds and coltan”.

The FT cited an anonymous “American businessman with interests in the country” who revealed, “What Trump wants in Venezuela is oil, minerals and gold… He wants US companies down there investing”.

Far-right Venezuelan coup leader María Corina Machado has openly called for privatizing her country’s natural resources and handing them over to US corporations.

Machado, who has been funded by the US government for more than 20 years, was awarded a so-called “Nobel Peace Prize” due to her violent, US-sponsored regime-change efforts.

In an interview with Donald Trump Jr. in February, Machado declared (emphasis added):

Forget about Saudi Arabia; forget about the Saudis. I mean, we have more oil, I mean, infinite potential.

And we’re going to open markets. We’re going to kick [out] the government from the oil sector. We’re going to privatize all our industry.

Venezuela has huge resources: oil, gas, minerals, land, technology. And, as you said before, we have a strategic location, you know, hours from the United States.

So we’re going to do this right. We know what we have to do.

And American companies are in, you know, a super strategic position to invest.

This country, Venezuela, is going to be the brightest opportunity for investment of American companies, of good people that are going to make a lot of money.

Even CNN and ex Biden officials are skeptical of Trump’s “drug trafficking” lies about Venezuela

Immediately after the US government-funded extremist María Corina Machado won the so-called “Nobel Peace Prize”, she was interviewed by CNN.

Machado proudly stated that she supports Trump and the murderous war he is waging against her country. In fact, she called for further military escalation.

“We totally support it”, Machado said, in reference to the US military attacks in the Caribbean.

“Actually, we’re asking other countries in the Caribbean, in Latin America and Europe, to join that international coalition” for war on Venezuela, added the so-called “Nobel Peace Prize” laureate.

CNN is normally a loyal mouthpiece for the US State Department. The corporate network has supported every major US war of aggression, against Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Yugoslavia, and beyond.

However, because CNN is an anti-Trump media outlet, it has been willing to challenge some of the administration’s blatant lies about Venezuela.

In fact, CNN drew parallels between Trump’s false claims about Venezuela and the fraudulent allegations that the George W. Bush administration fabricated in order to justify its illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 (which CNN had supported at the time).

The Bush administration’s CIA created false intelligence claiming that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction”, or WMDs. This was not true.

Today, the Trump administration is falsely claiming that the Venezuelan government is run by drug cartels. This is totally preposterous and is not supported by any evidence.

In her interview with US government-funded Venezuelan coup plotter María Corina Machado, CNN host Christiane Amanpour pushed back against these false claims.

Amanpour cited a previous interview she did with Juan Sebastián González, who helped oversee US policy toward Latin America in the Joe Biden administration, as the senior director of the National Security Council for the Western Hemisphere.

González admitted that Venezuela is not a major producer of drugs.

This is what this top Biden administration official told CNN:

The reason that drugs have never originated from Venezuela — in the way that they originate from Colombia, over 95% of the cocaine that comes to United States comes from Colombia — is because Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world; they have the largest gold reserves in Latin America.

So there has never been a need for them to develop a native drug-producing industry.

In her CNN interview with Machado, Amanpour noted that, “when people look at what’s going on, they say, OK, they [the Trump administration] have used the drug issue to justify getting rid of Maduro, like they used the non-existent WMD issue to get rid of Saddam Hussein in Iraq”.

“So are you, I guess what I’m asking you is, are you concerned about that?” Amanpour asked.

Machado, the US government-funded coup plotter and staunch supporter of Trump, shot back, “I totally disagree”. She cited baseless claims that the FBI made during Trump’s first administration that, supposedly, “24% of the world trade of cocaine goes through Venezuela”.

This politically motivated accusation by Trump’s FBI has been blatantly contradicted by the data published by independent international experts at the United Nations.

Trump’s lies about Venezuela are so transparent that even CNN and former Biden administration officials are willing to call them out. But their obvious fraudulence is not stopping the US government from escalating its war of aggression in the Caribbean.

Benjamin Norton is an investigative journalist, analyst, writer and filmmaker.

27 October 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Mix Vale

Emerging nations are uniting to question the dollar’s reign. The BRICS bloc, along with new members, is intensifying discussions on a unified currency. This proposal gains traction amid geopolitical tensions and economic sanctions exposing vulnerabilities in the current system.

24 Oct 2025 – Emerging nations are uniting to question the dollar’s reign. The BRICS bloc, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, along with new members like Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, is intensifying discussions on a unified currency. This proposal gains traction amid geopolitical tensions and economic sanctions exposing vulnerabilities in the current system.

Leaders express concern over excessive dependence on a single foreign currency. Trade transactions accounting for over a quarter of global GDP still rely on the dollar, increasing costs and risks for developing economies. The debate, fueled by recent official statements, focuses on practical solutions for bilateral exchanges.

• The common currency would be backed by a basket of national currencies, ensuring balance among members.
• Tests with symbolic notes occurred at recent summits, signaling political commitment.
• Digital payment platforms like BRICS Pay would facilitate transactions without Western intermediaries.
• Currency swap agreements between central banks, such as Brazil and China, already bypass dollar conversions.

Experts note that the Chinese yuan already dominates half of intra-bloc trade, marking an initial step in this direction.

ORIGIN OF THE PROPOSAL IN THE EMERGING BLOC

The idea of a common currency dates back to previous BRICS summits. In 2023, during a meeting in Johannesburg, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva publicly advocated for alternatives to dollar-mediated trade. This stance echoed in subsequent forums, where the group reaffirmed its commitment to financial diversification.

Russian authorities credit Brazil with pioneering this debate. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently highlighted that Brazil’s 2025 presidency would prioritize alternative payment systems. This emphasis follows sanctions on Russia, which froze reserves and restricted access to networks like SWIFT.

The bloc has expanded rapidly in recent years. New members, including oil producers like Saudi Arabia and Iran, add weight to the discussions. Together, these countries account for 33.9% of global GDP in projections for 2027, surpassing the traditional G7.

Operational challenges persist, however. Economic disparities among members complicate immediate adoption. China, with massive dollar reserves, remains cautious to avoid global instabilities.

TECHNICAL FEATURES OF THE PROPOSED CURRENCY

Financial engineers outline key features for the new monetary unit. It would function as a weighted basket of national currencies, similar to existing international reserve mechanisms. This structure would prevent domination by a single economy, promoting balance.

Modern technologies would enable the project. Blockchain and central bank digital currencies would form the backbone, allowing instant settlements. The mBridge system, led by the Bank for International Settlements, already tests connections between China, UAE, and Thailand.

• Initial backing in gold and commodities, like oil, for stability.
• Integration with platforms like Brazil’s Pix and Russian national payment systems.
• Liquidity ensured by bilateral agreements, covering 50% of intra-bloc trade initially.
• Transparency via independent audits, aligned with global standards.

Gradual implementation would minimize shocks. Pilots in trade of essential goods, like grains and vehicles, demonstrate real-world feasibility.

India, initially hesitant, now participates actively. Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar stated in March 2025 that there is no plan to replace the dollar globally but supports local options for regional stability.

INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS TO THE INITIATIVE

Western governments monitor the progress closely. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump issued repeated warnings against any attempt to challenge the dollar. In social media posts in January and July 2025, he promised 100% tariffs on products from nations adopting alternatives, calling the bloc “apparently hostile.”

These statements spark debates about the political use of the U.S. currency. Recent sanctions on Russia accelerated the push for financial independence within BRICS. Economists note that the dollar still dominates 80% of global transactions, but its “weaponization” erodes long-term confidence.

In Europe, the EU observes pragmatically. Despite 50.3% of its trade still in dollars, the bloc explores the euro as an alternative reserve. Leaders in Brussels acknowledge that a BRICS currency could fragment global reserves, raising transaction costs initially.

BRICS members respond with diplomacy. President Lula reiterated in August 2025 that the proposal does not aim to confront but to offer choices. “It’s not about replacing national currencies but reflecting a multipolar order,” he stated in an official speech.

ALTERNATIVE PAYMENT MECHANISMS IN TESTING

BRICS Pay emerges as a practical tool to bypass the dollar. Launched experimentally, the platform connects national systems, enabling payments in local currencies. Agreements like the Brazil-China swap, signed in May 2025, already process billions in trades without external conversion.

This infrastructure reduces exposure to exchange rate fluctuations. Central banks test blockchain settlements, cutting intermediaries and costs by up to 30%. In 2025, the Chinese renminbi featured in 50% of intra-bloc trades, per banking communication network data.

• Cost reduction in transactions worth US$15 billion annually with distributed ledger technology.
• Integration with the New Development Bank, funding projects in local currencies.
• Expansion to new members, including Indonesia, covering Asian trade routes.
• Tests with petroyuan for oil payments, involving Saudi Arabia and Russia.
• Risk monitoring via joint committees, avoiding speculative bubbles.

These advances strengthen group cohesion. Brazil’s presidency coordinates technical workshops, gathering experts from all members to refine protocols.

BLOC EXPANSION AND TRADE IMPACTS

The inclusion of new countries accelerates momentum. With 11 members in 2025, BRICS spans half the global population and vast natural resources. This scale amplifies the potential of a common currency, especially in sectors like energy and agriculture.

Intra-bloc trade grew 20% in the last two years, driven by bilateral agreements. Russia, hit by sanctions, leads trades in rubles and yuan, while India explores rupees in partnerships with Brazil. These flows show diversification is already operational.

Projections indicate that by 2027, the group will surpass the G7 in global GDP contribution. This IMF forecast underscores the urgency of autonomous financial mechanisms.

Challenges include capital controls on some currencies. China, with trade surpluses, resists radical changes, prioritizing dollar reserves. However, initiatives like petroyuan for oil signal flexibility.

Lula emphasized at a recent summit that a unified currency would align Global South interests. “We represent a third of global GDP and need to negotiate as equals,” he stated, highlighting barrier-free trade.

ECONOMIC CHALLENGES IN IMPLEMENTATION

Political differences among members test unity. India withdrew partial support in July 2025, citing stability concerns. This hesitation reflects fears that the yuan could dominate, expanding Chinese influence.

Economists warn of liquidity barriers. Currencies like the ruble face international restrictions, while Brazil’s real gains traction via Pix. Solutions involve mutual guarantees and stabilization funds.

The New Development Bank funds studies to mitigate risks. In 2025, it approved US$10 billion in projects, prioritizing local currency payments. This injection boosts infrastructure tests.

• Geopolitical divergences, like U.S.-India relations, require delicate negotiations.
• Need for fiscal convergence, with aligned inflation targets among members.
• Risks of secondary sanctions, monitored by compliance committees.
• Training for banks, covering 80% of participating institutions by year-end.

Despite obstacles, progress is notable. Annual summits, like Kazan in 2024, pave the way for concrete decisions in 2026.

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES IN THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Digital innovations accelerate the transition. The mBridge project connects central banks, processing real-time payments. Participants like Hong Kong and Thailand validate efficacy, with test volumes exceeding US$1 billion.

Blockchain ensures immutability and security. Unlike SWIFT, the system avoids centralized points vulnerable to political pressures. Russia integrates its national platform, while China tests the digital yuan at scale.

These tools reduce reliance on Western infrastructure. In 2025, 40% of commodity trades used alternative channels, saving on conversion fees.

South Africa leads efforts in crypto-asset mining, exploring gold-backed digital assets. This approach attracts investments, with the rand gaining relevance in continental partnerships.

Brazil, with Pix, exports expertise. Authorities negotiate integrations with Indian and Egyptian systems, expanding the network to 15 partner countries.

KEY LEADERS’ STANCES

Prominent figures shape the debate. Putin, in a virtual address at the Johannesburg summit, called dedollarization “irreversible.” He highlighted sanctions as a catalyst for financial autonomy.

Lula reiterates the right to plural options. In August 2025, he denied backing down, emphasizing that BRICS unifies the Global South. “We don’t depend on a single foreign currency,” he declared.

Xi Jinping promotes the yuan discreetly. Swap agreements with 40 partners raised its global use to 2% in May 2025. This gradual expansion avoids direct confrontations.

Modi balances positions. Despite pro-dollar statements, India tests rupees in trades with Russia, focusing on regional stability.

These speeches converge on common goals. The rotating presidency ensures continuity, with Brazil coordinating actions until the end of 2025.

PRACTICAL TESTS IN BILATERAL TRADE

Real-world experiments validate concepts. Brazil and China process soybeans and manufactured goods in real and yuan, bypassing the dollar since May. Volume reached US$5 billion, with a 15% cost reduction. Russia and India trade oil for equipment, using rubles and rupees. These barter deals circumvent sanctions, maintaining essential flows.

• Intra-bloc trade volume: US$33 trillion in 2024, 30% in local currencies.
• Projected savings: US$15 billion annually with DLT in half of transactions.
• Energy partnerships: Petroyuan covers 20% of the group’s oil exports.
• Service expansion: Digital payments in tourism and technology.

These cases build confidence. Internal reports show growing adoption, with 70% of member banks adapted.

Saudi Arabia integrates the system to diversify beyond the petrodollar. Negotiations with Iran aim for unity in gas exports.

OUTLOOK FOR GLOBAL TRADE

BRICS influences global flows. With expansion, the bloc attracts observers from Asia and Africa. Membership proposals, like Algeria’s, signal a broader network.

Alternative systems fragment reserves. Central banks diversify holdings, reducing the dollar from 60% to 50% in decadal projections.

Innovations like BRICS Bridge connect payment gateways. This multilateral bridge tests CBDC settlements, covering routes from Eurasia to the South Atlantic.

Opportunities arise in investments. The New Development Bank approves funds in local currencies, financing sustainable infrastructure.

Members prioritize cohesion. Technical meetings resolve impasses, ensuring measurable progress.

27 October 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Imran Hossain

In the game of geopolitics, perhaps the most important rule is ‘self-interest first’. In Rakhine, Myanmar’s every internal actor, including the military junta, the civilian govt. (NLD) and the United League of Arakan (ULA) or the Arakan Army (AA) sought their own interest, making a complex situation for the Rohingya. But ‘expelling Rohingyas from Rakhine’ was the biggest strategic miscalculations by the junta and the then Suu Kyi-led NLD civilian govt.

24 Oct 2025 – Before the 2017 Rohingya ethnic cleansing, Rakhine had a population where around 55% people were Buddhist, 43% were Muslim, 1.2% Christian, 0.3% Hindu, and 0.1% followed Animism. Clearly, there were only two vital groups, i.e., Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. With 1.2 million Rohingyas expelled from Rakhine to neighboring Bangladesh, Rakhine Buddhists now enjoy a majority of around 80%.

The Rakhine people’s desire for an independent Arakan/Rakhine nation or perhaps an autonomous Rakhine state has grown as a result of this circumstance. As the United League of Arakan (ULA) or the Arakan Army (AA) gets full support from Rakhine Buddhists, the AA now dreams of an autonomous or even independent Arakan/Rakhine country. The expulsion of the Rohingyas, thus, clearly benefited the ULA/AA and the Rakhine Buddhists.

The ULA/AA now holds the position of de facto governmental authority in the state of Rakhine, which is dominated by Buddhists. The military junta only controls three of Rakhine’s seventeen townships—Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Manaung—while AA currently controls fourteen of them. Maungdaw, Buthidaung, and Rathedaung Townships, once known as the home of Rohingyas, are all now under the control of the AA.

If the Rohingya were in the Rakhine province, the ratio of Rakhine to Rohingya today would have been around 55:43. As a result, the Rakhine Buddhists, being around half the population, could not stake claims for an independent country based on their ethnic identity. This clearly justifies why Rakhine Buddhists were also involved in expelling the Rohingyas from the Rakhine state.

The historic conflicts between these two arose during the Second World War. During World War II, Rohingya Muslims, who were allied with the British, fought against local Rakhine Buddhists, who had allied with the Japanese. Following independence in 1948, the newly formed union government of the predominantly Buddhist country subjected the Rohingyas to extensive systematic discrimination in the country.

The Myanmar military, regrettably, has consistently opposed the Rohingya in the confrontations between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. The Junta consistently ignored the reality that the Rohingya have never demanded separation or an independent Rakhine State; all they asked was citizenship and rights to live in their motherland like other ethnic groups. So, there was never any threat to Myanmar’s sovereignty or territorial integrity from the Rohingya people.

Unfortunately, despite ample evidence of the Rohingya’s ethnic presence in Myanmar for generations, the majority of internal actors still view them as British colonial and postcolonial migrants from nearby Bangladesh.

“A Comparative Vocabulary of Some of the Languages Spoken in the Burma Empire” by Francis Buchanan (1799), which was found and republished by Michael Charney in the “SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research” in 2003, states, among the native groups of Arakan, there are the “Mohammedans, who have long settled in Arakan, and who call themselves Rooinga, or natives of Arakan.” The Classical Journal of 1811 identified “Rooinga” as one of the languages spoken in the “Burmah Empire.” In 1815, Johann Severin Vater listed “Ruinga” as an ethnic group with a distinct language in a compendium of languages published in German.

Blatantly ignoring this history, Myanmar still regards the Rohingya as illegal immigrants and non-citizens. Thus, the persecution of the Rohingya went beyond all bounds. Violent, large-scale crackdowns targeted toward the Rohingya — like Operation King Dragon in 1978, and Operation Clean and Beautiful Nation in 1991 — forced hundreds of thousands to flee Burma into Bangladesh.

The Myanmar military’s ruthless assault on the Rohingya villages in August 2017 marked the start of the most recent and arguably most severe phase of Rohingya persecution. Later, the chief of the United Nations agency for human rights described the military’s actions as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” “acts of horrific barbarity,” and possibly “acts of genocide.” The persecution forced over a million Rohingya to flee to their neighboring country, Bangladesh, while thousands fled to India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other parts of South and Southeast Asia.

However, in today’s reality, to save Rakhine’s and Myanmar’s territorial integrity, there is only one path for the Myanmar government/junta, and that is to repatriate Rohingyas to Rakhine, return their citizenship and create a balance there.

Regional and global actors cannot afford to just sit and watch Rakhine’s fall to any non-state actors. Because, this will encourage many insurgent/separatist groups in South Asia and South-East Asian regions, threating security and stability.

Imran Hossain, Lecturer, Department of Business Administration, Bangladesh Army International University of Science and Technology (BAIUST), (MBA), (BBA), University of Rajshahi.

27 October 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Jeffrey D. Sachs and Sybil Fares 

Real peace demands Palestinian statehood, Ukrainian neutrality and the courage to defy the war lobby.

23 Oct 2025 – United States President Donald Trump styles himself as a peacemaker. In his rhetoric, he claims credit for his efforts to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Yet beneath the grandstanding lies an absence of substance, at least to date.

The problem is not Trump’s lack of effort, but his lack of proper concepts. Trump confuses “peace” with “ceasefires,” which sooner or later revert to war (typically sooner). In fact, American presidents from Lyndon Johnson onward have been subservient to the military-industrial complex, which profits from endless war. Trump is merely following in that line by avoiding a genuine resolution to the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

Peace is not a ceasefire. Lasting peace is achieved by resolving the underlying political disputes that led to the war. This requires grappling with history, international law and political interests that fuel conflicts. Without addressing the root causes of war, ceasefires are a mere intermission between rounds of slaughter.

Trump has proposed what he calls a “peace plan” for Gaza. However, what he outlines amounts to nothing more than a ceasefire. His plan fails to address the core political issue of Palestinian statehood. A true peace plan would tie together four outcomes: the end of Israel’s genocide, Hamas’s disarmament, Palestine’s membership in the United Nations, and the normalisation of diplomatic ties with Israel and Palestine throughout the world. These foundational principles are absent from Trump’s plan, which is why no country has signed off on it despite White House insinuations to the contrary. At most, some countries have backed the “Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity,” a temporising gesture.

Trump’s peace plan was presented to Arab and Muslim countries to deflect attention from the global momentum for Palestinian statehood. The US plan is designed to undercut that momentum, allowing Israel to continue its de facto annexation of the West Bank and its ongoing bombardment of Gaza and restrictions of emergency relief under the ruse of security. Israel’s ambitions are to eradicate the possibility of a Palestinian state, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made explicit at the UN in September. So far, Trump and his associates have simply been advancing Netanyahu’s agenda.

Trump’s “plan” is already unravelling, much like the Oslo Accords, the Camp David Summit, and every other “peace process” that treated Palestinian statehood as a distant aspiration rather than the solution to the conflict. If Trump really wants to end the war – a somewhat doubtful proposition – he’d have to break with Big Tech and the rest of the military-industrial complex (recipients of vast arms contracts funded by the US). Since October 2023, the US has spent $21.7bn on military aid to Israel, much of it returning to Silicon Valley.

Trump would also have to break with his donor-in-chief, Miriam Adelson, and the Zionist lobby. In doing so, he would at least represent the American people (who support a state of Palestine) and uphold American strategic interests. The US would join the overwhelming global consensus, which endorses the implementation of the two-state solution, rooted in UN Security Council resolutions and ICJ opinions.

The same failure of Trump’s peacemaking holds in Ukraine. Trump repeatedly claimed during the campaign that he could end the war “in 24 hours”. Yet what he has been proposing is a ceasefire, not a political solution. The war continues.

The cause of the Ukraine war is no mystery – if one looks beyond the pablum of the mainstream media. The casus belli was the push by the US military-industrial complex for NATO’s endless expansion, including to Ukraine and Georgia, and the US-backed coup in Kyiv in February 2014 to bring to power a pro-NATO regime, which ignited the war. The key to peace in Ukraine, then and now, was for Ukraine to maintain its neutrality as a bridge between Russia and NATO.

In March-April 2022, when Turkiye mediated a peace agreement in the Istanbul Process, based on Ukraine’s return to neutrality, the Americans and the British pushed the Ukrainians to walk out of the talks. Until the US clearly renounces NATO’s expansion to Ukraine, there can be no sustainable peace. The only way forward is a negotiated settlement based on Ukraine’s neutrality in the context of mutual security of Russia, Ukraine, and the NATO countries.

Military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously characterised war as the continuation of politics with other means. He was right. Yet it is more accurate to say that war is the failure of politics that leads to conflict. When political problems are deferred or denied, and governments fail to negotiate over essential political issues, war too often ensues. Real peace requires the courage and capacity to engage in politics, and to face down the war profiteers.

No president since John F Kennedy has really tried to make peace. Many close observers of Washington believe that it was Kennedy’s assassination that irrevocably put the military-industrial complex in the seat of power. In addition, the US arrogance of power already noted by J William Fulbright in the 1960s (in reference to the misguided Vietnam War) is another culprit. Trump, like his predecessors, believes that US bullying, misdirection, financial pressures, coercive sanctions and propaganda will be enough to force Putin to submit to NATO, and the Muslim world to submit to Israel’s permanent rule over Palestine.

Trump and the rest of the Washington political establishment, beholden to the military-industrial complex, will not on their own account move beyond these ongoing delusions. Despite decades of Israeli occupation of Palestine and more than a decade of war in Ukraine (which started with the 2014 coup), the wars continue despite the ongoing attempts by the US to assert its will. In the meantime, the money pours into the coffers of the war machine.

Nonetheless, there is still a glimmer of hope, since reality is a stubborn thing.

When Trump soon arrives in Budapest to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his deeply knowledgeable and realistic host, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, can help Trump to grasp a fundamental truth: NATO enlargement must end to bring peace to Ukraine. Similarly, Trump’s trusted counterparts in the Islamic world – Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto – can explain to Trump the utter necessity of Palestine as a UN member state now, as the very precondition of Hamas’s disarmament and peace, not as a vague promise for the end of history.

Trump can bring peace if he reverts to diplomacy. Yes, he would have to face down the military-industrial complex, the Zionist lobby and the warmongers, but he would have the world and the American people on his side.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

27 October 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Javed Akbar

16 Oct 2025 – US President Donald Trump is being lavishly credited with ending Israel’s two-year massacre of Gaza’s population. We are told he persuaded both Netanyahu and Hamas into accepting his “deal.” In truth, Hamas had consented to nearly identical terms more than a year ago. It was Israel that torpedoed the effort—assassinating Hamas negotiator Ismail Haniyya and, under full American cover, resuming its onslaught.

Trump’s much-touted 20-point plan resurrects a century-old pattern of Western-engineered “solutions” that dictate Arab destinies. It is not a peace initiative but a reincarnation of Sykes-Picot¹—drafted in Washington, couched in the idiom of compassion, yet anchored in domination. What has changed is not conscience but calculus. Israel’s unrestrained aggression—its strike on ceasefire talks in Qatar, that killed six members of the negotiating team, while the chief negotiator survived – exposes its ruthless provocations, its crumbling legitimacy—has become a liability for Trump. Even his MAGA faithful, long intoxicated by blind allegiance, now question both the moral and strategic price of this alliance.

Across the West, public outrage has reached a scale unseen in decades. Millions march against Israeli impunity. Governments, cornered by domestic pressure, now tiptoe away from unconditional endorsement. In Asia, Africa, and Latin America, solidarity with Palestine has hardened into near-universal condemnation. Israel’s isolation has a price—and Washington is paying it.

Yet while the guns may fall silent, the occupation remains. The apartheid remains. The suffocating siege, the theft of land, the architecture of control—all endure. What is now celebrated as “peace” is merely an intermission in an unending colonial project.

No American president has ever delivered justice or statehood to Palestinians; Trump’s plan is the emptiest performance yet—a legal vacuum dressed in diplomatic ritual. Its vague formulations ensure Israel’s continued supremacy, while real decisions about Arab futures remain chained to Washington’s will. Regional autocrats play their roles obediently in this familiar choreography of dependence.

The proposal for a so-called Gaza International Transitional Authority—a euphemism for external rule—reveals the old deceit in a new costume. Britain, whose imperial pen once partitioned the region, returns as “mediator” under American command. The descendants of those who once conspired with colonial powers now normalize relations with Israel under U.S. patronage. The circle of betrayal is complete.

This Gaza plan is not a peace accord; it is Sykes-Picot reborn—a political arrangement disguised as humanitarian necessity. It redraws not borders but hierarchies, reaffirming who commands and who complies.

We may never know Gaza’s full toll—already counted in the hundreds of thousands—but the world’s complicity is beyond dispute. Every capital that shipped the bombs, every newsroom that whitewashed the blood, every politician who turned away shares in the stain.

If this ceasefire holds, it may halt the bombing but not the injustice. It may spare lives but sanctify impunity. The architects of Gaza’s ruin will walk unpunished, their crimes cleansed by the rhetoric of diplomacy. This is not peace—it is postponement. The world calls it reconciliation, but the graves whisper otherwise.

Note:

¹ Sykes-Picot was a secret treaty. During World War I, the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, and the Allied powers were vying for control of the Middle East. Britain, France, and Russia negotiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement to divide the Ottoman territories into spheres of influence.

Javed Akbar is a Canadian writer with a passion for humanitarian work. A member of the Governor’s Council of the International Development and Relief Foundation (IDRF)—a leading Canadian charity.

27 October 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Caitlin Johnstone

The empire we live under is everything we’re trained to fear. Our own rulers are the murderers. Our own rulers are the terrorists. Our own rulers are the tyrants. Our own rulers are the problem.

25 Oct 2025 – The other day I published an essay titled “Zionists Push Islamophobia Because It’s Easier Than Getting People To Like Israel,” based on the conspicuous overlap between virulent Israel supporters and people who promote hatred of Muslims.

What I didn’t know at the time until readers alerted me was that Drop Site News had put out an article last month about a leaked polling report commissioned by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs which actually found that promoting Islamophobia is the most effective way of combatting the way worldwide public opinion has been turning against Israel.

“Israel’s best tactic to combat this, according to the study, is to foment fear of ‘Radical Islam’ and ‘Jihadism,’ which remain high,” Drop Site’s Ryan Grim writes. “By highlighting Israeli support for women’s rights and gay rights while elevating concerns that Hamas wants to ‘destroy all Jews and spread Jihadism,’ Israeli support rebounded by an average of over 20 points in each country.”

So this is an actual, planned tactic. The shrieking vitriol we’ve been seeing about Islam and Muslims lately is being deliberately and systematically fomented as a calculated strategy.

[https://twitter.com/GenXGirl1994/status/1972419987618038168]

One of the moronic things about this latest wave of Islamophobic hysteria is that the US and Israel and their allies are vastly more murderous and tyrannical than the entire Muslim world combined.

The Trump administration is currently sending the world’s largest aircraft carrier and a bunch of warships to the waters off Latin America, where they’ve been waging a bogus new war on terror with increasingly frequent attacks on boats carrying alleged “narco-terrorists”. They’re not even disguising the fact that this is actually about preparing for regime change interventionism in Venezuela, a government that Washington has long sought to topple because of its massive oil reserves and noncompliance with the capitalist world order.

The US power alliance is constantly doing things like this. Waging wars, bombing countries, imposing starvation sanctions, staging coups, backing proxy conflicts, meddling in foreign elections — all with the goal of total planetary domination. It’s accepted as the baseline norm and the western press often barely even reports on its abuses (did you know Trump has bombed Somalia more than 80 times this year?), but that doesn’t make it any less murderous and tyrannical.

And we’re being told day in and day out that we all need to be afraid of Muslims, who even with a worldwide population of two billion still manage to be far, far less violent and destructive than the US-centralized power alliance.

[https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1981806987764547940]

Hell, the most abusive Muslim states are US partners in crime like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, whose genocidal butchery in Yemen was backed by the US and its allies from 2015–2022. The UAE is funding genocidal atrocities in Sudan right this very moment. The US-centralized empire is the most destructive power structure on earth, and the most destructive Muslim states are backed by that same western power structure.

The empire we live under is everything we’re trained to fear. Our own rulers are the murderers. Our own rulers are the terrorists. Our own rulers are the tyrants. Our own rulers are the problem.

Our rulers want us shaking our fists at Muslims, immigrants, disobedient governments, and members of the other mainstream political party so that we don’t start shaking our fists at them.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper. Contact: admin@caitlinjohnstone.com

27 October 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Prof. Jan Oberg

24 Oct 2025 – In October 2025, I attended two major academic conferences in Shanghai—both by invitation, and, curiously, as the only scholar from Scandinavia. That absence felt unjust to the more experienced Nordic experts in China studies who deserve a seat at such global forums.

What unfolded was a journey through two distinct but interwoven events—each offering a lens into China’s intellectual landscape and its evolving role in the world.

The 2nd World Conference on China Studies

The first event, the 2nd World Conference on China Studies, brought together over 500 scholars from 50 countries under the theme “Historical and Contemporary China: A Global Perspective.” I participated in the sub-forum titled “China in Global Context: Continuity and Innovation of Civilisation.”

It was a masterfully orchestrated gathering. The Chinese hosts demonstrated remarkable professionalism—from travel logistics and hotel arrangements to meals, sub-forum coordination, and sightseeing. The venue, Shanghai International Convention Centre in Pudong, stood beside the monumental new Museum of Contemporary Art and the iconic tower that defines the skyline when viewed from Nanjing Road across the river.

This high-level event was jointly hosted by the State Council Information Office of China and the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, and organised by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. Support came from a constellation of institutions: the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Renmin University, Fudan University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, and Beijing Language and Culture University.

The Opening Ceremony was chaired by Mo Gaoyi, deputy head of the CPC Central Committee’s Publicity Department and Minister of the State Council Information Office. A keynote was delivered by Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister and President of the EU Commission—still deeply respected in China and a vocal advocate for global cooperation. (One wonders how he views today’s EU leadership.)

Other distinguished speakers included Gao Xiang, President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and long-time China scholars like Sally K. Church of the Needham Research Institute and Martin Jacques, known for his decades of engagement with China and his widely viewed TED and other video talks.

My Sub-Forum and Lecture

I gave a lecture in the sub-forum led by Professor Zhang Weiwei, head of the China Institute at Fudan University, who also hosted the second conference marking the institute’s 10th anniversary. A few of us participated in both events, creating a sense of continuity and deepening dialogue.

Such huge top-level or “high-end” conferences also attract the media, all the local Shanghai media and all the national media, no exception. They want to hear what you think about China and its development, a bit as if they feel they need some Westerners to confirm their own historically unique and very positive human-centered achievements over the last 40 or so years. They certainly don’t – but the admiration of the West and the elements of “imports” from the West still have a role to play.

I can’t remember anybody in Western media showing any interest in asking Chinese social science experts what they thought about the development of the West.

Most of these media people are young, say 25-35. They rush up to you and sometimes even before presenting themselves or what they want to ask you about, put up their microphone and begin asking questions. At a robotics research centre, where we walked among humanoid robots, several of them wanted to know my views on these new creatures. I took the opportunity to say that an expert is only an expert in specific fields.

I then made the general point that all societies need to thoroughly discuss the good and bad sides of all new technologies and make democratic decisions about their implementation, or risk that technology runs away with society and human joys and creates more new problems than contributing to solving older ones.

That was actually spontaneously appreciated by several of the 10-15 interviewers I was approached by on that single day.

The third type of question was what such an international conference could contribute to.

My general response was that while such conferences often do not permit deep dialogues because most forums are time-tight and scheduled to have only presentations of a few minutes and little or no answers from the audience, that part may have limited effect in and of itself – but that, of course, human beings meet also outside over meals and coffees, make new contacts, exchange informal views, point each other to interesting analyses and views, etc – they can be very useful.

In addition, science, like art, I emphasised, can be a great bridge-builder among civilisations: “This is how you think about it and this is how we, or I, think about – now let’s see what is compatible and what needs to be worked on!”

Actually, this type of social cosmology, or deeper ways of thinking, was the theme of my own 8-minute mini-lecture. And it was quite well received in spite of the more geopolitical focus that many other participants adhered to.

It is based on my chapter of the TFF anthology, “If You Want To Understand China.”

In my sub-forum, I was particularly happy with what I heard Vuk Jeremic from Serbia, Carlos Martinez, Martin Jaques and Richard Sakwa from the UK, Valentin Golovachev from Russia, Fan Yongpeng, Huang Renwei and Zhang Weiwei from China had to say – whereas Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times, was a fine representative of the outdated pro-armament mainstream geo-political paradigm in which Russia appears as a never-ending threat to Europe that NATO must re-arm to defend itself.

The Thinkers Forum 2025: Discourse and Destiny

The second conference, the Thinkers Forum 2025 on Chinese Discourse and the Reshaping of World Order, unfolded on the breathtaking campus of Fudan University—one of China’s most prestigious institutions, ranked among the top in Asia and globally.

At the heart of this gathering was Professor Zhang Weiwei, who has led Fudan’s China Institute with remarkable vision over its first decade. More than a scholar, Zhang is a connector—surrounded by young thinkers, deeply engaged with media, and constantly on the move to build bridges across continents. He often travels with a film crew from the media platform China Academy, capturing dialogues that transcend borders.

I first met him in 2024 in Skopje, at a forward-looking conference on globalisation and world order hosted by Professor Biljana Vankovska, TFF board member. It was there that he invited me to record a video conversation—one that marked the beginning of a stimulating intellectual exchange.

Zhang has pioneered what he calls “futurist historiography”—a method of projecting the likely evolution of unfolding events. In a recent retrospective titled “Our Strategic Predictions Are Quite Accurate,” he did something rare in academic circles: he revisited past forecasts the Institute had made and showed how many had come to pass.

I found this both refreshing and necessary. After all, if your predictions prove accurate, why not say so? As with medicine, sound diagnosis and prognosis lead to better treatment. The same holds true for political analysis.

Rethinking Security: A Call for Peace Literacy

In my own remarks, I reflected on a troubling global pattern: despite vast cultural differences, most nations still approach security through the same narrow lens—weaponised ‘security’ before peace, deterrence before dialogue. The prevailing doctrine of offensive defence remains dominant, despite its outdated assumptions and conspicuous destabilising consequences.

This mindset accepts violence—even mass killing—as a necessary fallback if deterrence fails. It sidelines Article 1 of the UN Charter, which mandates that peace be pursued by peaceful means. It neglects alternative strategies like civil defence, vulnerability reduction, and resilience-building. And it reveals a profound absence of education in conflict resolution, mediation, reconciliation, and forgiveness—displaying what I call “conflict and peace illiteracy.”

I didn’t need to spell out that nuclear weapons and the ideology I call nuclearism have no place in a truly peaceful world. My references to Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and China’s own Sun Tzu—whose wisdom dates back over 2,300 years—were intended to make that clear.

In my brief eight-minute slot, I devoted one minute to alternative security paradigms, and another to urging Chinese academia to embrace peace and conflict studies, as well as future studies, as formal disciplines. While individual scholars here and there may show a personal interest in peace thinking —and students do—I sensed little reaction and no institutional momentum.

With the exception of Nanjing University – and Nanjing is China’s city of peace – I’m unaware of any comprehensive, permanent programs in these fields across China. I am grateful to be corrected if I am wrong.

This silence only deepens my resolve to pursue this further.

A Conversation with China Academy

Between the two conferences, I recorded a 90-minute conversation with Mimi, the brilliant studio host at China Academy (WeChat ID: mimizhuxiyuan). The footage will be edited into thematic segments and shared across platforms like Bilibili, YouTube, TikTok, and the China Academy homepage.

Working with these young, media-savvy professionals is always a joy. Their curiosity, technical skill, and editorial intuition are a testament to the creative energy pulsing through China’s intellectual and cultural landscape.

Prof. Jan Oberg, Ph.D. is director of the independent Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research-TFF in Sweden and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. CV: https://transnational.live/jan-oberg
https://transnational.live.

27 October 2025

Source: transcend.org

By Maung Zarni

Beyond population destruction, the architects of Israel’s genocide in Gaza have evidently made even the environment their target of physical destruction in order to render it “unlivable.”

21 Oct 2025 – On 29 August 2024, I stood at a huge, but empty parking lot at Gaza’s southernmost parking lot at Kerem Shalom Crossing, against the intermittent loud booms of explosions in the nearby Rafah City, literally one kilometre away inside the genocidally besieged Gaza. I was with a 30-strong interfaith delegation of Christian, Jewish, and Hindu leaders, mostly from the United States,

In my less than 2 minutes Buddhist prayers, I invoked Nazi’s Final Solution – specifically mentioning the industrial mass killings at Auschwitz, the Nazis’ largest death camp complex immortalized Stephen Speilberg’s Oscar winner, Schindler’s List.

Alas, like the rest of the Holocaust Industry, including the administration of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum of Poland, the renowned American Jewish movie director has chosen to keep his mouth shut when Israel is, without a doubt, perpetrating its own holocaust, livestreamed non-stop for 2 years. But that’s a story for another day.

Even back then, it was clear to me that Gaza is Israel’s Auschwitz, minus the gas chambers, where the SS exterminated, between 1942 and January 1945, 1.4 million Jewish and other identity-based victim populations, including Poles, anti-Nazi partisan resisters, Soviet Prisoners of Wars (POWs), Romani and Sinti people, pacifist Jehovah Witness faith adherents, disabled people and babies, toddlers and children from multiple groups.

During my whirlwind stop for prayers, next to Gaza’s southernmost crossing’s checkpoint in August 2024, even without Israel’s evident policy of explicitly adding Stalinist strategy of “death by hunger” the Soviet leadership deployed in Ukraine in 1932-33, I was persuaded by the emerging mountains of evidence that Israel wasn’t simply fighting the war against the Palestinian resistance, the Hamas.

But rather, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), the Zionists’ SS equivalent, was executing the full-blown textbook genocide, that is, Hitlerite physical destruction of a targeted population of 2.3 million Palestinian people, in whole or in large part.

Israel’s “war” in Gaza is “Mein Kampf in reverse”, as former IDF chief and ex-Defence Minister of Israel retired general Moshe Yaalon put it, in a video-recorded meeting of the Commanders for Israel’s Security this summer. According to Wizard Bisan, one of the courageous Palestinian citizen video-journalists, reporting deep from inside Gaza, Israel began implementing its policy of mass starvation in the first week of March this year, corroborating Yaalon’s characterization of Israel’s Final Solution to the Question of Palestinians in Gaza, who are still left standing.

In their 1-August-2025 dated letter to US President Donald Trump, Commanders for Israel’s Security – 600 ex-generals, Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs, and senior diplomats – confirmed that Hamas’s military and governing apparatus had already been destroyed.

In his important study The Origins of the Final Solution, The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 ( 2004, published by Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, Jerusalem) the historian Christopher R. Browning noted that the mass extermination of the Jews in the Nazi-occupied Europe was the obsession of Adolf Hitler and the senior leadership of the Nazi regime.

In the audio-taped recordings made in his exile in Argentina post-World War II, the SS Colonel Adolf Eichman who was singularly responsible for organizing and transporting 400,000 Hungarian Jews by rail to Auschwitz, was emphatic that the Fuhrer, Hitler, ordered the “physical destruction” of the Jews as an unwanted population, “eternal mushroom” on German oak tree, in Hitler’s words.

It is worth noting that the SS executioner was receiving assistance in rounding up Hungary’s Jews from the Jewish Agency in Europe, headed by Israel’s founding Prime Minister David Ben Gurian, the socialist Zionist leader, then based in the British-administered Palestine. As the well-known American Jewish commentator and talk-show host Katie Halper pointed out, the first priority of the Zionists who founded Israel by committing the first Holocaust or Al Nakba (the catastrophe) against the nearly 1 million Arab Palestinian natives in 1947-48, was the acquisition of the Arab lands for their ethno-nationalist “Jewish homeland”, not saving the Jews of Europe from the Nazi death and slave labour camps.

That Israel continues with its daily and nightly slaughter of Gaza’s Palestinian population, perfectly fits the Nazi genocide as spelled out in Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The Nazis systematically pursued this genocidal objective in accord with the Final Solution, the accelerated industrial killing, under the cover of the escalating World War II.

However, there is something more chillingly sinister and anti-Environment about Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and its multiple crimes of aggression, to use the legal discourse of the Nuremberg Tribunals, in its neighbourhoods of sovereign states including Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Yemen.

While I continue to use the Nazi Germany (1941-1945) and Israel (October 2023-present) comparison to inform the opinion of public worldwide who are not students of genocide I am increasingly of the view that Israel’s version of its Holocaust, on-going in Gaza, has a far wider scope and more chilling design than the Nazis’ Final Solution (to the Jewish Question) aimed at the mass extermination of European Jewry.

The destruction of the natural or physical Environment in Gaza as part of Israel’s “war of annihilation” compels any student of genocide to explore new language or concepts, to really understand what Israelis are doing in Gaza beyond mass extermination.

My colleague at the Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia, a network of engaged scholars, Gill H. Boehringer, who is formerly dean at Macquarie University Law School, Sydney, Australia, had begun thinking beyond the legal definition of genocide. It is instructive to quote Boehringer (29 November 2023) at length:

The evidence and commentary I have seen from afar on both Al Jazeera (largely from a Palestinian perspective) and the Western media en banc (from the IDF and Israeli officials past and present, and pundits) much of the physical evidence of devastation is the same or similar, showing very substantial areas of the Gaza strip, small and crowded as it is, has been flattened. The physical demolition of residences, churches, mosques, schools, clinics and much else; the killing of perhaps 20,000, the injuring of perhaps 30,000 Palestinians-many thousands young children and babies-is clearly Genocidal.

What is the connection with Ecocide? While much of the evidence will only be discovered in the future when the impact of the toxic bombs, shells from artillery and smaller weapons upon the waters – above ground and under – the dusty Gazan soil, and the flora and fauna-possibly even the fish along the coast- can be measured through scientific research, there can be no doubt that the natural environment has been very seriously affected negatively, probably for a very long time. Of course, some of the destruction of the natural environment is already clear to the naked eye.

Even a cursory glance at the emerging statistics on the severe destruction of the natural environment in Gaza and all other sovereign regions in Israel’s neighbourhoods is persuasive enough to the view that Israel’s genocide in Gaza is aimed not only at the extermination of 2.3 million Palestinians, in whole or any substantial part, but also at the destruction of the natural environment as the essential foundations of life for any sentient beings.

In passing, the world needs to be warned that the impact of Israel’s genocide in Gaza goes well-beyond the physical destruction or annihilation of totally besieged Palestinian population inside a narrow strip of Gaza. Its scope of destruction is evidently beyond Gaza, far more devastating than even the Nazis’ Final Solution.

The noted genocide scholar of UK, Emeritus Professor Martin Shaw of the University of Sussex, recently called attention to the fact that Israel’s genocide is “world changing” in that Israel is forging “a new genocidal mentality”.

But, equally worth pointing out is that the Environment itself becomes a target of physical destruction by the architects of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, who have so far used the explosive power of the equivalent of the two nuclear bombs in the 28 mile-narrow strip of Gaza on the bank of the Mediterranean Sea.

While the Nazis’ Final Solution was aimed at exterminating the Jews of the Nazi-occupied Europe and expanding the living space for Nazi Germany’s chosen “pure blooded” Aryan Germans, Israeli political and military leaders have taken Lemkinian genocide to a whole new level. Yoav Gallant, On 18 October 2023, the 72-years-old ex-general Giora Eiland, a former National Security Advisor of Israel, issued his Gaza War Economy Brief Number 1, with the central theme of making Gaza “a place where no human being can exist.

• In Gaza (and West Bank), UN damage assessments and UNOSAT/UN agencies quantified -the rubble at 53,466,870 tonnes by 4 April 2025 (an increase from ~22.9 million tonnes earlier). Much of this rubble is mixed with hazardous materials (asbestos, munitions) and human remains.
• Upwards of ~92% (over nine in ten water supply systems) of Gaza’s water was judged unfit for human consumption after infrastructure damage and fuel shortages crippled treatment and desalination operations. That massively increases reliance on unsafe sources and heightens disease risk.
• The Gaza Strip had one of the highest densities of rooftop solar panels in the world, with the U.S.-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimating in 2023 some 12,400 rooftop solar systems. But Israel has since destroyed a large proportion of Gaza’s burgeoning solar infrastructure, and broken panels can leak lead and heavy metal contaminants into the soil. Reuters’ news Gaza conflict has caused major environmental damage, UN says report quotes Eoghan Darbyshire, a senior researcher at the UK-based nonprofit Conflict and Environment Observatory, as saying, “… large areas of Gaza will not be recovered to a safe state within a generation, even with limitless finance and will.”
• Scientific analyses and subsequent peer-reviewed studies indicate military operations release elevated levels of NO₂, SO₂, CO and particulate aerosols, while massive fires and dust from destroyed buildings and rubble produce hazardous PM2.5/PM10 loads — with both acute respiratory impacts and longer-term contamination of surfaces/soils.
• According to the latest geospatial assessment carried out by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), further deteriorating food production capacity and exacerbating the risk of famine in the area. The assessment indicates that as of April 2025, more than 80 percent of the Gaza Strip’s total cropland area has been damaged (12,537 hectares out of 15,053) and 77.8 percent is not accessible to farmers, leaving just 688 hectares (4.6 percent) available for cultivation. The situation is particularly critical in Rafah and in the northern governorates, where nearly all cropland is not accessible.
• In their expert commentary, War and environmental health in Gaza (Volume 31, 2025), the two Turkish scientists from Turkey’s Hacettepe University Cavit Isık Yavuz and Sevilcan Basak Unal wrote, “(l)oss of natural resources and vital ecosystem services, hazardous wastes and contamination, and marine environment disruptions associated with the conflict are adding new dimensions to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. More than 25% of Wadi Gaza, one of the most vital coastal wetlands of the Eastern Mediterranean Basin, is destroyed, with environmental damages worth US$ 411 million (14). The destruction of ecosystems and critical environmental infrastructure is intensifying in Gaza. The problems that existed before the conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have deepened and these problems will persist for decades post-war. Long-term political stability and resources will be needed to make the area liveable again.”

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A Buddhist humanist from Burma (Myanmar), Maung Zarni, nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, is a member of the TRANSCEND Media Service Editorial Committee, of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, former Visiting Lecturer with Harvard Medical School, specializing in racism and violence in Burma and Sri Lanka, and Non-resident Scholar in Genocide Studies with Documentation Center – Cambodia.

27 October 2025

Source: transcend.org