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By Vijay Prashad

1 Jul 2022 – At the G7 Summit in Germany on June 26, U.S. President Joe Biden made a pledge to raise $200 billion within the United States for global infrastructure spending. It was made clear that this new G7 project—the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII)—was intended to counter the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Given Biden’s failure to pass the Build Back Better bill (with its scope being almost halved from $3.5 trillion to $2.2 trillion), it is unlikely that he will get the U.S. Congress to go along with this new endeavor.

The PGII is not the first attempt by the U.S. to match the Chinese infrastructure investment globally, which initially took place bilaterally, and then after 2013 happened through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In 2004, as the U.S. war on Iraq unfolded, the United States government set up a body called the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which it called an “independent U.S. foreign assistance agency.” Before that, most U.S. government development lending was done through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was set up in 1961 as part of then-President John F. Kennedy administration’s charm campaign against the Soviet Union and against the Bandung spirit of non-alignment in the newly assertive Third World.

Former U.S. President George W. Bush said that USAID was too bureaucratic, and so the MCC would be a project that would include both the U.S. government and the private sector. The word “corporation” in the title is deliberate. Each of the heads of the MCC, from Paul Applegarth to Alice P. Albright, has belonged to the private sector (the current head, Albright is the daughter of former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright).

The word “challenge” in MCC refers to the fact that the grants are only approved if the countries can show that they meet 20 “policy performance indicators,” ranging from civil liberties to inflation rates. These indicators ensure that the countries seeking the grants adhere to the conventional neoliberal framework. There are also great inconsistencies among these indicators: for instance, the countries must have a high immunization rate (monitored by the World Health Organization), but at the same time they must follow the International Monetary Fund’s requirements for a tight fiscal policy. This essentially means that the public health spending of a candidate country should be kept low, resulting in the required number of public health workers not being available for the immunization programs.

The U.S. Congress provided $650 million to the MCC for its first year in 2004, as a U.S. government official told me; in 2022, the amount sought was more than $900 million. In 2007, when Bush met with Nambaryn Enkhbayar, the former president of Mongolia, to sign an MCC grant, he said that the Millennium Challenge Account—which is administered by MCC—“is an important part of our foreign policy. It’s an opportunity for the United States and our taxpayers to help countries that fight corruption, that support market-based economies, and that invest in the health and education of their people.” Clearly, the MCC is an instrument of U.S. foreign policy, but its aim seems to be not so much to tackle the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (on hunger, health and education), as Bush said, but to ensure extension of the reach of U.S. influence and to inculcate the habits and structures of U.S.-led globalization (“market-based economies”).

In 2009, then-U.S. President Barack Obama developed a “pivot to Asia,” a new foreign policy orientation that had the U.S. establishment focus more attention on East and South Asia. As part of this pivot, in 2011, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave an important speech in Chennai, India, where she spoke about the creation of a New Silk Road Initiative. Clinton argued that the United States government, under Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” policy was going to develop an economic agenda that ran from the Central Asian countries to the south of India, and would thereby help integrate the Central Asian republics into a U.S. project and break the ties the region had formed with Russia and China. The impetus for the New Silk Road was to find a way to use this development as an instrument to undermine the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. This U.S. project floundered due to lack of congressional funding and due to its sheer impossibility, since Afghanistan—which was the heart of this road project—could not be persuaded to submit to U.S. interests.

Two years later, in 2013, the Chinese government inaugurated the Silk Road Economic Belt project, which is now known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Rather than go from North to South, the BRI went from East to West, linking China to Central Asia and then outward to South Asia, West Asia, Europe and Africa. The aim of this project was to bring together the Eurasian Economic Community (established in 2000) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (set up in 2001) to work on this new, and bigger project. Roughly $4 trillion has been invested since 2013 in a range of projects by the BRI and its associated funding mechanisms (including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund). The investments were paid for by grants from Chinese institutions and through debt incurred by the projects at rates that are competitive with those of Western infrastructure lending programs.

The U.S. government’s “Indo-Pacific Strategy Report” (2019) notes that China uses “economic inducements and penalties” to “persuade other states to comply with its agenda.” The report provides no evidence, and indeed, scholars who have looked into these matters do not see any such evidence. U.S. Admiral Philip S. Davidson, who previously commanded the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told the U.S. Congress that China is “leveraging its economic instrument of power” in Asia. The MCC, and other instruments, including a new International Development Finance Corporation, were hastily set up to give America an edge over China in a U.S.-driven contest over the creation of infrastructure investment globally. There is no doubt that the MCC is part of the broad Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States to undermine Chinese influence in Asia.

Only a handful of countries have thus far received MCC grants— starting with Honduras and Madagascar. These are often not very large grants, although for a country the size of Malawi or Jordan, these can have a considerable impact. No large countries have been drawn into the MCC compact, which suggests that the United States wants to give these grants to mainly smaller countries, to strengthen their ties with the United States. Nepal’s accession to the MCC must be seen in this broader context. Although the discovery of uranium in Nepal’s Upper Mustang region in 2014 seems to play an important role in the pressure campaign on that country.

In May 2017, Nepal’s government signed a BRI framework agreement, which included an ambitious plan to build a railway link between China and Nepal through the Himalayas; this rail link would allow Nepal to lessen its reliance on Indian land routes for trade purposes. Various projects began to be discussed and feasibility studies were commissioned under the BRI plan. These projects, more details for which emerged in 2019, were the extension of an electricity transmission line and the creation of a technical university in Nepal, and of course, construction of a vast network of roads and rail, which included the trans-Himalayan railway from Keyrung to Kathmandu.

During this time, the United States entered the picture with a full-scale effort to disparage the BRI funding in Nepal and to promote the use of MCC money there instead. In September 2017, the government of Nepal signed an agreement with the United States called the Nepal Compact. This agreement—worth $500 million—is for an electricity transmission project and for a road maintenance project. At this point, Nepal had access to both BRI and MCC funds and neither of the parties seemed to mind that fact. This provided an opportunity for Nepal to use both these resources to develop much-needed infrastructure, or as former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal told me in 2020, his country could get new loans from the Asian Development Bank.

After both deals had been signed, a political dispute broke out within Nepal, which resulted in the split of the Communist Party of Nepal and the fall of the left government. One major issue on the table was the MCC and its role in the overall Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States, which seems to be targeted against China.

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Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter.

4 July 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Pepe Escobar

The future world order, already in progress, will be formed by strong sovereign states. The ship has sailed. There’s no turning back.

22 Jun 2022 – Let’s cut to the chase and roll in the Putin Top Ten of the New Era, announced by the Russian President live at the St. Petersburg forum for both the Global North and South.

The era of the unipolar world is over.

The rupture with the West is irreversible and definitive. No pressure from the West will change it.

Russia has renewed with its sovereignty. Reinforcement of political and economic sovereignty is an absolute priority.

The EU has completely lost its political sovereignty. The current crisis shows the EU is not ready to play the role of an independent, sovereign actor. It’s just en ensemble of American vassals deprived of any politico-military sovereignty.

Sovereignty cannot be partial. Either you’re a sovereign or a colony.

Hunger in the poorest nations will be on the conscience of the West and euro-democracy.

Russia will supply grains to the poorer nations in Africa and the Middle East.

Russia will invest in internal economic development and reorientation of trade towards nations independent of the U.S.

The future world order, already in progress, will be formed by strong sovereign states.

The ship has sailed. There’s no turning back.

How does it feel, for the collective West, to be caught in such a crossfire hurricane? Well, it gets more devastating when we add to the new roadmap the latest on the energy front.

Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, in St. Petersburg, stressed that the global economic crisis is gaining momentum not because of sanctions, but exacerbated by them; Europe “commits energy suicide” by sanctioning Russia; sanctions against Russia have done away with the much lauded “green transition”, as that is no longer needed to manipulate markets; and Russia, with its vast energy potential, “is the Noah’s Ark of the world economy.”

For his part Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller could not be more scathing on the sharp decline in the gas flow to the EU due to Siemens’ refusal and/or incapacity to repair the Nord Stream 1 pumping engine: “Well, of course, Gazprom was forced to reduce the volume of gas supplies to Europe by 20%+. But you know, prices have increased not by 20%+, but by several times! Therefore, I’m sorry if I say that we don’t feel offended by anyone, we are not particularly concerned by this situation.”

If this pain dial overdrive was not enough to hurl the collective West – or NATOstan – into Terminal Hysteria, then Putin’s sharp comment on possibly allowing Mr. Sarmat to present his business card to “decision-making centers in Kiev”, those that are ordering the current shelling and killing of civilians in Donetsk, definitely did the trick:

“As for the red lines, let me keep them to myself, because this will mean quite tough actions on the decision-making centers. But this is an area that shouldn’t be disclosed to people outside the military-political leadership of the country. Those who deserve appropriate actions on our part should draw a conclusion for themselves – what they may face if they cross the line.”

Baby please, stop breaking down

Alastair Crooke has masterfully outlined how the collective West’s zugzwang leaves it lumbering around, dazed and confused. Now let’s examine the state of play on the opposite side of the chessboard, focusing on the BRICS summit this Thursday in Beijing.

As much as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and ASEAN, now it’s time for a reinvigorated BRICS to step up its game. In conjunction, these are the key organizations/instruments that will be carving the pathways towards the post-unipolar era.

Both China and India (which between them were the largest economies in the world for centuries before the brief Western colonial interregnum) are already close and getting closer to “the Noah’s Ark of the world economy”.

The G20 – hostages of the Michael Hudson-defined FIRE scam that is the core of the financialized neoliberal casino – is slowly fading away, while a potential new G8 ramps up: and that is directly connected to BRICS expansion, one of the key themes of this week’s summit. An expanded BRICS with a parallel G8 configuration is bound to easily overtake the Western-centric one in importance as well as GDP by purchasing power parity (PPP).

BRICS in 2021 already added Bangladesh, Egypt, the UAE and Uruguay to its New Development Bank (NDB). In May, at Foreign Ministry-level debates, Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Thailand were added to the 5 BRICS members. Leaders of some of these nations will be connected to the Beijing summit.

BRICS plays a completely different game from the G20. They aim for the grassroots, and it’s all about slowly “building trust” – a very Chinese concept. They are creating an independent Credit Rating Agency – away from the Anglo-American racket – and deepening a Currency Reserves Arrangement. The NDB – including its regional offices in India and South Africa – has been involved in hundreds of projects. Time will tell: one day the NDB will make the World Bank superfluous.

Comparisons between BRICS and the Quad, a U.S. concoction, are silly. Quad is just another crude mechanism to contain China. Yet there’s no question India treads on tightrope walker territory, as it’s a member of both BRICS and Quad, and made a vastly misguided decision to walk out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – the largest free trade deal on the planet – opting instead to adhere to the American pie-in-the-sky Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF).

Yet India, long term, skillfully guided by Russia, is being steered to find essential common ground with China in several key issues.

BRICS, especially in its expanded BRICS+ version, is bound to increase cooperation on building truly stable supply chains, and a settlement mechanism for resources and raw material trade, which inevitably has to be based in local currencies. Then the path will be open for the Holy Grail: a BRICS payment system as a credible alternative to the weaponized U.S. dollar and SWIFT.

Meanwhile, a torrent of bilateral investments from both China and India in the manufacturing and services sector around their neighbors is bound to lift up smaller players in both Southeast Asia and South Asia: think Cambodia and Bangladesh as important cogs in a vast supply wheel.

Yaroslav Lissovolik had already proposed a BEAMS concept as the core of this BRICS integration drive, uniting “the key regional integration initiatives of BRICS economies such as BIMSTEC, EAEU, the ASEAN-China free trade agreement, Mercosur and SADC/SACU.”

It’s only (BRICS) rock’n roll

Now Beijing seems eager to promote “an inclusive format for dialogue spanning all the main regions of the Global South via aggregating the regional integration platforms in Eurasia, Africa and Latin America. Going forward this format may be further expanded to include other regional integration blocks from Eurasia, such as the GCC, EAEU and others.”

Lissovolik notes how the ideal path from now on should be “the greater inclusivity of BRICS via the BRICS+ framework that allows smaller economies that are the regional partners of BRICS to have a say in the new global governance framework.”

Before he addressed the St. Petersburg forum on video, President Xi called Putin personally to say, among other things, that he’s got China’s back on all “sovereignty and security” themes. They also, inevitably, discussed the relevance of BRICS as a key platform towards the multipolar world.

Meanwhile, the collective West plunges deeper into the maelstrom. A massive national demonstration of trade unions this past Monday paralyzed Brussels – the capital of the EU and NATO – as 80,000 people expressed their anger at the rising and rising cost of living; called for elites to “spend money on salaries, not on weapons”; and yelled in unison “Stop NATO.”

It’s zugzwang all over again. The EU’s “direct losses”, as Putin stressed, provoked by the sanctions hysteria, “could exceed $400 billion a year”. Russia’s energy earnings have hit record levels. The ruble is at a 7-year high against the euro.

It’s a blast that arguably the most powerful cultural artifact of the entire Cold War – and Western supremacy – era, the perennial Rolling Stones, is currently on tour across a “caught in a crossfire hurricane” EU. On every show they play, for the first time live, one of their early classics: ‘Out of Time’.

Sounds much like a requiem. So let’s all sing, “Baby baby baby / you’re out of time”, as one Vladimir “it’s a gas, gas, gas” Putin and his sidekick Dmitry “Under My Thumb” Medvedev seem to be the guys really getting their rocks off. It’s only (BRICS) rock’n roll, but we like it.

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Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow.

4 July 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By David Adams

1 Jul 2022 – The world faces many dangers at this moment of history, famines, global warming, wars in the Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, mass migrations, increasing electoral tendencies towards fascism. But all these are pale in comparison to the danger of a nuclear World War III which could put an end to all of these problems by a suicidal destruction of all human civilization.

As UN Secretary-General recently said, referring to the confrontation between NATO and Russia in the Ukraine, “The once unthinkable prospect of nuclear conflict is now back within the realm of possibility.”

If we look for a solution from the nuclear powers, it seems hopeless. According to the new SIPRI report, the nine nuclear-armed states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea —continue to modernize their nuclear arsenals. There is no sign that any of them are even considering the possibility of eliminating their nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, the non-nuclear countries are developing a strategy for nuclear disarmament. As described in this month’s bulletin of CPNN, the meeting this month in Ulaanbaatar for nuclear-free zones (NWFZ) and the meeting in Vienna of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) both proposed contributions to this strategy.

There are now five nuclear-free zones with 116 states that have committed to ban the manufacture, deployment and transit of nuclear weapons through their territories preventing thus proliferation of nuclear weapons in those concrete regions. Currently the idea of establishing of a Middle East NWFZ is under consideration. Informal exchanges of views and ideas to establish a Northeast Asian NWFZ and a zone in the Arctic are also being discussed.

At their meeting in Vienna, the States Parties to the TPNW welcomed Cabo Verde, Grenada, and Timor-Leste who deposited their instruments of ratification, which brings the number of TPNW states parties to 65. Eight more states told the meeting that they were in the process of ratifying the treaty: Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Ghana, Indonesia, Mozambique, Nepal and Niger.

The Vienna meeting adopted an Action Plan with 50 specific actions for taking forward the mission of the Treaty, including the establishment of a Scientific Advisory Group to advance research on nuclear weapon risks, their humanitarian consequences, and nuclear disarmament, and to address the scientific and technical challenges involved in effectively implementing the Treaty, and provide advice to states parties.

In addition to the initiatives of the NWFZ and TPNW countries, there continue to be initiatives by cities around the world. Of special importance last month were calls for nuclear disarmament by cities in the the United States and in Western Europe, including the nuclear-armed countries of France and the United Kingdom.

Can the initiatives of the NWFZ and TPNW countries be combined with those of cities in the nuclear-armed countries of the US and Europe? Can movements develop for nuclear disarmament in the other nuclear states of Russia, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea? The first three of these states are involved in the development of economic links (BRICS) free from the domination of the American Empire. Can the non-nuclear states of BRICS (Brazil and South Africa) add the issue of nuclear disarmament to their agenda?

The biggest obstacle to nuclear disarmament is the UN Security Counci which is completely dominated by nuclear-armed states with their powers of veto. How can it be reformed to escape from this nuclear domination?

The increased spending on the military by all of the nuclear powers, greatest in the case of the United States, runs the risk of their economic and political collapse; could this provide a window of opportunity for such a UN reform?

As I have previously suggested, can we develop a virtual alternative security council composed of mayors from around the world to issue press releases and raise consciousness that a nuclear-free world is possible. Perhaps, a variant of this proposal could be developed that involves the NWFZ and TPNW countries.

All of these questions should be on the agenda of a global movement for nuclear disarmament. There is nothing more important for the future of our species and our planet.

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Dr. David Adams is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment and coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network.

4 July 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Baher Kamal

1 Jul 2022 – While the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit ended in Madrid on 30 June with net commitments to double spending on weapons and to increase by eight-fold the number of troops in Europe, the total of hungry people worldwide now marks an unprecedented record.

Conflict is still the biggest driver of hunger, with 60 percent of the world’s hungry living in areas affected by war and violence. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

As advanced by IPS in its: NATO Summit Set to Further Militarise Europe, Expand in Africa? The Western military Alliance Declaration states that its member countries continue to face distinct threats from “all strategic directions.”

“The Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.”
Militarising migration policies?

Furthermore, the NATO Summit Declaration emphasises that terrorism, “in all its forms and manifestations, continues to pose a direct threat to the security of our populations, and to international stability and prosperity.”

The Summit, therefore, decided to increase its military deployment in Southern Europe, in particular in Spain and upon its request, as a way to prevent and combat terrorism.

From the Central American Dry Corridor and Haiti, through the Sahel, Central African Republic, South Sudan and then eastwards to the Horn of Africa, Syria, Yemen and all the way to Afghanistan, there is a ring of fire stretching around the world where conflict and climate shocks are driving millions of people to the brink of starvation

The decision was adopted by NATO leaders just four days after the massive entry of migrants to the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, both located in the North of Morocco, which was brutally stopped, killing around thirty migrants.

“Instability beyond our borders is also contributing to irregular migration and human trafficking,” says the Declaration.

In short, NATO has opted for further militarising its US, Canada and European countries’ migration policies, which they continue to claim that are based on international laws and human rights, etcetera.
Cyber, space threats?

The Madrid Declaration also says that NATO members “are confronted by cyber, space, and hybrid and other asymmetric threats, and by the malicious use of emerging and disruptive technologies.”

As expected, the NATO Declaration emphasises that the Russian Federation “is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.”

At the same time, NATO leaders have made a clear reference to China.

“We face systemic competition from those, including the People’s Republic of China, who challenge our interests, security, and values and seek to undermine the rules-based international order.”
Any mention of hunger?

Unless hunger has been dealt with by the Western military Alliance as a “top secret, confidential” topic, the NATO Declaration makes no clear mention of the current unprecedented hunger crisis.

Perhaps NATO includes the deadly hunger as part of its package of “threats” to their safety and security?

The fact is that right now 811 million people go to bed hungry every night, the Peace Nobel Laureate World Food Programme (WFP) warns.

The number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared – from 135 million to 345 million – since 2019. A total of 50 million people in 45 countries are teetering on the edge of famine.
Money for weapons, not for saving lives

While needs are sky-high, resources have hit rock bottom, warns WFP, while emphasising that it requires 22.2 billion US dollars to immediately reach 137 million people in 2022.

“However, with the global economy reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, the gap between needs and funding is bigger than ever before.”

The urgently needed funding to face the pressing need to save lives is hard to be met. In its Nuclear-Armed Powers Squander $156.000 Per Minute on Their ‘MAD’ Policy, IPS reported on how nine nuclear-armed states spent 82.4 billion US dollars in just one year, prior to the unfolding war in Europe, on these weapons of mass destruction.

Now in view of the NATO Summit decision to further increase military spending to face not only Russia but also to more heavily spending on deadly arms to challenge what they now consider as the Chinese threat, there will be little chance to address the devastating hunger.
Why is the world hungrier than ever?

WPF mentions four causes of hunger and famine. This seismic hunger crisis, it explains, has been caused by a deadly combination of four factors:

• Conflict is still the biggest driver of hunger, with 60 percent of the world’s hungry living in areas affected by war and violence. Events unfolding in Ukraine are further proof of how conflict feeds hunger, forcing people out of their homes and wiping out their sources of income.
• Climate shocks destroy lives, crops and livelihoods, and undermine people’s ability to feed themselves.
• The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are driving hunger to unprecedented levels.
• And, last but not least, the cost of reaching people in need is rising: the price WFP is paying for food is up 30 percent compared to 2019, an additional US$42 million a month.

By the way, none of these factors has been caused by any of these millions of hungry humans.

Hunger hotspots: a ring of fire

By the way, none of these factors has been caused by any of these millions of hungry humans.

According to the Rome-based WFP, from the Central American Dry Corridor and Haiti, through the Sahel, Central African Republic, South Sudan and then eastwards to the Horn of Africa, Syria, Yemen and all the way to Afghanistan, there is a ring of fire stretching around the world where conflict and climate shocks are driving millions of people to the brink of starvation.

In countries like Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, WFP is already faced with hard decisions, including cutting rations to be able to reach more people. This is tantamount to taking from the hungry to feed the starving.

“The consequences of not investing in resilience activities will reverberate across borders. If communities are not empowered to withstand the shocks and stresses they are exposed to, this could result in increased migration and possible destabilisation and conflict.”

Is this why NATO leaders talk about pouring more billions and even trillions into their fight against “destabilisation and terrorism”?
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Baher Kamal, a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, is an Egyptian-born, Spanish national, secular journalist, with over 45 years of professional experience — from reporter to special envoy to chief editor of national dailies and an international news agency.

4 July 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

STATEMENT ISSUED BY NEW WORLD MATHABA:
BRUTAL ATTACKS ON AFRICANS IN MOROCCO HIGHLIGHTS CRISIS IN AFRICA

On June 24th, approximately 2000 African migrants made a desperate attempt at a mass border crossing, climbing the iron fence separating Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla. Footage of African bodies piled up at the foot of the fence, many lifeless, while others were being savagely beaten by Moroccan Security Forces, went viral. To date, the number of African migrants who lost their lives has climbed to 37.

We join with those all over the world, to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this horrific attack by Moroccan security forces. However, we know that in a matter of weeks, the statements of condemnation and outrage will be buried, and the incident will simply be added to the mountain of crimes against African humanity. The question is, what is to be done?

This brutal attack on Africans, on African soil, highlights the crisis that Africa is facing. The fundamental problem is that Imperialist forces have been able to install and sustain neo-colonial regimes throughout the continent, while rolling back and destroying all attempts by the African masses to rid themselves of the Imperialist’s stranglehold, from Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe to Libya.

One of the most serious setbacks for Africa was the destruction of the Libyan Jamahirya, and the assassination of revolutionary Pan-Africanist, Muammar Qaddafi. Utilizing the situation that had arisen in neighboring African countries, Egypt and Tunisia, the imperialists seized the moment to invade and destroy Libya, and murder Qaddafi. In so doing, they were able to neutralize what was a very real challenge to their continued plunder of African resources, and their continued exploitation and genocide of African peoples.

In addition, the destruction of the Libyan Jamahiriya dramatically changed the situation with regard to African migration. The Libyan Jamahiriya was the most prosperous country in all of Africa. Border restriction for Africans were relaxed which meant that Africans from all over the continent were free to live and work in Libya. From there, they were able to send money home to their families.

When people risk their lives and the lives of their families to flee their countries, it is because of the desperate and unbearable conditions they face at home. The crisis facing Africa is worsening by the day. Numerous African countries are experiencing a surge in attacks and sabotage by heretical, Islamic terrorist groups, aided and abetted by foreign powers from Qatar to the Western Imperial nations, with the aim of destabilizing and balkanizing the continent. The US and their allies are notorious for using these groups as foot soldiers, and as a justification for the imposition of USAFRICOM, which has relations and/or military bases in almost every African country.

Africa is experiencing climate shocks resulting in some of the worst droughts in East Africa in recent history. Food and fertilizer shortages, coupled with rising prices, caused by NATO’s proxy war against Russia, are exacerbating the already dire conditions. Poverty and hunger are on the rise, and the potential risk of famine across the continent looms large. Lack of access to potable drinking water is threatening the lives of millions of Africans.

There is only one way to overcome these problems, and that is to rid the continent of foreign military, economic and political interference and domination, and the neo- colonial governments installed to manage African nation-states on behalf of these foreign entities.

We, revolutionary Pan-Africanists, must intensify our efforts to come together with revolutionary and progressive forces worldwide, to accelerate the collapse of the US Empire and its West European, Canadian and Australasian surrogates. Their decline is without doubt underway, and the world is now at a critical tipping point. Despite the overwhelming challenges that confront us, both organizationally and personally, we must organize and mobilize as never before, to hasten the inevitable implosion and destruction of all those countries that built their economies on the backs of captured Africans and the plunder of Mother Africa.

There is nothing that White Power fears more than our united efforts and a united Africa,  free from foreign domination. It is the reason why they target every African leader and movement advocating this vision. They know that a united Africa would completely change the balance of power globally. A well-documented fact is that if Africa stopped the flow of all resources and raw materials to the Western nations for just one week, the United States and Europe would grind to a halt.

Almost every known natural resource needed to run contemporary industrial economies, uranium, gold, copper, cobalt, coltan (for cell phones, computers etc.), platinum, diamonds, bauxite, and especially large reserves of oil are located in Africa. Azania (South Africa) alone contains half the world's gold reserves. Democratic Republic of
Congo contains half of the world's cobalt and 80% of the world's known coltan reserves. One quarter of the world's aluminum ore is found in the coastal belt of West Africa and the continent is awash in petroleum reserves. These resources must be liberated and placed in the hands of the people, so that they can live decent and dignified lives in the land of their birth.

We cannot look to or expect anything from current African regimes with few exceptions, or to the impotent African Union, most aptly described by Zimbabwean writer, Reason Wafawarova, as “a bunch of cowardly bucolic boofheads, totally mesmerized by Western donor funding…What an unthinking lot of hopeless traitors!”

Gone are the days when that fiery club, formerly known as the Organization of African Unity, was graced by great freedom-fighters, including Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Ahmed Ben Bella, Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Jamal Abdel Nasser, Samora Machel, Thomas Sankara, Muammar Qaddafi, Robert Mugabe, Sam Nujoma,
Nelson Mandela and so many other African heroes.

We must now look to ourselves in this defining moment for Africa and indeed, for all of humanity. We must, no matter what the obstacles, work tirelessly to confront the core issues at stake. We must heed the words of Muammar Qaddafi, in an address to a large gathering in Niamey, Niger in 1997: “This is a scared battle, concerning our moral values… We cannot accept any undermining of these values. All barriers created by the colonialist armies must be demolished…we are stronger than them in terms of our moral values and material power… the wealth of Africa must be in the hands of the African masses. To achieve this, Imperialism and Neo-colonialism must be destroyed.”

And in the timeless words of Marcus Mosiah Garvey “Arise Ye Mighty Race – Accomplish what you will.”

Gerald A. Perreira On behalf of the International Directorate of the New World Mathaba

The New World Mathaba, formally established on African Liberation Day, May 25th, 2022, is a continuation of the original World Mathaba, launched in 1982 in Tripoli, Libya, by revolutionary Pan-Africanist and Martyr, Muammar Qaddafi. The word Mathaba is an ancient Afrabian word, and translates as “a meeting place, a point of convergence for people to exchange ideas and share experiences for the purpose of furthering a collective struggle for justice and that which is right.” Mathaba is more than a word – it is a profound concept. Our aim is to facilitate unity of purpose and strategy, and to coordinate our collective efforts to rid Africa, and the world, of Colonialism, Neo-colonialism, Imperialism, Racism and Zionism. Contact us at newworldmathaba@gmail.com

By Yanis Varoufakis

Inflation as a Political Power Play Gone Wrong – A half-century long strategy, led by corporations, Wall Street, governments, and central banks, is coming undone. As a result, the West’s authorities now face an impossible choice: push conglomerates and states into cascading bankruptcies or allow inflation to go unchecked.

22 Jun 2022 – The blame game over surging prices is on. Was it too much central-bank money being pumped out for too long that caused inflation to take off? Was it China, where most physical production had moved before the pandemic locked down the country and disrupted global supply chains? Was it Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine took a large chunk out of the global supply of gas, oil, grains, and fertilizers? Was it some surreptitious shift from pre-pandemic austerity to unrestricted fiscal largesse?

The answer is one that test-takers never encounter: All of the above and none of the above.

Pivotal economic crises frequently evoke multiple explanations that are all correct while missing the point. When Wall Street collapsed in 2008, triggering the global Great Recession, various explanations were offered: regulatory capture by financiers who had replaced industrialists in the capitalist pecking order; a cultural proclivity toward risky finance; failure by politicians and economists to distinguish between a new paradigm and a massive bubble; and other theories, too. All were valid, but none went to the heart of the matter.

The same thing is true today. The “we told you so” monetarists, who have been predicting high inflation ever since central banks massively expanded their balance sheets in 2008, remind me of the joy felt that year by leftists (like me) who consistently “predict” capitalism’s near-death —akin to a stopped clock that is right twice a day. Sure enough, by creating huge overdrafts for the bankers in the false hope that the money would trickle down to the real economy, central banks caused epic asset-price inflation (booming equity and housing markets, the crypto craze, and more).

But the monetarist story cannot explain why the major central banks failed from 2009 to 2020 even to boost the quantity of money circulating in the real economy, let alone push consumer price inflation up to their 2% target. Something else must have triggered inflation.

The interruption of China-centered supply chains clearly played a significant role, as did Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But neither factor explains Western capitalism’s abrupt “regime change” from prevailing deflation to its opposite: all prices taking off simultaneously. This would require wage inflation to overtake price inflation, thus causing a self-perpetuating spiral, with wage rises feeding back into further price hikes which, in turn, cause wages to rise again, ad infinitum. Only then would it be reasonable for central bankers to demand that workers “take one for the team” and refrain from seeking higher wage settlements.

But, today, demanding that workers forgo wage gains are absurd. All the evidence suggests that, unlike in the 1970s, wages are rising much more slowly than prices, and yet the increase in prices is not just continuing but accelerating.

So, what is really going on? My answer: A half-century long power play, led by corporations, Wall Street, governments, and central banks, has gone badly wrong. As a result, the West’s authorities now face an impossible choice: Push conglomerates and even states into cascading bankruptcies, or allow inflation to go unchecked.

For 50 years, the US economy has sustained the net exports of Europe, Japan, South Korea, then China and other emerging economies, while the lion’s share of those foreigners’ profits rushed to Wall Street in search of higher returns. On the back of this tsunami of capital heading for America, the financiers were building pyramids of private money (such as options and derivatives) to fund the corporations building up a global labyrinth of ports, ships, warehouses, storage yards, and road and rail transport. When the crash of 2008 burned down these pyramids, the whole financialized labyrinth of global just-in-time supply chains was imperiled.

To save not just the bankers but also the labyrinth itself, central bankers stepped in to replace the financiers’ pyramids with public money. Meanwhile, governments were cutting public expenditure, jobs, and services. It was nothing short of lavish socialism for capital and harsh austerity for labor. Wages shrunk, and prices and profits were stagnant, but the price of assets purchased by the rich (and thus their wealth) skyrocketed. Thus, investment (relative to available cash) dropped to an all-time low, capacity shrunk, market power boomed, and capitalists became both richer and more reliant on central-bank money than ever.

It was a new power game. The traditional struggle between capital and labor to increase their respective shares of total income through mark-ups and wage increases continued but was no longer the source of most new wealth. After 2008, universal austerity yielded low investment (money demand), which, combined with plentiful central-bank liquidity (money supply), kept the price of money (interest rates) close to zero. With productive capacity (even new housing) on the wane, good jobs scarce, and wages stagnant, wealth triumphed in equity and real-estate markets, which had decoupled from the real economy.

Then came the pandemic, which changed one big thing: Western governments were forced to channel some of the new rivers of central-bank money to the locked-down masses within economies that, over the decades, had depleted their capacity to produce stuff and were now facing busted supply chains to boot. As the locked-down multitudes spent some of their furlough money on scarce imports, prices began to rise. Corporations with great paper wealth responded by exploiting their immense market power (yielded by their shrunken productive capacity) to push prices through the roof.

After two decades of a central-bank-supported bonanza of soaring asset prices and rising corporate debt, a little price inflation was all it took to end the power game that shaped the post-2008 world in the image of a revived ruling class. So, what happens now?

Probably nothing good. To stabilize the economy, the authorities first need to end the exorbitant power bestowed upon the very few by a political process of paper wealth and cheap debt creation. But the few will not surrender power without a struggle, even if it means going down in flames with society in tow.

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Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister of Greece, is leader of the MeRA25 Party, professor of economics at the University of Athens, and co-founder of DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement).

27 June 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Baher Kamal

24 Jun 2022 – They call it MAD: Mutual Assured Destruction. It is about the nuclear-armed powers’ doctrine of military strategy and national security policy. And they spent on their MAD policy more than 156.000 US dollars, every single minute, in just one year–2021.

According to their MAD doctrine a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender, with second-strike capabilities, would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. In short: destruction.

Nine countries are classified as nuclear-armed powers, with the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France ranking at the top of the list. Others: India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea.

Already before the war now unfolding in Europe

In its report “Squandered: 2021 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending,” the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) reveals that in 2021 –the year before the Russian invasion of Ukraine– nine nuclear-armed states spent 82.4 billion US dollars on these weapons of mass destruction, that’s more than 156,000 US dollars… per minute.

Specifically, the United States spent three times more than the next in line- a whopping 44.2 billion US dollars, reports ICAN. China was the only other country crossing the ten billion mark, spending 11.7 billion US dollars.

Russia had the third-highest spending at 8.6 billion US dollars, though the United Kingdom’s 6.8 billion US dollars, and the French 5.9 billion, weren’t so far behind.

ICAN adds that India, Israel and Pakistan also each spent over a billion on their arsenals, while North Korea spent 642 million US dollars, according to the 2017 Nobel Peace laureate: ICAN.

Arsenals expected to grow

Another prestigious global peace research body, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on 13 June 2022 launched the findings of its Yearbook 2022, which assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security.

One key finding is that despite a marginal decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2021, nuclear arsenals are expected to grow over the coming decade.

The nine nuclear-armed states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea —continue to modernise their nuclear arsenals and although the total number of nuclear weapons declined slightly between January 2021 and January 2022, the number will probably increase in the next decade, SIPRI reports.

90% of all nukes, in the hands of Russia and the U.S.

Russia and the USA together possess over 90% of all nuclear weapons.

Of the total inventory of an estimated 12.705 warheads at the start of 2022, about 9.440 were in military stockpiles for potential use.

Of those, an estimated 3.732 warheads were deployed with missiles and aircraft, and around 2000—nearly all of which belonged to Russia or the USA—were kept in a state of “high operational alert,” according to SIPRI’s 2022 Yearbook Global nuclear arsenals are expected to grow as states continue to modernise.

Nuclear Weapons – The United States spent three times more than the next in line- a whopping 44.2 billion US dollars. China was the only other country crossing the ten billion mark, spending 11.7 billion US dollars. Russia had the third highest spending at 8.6 billion US dollars.

Technology adds greater risks

The study Emerging technologies and nuclear weapon risks explains that the specific risks posed by advancements in cyber operations and artificial intelligence are still being discovered, but some risks include:

• Cyber attacks could manipulate the information decision-makers get to launch nuclear weapons, and interfere with the operation of nuclear weapons themselves;

• The increased application of advanced machine learning in defence systems can speed up warfare – giving decision-makers even less time to consider whether or not to launch nuclear weapons;

• Countries may be eager to apply new artificial intelligence technologies before they understand the full implications of these technologies;

• It is impossible to eliminate the risk of core nuclear weapons systems being hacked or compromised without eliminating nuclear weapons.

‘Eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us’

“These [nuclear] weapons offer false promises of security and deterrence – while guaranteeing only destruction, death, and endless brinkmanship,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on 20 June 2022 in a video messageto the First Meeting of States Parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, in Vienna, Austria.

“Let’s eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us.”

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons prohibits a full range of nuclear-weapon-related activities, such as undertaking to develop, test, produce, manufacture, acquire, or stockpile nuclear weapons, or other nuclear explosive devices.

It was adopted in July 2017 and entered into force in January 2021.

‘Recipe for annihilation’

The UN chief also said that the “terrifying lessons” of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are fading from memory, referring to the atomic bombing of these two major Japanese cities during the Second World War.

However, with more than 13,000 nuclear weapons still held across the globe, “the once unthinkable prospect of nuclear conflict is now back within the realm of possibility.”

“In a world rife with geopolitical tensions and mistrust, this is a recipe for annihilation. We cannot allow the nuclear weapons wielded by a handful of States to jeopardise all life on our planet. We must stop knocking at Doomsday’s door.”

The most destructive instruments of mass murder ever created

ICAN has been repeatedly warning that nuclear weapons are the most destructive, inhumane and indiscriminate instruments of mass murder ever created.

The term “catastrophic humanitarian consequences” describes their unique and horrifying effects on people, including lethal harm to those who are not part of the conflicts in which they are used.

The world at Doom’s doorstep

While the past year offered glimmers of hope that humankind might reverse its march toward global catastrophe, the Doomsday Clock was set at just 100 seconds to midnight, on 20 January 2022 warned the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The time is based on continuing and dangerous threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, disruptive technologies, and COVID-19.

“All of these factors were exacerbated by “a corrupted information ecosphere that undermines rational decision making.”

“US relations with Russia and China remain tense, with all three countries engaged in an array of nuclear modernization and expansion efforts—including China’s apparent large-scale program to increase its deployment of silo-based long-range nuclear missiles; the push by Russia, China, and the United States to develop hypersonic missiles; and the continued testing of anti-satellite weapons by many nations.”

Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet.

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Baher Kamal, a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, is an Egyptian-born, Spanish national, secular journalist, with over 45 years of professional experience — from reporter to special envoy to chief editor of national dailies and an international news agency.

27 June 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Navdanya International

16 Jun 2022 – Vandana Shiva, president of Navdanya International, visited Italy in early June 2022 to present her latest book, From Greed to Care (Dall’avidità alla cura – Emi). The tour started in Naples and continued through Rome and Florence to Turin. In particular, the Indian activist was the guest of the Berlingueriana event in Naples, of the Capital’s administration and the Italian Buddhist Union (UBI) in Rome, and in Turin of Cinemambiente.

We met her to talk about the global situation, rising inequalities and the worrying obesity figures released by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Global issues which have immediate repercussions on the local. This is the case with the war in Ukraine and the wheat crisis, but, Vandana Shiva warns, we must be very careful to avoid financial speculation on food. The Indian activist also dwells on the attempt to propose GMOs as a solution to the alleged food crisis and the organic law just approved by the Italian government.

Does the title of your latest book express a wish or is something moving in this direction? How strong is the influence of multinationals on our lives?

The book is about both a growing trend of life-threatening emergencies and my vision of the better world we can create by abandoning greed as the driving force behind the economy, society and our relationship with nature. We can create this world by making caring for the earth and each other the guiding value. The influence of multinational corporations on our lives has grown over the last thirty years of neo-liberal globalisation. But people have resisted. The attempt to privatise and commodify movements was stopped by the struggle for water democracy in India and Italy. Navdanya and the Seed Freedom movement have resisted the patent system and the corporate monopoly on seeds. Corporations now want to control everything: our bodies, our minds, our food, our health. If we don’t resist, they will own nature and all its life-support systems. Which means they will take over our lives.

The number of billionaires in the world is increasing, as is the number of people living in poverty. A single individual like Bill Gates, with all his investments, has more power than many countries of the world. Is it possible to reverse this trend and the pattern that generates these inequalities?

Everything that has been made by men can be unmade by men. The rise of billionaire rulers like Gates is a repetition of the rule of robber barons like Rockefeller in the US a century ago. Billionaires break social rules and undermine democratic governance to expand their empires. That is why I wrote Oneness vs. the 1% – Shattering Illusions, Seeding Freedom (Chelsea Green Publishing). As Navdanya International, we published a citizens’ report on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Reversing the trend is not only possible, but necessary if humanity wants to have freedom and a future. Citizens must become aware of the illegitimate power of corporations over our governments and our lives. We must use all the possibilities in our societies and countries to roll back corporate power, as was done in the US in the 1930s when the Rockefellers’ monopoly on oil through Standard Oil was dismantled. And we must create new possibilities to channel the power of the people through mobilising, organising, researching and nurturing alternatives free from corporate control, as we did with seeds, food and agriculture.

The world is shocked by the war in Ukraine. The food crisis, in particular the wheat crisis, has been indicated as a natural consequence of the war. Yet many are claiming that financial speculation is also behind the crisis. What is your position?

Every crisis in history was used by the wheat monopolies to increase their profits and control. The riots over bread in the Arab world, referred to as the ‘Arab Spring’, were the result of rising wheat and bread prices due to financial speculation. Food has been turned into a commodity, a financial asset. During the 2008 crisis, as Kaufman wrote in The Food Bubble: “Imaginary wheat bought anywhere affects real wheat bought everywhere”.

With around the clock electronic trading triggered by the algorithms of composite price indices and commodity derivatives, finances have grown along with the growth of hunger, as the Agribusiness Accountability Initiative has been pointing out since April 2008.

Financial growth and money growth generated by the finance casino do not lead to real growth in the processes that support and sustain life. Deregulation has destabilised the global financial and food system. It created asset management funds like Blackrock and Vanguard. Index management funds can multiply finances, not food.

The general impression is that there are some political parties, supported by the industry lobby, that are trying to take advantage of the war. For example, several are pushing for the deregulation of new GMOs in Europe as a solution to the food crisis. Does this equation really work?

Any disaster has been used as an opportunity by the GMO lobby, which represents the same conglomerate that also sells toxic agrochemicals. They tried to use the Haiti earthquake disaster to impose GMOs. The farmers there created a movement and resisted. When the super cyclone devastated Orissa in 1999, there was an attempt to impose GM maize and soya. We organised and our Ministry of Health banned GMOs. European citizens must rise up and defend their freedom to eat GM-free food, their right to biosafety. They must call the bluff of governments trying to use the war in Ukraine to dump untested and unregulated GMOs on European citizens.

There is an international consensus on the need to create an alternative to industrial agriculture and the large-scale distribution model. Italy has just passed a law for organic farming. Can agroecology contribute to the protection of biodiversity and the well-being of farmers and citizens?

From my 35 years of work in agroecology and biodiversity conservation on the Navdanya farm, I have developed the conviction that chemical-free agriculture, such as agroecology, is necessary to conserve and regenerate biodiversity and, through biodiversity, the wellbeing of farmers and citizens. Pesticides and insecticides are driving insects to extinction, herbicides such as RoundUp/ Glyphosate are driving plants, insects, and the soil organisms that depend on them, to extinction. The destruction of biodiversity in soil and plants is leading to the destruction of biodiversity in our gut microbiome, which is at the root of the increase in chronic diseases. Agroecology based on biodiversity produces more food when measured in terms of nutrition per acre and not in terms of yield per acre. Farmers’ net incomes are higher when they cultivate biodiversity for local food economies, instead of chemical-intensive monoculture products for global supply chains. Biodiversity, chemical-free and local food benefit farmers, citizens and the Earth.

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TRANSCEND Member Prof. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of more than 20 books and 500 papers.

27 June 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Media Lens

22 Jun 2022 – Last Friday’s decision by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel to authorise the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States is both deeply shameful and unsurprising. Her action paves the way for Assange to be tried under the 1917 Espionage Act, introduced by the US government shortly after entering World War I, with a sentence of 175 years if found guilty. In essence, the US wishes to set a legal precedent for the prosecution of any publisher or journalist, anywhere in the world, who reports the truth about the US.

Despite all the warnings from human rights groups, advocates of press freedom, Nils Melzer (then UN Special Rapporteur on Torture), doctors, lawyers and many other people around the world, it has long been clear that Washington is determined to punish Assange and make an example of him as a warning to others. As always, US allies will go along with what the Mafia Godfather wants.

US political journalist Glenn Greenwald noted that Patel’s act ‘further highlights the utter sham of American and British sermons about freedom, democracy and a free press.’ Assange is being persecuted relentlessly because he and WikiLeaks have arguably done more than anyone else to expose the vast extent of the crimes of US empire.

Greenwald added:

‘Free speech and press freedoms do not exist in reality in the U.S. or the UK. They are merely rhetorical instruments to propagandize their domestic population and justify and ennoble the various wars and other forms of subversion they constantly wage in other countries in the name of upholding values they themselves do not support. The Julian Assange persecution is a great personal tragedy, a political travesty and a grave danger to basic civic freedoms. But it is also a bright and enduring monument to the fraud and deceit that lies at the heart of these two governments’ depictions of who and what they are.’

Dissident Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone made a similar point, that Assange’s ‘refusal to bow down and submit’ has:

‘exposed the lie that the so-called free democracies of the western world support the free press and defend human rights. The US, UK and Australia are colluding to extradite a journalist for exposing the truth even as they claim to oppose tyranny and autocracy, even as they claim to support world press freedoms, and even as they loudly decry the dangers of government-sponsored disinformation.’

Peter Oborne, an all-too-rare example of a journalist speaking out on behalf of Assange, called Patel’s decision a ‘catastrophic blow’ to press freedom. But, he said, it was a blow that had been carried out with:

‘the silent assent of much of the mainstream press. Too many British newspapers and broadcasters have treated the Assange case as a dirty family secret. They have failed to grasp that the Assange hearing leading up to the Patel decision is the most important case involving free speech this century.’

Not only was there ‘silent assent’, but much of the media actually cheered and applauded Assange’s arrest in the Ecuadorian Embassy in April 2019 ‘with undisguised glee’, as Alan MacLeod wrote at the time:

‘The Daily Mail’s front-page headline (4/12/19) read, “That’ll Wipe the Smile Off His Face,” and devoted four pages to the “downfall of a narcissist” who was removed from “inside his fetid lair” to finally “face justice.” The Daily Mirror (4/11/19) described him as “an unwanted guest who abused his hospitality,” while the Times of London (4/12/19) claimed “no one should feel sorry” for the “overdue eviction.”

‘The Mirror (4/13/19) also published an opinion piece from Labour member of Parliament Jess Phillips that began by stating, “Finally Julian Assange, everyone’s least favourite squatter, has been kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy.” She described the 47-year-old Australian as a “grumpy, stroppy teenager.”’

Oborne also noted that Patel’s decision:

‘turns investigative journalism into a criminal act, and licenses the United States to mercilessly hunt down offenders wherever they can be found, bring them to justice and punish them with maximum severity.’

Andrew Neil, the right-wing journalist and broadcaster, reflexively listed Assange’s supposed faults (‘reckless’, ‘stupid’, ‘narcissist’) in a Daily Mail opinion piece. But he still made clear his opposition to Assange’s extradition:

‘It is thanks to Assange that we know many appalling things that America would prefer we didn’t know. He does not deserve to spend the rest of his life in some high-tech American hellhole for doing what should come naturally to all good journalists — exposing what powerful people don’t want to be exposed.’

The BBC’s John Simpson and Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens have also been supportive of Assange.

But the few editorials that appeared in the British ‘mainstream’, while meekly and belatedly opposing extradition, were much less damning in their comments. According to our searches of the Lexis-Nexis newspaper database, the first edition of the Independent’s editorial was titled, ‘It’s time to release Assange – he has suffered enough’. By the time the editorial appeared online, the title had been watered down to:

‘Justice for Julian Assange should be tempered with mercy’

And an extra line had been added:

‘The WikiLeaks founder is no hero but nor should he be a martyr’

The paper’s praise for the vital work of Assange and Wikileaks was begrudging and limited, with the usual ‘mainstream’ caveats and distortions mixed in (see Johnstone’s powerful demolition of the multiple smears against Assange):

‘We were resolutely unsympathetic to Mr Assange’s claim to have been unfairly treated by the British and Swedish criminal justice systems. We urged him to face justice over the allegations of rape in Sweden, and considered his self-imprisonment in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to be a form of punishment for his refusal to do so.’

The Guardian, which had benefited enormously from Assange’s ground-breaking work – with many of its journalists publishing numerous snide articles and disparaging remarks about him – described Patel’s decision, with pathetic understatement, as ‘a bad day for journalism’. Of course, there was no mention in the editorial of the Guardian’s own shameful role in helping to create the conditions for Assange’s persecution; not least their fake front-page ‘news’ story in November 2018 claiming that Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, supposedly held secret talks with Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

‘How Far Have We Sunk?’

As Nils Melzer packed up and moved on from his term as the UN Special Prosecutor on Torture, on the day that Patel announced Assange’s extradition, he said:

‘How far have we sunk if we prosecute people who expose war crimes for exposing war crimes?

‘How far have we sunk when we no longer prosecute our own war criminals because we identify more with them than we identify with the people that actually exposed these crimes?

‘What does that tell about us and about our governments?

‘How far have we sunk when telling the truth becomes a crime?’

The questions were left hanging in the air. But anyone with basic standards of ethics and wisdom knows that a society which has sunk this low is being governed by so-called ‘leaders’ who:

• are lacking in ethics and wisdom;
• are driven by concerns shaped by power and profit;
• will attempt to crush anyone who dares to expose their crimes;
• spout deceptive rhetoric – faithfully amplified and propagated by state-corporate media – proclaiming the West’s supposed virtues and respect for ‘freedom’, ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’.

The persecution of Julian Assange has brought all this to the fore.

Yes, there are tiny windows in the ‘MSM’ for eloquent expressions of the truth; such as Peter Oborne’s Guardian opinion piece cited above. But the general drift of the ‘Overton Window’ – the ‘acceptable’, tightly limited range of news and debate – has shifted towards the hard right, with journalists and commentators squeezed out for being deemed ‘toxic’, ‘radioactive’ or otherwise ‘dangerous’.

Thus, in 2018, John Pilger, one of the finest journalists who has ever appeared in the British media, observed that:

‘My written journalism is no longer welcome in the Guardian which, three years ago, got rid of people like me in pretty much a purge of those who really were saying what the Guardian no longer says any more.’

The Guardian is a prime stoker of revitalised Cold War rhetoric about the ‘threat’ of Russia and China, mirroring what is prevalent across the whole ‘spectrum’ of ‘mainstream’ news. Indeed, as revealed by Declassified UK, an independent investigative news website, the UK’s leading liberal newspaper has essentially been ‘neutralised’ by the UK security services. Mark Curtis, editor and co-founder of Declassified UK, observed that the paper’s:

‘limited coverage of British foreign and security policies gives a misleading picture of what the UK does in the world. The paper is in reality a defender of Anglo-American power and a key ideological pillar of the British establishment.’

Selective Moral Outrage

In a recent interview, David Barsamian asked Noam Chomsky:

‘In the media, and among the political class in the United States, and probably in Europe, there’s much moral outrage about Russian barbarity, war crimes, and atrocities. No doubt they are occurring as they do in every war. Don’t you find that moral outrage a bit selective though?’

Chomsky responded:

‘The moral outrage is quite in place. There should be moral outrage. But you go to the Global South, they just can’t believe what they’re seeing. They condemn the war, of course. It’s a deplorable crime of aggression. Then they look at the West and say: What are you guys talking about? This is what you do to us all the time.’

So, when the long-suffering people of the Global South encounter western news reports about Putin being the worst war criminal since Hitler:

‘They don’t know whether to crack up in laughter or ridicule. We have war criminals walking all over Washington. Actually, we know how to deal with our war criminals. In fact, it happened on the twentieth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. Remember, this was an entirely unprovoked invasion, strongly opposed by world opinion. There was an interview with the perpetrator, George W. Bush, who then went on to invade Iraq, a major war criminal, in the style section of the Washington Post — an interview with, as they described it, this lovable goofy grandpa who was playing with his grandchildren, making jokes, showing off the portraits he painted of famous people he’d met. Just a beautiful, friendly environment.’

In the UK, the war criminal Tony Blair – another key player in the post-9/11 ‘War on Terror’ that led to at least 1.3 million deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan – was recently ‘honoured’ by the Queen. He became ‘a member of the Order of the Garter, the most senior royal order of chivalry’. This archaic nonsense is yet another symptom of the deeply-embedded, medieval stratification of British society, and the baubles that are handed out to preserve ‘order’ and ‘tradition’. This is revealing of the sickness at the heart of our society.

Chomsky gave another example of how the West’s war criminals are lauded:

‘Take probably the major war criminal of the modern period, Henry Kissinger. We deal with him not only politely, but with great admiration. This is the man after all who transmitted the order to the Air Force, saying that there should be massive bombing of Cambodia — “anything that flies on anything that moves” was his phrase. I don’t know of a comparable example in the archival record of a call for mass genocide. And it was implemented with very intensive bombing of Cambodia.’

The ‘justification’ for the extreme violence meted out by the West towards the Middle East and the Global South is always couched in propaganda terms proclaiming the protection of ‘human rights’, ‘democracy’ and ‘global security’. But, noted Chomsky:

‘The security of the population is simply not a concern for policymakers. Security for the privileged, the rich, the corporate sector, arms manufacturers, yes, but not the rest of us. This doublethink is constant, sometimes conscious, sometimes not. It’s just what Orwell described, hyper-totalitarianism in a free society.’

Chomsky concluded:

‘Meanwhile, we pour taxpayer funds into the pockets of the fossil-fuel producers so that they can continue to destroy the world as quickly as possible. That’s what we’re witnessing with the vast expansion of both fossil-fuel production and military expenditures. There are people who are happy about this. Go to the executive offices of Lockheed Martin, ExxonMobil, they’re ecstatic. It’s a bonanza for them. They’re even being given credit for it. Now, they’re being lauded for saving civilization by destroying the possibility for life on Earth. Forget the Global South. If you imagine some extraterrestrials, if they existed, they’d think we were all totally insane. And they’d be right.’

The appalling treatment of Julian Assange, especially set beside the ‘honouring’ and eulogising of the West’s war criminals, is symptomatic of this insanity.

In a brave and eloquent interview, Stella Assange, Julian’s wife and mother of their two young children, declared that:

‘We’re going to fight.’

An appeal to Britain’s High Court will be lodged within 14 days of Patel’s decision by Assange’s lawyers. As Stella Assange noted, one of the many unjust aspects of the US case against her husband is that, under the Trump administration, the CIA had plotted to assassinate Assange:

‘Extradition to the country that has plotted his assassination is just – I have no words. Obviously, this shouldn’t be happening. It can never happen.’

She continued:

‘That is just the tip of the iceberg of the criminal activity that has gone on, on behalf of those putting Julian in prison. For example, inside the [Ecuadorian] Embassy his legal meetings – his confidential privileged legal conversations with his lawyers – were being recorded and shipped to the United States.

‘All these elements have come out since Julian’s arrest and incarceration. And we now know so much about the abuse and outright criminality that has been going on against Julian. There’s no chance of a fair trial’.

She added:

‘And then you have the actual case. He’s charged under the Espionage Act. He faces 175 years. There is no public interest defence under the Espionage Act. It’s the first time it’s being repurposed; it’s being used against a publisher. It’s an Act that’s been repurposed in order to criminalise journalism, basically. And, of course, if you say that publishing information is a crime, then Julian’s guilty. He published information and he faces a lifetime in prison for it.’

In conclusion, she said:

‘The case is a complete aberration. That’s why you have all these major press freedom organisations and human rights organisations saying that this has to be dropped.’

We can take a significant step towards a saner society by shouting loudly for Julian Assange to be freed immediately. A good start would be to share widely this video from Double Down News in which Stella Assange describes the importance of the case and how we can all help.

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Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. In 2007, Media Lens was awarded the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Prize.

27 June 2022

Source: www.transcend.org

By Ben Norton

22 May 2022 – How does socialism with Chinese characteristics differ from Western neoliberal capitalism?

Multipolarista editor Benjamin Norton discussed China’s socialist model with economist John Ross, a senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China.

Ross criticized Western left-wing academics like David Harvey, who have argued that China’s economy is capitalist or even neoliberal.

“The Chinese model has nothing to do whatever with neoliberalism. And that’s why it produced totally different results,” Ross said.

“China has raised, by World Bank criteria, since 1978, 850 million people out of poverty,” he emphasized. “This is the greatest contribution to human rights in the entire world.”

“There has never been such an alleviation of poverty in the whole of world history,” he noted. “It’s more than 70% of all those people taken out of poverty on the world scale.”

What is ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’? Inside China’s economic model

20 June 2022

Source: www.transcend.org