Since the global financial crisis, big banks have taken a backseat, and asset managers have become the – often self-appointed – new experts and administrators of capitalism. Yet, collectively they also own global housing and infrastructure assets, prioritising immediate profits over other considerations like community, locality, workers and the environment.

Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World

cc. Yanis Varoufakis wanted to deliver the following speech during a “Palestine Conference” in Berlin, which was planned for three days and organised by various German and international, including Jewish, associations. Yanis Varoufakis was Greece’s finance minister during the country’s manifest euro crisis in 2015 and is now Secretary General of the pan-European Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), a pan-European political party that he co-founded and which co-organised the Berlin conference.

Ukraine’s authorities approved a new mobilization law in April, with the legislation intended to mobilize hundreds of thousands more troops to fuel NATO’s proxy war against Russia. Along with draconian penalties for draft dodgers, the mobilization drive has been accompanied by some eyebrow-raising measures to ‘incentivize’ would-be recruits.

Britain’s leading business newspaper has unintentionally made a laughing stock of the Kiev regime’s efforts to get more Ukrainian bodies on the battlefield, dubbing a new strategy involving giving recruits a chance to pick where which forces they serve in a “choose your own adventure” scheme.

Ill health, perhaps especially mental ill health, is generally seen as a personal issue, requiring diagnosis and treatment. But at the population level, mental health problems have a profound message for our societies and their futures. We need to pay it more heed.

A new international review has concluded that rates of emotional problems such as depression and anxiety have increased among adolescents in many countries over the past four decades, and outcomes for those with problems have worsened.

WE CANNOT FOSTER PEACE BY BECOMING WARRIORS — Vladimir Leonisky (cousin)

Today, the misery of war is all too striking in places such as Syria, Yemen, Tigray, Myanmar and Ukraine. It can come as a surprise to learn that there are scores of sustainably peaceful societies around the world, ranging from indigenous people in the Xingu River Basin in Brazil to countries in the European Union. Learning from these societies, and identifying key drivers of harmony, is a vital process that can help promote world peace.

Peace Is More Than War’s Absence, and New Research Explains How to Build It

On April 7, the U.S. Central Command issued a press release boasting about their destruction of a mobile surface-to-air missile system in the Houthi-controlled territory of Yemen.

Since commencing a bombing operation on January 12, the U.S. and Great Britain have carried out 424 air strikes targeting the Houthis in Yemen, resulting in at least 37 deaths and 30 injuries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hqR15v1uVI

How is the OECD supporting a more level playing field?

While subsidies can be helpful policy tools for addressing emergencies or market failures - where other instruments are less effective or appropriate - they can also distort trade and competition depending on their design and target. Much like doping in sports, government support can give some firms a leg-up on their competitors that is not grounded in economic or market forces, but instead in the generosity of the government supporting them. This undermines fair competition and the willingness of economies to accept the results of that competition. Support may in turn push other countries to respond in kind, to the detriment of consumers, taxpayers, and other governments that do not have sufficient fiscal space, ultimately undermining public support for, and confidence in, an interconnected global economy.

THE AMERICAN EMPIRE HAS BEEN A PLAGUE ON THIS PLANET… THIS EMPIRE REPLACED A GAMUT OF OTHER EMPIRES — THE ENGLISH, THE FRENCH, THE SPANISH, THE PORTUGUESE, THE GERMANS AND OTHER PLUNDERERS OF WEAKER NATIONS. 

SOON AFTER THE BRITISH LED THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, THE AMERICAN EMPIRE BECAME THE BIGGEST POLLUTER ON THE PLANET — WITH MAINLY A DECEITFUL IDEOLOGY, PLASTICS, CHEMICALS, VIRUS GAIN OF FUNCTION AND CO2… 

ON THE FOOTSTEPS OF EUROPEAN POLITICAL DESPOTISM, THE AMERICAN EMPIRE WAS THE INSPIRATION FOR FASCISM, USING FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY AND EXCEPTIONALISM AS SMOKESCREENS FOR ITS VILE RUTHLESSNESS. 

WAIVING MONEY AS BAIT, IT DESTROYED THE SPIRITS OF FAIRNESS AND COVERTLY CONTINUED SLAVERY… INDEPENDENCE IS A DIRTY WORD FOR THE EMPIRE: “YOU’RE WITH US OR AGAINST US”…

Current international events confirm the correctness of the direction observed within the multipolar world order main forces and their closest allies. Namely, a full-fledged dialogue with the Western minority is absolutely not necessary in order to achieve the contemporary multipolar world supporters objectives. The Western planetary minority still lives in a completely different and parallel reality. This therefore means that there is absolutely no point in wasting precious time. 

BY Mikhail Gamandiy-Egorov

Macron ‘breathes Russophobia’ – Lavrov
The French leader may be scaremongering in order to gain a leading role in the EU, Moscow has suggested

French President Emmanuel Macron may be using Russophobia to satisfy his ambition of leading the EU, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has claimed.

Speaking to the Bosnian Serb Alternativna TV on Sunday, Lavrov noted the French leader’s recent interview with The Economist in which he called Moscow the main threat to EU security, adding that Macron has adopted an “ardent”anti-Russian stance.

“According to the French leader, the ambitions of Adolf Hitler and Napoleon were driven by the fact that these countries saw Russia as a threat,” Lavrov claimed.

Last Sunday, Israel closed Al Jazeera’s office in occupied East Jerusalem, confiscating broadcast equipment and taking the channel off air. Israel’s targeting of journalists and their families, the closure of Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem office, the imprisonment and alleged torture of journalists, and the refusal to let foreign journalists enter Gaza amounts to a war on journalism.

Palestinian journalist Ahmed Alnaouq’s first published story dealt with what he described as Israel’s murder of his brother Ayman in 2014.

• In short: Germany's foreign minister says she is concerned about being too reliant on China for trade.
• She has also warned Israel about conducting any military offensive in Rafah.
• What's next? She said the European nation should look to trade directly with Australia on minerals like lithium.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says her country has overhauled its strategic approach to China to avoid a repeat of the past when, she says, the NATO member failed to realise the extent of its economic dependence on Russia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txzjKRrBT5c

Putin's New Traditional Vodka...

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