Diplomacy and people-to-people exchanges can play a big role in securing global stability amid geopolitical and trade tensions, said former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern.

Responding to a question about the European Commission's additional tariffs on made-in-China electric vehicles, the former Irish prime minister, who was in office from 1997 to 2008, said: "I know that at times it is a bit difficult, but I think it's important that people keep talking, keep diplomacy, keep working, keep explaining each other's positions, and hopefully that (China-Europe relations) can be enhanced and can grow."

AS THE MOST UNIMPORTANT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SINCE HENRY THE VIII IS BEING FOUGHT BETWEEN TWO CHEEKS OF AN AMERICAN BUTT — AN ELECTION THE RESULT OF WHICH MAY NOT CHANGE THE AMERICAN DEEP STATE GOAL TO DESTROY ANYTHING THAT DOES NOT COMPLY TO ITS AIM OF OWNING THE PLANET, THE PRICE OF OIL IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HUMAN LIVES…

MEANWHILE, SOME IDIOT WITH ONE MILLION FOLLOWER RABBITS ON TIMES RADIO TO LET US KNOW THAT PUTIN IS GOING TO SUFFER BECAUSE HIS ARMIES WON VUHLEDAR… YES, THIS IDIOT IS TELLING US THAT “AS FAR AS HE KNOWS” THE RUSSIANS LOST 8 TIMES THE POPULATION OF THIS SMALL TOWN IN THIS “VICTORY”… BY NOW YOU REALISE THAT THIS BLABBER IS A FIBBER…

October 7 did not occur in a vacuum. It was the result of decades long Israeli occupation, never ending violence and oppression of Palestinians. The pressure cooker exploded!

A slightly updated post from December 19, 2023

Supporters of Zionism highlight the horrors of October 7 , ‘never again’ to divert attention from the continuing genocide  in Gaza inflicted by Israel. Our politicians and media cooperate in this diversionary  tactic. We are encouraged to turn away from the unspeakable Israeli inflicted atrocities and war crimes.

The European Union was founded not by Europeans, but by the United States and the United Kingdom to better control them. The European Commission (formerly called the High Authority) is the unelected administration responsible for imposing their will on the Member States. In recent years, it has managed to expand the Commission’s powers to the detriment of the sovereignty of the Member States without changing anything in the treaties. Following this same line, Michel Barnier is bringing the American Democrats and the fascist faction of Israel into the French government.

The place of the United States and Israel in the governments of the EU and France
by Thierry Meyssan

Control over and the effective use of the online space has proven crucial over the past two US election cycles, with a groundswell of pro-Trump memes helping propel the candidate to victory in 2016, and unprecedented censorship of a damaging story about Hunter Biden by tech companies aiding Joe Biden in his quest for the White House in 2020.

Former first lady, secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called on social media companies to ramp up the moderation and monitoring of content on their platforms if the powers that be want to maintain control of the information space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V79Q8jS9_ug

https://www.youtube.com/@OurCountryOurChoice

SEE ALSO: 

by Daniel McAdams 

Love me some Pepe. Pepe Escobar and first met last December, during my first trip to Moscow. We were instant friends. When I arrived in Moscow in the midst of a record-breaking snowstorm, I was standing in line waiting to check in to the hotel and noticed that the man in front of me looked remarkably like Pepe Escobar. The man turned, looked at me, and then said, “Oh my God! You’re Larry Johnson.” And I said, “You look like Pepe Escobar.” He laughed with his iconic good cheer and we immediately agreed to meet for drinks and a snack. This was the birth of a dear friendship.

BY LARRY JOHNSON

Australia has always been aligned with military empires: first the British Empire and now that of the USA. In the current era this alignment is misguided. It comes with enormous social and economic costs and does not protect us from current threats – indeed it makes us more of a target. There are alternatives, and we can work together towards them.

Americans  grow up in a political culture in which many of them continue to believe into adulthood certain assumptions about America’s place in the world.

Chief among these is that U.S. motives abroad are to spread and defend democracy rather than to impose its economic and geostrategic interests, often through extreme violence. 

Consortium News is dedicated to challenging these widely-believed myths about America with factual reporting. 

Minds can be so poisoned, though, that a publication that does this is unlikely to be seen as genuinely trying to get at the truth, but rather as being an agent of an American enemy.  

Adam Hanieh’s new book, Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market (Verso, 2024) could not be timelier. As all eyes turn to Baku for COP29, the capitalist world heads to yet another performance of misdirection. In contrast to that monumental deception, we need to see things as they really stand and take action accordingly. So, let’s take a deep dive and get the record straight, the basic problem remains that capitalism is destroying planet Earth at an accelerating pace. Crude Capitalism—hereafter CC—goes a long way to explaining why the capitalist powers remain so fully committed to oil, come what may.

A probe by India’s Income Tax Department into five major nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the country has reportedly unearthed evidence that they used foreign funding for activities aimed at stalling economic and development projects. 

According to a report in Indian Express, the probe was launched after searches were conducted by tax authorities in September 2022 at the Indian offices of fine NGOs – Oxfam, Centre for Policy Research (CPR), Environics Trust, Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment, and Care India Solution for Sustainable Development. 

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has become increasingly displeased with the work of military intelligence head Kirill Budanov and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, and could replace them in the coming weeks, several outlets in Kiev have said.

Forbes Ukraine was the first to report the rumors, citing an official inside the presidential cabinet and two lawmakers on the defense committee of the Verkhovna Rada. As the main reason for the proposed personnel changes, they listed the “growing challenges at the front.”

Discussions about Budanov’s sacking have been going on for at least a month, according to Forbes’s sources. The head of the military intelligence service HUR reportedly has “strained relations” with Zelensky’s chief of staff Andrey Yermak and General Aleksandr Syrsky, the supreme commander of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Ukraine may have to recognize the loss of some of its territory to Russia in order to achieve peace and security guarantees, Jens Stoltenberg said in his first long interview after stepping down as NATO secretary-general. 

Stoltenberg ended his ten-year tenure as the chief of the US-led alliance on October 1. In a conversation with the Financial Times published on Friday, he said that Kiev may be forced to rethink seeing the restoration of the 1991 borders as a prerequisite for any peace deal. 

Stoltenberg suggested that “a kind of new momentum” would come after the US presidential election in early November, possibly ushering in “ways to try to get movement on the battlefield combined with movement around the negotiating table.” 

Former President Donald Trump has spent this week criticizing Democrats for their response to Hurricane Helene — going so far as to say party leaders aren’t interested in helping Republicans in the hardest-hit areas of southern Appalachia.

During a visit to Valdosta, Georgia, he claimed without evidence that the Biden administration — and Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper — were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”

But Trump has his own record to stand on, Scott Waldman and Thomas Frank report.