China spent over *$106 billion* building Venezuela’s oil economy over two decades — loans, refineries, pipelines, joint ventures, and oil-backed debt deals. Then in January 2026, the United States launched a dramatic Delta Force operation, captured Nicolás Maduro, and declared a new era for Venezuela. But did Washington actually take control… or walk straight into a trap China already prepared?

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Opposition Leader Angus Taylor would seek to jump on the orange bandwagon by cosying up to One Nation, and emulating Trump, given the PHONies’ recent surge in popularity and the Libs’ ever-plunging support.

The recent two-day Beijing summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping has come and gone. There was pageantry: Military honors, flag-waving children, flowers and toasts. Both governments declared success. The relationship has been stabilized, which is not nothing, but the deeper question about the future of our global governance architecture remains unanswered.

After Beijing: An Architecture Still Adrift

The bilateral guardrails erected in Beijing last week may buy time, but they do not fix global governance institutions drifting toward a rupture that historically has preceded systemic collapse, writes Tatiana Carayannis.

PassBlue

"For France and Russia, being united means being strong; being divided means being in danger. This is a necessary condition from the standpoint of geography, experience, and intelligence."

Soviet-French Alliance named after de Gaulle

A great son of his people, raised in the spirit of patriotism and love for his homeland, de Gaulle recalled his youth: 

Australia is part of the white man’s intelligence network, Five Eyes. That means too much CIA input into anti-China perceptions in recent years. It also helped bring down the Whitlam government.

Five Eyes, the intelligence alliance between Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand was established in 1946. Today, we need to ask, who are the Five Eyes loyal to?

John Menadue

Cuba has survived as a communist country probably because it was sanctioned by the USA and Cuba had to become self-sufficient. Self-sufficiency is the main purpose of socialism for a group of people, in which no-one is allowed to dictate to others, but decisions are made collectively… 

Most societies around the world have a certain proportion of socialistic policies in order to help the less fortunate people. The amount of help is the difficult balancing point of budgeting for democratic outcomes… In some societies, this amount of help is minimal and leads to cronyism. In America, the system resents having to support the poor, while helping the rich [and the military complex].

2025 can be seen as the year in which the united anti-Russian coalition fell apart. In essence, there are now three distinct players acting against Russia (Ukraine, Europe, the US), and each has its own interests. Analyst Sergey Poletaev has prepared a series of articles in which he analyses the position of each player, their goals and interests in the conflict, and suggests how Russia might respond. 

Ukraine and the road to ruin

The fate of the conflict, part 1: The state that forgot how to live without war

BY Sergey Poletaev

The first one concerns Ukraine.

Yesterday [TUESDAY 5 NOV 2019] I started a thread on Twitter lamenting the fact that support for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange has been eroded all across the political spectrum since 2016 by the establishment smear campaign.

Propaganda Narratives Are Custom-Made For Each Ideological Echo Chamber

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT BY THE G7, ALSO POSTED ON MARK CARNEY'S OFFICIAL PRIME MINISTER WEBSITE, HAS OMITTED THE NATO ORIGIN OF THE RUSSIA/UKRAINE CONFLICT AS WELL AS THE NAZI INFLUENCE ON THE PRESENT KIEV REGIME... WE HAVE ALSO EXPOSED THAT CANADA [WITH THE USA AND AUSTRALIA] HAS BEEN THE MAIN REFUGE FOR UKRAINIAN NAZIS AFTER WW2...

G7 Leaders’ statement on the war in Ukraine

February 24, 2026

Ottawa, Ontario

The final episode of Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ represents not just the end of Colbert’s career, but the final nail in the coffin of the ‘Orange Man Bad’ activist comedy of the early Trump years. 

After an 11-year run, the final episode of ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ airs on Thursday night. Riding a wave of liberal anguish over the election of President Donald Trump in 2017, Colbert’s highly partisan brand of comedy garnered massive ratings, but as seasons went by and Colbert ditched laughs for naked propaganda, the schtick wore thin and the show’s cancellation was announced by CBS last summer.

Colbert’s finale marks the end of comedy’s ‘Orange Man Bad’ era
From Russiagate to the ‘vax-scene’ trainwreck, RT looks back at the lowlights of Stephen Colbert’s showreel...

Netanyahu’s ‘hair was on fire’ after Trump call on Iran – Axios
Israel wants to resume the war, while Washington and regional mediators push Tehran to accept a peace deal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was furious after a tense call with US President Donald Trump over a new proposal to end the war with Iran, Axios reported on Wednesday, citing three sources familiar with the matter.

One US source briefed on the conversation said Netanyahu’s “hair was on fire” after the call, which took place after Trump delayed a “very major attack” on Iran, saying Gulf leaders asked the US to give diplomacy more time.

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation won the Farrer by-election last week, while Nigel Farage’s Reform UK trashed the British Labour Party in local council elections. What’s behind it? Aleta Moriarty asks.

The Farrer by-election result and Reform UK’s stunning win both reflect growing frustration with mainstream politics, soaring inequality and a distrust of institutions, being captured by the populist right, and perhaps paving the way for autocracy.

The Hanson surge. Protest vote a threat to democracy?

by Aleta Moriarty

Buried (or sunk) in last week’s Federal budget was another $6 billion to be spent extending the life of the Collins Class submarines. But as Rex Patrick explains, we’ll be getting less.

On Budget night, the price of the Collins life extension went from $5B to $11B. Ka-ching! Recall, the life extension is a program that is only necessary because the Defence don’t know how to buy subs in a timely and cost-effective manner.

“Enhanced sustainment.” Collins Class subs to fight on – the true Budget hit

by Rex Patrick

The recent Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing may not have resolved major geopolitical disputes, but renewed dialogue between the United States and China represents an important step toward reducing tensions and strategic misunderstanding.

Jocelyn Chey

The indictment of former Cuban President Raul Castro by the US Justice Department marks the latest escalation in Washington’s pressure campaign against Havana. Is President Donald Trump trying to repeat the Maduro playbook?

Unsealed on Wednesday, the indictment accuses Castro of ordering the shooting down of two American planes off the coast of Cuba in 1996. Castro and five of his officials are charged with conspiracy to kill US nationals, destruction of aircraft, and four counts of murder, one for each of the Cuban-Americans killed in the shootdown.