Bye-bye, Kiev, hello Cote d’Azur: As Westerners send aid, here’s how Ukraine’s corrupt elites are profiting from the conflict

Officials and oligarchs have diverted much of the financial support sent to Kiev

There isn’t a Russian over the age of forty-five – 40 million people — who doesn’t know by heart Vladimir Lenin’s report on the work of the Council of People’s Commissars of December 22, 1920. 

In the 30 years since the world began negotiating the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, no one has identified exactly where all that pollution is coming from. That will begin to change next week when Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-Time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions)—a nonprofit coalition of artificial intelligence (AI) specialists, data scientists, researchers, and nongovernmental organizations—releases the first facility-level inventory of the largest known individual sources of the 162 million tons of GHG pollution emitted into the troposphere every day.

And you thought the big digital entertainment in the months ahead is Donald Trump’s return to Twitter.

Hah. What is coming to a split-screen near you in 2023 is much more dramatic. It is a direct result of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of a Special Counsel, Jack Smith, to take forward two critical investigations that may well seek to bring Trump to justice, and to show to the American people that no one, not even a former president, is above the law.

By Bruce Wolpe

What we will also see is the result of the Republicans winning control of the House of Representatives, and their insistence that Joe Biden be impeached for corruption.

Policing of protest has long been fraught in New South Wales. Over years a slow creep has chipped away at the right to peaceful public assembly. We reached an ugly and repressive high watermark this year. Legal changes and growing police repression against climate protestors has been widely documented (for example, here and here). Readers of this journal are likely aware of this alarming trend. In this article, we convey stories of activists targeted by the new laws and Strike Force Guard. These are anonymised accounts written in consultation with affected persons.

The global economic outlook is deteriorating due to inflation-fighting efforts by central banks, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and China’s prioritization of political control over economic growth. A global recession is likely, with at least slower economic growth virtually certain.

People who have followed my work for years often say that I’m an optimist, and usually I am. Right now, though, the weight of evidence points to a slowing world economy.

Bill Conerly

The European Parliament, which on Wednesday adopted a non-binding resolution branding Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism”, should be designated a “sponsor of idiocy,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

The EU’s legislative body passed the decision on Wednesday in a landslide vote in Strasbourg. The document was supported by 494 MEPs, with 58 votes against and 44 abstentions. The resolution merged drafts penned by three different factions of the European Parliament.

The labeling is the EU’s latest condemnation of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine. Some individual states, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the Czech Republic, previously passed similar resolutions on a national level.

According to The Wall Street Journal, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has been involved with a secretive “back channel” line of communication with top Russian officials as part of an effort by the U.S. and Russia to prevent the war in Ukraine from escalating into a nuclear conflict.

Among the officials named as representing the Russian conduit for this “back channel” are Yuri Ushakov, a senior foreign policy adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s security council.

BY Scott Ritter

The US Treasury announced on Tuesday that it would disburse $4.5 million to Ukraine in the coming weeks, according to a press release.

“Today, the United States continued to uphold its unwavering commitment to Ukraine with the mobilization of an additional $4.5 billion in grants for direct budget support,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in the release.

“These funds will begin disbursing in the coming weeks and help the Government of Ukraine defend against Russia’s illegal war by bolstering economic stability and supporting core government services, including wages for hospital workers, government employees, and teachers as well as social assistance for the elderly and vulnerable.”

Lost in the whirlwind of midterm election news last week was an announcement that not only will Washington send $400 million worth of additional weapons to Ukraine, but it is pushing forward with a new joint forces command, to be stationed in Germany, to “handle weapons shipments and personnel training.”

by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

For a country that has made human rights the glossy cover of its foreign policy rhetoric, this was not a good look. The Biden administration’s decision to grant Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman immunity from a civil lawsuit filed by the fiancé of murdered Saudi journalist and a human rights organisation simply stank.

At least five people have been killed and 25 injured after a gunman opened fire inside a gay club in the US state of Colorado on Saturday night.

A suspect is in police custody and is being treated for injuries. Two "heroic" people in the club subdued the attacker, police say.

I KNOW. I HIT MY HEAD AGAINST BRICK WALLS. NOT SOFT AND I'M STUPID FOR ARGUING. BUT MOST WESTERN JOURNALISTS SEE ONLY ONE SIDE OF THE UKRAINE CAPER. IT’S ACTUALLY NOT ONE SIDE, IT’S THE FABRICATED WESTERN SIDE, THE CURTAIN THAT IS HIDING THE REALITY:

ZELENSKY IS AN IDIOT. THIS IS MY POINT OF VIEW. I CAN EXPLAIN WHY (I HAVE DONE IT MANY TIMES ON THIS SITE), BUT THEY WON’T LET ME. ALL THEY KNOW IS THAT "PUTIN IS EVIL" BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THE US GOVERNMENT AND MURDOCH (WE BELIEVE MURDOCH NOW!) TELLS THEM… END OF STORY. THE ONLY CONCESSION THEY COULD MAKE:

— WHY DID PUTIN NOT STOP AT TAKING OVER THE DONBASS REGION THEN?

— HEY!!! LOOK AT THE MAP OF WHERE THE RUSSIAN ARMIES ARE NOW: IN THE DONBASS AND NOWHERE ELSE.

— SO WHY IS RUSSIAN “PRECISION” BOMBING UKRAINE’S UTILITIES AND ARMY DEPOTS?

The international climate talks in Egypt — the 27th Conference of Parties to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP27 — have become a dystopian nightmare: Oil companies, dictators and greenwashers captured the process more effectively than ever. 

But there is hope: Alliances are taking shape — between civil society, scientists and labor — that aim to break the fossil fuel companies’ deathly grip on climate policy.

BY Simon Pirani

Corporate Capture