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 

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has lauded Russia’s armed forces and weaponry on Saturday – but added, however, that such military might has not enabled Moscow to achieve victory in the Ukraine conflict.

“You know, the Russians have a massive military and impressive weapons,” but this “hasn’t helped them prevail in a campaign of conquest and cruelty,” Austin claimed, speaking at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada on Saturday.

According to the official, “it’s about the cause,” as well as “those who fight for it.”

The secretary of defense went on to praise President Joe Biden for rallying “nations of goodwill” against Russia’s attempts to “redraw borders by force.”

A surprisingly frank article in The New York Times, “Western Allies Look to Ukraine as a Testing Ground for Weapons” describes how the imperial war machine is capitalising on the U.S. proxy war to test its weapons for future use.

“Ukraine has become a testing ground for state-of-the-art weapons and information systems, and new ways to use them, that Western political officials and military commanders predict could shape warfare for generations to come,” writes Lara Jakes.

BY Caitlin Johnstone

The leaders in the creation of the low-carbon infrastructure of the future must be those who will know how to build it, not those whose principal occupation is trading shares on the secondary market. This is why I believe that China, despite its current dependence on coal, is much more likely to achieve its future carbon emission goals than the United States.

A myriad of organisations of institutional investors, representing trillions of dollars of assets, have formed to back measures to mitigate climate change, drawing much media attention. But they are the wrong people to lead the climate fight.

New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg has reportedly been forced to apologize to guests at a business conference in Singapore after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a speech condemning China as a “coercive autocracy.”

The ex-mayor of New York City and failed Democrat Party presidential candidate acknowledged to the approximately 500 Asian businesspeople and diplomats at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum that some guests may have been “insulted or offended” by Johnson’s comments, The Guardian reported on Friday.

SCIENCES ARE RELATIVE. SOME ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN VARIOUS SCIENTIFIC MAGAZINES EXPLORE THIS. BUT DESPITE BEING NON-ABSOLUTE, SCIENCES ARE FAR BETTER THAN THE GENERATOR OF DELUSIONS. 

THERE IS ALSO SOME RIVALRY (POLITE) BETWEEN PUBLISHERS OF SCIENTIFIC STUFF. WE KNOW SOME PUBLISHERS DEMAND ASTRONOMICAL FEES FOR THEIR FARE, WHICH COULD OR COULD NOT BE WRONG/RIGHT. PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED.

SOME SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS GO MORE AND MORE INTO THE POLITICS OF “MANAGING” SCIENCES AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. THIS SLIDES TOWARDS A MIX OF SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL “SCIENCES” WHICH ARE ART FORMS BASED ON STATISTICS AND OPINIONS. 

Ukraine could capture Russia’s Crimea by the end of this year, the country’s deputy defense minister, Vladimir Gavrilov, has said. In an interview with Sky New on Saturday, Gavrilov stated that what is known as a ‘black swan’ – or a sudden and unexpected event – could bring about Kiev’s victory. 

“I think Russia can face a black swan in their country, inside Russia, and this can contribute to [our] success with Crimea,” he said, adding that there was “also a military option as well with some kind of combination of forces, resources and something else.”  

“We can step into Crimea, for example, by the end of December. Possible? Possible. Not ruling out that it can be so,” Gavrilov added. 

Two false news reports went viral this week due to sloppy sourcing and journalistic malpractice. As usual they both featured bogus claims about U.S.-targeted nations, in this case Russia and Iran.

The US State Department is funding a video game with an anti-populist message aimed at teaching kids to recognize “disinformation,” according to documents published by the Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO) on Thursday. The game, 'Cat Park', is being rolled out globally, with US embassies asking employees to push it through schools and community organizations.

In a memo sent on October 31 to all US diplomatic posts worldwide, the State Department encouraged staff to “promote,” “publicize,” and “organize special rollout events” for ‘Cat Park’, a game developed by a Dutch studio and funded by the State Department’s ‘Global Engagement Center’ (GEC).

SECRETARY MATTIS: Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to today’s event, a conversation between former Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice and our current Secretary of State Tony Blinken. At a time when America is navigating its role in a changing world, today’s talk in the finest tradition of the great university where we meet offers a unique opportunity to delve into important issues.

I’m Jim Mattis, a Fellow here at Hoover, where we seek to improve the human condition by advancing ideas that promote economic opportunity while safeguarding peace. Thanks to their record of devoted service to our nation, little introduction is needed for these two patriots. America is one great, big, promising, exasperating, inspiring, and vexing experiment with all the political volatility inherent to a free and open society.

...a picture of a tired looking Xi Jinping – taken at the G20 – the Sydney Morning Herald ran the headline: The Face of Capitulation. It was as banal as it was predictable. It was for a Peter Hartcher story that crowed at having slayed the dragon (sub-text: this was Hartcher’s personal victory).

After having been among the earliest promoters of the China Threat and having kept banging gongs and cymbals for the past five years to keep it alive, the Herald could hardly have said anything else as the Albanese Government decisively changed course in the management of Australia’s relationship with China.

Is there a link between 'Aid to Ukraine,' the US Democratic Party and the suspicious collapse of the FTX Crypto exchange?

We don't know exactly how much money was raised for Kiev, and how much of it reached its intended destination

Breaking news throughout the first half of November has been dominated by coverage of the sudden collapse of FTX, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges.

By Felix Livshitz

THIS IS A PICTURE OF BANKSY TAG ART IN UKRAINE, SHOWING A KID BEATING PUTIN AT JUDO, AFTER THE BOMBING OF A SCHOOL. WE CRY FOR THE KIDS WHO MAY HAVE DIED, YET WE CANNOT SUPPORT BANKSY'S EFFORTS WHICH HAVE TAKEN A WESTERN SIDE TO AN ISSUE THAT HAS BEEN 100 PER CENT CREATED BY THE WEST (USA). BANKSY COULD HAVE DONE SIMILAR ART BETWEEN 2014 AND EARLY 2022 IN THE DONETSK REGION, WHICH HAD BEEN BOMBARDED BY UKRAINIAN NAZI TROOPS — KILLING MORE THAN 14,000 (UNITED NATIONS RECORDED FIGURE). AS WELL, BANKSY COULD HAVE DONE A TAG ABOUT THE BURNING OF RUSSIANS/UKRAINIAN IN ODESSA. THUS TAKING SIDE IS FRAUGHT WITH WESTERN DISINFORMATION USING REAL HUMAN TRAGEDIES.

I THUS REFRAINED TO MODIFY THIS PICTURE WHICH I COULD HAVE AS THUS:

World events have abandoned any concept of reason or reality.  Nuclear war is now seen by many, perhaps most, as inevitable.  Insanity and injustice are flourishing and humanity will either end or the mechanisms that make up our world as we know it must grind to a halt.

No side even cares to bring God into the equation anymore.  Third Reich occultism is reborn in not just Ukraine but across NATO and the EU.  Extremist minorities in the US and across Europe are being empowered to establish a monstrous world order characterized by something far darker than simple tyranny.

BY Gordon Duff

There are milestones.  Former Vatican exorcist Malachi Martin, in his NY Times bestseller Keys of Blood addresses the issue of inherent evil invading Europe and the Christian world:

Corruption has been eradicated from Ukraine and all Russian influences have left or been chased out, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told a global audience at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum on Thursday.

“No one will be able to forgive corruption in the future Ukraine,” he said, explaining that all the corrupt officials had fled the country in the months following the launch of Russia’s military operation. The remaining officials would not be tempted to “interfere in business operations” because all government services had gone electronic, he added.