On Tuesday, the so-called EU-US Taskforce on the Inflation Reduction Act was formed in a move agreed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US Deputy National Security Adviser Mike Pyle.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron are seeking to try to clinch “a negotiated solution” with Washington over “unfair competition from the US” and the possible need for the EU to strike back, US media reports.

Hollywood star Sean Penn has once again visited Kiev and exchanged gifts with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, telling his “great friend” to hold onto his golden statuette until Ukraine defeats Russia.

“This is for you… When you win, bring it back to Malibu. I'll feel much better knowing a piece of me is here,” Penn told Zelensky, according to a video shared by the president's office on Tuesday. “It's just a symbolic silly thing, but if I know this is here with you then I'll feel better and stronger for the fight...”

BOOM

Since 2018, the US has seen its primary strategic focus as preparing for so-called “great power competition” with Russia and China. It claims the two nations are spearheading an effort to overturn the US-run global order established at the end of the Cold War.

US Navy Adm. Charles Richard, the head of US Strategic Command, recently warned the US would soon face a protracted conflict with China unlike anything it’s faced before. Stratcom is responsible for handling the country’s nuclear weapons, as well as the suite of defensive and offensive information capabilities termed C4ISR.

The World Economic Forum’s ‘First Movers Coalition’ climate change agenda was “modelled” off the effort to roll out vaccines during the Chinese coronavirus crisis, John Kerry said at a COP27 panel in Egypt on Tuesday.

Appearing alongside WEF President Børge Brende and various corporate executives, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said that it is urgent for the private sector to pair with governments to realise the goal of preventing the global temperature from rising and to save lives in the allegedly looming global climate crisis.

US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden says a 1983 interview with former CIA officer Frank Snepp, detailing how the agency used mainstream newspapers in the US to distribute disinformation, is still the “most important video of the year.”

Snowden, who currently lives in Russia after gaining citizenship in the country, posted a short clip from Snepp’s interview on Monday. In the video, the former intelligence officer explained how he had served as an interrogator, agent debriefer and chief strategy analyst while working in the US embassy in Saigon during the Vietnam War.

Snepp said one his duties was to brief the press when the CIA wanted to “circulate disinformation on a particular issue,” noting that this information was not necessarily a lie, and could be a half-truth. 

Voter grumbling, rage and cynicism is rampant heading into the mid-term elections on November 8th. Add the flattering, flummoxing and fooling of voters by many corporatist politicians to the mix and we have the makings of an election-day disaster.

Set the above aside and reflect on the unused citizen power, given wholesale, to 535 members of Congress. Our sovereign power starts with the preamble to our U.S. Constitution – that is “We the People.” Not “We the Congress.” Not “We the Corporations.” As a Republic, we then delegate power to Congress to define, enable and fund the activities of the Executive and Judicial branches.

By Ralph Nader

Sooner or later, probably later, NATO plus Australia will be contemplating the consequences of not having won the war in Ukraine.

For a while, the prospects seemed uncommonly good. Ukrainian soldiers were pushing back Russians from Eastern Ukraine land they had occupied, and Russian soldiers were seeming to show no anxiety to fight. But the Russians appear to have regrouped and have renewed a bombing campaign that is stretching Ukraine’s power and industrial capacity, as well as its civilians.

By Jack Waterford

As US voters head to the polls for the much-anticipated Midterms, talk of Russian trolls monkeying with US democracy is back in the news. But does the country really need Russia’s help in “stoking anger” among the electorate?

If the hyper-liberal New York Times can be taken at face value just two days before an epic election, Russia’s underground army of trolls is, once again, attempting to seed the minds of malleable US voters to the Kremlin’s advantage. If those charges sounded outlandish in 2016, when the Democrats accused Russian ‘influencers’ of denying Hillary Clinton the presidency, they seem doubly so today.

BY ROBERT BRIDGE

Australia’s secretive military pact with the US and UK (AUKUS) is an offensive Anglosphere war megamachine shield from growing human and political upheavals of global warming and expanding inequity in global governance. Climate change constitutes an existential threat to humanity and a peaceful world order.

US’ satellite states are uniting, strategising to secure their borders and economies from both internal and external threats. AUKUS embodies the geopolitics of an armed lifeboat against the rest of the world, expanding their sovereign and private wealth against all others. A garrison mindset is being constructed to protect national homelands from growing waves of climate and war refugees.

AS A VETERAN PROTESTER AGAINST THE US NUCLEAR SHIPS COMING INTO SYDNEY HARBOUR (1983), MR LEONISKY CANNOT LET THE LABOR PARTY CONTINUE ON ITS STUPID WAR MENTALITY, with the B-52s in the NT.

Stopping Putin [went] to air on Monday 7th November at 8.30pm. It is replayed on Tuesday 8th November at 11pm and Wednesday 9th November at 10am. It can also be seen on ABC NEWS channel on Saturday at 8.10pm AEDT, ABC iview and at abc.net.au/4corners

HERE WE HAVE A (LONG) LOADED MYOPIC VIEW OF A SORRY SAGA being prominently FEATURED ON THE ABC. IT IS DISINFORMATION (USING SELECTED INFORMATION MINUS THE TRUE INTENTS).

WE COULD NOT DISAGREE THAT “MANY” PEOPLE HAVE SUFFERED FROM THE INTERVENTION BY RUSSIA IN UKRAINE. YET, THIS DOCUMENTARY WHICH SHOWS ONLY ONE NAIVE POLITICAL NARRATIVE IS ACTUALLY DANGEROUS. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN "STOPPING THE USA"....

VIDEO: Stopping Putin: Did Western powers fail to prevent war in Ukraine?

An article, titled "Chinese Democracy: A True Solution", published in China Daily in December 2021, said China holds "direct election of deputies to the county and township-level people's congresses". The author, Chen Yun, charge d'affaires, Chinese embassy in Indonesia, describes the Chinese government system as an "institutional foundation for protecting the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people".

By Mario Cavolo, Jasna Plevnik. Liu Dongchao

This shows democracy should be for all the people, not just for the wealthy. And this is perhaps the simplest way of explaining why corruption is so high in the so-called democratic governments in Western countries.

The world must choose whether to cut emissions or condemn future generations to a climate catastrophe, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned while speaking at the COP27 summit in Egypt on Monday.

“Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish,” Guterres told delegates gathered to discuss how to combat change amid an ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine and rising global inflation and energy shortages.

Guterres insisted that the world’s richest and poorest counties must form a pact to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels, singling out China and the United States as two countries that have a“particular responsibility to join efforts to make this pact a reality.”

It is either a climate solidarity pact or a collective suicide pact.

A team of researchers at the University of Adelaide have found that as many as 80 percent of tweets about the 2022 Russia-Ukraine invasion in its early weeks were part of a covert propaganda campaign originating from automated fake “bot” accounts.

An anti-Russia propaganda campaign originating from a “bot army” of phony automated Twitter accounts flooded the internet at the start of the war. 

By Peter Cronau 

Declassified Australia

A general that Vladimir Putin recently hailed the ‘Hero of Russia’ has reportedly been removed from his position as Moscow’s invasion faces embarrassing setbacks.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said General Alexander Lapin had been sacked from the role, the fourth senior commander to have been pushed aside since the war began.

It follows a pattern of senior military officials copping the blame for Mr Putin’s floundering war to “deflect blame from Russian senior leadership at home”.

“If confirmed, this follows a series of dismissals of senior Russian military commanders since the onset of the invasion in February,” the UK intelligence said.

“Lapin has been widely criticised for poor performance on the battlefield in Ukraine.