Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has tried to calm advertiser concerns about his acquisition of Twitter, telling them that he’s buying the social media platform to help save human civilization and that he won’t let it become a “free-for-all hellscape.”

Speaking on the eve of closing his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, Musk posted a message to advertisers explaining his rationale for the deal. “I didn’t do it to make more money,” he said. “I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility.”

US Accelerates Plan to Deploy Upgraded Nukes to Europe

The US wants to replace its nuclear bombs in Europe with an updated version of the B61-12 on a faster timelineby Dave DeCamp Posted on October 26, 2022Categories News

The US has accelerated plans to deploy an upgraded version of its primary nuclear gravity bomb to Europe amid heightened tensions with Russia over the potential use of nuclear weapons.

‘No one can sit out the coming storm’: Putin’s milestone Valdai speech

Western hegemony should be replaced with an actual order respectful of all, the Russian leader said

The world is entering a decade of tumult as the pursuit of a more just world order clashes with the arbitrary hegemony of the collective West, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, addressing the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.

Putin’s speech ranged from biodiversity to “cancel culture,” the nature of what the West has to offer and Russia’s response, followed by hours of answering audience questions. Here are six key points from his opening remarks.

The West stokes conflict to preserve hegemony

When war comes, governments always believe that they must boost the morale of their people by showering them with propaganda. The stakes are so high, life and death, that debates get tougher and extremist positions become popular. This is exactly what we are witnessing, or rather how we are being transformed. In this game, the ideas defended by some and others have nothing to do with their ideological presuppositions, but with their proximity to power.

30 Democrats walk into the White House demanding diplomacy with Russia. Yes, this is a joke

A group of US representatives appealed to President Joe Biden to pursue diplomacy with Russia, only to retract their letter shortly thereafter, proving that not even the suggestion of talking to Russia is tolerated

BY ROBERT BRIDGE 

This week, a group of 30 congressional Democrats, undoubtedly more concerned about suffering an election blowout in November than experiencing a nuclear winter, called for dialogue with Moscow, only to immediately retreat from their ‘radical’ position hours later.

Why did no Australian media outlet tell us the easily discovered truth about the compromising of the integrity of the Australian submarine decision process revealed by US journalists last week?

On October 18th the Washington Post published a closely documented article by Craig Whitlock and Nate Jones titled “Former U.S. Navy Leaders Profited From Overlapping Interests On Sub Deal”.

A public call to ban The Grayzone by a UK Foreign Office veteran and psy-ops specialist confirms the malign intentions of British intelligence.

The Arvamusfestival (Opinion Festival) convened this August by the Estonian Foreign Ministry featured as its centerpiece an English-language panel on “how to deal with misinformation…in the interests of curbing its propagation.” 

BY KIT KLARENBERG

The Conservative (“Tory”) Party has been in power in the United Kingdom for 12 years, with a long line of forgettable Prime Ministers surfing over restive voters who demanded Brexit, reduced immigration, and more national sovereignty [How long have the Conservatives been in power and who were the Prime Ministers, by Caroline Westbrook, Metro, October 20, 2022].

The United Nations abruptly wrapped up its anti-torture mission to Australia on Sunday after inspectors were not allowed to visit numerous jails and detention centers in the country, according to the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT).

"Usually doors are only closed if officials have something to hide," Stuart Rees, Australian academic, human rights activist, and author, told Sputnik. "Too often, even in democracies, leading politicians like to think that their (outdated) views of sovereignty entitle them to ignore UN obligations. A certain authoritarianism implies that State forms of punishment and containment should never be challenged."

BY EKATERINA BLINOVA

The U.S. public relations firm helping Egypt organise COP27 also works for major oil companies and has been accused of greenwashing on their behalf, openDemocracy can reveal.

Hill+Knowlton Strategies, which has worked for ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and Saudi Aramco, is managing communications for Egypt’s presidency of the U.N. climate conference, which will take place next month in Sharm El Sheikh.

By Ben Webster and Lucas Amin
openDemocracy

The EU seeks to outright confiscate Russian assets rather than just freeze them, but the bloc has yet to lay the legal groundwork for doing so, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday.

The official delivered her remarks during a conference devoted to the rebuilding of Ukraine, which was attended by a number of Kiev’s prominent international donors.

“Our aim is not only to freeze, but to seize the assets,” she said, although cautioning that establishing a legal base for such a move is “not trivial.” 

According to von der Leyen, the EU has created a task force that includes various international experts “not only to map out what has been frozen,” but also to see what the legal preconditions would be for seizing Russian assets and using them for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, spent over an hour in a Ukrainian basement bomb shelter on Tuesday due to an air raid warning, his country’s state broadcaster ARD reported.

Correspondent, Rebecca Barth, posted an image of Steinmeier and other officials sharing a small room with a crowd of people on Twitter.

No aerial attacks on the city were reported during the day, and the incident coincided with Kiev making a strong appeal for Berlin to deliver Iris-T air defence systems.

To that end, Ukrainian officials had even placed Iris flowers in the president’s train carriage, while he travelled to Kiev, along with cards asking for the equipment.

Plastic recycling has turned out to be a “failed concept” used by global corporations as a “smokescreen,” Greenpeace USA has said, urging companies to focus on abandoning single-use plastic.  

In a report titled ‘Circular Claims Fall Flat Again’ and released on Monday, the environmental organization stated that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by US households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons, or 5%, were recycled. 

At least 15 retired US generals and admirals have taken exorbitant paychecks from the Saudi Defense Ministry since 2016, according to a Washington Post report published on Tuesday.

Over 500 former service members have advised foreign governments in arrangements that sometimes pay significantly more than a four-star general’s top annual salary of $203,698, the paper said.

Federal law requires retired military personnel to obtain government authorization to receive any sort of funding or gifts from foreign governments or state-owned firms. However, it’s largely a formality and approvals are “almost automatic,” with 95% of requests granted, according to the Post.

A midterm national election will be taking place in the United States in two weeks. American voters will, at least to a certain extent, be expressing their approval or disapproval on major issues like management of the economy and immigration, though they will curiously have no one to vote for if they are appalled by the nuclear brinksmanship that the Joe Biden administration has been engaging in with Ukraine and Russia.

BY PHILIP GIRALDI