The secrecy surrounding Australian foreign and defence policy protects planners from the public that elected them. The war in Afghanistan offers ample evidence.

The United States and Australia carried out an assassination campaign against the tactical leadership of the insurgency. Known as the Joint Prioritized Effects List (JPEL), it is an intelligence-driven assassination program enabled by drones and special forces. 

By  Clinton Fernandes
Declassified Australia

In an arc of militarisation across northern Australia, successive Australian governments, in close concert with the United States, have responded to the rise of a newly assertive China in terms that constitute an almost historically irrevocable opposition to any accommodation with China as a regional great power.

“The Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review is, at heart, a terrifying document. It not only keeps the world on a path of increasing nuclear risk, in many ways it increases that risk. Citing rising threats from Russia and China, it argues that the only viable U.S. response is to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal, maintain an array of dangerous Cold War-era nuclear policies, and threaten the first use of nuclear weapons in a variety of scenarios.” Stephen Young, Union of Concerned Scientists

The results are in for Brazil’s presidential election, which has drawn serious international attention. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known mononymously as Lula, won the contest with 50.9% of the vote, to incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro’s 49.1%, which is in line with what polls suggested would happen. My best friend, who I mentioned in my last column on this topic for RT, thankfully was not left in tears this time, but was shrieking over the phone in glee. 

Benito Mussolini’s seizure of power in Italy in 1922 was secretly assisted by the British government, which bet on the fascist dictator to protect its interests in the Mediterranean, a new book claims.

Backed by violent gangs of black shirts, Mussolini set up a fascist regime in Italy in the 1920s, banned Jews from public life in the 1930s and sided with Hitler in the Second World War before he was lynched by partisans in 1945.

by Tom Kington

Although he battled the British in Africa during the war, archives show that Mussolini partly owed his rapid rise to British officials who helped to organise his 1922 march on Rome, according to Giovanni Fasanella, co-author of Nero di Londra.

An open letter to Prime Minister Albanese, Defence Minister Marles and Foreign Minister Wong on Australia’s decision to train Ukrainian troops.

Dear Prime Minister Albanese, Defence Minister Marles and Foreign Minister Wong,

A surprise announcement was made on 26 October 2022 that Australia would send up to 70 troops to the United Kingdom to train forces from the Ukraine. There was little, or perhaps no, public debate on this decision in the lead up to the announcement. Given the importance of this matter, I have some questions on this decision, the answers to which I believe are in the public interest.

Sydney is set to burst into life this summer with concerts, food experiences, Christmas markets, international sporting events and arts and cultural events thanks to the NSW Government’s Summer in Sydney event series.

Premier Dominic Perrottet said dozens of unique events will roll out across the CBD and Western Sydney over summer to suit every age and interest and get people enjoying the city like never before.

“Whether you’re keen to dine at the city’s longest ever lunch, watch a harbourside concert on the Cahill Expressway, or soak up the festive spirit at Christmas markets in the Botanic Gardens, there will be something for everyone,” Mr Perrottet said.

President Joe Biden is undermining his party’s Congressional prospects through a deeply flawed foreign policy. Biden believes that America’s global reputation is at stake in the Ukraine War and has consistently rejected a diplomatic off-ramp. The Ukraine War, combined with the administration’s disruptions of economic relations with China, is aggravating the stagflation that will likely deliver one or both houses of Congress to the Republicans. Far worse, Biden’s dismissal of diplomacy prolongs the destruction of Ukraine and threatens nuclear war.

Biden ‘lost temper’ with Zelensky over aid request – media

The US president had just informed his Ukrainian counterpart of a $1 billion package when Zelensky asked for more, NBC reported

Joe Biden “lost his temper” when Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky asked him for more military aid immediately after the US President informed him that Washington would send $1 billion, NBC News reported on Monday.

Biden spoke with Zelensky by phone in June, with the US president informing Zelensky that he had approved a $1 billion package of military aid to Kiev, the American broadcaster reported. Biden had signed off on a mammoth $40 billion economic and military aid package only weeks beforehand, bringing the total allocated to Ukraine by his administration to nearly $55 billion at the time.

In an interview with Irish state broadcaster RTE on Friday, Lagarde said: “We do it because we are fighting inflation” that had “pretty much come about from nowhere.” She pointed to a speedier-than-expected economic rebound from the pandemic as a cause alongside “the energy crisis caused by Mr. Putin who has decided in an unjustifiable way to invade another country.” 

The ECB chief added: “That’s what he [Putin] is trying to do, cause chaos and destroy as much of Europe as he can. This energy crisis is causing massive inflation which we have to defeat.”

She went on to say that “Anybody who is behaving in that way has to be driven by evil forces,” and that the “sick” Russian president is a “terrifying person.”

Britain’s politico-economic fiasco of the past six weeks culminated in a tragicomic anticlimax. The 45-day Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned, as many had predicted before she even took high office last month. Rishi Sunak, the incumbent Prime Minister (Britain’s third in two months), had vociferously criticized Truss’ flamboyant yet idiotic fiscal plan during the summer run-up campaign to replace Boris Johnson.

BY Syed Zain Abbas Rizvi

THE ARTICLE BY Cavan Hogue THAT FOLLOWS EXPLAINS ONE MOMENT IN HISTORY IN ORDER TO BLAME PUTIN... WE KNOW HISTORY IS NEVER STUCK IN ONE MOMENT. IF IT WAS, WE WOULD STILL BE SWINGING FROM TREE TO TREE OR WITH HENRY VIII IN CHARGE OF THE LOOT OR SUCH. ON THIS SITE WE HAVE SHOWN THAT DESPITE MAKING AGREEMENTS, MANY LEADERS ARE NEFARIOUS IN THEIR INTENT — AND THEIR SIGNATURE AT ONE MOMENT OF HISTORY IS RENDERED NULL AND VOID BY THEIR NEXT DECISIONS OR THOSE OF THE FOLLOWING LEADERS.

The European Union’s top foreign-policy official, Josep Borrell, admitted that the new cold war that the West is waging on China and Russia is not a conflict of “democracies vs. authoritarians.”

“On our side, there are a lot of authoritarian regimes,” the EU’s de facto foreign minister conceded.

Borrell’s comments directly contradicted those of US President Joe Biden, who claimed in his first State of the Union address in March that the new cold war is a “battle between democracy and autocracies.”

The rapid escalation of online censorship, and increasingly offline censorship, cannot be overstated. The silencing tactic that has most commonly provoked attention and debate is the banning of particular posts or individuals by specific social media platforms. But the censorship regime that has been developed, and which is now rapidly escalating, extends far beyond those relatively limited punishments.

The Consortium of State and Corporate Power

By Glenn Greenwald / Substack