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Coalition of the unlikely: How Australia and China could save the planet.

Cooperation between Australia and China could send a useful message to the Trump regime and other countries around the world about both the possibility of developing alternatives to failing American leadership and the institutional order it did so much to create.

By Mark Beeson | 17 November 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/coalition-of-the-unlikely-how-australia-and-china-could-save-the-planet,20387

If we are to survive, unprecedented levels of cooperation are needed, no matter how unlikely. Mark Beeson writes.

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE is failing. Nothing highlights this reality more dramatically than our collective inability to address the degradation of the natural environment adequately. Addressing an unprecedented problem of this magnitude and complexity would be difficult at the best of times. Plainly, these are not the best of times.

Even if climate change could be dealt with in isolation, it would still present a formidable challenge. But when it is part of a polycrisis of intersecting issues with the capacity to reinforce other more immediate, politically sensitive economic, social and strategic problems, then the prospects for effective cooperative action become more remote.

Indeed, the polycrisis makes it increasingly difficult to know quite which of the many threats to international order and individual well-being we ought to focus on. The “we” in this case is usually taken to be the “international community”, which has always been difficult to define, generally more of an aspiration than a reality, frequently more noteworthy for its absence than its effectiveness.

Nation-states, by contrast, can still act, even if we don’t always like what they do. The quintessential case in point now, of course, is the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Because it is by any measure still the most powerful country in the world, what America does necessarily affects everyone. This is why its actions on climate change – withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, gutting the Environmental Protection Authority, encouraging fossil fuel companies – matter so much.

But nation-states can also be forces for good and not just for those people who live within the borders of countries in the affluent global North. On the contrary, states that oversee a reduction in CO2 emissions are not only helping themselves, but they are also helping their neighbours and setting a useful example of “good international citizenship”.

When global governance is failing and being actively undermined by the Trump regime, it is even more important that other countries try to fill the void, even if this means cooperating with the unlikeliest of partners. Australia and China really could offer a different approach to climate change mitigation while simultaneously defusing tensions in the Indo-Pacific and demonstrating that resistance to the Trump agenda really is possible.

Friends with benefits

In the long term, if there still is one, environmental breakdown remains the most unambiguous threat to our collective future, especially in Australia, the world’s driest continent. And yet Australia’s strategic and political elites remain consumed by the military threat China supposedly poses, rather than the immediate, life-threatening impact of simultaneous droughts, fires and floods.

One of the only positives of the climate crisis is that it presents a common threat that really ought to generate a common cause. Some countries are no doubt more responsible for the problem and more capable of responding effectively, so they really ought to overcome the logic of first-mover disadvantage. No doubt, some other country will take over Australian coal markets, but someone has to demonstrate that change is possible.

China is possibly at even greater risk from the impact of climate catastrophes because of water shortages and, paradoxically enough, rising sea levels that will eventually threaten massive urban centres like Guangzhou and Shanghai. While there is much to admire about the decrease in poverty in the People’s Republic, it has come at an appalling cost to the natural environment. China also has powerful reasons to change its ways.

Unfortunately, Chinese policymakers, like Australia’s and their counterparts everywhere else, are consumed with more traditional threats to national strategic and economic security. This may be understandable enough in a world turned upside down by an unpredictable administration bent on creating a new international order that puts America first and trashes the environment in the process.

But in the absence of accustomed forms of leadership from the U.S. and the international community, for that matter, states must look to do what they can where they can, even if this means thinking the unthinkable and working with notional foes. China and Australia really do have a common cause when it comes to the environment and they could and should act on it.

Yes, this does all sound a bit unlikely. But if we are to survive in anything like a civilised state, unprecedented levels of cooperation would seem to be an inescapable part of limiting the damage our current policies have inflicted on the environment. In this context, Australia and China really could lead the way by simply agreeing to implement coordinated domestic actions designed to set a good example and address a critical global problem.

Leading by example

As two of the biggest consumers and producers of coal, Australia and China could make an outsize contribution to a global problem that would almost certainly win near universal praise, not to say disbelief. In short, China could agree not to build any more coal-fired power stations and Australia could commit to not opening any more new mines and rapidly moving to close down existing ones.

This would be a challenge for both countries, no doubt, but if we are ever going to address the climate challenge seriously, this is the sort of action that will be needed. There are no easy or painless solutions. But voluntarily abandoning the use of one of the most polluting fossil fuels is a potentially feasible and effective gesture that would make a difference. After all, China is a world leader in the development and use of green energy already, so the transition would be difficult but doable.

Australia has a shameful record of exporting carbon emissions and could live without the coal industry, which produces most of them, altogether. Coal extraction doesn’t employ many people and Australia is a rich enough country to compensate those affected by the loss of what are awful jobs in a dirty industry. If Australia can find $368 billion for submarines that will likely never arrive, to counter an entirely notional threat from China, it ought to be able to find a couple of billion to deal with a real one.

No doubt there would be significant pushback from coal industry lobbyists and politicians who think their future depends on being “realistic”, even if it means wrecking the planet. And yet it is possible, even likely, that such actions on the part of Australia and China would be very well received by regional neighbours, who would directly benefit from their actions and who might also be encouraged to consider meaningful cooperative actions themselves.

Given the failure of regional organisations like ASEAN to tackle these issues, normative pressure could be useful.

China might even get a significant boost to its soft power and regional reputation. President Xi Jinping frequently talks about the need to develop an “ecological civilisation”. Moving away from coal and collaborating with an unlikely partner for the collective good would be an opportunity to demonstrate China’s commitment to this idea, and to offer some badly needed environmental leadership.

If that’s not an example of what Xi calls win-win diplomacy, it’s hard to know what is.

A sustainable world order?

In the absence of what U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders calls a “revolution” in American foreign policy, multilateralism may well be in terminal decline. Indeed, it is an open question whether interstate cooperation will survive another four years of Trumpism, especially when the United Nations faces a funding crisis and politics in the European Union is moving in a similarly populist and authoritarian direction.

Cooperation between Australia and China could send a useful message to the Trump regime and other countries around the world about both the possibility of developing alternatives to failing American leadership and the institutional order it did so much to create. American hegemony was frequently self-serving, violent and seemingly indifferent to its impact on the global South, but we may miss it when it’s gone.

If multilateralism is likely to be less effective for the foreseeable future, perhaps minilateralism or even bilateralism can provide an alternative pathway to cooperation. Narrowly conceived notional strategic threats could be usefully “decoupled” from the economic and environmental varieties. In such circumstances, geography may be a better guide to prospective partners than sacrosanct notions about supposed friends and enemies.

Someone somewhere has to show leadership on climate change and restore hope that at least one problem, arguably the biggest one we collectively face, is being taken seriously. There really isn’t any choice other than to contemplate unprecedented actions for an unprecedented problem. Australia and China may not save the world, but they could make things a bit less awful and inject some much-needed creativity and hope into international politics.

Mark Beeson is an adjunct professor at the University of Technology Sydney and Griffith University. He was previously Professor of International Politics at the University of Western Australia.

November 18, 2025 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, China, politics international | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Is Set to Visit Washington. Here’s What to Expect Out of His Meeting with Trump.

the country has continued to push for a civilian nuclear program as the high energy demand of new AI data centers prompts a global revival in nuclear power. Riyadh has long expressed interest in developing its own nuclear program

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Analysis, by Rachel Bronson, November 13, 2025

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s meeting with US President Donald Trump comes during a period of relatively strong and stable ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States. How much he can leverage those ties will be on full display.

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) will make an official working visit to the White House on Tuesday, November 18. It will be his first trip to Washington since March 2018.

The period between his two visits has been bumpy. MBS seeks to solidify and extend a recent positive period, building on a strong personal relationship with US President Donald Trump, deep commercial ties between members of each country’s leadership, and Trump’s successful trip to the Kingdom in May. The connection between the two countries and the two men will prove critical this visit, as they will confront a wide-ranging agenda requiring considerable attention and diplomatic finesse.

There will be no shortage of topics for the two leaders to discuss during the meeting. New commercial and defense ties are likely to receive significant attention, particularly in the realms of artificial intelligence and growing regional data centers. Trickier for the two sides will be managing bigger ticket items—such as the purchase of F-35s and the development of nuclear power. Larger regional questions loom large about Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Israel, Turkey, and Qatar that will shape the future of Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and beyond.

What’s on the agenda?

Key priority areas for the Saudis include broadening and deepening commercial ties, particularly in the realm of artificial intelligence, data technology, energy, and defense.

State visits usually result in announcements of new agreements or memoranda of understanding, and this trip will likely prove no different. But such trips can also highlight where sides remain further apart. Human rights, a perennial stumbling block in US-Saudi relations, are unlikely to receive significant attention.

The Saudis have been working assiduously to lower expectations that they will join the Abraham Accords—a stated goal of the Trump administration that would require normalizing relations with Israel—until the White House articulates a clearer vision for the future of Gaza and the West Bank. The two sides will thus need to work through how much is possible without attaining this loftier goal.

What is behind the visit?

When MBS last arrived in Washington to meet with Trump, he had only recently assumed his role as crown prince, supplanting his uncle, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. He was not yet halfway through a controversial 15-month purge of business leaders, officials, and members of the royal family that would eventually solidify his rule.

Just seven months after his March 2018 visit, MBS was implicated in the grotesque and brazen assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a murder that brought international opprobrium. The growing humanitarian disaster in Yemen resulting from intense Saudi armed intervention was further galvanizing public outcry in the United States and abroad. Although the Trump administration tried to downplay both crises, Congress and the American public remained cautious of US-Saudi ties.

In September 2019, as the conflict in Yemen escalated, Iranian missiles and drones successfully targeted Abqaiq and Khurais, two major Saudi oil facilities, taking out 50 percent of Saudi oil production for about two weeks. Although the Trump administration responded by bolstering America’s military troop presence in the Kingdom and reimposing select sanctions on Iran, Riyadh wanted a more visible show of force. Washington’s perceived tepid response left many in Riyadh openly questioning US commitment to the desert kingdom.

The following September, just four months before leaving office, the Trump administration heralded in the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. Saudi Arabia remained on the sidelines…………………..

The return of the Trump administration in January 2025 provided an opportunity to reset and strengthen relations more generally. In May, building on strong commercial ties forged between Trump administration associates and their Saudi counterparts during the Biden years, Trump traveled to Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, ushering in a raft of new defense and technology deals, particularly in the areas of data center technologies and artificial intelligence…………………………………………………………………………..

What does Saudi Arabia hope to get out of it?

…………..The focus of the announcements will most likely center on a robust AI future that is emerging in the Gulf in particular. Saudi Arabia has made investing in data centers and digital infrastructure a key aspect of its “Saudi Vision 2030” economic development plan and is investing $21 billion in data centers alone. ……….

……… the country has continued to push for a civilian nuclear program as the high energy demand of new AI data centers prompts a global revival in nuclear power. Riyadh has long expressed interest in developing its own nuclear program, which the Biden administration entertained as a sweetener to Saudi-Israeli normalization.

………………………During Trump’s May trip to the region, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia’s energy minister on civil nuclear energy, including safety, security, and nonproliferation programs; vocational training and workforce development; US Generation III+ advanced large reactor technologies and small modular reactors; uranium exploration, mining, and milling; and safe and secure nuclear waste disposal. ……………….

What could happen?

In addition to energy and data infrastructure, the two sides will likely continue to deepen their defense relationship. During the May trip, the White House announced $142 billion in arms sales, and related weapons packages are now making their way through the Pentagon, including a Saudi request for F-35s—one of the world’s most advanced aircrafts. During the Biden administration, the F-35s were tied to Saudi-Israeli normalization. As with nuclear power, it is not clear whether such tethering will continue.

Another key topic to watch is how the two leaders define their overall defense relationship. Saudi Arabia has long sought a defense treaty with the United States that would elevate the country among other US partners in the Gulf. Without full recognition of Israel—and given the current polarization in US politics—Riyadh is unlikely to be able to muster the two-thirds US Senate vote required for official ally status. Still, the Saudis likely want to upgrade their existing relationship……………………………..

What we are likely to hear less about during this trip is human rights, which have been on the US-Saudi agenda for decades.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. The future of Gaza and the West Bank will likely prove the trickiest shoal to navigate. The Saudis want to ensure a strong influence in leading Gaza reconstruction given that they are expected to foot a large portion of the bill. ……………………………………. https://globalaffairs.org/commentary/analysis/saudi-arabias-crown-prince-visit-washington-trump-what-to-expect?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Trump%20s%20radiation%20exposure%20rule%3A%20%20catastrophic%20%20for%20women%20and%20girls&utm_campaign=20251117%20Monday%20Newsletter

November 18, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

US and Russia ‘actively discussing’ settlement of Ukraine conflict – Moscow

16 Nov, 2025, https://www.rt.com/russia/627862-russia-us-discuss-ukraine-settlement/

The understanding reached at the Alaska summit is still in force, President Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov has said.

Moscow and Washington are continuing their dialogue on resolving the Ukraine conflict in line with the understanding reached during the Alaska meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump in August, Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov has said.

Although the summit failed to yield a breakthrough, Moscow has praised what it called Washington’s willingness to mediate and consider the conflict’s underlying causes.

Russian officials also maintain that continued dialogue creates opportunities for trade and economic cooperation despite the US decision to sanction the oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil last month.

Russia is receiving “many signals” from the US, with the Anchorage meeting still acting as a basis for the talks, Ushakov told journalist Pavel Zarubin on Sunday. “We do believe it is a good way forward,” he said. According to the official, the understandings are still relevant since Washington has never explicitly stated that they are no longer valid.

The presidential aide admitted that the peace process and agreements reached in Alaska do not sit well with Kiev and some of its European backers, adding that it only indicates they want to continue the bloodshed. “The Anchorage [meeting] is only disliked by those who does not want a peaceful resolution [to the Ukraine conflict],” he said.

Bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington sank to an all-time low under former US President Joe Biden, amid the Ukraine conflict, but have shown signs of improvement since Trump’s return to the White House. US and Russian officials have held several rounds of talks this year, including the Alaska summit.

The US and Russia also announced the next planned Trump-Putin summit in Budapest in the fall, but it was then postponed indefinitely. Washington is still determined to continue contacts with Moscow, according to US Vice President J.D. Vance. Earlier in November, he called direct dialogue with Russia part of the “Trump doctrine.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reaffirmed this month that Moscow was ready to resume contacts and rejected media reports claiming otherwise as false.

November 18, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Trump’s Ploy at the UN Is American Imperialism Masquerading as a Peace Process

Jeffrey D. SachsSybil Fares, Nov 13, 2025, https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-s-ploy-at-the-un-is-american-imperialism-masquerading-as-a-peace-process

Palestine remains the endless victim of US and Israeli maneuvers. The results are not just devastating for Palestine, which has suffered an outright genocide, but for the Arab world and beyond.

The Trump administration is pushing an Israeli-crafted resolution at the UN Security Council (UNSC) this week aimed at eliminating the possibility of a State of Palestine. The resolution does three things. It establishes US political control over Gaza. It separates Gaza from the rest of Palestine. And it allows the US, and therefore Israel, to determine the timeline for Israel’s supposed withdrawal from Gaza–which would mean: never.

This is imperialism masquerading as a peace process. In and of itself it’s no surprise. Israel runs US foreign policy in the Middle East. What is a surprise is that the US and Israel might just get away with this travesty unless the world speaks up with urgency and indignation.

The draft UNSC resolution would establish a US-UK-dominated Board of Peace, chaired by none other than Donald Trump himself, and endowed with sweeping powers over Gaza’s governance, borders, reconstruction, and security. This resolution would sideline the State of Palestine and condition any transfer of authority to the Palestinians on the indulgence of the Board of Peace.

This would be an overt return to the British Mandate of 100 years ago, with the only change being that the US would hold the mandate rather than Britain. If it weren’t so utterly tragic, it would be laughable. As Marx said, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Yes, the proposal is farce, yet Israel’s genocide is not. It is tragedy of the first order.

Incredibly, according to the draft resolution, the Board of Peace would be granted sovereign powers in Gaza. Palestinian sovereignty is left to the discretion of the Board, which alone would decide when Palestinians are “ready” to govern themselves – perhaps in another 100 years? Even military security is subordinated to the Board, and the envisioned forces would answer not to the UN Security Council or to the Palestinian people, but to the Board’s “strategic guidance.”

The US-Israel resolution is being put forward precisely because the rest of the world—other than Israel and the US—has woken up to two facts. First, Israel is committing genocide, a reality witnessed every day in Gaza and the West Bank, where innocent Palestinians are murdered to the satisfaction of the Israel Defense Forces and the illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Second, Palestine is a state, albeit one whose sovereignty remains obstructed by the US, which uses its veto in the UNSC to block Palestine’s permanent UN membership. At the UN this past July and then again in September, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for Palestine’s statehood, a fact that put the Israel-US Zionist lobby into overdrive, resulting in the current draft resolution.

For Israel to accomplish its goal of Greater Israel, the US is pursuing a classic divide-and-conquer strategy, squeezing Arab and Islamic states with threats and inducements. When other countries resist the US-Israel demands, they are cut off from critical technologies, lose access to World Bank and IMF financing, and suffer Israeli bombing, even in countries with US military bases present. The US offers no real protection; rather, it orchestrates a protection racket, extracting concessions from countries wherever US leverage exists. This extortion will continue until the global community stands up to such tactics and insists upon genuine Palestinian sovereignty and US and Israeli adherence to international law.

Palestine remains the endless victim of US and Israeli maneuvers. The results are not just devastating for Palestine, which has suffered an outright genocide, but for the Arab world and beyond. Israel and the US are currently at war, overtly or covertly, across the Horn of Africa (Libya, Sudan, Somalia), the Eastern Mediterranean (Lebanon, Syria), the Gulf region (Yemen), and Western Asia (Iraq, Iran).


If the UN Security Council is to provide true security in accordance with the UN Charter, it must not yield to US pressures and instead act decisively in line with international law. A resolution truly for peace should include four vital points. First, it should welcome the State of Palestine as a sovereign UN member state, with the US lifting its veto. Second, it should safeguard the territorial integrity of the State of Palestine and Israel, according to the 1967 borders. Third, it should establish a UNSC-mandated protection force drawn up from Muslim-majority states. Fourth, it should include the defunding and disarmament of all belligerent non-state entities, and it should ensure the mutual security of Israel and Palestine.

The two-state solution is about true peace—not about the politicide and genocide of Palestine, or the continued attacks by militants on Israel. It’s time for both Palestinians and Israelis to be safe, and for the US and Israel to give up the cruel delusion of permanently ruling over the Palestinian people.

November 16, 2025 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

The Unseen Hand: From the War Room to the Ruins – A Cycle of Profit and Pain

15 November 2025, Andrew Klein. https://theaimn.net/the-unseen-hand-from-the-war-room-to-the-ruins-a-cycle-of-profit-and-pain/

In the corridors of power in Washington and the tech hubs of Silicon Valley, a term is well-known: the “military-industrial complex.” Sixty years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned his nation of its “unwarranted influence.” Today, this complex is not an American anomaly but a global blueprint of a system where war has been transformed from a last resort of statecraft into a first option for profit. This system, fueled by corruption and shielded by propaganda, now finds its most brutal testing ground in the lands of Palestine, where lives, futures, and the very environment are sacrificed in exchange for data and dividends.

The Anatomy of a War Machine: How the Iron Triangle Turns

The military-industrial complex is not a shadowy conspiracy, but a deeply entrenched “iron triangle” – a symbiotic relationship between three pillars: the defence industry, the military establishment, and the political class.

The Currency of Influence: The fuel for this machine is money. From 2001 to 2021, the top U.S. defence giants spent a staggering $1.1 billion on lobbying to ensure their weapons find a “battlefield application.” They target key congressional committees, with politicians who approve massive arms budgets seeing their campaign coffers swell by up to 40% more than their peers. This is not investment in security; it is a transaction for access and influence.

The “Revolving Door” of Power: A more insidious mechanism is the “revolving door,” where defense officials and senior military officers retire one day and walk into high-paid executive or lobbying roles at the very companies they once regulated or procured from. A 2018 report found 645 former senior government and military officials had been hired by the top 20 defence contractors, creating a culture where decisions made in office can be influenced by the promise of a lucrative “golden parachute.” This corrupts the very principle of impartial governance.

Manufacturing Consent through Propaganda: To sustain this cycle, the public must be convinced of the perpetual need for war. This is achieved through a sophisticated propaganda apparatus that controls the narrative. Threats are exaggerated, complex conflicts are reduced to simple good-versus-evil dramas, and civilian casualties are sanitised into the clinical term “collateral damage.” The goal is to manufacture a truth where endless war is framed as essential for safety, and questioning it is made to seem unpatriotic or naive.

Palestine: The Laboratory for the Future of Warfare

This global system requires a laboratory to test, refine, and market its latest technologies. For decades, the Palestinian territories have served this grim purpose, a captive population subjected to an endless experiment in digital control and automated violence.

AI as an Assassin: In the current conflict, the world is witnessing the first full-scale deployment of AI-powered warfare. The Israeli military uses systems with benign-sounding names like “The Gospel” and “Lavender” to generate targets at an industrial pace, producing hundreds of potential targets daily. Human oversight is minimal and accelerated, with reports of soldiers often rubber-stamping AI-generated targets in a matter of seconds. With admitted error rates of around 10%, the mathematical consequence is the condemnation of thousands of innocent civilians by algorithm.

The Panopticon of Surveillance: Every aspect of Palestinian life is data-mined. A vast network of drones, facial recognition cameras (codenamed “Red Wolf” and “Blue Wolf”), satellites, and digital monitoring creates a constant state of surveillance. As one investigative journalist noted, the occupied territories have become a showroom where “Israel’s military-industrial complex… exports advanced weapons and surveillance technology to the world.”

Weaponising Communication: The ultimate demonstration of this control was the hijacking of the entire Palestinian cellular network to force a political speech upon a captive audience. This act is a perfect metaphor for the system: seizing the very channels of human connection to broadcast its own uncompromising narrative, rendering dissent inaudible.

The True Cost: A Balance Sheet of Human and Planetary Suffering

The shareholders of defense corporations may indeed be “drooling” over the “combat-proven” credentials of their products. But the real balance sheet tells a different story.

Lives and Lost Futures: The cost is measured in the thousands of children who will never grow up, the students whose potential is buried under rubble, the families erased from the census. It is a cost of choices permanently denied – the choice to travel, to learn, to love, and to live in peace. This is not “collateral damage”; it is the central, brutal outcome of the system.

Economic Devastation: Beyond the immediate destruction of homes and infrastructure lies the long-term economic annihilation. The productive capacity of generations is wiped out, creating a cycle of dependency and despair that can last for decades.

A Scarred Planet: The environmental cost of war is a silent casualty. Unexploded munitions poison the soil and water for generations. The toxins released from destroyed buildings and industrial sites create a public health crisis. The carbon footprint of endless military conflict is a devastating contributor to planetary crisis, all while the war machine presents itself as a guardian of order.

Building Bridges of Peace: An Alternative Architecture

Confronted with this reality, we must actively choose to build an alternative architecture for human coexistence, one based on bridges, not bombs. This requires a fundamental reorientation.

  1. Understanding: The first step is to actively dismantle the propaganda that dehumanises “the other.” We must invest in cultural exchange, language learning, and people-to-people programs that allow us to see the full humanity in every face. When we understand the history, hopes, and fears of others, it becomes impossible to see them as mere targets.
  2. Embrace Self-Reflection in Foreign Policy: Nations, particularly powerful ones, must have the courage for honest self-criticism. Acknowledging past mistakes and the unintended consequences of our actions is not a sign of weakness, but a foundation for building genuine trust and finding a more just path forward.
  3. Forge New Frameworks for Cooperation: We must move beyond a zero-sum view of global politics. The greatest challenges of our time – climate change, pandemics, technological governance – are shared problems that require shared solutions. By creating robust international frameworks for cooperation on these issues, we build habits of collaboration and create tangible, shared interests that make conflict a less desirable option.

The road from the war room to a lasting peace is long and arduous. It requires us to see through the manufactured truths, to follow the money, and to hold to account the systems that profit from endless conflict. But it is the only road that leads away from the ruins. We must choose to be architects of the bridge, not suppliers for the battlefield.

November 16, 2025 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

Atom is prematurely split in the ‘golden age’ transatlantic partnership

Nils Pratley, 14 Nov 25 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/13/atom-split-us-uk-golden-age-partnership-wylfe-smr

Britain was always going to prefer homegrown technology for the SMR reactors at Wylfe. The US would have done the same.

It had all been so harmonious two months ago. “Together with the US, we’re building a golden age of nuclear that puts both countries at the forefront of global innovation and investment,” purred the prime minister about the new “landmark” UK-US nuclear partnership.

Now there’s an atomic split over the first significant decision. The UK has allocated Wylfa on the island of Anglesey, or Ynys Môn, to host three small modular reactors (SMRs) to be built by the British developer Rolls-Royce SMR. The US ambassador, Warren Stephens, says his country is “extremely disappointed”: he wanted Westinghouse, a US company, to get the gig for a large-scale reactor.

This quarrel is easy to adjudicate. The US ambassador is living in dreamland if he seriously thought the UK wouldn’t show home bias at Wylfa. This is the coveted site for new nuclear power in the UK because the land is owned by the government, which ought to make the planning process easier and quicker, and the site hosted a Magnox reactor until 2015, so the locals are used to nuclear plants. Since Rolls-Royce’s kit is the best national hope of reviving the UK’s industry with homegrown technology, of course there was going to be preferential treatment.

None of which is to say the SMR experiment will definitely succeed in the sense of demonstrating cheapness (a relative measure in nuclear-land) versus mega-plants, such as Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C or the Westinghouse design. Rolls-Royce oozes confidence about the cost-saving advantages of prefabrication in factories, but these have yet to be demonstrated on the ground. The point, though, is that the only way to find out is to get on and build. Rolls-Royce SMR’s only other order currently is from the Czech Republic for six units.

Indeed, the criticism from some quarters is that the UK government has been too timid in ordering only three. If the batch-production is supposed to be the gamechanger on costs, goes the argument, then commit to a decent-sized batch at the outset.

The choice of Wylfa may help on that score in time, though. The site is reckoned to be big enough to hold an additional five SMR units eventually, on the top of the first three. Since each SMR is 470 megawatts, a full build-out would equate to more megawatts in total than the 3,200 from each of Hinkley and Sizewell.

The sop to the US is that Westinghouse gets to compete for future large-scale reactor projects in the UK. It would probably have been a good idea to tell the ambassador in advance before he blew a fuse. Reserving Wylfa for Rolls-Royce SMRs was the only sensible decision here.

Hopes that SMR technology will become a major export-earner for the UK eventually are best treated with extreme caution at this stage. The first electricity from Wylfa won’t be generated until the mid-2030s, and the demonstration of falling costs with each additional unit can only come after that. There is a long way to go. But a good way to maximise your chance of success is to give the top site to your pet project. The US would have done exactly the same.

November 16, 2025 Posted by | politics international, UK, USA | Leave a comment

US ‘disappointed’ that Rolls-Royce will build UK’s first small modular reactors.

Guardian, 13 Nov 25

As Keir Starmer announces SMRs to be built in Wales, US ambassador says Britain should choose ‘a different path.

Keir Starmer has announced that the UK’s first small modular nuclear reactors will be built in north Wales – but immediately faced a backlash from Donald Trump’s administration after it pushed for a US manufacturer to be chosen.

Wylfa on the island of Anglesey, or Ynys Môn, will be home to three small modular reactors (SMRs) to be built by British manufacturer Rolls-Royce SMR. The government said it will invest £2.5bn.

SMRs are a new – and untested – technology aiming to produce nuclear power stations in factories to drive down costs and speed up installation. Rolls-Royce plans to build reactors, each capable of generating 470 megawatts of power, mainly in Derby.

The government also said that its Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE-N) will report on potential sites for further larger reactors. They would follow the 3.2GW reactors under construction by French state-owned EDF at Hinkley Point C in Somerset and Sizewell C in Suffolk.

The Labour government under Starmer has embraced nuclear energy in the hope that it can generate electricity without carbon dioxide emissions, while also providing the opportunity for a large new export industry in SMRs.

However, it faced the prospect of a row with the US, piqued that its ally had overlooked the US’s Westinghouse Electric Company when choosing the manufacturer for the Wylfa reactors.

Ahead of the publication of the UK announcement, US ambassador Warren Stephens published a statement saying Britain should choose “a different path” in Wales.

“We are extremely disappointed by this decision, not least because there are cheaper, faster and already-approved options to provide clean, safe energy at this same location,” he said.

The Trump administration last month signed an $80bn (£61bn) deal with Westinghouse, which had been struggling financially, to build several of the same larger reactors proposed at Wylfa. Under the terms of that deal, the Trump administration could end up taking a stake in the company……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/nov/13/us-disappointed-that-rolls-royce-will-build-uks-first-small-modular-reactors

November 15, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, UK, USA | Leave a comment

When it comes to New Start nuclear treaty….Trump just can’t get started

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 12 Nov 25

President Trump sure has an aversion to nuclear disarmament treaties with Russia that might just prevent nuclear war.

In his first term he dropped out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a signature Obama agreement including Russia, China, France, Germany and the UK to diffuse Iran’s nuclear program. He also withdrew from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Then he left office without renewing the impending expiration of the New Start Treaty. Successor Biden wisely renewed it for 5 years upon replacing Trump in January, 2021.

Here we are with New Start set to expire in 12 weeks and guess whose president again? Nuclear agreement adverse Donald J. Trump. And what has Trump done to avoid having the third nuclear treaty go poof on his watch. Nada, zilch, nothing.

New Start was and is a sensible nuclear agreement. It limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads that can be deployed by the US and Russia to 1,550 each. It further restricts nuclear capable bombers, submarines and missile launchers to 800. All this to be verified by mutual inspections.

Seven weeks ago Russian President Putin reached out to Trump to get the New Start renewal ball rolling. Trump’s response? Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed dismay there has been no reaction to the proposal as of yet. “After all, my colleague in Washington announced that Trump would personally respond to this initiative. But so far, there’s been no response from the American.”

When a reporter recently asked Trump what he thought of Putin’s request to renew New Start, Trump meekly replied “Sounds like a good idea to me” before turning away to avoid a follow up question.

When it comes to initiating, staying in, renewing nuclear agreements with Russia that just might prevent nuclear Armageddon, Trump adheres to the NATO formula: No Action, Talk Only.

November 15, 2025 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Is President Trump leading US to Vietnam style disaster in Venezuela?

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL  , 14 Nov 25.

Sure looks like Trump is initiating regime change in Venezuela. He’s sent a US armada of ships including its most advanced aircraft carrier, planes and troops to Venezuela’s neighborhood. Trump’s hoping to intimidate Venezuelan President Maduro to go quietly so he can replace him with a compliant US puppet. For emphasis he’s issued a $50 million dollar reward for his arrest, and blasted 17 small, unarmed boats to smithereens near Venezuela murdering dozens.

Trump doesn’t care one whit about ending imaginary Venezuelan drug smuggling into the US. That is simply a plot device to control Venezuela’s massive oil reserves via a US puppet ruling Venezuela, and to sever Venezuela’s newfound political, economic and military ties to Russia and China. Neither will stand by to an American regime change operation, much less an outright invasion, without offering help to resist US aggression. Trump may be the president upon whose watch the Monroe Doctrine went poof.  

No nation in in Central or South America supports Trump’s march to war against Venezuela. Indeed no nation in the world, outside of possibly Israel, supports this impending abomination of foreign intervention.

US firepower is so dominant they can quickly take out Maduro if Trump’s newly rechristened Secretary of War Pete Hegseth lights the fuse. But neither the Maduro government nor its citizens will go quietly. Resistance both during and after the incursion will likely be ferocious. Get ready for US body bags to start arriving at Arlington.

Trump would be wise to converse with former President George W. Bush to get his thoughts on the nearly 4,500 senseless US deaths in Iraq and the 2,400 senseless US deaths in Afghanistan after Bush’s ‘war fighters’ quickly deposed Saddam Hussein and the Taliban respectively. To what end? We’re still defiling Iraq with 2,000 troops Iraq wants out but, like being in a roach motel, will never leave. It took 20 years but the Taliban kicked out the US invaders that stayed thru 3 presidencies till Biden left in disgrace.

The last possible firewall preventing Trump’s impending invasion, Congress, abdicated their responsibility by refusing to invoke the War Powers Act forbidding war without Congressional approval as required by the Constitution. Only 2 of 100 Senators voted for peace. All 49 Democrats who voted to prevent were more likely motivated by political opposition to anything Trump. When it comes to US militarism abroad, Democrats are almost always on board.

The 49 Republicans voting for presidential war did so because they love both robust militarism and their deranged, war loving president keeping them supported by Trump’s MAGA base. Only Republicans Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul voted against their party’s impending war out of principle.  

Besides a powwow with Bush Jr., Trump might seek a séance with late warmonger down in War Lovers Hell LBJ. If he could communicate from his everlasting place of infamy over Vietnam, he might tell Trump, ‘Faggedaboudit Donald, I lost 58,000 US boys for nothing. Pivot to peace while you’re till earthbound.’


November 15, 2025 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

The Member States Complicit in Genocide (w/ Francesca Albanese) | The Chris Hedges Report

Scheerpost, By Chris Hedges / The Chris Hedges Report, November 13, 2025

After two years of genocide, it is no longer possible to hide complicity in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. Entire countries and corporations are — according to multiple reports by UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese — either directly or indirectly involved in Israel’s economic proliferation.

In her latest report, “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime,” Albanese details the role 63 nations played in supporting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians. She chronicles how countries like the United States, which directly funds and arms Israel, are a part of a vast global economic web. This network includes dozens of other countries that contribute with seemingly minor components, such as warplane wheels.

Rejection of this system is imperative, Albanese says. These same technologies used to destroy the lives of Palestinians will inevitably be turned against the citizens of Israel’s funders.

“Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our life is going to go,” Albanese warns.

“Every worker today should draw a lesson from what’s happening to the Palestinians, because the large injustice system is connected and makes all of us connected to what’s happening there.”

Transcript

Chris Hedges

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, in her latest report, “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime,” calls out the role 63 nations have in sustaining the Israeli genocide. Albanese, who because of sanctions imposed on her by the Trump administration, had to address the UN General Assembly from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa, slams what she calls “decades of moral and political failure.”

“Through unlawful actions and deliberate omissions, too many states have harmed, founded and shielded Israel’s militarized apartheid, allowing its settler colonial enterprise to metastasize into genocide, the ultimate crime against the indigenous people of Palestine,” she told the UN.

The genocide, she notes, has diplomatic protection in international “fora meant to preserve peace,” military ties ranging from weapons sales to joint trainings that “fed the genocidal machinery,” the unchallenged weaponization of aid, and trade with entities like the European Union, which had sanctioned Russia over Ukraine yet continued doing business with Israel.

The 24-page report details how the “live-streamed atrocity” is facilitated by third states. She excoriates the United States for providing “diplomatic cover” for Israel, using its veto power at the UN Security Council seven times and controlling ceasefire negotiations. Other Western nations, the report noted, collaborate with abstentions, delays and watered-down draft resolutions, providing Israel with weapons, “even as the evidence of genocide … mounted.”

The report chastised the US Congress for passing a $26.4bn arms package for Israel, although Israel was at the time threatening to invade Rafah in defiance of the Biden administration’s demand that Rafah be spared.

The report also condemns Germany, the second-largest arms exporter to Israel during the genocide, for weapons shipments that include everything from “frigates to torpedoes,” as well as the United Kingdom, which has allegedly flown more than 600 surveillance missions over Gaza since war broke out in October 2023.

At the same time, Arab states have not severed ties with Israel. Egypt, for example, maintained “significant security and economic relations with Israel, including energy cooperation and the closing of the Rafah crossing” during the war.

The Gaza genocide, the report states, “exposed an unprecedented chasm between peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and security rest.” Her report coincides with the ceasefire that isn’t. Over 300 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire was announced two weeks ago……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://scheerpost.com/2025/11/13/the-member-states-complicit-in-genocide-w-francesca-albanese-the-chris-hedges-report/

November 15, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics international | Leave a comment

US Plans for China Blockade Continue Taking Shape

Brian Berletic. https://sovereignista.com/ November 11, 2025

What was once a theoretical discussion in U.S. military journals about blockading China’s oil supply is now steadily turning into a tangible, multi-layered strategy aimed at containing Beijing and preserving American global dominance.

In 2018, the US Naval War College Review published a paper titled, “A Maritime Oil Blockade Against China—Tactically Tempting But Strategically Flawed.” It was only one of many over the preceding years discussing the details of implementing a maritime blockade as part of a larger encirclement and containment strategy of China.

At first glance the paper looks like US policy thinking considered, then moved past the idea of blockading China. Instead, the paper merely listed a number of obstacles impeding such a strategy in 2018—obstacles that would need to be removed if such a strategy were to be viable in the near or intermediate future—and obstacles US policymakers have been removing ever since.

More contemporary papers published, including those among the pages of the US Naval Institute (here and here), have updated and refined not just an emerging strategy to theoretically confront and contain China, but a plan of action taking tangible shape.

Cold War Continuity of Agenda

Throughout the Cold War and ever since its conclusion, the US’ singular foreign policy objective has been to maintain American hegemony over the globe established at the end of the World Wars. A 1992 New York Times article titled “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring no Rivals Develop” made it clear the US would actively prevent the emergence of any nation or groups of nations from contesting American primacy worldwide.

In recent years this has included preventing the reemergence of Russia as well as the rise of China. It also involves surrounding both nations with arcs of chaos and/or confrontation—either through the destruction of neighboring countries through political subversion, or the capture of these nations by the US and their transformation into battering rams to be used against both nations.

Ukraine is an extreme example of this policy in action. The US is also transforming both the Philippines and the Chinese island province of Taiwan into similar proxies vis-à-vis China.

Beyond this, the US seeks to prevent the majority of nations currently outside US dominion from joining with and contributing to the multipolar world order proposed by nations like Russia and China.

This strategy of coercion, destabilization, political capture, proxy war, and outright war has been used to target both Russia and China directly, their neighbors, and a growing list of nations far beyond their near abroad.

The US is demonstrating a clear, unwavering commitment to a multi-layered strategy of containment, coercion, and confrontation designed not just to prepare for conflict, but to make that conflict both inevitable and successful for the singular goal of maintaining global American hegemony

Strengths and Weaknesses of American Primacy 

Enabling this strategy is America’s global-spanning military presence facilitated by its “alliance network.” This network of obedient client regimes both hosts US military forces and serves as an extension of US military, economic, and increasingly military-industrial power. US “allies” often pursue US geopolitical objectives at their own expense.

Again, an explicit example of this is Ukraine, which is locked in a proxy war with Russia, threatening its own self-preservation as a means of—as US policymakers described in a 2019 RAND Corporation paper—“extending Russia.”

While conflicts like that unfolding in Ukraine or the US-backed military build-up in the Philippines or on Taiwan has exposed a critical weakness of the United States—its lagging military industrial capacity vis-à-vis either Russia or China, let alone both nations—the US has demonstrated the ability to compensate through geopolitical agility the multipolar world is struggling to address.

This includes the ability of the US to mire a targeted nation in conflict in one location while moving resources across its global-spanning military-logistical networks toward pressure points in other locations, overextending the targeted nation and achieving success in at least one of the multiple pressure points targeted. The US successfully did this through its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, which tied Russia up sufficiently for the US to finally succeed in the overthrow of the Syrian government, where Russian forces had previously thwarted US-sponsored proxy war and regime change.

It also includes the ability of the US to target partner or potential partner nations of Russia and China through economic, political, or even military means in ways Russia and China are unable to defend against—including through political subversion facilitated through America’s near monopoly over global information space.

These advantages the US still possesses also make potential maritime blockades very difficult for Russia and China to defend against.

Russian Energy Shipments as a Beta Test for Blockading China 

France recently announced seizing a ship accused of being part of Russia’s “ghost” or “shadow” fleet—ships refusing to heed unilateral sanctions placed by the US and its client states on Russian energy shipments.

This was just one of several first steps toward what may materialize into a wider and more aggressive interdiction or blockade of Russian energy shipments. This may also be a beta test for implementing a long-desired maritime blockade on China…………………

Setting the Stage for a Blockade of China Has Already Begun  

The 2018 US Naval War College Review paper lays out the realities of a potential blockade against China in 2018, noting the various opportunities and risks associated with such a strategy…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Since the paper was published, the US has pursued both continued preparations for a maritime blockade of China itself, as well as build up a number of regional proxies to wage war against China, as the US wages proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and, increasingly, through the rest of Europe……………………………………………………………………..


To understand Washington’s strategy toward China, one should not look to the political rhetoric of “retreat” or “homeland defense” in the Western Hemisphere, but rather to the tangible actions taking place across the Asia-Pacific and beyond—the meticulous encirclement of China’s periphery, the sustained attacks on its critical overland energy and trade links (BRI/CPEC), the calculated incapacitation of Russia as a potential energy supplier, and the establishment of local proxy forces (the Philippines, Japan, separatists on Taiwan) prepared to wage war.

Far from an abstract or “flawed” concept relegated to think-tank papers, the maritime oil blockade—or wider general blockade against China—is being incrementally prepared in real-time. By systematically removing the very obstacles noted in the 2018 Naval War College Review paper, the US is demonstrating a clear, unwavering commitment to a multi-layered strategy of containment, coercion, and confrontation designed not just to prepare for conflict, but to make that conflict both inevitable and successful for the singular goal of maintaining global American hegemony. https://sovereignista.com/2025/11/11/us-plans-for-china-blockade-continue-taking-shape/

November 14, 2025 Posted by | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Destroying Europe in order to save it: Extortion, theft, and the EU’s two disastrous choices

Strategic Culture Foundation, Joaquin Flores, November 5, 2025

Europe can postpone recognition of failure, but it cannot postpone the bill.

Europe now faces a stark choice forced by its disastrous war policy against Russia: either allow the EU to successfully move toward a centralized state over the heads of its member states, risking a mass Eurexit that may or may not succeed in reaction to that gamble, or delay the larger crisis through member states quietly accepting one of several schemes that will cripple the economy and create social strife regardless.

The Union must decide whether to use frozen Russian sovereign assets to finance a €140 billion “reparation” loan for Ukraine, or to issue joint debt through Eurobonds. 

Both paths carry severe legal risks and impose heavy costs on citizens: one through contingent liabilities, the other through immediate taxes, austerity, and political instability. Pushing through the Eurobond option would amount to a structural coup, a radical re-engineering of the EU against its current form. A recent Politico piece framed these in terms of Option A and B, which helps to contrast these two potential ways forward.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s scheme from the European Commission reveals the depths of EU tyranny in its failed gambit to defeat Russia and guarantee investment outcomes in Ukraine.

SAFE, (Security Action for Europe), a €150 billion defense loan program, was initially proposed in March by von der Leyen with the goal of stimulating rapid defense investment. By May, EU ministers had given their final approval to the program, without consulting the European Parliament, provoking a suit from the Parliament.

Whether or not the Eurobond or Russian asset-seizure (theft) scheme is being proposed in light of (perhaps) likely-to-succeed challenges to the SAFE loan program, or if the Commission is trying to actually raise a total of nearly €300 billion, remains to be seen. What is certain is the push for SAFE comes chronologically after there was significant push-back from EU member states and ministers themselves on the feasibility of spending seized/frozen Russian assets (including interest on the moneys, for war against Russia, or anything else). And the Commission push for this Eurobond scheme comes after the EU Parliament presented a suit against SAFE.

What the Eurobond scheme and SAFE both have in common, nevertheless, is the mechanism for implementation, recklessly assuming authority to do so under a radically broadened interpretation of its powers re Article 122 TFEU.

The Commission is using threats to force member states to spend the frozen Russian assets. Refuse and each government faces a political crisis. Eurobonds are deeply unpopular because the mutualized debt falls on the population, leading to the overturning of governments at the ballot-box, and imposing them unilaterally would break EU treaties, leading to an emboldened Eurexit movement. Member states are being pushed to approve the use of unlawfully seized assets, completing the illegal expropriation through their own consent.

The stakes are far higher than money. This is a coup against the EU as it was conceived, a total re-envisioning of the Union itself. Ursula von der Leyen is not merely leveraging bonds to secure Ukraine funding. She is playing a game of chicken that risks the Union’s structure………………………………

Option A: Frozen Russian assets – huge legal risk, long-term cost to citizens

Legally, tapping frozen Russian assets is precarious………………………………….

….sovereign assets normally enjoy immunity from seizure under international law and bilateral treaties, reflected in the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property (2004) and the 1989 Belgium–Russia bilateral investment treaty.…………………………………………………………………………………..

Option B: Eurobonds – unconstitutional overreach and overt social burden

Unilateral Eurobonds generally collide with the EU’s treaty architecture: the Commission cannot force the issuing of mutualized debt; joint borrowing requires unanimous backing and national ratification.

To do otherwise requires violating the EU’s treaty itself. Brussels is signaling it might act first and fight legal challenges later. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

If forced, citizens face higher taxes, constrained public services, and renewed austerity. Debt obligations do not disappear with elections; social unrest could deepen inequality, provoke Euroscepticism, and trigger exit pressures. Constitutionally, this makes the Commission behave as a sovereign treasury without legitimacy.

€140 bn in debt spread across 200 million workers equals €700 per worker. At 3 % annual interest, servicing costs €21 bn/year, or €105 per worker annually over ten years. Principal plus €42 bn interest totals €182 bn, or €910 per worker. This translates into grandmothers skipping groceries, students delaying college, and curtailed public services. Trade unions, left-wing groups, and small-business forces could trigger a pan-European ‘Yellow Vests’-style crisis.

Conclusion: Evergreening, sunk costs, and Who pays

Both options are evergreening: keeping failing policies alive to avoid losses. Option A buries legal risk and hands latent liabilities to future citizens; Option B openly burdens taxpayers and risks constitutional rupture. And even worse, both scenarios ignore the chronic economic hazard to Europe if it continues its course of sanctions on Russian energy, which could make it the least competitive economy in the developed world.

In both options, the EU is pouring billions either directly into Ukraine or into arms to supply it yet the war is almost certainly lost and the billions spent on expected returns from reconstruction of Russian-liberated territories will never be recovered, turning these investments into sunk costs that serve only to prolong the illusion of economic coherence.

Europe suffers a paradigm problem and an existential crisis at the level of its ‘Eurocracy.’ Paradoxically, the policies that are politically hardest to enact at this bureaucratic level are also the most necessary and potentially fruitful. Since the EU proposes to embark upon a radical reconstruction of the Union itself, perhaps it is appropriate to presume something as radical, but in the direction of stability, growth, and peace: 1) reversing its war-footing; 2) rapprochement with Russia along the U.S.-Russia model; 3) restoring energy pipelines like Nord Stream 2; 4) recognizing Ukraine as Russia’s legitimate sphere of influence; 5) joint investment with Russia in the post-Warsaw Pact sphere; 6) building on the OSCE and 1975 Helsinki Final Act framework; 7) developing a joint Eurasian economic and security architecture. This ensures stability, development, and prosperity for generations.

For Europe, this requires overcoming chronic Russophobia and eschewing Atlanticist paranoia. Europe can postpone recognition of failure, but it cannot postpone the bill. Who will be left holding it, and will there even be an EU that can pull this off? https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/11/05/destroying-europe-in-order-to-save-it-extortion-theft-and-the-eus-two-disastrous-choices/

November 12, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

US-Led ‘Coordination Center’ Replaces Israel as ‘Overseer’ of Gaza Aid Deliveries

Israel has continued to restrict aid deliveries into Gaza in violation of the ceasefire deal

by Dave DeCamp | November 9, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/11/09/us-led-coordination-center-replaces-israel-as-overseer-of-gaza-aid-deliveries/


The US military-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) that was recently established in southern Israel has replaced Israel as the “overseer” of Gaza aid deliveries, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

Since the ceasefire deal was supposed to be implemented on October 10, Israel has violated it by continuing to restrict aid deliveries entering Gaza. “Israel is blocking the Trump plan’s humanitarian clauses,” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told the Post.

Egeland said it was “very good news” that the US is more engaged in aid deliveries, though it remains unclear whether the restrictions will be lifted. “Our appeal is make the plan a reality,” he said. “Of course, the credibility of the United States is at stake here.”

One of the biggest impediments to aid deliveries is that Israel has only allowed trucks to enter Gaza through two border crossings, with most deliveries going through the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza. “We need full access. We need everything to be moving fast. We are in a race against time. The winter months are coming. People are still suffering from hunger, and the needs are overwhelming,” Abeer Etefa, a spokeswoman for the UN’s World Food Program, said last week.

There have been no direct aid deliveries to northern Gaza, where people need food the most, and, according to the Post report, many of the trucks allowed to enter Gaza carry commercial goods that few Palestinians can afford to purchase.

The Post report said the responsibility for Gaza aid was being shifted to the CMCC from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Israeli Defense Ministry that oversees Israeli-occupied and controlled territory.

In response to the report, COGAT characterized the shift differently, saying the “Americans will be integrated into the formulation and implementation of coordination, supervision, and control mechanisms in the context of humanitarian aid, in full cooperation with the Israeli security services.”

An unnamed Israeli official said that the “Americans will take the lead in engaging with the international community on humanitarian matters. … It should be emphasized that this does not constitute a transfer of authority or responsibility from COGAT to the Americans.”

While the US leads the CMCC, where about 200 US troops have been deployed, the Post report said more than 40 other countries and organizations are also involved. The CMCC is also supposed to oversee an international force that may be deployed to Gaza under the ceasefire deal, but it remains unclear whether it will come together, as countries willing to participate want more clarity about exactly what their troops will be doing.

In the meantime, Israeli troops continue to occupy more than 50% of Gaza’s territroy and continue to carry out attacks against Palestinians. Since the ceasefire went into effect on October 10, at least 241 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

November 12, 2025 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Iran says West will have to recognize it as nuclear science hub

By Xinhua,, November 11, 2025  https://www.chinadailyasia.com/hk/article/623347

TEHERAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on Monday that Western countries would eventually have to acknowledge Iran as a scientific hub in the field of peaceful nuclear technology, state media reported.

Speaking during a visit to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Araghchi praised the country’s achievements in the nuclear sector and reaffirmed Teheran’s commitment to defending its nuclear rights.

“The West’s main goal is to deprive Iran of its nuclear capabilities and maintain its monopoly,” Araghchi said, adding that “Western countries will ultimately have no choice but to recognize Iran as a scientific hub for the peaceful nuclear industry.”

He said Iran’s progress in nuclear science was the result of years of effort and sacrifice by Iranian scientists, and reiterated that no one in Iran would give up the country’s nuclear rights.

He said Iran has consistently sought to demonstrate the peaceful nature of its nuclear program by cooperating with international bodies, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Western governments have long accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons. Teheran denies the charge, saying its nuclear program is aimed at power generation and medical purposes.

November 12, 2025 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

THE ELITE EURO SUICIDERS.

Tragically, some intent on suicide carry through with no one able to convince them not to. Currently most European leaders have such a mindset, risking the total economic destruction of their nations.

Aearnur, Nov 11, 2025

Idealism in its purest form is a noble and selfless endeavor when put into action. It can move mountains and radically shift perceptions when it is used to appeal to the masses……………..

True idealism in these days of relentless disinformation campaigns and all-pervasive western propaganda, is as rare as hens’ teeth. Nonetheless, most of the leadership we find across Europe appear driven by a certain fixed concept of ultimate rightness and ultimate wrongness. This distorted, heavily blinkered form of idealism permits no opposing thought to disrupt its 100% crusader mentality. 

The idea of moderating their “idealistic”, totally fixed viewpoints or any of their set in stone foreign policies is anathema to them. To view the geopolitical realities holistically to them is totally unthinkable and unacceptable. Their aggressive drive toward mindless war with Russia, and now also with China, has no reverse gear. For them it is a matter of do… or die. And now we see that their economies are indeed dying.

Naturally it is not be the political leadership of Europe who are doing the dying. Those continuing to die by thousands per week are Ukrainians. These Ukrainians have a leadership equally locked into the same faux idealism driving their European sponsors.

Thus, from the two most influential spheres of power who preside over them the hapless Ukrainians are being driven to personal and national suicide along with the European tax payers footing the bill. No retreat from this reality is contemplated by Zelemsky or the EU elite for a moment. It clearly makes no difference to the fixed position of Zelensky or the majority of European leaders that their misbegotten cause is long lost.

Ukraine’s economy will never fully recover. With the conflict kept endlessly going by Zelensky and his sponsors refusing to confront reality and come to terms with the Russians the damage to it can only increase. At whatever distant point the conflict ends we can only image the cost to Ukraine’s sponsors (and taxpayers) to begin its reconstruction. Will it ever be a sovereign nation again one might ask? How many in-house industries will remain and how many large European and U.S. corporations and major business concerns will replace almost all of them while taking control of any Ukrainian entity at boardroom level? Ukraine, on this reading, is clearly doomed, at least by comparison with how she stood before this all began by the western coup of 2014.

And Europe, what of it? Doomed also? Perhaps not doomed, but we can already see the clear economic decline all across it, de-industrialization in Germany, constant turmoil in France and rising prices everywhere. Soon will come reduced investment and rising unemployment. With rival companies across the global south fueled by inexpensive Russian oil and gas while European nations buy expensive U.S. energy products instead things can only move in one inexorable direction. That direction can only be down through being constantly and increasingly out-priced and outproduced. Jobs will inevitably be shed as U.S. and European companies seek to cut labor costs in a frantic bid to somehow stay competitive.

The vast majority of European political elites, bound as slaves to the unelected bureaucracy in Brussels are, to all intents and purposes held tightly within an economic suicide pact. Only here and there, in Hungary and Slovakia do we see leaders determined not to go down with a ship holed below the water line by its own captain. Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico refuse to join the hate-blinded, faux idealistic warmongers of the Brussels elite.

Will the citizens of Germany and France and those of all others within the European Union continue to sit on their hands awaiting the signs of full economic collapse? Or will they now release themselves from the effects of at least two decades of misinformation, propaganda and barefaced lies that have been till now conditioning their reflexes to inaction? Will they at last derail the European juggernaut heading ever faster toward the blank wall of economic death and vote these faux idealistic elite European suiciders out?

Only time will tell. https://aearnur.substack.com/p/the-elite-euro-suiciders?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=312403&post_id=178504456&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

November 12, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

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