They don’t make world leaders like they used to, as far as Vladimir Putin is concerned. Talking to a Kremlin-friendly gathering of journalists at his traditional end-of-year press conference on Friday, the Russian president spoke with fond nostalgia of the old gang, saying he’d like to spend more time with “people close to me”, such as the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, the former French president Jacques Chirac and Silvio Berlusconi, late prime minister of Italy.

There’s little chance of peace on earth with leaders like these

[GUSNOTE: LEADERS LIKE WHOM? JOE BIDEN? SCHOLZ? MACRON? URSULA VONTHINGSTERS? OH I SEE! THE IMAGE ON OFFER IS THAT OF PUTIN WITH A MISSILE IN THE BACKGROUND...]

BY Jonathan Este

As geopolitical tensions escalate, the U.S. wields its most formidable weapon—not military might, but a sophisticated network of political and informational control that reshapes nations and regions to serve its interests.

From China Daily....

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.

The mainstream media and almost all of the American political elite class refuse to acknowledge reality: The crisis in Gaza did not begin on October 7, 2023.

Neither did the annihilation of Native Americans begin following the battle of the Little Bighorn. There is a continuous 120-year history of Zionism, whose foundational belief from the outset was colonial and racist. There was no place for Palestinians in Palestine.

Zionism’s Colonial Heritage and Transatlantic Reach
By Gerald Sussman

This was straightforwardly put forth by its founders who believed in the sacred biblical right of Jews to take over Palestine and remove its indigenous inhabitants.

2021... A retired French army general is facing possible criminal charges following an appearance on a popular TV show in which he let out a crudely antisemitic “dog whistle” in front of a shocked presenter.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday that it was opening an investigation into Gen. Dominique Delawarde, following his comments last Friday on the “Morandini Live” program on French broadcaster CNews.

Delawarde made his inflammatory remarks during a live exchange about ownership of the media. Smiling broadly, he told journalist Claude Posternak, “You know who controls the media pack in the world and in France. Who controls the Washington Post, the New York Times, BFMTV and all the newspapers.”

Delawarde then added sarcastically: “Who are these people?”

The newly-elected Democrat Jimmy Carter, a former Governor of Georgia, was at the time a relatively unknown figure in American politics. Although he successfully captured most of the votes in the South, his victory over Gerald Ford was rather marginal. He represented a promising choice of a moral and religious character attempting to purify the actions of the former disastrous presidencies and regain public confidence.

American Presidency: Recalling the Failures of Jimmy Carter...

2016

BY Natália Poláková

https://www.e-polis.cz/clanek/american-presidency-recalling-the-failures-of-jimmy-carter.html

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed his shock at the International Chess Federation’s (FIDE) harsh dress code enforcement, which led to Norwegian champion Magnus Carlsen storming out a tournament in protest. The diplomat noted that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelesnky gets away with routinely flouting the formal dress code at official international events, and sporting military-style attire.

Speaking to Russia’s Kommersant newspaper on Sunday, Lavrov said: “The fact that world champion Magnus Carlsen was essentially booted out [of a competition] for appearing in jeans leaves me surprised, if not dumbfounded.” The Russian foreign minister clarified that while not a chess player himself, he follows the game.

“Then you need to kick Zelensky out of everywhere over dress code, this would solve many problems,”the official added.

Joe Biden regrets having pulled out of this year’s presidential race and believes he would have defeated Donald Trump in last month’s election – despite negative poll indications, White House sources have said.

In 2024, humanity – as a whole – took a purposeful stride towards engineering the collapse of modern civilisation.

While climate, politics, wars and celebrities vied for the headlines, the hard indicators of human management of Planet Earth and our own future were all pointing south. Here is a selection of catastrophic risks for 2024, based on trusted information:

Forest loss: 488 m ha tree cover lost since 2000. Current loss is around 25mha/ year to all causes, including agriculture, development, wildfires and climate.

Early in 2025, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been invited to an informal summit of EU leaders. It's the first such invitation for the UK since the bitter days of the Brexit negotiations.

The focus of the February meeting is future security and defence co-operation. The backdrop: the volatile state of the world from Europe's perspective. 

Wars rage in the Middle East and in Europe - with Russia aided in its assault on Ukraine by Iran, North Korea and China.

Adding to the uncertainty haunting this continent, Donald Trump is poised to re-enter the White House. 

Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands now open to US military
The decision is part of a process that seeks the reestablishment of US military bases in Ecuadorian territory. Several voices have severely criticized the decision as a violation of Ecuador’s sovereignty.

The national government of Daniel Noboa approved a resolution that enables US ships and crews to use the Galapagos Islands for control and patrol activities in the area.

On February 15, 2024, Noboa signed a series military cooperation treaties with the US government, allowing ships, military personnel, armament, equipment, and submarines to be installed in the natural reserve, which UNESCO declared a World Natural Heritage Site in 1978.

In September 2015, President Barack Obama boasted that “greater prosperity and greater security — that’s what American and Chinese cooperation can deliver.” But by the time the Trump administration issued its first national security strategy only two years later, great-power competition with China — not cooperation — guided US foreign policy.

The Bipartisan Origins of the New Cold War
BY
MICHAEL BRENES and VAN JACKSON

The AUKUS Forum continues to amaze. Its latest initiative endeavours to extend AUKUS submarines to rockets. Or at least get on the AUKUS gravy rocket. What’s the scam?

The scam is the many ways a private group of AUKUS enthusiasts is endeavouring to get its hands on some of the $368B earmarked for the AUKUS adventure. It’s all for the common good, of course, supporting Anthony Albanese’s vision of “a transformational movement for our nation.”

    by Kim Wingerei 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, to express condolences for the deadly plane crash that occured in Kazakhstan this week, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

Putin offered an apology for the fact that an incident “took place in Russian airspace,” adding that it occurred during a Ukrainian drone raid, which was being repelled by air defenses.

“The Azerbaijani passenger plane, which arrived on schedule, made repeated attempts to land at the airport in Grozny,” the statement said. The capital of Russia’s Chechen Republic, as well as other cities in the region, “were being attacked by Ukrainian combat drones at the time, and Russian air defences were repelling those attacks.”

Achieving a rapid global decarbonization to stabilize the climate critically depends on activating contagious and fast-spreading processes of social and technological change within the next few years. Drawing on expert elicitation, an expert workshop, and a review of literature, which provides a comprehensive analysis on this topic, we propose concrete interventions to induce positive social tipping dynamics and a rapid global transformation to carbon-neutral societies.

These social tipping interventions comprise removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation, building carbon-neutral cities, divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels, revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels, strengthening climate education and engagement, and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions information.