I carry with me every day the memory of the fallen, and I am responsible for answering the sharp questions that keep you awake. The post IDF Chief of Staff declares he is ‘fully responsible,’ to provide answers and ‘carries the memory of the fallen’ appeared first on World Israel News.

To simply change our approach on arms exports would make Hamas stronger and make a hostage deal less likely, the foreign secretary told the BBC. The post British FM warns against arms embargo of Israel appeared first on World Israel News.

Public school administrators grilled by members of Congress over soaring rates of antisemitism and the failure to remove some faculty members accused of antisemitism. The post WATCH: Congress grills public school administrators over antisemitism appeared first on World Israel News.

Since last Memorial Day (April 25, 2023), 1,594 Israeli soldiers and civilians have died. The post Israel marks first post-Oct. 7 Memorial Day appeared first on World Israel News.

Seinfeld has been a vocal supporter of Israel in its conflict with Hamas, with Jerry visiting some massacred kibbutzim in Israel. The post WATCH: Anti-Israel students walk out on Jerry Seinfeld’s speech at Duke commencement ceremony appeared first on World Israel News.

The casualties raise the military death toll to 272 since the start of ground operations in Gaza on Oct. 27. The post Five IDF soldiers slain in Gaza over the weekend appeared first on World Israel News.

Yom Hazikaron, Israel's Memorial Day, solemnly honors the sacrifices of fallen soldiers and victims of terror. The post WATCH: Yom HaZikaron – Israel mourns the heroic fallen soldiers and terror victims appeared first on World Israel News.

Israel cannot eradicate Hamas in Gaza, claims US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, pushing for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and 'demilitarization' of Hamas. The post Israel must learn to live with Hamas in Gaza, says Blinken, pushing to ‘demilitarize’ the terror group appeared first on World Israel News.

Current U.S. law prohibits funding to organizations such as the United Nations which give the Palestinians full membership or standing as a member state outside a political settlement with Israel. The post GOP senators sponsor bill to cut UN funding over PA benefits appeared first on World Israel News.

On a day when Mother's Day and Yom HaZikaron coincide, the still-held hostages and the heroic fallen soldiers must be remembered. The post WATCH: Mother’s Day – Grieving parents call out to their children held in Gaza appeared first on World Israel News.

Israel will usher in Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism (Yom Hazikaron) with a one-minute siren at 8 p.m. on Sunday The post ‘We can never forget how lucky we are’ appeared first on World Israel News.

The plan under consideration calls for civilian rule through the IDF. The post IDF may administer Gaza for up to a year after war appeared first on World Israel News.

The incident occurred on Route 44 at the Ofer checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah. The post WATCH: Ambulance driver caught with eight illegal Palestinian workers appeared first on World Israel News.

Also on Sunday, Egypt announced its intention to formally join South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel. The post Israel peace treaty at ‘high risk’ amid Rafah op, Cairo threatens appeared first on World Israel News.

A total of 30,139 security personnel and civilians have been killed defending the Land of Israel The post Israel to mark first post-Oct. 7 Memorial Day appeared first on World Israel News.

NYU professor Scott Galloway slammed the antisemitic rhetoric allowed to proliferate on college campuses. The post WATCH: ‘Free speech is at its freest when it is hate speech against Jews’ appeared first on World Israel News.

A 32-year-old Florida man, Alexander Deltoro, is facing charges related to the fatal shooting of his mother, Cindy Gale Deltoro, 60, during a family dispute. The incident occurred in December 2019, following a celebration of Deltoro’s 28th birthday. The accused recently appeared in court, seeking to have his manslaughter charges dismissed under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, claiming self-defense. The law, which has been a subject of controversy, allows a person to use deadly force ... Read more

A 32-year-old Florida man, Alexander Deltoro, is facing charges related to the fatal shooting of his mother, Cindy Gale Deltoro, 60, during a family dispute. The incident occurred in December 2019, following a celebration of Deltoro’s 28th birthday. The accused recently appeared in court, seeking to have his manslaughter charges dismissed under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, claiming self-defense. The law, which has been a subject of controversy, allows a person to use deadly force ... Read more

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name. To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article … The post Nonviolent Strategy to Halt the Genocide in Gaza, Liberate Palestine and Defeat the Global Technocracy appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name. To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article … The post Nonviolent Strategy to Halt the Genocide in Gaza, Liberate Palestine and Defeat the Global Technocracy appeared first on Global Research.

Steve Albini kept things honest. “Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context,” begins his seminal 1993 essay, “The Problem with Music.” “I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name. To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article … The post WHO’s Worldwide Power Grab: Beware of the New International Health Regulation and Pandemic Treaty, a Health Tyranny Never Heard of Before in Human History appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name. To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article … The post WHO’s Worldwide Power Grab: Beware of the New International Health Regulation and Pandemic Treaty, a Health Tyranny Never Heard of Before in Human History appeared first on Global Research.

A Texas family was left devastated after a targeted attack on their townhome resulted in the death of a 4-year-old girl and injuries to her parents and two brothers, aged 7 and 8. The assailants, two gunmen, are currently being pursued by law enforcement. The incident, which took place on Wednesday evening near San Antonio, was captured on a neighbor’s surveillance camera. The grandmother of the deceased child, April Luna, was present in the townhome ... Read more

A Texas family was left devastated after a targeted attack on their townhome resulted in the death of a 4-year-old girl and injuries to her parents and two brothers, aged 7 and 8. The assailants, two gunmen, are currently being pursued by law enforcement. The incident, which took place on Wednesday evening near San Antonio, was captured on a neighbor’s surveillance camera. The grandmother of the deceased child, April Luna, was present in the townhome ... Read more

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name. To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article … The post Club of Rome “Limits to Growth” Author Promotes Genocide of 86% of the World’s Population appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name. To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article … The post Club of Rome “Limits to Growth” Author Promotes Genocide of 86% of the World’s Population appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Top Legislators, Sovereignty Coalition Members Join Forces to Oppose WHO’s ‘Global Governance’ appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Top Legislators, Sovereignty Coalition Members Join Forces to Oppose WHO’s ‘Global Governance’ appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Victory Days: Military Without Militarism? appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Victory Days: Military Without Militarism? appeared first on Global Research.

“It is said that our indigenous ancestors, Mayas and Aztecs, made human sacrifices to their gods,” Rigoberta Menchú once quipped. “It occurs to me to ask: How many humans have been sacrificed to the gods of capital in the last five hundred years?” The activist’s 1983 memoir, I, Rigoberta Menchú, recounts the shocking story of

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Visit … The post Video: The Global Pandemic Treaty: What You Need to Know. James Corbett appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Visit … The post Video: The Global Pandemic Treaty: What You Need to Know. James Corbett appeared first on Global Research.

This Pandemic Treaty, if implemented, will change the global landscape and strip you and me of some of our most basic rights and freedoms. The WHO Pandemic Treaty is a direct attack on fundamental human rights and the sovereignty of nation states. The post Video: Digital Tyranny and the QR Code. The WHO Pandemic Treaty is the Back Door to “Global Governance” appeared first on Global Research.

This Pandemic Treaty, if implemented, will change the global landscape and strip you and me of some of our most basic rights and freedoms. The WHO Pandemic Treaty is a direct attack on fundamental human rights and the sovereignty of nation states. The post Video: Digital Tyranny and the QR Code. The WHO Pandemic Treaty is the Back Door to “Global Governance” appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post The World: Economically Bicentral, Geopolitically Multipolar appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post The World: Economically Bicentral, Geopolitically Multipolar appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post A Modest Proposal: The UN General Assembly and Palestinian Recognition appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post A Modest Proposal: The UN General Assembly and Palestinian Recognition appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post The JFK Assassination Chokeholds That Inescapably Prove There Was a Conspiracy appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post The JFK Assassination Chokeholds That Inescapably Prove There Was a Conspiracy appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Globalists Plot Worldwide Genocide Via WHO Pandemic Treaty appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Globalists Plot Worldwide Genocide Via WHO Pandemic Treaty appeared first on Global Research.

The head of the Manhattan Project, General Groves was in permanent liaison with Oppenheimer. On Sept. 15, 1945 The War Department requested an estimate of the "number of bombs required to ensure our national security" against the USSR The post The Hiroshima Nagasaki “Dress Rehearsal”: Oppenheimer and the U.S. War Department’s Secret September 15, 1945 “Doomsday Blueprint” to “Wipe the Soviet Union off the Map” appeared first on Global Research.

The head of the Manhattan Project, General Groves was in permanent liaison with Oppenheimer. On Sept. 15, 1945 The War Department requested an estimate of the "number of bombs required to ensure our national security" against the USSR The post The Hiroshima Nagasaki “Dress Rehearsal”: Oppenheimer and the U.S. War Department’s Secret September 15, 1945 “Doomsday Blueprint” to “Wipe the Soviet Union off the Map” appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post The WHO Health Tyranny – Or Not? appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post The WHO Health Tyranny – Or Not? appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Kiev Neo-Nazi Regime Hits Civilians in Russian Border Regions to Boycott Victory Day Celebrations appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Kiev Neo-Nazi Regime Hits Civilians in Russian Border Regions to Boycott Victory Day Celebrations appeared first on Global Research.

At a moment of dark news proliferating across the globe, the American labor movement has recently been, in a refreshing change, a bright spot. We find ourselves at a moment of growing public support for unions, recent high-profile victories by unions like the United Auto Workers (UAW) in their “stand-up strike” against the Big Three

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Europe and the Middle East, Two Scenarios of the Same War appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Europe and the Middle East, Two Scenarios of the Same War appeared first on Global Research.

Nobody noticed it, but the funniest thing happened when Hugo Chavez visited Britain in 2006. At the Camden Centre, a large art deco town hall in Central London near the British Library, the event hosted by then London mayor Ken Livingstone was packed out with young people, suddenly more curious and more left leaning thanks

The international fashion community is grappling with the untimely death of Sian Scale, an emerging Australian model, who died at 28. The news of her passing was confirmed by her family. Scale, originally from Melbourne, had a flourishing career that took her to the world’s fashion hotspots such as London, New York, and Paris. Her life was abruptly ended this week at the Peter McCallum Center, situated near Melbourne’s central business district, due to a ... Read more

The international fashion community is grappling with the untimely death of Sian Scale, an emerging Australian model, who died at 28. The news of her passing was confirmed by her family. Scale, originally from Melbourne, had a flourishing career that took her to the world’s fashion hotspots such as London, New York, and Paris. Her life was abruptly ended this week at the Peter McCallum Center, situated near Melbourne’s central business district, due to a ... Read more

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post US Planning Gaza Aid to Fail appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post US Planning Gaza Aid to Fail appeared first on Global Research.

Albuquerque, New Mexico – A stepmother was shot by her stepson while attempting to give him a hug during a high school graduation ceremony, according to authorities. The incident occurred at the Albuquerque Convention Center, where the Southwest Secondary Learning Center graduation was taking place. Police identified the suspect as 21-year-old Christian Bencomo. Police received a call around 5 p.m. reporting shots fired at the venue. Witnesses described a chaotic scene, with over 100 people ... Read more

Albuquerque, New Mexico – A stepmother was shot by her stepson while attempting to give him a hug during a high school graduation ceremony, according to authorities. The incident occurred at the Albuquerque Convention Center, where the Southwest Secondary Learning Center graduation was taking place. Police identified the suspect as 21-year-old Christian Bencomo. Police received a call around 5 p.m. reporting shots fired at the venue. Witnesses described a chaotic scene, with over 100 people ... Read more

The official story is that a dangerous new coronavirus was detected in Wuhan, PRC. It had not been isolated, it's identity had not been confirmed. And then in February, the name of the "new virus" was changed to SARS-CoV-2, a virus first detected 20 years ago in 2003. The post There Never Was a “New Corona Virus”, There Never Was a Pandemic appeared first on Global Research.

The official story is that a dangerous new coronavirus was detected in Wuhan, PRC. It had not been isolated, it's identity had not been confirmed. And then in February, the name of the "new virus" was changed to SARS-CoV-2, a virus first detected 20 years ago in 2003. The post There Never Was a “New Corona Virus”, There Never Was a Pandemic appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Video: Fake Pandemic Triggers Worldwide Economic and Social Collapse. Michel Chossudovsky appeared first on Global Research.

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It all started on March 5, 2014: a US sponsored fascist coalition government under the disguise of democracy was installed in Ukraine. With historical foresight pertaining to the dangers of a Third World War, this article by Felicity Arbuthnot was … The post Ukraine: US Launches a Fascist Government, and World War Three? appeared first on Global Research.

It all started on March 5, 2014: a US sponsored fascist coalition government under the disguise of democracy was installed in Ukraine. With historical foresight pertaining to the dangers of a Third World War, this article by Felicity Arbuthnot was … The post Ukraine: US Launches a Fascist Government, and World War Three? appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Revealing the Myths and Realities of Israel-Palestine Struggles, and of October 7. appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Revealing the Myths and Realities of Israel-Palestine Struggles, and of October 7. appeared first on Global Research.

Call it 0 for 2 as the Biden Administration struck out twice this week regarding Israel’s imminent move on the south Gaza city of Rafah. The first fail involved National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. He raised eyebrows when he responded to a question about US support for Israel’s presumptive operation. The second miff was, of course, President Biden’s shameful announcement in an interview aired Wednesday evening in which he doubled-down on recent actions to withhold weapons shipments from Israel should the IDF indeed launch a full-scale assault Rafah. Biden’s proclamation, even if—as some insist—it is mere political theater, is a gross betrayal of one of our greatest and most important allies. While purporting to be an effort to protect Palestinian innocents, it has every prospect to increase the danger to those innocent Palestinians while at the same leaving Israel more vulnerable to her adversaries beyond Hamas. I will write more about all this in an upcoming essay and I’ll save most of my ammo for that. Suffice it to say, for now, that by withholding critical weapons from Israel in response to the high civilian death toll, Biden has managed to both incentive continued Hamas battlefield tactics that intentionally lead to such deaths as well as to increase the likelihood that Hamas ultimately survives this fight. On top of that, he risks Israel’s weapons stockpile becoming too depleted to deal with multi-front adversaries, should any of Israel’s low-simmer conflicts boil over. Biden’s blunder puts everyone at risk. Kirby’s was certainly the lesser of the two failings. While insisting that the US continues to support Israel’s right and responsibility “to go after the Hamas threat,” nevertheless, he again cautioned—as he has on multiple occasions—that the IDF is “not going to eliminate an ideology through military operations.” The problem is that while this might be a fine-sounding platitude on the surface—and, in a limited fashion, self-evidently true—it is, in any really meaningful sense, false, misleading, and dangerous. It’s false because, as David Harsanyi sharply—if snarkily—pointed out over at The Federalist, history is heavy with examples—he offers the violent destruction of the Cathar heresy as one—that show the literal elimination of ideologies through force has efficiently been accomplished time and again. Such eliminationist extremism is not, of course, Israel’s goal. A more appropriate analogy is the decisive conclusion of the Second World War, which rectified the insane naivete of ending the first one with an armistice and not a surrender. The fight against Hitlerism and Japanese militarism ended only when the Allies had eliminated both the enemies’ capacity and, crucially, will to continue fighting. A decisive and overwhelming military operation did just this. Kirby’s statement is misleading for two reasons. The first suggests a modest qualification to what I’ve just asserted. Outside the eliminationist option, it may be strictly speaking true that military operations—alone—cannot eliminate ideology. But it can bring about the conditions to do so. One thinks here of the 101st Airborne in 1957 escorting the Little Rock Nine to school. Kirby’s right: paratroopers could not drive racism from the minds and hearts of the angry mob that stood between those kids and integrated classrooms. But it could disperse that mob, enforce order, and get those kids to class. Compulsion, in turn, allowed the time and space for hearts and minds to ultimately change and make peace with the new reality forced upon them. Military operations may not be the sole ingredient to new realities but, pace Kirby, they are sometimes essential. Kirby’s assertion is misleading for a second reason: it risks the false impression that Israel is trying to do something impossible. This is dangerous and irresponsible. To give the impression that in its fight against Hamas, or in its Rafah mission specifically, Israel cannot accomplish its war aims risks, intentionally or not, encouraging Israel’s critics to increase pressure for a premature ceasefire. Israel has not indulged in the belief that it can eliminate, through force, the poison that inspires Hamas. Instead, its war aims are more material: the return of the hostages, the destruction of Hamas as a military organization, and the destruction of Hamas as a political entity. Sadly, it seems increasingly likely that most of the hostages will never return home. But with the launch of the Rafah operation, Israel might well be on the cusp of accomplishing Hamas’ destruction. Observers suggest that Hamas’ only real remaining fighting capacity is holed up in Rafah. If Israel can get to it, the existence of Hamas as a military organization capable of posing any viable threat to Israel is likely nearly at an end. Just as critically, having driven Hamas from Rafah, Israel will have eliminated the terrorist group’s control of the transportation routes from Egypt into the Gaza strip. Israel—and Palestinian leaders of good will—can then control the economic lifelines that might sustain the Palestinian people. This is not a power move. This is a means to ensure that aid distribution and everything else that can lead to the possibility of Palestinian flourishing can enter Gaza and meet the needs it is intended to. In that moment, Hamas’ political dominance will have joined its military capacity on the ash heap of history. Meanwhile, Western support for Israel is probably essential for Israel to prosecute the Rafah mission to its full conclusion. And Israel must do so or Hamas wins this war—because it survives it. In the very beginning of this fight, I insisted that the only route to peace is the elimination of Hamas. This remains true; and so this fight must be fought to the finish. Evil, including evil ideologies, will never be eliminated in time. But, realistically, the capacity of such ideologies to wreak havoc in the world can be diminished and contained. More idealistically, whether we look at the 101st airborne in Little Rock—or France for that matter!—or at the decisive victories against Germany and Japan—or at the operations underway in south Gaza—history suggests that it is untrue that force has no role in changing minds, creating new realities, or in helping bring about those conditions that might allow one-time adversaries to make peace with those new realities.

Campuses throughout the United States and Canada are witnessing a surge of free expression and assembly that is being met with repressive crackdowns. Largely driven by calls for justice in Gaza, for a lasting cease-fire, and for a free Palestine, students have occupied buildings, set up encampments, and held protests. Responses to the action have

A South African employee of a cruise ship was apprehended on Tuesday in Juneau, Alaska’s capital, following allegations of assaulting a woman and two security personnel with a pair of scissors aboard the vessel, as per law enforcement authorities. The man, aged 35, is facing charges of assault with a dangerous weapon within maritime and territorial jurisdiction, as stated by the U.S. attorney’s office. The man’s legal representation is yet to be disclosed in online ... Read more

A South African employee of a cruise ship was apprehended on Tuesday in Juneau, Alaska’s capital, following allegations of assaulting a woman and two security personnel with a pair of scissors aboard the vessel, as per law enforcement authorities. The man, aged 35, is facing charges of assault with a dangerous weapon within maritime and territorial jurisdiction, as stated by the U.S. attorney’s office. The man’s legal representation is yet to be disclosed in online ... Read more

During the summer of protests that followed the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd in May 2020, journalists and readers alike began taking a hard look at how much news reporting relied on police sources. In particular, the standard use of “police said” articles — where the main or only source of information came from

Sulla Piazza Rossa a Mosca, il 9 Maggio, si è svolta la Parata per il 79° Anniversario della Vittoria della Grande Guerra Patriottica del 1941-1945 contro la Germania nazista. Vi hanno partecipato oltre 9.000 militari con 75 sistemi d’arma … The post Europa e Medioriente Due Scenari della Stessa Guerra appeared first on Global Research.

Sulla Piazza Rossa a Mosca, il 9 Maggio, si è svolta la Parata per il 79° Anniversario della Vittoria della Grande Guerra Patriottica del 1941-1945 contro la Germania nazista. Vi hanno partecipato oltre 9.000 militari con 75 sistemi d’arma … The post Europa e Medioriente Due Scenari della Stessa Guerra appeared first on Global Research.

This Sunday, Catalonia votes in a snap election to elect a new parliament. This autonomous community in northeastern Spain is today unlikely to garner the global attention that it did in 2017, when its government made a push for independence. Yet these elections surely will shed light on two key issues, both for Catalonia and

LAKE WALES, Fla. — Patricia Saintizaire, a 36-year-old woman from Lake Wales, Florida, is facing charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and tampering with a witness in connection with the death of her 4-year-old adopted son, Bryan Boyer. Saintizaire, who had adopted Bryan from Haiti, brought him to the United States in April 2023, as confirmed by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Bryan’s death investigation has uncovered distressing details, shocking law enforcement officials. Sheriff ... Read more

LAKE WALES, Fla. — Patricia Saintizaire, a 36-year-old woman from Lake Wales, Florida, is facing charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and tampering with a witness in connection with the death of her 4-year-old adopted son, Bryan Boyer. Saintizaire, who had adopted Bryan from Haiti, brought him to the United States in April 2023, as confirmed by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. Bryan’s death investigation has uncovered distressing details, shocking law enforcement officials. Sheriff ... Read more

HOUSTON — Authorities have identified the suspect wanted in connection with the shooting and killing of a Houston attorney at a McDonald’s restaurant. Anthony Martin Landry, 57, is facing charges of murder following the incident on May 4. The Houston Police Department alleges that Landry shot and killed 46-year-old Jeffrey Limmer before fleeing the scene in a blue pickup truck. According to reports, Limmer was attempting to defuse an argument between Landry and McDonald’s employees ... Read more

HOUSTON — Authorities have identified the suspect wanted in connection with the shooting and killing of a Houston attorney at a McDonald’s restaurant. Anthony Martin Landry, 57, is facing charges of murder following the incident on May 4. The Houston Police Department alleges that Landry shot and killed 46-year-old Jeffrey Limmer before fleeing the scene in a blue pickup truck. According to reports, Limmer was attempting to defuse an argument between Landry and McDonald’s employees ... Read more

The US dollar is facing challenges that demand attention. As nations in the Global South grapple with the risks inherent in relying on a currency subject to the whims of a single nation, the allure of alternatives grows

On January 1, 2024, Egypt and four other countries from the Global South became members of BRICS. Egypt had previously joined the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) in December 2021 with a contribution of $1.2 billion. This represents an important turning point in Egyptian policy. Since the 1970s, Egypt has submitted to the Western economy, which is dominated by the United States. Egypt’s membership in BRICS confirms the popularity and support for BRICS among the Global South, which groans from the greed and exploitation of the West. The developing countries seek balanced, win-win partnerships and true opportunities for development. The Egyptian step indicates its desire to pursue an alternative path. I is poised to enhance African and Arab support for BRICS measures to achieve a new multipolar economic order

Precious metals, especially gold, are experiencing a significant rally led by the BRICS countries. The bloc aims to use gold to back its future currency as an alternative to the US dollar

It is clear that the West is in conflict with Russia. This conflict is waged militarily on Ukrainian soil, but there is also economic war through sanctions and propaganda war.The current developments in the Caucasus are also related to the East-West conflict.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Prime Minister of Italy Refused to Condemn Fascist Salutes But Supports NATO appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Prime Minister of Italy Refused to Condemn Fascist Salutes But Supports NATO appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Illegal Alien Voting: Tucker Carlson Interviews Catherine Englebrecht appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Illegal Alien Voting: Tucker Carlson Interviews Catherine Englebrecht appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Canada on WHO’s Global Power Grab. Urgent Message and Call to Action from the World Council for Health (WCH) appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Canada on WHO’s Global Power Grab. Urgent Message and Call to Action from the World Council for Health (WCH) appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Plot to Kill President Zelensky Revealed by Ukraine Intelligence (SBU) appeared first on Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button … The post Plot to Kill President Zelensky Revealed by Ukraine Intelligence (SBU) appeared first on Global Research.

BURBANK, Calif. — A beloved teacher in Burbank, California was tragically killed in her own home, allegedly by her adult son. Karyn Lombardo, 57, was found dead on the night of May 7, according to a statement by the Burbank Police Department. Her 25-year-old son, Kyle Lombardo, has been charged with murder following an altercation with his mother. In an emotional interview with KTLA, Karyn’s husband, Vince Lombardo, revealed that their son has a mental ... Read more

BURBANK, Calif. — A beloved teacher in Burbank, California was tragically killed in her own home, allegedly by her adult son. Karyn Lombardo, 57, was found dead on the night of May 7, according to a statement by the Burbank Police Department. Her 25-year-old son, Kyle Lombardo, has been charged with murder following an altercation with his mother. In an emotional interview with KTLA, Karyn’s husband, Vince Lombardo, revealed that their son has a mental ... Read more

An Air Senegal-operated Boeing 737 veered off course and erupted into flames during its takeoff from Blaise Diagne airport in Dakar, Senegal, early Thursday. The incident triggered a frantic evacuation of passengers from the burning aircraft. The flight was destined for Bamako, Mali, with 78 passengers on board. Eleven passengers were injured in the incident, four of whom are reported to be in critical condition. Videos from the scene depicted a chaotic scramble as passengers ... Read more

An Air Senegal-operated Boeing 737 veered off course and erupted into flames during its takeoff from Blaise Diagne airport in Dakar, Senegal, early Thursday. The incident triggered a frantic evacuation of passengers from the burning aircraft. The flight was destined for Bamako, Mali, with 78 passengers on board. Eleven passengers were injured in the incident, four of whom are reported to be in critical condition. Videos from the scene depicted a chaotic scramble as passengers ... Read more

The United States’ southern border has long been an obsession of reactionaries, stretching as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century, when Mexico provided asylum to runaway slaves. The 1,954 mile stretch of land continues to be a flash point for a Republican right not content with having normalized Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant policies,

San Antonio, Texas – On Wednesday evening, May 8, a shooting in San Antonio, Texas left three children and two adults in critical condition. The incident occurred at a residence on the 6700 block of Windsor Hollow Dr. County Sheriff Javier Salazar addressed the media during a press conference, stating that law enforcement received a shooting alert around 7:40 pm local time. When deputies arrived at the scene, they found five victims with gunshot wounds, ... Read more

San Antonio, Texas – On Wednesday evening, May 8, a shooting in San Antonio, Texas left three children and two adults in critical condition. The incident occurred at a residence on the 6700 block of Windsor Hollow Dr. County Sheriff Javier Salazar addressed the media during a press conference, stating that law enforcement received a shooting alert around 7:40 pm local time. When deputies arrived at the scene, they found five victims with gunshot wounds, ... Read more

Bands came to Steve Albini to sound like themselves. The engineer — who died this week of a heart attack, aged sixty-one — outlined his approach to Nirvana in a letter before he recorded In Utero, stating that he was only interested in capturing the band exactly as they were, right then and there. “If you

As has become commonplace for the NATO proxy regime, Russian civilians are targeted on important dates for the Russian Federation, spreading terror among ordinary people in demilitarized zones.

Michael Sobolik has done something truly extraordinary. Countering China’s Great Game distills thousands of years of Chinese history, politics, and culture into a short, accessible volume. This book is the perfect China policy primer,  a must-read for congressional staff and all those who would be informed in current debates around the United States’ evolving relationship with China.  The book’s chief virtue is clarity of vision. While there are other books that deal more extensively with China’s economy and looming demographic crisis, what Sobolik has to offer is an incisive analysis that brings great power competition with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) into clear focus.  We are in the middle of a new Cold War with the CCP. Sobolik’s strategy for American dominance looks back to the past for lessons. The first Cold War was won by moving past détente to true competition with the Soviet Union. Initially, U.S. actions were simply reactionary, aimed at countering Soviet strengths. The breakthrough came when the U.S. shifted to proactively targeting Soviet weaknesses. Cold War strategists like Andrew Marshall turned the tide by developing a blueprint of net assessments of the enemy’s vulnerabilities and competitive strategies to exploit them.  Marshall’s framework requires that we answer the question “What game is China playing?” For decades, politicians on both sides of the aisle fell for a truncated narrative that downplayed China’s historical continuity and assumed that it was inevitably fated to become a  “Western liberal democracy,” as Francis Fukuyama predicted in his 1989 essay, The End of History?.   What political scientists pronounced, politicians repeated. In 2000, then-Senator Joe Biden took to the chamber floor to argue that, “through two decades of economic opening to the outside world,” China was emerging out of its troubled past and becoming “truly modern.” Full embrace and economic partnership would make perfect sense if such liberalization were actually China’s trajectory.   But, as Sobolik cautions, “China’s history did not begin in 1949 when Mao Zedong and the CCP established the PRC. Nor did it start with China’s ‘Century of Humiliation,’ when European imperialist powers forcibly opened China in the mid-nineteenth century.” Modern China was not jettisoning its past but seeking to restore its former imperial greatness. As Xi Xinping said himself in 2013, the People’s Republic of China has pursued a “continuous quest… carrying forward the 5,000 plus years of Chinese civilization.”  Zhongguo and tianxia are the watchwords of that Chinese imperialist culture. As Sobolik explains, “the first record of China’s name dates back… more than three thousand years ago,” reading zhai zi zhongguo: “to live in the center of the kingdom.” Zhongguo is a “statement of cultural primacy and an explicit claim to civilizational hegemony.” Tianxia (“all under heaven”) is “China’s mission of spreading its cultural values beyond its borders.” Even as China has gone through many dramatic political transformations over the course of time, China has never stopped striving to fulfill these principles.  Sobolik argues for the centrality of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in its modern quest for tianxia. Formerly referred to by the more revealingly imperialistic name of “One Belt, One Road,” these Beijing-backed infrastructure projects aim to “shift the world’s economic orientation away from America and toward the PRC.” Underwritten by Chinese-backed loans, BRI has expanded beyond “a land and sea project… to include the Digital Silk Road, the Polar Silk Road, the Health Silk Road,” and so on, spanning from personal protective equipment to telecom to film festivals and business conferences.  Much like in the Cold War against Russia, Washington’s temptation is to play a losing game of dollar-for-dollar competition on terms favorable to China. But, Sobolik counsels, “with an offensive framework, American policymakers could turn the tables and transform the BRI into an albatross to hang around the neck of the Communist Party.” Détente is not enough: “we need to create problems for the party.” Or, as Reagan put it, “We win. They lose.”  If the BRI is China’s “great game,” there are two major targets that follow. First, Xinjiang. The province of Xinjiang is China’s most critical gateway to Eurasia and the CCP seems to view its genocidal campaign against Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslims as essential to securing it. While the US has already imposed sanctions on slave-labor produced goods from Xinjiang, Sobolik urges policymakers to go even further and “sanction all commerce passing through” the province. This would deal a severe blow to half of the BRI in Eurasia and crack down on the brutal persecution that takes place there (torture, brainwashing, forced sterilization, etc.).  The other prime target is China’s Great Firewall. The CCP is mortally afraid of of the Chinese people and so the regime created a massive censorship apparatus that rewrites history (e.g., the 1989 protests and massacre at Tiananmen Square are unsearchable in China) and, according to a Stanford report, “fosters an environment in which citizens do not demand such information in the first place.” Sobolik says the US should target the CCP’s “high-tech prison,” making it harder to keep the Chinese people in the dark. After all, China is already meddling in the US, launching cyberattacks against foreign websites, using social media to influence US elections, and even directly infiltrating databases of sensitive government information. Surely giving the CCP a taste of its own medicine, albeit in the form of a free and open internet, would be salutary.  Perhaps understated in Countering China’s Great Game, but implicit all throughout, is one enduringly important insight: China’s greatest political liabilities are inextricably linked to its greatest moral failings: namely, genocide and totalitarian oppression.   Though Sobolik makes only a quick, passing reference to Reinhold Niebuhr, the influence of his outlook on the spirit of the book is clear: sin is real and it has empirically verifiable consequences. Whereas certain schools of foreign policy have felt America’s conscience to be one of its greatest weaknesses, Sobolik argues the opposite: America is great because America is good.   “To establish justice in a sinful world is the whole sad duty of the political order,” as Niebuhr once wrote. Nations that neglect that duty, impossible as it may be, will pay for it one way or another. 

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which currently heads the ruling coalition government in India, has long had a reputation as a male-dominated, Hindu supremacist organization with an upper caste and patriarchal image. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promoted a makeover of the party’s image on several fronts. He is now seeking a third term in

Meloni is an example of the limits of European so-called “populism”. Moreover, Fascist-leaning and far-right leaders and coalitions (even with public Fascist salutes and so on) are welcomed within European power structures - as long as they remain loyal to NATO.

Xi Jinping pointed out that relations between China and Serbia are "sealed by blood" and that "the friendship of the countries will forever remain in the common memory of the Chinese and Serbian people". Such words certainly resonate quite strongly in both countries.

As countries across Europe this week held their traditional commemorations for the end of World War II, the role of organized labor in resisting fascism was all too often overlooked. But it was the most principled, militant parts of the working class that led some of the most powerful revolts against the war and its

“Everyone will Fight – choose your own unit now,” reads Ukrainian neo-Nazi propaganda.

Mongolia just had another disastrous winter. By the end of April, the animal death toll had reached 7.1 million — more than 10 percent of the entire herd. It could increase further as during the “dzud” year of extreme cold and heavy snow, the most damage is done in the springtime when a combination of

Students at Trinity College in Dublin, best known in recent years for its starring role in the fiction of Sally Rooney, organized a protest encampment this week in solidarity with the Palestinian people. In the United States, universities like Columbia and the University of California, Los Angeles responded to similar encampments by calling in the

On a cool London day in 1928, the towering African American actor and singer Paul Robeson sat down for a much-anticipated lunch. Seated with him were his new acquaintances: a Miss Douglas, the Irish playwright Bernard Shaw, and Mrs Calvin Coolidge, the wife of US president Calvin Coolidge. Robeson witnessed a heated debate ensue between

“You had a slogan, ‘Workers of the World Unite!’ It’s still a good slogan. It’s an old Marxist slogan. Still use it. And that’s how simple it was, workers of the world unite, you got nothing to lose but your chains. Still as good as the day it was said. We still try to operate

Three hundred San Francisco State University (SFSU) students and their eight elected bargaining reps faced one campus president and two aides out on the student center plaza, a hundred feet from the campus’s Palestine encampment. This was open bargaining on a scale that matched the best of the labor movement, and it took an exceptionally

On the morning of May 9, 1934, a rejuvenated International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) struck shippers in the West Coast ports, shutting down them all from Bellingham, Washington, to San Diego. Seattle’s dockers, some fifteen hundred, walked off their jobs that morning to face an array of hostile shippers united to maintain an “open shop” and

Most colleges and universities, including Christian ones, require at least one modern International Relations (IR) theory class for a degree in political science. Baylor University, my alma mater, is no exception. Yet today, I question the value of teaching students a series of IR theories that claim to be the best explanatory frameworks in existence—and which fail to predict anything of significance in the real world. Just as with critical theory in the humanities, the implicit message these theories convey to students is one of nihilism.  A cursory glance at the IR field gives little indication of this. Most IR educators and their students view their theories as meaningful and expect learning them to improve their understanding of politics, as well as their ability to serve the international community. But upon closer review, many of these theories appear to be factories of useless fictions.  Consider foreign policy realism, the most prominent IR theory. It assumes that political actors are consistently motivated by rational self-interest, as defined by coldly calculated cost-benefit analyses. But thoughtful political scientists admit this assumption is inaccurate. They acknowledge people and states make all kinds of decisions with no reference to purportedly objective rationality.1 Reading between the lines, it seems IR educators and students are trying to draw wisdom from a theory they know to be false.  This is not unique to foreign policy realism, but typical of IR generally. In his 2017 book on the field, meta-theorist Stephen McGlinchey describes IR theories as “porous, complex and evolving things that give us a unique insight into the structure of collective thought,” but not into “universal truths about politics.”2 At Baylor, my instructors frequently echoed McGlinchey, reminding me that the ideas we studied “weren’t technically true.”  Such avowals may be commonplace across the social studies, but they do not do exculpate the teaching of such theories. Why did my instructors ask me to imbibe ideas that no one fully believes in? If my father, a geologist, prefaced one of his scientific articles by stating that his theories “weren’t technically true,” he would be laughed out of the academy. Why do the same rules not apply to IR? After all, “science” is still in the department name.  I have yet to encounter any more than two answers to these questions. The first is offered by McGlinchey in his book, who, referencing IR scholar Steve Smith, writes: “‘[T]he option of non-theoretical accounts of the world is simply not available.’ As such, you need to familiarize yourself with what theory is, how it works and how it shapes the way you see the world.”3 This seems reasonable, except that for McGlinchey, “theoretical” means “ideological” as Eric Voegelin would use the term: denoting a system of mental constructs rather than logical deductions from reality.4 In other words, for McGlinchey, accuracy is unattainable, and we should content ourselves with potentially baseless paradigms. The author explicitly states: “It is not important whether IR theories are true or not.”5 Most orthodox Christians would, and should, reject this postmodern answer out of hand.  The second answer, the one my instructors at Baylor offered, is that modern IR theories are best understood as utilitarian “lenses.” Offering a distorted picture of reality, they may not be applicable to all real-world politics. But in the right circumstances, their distortions can prove useful, clarifying political issues as the lenses of magnifying glasses clarify far-off views by distorting paths of light.  This answer is more defensible than McGlinchey’s, because there is precedent for such “theoretical idealization” in the physical sciences. Elementary physics courses, for instance, often omit friction to help students more easily grasp the interplay of force and mass. Even so, the comparison stops short. While hypotheses in the physical sciences are abstract, they are also true. Force, abstracted from factors like friction, really does equal mass times acceleration. Political agents, on the other hand, do not always act on rational self-interest, as foreign policy realism asserts, no matter what factors they are abstracted from. In short, scientific theories are provisionally distortionary, whereas modern IR theories are distortionary to their core.  This does not bother a thinker like McGlinchey, who would subordinate IR to critical theory. But it should bother IR educators and students who seek to better themselves and their communities by their studies. Why should they expect enlightenment from embracing and acting on falsehoods? Why should they expect utility from that, either?  It is worth noting that, despite their purported practicality, modern IR theories appear to exert little influence over politics. U.S. policymakers regularly deride or ignore them as the products of “an irrelevant ivory tower.”6 Meanwhile, even IR superstars like Stephen Walt acknowledge “[p]olicy relevance is simply not a criterion that the [IR] academy values.”7 We could blame these shortcomings on politicians’ obtuseness or universities’ “organizational culture.”8 But might the culprit simply be the fact that IR’s “useful fictions” are, in the end, not that useful?  Political scientist David Lake thinks so. In a 2011 article, he suggests that by requiring their adherents to suspend certain truths indefinitely, modern IR theories have “reified” into religious “sects.” These sects funnel advanced IR students into purely self-referential corners of the academy, each devoted to a particular “ism.” When those students become educators, their ideological training continues to sequester them from history, society, and politics. Eventually, all their ability to transcend the “isms” and comment constructively on real-world politics atrophies.9  This should be disturbing. It should be especially disturbing to Christian educators, who are ostensibly committed to purveying truth and empowering their students to do good. Encouraging students to adopt ideas that are both false and useless is inconsistent with these goals. If modern IR theories are really useless fictions, then Christian schools must begin rethinking their place in IR curricula. Otherwise, they risk leading their students into nihilism.  To anyone who considers this far-fetched, I commend the journalist Malcolm Kyeyune’s 2023 article on foreign policy realism. Kyeyune ascribes to realism, which he describes as “truth.” But as a keen observer of politics, he also recognizes that realism does not account for what actually animates society: a combination of rational, a-rational, and irrational motivations that he calls “magic.” This recognition results in a cognitive dissonance that pushes Kyeyune to metaphysical despondency. That “truth isn’t magic, and magic isn’t truth,” he laments, is all part of the “deeply appealing and naturally repellant…story of human greatness, human potential, and human brilliance, and how all those things came to naught in the end.”10  Kyeyune despairs because the IR theory he believes is fundamentally opposed to reality. In contrast, Christians have a long tradition of theorizing about IR in concert with reality, with just war theory being the primary example. This theory is different from the likes of foreign policy realism in that it is based on a substantive anthropology, rather than ideological—and frequently inaccurate—political assumptions. It is time Christian schools draw on their own IR tradition and evaluate modern IR theories in light of it. Otherwise, they will do a disservice to their students, who are interested in learning truth, not fancy.   Brian C. Schmidt and Colin Wight. “Rationalism and the ‘Rational Actor Assumption’ in Realist International Relations Theory.” Journal of International Political Theory, 19(2), 158-182.  ↩︎Stephen McGlinchey, Rosie Walters, and Christian Scheinpflug. International Relations Theory. E-International Relations Publishing: 2017, 150.  ↩︎McGlinchey, Walters, and Scheinpflug, 151. ↩︎Ibid, 149. ↩︎Ibid, 151. ↩︎David Newsom, qtd. by Sebastian Rosato and John Schuessler. “A Realist Foreign Policy for the United States.” Perspectives on Politics, 9(4), 803. ↩︎Stephen Walt, qtd. by Rosato and Schuessler, 803. ↩︎Bruce Jentleson and Ely Ratner, qtd. by Rosato and Schuessler, 803. ↩︎David Lake. “Theory Is Dead, Long Live Theory: The End of the Great Debates and the Rise of Eclecticism in International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations, 19(3), 567-587. ↩︎Malcolm Kyeyune, “The Tragedy of Foreign-Policy Realism.” Compact. https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-tragedy-of-foreign-policy-realism/. ↩︎

The US is complaining about Russia targeting "commercial" space capabilities, while top-ranking officials in Washington DC are bragging about using those same "commercial" capabilities for military purposes. Analyses I wrote years ago suggested that America has been using private space corporations to enhance its military capabilities. Who in their right mind can blame Moscow for wanting to deny such assets to the US military, which is also bragging about using other advanced technologies (particularly advanced AI) to directly target Russian soldiers?

Airlines may be on the verge of losing their fight against the Biden administration’s new promise of automatic refunds for canceled or delayed flights. On Tuesday, lawmakers relented to pressure following our reporting on the matter and purportedly included a provision guaranteeing the refunds in a must-pass Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) funding bill, which faces

Back in 2017, an Israeli diplomat in London was recorded demanding action against Alan Duncan, then a British foreign office minister. Soon after, Duncan went to brief the department’s ranking civil servant on the revelation, recalling the exchange in his diary: “I teasingly remind[ed] him . . . of what I said to him on

These are not good times for #TheResistance. The election of Donald Trump was a day of infamy that changed everything, and elite liberals can’t seem to escape the specter of November 2016. They’re still playing the old hits — Trump is an Existential Threat! America is becoming like The Handmaid’s Tale! — while the public

There is no Russian interest in killing Zelensky, since Moscow understands the conflict as a war with NATO with Kiev being only a proxy – regardless of the current president.

French Foreign Legion may have suffered its first casualties in clashes near Chasov Yar.

In his Funeral Oration in late 431 BC, at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian democratic statesman Pericles spoke about the virtues of the city of Athens, ultimately dubbing it the “school of Hellas.” Specifically, Pericles saw Athens as the school of democracy—instructing both Athenians and outsiders in the virtues of self-governance, the love of art, and the pursuit of all that is beautiful. But how did Athens achieve this? What did this school of democracy look like, day-to-day?   From Pericles’ own description of Athens, the cultivation of democratic virtue seemed baked in to society, from the public performances of drama, to the courts, the assemblies, the agora, and the homes and farms of individual Athenians. As opposed to one particular institution shaping the morals of the citizenry, it was the combination of all the structures of every-day life.   But where is the school of democracy in America today? For a growing minority of American families, it’s where the Athenians would expect: the household, the oikos, as that most foundational democratic institution.  Most mornings from August to May, my children get up in the morning, have breakfast, and then… stay home. They color, draw, and paint; we read aloud together and they read on their own separately; we do puzzles; we bake muffins and make soup; we go on long walks and on regular field trips to the zoo and the botanical gardens. Aside from Greek and math, we do not use a curriculum. Rather, we pursue questions and research rabbit holes, checking out dozens of books from the public library. Most importantly, we live our lives together as a family, becoming a little democratic academy.    In her new book, Becoming Homeschoolers, homeschooling mother and author Monica Swanson emphasizes many of these same modes of education. While too often public conversations about education (including homeschooling) revolve around the nitty-gritty of curriculum selection and lists of learning outcomes—the things that standardized tests measure—the two aspects of homeschooling that thread through Swanson’s book are ones that are not assessed by any test, but that make homeschooling a beneficial option not only for particular families, but also for our society as a whole.   First of these is the value of homeschooling for cultivating meaningful relationships in the family and democracy. The family is a microcosm of society as it contains people at different stages of life, in contrast to public schools where students are socialized only with their age peers. How can children instead be taught to learn and grow with people in different stages of human development? It could begin with building relationships at home, as Swanson shows through her analysis of the complex dynamics of raising four boys, spread out in age and diverse in interests and gifts. In contrast, having adolescents split up by year and academic ability is a surefire way to ensure young people are motivated by the approval of a much narrower cross section of society.   Second and related, Swanson emphasizes character formation as an essential part of homeschooling:   “As homeschooling parents, we can teach our kids the biblical principles of doing all things with excellence, of being faithful and loyal, even when there is a cost… I am convinced that if homeschool parents can do this one important job of developing character in their children, they will be giving them a gift that will bring blessings into their lives (not to mention those around them) for the rest of their lives.”   This piece of the educational puzzle is what most separates homeschooling from public schooling today.  Public schools today cannot agree on the nature of character formation because there can be no broad agreement on such transcendent questions in the secular sphere. And yet, writers like Abigail Shrier and Jonathan Haidt have recently noted the proliferation of mental health problems and behavioral challenges among youth. The kids are not alright; they are overmedicated, stressed, fragile in unprecedented ways, prone to peer pressure, bullied and bullying, and addicted to screens. The problems seem, from a public-school perspective, unsolvable. But they are not unsolvable at home, where parents can and should focus on developing the character of the young image-bearers under their roof.   This is of utmost concern for the future of the American democracy, as kids are not kids for very long. Our most formative years, when education matters most, are over in the blink of an eye. This is true for kids who grow up in church as well—a couple of hours of Jesus sprinkled over the moral rot of mainstream societal teachings will simply not work. While some parents may say: “I send my kids to school for academics and teach them about God at home and in church,” Swanson notes that “there is no such thing as a spiritually neutral education.”  In the last section of the book, Swanson discusses the different learning styles of kids and homeschooling styles of families, she offers ideas and questions to ask when selecting a curriculum, and (perhaps most helpful) provides an overview of different issues that come up when homeschooling kids of different ages. Because all four of her children are boys, this book will be of special value for those who are homeschooling boys—yes, they are different.   While homeschooling today has become downright mainstream (enough so for Washington Post to have run a targeted series of articles against it over the past year or so), some still wonder about long-term life prospects for homeschool kids. Will they launch into successful adulthood? Swanson considers the paths of her three oldest sons, now grown. In addition, she mulls in her conclusion:   “It’s good to note that many great men and women of history were homeschooled. We can look back at our country’s presidents, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, and Woodrow Wilson, who were all homeschooled. Or we can consider creative geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci, Claude Monet, Orville and Wilbur Wright, and Robert Frost.”   On the one hand, using the term “homeschooling” to describe the early educational experiences of Leonardo da Vinci or Jefferson seems extreme and anachronistic. On the other hand, there is an important reminder here: modern public-school education is a recent product of the industrial age. For much of Western history, the best education one could receive came from home. For families who choose this option, it still can be. 

Since 2010, the India-Russia special and privileged strategic partnership has developed on a solid foundation of strong history and was maintained by the means of political imperatives

RN-Vankor, a subsidiary of Rosneft -- a major Russian oil and gas company -- recently organised a unique EcoArctic forum in the Krasnoyarsk region in the north of Russia

Moscow is a multicultural city. It is home to 13 million people, and only about half of them are native Muscovites. The capital attracts residents of smaller Russian cities, as well as immigrants from CIS countries, Middle Asia, Europe, and even India, with its opportunities both for education and career development and for a rich cultural life

Is it really preposterous to imagine that holding companies involved in shady deals with Western powerful families and former CIA officials could play a role in aiding terror groups?

According to Italian Defense Minister, Zelensky ignored many warnings not to launch the counteroffensive last year.

That's exactly what anyone with a single half-functioning brain cell would expect when trying to intimidate a country that can wipe out the entirety of France with a single ICBM (while fielding hundreds). Unfortunately, the political West needs to be reminded of this way too often.

Ukraine could default in August if it doesn’t pay creditors.

The truth is that Ukraine is not a sovereign country and has not been one since at least 2014 when the West, the CIA intervened and it was documented, they staged a coup and a color revolution and took over their government. This is how Tucker Carlson recently described the national status of Ukraine around the time of the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution. Though, by saying “at least,” Carlson is likely implying Ukraine’s earlier Orange Revolution of 2005 was also illegitimate and so Ukraine has not had a real government in perhaps 20 years. Presumably Ukraine had a legitimate state in 1994 when the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Russia, America and the UK, recognized its sovereignty and territorial integrity. But what could have caused Ukraine to lose its status as a ‘real’ country? The answer, whether Carlson is right or not, hinges on Ukraine possessing the consensus of national will to exercise a sufficient level of self-determination to be, at least in theory, free to make independent decisions without foreign intervention. In Carlson’s (and Putin’s) view, the Ukrainian state is controlled by outside powers at a fundamental level and so whatever it says or does cannot be said to represent the will of the Ukrainian people.  Carlson’s reference to the CIA staging a coup is a familiar refrain for leftists critical of American clandestine operations in the Cold War, but activities like arming the Contras in Nicaragua is not what he’s referring to. Rather, he means to reclassify all American international influence as broadly sinister so that ‘democracy promotion,’ which 20 years ago would have been an anodyne term, is now fraught with negative implications. Similarly, the phrase “color revolution” is used to imply that, if a pro-democracy movement forms, it was only possible through American meddling. After all, if America is exercising influence in another country, who’s to say it’s with good intentions or support from the locals?  Tucker, sophomorically, passes off the revelation that America exports its ideas abroad as a concealed-yet-uncovered and malicious truth, delighting in his transgressive recognition that the American-led international order can, with significant caveats, be described as ‘imperial.’ He’s wrong, but in a way that flattens a complicated and interesting discussion into a stale leftist anti-American bromide, repackaged for the populist right. He’s right that the United States, through public and private institutions, works to influence other countries to be more like us: democratic, liberal, capitalist. Yet he’s wrong to describe American internationalism, in this interview and elsewhere, as imperialism in all but name. One response to Tucker could be that American policy, since coming on the world stage, has generally been to oppose imperialism under the British, French, Japanese, Germans, Austrians, Russians, Italians, and Turks in favor of self-determination, or at least more self-determination than before. Another answer could be that the American-led international order is, on balance, more beneficial to American and global security and well-being than multipolarity. Yet, there remains the complicated truth to deal with that, while America is not an imperialistic civilization, it is an evangelistic one, and the line between imperialism and evangelism can be blurry. Ideas like democracy, Christianity, and socialism do not respect national borders but rather seek to remake the world in their own image. While it’s morally wrong for Beijing to ban missionaries, it’s also rational as an amoral maneuver for the CCP; if Christianity were to be broadly embraced in China, it might threaten the party’s stability. Whether it’s the CCP or the Soviets, authoritarian regimes must suppress alternative narratives about the world to shore-up their own power base against competition. With this in mind, Russia’s foreign agent law, designed to penalize individuals and NGOs with non-Russian sources of funding according to a purposefully broad definition of political activism, looks suspiciously like an anti-missionary law. Continuing with the comparison of democratic ideas to religious ones, if people under authoritarian regimes begin to imbibe Christian or democratic thought, they can be conveniently delegitimized by blaming the CIA or other malign American influence. Such reasoning has served as partial justification for repression in Budapest in 1956, Prague in 1968, Tiananmen Square in 1989, and now Ukraine in the last decade. But there are at least two problems with simply blaming America for unrest in non-Western countries.  Firstly, it denies non-Westerners the agency to learn what they can about different ideas and arrive at their own conclusions. Today the West is chagrined by how non-universal our democratic precepts have turned out to be; the Arab Spring failed, our nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan failed, and China and Russia remain closed societies. Even so, it would be a mistake to think democracy has no appeal outside the G7; 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and democratic activist Liu Xiaobo did not spend the last decade of his life in prison for democratic ideals because the CIA brainwashed him. Secondly, it wildly overestimates the ability of America to engineer a soft power “color revolution” coup; if all it took to oust America’s enemies from power was a few million dollars funneled through NGOs, why do anti-American regimes still exist?  One conclusion to arrive at is that there are serious limitations to what’s possible through the kind of soft-power infiltration Tucker describes. Even if America puts its thumb on the scale of another nation’s internal affairs, all the resources of the State Department and the intelligence community do not necessarily make a difference. At most, they can enhance existing pro-Western sentiments, but cannot manufacture the shared devotion necessary to really change a society. Conspiratorial thinking of this sort always belies that the most powerful people, those theoretically most capable of engineering regime change, are often shockingly incapable of achieving anything of substance abroad. But worse, it avoids dealing with the human, spiritual element of politics, which is irreducible to a science and thus can’t be manipulated by centralized technicians at the levers of power.  The success of democracy in America was always going to, at some point, precipitate an ideological challenge to any regime that denies even the possibility of self-government. The US, thus, exerts this inescapable pull on people around the world who want to believe that history is not determinative, as Putin and Xi endlessly argue, but that something better is possible. This is the real source of public fervor that leads to mass protests as in Ukraine’s 2005 and 2014 revolutions, not the CIA. If all the United States can really do, short of invading, is help organize and publicize whatever grassroots pro-democracy energy already exists, is that an imperialist violation of sovereignty?  The framers of the Constitution may not have envisaged American global hegemony two centuries after 1789, yet already in 1630 John Winthrop foresaw the United States as a city on a hill – a society that, by the universal nature of its founding creed, was always going to be a missionary nation, which is different from an imperial power in at least two ways. One is that the kind of democracy promotion America attempts to engage in is primarily bottom-up; contrast with how the British conquered South Asia by a few decisive alliances among Indian elites. Secondly, if America has an empire, it is primarily an empire of the mind, which is why the threat of democratic revolution is so omnipresent; no matter how powerful Putin or Xi’s nuclear arsenals, the spirit of the people could always turn against them. Nations, like persons, have beliefs that lead them to pursue self-interest defined beyond exclusively material terms. Since Americans talk about democracy as a universal, objective good at home, such views can’t be entirely cordoned off from the international sphere; there has always been a strand of moralizing internationalism woven into the United States. While sometimes overreaching, America’s destiny to be a light unto the nations is not a new form of imperialism, but the fulfillment of our missionary heritage. 

The “unfair” Western agenda is a barrier to the continent’s development, business professionals have told

BRICS group of emerging economies strive to shift some of oil trade to other currencies

Given the enormous opportunities in the medical device industry for multifaceted bilateral engagements, experts from India and Russia have vouched for faster efforts to give a boost to collaborations to make the most of emerging opportunities in the areas of manufacturing and marketing lifesaving medical equipment and devices

The representatives of the conservative political forces of the EU, controlled by the United States, are urging Brussels to launch a full-scale war against Russia, and are also provoking a worsening of the socio-economic situation of Europeans and an aggravation of the migration crisis in Europe.

Head of Kiev regime says Ukrainians are "God’s chosen people", and Russian Church responds by saying that Zelensky cannot mobilize God

The overall strategic shift in China's geopolitical planning is its new naval doctrine. Namely, it has changed so much that it completely nullifies decades of America's wet dreams about having Moscow and Beijing at each other's throats while the US goes unchallenged in its incessant aggression against the world. For decades, the mainstream propaganda machine has been spreading ludicrous propaganda about China supposedly "setting its eyes on Siberia".

NATO sets two red lines to justify intervention in Ukraine war.

These are turbulent times for the United States. Amidst Russia starting the largest land war in Europe since World War II, China’s revanchism buttressed by massive nuclear and conventional modernization, and challenges from increasingly-capable actors like Iran and North Korea, the United States is sorely in need of an effective strategy to preserve the world order it has so painstakingly built and maintained over the past 80 years. The endpoint of American foreign policy is clear: we win, they lose. Yet, the roadmap to getting there remains a serious matter of debate. Matthew Kroenig and Dan Negrea, not ones to shy away from a challenge, offer organizing principles for a better U.S. foreign policy in their aptly-titled book, We Win, They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy & the New Cold War.  In seeking to build a strategy with the greatest chance of success in the contemporary threat environment, the authors analyze the foreign and defense policies of several past administrations, Republican and Democrat. Synthesizing these into a forward-looking approach, the authors offer an outline of a Republican foreign policy inspired by what worked well under Reagan and Trump. The authors support their case with sound analysis examining why progressive foreign policy approaches lead America to more peril, not less, providing practical illustrations from Biden’s tenure.  These cautionary lessons include lacking a coherent strategy and consistency in statements and actions in countering China’s belligerence; the abysmal execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan; failure to sustain pressure on Iran; choosing not to secure U.S. energy independence; and botching efforts to deter Russia in Ukraine.   In doing so, Kroenig and Negrea show that the Republicans are much less divided on foreign and defense issues than would seem so at first glance. Nevertheless, one can hardly shake the perception that serious divisions within the party do exist, and that implementing a consensus in practice will be difficult.  Furthermore, if one can be achieved, little support can be expected from the Democratic Party with a very different concept of what best serves U.S. foreign and defense policy interests.  The book starts, however, with the more foundational question of why the United States needs a foreign policy at all. The authors go on to outline the broad areas where there has a been bipartisan consensus, such as the need to defend the U.S. homeland; preventing a hostile power from dominating and important geopolitical region; maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East; stopping proliferation of nuclear weapons; countering anti-American terrorist groups globally; securing the global commons; advancing a free and fair global economic system; and making the world safer for democracy.   Regarding the areas of divergence between the parties, Kroenig and Negrea are incisive, asking what outcomes the distinct approaches produced in the past.  “When America is strong, its adversaries will not mess with it. But a weak America invites aggression,” the authors remind us. Republicans generally know America is worth fighting for, that the United States must have the tools to prevail in the fight, and that these tools must be used correctly. In this, they differ from many Democrats, who see the exercise of U.S. power as the source of the problem, rather than a part of a solution. This worldview holds that voluntarily restraining the United States could show goodwill and make the world safer through our example.  Against this background, the authors discuss what is wrong with U.S. foreign and defense policy, particularly the myopathies of Biden’s foreign policy worldview. The authors analyze the connections between the Biden Administration’s suboptimal policies and the negative consequences for the United States and its allies. The authors’ clear critique of the failures of the Biden Administration is particularly welcome given the hesitancy of the foreign policy establishment to criticize Democratic presidents, something Negrea and Kroenig have no qualms about.  Kroenig and Negrea propose an alternative foreign policy inspired by Reagan’s “peace through strength” mantra as well as the sounder parts of Trump’s defense and foreign policy. Some may argue that the authors are too generous in overlooking the more problematic aspects of Trump’s foreign policy. Yet, not every Trump Administration’s decision was wrong and acknowledging as much is a necessary step in building the best strategies to counter contemporary challenges to U.S. interests. The alternative is to be distracted by polemics regarding the consequences of Trump’s behavior while our adversaries continue to gain ground. In this task, they succeed.   The book examines various instruments of state power from economics to American exceptionalism, a welcome addition lacking in the usual treatments of defense and foreign policy. The authors discuss theories of victory with respect to each of the most serious U.S. challengers: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, as well as how to successfully address energy and climate challenges, and — an issue of particular importance to the Republican base — border security and immigration.  The book is a useful primer for those interested in the betterment of U.S. foreign policy, but it also demonstrates that, contra perceptions of total discord within the Republican Party and society in general, there are points of consensus upon which future administrations can build. More importantly, Kroenig and Negrea lay out foreign and defense policy approaches that are most likely to keep America and its allies safe well into the future.  

The BRICS alliance, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, has issued a call for Middle Eastern nations to cease using the US dollar for oil payments and instead utilize local currencies

In recent years, the rightful rejection of the policies promoted by the traditional imperialist powers (North America, Western Europe and Japan), followed by the announcements made by the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), have aroused great interest and expectations of major changes, including the creation of a common currency to challenge the US dollar as the dominant currency

Nornickel, struggling to import equipment to sanctions-hit Russia, will close its Arctic copper plant and build one in China with an unnamed partner to gain direct access to the world's biggest metals market

According to Polish top diplomat, the European bloc must be prepared to react to military “emergencies.”

Just like the "big cats" (specifically "Tigers" and "Panthers") 80 years ago, the "Leopards" moved in the direction of Russia's capital city once again. This time, they failed to reach even the outskirts of Donetsk, but just like 80 years ago, they eventually reached Moscow. And once again, it was very different from what the manufacturers were hoping for. Namely, Russia just proudly displayed the "unfortunate" NATO armor that tried to accomplish the same "success" of its geopolitical (and, it can easily be argued, literal) predecessor.

The US and Ukraine are working on a 10-year plan to sustain pressure on Russia.

Although the rules of entry and exit are quite nebulous, states get both real and perceived benefits from joining international organizations.     By Hazel Genieser ('27)... Read more about Members Only: How States Favor Friends and Exclude Rivals

The major difference between Guy Ritchie’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare(MUW) and the historical operation that the film depicts is the body count. There are other major deviations between film and fact, to be sure, but most of them, in the end, really all come back to the kills. It pains me to say it, as I was looking forward to the movie dealing with an ethically rich subject, but toward that end Ritchie accomplishes not much of anything, really. MUW (let’s pronounce it: “meh”)is both far from outstanding—or even entertaining—cinema as well as far less interesting than its source material. This is more or less where the critical review portion of this essay ends. But whatever its artistic shortcomings, MUW, particularly when compared to its source material,does offer an occasion for thinking about the character of modern war and of those who have to fight such wars. The film is very loosely based on the book of the same name by war journalist Damien Lewis that narrates the recently declassified history of Winston Churchill’s Special Operations Executive, a top-secret department tasked with developing a fighting force trained in irregular warfare tactics to operate behind German lines and confuse, disrupt, terrorize, exhaust, and demoralize Hitler and his thugs. Their methodology included all sorts of things one really isn’t supposed to do in war: assassinations, black operations, bribery, corruption, money laundering, and other, well, ungentlemanly things. For its own tactical inspiration, the SOE pilfered lessons-learned from a range of then non-traditional warlords such as T.E. Lawerence, Michael Collins, and Al Capone. This was war with the gloves off. If Hitler wasn’t going to play by the rules, the thinking apparently went, then neither would we. MUW boasts a stacked cast and host of characters, but the story essentially focuses on the portrayal of a pair of historical figures who were early legends in Britain’s special operations community. Gus March-Phillips, played by Henry Cavill, was the founder of the British Army’s No. 62 Commando, a Small-Scale Raiding Force formed around a group of commandos under the command of the SOE. March-Phillips was also noteworthy for being one of Ian Fleming’s inspirations for James Bond and the film offers us a little Easter egg by giving Fleming a cameo depiction in the film. It’s true-to-life, Fleming was recruited to the Director of Naval Intelligence and did work with the SOE. The second character focus is Alan Ritchson’s Anders Lassen, a Danish national who escaped from his occupied homeland to join the British Commandos in 1940, where he served in No. 62 Commando. Lassen would become the only non-commonwealth recipient of the Victoria Cross in the Second World War. As its centerpiece, the plot depicts Operation Postmaster, a mission to steal three critical German and Italian supply ships and thereby disrupt the Nazis’ submarine program long enough for the Americans to move men and materiel across the U-Boat-infested Atlantic to England. A necessarily clandestine—and technically illegal—operation, Postmaster was characterized by those ungentlemanly tactics noted above: fighting incognito, non-attribution, hit-and-run tactics, and the use of deceit, ambush, sabotage, espionage, and booby traps. Such tactics were considered at the time to be dirty, mischievous, and best done by cads. Curiously, though, it’s not clear that Ritchie knows these are the elements of guerilla fighting that were declared ungentlemanly. What Ritchie seems to find so roguish is his heroes’ zealous, even lighthearted, lust-for-violence. Tellingly, the historical Operation Postmaster had zero casualties, aside from one baddie getting knocked a bit on the head with a truncheon. This is due to an aversion to causing harm. It was a military necessity. The targeted supply ships were in a Spanish port, neutral territory. If the Brits were caught violating this neutrality there was a real concern that Spain might join the Germans in an open fight against the Allies. To avoid all this, the commandos were to use the cover of night to sneak in, take over the ships with as little fuss as possible, and get out before anyone on shore knew what was going on. But Ritchie’s Postmaster, ignoring the historical facts, abandons the stealth and runs the mission through an enormous amount of very loud and terribly conspicuous gunfire and high explosives. And a videogame portion of corpses. Somewhere between the real-life event and Ritchie’s retelling, this focus on killing becomes the point of the story. This might be partially explained by Ritchson’s assertions about his character’s motivations. Ritchson is said to have pressed Ritchie to give Lassen more kills than the script originally allowed. Drawing on the fact that Lassen’s homeland had been overrun not simply by Nazi ideologues, but by common German soldiers who carried out cruel orders against Lassen’s countrymen, Ritchson insisted: “Lassen hated the Nazis. He wanted to murder these guys. He didn’t just want to kill him. He wanted hate kills. We should see malice in the knife.” As an action-comedy, however dark, the film doesn’t quite lean into this level of hatred. But it does depict the commandos killing a heck of a lot of Germans with a cavalier jocularity that would likely have offended their real-life counterparts. It would certainly have offended Augustine, who insisted that the real evils of war are love of violence, revengeful cruelty, and a desire to inflict gratuitous suffering. But these very vices are on full display and are jarringly discordant with the film’s comedic elements. Certainly, some believe that Augustine is naïve. The attitudinal requirements of Christian just war thinking, they insist, are not realistic. I’ve noted elsewhere that one such argument is indirectly made in What It Is Like To Go To War, Vietnam veteran Karl Marlantes’ extraordinary combat memoir. Recounting a ferocious battle between his Marines and North Vietnamese fighters, Marlantes describes how he managed to maneuver into position to kill an adversary when they suddenly locked eyes over the sights of his M-16. He realized two things in immediate succession. One, the enemy soldier was just a kid. Two, the kid was holding a grenade. Marlantes hesitated, hoping the boy wouldn’t throw the device. Maybe, Marlantes imagined, the boy would surrender and “raise his hands or something and I wouldn’t have to shoot him.” But the boy-soldier snarled and began to throw. Marlantes killed him. When he asks himself what he felt back then, Marlantes’ answer sounds a lot like Ritchson’s description of Anders Lassen. Mixed with the relief and professional satisfaction of having survived and achieved the mission, Marlantes admits, “it also felt just plain pleasurable to blast him. There is a primitive and savage joy in doing in your enemy.” Now, however, decades removed from the fight, Marlantes feels only sorrow. He imagines the boy as one of his own sons: trapped, filled with fear, knowing he’s about to die. What he feels now, Marlantes knows, is empathy. But he’s quite certain that if he felt empathy then he would never have been able to shoot the boy. And that would likely have led to his own death and maybe the deaths of those he was leading. This suspicion casts doubt on Augustine’s moral aspirations regarding the just warrior. The common experience on the battlefield suggests that one cannot both love—or feel empathy toward—the enemy and kill him. But I continue to affirm, however, that Marlantes’ own testimony betrays him. If he’s so sure that he wouldn’t have been able to kill the boy if he felt empathy in the decisive moment, then why did he hesitate in the midst of combat? Why did he pause long enough to hope the boy would throw away his weapon and wouldn’t have to be killed? In that luminous moment between hoping he wouldn’t have to squeeze the trigger and squeezing it he hoped the best for that boy. Love, in its most basic form, is longing for the genuine welfare of the beloved. Only when freewill and circumstances conspired against Marlantes’ aspiration did he kill the boy. It’s not that Marlantes simply overruled love. Love also motivated him. In the positive, he was moved by love for his fellow Marines, for his family back home, for his nation’s cause, for himself. In the negative, love moved him to not want to have to hurt the boy, to not rejoice in getting to harm him. Battlefield actions are very often a confusion of competing loves, not all of which can be enjoyed in their fullest expression in exactly the same moment. Of course, there is something in Marlantes’ testimony that also vouches for the opposition. Marlantes’ hesitation can be dangerous. Hesitate too long and you might get outdrawn. Perhaps, if it’s true (and it is) that wars that are right to fight are right to win, then maybe you dispense with whatever it is that might jeopardize that win. Enter the cold expediency of Lassen’s hate. Malice might well be a combat multiplier. Hate might be effective. There’s no hesitation in the film. As I mentioned above, the large-scale slaughter that our ungentlemanly warriors exact against the Germans is pursued with a jaunty merriment. Our heroes enjoy killing Nazis. They mock them as they fall and make jokes about the noises the dying make. Perhaps curiously, in some ways this is almost an aspect of Ritchie’s film that I appreciate; because it offers—or almost offers—a kind of corrective. As I’ve stressed, the just war tradition asserts, in part, that killing in war ought not to be too easy. Instead, lethal force is only to be used for the right reasons, in the right way, to the right degree, and against the right things. Indeed, in some ways—as with Marlantes’ story—the just war tradition stresses the tragedy of war. I capture this in my own work, where I assert that even when a warrior makes a good kill—one that is morally justified—there ought to a kind of sorrow in having had to make it, such that while this kind of kill ought not lead to a moral injury—because no moral norm has been broken—it might be expectedly to lead to a moral bruise, a more modest kind of impact trauma. One has done nothing morally wrong, but the thing still leaves a mark. To this point, in Damien Lewis’s book there is a graphic description of Lassen killing a German guard with his knife. While Lewis describes the expertise with which Lassen makes the kill, he also notes Lassen’s own testimony which looks back to the first occasion Lassen ever used a knife to kill one of his hated Germans. Lassen described it as the most difficult thing he had ever done. This said, the corrective that Ritchie’s film might offer is against the temptation of some—if unintentionally—to rob our young warriors of some steel in their spines, of some measure of the vigor and joy that rightly ought to accompany a just warrior embarking on a just fight to protect the innocent, to requite injustices, and to punish evil. Some might think that the just warrior—what I have sometimes called a mournful warrior—ought to be glum. In this sense, Ritchie’s depiction of the glee with which his warriors kill Nazis might be appropriate. But, as I say, this temptation is a misreading of the just war tradition. Given a deeper look, we ought to recognize that there is nothing in the just war tradition that mitigates against military professionalism and a vigorous martial spirit. While the just war tradition asserts that killing in combat ought not to be too easy, it also insists that it mustn’t be too hard. In part, this assertion can be seen in the fact that the tradition is shot through with moral responsibility and a sense of dutiful purpose. When a proper authority determines that nothing but proportionate and discriminate force is likely to succeed in protecting the sufficiently threatened innocent, requiting gross injustices, or punishing sufficiently grave evil, the just war framework doesn’t merely allow for war, it requires it. Just war can be a leash on belligerence, to be certain. But it can also be a spur to it. This is surely why, in his letter to the Romans, Paul placed his disquisition on the obligations of the magistrate to use his sword for the sake of the common good right after his disquisition on love—which includes the requirement to abhor evil. Lassen is not wrong when he hates the Nazis. Their ideology is hateful. There are some monsters in the world who have so abused the good, the true, and the beautiful that their deaths amount to a net gain for the world. Against such monsters, a just warrior can fight with not just probity, but even with something like happiness. One thinks here of Tolkien’s Rohirrim: And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them. Ritchie’s warriors, wreaking havoc on the fascist villains, are clearly having a good time. There’s something right about this. They are highly skilled, wonderfully brave, and busy doing something just and necessary to be done. They should rejoice in that. They don’t quite sing, but the accompanying soundtrack is—again discordantly—rather chippy. This is uncomfortable. The West—even, or especially, Western Christians—have an increasingly maudlin understanding of love. We have rendered it trite, shallow, and sentimental. We forget the biblical accounts that render depictions of men in battle with much the same zeal as Tolkien depicted. We forget the prophets who mock their enemies as they fall. If nothing else does, the imprecatory psalms ought to serve as a tonic against such sentimentality. But the corrective, however uncomfortable, had better be made. The world, most especially of late, seems to be in desperate need of men and women eager to fight monsters—or even just fools. We need a companies of warriors like Guy March-Phillips and Anders Lassen who are eager to fight Nazis for the simple reason that the Nazis are very bad people. We also want them to make distinctions between monsters and the common soldier—and, happily, there is one scene in MUW in which one German soldier, just a boy, is allowed to flee the fight unharmed. This one scene perhaps makes some small amend between the jocularity of the film and the gravity of the real world. It is the film’s one gesture to the just war prescription that would suggest that the just warrior should rejoice in being the kind of human being with the skill, virtue, and willingness to fight—but not to rejoice in having to fight. Having suggested that MUW illuminates a corrective, I want to be quick to avoid misunderstanding. MUW has no such high-minded aspirations. If it is making any comment at all, it is lost in the silliness. The killing it depicts recognizes neither the humanity of the enemy nor the nobility of the Allied cause. Those who are killed fall like videogame props. Those who kill them too often do so in ways that would mock the professionalism of the vocation of arms if we took MUW at all seriously. None of this is to ask that our warriors feign a fondness for the enemy that in most cases will be impossible to feel. We can love—whether in the positive and negative sense or just the latter—even what we do not like. Say it this way: the just war tradition does not demand a revolution in how we think about our enemy, but in how we think about love.

Algeria is close to joining the New Development Bank, known as the “BRICS Bank”, as the process will be completed according to the agreed-upon timetable, and this bank can contribute to financing development, and strategic and structural projects for the Algerian economy

In the global geopolitical landscape, BRICS and G8 stand out as influential entities, born with different foundations, objectives and internal dynamics. Understanding these differences and potential future trajectories requires a deep dive into their peculiarities, their strengths and the challenges they face

In an international world order whose multipolarity has been systematically undermined by the rise of Western-led unilateralism, developing states have been held hostage by their wealthier counterparts

When it comes to the perpetuation of conflicts, personal and electoral factors should all be considered by analysts. It is not far-fetched to describe the current aid Washington sends to Kyiv as being in part a major corruption scam that has a lot to do with leaders across the Atlantic trying to protect themselves and to secure their own private interests.

The country banned Soviet-era symbols of the victory against Nazi Germany, deepening its Russophobic policies.

The troubled Biden administration is encouraging its EU/NATO vassals and satellite states to provide their own air defense systems to the Kiev regime. However, their ability to do so remains limited due to their own shortages, so some of them are now urging Washington DC to send the "Patriots". For instance, Germany is particularly active in this regard, but the Scholz cabinet is complaining that "unfortunately, the stocks, especially our own 'Patriot' systems, are now pretty much exhausted". Poland also confirmed that its stockpile is exhausted, meaning that most of EU will not be able to send additional units.

Ukrainians are dying trying to escape conscription.

Back in 2004, the late Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018) authored “Democratic Realism,” a classic of foreign-policy thought. As the name suggests, Krauthammer’s democratic realism is akin to the Christian realism which animates Providence. Christian realism, as Daniel Strand puts it, “keeps the tension between the already and the not-yet that we are so prone, in our pride, to dismiss.” Both Krauthammer’s democratic realism and Christian realism are tempered by sober acknowledgement of the reality of power politics while also refusing to be exclusively defined by realpolitik.   In “Democratic Realism,” Krauthammer criticizes what he terms “liberal internationalism,” the Clinton administration’s foreign-policy philosophy. To liberal internationalists like Clinton, foreign policy must serve idealistic, selfless goals, such as “humanitarian interventionism,” and force is to be used only in service to such aims and never in pursuit of self-interest. Against this folly, Krauthammer’s “democratic realism” stands as an approach which is idealistic to some degree, but also unapologetically pursues the American national interest and focuses on acting where it counts most: “We will support democracy everywhere, but we will commit blood and treasure only in places where there is a strategic necessity.”  Twenty years later, we can ask how accurate the late pundit’s criticisms were. One example of the failure of liberal internationalism was the support of politicians like then Senator Joe Biden for the “unenforceable” Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in the early 90s on the grounds that it codified, in Biden’s words, “the moral suasion of the entire international community.” As Krauthammer noted, “moral suasion” would be ineffective against the very rogue states the CWC was supposed to deal with. Since 2004, this objection has only been vindicated. Despite Syria being a State Party to the Convention, Bashar al-Assad repeatedly used chemical weapons. When, in 2017, the United States finally penalized this practice with airstrikes, John Bolton declared that “[t]he Obama era in American foreign policy [had] ended in Syria.”   The CWC’s inability to prevent the use of chemical weapons in Syria is one example of the myopic idealism that has long beset Biden’s foreign policy. Some, like Senior Fellow at the Yorktown Institute Shay Khatiri,, have mistakenly argued that the Biden Administration marks a shift away from the “dovish” foreign policy of “the Obama-Trump era” back to “neoconservative principles.” Instead, as former general and Trump Administration official Keith Kellogg has highlighted, “Biden’s own Supreme Allied Commander in Europe assessed that Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan led to Putin’s decision to re-attack Ukraine.”  The widespread notion of Trump’s dovishness and Biden’s hawkishness proves that rhetoric can be more persuasive than reality. As Khatiri mentioned, “many of those often labeled as neoconservatives [had] endorsed and voted for Biden,” partly because of “his promise to restore America’s standing in the world.” Rhetorically, this view seemed to be borne out; soon after his election, Biden hastened to declare: “America is back.”  However, in practice, America’s return to world affairs has entailed a renewed commitment to the “conventions, protocols, legalisms” which, in Krauthammer’s memorable image, bound the world’s hegemon like Gulliver in Gulliver’s Travels. The White House extended the unhelpful New Start nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, only for Moscow to pull out two years later. The White House struggled unsuccessfully to revitalize the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal with Iran. Getting back into the Paris Agreement was also high on the list of priorities.  Another takeaway from revisiting Krauthammer’s analysis is that those in the liberal internationalist camp have only become more radical over the past two decades. For Krauthammer, the Clinton administration demonstrated that liberal internationalists were not opposed to deploying military power, only that they were insufficiently concerned with the “national interest” as opposed to idealism. But has Biden’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine been ultimately more aggressively hawkish or dovish? The fact that weapons deliveries have seemed calibrated to achieve only the bare minimum of preventing Ukraine’s outright defeat rather than securing victory indicates that Biden is not doing all he can to expand American influence around the world, but rather as little as possible to prevent its further rollback. Biden’s missteps with Ukraine and Afghanistan are only part of a much larger sequence of blunders, in which the surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban is quickly followed by the lifting of sanctions on Cuba and the simple rhetorical failure to define what Ukrainian victory means for America. US policy on Iran provides another example: the Biden Administration removes the Iran-backed Houthis from its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations and seeks to revive the JCPOA, then Tehran attacks Israel through its proxies on October 7th. Washington lifts sanctions on Tehran worth $10 billion and distances itself from Israeli airstrikes in Syria against Iran’s IRGC. Tehran then attacks Israel directly, in a “massive and unprecedented” operation using “over 300 projectiles,” only for Washington to discourage Israel from retaliating.  These patterns represent successive displays of weakness, each inviting further aggression from America’s enemies. Alternatively, we can conceptualize all this as a move away from unipolarity in the international system. Krauthammer had little doubt that, in its role as unipolar hegemon, America was an agent of security: “In the unipolar world, the closest thing to a centralized authority, to an enforcer of norms, is America—American power.”  In an influential 1999 article, Dartmouth’s William C. Wohlforth argued that unipolarity in the post-Cold War period provided greater stability than either bipolarity or multipolarity. Wohlforth’s assessment included factors which Krauthammer did not even mention, such as the fact that the preponderance of US power eliminated “hegemonic rivalry over leadership of the international system.”  Such assessments are only further substantiated by the rise of conflict worldwide in response to diminishing US power projection. In 2018, former Department of Defense official Seth Cropsey has even argued that the concept of polarity has lost relevance altogether as Europe and the United States are not behaving as leading powers should. Instead of maximizing their influence on the world stage, they have turned inward, a trend which is accelerating.  A voluntary retreat of this kind is probably the main challenge to American hegemony; the US has the power to exert influence globally, but perhaps not the desire. Wohlforth’s and Stephen G. Brooks’s 2016 commentary “The Once and Future Superpower” remains compelling in its demonstration that, for the foreseeable future, the United States is objectively in a league of its own. Moreover, Krauthammer noted that the United States was historically unique in terms of its geographical location, shielded as it was “by two great oceans” and surrounded by amicable countries to the north and south. Granted, even these advantages have been eroded through the admission of narcotics via an open border. Still, as Krauthammer stated on another occasion, “Decline Is a Choice.”  Krauthammer’s insights remain as pertinent today as in 2004. Then and now, liberal internationalism, as opposed to democratic realism, represents a misguided attempt to form an international system defined entirely by American values. Furthermore, while Krauthammer distinguished between realists and isolationists, these two schools of thought have become well-nigh indistinguishable. Given that the realist-isolationist synthesis presents itself as the alternative to liberal internationalism and its unpopular fruits, a philosophy such as democratic realism or Christian realism must be championed instead.  In the face of aggression, Krauthammer wrote, victory is had by not only by “taking territory,” but also “leaving something behind” which will preclude further conflicts. In 2004 that, “something” referred to democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the future, it could refer to security guarantees – real ones – for Ukraine, or the “Cyrus Accords,” or simply improved defenses for Taiwan. As the calamities of the last few years have showcased, a change in one region often has profound effects on the whole international system. Clearly, threats to American influence anywhere are threats to American interests everywhere and must be responded to as such. 

From the moment Hamas launched its barbaric assault on Israel on October 7th, Israel’s normalization with Arab states, critics allege, was on the rocks and the prospects of the ultimate prize, Saudi-Israel normalization, was dead on arrival. Arab states, including the four that had made peace with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords in 2020, would have to choose between associating with a belligerent (and weak) Israel or appeasing an “Arab street”, inflamed by the images of death and destruction in Gaza and fomented by Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood to undermine the regimes from within. A weak and distracted Israel combined with an incited Arab street would cause the Arab monarchies to tilt towards Tehran, or at least away from Israel. Israel would have to choose between prosecuting the war or salvaging its regional realignment efforts. New York Times columnist and perennial Israel-skeptic Tom Friedman expressed this pithily in last week’s column: “Israel Has a Choice to Make: Rafah or Riyadh”. But a funny thing happened on the way to appeasement: a joint US-Israeli-European-Arab coalition united to thwart the first direct Iranian air assault on Israel in history. Iran launched a barrage of over 300 missiles and suicide drones targeting Israel on the night of April 13th. Only a handful made impact, causing no casualties and little damage.  The coalition intercepted those that did not malfunction, mostly over the skies of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. America’s Arab allies had, in various ways, provided intelligence and allowed U.S. and Israeli planes to operate in their airspace. Jordan, which has been vociferously attacking Israel’s conduct in Gaza for months, even publicly acknowledged that it shot down incoming Iranian projectiles. When the chips were down, the Arab coalition held and made clear where they stood in the broader Iranian war on Israel. For that, Biden owes much to his predecessor. This month’s successful wartime cooperation was years in the making. The 2020 Abraham Accords, particularly the treaties signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, allowed intelligence and military cooperation to surface and expand from its previously subterranean existence. The Trump Administration also initiated the realignment of Israel out of the U.S. European Command and into U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility, which became official in 2021. A vestige of the days of U.S. acquiescence to the Arab boycott of Israel, this seemingly small U.S. bureaucratic change paid huge dividends as the U.S. was able to share intelligence, provide early warning, and coordinate interception. The air defense alliance aced its first test, tactically, operationally, and strategically. The successful batting away of the Iranian air assault also engendered awe in Israel’s air defense capabilities, which have performed marvelously throughout the war. Operational for over a decade, Iron Dome, the lowest tier in Israel’s multi-layered missile defense network, has saved tens of thousands of Israeli lives in this war alone. David’s Sling, the middle tier jointly developed with the United States, made its first interception a year ago, and has intercepted several dozen missiles since the war began. Finally, the Arrow 3, the upper tier system also jointly developed with the U.S., made its successful debut during this war, intercepting a Houthi-launched ballistic missile in November and an Iranian one in April in the exo-atmosphere. Iron Dome is deployed by the U.S. Army and Israel has concluded deals to sell David’s Sling to Finland and Arrow 3 to Germany. As Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, and other Arab states continue to face the proliferation of the Iranian missile threat, they too will become beneficiaries of, if not customers for, Israel’s military technological prowess. Israel’s response to the Iranian night of missiles should give further courage to Saudi Arabia to codify its alignment. Israel opted for a very limited response: a single missile that destroyed an Iranian anti-aircraft system in Natanz, a known key nuclear site, all reportedly without Israeli jets entering Iranian airspace. Yet, in doing so, it telegraphed clearly to Tehran that it could hit precise targets without its aircraft being endangered and that the threshold of a direct Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear or other sites had been breached. The entire episode demonstrated that Israel can both hit Iranian sites and defend against an Iranian response. At a time when the United States is focused on de-escalation and restraint, Riyadh could see quite clearly that only Israel has both the capability and the will to deal with the Iranian threat. It is impossible to know whether the renewed U.S.-Saudi-Israel negotiations will lead to a normalization deal in the immediate months ahead. The Biden Administration is demanding that Israel commit to a “concrete, time-bound, irreversible path to a Palestinian state”, whereas the Israeli public is aghast at the idea of having Gaza redux in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) after October 7th. It also is unclear if an unpopular, weak, and reelection-focus President Biden can deliver on both the nuclear enrichment and security assurances Saudi Arabia is demanding from the United States. Regardless of the status of this deal or how difficult the war in Gaza may appear, America’s Arab allies have now become Israel’s.

The Higher School of Economics (HSE) and the University of Delhi entered into an agreement on strategic cooperation and joint actions

There is increasing interest from European countries in BRICS, with speculation about their attendance at the summit in Russia

According to economist Shaima Sherif, Egypt's trade partnership with the BRICS countries is expected to focus on food security, especially due to Russia's key role as Egypt's main supplier of imported wheat

In the last 10-15 years, NATO and EU, its geopolitical pendant, established institutions tasked with conducting hybrid war against Russia. And just like the world's most aggressive military alliance poses as a "defensive organization", these institutions serve the purpose of "cyber and disinfo defense". In reality, nothing could be further from true. Namely, NATO established what is officially known as Centers of Excellence (COEs) that are given various tasks. Officially, there are 28 of them, although, in reality, there could be several times more, particularly as the EU itself has similar institutions with overlapping responsibilities.

The conflict in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East are currently the two biggest geopolitical hotspots in the world.

Washington caused an energy crisis and fomented chaos and social problems in European countries.

Macron is eroding Charles de Gaulle’s legacy of French sovereignty.

Thirty years ago today, Russell Amos Kirk died. Even though I was born two years after his passing, I have felt Dr. Kirk’s influence my whole adult life. I first read him as a student at Hillsdale College, where he had once taught. In The Conservative Mind and his other books, I encountered a tradition so much more substantive than the right-wing politics I had known until then. At the heart of Kirk’s conservative vision is a conviction of the spiritual continuity in Western civilization. He believed that certain “permanent things” – freedom, justice, love – transcend history. Our forebears struggled to preserve them for us, and now their restoration, renovation, and repair is our obligation. The American Founding plays a key role in Kirk’s account of the permanent things. In The American Cause, The Roots of American Order, and elsewhere, he traced the origins of our constitution from ancient Jerusalem and Athens, to Magna Charta, all the way down to the Framers in Philadelphia. The Founding deserves Americans’ loyalty because is a particular expression of certain universal principles. Our written Constitution, he taught, was one of the great instruments for order in the world – but he did not hubristically believe that Americans could simply achieve world peace by exporting our liberal ideas or institutions. True statesmanship, Kirk knew, requires prudence, not ideological fervor.  Kirk’s conservatism, though, is as much literary as it is political. Many of the writers profiled in The Conservative Mind are poets or novelists, and his finest book is his biography of T.S. Eliot. We do not live by mere logic or a leveling rationality; humane letters are essential to cultivating a people’s moral imagination. Unlike other, more elitist conservatives in the academy, Kirk never saw this high culture as something at odds with the people at large. He believed, instead, that it could be the highest expression of a country’s true spirit.  In politics and letters alike, Kirk also knew that the permanent things need defenders. Revolutionaries and barbarians pose serious threats, and he understood that it does no good to simply ignore them. In one 1982 essay, he wrote that “Americans have become, without willing it, the defenders of civilization against the enemies of order and justice and freedom. Ours are imperial duties, requiring imperial intellects for their performance.” Kirk himself did much to restore those “imperial intellects” to public discourse. Some of the great minds Kirk called into service were already well known. Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, and John Adams had already inspired many to reflect on the relationship between order and liberty. Kirk’s contribution was to lead us further up and further into their thought – he cut through trivial academic debates to help readers understand these conservatives as they understood themselves. Other “imperial intellects” were rescued from obscurity by Kirk’s pen. He found conservative insights for his own time in the lives and writings of diverse sources including the Transcendentalist-turned-Catholic Orestes Brownson, or the short-serving British prime minister George Canning. These recovered voices are a reminder that the permanent things endure even when conservatism seems defeated.  Sadly, little about the American right today resembles Kirk’s conservatism. He would have been appalled by the vulgarity too many Republicans reflexively embrace on the campaign trail or social media. He would have detested the notion, altogether too common on the right, that America is an empire in irreversible decline. Above all, though, Kirk would be distressed by the growing neglect for the West’s spiritual continuity among both “post-liberal” authoritarians and ideological libertarians. The main thrust of Kirk’s scholarship and imaginative writing was to remind Americans who we really are. In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke wrote that liberty is “an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity.” Conservatism, for Kirk, is this fusion of history and futurity in a sense of responsibility. Throughout his life and career, he left us signposts pointing back to that notion. One of my most prized possessions is a minor relic from the Sage of Mecosta. A friend of mine was working at a conservative nonprofit one summer and found in its basement a copy of the program from the memorial mass held for Kirk at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Capitol Hill. It includes eulogies from several prominent figures, and the text of the homily preached by Reverend Winthrop Brainerd that day. In each of these reflections, Dr. Kirk’s character as a Christian gentleman shines brightly. Fr. Brainerd quoted 1 Corinthians 13:12: “‘To understand as I am understood’ is the ultimate wisdom. It is still the vocation of our brother Russell Kirk; it is the lesson of his life; and it is the legacy, like Elijah’s mantle, that falls upon us here.”  This anniversary is a reminder of conservatives’ responsibility. It is up to us the living to carry on Dr. Kirk’s task into the twenty-first century. Kirk the man may have died thirty years ago, but his ideas never will.

There is a true humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine, with the neo-Nazi regime forcibly recruiting inexperienced people and sending them to certain death on the battlefield.

NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has admitted that “several NATO allies have men and women in uniform at the embassies” (in Ukraine), but claimed they are merely “giving advice”.

John Baum, a retired US Air Force (USAF) Lieutenant Colonel who flew over 2,300 hours as an F-16 pilot, stated that "F-16s from Ukraine going against Russia — absolutely, without a doubt, the toughest scenario that the F-16 will have off of its nose".

CNN purposefully omits question on Ukraine from its newest survey.

An espionage scandal in Austria and the ongoing anti-Russian propaganda of the German and Swiss media are poisoning the political atmosphere in Europe.

The geopolitical landscape of space exploration is witnessing a burgeoning alliance within the BRICS consortium. Notably, nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Ethiopia are in talks to support collaborative lunar ventures spearheaded by China and Russia, potentially accelerating their position in the extraterrestrial exploration domain

Five new countries – Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Ethiopia – joined BRICS on 1 January 2024. How has the enlargement of the association affected the concept of the Russian Chairmanship this year?

Rail and shipping to link European Russia to India via Iran

The last years have largely been about the proxification of conflicts, be it by employing irregular forces as “proxies” or by trying to do so with allied sovereign nations. Proxifying Europe itself would be a long shot, though - moreover, NATO’s article 5 is still binding.

The case shows very clearly how dangerous are the Belarussian expatriate terrorists trained and backed by NATO countries.

According to their own admission, Russian EW systems have effectively turned US drones into plastic junk. Worse yet for the Pentagon, the grossly overhyped HIMARS is often jammed, with its rockets and missiles rendered useless. The US and NATO are trying to figure out how Moscow is achieving this, so they could "one day use it against the Russian military directly", but what their planners have managed to gather so far is that Russia's EW edge is forcing the political West to revert to "the brutality of old-fashioned trench warfare, the results of which are rarely what Pentagon planners expect".

The Ukrainian military has suffered half a million personnel losses.

Sberbank and Chinese technology giant Huawei said they had formed a strategic partnership to provide cloud services for Russian businesses, extending the reach of Russia's largest bank into the country's digital economy

According to a report by the Izvestia newspaper citing Vietnam's embassy in Russia, Vietnam is actively exploring the possibility of joining the BRICS economic group

Russia's Ministry of Emergency Situations invited BRICS member countries to test their equipment at the Arctic exercises due in Russia in 2025, director of the ministry's international department, Oleg Kuznetsov, told TASS

According to their own admission, "the Blinken team is worried that China's response to pressure over Russia could be to slow down progress in other areas of the bilateral relationship". This also includes China's close ties with North Korea, as the US wants it to put pressure on Pyongyang. Washington DC is particularly terrified of the prospect that Russia, China and North Korea are forming a more monolithic alliance that the political West will be simply hopeless to match.

The Baltic state is about to ban the Russian language from the curriculum of schools.

The South Caucasus is becoming a flashpoint of competing interests.

Russian-Chinese cooperation in global and regional affairs has accumulated rich experience and has an effective platform such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRICS mechanism. In 2024, Sino-Russian strategic interaction will be even more colourful, writes Li Yongquan, Director of the Institute for the Social Development of Europe and Asia of the Research Centre of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China

Tehran and Moscow are finalizing the draft of a contract for the implementation of the agreement to construct the Rasht-Astara Railway

Russian universities are taking the lead in exploring cooperation opportunities within the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) grouping and its expanded BRICS+ format

When taking only the 9M723 hypersonic missiles into account, the immediate danger for any larger troop concentrations in Finland lies in its speed and destructive power. However, this is only one of the two notable versions of the missiles that "Iskander-M" uses. The other is the 9M729, essentially a land-based iteration of the "Kalibr" family of cruise missiles. Its range has been a matter of debate for quite some time now, but it could be around 2500 km, meaning that the entire Scandinavia would be covered, including Sweden and Norway.

Western countries are being deceived by their own propaganda about an “inevitable” war with Russia in the near future.

Washington no longer believes in the Kiev regime’s victory over Russia.

Serbia is showing interest in joining the BRICS bloc, which is actively expanding and welcoming new members focused on de-dollarization

Times are tough for the US dollar. Once a symbol of stability and a pillar of the global economy, it now faces a gradual erosion of its supremacy. Amid fluctuating monetary policies and geopolitical tensions, the foundations of its dominance are being questioned. Like the BRICS, many countries are abandoning the US dollar for various reasons

Akabueze expressed that when several countries were invited to join BRICS but Nigeria was not, "it raised a lot of eyebrows"

New Delhi demands Washington to stop interfering in its internal affairs.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians will be sent into yet another bloodbath, but there will be no victory. Even the mainstream propaganda machine doesn't deny it anymore. The Wall Street Journal says that the "US aid is a lifeline for Ukraine's struggle to hold off defeat".

We live in an age of “tension management”: The West acts as a sponsor to allies and fuels conflicts, but won’t commit to full-blown war. It might feel easier to outsource wars, so to speak, through proxies and allies. This model of warfare and foreign policy however could show itself to be unsustainable.

The operation comes amid a recent wave of Russian actions to retaliate for Ukrainian incursions against border cities.

Recently announced plans for a Sino-Russo lunar nuclear plant signal Russia’s eastward realignment in space cooperation and hint at China’s renewed willingness to publicly cooperate with Russia

It remains unclear whether a new round of BRICS enlargement will occur or not. Should this happen, the BRICS leaders would utilize their own criteria, which are not public. It is likely that a decision will be reached by consensus, implying that the interests of all BRICS members would be considered, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Oleg Barabanov

China and Russia have renewed their anti-Western confrontation during high-level meeting in early April 2024 in Beijing. China demonstrates greater readiness to team up with Global South to “promote reforms in the global governance system” while Russia vehemently confronts “Western-led bloc” during talks in Beijing

Having to keep fighting due to Western pressure, Ukraine is desperately trying to enlist young people.

The video of the Tu-22M3 falling clearly shows one of its engines burning, suggesting that the Russian MoD's claims hold without any chance of seeming illogical. On the other hand, the S-200 is (in)famous for its enormous missiles. These are equipped with a massive warhead weighing well over 200 kg and containing 21,000 3.5 g fragmentation pellets triggered by a radar proximity fuse or command signal. If such a monstrosity hit any aircraft or just close enough to it, there would be very little left (if anything at all). In the best-case scenario, there would be massive, clearly visible damage to the Tu-22M3.

Congress-approved aid for Ukraine will not change the situation on the battlefield.

Russia can help South Africa solve the problem of electricity shortages, Russian Ambassador to South Africa Ilya Rogachev told TASS

Four countries recently joined the economic bloc, and the door has been left open for further additions

China and Brazil signed a 30-year franchise agreement on the Brazil northeast ultra-high-voltage direct current (UHVDC) power transmission line project, which is expected to be operational by 2029, in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia

Direct NATO involvement in the Neo-Nazi junta's attacks on Russian strategic assets could force Moscow to start shooting down US ISR platforms over the Black Sea, particularly the unmanned ones. This could serve as a warning sign that manned jets would be next if the belligerent alliance continues with the practice of providing targeting data and orders to the Kiev regime.

Anti-Russian accusation about abduction of minors is proving to be another Western lie.

The West will regret hijacking peace efforts between Moscow and Kiev.

With Russia taking the lead, the BRICS bloc is talking about creating a new payment system that isn’t controlled by the United States and that is not dependent on the dollar

In an era of growing interconnectedness amongst regional and global blocs, economic corridors are gaining momentum as one of the main drivers of such connectivity initiatives

The realisation of grand projects always implies imagination and persistence in overcoming all sorts of barriers and all kinds of resistance. Let us hope that the BRICS will confirm expectations entertained by the Global South and rise to the challenge of providing constructive alternatives for all, writes Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista

Washington may learn the hard way that being the patron does not automatically entail “obedience” or predictability from one’s protégé: “proxy” conflicts get out of control. By arming and funding other nations (with radicalized leaderships), be it in the Middle East or in Eastern Europe, the US play a very dangerous game.

Orban called on the political leadership in Brussels to resign, pointing out that all of their major projects and policies, such as the so-called "green transition", sustainable development, migration, military and sanctions, etc. failed.

According to the Ukrainian president, US politicians do not care about Ukraine, being American current stance on Ukraine a real “disgrace for democracy”.

Ukrainian men die attempting to flee mobilisation.

The presentation of the X BRICS Youth Summit, which will be held in Ulyanovsk from 22 to 26 July, took place at the Russia exhibition at VDNKh

“With each new day in Africa, a gazelle wakes up knowing he must outrun the fastest lion or perish. At the same time, a lion stirs and stretches, knowing he must outrun the fastest gazelle or starve. It is no different for the human race. Whether you consider yourself a gazelle or a lion, you simply have to run faster than others to survive.” ― Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Monarch of Dubai and Prime Minister of United Arab Emirate

Rossotrudnichestvo in collaboration with the Embassy of Russia in New Delhi, Russian House and Rus Education, is organising the Indo-Russian Education Summit to be held in New Delhi

The US-led political West is antagonizing both multipolar superpowers, openly taking pride in the fact that it can get into their "geopolitical backyards". However, both Russia and China have superior missile technologies, particularly in terms of the development and deployment of hypersonic weapons.

The atomic agency finally took a more incisive position in reporting the real criminals behind attacks on ZNPP.

Majority of French people oppose the deployment of troops to Ukraine.

Emerging economies feel that high servicing costs become self-fulfilling prophecies

“Russia, as a pioneer in space exploration, has always favoured Indian success. Our engagements date back to 1975, when the Soviet Union helped launch Aryabhata, India’s first satellite. The second satellite, Bhaskara, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1979”

Something is wrong with the dollar. The US currency has been in a downward phase for months, depreciating against other world currencies. There are those who foresee a change of cycle, although other analysts are more cautious and continue to vindicate the dollar's reign

The latest test sends a very clear message to the political West. If NATO is considering the possibility of escalating its aggression in Europe, such actions will certainly be met with a swift response. This may also include the belligerent alliance's recent engagement in the Middle East, where the US and its regional vassals have been contemplating attacks on Iran.

The case clearly shows that the regime is concerned about the possibility of a popular insurrection.

Parts of the American establishment consider China to have peaked and overestimate US power.

The New York Times reports that Ukrainian soldiers are battered and exhausted.

As the global stage prepares to witness the inaugural BRICS Simulation Conference, set against the backdrop of Cape Town, anticipation is rife among the 200-strong international delegation

China is seeking to support local currency swaps with 29 developing countries worth a total of 4 trillion yuan, roughly equivalent to $553.49 billion

In 2022, South Africa imported goods worth $548 million (about R10 billion) from Russia – most of that chemicals and fertilisers – but exported just $283 million, most of which was citrus fruit

Washington DC has an undisclosed number of W76-2 warheads with an extremely low yield of 2-7 kt (kilotons of TNT). This is upwards of only 10% of the destructive power of the "Fat Man" atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Basic military logic implies that using such weapons against near-peer adversaries is pointless. Thus, the only viable explanation is that the US wants to use such warheads in a conflict with a non-nuclear power.

The neo-Nazi regime is using Western aid to attack civilian areas, making sure its terrorist nature.

Kiev delusionally thinks it can launch an offensive in 2025.

Under Russia's presidency in 2024, BRICS and together with its five new members, is being discussed, beyond measure, most often focusing on its expansion and as a mechanism for uplifting the Global South

Russia has taken significant strides in expanding its influence in Africa by launching a comprehensive social initiative in Ethiopia. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on March 20 has paved the way for closer cooperation between the two nations, especially in the sectors of healthcare and education

After the landmark 15th BRICS Summit in August 2023, foreign policy analysts raised concerns that BRICS — a grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa at the time — may be seeking to construct an alternate world order and upend Western-led global governance

What all this will almost certainly boil down to is giving Zelensky yet another platform to present the fantasies from his much-touted "10-point peace plan" that effectively amounts to Russia's unconditional capitulation, as it includes the "return of Crimea". Thus, the chances of having Moscow accept this are equal to the Neo-Nazi junta's prospects of conquering Vladivostok.

Ukrainian parliamentarians want to force military veterans to keep on the battlefield for three years.

The West is prolonging the Ukraine war out of fear of the political consequences of defeat.

Macron’s shifting rhetoric does not do much good diplomatically. In any case, Paris’ flirting with a non-aligned stance and its more recent suggestions about sending troops to Ukraine are both seriously constrained by the same factor - US-led NATO.

In a revealing update from Russia’s central bank, it’s become clear that amidst ongoing international tensions, the Chinese yuan is emerging as a crucial asset for Russia’s reserve holdings. According to a Bloomberg News article, the Russian financial authority has expressed a lack of viable alternatives to the yuan following the economic repercussions of the Kremlin’s actions in Ukraine and subsequent international sanctions

The Russian economy gradually became highly dependent on energy exports to sustain its basic operations. Existing studies show that income from natural gas and crude oil exports alone consistently accounts for about 50% of Russia’s fiscal revenue, with the GDP share roughly maintaining around 25% annually. The importance of energy exports is self-evident

Indian pharmaceutical firms expand presence in Russia as Western competitors exit amid sanctions, boosting India's role in supplying medicines

Russian electronic warfare mechanisms more efficient on the battlefield than expansive American UAVs.

Indians are not being swayed by Western media’s attempts to influence elections.

It's quite clear that the acquisition from France is a move born out of geopolitical necessity, as getting such extremely expensive aircraft for air policing is tantamount to using sports cars for traffic stops. However, even the geopolitical aspect is very risky, as Paris has a long history of backstabbing its customers for the sake of NATO allies such as the US and UK.

On August 4th, 2023, the 15th annual BRICS summit concluded in Johannesburg, South Africa. The headline of the event was the group’s plan to expand its membership for only the second time in its two-decade history

The BRICS bloc is a growing home for nations eager to counter the West's position, or at least hedge their bets when it comes to international trade, development support, and conflicts

Multilateral institutions reflect the power realities of the time of their inception. As the balance of those power realities change, so too, does their efficacy become a matter of interrogation

This clearly indicates that the bureaucratic elites in Brussels don't really care about the economic and financial well-being of their own populace, as it makes no sense to replace the highly affordable natural gas transported via pipelines with the shipborne LNG that's not only incomparably more expensive, but it also takes far longer to reach Europe and is far more expensive in terms of storage.

Attacks against the ZNPP have become commonplace, since, in the face of military defeat, Ukraine resorts to terrorism.

Washington has only pushed Pakistan closer to China, Russia and Iran.

With numerous Western brands having left the Russian market at the onset of its war with Ukraine, more Chinese and Russian brands are sizing up opportunities in each others' markets

Zimbabwe has set its sights on joining the New Development Bank (NDB), an institution established by the BRICS economic bloc

About 92 percent of trade settlement between Russia and China is now conducted in Russian rubles and Chinese yuan, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said at the Boao Forum for Asia in South China's Hainan Province

Zelensky wants 25 battalions, up from 5-7 he mentioned just over a week before. Thus, if he were to get the PAC-2, that's 3600 missiles. Although the exact number of "Patriot" battalions in the US military and NATO is certainly a secret, open source data shows that the Pentagon had less than 500 launchers in 2010, while the US Military Industrial Complex (MIC) produced around 10,000 missiles so far, meaning that Zelensky wants a "mere" third of all missiles ever made.

Regime’s officials are calling on all citizens to enlist, trying to replace the constant losses on the battlefield.

Kiev once again rules out any peace negotiations with Moscow.

New doors for trade and investment will be opened under the supervision of developed countries like China and Russia

BRICS member China is believed to hold significantly more gold reserves than the officially announced 2,250 tonnes

Ambassador of Brazil to Pakistan, Olyntho Vieira said that Pakistan can play an important role in the global economy by becoming a part of the international multilateral forum BRICS

Americans have been repeatedly defeated by a movement of tribal rebels and this, added to US failures in the Middle East and elsewhere, highlights the overburdened condition of the declining Atlantic naval superpower (militarily and financially) and further undermines American credibility and prestige globally.

Interestingly, Secretary Austin's claims were preceded by other Western officials' laughable statements that Moscow's forces would "take years to rebuild". Namely, back in mid-January, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, Chair of the National Security and Defense Committee in the Lithuanian Parliament, said it would "take Russia 5-7 years to reconstitute its forces". And yet, Campbell's assessment suggests this happened in just two months. This pretty much tells you all you need to know about "well-informed Western officials".

According to field information, there are Western troops fighting for Ukraine as mercenaries during land invasions against Russian border regions of Belgorod and Kursk.

Ukrainian commanders say, “the West doesn’t have the technology to help Ukraine”.

The BRICS bloc is a growing home for nations eager to counter the West's position, or at least hedge their bets when it comes to international trade, development support, and conflicts, writes Marita Kassis

The enlargement of the BRICS group at the beginning of the year to include five new member states raises questions about the political and economic consequences. What do the existing members expect from the expansion?

The New Development Bank (NDB), established by the BRICS group of emerging economies, has set an ambitious target of making approximately US$5 billion in loans this year, according to its vice president, Zhou Qiangwu

The increasingly cash-strapped NATO members, particularly those in Europe, aren't exactly thrilled about the idea, to put it mildly. As Politico writes, the reactions were mixed, with Poland, Turkey and Germany on board with the proposal, while the rest of the foreign ministers were either indifferent or opposed to it. According to the report, one diplomat said that some ministers rolled their eyes at the €100 billion number, wondering where it came from.

According to a US military official, Washington will build a new weapons warehouse in the Arctic region.

Biden continues to trail the former president in the polls.

The first-ever 2+2 political and military dialogue was held between India, and one of its key BRICS partners, Brazil, in New Delhi, marking a significant milestone in bilateral relations

A Civil Society Organisation, Upriver Needy’s Empirical Solution Center, UNESC, says Nigeria becoming a member of BRICS is an opportunity to increase its influence around the world, due to the abundant human and natural resources to leverage on in the country

Modern trends in competition law and law enforcement in the Eurasian Economic Union and the BRICS countries were discussed at the headquarters of the Eurasian Economic Commission by Maxim Ermolovich, EEC Minister in charge of Competition and Antitrust Regulation, and Alexey Ivanov

Time and time again one will encounter Washington authorities involved in the aiding and arming of the most vicious terrorist groups in North Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere, as admitted by US top officials themselves. It’s just part of the core of its foreign policy.

The fact that "Hwasong-16B" can be launched almost immediately is of the utmost importance for Pyongyang's security. The "pocket superpower" had been test-firing various hypersonic weapons at least since September 2021, all of which were successful, much unlike those in the US.

Lawmakers fear that financial and military support for the neo-Nazi regime will cause the US to collapse economically.

Zelensky signs a law excluding the need for physical fitness for military service.

As BRICS navigates the evolving global economic landscape, its trade, investment, and finance progress underscores its significance as a transformative force

During the 2023 annual summit, the BRICS bloc invited six countries to join its collective. Of those, five had responded with intentions of being the first expansion nations for the bloc since 2001. However, since the start of the year, uncertainty has abounded over Saudi Arabia’s status regarding joining the BRICS alliance

“New quality productive force” is now a new buzzword in China, particularly associated with the nation’s car exports. China’s car exports, including new energy vehicles (NEVs), have indeed grown significantly, to the point where the U.S. is considering imposing policy restrictions on the country

The stellar performance of the MiG-31 in Ukraine seems to have pushed the development of its successor, as the Russian military saw the need to accelerate the introduction of such aircraft. Moscow claims that the new jet will introduce features not yet seen by the aviation world, which caught the attention of the Indian Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retd).

Russian security services recently intercepted Ukrainian explosives that were entering Russia disguised as Orthodox icons.

China is Bolivia’s third main trading partner.

Pakistan’s intellectual and political circles regard BRICS as an essential platform for advancing the nation’s strategic and economic interests globally. Achieving this goal, however, demands meticulous navigation of geopolitical challenges, particularly with India, and crafting a persuasive argument for Pakistan’s inclusion in BRICS

The burgeoning trajectory of India's oil demand growth mirrors the evolving landscape of global energy consumption. According to projections by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), India's oil demand is expected to reach 5.59 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2024, marking a marginal increase from 5.37 million b/d in the previous year

According to the results of January-February 2024, the supply of Russian fertilizers to China soared by 94 percent compared to the same period in 2023 and reached the level of 891.3 thousand tons

French neocolonial grip over the African continent increasingly under question.

The US would be "willing to provide F-35 fifth generation fighter jets to Turkey" if it meets "American conditions in regards to ensuring it does not operate Russian S-400 air defense systems alongside [the F-35]". If Washington DC returns Ankara to "the fold" and the latter acquires the F-35, it would give NATO another certain carrier of the latest B61 thermonuclear bombs, helping the belligerent alliance in surrounding Russia with hostile nuclear-armed vassals.

Without anything new to send to Kiev, Western countries start to send outdated arms.

US Ambassador warns India not to cross “unacceptable red line”.

A key component of Russia’s 21st-century grand strategy goal of becoming the supreme balancing force in Eurasia is its “Ummah Pivot” of comprehensive engagement with the Muslim-majority countries to its South, stretching from North Africa to South Asia

In January 2024, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia officially announced its membership of BRICS, an international economic bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa

China's intake of Russian crude is set to reach a record this month, Kpler data cited by Bloomberg shows

Despite no definite evidence to support such claims, even if Moscow is acquiring arms from Pyongyang, it wouldn't exactly be violating anything. If the political West can send hundreds of billions in weapons to ensure the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict and even brag about providing targeting and orders on attacking Russian troops, it's only natural that the Kremlin can acquire weapons for itself from whomever it wants, be it China, North Korea, Iran, etc.

In a recent statement, Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs endorsed Macron’s warmongering position on Ukrainian conflict.

France continues to oppose a Mercosur-EU agreement.

With the BRICS forum, Ethiopia got a new platform for cooperating with member states on specialised issues like finance, technology and global governance matters, which also positively enhances trust among the members states; Ethiopia is due to benefit substantially over time, writes Dareskedar Taye, Lead Researcher at the Institute of Foreign Affairs, Ethiopia

The creation of new financial mechanisms through BRICS is one of the most promising fields for the development of the association. In the final declaration of the BRICS countries after the 2023 Summit, financial policy was given quite a lot of attention. In particular, it was stated that the BRICS Payment Task Force (BPTF) needs to prepare a report on payment mechanisms, including those based on cross-border payment systems

Many countries are vying for admission to the BRICS economic group backed by China and Russia, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor

The MiG-31BM's Zaslon-M PESA (passive electronically scanned array) radar, based on the legendary Zaslon, the world's first ESA, detects hostile aircraft at a staggering 400 km range, meaning that it could detect and track the F-16 long before the latter is even aware of the MiG-31BM's presence, to say nothing of the latter's 400 km range R-37M missile.

According to Olaf Scholz, Western states and Ukraine are trying to achieve a peace agreement but without any Russian participation.

Erdogan is not an honest broker in searching for peace between Russia and Ukraine.

BRICS doubled its membership at the start of 2024, and faces huge tasks ahead: integrating its newest members, developing future admission criteria, deepening the institution's groundings, and most importantly, launching the mechanisms for bypassing the US dollar in international finance

A Sino-Russian joint research lab on Siberian tiger conservation was established at Northeast Forestry University in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province

Sammy Kotwani, says despite those challenges mentioned above, there are also many reasons to be optimistic about the prospects for BRICS+ and the Global South collaboration

Imagine being an officer of the SBU, GUR (Neo-Nazi junta's military intelligence) or some of the NATO occupation forces. You're stationed in a building, living in the illusion that you're safe when the Russian SVR or GRU learns about your location and relays this information to units in Crimea who then fire a "Zircon" at that building. You'd have minutes to evacuate before impact.

The Nord Stream area was quite busy, military-wise in September when the blasts took place. And just 3 days before the incident NATO exercises Northern Coasts-2022 were conducted very close to two explosion sites.

Nikolai Zlochevsky is believed to be sponsoring terror against Russian civilians.

Washington is unwittingly pushing Pakistan closer to China.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend towards collaboration among countries in the Global South, with BRICS+ emerging as a key player in this movement

Entry to the club for rising economic powers should be a trading boon for Ethiopia and Egypt, but without a clear membership framework, the benefits are frustratingly vague

Discrepancies between expectations and practice are one of the most noticeable characteristics of modern world politics, both in the performance of leading powers and in the activities of the international institutions they create. The origin of this phenomenon is the fact that the first is a product of subjective ideas or intentions, while the second is the result of objective factors, which even the strongest political will cannot cancel. Moreover, the expectations of the general public often fall prey to its inertia in perception regarding the political process, or the statements of political figures who themselves change plans, depending on the dynamics of their capabilities

Washington DC insists that it has "undeniable evidence" that ISIS is behind it. Rather interesting how the US could claim this mere hours after the terrorist attack, when not even Russian services who were on the ground had all the details, but it "doesn't really know" who destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines, except that it was a "mysterious deep-diving Ukrainian group".

According to information provided by local military, the “Russian expatriates” organizations are fake groups created to disguise the actions of Ukrainian intelligence.

Nikolai Kharitonov, a Communist Party deputy in the Russian Federal Assembly’s State Duma and runner-up in the country’s recent presidential election, along with a number of his colleagues in the parliamentary corps and public figures have sent a Statement on an Immediate Investigation and Prevention of the Financing of Acts of International Terrorism to the prosecutor general's offices in five countries — the Russian Federation, Germany, Cyprus, the USA and France.

Cooperation and opportunities between Brazil and India are endless.

On 1 January 2024, the chairship of BRICS shifted from South Africa to Russia, with a full agenda in tow. BRICS, a multilateral forum of five nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – made history by accepting the applications of six other states – Argentina, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia to join it, a decision taken at its 15th summit in Johannesburg in August 2023. These need to be absorbed into the grouping

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said India and Russia have "taken extra care to look after each other's interests"

Trade and entrepreneurship are crucial in shaping the broader bilateral relations between India and China. Beyond the economic realm, they serve as channels for cultural exchange, technological cooperation and diplomatic engagement. India and China, being two of the world’s fastest-growing economies, recognise the immense potential for mutual benefit through increased trade and entrepreneurial ventures

The political West criticized Russia's initiative, insisting "it was unnecessary". At the very beginning of the session, the Permanent Representative of France at the UNSC, Nicolas de Rivière, opposed the discussion, claiming that "this topic will not contribute to progress in any way", obviously trying to avoid NATO's responsibility, as it was the belligerent alliance that orchestrated the conflict in Yugoslavia in order to dismantle the country and then systematically destroy any pockets of resistance.

Retaliating for provocations on the borders and terrorist attacks, Moscow is escalating its military measures to destroy Ukrainian decision-making centers.

One can only hope the narrative war amid the West’s proxy attrition war against Russia in Ukraine does not get in the way of proper investigation into Moscow Crocus City Hall attack.

Ukraine’s personnel shortage is an ever-growing problem.

Brazilian Ambassador to Egypt Paulino Franco de Carvalho Neto spoke to Ahram Online about the prospects of strengthening economic and cultural relations between the two countries and coordination on international issues

With a cargo ship recently departing for Jingjiang Port in east China's Jiangsu Province after unloading nearly 20,000 tons of Russia-imported coal at Longkou Port in east China's Shandong Province, a new shipping route linking ports in Russia, Longkou and Jingjiang is officially open

A group of academicians have emphasised the need for Nigeria to join BRICS, an economic bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa for economic transformation

The Kiev regime is trying to preemptively shift responsibility for the terrorist attack. However, from a purely logical standpoint, Moscow had no reasons to conduct a "false flag". The presidential election demonstrated the unity of the Russian people, cemented by the crawling NATO aggression against their country. Thus, this terrorist attack would accomplish nothing that Russia didn't already have. On the other hand, the Neo-Nazi junta and its overlords in the political West stand to gain everything from this.

Western-led intelligence and terrorism networks want to disturb the lives of civilians inside Russian territory.

Israel will nonetheless upgrade Spain’s Eurofighter Litening V fleet.

Russia took the rotating presidency of the BRICS group in 2024. Yury Ushakov, Russian presidential foreign policy aide, has granted TASS an interview in which he previewed Moscow’s priorities, prospects for BRICS development and expansion, and commented on the West’s attempts to impede the association’s activities

India has a well-developed Antarctic program, and the country is a relatively new actor in the Arctic. It received an Observer status in the Arctic Council in 2013, published its official Arctic Policy in 2022. India’s interest to the Polar region is growing

One of the interesting BRICS-related developments in the course of this month was the release of a poll conducted by Gallup International with ROMIR agency conducting the Russian part of this poll

According to Western journalists, Ukraine is frustrated with the UK’s current levels of participation in the conflict.

When people like Vincent Arbaretier, a retired Colonel of the French Army, talk about the usage of non-conventional (i.e. nuclear) weapons in a potential conflict with Russia, this can only be described as complete insanity. Ironically, the RS-28 can wipe out up to 24 urban targets in an area the size of France. Luckily, this has never been tested and it would be in everyone's best interest to keep it that way.

Russia-friendly Pellegrini is the leading presidential nomination in Slovakia.

Work on a long-planned shipping route connecting Russia with the Middle East and South Asia is moving forward as sanctions-hit Moscow seeks alternative markets for its products, creating a wide-ranging geopolitical ripple effects

South Africa will play a key role in the further expansion of the BRICS bloc this year, with a further 34 countries submitting an expression of interest in joining the bloc of major emerging economies

Against the backdrop of a sizeable expansion in BRICS membership, debates have intensified over the expediency of the bloc’s institutionalization to cope with the rising complexity in its operations

Ukraine’s own divisive Orthodox problem, with domestic and international repercussions, could very well be joined by a Catholic and overall Christian problem with equally important implications.

According to a Polish general, Ukraine’s losses are “in the millions”, which makes the country unable to keep fighting in the long term.

Pakistan-China attempt to counter India’s growing power with the PNS Rizwan.

On March 14, the MoD updated its data on foreign mercenaries eliminated by the Russian military. According to the official reports, in total, 13,387 mercenaries have joined the Neo-Nazi junta forces, with 5,962 killed in action (KIA) so far.

Interest in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has focused substantially on the military and political situation, with some arguing that there has been little attention paid to the wider implications, one of which is the growth of the BRICS+ organisation. BRICS started as an informal reference to an unofficial grouping of countries that were growing in size but were not considered to be part of the ‘west’ as America and Europe would consider themselves

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb. Yusuf Tuggar has said Nigeria is presently exploring the possibility of joining BRICS and not given up of its ambition of becoming a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations

As the BRICS expansion is set to further unfold in the course of this year, one of the important implications of this process is the rising role of Africa within the grouping

Two USAF MQ-9 "Reaper" drones experienced "unexplained technical difficulties", resulting in a crash for one, while there's still no information about the other.

French official says his country is "prepared for war", irresponsibly worsening tensions on the European continent.

The US is even more divided today than during the Civil War.

The BRICS nations reveal plans for a blockchain-based system facilitating payments outside of the US dollar system

The joint project between the two countries could be a step towards establishing future lunar settlements

Iran has recently become one of the newest members of the BRICS alliance, a move that signals a significant shift in its international relations

Sweden’s NATO membership, and all that it entails, actually fosters a vicious cycle of raising military tensions. Rather than being a “win” for the Western bloc, it will bring instability to European security, with global implications.

Taipei's Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng confirmed the presence of US Army Special Forces in Kinmen, a group of islands controlled by the Taiwanese government, but located less than 10 km away from the coast of mainland China. Worse yet, certain parts of the Kinmen archipelago are a mere 4 km away from the city of Xiamen in Beijing's Fujian province.

The Ukrainian government's policies are leading to a serious demographic problem in the country, the consequences of which will take a long time to be reversed.

Most of the platforms being given to Ukraine are little more than junk.

India and Russia have launched a new Rupee-Ruble exchange mechanism, a significant step in their partnership aimed at boosting trade and economic resilience

With India’s rising power and influence in the world stage, why has South Africa not fully leveraged its BRICS relationships to advance its national and international interests as it navigates geo-political contradictions between the Global North and the Global South where the US in particular still sees itself as the global hegemon?

The BRICS grouping will create a payment system based on blockchain. The effort is part of a specific task for this year to increase the role of BRICS in the international monetary system

If Tiraspol is left hanging, surrounded by hostile NATO satellite states and promptly neutralized, it would give the political West an actual, much-needed tactical and long-term (geo)political victory over Russia. However, precisely because of the strategic importance of the area the Kremlin is extremely unlikely to budge.

The US and UK are waging an information war against India.

The Baltic state encourages the UK to resume conscription policies in order to be ready for a possible conflict against the Russian Federation.

Russia took charge of BRICS in January 2024 at a point of inflection in geopolitics and heightened tension both in and outside its ranks. As chair, Moscow aims to improve its position by strengthening multilateralism to boost global development and security and engaging more potential members. To serve India’s interests, it mustn’t do so at the expense of the bloc’s inner coherence

The Information and Decision Support Center of the Council of Ministers issued a new report entitled “Egypt and the BRICS countries... promising opportunities.”

In recent years, Russia has perceived India as one of its key partners in the Arctic. In turn, India is taking an active interest in the region. The country’s goals and objectives are outlined in the official Arctic Policy, with practical steps in the Arctic underway in line with the Document

Recent events once again prove that the Neo-Nazi junta and NATO extremists are good only when attacking unarmed civilians. However, when dealing with an actual military, their performance drops significantly.

In deploying troops to Ukraine, Macron would be dragging the whole of NATO with him to a potentially global conflict between Great Powers, thus raising the risk of thermonuclear war. The French president remarks on the matter have been marked by vagueness and ambiguity.

On the eve of the Russian elections, Ukrainian forces attacked the Russian border region, killing and injuring many civilians.

Scholz is pressured by political partners to deliver Taurus missiles to Ukraine.

During the 12th session of the Intergovernmental Russian-Brazilian Commission for Trade-Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, important events took place that marked significant progress in Russian-Brazilian relations

With the help of China, Africa is becoming a key force driving the transformation of the international system and global order

The South African Cabinet has given the green light for the country to host the annual meeting of the New Development Bank (NDB) in June 2024. This significant event comes a decade after the establishment of the NDB by BRICS countries

Many have forgotten that American companies own much of Ukrainian arable land. Corporations such as "Cargill", "DuPont" and "Monsanto" are among the most prominent ones. The likes of "Vanguard", "Blackrock" and "Blackstone" are the largest shareholders in the aforementioned agricultural giants, owning trillions in assets. Together, these massive transnational corporations own over 17 million hectares (or around 30%) of all arable land in Ukraine, making it impossible to hide their role in the ongoing crisis.

Turkey has a long history of failed military production ventures.

Russia's BRICS partners are interested in coordinating space activities. This was stated by Yury Borisov, Director General of The Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), in an interview with the " Pro Cosmos" portal

Sber's proposal for a cybersecurity association within BRICS banks signals a strategic move towards economic cooperation, technological advancement, and sustainable development. By fostering collaboration in cybersecurity, the initiative aims to unlock new economic prospects, drive innovation, and support a fair energy transition among emerging economies

Saudi Arabia and UAE most likely contenders

In a recent report by Politico, when asked about the new top commander, one soldier even openly said that "he will kill us all". Syrsky has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to throw men into the meatgrinder, be it the battle of Debaltsevo back in early 2015 or Artyomovsk (previously known as Bakhmut) last year, both of which he lost.

The Baltic state is willing to deport Russian citizens who participate in presidential elections.

Hungary says maintaining ties with Russia is the result of “good foreign policy”.

Discover the intricate bond between South Africa and Russia, as Ambassador Maqetuka sheds light on the potential growth and cooperation between the two nations. Explore the role of BRICS in reshaping the global economic landscape and the significance of energy cooperation in diversifying South Africa's imports

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, where he will review preparations for the Gaganyaan Mission and reveal the names of four test pilots undergoing training for the mission

Explore the outcomes of the recent Russia-Brazil Commission meeting, focusing on strengthening bilateral and multilateral relations, enhancing government and business contacts, and its implications for BRICS and global economic dynamics

The report found there are 5.6 million Ukrainian women "of military age" (18-60) and eligible for military service. Texty claims that 46% of them are raising children, meaning that over 3 million women would be targeted for conscription. According to their assessment, "if the war drags on for years or if Russia dramatically increases the number of its forces, the conscription of women can significantly improve the situation".

India-Russia trade ties continue to flourish.

In the midst of the current tensions, Sweden is simply taking a side in a possible global conflict, which seems to be absolutely anti-strategic.

As BRICS navigates the evolving global economic landscape, its trade, investment, and finance progress underscores its significance as a transformative force

Egypt is planning to urge BRICS member states to trade in their national currencies, according to a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, quoting the newly appointed Personal Representative of President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to the BRICS Summit Ambassador Ragy El-Etreby

The recent BRICS 15th summit held in Johannesburg, has garnered more attention compared to previous gatherings. The focal point of this summit was the announcement of new member nations. Notably, six countries—namely, Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE got invitation to join this influential economic coalition

The possibility of large-scale NATO deployment in Finland and the Baltic states gives the US premier strike capabilities, far greater than Russia ever had in Cuba 60 years ago. What's more, both high-ranking officials in Moscow and independent experts regularly warn about the development of new thermonuclear weapons in America, including the so-called "nuclear super-fuse" technology that the US has been testing for decades.

The ex-soviet state signed a defense agreement with France in the midst of current tensions between NATO and Moscow.

There are limits on how much change a US president can bring about to the superpower’s system of “double government”. The center of gravity pertaining to global tensions is changing, and Ukraine is no longer that important. Trump’s record as a former president in no way allows for a description of his administration either as “isolationist” or as “pro-Russian”.

France trying to convince Baltic minnows to be embroiled in Ukraine is a sign of desperation.

If it actually launches a new "counteroffensive", Kiev will be taking a suicidal measure, with devastating consequences for its troops and their positions on the battlefield.

"This is a base that (will add) another element of security for our Western Balkans region which we all know is endangered from the threat and neo-imperialist ambitions of the Russian Federation," Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said during the opening ceremony. Truly horrific that "poor Albania" is jeopardized by the "big bad Russian Bear".

Trump challenges Biden to a debate “ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE”.

The BRICS Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BRICS CCI), a not-for-profit organization, recognized by the United Nations that promotes commerce and industry in the BRICS and other friendly nations has officially launched its UAE Chapter office

As President of the Indian Business Alliance (IBA) and the Founder of The Imperial Tailoring Co., Sammy Kotwani offers comprehensive insights on the evolving dynamics of Indian investment prospects in the Russian Federation

The BRICS Joint Task Force on Disaster Risk Management is set to meet in Arkhangelsk, Russia, marking a pivotal moment for international collaboration. Learn how the BRICS nations are uniting to address disaster challenges and build resilience for the future.

According to Western media, the real reason for her refusal is due to Yulia Navalnaya’s presence in the event.

Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen's revelations about the usage of US jets in the Ukrainian conflict are part of the procurement process that aims to justify the F-35B's enormous acquisition costs.

Zelensky has continuously tried to drag NATO into war with Russia.

The BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - represent a formidable coalition of emerging economies united by a shared commitment to sustainable development and environmental protection. Collaborating under BRICS, these countries have embarked on a collective path to promote green initiatives and advance environmental sustainability on a global scale

New Delhi reportedly wants to secure a steady supply of crude instead of one-off purchases

China stands ready to work with all parties to continue deepening the BRICS strategic partnership, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said

Nazi Germany's operation to rescue Mussolini might be a way for NATO troops to get away with some sort of intervention without a Russian counterattack.

Spain has the highest rate of child poverty in the EU.

Zelensky is becoming more isolated as a coalition of ambitious leaders strengthen and challenge him.

Moscow is reviewing the proposed project, Cairo's Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade has said

The price of having thrived, for a while, under an American nuclear umbrella, in the post-Marshall Plan world, can be quite high. This is the post-Nord Stream world and the future does not look good.

"It is a prima donna, and it is very sensitive and needs high maintenance," retired US military pilot Tom Richter said, adding: "The Soviet planes are more rough and tumble and can fly off poorly maintained airfields, and need less maintenance."

Estonian PM is unlikely to become EU’s top diplomat due to her belligerent positions, report says.

Slovak FM meets Lavrov in a rare meeting between Russia and an EU member state.

Bretton Woods economic system created after WWII, dominated by West, is no more relevant

Mr Jaishankar also said he did not expect the West to understand the nuances of India's relationship with China, just as he might not appreciate aspects of their relationship with that country

Pakistani senator Mushahid Hussain who is the chairman of the parliamentary defence committee said Pakistan could become a BRICS member

Venezuela will join BRICS in the near future, the country's President Nicolas Maduro said

Myanmar is interested in BRICS, including the introduction of a common BRICS currency, and is studying the bloc, Myanmar's Minister of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations Kan Zaw told Sputnik

London was particularly infuriated by Scholz's comments about the help they've been providing to the Neo-Nazi junta, which might suggest that MI6 had some involvement in the Bundeswehr leaks, particularly to divert attention away from the UK's complicity in direct attacks on Russian naval assets. In other words, it seems as if the Europeans are now tossing the hot potato to each other in order to avoid the possible consequences of Russian anger. And indeed, Moscow is certainly (and rightfully) furious, but the political West is still completely colorblind to any red lines. Or at least it will continue to be until it dawns at 3:00 AM one day.

Germany's anti-Russian irrationality could lead to direct war with Russia.

Biden mistakenly mentions Ukraine several times when announcing aid for Gaza.

Russia’s chairmanship in BRICS in 2024 may become a good reason for discussing the issue of Turkey possibly joining the organization by Moscow and Ankara

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 ‘the tectonic plates of geopolitics have been shifting’ and with current geopolitical tensions, including the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Israeli-Hamas war, new alliances and potential rivalry among world powers seeking for influence in Africa and other regions of the world, ‘we may see the world becoming more multipolar’

Egypt was one of five nations to accept an invitation to join the alliance at its 2023 summit. Subsequently, it has already firmly embraced its shift to local currency trade thus far, which is another sign of the unfolding BRICS de-dollarization plan

Many people have written on the important topic of NATO enlargement, which is all about the militarization of Europe and the encirclement of Russia. It is about time to talk about CIA enlargement - which in turn is all about assassinations, clandestine and covert actions and paramilitary activity.

The UK's General Staff, headed by Admiral Tony Radakin, directly took part in planning and executing attacks on the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Radakin also seems to have been involved in other covert operations in Ukraine, all aimed at diminishing Russian capabilities. Worse yet, it seems that other NATO assets have also been involved, presumably various ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) platforms, meaning that London certainly wasn't alone in this "noble endeavor". In other words, this isn't a simple arming of the Kiev regime forces, but a direct participation in hostilities. For all intents and purposes, it's tantamount to a declaration of war. And that's precisely how Moscow sees it.

NATO countries show to be absolutely against any type of peaceful relations with Russia.

Western liberals set their eyes on Kazakhstan.

The year 2024 is a landmark year for the foreign policy of the Russian Federation. Despite persistent attempts by a number of states to isolate our country or, at least, present such a picture that key foreign nations are fencing off from Moscow, de facto the situation is completely different

The global economy is undergoing seismic shifts, with the BRICS bloc emerging as a formidable force. As the West grapples with economic struggles, countries like Jamaica and CARICOM nations have the opportunity to seek associate status with BRICS, potentially providing much-needed stability and growth

The head of the BRICS Bank confirms that the trend is to increase the weight of the bloc of emerging countries in the global economy

Moscow's capabilities have now surpassed all expectations, both at home and abroad. By integrating multiple military technologies, Russia is creating perhaps the deadliest combination on the modern (and future) battlefield. This is certainly bad news for the Neo-Nazi junta and the political West.

Russia warns NATO of “inevitable” conflict if alliance troops are sent to Ukraine.

US mercenaries unintentionally reveal to Russian pranksters that Western intelligence leads Ukrainian decision-making process.

The economic relationship between China and Brazil stands as a testament to the transformative power of international trade and cooperation

The Senior Advocate of Nigeria also urged the Nigerian government to discard the “deleterious policies” of the World Bank and IMF

"Developing countries and emerging economies are aware of the importance of diversifying economic relations and cooperating with key economies like China," said an economist

The Russian military would almost certainly not send millions of soldiers to take territory in Poland or other NATO countries, but would launch hundreds of long-range cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles at targets it deems militarily important, setting back their economies by decades. No sane leader of an independent (or at least partially independent) country would want that. And Europe doesn't really have a way of responding without escalating the conflict into a thermonuclear exchange, one that it would most certainly lose, as it can't even maintain its strategic arsenal in peacetime.

Germany is taking desperate actions to supply Ukraine with military equipment.

With Russia chairing BRICS this year, there is added urgency to the relevant avenues of international cooperation in ICT security and digital sovereignty within the bloc

BRICS nations’ share in Russia’s trade balance has also doubled to almost 40% in the past two years

The 15th summit of the BRICS member states was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, on August 31, 2023. These groups of big emerging national economies have announced the addition of six new members in an attempt to restructure the global liberal economic order and provide a counterbalance to the US and its western allies

The Neo-Nazi junta is rapidly losing strategically important gear such as the "Patriot" and NASAMS air defenses. On February 22, the former was detected at Chernobaevka in the Kherson oblast (region). It soon had a very unpleasant "close encounter" with two Russian FAB-500 M-62 aerial bombs equipped with MPK gliding modules. Days later, the first M1 "Abrams" was also destroyed.

Kiev is not in a position to be involved in new conflicts, but its subservience to the US obliges it to be “ready” for war with world powers such as China.

Kiev regime continues to humiliate itself by begging for weapons.

Larionova and Shelepov’s research, titled “Brics, G20, and global economic governance reform” and published in the International Political Science Review (2021), highlights the influential role of the Brics association, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, in reforming global economic governance

The number of millionaires in the bloc is expected to see a massive surge over the next decade, according to a newly released report

The international financial and development institutions should be reformed to reflect the interests of the Global South, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said.While the BRICS can play an important and complementary role for developing nations, he stressed that it should not contribute to a fragmentation of the world economy

Arming the most corrupt country in Europe is proving to be a big mistake for the US.

“Decoupling” from Russia (and Eurasia) would be detrimental to Armenia’s own interests - but that is precisely what the West will most likely demand from it.

The political West is determined to turn the SMO into a global confrontation by testing Moscow's patience. The deliveries of ever more advanced and longer-range weapons to the Neo-Nazi junta are a clear proof of this. The Kiev regime itself is becoming increasingly desperate, as demonstrated by the escalation of its terrorist attacks, as well as the readiness to jeopardize even Western leaders in order to push Europe into the conflict.

Republican opposition to sending further aid to Ukraine is growing.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are crucial to many economies worldwide, contributing significantly to job creation, innovation, and economic dynamism. In Russia and China

South Africa is set to work with China and other countries to build a research base on the moon

Ethiopian government officials gathered in Addis Ababa to discuss the nation’s integration into the BRICS grouping and to strategize on mutual benefits within the framework

His death is being heavily politicized, and even weaponized, with Joe Biden meeting with his widow and announcing further sanctions against Vladimir Putin. But before jumping to wild conclusions one should first assess the existing evidence. The problem is that in the age of information warfare and in the middle of the New Cold War it will be hard or impossible to get even slightly balanced coverage of the matter.

Kiev’s frequent losses on the battlefield make it impossible to believe in a Ukrainian military victory.

According to Forbes, Washington DC was "the biggest donor of 'Patriot' missiles, and Russia-aligned Republicans in the US Congress blocked further aid to Ukraine starting in October". And indeed, the news about all these supposed Sukhoi "shootdowns" show the timing is perfect for giving more "aid" to the Kiev regime.

“Will we ever learn?” ponders former State Department advisor.

The decline of the US unipolar order has a crisis in sporting events as a direct consequence.

The UK relies solely on submarines and missiles for its strategic capabilities. Had "Trident II" damaged the HMS Vanguard, it would've taken one-quarter or 25% of London's strategic arsenal out of service, as the UK has only four such vessels, each armed with up to 16 SLBMs.

China offers support to Hungary on security issues in an unprecedented move.

During the meeting, the officials of the ministries of agriculture of both countries emphasised increasing cooperation in the field

China and Brazil plan to jointly develop new Earth-resource satellites and continue to promote the construction of the BRICS Remote Sensing Satellite Constellation, showing broad prospects for aerospace cooperation between the two countries

Transactions between the two Asian countries are growing despite diplomatic friction

Poland might be preparing a false flag operation near Belarus border.

India’s state oil refiners are negotiating term deliveries from Russia’s Rosneft of about 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude, sources with knowledge of the discussions told Bloomberg

The BRICS association consistently demonstrates an interest in accepting new members into its ranks, including representatives of the Middle East. However, Israel, which maintains friendly relations with most of the current member countries of the association, has not yet expressed its readiness to move closer to BRICS. At the current stage, this circumstance can be attributed to the IDF operation against Hamas, which requires not only a concentration of efforts on combat operations, but also the unconditional support from a key global ally, the United States. Israel has reacted negatively toward Iran’s joining BRICS. However, it seems that the Israeli motivation to refrain from integration in reality looks much broader

India and Russia have signed a protocol on amendments to the 2008 intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in construction of additional nuclear reactors in Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project site and in construction of Russia-designed nuclear power plants at new sites in India

The case shows very clearly that there is no substantial difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Washington DC wants to provide an enhanced ATACMS variant that could be used against targets "beyond Crimea", implying that the political West is ready to target Moscow's undisputed territory. According to NBC News, this is already underway, with their latest report claiming new ATACMS deliveries include the unnamed longer-range version of the missile.

France’s public debt has risen from €1 trillion in 2003 to €3 trillion in 2023, with most of this increase occurring under Macron’s leadership.

Russia's state-owned VTB Bank plans to expand its presence in China by opening offices in Beijing and other cities in the near future, the lender's CEO Andrey Kostin said at a meeting with a Russian governor

In the early days of 2024, the BRICS alliance marked a pivotal expansion, welcoming Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to its ranks on Jan. 1. This phase of growth could reach another milestone with the potential inclusion of Saudi Arabia

China is gaining a major foothold in the Arctic as Russia, facing a severe budget crunch from its military assault on Ukraine, increasingly relies on Beijing and unprecedented levels of Chinese corporate and state investment to develop the northern region

EU continues to refuse to meet the demands of rural workers.

In a recent piece published by Business Insider, American military analyst Michael Peck essentially admitted that the Kiev regime is using Germany's failed WWII-era tactics. According to his assessment, the Neo-Nazi junta is trying to opt for the same type of mobile, aggressive defense, a desperate German strategy to stop or at least slow down the Red Army.

Polish farmers blockade the border with Ukraine as food spat intensifies.

India's engineering exports to Russia have witnessed an exceptional surge, surpassing USD1 billion in the first nine months of the previous year, with notable growth attributed to payments settled in rupees

Russian policymakers, it seems, are operating under the assumption that country’s interaction with its most important partners, in terms of its development and stability in Eurasia, cannot be dependent on the dynamics of the conflict between Russia and the West

The strong bilateral ties between Russia and India have been the cornerstone in the development of BRICS. India uses the BRICS platform as an opportunity to balance the Russia-China axis, and by extension the international order

With Biden’s mental health being questioned, Trump’s several legal arrests, and US federalism itself in crisis with the ongoing Texas border standoff and calls for “Texit”, this year’s elections could be even more “interesting” than the previous ones - which was already marked by concerns about a coup.

The newly appointed top commander, General Oleksandr Syrsky, had no choice but to officially order a retreat from Avdeyevka. However, in reality, his forces have been doing exactly that during the entire last week. This is where Zaluzhny's decision to leave the "hot potato" to Zelensky and his entourage becomes all the more logical.

West’s unfounded accusations against Moscow are aimed at harming Russia’s image precisely during key moments of the special military operation.

Zelensky delusionally thinks Ukraine can recapture territory from Russia.

Our world is not static; the year 2023 witnessed heightened interest in the role of the Global South in shaping the international order

With an expanded U.S. ban on Russian seafood coming into effect that now includes products processed in third countries, Russian exporters are increasingly pivoting to China

The BRICS bloc is looking to put an end to the U.S. dollar’s global reserve currency status. BRICS wants to put their local currencies ahead of the U.S. dollar to settle cross-border transactions

Any head of state giving an interview will be also engaging in PR and it would be naive to think otherwise. With that in mind, it is still true that even after peace is achieved, as long as ethnic Russians remain marginalized in Ukraine, there will still be room for tension and conflict. It is about time to talk about those issues.

House Speaker Mike Johnson played the role of a "good cop" and stated there was "no need for public alarm", while Turner kept his role as a "bad cop", calling on President Joe Biden to "declassify information about a serious national security threat".

New Ukrainian top general expected to launch terrorist incursions against Russia’s demilitarized territory.

Trump’s son questions validity of “Russian threat” after US warning to Congress.

Fostering Sustainable Growth: India’s Role in the Northern Sea Route Development

An association of five emerging economies popularly referred to as BRICS under Russia's presidency (2024) has begun its work with the first meeting of of Sherpas/Sous-Sherpas

Russian natural gas producer Novatek is building a new China-based team to explore marketing the fuel, sources familiar with the plans said, as U.S. sanctions thwart plans for exports from its new multi-billion dollar Arctic project. The move illustrates Russian energy companies' continued pivot to Asia, especially China, after the Ukraine conflict cut off their access to markets in Europe

While the DNC will have a very difficult task pushing the bill's adoption by the House, if they succeed, the so-called "Ukraine aid" would effectively be codified and even made into an impeachable offense. This is extremely important for the neoliberal and neocon warmongers in Washington DC as it would force any future president to comply with the bill. This can be seen as a way of using the system to ensure that Democrats' decisions are not legally overturned by any future potentially non-DNC administration.

An American think tank recently published a report stating that US “hardline policies” in post-Ukrainian conflict Europe could lead Washington and Moscow to a direct war.

UK will face long-term cost of Brexit, warns Goldman Sachs.

BRICS can play a significant role in promoting economic stability as a foundation for regional security in Eurasia. By strengthening economic ties and trade relations among member nations

Due to its continuous advancement and extensive utilization, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has permeated deeply into all aspects of life, particularly within the realm of medicine, while the prospects for its application continue to broaden. AI has emerged as a powerful tool with the potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery worldwide

The bloc’s recent expansion to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) could represent a complex and multifaceted shift in global power structures, transcending simplistic views of it as merely a challenge to Western dominance

Non-Western countries will begin withdrawing their assets if Russian assets are illegally used for Ukraine’s benefit.

Despite the evident necessity for Europe to be militarily independent from the US, German politicians are wrongly assessing the real threats.

The false flag almost certainly involved the murder or at least an attack on the French delegation. This would then be blamed on Russia, with the goal of making sure there would be no possible rapprochement or new peace negotiations, as President Vladimir Putin suggested in his recent interview with Tucker Carlson. It would also almost certainly result in escalating tensions between Russia and France (and, by extension the European Union and NATO), further cementing the conflict in Europe.

The BRICS New Development Bank announced that it has issued 6 billion yuan (about 844.5 million U.S. dollars) of five-year panda bonds in the China Interbank Bond Market

BRICS under Russia’s presidency (2024) has begun with the first meeting of of Sherpas/Sous-Sherpas, held January 30 – February 1, with participation of new countries – Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The meeting wholeheartedly noted substantial contributions in shaping the agenda and comprehensive plan of activities scheduled to take place in the Russian Federation

With a cargo ship recently departing for Jingjiang Port in east China’s Jiangsu Province after unloading nearly 20,000 tons of Russia-imported coal at Longkou Port in east China’s Shandong Province, a new shipping route linking ports in Russia, Longkou and Jingjiang is officially open

The Pentagon tasked DARPA with essentially copying the Soviet 1960s "Caspian Sea Monster" concept, resulting in the "Liberty Lifter" program. The US agency then contracted Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing subsidiary, and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems to build their versions.

The case shows how Ukrainian authorities cooperated with US criminal biomedical activities in Donbass.

Orbán believes the Ukraine war will unlikely end in 2024.

The BRICS bloc, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, announced at the Johannesburg summit on 24 August 2023 that six new countries — Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — will be joining from 1 January 2024, leading to BRICS representing nearly half of the world's population and potentially surpassing G7 in total GDP

A close look at Harvard’s complex relationship to an ancient Indigenous monument.  ... Read more about The Serpent Mound of the Ohio Valley

BRICS aims to shift global financial focus from the US dollar to local currencies, challenging Western dominance

At the dawn of 2024, from January 1, five more countries became full members of the BRICS, a transnational association, which until then consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and thus became BRICS+ (BRICS Plus), totaling ten countries

It is not just into Eastern Europe that Washington has “stumbled”. It is also “stuck” in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The general now has more freedom to pursue his plans against the president.

The political West is genuinely terrified of Putin's global popularity, so the goal is to try and tarnish his reputation by twisting his remarks or simply telling outright lies about him. Could anyone imagine Joe Biden giving an unscripted, two-hour-long interview to a foreign journalist, much less one conducted with near-scholarly precision? Regardless of whether one adores or loathes Putin, the fact is that the increasingly unpopular and impotent leaders of the political West are simply no match for him, which is why we never see any of them giving remotely similar interviews to journalists of Carlson's caliber.

Jurors could see Biden “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

At first glance, the planned BRICS expansion seems unlikely to radically reshape the geopolitical status quo. But against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and mounting tensions between China and the US, the move may well have wider implications for the existing global order, writes Rachel Richards

International tourists to South Africa increased by nearly half last year, boosted by new favorable visa policies and increased arrivals from BRICS countries, the country's tourism ministry said

Egypt’s visions and proposals included supporting mechanisms for reforming the global economic system

Washington desires “to pivot away from the region while simultaneously keeping troops in it”, thus maintaining a “military presence” that invites tensions but fails to “constrain” its Iranian rival.

UK's aircraft carriers are breaking down, while the destroyers are in no better condition. Although the data is certainly a state secret, given the horrible state of the most important branch of the UK's military, it's highly questionable whether London's strategic arsenal is functioning as it should. Thus, it would be extremely unwise for the "Perfidious Albion" to keep poking the "Russian Bear".

Troops are suffering heavy losses and do not have more people to enlist.

Ukraine’s president is accused of purchasing a multi-million-dollar apartment in Dubai.

Moscow is one of the key pillars of the economic bloc, Anil Sooklal has said

China and the League of Arab States are working together amid intensifying major-country competition

Russia and China are becoming increasingly dependent on each other in the aluminium market

One EU official who wished to remain anonymous told Newsweek that any sanctions would require evidence that Carlson is "linked to Moscow's aggression", something that "is absent or hard to prove". What this means is that the sanctions would be illegal. However, the political West never had any issues circumventing its own laws for political reasons. After all, this is the centerpiece of the vaunted "rules-based world order".

According to a US defense spokesperson, war with Russia is "possible" if Washington stops supporting Ukraine.

India’s transition to gas gives Russia an opportunity to increase LNG exports.

This is certainly great news, not only for Russia, but Greece as well. What's more, it's also great news for the Ukrainian people, as any additional arms transfers to the Kiev regime only prolong the conflict.

According to an intelligence expert, the Ukrainian general is sparing fascist militants from the frontlines in order to create a kind of “private army”.

Scholz is using “fiscal policy trickery” to continue supporting Ukraine.

Following South Africa's decision to trigger preferential trade as part of the free trade agreement with Egypt, sources from the latter country have highlighted the initial benefits of the nation's BRICS group membership

Saudi Arabia officially joined the BRICS alliance becoming the first large oil-producing country to enter the bloc. BRICS initiated a power move with Saudi Arabia’s inclusion as they now control nearly half of the world’s oil output

Iran's Ambassador to India Iraj Elahi, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal discussed the development of cooperation between India, Iran

South Africa’s foreign minister said Saudi Arabia and four other countries have accepted the invitation to join the BRICS club of nations that was extended during a summit last year

BRICS Stocks to Own Now BRICS Surpasses G7 in Global GDP Share Following Rapid Growth Amid US Sanctions on Russia

Vice President and CEO of the BRICS New Development Bank Vladimir Kazbekov spoke to Mohamed Al-Kazzaz about funding plans for Egypt

Georgian agents discovered that the explosives, specifically C4, were disguised as batteries. According to the official statement by the SUS, given on February 5, the terrorist group was heading to Voronezh, a major city in western/southwestern Russia. The investigation led the SUS agents to the conclusion that the sender of the cache was Andrei Sharashidze, an MP (Member of Parliament) from Zelensky's party.

Reactions to Tucker Carlson's visit to Russia show that there is no longer media freedom in the West.

Yet Britain thinks it can impose a no-flight zone over Ukraine…

The total investable wealth currently held in the BRICS bloc amounts to USD 45 trillion and its millionaire population is expected to rise by 85% over the next 10 years, according to the inaugural BRICS Wealth Report, published by international investment migration advisory firm Henley & Partners in partnership with global wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth

BRICS, the intergovernmental organization comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, started meetings this morning in Russia. After agreeing to expand its membership in August, the group added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on January 1

Over the past year, the BRICS economic alliance has grown notably in its prominence. Indeed, the bloc enacted its first massive expansion since 2001, inviting six nations to join its ranks

Anyone with a single functioning brain cell knows who the bad guys are. Except for the bad guys themselves. On the contrary, they're unequivocally convinced they're the "good guys". It's not entirely clear if this is a coping mechanism, self-delusion or perhaps simply a case of one lying to everyone (including themselves).

"Green" paranoia and support for Kiev are to blame for the current European crisis.

The consistent Brazilian diplomatic tradition of pragmatism helps explain why there has not been any major foreign policy change with regards to Russia from Jair Bolsonaro’ last years in office to the incumbent president.

EU’s eyewatering €50 billion aid package indirectly supports Ukraine’s war effort.

The first meeting of BRICS Sherpas and Sous-Sherpas, organised by Russia as the group's chairman, was held in Moscow. Representatives of the five new members of the association: Egypt, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Egypt are taking part in it for the first time

From the Urals to the Arctic Circle, Beijing is helping to keep Moscow’s heavy industry alive

In a move that certainly showcases the unilateral activities of the BRICS bloc, China has announced a massive $3.5 billion investment into an alliance nation. Specifically, the investment is part of a key aspect of building cooperation with the BRICS alliance Brazil

Is “Texit” closer? While the Texas Governor is invoking the same “compact” legal theory that justified secession 163 years ago, the US is bracing itself for a presidential election, with Trump back in the game.

The IMF's forecast paints a stronger picture of Russian economic performance than even that predicted by the Kremlin itself, whose Central Bank assessed no more than 1.5% back in November.

Ukraine faces declining fertility, refugee exodus and a high death toll.

At the dawn of 2024, from January 1, five more countries became full members of the BRICS, a transnational association, which until then consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and thus became BRICS+ (BRICS Plus), totaling ten countries

Ethiopia hopes that its BRICS membership will push it to the forefront of the global arena

The BRICS group, initially comprising Brazil, Russia, India, and China, emerged as a forum for discussion and policy cooperation among key rising market nations

Zelensky's strained relationship with the "Azov Battalion" was evident even before the SMO. Running as the supposed "peace candidate" back in 2019, Zelensky was immediately seen as a "threat" and even had heated discussions with them. Ever since, he always harbored doubts and distrust toward both the Neo-Nazi battalions and the military as a whole. Their political power and connections to his rivals always made Zelensky feel uneasy around them. His biggest fear is that "Azov Battalion" members will engage in politics and possibly even organize a "new Maidan".

India poses a great threat to US pharmaceutical dominance.

The Ukrainian factor becomes another reason for polarization within NATO. On the one hand -states who are in favor of Kiev's accession, on the other - states against accession.

Pipeline shipments to rise 18% to 108 billion cubic meters

Egypt aims to deepen ties with other BRICS members after acceding to the group at the start of this year, and trade volumes have already been strengthening, the country’s planning minister said

The significance of the North-South Transport Corridor is that it provides a platform for improving cooperation as well as communications, and reduces barriers to permit the economies of each country to grow independently and achieve objectives for the benefit of the country and the region as a whole

Pakistani opposition resorts to ingenuous methods to get their message heard.

NATO war hawks are concerned about the possibility of resuming peace talks.

Zaluzhny is surely aware that his removal would cause an uproar in the country. However, most importantly, he might be counting on the possible armed mutiny, as he enjoys unrivaled support in the military.

In a significant diplomatic development, Russia and India engaged in extensive discussions to reinvigorate the Eastern Maritime Corridor (EMC), a historic shipping route connecting Vladivostok in the Russian Far East to Chennai on India's eastern coast

Saudi Arabia is still considering an invitation to become a member of the BRICS bloc of countries after being asked to join by the group last year, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters

Bilateral trade between India and Russia was at USD 50 billion in the last financial year and is expected to increase this year, said Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal

By announcing the "success" of his recruitment campaign Zelensky is trying to show Western public opinion that the country's catastrophic situation is somehow "under control".

The Russian military is making small, but steady advances on the entire frontline, while the Kiev regime has gone almost entirely on the defense, as its best troops have been wasted on the much-touted summer/fall counteroffensive, the results of which have been nothing short of disastrous. These events are yet another proof that Moscow's conventional military superiority is not only present, but that it's also growing by the day.

Charles Michel will not step down as EC President to stop Orbán from presiding over summits.

Riyadh lifted import ban in August, shipments to start soon

Both countries are also exploring a native BRICS currency

Exhibition of paintings by Kalesh Kala, displayed at the Roerich Art Gallery of the Russian House in Thiruvananthapuram

Long used as proxies by Washington, Kurdish forces, if felt "abandoned", could turn into a problem for the US too.

The ships are old and virtually useless, which is why there is no expectation of change in the maritime military situation of Ukraine with their possible arrival.

The US collapse could lead to a lot of global security issues, so it's important to ensure that its dismantlement is more akin to controlled demolition. If anything, Washington DC itself has unmatched experience in that department.

Washington and Berlin are realising Ukraine cannot win the war.

New Development Bank (NDB) Vice President Vladimir Kazbekov reassured Bangladesh of enhanced economic relations and increased collaborations for sustainable development

Last year, Chinese car sales set a historic record in Russia, gaining almost half of the country's auto market share. Chinese automakers have been making inroads into the Russian market with a new image

"We have great synergy because India is very advanced in software technology, ITs and cyber security, and that can bring synergy to both Moscow and New Delhi, or big metropolises, but all our citizens," he asserted

Beijing has its own interests in the maintenance of the Red Sea’s trade order, regardless of any American request, but won’t put too much pressure to “curb” the Houthi issue, as it sees it as being mainly a direct spillover effect of the US-backed disastrous Israeli military campaign in Palestine.

The mainstream propaganda machine is often "worried about our democracy" whenever the Republicans question election results. However, claiming that Trump is supposedly "illegitimate" and even "Vlad's pal" is perfectly fine and doesn't constitute any sort of "danger for American democracy". And yet, similar criticism of the DNC is "deplorable".

Republicans continue resisting new Ukraine aid package.

The country is a central hub of the trade corridor that routes a lot of businesses and investments, Abdulla bin Touq tells WEF

Members of the BRICS alliance have called for greater global uptake in renewable energy as a means to not only tackle climate change but global economic inequalities

BRICS, a bloc of leading emerging markets, is preparing to launch new bonds in global markets, which will be available in local currencies rather than in the US dollar

“Mice chew your fingertips when you go to bed,” says Ukrainian soldier.

There are many questions regarding the incident, particularly as the Kiev regime forces initially bragged about downing the large Russian transport aircraft. However, this soon gave way to silence, as the Neo-Nazi junta is refusing to take responsibility for the downing, as it would be "too inconvenient" having to explain the death of over 60 Ukrainian POWs, particularly to their families who were eager to see them after months or perhaps even years. On the other hand, the incident might be a part of the rapidly escalating internal power struggle in Kiev, particularly between the regime and the military.

Texas governor declares that the American national pact was broken by the irresponsible actions of the federal government.

At the dawn of this year, five more countries became full members of BRICS, a transnational association which until then consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and thus became BRICS+ (BRICS Plus), totalling 10 countries

India today is the fastest-growing economy in the world, with a strong outlook of 7-8 per cent growth rates for the coming decade. Russia, despite having become the most sanctioned economy in the world, has shown uncommon resilience and returned to positive GDP growth

The BRICS consortium, a vital forum for emerging markets and developing nations, has officially welcomed five new members—Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and the UAE. Their integration into the group took effect on January 1, 2024, marking a significant expansion for the alliance

The operation may indicate both the inability of pro-Kiev forces and the American intention to escalate the war.

According to media, Tel Aviv is trying to establish a new ceasefire deal with Hamas, which makes clear Israeli despair with the military situation.

Somewhat schizophrenically, the CIA calls for Russians to "end betrayal" by actually committing it, all for "family values" and "the future of Russia", which is quite strange given the fact that Washington DC ideologues are obsessed with every anti-family idea in the book. The so-called "woke" extremist, ultra-liberal ideology is at an all-time high in the US, while solid evidence suggests that the troubled Biden administration is even involved in the massive child trafficking in Ukraine and elsewhere. So much for America's "focus on family values".

UK on the brink of an economic disaster.

The mercenaries were stationed in the eastern city of Kharkov and their mission was most likely to coordinate and direct long-range strikes on Russian territory.

Recent attack in Donetsk’s public market makes clear the terrorist nature of the Kiev regime.

Russia’s success in Ukraine is breaking global Nazi morale.

The five-day visit of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to the Russian Federation from 25-29 December 2023 has caused quite a stir both in India and Russia and abroad as many angry opinion pieces in Western media show. Why has this visit caused this stir; what was the visit meant to convey; was it meant to reboot bilateral relations or is there an inevitability to Indo-Russiam ties?

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the 20th president of France and a finance minister in the 1960s, called the dollar’s reserve status an 'exorbitant privilege' for the US. Current global geopolitical and economic shifts could now see this exorbitant privilege challenged

: Experts regularly state that Armenia should become more active in order to participate in both regional- and global-scale international integration projects. The chairman of the Armenian Fortress Party, Amram Petrosyan, who is particularly sure that Yerevan should be represented in such prospective world organizations as, for example, BRICS, is also of this opinion

During its chairmanship of BRICS this year, Russia will champion the vision of a global systemic transition to multipolarity in the hundreds of events that it has planned before the group's summit in Kazan sometime in October

Will include green, blue, social, and sustainable bonds to support Egypt’s Vision 2030

India and Iran have agreed to expand cooperation within the framework of BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

The Iraqis seem to be fed up with an American presence which, from their perspective, only brings trouble. And they, much like the Syrians, the Lebanese and others, might have good reasons to support and even welcome Iranian presence, influence and assistance.

Apart from its aggression in Europe, US actions in the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America also indicate other countries will be targeted, including China, Iran and Venezuela.

Slovakia vows to block Ukraine from joining NATO to avoid WWIII.

Indonesia has a key importance in the Asian region, in addition to being the largest Muslim country in the world, which is why it is necessary to pay attention to the local political scenario.

The economies of the BRICS group, which until now has included Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, already in 2023 accounted for 32% of the world's GDP - compared to 30% for the G7 countries. The bloc will yield even more influence in 2024, with the addition of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia

Five countries – Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt entered BRICS as full members on Jan. 1, now referred to as BRICS+. The BRICS grouping was created in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India and China, while South Africa joined BRICS in 2011

The maritime transport corridor from the port of Chennai to the port of Vladivostok functioned successfully in the Soviet era

The latest turmoil involving Pakistan, Iran, and their shared separatist enemies does not have much directly to do with the Iranian-Israeli war; it has much more to do with Tehran’s national and border security being threatened by US-backed insurgent groups and with reaffirming itself as a rising regional power.

Despite the alliance’s diminishment of military supply to Ukraine, there are still Western public figures demanding escalation in the proxy conflict with Russia.

Taking into account his disastrous policies, worthy of an international war crimes tribunal (which immediately disqualifies the so-called ICC in Hague), it can easily be argued that Zelensky is indeed out of control. The same applies to the entire Kiev regime. On the other hand, its US/NATO overlords are in no way better. Terrified of the multipolar world, they're actively pushing for destabilization on a global scale.

Biden loses the lead to Trump in key state Georgia.

The BRICS group officially welcomed Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Ethiopia as new members on Jan. 1 this year, doubling its membership from 5 to 10

In the realm of global energy dynamics, the BRICS nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—stand as crucial players shaping the trajectory of coal demand

In an enlightening conversation with RT, Muda Yusuf, a distinguished Nigerian economist, shed light on the burgeoning ties between Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation, and Russia

The irresponsible mobilization measures are destroying Ukrainian youth and threatening the country’s future.

Who in their right mind thinks Moscow would even consider talking to someone with demands that effectively amount to its unconditional capitulation, let alone accept such a "peace deal", especially when the actual situation on the battlefield suggests a complete opposite?

US does not know where 40,000 weapons sent to Ukraine ended up.

BRICS is focused on building a fairer world order for the Global South

The historic expansion of BRICS to include five new members helps create a more balanced global economy and push for further development of the Global South, an Egyptian economist has told Xinhua in a recent interview

Lauding the expansion of BRICS grouping, Russian Ambassador to India, Denis Alipov said that it represents the growing aspiration for a multipolar world based on sovereign equality and mutual respect

Berlin pompously announced a $100 billion military budget, as well as plans for war with Russia. In addition, the Scholz cabinet allocated some €66 billion for its vaunted "green agenda". Where exactly did it find all this money if it can't even patch a €17 billion hole in its budget? The sheer illogic perfectly explains the farmers' anger.

Iranian attacks destroyed facilities linked to terrorist groups and Israeli intelligence in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan.

A peace deal is “impossible without Russia,” says Financial Times.

Both during the Russian presidency and in subsequent years, the task of further optimising the BRICS+ format, as well as possible new rounds of expansion, is slated to become a priority, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Oleg Barabanov

Russia, assuming BRICS chairmanship in 2024, aims to increase the bloc’s influence within the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

There are still technical hurdles to overcome but advances are being made

The country’s mobilization problems are reaching really critical levels, making it impossible for Ukraine to keep fighting.

Why are the WEF and the so-called "international community" so "worried" about an unknown disease, but they keep ignoring clear-cut evidence of America's massive (and rapidly expanding) bioweapons program? Why is the US military conducting this sort of research (on a global scale, at that), although any official civilian public health institution could easily do so on its own and without such deadly biohazard risks?

Ukrainians risk their lives to avoid being mobilised, says British media.

Viktor Medvedchuk’s warning about a possible overthrow of Zelensky merits some attention, and with Zelensky out, even worse problems could surface, with an increasingly radicalized Ukrainian far-right. The “Russian question” in Ukraine needs to be properly addressed.

The World Majority countries do not set themselves the task of breaking the existing international order and destroying globalisation. However, they are gradually increasing the degree of their independence in determining foreign policy decisions and economic partnerships, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev

The visit by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to Russia on December 24-29 presented an extraordinary spectacle reminiscent of the halcyon days of Indo-Soviet relations

Leading investment bank Goldman Sachs had predicted previously that BRICS GDP could come close to G6 countries by 2035

Gonzalo Lira dies in a Ukrainian prison, after being tortured for months.

Germany is preparing for NATO war with Russia after Ukraine defeat – Bild.

Among a plethora of groundbreaking information he revealed, Andrii Derkach explained that the corrupt symbiotic relationship between the Biden administration and the Kiev regime is making it impossible to accomplish peace.

Russia has already outlined a wide-range of dynamic steps of BRICS+ activities, culminating with October summit in Kazan, capital of the Republic of Tatarstan

The BRICS group, an international alliance originally comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, has expanded its membership, marking a significant shift in the geopolitical landscape

The recent evolution of the BRICS bloc is a defining moment in global geopolitics

All things considered, it would be tempting to assume the former US President handed Europe its strategic autonomy “on a silver platter”. It would seem that the European leaders in turn begged Trump to just remain “vassalized”.

This is an opportunity to reestablish international law and end the illegitimate “rules-based order” led by the West.

The endgame is to ensure that Belgrade can never recover its full sovereignty and potentially become a geopolitical nuisance that could ally itself not only with Russia, but any other multipolar global power, particularly at a time when BRICS+ is making such tremendous strides.

Russia is showing its superiority in a war of attrition.

Jaishankar lauded PM Narendra Modi for his pragmatic approach towards China in an interview with ANI to mark the release of his new book “Why Bharat Matters”

Beijing's remarks come as 5 new members join while Argentina decides against joining multinational bloc

Russia hopes to leverage its strengths to provide crucial components for the C929 project

The very fact that Mexico's demands have more to do with Latin America as a whole rather than Mexico alone shows that they are finally making a united stand against US imperialism. Washington DC would certainly refuse at any other time. However, with less than eleven months left until the 2024 presidential election, the troubled Biden administration needs to act fast.

The neo-Nazi regime’s forces are not able to face Russian intense use of missiles and drones.

Brazil refuses to participate in Ukraine peace meeting without Russia’s presence.

In his column, T.N. Ninan looks back at the forecast that the BRICS economies would overtake the US, Japan, Germany, UK, France, and Italy, and how far that prophecy has been fulfilled

In a remarkable turn of events, Chinese tourists are descending in droves to Russia’s wintry cities, casting aside the effects of a relaxed visa policy that has fallen short of expectations

More Nigerian operators seek naira adoption

Both the US and NATO as a whole have a history of unilaterally breaking international arms control treaties that prevent large-scale conflicts. The MTCR is no different in this regard, as it already served its purpose, so now it's more of an obstacle than a geopolitical asset.

The Scandinavian country has completely embraced the anti-Russian mentality spread by the West and is now taking irresponsible measures to react to non-existent "threats".

Voters in key US election battle states want support for Ukraine to decrease.

BRICS nations Russia and China have eliminated Western currencies, including the US Dollar, from their bilateral trade, achieving a $200 billion trade turnover ahead of schedule

Opening a new chapter in agricultural trade relations, Russia is set to commence pork exports to China as early as January 2024

India is the UAE’s second-largest trading partner

The emergence of a multipolar and polycentric global order, albeit bringing challenges and some instability, could provide much of the world with fruitful opportunities for multi-alignment.

The Kh-22, although nearly hypersonic at Mach 4.6, is still some 2.5 to 3 times slower than the "Kinzhal". At Mach 2.6, the P-800 is over 5 times slower. What's more, both of these missiles are also less maneuverable than the "Kinzhal". The obvious question arises, if such undeniably capable weapons are impossible to shoot down, how is it possible for the Kiev regime to "shoot down" the orders of magnitude more dangerous "Kinzhal", much less ten?

A dangerous escalation is taking place in Lebanon, leading the Zionist state to open a second front in the conflict.

Western support for Ukraine does not appear to be increasing.

PODCAST | ep14 | with Arthur Kleinman, Hong-Tu Chen, Ann Forsyth, and Fawwaz Habbal  People aged sixty-five and older make up the fastest growing population around the world, posing unique challenges to societies. A Harvard initiative called Social Technology for Global Aging Research is founded on the belief that there’s a great potential for technologies and interventions to benefit the elderly, but only if they are developed with a deep understanding of day-to-day life. In the scope of this collaboration, technology for the elderly covers a wide range of needs—from engineering hardware for mobility to designing living environments and even tackling the logistics of meeting friends for tea. It’s an expansive collaboration between Harvard scholars and their Chinese counterparts. We speak with four collaborators who share fascinating examples of their work. Listen to episode #14 (44:28) by clicking the play button below: ... Read more about Social Technology for Aging Societies

Contemporary identity politics often presents contradictions between the leaders from marginalized groups and the people they claim to represent. A visiting scholar unpacks this phenomenon, starting with a popular Netflix series. by Poulomi Chakrabarti... Read more about What Bridgerton Tells Us about Elites and Status Politics

In his new book, Weatherhead alum Asad L. Asad demonstrates that rather than hiding in the shadows, undocumented immigrants in the US are selectively engaging with authorities to build their credentials as deserving members of society.  by Michelle Nicholasen... Read more about The (Un)Documented Immigrant

PODCAST | ep13 | with Sasha de Vogel, Serhii Plokhy, and Alexandra Vacroux When the Wagner mercenary group staged a near coup in Moscow in June, it was seen as the greatest challenge to Vladimir Putin’s regime in decades. Though it didn’t come to fruition, it nevertheless exposed some of the fissures in Putin’s ironclad control over the military and the course of the war on Ukraine. Could it be a harbinger of future revolts? How do Russian citizens feel about the continuation of the war? We speak with three scholars of history and political science to find out what this event might mean for Russia’s war machine and for Ukraine’s counteroffensive. Listen to episode #13 (53:04) by clicking the play button below: ... Read more about Who Can Stop a Dictator? Resistance to the War in Ukraine

Weatherhead Center Fellow and Directorate-General Taxation and Customs Union, EU Commission, Juan José García Sánchez argues that there’s a better way for the US to compete with China other than its current protectionist strategy. by Juan José García Sánchez... Read more about American Protectionism: Can It Work?

Weatherhead Fellow and former engineering economist for Saudi Aramco Jenny Spalding addresses the evolution of the US-Saudi oil-for-security bargain and its effect on global energy security. by Jenny Spalding... Read more about The Deal That Keeps the Oil Flowing

PODCAST | ep12 | with Ahmet Akbiyik, Andrew O’Donohue, and SZ The presidential election in Turkey this spring is shaping up to be the most consequential in decades. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has led the country for twenty years, is facing the staunchest opposition in his career in the form of an unprecedented coalition of six parties, called the “Table of Six.” Their presidential candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, has been widely described as low-key, bland, and uncharismatic. But could he be the perfect person to unseat Erdogan? To get us up to speed on this exciting election, we speak with three Graduate Student Associates whose research takes us into the governance, politics, and culture of Turkey—past and present. Listen to episode #12 (31:15) by clicking the play button below: ... Read more about Can Erdogan be Unseated?

If China attempts reunification with Taiwan, how will the US meet its obligations to defend it? Two visiting fellows and officers of the US Air Force insist that the US must improve its preparedness for a new type of conflict. by Ken Fann and Charles Bursi... Read more about Protecting the Porcupine: Why Taiwan Matters

The ataman (head) of the “All-Russian Cossack Society,” Nikolai Doluda, addressed a meeting of the Atamans’ Council, in Krasnodar Krai, on February 4, and instructed those gathered that “the time has come when the Cossacks are once again becoming a stronghold and reliable shield of Russia, a guarantor of unity and protection of its national interests” (Vsko.ru, February 4). The … The post As Ukraine Crisis Simmers, Russian Cossack Movement Tightens Integration With Military Reserves appeared first on Jamestown.

Judi Bola Sbobet Bonus New Member Poker QQ Idn Poker Slot Dana PKV Games PKV Games Idn Poker Mix Parlay Mix Parlay BandarQQ PKV Games Over the last several years, Ukraine’s leaders have expressed grave concern over the dangers posed to regional energy security by Russia’s Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline. From Germany and, more broadly, from Europe, the … The post The Many Faces of Nord Stream Two appeared first on Jamestown.

Judi Bola Sbobet Bonus New Member Poker QQ Idn Poker Slot Dana PKV Games PKV Games Idn Poker Mix Parlay Mix Parlay BandarQQ PKV Games On July 28, Ukrainian Orthodox Christians celebrated the 1,033rd anniversary of the Baptism of Kyivan Rus—a remarkable annual event for Ukrainian history and another reason for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political speculations. After the Ecumenical … The post Religion as a Hybrid War Weapon to Achieve Russia’s Geopolitical Goals appeared first on Jamestown.

On May 25, just ahead of the 103rd anniversary of the First Georgian Republic’s (1918–1921) independence, Georgian protesters paralyzed the streets of the capital city of Tbilisi in the largest rally to date against the Namakhvani Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) project (Civil.ge, May 25, 26). Relatively small demonstrations against the planned dam, by locals organized under the banner “Guardians of … The post Namakhvani HPP: Georgian Hydropower Between Energy Security and Geopolitics appeared first on Jamestown.

Judi Bola Sbobet Bonus New Member Poker QQ Idn Poker Slot Dana PKV Games PKV Games Idn Poker Mix Parlay Mix Parlay BandarQQ PKV Games The Russian Cossack movement is emerging as one of the key social pillars supporting the regime, and increasingly it is taking on the mold of Kuban Cossackdom, found in the southern part of the country. … The post All Russian Cossacks Increasingly Resemble Krasnodar Movement appeared first on Jamestown.

On April 21, Vasily Piskarev, the head of the State Duma’s commission to investigate the facts of interference in the internal affairs of Russia, announced that his body was preparing legislative initiatives to combat foreign interference in Russia, including in its elections, by non-profits and non-governmental organizations (NGO). Piskarev said that “insults against Russia” will receive a “worthy response, including … The post Russia Cracks Down on ‘Foreign Threats’ appeared first on Jamestown.

On February 20, Ruslan Ablyakimov was walking in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, with two friends when he was stopped by six young men who proceeded to beat him. “Where did you come here from?” they asked, “You are from Moscow, right? What are you doing here?” Before the men left Ablyakimov, they told him, “You have until tomorrow to … The post Alexei Navalny’s Support in the North Caucasus: More About Corruption Than Navalny appeared first on Jamestown.

The foreign and security policy expert communities in Georgia (Neweurope.eu, November 17) as well as both the outgoing and candidate Lithuanian defense ministers (LRT, November 16, 19) have called for a permanent presence of United States military forces in their respective countries. These calls indicate a hope that the incoming administration of President-elect Joseph Biden will bring greater attention to … The post Georgia, Lithuania Call for Permanent US Troop Presences appeared first on Jamestown.

In the first week of August, cellphones across Russia lit up with surprising text messages. They came from different numbers, but each said the same thing in Russian: “The US State Department is offering up to $10 million for information about interference in the US elections. If you have information, contact rfj.tips/bngc.” The State Department confirmed the messages were authentic … The post US Messaging to Russian Citizens: Time to Step It Up? appeared first on Jamestown.

Recent comments by former vice president of the separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia Valery Arshba indicate a split between the older political elite and the current administration of President Aslan Bzhania (Gazeta-ra.info, October 19; Civil.ge, October 23). Arshba called for the breakaway republic to join the Union State of Russia and Belarus, “without losing [its] sovereignty.” Arshba himself has a … The post Former Abkhazian Separatist Official Calls for Joining Russia-Belarus Union State appeared first on Jamestown.