15 February 2021 — Drone Wars
General Atomics is to bring a company-owned SkyGuardian drone to the UK in the summer to undertake “a series of operational capability demonstrations” for the UK and other NATO members. The RAF’s soon to be acquired Protector drone is a version of the SkyGuardian with a range of UK modifications. The aircraft is being shipped into the UK rather than flying in (possibly due to the controversy around a previous flight to the UK) and will be based at RAF Waddington.
19 January, 2021 — Land Destroyer
(Brian Berletic – LD) – The very same corporate media and so-called “Fact Checkers” that have helped sell decades of US war around the globe are now engaged in selling COVID-19 hysteria and promoting pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and their apparently dangerous – even deadly COVID-19 vaccine.
Holy cow! The American expression most often reserved for stunning revelations suits a recent New York Times shocking headline. Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine may be worth a try, no less. When I read the headline, I dropped my morning cappuccino. That’s right, the bible of Putin and Russia haters has written a Psalm about Russia doing something good. Read on, I assure you this is not fake news.
The fourth set of hearings of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in the case of the 2014 Malaysian flight MH17 shot down in the Ukrainian sky, which began in The Hague on February 1, did not bring any clarity to the real culprit in the crash that killed 298 people. It further demonstrated to the world the blatant bias and politicization of the process.
15 February 2021 — Global Justice in the 21st Century
by Richard Falk
[Prefatory Note: The short essay below is my contribution to the latest thematic Forum of the Great Transition Initiative. It responds to a beautifully crafted paper by the Founder of GTI under the auspices of the Tellus Institute, Paul Raskin. Paul’s initial paper and a series of fascinating responses can be found at https://greattransition.org/gti-forum/interrogating-the-anthropocene. GTI has developed a powerful and sophisticated global network for dialogue about achieving a visionary future despite the dark clouds that now fill the sky.]
12 February, 2021 — The Saker
By Francis Lee for the Saker Blog
From its inception the European Union was an ambitious strategy to build an economic bloc which would serve as a counter-weight to the US’s global economic dominance. (1) One of the primary conditions of this overall construction involved the creation of a single strong currency, the euro, that could become the rival to the US$. This was not just a political question, it also involved financial, economic and possibly even geopolitical dimensions. The Germans in particular were involved in the EU blueprint ever since the initial Treaty of Rome or EEC Treaty, as it was called, brought about the creation of the European Economic Community (the EEC). The treaty was signed on 25 March 1957 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and (West) Germany, and it came into force on 1 January 1958. At the outset Germany was on board the launch and prepared to give up her much beloved Deutschmark (DM) in order to eventually adopt the euro. A European super-state was envisioned complete with its own currency and act as a counterweight to the US Leviathan.
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14 February 2021 — Michael Roberts Blog
Michael Roberts
During the year of the COVID, global consumer and producer prices dropped fell. In some manufacturing-based economies, there was even a fall in price levels (deflation) eg the Euro area, Japan and China).
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The British Office of Communications (Ofcom) has pulled the license for China Global Television Network (CGTN) effectively terminating its ability to operate in the UK.
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12 February 2021 — Statewatch
Also available as a PDF)
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6 February, 2021 — NACLA
As per usual, news on Haiti in the United States remains limited, except for during periods of “crisis.” As if on cue, U.S. media began reporting on Haiti’s “constitutional crisis” this week.
5 February 2021 — Mint Press
In an era when international cooperation in the face of pandemics and climate change is essential, the world appears to be racing towards a new Cold War, and unfortunately, few except the military top brass are talking about it.
2 February 2021 — Defend Wikileaks
Since we released this briefing, a number of developments have brought more information into the public record confirming WikiLeaks acted as a journalistic outfit in releasing DNC emails in 2016. We’ve also collated relevant commentary from intelligence officials and fellow journalists.
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11 February 2021 — True Publica
By TruePublica: It appears that the News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch and his top executives in the UK and US met Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other high-level Government politicians seven times between them in seven weeks last summer. Worse, it has since emerged that News Corp editors and execs from the UK and America met ministers 40 times in the first 14 months of the Johnson government indicating a high level of foreign interference into the affairs of British politics.
11 February 2021 — Internationalist 360°
The Pachakutik candidate oscillates between accusing banker Lasso of fraud and inviting him to form a common front against Arauz, the correista presidential candidate who won Sunday’s elections.
Five days after the presidential and legislative elections in Ecuador, the National Electoral Council (CNE) has not yet finished counting 100% of the votes. However, with 99.88% of the ballots counted and 98.81% computed, it has been confirmed that Guillermo Lasso will enter the second round with 19.79% of the votes, while Yaku Perez, with 19.46%, is in third place.
12 February 2021 — The Defender
RFK, Jr.’s Instagram account was deplatformed Wednesday. Dozens of media outlets reported the censorship, saying the account was removed over “vaccine misinformation,” a characterization Kennedy unequivocally rejected.
Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Instagram account was deplatformed without advanced notice. Dozens of media outlets reporting on this censorship asserted the account was removed over “false COVID vaccine claims” or “vaccine misinformation.” Some reports referred to Kennedy as an “anti-vaxxer.”
11 February, 2021 — Mint Press
As the Senate prepares to confirm Nuland for Under Secretary for Political Affairs, a reflection of her last 30 years in government shows how she was connected to nearly every foreign policy disaster undertaken by the United States.
11 February 2021 — Origin: Climate & Capitalism
Jonathan Neale’s new book, Fight the Fire, is published by The Ecologist magazine, Resistance Books, the Alternative Information and Development Centre, and the International Institute for Research and Education. For a free copy, click the cover image.
Click to download free pdf or ebook.
by Jonathan Neale
I have spent the last year working on a book called Fight the Fire: Green New Deals and Global Climate Jobs. Most of it is about both the politics and the engineering of any possible transition that can avert catastrophic climate breakdown. One thing I had to think about long and hard was lithium and car batteries.
This report was originally published by Mint Press News.
11 February 2021 — Institute of Race Relations
If a Telegraph interview with the government’s ‘independent adviser on political violence and disruption’ is anything to go by (see our calendar on racism and resistance), a review of the activities of the ‘extreme fringes at both ends of the political spectrum’ will focus extensively on the threat posed by so-called ‘progressive extremism’ – ie, environmental and racial justice causes, despite the admission that the far Right presents a greater danger. Bristol following the fall of Colston, which we publish this week on IRR News, reveals just how BLM and decolonisation activists (presumably those progressive extremists) are already treated as a threat to the state. Rosie Wild reports on recent protests in Bristol in support of the ‘Colston Four’, who have been charged with criminal damage for the toppling of the statue, and how their online protests have been hijacked by racists.
6 February 2021 — Edward Curtin
Tolstoy’s grave on the edge of the ravine at his estate Yasnaya Polyana
“Ясная поляна, могила Л.Н. Толстого 2” by Alexxx1979 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
After a night of haunting dreams that flowed as if they were written like running water, written on air, as the Roman poet Catullus once said, in the depth of a dark winter morning, I decided that I would take a walk in the afternoon, hoping that the sun would then appear, and it did, so I went walking toward the woods through deep white new-fallen snow all around me and entered a path into the woods across from my house that led toward a deep ravine below which were deep dark caves that once sheltered runaway slaves searching for the happiness of freedom, and I thought of them as I poked under the snow on the odd chance that I might find the green stick of happiness that Leo Tolstoy’s beloved brother, ten-year-old Nikolai, had once told the five-year-old Leo was buried by a ravine on the edge of the forest, a stick upon which were written the secret words that would bring love, peace, and happiness to everyone, and would do away with death, for their mother had died three years earlier and their father would die four years later, but I saw nothing and continued deeper into the forest to try to shed a sad feeling from a lock-down that had brought my spirits low as I tried to understand why so many people I knew were so enslaved, their minds forged in manacles, and how sad and dispirited it made me knowing that they were locked away from me in some conventional reality sold to them by liars, but perhaps you like the word depressed and you can use it if you want, but all I know is that the spirit of happiness had escaped me as I trudged deeper into the forest between the high pine trees until the trail I walked was intersected by another and a man met me there, as if he knew I was coming, a man with a long white beard and piercing eyes and we nodded and then he continued beside me and asked me what I was looking for, which startled me, and I was speechless and he said he’s been through here many times, especially by the ravine, and Leo told me he never could find the green stick of happiness his brother once told him was buried there but he was not giving up, he never would do that since he loved his brother who would never lie, he knew the stick existed and that’s why he himself was buried there, and he told me to continue seeking, because the stick was real and yes, those slaves knew it and were in that ravine for a reason, so we walked on as a man approached us who said his name was Albert, and I said Camus, and he said yes, let’s walk together guys, for these woods are dark and deep I know, but look up at the sky, the clouds have parted and the sparkling sky is speaking to us, right Leo, who said yes, I remember when Andrei in my book War and Peace lay wounded on the battlefield and looked at the sky, I wrote that he realized then that that lofty sky was infinite and that happiness was possible, that especially in the midst of battle you have to look up and realize that, that there are deeper reasons for things and petty concerns shield the spirit of truth and that even in the midst of war you can glimpse that reality, and it sounded good, I had heard their spiels before, or had read them to be accurate, they were great writers but this was my life and I couldn’t live in their books, but I wasn’t reading, I was walking, or was I dreaming, and then we came to the end of the path leading out of the woods and the sky opened out from the vast tree cover and they were gone and I was all alone again as usual, dispirited and heading back home on the road by the lake when I looked up at the sparkling blue sky and light that radiated off the snowy frozen lake and rose back to the sky in columns of undulating glory and felt the sun that had warmed the day and heard birds in the trees and was overwhelmed with a rush of happiness I can’t describe but it was not a dream and I walked in joy for a few minutes, knowing I had found the stick and that in the depth of winter, as Albert said, I had finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer, but that it came and went like running water, like flowing air, but it was enough for now.
Albert Camus with his best friend Michel Gallimard, both of whom died from a car crash on 4 January 1960. On the right is Jeannine, Michel’s wife, who survived the crash.
“Albert Camus, Michel y Jeannine Gallimard” by Antonio Marín Segovia is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
