Malaysia’s BRICS speech called for economic independence & multipolar global order

Malaysia delivered a powerful message at the BRICS summit, calling for greater economic independence, stronger cooperation among developing nations and a more multipolar global order.

In the speech, Malaysia discussed BRICS, global debt, unfair trade practices, AI and semiconductor technology, green transition, local-currency settlements and economic diversification away from traditional Western markets.

The speech also addressed the conflict in the Middle East, with Malaysia condemning what it describes as Israeli aggression and calling for sovereignty, civilian protection and the protection of global trade routes and energy security.

U.S. draining the Patriot stock in West Asia

The U.S. fired around 100 Patriot interceptors earlier this month to stop 20 Iranian ballistic missiles that were heading to hit an American base in Jordan. That was roughly $400 million worth of missiles in a single attack. 

The Pentagon is known to be running out of these interceptors while replacements can take about two and a half years to arrive.

But the aerospace industry is drooling at the thought of replacing them. They are counting the $$$$$$$$$$$.

The reason why so many Patriot interceptors had to be fired is because they don't work so well. The technology used by the U.S. can't compete with Iranian missile tech.

Trump vs China: Did America Just Expose Its Weak Hand?

Donald Trump returned to the White House promising to confront China from a position of American strength. But as Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for a crucial Trump-Xi summit, has the strategy instead exposed some of America’s biggest vulnerabilities?

In this GVS Deep Dive, Najma Minhas examines the changing US-China balance of power: Trump’s trade war and tariffs, China’s rare-earth leverage, the AI and semiconductor race, Taiwan, America’s military commitments and the Iran war, strains within US alliances, India’s strategic hedging, BRICS, and China’s expanding manufacturing and export power.

The United States remains the world’s dominant military and financial power and retains enormous advantages in technology, capital markets and alliances. But history shows that great powers can remain extraordinarily powerful even while the relative balance underneath them begins to change.

From Britain’s relative decline as America emerged as an industrial superpower to today’s competition between Washington and Beijing, this episode asks whether US strategy is actually containing China — or exposing vulnerabilities that Beijing has spent decades preparing to exploit.  

War department report on U.S. bases destroyed by Iran

The US Department of Defense Inspector General report reveals that hundreds of buildings and other structures at US military bases were destroyed by Iranian attacks including in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq.  

Peter Thiel's Master Plan for the world

Peter Thiel is funding a plan to build privatized city-states everywhere from Gaza and Venezuela to small towns in California.

The goal is to replace governments with for-profit companies.

We investigated how Thiel's scheme is already reshaping democracy across the world.  

The billionaires have become radicalized against democracy.

They want taxpayer donations to their companies, but  they want no responsibilities like paying taxes or environmental regulations.

Updates: Trump at the UN, Iran fed up, Diesel, AI, Consequences of chanting 'Free Palestine'

 

• Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces & Khatam al-Anbiya in response to Trump’s UNGA remarks: “The hostile remarks and repeated threats made by Trump against Iran, accompanied by the misuse of the UN platform to justify aggression, create insecurity, and engage in banditry across the world, are, rather than being based on realities on the ground, merely a tool for domestic propaganda. Such remarks demonstrate the strategic deadlock facing the US in its aggression against the Iranian nation. The repetition of baseless claims and threats, particularly given the exhaustion of the U.S. military, is not a sign of strength but rather an indication of their strategic desperation. The Islamic Republic of Iran has always served as an anchor of security in the region, particularly for free and international trade, while the US, through its illegitimate, unlawful, and aggressive presence in West Asia, has been a source of threats, insecurity, and instability. In an attempt to compensate for its repeated failures in acts of aggression against Iran and in maritime piracy, it has taken the global economy hostage."

• Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian at the United Nations in New York: “Either we will build security together, or we will endure insecurity together....Now regarding Palestine. Palestine remains a wound on the conscience of the international community, and Gaza remains a symbol of the failure of international organizations to prevent the suffering of civilians. For decades, resolutions have been issued, yet occupation and violence continue.  We cannot speak of peace while ignoring Palestine. Lasting peace in West Asia will not endure without justice for Palestine."

• Sovereignista: The US president cancelled planned US airstrikes against Yemen at the last moment, according to the New York Times — pulling back just as the operation was about to begin. Trump had told the Pentagon to prepare a large strike package, and target lists were approved. According to the NYT, bombs were being loaded onto US warplanes when Trump decided against ordering the strikes. Earlier, US embassies across the Middle East issued security alerts warning of flight cancellations and airspace closures. Trump then cut short his Camp David stay and returned to the White House early, cancelling all scheduled events. 📌 Of course, this could have been a huge bluff, or it could have been a huge bluff to try and force Iran back to a negotiation, or it could be partially true, or it could be not true at all, or it could be that the US [Pentagon] leaders would not go ahead with it, or it could be a fake for the midterms, or it could be the major win of Macklemore in the media with ‘Free Palestine’ and a realization that nobody is with this administration and this war. 

• Yemen's Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi: “The Saudis are trying to bring Takfiri [mercenary] fighters from Syria through Turkey and Pakistan. We advise Turkey and Pakistan not to intervene in this matter with the aim of gaining political and material gains from the Saudi enemy." Saudi Arabia cannot export oil, so MbS has one way out: surrender, accept Yemen's terms, and expect a bill including the three southern provinces stolen [from Yemen] by the Brits in 1934.  

• Yemen military: Will we hear condemnations from countries, organizations, bodies, and international entities for the crime committed by the Saudi regime in Bab al-Mandab, where it bombed a popular market in broad daylight while the market was crowded with shoppers — like those condemnations over the lie of targeting Mecca?! Or are they condemnations paid in advance, dedicated to serving the Saudi oil regime, with no relation to the shedding of the blood of poor Yemenis who possess neither oil nor dollars? 

• Tehran’s Metro has installed CPR training machines that let passengers, while waiting for their metro, learn life-saving skills and get certified on the spot. 

• China rejects illegal Iran sanctions: In response to claims by US regarding forcing countries to suspend Iranian airliners, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Beijing will not follow "illegal US sanctions," stating, "China has always opposed unilateral and illegal sanctions that have no basis in international law."  

• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) have introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act – a bill to permanently prohibit AI systems which humans cannot control, pause advanced AI development until a real regulator establishes enforceable safety rules, and penalize the companies that break them. Stanford economists found employment for 22-25 year-olds in AI-exposed jobs has dropped roughly 13% since 2022. Entry-level hiring at major tech companies is down by half since 2019. Data centers are pushing our utility bills up. AI deepfake tools are being used to harass students on campuses. High-tech oligarchs are gambling with an economy young people haven’t even entered yet. And they’ve built a $100 million super PAC to make sure Congress can't stop them. 

• The latest state elections in Germany have confirmed a trend that is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss. The results in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, following Saxony-Anhalt two weeks earlier, leap off the page, as the AfD won 38.2% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while the CDU fell below the 5% threshold for the first time in a German state election. In Berlin, meanwhile, the Left finished first, with the CDU second and the SPD falling to fifth place.  Germany is therefore moving towards something resembling the politics of smaller European countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, or Austria, with fragmented parliaments and increasingly complicated multiparty coalitions.

• The Kucinich Report: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is the Punxsutawney Phil of Capitol Hill. Like the fabled groundhog who emerges from his burrow in the late winter, Johnson emerged from his Capitol Hill office last Wednesday, looked at Congressman Thomas Massie’s Impeachment of War Secretary Hegseth, saw the shadow of defeat, quickly adjourned the House, and then burrowed back to his office until after the November General Election. We will have at least six more weeks of war, brought to us by Secretary Hegseth and his boss, President Trump, with the help of Speaker Johnson who avoided a procedural vote, taking it upon himself to adjourn. Consider. The Administration, compelled by Israeli interests, has driven America into a war of choice against a nation that represented no threat to our country. The war against Iran is becoming more dangerous every day, more casualties, more expense, and more devastating economic and moral consequences. On September 15, the House of Representatives expressed its constitutional will and voted 220–204 to direct the President to end American participation in the war against Iran. When the Congress returns after the November Election, Massie’s Articles of Impeachment - - accusing Hegseth of accelerating the Iran War, carrying out unlawful orders and participating in extrajudicial killings - - will remain among the unresolved matters.

• An intelligence report, circulated across the US military this spring in the midst of the war with Iran, immediately set off alarm bells: A Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program. The US military swung into action with plans to intercept the vessel, according to four sources familiar with the episode. According to two of the sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the ship. Military planes were in the air, one of those sources and another source familiar with the incident said. It was only just before the planned operation that officials dug deeper into the report put together by a special operations command analyst and found it had been generated with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) — and that a chatbot the analyst had used inaccurately identified the material the ship was carrying. 

Space Week action at Bath Iron Works in Maine

Living among the occupiers: Natalia & Alexander's story

The Floutist

Natalia, 52, and Alexander, 49, were small farmers living in the tiny agricultural village of Cherkasskoye Porechnoye, twelve kilometres northeast of Sudzha, which lies a hundred kilometres southwest of Kursk inside Russia. They lived through the Ukrainian invasion from the first day, in August 2024, until almost the very last, surviving for seven months amid the ruins of their home.

Here is Natalia’s account of those months.

We had a small farm with a vegetable garden, a barn, cows, and chickens. Our house stood at a crossroads on the road from Sudzha to Kursk. Our village had 176 inhabitants, twenty-six of whom lived on our street. On the morning of 7 August, the day after the invasion, while we still did not know what was happening, we went to Kursk to buy an electric generator. On our way back in the evening, the road was blocked by concrete barriers. The next day we tried to contact our daughter in Kursk, but there was no longer any mobile network.

That was when it began. The Ukrainians arrived from two directions at once. Many cars were trying to flee towards Kursk. Ukrainian armoured vehicles fired on them, injuring and killing many of the occupants. We stayed in our house.

A month later, while retrieving our livestock one evening, we saw tanks and mines on the road. We came across a company of Russian soldiers who had taken refuge in the woods. There were twenty-two of them. They gave us a grenade for our protection. We showed them the route they should take to escape, but it was already too late.

A battle began, and they were all killed by incendiary shells while trying to escape. The next day, we counted twenty charred bodies. We managed to recover their survival kits, which proved extremely useful afterwards. And because they had had time to cut the rope of our cow’s halter, we were able to recover her. Thanks to her and her milk, we were able to survive throughout the winter months. We stayed inside for almost a month, too afraid to go outside.

At the end of September a young Ukrainian soldier came knocking at our door with his rifle to tell us that we had nothing to fear, that he and his comrades were setting up in our street and that they would not fire on civilians. He belonged to a drone unit. They moved into abandoned houses further up our street. They were young men aged twenty to twenty-five.

We sometimes spoke with them. They told us not to go outside at night because of thermal cameras. They were kind, and one day one of them even lent his mobile phone to one of our neighbours, who was celebrating his birthday, so that he could call his family in Russia. He told us that we could flee if we wanted to, but only by going into Ukraine. He would have faced serious consequences if his commander had found out what he had done.

In October we saw an aircraft very high above us releases a large bomb with fins. It fell on a depot containing inflammable fertilizer a kilometre from our house. The explosion was so powerful it blew off the roofs of surrounding houses. We often saw drones, and we quickly learned to distinguish Russian drones from Ukrainian drones.

For six months, we ate potatoes and vegetables from our garden and drank the milk from our cow. In November, the fighting moved northwards, and we were able to recover food abandoned in the shops and neighbouring houses, cooking it on our wood-burning stove while trying not to be detected. An uncle who lived on the same street managed to bake some bread by cooking it on the sheet-metal roof of his house. There was no electricity, and we had to save the generator’s fuel.

A destroyed house in Sudzha, Russia by Ukrainian attack. March 12, 2025.

Several houses were occupied for a long time by Ukrainian drone operators. These Ukrainians were very decent towards us, while the others—mercenaries, judging by their voices—fired at us. We survived because our house was relatively isolated and had no antenna on the roof.

On 22 February, a Russian drone flew over us and we managed to wave to it. We wrote “khleb” [bread] on a piece of cardboard. For one week, every morning and evening, Russian drones from the Akhmat regiment brought us bread, drinking water, matches, chocolate bars, canned food, and messages of encouragement, also urging us, “Share this food with all those who were suffering with us.” We thanked them by writing “Spassiba” [Thank you] on a board. Then the aid suddenly stopped.

On 3 March, both of us were wounded by fire from a Ukrainian Mavic quadcopter drone. We had gone out to the well to try to find water by breaking the ice. We were bleeding heavily and could no longer continue living in those conditions, but, once again, luck was on our side. Thanks to the survival kits, we were able to make bandages, and we decided to escape the following morning. At dawn, we wrapped ourselves in white sheets so that we would not be spotted in the snow, and we set off along the road with our dog. By an extraordinary stroke of luck, for quite some time we were able to follow the tracks of a Ukrainian armoured vehicle in the snow and thus avoid mines. Then, thanks to our dog sniffing the ground, we were able to avoid anti-personnel mines hidden beneath the snow.

After six hours and twenty-six kilometres, around noon we finally came across Russian soldiers, who could not believe that we had managed to travel all that way without being blown up by a mine. We are very religious, and I prayed throughout the entire journey. I believe that the icon we had taken with us saved us.

We were then transferred to the Kursk hospital to treat our wounds and see our children again. The commander of the Akhmat battalion came to see us and told us that they had been forced to stop their deliveries because they had been requisitioned for the counterattack on Sudzha, which took place a few days later. [Russian forces retook Sudzha on 10 March by infiltrating through a pipeline.]

Even the F.S.B. [Russia’s domestic intelligence agency] came from Moscow to question us and ask us how we had survived. The media were also interested in our story. Our cow, calf, and bull are doing well, and the neighbours looking after them send us photographs. Of the people living on our street, twenty were killed or died of hunger or illness; only six survived.

Alexander and Natalia now live in a Kursk apartment building recently constructed to house refugees who lost their homes during the Ukrainian invasion.

Global Network response to Trump's 'weapons in space' declaration

 

We oppose the U.S. call to 'control and dominate' space   The disclosure by US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink that the US has deployed space weapons in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) confirmed what many had always thought and is a consequence of the competition between the USA and Russia-China over access to LEO. Whoever controls the increasingly limited parking spaces in LEO will be at a considerable advantage and will be able to see and direct weapons not only to targets in space but also on the Earth.   Elon Musk is being paid to fill up LEO with military satellites as fast as possible for the US.   The US Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) with huge radars in Texas, Australia and possibly Wales -- where grassroots opposition is massive -- would be part of a system to guide anti-satellite weapons (ASATS) to hit targeted satellites in space.   Other options for the US appear to be space-based lasers and electro-magnetic guns to blind or fry spacecraft electronics.   The Trump administration's proposed "Golden Dome" system is bringing lots of lucrative contracts to aerospace companies but is nowhere near likely to be completed by Trump’s end of term. The American Physical Society and the Congressional Budget Office also report it would cost trillions of dollars and would not likely be effective against Russian or Chinese hypersonic missiles.   However, Meink’s announcement could really be about attempting to make Golden Dome sound inevitable, thereby forcing Congress to appropriate the massive funds needed to secure the controversial project in the Pentagon’s space strategy.   One other long-term issue is the "mining the sky program." The US and its fellow NATO allies want to move their 500-year western colonial domination to the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies for resource extraction. During a keynote speech at the Air, Space, and Cyber Conference, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said, “the Joint Force is prepared to fight, endure, and win in global contested environments from the seabed to cislunar space”. Cislunar space is the space between the Earth and the Moon.   The plan is to establish nuclear powered mining colonies. Nuclear powered rocket engines are being developed to cut-in-half the amount of time it would take to get to Mars. The Department of Energy labs that fabricate these space nuclear devices have a long history of worker, air, and water contamination.   The 1989 Congressional study entitled "Military Space Forces: The Next 50 Years" called for the US to control the pathway off Earth to space (also called the Earth-Moon Gravity Well).   As the Space Command's 'Vision for 2020' stated, the US must "control and dominate space" and "deny" others the use of space. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recently stated, "I'm not interested in orbital equity or parity. We demand orbital dominance plain and simple." Those are fighting words. In the end, the taxpayers should be wondering who will pay for the trillions of dollars for these collective offensive space programs - especially when the US is already over $40 trillion in debt! Long ago the aerospace industry identified the "entitlement programs" as their preferred source of funds to pay these enormous costs. By this they mean Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the now tattered social safety net. Trump has announced that the already fiscally strapped states should take over Medicare and Medicaid due to recent war spending.   In 1989 Apollo Astronaut Edgar Mitchell (the 6th person to walk on the moon) spoke at a peace in space rally organized by Bruce Gagnon at the now re-named Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Mitchell told the assembled that a war in space would be the "one and only" because so much space junk would be created (on top of the existing huge debris field) that we would not be able to get a rocket thru the deadly space trash orbiting the Earth. He said it would be like trying to "get thru a piranha laced river" in the Amazon.   There is a name today for this phenomenon - the Kessler Syndrome. Much of life on Earth would grind to a halt as the satellites that make our high-tech world function would be smashed to bits.   The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty, signed and ratified by 118 states, including the US, calls for the peaceful use of outer space, prohibiting the deployment of any weapon of mass destruction and preventing anyone from claiming sovereign control. However, it does not prevent the stationing of other types of weapons in space. The US has repeatedly voted against a resolution, supported by China and Russia, for “no first placement of weapons in outer space”. Now we know why. For many years the US and Israel have also voted against the annual call by China, Russia and others to negotiate a new treaty on PAROS – the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space. The official position of the US has been, "There are no weapons in space, we don’t need a new treaty.”   We see this as a spiritual disconnection in the minds and hearts of those "leaders" in Washington who believe that 4% of the global population living in the US should be the Masters of Space. It is a deep sickness.   Space should be a realm for exploration and inspiration, a place for humans to grow further in knowledge and wisdom. A few morally impoverished souls are ruining space even as they poison the earth. This will not end well.   The time has come for people in the US to rise up and demand their government halt the fascist march of the human race to annihilation. ~ By the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space Boards of Directors and Advisors.

'Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.' ~ Henry David Thoreau

Maine's Statewide Anti-Imperialist Coalition

Witness Against Empire (Ken Jones & Melody Shank from Asheville, North Carolina) interviewed Lisa Savage and Bruce Gagnon about their five year campaign to organize monthly foreign policy protests at busy intersections all over Maine. 

They displayed photos from the protests which are held up and down the state of Maine - in small and large communities.

Their goal is to show solidarity with local activists who often have very few people to hold a protest with and to address the many current war$ the US is involved in at that particular time.

They shared that in 2022, when they first began this effort, they got about 40% positive responses from the public driving past  them. These days they said the positives tend to be around 70%.

Ken and Melody who hold weekly bridge protests in Ashevile, said they get about the same percentage of positives these days as well.

Here is an example of the huge banners Ken makes for their weekly events. 

What is the space 'Kessler Syndrome'?

Thousands of satellites orbit Earth, but every launch adds risk.

The Kessler Syndrome warns of a chain reaction of space debris that could trap humanity on Earth for centuries. 

Here's why it's one of the scariest space threats today.