Grandson born in Cambodia - 3 week visit to meet Gio

Julian and Gio getting some needed sleep

Mary Beth (MB) and I flew to Phnom Penh, Cambodia on June 26 to be present during the birth of my first grandchild who was due to arrive on July 1. Things went on schedule and Giovanni Kenneth Gagnon (Gio) was born to my son Julian and his partner Lai. 

Besides MB and I, Julian's mom Becky came from Florida and Lai's mom and dad came from their farm in the countryside. In addition Lai's two sisters were present for the excitement as well.

Lai's parents with Lai (right) a week after the birth. Julian treated us all to a two-hour traditional Cambodian massage. It was great.

I was so moved to see Gio after the birthing. I remembered that when Julian was born years ago I was the first person to hold him after the docs and nurses did their thing with him. I was so happy that Julian was able to be in the birthing room at the hospital as well.

 

Julian in delivery room - looking like a doctor and very calm!

Gio soon after being born

Gio on the day he went home

I asked Julian in advance to get a rocking chair because I wanted to be able to rock Gio and sing to him. My Italian grandfather used to sing to us kids when we were young and I still remember one of his songs which I sang to Julian after he was born.  So I sang to Gio. This short video below I sang during a Cambodian storm.  I sang about the rain coming down. (It was in the mid-90 degrees and it rained most days.)

MB and I stayed at a wonderful hotel and swam every day for the three weeks we were there. After lunch each day we took a Tuk-tuk thru massive traffic jams to the home of Julian and Lai knowing they had slept in after being up for some hours the night before. There are few rules as vehicles (especially scooters) drive on sidewalks, in the opposite lanes, and weave in and out of traffic to beat the snarls.

There is a huge economic divide in Cambodia as the poor and workers are mostly on scooters while the wealthy increasingly drive big expensive SUV's which hog up more and more of the road.  

 

As we made our way around the city (population about 2.5 million) it seemed that most neighborhoods had markets where food and almost anything of use are sold. This photo is the Russian Market which is one of the bigger markets in the city - named after the days when the former Soviet Union had a strong trading relationship with Cambodia.

Food vendors are found all over the city. 

This is the hotel pool and we appreciated the free breakfast at the open air restaurant. Our room cost us $35 a night which was a great surprise which we appreciated. We found the people we met there to be very welcoming and kind.  

Julian told us about a local international NGO in the city that hosts talks, art shows and films. As it turned out we were able one night to go and see a film called 'Bomb Hunters' about the unexploded bombs that litter much of Cambodia and has caused great harm to the people since the time of the US war on Vietnam. President Richard Nixon ran a 'secret' bombing campaign in Cambodia that to this day is still a major problem. Another 'calling card' left by the imperial American colonial power. See the film trailer below.

But we tried to spend as much time as we could with Gio. Just watching the steady changes in him each day was very moving and it appeared that he liked to be held as he did not cry much at all.  

MB with Gio

Julian made sure to take us to interesting places around the city for dinner several times so that we got more of a feel for the culture and the foods. Because it is a capital city there are many embassies from around the world thus the assortment of different foods was impressive.  

Julian and his mom at the hospital soon after Gio's birth

On our last day in Phnom Penh Julian and Lai were up early to have breakfast with us at the airport before we took off on our 24-hour return trip to Boston and then Maine. We had to change planes in Hong Kong. Neither of us are good at sleeping during flights so we both watched movies during the long trip home.

 

Our last chance to hold Gio before heading home to Maine. We miss Gio badly already and Julian reported that he cried more than usual the next day. He likely missed my singing to him....I'm sure Julian and Lai will keep the songs coming. They are going to be very good parents.

Bruce  

(Click on the photos for a better view) 

Not allowed to ask about Israeli nukes

Israel's 'special privilege' is all over and the zionists just can't stand being subjected to honest journalistic questions. 

They call it 'antisemitism', but we all know better. 

Israel's sense of exceptionalism and entitlement has worn off. Tel Aviv has lost its self-manufactured show-biz sheen, and they can't stand it.

What is most obvious is that this Israeli political hack does not know what to say after he lays down the line about the holocaust. For years they could get away with halting any conversation with that one word. But now, as we see in this very short interview clip, the Israeli had no serious replay to the follow-up question. So, he had to bail out.

It's time to join the real-world Israel where genocidal behavior is supposed to have consequences.

Your time of 'privilege' is over. 

Bruce  

NATO'S Mark Rutte in a war mongering rut - Russian response

On July 9, 2025, during a briefing in Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova delivered a sharp response to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s recent remarks concerning the Russia-China partnership and Taiwan. 

Accusing NATO of fabricating threats and promoting a confrontational agenda, Zakharova denounced what she called the alliance’s “mental incontinence” and obsession with maintaining Western dominance. 

She emphasized that cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is rooted in mutual respect, sovereignty, and international law—unlike NATO’s bloc-based militarization strategy, which she said ignores the real needs of its own citizens. 

The briefing underscored growing tensions between Russia and the Western alliance, especially regarding NATO’s expansionist rhetoric and inflated defense budgets. 

NATO's new head cheerleader Mark Rutte from the Netherlands. He is pressuring NATO members to double their annual contributions to the expansionist colonial military war machine.  

Sunday song

 

the funnies

 

VfP protest outside US Marine airbase in Okinawa - the runway is being built on top of the bay endangering aquatic life. 

Two of my favorite commentators

It's been downhill for the Israeli regime for 21 months but the Epstein revelations have made it even worse. 

While Europeans and Americans haven’t even imposed token sanctions.

George Galloway interviews the wonderful Iranian Professor Seyed Marandi.

Asheville: 'We are doing our part'

Meloday Shank and Ken Jones (and friends) report on their 18 month long weekly bridge protest against the genocide in Palestine by US-Israel.

They live and do this work in the southern city of Asheville, North Carolina.

Who benefits?: NATO pumps up Russia fears

 

Who benefits from NATO demanding 5% of each member nation's GDP for war prep? 

Who benefits from the 'Russia is coming to get Europe' scare mongering? 

Who suffers from this hyper-militarization in Europe?

Does this remind anyone of Netanyahu's claims for 30 years that Iran was just a step away from having a nuclear bomb? 

Is this what they call modus operandi (A method of operation)?

What should be done to deal with this imperialism on steroids inside Europe - disguised as 'EU democracy'? 

Bruce 

History lesson: Ghassan Kanafani 1970

 

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine spokesman Ghassan Kanafani interviewed by Richard Carleton, Beirut 1970. 

The conflict was fought between the Palestine Liberation Organisation under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, and the Jordanian Armed Forces under the leadership of King Hussein. 

At its core the civil war sought to determine if Jordan would be ruled by the Palestine Liberation Organisation or the Hashemite Monarchy. The war resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, the vast majority Palestinian. 

Armed conflict ended with the expulsion of the PLO leadership and thousands of Palestinian fighters to Lebanon. 

In 1972, Kanafani and his niece were killed in a car bomb set by the Mossad.

Remember Gladio

Daniele Ganser is a historian with a focus on contemporary history since 1945 and international politics. 

His main research focuses on peace studies, geostrategy, covert warfare, resource conflicts, and economic policy. 

Dr. Ganser discusses Operation Gladio, the stay-behind mission of NATO's secret army to fight on after a possible Soviet invasion. The secret army and hidden weaponry outside of public scrutiny enabled violent terror against Europe to ensure the correct political forces would have the power.  

History of Iran's search for independence

In 1953, Iran is at a crossroads. After decades of interference by foreign powers eager to exploit its oil reserves, the government decides it will throw them out and take control of the country’s wealth. 

But with the superpowers’ Cold War paranoia and thirst for oil, it won’t be easy – especially once the CIA gets involved.  

UK announces joint drone-production with Ukraine

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has hailed a “massive step forward” in British military assistance for opponents of Russia

The UK has announced it will begin joint production of military drones with Ukraine. 

Speaking in London [in late June] after a meeting with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, British Prime Minister Kier Starmer hailed a “first of its kind” deal that represents a “massive step forward” in military assistance for Kiev. Zelensky described the development as “historic.” 

Moscow has long described the UK as a key driver of the ongoing hostilities. 

Neither leader disclosed specific details of the initiative, but both indicated that Ukrainian defense manufacturers stand to benefit from British battlefield technologies. 

Zelensky was in the UK to meet with Starmer and speak at an event hosted by the Chatham House think tank [a CIA & MI6 front group]. Zelensky mentioned production of “long-distance drones” during his speech. One such kamikaze drone recently hit a residential tower near Moscow. 

Russia has accused the UK of being directly involved in Ukrainian drone operations, particularly naval drone attacks targeting Crimea. Earlier [in June], Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that Britain is also “100% involved” in Ukrainian intelligence operations, including those Moscow categorizes as acts of terrorism. 

“It is obvious that all this is being done by the Ukrainian side, but it would have been helpless without the support... from the British,” Lavrov said. 

In April, The Times reported that British troops have been present in Ukraine since 2022, the year the conflict escalated. The report stated British forces played a key role in deploying French-British Storm Shadow cruise missiles supplied to Kiev. 

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who oversaw the UK’s early and extensive involvement in the conflict, has referred to the Ukrainian military as “our proxies” in interviews, as did some other Western former and current officials. 

Truth few wished to hear

From 1991 interview in Guadalajara.

The man the west told us to fear and hate and who the CIA repeatedly attempted to assassinate.

See how the capitalist system mind-washes the truth so we just keep consuming and destroying the planet?

In short, if capitalism continues to dominate, with neoliberals in power, then humanity is lost, for the simple reason that capitalism is a suicidal system which profits from the disasters that it causes. Every previous system has been forced to stop when it creates too much disorder. Not this one. If it rains a lot, it sells you umbrellas. If it’s too hot, it sells you ice cream. Over the coming decades, collectivist regimes will demonstrate that collectivism is a more satisfactory outlook for human beings than liberal competition.

~ Jean-Luc Mélenchon (French socialist political leader)

The Epstein 'mystery' grows

The Trump administration now insists that Epstein did not have a client list. 

And they are doubling down on the questionable jail suicide narrative. 

Trump is hiding the evidence likely because sordid details of his long 'relationship' with Epstein's (the Mossad agent) sex trafficking operation would be revealed. 

The public is not buying this rotten fish story.

Make the client list public now!

It is a key link to Israel's control over the US government!

Bruce

Mercenaries from Colombia dying in Ukraine

Rally by relatives of Colombian mercenaries eliminated by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. They demand the resolution of issues regarding the return of bodies and payment of the money promised to the mercenaries

SouthFront

According to data from Russian security forces, in recent days Kyiv has deployed significant contingents of foreign mercenaries, primarily Colombians, to Sumy Region (Ukraine) to reinforce defensive positions. Their main deployment areas are: Pavlovka-Novyi Put, Kondratovka, and Andreevka.

Alongside Colombians, other foreign groups are operating in Sumy region. Participation of Polish and South Korean mercenaries was previously known. 

Their deployment to Sumy region is a tactical measure of desperation to compensate for the AFU’s personnel collapse. However, their effectiveness is near zero. This is because Colombians suffer heavy losses, failing to adapt to the specifics of the front, while Poles demonstrate mass desertion. Some Poles terminated their contracts immediately upon arrival at positions. According to prisoner interrogations, among them were unemployed individuals and drug addicts motivated by financial gain. South Koreans, meanwhile, are limited to reconnaissance tasks.

Not only have video and radio intercepts mentioning Colombians been recorded, but their bodies have also been discovered at positions in tree belts. Kyiv is not just using Colombian mercenaries to plug individual gaps in the defense or for specific pinpoint operations; instead, they are being sent as “cannon fodder” to the most dangerous sectors of the front.

Despite the high risks, Colombians are paid the lowest of all.

The Dollar Turns Toxic

Not inspiring confidence around the globe

Sputnik

Trust in the US is crumbling worldwide, Paul Goncharoff, veteran financial analyst and director of Goncharoff LLC, told Sputnik. Why?

Flip-Flopping

"The positions taken by the US on the domestic and, more importantly, the world stage in places both near and far are visibly flip-flopping and changing day by day," Goncharoff says.

Absurd Threats

"Threatening most of the nations of our planet with unrealistic sanctions or tariffs if they trade in their own currencies and not with the US dollar is a poor way to gain trust," he argues.

Unipolar Tariffs

The effect of measures like the unipolar tariffs imposed on Canada to Mexico and from ASEAN nations to the EU makes the US look like "a monkey playing with a grenade" in their eyes.

The Dollar Turns Toxic

• While US debt balloons, the dollar is "well along its way to being treated as a toxic asset," Goncharoff says.
• A sudden collapse in its value is now a real possibility.

Ruling Through Conflict

• Despite Trump’s talk of peace, US-backed military action continues in the Middle East.
• Arms flow to Ukraine and the South China Sea region is heating up.
• The looming question is: Where will the US find the funds to fight three—or four—conflicts at once?

What’s Next?

"The era of a perfect multiple-front storm system [is] already forming, which can threaten to destroy financial and geopolitical systems that we have over many decades grown used to," Goncharoff warns.  

Democracy - free speech gone in the UK

For the second week in row police in London have arrested dozens of people for supporting Palestine Action on July 13. 

The group was banned as a “terrorist organization” at the beginning of July, after members broke into the UK's largest air base, in south-east England, and sprayed red paint on two planes.

Critics described the court's decision as an attack on free speech. 

The UK government has now gone full-blown genocidal.

The states taking part in the summit include Colombia, South Africa, Algeria, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Mexico, Namibia, Nicaragua, Norway, Oman, 

Pakistan, Palestine, Portugal, Qatar, Slovenia, Spain, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Türkiye, Uruguay, Venezuela 

Desertion crisis in Ukrainian Army reaches alarming levels

SouthFront

The Armed Forces of Ukraine continue to face a severe desertion problem, with newly released data showing that 17,082 soldiers fled their units in June 2025 alone. While this figure represents a slight decrease from May’s 19,956 desertions, the overall trend remains devastating for Kyiv’s war effort. Since the beginning of the year, a staggering 107,672 Ukrainian servicemen have abandoned their posts, with only 1,807 (1.7%) being successfully returned to duty.

The cumulative statistics paint an even bleaker picture. Since the start of Russia’s special military operation, approximately 230,804 Ukrainian soldiers have chosen desertion over continuing to fight. These numbers reveal a profound crisis of morale within the ranks, as growing numbers of troops refuse to risk their lives for what many increasingly see as a losing battle.

Ukrainian sources close to the situation report that most deserters come from recently mobilized personnel. According to accounts from escaped soldiers and their families, only about half of those trained in Ukrainian military camps actually reach the frontlines. Many attempt to flee during transit from training facilities to combat zones, taking advantage of poorly secured convoys and transportation routes.

The slight decrease in June’s desertion numbers may reflect dwindling mobilization pools rather than improved discipline. Ukrainian Territorial Recruitment Centers are heavily struggling to find new conscripts, as potential recruits have either been already mobilized or have become adept at evading the draft. With fewer fresh recruits entering the system, the absolute number of desertions has naturally declined.

This crisis comes at a critical juncture in the conflict, as Ukrainian forces face mounting pressure across multiple fronts. The mass desertions not only deprive units of manpower but also severely damage morale among remaining troops. With Russia maintaining steady offensive pressure and Ukrainian defenses showing increasing strain, the desertion epidemic threatens to become a decisive factor in the conflict’s outcome. 

Looking back: The mess that Victoria Nuland made in Ukraine

 Victoria Nuland engineered Ukraine’s “regime change” in early 2014 without weighing the likely chaos and consequences, wrote Robert Parry on July 13, 2015.

By Robert Parry
Consortium News

As the Ukrainian army squares off against ultra-right and neo-Nazi militias in the west and violence against ethnic Russians continues in the east, the obvious folly of the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy has come into focus even for many who tried to ignore the facts, or what you might call “the mess that Victoria Nuland made.”

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs “Toria” Nuland was the “mastermind” behind the Feb. 22, 2014 “regime change” in Ukraine, plotting the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych while convincing the ever-gullible U.S. mainstream media that the coup wasn’t really a coup but a victory for “democracy.”

To sell this latest neocon-driven “regime change” to the American people, the ugliness of the coup-makers had to be systematically airbrushed, particularly the key role of neo-Nazis and other ultra-nationalists from the Right Sektor. For the U.S.-organized propaganda campaign to work, the coup-makers had to wear white hats, not brown shirts.

So, for nearly a year and a half, the West’s mainstream media, especially The New York Times and The Washington Post, twisted their reporting into all kinds of contortions to avoid telling their readers that the new regime in Kiev was permeated by and dependent on neo-Nazi fighters and Ukrainian ultra-nationalists who wanted a pure-blood Ukraine, without ethnic Russians.

Any mention of that sordid reality was deemed “Russian propaganda” and anyone who spoke this inconvenient truth was a “stooge of Moscow.” It wasn’t until July 7 that the Times admitted the importance of the neo-Nazis and other ultra-nationalists in waging war against ethnic Russian rebels in the east. The Times also reported that these far-right forces had been joined by Islamic militants. Some of those jihadists have been called “brothers” of the hyper-brutal Islamic State.

Though the Times sought to spin this remarkable military alliance neo-Nazi militias and Islamic jihadists as a positive, the reality had to be jarring for readers who had bought into the Western propaganda about noble “pro-democracy” forces resisting evil “Russian aggression.”

Perhaps the Times sensed that it could no longer keep the lid on the troubling truth in Ukraine. For weeks, the Right Sektor militias and the neo-Nazi Azov battalion have been warning the civilian government in Kiev that they might turn on it and create a new order more to their liking.

Clashes in the West

Then, on Saturday, violent clashes broke out in the western Ukrainian town of Mukachevo, allegedly over the control of cigarette-smuggling routes. Right Sektor paramilitaries sprayed police officers with bullets from a belt-fed machine gun, and police backed by Ukrainian government troops returned fire. Several deaths and multiple injuries were reported.

Tensions escalated on Monday with President Petro Poroshenko ordering national security forces to disarm “armed cells” of political movements. Meanwhile, the Right Sektor dispatched reinforcements to the area while other militiamen converged on the capital of Kiev.

While President Poroshenko and Right Sektor leader Dmitry Yarosh may succeed in tamping down this latest flare-up of hostilities, they may be only postponing the inevitable: a conflict between the U.S.-backed authorities in Kiev and the neo-Nazis and other right-wing fighters who spearheaded last year’s coup and have been at the front lines of the fighting against ethnic Russian rebels in the east.

The Ukrainian right-wing extremists feel they have carried the heaviest burden in the war against the ethnic Russians and resent the politicians living in the relative safety and comfort of Kiev. In March, Poroshenko also fired thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky as governor of the southeastern province of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Kolomoisky had been the primary benefactor of the Right Sektor militias.

So, as has become apparent across Europe and even in Washington, the Ukraine crisis is spinning out of control, making the State Department’s preferred narrative of the conflict that it’s all Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fault harder and harder to sell.

How Ukraine is supposed to pull itself out of what looks like a death spiral a possible two-front war in the east and the west along with a crashing economy is hard to comprehend. The European Union, confronting budgetary crises over Greece and other EU members, has little money or patience for Ukraine, its neo-Nazis and its socio-political chaos.

America’s neocons at The Washington Post and elsewhere still rant about the need for the Obama administration to sink more billions upon billions of dollars into post-coup Ukraine because it “shares our values.” But that argument, too, is collapsing as Americans see the heart of a racist nationalism beating inside Ukraine’s new order.

Another Neocon ‘Regime Change’

Much of what has happened, of course, was predictable and indeed was predicted, but neocon Nuland couldn’t resist the temptation to pull off a “regime change” that she could call her own.

Her husband (and arch-neocon) Robert Kagan had co-founded the Project for the New American Century in 1998 around a demand for “regime change” in Iraq, a project that was accomplished in 2003 with President George W. Bush’s invasion.

As with Nuland in Ukraine, Kagan and his fellow neocons thought they could engineer an easy invasion of Iraq, oust Saddam Hussein and install some hand-picked client in Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi was to be “the guy.” But they failed to take into account the harsh realities of Iraq, such as the fissures between Sunnis and Shiites, exposed by the U.S.-led invasion and occupation.

In Ukraine, Nuland and her neocon and liberal-interventionist friends saw the chance to poke Putin in the eye by encouraging violent protests to overthrow Russia-friendly President Yanukovych and put in place a new regime hostile to Moscow.

Carl Gershman, the neocon president of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy, explained the plan in a Post op-ed on Sept. 26, 2013. Gershman called Ukraine “the biggest prize” and an important interim step toward toppling Putin, who “may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

For her part, Nuland passed out cookies to anti-Yanukovych demonstrators at the Maidan square, reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the U.S. had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations,” declared “fuck the EU” for its less aggressive approach, and discussed with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt who the new leaders of Ukraine should be. “Yats is the guy,” she said, referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Nuland saw her big chance on Feb. 20, 2014, when a mysterious sniper apparently firing from a building controlled by the Right Sektor shot and killed both police and protesters, escalating the crisis. On Feb. 21, in a desperate bid to avert more violence, Yanukovych agreed to a European-guaranteed plan in which he accepted reduced powers and called for early elections so he could be voted out of office.

But that wasn’t enough for the anti-Yanukovych forces who led by Right Sektor and neo-Nazi militias overran government buildings on Feb. 22, forcing Yanukovych and many of his officials to flee for their lives. With armed thugs patrolling the corridors of power, the final path to “regime change” was clear.

Instead of trying to salvage the Feb. 21 agreement, Nuland and European officials arranged for an unconstitutional procedure to strip Yanukovych of the presidency and declared the new regime “legitimate.” Nuland’s “guy” Yatsenyuk became prime minister.

While Nuland and her neocon cohorts celebrated, their “regime change” prompted an obvious reaction from Putin, who recognized the strategic threat that this hostile new regime posed to the historic Russian naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea. On Feb. 23, he began to take steps to protect those Russian interests.

Ethnic Hatreds

What the coup also did was revive long pent-up antagonisms between the ethnic Ukrainians in the west, including elements that had supported Adolf Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union during World War Two, and ethnic Russians in the south and east who feared the anti-Russian sentiments emanating from Kiev.

First, in Crimea and then in the so-called Donbas region, these ethnic Russians, who had been Yanukovych’s political base, resisted what they viewed as the illegitimate overthrow of their elected president. Both areas held referenda seeking separation from Ukraine, a move that Russia accepted in Crimea but resisted with the Donbas.

However, when the Kiev regime announced an “anti-terrorism operation” against the Donbas and dispatched neo-Nazi and other extremist militias to be the tip of the spear, Moscow began quietly assisting the embattled ethnic Russian rebels, a move that Nuland, the Obama administration and the mainstream news media called “Russian aggression.”

Amid the Western hysteria over Russia’s supposedly “imperial designs” and the thorough demonizing of Putin, President Barack Obama essentially authorized a new Cold War against Russia, reflected now in new U.S. strategic planning that could cost the U.S. taxpayers trillions of dollars and risk a possible nuclear confrontation.

Yet, despite the extraordinary costs and dangers, Nuland failed to appreciate the practical on-the-ground realities, much as her husband and other neocons did in Iraq. While Nuland got her hand-picked client Yatsenyuk installed and he did oversee a U.S.-demanded “neo-liberal” economic plan slashing pensions, heating assistance and other social programs the chaos that her “regime change” unleashed transformed Ukraine into a financial black hole.

With few prospects for a clear-cut victory over the ethnic Russian resistance in the east and with the neo-Nazi/Islamist militias increasingly restless over the stalemate the chances to restore any meaningful sense of order in the country appear remote. Unemployment is soaring and the government is essentially bankrupt.

The last best hope for some stability may have been the Minsk-2 agreement in February 2015, calling for a federalized system to give the Donbas more autonomy, but Nuland’s Prime Minister Yatsenyuk sabotaged the deal in March by inserting a poison pill that essentially demanded that the ethnic Russian rebels first surrender.

Now, the Ukraine chaos threatens to spiral even further out of control with the neo-Nazis and other right-wing militias supplied with a bounty of weapons to kill ethnic Russians in the east turning on the political leadership in Kiev.  

In other words, the neocons have struck again, dreaming up a “regime change” scheme that ignored practical realities, such as ethnic and religious fissures. Then, as the blood flowed and the suffering worsened, the neocons just sought out someone else to blame.

Thus, it seems unlikely that Nuland, regarded by some in Washington as the new “star” in U.S. foreign policy, will be fired for her dangerous incompetence, just as most neocons who authored the Iraq disaster remain “respected” experts employed by major think tanks, given prized space on op-ed pages, and consulted at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

~ The late investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. He began Consortium News in 1995. 

History lesson: The Children's Train

 

Where were shot the most iconic scenes of The Children’s Train, the new movie by Cristina Comencini? 

And how was it possible to meticulously recreate one of the most important stories of Italian charity? The Communist Party of Italy (right after WW2) organized this wonderful movement to save starving children.

Stefano Accorsi, Serena Rossi, and Barbara Ronchi, the actors who star in the movie, based on Viola Ardone’s novel, tell us all about it. 

The Children’s Train is now available only on Netflix.

Congo power play: What is under the soil?

 

Donald Trump recently brokered a peace deal in the heart of Africa. But this isn’t just about Rwanda and Congo. It’s about cobalt, copper, and control of the critical minerals that power AI, electric vehicles, and global warfare.

In this GVS Deep Dive, Najma Minhas exposes the real reason behind Trump’s sudden interest in the Congo — and why China is quietly watching. From the M23 rebel conflict to China’s dominance over the cobalt refining chain, we break down the $2 trillion resource war that could shape the 21st century.

🔹 What’s really in the Congo?

🔹 How does China control the global cobalt supply?

🔹 Can Trump actually outmaneuver Beijing?

This isn’t a peace deal — it’s a power play.  

Sunday song

 

The Persecution of Francesca Albanese

By Chris Hedges 

The Trump administration’s attack on the courageous U.N. special rapporteur presages a world without rules, where rogue states, such as the U.S. and Israel, carry out war crimes without restraint.

When the history of the genocide in Gaza is written, one of the most courageous and outspoken champions for justice and the adherence to international law will be Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur, who today the Trump administration is sanctioning. Her office is tasked with monitoring and reporting on human rights violations that Israel commits against Palestinians.

Albanese, who regularly receives death threats and endures well-orchestrated smear campaigns directed by Israel and its allies, valiantly seeks to hold those who support and sustain the genocide accountable.

She lambasts what she calls “the moral and political corruption of the world” that allows the genocide to continue. Her office has issued detailed reports documenting war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, one of which, called “Genocide as colonial erasure,” I have reprinted as an appendix in my latest book, A Genocide Foretold.

She has informed private organizations that they are “criminally liable” for assisting Israel in carrying out the genocide in Gaza.

She announced that if true, as has been reported, that the former British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to defund and withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, which Cameron and the other former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could be charged with a criminal offense for, under the Rome Statute.

The Rome Statute criminalizes those who seek to prevent war crimes from being prosecuted.

She has called on top European Union (EU) officials to face charges of complicity of war crimes over their support for the genocide, saying that their actions cannot be met with impunity. She was a champion of the Madleen flotilla that sought to break the blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid, writing that the boat which was intercepted by Israel, was carrying not only supplies, but a message of humanity.

Her latest report lists 48 corporations and institutions, including Palantir Technologies Inc., Lockheed Martin, Alphabet Inc. (Google), Amazon, International Business Machine Corporation (IBM), Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), along with banks and financial firms such as BlackRock, insurers, real estate firms and charities, which in violation of international law, are making billions from the occupation and the genocide of Palestinians.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned her support for the ICC, four of whose judges have been sanctioned by the U.S. for issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant last year. He criticized Albanese for her efforts to prosecute American or Israeli nationals who sustain the genocide, saying she is unfit for service as a special rapporteur. 

Rubio also accused Albanese of having “spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.” The sanctions will most likely prevent Albanese from travelling to the U.S. and will freeze any assets she may have in the country.

The attack against Albanese presages a world without rules, one where rogue states, such as the U.S. and Israel, are permitted to carry out war crimes and genocide without any accountability or restraint.

It exposes the subterfuges we use to fool ourselves and attempt to fool others. It reveals our hypocrisy, cruelty and racism.

No one, from now on, will take seriously America’s stated commitments to democracy, freedom of expression, the rule of law or human rights. And who can blame them? Americans speak exclusively in the language of force, the language of brutes, the language of mass slaughter, the language of genocide.

“The acts of killing, the mass killing, the infliction of psychological and physical torture, the devastation, the creation of conditions of life that would not allow the people in Gaza to live, from the destruction of hospitals, the mass forced displacement and the mass homelessness, while people were being bombed daily, and the starvation — how can we read these acts in isolation?” Albanese asked in an interview I did with her when we discussed her report, “Genocide as colonial erasure.”

The militarized drones, helicopter gunships, walls and barriers, checkpoints, coils of concertina wire, watchtowers, detention centers, deportations, brutality and torture, denial of entry visas, apartheidesque existence that comes with being undocumented, loss of individual rights and electronic surveillance, are as familiar to desperate migrants along the Mexican border, or attempting to enter Europe, as they are to Palestinians.

This is what awaits those who Frantz Fanon calls “the wretched of the earth.”

Those that defend the oppressed, such as Albanese, will be treated like the oppressed.

~ Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR.  He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”  

the funnies

 

Hegseth calls for massive drone production

In a video posted to X, Secretary of Endless War Pete Hegseth announced that he is rescinding restrictive policies that stifle the production of drones, which “will unleash American manufacturing and the ingenuity of our warfighters.”

How much longer can the American people afford to cough up even more $$$$$$ for war? 

Brazilian demonstrators rally against Trump & urge taxing the rich

Thousands of demonstrators gathered in São Paulo on Thursday to protest against US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats and demand higher taxes on the super-rich.

Think about it - Trump is now attacking many of the key BRICS+ members via huge tariffs, military encirclement and/or actual war. 

Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa, and Iran are currently under severe pressure - just India so far seems to be escaping US machinations. 

To our international friends - please boycott every possible product in your country coming from the US and Israel.

zionist origin myth

 

This video dismantles the Zionist origin myth — the fabricated story of exile and return used to justify sovereignty over Palestine. 

The video separates historical fact from nationalist fiction and exposes one of the greatest cons in modern history.  

Message to the Israelis

 

 

Middle Nation (Shahid Bolsen)

Over a year ago, I spoke directly and respectfully to the Israeli people. Many heard me. Most didn’t. Today, the consequences are undeniable. 

This is not a hate-filled rant. It’s not propaganda. It’s a reality check—delivered straight, without illusions, and without apology. You’ve been lied to by your supposed allies. 

You’ve been used as a proxy, turned from victims of European atrocity into perpetrators of regional genocide. And now, you are being set up to fall—economically, politically, demographically. 

 In this follow-up, I walk you through exactly how you've been trapped… – Who filled your bucket with blood and cheered you on – Why America will never save you from Iran – How post-war Israel is more attractive to investors than to citizens – And why your final refuge may be in the Arab and Muslim world you were taught to hate 

This is not a threat. It’s a prophecy already unfolding. 

And you still have a choice.  

Aaron Maté: Americans Murdering Gazans

A horrific story. 

The entire Trump administration is a rat's nest of zionist genocidal collaborators.

It is truly a betrayal of Trump's claim to put America first. In fact, America is on its bended knees in complete subservience to Netanyahu's immoral, illegal, disgusting, war-mongering and evil destruction of the Palestinian people. 

In addition, Israel has shown itself to not abide by ceasefires. They have repeatedly broken them in Lebanon and Palestine.

The White House and Congress have displayed the most vial performance since the last election. These fools in power do not care about the people. Instead of supporting the legions of storm victims in Texas the Trump cabal has promised more weapons to Israel and Ukraine. They are even requiring residents in some Texas communities to swear they do not support the BDS movement before they can get flood relief aid. How sick is that?

I reject the bunch of them and their western minions.

Where are the voices of the majority of the people? I don't hear enough of them during this time of great national shame.

Bruce