Global
I recently read an article by investigative historian Eric Zuesse, author of America’s Empire of Evil, that began “One of the core features of nazism (not the German political Party but its core ideology) is racism, which allows some ethnicities (or “races”) to be advantaged by law, and other ethnicities to be discriminated against by the law — it is, at its very core, AGAINST equal rights under law.” Well, I was intrigued by what was packed into one long sentence due to recent developments in the United States and I am sure that none of my regular readers will be surprised by my view that a lot of what has gone wrong in the United States and elsewhere has been due to a racist Israel and its powerful lobbies.
In just 24 hours, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominated Eli Sharvit as the new chief of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, only to quickly retract the nomination.
This episode highlights the lack of coherence in Netanyahu’s leadership, reinforcing the perception that decisions at the highest levels of government are made impulsively and without a clear plan.
As “Deep Throat,” the whistleblower who was FBI associate director Mark Felt, tells Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in the film “All the President’s Men” as Woodward unravels the Watergate scandal: “about the White House—the truth is, these are not very bright guys.”
Fifty years later, that is again the truth.
How much of Donald Trump’s directive on U.S. tariffs imposed on nations all over the world—that in recent days has caused a stock market loss of trillions of dollars—is a result of his not being very bright?
The Trump tariffs “are reckless, careless, just plain dumb,” declared U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut after the move last week.
Trump through the years has insisted that he is a “stable genius.”
Through the years, the opposite has been charged.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- China's Belt and Road Initiative projects are being scrutinized in Thailand after Myanmar's 7.7 earthquake pancaked a 30-floor building 600 miles away which Chinese engineers were constructing in Bangkok.
The incomplete skyscraper was the only building to collapse in the lightly damaged Thai capital.
The disaster exposed allegedly substandard steel reinforcing rods which had snapped, reducing the building to a huge rubble pile which crushed about 87 construction workers including 15 confirmed dead and 72 who disappeared.
"I watched multiple clips of the building collapse from different angles," a stunned Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said.
"From my experience in the construction industry, I have never seen an issue like this.
"We must investigate thoroughly because a significant portion of the budget was allocated, and the deadline for completion had been extended," Ms. Paetongtarn said.
The investigation began with a bizarre, troubling sight.
On February 22, 2024, China's Ambassador to The Hague, Zhang Jun, uttered the unexpected.
His testimony, like that of a number of others, was meant to help the International Court of Justice (ICJ) formulate a critical and long-overdue legal opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Zhang articulated the Chinese position, which, unlike the American envoy's testimony, was entirely aligned with international and humanitarian laws.
But he delved into a tabooed subject—one that even Palestine's closest allies in the Middle East and Global South dared not touch: the right to use armed struggle.
