This content originally appeared on Amnesty International and was authored by Amnesty International.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. © Johannes Simon/Getty ImagesEurope should not hesitate to put pressure on the US if it fails to fall in line with “liberal democracies,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Friday. The diplomat made the remark following talks between the US and Russia that excluded representatives from the EU and Ukraine.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Potsdam on Friday, the Green politician stated, “We’re increasing pressure on the Americans [so they know] they have a lot to lose if they don’t stand on the side of Europe’s liberal democracies.”
With respect to EU-US relations, Baerbock warned against drawing any precipitous conclusions, remarking that “nothing has been decided there.”
“No one can decide about war and peace for the Ukrainians or us Europeans, and this is the clear German stance,” she insisted. Baerbock also warned against forcing Kiev into a “phony peace” or “capitulation,” which she said would only invite further “war and violence.”
A rift has opened up between Washington and Brussels since US President Donald Trump took office last month. Trump has taken a tougher stance on trade with the EU by threatening tariffs and demanded that its European-NATO partners boost spending on collective defense.
Addressing Munich Security Conference attendees last Friday, US Vice President J.D. Vance delivered a sobering speech to Europe’s political elites, suggesting that the biggest threat the continent is facing is one coming from within – the erosion of democracy.
“In Britain and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” the official stated, concluding that “if you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.”
The speech sent shockwaves across governments, with leaders, including Germany’s Olaf Scholz, scrambling to rebuke Vance’s assertions.
The fallout was further highlighted when Washington and Moscow held high-level talks in Saudi Arabia this week without bothering to invite EU representatives. This perceived slight prompted an outpouring of anguish and indignation on the continent.
Trump blasted Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky this week, branding him a dictator without elections, but a number of European leaders have rejected the US president’s assertion that he lacks legitimacy.
In an interview with Fox News on Friday, Trump said he sees no point in having Zelensky involved in peace talks with Russia. He also insisted that French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer “haven’t done anything” to put an end to the bloodshed in Ukraine for the three years since it started.
The post Germany Issues Warning to US first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Tuesday’s talks (not yet ‘negotiations’) between the Foreign Ministers of the United States and the Russian Federation went well. More will follow. The readouts and interviews from the U.S. and Russia were all positive.
Embassies and Consulates of both sides, shut down for absurd reasons during the Obama and Biden administration, will be reopened and restaffed. Normal diplomatic relations will resume. That in itself is a huge step forward.
There were no negotiations yet about the war in Ukraine. Envoys and delegations will be named to crack that nut. It will be a challenge. The process will take some time.
The post A Left Behind Europe (And Ukraine) Will Fall Into Chaos appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
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The Ukrainian war, which began in 2014 as a civil conflict and led to Russia’s intervention eight years later in February 2022, appeared headed to a resolution after top U.S. and Russian officials met in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Tuesday, incensing European and Ukrainian leaders who were excluded.
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid out what was accomplished in Riyadh.
He said four principles had been agreed to: restoring ties by reopening diplomatic missions; the U.S. would appoint a high-level team to achieve “the end of the conflict in Ukraine” that is “enduring” and acceptable to all parties; the countries would work together towards economic cooperation; and the participants at the Tuesday meeting to remain engaged.
The post End In Sight For Ukraine War After Riyadh Meeting appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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The signs aren’t good so far, but playing on Trump’s desperation to be seen as a great dealmaker would pay dividends
- Kenneth Roth is a former executive director of Human Rights Watch. His book, Righting Wrongs, is published on 25 February
The common wisdom is that Donald Trump’s foreign policy will be a disaster for human rights. Certainly his penchant for embracing autocrats and breaching norms bodes poorly, such as his outrageous proposal to force two million Palestinians out of Gaza – which would be a blatant war crime – or his suggestion that Ukraine is to blame for Russia’s invasion. But Trump also likes to cut a deal, as shown by his paradoxically positive role in securing the current (precarious) Gaza ceasefire. If Trump the dealmaker can be nudged in the right direction, he might, against all odds, be brought to play a productive role for human rights.
As executive director of Human Rights Watch, I spent more than three decades devising strategies to pressure or cajole leaders to better respect rights. I have dealt with brutal dictators, self-serving autocrats and misguided democrats. My experience shows that there is always an angle – something the leader cares about – that can be used to steer them in a more rights-respecting direction.
Kenneth Roth is a former executive director of Human Rights Watch. His book, Righting Wrongs, is published on 25 February
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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Wow. In a series of rapid-fire developments last week, the new Trump regime has decisively joined the battle with the deep state on the national security side. This is big, or could be. Either Donald Trump will begin to exert political control over the invisible government or the invisible government will sink Donald Trump just as it did during his first term as president. Let us be attentive.
The attack on USAID, the telephone call with Vladimir Putin, the incipient alienation of the Kiev regime, new talk of talks with the Islamic Republic, Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation as director of national intelligence: I don’t know if these events and their timing reflect a concerted plan, back-of-an-envelope inspirations, or the president’s thinking but not necessarily the thinking of those around him.
The post Trump Vs. The Deep State appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
- Leonard Peltier free after 5 decades in prison, vows to continue struggle for indigenous people
- US begins negotiations with Russia as Ukraine, Europe complain they’re left out
- Despite ceasefire, hospitals in Gaza still suffering from destruction or damage, loss of staff, and supply shortages
- Community activists protest Oakland budget cuts that would slash $2.6 million from community organizations
- Berkeley discusses plan to create public utilities to replace investor-owned utilities like for-profit PG&E
- Israel uses tear gas to evacuate UN Palestinian relief office, orders 3 UNRWA schools closed
The post Leonard Peltier free from prison after 5 decades; US-Russia negotiations begin as Ukraine, Europe complain they’re left out – February 18, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.
This content originally appeared on KPFA – The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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I deplore Trump’s actions domestically and also, so far, on Gaza. However, I trust you’re also experiencing a rare morale boost regarding what Trump has begun doing on Ukraine. One consequence we can expect is hysterical, excoriating commentary from the European and US media as they condemn Trump for “betraying Ukraine and appeasing Putin.” On the front page of New York Times (2/15/2025) we read about the “rising Russian threat.” Also, there may well be false flags from Zelensky as he attempts to disrupt and delay productive talks — and save his own ass. Given the absence of an independent media all this will be confusing to the public because they’ve been so heavily propagandized about the war’s background and learned nothing about US motives in starting it. For example, how many Americans know that the Ukraine war was initiated in February 2014 by President Barack Obama? At that juncture, the Euromaiden coup was portrayed in the American news media as a spontaneous, “democratic” transition.
I’m also enjoying watching Washington’s EU lackeys squeal and squirm after subserviently going along with Biden and the neocon’s war for three years. The suggestion that they or Zelensky merit a seat at the Trump-Putin talks is hilarious. My sense is that these US allies harbored the illusion that the neocons and the Deep State would be ruling the US indefinitely. Now they’re befuddled, humiliated, cut loose and have no leverage and no cards to play. All they can do is bitch from the sidelines and behave as spoilers. Of course, my feelings of satisfaction (and if I might, vindication) are tempered by the fact that half a million fathers, brothers, sons and uncles were slaughtered on behalf of a U.S. proxy war to weaken Russia before taking on China.
These discredited European leaders have two choices: One, they must drastically increase “security” spending that will provoke massive social unrest as people watch the already weakened welfare state implode. Two, they must try to establish a post-Ukraine working relationship with Russia in order to obtain energy resources and a trading partner. After exposing their populations to a false narrative about Russia since 1945 in order justify NATO, at Washington’s behest, that’s an unenviable task. We can hope that NATO will soon be toast, U.S. troops begin exiting the continent and Europe becomes sovereign. Finally, I’m encouraged that Trump is proposing trilateral talks with China and Russia as this holds promise for a more peaceful world.
The post Trump, Ukraine, and the EU first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Lady Carr defends judiciary’s independence after Starmer said decision to accept case resulted from a ‘legal loophole’
England and Wales’s most senior judge has written to Keir Starmer about an “unacceptable” exchange with Kemi Badenoch at prime minister’s questions, saying she was “deeply troubled” by the discussion on the case of a Palestinian family’s right to live in the UK.
Lady Sue Carr, the lady chief justice, criticised the Conservative leader’s questions about the case, in which a family from Gaza had applied through a scheme designed for Ukrainian refugees.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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Top diplomats from the United States and Russia met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss ending the war in Ukraine and improving relations between Washington and Moscow. The Riyadh summit represents a monumental shift in U.S. policy after the Biden administration led an international effort to isolate Russia over its invasion and gave tens of billions in military aid to Kyiv. Participants included U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was not invited to attend and has said he won’t recognize a peace deal negotiated without his country. European leaders have also been sidelined. For more on these developments, we host a discussion between economist Jeffrey Sachs and foreign policy analyst Matt Duss.
“This is a war that never should have happened,” says Sachs, who faults “U.S. provocations” like the expansion of NATO for laying the groundwork for Russia’s invasion in 2022. In holding these talks directly with Russia, “the Trump administration, for the first time, is telling the truth about the fundamental causes of this war,” adds Sachs.
Duss says that while the U.S. has played a major role in the conflict, “Vladimir Putin is the one who chose to invade Ukraine.” He also emphasizes that Ukrainians themselves have agency and have been key players in events since the end of the Cold War, including their current defense against Russia. “It’s not just a story of unending U.S. villainy.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Explosive leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone show how a shady transatlantic collective of academics and military-intelligence operatives conceived schemes which would lead to the US “helping Ukraine resist,” to “prolong” the proxy war “by virtually any means short of American and NATO forces deploying to Ukraine or attacking Russia.”
The operatives assembled their war plans immediately in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and delivered them directly to the highest-ranking relevant US National Security Council official in the Biden administration.
The post Secret Terror Blueprints For US National Security Council Exposed appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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An investigation has exposed the tech firm’s cooperation with autocratic regimes to remove unfavourable content
Google has cooperated with autocratic regimes around the world, including the Kremlin in Russia and the Chinese Communist party, to facilitate censorship requests, an Observer investigation can reveal.
The technology company has engaged with the administrations of about 150 countries since 2011 that want information scrubbed from their public domains.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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Photo: Daniel Reinhardt/APAs we approach the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a monumental shift is taking place that might just lead to the end of this calamitous war. This is not a breakthrough on the battlefield, but a stark reversal of the U.S. position from being the major supplier of weapons and funding to prolong the war to one of peacemaker.
Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine if he was re-elected as president. On February 12th, he started to make good on that promise by holding a 90-minute call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Biden had refused to talk to since the war began. They agreed that they were ready to begin peace negotiations “
immediately,” and Trump then called President Zelensky and spent an hour discussing the conditions for what Zelensky called a “lasting and reliable peace.” At the same time, the new U.S. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, unveiled Trump’s new policy in more detail at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, saying, “The bloodshed must stop. And this war must end.”
There are two parts to the new policy that Hegseth announced. First, he said that Trump “intends to end this war by diplomacy and bringing both Russia and Ukraine to the table.” Secondly, he said that the United States is handing off the prime responsibility for arming Ukraine and guaranteeing its future security to the European members of NATO.
Assigning Europe the role of security guarantor is a transparent move to shield the U.S. from ongoing responsibility for a war that it played a major role in provoking and prolonging by scuttling previous negotiations. If the Europeans will not accept their assigned role in Trump’s plan, or President Zelensky or Putin reject it, the United States may yet have to play a larger role in security guarantees for Ukraine than Trump or many Americans would like. Zelensky told the Guardian on February 11th that, for Ukraine, “Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees.”
After blocking peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in April 2022, the Biden administration rejected peace negotiations over Ukraine for nearly three years. Biden insisted that Ukraine must recover all of its internationally recognized territory, including the Crimea and Donbass regions that separated from Ukraine after the U.S.-backed coup in Kyiv in 2014.
Hegseth opened the door to peace by clearly and honestly telling America’s European allies, “…we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”
Spelling out the U.S. plan in more detail, Hegseth went on, “A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again. This must not be Minsk 3.0. That said, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.”
NATO membership for Ukraine has always been totally unacceptable to the Russians. Trump and Hegseth’s forthrightness in finally pulling the plug, after the U.S. has dangled NATO membership in front of successive Ukrainian governments since 2008, marks a critical recognition that neutrality offers the best chance for Ukraine to coexist with Russia and the West without being a battleground between them.
Trump and Hegseth expect Europe to assume prime responsibility for Ukraine, while the Pentagon will instead focus on Trump’s two main priorities: on the domestic front, deporting immigrants, and on the international front, confronting China. Hegseth justified this as “a division of labor that maximizes our comparative advantages in Europe and the Pacific respectively.”
Elaborating on the role the U.S. plan demands of its European allies, Hegseth explained,
If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission. And they should not be covered under Article 5. There also must be robust international oversight of the line of contact. To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine… Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of NATO. As part of this Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine.
To say that U.S. forces will never fight alongside European forces in Ukraine, and that Article 5, the mutual defense commitment in the NATO Charter, will not apply to European forces in Ukraine, is to go a step farther than simply denying NATO membership to Ukraine, by carving out Ukraine as an exclusion zone where the NATO Charter no longer applies, even to NATO members.
While Trump plans to negotiate directly with Russia and Ukraine, the vulnerable position in which his plan would place European NATO members means that they, too, will want a significant say in the peace negotiations and probably demand a U.S. role in Ukraine’s security guarantees. So Trump’s effort to insulate the U.S. from the consequences of its actions in Ukraine may be a dead letter before he even sits down to negotiate with Russia and Ukraine.
Hegseth’s reference to the Minsk Accords highlights the similarities between Trump’s plans and those agreements in 2014 and 2015, which largely kept the peace in Eastern Ukraine from then until 2022. Western leaders have since admitted that they always intended to use the relative peace created by the Minsk Accords to build up Ukraine militarily, so that it could eventually recover Donetsk and Luhansk by force, instead of granting them the autonomous status agreed to in the Accords.
Russia will surely insist on provisions that prevent the West from using a new peace accord in the same way, and would be highly unlikely to agree to substantial Western military forces or bases in Ukraine as part of Ukraine’s security guarantees. President Putin has always insisted that a neutral Ukraine is essential to lasting peace.
There is, predictably, an element of “having their cake and eating it too” in Trump and Hegseth’s proposals. Even if the Europeans take over most of the responsibility for guaranteeing Ukraine’s future security, and the U.S. has no Article 5 obligation to support them, the United States would retain its substantial command and control position over Europe’s armed forces through NATO. Trump is still demanding that its European members increase their military spending to 5% of GDP, far more than the United States spends on its bloated, wasteful and defeated war machine.
Biden was ready to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian,” as retired U.S. diplomat Chas Freeman said in March 2022, and to enrich U.S. weapons companies with rivers of Ukrainian blood. Is Trump now preparing to fight Russia to the last British, French, German or Polish soldier too if his peace plan fails?
Trump’s call with Putin and Hegseth’s concessions on NATO and Ukraine’s territorial integrity left many European leaders reeling. They complained that the U.S. was making concessions behind their backs, that these issues should have been left to the negotiating table, and that Ukraine should not be forced to give up on NATO membership.
European NATO members have legitimate concerns to work out with the new U.S. administration, but Trump and Hegseth are right to finally and honestly tell Ukraine that it will not become a NATO member, to dispel this tragic mirage and let it move on into a neutral and more peaceful future.
There has also been a backlash from Republican war hawks, while the Democrats, who have been united as the party of war when it comes to Ukraine, will likely try to sabotage Trump’s efforts. On the other hand, maybe a few brave Democrats will recognize this as a chance to reclaim their party’s lost heritage as the more dovish of America’s two legacy parties, and to provide desperately needed new progressive foreign policy leadership in Congress.
On both sides of the Atlantic, Trump’s peace initiative is a gamechanger and a new chance for peace that the United States and its allies should embrace, even as they work out their respective responsibilities to provide security guarantees for Ukraine. It is also a time for Europe to realize that it can’t just mimic U.S. foreign policy and expect U.S. protection in return. Europe’s difficult relationship with Trump’s America may lead to a new modus operandi and a re-evaluation (or maybe even the end?) of NATO.
Meanwhile, those of us anxious to see peace in Ukraine should applaud President Trump’s initiative but we should also highlight the glaring contradictions of a president who finds the killing in Ukraine unacceptable but fully supports the genocide in Palestine.
Given that most of the casualties in Ukraine are soldiers, while most of the maimed and killed in Palestine are civilians, including thousands of children, the compassionate, humanitarian case for peace is even stronger in Palestine than in Ukraine. So why is Trump committed to stopping the killing in Ukraine but not in Gaza? Is it because Trump is so wedded to Israel that he refuses to rein in its slaughter? Or is it just that Ukrainians and Russians are white and European, while Palestinians are not?
If Trump can reject the political arguments that have fueled three years of war in Ukraine and apply compassion and common sense to end that war, then he can surely do the same in the Middle East.
The post Trump Gives Peace a Chance in Ukraine first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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As the annual high-level Munich Security Conference gets underway, the Russia-Ukraine war is dominating the agenda, and we speak to two guests protesting the conference. Economist, progressive leader and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis says the European project started with a noble goal of promoting peace but finds itself today “cornered” between Russian and NATO militarism.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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A return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is “an unrealistic objective” and an “illusionary goal” in the peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia that President Trump wants to accomplish, the U.S. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, said on Wednesday at a meeting of countries supporting Ukraine.
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Mr. Trump, he added, does not support Ukraine’s membership in NATO as part of a realistic peace plan.After a settlement, “a durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again,” but that would be the responsibility, he said, of European and non-European troops in a “non-NATO mission” unprotected by NATO’s Article Five commitment to collective defense.
The post The Game Is Up Trump Tells Ukrainian War Party appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
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There are signs that the Ukraine war could be coming to an end, via negotiations. Apart from senseless death and destruction, its only main achievement has been to further empower corporate elites. It unnecessarily boosted human suffering, much like Israel’s genocide in Gaza, in the service of an unempathetic, dystopian order. And as the callous competition between ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ leaders to out-racist each other shows, this elitist order has a dangerous stranglehold on British politics today.
Ordinary people’s wellbeing and futures depend on upending this cold-blooded, manipulative rule of establishment politicians.
Case study #1: Elites used Ukraine as a battlefield for land and resources
The Western proxy war with Russia could have ended quickly, if the liberal-conservative alliance of Joe Biden and Boris Johnson hadn’t pushed Ukraine away from a peace deal.
Instead, the conflict has: killed many tens of thousands of troops, and about 12,300 civilians; opened Ukraine up to increasing privatisation in service of powerful corporate interests; hurt poor people at home and around the world, disrupting food and energy supplies and contributing to inflation, and forced Western nations to commit resources to keep the unwinnable war going rather than investing in the welfare of their own citizens.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, aware of US counterpart Donald Trump’s interest in ending the proxy war with Russia, has used natural resources to try and ensure Washington’s essential support.
Speaking to the Guardian, Zelenskyy promised US corporations “lucrative reconstruction contracts and investment concessions”, along with “priority access to Ukraine’s “rare earths””. Offering opportunities for extracting valuable “rare earth mineral resources” and other minerals like uranium and titanium, he insisted that “for American companies it will create profits”.
Trump has been clear about his interest in these resources.
Case study #2: Callous establishment politicians emphasise our differences to prevent unified resistance
Ordinary people in Ukraine were only fortunate in the sense that Western elites tend to operate refugee policies on what is politically convenient. That’s why the British government was happy to welcome around 213,000 Ukrainians to the UK in less than two years – “equivalent to the number of people granted refuge in the UK from all origins, in total, between 2014 and 2021”.
The scandalous inhumanity of establishment politicians this week, however, saw them oppose one Palestinian family with four children entering the UK in the same way after UK-backed war criminals Israel had destroyed their home during its genocide in Gaza.
Commentators rightly slammed politicians for their distortion of truth, “racialised hierarchy” and “clear-cut”, “blatant, rotten”, “anti-Palestinian racism”. Activist Andrew Feinstein even called prime minister Keir Starmer’s repulsive stance “racist white supremacy”.
Starmer was never going to ‘move leftwards in power’. He was and is the establishment – just as Tory leaders are and just as far-right elitist Nigel Farage is. This dominant order doesn’t care if your personal views are liberal or conservative. It only cares that you’re distracted from talking about the corrupt and out-of-control economic order that threatens our current and future wellbeing.
Want stability? Then resist dystopia, like the Ukraine war.
We often hear that centrists value stability, moderation, and pragmatism. But what we have now in the world is far from stability. Both Ukraine and Gaza have revealed that the political and economic elites ruling over us have created a callous, cold-blooded, dystopian world right in front of our eyes. And that threatens everyone’s wellbeing, and darkens everyone’s futures.
Ukraine made some people think the British state was the good guy and the Russian state was the bad guy. But Israel’s genocide in Gaza should have made it clear to most that the British and US governments are the bad guys too.
The leaders of all these nations have shown disinterest in human suffering, manipulative, antisocial behaviour, and remorselessness. They have openly attacked and undermined an international legal system that ostensibly fostered global stability, in their ruthless quest for territorial control and natural resources.
After the Cold War, it was perhaps understandable for many to think that stability meant embracing capitalism. But the relentless profit-seeking of economic elites has compromised any possibility of progress ever since.
Servile politicians divided us according to our personal identities so that the division between ordinary people and our rulers wasn’t the focus. Meanwhile, the rich entrenched their wealth. In 2024 alone, billionaires increased their wealth by $2tn, “three times faster than the year before”. However, “the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990”.
That’s not ‘stability’. It’s the gradual capture of our political and economic systems by an increasingly empowered super-rich class.
We must ALL unite to stop billionaire-led global destabilisation
Without the divisive influence of the super-rich in Western politics and their support for death and destruction, the world would undoubtedly be a stabler place.
People might be able to talk to each other, coexist peacefully despite our personal, private beliefs and differences, and meet our basic needs.
When the political will exists, it’s perfectly possible to mobilise massive resources to protect people. Just think of the Covid-19 pandemic. Supporting each other’s wellbeing wasn’t radical. It was just common sense. And so is ensuring a minimum level of living standards for everyone, protecting their wellbeing, environment, and future.
That is what creates true stability, not the ongoing rule of tiny elites who completely disregard human suffering in search of personal gain.
Billionaires simply shouldn’t exist. Their existence is “a sign of economic failure” that undermines ordinary people’s power and wellbeing.
We have the receipts, because the increasing inequality in recent decades and simultaneously increasing power of the super-wealthy has been utterly disastrous for ordinary people. In both Ukraine and Gaza, meanwhile, the absence of super-wealthy influence would almost certainly have pushed people to talk instead or perpetuating unwinnable conflicts, reducing human suffering significantly.
Stopping the billionaire-led destabilisation of the world isn’t just a fight for socialists, anarchists, or communists. It’s in the interests of humanity as a whole, with all our unique strengths and flaws. And the sooner we unite to challenge the dystopian order our political and economic elites have built up, the sooner we’ll have true stability.
Featured image via the Canary
By Ed Sykes
This post was originally published on Canary.
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This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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According to the White House, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has agreed to meet with President Trump to negotiate ending the war in Ukraine. Trump opposed the United States’ financial involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war during his campaign, distinguishing himself from the Biden administration’s funding of Ukraine’s military. Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth broke with years of U.S. foreign policy precedent in a recent statement asserting that Ukraine would not join NATO, a key provision for Putin. Trump has also been pushing for U.S. access to Ukraine’s mineral resources in any potential deal. We speak to The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel about these latest developments. “There is an importance of what [Trump] is beginning to do, which is open up a process to end a war” that is “impoverishing Ukraine,” she says. “Both countries are war-weary” three years after the Russian invasion.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Family fleeing Gaza were allowed to join brother in UK after applying through scheme meant for Ukrainian refugees
A judge who granted a Palestinian family the right to live in the UK after they applied through a scheme originally meant for Ukrainian refugees made the wrong decision, Keir Starmer has said.
A family of six seeking to flee Gaza were allowed to join their brother in the UK after an immigration judge ruled that the Home Office’s rejection of their application breached their human rights, it emerged on Tuesday.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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The post “No specific signals” from US on Resuming Dialogue – Moscow first appeared on Dissident Voice.Russia is open to dialogue with the US, including on Ukraine, but has not yet received any “specific signals” from Washington’s new administration on resuming contacts, Moscow’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said on Sunday. In an interview with RIA Novosti, the diplomat stressed that Moscow is actively monitoring Washington’s rhetoric on Ukraine and Russia.
Nebenzia’s remarks follow statements made by US President Donald Trump, who reportedly told the New York Post on Saturday that he recently held a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Trump did not disclose any details of the reported call, but claimed that the conversation focused on the Ukraine conflict and that Putin “wants to see people stop dying.” He added that he had a plan for ending the hostilities, also without providing details. The Kremlin neither confirmed nor denied the phone call.
Nebenzia did not comment on the reported contact between Trump and Putin, but noted that despite the US president’s repeated pledges to swiftly end the Ukraine conflict, Moscow has yet to see a clearly formulated American plan.
“We are closely monitoring the rhetoric of US President Donald Trump and his team… As for specific signals on resuming contacts, including on the situation around Ukraine, they have not yet been received,” he stated, adding that “for now, we only hear slogans.”
Nebenzia reiterated Moscow’s position that any potential settlement should eliminate the root causes of the conflict, which he said were previously neglected by Washington, such as NATO’s eastward expansion.
“We heard Donald Trump’s statements that during [former President] Joe Biden’s tenure in office, grave mistakes were made in Ukraine… I hope that in the near future we will see whether the Trump administration is interested in eliminating these mistakes,” Nebenzia stated.
“We are open to contacts, but on an equal basis and with the obligatory consideration of Russian interests. We are waiting for the corresponding signals from the American side,” he added.
The diplomat stressed that regarding the Ukraine conflict, it is “fundamentally important” for Russia that any potential peace deal is legally binding and signed by the legitimate Ukrainian leadership. He noted that this could present a challenge given that Vladimir Zelensky’s term as president officially expired in May last year. Another problem hindering any diplomatic moves is Zelensky’s decree banning negotiations with Moscow, Nebenzia noted.
In an interview with Britain’s ITV news network on Sunday, Zelensky said he would agree to negotiations with Russia if the US and EU offer Kiev firm security guarantees. He earlier named Ukraine’s NATO membership as one of them, a notion Moscow has repeatedly opposed.
Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, on Sunday signaled that Washington plans to attempt to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table, but wants the EU to provide Kiev with security guarantees going forward. Waltz said the issue will be discussed later this week when top US officials visit Europe to attend the Munich Security Conference.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Berlin, February 11, 2025—After a year that saw Russia increase its pressure on independent media and journalists, authorities are seeking to tighten the squeeze on dissenting voices from March 1 by blocking those designated as “foreign agents’” from access to their earnings.
The 2025 law requires those listed by the justice ministry as “persons under foreign influence” to open special ruble accounts into which all their income from creative or intellectual activities, as well as the sale or rental of real estate, vehicles, dividends, and interest on deposits, must be paid.
So-called foreign agents will not be allowed to withdraw their earnings unless they are removed from the register. However, the government can withdraw money from agents’ accounts to pay fines imposed for failing to apply that label to their published material or to report on their activities and expenses to the government — a legal requirement since 2020.
While the new law’s full impact remains to be seen, it looms as yet another threat for exiled media outlets already rattled by the prospect of losing funding after U.S. President Donald Trump’s freezing of U.S. foreign aid.
“It is clear that the legal pressure on journalists who stay in Russia — and those who have relocated — will increase,” Mikhail Danilovich, director of The New Tab, an exiled online magazine founded in May 2022, which has been blocked inside Russia due to its coverage of the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, told CPJ.
Digging in
In addition to the new law, a parliamentary commission proposed on January 28 an increase in foreign agent fines and a ban on their teaching or taking part in educational activities, such as hosting lectures or seminars.These moves signal an ongoing determination to crack down on independent journalists already grappling with a plethora of sanctions, from fines to arrest warrants and jail terms.
While hundreds have fled Russia due to authorities’ suppression of critical coverage of the Ukraine war, others continue to report from inside the country. Nadezhda Prusenkova, head of Moscow-based Novaya Gazeta’s press department, estimated that about half of the journalists designated foreign agents still live in Russia.
“We saw a greater focus on pressure on independent media and journalists in 2024, including pressure related to the legislation on foreign agents,” Dmitrii Anisimov, spokesperson for the human rights news site OVD-Info, told CPJ.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, CPJ has documented 247 journalists and media outlets branded as foreign agents and six exiled journalists sentenced in absentia to jail terms ranging from 7½ to 11 years on fake news charges.Although none of the journalists outside Russia have been taken into custody, the campaign against exiles has left many fearing for their safety – especially after three journalists who wrote critically about the war in Ukraine suffered symptoms of poisoning in 2022 and 2023.
Impact of the new law
Mediazona editor-in-chief Sergey Smirnov in court in 2021, prior to being jailed for retweeting someone else’s joke on social media. He could face jail again for failing to note on his content that he is designated a “foreign agent.” (Screenshot: Mediazona/YouTube) Senior members of five independent media outlets that work with people designated as foreign agents told CPJ that it was unclear about how the new law will affect their journalists.
Novaya Gazeta’s Prusenkova said that the newspaper had “very few” designated foreign agents on its staff, and Latvia-based Novaya Gazeta Europe CEO Maria Epifanova told CPJ that her exiled staff accessed their earnings from Western bank accounts. However, there were worries about losing revenue from the sale or rental of homes they left behind, she said.
Ivan Kolpakov, editor-in-chief of the Latvia-based independent outlet Meduza and one of the first Russians to be labeled as a foreign agent, told CPJ that, “Frankly speaking, we have not complied with foreign agent legislation in any form since 2023 [when Meduza was banned as an “undesirable” organization.]”
Meduza is not alone in refusing to comply with the law, despite the risk of criminal prosecution. Media analysis of Russia’s judicial records found that only one-sixth of 620 fines issued in 2023 and the first half of 2024 were paid — 4 million rubles (US$40,453) out of a total of 25.8 million rubles (US$260,954).Sergey Smirnov, the exiled editor-in-chief of the popular outlet Mediazona, could be jailed for two years if convicted in a criminal case opened against him in December 2024 on charges of failing to note on his content that he was designated a foreign agent. Smirnov, who fled to Lithuania from Russia in 2022 after being jailed for a tweet the previous year, is one of 18 journalists — 16 of whom live in exile — prosecuted or fined under the foreign agent legislation in the last quarter of 2024.
“It’s very simple: I’m not paying,” Smirnov told CPJ, undeterred by the potential consequences on his assets back home. “Technically, they could seize the apartment I co-own.”
‘Plague-stricken’
The situation for such exiles can be perilous. In late 2024, Russian authorities continued their cross-border retaliation against the media by ordering the arrests in absentia of exiled journalists Tatyana Felgenhauer and Kirill Martynov.
Some media veterans say they have become too desensitized to focus on their government’s latest legal maneuvers.
“I’m not following these new developments,” said Roman Anin, exiled founder of the Latvia-based investigative website IStories, who is facing arrest for spreading “false information” about Russia’s armed forces in Ukraine.
“I’m already on the wanted list, and IStories has been declared an undesirable organization, which is much worse than being labeled a foreign agent — a status both I and IStories already have,” he told CPJ.
“Russia today is like a plague-stricken part of the world, similar to places like North Korea. There’s no point in seriously discussing what the so-called lawmakers in this system have come up with now.”
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Last April, in a move generating scant media attention, the Air Force announced that it had chosen two little-known drone manufacturers — Anduril Industries of Costa Mesa, California, and General Atomics of San Diego — to build prototype versions of its proposed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), a future unmanned plane intended to accompany piloted aircraft on high-risk combat missions.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including more than $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, and journalists doing vital work into chaotic uncertainty — including in the Pacific.
In a statement published on its website, RSF has called for international public and private support to commit to the “sustainability of independent media”.
- READ MORE: What will US aid cuts mean for the Pacific?
- Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze leaves organisations in the Asia-Pacific region scrambling
- Other Pacific media freedom reports
Since the new American president announced the freeze of US foreign aid on January 20, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has been in turmoil — its website is inaccessible, its X account has been suspended, the agency’s headquarters was closed and employees told to stay home.
South African-born American billionaire Elon Musk, an unelected official, whom Trump chose to lead the quasi-official Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has called USAID a “criminal organisation” and declared: “We’re shutting [it] down.”
Later that day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was named acting director of the agency, suggesting its operations were being moved to the State Department.
Almost immediately after the freeze went into effect, journalistic organisations around the world — including media groups in the Pacific — that receive American aid funding started reaching out to RSF expressing confusion, chaos, and uncertainty.
Large and smaller media NGOs affected
The affected organisations include large international NGOs that support independent media like the International Fund for Public Interest Media and smaller, individual media outlets serving audiences living under repressive conditions in countries like Iran and Russia.“The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism. The programmes that have been frozen provide vital support to projects that strengthen media, transparency, and democracy,” said Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF USA.
President Donald Trump . . . “The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism,” says RSF. Image: RSF “President Trump justified this order by charging — without evidence — that a so-called ‘foreign aid industry’ is not aligned with US interests.
“The tragic irony is that this measure will create a vacuum that plays into the hands of propagandists and authoritarian states. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appealing to the international public and private funders to commit to the sustainability of independent media.”
USAID programmes support independent media in more than 30 countries, but it is difficult to assess the full extent of the harm done to the global media.
Many organisations are hesitant to draw attention for fear of risking long-term funding or coming under political attacks.
According to a USAID fact sheet which has since been taken offline, in 2023 the agency funded training and support for 6200 journalists, assisted 707 non-state news outlets, and supported 279 media-sector civil society organisations dedicated to strengthening independent media.
The USAID website today . . . All USAID “direct hire” staff were reportedly put “on leave” on 7 February 2025. Image: USAID website screenshot APR Activities halted overnight
The 2025 foreign aid budget included $268,376,000 allocated by Congress to support “independent media and the free flow of information”.All over the world, media outlets and organisations have had to halt some of their activities overnight.
“We have articles scheduled until the end of January, but after that, if we haven’t found solutions, we won’t be able to publish anymore,” explains a journalist from a Belarusian exiled media outlet who wished to remain anonymous.
In Cameroon, the funding freeze forced DataCameroon, a public interest media outlet based in the economic capital Douala, to put several projects on hold, including one focused on journalist safety and another covering the upcoming presidential election.
An exiled Iranian media outlet that preferred to remain anonymous was forced to suspend collaboration with its staff for three months and slash salaries to a bare minimum to survive.
An exiled Iranian journalist interviewed by RSF warns that the impact of the funding freeze could silence some of the last remaining free voices, creating a vacuum that Iranian state propaganda would inevitably fill.
“Shutting us off will mean that they’ll have more power,” she says.
USAID: the main donor for Ukrainian media
In Ukraine, where 9 out of 10 outlets rely on subsidies and USAID is the primary donor, several local media have already announced the suspension of their activities and are searching for alternative solutions.“At Slidstvo.Info, 80 percent of our budget is affected,” said Anna Babinets, CEO and co-founder of this independent investigative media outlet based in Kyiv.
The risk of this suspension is that it could open the door to other sources of funding that may seek to alter the editorial line and independence of these media.
“Some media might be shut down or bought by businessmen or oligarchs. I think Russian money will enter the market. And government propaganda will, of course, intensify,” Babinets said.
RSF has already witnessed the direct effects of such propaganda — a fabricated video, falsely branded with the organisation’s logo, claimed that RSF welcomed the suspension of USAID funding for Ukrainian media — a stance RSF has never endorsed.
This is not the first instance of such disinformation.
Finding alternatives quickly
This situation highlights the financial fragility of the sector.According to Oleh Dereniuha, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian local media outlet NikVesti, based in Mykolaiv, a city in southeast Ukraine, “The suspension of US funding is just the tip of the iceberg — a key case that illustrates the severity of the situation.”
Since 2024, independent Ukrainian media outlets have found securing financial sustainability nearly impossible due to the decline in donors.
As a result, even minor budget cuts could put these media outlets in a precarious position.
A recent RSF report stressed the need to focus on the economic recovery of the independent Ukrainian media landscape, weakened by the large-scale Russian invasion of February 24, 2022, which RSF’s study estimated to be at least $96 million over three years.
Moreover, beyond the decline in donor support in Ukraine, media outlets are also facing growing threats to their funding and economic models in other countries.
Georgia’s Transparency of Foreign Influence Law — modelled after Russia’s legislation — has put numerous media organisations at risk. The Georgian Prime Minister welcomed the US president’s decision with approval.
This suspension is officially expected to last only 90 days, according to the US government.
However, some, like Katerina Abramova, communications director for leading exiled Russian media outlet Meduza, fear that the reviews of funding contracts could take much longer.
Abramova is anticipating the risk that these funds may be permanently cut off.
“Exiled media are even in a more fragile position than others, as we can’t monetise our audience and the crowdfunding has its limits — especially when donating to Meduza is a crime in Russia,” Abramova stressed.
By abruptly suspending American aid, the United States has made many media outlets and journalists vulnerable, dealing a significant blow to press freedom.
For all the media outlets interviewed by RSF, the priority is to recover and urgently find alternative funding.
How Fijivillage News reported the USAID crackdown by the Trump administration. Image: Fijivillage News screenshot APR Fiji, Pacific media, aid groups reel shocked by cuts
In Suva, Fiji, as Pacific media groups have been reeling from the shock of the aid cuts, Fijivillage News reports that hundreds of local jobs and assistance to marginalised communities are being impacted because Fiji is an AUSAID hub.According to an USAID staff member speaking on the condition of anonymity, Trump’s decision has affected hundreds of Fijian jobs due to USAID believing in building local capacity.
The staff member said millions of dollars in grants for strengthening climate resilience, the healthcare system, economic growth, and digital connectivity in rural communities were now on hold.
The staff member also said civil society organisations, especially grantees in rural areas that rely on their aid, were at risk.
Pacific Media Watch and Asia Pacific Report collaborate with Reporters Without Borders.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
