Do your best. Speak the truth.
In the end, many Romans concluded that civilisation was simply not worth the price they were being asked to pay for it … it is only a matter of time before our own populations decide that the price we pay for civilisation simply isn’t worth it anymore
They are are being forced to attack strong Russian defenses on foot. This is a climax of the gruesome massacre of Ukrainian men we have seen since the beginning of the war. Zelenskyy appears to be fighting for a third side, neither Russian nor Ukrainian. ABN
China has accelerated the implementation of an integrated program, founded on Xi Jinping Thought, to weaponise law, with both territorial and extraterritorial effect. Expressly termed “lawfare,” this program seeks to reshape economic relations with the rest of the world, creating a capital market “with Chinese characteristics”.
Analysis by the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies signals China’s intention. The goal, foreign minister Wang Yi is quoted as saying, is make to “good use of rule-by-law as a weapon and constantly enrich and improve the legal toolbox for foreign struggles” against governments, businesses, and individuals Beijing views as insufficiently deferential.
The central elements are China’s amended Counter-Espionage Law (2023) and new Law on Foreign Relations (2023). The old Counter-Espionage Law focused on unmasking spies. The amended law targets ordinary business practices, such as gathering information on local markets, potential partners, and competitors. While the old law sought to protect “state secrets and intelligence,” the new law adds an all-encompassing new category — “other documents, data, materials, or items related to national security or interests,” which could mean anything.
The effect has been to make potentially radioactive any negative information about China, including its economy.
UPDATE: This is an extremely good interview. Crooke makes deep and excellent points again and again. ABN
TOKYO, Sept 12 (Reuters) – Japan has appointed a serving government official to act as its de facto defence attache in Taiwan, four sources said, elevating security ties in a move likely to anger China, which claims the strategic, democratic island as its own.
Japan does not have any formal diplomatic representation in Taiwan, and instead handles bilateral relations through the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association in Taipei, which is chiefly staffed by reassigned foreign and trade ministry officials. The defence attache role, however, has until now been held by a retired Japan Self Defence Force officer to avoid antagonising China.
He has been joined by an official dispatched by the defence ministry to enhance information gathering and communicate with Taiwan’s military, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
It is also “symbolic” of Japan’s support for Taiwan, said one of the people who know about the appointment. “Taiwan had been asking for an active duty defence official to fill the post,” he added.
Highlighting Tokyo’s nervousness about Beijing’s reaction, the move was halted last year after a Japanese media report about the plan, the sources said.
Japan’s defence ministry said that it would only pursue “non-governmental” ties to Taiwan, a Japanese colony from 1895-1945, that were within the bounds of a 1972 joint statement that recognised Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China.
The failures of the ruling elite has plunged South Africa into a dire political and economic crisis. Six out of 10 young South Africans are jobless and more than half of the country’s 60 million residents live in poverty, according to the World Bank. Furthermore, South Africa’s murder rate is one of the highest in the world, with around 25,000 victims per year. Since Apartheid, more than half a million people have met a violent death.
For the fiscal year 2021-2022, the auditor-general found that 219 of the country’s 257 municipalities did not have clean audits. In countless cities and municipalities, the infrastructure, administration, education system, health system, sewage and garbage collection are all subpar or completely dysfunctional. In many places, not even the trains are running, while some regions are forced to go for days without running water.
An independent investigative commission recently disclosed the degree to which public officeholders have systematically plundered state-owned companies and institutions and driven them into bankruptcy – from the flagship airline SAA and the public broadcaster SABC to the national postal service. Thus far, not a single high-ranking politician has been convicted in the final appeal. And despite repeated pledges to take action, President Cyril Ramaphosa hasn’t dared to do anything, likely out of concern that the kleptocrats in his own party would push him out of office.
UPDATE: This is an excellent discussion. Mearsheimer makes many insightful points very clearly. There is also continuous exemplary interaction between Mearsheimer and Mercouris, showing one way the sharing of ideas can best proceed. ABN
Waves of anger spread across the South China Sea and India this week, following China’s publication of a new official map renewing its illegal claims to most of the sea and adding new claims along the Indian border.
China’s latest hegemonic behavior appears in the form of what it calls the “new standard” map, published by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources on August 28. The new map repeats the 9 Dash Line claims made by China and rejected by the United Nations’ Law of the Sea tribunal, while also claiming new territory around Taiwan and to Inda’s north. This comes days after President Xi Jinping declared at the latest BRIC summit that “hegemonism is not in China’s DNA.”
The biggest furor arose, unsurprisingly, with India, where China has unilaterally claimed two new areas, angering both India and Nepal. But India is not alone.
“Most of the contention seems to be that it claims Indian territory – Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin – as Chinese territory, but it also claims some territory of Russia [Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island], as well as the entirety of the South China Sea and Taiwan,” Malcolm Davis, an Indo-Pacific expert at The Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra.
Crooke is excellent in this video. ABN
UPDATE: A mere glance at this map show how tragic it is that Europe did not seize the opportunity to form a solid, mutually beneficial alliance with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Instead, directed by US neocons, Europe did almost everything it could to destroy the possibility of that alliance. All the blame falls on the neocons, no one else. Russia, especially under Putin, did all it could to become a rightful member of the Western alliance. The worst foreign policy mistake in world history has been the neocon West antagonizing Russia when they should have been embracing her with open arms. I have been watching this tragedy unfold over the past thirty plus years and take no pleasure in seeing what has resulted. The West will go on, the world will go on, but what a monumental waste it was to reject Russia. ABN
Chinese President Xi Jinping defined all the major decisions embedded in the 15th BRICS summit in South Africa as “historic”. That may be seen as an understatement.
It will take time for the Global South, or Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright President Lukashenko), not to mention the stunned collective West, to fully grasp the enormity of the new strategic stakes.
President Putin, for his part, described the negotiations on BRICS expansion as quite difficult. By now a relatively accurate picture is emerging of what really went down on that table in Johannesburg.
India wanted 3 new members. China wanted as many as 10. A compromise was finally reached, with 6 members: Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Argentina and Ethiopia.
So from now on it’s BRICS 11. And that’s just the beginning. Starting with the rotating Russian presidency of BRICS on January 1, 2024, more partners will be progressively included, and most certainly a new round of full members will be announced at the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in October next year.
So we may soon progress to BRICS 20 – on the way to BRICS 40. The G7, for all practical purposes, is sliding towards oblivion.
…The BRICS 11 Shock of the New, in the energy sphere, is a sharp historical counterpoint to the 1973 oil shock, after which Riyadh started wallowing in petrodollars. Now Saudi Arabia under MbS is operating a tectonic shift, in the process of becoming strategically aligned with Russia-China-India-Iran.
Diplomatic coup does not even begin to describe it. This is the second stage of the Russian-initiated and Chinese-finalized rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, recently sealed in Beijing. The Russia-China strategic leadership, working patiently in synch, never lost sight of the ball.
Excellent analysis, straight to the point. US neocons have brought us to this dismal end. Like a tribe of uneducable adolescents they have wreaked havoc with US and deep Western interests as well as global interests for all. Self-aggrandizement has been the neocon only goal throughout their thirty year reign over USA and the West, and all the world can see it. ABN
American Buddhist Net 