EUROPE: Checkmate: Putin has the West cornered – Opinion

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin Opinion by Michael Bociurkiw | CNN As 2022 nears, the West is trying to figure out Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next move on a complex geopolitical chessboard — and preparing an “aggressive package” of sanctions, should he decide to make another land grab in Ukraine.  Tensions are now at their highest since 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea and dispatched “little green men” into Ukraine’s Donbas region. An all-out land invasion of Ukraine is now a real possibility. But let’s face it. Putin could care less about the West’s threats, sitting as he does in the enviable position of being able to call the shots.

Venezuela: How to Briefly Explain Venezuela to an American Audience – Pedro Graterol | Caracas Chronicles

 After going through several stages of migratory grief, I’ve learned some useful things during my experiences talking about my country 

Pedro Graterol | Caracas Chronicles

A couple of weeks ago, I was profoundly moved by a piece written by Nai Gonzalez in Caracas Chronicles. Nai described the dissonance and pain that she felt when she lost her uncle in Venezuela after a long battle with cancer, amid the difficulties that dealing with an oncology patient in Venezuela brings. This pain only increased when she saw a daycare in San Francisco that hailed the Bolivarian revolution as a noble cause rather than the movement responsible for the biggest crisis in Venezuelan history.

As I was sitting at my desk at my job, I found myself forwarding the story to my friends. To Venezuelans abroad because it captured a familiar feeling and to Americans because it illustrated a common yet devastating reality. The reality that Venezuelans abroad face when hearing others talking about our country in a way that dilutes the reality and pain of our crisis.           

VIDEO: George Orwell and 1984: How Freedom Dies – By: Academy of Ideas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37N0aFmO19o

George Orwell and 1984: How Freedom Dies – Watch on YouTube for COMMENTS

Academy of Ideas – 2,353,213 views – Dec 30, 2017 – 3 years ago — Comment by the Creator of this video

I have noticed in the comments that some people are suggesting I misinterpreted Orwell’s view of socialism – specifically that he didn’t advocate a centrally planned economy. But as David Ramsay Steele explains in his book Orwell Your Orwell, in the 1930s and 1940s to be a democratic socialist meant something quite different than it does today.

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Firstly, here is Orwell defining socialism:

   

WORLD– Former slaving-owning nations getting reparations bills for trillions – By Mohamed Hamaludin

By MOHAMED HAMALUDIN – Final installment in a series

The African continent has sent Europe a $777 trillion reparations bill for enslaving 32 million of its people between 1450 and 1850 and theft of its minerals. The demand came during the first conference of the African World Reparations and Repatriation Truth Commission, held in Accra, Ghana. The Accra Declaration called for the debt to be paid within five years and also that African nations’ international debt be “unconditionally cancelled.”

The demand, made 21 years ago, has not been met. However, additional claims for reparations have also been made, including, in some cases, for the atrocities committed under colonialism. The Mau Mau in Kenya won a lawsuit in 2013 against the British government in a case filed by five elderly persons for torture and forced labor, Quartz Africa’s Lynsey Chutel reported. The court ordered the British government to pay $24.8 million to 5,000 Kenyans; another 40,000 filed a similar lawsuit.         

USA: The Future Of American Power – By: Arundhati Roy | The Economist

Arundhati Roy | The Economist  

This By-invitation commentary is part of a series by a range of global thinkers on the future of American power, examining the forces shaping the country’s standing.

IN FEBRUARY 1989 the last Soviet tank rolled out of Afghanistan, its army having been decisively defeated in a punishing, nearly decade-long war by a loose coalition of mujahideen, who were trained, armed, funded and indoctrinated by the American and Pakistani Intelligence services.

By November that year the Berlin wall had fallen and the Soviet Union began to collapse. When the cold war ended, the United States took its place at the head of a unipolar world order. In a heartbeat, radical Islam replaced communism as the most imminent threat to world peace. After the attacks of September 11^th, 2001: The political world as we knew it spun on its axis. And the pivot of that axis appeared to be located somewhere in the rough mountains of Afghanistan.        

WAR and CONFLICT: Another One Bites the Dust in Afghanistan – Opinion

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Another One Bites the Dust

For the better part of three thousand years, the bleak yet beautiful land we now call Afghanistan has enticed, entrapped, and ultimately humiliated one ambitious conquering power after another.  The United States of America is merely the latest in a long list of hubristic nations to see its vainglorious pretensions laid low by Afghanistan’s daunting terrain and deadly history. 

 As the last Americans on the ground scurry to escape before the curtain finally drops on a twenty-year, two trillion-dollar war, we leave behind nothing but blood and ignominy.  Thousands of Afghans who believed our promises have been betrayed.  Thousands of American families, whose daughters and sons were told they were fighting for a noble purpose, will be left with nothing but flag-draped coffins.  Friends and foes around the world  will see in this debacle dispositive proof — as if any more were needed — that the United States is neither the great power it pretends to be nor the trustworthy ally it claims to be.     

GUYANA: History: Atkinson Field and World War II- A Memoir 1943 to 1946 – By Ivan O. Carew

By Stabroek News –  July 7, 2011 – By Ivan O. Carew

Having been born and having grown up in the capital city, Georgetown, in the county of Demerara, British Guiana, now called Guyana, I did have some knowledge of the villages on the Eastern bank of the Demerara River.

Historically Guyana was once a Dutch possession, hence many of the villages were given Dutch names that still exist to this day. To the best of my recollection there was the village of Soesdyke (Dutch) then there was Madewini (Dutch) sparsely populated in those days with a few thatch-roof houses. Beyond that was Hyde Park with a hilly terrain and  rainforest. Residents along the river banks did farming on the slopes of the hills.   

Former Suriname President Bouterse’s 20-year jail sentence for murder confirmed

Demerara Waves -: Denis Chabrol in  Monday, 30 August 2021 

Former President Desi Bouterse’

Suriname’s former President Desi Bouterse’s 20-year jail sentence for the murder of 15 persons while he had been a military ruler in 1982 was Monday morning confirmed.

Starnieuws reports that Bouterse was not in court, saying he was sick and no arrest has been ordered.

The session lasted a very short time. No new facts have emerged, the Court Martial concluded.         

GUYANA: Multi-million dollar gold heist…Detectives find part of stolen cash buried in soldier’s backyard

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– Three now in custody

Kaieteur News – After grilling suspects, interviewing persons of interest, receiving tip offs and locating vital evidence, detectives Saturday night made a major breakthrough by recovering some of the cash that was stolen in the multi-million dollar gold heist last Thursday.

The recovered cash, according to information reaching this media house totaled to $18M and was found buried in the backyard of a serving member of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF). He has since been arrested along with another GDF member believed to be his girlfriend.         

HAITI: Doubts raised about who was behind the assassination of Haiti’s president

Police claims that Jovenel Moïse was killed by a mainly Colombian hit squad thrown into doubt

PHOTO: Haitians gather at the US embassy in hopes of visas amid fear and uncertainty following the assassination of the country’s president. Photograph: Orlando Barría/EPA

Tom Phillips , Joe Parkin Daniels  –Sat 10 Jul 2021  – The Guardian UK

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Questions have been raised over Haiti’s official narrative for the assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse, who was gunned down at his mansion in Port-au-Prince last Wednesday, July 7, 2021.