...a picture of a tired looking Xi Jinping – taken at the G20 – the Sydney Morning Herald ran the headline: The Face of Capitulation. It was as banal as it was predictable. It was for a Peter Hartcher story that crowed at having slayed the dragon (sub-text: this was Hartcher’s personal victory).

After having been among the earliest promoters of the China Threat and having kept banging gongs and cymbals for the past five years to keep it alive, the Herald could hardly have said anything else as the Albanese Government decisively changed course in the management of Australia’s relationship with China.

Is there a link between 'Aid to Ukraine,' the US Democratic Party and the suspicious collapse of the FTX Crypto exchange?

We don't know exactly how much money was raised for Kiev, and how much of it reached its intended destination

Breaking news throughout the first half of November has been dominated by coverage of the sudden collapse of FTX, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges.

By Felix Livshitz

THIS IS A PICTURE OF BANKSY TAG ART IN UKRAINE, SHOWING A KID BEATING PUTIN AT JUDO, AFTER THE BOMBING OF A SCHOOL. WE CRY FOR THE KIDS WHO MAY HAVE DIED, YET WE CANNOT SUPPORT BANKSY'S EFFORTS WHICH HAVE TAKEN A WESTERN SIDE TO AN ISSUE THAT HAS BEEN 100 PER CENT CREATED BY THE WEST (USA). BANKSY COULD HAVE DONE SIMILAR ART BETWEEN 2014 AND EARLY 2022 IN THE DONETSK REGION, WHICH HAD BEEN BOMBARDED BY UKRAINIAN NAZI TROOPS — KILLING MORE THAN 14,000 (UNITED NATIONS RECORDED FIGURE). AS WELL, BANKSY COULD HAVE DONE A TAG ABOUT THE BURNING OF RUSSIANS/UKRAINIAN IN ODESSA. THUS TAKING SIDE IS FRAUGHT WITH WESTERN DISINFORMATION USING REAL HUMAN TRAGEDIES.

I THUS REFRAINED TO MODIFY THIS PICTURE WHICH I COULD HAVE AS THUS:

World events have abandoned any concept of reason or reality.  Nuclear war is now seen by many, perhaps most, as inevitable.  Insanity and injustice are flourishing and humanity will either end or the mechanisms that make up our world as we know it must grind to a halt.

No side even cares to bring God into the equation anymore.  Third Reich occultism is reborn in not just Ukraine but across NATO and the EU.  Extremist minorities in the US and across Europe are being empowered to establish a monstrous world order characterized by something far darker than simple tyranny.

BY Gordon Duff

There are milestones.  Former Vatican exorcist Malachi Martin, in his NY Times bestseller Keys of Blood addresses the issue of inherent evil invading Europe and the Christian world:

Corruption has been eradicated from Ukraine and all Russian influences have left or been chased out, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told a global audience at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum on Thursday.

“No one will be able to forgive corruption in the future Ukraine,” he said, explaining that all the corrupt officials had fled the country in the months following the launch of Russia’s military operation. The remaining officials would not be tempted to “interfere in business operations” because all government services had gone electronic, he added.

Do you remember when Labor parliamentarians were vocal advocates in the Australian Peace Movement?

If so, you are probably part of the Whitlam /Hawke / Keating generation when there were lively foreign policy debates within the parliament, the ALP and trade unions. We questioned the American alliance because many of us had watched the consequences of the Vietnam War. We were influenced by “People for Nuclear Disarmament”, because our generation understood the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the first nuclear bombs devastated the people of Japan.

by Margaret Reynolds

During the 1970s many of us campaigned against nuclear ships visiting Australian ports and in my home city of Townsville we opposed B52 bombers being stationed at the North Queensland air base.

MANY PEOPLE ARE AFRAID OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. IT'S UNDERSTANDASHFJIJLE.... YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. WE'RE CRAP AT SOLVING PROBLEMS DUE TO MISUNDERSTANDINGS, PREJUDICES AND IGNORANCE. OUR BRAIN RESISTS LEARNING THAT IS CONTRARY TO PREVIOUS ACCEPTANCE.

ENTER THE MACHINE LEARNING ALGORYTHMS.

"Oh, grandmother," she said, "what big ears you have."

"The better to hear you with, my child," was the reply.

"But, grandmother, what big eyes you have," she said.

"The better to see you with, my dear."

"But, grandmother, what large hands you have."

"The better to hug you with."

"Oh, but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have."

"The better to eat you with."

https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stories/little-red-riding-hood

MORAL(s) OF THE STORY (SO FAR):

Only once has a defeated President gone on to win re-election four years after his first term. Grover Cleveland, who won in 1884 and again in 1892 is generally ranked by historians in the middle rung of American Presidents. Beside Donald Trump he is a paragon of Presidential dignity.

We in Australia are used to a ceaseless election cycle, but that Trump announced his candidature two weeks after the mid-term elections is a record. The rest of Joe Biden’s first term will be overshadowed by the spectre of the 2024 elections, and Congress will act increasingly in light of this.

By Dennis Altman

Secretary-general of the United Nations António Guterres, Your Excellencies, heads of state and heads of missions accredited to the Seventy-seventh United Nations General Assembly; Deputy Secretary-general of the United Nations Amina Mohammed, to all of you.

I come from one of the three most beautiful countries on Earth. There is an explosion of life there. Thousands of multicolored species in the seas, in the skies, on the land. I come from the land of yellow butterflies and magic. There, in the mountains and valleys of all the shades of green, flow not just abundant waters but also torrents of blood.

Colombian president Gustavo Petro

I come from a country of bloodsoaked beauty. My country is not just beautiful — it is also violent.

Balinese culture, a perpetual exercise in sophisticated subtlety, makes no distinction between the secular and the supernatural – sekala and niskala.

Sekala is what our senses may discern. As in the ritualized gestures of world leaders – real and minor – at a highly polarized G20.

Niskala is what cannot be sensed directly and can only be “suggested.” And that also applies to geopolitics. 

BY PEPE ESCOBAR

 Once a year, delegates from almost 200 countries gather for the purpose of finding ways to keep climate change from spiraling out of control. This time around, they’re meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27. And the event is brought to you by the largest plastic producer in the world, Coca-Cola.

While Coca-Cola is considered a lower-tier sponsor than the conference’s “partners,” which include Microsoft, IBM, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, Coca-Cola’s role has garnered an exceptionally large amount of criticism.

By Kate Yoder / Grist

The meeting between Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping put me in mind of the public reaction in Australia when Whitlam met Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1971.

The meeting in Bali is potentially more than just a diplomatic reset. It could be a pivotal moment for Australia, in the dynamics of the ‘China question’ in our domestic politics – the way we think about and how we approach the relationship.

Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky has stepped out of line in his relationships with his foreign backers, Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, has said. She was referring to his attempt to nudge NATO into retaliating against Russia for a deadly incident in Poland.

“Zelensky sits in a bunker and cannot understand why his version about a ‘Russian missile in Poland’ was dismissed even by the worst of Russophobes,” she wrote on social media on Wednesday. The president, she added, should realize that his job is “to do the dirty work and not tell bosses what they should do.”

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