At a time when democracy is being challenged around the world, the contest of ideas has never been more important. All of us invested in the democratic project need to do more than wring our hands – we need to demonstrate what we are doing to act against anti-democratic tendencies.

THE HON MARK DREYFUS KC MP
ATTORNEY-GENERAL
CABINET SECRETARY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS

Sydney Institute Address
Transparency and accountability in modern politics
Sydney
5 September 2024

Thank you Gerard for your introduction – it’s wonderful to be here at the Sydney Institute.

US President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he nominated General Keith Kellogg to serve as presidential assistant and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

"I am very pleased to nominate General Keith Kellogg to serve as Assistant to the President and Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia. Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

What's known about Keith Kelloggs 

Kellogg is a highly decorated, retired three-star US Army general who is said to have extensive military and international affairs experience

It is a pleasure to be back at the National Press Club. After an absence of more than a decade, it is welcome to catch up with old friends and colleagues and hopefully to make new ones.

I commence by offering acknowledgement to the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, the traditional custodians on these ancestral lands and recognise their enduring connection to the land and waterways around us. I pay respect to Elders past and present and to the Elders of other communities in Australia.

The 16th annual summit of the BRICS grouping took place in Kazan, Russia. The three-day event was much anticipated and lived up to its billing as a breakthrough in international politics. Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted 25 heads of state. Over 40 nations were represented by 20,000 delegates.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/11/26/world-leaders-who-attended-brics-summit-in-russia-kazan/

The Bank of Russia announced on Wednesday it will suspend purchases of foreign currency on the domestic exchange from November 28 until the end of the year, to reduce market volatility.

The announcement came as the Russian currency slid to near-record lows, reaching 114 rubles against the US dollar on Wednesday.

The UK will save £500m by scrapping old military equipment early, the defence secretary has announced, despite a warning that the UK faces "increasing global threats".

Ships, drones and helicopters - some more than 50 years old - will be decommissioned ahead of schedule, John Healey told the Commons.

But critics said the move would leave UK defence weaker, at a time of growing international tensions and after more than a decade of funding pressures on the armed forces. 

Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said Labour was "scrapping capabilities just as the threats to our nation are growing".

The UN on Tuesday reported that Israel either denied or impeded all life-saving assistance attempts in the northern Gaza Strip in November.

"Our colleagues in the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report that none of the UN's 41 attempts to reach Palestinians in besieged areas of North Gaza with life-saving assistance this month has been facilitated by Israeli authorities," deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said at a news conference.

Saying that 37 attempts were denied by Israeli authorities, Haq reported that "four missions were approved, but then impeded on the ground and accomplished only partially."

With winter approaching, Haq stated that thousands of forcefully displaced Palestinians are "even more vulnerable," and sewage build-up in high-occupancy areas is "putting people's health in jeopardy."

There is a scene early on in Nathanael West’s satirical 1933 novella Miss Lonelyheartsthat reeks of depression, despair, and genius. It’s hard to forget. The protagonist is a lovelorn advice columnist for a newspaper in New York City who receives a letter from a teenage girl who describes herself as having the makings of a beauty, with a slender figure that many rave about, but she bitterly notes she has never had a date. Can it be, she asks, because she has no nose?

BIDEN’S LAST HURRAH AGAINST RUSSIA AND PUTIN
Frustration escalates for the the lame duck president

BY SEYMOUR HERSH

Protectionist tariffs are associated with a long history of economic and social calamities in America. An important reason for this is that protectionist tariffs are a political tool of plunder and theft, and people don’t generally take kindly to being plundered and robbed. 

Our History of Protectionist Tariff Train Wrecks

BY Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Explosion of bankruptcies in France: post-Covid rebound effect or lasting crisis?
In France, the number of business failures has broken a new annual record in recent weeks, now exceeding 66,000. A historic increase that is worrying, even as the government plans to implement a drastic savings plan to reduce the State's abysmal debt.

The list is growing and the outlook is getting bleaker for French companies. More than 66,000 companies have gone bankrupt in the last 12 months, according to the latest estimates from specialist firm Altares, published in October.

A historic increase of more than 20% compared to the previous 12 months, which surpasses the peaks of 2012, linked to the debt crisis in the eurozone, and 2009, caused by the subprime crisis.

It has been clear since the terror attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001 — the date I choose to mark a great turn in the global order — that America’s abdication of its postwar hegemony was to rank high among the 21st century’s defining events. 

The questions from that day onward have been how the policy cliques in Washington would respond to such a change in America’s place in the community of nations and what they might do — how great the risks they would take — to avoid, or at least forestall, this world-historical shift. 

It’s the biggest and most controversial Defence project in the country’s history with $368B worth of eggs put in the one basket. The Government would have you believe it’s all going well. Former project manager and submariner Rex Patrick serves up the truth.

In April 2024, MWM set out the high-level risks associated with the AUKUS nuclear submarine program; political, economic, technical and management, with the article delving into some of the risks already in play.

But with the project having passed its third birthday, it’s worth looking at the various stages of the plan on record to see how things are unfolding.

This piece was originally published in the June 1996 issue of Monthly Review.

It is based on an article previously published in the December 28, 1995 issue of the Egyptian Al Ahram Weekly, translated from French by Pascale Ghazaleh and edited by Mona Anis, assistant editor.

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By Samir Amin (re-posted Nov 26, 2024)

This ain’t a click bait title. It is a legitimate question. I discussed it with George Galloway, Thursday morning my time, before we learned of Russia’s missile strike on the massive Yuzhmash defense plant in Dnipropetrovsk. Since then, there has been some troubling warning indicators.

BY LARRY JOHNSON

Consider the following:

The United States opened a new military base in Poland two weeks ago — one step closer to Russia.

Vice Admiral Buchanan announced this week that the United States is prepared to fight and win a nuclear war with Russia.

For the third year in a row the nations of the world, meeting in solemn climate conclave, have vowed to cook their children and grandchildren alive.

COP29, chaired by petro-state Azerbaijan and stuffed to the gills with 1773 oil industry lobbyists, was never going to deliver more than tokenism and lip service to the greatest compound crisis ever to befall H. sapiens.

Any move by outgoing US President Joe Biden to help Ukraine obtain nuclear weapons would be “insane”and would amount to treason, Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed.

The House representative from Georgia was reacting to a post on Tuesday by entrepreneur Mario Nawfal, who weighed in on efforts by the Biden administration to boost military aid to Kiev, including alleged discussions on nuclear arms.   

Nawfal described the purported talks as a “desperate” move “to tip the scales against Russia” before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, which would mark an “unprecedented escalation” in the conflict.