Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, aka Boris Johnson, aka BoJo – former British prime minister, foreign secretary, mayor of London, leader of the Conservative Party (Tories), and, last but not least, member of Parliament – is hawking his forthcoming memoir. Under the title “Unleashed,” the publisher promises it will be like no other prime minister’s reminiscences before. That, for once, is something we could almost believe, even if it’s Johnson who says it. 

Five-year-old Tala Ibrahim Muhammad al-Jalat is just about awake but not moving, her milky eyes rolled to the back of her head.

Tala is severely dehydrated and malnourished.

By her bedside in Nasser hospital in Khan Younis her father Ibrahim Muhmmad al-Jalat holds her hand, careful not to disturb the intravenous drip feeding into her wrist.

He knows that the scorching weather, with temperatures close to 40 degrees, and a lack of clean water have brought his daughter close to death.

"The situation is getting worse," he says.

"The temperature in our tent is unimaginable, and the water we drink is definitely contaminated, because both young and old are getting sick."

Wind, solar and pumped hydro energy storage can provide all the electrical energy we need, on demand, cheaply, quickly, with minimal carbon emissions. This is the message that will cut through the energy confusion. The clean energy debate is hampered by widespread lack of awareness of off-river pumped hydro energy storage. It is the third leg of the clean energy tripod. It uses mature technologies and there are abundant suitable sites.

Russia’s intervention in Ukraine was triggered by the irresponsible and provocative rhetoric of US President Joe Biden and his administration about Kiev joining NATO, Donald Trump has said.

Trump, who is seeking a rematch with Biden for the presidency in November, made the comments during a conversation on foreign policy with ‘All-In’ podcast co-host David Sacks on Thursday.

“For 20 years, I heard that if Ukraine goes into NATO, it’s a real problem for Russia. I’ve heard that for a long time. And I think that’s really why this war started,” Trump said. 

The Republican presidential candidate pointed out that there had been no talk about armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine when he was in the White House, but as soon as Biden replaced him, things began to deteriorate.

Gus is in hospital with a bad case of old age. Back on deck mid next week.

French President Emmanuel Macron is taking the bull by the horns. On Sunday evening, after being roundly defeated in the European elections, Macron announced a new election for the French parliament, the National Assembly.

Macron Says France Working To ‘Finalize’ Plan To Send Troops to Ukraine
The French leader says other NATO countries have agreed to send troops to train Ukrainian forces

by Dave DeCamp 

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said France was working to “finalize a coalition” of NATO countries that are willing to send troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, a step that would mark a huge escalation in the proxy war.

During a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris, Macron said Ukraine’s request for NATO trainers was “legitimate” and downplayed the risk of escalation.

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE BY PSEUDO-HISTORIANICAL PETER HARTCHER AT THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD IS A WINCE-LEMON-VINEGAR-CHLORIDRIC ACID INDUCED ROTTEN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO RUSSIA WHICH PROVOKED THE MILITARY INTERVENTION IN NAZI YUCKRAINE. 

ONE CAN GET BLUE OR RED IN THE FACE, HARTCHER HAS ONE TRACK IN HIS SHRINKING UNINTELLIGENT PEA-THINKING APPARATUS:... RUSSIA WANTS TO RECREATE ITS FORMER EMPIRE OR THE GLORIOUS USSR OR WHATEVER THE AMERICANS HAVE BEEN DOING SINCE 1776...

Launched from the sanctuary of its own airspace, Russia has been using 1.5-tonne "glide bombs" to help gain ground and wreak havoc on Ukraine's second-largest city.

And there's little Ukraine can do right now to stop them.

Russia's big, cheap, retrofitted Soviet-era bombs have become one of its most effective weapons in the full-scale invasion.

NEW YORK – This city’s splendid Fifth Avenue and parts of the adjacent Central Park were thronged last weekend by masses of pro-Israel demonstrators demanding even more US support of Israel’s laying to waste of Gaza.

New York is the world’s leading Jewish City, exceeding even Israel’s Tel Aviv. More important, this city’s billionaires, many of them Jewish, are Israel’s most ardent and influential supporters. Their donations reach almost all politicians, high officials and, just revealed, important black and Hispanic members of Congress.

    by Eric Margolis

The United States's provocative actions are the principal reason the "unthinkable" possibility of nuclear war is becoming ever more likely.

The unthinkable is becoming thinkable. Nuclear war. The United States’s provocative actions are the principal reason. Desperate to remain the global supremo, our foreign affairs elites are embarked on an increasingly dangerous venture. Going mano a mano with China and Russia in a vain attempt to preserve its hegemonic standing against the tides of history, America is endangering itself and the rest of world.

A Trump/Republican victory would give oxygen to every right-wing hate group across the world. In the increasingly unconvincing defence of AUKUS our political leaders like to speak of our shared values with the United States. This rhetoric becomes increasingly dangerous if the United States lurches yet further to the right. If a Trump victory means people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator Ted Cruz can claim they speak for the majority sheer decency demands that Australia distance itself.

By Dennis Altman

PARIS: Beneath the crystal chandeliers of the gilded reception hall of the Elysee Palace, opened in 1889 with a party for 8000 people, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted US President Joe Biden, at a state dinner intended to celebrate a very old alliance and show the bond is greater than its intermittent frictions.

Biden, addressing the French leader as ‘‘Emmanuel’’, rose from a long table adorned with a bouquet of pink peonies and roses to say that ‘‘France was our first ally, and that is not insignificant’’.

BY Roger Cohen.

If anybody in Australia is interested in real “Truth Telling” then look no further than the continued operation of Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre in Darwin, NT. Don Dale has, and continues to provide, the real truth for all to see as regards the disaster that is race relations in Australia and how distant the prospect is of ever achieving Reconciliation. Forget ‘Dreamtime at the G’, NAIDOC and Reconciliation Weeks, Sorry and Apology Days, Welcome to Countrys and Paying our Respect to Traditional Owners Past and Present.

The people of the West are all more and more worried to see their elites, heads of state of the USA and of the EU, dragging them into a war against Russia, all this “with flowers in guns and singing” , exactly like in 1914!

Recent events are pushing France and Europe towards a harsh confrontation with Russian forces. While many Europeans hoped and wrongly believed that the war would soon end.

by Valérie Bérenger

Indeed, the rumours in the corridors of the French ministries suggested it, the European chancelleries seemed defeatist on the verge of collapse, going so far as to say more or less openly that “the cause was lost", to the point that we could believing that reality would – finally – take precedence over the narrative.