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Israel And Its Neighborhood, An Interview With Ambassador Chas Freeman

A German newspaper recently published an interview with the Egyptian foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, who expressed his profound frustration with the Americans as Israel continues its assault in Gaza—and now the West Bank and Lebanon. You can’t work with the Americans, he complained in so many words. They say one thing, they rarely mean it, and typically do something else altogether. It prompts my first question in the context of the enlarging crisis in West Asia, please comment on the diplomatic positions of America’s allies in the region. What, generally, is going through their minds? Why haven’t they reacted more vigorously to the Israeli assault? Are they simply “bought,” in one or another way? Or is there more to it?

How Russia Is Overwhelming Ukrainian Frontlines

There seems to be a bit of a panic along the Ukrainian front lines. Several units, for lack of men, have recently left positions they were supposed to hold. The daily progress of the Russian forces along the line is increasing. The medium level of the Ukrainian military seems to understand that their defense is breaking down.

Xi Jinping: Global South Countries March Together To Modernisation

The summit meeting of the BRICS cooperation mechanism was held, October 22-24, in Kazan, the capital city of the Republic of Tatarstan in the Russian Federation, and was hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Alongside dozens of other events within its framework, the summit of the nine full members of BRICS was held on October 23, under the theme “Strengthening Multilateralism for Equitable Global Development and Security”. This was the first such gathering in which Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were joined by Ethiopia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran, since the 2023 summit meeting held in South Africa invited the latter four countries to take up full membership in the first wave of BRICS expansion.

BRICS Adds 13 New ‘Partner Countries’ At Historic Summit In Kazan, Russia

The Global South-led organization BRICS is growing. More and more countries support the group’s mission: to build a multipolar world, with alternative economic institutions that are more representative and democratic, not dominated by the Western powers. BRICS held a summit in Kazan, Russia in October 2024, where 13 new “partner nations” were accepted. At this historic meeting, China’s President Xi Jinping referred to BRICS as “a vanguard for advancing global governance reform” and “reform of the international financial architecture”. Bolivia’s left-wing President Luis Arce argued that “the shield of BRICS and multipolarity” can protect formerly colonized nations, helping them resist “Western unipolarity and the tyranny of the dollar”.

BRICS Grain Exchange Would Depoliticize Global Cereal Market

Russia proposed creating a BRICS grain exchange that would serve as a new trading platform for the world’s largest producers and consumers of food grains. The measure could help depoliticize global markets and eliminate intermediaries in the form of Western exchanges, according to experts consulted by Sputnik. The dominance of the United States in the world economy did not start with the dollar. After the Second World War, the US became the leading supplier of wheat and corn. As a result, the entire modern infrastructure of the global grain market has been shaped by Washington. Thus, the benchmarks are made by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), and the US dollar is primarily used as the settlement currency.

Ukraine: Zelenski Begs Russia To Renew Deals He Had Botched

The actor who has been playing the President of Ukraine for a while is getting cold feet. Winter is coming and the energy networks of Ukraine are near to the point of total breakdown. There could have been agreements in place to prevent that. But the Ukrainian side had botched those deals. Now Zelenski is begging to renew them. In late 2022 the Russian military launched a bombing campaign against electricity switching stations in Ukraine. A lot of transformers got blown up. The Ukrainian military responded by concentrating its air defenses near electricity stations.

BRICS Plans ‘Multi-Currency System’ To Challenge US Dollar Dominance

The Global South-oriented organization BRICS has released plans to transform the international monetary and financial system and challenge the dominance of the US dollar. As the chair of BRICS for 2024, Russia proposed the creation of a BRICS Cross-Border Payment Initiative (BCBPI), in which members of the organization will use their national currencies to trade. BRICS will likewise establish an alternative messaging infrastructure to circumvent the SWIFT system of interbank communication, which is overseen by the United States and subject to Western unilateral sanctions. This “multi-currency system” will also include new mechanisms not only to de-dollarize trade, but also to encourage investment in BRICS members and other emerging markets and developing economies, including a BRICS Clear platform, a “new system of securities accounting and settlement”, and financial instruments denominated in national currencies.

Resetting BRICS For The South Slavs, New Europe And The World

On October 22, in the capital of the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, located less than five hours along the M-12 “Vostok” highway from Moscow, the 16th Kazan BRICS summit opens – an association of 10 countries of a new geopolitical format, ahead of all the slow-moving Western alliances that has fallen into recession or stagnation. Already, Kazan is fully ready to host the leaders of more than 33 countries participating in the BRICS summit in a year when Russia is the chairman of the association of leaders of the multipolar world. The Moscow Kremlin noted that Kazan is fully prepared to host more than 20,000 guests and the summit organizers took into account the interests of more than 30 countries planning to receive an invitation to BRICS or become partner states of this association in the near future.

Between Russia And Iran All’s Well That Ends Well

The mystery about the hastily-arranged “working meeting” between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian at Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, has only deepened after the event. This was their first-ever meeting. Putin didn’t even have the post-event presser. Why such a meeting last Friday was considered necessary becomes an intriguing thought, as the two leaders are to meet in Kazan, Russia, within days on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit on Oct. 22-24. Russia and Iran have had a difficult relationship through centuries.

Catastrophe At The Ballot Box

The United States of America is on the verge of World War III in three different theaters. Its social economy and infrastructure are in tatters. It’s actively engaged in genocidal ethnic cleansing — killing tens if not hundreds of thousands of mainly children and women and spitting on every precept of humanitarian and international law — on behalf of an atavistic settler-colonial project. It is more than ever despised and less than ever feared in a world escaping its control. And in this catastrophic conjuncture, the U.S. political and media culture throws up two of the most incompetent figures imaginable to vie for the role of leading us into the abyss.

Kiev Issues A New ‘Victory Plan’ For Ukraine Consisting Of Endless War

In the second half of September, Ukrainian authorities have been particularly active with foreign policy, against a backdrop of uncertainty over the outcome of the elections to take place in the United States on November 5. Americans will vote for a president on that date, and also for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate. The continuation by Ukraine of its military operations against Russia is essential to Kiev’s continued hold on power, but Ukraine is completely dependent financially and militarily on the United States and European Union. Volodymyr Zelensky, whose five-year electoral mandate as president Ukraine expired in April 2024, is under increased pressure by US legislators to present some kind of coherent ‘victory plan’ with dates, figures, and deadlines that can be sold to a largely uninformed but increasingly skeptical US electorate.

US Navy Was At Scene Of Nord Stream Blasts: Danish Media

Prior to the explosions that destroyed the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea, US Navy ships were present at the location, according to a local harbormaster quoted in the Danish newspaper Politiken. The Nord Stream 2 pipelines, a major infrastructure project aimed at delivering natural gas from Russia to Europe, were targeted in an act of sabotage in September 2022, with Moscow pointing fingers at the West or Ukraine. In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ukrainian businessmen had funded the attack on the project, although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had ordered to halt the attack at the CIA’s request.

Veteran Remembers Kris Kristofferson: Courage In Pursuit of Justice

Kristofferson was a kind soul with a courageous heart who sought justice. I first met Kris in the late 1980’s when I was asked to tour with him in Moscow. Kris’s wife was an attorney like my wife Jacqueline whom he called ‘Counselor’ after discovering that she was a Public Defender and lawyer for the American Indian Movement.   We all stayed at the Rossiya Hotel, only blocks from Red Square and traveled together in a bus to perform in venues large and small. Our last show was held in an arena with thousands of Muscovites in attendance. Besides us, there were several Soviet rock bands performing.  This was in the early days of Perestroika.

Hurricane Season Rips Into US War-Spending

Over a week since Hurricane Helene caused widespread devastation in multiple southeastern states of the U.S., Jean Taylor-Todd, a resident of rural Newland, North Carolina, in Avery County, says her town is still waiting for government help. “Our county was hit hard by this storm,” she told Consortium News this week via email. “Roads crumbled, bridges collapsed, road shoulders washed, businesses flooded, trees fell across roads, on power lines, and on buildings and in yards… Not far from me, houses flooded off their foundations and washed multiple outbuildings away. I know of four deaths of people not far from me and of two horses swept away that drowned. Some folks were heavily flooded inside their homes, and at this writing on October 7, are still without power… Some of the flooding… created sinkholes in which traveling cars were swallowed, but occupants [were] saved. I witnessed two cars submerged in sinkholes just minutes from my house.”

Media Urge Expansion Of Ukraine War; Nuclear Risk Be Damned

Ukraine has for months been asking the Biden administration for permission to use long-range US, British and French weapons to strike deeper in Russian territory, which would be a clear escalation in the war. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the move would cross a red line for him, and recently announced that he was loosening Russia’s nuclear doctrine for using nuclear weapons. Despite the risks of such escalation—and a lack of evidence that it would shift the war in Ukraine’s favor—Biden’s public reluctance to loosen his limits has been met in the war-hungry media primarily with derision.

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Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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