Instruction: Write an article about: Twitter allows death threats against Russians in new Ukraine war policy. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Azov, Big Tech, Facebook, Meta, Nazis, Russia, Silicon Valley, social media, Twitter

Output:
Twitter updated its terms of service to allow users to call for the deaths of Russian politicians and soldiers, due to the war in Ukraine. This comes soon after US Senator Lindsey Graham called for assassinating President Vladimir Putin, and Facebook greenlighted support for Ukrainian Nazis.

Twitter has made an exception to its rules that now allows for users to make death threats against Russians, due to the war in Ukraine.
The Daily Beast quietly reported on March 8 that it had obtained an internal Twitter memo that states, “Based on the current safety guidelines on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, content wishing, hoping or calling for serious harm against leaders of the Russian government, military leaders, soldiers or para-military fighters will result in No Action.”
That is to say, now that Western governments are sending billions of dollars of weapons to Ukrainian insurgents and essentially waging a war on Russia, the social media company gave its users the green light to discuss killing Russian politicians and soldiers.
Like most major Silicon Valley corporations, Twitter is a US government contractor, and has worked with the Department of Homeland Security while taking money to promote US state propaganda outlets.
This policy update came after prominent right-wing US Senator Lindsey Graham used Twitter to call for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Republican politician tweeted on March 3, “Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.”
Is there a Brutus in Russia?  Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?
The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.
You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) March 4, 2022

Graham, a major ally of former president Donald Trump, was echoing similar comments he had made in an interview with conservative talk show host Sean Hannity on Fox News.
The Daily Beast reported on March 4 that a Twitter spokesperson had told the website “that Graham’s posts did not violate the platform’s rules against violent threats and incitement of physical harm. Therefore, no action will be taken against the tweets.”
Twitter’s decision to allow death threats against Russians comes after Facebook reversed its ban on users praising Ukrainian Nazis.
Facebook is also a US government contractor, and has worked with the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security.
The social media giant Meta, which owns Facebook, said it now allows posts praising Ukraine’s explicitly neo-Nazi and white-supremacist Azov regiment because it is part of the country’s national guard and is fighting Russia.


Instruction: Write an article about: NATO/West or Global Majority? Unipolar destruction or multipolar development? The world must choose. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: China, EU, European Union, Geopolitical Economy Hour, India, Israel, Michael Hudson, Narendra Modi, Radhika Desai, Russia, Ukraine

Output:
Political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson discuss the fracturing international order between the NATO/West bloc and the Global Majority, analyzing Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, Argentina, and Europe.

Political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson discuss the fracturing international order between the NATO/West bloc and the Global Majority, analyzing Israel’s war on Gaza, Ukraine’s defeat in the proxy war against Russia, and the rise of the far-right in Argentina and Europe.
You can find more episodes of Geopolitical Economy Hour here.

RADHIKA DESAI: Hello, and welcome to the 19th Geopolitical Economy Hour, the program where we discuss the evolving political and geopolitical economy of our time. I’m Radhika Desai.
MICHAEL HUDSON: And I’m Michael Hudson. And we bring you this program with the help of our host Ben Norton, our videographer Paul Graham, and our transcriber Zach Weisser.
The carnage in Gaza has paused, though the possibility that this will open the door to a permanent resolution is remote. Little else seems to have changed. The U.S. remains doubled down on its one-sided support for a murderous Israel, the tail that wags the U.S. dog.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, it’s not only the United States that’s doubling down, it’s Europe that’s doubling down. And it’s becoming, you’re seeing, they’ve banned protests supporting the Palestinians in Germany, in France, and in Italy. And this is leading to the break between Europe, I think, and the Islamic countries. Yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu called Hamas the Nazis. And in Europe, the Arabs are calling Germany the Nazis. So it looks like the question is, what kind of Nazism is the U.S. and NATO alliance going to have?
RADHIKA DESAI: And what is the definition of what a Nazi is anymore? I mean, it’s completely losing touch with the historical record. Indeed, as Michael, you rightly point out, the U.S. and Western governments generally are growing even further apart from their people, most of whom seem to favor a permanent ceasefire and a lasting solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. And one might add an end to the war over Ukraine and an end to persistent saber-rattling directed at China.
The U.S. and NATO continue to mouth support for Ukraine, even as the inability to support Ukraine, whether with money, military production, or political legitimacy, becomes clear. And defeat for Ukraine is all but acknowledged. While the U.S. refuses to acknowledge it, the hunt for scapegoats has already begun in Kyiv.
The upcoming NATO foreign ministers meeting continues to invite foreign ministers of Asian non-members such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, even though the possibility of the U.S. sustaining a third war front remains in question, even with allies, while the key to the entire Indo-Pacific strategy lies in tatters, because India’s Modi stands accused of organizing murders of citizens of allied countries on their territories, because, Modi claims, they are doing nothing about what he alleges is Sikh separatism in favor of a homeland called Khalistan.
So all in all, the Western powers present a picture of increasingly impotent rage. Meanwhile, the world majority continues to side raucously in demonstrations or silently for peace and development. So today we want to discuss both the international and domestic dimensions of the increasingly divergent strategies represented by these two parts of the world, the NATO- and U.S.-led West on the one hand, and the world majority, which now includes, one would imagine, the overwhelming majority of the ordinary people of the Western world, who do not wish to pursue this militaristic and war-like line. They would rather have a policy which is more in line with what China, Russia, and other world majority countries are pursuing in favor of development.
So we are looking at two very stark alternatives. The first represents destruction, both economic and military. And the second represents, again, development, both, in this case, economic and military, at least in the sense of providing for defense against the increasing aggression of Western powers. So I think you wanted to start our discussion off by discussing a couple of instances of economic self-harm that we are seeing in Western countries and those countries that seek to ally with them.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, while you were in China for the last few weeks, the whole post-1945 U.S.-centered order has been breaking up, most clearly in Germany and Argentina. So I want to talk a bit about the crises there, because they’re very closely related. And the BRICS countries also are just beginning to define themselves as an alternative to this.
The main strains are financial right now, and not only financial, but the particular way in which the U.S.-centered neoliberal order that was put up in 1945 has now reached its limit. And you’re seeing that in the crises. And it’s largely a balance-of-payments crisis in Germany and Argentina connected to the budget deficits, all that with a kind of neoliberal junk economics that has frozen spending in Germany to prevent Germany from essentially using public funding to get over the depression that it’s created by declaring war on Russia, and it looks like China, too. And the fact that its middle class and labor class are being squeezed, just as they’re being squeezed in Argentina.
So I think underlying both countries and their balance-of-payments deficit is a kind of false view of what causes inflation. And I just want to say one thing about where the German nuttiness comes from. The Germans say that we have to freeze government spending because that’s what is causing inflation. It’s not that the United States has blown up Nord Stream. It’s not that energy prices have gone up. It’s not that food prices have gone up. It’s because we’re running a deficit, too much social spending. And the only cause that the Germans realize except for inflation is government money creation.
But that’s obviously not the case. Every hyperinflation in history, such as we’re seeing in Argentina now, whose prices have gone up 140% in the last year, every hyperinflation has come from the currency depreciation, from the balance-of-payments deficit. And Germany, now that it is deindustrializing, now that it cannot import, if affordable, gas and oil to run its industry, all of a sudden this anchor of the euro’s exchange rate has turned into a deficit, meaning the euro is looking like it’s on the downside.
The reality back in the 1920s is Germany had to pay reparations. The payment of reparations caused the currency to plunge. When a currency goes down, as Germany’s did and Argentina’s today, the price of imports go up. And the price of imports go up, increase the domestic price of food, the domestic price of doing business. And so the government then has to create more money to enable these transactions of the economy to take place at the higher price level.
In every case, the hyperinflation and even regular inflations are led by the balance-of-payments deficit, followed by a declining exchange rate, followed by increasing import prices and domestic prices, and then at the very end, money creation increases, just the opposite of what Milton Friedman and the Chicago School and the right-wingers say.
When you have a false view of what causes inflation for the last 100 years, ever since the 1920s, it’s not a mistake. It’s because there’s a social interest in having a wrong view. The social interest is essentially to squeeze government and essentially privatize everything.
What you’re seeing in Argentina now is that the incoming Mr. [Javier] Milei is trying to create a new government. He’s dropped the idea of dollarization, but he says there’s a simple way to stabilize Argentina’s balance-of-payments. And it’s exactly what Argentina did in 1991, and that is you sell off the public domain. Argentina was able to stabilize its exchange rate by selling its banks, selling its natural resources, selling its public utilities. Milei says, we can raise the exchange rate once again and stop the depreciation if we just sell off everything, sell off our roads, sell off our streets, sell off our land, sell off whatever natural resources we have, and you’re going to have an influx of foreign money coming in, and that foreign money is going to buy up our government, what we sell off from the government, and that will stop the inflation, and now you middle-class and working-class people can somehow survive.
And, of course, the problem with this is once you privatize the public domain, the private owners are now going to raise the prices for public services. They’re going to turn government infrastructure into monopolies and extract monopoly rent, and all of this rent is then going to be remitted to their own countries abroad, and most foreigners in Argentina are Argentinians, the 50 families that run the economy, operating out of offshore banking centers, the Dutch West Indies, the United States, London, and so they’re pretending to be foreigners, so you’re having a huge privatization and the squeeze of the middle-class and the working-class.
RADHIKA DESAI: What you say is really interesting, Michael, but first of all, let me just make one little qualification to what you’re saying, because, you know, Germany yesterday has announced that it has actually raised the debt brake. And so what that means is, and by the way, this is not the first time they’ve done so, they have done so repeatedly, particularly over the pandemic, but even before that, because quite frankly, the position they have taken that the German public debt should be limited to some ridiculously low amount, or rather the German deficit should be limited to a ridiculously low amount, can actually not be sustained, even in the case of an economy like Germany.
And as you rightly point out, more recently, they have been indulging in deindustrialization. And what is at stake this time around is precisely the ability of the German government to give subsidies to German corporations to allegedly organize a green transition, but in reality, it’s not so much the green transition that matters, but the subsidy to the big corporations.
And that’s the point I want to make, because, you know, we all say that neoliberalism is all about essentially freeing up markets and rolling back governments and reducing government spending even, but in reality, it is about none of those things primarily. That is the rhetoric that is indeed used, but it is used in order to essentially create a government policy paradigm, whose main purpose is to focus, is to protect the interests of and advance the interests of the biggest corporations in the country.
And that’s what the German government was being prevented from doing by taking the money that it did not spend during the pandemic, which the parliament had allocated, and giving it to the Green Fund. The issue is not that it’s a Green Fund, the issue is that this would have gone in the form of subsidies and supports for Germany’s big corporations.
So in that sense, neoliberalism is less about markets, all the junk economics is indeed junk economics, but its primary purpose is to serve the interests of big corporations.
MICHAEL HUDSON: That’s quite correct. Under the claim that there’s a budget squeeze, what is cut back is the social spending on the population at large, the consumers. In Germany, what was cut back has been the subsidies of families that have to pay much higher prices now for their heating and for their oil and gas. And that’s cut back precisely for what you say, in order to help the large corporations.
But the large corporations in Germany were very large, primarily industrial corporations. And there’s no way that a government subsidy can really protect these corporations, given the sixfold, somewhere threefold, sixfold increase in energy prices. So it’s very difficult.
So what Germany has done is saying, OK, we are going to need more money, we’ll cut back social spending, but we’ll spend it on the war. And that’s what EU Commissioner President Ursula von Leyen said. And back in February, the Minister [Robert] Habeck, the economics minister, went to Washington and he said, the more Germany serves, the greater its role. That was his quote. In other words, he’s trying to increase, his role in Germany is to serve the U.S. interests in Ukraine. And you’re having Germany more for a war economy right now, even than how, I don’t know if it can save its industrial sector and its economy.
But what it can do, at least, is act as America’s puppet, going for the war economy. And essentially, that’s really the problem. The inflation is going to increase there. There’s going to be a wage squeeze. And that’s what’s leading to the right wing shift all throughout Europe. The Social Democrats and the center parties are really the pro-war parties and the anti-labor parties now. And ironically enough, it’s the right wing in Germany with a little bit of the old Linke party with Sarah Wagenknecht. And it’s the right wing parties in Holland and in Hungary that are doing what used to be the left wing parties.
All this is posing the question, will the European Union break up? And you can say the same thing for what’s happening for the global south countries now that Argentina is saying that it wants to leave the BRICS.
RADHIKA DESAI: So this is really, again, very important and interesting, Michael. Because what we are looking at is really the world is splitting. And it’s splitting at two levels. On the one hand, there is a split, of course, among the countries of the world. And that split is a little more messy than we thought it would be. So countries like Argentina and India may not really remain part of this non-Western alliance or the world majority alliance. Although, of course, we’ve seen this before. It’s not necessarily anything new. When Bolsonaro was in power, then Brazil was not exactly pulling its weight in the BRICS, et cetera. So that was so but nevertheless, there is a polarization at the international level.
But increasingly, there is also a polarization that is taking place within the Western countries. You don’t see the same polarization elsewhere. Within the Western countries, you are seeing a polarization between ordinary people upon whom governments are imposing austerity, low wages, ever-disappearing social services, increased taxes, et cetera, in order to finance, in Germany’s case, the war and subsidization of big corporations. And in the case of Argentina, as you said, essentially to service the interests of a small number of really rich families there.
So at both levels, we are seeing polarization. And I would say that the real issue is that the neoliberal strategy does not work, which is why you get the election of people like Geert Wilders, because the so-called centrist governments basically create the mess and then people get alienated with it.
They have nobody else to vote for, but these populists like Milei or Geert Wilders or what have you. And this is the whole sort of spectrum of Western politics has moved to the right in such a way as to leave people with no alternative. So essentially what we are also at the root of what we are looking at is the exhaustion of Western capitalism and the inability of political forces in most of the world to see that their salvation lies in a political strategy which is fundamentally different, which is not aimed at protecting the interests of a small number of big corporations. It is not articulated in the form of junk economics, but it is fundamentally a developmentalist strategy which involves pursuing the interests of the vast majority of the people, much like what we see in China. It’s not perfect, but it is broadly correct.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, we’ve been talking about this for the last few months and well, we’ve been talking about this in China, Russia and the global majority have been talking about this. The amazing thing is there is no talk about this in any major NATO party, nowhere in Europe, nowhere in the United States, nowhere in Canada are people coming and saying there has to be an alternative. The only alternative that is being discussed is in Eurasia, which is very interesting.
And for the first time now, because of the split of the Israeli war against the Arab countries to create a greater Israel, you have the Arab countries now, I think, beginning to turn away from the European Union and from NATO. Now that they see Europe is backing the U.S. and they’re now working, I think, opening their eyes, at least, to the possibility of the kind of alternative there’s going to be. And that’s really what all of these shows that we’re doing are all about.
RADHIKA DESAI: Absolutely. And I just want to go back to what we started with, you know, you pointed out that a lot of this is financial and I completely agree with you that it is indeed financial, but it is also military and economic and political. So in the military sense, of course, what we are looking at in the Western world generally, which is backing Ukraine and now Israel, what’s really going on is that these countries which spend so much of their money, particularly the United States, but also these other countries, you know, a small proportion of their very big GDPs is still a very large amount. So they spend a lot of money on their militaries.
But in fact, the last 18, 20 months of war against Ukraine has already depleted the arsenals of these countries. And even though the military industrial complex is making money hand over fist producing new weapons, the fact of the matter is this military industrial complex is turning out to be a toy weapons complex. It is not actually able to produce at the rate at which, say, Russia is able to produce or China is able to produce.
So once again, on the productive front, even though it involves military production, which is usually regarded as a national priority, even though in the United States, the military industrial complex eats up about a trillion dollars, and probably that’s an underestimate every year. The fact is they cannot produce the weapons.
The second associated fact is that they cannot produce technologically sophisticated weapons. I was just recently reading in the news that Iran has now produced a hypersonic missile. So Russia produces hypersonic missiles, China produces hypersonic missiles, now Iran produces hypersonic missiles. Meanwhile, the coddled military industrial complex of the West is not able to produce anything of the sort. So it is also a military confrontation which the West is losing.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, this is why there are calls for a ceasefire right now, both in Ukraine saying, well, there’s a stalemate in Ukraine, let’s just stop. And they want to stop because the West has run out of the weapons, even though the weapons don’t work. What they have, they’ve run out of. They’ve run out of tanks, they’ve run out of bullets, they’ve run out of missiles. They’re trying to buy some more bullets from South Korea, I think, the Ukraine is.
But the fact is, obviously, it’s not a stalemate. The Ukrainians have been essentially losing their entire population and turning Ukraine into a land without the people, as they used to say of Palestine in 1947. It’s depopulated. And so what you’re having is a military that doesn’t work there.
And regarding what you commented on quite correctly on Iran, it looks like both Israel and the United States want to end the ceasefire and then resume the fighting. It’s now primarily on the West Bank. There’s been no ceasefire at all on the West Bank. The murder squads have been going out. They call them “settlers”, to shoot the existing homeowners, take over their homes, and essentially make the West Bank and Palestine only for the Israeli population.
If this continues, you’re going to have not only Lebanon and Hezbollah come up, you’re going to have Iran actually use these missiles. And you may see in the Near East fighting to the last Israeli to support the United States’ attempt to fight Iran. And they will not succeed, I don’t think, in the Near East any more than they’ll succeed in Ukraine.
RADHIKA DESAI: Absolutely, Michael. This is exactly what I was saying the other time when we were chatting with Pepe, you know. And in fact, let me say another thing, which is, you know, this is how the international and the domestic interact, you know, what we call the political and the geopolitical economy of the world interact.
Part of the reason why we are going in this direction is that the West in general, and Biden in particular, cannot afford to admit defeat in Ukraine. And nor can he, in fact, what he seems to have decided to do, particularly given that he is essentially, you know, I never thought there would be such a thing, but you know, there are lame duck presidents. Well, I think he is a lame duck candidate.
That is to say that there are essentially people in his own party who are saying that he should basically step aside. He’s not capable of running, but he is insisting on running. And I think one of the ways in which he’s going to try, he may not succeed, but he’s going to try to force the hand of the rest of his party and make them keep him as the candidate for president, is essentially he wants to run the campaign as a war president and a war president and then some.
So he wants to go into the campaign with certainly one war, certainly two wars now, the war against Russia and as I pointed out last time, the war. So the war against Russia with using Ukraine as a proxy and now a war against Iran using Israel as a proxy. And here the position of Hamas and the Palestinians is actually to be likened not to Ukraine, not to Russia, as President Zelensky tried to do. But in fact, it is to be likened to Donbass, which Ukraine was pummeling before it became the proxy for a war against Ukraine. So now Israel will be a proxy for a war against Iran.
And of course, meanwhile, the possibility that there may be a third front has not been closed. President Biden has said repeatedly that the United States will defend Taiwan in the case of, in the case of China trying to take Taiwan by force, etc. The fact is China has no intention of taking Taiwan by force. China has been engaged in an economic and charm offensive vis-a-vis Taiwan for decades now. And what, however, we have to look out for, is some provocation in the case of which the Biden administration will try to use Taiwan in the same way as a proxy against China, as it is using Ukraine against Russia and in the coming weeks and months may use Israel against Iran. Thankfully, there are elections in Taiwan and it is very likely that a sensible government will be elected in Taiwan, which may kibosh this possibility.
But nevertheless, President Biden so far can be assured of at least trying to run as president, as a war president with a war on two fronts going on well into next November. That is why he can’t afford to admit defeat.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, in order for a sensitive government to take place, there has to be, I think the awareness is spreading now that the Western policy is a U.S. policy. It’s to try to control other countries by war. That’s the only way that the United States can exert control. It can’t have trade control anymore because it’s de-industrialized. It can’t even have financial control because of the problems that it has here. The only way that it has is to force other countries in a zero-sum game. As Donald Trump, who will be running against Biden, has said, America has to win on every trade deal.
Well, the difference is that if China, Taiwan, Russia, Eurasia says there is an alternative to try to fight other people, and that’s to offer mutual gain. If you have the global majority following a policy of mutual gain, the Belt and Road Initiative to develop mutual trade among them and to have it Eurasian-centered instead of all centered on the United States and its satellite in London and Frankfurt, then that is really going to be the whole difference in Western from Eurasian policy. If you can have this at least at the center of Eurasian politics, I think you’ll have a recognition of just how great an alternative there is, even if it’s not appearing in the American and European political scene.
RADHIKA DESAI: Again, I want to add to your point and to strengthen the excellent points you’re making, Michael. Let me take a minute to reflect on, just as we said, what is the domestic basis of U.S.’s militarism. It is an increasingly senile, financialized capitalism, which needs to be able to suck value out of the rest of the world in order to survive, which explains its militarism, its international aggression, etc.
Meanwhile, we can very well ask, what are the contrasting domestic bases of the completely different foreign policy that China is pursuing? What we see here is that, essentially, sometime early in this century, in the first decade of the 21st century, the government in China realized that decades of reform and opening up had been important, it had been very good, it had created employment, it had dealt with the series of multiple crises that China had to deal with in the late 1960s with the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and then the 1970s, but what it had not been able to do was to help China climb up the value ladder.
So to modernize China’s industry, to make China’s industry develop technologically, and in order to address that problem, since that time, the Chinese government has been taking numerous industrial policy initiatives designed to upgrade the technology of China, and within less than a decade, by about the middle of the 2010s, it already became clear that China was becoming a technological leader in many fields, whether it is information and communication technology with Huawei, or with artificial intelligence, with green technology, and so on, with high-speed rail.
By the way, we were in China, and we experienced a most amazing high-speed rail ride from Beijing to Xi’an, and I have to say, if they had high-speed rails like that, I’d never take another airplane ever in my life, unless it was for, you know, crossing oceans and so on, but anyway.
So these are just amazing levels of technological development, and as we know, the US-led West has been reacting to this by increasingly making the international environment hostile to the extent they can for China, so all of the initiatives China has taken over the last decade and more, whether it is the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Belt and Road Initiative, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, or more recently, all the various BRICS initiatives, its increasingly close alliance with Russia, its attempt to try to win over its own neighborhood, all of these things are essentially a way to try to resist this attempt of the United States to create a hostile international environment, and instead have a competing international order, which will be based not on aggression, on sucking out capital and value from the rest of the world, but rather on facilitating the development of the rest of the world, and that’s what we are looking at, and this is where, again, the world is standing before a set of alternatives, a very clear fork in the road.
On the one side lies China, and still the world majority, even though countries like Argentina and India may be stepping back temporarily, we hope, from that, and on the other hand, the Western-led alliance, the U.S.-led alliance, which basically stands for financial exploitation, the sucking out of value through financial means from the rest of the world, while giving nothing in return, and militarism and aggression to compel the world to cooperate with this.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, there’s also a parallel fork in the road that we haven’t mentioned, but is very important, and that’s the global warming and the extreme weather that we have. Certainly, that’s one problem that’s facing China.
What is making this a fork in the road is, why is the United States fighting so much to support Israel? It’s fighting not for Israel, but because Israel is a landed aircraft carrier to control the Near Eastern oil, and the American foreign policy is based, the one way in which it can control trade is by monopolizing the oil trade that American companies have been monopolizing ever since World War I, along with England and Holland for that.
Well, if America is not going to leave the Near East easily, it’s still pumping oil out of Iraq, even though it’s been told to leave. The American forces in Iraq and in Syria are being attacked.
Over the coming six months, I think you’re going to see the war being settled, one way or another, in the Near East. If there’s a defeat of the American oil in the Near East, this will entail a defeat of Israel, too. This fight is parallel to the Ukrainian fight, which ended up all to split Europe away from reliance on Russian oil.
Well, obviously, Eurasia and the other countries that are threatened by global warming, despite the fact that Europe and the United States says that it’s in favor of the green ecology and cutting back pollution, the United States is the leading lobbyist for pollution, for accelerating global warming because the global warming is caused by its oil and gas. And that’s what the United States is using, hoping to use as a lever to control the energy and hence the GDP of other countries. That’s a related fight to what you’ve been saying.
RADHIKA DESAI: Absolutely, Michael. And let me bring this back to a monetary and financial question. You know, that is to say, climate change is also a monetary and financial question. Why do I say that? Because you see, recently, of course, we’ve had a lot of inflation. And while it is undoubtedly true that on the one hand, some of it has been caused by the war in Ukraine and the rise of food and energy prices. And while it is also true that big corporations in the United States in particular, but also elsewhere, are taking every opportunity to try to jack up prices and keep them there.
Interestingly, they can only do this because, we’ve had big corporations for a very long time. So if that was the case, why didn’t we have inflation for the last two decades? We’ve had a highly monopolized economy in the US and many, most Western countries since then. The opportunity to jack up prices is only provided by supply chain bottlenecks, where those companies that do not suffer to the same extent from supply chain bottlenecks then use the opportunity to jack up prices. Fine. All of this is true. But there is an underlying cause of this. Why are supply chain bottlenecks being disrupted?
I think they are being disrupted for two reasons, both of which have to do with the destructive strategy that the United States-led West is trying to impose on the rest of the world. On the one hand, you have an increase in supply chain bottlenecks to the extent that countries like China, but also a few other countries increasingly refuse to provide the United States with cheap goods, whether they are cheap primary products such as, you know, food products or coffee or whatever, and of course, oil, or whether it is cheap manufactured products.
In both of these cases, the ability, the willingness of these countries to provide cheap goods has been declining because their own domestic markets are expanding and their own wage costs are rising, particularly in the case of China, which is a good thing. This is not a complaint. Wage costs should rise in developing countries. That’s what development is about. So that’s the first thing.
And then the second thing is that neoliberal policy has so, has laid agriculture to waste in so many countries. And today, with climate change and the United States essentially ensuring through its wars that the world will remain too divided to do anything about climate change, we are looking at an increasingly desperate situation.
Take, for example, the recent ban that India had to place on the export of oil. With the squeezing of consumption of ordinary poor people in India, India had become a major exporter of oil, sorry, of rice, on which countries like Nigeria, for example, had come to depend. Nigeria imports a lot of Indian rice. Now, if India bans the export of rice, Nigeria cannot import rice, which means prices of food in Nigeria are going to go up. And they are also going up in India because of climate change, because the rice harvest has not been sufficiently robust.
So you can see that in general, you know, just as people have lost, have left the labor force in Western countries after the pandemic and so on, the labor market has shrunk. So similarly, more and more farmers have been either leaving or have been pushed out of agriculture, which means that agricultural production is in decline. And if we in the West think that this is an easy thing, just go to the supermarket and look at the number of things we import from the rest of the world, particularly the third world, in our daily diet, and you will see where the inflation is coming from.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, you mentioned India and I think that’s going to be a topic of some of our future broadcasts because there’s a whole crisis. It’s occurring right now. India has been exporting oil largely that it’s gotten from Russia and it’s paid for the oil In blocked rupees in other words, Russia can only use these rupees to buy Indian goods But there are only so many Indian goods that it can buy And at the current point in time. it doesn’t want to get more Indian rupees. So it’s the question that’s going on in Russia is, are they going to continue to sell oil to India for rupees that they can’t spend?
Well in the past they were doing it because they hoped to have an alliance with India. And that’s why India and Russia, India was part of the BRICS. But now that it looks like India has decided to change its policy radically and to throw its backing behind the United States and to be sort of America’s landed aircraft carrier in Eurasia.
You have Pakistan now saying, well, we want to apply to be a member of BRICS Plus at the upcoming January meeting. So if you have Pakistan replacing India in the BRICS that is going to obviously make the Belt and Road Initiative much easier for China, but it’s going to leave India out of this whole reconstruction of Eurasia that’s taking place. That’s a really radical change and India may end up just like Ukraine and Israel left out of the whole process.
RADHIKA DESAI: Let me add a couple of complicating factors there. So what you say is absolutely right, but let me add a couple of further complicating layers. So the complicating layer number one is of course that the United States has been pursuing a strategy of essentially bringing India into its strategy in the Asian region in a very big way and this is represented by the shift from using the term Asia-pacific, which was the term that was favored until recently from the 1990s onwards until recently, the US foreign policy towards the Pacific region towards the what’s called the Western Pacific has been articulated by using the term Asia-Pacific.
Now over the last three or four years, they have been using the term Indo-Pacific. And the purpose of using the term Indo-Pacific, and many people have dwelt on how you know, there was this German geographer who first coined the term etc, etc. But that has nothing to do with it. It has everything to do with bringing India into the picture as a counterbalance to China, something that India has offered the United States for a very long time, especially when we have had this BJP, you know governments of this party that is in power today. So this happened early in the late 90s and is again happening now. And of course the same party has also pursued closer alliances with Israel.
However, and now the West loves them for the same reason as they love Zelensky these are fucking fascists, I’m sorry, pardon my Greek, but these people are fascists in India. And so they thought they were going to get a strongman in Asia to support them, but the fact is that this strongman has turned out to be a bit of a rogue as far as they are concerned because now both Canada and the United States are saying that this government, the Modi government, has tried to assassinate Canadian and US nationals on Canadian and US territory.
And it’s also the case I don’t know the truth of this but I can certainly report that the WhatsApp world and and the social media world in India is absolutely abuzz with supporters of the current government not saying how dare US and China accuse us of this but rather, we got them, we did it, we gave it to them.
So really this is you know, there is an old saying, Who rides the tiger dare not dismount. So this is the situation in which Canada and the US now find themselves. So that’s the first complicating factor.
The second is that Mr. Modi faces an election. It must take place before May of next year. Now, of course, there is every possibility particularly if it looks as though he’s going to lose. And this is a real possibility this time because all the opposition parties created a big coalition and they are going to fight as a big coalition, and if that coalition remains together Modi cannot win. So either he will try to disrupt this coalition, and if he cannot do that, then he will try to perhaps create a national emergency to postpone the election. This is also a possibility. But nevertheless, I would say we may very well see a new government in New Delhi coming up. So both of those things are complications.
And we should probably wind down Michael, but can I just introduce a new thing? Maybe ask you to lead with it But you know you pointed out you pointed me to this book which was recently reviewed on Moon of Alabama By somebody called Fernandez about how there is a split between the US strategy of security versus hegemony. Maybe we can have a closing exchange about that and then bring our discussion to a close and of course any other remarks you want to add.
MICHAEL HUDSON: That’s a good idea obviously the idea that national security is going to increase security is just the opposite in practice. The national security has not made Europe more safe. Europe is now threatened. It’s not made America more safe. The whole world now is threatened by Insecurity as a result of America’s national security saying if we can’t control every other country we don’t feel secure. That’s why America has to go to war all over the world. And it’s the national security that is making the whole world insecure.
RADHIKA DESAI: Well, you know, let me just remind you of this particular paragraph. So basically we’re discussing the review of a discussion of a book by someone called Clinton Fernandes, who is an Australian and he has written a book called Subimperial Power which describes what Australia is doing and of course along with Australia other powers like the European powers as we know who are behaving like vassals of the United States.
So this is the key paragraph in the review.
In other words Fernandes’s point is that the key characteristic of the rules-based international order relates to the actual structure of the American or British or French or Australian social and economic system which seeks to enforce an order where the whole world is open to the penetration and control of their respective national monied classes which is why the order is about hegemony and not about security, Which is why the former so often come at the expense of the latter.
So essentially what it seems that Mr Fernandes is arguing is that countries like Australia or Britain or France are not being vassals of the United States. They are in fact pursuing a strategy of what he calls hegemony, which is opposed to what he calls security. And so what he’s saying is that the pursuit of hegemony is antithetical to the pursuit of security. In other parts of this review it seems that Mr. Fernandes discusses the position taken by John Mearsheimer that you know the US which is essentially that US security is not advanced by these behaviors of the United States.
But what we are really looking at in my humble opinion is a situation, or rather, let me rephrase that. What this argument completely forgets is the fact that all these countries the United States, Britain, Australia etc. They have never been pursuing national security if by that we mean the security of ordinary Americans, British, Australians, French, etc, etc. The fact is that they have always used the rhetoric of national security to justify what has always been what what would be called by Mr. Fernandes as hegemony and what ordinary people would call imperialism.
Today imperialism is not like Roman imperialism or even the imperialism of the czarist Empire or the Ottoman Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is a specific capitalist imperialism in which, as I’ve argued under my geopolitical economy rubric, the contradictions of capitalism. On the one hand its tendency to overproduce commodities and capital and on the other hand its reliance on a constant supply of cheap inputs and labor. These two things come together to essentially create an impulsion or an imperative on the part of capitalist countries like the US, France, Britain, Australia, to essentially try to create a domination over peripheral nations so that they can require these peripheral nations in the past to absorb their excess commodities and capital.
But today, when quite frankly excess commodities and capital are not the problem they once used to be because these capitalisms have become productively quite debilitated, but rather they are now sources for financial profits and sources of cheap labor and sources of cheap goods. But in all of these ways that this world is escaping from them.
But anyway, this has always been the case. Imperialism has never been about the security of ordinary Americans. Ordinary Americans can be sent to die in the killing fields of Vietnam or Korea or wherever else as British people did and so on and so forth. So this is the real issue. And so to me I would say that while I don’t disagree with Mr. Fernandes in a certain sense what he’s saying is not necessarily very new because we’ve been saying the same thing but using different expressions.
MICHAEL HUDSON:  So imperialism goes hand-in-hand with the class war and also with warfare financially by the United States and the core against the global majority. So what you’re having right now to put it all in the context of what we’ve been saying is that the whole Arab-Israel split is a catalyst. Somehow it’s shocked the whole world into forcing the global majority to Isolate itself from this NATO-US center or be sucked into it. And the only way it can isolate itself is to end not only end what has turned out to be a post-1945 financial colonialism. But you’ll have to reverse the effects of financial colonialism: the privatization of the government sector. You have to restore the government to the position that it was in throughout all of the rest of world history before privatization, this financial takeover in the name of national security.
And that’s going to involve debt cancellation. It’ll involve de-privatization It’ll involve all the things that we’ve been talking about for what will be a Eurasian alternative to the US Cold War economic order.
RADHIKA DESAI: That’s really a great note to end on Michael and I’ll just maybe add to that a very personal point and then we can wrap up. And that is that you know, as you said, I was recently in China. I attended the Tongzhou Global Development Forum there, which was a really exciting event with a lot of absolutely stellar speakers. And one of the things that I came away with is particularly after listening to the speeches of the major office holders in China and so on is that basically Chinese are really exceedingly angry at the way in which they are being treated by the United States and so on.
But it is remarkable how they are restraining this anger in order to very quietly and methodically putting forward essentially a development agenda to counter the security agenda. So I think that, and maybe just one thing and maybe I’ll flag this for a future discussion, what really also came through in these discussions is the Chinese use the word globalization in a radically different sense in the way in which we use it, and perhaps we can weave this into our next discussion.
And so I should say that we’ve been absent for a while over the last month or so, but we will now get back on a regular basis. We just had a very hectic month. I was traveling a lot and as you know, I was the target as well of a certain kind of campaign by my own government for pointing out that the government had been rather silly and bad by applauding a Nazi in Parliament.
But anyway, we should be back. So you will hear from us in another couple of weeks. Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks once again to our host Ben Norton, our videographer Paul Graham, and our transcriber Zach Weisser. And until next time, bye, bye!


Instruction: Write an article about: NAFO troll operation founded by Nazi: Researcher exposes far-right Ukrainian networks. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Azov, fascism, LaRouche, Moss Robeson, NAFO, Nazis, Russia, Ukraine

Output:
The vociferously pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia troll operation NAFO was founded by a Hitler-admiring anti-Semite. Independent researcher Moss Robeson discusses far-right NATO-backed networks, as well as the fascist LaRouche cult.

Independent researcher Moss Robeson documented how the vociferously pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia troll operation NAFO was founded by a Nazi extremist.
The group’s leader, Kamil Dyszewski (known more popularly as @Kama_Kamilia) is a Hitler-admiring anti-Semite who has heroized white-supremacist terrorists who committed mass shootings.
In the interview below with Geopolitical Economy Report editor Ben Norton, Robeson discusses the pro-NATO propaganda campaign’s far-right roots, and the very real influence of fascist groups in Kiev’s state security services.
He also addresses how the fascist LaRouche cult has tried to disrupt the anti-war movement in the United States.

Read Robeson’s report on the Nazi origins of NAFO: https://mossrobeson.medium.com/ukes-kooks-spooks-nafo-735b66e48508
The original "fella" is a Nazi? What a surprise pic.twitter.com/9kAlZtbnbJ
— Moss Robeson (@mossrobeson__) October 14, 2022

Check out Robeson’s article “LaRouche’s ‘Ukrainian Nazi’ Legacy”: https://mossrobeson.medium.com/larouches-ukrainian-nazi-legacy-7ab93aea3ea7
I personally think the LaRouche cult spearheading “anti-war” protests in the United States is, at least, just as pathetic and depressing as progressive Democrats in Congress retracting “the world’s softest trial balloon about diplomacy.” https://t.co/aZ6RN5Cg2m
— Moss Robeson (@mossrobeson__) October 28, 2022

Robeson’s “Bandera Lobby Blog”: https://banderalobby.substack.com


Instruction: Write an article about: How Israel is an apartheid regime, with Ali Abunimah. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Ali Abunimah, Amnesty International, Israel, Palestine

Output:
Mainstream human rights organization Amnesty International admitted Israel is committing apartheid against Palestinians, a crime against humanity. Journalist Ali Abunimah discusses the parallels to South Africa and roots in settler-colonialism.

Mainstream human rights organization Amnesty International has come out publicly and said that “Israeli authorities must be held accountable for committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians,” writing that Israel’s “cruel system of domination” amounts to a “crime against humanity.”
Geopolitical Economy Report spoke about Amnesty’s report with Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah, editor of the Electronic Intifada.
“You cannot claim to be a human rights organization if you do not address the glaring reality of persecution that Israel, with the support of the West, is inflicting on Palestinians and has been inflicting on them for decades,” he said.
The fact that centrist NGOs that are notorious for their pro-Western bias have finally acknowledged what Palestinians have been saying for decades, Abunimah explained, shows how “Palestinians, through their resistance, in all its forms, are forcing even these liberal human rights organizations to recognize the reality.”
He added that “Israel can no longer say that, ‘Oh, it’s just far-left radicals, and anti-Semites, and extremists who who are accusing us of apartheid.’ This is the world’s biggest, most mainstream human rights organization.”
Amnesty’s investigation follows similar reports by Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, designating Israel an apartheid regime.
You can watch or listen to the interview below:

In the interview, Ali Abunimah discussed the many similarities between apartheid in South Africa and Palestine.
“The point that is often missed about apartheid, in South Africa and in Palestine, is that it is inseparable from settler-colonialism,” he explained. “It’s not segregation for the sake of segregation.”
“Of course, it is motivated and animated by notions of racial superiority,” Abunimah continued, “but it’s about removing the native people from the land,” so it can be conquered and exploited.
South African anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu himself made this comparison, stating in 2014, “I know firsthand that Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation. The parallels to my own beloved South Africa are painfully stark indeed.”
The Israeli government and its supporters have responded to the Amnesty International apartheid designation by denouncing it as “anti-Semitic.”
Abunimah said this “is now really the only weapon Israel has, because it cannot refute the mountains of evidence about its decades-long persecution of the Palestinian people.”
“It’s just so cheap and so lazy to claim that Palestinians resist Israel because it’s Jewish. Palestinians don’t care that Israel claims to be a Jewish state,” he added. “Israel is an oppressor. It’s a colonizer. And it wouldn’t matter if it was French, or British, or German, or whatever.”
“And in fact, it is French, and British, and German, because the Israeli colonial project wouldn’t exist without the billions in funding, and weaponry, and support it gets from the United States, from Canada, from the European Union, from Australia.”
“Notice anything about that, by the way?” Abunimah continued. “It’s all the Anglo and European settler-colonial powers. And whenever you look at a UN vote related to Palestinian rights, and they show a map of the countries of how they voted, it’s always the European states and their colonial extensions – the US, Canada, and Australia, and a couple of outliers – that are on the side of Israel, and the rest of the world that stands for Palestinian rights.”
“That’s not a coincidence. It’s that Israel is fundamentally a settler colonial project, and these countries identify with the Israeli settler-colonial project, and support it.”


Instruction: Write an article about: Russia dropping US dollar for Chinese yuan – and fast. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: China, de-dollarization, dollar, economics, renminbi, Russia, trade, yuan

Output:
In response to Western sanctions, Russia’s central bank is dropping the US dollar and will buy Chinese yuan on the foreign exchange market. The yuan’s share of Moscow’s currency trading increased from 1% to 40-45% in 2022, while dollar trade halved from 80% to 40%.

(Se puede leer esta nota en español aquí.)
Russia has spent years trying to decrease its dependency on the US dollar. But especially since the escalation of the proxy war in Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has accelerated its drive toward de-dollarization.
Western sanctions have locked Russia out of the US-dominated international financial architecture. Numerous Russian banks were disconnected from the SWIFT inter-bank messaging system. Washington and Brussels even froze a staggering $300 billion of the Russian central bank’s foreign exchange reserves.
In response, Russia’s central bank has largely abandoned the US dollar and euro, and instead it plans to buy Chinese yuan on the currency market.

In the span of less than a year, the yuan has quickly replaced the dollar as the most sought foreign currency in Moscow.
According to the Federal Reserve, the US dollar is involved in around 80% of global trade, and the dollar makes up approximately 60% of globally disclosed official foreign reserves, as of 2021.
But rising geopolitical conflict, fueled by Washington’s new cold war, has pushed Russia, China, Iran, and a growing list of countries to try to de-dollarize, or at least to diversify their foreign reserves.

Reuters reported that daily “yuan-rouble trading volumes on the Moscow Exchange are already exceeding dollar-rouble trades on some days,” and noted that this trend is likely to increase in 2023.
Russia has already made importers of its oil and gas pay in its currency, the ruble, in a challenge to the petrodollar.
An anonymous source in Russia’s banking system told Reuters, “The central bank can currently now buy yuan,” and, “if next year budget revenues from the export of oil and gas exceed 8 trillion roubles, then the central bank will buy yuan.”
Another anonymous source in the Russian government said to Reuters, “We have a lot of friendly currencies. On the exchange, the Chinese yuan is the most traded currency, it is the friendliest currency so far.”
With the conflict in Ukraine and Western sanctions on Moscow shutting Russia's banks and many of its companies out of the dollar and euro payment systems, China’s yuan has swept into the country's markets, presenting an economic counterweight to the dollar https://t.co/3OsuyJqsEt pic.twitter.com/bJvcPUNvYW
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 29, 2022

In a separate report, titled “The yuan’s the new dollar as Russia rides to the redback,” Reuters revealed that the yuan’s share of trading on Russia’s currency market increased from 1% to 40-45% in less than a year.
At the same time, dollar trade halved from 80% to 40% of volumes on the Moscow Exchange.
Russia has quickly become the world’s fourth-biggest offshore trading center for renminbi – a drastic change, considering it was not even in the top 15 at the beginning of the year.
Reuters acknowledged that Moscow’s de-dollarization campaign is not new, but it accelerated in 2022.
“While the yuan, or renminbi, has been making gradual inroads into Russia for years, the crawl has turned into a sprint in the past nine months as the currency has swept into the country’s markets and trade flows,” the media outlet wrote.
It added, “Russia’s financial shift eastwards could boost cross-border commerce, present a growing economic counterweight to the dollar and limit Western efforts to pressure Moscow by economic means.”
In a report in March, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned of an “erosion of dollar dominance.”
The US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned of an “erosion of dollar dominance”
Use of Chinese yuan in global central bank reserves is increasing
And Western sanctions on Russia could weaken the dollar, strengthening other currencieshttps://t.co/weF255asil
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) March 31, 2022

The IMF noted that the use of Chinese yuan in global central bank reserves has increased, while holdings of the US dollar declined from roughly 70% in year 2000 to less than 60% by 2021.
Western sanctions on Russia have also incentivized countries around the world to create new financial systems for regional trade in other currencies – not just adversaries, but also longtime US allies such as India, Egypt, and even Saudi Arabia.
In July, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin visited Iran, where the two countries signed a $40 billion energy cooperation agreement, and pledged to deepen their economic integration.
Both Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called to challenge the dominance of the US dollar, instead proposing the use of local currencies for trade.
Iran & Russia pledge to cut US dollar from global trade, strengthen China alliance
Video, podcast, and sources here:https://t.co/MzXopEfBpW
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) July 23, 2022


Instruction: Write an article about: Atrapada en la deuda del FMI, Argentina se alia con Rusia y China y se une a la Franja y la Ruta. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Alberto Fernández, Argentina, China, Covid-19, deuda, FMI, Rusia, vacunas, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping

Output:
Argentina está atrapada con $44 mil millones de deuda odiosa del FMI, controlado por EEUU. Buscando alternativas a la hegemonía estadounidense, el presidente Alberto Fernández viajó a Rusia y China, formando una alianza con las potencias euroasiáticas, incorporándose a la Iniciativa de la Franja y la Ruta.

(You can read this article in English here.)
Estados Unidos interviene constantemente en los asuntos internos de América Latina, organizando golpes de estado, desestabilizando gobiernos independientes, endeudando a las naciones e imponiendo sanciones. Washington ve la región como propiedad propia, y el presidente Joe Biden se refirió a ella este enero como su “patio delantero”.
En busca de alternativas a la hegemonía estadounidense, los gobiernos progresistas de América Latina han mirado cada vez más al otro lado del océano para formar alianzas con China y Rusia.
El presidente de Argentina, Alberto Fernández, hizo exactamente eso este febrero, realizando viajes históricos a Beijing y Moscú para reunirse con sus homólogos Xi Jinping y Vladimir Putin.
Fernández firmó una serie de acuerdos estratégicos, incorporando oficialmente a Argentina a la Iniciativa de la Franja y la Ruta de Beijing, al tiempo que ampliaba sus alianzas económicas con las potencias euroasiáticas y decía a Moscú que Argentina “debe ser la puerta de entrada” a América Latina.
China le ofreció $23.700 millones de dólares en financiamiento para proyectos de infraestructura e inversiones en la economía argentina.
En las reuniones, Fernández también pidió que Argentina se sume al sistema BRICS, junto a Brasil, Rusia, India, China y Sudáfrica. Según los informes, Xi y Putin estuvieron de acuerdo.
“Argentina tiene que dejar de tener esa dependencia tan grande que tiene con el FMI y los Estados Unidos, y tiene que abrirse camino hacia otros lados”, Fernández dijo.
Los comentarios y las reuniones del presidente argentino con Putin y Xi molestaron al gobierno de EEUU.
Argentina es una gran potencia latinoamericana, con importantes recursos naturales y la tercera economía más grande de la región (después de Brasil y México, que tienen poblaciones significativamente más grandes).
Pero el desarrollo de Argentina a menudo ha sido lastrado por trampas de la deuda impuestas desde el exterior, lo que ha creado frecuentes crisis económicas, ciclos inflacionarios y devaluaciones de la moneda.
El Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), un brazo económico de Estados Unidos, sobre el cual solo Washington tiene poder de veto, tiene un control significativo sobre Argentina, habiendo atrapado a la nación en enormes sumas de deuda odiosa.
En 2018, el presidente derechista de Argentina, Mauricio Macri, solicitó el préstamo más grande en la historia del FMI: un asombroso rescate de $57.100 millones de dólares.
Macri era infame por su corrupción, y esto no era un secreto. Al aceptar dar una suma tan enorme de dinero al gobierno de Macri, plagado de escándalos, el FMI sabía que estaba atrapando a Argentina en una deuda que no podría pagar. Pero esta no fue la primera vez que el instrumento financiero dominado por Estados Unidos había atrapado a Argentina en una deuda odiosa.
En diciembre de 2021, el FMI publicó un informe interno en el que admitió que el rescate de 2018 fracasó por completo en estabilizar la economía argentina.
Pero cuando el presidente de centroizquierda de Argentina, Alberto Fernández, asumió el cargo en diciembre de 2019, su país estaba atrapado en una deuda de $44.5 mil millones de este programa que el propio FMI admitió que fue un fracaso total. ($44,500 millones del préstamo de los $57,100 millones ya se habían desembolsado, y Fernández canceló el resto.)
El gobierno argentino ha intentado renegociar la deuda, pero el FMI ha impuesto condiciones que restringen severamente la soberanía de la nación – como nombrar a un economista británico que “será virtualmente el nuevo ministro de economía“, actuando como una especie de “cogobierno”, advirtió la destacada diplomática Alicia Castro.
Buscando formas de evitar estas trampas de la deuda de EEUU, Fernández decidió en febrero volverse hacia las dos superpotencias emergentes de Eurasia.
El 3 de febrero, el presidente Alberto Fernández viajó a Rusia para reunirse con el presidente Vladimir Putin.
“Yo estoy empecinado en que la Argentina tiene que dejar de tener esa dependencia tan grande que tiene con el Fondo y con Estados Unidos. Tiene que abrirse camino a otros lados y me parece que ahí Rusia tiene un lugar muy importante”, dijo el mandatario.
???? | "Estamos dando un paso importante para que la Argentina y Rusia profundicen sus lazos", expresó el presidente @alferdez en una declaración conjunta que brindó junto a su par Vladímir Putin. #GiraPresidencial
? @KremlinRussia_Ehttps://t.co/aHl8tOuPZy pic.twitter.com/APoQR6VHtU
— Casa Rosada (@CasaRosada) February 3, 2022

Fernández agregó, “Tendríamos que ver la manera de que Argentina se convierta en una puerta de entrada para que Rusia ingrese a América Latina”.
El mandatario argentino le dijo a Putin, “Yo quiero que usted tenga la certeza de que veo una gran oportunidad para que podamos avanzar. Y quiero que sepa que tiene en mí un amigo que quiere ver de qué modo podemos avanzar juntos”.
Los dos líderes hablaron de la inversión rusa en la economía argentina, el comercio, la construcción de ferrocarriles y la tecnología energética.
Fernández también agradeció a Moscú por colaborar con su país en la producción de su vacuna Sputnik V contra la covid-19. Argentina fue el primer país del hemisferio occidental en hacerlo.
El presidente argentino incluso señaló en su reunión que ha recibido tres dosis de la vacuna Sputnik V. Putin agregó: “Yo también”.
Putin dijo que los dos países están de acuerdo en muchos temas y calificó a Argentina como “uno de los socios claves de Rusia en América Latina”.
Es un honor haberme reunido con Vladímir Putin, presidente de Rusia.
Tuvimos la oportunidad de intercambiar ideas sobre cómo podemos complementar mucho más el vínculo entre nuestras naciones. pic.twitter.com/ntmDGn6jtD
— Alberto Fernández (@alferdez) February 3, 2022

Apenas tres días después de reunirse con Putin, el presidente Alberto Fernández viajó a China el 6 de febrero para reunirse con el presidente Xi Jinping.
En este viaje histórico, Argentina se unió oficialmente a la Iniciativa Belt and Road de Beijing, un programa de infraestructura global masivo.
Fernández y otros altos funcionarios argentinos firmaron acuerdos por $23.700 millones de dólares en financiamiento chino, incluyendo inversiones y proyectos de infraestructura.
El financiamiento se desembolsará en dos partes: una, que ya está aprobada, proporcionará a Argentina $14 mil millones para 10 proyectos de infraestructura; el segundo, por $9.700 millones, financiará la integración de la nación sudamericana a la Franja y la Ruta.
Hay tres proyectos chino-argentinos que encabezaban la lista de Fernández: la creación de redes 5G, el desarrollo de la industria argentina del litio y la construcción de la planta de energía nuclear Atucha III.
Tuve una cordial, amistosa y fructífera reunión con Xi Jinping, presidente de China. Acordamos la incorporación de Argentina a la Franja y la Ruta de la Seda.
Es una excelente noticia. Nuestro país obtendrá más de US$ 23 mil millones de inversiones chinas para obras y proyectos. pic.twitter.com/LGyIJ6zWdG
— Alberto Fernández (@alferdez) February 6, 2022

Fernández también habló de la producción argentina de la vacuna de Sinopharm contra la covid-19, además de la Sputnik V de Rusia.
Argentina y China firmaron un memorándum de entendimiento integral, que incluye 13 documentos de cooperación en áreas como energía verde, tecnología, educación, agricultura, comunicación y energía nuclear.
Fernández y Xi hablaron de maneras para “profundizar las relaciones de cooperación política, comercial, económica, científica y cultural entre ambos países”, según una declaración del gobierno argentino tras la reunión.
Aparentemente, los dos líderes se llevaron muy bien, y Fernández le dijo a Xi, “Si usted fuera argentino, sería peronista“.
???? | El presidente @alferdez mantuvo reuniones sobre el proyecto de producir en Argentina la vacuna de Sinopharm, participó de la inauguración de los JJOO de Invierno #Beijing2022 y visitó el Museo de la Historia del Partido Comunista. #GiraPresidencialhttps://t.co/acSH9rvpM7 pic.twitter.com/Edz7hHRLE8
— Casa Rosada (@CasaRosada) February 4, 2022

La incorporación de Argentina a la Franja y la Ruta se produce pocas semanas después de que Nicaragua se uniera a la iniciativa en enero, y Cuba en diciembre.
Los crecientes vínculos de América Latina con China y Rusia muestran cómo el sistema internacional cada vez más multipolar ofrece a los países del Sur Global nuevos aliados que pueden servir como baluartes y alternativas a la hegemonía de Washington.
Mientras los líderes derechistas de América Latina siguen mirando al norte a Estados Unidos como su brújula política, los gobiernos progresistas cruzan el océano hacia las potencias euroasiáticas de China, Rusia e Irán, construyendo nuevas alianzas internacionales que debilitan el control geopolítico de Washington sobre una región que el presidente de EEUU aún insiste es su “patio delantero”.


Instruction: Write an article about: 87% of world doesn’t support West’s new cold war on Russia. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Cold War Two, Global South, media, new cold war, Russia, Ukraine

Output:
Two ex US diplomats admitted 87% of the world’s population refuses to enforce the West’s sanctions on Russia, showing neutrality over the proxy war in Ukraine. They said “the outbreak of Cold War II” has led countries “to become increasingly multi-aligned,” especially in the Global South.

Two former US diplomats have acknowledged that the vast majority of the global population does not support the West’s new cold war on Russia.
In a Newsweek op-ed titled “Nearly 90 Percent of the World Isn’t Following Us on Ukraine,” ex diplomats Michael Gfoeller and David H. Rundell wrote:
While the United States and its closest allies in Europe and Asia have imposed tough economic sanctions on Moscow, 87 percent of the world’s population has declined to follow us. Economic sanctions have united our adversaries in shared resistance. Less predictably, the outbreak of Cold War II, has also led countries that were once partners or non-aligned to become increasingly multi-aligned.
They acknowledged that new multilateral institutions like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS are growing, and offer new opportunities for countries in the Global South.

The diplomats also commented on the weakening of the Washington-controlled financial system and growing de-dollarization:
The dollar’s reserve currency status remains a pillar of the global economic order, but trust in that order has been damaged. Economic sanctions have weaponized parts of the international banking and insurance sectors including the SWIFT fund transfer system. Assets have been seized and commodity contracts canceled. Calls for de-dollarization have become louder. When Russia demanded energy payments in rubles, yuan or UAE Dirhams, China and India complied.
Many Asian economies are now being hit by both rising oil prices and the depreciation of their own currency against the dollar. As a result, they are expanding their use of bilateral currency swaps which allow them to trade among themselves in their own currencies. Eighty years ago the British pound lost its preeminent position among the world’s currencies. This is precisely what America’s adversaries are trying to do to the dollar and if the Saudis ever stop pricing oil in dollars, they may very well succeed.
Multipolarista has previously reported on the decline in US dollar hegemony.
IMF admits US dollar hegemony declining, due to rise of Chinese yuan, sanctions on Russia

The article by these two former US diplomats provides further support for the analysis Multipolarista published in March, detailing how “Many Global South countries blame US/NATO for Ukraine war, not Russia.”
Many Global South countries blame US/NATO for Ukraine war, not Russia

The Wall Street Journal likewise acknowledged these inconvenient facts in a report in April titled “Anti-Russia Alliance Is Missing a Big Bloc: The Developing World.”
The mainstream corporate newspaper wrote, “Western leaders seeking to build a global coalition to isolate Russia over its war on Ukraine are facing pushback from the world’s largest developing nations, including the democracies of India, Brazil and South Africa.”

This reality has led some Western pundits to publish condescending, borderline racist editorials attacking the Global South.
“No event this century has done as much as the Ukraine war to expose the difference in outlook between the west and … the ‘rest,'” commented conservative Financial Times columnist Janan Ganesh in June.
He lamented that “Russia retains a net positive reputation in Egypt, Vietnam, India and other countries,” and that “Pro-Russia protests have flared up in west and central Africa.”


Instruction: Write an article about: How China strengthened food security and fought poverty with state-funded cooperatives. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: agriculture, China, food

Output:
The world faces a food crisis due to war, sanctions, and inflation. China has shown how to strengthen food sovereignty, while fighting poverty, with state-funded agricultural cooperatives, government crackdown on waste, and investment in technology.

(Se puede leer este artículo en español aquí.)
The Covid-19 pandemic, the ensuing supply-chain crisis, and high rates of inflation around the world have led to rising food prices and fears of famine.
These cascading and interlocking problems have pushed governments to prioritize economic self-sufficiency and food security.
China is leading the way in this struggle. Beijing has shown how to strengthen food sovereignty, and simultaneously fight poverty, with a multi-pronged approach that combines state-funded agricultural cooperatives, stockpiling of nonperishable staples, a crackdown on waste, and government investment in new technologies.
While the United Nations warns of “the specter of a global food shortage,” the Chinese government has provided countries with an alternative model to meet the needs of their people.
At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, on February 24, 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech on food security, outlining a series of both short- and long-term steps that would ensure a stable food supply for the major city of Wuhan.
At the time, Wuhan was under a harsh lockdown. Addressing food security was critical.
The state’s program was ultimately successful. Although there were some problems with delivery, no one faced starvation during this harsh lockdown. The government managed to feed tens of millions of people.
The strategy used in Wuhan was repeated later on in the pandemic. When cities like Xi’an or Shanghai faced lockdowns, local officials created similar networks of support to ensure that their tens of millions of residents had stable food supplies.
While more 1 million people have died from the virus in the United States alone, Beijing’s zero Covid policy has saved countless lives. And it had the added benefit of strengthening China’s food sovereignty at a moment when the world was on the verge of a global crisis.
The proxy war in Ukraine and the devastating Western sanctions imposed on Russia have led to concerns about global food supply. As of the end of 2021, Russia and Ukraine were responsible for nearly 30% of the world’s wheat exports.
Sanctions have created a significant burden for agricultural exports, as firms that attempt to pay for or facilitate payment to Russian businesses fear being targeted. Moreover, the fighting has shut down many ports used for export in Ukraine.
This has led to warnings from the United Nations and other international institutions that, as soon as late 2022 and early 2023, there could be food shortages and even famines among the poorest nations in the world, while food prices skyrocket and become increasingly unaffordable in wealthier nations.
These growing crises have made understanding China’s policy of food sovereignty even more relevant.
China has viewed food security as an essential goal for much of its history. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization notes that the East Asian nation has only 10 percent of the world’s arable land, yet is able to feed its own population, which represents roughly 20 percent of the global population, producing approximately 25 percent of the world’s grain.
In theory, such a daunting global crisis of food production could be an existential threat to China. It has an enormous population with scarce arable land, and faces the possibility that a virus could hurt the capacity for workers to engage in agricultural work, while an external food crisis could hamstring the ability for the state to import supplies.
Despite these material factors, however, there is a relatively low likelihood that China will face such a food crisis. How is this possible?
Well before the pandemic began, Xi Jinping made a clarion call: “Chinese people should hold their rice bowls firmly in their own hands, with grains mainly produced by themselves.”
Securing #Chinese People's  "Rice Bowl"“We must firmly seize the initiative in food security and step up grain production year by year”, said H.E. XI Jinping, Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC). #SSOT pic.twitter.com/ASX2grOUUj
— China Emb in South Sudan南苏丹纪行 (@ChinaEmb_Juba) April 7, 2022

This quote was a clear call for food self-sufficiency – exactly the kind of policy that the US-dominated World Bank has fastidiously sought to curtail throughout much of the Global South.
Based on its model of socialism with Chinese characteristics, Beijing has pursued a development path that has made objective strides in food security, much to the displeasure of neoliberal financial institutions like the World Bank.
From 2003 to 2013, Chinese grain output increased by roughly 50 percent, from 400 million tons per year to 600 million tons per year.
The People’s Republic of China has made these enormous strides in food security in part because it is the largest agricultural subsidizer on the planet. This has led to attacks from the United States via the neoliberal World Trade Organization, which opposes Beijing’s agricultural subsidies.
China’s remarkable accomplishments in agricultural production might be puzzling to some. After all subsidy isn’t unique to China; indeed, it’s a common feature of capitalist agricultural practices as well.
However, there are distinct qualitative differences in Chinese agriculture practices that further show how it has made such resounding progress.
China’s agriculture is still significantly organized on the basis of cooperative farming. Nearly half of farms are agricultural cooperatives, which more than 2.2 million legally registered.
When President Xi came to power in 2013, he brought back a Mao Zedong-era system of state-run cooperatives to help fight poverty in rural areas while boosting agricultural output.
From 2013 to 2019, the Chinese government rebuilt more than 10,000 primary supply and marketing cooperatives (SMCs), the South China Morning Post reported.
There were nearly 32,000 SMCs across China as of 2019, in 95 percent of the country’s towns – a staggering increase from just 50 percent in 2013.
The Post summarized, “Expanding that network is a key feature of Xi’s plan to revitalise the countryside – where the Communist Party of China has its roots – and deliver on his pledge to lift millions of people out of poverty, and narrow the income gap between rural and urban dwellers.”
Xi Jinping has turned to a Mao Zedong-era system to lift millions of China’s rural poor out of poverty https://t.co/QkX2UeBJls
— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) February 4, 2019

The results of this program have been staggering. State-supported cooperative farming has successfully been able to revitalize communities.
This agricultural program was an essential part of how Beijing lifted more than 800 million people out of extreme poverty.
The Chinese government has also directed its policies at trying to to reduce inequality between urban and rural areas.
Much of this framework food security would be difficult to replicate without two key elements of China’s socialist construction: state ownership of land, and economic five-year plans.
Indeed, “food and energy security” is one of the five main categories listed in Beijing’s 14th five-year plan.
Additionally, the socialist state has a policy of “Two Assurances and Three Guarantees,” which the government describes as “assurances of adequate food and clothing, and guarantees of access to compulsory education, basic medical services and safe housing for impoverished rural residents.”

As a result, Beijing has taken concrete measures to ensure that the public is prepared for just the kind of food crisis that the world is seeing unfold.
The Chinese government has likewise long ensured that it has adequate agricultural reserves to weather a crisis. Reports indicate that Beijing has stockpiled enough rice and wheat to sustain the entire country for at least 18 months, in the event of an extreme crisis.
In the latter half of 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the virus was nonexistent in China, the Communist Party passed laws requiring governments at local and state levels to have adequate reserves of staple foods and cooking oils.
These laws stipulate that grains and oils are to be released in events of disasters, significant price disruptions, or other large emergencies.
At the same time, the Chinese state has taken measures to ensure that food waste is curtailed, that efforts to innovate in their food production technology are supported, and that workers who are essential in the process of delivering food are protected.
Beijing passed food waste laws that impose penalties on restaurants and commercial food enterprises which engage in wasteful behavior.
#China Passes Law to Prevent #FoodWaste, Increase #FoodSecurity: https://t.co/96dKmzgZa7@NYCFoodPolicy pic.twitter.com/7RKcGNzQvX
— Grow Further (@GrowFurther_) May 13, 2021

China has also systematically invested in new agricultural technologies, such as CRISPR. Beijing has adopted technology to its own material conditions, even finding ways to grow salt water-tolerant rice crops, to ensure that rising sea levels do not impact yields in agriculture.
This is all part of a state-driven process, to ensure that food security is maintained.
Even US corporate media outlets like Bloomberg have begrudgingly admitted that China is quickly becoming a global leader in biotechnology.
The People’s Republic of China has additionally expanded unions to commercial food workers and delivery workers, for popular apps like Didi and Meituan, to make sure that workers have higher wages and better conditions, and that food delivery can be maintained through a well paid and loyal workforce.
This has all been part of what Beijing calls its “People’s War on Covid-19,” whereby labor unions, non-governmental social institutions, and state bodies work together to collectively fight the virus.
China is similarly creating a framework to wage a people’s war on hunger and food insecurity.
The Chinese socialist system produces results. It utilizes state power to organize the people, gauges material conditions to determine long-term needs, and meet them. It succeeds in these goals where other political systems are failing.
The contrast with the US system could hardly be more stark.
Washington helped to foment the food crisis in the first place, with draconian sanctions that are will it hard for poor countries to buy wheat and fertilizer.
Food prices are rising rapidly inside the United States, due to a combination of general inflation and blatant price-gouging by corporations.
Crop growing cycles are off to a bad start in 2022, with US agricultural production lagging behind its five-year average in planting goals.
Transportation of goods has also become more precarious, as grueling working conditions have rendered significant shortages of truck drivers, thereby raising prices on consumers even further, as delays become more common for many goods.
Farmers in the United States have raised alarms about the possibility of serious problems in food security.
Meanwhile, Congress and US political leaders have failed to create a long-term strategy to address domestic food security needs. Instead, they have proposed a haphazard food aid plan that experts say does not apportion adequate sums of money.
In a revealing comment at NATO headquarters in March, US President Joe Biden conceded, “With regard to food shortage, yes, we did talk about food shortages. And – and it’s going to be real. The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia, it’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well.”
All signs indicate that a food crisis is coming. And unlike leaders in capitalist nations, the leadership of the Communist Party of China has used foresight, long-term planning, and methods of socialist construction to prepare.
In much the same way that the People’s Republic of China successfully handled Covid-19, it is setting itself up to weather the crisis domestically – while still showing international solidarity abroad.
As this crisis arises, let it not be forgotten that socialist leadership in China was responsible for ensuring its people were protected, and that it took concrete steps to ensure that it’s people would be safe, while the leadership of capitalist countries left their people to die.


Instruction: Write an article about: Biden admitted in 1997 NATO expansion would cause Russian ‘hostile reaction’. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Atlantic Council, Baltic, Estonia, James Woolsey, Joe Biden, Latvia, Lithuania, NATO

Output:
Current US President Joe Biden admitted in a 1997 talk at the Atlantic Council that eastward NATO expansion into the Baltic states would cause a “vigorous and hostile reaction” by Russia.

Current US President Joe Biden acknowledged in 1997 that eastward NATO expansion into the Baltic states would cause “the greatest consternation,” which could “tip the balance” and result in a “vigorous and hostile reaction” by Russia.
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania did indeed become part of NATO in 2004. Estonia and Latvia directly border Russia, and frequently do military exercises with Western troops a mere 100 kilometers from the border.
Biden’s 1997 comments were a clear admission that Washington knew its policy of pushing the US-led military alliance right up onto Russia’s borders could force Russia to respond with force, as Moscow did by invading Ukraine in February 2022.
Biden made these remarks in a June 18, 1997 event at the Atlantic Council, NATO’s de facto think tank, and one of the most powerful organizations in Washington.

At the time of the event, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were actively seeking to join NATO. (They later did in 1999.)
Then a senator representing Delaware, Biden enthusiastically praised NATO and criticized fellow lawmakers who opposed its expansion. Biden called for the military alliance to continue to grow into Eastern Europe.
But he conceded that this expansion could precipitate a “hostile reaction” from Moscow.
“I think the one place where the greatest consternation would be caused in the short term, for admission – having nothing to do with the merit and preparedness of the countries coming in – would be to admit the Baltic states now, in terms of NATO-Russian, US-Russian relations,” Biden said.
“And if there was ever anything that was going to tip the balance, were it to be tipped, in terms of a vigorous and hostile reaction, I don’t mean military, in Russia, it would be that,” he added.
A video clip of Biden’s comments was published on Twitter by user @ImReadinHere.
Biden in 1997 saying that the only thing that could provoke a "vigorous and hostile" Russian response would be if NATO expanded as far as the Baltic states pic.twitter.com/i0yfEgIGZA
— . (@ImReadinHere) March 7, 2022

When Biden made these remarks, he was the ranking member, or top Democrat, on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Biden was introduced at the event by James Woolsey, a former CIA director who at the time served as head of the Atlantic Council.
Woolsey celebrated Biden as “one of the leading and most important senators… in both the areas of judiciary and foreign policy.”

These 1997 comments are by no means the only time that a top US government official admitted that NATO expansion could force Russia to respond.
When the Senate approved NATO expansion in 1998, it was condemned by none other than leading cold warrior George Kennan, the architect of US containment policy toward the Soviet Union. Kennan warned in prescient words published by the New York Times:
I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.
In a 2008 classified State Department cable published by WikiLeaks, former US Ambassador to Russia William Burns, who now serves as Biden’s CIA director, likewise cautioned that NATO expansion into Ukraine would cross Moscow’s security “redlines” and “could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”
Ex US Ambassador to Russia William Burns (now CIA director) admitted back in 2008 that NATO expansion to Ukraine crosses Moscow's security "redlines" and could create violence & civil war, which would force Russia to intervene
That's exactly what happenedhttps://t.co/8DOuuq5Og3
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) February 27, 2022

Senior US, British, French, and German officials repeatedly promised the former Soviet Union in 1990 that NATO would not expand eastward after the reunification of Germany. This is an undeniable historical fact confirmed by numerous documents from Western governments.
NATO broke this promise, however, adding 14 new member states, all east of Germany.
A newly discovered document on a 1991 diplomatic meeting proves that the US, UK, France, and Germany promised the USSR that NATO would not expand east.
It’s part of a growing body of evidence that the West broke its promise to Russia.
via @Multipolaristahttps://t.co/KP6KHW2YyR
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) February 20, 2022


Instruction: Write an article about: Gaza is one of the most heavily bombed areas in history. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Financial Times, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, World War II

Output:
Israel has turned Gaza into one of the most heavily bombed areas in history, according to a report in the Financial Times. Top UN experts warn that the Palestinian people are at risk of genocide.

Gaza is one of the most heavily bombed areas in history, according to a report in the Financial Times.
“Gaza will also go down as a place name denoting one of history’s heaviest conventional bombing campaigns”, an expert told the newspaper.
More than 2 million Palestinians are trapped in the strip, making it one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.
The UK’s Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron warned in 2010 that Israel’s suffocating blockade had turned Gaza into a giant “prison camp”.
Human Rights Watch stated in 2022 that Tel Aviv’s 15-year siege of Gaza had made the strip “Israel’s open-air prison“. The human rights organization wrote, “The closure has devastated the economy in Gaza, contributed to fragmentation of the Palestinian people, and forms part of Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians”.
Israel has launched numerous bombing campaigns in Gaza – in 2008 to 2009, 2012, 2014, 2022, and 2023, among others.
However, Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2023 has broken records, in terms of the massive civilian casualties and catastrophic destruction of infrastructure.
The Financial Times detailed this devastation in a December 6 report:
Citing estimates of damage to urban areas, military analysts say the destruction of northern Gaza in less than seven weeks has approached that caused by the years-long carpet-bombing of German cities during the second world war.
“Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne — some of the world’s heaviest-ever bombings are remembered by their place names,” said Robert Pape, a US military historian and author of Bombing to Win, a landmark survey of 20th century bombing campaigns. “Gaza will also go down as a place name denoting one of history’s heaviest conventional bombing campaigns.”
Whole neighbourhoods have been levelled. By December 4, more than 60 per cent of the buildings in north Gaza had been severely damaged, according to analysis of satellite radar data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University.
That rises to as much as 70 per cent of buildings in some districts. Across the whole of Gaza, between 82,600 and 105,300 buildings have been left in ruins, according to the estimate, which counts buildings where at least half the structure was damaged.
The catastrophic destruction of northern Gaza in less than seven weeks has approached that caused by the years-long carpet-bombing of German cities during the second world war https://t.co/Hm0YiTNOjr pic.twitter.com/vC3Nx3BP5X
— Financial Times (@FT) December 7, 2023

In November, just over a month into Israel’s record-breaking assault, top UN experts published a statement that called on the “international community to prevent genocide against the Palestinian people“.
“Grave violations committed by Israel against Palestinians… point to a genocide in the making”, the UN experts said.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights wrote:
[Israeli officials] illustrated evidence of increasing genocidal incitement, overt intent to “destroy the Palestinian people under occupation”, loud calls for a ‘second Nakba’ in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the use of powerful weaponry with inherently indiscriminate impacts, resulting in a colossal death toll and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure.
“Many of us already raised the alarm about the risk of genocide in Gaza,” the experts said. “We are deeply disturbed by the failure of governments to heed our call and to achieve an immediate ceasefire. We are also profoundly concerned about the support of certain governments for Israel’s strategy of warfare against the besieged population of Gaza, and the failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide,” they said.
…
Of those killed, about 41 per cent are children and 25 percent are women. On average, one child is killed and two are injured every 10 minutes during the war, turning Gaza into a “graveyard for children,” according to the UN Secretary-General.
…
“This occurs amidst Israel’s tightening of its 16-year unlawful blockade of Gaza, which has prevented people from escaping and left them without food, water, medicine and fuel for weeks now, despite international appeals to provide access for critical humanitarian aid. As we previously said, intentional starvation amounts to a war crime,” the experts said.
#Gaza: UN experts point to evidence of genocide in the making, call for @UN protective presence in besieged enclave. “Failure to implement #CeasefireNowInGaza risks situation spiralling towards genocide conducted with 21st Century methods of warfare”: https://t.co/rdLSklxzj3 pic.twitter.com/80hWswVjju
— UN Special Procedures (@UN_SPExperts) November 16, 2023

The United States has staunchly supported Israel throughout this war, sending the country billions of dollars worth of weapons and military assistance, aiding Tel Aviv in its crimes against humanity.
Washington has also used its veto power in the United Nations Security Council to kill resolutions calling for a ceasefire or mere humanitarian pauses in Gaza.