Reading

Masha Gesson’s amazing piece today in the NY Times about the prisoner swap is like something out of a John LeCarre novel. It’s absolutely riveting. If you read nothing else about this story, this is the one. I am including a gift link so you can all read it. This is a short excerpt to whet the appetite: Weeks after that phone call, Navalny flew back to Moscow and was immediately arrested. A year after that, “Navalny” was winning major awards and heading for an Oscar, and Grozev and Pevchikh were discussing how to leverage that success to secure Navalny’s release. On that stroll around the reservoir, they came up with a crazy scheme they decided to call Secret Project Silver Lake. They wanted to organize a swap of Russian spies held in Western prisons for Navalny and other Russian political prisoners. When Pevchikh got back to where the team was staying, she Googled “Glienicke Bridge,” a crossing between what used to be East and West Berlin, the site of several prior prisoner swaps, including one that involved four countries and almost 30 people.

Nuclear-powered Virginia Class and AUKUS submarines are a useful deterrent only if they carry cruise missiles with nuclear warheads that can be launched from their unique vertical firing shaft. Then if a distant enemy nuked Australia, we could launch an instant nuclear retaliation from such submarines lurking off their coast for months without needing refuelling. Continue reading »

In light of his pleading guilty to charges of making indecent images of children, BBC removed an episode of Doctor Who featuring Huw Edwards.

Humanity is facing its greatest emergency, a crisis consisting of many, interlinked, catastrophic risks, the Roundtable on the Human Future has declared. At present humanity has no way to deal with such a crisis – and a global plan of action is urgently needed, it said. “The threats are now arriving together. Their collective scale Continue reading »

One Palestinian farming family's story Continue reading »

Amidst the spat with Beijing over safety of its troops on Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal, the Philippines is becoming increasingly stretched. Pooling all available resources to deal with one of the worst oil spills in many years in Manila Bay could mean playing down conflict with Beijing. The dispute over the Second Continue reading »

The Albanese government is arguably the most timid Labor Government in our history. What’s the point of the Albanese Government? You might argue that at least it’s not a Morrison or Dutton Government but when it comes to achievements, crafting a cohesive narrative and acting on the many urgent national needs Australia faces there is Continue reading »

In Asian media this week: America bolsters defence ties with Tokyo, Seoul and Manila. Plus: Diplomat a strong voice for polite countries; India planning Ukraine peace effort; BRICS nations interested in Belt and Road scheme; Beijing to unleash domestic demand; Olympic swimmers awesome but archers more so. The US is fortifying its anti-China Western Pacific Continue reading »

Attempts have been made to tidy things up but too much reliance has been place on administrative measures rather than the solidity of new or amended primary legislation. While some commendable things have been done, the overall program has been short on ambition and imagination, and progress has been oh so slow. It’s now nine Continue reading »

If the well-off paid their fair share of tax no one would be talking about a cost of living crisis; Dutton weeps as his beloved Home Affairs Department, modelled on the Soviet KGB, is dismantled; how the gambling lobby has become Australia’s equivalent to America’s National Rifle Association. Read on for the weekly roundup of Continue reading »

The last time I caught up with Edward Snowden online was at his Substack site, Continuing Ed. That was back on September 22, 2022, when he wrote his first piece there in almost a year. He came back briefly to remind us: America’s Open Wound: The CIA is not your friend. Essentially, the piece details the Continue reading »

A MUST-WATCH 29-minute interview in which Jeffrey Sachs tells it like it is and as few others dare to tell it. Andrew Napolitano from Judging Freedom talks with Jeffrey Sachs about the credibility of the US in the diplomatic community, its freefalling position in the world, much of which is not covered in mainstream media, Continue reading »

In the chaotic aftermath of Maduro’s contested reelection, the case that U.S. policy worked in Venezuela is on shaky ground.

The post U.S. Sanctions Have Devastated Venezuela. How Does That Help Democracy? appeared first on The Intercept.

Not that reality actually means much, but here’s a little dose of it anyway: At a rally in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Donald Trump rolled out a new attack on Vice President Kamala Harris that showcased his well-known fondness for high-toned discourse: Her handling of immigration reveals her as not just weak, but also dumb. The former president luridly claimed that Venezuelan gang members were “plotting to conduct ambush attacks” on American cops, then added: “All the while Harris and Biden sit in the White House and try to figure out who is dumber.” He proceeded to blame “Border Czar Harris” for a series of crimes by migrants, even though President Biden tasked her with addressing the root causes of Central American migration, while the Department of Homeland Security secures the border. Unfortunately for Trump, unpublished DHS data shows that border encounters between ports of entry plummeted again to approximately 57,000 in July, according to an official familiar with the numbers. The data, which is preliminary until its official release in the coming days, was also leaked to CBS News and The New York Times.

A Rock: Feel how solid it is. How smooth. How heavy. Like, really heavy. Good lord. Was your kid lugging it around all week? Is this the burden we all bear—lugging around rocks that we thought, for just a fleeting moment, were special? What rocks in our own backpack can we unload? And will your kid remember this particular rock and have a fit when they discover you threw it in the rockpile outside?

A Broken Stick: The stick is broken, barely hanging together. So is the world. You can take comfort in knowing that all things are broken. Your kid will probably not take such comfort. Is it better to conceal the broken stick or confront the reality of its brokenness? A difficult decision in much of life. But not here, since it’s just before dinner and your kid is already hangry.

Well, this is practically nail in the coffin news:

As Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire, Israeli troops are stationed in the villages that dot the country’s northern border.

The post Israel Accuses Hamas of Using “Human Shields” While IDF Embeds Among Civilians at Lebanon Border appeared first on The Intercept.

Trump’s close adviser, the literally insane Laura Loomer, posted the following and Trump retweeted it: In case you need something to send to a brainwashed relative to prove Harris is Black, here’s a picture of her and her father: He’s still alive: Her father is Black. Clearly. He was born in Jamaica. And she has always identified as Black and Indian which is what she is. Like tens of millions of other bi-racial Americans, she identifies as both. And also like most Black Americans she has a slave owner forefather. Do these people have any idea what they are saying? This is so dumb I can hardly wrap my mind around it. But get ready. It’s going to be a thing.

The fault lies not in their candidates “Trump didn’t change the party, he revealed it,” Stuart Stevens (“It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump“) tells The Daily Blast. It’s a view the former Republican says he forced himself to admit. Lee Atwater’s1981 confession about the Southern Strategy was more than a political strategy. It was an admission that it would work on racist sentiments present among the GOP base. “We were very aware of this ugly, dark side,” Stevens says of himself, Nicole Wallace, and other Bush administration colleagues. “But we thought it was a recessive gene, and that we were the dominant gene.” They thought their party would move their way, just out of political practicality. It did not. Stevens tells Greg Sargent he did not write another of those “if only they’d listened to me” books. Because the GOP did listen to him. “American conservatism is a failed intellectual exercise,” Stevens concludes. It is no longer a political party but an extremist movement.

July’s Tory defeat, following as it did years of cruelty and misrule, was richly deserved. For many Tribune readers it will have been a moment of relief, finally putting an end to the ruling party’s planned further assaults on trade unions, human rights, and material security. To call the feeling that night relief alone, however, […]

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was dealt an unexpected blow in the recent elections, as the far-right Hindu nationalist party lost its parliamentary majority. The party has presided over an increase in anti-Muslim lynchings, an authoritarian crackdown on opposition parties, and widening inequality. In 2019, it introduced the […]