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His brilliant method of pollination is now used by all vanilla growers.

The post The Boy Who Was King of Vanilla appeared first on Nautilus.

This takes courage. There are many cameras there and most observers believe the police are making note. The Navalny family couldn’t come, of course. They would have been immediately arrested.

A classified diplomatic cable obtained by The Grayzone reveals the role of a veteran CIA officer in violently overthrowing Haiti’s popular President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.  A spectacular jailbreak in Gonaïves, Haiti in August 2002 saw a bulldozer smash through the local prison walls, allowing armed supporters of Amiot “Cubain” Métayer, a gang leader jailed weeks earlier for harassing Haitian political figures, to overrun the facility. Métayer escaped, as did 158 other prisoners. Among them were perpetrators of the April […]

The post Secret cable: CIA orchestrated Haiti’s 2004 coup first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Secret cable: CIA orchestrated Haiti’s 2004 coup appeared first on The Grayzone.

It had been a long day. The hot-shit new supervisor, who looked about sixteen and probably hadn’t even started shaving yet, had written me up twice. I’d crumpled both slips in front of him, thrown them in the trash.

On the way home, the 48-Arrakeen worm died at the base of the hill, and we all had to hop off into the sand. The thing was already starting to stink as I began the trudge uphill, bone-tired and thirsty.

Then a bit of luck: the neon sign at the Rack was lit. Soon I was at the bar with a decent spice-drunk going. It was an hour before last call, and the regulars and spicers were in fine form.

I heard a woman’s voice behind me: “Look who it is. The famous writer.”

I ignored her, focused on my drink.

“What are you drinking?” she asked.

“Spice and water,” I said.

“Two spice and waters,” she said to the bartender.

I turned and looked at her. I’d seen her around, a former Gesserit turned spicer. Her eyes were permanently blue and her front teeth were chipped from fighting, but otherwise she wasn’t much worse for wear.

The Australian government remains silent, continues to call Israel “our friend”, and rewards Israel’s war machine in a new contract with the Israeli arms firm Elbit. The Federal Government sends more troops to the Middle East while starving Palestinians in northern Gaza are massacred as they desperately seek food for their families, babies in Gaza Continue reading »

The Albanese government is about to free the Reserve Bank of Australia from a rarely used constraint allowing a Treasurer to override a decision of the central bank, such as a policy to push interest-rates so high they cause a severe recession. The Treasury has no such freedom. Nor should it. It can’t slash taxes Continue reading »

The mass media got itself into a flap this week (28, 29 Feb & 1 March) over ASIO Director, Mike Burgess’ claim that a former Australian politician “sold out their country, party and former colleagues” after being recruited by spies of a foreign regime. “Name the traitor,” former Treasurer and former Ambassador to the US, Continue reading »

Last year the head of the ASIO, Mr Mike Burgess’s annual threat assessment was blighted by errors of fact. This year he’s enlarged his repertoire to errors of judgment. In a speech which: rambles to the point of incoherence is self-congratulatory and self-serving is bulked up with pointless historical nostalgia, and contains more corn than Continue reading »

Australia’s relationship with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is now 50 years strong. On 4 March Prime Minister Albanese will welcome the 10 member nations to Melbourne for a Special Summit to celebrate our role as the first dialogue partner of ASEAN. The theme of the Summit is ‘A Partnership for the Continue reading »

In Asian media this week: Conscription law sparking Thailand exodus. Plus: Rich West building fences against the Rest; Pakistan poll-rigging whistleblower arrested; Economist says Hong Kong glory days over; Indonesian election ‘one of the darkest days’; High price paid for saving the tiger. Myanmar’s recent imposition of military conscription for younger people threatens to cause Continue reading »

The bucolic stupidity of nuclear energy, repairing the damage after the Coalition’s war on learning, why Dutton would be a lousy baby-sitter. Read on for the weekly roundup of links to articles, podcasts, reports and other media on current economic and political issues. Australia’s energy transition A leading entrepreneur calls out the National Party for Continue reading »

30 years ago, then Premier Jeff Kennett told Victorians the grand prix would not cost taxpayers a cent. $1 billion later, it is obvious he was wrong. This is what Victorian taxpayers have paid so far to host a four-day Formula 1 car race. And the bill just keeps growing. The race is now costing Continue reading »

Pearls and Irritations is widely read outside Australia. In particular, its content is now reviewed by certain media writing and presenting in Chinese in Hong Kong. The latest example is a story written by Chen, Jingli, published in the leading Chinese newspaper (by circulation) in Hong Kong, the long-established Oriental Daily. The translated title of Continue reading »

“The international community is facing a moral and humanitarian test to stop the genocide in Gaza,” said a Gaza Health Ministry official. In what Palestinian officials on Wednesday called “‘an international failure to protect humanity” from Israel’s genocidal assault and blockade, at least six Palestinian children and infants have died of starvation, dehydration, and poisoning Continue reading »

Amanpour expressed “real distress” over Israel stories being changed, while other staffers described a climate that is hostile to Arab journalists.

The post In Internal Meeting, Christiane Amanpour Confronts CNN Brass About “Double Standards” on Israel Coverage appeared first on The Intercept.

British-Palestinian families are appealing to the Home Office to institute visa programs for relatives stranded in war torn Gaza

I don’t care a much about the notion of “American dominance” or “prestige” but I do care a lot about the prospect of the planet being blown up and destroying the institutions and alliances that make it possible to reverse catastrophic climate change. All of that is becoming closer to reality as Donald Trump continues to dictate American foreign policy from his gaudy social club in Palm Beach. One of the best things about the Trump administration is how copiously it leaked to the press, so in real time and later through the many books and articles that were written about that tumultuous term, we have a very detailed understanding of the man’s worldview went he went in and what it is today. We know that even after four years in the most important job in the world, he didn’t learn a thing about world affairs. According to “A Very Stable Genius” by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, by July of 2017 it had become clear to Trump’s national security and economic team that he desperately needed some tutoring in order to understand the importance of America’s key alliances.

By refusing to condemn Lee Anderson’s comments about Sadiq Khan as Islamophobic, the Prime Minister exposed the cynical fallacy at the heart of ‘the most diverse Cabinet in history’ 

One story here and one there don’t make the point I’m just going to leave these right here. Did an Abortion Ban Cost a Young Texas Woman Her Life? (January 2024) Republican Officials Openly Insult Women Nearly Killed by Abortion Bans (January 2024) Ohio Woman Who Miscarried Faces Charge That She Abused Corpse (January 2024) Woman suing Texas over abortion ban vomits on the stand in emotional reaction during dramatic hearing (July 2023) She was denied an abortion in Texas – then she almost died (June 2023) Two friends were denied care after Florida banned abortion. One almost died. (April 2023) Ohio abortion law meant weeks of ‘anguish,’ ‘agony’ for couple whose unborn child had organs outside her body (February 2023) She had ‘a baby dying inside’ her. Under Missouri’s abortion ban, doctors could do nothing.

I’ve written for UnHerd about NATO’s dangerous military escalation against Russia. Over the past few days, we’ve had Macron raise the possibility of sending NATO troops to Ukraine, Scholz confirm that Western specials troops are already in Ukraine — and actively participating in the targeting and firing of Western missiles on Russian targets, as the New York Times reported —, Stoltenberg say that NATO has …

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I’ve written an article for Compact expanding on my recent carbon farming paper written for the think tank MCC Brussels.

I’ve written for UnHerd about the two-day hearing starting today in which the UK High Court will announce its final decision on Assange’s extradition to the US. If the court rules out a further appeal, Assange could be immediately extradited to the United States, where he will almost certainly be incarcerated for the rest of his life on …

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Would a future Trump presidency represent a threat or an opportunity for Europe? Neither, as I argue in my latest UnHerd column. The notion that Trump would pull the US out of NATO is ridiculous. But even if he were to do so, it wouldn’t make much of a difference considering that Europe’s political elites have internalised America’s …

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