the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

A MintPress News analysis found that in a single week Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC ran almost 1,300 separate stories on the Ukraine invasion, two stories on the Syria attack, one on Somalia, and none at all on the Saudi-led war on Yemen. by Alan Macleod  Part 6 - All comes down to whose ox is getting gored While racism is clearly a factor in the coverage, it should be remembered that the bombing of Yugoslavia — a white nation comparable to Ukraine — was celebrated, not rejected. This was in large part because it was NATO itself that was the aggressor. Media theory scholars have long argued that victims of Western aggression are largely ignored but those of the West’s enemies will be given center stage. In 1988, academics Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky developed their theory of worthy vs. unworthy victims in their book “Manufacturing Consent.” Together, they compared the coverage of two concurrent genocides, one in Cambodia (an enemy state) and o...

Last week’s election in Colombia saw the best result for the Left in decades and confirmed Gustavo Petro as favorite to become the country’s first socialist president. It’s a major shift in a country that has long been dominated by US-backed right-wing leaders.   by Carlos Cruz Mosquera    Part 2 - Colombia and the West The West has a historical interest in Colombia, both for trade and for its regional geopolitical importance. Indebted due to financial backing during the independence struggle, Colombia’s sprouting elites were pushed into unequal trading and political relations with the UK and the United States. The situation was so dire that the independence leader Simón Bolívar complained once that this relationship had engendered a “ chaos of horrors, calamities, and crimes . . . and Colombia is a victim whose entrails these vultures are tearing to shreds. ” Two hundred years on, his words still hold. Much of the country’s yearly GDP continues to be siphoned off to pay ...

BreakThrough News   Mainstream media are whipping up a frenzy against leftists who oppose US imperialism and NATO, smearing them as “Russian agents” for trying to analyze this conflict and its causes with nuance rather than emotion or jingoism. With Western media exclusively focused on Ukraine, simply reminding people that Afghanistan is being starved due to U.S. policies, that Yemen is still being bombed and besiged, and that Syria, Cuba, Iran and Venezuela are still being sanctioned leads to accusations of “whataboutism.” And daring to point out the NATO and US role in setting the stage for Russia’s intervention in Ukraine gets one labeled a “Russian apologist.”  To discuss these challenges, Rania Khalek was joined by Justin Podur,a Professor in Environmental and Urban Change at York U in Toronto, author of “Siegebreakers,” and host of The Anti-Empire Project podcast.

failed evolution   World's number one political prisoner, Julian Assange, still in high security prison for exposing horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   That Assange, who is in precarious physical and psychological health and who suffered a stroke during court video proceedings, has been condemned to death should not come as a surprise. The ten years he has been detained, seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and nearly three in the high security Belmarsh prison, were accompanied with a lack of sunlight and exercise and unrelenting threats, pressure, anxiety and stress.    His steady physical and psychological deterioration has led to hallucinations and depression. He takes antidepressant med...

Democracy Now!   A month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than 3.6 million Ukrainians have left the country as refugees, and the war risks becoming " an Afghanistan-like quagmire, " warns Greek lawmaker Yanis Varoufakis, founder of the Progressive International with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. He says the West's sweeping sanctions on Russia and bottomless military aid to Ukraine risk escalating the conflict and foreclosing chances of a peaceful resolution. " What is exactly the aim? Is it regime change in Russia? " asks Varoufakis. " Well, whenever the United States tried regime change, it didn't turn out very well and has never been tried with a nuclear power. This is like playing with fire ."

globinfo freexchange   It's no secret that the biggest winners of Russia's invasion of Ukraine were the major US arms companies a.k.a the military-industrial complex, and, the major US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters. The latest are about to make unprecedented profits from numerous deals with Europe as a consequence of the soaring prices - due to the sanctions against Russia and the suspension of Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline.   The US LNG producers are now at the center of the war-profiteering lobbies after the recent deal with the EU. As reported by Bloomberg : [emphasis added]                       The U.S. and the European Union will push to boost supplies of liquefied natural gas to European countries by the end of 2022 in a bid to begin to displace some Russian gas, a political framework that now leaves companies to sort out the details.    ...

Testimony by evacuated Mariupol residents and warnings of a false flag attack undermine the Ukrainian government’s claims about a Russian bombing of a local theater sheltering civilians.   by Max Blumenthal  Part 2 - Azov Battalion fighters grow desperate in Mariupol, plea for Western military intervention The strategic southeastern port city of Mariupol has been held by the Azov Battalion since 2014. Since its seizure, it has served as a political and military base for the ultra-nationalist paramilitary as it launched assaults on pro-Russian separatists in the breakaway republic of Donetsk. Gathered from the ranks of extreme right activists that provided protesters with street muscle during the 2013-14 Euromaidan coup, the Azov Battalion has been formally incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard by the country’s Interior Ministry. It was founded by the openly fascist organizer Andriy Biletsky, who has vowed to “ lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … aga...

While Western media deploys Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish heritage to refute accusations of Nazi influence in Ukraine, the president has ceded to neo-Nazi forces and now depends on them as front line fighters. by Alexander Rubinstein and Max Blumenthal  Part 5 - After Prime Minister attends neo-Nazi concert, Zelensky honors Right Sector leader   Just days after Zelensky’s meeting with Karas and other neo-Nazi leaders in November 2019, Oleksiy Honcharuk – then the Prime Minister and deputy head of Zelensky’s presidential office – appeared on stage at a neo-Nazi concert organized by C14 figure and accused murderer Andriy Medvedko. Zelensky’s Minister for Veterans Affairs not only attended the concert, which featured several antisemitic metal bands, she promoted the concert on Facebook. Also in 2019, Zelensky defended Ukrainian footballer Roman Zolzulya against Spanish fans taunting him as a “Nazi.” Zolzulya had posed beside photos of the World War II-era Nazi collaborator Stepan B...

Wi-Fi router companies say they don't track the websites you visit, but all of them collect and share user data for marketing   by Ry Crist  Part 5 - Is my data being sold? I also asked the companies I looked into for this post whether or not they sell data that could be used to personally identify a user, as defined by the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. That law defines a "sale" broadly to include, " selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer's personal information by the business to another business or a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration. " Most of the companies indicate in their privacy policies that they do not sell personal data, but the CommScope privacy policy acknowledges that it shares information, including identifiers as well as internet and other network activity information, for ...

During their coverage of the escalating tension in Ukraine, Western media have exposed their racism, white supremacy, and hypocrisy  by Ahmad Karakira Part 4 - Where did "free speech" go?   As part of the campaign of sanctions against Russia after its military operation in Ukraine, Google Europe blocked Youtube channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe " effective immediately ". " It’ll take time for our systems to fully ramp up. Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action, " a statement by the company read on Twitter.   On March 1, the European Union threatened it would ban Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced, accusing the pair of " spreading harmful disinformation. " " We are developing tools to ban toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe, " von der Leyen claimed despite the mounting Western propaganda on a wide array of is...

A MintPress News analysis found that in a single week Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC ran almost 1,300 separate stories on the Ukraine invasion, two stories on the Syria attack, one on Somalia, and none at all on the Saudi-led war on Yemen. by Alan Macleod  Part 5 - “First major war between civilized nations” Although the disparity in quantity of coverage is stark, it is also important to note the huge differences in tone and outlook. Media is festooned with pictures of the targets of Russian aggression. For the first time, we are being invited to view the war from the side of the victim. Furthermore, the coverage is not dry and matter-of-fact, but emotive and full of outrage. This is virtually unheard of when reporting on Western wars, and is a conscious decision taken by those at the top. Weeks after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, for example, the chairman of CNN sent a memo to all staff advising them in no uncertain terms to downplay the sufferin...

Last week’s election in Colombia saw the best result for the Left in decades and confirmed Gustavo Petro as favorite to become the country’s first socialist president. It’s a major shift in a country that has long been dominated by US-backed right-wing leaders.   by Carlos Cruz Mosquera    Part 1 Colombia’s left-wing and progressive coalition, Pacto Historico, has become the country’s most popular political movement following the congressional elections on Sunday, March 13. This historical victory threatens two hundred years of ruling-class hegemony, with most of the coalition’s representatives coming from campesino and working-class backgrounds. Depending on what happens in May’s presidential election, this win could have global reverberations. Crucially, the West stands to lose the unconditional loyalty of its most stable ally in the region. Gustavo Petro, the coalition’s presidential candidate, comes from a family of rural workers who, like many in the country, were fo...

In Belgrade, there are many scars left by the NATO bombings. The NATO bombings of Yugoslavia started on March 24, 1999. During the 78-day military attack, 2,500 civilians were killed, and around 25,000 objects were damaged, including airports, hospitals, schools, cultural monuments and road infrastructure, according to the Serbian government.  See other pics: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/20220323/043c166357004868ae8edd392fd44750/c.html

failed evolution   World's number one political prisoner, Julian Assange, still in high security prison for exposing horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies.   The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future.   That Assange, who is in precarious physical and psychological health and who suffered a stroke during court video proceedings, has been condemned to death should not come as a surprise. The ten years he has been detained, seven in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and nearly three in the high security Belmarsh prison, were accompanied with a lack of sunlight and exercise and unrelenting threats, pressure, anxiety and stress.    His steady physical and psychological deterioration has led to hallucinations and depression. He takes antidepressant med...

The Grayzone Chas Freeman, a retired senior US diplomat, analyzes Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the US role, and the geopolitical fallout. " Everything we are doing, rather than accelerate an end to the fighting and some compromise, seems to be aimed at prolonging the fighting, " Freeman says. 

globinfo freexchange   Couldn't be said more clearly. The former US secretary of defense and CIA director, Leon Panetta, admitted openly that “ We are engaged in a conflict here. It's a proxy war with Russia, whether we say so or not ... ”. Referring to the Ukrainian forces, the US imperialist warhawk claimed that " These are good fighters, they are small-unit operations, they are working well ... ". The description "small-unit operations" fits to proxy forces - mercenaries, rather than an organized national army. As we mentioned in our previous article , for eight years, the NATO criminals and the "free" and "democratic" West, were provoking Russia by arming and training the far-right and neo-nazi militia groups who also infiltrated in the Ukrainian army and operate in East Ukraine against Russian populations. Which is something similar with what happened in the long-suffering Syria by the US proxy war against Assad. Only there, th...

Testimony by evacuated Mariupol residents and warnings of a false flag attack undermine the Ukrainian government’s claims about a Russian bombing of a local theater sheltering civilians.   by Max Blumenthal  Part 1 Western media have reported that Russia’s military deliberately attacked the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, claiming that it was filled with civilians and marked with signs reading “children” on its grounds. The supposed bombing took place just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to US Congress for a no fly zone, fueling the chorus for direct military confrontation with Russia and apparently inspiring President Joseph Biden to brand Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, as a “war criminal.” A closer look reveals that local residents in Mariupol had warned three days before the March 16 incident that the theater would be the site of a false flag attack launched by the openly neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which controlled the ...

While Western media deploys Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish heritage to refute accusations of Nazi influence in Ukraine, the president has ceded to neo-Nazi forces and now depends on them as front line fighters. by Alexander Rubinstein and Max Blumenthal  Part 4 - Zelensky failed to rein in neo-Nazis, wound up collaborating with them   Following his failed attempt to demobilize neo-Nazi militants in the town of Zolote in October 2019, Zelensky called the fighters to the table, telling reporters “ I met with veterans yesterday. Everyone was there – the National Corps, Azov, and everyone else. ” A few seats away from the Jewish president was Yehven Karas, the leader of the neo-Nazi C14 gang. During the Maidan “Revolution of Dignity” that ousted Ukraine’s elected president in 2014, C14 activists took over Kiev’s city hall and plastered its walls with neo-Nazi insignia before taking shelter in the Canadian embassy. As the former youth wing of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda Party, C14 a...

Wi-Fi router companies say they don't track the websites you visit, but all of them collect and share user data for marketing   by Ry Crist  Part 4 - Where is my data going? Even if your router isn't tracking the specific websites you visit, it's still collecting data as you use it. Much of this is technical data about your network and the devices that use it that the manufacturer needs to keep things running smoothly and to detect potential threats or other issues. In most cases, your router will also collect personal data, location data, and other identifiers -- and like I said, every company I looked into acknowledged that it uses data like that for marketing purposes in one way or another. Using your data for marketing often means that your data is being shared with third parties. The danger is that a company might share it with a third party outside of its control, that would then be free to use and share your data however it likes.  " When data is used to target ...

During their coverage of the escalating tension in Ukraine, Western media have exposed their racism, white supremacy, and hypocrisy  by Ahmad Karakira Part 3 - White supremacy and dehumanizing non-whites Jegic linked the ongoing Western coverage to white supremacy, where he warned that the dominant European discourse naturalizes " destruction and military intervention in non-whites places " and " dehumanizes people that are not white. ”   " So it's not only a double standard but also a continuation of this entire dehumanization and glorification of white 'civilization', " he added. Source, links, further info:   https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/youre-doing-yourself-a-disservice-following-only-western-med   [ 1 ][ 2 ][ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ]  

A MintPress News analysis found that in a single week Fox News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC ran almost 1,300 separate stories on the Ukraine invasion, two stories on the Syria attack, one on Somalia, and none at all on the Saudi-led war on Yemen. by Alan Macleod  Part 4 - Somalia yawn, Syria shrug Last week, the U.S. resumed its bombing campaign against Somalia, Africa’s second poorest nation. Using a reaper drone, the military carried out an airstrike near the country’s capital, Mogadishu. The Tuesday strike also failed to make media waves, despite the military issuing a press release about it. The only outlet of the five studied to cover it was The New York Times , which released a story headlined, “U.S. Carries Out First Airstrike in Somalia Since August.” Far from condemning the act as bewildering aggression, as it had done with Putin, the subheadline immediately justified it, claiming that, “ the strike targeted Al Shabab militants who had attacked ...

MintPressNews   Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist living in London who writes about Palestine and the Middle East. He has been visiting Palestine since 2004 and hails from the south of Wales. He writes for the groundbreaking Palestinian news site The Electronic Intifada where he is an associate editor and he also writes a weekly column for the Middle East Monitor .   Since 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has integrated Neo-Nazis into the Ukrainian state to serve as a bulwark against Russia. We now have the clear situation of NATO arming and training Nazi organizations. But this is not an aberration of history. NATO and the United States have embraced Nazis many times before. Lowkey and Winstanley delve into the sordid story of these strange bedfellows. “ This is a big unspoken part of our history ,” Winstanley said.  Winstanley explores the post-WW2 period of European history and reveals examples of Nazis being rehabilitated, subsumed into the ...