the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Advancing global de-dollarization, China’s central bank is boosting its gold reserves while signing currency swap deals in yuan with countries like Argentina, encouraging the use of renminbi instead of US dollars.   by Ben Norton  Part 5 - Argentina and Brazil deepen economic integration, with eyes on new Latin American currency While Buenos Aires is collaborating more closely with Beijing (its second-largest trading partner), Argentina has simultaneously pushed for stronger ties with Brazil (its largest trading partner) and economic integration of Latin America. Brazil’s left-wing President Lula da Silva returned to power on January 1. Two days later, Argentina’s Ambassador Daniel Scioli met with Brazil’s Economic Minister Fernando Haddad. Scioli said his government’s top priority was “ the agreement on deep Argentina-Brazil integration ” that the countries’ Presidents Alberto Fernández and Lula da Silva are due to sign at the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean St

failed evolution   On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges.   The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed 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.   And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had in mind is

Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia have refused to send weapons to Ukraine, despite pressure by the US and EU. Latin American left-wing leaders have urged peace with Russia and called for neutrality in the West’s new cold war.   by Ben Norton  Part 1 Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia have rejected requests by the United States and European Union that they send weapons to Ukraine. The commander of the US military’s Southern Command (Southcom), which operates in Latin America and the Caribbean, revealed on January 19 that Washington has been pressuring countries in the region to arm Ukraine. Southcom wants Latin American nations to “ replace [their] Russian equipment with United States equipment – if those countries want to donate it to Ukraine ”, said Army General Laura J. Richardson. But Latin America’s left-wing leaders have refused, instead maintaining neutrality and urging peace.   The socialist governments in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua blamed NATO expansion and US meddling for causi

Some of the most incendiary accusations made against Iran’s government by corporate media, celebrity influencers and Western leaders in the past months are little more than fabrications. And most remain uncorrected.   by Setareh Sadeqi and Christopher Weaver   Part 3 - Iran pioneers time traveling technology   CNN falsely claimed that the family home of a female Iranian rock climber, Elnaz Rekabi, had been demolished as punishment for her participating without a hijab in a South Korean competition on October 15, 2022. Rekabi, a member of the Iranian national team, spoke after the South Korean competition and explained that not wearing a headscarf was unintentional – due to a rushed competition – and not meant as a political statement. English-language websites began running stories that Rekabi had been abducted and her family home had been destroyed by the ‘regime’ in retribution. BBC, The Guardian, Le Monde and others had claimed Rekabi went missing, while raising concerns about her

Four years ago, the UK government recognised Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s president. He’s now gone, but the Bank of England is still holding some of the country’s key assets. JOHN McEVOY   Part 1   In late December, Venezuela’s leading opposition parties voted to oust Juan Guaidó as “interim president” and dissolve his parallel government. This was clearly not the ending the UK government had in mind. Four years ago, the British government made the bold decision to recognise Guaidó as Venezuelan president, and proceeded to facilitate his legal battle to seize roughly $2bn of gold held in the Bank of England. Indeed, the UK government insisted at every turn that it recognised Guaidó – and not Nicolás Maduro – as Venezuelan president. In turn, Guaidó’s lawyers argued that he was authorised to represent and control the assets of the Central Bank of Venezuela held in London. Throughout this time, Guaidó paid his UK legal costs by drawing on millions of dollars of his country’s assets origin

French train drivers, teachers and refinery workers were among those who walked off their jobs on Thursday (19 January) in a nationwide day of strikes against government plans to raise the retirement age by two years to 64.   by EURACTIV.com with Reuters  Part 3 - Tax the rich? But with public sector workers often at the forefront of strikes, some seven out of 10 primary school teachers have said they will strike, their main union said. In Paris, students blockaded at least one high school in support of the strike action. EDF and grid operator RTE data showed electricity production was down by roughly 12% of total power supply, prompting France to raise its imports. Shipments were blocked at TotalEnergies’ refineries in France, union and company officials said. TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said on Wednesday that one day of strikes would not disrupt refinery operations, but this could change if protests continued. The impact on air traffic was largely limited to a redu

Ukraine’s Western-backed leader Volodymyr Zelensky sent a love letter to US companies, thanking “ such giants of the international financial and investment world as BlackRock, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs ” for buying up his country’s assets. “ Everyone can become a big business by working with Ukraine ”, he enticed, claiming that the reconstruction of his nation “ will be the largest economic project of our time in Europe ”.  [...] Zelensky’s government has imposed some of the world’s most aggressive anti-worker policies, passing legislation that “ deprives around 73% of workers of their right to union protection and collective bargaining ”, which even the US government-funded Solidarity Center of the AFL-CIO labor federation condemned as a “ significant assault on worker rights in Ukraine “. Zelensky’s staunchly anti-worker, anti-union, and pro-corporate ideology came through clear in the neoliberal rhetoric of the speech he gave to the US chamber of commerce organization. He compared

Greece’s main opposition leader and former prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, requested a censure motion against the government after he revealed names of people who were tapped by the state intelligence unit. “ The last six months Mitsotakis is lying that he wasn’t aware, ” Tsipras told lawmakers Wednesday, accusing Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of being responsible for spying on the officials. Current labor minister Konstantinos Hatzidakis was being tapped from November 2020 to May 2021, when he was energy minister, while the head of armed forces and other military officials were spied on from July 2020 to May 22, according to Tsipras.    [...]   Tsipras’s comments came a day after he met with the head of the independent authority for Communication and Privacy, who handed him a letter with the findings of his investigation into who was under electronic surveillance from the state spy unit. The agency also sent the letter, which was classified, to all parliamentary party leade

BRICS is “developing a fairer system of monetary exchange” to challenge the “dominance of the dollar”, South Africa revealed. Saudi Arabia is considering selling oil in other currencies. Economist Zoltan Pozsar says the US “unipolar era” is over.   by Ben Norton  Part 2 - BRICS works to ‘develop a fairer system of monetary exchange’ as alternative to ‘dominance of the dollar’ South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor told Russia’s state media outlet Sputnik that the BRICS bloc is working to “ develop a fairer system of monetary exchange ”, to weaken the “ dominance of the dollar ”. Pandor’s comments were ignored by Western media outlets, but widely reported in the Indian press. “ We have always been concerned by the fact that there is a dominance of the dollar and that we do need to look at alternative [systems] ”, she said. “ The systems currently in place tend to privilege very wealthy countries and tend to be really a challenge for countries, such as ourselves, which have to ma

Western sanctions led Russia to greatly increase trade with Asia, while devastating Europe’s economy. The US tech war against China is damaging its own industry.   by Renate Bridenthal  Part 4 - Western sanctions on Russia backfire in Europe   By contrast, Germany is facing the most collateral damage from the loss to its markets and the sanctions on energy, notably bringing an end to the supply of cheap Russian gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. In 2020, U.S. Congress imposed secondary sanctions on banks that processed transactions related to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines and on ship insurers that serviced them. When construction of Nord Stream 2 was finished in 2021, Washington imposed new sanctions on insurance and certification companies to keep it from opening. Finally, both pipelines were sabotaged in an undersea explosion in September 2022. As a result, the industries that had made Germany preeminent in Europe, such as steel, chemicals, machinery, and automotives, are su