In a quiet move bypassing Republican obstructionism, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has approved the release of $75 million in crucial food assistance for Palestinians just hours before the funds were set to be redistributed elsewhere.
Under the radar, US approves release of $75m aid to Palestine
Meanwhile, Israel gets $13.1 million in military aid a day!
Macron rejects ‘confrontation’ as he relaunches Asia strategy
“We don’t believe in hegemony, we don’t believe in confrontation, we believe in stability,” Macron said.
…
Macron said a coordinated response was needed to tackle the overlapping crises facing the international community — from climate change to economic turmoil triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Our Indo-Pacific strategy is how to provide dynamic balance in this environment,” he said.
“How to provide precisely a sort of stability and equilibrium which could not be the hegemony of one of those, could not be the confrontation of the two major powers.”
The Indo-Pacific Strategy doesn’t sound as innocent as Macron makes it out to be:
The new US Indo-Pacific Strategy document released in February has two interesting components, one overt and one covert. The document overtly declares the US is an “Indo-Pacific power.” Covertly, its aim is to “tighten the noose around China.” Arguably, minus the military might, China’s nearly a decade-long “Belt and Road Initiative” cannot be perceived as a grand national strategy aimed at controlling Eurasia or the Asia Pacific or any region for that matter. Yet the BRI is mythologized into such a geostrategic game-changer that it has rattled the US and its allies in the Asia Pacific. The BRI, at best, is nothing more than a mere geopolitical overland and maritime “chessboard” based on trade and investment.
BRI and the ‘Indo-Pacific’ Strategy: Geopolitical vs. Geostrategic
The largest national defense budget in the world just got larger. Earlier this month, the United States Congress passed $728.5 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Defense for the 2022 fiscal year, a sharp 5% increase from the previous year. The budget contains a plan for $13.6 billion in aid to Ukraine for the Russia–Ukraine war.
U.S. Spends Billions on War in Ukraine and the Working Class Pays the Price, by Natalia Marques
In passing a $728.5 billion war budget, US legislators prove that they are willing to fund war, unwilling to fund relief
US spends billions on war in Ukraine and working class pays the price
Exclusive: Indo-Pacific Command requests to double spending in fiscal 2022
US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain (Archived)
A GOP senator’s cowardice shows how Republicans let Trump become a monster
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been trying to get Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to testify about his department’s annual budget for nearly a handful of months. But securing Pompeo’s testimony took on even greater significance after allegations recently surfaced that the department’s longtime inspector general had been axed by Donald Trump amid a probe he was conducting into potential Pompeo malfeasance. In fact, Trump himself made it crystal clear that he had fired department watchdog Steve Linick at Pompeo’s urging.
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