
Philippine Forces Land on Contested South China Sea Feature
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Financial Times: China seizes disputed reef in the South China Sea (archived)
It comes as the Philippines and its ally the US are conducting Balikatan, their largest annual military exercise, which will include coastal defence and island seizure drills. They will be held from next week on the Philippine territory closest to the Spratlys.
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On June 25, the German Publishers and Booksellers Association (Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels), which organises the world’s biggest annual book fair (in Frankfurt), announced it was awarding its annual “Peace Prize” to US journalist and author Anne Applebaum.
The Atlantic: Two Men Running to Stay Out of Prison
Liz Cheney warns US ‘sleepwalking into dictatorship
Robert Kagan: A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.
…We can expect more of this when the war against the “deep state” begins in earnest. According to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), there is a whole cabal determined to undermine American security, a “Uniparty” of elites made up of “neoconservatives on the right” and “liberal globalists on the left” who are not true Americans and therefore do not have the true interests of America at heart. Can such “anti-American” behavior be criminalized? It has in the past and can be again.
So, the Trump administration will have many avenues to persecute its enemies, real and perceived. Think of all the laws now on the books that give the federal government enormous power to surveil people for possible links to terrorism, a dangerously flexible term, not to mention all the usual opportunities to investigate people for alleged tax evasion or violation of foreign agent registration laws. The IRS under both parties has occasionally looked at depriving think tanks of their tax-exempt status because they espouse policies that align with the views of the political parties. What will happen to the think-tanker in a second Trump term who argues that the United States should ease pressure on China? Or the government official rash enough to commit such thoughts to official paper? It didn’t take more than that to ruin careers in the 1950s.
Their panic just shows how out of touch they are with the working class! As for Kagan, there’s so much more that I could say, but for now I’ll just roll my eyes! 🙄
The longer the US helps to prolong the war, it risks the stability of its strategic transatlantic interests.
Sacrificing the health of Western Europe for the sake of Ukraine?
Divide and rule is the eternal law of Empire.
Anti-War Views Criminalized in Germany
The Berlin-Tiergarten District Court sentenced peace activist Heinrich Bücker in January for speaking out in public against Germany’s war policy in Ukraine. The verdict is a massive attack on the basic democratic rights of freedom of speech and assembly. It is reminiscent of the persecution of anti-militarists in the Weimar Republic who—like Carl von Ossietzky—opposed the rearmament of the Reichswehr (armed forces).
Peace activist sentenced for criticizing German war policy in Ukraine
H/T: George Galloway
Related:
Conviction for a commemorative speech for the attack on the USSR against Heinrich Bücker, Coop Anti-War cafe Berlin (in German)
Since the end of the Second World War (1939-1945), there have been many civil wars and several important regional military conflicts between two or more countries, but none has evolved into a general world war involving all the most heavily armed countries. The most serious regional wars were the Korean War (1950-1953), the Vietnam War (1955-1975), the Iraq War (2003-2011), the Syria War (2011- ), and the Ukraine War (2022- ).
Why Does Humanity Still Tolerate the Tragedy of Wars in the 21st Century? The Big Picture
H/T: Der Friedensstifter

The 15 rounds of voting it took to install Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House is part of the carnival of folly that passes for politics.
Chris Hedges: America’s Theater of the Absurd
The televised spectacle of the January 6th hearings will not restore democracy or halt the rise of the far right. The hearings are a desperate ploy by a doomed political class.
Society of Spectacle
H/T: THE NEW DARK AGE

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