Pirates don't have to look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean. They can fly the Union Jack rather than the skull and crossbones. They can be called the Bank of England rather than the Jolly Roger. The 'Old Lady of Threadneedle Street' is a port in a stormy world for all kinds of countries in which to moor their national wealth. And it's not even necessarily voluntary. After the fall of the communist regime in Albania, I had a brief tenure as joint chairman of the Britain-Albania...

The Times of London recently published an apologetic story about some “Chechen battalion” that it likes. This special military unit is fighting on the side of Ukrainian troops near the port of Mariupol on the Azov Sea and is headed by a bearded Chechen with a huge dagger inscribed with the words “Death to Separatists.” The Times describes this seemingly bloodthirsty gentleman in a positive light. An enemy of my enemy There is one good reason for that. The author of the story, British...

My own Australia has of course joined the chorus of US lackeys who are refusing to recognize Venezuela’s only legitimate and elected government, recognizing instead the presidency of some guy named Juan who decided to name himself Venezuela’s president with the blessing of the United States government. A statement from our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marise Payne, reads as follows: Australia recognises and supports the President of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, in assuming the position...

Before the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution. But after a single phone call from from US Vice President...

There’s a new thought policeman in town. He calls himself NewsGuard and he promises to restore “Trust and Accountability” to what one reads online. His website elaborates that “NewsGuard uses journalism to fight false news, misinformation, and disinformation. Our trained analysts, who are experienced journalists, research online news brands to help readers and viewers know which ones are trying to do legitimate journalism—and which are not…Our Green-Red ratings signal if a website is trying to...

Last week President Trump announced that the United States would no longer recognize Nicholas Maduro as president of Venezuela and would recognize the head of its national assembly, Jose Guaido, as president instead. US thus openly backs regime change. But what has long been a dream of the neocons may well turn out to be a nightmare for President Trump.Why did Trump declare that the Venezuelan president was no longer the president? According to the State Department, the Administration was...

An ancient Hindu prayer says, "Lord Shiva, save us from the claw of the tiger, the fang of the cobra, and the vengeance of the Afghan." The United States, champion of freedom and self-determination, is now in its 18th year of colonial war in Afghanistan. This miserable, stalemated conflict is America’s longest and most shameful war. So far it has cost over $1 trillion and killed no one knows how many Afghans. This conflict began in 2001 on a lie: namely that Afghanistan was somehow responsible...

In 2007, when making a speech during his bid for the presidency of the United States, the late Senator John McCain spoke about Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons’ programme and when questioned as to whether there might be US reaction to such allegations responded by singing “That old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran... bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb.” This jovial retort about killing people by bombing them was not surprising to those who remembered that during the US war on Vietnam McCain was shot down on a...

The US backed a coup in Venezuela that has failed. And President Trump was the architect of it. This is a farce surrounding an intrigue contained within a tragedy. What has happened in Venezuela is tragic. Nicolas Maduro is a comical figure straight out of central casting for a South American leader of a junta. But it has been the US’s designs on Venezuela’s oil and gas reserves (the largest proven in the world as of 2017) that is the real story behind this week’s events. For anyone still...

With the rise of internet social media, patronized by multi-millions of receptive people and supplied by a small number of companies that have achieved dominance, a path way to information control was cleared.To complete the highway, all that was required was its extension to and from Washington elites, neocon types, intelligence agencies and establishment types. These connections are being built now. They picked up speed in the last two years with the resistance to Trump and his...

You could scour the bowels of US imperial crimes, from the Mexican-American War to the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam, and you won’t find a more brazen cynical act of gangsterism than that which is now underway against Venezuela. Not since Hitler justified blitzing Poland by claiming it had encroached on the frontier into Nazi Germany has a more blatant set of falsehoods been adduced as a pretext for conflict. In Venezuela, it will quickly become a civil war that will most likely draw in other...

Many American still long for the good old days when men were still manly and President George W. Bush was able to announce that there was a “new sheriff in town” pledged to wipe terrorism from the face of the earth. “You’re either with us or against us,” he growled and he backed up his warning of lethal retribution with an enemies list that he called the “axis of evil.” The axis of evil identified in those days in the 2002 State of the Union Address consisted of Iraq, Iran and North Korea....

“As more and more data flows from your body and brain to the smart machines via the biometric sensors, it will become easy for corporations and government agencies to know you, manipulate you, and make decisions on your behalf… If we want to prevent a small elite from monopolising such godlike powers, and if we want to prevent humankind from splitting into biological castes, the key question is: who owns the data? Does the data about my DNA, my brain and my life belong to me, to the...