Substack SitRep 2 October 2023: China's Global Proposal

Plus COVID and the CIA, how BlackRock got so big, South Africa's water woes and more...

COVID-19 is back in the news as conspiracy theorists become truthtellers. I doubt anyone reading this is surprised that the CIA is involved. More about that further in this newsletter.

I’m taking a break, and hoping you’ll treat this as meaty education and not quick news. Spend a week slowly crawling your way through it, like a soldier in a soon-to-be muddy trench in Ukraine.

WAKE UP!

HOT QUOTES

“Slovakia and the people of Slovakia have bigger problems than Ukraine.” – election winner, Robert Fico, head of the Slovak Social Democracy party, won on the promise not to further arm Ukraine. Slovakia is a member of NATO.

“An opposition candidate widely seen as pro-China won a runoff election to be the next president of the Maldives, marking a significant loss for Indian influence in the archipelagic nation… Muizzu campaigned on an ‘India Out’ platform, arguing that the military presence in the Maldives undermined its sovereignty and pledging to expel all Indian military personnel.” - Washington Times

HOT FACT

High-Speed Rail by Country (km):

• China 26,869 (10,738 under construction)

• Japan 3,041 (402 under construction)

• USA 54 (192 under construction)

• South Africa 0 (and 0)

HOT PIC

I subscribe to a lot of clever substackers but Darrin Bell, the cartoonist, is clever AND enjoyable.

THIS WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS

• China's Proposals and Actions: A Global Community of Shared Future:

• How BlackRock conquered the world (video)

• 223,000 murders in South Africa in 10 years (proportionately, that would be 1.1-million in USA)

• The Burning Platform: South Africa's water woes - we’re fucked (audio)

• Weak men make hard times

• Nebraska woman gets 2 years prison for giving abortion pills to teen daughter

• Mark Zuckerberg: First interview in the Metaverse (audio)

• Scott Horton: Ken Silva on FBI-created terrorist plots and Nazi groups (audio)

• Iran, Venezuela, and Syria ink landmark oil refinery deal

• A recession is still likely - and coming soon

• I've gotta hand it to Matt Gaetz (includes must watch video)

• Alarm grows in Kyiv and Washington as GOP House blocks Ukraine aid

• Ukraine Bloody War: The Great Plundering

• Gossips are a great litmus

• On Russia's importance to China and the war in Ukraine

• The media are targeting the public for a war with China

• Press freedom does not exist while my husband Julian Assange is in jail

• Vaccines and the Midwit Effect

• An open letter to Catherine Valentine, Head of Politics at Substack

COVID SPECIAL

• The CIA Virus

• Fauci’s suspicious CIA connection smacks of a COVID cover-up

• New allegations that Fauci potentially influenced CIA COVID-19 origins investigation

• Sam Harris: Postmortem on my response to Covid (audio)

• Illustrating how bad censorship of British excess deaths is...

• Cause of increased heart risk from COVID infection revealed

• MHRA failed to test mass manufactured 'Process 2' batch of Pfizer vaccine

• Shunned scientists mock Nobel Committee after they award mRNA scientists with prize for medicine

ARTICLES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

• Dr. Klaus Schwab or: How the CFR Taught Me to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

• The Harvard Boys do Russia (1998)

• An assessment of Kazakh-Russia relations

ME THE PAST WEEK

• RFK Jnr, don't trust him but maybe he's the only plunger in the American toilet

• "These guys are the real criminals"

• Masters of War

THE HOT WAR

• Ukraine: Regime change coming?

• Ukraine, the "World's Largest Arms Fair"

• At the Front in Zaporizhzhia

• Lavrov confirms Ukraine war peace deal reached last April, but then abandoned

• EU foreign ministers in Ukraine’s Kyiv for unprecedented meeting abroad

• ‘Sixty Minutes’ holds up the mirror to the West: and the picture in the frame is ugly

• Russia raises military budget for 2024 by 70%

• Edward Slavsquat's weekly Russian news aggregator

• A brief foray into Ukrainian propaganda

• A Skeptic Ukraine war news aggregator

• Nagorno-Karabakh shows up the myth of a “rules-based international order”

ARMENIA/AZERBAIJAN CONFLICT

• Armenia’s bleak future thanks to US neocons !

• Armenia desperate to join International Criminal Court, damaging ties with Russia

• Iranian paper warns Azerbaijan if it presses home advantage against Armenia

THE COLD WAR

• Isolated Russia hosts Latin American parliamentarians

• Western Governments surrounding Russia with promises of money

• A visit to Belmarsh Prison with Roger Waters and Yanis Varoufakis

• The New Statesman’s hit piece on John Mearsheimer

• Escalation

• America, the Not-So-Beautiful, has no business lecturing other countries

• Biden pledges $200-million to Pacific islands

• German firms 'de-risk' from the West in their China policies

• Geopolitical Roundup: France, Africa, India, Slovakia

• Can the US compete with China's Belt & Road Initiative?

• Some call it “conspiracy theory”

SOUTH AFRICA

• Chicken and egg prices to jump, bird flu faster than culling

• New cannabis laws coming for South Africa

• Extension for bank branches offering Smart IDs and Passports in South Africa

• ANC risks losing control of KwaZulu-Natal

REST OF AFRICA

• Gabon charges Ali Bongo's wife Sylvia with 'money laundering'

• Ethiopia: Monarchy to Communism to Democracy (1916-2000)

• Somalia piracy almost stopped

• This Week in Africa news summary

ASIA

• “The entire world should carefully read this white paper from China”

• Imran who? The risky shift in UK policy towards Pakistan

• How can China overcome challenges to realize a 5% annual economic growth?

• China investors say worst yet to come for property

• China's 'Shared Future'

• Drone deployment & data defence

LATIN AMERICA

• The coming crisis for Latin America’s left-wing leaders

• Argentina and Brazil, from nuclear rivalry to potential nuclear energy leaders in Latin America

• Poverty is growing in Puerto Rico, under US colonialism: 57.6% of children live in poor households

• El Sur: The currency to challenge the U.S. dollar?

• Argentina politics update, new cash handouts, deal with France

• Two issues that will reveal Mexico’s real Claudia Sheinbaum

• Terror attacks on Cuba's embassy fueled by aggressive US policy

• Cuba warns of worsening blackouts as fuel crisis bites

• Armed Groups ramp up threats ahead of local elections in Colombia - except EMC

• Five forces driving the migrant surge

• Latin America Risk Report’s weekly news aggregator

• Bolivia - Evo is running

MIDDLE EAST

• Turkey says PKK targets in north Iraq destroyed after Ankara suicide attack

• How the UN furthers Palestinian oppression

• Fire engulfs police facility in Egypt's Ismailia, 25 hurt

• Iraq receives second Boeing 787 Dreamliner

• Afghanistan closes embassy in India citing lack of diplomatic support

NORTH AMERICA

• Could Martin Luther King give a TED Talk today?

• How conservatives are boosting RFK Jr.’s campaign

• The 21st century Opium War

• Rupert Murdoch regrets putting Trump in the White House

• Trump’s terrifying words and numbers

• An open letter to Justin Trudeau and the Canadian People

• The fascist Project 2025, escaping to Canada

• Timeline: DARPA and the DNC Hack

• Matt Gaetz rallies House GOP rebels to force out Kevin McCarthy

• Hollywood writers’ strike is over, this is what they won

• Railroads gaslighted?

• What is the largest invasion in world history?

• Breaking the Menendez cycle? Senator pleads not guilty to corruption, but calls grow for resignation

• “The workers are the liberators,” declares United Auto Workers union President

• Last night’s GOP Presidential debate was completely nuts

EUROPE

• Pro-Russia leftist party wins Slovakia’s parliamentary elections

• Kosovo Serb politician admits role in gun battle that killed four

• EU enlargement: Is the bloc ready for new members?

• Portugal voted best tourist destination in Europe at World Travel Awards

HEALTH & CLIMATE

• Fracking Fallout: Is America’s drinking water safe?

• Thousands of salmon escaped an Icelandic fish farm, the impact could be deadly

• California takes on homelessness and mental health

SOMETHING ELSE

• Microsoft to form nuclear power team to support AI

• The Frequency of the Little People

• Digi despair… or the crushing hollow

• Why Is TED Scared of Color Blindness?

• Criticism of Russell Brand

• The self-imposed ceiling

• Organizations allow humans to cooperate at a higher scale

• When you found out the modern world passed you by

PODCASTS/VLOGGERS

• ‘Voters are unhappier with the NHS than they’ve been for 30 years. As a GP, I feel the same’

• Merit of the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon

• Beijing to Britain: Chinese elite politics and British universities visit Beijing

MEANINGFUL MUSIC (FOR LONGTRAIL)

“Moved on to another town
Tried hard to settle down
For every job, so many men
So many men no-one needs…”

DOCUMENTARIES

VIDEO DEBATES & INTERVIEWS

VIDEO NEWS

Stand for truth, not popularity!