Mato's Blog

Vaccines against Sars-CoV-2 are finally available, at least in rich countries, and everyone hopes, that they will end the pandemic. People who long to reinstitute the old routines are jubilant. Back to the old normal, back to carefree consumerism, back to the rat race and the dreams of wealth and fame.

Economists warn of a “slowing recovery,” though most people will not have experienced an economic recovery at all, only a continuous turn to the worse. It may also take some time for the vaccination campaigns to slow down the pandemic.

Even if the pandemic can be stopped, the global supply chains have been disrupted, many small businesses have gone bust, public funds are running low because of diminished tax returns, and millions of people are destitute. Those suffering precarity, exhaustion, and exploitation under the current system have further fallen behind.

Both private and public debt has skyrocket and the stability of currencies is in question, although economists disagree on whether we are headed for massive inflation or crippling deflation. Food prices and other at-home costs are up.

The row about ecological limits to growth is back with a vengeance. Those deeply skeptical about the idea of infinite growth on a finite planet argue that to enable a good life for all within planetary boundaries, we need to kick our addiction to consumption growth (in wealthy countries at least). The skeptics advocate for degrowth, prosperity without growth, doughnut economics, and a happiness index to replace GDP.

We are currently dependent on growth to maintain economic and political stability. If GDP flatlines or contracts Western economies tend to topple into crises of unemployment, debt, inequality, and hardship. It is no wonder then, that policymakers remain preoccupied with this narrow economic metric, despite the widespread consensus that GDP is a poor measure of social progress.

Ending our dependence on growth is about diffusing the power of rentiers, expanding economic democracy, and establishing entitlements to a basic share of our common wealth.

Growth is required to protect the privileges of landlords, financiers, monopoly interests, and other rentiers. Rentiers do not create wealth; they extract wealth through their control of monopolized and scarce assets. As long as the economic growth rate remains higher than the rate of rent extraction, this injustice can be masked to some extent. But when growth stalls, while landlords, financiers, monopoly interests, and other rentiers continue to accumulate wealth, the result is rising inequality. All the growth dependencies can therefore be understood as manifestations of a rentier growth imperative.

In an equitable society the rentiers (billionaires, industrialists, oligarchs, plutocrats, or what else they are called) loose out. They will fight with every available means to uphold the status quo.

The specter of shrinking or stagnating GDP has not only been invoked to block environmental policies. It has also been invoked to block food standards, labour rights, and most recently to justify the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in workplaces, in spite of the risks to public health. Fear of the consequences of economic contraction has been a major impediment to the containment of the pandemic, just as it has been a major impediment to effective climate policy.

The UN warns that long-term effects of the pandemic could push an additional 207 million people into extreme poverty and proposes large-scale investments in public health, social safety net programs, and a “green transition.

The Davos billionaire clique, also known as WEF (World Economic Forum) has other plans. They see the political, economic and social disruptions caused by the pandemic as an opportunity to shape the world according to their wishes. A Great Reset shall reorganize economies, societies, and political systems to make them more efficient and able to meet the challenges of climate change, collapsing ecological systems, and pollution.

This reorganization will go hand in hand with complete control not much different to China’s “social credit” system. WEF founder Klaus Schwab writes:

In the post-COVID 19 world, precise information on our carbon footprints, our impact on biodiversity, on the toxicity of all the ingredients we consume and the environments or spatial contexts in which we evolve will generate significant progress in terms of our awareness of collective and individual well-being. 

“Precise information about us” sounds quite dystopian.

Helped by “public-sector direction-setting” and “better alignment between public policy and corporate planning,” we ought to expect a future of controls and constraints, where “planetary care will be as important as personal care.” To take a few examples, there will be limits on material consumption, an emphasis on “responsible eating,” on “vacationing nearer to home,” and on “disregarding everything that we do not really need.”

A future of controls and constraints sounds dystopian too. Where are the reeducation camps in this plan?

Partners in the planned endeavor are Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, IKEA, Lockheed Martin, Ericsson, Deloitte, and other big corporations. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, writes:

Capitalism must be modified to do a better job of creating a healthier society, one that is more inclusive and creates more opportunity for more people. That means meaningful changes like rebuilding our education system and providing skills training, affordable health care policies, substantial infra­structure investment, and sensible immigration reform and climate policies.

This is the old notion of stakeholder capitalism, where a company’s management owes a duty to more than its shareholders. With the facade of stakeholder capitalism, companies can go on privately shoveling money to their shareholders and executives, while maintaining a public front of exquisite social sensitivity and exemplary altruism.”

The Great Reseat goes hand in hand with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a social and economic development where disruptive technologies and trends such as G5, the Internet of Things, robotics, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing the way we live and work.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is promoted by Bill Gates and fellow billionaires. It could yield even greater inequality, particularly in its potential to disrupt labor markets. As automation substitutes for labor across the entire economy, the net displacement of workers by machines might exacerbate the gap between returns to capital and returns to labor.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is not green. 

China’s data centers consumed 2 percent of the country’s total usage and more than the city of Shanghai. The worlds 10 biggest data centers:

China Telecom-Inner Mongolia consumes 150 megawatts.
China Mobile-Hohhot consumes 130 megawatts.
China Mobile-Harbin consumes 120 megawatts.
China Range-International Information Hub consumes 115 megawatts.
China Unicom’s Northwest Data Center consumes 110 megawatts.
China Mobile- Southern Logistics Center consumes 102 megawatts.
China Telecom- Guizhou Information Park consumes 100 megawatts.
US NSA-Bumblehive consumes consumes 90 megawatts.
US Digital Realty-Lakeside consumes 85 megawatts.
India Tulip Telecom-Data City consumes 80 megawatts.

Coal-fired power plants supplied 73 percent of the 161 terawatt-hours of electricity China’s data centers needed last year, and the Chinese data center industry is on track to increase its energy consumption by 66 percent till 2023.

Ireland is forecasting that 30 percent of their entire national grid will be earmarked for data center power consumption by 2028.

According to Huawei, the typical 5G station has power needs of over 11.5 kilowatts, up 70 percent from a base station deploying a mix of 2G, 3G and 4G. Experts believe that a 5G network will consume three and half times as much electricity as 4G, thanks to a combination of massive MIMO antennas, legacy networks in multiple bands and the massive proliferation of small cells.

Today ICTs (information and communication technologies) account for some 8 percent of the total global electricity. At the current rate of growth (approximately 9 percent each year), the total electricity consumption of ICTs is projected to require 20 percent of the world’s electricity by 2025, and 30 percent by 2030.

Both the Great Reset and the Fourth Industrial Revolution are pipe dreams, unworkable in a world of environmental collapse, social catastrophes, and wars.

Millions will flee war, but a multitude, maybe even billions, will be on the move as droughts, unbearable heatwaves, deforestation, poisoned soils, sea level rise, devastating storms and floods make their homelands uninhabitable. The WFP (World Food Program) warned that some 270 million people are now “marching toward starvation.”

Right now the devastation after two hurricanes forces people in Central America to leave their homes. There are around 470,000 refugees and asylum-seekers from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras – 33 percent more compared to 2018.

13,000 refugees from the Middle East and Africa languish on the Greek island Lesbos in squalid conditions.

In 2019, the number of people forcibly displaced due to war, conflict, persecution, and human rights violations, has grown to 79.5 million, the highest number on record.

Feline news:

https://dcist.com/story/20/11/16/dc-cat-count-photos/
http://hatchingcatnyc.com/2020/11/26/bill-champion-mouser-flatbush-post-office/
https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2020/1127/1180903-kitten-rescue-ballymena/
http://hatchingcatnyc.com/2020/12/05/cats-rabbits-brooklyn-general-post-office/ 

Against the odds:

https://meta.eeb.org/2020/11/23/future-farming-re-localising-food-systems-across-europe/
https://meta.eeb.org/2020/11/26/working-towards-a-cure-for-europes-economic-burnout/
https://mk0eeborgicuypctuf7e.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/EEB-REPORT-JOBTREADMILL.pdf
https://www.localfutures.org/making-the-case-for-a-small-farm-future/
https://e360.yale.edu/features/amid-tensions-in-myanmar-an-indigenous-park-of-peace-is-born
https://www.fastcompany.com/90579348/the-6-winners-of-the-green-nobels-for-environmental-activism-show-that-change-is-possible
https://animamonday.wordpress.com/2020/11/03/blessing-of-yew-and-the-ancestors
I planted three yew trees in the garden and everybody asked me, why? They grow very slowly, they don’t produce anything useful, and they are highly poisonous. I considered to cut them down at one point, but I couldn’t do it. Maybe I thought subconsciously: “In a thousand years, nothing from this garden will remain except these three yews. They will be my lasting legacy.” Maybe I thought subconsciously: “They symbolize natures resilience, they will be the backbone of a new natural habitat if the scourge called homo sapiens finally has exterminated itself.”
It could be that I just followed my intuition. It could be that I’m an animist, and not an agnostic, atheist, pantheist, or Buddhist, as I assumed until now.
https://www.treehugger.com/worlds-loneliest-elephant-makes-friend-5089612 

Environmental news:

https://ensia.com/features/air-pollution-brain-damage-disease-regulations/
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20112020/covid-19-coronavirus-shutdowns-greenhouse-gas-emissions
https://theconversation.com/one-fifth-of-ecosystems-in-danger-of-collapse-heres-what-that-might-look-like-148137
Ecosystem collapse in dry and scientific terms.
https://news.mongabay.com/2020/11/are-industrial-chemicals-killing-rare-whales-and-familiar-dolphins
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/world-economic-forums-great-reset-plan-for-big-food-benefits-industry-not-people/
https://www.sott.net/article/444352-Brave-Vandana-Shiva-speaks-out-against-the-Great-Reset
The WEF (World Economic Forum) and all other billionaire funded organizations like think tanks, research institutes, and NGOs have to be exposed and discredited at every step of their plans. They are paid propagandists for big corporations, they try to increase control by and dependence on corporations.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/food-system-industrial-agriculture-environment_n_5fad6d57c5b6d647a39cf1be
A useful overview.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/26/more-than-3-billion-people-affected-by-water-shortages-data-shows
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/New-Zealands-PM-Ardern-Set-to-Declare-Climate-Emergency-20201126-0020.html
https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/ecocide/agriculture/the-problem-3/
A monumental, unprecedented problem needs monumental, unprecedented solutions.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55130304
Amazon deforestation. Brazil is a sovereign country and Jair Bolsonaro was democratically elected. What could stop him?
https://www.post-gazette.com/business/powersource/2020/12/01/Federal-government-sale-of-Three-Mile-Island-pennsylvania-decommissioning/stories/202012010096
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/02/the-dark-side-of-solar-power/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/30/air-pollution-girl-died-london-should-have-treated-emergency-ella-kissi-debrah
https://theintercept.com/2020/12/02/pfas-chemicals-products/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/dispossession-imperialism-repackaged-feeding-world/5730679
Important! A thoroughly researched piece about the destruction of small native farmers and the takeover of most arable land by large corporations.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55147647
It was long overdue that UN chief Antonio Guterres spoke out what is obvious and plain to see (if one is able to escape the virtual reality of smartphone, computer, or TV).
https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/ecocide/habitat-loss/stop-thinning-forests/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/02/canada-forests-clearcutting-ecosystem
https://dgrnewsservice.org/civilization/ecocide/habitat-loss/green-energy-a-beginners-guide/ 

Economic news:

The coronavirus is certainly used by IMF and World Bank to increase the debt of cash trapped countries and with it the dependence on the US dominated global financial system.

That doesn’t mean that the pandemic is not a real danger. 1.54 million people have died until now, 67 million got infected. The longterm damage to the health of “recovered” patients could be devastating to society.

The pandemic will also upend all plans for a “great reseat.” If a great reset happens, it will be on the terms of the virus and not on the terms of Gates, Soros, and other Davos conspirators.

https://asiatimes.com/2020/11/pakistan-food-prices-spiral-out-of-control
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/526964-us-economy-hurtles-toward-covid-cliff-with-programs-set-to-expire
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/26/pers-n26.html
2020 is a very good year for billionaires.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/imf-refuses-help-ukraine/5730916
http://infobrics.org/post/32379/
Spain on the brink of financial collapse.
https://www.localfutures.org/how-the-world-bank-helped-re-establish-colonial-plantations/
https://evonomics.com/how-to-move-beyond-utopian-socialism-and-libertarianism/
We live simultaneously in two different worlds. One world is governed by social norms (compassion, cooperation, mutual aid), the other world by market norms (competition, selfishness, indifference to the plight of others).
https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-fed-needs-public-banks/5731246
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/green-growth-vs-degrowth-are-we-missing-point/ 

Pandemic news:

In the Western world it’s all about competition and the race to success. Britain’s approval for emergency use of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is cheered as manifestation of superior Western science.

Medical specialists now assume that the products developed in Europe and the USA are likely to get approval from the World Health Organization before the Chinese ones.

China has 14 experimental Covid-19 vaccines in human trials, but the Chinese drug companies have yet to present their trial data even though the country was among those leading the way in the early phases of the research process. Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and Oxford/AstraZeneca might have gathered efficacy data more quickly because of the widespread transmission of the coronavirus in the US and Europe.

Chinese regulators approved the emergency use of Sinopharm and Sinovac and more than a million people have already been given the vaccines. China will have 600 million doses of vaccines soon ready for use and will make “major announcements,” a scientist in charge of vaccine development said.

At a presentation to the United Nations, scientists from the Russian Gamaleya Institute said that preliminary orders for the Sputnik V vaccine have been placed for more than 1.2 billion doses. Trials involving 45,000 people across the globe have concluded that 95 percent of those given both doses of Sputnik V develop immunity to the virus.

Gamaleya also released footage of vials touching down in India ahead of the start of studies into its efficacy there. A number of countries, including Hungary, Venezuela, and the UAE, have already imported sufficient quantities to conduct their own tests. At the same time, the Philippines announced that it would work with Russia to secure access to supplies in order to begin mass immunizations early next year.

https://in.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-pfizer-vaccine/pfizer-supply-chain-challenges-led-to-slashing-covid-19-vaccine-production-target-wsj-idUSKBN28D3B9
https://thehill.com/news-by-subject/healthcare/528619-pfizer-chairman-were-not-sure-if-someone-can-transmit-virus-after
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/covid-vaccines-for-profit-not-for-people-by-mariana-mazzucato-et-al-2020-12
As stated before, private health care (including the development of medicines) is not health care but exploitation of the sick and infirm.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/507594-sputnik-v-vaccine-anti-russian/
https://www.rt.com/russia/508158-west-divided-sputnik-vaccine
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/23/covid-vaccine-cdc-should-warn-people-the-side-effects-from-shots-wont-be-walk-in-the-park-.html
https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/some-things-don-t-add-up-to-me-about-the-astrazeneca-trial-results
https://www.mintpressnews.com/cuba-brink-covid-vaccine-us-sanctions-slowing-it-down/273095/
Sanctions are an excellent tool to demolish any competition to Big Pharma vaccines.
https://theconversation.com/lessons-from-around-the-world-on-fighting-covids-second-wave-150432
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/americas-best-prepared-hospital-nearly-overwhelmed/617156/
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-russia-76773f4eca15e2a62332243cfa13e9f0
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/23/swit-n23.html
Triage in Switzerland?
https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/health/people-who-recover-from-covid-19-can-be-reinfected-with-new-strain-study-shows-1.1115774
https://fortune.com/2020/10/20/covid-vaccine-china-brazil-testing-ground-safest-most-promising-sinovac/
To see a Chinese vaccine at the top would be not surprising.
https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2020/11/20/study-links-increased-covid-19-transmission-to-poultry-plants-allowed-to-operate-faster/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/27/meat-n27.html
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/11/covid-profits-of-pharmaceutical-monopolies-vs-peoples-lives.html
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3111545/coronavirus-was-many-continents-wuhan-outbreak-chinese-team-says
https://echosiberia.medium.com/covid-second-wave-in-siberia-who-by-fire-b407b8d86dd3
Please read!
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201130131513.htm
SARS-CoV-2 can enter the brain via nerve cells in the olfactory mucosa.
https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1792/6012625
About Long Covid.

Media, technology, and propaganda news:

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/11/21/new-york-times-job-listing-shows-how-western-propaganda-operates/
https://fair.org/home/medias-messaging-debate-eclipses-policies-and-the-crises-they-address/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/15/free-speech-under-siege-civil-liberties-and-the-press/
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/11/23/chris-hedges-the-ruling-elites-war-on-truth/
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/a-long-forgotten-cia-document-from
https://www.blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-censorship-biden-era
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/27/mich-n27.html
Worldwide increase in internet censorship.
https://www.courthousenews.com/report-claims-cia-controlled-second-swiss-encryption-firm/
Cyber spying.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/02/a-new-technology-that-will-dangerously-expand-government-spying-on-citizens/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/video-analytics-user-manuals-are-guide-dystopia
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/11/30/questions-bbc-podcast-opcw-whistleblowers/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/03/acad-d03.html
About the dismissal of Dr. Tim Anderson, an economics department senior lecturer at the University of Sydney. Dr. Anderson has written various books (The Dirty War on Syria, Land and Livelihoods in Papua New Guinea, Axis of Resistance: towards an independent Middle East, among others), which would make great gifts for the holidays.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/168148.Tim_Anderson
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/12/01/the-angry-arab-robert-fisk-the-decline-of-western-reporting-on-the-middle-east/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/03/the-smearing-of-robert-fisk-now-that-he-cant-defend-himself/
https://www.medialens.org/2020/stuck-in-a-lift-with-john-pilger-news-and-how-to-use-it-by-alan-rusbridger/
Important! Tearing off the mask of independent, unbiased mass media journalism. 

Imperial news:

There is growing food insecurity. 16 percent of households in rural areas and small towns use the food stamp program called SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). US food banks, often operated by local churches and charities, struggle as 1 in 6 families with children don’t have enough to eat.

Long lines of cars, sometimes in parallel lanes, wait to receive their food parcel. These are not rusty old cars, these are new expensive SUVs, pickup trucks, and luxurious sedans. How can it be that people who can afford to buy and maintain such cars are in need of food parcels? Why don’t they sell their cars and buy food instead of gasoline?

The content of the food parcels is probably not best quality, some parts may be donations from food companies to promote their products and gain new customers.

In response to the budget deficits caused by low ridership during the coronavirus pandemic, authorities have announced massive service cuts to public transit in New York, Massachusetts, California, and other states. Which means that pollution and traffic congestion will significantly increase. Which also means, that many employees will simply be unable to commute to their jobs and become unemployed. And the many people who rely on public transit for access to necessities such as groceries, childcare and health care will have to either use a ride sharing service (which many will not be able to afford), or be on the mercy of friends and neighbors. 

The impacted services include local and commuter trains, bus, and ferry transportation. The cuts will be implemented in 2021.

US inhabitants couldn’t resist the urge to gather for Thanksgiving, driving only slightly less than a year ago and largely ignoring the pleas of public health experts, who begged them to forgo holiday travel to help contain the pandemic.

Subsequently US Hospitals are being overrun by the surge of cases and hospitalizations just hit a new high of 100,000. To make matters worse, thousands of nurses at hospitals across the country are coming down with the virus, leaving hospitals short-staffed and placing patient care in extreme danger. In El Paso, Texas, a unit of 36 National Guard troops has been mobilized to work through a backlog of close to 240 bodies, victims of COVID-19, at the county morgue. The bodies will be loaded onto refrigerated trucks.

Coronavirus deaths in the United States have surpassed 3,000 per day, with the spread of the virus completely out of control and cases rising rapidly to over 200,000 a day in the aftermath of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Mitigation measures are limited, because securing corporate profits has priority. Factories and schools will not be closed, life has to go on as normal. President-elect Joe Biden: “I’m not going to shut down the economy, period.”

Even if mass-vaccinations are able to end mass-infections, public health will be burdened by those who experience long term, often debilitating symptoms. Half or more of hospitalized cases will become long-haulers, persons with permanent organ damage and never-ending symptoms.

The Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism website, reported that as of November 17 at least 197,659 inmates in state and local prisons had contracted the coronavirus and 1,454 had died, a likely undercount due to poor reporting.

https://truthout.org/articles/rural-hospitals-are-facing-unprecedented-challenges-amid-worsening-pandemic
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/23/wisc-n23.html
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/11/the-coming-deadly-covid-winter.html
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176777/tomgram%3A_danny_sjursen%2C_what_if_they_called_an_election_and_nothing_changed_in_the_war_state
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/507818-eu-leaders-joe-biden
https://www.blackagendareport.com/biden-emcee-billionaires-ball
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/02/dees-d02.html
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/we-havent-seen-this-much-suffering-on-thanksgiving-since-the-great-depression-of-the-1930s
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/much-of-the-u-s-could-be-uninhabitable-by-2050
Carefree living from moment to moment. Who is planning 30 years ahead? 

Imperial conquest news:

A love of life and an absolute objection of war are just two camera angles of the same scene.

http://alwaght.com/en/news/187838
US is fueling the war in Yemen.
https://southfront.org/turkey-is-settling-families-of-syrian-mercenaries-in-karabakh-report/
Ottoman wannabe empire.
https://greece.greekreporter.com/2020/11/24/turkey-issues-navtexes-blocking-off-large-swaths-of-aegean-sea/
Ottoman wannabe empire.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-crime-syria-turkey-kurds-b1762954.html
Empires collude.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/11/turkey-murder-of-kurdish-musician-went-unpunished-kurkut.html
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/joe-biden-administration-national-security-picks-defense-department
Why change something which worked so well in the past?
https://original.antiwar.com/ramzy-baroud/2020/11/19/as-israel-destroys-eu-projects-in-palestine-european-foreign-policy-remains-impotent/
Eretz Israel.
https://www.rt.com/news/508037-iran-nuclear-program-chief-research/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/28/iran-n28.html
Moshen Fakhrizadeh RIP.
https://fair.org/home/when-an-official-enemy-is-assassinated-corporate-media-roll-out-the-pretexts/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/30/will-the-world-community-condemn-the-murder-of-irans-nuclear-scientist/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/01/iran-d01.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-iran-ship-idUSKBN28C2MS
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/27/us-intervenes-as-venezuela-prepares-for-high-stakes-election/
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/508611-opposition-venezuela-elections-parliamentary
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2020/12/02/stealing-mineral-wealth-for-corporate-interests-u-s-bankrolled-mass-murder-of-millions-in-central-africa/

WWIII news:

https://www.rt.com/russia/507497-us-out-open-skies-deal/
More war preparations.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-11-24-revealed-the-uk-militarys-overseas-base-network-involves-145-sites-in-42-countries/
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55132425
US-China trade war.
https://asiatimes.com/2020/12/china-a-step-closer-to-independence-in-microchip-war/

War in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

https://southfront.org/civil-war-in-ethiopia-conflict-developments-and-background/
http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2020/11/war-in-ethiopia-why-and-how-was-it.html
http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-crisis-in-ethiopia-much-of-blame.html
It is good to see that Abayomi Azikiwe, tireless chronicler of neocolonial exploitation and injustice, is still around and active, though the news he reports are not good.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ethiopia-and-Sudan-Talk-Over-Tigrays-Displaced-Population-20201120-0019.htm
https://uwidata.com/14476-the-war-in-ethiopia-revenge-of-the-amhara-the-future-of-gerd-and-the-potential-migrant-crisis/
This article portrays Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as a comprador, following a neo-liberal script in which most public companies will be sold to Western corporations.
https://www.ena.et/en/?p=19100
https://apnews.com/article/ethiopia-abiy-ahmed-kenya-0fb8647516d9be83d45fee2f1e4d13ae
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/30/ethi-n29.html
https://www.globalresearch.ca/ethiopian-government-says-mekelle-retaken-federal-forces/5730778
Mekelle City has fallen and the war seems to be over. This is a multi-faceted matter. While Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is supported by the USA to curb Chinese influence and open the door for Western corporations, the TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front) has acted utterly irresponsible and takes most of the blame for the ensuing bloodshed and destruction.
https://theconversation.com/what-lies-behind-the-war-in-tigray-150147
https://theconversation.com/drums-of-war-were-beating-for-almost-two-years-why-ethiopias-conflict-was-avoidable-150978
https://www.blackagendareport.com/ethiopia-civil-war-and-nation-building-21st-century 

Uncategorized news:

https://apnews.com/article/international-news-baku-azerbaijan-armenia-83f195ae4b570a9aedece719a8b39ac8
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/11/24/diana-johnstone-the-great-pretext-for-dystopia/
Important. About the “great reset.”
https://www.globalresearch.ca/return-great-game-post-soviet-central-asia/5730374
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Greece-Lesbos-Camp-Refugees-Have-No-Protection-From-the-Cold-20201201-0010.html

News from cat land:

Rita longstocking’s efforts to become the top cat has hit a snag, because Linda, bigger and with 6 kilogram significantly heavier than Rita, balked and the two are now locked in a standoff. They didn’t fight (or at least they are not injured), but they pounced on each other and chased each other. Rita is very fast and quite clever but Linda in a defensible position is invincible.

I hope that the two soon will reach a state of “peaceful coexistence.” Gandhi Jr. and Princess Min Ki just want to have peace and quiet, while the two small cats, Wendy and Lucia (my sweat cat angel), want to socialize and be friends with everybody.

The cats still spend a lot of time in the garden and forest, the pandemic doesn’t concern them. I’m still collecting leaves, I also started to cut branches and to prepare materials for the spring awakening.