By Richard Turpin, World BEYOND War

Isolation has not prevented Kiribati from suffering the depradations of colonialism, militarism, and capitalism.

David Swanson asked me to write about Kiribati after I wrote to him to point out Costa Rica is not the only “full-fledged and totally independent country to be entirely demilitarized.” Kiribati, and other small countries I suspect, have no military. In Kiribati’s case this was a deliberate decision taken by the first President and Government of Kiribati as it was becoming Independent in 1979. Like Costa Rica it has almost certainly benefitted from that foundational decision. Many other newly independent ex British colonies suffered from coups and military rule as a result of the British policy of promoting nationhood on the British model: Westminster type parliament, independent judiciary, and a military force. It was interesting interviewing Sir Ieremia Tabai, the first President and a leading campaigner at the time when it was an issue, stating that the motivation was heavily economic – we are a small country with very little money so we can’t go wasting it on buying guns. If only more leaders would adhere to such basic commonsense!

But first of all a bit of an introduction to Kiribati, as most people have never heard of us and even fewer know much about us. Kiribati sits right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean but tending to the Western side. It is the only country in the world with a claim to be in all four hemispheres, north, south, east and west, spanning as it does the Equator and the 180 meridian, the International Date Line. There are 33 islands spread over 3000kms from west to east along the Equator. The population is currently 130,000 and rising fast, with more than half living in the capital Tarawa. The population is over 90% ethnically homogenous Micronesian, I-Kiribati, with its own language and unique culture. Kiribati dance is a unique cultural form and is central in the culture, an integral part of every occasion from the opening of Parliament to weddings, birthdays, and public holidays. It is one of the main ways in which the culture preserves itself, the Kiribati diaspora using it as an excuse to come together wherever they are and teach it to the children.

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by Tracy Turner

The preceding nuclear pollution article, "Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster: 2024 Aftermath, Risks, and Insights, " examined the millennial-spanning consequences of nuclear disasters like Chornobyl and Fukushima, atomic testing, and depleted uranium warfare. The article detailed the health risks of radioactive isotopes such as Plutonium, Cesium, and Polonium and their ongoing impact on the environment and human health.

The Legacy of Nuclear Power: Environmental Injustice and Racial Exploitation

The previous nuclear pollution article discussed extraordinary contamination of soil, water, and food items and radioactive long-term health consequences for the affected populations—especially the "downwinders" who are exposed to nuclear fallout. The nuclear narrative previously discussed atomic power from its origin in the Manhattan Project to its modern applications , which have been thoroughly implicated in racial and environmental injustice. The article covered Chernobyl and Fukushima ongoing radioactive disasters, as Infinity Pollution.

Many consider nuclear power a technological marvel, the prospected clean energy of the future. Still, in reality, nuclear is far darker when we consider its historical and continuing impacts: uranium mining, nuclear testing, and waste disposal. The fallout from atomic development has disproportionately harmed marginalized communities, Indigenous peoples, and people of color. From the development of the atomic bomb in the United States to nuclear testing across the South Pacific and the Soviet Union, atomic energy has been part of a long history of exploitation, displacement, and environmental degradation. Nuclear power, in all of its forms, is steeped in systemic racism, ecological colonialism, and the exploitation of vulnerable communities.

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By David Swanson, World BEYOND War

I do see a problem with justifying the U.S. Civil War while recognizing the damage done by of regrettable dreams of vengeance...

I wasn’t going to read The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates because I’m doing what I can to end the genocide and occupation, and because Coates seems like such a nice guy that it saddens me that he nonsensically defended the U.S. Civil War.

I’m very glad that I did read it. I did so because someone led me to believe that in it Coates changed his mind about the Civil War. This turned out to be a misunderstanding that grew out of the fact that in the book he does slightly change his mind about a different — much more popular — article that he had written in the same magazine, one about reparations.

I’m glad I read the book because it is full of useful information and perspectives on the life of the author, on racial injustice, on propaganda, and on rebellion. One insight in particular strikes me, and it is related to what Coates regrets about his article on reparations, namely his use of the example of German reparations to Israel.

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By Kathy Kelly, World BEYOND War

The Biblical Book of Job chronicles a string of catastrophes relentlessly plaguing the main character, Job, who loses his prosperity, his home, his health, and his children. Eventually, an agonized Job curses his own existence as well as the god that created him.

Numerous interpretations of the story exist, and more than one version has circulated through the ancient Near East. One version concludes with Job avowing repentance. “I know that my redeemer liveth, and so I repent in dust and in ashes.”

The Latin root for the word ‘repent’ is pensare – to think. ‘Repent” suggests an effort to rethink.

Job’s surprising repentance has been on my mind as calls increase, in 2024, for the United Nations to rethink its relation to Israel as a member state. Increasingly, civil society groups are pressuring Permanent Missions to the UN to eject Israel as a voting member of the General Assembly.

To paraphrase Pankraj Mishra, writing for the New York Review of Books, a stunned world has watched with disbelief as the United States provisions Israel with weapons enabling a mass murder spree across the Middle East.

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LifeSiteNews

The president-elect praised the former Democratic congresswomen and said she'll bring a 'fearless spirit' to the intelligence community as a member of his cabinet.

President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would nominate former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

Gabbard, a former Army lieutenant colonel and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, is known for her staunch non-interventionist foreign policy. After leaving the Democratic Party in 2022 over its “warmongering” and “woke” positions, she joined the Republican Party and endorsed Trump’s presidential bid earlier this year.

“As a former Candidate for the Democrat Presidential Nomination, she has broad support in both Parties – She is now a proud Republican!” the statement added. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights and securing Peace through Strength. Tulsi will make us all proud!” Trump said in a statement.

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A majority of Americans approve of Trump’s plans for the nation over the next four years. According to new Pew Research Center polling, 53% of Americans either “strongly” or “somewhat” approve of Trump’s plans. 46% disapproved. In particular, respondents were confident Trump will do a good job in key areas like the economy, foreign policy, immigration and justice. Nearly 60% of Americans said they were “very” or “somewhat” confident that Trump will handle the economy well, while 54% felt the same about justice, and 53% said Trump will make good decisions with regard to foreign policy and immigration. Pew polled nearly 10,000 people in the aftermath of the election. They also found that the American electorate is “warming” to Trump. Forty-three percent of respondents said they have a “warm feeling” towards Trump: an increase on the 36% who said the same in 2016, and the 34% in 2020.

Vote marks fourth time Joe Biden’s administration has vetoed a UNSC Gaza ceasefire resolution since Israel’s war began. The United States has vetoed a resolution at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) demanding an “immediate, unconditional and permanent” ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, as Israel’s bombardment of the Palestinian territory continues. The US voted down the measure on Wednesday morning while the 14 other members of the council voted in favour. While the resolution called for the release of captives held in Gaza, Washington had voiced opposition to its demand for an “unconditional” ceasefire. “We made clear throughout negotiations that we could not support an unconditional ceasefire that failed to release the hostages,” Robert Wood, the deputy US envoy to the UN, said during the session in New York. “A durable end to the war must come with the release of the hostages. These two urgent goals are inextricably linked. This resolution abandoned that necessity, and for that reason, the United States could not support it.”

Four years ago, most people had no idea what Covid-19 could bring, and so plenty of common sense, logic and even scientific basis flew out the window when trying to prevent ourselves from catching it, or worse, dying from it. We were all lied to about almost everything, but many of us caught on to those lies early on, especially when it came to the vaccines and the mask wearing. First off, you simply can’t breathe properly with a Covid mask on, of any kind, and there’s plenty of science (we’re talking over 150 studies) to back up the many BAD health outcomes that come from wearing a Covid face diaper regularly. Pay it forward 4 years now, and some germophobic fanatics are STILL wearing their Covid face diapers 24/7/365, even when they are alone in the car, or walking outside alone. It’s insanity on top of insanity, but you see it all around you every day. These folks never read REAL science about the dangers of wearing these masks all the time. For instance, not only do the masks breed bacteria in the mouth, throat and lungs, but they limit proper oxygen intake, while recycling what you already breathed in and used. This is very bad folks. Follow the bouncing ball. Oxygen deprivation, also known as hypoxia, can come on slowly over time, leading to many of the horrific health outcomes that the Covid jabs also create

New internal dissent letters are again blasting Washington for its unwavering support of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The US government is lobbying Democratic senators to vote against legislation that would halt $20 billion worth of arms sales to Israel, according to US officials who spoke with the Times of Israel on 20 November. “Biden aides have argued that the weapons in question are essential for Israel’s defense and won’t be delivered for another year or two, ‘so the likelihood of them being used in this iteration of the Gaza context is very low,’” the Israeli daily cites the sources as saying, adding that officials from the White House, State Department, and Pentagon have reached out to “various lawmakers on the fence about how they might vote.”

The Oreshnik missile flies at a speed of Mach 10, or 3 km per second, retired Russian Army colonel and military analyst Viktor Litovkin told Sputnik, explaining why it can't be intercepted by modern air defenses. “The unique feature of the Oreshnik missile system is that, firstly, it is a medium-range missile – it flies to a distance of 1,000 km to 5,500 km – and secondly, it is hypersonic, flying at a speed of Mach 10," retired Russian Army colonel and military analyst Viktor Litovkin told Sputnik. Mach 10, or 10 times the speed of sound, equates to 3 km per second, the pundit noted. There is not a single air defense or missile defense system in the world capable of intercepting those hypersonic missiles, Litovkin stressed. "The West does not have missiles that fly at such a speed or hypersonic missiles at all," the pundit continued. "Although the US has repeatedly boasted that it has such missiles, it has never demonstrated a missile flight. They appeared to show missiles that flew at a supersonic speed of 5.5 times the speed of sound or Mach 5.5. However, hypersonic speed begins at Mach 6-7."

U.S. consumers have piled up the largest mountain of household debt in the history of the world. If the federal government was not almost 36 trillion dollars in debt, the fact that U.S. households are nearly 18 trillion dollars in debt would be making a lot more headlines. Sadly, our entire society is absolutely saturated with debt at this point. Government debt on all levels is spiraling out of control, corporate debt has ballooned to absurd levels, and consumers have been gorging on debt as if there will never be any consequences. Unfortunately, a time of reckoning has arrived, and it is going to be incredibly painful. On Wednesday, we learned that total credit card debt has surged to a brand new record high of 1.17 trillion dollars… Collectively, Americans now owe a record $1.17 trillion on their credit cards, according to a new report on household debt from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Gabbard is well positioned to become the most influential advisor to President Trump regarding the critical foreign policy and national security problems that will be faced by his administration. President-elect Donald Trump has sent shockwaves through the national security establishment by appointing former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as his nominee for the position of director of national intelligence. Social media is ablaze with criticism and condemnation of both the nomination and Gabbard, primarily over past statements she has made critical of U.S. policy regarding Venezuela, Syria, Ukraine, and Russia. Apparently, Gabbard, who serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and has served in combat in Iraq, is somehow deemed “un-American” for daring to speak out against bad policy. It doesn’t matter that history has shown her criticisms to be well-founded.

What is evil? For the average person it’s a difficult concept to explain but most of us know it when we see it. Every once in a while there’s an event which strikes the collective consciousness in such a way that it becomes deeply symbolic. Sometimes these events symbolize ultimate good, and sometimes they symbolize ultimate evil. The public is affected by these things in ways they didn’t expect and might not even comprehend, but they are archetypal and profound nonetheless. In the wake of Donald Trumps election victory and the jubilant celebration some people might overlook one of these recent events; the state assassination of a man’s pet squirrel and the national anger that followed. Why does the death of a squirrel matter? It’s not only about the squirrel, it’s about the context and what it means for our civilization at large.

A Bavarian man’s home was raided for retweeting an image calling Economy Minister Robert Habeck an “idiot”. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has pressed charges against a 64-year-old man from Bavaria for sharing a meme calling him an idiot. Sometime in June, Stefan Niehoff shared a meme featuring a photo of Habeck with an altered logo of a popular shampoo brand, changing it from Schwarzkopf (black head) to Schwachkopf (weak head). Police raided his home in Lower Franconia at dawn on Tuesday and seized his tablet. Habeck’s lawyers have filed a criminal complaint against Niehoff, prosecutors in the town of Bamberg told the German news agency dpa on Friday. They added that Niehoff also faced charges of uploading an image to X that “referenced the Nazi era.”

The SpaceX CEO reportedly spoke with Vladimir Putin, the Wall Street Journal reported in October. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk should be investigated over media claims that he communicated with several senior Russian officials in recent years, two top Democratic senators have demanded in a letter. Jack Reed, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Jeanne Shaheen, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, raised concerns about the media allegations in a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland and Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch on Friday.

The ongoing situation between Israel and Iran is extremely dangerous, because it could pull in the three most powerful, nuclear-armed nations on this planet. The government of Iran has reportedly issued another Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) clearing its air space on certain dates for "rocket launches." According to the information I received last night, Iran has ordered the clearing of its air space beginning November 18 and continuing through November 20. This is significant for several reasons: First, It is well known that Iran intends to retaliate against Israel for the Israeli attack a little over two weeks ago. Second, Iran itself said it would retaliate against Israel "After the U.S. Election but before Trump is sworn in." Third, Iran issued warnings to the residents of Haifa and Tel Aviv over this past weekend, giving them "one week to evacuate those cities" while military guys blustered they were going to "remove Israel from the map."

Marco Rubio, a Republican foreign policy hawk tapped by Donald Trump to lead the US Department of State in his new administration, is known for his confrontational stance toward Iran and close ties with anti-Iran groups. A staunch ally of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Rubio has even advocated for a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by the Israeli regime, saying such an attack "would have been successful." In a 2015 interview, he asserted that the Tel Aviv regime "has a right to act in its self-defense, which it did in the past when it struck facilities in Syria and other places."

RINO warmonger and former Trump national security advisor John Bolton was being shopped around the failing leftist cable news stations Wednesday to decry Trump’s picks for Director of National Intelligence and Attorney General, even calling for a law enforcement investigation into the two. As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump announced on Wednesday his nomination of Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence and Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. Bolton lost his mind, calling them the “worst” and “second worst” cabinet nominations in American History.

I had thought Stew Peters was a courageous fellow and maybe he is, but now I see he can be disingenuous and misleading. He is doing that conflating thing… that Crass Media false headline scam… implying that Noem was operating in her new… as yet unconfirmed status… as head of Homeland Insecurity. She did this while governor some time ago, and I suspect it was little more that window dressing. They can’t get around The First Amendment without destroying The Constitution, and that is something Trump would not do. We already know that they get their hooks into every government official they can manage to compromise or intimidate. Of course, this is going on, but… how far? If they could have done here what they did in Europe they would have already done it. Europe and The Crown Colonies do not have a First Amendment and that is how the insidious vipers of Satan were able to pass unreasonable laws that grant them cover for their crimes.

No counter measure exists against this weapon. The missile attacks targets at a speed of Mach 10, which is 2,3 km to 3 km per second. - (1.86 miles. per second) Modern anti-aircraft defense systems in the world and the anti-aircraft defense systems created by the Americans in Europe cannot intercept such missiles. This is out of the question. I would like to stress once again that it was not Russia but the United States (Biden, the democrats and rhinos) that destroyed the international security system. And by continuing to fight clinging to their hegemony they are pushing the whole world into a global conflict. - President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

The democrats will destroy your world.

Jen Psaki calls for laws to regulate social media and target “disinformation” in the wake of Democrat election losses.

Psaki has told repeated lies about Joe Biden, including his mental state and looking at his watch during the dignified transfer. pic.twitter.com/JxHQc6oe0T

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) November 15, 2024

Jen Psaki calls for laws to regulate social media and target “disinformation” in the wake of Democrat election losses. Psaki has told repeated lies about Joe Biden, including his mental state and looking at his watch during the dignified transfer. “disinformation" is a made up democrat word for truth and freedom of speech. which they want to control.