STRATEGIC ALERT Service

Just as in Europe and in the Global South, independent family farms in the United States have been increasingly pushed out of business by the major food multinationals and industrial farms. According to the figures cited just a few months ago by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, 39,700 farms closed down in the five-year period between 2017 and 2023. During […]

Eagle Pass, Texas, a town of 30,000 residents living along the U.S.-Mexico border, has become the focal point of a showdown over immigration policy between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Biden Administration. The governor, a Republican, launched “Operation Lone Star”, deploying Texas National Guard troops to Eagle Pass to string razor wire and install a wall of shipping containers […]

Latvian authorities and the European Parliament have opened an investigation into Tatjana Zdanoka, a Latvian member of the European Parliament, accused of being a Russian agent. The investigation was prompted by an article published Jan. 29 on The Insider, an anti-Putin website connected to Bellingcat,  and has been characterized by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as a “witch-hunt”, reminiscent of McCarthysm […]

In a landmark ruling handed down on Jan. 26, the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) found there was “plausibility” to South Africa’s claims that the Palestinian population needs protection from genocide. The Court thus issued six orders to Israel to prevent the commission of any genocidal acts in Gaza, and to enable the “provision of basic services and humanitarian […]

There is a profound irony in the reaction to the preliminary ruling issued on Jan. 26 by the International Court of Justice in the case brought by South Africa, asking that Israel be found guilty of genocide, and be ordered to stop the genocidal attacks on the Palestinians in Gaza. The irony is that the ruling has been disparaged by […]

A scandal broke out on Jan. 26 when allegations emerged that some staffers of the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) may have participated in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, and those individuals were promptly fired. However, the claims, as well as the timing of their release, are suspicious, because they come from Israeli sources, […]

Paris was under “siege” on Jan. 29, as farmers blocked the major access points to the capital with their tractors and bales of hay, and many planned to stay until the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday. This spectacular action followed days of protest actions throughout the country. The new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal did offer them a few concessions, […]

The BSW (Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht), initiated by former Linke politician Sahra Wagenknecht, held its official founding convention on Jan. 27 in Berlin. Some 400 delegates discussed the programmatic priorities, which are: an end to weapons deliveries to Ukraine and an instant ceasefire there; restoring cooperation with Russia, together with the lifting of sanctions and the resumption of natural gas imports […]

The Italy-Africa Conference opened on Jan. 29 in Rome, to launch the Italian government’s much touted “Mattei Plan” (named after the late industrialist and anti-imperialist leader Enrico Mattei). However, the title should have been “EU-Italy-Africa”, as Prime Minister Meloni (and her Foreign minister Antonio Tajani) invited the entire EU leadership: Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel and European Parliament chairman […]

The Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) sent President Joe Biden an “Alert Memorandum” on Jan. 25, warning him once again, that the intelligence on Ukraine he has been receiving since the beginning of the conflict with Russia has been dangerously wrong. The VIPS is a group of former officers of the U.S. intelligence community, many of them whistle-blowers, who […]