Cameroon is consistently among Africa’s worst jailers of journalists, with five journalists—Amadou Vamoulke, Manch Bibixy, Thomas Awah Junior, Tsi Conrad, and Kingsley Fomunyuy Njoka—currently behind bars in violation of international law, according to CPJ’s annual prison census. 

To meet AGOA eligibility requirements, reviewed by the Office of the United States Trade Representative, sub-Saharan countries must meet statutorily defined criteria, several of which relate to human rights. Given the ongoing detention of the journalists and the country’s poor press freedom record, CPJ and Freedom House said that Cameroon does not fully meet these criteria.

Read a copy of the comment in English here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

This story originally appeared in Mondoweiss on June 21, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

Violence has a paralyzing power. What is the power of the word in the face of the planes that sow destruction and death, and the flying ballistic missiles? When I see people around me paralyzed or going crazy with fear in the face of the destruction that the Iranian missiles have sown, I cannot help but think of the resilience of the residents of Gaza, who go through seven circles of hell every day with no relief in sight.

But the missiles and planes are the continuation of politics by other means. Many words have been spoken, and many agreements have been concluded to create and set in motion the instruments of destruction and death. As far removed from reality as it may seem now, it is important to speak out today in order to understand the roots of the war and how we can resist and stop the looming disasters.

In Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran—it’s the same war

During the first year of the “war,” the Israeli public overwhelmingly supported the genocide in Gaza, with no significant reservations. But in recent months, we have seen doubts and disillusionment on the part of large sections. Now, when we stand in protest vigils demanding an end to the killing, the feeling is that most of the public on the streets of Haifa supports us. More and more Israelis, including established media outlets, former senior politicians, and generals, have begun to speak out about the war crimes that Israel is committing. An Israeli and international consensus has begun to form that the Israeli government deliberately avoids striving to end the war, and is working to expand and perpetuate it, for reasons of narrow political and personal interests or out of messianic extremism.

But suddenly, when Israel initiated the expansion of the war into an all-out attack on Iran, which will inevitably bring further death and destruction in both Iran and Israel, we began to see again the power of violence to take over the human psyche and paralyze thought. Suddenly, the automatic Israeli consensus stiffened again, with the media and the public celebrating the spilled Iranian blood. Even a sinking Europe, which had begun to show remorse in its support of the genocide in Gaza, became enthusiastic again, with Germany, France, and Britain literally begging for their share of the pound of flesh and blood.

The root of the evil here, and the source of all the current wars, is the role that Zionism has assumed as the crushing force of imperialist control in the Middle East. This is the declared strategy of the United States: to ensure Israel’s military superiority over any regional coalition. To secure Israel’s place as a military power that can strike at anyone who threatens American hegemony, the United States must keep Israel in a state of constant conflict and constant danger. 

This strategy paid off on a colossal scale for the United States in the wake of the Six-Day War in 1967, when the crushing Israeli victory over three Arab states led, within a few years, to the collapse of the dreams of independence and Arab socialism of the Nasserists and the left wing of the Ba’ath Party, and the establishment of reactionary and submissive dictatorships.

Since then, much water has flowed through the region’s rivers, hundreds of millions of residents have been added, there has been progress in education and the economy, and the equation that relies on the fortress of Jewish Sparta to maintain imperialist supremacy in the region is becoming less and less sustainable. The United States itself paid a heavy price for its military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq and emerged from them without any real achievement. Israel failed twice in its wars over Lebanon, in the Eighteen Years’ War (1982-2000) and in its brief adventure in the summer of 2006.

Meanwhile, the wider regional picture has also changed. Instead of pro-Western dictatorships in Turkey and Iran, populist Islamist governments have risen in the two regional powers, which are more responsive to public opinion in their countries and tend to identify with Palestinian suffering and resistance and to denounce Israel’s aggression.

For a long time, imperialist politics in the region were based on the principle of “divide and rule.” The main axis of nurtured conflict among the Muslim population was between Sunnis and Shiites. The grand idea was, within the framework of the “Abraham Accords,” to establish a defense alliance under Israeli-American auspices that would protect the oil kings and emirs of the Arabian Peninsula from the “Iranian threat” (and from their own people), in exchange for continued effective American control over the region’s natural resources and economy.

Even as the Palestinians did not receive massive support that would allow them to exercise their human and national rights, the Palestinian struggle was and remains a central axis that challenges the system of imperialist control in the region. The identification with the Palestinians by both Sunnis and Shiites, and, more recently, the shock of the unbridled violence perpetrated by Israel since October 7, and the exposure of the racist Pavlovian instinct of all Western powers in supporting the genocide in Gaza, all of which have changed and are still changing the map of the region for the long term.

Meanwhile, Israel has become embroiled in war on many fronts, struggling to achieve a decisive victory and reap the fruits of its military superiority. In Six Days in 1967, Israel militarily defeated three Arab countries and occupied vast areas. Now, for more than 600 days, it has been unable to defeat Palestinian resistance to the occupation of the Gaza Strip, which had been under a suffocating siege for many years before the current genocidal war. 

The only arena in which Israel has achieved a military and political victory is its struggle against Hezbollah in Lebanon, due to a combination of tactical failures on the part of Hezbollah and the fact that, as a representative of the oppressed Shiite minority, it had no full Lebanese legitimacy to intervene in the war. However, in Lebanon too, Israel’s insistence on continuing to hold occupied territory within Lebanon, with constant offensive military activity all over the country, keeps this front in the context of a violent conflict that has not ended and with no end in sight.

In Yemen, the government that came to power in Sanaa on the waves of the Arab Spring, and survived an all-out war by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Emirates, continues to try and pressure an end to the attack on Gaza through a naval blockade and repeated attacks. Even before the conflict with Israel, Yemen was the poorest country in the region and is still torn by civil war. Despite its limited capabilities, repeated attacks by a coalition of Western countries led by the United States and Israeli attacks on economic infrastructure have failed to change Yemen’s position.

The expansion of the war into Syria after the fall of the Assad regime adds another layer to the logic of the conflict. The new Syrian regime, which emerged after 14 years of revolution and civil war at the cost of about a million lives and immense destruction, declared from the moment it was established that it was committed to the 1974 armistice agreements and that it did not want conflicts with any neighboring country. Despite this, and despite the military erosion of the multi-front war, Israel decided to open another front against Syria, conquering additional territories (in addition to the Syrian Golan Heights captured in 1967), bombing all over Syria, and threatening the new regime. This completely exposed the logic of the “villa in the jungle”: in order for the villa to remain a villa, it must ensure that the jungle remains a jungle, and any attempt to build a normal society and state in the region is an existential threat to it. 

The attack on Iran took this logic a step further. Israeli strategic superiority must be guaranteed not only against four hundred million Arabs but also against all other countries of the region. The Israeli method of killing Iranian scientists, which did not begin with the latest attack, brutally presents the concept of how the colonialist “local branch of Western culture” will be able to maintain its technological superiority.

On the nuclear question

As a university student, I took a course on “International Relations After World War II,” that is, the Cold War between the Western powers and the Soviet Union. The lecturer always talked about how Western leaders planned to confront “The Soviet Threat.” In “Operation Unthinkable,” which was to begin as early as July 1945, Churchill planned to mobilize the surrendered Wehrmacht troops to attack the Soviet Union and drop (American) atomic bombs on Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kiev. In 1949, the US planned a larger operation (“Operation Dropshot“) that involved the use of 300 atomic bombs and the destruction of 100 cities and towns in the Soviet Union.

In 1949, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear weapons test, which cooled America’s enthusiasm for a direct confrontation with it. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, after the Soviet Union had proven that it could create a real nuclear threat to the U.S., talks began between the parties, and the Cold War gradually moved into the “détente” phase.

In my naivete, I asked the lecturer: According to what you taught us, as long as nuclear weapons were only in the hands of the West, we were on the verge of a nuclear war. Only when a “balance of terror” was created did the tension subside. How does this fit in with saying that the problem was “The Soviet Threat”? It seems the opposite is true…

He replied that from the perspective of the sequence of events, what I said made sense, but “no one in political science would agree” with my conclusion…

As far as is known (“according to foreign sources”), Israel possesses a large number of nuclear weapons, which the Western powers helped it develop. To this day, they defend Israel’s “right” to violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in all international forums. Israeli politicians and various experts have said that Israel has already considered using nuclear weapons against Arab countries several times, in moments of crisis. The climax came during the latest attack on Gaza, when lunatic extremist politicians fantasized about using an atomic bomb to annihilate Gaza as “revenge.” And, please, don’t tell me that the lunatic extremist right is far from the center of decision-making in Israel. As long as nuclear weapons are in the hands of one side in the region, there is a temptation to use them, thus creating an existential threat to the residents of the entire region. Clearly, the best situation is to have the entire region free of nuclear weapons. But history has proven that a nuclear balance of terror can also guarantee that nobody uses these weapons.

The West’s position on the Iranian nuclear issue is, on a regional scale, a repetition of its position on the denial of legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance. No matter how much Israel occupies and oppresses Palestinians, robs their land, destroys their homes, and kills them. Israel always “has the right to self-defense” and the Palestinian who defends his rights is always the “terrorist”. The ultimate way to ensure Israel’s “strategic superiority” in the region is to allow it, in a “time of need,” to wipe out millions of the inhabitants of the region using atomic weapons. This is the essence of the “Western Values” that they claim to stand for. 

The Gulf states, which grovel to the rulers of the United States and Europe, thought they were buying their favor, so that they would stop the massacre in Gaza. They also hoped to prevent the war with Iran, which endangers the security of all the countries in the region. Instead, surprise, surprise, it turns out that the money they gave to the U.S. continues to fund the genocide against Palestinians and the bombings of Lebanon and Syria. Furthermore, they are effectively paying the United States for the privilege of being on the receiving end of a future nuclear annihilation.

Where are we going from here?

As the saying goes: It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

It is difficult to know what will happen, but there are many things that are unlikely not to happen. At the beginning of the current “war” in Gaza, the American administration’s emissaries used to ask Netanyahu what were his plans for “the day after.” What is your end game?

To this day, they have not received an answer, and this is not by chance. Israel lives from war to war and is unable to imagine a different reality, let alone take action to create it. The historical logic was that Israel attacks in order to impose the American “day after” on the Arabs. For this equation to hold, there should be an American administration that is capable and willing to stop Israel’s aggression and force concessions on it. In the meantime, the Americans have fallen in love with Israel’s aggression. Even more importantly, the United States really has nothing to offer the region these days.

We are living at the end of “the American era.” Today, China is the main economic partner for trade and development for the countries of the region, as well as elsewhere. The United States still retains its military superiority, at the price of huge military investment. To benefit from this superiority, it is inclined to militarize international politics, as is evident in Ukraine and East Asia, just like in our region. Israel’s military and political power is a reflection of American superiority. 

The U.S. military advantage is eroding as it loses its economic and technological leadership. When it uses military force to try to preserve or restore its world hegemony, it is not advancing itself but trying to push others backward. Humanity is paying an awful cost, but the U.S. decline is also accelerating.

The current war in the Middle East is part of a desperate effort to preserve the remnants of colonialism and Western superiority over the peoples of the Third World. The Palestinian people are paying a terrible, unbearable price for this. But the future will not be determined by the politicians of the West or the corrupt rulers of the region who grovel to them, but by the peoples who will stand up for their right to determine their own destiny.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Yoav Haifawi.

While Biden attempted to cast his foreign policy actions as defending “democracy” against “authoritarianism,” this framing is a lie. The real motive force behind the Biden administration’s bloody foreign policy is a fear of waning hegemony – of losing the benefits the US economy derives from political and economic domination of the global majority.

In that vein, the US is still trying to suffocate the model of socialist Latin American integration forwarded by Cuba and Venezuela. Washington is still arming the Israeli genocide in Palestine, the invasion of Lebanon, and other Israeli aggressions against “Axis of Resistance” forces in the region, namely Iran. On top of this, the US is still supporting or carrying out airstrikes against Yemen and Syria, still hoping to bleed Russia dry in Ukraine, still backing a Pakistani military dictatorship imposed with US backing, still engineering the re-invasion of Haiti, and still plotting an economic war (and perhaps a hot one) against China.

The Biden administration genuinely believed it could remake the world in its vision, and particularly the Middle East à la the neoconservatives of the George W. Bush administration. A Nation article by Aída Chávez laid out Biden’s disturbing plan for the Middle East and wider world, a plan that relies on Israel successfully carrying out the ethnic cleansing of Palestine:

One goal of the “Biden doctrine,” as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman called it, is to achieve the “global legitimacy” necessary to “take on Iran in a more aggressive manner.” With Hamas out of the picture and a demilitarized Palestinian state under the influence of the Gulf regimes, the thinking goes, the US will have Arab cover in the region to be able to counter Iran – and the cheap drones they’re worried about – and then put all of its energy toward a confrontation with China.

Following Israel’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, US officials jumped at the chance to push “a much wider agenda – including an opening for the next stage of America’s geopolitical ambitions.” This “next stage” includes the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the signing of a US-Saudi defence treaty, and the Gulf monarchies leading Gaza’s so-called “reconstruction” as a pro-US “emirate,” in the words of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

Following the killing of Sinwar, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal stated, “After recent conversations w/leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia & UAE, I have real hope that Sinwar’s death creates truly historic opportunities for Israel’s security, cessation of fighting & regional peace & stability through normalization of relations. The moment must be seized.” Lindsey Graham elaborated on the “historic opportunities” of which Washington hopes to take advantage. “MBS and MBZ at the UAE will come in and rebuild Gaza,” he said in a recent interview. “[They will] create an enclave in the Palestine.”

According to Bob Woodward’s new book War, Graham reportedly told Biden, “It’s going to take a Democratic president to convince Democrats to vote to go to war for Saudi Arabia.” To which Biden responded, “Let’s do it.”

While Washington aims to violently remake the Middle East to serve its geopolitical aims – a stark contrast to China’s recent peacemaking between Saudi Arabia and Iran – other targets of imperialism continue to suffer as well.

In April 2022, the Biden administration helped engineer the removal of popular Pakistani president Imran Khan from office. The US wanted Khan ousted because he entertained positive relations with China and Russia, two powers that Washington views as a threat to its hegemony. As Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu stated in a now infamous cypher to the Pakistani military, “if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington.”

Since the US-backed coup against Khan, the Pakistani military has taken extreme measures to prevent the ousted president’s return to power, including legal onslaughts, the arrest of thousands of supporters, crackdowns on social media activists, the imprisonment and torture of independent journalists such as Imran Riaz Khan, the decimation of Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and the rigging of an election earlier this year.

In other words, a de facto military junta has seized total power in Pakistan, and Washington backs them because they have reversed Khan’s non-aligned position and returned the country to the US orbit.

Meanwhile, Haiti has become a target of Washington once more. Earlier this year, the Biden administration courted Kenya’s President William Ruto to lead a US-funded invasion force into Haiti, which is wracked by violence after over a century of exploitation and underdevelopment by the US and allies, including Canada. The mission’s ostensible goal is to free Haiti from warring paramilitary gangs – however, the invasion force and its backers ignore the reality that the paramilitaries are a consequence of the brutally unequal political, economic, and social hierarchies imposed on Haiti by Global North powers. In reality, Haiti requires sovereignty and respect, not a new spiral of bloodshed and misery.

Haiti’s Caribbean neighbours, Cuba and Venezuela, have also endured immense suffering due to Biden’s imperialist policies. Cuba and Venezuela have long been targets of US imperialism – Cuba for over sixty years, Venezuela for twenty-five – and the Biden era continued this brutal interventionism. In the case of Cuba, Biden kept in place the hundreds of additional sanctions and the egregious “state sponsor of terrorism” designation imposed by Donald Trump. The Trump-Biden sanctions are harsher than any previous president’s, depriving the small Caribbean nation of billions of dollars per year. “The sanctions today,” says political scientist William LeoGrande, “have a greater impact on the Cuban people than ever before.” People are going hungry, hundreds of thousands hope to migrate, and most recently, the country’s power grid collapsed under the weight of Biden’s coercive measures.

As Drop Site news contributor Ed Augustin wrote in early October:

Government food rations [in Cuba] – a lifeline for the country’s poor – are fraying. Domestic agriculture, which has always been weak, has cratered in recent years for lack of seeds, fertilizer, and petrol, forcing the state to import 100 percent of the basic subsidized goods. But there’s not enough money to do that. Last year the government eliminated chicken from the basic food basket most adults receive. Last month, the daily ration of bread available to all Cubans was cut by a quarter. Even vital staples like rice and beans now arrive late. Food insecurity on the island is rising, according to a recent report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Vulnerable groups – older people, pregnant women, children and people with chronic illnesses – are most affected by the knock-on effects of US policy.

In all the cases described above, the Biden administration has taken extreme measures to snuff out challenges to its imperialist hegemony – measures that manifest first and foremost in the physical destruction of Palestinians and Lebanese by US-made weapons, the imposition of hunger, desperation, and migration crises on Cuba and Venezuela, the US-backed occupation of Haiti, the violent repression of Pakistanis’ desire for sovereignty and non-alignment, and more. Meanwhile, one-third of the world’s nations – and 60 percent of poor countries – face some type of US sanctions for having displeased the imperial hegemon.

The prevailing world system, a system defined by US imperialism and the imposition of the neoliberal Washington Consensus around the globe, is facing an array of challenges, from Latin America and the Caribbean to Palestine to East Asia.

How is Washington responding? Through the economic strangulation of countries like Cuba and Venezuela that present an alternative model; through a “day after” plan in the Middle East that would reduce Gaza to a neocolony of Washington and the Gulf monarchies; through coups against popular non-aligned leaders like Imran Khan; through the re-invasion of Haiti, a nation whose sovereignty has long been subverted by imperialism; through pressuring the Ukrainian government to lower the draft age so Kyiv can continue sending its young people into the meat grinder on behalf of Washington’s geopolitical aims; and through continuing to trudge the path toward war with China.

Ironically, the US empire’s violent response to its waning hegemony is expediting the emergence of an alternative world order, one marked by the de-dollarization and South-South cooperation of the BRICS group. As Biden leaves office and Trump returns to the White House, we can safely assume that the violence of imperialism will continue, perhaps intensify, and at the same time, the global majority will continue its efforts to forge new relationships outside the umbrella of US unilateralism.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Owen Schalk.

Students at Columbia University and Barnard College in New York have set up dozens of tents to occupy the South Lawn of the campus to create a Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Democracy Now! spoke to some of the student-activists, who say they are occupying the space, despite the administration’s threats of suspension and disciplinary action, as part of a demand that the Ivy League school divest from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli occupation. “It seems like the repression is only getting worse and worse,” says Maryam Alwan, a student-activist with Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

"Let's be serious. NATO cannot be an a la carte military alliance, it cannot be a military alliance that works depending on the humor of the president of the U.S." day to day, Borrell said after Trump suggested that under his administration the United States might not defend NATO allies that failed to spend enough on defense.

Borrell added that he would not keep commenting on "any silly idea" emerging from the U.S. presidential election campaign.

Trump, the Republican front-runner in the 2024 race, sent a chill through European allies when he said at a campaign rally on February 10 he would "encourage" Russia to attack any NATO country that does not meet financial obligations.

U.S. President Joe Biden called Trump's comments "appalling and dangerous" in a statement on February 11, joining several European defense and foreign ministers responding over the weekend.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

The reactions continued on February 12, with Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren saying Trump's comment was "exactly what Putin loves to hear."

Ollongren called the comment "worrying" and said it was not the first time that Trump has made a comment along these lines.

While in office, Trump -- who was defeated by Biden in the 2020 election -- often expressed doubts about the need for NATO and repeatedly threatened to pull out of the alliance if members did not pay what he considered their fair share for their defense.

Ollongren rebuffed Trump, stressing that NATO's strength is in its unity.

"If we're not united, it makes us weaker. And we know that that is what Putin is looking for," he told Reuters on February 12.

The principle of collective defense -- the idea that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all and would trigger collective self-defense action -- is enshrined in Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty. It is considered the hallmark of the NATO alliance.

Ollongren also noted that most NATO allies were close to or had reached the target budget spending on defense of 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2024. NATO allies agreed to the goal in 2014.

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner also reacted to Trump’s comment. Speaking in London on February 12, Lindner said the transatlantic partnership will continue.

"Regardless of who is in the White House, we have an overriding interest in continuing to cooperate across the Atlantic, economically, politically, and also in matters of security," he said.

Lindner said Britain and Germany shared similar challenges when it came to strengthening free-trade capabilities.

The dialogue "is of particular importance" after Trump's statements, Lindner said before going into a meeting with British counterpart Jeremy Hunt.

"We are facing major challenges as European members of NATO," Lindner said, adding that Europe's peace and free-trade order had been put at risk by Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier echoed other EU leaders, saying the statements "are irresponsible and even play into Russia's hands."

Meanwhile, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on February 12 discussed ramping up security cooperation in Europe with the leaders of Germany and France as fears grow that Trump's possible return to the White House might threaten Western solidarity against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Tusk said the philosophy at the heart of relations between the European Union and NATO was based on "one for all, all for one."

Speaking in Paris, he said Poland was "ready to fight for this security." Later in Berlin, Tusk hailed a "clear declaration that we are ready to cooperate" on Europe's defense.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

The letter highlights how Azerbaijani authorities have implemented internet restrictions on several occasions during military conflict since 2020.

In a major crackdown on the independent press leading up to elections, authorities have arrested at least nine journalists from prominent outlets in retaliation for their work.

Read the full letter here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Myanmar’s two other post-independence military dictator generals – Than Shwe and Ne Win – ruled the country for decades following their own coup d’etats. 

But just three years after Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and the military took control of the government in February 2021, the junta continues to be faced with regular reports of military officers and soldiers who have either surrendered to rebel groups or voluntarily switched sides.

“There aren’t many choices left for them,” said Jason Tower, country director for the Burma program at the United States Institute of Peace. “At some point, the Burmese military will have to surrender or find some way to escape from the current situation.”

Entire regiments and numerous senior military officers switched to the opposition in the months after the 2021 coup  – something that wasn’t true following the 1962 and 1988 military coups, both of which encountered some armed resistance.  

Since then, junta troops have abandoned more than 30 border towns and hundreds of military outposts, including several strategic regional headquarters. 

Junta battlefield losses have accelerated since the rebel ethnic armies that make up the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched a coordinated offensive in October.

In November, Min Aung Hlaing warned that the recent attacks – known as Operation 1027 – could “break Myanmar into pieces.” The comments at an emergency meeting of the National Defense and Security Council in the capital Naypyitaw seemed to be a plea for public support of the military for the sake of stability.

‘No public legitimacy’

But regular air force and artillery bombings of civilian populations that have killed thousands have pushed public opinion of the military to unprecedented lows.

Since the coup, nearly 80,000 homes have been burnt down or destroyed, more than 20,000 people have been arrested, and 2.5 million residents have fled their homes, according to the United Nations and human rights groups.

“The Burmese military has no public legitimacy. They have also lost international support,” Tower said. “And on every battlefield, they are facing losses.”

Discontent within the military is also driven by long standing corruption practices that the current regime has continued and in some cases even increased, according to Hla Kyaw Zaw, a political analyst based in China. 

“Min Aung Hlaing is different from Than Shwe and Ne Win,” he said. “He’s more notorious for his corruption.”

A soldier affiliated with the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, or CDM, told RFA that every member of Myanmar’s junta is expected to contribute a certain portion of their salary to Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited, a fund managed by junta leaders. 

They also must pay a monthly fee to a life insurance company owned by top junta leaders under threats of punitive actions, the CDM soldier said.

‘The mood is so dark’

Much of Myanmar’s current turmoil and chaos could be blamed on Min Aung Hlaing’s ambition to be president, several observers told RFA.

He wasn’t content to just be the country’s top military leader, and apparently couldn’t accept the poor showing that the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party received in the 2020 election, said Win Htein, a senior aide to Aung San Suu Kyi, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the junta in 2021.

Suu Kyi is the former de facto leader of Myanmar and Nobel laureate who was also sentenced to prison by a junta court.

Junta leaders may have also been surprised by the response to the 2021 coup from ethnic armed organizations, anti-junta People’s Defense Forces and pro-democracy groups, said Ko Naung Roo, a member of the CDM military. 

“Without understanding the changes in the modern system, they went with the tradition of a coup d’état,” he said. “Min Aung Hlaing should be called the weakest dictator rather than the worst dictator.”

Attempts by RFA to contact a junta spokesperson for comment went unanswered this week.

Former lawmaker Tint Swe told RFA that if things get worse, Myanmar’s leader could face a fate similar to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who was found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed in 2006, or Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who was captured and killed in 2011.

“It is still difficult to predict how Gen. Min Aung Hlaing will end up,” he said. “But I do see that the entire military power and economic system is headed for collapse.”

Tun Kyi, a former political prisoner, predicted that Min Aung Hlaing will eventually be put on trial for war crimes.

“The last breath of dictators is ugly, and the mood is so dark for the country,” he said. “If you look at the world, from Hitler to Saddam Hussein, and so on, if you look at their essence, their paths are the same at the end of time."

Translated by Aung Khin. Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

Figure One: Just stop a few of their machines and radios and telephones and lawn mowers…throw them into darkness for a few hours and then you just sit back and watch the pattern. 

Figure Two: And this pattern is always the same? 

Figure One: With few variations. They pick the most dangerous enemy they can find…and it’s themselves. And all we need do is sit back…and watch…and let them destroy themselves.

— “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” Twilight Zone

Will 2024 be the year the Deep State’s exercise in controlled chaos finally gives way to an apocalyptic dismantling of our constitutional republic, or what’s left of it?

All the signs seem to point in this direction.

For years now, the government has been pushing us to the brink of a national nervous breakdown.

This breakdown—triggered by polarizing circus politics, media-fed mass hysteria, militarization and militainment (the selling of war and violence as entertainment), a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness in the face of growing corruption, the government’s alienation from its populace, and an economy that has much of the population struggling to get by—has manifested itself in the polarized, manipulated mayhem, madness and tyranny that is life in the American police state today.

Why is the Deep State engineering this societal madness? What’s in it for the government?

What is playing out before us is a chilling lesson in social engineering that keeps the populace fixated on circus politics and conveniently timed spectacles, distracted from focusing too closely on the government’s power grabs, and incapable of standing united in defense of our freedoms.

It’s not conspiratorial.

It’s a power play.

Rod Serling, the creator of the Twilight Zone, understood the dynamics behind this power play.

In the Twilight Zone episode, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” Serling imagined a world in which the powers-that-be carry out a social experiment to see how long it would take before the members of a small American neighborhood, frightened by a sudden loss of electric power and caught up in fears of the unknown, will transform into an irrational mob and turn on each other.

It doesn’t take long at all.

Likewise, in Netflix’s apocalyptic thriller Leave the World Behind (produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s studio), unexplained crises lead to a technological blackout that leaves the populace disconnected, disoriented, isolated, suspicious, and under attack from mysterious ailments and each other.

As one of Leave the World’s characters speculates, the culprit behind the escalating catastrophes, which range from WiFi outages and mysterious health ailments to cities under siege from rogue forces, may be the result of a military campaign intended to destabilize a nation by forcing people to turn against each other.

It’s really not so far-flung a scenario when you consider some of the many ways the government already has the ability to manufacture crises in order to sow fear, fuel hysteria, destabilize the nation and institute martial law.

The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture health crises. Long before COVID-19 locked down the nation, the U.S. government was creating lethal viruses and unleashing them on an unsuspecting public.

The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture civil unrest and political upheaval. Since the days of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI has been using agent provocateurs to infiltrate activist groups in order to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize” them.

The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture economic instability. As the national debt continues to rise upwards of $34 trillion, with little attempt by federal agencies to curtail spending, it stands as the single-most pressing threat to the economy.

The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture environmental disasters. Deployed in 1947, Project Cirrus, an early precursor to HAARP, the government’s weather-altering agency, attempted to disable a hurricane as it was moving out to sea. Instead of weakening the storm, however, the government steered it straight into Georgia, resulting in millions of dollars in damaged properties.

The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture communications blackouts. Internet and cell phone kill switches enable the government to shut down communications at a moment’s notice. It’s a practice that has been used before in the U.S. In 2005, cell service was disabled in four major New York tunnels (reportedly to avert potential bomb detonations via cell phone). In 2009, those attending President Obama’s inauguration had their cell signals blocked (again, same rationale). And in 2011, San Francisco commuters had their cell phone signals shut down (this time, to thwart any possible protests over a police shooting of a homeless man).

The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture terrorist attacks. Indeed, the FBI has a pattern and practice of entrapment that involves targeting vulnerable individuals, feeding them with the propaganda, know-how and weapons intended to turn them into terrorists, and then arresting them as part of an elaborately orchestrated counterterrorism sting.

The government has the tools and the know-how to manufacture propaganda aimed at mind control and psychological warfare. Not long ago, the Pentagon was compelled to order a sweeping review of clandestine U.S. psychological warfare operations (psy ops) conducted through social media platforms. The investigation came in response to reports suggesting that the U.S. military had been creating bogus personas with AI-generated profile pictures and fictitious media sites on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to manipulate social media users. Of the many weapons in the government’s vast arsenal, psychological warfare (or psy ops) can take many forms: mind control experiments, behavioral nudging, propaganda. In fact, the CIA spent nearly $20 million on its MKULTRA program, reportedly as a means of programming people to carry out assassinations and, to a lesser degree, inducing anxieties and erasing memories, before it was supposedly shut down.

We must never forget that the government no longer exists to serve its people, protect their liberties and ensure their happiness.

Rather, “we the people” are the unfortunate victims of the diabolical machinations of a make-works program carried out on an epic scale whose only purpose is to keep the powers-that-be permanently (and profitably) employed.

This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.

Almost every tyranny being perpetrated by the U.S. government against the citizenry—purportedly to keep us safe and the nation secure—has come about as a result of some threat manufactured in one way or another by our own government.

Think about it: Cyberwarfare. Terrorism. Bio-chemical attacks. The nuclear arms race. Surveillance. The drug wars. Domestic extremism. The COVID-19 pandemic.

In almost every instance, the U.S. government has in its typical Machiavellian fashion sown the seeds of terror domestically and internationally in order to expand its own totalitarian powers.

Consider that this very same government has taken every bit of technology sold to us as being in our best interests—GPS devices, surveillance, nonlethal weapons, etc.—and used it against us, to track, trap and control us.

Are you getting the picture yet?

The U.S. government isn’t protecting us from threats to our freedoms.The U.S. government is creating the threats to our freedoms.

It’s telling that in Leave the World Behind, before disaster strikes, the main characters—on their way to a family vacation—are utterly oblivious, connected to their electronic devices and insulated from each other and the world around them. Adding to the disconnect, the family’s teen daughter, Rose, is fixated on binge-watching episodes of Friends, even as the world falls apart around them. As TV critic Jen Chaney explains, the sitcom’s presence in the story “underlines how human beings crave escapism at the expense of embracing the actual present, a different way of ‘leaving the world behind.’”

We’re in a similar escapist bubble, suffering from a “crisis of the now,” which keeps us distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from reality.

Professor Jacques Ellul studied this phenomenon of overwhelming news, short memories and the use of propaganda to advance hidden agendas. “One thought drives away another; old facts are chased by new ones,” wrote Ellul.

“Under these conditions there can be no thought. And, in fact, modern man does not think about current problems; he feels them. He reacts, but he does not understand them any more than he takes responsibility for them. He is even less capable of spotting any inconsistency between successive facts; man’s capacity to forget is unlimited. This is one of the most important and useful points for the propagandists, who can always be sure that a particular propaganda theme, statement, or event will be forgotten within a few weeks.”

Yet in addition to being distracted by our electronic devices and diverted by bread-and-circus entertainment spectacles, we are also being polarized by political theater, which aims to keep us divided and at war with each other.

This is the underlying cautionary tale of Leave the World Behind and “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”: we are being manipulated by forces beyond our control.

A popular meme circulating a while back described it this way:

“If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask vs. Anti Mask. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar … and why?”

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the government has never stopped shaking the jar.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer and expert on international human rights, calls for Israel to act within international law in response to Hamas’s attack on civilians Saturday. “My government is waging an attack that seems to be using war crimes to retaliate on war crimes,” says Sfard. “They want revenge, as if a revenge would bring back the dear ones that are gone.” Sfard says Israel should end its bombing and lift the blockade on Gaza because civilians do not deserve punishment for militant attacks. “Modern international law prohibits, with no exception, collective punishment.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Photograph Source: kremlin.ru – CC BY 4.0

For a whole year, Israel has struggled in its attempts to articulate a clear and decisive position regarding the Russia-Ukraine war. The reason behind the seemingly confused Israeli position is that it stands to lose, regardless of the outcome. But is Israel a neutral party?

Israel is home to a population of almost one million Russian-speaking citizens, one-third of them arriving from Ukraine shortly before and immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those Israelis, with deep cultural and linguistic roots in their actual motherland, are a critical constituency in Israel’s polarized political scene. After years of marginalization following their initial arrival in Israel, mostly in the 1990s, they managed to formulate their own parties and, eventually, exert direct influence on Israeli politics. Russian-speaking ultranationalist leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Lieberman, is a direct outcome of the growing clout of this constituency.

While some Israeli leaders understood that Moscow holds many important cards, whether in Russia itself or in the Middle East, others were more concerned about the influence of Russian, Ukrainian and Moldovan Jews in Israel itself. Soon after the start of the war, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid stated a position that took many Israelis, and, of course, Russia by surprise. “The Russian attack on Ukraine is a serious violation of the international order. Israel condemns this attack,” Lapid said.

The irony in Lapid’s words is too palpable for much elaboration, except that Israel has violated more United Nations resolutions than any other country in the world. Its military occupation of Palestine is also considered the longest in modern history. But Lapid was not concerned about ‘international order’. His target audience consisted of Israelis – around 76% of them were against Russia and in favor of Ukraine – and Washington, which dictated to all of its allies that half positions on the matter are unacceptable.

US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, warned Israel plainly in  March that it must have a clear position on the issue, and “join the financial sanctions” against Russia if “you (meaning Tel Aviv) don’t want to become the last haven for dirty money”.

As millions of Ukrainians escaped their country, thousands landed in Israel. Initially, the news was welcomed in Tel Aviv, which has been worried about the alarming phenomenon of Yordim, or reverse immigration out of the country. Since many of the Ukrainian refugees were not Jews, this created a dilemma for the Israeli government. The Times of Israel reported on March 10 that “footage aired by Channel 12 news showed large numbers of people inside one of the airport’s terminals, with young children sleeping on the floor and on a baggage carousel, as well as an elderly woman being treated after apparently fainting.” In January, the Israeli Aliyah and Integration Ministry decided to suspend the special grants for Ukrainian refugees.

Meanwhile, Israel’s political position seemed conflicted. Whereas Lapid remained committed to his anti-Russian stance, then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett maintained a more conciliatory tone, flying to Moscow on March 5 to consult with Russian President Vladimir Putin, purportedly at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Later on, Bennet alleged that Zelensky had asked him to obtain a promise from Putin not to assassinate him. Though the claim, made several months after the meeting, was vehemently rejected by Kyiv, it illustrates the incoherence of Israel’s foreign policy throughout the conflict.

During the early phase of the war, Israel wanted to participate as the mediator, repeatedly offering to host talks between Russia and Ukraine in Jerusalem. Hence, it wanted to communicate several messages: to illustrate Israel’s ability to be a significant player in world affairs; to assure Moscow that Tel Aviv remains a neutral party; to justify to Washington why, as a major US ally, it remains passive in its lack of direct support to Kyiv and, also, to score a political point, against Palestinians and the international community, that Occupied Jerusalem is the center of Israel’s political life.

The Israeli gambit failed, and it was Türkiye, not Israel, that was chosen by both parties for this role.

In April, videos began emerging on social media of Israelis fighting alongside Ukrainian forces. Though no official confirmation from Tel Aviv followed, the recurring event signaled that a shift was underway in the Israeli position. This position evolved over the course of months to finally lead to a major shift when, in November, Israel reportedly granted NATO members permission to supply Ukraine with weapons that contained Israeli technology.

Moreover, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel has agreed to purchase millions of dollars’ worth of “strategic materials” for Ukrainian military operations. Therefore, Israel had practically ended its neutrality in the war.

Moscow, ever vigilant of Israel’s precarious position, sent messages of its own to Tel Aviv. In July, Russian officials said that Moscow was planning to shut down the Russian branch of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the main body responsible for facilitating Jewish immigration to Israel and Occupied Palestine.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to the office of prime minister in December was meant to represent a shift back to neutrality. However, the rightwing Israeli leader pledged during interviews with CNN and French LCI channel on February 1 and 5 respectively, that he would be “studying this question (of supplying Ukraine with the Iron Dome Defense System) according to our national interest.” Again, the Russians warned that Russia “will consider (Israeli weapons) to be legitimate targets for Russia’s armed forces”.

As Russia and Iran heightened their military cooperation, Israel felt justified in becoming more involved. In December, Voice of America reported on the exponential growth in Israel’s arms sales, partly due to a deal with the US Lockheed Martin Cooperation, one of the major US weapon suppliers to Ukraine. The following month, the French Le Monde reported that “Israel is cautiously opening its arsenal in response to Kyiv’s pressing demands.”

The future will further reveal Tel Aviv’s role in the Russian-Ukraine war. However, what is quite clear for now is that Israel is no longer a neutral party, even if Tel Aviv continues to repeat such claims.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

Elections for president and federal lawmakers are scheduled for February 25, and elections for state governments are scheduled for March 11.

“Shutdowns make it extremely difficult for journalists and the media to carry out their work thereby denying people both inside and outside of the country access to credible information,” the letter said. Journalists also recently told CPJ that, among other safety concerns related to election coverage, they worried about possible internet disruptions.

Nigeria previously blocked access to Twitter for over six months between 2021 and 2022, which the ECOWAS court declared “unlawful” and not to be repeated.

The open letter is available here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Israel is home to a population of almost one million Russian-speaking citizens, one-third of them arriving from Ukraine shortly before and immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those Israelis, with deep cultural and linguistic roots in their actual motherland, are a critical constituency in Israel’s polarized political scene. After years of marginalization following their initial arrival in Israel, mostly in the 1990s, they managed to formulate their own parties and, eventually, exert direct influence on Israeli politics. Russian-speaking ultranationalist leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Lieberman, is a direct outcome of the growing clout of this constituency.

While some Israeli leaders understood that Moscow holds many important cards, whether in Russia itself or in the Middle East, others were more concerned about the influence of Russian, Ukrainian and Moldovan Jews in Israel itself. Soon after the start of the war, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid stated a position that took many Israelis, and, of course, Russia by surprise. “The Russian attack on Ukraine is a serious violation of the international order. Israel condemns this attack,” Lapid said.

The irony in Lapid’s words is too palpable for much elaboration, except that Israel has violated more United Nations resolutions than any other country in the world. Its military occupation of Palestine is also considered the longest in modern history. But Lapid was not concerned about ‘international order’. His target audience consisted of Israelis – around 76% of them were against Russia and in favor of Ukraine – and Washington, which dictated to all of its allies that half positions on the matter are unacceptable.

US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, warned Israel plainly in  March that it must have a clear position on the issue, and “join the financial sanctions” against Russia if “you (meaning Tel Aviv) don’t want to become the last haven for dirty money”.

As millions of Ukrainians escaped their country, thousands landed in Israel. Initially, the news was welcomed in Tel Aviv, which has been worried about the alarming phenomenon of Yordim, or reverse immigration out of the country. Since many of the Ukrainian refugees were not Jews, this created a dilemma for the Israeli government. The Times of Israel reported on March 10 that “footage aired by Channel 12 news showed large numbers of people inside one of the airport’s terminals, with young children sleeping on the floor and on a baggage carousel, as well as an elderly woman being treated after apparently fainting.” In January, the Israeli Aliyah and Integration Ministry decided to suspend the special grants for Ukrainian refugees.

Meanwhile, Israel’s political position seemed conflicted. Whereas Lapid remained committed to his anti-Russian stance, then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett maintained a more conciliatory tone, flying to Moscow on March 5 to consult with Russian President Vladimir Putin, purportedly at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Later on, Bennet alleged that Zelensky had asked him to obtain a promise from Putin not to assassinate him. Though the claim, made several months after the meeting, was vehemently rejected by Kyiv, it illustrates the incoherence of Israel’s foreign policy throughout the conflict.

During the early phase of the war, Israel wanted to participate as the mediator, repeatedly offering to host talks between Russia and Ukraine in Jerusalem. Hence, it wanted to communicate several messages: to illustrate Israel’s ability to be a significant player in world affairs; to assure Moscow that Tel Aviv remains a neutral party; to justify to Washington why, as a major US ally, it remains passive in its lack of direct support to Kyiv and, also, to score a political point, against Palestinians and the international community, that Occupied Jerusalem is the center of Israel’s political life.

The Israeli gambit failed, and it was Türkiye, not Israel, that was chosen by both parties for this role.

In April, videos began emerging on social media of Israelis fighting alongside Ukrainian forces. Though no official confirmation from Tel Aviv followed, the recurring event signaled that a shift was underway in the Israeli position. This position evolved over the course of months to finally lead to a major shift when, in November, Israel reportedly granted NATO members permission to supply Ukraine with weapons that contained Israeli technology.

Moreover, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel has agreed to purchase millions of dollars’ worth of “strategic materials” for Ukrainian military operations. Therefore, Israel had practically ended its neutrality in the war.

Moscow, ever vigilant of Israel’s precarious position, sent messages of its own to Tel Aviv. In July, Russian officials said that Moscow was planning to shut down the Russian branch of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the main body responsible for facilitating Jewish immigration to Israel and Occupied Palestine.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to the office of prime minister in December was meant to represent a shift back to neutrality. However, the right-wing Israeli leader pledged during interviews with CNN and French LCI channel on February 1 and 5 respectively, that he would be “studying this question (of supplying Ukraine with the Iron Dome Defense System) according to our national interest.” Again, the Russians warned that Russia “will consider (Israeli weapons) to be legitimate targets for Russia’s armed forces”.

As Russia and Iran heightened their military cooperation, Israel felt justified in becoming more involved. In December, Voice of America reported on the exponential growth in Israel’s arms sales, partly due to a deal with the US Lockheed Martin Cooperation, one of the major US weapon suppliers to Ukraine. The following month, the French Le Monde reported that “Israel is cautiously opening its arsenal in response to Kyiv’s pressing demands.”

The future will further reveal Tel Aviv’s role in the Russian-Ukraine war. However, what is quite clear for now is that Israel is no longer a neutral party, even if Tel Aviv continues to repeat such claims.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ramzy Baroud.

From Manila to Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi and other capitals, governments across the region reiterated their support for the One China Policy, under which Beijing is recognized as the sole government of China.

The United States also holds this policy, but maintains close unofficial ties with Taiwan and is obligated to provide defense support. Washington only acknowledges China’s sovereignty claim over Taiwan rather than endorsing it.

The foreign ministry of Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest country, expressed grave concern about the “increasing rivalry among major powers,” without naming the U.S. and China. 

“If not managed well, it may lead to open conflict and disrupt peace and stability, including in the Taiwan [S]trait,” Jakarta said in a statement as it called on “all parties to refrain from provocative actions that may worsen the situation.”

“The world is in dire need of wisdom and responsibilities of all leaders to ensure peace and stability are maintained,” said Indonesia, which has faced its own territorial tensions with China in waters around the Natuna Islands in the far southwestern reaches of the South China Sea.

In Bangkok, Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed similar concern in the wake of Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

“We do not wish to see any actions that would aggravate tensions and undermine peace and stability in the region,” ministry spokesman Tanee Sangrat said. 

“We hope that all parties concerned exercise utmost restraint, abide by international law and principles of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and resolve their differences through peaceful means.”

As the military jet carrying Pelosi and her delegation touched down in Taipei on Tuesday evening after a flight from their previous stop in Kuala Lumpur, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced live-fire drills at six locations around Taiwan, some overlapping the island’s sovereign territorial waters.

In addition, 21 Chinese military aircraft, including 10 J-16 fighter-jets and two reconnaissance airplanes, flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ).

While in Taipei, Pelosi visited Taiwan’s parliament before meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen who called her “one of Taiwan’s most devoted friends.”

During a brief speech following their meeting, Pelosi praised Taiwan for its resilience.

“America’s determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad,” the house speaker said, adding that the U.S. “will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan.” 

Pelosi was the first senior-most American official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. In the days leading up to her visit, Beijing had issued stern warnings against it, claiming that the trip would encroach on Chinese sovereignty. 

The Philippines, which has also had confrontations with China in the South China Sea and maintains a Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States, said it was tracking Pelosi’s visit over concerns that it could escalate tensions with Beijing. The Pelosi-led U.S. delegation left Taiwan Wednesday evening and traveled on to South Korea.

“Our military and our DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) are closely monitoring the situation as they would in any other similar circumstance,” said Trixie Cruz-Angeles, spokeswoman for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

“On matters of international relations, reactions are studied. We don’t make knee-jerk reactions because they could adversely affect international relations,” she said, stressing that “loose words” could impact Philippine-China relations.

Cruz-Angeles said China’s envoy to Manila, Huang Xilian, had reminded officials to adhere to the One China Policy.

“There is only one China in the world. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory,” Huang said Tuesday ahead of Pelosi’s visit.

The Chinese ambassador said he hoped the Philippines would “handle all Taiwan-related issues with prudence to ensure sound and steady development of China-Philippines relations.”

Malaysia’s foreign minister, meanwhile, said his government wanted to ensure peace, stability and prosperity in the region as officials in Kuala Lumpur seek to maintain good relations with their counterparts in Beijing and Washington.

“[W]e want everyone concerned to look at the situation and address it in the best way because we appreciate and we’ve put a lot of value in both the U.S. and China when it comes to trade and technology in the region and want to be friends to both,” Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said from Phnom Penh, where foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were assembling for the ASEAN Regional Forum Meeting and meetings this week with the top Chinese, American and Russian diplomats, among others.

Late on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of the 10 ASEAN members-states prepared a collective statement about “the cross strait development.”

The bloc, it said, was “concerned with the international and regional volatility, especially in the recent development […] adjacent with the ASEAN region.”

That situation “could destabilize the region and eventually could lead to miscalculation, serious confrontation, open conflicts and unpredictable consequences among majors powers,” the top ASEAN diplomats said.

Elsewhere, officials in Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Vietnam reaffirmed support for One China policy while also calling for peace and stability in the region.

“The Lao PDR reiterates its support for the policy of the government of the People’s Republic of China on the national reunification by peaceful means,” it said in a Facebook post.

The military government in Myanmar, for its part, reaffirmed its belief that Taiwan is “an integral part of the People’s Republic of China” while expressing concern over Pelosi’s visit, “which is causing escalation of tensions on the Taiwan Straits.”

“Myanmar calls all concerned parties to deescalate the tensions through constructive dialogue and peaceful negotiation for peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits,” the junta said in a Facebook post.

China has become the largest source of foreign investment in Myanmar since Western businesses pulled out after the February 2021 military coup.

Like a frontline soldier

In northern Thailand, an analyst at Chiang Mai University lauded Pelosi while casting doubt on some media reports suggesting that her Taiwan visit could have ignited a new cold war.

“As the U.S.’s third most influential figure after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Pelosi could have laid a milestone on the U.S.’s new approach in Asia. Her trip to Taiwan is a strong political gesture and is vitally important for the relationship of the U.S. and East Asia in the future,” Isa Gharti told BenarNews. “She is like the first U.S. soldier who lays milestones to locate flash points.

“By reading some analysis lately, I am surprised that they think this is the start of a new cold war,” he said. “I don’t think so because the superpowers have yet to get their economies recovered and cannot afford to lose any partners.” 

Tria Dianti in Jakarta, Jason Gutierrez in Manila, Nontarat Phaicharoen and Wilawan Watcharasakwet in Bangkok, Kunnawut Boonreak in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and RFA contributed to this report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By BenarNews Staff.

The post How Movements can Maintain Their Radical Vision While Winning Practical Reforms appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Mark Engler - Paul Engler.

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This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Project Censored.