He’s done it again. Or rather, they have. As part of their curious slash-and-burn crusade to dismantle – for better or worse – large swathes of the American state from the top, President Donald Trump and his bestie-in-chief Elon Musk with his gang of enforcers at DOGE have put the axe to yet another seven government agencies.
Carried out by presidential executive order, this particular blitz is aimed at offices busy with things as diverse as labor dispute mediation and the mitigation of homelessness.
Yet, tellingly, there is only one kind of cut that has really made centrists, liberals, and the mainstream media furious. Nope, not the hit on the homeless; and not the one on labor relations either.
What caused a ruckus instead is that Trump and Musk have gone after state propaganda. To be precise, state propaganda for the rest of the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wIOqHSsV9c
For one of the offices that has been given the Trumpist flamethrower treatment this time is the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). And that is, in reality, the US ministry for propaganda abroad.
While it’s a fairly new (2018) label, USAGM’s roots reach deep into the fetid soil of the last century’s Cold War.
Originally, there were Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Liberty. Voice of America was founded during World War II and was quickly retooled afterwards to be used as a Cold War propaganda weapon by the CIA.
But that “involvement was kept secret until the late 1960s for fear of Soviet retaliation,” as Encyclopedia Britannica puts it with fine British understatement as well as a whopping portion of brute disinformation: The fact that the CIA remained in hiding was, of course, not due to the big bad Russians (the Soviets at the time) being so terribly scary. It was simply a means to manipulate publics in the East and the West and present what was geopolitically driven propaganda as ‘independent news’.
Of course all nation States promote their racket, but the US took the rest of us for idiots, presenting their own racist settler culture as a Disneyland paradise, inventing double speak in mellifluous caring tones, while looting the planet.
Even the title, Voice of America, is seen as an insult, claiming their patently false voice speaks for the whole Continent of America.
After 1971, the CIA (officially) ended its (direct) control. If you believe that means an agency specializing in lying – and so much worse – was no longer pulling the strings, I have a Ukrainian ‘democracy’, complete with ‘civil society’ and all the fixings, to sell you.
The defence cited grim reports of “white torture” in Hungarian prisons, including permanent solitary confinement and 24-hour surveillance ~ Alisa-Ece Tohumcu
~ After five months in Fresnes Prison, Rexhino “Gino” Abazaj, a 32-year-old Albanian anti-fascist activist, was released under judicial supervision yesterday (26 March).
Arrested in Montreuil in November 2024, he faces up to 24…
Ante la compleja y peligrosa situación geopolítica mundial, nos encontramos con un escenario de gran incertidumbre, de cierta sicosis,.
Puesto que la casta bélica y política europea, ligada a la oligarquía del viejo continente, está buscando que el conflicto entre Ucrania y Rusia pueda seguir escalando
Padece un conjunto de síntomas que afectan la mente y que hacen que se pierda cierto contacto con la realidad.
Esta casta política ligada a los grandes empresarios y complejo militar industrial europeo busca empujar el carro hacia la guerra nuclear.
Ha desatado toda una campaña de mentiras y del terror con respecto al gran invento de la “amenaza rusa”, buscando generar pánico en los pueblos europeos.
La retórica belicista en Europa, especialmente de parte de figuras como Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas, Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz y otros líderes de algunos países de la UE, está impulsada por varios factores estratégicos, económicos y políticos, pero todos al servicio del gran capital.
La desquebrajada unidad de la UE y la OTAN, a través de sus líderes belicosos busca mantener la narrativa de una presunta “amenaza rusa”, tratando de fortalecer a los países europeos bajo un objetivo común y justificar una supuesta mayor integración y gasto militar en el bloque.
Para ello a costa de los impuestos de los ciudadanos y la reducción del gasto social, se busca financiar el llamado rearme de Europa, aumentando así sus presupuestos militares, bajo la presión de EE.UU. y la OTAN.
Lo que beneficia a la industria armamentística europea y estadounidense, las cuales ya están obteniendo jugosas ganancias con el conflicto ucraniano-ruso, en donde 800.000 millones de euros, irán a incrementar aún más la riqueza de las mafias armamentísticas.
En este sentido cabe destacar que los EE.UU. ha sido un actor clave en la política de confrontación con Rusia, buscando mantener su influencia en Europa y debilitar a Rusia geopolíticamente, hasta “ganar la guerra”.
La retórica alarmista, ruso fóbica ayuda a justificar sanciones, medidas económicas y restricciones políticas que de otro modo serían impopulares.
En realidad, se busca reducir la influencia rusa en Europa, cortando la dependencia energética, castigando con sanciones que no han tenido ningún efecto relevante y aislando a Moscú diplomáticamente.
Asunto que tampoco han conseguido pues solo alrededor de 40 países apoyan los intentos de una guerra mayor con Rusia.
La estrategia de campaña del terror de la Comisión Europea (CE), está orientada a preparar a los pueblos del viejo continente, para un conflicto mayor, prolongado, ya sea económico, político o incluso militar, mientras se fortalece la influencia de EE.UU. y la OTAN en Europa, de allí, los aires belicosos y la satanización de Rusia.
¿Ahora que significaría una guerra de la Europa occidental contra Rusia?
Al respecto señalamos algunos aspectos que se desprende del lenguaje guerrerista de los líderes belicistas europeos, entre los cuales se encuentra el gasto en defensa, el envió de tropas a Ucrania, que podría llevar a una escalada militar innecesaria, con riesgos de enfrentamientos provocados o accidentales.
Ahora las sanciones contra Rusia, como se ha podido apreciar, han perjudicado a Europa, generando inflación, crisis energética y una gran incertidumbre económica.
Un conflicto directo agravaría estos problemas, afectando aún más a los pueblos europeos.
El gran cuento de la “amenaza rusa” podría usarse para justificar restricciones a las libertades, censura y mayor control estatal sobre la sociedad, instalando una Europa totalitaria, con tintes fascistas.
A través de distintos sondeos realizados por algunos medios de prensa, se ha podido constatar que los pueblos europeos no desean la guerra y la política de provocaciones que emanan de las directrices de la CE, además nuevas sanciones a Rusia, puede desencadenar una reacción que lleve a enfrentamientos aún más graves.
Finalmente cabe destacar que, si las élites políticas belicistas y que representan los intereses oligárquicos europeos, siguen ignorando la voluntad de los pueblos, que en su mayoría no apoyan una guerra con Rusia, el descontento social podría ir creciendo gradualmente, debilitando la cohesión de la UE.
La clave será si los movimientos sociales y pacifistas, además de la diplomacia, logran imponerse sobre los intereses militares y geopolíticos, del capital europeo que impulsan la confrontación y que nos puede llevar a la guerra nuclear, lo que es una gran irresponsabilidad de la elite belicista de la Unión Europea.
♦♦♦
Eduardo Andrade Bone, Analista Político Comunicador social . WMP/PP/IA/EAB/AIP 26/03/2025\
The film shows how we can transform degraded landscapes into places of 🌿 water abundance & 🌎 biodiversity, helping to cool our global climate. ❄️🌱
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20,622 views Apr 23, 2024 . Water is Love: Ripples of Regeneration follows a group of young people grappling with the climate crisis while we journey around the world to share inspiring stories of regenerative ecosystem design to create water retention in communities, villages, and regions.
We touch upon traditional ecological knowledge, how water makes climate, and the importance of restoring complete water cycles.
Through inspiring stories from successful projects in India, Kenya, and Portugal, we aim to spark conversations and actions that contribute to a regenerative and resilient world.
As we’re facing both the growing devastating impacts of climate disruption and the failure of governments to act, this film points to an often overlooked need and possibility: community-driven decentralized water management as a critical key for surviving — and thriving in — this century.
Las Fallas are Valencia’s most universal festival, declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
Thw name refers to the spectacular sculptural monuments made of wood and papier mâché that are placed in the city’s streets and squares to be admired before they succumb to the flames.
In addition to the large fallas, there are also children’s fallas, much smaller in size, designed by and for the little ones.
Once again, the Fallas of Valencia have proven to be more than just gunpowder and tradition. Under the critical eye of its Fallas artists, this 2025 the monuments have set fire not only to the streets, but also to consciences.
From the housing crisis, to international wars, to political figures like Donald Trump, Carlos Mazón, and other current leaders, no one has been unscathed by Fallas satire. Sharp Satire Against Politicians and the Powerful
Each falla planted in Valencia has been a truly critical front page. The caricature of Trump and his isolationist policies, the references to Mazón’s administration in the Valencian Community, and the ironic winks at European leaders resonate strongly.
The grotesque and colorful figures uncensoredly ridicule decisions that affect millions of people.
The Housing Crisis in Cardboard and Fire
One of the recurring themes this year has been the housing crisis. Las Fallas denounces, with dry humor, real estate speculation, gentrification, and the lack of access to decent housing.
All of this is displayed to the public in the form of ninots that, at the end, will burn, leaving a clear message: the old and corrupt must be reduced to ashes.
Wars, Inequality, and Social Criticism
The wars in Ukraine and Gaza, racism, economic inequality, and the climate crisis have also found their place on the monuments. This Fallas satire does not discriminate between topics or audiences.
The cremà is the final act of the Fallas, when the hundreds of fallas monuments succumb to the flames in spectacular bonfires. It takes place on the night of March 19th, and is staggered between 20:00 and 23:00, which means it is possible to see more than one falla burning.
Not everything burns in the Fallas. Every year a ninot from one of the fallas and a children’s ninot are pardoned by popular vote. The ninots that have been pardoned over the years – since 1934! – are kept and can be visited in the Fallas Museum.
Everything you need to know about the Fallas in Valencia.
In 1945, when the United Nations Charter was drafted, its authors and those who first adopted it carefully crafted language on how to deal with armed conflict in the world.
Between the signing of the charter in June and its coming into force in October, the United States dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities: Hiroshima, on 6 August, and Nagasaki, on 9 August.
It is hard to digest the fact that as the charter’s solemn preamble was being formalised, setting out to ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind’, the United States armed forces were preparing to destroy two civilian cities in a country already on the brink of surrender.
Nonetheless, the authors of the charter thought long and hard about the problem of belligerent states and produced Chapter VII, which outlines two approaches to prevent war. The first approach was to use as many non-military methods as possible (Article 41) before the United Nations could authorise violence against a belligerent state (Article 42). .
The charter noted that the UN Security Council (UNSC) ‘may decide’ to call for the ‘complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations’.
The only time that the UNSC has used the full weight of Article 41 has been against the racist government of Southern Rhodesia from 1968 (UNSC Resolution no. 253) to 1979 (UNSC Resolution no. 460), with near full use of the article against Iraq from 1990 to 2003 and Yugoslavia from 1992 to 1995.
The most important thing about this resolution is that the use of sanctions (a word that does not appear in the charter) must be authorised by the UNSC. One state can apply its own sanctions on another state in a bilateral dispute, but it cannot legally force other states to abide by them. To do so is a violation of the UN Charter...Unilateral sanctions hurting civilians must be dropped, says UN
The last point is pertinent because the United States currently imposes sanctions (a form of Unilateral Coercive Measures- UCMs) against about forty countries without a UNSC mandate.
And these have been increasing: from 2000 to 2021, the last period reviewed by the US Treasury Department, the number of US sanctions increased by a remarkable 933%. The reason why US sanctions, which would be legal if they were merely bilateral, are illegal is that the United States chastises and punishes third countries that violate them and transact normal commerce with sanctioned countries.
Because the United States is at the center of the international financial system (with the dollar, the SWIFT global payments system, and its veto power in the International Monetary Fund), it is able to strangle countries that otherwise would be able to compensate for the loss of trade with the US by trading with the rest of the world.
Activists protest outside the 9th Summit of the Americas at the LA Convention Center to deliver a letter rejecting President Joe Biden’s policy of sanctions, exclusions, and blockades against Latin America and the Caribbean, in Los Angeles, California, June 10, 2022. (Photo by RINGO CHIU / AFP) (Photo by RINGO CHIU/AFP via Getty Images)
The use of the word ‘strangle’ is not innocent. It is important to understand how these sanctions work: there are primary sanctions on targeted countries; secondary sanctions on firms or countries that trade with the targeted country; and tertiary sanctions on firms or countries that face secondary sanctions. This is endless.
The gap between these unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) and a war with bombs is certainly great since the latter are far more destructive to the material infrastructure of the target country, yet the essence of the assault is the same: two forms of war, one with the harshness of blockades and the other with the viciousness of bombs. Sometimes people in power openly acknowledge the devastation.
It is what has garrotted Cuba since 1962. Study upon study shows that they hurt the poorest of people in the societies under attack. They are as ‘targeted’ as the ‘smart bombs’ that destroy entire neighbourhoods and wipe out entire families.
When US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked in 2019 by the Associated Press’s Matt Lee about the UCMs imposed on Venezuela, Pompeo replied:
‘The circle is tightening. The humanitarian crisis is increasing by the hour. … You can see the increasing pain and suffering that the Venezuelan people are suffering from’. .. Pompeo
But despite hardship and a repressive police state most Venezuelans survive, due to social solidarity, cheap or free health, education and housing (when available due to the blockade) and a genuine bottom up movement of large production and consumption Communes, hardly ever mentioned in western reporting. see..Long Live the Commune! 1st laws of Communal Power presented to Venezuela parliament – The Free
The only hope is a Reset from below, a horizontal revolution to destroy collapsing Capitalism and States in favour of federations of workers Cooperatives
James Hansen’s recent analysis paints a dire picture: 3°C by 2050 is not just plausible but probable due to underestimated feedbacks and political inertia. Crossing 2°C unleashes irreversible feedback loops that render 3°C unavoidable, even with rapid emissions cuts.
The only hope is a Reset from below, a horizontal revolution to destroy collapsing Capitalism and States in favour of federations of workers Coops, to decarbonize, restore albedo, and prepare for a destabilized climate.
Without this, Earth’s systems will push civilization beyond adaptation limits by mid-century.
Under current policies (SSP2-4.5), CO₂ likely reaches 500–550 ppm by 2050, but Hansen’s effective forcing (including feedbacks) pushes Earth’s energy imbalance closer to 600 ppm-equivalent—enough to trigger 3°C warming even before mid-century.
These feedbacks add ~0.5–1.0°C to warming by 2050, even if emissions stop.
Likelihood of 3°C by 2050
Factor
IPCC AR6 (2023)
Hansen et al. (2025)
Climate Sensitivity
3°C per CO₂ doubling
4.8°C per CO₂ doubling
Aerosol Cooling Loss
Partially modeled
Underestimated by ~1.0°C
2°C Threshold
~2040–2050
2030–2035
3°C by 2050
Low probability
High probability
Hansen’s Conclusion:
Current policies (SSP2-4.5) lead to 3°C by 2050 due to:
Higher sensitivity (4.8°C vs. 3°C).
Albedo loss equivalent to +138 ppm CO₂.
Fast feedbacks (permafrost, ice melt) accelerating warming.
Regional Impacts at 3°C
Heatwaves: 60+ days/year above 40°C (104°F) in Chicago, Paris, and Beijing.
Food Collapse: 50–70% crop failures in breadbaskets like the U.S. Midwest and India.
Water Wars: Colorado River and Nile Basin nations clash over dwindling resources.
Mass Migration: 1–2 billion refugees from tropics and coasts.
Can We Avoid 3°C?
Immediate Action Required:
Phase out fossil fuels by 2040, not 2050.
Scale carbon removal to 10+ gigatons/year (current capacity: 0.01 gigatons).
Solar Geoengineering: Temporarily offset albedo loss via stratospheric aerosols (risky but possibly necessary).
Current Reality: Policies remain aligned with 2.5–3.5°C by 2100, making 3°C by 2050 likely.
Conclusion
Hansen’s analysis paints a dire picture: 3°C by 2050 is not just plausible but probable due to underestimated feedbacks and political inertia.
Crossing 2°C unleashes irreversible feedback loops that render 3°C unavoidable, even with rapid emissions cuts. The only hope is a wartime-scale mobilization to decarbonize, restore albedo, and prepare for catastrophic climate destabilization.
Without this, Earth’s systems will push civilization beyond adaptation limits by mid-century.
At 3–4°C, Earth becomes a hostile planet where civilization persists only in fragmented, militarized enclaves. The transition would involve unimaginable suffering for billions, with the Global South bearing the brunt. However, humans are resilient—our species would survive, but the social, economic, and technological achievements of the past millennium would unravel.
Coastal megacities like Miami, Shanghai, and Mumbai lie half-submerged, abandoned to rising seas as governments prioritize inland fortress-cities. The tropics, once teeming with life, become uninhabitable dead zones where wet-bulb temperatures exceed 35°C for months on end, rendering outdoor labor fatal and driving billions northward.
In regions like South Asia and the Sahel, collapsed monsoon cycles and dried-up rivers ignite water wars, while failed states fracture into warlord territories battling over dwindling aquifers and arable land.
Agriculture, the bedrock of civilization, buckles under heatwaves and soil depletion. Once-fertile breadbaskets—the U.S. Midwest, India’s Gangetic Plain, China’s North Plain—yield only dust and stunted crops, triggering famines that ripple across supply chains. Global food production plummets by half, leaving 2 billion people chronically malnourished. Oceans, acidified and starved of oxygen, lose their fisheries, collapsing protein sources for 3 billion coastal inhabitants. The global economy, stripped of stability, fractures into hyper-localized survival networks: underground hydroponic farms in abandoned warehouses, black-market water traders, and solar-powered enclaves guarded by drones.
Human society splinters along stark lines of privilege and desperation. Wealthy nations like Canada and Scandinavia fortify their borders with AI-patrolled walls, preserving pockets of climate-controlled normalcy for elites. Meanwhile, equatorial regions descend into chaos, where resource scarcity fuels epidemics, child mortality soars, and ancient cultural traditions vanish.
Mass migrations—1 to 2 billion people fleeing heat, hunger, and conflict—overwhelm borders, sparking xenophobic violence and authoritarian crackdowns. Cities like Chicago and Berlin, struggling under heatwaves and infrastructure decay, ration electricity to a few hours a day, while their wealthy residents retreat into sealed, air-filtered high-rises.
Yet even in this unraveling world, glimmers of adaptation emerge. Polar regions and high-altitude zones—Siberia, Patagonia, the Tibetan Plateau—become lifeboats for humanity. Their cooler climates host starving refugee megacities. Until industrial collapse is completetechnologies like stratospheric aerosol injection and many try chaotically to stem the c9ollapse, only making things worse, contingent on global cooperation that rarely materializes.
Civilization, in any recognizable form, survives only in fractured dystopian remnants. Governance shrinks to city-states and corporate fiefdoms, while democracy vanishes under emergency decrees. Knowledge economies collapse, replaced by subsistence trades and barter systems.
The arts and sciences collapse, their progress halted by the daily scramble for survival. Humanity may survive, but as a desperate diminished species— haunted by the loss of biodiversity, cultural heritage, and the stable climate that once nurtured its rise.
This future is not yet inevitable, but it looms as the trajectory of complacency. Hansen’s work warns that every delay in slashing emissions tightens the grip of feedback loops, sealing a fate where 3–4°C becomes the gateway to a post-civilizational dark age.
The difference between survival and collapse hinges on this decade’s choices: rapid decarbonization, global equity, and a moral awakening to defend the fragile systems that sustain life. As Hansen warns: “Delay is denial.”
The Free 