People take part in a pro-government youth rally in Caracas, Venezuela, November 13, 2025
FEARS grew today of an imminent US attack on Venezuela as the superpower’s biggest warship, the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier, arrived off the South American country’s coast.
Countries rarely in agreement all called for restraint, with Germany and Switzerland saying today they hoped the US and Venezuela could engage in talks, as Russia urged Washington not to take actions that risked destabilising the region.
“I believe it is in everyone’s interest to prevent another war from breaking out,” Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said.
The United States has built up its biggest military force in the Caribbean in decades, and killed at least 70 people in recent weeks in illegal strikes on boats it accuses of smuggling drugs.
On Thursday US Secretary for War Pete Hegseth declared the commencement of “Operation Southern Spear,” which he claimed was aimed at crushing the illegal drug trade. The US accuses Venezuela, without evidence, of masterminding the trafficking of drugs across US borders — a claim many believe is intended to justify a regime change operation against its socialist government. Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
A wildfire breaks out in a forested area in Antalya, Turkey on September 18, 2025. (Photo by Mustafa Kurt/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“At COP30, governments must reject this nightmare fantasy, uphold a just transition, and choose a fast, fair, and funded fossil fuel phaseout,” said one climate campaigner.
An International Energy Agency report published Wednesday underscores that world leaders are at a crossroads and must decide whether to embrace an ambitious transition to renewable energy or succumb to the agenda of US President Donald Trump and others bent on propping up the planet-wrecking fossil fuel industry.
The IEA said in its flagship World Energy Outlook that under a so-called “current policies scenario,” oil and fracked gas demand could continue to grow until the middle of the century, complicating the organization’s earlier projections that global fossil fuel demand could peak by 2030.
The change came amid pressure from the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers in the United States, the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases. The New York Timesnoted Wednesday that “Republicans in Congress have been threatening to cut US government funding to the IEA if it does not change the way it operates.”
“In an essay posted online, the authors of this year’s report said they were restoring the current policies scenario because it was appropriate to consider multiple possibilities for the way the future might unfold,” the Times added. “They did not say they were responding to pressure from the United States.”
Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said in a statement that the scenarios outlined in the new report “illustrate the key decision points that lie ahead and, together, provide a framework for evidence-based, data-driven discussion over the way forward.”
Under all of the scenarios examined by the IEA, “renewables grow faster than any other major energy source” even as the Trump administration works to roll back clean energy initiatives in the US and promote fossil fuel production.
China, the report states, “continues to be the largest market for renewables, accounting for 45-60% of global deployment over the next ten years across the scenarios, and remains the largest manufacturer of most renewable technologies.”
The analysis was released as world leaders gathered in Belém, Brazil for the COP30 climate talks, which the Trump administration is boycotting while lobbing attacks from afar.
David Tong, global industry campaign manager at Oil Change International, said the IEA report “sets out a stark and simple choice: We can protect people and communities by safeguarding 1.5ºC [of warming], settle for a disastrous business-as-usual 2.5ºC, or choose to backslide into a nightmare future of much higher warming.”
“This year’s report also shows Donald Trump’s dystopian future, bringing back the old, fossil-fuel intense, high-pollution current policies scenario, charting an unrealistic pathway where governments drag their energy policies backwards and rates of renewable energy adoption stall, leading to high energy prices and unmitigated climate disaster,” said Tong. “At COP30, governments must reject this nightmare fantasy, uphold a just transition, and choose a fast, fair, and funded fossil fuel phaseout.”
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and US President Donald Trump. Photos via X
“We know the heart and intent of Trump is to help us fight insecurity,” states the spokesperson of Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, who has time and again demonstrated his loyalty to the West.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to go “guns-a-blazing” into Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, which he denigrated as a “disgraced country”. In a social media post on Saturday, November 1, he declared, “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet.”
“Yes sir,” War Secretary Pete Hegseth replied to his post. “The Department of War is preparing for action.”
Why? Ostensibly to “wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities” against “our CHERISHED Christians”. For over two months, the US right wing has been peddling a conspiracy about a “genocide” against Christians in Nigeria.
Championing this false claim, Senator Ted Cruz has proposed the so-called “Nigeria Religious Freedom Accountability Act” to use “powerful sanctions and other tools” against Nigerian officials he accuses of “ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians by Islamist jihadists.”
Myth of Christian genocide
Facts, however, contradict this accusation. The majority of people killed by the Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province are Muslims, simply because they make up the majority in the northern region these Islamist insurgencies are ravaging. For the same demographic reasons, Muslims are also the majority victims of bandits who kill, loot, and kidnap in the northwest region, where the state is struggling to enforce the rule of law.
In the central region, Christian victims of violence are in the majority, not because of their religious identity but because of their occupation: farming. Amid intensifying competition over depleting land and water due to climate change, raids on farmlands by mobile herders, groups of whom are armed, are a serious problem in several African countries suffering desertification.
90% of these herders are Muslims, while in this region of Nigeria, farmers are predominantly Christian. But the violence is over resources, not faith. There is no evidence of a systematic and large-scale, religiously motivated targeting of Christians in Nigeria, where they are almost equal to Muslims in population.
“While Christians make up roughly 50% of the population, violence in which Christians have been specifically targeted in relation to their religious identity accounts for only 5% of reported civilian targeting events,” the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project reported in mid-2022.
Trump’s own envoy for Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos, had pointed out at a summit last month in Italy to discuss counter-terrorism in West Africa that Boko Haram has killed more Muslims than Christians. Facts notwithstanding, “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria,” Trump insisted.
“Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter,” he claimed, announcing on Friday, October 31, his decision to designate Nigeria a “country of particular concern” for systematic violation of religious freedoms.
“The characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it recognize government efforts to safeguard freedom of religion and belief,” replied Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, a Muslim, married to a Christian Pastor.
A secular suffering
Under his secular regime, Christians, Muslims, and non-believers have all suffered alike, from hunger, unaffordability, unemployment, etc, as a consequence of his aggressive implementation of the IMF-World Bank prescribed reforms.
This crisis has enhanced the fertility of the ground for terror groups, bandits, and other criminal gangs to harvest more recruits, especially in the hinterlands and remote areas the state is struggling to police.
While struggling to restore security in these regions, Tinubu tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to lead the Nigerian military into a war with neighboring Niger at the behest of US ally France after its neocolonial puppet regime in Niger was ousted in mid-2023.
A year later, he unleashed his security forces on the domestic front to crush the “hunger protests” demanding a reversal of the IMF-World Bank prescribed liberalization, killing at least two dozen people. Another 1,200 protesters were arrested, many of whom were tortured in custody. Several, including minors, faced charges of treason.
Later in November, allegations of treason were leveled against Tinubu himself when the CIA objected to the release of the unredacted files of the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) investigation into Tinubu in the early 1990s. Accused of laundering money for a major heroin racket in Chicago at the time, Tinubu entered into a plea bargain to avoid a trial, forfeiting USD 460,000 to US authorities.
Tinubu’s loyalty to the West, unrewarded
In response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for the release of unredacted files of the investigation, “We oppose the full… release of the DEA’s Bola Tinubu heroin trafficking investigation records,” the DEA insisted. “While Nigerians have a right to be informed about what their government is up to, they do not have a right to know what their president is up to.”
Reminding that its activities are “carried out through clandestine means, and therefore they must remain secret,” the CIA objected to full release as it could “cause damage to US national security by indicating whether or not the CIA maintained any human intelligence sources related to Tinubu.”
“The CIA effectively confirmed that Nigeria’s sitting president is an active CIA asset,” remarked David Hundeyin, author of the documentary “Bola Ahmed Tinubu: From Drug Lord to Presidential Candidate.”
From his alleged contribution to US intelligence, his readiness to hurl Nigeria into war with a neighbor for France, his obedient implementation of IMF-World Bank diktats, and ruthless crushing of protests against it – Tinubu has time and again demonstrated his loyalty to the West.
But Trump is not placated. Ordering the Department of War to prepare for a military action, Trump doubled down on Sunday, adding that both airstrikes and boots on the ground were open options.
Groveling again
“Nigeria is US’s partner in the global fight against terrorism,” said Tinubu’s spokesperson, Daniel Bwala. “We know the heart and intent of Trump is to help us fight insecurity,” he groveled. “We do not see (Trump’s threat) in the literal sense… We know that Donald Trump has his own style of communication.” It was, he suggested, Trump’s way to “force a sit-down between the two leaders so they can iron out a common front to fight their insecurity”.
But he is confident that when Tinubu and Trump meet, “there will be better outcomes.” Will these “outcomes” from the suggested meeting include Tinubu’s walking back on his refusal to accept foreign nationals deported by the US? Will he throw open Nigeria’s vast critical mineral deposits for US extraction, which the establishment think tank, Brookings Institution, deems “a win-win policy”?
US nuclear test “Baker Shot” in 1946. Photo: US Dept of Defense
As a justification for his order to resume US nuclear tests, order to resume US nuclear tests, had claimed on Sunday that China, Russia, and Pakistan, among others, have been conducting secret nuclear tests.
China rejected accusations lodged by US President Donald Trump that it was conducting secret nuclear testing, asserting that China abides by its obligations to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and advised the US to adhere to the same.
Addressing a regular press conference on Monday, Mao Ning, spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs asserted that as “a responsible nuclear-weapon state, China is committed to peaceful development, follows a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and a nuclear strategy that focuses on self-defense, and adheres to its nuclear testing moratorium.”
In an interview broadcasted on CBS News on Sunday, Trump had claimed that he ordered the immediate resumption of nuclear tests in the country because other countries are already conducting tests, which may compromise Washington’s superiority in terms of nuclear weapons.
In a surprising move on Thursday, before meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, Trump asked the Pentagon, through his social media page, to resume nuclear tests immediately.
Trump accused Russia, China, and Pakistan, along with North Korea of conducting such nuclear tests without providing any evidence. He also claimed that it is difficult to know about these tests because of the “closed” nature of those societies.
“We are going to test, because they [China and Russia] test and others test,” Trump said during the CBS News interview.
Following China, several other countries have also rejected Trump’s accusation, denying they have conducted tests secretly.
Kremlin spokesperson Demitry Peskov was quoted by Reuters saying that the world came to know about nuclear testing only after Trump’s interview. Before “we didn’t know that anyone was testing,” Peskov said.
Pakistan said on Monday it will not be the first to resume nuclear weapons’ tests in South Asia.
Ning appealed to the US to abide by the moratorium on the nuclear tests and “take concrete actions to uphold the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime, as well as global strategic balance and stability.”
Fear of proliferation
Reacting to Trump’s call for the resumption of nuclear tests, Robert Floyd, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said in a statement on Thursday that “any explosive nuclear weapons test by any state would be harmful and destabilizing for global non-proliferation efforts and for international peace and security.”
He appealed to world leaders to work together for a world free of nuclear weapons.
China, according to Ning, is “ready to work with all parties to jointly uphold the authority” of the CTBT and “safeguard the international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime.”
Responding to Trump’s announcement of the resumption of nuclear tests, Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia’s security council, told the press on Friday that if the US resumes testing Russia will do the same.
The CTBT was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1996. The treaty bans all kinds of nuclear tests for either civilian or military purposes.
It has been signed and ratified by over 178 countries in the world. However, a section of the nuclear powered nations, such as India, Pakistan, and Israel, have neither signed nor ratified the treaty.
Though both China and the US have signed the treaty neither of them have ratified it.
However, the moratorium on nuclear tests has lasted more than two decades now. Except for North Korea, no other nuclear power has conducted weapons’ tests since the 1990s.
According to Reuters, the last US nuclear test was conducted in 1992. After that a moratorium on such tests was announced by then-president George H. W. Bush. Russia and China conducted their last tests in 1990 and 1996 respectively. India and Pakistan conducted their last nuclear tests in 1998.
Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk at Trump’s inauguration ceremony on 20 January 2025. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Oxfam warns Trump policies risk driving inequality to new heights – but Democrats have also exacerbated wealth gap
The collective wealth of the top 10 US billionaires has soared by $698bn in the past year, according to a new report from Oxfam America published on Monday on the growing wealth divide.
The report warns that Trump administration policies risk driving US inequality to new heights, but points out that both Republican and Democratic administrations have exacerbated the US’s growing wealth gap.
Using Federal Reserve data from 1989 to 2022, researchers also calculated that the top 1% of households gained 101 times more wealth than the median household during that time span and 987 times the wealth of a household at the bottom 20th percentile of income. This translated to a gain of $8.35m per household for the top 1% of households, compared with $83,000 for the average household during that 33-year period.
Meanwhile, over 40% of the US population, including nearly 50% of children, are considered low-income, with family earnings that are less than 200% of the national poverty line.
When pitting the US against 38 other higher-income countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the US has the highest rate of relative poverty, second-highest rate of child poverty and infant mortality, and the second-lowest life expectancy rate.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
People take part in a pro-government youth rally in Caracas, Venezuela, November 13, 2025
