MBDA’s Alabama factory makes components for Boeing’s GBU-39 bombs used to kill civilians in Gaza. Its profits flow through Stevenage to Paris — and it is one of the British government’s favourite firms, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
The terrible cost of the West’s Ukraine policy
The US and Britain's refusal of the Russia-Ukraine neutrality deal in March 2022 led to a brutal war with more than 500,000 casualties — a direct war with the West risks even more carnage, warn MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES
NOT GIVING PEACE A CHANCE: Bakhmut, Ukraine, the site of heavy battles between Ukrainian and Russian troops in April 2023
President Maduro mobilises the 4.5 million-strong Bolivarian National Militia in response to US ‘threats’, vowing to defend the country’s sovereignty and independence, DEVIN B MARTINEZ reports
Washington plays innocent bystander while pouring weapons and intelligence into Ukraine, just as it enables the Gaza genocide — but every US escalation leaves Ukraine weaker than the neutrality deal rejected in 2022, argue MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES
For those in the West, hunger is often just the familiar feeling of a growling stomach between meals — in Gaza, it has become a strategic weapon of slow, systematic and deadly destruction, writes MARC VANDEPITTE
After almost two decades of rule by the Movement Toward Socialism, once led by Evo Morales, right-wing parties have emerged in the lead after the first round of elections on August 17 and are now in control of the legislature, reports PABLO MERIGUET
DAVID MATTHEWS looks at what a collective future for welfare might have in store for us
AS WE mark two full years since Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian government forces have withdrawn from Avdiivka, a town they first captured from the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in July 2014.
Situated only 10 miles from Donetsk City, Avdiivka gave Ukrainian government forces a base from which their artillery bombarded Donetsk for nearly 10 years. From a pre-war population of about 31,000, the town has been depopulated and left in ruins.
The mass slaughter on both sides in this long battle was a measure of the strategic value of the city to both sides, but it is also emblematic of the shocking human cost of this war, which has degenerated into a brutal and bloody war of attrition along a nearly static front line.
Neither side made significant territorial gains in the entire 2023 year of fighting, with a net gain to Russia of a mere 188 square miles, or 0.1 per cent of Ukraine.
And while it is the Ukrainians and Russians fighting and dying in this war of attrition with over half a million casualties, it is the US, with some of its Western allies, that has stood in the way of peace talks.
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Washington plays innocent bystander while pouring weapons and intelligence into Ukraine, just as it enables the Gaza genocide — but every US escalation leaves Ukraine weaker than the neutrality deal rejected in 2022, argue MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES
As the alliance gathers in DC, its leaders will push for endless war in Ukraine and ignore the public appetite for peace talks. The world can’t afford to wait for this nuclear-armed war machine to dissolve itself, argue MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES
As the rest of the world increases its efforts to bring about a negotiated peace, two nations are determined to prolong the killing — it's up to us to change their minds, write MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES
