Month: March 2023

Via The Libertarian Institute, 

A series of antiwar protests over the weekend saw Western European citizens in mass demanding their governments pursue diplomacy with Russia and halt arms shipments to Kiev. As the current conflict in Ukraine turned one year old, major demonstrations – which saw people united across the political spectrum – were seen in Germany, France, and Italy.

10,000 people gathered in Paris to protest against France’s membership in both NATO as well as the EU. Attendees also demanded an end to the French government’s military aid to Kiev. The demonstration, dubbed the “National March for Peace” was organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes party. According to the group’s leader Florian Philippot – who joined the Paris rally himself – similar but smaller protests were held at 30 other locations throughout the country on Sunday.

On Saturday, thousands of people participated in peace demonstrations in the Italian cities of Genoa and Milan. In Genoa, the rally focused on ending weapons shipments to Ukraine and was organized by union members and left-wing activists, whose slogan was “Lower weapons, raise wages.” 4,000 people from across Italy joined the Genoa protest, along with people from France and Switzerland as well, according to local media reports.

The Collective Autonomous Port Workers (CALP) helped organize the rally with the Italian communist party. They demanded the port of Genoa’s facilities no longer be used to facilitate arms shipments to Ukraine.

CALP’s Riccardo Rudino pointed out that “the conflict in Ukraine did not begin last year” but rather “in 2014, with the massacre of the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass.”

Following the U.S. backed 2014 coup in Kiev – which overthrew the government of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych – Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, while over 14,000 people were killed, including thousands of civilians, in Kiev’s war on the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

In London, a large group carried out a similar demonstration calling for peace in Ukraine and an end to the British government’s weapons transfers to Kiev. The event was held by Stop the War Coalition at Portland Place in Central London and was attended by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Many thousands of people participated in a massive protest in central Berlin, where attendees railed against German military aid to Kiev. The protesters, who were massed at the Brandenburg Gate, demanded additionally that their government engage Russia in peace talks and bring the war in Ukraine to an end.

The organizers say as many as 50,000 people joined the “Uprising for Peace” demonstrations. However, the police offered a lower-end estimate of 13,000 people in attendance. The event was organized by Sahra Wagenknecht, a member of the Links Party (the Left Party) in Germany, as well as a feminist author and campaigner Alice Schwarzer.

Wagenknecht declared neo-Nazis were not welcome at the protest, but anyone else who desired peace “with an honest heart” was welcome to attend. During her speech at the event, Wagenknecht declared the creation of a “new, strong peace movement in Germany.”

Nouvelle manifestation contre la subvention de la guerre en Ukraine 🇺🇦 et la sortie de la France 🇫🇷de l’OTAN.
Les médias continuent de nous ignorer, mais la résistance monte en France👊

👉Des milliers de personnes à Paris ce 26/02/23 @_LesPatriotes @f_philippot ! #1an pic.twitter.com/3XKhijHoRc

— Tamila Tapayeva (@tamilatapayeva) February 26, 2023

She also observed that the myriad protestors were united by the fact that they do not feel represented by the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, in their decision to supply Kiev with weaponry, including main battle tanks.In a reference to the drastic escalation of Berlin’s involvement in the war since last year, some banners read “Helmets today, tanks tomorrow, the day after tomorrow your sons.”

Other banners carried by the protesters bore such anti war slogans as “Stop the Killing,” “Not My War, Not My Government,” and “Diplomats instead of grenades.”

Two weeks prior to the protest, Wagenknecht and Schwarzer published a “Manifest for Peace” which demanded that Scholz “stop the escalation in weapons deliveries.” The petition has reportedly garnered more than 650,000 signatures, including some prominent intellectuals and political figures.

This weekend’s massive protests in Berlin followed a smaller demonstration at the end of January in Nuremberg, where participants rallied against Scholz’s decision to provide Leopard 2 battle tanks to Kiev. This month, around 10,000 people also protested in Munich during the Munich Security Conference, where Western leaders discussed funding, arming and training Ukrainian forces “as long as it takes” to defeat Russia.

Also on Sunday, in southwestern Germany, protesters gathered at the Ramstein air base – where the Ukraine Defense Contact Group’s meetings on arming Kiev are held – calling for an end to the weapons deliveries while demanding the U.S. Air Force to “go home.”

In Nuremberg, protestors expressed their dire concerns that the German people were being dragged into another war with Russia. As one demonstrator commented “If we Germans get involved in a war, and I personally do not have a war with Russia, then for us Germans, based on history, it is the worst sign that we can send.” The demonstrator continued, “no war must go through Germany, neither with arms deliveries nor anything else, because otherwise, Germany will be in the middle of it again.” He believes this is just what “America wants.”

Italy with protests too. Specifically anti-NATO involving thousands. All over where the Ukraine war is heading because these people believe there will be another World War raging across Europe if Russia is backed into a corner. pic.twitter.com/g65tblc7Ft

— GraphicW (@GraphicW5) February 26, 2023

The latest protests in Germany took place against the backdrop of veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s bombshell report “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.”

Before the war began, Russia provided roughly a third of Europe’s gas, while Germany depended on Moscow for more than half of its gas supplies. After the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to ship gas to Europe via an undamaged line in Nord Stream 2. This offer was quickly rejected by Berlin.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken celebrated the blasts in the Baltic Sea – which, according to Hersh, were caused by explosives planted by U.S. Navy divers and detonated with a sonar buoy dropped by a Norwegian spy plane. Blinken described the attack as a “tremendous strategic opportunity” to wean Europe off its dependency on cheap Russian energy “for the years to come.” Since the attack, which led to possibly the largest ever leak of methane gas, the U.S. and Norway have taken Russia’s place as Europe’s top natural gas suppliers.

Activists picket near the Ramstein airbase in Germany, headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa and also for NATO Allied Air Command. They protest against further arms supplies to Ukraine and demand peace talks. pic.twitter.com/bgC0UTWVwx

— Mats Nilsson (@mazzenilsson) February 26, 2023

As a result of the economic war on Russia led by the U.S., people across Europe have suffered skyrocketing gas prices and inflation, leaving some struggling to heat their homes during the frigid winter months. The strain is beginning to show, likely playing some role in motivating the spate of protest actions in recent days. Last year, tens of thousands attended similar demonstrations in Italy, Germany, France, and the Czech Republic, with many voicing outrage over pricey foreign aid to Ukraine as their living standards continue to plummet.

In recent years, video streaming has become an integral part of global entertainment. From Netflix and Amazon Prime to HBO Max and Apple TV, consumers today have many choices when it comes to streaming services.

While some prefer services with their favorite shows and movies, others opt for the most affordable or content-packed options. Often, users band together friends and family and subscribe to multiple streaming services, though some services like Netflix have started to clamp down on the practice.

As Visual Capitalist’s Freny Fernandes reports, this graphic by theWORLDMAPS uses data from FlixPatrol to highlight the streaming services with the most subscriptions by country in February 2023.

Most Subscribed Streaming Services in 2023

With the highest number of subscribers in 78 countries and over 220 million customers globally, Netflix was the most popular video streaming service in the most countries.

In many countries including the UK, Brazil, Germany, France, and Mexico, Netflix had the most subscribers of any service. That’s more than delivery subscription and streaming service Amazon Prime and its 200 million global subscribers.

Because of its large userbase, however, Prime can claim more subscribers than Netflix in five countries: Afghanistan, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, and the U.S..

Other streaming services found success catering to specific regions. The French premium television channel Canal Plus had the highest subscriber count in 17 francophone countries across Central and West Africa. Likewise, the Arabic free video streaming service Shahid topped the list of 16 countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Yemen.

And despite having over 160 million global subscribers, Disney+ only made it to the top of India‘s subscriber base. Likewise, Tencent Video was the most-subscribed platform in China with 124 million customers.

Honorable Mentions and Turning Tides

Only 11 video streaming channels made it to the top of the 134 countries tracked by this data.

And while many others did not make the cut, they continue to attract millions of subscribers worldwide.

They include the Chinese platform iQIYI with 106 million subscribers, as well as four American streaming services: HBO Max (79.9M), Hulu (48M), Paramount+ (46M), and Apple TV (40M).

But with both Netflix and Disney+ wrestling with slowing (and declining) subscriber growth, how will the map evolve over the next few years?

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

A retired American Marine fighting in Ukraine told ABC News the frontlines are a “meat grinder” where soldiers survive an average of “four hours.” 

Troy Offenbecker is fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region. Moscow and Kiev have been battling around Bakhmut for several months as Russia’s forces have slowly made gains around the city. 

In January, Germany estimated Kiev was losing a “three-digit number” of soldiers daily fighting for Bakhmut. At that time, the White House believed President Volodymyr Zelensky was committing too many lives and resources to defend the city. 

Offenbecker’s commentary suggests that the situation may be getting worse for Ukrainian soldiers. “It’s been pretty bad on the ground. A lot of casualties.” He assessed, “the life expectancy is around four hours on the frontline.”

He said the Russian attack on the city is not letting up and had turned into a “meat grinder.” “[The artillery] is nonstop.” Offenbecker explained the Russian forces are fighting around the clock. “[The Russians] have maybe run into a shortage of shells lately, but the past couple of weeks, it’s been nonstop. All day and night,” he told ABC.

Meanwhile, Kiev’s Western backers have expressed to Zelensky in recent weeks that NATO countries are struggling to find artillery shells to send to Ukraine. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the US will train Ukrainian forces on fighting methods that use fewer munitions. 

The Kremlin ordered a mobilization of 300,000 troops last year. Western leaders have anticipated Moscow will order an offensive this winter. Ukrainian officials say that the Russian offensive is now underway, and Offenbecker agrees. “With the amount of shelling, the amount of armor that they’ve brought in, I think it’s started,” he explained to ABC. 

Due to Moscow’s and Kiev’s tight control over their countries’ presses, it is unclear how substantial the death toll is for each country. Since the start of the war, Zelensky has nationalized Ukraine’s media, outlawed his political opposition and jailed citizens who opposed his administration. 

Commenting on the state of journalism in Ukraine, press-union leader Serhiy Guz explained, “We never know what’s the basis of these accusations, what’s the pro-Russian link…It starts to look like a political accusation rather than a genuine crime.” 

“A lot of journalists self-censor now,” he added. 

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you’re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by selected stops and enlightening conversations, crystallizing disparate vectors one year after the start of the accelerated phase of the proxy war between US/NATO and Russia.

That’s how Moscow welcomes you: the undisputed capital of the 21st century multipolar world.

A long, walking meditation impregnates on us how President Putin’s address – rather, a civilizational speech – last week was a game-changer when it comes to the demarcation of the civilizational red lines we are all now facing.

It acted like a powerful drill perforating the less than short, actually zero term memory of the Collective West. No wonder it exercised a somewhat sobering effect contrasting the non-stop Russophobia binge of the NATOstan space.

Alexey Dobrinin, Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia, has correctly described Putin’s address as “a methodological basis for understanding, describing and constructing multipolarity.”

For years some of us have been showing how the emerging multipolar world is defined – but goes way beyond – high speed interconnectivity, physical and geoeconomic. Now, as we reach the next stage, it’s as if Putin and Xi Jinping, each in their own way, are conceptualizing the two key civilizational vectors of multipolarity. That’s the deeper meaning of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership, invisible to the naked eye.

Metaphorically, it also speaks volumes that Russia’s pivot to the East, towards the rising sun, now irreversible, was the only logical path to follow as, to quote Dylan, darkness dawns at the break of noon across the West.

As it stands, with the wobblin’, ragin’ Hegemon lost in its own pre-fabricated daze, the real runners of the show feeding burning flesh to irredeemably mediocre political “elites”, China may have a little more latitude than Russia, as the Middle Kingdom is not – yet – under the same existential pressure Russia has been put under.

Whatever happens next geopolitically, Russia is at heart a – giant – obstacle on the warmongering path of the Hegemon: the ultimate target is top “threat” China.

Putin’s ability to size up our extremely delicate geopolitical moment – via a dose of highly concentrated, undiluted realism – is something to behold. And then Foreign Minister Lavrov provided the sweet cherry on top, calling the hapless US ambassador for a hardcore dress down: oh yeah, this is war, hybrid and otherwise, and your NATO mercenaries as well as your junk hardware are legitimate targets.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council, now more than ever relishing his “unplugged” status, made it all very clear: “Russia risks being torn apart if it stops a special military operation (SMO) before victory is achieved.”

And the message is even more acute because it represents the – public – cue to the Chinese leadership at the Zhongnahhai to understand: whatever happens next, this is the Kremlin’s unmovable official position.

The Chinese restore the Mandate of Heaven

All these vectors are evolving as ramifications of the bombing of the Nord Streams, the only military attack – cum industrial terrorism – ever perpetrated against the EU, leave the Collective West paralyzed, dazed and confused.

Perfectly in tandem with Putin’s address, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs chose the geopolitical/existential moment to finally take the gloves off, with a flourish: enter the US Hegemony and its Perils essay cum report, which became an instant massive hit across Chinese media, examined with relish all across East Asia.

This blistering enumeration of all the Hegemon’s lethal follies, for decades, constitutes a point of no return for trademark Chinese diplomacy, so far characterized by passivity, ambivalence, actual restraint and extreme politeness. So such turnaround is yet another proud “achievement” of the outright Sinophobia and mendacious hostility exhibited by American neocons and neoliberal-cons.

Scholar Quan Le notes that this document may be regarded as the traditional form – but now filled with contemporary wording – the Chinese Sovereigns used in their millenary past before going to war.

It is in fact an axio-epistemo-political proclamation justifying a serious war, which in the Chinese universe means a war ordained by a Higher Power capable of restoring Justice & Harmony in a troubled Universe.

After the proclamation the warriors are equipped to strike mercilessly at the entity judged to be troubling the Harmony of the Universe: in our case, the psycho Straussian neo-cons and neoliberal-cons commanded as rabid dogs by the real American elites.

Of course in the Chinese universe there’s no place for “God” – much less a Christian version; “God” for the Chinese means the Beauty-Goodness-Truth trinity, Timeless Heavenly Universal Principles. The closest concept for a non-Chinese to understand is Dao: the Way. So the Way to the Beauty-Goodness-Truth trinity represents symbolically Beauty-Goodness-Truth.

So what Beijing did – and the Collective West is completely clueless about it – was to issue an axio-epistemo-political proclamation explaining the legitimacy of their quest to restore Timeless Heavenly Universal Principles. They will be fulfilling the Mandate of Heaven – nothing less. The West won’t know what it hit them until it’s too late.

It was predictable that sooner or later the heirs of Chinese civilization would have had enough – and formally identify, mirroring Putin’s analysis, the upstart Hegemon as the premier source of chaos, inequality and war across the planet. Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder, in a nutshell.

To put it bluntly, in streetwise language, the hell with this Americana crap of hegemony being justified by “manifest destiny”.

So here we are. You want Hybrid War? We will return the favor.

Back to the Wolfowitz Doctrine

A former CIA advisor has issued a quite sobering report on a pebble along the rocky way: a possible endgame in Ukraine, now that even some elite-run parrots are contemplating a “way out” with minimal loss of face.

It’s never idle to remember that way back in 2000, the year Vladimir Putin was first elected as President, in the pre-9/11 world, rabid neocon Paul Wolfowitz was side by side with Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski in a huge Ukraine-US symposium in Washington, where he unabashedly raved about provoking Russia to go to war with Ukraine, and committed to finance the destruction of Russia.

Everyone remembers the Wolfowitz doctrine – which was essentially a tawdry, pedestrian rehash of Brzezinski: to keep permanent US hegemony it was primordial to pre-empt the emergence of any potential competitor.

Now we have two nuclear-powered, tech savvy peer competitors united by a comprehensive strategic partnership.

As I finished my long walk paying due respect by the Kremlin to the heroes of 1941-1945, the feeling was inescapable that as much as Russia is a master of riddles and China is a master of paradox, their strategists are now working full time on how to return all strands of Hybrid War against the Hegemon. One thing is certain: unlike boastful Americans, they won’t outline any breakthroughs until they are already in effect.

Last month Chinese officials announced that 2022 marked the first drop in total population in six decades, after 9.56 million people were born vs. 10.41 million who died.

Now, the country faces a population decline combined with a long-running rise in life expectancy, which could result in a wide-ranging demographic crisis for the world’s second-largest economy.

In order to counter the plummeting fertility rate, Chinese officials have loosened the country’s one-child policy, and offered incentives for families to reproduce – but nothing has worked.

Some provinces are trying to go further – including one which now encourages people to have as many babies as they want, even if they are unmarried. In most parts of the country, single mothers are denied government benefits often offered to married couples.

In the tech hub city of Hangzhou, home to Alibaba, the government is now giving parents of a third child 20,000 yuan, or $2,900 as a one-off subsidy. A second child will net parents around $720.

In South China, the city of Wenzhou is planning to offer new parents around $400 in subsidies per child, while the northeastern city of Shenyang is offering up to $72 per month until a child is three years old.

In Shanghai and Shanxi, officials have increased the number of paid marriage leave days – time off granted to couples if they get married – from three days to up to 30 days, according to the People’s Daily Health.

The problem, however, is that many young Chinese adults don’t want large families, and are pushing back on all sorts of incentives to reproduce in one of the most expensive countries in the world to raise a child, the NY Times reports, noting that “such incentives do little to address anxieties about supporting their aging parents and managing the rising costs of education, housing and health care.”

“The fundamental problem is not that people cannot have children, but that they cannot afford it,” said 26-year-old Sichuan nurse, Lu Yi, adding that she would need to earn at least double her currently monthly salary of around $1,200 (8,000 yuan) to even consider children.

Many countries around the world — from Japan to Russia to Sweden — have confronted the same demographic challenge, and their attempts to incentivize new babies with subsidies and other tactics have had a limited impact. But China has aged faster than other countries. The often harshly enforced one-child policy, which was aimed at slowing population growth, precipitated the steep decline in births and led to a generational shift in attitudes around family sizes.

Efforts by the ruling Communist Party to raise fertility rates — by permitting all couples to have two children in 2016, then three in 2021 — have struggled to gain traction. The new policy in Sichuan drew widespread attention because it essentially disregards birth limits altogether, showing how the demographic crisis is nudging the party to slowly relinquish its iron grip over the reproductive rights of its citizens. –NY Times

“The two-child policy failed. The three-child policy failed,” said University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher, Yi Fuxian, who studies Chinese population trends. “This is the natural next step.”

Beijing, we have a problem…

In a 2022 survey of around 20,000 younger Chinese people between the ages of 18 to 25, two-thirds said they don’t want children – with demographers suggesting that the pressures and costs associated with the Chinese education system is a major factor. They have suggested things such as shortening schooling by two years, and getting rid of the competitive exam to enter high school.

Meanwhile, with women pressured to step into careers instead of marriage, getting Chinese millennials to overcome issues such as costs might only be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the current challenge.

“You need to go back to the things that have made marriage rates so low,” Professor Stuart Gietel-Basten, who specializes in population policy at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, told Insider last year.

“If women are feeling: ‘This is such a bad move for my career or my life that I’m going to push it back as long as possible,’ then maybe that’s a symptom of other challenges, blockages, or malfunctions in society