Every House Democrat Votes Against Defunding A Cutout Of The CIA
The Dissident | January 18, 2026
Recently, U.S. representative Eli Crane introduced a provision into the recent spending package that would cut funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a cutout of the CIA used to advance regime change abroad.
In response to his “amendment to defund NED” every House Democrat, including progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khanna, and Ilhan Omar, voted against it, along with 81 Republicans, slapping down the amendment 291 to 127.
But what is the NED, the CIA cutout that the Washington uniparty rejected ending funding for?
The NED, which was officially created by Ronald Regan in 1984, was described in 1995 by CIA whistleblower Philip Agee as the CIA’s “sidekick” which functioned as “a mega conduit” for “the millions or the tens of millions that are set aside for the meddling in the internal affairs of other countries”.
Allen Weinstein, the head of the NED, boasted in a interview with the Washington Post in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”.
Indeed, the NED has been used for America’s “meddling in the internal affairs of other countries”, playing a role in U.S. coups and coup attempts in Venezuela (2002-2025), Haiti (2004), Ukraine (2014), Nicaragua (2018), Bolivia (2019), Belarus (2020), and Romania (2024).
In 2004, the NED provided funding and training for opposition activists who overthrew Haiti’s democratically elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Mother Jones reported at the time when the coup took place, “several of the people who had attended IRI (International Republican Institute, a subsidiary of the NED) trainings were influential in the toppling of Aristide”.
Mother Jones noted, “In 2002 and 2003, IRI used funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to organize numerous political training sessions in the Dominican Republic and Miami for some 600 Haitian leaders. Though IRI’s work is supposed to be nonpartisan — it is official U.S. policy not to interfere in foreign elections — a former U.S. diplomat says organizers of the workshops selected only opponents of Aristide and attempted to mold them into a political force”.
Similarly, in 2002, the NED, through the IRI, helped support a U.S. backed military coup against Venezuela’s elected president, Hugo Chavez, with Mother Jones noting, “In April 2002, a group of military officers launched a coup against Chavez, and leaders of several parties trained by IRI joined the junta.”
In 2015, the NED gave $300,000 to another one of its subsidiaries the National Democratic Institute (NDI) to meddle in Venezuela’s National Assembly elections of 2015 and swing them to the U.S.-backed opposition through “mobilizing a voter database that identified and targeted swing voters through social media”.
As Jacobin Magazine noted , “indeed, in December 2015, the opposition won a majority in the Venezuelan National Assembly for the first time since Chávez came to power in 1999” adding, “the NDI claims credit for the opposition’s success, writing that this strategy ‘ultimately played an important role in their resounding victory in the 2015 election’ and that a ‘determining factor in the success of the coalition in the parliamentary elections of 2015 was a two-year effort prior to the election”.
Along with this, the NED funded opposition politicians such as Maria Corina Machado, who helped certify the 2002 coup, drove a failed referendum against Chavez in 2004, and “was also one of the political architects of La Salida, the 2014 opposition campaign that called for escalated protests, including guarimba tactics”, which- as journalist Michelle Ellner noted, “weren’t ‘peaceful protests’ as the foreign press claimed; they were organized barricades meant to paralyze the country and force the government’s fall. Streets were blocked with burning trash and barbed wire, buses carrying workers were torched, and people suspected of being Chavista were beaten or killed. Even ambulances and doctors were attacked. Some Cuban medical brigades were nearly burned alive. Public buildings, food trucks, and schools were destroyed. Entire neighborhoods were held hostage by fear while opposition leaders like Machado cheered from the sidelines and called it ‘resistance.’”
Similarly, the NED played a role in the 2014 coup in Ukraine against the country’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, which turned Ukraine into a U.S. proxy state.
As journalist Branko Marcetic reported, “Just two months before they (protests in Ukraine) broke out, the NED’s then president, pointing to Yanukovych’s European outreach, wrote that ‘the opportunities are considerable, and there are important ways Washington could help.’ In practice, this meant funding groups like New Citizen, which the Financial Times reported ‘played a big role in getting the protest up and running,’ led by a pro-EU opposition figure. Journalist Mark Ames discovered the organization had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from US democracy promotion initiatives.”
The protests were eventually taken over by far-right paramilitary groups, who fired sniper shots at protestors in the Maidan square, a massacre that was falsely blamed on Yanukovych’s forces by the U.S. and used to justify supporting his removal and installing a puppet government.
The real motive behind the coup, as Ukrainian political scientist Konstantin Bondarenko put it was because “The West, however, did not want a Ukrainian president who pursued a multi-vector foreign policy; the West needed Ukraine to be anti-Russia, with clear opposition between Kyiv and Moscow. Yanukovych was open to broad cooperation with the West, but he was not willing to confront Russia and China. The West could not accept this ambivalence. The West needed a Ukraine charged for confrontation and even war against Russia, a Ukraine it could use as a tool in the fight against Russia” adding, “this was why Western politicians, diplomats, and civil society representatives actively supported the Euromaidan as a mechanism for overthrowing Yanukovych, even going as far as providing financial support for the ‘revolutionary’ process”
The NED tried and failed to foment another “Maidan” in Nicaragua from 2014-2018, in an attempt to remove the country’s leader, Daniel Ortega, the head of the Sandinista party, which fought the CIA-backed contras in the 1980s.
When riots broke out in the country in 2018, the outlet Global Americans reported that the NED, “laid the groundwork for insurrection” noting that, “Since 2014, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), … has spent $4.1 million on projects in Nicaragua” adding, “it’s becoming more and more clear that the U.S. support has helped play a role in nurturing the current uprisings.”
The uprising was not peaceful protests but a violent NED backed coup attempt. Journalist John Perry, who reported on the coup attempt from the ground noted , “Public buildings and the houses of government supporters were burnt down by protesters; shops were ransacked; most businesses and all banks and schools were closed. The main secondary school for 3,700 pupils was burnt out twice. The police station was under siege for 45 days, so no police were on patrol. No cars or taxis could use the streets; passing the barricades on foot involved being checked by youths with weapons and on occasion threatened. Dissent was met with violence (before the barricades went up, I took part in a ‘peace’ march which was pelted with stones). At first protesters had homemade mortars, but later many acquired more serious weapons such as AK-47s; paid troublemakers manned the barricades at night-time. A police official captured nearby was tortured and then killed, his body burnt at a barricade.”
Similarly, the NED played a role in the U.S. backed military coup against Bolivia’s elected leader, Evo Morales, in 2019.
The U.S. backed coup was sparked when the Organization of American States (OSA) falsely claimed that Evo Morales stole the 2019 election, which was used to justify a military coup and the installation of a military dictatorship led by U.S. puppet, Jeanine Añez.
As journalist Yanis Iqbal, reported the lie that Evo Morales stole the elected was heavily pushed by the NED writing that, “In 2019, NED ran programmes such as Countering Disinformation in the Political Process, Informing Citizens Via Digital Platforms, Monitoring the National Electoral Process, Promoting an Informed Electorate, Providing Independent Analysis and Information, Providing Independent Political News and Election Information and Stimulating an Informed National Debate” which pushed the lie used to justify the coup, adding, “These NED tactics conclusively point towards a scheme of carefully choreographed propaganda and electoral interventionism which contributed to the 2019 Bolivia coup.”
Similar to the Maidan coup in Ukraine, the NED continued to undermine governments in Eastern Europe, which were seen as too close to Russia.
When protests broke out against Belarus’ Russia-aligned president, Aleksandr Lukashenko in 2020, journalist Alan Macleod reported, “on a Zoom meeting infiltrated by activists and released to the public, the NED’s senior Europe Program officer, Nina Ognianova, boasted that the groups leading the nationwide demonstrations against Lukashenko … were trained by her organization. ‘We don’t think that this movement that is so impressive and so inspiring came out of nowhere — that it just happened overnight,’ she said, noting that the NED had made a ‘modest but significant contribution’ to the protests.”
He added, “On the same call, NED President Carl Gershman added that ‘we support many, many groups and we have a very, very active program throughout the country, and many of the groups obviously have their partners in exile.’ Gershman also boasted that the Belarusian government was powerless to intervene and stop them: ‘We’re not like Freedom House or NDI [the National Democratic Institute] and the IRI [International Republican Institute]; we don’t have offices. So if we’re not there, they can’t kick us out.’”
Similarly, the NED intervened in the 2024 election in Romania to back a judicial coup against the candidate Calin Georgescu, because he was opposed to funding the proxy war in Ukraine (which was in large part sparked by the NED backed coup in 2014).
Romania’s intelligence agencies released an evidence-free report which falsely claimed that a TikTok campaign backed by Russia was supporting his campaign.
As the New York Times noted, “The intelligence documents released publicly by Romania provided no evidence of a Russian role, only the observation that ‘Russia has a history of interfering in the electoral processes of other states’ and vague claims that what happened in Romania was ‘similar’ to well-documented Russian election interference in neighboring Moldova”.
Furthermore, the investigative outlet Snoop reported that the TikTok campaign cited in the intelligence report was actually paid for by the Romanian National Liberal Party, the party opposing Calin Georgescu.
Based on this fabricated report, Calin Georgescu was barred from running in the election, despite winning the first round of the vote.
His opponent, Elena Lascon, said at the time, “Today is the moment when the Romanian state trampled over democracy. God, the Romanian people, the truth and the law will prevail and will punish those who are guilty of destroying our democracy”.
This lawfare campaign was backed by the NED. Journalist Lee Fang uncovered that, “think tanks and civil society NGOs funded by the U.S. – via USAID foreign aid programs, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the State Department – have served as the most vocal voices championing the judicial coup”.
The fact that every House Democrat and many House Republicans voted against defunding the ostensible NGO that has been used by the CIA to back coups around the world – including against democratically elected leaders – that do not bow down to Washington’s demands shows that both parties will continue to keep the deep state’s infrastructure running.
The West vs. the Rest
How developing countries took control of climate negotiations and what that means for emission reduction.
By Robin Guenier | Climate Scepticism | December 8, 2025
The main reason why, despite countless scientific warnings about dangerous consequences, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to increase is rarely mentioned. Yet it’s been obvious for several years – at least to anyone willing to see it. It’s this: most countries outside Western Europe, North America and Australasia are either unconcerned about the impact of GHGs on the climate or don’t regard the issue as a priority, focusing instead for example on economic growth and energy security. Yet these countries, comprising about 84 percent of humanityi, are today the source of about 77 percent of emissions; 88 percent if the United States, which has now joined their ranks, is included.ii Therefore, unless they change their policies radically – and there’s no serious evidence of their so doing – there’s no realistic prospect of the implementation of the urgent and substantial cuts in GHG emissions called for by many Western scientists.
To understand how this has happened, I believe it’s useful to review the history of environmental negotiation by focusing in particular on six UN-sponsored conferences: Stockholm in 1972, Rio in 1992, Kyoto in 1997, Copenhagen in 2009, Paris in 2015 and Belém (Brazil) in 2025.
Stockholm 1972
In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s many Western environmentalists were seriously concerned that technological development, economic growth and resource depletion risked irreversible damage to humanity and to the environment.iii Clearly a global problem, it was agreed that it had to be tackled by international, i.e. UN-sponsored, action.
The result was the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972.iv From its outset it was recognised that, if the conference was to succeed, an immediate problem had to be solved: the perceived risk was almost exclusively a Western preoccupation, so how might poorer countries be persuaded to get involved?v
After all, technical and industrial development were essentially the basis of the West’s economic success and that was something the rest of the world was understandably anxious to emulate – not least to alleviate the desperate poverty of many hundreds of millions of people.vi The diplomatic manoeuvrings needed to resolve this seemingly irreconcilable conflict set the scene for what I will refer to as ‘the Stockholm Dilemma’ – i.e. the conflict between Western fears for the environment and poorer countries’ aspirations for economic growth. It was resolved, or more accurately deferred, at the time by the linguistic nightmare of the conference’s concluding Declaration which asserted that, although environmental damage was caused by Western economic growth, it was also caused by the poorer world’s lack of economic growth.vii
After 1972, Western environmental concerns were overshadowed by the struggle to deal with successive oil and economic crises.viii However two important European reports, the Brandt Report in 1980 and the Brundtland Report in 1987, dealt with the economic gulf between the West and the so-called Third World.ix In particular, Brundtland – echoing Stockholm – concluded that, because poverty causes environmental problems, the needs of the world’s poor should be given overriding priority; a principle to be enshrined in the climate agreement signed in Rio. The solution was the now familiar ‘sustainable development’.x
Rio 1992
Western environmental concerns were hugely re-energised in the late 1980s when the doctrine of dangerous (possibly catastrophic) global warming caused by mankind’s emissions of GHGs, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), burst onto the scene.xi As a result, the UN organised the landmark Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) – the ‘Earth Summit’ held in Rio in 1992.xii It was the first of a long series of climate-related international conferences that led for example to the so-called ‘historic’ Paris Agreement in 2015.
A key outcome of the 1992 Earth Summit was the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Adopted in 1992 and commonly known as ‘the Convention’, it’s an international treaty that came into force in 1994. It remains to this day the definitive legal authority regarding climate change.xiii Article 2 sets out its overall objective:
‘The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adopt is to achieve … stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.’
It’s an objective that’s failed. Far from being stabilised, after 1992 emissions accelerated and, by 2025, emissions had grown by over 65 per cent.xiv This is essentially because the Convention attempted to solve the Stockholm Dilemma by dividing the world into two blocs: Annex I countries (essentially the West and ex-Soviet Union countries – the ‘developed’ countries) and non-Annex I countries (the rest of the world – the ‘developing’ countries). This distinction has had huge and lasting consequences – arising in particular from the Convention’s Article 4.7:
‘The extent to which developing country Parties will effectively implement their commitments under the Convention … will take fully into account that economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of the developing country Parties.’xv [My emphasis]
In other words, developing countries were, in accordance with Brundtland’s conclusion, expressly authorised to give overriding priority to economic growth and poverty eradication – even if that meant increasing emissions. And that’s why the Annex I/non-Annex I bifurcation has plagued international climate negotiations ever since: for example, it’s the main reason for the Copenhagen debacle in 2009 and for the Paris failure in 2015 (see below).
Western countries had hoped – even expected – that the Rio bifurcation would in time be modified so that, in line with their development, major developing countries would eventually become members of the Annex I group.xvi But such hopes were dashed at the first post-Rio climate ‘Conference Of the Parties’ (COP) held in Berlin in 1995 (COP1) when it was agreed that there must be no new obligation imposed on any non-Annex I country.
This principle, ‘the Berlin Mandate’, meant that the bifurcation and its associated ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ principle were institutionalised as tenets of the Convention.xvii And, before the next climate conference in 1996 (COP2 in Geneva), G77+China made it clear that this should not be changed.xviii
Kyoto 1997
The impact of this was made harshly apparent at the next conference: COP3 in Kyoto in 1997. Kyoto was supposed to be critically important – the original hope had been that negotiations would result in all countries accepting commitments to reduce their GHG emissions. But, because the US decided that it wouldn’t accept obligations that didn’t apply to other major countriesxix and because of the Berlin Mandate, in the event the agreed Kyoto Protocol reduction obligations applied only to a few, largely Western, countries.xx As a result and because developing countries refused even to acknowledge that they might accept some future obligation, it was becoming obvious to some observers that the UN process was getting nowhere – somehow the developing countries had to be persuaded that emission reduction was in their best interests.
But how? The passage of 25 years hadn’t resolved the Stockholm Dilemma – difficult enough in 1972, the UNFCCC bifurcation and the Berlin Mandate had made it worse. Yet it was recognised that, without these, developing countries might simply refuse to be involved in climate negotiations, making the whole process meaningless – something the UN and Western countries were unwilling to contemplate. So, if Kyoto was a failure, it was arguably a necessary failure if there was to be any prospect of emission reduction in due course. And that was the story for the next twelve years: at successive COP conferences the major developing countries, ignoring increasingly dire climate warnings from Western scientists, refused to consider amending the UNFCCC bifurcation.
A result of that refusal was that many developing countries’ economies continued their spectacular growth, resulting in rising living standards and unprecedented poverty reduction.xxi But inevitably emissions also continued to grow: in just 12 years, from 1997 (Kyoto) to 2009 (Copenhagen) and despite 12 COPs, they increased by over 30%.xxii
Copenhagen 2009
In 2007 the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC), a body that reports every seven years on the current physical scientific understanding of climate change, published its fourth report (AR4) – a report that intensified the West’s insistence that urgent and substantial emission cuts were essential.xxiii
A result was an ‘Action Plan’ agreed at the 2007 climate conference (COP13) in Bali.xxiv It set out how it was hoped all countries would come together at Copenhagen in 2009 (COP15) to agree a comprehensive and binding deal to take the necessary global action. Many observers regarded this as hugely significant: Ban Ki-moon, then UN Secretary General, speaking at Copenhagen said, ‘We have a chance – a real chance, here and now – to change the course of our history’’.xxv And, as always, dire warnings were issued about the consequences of failure: UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown for example warned that, if the conference failed to achieve a deal, ‘it will be irretrievably too late’.xxvi
There was one seemingly encouraging development at Bali: developing countries accepted for the first time that emission reduction by non-Annex I countries might at least be discussed – although they insisted that developed countries were not doing enough to meet their Kyoto obligations.xxvii But the key question of how far the developing countries might go at Copenhagen remained obscure – for example was it at least possible that the larger ‘emerging economies’ such as China and India and major OPEC countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia might cease to be classified as ‘developing’? The EU and US not unreasonably thought that should happen, especially as it was by then obvious that, unless all major emitting countries, including therefore big developing economies, were involved, an emission cutting agreement would be neither credible nor effective. Some Western negotiators hoped that the bifurcation issue might at last be settled at Copenhagen.
But it wasn’t. In the event, developing countries refused to budge, insisting for example that developed countries’ historic responsibility for emissions was what mattered. As a result, the West was humiliatingly defeated, with the EU not even involved in the final negotiations between the US and the so-called BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China).xxviii
One commentator noted:
‘There was a clear victor. Equally clearly, there was a side that lost more comprehensively than at any international conference in modern history where the outcome had not been decided beforehand by force of arms.’ xxix
The Copenhagen failure was a major setback for the West.xxx It was now established that, if the developing countries (including now powerful economies such as China, India, South Korea, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and Iran) rejected a suggestion that their economic development be subject to emission control, that position would prevail. Yet by 2010 these countries were responsible for about 60% of global CO2 emissions xxxi; without them, major global emission cuts were clearly impossible.
The years following Copenhagen, from Cancún (COP16) in 2010 to Lima (COP20) in 2014, reinforced the West’s concerns as developing countries continued to insist they would not accept binding commitments to reduce their emissions.xxxii
Paris 2015
It was becoming obvious that, if there was to be any prospect of emission reduction, there had to be some fresh thinking. So the UN proposed a new methodology for the summit scheduled for 2015 in Paris (COP21): instead of an overall global reduction requirement, a new approach should be implemented whereby countries would individually determine how they would reduce their emissions and that this would be coupled with a periodic review by which each country’s reduction plans would be steadily scaled up by a ‘ratcheting’ mechanism – a critically important development.
But, when countries’ plans (then described as ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions’ (INDCs)) were submitted to the UNFCCC secretariat prior to Paris, it was clear that little had been achieved: hardly any developing countries had indicated any intention of making absolute emission cuts. Instead their INDCs spoke merely for example of reducing CO2 emission intensity in relation to GDP or of reducing the percentage of emissions from business-as-usual projections.xxxiii
It had been hoped that NDCs (as they became known) would be the vehicle whereby major emerging (‘developing’) economies would at last make emission reduction commitments. Yet they turned out to be a problem that undermined the Paris Agreement – see below. And, in any case, other provisions of the Agreement in effect exempted developing countries from any obligation, moral, legal or political, to reduce their emissions.xxxiv For example, the Agreement was described in its preamble as being pursuant to ‘the objective of the Convention [and] guided by its principles’ and further described in Article 2.1 as ‘enhancing the implementation of the Convention’. In other words, the developed/developing bifurcation remained intact and developing countries could continue to give overriding priority to economic development and poverty eradication. Moreover, under Article 4.4 of the Agreement, developing countries, in contrast to developed countries, were merely ‘encouraged to move over time towards economy-wide emission reduction or limitation targets’. Hardly an obligation to reduce their emissions.
It was not an outcome many wanted. For example, when ex UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was asked in early 2015 what he would expect to come out of the Paris summit, he replied:
‘Governments have to conclude a fair, universal and binding climate agreement, by which every country commits to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.‘ xxxv
Western negotiators had intended that Paris should have a very different outcome from that achieved. Hence this 2014 statement by Ed Davey, then UK Secretary of State responsible for climate negotiations: ‘Next year in Paris in December … the world will come together to forge a deal on climate change that should, for the first time ever, include binding commitments to reduce emissions from all countries.’ xxxvi
But it didn’t happen. Developing country negotiators, led by China and India, ignored the West’s (in the event, feeble) demands. And Western negotiators, determined to avoid another Copenhagen-like debacle, didn’t press the issue. Hence the Paris agreement’s failure to achieve the West’s most basic aim: that powerful ‘emerging’ economies should be obliged to share in emission reduction.
The Stockholm Dilemma was still unresolved.
Might that change in the near future? Events since 2015 indicate that that’s most unlikely:
A major post-Paris example was a climate ‘action summit’ convened by UN Secretary General António Guterres for September 2019, calling for national plans to go carbon neutral by 2050 and new coal plants to be banned from 2020.xxxvii But, just before the summit, the environment ministers of the so-called ‘BRICS’ countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) effectively undermined it by reaffirming their commitment to ‘the successful implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), its Kyoto Protocol and its Paris Agreement’. In other words, these five countries (the source of about 45 percent of emissions) were indicating that they continued to regard themselves, under the UNFCCC and Paris framework, as exempt from any binding reduction obligation.xxxviii As a result the summit was a failure.xxxix
So it was not surprising that COP25 (December 2019 in Madrid) made no real progress: it ended with no substantive agreement on emission reduction and was widely described as another failure.xl
Might that change – for example might major developing countries enhance their NDCs as required by the ‘ratchet’ provision of the Paris Agreement? The test would be the next UN conference (COP26) to be held in Glasgow in November 2021 – postponed from 2020 because of the COVID 19 crisis.xli
But COP26 failed that test. And that was despite it being rated by the Guardian in July 2021 as ‘one of the most important climate summits ever staged’, despite Alok Sharma (COP26’s president) stressing that leaving ‘Glasgow with a clear plan to limit global warming to 1.5C’ would ‘set the course of this decisive decade for our planet and future generations’ and despite Prince Charles (as he then was) giving another of his familiar warnings: ‘Quite literally, it is the last chance saloon. We must now translate fine words into still finer actions.’ xlii
That things were not looking good became apparent when several major emitters (e.g. Brazil, China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Indonesia and Mexico) either failed to submit a new NDC in 2021 or submitted an updated NDC that was judged to lack any real increase in ambition, thereby failing to comply with the key Paris ‘ratchet’ requirement.xliii Yet the countries referred to above were in 2019 the source of over 40% of global emissions.xliv
COP26 itself got off to a bad start when China’s president Xi and Russia’s president Putin didn’t attend.xlv And the proceedings included various upsets – in particular a formal request made by a group of 22 nations known at the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC), which included China, India and Saudi Arabia, made on 11 November 2021, that the entire section on the mitigation of climate change be removed from the draft COP26 text.xlvi It wasn’t wholly successful as COP26’s concluding text – the ‘Glasgow Climate Pact’ xlvii – did include an appeal for all countries to revisit and strengthen their 2030 emissions targets by the end of 2022. But that was essentially meaningless in practice as many major emitters had already failed to submit sufficiently strengthened NDCs (see above). In other words, COP26 ended with nothing of real importance being achieved.
All this confirmed yet again that developing countries, determined to grow their economies and improve the lives of their people, had no serous intention of cutting back on fossil fuels. But nonetheless the can was once again kicked down the road; this time to COP27 to be held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt in 2022. And in the meantime events moved on much as before with most countries – even the US – increasing their reliance on fossil fuels (especially coal) and global CO2 emissions reaching their highest level ever.xlviii
And it was hardly a surprise therefore when COP27 turned out to be yet another conference that essentially achieved nothing, with one reviewer noting that key mitigation items — such as a 2025 global emissions peak or a phase-out of all fossil fuels — were dropped under pressure from ‘Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and other petro-states’.xlix Yet, far from giving up, the West now pinned its hopes on COP28 to be held in Dubai – the ‘first global stocktake’.
And the UN hoped that a ‘Climate Ambition Summit’ called by General Secretary António Guterres in September 2023 would boost the Conference’s prospects. But the absence of big emitters such as the US, China and India meant that the Summit turned out to be of little value.l
However the COP28 ‘stocktake’ – otherwise unremarkable – did include what many commentators thought was an important breakthrough.li In its paragraph 28, it said this:
‘The Conference of the Parties … calls on Parties to contribute to the following … Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.’
So, commentators said, there you have it: at long last we have an agreement (a ‘pledge’) to transition away from fossil fuels! But of course that wasn’t true. The reality was that Paragraph 28 also said that parties must ‘take account’ of the Paris Agreement and, as specifically confirmed further down in paragraph 38, the ‘stocktake’ reaffirmed Article 4.4 of that Agreement. In other words, developing countries, the source of 65% of global emissions, continued to be exempted from any obligation to cut their emissions.
Attention now moved to Baku, Azerbaijan – to COP29 held in November 2024. But this conference was concerned almost entirely with finance and made no serious progress on emission reduction. And in any case proceedings were overshadowed by Donald Trump’s re-election as US President – causing great uncertainty and concern about future global climate politics.
Such concern was justified: it was over 50 years since the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment and there was still no sign of a solution to the Stockholm Dilemma and now a resurgent Trump made one even less likely. Yet once again the circus moved on – this time to Belém in Brazil.
Belém 2025
In the months running up to COP30 its prospects already looked dismal, despite the conference being dubbed ‘the implementation COP’. This was because, despite the Paris Agreement requirement, hardly any significant countries submitted updated NDCs either by February 2025, or even by the extended date at the end of September.lii To make matters even worse, few leaders of major economies turned up for the scheduled pre-COP leaders’ meeting: for example no one came from the United States, China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada, South Korea, Türkiye or South Korea. Nonetheless Brazil’s President Lula announced that ‘COP30 will be the COP of truth’.liii
However over 56,000 delegates did turn up at the conference – the third largest number at any COP. And Brazil’s environment minister Marina Silva urged countries to have the ‘courage’ to address a fossil-fuel phaseout, and to work towards a roadmap for ending dependence on fossil fuels.liv It was a requirement echoed by about 80 countries which insisted via a letter to the COP President signed by 29 countries (including the UK, France, Spain and various small countries) that, unless the Conference outcome included a legally binding agreement to a ‘roadmap’ for a global transition away from fossil fuels, they would block the planned deal.lv
Unsurprisingly however negotiators from the majority of countries – not just the Arab oil producers as some commentators suggested, but also major countries such as India, China, Indonesia and other developing countries whose economies and peoples’ welfare depend on fossil fuels – showed no interest in the idea and the COP President simply ignored it. Humiliatingly the objectors climbed down. And the words ‘fossil fuels’ were not even included in the finally agreed text.lvi
This astute comment on the failure of COP30 was made by Li Shuo of the Asia Society (described as ‘a long-time observer of climate politics’):
‘This partly reflects the power shift in the real world, the emerging power of the BASIC and BRICs countries, and the decline of the European Union’.lvii
So once again a COP made no progress at all towards meeting the UNFCCC’s 1992 call for the ‘stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere’. It’s therefore hardly surprising that many commentators have queried whether there’s really any reason at all for continuing to hold all these huge and essentially pointless conferences.lviii
And it’s not only the Belém debacle that illustrates this. Far from it: nothing that’s happening today justifies any realistic hope that fossil fuels are on their way out. For example, major developing countries, especially India, China and in Southeast Asia, are focusing on coal to bolster economic growth and upgrade national security.lix And overall global emissions are still increasing. The early 2020 emission reductions caused by Covid 19 lockdowns were short-lived: as countries emerged from the pandemic determined to strengthen their economies, emission increases have continued.lx
The harsh reality – confirmed time and time again – is that nothing has really changed since the West’s comprehensive defeat at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. The truth is that most countries do not share the West’s preoccupation with climate change. Nor is there any prospect of that view changing for the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
At the time of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 the West’s emissions were 41 percent of the annual global total – today (without the US) they’re only 9 percent. Thus it’s clearly impossible for what’s left of the West to satisfy many scientists’ calls for an urgent and substantial (about 50%) global emission reduction. That can only happen if all the other major countries completely change their climate policies. And that’s obviously not going to happen.
Yet, despite that clear message from the past thirty or more years of climate negotiation history, it’s a key reality that’s still being overlooked by many in the West: in particular by net zero supporters; by the mainstream media; by many scientific publications; by all climate ‘activists’; by many respected academic and scientific organisations; by politicians, governmental and non-governmental organisations; and by celebrities and social media. And by the United Nations.
It’s quite remarkable that there are still so many Western observers who seem not to have noticed that, over the past fifty years, the nature of the climate debate has radically changed as a result of major global political and economic developments. What’s happened is that what was once the so-called Third World has for a long time been powerful enough to ignore the West and take charge of environmental negotiation – a process that started with the ‘Berlin Mandate’ at COP1 in 1994 (see above). And the increasingly meaningless distinction between the ‘developing’ world and the ‘developed’ world, introduced by the UN in 1992 as a way of persuading poorer countries to get involved in climate negotiation, has paradoxically become the reason why progress on GHG reduction has become virtually impossible.
It’s surely obvious by now that the Stockholm Dilemma will never be resolved. And that there’s nothing the West (or more accurately the EU, the UK, Australia and a few smaller countries) can do about it.
Notes and references
i See https://srv1.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-region/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
ii See https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025?vis=ghgtot#emissions_table
iii See for example Fairfield Osborn’s book The Plundered Planet (1948), William Vogt’s Road to Survival (1948), Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), the dire predictions in the Club of Rome report, Limits to Growth (1968) and, in particular, Barbara Ward’s report, Only One Earth (1972). Several of today’s environmentalists share the view that economic growth causes environmental degradation. See for example Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save The World (2021) by Jason Hickel.
iv Maurice Strong, a Canadian businessman-turned-diplomat, organised the Conference and was its Secretary General, having first commissioned Limits to Growth (see Note 3) that established much of its intellectual groundwork. He is widely seen as a pioneer of international environmental concern and of institutionalising it within the United Nations.
v At the time these countries were commonly referred to as ‘underdeveloped’ or, preferably, as ‘developing’. The ‘Third World’ was a standard label used for countries outside the Western or Soviet blocs.
vi Franz Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth (1961) was very influential in intellectual circles in the West at this time. Indian PM Indira Gandhi’s keynote speech at the Conference sets out the dilemma clearly: http://tiny.cc/dl6lqz. The speech is epitomised by this comment: ‘The environment cannot be improved in conditions of poverty.’
vii See Part One, chapter I (especially ‘proclamation’ 4) of this UN report on the conference: http://un-documents.net/aconf48-14r1.pdf.
viii See for example: https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/oil-shock-of-1978-79.
ix For Brundtland, see Our Common Future: http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf.
x ibid – see paragraphs 27, 28 and 29 which do little to clarify the meaning of this rather vague concept.
xi Heralded in particular by James Hansen’s address the US Congress in 1988: https://www.sealevel.info/1988_Hansen_Senate_Testimony.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xii Described as the largest environmental conference ever held, the Summit’s outcome is outlined here: https://www.sustainable-environment.org.uk/Action/Earth_Summit.php
xiii For the full text of the UNFCCC see: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf
xiv See Note 1 above.
xv The omitted words are concerned with a different, but arguably equally important, issue: finance and technology transfer from developed to developing countries.
xvi See Article 4.2 (f) of the UNFCCC, under which parties might review ‘available information with a view to taking decisions regarding such amendments to the lists in Annexes I and II as may be appropriate, with the approval of the Party concerned’.
xvii See Article 2 (b) here: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/cop1/07a01.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xviii This report provides some interesting background re non-Annex I parties’ determination: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/1996/agbm/05.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xix See the Byrd-Hagel resolution adopted unanimously by the US Senate in June 1997: https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/senate-resolution/98/text It stated that the US would not sign a protocol putting limits on Annex I countries unless it imposed specific, timetabled commitments on non-Annex I countries.
xx For the text of the Kyoto Protocol see: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf. Note in particular how Article 10’s provision that it did not introduce ‘any new commitments for Parties not included in Annex I’ ensured that developing countries were not bound by the Protocol’s emission reduction obligations.
xxi Note for example how China was responsible for an astonishing reduction in poverty from the 1980s to the early 2000s: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/extreme-poverty-in-china-has-been-almost-eliminated-first-in-urban-then-in-rural-regions?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xxii See Note 1 above.
xxiii See for example: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar4/syr/
xxiv The Bali Action Plan can be seen here: https://www.preventionweb.net/files/8376_BaliE.pdf?startDownload=true
xxv See the UN Secretary-General’s extraordinary speech in Copenhagen just before COP15: https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_15/statements/application/pdf/speech_opening_hls_cop15_ban_ki_moon.pdf
xxvi The full extract: ‘If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late.’ See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/oct/19/gordon-brown-copenhagen-climate-talks
xxvii In particular those confirmed by section 1(b)(i) of the Bali Action Plan – see Note 24 above.
xxviii See this overall review of the outcome: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8426835.stm.
xxix Rupert Darwall: The Age of Global Warming, 310
xxx The ‘Copenhagen Accord’ was an attempt by some countries to rescue something from this debacle: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf. A non-binding document (the Conference only ‘took note’ of it) it stated for example that global temperature should not rise more than 2ºC above pre-industrial levels – although it didn’t specify a date for this.
xxxi See Note 1 above.
xxxii See for example this report on the 2014 conference in Lima: http://tiny.cc/w4zv001
xxxiii For example, China’s INDC said only that it planned to ‘achieve the peaking of carbon dioxide emissions around 2030’ (no mention of the level of such ‘peak’ or of what will happen thereafter) and to ‘lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60% to 65% from the 2005 level’. And South Korea merely said that it ‘plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 37% from the business-as-usual (BAU,850.6 MtCO2eq) level by 2030 across all economic sectors’, i.e. emissions will continue to increase but not by as much as they might have done.
Note that ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions’ (INDCs) are referred to as ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs) in Articles 3 and 4 of in the Paris Agreement – see Note 34 below. All NDCs submitted to the UNFCCC secretariat can be found here: https://unfccc.int/NDCREG
xxxiv The full text of the Paris Agreement can be found here: https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/paris_nov_2015/application/pdf/paris_agreement_english_.pdf
xxxv From an interview with the Observer in May 2025. Annan’s other comments are also interesting: https://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/publication/we-must-challenge-climate-change-sceptics/
xxxvi See the Ministerial Forward here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/360596/hmg_paris_2015.pdf
xxxvii https://climateaction.unfccc.int/Events/ClimateActionSummit
xxxviii My note was an extract from a press release by the PRC’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment: https://english.mee.gov.cn/News_service/news_release/201908/t20190829_730517.shtml?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xxxix https://populationmatters.org/news/2019/09/un-climate-action-summit-fails-to-deliver-climate-action/
xl http://tiny.cc/zg0w001 The official summary noted how countries such as China — speaking for the bloc including Brazil, India, South Africa — repeatedly called for developed countries to meet financial commitments: http://tiny.cc/3h0w001
xli https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-climatechange-idUSKBN21J6QC/
xlii http://tiny.cc/js1w001, http://tiny.cc/dv1w001 and http://tiny.cc/zs1w001
xliii https://ca1-clm.edcdn.com/assets/brief_-_countries_with_no_or_insignificant_ndc_updates_2.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xliv See Note 1 above.
xlv http://tiny.cc/w22w001 and http://tiny.cc/w22w001
xlvi https://kyma.com/cnn-world/2021/11/11/china-and-india-among-22-nations-calling-for-key-section-on-emissions-be-ditched-from-cop26-agreement/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
xlvii The Glasgow Climate Pact can be found here: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cop26_auv_2f_cover_decision.pdf
xlviii See Note 1 above.
xlix See observations here: http://tiny.cc/q52w001
l The Guardian’s view: http://tiny.cc/872w001
li https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2023_L17_adv.pdf
liii President Lula’s comment can be found here: http://tiny.cc/ja2w001 A prescient observation – although not perhaps in the way he intended.
lv This Guardian article notes how the 29 objectors’ demands were ignored: http://tiny.cc/ei2w001.
lvi https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/cma2025_L24_adv.pdf
lvii Under ‘EU had a bad COP’ here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp84m16mdm1o
lviii For example the Guardian is unhappy: http://tiny.cc/ux2w001
lix See this https://www.cfact.org/2025/11/20/coal-is-still-a-fuel-of-choice-in-the-global-south/ and this https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/fossil-fuels/coal/coal-is-still-king-globally/
lx See Note 1 above.
Venezuela Has Right to Have Relations With China, Russia, Cuba, Iran – Acting President
Sputnik – 16.01.2026
Venezuela has the right to relations with all countries of the world, including China, Russia, Cuba, and Iran, and will exercise this right in compliance with international norms, Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez said on Thursday.
Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said the country’s energy dialogue with the United States is not new, but stressed that it is now taking place amid “aggression and a fierce threat.”
“Venezuela has the right to relations with China, with Russia, with Cuba, with Iran — with all the peoples of the world,” Rodríguez said while presenting the government’s 2025 annual report.
She said Caracas is shaping energy cooperation based on “decency, dignity and independence,” rejecting both internal and external constraints aimed at influencing Venezuela’s foreign policy.
Villains of Judea: Paul Singer’s Empire of Debt & Demographic Replacement
Paul Singer is the embodiment of Jewish plutocracy
José Niño Unfiltered | January 12, 2026
Paul Elliott Singer stands as one of the most influential figures in global finance. The Jewish billionaire hedge fund manager has amassed a fortune estimated at $6.2 billion to $6.7 billion by purchasing distressed sovereign debt and corporate bonds at deep discounts, then pursuing ruthless legal campaigns to extract full repayment plus interest.
Born August 22, 1944, in Teaneck, New Jersey, Singer transformed a $1.3 million startup in 1977 into Elliott Management, a hedge fund empire managing approximately $65.5 billion to $72 billion in assets.
Yet Singer does more than just make financial moves. He has emerged as a kingmaker in Republican politics, becoming the second-largest GOP donor in 2016, and a major force behind AIPAC, immigration reform, and LGBT rights advocacy. His business model has devastated entire communities from Sidney, Nebraska, to Buenos Aires, Argentina. His political activism spans seemingly contradictory causes, supporting both hawkish pro-Israel policies and same-sex marriage rights. His most recent venture, the $5.9 billion purchase of Venezuela’s Citgo assets, positions him to reap billions from the Trump administration’s military intervention in Venezuela.
Singer’s business model has earned him the moniker vulture capitalist. In the 1990s, Singer began leaving his mark after purchasing $20 million in Peruvian sovereign debt. Through aggressive litigation, he eventually secured a payout of $58 million, nearly triple his investment. A U.S. court revealed that Elliott’s purchase of Peruvian debt was made with the explicit intention of pursuing full repayment through lawsuits. Investigative journalist Greg Palast reported that Singer’s lawyer allegedly told him Singer allowed Peru’s President Alberto Fujimori, who fled the country ahead of murder charges, to escape in return for ordering Peru’s treasury to pay Singer $58 million.
Between 2002 and 2003, Singer earned over $100 million from a $30 million investment in Congo-Brazzaville debt. But his most audacious campaign targeted Argentina. After Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, Singer purchased distressed bonds for approximately $117 million. He refused to participate in debt restructuring agreements that other creditors accepted, instead pursuing full repayment through international courts. The campaign culminated in a 2016 settlement that netted Elliott Management $2.4 billion, a staggering 1,270 percent return.
Singer’s tactics proved extraordinary even by hedge fund standards. In 2012, Elliott successfully convinced a Ghanaian court to detain the Argentine naval training vessel ARA Libertad with 220 crew members aboard, demanding $20 million for its release. Then-Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner refused to pay Singer’s fund, calling Elliott and similar firms “financial terrorists” and vulture funds. The Obama administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded courts dismiss Singer’s attempt to bankrupt Argentina, but Singer’s legal campaign ultimately prevailed.
Pro-Israel Bankroller
Singer has emerged as one of the most significant donors to pro-Israel causes in the United States. Through The Paul E. Singer Foundation, he has donated approximately $300 million since 2010. Singer donated $2 million to AIPAC and contributed $3 million to AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, since 2022, making him tied for AIPAC’s third-largest donor. He serves on the board of directors of the Republican Jewish Coalition and co-founded Start-Up Nation Central, an organization dedicated to connecting Israeli innovation with global markets.
Singer has also been a major funder of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a neoconservative think tank advocating hawkish policies aligned with Israeli interests. From 2008 to 2011, Singer contributed $3.6 million to FDD, making him the organization’s second-largest donor. The organization has been described by former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson as a fervent advocate for war against Iran. At the Jewish Funders Network in Jerusalem, Singer stated that “Israel may be the only insurance policy all Jews, everywhere, can rely upon for the safety and continuity of Judaism.”
Promoter of LGBT Degeneracy and Mass Migration
Like many Jewish plutocrats, Singer became a significant supporter of LGBT causes after his son Andrew came out as a homosexual. In 2012, Singer provided $1 million to start American Unity PAC, whose sole mission was to encourage Republican candidates to support same-sex marriage. From 2012 to 2015, he contributed over $5.5 million to this organization. In 2013, Singer donated $500,000 to the Human Rights Campaign. Since 2001, Singer has donated more than $11 million toward legalizing homosexual marriage and supporting LGBT causes.
Singer’s crusade to redefine marriage within Republican ranks was just one facet of his broader agenda; he soon pivoted to advocating mass immigration to transform America’s demographics. In 2013, Singer made a six-figure donation to the National Immigration Forum to support comprehensive immigration reform, better known as amnesty. As one of the first high-profile Republican megadonors to publicly back amnesty, Singer worked to marshal conservative support for an overhaul of federal laws. In 2014, Singer formed the American Opportunity Alliance, bringing together wealthy Republican donors who shared his support for LGBTQ rights, immigration reform, and Israel.
Singer’s Looting of Sidney, Nebraska
Singer’s domestic business dealings generated controversies as devastating as his international operations. In 2015, Elliott Management acquired an 11 percent stake in outdoor retailer Cabela’s and forced a merger with Bass Pro Shops that devastated Sidney, Nebraska, where Cabela’s was headquartered. The town experienced massive job losses, a significant housing value collapse, and economic depression. According to court filings, Elliott pressured Cabela’s board to sell the company until the board relented. The merger resulted in Elliott making nearly $100 million profit. Residents told Fox News producers that the hedge fund destroyed their town, with one saying, “If money is that big of a God to him, he is a pretty sick human being.”
Tucker Carlson’s Exposé
In December 2019, Fox News host Tucker Carlson devoted a major investigative segment to Paul Singer, focusing on the Cabela’s case. Carlson described Singer’s business model as “vulture capitalism” that involves “buying large stakes in American companies, firing workers, driving up short-term share prices, and in some cases, taking government bailouts.” He stated, “It bears no resemblance whatsoever to the capitalism we were promised in school. It creates nothing. It destroys entire cities. It couldn’t be uglier or more destructive.”
Carlson emphasized Singer’s political power, noting that “people like Paul Singer have tremendous influence over our political process.” He revealed that Singer was “the second largest donor to the Republican Party in 2016 and has given millions to a super PAC that supports Republican senators. Carlson noted, “You may never have heard of Paul Singer, which tells you a lot in itself, but in Washington he is rock star famous.”
As Carlson was producing the segment, he reported being warned repeatedly by people around Washington, “Don’t criticize Paul Singer, that’s not a good idea.” During the broadcast, Carlson received a text from a very well-known person in Washington saying, “Holy smokes, I can’t believe you’re doing this. I’m afraid of Paul Singer.”
Venezuela and Citgo
One of Singer’s most recent controversial business deals involves Venezuela’s Citgo Petroleum. In November 2025, Elliott Investment Management won a court-mandated auction to purchase Citgo for $5.9 billion. Citgo represents the crown jewel of Venezuela’s international oil assets, owning three major Gulf Coast refineries with capacity to process 800,000 barrels per day, 43 oil terminals, and over 4,000 gas stations.
Singer acquired Citgo at what multiple sources describe as a major discount. Court advisors estimated Citgo’s actual value at approximately $13 billion, while Venezuelan officials valued the assets at $18 billion to $20 billion. This means Singer paid roughly 45 percent of the estimated market value.
A highly controversial aspect of the sale involves Robert Pincus, the court-appointed special master who oversaw the auction and recommended Singer’s bid. Pincus sits on the national board of directors of AIPAC. Gold Reserve Inc., a competing bidder that offered $7.9 billion, filed motions to disqualify Pincus for conflicts of interest. Venezuela rejected the sale’s legitimacy, calling it a “fraudulent process” and the “theft of the century.”
Trump’s Venezuela Intervention is Singer’s Wet Dream
The timing of events raised serious questions about the relationship between Singer’s Citgo purchase and Trump administration actions. In 2024, Singer donated $5 million to Trump’s super PAC and contributed $37 million to support Republican congressional candidates. On January 3, 2026, U.S. armed forces conducted a military raid in Caracas, capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The removal of Maduro positions Singer to reap enormous profits. Economist Paul Krugman noted, “If Trump lifts that embargo, Singer will receive a huge windfall.” Within days of Maduro’s capture, Trump announced that Venezuela would be turning over between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil to the United States.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who is a staunch opponent of the intervention in Venezuela, also caught on to how Singer stands to benefit from military action against Venezuela. He tweeted on January 4, 2026, “According to Grok, Paul Singer, globalist Republican mega-donor who’s already spent $1,000,000 to defeat me in the next election, stands to make billions of dollars on his distressed CITGO investment, now that this administration has taken over Venezuela.”
As Massie noted, Singer has ponied up $1 million to MAGA KY, a super PAC seeking to unseat the Kentucky congressman. Singer and his fellow Zionist Jews view Massie as an obstacle to further consolidating Jewish supremacy in the halls of Congress.
All told, Singer is the embodiment of Jewish plutocracy. He bankrolls the West’s demise through his advocacy of LGBT degeneracy, mass migration, never-ending wars on behalf of world Jewry, and vulture finance. Americans must awaken to these existential threats, revoke their elite privileges, and halt the Great Replacement before it consigns our polities to historical oblivion.
Pirates of the Caribbean
By Lorenzo Maria Pacini | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 12, 2026
So many things are happening in such a short space of time that it is difficult to keep track of them all. Certainly, one of the most “entertaining” is the return of piracy, which the United States of America inaugurated at the beginning of 2026.
We are talking about a new and particularly controversial phase of their economic and strategic pressure policy: the direct seizure of oil tankers on the high seas, believed to be involved in the transport of crude oil on behalf of states subject to unilateral U.S. sanctions, in particular Russia, Venezuela, and Iran. This practice, which Washington presents as a legitimate enforcement activity against illegal trafficking, is raising profound questions about international maritime law and the balance between state sovereignty, freedom of navigation, and the use of force.
From the Caribbean to the icy North Seas, the most emblematic case is that of the oil tanker Mariner, seized a few days ago after a long chase in the North Atlantic by the U.S. Coast Guard, while the ship was being joined by Russian naval forces. According to U.S. authorities, the ship was part of the so-called shadow fleet, an informal network of oil tankers that operate through frequent changes of name, flag, and management company in order to evade sanctions regimes. This operation is accompanied by other significant seizures or interceptions, including the tankers Sophia, Skipper, and Centuries, stopped in various maritime areas on similar charges of sanctioned oil trafficking and fraudulent use of flags of convenience. In short, a cinematic-style raid. Donald “Sparrow” Trump has found a new hobby.
As for the Mariner, to be fair, it is a VLCC oil tanker built in 2002. Its gross tonnage is over 318,000 tons, making it one of the largest types of oil tankers used in the global crude oil trade. In terms of age and technical characteristics, it is an ordinary working ship, designed to operate for 25-30 years, provided it passes inspections. Since its construction, the ship has not had a stable “nationality.”
Over the course of more than twenty years, it has changed its name, flag, and owners several times, a practice typical of tankers operating in sanctioned and semi-sanctioned segments of the market. The ship was successively named Overseas Mulan, Seaways Mulan, Xiao Zhu Shan, Yannis, Neofit, Timimus, Bella 1, and finally Marinera. Each name change was accompanied by a change of jurisdiction or management company. The flags also changed regularly. The ship flew the flags of the Marshall Islands, Liberia, Palau, and Panama. According to international databases, there was a period when the ship flew the flag of Guyana, indicating an incorrect or unconfirmed registration. This episode was subsequently used as a formal pretext for intervention by the U.S. Coast Guard.
After the persecution began, the ship obtained temporary registration under the flag of the Russian Federation with Sochi as its port of registry, as recorded in official ship registers. The history of the ship’s ownership and management also indicates its commercial rather than state nature. Over the years, the ship has been managed by companies registered in Asia and offshore jurisdictions, including structures linked to Chinese and Singaporean operators. Between 2022 and 2023, the owner and manager of the ship was Neofit Shipping Ltd, then Louis Marine Shipholding ENT. Since the end of December 2025, the owner and commercial operator of the ship has been the Russian company Burevestmarin LLC. This is a private entity, not linked to state-owned oil companies and not part of any “state fleet.”
In recent years, the ship has been used in the classic sanctions evasion scheme linked to the Iran-Venezuela-China routes. A crucial turning point came in mid-December 2025, when the United States announced an effective maritime blockade of Venezuela. The tanker, then called Bella 1, had left the Iranian port in November and was approaching the Venezuelan coast just as these measures were introduced. The attempt to enter the port was interrupted by the U.S., after which the ship set course for the Atlantic Ocean. The composition of the crew also clearly shows the commercial nature of the ship. Most of the sailors on board are Ukrainian citizens, while there were also Georgian citizens and only two Russians on board. The Mariner proved to be a convenient demonstration target for the U.S. as part of its new strategy of forcibly disrupting Venezuelan oil routes.
The owner’s attempt to hide under the Russian flag was a logical commercial move, but it did not change the intentions of the U.S. Russia was formally involved in the situation as the flag state and because of the presence of Russian citizens in the crew. The ship was not of strategic value to Russia and was not part of its oil logistics. Any escalation around a private tanker, which had been operating for decades on gray routes, would have made no rational sense.
From Washington’s point of view, the legitimacy of such actions rests on two main pillars. The first is the extraterritorial application of U.S. sanctions: seized tankers are considered assets directly involved in violations of Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regulations and are therefore subject to confiscation. The second pillar is the doctrine of the stateless vessel, according to which a ship that cannot credibly prove its nationality—due to irregular registrations, false flags, or contradictory documentation—loses the legal protection guaranteed by the flag state and can be stopped by any other state on the high seas.
Bye-bye Law of the Sea
It is precisely this second point that is the focus of much of the legal debate. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) establishes that, on the high seas, a ship is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the flag state. Exceptions to this principle are limited and strict: piracy, slave trade, unauthorized radio transmissions, absence of nationality, or express authorization from the UN Security Council. The extension of these exceptions to the application of unilateral sanctions, not approved by the United Nations, is a highly contested interpretation.
Russia and China have reacted harshly to the seizures, calling them a blatant violation of international law and, in some cases, an act comparable to state piracy. Moscow argues that the seized tankers were flying regular flags and that the use of force against commercial vessels in peacetime, outside a UN mandate, constitutes a breach of the maritime legal order. Beijing, for its part, has emphasized the illegitimate nature of unilateral sanctions and the risk that such practices create dangerous precedents, normalizing the armed interdiction of commercial shipping.
The implications of this new phase are significant. On the legal front, there is growing tension between a law of the sea based on the neutrality of routes and freedom of navigation, and a power practice that tends to transform economic sanctions into instruments of military coercion. On the geopolitical front, there is a risk of maritime escalation, with possible countermeasures by the affected states and a progressive militarization of global energy routes.
On the other hand, all this is consistent with what the U.S. administration is doing: creating rapid chaos that distracts the world, while surgically targeting certain elements within the American system and, on the other hand, applying the Donroe Doctrine and establishing control over the Western Hemisphere.
The seizure of oil tankers is not just an isolated episode of conflict between states, but a sign of a deeper transformation of the international order. The U.S. has set out with conviction and has no intention of stopping. If this practice were to become established, international maritime law would risk being very quickly stripped of its fundamental principles, leaving room for a logic of force in which naval supremacy replaces shared legality. The issue, therefore, is not only about the seized ships, but the entire future of global maritime governance.
The U.S. has said it: Venezuela is American property and from now on will be its new backyard. Greenland will be next.
Piracy elevated to the rank of military strategy and international relations.
And remember: in just 11 months of government, since the beginning of his second term, Donald Trump has bombed seven sovereign countries: Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela. He has kidnapped one head of state (Maduro) and threatened to kill three others: Khamenei, Petro, and Rodriguez. He has threatened to invade five countries: Iran, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Greenland (i.e., Denmark). He has done everything in his power to prevent the international community from passing resolutions against Israel and its prime minister Netanyahu during and after the massacres in Gaza.
Anyone with a modicum of common sense, who is not misled by political preconceptions, can draw the most basic conclusions from these actions.
What Does Venezuela Have to Do with Israel?
It may have friends that Netanyahu does not like
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • January 9, 2026
It is interesting to observe how United States foreign policy, such as it is, often appears to have an Israeli back story that explains at least in part how Donald Trump’s mindless aggression against much of the world is driven by Zionist imperatives rather than actual American interests. Ukraine is supported by Israel and the US Israel Lobby in part because the roots of many diaspora and Israeli Jews are “Kazarian,” i.e. they derive from that part of Eastern Europe. Plus, Ukraine’s acting head of state Volodymyr Zelensky is a Jew whose mother and father reportedly live in Israel in a posh residence paid for by the money stolen by their son from US and European donations to Kiev to fight Russia. Also, the Jewish antipathy towards Moscow in large part derives from the belief that Imperial Russia was the source of many pogroms in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That narrative fails, however, to mention how Russian Jews turned Bolshevik and, becoming enforcers of the Communist Revolution, subsequently got their revenge a hundred-fold on Russian and other Eastern European Christians.
And, of course, it has been frequently observed how US policy in the Middle East is essentially dictated by war criminal Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who de facto controls both Trump and the US Congress. The Israel Lobby also has significant input into what goes on at state and local government levels and has considerable control over what appears in the national media, which they increasingly own thanks to the efforts of Jewish billionaires like Larry Ellison. This ability to use money to manipulate politics and government has been manifested in the ability to suppress free speech in the United States when the topic is Israel’s abhorrent behavior towards the Palestinians and its other neighbors. Criminalizing antisemitism, which includes any criticism of Israel, has become the crime du jour to silence opposition to pro-Zionist agendas at both federal and state levels and it has also been used to eliminate Palestinian support at universities and through the job market. Beyond that, the US State Department is now demanding access to the social media of visa applicants so that those who are supporters of the Palestinian cause can be blocked from entry into the United States. This is what Jewish power in America is all about.
It is interesting to note the somewhat unexpected Israeli and Jewish hand in recent US aggression directed particularly against Venezuela. There are several main reasons for the Venezuela hit. Caracas developed a close relationship with Iran through its negotiations over BRICS and has unambiguously sided with Palestine in denouncing the Zionist war crimes and crimes against humanity. This clearly was impressed upon Donald Trump and his consiglieri by the Israelis and members of the Israeli Lobby like Miriam Adelson and Laura Loomer who have full access to the president and who no doubt were able to convince the Orangeman that he would be able to benefit by striking against an ally of a common enemy of the US and Israel with one fell swoop.
Trump could and did plead nevertheless that he was only applying his heavily promoted “corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” which he inevitably dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine,” and which was explicit in the new National Security Strategy. But he surely knew that he would also at the same time be satisfying the demands of his Jewish donors and Netanyahu himself, who undoubtedly raised the issue of Venezuela with the president and his staff on his recent visit to Florida.
So the possibility that there just might be a relationship between Venezuela and Iran has become something that is exploitable by the Israel Lobby and also by Trump. On his recent visit, Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to identify the issue and no doubt also personally pushed for Trump to do something right away. Bibi also appeared on US television and told one interviewer that Iran is “exporting terrorism… to Venezuela. They’re in cahoots with the Maduro regime… this has got to change.” The Israelis also see ties between Caracas and both Hamas and Hezbollah, a claim that has been echoed in the US national-Zionist-at-all-times media.
To cite only one example of how it works, Fox News has published an article claiming Maduro’s Venezuela has become “Hezbollah’s most important base of operations in the Western Hemisphere, strengthened by Iran’s growing footprint and the Maduro regime’s protection.” Ultra-Zionist US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, not to be outdone, later doubled down, stating publicly that the US overthrow of Maduro was good news for Israel because of Venezuela’s partnership with Iran and Hezbollah.
The New York Times meanwhile has soft-pedaled its news coverage of the Caracas attack and instead has featured several prominent Zionist opinion contributors who have argued that for those Middle Eastern connections alone Venezuela has deserved everything that it has so far received at the hands of the US military. The always reliable Israeli firster Bret Stephens opined that There Were Good Reasons to Depose Maduro citing the Venezuelan Vice-and-Acting President Delcy Rodríguez having “claimed Maduro’s capture had ‘Zionist undertones,’ suggesting that her grip on reality may not be what the [Trump] administration hopes.”
And on the same day in The Times there appeared good old reliable Elliott Abrams in his A Defense of US Intervention in Venezuela claiming that he knows things about the threat posed by Venezuela that no one else seems to be aware of aside from him and his Zionist buddies. He states that “… they have invited into Venezuela Cuban thugs, and Hezbollah and Iran, as well as Russia and China. So, it’s a security issue for the whole region, again, including for the United States. For Hezbollah, for example, and Iran, we know that the Maduro regime gave them blank passports so that agents of Iran and Hezbollah could be moving around Latin America and elsewhere under false identities. We know that Iran has helped not only give drones to the Venezuelan military, but helped them learn how to build drones. We know from the Israeli experience with Iran, drones can go a very long distance now. We’re talking about drones that can hit not only Puerto Rico, but hit the continental United States. When I was in the State Department doing this about five years ago, Iran was contemplating giving intermediate-range missiles, which could reach the United States, to the Maduro regime in Venezuela. So this is an actual security threat in Latin America and to us.”
So Israel and its friends were no doubt delighted when Donald Trump decided to attack Venezuela and kidnap its president Nicolas Maduros. Netanyahu personally thanked Washington after the Venezuela attack took place, tweeting that “Congratulations, President @realDonaldTrump for your bold and historic leadership on behalf of freedom and justice. I salute your decisive resolve and the brilliant action of your brave soldiers.”
Perhaps this extra agenda in support of Israel explains why Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez has herself gone on television to say her country will not be “cowed” by Washington. As Bret Stephens maintains, she also believes that “Venezuela is the victim and target of an attack of this nature, which undoubtedly has Zionist undertones. It is truly shameful.” To be sure there is one thing that is true, that as Venezuela is critical of Israeli war crimes, its government has broken diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv and recognized Palestinian statehood. It might therefore very plausibly be suggested that Netanyahu, speaking for his government, which in return has been openly supporting regime change in Venezuela, played the decisive role in convincing his pliable tool Trump to move on Caracas sooner rather than later when they met recently in Mar-del-Lago.
So the attack on Venezuela has opened the door to all kinds of complications and intrigue. Given the ability of the Israelis to manipulate an ignorant and confused Trump, who now claims his policies are guided only by his “morality” rather than “international rule of law,” the next developments will almost certainly include a joint Israel-US attack on Iran. And when that initiative has run out there will certainly be still more enemies of Israel to confront. And what will be the benefit for the average American when all the costs and deaths are counted after it is all over? As usual, “Nothing!”
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
Argentina cancels Tel Aviv embassy relocation over Israel’s drilling in South Atlantic: Report
Press TV – January 11, 2026
Argentina’s President Javier Milei has reportedly frozen at the last minute the relocation of the country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied al-Quds.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Milei, a devoted supporter of the occupying regime, took the decision after learning of the Israeli plan for oil drilling near the disputed Malvinas Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, which are also known as the Falklands to the British.
Valued at $1.8 billion, the project is expected to begin in the coming weeks with the Israeli company Navitas aiming to produce 32,000 barrels of oil per day.
Argentine officials warned that the drilling project could damage relations between Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, which have improved under Milei’s presidency.
Milei has openly praised Israel’s acts of aggression, including the genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
He had earlier pledged to move Argentina’s embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied al-Quds by 2026.
Milei’s pro‑Israel stance also includes deepening political and economic ties.
He used his $1 million Genesis Prize award to launch the so-called “Isaac Accords,” a framework intended to normalize relations between the Israeli regime and Latin American countries in areas including technology and education.
The Malvinas Islands are situated just over 480 kilometers from the Argentine coast in the South Atlantic Ocean. The UK has occupied the archipelago since 1833.
Argentina and the UK fought a 10-week war over the archipelago in April-June 1982, with the UK eventually prevailing with the help of its allies.
The Argentinean government has periodically stepped up efforts to regain control of the islands, home to an estimated 3,200 people from different countries.
In 2016, the two sides agreed to cooperate on issues such as energy and shipping despite disagreements about the islands’ sovereignty.
China Slams U.S. Pressure on Venezuela and Vows to Deepen Trade Ties
teleSUR | January 8, 2026
On Thursday, He Yadong, a spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry (MOFCOM), questioned the United States for attempting to restrict Venezuela’s international economic relations and reaffirmed his country’s willingness to maintain trade ties with the South American nation.
“The hegemonic actions of the U.S. seriously violate international law, infringe on Venezuela’s sovereignty, and threaten peace and security in Latin America. China firmly opposes such actions,” He said.
“Economic and trade cooperation between China and Venezuela is conducted between sovereign states and is protected by international law and the laws of both countries. No other country has the right to interfere.”
“Regardless of changes in Venezuela’s political situation, China’s willingness to continuously deepen bilateral economic and trade relations remains unchanged,” the MOFCOM official stressed.
“China’s economic and trade cooperation with Latin American countries has always adhered to the principles of mutual respect and win-win outcomes. China does not seek spheres of influence, nor does it target any specific party. Economic complementarity serves as a solid foundation for China–Latin America cooperation, with openness, inclusiveness and mutual benefit as its defining features.”
“China will continue to work with Latin American countries to address international uncertainties through unity and collaboration, promote economic and trade cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, and achieve shared development,” He concluded.
The remarks by the MOFCOM spokesperson come after the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump informed Venezuela that it must end its relations with China, Russia, Iran and Cuba as part of a series of demands before it can extract and market its oil.
Kidnapped By the Washington Cartel
By Eric Striker • Unz Review • January 8, 2026
Washington’s snatching of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his visibly brutalized wife, Cilia, has been widely condemned as naked criminality. Supporters of US interventionism have taken to justifying the attack under the guise of the Monroe, or “Donroe,” Doctrine, while leaders of the American left such as Bernie Sanders have largely ignored the moral implications by fixating on the legalistic aspect of the spectacle.
Practically nothing substantial has been presented to the public justifying military intervention in Venezuela. US officials have made half-hearted attempts at blowing the cobwebs off the Reagan-era Cold War boogeyman trope, but the Venezuelan state of Maduro last year spent only 18% of its GDP on public expenditures, making the US (37%) twice as “communist.” It should also be noted that Venezuela’s Communist Party has long been part of the heterogenous US-backed anti-Maduro opposition and is perceived inside the country as a front for the CIA.
The next ginned up fable accuses Maduro, in a Brooklyn federal court case overseen by 92-year-old Zionist Jew Alvin Hellerstein, of being a global cocaine kingpin.
The original Department of Justice case was cobbled together during Trump’s first term but was pursued heavily by the successive Biden administration, which introduced a $25 million dollar bounty in hopes that someone inside the regime would capture Maduro for them. Critics have dismissed the charges as both baseless and hypocritical, pointing out that several current US-installed leaders in Latin America are running actual narco regimes. The well of irony goes deeper: the very Delta Force unit responsible for capturing Maduro is itself a violent cocaine trafficking ring, as journalists documenting JSOC operator’s use of military planes to import millions of dollars worth of cocaine from Colombia to Fort Bragg for both personal use and illicit profit have shown.
The last excuse, tossed to the nihilists in the MAGA base as red meat, is that America wants to steal the oil to make gas prices cheaper. During World War II, the United States strong-armed Venezuelan oil into the hands of American businesses to fuel the Allied war effort, but the 30 to 50 million barrels of oil Trump is demanding for America is only enough to last two months. Venezuela’s low-quality crude requires refining infrastructure that experts believe could cost 10s of billions of dollars in investment and potentially a decade to come to fruition, meaning that the US would have to pay a hefty price to produce the product in order to “steal” it.
Military action for oil makes no sense. For nearly a decade, Maduro’s government has been desperately reaching out to the US to negotiate an end to the devastating sanctions crippling the Venezuelan economy and bring back American oil companies, with extraordinary gestures such as a $500,000 donation to Trump’s 2017 inauguration festivities. These overtures were ignored.
Realist arguments for removing opponents of the American empire from the Western Hemisphere also seem inadequate. Many nations that have strong links to Russia and China, such as Hungary, also have close relations to the Trump administration. Neither Russia or China are interested in or able to meddle in the Western Hemisphere, as the May 2024 8,000 word Sino-Russian joint statement calling for non-interventionism reveals.
The remaining outstanding issue, what separates friend-to-all Hungary from Venezuela and is likely real cause of the conflict is Maduro’s militant anti-Zionism, which has been put into practice through Hugo Chavez-era infrastructure of sanctions-busting trade with Iran, who the Zionist hawks in Washington are trying to isolate further. Venezuela has become an outlier in Latin America, where regimes propped up by the US are rapidly embracing the pro-Israel Isaac’s Accords. What exactly the Israelis want in Latin America remains a matter of speculation, but this question is important enough to compel Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado to repeatedly declare her devotion to the Jewish state and openly plan to make Israel a central focus of her potential future government.
The notion that Trump was settling accounts on behalf of Israel, rather than America, appears to be taken for granted by both Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who cited the security interests of Israel for cause, as well as Maduro’s successor Delcy Rodriguez, who has publicly declared that the president’s kidnapping has “Zionist undertones.”
It is not yet clear if the British and French educated lawyer Rodriguez, the daughter of a communist guerrilla tortured to death by the CIA, is herself an American asset tasked with gradually taking apart the Bolivarian revolution from within, but the decision to keep her in power was made by the same group that murdered her father. The new president was initially purged from Hugo Chavez’s political circle in 2006, only to be brought back by Maduro in 2013 for her magical ability to operate around American sanctions and defeat diplomatic onslaughts.
Delcy’s power within the Maduro government grew after she was able to single-handedly defeat an attempt by the Organization of American States to officially ostracize Venezuela in 2017. She has been able to broker large sanctions violating underground financial transactions on behalf of her country in Europe and, as head of Venezuela’s oil sector, has been actively lobbying the US to return to take it over. She has been criticized in socialist circles for her campaign re-dollarizing the Venezuelan economy, which has exacerbated poverty and inequality in the country. Her links to enemies of Venezuela are an open secret and include secret meetings with mercenary leader Erik Prince even as his outfit was actively trying to overthrow Maduro. Her years of unusual unofficial welcome in Washington and the wealth it has provided some corrupt elements in the world of Chavismo has allowed her to accumulate enough power domestically to, over the years, root out elements suspicious of her rise.
For now, Rodriguez is urging calm and the armed forces appear to be taking her at her word that she is a good faith pragmatist rather than a traitor. The next six months of her presidency will be crucial as a boots on the ground intervention by America continues to loom.
The flood of fake videos on social media of showing celebrations of Maduro’s removal do not reflect the reality on the ground. Approval for Trump’s actions is a minority opinion in both the United States and Venezuela. General sentiment is that the populations of both America and Venezuela will suffer the consequences of yet another Washington military adventure if the Trump administration goes any further.
Supporters of American imperialism — again, a minority opinion — have sought to distance themselves from the spoiled “neo-conservative” brand and argue that this new emphasis on Latin America will be different from the disastrous War On Terror. But interventions of the kind just witnessed with Maduro in the Western Hemisphere have historically fared no better than Iraq.
A case that comes to mind is the 2009 US overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya, who like Maduro, was abducted and taken to face trial in Costa Rica on flimsy drug charges. Successive American backed governments (including an actual cocaine trafficking president Trump recently pardoned) mismanaged Honduras to the point of making it the most violent country in the world. This situation provoked a massive exodus to the US, producing a large percentage of the hundreds of thousands of so-called Northern Triangle illegal immigrants, with Honduras regularly populating the bulk of the notorious migrant caravans. From 2010 and 2020, the Honduran population in the United States increased from 490,000 to at least 1.3 million, and this is only those we know of. More than 10% of Honduras’ population now lives in America, many of them illegally.
The removal of Maduro is a regime change campaign going back 20 years, with the blame for this latest conflict shared by Democrats and Republicans equally. The substance of Washington’s global terrorism is decided by permanent bureaucrats and high finance, with the president only serving to influence the style and execution.
US to ease Venezuela oil sanctions after Maduro kidnapping: CNBC
Al Mayadeen | January 7, 2026
The United States is preparing “to recalibrate” its unilateral sanctions regime on Venezuelan oil, CNBC reported. Washington says the move would allow crude exports to continue without a fixed end date, a claim Caracas and several international observers reject as part of a coercive campaign to seize control over the country’s strategic resources.
The reported policy shift comes amid extraordinary tensions following the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro by US forces, an operation carried out without an extradition process, a United Nations mandate, or consent from Venezuelan institutions. Caracas has described the act as a grave breach of sovereignty and international law, while allied governments have warned it marks a dangerous escalation from sanctions enforcement to outright military intervention.
Against this backdrop, US President Donald Trump is expected to meet executives from major American oil companies on Friday to discuss what the White House has described as the “future” of Venezuela’s energy resources. Fox Business, citing a senior US official, said the talks will focus on managing Venezuelan oil flows as sanctions are selectively eased.
Oil Coercion Campaign
The discussions follow reports that US authorities have instructed Venezuela’s what it blatantly described as “interim leadership” to prioritize American buyers and partner exclusively with US firms in oil production, while simultaneously demanding that Caracas cut economic and security ties with key allies, including China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba.
Beijing has condemned the demands as “typical bullying,” warning that Washington is attempting to reshape Venezuela’s foreign relations and economic model through force and pressure.
Trump earlier claimed that Venezuela’s interim authorities had agreed to supply the United States with between 30 million and 50 million barrels of oil, pledging that the proceeds would be used for the benefit of both countries.
“We’re talking about 30 to 50 million barrels of oil being turned over,” Trump said. “We’re going to use the money for the benefit of the people of both countries.”
Caracas and its allies reject that framing, arguing that any such transfers, announced in the aftermath of military pressure, maritime interdictions, and the kidnapping of the country’s head of state, amount to resource extraction under duress, regardless of claims that transactions would occur at “market prices.”
Venezuelan officials note that Washington has simultaneously enforced seizures of tankers, restricted access to non-US buyers, and threatened senior political and military figures with similar treatment, narrowing Caracas’ options while portraying the outcome as voluntary trade.
Sovereignty Under Assault
The White House has yet to release full details on the scope or conditions of the sanctions rollback. Critics, however, say the sequence of events, including military escalation, leadership seizure, recognition of an interim authority, threats against remaining officials, and rapid moves to redirect oil exports, reflects a longstanding US strategy of using sanctions and force to assert control over energy assets in resource-rich states.
For Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, officials insist that oil belongs to the Venezuelan state and its people. They argue that Washington’s actions represent an escalation from economic warfare to outright aggression, setting a precedent that threatens international norms governing sovereignty, non-intervention, and the prohibition on the use of force to secure economic advantage.
Somaliland and the ‘Greater Israel’ project
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | January 7, 2026
More than a simple recognition of Somaliland, “Israel” is hatching a scheme alongside its Emirati allies aimed at a regional expansion agenda. For the so-called “Greater Israel” vision to come alive, dominance must be secured not only across West Asia and North Africa, but also throughout the Horn of Africa.
The recent decision by the occupying entity in “Tel Aviv” to recognize Somaliland as a State has triggered outrage across Africa and much of the Islamic World, while drawing condemnations from most Arab capitals, with the notable exception of Abu Dhabi.
For the most part, analysts have pointed to “Israel’s” desire to use Somaliland as a staging ground for aggression against Yemen as a primary motivation behind the move. Some have further noted that officials of the Zionist regime have expressed interest in ethnically cleansing Gaza’s people and forcibly transferring them to Somaliland. While these factors evidently inform Israeli decision-making, they do not exhaust its strategic calculus; yet the conspiracy goes much deeper.
On November 24, 2025, the influential Israeli think-tank Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) released a report detailing both the benefits and drawbacks of recognizing Somaliland. While the report acknowledged multiple strategic incentives for such a move, it ultimately advised against proceeding before the United States had done so.
The INSS had advocated against the move, hedging that such a declaration would further isolate “Israel” within the framework of the so-called “Abraham Accords”, triggering backlash on the international stage regarding the issue of Palestinian statehood.
So what changed since the Israeli think tank report?
Understanding the Israeli thinking here, such a move would not be made if they saw it as a net negative. Instead, the recognition was offered in a very public and brazen manner. In order to make sense, we therefore have to look at the broader picture.
To begin with, the normalization drive [“Abraham Accords”] has clearly stalled, at least in terms of any major developments in this regard. The last country to enter into the fold of the broader Trump administration-led normalization movement was Kazakhstan. For context, Astana already normalized ties with the Zionist regime back in 1992.
Although US President Donald Trump announced Kazakhstan’s declaration as a development of great significance, the move was clearly seen as a weak attempt at keeping the normalization project alive amid the conspicuous absence of Saudi Arabia. In parallel, an increasingly desperate Israeli entity has launched what it calls the “Isaac Accords”, a separate normalization project with Latin American nations that are client regimes of the US.
In other words, the Israelis were not actually in a position where they necessarily viewed recognition of Somaliland as an impediment to their normalization agenda. In fact, through projecting power in the Horn of Africa, they may even see it as an advancement of this project, especially given that some 6 million people who identify as belonging ethnically to Somaliland are Muslims.
Another element of the move is to assert their dominance and to lash out internationally over the wave of recognition, last September, for the state of Palestine.
In addition, the elephant in the room here is that the Israelis are currently pursuing a joint agenda with the United Arab Emirates, particularly in both the Horn of Africa and Northern Africa. This alliance seeks to co-opt sectarian movements, separatist groups, and to weaponize warlords in order to reshape the continent as a whole.
The Emirati and Israeli agendas are one in this regard. They are inseparable and connected on almost every conceivable level, this is to the point that the de facto head of intelligence operations for the UAE has long been a man named Mohammed Dahlan, well known for his alleged involvement with Mossad and the CIA; particularly in Africa.
The UAE’s proxy in Yemen, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), seized the Hadhramaut and al-Mahra provinces from Saudi-backed forces in early December, bringing around 80% of Yemen’s oil resources under their control. The STC’s militants have even been trained by “Israel”. The UAE’s move, which would not have come without Zionist backing, now threatens the stability of the Arabian Peninsula and triggered major backlash from Riyadh.
While “Israel” is reportedly seeking to build up a military presence near the strategically located port of Berbera in Somalia’s Somaliland, the UAE began constructing the Berbera airbase as early as 2017, securing access to it for a period of 25 years. Similarly, the UAE–Israeli alliance has extended to the establishment of a joint military presence on Yemen’s strategically located island of Socotra.
It is speculated that the Emirati-backed STC, in southern Yemen, may launch an offensive aimed at capturing the Ansar Allah-controlled port city of Hodeidah, likely receiving Israeli aerial support. The coastline of Somaliland lies only 300 to 500 kilometers from Ansar Allah-controlled lands, making such an air campaign much more manageable than launching strikes from occupied Palestine.
Furthermore, turning to “Israel’s” agenda in Somalia itself, it is clear that this is a calculated move that targets Türkiye. Ankara maintains enormous influence in Somalia and remains a strong proponent of the “One Somalia” agenda. Therefore, at a time of heightened regional tensions, especially in Syria, where both Turkish and Israeli forces are seeking to carve out zones of influence and establish red lines, “Tel Aviv’s” move appears to be another attempt to land a strategic blow on Ankara.
Together, the Emiratis and Israelis are adamant about combating the Muslim Brotherhood and any Islamic governments or groups that voice their concerns for the Palestinians, which is why they are lobbying Western governments so hard on these issues and running non-stop propaganda campaigns against so-called “radical Islam”.
In reality, the Israeli-UAE-backed militias in Yemen are riddled with al-Qaeda-linked fighters and hardline Takfiri Salafists. The STC’s toughest fighting force, known as the Southern Giants Brigades, is reportedly led by the core of experienced militants who are former al-Qaeda fighters. In Gaza, meanwhile, the UAE and the Zionist Entity are also backing five separate proxy militias with alleged links to ISIS.
The Emiratis and Israelis are huge fans of these Salafist militants, who are totally obedient to them and adopt a mass Takfir doctrine that they use to justify the mass slaughter of Muslims. This was the same exact strategy adopted inside Syria by the Zionists, using Wahhabi extremists to do their bidding, while dividing the Muslim World and paving the way for their expansionist agenda.
If the Zionist Entity is to achieve “Greater Israel”, the common misconception is that they wish to directly occupy the entire region between the River Nile and the Euphrates. According to the Zionist vision, they would rule as an empire instead, whereby they enter into formal alliances with countries broken up into ethno-regimes and sectarian rump States. Divide and conquer.
So, dividing Somalia, in order to help the Emirati proxy-militias secure a southern Yemeni State, is precisely in line with the Zionist agenda. They will attempt to rule these territories through proxy support, using their puppets to destroy the Palestinian cause. In the case of Somaliland, if they are to succeed, they would also certainly attempt to ethnically cleanse the population of Gaza there. In other words, Somaliland recognition isn’t a small, isolated move; it is a piece being strategically positioned on their wider chessboard.
Featured Video
7/7: Crime and Prejudice
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
How the Strategy of Fighting to the Last Ukrainian Was Sold to the Public as Morally Righteous
By Professor Glenn Diesen | November 26, 2024
For almost three years, NATO countries have boycotted diplomatic contacts with Russia, even as hundreds of thousands of men have died on the battlefield. The decision by diplomats to reject diplomacy is morally repugnant as diplomacy could have reduced the excess of violence, prevented escalation, and even resulted in a path to peace. However, the political-media elites skilfully sold the rejection of diplomacy to the public as evidence of their moral righteousness.
This article will first outline how NATO planned for a long war to exhaust Russia and knock it out from the ranks of great powers. Second, this article will demonstrate how the political-media elites communicated that diplomacy is treasonous and war is virtuous. … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
loongtip on The War On Free Speech In Aust… seversonebcfb985d9 on Scott Ritter Hiding the Domina… Richard Ong on Europe Economic Panic Kate on Bird Flu Outbreak 40 Miles Fro… loongtip on US announces Gaza ‘Board of Pe… Richard Jones on Peaceful Finland? Think Twice:… Richard Jones on Bird Flu Outbreak 40 Miles Fro… loongtip on Bird Flu Outbreak 40 Miles Fro… loongtip on Scott Ritter says he was … loongtip on Eilat port faces worst crisis… loongtip on British minister dreams of kid… loongtip on Kiev awards major mining proje…
Aletho News- Every House Democrat Votes Against Defunding A Cutout Of The CIA
- What a War on Iran Would Really Look Like — Beyond the Regime-Change Fantasy
- Scott Ritter Hiding the Dominant Minority Behind Geopolitics?
- Europe Economic Panic
- The War On Free Speech In Australia Is Getting Cartoonishly Absurd
- Disruptive science (part two)
- Palestinian prisoners in 2025: Shocking figures and escalating violations
- US announces Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ amid ongoing Israeli ceasefire breaches
- Hamas: Israeli minister’s boasting over Gaza’s destruction an open admission of genocide
- Peaceful Finland? Think Twice: Nazi Alliance Was Pre-Planned Before WWII
- If Americans Knew
- As world leaders squabble over controlling Gaza, another baby freezes to death – Not a ceasefire Day 100
- Trump “Board of Peace” for Gaza is stacked with Israel supporters – Not a ceasefire Day 99
- Iran Does Not Hate Americans… But It Has Legitimate Reasons to Do So
- How an Israeli Firm Spreads Lies and Chaos Around the World
- ADL ‘Helping’ Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro ‘Take Down’ Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, CEO Suggests
- Israel is Destroying Hope for the Future: Reproductive Violence in Gaza
- J Street is the new AIPAC in the Democratic Party
- The fate of Gaza’s disappeared remains unknown
- The U.S. has announced ‘Phase 2’ of the Gaza ceasefire. Here’s why it doesn’t matter for Palestinians.
- 30 tons of rubble for every resident of Gaza – Not a ceasefire Day 98
- No Tricks Zone
- Philosopher Schopenhauer: Climate Science Certainty Stems From Stupidity, Ignorance
- New Study: Species Extinction Rates Declining Since 1980 – ‘Climate Change Is Not An Important Threat’
- Denmark Places Climate Protection Above Animal Welfare, Poisoning And Culling Cows
- New Study: Greenland Was 3-7°C Warmer And Far Less Glaciated Than Today 6000-8000 Years Ago
- German Media Report That Current Frigid Weather Can Be Explained By Arctic Warming!
- Berlin Blackout Shows Germany’s $5 Trillion Green Scheme Is “Left-Green Ideological Pipe Dream”
- Modeling Error In Estimating How Clouds Affect Climate Is 8700% Larger Than Alleged CO2 Forcing
- Berlin’s Terror-Blackout Enters 4th Day As Tens Of Thousands Suffer In Cold Without Heat!
- Expect Soon Another PIK Paper Claiming Warming Leads To Cold Snaps Over Europe
- New Study: Human CO2 Emissions Responsible For 1.57% Of Global Temperature Change Since 1750
Aletho News 