Laura Ru

Can birds of different feathers fly together and function effectively as a flock? In 2017 Giulio Gallarotti argued that great diversity not only does NOT inhibit the effectiveness of the BRICS as a bloc, indeed it demonstrates that greater diversity in fact augments the effectiveness of the BRICS as a vehicle for generating soft power in the international system for these nations. In the case of the BRICS, more diversity leads to greater influence. https://shs.cairn.info/journal-hermes-la-revue-2017-3-page-183?lang=en#re4no4

Elon Musk’s SpaceX asked Taiwanese suppliers to transfer manufacturing of satellite components outside Taiwan due to "geopolitical risks."
Starlink suppliers such as China-Moon Industrial have confirmed SpaceX's request to move production to Thailand. Another partner, Wistron NeWeb, has already started manufacturing Starlink components in Vietnam and plans to expand production. (Source: SCMP) @LauraRuHK https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/article/3285352/spacex-asks-taiwanese-suppliers-move-production-abroad-geopolitical-risks?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article

During the plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club, Vladimir Putin made these very important remarks about the conflict in Ukraine:
"Our opponents find new ways, instruments, to try to get rid of us. Now, they use Ukraine as such instrument, they use Ukrainians, whom they shamelessly drill against Russians, effectively turning them into cannon fodder."

Kiev received orders from overseas to hold the ground in Russia’s Kursk Region at all costs until the US presidential election. As a result, Kiev lost over 30,000 troops over more than three months of hostilities - "more than the Kiev regime’s total losses during the entire year of 2023."

Good-neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine are impossible without Kiev’s neutrality. This is the main precondition to make sure that Ukraine does not become an instrument in someone else’s hands: "The basic preconditions for the normalization of relations will not be established, and the situation would unfold by an unpredictable scenario. We would very much like to avoid it."

The border between Ukraine and Russia should run along the line determined by the sovereign decision of the residents of Donbass and Novorossiya who joined Russia following the results of the referendum: "Everything depends on the dynamics of the ongoing events."

Moscow is ready for peace talks on Ukraine, based not on Kiev’s "wishlists that change from month to month but on the situation on the ground and the agreements that were reached in Istanbul."

Ukraine needs not a temporary truce, but a long-term settlement, which is crucial for the two brotherly peoples: "It should not be about a truce for half an hour or six months, just for shells to be delivered there. We should create favorable conditions for restoring relations and future cooperation in the interests of the two peoples, which are certainly brotherly, no matter how much the situation has been complicated by rhetoric and today’s tragic events." (Source: TASS) @LauraRuHK https://tass.com/politics/1869419

Vladimir Putin at the Valdai International Discussion Club.

"The modern world is unpredictable. If you look back 20 years and evaluate the scale of changes, and then project these changes onto the coming years, you can assume that the next twenty years will be no less, if not more difficult. And how much more difficult they will be, depends on the multitude of factors. As I understand, you are coming together at the Valdai Club exactly to analyse all these factors and try to make some predictions, some forecasts.

There comes, in a way, the moment of truth. The former world arrangement is irreversibly passing away, actually it has already passed away, and a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the development of a new world order. It is irreconcilable, above all, because this is not even a fight for power or geopolitical influence. It is a clash of the very principles that will underlie the relations of countries and peoples at the next historical stage. Its outcome will determine whether we will be able, through joint efforts, to build a world that will allow all nations to develop and resolve emerging contradictions based on mutual respect for cultures and civilisations, without coercion and use of force. And finally, whether the human society will be able to retain its ethical humanistic principles, and whether an individual will be able to remain human."

You can read the full speech here.

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75521

Over a year ago i asked the question "Who will be the fall guy for the US fiasco in Ukraine?" Trump's victory makes it easier for Washington to blame failure on the previous administration. Actually, if Harris had won it would have been more complicated to find a way out because Democrat donors are far more invested in Ukraine than Republican ones. Washington is in a
Zugzwang, and none of the moves it can make in Ukraine will lead to a good outcome. Trump delivering on his campaign promise to end the conflict would be a safer option for the US than escalating it. That might explain why the Deep State chose not to rig the election. https://t.me/LauraRuHK/6482

Lithuania can no longer afford the cost of living in a parallel universe 🤣 https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202411/1322587.shtml

NATO has no prospects and therefore should disband.

"In my opinion NATO's prospects are gloomy because it has become an aggressive and cynical political bloc" - the head of the State Duma Defense Committee Andrei Kartapolov said on November 7.

He clarified that after dissolving the organization, NATO's countries need to find their separate path for development or join the BRICS. Earlier, on August 29, retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel and political consultant Earl Rasmussen said that a split had formed among NATO countries due to doubts about the alliance's policy of confrontation with Russia and China. (Source: iz.ru @LauraRuHK https://iz.ru/1786844/2024-11-07/deputat-kartapolov-prizval-nato-samoraspustitsia

In my latest article i argue that the creation of the Colour Revolutions industry was encouraged by the neoliberal turn of American capitalism that called for outsourcing government and military functions.

Gene Sharp, who would later be described as the “Clausewitz of nonviolent warfare,” offered an alternative to the dominant view that security and defense must be provided by the state. As early as the 1960s the executive branch had encouraged the outsourcing of non-inherently governmental functions to private firms. The practice would gradually increase and eventually extend to military functions — at the end of the Cold War military contracting exploded. It became so prevalent that The New York Times called contractors the fourth branch of the government.

The strategy and tactics outlined by Sharp would enable the U.S. to weaponize social forces behind the Iron Curtain without triggering a military conflict, an option deemed too dangerous since the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear warheads. But most importantly, the job of capturing intellectual elites, inciting division and conducting ideological infiltration could be outsourced to non-state actors such as NGOs, media organizations, lobbies, religious groups, aid agencies, and transnational diaspora communities. As the number of stakeholders and their agendas increased, so did their involvement in shaping the national and foreign policy of the U.S. But as the saying goes, too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth.

https://medium.com/p/d258e451900e

Unleashing Chaos. The Sorcerer's Apprentices. The unholy alliance between American finance and NGOs involved in regime change. 🔸My latest article🔸Gene Sharp, widely considered the godfather of colour revolutions, published his first book, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, in 1973, at a time when the U.S. was mired in a series of crises — economic, political, military — that were eroding confidence in its government domestically and thwarting its geopolitical ambitions. The response to those crises set the course for the following decades.▪️After fifty years it is abundantly clear that though these responses disrupted the post-war global order and led to the U.S. ‘unipolar moment’, they did nothing to address issues that are systemic and structural. If anything, these ‘solutions’ created more, and more intractable, problems for the hegemon that culminated in the crisis of legitimacy the U.S. is currently facing.

Due to the division of academic fields into distinct disciplines, each with its own research focus, so far no one has noticed this strange concurrence of events - the publication of Gene Sharp’s first work, aptly described as a Hybrid War field manual, coincided with the end of Bretton Woods, a turning point that gave new impetus to the financialization of the American economy. Finance was ‘liberated’ from any functional connection to the real economy, becoming a source of great wealth from speculation but also the grand destabilizer of both the domestic and global economy.

Those who had a vested interest in this ‘liberation of the economy’ invested millions of dollars in the ‘liberation from Communism’ and the grooming of new elites that would put an end to the controlled economies and politics of the Eastern Bloc. The fall of the Berlin Wall led to what George Soros called an “explosive period of growth” for his hedge fund (...) While large multinational companies and financial capital organized a takeover of political power, labour and middle-class interests were pushed to the sidelines. Dollar dominance in the global financial system led to an era of hyper-globalization characterized by the primacy of shareholder capitalism, with deregulation and privatization acting as its handmaidens.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/11/04/unleashing-chaos/

Social media increase and shape polarization by moving people into echo chambers and incentivizing intergroup conflict. We all know that simplification, manicheism, fear-mongering, bias-confirmation, rumour-mongering, bombastic claims, wishful thinking, personal attacks, amped up moral and emotional messages result in more views, which in turn generates revenue for media platforms and those who create content to make this business model profitable. There is little room for nuances, complexity and rational debate in that space. And yet this is what we need the most. If you want to take a break from simplified narratives and generalizations, this report by the Valdai club is a good reference for assessing the position and activities of different international partners of Russia and the potential for developing cooperation. @LauraRuHK https://valdaiclub.com/files/45663/

Taiwanese secessionists attack Cantopop superstar Andy Lau - Recently, Hong Kong singer Andy Lau held a concert at the Taipei Arena, where he performed the well-known song "Chinese People." Created to celebrate Hong Kong's return to China, the song has been a staple in Andy Lau's concert tours for over 20 years. However, in Taipei, some politicians from the pan-Green camp (pro-secession in the island's political spectrum) reacted strongly, claiming that "Andy Lau is here to engage in united front work" and stating that the concert "is not worth seeing."

This reaction reveals just how fragile the mind-set of "Taiwan independence" supporters truly is.

"Hand in hand, regardless of you and me; heads up high, walking forward; let the world know we are Chinese …" In the eyes of "Taiwan independence" secessionists, these lyrics have already made them feel "attacked." They resorted to their usual tactics, attempting to label Andy Lau as "pro-Communist" and unleashing a wave of hate-filled reports and comments to incite online attacks against him, thereby politicizing a normal cultural exchange.

However, they likely overlooked the fact that both the lyricist and composer of this song are from Taiwan. During the concert, when Andy Lau sang "Chinese People," the chorus from the entire audience further demonstrated the sentiments of the people on the island.

"Taiwan independence" secessionists collude with anti-China forces by selling out Taiwan region's interests, while on the island, they are overly sensitive and view everything as a threat. Any association with the "mainland" or "motherland" is met with all kinds of suppression.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202411/1322388.shtml

Hugo Dionisio nails it. The degradation of the Western education system is one of the clearest examples that neoliberal capitalism is a parasite destroying its host.

"The more aware the peoples from the global majority have been about the predatory nature of the Western oligarchy, the less aware the Western peoples are of the reasons why their living conditions are worsening. Western peoples are in a counter-cycle with the peoples of the global majority, in every way. As the latter gain self-awareness, the former become increasingly unaware of their own being, alienated as they are from their roots, cultures, families, communities…A fundamental vector for the production of this unconsciousness, translated into a growing critical and analytical incapacity on the part of Western populations, has been precisely the area of education. The degradation of public education systems is not only one of the most repugnant characteristics of the systems that succumb to revanchism, historical and scientific revisionism, it is also the driving force behind this reactionary process."

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/11/03/neoliberalism-and-the-destruction-of-conscience/