Barackface

Friday, June 13, 2025

13: Trump Polls

Empty Country (novel)
Trump’s Default: The Mist Of Empire (novel)
The 20% Growth Revolution: Nepal’s Path to Prosperity Through Kalkiism
Rethinking Trade: A Blueprint for a Just and Thriving Global Economy
The $500 Billion Pivot: How the India-US Alliance Can Reshape Global Trade
Trump’s Trade War
Peace For Taiwan Is Possible
Formula For Peace In Ukraine
The Last Age of War, The First Age of Peace: Lord Kalki, Prophecies, and the Path to Global Redemption
AOC 2028: : The Future of American Progressivism

🚨BREAKING: @HispanicCaucus chairman Adriano Espaillat calls for the agents who assaulted Senator Alex Padilla to be arrested. pic.twitter.com/jw8gEPIT8B
— Pablo Manríquez (@PabloReports) June 12, 2025

Finally, it's all underwater pic.twitter.com/j6HxVug8mZ
— Polling USA (@USA_Polling) June 12, 2025

Russia’s War in Ukraine Is Now ‘Faltering’ Russian casualties reached the one million mark (killed and wounded) on June 12, 2025. .......... Russia has suffered these staggering personnel and equipment losses for minimal territorial gain, with its rate of advance in some areas slower than in World War I. ........... Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but the war started eight years before that when they seized Crimea and parts of the Donbas, with the appearance of “little green men.” ....... While the war of attrition has stalemated both sides, the Russians insist they are winning with their propaganda releases, and the West has generally been swayed by this idea. President Trump insisted that Russia “holds all the cards.” ........ Russia has also lost 10,933 tanks, 22,786 armored fighting vehicles, 51,579 vehicles and fuel tanks, 29,063 artillery systems, 1,413 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,184 air defense systems, 416 airplanes, 337 helicopters, 40,435 drones, 3,337 cruise missiles, 28 ships and boats, and one submarine. ........ “The overall losses of the Russian occupying forces in manpower since the beginning of the full-scale invasion have reached 1 million,” The General Staff added. “More than 628,000 occurred in just the past year and a half.” ........... This year, Russia has been losing on average 1,286 soldiers per day. ...... None of the strategic objectives that Putin had set out to accomplish have been achieved. .......... Putin’s miscalculation of how the West would react has cost him a million casualties, an incredible number of vehicles, aircraft, ships, artillery, and equipment lost, and now NATO is on his border in the strategic Arctic region. ........ "The Russians were so concerned about the plan getting out and Ukraine being able to prepare that they actually didn't tell their soldiers. If you don't tell soldiers what they're about to do, they can't achieve their objective. There were actually some soldiers who thought they were there on an exercise. They didn't actually believe that a military operation was taking place. ....... Efforts to recruit new troops are slowing down, despite the government offering increased monetary incentives equal to three times the national average to join. The public is also opposed to another call-up of reserves. ......... The massive loss of tanks and armored vehicles is unsustainable. Numbers vary depending on the source, but Russia is bringing back old, obsolete Soviet stock for a reason. ........ growing numbers of Russians are unwilling to fight in the war. Some 81 percent of those aged between 18 and 30 oppose another round of mobilization to feed the “meat grinder” at the front ........ In a January 2025 poll, ending the conflict was the top priority for 68 percent of Russian respondents

Trump, on 'No Kings' Protests: 'I Don’t Feel Like a King'
Ban Trump? Top genocide scholar issues dire warning He is deploying troops to occupy opposition-held cities, openly soliciting bribes from the world’s dictators and threatening to annex his democratic neighbors, all while sending people guilty of literally nothing to foreign prisons where they are expected to remain until the day they die. That’s it: that’s the case for treating President Donald Trump, the authoritarian head of an increasingly belligerent nation, like an international pariah. ......... Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, founding president of Genocide Watch, a group that aims to predict and punish targeted mass murder ........... a 10-stage guide to knowing how and when such killings are set in motion (one early sign: those in power likening members of an ostracized class to “animals, vermin, insects or disease”). ..........

Stanton insists that diplomacy with Trump is worse than a lost cause. The American president is no “ordinary adversary” who can be wined, dined and reasoned with, he said, but someone who “stands far outside the bounds of diplomacy and the rule of law between civilized nations.”

........... “He is a Nazi,” Stanton insisted. “Negotiating with Nazis didn’t prove useful in 1939. It won’t now either.” ............ The White House itself says Trump's threats are no joke, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt describing Canada as the “soon-to-be 51st state.” Carney’s predecessor also insisted that his American counterpart was deadly serious. ....... Justin Trudeau told business leaders earlier this year, saying he’s after the country’s mineral wealth and that his threats to annex the country are “a real thing.” .............. In 2014, after Russia illegally annexed Crimea, the world’s leading economies decided that it was no longer worth inviting Vladimir Putin to have tea and scones at the now-defunct G8; diplomacy in the decade before, clung to as the only means of preventing another armed conflict on European soil, had through the mirage of steady engagement blinded Western leaders to the possibility of an imminent war and soothed consciences as they deepened their dependence on Russian fossil fuels. ........... Trump is today lobbying for Russia’s return to the G7/G8 because, perhaps, he recognizes something that America’s erstwhile allies do not: that there is no difference, morally speaking, between the White House and the Kremlin, both of which desire a world where lip service to universal truths (and rights and wrongs) is dropped in favor of vulgar, thuggish self-interest, pursued without apology.

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The Untapped Power of South-South Trade: A New Road to Global Prosperity

The Untapped Power of South-South Trade: A New Road to Global Prosperity

For too long, global trade conversations have revolved around the traditional corridors of the Global North — between the U.S., Europe, China, and Japan. But beneath the radar, a different story is unfolding: the rise of South-South trade. This quiet revolution, fueled by shared experiences, complementary strengths, and rapidly evolving digital tools, could be the single greatest catalyst for shared prosperity in the 21st century.

Learning from Peers, Trading with Peers

In education, it's often said that students learn best from those who are just a step ahead — not from the world’s top experts. The same principle applies to trade. When countries at similar stages of development collaborate, they understand each other’s challenges better and can co-create more relevant solutions. Many Global South economies share similar development timelines, infrastructural needs, and demographic profiles. This common ground forms the perfect basis for mutual growth.

The Case for a Digital African Currency Zone

Africa, for instance, is primed to leap ahead. A continent-wide digital currency zone, powered by mobile money, blockchain, and AI, could overcome many of the problems that plagued earlier monetary unions like the Eurozone. The mistakes of the past don’t have to be repeated when today's tools allow real-time tracking, smart contracts, and decentralized risk-sharing mechanisms.

This could supercharge intra-African trade, reduce dependence on foreign currencies, and increase financial inclusion in ways that physical infrastructure never could.

India's Digital Blueprint: A Global Asset

India’s digital public infrastructure, led by Aadhaar (biometric ID) and UPI (real-time payment interface), may be one of the most exportable governance innovations of our time. Unlike China’s investment-heavy Belt and Road Initiative, India’s "code not concrete" model is lighter, faster, and cheaper to implement — especially across African and Southeast Asian nations that are eager to digitize without taking on unsustainable debt.

Much like how many nations skipped landline phones and jumped directly to mobile, developing economies can now bypass traditional financial infrastructure and leap into the digital future. Indian blockchain companies, working alongside local fintechs, could create an entirely new architecture for South-South payments and remittances.

Labor as Trade: A Forgotten Cornerstone

Trade isn’t just goods and capital — it’s also people. The Gulf-South Asia labor corridor offers a case study in how mobile labor has fueled development on both ends. South Asian workers helped build Gulf megacities; their remittances transformed villages back home. This "trade in labor" model could inspire better immigration reform in countries like the United States, where economic needs clash with nativist politics.

Rather than criminalize undocumented workers, the answer lies in documenting them. Managed migration, seasonal work visas, and bilateral agreements can formalize labor flows — respecting human dignity while boosting productivity.

Recognizing the Growth That’s Already Happened

It’s time we corrected a blind spot in the global narrative. The Global South has not merely waited for development; it has already grown — dramatically. The same three decades that saw China’s rise also witnessed explosive growth in parts of Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. But because it was dispersed and less centralized, it often went unnoticed.

This overlooked momentum is not just real — it’s ripe for acceleration.

Conclusion: A South-South Century

We are standing at the threshold of a new economic age. The old north-south hierarchy is giving way to a horizontal network of collaboration among emerging powers. With digital tools, youthful populations, and a growing confidence in their own models, the Global South is poised not just to participate in globalization — but to redefine it.

Let us not waste this moment. The fastest path to mutual prosperity may well lie in the Global South trading with itself — building a world economy that is fairer, more human, and more in tune with the realities of the majority.

At the end of the classic 1972 film The Godfather, the new don of the family, Michael Corleone, attends a baptism while his men wipe out the heads of the other New York Mafia families—all of them Michael’s enemies, and all intending one day to do him harm. Rather than wait for their eventual attacks, Michael dispatches them himself. “Today, I settled all family business,” Michael says to his traitorous brother-in-law, before having him killed. ............. Tonight, the Israelis launched a broad, sweeping attack on Iran that seems like an attempt to settle, so to speak, all family business. The Israeli government has characterized this offensive as a “preemptive” strike on Iran: “We are now in a strategic window of opportunity and close to a point of no return, and we had no choice but to take action,” an Israeli military official told reporters. Israeli spokespeople suggest that these attacks, named Operation Rising Lion, could go on for weeks. ............ But calling this a “preemptive” strike is questionable. The Israelis, from what we know so far, are engaged in a preventive war: They are removing the source of a threat by surprise, on their own timetable and on terms they find favorable. They may be justified in doing so, but such actions carry great moral and practical risks. ........... Preemptive attacks, in both international law and the historical traditions of war, are spoiling attacks, meant to thwart an imminent attack. In both tradition and law, this form of self-defense is perfectly defensible, similar to the principle in domestic law that when a person cocks a fist or pulls a gun, the intended victim does not need to stand there and wait to get punched or shot.

Middle East airspace shut after Israel strikes Iran, airlines cancel flights Airlines steered clear of much of the Middle East on Friday after Israeli attacks on Iranian sites forced carriers to cancel or divert thousands of flights in the latest upheaval to travel in the region. ......... Proliferating conflict zones around the world are becoming an increasing burden on airline operations and profitability, and more of a safety concern. Detours add to airlines' fuel costs and lengthen journey times. ........ Israel on Friday said it targeted Iran's nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders at the start of what it warned would be a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon. .......... FlightRadar data showed airspace over Iran, Iraq and Jordan was empty, with flights directed towards Saudi Arabia and Egypt instead. ....... With Russian and Ukrainian airspace closed due to war, the Middle East region has become an even more important route for international flights between Europe and Asia.

Empty Country https://t.co/yMDHpkCSP2
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 13, 2025

The Untapped Power of South-South Trade: A New Road to Global Prosperity https://t.co/Tq1jdiFXN8 @haugejostein @SATravelTrade @jasonhickel
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) June 13, 2025

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