NSS, Drugs and Technocracy in Latin America

Version 2: Fri, May 8, 2026

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The first version of this post came out on Feb 13 with title “NSS, Drugs and Marco Rubio”. In this version I have added links to the expanding role of technocracy Latin America.

In the context of the “Trump Corollary” to the the Monroe Doctrine, technocracy is a new way (attack vector if you like) to dominate the hemisphere, and that explains the title change.

There is also a section with most of the books mentioned in the articles.

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By U.S. Department of State - https://www.state.gov/biographies/marco-rubio/, Public Domain, Link

Official portrait of U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio - Wikimedia

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NSS on Drugs and

The National Security Strategy 2025 was published on December 5, and mentions drugs on page 11 (NSS 2025):

We must protect our country from invasion, not just from unchecked migration but from cross-border threats such as terrorism, drugs, espionage, and human trafficking. A border controlled by the will of the American people as implemented by their government is fundamental to the survival of the United States as a sovereign republic.

NSS on the ‘Western Hemisphere’ (essentially Latin America) on page 5:

We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine;

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Maureen Tkacik on Rubio’s family, CIA and drugs

On December 23, The America Prospect Magazine published Maureen Tkacik’s article (Tkacik 2025).

A few weeks later, on January 11, 2026, Tkacik talked with Chris Hedges and the transcript of the interview was published by the Brave New Europe magazine (Hedges 2026).

The fact that Marco Rubio’s brother in law Orlando Cicilia wwent to prison for 12 years for drug trafficking has been reported before (Roig-Franzia 2015).

Tkacik goes beyond Cicila to the head of the gang Guillermo Tabraue and to the Cuban anti-communist Bay of Pigs veteran and drug-trafficking with CIA milieu. She writes (Tkacik 2025):

On the tenth week of Guillermo Tabraue’s 1989 criminal trial, a man named Gary Mattocks showed up at the courthouse and testified that he’d been Guillermo Tabraue’s handler for four years at the CIA’s DEACON project inside the DEA. Mattocks had previously been the liaison of Sandinista defector Edén Pastora, a prolific Contra trafficker based in Costa Rica; both had been present during Barry Seal’s sting operation. It was rumored George Bush himself had personally ordered Mattocks to disrupt the proceeding.

This is the environment that Marco Rubio grew up into and it seems it has influenced his politics and his views about foreign policy.

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Rubio’s entanglements in Latin America

From (Tkacik 2025):

Ecuador

In September, Rubio hailed Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa, who leads a country whose homicide rate has risen eightfold since 2016, as an “incredibly willing partner” who “has done more just in the last couple years to take the fight to these narco-terrorists and these threats to the security and stability of Ecuador than any previous administration.” Just five months earlier, a damning investigation revealed that Noboa’s family fruit business had trafficked 700 kilos of cocaine to Europe in banana crates between 2020 and 2022.

Daniel Noboa’s family business, President of Ecuador, is involved in cocaine trafficking to Europe https://revistaraya.com/daniel-noboas-family-business-president-of-ecuador-is-involved-in-cocaine-trafficking-to-europe - 29 Mar 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/ZYYe1

Comment: Given the extensive presence of the Albanian mafia in Ecuador, additional ‘exciting’ linkages should be explored. CIA did not have any qualms bringing drugs into their country, so why would they have any problems doing the same using for example the Albanian Mafia to bring cocaie into Europe?

Chile

Rubio has been one of the Beltway’s biggest backers of newly elected Chilean president José Antonio Kast, the son of a literal Nazi war criminal who has spent his entire political career lionizing, whitewashing, and promising a restoration of the brutal reign of Augusto Pinochet, who personally ordered the Chilean army to build a cocaine laboratory, consolidated the narcotics trade inside his terrifying secret police, and then allegedly “disappeared” key conspirators like his secret police chemist Eugenio Berríos.

(Blanch 2026) has additional information on Honduras and Venezuela. In the photo below Marco Rubio with Juan Guaido - 2022 - Wikimedia

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By Office of Senator Marco Rubio - https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=B638230C-5967-4366-AD95-90D80807C398, Public Domain, Link

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Technocracy Rising: What’s the end game in Latin America?

(Tkacik 2025) says:

Today, Marco Rubio is the Trump administration’s most formidable liar. … But Rubio’s approval ratings are the highest in the Republican Party, even as he is the architect of what is arguably Trump’s single most cynical policy: the scheme to appoint drug cartel bosses and their cronies atop the governments of every Latin American country, in the name of fighting drug cartels.

Tkacik is right, drugs will continue to play a major role, but there is something new. Commenting myself from the previous post:

Comment: If that pans out we should expect uncertainty to increase in Latin America and even more weak governments. That would open the field for people like Peter Thiel to push for projects like Prospera and Alex Karp to be there to provide security services.

The comment was in the right direction but things are moving fast:

(Moreno 2026) A Neocolonial Billionaire Fantasy in Honduras https://consortiumnews.com/2026/02/23/a-neocolonial-billionaire-fantasy-in-honduras/ by Edith Romero - Consortium News - Feb 23, 2026 - Archive https://archive.ph/Iuh6J

Among other corrupt dealings and land grabs, the government approved a law that enabled the creation of Peter Thiel’s Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs). ZEDEs derive from the idea of “charter cities.”

Proposed by former World Bank executive and economist Paul Romer, these proposed cities are enclaves within lower-income nations that “promote economic growth” through privatization and the disposal of national regulations, while gifting major tax incentives for foreign nations to invest in businesses.

Special economic zones in Kenya, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia have faced criticism due to low wages, harsh working conditions, and threats to rights to free association and collective bargaining. Romer, one of the initial proponents of ZEDEs in Honduras, expressed criticism in 2015 regarding the Honduran ZEDEs and their lack of accountability to local laws, and anti-democratic governance.

These ZEDEs are a project of Praxis, a tech billionaire-funded start-up that aims to create libertarian city-states to “restore Western Civilization.”

And she continues later on:

A sought-after spot for foreign luxury tourism and investment, Roatan saw the foundation of Próspera in 2017 with funding from the likes of Peter Thiel and Pronomos Capital led by Patri Friedman, a grandson of Milton Friedman, seen by many as the father of neoliberalism, deregulation and privatization.

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Nasry Asfura with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, Feb. 7, 2026. (White House /Joyce N. Boghosian) - Source: Consortium News

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(Nino 2025) The Real Story Behind Trump’s Pardon of Juan Orlando Hernández: The story of a man who turned a lifetime of pro-Israel service into the ultimate form of political protection https://www.josealnino.org/p/the-real-story-behind-trumps-pardon by José Alberto Niño - José Niño Unfiltered - Dec 06, 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/ulUg0

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(Red Diary 2025) EXCLUSIVE: Audios reveal that Israel paid for the release of Juan Orlando Hernández and that Trump is helping him return to the presidency of Honduras https://www.diario-red.com/articulo/america-latina/exclusiva-audios-revelan-que-israel-pago-liberacion-juan-orlando-hernandez-que-trump-ayudando-regresar-presidencia-honduras/20260429021833068541.html by Valeria Duarte Galleguillos - Red Diary - 30/04/26 - Archive <> #Hondurasgate

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(Corbishley 2026) Leaked Audio Files Point to Israeli Involvement in Trump’s Pardon of Honduran “Narco-President” Juan Orlando Hernández https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/05/leaked-audios-point-to-israeli-role-in-trumps-presidential-pardon-of-honduran-narco-president.html by Nick Corbishley - Naked Capitalism - May 1, 2026 - Archive https://archive.is/TRE5q

The Trump and Netanyahu governments allegedly have big plans for the newly freed Hernández, including putting him back in power in Honduras.

Leaked WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal audio messages published this week by the Spanish news website Canal RED suggest that pro-Israel groups helped secure President Trump’s pardon of Honduran president and convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernandez, popularly known by his initials JOH, from US federal prison late last year.

According to the recordings, the arrangement consisted of trading Trump’s pardon for a package of concessions in Honduras. However, as Drop Site News notes, “they do not clearly delineate which concessions are assigned to which actor, but frame them as part of a joint U.S.- and Israel-aligned agenda in the country”.

According to Corbishley “The audio files, if authentic, imply that the US and Israel are pursuing four main objectives in their support of JOH:”

• The expansion of special employment and economic zones, or ZEDEs as they are known in Honduras.
• New US military base, or bases
• A free trade agreement, with all the usual strings attached, including presumably provisions for International State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)
• Legislation to encourage investment by AI companies from the US and Israel, with contracts awarded directly to companies such as General Electric

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(Jimenez 2026) Palantir in Argentina and the Future of U.S. Dominance https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/04/palantir-in-argentina-and-the-future-of-u-s-dominance.html by Curro Jimenez - Naked Capitalism - April 28, 2026 - Archive https://archive.ph/3QIMw

Peter Thiel has bought a $12 million house in the most exclusive area of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has also held meetings with government officials and the president, who described the encounter as a “wonderful conversation among anarcho-capitalists.” But that’s not quite all.

The content of those conversations has not been made public; however, local media reports that Thiel held meetings with presidential advisor Santiago Caputo and the head of the Ministry of Deregulation and State Transformation, Federico Sturzenegger. According to those reports, these meetings addressed, among other topics, the country’s technological and energy potential.

When Thiel meets with government officials, we must assume that it is not simply out of a feeling of friendship. He is the co-founder of Palantir, a technology company specialized in selling surveillance software applied to civil and military scenarios so states. We should probably assume, as local media does, that those discussions were on the table, since Milei had expressed an interest beforehand and in 2024 founded the Artificial Intelligence Unit Applied to Security.

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Sources

(NSS2025) National Security Strategy 2025 https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf PDF 33 pages - November, 2025

(Tkacik 2025) The Narco-Terrorist Elite: Why is Marco Rubio so hell-bent on making Iran-Contra again? https://prospect.org/2025/12/23/narco-terrorist-elite-rubio-south-america-iran-contra/ By Maureen Tkacik - The American Prospect - December 23, 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/TMw63

(Hedges 2026) Maureen Tkacik, Chris Hedges: The Narco-Trafficking Elite Set to Run Venezuela https://braveneweurope.com/maureen-tkacik-chris-hedges-the-narco-trafficking-elite-set-to-run-venezuela Chris Hedges talks with Maureen Tkacik - BNE - January 11, 2026 - Archive https://archive.ph/uBHKY

(Roig-Franzia 2015) The drug-smuggling case that brought anguish to Marco Rubio’s family https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-drug-smuggling-ring-that-brought-anguish-tomarco-rubios-family/2015/12/12/473f3a2c-9db6-11e5-a3c5-c77f2cc5a43c_story.html By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Scott Higham - Washington Post - December 12, 2015 - Archive https://archive.ph/XP7PL

(Blanch 2026) The mythomaniac Marco Rubio: The U.S. Secretary of State epitomizes the moral crisis of the empire’s elites https://en.granma.cu/mundo/2026-01-08/the-mythomaniac-marco-rubio by Hedelberto López Blanch - Granma - January 8, 2026 - Archive https://archive.ph/4ukZ3

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Books

(Anderson 2018) Che: A Revolutionary Life https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/548044/che-by-jon-lee-anderson-and-jose-hernandez/ By Jon Lee Anderson, Penguin Press, 2018.

(Castillo 1994) Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras & the Drug War By Celerino Castillo III and Dave Harmon Mosaic Press 1994

(Harp 2025) The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730414/the-fort-bragg-cartel-by-seth-harp/ By Seth Harp, Viking, 2025

A groundbreaking investigation into a string of unsolved murders at America’s premier special operations base, and what the crimes reveal about drug trafficking and impunity among elite soldiers in today’s military

(Kolb 2008) America at Night: The True Story of Two Rogue CIA Operatives, Homeland Security Failures, Dirty Money, and a Plot to Steal the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/297016/america-at-night-by-larry-j-kolb/ By Larry J. Kolb - Penguin, 2008

(Marshall 1987) The Iran-Contra connection : secret teams and covert operations in the Reagan era https://archive.org/details/irancontraconnec0000mars/page/n5/mode/2up by Marshall, Jonathan, Peter Dale Scott and Jane Haapiseva-Hunter, South End Press, 1987

(McCoy 2003) The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade by Alfred W. McCoy and Cathleen B. Read - The third and expanded edition was published in 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia (ISBN 1-55652-483-8).

(Roig-Franzia 2015) The Rise of Marco Rubio https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Rise-of-Marco-Rubio/Manuel-Roig-Franzia/9781451675467 By Manuel Roig-Franzia, Simon & Schuster, 2015

(Rubio 2012) An American Son: A Memoir https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/311989/an-american-son-by-marco-rubio/ISBN9781101592373 By Marco Rubio, Penguin, 2012

(Scott 1998) Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America https://www.peterdalescott.net/bib3a/ by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, University of California Press, 1998

Discusses the Kerry Report and the body of evidence that the CIA dealt with and protected drug traffickers in Central America, finally admitted by the CIA in 1998 in an Inspector General’s Report.

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For inspiration:

By Agustín Casasola - https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56420085e4b0a6ed01ccece1/58ec1c7cd482e9e6fdab471e/58ec1cb16a49630e8a3f5e5e/1491868856228/Emiliano+Zapata.jpg, Public Domain, Link

Emiliano Zapata in 1914 - Wikimedia

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Started: Fri, Feb 13, 2026

About Metagora

China Sci Tech Update

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By denn - Tsinghua, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

The Tsinghua University campus in Beijing, China. - Source: Wikimedia

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A recent article:

(Wagner 2026) China surpasses US in research spending – the consequences extend far beyond scientific ranking and clout https://theconversation.com/china-surpasses-us-in-research-spending-the-consequences-extend-far-beyond-scientific-ranking-and-clout-280543 by Caroline Wagner - The Conversation - April 24, 2026 - Archive https://archive.ph/5NSCR

Caroline Wagner is Professor of Public Affairs, at the Ohio State University.

From the article (emphasis added):

• 2019: China “surpassed the U.S. in its share of the top 1% most-highly cited papers – what some call the Nobel class of research”.
  
  
• 2022: China has taken the “first place globally in most-cited papers overall”.
  
  
• 2024: China has overtaken “the United States in total scientific publications – the first time any nation has displaced American dominance since the U.S. itself surpassed the United Kingdom in 1948. Researchers found that China overtook the United States in scientific output even earlier. That same year, China pulled ahead in the Nature Index, which tracks publications in the world’s most selective scientific journals, posting a 17% advantage over the U.S. in outlets long considered the gold standard of scientific excellence”.
  
  In 2024, Chinese entities also filed roughly 1.8 million patent applications, compared to the U.S.’s 603,191 applications.
  
  
• 2026: “China’s rapid rise in science has hit a milestone. The country’s investment in research and development has reached parity with – and by purchasing power measures has surpassed – that of the United States, according to a March 2026 report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Both nations have crossed the US$1 trillion threshold on research spending.”
  

And she continues:

China’s ascent is, in one sense, good news. More knowledge, generated by more researchers across more institutions, expands the global pool of discovery from which everyone can draw. The world benefits when science thrives.

The problem is not that China is investing, but that the U.S. is not.

Definitely an article to read. In addition the OECD report mentioned:

(OECD 2026) OECD overall R&D growth stable; government R&D budgets decline and reorient towards defence https://www.oecd.org/en/data/insights/statistical-releases/2026/03/oecd-overall-rd-growth-stable-government-rd-budgets-decline-and-reorient-towards-defence.html 31 March 2026 - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Additional Information on Research Competition

(Economist 2024)China has become a scientific superpower: From plant biology to superconductor physics the country is at the cutting edge https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/06/12/china-has-become-a-scientific-superpower Jun 12, 2024 - Archive https://archive.ph/D3S4u

(ASPI 2024) ASPI’s two-decade Critical Technology Tracker: The rewards of long-term research investment https://www.aspi.org.au/report/aspis-two-decade-critical-technology-tracker/ Australian Strategic Policy Institute - 28 August 2024 - PDF 72 pages.

If you are on X/Twitter try also the following search for my posts in the past few years:

(from:@metacode) #ChinaSciTech

Nuclear Energy and Thorium

Thorium and nuclear energy goes back to the 1940s in the Barkeley Lab, and although the US operated a ship using it, for many reasons it did not lead to a solution. However China’s determination made the US idea work.

Full transcript of a conversation between Prof. Glenn Diesen and Henry Tillman, the CEO of Aiyana Advisory and Research:

(Pangambam 2025) Transcript of Henry Tillman: China’s Thorium Revolution – 60.000 Years of Cheap Energy https://singjupost.com/transcript-of-henry-tillman-chinas-thorium-revolution-60-000-years-of-cheap-energy/ by S. Pangambam - April 23, 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/6gHAO

But the story is thorium goes back to the 1830s in Norway as a rare earth, basically. And it was by 1941 in the US at Berkeley, where I went to school later on, of course, both plutonium and thorium were in the mix for the Manhattan Project. But thorium is not explosive on its own. So the choice was made for plutonium.

By 1959, Edmund Teller, as part of the Eisenhower for Safe Nuclear, had developed thorium as a nuclear reactor and presented it to the first US oil company in 1959, saying we have a problem with CO2 and here’s the solution for it because it’s clean burn and it’s non-explosive.

From 1962 to 1972 the US ran the first cargo ship on thorium for 10 straight years, no incidents. And then it also was run at Oak Ridge onshore from 1965 to 1969 for about 13,000 hours. It was sporadic, but in 1972 led by US Admiral Rickover, who was quite a character with Nixon, the ultimate plan was not to use thorium going forward, but they’d use plutonium in the nuclear program.

So from 1972 to 2011, the US backed by the UK had locked down the formula for the use of thorium. Then Fukushima happened. By the time Fukushima happened, the US had decided, we have to go back in time. At some point around 2011, the US opened up that technology to many universities and many governments. It was also led by the research I’ve done by two US senators, one from Utah and one from Nevada, Harry Reid, to say, let’s open this up. If you use this, you have to give the IP back. So they gave this to Jiang Jimen’s son, literally from China in 2011, but it also went to Russia and a number of other countries.

(Lague 2013) SPECIAL REPORT-The U.S. government lab behind China’s nuclear power push by David Lague and Charlie Zhu - Dec 20, 2013 - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20181123125037/https://in.reuters.com/article/breakout-thorium-idINL4N0FE21U20131220

Jiang Mianheng, son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, visited Oak Ridge in 2010 and brokered a cooperation agreement with the lab. The deal gave the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which has a staff of 50,000, the plans for a thorium reactor. In January 2011, Jiang signed a protocol with the Department of Energy outlining the terms of joint energy research with the academy.

An electrical engineer trained at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Jiang told a conference on thorium in Shanghai last year China’s thorium project “is 100 percent financed by the central government.”

The protocol stipulates that intellectual property arising from the joint research will be shared with the global scientific community. It excludes sharing commercially confidential information and any other material that the parties agree to withhold. The pact also specifically rules out any military or weapons-related research. “All activities conducted under this protocol shall be exclusively for peaceful purposes,” it says.

Jess Gehin, a nuclear-reactor physicist at Oak Ridge, says the pact allows the two sides to share information about their research.

As project chief scientist Xu Hongjie put it:

Rabbits sometimes make mistakes or grow lazy. That’s when the tortoise seizes its chance.

Comment: If China manages to scale it, 10-15 years from now Trump-like shenanigans will not matter at all. All the Chinese have to do is keep focused and that is what they do.

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Started: Thu, Apr 30, 2026

About Metagora

Book: Jewish History, Jewish Religion

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Earlier this year I came across Ron Unz’s article “Oddities of the Jewish Religion” (Unz 2018).

Part of the article discusses the work of Israel Shahak, an award-winning Chemistry professor at Hebrew University and human-rights activist.

One of Shahak’s books is Jewish History, Jewish Religion (Shahak 1994).

Motivated by the article I have started reading the book and recommend it. The book is short but dense. Here is the very first paragraph that sets the stage:

This book, although written in English and addressed to people living outside the State of Israel, is, in a way, a continuation of my political activities as an Israeli Jew. Those activities began in 1965-6 with a protest which caused a considerable scandal at the time: I had personally witnessed an ultra-religious Jew refuse to allow his phone to be used on the Sabbath in order to call an ambulance for a non-Jew who happened to have collapsed in his Jerusalem neighbourhood. Instead of simply publishing the incident in the press, I asked for a meeting which is composed of rabbis nominated by the State of Israel. I asked them whether such behavior was consistent with their interpretation of the Jewish religion. They answered that the Jew in question had behaved correctly, indeed piously, and backed their statement by referring me to a passage in an authoritative compendium of Talmudic laws, written in this century. I reported the incident to the main Hebrew daily, Ha’aretz, whose publication of the story caused a media scandal.

Important to mention, the book has two prefaces, one by Gore Vidal, and the other Edward Said.

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Sources

(Shahak 1994) Jewish History, Jewish Religion, the Weight of 3000 Years by Israel Shahak, 1994. Available online: https://ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/shahak.html

(Unz 2018) American Pravda: Oddities of the Jewish Religion: The Surprising Elements of Talmudic Judaism https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-oddities-of-the-jewish-religion/ by Ron Unz - July 16, 2018 - Unz Review - Archive https://archive.is/hBJrz

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Started: Fri, Apr 24, 2026

About Metagora

Iran War Update: Fertilizers

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No Farms, No Food! Farmer protest in Ireland, April 2026. Source: Iowa Public Radio.

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Most discussions seem to be about oil but there is another commodity affected by the Hormuz closing.

(Johnson 2026) Choke Point: The Global Economic Consequences of the Persian Gulf Shutdown - How the disruption of oil, liquefied natural gas, and urea exports will cascade through the world economy https://www.unz.com/article/choke-point-the-global-economic-consequences-of-the-persian-gulf-shutdown/ by Larry C. Johnson, former analyst for the CIA and the US State Dept - March 10, 2026 - Unz Review - Archive https://archive.is/8sQx6

Of the three commodity shocks, the disruption of urea exports from the Persian Gulf may be the least immediately visible — but could prove the most enduring in its consequences. Urea is the world’s most widely used nitrogen fertiliser. It is synthesised from natural gas via the Haber-Bosch process, and the Gulf states — particularly Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Oman — are among the world’s largest producers and exporters, collectively accounting for a significant share of global urea trade.

The dependency of modern agriculture on synthetic nitrogen fertiliser is difficult to overstate. It is estimated that roughly half of the nitrogen in the human body today passed through the Haber-Bosch process at some point — meaning that artificial fertiliser now sustains approximately half of the world’s population. A collapse in urea supply would threaten crop yields on a global scale.

Crop yield decline. Without adequate nitrogen fertiliser, yields of staple crops — wheat, rice, maize, soy — would fall dramatically within one to two growing seasons. The effect would not be uniform: wealthy agricultural nations with domestic fertiliser capacity or large stockpiles (the United States, Canada, parts of Europe) would be more insulated. The developing world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia, would face acute shortages.

Food price inflation. Global food prices, already elevated by conflict-related supply disruptions in recent years, would surge further. The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s food price index would likely break historical records. Bread, rice, and staple grain prices would become unaffordable for hundreds of millions of people.

Geopolitical instability. Historical evidence linking sharp food price spikes to political instability is robust. The Arab Spring of 2011 coincided with a period of record food prices. A global urea shortage and its downstream consequences for food security would heighten the risk of civil unrest, state fragility, and humanitarian crisis across numerous countries.

Urea Exposure: Country Risk Summary by Larry C. Johnson.

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(Prokopenko 2026) Beyond Oil: Hormuz Closure Puts Russia in the Lead in the Fertilizer Market - The Kremlin expects to not only profit from rising fertilizer prices but also exact revenge for the collapse of the 2023 grain deal https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2026/03/russia-new-fertilizer-export by Alexandra Prokopenko, Fellow, Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center - Carnegie Endowment For International Peace - Mar 24, 2026 - Archive https://archive.is/fbR3b

Prokopenko with a threat-assessment on the potential of Russia to take advantage of the current situation. Sometimes stretches things a bit, for example:

Importers in Nigeria and Ghana are already pre-purchasing Russian fertilizers for the third quarter of 2026. This is a rational market response to the disappearance of competing supply, and once established, these connections will solidify into a dependency that could outlast any ceasefire.

What does “solidify into a dependency” mean actually? When the crisis ends the African coutries are perfectly able to reassess their options and choose another supplier, n’est-ce pas?

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(Welsh 2026) Iran, Fertilizer, and Food Security: Risks, Impacts, and Policy Responses https://www.csis.org/analysis/iran-fertilizer-and-food-security-risks-impacts-and-policy-responses by Caitlin Welsh - CSIS - April 1, 2026 - Archive https://archive.is/8sz55

Lengthy informative article, Welsh asks and then answers relevant queswtions about a possible global food crisis because of the Hormuz closing:

Beyond high energy prices, the war with Iran is also directly increasing the price of fertilizer through the restriction of exports of fertilizers and inputs to fertilizer production. Prior to this war, approximately 20–30 percent of global fertilizer exports transited the Strait of Hormuz, including approximately 23 percent of ammonia and 34 percent of urea, the most commonly used nitrogen-based fertilizers, along with 20 percent of phosphates traded globally. The strait also transits approximately 20 percent of global LNG exports, and approximately 45 percent of global exports of sulfur, a byproduct of oil production that is used to produce phosphate-based fertilizers.

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(Lu 2026) The Iran War’s Agriculture Shock Isn’t Over Yet Even with a cease-fire deal in place, vital energy and fertilizer flows remain trapped https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/10/iran-war-ceasefire-energy-fertilizer-agriculture-food-prices/ By Christina Lu, staff writer at Foreign Policy - Apr 10, 2026 - Archive https://archive.is/3TMQF

The crisis could go global really soon:

From Ireland to India, the war’s economic shock is already rippling across farm communities worldwide. Farmers took to the streets in Ireland this week to protest fuel prices, while surging fertilizer costs have reportedly roiled farmers across the United Kingdom. Egypt has capped the price of unsubsidized bread loaves in order to shield consumers from higher prices, and in Vietnam—the world’s second-biggest rice exporter—higher costs and shipping delays have disrupted rice farming.

Comment: And if that doesn’t do it, there is always oil and LNG.

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Started: Fri, Apr 17, 2026

About Metagora

Europe Update 2 - Freedom and NGOs

Sanctioned journalist Hüseyin Doğru - Source: mronline.org

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(UN 2026) Germany: UN expert warns space for freedom of expression is shrinking amidst growing threats https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/02/germany-un-expert-warns-space-freedom-expression-shrinking-amidst-growing Report by Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression - UN - Feb 6, 2026 - Archive <>

“Many individuals to whom I spoke - including students from the Jewish community, pro-Palestinian solidarity activists, women leaders in local politics, journalists, academics and artists – told me that hateful attacks, often amplified by social media, are making them afraid to speak online or offline,” the expert said.

“While the government has taken these threats seriously, it has relied increasingly on criminalisation and security-oriented approaches to address them. Many of these measures – ranging from heightened protection of officials from public criticism to blanket bans on activists’ slogans and surveillance of organisations on vague grounds of ‘extremism’ – are inconsistent with international human rights standards,” she said.

Khan said the approach risks narrowing the space for diverse, meaningful democratic debate, accelerating social polarisation, and increasing the possibility of the public losing trust in those very democratic institutions that the government is seeking to protect.

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(Shaller 2026) Europe Is Sanctioning Critics of Israel and Militarism https://jacobin.com/2026/03/eu-us-sanctions-gaza-russia By Caspar Shaller - Jacobin - Mar 20, 2026 - Archive https://archive.is/QIJqR

One case that deserves special attention is that of German journalist Hüseyin Doğru. Since the EU placed him on a sanctions list in May 2025, he has had no access to his accounts and is not allowed to travel. Doğru lives in Berlin and is much more affected by the sanctions than others. “You can’t even buy me a coffee,” says Doğru during an interview in Berlin. “In theory, I’m not even allowed to help myself to anything in the fridge after my wife went shopping.” The German Bundesbank, which is in charge of enforcing sanctions, granted him an exemption to withdraw a minimum subsistence allowance of €506 a month from his bank account. And even this tiny sum was temporarily blocked by his bank. “I can’t feed my newborn babies,” says Doğru. “On an existential level, you’re reduced to zero.”

The allegedly “violent” demonstration refers to the occupation of Humboldt University in Berlin by pro-Palestinian activists in 2024. Because Doğru reported on the occupation on his website, he is said to have created a platform for the “rioters” to spread the ideology and symbols of terrorist groups such as Hamas. Does reporting on protests against the German government or its allies constitute an exercise of a fundamental right in a democracy or political subversion on behalf of a hostile power? For the EU, it’s the latter.

Doğru’s case raises serious questions about freedom of expression in Europe. Who decides what constitutes acceptable journalism and what constitutes propaganda that must be suppressed? What exactly is disinformation — is it simply a different interpretation of facts? Can opinions be sanctioned as disinformation? The EU is making an example of Doğru. It’s a warning: if journalists report in a way we don’t like, we can destroy your lives. The chilling effect is already having an impact: Doğru has received little (public) solidarity from left-wing politicians, journalists, or the media. Some left-wing publications refused to report on the case at all; Doğru is too tainted by the accusations of being pro-Putin. The few attempts to help Doğru have been blocked. German newspaper Junge Welt wanted to give Doğru a job but was informed by the Bundesbank that that would constitute prohibited economic aid. To date, despite repeated inquiries by his lawyer, Doğru has not gotten a concrete answer as to whether he is allowed to work.

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(Fazi 2026) ‘In order to defend democracy, the EU effectively destroys it’ — An Interview with Thomas Fazi https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/interview/european-democracy-shield-thomas-fazi/ by Tamás Maráczi — Hungarian Conservative - Mar 23, 2026 - Archive https://archive.md/OwU5f

At the 2016 US presidential election, there were allegations that they managed to penetrate into the servers of the Democratic National Committee.

There were allegations, which were subsequently completely disproven. Russiagate was a hoax. It’s now been admitted even by the FBI and the American intelligence services. And what we are seeing today in Europe is a European version of Russiagate. In that case, the objective was to stop Trump from getting into the White House. And today, the kind of Euro Russiagate is aimed at all populist or anti-establishment parties that threaten the status quo and the establishment. Let’s not forget that just over a year ago in Romania, an entire election was annulled on grounds of alleged Russian interference, of Russia allegedly running some kind of disinformation scheme on TikTok that supposedly had convinced voters to vote for the independent populist candidate who ended up winning that first round of the elections. Well, they provided no evidence whatsoever for that alleged disinformation scheme. And even TikTok claimed that there was no evidence of this manipulation.

So you claim that the EU itself interfered in the election process in Romania. What’s the proof?

Well, I’ve read hundreds of pages of reports about this, and I tracked all the EU funding, all the EU money that goes to NGOs, media, and universities across Europe to essentially promote pro-EU narratives and the Brussels agenda. What the EU is running here is a scheme very similar to what USAID has done for many years around the world, essentially sending money to NGOs and alleged independent media outlets in third countries to promote America’s economic and geopolitical interests. Now the European Union does exactly the same thing. It uses these funds to manipulate civil society in countries to promote its own interests and agenda. And the EU runs these schemes in member states, especially in countries that are ruled by Eurosceptic governments. In Hungary and Poland, the EU has channelled huge amounts of funds.

How many NGOs, think tanks, or media outlets receive this financing from the European Commission annually?

We know that there are thousands of ‘NGO’s across Europe who receive money from the European Commission. It’s impossible to track the exact number, also because the definition of what exactly is an NGO isn’t clear, even in the EU’s own databases. But through the CERF programme, the EU has supported, since 2021, more than 3000 projects and thousands of NGOs. So it’s a very vast ecosystem. What has happened over the past decade is that, essentially, the political establishment has cultivated a fake civil society. How can you claim to be an NGO when most of your money comes from the political establishment, the political institutions, and in many cases, the European Union itself? You can’t claim to really be conveying the aspirations of civil society to the political institutions. What you’re doing, inevitably, is the opposite. You become a tool for the political establishment to convey their ideas and their ideology to public opinion. So it’s a literal inversion of what NGOs and civil society should do. The problem is that most of the NGOs that are operating today are not independent, but are simply extensions of the political establishment.

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Started: Tue, Apr 7, 2026

About Metagora

Greece AI Timetable

Version 2: Fri, Mar 13, 2026

An AI Data Center - Grok

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2023

• “Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism” by Yanis Varoufakis (Varoufakis 2023)
  
  

2024

• “A Blueprint for Greece’s AI Transformation” by the High - Level Advisory Committee on Artificial Intelligence (Gov 2024)
  
  

2025

• January 20 - Signing of the donation contract between the Onassis Foundation and the Greek government (Onassis 2025a)
  

• June 10 - “Your brain on chatgpt” by Nataliya Kosmyna et al. - MIT Study (Kosmyna 2025)
  

• June 12-15 - 71st Bilderberg Meeting in Stockholm, Sweden (Bilderberg 2025)
  

• September 5 - MoU “OpenAI for Greece” signed by the Greek government, Onassis Foundation and OpenAI (Onassis 2025b) (OpenAI 2025)
  

• September 8 - FOIA for “OpenAI for Greece” by Home Digitalis (Homo Digitalis 2025)
  

• September 13 - Discussion between the Greek PM and Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind CEO on the future of AI, ethics, and democracy (Hassabis 2025)
  

• October 8 - “Τεχνητή νοημοσύνη : ανθρώπινα δικαιώματα, δημοκρατία & κράτος δικαίου” (Artificial Intelligence: Human Rights, Democracy & the Rule of Law) Edited by Evripidis Stylianidis

• November 24 - Signing of MoU by the Greek government and the French AI startup Mistral AI (Parapolitika 2025)
  

2026

• January 29 - Online seminar: Introducing Mistral & Opportunities for NTUA Students(NTUA 2026)
• February 19 - The Greek PM participated in the India AI Impact Summit 2026 (TNH 2026) (Mitsotakis 2026)

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A thinking robot next to ancient ruins - Grok

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Sources and Notes

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Bilderberg 2025

Topics discussed included:

• AI, Deterrence and National Security

(Bilderberg 2025) Bilderberg 2025 meeting: List Of Participants https://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/meetings/meeting-2025/participants-2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/1KKqb. The list included:

• Hassabis, Demis (GBR), Co-Founder and CEO, Google DeepMind
• Mitsotakis, Kyriakos (GRC), Prime Minister

Also instructive is the Bilderberg Steering Committee https://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/background/steering-committee/steering-committee - Archive https://archive.ph/rMuMi that includes:

• Karp, Alex (USA), CEO, Palantir Technologies Inc.
• Thiel, Peter (USA), President, Thiel Capital LLC

Information on the ideological background of Peter Thiel and Alex Karp in our previous post https://metagora.blogspot.com/2025/09/file-techno.html

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Endeavor Greece

(Hassabis 2025) Discussion between the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Demis Hassabis CEO of Google DeepMind on the future of artificial intelligence, ethics, and democracy https://www.primeminister.gr/en/2025/09/13/36924 - This was part of the 2nd Athens Innovation Summit and was moderated by Endeavor CEO Linda Rottenberg - 13 September 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/ABu8f - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24YTsT9qa5Q

The following quote from Demis Hassabis leaves no doubts about his geopolitics:

I think, first of all, we see democracies are under threat across the globe and our value systems. I think the way to protect that is you have to protect that from a position of strength. I think that means technologically and economically. I think that’s why AI embracing that in all its forms, that the opportunities is critical for Europe to do, UK to do, and the West to do. That’s part of why it’s so important to be technologically leading in this new space.

Note that the Greek PM and Demis Hassabis met earlier this year at (Bilderberg 2025).

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Greek Government

(Gov 2024) A Blueprint for Greece’ s AI Transformation https://foresight.gov.gr/en/studies/A-Blueprint-for-Greece-s-AI-Transformation/ by the High Level Advisory Committee on Artificial Intelligence - 2024

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Homo Digitalis

(Homo Digitalis 2025) Καταθέσαμε στο Υπουργείο Παιδείας, Θρησκευμάτων και Αθλητισμού Αίτημα Χορήγησης Εγγράφων για το Μνημόνιο Συνεργασίας «OpenAI for Greece» https://homodigitalis.gr/posts/135289/ Καταθέσαμε στο Υπουργείο Παιδείας, Θρησκευμάτων και Αθλητισμού Αίτημα Χορήγησης Εγγράφων για το Μνημόνιο Συνεργασίας «OpenAI for Greece» 8 Σεπτεμβρίου, 2025

Google translation of two paragraphs:

How will teachers and students feel when they are asked to use tools from a company like OpenAI, which has already been fined 15 million euros for violations of personal data legislation in Italy and is under investigation for possible violations in other countries, such as Austria?

And what is the rationale behind choosing Artificial Intelligence systems based on proprietary software from US technology giants over similar tools that could be developed with free and open software from research centers and institutions in Greece? This choice ignores the European Union’s strategy to strengthen openness, transparency and technological sovereignty and, if adopted widely, inevitably leads to the dependence of our education system on proprietary software and companies with foreign interests.

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India AI Impact Summit 2026

India AI Impact Summit 2026 https://impact.indiaai.gov.in/ - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_AI_Impact_Summit_2026

(Mitsotakis 2026) Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ Speech at the “AI Impact Summit”, held at the Bharat Mandapam International Exhibition Centre, New Delhi - 19 February 2026 https://www.primeminister.gr/en/2026/02/19/37933 - Archive https://archive.ph/Yorat

(TNH 2026) Greek PM Mitsotakis Participated in India A.I. Impact Summit https://www.thenationalherald.com/greek-pm-mitsotakis-participated-in-india-a-i-impact-summit Feb 19, 2026 - Archive https://archive.ph/OsdjR

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Onassis Foundation

(Onassis 2025a) Public Onassis Schools: The donation contract between the Onassis Foundation and the Greek State was signed https://www.onassis.org/open-calls/public-onassis-schools-the-donation-contract-between-the-onassis-foundation-and-the-greek-state-was-signed Onassis Foundation - Jan 20, 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/hF9yw

Onassis Public Schools https://www.onassis.org/education/public-onassis-schools Onassis Foundation - Archive https://archive.ph/sbqav

The curriculum will include:

• training students in digital technology and artificial intelligence

(Onassis 2025b) The Onassis Foundation supports the new program of the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs, and Sports, “Introduction of Artificial Intelligence in Schools” https://www.onassis.org/open-calls/the-onassis-foundation-supports-the-new-program-of-the-ministry-of-education-religious-affairs-and-sports-introduction-of-artificial-intelligence-in-schools - Sep 5 - Archive https://archive.ph/Hmy11

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Student demonstration against AI - Aristidis Tolos, 17: ‘It terrifies me. AI doesn’t have a soul, it’s a machine.’ Photograph: Helena Smith/The Guardian

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OpenAI

(OpenAI 2025) OpenAI and Greek Government launch ‘OpenAI for Greece’ https://openai.com/global-affairs/openai-for-greece/ - PR - September 5, 2025

Introducing ChatGPT Edu: An affordable offering for universities to responsibly bring AI to campus https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-edu/ May 30, 2024

Greek secondary school teachers to be trained in using AI in classroom https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/22/greek-secondary-school-teachers-to-be-trained-in-using-ai-in-classroom by Helena Smith - Guardian - 22 Nov 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/VoDFo

Greece, ChatGPT enters schools: teacher training starts amid controversy https://en.ilsole24ore.com/art/greece-chatgpt-enters-school-part-teacher-training-controversy-AHCgFGuD by Angelica Migliorisi - Il Sole 24 Ore - 22 November 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/qgYxp

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Mistral AI

(Mistral 2025) Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ meeting with the Chief Executive Officer of Mistral AI Arthur Mensch https://www.primeminister.gr/en/2025/11/24/37447 24 Nov 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/y3Rzi

(Parapolitika 2025) Mitsotakis meets Mistral AI CEO: Greece signs AI agreement: Greece signs AI partnership with Mistral AI, Europe’s leading startup, focusing on digital governance and training programs for Greek researchers https://en.parapolitika.gr/politics/101526/mitsotakis-meets-mistral-ai-ceo-greece-signs-ai-agreement/ Parapolitika - 24 Nov 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/F8Ire

Mostly photos, the main paragraph:

At the end of the meeting, the Prime Minister attended the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Greek Government and Mistral AI, aimed at better utilizing AI in public administration, developing new digital solutions for citizens’ benefit, using AI in sectors where Greece has comparative advantages such as shipping, and training Greek students and graduates in Mistral’s specialization programs.

(NTUA 2026) NTUA x Mistral AI https://www.ails.ece.ntua.gr/research/activities/ntua-x-mistral National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) seminar announcement - Archive https://archive.ph/VCRjD

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MIT Study and AI in Education

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task – MIT Media Lab https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/ - Project site

(Kosmyna 2025) Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872 by Nataliya Kosmyna, Eugene Hauptmann, Ye Tong Yuan, Jessica Situ, Xian-Hao Liao, Ashly Vivian Beresnitzky, Iris Braunstein, and Pattie Maes - 10 Jun 2025 - PDF 206 pages

(Chow 2025) ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills, According to a New MIT Study https://time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-google-learning-school/ by Andrew R. Chow - Time - Jun 23, 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/qUdTY

Meanwhile in Colombia:

(Salamanca 2025) Meta brought AI to rural Colombia. Now students are failing exams https://restofworld.org/2025/colombia-meta-ai-education/ By Laura Rodríguez Salamanca - 30 Jul 2025 - Rest of World - Archive https://archive.ph/zwAlF

When Meta embedded AI bots in its apps, even students in the most remote corners of Colombia gained access. But rather than boosting learning, it’s getting in the way. …

… Teachers across the school noticed a surge in unusually high-quality answers that didn’t resemble their students’ typical work. Homework and essays suddenly featured erudite arguments, sophisticated vocabulary, and points that had not been taught in class or the textbooks.

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Evripidis Stylianidis

(Stylianidis 2025) Τεχνητή Νοημοσύνη, Ανθρώπινα Δικαιώματα, Δημοκρατία & Κράτος Δικαίου https://www.nb.org/techniti-noimosyni.html Edited by Ευριπίδης Στυλιανίδης - Νομικη Βιβλιοθηκη 2025.

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Yanis Varoufakis

(Varoufakis 2023) Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis - The Bodley Head, Penguin Random House 2023 https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781529926095

(Meaker 2024) Welcome to the Age of Technofeudalism: In Yanis Varoufakis’ latest book, the former Greek finance minister argues that companies like Apple and Meta have treated their users like modern-day serfs https://www.wired.com/story/yanis-varoufakis-technofeudalism-interview/ by Morgan Meaker - Wired - Apr 9, 2024 - Archive https://archive.ph/dC65M

The second reason is that this cloud capital is designed to reproduce itself through our attention and through our free labor. And platforms discovered that we spend more time doing this, producing free cloud capital for the owners of cloud capital, if we’re angry. So algorithms are primed to poison our conversations. That is highly detrimental to our democracies because consensus is really bad for cloud capital. It doesn’t want it. It wants you and me to be angry and shouting at each other.

Now, as a professor, I have noticed the effect on kids in universities in Britain, in Australia, here in Greece, in America. I find that students today are too scared of having a face-to-face conversation. They want a safe space. They do not want any challenging ideas to be presented to them in class. They protest, they will have you thrown out of university if you say something that upsets them, about anything. But give them a phone and they become toxic and ballistic. Now, that is no way of running a democracy or a civilized society for that matter.

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Started: Sat, Dec 6, 2025

About Metagora

Europe Update: Messy

Version 1: Fri, Feb 27, 2026

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Ssolbergj assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public Domain, Link

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A few recent articles trying to tackle the European mess:

Sergey Karaganov

On avoiding oblivion… and rehabilitating humanity https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/features/avoiding-oblivion----and-rehabilitating-humanity Nora Hoppe and Tariq Marzbaan talk with Professor Sergey Karaganov - Al Mayadeen - 14 Feb 2026 - Alternative https://www.sott.net/article/504664-Professor-Sergey-Karaganov-On-avoiding-oblivion-and-rehabilitating-humanity

I started my scientific career as a professional “Americanologist”, so I know their history well, and I do not view them through rose-tinted glasses. And I know that they have to be pushed aside.

On the other hand, I know that they are also somehow indispensable, because they are very powerful - economically, strategically and even culturally. So they should be invited to be one of the leaders of equal standing in the world in the future configuration of powers, if and when we come to a new global power concept. With all their sins, with all their many crimes, they are still in the picture.

Europe, on the other hand, is becoming negligible - economically, politically, morally, socially, etc. So it’s better just to push them aside and let them stew in their juices. And there may be some hope that they might recover after decades or centuries. After all, we had a Europe falling into a black hole from the fifth to the twelfth century - their Dark Ages. So, maybe it will be possible for them to recover, but it’s not none of our business, we can only be hopeful.

We still have a lot of people who are still infatuated with old European dreams, but the reality is becoming obvious. And less and less people in Russia are calling themselves Europeans. We, of course, appreciate European culture, but we are very different. And we are starting at last to acknowledge that - with pleasure.

Previous interviews at: Russia Update https://metagora.blogspot.com/2025/07/russia-update.html - Fri, July 25, 2025

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Richard D. Wolff

Europe Today: Historic Crisis or End Times? https://braveneweurope.com/richard-d-wolff-europe-today-historic-crisis-or-end-times by Richard D. Wolff - Feb 12, 2026 - Brave New Europe - Archive https://archive.ph/EqyW6

For Europe to build the military system and its allied technical and manufacturing foundation – given their decline over the last 75 years – it would need to spend an immense amount of money for many years. It has no empire from which to draw the necessary resources and now it is burdened with tribute owed to the US. Nor is European borrowing, given the risks it entails for creditors, capable of funding the kind of spending needed to seriously address the problem of Europe’s historic decline.

Richard D. Wolff is an American Marxian economist known for his work on economic methodology and class analysis. He is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor in the graduate program in international affairs at The New School.

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Ali Abunimah

EU sanctions German journalist in shocking first over Gaza reporting https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/eu-sanctions-german-journalist-shocking-first-over-gaza-reporting by Ali Abunimah - Electronic Intifada - 19 Feb 2026 - Alternative https://www.sott.net/article/504793-EU-Sanctions-German-Journalist-In-Shocking-First-Over-Gaza-Reporting

Dogru is the first European Union citizen known to be living inside the EU to face extrajudicial sanctions imposed by Brussels – robbing him of fundamental civil and humanitarian rights.

He’s also the first person to be sanctioned specifically for his reporting related to Palestine.

Ali Abunimah is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

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Almut Rochowanski

Europe’s Leaders Have No Strategy for Peace https://jacobin.com/2025/11/europe-war-ukraine-strategy-peace By Almut Rochowanski - Jacobin - Nov 27, 2025 - Archive https://archive.ph/oI0f6

European politicians, diplomats, aid workers, and the commentariat that cozies up to them have become used to living beyond their power-politics means: pompously lecturing others about values, heavy-handed interference in the internal affairs of third countries, seizing their resources and forcing their markets open, and dabbling in military adventurism, as in Libya. In the comfortable shade of American primacy, European states have been able to afford a self-centered, lucrative, and at times unscrupulous foreign policy. If the United States bids goodbye to its unipolar-era global hegemony, Europeans will lose the stature of vicarious primacy and have to start treating states around the world as sovereign equals. The thought of it brings many in Europe’s foreign policy establishment to the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Almut Rochowanski is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and an independent activist. https://quincyinst.org/author/almut-rochowanski/

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Started: Fri, Feb 27, 2026

About Metagora