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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: The Isley Brothers

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features soul vocal group The Isley Brothers. Enjoy!

^{The Isley Brothers - This Old Heart Of Mine}

“What can oppose the decline of the west is not a resurrected culture but the utopia that is silently contained in the image of its decline.”

-- Theodor W. Adorno

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News and Opinion

Worth a full read:

Military Disasters & the End of Empire

Writing more than 2,000 years ago, the Greek historian Plutarch gave us an eloquent description of what modern historians now call “micro-militarism.” When an imperial power like Athens then, or America now, is in decline, its leaders often react emotionally by mounting seemingly bold military strikes in hopes of regaining the imperial grandeur that’s slipping through their fingers. Instead of another of the great victories the empire won at its peak of power, however, such military misadventures only serve to accelerate the ongoing decline, erasing whatever aura of imperial majesty remains and revealing instead the moral rot deep inside the ruling elite.

There is mounting historical evidence that America is indeed an empire in steep decline, while President Donald Trump’s war of choice against Iran is becoming the sort of micro-military disaster that helped destroy successive empires over the past 2,500 years — from ancient Athens to medieval Portugal to modern Spain, Great Britain and now the United States. And at the core of every such ill-fated war-making decision lay a problematic leader, often born into wealth and prestige, whose personal inadequacies reflected and ramified the many irrationalities that make imperial decline such a painful process. ...

After a populist campaign based on promises to restore both working-class prosperity and America’s global power, Donald Trump took office a second time in January 2025 promising a “golden age of America,” a “thrilling new era of national success” in which the country would “reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world.” Born to wealth and privilege himself, Trump returned to office convinced of his unique “genius” for leadership and believing that “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

Wielding raw economic and military might to compel obeisance from friend and foe alike, the president, inspired by a delusional sense of divine mission, began attempting to bend the world to his will. But during his first year in office, nothing seemed to work as planned. Indeed, most of his initiatives produced the sort of backlash that only served to show how far the United States had fallen from 1991, when the break-up of the Soviet Union made it the world’s sole superpower. ... On February 28th, 2026, with his tariff initiative failing and his Greenland gambit checkmated, Trump joined Israel in a seemingly bold strike on Iran that soon had the makings of the sort of fateful “micro-military” maneuver that appears to go with imperial powers in decline.

In the first few days of war, U.S. and Israeli bombing killed Iran’s leadership, destroyed its navy, and eliminated its air defenses, leaving the country seemingly prostrate before the might of America’s air-power juggernaut. After a week of devastating bombardment that seemed to stun the world with its lethality and precision, on March 6th Trump demanded that Iran offer an “unconditional surrender” and signal its capitulation by “the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader.” In exchange, he promised that the U.S. would “work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction.” ...

Blindsided by the Strait’s unexpected yet utterly predictable closure, on April 5th, Easter Sunday, an unsettled Trump posted a social media message saying: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” He added: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH. Praise be to Allah.” Two days later, Trump threatened that, unless Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz, he would attack its civilian infrastructure so severely that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” ...

Even if Trump destroys Iran’s infrastructure or eventually negotiates a face-saving peace deal, by every metric that really matters, Washington has already lost its war with Iran. Like all weaker powers in asymmetric warfare, Tehran has been willing to absorb relentless punishment, while inflicting pain that the dominant power can ill sustain. The U.S. will soon run out of targets in Tehran, but Iran has a whole world of damage that its cheap drones can do to the elaborate, exposed petroleum infrastructure on the south shore of the Persian Gulf. ...

Close allies, the bedrock of U.S. global power for 80 years, have refused any military support for Washington’s war of choice, prompting Trump to call them “cowards.” In response to his thundering threats of civilian and civilizational destruction (both war crimes), Trump has been condemned by world leaders. Oblivious to the dangers of war in a region that is the epicenter of global capitalism, Washington is now proving ever more dangerously disruptive of the global economy, making China look like a far more stable choice for world leadership. Moreover, while the U.S. military has proven its tactical agility in destroying targets, it clearly can no longer capture meaningful strategic objectives. With its alliances in tatters, its world leadership forfeited, and its aura of military might evaporating, the only trajectory for U.S. global hegemony now seems to be downward.

Jeffrey Sachs: Trump's Defeat in Iran & Decline of the U.S. Empire

Trump Shares Post Calling for the Killing of Iranian Leaders Who Won’t Accept US Demands

President Trump on Thursday shared a post calling for the killing of Iranian leaders who won’t accept US demands, ramping up his threats against the country amid a very fragile ceasefire.

The post Trump amplified was written by Marc Thiessen, who served as a speechwriter for the George W. Bush administration. “If there are two factions in Iran, one that wants a deal and one that doesn’t, let’s kill the ones who don’t want a deal,” Thiessen said in a post on X where he was quoting himself from an appearance on Fox News.

“If there are two factions in Iran, one that wants a deal and one that doesn’t, let’s kill the ones who don’t want a deal.” pic.twitter.com/NbbZZ6vqcN

— Marc Thiessen (@marcthiessen) April 22, 2026

In the piece, Thiessen argued that Trump should restart the bombing campaign against Iran. “Right now, the remnants of the Iranian regime are under the misimpression that Trump wants a deal more than they do,” he wrote.

The Narrative War: How Iran is Navigating the Trump Threat

Trump claims US has total control over strait of Hormuz after Iran seizes two container ships

Donald Trump has again said that the US has “total control over the strait of Hormuz”, adding that Iran’s leadership was so hobbled by infighting that it was unclear who was in charge. But the US president’s claim seemed questionable in the face of the seizure of two container ships by Iranian commandos and a US report warning it could take six months to clear the strait of mines.

Trump’s comments on Thursday came after US special forces boarded a stateless oil tanker in the Indian Ocean, which the Pentagon claimed was carrying Iranian crude oil. The military operation took place hours after Iran’s seizure of the two container ships, with the two sides continuing to impose competing blockades on the strait, keeping global oil prices at about $100 (£74) a barrel.

While US forces have proved capable of stopping ships coming out of Iranian ports, they have still not demonstrated the capacity to open the strait to vessels coming from ports in allied Gulf states.

The impact of the dual blockades has been compounded by the presence of sea mines in the strait. In a briefing to Congress, the Pentagon warned it could take up to six months to clear all the suspected mines from the sea routes, according to a report in the Washington Post.

In his Truth Social post, Trump said that US minesweepers were working “at a tripled up level” and that he had ordered the US navy “to shoot and kill” any boat mining the waterway. “There is to be no hesitation,” said Trump.

Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, said in a CNBC interview that the world was facing “the biggest energy security threat in history”.

Larry Johnson: Iran JUST Escorted Tankers Past US Blockade – Israel Waiting for Greenlight to ATTACK

Trump’s war has backfired spectacularly: Iran is now more influential than ever

Donald Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran will be remembered as a grave strategic miscalculation – one that has reshaped the region in unintended and destabilising ways. With the ceasefire now extended indefinitely, we can see more clearly how the war has undermined the US’s standing in the world and failed to achieve its core objectives: it has neither brought about regime change in Tehran, nor forced Iran to submit to American demands. Far from it. By inflicting economic pain far beyond the region and slowing the global economy, Iran has demonstrated that its grip over the strait of Hormuz constitutes its most potent deterrent – arguably more consequential than its now defunct nuclear programme. Control of the strait will be Tehran’s most powerful source of leverage in the years ahead.

Although the US/Israel-led war has weakened Iran economically and militarily, its long-term effect may be the opposite: a more emboldened, muscular and assertive Iran. One of the war’s most significant unintended consequences is a shift in Tehran’s strategic doctrine. Rather than relying on caution and deterrence, Iran is likely to adopt a multi-front approach – escalating and targeting the wider economic and security infrastructure of its rivals and adversaries as it did in this conflict. In effect, the war has accelerated Iran’s emergence as a more assertive regional power, one with growing capacity to project influence well beyond its borders. Within Iran, this reassessment is already under way. A new generation of officers within the IRGC appears to have drawn a stark lesson: restraint invited vulnerability. For years, the late supreme leader and his advisers had adhered to a doctrine of “strategic patience”, believing that calibrated restraint would ensure regime survival and consolidation. But the assassinations of Iran’s senior military leaders and nuclear scientists by the US and Israel and their direct attacks on Iranian territory reinforced the perception that a defensive posture no longer guaranteed security. That doctrine is now buried with Iran’s old guard.

There is already mounting evidence that the IRGC has consolidated its grip on power – directing the war effort and shaping diplomatic engagement with the US. The assassinations of Iran’s senior political and military leadership have accelerated this shift. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he achieved regime change in Tehran. In a sense, he has – but not in the way he intended. These miscalculations were not merely tactical – they reflected deeper assumptions. Trump appears not to have seriously considered worst-case scenarios such as whether Iran might retaliate by closing the strait of Hormuz. Instead, he was predisposed – temperamentally and ideologically – to accept Benjamin Netanyahu’s assurances that the war would be quick, clean and decisive.

Unlike his predecessors, who cloaked interventions in the language of international order or human rights, Trump has dispensed with such pretence. He has been unusually candid about the motivations driving his foreign policy, even describing territorial acquisition as “psychologically” important to him. What we are witnessing is not a break with US power, but its unvarnished expression.

The consequences of this approach are already visible. The geopolitical and geo-economic fallout from Trump’s debacle in Iran dwarfs that of George W Bush’s 2003 war in Iraq. By launching pre-emptive strikes while nuclear negotiations were continuing, Trump has ruptured the norms of diplomacy and set a dangerous precedent in international relations. From custodian of the postwar order, the US has become a disruptive force, aligning itself with illiberal and autocratic rulers worldwide, and one now facing a reckoning even among its closest European allies. Future historians may see this moment as the beginning of the end of the American century, and the onset of a more uncertain and dangerous era shaped increasingly by China’s rise.

Iran Forces Israel To Backpedal in Lebanon

Foreign Office unit tracking Israel’s potential breaches of international law closes due to cuts

The Foreign Office unit tracking potential breaches of international law by Israel in Gaza and more recently Lebanon has been closed because of cuts within the department, the Guardian can reveal. The decision to shut the international humanitarian law cell follows a review by Olly Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office dismissed last week by the prime minister over the Peter Mandelson scandal.

Only a fortnight ago, the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said respect and support for international law would be one of the linchpins of the department under her leadership in her major annual set piece foreign policy speech. The decision also means funding for the Conflict and Security Monitoring Project run by the Centre for information Resilience (CIR) will end. The centre had been doing a range of work for the Foreign Office, including the world’s largest open-source monitoring of incidents across Israel, Palestine and Lebanon.

It is the only programme in the UK that collects, verifies and analyses human rights and conflict incidents in Israel and the occupied territories. The closure of the IHL cell is part of a cut in funding to the conflict and atrocity prevention team, which has been critical in warning the Foreign Office of potential atrocities, including in Sudan.

Officials have been warned the closure of the Conflict and Security Monitoring project will mean the Foreign Office will lose access to a database of 26,000 verified incidents in the Middle East. The database holds information on incidents stretching back to 7 October 2023, the day Hamas fighters launched the attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and led to the abduction of 200 Israelis. It is thought to be the largest database of its kind in the world and is used to monitor trends and make analyses possible.

Katie Fallon, the advocacy manager at Campaign Against Arms Trade, said closing the IHL cell would protect ministers and senior Foreign Office officials “who know that they have been manipulating the data on potential violations of IHL, beyond any logical interpretation, to obscure unimaginable violations and crimes committed against the most vulnerable people in conflict and sustain arms sales at any cost. The timing of this closure is notable,” she said. “As Olly Robbins explained to a parliamentary committee this week, the civil service is under pressure to give the government the answers that they want. Nowhere is this more clear than on ensuring arms sales to ‘allies’ continue, despite the risks of war crimes.”

Why Won’t Lebanon’s Government Confront Israeli Attacks?

Trump says Israel-Lebanon ceasefire extended by three weeks

US President Donald Trump announced today that an Israel-Lebanon ceasefire would be extended by three weeks.

“The Meeting went very well! The United States is going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Hezbollah said on Thursday it launched rockets at northern Israel in response to the country’s ceasefire “violation”, Reuters reports.

“In defence of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the Israeli enemy’s violation of the ceasefire and its targeting of the town of Yater in southern Lebanon,” Hezbollah “targeted the Shtula settlement with a rocket salvo”, the Iran-backed militant group said in a statement.

The attacks come as the US is slated to host a second meeting between Lebanese and Israeli envoys on Thursday.

Patrick Henningsen: Hezbollah JUST Fired Back at Israel - Iran Vows to “Crush” All Attacks

EU risks fallout with US over Trump-linked Balkans pipeline plan

The EU risks a confrontation with Donald Trump after it sought to stall the awarding of a lucrative Balkans pipeline contract to a company fronted by his personal lawyer, documents seen by the Guardian show. Brussels has clashed with Trump over trade, Ukraine and military spending, but the intervention in the Southern Interconnection pipeline project appears to mark the first time it has challenged a commercial venture by those close to the president.

The pipeline will run through Bosnia and Herzegovina. Under what Bosnian sources say have been months of pressure from US officials, its leaders have been moving quickly to award the contract to a previously little-known company based in Wyoming.

AAFS Infrastructure and Energy was incorporated in November last year and has not disclosed its owners. It is fronted by two leading members of Trump’s campaign to overturn his 2020 election defeat: Jesse Binnall, a lawyer who defended him against allegations of inciting the Capitol riots after his defeat, and Joe Flynn, the brother of the president’s former national security adviser. Despite lacking any apparent track record, AAFS is planning to invest $1.5bn in the pipeline and other Bosnian infrastructure projects, its local representative has said.

In March, lawmakers approved legislation that Transparency International said would set a “dangerous precedent” by stipulating that the contract must go to AAFS without a tender. Days later, Brussels’ representative in Sarajevo delivered a private warning to Bosnia’s leaders that they were jeopardising the country’s hopes of joining the EU.

Binnall has said the pipeline is a “priority for the Trump administration”. By connecting Bosnia to a liquefied natural gas terminal off the Croatian coast, the pipeline would allow US gas to reach a country that depends on Russia for its entire supply. After Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Brussels set a deadline for EU members – plus aspiring members, such as Bosnia – to stop buying Russian gas by 2028. Nonetheless, Brussels faces the prospect of a crucial new piece of Europe’s energy chessboard falling under the control of not just a US company, but one personally connected to an antagonistic president.

FOOD Inflation SPIKES, THOUSANDS Of Flights Canceled

Lockheed Martin CEO sees Trump’s Pentagon as ‘golden opportunity’ for growth

Lockheed Martin’s CEO has called the Trump administration a “golden opportunity” for the company as it expands its contracting work for the federal government amid the conflict in the Middle East. In an earnings call on Thursday covering the first quarter of 2026, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet told investors that the company is well positioned “based on more available resources for us”.

“This is a golden opportunity right now based on who’s in government,” Taiclet said, citing “their experience, their willingness to change, the demand that they have for what we do and what our partners in our industry do”. He added that the company could move past the “burden” that came with government contracting and move it “towards a commercial contracting system”.

Lockheed Martin’s relationship with the US government spans from producing the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission to manufacturing top-secret missiles that have been used in the conflict with Iran. Since the start of the Iran conflict, the Pentagon has announced multiple contracts with the defense engineering company worth billions of dollars, on top of the existing contracts the government has with the company.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced two huge contracts with the company: first, a $4.7bn contract to accelerate production of its Pac-3 missile segment enhancement interceptors, followed by a $1.9bn contract to continue its C-0130J maintenance and aircrew training systems used to train members of the military.

For defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, scaling up production can come with high risks if, for example, the government terminates an order. But Taiclet told investors that the Pentagon has added a “recovery element” to its contracts with Lockheed Martin that would allow the company to receive payment even if a contract is eventually changed.

US soldier involved in Maduro raid charged over alleged bets on capture

A US soldier who played a role in the January capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro is now in custody after allegedly cashing in over $400,000 on wagers about the politician’s removal from office, federal authorities announced on Thursday.

Prosecutors say beginning in early December the soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, was involved in planning for the military operation to capture and depose Maduro. Between early December and early January, Van Dyke allegedly placed 13 bets on Polymarket, a popular prediction market, related to American forces invading Venezuela and taking its head of state.

Van Dyke has been charged with commodities and wire fraud in addition to unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, according to the Department of Justice (DoJ). He is facing up to 60 years in prison.

NYT alleges FBI investigated reporter over story on Kash Patel’s girlfriend

The FBI began investigating a New York Times reporter after the newspaper published a story raising concerns about the security arrangements surrounding the girlfriend of Kash Patel, the FBI director, the Times has reported. According to reporting from the Times on Wednesday, the inquiry into Elizabeth Williamson, the reporter, began in March following an article she reported alleging that Patel used FBI resources to provide protection and transportation for his girlfriend, the country singer Alexis Wilkins.

The report, citing a source familiar with the matter, states that FBI agents searched databases for details about Williamson, and suggested further steps to assess whether her actions might violate federal stalking laws. Patel denied the investigation during a Wednesday appearance on Fox News with Sean Hannity.

The original piece, published on 28 February, examined the use of federal officials assigned to perform personal duties for an administration figure. Williamson wrote that Patel had assigned four agents to protect Wilkins full time, and that they had transported her to appearances in Britain, Illinois and Nashville.

The FBI, in its own statement to the Times, said that “while investigators were concerned about how the aggressive reporting techniques crossed lines of stalking”, it was not moving forward with a case against Williamson.

Microsoft and Meta announce large staff reductions as they spend big on AI

Meta and Microsoft are trimming their workforces by thousands as they make heavy investments in AI and executives claim that the technology is meeting their companies’ productivity needs.

Meta told staff on Thursday that on 20 May it would cut some 10% of its personnel – just under 8,000 employees– to boost efficiency, part of a layoff plan made months ago. The company is also closing about 6,000 open roles. The same day, Microsoft announced to employees, for the first time, that it would offer voluntary retirement to about 7% of its American workforce of roughly 125,000.

In an internal memo to Meta’s staff, Janelle Gale, the chief people officer, didn’t mention AI explicitly but said the cuts would allow the company to “offset the other investments we’re making”. In Meta’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings presentation, the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, spoke about a “major AI acceleration” that included plans to spend from $115bn to $135bn on AI – nearly twice the company’s capital expenditure the previous year.

“This is not an easy tradeoff,” Gale wrote. She emphasized that laid-off employees would receive generous severance packages. Zuckerberg, in contrast to Gale, has said outright that AI is making some hiring unnecessary. “We’re starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person,” he said in the January earnings call.

Other companies doubling down on AI have slashed their numbers, too. The Block CEO Jack Dorsey cut almost half the company’s workforce in early March, citing gains in AI. Amazon, which announced plans to spend a whopping $200bn in one year in February, has laid off at least 30,000 workers in the last six months. Oracle, which is struggling with the debt load of its multibillion-dollar investment in datacenters, told employees last month that it would be cutting thousands of jobs, too.

DoJ inspector general to audit department’s compliance with Epstein Files Transparency Act

The US Department of Justice’s office of the inspector general (OIG) announced on Thursday that it is launching an audit of the justice department’s compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. In a news release, the deputy inspector general William M Blier, who the statement said is performing the duties of the inspector general, said the “preliminary objective” of the internal inquiry “is to evaluate the [justice department’s] processes for identifying, redacting, and releasing records in its possession as required by the act”.

The review will look at the justice department’s “identification, collection, and production of responsive material”, as well as its “guidance and processes for redacting and withholding material consistent with the requirements enumerated in the act” and the its “processes for addressing post-release publication concerns”.

“If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider addressing other issues that may arise during the course of the audit,” the statement added.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress last year and signed into law last November, mandates the release of all of the justice department’s files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with exceptions to withhold records that identify victims, include images of child sexual abuse, and those that are related to ongoing investigations or are tied to national security.

The justice department has faced criticism in recent months over the extent to which it has complied with the law. The justice department failed to comply with the act’s 19 December deadline to release the relevant files, only releasing what it has claimed were the full files on 31 January. In addition, many Epstein victims have complained that their sensitive personal information was improperly exposed in the files, and some lawmakers have also raised concerns about the extent of the redactions in the documents.

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New LEGO Video For Americans | Why Are You Paying So Much in Taxes?

Despite Denials, AIPAC Is Now Funding Campaign of Ala Stanford In Philadelphia

AIPAC has been funneling money into the campaign of Dr. Ala Stanford in Pennsylvania’s 3rd congressional district, before the next slate of Democratic primaries, new federal campaign filings reveal.

Stanford has denied taking AIPAC money in the race for an open Philadelphia seat, but the records show the pro-Israel group has been secretly routing money directly to her campaign and into a super PAC supporting her that backs candidates who are involved in science or medicine. The structure allows Stanford, a pediatrician, to distance herself from the group’s increasingly toxic political reputation with the American public, while still benefiting from its cash outlays.

The super PAC is called 314 Action Fund, and as of April 21, had spent more than $2.6 million boosting Stanford, according to the latest filings. The group’s most recent monthly filing reveals a $500,000 donation from Kimbark Foundation, a group whose only other donation is $500,000 to EDW Action Fund, another PAC that has previously acted as an AIPAC shell organization. In the 2024 cycle, AIPAC used EDW Action to secretly funnel money to support Maxine Dexter, also a pediatrician, in her race against Susheela Jayapal in Oregon. It’s stated purpose is to elect pro-choice Democratic women. 314 Action has reported just $2.8 million in independent expenditures, meaning their support for Stanford represents the bulk of their independent spending so far.

Stanford has also taken in more than $27,000 through Democracy Engine from major AIPAC donors in the first quarter of 2026; Democracy Engine is a vehicle used by AIPAC to bundle donor money and funnel it to preferred candidates.

Stanford raised eyebrows when she made the argument that referring to Israel’s genocide in Gaza as a genocide was tantamount to using the “N-word,” calling it “the G-word.”

Cory Booker STILL Shaming Non-Voters For BOYCOTTING KAMALA - w/ Jose Vega

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Republican lawmakers attempt to shield big oil from climate lawsuits in ‘alarming’ bills

Republican lawmakers are attempting to shield big oil from having to pay for its contributions to the climate crisis, alarming environmental advocates. New House and Senate bills, led by Harriet Hageman, a Wyoming representative, and Ted Cruz, a Texas senator, respectively, would give oil and gas companies broad legal immunity from policies and lawsuits aimed at holding the industry accountable for damages caused by its emissions.

Dubbed the Stop Climate Shakedowns Act of 2026, the proposal would protect the sector from liability. It is similar to a 2005 law that has largely blocked lawsuits against the firearms industry over gun violence.

The Republicans’ proposal is designed to stop a surge of climate accountability measures launched by states and municipalities – which Hageman’s office called “leftist legal crusades punishing lawful activity”, in a statement. In recent years, more than 70 state and local governments have sued oil companies for allegedly deceiving the public about the dangers of their products. Meanwhile, New York and Vermont have also passed climate “superfund” laws requiring major polluters to pay for damages from past emissions, with other states considering similar policies.

If passed, the new federal legislation would dismiss pending climate accountability lawsuits, void all climate superfund laws and block similar future efforts. The proposals attempt to undermine the very foundations of climate accountability measures, said Delta Merner, lead scientist at the science hub for climate litigation at the science advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists.

‘Pacific ashtray’: Australian billionaire’s plan to ship and burn waste in Fiji condemned by villagers

An Australian billionaire’s plan to burn rubbish for energy in Fiji amounts to “waste colonialism” and risks spoiling a “beach paradise”, villagers and the Pacific country’s UN ambassador have said. Traditional landowner Inoke Tora boarded a bus to the capital, Suva, on Tuesday with a petition from villagers opposing the $630m waste-to-energy incinerator, which is forecast to consume 900,000 tonnes of non-recyclable rubbish each year.

The fashion entrepreneur behind the Paris-born Kookai label and an Australian billionaire who made his fortune in rubbish disposal want to build a port and waste incinerator within 15km (9 miles) of Fiji’s tourism gateway Nadi. The Australian-based duo of Ian Malouf and Rob Cromb have told Fiji’s government the project could meet 40% of the small country’s electricity needs, cutting its reliance on diesel.

However, an environmental impact statement lodged by their company TNG shows it would also raise Fiji’s national emissions by 25%. Residents say the emissions will spoil Fiji’s eco-tourism reputation and pose a safety risk with hotels and schools nearby. “There are hundreds of people living in villages in this place and they fish each day, eat fresh crabs. They call that beach paradise,” Tora told AFP by telephone on his way to petition Fiji’s prime minister.“The government should stop this.”

Fiji’s ambassador to the UN, Filipo Tarakinikini, wrote on social media on Monday that the Vuda coast north of Nadi “must not become the Pacific’s ashtray”. Ash residue and dioxins would contaminate the food chain, Tarakinikini warned, likening the plan to send up to 700,000 tonnes of non-recyclable rubbish to Fiji each year to “waste colonialism”.

“Dial-a-Dump” founder Malouf spent seven years trying to get a similar waste-to-energy incinerator approved in Sydney before it was rejected as a risk to human health in 2018, planning and court documents show.

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some of which defied fair-use abstraction.

A Secret Act of Judicial Tyranny

The Extension of the Iran War Truce Works To Iran’s Benefit

Iran War: Inflation Hitting the U.S., More to Come, Don’t Tell Mr. Market

Katz: Israel Waiting for US ‘Green Light’ To Attack Iran, Plunge Country Into the ‘Stone Age’

War On Iran: A Stalemate With No End In Sight

Jordanians wonder if it's time to kick out US troops

Israeli Troops Say Mass Looting of Occupied Southern Lebanon ‘Routine’

Palantir’s Manifesto Is the Agenda of the New Class Reconfiguring the System’s Power Structure

‘Workers Over Billionaires’: Over 3,000 Events Planned for May Day Across US

A catastrophic climate event is upon us. Here is why you’ve heard so little about it

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A Little Night Music

The Isley Brothers - It's Your Thing

The Isley Brothers - Respectable

The Isley Brothers - Just One More Time

The Isley Brothers - Nobody But Me

The Isley Brothers - I’m Gonna Knock On Your Door

Isley Brothers - Twist And Shout

The Isley Brothers - I Turned You On

The Isley Brothers - Black Berries

The Isley Brothers - Work To Do

The Isley Brothers - Fight The Power

The Isley Brothers - Shout

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