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    As Trump fans the flames of a world on fire, can diplomacy take back control?

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    Amid the chaos, havoc and war caused by a capricious and amoral US president, countries are waking up to the dangers of being excluded and abused by AmericaNever has there been a time when the world has been more interconnected than now. What happens in the secretive inner councils in Tehran, the mountains of south-west Yemen, the steppe of the Donbas, the still bloody wasteland that is Gaza and even the elegant boulevards of Paris and Milan have a common thread.One cannot understand one set of conflicts without weaving them into another, and it is this very interdependence that is making each problem so contagious, layered and difficult to resolve, leaving the world to live as if trapped inside a pressure cooker on the brink of an explosion. Continue reading… More

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      US cancels G20 ‘family photo’ after Australia, UK and others refuse to appear with Russia

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      Marco Rubio pulls plug on traditional photo op at meeting of foreign ministers after about one-third of countries threaten boycottThe traditional “family photo” to open the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting has been abruptly cancelled in the US after a host of nations – including Australia and the UK – refused to appear beside the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, pulled the plug after several European officials, the UK and Australia made it known they would boycott or walk out of the snapshot that often kicks off such international gatherings. Continue reading… More

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      in US Politics

      Retired Michigan teacher released from Russian prison believed he would never be freed

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      Stephen Hubbard said that only when he was being taken from Moscow to St Petersburg did he believe he was ‘going somewhere’In his first comments since recently being released from a Russian prison, a retired Michigan teacher said he only believed he would be freed when he got new clothes.Stephen Hubbard, 74, remarked on Friday that he had heard many times previously that he would be released – but never really trusted what he was told, adopting a philosophy of “seeing is believing” and “actions speak louder than words”. Continue reading… More

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      As Trump’s time runs out, this could be his most dangerous legacy: a world divided into three | Steve Bloomfield

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      We’ve heard much about the end of the west. At the proposed summit between Trump, Putin and Xi, those fears could crystalliseIn the final two years of a US presidency, when Congress has been lost, approval ratings have sunk like a stone and their party has started to think about who’s coming next, the person occupying the Oval Office can feel their power draining away. Domestic legislation, particularly in an era where bipartisan cooperation is almost nonexistent, grinds to a halt. But as the days tick by until the end, and as presidents begin to think about their legacy, there is one part of the job where they still have power: the rest of the world.In the final weeks of his presidency in 1992 George HW Bush sent 28,000 American troops to Somalia to help end a famine. For Bill Clinton, it was a quixotic attempt to bring peace to the Middle East by ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Barack Obama restored diplomatic ties with Cuba, making a historic visit to Havana, as well as a final, successful push on the Iran nuclear deal. Continue reading… More

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      The Trump-Putin love story’s next chapter: selling out Ukraine | Sidney Blumenthal

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      The US president is portraying Zelenskyy as the villain as he strives for Russia’s approvalIf Donald Trump could, he would fly to Munich to sign away Ukraine to Vladimir Putin, and return to wave the document as “peace in our time”, hoping to claim at least the second Fifa peace prize.Whatever the complicated motives of Neville Chamberlain, his well-grounded fear after the carnage of a world war of another apocalypse and his wishful thinking that Hitler would be satiated after carving up Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain had not sent his son-in-law and former golf partner and real estate partner in advance to cut back-end deals with the Nazis to profit for his family and cronies.Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of the Court of History podcast Continue reading… More

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      Trump, Musk, Zelenskyy: who is blaming who in the Ukraine-Starlink row?

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      A war of words has erupted over who is responsible for the restrictions on Starshield access in UkraineA war of words has erupted between the Trump administration, officials in Kyiv and Elon Musk over who is to blame for limiting Ukraine’s access to Space X’s military-grade version of Starlink.The restrictions to Starshield have rendered many of the drones used by Kyiv to strike behind the frontlines inoperable and hampered air defence systems that stop Russian attacks, according to Ukrainian officials. Continue reading… More

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      Putin orders release of jailed American as he meets Trump envoy for Ukraine talks

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      Russia frees Stephen Hubbard after US request while Steve Witkoff praises Putin, wanted by ICC as war criminal, as a ‘humanitarian’Vladimir Putin ordered the release of an American man from a Russian jail as he met Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg on Wednesday for fresh talks on ending the war in Ukraine, amid increasingly close relations between Moscow and Washington.Trump had previously asked Putin to free Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old former teacher who had spent more than four years in Russian jails on charges of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine. Continue reading… More