ROGER McKENZIE looks at how US doublespeak on the ‘war on drugs’ is used to camouflage its intended grab for of Latin America’s natural resources
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Mandelson’s Russia-Ukraine conflict of interest
You’ll never guess why a quick peace in Ukraine might be in the ambassador to Washington’s interests, writes SOLOMON HUGHES. Actually, of course you will – he stands to make a lot of money from his business links to Russia
DODGY DUO: Pleased as Punch Peter Mandelson and Keir Starmer
Plans to delay access to the universal credit health element until age 22 have triggered fierce opposition from disabled people’s groups, who warn it would deepen poverty and entrench discrimination against young disabled people under the guise of ‘encouraging work.’ DYLAN MURPHY reports
(March 1928 – December 2025)
Saluting an internationalist and a courageous and uncompromising seeker of the truth
The US assault on Venezuela is brazen and unlawful – yet our PM claims uncertainty. By refusing to confront Trump’s naked imperialism, Starmer abandons international law, mortgages British policy to Washington, and clears the ground for war, argues ANDREW MURRAY
RAINER RUPP examines former CIA analyst Larry Johnson’s description of the US operation to kidnap Nicolas Maduro as a tactically successful but strategically disastrous move, with shades of Bush’s disastrous intervention in Iraq
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Western outrage was absolute. Yet today, the tone is markedly more subdued regarding US aggression against Venezuela. The manner in which the media and politicians frame this invasion exposes a profound ideological double standard, writes MARC VANDEPITTE
PETER MANDELSON, Britain’s ambassador to Washington, embarrassed Keir Starmer’s government by demanding Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelensky should give “unequivocal backing” to Donald Trump’s “peace” plan directly after Trump humiliated Zelensky in public.
But Mandelson’s outburst was completely consistent with his general approach of agreeing with the most powerful men in the room — especially US presidents — and seeing Putin’s Russia as a business opportunity, not a dangerous authoritarian government.
After Trump mauled Zelensky in the Oval Office, Starmer and other European leaders made a show of supporting the Ukrainian president. But Mandelson told ABC News that Zelensky should be “giving his unequivocal backing to the initiative that President Trump is taking to end the war.”
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Washington plays innocent bystander while pouring weapons and intelligence into Ukraine, just as it enables the Gaza genocide — but every US escalation leaves Ukraine weaker than the neutrality deal rejected in 2022, argue MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES
