The scandal erupted as Ukrainians suffer blackouts caused by Russian bombing. The state said it had spent tens of millions of euros to protect energy infrastructure from drones and missiles.
Ecuador freezes bank accounts of Indigenous leaders, land defenders
President Daniel Noboa has repeatedly accused Indigenous protesters and land defenders of being financed by organized crime and called the protests “acts of terrorism.” During the recent protests, interior minister John Reimberg spoke directly about account freezes, saying in an interview with local journalist Jimmy Jairala, “the issue of the accounts is fundamental,” as protesters are receiving financial backing from people trying to “destabilize the country and create chaos,” he says.
The bank freezes have been criticized by several human rights organizations, with Juanita Goebertus, Human Rights Watch’s director of the Americas, warning the Ecuadorian government to increase transparency and ensure peoples’ rights to defense be respected.
The United Nations Human Rights Office also called the account freezes part of a “pattern of attacks [that] seems designed to silence civil society organizations and Indigenous peoples,” it wrote in a special report released in October. Experts of the report go on to say the adoption of the Law of Social Transparency “stigmatizes and criminalizes the social sector.”
The divisive US autumnal drink with a shady past
In 1621, the Dutch, desperate for a monopoly over the expensive, rare nutmeg that grew only in Indonesia’s Banda Islands, would annihilate nearly the entire Bandanese population, keeping the rest in near-slavery, while selling the spice for massive profits in Europe. In Sri Lanka, home of the cinnamon plant, the Portuguese, Dutch and English forced locals into harvesting and peeling cinnamon under brutal, exploitative conditions; those who resisted were flogged and tortured. Cloves from Indonesia’s Ambon Islands were gathered under the same Dutch regime; while ginger, introduced to the Caribbean in the 17th Century, was cultivated on plantations where the English, Spanish and French relied on enslaved labour.
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20251113-the-divisive-autumnal-drink-with-a-shady-past
Economist Warns That Trump’s Investments in the Tech Industry Could Crash the Whole Economy
To strengthen America’s technological edge, President Donald Trump directed the government to buy $8.9 billion of Intel stock this summer, a controversial move that may be followed by a similar deal with quantum-computing companies getting millions of dollars in federal funding.
The splashy moves could endanger the prosperous American economy, according to an influential economist speaking to Politico — especially in tandem with the White House’s gutting of agencies that have historically collaborated with the private sector.
“I think the kind of capitalism Trump has is crony capitalism,” Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato told Politico. “I would describe crony capitalism as Mafia-like. You’re showing your upper hand. You’re handing out favors to some. But then divide and conquer. Picking and choosing without a particular strategy.”
https://futurism.com/future-society/economist-trump-economy-crash
People’s Summit Begins In Brazil As An Alternative To COP30
Organized by more than 1,100 civil society organizations, the Summit is expected to bring together more than 30,000 people who will exchange experiences and denounce those who, according to them, are destroying the environment.
“We are starting the People’s Summit… by reinforcing our resistance to the false solutions presented by COP30, which carries with it the mark of projects to destroy nature, pollute rivers, and poison forests,” said Ayala Ferreira, national leader of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST).
Unlike COP30, which focuses on intergovernmental negotiations, the People’s Summit offers a collective environment and dialogues open to the public. Its program is based on six fundamental axes that include historical reparation and environmental racism, just transition, and food sovereignty.
The organizers emphasize that the answers to a sustainable world come from the people of the waters, forests, fields, and peripheries, who resist with their collective, agroecological, and ancestral practices.
However, in a historic event, the Brazilian indigenous movement, with the support of the federal government, ensured massive participation in COP30. As a result of this coordination, nearly 400 indigenous leaders gained access to the official spaces of the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
https://popularresistance.org/peoples-summit-begins-in-brazil-as-an-alternative-to-cop30/
GREECE A Southern European Dictatorship with Western Backing
Greece on the Frontlines of the Cold War
The rise of the Greek junta is inextricably linked to the Cold War. Greece had traditionally been under the British sphere of influence given its location in a region crucial to the strategic and economic interests of the British Empire. Britain had also played a decisive role in expelling the German occupiers in December 1944.
When the Greek Civil War broke out in 1946, Britain provided economic and military assistance to the Greek government. However, Britain informed the White House by late 1946 that it was unable to continue with military and economic assistance, and urged US intervention. The Greek Civil War was subsequently acknowledged as one of the “hot” fronts of the emerging Cold War.
US intervention in the Civil War was inaugurated by the Truman Doctrine in March 1947. Apart from military aid, the Truman administration provided a significant amount of economic aid to the Greek government, signalling a new phase in US foreign policy. Thus, Greece became a kind of test case for US leadership of the so-called “Free World” in its confrontation with what it portrayed as Soviet totalitarianism. Moreover, Greece was perceived to be the “birthplace” of democracy and thus had great symbolic importance.
[…]
Despite the significant progress researchers have made in undermining some of the poisonous myths fostered by sympathizers of the junta, post-1974 governments only partially confronted its legacy in the state. As a result, the dictatorship enjoyed a favourable image among military and police personnel for decades after its collapse. Even among average Greeks, the widespread but unsubstantiated myth persists that the junta made a positive contribution to Greece’s economic development.
Recently, a number of opinion polls have confirmed that the overwhelming majority of Greeks reject the dictatorship as a “dark period” in Greek history and cherish democracy. Nevertheless, 32 percent of Greeks still appear to believe that the dictatorship was “a good period for the country’s economy”, 37 percent believe that “farmers benefited” from the dictatorship, while 56 percent share the view that the junta carried out major infrastructure works in the country’s road network.
Although these are just indices, they show that Greece’s authoritarian period continues to resonate with segments of Greek society even today.
https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/52349/a-southern-european-dictatorship-with-western-backing
How An Intrepid Greek Exile, The CIA And The Boston Globe Nearly Kept Richard Nixon Out Of The White House
Elias Demetracopoulos was a fascinating character — World War II resistance fighter, journalist, opponent of the military junta in Greece and, ultimately, a political exile in the United States. Today, though, he is all but forgotten.
In a new biography, James H. Barron seeks to rectify that. “The Greek Connection: The Life of Elias Demetracopoulos and the Untold Story of Watergate” (Melville House) portrays a larger-than-life figure who could have altered the course of American history if his warnings about illegal Greek financial contributions to Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign had been made public. As Barron reveals, The Boston Globe came tantalizingly close to breaking that story — but it went untold until years later.
Given what we already know about Nixon’s attempts to sabotage the Vietnam peace talks during the 1968 campaign, the new details about secret Greek money described by Barron can only add to Nixon’s reputation as a corrupt, cynical politician willing to wade illegally into international affairs if he thought it would benefit him. Watching President Donald Trump clumsily bulldoze his way over the path blazed by Nixon calls to mind Marx’s observation that “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”
Are We Humans or Homo Economicus? Why Economics Needs to Evolve Beyond Growth
An economist talking with authority about an area in which he had no expertise – is common enough to have a name: economics imperialism. In a masterly historical account, Matthew Watson, professor of political economy at the University of Warwick, traces the development of the mathematical market models that have come to dominate economics, and which allow economists to dazzle us with what looks like hard science and inarguable logic (and most importantly, numbers). Watson points out the important distinctions and differences between what he calls the “world within the model”, in other words the world as depicted by a mathematical model, and the “real world”, or the world as it is experienced in everyday life.
In the real world, rather than rewarding work on growth, many outside of economics – and increasingly many within the discipline – argue that the focus on economic growth is a big problem. It’s as wrong-headed and outdated as the idea of homo economicus. Perhaps, instead of economists invading non-economic arenas, we actually need more non-economists and more non-traditional economists taking a cold, hard look at this traditional economic objective.
First Friends: How the First Couple’s Consigliere Went From Modeling Mogul to Special Envoy
Paolo Zampolli –– the administration’s current Special Envoy for Global Partnerships –– is the subject of this investigation.
In Part I of this series, we met one of Trump’s closest friends from Italy: Flavio Briatore, a P2 lodge and Italian mafia-linked businessman with ties to prominent Victoria’s Secret Angels, at least one of whom he introduced to Epstein. In this second installment, the connections of Zampolli, another Italian close to both Trump and Briatore, are the focus. Zampolli has been in the news recently, not for the backdoor wheeling-and-dealing of his new, official U.S. government post, but because Trump and his wife Melania claim to have been first introduced by Zampolli amid assertions to the contrary that claim it had been Epstein.
As this investigation will show, Zampolli is deeply corrupt. From his beginnings as a protégé for the controversial modeling mogul John Casablancas, a man known for his appetite for what he called “child women,” Zampolli grew his modeling empire with money from Silvio Berlusconi, the corrupt Italian Prime Minister (and close friend of Flavio Briatore) who was forced to resign for his sexual escapades with minors while in office. Zampolli would later follow Casablanca’s example and marry his wife when she was 19, having met her not long after she had flown as an under-age teen on Epstein’s “Lolita Express.”
After leaving the world of modeling to work for Donald Trump in the early 2000s, Zampolli would become closely affiliated with the Clintons as well as the United Nations, where he worked on their climate change initiatives and on the development of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. In particular, Zampolli was part of the team that developed SDG 14 “Life Under Water” alongside Stuart Beck, a figure closely tied to CIA regime change operations in Palau, as well as none other than Ghislaine Maxwell and her TerraMar project.
Yet, that is not all Zampolli would accomplish at the UN, as he would figure prominently in a major UN financing scandal and also boasted close ties to suspect citizenship-by-investment schemes that would later see one of his close colleagues arrested and another dead under exceedingly bizarre circumstances. Those colleagues had been taking bribes from an organized crime and CCP-linked Chinese billionaire who was once at the center of the scandal that directly intersects with most of Jeffrey Epstein’s seventeen visits to the Clinton White House.
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/08/investigative-series/first-friendspt2/
Wall Street’s House of Horrors: Feds Say Ex-Financier Tortured Women with Electrocution Devices in Manhattan ‘Sex Dungeon’
A retired New York financier identified as Howard Rubin, 70, and his former personal assistant Jennifer Powers, 45, were indicted in late September in the Eastern District of New York on ten criminal counts related to sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution, and bank fraud. The indictment stems from allegations that the pair ran a decade long operation exploiting women for commercial sex acts, many involving bondage, discipline, dominance, submission and sadomasochism. Prosecutors also allege the sexual abuse was especially brutal. According to court filings, Rubin “used his wealth to mislead and recruit women to engage in commercial sex acts … where Rubin then tortured women beyond their consent, causing lasting physical and/or psychological pain, and in some cases physical injuries.” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said in a statement. The indictment alleges that Rubin tortured women beyond their consent, detailing injuries like breast implants flipping upside down.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, the scheme operated from at least 2009 through 2019. Rubin and Powers allegedly recruited dozens of women, including former Playboy models, by offering money and luxury travel, then transported them to hotel rooms and a Midtown Manhattan penthouse transformed into a sound proofed “sex dungeon” equipped with electrocution devices and restraints, painted all red.