Russia’s GDP doesn't “equal Spain’s.”
On PPP (closer to real productive capacity), the IMF puts Russia at about $7.5 trillion, Spain at about $3 trillion, and Germany at about $6.4 trillion. Russia has actually moved ahead of Germany on that measure this decade.
Even on nominal GDP (a poor guide to military-industrial capacity) Russia is substantially larger than Spain.
And GDP is a flawed measure anyway, unless we really believe Ireland is vastly wealthier than Austria or Norway because of corporate accounting.
Other than that, The Guardian is correct in saying "there is no immediate military threat to Britain" and this is all being pushed by vested interests in the military business.
Venetian family wealth and power structures moved north to the Bank of Amsterdam in the 17th century, then shaped the Bank of England after William of Orange’s installation—creating the Anglo-Dutch financial model that dominated the British Empire and solidified a neo-Venetian system.
William III’s 1688 accession was a carefully orchestrated financial coup by Amsterdam bankers. He brought Dutch troops and Amsterdam’s war-financing networks. This placed financial capital above the Crown for the first time: national debt made government dependent on financiers, while the post-revolution constitutional settlement subordinated the monarchy to this power, enabling the City of London’s rise.
The East India Company became the empire’s rapacious corporate arm—looting colonies, pushing free-trade imperialism (Adam Smith as apologist), and crushing republican development. It pioneered private corporations wielding state power through plunder, monopolies, and modern finance (stocks, bonds). Americans knew exactly what it represented when they dumped its tea in Boston Harbor.
Though the formal empire dissolved, the underlying model endures: City of London, Wall Street, IMF, and similar institutions still enforce global financial dominance—treating nations and peoples (including the British themselves) as assets to manage. This is exactly why the royals push Malthusian agendas and risk wider conflict: it’s the oligarchy’s playbook, not the people’s.
US lawyer and antiwar activist Dan Kovalik just had his devices seized and was interrogated by counter-terror police at Liverpool Airport
Meanwhile, Palestine solidarity activist Sarah Wilkinson is heading to trial on terrorism charges for a couple of Twitter posts, and refusing to give police her mobile pin
The Canary, one of the UK’s most doggedly antiwar independent media outlets, was just debanked by Lloyd’s
The UK recently refused entry to Hasan Piker and Cenk Uyghur, two of the most recognizable voices of the left wing of the US Democratic Party, on national security grounds
It did the same this month to US journalist Jeremy Loffredo
UK counter terror police detained and interrogated my colleague, Kit Klarenberg, seizing his devices, and grilling him about his investigative journalism. PM Keir Starmer’s Labour Together slush fund even hired a private intel firm to smear Kit and The Grayzone.
UK police raided journalist Asa Winstanley’s home and illegally seized his devices on suspicion of “encouragement of terrorism”
The UK Crown Prosecution Service attempted to prosecute journalist Richard Medhurst under the Terrorism Act, but failed
The list of journalists and activists repressed by the British regime goes on and on. And they have one thing in common: outspoken opposition to Israel’s genocidal agenda.
Who’s actually in charge in London?
The same City of London financial oligarchy that emerged from the 1688 Amsterdam bankers’ coup—building the East India Company empire and subordinating the Crown to debt finance—is still in charge. Suppressing voices critical of Israel’s actions is just business as usual for their imperial system.
A great eg of how the media works . Steele produced the fictional pee dossier that played such a significant role in the Russiagate hoax. Here is the Telegraph (a Russiagate sceptical paper) now channelling another Steele hoax.
In 1164 yrs since founding of the Russian state they have not once attacked Britain (even when we sent our armies over there to attack them at least twice).
But the scary bear helps arms dealing conmen to screw money out of mentally feeble Brits, and the bbc will blast it out.
One of the many sick jokes about living in the UK is that we have an incredible amount of regulatory bodies, but almost none of them actually do any regulating.
The US ended Germany access to cheap energy by destroying Nord Stream and then provided economic incentives for the struggling German industries to relocate to the US. However, our "journalists" can inform us the problem is a "full-blown assault" by China.
Lord Alan West yesterday: "Things like welfare.. are unimportant when you lose a war & you have Russian Chechen stormtroopers coming down the street raping women & killing people"
Reintroducing the workhouse or Russians raping your mum. They're the only choices, ok.
J'adore cette vidéo datée de 2018 !❤️
La ministre des Affaires étrangères autrichienne de l'époque avait adressé une invitation informelle à Vladimir Poutine pour son mariage, lors de sa visite diplomatique à Moscou.
Elle n'imaginait pas une seule seconde qu'il la prendrait au sérieux, car il s'agissait d'une simple invitation de courtoisie, et non d'une attente.
Mais le 18 août 2018, un avion d'État russe a atterri en Autriche.
Vladimir Poutine n'avait pas seulement assisté au mariage.
Il était arrivé accompagné d'une chorale cosaque et avec un samovar traditionnel en guise de cadeau.
La ministre des Affaires étrangères d'un pays neutre de l'Union européenne avait pris la main du dirigeant du Kremlin pour l'inviter à danser une valse en toute simplicité.
Le symbole culturel de l'Autriche est la valse.
Le président Vladimir Vladimirovitch Poutine s'était montré à la hauteur du défi lancé par son hôtesse.
Simplicité, gentillesse, bonne humeur et courtoisie.
Une réussite diplomatique mémorable pour l'Autriche et la Russie.
Questa ragazzina si chiama Valeria Kleymenova, è Russa e ha appena vinto il titolo mondiale giovanile di scacchi under 18. Torneo che si è svolto in Italia.
A causa delle sanzioni vergognose e razziste di quei deficienti dell'Unione Europea, non ha potuto gareggiare sotto la bandiera del proprio Paese ed è stata costretta a gareggiare sotto bandiera neutrale.
Tra l'altro durante il torneo ha sconfitto l'ucraina Sofiia Moskalets, che ha rifiutato perfino di stringerle la mano. Se Valeria fosse stata israeliana e qualcuno avesse rifiutato di stringerle la mano, a quest'ora si parlerebbe a reti unificate di antisemitismo e avremmo i giornaloni pieni.
Invece è Russa quindi tutti muti. Sia davanti alla negazione di poter gareggiare sotto la bandiere del suo Paese sia per il gesto vergognoso.
Congratulazioni a Valeria, non ti curar di loro ma guarda e passa.
- Giuseppe Salamone
89 years ago today Mackenzie King met Adolf Hitler in Germany. Afterwards Canada’s PM wrote “As I talked with him, I could not but think of Joan of Arc” & called Hitler “eminently wise,” a “mystic,” a “deliverer of his people from tyranny”. Hitler had introduced the racist Nuremberg Laws two years before
Canada’s Nazi problem started with Mackenzie King. He actively brought tens of thousands of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators into Canada after WWII, including Waffen SS Galicia veterans and Nazi propagandists like Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather.
What most people already understand, even without the economic terminology, is that firms like BlackRock do not simply acquire these assets on their own.
The ground is prepared for them by politicians who design the policies, oversee the privatisations, and weaken the safeguards that once protected the public interest.
Essential infrastructure,water networks, ports, energy grids, data centres, and other public necessities,is handed over to private investors under the banner of efficiency and modernisation.
The acquisitions are often financed with enormous amounts of debt, much of which is then loaded onto the acquired companies themselves.
The public is told this will deliver better services and greater investment. Instead, consumers end up repaying the debt through higher bills, increased fees, and declining service quality. Infrastructure that exists because society depends upon it is transformed into a mechanism for extracting financial returns.
When the consequences become impossible to ignore, a familiar pattern emerges.
The politicians who championed these policies have often already moved on,frequently into lucrative advisory, consulting, or boardroom roles within the same financial and corporate sectors that benefited from the reforms they helped implement.
The executives collect their bonuses. The investors collect their returns.
The politicians collect their post-office rewards.
Meanwhile, the public is left with deteriorating services, environmental damage, and the bill for cleaning up the mess.
Thames Water's enormous debt burden and repeated sewage scandals are not merely the result of corporate mismanagement.
They are the predictable outcome of a system in which political decisions and financial interests become increasingly intertwined, while accountability becomes increasingly difficult to find.
The gains are privatised.
The losses are socialised.
And the revolving door keeps turning, ensuring that those who create the rules often end up working for those who profit most from them.