WASHINGTON/BERLIN (own report) - US high-tech oligarch Elon Musk is topping his interventions in support of the AfD election campaign with a live chat with AfD spokesperson Alice Weidel this Thursday. The subject of the discussion, which Musk and the AfD are unanimously promoting, is above all “the AfD’s ideas for getting Germany fit for the future”, a Weidel spokesperson is quoted as saying. Musk has previously openly backed the party, just as he has spoken in support of ultra-right forces in other European countries, including the UK and Italy. The European far right had already enjoyed support from Donald Trump’s circle during Trump’s first presidency. The then US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, for instance, abandoning all diplomatic reserve, declared in June 2018 that he “absolutely wants to strengthen other conservatives across Europe”. And, again in 2018, Trump’s former ‘chief strategist’ Steve Bannon tried to coordinate larger parties of the far right across Europe and help them achieve greater electoral success. Bannon may have failed back then, but since 2022, the US Republican’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has become systematically rooted in Europe, linking European far-right forces to the US right via an offshoot based in Hungary. Read more

BERLIN/WASHINGTON/SAIPAN (own report) - The specifics of Julian Assange’s release turn a spotlight not only on the state of media freedom in the West but also on the continuation of Western colonial rule in parts of the Global South. The condition for dropping the legal case against Assange is that the founder of WikiLeaks pleads guilty to a violation of the 1917 US Espionage Act. This arrangement is unprecedented insofar as it is the first time that this act has been applied to journalistic publication of confidential US information. Assange pleaded in person before a US court in Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands. This group of Pacific islands form a US territory whose inhabitants do not have the right to vote in presidential elections. Nor do they have a political representative in Washington entitled to vote in Congress. The same lack of suffrage is found on Guam, the southernmost of the Mariana Islands. Historically, Guam has been administratively separated and is still listed by the United Nations as a “Non-Self-Governing Territory”. These islands remain colonies to this day. Guam is a key US military base for its strategic deployment against China. Base Guam is also used by the German Bundeswehr. Read more

BERLIN/WASHINGTON (own report) - Germany and Europe are on the brink of a second ‘Zeitenwende’ – another epochal turning point. At least this is a scenario predicted by the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in a recent study. The think-tank points out the likelihood of a significant reduction in US military activities in Europe after the US presidential election on 5 November – not only if Donald Trump wins but also if Joe Biden emerges victorious. When it comes to the crunch, Biden will, according to the SWP’s analysis, prioritise preparation for a war against China over Taiwan over any future support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. The authors argue that ‘the main task’ of German foreign and military policy should be to ‘secure’ the EU and the NATO states of Europe against Russia in the future. ‘All aspects’ of the ongoing arms build-up in Europe must be ‘geared to this objective’. Berlin should, therefore, step away from small-scale military missions all around the world. This policy recommendation dovetails with strategic deliberations in the US on the feasibility of waging three wars simultaneously: against Russia, against adversaries in the Middle East, and against China. The threat of such a military scenario could only be realised with the support of US allies and a massive arms build-up. Read more

The Marshall Plan? That was, according to the belief widely held in the West, and semi-officially supported in West Germany, an unselfish reconstruction program by the United States after the Second World War. The program publicly presented on June 5, 1947, by George C. Marshall, US Secretary of State, at the time, was aimed at helping the economies of Europe – still floundering under the destruction of the war – to get back on their feet, while simultaneously “preventing the spread of communism.” This is how it is explained, for example, on the web portal “Lebendes Museum Online” (LeMo), which is sponsored by the German government’s Foundation ”Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.” According to this, from 1948 to 1952, Washington, altruistically made enormous sums available, at the time, – around US $12.4 billion – in current values €157 billion – to improve living conditions in Western Europe. The Marshall Plan – a humanitarian miracle? Whoever is skeptical about this semi-official historiography, will find comprehensive background information in the recently published book by French historian, Annie Lacroix-Riz on “The Origins of the Marshall Plan” or, as described in the subtitle, “the Myth of the American Aid.” Read more

BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI (Own report) – Germany is participating in plans to build a transport corridor all the way to India, in cooperation with the EU and USA. According to a decision taken by Washington, Brussels, Berlin and the governments of other countries on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi, an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is to link Europe and South Asia. It will be a combination of a rail and shipping corridor and include the construction of submarine cables. The delivery of green hydrogen from Israel to Europe is also planned. The project is designed to compete with China’s New Silk Road, as well as to bind New Delhi tighter to the EU and pit it against Beijing. IMEC is the fourth major infrastructure project launched by the EU and USA to diminish the importance of the New Silk Road. Two are considered failures, one (“Global Gateway”) is advancing only slowly. And yet there is a great need for investment in the infrastructure sector worldwide, leaving room for Chinese and transatlantic projects of any magnitude - side by side and simultaneously. Read more

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS (Own report) – The EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council (TTC), which meets today, plans new coercive economic measures against China following the successful coordination of Western sanctions against Russia, according to reports on draft conclusions of the transatlantic summit. After the start of the Ukraine war, the TTC – that was founded in 2021 to repair the transatlantic rifts on economic issues, which had emerged during the Trump era – morphed into a central body for coordinating Western coercive measures against Russia. It will now additionally coordinate controls of exports and investments relating to China within the United States and the EU. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also expected to attend the meeting. Meanwhile, the EU is elaborating an Economic Security Strategy to facilitate economic measures against China. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has recently called for banning investments in the People’s Republic by European companies, whenever deemed necessary. Experts are promoting the creation of a “geo-economic NATO”. Read more

BERLIN/TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Own report) – For the first time ever, the German government will hold German-Japanese government consultations in Tokyo this weekend with a special focus on expanding bilateral combat exercises at the Pacific. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and six ministers, including Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, will meet for talks with their Japanese counterparts tomorrow to intensify cooperation between the two states. This comes at a time when not only Japan is embarking on a massive arms build-up, increasing its military budget by over 50 percent, and is procuring missiles and cruise missiles that can reach China. The United States as well, is dramatically expanding its military presence in the vicinity of the People’s Republic, amassing its armed forces throughout the first island chain off China’s coast – from Japan via Taiwan to the Philippines – and turning Australia into a sort of rear base of operations for launching eventual attacks on China. Even military bases on small islands in the Pacific are being expanded to secure supplies from the USA for combat in eastern Asia. At the same time, the Bundeswehr is expanding its exercises throughout the entire region. Read more

BERLIN/WASHINGTON (Own report) – German und US media are trying to divert from the well-founded suspicion of the US government's responsibility for the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline by presenting an alternative version. According to reports published on Tuesday on both sides of the Atlantic and based on anonymous US government sources and unconfirmed investigations, a group of six, possibly Ukrainian or Russian nationals, is believed to have single-handedly committed the sabotage with a yacht rented in Rostock – with no indications of government involvement. This is quite astonishing since, up to now, government responsibility was considered to be the only established fact, due to the enormous resources required. To support the alternative version of the crime, German investigators are said to have discovered traces of explosives on a table in the yacht in January – nearly four months after the sabotage. Above all, the alternative version serves one purpose: to divert suspicion from the USA, which bears responsibility for the crime – according to the research by the US journalist Seymour Hersh. Read more

BERLIN/WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Own report) – The United Sates is holding up the promised deliveries of M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine as a means of attacking Germany’s Leopard 2’s strong standing on the European arms markets. This is suggested by reports from industrial circles. As the Biden administration has confirmed, the promised 31 M1 Abrams battle tanks will probably not be delivered to Kiev before two, or eventually one and a half years. Washington is supposedly ready to quickly replace the Leopard 2 battle tanks, European countries deliver to Kiev, with M1 Abrams, as long as the recipients engage in a “long-term industrial partnership.” This would mean, however, that they would be lost as potential customers for German battle tanks. Experts warn that this would also entail Berlin’s loss of political influence. Poland was the first European state to opt for US battle tanks, already prior to Russia’s intervention, and is also buying battle tanks from South Korea, which it plans to produce itself, in a few years. This, in turn, serves US Interests in Eastern Asia – and weakens Berlin. Read more

BERLIN/WASHINGTON (Own report – The trade war is expanding between the EU and the USA over investment programs worth hundreds of billions. According to reports, these programs threaten not only the production of electric cars and their batteries, but also the wind and hydrogen energy sectors – all the industrial sectors crucial to Berlin’s and the EU’s futuristic plans. This is caused by these US measures, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which promise hundreds of billions of US dollars in subsidies, however, granted only for products manufactured in the USA. To take advantage of this boost in subsidies, Washington is coaxing companies from Europe, but also from Japan and South Korea to relocate to the United States. Whereas France is calling for resolute countermeasures, Berlin is playing it down, restricting the EU to negotiations with the USA. According to economists, “a great number of industries of the future” are ultimately at stake. Former Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser even warns of an “industrial and capital exodus from Europe” to the USA. Read more