As any rookie strategist knows, outcome-focussed policy is based around the alignment of ends, ways and means: what you set as your goals must be matched with a clear strategy and the necessary resources to achieve them. Ukraine as a Western proxy war has proven a massive failure on all three counts.

The nuclear-free campaign, led by Wellington back in the 1980s, is a template worth reviving. 

Wellington became the first city in New Zealand – and the first capital in the world – to declare itself nuclear free in 1982.  It followed the excellent example of Missoula, Montana, USA, the first city in the world to do so, in 1978.

Romania’s ruling elites have just banned the leading candidate in the upcoming Presidential elections. Protesters chanted in Bucharest this week:“The last resort is another revolution”.  People should sit up and pay attention: that sentiment echoes the 1989 overthrow of the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu; it is a call of desperation and defiance a reminder of that era and the sacrifice Romanians made to drive the dictator from power – and to win the right to free and fair elections.

10 Downing Street has dismissed the claims as Russian disinformation but the clinical profiles seem accurate according to sources in Washington, Paris and London who spoke on condition of anonymity.  Dr Freud has been uncontactable since the leaks.  The Palais de l'Élysée has warned that the Tik-Tok “désinformation scandaleuse” is so serious that the next French Presidential elections may have to be postponed indefinitely in order to preserve democracy. 

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called for the EU to turn Ukraine into a “steel porcupine” and for Europe to undertake a massive rearmament. If successful, the project would convert the EU from a largely political-economic union into a military-industrial superpower. It could also create a debt bomb as well as cluster bombs of social discontent that explode at various points in the future.

Witnessing the extraordinary cage fight this week between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office was an eye-popping glimpse into what is normally kept behind closed doors when world leaders meet to nut out matters of great consequence. 

What we seem to be back to is the kind of unequal treaties

The Western media went into overdrive this past week to work the laconic Kiwis into a mild frenzy over three Chinese naval vessels conducting exercises in the Tasman Sea a few thousand kilometres off our shores. What was really behind this orchestrated campaign?

Lest we forget. On 25 February last year Aaron Bushnell, a 25 year-old active duty US serviceman, self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. His last words on this Earth, as the fire consumed him, were: “Free Palestine!” 

Earlier that day, Aaron posed on X what I am sure will become an historic question re-posed for generations to come:  

Time will prove that an ugly peace delivers more than a beautiful war. Russia and the US are setting to work on something even bigger than the Ukraine conflict: normalising relations between the two superpowers which will have huge consequences economically, geopolitically and, hopefully, all to the benefit of the long-suffering Ukrainians and other peoples caught between the two behemoths. 

The Government and the mainstream media have gone ballistic (thankfully not literally just yet) over the move by the small Pacific nation to sign a strategic partnership with China in Beijing this week. It is the latest in a string of island nations that have signalled a closer relationship with China, something that rattles nerves and sabres in Wellington and Canberra.

It generally ends badly.  An old tyrant embarks on an ill-considered project that involves redrawing maps. They are heedless to wise counsel and indifferent to indigenous interests or experience.  Before they fail, are killed, deposed or otherwise disposed of, these vicious old men can cause immense harm.

To save Democracy, the US and the European elites appear to have found it necessary to destroy democracy.  For the first time ever an election was overturned in an EU/NATO country.  Ever.  There were no allegations of voting irregularities – it was about whether Russia had spent money on a Tik Tok influence campaign to support the eventual winner of the first round.  If that sounds an unconvincing reason for such an historic event, the truth is even weirder. 

This story is about vast quantities of uranium, stealing squillions of dollars, how to screw desperately poor people and what an outstanding job the mainstream media does in keeping us all blithely ignorant of this.

Khalida Farrar, a leading Palestinian is finally free from an Israeli hell-hole. The mainstream media has ignored the incredible stories of hostages like her. It’s time to share their stories.

Back at the very start of the war retired US Ambassador Chas Freeman, an eloquent critic of many aspects of his government’s international conduct, warned that the US was prepared “to fight to the last Ukrainian”.  Some want to prove him right.  Others want to save the remaining young men of Ukraine. 

A litmus test of Israel’s commitment to abandon genocide and start down the road towards lasting peace is whether they choose to release the most important of all the hostages, Marwan Barghouti.  During the past 22 years in Israeli prisons he has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken.  What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian - a symbol of his people’s ‘legendary steadfastness’ and determination to win freedom from occupation and resist the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand.

Trump’s rough woo-ing of Canada to become the 51st state, and his threat to use military force to seize both Greenland and the Canal, speak to a back-to-basics focus for American imperialism – a shift in US policy that will bring it closer to its core strategic interests

Ordinary humanity faces an emerging threat from the combined might of the Human Elites (billionaires and the military-political class) working with perhaps the greatest power the planet has ever seen: artificial intelligence. Their combined might has the potential to totally screw us.

States don't tend to kill each other's generals, not least because it invites reciprocal action. The bombing in Moscow this week, killing General Igor Kirillov, was a successful attack by Ukraine and its allies. The ongoing use of long-range missiles used by the West to hit targets inside Russia is, I suggest, surprisingly similar. Both are designed to provoke a reaction rather than achieve anything militarily. They can't alter battlefield realities. It says a lot about where we have got to in the Ukraine War.