A dangerous game of words by Mary Long

Over the past week, the Pacific has rippled with more than just the movement of trade and typhoons. Words, sharp and reckless, have crossed the East China Sea. What began as a single remark from Japan’s new Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, has spiraled into an exchange of threats and indignation between Tokyo and Beijing. Takaichi’s comment that Japan could use its self-defense forces if China attacked Taiwan was a spark thrown onto dry tinder, and now both nations are bristling with nationalist fury.

To some, this is merely diplomatic posturing, the kind of ritual sparring that East Asia has perfected over decades. But it’s more than that. It’s a dangerous moment that risks inflaming old wounds and distracting Japan from the far more pressing crises within its own borders.

Let’s be honest: this is a game Japan doesn’t want, and one it cannot win by playing on China’s terms.

Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, has been in power for barely long enough to hang her portrait in the cabinet room. Her rise was heralded by conservatives as a new dawn, a leader who would stand firm, project strength, and shake off the caution that has long defined Tokyo’s foreign policy. But Takaichi’s boldness, if one can call it that, is already veering into recklessness. The statement about Taiwan may have been meant to showcase resolve, but it has instead exposed Japan to a perilous diplomatic storm.

The Chinese foreign ministry reacted with predictable fury. State-run outlets churned out indignant commentary. Then came a comment from a Chinese diplomat, a chilling remark interpreted as a threat to “behead” Takaichi. Whether that was a metaphor or a literal provocation hardly matters; the damage was done. The atmosphere thickened.

Behind all the noise, though, lies a deeper truth. Japan’s government, for all its talk of strength and principle, is struggling to manage an economy that’s barely breathing, a demographic crisis that’s accelerating, and an electorate that’s losing faith in the state’s ability to solve its problems. For Takaichi, picking a fight, even a verbal one, with China offers a kind of political escape hatch. Nothing unites a restless public like the illusion of a common enemy.

It’s a dangerous illusion. China and Japan’s relationship has never been simple. The ghosts of Nanjing still haunt the conversation. Every visit by a Japanese politician to Yasukuni Shrine revives memories of occupation, atrocity, and defiance. In turn, Japanese citizens resent being forever judged by the sins of a generation long gone. It’s a mutual resentment baked into the DNA of both nations’ politics and it flares easily.

Takaichi’s Taiwan comment touched that nerve precisely. Beijing sees Taiwan as a sacred matter of sovereignty, and any hint that Japan might intervene is treated as a provocation. Yet Japan has always benefited from the so-called “strategic ambiguity” surrounding the island. That ambiguity is what keeps the peace, the unspoken agreement that all sides know where the red lines are, but none officially cross them. By implying that Japan could take military action, Takaichi poked at that balance.

For Tokyo, this verbal saber-rattling carries real risks. Japan’s security still depends heavily on its alliance with the United States, which itself maintains an intentionally fuzzy stance on Taiwan. If Japan signals it might act independently, it risks being caught in the crossfire of U.S.-China tensions. Worse still, it could embolden China to test Japan’s resolve, diplomatically or even militarily, in contested areas such as the Senkaku Islands.

And what does Japan gain from this? Certainly not stability. Certainly not security.

At home, the political dividends may be short-lived. Takaichi’s government faces a laundry list of problems that no amount of patriotic rhetoric can hide: rising prices, stagnant wages, an aging population, and a generation of young people who no longer believe hard work guarantees a future. Japan’s vaunted social compact is fraying, and faith in leadership is at a low ebb. The more these issues mount, the more tempting it becomes for leaders to reach for the language of strength abroad to make foreign tensions a distraction from domestic fatigue. But that’s not leadership. That’s theatre.

The irony is that Japan’s true strength has always come from restraint, from knowing when not to react. For decades, Tokyo’s quiet diplomacy and careful balancing act allowed it to prosper without lighting matches in the powder keg of East Asia. The Self-Defense Forces, despite their name, have stayed true to the principle of deterrence rather than aggression. It would be a tragedy if Takaichi, in her eagerness to project resolve, began to erode that legacy.

Of course, China bears its share of blame. Its diplomats have turned bluster into an art form, and its threats, thinly veiled or not, reveal more insecurity than confidence. But that only makes it more important for Japan to remain the adult in the room. Responding in kind, trading insult for insult, only plays into Beijing’s hands. China thrives on portraying itself as the aggrieved victim of foreign provocation.

The wiser path for Tokyo is the harder one: to step back, to recalibrate, and to remind itself that not every provocation deserves an echo. Japan’s future depends not on how loudly it speaks to its rivals, but on how clearly it listens to its own people.

In the end, diplomacy is not about who shouts first, it’s about who stays standing when the shouting stops. For Japan, the real challenge is not across the sea, but at home. And no amount of bravado can defend against that.

The fog behind the Epstein curtain by Thanos Kalamidas

I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories. They’re usually the playground of those who mistake chaos for design and gossip for truth. Whether they come from the left, the right, or the dimly lit corners of online echo chambers, I tend to roll my eyes and move on. Political gossip is the same poison in a different bottle while it can be intoxicating and addictive it’s almost always detached from fact. I believe in honest journalism, investigator reporters, courts, judges ...in due process. That’s where truth is supposed to be tested, not on social media or in the fever dreams of partisan warriors.

And yet -and this is a colossal yet, something about the current panic surrounding the Epstein files and Donald Trump’s desperate manoeuvres to stop them from leaking scratches at that cynic’s armour. Because if there’s one thing history has taught us about power, it’s that those who rush to cover the ...curtain usually do so not to protect justice but to protect themselves.

Let’s get one thing straight. The whole Epstein affair has always been a moral wasteland, a toxic mix of money, power, and human exploitation. It’s a story so dark that even Hollywood’s most depraved screenwriters would reject it as too grotesque. Men of influence, politicians, businessmen, celebrities, presidents and ...princes, moved around Jeffrey Epstein like moths circling a lamp made of pure corruption. His island, his planes, his black book, all symbols of a grotesque underworld hiding in plain sight.

For years, the powerful dismissed it as rumour, the media treated it as gossip, and the justice system looked the other way. Epstein’s eventual arrest and mysterious death didn’t clean the stain; it merely made the shadows longer. His story didn’t end it literally mutated. And now, as we inch closer to the public release of files that could name names and unveil connections, one man is clearly sweating more than the rest.

Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed titan who once strutted through scandals like a bull through a paper fence is suddenly terrified. And when a man like Trump panics, you should ask why.

Let’s remember, this is the man who survived the “Grab her by the pussy” tape. A man who mocked disabled reporters, called veterans losers, paid hush money to porn stars, and still made it to the Oval Office. Every political law of gravity failed him. Scandal became his oxygen. So if this man, the unshakable showman, the self-branded Teflon icon of controversy, is now in full-blown damage control mode over the Epstein files, then what on earth is hiding in there?

This is not the reaction of a man confident in his innocence. It’s the reaction of someone who knows the fire is about to touch the hem of his golden robe. He’s not trying to protect the public from misinformation; he’s trying to bury the truth under procedural mud, to drown it in bureaucracy, to weaponize power not in defence of justice but in defence of his image.

And that’s the part that should worry everyone, regardless of political affiliation. Because when leaders start using the machinery of state to shield themselves from accountability, democracy starts to rot. It doesn’t happen with coups or tanks in the streets it happens quietly, through legal manoeuvres, intimidation, and the corruption of public trust.

The Trump playbook has always been simple, deny, deflect, attack. But panic breaks patterns. Panic reveals fear. The walls of bravado are shaking, and behind them, there’s a man who suddenly realizes that the Epstein files aren’t just gossip columns, they’re evidence. Evidence that could tie him to one of the most abhorrent criminal enterprises of modern times.

Now, I’m not saying Trump’s name will appear next to some sordid account of abuse. That’s for the files and the courts to decide. But I am saying that his behaviour betrays his fear of what might be revealed. Power doesn’t panic for no reason. If these documents were truly harmless, if they were just the feverish imaginings of conspiracists, Trump would do what he’s always done: mock, dismiss, and move on. Instead, he’s reacting like a man cornered.

And here’s the irony, his reaction is doing the opposite of what he intends. Every attempt to stop the files from leaking only magnifies curiosity. Every whisper of legal manoeuvring, every rumour of suppression, adds another layer of suspicion. Trump’s empire has always thrived on attention, but this time, the spotlight is melting the wax instead of polishing it.

What’s most tragic -and telling, is that this panic is not born of moral outrage. It’s not the cry of a man disgusted by Epstein’s crimes. It’s the flailing of a man terrified of being caught near the debris. He’s not trying to protect victims; he’s trying to protect himself from being remembered as part of the filth.

But history is merciless. Once Pandora’s box is opened, it cannot be sealed again. The truth, no matter how carefully redacted, has a way of seeping out. The more one tries to contain it, the more violently it escapes.

Perhaps Trump thinks this is just another PR storm to be weathered, another headline to outshout. But this time, he may be wrong. The Epstein files aren’t about politics. They’re about power and what powerful men do when they think no one is watching.

The tragedy is that the world was watching, it just chose to look away. Until now.

So yes, I still distrust conspiracy theories. I still prefer courts to social-media threads. But when I see the world’s most shameless man suddenly trembling behind legal barricades, I stop and listen. Because maybe, just maybe, this isn’t gossip anymore.

This feels like the scent of truth, the kind that terrifies those who’ve spent their lives burying it.

#eBook: Through Keeweenaw by Keith Henney

 

Even before the new skipper came aboard the Chippewa in the flour-covered pier in Superior, I knew that this trip was not going to be like other trips.

During all the seasons that I had been a radio operator on the Great Lakes I had been hearing a strange tale about him. Rumors, like Lake Erie squalls, are stirred up in a hurry, and usually die down as quickly, but this one was different. It didn’t die. It drifted about with the wind from one end of the Lakes to the other, and windlike, it came first from one direction, then another.

The first time I heard it was one fine day near the beginning of my first summer on the Lakes. We had been coasting down Lake Huron ahead of a stiff breeze and were about to enter the river at Port Huron.

My eyes were on the tall, straight spruce poles of the Canadian radio station at Sarnia, but, as we came near the lightship which guards the entrance of the river, I noticed a marker and, as we passed it, I thought I could see the masts of a ship a foot or two under water.

I could not be sure—I was young and romantic, and thought maybe I was imagining things—and so the next time I had a chance I asked the chief about it.

In Public Domain
First Published 1929
Ovi eBook Publishing 2025

Through Keeweenaw

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Berserk Alert! #072 #Cartoon by Tony Zuvela

 

Tony Zuvela and his view of the world around us in a constant berserk alert!
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Ma-Siri & Alexa #113 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Ma-Siri is a mother and a grandmother with a mechanical companion
searching for the meaning of life.

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How European Settlers Colonize the Indigenous People of North America and Subdued their Cultures, Human Values and System of Social Welfare? By Mohammad Momin Khawaja

Introduction by Late Dr. Rowan Wolf (Editor Uncommon Thought Journal, USA)

The problems of today, in any nation on the planet, have their roots in history – in decisions made and paths taken. It is a particularly apt time to look closely at colonization. We can think of it simplistically as a pattern in the past whereby certain nations, through a combination of practices, subdued and attempted to supplant the indigenous peoples of lands the supplanters desired. That combination of processes was not singular. There was the outright use of military force; there was the withholding of food and access to survival (in combination known as genocide); there were attempts to destroy the culture, language, and spirituality (known as cultural genocide).

However, colonization is not simply a process that is engaged in by the colonizer on those to be colonized. It also requires fundamental changes in the hearts, minds, and ways of being of the colonizers themselves. In order to engage in the colonization of others, one must in someways colonize one’s own people and culture. We cannot dehumanize others, and turn others into “the other”, or even “monsters” without losing some of our own humanity. But importantly, we must learn to lie to ourselves, and give up the path to truth. We must blind ourselves, and make our understanding of our past into an easily rewritten story, and thereby the people of the colonizers also become eminently colonizable. There is a long-recognized process called “internal colonization.” While this concept is often applied to “uneven development within a nation”, there is another meaning whereby some or all of a colonized people internalized the views and rules of the colonizers. What is also true is that, to one extent or another, we are all internalizing colonization – subduing ourselves for the state, or the powers that be. An accurate, and detailed understanding of history is critical. Not just to address the institutionalized and normalized inequalities of the past, but to see and eradicate those processes as they operate today. Otherwise, we continue to oppress our fellow citizens and people around the planet but also continue to deny and suppress our own full and better selves.

History is Living and  Clarifies the Pertinent Facts of Life

To be an informed and progressive generation of people for sustainable change and human development, we must discover an unambiguous and self-evident knowledge-based understanding of history to reform the socio-ethnic and political contradictions covered up by a misreading of history. In books and historic records, we encounter some of the unimaginable, intangible, and mysterious narratives on the European scheme of colonization in Canada, America, and Australia. Ronald Wright,Stolen Continents: Conquest and Resistance in the Americas (1992) (1) is one of the award-winning Canadian scholarly sources covering the five centuries of Europeans coming to the ‘New World’. It brings together powerful contemporary, vivid, and accurate historic insights into the conquests of the great American cultures of Aztec, Maya, Inca, Cherokee, and Iroquois people. Professor Howard Zinn,(A People’s History of the United States. 1980), clarifies that “Columbus gold motivated him…: Columbus killed Indians…. enslaved Indians, Columbus tortured Indians, he cut off their armS… No, he’s not a hero. The heroes are the people who resisted him.”(2) 

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (An Indigenous People’s History of the United States. 2014), adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and “shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them.”  And notes: “We fail to recognize the humanity- or often even the existence – of the Indigenous peoples who were here first, and are still here. Our students will see the history of this country much more clearly when we put Indigenous people’s lives at the center.” (3)

Across Canada, the US, and Australia, European settlers had a unique approach how to colonize the indigenous peoples, their lands, and their culture that allowed them to survive in extremely harsh conditions. By a combination of genocide, dehumanization, “civilizing” techniques, and making the tribes dependent wards, the systematic colonization approach taken by the colonialists was dependent upon using a welfare state as a project of colonization. (4)

 The 15th-century European emigrants had experienced wars and the overwhelming corrupt authority of the church and a wide range of chronic social turmoil, epidemic diseases, economic backwardness, spiritual malaise, and mysterious famine and deaths. The ‘discovery’ of America’ offered a new threshold of opportunities to European migrants. But the invading settlers used absolute power to wage wars to solve their own problems at the expense of the new land and the native North Americans who had well-established and flourishing cultures of their own. Time and history demand concerted plans and continuous implementation for socio-economic-political change to restore Indigenous people’s trust in human rights and equality. There needs to be social emancipation for equal participation in governance and the acknowledgment of historic injustices done to dehumanize indigenous people, their lives, cultures, and values. Centuries later, the politically biased Canadian “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” (TRC) (2007-2015), held public meetings to address the legacy of the alleged ‘genocide’ of innocent children by the church-operated ‘Indian Residential Schools system’ and discoveries of hidden graves. The term “alleged” is used because Canadian (and American) governments refuse to acknowledge that genocide actually took place. Through the TRC, First Nation people had an opportunity to share their stories and experiences in public and to spell out a much-needed compassionate understanding of the residential school system. This was in vivid contrast to the perverse genius which created a more nefarious system to thrive on power, conflict, and fear. As part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accepted the Final Report and imperatives of 94 ‘calls for action.” 

Were the European Settlers Racist and Violent to Dictate the Indigenous People’s History?

Whatever White European history willed, the native Indian history reflected. Canada was structured as a settler colonial dominion. Many European nations, and the new government of Canada, imposed its own laws, institutions, and culture on the Indigenous peoples.  During this period of colonial policy, other colonialists occupied the lands of the Indigenous Peoples. (5) Racist attitudes justified Canada‘s policy of assimilation and eradication which in many ways sought to eliminate the Indigenous Peoples physically and culturally. Tens of thousands of Indigenous people – young and old, males and females – were lost to the alleged Canadian system of genocide. Despite that, First Nations people including the Inuit, Metis, and other tribes are still inhabitants. It is critical not to discount the historic horrors of genocide or the resilience of the Indigenous Peoples. Historic and contemporary actions contributed to the endemic violence against Indigenous Peoples. (6) Ultimately, the unjust deaths of the Indigenous Peoples are linked to colonial violence, racism, and oppression.

A direct consequence of this colonial policy and racist attitude was that colonial violence as well as racism, sexism, and other forms of injustice became entrenched and institutionalized in everyday life against Indigenous Peoples.(7) Encompassing the injustice and its consequential impacts that generations of Indigenous Peoples have grown up with and these types of injustice, social apartheid, and discrimination have become normalized. Thus, settler colonialism is the cause of increased rates of poor health, higher rates of violence, and other social problems that the Indigenous population has endured over time and continues to endure to this day.

The Indigenous Peoples were subjected to policies that led to poverty by way of settler colonial policies. Racist and discriminatory policies terminated hundreds of years of economic well-being and self–sufficiency. Imposing poverty on the Indigenous Peoples created state dependency on the colonized state.(8) This dependency was needed by the state in order to control and oversee every aspect of Indigenous Peoples’ lives, cultures, and communities. (9)

Indigenous People Deprived of Quality of Life and Social Justice

The quality of life in a country and the well being of citizens are determined by the social welfare system. (10) Social determinants of health are variables and factors which go towards optimum physical and mental health and general well being. (11) The Canadian Welfare System consists of various social policy programs and services. The most important of these in alleviating poverty and helping the working poor are income security programs and social services. Income security programs provide monetary or other material benefits in order to provide income and maintain minimum income levels. This happens by way of Employment Insurance, Social Assistance, and Old Age Security. (12) This factors in with our historical model of social security wherein people are responsible for their own well being. If individuals could meet their own needs and not need government assistance, the result would be that the need for income security programs would be significantly reduced. Income security programs provide financial stability and protection from vulnerabilities.

Poverty is another social determinant of health and well being. Poverty is the condition wherein people, families, and demographics lack the resources to obtain the type of food needed, to participate in activities, and to have customary or normal living conditions and amenities that provide well being. (13) Poverty can be absolute or relative.  The difference between these is that those suffering from absolute poverty don’t have the resources in order to provide for their physical and mental health. Relative poverty is where people cannot participate in common activities or daily life. Programs such as income security programs provide monetary or other material benefits in order to maintain a minimum quality of life. (14) This would help those suffering from absolute poverty to buy the food they need in order for their physical and mental health to recover. Having financial resources also allows those experiencing relative poverty to participate in common activities. (15)

Social Services Devoid of A Sense of Human Equality

Social services, which may include personal or community services, help the working poor by providing non-monetary aid to those who are needy. These services include probation, addiction treatment, youth drop-in centers, child-care centers, child protection services, women’s shelters, and counseling. (16) Many of these services are important to the working poor. The Public Health Agency of Canada found that recent immigrants are 2 times more likely to be among the working poor. (17) This demographic of individuals may in fact benefit from youth drop-in centers and free child care. Social services would allow mothers and fathers greater freedom in being employed and making sure their children are safe and taken care of.  First Nations people, on and off reserves, have more than 2 times higher proportion of working poor than non-Indigenous people.Homelessness and drug addictions are major social problems that Indigenous Peoples contend with for their survival. It will be incumbent upon the Government in Canada and NGO’s to work out new policies and humanitarian plans to extend social services such as counseling, spiritual healing, women’s shelters, and drug addiction treatments to ensure human equality offering proper care for the well being and progress of the Indigenous Peoples.(18)

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References
1. Ronald, Wright. Stolen Continents: Conquest and Resistance in the Americas, Mariner Book, 1992
2. Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States of America, 1980: Chapter 1:     COLUMBUS, THE INDIANS, AND HUMAN PROGRESS.
3 Roxanne, Dunbar-Ortiz. An Indigenous People’s History of the United States. Beacon Press, 2014
4. Dickason, 0. Newbigging, W., “Indigenous Peoples within Canada’, A Concise History. Fourth            Edition, Oxford University Press, 2019, p.19S.
5. Milloy, J., “The Early Indian Acts: Developmental Strategy and Constitutional Change’, As Long         As the Sunshine and the Water Flows, University of British Columbia Press, 1983, pp.S6-64.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Raphael, D., “Z: Implications for health and quality of life”. Toronto, Ontario, Canadian         Scholars’ Press Inc., 2011.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Hick, S., “Introducing Social Welfare: Understanding Income Security.” Thompson Educational        Publishing, Inc., 2014.
17. Public Health Agency of Canada. “Key Health Inequalities in Canada: A National Portrait.”   Ottawa, Public Health Agency of Canada, 2018, https://www.healthinfobase.canada.ca/health-      inequalities
18. Ibid.

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Mohammad Momin Khawaja is an enthusiastic graduate student at Athabasca University, Alberta pursuing a Master degree program-MAIS with a global vision of education and cherishes lifelong learning as a discipline and a continuous movement of life for change and adaptability to be a successful futuristic educator. He has authored: “Women in Ancient Cultures” Lulu Press, NC, USA, 2025, and “A World Community Knowing Societies, Cultures and Values, 2024. He is a member of the Canadian Sociology Association, International  Journalism Association,USA, and Independent Institute of Journalism (IIJ), USA. As a freelance journalist, he enjoys writing research papers on current social, humanitarian affairs, law and social justice, indigenous people and cultures and Canadian youths education and training.

Sweet lies and bitter truths by Shanna Shepard

World Diabetes Day is supposed to be a time for awareness, compassion, and solidarity, a day when societies are called to reflect on how far we’ve come in managing one of the most pervasive diseases of our time. But in the United States of America, this year, it feels more like a day of bitter irony. Because while millions of diabetics are struggling to afford insulin that century-old, life-saving drug, prices are climbing again, and guess who’s cheering from the sidelines? Donald Trump, the man who seems to have discovered a miraculous cure for everything except empathy.

Let’s get one thing straight: insulin is not a luxury. It’s not an optional supplement like protein powder or a boutique wellness trend advertised by influencers. It’s the difference between life and death for millions of Americans. Yet in the so-called “land of opportunity,” insulin costs more than a monthly rent in some states. And while families are cutting doses in half to stretch a vial a few more days, Trump is busy striking backroom deals to lower the price of weight-loss drugs, drugs that, conveniently, he himself might find useful.

You can’t make this stuff up. The political theatre is grotesque. The same man who claims to be the champion of the “forgotten American” conveniently forgets about the diabetics every time pharmaceutical lobbyists come knocking with their campaign donations. Under Trump’s “business genius,” insulin prices have not just bounced back from previous caps, they’ve rocketed. The reasoning is always the same tired excuse: “market forces,” “innovation costs,” or “we don’t want to hurt the pharmaceutical industry.” As if Big Pharma were a fragile infant that needs protection rather than a multibillion-dollar behemoth feeding off the misery of ordinary citizens.

But when it comes to drugs that help reduce weight and therefore make for great TV appearances, vanity projects, and political optics, suddenly the government is a benevolent negotiator. Suddenly, Trump knows how to twist the arm of the industry. Suddenly, “making America healthy again” means slimming waistlines, not saving lives. The hypocrisy would be laughable if it weren’t deadly.

There’s something disturbingly theatrical about the whole thing. Trump has always seen politics as performance, a circus where reality bends under the weight of spectacle. And what better spectacle than a self-proclaimed “health reformer” cutting deals for drugs that flatter his image while ignoring those that keep people alive? He plays the role of saviour for his voter base, posing as the man who “stands up to the pharmaceutical elites,” while in truth, he’s making sure the elites never stop cashing in.

It’s not the first time Trump has turned public health into a private transaction. We saw it with the pandemic, where life-saving measures were treated as political loyalty tests. We saw it with healthcare reform, where promises to “replace Obamacare with something beautiful” ended up being as empty as his moral compass. And now we see it again, as diabetics are squeezed dry while he pats himself on the back for cutting deals on Ozempic and Wegovy, the new status symbols for America’s image-obsessed elite.

World Diabetes Day in Trump’s America is not a day of awareness; it’s a day of exposure. It exposes the rot beneath the surface of political populism that dangerous blend of showmanship and cruelty disguised as leadership. Because at the heart of Trumpism lies a simple, brutal truth: if you can’t profit from someone’s suffering, then their suffering doesn’t matter.

And make no mistake, insulin is big money. It’s not just a medication; it’s an industry built on dependence. People can’t choose not to buy it. They can’t switch to a cheaper alternative or “go natural.” The monopoly is total, and the moral vacuum around it even more so. When insulin prices rise, they rise on the backs of parents terrified for their children, on the backs of workers juggling bills and prescriptions, on the backs of elderly Americans forced to ration what keeps them breathing.

Trump’s defenders, of course, will say this is all “fake news,” that the “deep state” or “liberal media” is twisting the facts. They’ll point to his occasional soundbite about “helping people afford their medications” as proof of his compassion. But compassion is not a press release, it’s policy. And his policies, when you strip away the bluster, have consistently favoured profit over people, industry over integrity, and spectacle over substance.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical giants are popping champagne. Their stock prices climb every time Trump opens his mouth about “free market solutions.” The same man who claims to fight for the “forgotten men and women” ensures that those men and women remain forgotten when it matters most, at the pharmacy counter, staring at the price of survival.

And let’s not pretend this is just another policy misstep. It’s a reflection of values — or rather, the absence of them. Trumpism is a mirror of everything that’s gone wrong with American politics: the worship of wealth, the glorification of ignorance, and the casual cruelty toward anyone who doesn’t fit the photo-op narrative. The diabetics of America don’t fit that narrative. They’re not glamorous. They don’t make for inspiring campaign rallies. Their suffering doesn’t generate applause.

But it should generate rage. Because there’s something fundamentally obscene about a system where an overweight billionaire can cut deals to make his slimming drugs cheaper while a child with Type 1 diabetes dies because her family can’t afford insulin. It’s not just policy failure, it’s moral bankruptcy. It’s a declaration that vanity has more value than human life.

World Diabetes Day should have been a moment to reaffirm the promise that no one in a civilized nation should die because of corporate greed. Instead, it’s a reminder that in Trump’s America, greed has become the new form of governance. He doesn’t just enable it he embodies it.

So, as politicians issue their hollow statements about “raising awareness” and “supporting patients,” diabetics across the country are left doing the arithmetic of survival. And Trump? He’ll continue playing emperor of his own delusion, slimming down his public image while fattening the wallets of his donors.

The bitter truth is this: in America today, the cost of living with diabetes isn’t just measured in dollars, it’s measured in dignity. And with every rise in insulin prices, that dignity is stripped away a little more, replaced by the sweet, poisonous lie that everything is under control.

World Diabetes Day should sting. It should enrage. Because until the day insulin becomes a right, not a privilege, every slogan about freedom and greatness is just another hollow promise, served with a side of hypocrisy and washed down with Trump’s favourite flavour of self-interest.

The cracks underneath the frontline by John Kato

For nearly three years, Ukraine has fought an existential war for its survival; a brutal, unrelenting struggle against Russia’s invasion that has demanded sacrifice, unity, and resilience. But now, the country faces another battle, one that comes not from without but from within. The latest corruption scandal, described as one of the most explosive since the start of the war, has sent shockwaves through Kyiv. Investigators raiding the homes of senior officials and even a former business partner of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have once again exposed the uncomfortable truth: corruption remains Ukraine’s chronic wound, one that refuses to heal even under the shadow of war.

It’s a bitter irony. The nation that stands as a global symbol of courage and democratic defiance now finds itself grappling with the very disease that Moscow has long accused it of harboring. But this is not about echoing Kremlin propaganda. It’s about the reality that no nation can endure a war of liberation while ignoring the rot eating away at its own foundations. Ukraine’s fight against Russia is as much about reclaiming its land as it is about redefining what kind of country it wants to be when the guns fall silent.

The timing of this scandal could not be worse. International allies, particularly in Europe and the United States, are growing weary. Political winds are shifting, attention spans are shortening, and the price tags of military aid keep rising. Ukraine’s moral high ground, so essential to sustaining Western solidarity, depends on more than battlefield victories. It depends on the integrity of its leaders and the trust that international taxpayers’ money is not vanishing into offshore accounts or padded contracts. Every revelation of corruption risks not only public outrage at home but donor fatigue abroad.

The recent raids appear to have uncovered a sprawling scheme within the energy sector, a sector that, since independence, has been the playground of oligarchs, brokers, and opportunists. For decades, Ukraine’s gas and oil industries have been riddled with kickbacks, murky intermediaries, and political patronage. The fact that such a network could still operate in wartime, when the nation’s survival depends on every hryvnia, is nothing short of outrageous.

And then there are the whispers that now refuse to stay confined to private circles, whispers that the trail of corruption may lead dangerously close to the presidential office itself. Such rumors, of course, are unproven and must be handled with care. Yet, in a country where politics and business have long intertwined, it would be naïve to dismiss them outright. The question is not whether Zelenskyy personally profited; there is no clear evidence of that but whether his inner circle has exploited proximity to power in a time of national emergency. For a leader who rose to power on an anti-corruption platform, this moment could prove to be his most defining test.

Zelenskyy’s appeal has always rested on authenticity, the actor-turned-president who promised to clean up the system. His presidency, forged in the fires of invasion, has earned global admiration for its defiance and clarity of purpose. But charisma and wartime leadership cannot be a substitute for systemic reform. The image of a leader who speaks truth to power must now match the reality of one who confronts corruption in his own ranks, even when it hurts politically.

This scandal should not be treated as a distraction from the war effort. On the contrary, it is part of it. The corruption that bleeds public trust and drains national resources is itself a weapon, one that weakens Ukraine from within. Moscow doesn’t need to win every battle on the frontlines if Ukraine sabotages itself through moral decay.

There is an opportunity here, though it comes wrapped in crisis. If Zelenskyy acts decisively, if he allows investigators to proceed unhindered, no matter whose names surface, Ukraine can emerge stronger. The world would see a nation not only fighting an external aggressor but purging its internal demons. This is what true sovereignty looks like: not just freedom from Russian domination, but freedom from the oligarchic corruption that has long distorted Ukraine’s democracy.

The West must also tread carefully. Support for Ukraine should not waver, but neither should accountability. Aid without oversight is an invitation for abuse. Western partners, instead of quietly hoping scandals fade, should encourage transparency and reform as firmly as they send weapons and money. The Ukrainian people are the ones paying for this war with their lives and livelihoods. They deserve a government that respects that sacrifice.

The time for denial is over. Corruption in wartime is not just a moral failure; it’s an act of betrayal. Every stolen dollar, every manipulated contract, every backroom deal undermines the very soldiers fighting in the trenches. The battle for Ukraine’s future is being fought on two fronts, one against Russian aggression, and another against the ghosts of its own past.

The raids in Kyiv may just be the beginning of a painful reckoning. But if Ukraine dares to face it with honesty and resolve, it could mark the start of something greater than scandal, it could mark the rebirth of a nation that refuses to be corrupted, even in war.

Because victory will not only be measured in reclaimed territory, it will be measured in reclaimed integrity.

For the Moment 136: The Epstein Files #Cartoon by Patrick McWade

"For the Moment" is a cartoon series
with contemporary issues.
For more 'For the moment' HERE!
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Screws & Chips #115 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

In a galaxy far, far away, intelligence demonstrated by screws and chips,
boldly gone where no robot has gone before!

For more Screws & Chips, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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The suited & servile press by Robert Perez

In one year, Donald Trump achieved something remarkable, not by policy, not by reinvigorated civic debate, but by expertly weaponising the courts and the dollars behind them to not only dismantle adversarial media in the United States but now to push abroad and demand kneeling from once-proud institutions. The latest target? The venerable BBC, whose director-general, Tim Davie, and head of news, Deborah Turness, have resigned following a furious row over a manipulated clip of Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech.

To see how the press became pariah-and-pawn in one campaign is to trace a steady erosion of media independence under the weight of legal bullying. Trump knows that even if most of these lawsuits falter in court or never reach court, they succeed by chilling the environment, by demanding every editor wonder: “Do we settle, apologise, silence the critic?” It is a business strategy draped in lawsuits: you overwhelm the opponent’s attention, distract the message, force settlement by fear of cost.

Now the battlefield shifts to London, one might say Westminister’s heart, where a publicly-funded broadcaster is being pressured to capitulate. Trump doesn’t just ask for correction; he demands celebration. He wants the BBC not just to stop criticizing, but to bend the knee, to acknowledge that coverage was wrong, the speech was mis-edited, he was harmed, and that he deserves the sack and the cheque. According to his legal team, the BBC must pay no less than $1 billion for “defaming” him.

What does this tell us about the state of free journalism today? Quite simply, the adversarial press has become expendable. The strategy is clear: choose your foe (in this case the BBC, the symbolic purveyor of impartiality), accuse them of malice, force their leadership out, make them question their funding model, and ensure their editorial mission becomes a question of survival. It is not about truth any more, it is about the cost of dissent.

The irony is delicious; the BBC, once stalwart of impartial global reportage, now finds itself on the defensive, scrambling to justify its very reason for existence. Its board hunts for a successor for the outgoing Davie with “commercial credentials.” Why? Because it wants someone who can negotiate, not defend. That’s a telling shift. When commercial survival becomes the priority, the watchdog role recedes.

Meanwhile, Trump sits back and watches. “They defrauded the public,” he said, “and I have an obligation to sue them.” Notice the word, obligation. This is not a spontaneous act of affront; it is a calculated step in a broader campaign. His playbook, find the media institution you deem hostile, threaten the existential, demand compliance, extract apology or settlement, broadcast your dominance.

For journalists and media institutions, the lesson is stark. The shield of public-service funding or international reputation offers no immunity. Once you admit to “mistakes,” once you open the door to claims of “institutional bias,” you are inviting this exact challenge. The BBC’s resignation drama is evidence, a half-apology, internal review, and a massive legal letter, all in a matter of days.

The larger implication, a global press environment where powerful individuals interpret media coverage as defamation, deploy vast legal threats, and demand more than fairness, they demand fealty. And they pick their targets based not on merit but on symbolic power. It is less about truth-seeking than about demonstration of dominion.

We must ask ourselves: what happens if the BBC bends? What precedent will that set? When the world’s most recognized public broadcaster gives in to the bully’s demand for narrative control, others will see the path: the case-filed letter becomes the silencer, the threat becomes the editor-in-chief. A domino effect could follow, networks will think twice about investigative pieces, anchor minds will second-guess themselves, and the boldness of journalism may shrink.

And make no mistake: this is not a moment of media self-indulgence. This is a vital reckoning. If institutions of truth retreat before the cost of assertion, $1 billion or otherwise... then the press risks being recast as public relations machinery for the powerful. That is not dissent; that is dictatorship by litigation.

In the end, the BBC story is symptomatic of a larger crisis. We are living in a world where free journalism is under siege, not by overt censorship but by the subtle art of legal-commercial intimidation. The question is not solely whether Trump has a legal case (which is, to many experts, dubious at best given jurisdictional and defamation realities in offices such as Florida). The question is whether the mere act of threatening has become a sufficient means to bend media.

Institutional independence is hard to defend if the budget-holders, board members and license-fee payers suddenly find themselves facing a potential billion-dollar settlement. So next time you marvel at how certain outlets seem to shift their tone, not because of new evidence but because of new risk, remember: you’re watching a press that has been bullied into acquiescence.

The newsroom must not dismiss this as drama in distant London. The model of suing then settling then silencing is now global. The media world is entering a phase where the legal liability is the editorial agenda. And if the press bows once, the next bow will be quieter and unquestioned.