• The minutes of the meeting on May 29, 2024, show how much pressure Assad’s regime was under during its dying days from one of its closest allies. 

• At one point in the talks, Russia’s deputy defense minister, General Yunus-bek Yevkurov, even threatened to cut off financing for oil operations if Syria didn’t pay up.

• Russia had built up extensive interests in Syria’s oil sector under the Assad regime. In 2015, Russia intervened militarily in Syria, helping regain territory taken by the rebels. In return, Assad’s government had offered contracts to Russian companies to rebuild the energy sector.

• Negotiations about the much larger debt owed to Russia have continued under Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former rebel commander who now serves as Syrian president. The Kremlin has reportedly sought to maintain military bases it established under Assad, while Damascus has asked for debt relief and other concessions.

    

   

   
                                                                                                                                                                                           
   

   

     

2 more annotations...

• It is Starmer, Farage, Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch, and Metropolitan police chief Sir Mark Rowley who are responsible for fuelling the kind of antisemitism they claim to be tackling.

• Had no pro-Palestine marches taken place over the past 30 months, images of children torn to pieces by US-supplied Israeli bombs would still be on our feeds. There would still have been news of Israel levelling Gaza’s hospitals, and starving its population month after month. Palestinians taken hostage by Israel, as well as their whistleblowing Israeli captors, would still have revealed that the Israeli army trained dogs to rape them.

• More likely is that the tiny number of people blaming Jews for Israel’s atrocities do so because they accept at face value Israel’s claims that the horrifying acts it commits are done in the name of Jews.

• Why might they make this mistake? Because so many British politicians, media, police and Jewish leadership groups behave as if Israel’s claim is unquestionably true. It is the UK’s opinion shapers, not the protest marchers, who have fashioned the idea that the state of Israel and the Jewish community are indistinguishable.

• The citing of Jewish fear rationalises this stark imbalance. But when the state and billionaire-owned media control the main narratives about Britain, it is all too easy for them to foment fear among sections of the Jewish public, as well as the wider public, that the left is responsible for a rising tide of hate – whether from a Corbyn or a Polanski – while deflecting attention from the real threat from the right.

3 more annotations...

• The backbone of Cuba’s revolutionary alliance was the July 26 Movement, headed by Fidel and Raul Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara. It was only when the fanatically anti-Communist John and Bobby Kennedy gave the green light to the April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion that Cuba first announced the revolution was “socialist.” That attack from Florida by Cuban counterrevolutionaries was soundly defeated by Cuban forces under Fidel Castro’s leadership.

• The second victory of a popular movement was in Viet Nam in the 1960s and early 1970s. That US onslaught was defeated so badly that Nixon had to order the last troops to run out as fast as they could in 1973.

• Guevara helped set the stage for the third defeat. Beginning in 1964, Guevara made multiple trips to get a first-hand look at African movements in Algeria, Ghana, the Congo, Guinea, Mali, Benin, Tanzania and Egypt. In April, 1974 Portugal dictator Marcello Caetano fell, unleashing a wave of popular movements in its former colonies. The greatest struggle occurred in Angola. Revolutionary forces were backed by Cuba; South African forces did the US’ dirty work.

• Though not often recognised, Viet Nam became a spectacular win for Africa. The Viet Nam war and military draft were despised so much by US youth that not even southern racists could envision US ground troops in another war in Angola. Terrified that its youth would refuse to participate in a war to suppress Angola and defend apartheid, the US let South Africa do the fighting.

• The US was first defeated by Cuban forces, then by a Vietnamese peasant army and then again by Angolan/Cuban troops. The US military brass seethed at the thought of a people’s army defeating one with vastly more weapons and resources.

• Infant mortality rose for the first few years after the revolution. But as the new medical approach took hold it dropped, and by 1998 the infant mortality rate in Cuba was down to 7.1 per 1000 live births, dropping below the US, which stood at 7.6 per 1000 live births. Life expectancy (LE) also surpassed that in the US: by 2016, Cuba’s LE was 79.0 years, when it was 78.5 years in the US.

4 more annotations...

• The sweet caramelized onions get cooked while the fries are in the oven, and they’re cut small instead of thinly sliced. Getting onions to caramelize without burning is a lesson of patience, as they take close to 45 minutes to get to sweet, jammy perfection.

• The final touch, the secret sauce, is just a blend of easy-to-find condiments. Mix mayo for creaminess, ketchup and relish for sweetness and tang, and mustard and vinegar together to round things out.

• I landed on a simple preparation that is so much better than it has any right to be: wine-roasted rhubarb
• All it requires is rhubarb, sugar, vanilla, and white wine
• • Use a dry white wine. Something like Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc. The bright flavor complements the rhubarb really well.
      
• • Swap in vanilla extract. If you don’t have a vanilla bean, add about 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract per pound of rhubarb. Or skip it altogether; it’s a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have. 
      

2 more annotations...