Sustainable development, in sum, was captured early on by global financial forces the life blood of which is unending growth. As history confirms, it has proven to be a highly manipulable concept for a corporate/political/media network to normalize in the public mind. The suggestion of sustainability indicates things are going to be just fine, so it has been employed as a kind of mass tranquilizer. As the sustainability idea has advanced over the decades, discussions surrounding it have shifted easily, as required, between ‘development' and ‘growth.' Among the UN's many laudable Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as peace and the eradication of poverty, one also finds the advancement of "inclusive and sustained economic growth" in which "business and the private sector" are to play a key role, this expressed in its Agenda 2030. The admittedly "supremely ambitious" Agenda 2030 looks like 15,000 words of wishful thinking considering the profit-driven interests that have been - and that are intent on remaining - at the helm. The banking world certainly has lost no time in the creation of "green financial instruments" for the Green New Deal.  Bill Willers

Washington's involvement in Cambodia in the first place is aimed not only at co-opting the Cambodian people, their territory and resources, but also at surrounding China with either US client states or failed states unable to aid Beijing in its continued and steady rise upon the global stage.  Joseph Thomas

But ITRR does much more than just monitor terrorists. Indeed, it seems to be far too busy monitoring legitimate, non-violent and completely legal protest organizations and other political groups to do much real anti-terror work.  According to news reports on ITRR's work for the Pennsylvania Homeland Security Agency and also the Pittsburgh Police Department, it would appear that ITRR was spying on and providing Pennsylvania State Police and Homeland Security with reports on everything from anti-war groups and anti-oil-shale-fracking groups to gay rights groups, animal rights groups, environmental organizations and even Good Schools Pennsylvania, a citizens association formed to back Gov. Ed Rendell's school reform initiatives. Even a Harrisburg, PA man who likes to bring a 25-foot inflatable pig to demonstrations to symbolize government waste was targeted. Dave Lindorff

Fearing protests and unrest over India's latest move, tens of thousands of extra Indian troops have been deployed to Kashmir - joining 500,000 already there - turning parts of the main city of Srinagar into a fortress of roadblocks and barbed wire.  AFP

Once the purpose of teaching history is changed from teaching what happened to "having a positive effect on students' self-image," history is no longer about what happened; it is propaganda. But rewriting history is not a problem for the left. As a famous Soviet dissident joke put it: "In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it's the past that is always changing." I note almost every day that truth is a liberal value and a conservative value, but it has never been a left-wing value. This is just one more example. Natural News

The day before, China's Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui compared the situation in Hong Kong with a "colour revolution". "Western forces control it behind the scenes, it is obvious", the diplomat said at a meeting with Russian journalists. According to him, they want to create chaos to undermine the established system of "one country, two systems" in order to create difficulties for the development of China. Sputnik News

Discovery is really the ultimate goal of all of these national and local conversations. By stepping out of tightly sealed echo chambers, Americans-in their vast array of colors, ideologies, income levels, religions, and experiences-can embrace knowledge, empathy, and compassion. There's no depth to the human experience if people remain sheltered in painted, political corners smugly convinced of their rightness.  Ericka Andersen

The sooner those of us who qualify as "deplorables" understand that, the sooner we comprehend that there is no compromise possible whatsoever with those progressivists and Leftists-the sooner we understand that the self-appointed leaders of the Establishment "Conservative Movement" are not our defenders but 5^th Column collaborationists, then, the sooner we come to the sobering realization that we hold our destiny and the future in our hands. Boyd D Cathey

What is going on ? Is there some unifying thread connecting this sudden outbreak of widespread global tension? Of course all these conflicts have their separate background contexts. But why so many at the same time? Well, in a word, it's all about change - about the recognition that we are at the cusp of major changes. The world is beginning to pre-position. Alistair Crooke