In a new study published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, researchers identify two psychological traits common among people with a conspiracist mindset: a sense of injustice and a low tolerance of ambiguity.

The first is a low tolerance of ambiguity or TA. People with low TA find it difficult to handle stories or situations that are not abundantly clear or contain "shades of gray." They often feel anxious when a situation is unclear or random. Conspiracy theories remove this uncertainty by providing a simple, black-and-white explanation.

The second factor is a sense of injustice. People who are sensitive to perceived injustices or who believe the world is unfairly rigged against them are more likely to subscribe to conspiracy theories. The belief that someone is "pulling the strings" or controlling the situation helps them to make sense of what is going on. For these individuals, a secret plot is a more satisfying explanation than the idea that the world is simply random and complex.

The researchers also found that people who are younger, as well as those who are more religious also have a stronger conspiracist mentality.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6495379

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An increasingly aggressive Russia coupled with China’s growing influence have renewed Canada’s focus on Arctic defence and sovereignty — and how to assert control over its remote northern geography.

The focus is on both increased surveillance — knowing what and who is poking around up there — and having military assets in place to deter any aggressor before they consider operating in Canada’s North.

The conversation is being driven by the climate crisis, opening up new areas of the Arctic for resource extraction and shipping lanes, and has expanded beyond Canada, asserting its sovereignty to both defence and national security concerns.

But despite melting ice and opening shipping lanes, Canada’s North remains a difficult place to operate in, which is why ensuring adversaries think twice before operating in the region is preferable to having to defend it, according to retired Maj.-Gen. Denis Thompson.

“Clearly deterrence is preferable to having to go up and defend it. And that means having credible assets at hand, not necessarily based in the Arctic, but able to operate out of the Arctic,” said Thompson.

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“That can include aircraft, it can include ships, obviously, submarines and a limited army capability since the Rangers are already in place. I think the big thing from a military perspective is we need to know what’s up there and that speaks to this concept of surveillance from the seabed to space all across our country, including importantly in the Arctic.”

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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s inaugural budget last month included a $1 billion, four-year fund to improve “dual-use” infrastructure projects for both civilians and the military, such as airports, seaports and all-season roads.

But aside from military preparedness and infrastructure, the discussion around Arctic intelligence — and counter-espionage — has become more prominent in recent years.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director Daniel Rogers said the agency is aware of both cybersecurity and traditional espionage threats targeting governments and the private sector operating in Canada’s Arctic.

“Canada is a proud Arctic nation, and the global Arctic has become a theatre of increased interest due to its economic and strategic potential. Non-Arctic states, including the People’s Republic of China, seek to gain a strategic and economic foothold in the region. Russia, an Arctic state with a significant military presence in the region, remains unpredictable and aggressive,” Rogers said in a speech about national security threats in November.

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It’s noteworthy that Rogers namechecked both China and Russia, according to University of Calgary Prof. Rob Huebert.

Huebert said defending Canada’s Arctic includes paying attention to “information” warfare — hostile countries spreading narratives or misinformation aimed at dividing Canadians or Canada from its allies. There are three levels to that “battle” in the North, Huebert said: creating distrust among elements of Canadian society to distract them from outside threats, dividing “political elites” from each other, and dividing Canada from the United States.

In those efforts, countries hostile to Canada have an advantage: U.S. President Donald Trump.

The fact that Trump’s new national security strategy, released earlier this month, makes clear the administration views itself as having a free hand to act militarily in the Western hemisphere is unlikely to diminish those concerns.

“For any of these to work, there has to be a grain of truth within it … You have to look at where the differences exist, and then you have the amplification element … Our adversaries are focusing on how (to) divide Canada from the United States. Now, the United States is taking a whole host of actions under the Trump administration that, of course, makes that job easy,” Hubert said.

“(They) create the circumstances within Canada where you have an individual saying, ‘Well, you know what, we have to really defend ourselves against the threats of the Americans much more than we do on the threats of the Chinese or the Russians.’”

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Huebert counselled urgency for the Canadian government to improve its defences in the North, particularly because large-scale military procurement takes a long time between an announcement and the assets being put in service.

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What remains of the Venezuelan government?

Apart from Maduro, everyone else remains in place; the government is intact. The vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, has taken the lead.

Can this government survive?

Everything seems to suggest it can. [On Saturday], Donald Trump said he was ready to make a deal with those who remain. As for [Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate] Maria Corina Machado, he had harsh words for her, saying it would be difficult for her to lead the country because she has neither the support nor the respect of the population. In contrast, he spoke positively of Rodriguez, which was a let-down for the opposition. It is ironic, as the entire opposition had been hoping for Maduro's departure to establish a democratic government. Trump, however, does not seem very willing to support the opposition's plans. What does Trump mean when he says he will run the country until there is a transition? That is a good question, and we don't really know. Democracy is not something he cares much about. The opposition was wrong to think that a man who has been dismantling democracy in his own country would help them establish it in theirs. When Trump talks about "transition," I believe all he cares about is having the Venezuelan government do what he wants. He is not concerned with whether it was democratically elected. He talks about transition because everyone else does, but, for him, it does not have to be a democratic one.

It is important to know that the economic crisis has flared up again here, and the situation is very complicated. In this way, it would be in the Rodriguez government's interest to reach an agreement with Washington that would help gradually lift the sanctions. We know that Trump is very pragmatic: If he does not force Caracas to hold free elections, I think they can agree on almost everything.

What does he want in Venezuela?

He explicitly said it, and there is no reason not to believe him: He wants the oil. But he also wants to curb China's presence. Venezuelan oil is very important for the US, especially because the refineries located on the Gulf [of Mexico] were specifically designed to process this type of heavy, low-quality oil. Moreover, it is close to the US. In those refineries, oil had to be shipped from Russia to replace it. Canada represented another option, but a planned pipeline that would have stretched all the way to the Gulf was canceled.

From a political standpoint, what motivates Trump most is excluding the Chinese and other geopolitical rivals. As Venezuela's oil industry is in deep decline, producing much less than before, and as the world has learned to live without this oil, it is not of vital [economic] importance. But it is from a geopolitical perspective: Trump wants the Western Hemisphere to be under US hegemony.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/48534744

Archived

[...]

While Indigenous families [in the Central African region] often live in forests or their surroundings, as the NGO Association pour le Respect des Peuples Authoctones, du Développement Durable et des Droits de l'homme (APRA2DH) said in an interview with Global Voices, their way of life is under threat. The Republic of Congo has awarded licenses for logging to some Chinese who have accelerated deforestation, and according to research from Mongabay, this is putting these groups’ traditions and way of life at risk.

The decline of the forest, following extractive work, deforestation, agricultural expansion, illegal logging, and other activities in the forest areas of Congo, is shrinking the habitat of Indigenous peoples.

This reduction in forest areas has also taken away Indigenous peoples’ ability to apply their traditional knowledge on environmental protection, leading to further harm to the forest. Their skills are being thwarted in the face of the over-industrialized production and extraction, especially in recent days.

[...]

In Congo, as in other African countries, relations with China are at their zenith, driven by a series of projects known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing’s large-scale international investment and connectivity plan. China has made inroads in diplomatic cooperation, mining, investment, construction, and many other fields in Africa.

[...]

However, civil society rights groups in the region have bemoaned the Congolese Government’s failure to implement regulations or guardrails to protect local people, as noted by Blanchard Cherotti Mavoungou in an interview with RFI. He added that Chinese companies are often not monitored or regulated, leading to negative consequences for Indigenous groups, as some have been expelled from their own lands.

[...]

Indigenous peoples remain second-class citizens, and are treated like sub-humans or slaves or even “pets.”

[...]

Blanchard Cherotti Mavoungou, president of ARPA2DH, is sounding the alarm:

"Indigenous populations do not benefit from the agreements signed between Congo and various partners, including China. On the contrary, if these companies come, they are in complicity with certain authorities, such as in the mining sector. These companies do not carry out environmental and social impact studies. Indigenous populations are not taken into account."

[...]

The rights group leader believes that there is no respect for what is written in the specifications because there is no follow-up. “Our Indigenous populations are set aside, and Indigenous people do not benefit from relations between China and the Congolese government."

[...]

Interim President Delcy Rodriguez has said she is willing to cooperate with the United States on the future of Venezuela, in a significant shift in tone from the immediate aftermath of a military operation leading to the abduction of leader Nicolas Maduro by US special forces.

“We consider it a priority to move towards a balanced and respectful relationship between the US and Venezuela,” Rodriguez wrote on Telegram on Sunday.

"We extend an invitation to the US government to work together on an agenda for cooperation that is aimed towards shared development,” she continued.

In a televised address on Saturday, Rodriguez denounced the US actions as “an atrocity that violates international law”, insisting that “the only president of Venezuela [is] President Nicolas Maduro.”

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/56305399

The prime minister called US military action in Venezuela a "clear violation of international law".

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/anwar-says-us-action-in-venezuela-violates-international-law-calls-for-maduros-immediate-release

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

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A line from the US administration's National Security Strategy, published in December 2025, should have caught the attention of those who continued to view Donald Trump through the lens of his criticism of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. "The outsized influence of larger, richer and stronger nations is a timeless truth of international relations," it stated.

That "outsized influence" explained why Washington resorted to a coup de force. The attack, clearly contrary to all principles of international law, resulted in the capture of Nicolas Maduro, who had ruled in Caracas for more than 10 years, at the cost of a dramatic collapse of Venezuela. It also explained why Trump announced his intention to take direct control of the country for an indefinite period.

The contradiction between Trump's criticism of regime change by force, which fueled the "forever wars" that distracted the US from its own citizens, and his celebration as a US victory of the abduction of the heir of Chavism, is misleading. In reality, it is erased by geography and by Trump's own definition of "America First," his guiding principle since entering politics.

In June 2025, during an interview with a journalist from The Atlantic magazine, the US president had already indicated that he alone could decide what was included in its definition, because he had developed the concept, which "wasn't used until I came along" in politics. And "America First" now runs through Caracas.

The PM’s spokesperson did not contest the Times report claiming that, if the UN security council votes on a resolution criticising the US intervention in Venezuela, the UK will abstain. (See 12.11pm.) The spokesperson confirmed that Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, will make a statement to MPs this afternoon about Venezuela and he suggested she would cover this point in her statement.

The spokesperson claimed it was “hypothetical” to suggest, as Emily Thornberry did in her Westminter Hour interview, that the US move would encourage China or Russia to topple leaders that they don’t like. Asked if Thornberry had a point, the spokesperson said:

"I don’t think it’s massively helpful to get into hypothetical scenarios or make comparisons. We respect international law, and we expect countries to do the same."

The spokesperson also declined to comment on Trump’s suggestions that he might seek to topple the regimes in power in Cuba or in Colombia. Asked about these countries, the spokesperson said these were “hypotheticial scenarios”. When it was pointed out that Trump’s threats to these countries go beyond the hypothetical, the spokesperson replied:

"The UK’s position on this is clear. We respect international law and any soveriegn state that recognises international law must set out the legal basis for its decisions and actions. That is for the US to speak to."

I expected the EU to push back strongly against Donald Trump’s new national security strategy. Not only does it show contempt for the EU and its “weak” leaders, but it also targets European citizens and migrants with racist dog whistles and barely disguised Islamophobia. Yet instead of a rousing defence of the bloc’s commitment to human rights and equality, there have just been bland platitudes.

António Costa, the president of the European Council, denounced Trump’s plans to boost support for Europe’s far-right parties. But there was no public challenge to the racist logic underpinning his argument. Costa, who has spoken proudly of his mixed ancestry, could have made a convincing counterargument to the US president’s false premise that Europe was heading for “civilisational erasure” because of migrants and, by extension, millions of Europeans of colour.

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, insisted that the best response to the Trump administration’s insults was standing up for a united Europe, focusing on its strengths and taking pride in the EU. There was no reaffirmation of the compelling vision she outlined only two years ago of an inclusive EU “where it doesn’t matter what you look like, who you love, how you pray, and where you are born”.

The truth is that Trump’s alternative reality about a “woke” Europe is laughable. He would feel quite at home in today’s EU. Far-right parties are on the rise, and the rhetoric of “defending civilisation” – part of the “great replacement” conspiracy discourse – has seeped from the far-right fringes into the political mainstream. Von der Leyen’s own conservative bloc increasingly relies on far-right votes to move legislation through the European parliament. If Trump were to visit “Brussels so white”’s institutions, the US president would likely not run into many people of colour.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6492077

Archived version

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“We will get a fair solution only once Russian elites have concluded that the original invasion was a mistake and that the aim of rebuilding the Russian empire is unachievable,” Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski [said], warning Western partners against seeking quick compromises that could leave Ukraine vulnerable to renewed aggression.

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The foreign minister warned against repeating past diplomatic failures, pointing to the Minsk agreements that followed Russia’s earlier aggression against Ukraine in 2014. Those deals, he said, were negotiated over the heads of Central and Eastern European countries and failed to prevent a full-scale invasion in 2022.

“We don’t need a Minsk three,” Sikorski said. Any settlement, he added, must leave Ukraine with defensible borders and the freedom to integrate with the European Union. “Otherwise, it’s just kicking the can down the road.”

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday he had appointed former Liberal cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland as an economic development adviser, citing her experience in attracting investment.

"Right now, Ukraine needs to strengthen its internal resilience — both for the sake of Ukraine’s recovery if diplomacy delivers results as swiftly as possible, and to reinforce our defense if, because of delays by our partners, it takes longer to bring this war to an end," Zelenskyy wrote on X.

Freeland, who has Ukrainian ancestry, was (Canada's) deputy prime minister between 2019 and 2024. She has long been one of Canada's most vocal opponents of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Freeland has roiled both the U.S. and Russia in the past.

She was one of a number of Canadian officials subjected to retaliatory sanctions imposed by Vladimir Putin's government in 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6490767

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The state-run ISNA news agency reported on Sunday, January four, quoting the director general of Iran’s Water Information and Data Office, that the country’s water resources remain in a fragile condition due to the continuation of multi-year droughts.

According to Firouz Ghasemzadeh, the recent rainfall has had only temporary effects and is not capable of compensating for the accumulated deficit caused by several consecutive years of drought in Iran.

According to this report, precipitation in the current water year has increased by 11% compared to the long-term average and by 76% compared to last year.

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Nevertheless, the provinces of Tehran and Alborz have experienced the largest decline in rainfall, with a decrease of more than 70% compared to the long-term average.

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The reservoirs of dams in the provinces of Tehran, Isfahan, Razavi Khorasan, Qom, Zanjan, and Markazi are in unfavorable conditions, and the supply of drinking water in cities dependent on these sources faces limitations; therefore, water consumption management remains a serious necessity in the country.

Leader of former Danish colony, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, condemns US ‘threats’ as Nordic neighbours offer support

Greenland has urged Donald Trump to give up his “fantasies about annexation” after the US president, fresh from his military operation in Venezuela, again threatened to take over the Arctic territory.

In a bracingly direct statement, the Greenlandic prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, accused the US of “completely and utterly unacceptable” rhetoric, declaring: “Enough is enough.”

On Sunday, Trump said the US needed Greenland “very badly” – renewing fears of a US invasion of the largely autonomous island, which is a former Danish colony and remains part of the Danish kingdom. Greenland’s foreign and security policy continues to be controlled by Copenhagen.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44926230

Ireland rightly places human rights and the rule of law at the heart of our foreign policy. It is evident in how we have stood resolutely with Ukraine since Russia’s illegal invasion and where we have called out the horrors of the ongoing attacks of the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza and the West Bank.

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Taoiseach Micheál Martin is in Beijing to engage with leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on how we can deepen co-operation between Ireland and the world’s second most populous country.

Much of the discussion will be on furthering already strong trade links. Ireland and China do about €37bn in trade each year; China is our largest trading partner in Asia.

Ireland is committed to multilateralism and global co-operation and rightly sees free and fair trade as essential to improving living standards.

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However, in this era where autocracy is on the rise and respect for human dignity is under threat, we cannot shy away from ensuring that the Chinese authorities are very aware of our concerns around the deteriorating human rights situation in that country.

In August 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published a detailed report outlining “serious human rights violations” by the Chinese authorities against the Uyghur people and other Muslim communities, including arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence and coercive reproductive policies.

The evidence of forced labour camps in the Xinjiang region was again highlighted in the recent excellent work of Joe Galvin and the RTÉ Investigates team.

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The Tibet region of China is ranked by the global think-tank Freedom House as the least free in the world.

The Tibetan people and their culture have been singled out by the CCP and education in the Tibetan language continues to be repressed.

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In Hong Kong, it is now five years since the so-called National Security Law came into force. This in effect removes any remaining autonomy for Hong Kong. Almost 90pc of those charged with offences are refused bail and there are long periods of pre-trial detention.

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Perhaps the most prominent case is that of Jimmy Lai, a businessman and founder of the Apple Daily newspaper. He has been held in prison for five years for supporting the pro-democracy movement. His international legal team is led by Irish human rights lawyer Caoilfhoinn Gallagher, who has experienced numerous threats as a result of representing him.

Detention without charge is common in China. It should be recalled that Richard O’Halloran, an Irish citizen, was held in this manner for three years, from 2019 to 2022, away from his family, because Chinese authorities wanted to use him as a pawn in an aircraft leasing dispute.

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