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We favor a diplomatic solution. We know that there is no military solution.In a special briefing on 3 April - nearly six months after Yemen launched its far-reaching naval operations to debilitate Israel's ability to conduct war on Gaza - US Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking touted the importance of seeking diplomatic solutions in Yemen instead of the military ones his government has been loudly advocating for months.
โ US Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking
The overwhelming majority of UN member states are concerned that the weaponization of outer space will lead to an arms race and insist that a multilateral treaty is the only way to prevent such an arms race, emphasizing that this treaty would not limit space access, but would prevent such limitations. Each year in the UN General Assembly a resolution on the prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS) is introduced and adopted by an overwhelming majority of UN member states. In fact, every country in the world votes in favor of negotiating a treaty on PAROS โ except for the US and Israel, which abstain.
The word I came up with is "lenocracy." The first part of that word comes from leno, the Latin term for a pimp. Yes, what the word means is a government of pimps.
Let's unpack that phrase a little bit. If, as the saying goes, prostitution is the world's oldest profession, then pimping must be up there in the oldest half dozen or so. What makes a pimp economically interesting is that he adds no value to the exchanges from which he profits. He doesn't produce any goods or services himself. His role is wholly parasitic. He inserts himself into the transaction between the sex worker who provides the service and the customer who wants it, and takes a cut of the price in exchange for allowing the transaction to happen.
This kind of parasitic interaction is far from unusual in economics, but it's not always as common as it is now. There are societies and eras in which most economic activity is mediated by pimps of various kinds, and other societies and other eras in which such arrangements are relatively rare (and often harshly penalized). Right now, in the modern industrial world, we live in an economy where nearly all exchanges are subject not just to the exactions of a single pimp but to whole regiments of pimps, each of whom has to be paid in order for the exchange to take place. Furthermore, this orgy of pimping is sponsored, controlled, and mandated by government at all levels and by the holders of political and economic power more generally. Thus, lenocracy.
Comment: Whilst Russia indeed has a strategy that it is adhering to, and modifying, it seems in line with its intent to protect civilians that it postponed seriously cutting off power generation until after the harshest point of the winter season.
In the following interview Scott Ritter details how he thinks Russia is intent of demilitarising the whole of Ukraine and how Ukraine will be tied to Russia and Belarus by way of a political and economic union: