Gorilla Radio blog

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Karen Spring March 11, 2026

This Week on GRadio

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

March 11, 2026

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 11th, 2026

It may or may not be World War III you’re seeing, or not seeing on your teevee screens, but what IS certain, is an energy war in full swing. America has hijacked trade routes, forcibly removed unfriendly government’s leaders sitting on American oil and, as Senator Lindsey Graham gleefully expounded, “...blow[’n] Hell out of” those in Iran who don’t concede America owns everything. Where does this all lead? To Senator Graham’s Hell for us all of course but the question remains, Who’s hand-basket will get there first?

John Helmer’s a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. He’s the principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears and has - as well as serving as advisor to governments at the highest level - too been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism.

Among Helmer’s many book titles are: ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘Sovcomplot: How pirates tried to capture the treasure of the Russian seas, and were caught out’, and his latest is the newly released, ‘The Navalny-Novichok Complex: Chronicle of a Staging’. His latest article at Dances with Bears on the subject is, ‘BONFIRE OF THE GRAND STRATEGIES – SO LONG NETANYAHU, TRUMP, MODI, XI, PUTIN’.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; the United States announced a closer-to-home front for its project of Global Domination over the weekend. President Trump gathered a faker’s dozen of Latin American heads of state at his golf course near Miami to present, ‘Shield of the Americas’ a program promising more misery than a hurricane to come for the region’s poor.

Karen Spring is Coordinator for Honduras Solidarity Network, the “… decentralized network of approximately 30 organizations from across Canada and the United States […] committed to demonstrating and advocating for solidarity with the Honduran social movement.”

Karen’s just back from Honduras, where the sad anniversary of murdered human rights and environment defender, Berta Cáceres was marked.

Illustration: Berta Cáceres by Erin Currier.

Karen Spring and the eternal fight for justice in Latin America in the second half.

But first, John Helmer and separating the predators from prey in the World Energy War.

Documentary Water for Life “surveys the struggle for water protection

in the Americas, including the work of Cáceres and COPINH…”

Music: David Rovics/Ai Tsuno

Songs: ‘Epstein Empire’ ‘If Wars Were Engineered in the Belly of the Beast’

Friday, March 06, 2026

Iran: Hospital = Target in Israel/U.S. Terror Wars

US-Israel attack on a premier Tehran hospital targeted newborns, destroyed IVF center

by Humaira Ahad - PressTV

Thursday, 05 March 2026

[ Last Update: Thursday, 05 March 2026 6:43 PM ]

The air at the bombed-out Tehran hospital room hung thick with dust and the metallic tang of recent destruction carried out by the United States and the Israeli regime.

Against a backdrop of shattered concrete, two newborns clung precariously to life. Their breaths were being measured by the rhythmic beep of monitors connected by vital wires.

Amid the dust-choked room following the dastardly US-Israeli aggression, Iranian Red Crescent personnel worked to sever the fragile connection to the damaged infrastructure, to take the infants out of the wreckage.

The Gandhi Hospital in central Tehran, along with a nearby residential building, sustained catastrophic damage from strikes carried out by the United States and Israel late Sunday night, a day after the aggression was launched without provocation.

Immediately following the attack, harrowing footage depicted medical personnel urgently transferring the tiny newborns from their compromised incubators to ambulances.

Hope for new life, IVF centre targeted

The tragedy deepened with confirmation from hospital authorities later about the massive damage incurred by a specialized IVF center there, which lay in ruins.

The IVF centre was a sanctuary where hundreds of hopeful couples had invested their futures, their deepest desires for parenthood.

The US-Israeli aggression destroyed their dreams for future generations that had been painstakingly planned.

“The ledger of violated human rights in this war will be written in blood and shame,” Hossein Kermanpour, Health Ministry spokesman, wrote in a post on his X account.

“For the first time in my life, I am witnessing something I never even saw during the Iran-Iraq War. Patients being carried in their caregivers’ arms, fleeing into smoke-filled streets after missiles exploded beside their hospital,” Kermanpour added.

The assault was not limited to Gandhi Hospital. Reports confirmed that Khatam al-Anbiya Hospital and Motahari Hospital were also directly targeted in Tehran.

Furthermore, several missiles struck near Abuzar Hospital in the southern city of Ahvaz, forcing the immediate evacuation of 21 patients, including those in intensive care, requiring 30 ambulances to reroute them to other centers.

Images from Ahvaz captured the evacuation under dire circumstances. Emergency personnel were moving the sick through the thick plumes of smoke while the terrifying sounds of aerial bombardment still echoed overhead.

The American and Israeli regimes also targeted three emergency medical bases in Sarab, Chabahar, and Hamedan following the Abuzar attack.

A member of the Iranian Parliament said five hospitals and medical centers have been damaged or destroyed during the US-Israeli terrorist attacks on the Islamic Republic.

“Unfortunately, this illegal act of aggression resulted not only in the destruction of the buildings of hospitals and medical centers but also the injury of a number of students and local residents,” Fatemeh Mohammad Beigi, a member of the Parliament’s Health and Treatment Commission, said in a statement on Monday.

She added that a number of these medical centers have been evacuated in fear of more attacks.

Assault on life itself

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian denounced the US-Israeli strikes on civilian infrastructure, stating that the attacks on medical facilities “affect life itself and assaults on educational centers jeopardize the future of a nation.”

He made this reference following a US-Israeli strike on an elementary school in the southern Hormozgan Province that killed 171 girls.

He added that "targeting patients and children blatantly violates humanitarian principles."

The Iranian president called upon the international community to censure the atrocities.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expressed extreme concern over the damage to Gandhi Hospital in Tehran.

Following the bombing, he posted on X, stating, “Reports of Tehran’s Gandhi Hospital being damaged during today’s bombardment of the Iranian capital are extremely worrying.”

Ghebreyesus reiterated that “all efforts must be taken to prevent health facilities from being caught up in the ongoing conflict,” emphasizing that “Health facilities are protected under international humanitarian law” with the hashtag “#healthisnotatarget.”

Strike on hospitals, a pattern

However, this event is part of a disturbing pattern. This is not the first time Israel has attacked medical facilities in the Islamic Republic. During the 12-day military aggression in June, nearly a dozen hospitals were targeted in clear violation of international conventions.

The Geneva Conventions, long considered the bedrock of humanitarian protection in wartime, have been repeatedly flouted by both the US and Israel.

In Gaza, an entire health system has been systematically crippled, and doctors have been killed while on duty since the genocidal war was launched in October 2023.

According to chilling WHO figures, 94 percent of hospitals in Gaza were destroyed by Israel during its two-year-long genocide.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk

Wednesday, March 04, 2026

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Andy Worthington, Salam Hamdan March 4, 2026

This Week on GRadio

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

March 4, 2026

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 4th, 2026

Listen. Hear.

That February 28th, 2026 will live as a date in infamy is certain. But in an age of so many infamies, “What difference” - the mighty in Washington and Tel Aviv, Berlin, Paris, London and ... Ottawa may ask - “does one more orgy of destruction make?” That hubris and viciousness, revealed by America and its enablers in the course of these last terrible years, has led to this reeking fin-de-siècle to end all fin-de-siècle today.

Andy Worthington’s an English journalist, activist, author, photo-historian, filmmaker, musician, song-writer and principle of The Four Fathers band. He is too a co-founder of the ongoing Close Guantánamo campaign. His book titles include: ‘The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison’, ‘Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion’, and ‘The Battle of the Beanfield. Andy’s articles appear at: AndyWorthington.co.uk, where I found his recent piece, ‘Trump Isolated as His Illegal and Unprovoked “War” on Iran Backfires’.

Andy Worthington in the first half.

And; none of the new horrors has altered the genocidal intent of the Jewish State in Palestine. Nominal ceasefires may have slowed the rate of the slaughter, but the killing continues and spreads. Outside of the Gaza Strip, the pogroms in cities, towns, villages, and the countryside conducted by settler/soldiers have escalated with thousands murdered, injured, and imprisoned. And as in Gaza and Lebanon, and now Iran, hospitals and other civic infrastructure are targets of a military that knows no limits.

Salam Hamdan is a Palestinian political activist and Social-Feminist from Ramallah in the West Bank. She’s been in Canada for some time, watching from here her home set fire to.

Salam Hamdan and the other side of the Palestine genocide in the second half.

But first, Andy Worthington and the wages of America’s latest sin.

Music: David Rovics/Ai Tsuno

Song: ‘Misanthropic’

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Diana Johnstone, Debbie Lerman February 25, 2026

This Week on GRadio

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

February 25, 2026

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 25th, 2026

Listen. Hear.

Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, delivered yesterday, brought to mind his Republican antecedent’s prescient SOTU. Twenty years ago, four and half years into the Afghanistan military occupation, and following nearly three years of an insurgent war in Iraq, George W. Bush - evoking predecessors Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Reagan - declared,

“Our own generation is in a long war...a war that will be fought by Presidents of both parties...and lead this world toward freedom.”

And he was as good as his word: Twenty years and millions killed later, America is still at war for freedom - a freedom shining rainbow-like, leading the nation towards an endless horizon of fear, pain, and despair.

Diana Johnstone is an American journalist and author who’s lived and worked in Paris for decades. She’s spent that time chronicling, among other things, America’s destructive follies from the Pentagon’s doomsday preparations to its wars of empire. Diana’s books include: ‘Circle in the Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher’, ‘Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions’, ‘From MAD to Madness: Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning’, (co-written with her father, Paul H. Johnstone), and now her newly released, ‘World Watcher: On Manufacturing War’, an anthology of some of her many essays on global affairs.

Diana Johnstone in the first half.

And; this month marks the sixth anniversary of another declaration of war - of a sort. On the fourth of February, 2020 Donald Trump’s first administration activated the “Emergency Use Authorization Act”, and the “PREP Act”; precursors to ‘Operation Warp Speed’, the Covid-19 response resulting, my second guest says, “in the worldwide forced vaccination of billions of people, millions of whom were injured or killed”.

That “operation” was curiously lauded recently by the man who launched it as, “one of the greatest military feats ever!”

Debbie Lerman is a retired medical writer and current investigative researcher. She has focused on all things Covid-related since 2022 independently, and with the Brownstone Institute as of 2023. Many of her articles on the topic feature in her book, ‘The Deep State Goes Viral: Pandemic Planning and the Covid Coup’. Her recent article, ‘Cheering the Militarization of Everything: Reflections on the 6th Anniversary of When Covid Was Declared a “National Security Threat”’ follows the thread.

Debbie Lerman and from Hiding to Celebrating the Military/Corporate Covid Convergence in the second half.

But first, Diana Johnstone and manufacturing an American Century of War.

Music: David Rovics/Ai Tsuno

Song: ‘A Whistle and a Phone’

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Randy Caravaggio, John Helmer February 18, 2026

This Week on GRadio

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

February 18, 2026

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 18th, 2026

Listen. Hear.

The American blockade of Cuba is not news, it’s been going on from the early days of the revolution more than sixty-five years ago; what is new is an American desperation that now threatens friend and foe alike with its economic nuclear option. The latest iteration of the threat to Cuba’s survival - the energy embargo - is one none have so far dared challenge for fear of the hegemon; including stalwart allies Venezuela and Mexico.

Randy Caravaggio is a long-time organizer with the Victoria Friends of Cuba. Begun as the Victoria Goods for Cuba Campaign, Randy and his comrades have worked to supply the embattled Caribbean island nation with vital medical and other necessary supplies for the last thirty-three years, and more. And they’re just back from the latest mission there.

Randy Caravaggio in the first half.

And; last week Russian Embassy officials in Cuba said Russia “planned to deliver oil and oil products to Cuba as humanitarian aid.” Just when and how those shipments were to begin was left hanging; described by embassy staff to the Tass news agency only as occurring sometime “in the near future”.

But can Russia afford to take on another front in the undeclared War America and its vassals are waging against it, and the rest of an uncooperative World?

John Helmer’s a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. He’s the principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears and has - as well as serving as advisor to governments at the highest level - too been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism.

Among Helmer’s many book titles are: ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’, ‘Skripal in Prison,’ the Skripal sequel, ‘LONG LIVE NOVICHOK! The British Poison that Fooled the World’. His latest is the newly released, ‘The Navalny-Novichok Complex: Chronicle of a Staging’. John’s latest article at Dances with Bears is ‘THE PESKOVITES ARE DESPERATE AS PUTIN PLACES HIS BIGGEST BET’ a behind the scenes look at the diplomatic dynamics determining war and/or peace between the atomic superpowers.

John Helmer and the global war you’re not seeing in the second half.

But first, Randy Caravaggio and Cuba’s friends in deeds.

Music: David Rovics/Ai Tsuno

Song: ‘In the Moments Before the Third World War’

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Alison Bodine, Yves Engler February 11, 2026

This Week on GRadio

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

February 11, 2026

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 11th, 2026

Listen. Hear.

Five weeks after the United States’ murderous assault against Venezuela it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish resistance from acquiescence. As with Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum, acting Venezuelan president Delcy Rodríguez has too halted energy exports to Cuba and gone further, agreeing to onerous US-dictated terms for access to Venezuela’s oil resources, dressed up in the country’s recently reformed Hydrocarbon Law. And now reportedly beginning exports to Israel.

So what of the popular outrage and demands for resistance to what looks like an armed take-over of the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement and all those fighting for a better World new order?

Alison Bodine is an activist, author, researcher, and contributing editor for the Fire This Time Newspaper. She’s too an activist with the Venezuela Solidarity Network and Vancouver’s Mobilization Against War and Occupation. Alison served as an election observor in Venezuela in 2024 for both communal and presidential elections campaigns, and authored the book, ‘Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Venezuela’, published by Battle of Ideas Press.

Alison Bodine in the first half.

And; activist, journalist, author, and legitimate BAU disruptor, Yves Engler is in B.C. this week, presenting ‘The Failure of Social Democracy: NDP Support for Militarism and Imperialism’. He’s written a dozen books, 11 of them being on the perfidious history of Canadian foreign policy, the latest, ‘Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy’, co-written with Owen Schalk.

Yves’ tour will land in Victoria February 16th, cross the strait to Powell River on the 17th, and down to Surrey and Burnaby on the 18th and 19th, before heading inland to the Okanagan for Kelowna’s Friday, February 20th event.

Yves Engler on a political structure to succeed where the NDP continues to fail in the second half.

But first, Alison Bodine and the Revolution’s darkest days.

Music: Ai Tsuno/David Rovics

Songs: ‘In Venezuela’

‘Watching the World Burn’

Wednesday, February 04, 2026

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone, Alex Tyrrell February 4, 2026

This Week on GRadio

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

February 4, 2026

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 4th, 2026

Listen. Hear.

The tediously familiar clamour for yet another "humanitarian intervention" is currently disturbing the cobwebs of the abandoned house on the hill legacy media has become. This time it's Iran - or Iran again this time - and suddenly war hawks and vitriol spitters are burning with indignation for the well-being of the people they've cheerfully championed sanctioning "till their economy screams" for years.

Ken Stone is an activist and author who's worked tirelessly for peace with the Syria Support Movement International, Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War, and Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network, among others. His book, ‘Defiant Syria: Dispatches from the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria’ is a compilation of reports from his 2016 mission to that then-besieged nation.

Ken Stone in the first half.

And; last year Canadian political activist extraordinaire, Yves Engler was charged by Quebec's judiciary for harassing the Montreal police service. The risible charges followed a letter-writing campaign urged by Engler in response to his arrest on spurious charges - since thrown out for a second time - brought by an online Zionist activist. The court's ruling is a shock to Canada's legal system, but not entirely a surprise to those paying attention to the abuse of process employed by Israel's defenders in this country.

Alex Tyrrell is leader of the Green Party of Quebec. An activist and ecosocialist, Alex also hosts the bilingual Youtube podcast show, La Mentalité Verte, or The Eco Mindset in English, and contributes essays to a variety of publications in French and English in print and online; including GlobalGreenNews where I found his recent article, 'Yves Engler Found Guilty in Letter-Writing Case: A Full Account'.

Alex Tyrrell and the Engler verdict reshaping "legal boundaries of activism, journalism, and democratic participation in Canada" in the second half.

But first, Ken Stone and to the ramparts again to prevent further war against Iran.

Music: Ai Tsuno/David Rovics

Song: ‘In This Very Old New World Order’, ‘Our Oil’

Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Jeremy Kuzmarov, Chris Gilbert January 28, 2026

This Week on GRadio

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

January 28, 2026

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded January 28th, 2026

Listen. Hear.

There’s been much speculation, both here in Canada and elsewhere, regarding recent remarks by Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney at the Davos World Economic Forum last week. Addressing the global business elite, Carney played harbinger of doom, announcing “a rupture in the world order” and declaring the “useful fiction” of values, like “respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the various states” dead; killed - it’s implied - by America’s new Imperial self-understanding.

But does Carney’s lament signal a “fundamentally shift[ed]...strategic posture” so long in lock-step with the U.S.; and if so, where’s the proof of Canada’s new-found “value-based realism”?

My first guest’s recent article, ‘Canada Follows U.S. Lead in Preparing for World War’ beggars belief in the prime minister’s much celebrated sudden Damascene conversion.

Professor Jeremy Kuzmarov is contributing Managing Editor to Covert Action Magazine. His book titles include, ‘Obama’s Unending Wars’, ‘The Russians Are Coming, Again’, (written with John Marciano) ‘Warmonger. How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the U.S. Trajectory From Bush II to Biden’, and his latest, co-authored with Dan Kovalik, ‘Syria: Anatomy of Regime Change’.

Jeremy Kuzmarov in the first half.

And; Mark Carney’s call for “middle power” solidarity in the face of America’s unhinged hegemonic impulses carries with it implicit caveats; the most glaring of those made apparent in the aftermath of the lethal kidnapping raid against Caracas and Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro. When first made aware of the clearly illegal attack against that country’s sovereignty and the person of the president Carney responded saying,

“Canada has not recognised the illegitimate regime of [Nicolás] Maduro since it stole the 2018 election.” Adding, “The Canadian government therefore welcomes the opportunity for freedom, democracy, peace, and prosperity for the Venezuelan people.”

A brave New Order indeed.

Chris Gilbert is professor of political studies at the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela in Caracas. He’s too an author and contributing editor at Monthly Review, and co-hosts the Marxist educational program, Esceula de Cuadros. Gilbert’s lastest book is, ‘Commune or Nothing! Venezuela’s Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project’.

Chris Gilbert in the second half.

But first, Jeremy Kuzmarov and America’s “Willing” Coalition mobilizing at the Gates of World War III.

Music: Ai Tsuno/David Rovics

Song: ‘Another War for Oil’

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Jim Kavanagh, Andy Worthington January 21, 2026

This Week on GRadio

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

January 21, 2026

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded January 21st, 2026

Listen. Hear.

Daily America resembles more the totalitarian states of the last century than the beacon of liberty it once represented to the World’s tired, hungry, and huddled masses. As shocking as that truth is - as revealed in myriad cell phone videos of ICE brutality performed in places like Minnesota and everywhere else its thugs are deployed - it can’t be a surprise. America’s drift towards fascism has been foretold by marginalized, and some more mainstream, media voices for at least as long as Kennedy’s assassination, (and anchored in George W. Bush’s post-911 “reforms”).

But, so much for history.

Now, the marginal voices are being systematically muted by concentrated Internet corporations, while Legacy press outlets, like once vaunted CBS News, are swallowed whole by the defenders of genocide abroad and destruction of the American way at home.

Jim Kavanagh’s a former college professor cum online Cassandra, publishing his political and social analysis at The Polemicist on Substack. His articles too appear on occasion at The Greanville Post, and Counterpunch, among other places.

Jim Kavanagh in the first half.

And; if Americans wonder why their domestic political descent doesn’t garner more international calls of unity and support - as after the 9/11 attacks of 2001 - perhaps it’s due to global schadenfreude; a collective sense of America getting back some of what it’s dished out.

Few enjoy seeing the poorest of Americans targeted for collective punishment at the hands of racists more properly belonging in Dixie in another century; but, when considering the horrors committed by it in the last decades...

Andy Worthington’s an English journalist, activist, author, photo-historian, filmmaker, musician, song-writer and principle of The Four Fathers band. He is too a co-founder of the ongoing Close Guantánamo campaign. His book titles include: ‘The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison’, ‘Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion’, and ‘The Battle of the Beanfield. Andy’s articles appear at: AndyWorthington.co.uk, where I found his recent piece, ‘Photos and Report: 19 Global Vigils for the Closure of Guantánamo on the 24th Anniversary of the Prison’s Opening’. In it he writes,

“Between Saturday January 10 and Monday January 12, an impressive 18 vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay took place across the US and around the world, marking the 24th anniversary of the opening of the prison, with a 19th taking place on January 15.”

Andy Worthington and America’s 21st Century Devil’s Island in the second half.

But first, Jim Kavanagh and dismantling the Bill of Rights, one Amendment at a time.

Music: Ai Tsuno/David Rovics

Songs: ‘That Island’

Wednesday, January 14, 2026

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Diana Johnstone, John Helmer January 14, 2026

This Week on GRadio

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

January 14, 2026

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded January 14th, 2026

Listen. Hear.

Well, the secret is out! The Western World, led by America and its colourful leader, has slipped into tyranny. But - and it is a huge but - Donald Trump can’t take all the credit. Authoritarian crackdowns have been cracking - in myriad places and ways - for a long time.

One of the methods of shutting up critics in the European Union for example is “Sanctioning”. As with that favoured economic instrument orchestrated in hundreds of variations to punish Putin’s Russia, EU sanctions now target not just Russian oligarch’s, but European citizens with the temerity to criticize Brussels’ pathological foreign policy - among other things.

And what this portends the Continent today a famous, long-dead Veronese gentleman explains is: “No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean, But “banishèd”...”

Diana Johnstone is an American journalist and author who’s lived and worked in Paris for decades. She has too in that time served as press secretary to the Green Group in the European Parliament - an experience recounted in her latest book, ‘Circle of Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher’. Johnstone’s other book titles include: ‘Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions’, and ‘From MAD to Madness: Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning’, (co-written with her father, Paul H. Johnstone). Her many essays on global affairs can also be found at ConsortiumNews.com.

Now, Diana has taken up the cudgel in defense of author and frequent foreign policy media interview subject, the former Swiss military colonel and intelligence officer, Jacques Baud.

Diana Johnstone in the first half.

And; for his part, Donald Trump’s wars rage at home, abroad, and everywhere in-between; including a battle for global trade routes using the last sure thing America thinks it has, Naval Power. Whether Caribbean cigarette boats, or internationally flagged super tankers, none are safe when the Emperor’s boom lowers.

John Helmer’s a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. He’s the principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears, and has too been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism, and served as advisor to governments at the highest levels.

Among his many book titles are: ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17, ‘SOVCOMPLOT: How Pirates Tried to Capture the Treasure of the Russian Seas, and Were Caught Out’, and his latest, The ‘Skripal in Prison’ sequel, ‘Long Live Novichok! The British Poison Which Fooled the World’.

John Helmer and World War Sea rising in the second half.

But first, Diana Johnstone on Jacques Baud; alive but not well, and living in Brussels.

Music: Ai Tsuno/David Rovics

Songs: ‘In the Moments Before the Third World War’

Wednesday, January 07, 2026

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Ricardo Vaz January 7, 2026

This Week on GRadio

by C.L. Cook - GRadio.Substack.com

January 7, 2026

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded January 7th, 2026

Listen. Hear.

The weekend raid against Venezuelan sovereignty launched by the Americans raises numerous questions; questions like: Law, what law? Does the United Nations matter? And most importantly, How can the World operate when a single entity claims conqueror’s rights to all it desires?

The murderous kidnapping operation and flagrant subsequent brutalization of President Maduro and First Lady, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro offers bleak confirmation of the Trump administration’s answers to these question; but what of the international community?

Given the chance to condemn another in the long string of criminal actions undertaken by the United States, how that community of nations reacts now is - more than mere political barometer - it’s a signal moment in how the rest of this decade, and perhaps century will unfold, or perhaps unravel.

For its part, Canada has proven a bellwether for the Anglo-American Axis, (including its willing NATO accomplices). Delegitimizing the Maduro government was Prime Minister, Mark Carney’s opening observation; and it only gets worse from there.

Yves Engler is an activist, journalist, and author of countless articles and essays detailing Canada’s long, dark foreign policy history. Yves’ written a dozen books on that subject, including: ‘Stand on Guard for Whom?: A People’s History of the Canadian Military’, ‘House of Mirrors — Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy’, ‘Left, Right — Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada’, and his latest, ‘Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy’, co-written with Own Schalk.

Engler is too an aspirant for the leadership of the federal New Democratic Party whose campaign to be included in the debates challenged the NDP’s commitment to both the democratic process and desires of its rank and file members. It’s a challenge the backroom rulers of the party have so far failed to meet.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; even as the World watches Venezuela, getting an accurate picture of what’s happened, what is happening, and how Venezuelans think and feel about it through the lens of an increasingly propagandized media is difficult, if not impossible.

Ricardo Vaz is a journalist and political analyst. He’s a contributor to the communication collectives Tatuy Tv and Utopix, and his articles appear regularly at Venezuelanalysis. His latest piece there is, ‘Venezuela: Brazil to Send Medical Aid Following US Bombing’.

Crowds in Caracas defend the Bolivarian Process. (photo: Rome Arrieche)

Ricardo Vaz and life in Wartime in Venezuela in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and Canada’s Premier, first among Quislings at the feet of Empire.

Music: Ai Tsuno/David Rovics

Song: ‘They’ll Starve the Children’