We need a global cultural revolution. A bringing to a sudden end this half-millennia long faith healing show where a perspiring West preaches humanistic values and economic prosperity while cutting holes in the pockets of an entranced colonised world.

We need not only an end to the world order set up by Western hegemony but an end to the appreciation of the West. We need the rage we feel after looking out at the charred remains of our earth under centuries of Western rule to mature into an act. The act of putting the West aside.

There must be an ushering in of a new day on earth where pulling our bodies, our lives, our lands back from the hammer-pry of colonialism is not deliberately misreported as “clashes” where white racists who deliberately hunt and deliberately kill Black elders in communities deliberately ruined by white racists are not immediately comfort-blanketed with reports of being “troubled”. Where our chanting to be allowed to live – and the inevitable procession of mourners come down upon by apartheid’s police forces – are no longer deliberately misframed as culture wars or intractable conflicts. This current chapter of Western-run human history must be flung shut.

We should have been more desperate for a post-Western world. A world where it is odd for white-skinned refugees to have every type of door flung open for them at the sight of their Primark shopping bags while it is routine for darker-skinned refugees to be force-fed toilet water in the American borderlands or sold on Libyan slave auction blocks.

Odd, reporters openly calling for guerrilla resistance against oppression in Ukraine while the killing of Black people whether by drone strikes in Yemen or by an American in a grocery store must be responded to with pacifism.

Odd. Not hypocritical. Unintelligible.

Dark-skinned refugees horsewhipped by American border agents in cowboy hats. Shot at by Europeans while on unseaworthy crafts sutured together with Hadiths and Psalms. Pointed at to explain resurgent Nazi sentiment. Ordered to let white people board first during evacuations. Referred to as crime waves and invaders while flaxen-haired refugees benefit from Fortune 500 company fundraisers, Airbnb programmes and win singing contests. Odd. Not hypocritical. Unintelligible.

It must be accepted now that the West, however mythologised, be it American-led “democracy” or classical “Western” political ideas, has proven that it does not have the necessary intellectual or political infrastructure to put down its perpetually rising Nazism. It has proven inadequate to the task of not harming the vast majority of humanity. Its ideas and institutions have proven incapable of destroying and ridding itself of colonial racism – if it is to be accepted that the project of the West is something other than the project of colonial racism.

The apologists will bring you Locke and Rousseau and protest that the West brought you life, liberty and the social contract. They are careful not to reveal that in the Atlantic Ocean of the fine print, sharks were learning to trail the slave ships, waiting like yelping dogs for the feast of live Africans dumped over the starboard side.

They will say we brought you the telegraph and the railway but will not mention the jokes they made at the indentured South Asians they sent to be mauled by lions in East Africa as they laid the tracks. Nor their hunting of families in Tasmania, nor the women abused at the Kamiti concentration camp accused, like the American “negress”, of subverting the aims of the settler state. They will say one-day delivery but say nothing about the suicide-prevention nets and the urine in driver’s bottles to keep up the pace.

Whatever it takes to leave racism and thus hatred of the vast majority of people on the earth behind, the Western world does not possess and will never possess. That alone disqualifies it from continuing any further.

And if we are wrong, if a non-racist enlightenment is indeed, for real this time, just around the corner, if it only takes a bit more patience as the liberal has promised since hansom cabs and the French Revolution then let us jump the gun. They are not the only ones allowed to be too hasty. Let us rid ourselves of association with the West, even if it is in error. Become too rushed, too reckless in our leaving it. Commit oversights. Forget to include the West in the vision of the future as if it were a slave in their declarations and charters and constitutions. Let us be dogs no longer satisfied to chase after the mechanical rabbit. Hang tomorrow. Arrest patience. White supremacists are not the only ones who get to make the world. The wretched of the earth can seize the reins and are free to crash the horse.

The West is kept in the breast pocket of every one-man race riot the colony provides with an AR-15. In a locket of every in-training genocidaire assisted by the algorithms of tech profiteers who look the other way as convincingly as the port cities of the triangular trade. Nudged along by a hate group accepted as a political party and the television personalities of a white nationalist media empire more impactful than all of the early 20th century lynch mob-inciting US newspapers combined.

Wherever there is a group touting Western civilisation and values an ethnic slur is not far behind. An unfairly graded Black student, a pogrom-preparing fascist club is not far behind. If that group praises the West as the champion of women’s rights, it will also lead the charge to end those rights. Where it celebrates Western humanism it will be the first to dehumanise. Values its secularism it will crusade. Western cosmopolitanism? Inclusivity? It will volunteer as border minutemen. Where it celebrates Western rationality and scientific advancement it will cling to biological determinism and the racial classificatory charts of the 1700s. “The West” is a Trojan horse for the racist.

The West is trafficked on the dark web and 8chan, Twitch and sung by all the new Nazi parties. Pounded at the lecterns of celebrity racist professors and top podcast hosts who are carried atop shoulders of incels who blame caricatures of “the Blacks” for their perceived lack of desirability instead of the stench of their expired worldview. Well, let there indeed be a “Clash of Civilisations”, or rather a clash of the Western traditionalists who hold that the colonised can be hurt with impunity and the anti-colonial world. The post-Western world. An insurrection of the good equipped not with open arms and listening, but rubbish bins.

It is time for putting aside the West. Abandoning the sycophantic enthralment with their architecture, croissants smeared with contraband West African chocolate, and end to lusting after their fashion brands. A devaluing of their political institutions as far as their political institutions have devalued our lives. Smash the crystal wine glasses, case the cello, drop the overvaluation of all things “European” so that its stock market crashes in a way that it can never recover.

A cultural revolution is not a sideline cause when Occidentophilia excavates mental and economic resources more efficiently than their mining corporations steal raw materials. When it fuels fascism and leads Indigenous libraries to a self-immolation that burns more brightly than a crop-dusting of agent orange. When it makes resistance hesitant.

The colonised’s admiration of the West is fatal. It seconds the white supremacists’ supremacism. Confirms for them that they are indeed right pulling our people from evacuation transport because they are superior. That their innocents’ deaths shall launch a thousand warships and ours a stern comment about how the right is mainstreaming extremist rhetoric. It affirms for the race “massacrist” in training that the West is indeed coveted and they are right to leave us dying in the streets, struggling in cuffs, or warehoused in prisons. It buoys every racist commenter that responds to the dishevelled migrants fleeing from colonial violence with “if we are so bad why are people crossing our borders”. It tells them it is indeed the moral superiority of the West that we are running to. Not the ruins of imperialism. Not the wars they have implanted, cultivated and nurtured. The forests they’ve set alight.

“Now, comrades, now is the time to decide to change sides … We must abandon our dreams and say farewell to our old beliefs and former friendships. Let us not lose time in useless laments or sickening mimicry. Let us leave this Europe which never stops talking of man yet massacres him at every one of its street corners, at every corner of the world.”

Now. Now is the time. Now at the junction of the climate’s end and the unlimited takeover attempts their liberal governments grant fascists. When Congolese are killed after Western traffic stops, when the Congo is killed by Western mining corps, it is full passed the time. When their most reputable papers misrepresent the killing and the funeral of a journalist. When our people are killed for existing. It is time.

They cannot quit colonialism. Leave this West. Let us see if we cannot build a world on mangos and abolition.

Europe

• Russia cuts off Finland gas flows over payment dispute Al Jazeera

• Emergency plans to stop food crisis as biggest rail strike in modern British history looms Telegraph

Rail bosses are drawing up emergency plans to stop what is expected to be the biggest rail strike in modern history leaving supermarket shelves empty and petrol pumps dry.

Union barons are plotting to unleash chaos in an effort to block plans for thousands of maintenance jobs to be cut and secure double-digit percentage pay rises for their staff.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) union is midway through a ballot for strike action of workers at train operators and Network Rail, with voting due to close on Tuesday.

Switching to transporting freight by road is not an option because of the shortage of lorry drivers.

• The Tory Guide to Surviving the Cost of Living Crisis Naked Capitalism

According to Lee Anderson, if you’re facing food poverty and having to rely on food banks, it’s probably because you don’t know how to cook. The Ashfield MP, who earns £84,144 a year, told the Commons that food banks are unnecessary in the UK, and that the main reason why people on lower incomes are struggling to afford food is because they lack cooking and budgeting skills. “You’ve got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They can’t cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget.” Anderson went on to claim that nutritious meals only cost 30p a day.

... safeguarding minister Rachel Maclean has cracked the cost of living crisis. The solution, Maclean says, is to earn more. Easy! Why are people wasting time choosing between heating and eating, when they could just take on more hours or better yet, get a higher-paying job? “Over the long term, we need to have a plan to grow the economy and make sure that people are able to protect themselves better, whether that is by taking on more hours or moving to a better-paid job,” she told Sky News.

Simple enough. Maclean would know, before becoming an MP, she workedin Hong Kong, Sydney and Tokyo with HSBC, then set up Packt Publishing Ltd with her husband. The IT publishing company reportedly recorded £1.8m operating profits in 2020. And last year, on top of her £84k salary as an MP, Maclean reportedly claimed more than £213,000 in expenses. The average claimed by MPs is £203,000.

Our next top budgeting tip comes from the environment secretary, George Eustice. When Sky News asked what advice he would give to people who want to have a family Sunday roast with a chicken but can’t afford it, Eustice suggested that shoppers should buy supermarket own-brand products. “Generally speaking, what people find is by going for some of the value brands rather than own-branded products – they can actually contain and manage their household budget.”

Lastly, we have some stellar housing advice for young people from Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price, who thinks we should all make use of our granny annexes, the self-contained flats we all have just off of our main homes.Speaking in the Queen’s Speech debate, Doyle-Price told MPs that the government should be “encouraging people to make better use of their housing asset for the whole of their family”. “We can incentivise granny annexes, we can make sure that young people have got some hope by having greater access to the wealth in their parents’ home.

• The declining euro could worsen inflation so the ECB should push rates higher, German finance minister says BusinessInsider

• Europe is determined to cut fossil fuel ties with Russia, even though getting Hungary on board won’t be easy The Conversation

• Rouble hits 2015 level against euro as EU prepares to pay for gas Reuters

• Russian Oil Revenues Soar Despite Sanctions OilPrice

• Italy’s Oil Imports From Russia Quadruple Since February TeleSUR

• EU Faces Same Hurdles Over Tariff On Russian Oil As With Embargo OilPrice

The European Union is unlikely to reach a unanimous decision on the idea the U.S. has floated for cutting Putin's oil revenues—a tariff on Russian oil, a senior official told Argus on Friday.

• Sanctions Force Foreign Executives At Rosneft To Quit OilPrice

European-born executives at Rosneft quit the Russian oil giant days before the EU sanctions banning European citizens from working at the state-held Russian firm entered into force, Reuters reported on Friday, quoting six sources with knowledge of the matter.

• 'I can’t see the light': War fuels surging prices in Europe ABC

Public works projects in Italy are grinding to a halt just as the European Union is injecting 108 billion euros ($114 billion) in pandemic recovery money meant to launch a construction frenzy.

The war has accelerated inflation across Europe and the world, with prices for energy, materials and food surging at rates not seen for decades. It's causing sticker shock at the grocery store, gas pumps, electricity bills and construction sites.

Fishmongers and farmers are being forced to charge prices for their catch and crops that even they see as astronomical. High fuel prices threaten to paralyze ground transport of goods. Bread prices are soaring from Poland to Belgium. Protests over price hikes have erupted in places like Bulgaria. While governments have responded with tax cuts and other aid, they face limits in easing the impact of volatile energy markets.

Even the thrifty, with backyard hens, are wondering if the price of feed is worth the eggs they yield. Alina Czernik, a shop assistant in Warsaw, does the math, as she sees prices of grain for her hen go up 150%, to 200 zlotys ($45) per 100 kilograms (220 pounds).

"I have to tighten my belt. I buy fruits and vegetables so my kids have everything, but I don’t touch it," she said.

Add to that: The war in Ukraine has blocked exports of raw materials like steel and minerals that kept western Europe humming, as well as commodities like grains and seed oil, accentuating global shortages.

Inflation is running especially hot in central and Eastern European countries nearest the battlefields of Ukraine. Prices in April rose 14.2% in the Czech Republic, 12.3% in Poland and 10.8% in Greece. They're an eye-popping 61% in Turkey, which saw its currency lose 44% of its value against the dollar last year.

“Even in (the affluent district of) Cankyaya, people are no longer buying according to their needs, but according to what they can afford. Those who bought two kilos of ground beef are now buying a kilo at the most,’’ he said.

It goes on like this.

• EU steps up action to strengthen EU defence capabilities, industrial and technological base: Towards an EU framework for joint defence procurement EU Reporter

• Commission presents plans for the Union's immediate response to address Ukraine's financing gap and the longer-term reconstruction EU Reporter

• France's crop yields will be 'very poor' due to unprecedented drought France24

Asia and Oceania

• While other countries back away from Russian oil, China senses an opportunity to stock up on the cheap Fortune

• China needs Russian coal. Moscow needs new customers CNN

• China slashes key interest rate as housing sales collapse CNN

The central bank's decision to slash the five-year rate is the latest in a series of steps that China has taken to tackle a real estate crisis as Covid lockdowns threaten to push the economy into its first quarterly contraction since early 2020.

Sales of new homes plunged 47% in April from a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics earlier this week, while prices in 70 cities dropped for an eighth consecutive month.

• China Insists Party Elites Shed Overseas Assets, Eyeing Western Sanctions on Russia WSJ

China’s Communist Party will block promotions for senior cadres whose spouses or children hold significant assets abroad, people familiar with the matter said, as Beijing seeks to insulate its top officials from the types of sanctions now being directed at Russia.

The ban, outlined in an internal notice by the party’s powerful Central Organization Department, could play a role in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s efforts to increase his influence at a twice-a-decade leadership shuffle scheduled for later this year.

Issued in March, the directive prohibits spouses and children of ministerial-level officials from holding—directly or indirectly—any real estate abroad or shares in entities registered overseas, the people said.

Senior officials and members of their immediate families would also be barred from setting up accounts with overseas financial institutions unless they have legitimate reasons for doing so—such as study or work—the people said.

It isn’t clear if the rules apply retroactively, but family members of some senior officials have sold shares in overseas companies in order to comply, the people said. It isn’t known if the directive will be made public.

Yesterday the top officers of the U.S. and Russia had a call which, again, the U.S. side had initiated:

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff, held a conversation that the Pentagon declined to further detail beyond acknowledging it had happened.

Things must be bad in Ukraine for this to have happened. Indeed if one trusts the daily 'clobber list' the Russian Ministry of Defense puts out all positions of the Ukrainian army are under heavy artillery fire and it is losing about 500 men per day. There are additional Russian effective strikes on training camps, weapon storage sites and transport hubs all over the country.

On top of that the tactical situation at the eastern frontline has changed after Russian forces broke through the heavily fortified frontline.

A few days ago the Russian army went forward along the H-32 road, broke through the line in the direction of Propasna and took the town. It has since extended the bulge by taking several villages to the north, west and south.

This breakthrough gives the chance to roll up the Ukrainian fortifications along the frontline through flank attacks or from behind. By cutting the supply lines of the Ukrainian troops to the north and south envelopes can be created which will eventual lead to cauldrons with no way out for the Ukrainian troops.

This is especially dangerous for the several thousand soldiers north of the bulge which currently defend the cities of Sieverodonetsk and Lysychansk in the north eastern part of the upper bubble.

The Russian plan was to have another breakthrough from the north pushing to Siversk to then close the upper envelope. But after several failed attempts to cross the forest area and the Seversky Donets river that breakthrough has still to happen.

Russia is now likely to push fresh troops into the Propasna bulge to extend its reach into all directions. Reports of current actions show that the heavy fighting and bombing on the frontline continues and that bombing also continues to target traffic nodes.

...

The gasoline and diesel scarcity in Ukraine is currently having severe impacts. Even the Ukrainian military is now rationing its fuel. Since about six weeks ago Russia has systematically attacked refineries and fuel storage sites in Ukraine. It also disabled railroad bridges along the lines that brought fuel from Moldova and Romania. At the same time the Ukrainian government had held up price regulations for fuel. The consumer sale prices for diesel and gasoline were fixed. The cost of fuel brought in by private trucks from Poland exceeded the price gas station owners could ask for. In consequence gas stations ran dry as their owners refrained from purchasing new fuel.

Three days ago the Zelensky regime in Kiev finally ended the fuel price control ... The expected prices are lower than what is currently asked for in Germany and that is without trucking the fuel the 600 kilometer from Poland to Kiev. The threat of sanctions also means that local wholesalers will have little incentives to actually deal in fuel. With the average wages in Ukraine being about $480 per months the real fuel prices will soon become another economic shock.

In total the social-economic situation for Ukraine is catastrophic. The military situation is even worse. Mariupol has fallen and Russian troops working there will soon be able to go elsewhere. The Propasna bulge is threatening to envelope the whole northern frontline together with the core of the Ukrainian army. There is no more talk of the Ukrainian army 'winning' like in Kiev or Karkov where the Russian troops retreated in good order after finishing their task of holding Ukrainian forces in place. The Ukrainian command has sent several territorial brigades to the front lines. These units were supposed to defend their home towns. They consist of middle age men drafted into service. They have little fighting experience and lack heavy weapons. Several of these units have published videos saying they were giving up. They are lamenting that their commanders left them when their situation became critical. That the Ukrainian army is now using such units as cannon fodder shows that it has only few reserves left. Weapons that come in from the 'west' have difficulties reaching the front lines and had so far very little effect. They amount to drops of water on a hot plate.

All the above are the reasons why Austin and Milley have phoned up their Russian equivalents. They are also the reasons why the New York Times editors call on the Biden administration to end its bluster and to take a more realistic position

If you agree that there is an imperialist bloc of countries that dominates and controls the world, then Australia should be included. It may be a new and smaller entrant to the bloc, and it may be just a satellite of US imperialism in the Asia-Pacific, but it still fits the bill as part of the bloc.

And increasingly, the ruling strategists of Australian capital also see it that way. Australia has a general election tomorrow (21 May); it has one every three years (a leftover from its early days of democratic development) and the ruling National-Liberal Coalition government has been sounding the war bells. During the election campaign, Australia’s defence minister Peter Dutton told the country to “prepare for war”, capping what analysts have called a “khaki campaign” by Scott Morrison’s right-wing government. Dutton ramped up the rhetoric, telling Australians: “The only way you can preserve peace is to prepare for war and be strong as a country, not to cower, not to be on bended knee and be weak.”

And where is the threat of war to come from? China, of course. To counter what it sees as a threat from China, the Morrison’s government has in recent years sealed what is called the Aukus security pact with the US and UK and promised billions of dollars of defence and cyber security spending – all designed to resist the ‘threat’ of China – or to be more exact to follow the strategy of US imperialism to ‘contain’ and stop China becoming a rising economic power in the region and globally.

In the public opinion polls, ‘Trumpist’ Morrison trails Labor leader Anthony Albanese, with 54 per cent of voters backing the opposition compared with 46 per cent for the government, according to the latest Newspoll survey.

But don’t expect Albanese to alter Australia’s anti-China strategy. Labor fully backs the Aukus pact and if he wins, Albanese will join the meeting of the Quad — a security grouping of the US, Australia, India and Japan —which is due to take place in Tokyo only three days after Saturday’s election, with US president Joe Biden set to attend. Most analysts say that Biden “would be comfortable” with a Labor victory.

While the strategists of imperialism will be happy, Australia’s working people have more pressing problems. There are three issues dominating the election: the huge rise in house prices driven beyond the means of most Australians; the sharply rising cost of living where prices are rising much faster than wages; and climate change, with ever more destructive heatwaves, drought and floods affecting people’s lives.

Australia used to be called the ‘lucky country’ where people could emigrate to and start a new and prosperous life in an economy that had not suffered a recession of any note for decades. But the signs that this was changing have been there since the Great Recession of 2008-9 and subsequent Long Depression that ensued up to the COVID pandemic slump in 2020. After taking into account population growth, average annual real GDP per person grew by about 2% a year in Australia up to the Great Recession. However, since then, per capita growth has averaged half that rate.

Of course, this is a phenomenon found in nearly all major advanced capitalist economies since the Great Recession, but it has affected the ‘lucky country’ too.

As elsewhere, the slowdown in economic growth can be connected to the slowdown in productive investment growth. Indeed, investment to GDP has declined sharply since the Great Recession.

What lies behind the slowdown in real GDP and investment growth? It’s the same cause that applies to all the major capitalist economies in the last two decades: falling profitability of capital. The great boom and revival of profitability in Australian capital from the 1980s, led by Australia’s exploitation of resources in minerals, agricultural products and energy, and the huge expansion of a skilled workforce with ‘liberalised’ labour markets, started to falter in the late 1990s. And although there was a short uptick in profitability during the commodity boom up to 2010, driven by demand from China for Australia’s commodities, in the last decade, the decline in profitability resumed. Profitability is still as high as it was in the Golden Age of the 1960s (unlike most other major capitalist economies), but the trend is downwards.

The irony in the sabre-rattling of the coalition government against China is that Australia had been ‘lucky’ because of its close proximity to China, the fastest growing economy over the last 25 years. As one commentator put it: “Australia was uniquely placed to benefit from China and Asia’s long-term growth by exporting resources, agricultural produce and services to the region”. Also the economy benefited from an influx of skilled labour through immigration from all parts but also immigrants who came with wealth of their own to invest.”

And Australia remains heavily dependent on its exports to China and world growth in general. Until the pandemic, China was the largest source of foreign investment in Australia, leapfrogging the US. But strategy of American imperialism is now overriding economic reality.

The domestic issues in the election campaign centre round the sharply rising rate of inflation – something hitting all the major capitalist economies – and with little prospect of any solution from either government or opposition. Inflation in the prices of goods and services in Australia is rising much faster than wages. The annual inflation rate is currently 5.1% (a 21-year high) and set to rise further, while average wages are rising at just 2.4%. So real wages are falling at a rate not seen for decades.

As in the US and Europe, the only answer offered by the authorities is for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to hike interest rates, while calling for wage restraint. The RBA has now increased interest rates (by 0.25% to 0.35%) for the first time in more than eleven years – and the first hike in the middle of an election campaign since 2007.

These rate rises threaten the homes of millions of Australians. The housing bubble had already reached shocking proportions.

Australian households are now among the most indebted in the world. Chris Martin, a senior research fellow in UNSW’s City Futures Research Centre, said data from the Bank of International Settlements showed total credit to Australian households amounts to about 120% of annual GDP.

Major banks have already lifted interest rates for mortgages and other loans, matching the RBA’s 0.25 basis point increase. The RBA governor, Philip Lowe, said the cash rate could increase to 2.5% while investors are tipping it will rise to about 3.75% by May 2023. -If so, it’s estimated that 300,000 Australians could default on their mortgages as repayments increase. Each percentage point increase adds on average A$323 in monthly repayments, although some cities, such as Sydney are much higher at A$486, according to CoreLogic data. Car loans and credit card debt will also be more costly to repay at a time when the price for fuel and many other goods is rising, adding to families’ financial stress, Martin said.

Supposedly, the saving grace for Australians is ‘full employment’ to pay for these price rises.

But the headline unemployment rate hides the reality that employment has not recovered yet from the pandemic slump. Prior to 2020, employment was growing around 4.2% every two years, but since then it has increased just 2.1% – in effect at half the speed it had been in the period up to the pandemic. Moreover, the working age population beginning to stall.

Australian capital is running out of more labour, especially as immigration restrictions have stopped net immigration expanding. The pool of working age people has barely grown at all. Increasingly, Australian capital must rely on boosting productivity growth to expand and raise profitability. But investment growth is dropping off and productivity growth has been in a downward trend.

And on top of all this is the disaster of global warming and climate change that is beginning to hit Australia for a cricket six. Climate change in Australia has been a critical issue since the beginning of the 21st century. Australia is becoming hotter and will experience more extreme heat and longer fire seasons. In 2014, the Bureau of Meteorology released a report on the state of Australia’s climate that highlighted several key points, including the significant increase in Australia’s temperatures (particularly night-time temperatures) and the increasing frequency of bush fires, droughts and floods, which have all been linked to climate change.

In the past three years, record-breaking bushfire and flood events have killed more than 500 people and billions of animals. Drought, cyclones and freak tides have gripped communities. Queensland has been ravaged by floods in recent months. In February, the state capital Brisbane had more than 70% of its average yearly rainfall in just three days. Australia is facing an “insurability crisis” with one in 25 homes on track to be effectively uninsurable by 2030, according to a Climate Council report. Another one in 11 are at risk of being underinsured.