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Newsom criminalizes scientific dissent

By Mike Campbell | The Counter Signal | October 11, 2022

California Governor Gavin Newsom has made it illegal for doctors to express dissent with state health authorities on COVID-19.

Bill 2098 was approved by Newsom on September 30.

“This bill would designate the dissemination of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or ‘COVID-19,’ as unprofessional conduct. The bill would also make findings and declarations in this regard.”

Any information doctors give that publicly contradicts state messaging on the COVID-19 virus, COVID vaccines, and prevention and treatment information is now “unprofessional conduct.”

Misinformation, as defined by the bill, refers to “false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.”

In other words, the state now has legal grounds to strip doctors of their medical licenses if they publicly disagree with its COVID related messaging.

In response to Newsom’s new law, the Liberty Justice Center quickly filed a lawsuit against the state’s Medical Board and Attorney General on behalf of two doctors.

“Science is not static. By its very nature science is constantly evolving and the subject of unending debate,” the Justice Center states.

“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and other public health authorities have constantly shifted their public presentation of the scientific data. Governor Newsom himself closed schools and even outdoor spaces— policies now widely acknowledged as unscientific and harmful.”

Last month, in another bizarre display of scientific tyranny, the UN’s Global Communications representative Melissa Fleming said, “We own the science.”

Fleming was speaking to the World Economic Forum’s “disinformation” panel.

“We’re becoming much more proactive. We own the science, and we think that the world should know it, and the platforms themselves also do,” she said.

In Canada, provincial health boards have threatened medical professionals who go against their messaging.

Earlier this year, 40 doctors from Ontario were under “investigation” for COVID-19 related decisions that went outside the province’s orders.

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | 1 Comment

NATO once ‘lost’ underwater drone under Nord Stream, Gazprom reminds

Samizdat | October 11, 2022

The US-led NATO alliance has been very active in waters around Nord Stream and once even managed to “lose” an armed underwater drone right under the pipeline, a Gazprom spokesman has said.

“On November 6, 2015, a NATO underwater mine destroyer ‘Seafox’ was discovered during a scheduled visual inspection of the Nord Stream gas pipeline,” Sergey Kupriyanov told Rossiya 24 on Monday.

The device was found resting on the seabed at a depth of 40m between the Nord Stream pipelines, almost directly under one of them, Kupriyanov said. The incident, which received limited media coverage at the time, prompted a brief halt in gas deliveries, while the drone was ultimately recovered by the Swedish military.

Back then, the US-led bloc said it had “lost” the device during military drills, the spokesman claimed. The German-made drone carries a 1.4kg shaped-charge warhead, which is intended for destroying sunken unexploded munitions and mines, according to publicly available data.

“That’s NATO drills for you, when a military-grade explosive device ends up straight under our pipeline,” Kupriyanov concluded.

The remarks come in the aftermath of the apparent sabotage attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline system. The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines both abruptly lost pressure on September 26, following a series of powerful underwater explosions off the Danish island of Bornholm. The ruptures caused massive gas leaks into the open sea and rendered the pipelines inoperable.

While Moscow has called for an international – with its own participation – probe into the incident, other parties appear to be reluctant to carry out such an investigation. Sweden, for instance, has already explicitly stated it will not share the results of its investigation into the explosion with Moscow.

“In Sweden, our preliminary investigations are confidential, and that, of course, also applies in this case,” Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson told reporters on Monday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already blamed the “the Anglo-Saxons,” a Russian colloquialism for the US-UK alliance, of being behind the blasts, which Moscow described as an “act of international terrorism.” Speaking during a meeting of the Russian Security Council on Monday, Putin said that “we all know well who the ultimate beneficiary of this crime is.”

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | 3 Comments

Historians reveal Israel’s use of poison against Palestinians

By Nasim Ahmed | MEMO | October 11, 2022

The details of Israel’s secret use of biological weapons and poison against Palestinians during the 1947/48 ethnic cleansing campaign has been revealed in a recent article by historians Benny Morris and Benjamin Kedar. The 84-year-old Kedar is professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the more well-known Morris is famed for his work as one of Israel’s “New Historians”. This group of Israeli scholars, including Professors Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim, dismantled the occupation state’s official narrative about its creation in 1948 and the birth of the Palestinian refugee crisis. However, unlike his fellow historians, Morris went on to become a rather controversial figure for adopting morally questionable positions in defence of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

“I find myself as convinced as ever that the Israelis played a major role in ridding the country of tens of thousands of Arabs during the 1948 war,” said Morris in an article in the Los Angeles Times about the controversy surrounding his book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. “For unearthing that dark side of 1948,” Morris said that he was vilified by the “Zionist establishment.” He was accused of shattering the founding myths of the Israeli state and lending moral weight to the Palestinian cause. Morris rejected the claim as “untrue” and explained that he “was simply a historian seeking to describe what happened.”

Affirming his commitment to Zionism, however, Morris went on to defend Israel’s ethnic cleansing. “I also believe their [Israeli] actions were inevitable and made sense” said Morris before giving his justification for why Israel had to expel three quarters of the indigenous non-Jewish, Muslim and Christian Palestinians. “Had the belligerent Arab population inhabiting the areas destined for Jewish statehood not been uprooted, no Jewish state would have arisen, or it would have emerged so demographically and politically hobbled that it could not have survived. It was an ugly business. Such is history.”

Morris’s argument is typical of many Israelis who find themselves trapped between the truths about Israel’s creation and remaining committed to the Zionist cause. Some abandon the ideology which preserves a Jewish ethno-nationalist state in historic Palestine because of the moral dilemma it presents. Others continue to insist that the Zionist cause supersedes all moral and ethical considerations, even if that means justifying ethnic cleansing, racism and the crime of apartheid.

In light of his background, Morris’s take on Israel’s use of biological weapons and poison is all the more interesting. His article with Kedar – “‘Cast Thy Bread’: Israeli Biological Warfare during the 1948 War” – was published by Middle Eastern Studies. According to Haaretz, the article is a rarity because it was researched and published against the wishes of the Israeli security establishment, which has tried for years to block any embarrassing historical documents that expose war crimes against Arabs, such as murdering prisoners, ethnic cleansing and destroying villages. Moreover, the article is based on original documents stored in the Israel State Archive as well as other archives.

The article provides details of how scientists from the Scientific Corps, together with battlefield units, were involved in a systematic campaign to poison water wells and spread typhoid bacteria in Arab villages and cities as well as among the invading armies of Egypt and Jordan. The objective was to frighten the Arab-Palestinian population, to force them to leave and to weaken the Arab armies. It is claimed that the use of biological warfare was approved by the founder of the Israeli state and its first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion.

Among the examples of the use of poison discussed in the article is the deployment of typhoid germs sent in bottles to the southern front. Morris and Kedar shed light on the Israeli soldiers sent with the poison to Acre and the Galilee village of Ilabun. According to British, Arab and Red Cross documents, dozens of local residents of Acre were poisoned and became severely ill. An unknown number of them died.

The same method is also said to have been used in Gaza in May 1948, a week after Israel proclaimed its independence. Apparently two Jewish soldiers from a Special Forces unit posed as Arabs and infiltrated Gaza with tubes containing the typhoid germs. Their mission was to poison the local water supply to stop the advance of the Egyptian army. However, they were arrested and tortured, and then sentenced to death by an Egyptian military court in August 1948.

The use of biological weapons has been illegal for nearly a century, since the 1925 Geneva Protocol. This prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons in international armed conflicts. Although Israel, Egypt, Somalia, Eritrea and Comoros have refused to commit to the protocol, 183 other states have done so.

While Israel has never publicly admitted to the use of chemical weapons it has been caught red-handed on several occasions. One such was the botched attempt to assassinate Palestinian political leader Khaled Meshaal in Amman, on 25 September, 1997. The brazen attempt on the life of the then 41-year-old head of the Hamas Political Bureau sparked a diplomatic row which threatened to wreck the peace deal between Jordan and Israel. The crisis ended with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu making a number of humiliating concessions.

A six-member Mossad team arrived in Amman a week before the assassination using false Canadian passports. The plan was clear: kill the exiled Hamas leader using a lethal toxin without leaving any trace of the killers. The idea was that after the toxin had been administered covertly, Meshaal would go about the rest of his day as normal and then, when tiredness overcame him, he would take a nap, never to wake up again; he was expected to die within 48 hours. Two of the Mossad agents delivered the toxin as planned but were captured by Meshaal’s bodyguard while trying to flee from the scene.

Hours after the arrest of the agents, the Israelis hatched a plan to diffuse the situation. With the diplomatic consequence of his actions dawning on him, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to conceal the botched assassination attempt from the rest of the world. He dispatched Mossad head Danni Yatom to plead with King Hussain of Jordan for the agents’ release. He failed to diffuse the situation and instead sparked a diplomatic crisis with the Hashemite Kingdom, which had normalised relations with the Zionist state three years earlier. The King had gone out on a limb to sign a peace treaty with Israel against the wishes of his people. Following pressure from the US and under the threat to the peace treaty, the Israelis delivered the antidote. Meshaal was saved with just hours to spare.

Nobody should be too surprised, therefore, at the fact that Israel used biological weapons against the Palestinians in 1948. The occupation state also has nuclear weapons, which it has never allowed to be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or anyone else for that matter. In short, the state is a depository for weapons of mass destruction and has used them against Palestinian civilians.

Has Israel been sanctioned, invaded and occupied by the West as a result? Of course not. Yet again, the West’s hypocrisy on such matters has been exposed, this time by an unlikely duo: Benny Morris and Benjamin Kedar.

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | 4 Comments

Lebanon and Israel finalize historic maritime border deal

The Cradle | October 11, 2022

Lebanon and Israel have agreed to a US-mediated maritime deal to demarcate the gas-rich blocks in the Mediterranean sea, seemingly putting an end to the prospect of an armed conflict.

In two separate statements by Lebanese and Israeli authorities, Beirut and Tel Aviv announced they have concluded all negotiations and will meet soon in Naqoura to sign the agreement.

“This is a historic achievement that will strengthen Israel’s security, inject billions into Israel’s economy, and ensure the stability of our northern border,” Israeli interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement on Twitter.

A statement released by the office of outgoing Lebanese President Michel Aoun claims the deal “is satisfactory to Lebanon and meets its demands,” adding that it “preserves [the nation’s] rights to its natural wealth.”

In details revealed by Lebanese daily newspaper Al-Akhbar, all obstacles that led to a recent spike in tensions have been resolved, as both countries compromised with regards to the legal language used in the final draft.

The newspaper reveals that both sides agreed that Israel will be paid royalties from the Qana prospect field. However, the money will be paid from the revenue generated from the French oil company Total, not Lebanon’s share of the revenue.

Map of the disputed maritime border between Lebanon and Israel. (Photo Credit: The Cradle)

As for the most pressing concern for both sides, Lebanon and Israel compromised in the legal language regarding the buoys deployed at sea to demarcate the various economic blocks.

According to the leaks, Lebanon insisted on adopting Line 20 while refusing to acknowledge that the line demarcates the maritime borders, but simply the blocks at sea.

Whereas Israel insisted on Line 31 which is going to be on the final draft between both countries.

Nonetheless, Lebanon will not acknowledge its effects on the land border demarcation, leaving the issue for indirect land-border negotiations.

In light of these developments, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati met on 11 October with the Lebanese Minister of Energy, Walid Fayyad, and a delegation from Total.

The delegation included the Director of Oil Exploration and Production Laurent Vivier, who was informed about the results of the negotiations and received a request to start operations.

Total informed the Lebanese side that the logistics of exploration need time, promising to start “as soon as possible.”

Similarly, Israeli National Security Council Chairman Eyal Hulta announced that all of  Israel’s demands have been met.

“Israel’s security interests have been preserved. We are on our way to signing a historic agreement,” Hulta said.

According to Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz, the current state of alert at the norther border with Lebanon came as a result of credible intelligence information about Hezbollah’s plans to launch an attack had Israel started to extract gas from the Karish gas field before a deal was concluded with Lebanon.

Similar assessments were made by the foreign intelligence services of several western countries.

This attack would have fulfilled the promise made by the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, who reiterated on several occasion that only mutual access to the gas reserves will be permitted.

“Israel, the US, and EU all know we are not bluffing. They have enough proof of that,” the resistance leader said during a televised speech in September.

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | 8 Comments

Europe’s Eerie Silence – The Curious Case of the Dog That Did Not Bark

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 10, 2022

Western media is full of speculation whether, or not, we stand at the cusp of WW3. Actually, we are already there. The long war never stopped. In the wake of America’s 2008 Financial Crisis, the U.S. needed to reinforce its economy’s collateral resource base. For the Straussian current (the neocon hawks if you prefer), Russia’s then post-Cold War weakness was an ‘opportunity’ to open a new war front. The U.S. hawks wanted to kill two birds with one stone: to pillage Russia’s valuable resources to reinforce their own economy and to fracture Russia into a kaleidoscope of parts.

For the Straussians, the Cold War too never ended. The world remains binary – ‘us and them, good and evil’.

But the neoliberal pillage ultimately didn’t succeed – to the lasting chagrin of the Straussians. Since 2014 at least, (according to one senior Russian official), the Great Game has moved towards the attempt by the U.S. to control the flows and corridors of energy – and to set its price. And, on the other side, on Russia’s counter-measures to create fluid and dynamic transit networks through pipelines and Asian internal waterways – and to set the price of energy. (Now via OPEC+)

So, Putin holding the Ukraine referenda; mobilising Russian military forces; and reminding the world that he is open to talks, clearly ‘ups the ante’. Should the NATO-led Ukrainians push into these areas after next week, it will constitute a direct attack on Russian soil. This retaliation threat is backed up by the mobilisation of massive military deployments.

Then, the Nordstream pipelines were blown up. Put simply, this is a high-stakes game of chicken playing out centred around energy – and against the relative strengths and weaknesses of the western economy and the Russian economy. Biden releases 1 million per day from strategic reserves and OPEC+ seems set to cut by 1.5 million barrels per day.

On the one hand, the U.S. is a large resource-rich economy, but Europe isn’t and is much more dependent on imports of food and energy. And with the final bursting of the QE bubble, it is not clear that Central Bank intervention which created the $30+ trillion QE bubble will be able to provide a solution. Inflation changes the calculus. A return to QE becomes highly problematic in an inflationary environment.

One prescient financial commentator noted: “Bubbles bursting are not just about inflated prices falling, they’re about the recognition that an entire way of thinking was wrong”. Put simply, did the Straussians adequately think through their recent exaltation of the pipeline disruption? Blinken has just called the Nordstream sabotage and Europe’s consequent energy deficit a “tremendous opportunity” for the U.S.. Curiously, the sabotage coincided with reports suggesting that secret talks were afoot between Germany and Russia to resolve all Nordstream issues and to restart supply.

But what if the resultant crisis crashes the political structures in Europe? What if the U.S. turns out not to be immune to the type of financial leverage crisis facing the UK? Team Biden and the EU plainly didn’t think through the rush to sanctioning Russia. They also didn’t think through the consequences of their European ally losing Russia.

These ‘fin-war’ elements will likely become more a focus of attention than battlefield wins or reverses in Ukraine (where the rainy season has already begun), and it will not be until early November that the ground will freeze hard. The conflict is heading to a pause, just as the western attention span for the Ukraine war seems to be fading somewhat.

However, what is ‘curious’ for so many, is the eerie silence emanating out of Europe in the wake of their vital energy pipelines lying broken on the Baltic Sea floor at a time of financial crisis. This is the ‘dog’ that did not bark in the night – when you would expect it so to do. Hardly a word, or murmur, is to be heard about this matter in the European press – and nothing from Germany … It as if it never happened. Yet of course the Euro-élite know ‘who did it’.

To understand this paradox, we must look at the interplay of the three principal dynamics at work in Europe. Each thinks of theirs as ‘a winning hand’; the ‘be all, and end all’ of the future. But in reality, these two currents are but ‘useful tools’ in the eyes of those who ‘pull the levers’ and ‘sound the whistles’ – i.e. control the psyops from behind the curtain.

Furthermore, there is a sharp disparity of motives. For the Straussians, behind the curtain, they are at war – existential war to maintain their primacy. The second two currents are utopian projects which have shown themselves to be easily manipulated.

The ‘Straussians’ are the followers of Leo Strauss, the leading neo-con theorist. Many are former Trotskyists who morphed over, from Left to Right (call them Neocon ‘hawks’ if you prefer). Their message is a very simple doctrine about the maintenance of power: ‘Never let it slip’; block any rival from emerging; do whatever it takes.

Leading Straussian, Paul Wolfowitz, wrote this simple doctrine of ‘destroy any emergent rivals before they destroy you’ into the U.S. 1992 official Defence Planning Document – adding to it that Europe and Japan particularly were to be ‘discouraged’ from questioning U.S. global primacy. This skeleton doctrine, though re-packaged in subsequent Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, continued with its essence unchanged.

And, since the message – ‘block any rival’ – is so direct and compelling, the Straussians flit easily from U.S. political party to party. They also have their ‘useful’ auxiliaries deeply burrowed within the U.S.’ élite class, and institutions of state power. The oldest and most trusty of these auxiliary forces however, is the Anglo-American intelligence and security alliance.

The ‘Straussians’ prefer to scheme from ‘behind the curtain’ and in certain U.S. think-tanks. They move with the times, ‘camping on’, yet never assimilating into whatever prevalent cultural trends are ‘out there’. Their alliances always remain temporary, opportunistic. They use these contemporary impulses primarily to craft fresh justifications for American exceptionalism.

The first such important impulse in the current reframing is liberal-woke, activist-driven, social justice-oriented identity politics. Why wokeism? Why should woke be of interest to the CIA and MI6? Because it is revolutionary. Identity politics was evolved during the French Revolution to upend the status quo; to overthrow its pantheon of hero-models, and to displace the existing élite and rotate a ‘new class’ into power. This definitely excites the interest of Straussians.

Biden likes to tout the exceptionalism of ‘our democracy’. Of course, Biden refers here, not to generic democracy in the wider meaning, but to America’s liberal-woke re-justification for global hegemony (defined as “our democracy”). “We have an obligation, a duty, a responsibility to defend, preserve, and protect ‘our democracy’…It is under threat”, he has said.

The second key dynamic – the Green Transition – is one that co-habits under the Biden Administration umbrella, together with the very radical and distinct philosophy of Silicon Valley – an eugenist and trans-human view that aligns in some respects with that of the ‘Davos’ crowd, as well as with the straight-forward Climate Emergency activists.

Just to be clear, these two distinct, but companion piece dynamics to ‘our democracy’, crossed the Atlantic to burrow deeply into the Brussels leadership class. And, put simply, the Euro-Version of liberal-woke activism keeps intact the Straussian doctrine of U.S. and western exceptionalism – together with its’ insistence that ‘enemies’ be portrayed in the most extreme Manichaean terms.

The aim of Manicheanism (since Carl Schmitt first made the point) is to foreclose on any mediation with rivals by portraying them as sufficiently ‘evil’ that discourse with them become pointless and morally defective.

The transition of liberal-woke politics across the Atlantic should come as no surprise. The EU’s regulation ‘trussed’ internal market was precisely devised to displace political debate with tech managerialism. But the very sterility of econ-tech discourse birthed the so-called ‘democracy gap’. With the latter becoming evermore the Union’s unmissable lacuna.

The Euro-élites thus were in desperate need of a Values System to fill the gap. So, they leaped onto the liberal-woke ‘train’. Drawing on this, and the Club of Rome’s ‘messianism’ for de-industrialisation, gave to the Euro-élites their shiny new sect of absolute purity, a Green Future, and stainless ‘European Values’ filling the democracy-gap lacuna.

Effectively, these latter two currents – identity politics and the Green Agenda – were and are very much in the lead within the EU with the Straussians standing behind the curtain, pulling the Intelligence-Security axis lever.

The new zealots were deeply entrenched into Europe’s élite class by the 1990s, particularly in the wake of Tony Blair’s importation of the Clinton worldview and were ready to cast down the Pantheon of the old order, so to establish a new ‘de-industrialised’ Green world that would wash away the western sins of racism, patriarchy, and heteronormativity.

It culminated in the mounting of ‘a revolutionary vanguard’, whose proselytizing fury is directed both at ‘the Other’ (which serendipitously happens to be America’s rivals), as well as towards those at home (whether in the U.S. or Europe) who are defined as extremists threatening ‘our (liberal) democracy’; or, the imperative need for a ‘Green Revolution’.

Here is the point: At the tip of the European ‘spear’ reside the Green zealots — particularly the truly revolutionary German, Green Party. They hold the leadership in Germany and are at the helm at the EU Commission. It is Green zealotry fused to ‘ruining Russia’ – an intoxicating mix.

The German Greens see themselves as legionaries in this new Trans-Atlantic imperial ‘army’, pulling down literally the pillars of European industrial society, redeeming its smoking ruins, and its unpayable debts, through a digitised financial system and a ‘renewables’ economic future.

And then, with Russia weakened sufficiently, and with Putin effected, the vultures would prey at the Russian carcass for resources – precisely as occurred in the 1990s.

But they forgot … They forgot that Straussians don’t have permanent ‘friends’: U.S. primacy always trumps the interests of allies.

What can the European Green zealots say? They wanted anyway to throw down the pillars of industrialised society. Well, they got it. The Nordstream ‘escape route’ out from economic catastrophe has gone. There is nothing else, but to mumble unconvincingly: ‘Putin did it’. And to contemplate the ruin of Europa and what that may mean.

What next? The hawks likely will now play their next hand in the high stakes game of WW3 ‘chicken’. The soaring dollar is one vector. The question is who holds the stronger cards? The West believes it holds the Ukraine card. Russia believes it has ace economic cards of food, energy, and resource security – and has a stable economy. Ukraine represents an entirely different battlespace: the long term Straussian ambition to strip Russia of its historic ‘safety belt’ that began in the wake of the Cold War with the fragmentation of the Soviet Union.

Much will depend on the fall-out from the Bubble burst. As that one commentator put it: “The moment has come for central bankers to tighten and to unwind their various market distortions: The impact has already been catastrophic,” said Lindsay Politi, a Fund manager. “And central banks aren’t done yet. Inflation changes the calculus: Many central banks simply don’t have the option of returning to QE anymore”.

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | 1 Comment

UK intelligence plotted Crimean Bridge bombing – Grayzone

Samizdat | October 11, 2022

Attacking the strategically vital Crimean Bridge was clearly not a new idea for Ukraine and its anti-Russia allies. In fact, UK intelligence officials reportedly commissioned a study in April examining ways to blow up the key transportation link across the Kerch Strait.

The secret plot was drawn up at the request of senior British Army intelligence operative Chris Donnelly, the Grayzone reported on Tuesday, citing internal documents and correspondence that the investigative journalism outlet obtained from an unidentified source. The stated goal was to destroy the bridge to cut off a key Russian supply route, isolate military forces in Crimea and temporarily block maritime access to the Sea of Azov.

The attack roadmap was titled, ‘Audacious: Support for Ukraine Maritime Raiding Operations’, and it was produced by UK military veteran Hugh Ward, according to the documents obtained by Grayzone. Donnelly, who’s also a veteran NATO advisor, called the plans “very impressive indeed.”

Ward laid out multiple options for blowing up the $4 billion bridge, including a cruise missile attack targeting concrete pillars on each side of the central steel arch. He also examined using divers or underwater drones to attach limpet mines to pillars at the “weakest part” of the structure.

Although last week’s attack on the bridge was carried out using a truck bomb, rather than the options discussed in the UK analysis, there are indications that British spies had shared their findings with Ukraine’s government “at the highest levels,” Grayzone said. The outlet obtained an email in which Donnelly forwarded the plans to Lithuanian Defense Minister Audrius Butkevicius.

Reached by phone, Ward didn’t deny that he prepared the attack plans for Donnelly, Grayzone said. “I’m going to have a chat with Chris and confirm with him what he’s prepared for me to release,” Ward told the outlet.

Although the Crimean Bridge is crossed by thousands of civilians daily, the UK study included no reference to avoiding non-combatant casualties. Saturday’s bombing, as it turned out, killed at least four civilians. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the blast a terrorist attack and indicated that Monday’s air strikes against infrastructure targets in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities were carried out in response to the bridge incident.

Ukrainian media outlets reported that the attack was perpetrated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Senior officials in Ukraine’s government celebrated the bombing and made jokes about it. The SBU posted a photo of the damaged bridge with a note saying, “The sun is rising, the bridge is burning beautifully.” Senior presidential aide Mikhail Podoliak posted a Twitter message calling the blast “just the beginning.”

October 11, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

Ukraine targets energy infrastructure in Russia – governor

Samizdat | October 11, 2022

The Ukrainian military struck an electrical substation in Russia’s southern region of Belgorod on Tuesday, local authorities have said. The attack on the facility, located in the village of Shebekino, sparked a fire at a transformer and disrupted power supply for some 2,000 people in the area.

Footage circulating online shows the transformer at the substation on fire, with a thick plume of smoke visible many kilometers away from Shebekino.

The attack inflicted only material damage with no injuries reported, according to local officials. It was not immediately clear whether the substation was subjected to artillery or rocket fire. The attack disrupted electricity supply in the area, with some 2,000 people affected. The local authorities promised to restore power within several hours.

The border areas of Russia’s Belgorod Region have repeatedly come under rocket, artillery and drone attacks by Ukrainian forces amid the ongoing conflict. The latest incident comes a day after the Russian military launched a massive missile attack across Ukraine, targeting infrastructure and military installations.

The strikes came in retaliation for Kiev’s terrorist activities and repeated attempts to target Russia’s critical civilian infrastructure, in particular the attack on the Crimean Bridge over the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US moving another Strike Group to Europe

Free West Media | October 11, 2022

This is not a sign of de-escalation: the US is sending one of its most modern aircraft carriers, the USS Gerald R Ford, to Europe. It is the US Navy’s newest class of nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN 78), departing on its first major deployment.

The 13 billion euro carrier was only put into service in 2017, is 337 meters long and has a crew of 4 500, 90 fighter jets and, presumably, nuclear weapons on board. The Strike Group includes 17 ships and one submarine.

The USS Gerald R Ford, accompanied by several guided missile cruisers, submarines and supply ships, should be operating in the North Sea in just a few days, joining the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Kearsage. This would give the US Navy a massive concentration of troops in northern Europe – and the air support of the most modern stealth fighter jets.

The Strike Group will be deployed alongside NATO forces. The US aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman is still stationed in the Mediterranean.

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , | 8 Comments

Russia to nationalize assets of Japanese carmaker – trade ministry

Samizdat | October 11, 2022

Japanese carmaker Nissan will sell all its Russian assets to state-owned research and development firm NAMI, the trade ministry has said.

The deal, worth a symbolic sum of €1, was approved by the Japanese corporation and includes a plant in St. Petersburg and sales and marketing facilities in Moscow.

“We have managed to reach a formant where the enterprise remains operational. Key competencies, the production cycle and jobs are preserved,” Russia’s Trade Minister Denis Manturov said in a statement on Tuesday.

Nissan has some 2,000 employees in Russia and after the transfer is completed NAMI will be able to attract other companies as production partners to create joint ventures.

According to the minister, Russian carmaker AVTOVAZ will carry out maintenance services for Nissan vehicles, as well as supply spare parts. The deal will give Nissan the right to buy back the business within six years, the trade ministry said.

The scheme is almost identical to the withdrawal of Renault, a member of an alliance with Nissan. In May, the French carmaker’s 68% stake went to NAMI and its factory in Moscow, which produced cars under the Renault and Nissan brands, was transferred to the city government.

Meanwhile, Nissan reported on Tuesday an estimated loss of $686.2 million from leaving the Russian market.

In 2009 the manufacturer started producing SUV models such as the X-Trail and the Qashqai at its plant in St. Petersburg. The Japanese carmaker suspended production there in March due to supply-chain disruptions, following the conflict in Ukraine.

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Moscow aims to ensure balanced global energy market

Samizdat | October 11, 2022

Russia’s actions regarding energy resources are aimed at ensuring market stability, and not creating obstacles for anyone, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday while meeting with his UAE counterpart, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in St. Petersburg.

The leader of the UAE is on an official visit to Russia to discuss cooperation between the two countries, as well as regional and international issues.

“We are actively working within the framework of OPEC+. I know your position, our actions, our decisions are not directed against anyone … They are aimed at stability in the world energy markets, so that both consumers of energy resources and those involved in their production, as well as suppliers feel calm, stable and confident. So that the supply and demand will be balanced,” Putin said.

Last week, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC+) agreed to an oil production cut of 2 million barrels per day starting in November. The reduction, which is the largest output cut since early 2020, was approved despite US pressure to pump more. It is expected to stem the latest slide in global oil prices.

US President Joe Biden expressed disappointment with the decision, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called the move “unhelpful and unwise.”

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak, who attended the OPEC+ meeting, said that the output cut is necessary to balance the market before the seasonal decline in demand.

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Washington seeks to force through its decisions regarding the oil market and manipulate prices, even at the cost of destabilizing the global energy market.

Analysts interviewed by Bloomberg warn that the output cut may lead to a jump in oil prices above $100 a barrel and force the US to tap its strategic reserves. They also believe that Russia may introduce even larger output cuts than those announced by OPEC+ in response to the introduction of an oil price cap by the EU last week. Given the rise in oil prices, Russia’s oil export profits are unlikely to suffer even with production cuts, they say.

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Russia’s retaliatory strikes mark new phase of conflict in Ukraine 

Kiev is unlikely to change its behaviour and will continue to carry out orders from the West

By Ahmed Adel | October 11, 2022

Continued strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure following the terrorist attack on the Kerch Bridge, more commonly known as the Crimean Bridge, can cause serious damage to Ukraine’s industry and significantly reduce the country’s combat capability. Russian strikes hit energy facilities in 12 regions across Ukraine on October 10, affecting power, internet and central heating, and in which Ukraine’s energy minister Herman Halushchenko described as “the biggest [attack] during the entire war.” In fact, the Russian strikes were so powerful that the Ukrainian energy ministry said in a statement that it must halt exports of electricity to the European Union.

“Today’s missile strikes, which hit the thermal generation and electrical substations, forced Ukraine to suspend electricity exports from Oct. 11, 2022 to stabilise its own energy system,” the ministry said.

It cannot be discounted that some factories involved in the production of weapons or the repair of military equipment could have been affected by the Russian strikes. Greater disruptions to Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure will inevitably also lower the combat capabilities of the Ukrainian military, which will also have an effect on mobility, replenishment of reserves, transportation and repair of equipment.

The retaliatory strikes occurred immediately after the statements made by Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 9. Symbolically, the Ukrainians discussed that they would give Putin “a gift” for his birthday, which is on October 7. On October 8 the Kerch Bridge was attacked. The terrorist strike was even commemorated in Kiev with the issuing of a postal stamp, even though three civilians were killed.

On October 10, at a working meeting with members of the Security Council, Putin announced that a series of high-precision missile strikes from air, sea and land targeted infrastructure throughout Ukraine. The Russian president then described the incident on the Kerch bridge as a terrorist attack aimed at destroying civilian infrastructure. According to him, Ukraine has placed itself on the same level as the most feared terrorist groups across the world, such as ISIS, and Russia simply cannot allow crimes of this kind to go unanswered.

For his part, Commander Apti Alaudinov commented on the recent air strikes against Ukraine’s military and energy infrastructure, noting that Russia could have carried them out a long time ago.

“Ukraine for many years – eight years – has tested the nerves of both Russia and the territories inhabited by the Russian-speaking community… It is a pity for those who may have to suffer the attacks, innocent people… but in the end, the people must understand that their leaders get mad and throw all their people into the furnace of war. It’s impossible that everything will be fine with them when something bad happens to us,” he said.

Strikes against Kiev and other parts of Ukraine signals a new phase of the war after Russia made all efforts to find a peaceful solution. It is recalled that there were also widespread reports that Moscow was ready for a peace agreement, but it was prevented by the arrival of then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Kiev, who quite literally destroyed such plans.

It is little surprise that endless statements from Kiev, Washington, Brussels and London repeat that the only solution to ending the war is with Russia’s defeat. Effectively, the Russians have no one to negotiate with as none of the major parties are interested in a peaceful solution. On the contrary, there was an escalation by Ukraine since there was a terrorist attack on civilian infrastructure.

Effectively, Russia is forced to launch a real war, which will be far more devastating for Ukraine, especially since Moscow has refrained from major strikes for all these months.

Even with the assassination of Russian citizens, such as Darya Dugina, Moscow remained restrained with its responses. However, the Kerch Bridge, as already proven, is a line which Russia will not allow to be crossed without retaliation. 

Strikes and military action will continue until there is a change in the situation and Kiev’s attitude towards Moscow. It is more than likely that the decision to target the Kerch Bridge was not concocted in Kiev and is rather an attempt by the West to humiliate Russia when considering the date of the bridge attack was carefully chosen and the media covered this terrorist act with a birthday greeting to Putin. 

Even after Russia’s actions, Kiev itself will not change its behaviour and will continue to servilely carry out orders from the West and act according to the goals that are in line with Washington’s political strategy. The Ukrainian army enjoys material, logistical and intelligence support from the West, and its ranks include special forces from Romania, Poland and other NATO countries. For these reasons, Russia is moving the war into the next phase, especially as NATO is directly participating in military operations and civilian infrastructure are being targeted in terrorist attacks.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Lavrov Says Russia Received No Serious Proposals From US on Talks, Calls US Remarks Lies

Samizdat – 11.10.2022

MOSCOW – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed on Tuesday US statements that Russia left unanswered Washington’s proposals on negotiations on Ukraine as lies, noting that Moscow received no serious proposals.

“This is a lie [that Russia refuses to negotiate]. We did not receive any serious proposals to enter into contact. There were some not very serious calls, to which we also did not respond negatively, but offered to formulate specific proposals, with which some people want to contact us through indirect contacts. And in this case, we did not receive more specific explanations from anyone,” Lavrov told the Rossiya 1 broadcaster.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Monday that a way out of the situation around Ukraine should be sought through diplomacy. At the same time, he noted that Washington did not see Russia’s serious intentions to negotiate with Kiev.

Moscow is not aware of details of Ankara’s new initiative to organize talks between Russia and several Western states on the situation in Ukraine, Sergey Lavrov said.

“It is obvious to me that if the Turkish colleagues have thought about this, then they will have a great opportunity this week during the meeting of presidents [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and [Vladimir] Putin, who will be together at the events in Astana, to raise such issues. We haven’t heard anything other than public announcements,” Lavrov said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision not to engage in dialogue with Russia may change depending on his mood and the West’s position, Lavrov said.

“I do not rule out that he, as he forbade himself [to talk with Russia], will then forget about it, depending on his mood when he gets up in the morning and what he does. Well, or he will receive an order from Washington, from London – he will say ‘Yes’ and figure out how to explain all this so as not to lose face,” Lavrov stressed.

On October 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with the Russian Security Council, said Moscow has made precision strikes on infrastructure facilities across Ukraine in the morning. Putin called the recent blast on Russia’s Crimean Bridge a Ukrainian terrorist attack aimed at destroying Russian civilian infrastructure. According to him, Kiev has put itself on a par with the most odious terrorist groups, and it is impossible to leave the crimes of the Kiev regime unanswered any longer.

Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, after the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics appealed for help in defending themselves against Ukrainian provocations. In response to Russia’s operation, Western countries have rolled out a comprehensive sanctions campaign against Moscow and have been supplying weapons to Ukraine.

October 11, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

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