China Demands US “Explain Itself to the World” Over Nord Stream Attack Story
By Paul Joseph Watson | Summit News | February 10, 2023
China has demanded that the United States “explain itself to the world” if the revelations in Seymour Hersh’s story about US intel being responsible for destroying the Nord Stream gas pipelines are true.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist published an article this week in which he asserted that the pipelines were destroyed by the US as part of a covert operation.
According to Hersh’s sources, the explosives were planted in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise and were detonated three months later with a remote signal sent by a sonar buoy.
One source told Hersh that the plotters knew the covert operation was an “act of war,” with some in the CIA and State Department warning, “Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.”
Now Beijing is demanding that the White House address the issue, seemingly unimpressed with the Biden administration’s rather weak response to merely label the story “false”.
Earlier today, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning asserted that Washington would have to bear responsibility if the report is confirmed as accurate.
“If the conclusions of the investigation are true, then the US behavior is unacceptable,” the diplomat told reporters, adding that the US would need to “explain itself to the world community.”
The Kremlin also responded to the report by demanding a fresh international investigation into the attack, which was preceded by both Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland asserting that the pipelines would be taken out if Russia invaded Ukraine.
Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said Hersh’s article showed “the need for an open international investigation into this unprecedented attack on this critical infrastructure.”
“It’s a very important piece, which… must provoke the acceleration of the international probe. But we, on the contrary, witness attempts to silently wind down such international investigation,” he added.
Meanwhile, in Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is also calling for a full inquiry.
“The Pulitzer Prize winner’s suspicions must be investigated,” wrote co-chairman of the AfD parliamentary group, Tino Chrupalla.
“Has NATO’s leading power carried out an attack on our country’s vital critical infrastructure in European waters? Then one would have to question whether the alliance guarantees security in Europe or rather endangers it. The consequence would be the withdrawal of all U.S. troops.”
Bugs go on the menu in Europe
Computing Forever
By Alex Story | Country Squire Magazine | February 4, 2023
Eating bugs used to be the preserve of small children who knew no better. However, in our fast-changing world, what would have seemed outlandish only a few years ago is now on the menu.
Indeed, only last week, the European Union passed regulation 2023/5. It allows ‘partially defatted’ powder of the house cricket (Acheta domesticus) into the food chain for human consumption.
From this month, cricket powder can be added to the following: ‘multigrain bread and rolls, crackers and breadsticks, cereal bars, dry pre-mixes for baked products, biscuits, dry stuffed and non-stuffed pasta-based products, sauces, processed potato products, legume- and vegetable- based dishes, pizza, pasta-based products, whey powder, meat analogues, soups and soup concentrates or powders, maize flour-based snacks, beer-like beverages, chocolate confectionery, nuts and oilseeds, snacks other than chips, and meat preparations, intended for the general population’.
The regulation is effective inside the European Union and, unforgivably, Northern Ireland due to the treasonable eponymous protocol.
The first thing to note is that at a European Union level regulation can be passed without being ratified by any of the 27 national parliaments remaining in the benighted organisation.
Regulations are imposed (not debated) by the European Commission. In this case, the powdered bug was imposed into the food chain of around half a billion people without debate.
Of course there would have been some discussions but these would have taken place behind closed doors, between regulators, lobby groups, eco-warriors bent on stripping Man of his meat-eating habit, and bureaucrats ever ready to test the boundaries of their unaccountable power.
There was however no open debate in parliaments about whether full-fat or even partially defatted vermin powder is what the peoples of such a varied continent really want to find in their daily consumables.
That would have required a Directive, thereby granting every parliament the ability to discuss and pass laws applicable within their national territory on the issue of ‘Bugs on the Menu’.
Which elected government would have dared pass such a law? Few with any ambition to re-election.
As the European Union and its backers have found out over time: the less democracy, the less time is wasted. Best by-pass the ballot box and impose via regulation what cannot be passed by consent in parliaments or via referendum.
The new European Union regulation notes that there are risks to eating cricket powder. It might cause ‘cases of primary sensitisation’ and its scientific paper notes a risk of anaphylactic shock, defined by the National Cancer Institute as ‘a severe and sometimes life-threatening immune system reaction to an antigen‘.
But the ‘Commission considers that no specific labelling requirements concerning the potential of Acheta domesticus to cause primary sensitisation should be included in the Union list of authorised novel foods‘. In short, no warning needed for the common European citizens.
Graciously, the European Commission does accept that you, as a consumer, ought to be told that you are eating powdered bugs so it recommends that products need to be ‘appropriately labelled’.
What does ‘appropriately’ mean in this case? European Union citizens will just have to find out in due course.
The European Commission has given a five-year monopoly to Cricket One, a group based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to procure the house cricket powder for the hapless EU consumer. (Investigative journalists, if they still exist, could have a field day looking into what led to such a deal, who invested and when.)
For those looking to the upside of our celebrated Brexit, here is one standout example of what it means to be sovereign.
Unless the law changes, and this will require parliamentary debates, we in the United Kingdom should be free, for a time, of the terrible suspicion that we are being fed powdered (even if defatted) crickets for the amusement of our elites.
That is what ‘taking back control’ means. Let’s have more of it.
Maryland Considering Bill That Would Allow The Vaccination Of Children Without Parent’s Consent
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | February 8, 2023
The State of Maryland has introduced a bill for consideration (Senate Bill 378) that would allow healthcare workers to vaccinate a child who is deemed “able to understand the benefits and potential consequences of getting vaccinated” without parental consent. The determined age of consent for a child to “choose” to be vaccinated is 14, though, such laws are often a slippery slope as guidelines and goalposts can be adjusted once a bill is passed to include even younger people.
It should be noted that Maryland law prevents children of 14 or older to refuse vaccination ordered by parents. In other words, they are considered competent enough to get vaccinated without parent’s knowledge, but not competent enough to refuse vaccination with parent’s knowledge. The push among some states to provide or legalize medical procedures on minors without advising parents has been growing in multiple sectors of healthcare the past few years, from abortions to gender affirmation surgeries.
It sounds like a remnant from two years ago when Democrat run states like New York were talking seriously about the forced internment of people who were “potential dangers” to public health. The concept of constitutional rights were going out the window and the US barely dodged an Orwellian end. Parental rights are often considered a vital barrier to state interference with vulnerable children who are easily manipulated into accepting procedures that could affect their rest of their lives.
The potential consequences are obvious – Schools and other government institutions could very easily exploit medical personnel to convince children that they MUST submit to vaccination. They could also influence minors to believe it was “all their idea.” The same scenario could involve overzealous doctors or nurses in a hospital setting. With the informed parental shield removed, the sky is the limit in terms of what the state can do to the younger generation.
Though the bill mentions that decisions by minors be made “without coercion”, a child may not be able to identify coercion when it happens. Not all manipulation requires open and obvious threats.
Democratic State Sen. Cheryl Kagan introduced Bill 378 on Wednesday. The bill is set to go before a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee on Feb. 22. The language is broad and seems to include all possible vaccinations rather than a set list.
Even in the case of a child voluntarily asking for medical treatments without deception, it is the job of parents to sometimes protect their kids from themselves. Without developed critical thinking skills minors require guidance to avoid rash decisions. When pressure is coming from officials with perceived authority, children are less likely to say no. The Maryland bill ignores these factors and opens the door to a wide range of abuses.
EU criticizes Twitter’s disinformation reporting, ahead of new censorship law
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | February 9, 2023
Twitter has angered EU officials after it failed to submit complete reports on disinformation efforts as part of its commitment to the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation.
“I am disappointed to see that Twitter’s report lags behind others and I expect a more serious commitment to their obligations,” wrote Vera Jourova, the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency.
The European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton, who has contacted Twitter owner Elon Musk at least twice about the Code of Practice, said “it comes as no surprise that the degree of quality vary greatly according to the resources companies have allocated to this project,” but did not mention Twitter directly.
Twitter signed the code before Musk took over late last year, and committed to sending biannual reports.
“In some areas, Twitter is unable to provide granular data due to resource constraints and data limitations,” the company said in its report. “In other areas, there are issues that are not applicable to Twitter’s service.”
The code is voluntary. However, non-compliance could put Twitter in a bad position with the EU ahead of the September 1 deadline for full compliance with the EU’s new censorship law, the Digital Services Act.
UK Starts Building Third Dreadnought Class Ballistic Missile Submarine
Sputnik – 09.02.2023
Work has begun on building the United Kingdom’s third Dreadnought class ballistic missile submarine Warspite in the north of England, BAE Systems announced in a press release on Thursday.
“BAE Systems has today marked the start of construction of the third Dreadnought class submarine Warspite at its shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria,” the release said.
Warspite is the third of four Dreadnought class ballistic missile submarines being designed and built by BAE Systems, the company stated.
“Due to enter service from the early 2030s, the boats will carry the UK’s nuclear deterrent and be the biggest, most powerful and technically advanced submarines ever delivered to the Royal Navy,” BAE said in the press release.
Construction of the first two submarines, Dreadnought and Valiant, is already well underway, the company added.
UK Defense Procurement Minister Alex Chalk described the Dreadnought class submarines as crucial to maintaining the nation’s national security, according to the release.
Who is Jake Sullivan, the Man Who Reportedly Assembled ‘Dream Team’ to Destroy Nord Stream?
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 09.02.2023
National Security Adviser to President Biden Jake Sullivan played a prominent role in plotting the September 26, 2022, sabotage against the Russo-European Nord Stream pipelines, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed. So, who is Jake Sullivan: “the cat’s meow,” “once-in-a-generation intellect,” or a reckless hawk?
“I have great respect for Hersh and his reporting and believe that Sullivan could certainly have been instrumental in pushing for and carrying out this deceitful campaign that likely has inflicted monumental damage on citizens worldwide while also sapping America’s remaining national prestige,” Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel told Sputnik.
In December 2021, Jake Sullivan, acting with Joe Biden’s blessing, convened men and women from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA, and the State and Treasury Departments to come up with a plan on how to destruct Nord Stream 1 and 2 designed to pump Russian natural gas to Europe, according to Seymour Hersh’s recent bombshell.
In early 2022, the CIA told Sullivan that they knew how to blow up the pipelines. The group decided to keep the risky plot on a hush. The US Congress wasn’t informed. The US military and intelligence operatives did their best to conceal Washington’s role in the sabotage. As per the investigative journalist, the team had concerns about the legality of the plot and was well aware that it could quickly morph into a foreign policy nightmare.
After the pipelines had been destroyed, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and, later, Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland openly praised the development.
“When any crime is committed, the immediate question to ask when seeking suspects is ‘to whose benefit?’ Not only did it benefit the US, US officials made comments before and after the pipeline’s destruction virtually confirming their role and the benefits derived,” Brian Berletic, geopolitical analyst and former US marine, told Sputnik.
For his part, Jake Sullivan stated laconically on September 27, 2022, that the US was supporting efforts to investigate the “apparent sabotage” and “will continue [it’s] work to safeguard Europe’s energy security.”
“Hersh’s reporting on the Nord Stream bombing is completely convincing and I know for a fact that he has reliable sources, mostly in the intelligence community, but I would rather regard Sullivan as the implementer of the attack on the pipeline by virtue of his position rather than the driving force behind it,” Philip Giraldi, former CIA station chief, now an executive director of the Council for the National Interest, told Sputnik. “To be sure, Joe Biden would have had to promote and endorse the project.”
Clinton’s Golden Boy
Jake Sullivan, 46, has long been praised as a “golden boy” by the US mainstream media. Having graduated from Yale in 1998 Sullivan became an advisor to then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2008 and later, after Hillary dropped out from the race, he advised Barack Obama during his general election campaign.
Sullivan was just 32 when he was sworn in as Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff for policy at the US State Department. When Clinton left the State Department in early 2013, Obama promoted Sullivan to the position of national security adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden.
In 2015, Sullivan married Margaret Goodlander, onetime advisor to well-known hawks Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain, who used to previously work for the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for a New American Security. (Goodlander is currently Counsel to Attorney General Merrick Garland).
Sullivan is known for being a quiet but prominent member of the Clinton-Obama team. According to the press, he was part of the “exclusive” team working on resuming relations with Cuba and striking the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal. He is also said to be Hillary’s close confidante in the Libya plan, which was developed months before the 2011 NATO invasion of the North African state and brutal killing of its leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Sullivan and his boss, Clinton, adhered to the concept of “smart power,” which encompasses the use of military threat, force, and sanctions and the soft-power levers favored by foreign policy doves, which includes humanitarian aid and negotiations.
The aide was reportedly called “the cat’s meow” and a “potential future president” by Hillary, while Biden lauded him as a “once-in-a-generation intellect.”
In 2015, the sandy-haired Minnesotan joined Hillary on her 2015/2016 election cycle as a foreign policy adviser and eventually returned to the US administration as Joe Biden’s national security adviser in 2021.
Sullivan Lacks True Sense of Right Versus Wrong
However, there’s another side to Sullivan’s stellar career. “Sullivan is clearly drunk on power and lacking a true sense of right versus wrong,” according to Ortel.
“Sullivan is a fiercely partisan globalist who achieved numerous high honors in academic life so he is supremely self-confident and, sadly, often grievously wrong,” Ortel told Sputnik. “One way to get a sense of the way he operates is to look through the State Department and Podesta WikiLeaks files and the FBI Vault files on Hillary Clinton where Sullivan is frequently involved. Like the Clintons, Sullivan thrust himself into contact with powerful Democrats and operated well above his experience level early on. But unlike the Clintons, Obama, and Biden, Sullivan has yet to hold elected office.”
One might wonder why Sullivan rose to prominence so fast even though he had relatively little experience in government affairs. Hillary herself admitted that Jake wasn’t the most experienced diplomat when it came to foreign policy.
“Jake was not the most experienced diplomat at the State Department I could have chosen, but he was discreet and had my absolute confidence,” Clinton wrote in her memoir Hard Choices while describing her decision to tap Sullivan to kick off negotiations with Iran in 2012. “His presence would send a powerful message that I was personally invested in this process.”
According to US media observers, Sullivan’s primary secret is that he mastered himself in delivering on his boss’s wants and needs even when it went contrary to rules and ethics. The US press quoted a senior Obama aide as saying that Sullivan was ready to do “everything” for then-Secretary Clinton.
Unsurprisingly, Sullivan had no scruples about Hillary’s unsecured email server use for classified and top secret government correspondence. He was bullish on Washington’s Libyan and Syrian interventions which spiraled out of control, completely ruining the North Africa state and leaving the Syrian Arab Republic in tatters.
“Under Obama and Biden, Sullivan is connected to train wreck after train wreck, from the Arab “spring”, to Benghazi, ISIS, the Iran ‘deal’ and more. He seems to be a huge fan of secret negotiations that are never subject to oversight,” Ortel noted.
Sullivan got mired in Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi scandal revolving around the former secretary of state’s failure to prevent a brutal slaughter of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other US nationals in Libya on September 11, 2012. During the investigation into the matter, the House committee stumbled upon Sullivan’s letter in which the official emphasized that “we need to live in a world of risks,” while touting Washington’s decision to oust Gaddafi which opened the door to chaos in Libya.
Trump-Russia “Collusion” Hoax
“In the 2016 campaign, he had every motive to hide the misdeeds of the Clintons, including corruption and tax fraud involving The Clinton Foundation and many other charities,” said Ortel, who has been conducting a private investigation into the Clinton Foundation’s alleged fraud for several years. “Here it will prove interesting to see what [Special Councel] John Durham has to say about Sullivan, including his likely role pushing the Russian Hoax, for Trump’s impeachment and for electing Joe Biden.”
Sullivan appeared to have no scruples about actively spreading the Trump-Russia collusion narrative and keeping the myth alive even after the allegations about Trump were proven null and void. Later, Durham’s investigation shed light on Clinton campaign operatives’ role in peddling a fake Trump-Alfa Bank story and uncorroborated “dirty dossier” by ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele.
However, when testifying under oath before the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in December 2017, the Clinton confidante denied any knowledge of the plot or people involved in it.
US investigative journalist Paul Sperry alleged that Sullivan was well-aware that the Trump-Alfa Bank story was “cooked-up” and personally spearheaded a “confidential project” to link Trump to the Kremlin.
Sullivan was also the one who personally promoted the Trump-Russia collusion story prior to the 2016 elections. Thus, during the July 2016 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Philadelphia, Sullivan met with a number of mainstream media producers and anchors to tell a story “that Trump was conspiring with Putin to steal the election.”
Around that time, the CIA intercepted Russian intelligence’s “chatter” about a Clinton “foreign policy adviser” who allegedly proposed a plan to vilify Donald Trump by linking him to the Kremlin in order to distract public opinion from Hillary’s emailgate scandal. Some US observers believe that the foreign policy adviser in question was Jake Sullivan.
According to Ortel, Sullivan could well be aware of many other “dirty” secrets of the US Democratic establishment, including the Clinton’s alleged pay-to-play schemes, Joe and Hunter Biden influence peddling and Team Obama’s efforts to undermine then-sitting President Donald Trump through a string of dodgy investigations and leaks.
“Simply put, Sullivan has no choice but to cover up the disasters connected to Biden, Obama and Clinton and likely cannot accept the grave errors (and high crimes) that seem to have been committed. In this effort, he will believe he is secure because his wife is a close advisor and friend of Attorney General Merrick Garland,” the Wall Street analyst remarked.
Nord Stream Reporting Not Done
When it comes to the Nord Stream sabotage, “in a just process, Sullivan and his co-conspirators would swiftly be charged, convicted and incarcerated if it is proven that he orchestrated an undeclared war against Russia,” argued Ortel.
According to Ortel, by fanning the flames of proxy war against Russia, Team Biden both pursues vested interests and seeks to cover up and obscure political misdeeds involving Biden, Clinton and Obama in Ukraine and other nations from 2009 to date.
Still, it appears that one could soon hear more about the Biden administration’s secretive and risky plot. Hersh indicated to Sputnik that more investigative pieces about the Nord Stream explosion were forthcoming, but declined to provide further details.
Loss of Western brands is Russia’s gain – Putin
RT | February 9, 2023
Many foreign brands and businesses are leaving Russia not of their own volition but because they are feeling pressured to do so, and suffer financially as a result, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday at a meeting of the supervisory board of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives.
Moscow, however, will not force anyone to stay, according to the president.
“Many of them, as you know, under pressure from their governments, are leaving our market. Well, all the best to them. However, because of the loss of our market they incur huge losses. It’s their choice, it’s their decision,” Putin said, noting that many of those companies “do it without any pleasure.”
“Who wants to lose a well-established business in which they invested effort, money? It’s not even about the money sometimes – many have invested their hearts – but under pressure from their governments are forced to leave.”
According to Putin, Russia will not allow the varied assets and infrastructure these companies leave behind to go to waste, and domestic industries may even benefit from the situation.
“They leave behind a good legacy, so to speak, they leave behind production infrastructure, well-trained personnel. Perhaps someone thinks that all of this will immediately crumble and fall apart – nothing of the sort is happening. Our companies, our entrepreneurs are picking up these enterprises and businesses and continuing this work. And quite successfully,” the Russian president assured.
After Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine began, many major Western brands announced their withdrawal from the Russian market and the suspension of investment. According to economists from Switzerland’s University of St. Gallen, more than 1,400 companies decided to quit Russia over the past year, including electronics manufacturers, automakers, hotels, banks and restaurant chains.
However, Russia managed to secure supplies of goods through alternate routes – via the so-called ‘parallel imports’ – where products continue to be delivered to Russia through third countries without a brand license from the rights holder.
In addition to this, the Russian government has launched a number of programs and initiatives to support domestic manufacturers, which fall within the framework of ‘import substitution’. According to Putin, the country produces a lot of quality products, which until recently had a hard time making their way to the domestic market due to competition from global players.
However, the departure of Western brands means “our domestic manufacturers received unique opportunities for development and we must take advantage of them,” Putin stated.
Top Russian lawmaker labels US president a ‘terrorist’
RT | February 9, 2023
Speaker of the Russian parliament Vyacheslav Volodin has branded US President Joe Biden a “terrorist” after a report by iconic American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh blamed Washington for sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines last year.
Volodin said on Thursday that Biden’s State of the Union address, in which he claimed that the US was “a nation that stands as a beacon to the world,” reminded him of “statements by the leaders of the Third Reich.”
The ramifications of this “ideology of exceptionalism” were uncovered in the investigation by Hersh, the Russian MP wrote in a post on Telegram.
The State Duma speaker was referring to a report published by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist on Wednesday, in which he claimed that the US was behind the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines last September. According to an informed source who talked to Hersh, explosives were planted at the key pipelines in the Baltic Sea back in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the guise of a NATO exercise. They were later detonated remotely.
Nord Stream 1 and 2 had been important routes for the delivery of Russian gas to Europe through Germany.
“If [Harry S.] Truman became a criminal, who used nuclear weapons against civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then Biden became a terrorist, who ordered the destruction of the energy infrastructure of his strategic partners: Germany, France, the Netherlands,” Volodin said.
The sabotage of the pipelines by the Americans was “an act of intimidation of its vassals, who decided to develop their economy in the interests of their own citizens,” he wrote.
The revelations by Hersh should be grounds for an international investigation to “bring Biden and his accomplices to justice,” and to make sure that the nations affected by this “terrorist attack” are paid compensation, Volodin added.
The Biden administration has denied the report by Hersh, with the National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson calling it “utterly false and complete fiction.”
The Russian authorities have for months been pointing to the fact that the only side that benefited from Nord Stream being rendered inoperable was the US, which saw its supplies of liquified natural gas to Europe increase massively following the sabotage.
German Lawmaker Condemns Scholz’s Telltale Silence on US Role in Nord Stream Sabotage
Sputnik – 09.02.2023
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s silence on the recent revelation by an American investigative journalist that US navy divers blew up Russia’s Nord Stream gas pipeline speaks volumes, Maximilian Krah of the German AfD party told Sputnik.
Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who blew the whistle on US atrocities in Vietnam War and more recently on prisoner torture at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday that American deep-water divers had planted explosives under three of the four Nord Stream pipelines that were detonated remotely last September at the order of President Joe Biden.
NATO allies said in the wake of what Kremlin said was a “terrorist attack” that the scale of the explosions in the Swedish and Danish waters suggested that a state was involved. Sweden, Denmark along with Germany, the main beneficiary of Russian gas, opened separate probes into the blasts.
Maximilian Krah, a member of the European Parliament, said lack of reaction from Scholz to the breakthrough report suggested that he must have been warned in advance about the covert sea operation, which was conducted under the cover of a NATO Baltic Sea exercise last summer.
“It is certain that the German government was informed of the sabotage beforehand by the Americans. This is the only explanation for Scholz’s awkward silence. With the addition of a woke and irresponsible warmonger like [Foreign Minister Annalena] Baerbock, who declares that Germany is at war with Russia, nothing surprises me,” he said.
Krah argued that the sabotage put an end to what had long been a headache for the Scholz government — the need to justify to Germans why the second leg of the natural gas pipeline had not been pumping cheap gas to his country.
“The problem is that this is tearing the German economy to pieces and significantly impoverishes Germany. Moreover, the billions spent by Germany in this gas project, which ensured us cheap energy, are lost, but the coalition which governs Germany does not care. Officially, Scholz knows nothing. Apparently, we live in a democracy,” he added.
Hersh wrote that cheap Russian gas had been a boon for the German economy, fueling its post-war rise to prosperity while diminishing Europe’s dependence on the United States. He cited a source with direct knowledge of the US operational planning as saying that Norway played a key role in helping the US organize the attack and keep the Swedish and Danish navies in the dark.
Both the United States and Norway dismissed the allegations as lies. Russia said it was no surprise that Hersh’s report was largely overlooked by Western mainstream media despite Biden and Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland outright warning Russia months before the attack that the pipeline would be dealt with if it launched a military operation in Ukraine.
Krah said it had been obvious to everyone in the German opposition that the sabotage of the crucial energy infrastructure was NATO’s doing. All attempts to point the finger at Russia were ridiculous and did not hold water. Hersh wrote that the White House tried to accuse Russia of self-sabotage in a string of calculated leaks but never suggested a clear motive, beyond retribution.
“The State Department and the White House categorically deny it, but I was in Washington two months ago and all my American political interlocutors, Democrats and Republicans alike, had no doubts: it was the United States that organized or sponsored the action by the British, and it was Biden who personally gave the green light,” Krah said.
“Democrats and Republicans in Congress disagree on everything, except on their willingness to pursue an aggressive foreign policy, especially toward China and Russia,” the lawmaker added.
Kremlin reacts to Nord Stream sabotage claim
Sputnik – 09.02.2023
MOSCOW – The report of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh on Washington’s involvement in the explosions at Nord Streams has once again pointed to the need for an open international investigation into the incidents and punishment for those responsible, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winner, published a report saying that US Navy divers during NATO Baltops exercises in the summer of 2022 planted explosives to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines, which Norway activated three months later. According to the report, US President Joe Biden decided to sabotage the Nord Streams after more than nine months of secret discussions with the national security team.
“The appearance of such materials once again shows the need for an open international investigation of this unprecedented attack on critical infrastructure, international critical infrastructure. It is impossible to leave this without revealing the perpetrators and without their punishment,” Peskov told reporters.
Some points of the report can be disputed, some points need proof, but it is remarkable for the depth of analysis, the official said, noting that it would be at least unfair to ignore it, especially for such a country as Germany, which, in fact, as a result of this terrorist act, was deprived of a very important energy facility.
Kremlin spokesman added that the report did not break in Western media, stressing that it is surprising.
“Unfortunately, the article was not widely disseminated in the Western media, which cannot but arouse our surprise,” Peskov rold reporters.
Moscow sees attempts to silently curtail the international investigation into the attacks, but this is a dangerous precedent, as those who committed the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines can repeat it anywhere in the world, the official said.
New corruption scheme to escape recruitment revealed in Ukraine
By Lucas Leiroz | February 9, 2023
A new illegal arrangement has been revealed in the country. This time, the denounced plan involves an illicit system of evasion of Ukrainian recruits, allowing them to escape the compulsory military service and, consequently, the battlefield. Although the case shows the high levels of corruption in Ukrainian society, it is also an example of how the neo-Nazi army is discredited and the local population is unwilling to maintain the conflict.
The scheme was revealed by Ukrainian informants to the Russian military involved in the special operation. According to them, Kiev’s officials engaged in the recruitment campaign constantly accept bribes in order not to proceed with the enlistment of some people.
The process works as follows: enlistment candidates pay a sum of 10,000 dollars to join volunteer units. In these units, volunteers start working by trying to raise funds for the army on social networks, being saved from the front if they successfully manage to do so. The heads of units take for themselves between 5% and 10% of the amount collected by each volunteer. As a result, the poorest Ukrainians – unable to pay the tariff of 10,000 dollars or to run fundraising campaigns and the less popular on the internet – are the most vulnerable to forced mobilization.
“According to information received from sources in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a corruption scheme of draft evasion has been established in Ukraine. The entrance tariff is $10,000. It is a one-time payment to a military commissar in order to enroll a potential recruit in a volunteer organization operating at each Recruitment and Social Support Center of the Ukrainian army. This is how the military enlistment offices are called there now (…) Depending on the amount collected, each volunteer is required to pay tribute personally to the military commissar through his intermediaries, the amount varies from 5% to 10% of the total sum collected”, sources say.
It is necessary to remember that this is not the first time that crimes in enlistment units have been exposed. In August 2022, Ukrainian media outlets reported the existence of a system in which the citizens of the country would be “buying” invitations to study abroad, mainly at universities in Poland and the Baltics, thus escaping mobilization. At the time, the news caused outrage among Ukrainians on the battlefield and, in the same vein, this recent case is expected to further increase the internal polarization among Kiev’s forces.
In fact, it is well known that Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, with crimes in virtually all sectors of the state. However, as far as the military issue is concerned, the situation is much more complicated. Despite the wrong attitude of the Ukrainian high rank officials in accepting bribes and extorting their own population, the case shows that there is a deep dissatisfaction on the part of the Ukrainian people in relation to the conflict. Such schemes only continue to exist because many people are willing to pay not to go to the front and if this is happening it is because Kiev’s forces are discredited among Ukrainian people.
In the western media it is said that the Ukrainian people are organized and cohesive in search of victory against Russia, but, in reality, local citizens seem wanting to do anything to escape the conflict. Ukrainians visibly do not believe in their country’s victory and do not even think this is a conflict worth fighting. For them, what really interests is to stay alive, fleeing the battlefield in every possible way, even through the involvement in corruption schemes.
Recently, videos of the forced mobilization campaign launched by Kiev began to circulate on the internet. It is possible to see people being conducted to the front by force, with houses being invaded and teenagers taken from their families. Even physically disabled people have been mobilized, which shows the weakness and despair of the forces of the neo-Nazi regime, which seek every form of support possible in order to face Russia. On the other hand, some corrupt officials within the Ukrainian army take advantage of the situation by seeking to extort these young people to allow them to escape the front.
With so many military experts around the world saying that Russian victory is inevitable, there is no reason for Kiev to keep fighting. The best thing to do is to negotiate peace and thus freeing the Ukrainian people from the suffering that affects them.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
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By Thomas S. Harrington | CounterPunch | August 19, 2016
… What will almost never be talked about are the many very good reasons a person from the vast region stretching from Morrocco in the west, to Pakistan in the east, have to be very angry at, and to feel highly vengeful toward, the US, its strategic puppeteer Israel, and their slavishly loyal European compadres like France, Germany and Great Britain. … Read full article
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