UK minister calls for tech execs to be jailed if they ignore censorship demands
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 23, 2023
UK’s Technology and Science Secretary Michelle Donelan has recommended jail time for social media bosses who refuse to remove “harmful” content from their platforms. The proposal is part of the authoritarian Online Safety Bill.
The bill would give broadcasting regulator Ofcom regulatory authority over social media platforms. The platforms would be required to censor “all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred” based on protected characteristics like race, religion, gender, disability, and gender identity.
Citing the protection of children, Donelan said that social media executives who ignore the requirement and restrictions of the Online Safety Bill should go to jail, The Telegraph reported.
The measure would be used as a last resort for executives that “have consented or connived in ignoring enforceable requirements” to remove content such as “disinformation” by a foreign state.
Currently, the bill would see companies fined up to 10% of global turnover for failing to comply with the censorship demands.
Jewish Organizations Are Close To Legally Ending Free Speech On The Internet
By Joseph Jordan | National Justice Party | April 19, 2023
The Supreme Court is currently authoring its opinion on Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, an enormously consequential decision that could radically change how we use the internet.
The decision, which could be released any time from now to July due to the complex and politically fraught nature of the case, has pit several Jewish organizations against a dwindling number of civil liberties groups willing to defend the Constitutional right to free speech.
The case combines Gonzalez v. Google LLC and Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, two lawsuits which assert that social media platforms are legally liable for acts of violence committed by groups or individuals that utilize their services to promote their ideas.
SCOTUS’ decision to grant certiorari to Gonzalez shows the immense political pull Zionist groups — foreign and domestic — have inside the American system.
Gonzalez is a brazen display of foreign interference by an Israeli NGO called Shurat HaDin, which seeks to challenge the standing of Section 230 in the name of Nohemi Gonzalez, a California exchange student who was killed during a 2015 ISIS terrorist attack in Paris.
Shurat HaDin has made strategic lawsuits seeking to undermine American laws protecting free speech its central cause, though previous attempts by the group to attack Section 230 have been dismissed or defeated in courts. The Supreme Court typically reserves certiorari for cases with mixed rulings, but they have made a special exception for Gonzalez, which was defeated in lower courts and beaten again in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The argument in Taamneh is similar to Gonzalez, though this case is being argued in the name of a Jordanian national who was killed in a 2017 Islamic State attack in Turkey. Taamneh was able to achieve victory in the same Ninth Circuit court, which curiously ignored Section 230 in Twitter’s case and instead found them liable under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Twitter’s relative tolerance for free speech compared to the Jewish-owned Google monopoly in the biased Ninth Circuit is likely to have played a role in the creation of drastically different rulings on similar facts.
Amicus briefs in these Supreme Court proceedings have brought together a united Jewish front against the First Amendment. The Zionist Organization of America, which supports Gonzalez, is playing the role of “bad cop” on Google, while other Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League are staying “neutral” in the case, stating that any ruling should merely encourage the company to continue its good work engaging in strict censorious and editorializing practices against right-wing speech. Google put content moderation in the hands of the ADL as early as 2017, though the Zionist lobbyists have still complained that current technology is not thorough enough when it comes to censoring their political opponents on Youtube.
On the Twitter leg, the landscape is different, with Jewish litigants showing far less patience by unleashing a furious legal onslaught attacking the company.
The Zachor Legal Institute, American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, Simon Wiesenthal Center and others are arguing that Twitter and other social media companies deliberately and knowingly recruit for violent terrorists and are thus responsible for the harm caused by the activities of criminal users.
The ADL’s amicus brief reiterates many of these points, but with supplements generated through its questionable in-house data collection practices, where the Jews cite themselves as an authoritative source supporting the idea that Twitter and Youtube are co-conspirators in the financing and spread of terrorism. The filing goes after the real target of these lawsuits by emphasizing the supposed availability of “white supremacist” content on social media platforms to make its point.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed in favor of leaving Section 230 untouched, explaining that even the most advanced algorithms can’t always distinguish between illegal calls to imminent violence and First Amendment protected content, thus opening up infinite possibilities for crippling litigation. In its public statement, the EFF wrote that “if the plaintiffs in these cases convince the Court to narrow the legal interpretation of Section 230 and increase platforms’ legal exposure for generally knowing harmful material is present on their services, the significant protections that Congress envisioned in enacting this law would be drastically eroded.”
So far, SCOTUS’ engagement with this case has exposed the limitations of having a small group of judges do work that is the responsibility of the US Congress. The consensus among legal observers on the oral argument phase of this case, which was streamed, is that the justices were flustered and confused. SCOTUS judges have even admitted that they are out of their depth, while previous supporters of altering Section 230 like Clarence Thomas appeared much more tepid on the question as of late.
Experts believe that the Supreme Court is leaning in favor of keeping Section 230, though this view should be questioned. If SCOTUS wants to keep the status quo, why did they agree to hear this case in the first place?
Watching First Amendment safeguards for online speech being debated, and thus threatened, could further encourage companies already engaging in widespread censorship. Virtually all major social media companies already have FBI operatives controlling their speech compliance departments, making the private-public distinctions being discussed farcical.
Even if big tech is able to escape from this case unscathed, the willingness of our judicial system to entertain repealing Section 230 will strongly accelerate the ongoing campaign to suppress journalists, erode free thought and interfere in the open exchange of ideas even further.
No matter what SCOTUS’ final verdict looks like, the era of unprecedented freedom to think, read and believe what we want that the internet once provided is never coming back.
How the Israeli regime covered up failed military mission in Jenin
By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | April 23, 2023
Israeli regime forces covered up a failed mission to penetrate the Jenin refugee camp and arrest or kill a resistance fighter, sources in contact with the Jenin Brigades in the northern occupied West Bank revealed to the Press TV Website.
If true, this marks a significant failure that matches up with various other cases of botched Israeli military operations across the occupied territories.
On April 18, the Israeli occupation army hatched a plan to target two “most wanted” West Bank resistance fighters, connected to the Jenin Brigades armed group, inside the Jenin refugee camp.
The plot choreographed to apprehend them was significant as this was the first raid in months that sought to penetrate the refugee camp itself, an area that has become a fortress since late last year.
The Jenin Brigades was officially formed in September of 2021, after having operated unofficially as early as May of that year under the command of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Jamil al-Amoudi.
Since its formation, the group has significantly grown in numbers and strength inside the Jenin refugee camp, referred to locally as the “Hornet’s Nest”, emerging initially with around a dozen fighters and now operating in the hundreds.
Since 2022, the Jenin Brigades fighters have set up effective roadblocks at the entrances to the camp, using what is known as Chechen hedgehogs to block the passage of Israeli military vehicles.
The roadblocks force Israeli occupation soldiers to exit their vehicles in order to remove the blockages, exposing them to the fire of resistance fighters.
Several other security precautions have been taken, like covering certain areas with tarps in order to prevent enemy drones from locating resistance fighters.
These tactics have also been extended to other areas in the Jenin governorate, and have proven successful in deterring the Israeli regime’s incursions into the hub of the resistance for some time.
On January 26, a massacre was committed against Palestinians from the Jenin refugee camp. Ten Palestinians were murdered by the occupying forces in cold blood, including an elderly woman.
However, this Israeli raid was not carried out inside the refugee camp itself but happened on the periphery. The reason for the avoidance of entering deep inside the camp is that an armed battle on that terrain poses an extreme risk of the loss of forces for Zionists.
Zionist forces botch Jenin raid
The first attempt was made this year to enter the camp itself, on Tuesday the 18th of April, but seemingly only sought to penetrate a perimeter close to the entrance of the camp.
The official narrative in the Zionist Hebrew press is that three Palestinians were arrested within minutes of the mission’s initiation after Israeli forces stationed themselves there for around an hour.
According to Tal Lev Ram, the chief military correspondent for the Zionist media outlet called Maariv, three Palestinians arrested were part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement and were planning to carry out an explosive attack.
Tal Lev Ram is a former spokesperson for the Zionist military’s Southern Command. He also formerly worked as a military correspondent for the official Israeli army radio station.
This context to the Zionist reporter is important because he peddles the line of the Zionist armed forces.
Two informed sources — one who is on the ground in Jenin and another who has direct contact with a resistance fighter from the Jenin Brigades inside the camp — disputed the Israeli narrative and claimed that the Zionist narrative is a cover-up.
The first source, who was in Jenin camp when the raid occurred, explained that key facts had been distorted or completely invented by Israelis.
The source said that an undercover Israeli unit stationed itself at the entrance to the Jenin refugee camp, traveling in a truck used for plumbing services.
Gunfire was heard, and they heard from camp residents that someone wanted by the Israelis had fled from al-Tawalbeh Mosque.
The source emphasized the claims that the occupation forces had actually penetrated the camp were wrong and that this would have resulted in a massive clash, asserting that they only operated at the entrance area, analyzing that this was likely a strategic decision.
Furthermore, the source spoke about the use of a woman as a human shield by one of the Israeli units, who used her in order to prevent Palestinian resistance fighters from shooting at them.
The second source, who had directly contacted a fighter in the Jenin Brigades to understand their take, gave details at length.
According to this source, only one of the three Palestinians arrested was a target for the Israelis and none of them was in the possession of any weapons.
The first two men arrested were Amjad and Ahmad Jaradat. While Ahmad was wanted by the Israelis and had an affiliation with PIJ, his brother Amjad was taken after being briefly interrogated inside a house at the camp’s entrance.
Amjad was not actually a target and it seemed as if Israeli forces had taken him out of anger.
The third Palestinian arrested was Abdul Kareem Abu Nasseh. He was also not wanted by Israeli forces and was allegedly picked up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He is not part of the PIJ movement. Instead, he is part of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an unofficial Fatah party-affiliated armed group.
This fact was carefully omitted from Zionist media reports that claimed that those arrested were all part of PIJ. Abu Nasseh has been detained by the Palestinian Authority security forces before, meaning that the Israelis knew he is not part of PIJ, as the PA shares intelligence and security information with the occupation army.
The source also claimed that a Palestinian fighter named Hamed Naaseh was the main target, but he had fled the scene of the al-Tawalbeh mosque and evaded capture. He is well known to the Zionist military, which seeks to capture or kill him.
If this account is to be believed, it means that out of three fighters who were kidnapped, only one was actually a target, with the main target getting away.
The source also stated that Israeli forces had positioned themselves in two vehicles, one at the entrance to the camp and another just outside the camp.
The Jenin Brigades had been monitoring one of the vehicles, identified as a minivan, that was stationary for around 50 minutes, opening fire at it as soon as Israeli soldiers exited the vehicle.
The occupation forces then called in reinforcements, deploying military bulldozers and a truck, after gunfire erupted.
The source revealed that the reinforcements sent had indicated that Israeli forces sought to set up a checkpoint and apply the pressure cooker tactic.
The pressure cooker tactic is to besiege resistance fighters inside a building from all angles and fire shoulder-mounted missiles at the structure, before eventually raiding it with special forces.
Despite bringing in the vehicles and troops necessary, the Israelis were unable to pull this off as their target had already fled.
Both sources agreed that if there was an imminent threat of a bombing attack emanating from Jenin camp, as suggested by the Israeli military, they would have surely seized explosives or weapons, yet they did not recover any weapons from those arrested.
Israelis oblivious to the truth
The old tactic of hiding military failures, along with the loss of troops, has become a well-documented feature of the Zionist entity, as noted by all close observers.
This has even cost Israeli rulers politically in the past, the most prominent case being when the Salah al-Deen brigades released a video showing a military operation they had conducted in February of 2018, months later in November of that year.
An Israeli undercover unit that had penetrated the Gaza Strip in 2018 was uncovered by the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, thwarting a plot to kidnap one of its commanders, Nour Baraka.
The video released on Al-Mayadeen TV at the time showed a group of Israeli soldiers approaching the Gaza separation fence to pull down a Palestinian flag pole, which then exploded and killed a number of them.
The Israeli military had not revealed to its public that such a military operation had occurred back in February. The situation was so embarrassing that the then-Israeli minister of war, Avigdor Lieberman, was forced to resign from his position.
The Zionist armed forces also frequently claim to hit high-value Hamas resistance movement targets in Gaza, which frequently turn out to be open agricultural areas and empty training sites.
In the latest escalation between the resistance forces and the Israeli regime during Ramadan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have hit targets belonging to Hezbollah and Hamas in southern Lebanon.
The reality was that the strikes only caused material damage and hit banana trees, provoking satirical reactions inside Lebanon, with some locals referring to the Israeli strikes as “Operation Banana Split”.
It is likely that the Israeli regime conceals its failures and military losses for fear of backlash from the Israeli public who interpret such failures as political weakness on the part of ruling coalitions.
A recent poll conducted by the Zionist ‘Channel 13 News channel indicated that 71 percent of Israeli respondents indicated that Netanyahu’s performance as prime minister was “not good”.
Taking into account his poll, the ruling far-right coalition led by Netanyahu, which is already facing an unprecedented existential crisis amid raging anti-regime protests, may be cautious in what information it lets surface about the failures of its military.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied West Bank.
A Senior Pentagon Official Strongly Implied Impending “Mission Creep” In Sudan
BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 23, 2023
The US evacuated a little less than 100 of its diplomats, their families, and a “small number” of other countries’ diplomats from the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Saturday. The mission was launched from a base in nearby Djibouti, refueled in neighboring Ethiopia, and then spent less than an hour on the ground before departing that war-torn country. That could have closed the book on the US’ military involvement in Sudan had a senior Pentagon official not told reporters about what’s being planned next.
CNN reported that Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Chris Maier said the following in a call with journalists sometime after the evacuation ended:
“In the coming days, we will continue to work with the State Department to help American citizens who may want to leave Sudan. One of those ways is to potentially make the overland routes out of Sudan potentially more viable.
[The Department of Defense] is at present considering action that may include use of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities to be able to observe routes and detect threats.
Secondly, the employment of naval assets outside the port of Sudan to potentially help Americans who arrive at the port, and third, the establishment at the US Africa Command in Stuttgart deconfliction cell focused particularly on the overland route.”
Instead of washing its hands of this “deep state” war that risks turning into a civil and even international war, the US is getting drawn into “mission creep” on the pretext of evacuating its remaining citizens.
CNN mentioned in their report that “Officials told staffers (from the State Department) that there could be an estimated 16,000 Americans in Sudan, most of whom are dual nationals.” This means that foreign-born US citizens who returned to their homeland for whatever reason are being exploited as the “justification” for redirecting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities there, possibly deploying naval assets to its main port, and creating a “deconfliction cell” for managing events.
In simple English, the Pentagon will likely use a combination of drones, electronic means, and satellites to spy on the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) Rapid Support Forces (RSF) opponents, after which they’ll dispatch warships to Port Sudan that’ll be organized by AFRICOM’s newest (warfighting) “cell”. Those vessels can either carry armed aid (irrespective of whether it’s disguised as humanitarian aid) for the SAF and/or be capable of conducting their own offensive actions against the RSF under certain conditions.
The so-called “overland routes out of Sudan” that the Pentagon wants to “make… potentially more viable” could be sold to the public as a “humanitarian corridor” but will in reality function as a means for supplying the SAF. The “deconfliction” element of this equation purely refers to the contact that the US also has with the RSF, whom Undersecretary of State for Management John Bass said on Saturday “cooperated to the extent that they did not fire on our service members in the course of the operation.”
In the emerging context of “mission creep”, the Pentagon could simply warn the RSF not to impede the creation of these “overland routes out of Sudan” just like they stayed out of the way during Saturday’s evacuation under threat of being bombed on “humanitarian” pretexts if they don’t. The American public could easily be manipulated into supporting this action if they’re misled to believe that “Russian-/Wagner-backed insurgents/terrorists are holding approximately 16,000 US citizens hostage in Africa”.
Therein lies the importance of the latest narrative being pushed by the Mainstream Media (MSM) suggesting that this entire conflict is Russia’s fault, the false claims of which were reviewed and analyzed in this piece here. Basically, the US sees an opportunity to proverbially kill multiple birds with one stone on a Russophobic basis, which could ultimately result in them putting Moscow on the backfoot in Africa and securing a symbolic victory in this little-discussed but hugely significant New Cold War front.
Policymakers don’t truly care about those Americans that are stranded in Sudan, especially since the majority of them are thought to be dual nationals, but they see a chance to exploit the “humanitarian” optics as part of a larger power play against Russia. The first step was to safely evacuate US diplomats since it’s those citizens who lives are truly valued by the government after it invested a considerable sum in each of them over the course of their careers. Everyone else is expandable in their view.
Now that its “VIPs” are out of harm’s way, the US can up the ante in Sudan on a “humanitarian” pretext as part of its latest anti-Russian proxy war. There’s still the possibility that it’ll reconsider, but events are quickly moving in that direction as evidenced by what the earlier mentioned senior Pentagon official revealed to the media on Saturday about the US’ impending “mission creep”. If it goes ahead with this scenario, then precedent shows that Sudan might become the next Libya, or perhaps even worse.
West knows Ukraine weapons leaking to black market – Seymour Hersh
RT | April 23, 2023
Western-supplied arms are being sold by Ukrainian commanders to smugglers in Poland, Romania and other states, veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.
The Pulitzer Prize winner, speaking to Afshin Rattansi on his program ‘Going Underground,’ said the West is aware of this black market trade, as some reports about missing arms shipments have even appeared in the US media.
Hersh claimed that, according to his data, almost immediately after the conflict broke out between Kiev and Moscow last February, “Poland, Romania, other countries on the border were being flooded with weapons we [the US and allies] were shipping for the war to Ukraine.”
“Often, it wasn’t generals, it was colonels and others, who were given shipments of some weapons, [who] would personally resell them… to the dark market,” he explained.
The journalist noted that there was concern in the West last year that some of the arms sent to Ukraine, such as Stinger shoulder-launched missiles, could be used to “shoot down an airplane at considerable height.”
As for Western-supplied weapons ending up on the black market, “CBS wrote a story about it that they were forced to retract,” Hersh said.
When asked about why the piece was retracted, the journalist said the media is supporting the stance of the US government that “we’re on the side of Ukraine. We all hate Russia.”
Hersh was likely referring to the documentary “Arming Ukraine,” which CBS aired last August. The promo for the film, which included a claim by the founder of pro-Ukraine NGO Blue-Yellow, Jonas Ohman, that only 30% of military aid actually reached the frontline, was removed, while the documentary itself and the story accompanying it were redacted.
Russian officials have on many occasions warned about Western-supplied arms being smuggled outside Ukraine, thus deteriorating the security situation elsewhere around the globe.
“NATO military supplies intended for the Kiev regime end up in the hands of terrorists, extremists and criminal groups in the Middle East, Central Africa, Southeast Asia,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in October. At the time, she estimated the black market turnover at $1billion per month.
An investigation by RT last summer also revealed how various weapons supplied to Kiev by the West were being sold on the dark net. The journalists were able to swiftly negotiate to the purchase of a US-made kamikaze drone with smugglers. However, it impossible to confirm whether the sellers actually had the weapons in stock, as the reporters did not complete the purchase.
The full version of Going Underground’s interview with Seymour Hersh will be aired on RT on Monday.
Orbán says the US cannot push Hungary into war – the rest of Europe would be wise to follow his policy
BY THOMAS BROOKE | REMIX NEWS | APRIL 20, 2023
The relentless criticism by the Biden administration towards the incumbent Hungarian government is entirely disproportionate and unjustified, and does little to separate the current U.S. regime from the malign superpowers it seeks to distance itself from. Hungary’s leader recognizes this and is putting his own country’s interests ahead of those of the United States, a stance that Europe would be wise to follow.
Despite pressure from the U.S., Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said his country cannot be pushed into joining the war on the side of Ukraine.
“The United States has not given up its plan to squeeze everyone, including Hungary, into a war alliance, to go with the crowd,” Orbán told a press conference last week.
“But I have made it clear several times, and Hungarian diplomacy has also expressed this, that the will of the Hungarian people is clear, and our knowledge of history is quite solid, so we will not allow this.
“We will not allow them to squeeze us into a war. We will not send any weapons, and we will not be involved in a conflict that is not our war,” the Hungarian premier added.
Orbán made the remarks amid growing tension with the U.S. Recent disparaging remarks by David Pressman, Biden’s top diplomat in Budapest, have been dismissive of a country which, whilst remaining on many issues a conforming ally to the United States, has had the audacity to form its own view on matters unfolding on its doorstep, and opted not to become entirely subservient to U.S. interests when the two countries have vastly different worldviews and face inherently different geopolitical threats
“We have concerns about the continued eagerness of Hungarian leaders to expand and deepen ties with the Russian Federation, despite Russia’s ongoing brutal aggression against Ukraine and threat to transatlantic security,” Pressman told a news conference in Budapest last week after criticizing the Hungarian government for retaining its stake in Russia’s International Investment Bank (IBB) upon which the U.S. government imposed sanctions last week.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán berated the shortsightedness of the U.S. decision on state radio, explaining that the Russian-controlled financial institution based in Budapest “could have played a serious role in developing Central European economies,” and expressed concern that the United States simply doesn’t understand the geopolitical climate and should stop acting like it does.
US Ambassador Pressman would push Hungary into war
The intention of Joe Biden’s man in Budapest is to drag Hungary into the conflict in Ukraine, writes József K. Horváth for the Magyar Hírlap newspaper
The Hungarian government withdrew its membership of the IBB the day after the sanctions were imposed, with Orbán stating the U.S. action had rendered the bank’s operations impossible.
“It can’t serve its function,” Orbán said. “We decided that under these circumstances, Hungary’s participation in the bank’s further work has become pointless.”
It’s not the first time the Hungarian government has been frustrated by decisions made in far-away Washington without an understanding of the nuanced consequences for the region.
U.S. government officials have regularly criticized the Hungarian administration for not following suit with the U.S. approach to the conflict in Ukraine, criticism which the Hungarian premier considers to be misguided.
“When I hear about nuclear weapons, or that a Western European country is taking depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine, I think of Chernobyl,” Orbán said while referring to Britain’s decision to send depleted uranium tank ammunition to Ukrainian forces.
“An American would never think of this, but we know that if something happens in Ukraine it’s best if people don’t go out into the streets, so we know what happened then.
“Or if in America they hear that someone died on the Ukrainian-Russian front, they obviously sympathize because it’s a loss, but it is not the same feeling as ours, because I immediately think that the person who died could be a Hungarian person from Transcarpathia.
“Everything that happens there becomes a part of our lives that very day.
“The dimension of the Americans is quite different, so I say that we rightly expect the United States to take note of Hungary’s special situation, its proximity to Ukraine, and to understand that we are therefore on the side of peace and want to stay there.”
Given the continued animosity from the U.S. towards the Orbán administration, it could be assumed that Hungary was an active belligerent nation in the conflict, and yet Budapest has complied with every anti-Russian sanction approved by the European Union, despite voicing its opposition to these actions.
“We have never agreed with sanctions, but we do not dispute anyone’s right, including the United States to impose sanctions if they see fit. We acknowledge these sanctions and roll with them,” Orbán said recently.
Hungary has welcomed tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees and provided humanitarian aid to Kyiv and the affected areas, and it has denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine from day one.
As is its right, Budapest has maintained its neutrality with regard to military intervention and assistance, and has refused to change its stance despite U.S. protestations.
Orbán added that his administration is mature enough to retain the longstanding Hungarian-U.S. alliance despite a difference in approach to the conflict in Ukraine.
“The American-Hungarian friendship must endure this difference of opinion,” he stated last week.
Whether Joe Biden and his politically-appointed diplomat in Budapest is willing to accept a difference of opinion and move on remains to be seen.
However, if the recent anti-Russian poster campaigns dotted across Hungary with the support of the U.S. embassy are anything to go by, it is difficult to see a reconciliation in the immediate future between the two countries, at least not while Joe Biden’s Democrats remain in the White House.
Beware Perfidious Albion as Britain Takes Lead Role in War Provocation
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 23, 2023
The much-vaunted Anglo-American “special relationship” is gaining a new dubious meaning as Britain emerges as an adept agent provocateur for inciting a wider NATO war against Russia.
Warmongering British lawmakers are this week demanding a more robust NATO response over an alleged “act of war” by Russia involving a Royal Air Force spy plane and a Russian fighter jet.
Recent documents leaked from the Pentagon have indicated that a British recon plane was nearly shot down by a Su-27 over the Black Sea. Following the incident last September, the British Ministry of Defense played down the encounter as a “technical malfunction”.
It appears now, however, that the British RC-135 spy plane was fired on by the Russian jet, but that the missile missed. It may have been a deliberate warning shot as the British surveillance aircraft is understood to have been near the Russian territory of Crimea. The British and the Americans are supplying the Kiev regime forces with targeting information. So Russia is arguably entitled to take defensive measures against belligerents, as it did when an American MQ Reaper drone was intercepted last month over the Black Sea. The U.S. has reportedly restricted its surveillance flights in the area since that incident.
Now that it is being reported that a Russian missile was fired, some British politicians are demanding a response to “an act of war”.
This particular incident may well blow over. But it raises concern that British forces are playing an incendiary role in the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. With that country already pumped up with NATO weapons, and the Black Sea and Baltic region packed with NATO forces conducting massive war maneuvers over the next weeks and months, the danger is heightened for an accidental or even intended escalation. Given NATO’s common defense commitments, an incident involving one member of the military alliance would inevitably trigger the other 30 members into an all-out war-footing.
Britain’s treacherous role has recently taken on a routine, calculated character in Ukraine.
As NATO has stepped up arms supplies to Ukraine over the past year, it is London that seems to have upped the ante all the way. It was the British that broke the taboo over sending battlefield tanks when they announced earlier this year the supply of Challenger 2 tanks. That move then put the onus on Germany and the United States to accede to supplying the Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks.
The Brits then went a step further by announcing they would supply Ukrainian forces with depleted uranium artillery shells. Russia condemned that move for its known environmental contamination hazards as well as breaching the line for using radiological/nuclear weapons. Moscow and others contend that depleted uranium shells are a form of “dirty nuclear bomb”.
In any case, technical quibbling aside, the move to supply depleted uranium weapons by London is seen as a particularly gratuitous provocation toward Russia.
The recent Pentagon leaks, which appear to be authentic albeit distorted by U.S. media spin, also confirmed previous separate claims that NATO special forces are operating on the ground in Ukraine fighting against Russian military.
Significantly, it is the British who have deployed the biggest number of special forces compared with other NATO members. What these commandoes are doing in Ukraine is not clear. As the BBC reported:
“According to the document, dated 23 March, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow Nato states Latvia (17), France (15), the U.S. (14) and the Netherlands (1). The document does not say where the forces are located or what they are doing.”
Without a hint of irony, the BBC added: “UK special forces are made up of several elite military units with distinct areas of expertise, and are regarded to be among the most capable in the world.”
Distinct areas of expertise, most capable, indeed! That’s classic British euphemism for you.
It is alleged that British operatives have been helping Ukrainian artillery hit the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant – Europe’s largest civilian nuclear power plant – as a way to escalate the war.
It is also alleged by Moscow that it was members of the British Special Boat Service (SBS) that orchestrated the mass drone attack on Russian bases in Crimea last November. The air raid was thwarted by Russian defenses, but if it had succeeded the response from Russia would have been geopolitically explosive.
It should also be recalled that even before Russia launched its military intervention in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, there was a serious provocation involving a British warship in the Black Sea.
HMS Defender infringed on Russian territorial waters south of Crimea on June 23, 2021. After ignoring Russian verbal warnings, the British destroyer was fired on. A Russian Su-24 fighter jet dropped bombs in the ship’s path.
Similar to the more recent incident involving the Royal Air Force RC-135 spy plane, the British Ministry of Defense tried to play down the naval incident. But it later transpired from secret documents that London sought to deliberately provoke Russia in a show of support for Ukraine.
For the most part of the past century, the failed British empire was assigned the junior role as the butler to service the needs of the American empire. This special relationship involved London giving political and diplomatic cover for its American boss, as well as military services when required for one dirty war or another.
It is axiomatic that a dying empire is a dangerous beast, liable to lash out to salvage its waning power. The American empire has reached its death throes moment. But perhaps more dangerous than a dying imperial power is a dying imperial side-kick flunky.
Today, Britain is a broken-down impoverished de-industrialized wasteland whose shocking numbers of poor are like an army of living dead. It has long ago lost former colonies to parasite off. But there is one former colony – the United States – that might just be stupid enough to allow Perfidious Albion to manipulate a catastrophic war.
The tensions over the NATO proxy war in Ukraine with Russia are a powder-keg situation. And the British dirty-tricks brigade are the past masters that merit being closely watched.
Russia-China border region sees surge in investment
RT | April 23, 2023
Ukraine-related Western sanctions against Russia have failed to stop the flow of investment in the country’s far-eastern Khabarovsk Region, bordering on China, Governor Mikhail Degtyarev said this week.
According to the official, a total of 26 new investment projects worth 133 billion rubles ($1.6 billion) were launched in the area in 2022, including a large-scale infrastructure project to build the Pacific Railroad.
“It is comparable to the historical construction of the BAM (Baikal–Amur Mainline railway). It is the first private railroad in Russia to have a length of 500 kilometers. In a short period of time, we have already built 100 kilometers,” Degtyarev stated.
Local projects launched in 2022 include a mining and processing plant at the Kutyn gold deposit in the Tuguro-Chumikansky district, and also the Solnechnaya tin ore processing station. A copper and tin producing plant in the Solnechny district is also nearing completion. The region has also started the development of the Malmyzhsky copper deposit.
Degtyarev also noted that the region last year successfully introduced a simplified procedure for granting land to businesses without them having to bid for import substitution projects, particularly in agriculture, which also drew investors to the area. This year the opportunity was extended to individual entrepreneurs and legal entities involved in import substitution, who can buy a land plot for these purposes for the symbolic sum of 1 ruble.
In his earlier interview, Degtyarev noted that Khabarovsk has been actively boosting cooperation with neighboring China over the past several months, with trade between the region and the Asian powerhouse up 31%, and cargo turnover up by 106% year-on-year as of the end of 2022.
The region also continues working on the Russo-Chinese joint trans-border development territory on Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, where both Russian and Chinese companies can be residents. They will receive significant benefits for export-import operations, making the territory a de facto free-trade zone.
“We are seeing a turn to the East. There is growth in cargo turnover, growth in industrial production as a whole, and growth in the gross regional product. The Eastern part of the country is now pulling the economy, because the Western regions, unfortunately, faced treacherous sanctions and the collapse of logistics chains,” the official stated.











