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Russia Considers US Proposals to Start Arms Control Talks ‘Hypocrisy’

Sputnik – 18.03.2024

Moscow considers Washington’s proposals to hold arms control talks “hypocrisy,” the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik on Monday.

“American officials are declaring their alleged desire to enter into arms control discussions with Russia without preconditions but they clearly did not bother to read the February 29 address of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Federal Assembly, which has our fundamental assessments of this kind of hypocrisy and demagogy amid Washington’s desire to inflict ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia,” the ministry said.

Earlier in the day, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that the United States stands ready to engage in bilateral arms control talks with China and Russia without any preconditions.

“The United States is willing to engage in bilateral arms control discussions with Russia and China right now, without preconditions. All they have to do is say ‘yes’ and come to the table in good faith,” Thomas-Greenfield said during a UN Security Council meeting.

Russia’s policy has not changed, and the country is ready to discuss arms control altogether with focus on issues that directly involve Moscow’s security interests, the Russian Foreign Ministry added.

“In the meantime, we are invited to conduct dialogue exclusively on US terms and only on those issues that are of interest to Washington,” the ministry said.

Deputy Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy in turn said that the strategic dialogue between Russia and the United States on arms control is only possible if the US and NATO revise their anti-Russian course.

“Any interaction will only be possible if the United States and NATO review their anti-Russian course and when they show that they are ready to participate in comprehensive dialogue taking into account all of our strategic stability factors and removing all of the concerns that we have,” Polyanskiy said at the UN Security Council meeting.

He stressed that the strategic dialogue between the US and the Russian Federation cannot be separated from the general and military context.

At the same time Russia stands ready to negotiate on the issue of nuclear disarmament with interested countries during the new Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) Review conference, Polyanskiy added.

“We expect that our Western colleagues will abandon their very dangerous and destructive course. We are open within the new NPT Review conference to a constructive dialogue with all countries interested in reaching a consensus understanding on how we can create preconditions for further nuclear disarmament,” he said.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Major Studies Find No Evidence of Brain Injury in Alleged ‘Havana Syndrome’ Patients

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | March 18, 2024

Two studies conducted by the National Institute of Health (NIH) on scores of people claiming to have Havana Syndrome did not find any evidence of brain damage. Purported victims of Havana Syndrome claim they were targeted by a foreign power with a mysterious weapon that caused undetectable neurological issues.

Havana Syndrome was first reported among American diplomats in Cuba in 2016 who claimed to be exposed to a sonic weapon that caused headaches. An investigation published by JASON, a group of scientists who advise the US government, concluded that crickets native to Cuba were making the noise, causing neurological symptoms among American officials in Havana.

Since, scores of diplomats have reported symptoms in a range of countries including Vietnam, Russia, and China. The self-identified victims claim they were targeted with some form of microwave, sonic, or direct energy weapon that caused a myriad of symptoms, including headaches, as well as problems with sleep, vision, and hearing.

On Monday, NIH published two studies that concluded Havana Syndrome was not caused by directed energy weapons. Additionally, in both investigations, researchers were unable to detect any signs to indicate the patients had suffered neurological damage.

“In this exploratory neuroimaging study, there was no significant MRI-detectable evidence of brain injury among the group of participants who experienced [anomalous health incidents] compared with a group of matched control participants,” the authors wrote. However, researchers did not dismiss the possibility that somehow the claimed victims were actually targeted with a mysterious weapon.

Robert E. Bartholomew and Dr. Adam Gaffney argued that Havana Syndrome, rather than being caused by weapons, is a mass psychogenic illness. In an essay published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Bartholomew explains, “As is typical in mass psychogenic illness outbreaks, as news of the ‘attacks’ spread among the diplomatic community, more US Embassy staff were affected, including members of the Canadian Embassy.”

He continues, “The irregular patterning of the ‘attacks’ is not typical of an infectious agent. Many ‘incidents’ were said to have occurred in homes and hotels. Why were some people affected, while others either standing or sleeping next to the ‘victim,’ were not?”

Still, allegations of attacks causing Havana syndrome continued to impact American officials around the world into the first years of the Joe Biden administration. The claims of attacks have led to the demonization of Russia, the breakdown of diplomatic relations with Cuba, and the delay of high-level visits to foreign nations.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Supreme Court Appears Wary of Blocking Biden Admin-Big Tech Censorship Collusion

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | March 18, 2024

During oral arguments in a major First Amendment case on Monday, the Supreme Court expressed reservations about restricting interactions between the Biden administration and social media platforms. This concern emerged during the Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v. Biden) case, which delves into the extent of governmental influence over online content.

Brian Fletcher, Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, presented oral arguments for the petitioners in the case, Biden’s Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy and several other current and former members of the Biden administration.

The respondents in the case, the States of Missouri and Louisiana, and several other individuals who were subject to social media censorship, allege that the federal government had pressured platforms to block or downgrade posts on various topics, including some related to Covid and the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Several lower courts agreed with the respondents, with a district judge describing the Biden administration’s Big Tech-censorship collusion as “Orwellian” and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals finding that the Biden admin likely violated the First Amendment when pushing for social media censorship.

During the oral arguments today though, the justices displayed skepticism towards a broad prohibition on governmental communications with social media platforms. They raised concerns that such a ruling could unduly restrain the government’s ability to address pressing issues.

Fletcher defended the Biden admin’s actions and framed them as the government exercising its right to “speak for itself by informing, persuading, or criticizing private speakers.” He argued that the government is entitled to communicate with social media companies to influence their content moderation decisions, as long as these interactions do not veer into coercion. According to Fletcher, the litmus test for legality should be the presence or absence of threats from the government, asserting that using the bully pulpit for exhortations is a right protected under the First Amendment.

Fletcher also tried to argue for the significant power and autonomy of social media companies, noting their capability to resist governmental pressures.

The solicitor general of Louisiana, Benjamin Aguiñaga, representing one of the Republican-led states behind the lawsuit, argued that the government’s actions amounted to coercion, effectively leading to censorship by social media platforms. He highlighted a significant shift in the focus of government-led content moderation. Initially aimed at tackling foreign interference and misinformation, these efforts increasingly targeted speech by American citizens, particularly around the contentious topics of the 2020 election and the pandemic.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson challenged Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga’s viewpoint. “And so I guess some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country. And you seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information. So, can you help me? Because I’m really worried about that.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett also voiced concerns, questioning whether the FBI could legally request social media platforms to remove content, such as posts revealing personal information about officials.

Aguiñaga’s argument was that such actions could potentially suppress constitutionally protected speech.

The oral arguments went off into the weeds and into the nuances of what constitutes “coercion” by the government in its interactions with social media platforms, rather than directly addressing the core text of the First Amendment. This focus on “coercion” rather than the First Amendment’s explicit wording – prohibiting the “abridging” of the freedom of speech, or of the press – played into the Biden administration’s hands.

Justices Kavanaugh and Kagan drew a comparison between the case and the interactions that often occur between administration officials and news media. They proposed that efforts by officials to shape media coverage should be seen as constructive dialogue, not necessarily an attempt at censorship, and suggested such actions don’t violate the First Amendment’s provisions.

Kagan challenged the lawyer from Louisiana to demonstrate that the removal of the contentious posts was the result of government intervention rather than actions taken by the social media companies themselves.

“What distinguishes this as an act of the government rather than a decision made by the platforms?” Kagan inquired.

The discussion among the justices also ventured into the standing of the plaintiffs – Missouri and Louisiana, accompanied by five individuals – to bring the lawsuit. They questioned whether these parties had experienced a direct injury that would justify their legal challenge. Furthermore, the justices expressed doubts about the appropriateness of a wide-ranging injunction that would bar various officials from contacting social media platforms as a remedy to the alleged issue.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor specifically addressed concerns regarding the approach taken by the plaintiffs in presenting their case. Directing her comments to Aguiñaga, Justice Sotomayor criticized the framing of their argument. She pointed out that the plaintiff’s brief seemed to leave out crucial information, thereby altering the context of certain claims, a point which she found particularly troubling.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. appeared to concur with the notion that the federal government’s diverse array of agencies, which often lack a unified stance, weakens the argument of coercion. During a dialogue with the attorney from Louisiana, he observed, “It’s not monolithic.” He then posed a question that implied this multiplicity of voices in the federal government could substantially diminish the idea of coercion: “That has to dilute the concept of coercion significantly. Doesn’t it?”

While the justices mostly appeared skeptical of prohibiting the federal government from pressuring social media platforms to censor speech, there were some moments where they questioned the Biden admin’s arguments.

Justice Sotomayor pressed Fletcher to give her specifics on how the injunction that prohibits officials from coercing or significantly encouraging a platform’s content-moderation decisions would harm the government.

Fletcher responded by claiming that the injunction would prevent the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from flagging foreign “disinformation” to platforms, prevent White House officials from criticizing the platform’s practices on “misinformation,” and prevent officials complaining about or flagging various other types of legal content on social media.

Justice Samuel Alito also noted that two lower courts have found or accepted that some examples of Big Tech censorship that were highlighted in this case were “traceable to the government’s actions.”

He added: “We don’t usually reverse findings of fact that had been endorsed by two lower courts.”

Additionally, Justice Alito expressed skepticism about the White House and other federal officials constant “pestering” of Facebook and other social media platforms.

“And I thought, wow, I cannot imagine federal officials taking that approach to the print media,” Justice Alito said. “I thought, you know, the only reason why this is taking place is because the federal government has got Section 230 and antitrust in its pocket, and it’s…to mix my metaphors, and it’s got these big clubs available to it. And so it’s treating Facebook and these other platforms like their subordinates.”

After the hearing, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), one of the legal groups representing the respondents in this case, urged the justices to recognize that the Biden admin’s censorship pressure violated the First Amendment.

“Our clients, who include top doctors and scientists, were censored for social media posts that turned out to be factually accurate, depriving the public of valuable perspectives during a public health crisis,” Jenin Younes, Litigation Counsel at the NCLA said. “We’re optimistic that the majority will look at the record and recognize that this was a sprawling government censorship enterprise without precedent in this country, and that this cannot be permitted to continue if the First Amendment is to survive.”

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | 1 Comment

Scholz won’t congratulate Putin on election victory – Berlin

RT | March 18, 2024

The Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz will not send a message of congratulations to Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election victory, which Berlin has branded as “undemocratic,” government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann told a media briefing on Monday.

Putin won the ballot by a wide margin, receiving 87% of the votes, according to the Russian Central Election Commission. This year’s vote also saw the highest turnout in Russia’s modern history, which surpassed 74%.

Hoffmann claimed that the vote was not democratic and “no real opposing candidates were allowed.” She went so far as to brand Russia a “dictatorship” ruled “in an authoritarian manner” by Putin, and added that Scholz shares such an assessment.

Russia’s election saw four candidates present on the ballot. Apart from Putin, who ran as an independent with support from three political parties, all other candidates were nominated by major parliamentary opposition parties: the left-wing Communist Party of Russia, the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and the New People Party, which entered the State Duma in 2021.

Berlin decried an alleged “climate of intimidation” and a lack of “freedom of expression” in Russia, as it justified Scholz’s decision not to congratulate Putin on his landslide victory.

“We see this so-called election in Russia last weekend as neither free nor fair,” Hoffmann said, in a statement that was similar to one earlier offered by the US.

She called it “extremely problematic” that votes were also held in the four former Ukrainian territories – the two Donbass republics as well the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions – which joined Russia following a series of referendums in autumn 2022 that Kiev and its Western backers have not recognized.

The Russian national election of 2024 prompted a flurry of critical statements in the West, which were dismissed by Moscow as expected but irrelevant. “This is not an opinion for us to heed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday, referring to remarks made by Washington and other Western nations.

Earlier, Putin himself responded to Western criticism of the election results, calling them “predictable,” considering that those nations “are fighting against us, including with arms,” referring to the West’s constant stream of weapons deliveries to Ukraine.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | | 2 Comments

Dissecting the ultra-Zionist cult Chabad and its complicity in genocide in Gaza

By David Miller | Press TV | March 18, 2024

In December last year, in the town of Beit Hanun in northern Gaza, a Jewish religious outpost was established in a partially destroyed building. It was described as the ‘first Chabad House’ in the besieged, war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

Chabad is an ultra-orthodox Jewish cult. It has many adherents in the genocidal Israeli occupation forces. Many of them wear Chabad patches on their uniforms. Here is a Zionist tank flying the distinctive Chabad flag in Gaza.

In addition, there are also Chabad Rabbis attached to the Israeli occupation forces. One notes that the genocide is actually about “rooting out evil”. Here two Chabad Rabbis erected the Jewish religious symbol, the Menorah, in Gaza.

But what is Chabad? It styles itself as a friendly outgoing Jewish movement dedicated to helping Jews reconnect with Judaism. However, in reality, it is a supremacist, hate-mongering Zionist cult.

In the past it was anti-Zionist, but back then, even as far back as 1929, its adherents in Al Khalil (or Hebron as it is called by Zionists) were involved in spying on the Palestinians for the Haganah terror militia as well as storing weapons for them.

Chabad is now so ultra-Zionist that it called in December for Gaza to be recolonized with Jewish settlers. Worse, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports, its adherents believe – as laid out in the Tanya, Chabad’s key religious text – gentiles have only animal souls, not human souls.

In January, the Tanya was printed out by the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza. This supremacism is carried over into its attitude to the Palestinians.

Followers of a Chabad Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh are known as the ‘hilltop youth’. Two of his followers wrote the hugely controversial King Torah, which was also recommended by Ginsburg.

The book states that it is permissible to kill Palestinian children, including babies.

“There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.”

Ginsburg was even detained by police over his promotion of the book.

It’s not just words. Ginsburg’s followers in the so-called ‘Hilltop Youth’ are said by the Zionist intelligence agency Shin Bet to be responsible for most ‘price tag’ revenge attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

In 1988, Israeli regime premier Benjamin Netanyahu famously met with the leader of Chabad in New York where the notorious Zionist cult has its global headquarters.

Netanyahu has maintained a strong relationship with Chabad ever since. Here he is seen addressing them at an event in 2014.

These are the forces – supported and aided by the United States and the United Kingdom – unleashed as part of the genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.

In December, it was revealed that a Chabad group in the UK was fundraising to support the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has already claimed the lives of more than 31,700 Palestinians, 70 percent of them children and women, since October 7.

Rabbi Aryeh Sufrin of Chabad claimed back in October that the Hamas resistance movement is “worse than ISIS (Daesh)” in full conformity with Zionist entity talking points. He also disclosed that his son is a British recruit to the occupation forces and was in occupied Palestine at the time.

The Chabad appeal read “Vital equipment needed by the IDF… Funds raised will go directly to equipment needed by Aron DovSufrin’s reserve unit, up in the North of Israel, and Support Units.”

Aron DovShufrin is of course the son of the Rabbi, serving actively in the genocidal occupation forces.

Chabad-Lubavitch is an ultra-orthodox Hasidic sect that also happens to be a Zionist supremacist and genocidal cult. It originates in Liubavichi in Russia near the border with Belarus and is a global movement with more than 5,000 offices in over 100 countries and in all 50 states of the US.

The cult even has offices in seemingly unlikely places such as China, Belarus, Tunisia, Morocco and Venezuela.

It has prominent supporters in many places. For example, the new Argentinian president Javier Milei is a Chabad devotee. Donald Trump donated to Chabad, though not as much as his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who played a pivotal role in the normalization of the Zionist entity.

Obviously, Chabad has been highly organized in Ukraine and its followers were amongst those recruited to the Nazi Azov Battalion, which it is important to recall, was co-founded by a former member of the Israel occupation forces.

Press TV’s flagship weekly show Palestine Declassified previously reported how Ukrainian Jewish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky bankrolled Chabad in Ukraine as well as the Nazi Azov and Aidar battalions.

Back in the UK, there are around one hundred Chabad groups or offices. It flies under the radar and is widely regarded as well-meaning if a little eccentric.

In reality, it is an extremist group that is building support for genocide in the UK.

Ironically, the Community Security Trust has aided Chabad – giving them security advice after an edition of Palestine Declassified exposed some of their activities.

The CST has ‘educating about extremism‘ as one of its charitable objectives, but it is unwilling to educate us on the extremism of Chabad.

There is a very good reason for that. Gerald Ronson, who created and runs the CST, is himself a Zionist extremist and has been supporting Chabad for more than half a century.

Here he is in 2013 as a guest of honor at one of their events.

Zionist extremists are widely scattered across the UK and form a mutually supportive network. This is a key element of the justification and support for genocide in Gaza.

David Miller is the producer and co-host of Press TV’s weekly Palestine Declassified show. He was sacked from Bristol University in October 2021 over his Palestine advocacy. 

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza Genocide Exposes Fraud of U.S.-led NATO’s Humanitarian Wars

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 17, 2024

Twenty-five years ago, the United States and the NATO military alliance launched an illegal war on former Yugoslavia.

It was a watershed event that led to a series of US-led NATO wars around the world over the next quarter century until today – all on the basis of some lofty principle about “defending” human rights or democracy.

In the former Yugoslavia, the 10-week aerial bombing campaign that began on March 24, 1999, caused hundreds of civilian deaths and destroyed the infrastructure of what was then a well-developed socialist country.

The rationale for the military intervention was declared to be a “humanitarian” one – allegedly to protect civilians in a civil war.

International lawyer and author Dan Kovalik says that the “humanitarian” pretext for the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was a sham.

The real objective, he says, was for the United States and its Western imperialist partners to create a precedent for systematically violating international law.

Kovalik is the author of the book ‘No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using Humanitarian Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests’.

The NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia did not have legal authorization from the United Nations Security Council. It was a unilateral action more accurately defined as an illegal aggression – a war crime.

Kovalik notes that the historical period was a crucial one. During the 1990s, the United States was reconfiguring its imperial power in the post-Cold War era (1945-90). With the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, Washington was proclaimed to be the sole superpower. He says that the United States wanted to establish its prerogative in the post-Cold War world of using its military power and that of its NATO partners wherever and whenever it needed for the purpose of advancing its strategic interests.

The US-led aggression against Yugoslavia was thus an opening to a new world order for American and NATO military power to be used at will in total disregard of international law and the United Nations Charter that had been drawn up in 1945 to prevent the kind of aggression that Nazi Germany had waged.

In short, it was a reinvention of imperialism dressed in a cloak of virtue.

Following Yugoslavia, which was balkanized as a result of the NATO aggression, the United States and its military partners embarked on a 25-year orgy of illegal wars and covert interventions. Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and other places in the Middle East and Africa. Endless wars costing the Western public trillions of dollars and fomenting a litany of socio-economic problems from mass migration to mass poverty – all of these wars have been engaged in by successive US presidents, including Democrat incumbent Joe Biden and his Republican rival Donald Trump.

The current war in Ukraine – the biggest since World War Two – can be attributed to NATO’s relentless expansion towards Russia’s borders over the past 25 years. Washington and its Western partners claim to be defending democracy, human rights and international law in Ukraine against alleged Russian aggression. This Western narrative ignores the reality that the US and its NATO partners have militarized a NeoNazi regime in Ukraine for at least eight years before the current conflict erupted on February 24, 2022.

Daniel Kovalik concludes with a devastating argument: if the United States and its NATO allies are so concerned by humanitarian principles and democracy then why are they not intervening to stop the genocide in Gaza against Palestinians? Over 30,000 people – mainly women and children – have been killed by Israeli military offensive. Far from intervening to protect civilians from Israeli slaughter and starvation, the United States and its NATO partners are fully complicit in supporting Israeli war crimes – militarily, politically and diplomatically.

Western “humanitarian intervention” so readily embarked on elsewhere is exposed as a grotesque fraud to cover for US imperialist crimes.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | 1 Comment

SpaceX’s spy satellite network deal a major step toward ‘space militarization,’ poses new threat to global security: experts

By Fan Anqi and Guo Yuandan | Global Times |March 17, 2024

SpaceX’s increasing involvement in US’ military deployment poses a new threat to world peace and stability, and may even impact the everyday lives of ordinary people around the world, experts warned after the company is reportedly building a powerful spy satellite network using hundreds of its satellites for US intelligence agencies.

In an exclusive report from Reuters on Saturday, the commercial space giant is allegedly building a network of spy satellites under a classified contract worth $1.8 billion with a US intelligence agency called the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Reuters said, citing sources familiar with the program.

A special business unit under SpaceX, Starshield, is undertaking the project, the sources revealed, and if successful, it would significantly advance the US military’s ability to quickly spot potential targets “almost anywhere on the globe,” the reports said.

The reason the NRO chose SpaceX was mainly due to the company’s advantage in the number of small satellites it has in orbit, which allows for maximum coverage of more orbital levels, Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert and media commentator, told the Global Times on Sunday.

“The large number of satellites can enable the monitoring of a certain area without any blind spots, not only in coverage but also in time duration, thereby creating an all-encompassing spy network above the heads of all countries around the world,” Wei said.

Starshield was established in December 2022, when the company announced it was “expanding its Starlink satellite technology into military applications.” The target customers of Starshield includes the Pentagon and other national security agencies.

While the company tried hard to separate the two units to calm public worries, it is clear to all that the line is not so clear. Starshield will utilize the Starlink satellite constellation in low-Earth orbit to meet the growing needs of the US defense and intelligence agencies, media reports said, further blurring the boundary between civilian and military use.

Prior to this program, the Pentagon was already a big customer of SpaceX, using its Falcon 9 rockets to launch a dozen military payloads into space, according to media reports.

“This move is very dangerous,” Wei said, as once space becomes another arena for arms race, the company’s assets could be in jeopardy. In addition, if this spy satellite network gets involved in a US-instigated “space war” and thus poses threats to other countries, SpaceX may become a target for retaliation or counterbalance.

Wang Ya’nan, chief editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, believes that countries and regions will definitely take countermeasures once the network become operational, such as by moving facilities underground or using optical camouflage for concealment. As a result, obtaining sensitive information would still not be “a piece of cake” for US intelligence agencies, Wang told the Global Times.

Nevertheless, observers believe the spy network will pose a new threat to global peace and security. “The US’ extensive intelligence reconnaissance of countries or regions of interest will inevitably make some hot-button issues more sensitive or even escalate, and it will also make already complex international relationships more difficult to handle,” Wang said.

Wei warned that the satellite system will not only monitor military targets but civilian targets as well, potentially exposing the daily lives of ordinary people to surveillance, which will have significant negative implications for information security and personal privacy protection worldwide.

While the US incessantly hypes China’s “growing threat” in space and advocates for “demilitarization,” it has not stopped building up its military capabilities in the field, with the true aim of achieving a dominant position in space technology to support its superiority. “Due to the US’ instigations, we may eventually have to face the fact that space has become a new battleground,” Wang noted.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , | 1 Comment

Iraq’s Islamic Resistance strikes Israel’s air base in occupied Golan with drones

Press TV – March 18, 2024

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq says it has carried out another anti-Israeli operation, targeting the regime’s air base in the occupied Golan Heights with drones.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which is an umbrella group of the country’s anti-terror movements, made the announcement in a statement on its Telegram channel early Monday without naming the Israeli air base.

“The fighters of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, at dawn today, Monday, 3/18/2024, targeted with drones an air base for the Zionist occupation’s drones in the occupied Golan,” the statement said.

It added that operations against the occupying entity will continue and double during the holy month of Ramadan in order to destroy more enemy strongholds.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq asserted that the new strike was part of the second phase of its operations against the Israeli regime and in support of the Palestinian people in Gaza, amid the regime’s ongoing genocide across the territory.

Israel’s military aggression against Gaza has so far killed at least 31,645 Palestinians and injured 73,676 others.

The regime has also imposed a complete siege on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, medicine and water to more than two million Palestinians living there.

The new operation came almost a week after the Iraqi resistance struck Israel’s main airport in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“The fighters of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq … targeted Ben Gurion Airport deep within the usurping entity by drone,” it said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the Iraqi resistance announced it had targeted the Haifa Airport in the northern part of the occupied territories in another pro-Palestinian operation.

The group has also staged numerous attacks against bases housing American occupation forces in Iraq and neighboring Syria in protest at the United States’ unreserved political, military, and intelligence support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Which European Countries are Most Dependent on US Gas?

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 18.03.2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier cautioned that the EU’s decision to stop the purchase of Russian energy supplies was “absolutely political” and would backfire on the bloc.

Every tenth cubic meter of gas used by the EU in 2023 was supplied by the US, with Lithuania the most dependent on the fuel, Sputnik research based on data from the UN platform Comtrade and the International Energy Agency has revealed.

According to the findings, the EU’s gas consumption stood at 330 billion cubic meters last year, 20% less than in 2021.

The US supplied 34.5 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG), or 10.4% of all gas consumed by the bloc in 2023, with Finland, which didn’t buy US gas in 2021, consuming 38,2% last year.

As for Lithuania, it consumed a record 40% of the American gas last year, against 22.3% in 2021.

The research also revealed that an array of other countries increased US gas supplies in 2023, including Croatia, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Poland, Italy and Germany. With 32%, Croatia proved to be the most dependent on US gas after Lithuania and Finland. The only countries that reduced American gas deliveries last year were Greece, Malta and Portugal.

The research comes after a previous Sputnik review of Eurostat data showed that EU countries had to pay some €185 billion ($201 billion) extra on natural gas over the past 20 months after cutting themselves off from cheap Russian pipeline gas.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin earlier warned that the EU’s “suicidal” and politically motivated decision to halt the purchase of Russian energy supplies as part of Western sanctions would come back to bite the bloc.

“Rejection of Russian energy resources means that Europe will systematically become the region with the highest energy costs in the world… This will seriously – and according to some experts irrevocably – undermine the competitiveness of a significant part of European industry, which is already losing the competition to companies in other regions of the world,” Putin underscored.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Why is the West Suddenly Revealing Its Troop Presence in Ukraine?

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | March 18, 2024

It has long been an open secret that the West has been providing Ukraine with funding, weapons, training, maintenance, targeting intelligence, and intelligence on the position of Russian forces and vulnerabilities, and even war-gaming. They have provided Ukraine with everything but the bodies. President Joe Biden has long insisted that American troops “are not and will not be engaged in a conflict with Russia in Ukraine.” The West has long denied that it is directly involved in the war or that they have troops in Ukraine.

And that is mostly true. It is Ukrainian soldiers that are being injured and killed in the hundreds of thousands. But it is not entirely true.

After two years of steadfast denial, there has been, over just a couple of weeks in February and March, a flurry of admissions and revelations that there are NATO troops in Ukraine. The question is, why? What is the motivation behind this sudden trove of revelations?

The flurry was kicked off by the release of a transcript of an intercepted February 19 conversation between senior German air force officials that revealed that the United Kingdom has people on the ground in Ukraine. Discussing how German Taurus long-range missiles could be operated in Ukraine, one official says that the Germans “know how the English do it…They have several people on-site.” The conversation between the German officials also appears to implicate the United States. One official says, “It’s known that there are numerous people there in civilian attire who speak with an American accent.”

On February 26, a New York Times report revealed who those civilians may be. More than 200 current and former officials leaked to the Times that “scores” of CIA officers are in Ukraine where they “help the Ukrainians” by providing “intelligence for targeted missile strikes” and “intelligence support for lethal operations against Russian forces on Ukrainian soil.”

On February 26, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz broadened the list to include France. Scholz defended his decision not to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine by saying that it would require the presence of Germans in Ukraine to match their British and French counterparts. He explained, “What is being done in the way of target control and accompanying target control on the part of the British and the French can’t be done in Germany.”

And on March 8, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski stunningly confirmed that “NATO military personnel are already present in Ukraine.” Critical of Scholz, he differentiated himself by not revealing which NATO countries are already in Ukraine. “NATO soldiers are already present in Ukraine. And I would like to thank the ambassadors of those countries who have taken that risk. These countries know who they are, but I can’t disclose them. Contrary to other politicians, I will not list those countries.”

France and Britain reportedly responded with outrage at the intercepted air force conversation. And they were just as furious with Scholz for his revelation. Former UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace said that “Scholz’s behaviour has showed that as far as the security of Europe goes he is the wrong man, in the wrong job at the wrong time.” Alicia Kearns, chair of the British Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, called Scholz’s comment “wrong, irresponsible and a slap in the face to allies.” One Berlin-based diplomat reportedly says that “Macron and Scholz aren’t even talking to each other.”

But despite the anger at being called out, neither the British nor the French denied Scholz’s revelation. Despite Kearns’ comment that Scholz is “wrong,” the British Prime Minister’s office confirmed that they do have boots on the ground: “Beyond the small number of personnel we do have in the country supporting the armed forces of Ukraine, we haven’t got any plans for large-scale deployment.”

The French responded by saying that if they don’t have troops in Ukraine, perhaps they should; not exactly an angry rebuke of Scholz. French President Emmanuel Macron said, “There’s no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out.” Though Scholz immediately replied that the consensus was “that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil who are sent there by European states or NATO states,” Macron pointed out, “Many of the people who say ‘never, never’ today were the same people who said never, never tanks; never, never planes; never, never long-range missiles…I remind you that two years ago, many around this table said: ‘We will offer sleeping bags and helmets.’”

In just a couple of weeks, American and German leaks placed U.S. troops in Ukraine, Germany placed France and Britain in Ukraine, the British confirmed they were in Ukraine, Poland confirmed that NATO troops were in Ukraine, and France suggested that, if they’re not, perhaps they should be. What is the motivation behind this sudden chorus of confessions?

There are at least four—and probably a lot more—possibilities. All of them are just speculation.

The least scary is that, recognizing that the West has lost the war in Ukraine and that, after encouraging Ukraine to reject a diplomatic solution in favor of pressing the fight with the promise of Western weapons and support for as long as it takes, the leading supporters of Ukraine are trying to establish the case that they did everything they could: even putting troops on the ground in Ukraine.

The second least scary is that the leaks and revelations are meant to pressure the United States and some European countries to send more financial aid and weapons packages to Ukraine. The belief might be that the they would find that option more palatable than crossing their own red line and sending troops into Ukraine.

The third least scary is that the West is trying to create a perception in Russia of strategic ambiguity. The French newspaper Le Monde reports, “Macron’s office explained that the aim is to restore the West’s ‘strategic ambiguity.’ After the failure of the Ukrainian 2023 counter-offensive, the French president believes that promising tens of billions of euros in aid and delivering—delayed—military equipment to Kyiv is no longer enough. Especially if Putin is convinced that the West has permanently ruled out mobilizing its forces.”

The scariest possibility that was suggested to me is that the West is serious both about NATO troops already being in Ukraine and about the possibility of sending more NATO troops not being ruled out. The leaks and revelations are intended to lay the groundwork for sending more troops. The idea is to sell the idea of sending more troops by desensitizing reluctant Western partners to the risk by pointing out that the risk has already been taken. They might even add that Russia knows it and hasn’t escalated and drawn the West into a NATO-Russia war.

If true, that is a dangerous and difficult to calculate risk. How many troops could be sent before triggering a Russian response? Hopefully, the United States, Germany and others, including Spain, Greece, and Slovakia are sincere in their insistence that no (more?) NATO troops will be sent to Ukraine. One German source told Le Monde that Macron “said that there was no consensus on the subject, but that’s not true: The truth is that France was isolated because most participants expressed their clear refusal.”

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Stop sending weapons to Ukraine: Russian diplomat responds to Macron’s ceasefire plan

TASS | March 17, 2024

MOSCOW – French President Emmanuel Macron should stop sending weapons to Kiev and propose a ceasefire agreement to parties to the Middle East conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS.

Commenting on the latest initiative by the French leader who said he would ask Russia to observe a ceasefire in Ukraine during the Paris Olympics, the Russian diplomat said: “I come forward with a proposal in response to Macron’s: stop supplying weapons being used to kill [civilians] and also stop sponsoring terrorism.” “I also suggest that Macron come up with a similar proposal to the parties to the Middle East conflict. A lot probably depends on what France says there,” Zakharova maintained.

Earlier, Macron told an interviewer during a Ukrainian telethon that France will ask Russia to observe a ceasefire for the duration of the Olympic Games in Paris. When asked to comment on the potential participation of Russian athletes as neutrals, he said that, as the host country, France is sending a message of peace as it follows decisions made by the International Olympic Committee.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Latvia urging UK to ‘prepare for war’ with Russia

By Lucas Leiroz | March 18, 2024

The Baltic countries continue their “preparation for war with Russia.” Now, as if it were not enough to engage in a suicidal militarization campaign, Latvia is also demanding that the main NATO countries, such as the UK, also begin adopting radical measures to prepare for the “inevitable” confrontation with Moscow. The main Latvian criticism of the British concerns the military service, with the Baltic country asking the UK to immediately resume conscription policies to increase the size of its forces.

Latvia’s foreign minister, Krisjanis Karins, stated that all NATO countries should follow the Latvian example when it comes to military preparation. According to him, it is necessary to implement special militarization measures and improve defense capacity in the face of the supposed “Russian threat”, which is why Western countries should unite in a common military policy. Karins believes that not all NATO states are efficiently engaged in this military preparation process. In this regard, he criticizes even the stance of key countries in the bloc, such as the UK.

Karins was asked by a journalist from The Telegraph about whether London should adopt mandatory military service for its citizens. He resolutely responded that Latvia “strongly recommends” such an attitude. According to Karins, Latvia is developing a system called “total defense”, in which all the country’s efforts are directed towards expanding military capacity. Efforts include all sectors of civil society, thus requiring a system of total mobilization within which mandatory military service is vital.

“We would strongly recommend this. We are developing and fleshing out a system of what we call a total defense involving all parts of civil society,” he said.

Recently, advancing its militarization policies, Latvia reintroduced military conscription. The measure was justified by the supposed need to expand the “active and ready reserve”, given the apparent “imminence” of an armed conflict. Under current Latvian law, all male citizens between 18 and 27 must complete at least one year of military service – including Latvians living abroad. Karins praises this model and calls on the entire West to adopt it, jointly engaging in “total defense”.

Furthermore, Karins also stated that a growth in defense spending is “inevitable”, thus asking London to reach the minimum target of 3% of GDP with military affairs. The top Latvian diplomat also praised the Finnish recruitment system. According to him, Finland has a small active army, but an extremely strong and “well-trained” reserve, making it possible to immediately enlist citizens for war, if necessary. Karins states that Latvia was inspired by the Finnish model and that all countries should do the same.

In fact, discussions about increasing militarization in the UK are already growing rapidly. Recently, British defense minister Grant Shapps called on the country to prepare for a situation of conflict on multiple fronts in the next five years. According to Shapps, tensions will worsen in the near future, and the UK needs to be prepared to face countries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

“In five years’ time we could be looking at multiple theaters [of conflict] including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea (..) Ask yourself, looking at today’s conflicts across the world, is it more likely that that number grows or reduces? I suspect we all know the answer. It’s likely to grow, so 2024 must mark an inflection point,” he said at the time.

In the same vein, the UK’s Chief of the General Staff, Patrick Sanders, has constantly made controversial statements praising anti-Russian warmongering mentality and encouraging his country towards militarization. According to him, the conflict in Ukraine creates an “imperative” for the reconstruction of the British army. Sanders believes that London needs to be able to fight a protracted war on European soil.

“There is now a burning imperative to forge an Army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle (…) We are the generation that must prepare the Army to fight in Europe once again,” Sanders said. He also recently called on the UK to adopt a system of broad militarization, training “citizen soldiers“. The aim would be to create a strong reserve army among the common people of the country. Indeed, what Sanders calls a “citizen army” is in practice just a disguised model of total mobilization.

As we can see, Latvia’s bellicose ideas may receive broad domestic support in the UK. Currently, the British army has only 75,983 soldiers. Jointly, the army, navy and air force have 184,865 active-duty personnel. The numbers are the lowest in the country since the Napoleonic Wars, which has “worried” pro-war militants. In practice, Western officials and decision-makers have been constantly deceived by their own propaganda, which is why many people actually believe in the “necessity” of fighting Russia.

The main problem is that these measures confront the reality of Western countries. In the UK, there is currently a serious economic crisis, with the country falling into recession and criticism of the government increasing sharply. Engaging in a process of militarization would be, in addition to dangerous and unnecessary, a truly “suicidal” measure for the national economy. It remains to be seen whether this reality will be admitted by the local government or whether irrational pro-war tendencies will prevail in the country.

Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

March 18, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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