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Secret Service Opted Out of Drone Surveillance Before Trump Assassination Attempt – US Senator

Sputnik – 26.07.2024

The probe into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump has uncovered new details of the botched security operation at the Pennsylvania rally.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley has submitted a letter to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with shocking details that the Secret Service – responsible for ensuring the safety of the former president’s life – “repeatedly” turned down offers by local police to carry out drone surveillance of the area.

“The night before the rally, US Secret Service repeatedly denied offers from a local law enforcement partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally,” the senator wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, citing information from a whistleblower.

The whistleblower also alleged that it was not until after the deadly shootout that the Secret Service went on to use drones to record the area, Hawley noted.

Hawley had previously quoted the whistleblower and spoken out against the officer who left the very spot from which the assassin targeted Trump. The officer allegedly left the roof of the warehouse because it was “too hot.”

“It is hard to understand why [the Secret Service] would decline to use drones when they were offered, particularly given the fact USSS [US Secret Service] permitted the shooter to overfly the rally area with his own drone mere hours before [the] event,” the Republican senator elaborated further.

Hawley also went on to mention that the whistleblower believes that using drones would have helped neutralize the sniper.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | 2 Comments

Vaccine Advocate Peter Hotez Calls for Use of Police, Military Against ‘Anti-vaccine Aggression’

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 26, 2024

Vaccine advocate and pharmaceutical industry insider Dr. Peter Hotez, long a proponent of the COVID-19 vaccine, said he favors deploying police and military powers against “anti-vaxers,” whom he blamed for causing hundreds of thousands of deaths during the pandemic.

During an interview July 5 at the Simposio Internacional de Actualización en Pediatría (International Symposium of Pediatric Updates) in Cartagena, Colombia, Hotez suggested organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and NATO should target “anti-vaccine aggression.”

Hotez said:

“What I’ve said to the Biden administration is, the health sector can’t solve this on its own. We’re going to have to bring in Homeland Security, the Commerce Department, Justice Department to help us understand how to do this.

I’ve said the same with — I met with Dr. Tedros [director general of the WHO] last month … to say, I don’t know that the World Health Organization can solve this on our own. We need the other United Nations agencies. NATO. This is a security problem because it’s no longer a theoretical construct or some arcane academic exercise. Two hundred thousand Americans died because of anti-vaccine aggression, anti-science aggression.

The full interview was available on YouTube until Wednesday evening, when it was removed. The Defender obtained a video recording of the full interview.

Hotez is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor University College of Medicine and director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, one of the sponsors of the symposium, which was organized by the Colombian Pediatric Society.

Aside from being a vaccine proponent and developer — he helped develop the Corbevax COVID-19 vaccine which was administered in India and has received at least $30 million in vaccine development grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — Hotez has crusaded against so-called “misinformation” about vaccines.

In March, The Hill reported that Hotez has found a “‘parallel career’ fighting misinformation.”

Hotez “finds his efforts to combat misinformation to be ‘meaningful,’” and says “pushing back on the anti-vaccine movement is just as important as developing vaccines,” The Hill wrote.

Hotez also holds six patents on the hookworm (helminth) vaccine, and has several listed patent applications as well, including those for SARS-CoV2 vaccines.

“Peter has cashed in significantly on the COVID-19 pandemic and gets a lot of money when shots go into arms,” said Brian Hooker, Chief Scientific Officer for Children’s Health Defense (CHD).

In his July 5 interview, Hotez called for more stringent action against “anti-vaxers,” whom he connected to entities such as the Russian government, and called for medical schools to educate new doctors about anti-vaccine sentiment.

“‘Anti-science’ and ‘anti-vaxxer’ are propaganda terms Hotez uses to establish a power dynamic over anyone who disagrees with him,” said cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough.

“Now Hotez is calling for a security state to enforce his propaganda instead of engaging in much needed dialogue over vaccine safety with a critical appraisal of short- and long-term side effects from the routine childhood vaccine schedule, including the COVID-19 shots,” McCullough added.

According to Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus and senior research scientist in epidemiology (chronic diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health:

“Hotez has spent his entire career developing vaccines which have not achieved success in commercial use. His demands to impose public health martial law are reminiscent of the ‘Comité de salut public’ — ‘Committee of Public Safety’ — that Robespierre used to murder his political opponents [during the French Revolution].”

For Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, Hotez’s suggestions are a call to violate established international human rights law.

“Coercing vaccines upon human beings without their informed and voluntary consent violates the Nuremberg Code on Medical Experimentation, which is a crime against humanity,” Boyle said. “What we see at work here with Hotez is the Nazi mentality that pervades so many vaccinologists like him. Hotez is revealing his true colors.”

Independent journalist Paul D. Thacker has investigated Hotez for his site, The Disinformation Chronicle. He said, “This crackpot idea that we should deploy military forces to deal with moms worried about vaccine side effects and children … doesn’t that speak for itself?”

Dr. Sukharit Bhakdi, a microbiologist, questioned Hotez’s scientific credentials:

“Simple fact: Hotez is not a real scientist. He has never published any research article based on true scientific research. His publications transmit his personal opinions and beliefs. He has not conducted a single valid vaccine trial and has zero data to back his claims.

“He has been on the globalist team together with [Dr. Anthony] Fauci et al. and is now turning to violence to silence all dissenters. This very fact disqualifies him as a physician.”

“His evolution over the course of the pandemic is curious as he has become more and more shrill as time goes on,” Hooker said. “It seems he is trying to extend his 15 minutes of fame by ‘jumping the shark’ and inciting gestapo-like measures against ‘anti-vaxers’ and ‘science deniers.’ His definition of science is very ‘Fauci-esque’ indeed.”

Claim that unvaccinated caused ‘hundreds of thousands’ of deaths ‘an obvious untruth’

During his July 5 interview, Hotez asserted that the unvaccinated were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said:

“There’s anti-vaccine activity in every country, and each has its own unique national flavor. But the part that I’m worried about now is something very dark and accelerating in the United States.

“And the most dramatic evidence for that is what happened during the COVID pandemic … My estimate is 200,000 Americans died needlessly because they refused COVID vaccines in 2021, 2022.”

Hotez did not provide evidence supporting this figure, but it was similar to claims made by Dr. Anthony Fauci during Congressional testimony last month. Without citing evidence, Fauci said the unvaccinated are “probably responsible for an additional 200,000-300,000 deaths” in the U.S.”

Risch called this claim “an obvious untruth.”

“In the face of repeated major empirical CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] evidence and CDC’s public acknowledgement that the mRNA vaccines largely failed to reduce COVID transmission, Hotez absurdly claims that people choosing not to vaccinate themselves have contributed more to deaths from COVID than all of the large-scale breakthrough infections among vaccinated people,” Risch said.

McCullough said, “Hotez presumes COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective as any vaccinologist would dream. Sadly, his fantasy was over before it started. The COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe and failed to reduce hospitalization and death in prospective randomized trials or in valid observational studies. They never stopped transmission.”

“All experts, including Hotez, agreed theoretical protection from COVID-19 vaccines was just a few months, requiring frequent boosters,” McCullough added.

Hotez calls parents who choose not to vaccinate their children ‘victims’

In his interview, Hotez called for action — including more censorship — to counter what he called a “dark and accelerating” and “dangerous” anti-vaccine movement in the U.S. and globally that is “expanding and extending to childhood immunizations in the United States.”

“My worry is that this anti-vaccine movement, and it’s not misinformation or [an] infodemic, as many call it, it’s organized, it’s deliberate, it’s well-financed and it’s politically motivated … I worry that’s now globalizing to other countries on the African continent, in Asia and even Latin America,” he added.

On the topic of childhood vaccinations, Hotez said, “Parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids are victims” of this campaign, and called for medical schools to train doctors on how to respond to parents who oppose vaccinations.

“Pediatricians need to understand what the anti-vaccine ecosystem is, how it’s organized, how it operates, and to get educated about it,” he said. “I think that’s a first step … in our medical schools, in our pediatric residency training, in our conferences like this, being able to describe what this anti-vaccine monster looks like.”

But for journalist Rodney Palmer, formerly of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the increasing reluctance of parents to vaccinate their children is due to mounting concerns about vaccine safety. He said:

“The rising movement questioning the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines appears to be based on mounting evidence from government health data collection agencies and the life insurance industry.

“The fraud and cover-up of ivermectin as an effective prevention and treatment of COVID-19 caused a segment of the population to question the official guidance around vaccines — more so once they were mandated.”

Hotez blamed legacy and traditional media, as well as foreign governments, for fueling anti-vaccine sentiments.

“Fox News is now a source of anti-vaccine disinformation,” Hotez said. “If the parents are watching Fox News every night … They are going to be coming into your practice believing disinformation.”

Turning to social media, Hotez said, “Twitter, since Elon Musk has taken it over, has become an anti-vaccine site dominated by anti-vaccine groups and individuals who are monetizing the internet. They’re selling fake autism cures because they say vaccines cause autism, which they don’t.”

Hotez continues to be active on X.

Adversarial foreign governments are also to blame for propagating anti-vaccine rhetoric, according to Hotez. “For instance, the Russian government, the Putin government, is spreading anti-vaccine propaganda. The goal of this is to destabilize society and to have caused people to question authority,” he said.

Hotez did not provide any information to support this claim. Russia produces the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, under the auspices of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and The Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology — an arm of the Russian federal government.

Hotez calls ‘anti-vaccine movement’ a tool of the ‘far-right’

Hotez also used the interview as an opportunity to plug his upcoming book, “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning.” He said the book “describes [the anti-vaccine] ecosystem and its political leanings in detail.”

According to the book’s publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press, Hotez “explains how anti-science became a major societal and lethal force” and how “the anti-vaccine movement became a tool of far-right political figures around the world.”

In 2022, Hotez fiercely criticized looming Congressional hearings into a possible lab-leak origin of COVID-19 and whether the National Institutes of Health (NIH) prematurely discredited the hypothesis, dismissing this as an “outlandish conspiracy.”

However, Hotez’s own 2012 to 2017 NIH grant — totaling $6.1 million — for the development of a SARS vaccine had the aim of responding to any “accidental release from a laboratory,” in addition to a possible zoonotic (or natural) spillover of the virus.

In a June 2023 interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD’s chairman on leave, podcaster Joe Rogan offered to donate $100,000 to a charity of Hotez’s choice if he agreed to debate Kennedy.

Hotez — with the support of several legacy news media outlets and the American Medical Association — refused Rogan’s offer. He later claimed on social media that a “couple of anti-vaxers” “stalked” and “taunted” him outside his home after he declined the offer to debate Kennedy.

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | 2 Comments

War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu Addresses the US Congress

Lies proliferate and Congress cheers genocide in Gaza

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • July 26, 2024

To my surprise, Thursday morning there was relatively little coverage of the address to the US Congress delivered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday afternoon apart from a critical opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times regarding Israel’s war on the Palestinians. The article, by Megan K. Stack, asserted that “History will cast Mr. Netanyahu’s visit in deservedly ugly tones. He’s not a guest we should aspire to host, but he is a visitor we deserve. Gaza is our war, too, thanks to the indispensable military aid and political cover the US government has lavished on Israel as the death toll climbs… What exploded as a war of retribution against Hamas has looked increasingly like a broader campaign of annihilation — the slaughter of trapped civilians; the excruciating deaths of thousands of children; the destruction of hospitals, schools and much of the civilian infrastructure.”

Polls have shown for months that more Americans disapprove than approve of the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, but Congress and the White House are not interested in the views of the public when they are on the receiving end of hundreds of millions of dollars in “donations” from Jewish billionaires. Much of the coverage of the Netanyahu appearance in the mainstream media was toothless and even adulatory. It generally reflected what was hailed as Bibi’s “fiery speech” that “did not give an inch” which vowed to continue fighting until “total victory” is achieved. There was some coverage of how Netanyahu went so far as to portray the many thousands of demonstrators, some of whom were pepper-sprayed and arrested, who surrounded the Capitol as “useful idiots paid for by Iran.” The jibe, together with other calls to go to war with Iran, produced cheers and other paroxysms of joy among the leaping and waving Congressmen. Bibi might have been particularly personally aggrieved by Pro-Palestinian protesters successfully having released insects into the Watergate Hotel where he was staying. Online video showed maggots running amok on the dinner table.

The Netanyahu speech was light on serious analysis, but heavy on emotional appeals, repeatedly invoking the assertion that he and the United States, in its “ironclad” support of Israel, are fighting to save “civilization” and that “our enemies are your enemies” and “our victory will be your victory.” Predictably, the Congressmen and guests who filled the chamber bobbed up and down applauding wildly after nearly every sentence, producing 53 standing ovations, far exceeding Netanyahu’s record 29 obtained the last time he addressed Congress in 2015.

Notably some Congressmen with active consciences skipped the event, including Nancy Pelosi, who, after the fact, denounced the address in a post on X: “Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation in the House Chamber today was by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States. Many of us who love Israel spent time today listening to Israeli citizens whose families have suffered in the wake of the October 7th Hamas terror attack and kidnappings. These families are asking for a ceasefire deal that will bring the hostages home – and we hope the Prime Minister would spend his time achieving that goal.” Only one Republican, Tom Massie of Kentucky, did not participate after observing “Today Congress will undertake political theater on behalf of the State Department. The purpose of having Netanyahu address Congress is to bolster his political standing in Israel and to quell int’l opposition to his war. I don’t feel like being a prop so I won’t be attending.” Over 100 Congressional interns also boycotted the speech in a coordinated sick-out. “In an act of protest, many of us have pledged to call in sick today, the day of Netanyahu’s address,” read a statement from boycott participants. “We stand in full solidarity with the victims of Netanyahu’s actions. We call on all members of Congress to boycott the address and take a unified stand against what we believe is a ‘universal evil.’ We urge our representatives to respond to the collective will of the American people and reject any semblance of endorsement of Netanyahu’s actions.”

A substantial number of progressive and moderate Democrats, possibly as many as 136, also did not attend, suggesting that Netanyahu is not well regarded by many in the Democratic Party. Netanyahu spoke for an hour and the over-the-top reception he received from congress suggested that the government’s true loyalty is not to the voters who elected them but rather to a foreign leader who is a war-criminal, implying to some that Bibi is actually de facto the American president and Israel and the US are in practical terms one country, with Israel as the dominant partner in the arrangement. As an American who is deeply concerned about the US collaboration with Israel in what is indisputably a genocide in Gaza, watching this spectacle unfolding before my eyes was probably the most pathetic and humiliating hour which I have experienced in my lifetime. My country has done many bad things in the past century, but this alliance with unmitigated evil is the equivalent of selling one’s soul.

International lawyer John Whitbeck captured the feeling perfectly, writing how “After virtually every sentence uttered by the notorious war-criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, no matter how inane or blatantly false, virtually all the attending political prostitutes infesting the US Congress rose (53 times!) in a loud standing grovel of homage to their puppet-master, most long and loudly when he condemned pro-justice and anti-genocide protestors on American campuses and on the streets of Washington during his speech… Anyone watching this obscene spectacle could only conclude that the United States of America has ceased to be a respectable independent country and is now, as, indeed, it has been for many years already, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the State of Israel, with shared values which are rightfully rejected by the overwhelming majority of mankind. By their venality, cowardice, moral bankruptcy and near-treason, the American political class is flushing a once great country down history’s toilet, and the Global West, if it does not soon liberate itself from domination by the Israeli-American Empire, risks a similar fate.”

My particular gripe was over the fact that Netanyahu’s speech was full of uncontested lies and grossly exaggerated assumptions designed to get his audience roaring. The falsehoods were certainly recognizable as such by much of the audience, but Netanyahu was not challenged by anyone save only Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat of Michigan and the sole Palestinian-American member of Congress, who attended the speech while holding up a sign while many of her colleagues applauded Netanyahu’s comments. One side of Tlaib’s sign read “GUILTY OF GENOCIDE” and the other read “WAR CRIMINAL.” Perhaps some dissidents in the crowd were intimidated by the threat by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who describes support of Israel as “one of America’s founding principles.” Johnson strategically stationed extra sergeants-at-arms in the chamber to arrest anyone who tried to interrupt Bibi. It is a unique and almost certainly illegal expedient to manage any pushback against favored and protected speakers like Netanyahu. Interestingly, Capitol police did forcibly removed from the rear of the chamber six relatives of Israeli hostages who reportedly attempted to disrupt the speech. One said “I couldn’t take it anymore,” and Jon Polin, the father of Israeli American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, said to reporters “I came here wanting to hear one sentence: ‘Today I announce that the hostages are coming home,’ and I didn’t hear that once.”

Among the lies propagated by Netanyahu was a longish tirade on how humane the Israeli army has been in its conduct of the war, claiming that Hamas “These monsters raped women, they beheaded men, they burnt babies alive. They killed parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents.” As has been confirmed by reliable independent sources, that is all a lie, a piece of Israeli government generated propaganda. And he also claimed falsely that the famine taking place in Gaza is a myth as his government has been allowing so many relief trucks to go into the strip that the average Palestinian is getting 3,000 calories of food per day. But my favorite line was his pledge to live at peace with the Palestinians when they stop wanting to “kill Jews.” The reality is, of course, it is the Jews who are killing Palestinians in large numbers using American supplied weapons. The highly respectable British medical journal The Lancet estimates that Israel has already killed more than 186,000 Palestinians since last October most of whom are still buried under the rubble of their homes, but for Netanyahu only Jewish lives matter. And the unrelenting savagery of the Israeli soldiers has also been confirmed by multiple independent sources. Bibi would also do well to read the new Knesset law passed last week that completely rejects the idea of a unilaterally declared sovereign Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel, confirming that Israel’s intentions do not include living at peace with its neighbors.

And so ends another exciting week in what once passed for the Capital of the United States of America. The visit by Netanyahu benefited certain politicians since to be qualified as an American presidential or vice-presidential candidate, you need to be photographed embracing a grinning genocidal psychopath from Israel. It keeps the cash flowing and the newspapers are empowered to tell lies on your behalf. Unfortunately, when the Israeli monsters are being received by their groveling hosts it also speaks most clearly to what we have become as a country while serving as the Israeli lapdog. Washington must finally confront the reality that its bloody close embrace of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza is not advancing any US interests or promoting regional stability. In fact, it is doing the opposite. What has happened to America is the real tragedy.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

UK Plans to Build New Missiles to Target Russia Linked to Pentagon’s Mad Conventional Strike Scheme

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 26.07.2024

Sources told UK media this week that Britain has partnered up with Germany to develop and deploy a new intermediate-range missile designed to target Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Veteran Russian military observer Alexei Leonkov says the plan is inextricably linked to the Pentagon’s highly dangerous Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) initiative.

UK Defense Secretary John Healey spoke to his German counterpart in Berlin on Wednesday about a plan to jointly develop a new strategic missile with a 3,200 km range, The Times reported on Thursday, citing sources said to be familiar with the idea.

Once developed and fielded, the new missiles would be deployed in Germany, according to the publication, replacing the American ground-based long-range fires that Washington recently announced would be stationed in the Central European country beginning in 2026.

Both the American missiles and the proposed new British-German missile would have been prohibited under the 1988 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which banned the development, production and deployment of ground-based missiles in the 500-5,500 km range. Washington violated the treaty for years, according to Moscow, and unilaterally scrapped the agreement in 2019 and immediately began testing of new long-range weapons after falsely accusing Russia of possessing a ground-based missile system with a range beyond 500 km.

One of The Times’ sources said the US weapons expected to deploy in Europe in two years’ time are meant to “bridge” a gap in European NATO allies’ own capabilities. The source did not clarify what motivated the US to ask its allies to create an entirely new missile instead buying or agreeing to permanently field existing American ones.

A joint declaration from Healey’s talks with his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, mentioned a commitment to “undertake a long-term, comprehensive cooperation in the field of long-range capabilities” to provide “deep precision strike” potential. The details are reportedly still being worked out, with no additional information made available, besides the new missile’s expected role as a conventional fire designed to destroy enemy tactical nuclear delivery systems.

The Storm Shadow is currently the furthest-reaching conventional missile in Britain’s arsenal. It has a range of about 240 km, and has been deployed extensively by Ukraine in the NATO-Russia proxy war. The Taurus KEPD 350 is Germany’s longest-range missile system, and has a range of up to 500 km. Berlin has refused to send the air-launched weapon to Ukraine, expressing concerns that doing so would make Germany a “party to the war” because German troops would be on the ground training Ukrainians to use the missiles.

A British Defense Ministry spokesperson told The Times that the deepening UK-German defense relationship is currently “in early stages” and that work on “any new programs” has “not yet commenced.”

Europe Joins US’s Dangerous Conventional Prompt Strike Scheme

“The deployment of these missiles, both American and British, is connected to two things,” Alexei Leonkov, editor of Russia’s Arsenal of the Fatherland military affairs and technology magazine, told Sputnik, commenting on The Times piece.

“The first is the global concept, the strategy under which NATO has been restructuring toward since 2002, which is the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) concept, whose essence centers around the need to destroy the nuclear potentials of an adversary like Russia or China,” Leonkov said.

Thought up by the Bush administration, CPS envisions the mass deployment of thousands of conventional long-range missiles fired simultaneously in a massive surprise attack to destroy as much of an enemy’s strategic arsenal as possible, decapitate its leadership, and destroy remaining fired nuclear missiles using missile defenses.

The primary danger of the idea stems from the concern that it will make the prospect of a ‘limited’ nuclear war seem more palatable for Pentagon planners, and hence increasing the temptation to launch aggression.

The second reason for the British-German plan to develop a new missile centers around the fact that the Americans “are running late, or perhaps have lost the technologies used to create intercontinental missiles with a range beyond that of the Minuteman-3,” Leonkov argues.

“Why do the Americans want to switch up some of their missiles for European ones? I think that most likely, the missiles they have developed may not have proven entirely successful. Hence they’ve decided to attract a European consortium led by the UK.”

On top of that, as Washington’s strategic competition with China in the Asia-Pacific heats up, the number of missiles available for deployment in Europe may be limited, Leonkov believes.

The defense observer can’t rule out that the new British-German missile project may be focused on the creation of a maneuverable hypersonic vehicle, with Britain’s BAE Systems already working on a number of projects in this direction, and cooperating with US defense companies on their hypersonic projects.

In fact, these new European weapons may be the mystery “developmental hypersonic weapons” that the White House mentioned in its press statement earlier this month when it announced the deployment of new long-range strike systems to Germany from 2026 onward, Leonkov said.

Leonkov is confident that these new missiles’ mission will be to overwhelm Russian air and missile defense capabilities, and that if they are developed and fielded, Europe will become the first priority for a Russian strategic attack.

Recalling the European NATO missile threat which faced Moscow in the 1980s, Leonkov characterized the alliance’s present plans as an attempt to give rise to a Cold War 2.0, only this time far more dangerous.

“Russia today is not in a position where it has a vast security belt in the form of the Warsaw Pact countries that it did during the Cold War. Therefore, decisions will need to be changed radically. It’s clear that it will be necessary to strengthen the country’s anti-missile and anti-aircraft defense, but also take steps so that these missiles never appear on the European continent in the first place, while there is still an opportunity to do so,” the observer stressed.

Specifically, Russia will need to make clear in its nuclear doctrine that the deployment of such missiles in Europe will pose a direct threat, and give itself the right to launch a preemptive strike to eliminate this threat, Leonkov suggested.

Under its existing nuclear doctrine, Russia reserves itself the right to use nuclear weapons only in retaliation to an enemy attack using nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction, or in the event of conventional aggression so severe that it puts the existence of the Russian state in jeopardy. In June, President Putin hinted that Russia might revise its nuclear doctrine in response to existing threats.

What the US needs more than anything is “a quick solution that would close the issue for a while,” Leonkov said, referring to the constraints Washington will face in deploying vast numbers of long-range strike systems both to Europe and Asia. Russia’s main goal at this stage will be to “act proactively” to respond to this new threat, the analyst concluded.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

US armed Israel with 25,000-plus bombs, missiles since Oct. 7: Report

Press TV – July 25, 2024

The United States has reportedly armed the Israeli regime with upwards of 25,000 bombs and missiles since October 7, 2023, which marked the onset of Tel Aviv’s yet-ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.

The New York Times provided the figure on Thursday, citing the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a think tank.

According to the report, the American arms shipments to the occupied Palestinian territories throughout the war had featured over 20,000 unguided bombs, some 2,600 guided bombs, and 3,000 surgical strike missiles.

The regime launched the war following al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation staged by Gaza’s resistance groups against the occupied territories.

Ever since, it has been deploying the US-supplied projectiles against numerous civilian targets.

Earlier this month, the regime’s military radio reported that the Israeli Air Force had dropped a total eight US-manufactured JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs against the al-Mawasi refugee camp in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing and injuring a total of 390 Palestinians.

In all, the war has so far claimed the lives of more than 39,175 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded 90,257 others.

Last month, The Washington Post reported that the US had supplied the regime with over $6.5 billion in military supplies since the beginning of the brutal military onslaught.

The sheer increase comes while Washington’s annual so-called military aid for Tel Aviv stands at around $3.3 billion.

Washington has also used its veto power on several occasions so far to prevent the UN Security Council from issuing a resolution that would call for implementation of an immediate ceasefire in the war.

The untrammeled American political and military support for the regime comes despite an order issued by the International Court of Justice, the United Nations top court, on the regime back in January to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide in Gaza.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Only ‘Brute Force’ Can Force Draft-Age Ukrainians in Europe to Go Home to Face Near-Certain Death

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 26.07.2024

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has urged Warsaw’s European allies to create the right conditions to “encourage” Ukrainians who fled their country after 2022 to return home to fight Russia. There’s nothing short of violence that will force these people to comply, says veteran international affairs observer Dr. Gilbert Doctorow.

“We, as European countries, also need to help” Ukraine as the country faces weapons shortages, war fatigue and dwindling troop numbers, Sikorski said in an interview with Polish radio on Thursday.

“There are hundreds of thousands of potential recruits obliged to defend their motherland living in EU countries, and Poland is in the vanguard of helping Ukraine prepare these people for military service,” the foreign minister said. It’s possible to “impose such conditions” on Ukrainian nationals living in Europe that “will encourage them to fulfill their obligation to defend their homeland,” Sikorski stressed.

“The only ‘encouragement’ that could induce military age Ukrainians to return to their country to fight would be brute force,” Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, a veteran Russia and Eastern European politics expert, told Sputnik, when asked to comment on Sikorski’s remarks.

“These potential conscripts are not vacationing in our resorts. They are here precisely because they fled conscription, which means nearly certain death on the battlefield, given the way that day after day the Russians are killing or gravely injuring more than 2,000 Ukrainian troops, including… some of the country’s best trained and equipped military units,” Doctorow emphasized.

Sikorski’s proposal is illustrative of a modern Polish political class “as delusional as their forefathers” in its fanatical hatred of Russia, according to the observer.

Fortunately, other European countries will hopefully “have some residual commitment to due process, not to mention a certain pacifist leaning,” which should prevent them from following “the despicable recommendations of Mr. Sikorski,” Doctorow believes.

Europe’s political institutions in general are staffed by “followers, not leaders,” Doctorow stressed. Accordingly, their main weathervane on what policy to pursue comes from across the Atlantic, not the EU’s Eastern flank.

“They look to Washington and what they see today is the possibility of a Trump victory which will mean that the USA throws Ukraine under the bus, as it is fashionable to say today. With their nose to the wind, they will not expose themselves to ridicule and protest by following the Polish example,” the observer said.

Poland is currently home to about one million of the estimated 4.25 million Ukrainians who fled Ukraine for European Union countries following the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown Russia-NATO proxy war. Another 5.5 million have gone to Russia.

The present conflict has thrust Ukraine into an acute, unprecedented and perhaps terminal demographic crisis, with the state’s efforts to forcibly mobilize men aged 18-60 (with those age 25 and above eligible to be sent to the front) threatening to wipe out the country’s working and fighting-age male population. The crisis has become so serious in recent months that Kiev has resorted to recruiting women.

Media, even in the West, have increasingly reported on instances of recruiters drafting the mentally and physically handicapped, grabbing draft-age men off the streets and authorities handing out lengthy prison sentences to conscientious objectors. This heavy-handed approach, a general sense of war weariness and the constant scandals surrounding Volodymyr Zelensky and his allies have given rise to a fledgling resistance movement, including a wave of arson attacks across Ukraine targeting recruitment centers and vehicles.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

War of Attrition & the Dishonest War Propaganda

Ukrainian FM Tells Beijing Kiev is Ready for Peace Talks, As Russian Troops Advance

By Glenn Diesen | July 26, 2024

In a war of attrition, the army of the adversary is destroyed before seizing territory. Storming well-fortified positions creates high levels of casualties, which undermines the main objective of favourable attrition rates vis-a-vis the adversary.

The narrative-driven media have called the conflict “stagnant” as the frontlines have moved very slowly, and pretended that Ukrainian casualties have been very low. This deception has been deliberate to sell the illusion that Ukraine can win as a requirement for maintaining public support in the West for keeping the war going.

Much like in Afghanistan, the obedient media committed themselves to the narrative. The unreported reality was that the Ukrainian army was being destroyed, while Russia built a powerful army. Now that Ukraine’s army is at breaking point, Russia has begun taking territory with much less resistance.

How can we end the war? There is overwhelming evidence that Russia considers NATO’s incursion into Ukraine to be an existential threat. As NATO refuses to negotiate about restoring Ukraine’s neutrality, which was lost in February 2014, territorial conquest is perceived by Moscow to be the only solution.

Yet, the media shames anyone who recognises this reality by denouncing them as carrying water for Putin as they are “legitimising” or “supporting” Russia’s invasion. Those calling for peace negotiations are smeared as traitors, while the war propagandists can claim to “stand with Ukraine” as their Ukrainian proxies fight and die in a war that cannot be won.

Calls for negotiations are dismissed as it is unacceptable to surrender Ukrainian territory, which would embolden Russia to pursue similar conquests. In reality, this only became a conflict about territory after negotiations about restoring Ukraine’s neutrality were rejected. NATO refused to accept a neutral Ukraine between 1991 and 2014 when approximately only 20% of Ukrainians wanted NATO membership, and they knew it was a red line for Russia. NATO undermined the Minsk agreement for 7 years despite announcing it was the only peaceful path to resolve the conflict. Negotiations with Russia were then rejected in 2021 even as the US and NATO acknowledged Russia would invade if NATO did not end its bid to expand. In the Istanbul peace agreement in April 2022, Russia agreed to withdraw all its troops from Donbas if Ukraine restored its neutrality, although the US and UK sabotaged the agreement. Yet, the political-media elites insist that the territorial dispute is the source rather than the consequence of the NATO-Russia conflict.

The result? Ukraine loses territory and a horrific amount of men every single day. The war is also entering a new stage as casualties increase dramatically when frontlines collapse and an army must pull back. Russia is now breaking through all the frontlines and Ukraine is about to be hit by a powerful Russian fist. Yet, the political-media elites who purportedly “support Ukraine” have criminalised diplomacy and negotiations. Hungary, who holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, is even punished by the EU for simply engaging in diplomacy with Ukraine, Russia, and China to end the war.

In every war, the call for peace is denounced as support for the adversary while in-group loyalty and patriotism must be expressed as war enthusiasm. After every war, we also acknowledge that the war narrative was full of falsehood and we believe that we have learned an important lesson for the next war.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Video | , , , , | 1 Comment

Von der Leyen’s legacy

By Hugo Dionísio | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 26, 2024

The mainstream political class of the European Union, and its member states, has predictably ended up prolonging the agony, decadence and subservience of European affairs to U.S. interests. And now, for another five years, we will have to live, again, with Ursula von der Leyen.

Moreover, in the future, we will all remember her speeches on “value chain security”, in which Ursula’s great merit was to further reinforce the world’s dependence on Chinese value chains, demonstrating that, contrary to what she announces with as much anger as hatred, her tariffs, sanctions and conditioning cause us as much pain as they relieve the others. In the EU, in 10 years we will have given up the largest reserve of mineral, food, energy and raw materials in the world and, unless an uprising begins, we will also have given up the largest consumer market on the planet and the one that will grow the most in the coming years. These are von der Leyen’s great merits!

Given this record, you might think that the next five years would see a reversal of course. But no. Ursula von der Leyen will continue to infight against the EU’s own peoples, telling them one thing and doing the opposite, and one of the areas in which we can see, without any reservations whatsoever, that the European Union – this European Union – has given up on its indigenous peoples, is in relation to what is currently one of the main sources of social tension: immigration.

Classifying the current situation of the European labor market as being affected by serious “labor shortages”, the European Commission’s communication, entitled “Strengthening the social dialogue in the European Union: harnessing its full potential to manage just transitions”, is clear about von der Leyen’s intentions in this regard.

Don’t let the apparently rational discourse fool you: “strengthening the social dialogue” should be read as “guaranteeing social peace in the face of measures that will further squeeze wages and living conditions”; “harnessing its full potential” should be read as “increasing the reserve army of labor to contain wage growth”; and “managing fair transitions” should be read as “ensuring that everyone will be forced to adopt the EU’s economic and social model, without reservation”.

As always, by wrapping her draconian intentions in occasional discursive flourishes, Ursula von der Leyen is making Europe poorer, less independent and more dangerous. Much more dangerous. Every time she opens her mouth, it’s best to interpret her words as having a hidden meaning, which is often the opposite of what she actually said.

On the road to increasing the exploitation of Europe’s peoples, the European Commission rightly begins by noting the demographic changes that have taken place in recent decades. Europeans are simply having fewer children. The result is that the native European working population has been shrinking and the forecast is that, today, being around 265 million workers, in 2040 this figure will be around 250 million and in 2050, 240 million. In other words, a reduction of one million per year.

Faced with a problem of this magnitude, the long-term consequences of which will not only be the reduction of native peoples, but also the emergence of vast deserted and unused areas, the perishing of certain cultures and traditions, would require an in-depth study and measures capable of reversing the trend of population decline and falling fertility and birth rates.

So, what is the European Commission proposing to solve what it identifies as serious “labor shortages”? The measures proposed by the European Union are all aimed at promoting an abrupt increase in the stock of available labor. Through what it refers to as “activation policies”, the EU wants – it says – to achieve “zero” unemployment, which is the first contradiction we can identify. So, you want to achieve “zero unemployment” while, at the same time, increasing the stock of available labor?

The truth is that the “activation policies” envisage employing young NEETs (Not in Employment, Education or Training) and assessing the impact of “some retirement pensions”, i.e. assessing the extent to which these pensions are sending people capable of working into retirement, deactivating them instead of keeping them in the job market. This means focusing on the so-called “active ageing” market. Another measure is to identify “pockets” of available labor that may exist among disabled populations, “emancipating” these people, which would be laudable, but not when done for the wrong reasons. As we’ll see later.

Another important measure that is presented is intra-European mobility, transferring the nationally available workforce to the richer countries, leaving the rest without the investment they have made in education and training, aggravating the already unequal European division of labor, continuing to concentrate the activities with the highest added value and the highest wages in the northern countries and making the rest simple reserves of cheap labor, either to supply the richer ones or to install activities with lower added value and lower wages, perpetuating regional asymmetries. And all this, Ursula von der Leyen does, while stating the opposite objectives.

As for what the European Commission calls “promoting working conditions”, it aims to promote early entry into the labor market by promoting internships, apprenticeships and vocational education, diverting many young people, particularly the poorest, away from higher education and into early vocational training. As statistics show, young people in vocational education tend to go on to higher education far less often than those in general education. In this way, an elite is built up and entrusted with top management, keeping the rest in the middle ranks and migrants in low-skilled jobs.

But it is in solving the “labor shortages” on most undervalued activities that the EU is putting all its investment. The European economy still requires large amounts of labor for activities that use it intensively. In this case, the EU’s plans include strengthening migration policies and attracting the necessary workers from outside the EU. And this is how so many people who say they are against what they refer to as a “demographic replacement policy” end up supporting a European Union that wants to make migration policies one of its main strategic goals in attracting workers. In this way, the EU intends to establish what it calls a “European talent pool” and a “Platform for Labor Migration”. The two measures are based on attracting workers from third countries.

Now let’s compare these proposals with the following data:

  • The average unemployment rate in the European Union is around 6.5%, so there are still around 17 million workers to be placed, a significant proportion of them young workers (14.5% are unemployed) between the ages of 18 and 25. Although the EU says that it is necessary to improve the qualifications of these people and that the labor gaps are more acute in some sectors than in others, the truth is that there is still a lot to be done at home to achieve “zero unemployment” before looking for a workforce in third countries.
  • The potential for robotization, automation and digitalization of the European economy is still very high, especially in the less advanced countries, which in itself would free up huge amounts of available manpower that could be used in other sectors if this potential were to be realized.
  • In general, the European Union does not develop policies that protect the birth rate and the right to parenthood, and even less that protect women of childbearing age, who so often have to give up fertility to the detriment of a career.

So, if these tasks have not yet been accomplished, why does the European Commission want to put the elderly, young teenagers, the disabled and invalids to work? Why does it want to attract qualified and less qualified workers from abroad? The reason is clear and has to do with wage restraint. The intention is to do this by increasing the so-called ” reserve army of labor “. More available labor, more demand for work, lower wages. It’s simple. That’s not to say that wages won’t rise, but they will rise at a slower rate than the economy, leading to a loss of purchasing power and to a relative decline in living conditions.

And you don’t have to go very far to understand why the European Union is going down this road. The first answer is as clear as water: cutting off relations with the Russian Federation has made the value of raw materials more expensive, and we need to compensate for this by reducing wages, not least because the strategy is to compete with China on global markets for the same type of products.

And if we need to compensate for this loss of energy and cheap raw materials, why do we compensate with lower wages? For example, in Portugal, the Confederation of Tourism, which brings together entrepreneurs linked to tourism, has proposed a “Labor Simplex” to the government, to make it easier to hire migrant labor from third countries. In other words, European employers are proposing a policy to facilitate migration from third countries. This type of solution is also advocated by Eurobusiness, which brings together European employers.

Migration policies and the flooding of the European Union with migrant labor are policies demanded by European employers, sponsored by the political class of the neoliberal and globalist center and from the interests akin to the transnational economy, and are aimed, in the face of falling unemployment rates and the need to adopt a more rational labor management policy, at ensuring that there is still enough labor available for companies not to be forced to increase wages.

Another of the fallacies that we can identify in Ursula von der Leyen’s speech comes to light when she refers to the need to “de-risk” China because its cheap products are destroying jobs in Europe. These EU proposals show that it’s not about “protecting jobs”, but rather about profit margins and levels of accumulation that put more than 20% of the wealth produced each year in the hands of just 1% of the richest. If it were about protecting “jobs”, the policies would be different. Protectionist? Yes, perhaps. But they would essentially be aimed at protecting jobs and the quality of life of Europeans.

And this is where we catch another fallacy. In this communication, which notes the “geographical changes”, there is not a word about improving the conditions of stability in employment and in life, about access to home ownership, which would allow adults of childbearing age to settle down and start a family; instead, there is a focus on “mobility”, the mobility that forces young people to leave poorer countries for richer ones in search of better salaries, but which, in many situations, is done at the cost of postponing the intention to settle down and start a family.

Promoting a more sustainable and stable lifestyle for young people, combating job insecurity, investing in cheaper housing and support for birth and parenthood, would call into question the economic model of division of labor in the European Union. It would jeopardize the interests of the most powerful countries in attracting the most qualified workers. And that’s not to change, it’s to maintain and even worsen.

The European Union, this European Union, is thus giving up on renewing its native populations, opting for the easiest path, the one that doesn’t call into question the neoliberal, globalist and hegemonic project that it is. In this sense, we could well say that if there is a project against the family and the native peoples of the member states, it is this European project itself. But, above all, it is against all these things, because it is a project against the interests of the peoples themselves, whatever they may be.

When everyone expected that the introduction of new technologies and the consequent increase in productivity – humanity has never produced so much and with such quality in such a short time – would lead to a reduction in normal working hours, since fewer resources are needed to produce the same thing, the European Union is telling us the opposite. It’s telling us that we need more and more human labor. Even if you have to get that labor from third countries. And this is where all those who say they are being “invaded” are silent. And they keep quiet because they know that migrant workers only come because they find work, because the employers attract them in many ways. Those same interests live off the terrible conditions in which these workers arrive and live, because the greater the effort they make to cross the Mediterranean, or to find decent housing, the lower their wages will be and the more degrading the housing conditions they accept.

Those who criticize migrant workers for living in crowded houses, for filling the streets where we circulate, accusing them of taking our jobs, have never, ever seen them accuse those who attract them, who develop the policies and the economic model that legitimizes all this. I have never seen them accuse a European Union that leaves the people, all the people, behind.

A European Union that has not only given up, but is using its own people!

This is the legacy of Ursula von der Leyen and all those who support her!

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Economics | | Leave a comment

Most Germans Oppose US Missile Deployment, Move May Spark Protests – Politician

Sputnik – 26.07.2024

A majority of Germans disapprove of the plans to host long-range US missiles in the country and may want to protest the move, Ralph Niemeyer, chairman of the German Council for Constitution and Sovereignty, told RIA Novosti.

The Pentagon said on July 10 that starting 2026, the US would begin episodic deployments of long-range weapons in Germany as part of planning for enduring stationing of these weapons in the future. This includes SM-6, Tomahawk and developmental hypersonic missiles.

“We are completely against this as an organization, but the majority of German nationals are strongly against the deployment of any missiles as well,” Niemeyer said.

A survey published by Stern magazine on July 16 showed that 47% of Germans were concerned that US missile deployment would increase the risk of war between NATO and Russia, while only 17% said it would not.

Niemeyer that similar discussions on missile deployment took place in the early 1980s and suggested that the move could hurt the public image of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told media over the weekend that it would be too “naive” of Germany to say “no” to what she described as enhanced deterrence and additional counterweapons.

Scholz explained the decision to deploy long-range US weapons to the country by Russia’s military buildup. Russia has for years objected to NATO’s enhanced presence on its borders, with President Vladimir Putin saying on several occasions that Moscow was not going to attack NATO. The Kremlin said that Russia did not threaten anyone but would not ignore actions that represented a risk to its interests.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Pompeo offers Trump an escalatory ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine

RT | July 26, 2024

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that Donald Trump would be open to dramatically ramping up US support for Ukraine if elected president. Pompeo’s plan, however, contradicts almost everything Trump has said about the conflict to date.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Thursday, Pompeo and co-author Mark Urban, a neoconservative strategist, argued there is “much evidence” that Trump would give Ukraine enough aid to dictate peace terms to Russia.

The two policy hawks claimed that Trump’s supply of Javelin missiles to Ukraine in 2017 and his decision not to lobby against the passage of a $61 billion military aid package for Kiev this spring prove that he would be willing to embrace a hawkish plan to tilt the balance of power in Kiev’s favor.

Such a plan would involve ramping up sanctions on Moscow, expanding US energy production to drive down Russia’s oil and gas revenues, forcing NATO members to spend more on defense, and offering Ukraine a $500 billion “lend-lease” fund to purchase arms.

Ukraine would also be given permission to use any kind of weapons to strike targets anywhere in Russia, Pompeo and Urban wrote, claiming that this gloves-off approach would force Moscow to the negotiating table, where it would accept Ukraine joining NATO and the EU, and agree to the “demilitarization” of Crimea, where Russia’s Black Sea fleet is based.

Pompeo’s plan has not been endorsed by Trump, and the former president has repeatedly promised to deliver a more peaceful end to the conflict. Speaking to Fox News after naming Ukraine critic J.D. Vance as his running mate last week, Trump described Russia as “a war machine” that cannot be defeated by the Ukrainian military.

After a phone call with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last Friday, Trump announced that “both sides will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence and paves a path forward to prosperity.”

Trump has never revealed how he would force both sides to the table, telling NBC News last year that “if I tell you exactly, I lose all my bargaining chips.” According to a Bloomberg report earlier this year, Trump would consider cutting off military aid to Kiev unless Zelensky accepted the loss of some of Ukraine’s pre-conflict territory and made peace with Moscow.

However, Trump has expressed support for lending Ukraine money at a preferential rate, and for pressing NATO’s European member states to up their defense spending.

Pompeo, who served as Trump’s CIA director and then secretary of state, is one of numerous Republican figures attempting to shape the policies of a potential second Trump presidency. Last month, a group of Trump’s key advisers handed the former president a dramatically different proposal for Ukraine, which stipulated that Kiev would only get more American weapons if it agreed to a ceasefire based on current battle lines and peace talks with Moscow.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Slanders against China over Ukraine crisis fall apart on their own

Global Times | July 26, 2024

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Wednesday. The Ukraine crisis has entered its third year, with the conflict ongoing and risks of escalation and spillover still present. As the highest-ranking Ukrainian official to visit China since the outbreak of the conflict, the discussions and the signals sent during the talks, as well as whether there are signs of peace in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have garnered international attention. Particularly in light of China’s successful mediation efforts in re-establishing diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and promoting internal reconciliation of Palestine, there are heightened expectations for China’s constructive role in promoting peace talks in the Russia-Ukraine issue.

As part of China’s recent diplomatic efforts to mediate international and regional hotspots, China’s proactive invitation to Kuleba to visit has garnered international attention. According to Reuters, citing Ukrainian accompanying officials, the talk lasted over three hours, longer than planned, and was “very deep and concentrated.” The word “deep” is rarely used in diplomatic settings. In a statement after the meeting, the Ukrainian side stated, “China’s role as a global force for peace is important.” This reaffirms China’s role as a peacemaker and highlights the effectiveness of the meeting.

As a direct party to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Ukraine has shown greater interest in China’s positions than before. This has led international public opinion to cautious optimism about the direction of the Russia-Ukraine issue and to pay more attention to China’s role in major regional conflicts. Even Western media, which often distorted and smeared China’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine issue, is now speculating whether China intends to preempt the US in playing the role of peacemaker. These discussions in various directions all confirm that China’s efforts to promote peace are increasingly prominent and have become an acknowledged reality in the international community.

The distortions and slanders against China by the West have largely fallen apart on their own. The fairness of China’s position has been once again validated, and China’s proposals have withstood the test of time. Western efforts to stoke the fire have only prolonged the conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in a recent interview, “We have to finish the war as soon as possible.” More and more signs point to the fact that the resolution of all conflicts will ultimately return to the negotiating table; all disputes will eventually be resolved through political means. This is precisely what China has consistently advocated.

From the handshake between Saudi Arabia and Iran, to the historic reconciliation within Palestine, to the complex and challenging Ukraine crisis, why does China’s position repeatedly manage to gather the broadest consensus in the international community? First, it is because China maintains an objective and fair stance and is committed to mediation and promoting dialogue. Second, China adheres to the concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security, working tirelessly to maintain world peace, stability, and development. In the face of crises, China does not stoke the flames or take advantage of the situation for its own gain. This stance is visible to the international community and the parties involved in the conflict.

There is an Arabic proverb: “Seek knowledge, even if you have to go as far as China.” Now, the saying “Seek peace in China” is also becoming popular. On the complex international stage, China’s role as a responsible major power maintaining world peace is increasingly recognized. As China called for in the Global Security Initiative Concept Paper in 2023, “countries need to work in solidarity to foster a community of shared security for mankind and build a world that is free from fear and enjoys universal security.” China’s stance is clear and consistent: between peace and war, it chooses peace; between dialogue and sanctions, it chooses dialogue; between cooling down and fueling the fire, it chooses cooling down. On the Ukraine crisis, China remains straightforward and sincere, without political self-interest or geopolitical manipulation. China is truly dedicated to mediation and promoting dialogue to achieve a cease-fire and an end to the conflict.

Of course, the Ukraine crisis did not form overnight, and resolving the issue will not be accomplished in a single step. It requires the joint efforts of the international community. Recently, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken once again claimed at the Aspen Security Forum that “China can’t have it both ways.” Many in the West remain stuck in the mindset of “supporting one side,” which only complicates and intensifies the conflict. Influential major countries, in particular, should align with China to create conditions and provide support for direct dialogue and negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Only when major powers contribute positive energy rather than negative energy can there be an early glimpse of a cease-fire in this conflict.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Russian Foreign Ministry Slams Paris Olympics Ban on Athlete in Hijab as ‘Segregation’

Sputnik – 26.07.2024

MOSCOW – France’s decision to ban an athlete in hijab, a traditional Muslim headscarf, from the Paris Summer Olympics is a “blatant act of segregation,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

This comes a day after French sprinter Sounkamba Sylla said she was banned from the Olympic opening ceremony because she wore a hijab.

“Another blatant act of segregation took place in Paris yesterday… It was made clear that even prior to the Games, this sporting event had nothing in common with the purposes of the Olympic movement … and in all regards contradicted the Olympic spirit,” Zakharova said.

She compared the ban to discrimination faced by Russian and Belarusian athletes and journalists at the Games, adding that the “logic of cancellation” was now affecting French sportspeople.

“One more time [the West] violates the spirit of sports outside of politics. Contrary to claims of some French officials that they are striving for diversity and freedom of expression, those who disagree are demonstrably and ostentatiously sanctioned,” Zakharova said.

The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said that the Paris Olympics now had no reason to be seen as an open, fair or democratic sporting event.

The 2024 Summer Olympics will be held from July 26 to August 11, while the Paralympics will run from August 28 to September 8.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | | 1 Comment

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