WASHINGTON – Twitter said on Tuesday that it received more than 16,000 government information requests for user data from over 85 countries in the first half of 2022 alone.
“Twitter received over 16,000 government information requests for user data from over 85 countries during the reporting period. Disclosure rates vary by requester country,” the social network said in a press release.
The United States, France, Japan, Germany and India were the top five requesting countries for the period, the release said.
Twitter also received about 53,000 legal requests from governments around the world to remove content, with the majority of requests coming from Japan, South Korea, Turkey, and India, the release added.
In the first half of 2022, Twitter required users to remove 6,586,109 pieces of content that violated the company’s rules – an increase of 29% from the second half of 2021, according to the release.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | France, Germany, Human rights, India, Japan, United States |
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Something fishy here.
First, corporate executives don’t give away $787 million of shareholders’ money without a test of the claim in court. The uncontested amount is so large that one wonders if Fox News itself paid it or whether this almost $800 million was a gift funneled through an uncontested lawsuit to fund Dominion by our ruling elites. Once elections are determined by how voting machines are programmed, the people are disenfranchised.
Second, it is not defamation to report the news. Tucker Carlson reported the claims of experts. That is news reporting. Dominion’s defamation lawsuit should have been filed against the experts. It wasn’t, because the experts had the evidence.
Third, Experts supplied evidence that the Dominion voting machines could be programmed to count votes differently from how the votes were cast; experts supplied evidence that the machines could be hacked; experts supplied evidence that the voting machines were connected to the Internet. Fox News could have called these experts as expert witnesses. By agreeing to settle, Fox News refused the evidence its day in court. Why?
A possible explanation is that Fox News, voluntarily or involuntarily, participated in an orchestration that established the precedent that reporting news different from the narrative, or news that is unfavorable to a person, company, or government institution, is defamation. Think about what this means. A prosecutor who charges a person with a crime has defamed the person. Truth becomes unreportable. Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh could be charged for defamation, and for being a Russian agent, for reporting that the US government destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline.
When we see the few truth-tellers who are the stars of their organizations jettisoned–Tucker Carlson from Fox News, Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone, Glenn Greenwald from The Intercept, James O’Keefe from Project Veritas, President Trump charged under a non-existent law, and Wikileaks’ Julian Assange imprisoned for a decade without due process, we must face the fact that there is an organized conspiracy to suppress truth. We are experiencing the completion of The Matrix in which expressed doubt or even unspoken suspicion of official narratives are criminal offenses.
Truth-tellers receive almost nonexistent support. The inescapable conclusion is that in the Western world truth has no future.
Tyranny is upon us.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | United States |
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We recently discussed how stories of North Korean weapons shipments to Russia were now being proven by saying things like, “Here’s a train with weapons on it; you can’t see them, but believe us, they’re inside.” But John Kirby, the coordinator of strategic communications for the National Security Council, showed that he was more than qualified. On March 30, 2023, he said:
- North Korea is working to send dozens of kinds of weapons and munitions to Russia to be used in the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine
- North Korea seeks to secure food supplies in exchange
- The potential arms deal is being arranged through a Slovakian arms dealer, identified as Ashot Mkrtychev, against whom the US Department of Treasury has imposed sanctions.
Kirby voiced fear “that North Korea will continue to back Russian military activities against Ukraine,” despite the lack of proof that North Korea sent huge quantities of ammunition to Moscow late last year.
Kirby emphasized that any arms deal between North Korea and Russia would directly violate a series of UN Security Council resolutions prohibiting the sale of weapons to and from the North.
What do we see when we look at it this way? The fact that the loud discourse of alleged deals was stated by an influential person should apparently be deemed evidence, and no more corroboration is required. Despite the fact that any clarifying inquiry of the class, “how exactly the DPRK sends such large quantities of weaponry to Russia,” leaves no stone unturned. As the author is already being ironic, Kirby is only credible if one believes the DPRK invented teleportation.
In reality, Defense Department Spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder tried to soften his tone, he was actually disputing what Kirby had said. According to him, “there currently was no indication that additional weapons or munitions have been delivered to Russia, but we continue to keep a close eye on it.”
An examination of the name of the US sanction recipient indicates the types of arguments Washington is employing to sever military ties between Moscow and Pyongyang. To begin with, Mkrtichev was described as a “Slovakian citizen with Azerbaijani roots” in various Russian-language periodicals recognized by the Russian Federation as foreign agents (hence no references). This amount of investigation recalls an old joke about how to spell Iran or Iraq? Given the tense relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the fact that the person’s first and last names are both plainly Armenian makes us laugh.
But what was the mysterious Ashot up to? According to a press release from the US Department of the Treasury, Mkrtychev, 56, a resident of Bratislava, worked with DPRK officials between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 to buy more than two dozen weapons and ammunition for Russia in exchange for items like commercial airplanes, raw materials, and goods to be shipped to the DPRK. More precisely, he “might be involved in the organization of deals.” “Schemes like the arms deal pursued by this individual show that Putin is turning to suppliers of last resort like Iran and the DPRK.” An individual has been sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for seeking to arrange arms sales between Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Now the questions. First, it is not very clear who Mkrtychev is. If he had even a passing knowledge of the armaments trade, the US Treasury’s statement would have likely indicated this for propaganda purposes. This “no name” was going to organize an epic transaction on an epic magnitude. Therefore, how was he to supply commercial aircraft as opposed to a large quantity of raw materials and goods? The author would like to recall a few important details. First, the North continues to be isolated, and trade across the border with the DPRK occurs in a number of places that are tracked by satellites. On the Russian-DPRK border, for example, there is just a train bridge. Ships cruising around the DPRK that could be used to dodge sanctions are also being monitored, and the UN panel of experts report gives specific data on ships that often trade coal by turning off transponders and regularly accessing Chinese ports. Mkrtychev must possess the ability of a James Bond 007 secret agent in order to organize the aforementioned plot.
Now the question is, why do we need an obscure middleman from Slovakia for two countries who share a geographical border and direct diplomatic ties, even if Russia and North Korea are interested in backdoor deals? Previous Kirby stories were a little more realistic in such a context.
Furthermore, it is not at all evident from the American comments whether any of the deals Mkrtychev mediated were successfully executed. Yet, a failed attempt to do business with the DPRK, from an American perspective, should be penalized in the same way as a successful one, because intent is punishable…
This prompts the author to consider the following points.
As part of their so-called “open source intelligence” operation, the US deploys neural networks to search the unprotected Internet for relevant content using a keyword system, providing them access to data on a variety of forums or chat rooms. Therefore, it seems possible that American “intelligence” discovered a method of getting around the sanctions by compiling a list of a few pertinent statements. Added to that is a misunderstanding of the context, as previously stated, when the author of a telegram channel about the secrets of Russian domestic politics in general may be a schoolboy fantasist.
Finally, this situation reminds him of the preparation for a fraudulent plan, which he had recently encountered on multiple occasions. The fact is that various fraudsters periodically try to cash in on the situation of DPRK. Such people come in contact with North Korea, depict themselves as sympathetic to the country’s situation, and occasionally reach Pyongyang to be photographed with a number of important people. Then they come in contact with a “third party” and try to buy or sell anything while appearing as someone with the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and Kim Jong-un’s personal trust. As middlemen, they receive commissions for risky and difficult work, which accounts for the majority of their earnings when a deal fails for whatever reason, even though the scale closely resembles the American reports.
I would venture to guess that we have dealt with something similar. However, any fraud of this nature provides the US State Department with a good excuse to impose sanctions. Although it is unlikely that such a person will visit the United States, it is not difficult to add a new victim to the sanctions list.
In order to better keep track of them and to be more critical of the loud propaganda remarks, I want to highlight three points as I draw to a close another text regarding flaws in evidence.
- When a high-ranking individual states a fact, the evidence for that fact is not that it was uttered by the “respected person” but, at the very least, some other form of confirmation, like “Yesterday I was in a cab, and the driver told me that…” Even a mention of an unnamed but knowledgeable “expert” is better than none at all.
- When an act is offered to you, it makes sense to try to understand the technical intricacies of it because, usually, it is ignorance of the details that makes an act physically impossible. Consider “mortar shootings,” the exchange of urine samples stored in canisters that require identification to open, or the immeasurable amounts of armament shipments.
- Remember that fabricated stories follow specific literary canons when the story being presented is too evocative of a blockbuster storyline. Reality can also be unrealistic, but not in the same way as the proven plot. Provocation is indicated by overdramatization.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, the Russian Academy of Sciences
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception | Ukraine, United States |
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By Lucas Leiroz | April 26, 2023
A prominent Slovakian politician recently stated that the Atlantic military alliance must stop raising “false hopes” in Ukraine about NATO membership in the future. The parliamentarian’s words reinforce what had already been said for a long time about the infeasibility of accepting the entry of a country under military conflict into the western coalition. It remains to be seen whether NATO leaders will actually observe the Slovak request.
The statement was made by the speaker of the Slovak parliament, Boris Kollar. He warned that the alliance should make clear the impossibility of a Ukrainian membership, given that Kiev is currently in a military conflict. Kollar said that welcoming Ukraine into the alliance would be “unacceptable” for most member countries. He also stated that he considers the absence of a definitive answer on the topic to be irresponsible, as this would generate “false hopes” in the candidate country.
“A country in the midst of a military conflict cannot possibly join NATO. It is unacceptable. I think it would never be ratified by the member states. It is very irresponsible to raise false hopes about it,” Kollar said during an interview to a Slovak news channel.
During a European interparliamentary conference in Prague, Kollar also warned about the risks of war and unprecedented violence in Europe, since the entry of Ukraine would lead to the alliance immediately triggering the collective defense clause, creating a scenario of world conflict. Therefore, Kollar stated that the matter should not be considered appropriate for now, but that there would be no objections if peace was achieved in Ukraine.
Kollar’s words come as a response to a recent statement by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in which the leader stated that Kiev would be part of the “Euro-Atlantic family” and that all member states had agreed that “Ukraine will become a NATO member.” The pronouncement seems untrue and somewhat hypocritical, since, despite not ruling out Kiev, the alliance has avoided moving forward with the membership process, delaying as much as possible the discussions around the issue. However, there are a number of reasons why Stoltenberg and other alliance leaders are continuing to hold these “false hopes” for Kiev.
Indeed, the possibility of admission to NATO is a central factor in keeping the Ukrainian war machine active. Kiev’s armed forces continue to fight the Russians because they have the hope of full integration into the West. There is a strong belief among Ukrainians that the deployment of regular NATO troops will also become a reality in the future, as they really believe in the existence of an international alliance against “Russian aggression”, being deceived by their own propaganda.
Regardless of the viability of Ukrainian membership in the alliance, these hopes need to be maintained, otherwise Ukrainian soldiers will certainly feel “betrayed” and “abandoned”, resulting in phenomena such as mass surrender, desertions and disobedience of orders from superiors. This would be Ukraine’s “moral defeat” and would lead in the short term to defeat on the battlefield as well. So, to avoid this kind of situation and keep the troops’ morale high, the West needs to keep giving Kiev hope.
For Western public opinion, the situation is a little more complicated. Although exposed to every form of pro-Kiev propaganda – added to the censorship of pro-Russia content – ordinary citizens of NATO and EU countries do not want to engage in a world-scale war, which is why Ukrainian membership would face high popular resistance, possibly leading to waves of mass protest and crises in the legitimacy of local governments. However, at the same time, if NATO officially rules out Ukrainian membership, it is possible that public opinion, which is constantly brainwashed by pro-Kiev media, will also react badly and feel that their governments “betrayed” Ukraine.
For these reasons, the discourse is uncertain, ambiguous and focused on maintaining “false hopes”. Stoltenberg makes it clear that he agrees with the Ukrainian membership, but says that this will happen “in the future”, keeping the project as something distant and not in need of immediate discussion. The problem is that this ambiguity and uncertainty does not please the leaders of member countries of lesser relevance in the alliance, as in the case of Slovakia and some others. These states do not participate in the bloc’s superstructure and their voices are rarely heard by NATO’s central command. In practice, the result of this is that these nations really do not know whether or not in the near future they will be forced to send their troops to war against Russia.
In this sense, the words of the top Slovakian parliamentarian express the real desire of some NATO countries: to obtain the certainty that they will not need to get involved in a big war in the near future. While they want to integrate with the West and support Kiev, these states are not willing to accept their own annihilation just to fulfill the promise of Ukrainian membership.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist and a researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | NATO, Ukraine |
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South Africa’s recent flipflopping on its membership in the “International Criminal Court” (ICC) proves that its neutrality in the New Cold War is under threat from Western pressure. President Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday that “the governing party has taken that decision that it is prudent that South Africa should pull out of the ICC” due to its “unfair treatment” of certain countries. Shortly after, however, his office claimed that he misspoke and reaffirmed South Africa’s commitment to the ICC.
Nevertheless, there are reasons to suspect that this isn’t the case, especially since Ramaphosa exuded supreme confidence in sharing Tuesday’s announcement about his country’s plans to pull out of that global body. It’s therefore unlikely that he simply misspoke and much more probable that Western diplomats immediately intervened behind the scenes to pressure him into walking back this policy. They presumably acted so swiftly due to the strategic significance of everything that’s at stake right now.
South Africa will host this year’s BRICS Summit in late August, but the ICC’s warrant for President Putin’s arrest complicates his participation in person. Had Ramaphosa initiated the process for withdrawing his country from that organization on the legitimate pretext that he earlier claimed would be employed, then there’d be no ambiguity about the Russian leader’s safety if he showed up there. Since this policy was just walked back, however, there are reasons to suspect a Western provocation if he appears.
Even though South Africa declined to arrest former Sudanese leader Bashir despite the ICC having previously demanded that all members do so if he sets foot on their territory, President Putin’s security can’t in good conscience assume that they’ll make an exception for him too. The most responsible decision amidst that summit host’s latest flipflopping might therefore be for him to participate virtually in order to not take a chance that something terrible could happen.
While the organizational proceedings would still likely unfold as planned in that scenario with only few modifications, very serious and potentially even irreparable damage might be inflicted on BRICS as a result. China and India could conclude that South Africa is an unreliable partner seeing as how it would have capitulated to Western pressure, while they’d also expect Brazil to do the same since it’s a party to the ICC too and its top diplomat earlier implied that his country might arrest President Putin if he visits.
BRICS in its present form can theoretically continue to function as the engine of financial multipolarity in spite of the Russian leader being unable to visit either of those two member states for its summits, but the organization might struggle to attract new members whose countries aren’t part of the ICC. After all, the leaders of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkiye could potentially be served similarly politicized warrants one day too that would preclude their participation in BRICS summits hosted by ICC states.
The US has an obvious interest in dissuading them and others from joining BRICS as official members, and its speculative behind-the-scenes pressure on South Africa to remain committed to serving the ICC’s arrest warrant against President Putin could have a powerful deterrent effect on candidate countries. This year’s summit is supposed to see its incumbents reach a consensus on expanding their organization, which is incredibly urgent to do considering that at least 19 states are vying to join.
The larger context in which South Africa just flipflopped on its ICC commitments is therefore of outsized importance not just for BRICS’ future, but by extrapolation, also for the emerging Multipolar World Order as well due to that group’s function as the engine of financial multipolarity. With this in mind, it can be concluded that the US’ clandestine pressure campaign is a major power play in the New Cold War aimed at impeding BRICS’ ability to collectively challenge the dollar anytime soon.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | BRICS, ICC |
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The newly elected president of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel is an unusual European politician. He is the second president in his country with a military background but the first without political experience.
He never saw combat duty and is an arm chair military strategist but lionised as a “senior NATO leader” — whatever that may mean. The high noon of Pavel’s professional career in the military was reached in 1993 when while serving in the UN Protection Force in Bosnia, he led a team of 29 soldiers to evacuate a French military outpost under siege by Serbian soldiers, which he executed after overcoming obstacles that slowed down the operation such as fallen trees which his soldiers had to remove from the road. France decorated Pavel.
At any rate, the 61-year old soldier-politician has hit the road running when barely 7 weeks into his new job as head of state, Pavel threw a curve ball claiming China cannot be a reliable mediator between Russia and Ukraine due to Beijing’s secret craving for “more war.”
Pavel assessed that China gets cheap oil, gas, and other resources from Moscow in exchange for promises of “partnership” and its interest lies in prolonging the status quo “because it can push Russia to a number of concessions.”
These remarks could have been dismissed as those of a greenhorn but for his fame as a “senior NATO leader” and the Czech Republic’s reputation as a chattel and cats-paw of Washington. Hence the big question: What is the Biden administration up to?
The obvious thing will be that Pavel’s remark on “cheap” oil and gas from Russia to China is a gross simplification of a complicated story. Europe was receiving Russian gas and oil for decades at low prices on the basis of long-term contracts until the EU, under American pressure, took the idiotic decision to sanction Russia.
Whereupon, Russia turned to other markets, principally Asian, China being one of them. The rest is history. What’s the point of sitting upon the ground and telling sad stories?
Europeans should feel worried that even after the war ends, once Russia diversifies its export markets, they may never again get “cheap” Russian gas. (By the way, China is not the only beneficiary, as Europeans who continue to buy Russian oil and petroleum products from Indian companies at much higher prices would know!)
Pavel spoke in the context of the expected announcement by Joe Biden seeking the presidency once again in 2024. One hugely consequential part of Biden’s announcement on Tuesday is that the prospect of the Ukraine war ending between now and 2024 November elections in the US can now be deemed as practically nil.
The only way it can happen otherwise is if the US outright wins the war and candidate Biden claims victory. But the reaction from Moscow shows that what is in the cards is an escalation in Ukraine that is fraught with great risk of a direct conflict between Russia and the US.
Top Kremlin officials came out on Tuesday with a spate of statements on an impending showdown with the Biden administration. The Russian media disclosed that Russia’s new state-of-the-art Armata T-14 main battle tank has been deployed on the Ukrainian front lines.
Moscow anticipates large scale US interference in Russia’s internal politics to create conditions that would undermine the country’s stability, as part of a grand design to trigger a break-up of the Russian Federation, as had happened to the former Soviet Union. (here)
Moscow estimates that the Biden administration will try hard to bring about a regime change in the Kremlin. Above all, Moscow no longer rules out that the US escalation in Ukraine may aim to create conditions posing grave threat to the Russian state. ( here)
The former president Dmitry Medvedev vividly spoke of such a scenario warning explicitly that Russia may be compelled to resort to first use of nuclear arms if its existence is threatened, underscoring that paragraph 19 of the country’s nuclear doctrine states that nuclear weapons “can be used when aggression is carried out against Russia with the use of other types of weapons that endanger the very existence of the state. It is essentially the use of nuclear weapons in response to such actions. Our potential adversaries should not underestimate this.”
Specifically, with reference to Biden’s mental health and failing faculties, Medvedev also tweeted: “Biden has made the decision, after all. A daring geezer. In place of the American military, I would immediately make a fake trunk with false nuclear codes in case he wins, so as to avoid fatal consequences.”
On the other hand, the spectre that haunts the Biden administration is that Europe cannot easily extricate itself from its relationship with China and it is the interests of Old Europe’s economic heartlands that will ultimately determine EU policy.
Make no mistake, just 3 countries of Old Europe — France, Italy and Germany — account for more than a half of EU’s GDP and they also happen to be China’s largest trading partners in the EU. Amidst the brouhaha over French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent endorsement of a close industrial relationship with China, what has gone unnoticed is that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is on the same page as Macron. Equally so with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The European industry is also loathe to lose China as a privileged trading partner, after having lost Britain and Russia.
New Europeans like Pavel may have different priorities, being the strongest trans-atlanticists in the EU, but East Europe makes up just 10% of the EU’s GDP and does not speak for the EU, despite the media hype its leaders have lately enjoyed as “frontline states”, due to Anglo-American patronage.
Suffice to say, there is trepidation in the American mind as to whether the EU will follow the US into a confrontational position with China in the coming months, or would strive to become more independent of the US, with all the consequences that would ensue. Equally, from the viewpoint of Old Europe, the gnawing doubt is whether a future US administration would want to align with Europe even if Europe were to align with the US.
On balance, it is difficult to visualise the EU fully aligning with the US in an all-out conflict with China over Taiwan, agree to freeze Chinese official reserves as it did last year with Russia, and stop investing in China.
The EU economy is simply not built for cold-war style relations, as it has become too dependent on global supply chains. All things taken into account, therefore, the strong likelihood is that the pro-China lobby in Germany will win this debate. In fact, in the process, the Franco-German alliance may be rekindled, too.
Pavel’s demonisation of China as an evil spirit stalking Europe can be put in perspective. His is a surrogate voice mouthing Biden’s angst that as the Ukrainian military is comprehensively ground down in the battlefields by the Russian forces in the months ahead, Europe may join hands with China to bring the war to an end.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | European Union, France, Germany, NATO, Ukraine, United States |
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By Drago Bosnic | April 26, 2023
When talking about various reasons as to why Russia launched its counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe the points usually revolve around historical and strategic/geopolitical aspects of the Ukrainian conflict. And while those points certainly stand regardless, there are other crucial reasons, almost entirely overlooked or even censored by mainstream media. One of those is the aspect of NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) weapons in Ukraine, all of which fall under the category of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
The topic of “biological research facilities“, as infamous neocon warmonger Victoria Nuland ever so euphemistically put it, received a significant amount of attention from media around the world, while the mainstream propaganda machine tried suppressing it. On the other hand, by far the most overlooked aspect of the Ukrainian conflict has been the covert transfer of US nuclear technologies to the Neo-Nazi junta. CNN, the infamous US neoliberal mouthpiece, was the first major mainstream propaganda outlet that broke the story last week.
According to the report, Washington DC has “sensitive nuclear technologies” in at least one (former) Ukrainian nuclear power plant (NPP). CNN claims that “the US has already warned Russia not to touch them”, citing a letter Department of Energy (DoE) allegedly sent to Moscow’s Rosatom corporation. CNN supposedly reviewed the letter (dated March 17) in which the director of DoE’s Office of Nonproliferation Policy, Andrea Ferkile, told Rosatom that the Zaporozhye NPP in Energodar “contains US-origin nuclear technical data that is export-controlled by the United States Government”.
Firstly, the idea that Russia is in any way intimidated by a third-rate US bureaucrat who allegedly “ordered it not to touch anything” is simply absurd. Secondly, both Washington DC and its Kiev puppets are parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which means that transferring “sensitive nuclear technologies” to the Neo-Nazi junta is a direct violation of that agreement. Worse yet, the US is now (supposedly) threatening Russia through a director of its Office of Nonproliferation Policy, an institution that was supposed to prevent “sensitive US nuclear technologies” from ever reaching Ukraine.
This blatant hypocrisy is only matched by the sheer magnitude of US irresponsibility and WWIII brinkmanship for even considering the possibility to transfer such technologies to an unstable, genocidal and deeply corrupt regime in the middle of a direct confrontation with a nuclear-armed superpower next door. What’s more, CNN admits that the “sensitive US nuclear technologies” in question “could be used in a way that undermines US national security interests”. Once again, this is disturbingly similar to US claims about the so-called “biological research labs”.
“It is unlawful under United States law for non-authorized persons, including, but not limited to, Russian citizens and Russian entities such as Rosatom and its subsidiaries, to knowingly and willfully access, possess, control, export, store, seize, review, re-export, ship, transfer, copy, manipulate such technology or technical data, or direct, or authorize others to do the same, without such Russian entities becoming authorized recipients by the Secretary of the US Department of Energy,” the alleged letter reads.
Once again, the US is trying to enforce the self-proclaimed exterritoriality of its laws. However, in the case of Russia, this practice is not only legally void, but is also impossible to implement, especially after the city of Energodar and the Zaporozhye oblast (region) where the NPP is situated voted to join Russia last year. Obviously, CNN’s motivation to report the story was anything but altruistic, as it revolved around an attempt to portray US “demands” to Russia as anything more than a laughing matter to Moscow.
However, what surely isn’t a laughing matter is the seriousness of Russia’s approach to the situation. And for good reason, given the fact that the Kiev regime boasted about its intentions to acquire nuclear weapons nearly a decade before the start of the SMO (special military operation). As early as March 2014 and as late as February 2022, the Neo-Nazi junta has been openly declaring its intention to get WMDs, specifically nuclear weapons, to say nothing of the constant grumbling of many Kiev regime politicians about how they “made a big mistake for giving up on nuclear weapons in 1994”.
This only shows their lack of knowledge on the subject, as Ukraine itself never actually had nuclear weapons, because all those deployed there were Russian-made/controlled. However, this doesn’t stop the Neo-Nazi junta from claiming this Soviet/Russian legacy as its own, despite rabidly Russophobic disdain for all things Soviet. Another important segment of Russian legacy they were happy to harness is its world-class missile technology that Kiev is using to produce strike weapons with possible nuclear warheads to target major Russian cities, including Moscow.
Although Russian air defenses have been successful in downing such missiles, the Neo-Nazi junta could still use other Soviet legacy assets to target the Eurasian giant. Or worse yet, these could be provided by the US/NATO or any of its vassals and satellite states. The fact that the Kiev regime never publicly renounced its intention to acquire nuclear weapons that could be used to arm such missiles is quite telling. It’s also yet another confirmation that Russia’s SMO was the only way to prevent the Neo-Nazi junta from going ahead with its plans. And even if such guarantees were ever given, with the diplomatic scandal surrounding EU/NATO lies about the Minsk agreements, Moscow could hardly ever take them seriously.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Nuclear Power, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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Russia has condemned the UK’s decision to send depleted uranium shells to Ukraine, saying the move marks an “all-out escalation” after the British Defence Ministry confirmed the radioactive weapons were already in Kiev’s hands.
Moscow’s UK embassy issued a statement on Tuesday after senior official James Heappey acknowledged that the British DU munitions had arrived on the battlefield, to be fired from Challenger 2 tanks also supplied to Ukraine.
“James Heappey’s comments are a grim testament to the ruthlessness of the Anglo-Saxons’ policy of all-out escalation of the ‘proxy conflict’ they themselves unleashed in Ukraine,” it said. “He cynically stated that London is not monitoring the deployment of these weapons and has no obligation to eliminate the consequences of their use following the end of the conflict.”
“It has by now become self-evident that the West intends this country to become not only an anti-Russian military “shooting range,” but also a radioactive landfill – with all the ensuing grave consequences for the health of local residents and the environment in the region.”
The embassy went on to say that the British government would be responsible for the effects of the “toxic ammunition” and could not escape accountability by passing them off to Ukrainian forces.
In an interview with RT last week, Russia’s envoy to Britain, Ambassador Andrey Kelin, warned that DU munitions will be a “terrible thing… for the agriculture and for the people” of Ukraine, saying radioactive residue could contaminate the country’s water and soil “for at least six generations.”
Both UK and US officials have disputed the purported health hazards associated with DU shells – which use a dense uranium core to improve their armor-piercing capabilities – and deny allegations that the weapons were linked to a spike in cancer and birth defects in Iraq.
Heappey has claimed depleted uranium carries only “low” health and environmental risks, pointing to a 2007 government study. He later added that the Defence Ministry would make no effort to track where Ukrainian forces use British-supplied DU rounds, and had “no obligation” to assist clean-up efforts after the conflict.
However, according to Doug Weir, an expert with the Conflict and Environment Observatory, uranium munitions generate “chemically toxic and radioactive DU particulate” when they strike hard targets, adding that the dust poses “an inhalational risk to people.” Other recent research has also indicated the weapons could produce “adverse health outcomes” given the “chemotoxic and radiotoxic” properties of DU.
Moscow has urged foreign powers to cease all weapons shipments to Ukraine, arguing the aid would not deter its military aims but only prolong the conflict. After the UK announced its decision to supply depleted uranium rounds to Kiev last month, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Western nations would like to “see Ukraine completely destroyed” and are acting with “absolute recklessness, irresponsibility and impunity.”
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Russia, UK, Ukraine |
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By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 26, 2023
Last week, before he left Fox News, Tucker Carlson delivered a commentary on corrupt media, corrupt politicians and “truth-telling.”
According to Carlson, the question to ask when assessing public figures isn’t, “Who is corrupt?” — because there are “too many to count.”
“The question is, Who is telling the truth?” Carlson said. “There are not many of those.”
Carlson singled out Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Children Health Defense’s chairman-on-leave who is seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. president, as one of the few truth-telling public figures.
“It’s nice to have a truth-teller around,” Carlson said. “It’s helpful because suddenly the stakes are very high.” He added:
“Kennedy knew early that the COVID vaccines were both ineffective and potentially dangerous, and he said so in public to the extent he was allowed.
“Science has since proven Robert F. Kennedy Jr. right — unequivocally right. But Kennedy was not rewarded for this. He was vilified. He was censored.”
Carlson — who later on his show interviewed Kennedy — said mainstream media channels other than Fox News “maligned” Kennedy for his skepticism of the COVID-19 products.
“The other channels took hundreds of millions of dollars from Big Pharma companies and then they shilled for their sketchy products on the air — and as they did that, they maligned anyone who was skeptical of those products,” he said.
Carlson pointed out that Kennedy and his father, Robert F. Kennedy — who sought the U.S. presidency 55 years ago — said things “you weren’t supposed to say” and were “hated” by some for their honesty.
For instance, Kennedy Sr. spoke out against the Vietnam War because “he believed — with a lot of evidence — that it was not helping the United States in any way,” Carlson said.
Similarly, Carlson showed his viewers a clip from Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 Democratic presidential campaign announcement speech, in which Kennedy said the U.S. government’s involvement in Ukraine appears to be “prolonging” the war rather than “shortening” it.
Carlson also showed clips from mainstream media outlets’ coverage of Kennedy’s April 19 announcement, in which news commentators called him “extreme” and “dangerous.”
“Notice,” Carlson said, “not there, not anywhere is a point-by-point rebuttal of his [Kennedy’s] actual points.”
“They never engage him on the actual facts. They can’t — they would lose. Instead, they impugn his character,” he said.
Now that Kennedy is Biden’s leading primary opponent, Carlson said, the media’s message to him is, “shut up — you’re not allowed to talk.”
Carlson said he did not find Kennedy to be “extreme,” but instead “rational and calm and well deliberated.”
“He [Kennedy Jr.] is deeply insightful and — above all else — he is honest, no matter what you think of the substance of what he says,” Carlson added.
April 26, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Militarism, Russophobia, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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Science Minister George Freeman has announced a record £52billion investment in public research and development over the next three years. That is £775 for every man, woman and child in Britain. So what are they spending your money on? You probably guessed it: the first grants under the scheme are being made to produce more biotech vaccines and industrial quantities of fake meat.
Freeman announced that traditional agriculture is inadequate to the task of feeding the world. Accordingly, the newly funded Cellular Agriculture Manufacturing Hub will spearhead the development of processes to produce key food groups such as proteins sustainably and cost-effectively to feed a growing global population.
The Hub will undertake ‘upstream engagement with a wide range of stakeholders including consumers, food producers and retailers to promote transformational food development’. Translation: very soon the government will be rewriting our dinner menus.
According to Professor Marianne Ellis of the University of Bath, who will benefit from the first funding award, ‘This would enable production of foodstuffs and the vast array of co-products that are the same as traditional products produced in a system similar to brewing.’
Bearing in mind that no specific processes have yet been developed or their products tasted, the claim of similarity with traditional food and the analogy with the brewing of beer stumbles at the first hurdle. In fact what is being proposed is biotechnology on an industrial scale using processes which are already known to be energy-hungry, risk-intensive and subject to genetic contamination.
In my book Your DNA Diet, I discuss research illustrating the value of natural food based on DNA to maintain our health. We have enjoyed a co-evolutionary relationship with these foods for millions of years. Genetically processed foods will not have this same relationship. Industrial production of such foods will also change the relationship of consumers with producers, placing food supply in the hands of giant corporations.
The second recipient of government research largesse will be the Future Vaccines Manufacturing Hub led by Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert at Oxford University and Professor Martina Micheletti at University College London. This group is a follow-on from the Oxford University-AstraZeneca collaboration which gave us a Covid vaccine that is no longer used around the world possibly because of the danger of adverse effects.
The Vaccine Hub intends ‘to make it possible to undertake mass programmes of non-invasive vaccination’. For your reference, non-invasive delivery systems currently under development include oral and nasal vaccines, and vaccines built into foods.
The Vaccine Hub will develop cellular-level technologies. As we have noted previously, the basis of life as we know it is the cell. Genetically altering cellular processes is inherently mutagenic and undermines the very basis of biostability and health.
The press release from UK Research and Innovation announcing these new grants is headlined: ‘Vaccine and food manufacturing hubs will save lives and cut carbon’. It makes ample use of phrases designed to sound reassuring such as ‘Food production revolutionised’, ’A hub for health and life’, and so on. The release also reassures us that Covid vaccines have been ‘game-changing’ – they certainly have, but not in the way originally intended. The current high level of excess deaths in the UK and elsewhere, disproportionately affecting those in receipt of Covid vaccines, tells its own story.
The hubs are each associated with a long list of private-sector partners from the biotechnology industry. To facilitate the commercialisation of biotech products, the UK government is loosening the regulations requiring the public to be informed about what they are eating. The Genetic Technology Act, which passed into law last Thursday, ‘removes plants and animals produced through precision breeding technologies from regulatory requirements applicable in England to the environmental release and marketing of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms)’.
The key change here is merely semantic: genetic manipulation is now described as a ‘precise’ process and will thereby escape regulation and labelling. Watch Dr Michael Antoniou of King’s College London discuss the dangers of gene crop deregulation in the new Act.
New UK policies appear to be at least in part a response to the huge pressure exerted by scientists, academic institutions and biotech firms on the government to continue the massive level of funding they enjoyed during the pandemic. All this is being undertaken in the absence of any credible official evaluation of the impact, advisability, cost and safety of pandemic policies. It is of note that independent evaluations such as this paper are pointing to huge mistakes, which the new grants appear poised to repeat. A form of madness has gripped our politicians as they rush ahead without bothering to inform themselves of potential dire consequences.
April 25, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree establishing a mechanism for temporarily taking over foreign assets. In its first practical application, the Federal Property Management Agency was put in control of Russian subsidiaries of Fortum and Uniper, energy companies based in Finland and Germany, respectively.
The decree allows for temporary state takeover of assets deemed to be “of paramount importance for the stable functioning of the Russian energy sector,” the agency said in a statement. Germany’s Uniper SE held a 83% stake in Russian energy generation and distribution company Unipro, while a Finnish state-owned company Fortum Oyj controlled over 98% of its local subsidiary, with a total power generation capacity of 11,2 and 4.7 gigawatts respectively.
The move will “ensure the uninterrupted operation of companies significant for the national economy and eliminate the risks of the political position of a number of unfriendly countries influencing” the security of Russia.
Original owners are considered to have temporarily lost control of the property, but not forfeited it outright. The measure “helps preserve the investment climate in Russia and reduce the outflow of capital from the country,” the agency added.
The decree also establishes a legal framework that enables the Kremlin to take over more foreign assets should other countries seize Russian private or government property in their jurisdictions, or threaten national, energy, or economic security of Russia.
Germany and Poland have so far seized an estimated $22 billion in assets belonging just to two Russian companies, Gazprom and Rosneft, according to media estimates. In June 2022, Berlin took over Gazprom Germania GmbH. In November, Warsaw confiscated Gazprom’s 48% stake in the EuRoPol GAZ joint venture, owners of the Polish portion of the Yamal-Europe pipeline.
The Polish subsidiary of Novatek, which dealt in liquefied natural gas and other hydrocarbons, was also seized. Its assets were put up for sale earlier this month.
In September last year, Germany seized Rosneft’s stake in three major oil refineries, accounting for 12% of the country’s total refining capacity. Rosneft’s complaints against the move were dismissed by German courts. A law enacted by the Bundestag on April 20 may allow outright expropriation of Russian assets by Germany.
The US government has sought to seize Russian state and private assets frozen under the Ukraine-related sanctions and turn them over to the government in Kiev, a move that critics have said would change the very nature of sanctions from an instrument of pressure to purely punitive.
April 25, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | Finland, Germany, Poland, Russia, United States |
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Christian and Muslim persecution in Israel ignored by the White House
The United States government, in its incessant bullying of foreign nations to get them to see the world the way that the cabal that runs Washington sees it, ironically often cites such fictions as the “rule of law” that guarantees such “rights” as “free speech” and “freedom of religion” to justify its illegal actions. Right at the moment, the United States maintains garrisons illegally in both Iraq, where the country’s parliament has asked it to depart, and also in neighboring Syria where the government is fighting an insurgency that seeks regime change and is supported by both the US and Israel. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 is analogous to what Russia has done in Ukraine though Moscow certainly had stronger compelling national security reasons for doing what it did while the United States had to construct a series of lies to provide as an excuse to topple Saddam Hussein, an objective strongly supported by Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who added his own fabrications to the exchanges.
One has to look to the media to discern the reasons why some developments are wrapped in “religious freedom” or “democracy promotion” while other actions are ignored or even covered-up. Currently the right-wing Jewish extremists who have gained control of Israel’s government are engaging in something like genocide directed against the Palestinian population, many of whom are actually Israeli citizens though possessing second class rights when they are enforced at all. Israel regards itself legally as a Jewish state, so what is the “rule of law” for those who are not Jews and how does it perceive “religious freedom?” Considerable government pressure is being exerted to force the “terrorists,” as the Arab residents are frequently called, to emigrate or face the consequences if they choose not to. It is directed most particularly against those Palestinians who are leaders in their community and it has therefore focused on the major Arab religious groups, both the Christians and the Muslims.
Ironically, though one can read in the US media almost daily accounts of alleged surging anti-semitism and the myth of perpetual Jewish victimhood, the ongoing brutality against the Palestinians, including their religious foundations and practices, is hardly noticed. That is the fundamental problem as the silence or perhaps the willful connivance of the American media and entertainment industry, firmly in the grip of the Jewish community and its “standards,” has shaped the narrative and limited any propagation of contrary opinion. It is a process that is similar to what has taken place with any discussion of the Ukraine war in the mainstream media, where there is also a heavy Jewish footprint.
There have been two major incidents involving Jewish assertion of its occupation of and control over all of Jerusalem that have recently impacted on the country’s religious minorities during their holy seasons, Easter and Ramadan. The first consisted of two consecutive middle-of- the-night attacks by Israeli police and soldiers in full riot gear armed with stun grenades and clubs on Palestinians spending the night at the al-Aqsa mosque on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the third holiest site for Muslims. The Palestinian men were there in part to protect the building from Jewish settlers who have been threatening to destroy it. The Palestinians inside were beaten by police, who had broken into the mosque, and as many as 350 mostly young men were later arrested for resisting.
The second incident was an order by Israeli police limiting the regular Christian gathering on Holy Saturday, referred to as the “Holy Fire” celebration, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which normally attracts 10,000 worshippers, to no more than 1,800 attendees. On the day of the ceremony, Israeli police reacted with heavy-handed tactics to block hundreds of Orthodox Christians from gathering at the church, which is at the center of the old Christian quarter of the city. Several Coptic Orthodox priests were particularly targeted in front of the church and beaten with batons. Israeli forces closed off access to the site with roadblocks and barriers at the gates of the Old City, permitting only small numbers of Christians and those with government permits to enter.
Both steps restricting freedom of religion were taken without any consultation with the respective communities and without any evidence that there would be disorder or violence without the police interventions. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Israeli action as a “blatant attack on the freedom of worship” and a “flagrant attack on the existing political, historical and legal status quo in occupied Jerusalem and on Israel’s obligations as an occupying regime in Jerusalem” that
“violate international law, international humanitarian law and signed agreements.” The Christian churches’ leadership also separately objected to no avail and responded to the threat by observing that Palestinian Christians are themselves under increasing pressure from the Israeli government to force them to emigrate. Christians constituted 20% of the Israeli population in 1947 but now are fewer than 2%.
Indeed, since the rise this year of Israel’s most far-right government in history, Palestinian Christians frequently experience Jewish Israeli discrimination at all levels. They directly observe how their 2,000-year-old community in the Holy Land has come under increasing attack. In March, two Israeli men assaulted and beat a priest in the church sited at the Tomb of the Virgin Mary. In February, a statue of Jesus was vandalized by an American Jewish tourist at the Church of the Condemnation, where Jesus was flogged and sentenced to death while a month earlier, dozens of Christian graves were desecrated by two Jewish teenagers at the Anglican cemetery on Mount Zion, where Jesus’s Last Supper took place. In November, two soldiers from the Israeli army’s Givati Brigade spit at the Armenian archbishop and other pilgrims during a procession in the Old City. Christian clerics living in Jerusalem claim that they are frequently physically assaulted and spat on by settlers and other Jewish Israelis when they are walking in the streets. The Israeli government has also been increasingly confiscating church properties for various projects that benefit only the Jewish community. When Christians seek redress from the Israeli courts they are almost always denied justice.
Now one would think that the United States, with its dedication to “rule of law” and religious freedom would at a minimum condemn the Israeli actions, particularly the unprovoked violent attack on peaceful Muslims during their high holy days at al-Aqsa. But no, and this is how a State Department spokesman Vedant Patel described it: “We are concerned by the scenes out of Jerusalem. And it is our viewpoint that it is absolutely vital that the sanctity of holy sites be preserved. We emphasize the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem and any unilateral action that jeopardizes the status quo to us is unacceptable. We call for restraint, coordination and calm during the holiday season.”
So the State Department believes that Israel did not initiate the violence, which is, of course, false. And Patel felt compelled to add an additional comment on recent home-made rocket attacks coming from Lebanon in the wake of the police and army actions: “We condemn the launch of rockets from Lebanon and Gaza at Israel. Our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad and we recognize that Israel has the legitimate right to defend itself against all forms of aggression.” Don’t you love the frequent assertion of the claim that Israel has a “right to defend itself?” Patel was in fact wrong about Gaza firing missiles – that was a fiction invented by the Israeli government to explain why it had responded with a bombardment of its own directed against the long-suffering Gazans. The hostile rockets, which did little damage and injured no one, actually came from a Palestinian group in Lebanon. Apparently, the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors do not have the right to defend themselves or to respond to Jewish violence. Rule of law and religious freedom appear to depend on who is attempting to exercise those rights and under what circumstances.
Interestingly, the New York Times had its own bizarre description of what took place at al-Aqsa. Their correspondent wrote how the crisis started when Palestinians “barricaded themselves” overnight inside the building before being “cleared” by police from the mosque in the middle of the night, to “protect Jewish worshippers” who were reportedly observing the Passover holiday in the vicinity. In other words, the violence was initiated by the Israelis but it was to prevent any threat against Jews, even though there is no evidence that anything like that was intended and why Jews were present at close quarters to a Muslim holy site is not clear. By one report, extremist Jews may have been preparing to sacrifice a goat.
On April 14th, to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Joe Biden demonstrated the he is not as brain dead as is often claimed. He knows exactly who owns him and knows how to pile it on. His proclamation reads: “During Yom Hashoah and throughout these days of remembrance, we mourn the 6 million Jews who were murdered during the horror of the Holocaust—as well as the millions of Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQI+ individuals, and political dissidents who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Together with courageous survivors, descendants of victims and people around the world, we renew our solemn vow: ‘never again.’”
Clearly Joe had not gotten the message that in America every day is de facto holocaust remembrance day as measured by the frequent appearance of that expression in the media. But he makes sure of the trans gay vote by including the LGBTQI+ folks as victims of the Nazis. Perhaps Joe should pay some attention to the Americans murdered by the Israelis, to include the 34 crewmen of the USS Liberty killed by the Israeli military in 1967, activist Rachel Corrie crushed by a bulldozer in 2003 and most recently Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh killed by the Israeli army last May. Israel has not been held accountable for any of those deaths and it knows it can get away with anything, including targeting and killing US citizens.
Next week, the GOP will be doubling down on the message as Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy leads a delegation of twenty bipartisan fawning congress critters to Israel. He has carefully billed it as his first foreign trip as speaker, underlining what an important ally Israel is. He will address the Knesset on May 1st and there will no doubt be a lot of kissing and hugging with Bibi and many pledges of undying commitment to the Jewish state. The Israeli government is already describing it as “Speaker McCarthy’s speech in the Knesset will be a sign for the strong and unbreakable bond between Israel and the US.” And no doubt lots of money will appear in the pipeline so Israel can defend itself. Just don’t mention Israel’s recent premeditated murder of Shireen Abu Akleh back or “religious freedom.” And to hell with the Palestinian Christians. They have been hanging around for 2,000 years but are on their way out.
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.
April 25, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Human rights, Israel, New York Times, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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