The “rules-based order” concept is sold by the West as upholding the UN-enshrined system, but it’s really about the arbitrary implementation of double standards designed to advance America’s interests. Certain objective observations are exploited in pursuit of manipulating perceptions about a given issue, which is intended to precondition the targeted audience to support a unilateral change to the status quo that always in one way or another serves the US’ interests.
For instance, the observation that the Communist Party of China (CPC) hasn’t ever controlled Taiwan is exploited to extend credence to the latter’s tacit separatist agenda, which is in turn spun in order to justify the West comprehensively expanding its relations with that island. Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye just taught the West a lesson about how this feels after sharing his thoughts on the legal status of former Soviet Republics.
In his personal view, “Even these ex-Soviet countries don’t have an effective status in international law because there was no international agreement to materialize their status as sovereign countries.” He also referenced Crimea’s original legal status as part of the USSR’s Russian constituent prior to it being gifted by former Soviet leader Khruschev to Ukraine. Since Ambassador Lu shared these thoughts during a TV interview, it was assumed by many that he was officially reflecting a new Chinese position.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning clarified her country’s stance on Monday in response to a related question from TASS :
“After the demise of the Soviet Union, China was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the [newly created] countries. Since the inception of diplomatic relations, China has always adhered to the principle of mutual respect and equal treatment while fostering bilateral relations of friendship and cooperation. China respects the sovereign status of the republics that were founded after the Soviet Union disintegrated.”
As can be seen, there exists no change in China’s position, thus meaning that Ambassador Lu was indeed speaking in a personal capacity.
Nevertheless, he didn’t explicitly say so when sharing his thoughts on this subject, though it’s unlikely that this was a faux pas from the man whose civilization-state has literally millennia worth of diplomatic experience. Rather, it was almost certainly the case that he was tasked with indirectly sending them a message on a “plausibly deniable” basis about how the “rules-based order” concept feels whenever it’s applied to imply an impending unilateral revision of the status quo with respect to Western interests.
South China Morning Post columnist Alex Lo compellingly explained this in his piece about how “China’s questioning sovereignty of post-Soviet states is tit-for-tat over Taiwan”. Basically, Beijing finally got fed up the West flirting with tacit Taiwanese separatism, hence why it had one of its most prominent diplomats in that de facto New Cold War bloc make a tit-for-tat comment in the way that Ambassador Lu did. By doing so, China taught the West a lesson that it’ll never forget even if they don’t ultimately learn from it.
If regional military developments take a decisively negative turn against Russia, however, then China might feel forced to arm its strategic partner as a last resort to ensure its national security interests. In that case, the “plausibly deniable” basis upon which China just made its point about the “rules-based order” could be returned to, albeit as a more official position in that case. The chances of events unfolding in that direction remain low, but this scenario adds further context to the examined incident.
April 24, 2023
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Aletho News | China |
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Thousands of Bulgarians have poured into the streets against the US-led NATO military alliance in the capital Sofia, calling on their government to adopt a neutral position on Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
The angry demonstrators hit the streets on Sunday carrying national flags and signs that read, “Bulgaria is not NATO, NATO is not Bulgaria” and “I want peace”.
Anti-war activists in the Balkan nation also collected signatures for a referendum called ‘Bulgaria for Peace and Sovereignty’ in a bid to prevent Sofia’s potential involvement in the Ukraine war that completed a year recently.
“If Bulgaria enters as a party to this conflict, some of those killed will be Bulgarians. This is something we do not want, something we will not allow,” activist Grigor Saryiski was quoted as saying.
Bulgaria is a member of the European Union and the US-led NATO military alliance, but it also has close historical and cultural ties with Russia.
Over the past two years, it has been ruled by technocratic caretaker governments, fueling political instability in the East European country.
Bulgaria has refused to toe the line of other NATO members in getting fully involved in the Ukraine war.
Under former Prime Minister Kiril Petkov’s government, however, a secret supply of Bulgarian-made ammunition made its way to Ukraine as early as April 2022, according to reports.
Snap parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria earlier this month, with analysts predicting the results could influence Bulgaria’s position on the war.
The center-right bloc GERB-SDS, led by former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, won the elections, with the centrist bloc comprising ‘We Continue the Change’ (PP) and Democratic Bulgaria (DB) taking the second place.
Both centrist bloc parties share pro-European, pro-NATO positions and strong support for Ukraine.
The far-right Revival party, which ended up in third place in the polls, is seen as sympathetic to Russia.
April 24, 2023
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Aletho News | Bulgaria, European Union, NATO |
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Iran has spent years accusing the US of helping to create and nurture Daesh. In 2018, Revolutionary Guards Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani urged Iranian diplomats to go to the UN and “slap” the West “in the face” with evidence of US collusion with the terrorist group. Soleimani was later killed [assassinated] in a US missile strike in Baghdad in 2020.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani waded into the US presidential politics on Friday, offering praise for Democratic hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for confirming Tehran’s long-stated view that the Daesh/ISIS terror group was created by Washington.
“There was no doubt the US is the creator of #ISIS, but for those who deliberately closed their eyes to the truth, the statement of Robert F. Kennedy, the nephew of John F. Kennedy saying ‘WE created ISIS’ reaffirms the fact that the American regime is the godfather of Daesh/ISIS,” Kanaani tweeted.
The spokesman followed up the message with a Farsi-language tweet featuring a video excerpt from RFK Jr.’s speech in Boston, Massachusetts on Wednesday in which the politician pointed out how US intelligence agencies have repeatedly lied Americans into pointless foreign wars, destroyed nations and given rise to terrorism, including Daesh.
“My uncle came into office, two months later he was fighting his intelligence apparatus and his military because they wanted to invade – they wanted to do the Bay of Pigs. He was totally against it [but] he let them roll over them. And in the middle of the Bay of Pigs he realized they were lying to them and he realized that the function of the intelligence agencies had become to provide the military-industrial complex with a constant pipeline of war. And he came out during the middle of the night during the Bay of Pigs catastrophe and he said ‘I wanna take the CIA and shatter it into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds’,” RFK Jr. said.
“And George W. Bush had the same problem. George W. Bush says the worst mistake he made as president was listening to CIA director George Tenet telling him it was a ‘slam dunk’ that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. And so the neocons and the CIA got to go into Iraq and… do regime change. Now we’ve spent $8 trillion and what did we get for that $8 trillion? Nothing. Worse than nothing. Iraq is now much worse off than it was when we went in there. We killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein ever did. We may have killed a million Iraqis, nobody knows the number… We created ISIS. We drove two million refugees up into Europe, they destabilized democracy for a generation in Europe, they caused Brexit. This is the cost of the Iraq War,” the politician said.
RFK Jr. is not the first candidate for president to accuse the United States of “creating” the terrorist group. In 2016, then-Republican candidate Donald Trump repeatedly called then-President Barack Obama literally the “founder of ISIS,” and dubbed former Secretary of State “‘Crooked’ Hillary Clinton” the “cofounder.”
Iran has spent years blaming the United States for creating the regional instability which gave rise to Daesh, and has accused Washington of using its battle against the Sufi jihadist group as an excuse to justify its illegal occupation of Iraq and Syria. Some Iranian officials have gone further, accusing the US military of providing Daesh with weapons and funding and even facilitating the transportation of jihadist leaders aboard US military helicopters. Iran’s Syrian allies have made similar allegations. Pentagon officials have vociferously denied these claims.
April 22, 2023
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Aletho News | CIA, Da’esh, ISIS |
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Twitter has removed ‘state-affiliated’ and ‘government-funded’ labels from major media accounts as part of an unannounced update. The move on Friday follows a string of spats between Twitter and several news organizations over the designations.
Twitter had applied the controversial labels to numerous accounts over the last few weeks, including the BBC, Canada’s CBC, and America’s NPR. In response, the outlets threatened to leave Twitter and suspended their activity on the platform, arguing that the tags were an attempt to undermine their legitimacy or suggest a lack of editorial independence.
CEO Elon Musk explained that Twitter was only “trying to be accurate” and even changed some of the labels, switching the BBC’s designation from “government-funded” to “publicly-funded,” while CBC’s tag was reworded as “69% government-funded.”
However, as of Friday, no labels could be seen on any of the accounts mentioned. The tag was also removed from other media outlets, including Russia’s RT and Sputnik, and China’s Global Times and Xinhua. The label was likewise absent from the accounts of journalists associated with the outlets.
Before Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter last year, the “state-affiliated media” tag had primarily been reserved for non-Western outlets, mainly in Russia and China. Twitter’s previous management said in 2020 that the designation was meant to inform the public “when a media account is affiliated directly or indirectly with a state actor.” Twitter also said at the time that it would stop amplifying such accounts or their tweets through its recommendation systems.
The latest update to the platform has also seen the long-anticipated removal of all legacy blue check marks that previously identified the verified accounts of celebrities, journalists, and prominent politicians. Those wishing to have the icon next to their name must now pay an $8-per-month Twitter Blue subscription fee.
Musk announced the dismantling of the legacy blue checkmark shortly after he closed the deal to purchase Twitter, revealing he wanted to monetize the feature to make the company more profitable. In addition to the basic Twitter Blue subscription, the platform now offers businesses a $1,000-per-month gold verification badge, which also allows them to verify their affiliates.
April 21, 2023
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Aletho News | Twitter |
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The Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled to the country’s “new territories” of Lugansk and Kherson/Zaporozhye Regions on Monday to assess the military situation.
The countdown has begun for the Ukrainian “counterattack”. The arrival of Patriot missile system in Ukraine testifies to the scale of mobilisation to impose heavy losses on Russia. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg paid a surprise visit to Kiev today, his first since the war began.
The leaked Pentagon documents are sceptical about the success of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, but Moscow makes its own assessments. Primarily, the neocons are not going to pull the plug on the Zelensky regime, since that means opening the Pandora’s box when President Biden is about to announce his bid for a second term as president and cannot accept that Ukraine is losing the war.
In reality, Ukraine is haemorrhaging. It is in the nature of attritional wars that at some point, the weaker side breaks and thereupon, the end comes very fast. This was how in Syria where once the 5-year old Battle of Aleppo was won in December 2016, the government forces swept through the country in a string of military victories bringing the curtain down on the conflict.
The attritional war in Ukraine may look “stalemated” but the clincher will be which side is inflicting the greater casualties. There is no question that the massive military, intelligence, financial and economic assistance by the West notwithstanding, Russian forces have ground down the Ukrainian side all along the line of contact.
The Russian ambassador to the UK recently said the ratio of losses in the attrition war is roughly seven Ukrainian soldiers to every Russian soldier. To put things in perspective, western media reports estimate that around 35,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be involved in the upcoming counter-offensive along the 950-km frontline while Putin is on record that the Russian reserve forces on the frontline come to 160,000 soldiers!
The Ukrainian air defence system is in a critical state. Russians have a predominance of artillery and, Russians have heavily fortified the frontline in the recent 5-6 months in multiple layers of defence such as mines, earthworks and bollards to impede advancing tanks, etc.
This is a desperate gambit for Ukraine, which has lost a large share of its most experienced soldiers (estimated 120,000 casualties), to take on the Russians who are having air superiority and missile superiority, air defence superiority and artillery superiority, and trained manpower superiority, above all.
The areas that Putin chose to visit — Kherson / Zaporozhya and Lugansk — are where the Ukrainian counteroffensive is most expected. Putin heard from the commanders the military situation and of course, most certainly, that will be inputs for his decisions on Russian counter-strategies, both defensive and offensive.
Despite the Pentagon leaks and the ensuing disarray and confusion in Washington and European capitals (and Kiev), the Ukrainian counterattack will go ahead to gain back at least some of the lost territory. This is a desperate throw of the dice.
However, delusional thinking still prevails in Washington. This is apparent from a recent article in Foreign Affairs co-authored by two veterans of the US establishment — former State Department official Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations — titled The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine: A Plan for Getting From the Battlefield to the Negotiating Table.
The article largely sticks to the myths spawned by the neocons — that Russia’s special military operations failed and the war has “turned out far better for Ukraine than most predicted” — but has occasional flashes of realism. It builds on the refrain currently in vogue in Washington that “the most likely outcome of the conflict is not a complete Ukrainian victory but a bloody stalemate.”
Haas and Kupchan wrote that “By the time Ukraine’s anticipated offensive is over, Kyiv may also warm up to the idea of a negotiated settlement, having given its best shot on the battlefield and facing growing constraints on both its own manpower and help from abroad.”
The authors take note en passe that Russia’s leadership has options and calculations too, as western sanctions have failed to cripple the Russian economy, popular support for the war remains high (above 70%) and Moscow senses that time is on its side as the staying power of Ukraine and its Western supporters and their resolve will wane and Russia should be able to expand its territorial gains substantially.
Fundamentally, Haas and Kupchan hail from another planet. They cannot comprehend that Russia will never accept a scenario where the conflict ends with a ceasefire but the NATO will continue to beef up Ukraine’s military capabilities and steadily integrate Kiev into the alliance.
Why would Russia want to play another game of musical chairs while the West formalises Ukraine’s NATO membership — that is, acquiesce in a replay of the grotesque interregnum between Minsk Agreements of 2015 and Russia’s special military operations?
Putin’s visit to the new territories at this crucial juncture with the attritional war at a tipping point conveys a powerful signal that Russia too has an offensive plan and it is not up to Biden to blow the whistle and call off the proxy war — out of sheer fatigue or pressing distractions in the Asia-Pacific region or due to cracks in western unity or whatever else.
Equally, it is improbable that Russia can ever reconcile with the Zelensky regime, which Moscow sees as a puppet of the Biden administration. But how can Biden possibly dump or lose sight of Zelensky while the skeletons are rattling in the family cupboard?
Most important, Russian public opinion expects Putin to redeem the pledge he made while ordering the special military operations. Anything short of that will mean tens of thousands of Russian lives perished in vain.
It is not in the grain of Putin’s political personality to ignore the groundswell of Russian opinion — or overlook the wounded national psyche as images are playing out of forced eviction of hundreds of monks of Pechersk Lavra, the 11th-century Orthodox cave monastery complex in the heart of Kiev, branded as Russian fifth columnists. It was a calculated political move by Zelensky with tacit western encouragement. (here and here)
What the neocons in the US are yet to grasp is that they failed to subjugate Russia despite all the humiliations poured on its national honour, proud history and enviously rich culture. Why would Russia normalise with states that appropriated its sovereign wealth and imposed such draconian sanctions to bleed and weaken its economy?
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has admitted on CNN that sanctions may ultimately risk hegemony of the US dollar. But her remarks do not go far enough.
Meanwhile, the Russia-China strategic partnership has strengthened, the signal this week being Moscow’s willingness to coordinate with Beijing to counter military challenges in the Far East. (See my blog China, Russia circle wagons in Asia-Pacific)
Russia is far from isolated and enjoys strategic depth in the international community. Whereas, through the past one-year period, the systemic decline of the West and the US’ waning global influence has become an inexorable historical process.
April 20, 2023
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Aletho News | NATO, Russia, Ukraine |
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By Drago Bosnic | April 20, 2023
It’s been well over a month since the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) Su-27SM3 masterfully downed a USAF MQ-9 “Reaper” drone that was spying on regions in southern Russia. The incident occurred on March 14, when the US drone flew just 70 km off the coast of Crimea. At the time, the VKS noted that the MQ-9 had its transponders off while heading toward Russian airspace in what was a clear violation of the agreed protocols for avoiding escalation. At the time, the Pentagon insisted that the drone was “merely conducting routine operations in international airspace over the Black Sea and posed no threat to anyone”. However, as it soon became clear, MQ-9 (presumably the latest Block 5 variant) was carrying out ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) over critically important Russian military infrastructure.
This was certainly a red line for Russia, as it’s perfectly aware that the information acquired through ISR close to Russian airspace is shared directly with the Kiev regime, enabling precision strikes. At the time, top Russian officials such as Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, stated that the incident proves the US is directly involved in the conflict. And indeed, this was certainly causing thousands of Russian military and civilian deaths even before February 24, 2022, because the Pentagon has been providing ISR to Kiev since 2014. Only a few days before the incident, the Neo-Nazi junta forces conducted numerous attacks on civilian settlements in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson oblasts (regions), killing and/or injuring hundreds.
The US warhawks were furious at the Biden administration for “allowing the Russians to shoot down our drones”. Some have even called for the Pentagon to “respond in kind”. Thankfully, there are still high-ranking officers in the US military that are perfectly aware of just how bad an idea that is, so these suicidal requests were promptly denied. What’s more, the latest reports indicate that Washington DC has not only drastically reduced the presence of its ISR platforms in areas close to Russia, but has even completely halted the flights of its extremely expensive RQ-4 “Global Hawk” spy drones, the data published by the Flightradar24 tracker website shows. According to its archive of tracks, the last time a US “Global Hawk” drone flew over the Black Sea was on March 21.
Since then, US drones based in Sicily haven’t approached even the Black Sea airspace, let alone the military installations in southern Russia. Before the start of Moscow’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, the Pentagon flew approximately 10 ISR missions per month, spying on Russian troops in Crimea. During the March 21-April 20 period, US “Global Hawk” drones made only three flights from the airbase in Sicily, severely undermining the amount of real-time battlefield data they could provide to the Kiev regime. Worse yet, these missions were conducted from within Romanian airspace and at a distance of over 400 km from Crimea. This is beyond the range of “Global Hawk’s” systems, capable of receiving clear images of an area at a maximum range of 200 km.
“Following the incident with the American Reaper drone, which fell into the waters of the Black Sea on March 14, ‘Global Hawks’ made only two more flights over the Black Sea — on March 17 and March 21 — both at a range no closer than 140 kilometers from the southern coast of Crimea. Apparently, the US command considered further flights in this area impractical. On the one hand, the amount of information received by a drone at such a range is sharply reduced; on the other hand, after March 14, the American side faced the danger of losing such equipment, and a Global Hawk is several times more expensive than a Reaper and is loaded with the most advanced equipment,” a military expert told Sputnik.
Indeed, the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 “Global Hawk” drones are among the most expensive hardware in the US military. The latest Block 40 variant costs over $130 million apiece, a mind-boggling figure for a single drone. The aircraft is a HALE (high-altitude, long-endurance) ISR platform that provides direct support to US forces worldwide. It can fly for up to 36 hours at a range of up to 22,000 km, giving it an unprecedented loitering time and covering approximately 100,000 km² of any given surveyed area in a period of 24 hours. For reference, this is the size of South Korea or Iceland. RQ-4 “Global Hawk” is equipped with various ISR equipment such as radars, optical tracking systems and infrared sensors, all of which have been used extensively to spy on Russian forces in Ukraine.
Weapons such as the HIMARS (among others) are fed battlefield data directly from platforms such as the “Global Hawk”. This means that hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries caused by the aforementioned US weapons across the newly integrated Russian regions were entirely intentional, making them an unadulterated war crime. On the other hand, NATO ISR assets have also contributed to the vast majority of Russian military deaths, prolonging the conflict. The US and NATO don’t even need to fire a single bullet to kill Russian soldiers and civilians. However, while the Kiev regime forces are pulling the trigger, it is the political West’s “eyes” that are targeting them and even issuing commands. Considering these facts, downing NATO’s ISR platforms most definitely saves thousands of lives.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
April 20, 2023
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By Lucas Leiroz | April 18, 2023
Lula’s trip to China was marked by several signals about what may be his foreign policy in his third term. In his speeches, Lula suggested that he will continue to bet on partnerships with the global south and emphasized his criticism of organizations linked to or controlled by the US. Lula’s trip was well received by Chinese partners and brought new hope to bilateral and intra-BRICS relations.
Undoubtedly, the most prominent point in his pronouncements was his support for the de-dollarization of international economic relations. Lula questioned the need to use the dollar as a global commercial currency and expressed his support for the “idea” of creating a currency for the BRICS – or starting to trade in national currencies.
“Why can’t we do trade based on our own currencies? (…) Who was it that decided that the dollar was the currency after the disappearance of the gold standard? (…) Why can’t a bank like that of the BRICS have a currency to finance trade relations between Brazil and China, between Brazil and other countries? It’s difficult because we are unaccustomed [to the idea]. Everyone depends on just one currency”, he said during a press conference.
With this, Lula reiterated what he had mentioned previously, during a trip to Argentina, in which he proposed the creation of a currency for Mercosur and another for the BRICS, both with the aim of advancing economic de-dollarization. To his supporters, this sounds like a big sign that Lula is distancing himself from the US and turning towards greater participation in building a multipolar world. However, this seems like an overly optimistic analysis.
De-dollarization is part of the multipolar world, but it is not its essence. Many countries, even US allies, have been seeking to de-dollarize their international transactions in recent years. Japan, for example, has traded with Beijing without the dollar since 2011, as well as Australia since 2013. Also, the EU has traded with Iran without the dollar since 2020. France recently started its de-dollarization process and Switzerland will certainly start this process soon, as it began to get rid of some of its dollar reserves.
In fact, economic de-dollarization is a technical and pragmatic measure, whose purpose is much more to generate economic benefits than to operate any geopolitical transition. In Brazil, the measure has even been supported on a large scale by businessmen and parliamentarians linked to the agribusiness sector, which is the main segment of the Brazilian economy and whose biggest partner is precisely China. Recognizing the Chinese interest in de-dollarization, there is internal pressure from the Brazilian business community for Lula to de-dollarize the economy. Therefore, it is a technical and pragmatic issue that does not mean much for Lula’s foreign policy agenda.
It is also necessary to emphasize that before traveling to China, Lula repeatedly stated that the main subject of his meeting with Xi would be to discuss the Ukrainian crisis. He planned to show his “peace club” proposal to the Chinese president and garner support, but apparently this was not a relevant topic in the talks. Both presidents limited themselves to generic declarations of support for peace and negotiations, without any more emphatic mention of Lula’s “peace club” project.
Considering that Lula planned the terms of his project in advance with American and European politicians, having even signed a joint statement with Biden condemning the Russian special military operation, it is most likely that Xi has refrained from giving any deep support to the Brazilian president. China and Russia are at their closest moment in history, with unlimited cooperation in all areas. Certainly, Xi would not agree to participate in a “peace club” supported precisely by the states that are waging war against Russia. Therefore, the Ukrainian subject ceased to be the main topic of the tour.
Furthermore, Lula signed interesting agreements with China in the field of space cooperation. A memorandum of understanding was also made in the semiconductor sector. The balance of the trip was positive for Brazil and advanced the de-dollarization agenda, but it did not significantly change the analyses that point out that Lula is closer to the West in this third term. In the same sense, Lula also did not revoke his support for prioritizing the EU-Mercosur agreement over the China-Mercosur agreement, which shows that his position of ambiguity remains.
It seems that Lula plans to continue maintaining this ambiguity. He develops his foreign policy based on a merely multilateralist, not a multipolar, mentality. Lula and his team are acting as if the current world scenario were the same as in his first terms, when there was no possibility of contesting the US unipolar geopolitical order, with the emerging countries only seeking greater economic development through multilateralism.
This reality has absolutely changed, and it is now possible to build a really polycentric system, where emerging countries also have a political role, not merely focused on economic and commercial development through multilateral cooperation. It is hoped that Lula’s team will realize this in time and take more relevant measures towards multipolarity, ignoring American pressure.
Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
April 18, 2023
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Aletho News | Brazil, China, European Union, Latin America, United States |
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MOSCOW – Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko discussed the situation around the Korean peninsula with Chinese special envoy on North Korea Liu Xiaoming in Moscow, and the parties agreed that Washington and its allies bear responsibility for the escalation of the situation around the peninsula.
“The parties discussed in detail the current situation around the Korean Peninsula. The parties agreed that Washington and its allies are responsible for the current escalation and contrary to their own obligations, refuse to conduct a dialogue with North Korea on providing it with security guarantees and take practical confidence–building measures, on the contrary, they are increasing large-scale military exercises in the region that are provocative,” the ministry said in a statement following the meeting of Rudenko and Liu.
The diplomats emphasized the need to focus the efforts of the parties involved on finding a political and diplomatic solution to the problems of Northeast Asia, taking into account the legitimate security concerns of all states in the region. China and Russia agreed to maintain close coordination on the matter, according to the ministry.
Last week, the North Korean state-run news agency reported that the new-type Hwansong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile was tested under supervision of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Earlier on Monday, United States and South Korea started large-scale combined air drills involving over 100 aircraft — the Korea Flying Training (KFT).
April 17, 2023
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Aletho News | China, Korea, Russia, United States |
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MOSCOW – A delegation of the Russian Foundation for Islamic Culture, Sciences and Education has received assurances from a senior Taliban official that the movement will not let Afghan territory to be used against Russia, a member of the delegation, Magomedbashir Albogachiev, told Sputnik.
“On Sunday, our delegation in Kabul held a meeting with Maulavi Abdul Kabir, Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister for political affairs. He asked us to tell the Russian leadership that the Taliban movement will not let use its territory against Russia or the countries of Central Asia,” Albogachiev said.
According to Albogachiev, the Afghan deputy prime minister said that Afghanistan was “extremely interested” in building comprehensive trade and economic ties with Russia, which is an issue currently complicated by the absence of a clear logistical route.
Earlier in the week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took part in the fourth meeting of the foreign ministers of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, with the officials discussing the situation in Afghanistan and ways to develop a common regional approach to improving it. Lavrov said at a press conference after the meeting that practically all of the participating countries agreed on the necessity to maintain and develop contacts with the Taliban movement.
April 16, 2023
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Aletho News | Afghanistan, Russia |
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Today China officially announced the visit of their Minister of Defense Li Shangfu to Russia on Sunday for three days of consultations with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu and also with Russia’s senior military command in charge of the war operations in Ukraine.
Li Shangfu took his present post a little over a month ago following the re-election of Xi Jinping to the presidency and a reshuffling of ministerial portfolios. It was particularly noteworthy that Li has been on the U.S. sanctions list since 2018 for alleged cooperation with Russia.
The sense of this visit was interpreted by expert panelists on the news and analysis program Sixty Minutes earlier today as follows: to inform the Chinese leadership of what has been learned by the Russian command from the 14 months of war in Ukraine.
What is the relevance of Russia’s on the ground experience? Although armchair generals in the West were very quick to fault Russia with making serious mistakes and showing unpreparedness in the first phase of the war, the reality is that since WWII no major power has been engaged in a peer-to-peer war entailing vicious fighting on the ground without enjoying command of the skies. That is what we see in Ukraine today. The United States has had no such experience. Nor has China.
The Russians now have a lot to tell their Chinese friends about the latest NATO military tactics and about the U.S. and European hardware that is being given its baptism by fire in direct engagement with themselves. The capture of a German Leopard tank in battle near Kherson yesterday is just one of many war trophies that the Russians can lend out.
Will such sharing of information critically important to China as it examines the possibility of a similar armed conflict with the United States and its proxies over Taiwan be cost free? Of course not. We may take it as a given that during the visit of Li to Russia, he and the Russians will be planning further steps to turn their strategic partnership into something more closely resembling a full-blown military alliance with mutual security obligations.
Meanwhile the Russian Pacific fleet is now on full alert and performing exercises to repel an unidentified potential aggressor. A gentle hint as to who this aggressor might be is the fact that particular attention is being given to maneuvers around the Kurile Islands, over which Japan has territorial claims. Though the subject is not much discussed in our mainstream media, the Russians consider the Japanese navy to be a formidable force. Japan is one of the key allies in the “Pacific NATO” that the U.S. is currently building to contain China and, as needed, to fight a big war against Beijing.
Also worth noting is that last week the Chinese military response to the meetings in California by Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was to simulate an air and sea blockade of Taiwan. This in turn elicited a call by the ever inflammatory Senator Lindsey Graham (R – South Carolina) for the U.S. to disrupt the flow of oil from the Middle East to China in the event of a blockade being imposed on Taiwan. If anything can hasten the signing of a full military alliance between Russia and China, it is precisely that threat.
All of the foregoing latest developments necessarily raise a question that was not discussed on Russian television but which is highly timely for Americans to deal with on their own: whether the Biden Administration, by its ongoing reckless foreign and military policy that is headed towards an unwinnable two-front war, is not betraying the security interests of the United States. I leave it to legal experts whether that would constitute an impeachable offense.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
April 14, 2023
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Aletho News | China, Japan, Russia, United States |
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The U.S. government approved its first three payments to people injured by COVID-19 vaccines — amounting to a total of $4,634.89.
The Health and Resources Service Administration (HRSA) vaccine injury claims report, updated monthly, shows one $2,019.55 payment for anaphylaxis and two payments — $1,582.65 and $1032.69 — for myocarditis.
The payments were made through HRSA’s Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).
The CICP was established under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which protects pharmaceutical companies from liability for injuries sustained from “countermeasures,” such as vaccines and medications, administered during a public health emergency.
Since 2010, when it approved its first claim, the program has compensated a total of 33 claims for vaccine injuries — but these are the first awards for COVID-19 vaccines.
“These long-awaited awards were overdue, highly anticipated and speculated upon,” said Kim Mack Rosenberg, acting general counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD). “What is remarkable is that less than $5,000 was paid — total. This is a tragedy that highlights the severe limitations of the program.”
CHD Acting President Laura Bono called the payouts for myocarditis “insulting,” given that mortality rates increase to 50% within five years of diagnosis.
Bono said:
“The CICP is a pathetic, government-run program that gives complete liability protection to the very industries profiting from the COVID vaccine or product. While victims linger with their injuries, paying out-of-pocket for expenses, or at worst die, the industries run to the bank.”
Since the start of the pandemic, people claiming injuries related to COVID-19 vaccines and other countermeasures submitted 11,425 requests for compensation.
Of those, only 19 have been declared eligible for compensation and are undergoing a “medical benefits review” to determine payment.
The anaphylaxis case had been pending medical benefits review since the fall of 2021, and the two myocarditis cases had been pending review since January.
During the medical benefits review, HRSA determines any costs remaining after insurance, workers’ comp, disability or other reimbursements or payments.
Wayne Rohde, an expert in vaccine injury compensation, wrote on his Substack that given the “18+ months to review previous medical benefits that may have been awarded to the injured party [the anaphylaxis case], this process tells me it was a major injury that resulted in very large medical bills.”
Myocarditis is a serious condition that also requires a lot of medical attention, Rohde said.
To date, there have been 1,541,275 reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
How does vaccine injury compensation work? the VICP and CICP
HRSA, which operates under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), administers two vaccine injury compensation programs: the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).
The VICP is a special, no-fault tribunal housed within the U.S. Court of Federal Claims that handles injury claims for 16 common vaccines on the childhood vaccination schedule. To date, it has awarded more than $4 billion for medical bills, lost wages, lawyer fees, and pain and suffering to thousands of people for vaccine injuries.
The program does not currently cover COVID-19 vaccine injuries. Should COVID-19 vaccines be moved into the program, any injuries would be handled by the already overwhelmed VICP.
The CICP, the only program that covers COVID-19 vaccine injuries at this time, is even less equipped to deal with them, Rohde told The Defender.
“For COVID-19 vaccine-injured people, the CICP is the worst place, it’s the worst option,” Rohde said, “because it is not really a compensation program, it’s a reimbursement program for medical costs.”
The CICP allows individuals to claim compensation only for unreimbursed medical expenses — meaning those not fully reimbursed by insurance or government programs, such as Medicaid — for death and for lost wages up to $50,000.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under the CICP:
“Eligible individuals may be compensated for certain reasonable and necessary medical expenses and for lost employment income at the time of the injury. Death benefits may be paid to certain survivors of covered countermeasures recipients who have died as a direct result of the covered countermeasure injury.
“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is the payer of last resort. Therefore, payments are reduced by those of other third-party payers.”
“There’s no pain and suffering here, there’s nothing,” Rohde said.
Because the CICP reviews and resolves claims through an administrative rather than a judicial process, no details other than the amount of the payments have to be shared with the public.
“It’s designed to be very convoluted, very non-transparent,” Rohde said.
The CICP was known for its cumbersome claims process and low likelihood of success for claimants even before the pandemic. Since then, it has seen unsustainable growth.
According to HRSA’s numbers, of the 11,941 claims filed with the CICP since 2010, nearly 11,000 of them are still under review.
The HRSA budget for COVID-19 vaccine injury compensation will increase in fiscal year 2023 — from approximately $1 million to $5 million — and its budget for staffing and contractors will jump from $5 million to $9.5 million.
How would COVID vaccine injury compensation change under the VICP?
For vaccine injury claims to be covered under the VICP rather than the CICP, three requirements must be met:
- The vaccine needs to be recommended for routine administration for children and/or pregnant women.
- It needs to have an excise tax imposed upon it through the legislature.
- There needs to be a notice of coverage published in the federal record.
The COVID-19 vaccine was added to the childhood immunization schedule earlier this year — but the next two steps in the process have yet to be completed and public health officials have not indicated when this might happen.
The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine met for three days last month — behind closed doors, except for a two-hour public comment period — to review the epidemiological, clinical and biological evidence on adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines.
The committee will generate a report that will be used to add injuries to the federal Vaccine Injury Table, which lists known adverse events associated with existing vaccines.
This list helps the VICP and the CICP decide whether to compensate vaccine injury claims.
At the National Academies meeting, Professor Renee Gentry, director of the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at The George Washington University Law School, told the committee the stakeholders that created the VICP — vaccine manufacturers, lawyers and parents — set it up to be petitioner-friendly, informal, generous and non-adversarial.
But instead, she said, HHS has been “unrelenting” in its opposition to recognizing vaccine injuries.
“I believe the VICP as it exists today would be unrecognizable to those original stakeholders,” she said.
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
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.
April 13, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States |
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According to a Washington Post exclusive on the origins of the U.S. military leaks now roiling official Washington and its allies and partners today, there may be an untold number of classified documents still out there, yet to be reported.
The Post talked with two of the members of a Discord (online gaming) group who say the “leader” of their tight knit channel had been sharing with them top secret information gleaned from the secure facility/military base from which he presumably worked for some time, but photographs of those documents started coming “beginning late last year.”
The leader of the group — called “OG” — had been literally writing out and annotating classified documents he had access to in his day job up until then, but then began photographing and posting them “several times a week.” Many were quite recent, including, according to the Washington Post, “eye-level” images of the recent Chinese spy balloon incident in early February.
The Post also reviewed approximately 300 photos of classified documents, most of which have not been made public; some of the text documents OG is said to have written out; an audio recording of a man the two group members identified as OG speaking to his companions; and chat records and photographs that show OG communicating with them on the Discord server. ….
The breadth of the military and intelligence reports was extensive. For months, OG regularly uploaded page after page of classified U.S. assessments, offering a window into how deeply American intelligence had penetrated the Russian military, showing that Egypt had planned to sell Russia tens of thousands of rockets and suggesting that Russian mercenaries had approached Turkey, a NATO ally, to buy weapons to fight against Ukraine.
The Post ascertained that “the transcribed documents OG posted traversed a range of sensitive subjects that only people who had undergone months-long background checks would be authorized to see.”
The photographs eventually made their way onto other online channels beginning in February. The New York Times first reported this on April 6. Most of the first batch of top secret missives were purportedly from the daily briefings that were sent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. The Post, however, reported last night a previously unreported document, allegedly an assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, that surmises that even if the Ukrainians make significant gains in any upcoming counteroffensive against the Russians, “Negotiations to end the conflict are unlikely during 2023 in all considered scenarios.”
The original tranche of 53 documents is clearly not the last.
The New York Times today is reporting on “new additional documents, which did not surface in a 53-page set” that came to attention last week. In their own exclusive, they describe intelligence documents that show infighting between Russia’s defense ministry and intelligence services over a number of issues, including Russian battlefield casualty counts. They also reflect intelligence about supposed willingness of China to transfer weapons to Russia, and the tensions between Wagner Group head Yevgeny V. Prigozhin and the Russian military. According to the NYT :
The new documents were shared in photos, and some are missing pages. Those shown in full include material from the National Security Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon’s Joint Staff intelligence directorate.
The Washington Post deep dive on the Discord channel does not even guess how many of these photographs or emails with highly sensitive information may have hopped from the original group to the wider online world. As the DoD and Justice Department scramble to find “OG,” the damage is clearly already done, and we could be in for many more revelations to come.
April 13, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | United States |
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