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Chinese Businessmen Literally Laughing at West’s Anti-Russian Sanctions

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 21.10.2023

Chinese businessmen are literally laughing at the West’s sanctions packages against Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has revealed.

Citing a media report from Friday indicating that the 12th package of EU sanctions may include a Lithuania-proposed ban on the export of European-made nails, tacks, drawing pins, sewing and knitting needles, radiators, and other odds and ends to Russia, Zakharova said that judging by past experience, she can hardly fathom how Russia’s Chinese partners will react to the news.

“A year ago I was at a meeting with representatives of Chinese business circles in Moscow. We were talking, and suddenly a message popped up on my phone with news that the US had adopted yet another sanctions package banning the supply of elevators and related equipment to Russia. According to the sanctions’ authors, this measure would ‘paralyze the construction industry in Russia.’ When I read this news to my Chinese colleagues, they burst out in Homeric laughter. They literally howled and roared with laughter,” Zakharova recalled in a Telegram post on Saturday.

“After the ‘sanctions hara-kiri’ of the Japanese automobile industry on the Russian market, the most incredible dream of Chinese automotive manufacturers came true. Within six months, they confirmed the veracity of the saying ‘nature abhors a vacuum’,” the spokeswoman added.

“It’s scary to imagine what kind of hysteria will begin among Chinese manufacturers of knitting needles and buttons if they learn about this Lithuanian plan to ‘destroy Russian industrial capabilities.’ Where will Lithuania put its wares if such a decision is made? I don’t know, they could put the inscription ‘to spite Russia’ on their highway made of buttons, nails, sewing and knitting needles,” Zakharova summed up.

Russian-Chinese trade has hit back-to-back-to-back record highs in recent years, reaching the equivalent of over $176 billion by the end of the third quarter of the current year. The Asian industrial giant has taken to importing record quantities of Russian energy and other natural resources, and has helped fill the gap left by European and Japanese finished goods manufacturers after their exodus from Russia in 2022.

Speaking with Chinese media ahead of his visit to the Belt and Road Initiative forum earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin reported a “32 percent growth” in Russia-China trade turnover over the past year, and said that “there is every reason to believe that we will reach the $200 billion mark” by the end of 2023.

The reorientation of trade from Europe to China, India and other countries in the developing world has helped Russia weather the storm of Western sanctions and trade restrictions, with the country’s GDP growth expected to reach up to 2.5 percent in 2023 after contracting by 2.1 percent a year earlier.

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hungary warns of ‘knockout blow’ to EU economy

Hungarian Trade and Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. © Omer Taha Cetin/Getty Images
RT | October 21, 2023

The EU should pursue cooperation with China and Asia as a whole, which have already become more competitive than the bloc in economic terms, according to Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

Speaking at an informal meeting of EU trade ministers in Valencia on Friday, Szijjarto emphasized that the global economy has turned upside down over the past few years, resulting in a fall in the bloc’s economic position, which Brussels is making worse with its indiscriminate sanctions policies. He reiterated that recent sanctions against Russia and the drive to abandon Russian energy “shot the European economy first in the foot and then in the knee.”

“Today we pay four times as much for gas in Europe as Americans do at home and three times as much for electricity as people pay in China,” he pointed out, noting that while distancing itself from Russia has already caused problems, doing the same with China would be even more destructive for the EU economy.

Szijjarto noted that China has already surpassed the EU in terms of gross domestic product (GDP): its share of global GDP jumped from 9% in 2010 to the current 18%, while the EU’s share dropped from 22% to 17%.

“The overall structure of the world economy is being transformed, and this great transformation also means that the West’s automatic competitive advantage has ended. The Eastern world has strengthened significantly, they have at the very least caught up with the Western world from a financial and technological point of view, while they have always been ahead of us in terms of human resources,” he stated. Szijjarto added that the Eastern and Western economies are more strongly interdependent nowadays than ever before, and said the EU should not shy away from this trend.

“Whether we like it or not, it’s a fact. Whoever denies all this can cause very serious damage to the European economy,” he warned.

Szijjarto noted that the basis of the EU’s economic growth previously lay in the combination of advanced Western technologies and cheap Russian energy, but this line of cooperation has now been severed.

“Unfortunately, there are Western Europeans… who strive to cut off economic cooperation between Europe and China in the same way. If this were to happen, it would practically be a knockout blow to the European economy. That is why we are against any effort to isolate the Chinese and European economies from each other,” he stated.

The minister said the consequences of such actions would be especially felt by the European automotive industry, which relies on Chinese suppliers.

“This would practically suffocate the car industry. And if we strangle the European car industry, we will destroy the European economy,” he declared.

“Everyone in the economy understands this, but Western European politicians don’t want to see the reality, they don’t want to hear the facts, but rather they politicize out of ideology and anger.”

The EU relationship with China has been strained over the past several years, with Brussels viewing Beijing as an economic rival, and each side increasingly unhappy with the other’s policies.

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Rights groups push back against EU censorship chief Thierry Breton after he pressured platforms to censor “disinformation”

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 20, 2023

European (EU) Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton is asked to answer some tough questions after his (latest) escapade, now seen as a new attempt to pressure tech platforms to censor content – while he was explaining that as, combating “disinformation.”

Both politicians, and tech platforms, have been hearing this for a long time, many years now, from people opposed to the obvious censorship: don’t let it “find a home” in the heart of your governments and media, or political discourse – because once it does, it may never leave.

Sure, on any given day, it might feel great to suppress information about an election, a side you don’t like in a war, etc, by just labeling it as “disinformation.”

But what happens once those causes you do support start to get affected, as well? Unfortunately, that’s all there seems to be to it, regarding Breton’s latest outrageous moves – although one would hope and wish for a more universal understanding of the importance and need of protection of free speech, full stop.

Now groups like the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT Europe), Access Now, Article 19, and about two dozen others are expressing their extreme discomfort with Breton’s letter to X, TikTok, Google (YouTube) and Meta.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

It has to do with the latest Middle East escalation. The groups behind the initiative are attempting to influence Breton mainly by asserting that his actions – penning a letter pressuring tech platforms demanding the censorship of “disinformation” on this particular geopolitical issue – as essentially contravening EU’s own Digital Services Act (DSA).

The long and the short of the civil society groups’ attempt here is that Breton is creating “a false equivalency” between illegal content and disinformation – as per the DSA.

To be honest – the EU is such a winding and “blinding” bureaucracy, that it’s not entirely impossible that some of its scriptwriters don’t fully understand their own plot.

Regardless, the letter the CDT now joins claims that Commissioner Breton – in his “censor-right-now” letter to big platforms – “incorrectly and confusingly invoked obligations under DSA to make several demands from these online platforms to swiftly address this content, which are not in fact required by the law.”

Obviously, nobody from these groups is ready to address the EU’s core policy – it’s all procedural.

Or – maybe they do – just a little bit?

“The Commissioners’ (Breton’s) highly politicized engagement risks pressuring online platforms to take actions in ways that are not guided by the law and may undermine human rights, which in this case disproportionately affects human rights defenders, advocates, and journalists. His actions further risk undermining the authority and independence of the Commission’s DSA Enforcement Team,” CDT’s Asha Allen is quoted.

October 20, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

The EU has discredited itself in the Israel-Palestine conflict

By Timur Fomenko | RT | October 20, 2023

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s showboating in support of Israel in the current Middle East conflict has reportedly provoked a backlash from EU lawmakers and diplomats.

When the Israel-Gaza war broke out just over a week ago, von der Leyen made the decision to offer unconditional support to West Jerusalem rather than urge for calm or mediation, having Israel’s flag projected onto the European Commission headquarters and paying a visit to Israel herself. She clearly did so out of an inclination to appear in line with the US. But her actions have aged poorly as reports of civilian deaths and humanitarian disaster in the besieged Gaza Strip continue to mount.

Anyone familiar with von der Leyen knows that she is an unapologetic neoconservative and transatlanticist who is single-handedly undermining the autonomy, respect, and foreign policy stature of the EU by actively working to make the bloc subordinate to the US in multiple areas, all while attempting to showcase herself as a true regional leader. If the EU sees itself in a fundamental competition with China and Russia, there could not be a worse advert to the rest of the world than her leadership, and her Israel blunders may be her most damaging decisions yet.

Von der Leyen’s foreign policy legacy involves dragging the EU into several confrontations it could have done without. This week, she is heading to Washington DC to try to forge a deal on steel and aluminum trade targeted at China, but that will ultimately result in throwing the EU market under the bus, again. Other acts have included backing the American position on Ukraine and striving for full escalation of the war there, promoting energy decoupling with Russia, as well as inventing the term “de-risking” with China and seeking to undermine the bloc’s lucrative relationship with Beijing. Throughout this, she has been repeatedly eager to pull large sums of money out of thin air and propose fantasy projects which amount to little more than posturing, and which her office alone is not even able to authorize.

For example, that includes offering Belarus billions if it goes ahead with a US-backed regime change, or inventing numerous “infrastructure” schemes to compete with China, such as the Global Gateway, among other things. She has thus repeatedly used the stature of her office to follow American objectives and try to shape the continent without establishing any kind of due consensus. Almost immediately after the war in Gaza broke out, the European Commission announced all EU aid to Palestine would be frozen. Regardless of what you think of Hamas, with hindsight that decision now appears spiteful, reactionary and inhumane, which tells you how fast the Commission was to jump to the American position of unconditional support for Israel.

But this time there is a widespread feeling it has gone too far. Rather than allowing Europe to have staked out a moderate position on the Gaza conflict, even if it would not be too sympathetic to Palestine, the decision was essentially outsourced to the US, discrediting the EU and only serving to contribute to the growing backlash starting to emerge among Muslim communities in response to the conflict. For countries such as France, this is disastrous. This hurts the EU’s image across the Islamic world and the Global South by seemingly siding with the oppressors.

Soon enough, a series of embarrassing U-turns followed, including the reinstatement of aid, combined with tweets in Arabic, but the damage had already been done, because Israel has long been given the green light to pursue unparalleled destruction in Gaza, at seemingly whatever the cost. In doing so, von der Leyen has in fact undermined, in yet another way, the bloc’s ability to present itself as a serious and comprehensive political actor. She seems to have no love for the idea that the EU should have strategic autonomy and be capable of calibrating its own interests and place in the world, and would prefer that it instead be a simple parrot of the US.

Of course, if she took into greater consideration the interests and positions of member states it would be less of a problem. But she does not and instead essentially serves as a completely disruptive force, in practice undermining European diplomacy and preventing the EU from building relations with a wide range of states. In the end, this favors only the US.

October 19, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Internet Censorship, Everywhere All at Once

By Debbie Lerman | Brownstone Institute | October 19, 2023

It used to be a truth universally acknowledged by citizens of democratic nations that freedom of speech was the basis not just of democracy, but of all human rights.

When a person or group can censor the speech of others, there is – by definition – an imbalance of power. Those exercising the power can decide what information and which opinions are allowed, and which should be suppressed. In order to maintain their power, they will naturally suppress information and views that challenge their position.

Free speech is the only peaceful way to hold those in power accountable, challenge potentially harmful policies, and expose corruption. Those of us privileged to live in democracies instinctively understand this nearly sacred value of free speech in maintaining our free and open societies.

Or do we?

Alarmingly, it seems like many people in what we call democratic nations are losing that understanding. And they seem willing to cede their freedom of speech to governments, organizations, and Big Tech companies who, supposedly, need to control the flow of information to keep everyone “safe.”

The locus for the disturbing shift away from free speech is the 21st-century’s global public square: the Internet. And the proclaimed reasons for allowing those in power to diminish our free speech on the Internet are: “disinformation” and “hate speech.”

In this article, I will review the three-step process by which anti-disinformation laws are introduced. Then, I will review some of the laws being rolled out in multiple countries almost simultaneously, and what such laws entail in terms of vastly increasing the potential for censorship of the global flow of information.

How to Pass Censorship Laws

Step 1: Declare an existential threat to democracy and human rights 

Step 2: Assert that the solution will protect democracy and human rights

Step 3: Enact anti-democratic, anti-human rights censorship fast and in unison

Lies, propaganda, “deep fakes,” and all manner of misleading information have always been present on the Internet. The vast global information hub that is the World Wide Web inevitably provides opportunities for criminals and other nefarious actors, including child sex traffickers and evil dictators.

At the same time, the Internet has become the central locus of open discourse for the world’s population, democratizing access to information and the ability to publish one’s views to a global audience.

The good and bad on the Internet reflect the good and bad in the real world. And when we regulate the flow of information on the Internet, the same careful balance between blocking truly dangerous actors, while retaining maximum freedom and democracy, must apply.

Distressingly, the recent slew of laws governing Internet information are significantly skewed in the direction of limiting free speech and increasing censorship. The reason, the regulators claim, is that fake news, disinformation, and hate speech are existential threats to democracy and human rights.

Here are examples of dire warnings, issued by leading international organizations, about catastrophic threats to our very existence purportedly posed by disinformation:

Propaganda, misinformation and fake news have the potential to polarise public opinion, to promote violent extremism and hate speech and, ultimately, to undermine democracies and reduce trust in the democratic processes. – Council of Europe

The world must address the grave global harm caused by the proliferation of hate and lies in the digital space. – United Nations

Online hate speech and disinformation have long incited violence, and sometimes mass atrocities. – World Economic Forum (WEF)/The New Humanitarian

Considering the existential peril of disinformation and hate speech, these same groups assert that any solution will obviously promote the opposite:

Given such a global threat, we clearly need a global solution. And, of course, such a solution will increase democracy, protect the rights of vulnerable populations, and respect human rights. – WEF

Moreover, beyond a mere assertion that increasing democracy and respecting human rights are built into combating disinformation, international law must be invoked.

In its Common Agenda Policy Brief from June 2023, Information Integrity on Digital Platforms, the UN details the international legal framework for efforts to counter hate speech and disinformation.

First, it reminds us that freedom of expression and information are fundamental human rights:

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 19 (2) of the Covenant protect the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, and through any media.

Linked to freedom of expression, freedom of information is itself a right. The General Assembly has stated: “Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and is the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.” (p. 9)

Then, the UN brief explains that disinformation and hate speech are such colossal, all-encompassing evils that their very existence is antithetical to the enjoyment of any human rights:

Hate speech has been a precursor to atrocity crimes, including genocide. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide prohibits “direct and public incitement to commit genocide”.

In its resolution 76/227, adopted in 2021, the General Assembly emphasized that all forms of disinformation can negatively impact the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. Similarly, in its resolution 49/21, adopted in 2022, the Human Rights Council affirmed that disinformation can negatively affect the enjoyment and realization of all human rights.

This convoluted maze of legalese leads to an absurd, self-contradictory sequence of illogic:

  • Everything the UN is supposed to protect is founded on the freedom of information, which along with free speech is a fundamental human right.
  • The UN believes hate speech and disinformation destroy all human rights.
  • THEREFORE, anything we do to combat hate speech and disinformation protects all human rights, even if it abrogates the fundamental human rights of free speech and information, on which all other rights depend.
  • Because: genocide!

In practice, what this means is that, although the UN at one point in its history considered the freedom of speech and information fundamental to all other rights, it now believes the dangers of hate speech and disinformation eclipse the importance of protecting those rights.

The same warping of democratic values, as delineated by our international governing body, is now occurring in democracies the world over.

Censorship Laws and Actions All Happening Now

If hate speech and disinformation are the precursors of inevitable genocidal horrors, the only way to protect the world is through a coordinated international effort. Who should lead this campaign?

According to the WEF, “Governments can provide some of the most significant solutions to the crisis by enacting far-reaching regulations.”

Which is exactly what they’re doing.

United States

In the US, freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution, so it’s hard to pass laws that might violate it.

Instead, the government can work with academic and nongovernmental organizations to strong-arm social media companies into censoring disfavored content. The result is the Censorship-Industrial Complex, a vast network of government-adjacent academic and nonprofit “anti-disinformation” outfits, all ostensibly mobilized to control online speech in order to protect us from whatever they consider to be the next civilization-annihilating calamity.

The Twitter Files and recent court cases reveal how the US government uses these groups to pressure online platforms to censor content it doesn’t like:

Google

In some cases, companies may even take it upon themselves to control the narrative according to their own politics and professed values, with no need for government intervention. For example: Google, the most powerful information company in the world, has been reported to fix its algorithms to promote, demote, and disappear content according to undisclosed internal “fairness” guidelines.

This was revealed by a whistleblower named Zach Vorhies in his almost completely ignored book, Google Leaks, and by Project Veritas, in a sting operation against Jen Gennai, Google’s Head of Responsible Innovation.

In their benevolent desire to protect us from hate speech and disinformation, Google/YouTube immediately removed the original Project Veritas video from the Internet.

European Union

The Digital Services Act came into force November 16, 2022. The European Commission rejoiced that “The responsibilities of users, platforms, and public authorities are rebalanced according to European values.” Who decides what the responsibilities and what the “European values” are?

  • very large platforms and very large online search engines [are obligated] to prevent the misuse of their systems by taking risk-based action and by independent audits of their risk management systems
  • EU countries will have the primary [oversight] role, supported by a new European Board for Digital Services

Brownstone contributor David Thunder explains how the act provides an essentially unlimited potential for censorship:

This piece of legislation holds freedom of speech hostage to the ideological proclivities of unelected European officials and their armies of “trusted flaggers.”

The European Commission is also giving itself the power to declare a Europe-wide emergency that would allow it to demand extra interventions by digital platforms to counter a public threat.

UK

The Online Safety Bill was passed September 19, 2023. The UK government says “It will make social media companies more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms.”

According to Internet watchdog Reclaim the Net, this bill constitutes one of the widest sweeping attacks on privacy and free speech in a Western democracy:

The bill imbues the government with tremendous power; the capability to demand that online services employ government-approved software to scan through user content, including photos, files, and messages, to identify illegal content.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to defending civil liberties in the digital world, warns: “the law would create a blueprint for repression around the world.”

Australia

The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 was released in draft form June 25, 2023 and is expected to pass by the end of 2023. the Australian government says:

The new powers will enable the ACMA [Australian Communications and Media Authority] to monitor efforts and require digital platforms to do more, placing Australia at the forefront in tackling harmful online misinformation and disinformation, while balancing freedom of speech.

Reclaim the Net explains:

This legislation hands over a wide range of new powers to ACMA, which includes the enforcement of an industry-wide “standard” that will obligate digital platforms to remove what they determine as misinformation or disinformation.

Brownstone contributor Rebekah Barnett elaborates:

Controversially, the government will be exempt from the proposed laws, as will professional news outlets, meaning that ACMA will not compel platforms to police misinformation and disinformation disseminated by official government or news sources.

The legislation will enable the proliferation of official narratives, whether true, false or misleading, while quashing the opportunity for dissenting narratives to compete.

Canada

The Online Streaming Act (Bill C-10) became law April 27, 2023. Here’s how the Canadian government describes it, as it relates to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC):

The legislation clarifies that online streaming services fall under the Broadcasting Act and ensures that the CRTC has the proper tools to put in place a modern and flexible regulatory framework for broadcasting. These tools include the ability to make rules, gather information, and assign penalties for non-compliance.

According to Open Media, a community-driven digital rights organization,

Bill C-11 gives the CRTC unprecedented regulatory authority to monitor all online audiovisual content. This power extends to penalizing content creators and platforms and through them, content creators that fail to comply.

World Health Organization

In its proposed new Pandemic Treaty and in the amendments to its International Health Regulations, all of which it hopes to pass in 2024, the WHO seeks to enlist member governments to

Counter and address the negative impacts of health-related misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and stigmatization, especially on social media platforms, on people’s physical and mental health, in order to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and foster trust in public health systems and authorities.

Brownstone contributor David Bell writes that essentially this will give the WHO, an unelected international body,

power to designate opinions or information as ‘mis-information or disinformation,’ and require country governments to intervene and stop such expression and dissemination. This … is, of course, incompatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but these seem no longer to be guiding principles for the WHO.

Conclusion

We are at a pivotal moment in the history of Western democracies. Governments, organizations and companies have more power than ever to decide what information and views are expressed on the Internet, the global public square of information and ideas.

It is natural that those in power should want to limit expression of ideas and dissemination of information that might challenge their position. They may believe they are using censorship to protect us from grave harms of disinformation and hate speech, or they may be using those reasons cynically to consolidate their control over the flow of information.

Either way, censorship inevitably entails the suppression of free speech and information, without which democracy cannot exist.

Why are the citizens of democratic nations acquiescing to the usurpation of their fundamental human rights? One reason may be the relatively abstract nature of rights and freedoms in the digital realm.

In the past, when censors burned books or jailed dissidents, citizens could easily recognize these harms and imagine how awful it would be if such negative actions were turned against them. They could also weigh the very personal and imminent negative impact of widespread censorship against much less prevalent dangers, such as child sex trafficking or genocide. Not that those dangers would be ignored or downplayed, but it would be clear that measures to combat such dangers should not include widespread book burning or jailing of regime opponents.

In the virtual world, if it’s not your post that is removed, or your video that is banned, it can be difficult to fathom the wide-ranging harm of massive online information control and censorship. It is also much easier online than in the real world to exaggerate the dangers of relatively rare threats, like pandemics or foreign interference in democratic processes. The same powerful people, governments, and companies that can censor online information can also flood the online space with propaganda, terrifying citizens in the virtual space into giving up their real-world rights.

The conundrum for free and open societies has always been the same: How to protect human rights and democracy from hate speech and disinformation without destroying human rights and democracy in the process.

The answer embodied in the recent coordinated enactment of global censorship laws is not encouraging for the future of free and open societies.

Debbie Lerman, 2023 Brownstone Fellow, has a degree in English from Harvard. She is a retired science writer and a practicing artist in Philadelphia, PA.

October 19, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

West has ‘lost’ Global South over Israel hypocrisy – FT

FILE PHOTO: Destruction in Gaza © Mustafa Hassona / Anadolu via Getty Images
RT | October 19, 2023

Attempts by the US and its allies to “paint Moscow as a global pariah” have been “poisoned” by their rush to support Israeli retaliation against Hamas in Gaza, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing more than a dozen officials.

Western nations have long framed the Ukraine conflict as an act of “unprovoked aggression” and blasted Moscow for the suffering of civilians.

However, the same nations have appeared reluctant to condition their support for Israel on exercising restraint in the wake of the deadly incursion by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, earlier this month. Israel has cut off essential supplies to the enclave and subjected it to intense bombardment.

“We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South,” one senior G7 diplomat was quoted as saying. “All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost… Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won’t ever listen to us again.”

“What we said about Ukraine has to apply to Gaza. Otherwise we lose all our credibility,” the official added. “The Brazilians, the South Africans, the Indonesians: why should they ever believe what we say about human rights?”

Meanwhile, an Arab official noted an apparent lack of consistency: “if you describe cutting off water, food and electricity in Ukraine as a war crime, then you should say the same thing about Gaza.”

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was confronted over the issue on CNN. Host Jack Tapper stressed that “civilians are civilians” regardless of where they reside. The official declined to say whether Washington was putting pressure on Israel to let supplies into Gaza.

According to The Huffington Post, the US State Department last week instructed high-level diplomats working in the Middle East not to use three specific phrases regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed,” and “restoring calm.”

This week, a Russian-proposed draft resolution denouncing violence against civilians and urging a ceasefire was rejected by the UN Security Council. Another one submitted by Brazil was later vetoed by the US, after 12 members voted for it.

Russia abstained on the second proposal, after its amendment to include a call for a truce was rejected.

“You, colleagues, will certainly come up with some formal justification citing ‘unbalanced language,’ but at this point they would sound pathetic. You have made your choice,” Moscow’s envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, said about the non-inclusion of the wording.

October 19, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hungary PM Orbán meets with Putin in Beijing

BY THOMAS BROOKE | REMIX NEWS | OCTOBER 17, 2023

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Tuesday to discuss ongoing bilateral agreements between the two nations.

The pair were snapped shaking hands in the Chinese capital — the first photographed handshake between Putin and an EU leader since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

Orbán told the Russian president that “Hungary has never sought to confront Russia” and has always and will continue to “pursue the goal of building and expanding the best communication,” reported Russia’s state-run news agency TASS.

“In Europe today, one question is on everyone’s mind: Will there be a ceasefire in Ukraine? For us Hungarians, too, the most important thing is that the flood of refugees, the sanctions, and the fighting in our neighboring country should end,” Orbán posted on X following the meeting.

Budapest has maintained relatively close relations with Moscow and faced the wrath of the European Union for steering its own course through the conflict in Ukraine and refusing to present a united front with other EU leaders.

Orbán’s administration has long opposed the provision of arms to Kyiv, which it claims is prolonging the conflict and increasing the death toll, and has advocated for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks.

The rendezvous exerts further pressure on Brussels, which requires Hungary’s approval for proposed budget reforms in order to unlock further funding for Ukraine.

“Given the fact that in today’s geopolitical conditions the opportunities for maintaining contacts and developing relations are very limited, it can only cause satisfaction that our relations with many European countries are maintained and developed. One of these countries is Hungary,” Putin told Orban.

The meeting was criticized by U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman who accused Orbán of “pleading for business deals” while Russia continues its aggression in Ukraine.

“Hungary’s leader chooses to stand with a man whose forces are responsible for crimes against humanity in Ukraine, and alone among our Allies,” he posted on X.

This interpretation of the meeting was questioned by the Hungarian prime minister’s political director, Balázs Orbán, who claimed that Budapest was “fed up” with Pressman’s “hypocrisy.”

“If the question is who’s doing business with the Russians, the Americans should turn down the volume. They are buying more than twice as much nuclear fuel alone as they used to, and we have a whole list of them,” he added.

“Since your president refuses to talk about ending this war, someone has to,” quipped Koskovics Zoltán, a geopolitical analyst at the Budapest-based Center for Fundamental Rights.

Both leaders arrived in Beijing at the invitation of Chinese President Xi ahead of an international forum on China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Earlier on Tuesday, Orbán met with the Chinese leader to discuss the strengthening of Hungarian-Chinese relations.

“Connectivity instead of decoupling: This is the Hungarian model. Our aim is to strengthen Hungarian-Chinese relations. This is good for Hungary and good for the European economy,” he said in a statement.

October 17, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

EU wants to increase Ukraine aid by €50 billion despite corruption concerns

MAGYAR NEMZET | October 17, 2023

The European Union plans to set up a fund called the Ukraine Facility, under which a new credit line for Ukraine would be opened in the amount of €50 billion for the period 2024-2027, but there are growing concerns about corruption.

The facility would provide assistance to Ukraine in three pillars. The first pillar would provide financial assistance to Ukraine, the second would support and finance investment, and under the third pillar, Brussels would help Ukraine plan the reforms needed to join the European Union. A specific feature of the Ukraine Facility is that frozen Russian assets would be confiscated and incorporated into the assistance model.

However, support for Ukraine remains a divisive issue in Brussels. Although the EU is keen to continue providing aid to a country at war, it is undeniable that Ukraine features sky-high levels of corruption and the “rule of law” fell far short of EU standards even before the war broke out, let alone during it. This came to the fore in Strasbourg during Monday’s plenary session when the Ukraine Facility was debated.

MEPs Michael Gahler and Eider Gardiazabal Rubial, the proponents of the report, said that the €50 billion credit line is a significant commitment by the European Union. They argued that Ukraine needs to improve corruption rates, the independence of its judiciary, the fight against oligarchs, and the fight against organized crime, but these efforts can be successful if complemented by the private sector.

Due to the corruption situation, several MEPs also expressed concerns about whether EU funds will go where they are supposed to. Roman Haider of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) complained that while sanctions are not working and the European economy has failed, it is worth considering whether it is worth investing another €50 billion in Ukraine, a country that is corrupt at all levels.

At the end of the agenda point, Johannes Hahn, commissioner for budget and administrative affairs of the European Commission, spoke on behalf of the commission, reminding the critical voices that “we Europeans must clearly support Ukraine.”

The politician also said that so far €80 billion in aid had been made available to Ukraine in various forms, including military assistance, and that the EU would support Ukraine as long as it needed it.

October 17, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Spanish Minister suggests taking Israel to ICC for ‘war crimes’

MEMO | October 16, 2023

Spain’s acting Social Rights Minister suggested taking Israel to the International Criminal Court for “war crimes,” local media reported.

Ione Belarra shared a video accusing the European Union and the US of “being complicit in Israel’s war crimes,” the Spanish daily, El Mundo, said on Sunday.

She called on Spanish citizens to take to the streets to demand that Madrid distance itself from the US’s unwavering support for Israel and called on the Global South to find a solution.

“Today we want to raise our voice to denounce that the state of Israel is carrying out a planned genocide in the Gaza Strip, leaving hundreds of thousands without light, food and water and carrying out bombings on the civilian population that are collective punishment, seriously breach international law and may be considered war crimes” she said.

Ten days into Israel’s bombing of Gaza, over one million people – almost half the total population of Gaza – have been displaced.

October 16, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

LAWLESS IN GAZA: WHY BRITAIN AND THE WEST BACK ISRAEL’S CRIMES

As Western politicians line up to cheer on Israel as it starves Gaza’s civilians and plunges them into darkness to soften them up before the coming Israeli ground invasion, it is important to understand how we reached this point – and what it portends for the future.

BY JONATHAN COOK | DECLASSIFIED UK | OCTOBER 13, 2023

More than a decade ago, Israel started to understand that its occupation of Gaza through siege could be to its advantage. It began transforming the tiny coastal enclave from an albatross around its neck into a valuable portfolio in the trading game of international power politics.

The first benefit for Israel, and its Western allies, is more discussed than the second.

The tiny strip of land hugging the eastern Mediterranean coast was turned into a mix of testing ground and shop window.

Israel could use Gaza to develop all sorts of new technologies and strategies associated with the homeland security industries burgeoning across the West, as officials there grew increasingly worried about domestic unrest, sometimes referred to as populism.

The siege of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, imposed by Israel in 2007 following the election of Hamas to rule the enclave, allowed for all sorts of experiments.

How could the population best be contained? What restrictions could be placed on their diet and lifestyle? How were networks of informers and collaborators to be recruited from afar? What effect did the population’s entrapment and repeated bombardment have on social and political relations?

And ultimately how were Gaza’s inhabitants to be kept subjugated and an uprising prevented?

The answers to those questions were made available to Western allies through Israel’s shopping portal. Items available included interception rocket systems, electronic sensors, surveillance systems, drones, facial recognition, automated gun towers, and much more. All tested in real-life situations in Gaza.

Israel’s standing took a severe dent from the fact that Palestinians managed to bypass this infrastructure of confinement last weekend – at least for a few days – with a rusty bulldozer, some hang-gliders and a sense of nothing-to-lose.

Which is part of the reason why Israel now needs to go back into Gaza with ground troops to show it still has the means to keep the Palestinians crushed.

Collective punishment

Which brings us to the second purpose served by Gaza.

As Western states have grown increasingly unnerved by signs of popular unrest at home, they have started to think more carefully about how to sidestep the restrictions placed on them by international law.

The term refers to a body of laws that were formalised in the aftermath of the second world war, when both sides treated civilians on the other side of the battle lines as little more than pawns on a chessboard.

The aim of those drafting international law was to make it unconscionable for there to be a repeat of Nazi atrocities in Europe, as well as other crimes such as Britain’s fire bombing of German cities like Dresden or the United States’ dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

One of the fundamentals of international law – at the heart of the Geneva Conventions – is a prohibition on collective punishment: that is, retaliating against the enemy’s civilian population, making them pay the price for the acts of their leaders and armies.

Very obviously, Gaza is about as flagrant a violation of this prohibition as can be found. Even in “quiet” times, its inhabitants – one million of them children – are denied the most basic freedoms, such as the right to movement; access to proper health care because medicines and equipment cannot be brought in; access to drinkable water; and the use of electricity for much of the day because Israel keeps bombing Gaza’s power station.

Israel has never made any bones of the fact that it is punishing the people of Gaza for being ruled by Hamas, which rejects Israel’s right to have dispossessed the Palestinians of their homeland in 1948 and imprisoned them in overcrowded ghettos like Gaza.

What Israel is doing to Gaza is the very definition of collective punishment. It is a war crime: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of every year, for 16 years.

And yet no one in the so-called international community seems to have noticed.

Rules of war rewritten

But the trickiest legal situation – for Israel and the West – is when Israel bombs Gaza, as it is doing now, or sends in soldiers, as it soon will do.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted the problem when he told the people of Gaza: “Leave now”. But, as he and Western leaders know, Gaza’s inhabitants have nowhere to go, nowhere to escape the bombs. So any Israeli attack is, by definition, on the civilian population too. It is the modern equivalent of the Dresden fire bombings.

Israel has been working on strategies to overcome this difficulty since its first major bombardment of Gaza in late 2008, after the siege was introduced.

A unit in its attorney general’s office was charged with finding ways to rewrite the rules of war in Israel’s favour.

At the time, the unit was concerned that Israel would be criticised for blowing up a police graduation ceremony in Gaza, killing many young cadets. Police are civilians in international law, not soldiers, and therefore not a legitimate target. Israeli lawyers were also worried that Israel had destroyed government offices, the infrastructure of Gaza’s civilian administration.

Israel’s concerns seem quaint now – a sign of how far it has already shifted the dial on international law. For some time, anyone connected with Hamas, however tangentially, is considered a legitimate target, not just by Israel but by every Western government.

Western officials have joined Israel in treating Hamas as simply a terrorist organisation, ignoring that it is also a government with people doing humdrum tasks like making sure bins are collected and schools kept open.

Or as Orna Ben-Naftali, a law faculty dean, told the Haaretz newspaper back in 2009: “A situation is created in which the majority of the adult men in Gaza and the majority of the buildings can be treated as legitimate targets. The law has actually been stood on its head.”

Back at that time, David Reisner, who had previously headed the unit, explained Israel’s philosophy to Haaretz: “What we are seeing now is a revision of international law. If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it.

“The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries.”

Israel’s meddling to change international law goes back many decades.

Referring to Israel’s attack on Iraq’s fledgling nuclear reactor in 1981, an act of war condemned by the UN Security Council, Reisner said: “The atmosphere was that Israel had committed a crime. Today everyone says it was preventive self-defence. International law progresses through violations.”

He added that his team had travelled to the US four times in 2001 to persuade US officials of Israel’s ever-more flexible interpretation of international law towards subjugating Palestinians.

“Had it not been for those four planes, I am not sure we would have been able to develop the thesis of the war against terrorism on the present scale,” he said.

Those redefinitions of the rules of war proved invaluable when the US chose to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.

‘Human animals’

In recent years, Israel has continued to “evolve” international law. It has introduced the concept of “prior warning” – sometimes giving a few minutes’ notice of a building or neighbourhood’s destruction. Vulnerable civilians still in the area, like the elderly, children and the disabled, are then recast as legitimate targets for failing to leave in time.

And it is using the current assault on Gaza to change the rules still further.

The 2009 Haaretz article includes references by law officials to Yoav Gallant, who was then the military commander in charge of Gaza. He was described as a “wild man”, a “cowboy” with no time for legal niceties.

Gallant is now defence minister and the man responsible for instituting this week a “complete siege” of Gaza: “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed.” In language that blurred any distinction between Hamas and Gaza’s civilians, he described Palestinians as “human animals”.

That takes collective punishment into a whole different realm. In terms of international law, it skirts into the territory of genocide, both rhetorically and substantively.

But the dial has shifted so completely that even centrist Western politicians are cheering Israel on – often not even calling for “restraint” or “proportionality”, the weasel terms they usually use to obscure their support for law breaking.

Britain has been leading the way in helping Israel to rewrite the rulebook on international law.

Listen to Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour opposition and the man almost certain to be Britain’s next prime minister. This week he supported the “complete siege” of Gaza, a crime against humanity, refashioning it as Israel’s “right to defend itself”.

Starmer has not failed to grasp the legal implications of Israel’s actions, even if he seems personally immune to the moral implications. He is trained as a human rights lawyer.

His approach even appears to be taking aback journalists not known for being sympathetic to the Palestinian case. When asked by Kay Burley of Sky News if he had any sympathy for the civilians in Gaza being treated like “human animals”, Starmer could not find a single thing to say in support.

Instead, he deflected to an outright deception: blaming Hamas for sabotaging a “peace process” that Israel both practically and declaratively buried years ago.

Confirming that the Labour party now condones war crimes by Israel, his shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, has been sticking to the same script. On BBC’s Newsnight, she evaded questions about whether cutting off power and supplies to Gaza is in line with international law.

It is no coincidence that Starmer’s position contrasts so dramatically with that of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. The latter was driven out of office by a sustained campaign of antisemitism smears fomented by Israel’s most fervent supporters in the UK.

Starmer does not dare to be seen on the wrong side of this issue. And that is exactly the outcome Israeli officials wanted and expected.

Israeli flag on No 10

Starmer is, of course, far from alone. Grant Shapps, Britain’s defence secretary, has also expressed trenchant support for Israel’s policy of starving two million Palestinians in Gaza.

Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, has emblazoned the Israeli flag on the front of his official residence, 10 Downing Street, apparently unconcerned at how he is giving visual form to what would normally be considered an antisemitic trope: that Israel controls the UK’s foreign policy.

Starmer, not wishing to be outdone, has called for Wembley stadium’s arch to be adorned with the colours of the Israeli flag.

“The media is playing its part, dependably as ever“

However much this schoolboy cheerleading of Israel is sold as an act of solidarity following Hamas’ slaughter of Israeli civilians at the weekend, the subtext is unmistakeable: Britain has Israel’s back as it starts its retributive campaign of war crimes in Gaza.

That is also the purpose of home secretary Suella Braverman’s advice to the police to treat the waving of Palestinian flags and chants for Palestine’s liberation at protests in support of Gaza as criminal acts.

The media is playing its part, dependably as ever. A Channel 4 TV crew pursued Corbyn through London’s streets this week, demanding he “condemn” Hamas. They insinuated through the framing of those demands that anything less fulsome – such as Corbyn’s additional concerns for the welfare of Gaza’s civilians – was confirmation of the former Labour leader’s antisemitism.

The clear implication from politicians and the establishment media is that any support for Palestinian rights, any demurral from Israel’s “unquestionable right” to commit war crimes, equates to antisemitism.

Europe’s hypocrisy

This double approach, of cheering on genocidal Israeli policies towards Gaza while stifling any dissent, or characterising it as antisemitism, is not confined to the UK.

Across Europe, from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Bulgarian parliament, official buildings have been lit up with the Israeli flag.

Europe’s top official, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, celebrated the Israeli flag smothering the EU parliament this week.

She has repeatedly stated that “Europe stands with Israel”, even as Israeli war crimes start to mount.

The Israeli air force boasted on Thursday it had dropped some 6,000 bombs on Gaza. At the same time, human rights groups reported Israel was firing the incendiary chemical weapon white phosphorus into Gaza, a war crime when used in urban areas. And Defence for Children International noted that more than 500 Palestinian children had been killed so far by Israeli bombs.

It was left to Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied territories, to point out that Von Der Leyen was applying the principles of international law entirely inconsistently.

Almost exactly a year ago, the European Commission president denounced Russia’s strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine as war crimes. “Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming – these are acts of pure terror,” she wrote. “And we have to call it as such.”

Albanese noted Von der Leyen had said nothing equivalent about Israel’s even worse attacks on Palestinian infrastructure.

Sending in the heavies

Meanwhile, France has already started breaking up and banning demonstrations against the bombing of Gaza. Its justice minister has echoed Braverman in suggesting solidarity with Palestinians risks offending Jewish communities and should be treated as “hate speech”.

Naturally, Washington is unwavering in its support for whatever Israel decides to do to Gaza, as secretary of state Anthony Blinken made clear during his visit this week.

President Joe Biden has promised weapons and funding, and sent in the military equivalent of “the heavies” to make sure no one disturbs Israel as it carries out those war crimes. An aircraft carrier has been dispatched to the region to ensure quiet from Israel’s neighbours as the ground invasion is launched.

Even those officials whose chief role is to promote international law, such as Antonio Gutteres, secretary general of the UN, have started to move with the shifting ground.

Like most Western officials, he has emphasised Gaza’s “humanitarian needs” above the rules of war Israel is obliged to honour.

This is Israel’s success. The language of international law that should apply to Gaza – of rules and norms Israel must obey – has given way to, at best, the principles of humanitarianism: acts of international charity to patch up the suffering of those whose rights are being systematically trampled on, and those whose lives are being obliterated.

Western officials are more than happy with the direction of travel. Not just for Israel’s sake but for their own too. Because one day in the future, their own populations may be as much trouble to them as Palestinians in Gaza are to Israel right now.

Supporting Israel’s right to defend itself is their downpayment.

October 15, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Partnership with Russia in Hungary’s national interest – FM

RT | October 15, 2023

Budapest will stick to agreements with Russia in the energy sphere despite Ukraine-related sanctions and pressure from EU peers, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told RT on Friday, on the sidelines of the annual Russian Energy Week forum. The official stressed that his country will always put its national interests first and that energy cooperation with Russia is among its key priorities in this regard.

“Our national interest is to definitely have reliable, mutually respectful cooperation with Russia. Without Russian energy we would not be able to guarantee the safe supply of energy for our country,” he stated, adding that, for Hungary, the supply of energy “is not a political issue or an ideological issue, but a physical one.”

The official noted that his country is in constant contact with Moscow “to make sure our cooperation continues according to our existing contracts.” Hungary continues to buy Russian gas under the 15-year contract with energy major Gazprom signed in 2021, which provides for the supply of 4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually. The country is also buying Russian oil via pipelines that run through Croatia and Ukraine, having secured an exemption from the sanctions imposed by Brussels on Russian crude oil imports last year.

Another large part of Russian-Hungarian cooperation is the work on new reactors for Hungary’s Paks-2 nuclear power plant under a contract with Russia’s Rosatom. According to Szijjarto, the construction process has already started.

“The cut-off walls are now under construction – that gives us hope that by the beginning of the next decade we will be able to connect the two new blocks to the grid, which will increase the nuclear capacity from 2,000 megawatts to 4,400 megawatts,” he said, adding that the project will make Hungary’s power production “more competitive, safer and more environmentally-friendly.”

Szijjarto conceded that the project faced much pressure, especially with the EU continuously pitching the Russian nuclear industry as a potential candidate for sanctions. However, according to the foreign minister the EU is unlikely to go through with these threats.

“We made it very clear that we will not agree to any sanctions package which will include the nuclear industry… because for us it would be totally against our national interests if the nuclear industry was under sanctions. And since the US has bought 416 tons of uranium from Russia during the first half of this year, I think no real arguments are there for the EU to put the Russian nuclear industry under sanctions… that would be a huge hypocrisy.”

Szijjarto reiterated previous statements that the West’s anti-Russia sanctions policy has failed, and urged the collective EU to help Russia and Ukraine bring the conflict to an end instead of heaping more punitive measures on Moscow.

“The EU is struggling when it comes to economy and when it comes to competitiveness, it’s obvious – there are figures – China has already overtaken us when it comes to share of global GDP. So, the EU should make the decisions in order to improve competitiveness… and sanctions [against Russia] have contributed to the loss of competitiveness, for sure… Instead of imposing sanctions and delivering weapons, we should start discussions about peace,” he stated, warning that circumstances for peace talks will become less favorable as time passes by.

October 15, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

EU Opens Investigation Into X After Making Censorship Demands

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | October 13, 2023

Sparking serious concerns over severe censorship and free speech restrictions, the European Union has initiated a formal investigation into X, due to perceived misinformation related to the recent Hamas attack on Israel.

The potential risk of such probes is that they could lead to a world where a centralized authority determines the validity of opinions and controls information flow.

From the perspective of anti-censorship advocates, this move by the EU is a slippery slope.

The imperative question that arises is who gets to define “misinformation,” and how can it be ensured that bias or interests of the few do not influence these definitions?

This investigation marks the inaugural application of the Digital Services Act (DSA) – a controversial legislative effort purportedly aimed at policing Big Tech.

However, free speech advocates argue that this aggressive stance strays dangerously close to infringing on foundational rights to free expression.

In the wake of recent hostilities between Israel and Hamas, there’s been a substantial uptick in digital content related to the conflict, some containing graphic imagery. While the EU’s initiative is purportedly to quell misinformation, it raises the age-old question: where does one draw the line between censoring misinformation and infringing upon free speech?

Elon Musk, now at the helm of X, received a letter from EU commissioner Thierry Breton, signaling unease that the platform could be a conduit for what the EU deems “illegal content and disinformation.” In response, Musk advocated for transparency, inviting the EU to make public the alleged violations, thereby allowing the public to form their opinions. “Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports. Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that that [sic] the public can see them. Merci beaucoup,” Musk wrote.

Yet, Breton’s rejoinder was less than satisfactory for proponents of free discourse. He retorted, “You are well aware of your users’ — and authorities’— reports on fake content and glorification of violence. Up to you to demonstrate that you walk the talk.” This statement underscores a problematic vagueness and subjectivity in determining what constitutes a gray area that poses a potential threat to free speech.

October 13, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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