Hamas calls on 18 countries signing hostage release initiative to expose Israel’s crimes
MEMO | April 27, 2024
French Government Agents Likely Killed in Russia’s January Strike on Kharkov – Ex-Intel Officer
Sputnik – 27.04.2024
PARIS – French government agents were likely killed during the Russian armed forces’ strike on a temporary deployment point of foreign mercenaries in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kharkov on January 16, former French counter-terrorism intelligence officer Nicolas Cinquini told Sputnik.
On January 16, the Russian armed forces destroyed a temporary deployment point of foreign mercenaries in Kharkov, with about 60 foreign soldiers killed in the strike, Russian defense officials said. Following the developments, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the French ambassador to Moscow, saying that “several dozen French” had been among the mercenaries killed in the strike. Paris, for its part, rejected the information as “manipulation.”
“On January 16, 2024, Russia struck an abandoned maternity hospital in Kharkov that had been transformed into a base for foreign military personnel. The press release stated that their [military personnel’s] ‘core’ had been French and that a total of about 60 people had been killed. I have concluded that these personnel were classified as agents of the French government,” Cinquini said.
He explained his belief by the fact that no reports were published after the strike about the deceased French who had gone to the front privately, although such news is usually posted on social media.
“The first reason is that no casualties have been observed among the individual volunteers I know. Moreover, they are not accustomed to gathering in masses, but rather occupy private premises in small groups,” the former intelligence officer explained.
The second reason Cinquini believes the killed French had been government agents is that the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the French ambassador to Moscow following the strike, which he said suggests the presence of more serious personnel at the site, such as operators appointed by the French government, probably former legionnaires of Ukrainian origin.
Following a Paris-hosted conference on Ukraine held on February 26, French President Emmanuel Macron said Western leaders had discussed the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine and, although no consensus had been reached in this regard, nothing could be ruled out. Some EU countries hastened to dismiss such plans.
French Servicemen Promised Big Money for Fighting in Ukraine – Ex-Intel Officer
Sputnik – 26.04.2024
PARIS – French servicemen are being promised a golden parachute for participating in fictitious “resignations” to fight in Ukraine said Nicolas Cinquini, a veteran of France’s counter-terrorism intelligence service, to Sputnik.
Cinquini is currently searching for information about French nationals who fight in the conflict on the side of Kiev. According to his findings, French state agents may have been in Ukraine since the start of the special military operation in February 2022 along with ordinary French civilians who went to fight for the Kiev regime on their own.
“These are agents who remain very secretive and are difficult to identify,” the former intelligence officer noted.
“Sources told us that in the ranks of the French army, specialists were given attractive offers: a false resignation, a guarantee of reinstatement upon completion, and an income significantly higher than their usual earnings,” he said.
In February, French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris would do everything to prevent Russia “from winning this war.” At a conference on assistance to Ukraine, he raised the issue of transferring troops to the combat zone, but neither European leaders nor the opposition in his own country supported him. At the beginning of March, Macron also emphasized that France “has no limits or red lines” in matters of supporting Ukraine.
Later, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergei Naryshkin, said France had already begun training a contingent to be sent to the conflict zone; at the first stage it would amount to about 2,000 military personnel. Later, the SVR, citing Naryshkin, said a French military unit, should it be in Ukraine, would become a priority legitimate target for the Russian military. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu by phone that sending French troops to Ukraine would create problems for France itself.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said in an interview with Dmitry Kiselev, the Director General of Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik’s parent media company, that the deployment of European troops to Ukraine will not change the situation on the battlefield but will lead to dire consequences for Kiev. In response to Macron’s words about the absence of red lines, the Russian leader said Moscow will not have restrictions in relation to states with such an approach either.
Ukraine: US doubles down, Russia is cool
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | APRIL 22, 2024
Russia’s free running in the Ukraine war in the most recent months is about to end this week as the Biden Administration has met with success in the US Congress on the long-stalled Ukraine aid bill. The aid approved by the House on Saturday would send $60.8 billion to Ukraine.
Senate approval is expected as soon a Tuesday this week. President Biden has promised, “I will immediately sign this law to send a signal to the whole world: we support our friends and will not allow Iran or Russia to succeed,”
To be sure, the US is doubling down to forestall an outright Russian military victory in Ukraine through this year. Unsurprisingly, Washington’s transatlantic allies are also rallying, which is the message coming out of the virtual meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council at the level of Allied Defence Ministers chaired by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at Brussels on Saturday.
The sense of relief in Kiev is palpable with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy telling NBC, “I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces of Ukraine, and we will have a chance for victory.” He said the US lawmakers moved to keep “history on the right track.”
On the other hand, the Russian reaction has been rather polemical — The foreign ministry spokesperson said in Moscow, “White House is no longer banking on an ephemeral victory by the Kiev regime under its control. All it wants is for the Ukrainian armed forces to hold out at least until the November voting without damaging Biden’s image… we confirm that Washington’s actions as an active party to the conflict will be rebuffed unconditionally and decisively, and its increasingly deeper plunge into the hybrid war against Russia will end up in a fiasco for the United States as scandalous and humiliating as in Vietnam and Afghanistan.”
What seems to perturb Moscow most in the US aid bill is its provision for confiscating frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine, which, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov singled out “because this is essentially the destruction of all the foundations of the economic system. This is an encroachment on state property, on state assets and on private property. By no means should this be perceived as legal action — it is illegal. And accordingly, it will be subject to retaliatory actions and legal proceedings,”
Of course, the Russian military moves going forward will be keenly watched. In such fluid circumstances, actions speak better than words. At any rate, an inflection point has come since, evidently with an eye on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forthcoming visit to Beijing, the Biden Administration is also shifting gear to explicitly threaten China for allegedly supporting the Russian defence industry. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is paying a 3-day visit to China on Wednesday.
Taken together, what emerges is that the Biden Administration is doubling down on the Ukraine war, contrary to earlier prognosis that war fatigue is setting in. Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder has disclosed to Politico in a statement that the Biden Administration is considering sending additional military advisers to Ukraine, since “security conditions have evolved.”
The additional personnel “would not be in a combat role, but rather would advise and support the Ukrainian government and military.” The specific numbers of personnel remain confidential “for operational security and force protection reasons.” They will support logistics and oversight efforts for the weapons the US is sending Ukraine and “new contingent will also help the Ukrainian military with weapons maintenance.”
Indeed, the fact remains that even in a non-combat role, what is in the cards is an expansion of the US military presence in Ukraine, notwithstanding Biden’s repeated assertions that US troops wouldn’t participate in the war on Ukraine’s behalf, as doing so would increase the risk of a direct Russian-American military confrontation.
Citing sources, Politico further reported that “One of the tasks the advisers will tackle is helping the Ukrainians plan sustainment of complex equipment donated by the US as the summer fighting is expected to ramp up.”
Interestingly, it has been reported on Saturday that French troops are already on the ground in Odessa numbering 1,000 and another contingent is expected shortly. This was forecast a few weeks ago by the Russian foreign intelligence but Paris flatly denied it.
How does the new US $60.75 billion aid package add up? It includes $23.2 billion intended to replenish US weapons stocks; $13.8 billion for the purchase of advanced weapons systems for Ukraine; and another $11.3 billion for “ongoing US military operations in the region.”
That is to say, in effect, the direct military assistance to Ukraine will actually amount to about $13.8 billion till end-2024. The Russian experts estimate that this allocation rules out another Ukrainian “counteroffensive.” Besides, while the increased flow of US weaponry will beef up the Ukrainian military capability to withstand the Russian offensive, it cannot fundamentally change the balance of forces at the front.
From a military angle, the cutting edge of the bill lies in the fact that it opens the gateway for the transfer to Ukraine of tactical missile systems [ATACMS] capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 300 km, which brings Crimea within its range. President Putin is on record that the ATACMS “are not at all able to change the situation on the line of contact… [but are] “certainly damaging and pose an additional threat.”
Put differently, the aid package aims on the one hand to avoid a catastrophic military situation arising at the front in the coming months, which could be politically damaging for Biden’s re-election bid, while on the other hand, the bulk of funds actually goes to the US arms manufacturers in some key “swing states” and will surely gratify the influential military-industrial complex and the Deep State.
Biden told Wall Street Journal, “We will send military equipment from our own stocks, and then use the money authorised by Congress to replenish these stocks by buying them from American suppliers. This includes Patriot missiles made in Arizona, Javelin missiles made in Alabama, and artillery shells made in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.”
To be sure, the triumphalist narrative of the Ukraine war by the US state department is on a comeback trail. Equally, it appears that Donald Trump has shed his ambivalence and decided to be supportive of the bill. The meeting between Trump and the Republican House speaker Mike Johnson in the run-up to the vote in the House on Saturday would suggest that the latter will not be ousted by his far-right House Republican colleagues.
Macron’s Olympic truce call takes gold for western cynicism
Strategic Culture Foundation | April 19, 2024
French President Emmanuel Macron wants a truce in Ukraine and Gaza for the duration of the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.
Macron said this week that his proposal is consistent with the ancient concept of an Olympic Truce when, historically, hostilities would be put to the side to showcase higher ideals of human fraternity and peaceful aspiration. In short, demonstration of the edifying notion that sport is above politics.
Russia responded that it was not against the idea in principle. However, Moscow pointed out that Macron’s Olympic peace idea lacks any practical details to vouchsafe a genuine initiative.
To put it more bluntly, the French leader has no credibility to proffer such a potentially important accord. His vague proposal is riddled with contradictions.
Only a few weeks ago, Macron was airing the idea of sending NATO troops to fight in Ukraine against Russia. He has not retracted that reckless provocation, which could escalate the conflict to a world war between nuclear powers.
Now we are to believe that Monsieur President is a tribune for world peace.
Paris and other NATO capitals are desperately pushing for more weapons to be sent to the NeoNazi regime in Kiev. The NATO proxy war against Russia is in its third year and is increasingly looking like a lost cause for Washington and its Western allies. Not one Western leader is prepared to give up the ghost of this bloody debacle to strategically defeat Russia by exploring a diplomatic solution to the war.
How then can Macron’s supposed concern for an Olympic Truce be taken seriously?
As for Gaza, France and its NATO partners have been complicit in sponsoring a genocide over the past six and half months. The Israeli regime’s massacre of over 34,000 Palestinians – a death toll that mounts every week – and its continuing starvation siege on the Gaza Strip are crucially enabled by the military and political support of the United States and the European Union.
As if that is not bad enough, France, the United States and Britain are de facto supporting Israel’s aggression towards Iran, as well as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. The Western trio are helping Israel’s air defenses while at the same time condemning Iran and imposing economic sanctions. Their tacit involvement is green-lighting more Israeli belligerence and violation of international laws which is corroding the entire fabric of global security.
Given the appalling culpability of the Western powers in fueling these explosive conflicts, it is the height of duplicity for Macron to turn around and make his pompous proposal for a truce during the Summer Games being held in Paris from July 26 to August 11.
The real concern for Macron is to showcase France in all its presumed greatness in a worldwide spectacle.
The narcissistic Macron is driven by self-aggrandizing ambition and delusions of grandeur as a world statesman and the president who restored France’s international prestige. It is this same megalomania that drives his recent calls for greater NATO involvement in the proxy war in Ukraine. The former Rothschild banker and now Napoleon wannabe is a charlatan who is completely bereft of any principles.
Significantly, the opening ceremony for the Summer Games is planned to take place along the Seine River in the form of an extravagant regatta. This arrangement breaks with the modern tradition of all Olympics being opened in the main stadium that hosts the sporting events. The Stade de France is located outside the French capital. One gets the distinct impression that Macron wants the grand opening to be televised in the center of Paris simply for the purpose of showing off the capital and its renowned cultural landmarks.
For Macron, the quadrennial games are first and foremost all about displaying France in the best possible light to the world for political and commercial exhibition. The games themselves are a vehicle for his vainglorious ambitions.
The truth is the Olympic Games and other international sporting events have long been hijacked by Western politics for their imperialist agenda.
When the U.S. and its NATO allies were waging illegal wars in countless countries in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, there were never calls for an Olympic Truce. There were never calls for banning the U.S. and its allies from participating in games even though there were substantial grounds for such calls.
Russian athletes have for several years now been banned from sporting events based solely on trumped-up claims about drug abuse and other alleged infringements. As our columnist Declan Hayes has pointed out in several articles, Russia’s figure-skating champion Kamila Valieva and its other world-class athletes have been subjected to relentless Western efforts to destroy their reputations and participation in “NATO sporting circuses”.
Shamefully, the Western powers and their toxic mass media have done everything to ensure that politics are above sports. Sporting events have become just another adjunct of Western propaganda.
If Macron had any genuine motive for international peace, he would be calling for an end to arming the NeoNazi regime in Ukraine and advocating a credible diplomatic engagement with Russia.
If Macron earnestly wanted the Olympic Games to serve as an overture for peace and humanity, he would be calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and full respect for Palestinian national and human rights.
The Western-controlled International Olympic Committee has banned Russian athletes from participating in the games in Paris under their national flag. Their “concession” is that 40 Russian sportspeople may take part as long as they do so under a “neutral flag” and that they do not display any signs of supporting Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. Why were such strictures not imposed on Americans or Britons during their criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Russia is banned yet Israel is allowed to send a full team in national colors while it conducts the worst genocide in modern times. The Western hypocrisy here is absolutely revolting and self-indicting.
Like a Greek tragedy, the rampant cynicism and abuse by Western powers are destroying the Olympic Games, the very event that they are trying to monopolize for their nauseating virtue signaling.
In a crowded Western field competing for the dubious title, Macron takes gold for cynicism.
NATO member blames Israel for Iranian attack
RT | April 16, 2024
Iran’s first direct attack on Israel is the fault of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first and foremost, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
In a televised address after a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Erdogan said it was unfair to look at last Saturday’s events in a vacuum.
“The one chiefly responsible for the tension that gripped our hearts on the evening of April 13 is Netanyahu and his bloody administration,” he said.
“Since October 7, the Israeli government has opted for provocative moves in order to spread the fire to the entire region. The Israeli government targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus, violating international law and the Vienna Convention, and that was the last straw,” added Erdogan.
Tehran’s diplomatic mission was struck on April 1, killing seven high-ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, including two generals. Israel never officially claimed responsibility for the strike, but has repeatedly bombed Syria, claiming preemptive self-defense from the Iranian presence there.
“We have seen the double-standard approach of Western countries,” Erdogan said, pointing out that only a handful of countries condemned Israel’s move, but rushed to denounce Iran’s response.
Tehran eventually launched scores of drones and missiles against targets inside Israel. The US, UK, France and Jordan helped the Israelis with air defense but some of the projectiles got through, causing unspecified damage.
Erdogan also blamed Israel for the current conflict in general, saying its forces have “indiscriminately” killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including people standing in line for humanitarian aid.
“For more than 132 days, Israel has been implementing genocidal policies,” the Turkish leader claimed.
Netanyahu declared war on Gaza-based Hamas after the Palestinian militant group raided nearby Israeli villages and military bases last October. Much of Gaza has since been reduced to rubble and its civilian population pushed to the edge of starvation. A recent report by UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has accused Israel of intending to commit genocide in the enclave.
Censorship & persecution of dissident voices continues across the world
The ‘cautionary tale’ modus operandi
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | April 15, 2024
Those who, like the members of HART, have been speaking out for three or four years about the perils of lockdowns, the lack of access to proper medical care and the utter debacle of the unsafe and ineffective vaccines, keep hoping the tide is turning. But for every stone upturned another boulder seems to descend to crush the truth. There is also no apparent end to the persecution of doctors speaking out.
Two physicians from opposite ends of the world and facing loss of their medical careers for speaking out against the vaccine saviour narrative, typify the current authoritarian approach. Charles Hoffe from Canada and Shankara Chetty from South Africa have two things in common, firstly both are clinicians serving a large local population and secondly both have shared their experiences widely. In Dr Chetty’s case he has reported his success at treating over 1000 covid patients with a combination of repurposed drugs including antihistamines in a clinical centre in rural South Africa with no access to oxygen let alone intensive care. In Dr Hoffe’s case, he first hit the headlines when he reported a high frequency of serious adverse events when his patients started receiving the mRNA vaccines.
Both these hard working and ethical physicians now, three years on, are being subjected to investigations by their medical boards. For Dr Chetty, he has previously been found guilty of professional misconduct but was called to attend a further hearing last week in front of the Health Professionals Council of South Africa. The results of their deliberations are awaited.
For Charles Hoffe the situation is even more bizarre. He was due for a hearing last week but when he submitted all the supportive evidence for his case, the health board in British Columbia deposited a large amount of evidence of their own but then threatened to invoke a ruling by which their evidence would be accepted as ‘fact’ by the court and Dr Hoffe and his legal team would be unable to cross question the data or present any information to the contrary. It looks like the right to a free trial has been abandoned in Canada, along with the right to free speech.
Below is a list of some senior clinicians and academics from across the world who have been vilified for speaking truth to power. It is by no means comprehensive.
USA:
Canada:
Australia:
- Dr Robert Brennan
- Dr Melissa McCann (subject to ‘re-education’)
- Dr Ros Neelon-Cook
- Dr Paul Oosterhuis
New Zealand:
Germany:
- Sucharit Bhakdi (acquitted of charge of antisemitism)
France:
- Dr Didier Raoult (an outspoken academic accused of unethical practice)
Switzerland:
- Thomas Binder (initially incarcerated in a mental institution)
UK:
- Dr David Cartland (GMC investigation ongoing)
- Professor Angus Dalgleish (clinical work suspended by St George’s Hospital)
- Dr Jayne Donegan (struck off by GMC, working as an independent)
- Professor Christopher Exley (told by Keele University to discontinue all research into Aluminium toxicity)
- Dr Aseem Malhotra (GMC initially declined to investigate until a legal case was brought to force an investigation)
- Mr Ahmad Malik (suspended by his private hospital for online posts)
- Dr Sarah Myhill (suspended by GMC, appeal pending)
- Dr Anne McCloskey (suspended by GMC in 2021, further hearing April 2024)
- Dr Sam White (NHS suspended him and GMC placed restrictions which were overturned in the High Court, currently working in independent practice)
This list is continuing to grow despite the increasing reports in the scientific literature which confirm almost everything they have said.
When does it stop?
WHO Official Admits Vaccine Passports May Have Been a Scam
By Paul D. Thacker | The DisInformation Chronicle | April 12, 2024
The World Health Organization’s Dr. Hanna Nohynek testified in court that she advised her government that vaccine passports were not needed but was ignored, despite explaining that the COVID vaccines did not stop virus transmission and the passports gave a false sense of security. The stunning revelations came to light in a Helsinki courtroom where Finnish citizen Mika Vauhkala is suing after he was denied entry to a café for not having a vaccine passport.
Dr. Nohynek is chief physician at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and serves as the WHO’s chair of Strategic Group of Experts on immunization. Testifying yesterday, she stated that the Finnish Institute for Health knew by the summer of 2021 that the COVID-19 vaccines did not stop virus transmission
During that same 2021 time period, the WHO said it was working to “create an international trusted framework” for safe travel while EU members states began rolling out COVID passports. The EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation passed in July 2021 and more than 2.3 billion certificates were later issued. Visitors to France were banned if they did not have a valid vaccine passport which citizens had to carry to buy food at stores or to use public transport.
But Dr. Nohynek testified yesterday that her institute advised the Finnish government in late 2021 that COVID passports no longer made sense, yet certificates continued to be required. Finnish journalist Ike Novikoff reported the news yesterday after leaving the Helsinki courtroom where Dr. Nohynek spoke.
Dr. Nohynek’s admission that the government ignored scientific advice to terminate vaccine passports proved shocking as she is widely embraced in global medical circles. Besides chairing the WHO’s strategic advisory group on immunizations, Dr. Nohynek is one of Finland’s top vaccine advisors and serves on the boards of Vaccines Together and the International Vaccine Institute.
The EU’s digital COVID-19 certification helped establish the WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network in July 2023. “By using European best practices we contribute to digital health standards and interoperability globally—to the benefit of those most in need,” stated one EU official.
Finnish citizen Mika Vauhkala created a website discussing his case against Finland’s government where he writes that he launched his lawsuit “to defend basic rights” after he was denied breakfast in December 2021 at a Helsinki café because he did not have a COVID passport even though he was healthy. “The constitution of Finland guarantees that any citizen should not be discriminated against based on health conditions among other things,” Vauhkala states on his website.
Vauhkala’s lawsuit continued today in Helsinki district court where British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra will testify that, during the COVID pandemic, some authorities and medical professionals supported unethical, coercive, and misinformed policies such as vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, which undermined informed patient consent and evidence-based medical practice.
You can read Dr. Malhotra’s testimony here.
Western leaders reveal their total contempt for Palestinian lives
By Dimitri Lascaris | April 11, 2024
Six months into Israel’s genocide, Western leaders continue to issue statements that reveal their total contempt for Palestinian lives.
The Prime Ministers of Canada and France have just issued a joint statement.
In it, they declare that they “unequivocally condemn” Russia’s “ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine”.
They also claim to be “extremely concerned” about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and “the appalling situation of the civilian population.”
They “condemn” the strike that resulted in the deaths of several World Central Kitchen workers, including a Canadian citizen, and “emphasize Israel’s obligation, under international humanitarian law, to allow and facilitate the unfettered access of humanitarian aid to Gaza and to protect humanitarian workers and the civilian population.”
Also, “in the strongest possible terms”, they “condemn” the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel on October 7 and “call for the immediate, unconditional release of all hostages.”
So let’s get this straight.
In six months, Israel has killed more than three times as many civilians in Gaza as have died in more than two years of war in Ukraine.
And yet, the French and Canadian Prime Ministers still can’t bring themselves to “condemn” Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian civilians, including nearly 14,000 Palestinian children.
With respect to Israel’s crimes, they use the word “condemn” only once, but they apply it not to Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians. Rather, they apply it to Israel’s massacre of aid workers who *came from Western countries*.
It is now beyond obvious that Western ‘leaders’ attach little to no value to the lives of Palestinians. These people are anti-Palestinians racists masquerading as champions of human rights.
@dimitrilascaris
UK and France Talk of Reviving WWI Alliance Over ‘Fear’ of Trump Return
Sputnik – 09.04.2024
In an op-ed penned on the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale, a landmark agreement signed between the British Empire and France in 1904, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne penned an op-ed essentially calling for the revival of the alliance.
The two ministers argued that NATO must mobilize to deny Russia a victory in Ukraine, claiming that the UK and France, two of the military bloc’s founders and nuclear powers, “have a responsibility in driving the alliance to deal with the challenges before it.”
“We must do even more to ensure we defeat Russia. The world is watching – and will judge us if we fail,” they wrote in a piece published by The Telegraph.
Commenting on this development, Dr. John Laughland, a lecturer in politics and history at the Catholic Institute of the Vendée (ICES) in France and specialist in international affairs, observed that the UK and France are “two principal military powers in Europe” and do enjoy “quite a high level” of bilateral military cooperation.
He did point out, however, that though London and Paris “have indeed been strengthening that cooperation for some years now,” as Cameron and Sejourne wrote, he does not see “any substantial new initiatives” in the article, which he dismissed as “essentially just propaganda.”
Whereas the Entente managed to prevail in World War I in no small part due to the Russian Empire’s contribution to the cause, Dr. Laughland suggested that this new British-French axis would inevitably lean on the United States, “because everything that they say about the British-French Entente is in the context of NATO.”
“The current war is a NATO war. And so they are leaning on the Americans,” he remarked.
He suggested that France and the UK may be driven by the fear of Donald Trump’s reelection as the president of the United States.
“I think that the European powers, including France and Britain, are trying to pre-empt that outcome because whether rightly or wrongly, they fear that Trump would want to make peace in Ukraine, make peace with Russia,” the scholar mused. “But again, I regard this as just a piece of gesture politics, this article and this commemoration.”
Dr. Laughland also recalled a previous attempt by Cameron to partially revive the Entente in 2010 by signing military defense agreements with France during his premiership, with one of the outcomes of said deal being “the attack on Libya in 2011, which, as far as we understand, was a Franco-British initiative.”
“It was a French initiative which the British immediately supported. And the attack on Libya in 2011, which, of course, the Americans also supported, and then became a NATO attack, was an absolutely catastrophic war. It showed once again that NATO is an aggressive alliance,” he remarked. “I say once again, because, of course, NATO had attacked Yugoslavia in 1999. So unfortunately, it’s a very bad precedent, the 2010 agreement.”
Meanwhile, Mikael Valtersson, former officer of the Swedish Armed Forces and chief of staff of the Sweden Democrats political party, argued that the real reason for this talk about reviving the Entente Cordiale is the UK’s and France’s desire to “take a larger role in international politics” coupled with them realizing that they are not “big enough to do it on their own.”
“Both United Kingdom and France are also united in their nearly fanatical hard-line approach towards Russia. As they say in the article, Russia must lose and Ukraine must win,” he added.
According to Valtersson, this “hardline approach” towards Russia may be the reason why Germany was not included in this scheme as Berlin and Paris do not see eye to eye on how to deal with Moscow.
“The difference is that the French leader, President Macron in France, belongs to the belligerent anti-Russian camp, while the German leader Chancellor Scholz belongs to a more moderate grouping,” he explained. “These facts make a new Entante very fragile. Macron might be replaced as French president by a more nationalistic and pragmatic successor. Then the so-called alliance with the UK will be over and done with.”
Another reason for not including Germany might be the UK and France’s concerns that the German economic prowess would afford Berlin “too much influence” in such an alliance, not to mention London and Paris’ fears about Trump’s possible return to the White House, he noted.
“This talk about a revived Entente Cordiale might be an attempt from the UK and France to take over, or at least to prepare to take over, the leadership of the belligerent anti-Russian camp in the West. [It could be] Preparations in case the US abandons Ukraine,” Valtersson postulated. “But as I said earlier, it’s a weak alliance since a large part of the French population isn’t aboard.”
“But as long as the UK and France are united and work together with other belligerent states as the Netherlands, Poland, the Baltic and Nordic states, they probably can force Germany to slowly follow their lead in creating a prewar mentality in large part of Europe,” he added.
Russia launches terrorism probe into US and NATO officials
RT | April 9, 2024
Intelligence agencies and law enforcement are looking at certain Western government officials as part of an investigation into the funding of terrorist attacks such as the massacre at Crocus City Hall and the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines, the Russian Investigative Committee announced on Tuesday.
The probe was launched after a referral by several Russian lawmakers, which accused the US and its allies of organizing the March 22 attack on the Moscow concert venue.
Investigators are currently looking at the potential involvement of “specific individuals from among government officials, people with civic and commercial organizations of Western countries,” said committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko.
It has already been established that funding for terrorist attacks inside Russia has been funneled through Ukrainian companies, including the notorious Burisma Holdings – former employers of US President Joe Biden’s son Hunter – Petrenko added.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia has also said it would follow the evidence leading to “persons and structures located in the US, Germany, France and Cyprus.”
In addition to last month’s Crocus City Hall attack, the investigation is looking at other terrorist acts, including the assassinations of prominent public figures and the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in international waters.
Investigators are establishing the connections between the direct perpetrators of terrorist acts and “foreign curators, organizers and sponsors,” Petrenko added.
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From the Archives
Britain’s secret role in the brutal US war in Vietnam
By Mark Curtis | MintPress News | November 16, 2022
There is a myth the UK did not support Washington’s war against Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, Labour and Conservative governments backed every phase of US military escalation and played secret roles in the conflict, declassified files show.
- UK sent SAS team to Vietnam in 1962, flew secret RAF missions to deliver arms, and provided intelligence to US
- UK governments lied to parliament they were not providing military advice to South Vietnam’s brutal regime
- Labour government secretly gave arms to US for use in Vietnam, stressing need for “no publicity”
- It also connived with Washington to deceive UK public over its support for US
- UK governments knew of atrocities against civilians but backed US war aims
- Whitehall only started to advocate a peaceful solution, on US terms, once the war became unwinnable
During its war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s the US dropped more bombs than in the whole of World War Two, in a conflict that killed over two million people. The wholesale destruction of villages and killing of innocent people was a permanent feature of the US war from the beginning, along with widespread indiscriminate bombing.
Britain’s role in the war has been largely buried and must be almost completely unknown to the public. When the UK media mentions the war now, reports often simply reference the refusal by Harold Wilson’s government to agree to US requests to openly deploy British troops.
Although this was certainly a public rebuff to Washington, Britain did virtually everything else to back the US war over more than a decade, the declassified documents show. … continue
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- CIA Waging Covert War Against Drug Cartels in Mexico – Reports
- ‘Utterly baseless’: Iran rejects Kuwait’s claim of hostile plot on its island
- Hidden deep in an NPR story about a man who threatened to kill Jews at Cornell… He admits he did it to benefit Israel
- Col Douglas Macgregor: If We Go Back To BOMBING IRAN
- Trump admits US sent weapons to fuel riots, terrorism inside Iran
- Iran sues US at Hague tribunal, demands war reparations for June 2025 aggression
- In letter to UN, Yemen calls for end to blockade, sabotage by US, allies
- China rejects Israel’s ‘groundless’ allegation of missile support for Iran
- If Americans Knew
- Gaza: ‘Doctors Under Attack’ Wins Top Award After Being Shelved by the BBC
- The Nakba at 78: A statistical snapshot of Palestine
- Israel Expels Father Louis Salman from Palestine
- How Israel Turned Eurovision’s Stage Into a Soft Power Tool
- Palestinians in Jerusalem receive only 7% of housing units
- If not stopped, Israel will wipe out Christians from Palestine by 2050: Bethlehem pastor
- Hidden Deep in an NPR Story About a Man Who Threatened to Kill Jews at Cornell… He Admits He Did It to Make People Love Israel
- Peter Mandelson: the untold Israel connection
- Epstein Advised U.S. Treasury on Crypto During Obama’s Iran Sanctions Push
- Pro-Israel neocon who promoted Iran war describes its disastrous results, By Arnaud Bertrand, reposted from X
- No Tricks Zone
- German Expert: “No Climate Crisis” …”Warming Generally Better For Humanity”
- New Paleo Research: Modern ‘Climate Change’ Has Had No Apparent Impact On Precipitation Patterns
- 90% Subsidized… Bielefeld Germany’s €7 Million Hydrogen Garbage Truck Fleet Sits Idle
- New Study: Declining Trends In 1980-2023 Tropical Cyclone Frequency, Accumulated Energy
- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
- Another Study Links Warming To Cloud Forcing, Shortwave Radiation, Natural Atmospheric Circulation
- Wind Energy Is Toxic, Hazardous To Human Health, Scientific Review Shows
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
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