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Russia didn’t blow up Nord Stream – Trump

RT | April 12, 2023

Former US President Donald Trump has dismissed claims that Russia was behind the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year, but said that speculating on the true perpetrator might “get our country in trouble.”

Speaking to Fox’s Tucker Carlson in an interview set to air in full this week, Trump was asked for his thoughts about “who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline,” which was hit by multiple blasts under mysterious circumstances last September.

“I don’t want to get our country in trouble so I won’t answer it. But I can tell you who it wasn’t, was Russia. How about when they blamed Russia. They said ‘Russia blew up their own pipeline.’ You got a kick out of that one, too. It wasn’t Russia,” he told the Fox News pundit.

While the US and other Western governments have so far offered few details about ongoing investigations into the sabotage, a February report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh stated that US President Joe Biden had personally ordered the bombing as a way to persuade Germany to ramp up support for Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia.

Washington has vocally denied the report, which relied on anonymous sources, and insisted it had no role in the bombings. “It’s a completely false story. There’s no truth to it. Not a shred of it,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told Fox in February.

Ukrainian officials have similarly denied any involvement in the Nord Stream sabotage, and subsequent reporting by the New York Times has claimed that an unnamed “pro-Ukrainian group” was behind the attack. It is unclear how the group could have accomplished the bombing from a small pleasure yacht as reported, however, as the operation would have required military-grade explosives and experienced divers, among other things.

Hersh has rejected the Times’ account as part of a “cover-up” staged by US intelligence agencies, as the outlet has largely cited unnamed intelligence officials to support its story.

Moscow has also voiced skepticism about the “pro-Ukrainian group,” with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov arguing the story was deliberately circulated by Western media outlets to distract from the revelations purportedly uncovered by Hersh.

READ MORE: 

Biden sought to ‘threaten’ Putin – Seymour Hersh

April 12, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Samidoun statement on smear campaign in Germany

A statement by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network:

On Saturday, 8 April, nearly 1,000 people marched through the streets of Berlin in solidarity with Palestine. The reality of this demonstration was that it was strong and organized, an expression of outrage and internationalism against the war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed against the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation regime.

Despite the presence of an excessively large number of police as well as Arabic translators specifically brought by the police to surveil the crowd, there were no incidents reported by anyone while the demonstration took place. Instead, images of the demonstration spread around the world, a sign that Palestinians, Arabs, and internationalists in Germany have not forgotten the ongoing injustice in Palestine.

As always, when there is a large demonstration for Palestine, and particularly when the Palestinian and Arab community in Berlin speaks out for justice and against racism and repression, the attacks and attempts to criminalize the demonstration soon follow. We have seen this same rhetoric play out time and time again, and every time a new pretext is used to incite the suppression of the Palestinian voice in Berlin — as well as the suppression of all voices for justice.

This time, the pretext is a sensationalized video that is widely circulated by German media. The video in question contains deliberate translation errors, open demonization of Palestinians in general and Samidoun Network in particular, and openly vilifies political prisoners on hunger strike fighting blatantly political charges as civilians before occupation military courts, elderly political prisoners being murdered in Israeli prisons due to medical neglect, and child prisoners. The video attempts to highlight a single voice allegedly shouting an anti-Semitic slogan during the demonstration. The individual that allegedly shouted this statement is never shown in the video, they were not joined by any other person, the chant did not come from the front of the demonstration nor over the microphone, and this individual voice in a mass demonstration of a thousand people just happened to be close enough to these “journalists” for them to pick up his chant and use it to launch an extensive smear campaign against organizing for Palestine in Germany.

The identity of this person is entirely unclear, as is their reason for shouting this or even whether they were a participant in the demonstration at all. One thing is clear: they had nothing to do with the organization, direction, leadership or political framework of the mobilization and this statement does not reflect our clear anti-racist, anti-colonial vision for a liberated Palestine. Every single Palestinian demonstration in Germany is routinely and falsely targeted and smeared as anti-Jewish, when it is in fact anti-racist and pro-liberation. This is also being used to try to criminalize Samidoun, our member organizations and our initiatives in other countries thousands of kilometers away, which shows the true intentions of this campaign.

This smear tactic aims at putting in question our clear stance against anti-Semitism and all forms of racism, and by extent, our natural stance against the statement allegedly shouted by a single individual in the vicinity of the demonstration. Principled organization for Palestine is by definition anti-Zionist, against this racist and colonial system that oppresses and attempts at eliminating the Palestinian people. And we are joined in this struggle with our anti-zionist Jewish comrades, because our struggle is not in the context of a religious conflict, but is a liberation movement against colonialism, occupation, and oppression.

Two very important points about the weaponization of such incidents that are impossible to account for in a mass demonstration:

  • We view such statements as a tool in the hands of reactionary and repressive forces, including pro-apartheid organizations that seek to criminalize support for Palestine.
  • Zionism and its ongoing drive to designate this fascist ideology as “Jewish” has long played a nefarious role in confusing Zionism, a racist political ideology, with Judaism and Jewishness. The same is true of Western powers that repeatedly refer to the Israeli occupation as the “Jewish state”, attempting to tar all Jews with the brush of Zionist crimes. It is the Palestinian liberation movement that rejects the equation of Jews with Zionists and the Zionist movement that seeks to institutionalize that same equation.

Further, we are also clear that these coordinated attacks do not reflect any desire to act against racism, including anti-Semitism, in Berlin or in Germany. Instead, they exist to achieve three main objectives:

  • Attempt to manufacture a pretext to prohibit organizations working for justice and liberation in Palestine, like the Samidoun Network, or to ban demonstrations, like the upcoming marches to commemorate the 75th anniversary of al-Nakba, the catastrophic occupation of Palestine, as we experienced in May 2022.
  • Attempt to manufacture anti-Palestinian racism and repression on the streets of Berlin and to intimidate our community from participating in actions and demonstrations.
  • Attempt to draw attention away from the topic of the demonstration itself — that is, the ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine, justified by the German government and its political parties, up to and including the extreme settler movement that marched through the West Bank of occupied Palestine today, the calls to occupy all of Jordan as well as all of Palestine by Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich and the attacks on Palestinians at prayer in Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan.

We will not be silenced or suppressed, and we will not stand by as our community is targeted for repression and criminalization. We urge all to join us on Sunday, 16 April for the March to Free Palestinian Prisoners. With our collective clarity and voice, we once again affirm, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

April 11, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

US Hatched Plan to Threaten Russia With Nord Stream Sabotage in Late 2021, Sy Hersh Says

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 10.04.2023

President Biden publicly warned Moscow in early February of 2022 that the US would bring “an end” to the Nord Stream network if Russia began a military operation in Ukraine. Washington made good on that promise last September, with veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh providing the details in a bombshell Substack piece this past February.

The Biden administration hatched plans to threaten Moscow with the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines about two months before the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown conflagration between Russia and Ukraine, Seymour Hersh has said.

“The demand was issued just before New Year’s Eve 2021, probably around Christmas,” Hersh said in an interview with independent German media published Monday. “The idea was to find something out of the ordinary that the president could use, a lure or a threat to convince Putin not to attack.”

“Above all, it was a threat. I don’t think this administration is very good at persuasion. They operate more along the lines of ‘you are either with us or against us.’ The idea was to tell Putin: if you cross the border into Ukraine, we will blow up the pipelines,” Hersh added.

The veteran investigative journalist also pointed to another interesting detail about the weeks leading up to the conflict in Ukraine, saying he found it interesting that “hardly anyone pays attention” to the fact that the forces Russia had at its disposal in February 2022 numbered about 120,000 men, far fewer than required to defeat a country the size of Ukraine.

“So if people are still saying that Putin wanted to ‘take’ Kiev, you have to tell them: that’s just not the case. That would not have been possible at all. There were at least 60,000 troops in Kiev [in the spring of 2022, ed.]. And because Putin didn’t take the city, people like to say he failed. But I just can’t imagine how he could have done it with so few troops. It’s also worth remembering that the US and NATO greatly increased the numbers and upgraded the capabilities of the Ukrainian army in recent years, making this army at least formidable,” Hersh said.

The journalist suggested that whatever motivated Russia’s actions in the early days of the conflict, “one thing is clear: [Putin] did not use extreme force.” Hersh believes that what Moscow wants in Ukraine isn’t “physical control” or annexation, but its demilitarization and a measure of “political control over an area, particularly as far as foreign policy is concerned.” The “problem” driving the crisis, in Hersh’s estimation, is that Kiev has rejected demilitarization.

Furthermore, he said, even if Moscow and Kiev were willing to negotiate a compromise, “in the end it won’t matter because we [the US, ed.] don’t want it that way. The US has promised new money, including for fighter jets. We could train Ukrainian pilots to fly the F-16 – which, by the way, is an old plane that the Russians could shoot down relatively easily. But don’t tell that to the newspaper people. What the US and NATO are doing right now lies somewhere between ‘stupid’ and ‘crazy.’”

Whatever comes next with the Nord Stream investigations, Hersh is confident that the Biden administration will “never admit” its responsibility, and that the legacy media in the US would be “perfectly happy” with such a state of affairs. The journalist fears the conflict in Ukraine could drag on for years, although “if Putin deploys his troops more decisively, things might go faster.” The US, he said, has already spent nearly $120 billion on the conflict to date, and will need to spend a lot more – something that might prove difficult as public opinion gradually turns against US policy.

Hersh also reiterated that the Nord Stream attack was just as much an attack on Europe as it was on Russia, pointing out that when the attack took place in September, “winter was just around the corner,” and Germany had proven only “partially successful” in filling up its underground reserves. Unusually mild weather and deliveries of explosively-priced liquefied natural gas helped, but led to a state of permanently high energy prices.

“What happens next? If it gets colder again in the fall and gas prices don’t come down, there will be more resentment against the man who started this crisis, Joe Biden. I don’t know what your chancellor is doing or what he’s done. I don’t know if he knew in advance or not. But by blowing up the pipelines, Biden was telling the Europeans: I don’t have your support, I’m afraid you might falter if it comes to a stalemate with Russia. It was his way of saying: I need more money from the NATO partners, maybe even troops, especially from Germany,” Hersh said. This could prove important for Biden in the long term, the journalist believes, given the threat of a US economic downturn, inflation, high interest rates and bank failures.

Hersh compared the decision to strike Nord Stream to the Bush administration’s decision to respond to 9/11 by invading Iraq, saying there’s a “word for” such policy: stupidity.

“Biden certainly has a chance of being included in the list of dumbest post-war US presidents – blowing up an ally’s gas supply, leaving the German chancellor with problems keeping his citizens warm and Germany prosperous is unwise. I don’t know what will happen to Scholz. I really don’t know. I’m speaking to people from the Bundestag, but nothing seems to be happening there. Where is the German report [on Nord Stream, ed.]? When will it be published? In 3,000 years?”

The journalist pointed out that during the German chancellor’s famous visit to Washington in February 2022, about two weeks before Russia kicked off its special operation, where Biden warned openly that if Russian troops crossed into Ukraine, “there will be no longer a Nord Stream – we will bring an end to it,” the German chancellor remained silent instead of challenging the US president.

“It would have been nice if Scholz had said: I support the president in everything he said, but blowing up the pipelines would be unacceptable. But he didn’t say anything. His biggest problem is that he has become a collaborator since my first Nord Stream story. He denied nothing, protested nothing, investigated nothing,” Hersh said.

Hersh’s bombshell reporting on the Nord Stream attack now serves as the basis of Russia’s calls for an independent, international investigation into the act of terror. After ignoring his reporting and then trying to smear the Pulitzer Prize winner as a “discredited journalist,” legacy media have come up with alternative explanations about who was responsible, citing a mysterious “pro-Ukrainian group” with no links to any government and a rented yacht purportedly used to carry out the attack. Media tweaked the “yacht” story last week to say that it may have been “only a decoy” in a much larger operation after a backlash about the original story’s unbelievable claims.

April 10, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

NATO to launch biggest Air Forces drill in its history

A German-led exercise involving hundreds of aircraft is scheduled for June and will coincide with a massive US troop deployment

RT | April 9, 2023

NATO is planning to hold the largest Air Force exercise this summer, the German Armed Forces – the Bundeswehr – announced in a statement. Dubbed ‘Air Defender 23,’ the drills are scheduled to take place between June 12 and June 24 and are expected to involve hundreds of aircraft from dozens of nations.

A total of 10,000 soldiers and 220 aircraft are to be involved in the exercise, the Bundeswehr said, adding that they are to train “in the European airspace.” The US is to supply 100 of the aircraft out of its stocks, the statement said. According to Berlin, the drills are to be held mostly over German territory, although a map published by the Bundeswehr shows that the airspace of Estonia, which borders Russia, and of Romania, which borders Ukraine, could be used as well.

The plan of the drills “is modeled after an Article 5 Assistance scenario,” the Bundeswehr said, calling it “challenging air operations training” for the participating troops. The exercise is aimed at “optimizing” the cooperation between the participating nations and demonstrating the “strength” of the military bloc.

A total of 24 nations are to take part in the drills, including Finland, which only joined NATO earlier in April. Sweden, which has yet to join the bloc, will participate in the exercise too.

The US Air National Guard will provide around half the aircraft used in the German-led exercise in June. Its commander, Lieutenant General Michael Loh, maintained that there is no set scenario pitting the NATO forces against a particular adversary during the drills. Yet, he still did mention Moscow during a briefing on the matter earlier this week.

“This is now putting the alliance together quickly, with a credible force, to make sure that if Russia ever lines up on the NATO border, that we’re ready to go,” he said on Wednesday. “We’re going to defend every inch.”

A similar tone was struck by the German Air Force. “We won’t write [Russia] a letter,” its commander, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz said, adding that he thinks “they get the message.”

The drills coincide with a separate US-led exercise called Defender Europe 23. “This annual, nearly two-month-long exercise is focused on the strategic deployment of US-based forces, the employment of Army pre-positioned stocks and interoperability with European allies and partners,” the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, Sabrina Singh, told journalists earlier this week.

A total of 9,000 US soldiers, together with 17,000 troops from 26 other nations, are to participate in the drills, which would take place across ten European nations, Singh said. Washington had already started shipping the equipment needed for the exercise to Europe, she added. According to the Pentagon, the first pieces of equipment have already arrived in Spain.

Some 7,000 pieces of equipment are to be transported to Europe as part of the drills. Around 13,000 other pieces of equipment are to be drawn from pre-positioned stocks, the Pentagon said. The US-led exercise is to kick off on April 22.

April 9, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Chad Expelled The German Ambassador A Month After The US Claimed Russia Was Meddling

By Andrew Korybko | April 9, 2023

Chad’s expulsion of the German Ambassador for his “impolite attitude and the non-respect of diplomatic customs”, which reports suggested was a euphemism for his meddling in its internal affairs, wasn’t what the US expected when it reportedly passed along intelligence about Russia in late February. The Wall Street Journal wrote at the time that American officials informed their Chadian counterparts about Moscow’s alleged plots to arm anti-government rebels and even assassinate the president.

There were reasons to be skeptical of this at the time, not least because the Russian Embassy in N’Djamena warned in January about Western efforts to divide these two states, especially after Moscow shared its expectation that the Chadian President will attend summer’s second Russia-Africa Summit. To be sure, bilateral relations have come a long way since their low point in September 2021 when the Chadian Foreign Minister claimed that Wagner posed a threat to his country’s interests.

Its presence in the neighboring countries of the Central African Republic (CAR) and Libya was allegedly being exploited to arm anti-government rebels, according to him, hence why US spies probably thought that Chad would fall for a remixed version of this narrative. His words led to the conclusion that “Chad Wants To Lead The Charge Against Russia’s Inroads In Françafrique” for several self-interested reasons, not least of which was to ensure Paris’ continued support for the authorities amidst rising discontent.

Everything radically changed in Africa over the last 18 months since then, however. France’s “sphere of influence” in the Central and Western parts of the continent has been shattered as a result of Russia’s successful “Democratic Security” policies in the CAR and Mali, with Paris now needing N’Djamena much more than the inverse. Furthermore, not a single African country complied with the West’s demands to sanction Moscow for its special operation in Ukraine, thus exposing the limits of its influence nowadays.

These interconnected developments contributed to changing Chad’s perceptions of Russia’s rising role in Africa, hence the possibility of its president attending summer’s second Russia-Africa Summit. It also accounts for why this country didn’t fall for the US’ claims that Moscow is meddling in its affairs, instead choosing to expel the German Ambassador a little over a month later instead of the Russian one like Washington likely expected would happen after sharing its so-called “intelligence”.

To be clear, there’s still a chance that some influential forces in Chad could do the geopolitical bidding of their country’s traditional French patron by lobbying for decisionmakers to authorize an anti-Russian provocation of some sort, but it’s important to point out that this hasn’t yet happened. The preceding observation extends credence to the conclusion that Chad’s perceptions of Russia are changing for the better, so much so that it didn’t fall for the US’ latest attempt to divide-and-rule them.

This is admittedly impressive since Chad is a bastion of French influence in Africa, but as was earlier written, it’s nowadays the case that France needs Chad more than the inverse after Paris’ “sphere of influence” in the Central and Western parts of the continent was shattered over the last 18 months. N’Djamena can now at least in theory consider demanding more aid and other sorts of benefits from France in exchange for continuing to host its forces without having to do its regional bidding like before.

Chadian officials can also more confidently confront the West since the scenario of the latter initiating any serious deterioration in their ties is no longer all that troubling because their country could just shift towards Russia in that event like the CAR, Mali, and a growing number of others are presently doing. In fact, this pivot could be held above their heads as a Damocles’ sword for squeezing more benefits from that de facto New Cold War bloc, which fears the consequences of pushing Chad into Russia’s arms.

Expelling an ambassador is a major move, however, let alone a traditionally Western-aligned African country doing this to one who represents the EU’s de facto leader. For that reason, this  development probably wasn’t the result of a failed effort by Chad to get more money from Germany. Rather, it’s most likely the case that reports about that official’s meddling in his host state’s internal affairs are accurate, hence why N’Djamena took this unprecedented step.

The authorities want to avoid a repeat of last October’s deadly unrest that was officially driven by discontent over them delaying their country’s democratic transition but was exploited by certain forces to carry out a spree of violence across the capital. The West specializes in organizing Color Revolutions so it might have been the case that the recently expelled German Ambassador was trying to initiate another round of similar unrest to pressure the Chadian President against possibly visiting Russia in July.

His attendance at the second Russia-Africa Summit would be a coup de grace for Moscow by proving that its pragmatic engagement with the continent has succeeded in turning the leaders of traditionally Western-aligned countries like Chad into important partners who refuse to do third parties’ bidding. It would be Russia’s top diplomatic victory over the West since NATO began waging its proxy war in Ukraine to have him and other such leaders all meet with President Putin in the latter’s hometown.

Moscow has no reason to meddle in any of these countries’ affairs and thus risk spoiling this opportunity, especially not with Chad, which previously positioned itself as France’s vanguard force for pushing back against Russia all across Paris’ “sphere of influence”. The West, however, has every reason to meddle via disinformation disguised as “intelligence” and the cultivation of Color Revolution pressure in a desperate attempt to preemptively avert its rival’s impending diplomatic victory.

That’s why it was ultimately the German Ambassador that was expelled from Chad and not the Russian one despite the US claiming a little over a month ago that Moscow was plotting to kill its president. He didn’t extend credence to those reports otherwise Russia’s representative would have already been kicked out of the country. By ordering the German Ambassador’s expulsion, however, Chad just signaled that it now fears that its traditional Western partners are the ones who are truly conspiring against it.

April 9, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

Twitter faces fines for not acting on German censorship demands

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | April 7, 2023

Twitter is facing fines in  for not censoring content deemed illegal under the country’s strict “hate speech” laws.

The federal government announced that it was investigating Twitter’s failures to act on censorship requests.

According to Chan-jo Jun, founder of specialist IT law firm JunIT Rechtsanwälte, the federal government is only acting on a few, out of the hundreds, of cases that have been reported.

Jun will be representing the Antisemitism Commissioner of the state Baden-Württemberg, Michael Blume.

Towards the end of last year, Jun’s firm filed a lawsuit against Twitter for refusing to remove hate speech content.

The court said that the tweets were “illegal.” On Tuesday the federal government said that there were “sufficient indications of failures” by Twitter.

Jun initially reported several tweets to the Federal Justice Office (BfJ). However, they were told that there was not enough material to prove systemic failure.

“We had reported a number of cases to the [BfJ] at that time, and found that they agreed that these tweets were illegal but said they do not have enough material for a systematic failure. And that’s when a group of volunteers started to systematically search for illegal content and keep reporting that and making a huge database… and they kept submitting that to the [BfJ]. So it’s over 600 cases,” he said.

“The ones that are now subject to the [federal government’s] case appear to be just the first ones. They picked them out because they were all similar in that way — I think they came from the same user and had the same content. That’s probably why they chose those because it would be the easiest case to see that is systematical failure. That it was not a single failure of one content moderator but actually that the vast majority — or all — of reports were wrongly handled.”

NetzDG carries a fine of up to €50 million per case, but Jun said it was unlikely that Twitter would be fined the maximum.

“The law expects fines of up to €50 million for each case. It is possible that at first they will not take the full amount. There’s actually a table… that states the intensity of the failure. So I would expect something between €5M and €20M to be the first fine,” he suggested, in an interview with TechCrunch.

April 8, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Why Most of the World Isn’t on Board with the NATO-Russia War

By Weimin Chen | Mises Wire | March 28, 2023

As the war in Ukraine drags on into its second year, protest demonstrations have been taking place in major European cities. They express the growing sentiment that the people are tired of the protracted conflict and fearful of what could come should the war continue even longer. Memories of the catastrophic world wars that ravaged Europe in the first half of the last century and the terrible threat of nuclear annihilation that divided the continent in the second half of the century form the traumatic foundation from which Europeans are voicing their aversion to this conflict, which has the potential to spiral out of control and bring a major war to Europe and the world again.

Broad Opposition to War

There have been protest demonstrations occurring in Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Greece, Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Albania, Moldova, and others. European protests surrounding the anniversary of the start of the conflict notably span the Left-Right spectrum in opposing US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) imperialism as well as the economic hardships that have befallen ordinary Europeans against the backdrop of sanctions on Russia and the funding of Ukraine.

Italian port workers aligned with the Left protested in Genoa specifically to resist the use of Italian ports to supply arms deliveries to Ukraine. Meanwhile in France, demonstrations organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes party in various locations across the country called for France’s withdrawal from both NATO and the European Union.

In all cases, the people on the streets at these events identify involvement in the war as harmful to general economic well-being and have been expressing frustration with their countries’ acquiescence to these intergovernmental and supranational organizations in fueling the violence while simultaneously discouraging dialogue. Feelings of skepticism toward NATO, the European Union, and the United States have become increasingly vocal in Europe due to the way that western countries are handling the war. In the minds of many Europeans, their governments are recklessly following the will of Washington, which could lead them into a serious escalation to a wider war.

German Memory

Germany suffered tremendously during the two World Wars and continued to endure the pressures of division and foreign occupation during the Cold War. A century of pain and turmoil brought about by militarism and intervention still informs the collective consciousness of the country. As part of the anniversary protests, thousands of people gathered around the iconic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin for an event called the “Uprising for Peace,” organized by prominent Left party member Sahra Wagenknecht and the feminist journalist Alice Schwarzer. The rally was a show of support for a “manifesto for peace,” which had already received well over half a million signatures by the time of the rally. It calls for the end of military exports to Ukraine and for negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow. Demonstrations have also taken place in Nuremberg (in response to the German government’s plan to send tanks to Ukraine), in Munich (during the Munich Security Conference), and outside of the prominent US air base in Ramstein where important matters regarding the Ukraine conflict are discussed among Western leaders.

At the rally in Nuremberg, one demonstrator recalled the historical record, explaining that if Germany gets involved in another war with Russia, then “based on history, it is the worst sign that we can send.” He emphasized that “no war must go through Germany, neither with arms deliveries nor anything else, because otherwise, Germany will be in the middle of it again.”

The last time war broke out in Europe between the two countries, it was one of the most catastrophic events in human history. This view echoes the glimmer of hope from just a few months before the start of Russia’s invasion that the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline could have strengthened ties and prevented conflict in Europe, especially with regard to Russia and Germany. Of course, the mysterious destruction of Nord Stream a year later and the report by Seymour Hersh identifying US and allied hands in the sabotage mission completely turned that hope on its head. Those who strive for peace and an end to the bloodshed are understandably disheartened, yet they are motivated to vocally speak out to European leaders to push for peace.

Across the Atlantic and Beyond

These gatherings have run parallel to the Rage Against the War Machine rally in Washington, DC, where Americans protested against the US’s funding and arming of Ukraine as well as the diplomatic negligence in preventing the negotiation of an end to the fighting. Those speaking and demonstrating against US involvement in Ukraine have parallel grievances toward their government and echo those in Europe.

Voices spanning the political spectrum from socialists to libertarians have found common ground in opposing the many rounds of weapons packages and financial aid to Ukraine, as well as the lack of diplomatic responsibility on the part of Secretary of State Antony Blinken in communicating with his counterpart, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Since the rally, President Joe Biden has included $6 billion in Ukraine and NATO funding as part of his $842 billion defense-budget request for 2024. Meanwhile, Blinken met briefly with Lavrov on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in New Delhi with no tangible progress on the subject of ending hostilities in Ukraine. While hopes from the American side remain dim, perhaps the protests in Europe may influence decisions at the levels of leadership in their respective countries.

The West’s commitment to Ukraine has also struck opposition from other regions. At this year’s Munich Security Conference, leaders from non-Western countries expressed the necessity of finding peaceful solutions. Brazil’s foreign minister Mauro Viera called upon the world to “build the possibility of a solution,” while Colombia’s vice president Francia Marquez said, “We don’t want to go on discussing who will be the winner or the loser of a war. We are all losers, and, in the end, it is humankind that loses everything.”

Namibia’s prime minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila stressed the waste of money and resources in the name of hostility which “could be better utilized to promote development in Ukraine, in Africa, in Asia, in other places, in Europe itself, where many people are experiencing hardships.” China went so far as to outline a political settlement to the Ukraine crisis on the anniversary of the invasion.

These statements and efforts show their acknowledgment of the much poorer state of affairs the world finds itself in as the war drags on. The Russian war in Ukraine must come to an end one day, and more people around the world are demanding a solution now.

April 6, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Political Prisoner? Corona Protest Movement Founder Michael Ballweg Released After 9 Months Detainment

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | April 4, 2023

Dark times for political opponents, skeptics of dubious science.

Governments weaponizing the justice authorities to go after political opponents and protest movement leaders seems to have become vogue nowadays in the once democratic western hemisphere.

Victims of the tactic often face dubious charges, some even having to spend months in detention as authorities drag their feet carrying out the “legal” process.

Corona lockdown protest leader Michael Ballweg (left) released from the Stuttgart-Stammheim prison after detention on dubious charges. Image cropped from AUF 1 here.

For example, in Germany a number of physicians have been charged and even jailed for allegedly issuing “false mask exemptions” or “false vaccination exemption” certificates to patients who fear the experimental, shoddily launched COVID vaccine. Critics accuse the authorities of using these heavy handed tactics to intimidate legitimate political opponents into silence.

Ballweg released after 9 months of detention

One high profile example in Germany is Michael Ballweg, the founder of the Corona restrictions protest movement dubbed “Querdenken” (unorthodox thinking). Today we know that the “querdenkers” were right about a lot of things, and huge amounts of damage could have been avoided had their warnings been taken seriously.

But instead, the government and media got paranoid and scared of the Ballweg’s protest movement. The media characterized the movement as fringe right wingers who threatened “our democracy”. Last June, Ballweg was arrested and dragged to jail on dubious charges.

Today, after more than 9 months detention, he was finally allowed to leave Stuttgart-Stammheim prison. The Stuttgart Higher Regional Court on Tuesday lifted the arrest warrant in exchange for a condition.

Ballweg had been in pre-trial detention since June 2022 on suspicion of money laundering and fraud. Suspicion is all that’s needed nowadays to arrest unwanted voices.

AUF 1 reports:

Previously, several appeals against Ballweg’s pre-trial detention had come to nothing. As part of the nine-month trial, he can now leave prison. The reason for the revocation of the arrest warrant was proportionality. The expected punishment in case of a conviction was too small to justify a longer pre-trial detention.

Ballweg’s lawyer Dr. Alexander Christ commented on the decision: “I am happy for my client!”

Allegations reduced, allegations dropped

Last week, the allegations were significantly reduced: for example, parts of the money laundering allegations against Ballweg were dropped. Most recently, Ballweg had only been accused of attempted fraud. The prosecution worked with the daring legal construct of an “unsuccessful attempt”. Nobody had ever been harmed by Ballweg.

Lawyer Dr. Alexander Christ from Ballweg’s legal team appeared in an interview with Austria’s AUF1 last week and reported numerous inconsistencies in the 120-page indictment. For example, money laundering allegations that had already been dropped resurfaced in the indictment. “A tale,” summarized Dr. Christ.”

The release of Ballweg is certainly good news. But leading a protest and speaking up against the government still remains dangerously risky today.

April 4, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Germany to receive enough Covid mRNA vaccine to last into the 24th century

Having some of the most insanely stupid pharmaceutical contracts in the world

eugyppius: a plague chronicle – April 2, 2023

You could not have invented a stupider pandemic:

According to the German Ministry of Health, the federal government at the end of February had amassed a reserve of 116 million doses of Corona vaccine. 111 million more doses, valued at around 2.5 billion Euros, are slated for delivery. According to an answer given by the Ministry on 28 March to a question by Thomas Dietz, a Bundestag member of Alternativ für Deutschland, EU treaties oblige the German government to take delivery of these doses. “In view of the current state of the pandemic, the federal government is working to make these EU treaties more flexible,” the answer continues.

Another paper does the maths, and notes that if vaccination continues at the current rate of 2,000 jabs per day, the 227 million doses which Germany will last for 311 years. Of course, all of these doses will expire well before then, so Germany will merely receive all of this useless product, store it at substantial expense in freezers for around eighteen months, and then throw it away. This hurts Corona.

In related news, Welt reports on the curious failure of Lauterbach’s Health Ministry to finish work on the so-called National Reserve for Health Protection, which Merkel’s government planned three years ago. The Reserve was supposed to be a massive depot for masks (but of course), other personal protective equipment and medicines, which would in theory free Germany from reliance on China the next time somebody is stupid enough to cry wolf about a respiratory virus.

So far, the only thing anybody has done to realise this Reserve, is put 245 million masks in it, a substantial portion of which are slated to expire at the end of the year. A Ministry spokesperson explains that the project has devolved from a Health Reserve into a National Trashbin for Worthless Masks that Nobody Wants, because it has received no funding. It appears politicians have lost enthusiasm and now prefer that the manufacturers and the federal states maintain their won “decentralised” reserves. This obviously means that they have quietly written off the project but hope that nobody will realise it.

Despite all that you hear from WEF conference attendees and virus pests like Lauterbach about the importance of “pandemic preparedness”, the will to actually do anything about pandemics – even at the highest reaches of government – has never been lower. Perhaps we’re not the only ones who have concluded, after all that happened since March 2020, that it is indeed best to think less about viruses.

April 2, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

US troops should leave Germany – MP

RT | April 1, 2023

Berlin must break with the existing “relationship of extreme subservience” to America and its foreign policies “marked by breaches of international law,” Sevim Dagdelen, the deputy head of the Left Party’s faction in the Bundestag, said on Friday. Germany must demand that US forces stationed on its territory be withdrawn, along with America’s nuclear weapons, the MP insisted.

“After 78 years, it is now time for the US soldiers to go home,” Dagdelen said at a parliamentary event marking the 75th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. The US military bases act “like extraterrestrial zones where the [German] constitution does not apply,” the MP, who is also a member of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said.

Washington uses its bases on German soil to wage wars abroad and launch “lethal drone strikes,” Dagdelen said, adding that some of these actions are “in breach of international law.”

She also criticized the regular NATO meetings at the US Ramstein base in Germany, where military aid to Kiev is discussed. Washington hosts these conferences “as if the Occupation Statute were still in force,” the MP said, adding that Berlin also allowed the US to put it “in the line of fire” with the German-made Leopard tank deliveries to Ukraine.

The German lawmakers took a decision on the withdrawal of America’s nuclear weapons from the nation’s territory as early as 2010, but these arms are still in place, Dagdelen said. “We stand by our position: the US nuclear weapons must go,” she added.

“The US administration gives the impression that they do not want allies, just loyal vassals,” the MP said, pointing to America’s negligence toward its partners’ interests and demands. According to Dagdelen, “fewer and fewer countries around the world are prepared to accept this.” A true “friendship” should be based on mutual respect for human rights and international law, the MP added.

Germany hosts by far the largest number of US military personnel out of all European nations. Over 35,000 American troops were stationed on its soil as of 2022. Italy, which hosts the second-largest number of American soldiers, trails far behind, as some 12,000 US military personnel were stationed there at the same time.

April 1, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

No More Double Standards and Impunity. West Provokes Russia. Result: Nukes in Belarus on NATO’s Borders

Strategic Culture Foundation | March 31, 2023

The historic – and unacceptable – deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in several European NATO states as well as the recent announcement by Britain of supplying depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine is the prologue to Russia’s decision to place tactical nukes in Belarus. The Western outcry following Russia’s decision is absurd and hypocritical.

The pattern is familiar and speaks of incorrigible arrogance. The United States and its NATO allies make reckless escalatory moves that are unprecedented in their aggression toward Russia; then Moscow makes a reciprocal move, and yet the Western governments and their dutiful news media become apoplectic with rage over Russia’s “threatening conduct” and nuclear blackmail.

Maybe one day, Western leaders will eventually choke on their own illogical apoplexy.

This week there was frothing and fuming in the West about Moscow’s decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, despite the move being fully in accord with the Minsk government, a longtime ally of Russia and fellow member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The CSTO is organically comparable with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), having a shared defense commitment between allied states that were formerly members of the Soviet Union.

In ratifying the deployment, Russian President Vladimir Putin was accused by Western powers of jeopardizing international security, threatening European neighbors and violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Belarus borders three NATO members: Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

But the decision by Russia to install tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus (which Moscow would reportedly retain control over) was in response to the NATO move to supply its anti-Russian Kiev proxy with depleted uranium (DU) weapons. Britain announced last week that Challenger 2 battlefield tanks sent to Ukraine would be equipped with DU shells. It is understood that the United States is also ready to supply depleted uranium armor-piercing munitions to Ukraine with its Abrams tanks. Video footage from London’s Ministry of Defence shows Ukrainian troops being trained by British and American officers in handling DU shells.

Depleted uranium is a high-density metal – much denser than lead – which can penetrate modern armor. It ignites after penetration and turns into vapor at extreme temperature. While DU shells are not explosively fissile and do not cause nuclear blasts, they do release harmful radioactive contamination into the environment. Arguably, the munitions are therefore a form of nuclear weapon in the same manner as a low-yield “dirty bomb”.

The United States and Britain fired tonnes of depleted uranium shells during their decade-long illegal war in Iraq. NATO forces also used DU weapons in their war of aggression against former Yugoslavia. In both cases, the resultant radioactive contamination was correlated with high rates of cancer and birth defects in the civilian populations.

The Americans and British have never been held to account for their war crimes. That impunity partly explains their arrogance in regard to pumping weapons into Ukraine against Russia and in particular the latest iteration of radioactive uranium shells.

For the British regime to claim that DU weapons are “normal” munitions and acceptable to deploy potentially for hitting Russian territory is a demonstration of its depraved deception and utter lawlessness. It also shows that London and its NATO partners are willing to recklessly escalate the conflict in Ukraine against Russia by breaching a dangerous threshold regarding nuclear weapons.

Under Russia’s defense doctrine, it may use nuclear weapons if its national security is threatened by either nuclear forces or conventional forces. The U.S.-led NATO alliance is pushing the envelope in a way that is seemingly incorrigible, or tantamount to psychopathic behavior.

Perversely, this abysmal situation is distorted as somehow Russia taking a provocative step in placing tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

What Moscow is demonstrating is that the Anglo-American-led NATO alliance has no longer the presumption of impunity. The decades of unchecked aggression from NATO expansionism and criminal Anglo-American subterfuges in foreign countries are over. Moscow offered a diplomatic channel to create a security treaty in Europe, but that was haughtily dismissed by the arrogant imperialist powers. The result was the military-technical measures that Russia undertook with its intervention in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Arguably, Russia could take additional reciprocal measures that go further. The involvement of NATO members in massively arming the NeoNazi Kiev regime should, it could be contended, be met with military defensive action to destroy supply chains entering Ukraine.

This is the perspective for a proper understanding of the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. It is not Russia upping the ante to jeopardize security and peace. It is NATO powers that are erasing the boundaries in a way that they are accustomed to doing for several decades.

Let’s recall that it is the United States that has rescinded several arms-control treaties including the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty, and the Open Skies treaty, and it is Washington that has chronically undermined the last-existing one, the New START governing strategic weapons.

There is also the existing anomaly of the United States storing nuclear weapons on the territory of five NATO members. They are Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey. These countries are signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, so arguably the basing of nuclear weapons in these states is a gross violation of the NPT, which is what the West is accusing Russia of in regard to Belarus.

Last year, too, Poland offered to house American nuclear weapons on its soil. That offer was not taken up but is presumably still on the table. Why is there not an outcry over that egregious destabilizing of arms control?

As usual there is a surfeit of Western double-think to go along with rank hypocrisy. The illogical mentality is a product of arrogance and hubris.

Furthermore, two NATO members Britain and France have their own national nuclear arsenals supposedly separate from Washington’s command. These two powers are actively hostile toward Russia through their arming of the Kiev regime.

Additionally, all 30 members of the NATO alliance are committed to assisting the United States in deploying nuclear forces with their conventional militaries under the alliance’s provision called Support of Nuclear Operations With Conventional Air Tactics (SNOWCAT).

In sum, clearly, the issue of arms control and security is badly out of balance, but it is the conduct of the United States and its NATO partners that has led to the imbalance. The arrogant presumption of impunity held by Washington and London in particular is a destabilizing factor that creates double standards that are completely unacceptable in a world supposedly under the rule of international law and the United Nations Charter.

The conflict in Ukraine can be solved if Western powers were to abide by international law and halt the weaponizing of the Kiev regime. Going forward, Ukraine must be a neutral state and NATO must halt its aggressive expansion. A serious policy of nuclear arms control must involve the withdrawal of such weapons from European NATO member states and the inclusion of British and French arsenals as part of a wider detente framework. Note, however, that the conditionalities for peace are in large part an onus on Washington and its Western allies to do the right and reasonable things. The disturbing question is though, can Washington and its imperialist lackeys be reasonable?

Until enlightened conduct prevails, Russia is quite correct to be intolerant of any double standards that the Americans, British and their NATO minions presume. Every aggressive move must be boldly and smartly reciprocated. Without that countervailing action, there is impunity, which is even more dangerous.

Holding Western powers to account is a powerful weapon of attrition because it exposes their corruption and fraud, their duplicity, and their fatal arrogance. Increasingly, the Western public is seeing the endemic bankruptcy of their supposed rulers.

March 31, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Whopping 82% Of Berlin’s Voters Refused To Support 2030 Climate Neutrality

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | March 28, 2023

The results of Berlin’s Climate Neutrality By 2030 referendum tell us that FFF and Last Generation are fringe movements, remote of even Berlin’s mainstream.

It’ll take a longtime for the radical climate activists to recover from this major setback

The movement’s leaders reacted in disbelief and sourly to the defeat, as Twitter account holder Georg tweeted.

Crushing defeat

Last Sunday’s “Berlin Climate Neutrality By 2030” referendum failed resoundingly despite the more than a million euros spent in a massive run-up campaign that included plastering the city with posters, concerts by famous performers, huge support and propaganda by the media and hefty donations coming from left wing activists from the east and west coasts of USA.

Once the dust of the referendum had settled, it emerged that the “yes” side fell way short of the quorum 608,000 votes needed to pass the measure. Only 442,210 cast a vote in favor, which represents only 18% of Berlin’s eligible voters. The activists expected a far greater turnout. 82% refused to lend any support.

Berlin’s rejection of the climate neutrality by 2030 mandate is a massive body blow to the the radical Fridays for Future and Last Generation movement in Germany, and it will take months for the radicals to recover, it ever, from this setback.

The Berlin initiative to make the city climate neutral by 2030 was led by rich, upper class youths like Luisa “Longhaul” Neubauer. But Berliners, having been harassed for months by activists gluing themselves to the streets and blocking traffic, saw the folly of the initiative and the high costs it would entail politically and financially. They decided resoundingly they’d wanted no part of it.

Lashing out at the majority

The agony of referendum defeat was palpable as some of its leaders reacted by lashing out and insulting those who refused to vote “yes”, In a video, movement co-leader Luisa Neubauer sank into cynical accusations against the majority, even calling the uncooperative Berliners “fossil cynics” and “climate destroyers”.

Neubauer added: “There are forces in this city that are doing everything to get the last spark of climate destruction out.” In Neubauer’s view these forces include the vast 82% of Berliners who refused to vote “yes”. So troublesome democracy can be.

“Bubble has finally burst”

Germany’s Pleiteticker here commented on the Berlin referendum:

Social Democrat Dario Schramm wept on Twitter at the gloating that would now come from the other side. But he and other supporters of the green ban politics need not be surprised. For years they have been spreading their ideas of good politics for years in a self-righteous, arrogant and sometimes aggressive manner.

They, mostly members of the upper middle class, have declared war on the lower and lower middle class with their destructive climate measures. Outside the Berlin political bubble and the other urban feel-good oases of Germany, the Neubauers of this world never possessed much support. And now the bubble has finally burst. In the Marzahn, Köpenick and Lichtenberg districts, the majority of voters voted against the referendum. The normal working population of Berlin decided against the journalistic and political elite.”

But don’t expect the climate radicals to go away. They’ll be back at it soon enough.

March 30, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

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