NATO ramps up presence in Ukraine’s neighbor
RT | January 13, 2023
NATO will send a deployment of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) surveillance planes to Romania to “monitor Russian military activity” amid the Ukraine conflict, the US-led military bloc announced on Thursday.
In a statement, NATO said its “eyes in the sky” are expected to arrive in the Bucharest area on January 17, to strengthen the bloc’s presence in the region. Romania, which borders Ukraine, already hosts a number of NATO units, including the American 101st elite Airborne division.
The bloc did not specify how many planes will be stationed in Romania. However, the German press agency DPA reported that NATO plans to deploy three AWACS there.
The AWACS planes will begin reconnaissance flights, which will take place only over the alliance’s territory, in the coming days, with their mission scheduled to last “several weeks.” In addition, the surveillance mission will be supported by about 180 service members, who will be deployed at the Otopeni air force base near the Romanian capital, some 200km (124 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
The planes themselves are part of a fleet of 14 NATO surveillance aircraft usually based in Geilenkirchen in western Germany. These aircraft are equipped with long-range radar and passive sensors capable of detecting targets over large distances while staying in the air for hours.
The US-led military bloc has been conducting regular surveillance operations on its eastern flank, monitoring the conflict in Ukraine ever since Russia launched its military offensive against the neighboring state in February 2022.
The deployment of AWACS planes comes as a large number of US armor and military vehicles started to arrive in the Netherlands on Wednesday before heading out to NATO’s eastern flank, according to Reuters. In total, about 1,250 pieces of military equipment are said to be disembarking from the Dutch port of Vlissingen, US officials said.
On Monday, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s national security council, stated that the ongoing Ukraine conflict “is not a confrontation between Moscow and Kiev, but rather a military stand-off with NATO.”
As Green Policies Cause Energy Prices To Explode, Deforestation In Europe Accelerates
Skyrocketing fossil fuel energy prices are are driving the deforestation of Europe as citizens try to keep warm
By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | November 18, 2022
It’s easy to argue that the “green” movement is causing much more environmental harm than good. High energy costs are leading to poverty, which in turn leads to less investment in environmental protection and nature conservation.
Biodiversity-rich forests are being cleared away to make room for wind parks and people are increasingly burning wood to stay warm as an alternative to natural gas and heating oil.
Blackout News reports on how forests in Romania have been falling victim to illegal logging as the energy crisis has propelled the demand for firewood and pellets to rocket speed. “In Romania, entire nature reserves are disappearing as a result.”
“The sharp increase in demand for firewood, wood chips and pellets has also caused prices for these fuels to rise sharply, making them extremely lucrative for the illegal trade,” writes Blackout News. A lack of transparency and traceability are making the problem impossible to manage.
Blackout News cites a 2021 European Commission study showing Europe’s wood industry lacks transparency and that the demand for wood for heating has more than doubled in the past twenty years. Austria alone is reported to have imported approximately 120,000 tons of pellets from Romania last year. Europe’s CO2 reductions through the burning of biomass are costing its biotope dearly. Few are talking about this. What good will reaching zero CO2 emissions be if Europe’s forests end up being sacrificed and barren?
Greenpeace Romania says illegal logging is particularly bad in Romania and that more than half of the wood processed into pellets there comes from illegal logging in Natura 2000 areas. While authorities record an annual logging volume of 18 million cubic meters, “experts assume that another 20 million cubic meters of wood are illegally felled there each year and disappear without any evidence.”
One problem hindering the crackdown on illegal logging in Romania is rampant corruption in control bodies and government agencies. Penalties for the import of illegally logged timber “are also shockingly low”.
As long as Europe continues its efforts to eliminate fossil fuels and create energy shortages, prices will skyrocket and keep boosting the demand for wood as a source of energy.
Biden administration sponsors yet another campaign against Orbán
Free West Media | November 3, 2022
The US government has opened a new chapter in the propaganda and disinformation war against Hungary. It now supports an allegedly “independent” media portal, whose sponsors, however, make it quite easy to see the goals which are being pursued against the country.
According to its own statements, the Internews platform focuses “on promoting a strong independent media sector” in Hungary. There will be further activities in Armenia, Georgia, Poland, Romania and the Ukraine. The aim is to “resist powerful interests trying to manipulate, isolate or control the press”.
The US embassy recently even produced a video listing Hungarian politicians and journalists who have allegedly made “anti-American” statements by name. Essentially these voices either criticized globalist policies to foment the Ukraine war or spoke out against the futility of sanctions.
The list of sponsors for the news portal is revealing. On it one will find, among other things, the well-known Open Society Foundations (OSF) by George Soros, the Rockefeller Foundation and Freedom House, which is financed by the US government. US-based global tech giants like Facebook and Google are also among the backers.
Those in the know recall that Internews is not the US government’s first attempt to reshape the Hungarian media scene. As early as 2017, the US State Department launched a support program right before the elections for “independent Hungarian media in the countryside”. At the time, the government in Budapest accused the US State Department of interfering in Hungarian domestic politics. The programme was later de facto scrapped, presumably because ex-President Donald Trump valued good relations with Hungary.
Under the Biden administration, however, “democracy” exports are back in fashion. Just a few months ago, the Hungarian opposition’s prime ministerial candidate caused a scandal when he admitted that he had received a substantial sum of money for his election campaign from a US foundation.
‘Dirty bomb’ in Ukraine would affect nine countries
Samizdat – August 16, 2022
A total of nine countries could be contaminated if the Russian-controlled Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine is hit by multiple launch rocket systems, a former chief inspector of the USSR’s nuclear authority told RT.
Russian troops established control of the Zaporozhye NPP, Europe’s largest facility of the kind, early on in the course of military operations in Ukraine. Since then, Russia has repeatedly accused Kiev of launching artillery and drone strikes on the facility. Ukrainian officials claimed that the Russians were shelling themselves to discredit Kiev.
In an interview published on Tuesday, Vladimir Kuznetsov warned that if the plant is hit by volley fire, with numerous missiles striking the storage facility that holds spent nuclear fuel, chances are that more than one container would be damaged. This scenario would entail radiation escaping “into the environment – hence the contamination of not only the industrial site but also the Dnepr river which is nearby,” the expert noted.
Kuznetsov also pointed out that such a strike would most likely be accompanied by a fire, and “God knows where the wind would send the combustion products.”
The former chief inspector surmised that should 20 to 30 containers be breached in such an attack, the “radiation would affect approximately nine countries: Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Baltic states and obviously Western Ukraine.”
Russian forces took over the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in early March, within the first two weeks of Moscow’s military campaign against its neighbor.
In recent weeks, the Russian military has accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting the facility multiple times and warned that a major nuclear disaster, akin to that at Chernobyl in 1986, or even worse, could happen if such attacks continue unchecked.
Kiev, meanwhile, denies these allegations and claims that it is Russian forces that are shelling the power plant to frame the Ukrainian military – a point of view shared by the US and EU. The UN has called the attacks “suicidal” and proposed sending an International Atomic Energy Agency delegation to the site to provide “technical support” and help avoid a further escalation.
On Tuesday, local government administration member Vladimir Rogov told Russian media that Ukrainian forces had fired multiple rockets directly at the coolant systems and nuclear waste storage site inside the facility.
Since the storage site is out in the open, any hit would result in the release of nuclear waste ranging from dozens to hundreds of kilograms and lead to contamination of the area, the official explained.
“In plain language, that would be like a dirty bomb,” said Rogov.
Romania and US to Hold Military Drills Near Ukrainian Border
Samizdat – 26.07.2022
CHISINAU – US troops stationed in Romania and the Romanian army will hold a joint demonstration exercise and an exhibition of military equipment at a location 125 miles south of the Ukrainian border on July 30, the Romanian defense ministry said on Tuesday.
“Members of the 2nd brigade of the combat group of the 101st US Airborne Division, stationed in Romania in accordance with the decisions of the Madrid Summit, will conduct demonstration exercises together with the soldiers of the 9th mechanized brigade ‘Marasesti,'” the ministry’s statement read.
The drills will take place at the Mihail Kogalniceanu military base in southeastern Romania, situated 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the border with Ukraine. Romania Chief of General Staff Daniel Petrescu and 101st US Airborne Division commander Joseph McGee will be present at the exercise.
Additionally, an exhibition of equipment will be organized, which will feature attack helicopters, tanks, armored amphibious transporters and artillery and anti-aircraft artillery machines, as well as special engineering and first aid equipment.
UKRAINE CRISIS: US ‘Toolboxes’ Are Empty
By Scott Ritter | Consortium News | January 22, 2022
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in a hastily scheduled, 90-minute summit in Geneva yesterday, after which both sides lauded the meeting as worthwhile because it kept the door open for a diplomatic resolution to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. What “keeping the door open” entails, however, represents two completely different realities.
For Blinken, the important thing appears to be process, continuing a dialogue which, by its very essence, creates the impression of progress, with progress being measured in increments of time, as opposed to results.
A results-oriented outcome was not in the books for Blinken and his entourage; the U.S. was supposed to submit a written response to Russia’s demands for security guarantees as spelled out in a pair of draft treaties presented to the U.S. and NATO in December. Instead, Blinken told Lavrov the written submission would be provided next week.
In the meantime, Blinken primed the pump of expected outcomes by highlighting the possibility of future negotiations that addressed Russian concerns (on a reciprocal basis) regarding intermediate-range missiles and NATO military exercises.
But under no circumstances, Blinken said, would the U.S. be responding to Russian demands against NATO expanding to Ukraine and Georgia, and for the redeployment of NATO forces inside the territory of NATO as it existed in 1997.
Blinken also spent a considerable amount of time harping on the danger of an imminent military invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces said to be massing along the Ukraine-Russian border. He pointed out that any military incursion by Russia, no matter what size, that violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine, would be viewed as a continuation of the Russian “aggression” of 2014 and, as such, trigger “massive consequences” which would be damaging to Russia.
Blinken’s restatement of a position he has pontificated on incessantly for more than a month now was not done for the benefit of Lavrov and the Russian government, but rather for an American and European audience which had been left scratching their collective heads over comments made the day before by President Joe Biden which suggested that the U.S. had a range of options it would consider depending on the size of a Russian incursion.
“My guess is he [Russian President Vladimir Putin] will move in, he has to do something,” Biden said during a press briefing on Wednesday. While presenting a Russian invasion as inevitable, Biden went on to note that Putin “will be held accountable” and “never have[sic] seen sanctions like the ones I promised will be imposed” if Russia were, in fact, to move against Ukraine. Biden spoke of deploying additional U.S. military forces to eastern Europe, as well as unspecified economic sanctions.
Biden then, however, hedged his remarks, noting that the scope and scale of any U.S. response would depend on what Russia did. “It’s one thing,” Biden said, “if it’s a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do.”
Almost immediately the Washington establishment went into overdrive to correct what everyone said was a “misstatement” by Biden, with Biden himself making a new statement the next day, declaring that he had been “absolutely clear with President Putin. He has no misunderstanding, any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion,” and that there should be “no doubt at all that if Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price.”
And just in case the President was not clear enough, Blinken reiterated that point following his Friday meeting with Lavrov.
Immutable
The U.S. narrative about Russia and Ukraine was immutable; Russia was hell bent on invading, and there would be massive consequences if Russia acted out on its intent. This was no idle threat, Blinken said, but rather represented the unified position of the United States and its allies and partners.
Or was it? In a telling admission, CNN’s White House correspondent, John Harwood, stated that the “minor incursions” statement by Biden was harmless, because (Harwood said) Putin already knew through sources that this was, in fact, the U.S. position. As for Europe and Ukraine, their collective confusion and outrage was merely an act, a posture they had to take for public consumption, since the optics of Biden’s statement “sounds bad.”
In short, the lack of an agreed-upon strategy on how to deal with a Russian incursion/invasion of Ukraine was an open secret for everyone except the U.S. and European publics, who being fed a line of horse manure to assuage domestic political concerns over being seen as surrendering to Russian demands.
Biden and his administration are old hands at lying to the American public when it comes to matters of national security. One only need look to Biden’s July 23, 2021, phone call with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for a clear precedent into this inability to speak openly and honestly about reality on the ground. “I need not tell you,” Biden told Ghani, “the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there is a need,” Biden added, “whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”
This, in a nutshell, is the essence of the posture taken by the Biden administration on Ukraine. Blinken has indicated that the U.S. has a toolbox filled with options that will deliver “massive consequences” to Russia should Russia invade Ukraine. These “tools” include military options, such as the reinforcement of NATO’s eastern flank with additional U.S. troops, and economic options, such as shutting down the NordStream 2 pipeline and cutting Russia off from the SWIFT banking system. All these options, Blinken notes, have the undivided support of U.S. European allies and partners.
The toolbox is everywhere, it seems—Biden has referred to it, as has White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Blinken has alluded to it on numerous occasions.
There’s only one problem—the toolbox, it turns out, is empty.
While the Pentagon is reportedly working on a series of military options to reinforce the existing U.S. military presence in eastern Europe, the actual implementation of these options would neither be timely nor even possible. One option is to move forces already in Europe; the U.S. Army maintains one heavy armored brigade in Europe on a rotational basis and has a light armored vehicle brigade and an artillery brigade stationed in Germany. Along with some helicopter and logistics support, that’s it.
Flooding these units into Poland would be for display purposes only—they represent an unsustainable combat force that would be destroyed within days, if not hours, in any large-scale ground combat against a Russian threat.
The U.S. can deploy a second heavy armored brigade to Poland which would fall in on prepositioned equipment already warehoused on Polish soil. This brigade would suffer a similar fate if matched up against the Russian army. The U.S. can also deploy an airborne brigade. They, too, would die.
There are no other options available to deploy additional U.S. heavy forces to Europe on a scale and in a timeframe that would be meaningful. The problem isn’t just the deployment of forces from their bases in the U.S. (something that would takes months to prepare for), but the sustainability of these forces once they arrived on the ground in Europe. Food, ammunition, water, fuel—the logistics of war is complicated, and not resolved overnight.
In short, there is no viable military option, and Biden knows this.
Empty Sanctions Too
The U.S. has no sanctions plan that can survive initial contact with the enemy, which in this case is the collective weakness of the post-pandemic economies of both Europe and the U.S.; the over-reliance of Europe on Russian-sourced energy, and the vulnerability of democratically elected leaders to the whim of a consumer-based constituency. Russia can survive the impact of any sanctions regime the U.S. is able to scrape together—even those targeting the Russian banking system—far longer than Europe can survive without access to Russian energy.
This is a reality that Europe lives with, and while U.S. policy makers might think hard-hitting sanctions look good on paper, the reality is that whatever passes for U.S.-European unity today would collapse in rapid order when the Russian pipelines were shut down. The pain would not just be limited to Europe, either—the U.S. economy would suffer as well, with sky-high fuel prices and a stock market collapse that would put the U.S. into an economic recession, if not outright depression.
The political cost that would be incurred by Biden and, by extension, the Democrats, would be fatal to any hope that might remain for holding onto either house of Congress in 2022, or the White House in 2024. It would be one thing if Biden and his national security team were honest and forthright about the real consequences of declaring the equivalent of economic war on Russia. It is another thing altogether to speak only of the pain sanctions would cause Russia, with little thought, if any, to the real consequences that will be paid on the home front.
Americans should never forget that Russia has been laboring under severe U.S. sanctions since 2014, with zero effect. Russia knows what could be coming and has prepared. The American people wallow in their ignorance, believing at face value what they are told by the Biden administration, and echoed by a compliant mainstream media.
Propaganda About ‘Propaganda’
One of the great ironies of the current crisis is that, on the eve of the Blinken-Lavrov meeting in Geneva, the U.S. State Department published a report on Russian propaganda, decrying the role played by state-funded outlets such as RT and Sputnik in shaping public opinion in the United States and the West (in the interest of full disclosure, RT is one of the outlets that I write for.)
The fact that the State Department would publish such a report on the eve of a meeting which is all about propagating the big lie—that the U.S. has a plan for deterring “irresponsible Russian aggression”—while ignoring the hard truth: this is a crisis derived solely from the irresponsible policies of the U.S. and NATO over the past 30 years.
While a compliant mainstream American media unthinkingly repeated every warning and threat issued by Biden and Blinken to Russia over the course of the past few days, the Russian position has been largely ignored. Here’s a reminder of where Russia stands on its demands for security guarantees: “We are talking about the withdrawal of foreign forces, equipment, and weapons, as well as taking other steps to return to the set-up we had in 1997 in non-NATO countries,” the Russian Foreign Ministry declared in a bulletin published after the Lavrov-Blinken meeting. “This includes Bulgaria and Romania.”
Blinken has already said the U.S. will reject this.
The toolbox is empty. Russia knows this. Biden knows this. Blinken knows this. CNN knows this. The only ones who aren’t aware of this are the American people.
The consequences of a U.S. rejection of Russia’s demands will more than likely be war.
If you think the American people are ready to bear the burden of a war with Russia, think again.
U.S.-made HIMARS missile systems in Romania aimed against Russian forces in Transnistria
By Paul Antonopoulos | March 5, 2021
The first batch of U.S.-made HIMARS multi-launch missile systems arrived in the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanța and is now a part of the national army. The first to receive the new missile system is the 81st Tactical Operational Missile Battalion, deployed in Focșani, about 70 kilometers from the border with Moldova.
HIMARS artillery missile systems are designed to attack areas with a concentration of artillery systems, air defenses, transport nodes and other major targets that are within a 300-kilometer range. Considering Romania borders Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Hungary and Serbia, the country has no enemies within the scope of HIMARS, bringing to question why it purchased such systems. It is difficult to explain why such a powerful weapon is deployed in eastern Romania, 220 kilometers from the Moldovan city of Tiraspol and 270 kilometers from the ammunition depot in Cobasna in the separatist region of Transnistria – which is internationally recognized as a part of Moldova.
It must be noted that the U.S. approved the sale of 20 HIMARS launchers, worth $655 million, to Poland. Romania received 54 launchers, more than double the amount of Poland, showing that the U.S. is prioritizing the Black Sea as a point of pressure against Russia – more so than the Baltics. Whereas the German Navy are present in the Baltics and the British can reach the area with relative ease, the Black Sea is effectively a “Russian lake,” particularly after Russia’s 2014 reunification with Crimea. NATO member states Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania do not have the capabilities to challenge the Russian Navy in the Black Sea, hence why Washington is also cooperating with Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia.
But the question still remains – why would Bucharest need 54 HIMARS launchers, more than the American artillery brigade has, and more than 10% of all such systems in the Pentagon’s arsenal?
It is excessive fire power for an army that has only 70,000, personnel and does not have the means to redeploy heavy weapons at a great distance. According to Firepower, Romania is ranked only 41st globally for their military power.
Hypothetically, in a war situation, the 41st U.S. Artillery Brigade could borrow the Romanian HIMARS systems and transport them to Georgia or Ukraine. At the end of 2020, U.S. ground forces conducted exercises to prepare for a “hi-tech war” in Romania. In a few hours they managed to transport by air two HIMARS systems from Germany to the Kogâlniceanu Air Base and launch several rockets towards the Black Sea – there is little doubt that the imagined target was Russian forces when we consider that it is only 400 kilometers between the Romanian coast and Russia. Although this is 100 kilometers less than the range of the HIMARS system, according to Forbes, the exercises were “a message for Moscow” and a “rocket surprise” for Russian forces in Crimea.
The political-military situation in the region is becoming increasingly tense, with Moldova coming within range of American weapons and soldiers based in Romania. According to the Constitution, the Republic of Moldova is a neutral state, but decisionmakers in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau and their Romanian counterparts in Bucharest concluded a military cooperation agreement in 2013, which de facto subordinates Moldovan troops to the Romanian General Staff and allows Romanian gendarmes to maintain “public order” in the country. With Romania effectively controlling Moldova’s security and President Maia Sandu pivoting her country towards NATO and the European Union, Chisinau could be a willing participant in the West’s sustained campaign to pressure Moscow.
Analysts at the Pentagon-affiliated RAND Corporation are examining how U.S. troops could enter Moldova to participate in military exercises and not leave, using the pretext of the so-called Russian threat. American maneuvers and armament in Eastern Europe not only threatens Russia, but serves to ensure that Romania and Baltic States stay loyal to Washington and against Moscow.
If the U.S. is successful in stationing troops in Moldova, they would effectively have new access to the Black Sea via the Port of Giurgiulești on the Danube River. In addition, U.S. troops would be within touching distance of the 1,500-strong Operational Group of Russian Forces in Transnistria, whose responsibilities include maintaining peace and guarding several tons of military equipment and ammunition in Cobasna.
Although the HIMARS system cannot reach Russia from Romania, it is likely that these missiles are aimed against Russian forces maintaining peace in Transnistria. 54 HIMARS in Romania’s arsenal demonstrates an escalation by Bucharest as it is clear that the excessive number of units is not for defensive purposes, especially considering the country’s cordial relations with its neighbors.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
‘Shameless Racism’: 13 Countries Change Long-Standing Position on Palestine at UN
Palestine Chronicle – December 5, 2019
For the first time, 13 countries changed their longstanding positions and voted against a pro-Palestine measure at the United Nations on Tuesday.
Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Brazil, and Colombia voted against the annual resolution regarding the “Division for Palestinian Rights of the Secretariat”, according to the Times of Israel.
They had previously abstained on the vote.
The resolution, which includes a call to halt to illegal Israeli settlements being constructed in the occupied West Bank, still passed with a large majority voting in favor.
The Palestinian representative told the council: “If you protect Israel, it will destroy you all.” He also said Israel’s character as a Jewish state is “shameless racism”.
The New York-based Division for Palestinian Rights oversees the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
The resolution was co-sponsored by Comoros, Cuba, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
The UK, France, and Spain abstained, as they do every year, allowing the resolution to pass with a vote of 87-54, with 21 other abstentions.
The General Assembly adopted five resolutions on the question of Palestine and the Middle East, including one calling on the Member States not to recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regards to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations.
Romania breaks with EU to relocate its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem
RT | March 24, 2019
Romania will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Prime Minister Viorica Dancila announced at the AIPAC summit in Washington on Sunday, in a controversial move that goes against the rest of the European Union.
Speaking at the Israel lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) conference, Dancila said Romania intends to relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which she referred to as Israel’s capital, in a move that follows the US’ controversial decision to do so last year.
Most nations with diplomatic relations with Israel have their embassies in Tel Aviv, as, although Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital, it is not recognized as such by the international community. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as their future capital, and Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since the 1967 war, when it annexed the area from the rest of the West Bank.
Dancila is currently president of the Council of the European Union and the move is a marked departure from the position held by the rest of the EU. Romania, along with Hungary and the Czech Republic, reportedly blocked an EU resolution objecting to the US embassy move, which said Jerusalem should be capital of both Israel and Palestine.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Dancila to move Romania’s embassy when she visited Israel in January. “I hope you will act to stop the bad resolutions against Israel in the European Union,” he said. “And also, of course, to move your embassy and other embassies to Jerusalem.”
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis called for Dancila to resign last April after she pushed a secret memorandum to move the embassy without consulting him, and after she went on a state visit to Israel without consulting him. As president, Iohannis is in charge of foreign policy and has the final decision on such moves.
Speaking before another meeting between Romania and Israel in November, Netanyahu explained some of the reasons they enjoy good relations: “We cooperate in matters of security, anti-terror. Romania stands often with Israel in difficult diplomatic arenas and we appreciate this. We recognize our friends and we consider Romania a great friend.” Netanyahu also referred to their shared concerns about “radical Islam.”
The president of Honduras also told AIPAC it would open diplomatic representation in Jerusalem, and hinted that if AIPAC would lobby on behalf of his country, he would consider opening an embassy too, Haaretz reports. Brazil has also said it will consider moving its embassy. Guatemala is the only country apart from the US to have moved its embassy to Jerusalem so far.
‘Our build-up is defensive, Russia’s aggressive,’ says NATO after Putin’s remark – but is that fair?
RT | August 22, 2018
NATO claims its military buildup in Eastern Europe is justified as it deters Russia’s superior might. Yet, any Russian activity is overshadowed by the US-led bloc’s huge border drills, supposedly held to ‘counter’ Moscow’s moves.
“NATO’s actions are defensive, proportionate and fully in line with our international commitments,” the alliance’s spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told Reuters, commenting on NATO military activities. She further added that the troops deployed by the Alliance to Eastern Europe “cannot compare to the divisions deployed by Russia” on its western borders.
The rant was provoked by the words of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who rebuked NATO for building up its military infrastructure right on Russia’s doorstep. “We do not deploy our military contingents away from our borders and close to the NATO states, it is the NATO infrastructure that advances to our own borders,” Putin told journalists in Sochi.
It was the way this statement was put that apparently made NATO officials so angry that they even de facto claimed that their forces are no match to those of Russia. The comparison is not exactly true, as facts show that NATO’s buildup and military activities near Russian territory actually overshadow the Russian activity.
Less than a week ago, German media reported that Berlin sent as many as 8,000 soldiers and some 100 tanks to Norway in preparation for yet another NATO drill, this time dubbed Trident Juncture 2018 and scheduled for October-November. According to the Alliance, the exercise, which will focus on repelling an aggression of some unfriendly state as part of a collective defense scenario under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, will involve as many as 40,000 participants from more than 30 countries – more than any Russian military exercise conducted in recent years.
The “scariest” Russian war games, dubbed Zapad-2017, which even sparked media-fueled fears that it was a cover for an “invasion” of neighboring countries, involved only 12,700 troops, 70 military aircraft, 10 ships and some 680 ground vehicles. Almost immediately after those drills Poland hosted what it called “national” Dragon 17 exercises, involving contingents from the US, the UK, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia and Ukraine. Notably, the number of troops involved in Dragon 17 exceeded those of the Zapad-2017 contingent, with some 17,000 personnel and 3,500 hardware pieces involved.
The US-led bloc continues to intensify its military exercises in Eastern Europe. In less than three months, NATO conducted two major drills in the vicinity of Russian borders. In June, more than 18,000 soldiers from 19 countries took part in the two-week ‘Saber Strike’ exercise, held in Poland and the Baltic States. The drills were said to practice the deployment of military convoys to defend NATO’s eastern flank.
On August 20, Latvia hosted the biggest war games ever staged on its territory since the Baltic State gained independence. Some 10,000 troops from more than a dozen NATO countries are participating in the drills that will end on September 2. However, the military bloc continues to repeat its mantra that all those drills right on Russia’s doorstep are in no way aimed at “provoking” Russia.
As if that was not enough, NATO also beefed up its military contingent in Eastern Europe. In her statement to Reuters, Lungescu only mentioned “4,000 troops to the eastern part of the Alliance to deter any possible aggression” as if those troops were the only ones NATO recently sent to the region. She forgot to note that the US will soon double the number of its Marines stationed in Norway. Also left out were the missile defense installations in Poland and Romania that are equipped with Lockheed Martin Aegis Ashore systems, which are technically capable of carrying both interceptor missiles and Tomahawk missiles.
In October 2017, the US also sent a new mechanized brigade to Poland, effectively increasing the overall strength of its military group in the Eastern European state to the level of a mechanized division. The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov, said at that time that the equipment of another US brigade, which had previously been stationed there “remained in place.”
He added that such a situation gives the US an opportunity to easily redeploy its trained military personnel from its German Rammstein base to Poland within just two hours. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, NATO has tripled its military presence on Russia’s western borders over the past five years, forcing Moscow to respond.
Meanwhile, Russia has not deployed any significant military forces to its western borders in recent years, except for the stationing of Iskander-M tactical missile systems in its western exclave of Kaliningrad in early 2018. However, it is Russia that NATO and the West so desperately seek to portray as a source of instability in the region. Moscow has repeatedly warned that increased NATO presence on its doorstep effectively contributes nothing to regional security and, to the contrary, undermines stability in Europe.
Romanian President Demands Prime Minister’s Resignation Over Betrayal of Palestine
By Adam Garrie | Eurasia Future | 2018-04-27
When Romania’s Prime Minister Viorica Dancila announced that her country would move its “Israeli” Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem/Al-Quds in line with the United States, she did not consult her President as Romanian law demands. The move which is considered a grave insult to millions of Arabs, Muslims and Christians throughout the world was apparently taken in a unilateral move that Romania’s President has said violates both national and possibly international law.
President Klaus Iohannis has stated that the Premier’s decision “does not cope with her position of the prime minister of Romania and thus it turns the government into a vulnerability for Romania…. That is why I call publicly for her resignation.”
The rift comes after Prime Minister Dancila recently took a trip to “Israel” which the President said was not cleared with the head of state and therefore cannot be described as an official state visit even though Dancila acted as though it was.
The political turmoil within Romania is a clear sign that even among the few European nations that have been inching towards a US position of moving their embassies in “Israel” to Jerusalem/Al-Quds, such moves are highly domestically divisive.
Today in Palestine, demonstrators continue their Great March of Return protests which are set to continue through Nakba Day on the 15th of May. Thus far, “Israeli” aggression against peaceful demonstrators has resulted in over 40 deaths and the wounding over over 5,500 Palestinians.
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From the Archives
Zionist Lies
By Raji Abuzalaf | Dissident Voice | August 7, 2014
“There is no such thing as Palestine” … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Australian Sumud Flotilla activists file ICC war crimes case against Israel over torture, sexual violence
- AIPAC concealing support for candidates as its brand becomes ‘toxic’ in Democratic primaries: Report
- Iran halts talks with US – media
- Two US political commentators banned from UK for criticizing ‘Israel’
- IRGC hits US air base behind attack on telecom tower in southern Iran
- Wrong, BBC, No ‘Climate Driven Millisecond Earth Rotation Crisis’ Exists
- Israeli authorities refuse to return massive trove of Oct 7 video. What are they hiding?
- Japan’s Tooth Decay Rates Fell for 40 Years — Without Water Fluoridation
- The Gene Was Fake. The Body Believed it Anyway.
- Germany is chronically stuck in “green” insanity. Prognosis: very poor.
- If Americans Knew
- Super PAC Network Backing Connie Chan Received Hundreds of Thousands from AIPAC
- Israel’s Solution to the Gaza Problem Is Well Underway
- UK Bans Prominent Commentators Over Their Statements on Israel
- Israel’s killing machine deepens its invasion into Lebanon – Daily Update
- ‘To call it a ceasefire is a joke’: Israeli soldiers share rare accounts from Gaza with AP
- Israeli Espionage: How Israel and its American agents stole US uranium
- From Paul Findley to Thomas Massie: How the Israel Lobby Purges Republican Dissenters
- Israeli US Attorney Drops Charge Against Israeli Connected to Biolab
- Trump wants the Palestinians to pay for the U.S. occupation of Gaza
- I Was Detained by Israel: Here’s What Ben-Gvir Didn’t Want You to See
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
- European “Expert Commission” Urges COVID-19-Like Global Climate State Of Energency!
- Real-World Observations Do Not Support The Position That Climate Change Is Human-Caused
- Germany’s AfD Party Calls Debunked Climate Scenarios “Greatest Fraud In Human History”
- Researchers Find Rapid Global Warming Phase At End Of Last Ice Age (Ca.18,000 Years Ago)
- Even The DNA Of Single-Celled Plankton Can Upend Alarmist Arctic Sea Ice Melt Claims
- Scandal: Although Climate Panic Is Canceled By IPCC, Europe’s Policymakers Continue With Their Crushing Policies
- How Once Hardcore Climate Alarmist Lucy Biggers Realized It Was All A Scam, Brainwashing
- German Expert: “No Climate Crisis” …”Warming Generally Better For Humanity”
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