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Putin names Russia’s real enemies

Ukraine itself is not an enemy, the Western elites backing it are, the Russian president has said

RT | January 1, 2024

Ukraine is a mere tool in the hands of the collective West, which has been using it to fight Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. He made the remarks at a military hospital in Moscow where he was meeting Russian servicemen wounded during the Ukraine military operation.

Asked about the enduring Western support for Kiev, the president said the elites of the collective West were actually the true enemy of Russia, rather than Ukraine itself.

“The point is not that they are helping our enemy, but that they are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with [Ukraine’s] hands, that’s what it’s all about,” Putin stated.

The conflict between Moscow and Kiev was orchestrated by Western elites, who seek to defeat Russia, he suggested. However, the collective West has been unable to achieve its goals, with the failure already showing in the change of its rhetoric on the conflict, the president explained.

“Those who only yesterday were talking about the need to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia are now looking for words on how to quickly end the conflict.”

“We want to end the conflict too, and as quickly as possible, but only on our terms. We have no desire to fight forever, but we are not going to give up our positions either,” Putin said.

The battlefield situation is now changing despite all the aid Kiev has been receiving from the West, the president observed. Russia has been effectively outproducing the whole West militarily, he suggested, with the country’s output destined to grow even further.

“Despite the fact that from time immemorial [the West] has had such a goal – to deal with Russia, it looks like we will deal with them first,” Putin stated.

“You probably see it on the battlefield that they are gradually ‘deflating’. When a shell flies, it is probably difficult to tell whether they are ‘deflated’ or not, but in general you probably know: the situation on the battlefield is changing. And this is happening despite the fact that the entire so-called civilized West is fighting against us,” he told the servicemen.

According to Russia’s latest estimates, over 380,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded during the conflict. Ukraine has also sustained heavy materiel losses, with an estimated 14,000 tanks and other armored vehicles destroyed. Nearly 160,000 of the troop losses were during Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, launched in early June last year, Moscow says.

January 1, 2024 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

Western War Machine is in Panic Mode

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 01.01.2024 

The sheer inability of the collective West to force Russia into submission in Ukraine plus the fast-changing global opinion about the West in the context of the latter’s support for Israel’s brutal war on the Gazans has put the so-called ‘liberal-democratic’ world into a panic mode. The White House has already said that it will run out of money to fund Ukraine into 2024 unless the US Congress gives approval for more funding. This has led the Western war machine – primarily led by the US – to anticipate a possible defeat. “There is no guarantee of success with us, but they are certain to fail without us”, a senior US military official told CNN recently. Without the military support, US officials now estimate, Ukraine would fall by the summer of 2024. But, in Western calculations, Ukraine’s fall does not just mean Russia’s victory; it also implies a possible collapse of NATO and the eventual downfall of the Western-dominated global political, economic, and security order.

A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal said,

“Even more important, Russia’s success in Ukraine would increase a threat to NATO’s Eastern flank—in particular the Baltic states and Poland. Outside of Europe it would embolden Moscow’s allies Iran and North Korea and provide a template for China for the military solution of the Taiwan dispute. In all those cases, the U.S. and NATO troops could find themselves in the midst of a military conflict of the sort that Ukraine fights today without direct involvement of NATO”.

Such prospects are causing severe problems. Germany, for instance, is considering shelving voluntary force and making a return to conscription. “I believe that a nation that needs to become more resilient in times like these will have a higher level of awareness if it is mixed through with soldiers,” said Jan Christian Kaack, the chief of the German Navy. This is in addition to the fact that the German army is too small to defend itself against any threat; hence, the renewed emphasis on conscription.

But Germany is not an exceptional case. In fact, it mirrors developments in the rest of Europe. The UK, otherwise known to possess one of the best fighting forces in the world, is running into some problems of a fundamental nature. The Sky News reported earlier in the year that, a senior US general “privately told Defence Secretary Ben Wallace the British Army is no longer regarded as a top-level fighting force”. It was further reported that the “The armed forces would run out of ammunition in a few days if called upon to fight” and that “The UK lacks the ability to defend its skies against the level of missile and drone strikes that Ukraine is enduring”.

On top of it is the fact that the Russian military position in Ukraine remains strong, making it a lot harder for the West to provide enough funding. The Biden administration is facing its own challenges vis-à-vis more funding for Ukraine. As far as Europe is concerned, a recent report showed that pledges for funding made in August 2023 fell by almost 90 percent compared to the same period last year.

This is war fatigue that is being compounded by a well-sustained Russian resolve to achieve its objectives. For the West, Vladimir Putin remains “stubborn”. As Putin recently reiterated, “There will be peace when we achieve our goals… Now let’s return to these goals – they have not changed. I would like to remind you how we formulated them: denazification, demilitarisation, and a neutral status for Ukraine.”

Speaking from a position of strength – and keeping in mind the war fatigue in the West – Putin further said that Russian forces are “improving their position almost along the entire line of contact. Almost all of them are engaged in active combat. And the position of our troops is improving along [the entire line of contact.]”. This being the case, Putin conveyed no ideas of making a compromise with the West over Ukraine. Speaking from the Russian perspective, it would make no sense to offer negotiations and, thus, turn Russian tactical victories into unsustainable settlements.

Clearly, Russia has no intention of withdrawing from its victories, which is why there is a panic, especially in Europe. If Russia continues to win and the US funding stalls, Europe will be left to fend for itself. Germany’s defence minister minced no words to express this fear last Saturday when he said that the US “was losing interest in European affairs and that security tensions in the Pacific would likely leave the European Union having to fend for itself”, adding that “One can assume that the USA will be more involved in the Pacific region in the next decade than it is today – regardless of who becomes the next president,” he said. His conclusion is: “This means that we Europeans must increase our commitment to ensure security on our continent.”

In a nutshell, for the US, if the war in Ukraine was to unify the West, it is beginning to have an exactly opposite effect. There lies a very strong reason for the US to reconsider its strategy. This reconsideration can go in two directions. First, the US can withdraw from its obsession with expanding NATO to include Ukraine. Second, the US can make one last push and make Ukraine fight for as long as it can, hoping that this might break Russia. The Biden administration favours the second option, which is why it is pushing for the US$61 billion aid package. But will a Republican victory allow this to happen? A Republican victory could not only end support for Ukraine but also leave Europe in a total lurch. Tough times ahead.

Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.

January 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Deploys Cruise Missile-Armed Warship in Red Sea Amid US-Houthi Standoff

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 01.01.2024

The Alborz, an Iranian Navy Alvand-class frigate armed with long-range anti-ship missiles and anti-submarine warfare equipment, entered the Red Sea after passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, Iranian media reported on Monday.

Pointing to the nation’s record of operations in regional waters since the late 2000s fighting piracy and securing international shipping lanes, Iranian media indicated that the warship’s deployment to Red Sea now comes amid an “increase of tensions” in the wake of the Gaza crisis, Houthi operations against Israeli-owned and -bound commercial cargoes, and US attacks against the Yemeni militia.

Commissioned in 1971 and named after the Alborz mountain range, the Alborz is classified as a destroyer by Iran, but classed a frigate by many foreign military observers. The 1,100 ton, 94.5 meter long vessel has a 9,000 km range, a complement of over 125 officers and crew, and is fitted with Noor anti-ship sea-skimming turbojet-powered cruise missiles, which have a range of up to 220 km and can accelerate to up to Mach 1.4 in their terminal stage.

The warship underwent major capital repairs and the installation of new equipment in 2018, and was equipped with indigenously-developed combat systems in 2020, including new close-in air defense weapons, as well as electronic warfare and target detection and tracking systems.

The Alborz took part in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988. In 2021, the ship successfully fought off a pirate attack against an Iranian oil tanker in the Indian Ocean. The warship has also taken part in joint exercises with Russian and Chinese warships in recent years.

The vessel’s deployment in the Red Sea comes amid the continued deterioration of the security situation in the region, with the US military drawing first blood in its campaign against Yemen’s Houthi militants (who are attempting to close the body of water to Israeli-owned or affiliated commercial shipping) on Sunday, destroying three Houthi boats and killing ten fighters. The Houthis warned of “repercussions,” signaling the possibility of direct attacks against the warships of the US and its allies.

Earlier, UK media reported that British and US naval forces were planning “direct action” against the Houthis after issuing the militia with a “verbal final warning” about its Red Sea anti-shipping campaign.

Washington and its allies have repeatedly accused Iran of supporting the Houthis militarily. Tehran and Sanaa have each separately dismissed these claims, with Iranian officials insisting that their assistance for the Yemeni militia have been limited to moral support as part of the loose regional ‘Axis of Resistance’ anti-US, anti-Israeli coalition, and the Houthis saying their decision to launch operations against Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians were taken independently.

January 1, 2024 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

What We Have Learned

By Craig Murray | December 24, 2023 

We have learnt this year that there is no crime so startling, so obvious and so visible to the whole world that the United States and Israel are not willing to commit it brazenly and openly. The massacre of 20,000 people includes the killing of babies and infants, the deliberate shooting of pregnant women and toddlers, the murder of old ladies in church and the execution of prisoners stripped naked.

This is all justified as “Israel’s right of self-defence”.

We have also seen the increasing rise of fascism as western governments crack down on their publics in order to curtail political resistance to the genocide. Tony Greenstein, Mick Napier and I have all been harassed under the Terrorism Act. I have left the country because I fear I am officially “under investigation” under the Terrorism Act and I fear I shall be arrested and placed in jail for two years awaiting trial. Numerous people have been arrested for expressing their horror at the massacre through placards, words or even songs that the police judge “offensive”. Police action is often prompted by instruction from self-appointed Zionist vigilante organisations.

We are also seeing, exactly as I predicted, a replay of the “War on Terror” state Islamophobic propaganda. Do you remember the famous “ricin plot” where the ricin found was the trace level to be found in every kitchen? The British government kept it Top Secret for two years that there was in fact no ricin. Or the non-existent Easter Bomb Plot where the “ingredient of improvised explosives” found turned out to be a bag of sugar?

In Germany they have a great deal of work to do to justify the world’s most extreme anti-Palestinian governmental racism, so they have invented a “Hamas terror plot” and arrested four young Muslims. No evidence at all has been produced to justify this.

Hamas has never, ever conducted any violent attack outside of Palestine and it has always been their policy not to do so – and it still is. The notion is ludicrous that at this time Hamas have decided to suddenly lose the propaganda war which they are winning worldwide, by attacking Germany.

Germany’s governments have form of course, not only for genocide, but also for enthusiastic creation of fake terrorism. The German government was heavily implicated both in false flag terrorist attacks in Tashkent, which I was able to investigate and report to the UK government in real time, and in the creation of a whole fake terrorist organisation, “The Islamic Jihad Union of Uzbekistan”, which was entirely the work of the CIA and the German security services. The aim at that time was to justify the German military airbase at Termez in Uzbekistan, operating into Afghanistan. People forget German participation on the losing side in the last Afghan war.

I have no doubt we are in for a period of more propaganda, fake terrorist plots, false flag actual terrorism and agent provocateur led terrorism. It is the only way the Establishment can hope to regain the propaganda narrative.

I have not quite got used yet to my new position as an itinerant terrorist, so I apologise that posting has been a bit scarce due to a lot of organisational bother and a general sense of discombobulation. This is being dashed off at Milan airport. I am very happy on a personal note to say that my family are joining me at an exotic venue for Christmas and New Year, so you may not hear much from me till mid-January as I owe my children a great deal of my attention.

I do wish you a safe and very happy festive season wherever you are, and hope you can be together with those you love. For all those living in fear and danger, particularly but not only those in Gaza, my thoughts along with those of millions around the world are with you now and always.

Shortly before the first Iraq War, between the invasion of Kuwait and the outbreak of real hostilities, I spent a minute in reply to one from John Major. I was working in a the Embargo Surveillance Centre, a Top Secret establishment operating from an underground NATO HQ in central London. We were among the recipients of a Christmas message from the Prime Minister which combined Christian wishes with a bellicose message. I replied in a formal minute with this verse from the carol It Came Upon the Midnight Clear:

But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring; –
Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!

Whomever the angels are to you, I hope you hear them sing.

December 31, 2023 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Caracas says UK’s dispatch of warship violated the deal with Guyana over disputed Essequibo

RT | December 28, 2023

Britain’s decision to dispatch a warship to Guyana breaches the “spirit” of the agreement to resolve the Essequibo dispute peacefully and will be met with “defensive action,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday.

Earlier this week, the UK announced it would send the offshore patrol vessel HMS Trent, currently deployed in the Caribbean, to visit the “regional ally and Commonwealth partner.”

Maduro called the move “practically a military threat from London” that violates the “spirit of dialogue, diplomacy and peace of the agreements” made with Guyana.

“I have ordered the activation of joint defensive action by the Bolivarian National Armed Forces in response to the UK provocation and threat to the peace and sovereignty of our country,” the Venezuelan president said in a televised speech.

Venezuela “reserves all actions, within the framework of the Constitution and International Law, to defend its maritime and territorial integrity,” the Foreign Ministry in Caracas said in a statement.

Following a national referendum at the beginning of December, Caracas laid claim on “Guayana Esequiba,” a mostly forested region rich in mineral resources that Venezuela has claimed for over a century. Guyana has protested, noting that the area amounts to two-thirds of its internationally recognized territory and asked the “international community” for help.

Brazil and several Caribbean countries offered to mediate the dispute, resulting in Maduro and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali signing the Declaration of Argyle on December 14, at a meeting in St. Vincent. Both sides pledged to refrain from escalation by “words or deeds,” and established a joint commission to discuss the dispute.

Four days later, Britain’s Undersecretary for the Americas David Rutley visited Georgetown and promised Guyana “unequivocal backing,” vowing to “ensure the territorial integrity of Guyana is upheld.”

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, who has taken on the role of the mediator in the dispute, told the island radio on Thursday that he read the Venezuelan statement “very carefully,” describing it as “firm but… not particularly belligerent.”

Gonsalves said he has reached out to both Georgetown and Caracas, and received assurances from both of their “commitment to peace and continued dialogue.”

December 28, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Maduro Orders ‘Defensive’ Military Drills After UK Deploys British Warship Off Guyana Coast

Sputnik – 28.12.2023

CARACAS – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered on Thursday the armed forces to launch “the activation of a joint defensive action” in response to the deployment of a British warship off the coast of Guyana.

“I have ordered the activation of a joint defensive action of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces” off the coast of Essequibo, he said in a state televised broadcast, but did not provide more information.

Earlier this month, the British media reported, citing a British defense ministry spokesman, that the United Kingdom would deploy a patrol ship off Guyana’s coast as a sign of support for the state in the territorial dispute over Essequibo. The head of Venezuela’s defense ministry, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, called it a provocation.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ivan Gil had previously called on his British counterpart David Cameron not to interfere in the affairs of Latin American and Caribbean countries, and to mind his own business.

“From Venezuela, we ask the infamous failure David Cameron, foreign minister of the former imperial power of the United Kingdom, to take his hands off our Latin America and the Caribbean and to take care of his own affairs, which are very complicated,” Gil wrote on social media.

Venezuela’s territorial dispute with Britain and Guyana, a former British colony, has been ongoing since the 19th century. The Bolivarian government stepped up its actions after Guyanese authorities began handing over fossil-rich areas of the disputed shelf to oil companies for development.

Caracas held a referendum on December 3 in which an absolute majority of participants supported the annexation of the territory west of the Essequibo River, and began legislative work to legally back its actions.

Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali has since said that the country views Caracas’ actions as a threat to national security and intends to appeal to the UN Security Council as well as its international partners. During a recent news conference, Ali did not rule out that Guyana may go for a military base for its allies in the region, and on December 7, the US Army’s Southern Command carried out “flight operations” in the country.

The leaders of Venezuela and Guyana, following recent talks on the territorial dispute over Essequibo, pledged not to use force under any circumstances and to resolve it in accordance with the 1966 Geneva Agreement.

December 28, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hesitation among US allies leaves Operation Prosperity Guardian in dire straits

The Cradle | December 28, 2023

Ten days after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the formation of an international task force to patrol the Red Sea, about half of the nations named as participants have yet to acknowledge their role, while others have pushed back against Austin’s declaration.

Under the name Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG), Washington’s “coalition of the willing” was intended to confront attacks by the Yemeni armed forces against Israeli-linked ships attempting to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

However, only two US allies have deployed warships to the Yemeni coast to support the coalition: the UK, which sent the navy destroyer HMS Diamond, and Greece, which announced the deployment of a Hellenic navy frigate.

Canada, Norway, and the Netherlands confirmed their participation in OPG but have so far committed only a handful of staff officers. Similarly, the Seychelles ratified their support for the coalition but clarified: “Our participation will not include putting boats or military personnel to patrol in the Red Sea. Our role is to help in providing and receiving information since many things that happen close by can have an implication for us.”

Authorities in Bahrain – the only Gulf nation named as part of the pro-Israel alliance – have not commented on their role in OPG, despite the fact that the US war chief announced the coalition’s creation from the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama. Last week, Bahraini police detained a prominent opposition figure who criticized the government for joining OPG.

Complicating matters further for the Pentagon, the last three NATO members named as part of the alliance – Spain, Italy, and France – have outright refused to hand over command of their ships to the US.

The French defense ministry said last week it supported efforts to “secure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.” Still, it highlighted that its navy already operated in the region and its ships would stay under French command. Italy took a similar approach, committing the naval frigate Virginio Fasan to patrol the Red Sea but emphasizing that this was part of “existing operations” and not OPG.

Spain has been the most vocal in its rejection of being named part of the anti-Yemen alliance, vetoing a vote at the EU that called for support of the coalition and making it clear that its forces committed to Operation Atalanta – a counter-piracy operation off the Horn of Africa and in the Western Indian Ocean – would not join OPG.

“Spain is not opposed to creating another operation, in this case in the Red Sea. We have communicated to our allies, both in NATO and in the EU, that we consider Operation Atalanta does not have the characteristics nor the nature that is demanded and needed in the Red Sea,” President Pedro Sanchez said on 27 December.

While the Pentagon last week proclaimed “over 20 nations” had joined OPG, reports have shown that more of Washington’s closest partners are balking at the idea of joining war efforts in the Red Sea.

On 21 December, Australia announced it would be sending personnel to join OPG, but no warships or planes. India has also balked at the plan, with a senior military official revealing to Reuters that New Delhi is “unlikely to join” the US alliance.

Nonetheless, earlier this week, the Indian navy deployed several warships to the Arabian Sea in response to an alleged drone attack on an Israeli-linked vessel.

Saudi Arabia has also shown no interest in the venture, as the Gulf kingdom is reportedly more interested in ending its eight-year war in Yemen than in re-starting hostilities.

Yemen’s Red Sea operations in support of Palestinians in Gaza have significantly hurt the Israeli import sector, as the vital Port of Eilat has seen an 85 percent drop in activity. According to Bloomberg, half of the container ships that regularly transit the Red Sea and Suez Canal are avoiding the route now.

However, marine traffic data shows that the transit of non-western tankers through the Red Sea has surged since the Yemeni armed forces began targeting Israeli-linked vessels.

December 28, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Elbit 8’: Palestine Action activists conclude legal fight for disrupting Israeli arms trade

By Reza Javadi | Press TV | December 27, 2023

In a significant development, a group of Palestine Action activists, known as the ‘Elbit Eight’, have been acquitted for their role in shutting down UK Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms producer, whose lethal weapons are being used against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Elbit Systems’ weaponry prompted the Palestine Action activists to face a total of 12 charges, including criminal damage, burglary, blackmail, and encouraging criminal damage.

The charges were related to anti-Israel protests held between July 2020 and January 2021, immediately after the pro-Palestinian network was founded in early 2020.

The trial, which commenced on November 13, saw the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) amending the indictment, eventually bringing thirteen counts against the activists: seven counts of damaging property (criminal damage), three counts of burglary with intent to commit criminal damage, one count of possessing articles with intent to damage property, one count of threatening to damage property, and one count of encouraging others to commit the offense of criminal damage.

Since the group’s inception in 2020, and in protest against the Israeli regime’s atrocities against the Palestinians, they have led several mobilizations in the UK as well as in the US, targeting the factories and offices of firms that supply munitions used in Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Their protest methods have included sit-ins, blockades and paint jobs.

The group’s actions, including occupying Elbit Systems’ drone and weaponry factories in Shenstone and Oldham, aimed to challenge Elbit’s operations in Britain and prevent the manufacturing of weapons destined for the Israeli regime.

The defense case

At the beginning of the trial that lasted six weeks, the eight activists received a plea deal: if Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard pleaded guilty, others would be acquitted.

Rejecting the plea deal, the activists spent six weeks in Snaresbrook Crown Court pleading not guilty, asserting that Elbit and Israel bear responsibility for the offenses, not Palestine Action.

Echoing the defense’s narrative presented during the trial, Richard Barnard, co-founder of Palestine Action, underscored the group’s primary goal to terminate British complicity in the Israeli apartheid regime’s crimes against Palestinians.

Barnard was convicted by a 10-2 majority of one count of criminal damage, for an action at the now-closed Elbit Ferranti factory in Oldham. The jury failed to reach a majority decision regarding the remaining 23 charges.

“The idea was – and the idea still is – to end the British complicity in the Israeli apartheid regime,” he told the jury. “I am trying to prevent war crimes … I am trying to stop bombings and trying to stop drones [in Palestine].”

Meanwhile, two of the Elbit Eight activists, Genevieve Scherer and Jocelyn Cooney, were unanimously acquitted on all charges faced.

Other activists highlighted their personal experiences and the urgency driving their direct actions, contending that conventional means, such as divestment campaigns, were insufficient in addressing the ongoing human rights violations in Gaza.

Huda Ammori, charged with six counts including damaging property and burglary, stressed her Palestinian-Iraqi background, narrating formative experiences such as the Iraq War and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of native Palestinians in Gaza.

She stressed that direct action was the only viable solution to end such atrocities perpetrated by the occupying regime, given the ineffectiveness of legal avenues and divestment campaigns.

“All other attempts fell short. Our exports to Israel are against our own license rules and against international law, but they can’t be stopped by the courts,” Ammori said.

“Divestment campaigns, after years of work, were taking way too long; it wasn’t matching the reality of the urgency of the situation. Every day, Palestinians were being killed, imprisoned – surveilled under these drones 24/7.”

Direct action is the only option

Ammori, a co-founder of the Palestine Action network, hastened to add that if the UK government continues to ignore facts and violate rules, then the only option is “direct action”, which means to “stop weapons from going there.”

“After pushing back our case for two years, the state has failed again to deter an ever-growing global direct-action movement. Every day we’ve been on trial, more Palestinians have been massacred using Elbit’s weaponry,” she asserted.

“The duty of the people is clear – to take all direct action possible to Shut Elbit Down wherever you are. Justice will be complete when Palestine is free.”

Robin Refualu, another activist of the group, charged with burglary and damaging the drone factory UAV Engines, shared his experiences from Palestine and spoke of the direct action he was involved in there to stop home demolitions and illegal settlements and emphasizing the trial’s relevance to the broader Palestinian struggle over the past 75 years.

“This trial is not about us, it’s not even about Palestine Action, in my opinion,” Refualu said. “It’s about what’s happening in Gaza at the moment and what’s been happening in Palestine for the last 75 years.”

Genevieve Scherer, drawing on her upbringing in Uganda, criticized the futility of criminal damage charges when Elbit Systems and those they arm cause havoc in Gaza.

She underscored how British law prioritizes property over human lives.

Caroline Brouard emphasized the obligation to prevent an ongoing genocide and stated that when governments fail to uphold duties, it falls on the people to act. She believed that actions at UAV Engines in Shenstone could immediately impact stopping bombings in Gaza.

“The drones malfunction all the time, needing replacement parts, and UAV Engines has a 24hr dispatch policy – we stopped these engines getting to Israel and so stopped the drones from flying,” Brouard asserted.

Urgency of stopping crimes

Jocelyn Cooney, a frontline social worker, joined Palestine Action to address the urgency of stopping crimes. She referred to Elbit Systems as the “muscle” enabling genocide in Palestine.

“So I think we all have a responsibility as humans to step up and take direct action to stop this company from producing weapons to murder people,” she said.

Emily Arnott, charged with damaging property and burglary, spoke about her time in Palestine, highlighting the impact of apartheid and the Israeli regime’s brutal domination over Palestinian lives.

Nicola Stickells, charged with criminal damage, emphasized the necessity of action when other efforts were ineffective. She pointed to ongoing war crimes in Gaza and questioned why activists faced legal consequences while those responsible for genocide profited freely.

The Israeli regime forces are “rounding up men.. and taking them to undisclosed places, stripped, kneeling blindfolded, this genocide is occurring as we speak,” said Stickells, a mother of two who was raised in a working-class family in the English county of Kent.

“How can we be the criminals when the perpetrators of… [what] we now know is a genocide … are free to profit and we have to spend weeks and weeks in court for an action that we took three years ago?” she asked.

“When you try and stand for human rights, you become the criminal. This is not right.”

Palestine Action UK has escalated actions against Elbit Systems since October 7, including activists climbing factory roofs in various cities.

“Palestine Action activists occupy the roof of the Israeli weapons factory Elbit Systems in the town of Shenstone, England, in protest of its production of equipment used in Israel’s murder of innocent Palestinians,” Palestine Action UK said in a statement on October 31.

UK complicity in Israeli crimes

The trial comes on the heels of nationwide protests in the UK in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against the genocide in Gaza. These demonstrations have been met with intensive state monitoring, harassment, and muzzling of pro-Palestinian voices and actions.

The trial also draws attention to the broader issue of the UK’s arms sales to the Israeli regime, given Elbit Systems’ significant role as a major supplier to the Israeli military.

The weapons company is Israel’s largest private arms company in the UK that supplies the Israeli military with 85 percent of the drones used against Palestinians. The British government has been criticized for being “complicit in Israeli crimes” due to its relations with this company.

Two of Israel’s biggest weapons factories, Elbit and Rafael, both have operations in the UK.

Declassified UK recently revealed that the British government has approved at least £472m in arms sales to the Israeli regime in the past eight years, ignoring the genocide in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

UK to Deploy Royal Navy Warship to Ex-Colony Amid Guyana-Venezuela Dispute

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 24.12.2023

Guyanese President Irfaan Ali and Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro met in mid-December under the aegis of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the Caribbean Community to defuse tensions around the disputed region of Essequibo. The two agreed to “continue dialogue to resolve the dispute over the Essequibo territory.”
The UK has decided to re-task Royal Navy warship the HMS Trent and deploy it to Guyana after Christmas, according to British media reports.

Instead of scouring the Caribbean in search of drug smugglers, the warship will take part in joint naval exercises with the former British colony and Commonwealth member. The decision was reportedly prompted by the current flare-up of the territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela.

“HMS Trent will visit regional ally and Commonwealth partner Guyana later this month as part of a series of engagements in the region during her Atlantic Patrol Task deployment,” a UK Ministry of Defense spokesperson was cited as saying.

The HMS Trent is a Batch 2 River-class offshore patrol vessel, named after the River Trent. Commanded by Commander Tim D. Langford, it is designed to carry out tasks that include “counter-piracy, anti-smuggling, fishery protection, border patrol, counter terrorism, humanitarian aid, search and rescue, general patrols and defence diplomacy,” as per the Royal Navy website.

The warship will stay in Barbados, the Caribbean region of the Americas, during Christmas, after which it will be heading for Guyana. Its activities will reportedly be carried out at sea, and will not involve docking in Guyana’s capital, Georgetown.

Earlier in December, when Britain’s Foreign Office Minister for the Americas and Caribbean David Rutley visited Guyana, he was quoted as saying that the UK would work internationally “to ensure the territorial integrity of Guyana is upheld.”

The border between Guyana and Venezuela, which runs through the Guyana-Essequibo region, known for its abundant oil reserves, has been a source of territorial dispute for several decades.

Venezuela gained independence from Spain in 1845 and recognized Essequibo – a zone of 160,000 sq. km – as part of its sovereign territory. In 1899, however, the United Kingdom filed and won an arbitration claim to recognize Essequibo as part of its then-Caribbean colony of British Guiana. Independent Guyana referred the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2018. This came after Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro objected to former Guyanese president David Granger granting oil exploration rights off the Essequibo coast to ExxonMobil, the US-French oil transnational.

Venezuela held a referendum earlier this month in which almost 96% of the population voted in favor of incorporating the Essequibo region, which makes up two-thirds of the territory controlled by Guyana, into the country. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro put forward a proposal to the parliament, suggesting the establishment of Venezuela’s 24th state, named Guyana-Essequibo. He also produced a new map showing the disputed region of Essequibo as part of Venezuela. Besides referring to Essequibo as a “zone of integral defense,” Venezuela’s president proposed a deadline of three months for oil companies to halt offshore operations in the area. Last Sunday, a referendum was conducted to reaffirm Caracas’s claim to Essequibo. The majority of citizens voted in favor of establishing a state on the disputed territory.

According to Venezuelan media, President Nicolas Maduro has already officially signed decrees to incorporate the western region of neighboring Guyana into Venezuela, ratifying a total of six documents. In addition, Maduro signed a decree facilitating the creation of specialized units within the state oil and gas company PDVSA — PDVSA Essequibo and the Guyana Venezuelan Corporation — CVG Essequibo. To oversee the newly formed state, Major General Alexis Rodriguez Cabello was appointed as the sole head of the 24th state.

Venezuela and Guyana have since agreed not to threaten or use force in any circumstances to settle the dispute, as per a joint statement, published by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The sides also agreed to meet in Brazil within the next three months to “consider any matter with implications for the territory in dispute” and immediately establish a joint commission on the level of foreign minister and experts to address the dispute.

December 24, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Junk Science Alert: Met Office Set to Ditch Actual Temperature Data in Favour of Model Predictions

By Chris Morrison | The Daily Sceptic | December 23, 2023

The alternative climate reality that the U.K. Met Office seeks to occupy has moved a step nearer with news that a group of its top scientists has proposed adopting a radical new method of calculating climate change. The scientific method of calculating temperature trends over at least 30 years should be ditched, and replaced with 10 years of actual data merged with model projections for the next decade. The Met Office undoubtedly hopes that it can point to the passing of the 1.5°C ‘guard-rail’ in short order. This is junk science-on-stilts, and is undoubtedly driven by the desire to push the Net Zero collectivist agenda.

In a paper led by Professor Richard Betts, the Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office, it is noted that the target of 1.5°C warming from pre-industrial levels is written into the 2016 Paris climate agreement and breaching it “will trigger questions on what needs to be done to meet the agreement’s goal”. Under current science-based understandings, the breaching of 1.5°C during anomalous warm spells of a month or two, as happened in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2023, does not count. Even going above 1.5°C for a year in the next five years would not count. A new trend indicator is obviously needed. The Met Office proposes adding just 10 years’ past data to forecasts from a climate model programmed to produce temperature rises of up to 3.2°C during the next 80 years. By declaring an average 20-year temperature based around the current year, this ‘blend’ will provide ”an instantaneous indicator of current warming”.

It will do no such thing. In the supplementary notes to the paper, the authors disclose that they have used a computer model ‘pathway’, RCP4.5, that allows for a possible rise in temperatures of up to 3.2°C within 80 years. Given that global warming has barely risen by much more than 0.2°C over the last 25 years, this is a ludicrous stretch of the imagination. Declaring the threshold of 1.5°C, a political target set for politicians, has been passed based on these figures and using this highly politicised method would indicate that reality is rapidly departing from the Met Office station.

Using anomalous spikes in global temperature, invariably caused in the short-term by natural variations such as El Niño, is endemic throughout mainstream climate activism. ‘Joining the dots’ of individual bad weather events is now the go-to method to provoke alarm. So easily promoted and popular is the scare that an entire pseudoscience field has grown up using computer models to claim that individual weather events can be attributed to the actions of humans. ‘Weather’ and ‘climate’ have been deliberately confused. Climate trends have been shortened, and the weather somehow extended to suggest a group of individual events indicates a much longer term pattern. Meanwhile, the use of a 30-year trend dates back to the start of reliable temperature records from 1900, and was set almost 100 years ago by the International Meteorological Organisation. It is an arbitrary set period, but gives an accurate temperature trend record, smoothing out the inevitable, but distorting, anomalies.

By its latest actions, the Met Office demonstrates that the old-fashioned scientific way lacks suitability when Net Zero political work needs to be done. Trends can only be detected over time, leading to unwelcome delays in being able to point to an exact period when any threshold has been passed. Whilst accepting that an individual year of 1.5°C will not breach the Paris agreement so-called guard-rail, the Met Office claims that its instant indicator will “provide clarity” and will “reduce delays that would result from waiting until the end of the 20-year period”. The Met Office looks forward to the day when its new climate trend indicator comes with an IPCC ‘confidence’ or ‘high likelihood’ statement such as, “it is likely that the current global warming level has now reached (or exceeded) 1.5°C”. In subsequent years, this might become, “it is very likely that the current global warming level exceeded 1.5°C in year X”.

Why is this latest proposal from the state-funded Met Office junk science-on-stilts? A variety of reasons include that climate models have barely an accurate temperature forecast between them, despite 40 years of trying. Inputting opinions that the temperature of the Earth might rise by over 3°C in less than 80 years is hardly likely to improve their accuracy. There are also legitimate questions to be asked about the global temperature datasets that record past temperatures. Well-documented poor placing of measuring devices, unadjusted urban heat effects and frequent retrospective warming uplifts to the overall records do not inspire the greatest of confidence. At its HadCRUT5 global database, the Met Office has added around 30% extra warming over the last few years.

December 24, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

The Impact Of Heat Pumps On Electricity Demand

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | December 22, 2023

Following on from the post about heat pumps, I thought I would have a look at their impact on electricity demand.

My analysis reckoned on a typical household consumption of 3857 KWh with a heat pump. If we assume that they will only be used for heating for six months every year, that equates to 643 KWh a month, or 21 KWh a day.

At the coldest times of year, that average will increase substantially, so we could well be looking at 30 KWh a day then, since the heat pump will have to work much harder.

Although heat pumps are designed to provide low level heat continuously, I suspect that many will turn them off at night because it is too warm to sleep. We usually have our bedroom windows open all winter at night!

If we assume then that the heat pumps are in use for 14 hours a day, that gives average hourly electricity demand of 2.1 KWh. This assumes that the heat pump runs at a constant power rating. In practice, the system would have to work harder in the early evening as temperatures drop.

There are about 24 million homes with gas and oil boilers, so a peak demand of 2.1 KW amounts to 50 GW for the country as a whole. To that we can add demand from offices, shops etc, which currently use gas and oil.

Along with demand from EVs, the UK would need well over 100 GW of capacity to meet peak demand.

This is all twenty years or more away. But if the government’s target of 600,000 heat pumps a year is met, even within the next ten years, we will be needing at least 13 GW of extra grid capacity, at a time when dispatchable power generation is being shut down.

December 23, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

Time to admit US and NATO bit off more than they can chew in Ukraine proxy war

Thousands of Ukrainians die on the battlefield as the war with Russia continues, but Washington and London are unwilling to admit defeat

By Oscar van Heerden | news 24 | September 29, 2023

How many Ukrainians must die before the US and its Western allies grow a conscience?

It’s wrong what they are doing to the Ukrainian people, and all this under the guise that the protracted war with Russia is what the Ukrainians want. Ukrainians, I’m sure, did not sign up for a war of attrition with Russia where hundreds of thousands of mainly Ukrainian men are injured and/or dying. The fact that everyone on both sides of the war chooses to remain numb to the figures of the dead suggests that the numbers are very high.

Why, then, is the Ukrainian government forcing young and old men on the streets of Kyiv to enlist and go to the front lines to be butchered by Russian forces? Why is the Ukrainian government, led by President Volodymyr Zelensky, requesting European governments to send Ukrainian men, who are legal immigrants and refugees in such countries, back to Ukraine against their will so they may be enlisted to go to the front lines of this war?

According to the website visitukraine.today, a new procedure for keeping military records of men was approved in Ukraine.

“One of the clauses of the resolution obliges foreign embassies to inform Ukrainian citizens abroad about the start of new conscription and to facilitate their return home if mobilisation is taking place in the motherland. After the changes in the legislation, they began to discuss the possible deportation of Ukrainians from the EU,” the website states.

Ukrainians are dying terribly in this war, and no one seems to care.

No one wants to stop the war

Apportioning blame to Russia is one way of dealing with this conflict, but the reality is that no one seems to want to put a stop to it.

If indeed Zelensky cared about his fellow citizens’ welfare and lives, surely by now he would have realised that this war is going nowhere, that the much-touted counter-offensive has failed, and that by starting negotiations with the Russians he can end this carnage once and for all.

However, under martial law, he has passed legislation making it illegal to negotiate peace with Russia while Vladimir Putin remains Russia’s president.

It’s a cop-out position to state that Russia can at any time stop this war if it withdraws all its troops from Ukrainian land. Why would Russia do that when it claims to be winning the war? And why would it do that if it started this conflict because of NATO’s expansion and when it claimed the people of the Donbas region were being persecuted by their own government while the rest of Europe did nothing? Not even the UN-adopted “responsibility to protect” is being invoked…

We’ve seen how the West can be trusted regarding agreements and negotiations. Former German chancellor Angela Merkel admitted last year in an interview with Germany’s Zeit magazine that the Minsk agreements were an attempt to “give Ukraine time” to build up its defences. We’ve seen that even when negotiations were concluded and signed in Turkey just weeks before the war broke out, it was not honoured by the Zelensky government.

So, tell me, why would Russia want to now, yet again, put its trust in the “collective West” and agree to what exactly? Whichever way you slice this matter, the truth is that Russia has been begging NATO not to expand eastwards for decades. To justify NATO’s continuous existence, it must, one, have a common enemy and why not the old foe, the Soviet Union, in its reincarnation? Two, it must continue expanding to enlarge and encircle the so-called enemy, Russia.

Zelensky’s US trip 

Russia was weak in the early 1990s and hence expansion could not be stopped. Ten eastern European countries were allowed into NATO, most of them bordering Russia, and then a second expansion took place. Russia did nothing but complain, and it was clear what the intention was. Russia could see it too, and it prepared because it knew that the final straw would be Ukraine.

Strategically, with regard to Black Sea access, Ukraine joining NATO would pose a direct threat to the sovereignty and national security of Russia. The 2014 popular uprising that saw former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich forced from office was the starting block towards conflict, which saw Russia annexing Crimea because of its strategic location. The rest is history, meaning we all know what has happened since then and here we are today – witnessing an ongoing war of attrition, with both sides doing everything they can to win.

Earlier this week, Zelensky took a wartime trip to the US to appear before the UN General Assembly. He also visited Canada.

House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy refused to allow Zelensky to address the joint sitting of the House as was the case in the past, citing time constraints. it appears McCarthy is walking a thin line within his party as many Republicans and some Democrats are not eager and downright hostile to any suggestion of additional aid for Zelensky’s government, asking questions about the accountability of previous billions sent to Ukraine.

Weapons systems, artillery and ammunitions all came to nought even though the American people and European parliaments were all promised that the counter-offensive would deliver victory, or at the very least significant advances by the Ukrainians.

Earlier this year, The Washington Post reported that Zelensky was more than happy to use risky military actions such as occupying Russian villages to gain leverage over Moscow; bombing a pipeline that transfers Russian oil to Hungary, a NATO member; and privately pining for long-range missiles to hit targets inside Russia’s borders. This is contained in classified US intelligence documents detailing Zelensky’s internal communications with top aides and military leaders. The authenticity of the materials has not been disputed.

The one man standing and supporting Zelensky is US President Joe Biden.

Why, you might wonder. Well, it’s because of the upcoming presidential election in 2024. Biden must be seen as strong and resolute with regard to this war. Being seen as faltering in this regard will not bode well for him and the Democratic Party.

The reality is that Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz all realise that their chosen actor, Zelensky, who was once compared with Winston Churchill nogal, is a failure; a walking disaster going around with a begging bowl for a war that seems unwinnable.

Clampdown

“Fighting for freedom” and “sovereignty” are being bandied around, but these are elements that were elusive in Ukraine even before this war. In fact, before the war, there was a clampdown on all alternative voices and media outlets in the country.

According to Reuters, the Ukrainian government in 2021 restricted media and the freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly, violating international law. Eleven opposition parties were suspended during the period of martial law due to alleged links to Russia and now Zelensky has indefinitely postponed the next general election, where, in my opinion, he knows he will certainly be voted out for failing his people.

The harsh sanctions against Russia have not worked. In fact, the Russian economy is growing, unlike most European economies that are going into recession. Russia’s oil and gas sales are through the roof, and everyone is buying despite sanctions, including European countries themselves. Liquified gas sales to Europe have been up by 35% over the past few months.

Why not acknowledge the obvious – the US and NATO bit off more than they can chew. Zelensky’s kicking and screaming over the past few days did have at least some success. A few Abrams tanks from the US have arrived, combat-ready. I fear what we will see over the next few weeks is footage of these very sophisticated tanks burning on the battlefield just like all the other impressive equipment received from Ukraine’s sponsors. Ukrainian troops are only receiving weeks of training for intricate weapons systems instead of the months that are required to make them field-ready.

But it seems peace efforts from African leaders, Chinese leaders and even the Pope all fall on deaf ears. By all accounts, Washington and London want this war to continue.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was quick to issue an arrest warrant for a particular atrocity against Putin, but is conspicuously silent when it comes to alleged atrocities by Zelensky, Biden, Sunak and others.

The US sent controversial cluster munitions and depleted uranium shells to Ukraine, yet ICC chief prosecutor Karim Asad Ahmad Khan remains silent. Surely, double-standards are at play?

This is yet another reminder to us in the global south that the rules which govern the world order were not written by us. This war must stop …  It’s terrible what is happening to our fellow brothers and sisters in both Ukraine and Russia.

Oscar van Heerden is a senior research fellow for African diplomacy and leadership at the University of Johannesburg.

December 22, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

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