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The real Winners of Ukraine war – the USA weapons manufacturers! U.S. Announces $1.1 Billion In Aid For Building Ukraine’s Military

The United States has now committed approximately $16.9 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since January 2021

Radio Free Europe, 29 Sept 22, The United States will provide an additional $1.1 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including funding for about 18 more advanced rocket systems and other weapons to counter drones, the White House announced on September 28.

The package is aimed at helping Ukraine secure its longer-term defense needs under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which funds the purchase of weapons and equipment. This means it could take a year or more for Ukraine to get the systems.

Most of the other military aid packages announced by the United States have thus far used Pentagon drawdown authority to provide weapons more immediately.

The new package “represents a multi-year investment in critical capabilities to build the enduring strength of Ukraine’s Armed Forces” as they continue to battle the invading Russian Army, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The package includes funding for 18 units of the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS, and 12 Titan systems, which are used to counter drones………………

Also in the package is funding for about 150 armored vehicles, 150 tactical vehicles for towing weapons, trucks and trailers, and a variety of radars, communications, and surveillance equipment.

The United States has now committed approximately $16.9 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since January 2021.  https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-us-military-aid-1-1-billion/32056533.html

September 28, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US, UK sabotaged peace deal because they ‘don’t care about Ukraine’: fmr. NATO adviser

 https://thegrayzone.com/2022/09/27/us-uk-sabotaged-peace-deal/ AARON MATÉ· SEPTEMBER 27, 2022,

Former Swiss intelligence officer and NATO adviser Jacques Baud on the next phase of the Russia-Ukraine war and new allegations that the US and UK undermined a peace deal that could have ended it.

The West’s aim “is not the victory of Ukraine, It’s the defeat of Russia,” Baud says. “The problem is that nobody cares about Ukraine. We have just instrumentalized Ukraine for the purpose of US strategic interests — not even European interests.”

Guest: Jacques Baud. Former intelligence officer with the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service who has served in a number of senior security and advisory positions at NATO, the United Nations, and with the Swiss military.

Corrections:

  • In his Sept. 21 speech, Putin did not make an explicit threat to use nuclear weapons. He vowed to “make use of all weapon systems available to us,” in the event of “a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people.”

On nuclear weapons, the US did not have a “No First Use” policy. On the 2020 campaign trail, Joe Biden said that he supported the idea of “No First Use.” He abandoned that in his presidential nuclear posture; but that was reversing his campaign stance, not official US policy.

September 27, 2022 Posted by | politics international, UK, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear power classed as “amber”, not “green”. Is it officially accepted as Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance (ESG) ?

the Commission applies a number of screening and disclosure conditions to nuclear’s taxonomy inclusion. For instance, there are screens based on scientific advice such as requiring disposal facilities for low-level radioactive waste to already be operational, member states having a plan for high-level waste disposal by 2050 and a ban on exporting radioactive waste to developing countries for disposal.

Does the EU taxonomy vote mean nuclear is officially ESG? ETF Stream, By Jamie Gordon, 26 Sep 2022,

The implementation of the Delegated Act will test both the EU’s credibility and investors’ appetite to adhere to prescriptive ESG frameworks

The European Parliament took the contentious step in July of voting to include nuclear energy within its taxonomy of sustainable activities, however, it remains to be seen whether other ESG frameworks will follow suit and if any naysayer investors will be swayed by the regulator’s decision.

Almost three years after first being discussed, nuclear energy, along with natural gas, look set to be added to the EU’s taxonomy via the Complementary Climate Delegated Act from 1 January 2023, earmarking them as sustainable investments for the time being.

The road to this verdict was not only meandering but full of obstacles, with Kenneth Lamont, senior research analyst at Morningstar, previously describing nuclear as being “stony on a political level” for investors and policymakers.

It began with the European Commission’s Technical Expert Group publishing the Taxonomy Technical Report in March 2020, which notably snubbed nuclear from its list of green activities.

A year later, leaders of seven EU member states wrote a letter calling on the European Commission to accommodate all paths to climate neutrality while the Commission’s Joint Research Centre argued nuclear should be eligible for ESG investment.

Even though the Commission announced a month later it would bootstrap nuclear and gas to its taxonomy via a Delegated Act, in October, a ‘Nuclear Alliance’ of 15 European Ministers called for the energy source to be included in the main body of the taxonomy by the end of 2021.

Ignoring these calls, the Commission published a draft of the Delegated Act on 31 December, which was soon met by fierce opposition as Austria and Luxembourg threatened to bring a lawsuit before the European Court of Justice.

Despite members of the Environment and Economic Affairs committees later voting against the proposed taxonomy changes in June, the defeat of the motion to block the Delegated Act in the European Parliament in July means nuclear will soon make its delayed entry into the taxonomy.

Conditional inclusion

While the move is significant for challenging the nuclear exclusions applied to many ESG frameworks and products, it bears remembering the Commission’s Platform on Sustainable Finance views nuclear as an ‘amber’ rather than ‘green’ activity – and its inclusion in the taxonomy is both conditional and time-limited………………………………..

Despite nuclear’s seemingly low-carbon credentials, the European countries most active in building new plants – Ukraine, the UK and France – currently only have a combined five plants under construction versus 17 for China alone.

Similarly, 27 out of the 31 reactors that have been under construction since 2017 are of Russian or Chinese design, according to analysis by SocGen.

……………………………..  there are several compelling arguments against nuclear being in the taxonomy such as what to do with thousands of tonnes of radioactive waste, concerns around directing capital away from renewables and the worthwhile geopolitical point that in 2020, 20.2% of the EU’s uranium supply came from Russia and 19.2% from its ally, Kazakhstan, according to Eurostat.

It is also worth noting the size of political opposition to nuclear as a ‘transition energy’, with 278 of 639 MEPs opposing the Delegated Act in July’s motion.

Considering these points, the Commission applies a number of screening and disclosure conditions to nuclear’s taxonomy inclusion. For instance, there are screens based on scientific advice such as requiring disposal facilities for low-level radioactive waste to already be operational, member states having a plan for high-level waste disposal by 2050 and a ban on exporting radioactive waste to developing countries for disposal.

Also, large listed non-financial and financial companies will be required to disclose what portion of their activities are linked to the energies included in the Delegated Act.

Greater complexity across EU policy……………………………………………………………………..

The ultimate test, however, will be if taxonomy inclusion changes investor attitudes towards nuclear, given its aim is to act as a framework for guiding capital towards worthy recipients.

………………………………. Many index providers will remove nuclear power operators from their exclusion lists and will become more flexible in including utilities that generate power from nuclear facilities in their indices,” he added.

However, he warned others with their own internal rules and those fulfilling client mandates would be less likely to change their indices in fear of losing business.

FTSE Russell, for instance, continues to categorise nuclear as tier three under its Green Revenues Classification System, meaning it has some environmental benefit but this is overall net neutral or negative……………………………………

Some investors might also be put off by the fact the technical screening criteria of the Delegated Act will be reviewed every three years, which includes time limits for the contribution of nuclear and gas to climate change mitigation efforts. If the EU reverses its recent taxonomy changes in future, investors in nuclear and gas will have to rush to get rid of these exposures in order to remain aligned.

For now, ESG might like nuclear a little more than it did a year ago but EU taxonomy support only applies to certain subsectors, subject to conditions and set to be reviewed over time.

Overall, though, the Delegated Act should be understood as more an act of EU pragmatism than moral change of heart on what it means to be sustainable. Nuclear may have a role to play in net-zero efforts but will face an uphill battle to convert its detractors.  https://www.etfstream.com/features/does-the-eu-taxonomy-vote-mean-nuclear-is-officially-esg/

September 27, 2022 Posted by | climate change, EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

JOHN PILGER’S 2014 WARNING ABOUT UKRAINE

Why do we tolerate the threat of another world war in our name? Why do we allow lies that justify this risk? The scale of our indoctrination, wrote Harold Pinter, is a “brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis”, as if the truth “never happened even while it was happening”.

Every year the American historian William Blum publishes his “updated summary of the record of U.S. foreign policy” which shows that, since 1945, the U.S. has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders.

In many cases Britain has been a collaborator. The degree of human suffering, let alone criminality, is little acknowledged in the west, despite the presence of the world’s most advanced communications and nominally most free journalism. That the most numerous victims of terrorism – “our” terrorism – are Muslims, is unsayable. That extreme jihadism, which led to 9/11, was nurtured as a weapon of Anglo-American policy (Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan) is suppressed. In April the U.S. state department noted that, following Nato’s campaign in 2011, “Libya has become a terrorist safe haven“.

The name of “our” enemy has changed over the years, from communism to Islamism, but generally it is any society independent of western power and occupying strategically useful or resource-rich territory, or merely offering an alternative to U.S. domination.

The leaders of these obstructive nations are usually violently shoved aside, such as the democrats Muhammad Mossedeq in Iran, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Salvador Allende in Chile, or they are murdered like Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo. All are subjected to a western media campaign of vilification – think Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, now Vladimir Putin.

Washington’s role in Ukraine is different only in its implications for the rest of us. For the first time since the Reagan years, the U.S. is threatening to take the world to war. With eastern Europe and the Balkans now military outposts of Nato, the last “buffer state” bordering Russia – Ukraine – is being torn apart by fascist forces unleashed by the U.S. and the EU. We in the west are now backing neo-Nazis in a country where Ukrainian Nazis backed Hitler.

Having masterminded the coup in February against the democratically elected government in Kiev, Washington’s planned seizure of Russia’s historic, legitimate warm-water naval base in Crimea failed. The Russians defended themselves, as they have done against every threat and invasion from the west for almost a century.

But Nato’s military encirclement has accelerated, along with U.S.-orchestrated attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine. If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained “pariah” role will justify a Nato-run guerrilla war that is likely to spill into Russia itself.

Instead, Putin has confounded the war party by seeking an accommodation with Washington and the EU, by withdrawing Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and urging ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine to abandon the weekend’s provocative referendum.

These Russian-speaking and bilingual people – a third of Ukraine’s population – have long sought a democratic federation that reflects the country’s ethnic diversity and is both autonomous of Kiev and independent of Moscow. Most are neither “separatists” nor “rebels”, as the western media calls them, but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland.

Like the ruins of Iraq and Afghanistan, Ukraine has been turned into a C.I.A. theme park – run personally by C.I.A. director John Brennan in Kiev, with dozens of “special units” from the C.I.A. and F.B.I. setting up a “security structure” that oversees savage attacks on those who opposed the February coup. Watch the videos, read the eye-witness reports from the massacre in Odessa this month. Bussed fascist thugs burned the trade union headquarters, killing 41 people trapped inside. Watch the police standing by.

A doctor described trying to rescue people, “but I was stopped by pro-Ukrainian Nazi radicals. One of them pushed me away rudely, promising that soon me and other Jews of Odessa are going to meet the same fate. What occurred yesterday didn’t even take place during the fascist occupation in my town in world war two. I wonder, why the whole world is keeping silent.” [see footnote]

Russian-speaking Ukrainians are fighting for survival. When Putin announced the withdrawal of Russian troops from the border, the Kiev junta’s defence secretary, Andriy Parubiy – a founding member of the fascist Svoboda party – boasted that attacks on “insurgents” would continue. In Orwellian style, propaganda in the west has inverted this to Moscow “trying to orchestrate conflict and provocation“, according to William Hague. His cynicism is matched by Obama’s grotesque congratulations to the coup junta on its “remarkable restraint” after the Odessa massacre. The junta, says Obama, is “duly elected”. As Henry Kissinger once said: “It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but what is perceived to be true.”

In the U.S. media the Odessa atrocity has been played down as “murky” and a “tragedy” in which “nationalists” (neo-Nazis) attacked “separatists” (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine). Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal damned the victims – “Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says“. Propaganda in Germany has been pure cold war, with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warning its readers of Russia’s “undeclared war”. For the Germans, it is a poignant irony that Putin is the only leader to condemn the rise of fascism in 21st-century Europe.

A popular truism is that “the world changed” following 9/11. But what has changed? According to the great whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, a silent coup has taken place in Washington and rampant militarism now rules. The Pentagon currently runs “special operations” – secret wars – in 124 countries. At home, rising poverty and a loss of liberty are the historic corollary of a perpetual war state. Add the risk of nuclear war, and the question is: why do we tolerate this?

September 27, 2022 Posted by | politics international, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Both sides need to acknowledge their mistakes, especially regarding Crimea and the Donbass

At the end of this presentation, we see that the blame is shared, but not equally. The West recognized the 2014 coup; it tried to stop the ensuing massacre, but ultimately let the full nationalists continue it; it armed Ukraine instead of forcing it to comply with the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements. Russia, for its part, built a bridge that locks the Sea of Azov without consultation. Peace will only be preserved if both sides recognize their mistakes.

Are we able to do this?

Crimea, which had already voted in a referendum to become part of the future independent Russia when the USSR was dissolved, six months before the rest of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic declared its independence, voted again in a referendum. For four years, Crimea was claimed by both Russia and Ukraine. Moscow argues that between 1991 and 1995, it and not Kiev was paying pensions and salaries of officials in Crimea. In fact, Crimea was always Russian, even if it was considered part of Ukraine. In the end, it was Russian President Boris Yeltsin who, in the midst of a severe economic crisis, decided to abandon Crimea to Kiev. However, Crimea then voted for a constitution recognizing its autonomy within Ukraine, which Kiev never accepted. The second referendum, in 2014, overwhelmingly proclaimed independence. The Crimean Parliament then called for the attachment of its state to the Russian Federation, which the latter accepted. To strengthen the continuity of its territory, Russia built, without consulting Ukraine, a gigantic bridge linking its metropolis to the Crimean peninsula across the Sea of Azov, effectively privatizing this small sea.

How to Stop the Escalation to War,

Voltaire.net, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation, Roger Lagassé, 27 Sept 22,

The Ukrainian conflict is turning into a war between the West on one side and Russia and China on the other. Each side is convinced that the other one wants its loss. And fear is a bad advisor. Peace can only be preserved if each side recognizes its mistakes. This must be a radical change, because today neither Western discourse nor Russian actions correspond to reality.

o political leader wants a war on his territory. When they do, it is usually out of fear. Each side fears the other, rightly or wrongly. Of course, there are always a few elements that push for a cataclysm, but they are fanatical and in the minority.

This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves. Russia is convinced, rightly or wrongly, that the West wants to destroy it, while the West is identically convinced that Russia is conducting an imperialist campaign and will eventually destroy its freedoms. In the shadows, a very small group, the Straussians, want confrontation.

This is not to say that World War III is just around the corner. But if no political leader radically changes his or her foreign policy, we are walking directly into the unknown and must prepare for absolute chaos.

To clear up misunderstandings, we must listen to the narratives of both sides.

Moscow believes that the overthrow of democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych was a coup d’état orchestrated by the United States. This is the first point of divergence as Washington interprets the events as a “revolution”, the “EuroMaidan” or “Dignity” revolution. Eight years later, numerous Western testimonies attest to the involvement of the US State Department, the CIA and the NED, Poland, Canada and finally NATO.

The people of Crimea and Donbass refused to endorse the new power, which included many “integral nationalists”, successors of the defeated of the Second World War.

Crimea, which had already voted in a referendum to become part of the future independent Russia when the USSR was dissolved, six months before the rest of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic declared its independence, voted again in a referendum. For four years, Crimea was claimed by both Russia and Ukraine. Moscow argues that between 1991 and 1995, it and not Kiev was paying pensions and salaries of officials in Crimea. In fact, Crimea was always Russian, even if it was considered part of Ukraine. In the end, it was Russian President Boris Yeltsin who, in the midst of a severe economic crisis, decided to abandon Crimea to Kiev. However, Crimea then voted for a constitution recognizing its autonomy within Ukraine, which Kiev never accepted. The second referendum, in 2014, overwhelmingly proclaimed independence. The Crimean Parliament then called for the attachment of its state to the Russian Federation, which the latter accepted. To strengthen the continuity of its territory, Russia built, without consulting Ukraine, a gigantic bridge linking its metropolis to the Crimean peninsula across the Sea of Azov, effectively privatizing this small sea.

Crimea is home to the port of Sevastopol, which is indispensable to the Russian navy. The latter represented nothing in 1990, but became a power again in 2014.

The West recognized the Soviet referendum in Ukraine in 1990, but not the one in 2014. Yet the right of peoples to self-determination does apply to the Crimeans. The West argues that many Russian soldiers were present without wearing their uniforms. True, but the results of the two referendums in 1990 and 2014 were similar. There is no room for suspicion of fraud.

To show that they did not accept this “annexation”, the West collectively imposed sanctions on Russia, without authorization from the Security Council. These sanctions violate the UN Charter, which gives exclusive authority to the Security Council.

The Donetsk and Luganks oblasts have also rejected the 2014 coup government. They proclaimed their autonomy and posed as resisters to the “Nazis” in Kiev. Equating “integral nationalists” with “Nazis” is historically justified, but does not allow non-Ukrainians to understand what is going on.

The “integral nationalist” was created in Ukraine by Dmytro Dontsov at the very beginning of the 20th century. Initially, Dontsov was a left-wing philosopher, only gradually moving to the extreme right. He was a paid agent of the Second Reich during the First World War, before participating in the Ukrainian government of Symon Petliura, which arose during the Russian Revolution of 1917. He participated in the Paris Peace Conference and accepted the Treaty of Versailles. During the inter-war period, he exercised a mastery over Ukrainian youth and became a propagandist of fascism, then of Nazism. 

He became violently anti-Semitic, preaching for the massacre of the Jews long before this theme was supported by the Nazi authorities, who spoke only of expulsion until 1942. During the Second World War, he refused to take over the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which he entrusted to his disciple Stepan Bandera, assisted by Yaroslav Stetsko. 

Almost all the documents about his activity within Nazism have been destroyed. It is not known what he did during the war, except for his active participation in the Reinhard Heydrich Institute after the latter’s assassination. The newspapers of this anti-Semitic organ gave him a lot of space

At the Liberation, he fled to Canada, under the protection of the Anglo-Saxon secret services, and then to the United States. At the end of his life, he was still as virulent as ever and had evolved into a form of Viking mysticism, preaching the final confrontation against the “Muscovites. Today, his books, especially his Nationalism, are required reading for militiamen, especially those in the Azov Regiment. Ukrainian “integral nationalists” massacred at least 3 million of their fellow citizens during World War II.

Washington reads this history differently. For it, the “integral nationalists” certainly made mistakes, but they were fighting for their independence against both the German Nazis and the Russian Bolsheviks. The CIA was therefore right to host Dmytro Donsov in the USA and to employ Stepan Bandera on Radio Free Europe. And even more, to create the World Anti-Communist League around the Ukrainian Nazi Prime Minister, Yaroslav Stetsko, and the leader of the Chinese anti-communist opposition, Chiang Kai-shek. Today, again according to Washington, these facts belong to the past.

In 2014, with President Petro Poroshenko, the Kiev government cut off all aid to the “Muscovites” of Donbass. It stopped paying pensions to its citizens and salaries to their civil servants. It banned the Russian language, spoken by half of Ukrainians, and launched punitive military operations against these “sub-humans”, killing 5,600 and displacing 1.5 million in 10 months. In the face of these horrors, Germany, France and Russia imposed the Minsk agreements. The aim was to bring the Kiev government to its senses and to protect the people of the Donbass.

Noting that the first agreements had not been followed by effect. Russia had the Minsk 2 agreement endorsed by the Security Council. This was resolution 2202, adopted unanimously. During the explanations of vote, the United States developed its interpretation of this period. For them, the “resistance” in Donbass were only “separatists” supported militarily by Moscow. They therefore specified that the Minsk 2 agreement (February 12, 2015) did not replace the Minsk 1 agreements (September 5 and 19, 2014), but added to them. They thus demanded that Russia withdraw the troops it had deployed without uniform in the Donbass. Germany and France had a joint statement added, co-signed by Russia, guaranteeing the “binding” implementation of this set of “commitments.”

However, shortly afterwards, President Poroshenko declared that he had no intention of implementing anything and resumed hostilities, a position that the government of President Zelensky has reiterated. In the seven years following resolution 2202, 12,000 new victims were killed, according to Kiev, or 20,000, according to Moscow.

During this period, Moscow did not intervene. President Vladimir Putin not only withdrew his troops, but also forbade an oligarch to send mercenaries to support the people of Donbass. The latter have been abandoned by the guarantors of the Minsk agreements and by the other members of the Security Council.

In the Russian way of politics, one waits until one is in a position to do something before announcing it. So Moscow did not say anything, but prepared for what was to come. Suffering from the sanctions it had endured since the annexation of Crimea, it expected the West to tighten them when it intervened to implement resolution 2202. So Putin approached other sanctioned states, including Iran, to circumvent the sanctions on him and prepare to circumvent others. Anyone who regularly visits Russia will have noticed that the Putin administration is developing food autarky, including for meat and cheese, which his country had previously lacked. Russia has moved closer to China in banking, which we have wrongly interpreted as a move against the dollar. In reality, it was a preparation for the exclusion of the SWIFT system.

When President Putin launched his army into Ukraine, he made it clear that he was not declaring a “war” to annex Ukraine, but was implementing a “special military operation” under Resolution 2202 and his “responsibility to protect” the civilian population of Donbass.

As expected, the West responded with economic sanctions that severely disrupted the Russian economy for two months. Then things turned around and these sanctions turned out to be profitable for Russia, which had prepared for them for a long time.

On the ground, the West sent a lot of weapons, then deployed military advisors and some special forces. The Russian army, three times smaller in number than the Ukrainian army, began to suffer. It has therefore just decreed a partial mobilization to send new troops without having to dismantle its national defence system.

Nato, for its part, has developed a plan to mobilize a core group of states and an expanded group of its more distant allies. The idea is to spread the financial effort over as many partners as possible until Russia is exhausted.

Moscow responded by announcing that if the West took a further step, it would use its new weapons.

The Russian and Chinese armies have mastered hypersonic launchers, which the West lacks. Moscow and Beijing can destroy any target, anywhere in the world, in a matter of minutes. It is impossible to stop them, and this imbalance will last at least until 2030, according to US generals. Russia has already said that it will strike first at the British Foreign Office, which it considers to be the head of its enemies, and the Pentagon, which it considers to be its armed wing. In the event of an attack, the Russian and Chinese armies would first destroy the United States’ strategic communication satellites (CS3). The latter would lose in a few hours the possibility of guiding nuclear missiles and therefore of retaliating. There is little doubt about the outcome of such a war.

……………Engaging in this confrontation is not impossible. In the United States, the Straussians, a very small group of unelected politicians, are determined to bring about the apocalypse. In their view, the United States will no longer be able to exercise dominance over the entire world, but it can still achieve it over its allies. To do this, they must not hesitate to sacrifice some of their own, if their allies suffer even more than they do and if, in this way, they remain the first (not the best).

As in all conflicts, people are afraid and some individuals push them to war.

Russia has just held four referendums on self-determination and annexation, both in the two republics of Donbass and in two oblasts of Novorossia. The view of the G7, whose foreign ministers were attending the UN General Assembly in New York, was immediately to denounce the referendums as invalid because they were held in a war situation, which is a debatable opinion. So they went on to denounce a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and the principles of the UN Charter. These last points are false. By definition, the right of peoples to self-determination does not violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state from which they can, if they wish, separate. Moreover, all the members of the G7 (except Japan) have signed the Helsinki Final Act, in which they undertake to defend all these principles simultaneously.

It is particularly odious to note the way in which the G7 interprets the right to self-determination to its advantage. For example, the United Nations General Assembly has condemned the illegal occupation by the United Kingdom of the Chagos Archipelago. It ordered that it be returned to Mauritius by October 22, 2019. Not only has this not been done, but one of the Chagos Islands, Diego Garcia, is still illegally leased to the United States to house the largest military base in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, France illegally transformed its colony of Mayotte into a department in 2009. It held a referendum in violation of General Assembly resolutions 3291, 3385 and 31/4, which affirm the unity of the Comoros and prohibit referendums in only one of its parts, the state of the Comoros and the French colony of Mayotte. It is precisely to avoid decolonization that France has organized this referendum, given that it has installed a maritime military base there and above all a military interception and intelligence base.

From a Russian point of view, these referendums, if internationally recognized, would put an end to military operations. By refusing them, the West is prolonging the conflict. Their intention is to see the rest of Novorossia fall into the hands of Russia. If Odessa becomes Russian again, Moscow will have to accept the accession of the adjacent Transnistria to the Russian Federation. Transnistria is not Ukrainian, but Moldovan, hence its current name of Dniester Moldavian Republic.

Russia refuses to accept a Moldavian territory that has historical reasons to proclaim itself independent. But it did not accept it either with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which also have historical reasons to proclaim themselves independent, but are Georgian. Neither Moldova nor Georgia have committed crimes comparable to those of modern Ukraine.

At the end of this presentation, we see that the blame is shared, but not equally. The West recognized the 2014 coup; it tried to stop the ensuing massacre, but ultimately let the full nationalists continue it; it armed Ukraine instead of forcing it to comply with the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements. Russia, for its part, built a bridge that locks the Sea of Azov without consultation. Peace will only be preserved if both sides recognize their mistakes.

Are we able to do this? https://www.voltairenet.org/article218093.html

September 27, 2022 Posted by | history, politics international, Reference, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Iran Nuclear Deal Talks at Dead End, Biden Admin Tells Congress in Classified Briefing

Adam Kredo • September 28, 2022, The Biden administration’s negotiations with Iran over a revamped version of the 2015 nuclear deal have hit a dead end, jeopardizing the likelihood of a new agreement, senior U.S. officials informed Congress during a classified briefing…………………………………. more https://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-nuclear-deal-talks-at-dead-end-biden-admin-tells-congress-in-classified-briefing/

September 27, 2022 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

The Ukraine war could open the nuclear Pandora’s box

If neither Russia nor the West backs down, the scope and dimension of the conflict will change dramatically

Nato could be forced to intervene directly, for example to protect Ukraine’s nuclear reactors, if Mr Zelenskyy requests it. Ukraine is home to 14 reactors in addition to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia plant in the south-east. In such a scenario, the war would become a European war.

The US, also to help protect the nuclear reactors, might be willing to supply missiles to Ukraine with a range of up to 400 kilometres, long enough to reach Crimea and perhaps even the Russian capital. In which case, according to a Russian expert, Moscow could deploy nuclear weapons.

The National RAGHIDA DERGHAM 25 Sept 22, The war in Ukraine has entered a decisive phase, with Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering referendums in the Donbas last week. The outcome of these referendums, which the West believes Moscow has designated with the purpose of annexing Ukraine’s Russian-controlled regions, will change the rules of the conflict. At the same time, Mr Putin has invoked his government’s nuclear options and declared a partial mobilisation of up to 300,000 conscripts, indicating the expansion of the war in the coming weeks.

It is now clear to anyone who previously thought Mr Putin might take steps to negotiate with Kyiv or back down that he is convinced he can – and is determined to – prevail in Ukraine and will not entertain the idea of a defeat. The Kremlin is not afraid of inviting a western military intervention and has put Nato on edge by talking about victory at any cost, including a nuclear cost.

On the other hand, it is clear that American and European leaders have made their decision in the equation of victory-or-defeat and will not allow Russia to seize Ukraine, no matter the cost. This means that, what appeared impossible a month or two ago is now in the realm of plausibility, meaning direct western intervention in the war, in the event of Russia deploying tactical nukes – which are not strictly “tactical” or “small radius” weapons.

So who will win and who will lose in Ukraine?

First, let’s address the big picture – the US strategy that many believe is to implicate the Russian leadership and its system, if not Russia itself, for calculations related to Washington’s grand strategy vis-a-vis China’s rise. It must be said that no matter the planners’ genius, it requires the target to fall into the trap. Indeed, Moscow did not resist this trap. It even doubled down. Its leadership thought its ultimatums and escalations would force the West to back down and comply with its demands, and therefore, enable a Russian victory in Ukraine. So far, it has lost its bets and continues to follow the path charted for it by the western powers towards an ambush that could prove disastrous for Russia.

Comparisons have been made between Moscow’s intervention in Afghanistan, which eventually led to the break-up of the Soviet Union, and the Ukraine war that could have dire consequences for the Russian Federation. Backing down now could amount to a significant setback for Moscow. Yet, the paradox is that continuing this war carries the same risks, particularly if Russia loses. For this reason, defeat is not a word in its dictionary and not an option for its military, especially after the war exposed the latter’s weaknesses and undermined its prestige.

From Washington’s point of view, defeating Russia helps the American strategy against China. US National Security Council strategists believe that defeating Russia would cause Beijing to lose a strategic partner practically and psychologically. It also means, according to one informed expert, that China would lose its Russian “buffer zone”, forcing it to the frontline in its strategic stand-off with the US………………..

Russia will not allow Ukraine to be shared by the two sides. But nor will Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy back down. He sees Moscow’s failure to remove him from power as a decisive moment in the war. He is also confident that Nato will guarantee Kyiv the military edge. Modern warfare is not limited to what goes on in the battlefield; it’s also a technological war, and Mr Zelenskyy is using Nato’s advanced technology to fight Moscow.

Nato could be forced to intervene directly, for example to protect Ukraine’s nuclear reactors, if Mr Zelenskyy requests it. Ukraine is home to 14 reactors in addition to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia plant in the south-east. In such a scenario, the war would become a European war. The US, also to help protect the nuclear reactors, might be willing to supply missiles to Ukraine with a range of up to 400 kilometres, long enough to reach Crimea and perhaps even the Russian capital. In which case, according to a Russian expert, Moscow could deploy nuclear weapons.

The Kremlin is seen to be paving the way towards being able to use these weapons. The referendums in the Donbas, to conclude on Tuesday with the Russian expectation that majorities will vote in favour of joining its federation, will be followed by the annexation of those regions. Subsequently, from September 29-30, after the Russian Duma endorses the results, any assault on those regions would amount to an assault on Russia, giving the Kremlin the right to respond by all means necessary, included nuclear ones.

Put differently, according to another expert, “the buffer zone between Russia and Ukraine will disappear, and the war will enter a new threshold that includes the activation of Russian strategic nuclear instruments based on national laws to defend Russian territories using all available means”.

A Russian military victory, if it were to transpire, may require an escalation that would bring with it much destruction. For this reason, the next two weeks will not only be crucial, but possibly also dangerous.  https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2022/09/25/the-ukraine-war-could-open-the-nuclear-pandoras-box/

September 26, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Marshall Islands calls off talks after no US response on nuclear legacy plan

The freely associated states stretch across an ocean area in the north Pacific that is larger than the continental United States and are seen by Washington as a key strategic asset. Photo: United States Institute of Peace.


Giff Johnson, Editor, Marshall Islands Journal / RNZ Pacific correspondent, Editor, Marshall Islands Journal / RNZ Pacific correspondent 24 Sept 22,

On the eve of the US Pacific Islands Summit in Washington, a key ally in the region called off a scheduled negotiating session for a treaty Washington views as an essential hedge against China in the region.

The Marshall Islands and the United States negotiators were scheduled for the third round of talks this weekend to renew some expiring provisions of a Compact of Free Association when leaders in Majuro called it off, saying the lack of response from Washington on the country’s US nuclear weapons testing legacy meant there was no reason to meet.

Marshall Islands leaders have repeatedly said the continuing legacy of health, environmental and economic problems from 67 US nuclear tests from 1946-1958 must be satisfactorily addressed before they will agree to a new economic package with the US.

Washington sees the Compact treaties with the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau, which stretch across an ocean area larger than the continental US, as key to countering the expansion of China in the region.

“The unique security relationships established by the Compacts of Free Association have magnified the US power projection in the Indo-Pacific region, structured US defense planning and force posture, and contributed to essential defense capabilities,” said a new study released September 20 in Washington, DC by the United States Institute of Peace, “China’s Influence on the Freely Associated States of the Northern Pacific.”

China’s naval expansion is increasing the value of the US relationship with the freely associated states (FAS)………………………..

US and Marshall Islands negotiators have both said they hope for a speedy conclusion to the talks as the existing 20-year funding package expires on September 30, 2023. But the nuclear test legacy is the line in the sand for the Marshall Islands.

“The entire Compact Negotiation Committee agreed – don’t go,” said Parliament Speaker Kenneth Kedi, who represents Rongelap Atoll, which was contaminated with nuclear test fallout by the 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll and other weapons tests.

“It is not prudent to spend over $100,000 for our delegation to travel to Washington with no written response to our proposal. We are negotiating in good faith. We submitted our proposal in writing.” But he said Friday, “there has been no answer or counter proposal from the US.”

US and Marshall Islands officials had been aiming to sign a “memorandum of understanding” at the summit as an indication of progress in the discussions, but that now appears off the table…………………

Marshall Islands President David Kabua, while affirming in his speech at the UN that the Marshall Islands has a “strong partnership” with the US, added: “It is vital that the legacy and contemporary challenges of nuclear testing be better addressed” (during negotiations on the Compact of Free Association). “The exposure of our people and land has created impacts that have lasted – and will last – for generations.”

The Marshall Islands submitted a proposed nuclear settlement agreement to US negotiators during the second round of talks in July. The US has not responded, Kedi and other negotiating committee members said Friday in Majuro.

……………………………… “We live with the problem (from the nuclear tests),” said Kelen, a displaced Bikini Islander. “We know the big picture: bombs tested, people relocated from their islands, people exposed to nuclear fallout, and people studied. We can’t change that. What we can do now is work on the details for this today for the funding needed to mitigate the problems from the nuclear legacy.”

Kedi said he was tired of US attempts to argue over legal issues from the original Compact of Free Association’s nuclear test settlement that was approved 40 years ago before the Marshall Islands was an independent nation.

That agreement, which provided a now-exhausted $150 million nuclear compensation fund, was called “manifestly inadequate” by the country’s Nuclear Claims Tribunal, which over a two-decade period determined the value of claims to be over $3 billion.

“Bottom line, the nuclear issue needs to be addressed,” Kedi said…………………..

President Kabua is scheduled to participate in the White House-sponsored US Pacific Islands Summit on September 28-29.

Meanwhile, the members of his Compact negotiating team are in Majuro waiting for a response from the US government to their proposal to address the nuclear legacy.  https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/475398/marshall-islands-calls-off-talks-after-no-us-response-on-nuclear-legacy-plan

September 22, 2022 Posted by | OCEANIA, politics international | Leave a comment

World powers must take Putin’s threat seriously, stop the escalation and seek a diplomatic solution.

Beware the prospect of a nuclear calamity

Marwan Bishara, Senior political analyst at Al Jazeera. 22 Sept 22,

The world’s indifference to the prospect of a nuclear disaster, today, is frankly insane.

For the past few months, Western experts have downplayed the probability that the Ukraine war would lead to nuclear escalation between Russia and the West. Since Putin first put Russia’s nuclear arsenal on alert back in February, many experts have argued that he was merely posturing in a bid to throw his “adversaries off balance”.

However, Putin’s most recent threats of using such weapons — made in a televised speech on Wednesday morning — must not be taken lightly, regardless of his motivation or intention. He said that Western officials have threatened Russia with nuclear weapons, a charge that US President Joe Biden denied during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly hours later. Putin also announced a partial mobilisation and his support for upcoming referendums in four Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine that could pave the way for their annexation by Moscow.

It’s one thing for the West to dismiss as irrelevant the threat of Putin firing, for instance, a secretary. However, any chance he may fire his nukes should be taken seriously, regardless of how remote the possibility is.

In fact, the West has so far avoided imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine or transferring long-range missiles and other weapons that may threaten Russian territory for fear of the Kremlin’s retaliation against Europe…………………………………

as past Russian and American wars have shown – whether in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere – a troops surge may win him time but won’t necessarily win him the war. That’s why he coupled his decision for a military surge with a nuclear warning, putting the West on notice: back off or face the consequences.

Hence the seriousness of Putin’s threat to use weapons of mass destruction. The threat is “not a bluff” as he put it, nor a bluster; it rather sounds desperate and deliberate. It is also the biggest escalation since the invasion began seven months ago and the biggest troop mobilisation since the end of the Cold War.

Some are now sounding a warning about Putin’s potential use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. …………………..

In theory, the use of these weapons, which are short-range and designed for limited strikes, sounds implausible considering Ukraine’s geographic proximity and Russia’s nuclear doctrine which underlines the defensive use of nuclear weapons or when the very existence of Russia is threatened……………………..

In short, the danger of a nuclear calamity is real if the war continues to escalate, whether by design or default; whether stemming from strategic or tactical use of nuclear weapons, or from the bombing of a nuclear plant.

None of it is inevitable and all of its totally avoidable. Nuclear powers have lost or ended conventional wars in the past without resorting to nuclear weapons. That’s why world powers have a duty to stop the escalation and to seek a diplomatic solution sooner rather than later.

Putin may be directly responsible for this war of aggression against Ukraine, but the West’s insistence on NATO’s expansion to Russia’s border and its sabre rattling in Ukraine have also been terribly provocative and reckless.

The war has been a disaster for all, especially Ukraine. It will get worse. That’s why cooler heads must prevail. Before it is too late. Those still hoping to win must remember that there is no winning a nuclear war. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/9/22/beware-the-prospect-of-a-nuclear-calamity

September 22, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Australia’s foreign minister warns of ‘catastrophic’ impact of Indo-Pacific war during UN address

9 News, By Savannah Meacham • Associate Producer Sep 24, 2022

Foreign minister Penny Wong has used her first major speech to the United Nations to warn of the impact of a war in the Indo-Pacific region, invoking the China-Taiwan tensions in all but name.

Wong not only condemned the invasion of Russia in Ukraine in her speech but she also forewarned the “catastrophic” impact conflict in the Indo-Pacific would have on Australia and the other Asia-Pacific nations.

“In my own region, where geopolitical contest becomes ever sharper, we must ensure that competition does not escalate into conflict,” Wong said.

“Because if conflict were to break out in the Indo-Pacific, it would be catastrophic – for our people and our prosperity.

“And with the Indo-Pacific’s centrality to global prosperity and security, the cost would extend far beyond our region and reach into every life.”

Wong questioned how countries can “apply the brakes” against rising tensions, like the one in the Indo-Pacific.

“It is up to all of us to ask ourselves how can we each use our state power, our influence, our networks, our capabilities, to avert catastrophic conflict?” she asked.

“How do we acquit our responsibilities to constrain tensions – to apply the brakes before the momentum for conflict in our region or beyond becomes unstoppable?”

In recent months, tensions have been developing between China and Taiwan.

Wong is addressing the UN to remind the group of Australia’s desire to have a seat on the council in 2029. She will support this by outlining Australia’s “resolve” to battle growing conflicts in the Asia Pacific.

“The Australian people want to be better, more involved, and more helpful members of the Pacific family,” Wong said.

“Australians want to enhance our defence, maritime and economic cooperation with Pacific Island Countries. And we want to be the Pacific’s partner of choice for development and security.

“It is why we seek a seat on the UN Security Council for 2029-2030. It is why we seek reform of the Security Council, with greater permanent representation for Africa, Latin America, and Asia, including India and Japan.”

‘We cannot leave it to the big powers’

She outlined Australia’s goal to become a significant player on the world stage and urge smaller countries to set their own fate aside from the one allegedly decided by global superpowers.

“It reminds us that each nation must make its own choices, and exercise its own agency. We cannot leave it to the big powers. And we cannot be passive when big powers flout the rules,” she said……………………. more https://www.9news.com.au/national/australian-foreign-minister-penny-wong-warns-of-impact-of-war-in-indo-pacific-united-nations-speech/e514adc1-9b31-4ed6-8d48-62f4b3cbb324

September 22, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Unlocked: NATO prolongs the Ukraine proxy war, and global havoc

With diplomacy thwarted, the US and its allies plan for “open-ended” military and economic warfare against Russia — despite acknowledging that “the most dangerous moments are yet to come.”

As has been apparent since the Ukraine crisis erupted, US planning for open-ended proxy warfare against Russia has led it to sabotage any prospect of a negotiated end.

Substack Aaron Maté 22 Sept 22, Russia has announced plans to mobilize an additional 300,000 troops for the war in Ukraine. In his speech unveiling the expanded war effort, Vladimir Putin vowed to achieve his main goal of the “liberation of Donbas,” and issued a thinly veiled nuclear threat in the process. The move comes days ahead of planned referendums in breakaway Ukrainian areas to formalize Russian annexation.

Russia’s escalation ensures that the fighting is entering an even more dangerous phase. While Russia bears legal and moral responsibility for its invasion, recent developments underscore that NATO leaders have shunned opportunities to prevent further catastrophe and chosen instead to fuel it.

Putin’s announcement comes just after the Ukrainian military’s routing of Russian forces from Kharkiv, which relied extensively on US planning, weaponry and intelligence, sparked triumphant declarations that the tide has turned.

According to The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, “Americans and Europeans need to prepare for a Ukrainian victory,” one so overwhelming that it may well bring “about the end of Putin’s regime.”

Beyond the chorus of emboldened neoconservatives, Western officials are less sanguine.

“Certainly it’s a military setback” for Russia, a US official said of the Kharkiv retreat to the Washington Post. “I don’t know if I could call it a major strategic loss at this point.” Germany’s defense chief, General Eberhard Zorn, said that while Ukraine “can win back places or individual areas of the frontlines,” overall, its forces can “not push Russia back over a broad front.”

Whether or not it marked a major strategic loss for Russia, the battle in Kharkiv is already a major victory for NATO leaders seeking to prolong their proxy war in Ukraine and economic warfare next door.

Ukraine’s expulsion of Russian forces in the northeast, the New York Times reports, has “amplified voices in the West demanding that more weapons be sent to Ukraine so that it could win.”

“Despite Ukrainian forces’ startling gains in the war against Russia,” the Washington Post adds, “the Biden administration anticipates months of intense fighting with wins and losses for each side, spurring U.S. plans for an open-ended campaign with no prospect for a negotiated end in sight.”

As has been apparent since the Ukraine crisis erupted, US planning for open-ended proxy warfare against Russia has led it to sabotage any prospect of a negotiated end.

The US rejection of diplomacy around Ukraine has been newly substantiated by former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill. Citing “multiple former senior U.S. officials,” Hill reports that in April of this year “Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement.” Under this framework, Russia would withdraw to its pre-invasion position, while Ukraine would pledge not to join NATO “and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.”

In confirming that US officials were aware of this tentative agreement, Hill bolsters previous news that Washington’s junior partner in London was enlisted to thwart it. As Ukrainian media reported, citing sources close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Kiev in April and relayed the message that Russia “should be pressured, not negotiated with.” Johnson also informed Zelensky that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on [security] guarantees with Putin,” his Western patrons “are not.” The talks promptly collapsed.

In his speech announcing the expanded war effort, Putin invoked this episode. After the invasion began, he said, Ukrainian officials “reacted very positively to our proposals… After certain compromises were reached, Kyiv was actually given a direct order to disrupt all agreements.”

Having undermined the prospect of a negotiated peace in the war’s early weeks, proxy warriors in Washington are openly celebrating their success.

“I like the structural path we’re on here,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham recently declared. “As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person.”

Graham’s avowed willingness to expend every “last person” in Ukraine to fight Russia is in line with a broader US strategy that views the entire world as subordinate to its war aims. As the Washington Post reported in June, the White House is willing to “countenance even a global recession and mounting hunger” in order to hand Russia a costly defeat. In Ukraine, this now means also countenancing the threat of nuclear disaster, as the crisis surrounding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has laid bare.

The prevailing willingness to sacrifice civilian well-being extends to the US public, as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has newly made clear. Appearing at the Aspen Security Conference, Sullivan was asked if he is worried about the “American people’s staying power” on the Ukraine proxy war, amid “criticism that we’re spending billions and billions to support Ukraine, and not spending it here.”

 “Fundamentally not,” Sullivan responded. “It’s very important for Putin to understand what exactly he’s up against from the point of view of the United States’ staying power.” That staying power, Sullivan explained, was cemented in the $40 billion war funding measure overwhelmingly approved by Congress (including every self-identified progressive Democrat) in May……………………………………….

Allied NATO leaders are also vocally countenancing the Ukraine proxy war’s costs on their domestic populations. In response to the European sanctions, Russia has now halted gas deliveries to the EU via the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline. Having previously relied on Russia for close to 40 percent of its gas needs, European industries are facing layoffs, factory closures, and higher energy bills that “are pushing consumers to near poverty,” the Financial Times reports. https://mate.substack.com/p/unlocked-nato-prolongs-the-ukraine?utm_source=post-email-title&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

September 22, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | 1 Comment

China, and others, see the International Atomic Energy Agency as biased in supporting AUKUS nuclear submarines plan

Ed note. My problem with the IAEA is that it is NOT an impartial body, on matters nuclear

China accuses IAEA of issuing a ‘lopsided’ report on AUKUS nuclear submarines plan, more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-14/china-iaea-lopsided-aukus-nuclear-submarines-report/101441254 By foreign affairs reporter Stephen Dziedzic 15 Sept 22

China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has launched a furious attack on the UN nuclear watchdog over AUKUS, accusing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of issuing a “lopsided” report about Australia’s plan to build nuclear submarines while ignoring widespread concerns about its ramifications for non-proliferation.

Key points:

  • The IAEA issued a report to member states which said it was “satisfied with the level of engagement” from Australia, the UK and US
  • A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman slammed the report, saying China was “gravely concerned about the substance” of it
  • China has lobbied against AUKUS accusing the three countries of undermining the non-proliferation treaty

Last week the IAEA sent member states a confidential report on Australia’s move to develop the submarines drawing on nuclear submarine technology provided by the United States and the United Kingdom.

China has lobbied relentlessly against the deal in international forums, accusing the three countries of undermining the non-proliferation treaty and fuelling a regional arms race.

However Reuters reported last Friday that the IAEA issued a confidential report to member states which said it was “satisfied with the level of engagement” with the agency from all three nations so far.

Earlier this week the IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi struck a similar tone while addressing the agency’s Board of Governors, saying the Secretariat had held four “technical meetings” with the three AUKUS members so far and suggesting it was comfortable with the way they were handling the matter.

But on Tuesday Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning slammed the report, saying China was “gravely concerned about the substance.”

“This report lopsidedly cited the account given by the US, the UK and Australia to explain away what they have done, but made no mention of the international community’s major concerns over the risk of nuclear proliferation that may arise from the AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation,” she said.

“The report turns a blind eye to many countries’ solemn position that the AUKUS cooperation violates the purpose and object of the NPT.”

IAEA report finds AUKUS non-proliferation risks ‘limited’

While China has repeatedly attacked Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom over the agreement, this is the first time it has publicly excoriated the IAEA over the matter.

US and Australian officials have privately accused Beijing of gross hypocrisy over its public attacks on AUKUS, pointing out that China has been rapidly developing its own fleet of nuclear powered submarines — including submarines capable of launching nuclear weapons.

But nuclear non-proliferation advocates have also raised serious concerns about AUKUS, suggesting that it will establish a dangerous precedent by allowing a non-nuclear state to acquire nuclear propulsion technology for the first time.

Indonesian diplomats have also repeatedly made it clear they’re uneasy about the plan, and the country’s foreign ministry recently claimed recently that it won widespread support at the United Nations nuclear non-proliferation review conference for its plan to monitor nuclear material in submarines more closely.

Reuters reported last week that the IAEA report acknowledged Australia’s argument that the non-proliferation risks posed by AUKUS were limited because it would only be provided with “complete, welded” nuclear power units which would make removing nuclear material “extremely difficult.”

It reportedly also said the material within the units could not be used in nuclear weapons without chemical processing which requires facilities which Australia does not have and will not seek.

September 21, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

In effect if not juridically, Ukraine was becoming a member of the NATO alliance. THE WORLD SPLIT APART

THE WORLD SPLIT APART 2.0: Introduction Russian & Eurasian Politics, GORDON M. HAHN 21 Sept 22,

Nearly a decade ago I began warning that NATO expansion and the West’s failure to understand that Russian national security interests not a Russian desire to ‘recreate the USSR’ or ‘former Russian empire’ would lead to a world split apart between the West and ‘the rest’ (Sino-Russian ‘strategic partnership and those states oriented towards it).…………………………………………………………………………..

NATO expansion to Ukraine continued with Ukrainian membership replaced by deep Western and NATO involvement in Ukraine’s politics and military and gradually deepening after the 2014 Maidan revolt. In effect if not juridically, Ukraine was becoming a member of the NATO alliance.

In this regard, it is important to point out that the famous Article 5 of the NATO Charter is not a blanket, mandatory obligation to engage directly in military action in defense of an alliance member under attack by an alliance non-member state. It merely requires consultations and assistance, which can but does not necessarily have to be the commitment of member-states’ forces directly to the battlefield.

Assistance can include the provision of weapons, training, intelligence, and other forms of indirect assistance. This was already happening in Ukraine as a result of NATO policies. Russian President responded with his invasion rapidly to both escalating that level of NATO military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine and accelerating the bifurcation of the world between the West and the rest.

For all intents and purposes NATO and the entire West are at war with Russia and escalation to a more direct confrontation is just over the horizon. This course of events has deepened and consolidated the Sino-Russian alliance by any other name and that alliance’s efforts to rally to its side the rest of the rest. The world is becoming split apart as never before – an outcome globalization was not supposed to being about. The ‘new cold war’ is driving towards a greater bifurcation of the world into two camps than the confrontation between communism and capitalism ever engendered. Continuation to follow.  https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/33462456/posts/4272028238

THE WORLD SPLIT APART 2.0: Introduction — Russian & Eurasian Politics

September 21, 2022 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Aw gee shucks – Australia can be IMPORTANT if we lead USA’s attacks with our AUKUS submarines !

Marles said nuclear subs would make “the rest of the world take us seriously”,

Final design and cost of Australia’s nuclear submarines to be known in early 2023, Defence minister Richard Marles links the cutting-edge technology to Australia’s economic and trade success

Guardian, Josh Butler, Thu 15 Sep 2022 The defence minister, Richard Marles, says Australia’s pathway to acquiring nuclear submarines is “taking shape”, flagging key decisions within months about which ship to use, how to build it and boosting the country’s defence-industrial capability.

On the first anniversary of the Aukus pact, Marles said nuclear subs would make “the rest of the world take us seriously”, linking the cutting-edge technology to Australia’s economic and trade success.

Final design and cost of Australia’s nuclear submarines to be known in early 2023

Defence minister Richard Marles links the cutting-edge technology to Australia’s economic and trade success…………………………….

On the first anniversary of the Aukus pact, Marles said nuclear subs would make “the rest of the world take us seriously”, linking the cutting-edge technology to Australia’s economic and trade success.

“The optimal pathway is taking shape. We can now begin to see it,” he said. “With Aukus there’s a really huge opportunity beyond submarines of pursuing a greater and more ambitious agenda.”……..

Marles, also the deputy prime minister, said the first steps toward acquisition of nuclear submarines were on track. In a briefing call with journalists this week, he said the current timeline had Australia slated to make initial announcements in the first part of 2023.

The government plans to give answers to five questions by that time: the final design; when it can be acquired; what capability gap that timeline will create and solutions to plug it; the cost; and how Australia’s plans comply with nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

The government is said to be choosing between building American or British ships, or some hybrid. Marles said the government was not ready to announce which type of submarines would be built but hinted Australia’s design could be “trilateral” in nature………..


In a press conference with Marles in the UK earlier this month, the British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said future submarine designs may see a combination of British, American and Australian components.

“We are on to our next design and our new one and that might well be fully shared with all three nations as a collaborative design,” he said.

The cost of the submarine program is not yet known but is expected to be in the tens of billions. Marles linked the Aukus arrangement not only to military but economic security, saying a boosted submarine fleet would protect freedom of navigation through vital shipping routes.

“We need a highly capable defence force which has the rest of the world take us seriously and enables us to do all the normal peaceful activities that are so important for our economy,” he said………

V Adm Jonathan Mead, the chair of the nuclear submarine taskforce, also spoke of protecting “sea lanes” on the call.

Mead said the navy was investigating workforce challenges, such as how to build and crew the ships – which may involve placing Australian staff in British and American nuclear schools or agencies, laboratories and shipyards

“The exchange of these personnel will be both ways and won’t just involve our submariners,” he said.

Facilities to build and maintain the submarines in Australia are part of the equation. Defence this year pinpointed Brisbane, Newcastle and Port Kembla as possible sites for an east coast nuclear base and consultation with those communities is said to be in its early stages.

Marles also spoke of building Australia’s defence-industrial capability on the back of the nuclear process…………………..“We hope Aukus can help develop a genuinely seamless defence industrial base across the US, the UK and Australia.”…………………….

A report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (Aspi), released on Thursday, recommended further investment in other Aukus streams like hypersonic missiles and artificial intelligence technology, to help plug a capability gap while the submarines are built………..

Such short-term investment may force government to make “difficult choices and trade-offs” in its defence strategic review, also slated for March, Aspi said.  https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/15/final-design-and-cost-of-australias-nuclear-submarines-to-be-known-in-early-2023

September 21, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

China, AUKUS clash over nuclear subs

By Francois Murphy, South Coast Register, September 17 2022  China has clashed with the countries in the AUKUS alliance at a meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog over their plan to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, capping a week in which Beijing has repeatedly railed against the project.

Under the alliance between Washington, London and Canberra announced last year, Australia plans to acquire at least eight nuclear submarines that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi has said will be fuelled by “very highly enriched uranium”, suggesting it could be weapons-grade or close to it.

To date no party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) other than the five countries the treaty recognises as weapons states – the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France – has nuclear submarines.

The vessels can stay underwater for longer than conventional subs and are harder to detect.

“The AUKUS partnership involves the illegal transfer of nuclear weapon materials, making it essentially an act of nuclear proliferation,” China said in a position paper sent to IAEA member states during this week’s quarterly meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors……………………

The AUKUS countries and the IAEA say the NPT allows so-called marine nuclear propulsion provided necessary arrangements are made with the IAEA.

China disagrees in this case because nuclear material will be transferred to Australia rather than being produced by it.

It argues the IAEA is overstepping its mandate and wants an unspecified “inter-governmental” process to examine the issue at the IAEA instead of leaving it to the agency.

In its seven-page position paper, China said AUKUS countries were seeking to take the IAEA “hostage” so it could “whitewash” nuclear proliferation.

Nuclear submarines are a particular challenge because when they are at sea their fuel is beyond the reach of the agency’s inspectors who are supposed to keep track of all nuclear material.

IAEA chief Grossi has said he is satisfied with the AUKUS countries’ transparency so far……………………

https://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/7906718/china-aukus-clash-over-nuclear-subs/?cs=202—

September 21, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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