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Assange to Testify at Council of Europe

The freed publisher will appear in person in Strasbourg on Oct. 1 to address the Council of Europe, WikiLeaks said today.

September 24, 2024, By Joe Lauria, Consortium News

WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who was released from prison in June, will address the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France on Oct. 1 after he was granted  Status as a Political Prisoner by a rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), WikiLeaks said today.

It will be the first time Assange will speak in public since his hearing in U.S. federal court on the North Mariana islands in June, at which he was granted his release after a plea deal.

Assange will give evidence before the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which will meet from 8.30am to 10am at the Palace of Europe, WikiLeaks said.

It follows the PACE inquiry report into Assange’s case, written by Rapporteur Thórhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir.

“The report focuses on the implications of his detention and its broader effects on human rights, in particular freedom of journalism,” WikiLeaks said in a press release published on X. “The report confirms that Assange qualifies as a political prisoner and calls on the UK [to] conduct an independent review into whether he was exposed to inhuman or degrading treatment.”

Ævarsdóttir called Assange’s case a “high profile example of transnational repression.” Her report “discusses how governments employ both legal and extralegal measures to suppress dissent across borders, which poses significant threats to press freedom and human rights,” said WikiLeaks.

Still Recovering

Assange is “still in recovery following his release from prison,” it said. He will travel to France because of “the exceptional nature of the invitation and to embrace the support received from PACE and its delegates over the past years”………………………………………………………. more https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/24/assange-to-testify-at-council-of-europe/

September 26, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, EUROPE | Leave a comment

‘Obvious Conflict of Interest’: Report Reveals 50+ US Lawmakers Hold Military Stocks

“It’s abjectly terrifying that the personal benefit of any member of Congress is factored into decisions about how to wield and fund the largest military in the world,” said one critic.

Brett Wilkins 12 Sept 24,  https://www.commondreams.org/news/members-of-congress-who-own-defense-stock

At least 50 U.S. lawmakers or members of their households are financially invested in companies that make military weapons and equipment—even as these firms “receive hundreds of billions of dollars annually from congressionally-crafted Pentagon appropriations legislation,” a report published Thursday revealed.

Sludge‘s David Moore analyzed 2023 financial disclosures and stock trades disclosed in other reports and found that “the total value of the federal lawmakers’ defense contractors stock holdings could be as much as $10.9 million.”

Melanie D’Arrigo, @DarrigoMelanie

Over 50 members of Congress, who vote to approve the military budget and approve the sale of weapons, own up to $10.9M in military contractor stocks. Military contractors have also donated $29M this year to election campaigns. That isn’t national defense. That’s corruption.

According to the report:

The spouse of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, holds between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of shares in each of Boeing and RTX, as well as holdings in two other defense manufacturers. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), another Defense Appropriations subcommittee member, holds up to $50,000 in the stock of Boeing, which received nearly $33 billion in defense contracts last year. On the Democratic side of the aisle, Sen. John Hickenlooper (Colo.) holds up to a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of stock in RTX…

The most widely held defense contractor stock among senators and representatives is Honeywell, an American company that makes sensors and guiding devices that are being used by the Israeli military in its airstrikes in Gaza. The second most commonly held defense stock by Congress is RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, the company that makes missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome, among other weapons systems.

All 13 senators whose households disclosed military stock holdings voted for the most recent National Defense Authorization Act, which, as Common Dreams reported, allocated a record $886.3 billion for the U.S. military while many lawmakers’ constituents struggled to meet their basic needs.

“It is an obvious conflict of interest when a member of Congress owns significant stock investments in a company and then votes to award the same company lucrative federal contracts,” Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, told Sludge.


“Whether or not the official action is taken for actual self-enrichment purposes is beside the point. There is at least an appearance of self-enrichment and that appearance is just as damaging to the integrity of Congress,” Holman added. “This type of conflict of interest is already banned for executive branch officials and so should be for Congress as well. The ETHICS Act would justly avoid that conflict of interest by prohibiting members of Congress and their spouses from owning stock investments altogether.”

Holman was referring to the Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act, introduced earlier this year by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

In the House of Representatives—where the 2024 NDAA passed 310-118, with the approval of over two dozen members who own shares in military companies—House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul’s (R-Texas) household owns up to $2.6 million in General Electric, Oshkosh Corporation, and Woodward shares. Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), who sits on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, owns as much as $100,000 worth of Boeing and General Electric stock.

Other House lawmakers with potential conflicts of interest include Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who owns Leidos shares worth as much as $248,000; Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who owns up to $100,000 worth of RTX stock; and Rep. Patrick Fallon (R-Texas), a member of the Armed Services Committee who holds Boeing stock worth between $100,000 and $250,000.

“Every American should take a long, hard look at these holdings to conceptualize the scope of Congress’ entanglement with defense contractors,” Public Citizen People Over Pentagon advocate Savannah Wooten told Sludge. “It’s abjectly terrifying that the personal benefit of any member of Congress is factored into decisions about how to wield and fund the largest military in the world.”

“Requiring elected officials to divest from the military-industrial complex before stepping into public service would create a safer and more secure world from the outset,” she added.

September 17, 2024 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

FBI Sued For Withholding Files On Assange And WikiLeaks

Kevin Gosztola, Sep 12, 2024, https://thedissenter.org/fbi-sued-for-withholding-files-on-assange-and-wikileaks/

“With the legal persecution of Julian Assange finally over, the FBI must come clean to the American people,” Chip Gibbons, policy director for Defending Rights & Dissent.

The civil liberties organization Defending Rights and Dissent sued the FBI and United States Justice Department for withholding records on WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange. 

“For nearly a decade and a half, we’ve been trying to get at the truth about the U.S. government’s war on WikiLeaks,” declared Chip Gibbons, the policy director for Defending Rights and Dissent. 

Gibbons added, “With the legal persecution of Julian Assange finally over, the FBI must come clean to the American people.”

On June 25, 2024, U.S. government attorneys submitted a plea agreement [PDF] in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands after Assange agreed to plead guilty to one conspiracy charge under the U.S. Espionage Act. 

Assange was released on bail from London’s Belmarsh prison, where he had been jailed for over five years while fighting a U.S. extradition request. He flew on a charter flight to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory where a plea hearing was held.

The plea agreement marked the end of a U.S. campaign to target and suppress Assange and WikiLeaks that spanned 14 years and first intensified after WikiLeaks published documents from U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning that exposed crimes committed in U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as U.S. complicity in human rights abuses in dozens of countries around the world. 

“As soon as we began publishing newsworthy stories about US war crimes in 2010, we know the US government responded to what was one of most consequential journalistic revelations of the 21st century by spying on and trying to criminalize First Amendment-protected journalism,” stated WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson.  

Hrafnsson continued, “While WikiLeaks has fought for transparency, the U.S. government has cloaked its war on journalism in secrecy. That’s why Defending Rights & Dissent’s lawsuit is so important, as it will help unmask the FBI’s efforts to criminalize journalism.”

On June 27, Defending Rights and Dissent requested [PDF] “all records created, maintained, or in the custody of the FBI that mention or reference: WikiLeaks; Julian Assange.”

The FBI separated the request into two requests—one for files mentioning “WikiLeaks,” one for files mentioning Julian Assange. And by August 19, the organization was informed by the FBI that it would take around five and a half years (2,010 days) to “complete action.” 

Previously, on June 22, 2021, Defending Rights and Dissent submitted a nearly identical request. It took the FBI two years to respond and notify the organization that the documents could not be provided because there was a “law enforcement” proceeding that was pending against Assange. 

The FBI became involved in pursuing an investigation against Assange and WikiLeaks in December 2010. 

In 2011, FBI agents and prosecutors flew to Iceland to investigate what they claimed was a cyber attack against Iceland’s government systems. But as Iceland Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson told the Associated Press in 2013, it became clear that the FBI agents and prosecutors came to Iceland to “frame” Assange and WikiLeaks. 

The FBI was interested in interviewing Sigurdur Thordarson, a serial liar and sociopath who embezzled funds from the WikiLeaks store and sexually preyed on underage boys. As I recount in my book “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange,” Thordarson subsequently became an FBI informant or cooperating witness.  

“When I learned about it, I demanded that Icelandic police cease all cooperation and made it clear that people interviewed or interrogated in Iceland should be interrogated by Icelandic police,” Jónasson added. 

A little more than a year before the U.S. government’s prosecution against Assange collapsed, the FBI approached three journalists who had worked with Assange but had a falling-out with him. Each refused to help U.S. prosecutors further their attack on journalism. 

“The decision to respond to reporting on U.S. war crimes with foreign counterintelligence investigations, criminal prosecutions, and dirty tricks continues to cast a dark shadow over our First Amendment right to press freedom,” Gibbons said.

Gibbons concluded, “We will work tirelessly to see that all files documenting how the FBI criminalized and investigated journalism are made available to the public.”

September 16, 2024 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Federal Conflict Rules Would Have Barred New Brunswick, Ontario Cabinet Ministers from New Corporate Posts, Expert Says

The ENERGY MIX, Mitchell Beer September 12, 2024

Two former provincial cabinet ministers would have been barred by conflict of interest legislation from the senior positions they’ve taken with engineering services and nuclear energy giant AtkinsRéalis if they’d been in federal politics, an expert in government and corporate ethics has concluded.

Former New Brunswick natural resources minister Mike Holland and Ontario energy minister Todd Smith both left their positions over the summer and signed on with Montreal-based AtkinsRéalis within a couple of weeks of quitting politics. Holland resigned from cabinet in late June and was appointed as Atkins’ director of business development for North America in early July. Smith quit in mid-August and was hired as vice-president, marketing and business development for Atkins subsidiary Candu Energy two weeks later……………………………………………………

Holland’s and Smith’s career moves are permitted by New Brunswick’s and Ontario’s conflict of interest rules, respectively. Both provinces set 12-month bans on activities like direct lobbying after a former official leaves office, but do not bar other employment with a company that does business with the official’s former government.

……………………………………………… Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher said neither official would have been allowed to make the move if they’d been serving in the federal cabinet. And Smith would have been barred by Ontario rules if he had been working as minister’s staff, rather than as minister.

A Preceding Transaction

“At the federal level you wouldn’t be allowed to do what they did,” Conacher told The Energy Mix.

“There’s a preceding transaction, a negotiation they provided advice on. They were both quoted in AtkinsRéalis’ news release.”

That was a reference to an April 13, 2022 release in which Candu Energy and Saint John, New Brunswick-based Moltex Energy announced a “strategic partnership to advance the development and deployment of next-generation Small Modular Reactor (SMR) nuclear technology in Canada,” including a “first of a kind” installation in New Brunswick. In that release, Holland and Smith both showed up as early boosters for the partnership.

“New Brunswick welcomes investment in clean energy, especially as it builds on the province’s established core of expertise in nuclear technology,” Holland said. “This agreement contributes not only to the growth of long-term, high-quality jobs in New Brunswick’s energy sector; it also recognizes the leadership role of both Moltex and the province in advancing the next generation of nuclear technology.”

“I’m thrilled to welcome this new partnership between Moltex and SNC-Lavalin that builds our provincial energy industry, one renowned for its talented work force and strong nuclear supply chain,” Smith added. “This partnership enhances our clean energy advantage and reputation as a global hub for SMR expertise, making Ontario an even more attractive place to do business and create jobs.”

The release cited Candu Energy as a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin, the politically connected but often deeply troubled global firm that eventually rebranded as AtkinsRéalis in September, 2023. But not before it set up Candu Energy by acquiring key commercial nuclear contracts, intellectual property, and personnel from federally-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. in 2011.

‘You’re Never Allowed’

Neither Holland nor Smith would have been allowed to join AtkinsRéalis if they were bound by the federal Conflict of Interest Act, Conacher told The Mix.

“You’re never allowed to act on behalf of any person or organization connected with something you were involved with in government. It’s not 12 months. It’s never. You’re never allowed,” Conacher said.

“And then secondly, you’re not allowed to give advice to anyone using confidential information,” he added. That amounts to a blanket restriction because “they learn things every day that are not disclosed,” which means all the advice a former cabinet official gives is based on confidential information.

“How do you unknow what you know and then give advice pretending you don’t know what you know? It’s impossible.”

That concern doesn’t apply in New Brunswick or Ontario, and Conacher said New Brunswick’s conflict of interest rules are the weaker of the two. In mid-August, Holland was listed in the federal lobbying registry as an AtkinsRéalis senior officer whose lobbying activities represented more than 20% of his duties.

Other Ways to Be Useful

But direct lobbying isn’t the only way, or even the most useful way, a former cabinet minister can help out a new corporate employer.

If a provincial ban applies only to lobbying, “you just don’t make the representation,” Conacher explained. “You give strategic advice to the company’s lobbyists on who they should be talking to, who’s the real decision-maker in cabinet, and what you should be saying to make something go through smoothly or get some extra benefit, like a subsidy or a [deadline] extension without any penalty. And that’s why they’re hired—because they have that inside knowledge.”………………………… https://www.theenergymix.com/exclusive-federal-conflict-rules-would-have-barred-new-brunswick-ontario-cabinet-ministers-from-new-corporate-posts-expert-says-old/

September 15, 2024 Posted by | Canada, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Rich countries silencing climate protest while preaching about rights elsewhere, says study

Report says governments in global north increasingly using draconian measures while criticising similar tactics in global south

Matthew Taylor, Tue 10 Sep 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/sep/10/climate-rights-report-draconian-measures-protest

Wealthy, democratic countries in the global north are using harsh, vague and punitive measures to crack down on climate protests at the same time as criticising similar draconian tactics by authorities in the global south, according to a report.

A Climate Rights International report exposes the increasingly heavy-handed treatment of climate activists in Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the US.

It found the crackdown in these countries – including lengthy prison sentences, preventive detention and harassment – was a violation of governments’ legal responsibility to protect basic rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association.

It also highlights how these same governments frequently criticise regimes in developing countries for not respecting the right to protest peacefully.

“Governments too often take such a strong and principled view about the right to peaceful protest in other countries – but when they don’t like certain kinds of protests at home they pass laws and deploy the police to stop them,” said Brad Adams, director at Climate Rights International.

Across Europe, the US and the UK, authorities have responded to non-violent climate protests with mass arrests and draconian new laws that have resulted in long prison sentences. In some instances those who have taken part have been labelled as hooligans, saboteurs or ecoterrorists by politicians and the media.

Senior human rights advocates and environmental campaigners have raised concerns about the crackdown and called on governments to protect the right to non-violent protest.

“These defenders are basically trying to save the planet, and in doing so save humanity,” Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, told the Guardian last year. “These are people we should be protecting, but are seen by governments and corporations as a threat to be neutralised. In the end it’s about power and economics.”

The escalating climate crisis has resulted in record-breaking temperatures around the world in 2024, driving food shortages, mass movements of people and economic hardship – as well as deadly fires and floods.

But the report found that rather than taking urgent measures to rapidly reduce the use of fossil fuels and halt ecological collapse, many relatively wealthy countries have instead focused on those trying to stop those raising the alarm by taking part in protests and civil disobedience.

“You don’t have to agree with the tactics of climate activists to understand the importance of defending their rights to protest and to free speech,” said Adams. “Instead of jailing climate protesters and undermining civil liberties, governments should heed their call to take urgent action to address the climate crisis.”

The report’s authors highlighted several examples of developed countries lauding the importance of the right to protest on the international stage at the same time as undertaking harsh and punitive crackdowns at home.

Welcoming a UN report in July this year, the UK government said: “These rights [to peaceful assembly and protest] are essential to the functioning of society, providing a platform for citizens to advocate for positive change. Nonetheless, civic space is increasingly contested as authoritarian governments and actors, who feel vulnerable to scrutiny and accountability, seek to silence dissent.”

Tuesday’s report also found:

  • Record prison sentences for non violent protest in several countries including the UK, Germany and the US.
  • Preemptive arrests and detention for those suspected of planning peaceful protests.
  • Draconian new laws passed to make the vast majority of peaceful protest illegal.
  • Measures to stop juries hearing about people’s motivation for taking part in protests during court cases, which critics say fundamentally undermines the right to a fair trial.

Climate Rights International called on democratic governments around the world to halt the authoritarian crackdown and protect people’s rights to protest.

“Governments should see climate protesters and activists as allies in the fight against climate change, not criminals,” said Adams. “The crackdown on peaceful protests is not only a violation of their basic rights, it can also be used by repressive governments as a green light to go after climate, environmental, and human rights defenders in their countries.”

September 13, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, politics international | Leave a comment

Boris Johnson goes into business with Steve Bannon, Charlotte Owen and a uranium entrepreneur

Owen, who was elevated to the House of Lords last year at the age of 29, now has a plum job despite having no energy sector experience.

 by Jack Peat,  2024-09-09, https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/business-economics/boris-johnson-goes-into-business-with-steve-bannon-charlotte-owen-and-a-uranium-entrepreneur-382535/

Boris Johnson has been added as the director and co-chairman of Better Earth, a company that lists Charlotte Owen, Steve Bannon and a uranium entrepreneur among its staffers.

Better Earth was incorporated by Amir Adnani in December last year and now includes a high-profile roster of employees, including a former prime minister, a controversial media strategist and Britain’s youngest peer.

Adnani, a Canadian citizen of Iranian heritage, is the director of a network of offshore companies based in the British Virgin Islands and is president and CEO of Uranium Energy Corp, a US-based mining and exploration company, championed by former Donald Trump adviser Bannon.

On 1st May, Companies House filings reveal that “the Rt Hon Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson” was added as a director and co-chairman, shortly followed by Charlotte Owen – now Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge – who joined the company to work alongside him despite having a lack of energy sector experience.

Headquartered in a serviced office building in Sevenoaks, Better Earth describes itself as an “energy transition company”.

Its website, which is currently under construction, says it will “work directly with national governments and regions that are seeking both inward investment and/or to reduce their emissions ahead of 2030”.

In 2022, just days before leaving office, Johnson announced a £700 million investment in the controversial Sizewell C reactor stating the country needed to “Go nuclear, go large!”.

At the time, Caroline Lucas, the then Green MP and former party leader, described Sizewell C as “massively costly, achingly slow and carries huge unnecessary risks”.

Among those who cheered the Sizewell C investment was Adnani. He excitedly posted the announcement on his Twitter account: “Boris Johnson plans to sign off on new £30bn nuclear plant in his final week in power! #uranium.”

Adnani has appeared at least twice on former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, and on one occasion told him that his ambition was to achieve “full spectrum energy dominance”.

Doesn’t sound scary at all!

September 13, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK, Uranium | Leave a comment

Democracy Dumped in Cumbria.. Nuclear Dump Under the Irish Sea Here We Come?! UNLESS….

On  By mariannewildart

Today’s BBC news item features Councillor David Moore enthusing “it’s (Sellafield) the biggest employer in the area”. He adds: “I think that’s why conversation here’s different. We’re already the hosts of the waste. And we all want to find it a safer location.” Councillor Moore is of course very keen on new wastes arriving at Sellafield.

What today’s BBC news article on nuclear waste fails to state is that Councillor David Moore was one of only 3 (I know!) “executive councillors” who took the decision to put Cumbria in the frame for an unprecedented deep sub-sea nuclear dump by agreeing to the “Community Partnership” with Nuclear Waste Services in the plan to “deliver a Geological Disposal Facility.” In doing so Councillor Moore failed to declare his fiscal interests in the nuclear industry by dint of his paid membership of various nuclear bodies (monies recieved totalling over £100,000) and his spouse’s employment.

A police complaint was made about this ongoing failure to declare interests but Cumbria police after over a year of obfuscation and delays decided that there was no offence. Cumbria police have essentially given the green light to those in public office not to declare fiscal interests in decisions they make on industrial developments.

We have asked for sight of Cumbria Police’s reasons for failing to take Councillor David Moore to task over his failure to declare interests but to no avail. It is clear that Councillor Moore was told by Cumbria Police that no action would be taken against him long before we were told. And we were only told after saying we would make an official complaint against the length of time the Police’s decision was taking.

We have sent off another email today asking for sight of Cumbria Police’s justification for not taking any action against David Moore – not even a slap on the wrist it appears for what is a criminal offence. Meanwhile Councillor David Moore, who has put Cumbria once again in the frame for a nuclear dump, is the ‘go to’ voice of the “community” for the mainstream media.

Something is very wrong here.

oday’s email to Cumbria Police’s Disclosure Unit:

Dear Disclosure Unit
We do not appear to have had full answers from you regarding Cumbria Police’s decision not to prosecute Councillor David Moore’s failure to declare nuclear interests when taking nuclear decisions with Copeland Borough Council. David Moore is quoted on today’s BBC News as a Councillor and member of the GDF Partnership. The news item does not mention that David Moore was one of only three councillors who voted to go forward with GDF Partnership while recieving monies from the nuclear industry. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czx6e2x0kdyo
?What Date was Councillor David Moore told of the decision that he had committed no criminal offence when making Council decisions on nuclear by neglecting to disclose monies from the nuclear industry and that fact that his wife works for ……..
On behalf of over 30 people signing a letter of complaint against Cllr David Moore, I request sight of the “comprehensive review of the police investigation that was undertaken and the outcome that no further action is to be taken because there is no evidence of any criminality.”
In particular I request sight of justifications for overturning the Localism Act in the case of Cllr David Moore
http://publicsectorblog.practicallaw.com/first-conviction-of-a-councillor-under-the-localism-act-2011/

The original letter of complaint was written in 2022 – the length of time the police took to reply to us and then take a decision (to take no action) is scandalous.

For all links including the original letter check out Lakes Against Nuclear Dump

September 13, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Victoria Nuland, former US deputy secretary of state, confirms West told Zelensky to abandon peace deal

Comment: Nuland confirms what was already known. The reason the conflict is ongoing is because the US wanted it to be so.

 https://www.rt.com/news/603708-ukraine-istanbul-us-nuland/ 9 Sept 24

Ukraine-Russia talks fell apart after Kiev asked foreign backers for advice, the former US deputy secretary of state has said.

The US, UK and other backers of Ukraine told Kiev to reject the deal reached at the 2022 Istanbul peace talks with Russia, former US under secretary of state Victoria Nuland has said.

In an interview with Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar, former editor-in-chief of the liberal news channel Dozhd, which aired on Thursday, Nuland was asked to comment on reports that the peace process between Moscow and Kiev in late March and early April 2022 collapsed after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Ukraine and told Vladimir Zelensky to keep fighting.

“Relatively late in the game the Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going and it became clear to us, clear to the Brits, clear to others that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s main condition was buried in an annex to this document that they were working on,” she said of the deal being discussed by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Türkiye’s largest city.

The proposed agreement included limits on the kinds of weapons that Kiev could possess, as a result of which Ukraine “would basically be neutered as a military force,” while there were no similar constraints on Russia, the former diplomat explained.

“People inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal and it was at that point that it fell apart,” Nuland said.

The veteran diplomatic hawk, who during her time in the State Department was renowned for her hostility towards Russia, quit the post of under secretary of state for political affairs in March this year. Nuland played a key role in the violent Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, which toppled Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich.

During the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022, she called for deeper US involvement in the conflict and advocated for Ukraine to be armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons. However, in February, the 63-year-old essentially acknowledged the failure of her longstanding policy of containing Moscow, telling the CNN that modern Russia had turned out to be “not the Russia we wanted”

During her conversation with Zygar, Nuland confirmed that both Moscow and Kiev were eager to seek a diplomatic solution a month after the outbreak of the fighting.

“Russia had an interest at that time in at least seeing what it could get. Ukraine, obviously, had an interest if they could stop the war and get and get Russia out,” she said.

US officials “were not in the room” during the talks in Istanbul, only offering Kiev “support” in case it were needed, she claimed.

Putin said last week that the only reason the Istanbul deal failed was because of “the wish of the elites in the US and some European nations to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” adding that Boris Johnson served as the messenger to quash the peace process.

The negotiations in Türkiye yielded a draft agreement, which would have ended the hostilities, Putin recalled. Kiev was willing to declare military neutrality, limit its armed forces, and vow not to discriminate against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading powers in offering Ukraine security guarantees, he stressed.

According to the Russian leader, talks with Kiev are still possible, but can only happen “not on the basis of some ephemeral demands but on the basis of the documents that were agreed and actually initialized in Istanbul.”

September 10, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Boris Johnson faces ‘serious questions’ over new business with uranium entrepreneur

Former prime minister also under fire for hiring ex-aide Charlotte Owen as VP despite her lack of energy sector experience

Guardian, Carole Cadwalladr, 8 Sept 24

Boris Johnson failed to disclose that he met a uranium lobbyist while prime minister before entering into a new business with a controversial Iranian-Canadian uranium entrepreneur, the Observer can reveal.

Johnson’s new company Better Earth Limited also employs Charlotte Owen, a junior aide with just a few years work experience whom he elevated to the House of Lords last year at the age of 29, sparking intense controversy.

Transparency campaigners say there appear to be “serious public interest questions to be answered” over the nature and timeline of Johnson’s relationship with his co-director, Amir Adnani, the founder, president and CEO of Uranium Energy Corp, a US-based mining and exploration company, championed by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

Amir Adnani, a Canadian citizen who is the director of a network of offshore companies based in the British Virgin Islands, incorporated Better Earth in December last year. On 1 May, Companies House filings reveal, “The Rt Hon Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson” was added as a director and co-chairman. And this summer, Charlotte Owen – now Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge – joined the company to work alongside him as its vice-president.

The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), which oversees ex-ministerial appointments, explicitly warned Johnson in April 2024 that the “broad overlap” between his roles in office and at Better Earth may entail “unknown risks” because of the lack of transparency over the firm’s clients. A statement from the Cabinet Office noted the potential for a conflict of interests particularly because of “the unknown nature of Better Earth’s clients – specifically that there is a risk of a client engaging in lobbying the UK government.” The committee also told the former prime minister it feared “that you could offer Better Earth unfair access and influence across government”.

Acoba was reassured that Johnson “did not meet with, nor did you make any decisions specific to Better Earth during your time in office”. But the Observer can reveal that Johnson met Scott Melbye, the executive vice-president of Uranium Energy Corp – Adnani’s company – in the House of Commons in May 2022 when he was still prime minister.

Adnani’s social media post about the event claimed that Melbye and Johnson spoke about “nuclear power and uranium”.

Neither Johnson or Adnani have responded to press inquiries about this encounter or when they first met. The encounter was not recorded in the prime minister’s official diary.…………………………………………………………………………………………

Baroness Margaret Hodge, the former Labour MP who led parliament’s Public Accounts Committee from 2010-2015 said there were “at least four very serious public interest questions” to be answered about the appointment.skip past newsletter promotion

“What on earth is an ex-prime minister of the United Kingdom doing, working for a company with an opaque structure? In my experience those who choose to have a UK company owned by a foreign entity only do that because they may have something to hide. What is it in this case? Given the sensitivities around nuclear capabilities we should know who he is in business with, where the money is coming from and why he is using a financial structure that appears to hide the beneficial ownership of the company.”

Better Earth, Amir Adnani and Boris Johnson declined to respond to the Observer’s inquiries about Better Earth’s line of work, funding or any other matters…………………………………………………. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/07/boris-johnson-faces-questions-uranium-business-charlotte-owen-aide

September 9, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

USING UKRAINE SINCE 1948

By Joe Lauria, Consortium News., June 11, 2024,  https://popularresistance.org/using-ukraine-since-1948/


The U.S. Has Staged Operations With Extremists From Ukraine To Undermine Russia For Nearly 8 Decades.

It’s led us to the doorstep of nuclear annihilation.

The United States has for nearly 80 years seen Ukraine as the staging ground for its once covert and increasingly overt war with Russia.

After years of warnings, and after talk since 2008 of Ukraine joining NATO, Russia fought back two years ago. With neither side backing down, Ukraine is increasingly becoming a flashpoint that could lead to nuclear war.

The West thinks Russia is bluffing.

But its doctrine states that if Russia feels its existence is threatened it could resort to nuclear arms. Instead of taking these warnings seriously, NATO is recklessly opening corridors for a ground war against Russia in Ukraine; France says it’s putting together a coalition of nations to enter the war, despite Russia saying French or any other NATO force would be fair game.

In Paris the other day Joe Biden said Russia wants to conquer all of Europe but can’t even take Khariv. It is this kind of inflammatory nonsense, combined with allowing Ukraine to fire NATO weapons into Russian territory, that is imperiling us all.

The danger started building up many years ago but it is now reaching a climax.

The U.S. relationship with Ukraine, and its extremists, to undermine Russia began after the Second World War. During the war, units of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) took part in the Holocaust, killing at least 100,000 Jews and Poles.

Mykola Lebed, a top aide to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the fascist OUN-B, was recruited by the C.I.A. after the war, according to a 2010 study by the U.S. National Archives.

Lebed was the “foreign minister” of a Banderite government in exile, but he later broke with Bandera for acting as a dictator. The U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps termed Bandera “extremely dangerous” yet said he was “looked upon as the spiritual and national hero of all Ukrainians….”

Instead of Bandera, the C.I.A. was interested in Lebed, despite his fascist background. They set him up in an office in New York City from which he directed sabotage and propaganda operations on the agency’s behalf inside Ukraine against the Soviet Union.

The U.S. government study says:

CIA operations with these Ukrainians began in 1948 under the cryptonym CARTEL, soon changed to AERODYNAMIC. …

Lebed relocated to New York and acquired permanent resident status, then U.S. citizenship. It kept him safe from assassination, allowed him to speak to Ukrainian émigré groups, and permitted him to return to the United States after operational trips to Europe.

Once in the United States, Lebed was the CIA’s chief contact for AERODYNAMIC. CIA handlers pointed to his ‘cunning character,’ his ‘relations with the Gestapo and … Gestapo training,’ [and] the fact that he was ‘a very ruthless operator.’

The C.I.A. worked with Lebed on sabotage and pro-Ukrainian nationalist propaganda operations inside Ukraine until Ukraine’s independence in 1991.

“Mykola Lebed’s relationship with the CIA lasted the entire length of the Cold War,” the study says. “While most CIA operations involving wartime perpetrators backfired, Lebed’s operations augmented the fundamental instability of the Soviet Union.”

Continued Until And Beyond Ukrainian Independence

The U.S. thus covertly kept Ukrainian fascist ideas alive inside Ukraine until at least Ukrainian independence was achieved.

Mykola Lebed, Bandera’s wartime chief in Ukraine, died in 1998.

He is buried in New Jersey, and his papers are located at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, the U.S. National Archives study says.

The Successor Organization To The OUN-B In The United States Did Not Die With Him, However. &Nbsp;It Had Been Renamed The Ukrainian Congress Committee Of America (UCCA), According To IBT.

“By the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration was honeycombed with UCCA members. Reagan personally welcomed [Yaroslav] Stetsko, the Banderist leader who oversaw the massacre of 7,000 Jews in Lviv, in the White House in 1983,” IBT reported.  “Following the demise of [Viktor] Yanukovich’s regime [in 2014], the UCCA helped organise rallies in cities across the US in support of the EuroMaidan protests,” it reported.

That is a direct link between the U.S.-backed 2014 Maidan coup against a democratically-elected Ukrainian government and WWII-era Ukrainian fascism.

Since 2014, the U.S. pushed for an attack on the Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine who had rejected the coup, and NATO began training and equipping Ukrainian troops.  Combined with talk since 2008 of Ukraine joining NATO, Russia reacted after years of warning.

More than two years after Russia’s intervention, with Ukraine clearly losing the war, Western leaders will do just about anything to save their political skins, as they’ve staked too much on winning in Ukraine.   Don’t listen to them.  They need a West in denial of the dangers facing us.

As President John F. Kennedy said in his 1963 American University speech:

“Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy–or of a collective death-wish for the world.”

The world may wake up when it’s too late — after nuclear missiles have already started flying.

September 7, 2024 Posted by | history, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

ICC Prosecutor Says World Leaders ‘Threatened’ Him Over Israel Arrest Warrants

 The International Criminal Court judges have yet to issue arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister and defense minister four months after prosecutor Karim Khan requested them

News Desk, SEP 5, 2024, https://thecradle.co/articles/icc-prosecutor-says-world-leaders-threatened-him-over-israel-arrest-warrants

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) says world leaders pressured him not to apply for arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister and defense minister on allegations of war crimes in Gaza, the BBC reported on 5 September.

Karim Khan told the BBC, “Several leaders and others told me and advised me and cautioned me,” he said.

In May, Khan said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had committed war crimes during the Israeli assault on Gaza that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children.

The state of Israel faces separate genocide charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The chief prosecutor also applied for arrest warrants for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, claiming they bear criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity for actions taken by the organization’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, when it stormed Israeli military bases and settlements on 7 October as part of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

Some 1,200 Israeli soldiers and civilians were killed in the operation. Some were killed by Hamas, while many were killed by Israeli forces using attack helicopters, drones, and tanks, per the controversial Hannibal directive.

Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, was assassinated in Iran by an Israeli strike on 31 July. Israel claims Deif was also killed in an airstrike in Gaza, but Hamas officials have stated he is still alive.

Though several months have passed since Khan’s application, ICC judges have not issued any arrest warrants.

Speaking to the BBC, Khan said it was important to show the court would hold all nations to the same standard in relation to alleged war crimes. He also welcomed the new UK government’s recent decision to drop its opposition to the arrest warrants.

“There’s a difference of tone, and I think of substance in relation to international law by the new government. And I think that’s welcome,” he told the BBC’s Nick Robinson.

Khan explained the ICC needed to request warrants for leaders on both sides of the conflict so that the court is viewed as applying “the law equally based upon some common standards.” “If one had applied for warrants in relation to Israeli officials and not for Gaza, [some would] say: ‘Well, this is an obscenity’ and, ‘How on earth is that possible?’” he said.

“You can’t have one approach for countries where there’s support, whether it’s NATO support, European support [and] powerful countries behind you, and a different approach where you have clear jurisdiction,” he added.

In response to criticism for applying for arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, Khan stated, “I have one advantage at least. Hopefully, even they will concede I’ve seen the evidence. They haven’t … The application is not public. It is confidential. It is filed to the chamber. So they are guessing what evidence has been submitted.” 

This week, a pro-Israel legal group in the UK threatened to press charges against Khan, claiming that his efforts to issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials are based on false premises.

The organization UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) wrote a letter to Khan dated 27 August, in which it attempts to refute his allegations against Netanyahu and Gallant.

If Khan were to be charged and found guilty of that accusation, he could potentially – as a barrister in the most serious cases – be disbarred and forbidden from practicing law in the UK.

In May, a dozen Republican senators sent a letter warning Khan not to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

“Target Israel, and we will target you,” the senators, led by Senator Tom Cotton, warned in the letter. “Such actions are illegitimate and lack legal basis, and, if carried out, will result in severe sanctions against you and your institution.” Senators Mitch McConnell (minority leader), Rick Scott, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio also signed the letter.

September 7, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

UK arrests TWO prominent anti-genocide journalists under ‘anti-terrorism’ laws, as West ramps up attacks on dissenters

Human rights activist Sarah Wilkinson arrested by UK police

Her arrest follows the detention of Syrian-British journalist Richard Medhurst in London and Telegram founder Pavel Durov in Paris

News Desk, AUG 29, 2024,  https://thecradle.co/articles-id/26634

British human rights activist and social media influencer Sarah Wilkinson was arrested by UK police on 29 August, reportedly over “content she posted online.”

“The police came to her house just before 7.30am. [Twelve] of them in total, some of them in plain clothes from the counter-terrorism police. They said she was under arrest for ‘content that she has posted online.’ Her house is being raided, and they have seized all her electronic devices,” Jack Wilkinson is quoted as saying by the social media account Suppressed News.

“The pro-genocide UK regime has arrested [MENAUncensored’s] roving reporter and Human Rights Activist Sarah Wilkinson for supporting the Palestinian resistance and relaying what is really happening in Gaza and the West Bank to the world,” MENA Uncensored announced via social media, alleging Wilkinson was accused of supporting “terrorism.”

UK police did not issue a statement about Wilkinson’s arrest at the time of publication.

The British activist and reporter has been an outspoken critic of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Earlier this year, she took part in the “Freedom Flotilla Coalition,” an international initiative that tried to deliver humanitarian aid directly into Gaza.

Wilkinson’s arrest comes two weeks after Syrian-British journalist Richard Medhurst was detained and questioned by UK police upon his arrival at Heathrow Airport under the Terrorism Act, Section 12.

“I believe I’m the first journalist to be arrested under this provision of the Terrorism Act. I feel that this is a political persecution and hampers my ability to work as a journalist,” Medhurst explained.

Other British journalists who have reported critically on Israeli, UK, and US foreign policy have also been detained and harassed upon returning to their home country, including The Cradle contributor Kit Klarenberg and Vanessa Beeley.

Last week, Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris and faces being indicted on 12 different charges, including refusing to “share information or documents with investigators when required by law” and “complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group.”

Durov’s messaging app has played a significant role in the ongoing information war surrounding the genocide in Gaza. Supporters of the Palestinians have been able to use the app to freely share information exposing ongoing Israeli war crimes while highlighting the efforts of Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen, and Iran to resist Israel.

It just seems crazy what is happening. It reminds me of the Birmingham six. The fact that traditional UK media is ignoring both Medhurst and Wilkinson is shocking.

September 2, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

How the U.S. Enabled Netanyahu to Sabotage a Gaza Ceasefire

Drop Site, Jeremy Scahill, Sep 01, 2024

After the bodies of six more Israeli hostages of Hamas were found in the Gaza Strip, pressure in Israel is mounting on the government to secure a ceasefire deal and free the remaining hostages and soldiers taken captive on October 7. The announcement Sunday that the captives, including a dual citizen of the U.S., were discovered in a tunnel in Rafah has further fueled the rage toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, particularly from the families of those held in Gaza. They have accused the prime minister of sabotaging deals to free their loved ones, saying “their blood is on his hands.”

Senior Israeli officials, most prominently the defense minister, have joined the public demands for Netanyahu to stop obstructing ceasefire negotiations, while Hamas has said they will not participate in any process until the U.S. convinces Israel to accept a negotiating framework Hamas agreed to in early July. Both Hamas and the families of Israeli captives still held in Gaza have stated that Netanyahu bears responsibility for continuing the war and preventing the exchange of prisoners.

The White House clearly hopes the events of the past 24 hours alter the current course. After being briefed on Saturday evening on the hostages found in Rafah, President Joe Biden, who is vacationing in Delaware, said, “I think we’re on the verge of having an agreement,” adding, “We think we can close the deal, they’ve all said they agree on the principles.”

By Sunday afternoon, street protests were staged throughout parts of Israel and the mayor of Tel Aviv announced a municipal strike for Monday. “[W]e will allow all employees to go out and support the families’ struggle,” he wrote on Twitter/X.

Following a meeting Sunday with an association of family members of Israeli captives, the head of the Histadrut labor federation, Israel’s largest trade union, announced a general strike. If that action extends beyond a symbolic strike of one or two days, it could cascade into a formidable crisis for Netanyahu. “Netanyahu abandoned the hostages. This is now a fact,” the family association said in a statement. “We call on the public to prepare. We will bring the country to a halt. The abandonment is over.”

Vice President Kamala Harris released a statement endorsing Israel’s version of events on the captives discovered in Rafah and echoed Netanyahu’s pledge to eliminate Hamas. ……………………………..

Hamas has not yet offered a detailed response to Israel’s accusation that Hamas fighters murdered the six captives, but blamed Israel for their deaths. 

……………………………..as U.S. negotiators have worked to placate Netanyahu, the Israeli leader has waged a relentless two-month campaign aimed at thwarting a deal and Hamas has denounced the process and asserted that the U.S. framework it agreed to in early July should be respected.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. A Hamas official involved with the ceasefire negotiations told Drop Site News that the vice president and other U.S. officials have deliberately misled the public about the process out of concerns that the Gaza war will hurt the Democrats’ chances of victory in November.

“Kamala Harris is now obsessed with how to defeat Trump, how to win the election, and she knows that the genocide in Gaza and these massacres are a crucial element in the campaign,” said Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau. “She wants to create a delusional image that there is something in process, which is not right.”

In an interview, Naim said that while the U.S.—for political purposes—wants to achieve a temporary truce that facilitates the release of Israelis held captive in Gaza and allows aid to reach the besieged Strip, it has given no indication it would insist on Israel ending its war against the Palestinians of Gaza.

“They are looking for a ceasefire, but they are not for ending the war permanently,” Naim said………………………………..

Establishing a Framework

In May, Biden laid out what he characterized as “a roadmap to an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages” that had been proposed by Israel itself. “This is truly a decisive moment. Israel has made their proposal,” Biden said on May 31. “Hamas says it wants a ceasefire. This deal is an opportunity to prove whether they really mean it. Hamas needs to take the deal.” 

On June 10, the UN Security Council approved a resolution affirming the framework. On July 2, Hamas announced that it had agreed to restart ceasefire talks based on the framework. “We are ready for negotiations that achieve a cessation of aggression and a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip,” said senior negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya, a deputy of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. “We are ready for genuine negotiations if Netanyahu adheres to the principles outlined by President Biden.”

…………………..Drop Site News has reviewed internal documents from the negotiations showing that on July 2 Hamas formally informed international mediators that it had accepted the framework, which Hamas says it was told had been amended by the U.S. and approved by Israel on June 24. This amendment removed language Hamas had previously insisted on that called for negotiations no later than 14 days into the first phase of a deal on the “necessary arrangements for the return of a sustainable calm (permanent ceasefire),” according to a draft seen by Drop Site News. Hamas believed this compromise was strong evidence of their desire to reach a deal.

………………………………..Netanyahu’s “Coup” Against His Own Ceasefire Proposal

Since early July, Netanyahu has intensified Israel’s attacks in Gaza, repeatedly added new terms to the framework, and assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader and its lead negotiator, in Tehran. Among the new demands put forward by Netanyahu is the right to continue occupying the Philadelphi corridor along the border with Egypt, to maintain control of the Rafah border crossing and to position Israeli troops in central Gaza along the Netzarim axis where IDF forces would establish checkpoints to search Palestinians seeking to return to their homes in northern Gaza. 

……………………………………………………………………..Rather than insisting on upholding what Biden said was Israel’s own proposal in May, the U.S. has appeased Netanyahu’s efforts to allow an indefinite presence of Israeli forces in Gaza and an open-ended campaign of military attacks.

………………………………………………………….more https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/netanyahu-sabotage-ceasefire-hamas?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2510348&post_id=148340330&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=cqey&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

September 2, 2024 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Waihopai is a Secret U.S. Spy Base in New Zealand Designed for War-fighting

Global Peace and Justice A0TEAROA) By Murray Horton, August 29, 2024

Murray Horton is organiser of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) and an advocate of a range of progressive causes for the past five decades.
He can be reached at: cafca.

Reprinted from Covert Action Magazine

The news that the Waihopai spy base was going to be built led to the birth of the Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC) in 1987. ABC has campaigned for the closure of Waihopai ever since (our most recent protest there was in 2023).

We have consistently said that it is a U.S. spy base in all but name, i.e., that the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB, NZ’s spy agency in the Five Eyes international spy alliance) works as directed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). We have also consistently said that it is a war-fighting base, not just a spy base. The powers that be in New Zealand’s covert state, and their political mouthpieces, have always denied this and/or asked for evidence?

Soothing Reassurances from GCSB Bosses

For example, this from The New Zealand Herald, (April 9, 2010), with the eye-catching title “It’s ours and it’s not evil, say spy-base masters”:

“New Zealand’s secret spies emerged from the shadows yesterday to deny their Waihopai station is an American spy base contributing to torture and war. Present and past Directors of the Government Communications Security Bureau took the unusual step of commenting publicly on allegations made during and after last month’s trial in which a jury acquitted teacher Adrian Leason, 45, Dominican friar Peter Murnane, 69, and farmer Sam Land, 26, of charges of burglary and willful damage after they broke into the base in Marlborough.”

“Father Murnane said after the verdict: ‘We have shown New Zealanders there is a U.S. spy base in our midst.’ In court, he said the trio felt strongly about the evil caused by activities of spy bases, such as torture, war and use of weapons of mass destruction such as depleted uranium. Air Marshal Sir Bruce Ferguson, the Bureau’s Director, and his predecessor, Dr. Warren Tucker, said the allegations demanded a response because they brought into question the integrity of New Zealand’s security and intelligence apparatus. ‘The Waihopai station is not a U.S.-run spy base,’ they said. ‘It is totally operated and controlled by New Zealand, through the GCSB as an arm of the New Zealand Government.’”

Waihopai Hosted U.S. NSA Spying/War-Fighting System for Nearly a Decade

Case closed? Not so fast. The year 2024 has unearthed fresh revelations. According to RNZ News, “The operation—that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) did not tell government ministers about—ran from 2013-20, but was only exposed by an official watchdog last month [March 2024)]. Intelligence documents strongly suggest the bureau hosted—but exercised virtually no oversight over—a system run by the U.S. National Security Agency [NSA] to help acquire targets classified as terrorists for killer drones, bombs and raids using GCSB data.”

The article continued: “An important aspect of the deal document—called a memorandum of understanding (MOU)—was that it dealt with concerns that arose within the GCSB about the system’s military capabilities. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) said the system was ‘largely controlled by the partner agency,’ even though the bureau could have vetoed operations it did not like under the MOU. It chose instead not to keep track of them,  the inspector-general’s report last month showed.”

“The public report did not identify the foreign agency, and the inspector-general later told RNZ he did not ask if the system was used for military operations. His report revealed the MOU was signed with the foreign agency in March 2012 by a GCSB deputy director. An internal GCSB document from 2012 showed it signed an MOU with the NSA that year to host the APPARITION system.”

“‘The decision to host the capability on the terms set out in the MOU was significant, particularly given the potential uses of the capability to support military operations,’ said the inspector-general report. The MOU was poorly implemented, it said. A subsequent policy requires the bureau to get ministerial approval for an international agreement that deals with new policy. The inspector-general said this should be triggered if the bureau looked at a hosting deal like this again.”

Nicky Hager Explains APPARITION

So, what was this all about? Fortunately, we could rely on Nicky Hager to flesh out the details. Here’s what he wrote: “The IGIS [Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security] report said the GCSB decision to host a foreign system from 2012-2020 was ‘improper’ and that the GCSB ‘could not be sure the tasking of the capability was always in accordance with…New Zealand law.’ The Inspector-General said: ‘I have found some of the GCSB’s explanations about how the capability operated and was tasked to be incongruous with information in GCSB records at the time.’”

Hager continued: “But the Inspector-General could not reveal details of the system to the public because they are ‘highly classified.’ The name and function of the foreign spy spying equipment, the identity of the ‘foreign partner agency’ and the location of the ‘GCSB facility’ where foreign equipment was hosted all remained secret.”

“The mystery spy equipment appears strongly to be a top-secret U.S. surveillance system that was installed at the GCSB’s Waihopai base at the same time as the equipment in the IGIS investigation was installed at a ‘GCSB facility.’ The top-secret NSA spy equipment had the ghostly codename ‘APPARITION’ and fits with all the details presented in the IGIS report.”

“APPARITION was owned by and controlled by the U.S. National Security Agency—the world’s largest intelligence gathering agency and head of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that includes the GCSB. A[n] NSA internal report, written after the launch of the APPARITION system in 2008, said that it ‘builds on the success of the GHOSTHUNTER prototype…a tool that enabled a significant number of capture-kill operations against terrorists.’”

“Capture-kill operations involve lethal attacks on targeted people using drones, bombs and special forces raids. Human rights organisations have documented numerous deaths of civilians during capture-kill operations—many of them ‘algorithmically targeted’ by electronic surveillance systems such as APPARITION. They are also criticised as being ‘extra-judicial killings.’”……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Waihopai Domes Gone But It Continues Spying

RNZ News reported that “[t]he various NSA and GCSB reports quoted were part of the trove of top secret reports released by the U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. The APPARITION documents do not say what the NSA used the Waihopai-based APPARITION equipment to target. However GCSB used the equipment for its own targeting as well.”

“Another 2012 Snowden document suggests that the Waihopai base was intercepting VSAT communications in the Pacific by targeting the NSS-9 satellite, which was located at 183 degrees east. The 2012 report discusses technology changes affecting Waihopai’s ‘South Pacific mission’ including the ‘ViaSat Skylink VSAT links,’ the NSS-9 satellite. It’s unclear whether this VSAT surveillance involved APPARITION.”…………………………………………………..

In 2022 the GCSB announced ‘Removal of Waihōpai spy base surveillance domes begins’ and media reported that the ‘virtually obsolete’ Waihopai spy domes were being dismantled.” “Some people, including journalists, assumed that the Waihopai station was ceasing to be an intelligence base. However Waihopai continues to intercept a range of satellites with more modern antennas and processing equipment as part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.”

New Zealand Has Blood on Its Hands. Shut Waihopai and GCSB

So, there we have it. While the GCSB spy bosses have been making reassuring noises all along, the reality is that, for nearly a decade (and a very recent decade at that), the GCSB was hosting, at Waihopai, a U.S. NSA system over which the GCSB had no control—by choice—and which was not known to the various Ministers who were nominally “in charge” of the GCSB. This period spanned both the Key National government and the Ardern Labour government, so both major parties were equally ignorant and culpable.

Furthermore, this NSA system was not only for spying but for capturing and/or killing targets via drones, missiles, bombs or attacks by special forces in countries far removed from New Zealand. Such military strikes inevitably kill family members, neighbors, bystanders and innocent civilians in general. This means that New Zealand very much has blood on its hands.

As the ABC has said from the outset, Waihopai is a U.S. spy base and a war-fighting one. The GCSB is a willingly complicit junior partner of the NSA. This is the proof. And it makes even more urgent the case for shutting down both Waihopai and the GCSB.  https://gpja.org.nz/2024/08/29/waihopai-is-a-secret-u-s-spy-base-in-new-zealand-designed-for-war-fighting/

August 29, 2024 Posted by | New Zealand, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Report on nuclear power in Wales is so secret the UK Government won’t even disclose its name

21 Aug 2024, Martin Shipton, https://nation.cymru/news/report-on-nuclear-power-in-wales-is-so-secret-the-uk-government-wont-even-disclose-its-name/

A campaigner wanting to find out how power from a possible new nuclear power plant on Anglesey would be channelled into the national grid has been refused all information, including even the name of an official report on the matter.

Dr Jonathan Dean, a trustee of the Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, wrote to the UK Government’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), asking: “Please could I get a copy of the evaluation report where it was concluded that Wylfa on Ynys Môn should be selected as the next large nuclear site after Sizewell C.”

His request was rejected. He wrote back stating: ”I wondered if it would be possible to obtain a redacted copy of the report you mention. I have little interest in any commercial details. Ideally the whole report suitably redacted, but at least those sections dealing with the connection to the national grid; use of waste heat as per section 4.8 of national policy statement EN-1; location and area of land considered on Ynys Môn; and means of overcoming the many reasons given by the Planning Inspectorate in their recommendation to the Secretary of State in 2019/2020 to refuse the DCO [Development Consent Order] application made by Horizon Nuclear Power.

“Would it be possible to know the title and any reference number for this report to aid future requests?”

 Confidential information

He was then told: “The report has been withheld in full under regulation 12(5)(b) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and no part of the report is available for disclosure … [The] report does not have a reference number and the title of the report is confidential information.”

Later the Department said it had quoted the wrong section of the regulations as the reason for turning down Dr Dean’s request . The correct section was regulation 12(5)(e), which states: “(The) confidentiality of commercial or industrial information where such confidentiality is provided by law to protect a legitimate economic interest.”

Dr Dean told Nation.Cymru: “There have been tentative ideas to connect the transmission grid in north Wales to that in the south since at least 2009 that I am aware of. Then the idea was a subsea connection from Wylfa to Pembroke And back in 2012 NGET [National Grid Electricity Transmission] wanted to build a 400 kV transmission line to Lower Frankton from Cefn Coch to service mid Wales wind farms.

“The Offshore Transmission Network Review in 2020 again suggested a subsea connection linking Lancashire to Wylfa to Pembroke, taking in the new Irish Sea wind farms.

“The Holistic Network Design (HND) of 2022 changed things. It brought power subsea from Scotland into Pentir (Bangor) and took power from Pentir to Swansea North substation. Although heavily caveated as just indicating a network need, and not indicating technology or route, it was described as a ‘double circuit’ which could be interpreted as meaning pylons.

“In the ‘Beyond 2030’ report this year the ESO [Electricity System Operator] says that the subsea link into Pentir will be double the capacity (4 GW?) of that in the HND, but interestingly show the extra capacity connecting to Bodelwyddan not Pentir.

“Meanwhile NGET have planned a substation at Gwyddelwern, supposedly for north Wales wind farms, and Llandyfaelog for mid Wales wind farms.

“Last week, the Beyond 2030 Celtic Sea report revealed Llandyfaelog will be one of the landing points for the Celtic Sea wind farms, and that Swansea North substation has no free capacity or space to expand

“Pentir is constrained ‘behind’ both Eryri and the new north east Wales national park (currently Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). If all the capacity from Scotland came into Bodelwyddan and headed south from there, depending on the final limits of the new national park, there may be no obvious hard constraints to pylons.

“So what might be possible? The line could go down the vale of Clwyd, maybe via the new substation in Gwyddelwern, to Cefn Coch (previously desired substation site) then Newtown (132 kV link), Builth and down the Tywi to the new substation in Llandyfaelog.

“Vyrnwy Frankton wouldn’t be needed, Tywi Usk wouldn’t be needed, and with a bit of re-jigging, Teifi Tywi wouldn’t be needed. Technically it would be a far superior transmission solution (at least the correct transmission voltage!) with up to 6 GW capacity and meet the HND objectives of linking north to south Wales. It would likely be 50m pylons carrying 400 kV double circuits.

“If there wasn’t the desire to extract wind power from mid Wales, the alternative could be a HVDC [High Voltage Direct Current] ‘bootstrap’ from Pentir to Pembroke (as per 2009). The two double circuit lines out of Pembroke can carry 12 GW so can easily accept 6 GW from north Wales (4 GW of it from Scotland) and 3 GW from the Celtic Sea, while still having space for the 2 GW Pembroke power station which will, apparently, be converted to hydrogen and/or carbon capture.

“But this is just my feverish imagination. We will have to wait and see.”

Grid connection

Responding to the UK Government’s secrecy over the transmission link from Wylfa, Dr Dean said: “I have always had an interest in Wylfa as I brought my family to Ynys Môn in the 1960s. I remember going to one of the first public meetings about Wylfa B in 1976 to hear my father talk.

“When Hitachi were developing the last iteration of Wylfa B I was involved with the campaign to have the grid connection put underground or subsea. This campaign was supported by Albert Owen, Rhun ap Iorwerth and then Virginia Crosbie. However Hitachi refused to consider a subsea connection and National Grid refused to consider a buried connection

“The Hitachi proposal was ultimately recommended for refusal by the Planning Inspectorate for multiple reasons. Knowing the north Wales grid will be so constrained by 2030, due to the growth of renewables, so much so that pylons are required from Bangor to Swansea, I was shocked at the announcement of a GW scale station. I had expected a series of SMRs [Small Modular Reactors]. There will be no spare grid capacity in the whole of north Wales for nuclear.

“As trustee of CPRW I was concerned that a new line of pylons would be put through Eryri, against UK planning policy, as there is no way around the national park other than under the sea. The UK. planning policy for nuclear has never considered grid connections, so I assumed that the DESNZ report must have addressed this. A power station without a grid connection would just be an enormous white elephant

“I still don’t understand why such technical details should be withheld from the public, given there was a very clear announcement the power station would happen. The fact the report has a ‘secret’ title, and no reference number, makes me think it doesn’t actually exist! But I cannot believe governments announce new power stations based on no analysis or consideration. Surely not?

“All I want to know is, will it be a subsea cable or more pylons all the way to Connah’s Quay? I really don’t see the need for such secrecy.

August 24, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

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