secrets,lies and civil liberties

Government Hires Fujitsu to Account and Track Dangerous Nuclear Wastes from Dounreay – Are they Laughing at Us?

https://mariannewildart.wordpress.com/2024/06/27/fujitsu-off-exclusive-published-on-lakes-against-nuclear-dump-government-have-hired-fujitsu-to-account-and-track-nuclear-wastes-from-dounreay/

At the same time folk at Glastonbury Festival are saying No to New Nuclear Wastes and the Post Office Inquiry is Live , Government have hired the company at the centre of the Post Office scandal to account for and track the UK’s most dangerous nuclear wastes. The £306K Fujitsu contract has been awarded by Nuclear Restoration Services (former Magnox) for Fujitsu’s ATOM application: “A contract has been awarded by NRS

Dounreay as a result of a direct award through the Crown Commercial Services

RM6194 Back Office Software Framework, for the provision and support of ATOM Application.”

Dounreay was the test site of the UK’s experimental Fast Breeder nuclear reactors. “EARLY in the morning of Tuesday 10 May 1977 there was a loud explosion at the Dounreay nuclear plant on the north coast of Scotland. The UK Atomic Energy Authority, which runs the plant, had dumped at least 2 kilograms of sodium and potassium down a 65-metre shaft packed with radioactive waste and flooded with seawater.”

Fujitsu’s ATOM stands for Accountancy and Tracking Of Material – “a comprehensive track and trace application, specifically designed for the processing, movement and reporting of nuclear and radioactive materials throughout the supply chain right up to nuclear decommissioning”. According to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in 2008 Fujitsu’s ATOM employed over ” 2,000 people • Manages over 115,000 radioactive item records in the UK.” In 2008 Dik Third, Nuclear Materials Advisor, UKAEA, worked closely with Fujitsu and said “…one of the problems with radioactive materials is that they have properties that computer-based logistics packages don’t handle. Unlike tins of beans, radioactive materials with short half-lives can transform into another isotope entirely.”

Fujitsu are now in control of the accounting and tracking of radioactive materials ie of nuclear wastes from the UKs failed fast breeder reactor at Dounreay. They will be allocating wastes to the nuclear “waste hierarchy’ that means sorting wastes to go landfill, to incineration, to the Low Level Waste Repository at Drigg, to Cyclife (radioactive scrap metal plant) and to Sellafield. The nuclear waste hierarchy has been criticised for reducing the levels at which waste can be designated for “free release” and other “disposal” routes which increasingly mean dumping into the public domain. There is a precedent for radioactive material ending up in the wrong place even without the services of Fujitsu.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

June 29, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Assange Is Free, But US Spite Will Chill Reporting for Years

ARI PAUL, 26 June 24 https://fair.org/home/assange-is-free-but-us-spite-will-chill-reporting-for-years/

In some ways, the nightmare for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is coming to an end. After taking refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2012, he was arrested in 2019 by Britain, who have since been trying to extradite him to the United States on charges that by publishing official secrets he violated the Espionage Act (FAIR.org, 12/13/20; BBC, 6/25/24). Once he enters a guilty plea, he will be sentenced to time served and walk away a free man (CBS, 6/25/24).

Assange’s case has attracted the attention of critics of US foreign policy, and those who value free speech and a free press. His family has rightly contended that his treatment in prison was atrocious (France24, 11/1/19; Independent, 2/20/24). A group of doctors said he was a victim of “torture” tactics (Lancet, 6/25/20). In 2017, Yahoo! News (9/26/21) reported that the “CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation” and that CIA and Trump administration insiders “even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request ‘sketches’ or ‘options’ for how to assassinate him.”

His supporters noted that the charges against him came after he harmed the US imperial project, particularly by leaking a video showing US troops killing Reuters journalists in Iraq (New York Times, 4/5/10). Under his watch, WikiLeaks also leaked a trove of diplomatic cables that the New York Times (11/28/10) described as an “unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders, and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.”

Press freedom and human rights groups like the International Federation of Journalists and Amnesty International had long called for his release. Several major news outlets from the US and Europe—the New York Times, Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País—signed a letter calling for his release (New York Times, 11/28/22). They said his “indictment sets a dangerous precedent and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press.

Hostility toward press freedom

Assange’s loved ones and supporters are certainly glad to see him come home (Guardian, 6/25/24). But let’s be perfectly clear-eyed: The entire ordeal and his plea deal are proof of a hostile climate toward a free press in the United States and the wider world, and its chilling effect on investigative journalism could substantially worsen.

Assange’s deal has echoes of the end of the West Memphis Three case, where three Arkansas men were wrongfully convicted as teenagers of a heinous triple homicide in 1993 (Innocence Project, 8/19/11). The three re-entered guilty pleas in exchange for time served. They won their freedom, but their names were still attached to a terrible crime, and the state of Arkansas was able to close the case, ensuring the real killer or killers would never be held accountable. It was an imperfect resolution, but no one could blame the victims of a gross injustice for taking the freedom grudgingly offered.

Something similar is happening with Assange. It compounds the persecution already inflicted on him to force him to declare that exposing US government misdeeds was itself a high crime.

“On a human level, we’re thrilled that he’s out of prison, including the time in the embassy,” said Chuck Zlatkin, a founding member of NYC Free Assange, a group that has held regular protests calling for his release. “We’re thrilled for him personally.”

But the deal shows how eager the US government is to both save face and remain a threatening force against investigative reporters.

‘Criminalization of routine journalistic conduct’

As Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation (6/24/24), said in a statement:

It’s good news that the DoJ is putting an end to this embarrassing saga. But it’s alarming that the Biden administration felt the need to extract a guilty plea for the purported crime of obtaining and publishing government secrets. That’s what investigative journalists do every day.

The plea deal won’t have the precedential effect of a court ruling, but it will still hang over the heads of national security reporters for years to come. The deal doesn’t add any more prison time or punishment for Assange. It’s purely symbolic. The administration could’ve easily just dropped the case, but chose to instead legitimize the criminalization of routine journalistic conduct and encourage future administrations to follow suit. And they made that choice knowing that Donald Trump would love nothing more than to find a way to throw journalists in jail.

And that is all happening while threats against leakers and journalists remain. Edward Snowden, the source in the Guardian’s investigation (6/11/13) into National Security Agency surveillance, still resides in Russia in order to evade arrest. I recently wrote about the excessive sentencing of the man who leaked tax documents to ProPublica and the New York Times showing how lopsided the tax system is in favor of the rich (FAIR.org, 2/2/24). NSA contractor Reality Winner was sentenced to five years in prison for leaking documents to the Intercept on the issue of Russian interference in the 2016 US election (Vanity Fair, 10/12/23)

Laura Poitras, one of the journalists who brought Snowden’s revelations about NSA surveillance to light, said that Assange’s conviction could silence reporters doing investigative reporting on the US government (New York Times, 12/21/20). Chelsea Manning, Assange’s source for these investigations, spent only seven years in prison out of the 35 years of her sentence thanks to presidential clemency, but that is still a harrowing experience (NPR, 5/17/17).

‘Not transparency’ but ‘sabotage’

Worse, some in the so-called free press have rallied behind the government. The Wall Street Journal editorial board (4/11/19) cheered the legal crusade against Assange, arguing that the leaks harmed national security. “Assange has never been a hero of transparency or democratic accountability,” the Murdoch-owned broadsheet proclaimed.

The neoconservative journal Commentary (4/12/19) dismissed the free press defenders of Assange, saying of Wikileaks’ investigations into US power: “This was not transparency. It was sabotage.”

And the British Economist (4/17/19) said, in support of Assange’s extradition to the US:

WikiLeaks did some good in its early years, exposing political corruption, financial malfeasance and military wrongdoing. But the decision to publish over 250,000 diplomatic cables in 2010 was malicious. The vast majority of messages revealed no illegality or misdeeds. Mr. Assange’s reckless publication of the unredacted versions of those cables the following year harmed America’s interests by putting its diplomatic sources at risk of reprisals, persecution or worse.

Unsurprisingly, Murdoch outlets gave the plea deal a thumbs down. “Don’t fall for the idea that Mr. Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is a persecuted ‘publisher,’” the Wall Street Journal editorial board (6/25/24) warned.

The New York Post editorial board (6/25/24) disparaged Assange’s motives, saying he “wasn’t interested in justice or exposing true abuse; he simply relished obtaining and releasing any secret government or political material, particularly if US-based.” Alleging that the documents he published were sensitive, the paper argued in favor of government secrecy: “Uncle Sam needs to keep some critical secrets, especially when lives are on the line.”

In reality, US intelligence and military officials have never been able to trace any deaths to WikiLeaks‘ revelations (BBC, 12/1/10; Guardian, 7/31/13; NPR, 4/12/19)—and certainly have never identified any damage anywhere nearly as serious as the very real harms it exposed. (NPR did quote a former State Department lawyer who complained that WikiLeaks‘ exposes “can really chill the ability of those American personnel to build those sorts of relationships and have frank conversations with their contacts.”) Alas, some publications side with state power even if journalistic freedom is at stake (FAIR.org, 4/18/19).

‘Punished for telling the truth’

Assange’s case is over, but he walks away a battered man as a result of the legal struggle. And that serves as a warning to other journalists who rely on brave people in high levels of power to disclose injustices. Stern is right: Another Trump administration would be horrendous for journalists. But the current situation with the Democratic administration is already chilling.

“All he was being punished for was telling the truth about war crimes committed by this country,” Zlatkin told FAIR.

And without a real change in how the Espionage Act is used against journalists, the ability to tell the truth to the rest of the world is at risk.

“We’re still not in a situation where we as a general population are getting the truth of what’s being done in our name,” Zlatkin said. “So the struggle continues.”

June 26, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, media, USA | Leave a comment

The US, Russia, and Ukraine: 75 Years of Hate Propaganda

Zelensky: The “Winston Churchill of Our Time” (George W. Bush)

In the Western symphony of propaganda, the hated Putin, the “autocrat,” is contrasted with the heroic Zelensky the “democrat” (Time magazine’s 2022 “person of the year”). But how democratic is Zelensky?

His man-of-the-hour image had help from international friends. Zelensky’s global perception management team is run by a well-connected London-based British firm, The PR Network, that helps him prepare messages for global consumption.

BY GERALD SUSSMAN APRIL 18, 2023, https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/04/18/the-us-russia-and-ukraine-75-years-of-hate-propaganda/

“It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.”

– Henry Kissinger

“But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”

– Adolf Hitler

“We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses [on deceiving the public].”

– Mike Pompeo on his time as CIA director

What is state propaganda? It is a disciplined and coordinated discourse using mass persuasion on behalf of state interests. It’s one instrument of what’s called realpolitik – foreign policy designed to advance “national interests,” which in a neoliberal economy like the US means corporate interests. The oligarchs, the billionaire class in the age of neoliberalism, in their unfettered greed have employed both US political parties and their accessories in the media, the intelligence community, and Congress and turned them into a collective ministry of (dis)information and subalterns of empire. Propaganda as a tool in foreign policy commonly relies on hate-laden ideology to mobilize public consensus.

Enemies

A key to successful mass mobilization of the public mind is the enemy construct. One of the key studies on the subject found that the US has had a permanent need for enemies, and when not “readily available, we have created them” (Finlay, Holsti, and Fagen, cited in Murray & Myers, 1989, p. 555). Russia as enemy (Russophobia) works just as well if not better when it’s conceived in demeaning ethnic rather than political economic terms. That’s because hierarchical race and ethnicity ideas are closer to the surface of public prejudice than those focused on, for example, effigies of socialism or communism. In other words, it is easier to orchestrate hatred toward Russia and Putin when there preexists a deep distrust of Russians, their history, and (orthodox religious) culture and its people based on “difference” and a perceived civilizational threat to the West. Under such collective psychological conditioning, this has led to a rejection of Russia membership in the congregation controlled by white European Christian nations.

The US has manufactured innumerable enemies during the course of its existence, and it has had to in order to become a world superpower. Since 1776, there have been only 16 years when the country was not at war. In the pantheon of America’s villains during its 247-year history, one of the most prominent portraits is that of the demonic Vladimir Putin, whose “enemy” status among Americans was pumped up to 70% by March 2022, soon after the start of Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine.

The “liberal” Democrats are found to be far more inclined to carry out a proxy war against Russia than Republicans and much more supportive of supplying Ukraine with advanced weapons and US troops: tanks (67% to 48%), long-range missiles (60% to 41%), fighter jets (56% to 39%), direct invasion (33% to 22%) (Frankovic and Orth, 2023). Former CIA director and defense secretary under Obama, Leon Panetta bluntly declared, ‘It’s a proxy war with Russia, whether we say so or not” (Bloomberg, 2022).

The massive US “proxy” assault on Russia, more like a full-scale invasion but without its own troops physically on the ground and in the air, is only the latest episode of a hundred-year-old effort to impose Western hegemony over that country. It started with the joint “expedition” that the sanctimonious Woodrow Wilson (“I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men”) sent to Siberia and northern Russia in a failed attempt, along with mainly European allies, to back the White Russians in the civil war and overthrow the Bolshevik government. Anti-communism was toned down during the Second World War, as it was the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, tactically allied with the US and the British Empire, that bore by far the heaviest burden, suffering 27 million deaths, in defeating the Nazi regime. It’s a sobering reality of historical proportions that is rarely acknowledged in the US. Immediately following the war, the US quickly converted the USSR/Russia from ally to enemy (and their enemies to allies) and worked closely with anti-communist groups in Ukraine and the larger Soviet region in efforts to break apart the Soviet state.

The then newly formed CIA, established in 1947, covertly supervised underground far right organizations in Ukraine, in particular the pro-Nazi Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the anti-Soviet Ukraine Insurgent Army (UPA), as part of its “psychological warfare activities

Continue reading →

June 24, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Leaked doc reveals Israeli military KNEW of Hamas plan to raid and take hostages 2 weeks before Oct 7, Israeli news reports

SOTT, Grace Eliza Goodwin, Business Insider, 2024-06-18

The Israeli military knew about Hamas’ plans to attack southern Israel weeks before October 7 — even how many hostages the militant group planned to capture, according to a report from Israeli public broadcaster Kan.

The Israel Defense Force’s Gaza Division reportedly distributed an internal intelligence document on September 19, 2023, outlining the details of Hamas’ planned raid, according to Kan.

The document, which Kan reportedly saw, states that the IDF had observed Hamas conducting a series of trainings where militant fighters practiced attacking both Israeli military stations and civilian kibbutzim communities.

The IDF also knew, according to the document viewed by Kan, that Hamas trained its units on how to capture hostages and how to guard them once they were taken back to the Gaza Strip.

Comment: The following is a AI dubbed translation of the report: English dub of an Israeli news report about a document the IDF distributed internally on September 19th, 2023, titled “Detailed End-to-End Raid Training” — it described the impending 10/7 attack in close detail, down to the number of hostages and how Hamas planned to handle them. https://x.com/BoltzmannBooty/status/1802780095934796125?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1802780095934796125%7Ctwgr%5E03c00f0d7a7896eeb5714ea82f7f7840b511a996%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sott.net%2Fembed%2FrqC_5-5FwJyE6YzTfNGB8znT2Ak

The IDF’s Southern Command and Gaza Division also wrote in the document, according to Kan, that they expected Hamas to take between 200 and 250 hostages. The officials even had intel on how Hamas intended to treat the hostages in certain extreme circumstances and what rules Hamas set for executing hostages, Kan reported.

Comment: The recent hostage ‘rescue’ (and ensuing massacre) reveals that Hamas has been treating the hostages very well.

Israel mistakenly believed, the Times of Israel reported, that Hamas would never be able to get past its high-tech border security — an “Iron Wall” composed of concrete, tunnels, and razor wire, complete with remote-controlled machine guns, that was installed two years before the attack.

That oversight prevented top Israeli intelligence leaders from doing anything about the internal report detailing Hamas’ plans, Kan News reported.

And it wasn’t just a few weeks before October 7 that Israel reportedly knew about Hamas’ plans.

More than a year before the attack, Israel had a 40-page document detailing, play-by-play, exactly how Hamas would attack the southern border, The New York Times reported last year. But, Israel never took Hamas’ plans seriously, assuming the militant group would never get past Israel’s defenses, the Times reported.

Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking hundreds hostage, many of whom are still being held in captivity.

The exact number of hostages Hamas took is unclear, but Israel has estimated it was around 240, with about 116 still in Gaza, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Israel’s subsequent airstrikes and war against Hamas in Gaza have killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, many of whom are women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities…………………………………https://www.sott.net/article/492398-Leaked-doc-reveals-Israeli-military-KNEW-of-Hamas-plan-to-raid-and-take-hostages-2-weeks-before-Oct-7-Israeli-news-reports

June 20, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Unveiling Cosmic Secrets: Black Budget Tech and UFOs with Aerospace Expert Michael Schratt

The U.S. military and intelligence agencies have billions of dollars’ worth of secret projects they don’t want you to know about. These billions have funded a secret world of advanced science, technology, weapons, and various covert activities, which have always been shielded from congressional oversight and public scrutiny. Back in the 90s, Members of the House Armed Services Committee once said that 70 percent of the black budget could be declassified at no risk to national security. Our taxpayer dollars are funding these black budget programs, and we have a right to know what we’re paying for. So why the secrecy? What is being kept hidden from the public?

To investigate this further, we recently interviewed private pilot and military aerospace historian Michael Schratt, who’s studied top secret advanced technologies buried deep within the military-intelligence complex for over 25 years. He alleges to have first-hand experience with classified government black budget programs, with access to former US Air Force pilots, retired Naval personnel and former aerospace engineers with top-secret clearance. He’s one of the leading authority voices in investigating government programs involving the recovery and study of off-world technology, also known as UAP/UFO crash retrieval programs. He’s author of DARK FILES, which brings to life historically significant and credible UFO cases obtained from university archives, research centers, and private collections using carefully re-constructed illustrations of the events. Whether it’s advanced military aircraft or serious signs of extraterrestrial life, the implications are too profound to ignore. Michael is suggesting that publicly known technology and weapons programs might be fronts for black budget operations dealing with technologies way more advanced than the public is aware of.

Join us in this fascinating 38-min video interview, with many images and videos throughout to verify and illustrate the points being discussed.

00:00:00 Introduction to the military-industrial complex and the black budget world 00:03:54 Interview begins
00:06:00 What drew Michael Schratt to studying advanced black budget technologies and UFO phenomena
00:07:22 If you could declassify one technology developed under a black budget program, what would it be and why?
00:10:20 Out of all the advanced technologies in use on Earth, how much has ET influence?
00:11:39 UFO/UAP crash retrieval programs
00:18:05 Top secret technologies 101 00:22:32 The infamous Tic Tac video: a UFO, reverse-engineered craft, experimental military tech, or all of the above
00:26:32 The military bases that are purported to study ET tech and house advanced technologies
00:29:25 How can the most powerful technologies help humanity instead of harm?
00:30:37 How to balance disclosure with national security obligations
00:33:01 Michael’s thoughts on the UAP Disclosure Act
00:36:32 What keeps Michael inspired and hopeful

June 17, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, space travel, USA | Leave a comment

Uncle Sam cool with arming, training Neo-Nazi Azov Brigade in Ukraine.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 16 June 24

Back in 2018, the US banned military assistance to the Azov Brigade due to its neonazi and white supremacist ideology.

Azov was founded by Andriy Biletsky in 2014 to assist Kyiv’s destruction of Ukraine’s breakaway Donbas region, Biletsky also led related group Social National Assembly whose goal was “to prepare Ukraine for further expansion and to struggle for the liberation of the entire White Race from the domination of the internationalist speculative capital…and to punish severely sexual perversions and any interracial contacts that lead to the extinction of the white man.” Ouch.

But with Ukraine near collapse from America’s proxy war against Russia, the Biden administration decided that Azov wasn’t that bad after all. Doesn’t matter that current head Denis Prokopenko has been associated with its neonazi idology since its founding, not that Azov still uses the Wolfsangel neonazi symbol

When the US initially banned Azov, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) praised the decision: “I am very pleased that the recently passed omnibus prevents the US from providing arms and training assistance to the neonazi Azov Battalion fighting in Ukraine.”

But that was before the US provoked an unnecessary war in Ukraine, spiraling it into a failed state. Desperate to achieve victory without shedding any US blood, the Biden administration, with not of peep of protest from Khanna, has suddenly turned neonazi Azov into the Sons of Liberty

June 17, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

From the Hiroshima bomb to Israel’s nuclear weapons, the path leads back to Congo’s uranium

Conspiracies in the Congo Linda Pentz Gunter 16 June 24 https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/06/16/conspiracies-in-the-congo/
It involved the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); a Belgian mining company; a fictitious Liberian trading company; a German-named ship — the Scheersberg A; a Spanish crew; a German petrochemical official; an Italian paint company; an Israeli freighter; the Greek island of Crete; a Turkish port; and a confession made in Norway.

If this sounds like the plot for an elaborate work of fiction, it was — it formed the basis of Ken Follett’s 1979 thriller, Triple. But it was also all true. The clandestine operation, which took place in November 1968, smuggled an estimated 200 tonnes of uranium yellowcake out of the DRC, transporting it to Israel. It was orchestrated by Mossad, the Israeli secret intelligence service and came to be known as Operation Plumbat, since the illicit cargo was marked as lead.

The scheme was set in motion when, after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, France curtailed its weapons supplies to Israel and likely the uranium fuel as well needed for Israel’s Dimona reactor, believed then and still to be at the heart of the country’s nuclear weapons program. The operation concluded with an exchange of ships and cargos on the high seas, the Scheersberg A eventually docking empty in Turkey while the uranium, now aboard an Israeli freighter, made its way to Haifa and eventually to Dimona.

The Plumbat operation was first exposed in April 1977 at a non-proliferation conference in Salzburg, Austria by Paul Leventhal, who went on to found the Nuclear Control Institute in 1981.

Israel officially denies that any of this took place, despite ample documentation and the later confession of one of its Mossad officers after his arrest in Norway. This was yet another bizarre twist in the tale when a Mossad operation in Lillehammer to assassinate one of the 1973 Munich Olympic attackers instead mistakenly took out an innocent Moroccan waiter on his way home from work. One of the agents, in order to prove to Norwegian authorities that he was indeed with Mossad, related the story of Operation Plumbat.

Of course, Israel also officially denies the existence of its nuclear weapons arsenal.

The uranium bound for Israel came from the Shinkolobwe mine in DRC’s Katanga province. The veins of uranium that run through Shinkolobwe bleed everywhere. And so do its victims.

The DRC is the site of the present day genocide that no one talks about. As many as six million people have now died in the ongoing fighting there, mostly over mineral rights. That long and bloody history began in the 1880s when the despotic Belgian king, Leopold II, enslaved and brutalized the country’s population, violence that continued under the subsequent Belgian government that took control in 1908.

The Belgians first began mining uranium at Shinkolobwe in 1921. In 1939, Albert Einstein, by then aware that a nuclear bomb could potentially be built and that Nazi Germany might be pursuing one, alerted President Roosevelt to the need for access to a rich uranium supply. The best such, Einstein said, could be found in what was then known as the Belgian Congo.

Once Nazi Germany had occupied Belgium in 1940, concerns grew that the uranium stockpiled at Shinkolobwe could fall into Hitler’s hands. A plan was quickly developed to ship 1,200 tons of uranium ore to the US where it was first stored on Staten Island and eventually transported to the Manhattan Project’s nuclear bomb factory at Los Alamos in New Mexico.

As recounted in Susan Williams’s non-fiction book, Spies in the Congo, US agents in various guises slipped in and out of the Congo, secretly shepherding the uranium back to the Manhattan Project. A second shipment of 1,000 tons of stockpiled ore soon followed. Wrote Williams, citing Gabrielle Hecht’s book, Being Nuclear, Africans and the Global Uranium Trade: “The miners sorted and packed up the uranium ore by hand and, according to estimates, they could have been exposed to a year’s worth of radiation in about two weeks.”

Seventy percent of the uranium in the Hiroshima atomic bomb came from Shinkolobwe and another ten percent was used in the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

However, the colonialist skulduggery didn’t end there. When the DRC gained its independence in June 1960 and Patrice Lumumba became the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, Katanga province abruptly seceded from the country. In an effort to quell the rebellion, Lumumba appealed to the United Nations but was rebuffed. He then turned to the Soviet Union for help, sealing his fate.

The assassination of Lumumba on January 17, 1961 after barely six months in office, appears to have come on direct orders from President Eisenhower, officially out of concerns that Lumumba’s association with the Soviets would create a communist stronghold in the region.

But uranium was also at the heart of the plot and the US may not have acted alone. UK Labour Party peer, David Lea, reported in 2013 that a former MI6 operative, Daphne Park, told him she and MI6 orchestrated the assassination to protect the uranium supply. “Lumumba would have handed over the whole lot to the Russians,” said Park according to Lea.

All of these schemes and intrigues have come about at the price of peace and stability for the Congolese people. Contamination from the radioactive and heavy metals left behind at the mine site continues to poison people and the environment. Other minerals, especially cobalt and copper, have invited further plunder and conflict.

And there could soon be renewed interest in Shinkolobwe’s uranium. “At a time when many nations are engaged in an arms race, stockpiling weapons of mass destruction to prove their ‘strength’, Shinkolobwe mine still risks being seen as an attractive prospect,” wrote young Congolese climate activist, Remy Zahiga in a paper for the Heinrich Böll Stiftung.

Renewed interest may be coming from countries such as France (which inked a deal, thus far unexploited, in 2008) and China, eager to continue and expand their nuclear power programs under the false premise of climate mitigation. China already owns other mines in the DRC. “The existence of hidden entrances and ownership of all surrounding infrastructure would make the Shinkolobwe mine an attractive location should China decide to supplement its current uranium imports,” writes Daniel Allen in his 2024 paper, Uranium Security in the DRC.

And yet, the world looks away.

During an online event hosted by the Peace & Justice Project, an initiative of former UK Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and his wife Laura Alvarez, Congo-born London councillor, Michelline Safi-Ngongo, asked with rightful indignation and somewhat rhetorically why the media never talked about the on-going genocide in her country?

The answer was sadly all too obvious, including to her. Black faces. Far away places. Africa, where these things “happen all the time”. Worthy of a shrug, then forgotten. When the West needs uranium or cobalt or copper, workers in the Congo and their families become suddenly expendable.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. You can learn more about the Congo’s uranium history in her forthcoming book, Hot Stories. Reflections from a Radioactive World, will be published in autumn 2024. https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/06/16/conspiracies-in-the-congo/

June 17, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AFRICA, history, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Uranium | Leave a comment

Top civil servant joins EDF after running department that struck nuclear deal

Alex Chisholm, who led business office during Hinkley Point C negotiations, appointed UK chair of energy firm

Rowena Mason Guardian, Whitehall editor, Wed 12 Jun 2024

One of the UK’s most senior civil servants, Alex Chisholm, has been revealed as the new UK chair of the energy company EDF, after having previously run the department that struck a deal for it to build a new nuclear power station.

Chisholm was permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, and before that led the business department, which worked on the government deal for EDF to go ahead with the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset. The agreement was struck in 2016 with UK bill payers bearing the cost of the construction over a 35-year period.

The long-delayed project’s costs have soared from an estimated £18bn to at least £31bn and it is due to be completed in 2031 – about 14 years after EDF thought it would be up and running.

The French state-owned company is a specialist in nuclear power, and one of the “big six” energy providers that have been criticised for huge profits during the energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine.

Chisholm’s departure is one of a number of high-profile exits from the civil service before a likely change of governing party. Alex Aiken, a former longstanding head of government communications, recently left Whitehall for a job as an adviser on communications to the government of the United Arab Emirates.

There is also speculation about the future of Simon Case, the cabinet secretary and former royal aide installed by Boris Johnson, given incoming prime ministers often want their own preferred candidate in the job.

Chisholm’s EDF role was approved by the watchdog on post-government jobs, known as the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. But the watchdog said he must wait three months after departing government to take up the job and observe a ban on lobbying the government or involvement in negotiating government contracts for two years after leaving office.

The watchdog said: “In 2016, his department was responsible for the decision on finalising the first contract for difference [a pricing mechanism], with respect to EDF and the construction of Hinkley Point C. However, this was ultimately a decision for the secretary of state and followed the 2014 approval from the European Commission and was based on terms agreed then, 10 years ago.

“Significantly, due to the period of time that has elapsed, the committee did not consider Sir Alex could reasonably be seen to have influenced this decision in anticipation of an offer of work a decade later.”

Chisholm said his appointment came “at a time of great change and opportunity in the energy sector”……….https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/11/top-civil-servant-edf-department-nuclear-deal-alex-chisholm

June 13, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Biden hits ‘new low’ in arming ‘pro-Nazi’ Azov: US Congressman

ByAl Mayadeen English, Source: Agencies, 12 Jun 2024 https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/biden-hits–new-low–in-arming–pro-nazi–azov–us-congressm

Paul Gosar says the Biden administration’s decision to lift a ban on arms supplies to Ukraine’s Azov battalion prolongs the war.

US President Joe Biden has reached a new low after his administration decided to remove restrictions on arms supplies to Ukraine’s Azov battalion, US Congressman Paul Gosar pointed out on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post, citing the US State Department, reported that the Biden administration has lifted the ban on arms supplies to and training of the Azov battalion.

Established in 2014 by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists in the wake of the Western-backed Maidan riots, the Azov Battalion was included in the National Guard of Ukraine in November of that year.

The battalion has come under severe criticism for its support of Nazi ideology and symbols, as well as its human rights violations against the Russian-speaking population of Eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s Supreme Court designated Ukraine’s Azov Battalion as a terrorist organization in August 2022.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov called the reported decision by the United States outrageous, adding that it raises serious concerns about US readiness to fight terrorism.

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office last year accused Azov militants of employing prohibited means and methods of warfare, including the torture of civilians and the killing of children.

The battalion’s symbol is the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel, a black swastika against a yellow background. Founded by Andriy Biletsky, who vowed to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen,” the group is a pack of neo-Nazis working with the US-backed Ukrainian military.

June 13, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukrainian officials stole $490 million meant for military – MP

https://www.rt.com/russia/599073-ukraine-fortification-construction-embezzlement/ 10 June 24

Criminal proceedings are underway in relation to dozens of cases of alleged embezzlement, according to politician Mikhail Bondar.

Nearly $500 million given to Kiev for the construction of defensive fortifications to repel Russia’s advance has been embezzled or stolen, media reported on Sunday, citing Mikhail Bondar, a member of the Ukrainian parliament.

Ukrainian law enforcement authorities have launched around 30 criminal proceedings linked to the embezzlement of 20 billion hryvnias ($491 million), Bondar told lawmakers at a closed-door session of the parliamentary investigative commission on fortifications, according to multiple media reports. In the absence of defensive fortifications, Russian forces have made rapid advances in the country.

“Members of the commission from Servants of the People [Ukraine’s ruling party], when they heard such figures, immediately tried to defend the managers of the funds,” Bondar said. However, he claimed that the “lion’s share” of the funds had been disbursed through Ukraine’s military and civil authorities, which the MP described as the “vertical of the president.”

Ukrainian lawmakers have urged the defense ministry, as well as local military authorities, to provide information on the use of budget funds for the construction of defenses.

Last month, Ukrainian media reported that military and civilian authorities in Kharkov Region had paid millions of dollars to fake companies for the supply of non-existent construction materials to build fortifications.

According to Ukrainian anti-corruption activists, Kharkov Region authorities alone embezzled or stole 7 billion hryvnias ($176.5 million) that they had been given to build fortifications along the border. The lack of defenses has resulted in Russian troops overrunning a dozen settlements in quick succession.

For the supply of wood, the Kharkov Department of Housing and Communal Services and OVA Regional Military Administration signed contracts worth 270 million hryvnias ($6.8 million) with five companies that had been set up immediately after the contracts were announced. No bidding process took place, and at least two of these companies were owned by the same person, an anti-corruption report claimed.

In May, Russia launched a large-scale offensive on Kharkov Region, capturing multiple towns and villages. Some Ukrainian troops, including Denis Yaroslavsky, a commander active in the area, blamed their superiors for putting up inadequate defenses, claiming they may have embezzled money intended for their construction.

For months, Kharkov Region has been a source of Ukrainian cross-border attacks on Russia’s Belgorod Region. Its proximity has allowed Ukrainian troops to regularly shell the Russian city with multiple rocket launch systems.

In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that Moscow could be forced to “create a cordon sanitaire” in Kiev-controlled territories to prevent attacks on Russian border regions.

June 11, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

In D-Day Speech, Biden Celebrates Deaths of Russian Soldiers in Ukraine

Russia was not invited to the event in Normandy commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day

by Dave DeCamp June 6, 2024 https://news.antiwar.com/2024/06/06/in-d-day-speech-biden-celebrates-deaths-of-russian-soldiers-in-ukraine/

President Biden celebrated the deaths of Russian soldiers in Ukraine during a speech in Normandy, France, commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

“They’ve suffered tremendous losses, Russia. The numbers are staggering — 350,000 Russian troops dead or wounded. Nearly 1 million people have left Russia because they can no longer see a future in Russia,” Biden said.

The real number of dead or wounded troops in the Ukraine war is unclear since neither side shares information about casualties. But it’s likely Ukraine has suffered more casualties since the conflict is largely an artillery war, and Ukrainian forces have been significantly outgunned.

Russian officials were not invited to the D-Day commemoration despite the Soviet Union being an ally of the US and France during World War II and suffering tens of millions of deaths. Biden used the event to rally support for NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine and slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “tyrant.”

“We know the dark forces that these heroes fought against 80 years ago. They never fade,” Biden said. “Here, in Europe, we see one stark example. Ukraine has been invaded by a tyrant bent on domination.”

Biden also declared that NATO was the “greatest military alliance in the history of the world” and framed the proxy war in Ukraine as a battle for “democracy” despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky canceling elections and remaining in power after his term ended.

“Let us be the generation that when history is written about our time — in 10, 20, 30, 50, 80 years from now — it will be said: When the moment came, we met the moment. We stood strong. Our alliances were made stronger. And we saved democracy in our time as well,” Biden said.

Biden’s speech came about a week after he gave Ukraine the green light to use US-provided missiles to strike Russian territory, a significant escalation that risks sparking World War III. Putin has warned of “serious consequences” for NATO countries that support strikes on Russia.

French President Emmanuel Macron is preparing another major escalation of the proxy war. According to a report from Reuters, the French president is holding a meeting with Zelensky on Friday and could announce a deployment of French troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian soldiers. Russia has warned that any French trainers in Ukraine would be legitimate targets.

June 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Everything About Israel Is Fake

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/everything-about-israel-is-fake?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=145435573&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email 9 June 24

Everything about Israel is fake. It’s a completely synthetic nation created without any regard for the organic sociopolitical movements of the land and its people, slapped rootless atop an ancient pre-existing civilization with deep roots. That’s why it cannot exist without being artificially propped up by nonstop propaganda, lobbying, online influence operations, and mass military violence.

Israel is so fake that its far right minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir has been stoking religious tensions by encouraging militant Zionists to pray on the Temple Mount — known to Muslims as Al-Aqsa. This is an illustration of how phony Israel and its political ideology are because Jews were historically prohibited from praying at the Temple Mount under Jewish law; a sign placed there in 1967 and still upheld by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate reads, “According to Torah Law, entering the Temple Mount area is strictly forbidden due to the holiness of the site.” It’s just this weird, evangelical Christian-like thing that Zionists have started doing in contravention of their own traditions and religious texts to advance their nationalist agendas.

Journalist Dan Cohen explains on Twitter:

“‘Prayer’ on the Temple Mount is 100% a Zionist invention in total contravention of Jewish law. Jews don’t step foot onto the Temple Mount, let alone ‘pray’ there. That’s why the sign below is posted at the entrance non-Muslims use.

“Ben Gvir publicly announced this in order to provoke a reaction to use as a pretext to restrict and expel Muslims from the site, explode Jerusalem and the West Bank, and expand the regional war.

“Ben Gvir holds Netanyahu hostage. Together, they’re leading Israel to self-destruction.”

There’s no authentic spirituality in such behavior. It has no roots. No depth. No connection. It’s the product of busy minds with modern agendas, with nothing more to it than that.

Israel is so fake that Zionists artificially resurrected a dead language in order for its people to have a common “native” tongue for them to speak, so that they could all LARP as indigenous middle easterners together in their phony, synthetic country.

Israel has no real culture of its own; it’s all a mixture of (A) organic Jewish culture brought in from other parts of the world by the Jewish diaspora, (B) culture that was stolen from Palestinians (see “Israeli food”), and (C) the culture of indoctrinated genocidal hatred that is interwoven with the fabric of modern Zionism. The way Israel has become a Mecca of electronic dance music points clearly to an aching cultural void that its people are trying desperately to fill with empty synthetic pop fluff.

Even international support for Israel is fake, manufactured astroturf that has to be enforced from the top down, because it would never organically occur to anyone that Israel is something that should be supported.

The phenomenally influential Israel lobby is used to push pro-Israel foreign policy in powerful western governments like Washington and London. Just yesterday US Representative Thomas Massie told Tucker Carlson that every Republican in Congress besides himself “has an AIPAC person” assigned to them with whom they are in constant communication, who he describes as functioning “like your babysitter” with regard to lawmaking on the subject of Israel.

The Israel lobby exists with the full consent of the western imperial war machine and its secretive intelligence cartel, because western military support for Israel is also phony and fraudulent. The western empire whose strategic interests directly benefit from violence and radicalism in the middle east pretends it’s constantly expanding its military presence in the region in order to promote stability and protect an important ally, but in reality this military presence simply allows for greater control over crucial resource-rich territories whose populations would otherwise unite to form a powerful bloc acting in their own interests. The Israel lobby is a self-funding consent manufacturer which helps the empire do what it already wants to do.

Support for Israel in the media is also phony and imposed from the top down. Since October outlets like The New York Times, CNN and CBC have been finding themselves fighting off scandals due to staff leaks about demands from their executives that they slant their Gaza coverage to benefit the information interests of Israel. Briahna Joy Gray was just fired by The Hill for being critical of Israel as co-host of the show “Rising”, a fate that all mass media employees understand they will share if they are insufficiently supportive of the empire’s favorite ethnostate.

Israel’s support from celebrities is similarly forced. A newly leaked email from influential Hollywood marketing and branding guru Ashlee Margolis instructs her firm’s employees to “pause on working with any celebrity or influencer or tastemaker posting against Israel.” As we discussed recently, celebrities are also naturally disincentivized from criticizing any aspect of the western empire by the fact that their status is dependent on wealthy people whose wealth is premised upon the imperial status quo.

Support for Israel on social media is likewise notoriously phony. For years Israel has been pioneering the use of social media trolls to swarm Israel’s critics and promote agendas like undermining the BDS movement. After the beginning of the Gaza onslaught Israel spent millions on PR spin via advertising on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, and The New York Times has just confirmed earlier reports that Israel has been targeting US lawmakers with fake social media accounts to influence their policymaking on Israel.

In truth, nobody really organically supports Israel. If they’re not supporting it because their lobbyists and employers told them to, they’re supporting it because that’s what they were told to support by the leaders of their dopey political ideologies like Zionism, liberalism and conservatism, or by the leaders of their dopey religions like Christian fundamentalism. It’s always something that’s pushed on people from the top down, rather than arising from within themselves due to their own natural interests and ideals.

Israel is not a country, it’s like a fake movie set version of a country. A movie set where the set pieces won’t even stand up on their own, so people are always running around in a constant state of construction trying to prop things up and nail things down, and scrambling to pick up things that are falling over, and rotating the set pieces so that they look like real buildings in front of the camera. Without this constant hustle and bustle of propagandizing, lobbying, online influence ops, and nonstop mass military violence, the whole movie set would fall over, and people would see all the film crew members and actors and cameras for what they are.

Clearly, no part of this is sustainable. Clearly, something’s going to have to give. Those set pieces are going to come toppling down sooner or later; it’s just a question of when, and of how high the pile of human corpses needs to be before it happens.

June 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

President Biden’s subliminal D Day speech in France

Walt Zlotow. 9 June 24

President Biden’s subliminal D Day speech in France We heard the 1,800 words President Biden spoke at the 80th anniversary of the D Day invasion Tuesday. But below the surface was the subliminal message that coursed thru Biden’s mind, reflecting his real, tho unheard meaning.

D Day Biden: “Today, NATO stands at 32 countries strong. And NATO is more united than ever and even more prepared to keep the peace, deter aggression, defend freedom all around the world.”

Subliminal Biden: “NATO should have disbanded 30 years ago upon the collapse of the Soviet Union. But it provides billions to US weapons markers and allows America to dominate Europe and weaken Russia.”

D Day Biden: We know the dark forces that these heroes fought against 80 years ago. They never fade. Aggression and greed, the desire to dominate and control, to change borders by force — these are perennial.

Subliminal Biden: “Actually, that pretty much sums up American foreign policy in the 21st century. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Ukraine, Gaza…all turned into failed states from American aggression.”

D Day Biden: “Ukraine has been invaded by a tyrant bent on domination Subliminal Biden: “Took America 8 years after we helped depose Russian leaning Ukraine President Yanukovych, but we finally provoked Russia to defend its borders from NATO nukes and save Donbas Ukrainians we armed Kiev to slaughter. D Day Biden: “Ukrainians are fighting with extraordinary courage, suffering great losses, but never backing down. They’ve inflicted on the Russian aggressors — they’ve suffered tremendous losses, Russia. The numbers are staggering — 350,000 Russian troops dead or wounded. Nearly 1 million people have left Russia because they can no longer see a future in Russia.”

Subliminal Biden: “Ukrainian men are fleeing the draft in greater proportion than Russian men. Ukraine losses dwarf Russia’s, so much so Ukraine is running out of new cannon fodder. But America demands Ukraine keep fighting to weaken Russia on America’s behalf till the last Ukrainian solder is kaput.”

D Day Biden: “The United States and NATO and a coalition of more than 50 countries standing strong with Ukraine. We will not walk away because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated.

Subliminal Biden: “Neither the US or its 31 NATO allies will shed 1 drop of blood to save Ukraine from losing the Donbas it has been subjugating for the past 10 years, and collapsing into failed state status.” .

D Day Biden: “And make no mistake, the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked. We cannot let that happen.”

Subliminal Biden: “Actually, the rest of the world outside of NATO, is horrified America is stupidly seeking to extend its unipolar dominance long after its shelf life has expired.”

D Day Biden: “And we must remember: The fact that they were heroes here on D Day does not absolve us from what we have to do today.”

Subliminal Biden: “Keeping the Ukraine war going with billions in weapons instead of negotiating a mutually acceptable ceasefire, is not a good way to honor all who died here on D Day to achieve peace.”

June 10, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Israel ordered secret campaign to influence US lawmakers – NYT

At its peak, Israel’s influence campaign used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as US students, concerned citizens and local constituents on various social media platforms, including X, Facebook and Instagram, the New York Times reports.

The country allegedly paid $2 million to target American legislators in order to foster support for its war in Gaza

Israel allegedly organized and funded an influence campaign last year targeting the US to drum up support for its ongoing Gaza offensive, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed Israeli officials and documents related to the operation.

The outlet claims that the country’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which is responsible for connecting Jews across the world with the State of Israel, commissioned the covert campaign and allocated some $2 million for the operation, hiring the Tel Aviv political marketing firm Stoic.

The campaign was apparently launched sometime in October, when the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) launched its war in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were taken hostage.

Israel’s subsequent war on Hamas and relentless siege of Gaza has drawn international criticism, including threats of sanctions, as the IDF is estimated to have caused the death of over 36,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health authorities.

These accounts were allegedly used to post pro-Israel comments and articles backing West Jerusalem’s position on the war, and were mainly focused on attracting the attention of US lawmakers, primarily Black Democrats, urging them to continue funding the country’s military.

Many of the posts were reportedly generated using the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot ChatGPT. Stoic, which was in charge of the campaign, also reportedly created three fake English-language news sites that predominantly featured pro-Israel articles, often stolen from outlets such as CNN and the Wall Street Journal.

In March, the Israeli government’s campaign was noted by FakeReporter – an Israeli misinformation watchdog. Last week, it was also reported on by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, as well as ChatGPT’s owner OpenAI; both said they had found and disrupted the influence operation.

“Israel’s role in this is reckless and probably ineffective,” Achiya Schatz, the executive director of FakeReporter, was quoted as saying by NYT, noting that the fact that Israel “ran an operation that interferes in US politics is extremely irresponsible.”

In a statement to the New York Times, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has denied any involvement in the operation and insisted it has no connection to Stoic.

Meanwhile, FakeReporter has estimated that the fake accounts created through the campaign have accumulated just over 40,000 followers across X, Facebook and Instagram. Meta and OpenAI concluded that Israel’s influence operation ultimately failed to have a widespread impact, noting that most of the followers of these fake accounts were likely bots.

June 7, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | 1 Comment

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