Assange Extradition Case Moves Forward While The CIA Covers Its Tracks
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, APR 17, 2024 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/assange-extradition-case-moves-forward?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=143660864&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
So they’re really doing it. The Biden administration is really ignoring Australia’s request to end the case against Julian Assange, and they’re proceeding with their campaign to extradite a journalist for telling the truth about US war crimes.
In order to move the extradition case forward, per a British high court ruling US prosecutors needed to provide “assurances” that the US would not seek the death penalty and would not deprive Assange of his human right to free speech because of his nationality. The US provided the assurance against the death penalty (which they’d previously opposed doing), and for the free speech assurance they said only that Assange will be able to “raise and seek to rely upon” US First Amendment rights, adding, “A decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the U.S. Courts.”
Which is basically just saying “I mean, you’re welcome to TRY to have free speech protections?”
At the same time, CIA Director William Burns has filed a State Secrets Privilege demand to withhold information in a lawsuit against the agency by four American journalists and attorneys who were spied on during their visits to Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. State secrets privilege is a US evidentiary rule designed to prevent courts from revealing state secrets during civil litigation; the CIA began invoking it with the Assange lawsuit earlier this year.
Burns argues:
“I am asserting the state secrets and statutory privileges in this case as I have determined that either admitting or denying that CIA has information implicated by the remaining allegations in the Amended Complaint reasonably could be expected to cause serious — and in some cases, exceptionally grave — damage to the national security of the United States. After deliberation and personal consideration, I have determined that the complete factual bases for my privilege assertions cannot be set forth on the public record without confirming or denying whether CIA has information relating to this matter and therefore risking the very harm to U.S. national security that I seek to protect.”
Which is obviously a load of horse shit. As Assange himself tweeted in 2017, “The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security.” Burns isn’t worried about damaging “the national security of the United States,” he’s worried about the potential political fallout from information about the CIA spying on American lawyers and journalists while visiting a journalist who was being actively targeted by the legal arm of the US government.
Political security is also why the US is working to punish Julian Assange for publishing inconvenient facts about US war crimes. The Pentagon already acknowledged years ago that the Chelsea Manning leaks for which Assange is being prosecuted didn’t get anyone killed and had no strategic impact on US war efforts, so plainly this isn’t about national security. It’s just politically damaging for the criminality of the US government to be made public for all to see.
They’re just squeezing and squeezing this man as hard as they can for as long as they can get away with to keep him silent and make an example of him to show what happens when journalists reveal unauthorized information about the empire. Just like Gaza, the persecution of Julian Assange makes a lie of everything the US and its western allies claim to stand for, and reveals the cruel face of tyranny beneath the mask of liberal democracy.
Bombs and viruses: The shadowy history of Israel’s attacks on Iranian soil
From cyberattacks and assassinations to drone strikes, Israel-linked plots have targeted Iran and its nuclear programme for years.
Israel’s leaders have signalled that they are weighing their options on how to respond to Iran’s attack early Sunday morning, when Tehran targeted its archenemy with more than 300 missiles and drones.
Iran’s attack, which followed an Israeli strike last week on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, that killed 13 people was historic: It was the first time Tehran had directly targeted Israeli soil, despite decades of hostility. Until Sunday, many of Iran’s allies in the so-called axis of resistance — especially the Palestinian group Hamas, the Lebanese group Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq and Syria — were the ones who launched missiles and drones at Israel.
But if Israel were to hit back militarily inside Iran, it wouldn’t be the first time. Far from it.
For years, Israel has focused on one target within Iran in particular: the country’s nuclear programme. Israel has long accused Iran of clandestinely building a nuclear bomb that could threaten its existence — and has publicly, and frequently, spoken of its diplomatic and intelligence-driven efforts to derail those alleged efforts. Iran denies that it has had a military nuclear programme, while arguing that it has the right to access civil nuclear energy.
As Israel prepares its response, here’s a look at the range of attacks in Iran — from drone strikes and cyberattacks to assassinations of scientists and the theft of secrets — that Israel has either accepted it was behind or is accused of having orchestrated.
Assassinations of Iranian scientists
- January 2010: A physics professor at Tehran University, Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, was killed through a remote-controlled bomb planted in his motorcycle. Iranian state media claimed that the US and Israel were behind the attack. The Iranian government described Ali-Mohammadi as a nuclear scientist.
- November 2010: A professor at the nuclear engineering faculty at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Majid Shahriari, was killed in a car explosion on his way to work. His wife was also wounded. The president of Iran at the time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, blamed the United States and Israel for the attacks.
- January 2012: Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemical engineering graduate, was killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran. Iran blamed Israel and the US for the attack and said Ahmadi Roshan was a nuclear scientist who supervised a department at Iran’s primary uranium enrichment facility, in the city of Natanz.
- November 2020:Prominent nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in a roadside attack outside Tehran. Western and Israeli intelligence had long suspected that Fakhrizadeh was the father of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme. He was sanctioned by the United Nations in 2007 and the US in 2008.
- May 2022: Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was shot five times outside of his home in Tehran. Majid Mirahmadi, a member of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged the assassination was “definitely the work of Israel”.
Israel’s cyberattacks on Iran
- June 2010:The Stuxnet virus was found in computers at the nuclear plant in Iran’s Bushehr city, and it spread from there to other facilities. As many as 30,000 computers across at least 14 facilities were impacted by September 2010. At least 1,000 out of 9,000 centrifuges in Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility were destroyed, according to an estimate by the Institute for Science and International Security. Upon investigation, Iran blamed Israel and the US for the virus attack.
- April 2011: A virus called Stars was discovered by the Iranian cyberdefence agency which said the malware was designed to infiltrate and damage Iran’s nuclear facilities. The virus mimicked official government files and inflicted “minor damage” on computer systems, according to Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization. Iran blamed Israel and the US.
November 2011: Iran said it discovered a new virus called Duqu, based on Stuxnet. Experts said Duqu was intended to gather data for future cyberattacks. The Iranian government announced it was checking computers at main nuclear sites. The Duqu spyware was widely believed by experts to have been linked to Israel.- April 2012: Iran blamed the US and Israel for malware called Wiper, which erased the hard drives of computers owned by the Ministry of Petroleum and the National Iranian Oil Company.
- May 2012: Iran announced that a virus called Flame had tried to steal government data from government computers. The Washington Post reported that Israel and the US had used it to collect intelligence. Then-Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon did not confirm the nation’s involvement but acknowledged that Israel would use all means to “harm the Iranian nuclear system”.
- October 2018: The Iranian government said that it had blocked an invasion by a new generation of Stuxnet, blaming Israel for the attack.
- October 2021: A cyberattack hit the system that allows Iranians to use government-issued cards to purchase fuel at a subsidised rate, affecting all 4,300 petrol stations in Iran. Consumers had to either pay the regular price, more than double the subsidised one, or wait for stations to reconnect to the central
- distribution system. Iran blamed Israel and the US.
- May 2020: A cyberattack impacted computers that control maritime traffic at Shahid Rajaee port on Iran’s southern coast in the Gulf, creating a hold-up of ships that waited to dock. The Washington Post quoted US officials as saying that Israel was behind the attack, though Israel did not claim responsibility.
Israel’s drone strikes and raids on Iran
- January 2018: Mossad agents raided a secure Tehran facility, stealing classified nuclear archives. In April 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel discovered 100,000 “secret files that prove” Iran lied about never having a nuclear weapons programme.
- February 2022: Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett admitted in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal in December 2023, that Israel carried out an attack on an unmanned aerial vehicle, and assassinated a senior IRGC commander in February of the previous year.
- May 2022: Explosives-laden quadcopter suicide drones hit the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran, killing an engineer and damaging a building where drones had been developed by the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces. IRGC Commander Hossein Salami pledged retaliation against unspecified “enemies”.
- February 2024: A natural gas pipeline in Iran was attacked. Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owji alleged that the “explosion of the gas pipeline was an Israeli plot”.
- January 2023: Several suicide drones struck a military facility in central Isfahan, but they were thwarted and caused no damage. While Iran did not immediately place blame for the attacks, Iran’s UN envoy, Amir Saeid Iravani, wrote a letter to the UN chief saying that “primary investigation suggested Israel was responsible”.
Fujitsup-ing UK ‘s Post Office IT system, – and now its Nuclear Lab?
The UK government’s National Nuclear Laboratory has given Fujitsu a £155k contract for ‘software support’ IT – for nuclear science and experimental programmes in nuclear power and weapons.
Fujitsu? The Japanese software company that supplied, and apparently is still supplying, the British Post office with software – its bodgy Horizon IT programme being at the root of one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in UK history.. Yes, that one!
It doesn’t fill you with confidence about the safety of the UK’s nuclear lab activities, does it?
The Post Office’s contract with Fujitsu was, (is) extremely complex, with the Post Office lacking the expertise to understand how the IT system works. Does the nuclear lab have the same problem?
These types of contracts deliberately lock the buyer in, with the supplier having control of all upgrades, fixing of any technical problems. The Post Office contract also limited the amount of information they could get from the system.
This created a dependance by the Post Office on the company Fujitsu. Is the British military and nuclear system also locked into dependance on Fujitsu? A source told the i newspaper that the Japanese firm has been managing a secretive computer system facilitating the “strategic command and control of UK Armed Forces” for decades.
The contract for the National Nuclear Laboratory is the first government contract with Fujitsu in 2024, – to the anger and frustration of many, as the inquiry into the Post Office software scandal is still underway, with more litigation likely to come.
Israeli Firms Are Working Overtime to Sell Stolen Palestinian Land to US Jews
these land sale events “are illegal under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and Civil Rights Act of 1965, since registration, entry, and participation are denied on the basis of identity (i.e., race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion).”
The real estate events peddling land in Israeli settlements in the West Bank appear to flout US and international law.
By Eleanor Goldfield , TRUTHOUT. April 13, 2024
our chance to own a piece of the Holy Land!” exclaims the cheerful advertising copy on a real estate website aimed at attracting buyers in the U.S. and Canada to purchase land located in Israel and in a number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The site describes five land sale events that occurred this spring in the U.S. and Canada.
Another land sale event held in Baltimore invited attendees to “Buy Your Home in Israel Now!” But, as with the other events, attendees couldn’t just be anyone interested in some freshly stolen land. You have to be Jewish, but not just any kind of Jewish.
Greg Kaplan, a local Jewish community member who wanted to learn more about these restrictive events and who tried signing up for the April 1 land sale event in Baltimore, which was hosted by the Jerusalem-based CapitIL Real Estate Agency, told me:
I got a call from Shmuly Eisenmann of CapitIL. He asked me where I daven, who the rabbi is there, and for the rabbi’s number, seeming incredulous that I wouldn’t just have the rabbi’s number stored in my phone. He said he would check on me with the rabbi and asked if the rabbi would know who I was. I said probably not because I don’t go to shul that much. He asked if there was someone at another shul who could vouch for me.
Kaplan was not allowed into the event, which was scheduled to take place at Shomrei Emunah, “a full-service shul and Jewish center” in Baltimore whose list of speakers and scholars in residence includes an IDF lieutenant colonel.
Gillian Stoll, a member of the New Jersey chapter of IfNotNow, who tried to register for the Teaneck, New Jersey, event on March 31, received a series of phone calls. On the first call, Stoll admits to being caught off guard by a slew of questions including the name of her temple and rabbi, his direct number as well as what the reading was at the temple that week. She gave the name of her old rabbi and temple, and the man calling seemed satisfied for the moment, offering that they had to cancel previously “because of protesters.” She then “got a second call from another not so nice guy saying he called the rabbi and he hadn’t heard of me … and asked how old I was … and if I’d been to Israel.” Stoll was also not allowed into the event.
Needless to say, I — as a secular Jew who hasn’t been to temple since about 2007 and whose most recent run-in with a rabbi involved one chanting alongside me at an anti-Zionist action — didn’t even get a phone call. And while these discriminatory practices might be necessary to avoid a bunch of anti-Zionist protesters in your midst, they are, in fact, illegal.
A recent press release from the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation (PAL) Law Commission pointed out that these land sale events “are illegal under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and Civil Rights Act of 1965, since registration, entry, and participation are denied on the basis of identity (i.e., race, ethnicity, national origin, and religion).”
The commission added that these events violate not only U.S. law but also international law with regard to hosts “exhibiting and offering properties on West Bank settlements recognized as illegal by the U.S. Department of State and by international law” including “Article 49 of the Geneva Convention … Settlements have been found to be grave breaches of international law, and therefore war crimes, by the International Court [ICJ] of Justice in 2004, and are also currently under review by the ICJ in the context of the case of South Africa v. Israel for crimes of genocide, and by the International Criminal Court.”
PAL Law Commission has filed notices and complaints with attorneys general and real estate licensing authorities, and has also served formal cease and desist letters alongside notice and demand letters regarding their findings.
When asked about responses from hosts or organizers, PAL spokesperson Hena Zuberi said:
The response we’ve received is them shifting their events online and/or sponsors pulling out of the events, at least publicly. Although this hasn’t been a direct communication with us it came as an effect directly following our legal action and served as a major legal and grassroots victory for the case and the campaign overall. We’ve shut down several events and moved others online through this action.
One such event was scheduled to take place in Flatbush, Brooklyn, at the Khal Bnei Avrohom Yaakov Simcha Hall and was later moved online after both legal action and local protests. Indeed, it’s impossible to say whether legal action, direct action or a combination of the two has pushed the cancellation or relocation of land sale events. Either way, it’s clear that hosts and organizers are uncomfortable with the attention, as they should be.
On the site listing the event in Flatbush as well as events in Montreal; Toronto; Teaneck, New Jersey; and Lawrence, New York, a banner reads “Our expert speakers will address all your questions about purchasing real estate in Israel and focusing on: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramat Beit Shemesh, Modiin, Givat Shmuel, Raanana, Neve Daniel, Efrat, Motza, Haifa, Ma’ale Adumim, Ashkelon, Netanya.”
………………………………………………….. In short, be it 1948, 1967, 2014 or today, Palestine is occupied land, Israel upholds apartheid, and these land sale events are one of many tactics being used to disappear an Indigenous people and culture, to wipe them off the map literally and figuratively, much as was done here in the so-called United States with mass land sale events of so-called “Indian land” in the West.
……………………………………………. we heard news that the land sale event had been moved last minute to a new location. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless. Zuberi told me, “These victories would not have been possible without the relentless pressure mounted by the PAL legal team and the local PAL chapters’ and allies’ grassroots support and organizing.” This grassroots organizing included the Baltimore chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ office in Maryland, and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) as well as individuals such as me who, though not affiliated with any one organization, felt the need to show up.
Cassidy Cohen with Jewish Voice for Peace’s Baltimore chapter added: “We come from a Jewish tradition that has for millennia opposed empire, colonization and nationalism, that values every human life, and is rooted in social justice…. As Jews, we oppose all displacement and genocide of Palestinians. We say never again for anyone.”
In other words, to act in solidarity with tireless Palestinian leadership in the struggle for their liberation is the mandate of all who believe in justice, especially us Jews. https://truthout.org/articles/israeli-firms-are-working-overtime-to-sell-stolen-palestinian-land-to-us-jews/
Fujitsu ‘managing top-secret military system’ two years after contract expired
Firm embroiled in Post Office scandal reportedly continues to oversee contract that was handed to rival
Fiona Parker, SPECIAL PROJECT CORRESPONDENT, 18 March 2024 , https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/18/fujitsu-managing-top-secret-uk-military-system/
The IT company whose faulty software is at the centre of the Post Office scandal is reportedly still managing a top-secret UK military system.
Defects in Fujitsu’s Horizon platform led to more than 900 sub-postmasters being wrongfully prosecuted, after they were blamed for apparent shortfalls in their accounts, which did not actually exist.
However, a source told the i newspaper that the Japanese firm has been managing a secretive computer system facilitating the “strategic command and control of UK Armed Forces” for decades.
The UK intelligence source also claimed Fujitsu was still overseeing the contract, despite it being reallocated to another firm almost two years ago.
The delay in moving Fujitsu away from the project is reportedly because of the deep ties the IT giant has with UK Government departments, the highly sensitive nature of the contract and waits for new staff to receive security clearance
“The Government doesn’t want to go near them [Fujitsu] after the scandal and they now have the challenge of replacing them across some key areas of defence,” a UK intelligence source told the i.
“But they have been extended time and time again because the new suppliers haven’t been able to get going”.
The newspaper did not reveal further details about the military project, citing national security as a reason for not doing so.
Errors in the Horizon system were confirmed in a 2019 High Court judgement, on a case brought by former sub-postmaster Alan Bates and more than 500 others.
The ruling found that “bugs, errors and defects” in the system caused shortfalls in Post Office branch accounts, which saw some innocent postmasters jailed for theft and false accounting as a result.
Contracts worth billions
Earlier this year, Fujitsu informed the Cabinet Office that it would not bid for UK public contracts while the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal was ongoing.
Yet data published by the Treasury Committee in February showed public organisations affiliated with the Treasury have held more than £3.4 billion worth of contracts with Fujitsu since 2019.
Paul Patterson, the company’s European director, told MPs in January that he was “truly sorry” about the scandal and said the firm had accepted its part in the “appalling miscarriage of justice”.
A UK Government spokesperson told the i that it didn’t recognise the delays caused by security vetting, insisting instead that Fujitsu is “in the transition period between contracts, continuing to deliver their obligations as contractually agreed”.
They added: “More broadly, it is right that Fujitsu has withdrawn from bidding for new public sector contracts until the Post Office Horizon inquiry concludes.”
The Telegraph has contacted Fujitsu for a comment.
Flicker of Hope: Biden’s Throwaway Lines on Assange
April 12, 2024 by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/flicker-of-hope-bidens-throwaway-lines-on-assange/
Walking stiffly, largely distracted, and struggling to focus on the bare essentials, US President Joe Biden was keeping company with his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, when asked the question. It concerned what he was doing regarding Australia’s request that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be returned to Australia.
Assange, who has spent five tormenting years in Belmarsh Prison in London, is battling extradition to the US on 18 charges, 17 tenuously and dangerously based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.
The words that followed from the near mummified defender of the Free World were short, yet bright enough for the publisher’s supporters. “We’re considering it.” No details were supplied.
To these barest of crumbs came this reaction from from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on ABC’s News Breakfast: “We have raised on behalf of Mr Assange, Australia’s national interest, that enough is enough, that this needs to be brought to a conclusion, and we’ve raised it at each level of government in every possible way.” When pressed on whether this was merely an afterthought from the president, Albanese responded with the usual acknowledgments: the case was complex, and responsibility lay with the US Department of Justice.
One of Assange’s lawyers, the relentless Jennifer Robinson, told Sky News Australia of her encouragement at Biden’s “response, this is what we have been asking for over five years. Since 2010 we’ve been saying this is a dangerous precedent that’s being set. So, we certainly hope it was a serious remark and the US will act on it.” Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, also told Sky News that the statement was significant while WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson thought the utterance “extraordinary”, cautiously hoping “to see in the coming days” whether “clarification of what this means” would be offered by “those in power” and the press corps.
The campaign to free Assange has burgeoned with admirable ferocity. The transformation of the WikiLeaks founder from eccentric, renegade cyber thief deserving punishment to prosecuted and persecuted scribbler and political prisoner has been astonishing.
The boggling legal process has also been shown up as woefully inadequate and scandalous, a form of long-term torture via judicial torment and deprivation. The current ludicrous pitstop entails waiting for a UK Court of Appeal decision as to whether Assange will be granted leave for a full reconsideration of his case, including the merits of the extradition order itself.
The March 26 Court of Appeal decision refused to entertain the glaringly obvious features of the case: that Assange is being prosecuted for his political views, that due process is bound to be denied in a country whose authorities have contemplated his abduction and murder, and that he risks being sentenced for conduct he is not charged with “based on evidence he will not see and which may have been unlawfully obtained.” The refusal to entertain such material as the Yahoo News article from September 2021 outlining the views of intelligence officials on kidnapping and assassination options again cast the entire affair in a poor light.
Even if Assange is granted a full hearing, it is not clear whether the court will go so far as to accept the arguments. The judges have already nobbled the case by offering US prosecutors the chance to offer undertakings, none of which would or could be binding on the DOJ or any US judge hearing the case. Extradition, in other words, is likely to be approved if Assange is “permitted to rely on the First Amendment”, “is not prejudiced at trial (including sentence) by reason of his nationality” and that he “is afforded the same First Amendment protection as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty not be imposed.” These conditions, on the face of it, look absurd in their naïve presumption.
Whether Biden’s latest casual spray lends any credibility to a change of heart remains to be seen. In December 2010, when Vice President in the Obama administration, Biden described Assange as a “high-tech terrorist” for disclosing State Department cables. He failed to identify any parallels with previous cases of disclosures such as the Pentagon papers.
Craig Murray, former British diplomat and Assange confidant, adds a note of cautious sobriety to the recent offering from the president: “I’m not going to get too hopeful immediately on a few words out of the mouth of Biden, because there has been no previous indication, nothing from the Justice Department so far to indicate any easing up.”
For all that, it may well be that the current administration, facing a relentless publicity campaign from human rights organisations, newspapers, legal and medical professionals, not to mention pressure from both his own party in Congress and Republicans, is finally yielding. Caution, however, is the order of the day, and nothing should be read or considered in earnest till signatures are inked and dried. We are quite a way off from that.
CNN Finally Tells The Truth About The Flour Massacre After Previously Shilling For Israel
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, APR 10, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/cnn-finally-tells-the-truth-about?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=143447638&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
CNN has a new report out showing that (surprise!) Israel lied about the Flour Massacre in which IDF troops fired machine guns into a crowd of starving Gazans waiting for food this past February, killing over a hundred people. CNN found that Israel’s timeline and version of events doesn’t line up with video footage, witness testimony, and forensic evidence.
Which of course was obvious from the beginning to anyone who isn’t deeply invested in pretending Israel ever tells the truth about these things. Within hours of the massacre Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor had a preliminary report up saying that video, audio and material evidence shows that the IDF had been firing into the crowd in contradiction of Israel’s claims that the injuries and deaths sustained on the scene were mostly due to Gazans trampling on each other in a mad rush upon the convoy of aid trucks. Now here’s CNN, a month and a half later, telling us essentially the same thing.
This is the same CNN who at the time reported on the Flour Massacre in ways that advanced Israel’s information interests with headlines completely exonerating Israel of any wrongdoing like “At least 100 killed and 700 injured in chaotic incident” and “Carnage at Gaza food aid site amid Israeli gunfire”. CNN also repeatedly refers to the killings as “food aid deaths”, as though it’s the food aid that killed them and not the military of a very specific state power.
I don’t know if there’s a word for when a government does something evil and then churns out a bunch of easily disprovable lies with the understanding that by the time those lies are debunked public attention will have moved on from the controversy, but there should be. Over and over again we’ve seen the Israeli regime do just enough lying to dampen the initial burst of attention and outrage and get people doubting themselves, only to discover far too late that it was all a bunch of crap after the initial crime has been forgotten.
This is exactly what happened with Israel’s initial assault on al-Shifa Hospital back in November, when Israel was cranking out propaganda claiming the hospital was being used as a command center for Hamas. Not until the end of December did The Washington Post show up to acknowledge the abundantly obvious fact that there was no evidence for Israel’s claims, which independent outlets like Consortium News had been reporting since mid-November. Now al-Shifa Hospital — the largest hospital in Gaza — has been completely destroyed.
Back in October Israel and its apologists were shrieking with outrage that anyone would dare suggest that Israel would ever attack a hospital at all, saturating the media with bogus evidence that it falsely claimed proved its innocence. Since that time Israel has launched hundreds of attacks on Gaza’s healthcare services and has destroyed most of its healthcare system.
It’s a weaponization of the adage “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth even puts its boots on.” They know all they have to do is lie really hard for a week or two, and then when the truth inevitably surfaces it won’t matter, because the truth will never be able to have the impact their lies had when it mattered.
It’s so obnoxious how even after all this time Israel is still given the benefit of the doubt on such claims by the western political-media class until they’re debunked weeks or months later, long after the outcry over the incident has been muted and neutered by Israeli lies. If a state power is preventing journalists and human rights groups from investigating the facts on the ground in a given area, then it is not legitimate to give their claims about what happens in that area weighted consideration when their track record and all the facts in evidence say they’re probably lying.
The fact that the western press keep giving Israel the benefit of the doubt whenever reports like this emerge after they’ve been caught in so very many lies means the western press are just as culpable for the circulation of Israeli lies as Israel itself. In journalism you’re taught that if someone says it’s raining and someone else says it’s dry, your job isn’t to quote them both and treat both claims as equal, your job is to go look out the window and see which is true. The fact that the imperial media take so long to drag their asses to the window serves nobody but Israel and the globe-spanning empire of which it is a part.
Nuclear Lies, Cover-Ups and Secrecy
Mangano observes: “Nuclear war, like any war, is not an inevitable force of nature, bit a conscious choice of leaders.” (p. 66) So too is any decision to build or maintain a nuclear site.
BY JANETTE D. SHERMAN, OCTOBER 5, 2012, https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/05/nuclear-lies-cover-ups-and-secrecy/
Do Governments and Corporations lie, cover-up and maintain secrecy as they harm our planet and us? Joe Mangano’s new book, Mad Science – The Nuclear Power Experiment, clearly lays it out that they have done so for more than half a century.
This book is a page-turner, filled with useful information that many of us don’t know or have forgot. His chapter “Tiny Atoms, Big Risks” explains the various forms of nuclear energy in terms that anyone can understand, and details the harm that has come to all life on our planet as a result of nuclear bombs and nuclear power plants.
Among the many nuclear catastrophes that Mangano chronicles – from Three Mile Island, the Nevada and Marshall Island nuclear bomb tests to Chernobyl and Fukushima- is the nuclear accident at the Santa Susana site in Ventura County, close to Los Angeles, CA. Santa Susana is one of the best-kept secrets in the history of nuclear power. The Santa Susana site had 10 sodium-cooled reactors the 1959 accident spewed radioactivity, tetralin – toxic naphthalene, and other chemicals into Simi Valley, the Pacific Ocean and eastward that are still detected over a half-century later.
A near meltdown of the Fermi-1 nuclear reactor nearly destroyed Detroit in 1968. It was a sodium-cooled reactor, as were the ones at Santa Susana. Located at the western end of Lake Erie, a Fermi meltdown would have crippled or destroyed much of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River as well. As has occurred since the Chernobyl meltdown, in the southern lake areas of Belarus, fish and boats travel upstream as well as down-stream.
As many as 16,000 workers were employed at Santa Susana by corporations that included, North American Aviation (a spin-of of General Motors), Rocketdyne, Atomics international and finally Boeing. Santa Susana was closed by 1980, but never fully decontaminated. Everyone in the Los Angeles area who has had a family member with cancer, a low birth-weight child, death of an infant, or thyroid disease should read the book. So should those who live down-wind of a nuclear test area or a nuclear power plant – which includes practically everyone in the United States and Canada.
It was Lewis Strauss, the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission who in 1954 touted nuclear power as “too cheap to meter.” Today we learn it is too costly to bury waste, clean up contaminated land and buildings, and too costly to build and maintain aging nuclear power and bomb plants.
Mangano observes: “Nuclear war, like any war, is not an inevitable force of nature, bit a conscious choice of leaders.” (p. 66) So too is any decision to build or maintain a nuclear site.
Since the Fukushima releases began, Japanese citizens are marching and protesting the continuation of nuclear power as they observe the obvious reality of contamination. How long will it take for U. S. citizens to demand a stop to nuclear power and its’ twin nuclear war weapons.
Janette D. Sherman, M. D., who died in 2019, was the author of Life’s Delicate Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer and Chemical Exposure and Disease, and was a specialist in internal medicine and toxicology. She edited the book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Nature, written by A. V. Yablokov, V. B., Nesterenko and A. V. Nesterenko, published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Her primary interest was the prevention of illness through public education.
CIA Front Companies Play Crucial Role in Arms Pipeline to Ukraine and Profit From the Human Misery it Generates
Covert Action Magazine, By CIAgate, April 1, 2024
Noetic Continental Inc. Foists Military Equipment Through Private War Companies
Analyzing the CIA’s records, we’ve noticed that there were many references to the Noetic international Inc., a company with questionable origin and activity.
According to its website, the enterprise specializes in “delivering products and services including assessments, operations and finance to clients in the energy, telecom, space, cybersecurity and intelligence sectors.“
In a previous article on substack we wrote that the CEO of the Noetic International Inc. was Johnna May Holeman, a former U.S. artillery soldier and CIA operative, who took part in the supply of 155mm white phosphorus rounds to Ukraine through a tea-trade company in Bulgaria.
Now we can say that there was another CIA officer behind the creation of the Noetic International Inc. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet John Alan Irvin–the godfather of clandestine operations.
Through his extensive ties, resources and expertise, John Irvin has developed a vast network of contacts, informants and partners to achieve a comprehensive range of goals in accordance with the CIA’s design. Given John’s age, today the bulk of the work is now done by Johnna Holeman. The Noetic International Inc. has offices in Illinois, California, Germany, England and Austria.
The Noetic “specialists” address complex problems in wide range of domains including air- and sea-based drones, renewable energy, cybersecurity and cryptocurrency, technology and robotics, as well as strategic influence campaigns and analysis and decision making.
The network includes hundreds of influencers connected by both personal acquaintance and virtual meetings. The Noetic operatives help local and foreign authorities to achieve goals in order to enlist the support afterwards.
According to our source, the Noetic International Inc. has a shell company in Puerto Rico, that under the guise of cannabis dispensary addresses essential tasks on behalf of the CIA, such as supply of various kinds of unmanned aerial and maritime drones to foreign countries, including Ukraine, reshore of semiconductor production to the U.S., as well as the supply of small-module nuclear reactors.
Initially, we doubted the veracity of the source’s information. Yet, as it was with the investigation surrounding Chanda Creasy, a yoga coach and a head of the CIA division responsible for arms transfers to militants in Africa and Middle East, painstaking analysis and careful sieving of information made it possible to determine that it was the Anyon Minds LLC……………………………………………………………………………………..
It seems like this outlet is not a trading platform, but a certain communication hub for a dedicated circle of persons…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
We are also extremely curious what kind of advice the cannabis company could receive from a former Chief of Staff of the 82nd Airborne division, Jouni Keravuori, who also worked at the SAS Institute, General Dynamics and the same Pax Mondial and Pax Safe. Perhaps his daughter-in-law and, concurrently, Brigadier General Rose Lopez Keravuori, helps him with this. Since 2023, she has been serving as the Director of intelligence (J2) of the U.S. Command in Africa………………………………………………………………………………..
Drones’ modernization and delivery to foreign countries
According to our source, Mr. Benitez maintained close cooperation with Johnna Holeman and another member of Noetic International, Hans Mumm, mentioned in one of our previous investigations.
The cooperation was focused on:
⦁ improving capabilities of automated drones manufactured by the Airgility and the Safehaven Marine paramilitary companies;
⦁ optimizing the automated functionality of existing UAVs, including an anti-missile drone capable of intercepting shells and counterattacking a missile launch site;
⦁ improving the “world’s fastest sea drone” with a customer-tailored weapons system (aerial and underwater) (Project Barracuda by Safehaven Marine).
⦁ Noetic team also discussed a special “Vanilla program” related to a new unmanned aerial system. Check the project summary here…………………………………………………………………………………………………
What’s the most interesting is that the representatives of the Anyon Minds DIRECTLY negotiated with the Ukrainian authorities. It should be noted that during his trip to Kyiv in October, 2022, Benitez personally communicated with Mykhailo Fedorov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for Innovations, Education, Science and Technology–Minister of Ukraine for Digital Transformation. They discussed the issues related to the supply of drones as part of military assistance. …………………………………………………..
This war not only fabulously enriched Benitez and his team, but also allowed the CIA to establish gray-trading schemes and market channels for the sale of unmanned vehicles to Ukrainian officials. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
PART II
The Gallant Nights LLC
Below we talk about one dubious private military company (PMC) also involved in CIA’s corruption scheme in Ukraine. We will show how the agency uses Hollywood celebrities to empty the wallets of their fans……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/04/01/cia-front-companies-play-crucial-role-in-arms-pipeline-to-ukraine-and-profit-from-the-human-misery-it-generates/?mc_cid=af5fe30ca7&mc_eid=65917fb94b
Inside Sellafield behind the razor wire gun- toting guards and blast barriers at the toxic nuclear site
The 700-acre Sellafield complex means different things to different
people. To UK authorities it is a decommissioning hub being used to
spearhead the clean-up of Britain’s early nuclear industry mistakes, made
before the issue of long-term waste disposal was a priority.
In Ireland,
about 180km away, Sellafield is mostly seen as a potential hazard, a byword
for danger. A former reprocessing site for lethal spent nuclear fuel rods,
it was also known for a now-defunct power plant that was tacked on, Calder
Hall, but this was only ever a minor part of it. Reprocessing was the main
activity.
These days, Sellafield is seen as more of a nuclear dump for the
most radioactive material from all over the UK, with work ongoing in a
100-year, £134 billion (€156 billion) decommissioning project.
Yet another view of Sellafield: in the eyes of one nuclear industry source, the
site is a “gravy train” for well-paid staff and big contractors. Sellafield Ltd, the site’s UK state-owned operator whose mission is to make it safe, spends more than £2.5 billion each year on the clean-up strategy. It is also a bustling 24-hour workplace for 11,000 people paid an
average of €91,000 each annually.
The site’s critics, including the UK academic and radioactivity adviser to the Irish State, Dr Paul Dorfman, warn that the nuclear industry tries to dazzle outsiders with glossy public
relations. Sellafield, meanwhile, says it is only trying to be honest and
open about what it does.
The company, which answers to the UK government
through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), confirms that The
Irish Times is the first media outlet from the Republic to be granted
recent access to the site and its inner sanctum, where the most dangerous
nuclear material is handled. Thirty years after U2′s Bono landed on a
nearby beach in a Greenpeace protest, and almost 20 years after the
Republic last tried to sue the UK over its safety risks, its existential
relevance to Ireland remains.
Sellafield hasn’t gone away, you know. The battle to keep it safe goes on.
Irish Times 30th March 2024
TODAY. Sellafield scandals – a case study in why the nuclear industry must be shut down.
If you had any illusions about the nuclear industry being “clean” and “safe” and “honest”, the latest bit of news in the tawdry saga of UK’s Sellafield nuclear waste dump might cause you to stop and think.
It doesn’t seem that much – “prosecution for alleged cybersecurity offences” and “no suggestion that public safety has been compromised”.
But if you bother to do your homework on this sprawling rubbish dump, the world’s most complex nuclear site, with the world’s largest stockpile of plutonium – you will find a litany of alarming nuclear stories:
- Sellafield: ‘bottomless pit of hell, money and despair’ at Europe’s most toxic nuclear site
- secrecy valued more than public safety.
- Cracks in ponds holding highly radioactive fuel rods. wastes pumped into the seas. Irish Sea contaminated with plutonium.
- US, Norway and Ireland anxious over risk of a devastating accident.
- sudden changes in security leadership.
- Office for Budget Responsibility – site poses a “material source of fiscal risk” to the country.
- a toxic workplace culture.
- site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China. Dishonesty:
- British authorities knew it was wrong to proceed with the thermal oxide reprocessing plant (Thorp) at Sellafield.
And what does the world nuclear authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have to say about all this? –
“World nuclear chief praises Sellafield progress”
Wake up world!
I’m sorry to have to say this, – but you can’t depend on the world leaders and the nuclear authorities to tell you the truth about this ghastly industry. So many depend on it for their livelihood, for their local economy – etc etc. But the truth must be told.
The political and business leaders are waiting till after their retirement – hoping that the shit won’t hit the fan while they might cop the blame. Like the security bosses at Sellafield, they might have to get out in time. I wonder how long Rafael Grossi can last, can keep up the pretense.
Sellafield is arguably the worst case of nuclear danger and corruption. But then there are the horrors of the Russian nuclear industry, including City 40. Then there’s Japan, with its eternal Fukushima calamity, and its many nuclear reactors close to earthquake zones.
It’s really only thanks to Anna Isaac and Alex Lawson, of the Guardian, that we get to find out about Sellafield.
And to others, like Kate Brown. revealing the reality of the nuclear waste-plutonium disaster endangering the planet
And I wonder, as the USA prepares to lock up Julian Assange forever, how long will the powerful allow these intrepid writers to spill the beans on nuclear scandals?
Israel Lies About Being A Victim So That It Can Victimize
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAR 30, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-lies-about-being-a-victim?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=143090068&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The Washington Post reports that in recent days the Biden administration has quietly signed off on sending Israel billions of dollars worth of fighter jets and the 2,000-pound bombs that have been causing so much death and destruction in Gaza, even as Israel prepares to launch a bloody assault on the strip’s densely-populated southernmost point.
Literally just completely ignore every single thing US officials say about the need to protect civilians and how Biden’s feelings are privately “frustrated” with Netanyahu. Just ignore their entire narrative about what their goals are in Gaza. Their actions make it clear.
Protesters from Palestine Action have forced Israel-based arms dealer Elbit Systems to permanently close one of its factories in the UK as demonstrators have made it too difficult for the factory to operate. We’ll never vote the empire away, but we might someday be able to direct action it away.
Video footage has surfaced of IDF troops murdering two unarmed Palestinians in cold blood and then burying their bodies with bulldozers to conceal their crime. This is surely not anywhere close to the first time such a thing has happened in Gaza, and is yet another sign that the death toll from this onslaught is probably a massive undercount.
Israel’s assault on Gaza features heavy earth-moving equipment more extensively than any other military operation anyone’s ever seen. One reason is because it’s a great way to destroy Palestinian homes. Another reason is because it’s a great way to hide dead Palestinian bodies.
An IDF commander has told Israeli media that on October 7 he made the decision to fire on vehicles he knew could have Israelis in them because “it’s better to stop the abduction and that they not be taken,” adding more weight to the mountain of evidence that Israeli troops fired on Israelis on October 7 to prevent them from being taken hostage. Israeli bombs and blockades have been picking off the remaining hostages ever since, with Israel now estimating that only 60 to 70 of the 134 hostages are still alive.
Whenever you run into an Israel apologist who is defending against criticisms of Israel’s actions in Gaza by saying “Hamas just needs to release the hostages and this all ends,” maybe go ahead and remind them of this.
ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt just went on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and compared wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh to wearing a Nazi armband. The mass media keep having this lunatic on as an expert analyst and he keeps saying the most bat shit insane things imaginable. Any screaming schizophrenic off the street would be just as qualified as Greenblatt.
❖
A former ranking IDF officer has told Haaretz that Israel is conducting “a war of cruel rich people” which is causing many times more destruction than necessary to accomplish its stated objectives against Hamas.
“In principle, it would be possible to arrive at similar achievements with 10 percent of the destruction we have caused,” the unnamed source told Haaretz.
Ten percent. Israel is causing ten times more damage than it needs to to achieve its stated objectives because its stated objectives are false — Israel’s real goal is not to defeat Hamas, it’s to grab a bunch of land from a Palestinian territory.
Of all the pants-on-head idiotic things Israel and its apologists ask us to believe, “The UN just hates Israel for no good reason so all its claims should be dismissed” is definitely among the dumbest.
Israel apologists constantly claiming the UN is antisemitic and treats Israel unfairly remind you of a boy who never does any homework and keeps saying his bad grades are because his teacher hates him. The UN talks about Israel a lot because Israel is a murderous criminal regime.
❖
If you still have any doubt that we live in a profoundly sick dystopia as deranged as anything that’s ever been imagined in fiction, take note of the fact that the most powerful empire in history is currently trying to propagandize you into thinking an obvious genocide is fine.
They lied about decapitated babies so that they could kill babies.
They lied about rape so that they could rape.
They lied about Hamas using civilians as human shields so that they could use civilians as human targets.
They lie about being victims so that they can victimize.
UN expert says she faces threats after Israel-Gaza genocide report
Francesca Albanese had stated there were clear indications Israel has violated three acts in the UN Genocide Convention.
A United Nations expert who published a report saying there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel has committed genocide in its war on Gaza says she has received threats throughout her mandate.
Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, presented a report entitled “Anatomy of a Genocide” to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, which Israel said it “utterly rejects
In the report, Albanese said there are clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention in its war on Gaza.
Asked whether her work on the report had caused her to receive threats, Albanese said: “Yes, I do receive threats. Nothing that so far I considered needing extra precautions. Pressure? Yes, and it doesn’t change either my commitment or the results of my work.”
Albanese, who has held the position since 2022, did not elaborate on the nature of the threats, nor did she say who had issued them.
“It’s been a difficult time,” she said. “I’ve always been attacked since the very beginning of my mandate.”
27:55
Israel has criticised Albanese, saying she was “delegitimising the very creation and existence of the State of Israel”. Albanese denied the accusation.
Albanese said one of her key findings was that Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally “subverted their protection functions in an attempt to legitimise genocidal violence against the Palestinian people”.
“The only reasonable inference that can be drawn from the unveiling of this policy is an Israeli state policy of genocidal violence toward the Palestinian people in Gaza,” she said, adding that it was a “long-standing settler colonial process of erasure”.
She called for the “ongoing Nakba” to stop, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.
Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said the use of the word genocide was “outrageous” and said the war was against Hamas and not Palestinian civilians.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations to report on specific themes and crises.
The views expressed by special rapporteurs do not reflect those of the global body as a whole.
The Empire Slowly Suffocates Assange Like It Slowly Suffocates All Its Enemies
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, MAR 27, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-empire-slowly-suffocates-assange?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=142993532&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The British High Court has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may potentially get a final appeal against extradition to the United States, but only within a very limited scope and only if specific conditions are met.
The court ruled that Assange may appeal only on the grounds that his freedom of speech might be restricted in the US, and that there is a possibility he could receive the death penalty. If the US provides “assurances” that neither of these things will happen, then the trial moves to another phase where Assange’s legal team may debate the merits of those assurances. If the US does not provide those assurances, then the limited appeal will move forward.
Absurdly, the court determined that Assange’s lawyers may not argue against extradition on matters as self-evidently critical as the fact that the CIA plotted to assassinate him, or on the basis that he is being politically persecuted for the crime of inconvenient journalism.
The mass media are calling this a “reprieve”, even “wonderful news”, but as Jonathan Cook explains in his latest article “Assange’s ‘reprieve’ is another lie, hiding the real goal of keeping him endlessly locked up,” that’s all a bunch of crap.
“The word ‘reprieve’ is there — just as the judges’ headline ruling that some of the grounds of his appeal have been ‘granted’ — to conceal the fact that he is prisoner to an endless legal charade every bit as much as he is a prisoner in a Belmarsh cell,” writes Cook. “In fact, today’s ruling is yet further evidence that Assange is being denied due process and his most basic legal rights — as he has been for a decade or more.”
Cook writes the following:
“The case has always been about buying time. To disappear Assange from public view. To vilify him. To smash the revolutionary publishing platform he founded to help whistleblowers expose state crimes. To send a message to other journalists that the US can reach them wherever they live should they try to hold Washington to account for its criminality.
“And worst of all, to provide a final solution for the nuisance Assange had become for the global superpower by trapping him in an endless process of incarceration and trial that, if it is allowed to drag on long enough, will most likely kill him.”
This kind of slow motion strangulation is how the empire operates all the time these days, across all spheres. Helping Israel starve Gaza while slowly pretending to work toward solutions. Drawing out a proxy war in Ukraine for as long as possible to bleed Russia. Slowly killing Assange in prison without trial under the pretense of judicial proceedings.
The US-centralized empire hunts not like a tiger, killing its prey with one fatal bite to the jugular, but more like a python: slowly suffocating the life out of its prey until it perishes. It favors the long, drawn-out, confusing strangulation of inconvenient populations and individuals, carried out under the cover of bureaucracy and propaganda spin. In today’s world it prefers sanctions, blockades and long proxy conflicts over the big Hulk-smash ground invasions we saw it carry out in places like Iraq and Vietnam.
These slow suffocations can take more time, but what they lack in efficiency they make up for in the quality of perception management. It’s bad PR to just openly invade countries and murder people, which is why the leaders of the western empire have been able to wag their fingers at Putin despite their being quantifiably far more murderous than Russia. People start snapping out of the propaganda matrix you spent so much time building for them and begin organizing against the political status quo your power is premised on.
So they opt for slow strangulation strategies where they can confuse the public about what’s happening and who’s responsible, outsourcing the blame to other parties while posing as the good guy who’s trying to bring peace and stability. It takes time, but the empire has time to burn. That’s what happens when you’re the most powerful empire in the history of civilization; you have the luxury of biding your time while orchestrating large-scale, long-term operations to advance your power agendas.
Meanwhile Gaza starves, Ukraine bleeds, and Assange languishes in prison, each needing this to end with more urgency every day.
‘The graveyard of the Earth’: inside City 40, Russia’s deadly nuclear secret
The city’s residents know the truth, however: that their water is contaminated, their mushrooms and berries are poisoned, and their children may be sick. Ozersk and the surrounding region is one of the most contaminated places on the planet, referred to by some as the “graveyard of the Earth”.
City 40’s inhabitants were told they were “the nuclear shield and saviours of the world”
From the late 1940s, people here started to get sick and die: the victims of long-term exposure to radiation.
‘The graveyard of the Earth’: inside City 40, Russia’s deadly nuclear secret, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/20/graveyard-earth-inside-city-40-ozersk-russia-deadly-secret-nuclear Samira Goetschel, Wed 20 Jul 2016 Ozersk, codenamed City 40, was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons programme. Now it is one of the most contaminated places on the planet – so why do so many residents still view it as a fenced-in paradise?
“Those in paradise were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.” (From the dystopian novel We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1924)
Deep in the vast forests of Russia’s Ural mountains lies the forbidden city of Ozersk. Behind guarded gates and barbed wire fences stands a beautiful enigma – a hypnotic place that seems to exist in a different dimension.
Codenamed City 40, Ozersk was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons programme after the second world war. For decades, this city of 100,000 people did not appear on any maps, and its inhabitants’ identities were erased from the Soviet census.
Today, with its beautiful lakes, perfumed flowers and picturesque tree-lined streets, Ozersk resembles a suburban 1950s American town – like one of those too-perfect places depicted in The Twilight Zone.
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