Leaked papers reportedly show that U.S. gathered signals intelligence from Seoul, a close all
South Korean officials said Sunday they will “come up with our response accordingly” after revelations that the U.S. reportedly spied on its close ally and gathered signals intelligence related to South Korea‘s internal debate over weapons sales to the U.S., and Seoul‘s fears that those weapons would ultimately end up in Ukraine.
Officials in Seoul said they’ll raise the alleged spying — which came to light as part of a major leak of sensitive documents over the weekend — with their U.S. counterparts.
For both countries, the timing is delicate. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is scheduled to visit Washington and join President Biden for a state dinner at the White House on April 26.
We will review precedents and instances involving other countries, and come up with our response accordingly,” a South Korean presidential official said Sunday after being asked about the revelations, according to the country’s Yonhap News Agency.
The New York Times first reported the leak Friday.
After a certain point criticizing the hypocrisy and contradictions of the US-centralized empire starts to feel too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel. But hell let’s do it anyway; the barrel’s right here, and I really hate these particular fish.
Russian security services have formally filed espionage charges against Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained in Russia since his arrest last month. Gershkovich reportedly denies the spying allegations and says he was engaged in journalistic activity in Russia.
This news came out at the same time as a joint statement was published by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell condemning Gershkovich’s detention as a violation of press freedoms.
“Let there be no mistake: journalism is not a crime,” the senators write. “We demand the baseless, fabricated charges against Mr. Gershkovich be dropped and he be immediately released and reiterate our condemnation of the Russian government’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish independent journalists and civil society voices.”
The use of the phrase “journalism is not a crime” is an interesting choice since the most common individual case you’ll hear it used in reference to is surely that of Julian Assange, who has been locked in a maximum security prison for four years while the US government works to extradite him for the crime of good journalism. Every pro-Assange demonstration I’ve ever been to has featured signs with some variation of the phrase “journalism is not a crime,” and any Assange supporter will be intimately familiar with that refrain.
So as an Assange supporter it sounds a bit odd to hear that slogan rolled out by two DC swamp monsters who have both enthusiastically supported the persecution of the world’s most famous journalist.
“He has done enormous damage to our country and I think he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And if that becomes a problem, we need to change the law,” McConnell said of Assange after WikiLeaks published thousands of diplomatic cables in 2010.
“Neither WikiLeaks, nor its original source for these materials, should be spared in any way from the fullest prosecution possible under the law,” Schumer said in 2010.
“Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government,” Schumer tweeted when Assange was dragged from the Ecuadorian embassy in London almost exactly four years ago. (Assange has not been charged with anything related to Russia or the 2016 election, and allegations of collusion with Russia remain completely unsubstantiated to this day.)
These are two of the most powerful elected officials in the world, puffing and posing as brave defenders of press freedoms after having actively facilitated their government’s attempts to destroy those very press freedoms. Their government is working to extradite and imprison Assange under the Espionage Act for engaging in what experts say is standard journalistic activity, which will allow them to set a legal precedent in which any journalist anywhere in the world can be extradited and prosecuted for exposing US war crimes like Assange did.
There is no greater threat posed to world press freedoms than the one the US is presenting with its persecution of Julian Assange, a persecution which has been fervently endorsed by Schumer and McConnell and all the other Washington swamp creatures who are melodramatically rending their garments about Evan Gershkovich today.
Which is of course ridiculous. You don’t get to say “journalism is not a crime” while literally working to criminalize journalism. Those positions are mutually exclusive. Pick one.
It’s worthwhile to point out the hypocrisy of US empire managers, not because hypocrisy in and of itself is some uniquely grave evil but because it shows that these people do not stand for what they pretend to stand for. The US empire does not care about press freedoms, it cares about power and domination, and the noises it makes in support of journalism are only ever made as a cynical ploy with which to bludgeon disobedient foreign governments on the world stage.
Assange exposed many inconvenient facts about the US empire in his work with WikiLeaks, but none have been so inconvenient as what he’s exposed by forcing them to come after him and reveal their true face in their brazen persecution of the world’s greatest journalist.
Secret details of US analysis of Ukraine War, China, terrorism and the Middle East.
The documents contain information on Ukrainian losses in the war and an alleged upcoming assault by Ukraine and its allies into Russian controlled eastern Ukraine.
The Western mainstream media called the leaks a “suspected Russian plot.”
The first documents appeared on 4Chan and Discord.
A second batch of classified documents detailing the United States’ analyses of global hotspots has been leaked online in a suspected Russian plot.
More than 100 documents are feared to have been obtained in what a senior intelligence called ‘a nightmare for the Five Eyes,’ – a reference to the intelligence sharing agreement between the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
The documents cover the war in Ukraine, China, terrorism and the Middle East.
The Pentagon confirmed the leak, but said that some of the documents – as with the earlier reported leak – had been doctored to downplay the strength of U.S. allies.
The first tranche of documents appeared to have been posted in early March on the social media platform Discord, according to Aric Toler, an analyst at Bellingcat, the Dutch investigative site.
Friday’s documents were published on the controversial message board 4Chan, and subsequently spread on Twitter.
The state-run media outlet says the “secret plan” does not add up.
Which information is most suspect?
The probable locations of Russian units, indicated on the combat map in red, appear to have been collected from open sources. Several pro-Kiev resources that track military operations contain almost identical information.
Also, the ratios of killed and wounded for the Ukrainian and Russian Armed Forces which initially appeared in these ‘secret plans’ have since been changed. When first posted, the losses for the Ukrainian side were underestimated at about 16,500 –17,000 people. Then (probably to be more realistic), they increased almost fivefold, up to 65,000 – 75,000. At the same time, the numbers given for Russia’s purported losses of vehicles and equipment coincide with data published by Kiev’s Ministry of Defense.
What else is wrong with the published AFU offensive plans?
The blatant falsification of data on the readiness of Ukrainian military formations catches the eye. The document states that, of the nine supposedly to be trained up to US and NATO standards by March 31 and April 30, five of Kiev’s brigades have had zero training: these are the 82nd Airborne, the 32nd, 117th, and 118th Territorial Defense, as well as the 21st separate mechanized.
Even if only two or three companies in these brigades were trained, and self-preparation wasn’t completed, their level of training couldn’t be zero. At the same time, the highest percentage of readiness was recorded only in the 47th mechanized(40%) and the 46th airborne assault (60%).
Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, SMH, April 8, 2023
Washington: A new batch of classified documents that appear to detail US national security secrets from Ukraine to the Middle East to China has surfaced on social media sites, alarming the Pentagon and adding turmoil to a situation that seemed to have caught the Biden administration off guard.
The scale of the leak – analysts say more than 100 documents may have been obtained – along with the sensitivity of the documents themselves, could be hugely damaging, US officials said. A senior intelligence official called the leak “a nightmare for the Five Eyes”, in a reference to the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the so-called Five Eyes nations that broadly share intelligence.
The latest documents were found on Twitter and other sites on Friday (US time), a day after senior Biden administration officials said they were investigating a potential leak of classified Ukrainian war plans, include an alarming assessment of Ukraine’s faltering air defence capabilities. One slide, dated February 23, is labelled “Secret/NoForn”, meaning it was not meant to be shared with foreign countries………………….
One analyst described what has emerged so far as the “tip of the iceberg”.
Earlier, senior national security officials dealing with the initial leak, which was first reported by The New York Times, said a new worry had arisen: Was that information the only intelligence that was leaked?
By Friday afternoon, they had their answer. Even as officials at the Defence Department and national security agencies were investigating the source of documents that had appeared on Twitter and on Telegram, another surfaced on 4chan, an anonymous, fringe message board. The 4chan document is a map that purports to show the status of the war in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the scene of a fierce, months-long battle.
Sole body cited by UK military to defend Ukraine receiving depleted uranium weapons has not published new research on the subject for over 20 years
Italy’s defence ministry has compensated soldiers who developed cancer after exposure to depleted uranium on service in the Balkans
After the invasion of Iraq, the UK military accepted it had a ‘moral obligation’ to help clear depleted uranium debris from the rounds it had fired.
The Ministry of Defence claimed last week that research by the Royal Society – Britain’s premier scientific group – supported its controversial decision to send depleted uranium tank shells to Ukraine.
An MoD official briefed the media: “Independent research by scientists from groups such as the Royal Society has assessed that any impact to personal health and the environment from the use of depleted uranium munitions is likely to be low.”
The Royal Society was cited despite the group rebuking the Pentagon in 2003 for using their exact same research to justify American tanks firing the weapon in Iraq, Declassified UK has found.
When contacted, the scientific body told us: “In 2001/02, the Royal Society published two reports on the health hazards of depleted uranium munitions.” It provided links for the first and second report.
Their spokesperson added that depleted uranium “isn’t an active area of policy research for the Society, [and] we haven’t updated or published on this topic since those reports.”
In 2003, the US military used those Royal Society reports to defend the use of depleted uranium (DU) by coalition forces in Iraq.
That triggered a complaint to the media, with the Guardiansaying the Royal Society was “incensed because the Pentagon had claimed it had the backing of the society in saying DU was not dangerous.
“In fact, the society said, both soldiers and civilians were in short and long term danger. Children playing at contaminated sites were particularly at risk.”
The chairman of the Royal Society’s working group on depleted uranium, Professor Brian Spratt, was quoted as warning that “a small number of soldiers might suffer kidney damage and an increased risk of lung cancer if substantial amounts of depleted uranium are breathed in, for instance inside an armoured vehicle hit by a depleted uranium penetrator.”
“In addition, large numbers of corroding depleted uranium penetrators embedded in the ground might pose a long-term threat if the uranium leaches into water supplies.”
He recommended that fragments from depleted uranium shells should be cleared up and long-term sampling of water supplies needed to be conducted.
Spratt also countered claims about the safety of depleted uranium made by the UK’s then defence secretary Geoff Hoon, stressing: “It is is highly unsatisfactory to deploy a large amount of material that is weakly radioactive and chemically toxic without knowing how much soldiers and civilians have been exposed to it.”
………………………………………….. Shells containing more than 2.3 tonnes of depleted uranium were fired by British forces in operations against Iraq in 1991 and 2003.
US troops fired far larger quantities, especially around the city of Fallujah, where it has been blamed for birth defects and a spike in cancer cases.
Contamination
The ammunition was also used by NATO on operations in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo during the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Italian soldiers who developed cancer after serving on those missions in the Balkans have successfully sued their defence ministry for compensation. Serbians have attempted similar litigation against NATO.
A study conducted in Kosovo by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) shortly after that conflict ended found “only low levels of radioactivity”.
However, they were not able to consider the long term consequences and only inspected 11 out of 112 sites where DU had been fired.
A later UNEP study in Serbia did find more significant corrosion of DU shells and that many of them were lodged deep in the ground.
It is time to formally (and very publicly) demand an end, with public retraction, of the false and misleading use of the term “clean” when referring to nuclear energy on the part of provincial and federal levels of government as well as members of the nuclear industry and their advertising media (many articles we see are actually paid advertisements looking like news reports).
The nuclear energy generation’s constant production and release of Category 1 carcinogens and having perpetually poisonous wastes as byproducts completely disqualifies nuclear energy from being described as “clean”
Page 81:
“Budget 2023 announces that the Canada Infrastructure Bank will invest at least $10 billion through its Clean Power priority area, and at least $10 billion through its Green Infrastructure priority area. This will allow the Canada Infrastructure Bank to invest at least $20 billion to support the building of major clean electricity and clean growth infrastructure projects. These investments will be sourced from existing resources. These investments will position the Canada Infrastructure Bank as the government’s primary financing tool for supporting clean electricity generation, transmission, and storage projects, including for major projects such as the Atlantic Loop.“
We’ve been focused on funds coming from the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) that has an $8 billion envelope and has been the main source of direct funding to SMR companies so far.
However it was the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) that gave a $970 million “low interest loan” to Ontario Power Generation for its SMR last October.
So the CIB now has $20 billion to spend on ‘clean’ projects? OMG.
We know through an Access to Information request that Moltex made its sales pitch to the CIB and most probably others have been lining up at the CIB trough. Normally we would assume the CIB could not lend money to Moltex because it’s a startup with no funds of its own aside from previous public grants. But who knows? Now after the announcement a few hours before the budget that SNC Lavalin is a minority partner in Moltex, maybe they would qualify for a CIB “loan.” Follow the money, follow the money…..
To be continued, obviously…
the alarming news is that these fiscal incentives include “processing or recycling of nuclear fuels” which is currently not permitted in Canada. We are expecting the new radioactive waste management policy to be released in the next few days. If the policy has changed to allow plutonium reprocessing, it will be indicated there.
Here’s the other thing we would have discovered: SNC Lavalin does not need to lobby government at all. It has tentacles that reach deeply into our civil service. What SNC Lavalin wants, SNC Lavalin gets.
SNC-Lavalin got the sweetheart deal of all time when then-prime minister Stephen Harper ‘sold’ Atomic Energy of Canada to SNC-Lavalin. Over the years, AECL had received at least $20-billion in public funds for the bargain basement price of $15-million, writes Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
I am cursed with an excellent memory which makes me hang on to the unanswered questions. It also makes me want more sunlight, more inquiries, and more answers.
I wish we had had that public inquiry into the SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. scandal and I wish the RCMP had not dropped the matter.
My hunch is that we would have discovered two important things.
In December 2018, then-PCO clerk Michael Wernick did not inappropriately pressure former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould at the request of the prime minister. Wernick inappropriately pressured Wilson-Raybould as a favour to his old boss, former clerk of PCO, Kevin Lynch, then chair of the board of SNC Lavalin. I may be quite wrong, but this scenario better fits the facts. Wernick denied he inappropriately pressured Wilson-Raybould and said he told Lynch he would have to talk directly to Wilson-Raybould or to the director of public prosecutions about the matter. SNC Lavalin said Lynch requested a call with Wernick to convey that the company remained open to a deferred prosecution agreement.
But here’s the other thing we would have discovered. SNC-Lavalin does not need to lobby government at all. It has tentacles that reach deeply into our civil service. What SNC-Lavalin wants, SNC-Lavalin gets.
This is a statement that remains true whether the occupant of the Prime Minister’s Office is Liberal or Conservative.
SNC-Lavalin got the sweetheart deal of all time when then-prime minister Stephen Harper “sold” Atomic Energy of Canada to SNC-Lavalin. Over the years, AECL had received at least $20-billion in public funds for the bargain basement price of $15-million.
SNC-Lavalin is the driving force behind the new mania for so-called “small modular reactors”—SMRs.
The two SMRs slated for New Brunswick—ARC and Moltex—keep their promotional materials free of SNC-Lavalin references. You have to dig.
Here, for example, is the lead from this industry press release: “Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology organization, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with ARC Clean Energy Canada (ARC Canada), a New Brunswick-based team working to develop and licence its sodium-cooled advanced small modular reactor (SMR) technology.”
Looking for details in the release, you get this: Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is a world leader in nuclear science and technology offering unique capabilities and solutions across a wide range of industries. Actively involved with industry-driven research and development in nuclear, transportation, clean technology, energy, defence, security and life sciences, we provide solutions to keep these sectors competitive internationally.
It’s the same thing with the Moltex announcement. You have to go to SNC-Lavalin’s website to find its central role in CNL and CNEA: “Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is a world leader in nuclear science and technology. … We (SNC-Lavalin) are a majority partner in a consortium which manages and operates CNL, which is currently managing its ageing infrastructure and renewing its laboratories. This investment will ensure the organization stays at the top of its field while strengthening Canada’s status in the international scientific community.”
Looking at other SMR announcements, such as the Bruce Power BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at Darlington, Ont., SNC Lavalin is again a key player with partners Ontario Power Generation (OPG), GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), and Aecon.
Thanks to The Hill Times for publishing Ole Hendrickson’s critical research in December 2020. That article established the links between SNC-Lavalin, its commercial partners, and the nuclear weapons industry.
“In 2015, the Harper government contracted a multinational consortium called Canadian National Energy Alliance—now comprised of two U.S. companies, Fluor and Jacobs, along with Canada’s SNC-Lavalin—to operate AECL’s nuclear sites, the main one being at Chalk River. Fluor operates the Savannah River Site, a South Carolina nuclear-weapons facility, under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy. Jacobs also has contracts at DOE weapons facilities and is part of a consortium that operates the U.K. Atomic Weapons Establishment.”
It is never too late to peel back the layers and ask some hard questions. As federal and provincial governments shovel more millions into unproven technology and false claims of SMRs as a climate solution, shouldn’t we demand transparency on where the new bodies are being buried? And should we not inquire into the deeply buried responsibility of a single corporation for its continual engagement in manipulating federal and provincial policies away from renewable energy resources towards that corporation’s publicly developed, but now privately owned, nuclear technologies?
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May represents Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.
The Ukrainian state may be discriminating against the nation’s largest religious denomination, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the UN’s human rights watchdog said in a report published on Friday. The government of President Vladimir Zelensky is currently in the process of kicking UOC monks out of their homes.
The apparent mistreatment of the church, which has historic links to the Russian Orthodox Church, was highlighted in a report released by the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). It cited several draft laws submitted to the Ukrainian parliament as well as the actions of the SBU, Ukraine’s domestic security agency, against the clergy.
The UN body is “concerned that the State’s activities targeting the UOC could be discriminatory,” it said. The report cited “vague legal terminology and the absence of sufficient justification” in proposed legislation, explaining why it drew the OHCHR’s negative attention.
The report covered the period between August 2022 and January 2023, but more recent acts by the government have deepened the saga of the UOC. Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Culture Ministry ordered monks belonging to the jurisdiction to vacate their homes at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, an iconic monastery in the Ukrainian capital.
Zelensky described the move as strengthening Ukraine’s “spiritual independence” and implied that the UOC was a tool that Russia used “to manipulate the spirituality of our people, to destroy our holy sites [and] to steal valuables from them.”
The president ignored pleas by UOC clergy to meet them and try to diffuse the situation.
Kiev previously expelled the UOC from two of the cathedrals above the monastery. Within days of that decision, the government-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was allowed to hold services on the premises.
The OCU was created with the support of then-president Poroshenko in what many political observers perceived as an attempt to bolster his re-election chances. Culture Minister Aleksandr Tkachenko said the expelled monks, who have until this Wednesday to move out, could stay in their homes by leaving the UOC and joining the OCU.
Inside the ‘clandestine world’ of SNC-Lavalin’s fallen star Riadh Ben Aissa, Financial Post, Brian Hutchinson, Financial Post Staff | March 18, 2015 “……..This is one of the details revealed in a 98-page document prepared by Swiss prosecutors (called an acte d’accusation en procédure simplifiée, it is comparable to a North American plea bargain agreement) and obtained by the Financial Post. It brings to light previously unknown details of how Mr. Ben Aissa, a 56-year-old citizen of both Tunisia and Canada, and now facing charges in Canada on a different matter, directed 12.5 million euros and US$21.9 million into Swiss bank accounts controlled by Saadi Gaddafi, from 2001 to 2007.
These were kickbacks, paid to Saadi by Mr. Ben Aissa in return for certain Libyan contracts awarded to SNC. According to Swiss authorities, tens of millions more dollars moved through Mr. Ben Aissa’s own Swiss accounts, from September 2001 to March 2011. The money came from SNC……..
the Swiss proceedings raise new questions about SNC, its vulnerability, and its future, which even its current CEO, Robert Card, has publicly worried may be at risk of either breaking up, ceasing to exist or being taken over. Since it found itself embroiled in scandal, the company has seemed in perpetual crisis, with more drama this week in its boardroom, with the sudden resignation of its chairman, and in a Montreal courtroom, where Mr. Ben Aissa and another former SNC executive began a preliminary hearing over allegations of bribery in a Canadian hospital deal.
While some might question how SNC did not know about Mr. Ben Aissa’s conduct in Libya, some insiders still seem inclined to blame him alone for setting into motion the company’s stunning fall from grace.
“Good luck sorting out Riadh Ben Assia’s clandestine world,” former SNC chairman Gwyn Morgan wrote in a brief response to questions put to him by email about certain activities that allegedly took place during his leadership……..
SWwiss authorities identified five specific areas of corruption where SNC cash was used to obtain contracts in Libya. ……
Last month, the RCMP laid criminal charges against SNC Lavalin itself, in connection to allegedly corrupt activities in Libya. The charges came as a blow; sources claim the company’s management and its lawyers had negotiated with Canadian authorities for two years, in an attempt to avoid prosecution. A criminal conviction for corruption could result in the company being prohibited — “debarred” — from bidding on public works projects in Canada…….
On Monday, SNC announced the resignation of Ian Bourne, its board chairman, effective immediately. He’d been in the position just two years, having replaced Mr. Morgan in 2013. SNC did not give specific reasons why Mr. Bourne decided to leave.
The same morning, two former SNC executives walked into a Montreal courtroom for the start of a preliminary hearing on other corruption-related matters. One was Pierre Duhaime, SNC’s former CEO and president. The second was Mr. Ben Aissa, back in Canada after his Swiss incarceration and extradition. Both are charged with fraud, related to alleged construction bid-rigging in Montreal, in what one police investigator has called the “biggest corruption fraud in Canadian history.”
Mr. Duhaime, Mr. Ben Aissa, former SNC controller Stéphane Roy and five other men, among them Canada’s former spy watchdog, Arthur Porter, allegedly participated a corrupt scheme that saw an international consortium led by SNC win a $1.34-billion hospital construction and maintenance contract for the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), in 2010. Dr. Porter has publicly refuted the allegations and none have been proven in court. Mr. Duhaime has pleaded not guilty. Mr. Ben Aissa is also in court fighting the allegations………. http://business.financialpost.com/legal-post/inside-the-clandestine-world-of-snc-lavalins-fallen-star-riadh-ben-aissa
A closer look at SNC-Lavalin’s sometimes murky past CBC, 12 Feb 19 One of Canada’s biggest engineering companies is at the centre of what appears to be a growing scandal engulfing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government.
The Globe and Mail reported Thursday that SNC-Lavalin lobbied the government to agree to a deferred prosecution agreement or remediation agreement. The company faces charges of fraud and corruption in connection with nearly $48 million in payments made to Libyan government officials between 2001 and 2011.
Trudeau denies he directed his former justice minister and attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to intervene in the prosecution. Wilson-Raybould was shuffled out of her position last month and has refused to comment on the story. Days after the story broke, the federal ethics commissioner confirmed he will investigate claims the prime minister’s office pressured Wilson-Raybould to help SNC-Lavalin avoid prosecution.
SNC-Lavalin has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The case is at the preliminary hearing stage. If convicted, the company could be banned from bidding on any federal government contracts for 10 years.
But the Libya case is just one scandal among many linked to SNC-Lavalin in the past decade.
Allegations of criminal activity are what led to the resignations in February 2012 of top executives Riadh Ben Aïssa and Stéphane Roy. CEO Pierre Duhaime followed them out the door the following month.
MUHC contract scandal…….
Corruption scandal in Bangladesh …….
Libya scandal……
Elections Financing
In late November 2018, former SNC-Lavalin vice-president Normand Morin quietly pleaded guilty to charges of violating Canada’s election financing laws.
According to the compliance agreement reached with the company in 2016, Morin orchestrated a scheme between 2004 and 2011 that used employees to get around the restrictions on companies donating directly to federal political parties. Morin would get employees to donate to political parties, riding associations or Liberal leadership candidates. The company would then reimburse them for their donations through false refunds for personal expenses or fictitious bonuses.
In total, $117,803 flowed from SNC-Lavalin to federal party funds during that period. The Liberal Party of Canada got the lion’s share — $83,534 to the party and $13,552 to various riding associations. Another $12,529 went to contestants in the 2006 Liberal Party leadership race won by Stephane Dion. The Conservative Party of Canada received $3,137 while Conservative riding associations got $5,050.
The United Nations has expressed deep concern over what it says were summary executions of prisoners of war (POWs) by both Russian and Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.
The head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, said at a press conference in Kyiv on March 24 that her organization had recently recorded killings by both sides.
“We are deeply concerned about…summary execution of up to 25 Russian prisoners of war and persons [out of action because of injury] by the Ukrainian armed forces, which we have documented,” Bogner said.
This was often perpetrated immediately upon capture on the battlefield,” she said.
“While we are aware of ongoing investigations by Ukraine authorities into five cases involving 22 victims, we are not aware of any prosecution of the perpetrators,” she added.
Almost half of the 229 Russian prisoners of war interviewed by members of the mission claimed torture or ill-treatment, according to Bogner.
Bogner also expressed deep concern over the alleged executions of 15 Ukrainian prisoners by Russian armed forces after their capture. She said the Wagner mercenary group was responsible for 11 of those killings.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reacted to the report by thanking the UN mission for documenting violations of international law by Russia in the course of its aggression against Ukraine.
Scottish Baroness Annabel Goldie, a conservative deputy minister of defense in the government of the United Kingdom, has confirmed that the U.K. will be sending depleted uranium shells to the Ukrainian military for use against Russian forces.
In response to a parliamentary crossbench question from Lord Hylton on March 20, Goldie stated:
“Alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armor-piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium. Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armored vehicles.”
Depleted uranium is highly toxic to humans, leading to cancers, birth defects and other horrific outcomes. According to the journal Scientific American:
“Used as ammunition, it penetrates the thick steel encasing enemy tanks; used as armor, it protects troops against attack. And when it was used in the Gulf War and later during the Allied bombing of Yugoslavia and Kosovo, depleted uranium (DU) was hailed as the new silver bullet that would solve most of the military’s problems. After the end of Operation Allied Force, however, several Italian soldiers were diagnosed with leukemia. Politicians and the media soon forged a link between the disease and depleted uranium use. They further drew a parallel with Gulf War Syndrome, and in no time, depleted uranium became the Agent Orange of the Balkan conflict.”
This decision to send depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine did not go unnoticed by the Russians……………………
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova chimed in with the following statement:
“We consider the plans officially confirmed by the UK Department of Defense for the transfer of depleted uranium shells to Ukraine as a step fraught with a further escalation of the conflict. The British supply of weapons to Kiev, especially such sensitive species, leads to further destabilization of the situation and pushes the prospect of finding mutually acceptable interruptions. They are contrary to international law. The radioactivity, high toxicity and carcinogenicity of such weapons are well known. Among the consequences of using depleted uranium – the growth of oncological diseases among the population and the enormous environmental damage for the Ukrainian territory where it will be applied.
“The civilians of Serbia and Iraq, who still feel the impact of such actions, can tell about all of this. It is unlikely that the leadership of the UK itself, which was directly involved in these conflicts, forgot about it.”
Biden administration spokesman John Kirby dismissed the Russian concerns about depleted uranium as “a straw man” and, like the U.S. government has always done, he denied there are any negative health effects of depleted uranium. To do otherwise would be to admit that the U.S. poisoned thousands of its own troops in Iraq, as well as the Iraqi people.
Britain is giving Ukraine ammo with depleted uranium
Foreign Secretary says munitions are conventional
Belarus warns of ‘fearful’ response, citing ‘real’ uranium
LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) – Britain’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on Wednesday there was no nuclear escalation in the Ukraine war after Russian President Vladimir Putin criticised Britain for supplying depleted uranium tank munitions to Ukrainian forces.
Additional reporting by Gareth Jones, Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber and Caleb Davis, writing by Sarah Young and Alistair Smout, editing by William James, William Maclean
But Putin on Tuesday condemned British plans to send such ammunition to Ukraine, saying Moscow would be forced to respond accordingly as such weapons had “a nuclear component”.
Cleverly said that Russia was the only country talking about mounting nuclear risks and the ammunition was conventional.
“There is no nuclear escalation. The only country in the world that is talking about nuclear issues is Russia. There is no threat to Russia, this is purely about helping Ukraine defend itself,” Cleverly said at the launch of Britain’s international technology strategy.
“It’s worth making sure everyone understands that just because the word uranium is in the title of depleted uranium munitions, they are not nuclear munitions, they are purely conventional munitions.”
Britain has used depleted uranium in its armour piercing shells for decades and does not consider those rounds as having a nuclear capability. Russia is known to also have ammunition containing depleted uranium.
It is a particular health risk around impact sites, where dust can get into people’s lungs and vital organs.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Britain was “taking this escalation to a new and very serious stage,” while Russia’s mission in Geneva accused London of prolonging the conflict and leaving “no chance for a political and diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.”
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Putin ally, also waded into the row on Wednesday, saying Russia would retaliate against the British decision by providing Belarus with ammunition containing “real uranium”.
“We need to step back from this madness. As soon as this ammunition explodes on Russian troops’ positions, you will see a fearful response, it will be a lesson for the whole planet,” he told reporters in a video clip.
“Russia does not only have depleted uranium… We have to lower this trend towards escalation in the conflict and move towards a peaceful settlement.”
It is quite unlikely that the WHO, as a professional organisation, has ever tried to block or downplay research. However, it is clear that the imbalances that exist in its funding, particularly for those public health projects that go beyond its regular country budgets, are open to state influence. In a system in which the financing is so disparate among member states, it is obvious that those who influence the purse influence the spend.
Iraq: Politics and Science in Post-Conflict Health Research HUFFINGTON POST,30 Dec 13 Neel Mani Director of the World Health Organisation’s Iraq programme between 2001-2003 15/10/2013 During my time as the director of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) programme in Iraq between 2001 and 2003, the WHO, together with other agencies, were aware of the reports of abnormal rates of health problems, such as cancers and birth defects, in southern Iraq. In the 1991 Gulf War, the fighting had been concentrated in the south and it was notable that reports of illnesses were far more prevalent in this region. A decade on, and a long overdue study by the Iraqi Ministry of Health into the prevalence of congenital birth defects has been undertaken in collaboration with the WHO; however its interim results have puzzled observers.
The institutional capacity that has finally allowed the study to take place should have been developed with funds from the Oil For Food Programme (OFP) in 2001. OFP money was required as the cost of the proposed work far exceeded the WHO’s regular budget for Iraq at the time. Unfortunately, all projects funded through the OFP were subject to a complex process that required the final approval of the United Nations Security Council. Frustratingly, any project that proposed to investigate abnormal rates of birth defects in southern Iraq and their relation, if any, to environmental contamination, never got through the Security Council’s approval process.
Before the 2003 invasion, the cynicism demonstrated by certain member states of the Security Council towards the post-conflict health conditions in southern Iraq was appalling. Following regime change, the attitude of the Coalition Provisional Authority just added arrogance to the cynicism. The funds from the OFP belonged to the Iraqi people, yet the Security Council responded with little alacrity to any attempt to release Iraqi money to finance research into the legacy of conflict on cancer rates in the south. ……..
The interim report by the Iraqi Ministry of Health, which was published without fanfare on the WHO website on September 11th, had been widely expected to confirm that rates of congenital birth defects in Iraq were not only high but higher in areas subject to heavy fighting in 1991 and 2003. Instead it reported the opposite – that rates in cities such as Fallujah and Basrah are around half that typical of high income countries.
Puzzlingly, the interim findings in the study run counter to the consistent reports of medical professionals across Iraq. They also stand in stark contrast to the views expressed by Ministry of Health officials interviewed by the BBC earlier this year. In their opinion, there was a clear link between areas subject to heavy fighting and an increased incidence of birth defects. If confirmed, such findings could have significant political ramifications for not only Iraq but for post-conflict civilian health in general. As a result, the study has received considerable attention, with more than 53,000 people signing a Change.org petition calling for release of the study data and for its independent peer-review.
A number of experts have now come forward to question the study’s methodology and the robustness of the peer-review process, most recently in the respected medical journal The Lancet. Critics have questioned the decision to undertake a household survey, instead of collating hospital records and challenged the anonymous authors on the lack of information concerning the selection criteria for areas included in the survey……..
I believe that the only way to resolve such concerns and ensure the best outcome for the Iraqi people is for the Ministry of Health and WHO to be more transparent than they have been thus far. Lessons must be learned from the history of public health research in Iraq.
The politicisation of Iraq’s public health research under the OFP should serve as a reminder that the WHO is nothing more than a reflection of the collective will of its member states. This collective will is often greatly influenced by those nations that exercise global power and, while the structure of the WHO does not necessarily reflect this influence, the decisions it implements certainly do.
It is quite unlikely that the WHO, as a professional organisation, has ever tried to block or downplay research. However, it is clear that the imbalances that exist in its funding, particularly for those public health projects that go beyond its regular country budgets, are open to state influence. In a system in which the financing is so disparate among member states, it is obvious that those who influence the purse influence the spend.
The agency continues to play a crucial role globally, thus it is important for the WHO to be transparent in all cases, as it was constitutionally created to be. The need for transparency is particularly acute in post-conflict public health research and the WHO has an important role to play in ensuring that its research partners pursue open, robust, science…… http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/neel-mani/iraq-politics-and-science_b_4098231.html?just_reloaded=1
Several containers of natural uranium reported missing by the UN’s nuclear watchdog in war-torn Libya are found, according to a general with one of the country’s two rival governments.
Key points:
The IAEA reported the 10 drums of uranium ore concentrate missing in Libya on Wednesday
It says reaching the site — that is not under government control — required “complex logistics”
Estimates put Libyan stockpiles of yellowcake uranium at some 1,000 metric tonnes under the regime of the late dictator, Moamar Gaddafi
General Khaled al-Mahjoub — commander of eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar’s communications division — said on his Facebook page that the containers of uranium had been recovered “barely 5 kilometres” from where they had been stored at Sabha, some 660km south-east of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, in the country’s lawless southern reaches of the Sahara Desert…………………………………………………………… more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-16/un-nuclear-watchdog-says-tonnes-of-uranium-missing-in-libya/102108314
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