[SMRs] Twin Trails of Treachery Expose – by Paul McKay

The 80th anniversary of the harrowing Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in 1945 was earlier this month. As you know, since then the spread of nuclear weapons has largely occurred under the guise of ‘peaceful use’ reactors and uranium, for which Canada has been deeply complicit.

Despite this, Canada is now helping to underwrite the development of a new wave of reactors intended for domestic use and export. All will produce plutonium, embed proliferation risks (such as India’s use of a Candu to build its first bomb in 1974), and magnify the dangers of a global ‘plutonium economy’ which advocates are shamelessly promoting as a solution to the climate crisis.

Below is a link to a historical essay which will be a new chapter of “Atomic Accomplice”. I hope it will serve as a warning against such reckless pending public policy. It documents the secret, virtually unreported atomic weapons linkages between Canada and Israel during several decades – in which both countries mutually courted catastrophe while pursuing global reactor sales or atomic weaponry.

This essay contains much alarming (but accurate) material. The pending risks of vastly increased plutonium use warrant circulating. The 80th anniversary of the harrowing Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in 1945 was earlier this month. As you know, since then the spread of nuclear weapons has largely occurred under the guise of ‘peaceful use’ reactors and uranium, for which Canada has been deeply complicit.

Attached is a historical essay which will be a new chapter of “Atomic Accomplice”. I hope it will serve as a warning against such reckless pending public policy. It documents the secret, virtually unreported atomic weapons linkages between Canada and Israel during several decades – in which both countries mutually courted catastrophe while pursuing global reactor sales or atomic weaponry.

Please circulate this PDF, if you see fit, as widely as possible to your and other allied organizations. It contains much alarming (but accurate) material. The pending risks of vastly increased plutonium use warrant circulating. https://www.cleanairalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/TWIN-TRAILS-OF-TREACHERY-FINAL-AUGUST-2025.pdf

August 22, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Declassified: CIA’s Covert Ukraine Invasion Plan

While we are now witnessing in real-time the brutal unravelling of Donnelly’s monstrous plot, Anglo-American designs of using Ukraine as a beachhead for all-out war with Moscow date back far further.

Washington’s quest to ignite local insurrection, and in turn the USSR’s ultimate collapse.

“Inhabitants of Donbass strongly resisted Ukrainian nationalists and at one point created a separate republic, independent of the rest of Ukraine. In the following years, they defended Soviet rule and Russian interests, often attacking the Ukrainian nationalists with more zeal than the Russian leaders themselves. During the German occupation in the Second World War, there was not a single recorded case of support for the Ukrainian nationalists or Germans.”

Global Delinquents, Kit Klarenberg, Aug 17, 2025, https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/declassified-cias-covert-ukraine

On August 7th, US polling giant Gallup published the remarkable results of a survey of Ukrainians. Public support for Kiev “fighting until victory” has plummeted to a record low “across all segments” of the population, “regardless of region or demographic group.” In a “nearly complete reversal from public opinion in 2022,” 69% of citizens “favor a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible.” Just 24% wish to keep fighting. However, vanishingly few believe the proxy war will end anytime soon.

The reasons for Ukrainian pessimism on this point are unstated, but an obvious explanation is the intransigence of President Volodymyr Zelensky, encouraged by his overseas backers – Britain in particular. London’s reverie of breaking up Russia into readily-exploitable chunks dates back centuries, and became turbocharged in the wake of the February 2014 Maidan coup. In July that year, a precise blueprint for the current proxy conflict was published by the Institute for Statecraft, a NATO/MI6 cutout founded by veteran British military intelligence apparatchik Chris Donnelly.

In response to the Donbass civil war, Statecraft advocated targeting Moscow with a variety of “anti-subversive measures”. This included “economic boycott, breach of diplomatic relations,” as well as “propaganda and counter-propaganda, pressure on neutrals.” The objective was to produce “armed conflict of the old-fashioned sort” with Russia, which “Britain and the West could win.” While we are now witnessing in real-time the brutal unravelling of Donnelly’s monstrous plot, Anglo-American designs of using Ukraine as a beachhead for all-out war with Moscow date back far further.

In August 1957, the CIA secretly drew up elaborate plans for an invasion of Ukraine by US special forces. It was hoped neighbourhood anti-Communist agitators would be mobilized as footsoldiers to assist in the effort. A detailed 200-page report, Resistance Factors and Special Forces Areas, set out demographic, economic, geographical, historical and political factors throughout the then-Soviet Socialist Republic that could facilitate, or impede, Washington’s quest to ignite local insurrection, and in turn the USSR’s ultimate collapse.

The mission was forecast to be a delicate and difficult balancing act, as much of Ukraine’s population held “few grievances” against Russians or Communist rule, which could be exploited to foment an armed uprising. Just as problematically, “the long history of union between Russia and Ukraine, which stretches in an almost unbroken line from 1654 to the present day,” resulted in “many Ukrainians” having “adopted the Russian way of life”. Problematically, there was thus a pronounced lack of “resistance to Soviet rule” among the population.

The “great influence” of Russian culture over Ukrainians, “many influential positions” in local government being held “by Russians or Ukrainians sympathetic to [Communist] rule, and “relative similarity” of their “languages, customs, and backgrounds”, meant there were “fewer points of conflict between the Ukrainians and Russians” than in Warsaw Pact nations. Throughout those satellite states, the CIA had to varying success already recruited clandestine networks of “freedom fighters” as anti-Communist Fifth Columnists. Yet, the Agency remained keen to identify potential “resistance” actors in Ukraine:

“Some Ukrainians are apparently only slightly aware of the differences which set them apart from Russians and feel little national antagonism. Nevertheless, important grievances exist, and among other Ukrainians there is opposition to Soviet authority which often has assumed a nationalist form. Under favorable conditions, these people might be expected to assist American Special Forces in fighting against the regime.”

‘Nationalist Activity’

A CIA map split Ukraine into 12 separate zones, ranked on “resistance” potential, and how “favorable population attitudes [are] toward the Soviet regime.” South and eastern regions, particularly Crimea and Donbass, rated poorly. Their populations were judged “strongly loyal” to Moscow, having never “displayed nationalist feelings or indicated any hostility to the regime,” while viewing themselves as “a Russian island in the Ukrainian sea.” In fact, as the study recorded, during and after World War I, when Germany created a fascist puppet state in Ukraine:

“Inhabitants of Donbass strongly resisted Ukrainian nationalists and at one point created a separate republic, independent of the rest of Ukraine. In the following years, they defended Soviet rule and Russian interests, often attacking the Ukrainian nationalists with more zeal than the Russian leaders themselves. During the German occupation in the Second World War, there was not a single recorded case of support for the Ukrainian nationalists or Germans.”

Still, invading and occupying Crimea was considered of paramount importance. On top of its strategic significance, the peninsula’s landscape was forecast as ideal for guerrilla warfare. The terrain offered “excellent opportunities for concealment and evasion,” the CIA report noted. While “troops operating in these sectors must be specially trained and equipped,” it was forecast the local Tatar population, “which fought so fiercely” against the Soviets in World War II, “would probably be willing to help” invading US forces.

Areas of western Ukraine, including former regions of Poland such as Lviv, Rivne, Transcarpathia and Volyn, which were heavily under control of “Ukrainian insurgents” – adherents of MI6-supported Stepan Bandera – during World War II, were judged most fruitful “resistance” launchpads. There, “nationalist activity was extensive” during World War II, with armed militias opposing “pro-Soviet partisans with some success.” Conveniently too, mass extermination of Jews, Poles and Russians by Banderites in these regions meant there was virtually no non-ethnic Ukrainian population left.

Furthermore, in the post-war period, “resistance to Soviet rule” had been “expressed on a great scale” in western Ukraine. Despite “extensive deportations”, “many nationalists” resided in Lviv et al, and “nationalist cells” created by Bandera’s “task forces” were dotted around the Republic. For example, anti-Communist “partisan bands” had taken up residence in the Carpathian Mountains. The review concluded, “it is in this region [US] Special Forces could expect considerable support from the local Ukrainian population, including active participation in measures directed against the Soviet regime.”

It was also determined that “Ukrainian nationalist, anti-Soviet sentiment” in Kiev was “apparently moderately strong,” and elements of the population “might be expected to provide active assistance to Special Forces.” The capital’s “large Ukrainian population” was reportedly “little affected by Russian influence,” and during the Russian Revolution “provided greater support than any other region for Ukrainian, nationalist, anti-Soviet forces.” Resultantly, “uncertainty about the attitudes of the local population” prompted Moscow to designate Kharkov the Ukrainian SSR’s capital, which it remained until 1934.

The CIA document further offered highly detailed assessments of Ukrainian territory, based on their utility for warfare. For example, “generally forbidding” Polesia – near Belarus – was noted to be “almost impossible” to traverse during spring. Conversely, winter provided “most favorable to movement, depending on the depth to which the ground freezes.” Overall, the area had “proved its worth as an excellent refuge and evasion area by supporting large-scale guerilla activities in the past.” Meanwhile, “swampy valleys of the Dnieper and Desna rivers” were of particular interest:

“The area is densely forested in its north-western part, where there are excellent opportunities for concealment and manoeuvre…There are extensive swamps, interspersed with patches of forest, which also provide good hiding places for the Special Forces. Conditions in the Volyno-Podolskaya Highlands are less suitable, although small groups may find temporary shelter in the sparse forests.”

‘Strongly Anti-Nationalist’

The CIA’s invasion plan never formally came to pass. Yet, areas of Ukraine forecast by the Agency to be most welcoming of US special forces were precisely where support for the Maidan coup was highest. Moreover, in a largely unknown chapter of the Maidan saga, fascist Right Sector militants were bussed en masse to Crimea prior to Moscow’s seizure of the peninsula. Had they succeeded in overrunning the territory, Right Sector would’ve fulfilled the CIA’s objective, as outlined in Resistance Factors and Special Forces Areas.

Given what transpired elsewhere in Ukraine following February 2014, other sections of the CIA report take on a distinctly eerie character. For instance, despite its strategic position facing the Black Sea, the Agency warned against attempting to foment anti-Soviet rebellion in Odessa. The agency noted the city is “the most cosmopolitan area in Ukraine, with a heterogeneous population including significant numbers of Greeks, Moldovans and Bulgarians, as well as Russians and Jews.” As such:

“Odessa…has developed a less nationalistic character. Historically, it has been considered more Russian than Ukrainian territory. There was little evidence of nationalist or anti-Russian sentiment here during the Second World War, and the city…was in fact controlled by a strongly anti-nationalist local administration [during the conflict].”

Odessa became a key battleground between pro- and anti-Maidan elements, from the moment the protests erupted in November 2013. By March the next year, Russophone Ukrainians had occupied the city’s historic Kulykove Pole Square, and were calling for a referendum on the establishment of an “Odessa Autonomous Republic”. Tensions came to a head on May 2nd, when fascist football ultras – who subsequently formed Azov Battalion – stormed Odessa and forced dozens of anti-Maidan activists into Trade Unions House, before setting it ablaze.

In all, 42 people were killed and hundreds injured, while Odessa’s anti-Maidan movement was comprehensively neutralised. In March this year, the European Court of Human Rights issued a damning ruling against Kiev over the massacre. It concluded local police and fire services “deliberately” failed to respond appropriately to the inferno, and authorities insulated culpable officials and perpetrators from prosecution despite possessing incontrovertible evidence. Lethal “negligence” by officials on the day, and ever after, was found to go far “beyond an error of judgment or carelessness.”

The ECHR was apparently unwilling to consider the incineration of anti-Maidan activists was an intentional and premeditated act of mass murder, conceived and directed by Kiev’s US-installed fascist government. However, the findings of a Ukrainian parliamentary commission point ineluctably towards this conclusion. Whether, in turn, the Odessa massacre was intended to trigger Russian intervention in Ukraine, thus precipitating “armed conflict of the old-fashioned sort” with Moscow that “Britain and the West could win” is a matter of speculation – although the Institute for Statecraft was present in the country at the time.

August 19, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Ministry of Defence urged to publish full details of Faslane incident.

The Ministry of Defence is being urged to publish full details of
a nuclear incident which took place at Faslane earlier this year. As
revealed by The Herald, the most serious grade of Nuclear Site Event Report
(NSER), Category A, took place at HMNB Clyde between January 1 and April
22.

The facility on Gare Loch is home to all of the Royal Navy’s
submarines, including the Vanguard class which are armed with Trident
missiles and the nuclear-powered Astute class hunter-killer vessels.

A Category A NSER carries an “actual or high potential for radioactive
release to the environment”. Approached for comment, the Ministry of
Defence said there had been “no unsafe releases of radioactive material” in
the Category A incident at Faslane but that it could not disclose details
of individual incidents for reasons of national security.

The MoD had previously admitted that radioactive material had been released into Loch
Long from RNAD Coulport after the Royal Navy failed to adequately maintain
the network of 1,500 water pipes on the base. Now SNP MSP Bill Kidd is
calling for the Ministry of Defence to publish full details of the Category
A incident, provide a complete contamination report for Loch Long, and set
out a clear plan for clean-up and prevention.

Herald 18th Aug 2025,
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25394175.mod-urged-publish-full-details-faslane-incident/

August 18, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

A Shield of Lies: Netanyahu’s Battle Against the World

13 August 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/a-shield-of-lies-netanyahus-battle-against-the-world/

It was a sign of someone desperate that his message has failed to take wing and make its way to better lands. With the strategy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Gaza Strip sundered and falling over, leaving only a thick butcher’s bill (over 60,000 deaths for starters), extraordinary suffering and humanitarian catastrophe, he thought it wise to confront foreign press outlets on a late Sunday in the hope that the tide might turn away from his exemplary viciousness. There had been, he moaned like a wounded starlet, a “global campaign of lies” about Israel’s war in Gaza. In doing so, he merely inflated the arguments against him with boisterous credit and almost irrefutable plausibility.

The conference, which gave “an opportunity to puncture the lies and tell the truth,” involved the following points: Hamas still has thousands of fighters in Gaza; it vowed to repeat what it had done on October 7, 2023; it continued to expound the goal of wishing to destroy Israel even as it subjugated Gazans, stole their precious food, and shot those seeking to move to safe zones, the latter term being itself a monstrosity in the context of this conflict. Paternally, Netanyahu as the punishing father figure, thought he had deciphered the true desire of those in Gaza, which presumably would not have entailed the killing of Palestinians by the tens of thousands and starving the rest. Everything could be blamed on a militant organisation he had done so much to praise as a countering force against Fatah in the West Bank. As things stood now, Gazans seemed to be suffering from a highly developed sense of Stockholm’s syndrome, “begging us, and they’re begging the world: ‘Free us, Free us, and free Gaza from Hamas’.”

With a solid body of mendacity to work with, Netanyahu proceeded to build an edifice of fantasy few others outside Israel could contend with: that the same Israeli forces who starve, kill and maim the civilian populace of the Strip have no wish to impose an occupation but “free it from Hamas terrorists. The war can end tomorrow if Gaza, or rather if Hamas lays down its arms and releases all the remaining hostages.” Israeli policy was not one of starving the Palestinians into famine wrecks, skeletal ruin and physiological malfunction. That hideous criminal pursuit fell to Hamas, apparently responsible for the violent looting of aid trucks and the deliberate creation of “a shortage of supply.” Fantastically, Netanyahu blamed the United Nations for refusing “to distribute the thousands of trucks that we let into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing,” a delightful complaint given his government’s overt hatred for a body he always wished to be rid of from the occupied territories. The synapses in Netanyahu-Land seemed frailer than ever, if not altogether snapped.

He then belted out the now familiar five-point vision of the Strip once Hamas is defeated. This elusive “day after” includes the following objectives: the disarming of Hamas, the freeing of all hostages, the demilitarising of the Gaza Strip, granting Israel “overriding security control”, the creation of a non-Israeli administration that will not “educate its children for terror, doesn’t pay terrorists and doesn’t launch terrorist attacks against Israel.” Unlike other proposals advanced by France, the UK and Canada, the Palestinian Authority is also excluded from the arrangements, since no Palestinian politician is worth the Israeli PM’s time. Netanyahu’s idea of a politically viable Palestinian is one manacled to the security regime of other powers.

The stage for the next slaughter is set, namely, the dismantling of “the two remaining Hamas strongholds in Gaza City and the Central Camps. Contrary to false claims, this is the best way to end the war, and the best way to end it speedily.” Netanyahu feigns a humanitarian streak in stating that the civilian population will be allowed to “leave the combat areas to designated safe zones.” The process of ethnic cleansing, or simply cleansing of the population, is to simply continue.

Oblivious to Netanyahu’s fortified wall of prejudice is that much of the groundwork for precisely those outcomes he hopes to avoid have already been laid. Whether it be Hamas or any other militant organisation, the notion of pacifist subordinate figures content with their status in any territory where Israel has the last word on everything is absurdly unrealistic.

Doing everything to make his case even less convincing, Netanyahu then told Israeli journalists after seeing the foreign scribblers off that he had never halted all humanitarian aid to Gaza. Even the patriotic Times of Israel found this a bit rich, noting that “his government had enacted that policy earlier this year.” The paper went on to quote the announcement from the premier’s office on March 2: “Prime Minister Netanyahu has decided that, as of this morning, all entry of goods and supplies into the Gaza Strip will cease.”

Netanyahu also refused to accept the proposition that Gaza’s population was starving. Shortages in supply yes; starvation no. “If we had wanted starvation, if that had been our policy, 2 million Gazans wouldn’t be living today after 20 months.” The same could be said about the supreme crime of all: “if we wanted to commit genocide, it would have taken exactly one afternoon.” A wise head might have told him that few who commit genocide or engineer circumstances of mass murder ever make the intention that obvious.

August 17, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Setting the record straight on the background to events in Ukraine.

First, both the provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk in the Donbass region voted for independence from Ukraine in 2014 in resistance to a U.S.-backed coup that overthrew the elected president Viktor Yanukovych in February of that year. The independence vote came just eight days after neo-Nazis burned dozens of ethnic Russians alive in Odessa. To crush their bid for independence, the new U.S.-installed Ukrainian government then launched an “anti-terrorist” war against the provinces, with the assistance of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which had taken part in the coup. It is a war that is still going on eight years later, a war that Russia has just entered.

During these eight years, the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Azov have used artillery, snipers and assassination teams to systematically butcher more than 5,000 people (another 8,000 were wounded) — mostly civilians — in the Donetsk Peoples Republic, according to the leader of the DPR, who provided these figures in a press conference recently. In the Luhansk People’s Republic, an additional 2,000 civilians were killed and 3,365 injured. The total number of people killed and wounded in Donbass since 2014 is more than 18,000.

This has received at most superficial coverage by The New York Times; it has not been covered by Western corporate media because it does not fit the official Washington narrative

By Steven Starr,

The New York Times recently published an article by David Sanger entitled “Putin spins a conspiracy theory that Ukraine is on a path to produce nuclear weapons.” Unfortunately, it is Sanger who puts so much spin in his reporting that he leaves his readers with a grossly distorted version of the what the presidents of Russia and Ukraine have said and done.

Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent statements at the Munich conference centered around the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which welcomed Ukraine’s accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in conjunction with Ukraine’s decision to return to Russia the nuclear weapons left on its territory by the Soviet Union.

In other words, the Budapest Memorandum was expressly about Ukraine giving up its nukes and not becoming a nuclear weapon state in the future. Zelensky’s speech at Munich made it clear that Ukraine was moving to repudiate the Budapest Memorandum; Zelensky essentially stated that Ukraine must be made a member of NATO, otherwise it would acquire nuclear weapons.

This is what Zelensky said, with emphasis added:

“I want to believe that the North Atlantic Treaty and Article 5 will be more effective than the Budapest Memorandum.

Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world’s third nuclear capability [i.e. Ukraine relinquished the Soviet nuclear weapons that had been placed in Ukraine during the Cold War]. We don’t have that weapon. … Therefore, we have something. The right to demand a shift from a policy of appeasement to ensuring security and peace guarantees.

Since 2014, Ukraine has tried three times to convene consultations with the guarantor states of the Budapest Memorandum. Three times without success. . . I am initiating consultations in the framework of the Budapest Memorandum. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was commissioned to convene them. If they do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt. . .

I am initiating consultations in the framework of the Budapest Memorandum. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was commissioned to convene them. If they do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt.”

Sanger’s Times article implies that it was a “conspiracy theory” that Zelensky was calling for Ukraine to acquire nuclear weapons. Sanger was not ignorant of the meaning of the Budapest Memorandum, rather he chose to deliberately ignore it and misrepresented the facts.

President Vladimir Putin, along with the majority of Russians, could not ignore such a threat for a number of historical reasons that The New York Times and ideologues such as Sanger have also chosen to ignore. It is important to list some of those facts, since most Americans are unaware of them, as they have not been reported in the Western mainstream media. Leaving parts of the story out turns Putin into just a madman bent on conquest without any reason to intervene.

This has received at most superficial coverage by The New York Times; it has not been covered by Western corporate media because it does not fit the official Washington narrative that Ukraine is pursuing an “anti-terrorist operation” in its unrelenting attacks on the people of Donbass. For eight years the war instead has been portrayed as a Russian “invasion,” well before Russia’s current intervention.

Likewise, The New York Times, in its overall coverage, chose not to report that the Ukrainian forces had deployed half of its army, about 125,000 troops, to its border with Donbass by the beginning of 2022.

In other words, acquiring tactical nuclear weapons will be much easier for Ukraine than for some other states I am not going to mention here, which are conducting such research, especially if Kiev receives foreign technological support. We c

The importance of neo-Nazi Right Sektor politicians in the Ukraine government and neo-Nazi militias (such as the Azov Battalion) to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, also goes unreported in the mainstream corporate media. The Azov battalion flies Nazi flags; they have been trained by teams of U.S. military advisers and praised on Facebook these days. In 2014, Azov was incorporated in the Ukrainian National Guard under the direction of the Interior Ministry.

The Nazis killed something on the order of 27 million Soviets/Russians during World War II (the U.S. lost 404,000). Russia has not forgotten and is extremely sensitive to any threats and violence coming from neo-Nazis. Americans generally do not understand what this means to Russians as the United States has never been invaded.

So, when the leader of Ukraine essentially threatens to obtain nuclear weapons, this is most certainly considered to be an existential threat to Russia. That is why Putin focused on this during his speech preceding the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sanger and The New York Times must discount a Ukrainian nuclear threat; they can get away with doing so because they have systematically omitted news pertaining to this for many years.

Sanger makes a very misleading statement when he writes, “Today Ukraine does not even have the basic infrastructure to produce nuclear fuel.”

Ukraine is not interested in making nuclear fuel — which Ukraine already purchases from the U.S. Ukraine has plenty of plutonium, which is commonly used to make nuclear weapons today; eight years ago Ukraine held more than 50 tons of plutonium in its spent fuel assemblies stored at its many nuclear power plants (probably considerably more today, as the reactors have continued to run and produce spent fuel). Once plutonium is reprocessed/separated from spent nuclear fuel, it becomes weapons usable. Putin noted that Ukraine already has missiles that could carry nuclear warheads, and they certainly have scientists capable of developing reprocessing facilities and building nuclear weapons.

In his Feb. 21 televised address, Putin said Ukraine still has the infrastructure leftover from Soviet days to build a bomb. He said:

“As we know, it has already been stated today that Ukraine intends to create its own nuclear weapons, and this is not just bragging.

Ukraine has the nuclear technologies created back in the Soviet times and delivery vehicles for such weapons, including aircraft, as well as the Soviet-designed Tochka-U precision tactical missiles with a range of over 100 kilometers.

But they can do more; it is only a matter of time. They have had the groundwork for this since the Soviet era.

If Ukraine acquires weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the world and in Europe will drastically change, especially for us, for Russia. We cannot but react to this real danger, all the more so since let me repeat, Ukraine’s Western patrons may help it acquire these weapons to create yet another threat to our country.”

NATO-US Refuse Binding Nuclear Treaties

In his Times piece, Sanger states, “American officials have said repeatedly that they have no plans to place nuclear weapons in Ukraine.”

But the U.S. and NATO have refused to sign legally binding treaties with Russia to this effect. In reality, the U.S. has been making Ukraine a de facto member of NATO, while training and supplying its military forces and conducting joint exercises on Ukrainian territory. Why wouldn’t the U.S. place nuclear weapons in Ukraine — they have already done so at military bases within the borders of five other European members of NATO. This in fact violates the spirit of the NPT, another issue that Sanger avoids when he notes that Russia has demanded that the U.S. remove nuclear weapons from the European NATO-member states.

For years the U.S. proclaimed that the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) facilities it was placing in Romania and Poland, on the Russian border, were to protect against an “Iranian threat,” even though Iran had no nuclear weapons or missiles that could reach the U.S. But the dual-use Mark 41 launching systems used in the Aegis Ashore BMD facilities can be used to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles, and will be fitted with SM-6 missiles that, if armed with nuclear warheads, could hit Moscow in five-to-six minutes. Putin explicitly warned journalists about this danger in 2016; Russia included the removal of the U.S. BMD facilities in Romania and Poland in its draft treaties presented to the U.S. and NATO last December.

I wonder if Sanger has ever considered what the U.S. response would be if Russia placed missile launching facilities on the Canadian or Mexican border? Would the U.S. consider that a threat, would it demand that Russia remove them or else the U.S. would use military means to do so?

30 Years Ago

Sanger states that today Russia takes a “starkly different from the tone Moscow was taking 30 years ago, when Russian nuclear scientists were being voluntarily retrained to use their skills for peaceful purposes.”

Russians would reply that 30 years ago NATO had not moved to Russian borders and was not flooding Ukraine with hundreds of tons of weapons and the U.S. had not yet overthrown the government in Kiev to install an anti-Russian regime.

While the Times is still considered the U.S. “paper of record,” during the last few decades it has devolved into the primary mouthpiece for the official narratives coming from Washington.

There is a real danger to the nation when a free press is replaced with corporate media that stifles and censors dissent. Rather than a free press, we now have a Ministry of Propaganda that acts as an echo chamber for the latest diktats from the White House. The systematic creation of false narratives by corporate media, designed to serve the purposes of the federal government, have so misinformed the American public about world events that we find the nation ready to go to war with Russia.

This is suicidal course for not only the U.S. and the EU, but for civilization as a whole, because this would likely end in a nuclear war that will destroy all nations and peoples.

Steven Starr is the former director of the University of Missouri’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, and former board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. His articles have been published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Federation of American Scientists and the Strategic Arms Reduction website of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. He maintains the Nuclear Famine website.

August 16, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | history, media, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Israel Is Beginning To Choke On Its Own Lies

Caitlin Johnstone, Aug 08, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-is-beginning-to-choke-on-its?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=170415282&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Netanyahu has confirmed reports that Israel plans an extreme escalation in Gaza which will entail the total military occupation of the entire enclave and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, which the Israeli spin machine has termed “voluntary migration”.

To be clear, anyone who says the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza would be “voluntary” is lying. Starving a population and deliberately making their land uninhabitable is exactly the same as forcing them out at gunpoint. Saying “leave or you’ll starve” is not meaningfully different from saying “leave or I’ll shoot you in the head”. Israel’s planned mass expulsion will be as forced and involuntary as any in recorded history.

President Trump has fully signed off on this move, washing his hands of the mass atrocity he is cosigning by telling the press that it’s going to be “pretty much up to Israel.”

Trump is lying. It’s up to him. That’s why more than 600 former senior Israeli security officials from Mossad and Shin Bet just sent Trump a letter urging him to compel Netanyahu to make peace in Gaza. They understand that the US president has always had the power to end the Gaza holocaust; numerous Israeli insiders have said that this mass atrocity would not be possible without US assistance.

Trump could end all this at any time, and chooses not to. This makes him one of the most evil people in the world.

This whole genocide is powered by lies. Netanyahu just told Fox News that the horrifying aerial footage of the destruction in Gaza that we’ve been seeing is because every single building in Gaza was booby trapped with explosives by Hamas.

“The reason you see the flattened buildings is because Hamas booby traps every single building,” Netanyahu said. “So when we come in, we first have the population moved even though Hamas tries to keep them in the combat zones. But after they move, and we start to move into the neighborhoods that are now populated only by terrorists, they ignite these booby traps. So what we do is we put in an APC, an armored personnel carrier, with a lot of explosives. Detonate it. It sets off all the booby traps and the buildings begin to collapse as a result of that. They’re empty buildings, they’re not populated buildings.”

Absolutely nobody believes this is true. Not one single person alive on this earth sincerely believes that Gaza now looks like a gravel parking lot because Hamas placed explosives inside every single building. Netanyahu doesn’t believe it. Israel’s most venomous supporters don’t believe it. It’s just part of the nonstop fountain of lies they are spewing to avoid acknowledging what we all know we’re looking at. They’ve told so many lies by now that they’ve got to keep lying and lying just to stay afloat, like a man desperately treading water to avoid drowning.

This genocide is one nonstop insult to our intelligence. It’s actually degrading at this point. The lies Israel and its supporters have to pretend to believe are getting so ridiculous that supporting Israel is now an act of public humiliation and self-debasement.

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett has a long rant on his social media accounts complaining that Israel’s “status in the United States is collapsing”, including among Republicans, with public sentiment turning against them because of what is happening in Gaza.

As you might expect, Bennett does not frame this as a sign that Israel should stop committing genocide in Gaza, but rather complains of a crisis of “antisemitism” in the United States, and accuses Netanyahu of failing to adequately propagandize Americans.

“Jews in the United States are subject to a torrential wave of anti-Semitism, like him I don’t remember in my life,” Bennett moans, adding, “Antisemites increase to compare the ‘hunger’ in Gaza to the Holocaust, and thus reduce the memory of the Holocaust. They act that the hunger accusation will haunt israel its citizens, our soldiers, for generations.”

“If Netanyahu’s propaganda men worked against the enemies of Israel *outside* a tenth of the talent, speed and dedication with which they operate the propaganda machine against their political rivals *inside* israel our situation would be amazing,” Bennet writes, saying he wants to “re-establish a rapid and synchronized explanation headquarters”.

“Explanation” is the literal translation of the Hebrew word “hasbara”, i.e. pro-Israel propaganda.

Meanwhile the term “hasbara” itself is reportedly being abandoned by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, as westerners have come to associate the term with genocide propaganda.

The Times of Israel reports:

“Long referred to as hasbara, a term used to denote both public relations and propaganda that has been freighted with negative baggage in recent years, the ministry now brands its approach as toda’a — which translates to ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness’ — an apparent shift toward broader, more proactive messaging.”

So they’re not abandoning the genocide, and they’re not abandoning the genocide propaganda, they’re just abandoning the word for the genocide propaganda because people have come to associate that word with propaganda in support of genocide.

The entire Zionist project is built on a foundation of lies. And their lies are starting to catch up with them. They’re now at a point where the lies are beginning to damage the public image they’re intended to protect.

When a liar is recognized as a liar, his lies will forevermore work only as an antidote to his past lies, and as a light to further expose his intent. From that point on any lie he tells just shows people how ugly his character and intentions really are.

There is no other weapon that works that way. No other weapon which when it’s seen immediately stops working, actively disarms the attacker, starts fixing what he broke, and starts attacking him.

Truth will win in the end.

August 16, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

‘A million calls an hour’: Israel using Microsoft cloud for mass surveillance of Palestine.

Aug 09, 2025 , Mikael Thalen (Tech Reporter), https://san.com/cc/a-million-calls-an-hour-israel-using-microsoft-cloud-for-mass-surveillance-of-palestine/

Summary

1 million an hour

Israel is reportedly collecting and storing as much as 1 million phone calls an hour from Palestine on Microsoft’s Azure cloud servers.

200 million hours

Since the partnership began between Microsoft and Israel in 2022, over 200 million hours of phone call audio has been captured as of July.

Used in war

The captured cell phone data from Gaza and the West Bank is reportedly being used for blackmail, detainments, arrests and airstrikes.

Full story

Israel’s military intelligence unit has been relying on Microsoft to conduct mass surveillance of phone calls from Palestine, according to a joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine and the Local Call. The operation, enabled by a customized and segregated environment on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, is reportedly capable of processing up to 1 million phone calls an hour.

The system launched in 2022 following a meeting the year prior between Yossi Sariel, then the commander of the intelligence agency known as Unit 8200, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Leaked internal Microsoft documents as well as interviews with 11 sources, including Microsoft staff and Israeli intelligence officials, revealed that approximately 11,500 terabytes of data, equivalent to 200 million hours of audio, was stored on Microsoft servers in the Netherlands and Ireland as of July.

The captured data has reportedly been used to target Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank for blackmail, detention and arrest.

Arrests, detainments and airstrikes

“When they need to arrest someone and there isn’t a good enough reason to do so, that’s where they find the excuse,” a Unit 8200 source was quoted as saying.

Israel also dug through the data, according to the investigation, after carrying out airstrikes to find intelligence that could be cited as justification.

Captured phone calls are retained in the cloud for around one month. That time may be expanded to give Unit 8200 the ability to retrieve older telephone conversations involving people who become of interest, The Guardian said.

Microsoft denies knowledge

Microsoft said its CEO was not aware of the types of data that would be stored when he agreed to aid Unit 8200. An external review commissioned by Microsoft on the partnership, carried out earlier this year after the ties between the company and Israel were revealed, found no evidence that Azure was used to target or harm people in Palestine, the company said.

After the surveillance operation was uncovered, Microsoft again said that at no time was it “aware of the surveillance of civilians or collection of their cellphone conversations using Microsoft’s services, including through the external review it commissioned.”

Internal records on the 2021 meeting between Nadella and Sariel do not show that cell phone surveillance was mentioned. Instead, Sariel is said to have referred to “sensitive workloads” of secret data.

Other documents, however, suggest Microsoft engineers in both the U.S. and Israel were aware that raw intelligence, such as audio files, would be stored in the cloud environment. Israel initially reached out to Microsoft after realizing its own internal servers were incapable of storing such vast amounts of data.

“You don’t have to be a genius to figure it out,” one source said. “You tell [Microsoft] we don’t have any more space on the servers, that it’s audio files. It’s pretty clear what it is.”

Numerous Israeli sources insisted that the mass-surveillance program had saved lives by detecting and thwarting attacks on civilians. The system, however, did not prevent the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, which has been used to justify increased surveillance.

Alan Judd (Content Editor) contributed to this report.

August 16, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Pentagon to Create ‘Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force’

“You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington“

“They will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners.”

by Kyle Anzalone | Aug 12, 2025, https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/pentagon-to-create-domestic-civil-disturbance-quick-reaction-force/

The Department of Defense is planning to create a rapid response force of National Guard troops to quickly deploy to American cities where protests or unrest are occurring.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that it obtained documents showing the Pentagon is creating a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force.”

“The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour,” the outlet explained. “They would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively.”

One hundred troops at each base would be on standby to deploy within an hour, while the entire quick force would begin operations within 12 hours. The National Guard will be equipped with weapons and riot gear, and the deployments will be limited to 90 days to prevent burnout among the troops.

On Monday, Trump announced a major crackdown on crime in Washington, DC, by federalizing the Metropolitan DC police and deploying 800 National Guard troops to the capital city. “This is Liberation Day in DC, and we’re going to take our capital back,” Trump said during a press conference at the White House. “I’m officially invoking the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. And placing the DC Metropolitan Police under direct federal control.”

“In addition, I’m deploying the National Guard to help restore law, order and public safety,” he added.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said residents of DC will soon see the National Guard in the capital. “You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week,” he explained. “At your direction as well, sir, there are other units we are prepared to bring in — other National Guard units, other specialized units. They will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners.”

The new quick reaction force may be deployed to other American cities if Trump perceives that there is too much crime. Trump threatened to take similar steps in other major cities, noting he hopes some of them “self-clean up.” “If we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster,” the president said.

The planned force could face legal barriers as it attempts to deploy to American cities. Many Democratic led-cities may object to a Republican President deploying troops. Additionally, federal law limits the National Guard’s ability to conduct law enforcement within the U.S.

August 16, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Calls for Transparency Over Serious Nuclear Incident at Faslane

By Chris Martin, 14 Aug 2025, https://argyllbute24.co.uk/calls-for-transparency-over-serious-nuclear-incident-at-faslane/

THE Ministry of Defence (MoD) is facing calls to disclose details of a serious nuclear incident at HMNB Clyde, Faslane, between 1 January and 22 April this year.

Classified as Category A – the MoD’s most serious level – the event reportedly posed no risk to the public or environment.

Faslane, on Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute, houses the UK’s nuclear submarines, including Vanguard-class vessels armed with Trident missiles.

In a parliamentary response to SNP MP Dave Doogan, defence minister Maria Eagle confirmed multiple incidents at Faslane and nearby RNAD Coulport, but refused to detail Category A or B events, citing national security concerns.

Renewed alarm follows a Guardian/Ferret investigation revealing radioactive water leaked into Loch Long from Coulport in 2019 due to faulty pipes, with a six-year secrecy battle over the case. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency deemed the discharges “of no regulatory concern”.

SNP deputy leader Keith Brown has demanded an “urgent explanation”, warning nuclear weapons are “poorly maintained” and threaten safety, communities, and the environment.

The MoD insists it handles radioactive substances “safely and securely” and that none of the incidents caused harm or radiological impact, reaffirming support for the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

More on this story in next week’s Observer

August 16, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Why no Hollywood movie on Nagasaki A Bombing?

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn 8 Aug 25

In the 1952 movie ‘Above and Beyond’, movie idol Robert Taylor played handsome Col. Paul Tibbetts, straight out of Central Casting, who piloted Enola Gay to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima 80 years ago August 6. We all grew up in awe of Tibbetts, Enola Gay and the perfect mission which incinerated Hiroshima from the first A Bomb dropped in anger. My awe eventually turned to revulsion upon learning it was a monstrous war crime.

But who piloted what plane that dropped the second A Bomb on Nagasaki just 3 days later, August 9? The American Story has largely erased the saga of the Nagasaki mission for good reason. It was a colossal screw up that almost got the pilot court martialed; indeed, nearly detonated Fat Man over the Pacific enroute.

Trouble began early on. Paul Tibbetts, fresh from his Hiroshima success, picked his friend Charles Sweeney to pilot the drop plane ‘Bockscar’ instead of its regular pilot Fred Bock. Sweeney was unfamiliar with both combat and the plane. Preparing for takeoff, Sweeney was unable to operate the reserve tank containing 640 gallons of fuel needed to get Bockscar safely back to its Tinian takeoff point. Bock may have had the familiarity with the plane to accomplish that. Regulations required the mission be scrapped so Sweeney and crew exited Bockscar. But Tibbetts overruled them and the mission was on with insufficient fuel.

Three hours in, worse trouble. Fat Man’s red detonation lights began blinking wildly. Chief weaponeer Dick Ashworth frantically searched the blueprints and realized 2 switches had been reversed in the preflight assembly. Solving that problem, everyone relaxed till Bockscar failed to rendezvous with the second of two back up planes, one for photography and one for instruments. The instrument plane, The Big Stink, was 9,000 feet above Bockscar. Instead of pushing on to original target Kokura, Sweeney wasted 45 minutes of precious fuel trying to link up. Big Stink pilot Hoppy Hopkins broke radio silence frantically calling Tinian asking “Is Bockscar down?” Mission officials only heard “Bockscar Down” and freaked out believing Bockscar, Fat Man and the 13 member crew were in Davy Jones Locker.

Ashford was frantic that all was lost. As tension mounted between the weaponeer and the pilot, he finally persuaded Sweeney to proceed to primary target Kokura. But a smokescreen put up by Japanese defenders responding to the Hiroshima attack caused Sweeney to go around for a second and third bomb run, wasting fuel. More trouble. Flack and approaching Japanese Zeros forced Sweeney to abandon Kokura to flee 100 miles to alternate target Nagasaki.

The drop made, Sweeney made a desperate dive to avoid the mushroom cloud that nearly engulfed them. But his previous delays made the return trip to Tinian impossible. Low on fuel, Sweeney began a treacherous 450 mile flight on dwindling fuel for Okinawa. All aboard Bockscar prepared to ditch. Approaching the Okinawa airfield unable to radio the tower of their emergency, Bockscar had to drop in to a forced landing amid numerous other flights without control tower clearance. Bockscar bounced 25 feet in the air landing at 30 MPH over the maximum landing speed, nearly colliding with a row of fuel laden B-24’s. One engine quit on the approach and another upon touchdown. Thinking Bockscar was lost, airport personnel inquired who this strange plane was that descended out of the sky unannounced. ‘We just dropped an atomic bomb’ was the reply.

There were no celebrations for the crew of Bockscar. Officials considered court martialing Sweeney for his life and mission threatening delays but considered the embarrassment it would cause and decided against. Why mar the mission-perfect first nuking of civilians by Paul Tibbetts and Enola Gay?

While we’ll never get a Hollywood treatment of the Bockscar A Bomb mission, it would be a lot more exciting than ‘Above and Beyond’. An appropriate title? ‘Nearly Down and Out Over Nagasaki’.

August 11, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Microsoft helping Israel spy on millions of Palestinians since 2021: Report

Israel’s notorious Unit 8200 was given access to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform for use in storing recordings of phone calls made by Palestinian civilians

AUG 7, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles-id/32391

Israel has been using a
Microsoft cloud platform to store massive amounts of data and intelligence on Palestinians in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza, according to a new investigation carried out by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and The Guardian.

The investigation reveals that Microsoft’s chief executive met in 2021 with the commander of Israel’s notorious Unit 8200 – the military intelligence unit involved in the pager terror attacks against Lebanon and other covert operations across the region.

Unit 8200 chief Yossi Sariel convinced Microsoft’s Satya Nadella to grant Israeli military intelligence access to a “customized and segregated area” inside the Azure cloud platform, according to The Guardian.

It then began building “a sweeping and intrusive system that collects and stores recordings of millions of mobile phone calls made each day by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Microsoft says its chief executive was unaware of what data would be stored on the platform. Yet the report cites a cache of leaked Microsoft documents and interviews with nearly a dozen employees of the company and of Unit 8200 – revealing the storage of everyday communications and data on the daily lives of regular Palestinian civilians.

Three Unit 8200 sources said the platform helped pave the way for many deadly airstrikes in Gaza, and Israeli army operations in the occupied West Bank.

Other sources say Tel Aviv needed Microsoft due to a lack of storage space and computing power to carry out its espionage plans.

Israel hoped to intercept, record, and store “a million calls an hour,” according to intelligence sources.

The system was designed to be placed on Microsoft servers under layers of security developed by the company with directives from Unit 8200.

According to the leaked documents, droves of sensitive information are inside the company’s data centers in Ireland and the Netherlands.

The Guardian reported earlier this year that Israel relied on Microsoft tech for its genocidal campaign against Gaza. An internal review carried out by the company claimed “no evidence” that its Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems or cloud platforms were used for harm.

“The company had held conversations with Israeli defense officials and stipulated how its technology should be used in Gaza, insisting Microsoft systems must not be employed for the identification of targets for lethal strikes,” a company source told The Guardian this week.

Unit 8200 sources confirmed, however, that “intelligence drawn from the enormous repositories of phone calls held in Azure had been used to research and identify bombing targets in Gaza.”

“When planning an airstrike on an individual located within densely populated areas where high numbers of civilians are present, officers would use the cloud-based system to examine calls made by people in the immediate vicinity,” they added.

Israel has relied heavily on western tech firms for mass surveillance and attacks on Palestinians.

In March, +972 Magazine and Local Call revealed that Unit 8200 developed a ‘Chat GPT-like’ tool programmed to compile massive collections of intercepted Palestinian communications.

The tool was trained to understand colloquial Arabic and uses large amounts of Palestinian phone calls and text messages obtained through surveillance.

“The IDF has become increasingly dependent on the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, and Google to store and analyze greater volumes of data and intelligence information for longer period,” Israeli sources told The Guardian in January this year.

Advanced facial recognition technology has also played a leading role in the forced disappearance and abduction of scores of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel.

Earlier this year, Google announced plans to acquire the Israeli cloud security startup Wiz in a $32 billion deal. The Israeli startup was founded by and consists of members of Unit 8200.

Last year, Google fired dozens of employees after they staged a series of sit-in protests across the US to oppose Project Nimbus, which aims to provide the Israeli army with advanced AI and cloud services.

August 11, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Ukraine hacks Russian submarine as Moscow expands Arctic presence

Ukraine claims to have pulled off a major hacking operation, obtaining
classified data on a new Russian nuclear submarine and revealing potential
vulnerabilities as Moscow intensifies its military presence in the Arctic.

Times 3rd Aug 2025, https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/ukraine-hacks-russian-submarine-as-moscow-expands-arctic-presence-2tmwc8dn5

August 6, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine | Leave a comment

US, UK in secret talks with Ukrainian officials to ‘replace Zelensky’: Report

Three years into the war with Russia, the Ukrainian president has experienced his fortunes turn amid heavy human losses on the battlefield and intense Russian assaults.

JUL 29, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles/us-uk-in-secret-talks-with-ukrainian-officials-to-replace-zelensky-report

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has revealed that US and British officials recently held a meeting in the Alps with top Ukrainian officials to discuss “replacing” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

According to a statement made available to TASS, the meeting involved Andrey Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Kirill Budanov, chief of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, and Valery Zaluzhny, the country’s ex-commander-in-chief who is now Ukraine’s ambassador to London..

“The Americans and the British announced their decision to propose Zaluzhny to the Ukrainian presidency. Yermak and Budanov ‘snapped a salute,’ while securing promises from the Anglo-Saxons to let them keep their present positions, as well as to take their interests into account in the course of making decisions over other personnel issues,” TASS reports.

The Ukrainian participants were reportedly promised they would retain their positions and influence over future personnel appointments following Zelensky’s ouster.

The SVR said Yermak helped prepare the ground for Zaluzhny by persuading Zelensky to weaken Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies. Zelensky signed the new law, but Ukrainian MPs said the measure has not appeared on the parliament’s official website.
According to the SVR, the secret talks with UK and US officials aim to restructure Ukraine’s ties with the west, especially the US, and have established removing Zelensky as a prerequisite for continued western support in the war with Russia, after ceasefire talks between Moscow and Kiev in Istanbul last week ended without a breakthrough.

The SVR report comes a day after US President Donald Trump shortened his 50-day deadline for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine to “10 or 12 days,” warning of stalled progress and approving expanded weapons shipments to Kiev, including US-made Patriot systems financed by European partners and coordinated through NATO.

Former Ukrainian prosecutor general’s adviser Andriy Telizhenko said the plan to replace Zelensky predated Donald Trump’s return to office, adding, “Once the strings are cut, the puppet must be replaced.”

Journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in The End of Zelensky? that Zaluzhny “is now being viewed as Zelensky’s most reliable successor,” citing “well-informed Washington sources” confirming the role could be offered to him.

August 4, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Australia’s Senate launches inquiry into who is funding fake astroturf anti-renewables groups.

Rachel Williamson, Jul 31, 2025, https://reneweconomy.com.au/senate-launches-inquiry-into-who-is-funding-fake-astroturf-anti-renewables-groups/?fbclid=IwY2xjawL7lhVleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFYcTREaGZqTGVKTWZZSW15AR5cMmu1PBB20ZAr6159zOAR8q2xQnTPPQwVB8SWse9kOCEuKiGNiOnOwzpF3g_aem_zBcQMv8fwSb8s4qbxBk1uA

Australians have a right to know who is funding anti-climate campaigns and, if a new Senate inquiry can uncover those money trails, the findings could be shocking, says the Smart Energy Council’s Tim Lamacraft.

The new Senate committee was installed last night and tasked with investigating climate and energy mis- and disinformation campaigns and uncovering which foreign and local organisations are funding “astroturfing”, fake grassroots movements that are actually coordinated marketing campaigns.

“Australians have a right to know who’s really behind the clogging up of their social media feeds with anti renewables, anti climate, anti science propaganda. Rest assured, they’ll be shocked when they find out,” Lamacraft told Renew Economy.

“We saw from the last federal election campaign, where [conservative lobby group] Advance Australia had a $15 million warchest, $14 million of that was in dark money where we don’t know where it came from.

“The most important thing to do with shadowy networks like this is to shine a light. It’s extremely damaging to our democracy to allow millions of dollars from shadowy multinationals, and hidden domestic interests, to influence public policy for their personal gain, not the public.”

The inquiry, formally known as the select committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy, will also question whether Australia’s laws preventing foreign interference in national politics are strong enough to fight off internationally-funded domestic political campaigns.

That work will encompass the role of social media in building astroturf campaigns through the coordinated use of bots and trolls, messaging apps and AI to spread fake ideas and news.

It will be the first step towards finding out who is financing sophisticated anti-renewable energy campaigns and misinformation, and whose interests they truly serve, says committee chair Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson.

“For decades, vested interests have been waging a global war of disinformation against the clean energy transition, including environmental and climate legislation, and these vested interests have recently achieved significant political success in nations such as the US,” he said in a statement.

“In the last parliament, evidence was provided to the Senate Inquiry into offshore wind industry that strategies such as establishing fake community groups – otherwise known as astroturfing – were being used in Australia to spread lies about renewable energy.

“It’s critical that parliament continues this work and now examines these interests for what they are and who they serve.”

Devastating impact of astroturfing

The inquiry comes on the back of years of sophisticated anti-climate campaigns masquerading as grassroots movements.

These seek to demonise a climate or renewable energy issue and rally support for nuclear power, a position known to be a cover for retaining a fossil fuel status quo.

Campaigns against everything from offshore wind to individual projects have polarised public opinion and are having a tangible impact.

Coordinated anti-offshore wind campaigns in 2023 peddled fears such as that offshore turbines kill whales and any in the waters around Wollongong would block out the sunrise.

As a result, the federal government reduced the Illawarra offshore wind zone by a third and pushed it 10km further offshore, while in Queensland the Stop Chalumbin Wind Farm claimed the scalp of the Wooroora Station proposal by claiming risks to the nearby world heritage rainforests.

Ark Energy, which was behind the Wooroora Station project, also scrapped the Doughboy wind project in NSW after the New England landowners involved in the project changed their minds.

Organised anti-renewables groups are weaponising NSW’s planning process by forcing projects into the Independent Planning Commission, the final arbiter of development applications if more than 50 opposing submissions are lodged during the regular planning process.

David and Goliath battles

For genuine activist groups, going up against well-funded, apparently grassroots campaigns that are peddling half truths and outright lies is “incredibly frustrating”, says Surfers for Climate CEO Joshua Kirkman.

“We simply do not have the financial resources as an advocacy group… against big forces like that which the Senate inquiry will actually find out about,” he told Renew Economy.

“I really hope this inquiry can put the spotlight on the realities of where the support for these voices in Australia comes from. I think the public have a right to know, and I think the public wants to understand how their democracy is being influenced by nefarious parties with ill-intent for the environment.”

Kirkman says climate change is a big enough problem without tactical misdirection and influence undermining the work being done.

Organisations such as Responsible Future (Illawarra Chapter) are what Kirkman is up against.

The anti-wind, pro-nuclear organisation was registered in April 2024 and claims to be funded by donations. Founder Alex O’Brien declined to comment on a series of basic questions about the organisation sent by Renew Economy last year.

Follow the money

The risks of foreign funding influencing Australian climate debates is not a conspiracy theory: the issue was raised in the Senate last year after an inquiry into offshore wind recommended the government act to stop foreign lobby groups from crowding out local community voices in public debates.

Last year, Walker published a submission which highlighted the similarities between US anti-wind campaigns and those targeting offshore wind in Australia.

He found similarities between the claims made by groups like Stop Offshore Wind, such as the same imagery and messaging in social media campaigns saying turbines kill whales, as used in campaigns overseas funded by conservative US lobby the Atlas Network.

But he was only able to guess at actual funding trails into Australia.

It’s known that deep-pocketed conservatives such as mining billionaire Gina Rinehart and the multimillion-dollar Liberal Party investment arm Cormack Foundation have been sponsors of the likes of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), Menzies Research Centre and the ‘campaign group’ Advance Australia, all of which have strongly campaigned against renewable energy.

Walker has linked their campaigns with those of a global network of conservative think tanks.

August 4, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

The CIA Built Hundreds of Covert Websites. Here’s What They Were Hiding

August 1st, 2025, Alan Macleod, https://www.mintpressnews.com/cia-secret-network-885-fake-websites/290325/

The CIA didn’t just infiltrate governments; it infiltrated the internet itself. For over a decade, Langley operated a sprawling network of covert websites that served as global spy terminals disguised as harmless blogs, news hubs, and fan pages.

Beginning in 2004, the CIA established a vast network of at least 885 websites, ranging from Johnny Carson and Star Wars fan pages to online message boards about Rastafari. Spanning 29 languages and targeting at least 36 countries directly, these websites were aimed not only at adversaries such as China, Venezuela, and Russia, but also at allied nations, including France, Italy, and Spain, showing that the United States treats its friends much like its foes.

Covert Soccer Blogs and Cracked Passwords

Gholamreza Hosseini is a former CIA informant. In 2007, the Tehran-based industrial engineer contacted the agency and offered to pass them information about Iran’s nuclear energy program. His CIA handlers showed him how to use IranianGoals.com to communicate with them. Iranian Goals was a Farsi-language website that appeared to be dedicated to local soccer news. However, what appeared to be a search bar at the bottom of the home page was actually a password field. Typing the correct word into it would trigger a login process, revealing a secret messaging interface. Each informant had their own webpage, designed specifically for them, to insulate them from others in the network.

It seemed like an ingenious idea. However, Hosseini and the other spies were soon detected, thanks to some sloppy mistakes in Washington, D.C. An Iranian double agent revealed to the authorities their unique website, and some basic detective work led to the uncovering of the entire network.

The CIA purchased the hosting space for dozens, perhaps hundreds, of these websites in bulk, often from the same internet providers, or the same server space. That meant that the IP addresses of these websites were consecutive, akin to housing each informant in adjacent properties on the same street.

Thus, if you looked at neighboring IP addresses, you would see similarly designed websites and could easily put two and two together. Even with some relatively basic online searches, Iranian authorities were able to identify dozens of CIA-run websites. From there, they simply waited to see who would access them.

Spying on Allies and Adversaries Alike

The network of websites spanned a wide range of topics. Few would guess that Rasta Direct, a website dedicated to the relatively niche religion of Rastafari, had anything to do with U.S. intelligence. The CIA also created Star Wars Web, a fan page for the sci-fi franchise, and All Johnny, a page dedicated to late-night legend Johnny Carson. Sports, gaming and news blogs, however, were the most common topics for fake websites.

These websites served as cover for informants, offering some level of plausible deniability if casually examined. Upon close inspection, however, few of these pages provided any unique content and simply rehosted news and blogs from elsewhere, linking to already available resources.

Informants in enemy nations, such as Venezuela, used sites like Noticias-Caracas and El Correo De Noticias to communicate with Langley, while Russian moles used My Online Game Source and TodaysNewsAndWeather-Ru.com, and other similar platforms.

However, a vast network of informants in allied countries, such as France, Spain and Italy, was also uncovered, using financial news, mountaineering, and running websites to pass on vital information to the CIA.

Germany was another country Washington actively targeted. In 2013, it was revealed that the U.S. had been bugging the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel for over a decade, sparking a major diplomatic rift. One year later, in 2014, Germany detained one of its own intelligence officials after catching him spying for the United States.

The Collapse of the CIA’s China Network

China, however, remains a top target for the CIA. The organization maintains an extensive network of informants across the country, who, when the network was active, used platforms such as eChessNews.com and SportsNewsFinder.com to transmit information back to the United States.

But, as in Iran, Chinese authorities began to dismantle the network. Starting in late 2010, the spying network was systematically dismantled by officials, likely using similar tactics to those of the Iranians. Unlike Iran, however, China simply executed those operatives. It is believed that the CIA lost around 30 informants in the purge. The affair is considered one of the worst intelligence failures in the agency’s nearly 80-year history.

Since then, the U.S. spying network in China has been severely diminished. Earlier this year, the CIA changed tack, publicly releasing two videos encouraging disaffected Communist Party officials to spy for them in exchange for money and the prospect of a new life in America.

“As I rise within the party, I watch those above me being discarded like worn-out shoes, but now I realize that my fate was just as precarious as theirs,” the narrator says in one. “Our leaders’ failure to fulfil repeated promises of prosperity has become a well-known secret… It’s time to build my own dream,” he says in another.

The CIA instructs would-be traitors to download the Tor Browser and contact the CIA via its website. While Tor is marketed in the West as a privacy tool, a previous MintPress News investigation revealed that it was created with funding from the U.S. government by a company with ties to the CIA. Last year, Washington passed a $1.6 billion bill to finance anti-China propaganda worldwide.

Weaponizing Apps and Platforms

This is not the only time that the U.S. national security state has created fake web platforms in order to stoke regime change around the world. In 2010, USAID—a CIA front organization—secretly created the Cuban social media app, Zunzuneo.

Often described as “Cuba’s Twitter,” Zunzuneo rocketed to prominence. The app had been designed to offer a reliable and affordable service, undercutting the competition, before gaining dominance and slowly disseminating anti-government messages to the island.

Then, at a given time, Zunzuneo would urge users to join protests coordinated by the U.S. in an attempt to foment a color revolution on the island.

In an effort to hide its ownership of the project, the U.S. government held a secret meeting with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to encourage him to take it over. It is unclear to what extent, if at all, Dorsey contributed to the project, as he has declined to comment on the matter. In 2012, Zunzuneo was abruptly shut down.

Infiltrating Journalism and Big Tech

While the 885 fake websites were not established to influence public opinion, today, the U.S. government sponsors thousands of journalists worldwide for precisely this purpose. Earlier this year, the Trump administration’s decision to pause funding to USAID inadvertently exposed a network of more than 6,200 reporters working at nearly 1,000 news outlets or journalism organizations who were all quietly paid to promote pro-U.S. messaging in their countries.

Oksana Romanyuk, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Mass Information, warned that nearly 90% of her country’s media outlets rely on funding from USAID to survive. A survey of 20 leading media organizations in Belarus revealed that 60% of their budget came from Washington. In Iran, more than 30 anti-government groups came together for a crisis response meeting, while in Cuba and Nicaragua, anti-government press resorted to soliciting donations from readers.

The CIA has also successfully infiltrated the largest and most popular social media networks, giving the agency substantial control over what the world sees (and does not see) in their news feeds.

Facebook has hired dozens of former CIA officials to run its most sensitive operations. Perhaps the most notable of these individuals is Aaron Berman.

As the platform’s senior misinformation manager, Berman ultimately has the final say over what content is promoted and what is demoted or deleted from Facebook. Yet, until 2019, Berman was a high-ranking CIA officer, responsible for writing the president’s daily security brief. It was at that time that he jumped ship from Langley to Facebook, despite appearing to have little relevant professional experience.

Google, if anything, is even more saturated with former spies.

A MintPress News investigation revealed that dozens of former CIA agents hold top jobs at the Silicon Valley giant. Among these is Jacqueline Lopour, who spent more than ten years at the agency working on Middle East affairs before being recruited to become Google’s senior Intelligence, Trust, and Safety manager. The role gives her considerable influence on the direction of the company. This form of state censorship is how the agency prefers to shape the internet today.

The CIA continues to maintain a vast worldwide network of informants. Today, they use custom-built apps such as Tor or Signal to communicate. If they are caught by their own countries, they will likely be left to their fate, like Hosseini was. Being a spy or a stool pigeon for the CIA is as perilous as ever.

August 4, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

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