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India’s genocidal project is building a military base.

Survival, 21 May 25

Uncontacted people on Indian island face genocide in the name of “mega-development”

The Shompen are one of the most isolated peoples on Earth. They live on Great Nicobar Island in India, and most of them are uncontacted, refusing all interactions with outsiders.

Numbering around 300 people, they are now at risk of being totally wiped out by a “mega-development” plan to transform their small island home into the “Hong Kong of India.”

If the project goes ahead, huge swathes of their unique rainforest will be destroyed – to be replaced by a mega-port; a new city; an international airport; a power station; a defense base; an industrial park; and up to 650,000 settlers – a population increase of nearly 8,000%.

An island unlike any other

For centuries, most Shompen have refused all contact with outsiders, and this has kept them safe from the terrible effects of contact experienced by most other Indigenous peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Living in the rainforest of Great Nicobar Island in the eastern Indian Ocean, the Shompen have guarded and maintained a unique landscape for thousands of years. The Shompen are nomadic hunter-gatherers, living in small groups, whose territories are identified by the rivers that criss-cross the rainforest…………………….

Their home, Great Nicobar Island, is small but has extremely high levels of biodiversity. Around 95% of the island is covered in rainforest and it’s home to 11 species of mammals, 32 species of birds, 7 species of reptiles and 4 species of amphibians, all found only here. It’s a place where monitor lizards and crocodiles share the rainforest with macaques and tree shrews, where giant turtles swim among the coral reefs with dugongs and dolphins. 

The right to remain uncontacted 

While a few Shompen have contact with their Nicobarese Indigenous neighbors, settlers and government officials, most remain in the rainforest and reject contact with outsiders. This does not mean that the Shompen are unaware of the outside world but, for the most part, they choose to be left alone. As with the Sentinelese people in the nearby Andaman Islands, outsiders forcing their way into Shompen territory is illegal and could be deadly for them. That’s why in March 2025, American influencer Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov was arrested for trying to contact the Sentinelese, and could face jail. 

The few Shompen who do leave the rainforest tend to do so to collect and exchange things with outsiders before returning to the island’s interior and sharing them among other Shompen families. Like other uncontacted peoples around the world, the Shompen are incredibly vulnerable to diseases to which they have no immunity and Shompen who return have been known to quarantine in special houses outside their communities. A government report stated: 

Our attempt to reach the main camp…about 50 metres away from the ‘out-houses’ was resisted by throwing spears (we escaped narrowly) as the Shompens of this region strongly believe that outsiders carry diseases.

Andaman and Nicobar Administration

The report then acknowledged then that these uncontacted Shompen were certainly “healthier than those who have contacts with others”.  Most contact for the Shompen at the moment occurs as it should for all Indigenous communities – on their own terms.

Mega development = mega disaster

But the Indian government is now planning to transform the Shompen’s small island into the ‘Hong Kong of India’, which will totally change their lives forever. Its ‘Great Nicobar Project’ will have a devastating impact on the lives of the Shompen and the neighbouring Nicobarese. As neither peoples have given their consent to the scheme, it violates both Indian and international law. 

The mega-project will take up around a third of the island – half of it within the official Tribal Reserve. Equally disastrous is the massive population explosion planned for Great Nicobar. The total population of the island is currently around 8,000, but the government plans to settle up to 650,000 people there under the scheme, a population the size of Las Vegas. 

Shompen communities, along with their hunting and foraging grounds, will be devastated by the project. Their sacred river system will also be ruined. This will in turn destroy their pandanus trees, one of their most important sources of food. With their rivers devastated, the Shompen’s ability to survive and entire way of life will face collapse.

As well as causing unprecedented social and environmental devastation for the Shompen, these plans also drastically increase their exposure to outside diseases to which could wipe them out.

The Indian government is well aware of such risks and their official Impact Assessment for the project states: “Any disturbance or alteration in the natural environmental setup where they live, may cause serious threat to their existence” and “once infections spread among the tribal [Shompen]…the whole community may face extinction.” However, in an attempt to mitigate the risks, the government is proposing sinister sounding “geo-fencing cum surveillance towers” to monitor the Shompen.

In February 2024, 39 international genocide experts wrote to the Indian President, describing the mega-project as a “death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide”. They called for the scheme to be immediately abandoned. 

It’s impossible to imagine that the Shompen will be able to survive this overwhelming and catastrophic transformation of their island………………….https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/shompen



The authorities plan to create a mega-port; a city; an international airport; a power station; a defence base; an industrial park; and tourism zones, spread over more than 244 square km of land, including 130 square km of rainforest. The government claims that it will ‘offset’ the loss of rainforest through planting new trees in the scrublands of North India. Such offsetting projects are false solutions and Survival is actively campaigning against the growing threat they pose to Indigenous peoples around the world.

To the Shompen, every tree, plant, leaf and flower is sacred and has a spirit of their own. It’s hard to imagine what cutting down millions of trees will mean to a people who do not even allow the cutting of leaves on their territory.

May 22, 2025 Posted by | India, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Dad’s Army’ to return FOR REAL as UK military plans defence against Russian invasion.

The Home Guard will be a civilian unit tasked with protecting key infrastructure such as nuclear power plants, airports and telecommunications sites.

Michael D. Carroll and James Knuckey, Mirror, 20 May 2025

The Government is reportedly considering the establishment of a Home Guard, akin to the Dad’s Army model, to shield crucial British infrastructure from attacks by hostile nations and terrorists. These plans are rumoured to be part of the Government’s much-anticipated Strategic Defence Review (SDR), which is due for publication in the coming weeks.

The proposed unit is said to draw inspiration from the Home Guard formed during the Second World War in the 1940s as a last line of defence against a potential German invasion of Britain. The original members were typically men who were either too old or young to serve on the frontline, or those deemed unfit or ineligible…………………………………………………. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dads-army-return-real-uk-35254242

May 22, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons woes: Understaffed nuke agency hit by DOGE and safety worries

The consequences of DOGE’s disruptions at the National Nuclear Security Administration could be far-reaching, experts say.

Davis Winkie and Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY, 18 May 25

  • For decades, the NNSA has struggled with federal staffing shortages that have contributed to safety issues as well as delays and cost overruns on major projects.
  • Experts fear that the Trump administration’s moves to reduce the federal workforce may have destabilized the highly specialized federal workforce at the National Nuclear Security Administration.
  • USA TODAY reviewed decades of government watchdog reports, safety documents, and congressional testimony on U.S. nuclear weapons.

In 2021, after a pair of plutonium-handling gloves had broken for the third time at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, contaminating three workers, and after the second accidental flood, investigators from the National Nuclear Security Administration found a common thread in a plague of safety incidents: the contractor running the New Mexico lab lacked “sufficient staff.”

So did the NNSA.

The agency, whose fewer than 1,900 federal employees oversee the more than 60,000 contractors who build and maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal, has struggled to fill crucial safety roles. Only 21% of the agency’s facility representative positions – the government’s eyes and ears in contractor-run buildings – at Los Alamos were filled with qualified personnel as of May 2022.

Now, President Donald Trump’s administration has thrown the NNSA into chaos, threatening hard-won staffing progress amid a trillion-dollar nuclear weapons upgrade. Desperately needed nuclear experts are wary of joining thanks to chaotic job cuts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, experts say.

The disruption of NNSA’s chronically understaffed safety workforce is “a recipe for disaster,” said Joyce Connery, former head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.

Los Alamos is not the only facility with staffing shortages in crucial safety roles.

As of May 2022, less than one-third of facility representative roles at NNSA’s Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the Pantex plant near Amarillo, Texas were held by fully qualified employees, according to a USA TODAY review of nuclear safety records.

At Pantex, where technicians assemble and disassemble nuclear weapons, only a quarter of safety system oversight positions had fully qualified hires, and only 57% of those safety positions had qualified employees at Y-12.

Nuclear weapons workers don’t grow on trees, nor do the federal experts who oversee them. Many of the jobs require advanced degrees, and new hires often need years of on-the-job training. Security clearance requirements limit the most sensitive jobs to U.S. citizens.

America’s nuclear talent crisis isn’t new, but its consequences have grown as tens of billions of dollars pour into the NNSA annually in a broader $1.7 trillion plan to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons.

Congress ordered the cramped, aging plutonium facility at Los Alamos – called PF-4 – to begin mass production of plutonium pits, a critical component at the heart of nuclear warheads, for the first time in more than a decade.

Enter Elon Musk and DOGE…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

What’s at stake

The struggle for staff has been NNSA’s Achilles heel for decades – and the stakes have only grown.

But despite efforts to develop talent, watchdogs said in February of this year the NNSA was “understaffed” and struggling to execute key oversight requirements.

Then came DOGE…………………………………………………………………………………….

Connery fears the strain and staffing problems could combine to disastrous effect.

“When you take an inexperienced or an understaffed workforce and you combine it with old facilities and a push to get things done – that is a recipe for disaster,” Connery said. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/18/nuclear-weapons-woes-nuke-agency-hit-by-doge-and-safety-worries/83621978007/

May 21, 2025 Posted by | employment, safety, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Treaty the planet’s best chance to get rid of its worst weapons

By Dave Sweeney | 19 May 2025, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/treaty-the-planets-best-chance-to-get-rid-of-its-worst-weapons,19758

From Jakarta to the Vatican, Prime Minister Albanese’s journey underscores a global call to ban the world’s most destructive weapons, writes Dave Sweeney.

ON HIS FIRST overseas trip since his sweeping election victory, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made for two very different destinations.

The first stop was steamy Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the world’s most populous island nation and home to the world’s largest Muslim population with around 240 million or 13 per cent of the globe’s believers.

After Indonesia, the PM switched time zones and belief systems and headed to the Vatican, the world’s smallest sovereign state in terms of area and population, and the (sacred) heartland of the Catholic faith.

These two places are very different worlds, with very different worldviews, but both have an active desire to protect our shared world from its most avoidable existential threat: nuclear war.

Prime Minister Albanese also holds this view.

In December 2018, he championed Federal Labor’s support for the newly adopted UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), stating:

“Nuclear weapons are the most destructive, inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. Today we have an opportunity to take a step towards their elimination.”

The TPNW, adopted by the UN in 2017 with more than 120 nations voting in favour, grew from an Australian initiative by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

ICAN was launched in Melbourne in 2007 and was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of the group’s work ‘to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons’ and its ‘groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons’.

The TPNW entered into force in January 2021, an act which has finally and formally seen nuclear weapons be declared unlawful under international humanitarian law.

Supporters of the TPNW have described the Treaty as our planet’s best way to get rid of its worst weapons.

The fragile and fractured global situation starkly highlights the urgency of this task.

Two nuclear weapon states, Israel and Russia, are actively involved in hot wars.

Two more, India and Pakistan, are engaged in risky posturing that could dramatically escalate, while two others, China and the United States, are shaping up for a trade war with hints of worse to come.

Against this grim background, the TPNW is a star that provides some light and hope and a navigation point to help chart a safer and saner course for our shared future.

Nations are embracing this path with half of the world’s countries having signed, ratified or acceded to the Treaty, including Indonesia and the Vatican/Holy See.

When it ratified the TPNW last September, Indonesia – a leading player in the global Non-Aligned Movement – made clear that ‘the possession and use of nuclear weapons cannot be justified for any reason’

Speaking at the time, then Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi posed the fundamental question and delivered the humane answer: 

Should fear of nuclear weapons be our guarantee for peace? Indonesia’s answer will forever be no. 

Indonesia reaffirms its commitment to a nuclear weapon-free world.

The late Pope Francis was a strong supporter of the TPNW and gave expression to the principle of “blessed are the peacemakers” with the Vatican’s championing and early adoption of the Treaty. The Pope described the very existence of nuclear weapons as “an affront to heaven”. In his final Easter Sunday sermon, shortly before he died, he made a powerful call for peace and weapons abolition.

These calls for nuclear abolition and for ways of addressing conflict that do not risk all that ever was, is or could be on our shared planet are finding a resonance and echo in many other nations.

Labor’s National Platform is clear: 

Labor acknowledges the growing danger that nuclear weapons pose to us all and the urgent need for progress on nuclear disarmament.

Labor will act with urgency and determination to rid the world of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

Commits itself to redoubling efforts towards a world without nuclear weapons…

Labor in government will sign and ratify the Ban Treaty…

In this year that marks 80 years since the unveiling of the age of Armageddon with the first atom bomb test in New Mexico and the first atom bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is time to turn a political platform into a prescription for a habitable world.

It is time for Australia to follow the example of Indonesia, the Vatican and many other nations and to show that the pen is mightier than the sword by signing the TPNW.

As they say, Prime Minister, when in Rome…

May 20, 2025 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Peace For Ukraine – The disastrous derailment of early peace efforts to end the war.

Brave New Europe, Michael von der Schulenburg, Hajo Funke, Harald Kujat, November 10, 2023 

Michael von der Schulenburg is a former UN Assistant Secretary-General, who worked for over 34 years for the United Nations, and shortly for the OSCE, in many countries in war or internal armed conflicts often involving fragile governments and armed non-state actors

Hajo Funke is Professor Emeritus for political sciences of the Otto-Suhr-Institute/ Freie University Berlin

General (ret.) Harald Kujat was the highest ranging German officer of the Bundeswehr and at NATO

The British Prime Minister’s fateful visit to Kiev on 9 April 2022

This is a detailed reconstruction of the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations in March 2022 and the associated mediation attempts by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, supported by President Erdogan and former German Chancellor Schröder. It was drawn up by retired General H. Kujat and Professor Emeritus H. Funke, two of the initiators of the recently presented peace plan for Ukraine. And it is also in connection with their peace plan that this reconstruction is so extremely important. It reminds us that we cannot afford to delay ceasefire and peace negotiations again. The human and military situation in Ukraine deteriorates dramatically, with the added danger that it could lead to a further escalation of the war. We need a diplomatic solution to this cruel war for Europe and the Ukraine – and we need it now!

From the detailed reconstruction of the March peace efforts 6 conclusions emerge:

1. Just one month after the start of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had come very close to an agreement for a ceasefire and to an outline for a comprehensive peace solution to the conflict.

2) In contrast to today, President Zelensky and his government had made great efforts to negotiate peace with Russia and bring the war to a quick end.

3) Contrary to Western interpretations, Ukraine and Russia agreed at the time that the planned NATO expansion was the reason for the war. They therefore focused their peace negotiations on Ukraine’s neutrality and its renunciation of NATO membership. In return, Ukraine would have retained its territorial integrity except for Crimea.

4) There is little doubt that these peace negotiations failed due to resistance from NATO and in particular from the USA and the UK. The reasons is that such a peace agreement would have been tantamount to a defeat for NATO, an end to NATO’s eastward expansion and thus an end to the dream of a unipolar world dominated by the USA.

5. The failure of the peace negotiations in March 2022 led to dangerous intensification of the war that has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, especially young people, deeply traumatized a young generation and inflicted the most severe mental and physical wounds on them. Ukraine has been exposed to enormous destruction, internal displacements, and mass impoverishment. This si accompanied by a large-scale depopulation of the country. Not only Russia, but also NATO and the West bear a heavy share of the blame for this disaster.

6) Ukraine’s negotiating position today is far worse than it was in March 2022. Ukraine will now lose large parts of its territory.

7. The blocking of the peace negotiations at that time has harmed everyone: Russia and Europe – but above all the people of Ukraine, who are paying with their blood the price for the ambitions of the major powers and will probably get nothing in return.

Michael von der Schulenburg

HOW THE CHANCE WAS LOST FOR A PEACE SETTLEMENT OF THE UKRAINE WAR

AND THE WEST WANTED TO CONTINUE THE WAR INSTEAD

A detailed reconstruction of events in March 2022

Hajo Funke and Harald Kujat, Berlin, October 2023

In March 2022, direct peace negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian delegations and mediation efforts by the then Israeli Prime Minster, Naftali Bennet created a genuine chance for ending the war peacefully only four to five weeks after Russia had invaded Ukraine. However, instead of ending the war through negotiations as Ukrainian President Zelensky and his government appeared to have wanted, he ultimately bowed to pressures from some Western powers to abandon a negotiated solution. Western powers wanted this war to continue in the hope to break Russia. Ukraine’s decision to abandon negotiations may been taken before the discovery of a massacre of civilians in the town of Bucha near Kiev.

In the following is an attempt of a step-by-step reconstruction of the events that led to the peace negotiations in March and their collapse in early April 2022.

IN EARLY MARCH 2022, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER NAFTALI BENNETT UNDERTOOK MEDIATION EFFORTS …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

APPARENT INITIAL SUPPORT OF MEDIATION EFFORTS BY WESTERN POLITICIANS.

Proof of initial Western politicians’ support for the negotiations emerges from the sequence of telephone calls and meetings during the period from early March to at least mid-March. On March 4, Scholz and Putin spoke on the phone; on March 5, Bennett met Putin in Moscow; on March 6, Bennett and Scholz met in Berlin; on March 7, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany discussed the issue in a videoconference; on March 8, Macron and Scholz spoke on the phone; on March 10, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov met in Ankara; on March 12, Scholz and Zelensky and Scholz and Macron spoke on the phone; and on March 14, Scholz and Erdogan met in Ankara. (Cf. Petra Erler: Re: Review March 2022: Who did not want a quick end to the war in Ukraine, in: “News of a Lighthouse Keeper,” Sept. 1, 2023)

NATO SPECIAL SUMMIT OF MARCH 24, 2022 IN BRUSSELS OPPOSES ALL NEGOCIATIONS

But this initial support quickly turned sour, with NATO opposing any such negotiations before Russia doesn’t withdraws all its troops from Ukrainian territories. This, in fact, killed all negotiations. Michael von der Schulenburg, former UN Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) in UN peace missions, writes that “NATO had already decided at a special summit on March 24, 2022, not to support these peace negotiations (between Ukraine and Russia).” (Cf. Michael von der Schulenburg: UN Charter: Negotiations! In: Emma, March 6, 2023). The US president had flown in especially for this special summit to Brussels. Obviously, peace as negotiated by the Russian and Ukrainian negotiating delegations was not in the interest of some NATO countries.

AT FIRST ZELENSKY STICKS TO THE OUTCOME OF THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

“As late as March 27, 2022, Zelensky had shown the courage to defend the results of the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations in public before Russian journalists – and this despite the fact that NATO had already decided at a special summit on March 24, 2022, not to support these peace negotiations.” (Ibid)

According to von der Schulenburg, the Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations had been a historically unique feature, made possible only because Russians and Ukrainians knew each other well and “spoke the same language and probably even knew each other personally.” We know of no other war or armed conflict in which the conflict parties agreed on specific peace terms so quickly.

On March 28, Putin, as a sign of goodwill and in support of the peace negotiations, declared readiness to withdraw troops from the Kharkov area and the Kiev area; this apparently occurred even before his public announcement.

THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS UNRAVEL

On March 29, 2022, the day of the Istanbul meeting, Scholz, Biden, Draghi, Macron, and Johnson again spoke on the phone about the situation in Ukraine. By this time, the stance of key Western allies had apparently hardened. They formulated preconditions for negotiations that were in blatant contrast to Bennett’s and Erdogan’s peace efforts: “The leaders agreed to continue to provide strong support to Ukraine. They again urged Russian President Putin to agree to a ceasefire, to cease all hostilities, to withdraw Russian soldiers from Ukraine and to allow for a diplomatic solution (…)” (Petra Erler: Re: Review March 2022: Who Didn’t Want a Quick End to the War in Ukraine (in “News of a Lighthouse Keeper” September 1, 2023).

The Washington Post reported April 5 that in NATO, continuing the war is preferred to a cease-fire and negotiated settlement: “For some in NATO, it’s better for Ukrainians to keep fighting and dying than to achieve a peace that comes too soon or at too high a price for Kiev and the rest of Europe.” Zelensky, he said, should “keep fighting until Russia is completely defeated.”

BORIS JOHNSON’S MESSAGE TO UKRAINIANS ON APRIL 9, 2022: WE MUST CONTINUE THE WAR

On April 9, 2022, Boris Johnson arrived unannounced in Kiev and told the Ukrainian president that the West was not ready to end the war. According to Britain’s Guardian on April 28, PM Johnson had “instructed” Ukrainian President Zelensky “not to make any concessions to Putin”:

“Ukrainska Pravda” reported on this in detail in two articles on May 5, 2022:

“No sooner had the Ukrainian negotiators and Abramovich/Medinsky agreed in broad terms on the structure of a possible future agreement after the Istanbul results than British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared in Kiev almost without warning.

Johnson brought two simple messages with him to Kiev. The first is that Putin is a war criminal; he should be pressured, not negotiated with. The second is that even if Ukraine is willing to sign some agreements with Putin on guarantees, but that the collective West is not. 

The Neue Züricher Zeitung (NZZ) reported on April 12 that the British government under Johnson is counting on a Ukrainian military victory. Conservative Member of the House of Commons Alicia Kearns said, “We’d rather arm the Ukrainians to the teeth than give Putin a success.” British Foreign Secretary (and later Prime Minister) Liz Truss professed in a keynote speech that “victory for Ukraine (…) is a strategic imperative for us all and therefore military support must be massively expanded”. Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins warned: “Liz Truss risks inflaming the war in Ukraine for her own ambitions.” This, he said, was probably the first Tory election campaign “to be fought on Russia’s borders.” Johnson and Truss wanted Zelensky “to keep fighting until Russia is completely defeated. They need a triumph in their proxy war. In the meantime, anyone who disagrees with them can be dismissed as a weakling, a coward, or a Putin supporter. That this conflict is being exploited by Britain for a sleazy upcoming leadership contest is sickening.”

Following his second visit to Kiev on April 25, 2022, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. wants to use the opportunity to permanently weaken Russia militarily and economically in the wake of the Ukraine war. According to the New York Times, the U.S. government is no longer concerned with a fight over control of Ukraine, but with a fight against Moscow in the wake of a new Cold War.

At the April 26, 2022, meeting of defense ministers from NATO members and other countries convened by Austin in Ramstein, Rhineland-Palatinate/ Germany, the Pentagon chief declared the military victory of Ukraine as a strategic goal.

CONCLUSION: MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Based on the publicly available reports and documents, it is not only plain that there was a serious willingness to negotiate on the part of both Ukraine and Russia in March 2022. Apparently, the negotiating parties even agreed on a draft treaty ad referendum. Zelensky and Putin were ready for a bilateral meeting to finalize the outcome of the negotiations. Fact is that the main results of the negotiations were based on a proposal by Ukraine, and Zelenskyy courageously supported them in an interview with Russian journalists on March 27, 2022, even after NATO decided against these peace negotiations. Zelensky had already expressed similar support beforehand in a sign that proves that the intended outcome of the Istanbul negotiations certainly corresponded to Ukrainian interests. 

. This makes the Western intervention, which prevented an early end to the war, even more disastrous for Ukraine. Russia’s responsibility for the attack, which was contrary to international law, is not relativized by the fact that responsibility for the grave consequences that Ukraine’s Western supporters that ensued must also be attributed to the states that demanded the continuation of the war. The war has now reached a stage where further dangerous escalation and an expansion of hostilities can only be prevented by a cease-fire. It may now be the last time that a peaceful resolution through negotiations could be achieved……………….. https://braveneweurope.com/michael-von-der-schulenburg-hajo-funke-harald-kujat-peace-for-ukraine

May 17, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Emmanuel Macron open to stationing French nuclear weapons in other European nations.

 French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “ready to open a
discussion” with European allies about stationing France’s nuclear
weapons on their soil, in an effort to beef up defences against Russia. The
comments made by Macron in an interview with the broadcaster TF1 on Tuesday
come as he has been holding talks with Germany, Poland and other European
countries to explore whether and how France’s nuclear deterrence could be
extended on the continent. Such a move is being considered in response to
signs that US President Donald Trump wants to scale back the American
military presence in Europe and force European countries to take more
responsibility for their own security.

 FT 13th May 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/96231d9c-ee48-43b3-9c82-bdc4002b41a5

May 16, 2025 Posted by | France, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US loosens some rules for offensive counterspace ops, wargaming

Some decision-making authorities, previously closely held by the president or secretary of defense, have been delegated to US SPACECOM, according to sources, but military space leaders want more freedom to act.

Breaking DEfense, By   Theresa Hitchens, on May 12, 2025

WASHINGTON — When the Space Force recently put out a forward-leaning “warfighting” framework, it included an unusually blunt warning for military commanders: ensure the rules of engagement for space operations aren’t too restrictive, or the US will be at a severe disadvantage in the heavens.

That warning was public, but Breaking Defense has learned it comes amid a parallel push by the Space Force and US Space Command (SPACECOM) over the last several years to gain more military decision-making control over the use of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons — decision-making authority that has historically been closely held by the president and/or the secretary of defense. 

While delegation of presidential authority with regard to space weapons is obscured by deep secrecy and classification, discussions by Breaking Defense with more than a dozen sources — including former Pentagon and US government civilian officials, retired and current military officials and outside space experts — have revealed that gradual but ground-breaking shifts in military freedom to prosecute war in the heavens have begun to take place in response to growing threats from Russia and, in particular China. 

“We have made some changes that delegated some authorities down to Space Command commander under certain circumstances,” a former senior Space Force official said. “But in my view, not enough.”

For example, over the last decade there has been a gradual loosening of the reins on case-by-case determinations about the use of some types of temporary or reversible counterspace actions, such as jamming or lazing, according to a handful of sources. However, these sources did not indicate that there has been any relaxation of the requirement for approval by the president and/or the secretary of defense for a kinetic attack to destroy an enemy satellite……………………….

Changes in delegation of authority sped up following the standup of SPACECOM in 2019, the former senior Space Force official said. And according to three sources close to the debate, there were intense discussions as late as last summer within the Biden administration about delegating authority for the use of offensive satellite attack weapons to SPACECOM.

“OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] Space Policy was engaged in the strongest push I’m aware of to get authorization to use offensive counterspace capabilities delegated down from the [White House] to the [Secretary of Defense] and eventually to” the head of SPACECOM, said another former Pentagon official.

John Plumb, the head of OSD Space Policy under President Joe Biden, did reveal to Breaking Defense one significant move by that administration: allowing joint force planners to include space warfighting in their routine contingency plans and wargames for future conflict. (He would not, however, address the key question of whether destructive, kinetic strikes can be included in those plans.)………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://breakingdefense.com/2025/05/exclusive-us-loosens-some-rules-for-offensive-counterspace-ops-wargaming/

May 15, 2025 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Too Cruel to Even Imagine—Nuclear War in Densely Populated Areas

in South Asia, by Bharat Dogra 12/05/2025, https://countercurrents.org/2025/05/too-cruel-to-even-imagine-nuclear-war-in-densely-populated-areas/

Nuclear war should never happen as it is the most destructive thing imaginable. While nuclear weapon war anywhere is so destructive that this cannot be accepted, it is at its most cruel in more densely populated areas. No one can question this reality, but despite this we have the most dreadful and frightening situation of escalating conflict between India and Pakistan, two nuclear weapon countries which possess a total of about 340 nuclear weapons, according to recent estimates, and are also included among the most densely populated countries of the world, in terms of people living per one square km.

While the average world population density for the entire world is 60, it is 331 for Pakistan and 483 for India. In several cities and the most densely populated city districts of these countries, the population density can be easily over 5,000, going up to around 55,000 in the most densely populated city district (Karachi Central). While war even with conventional weapons can be very highly destructive in such conditions, in the context of nuclear weapons, even smaller and tactical ones, this is too cruel even to be imagined. Yet the possibility cannot be brushed aside and must be considered as a real life possibility, a relatively low possibility but nevertheless real possibility, whenever the two countries are involved in escalating conflict situations.

     Eric Schlosser, a well-known writer on nuclear weapons, has spoken at length to top officials and commanders at various stages of planning and control of nuclear weapons. In addition he has close contacts with peace movements struggling for a world free from nuclear weapons. He has written that these very different persons share a very strong and sincere desire to avoid actual use of nuclear weapons.

     The reason why both these sections share this strong belief is that both groups are well-informed about what actual use of nuclear weapons means. This makes them tremble about the implications.

     In the specific context of India and Pakistan, the two nuclear weapon countries of South Asia, Schlosser has written, “The latest studies suggest that a relatively small nuclear exchange (relative to the total number of nuclear weapons that exist in world) would have long-term effects across the globe. A war between India and Pakistan, involving a hundred atomic bombs like the kind dropped in Hiroshima, could send five million tons of dust into the atmosphere, shrink the ozone layer by as much as fifty per cent, drop worldwide temperatures to their lowest point in a thousand years, create worldwide famines and cause more than a billion casualties.”

Thus it is clear that apart from killing millions of people immediately, war with nuclear weapons can lead to unprecedented environmental catastrophe which can kill an even larger number of people while also destroying other life-forms like never before. If the nuclear weapon exchange is between two countries alone, people particularly of neighbouring countries will also suffer very serious consequences without being involved in any dispute at all.

     Some strategists have argued that there can be a less catastrophic role for nuclear weapons in the form of tactical nuclear weapons. As not just peace movements but several independent experts have pointed out, this is a highly flawed and mistaken view. A nuclear war started with tactical weapons can easily spill into a full-blown nuclear war if the opposing side also has nuclear weapons. Secondly, use of even tactical nuclear weapons can be very destructive, even for the using country!

    Pakistan in particular has been keen to develop tactical nuclear weapons in recent times as it feels that this can be one way of checking and defeating an invasion by a country with superior conventional war capability and bigger economic resources. However saner scientific voices in Pakistan have warned that if Pakistan uses tactical weapons against an invading army on its land, its own military and civilian losses can be very high due to the highly destructive impacts of these weapons.

     In the much earlier days of the cold war the NATO had stocked a lot of tactical nuclear weapons in West Germany to check a possible Soviet invasion. A war game Carte Blanche was played out to see the possible impacts in case of a Soviet invasion. It was realized only then that German civilian deaths from the use of tactical nuclear weapons on its own land can be higher than total German civilian deaths in the Second World War! Such is the destructive power of these weapons.

  Moreover when tactical nuclear weapons have to be prepared for use then control has to be more dispersed and scattered. This increases the possibility that persons with fanatic or fundamentalist leanings can also gain access to this control. Hence the possibilities of terrorists gaining access to such control also increase at least to some extent. The Pakistani authorities including armed forces have time and again faced evidence-based criticism for supporting terror-groups and this combination of terror groups and nuclear weapons can prove very dangerous in a national as well as international context. From time to time attacks by such terror groups, some of whom also break free from the control of the authorities to a lesser or greater extent, have led to crisis situations nationally and internationally.

     It is not at all justified to be under the false impression that tactical weapons provide some form of safer nuclear weapons. Let no one create such a false impression as such a delusion can be extremely catastrophic for millions and millions of people.

   Let us face the reality. All evidence points to the fact that nuclear weapons should never be used. In fact even accidental use of nuclear weapons or accidents relating to nuclear weapons can be very destructive. Hence ultimately the only safe option if we care for life on earth is to give up all nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass destruction once and for all at the level of the entire world. The more you study and explore this issue, no matter which side  you belong to, the only honest conclusion can be that tomorrow if not today we have to do away with nuclear weapons if we want to save life on earth; so why not make a beginning today itself.

     The discussion here has been in the context of South Asia, but of course the consequences of an exchange of nuclear weapons between the USA and Russia or between the USA and China will be even more destructive, much more devastating for the world as these countries have more weapons and their destructive capacity is higher. As a part of world, South Asia will also suffer very harmful impacts from this. Hence the only safe future for us and for our children is on the path which is entirely free from nuclear weapons and entirely free of all weapons of mass destruction.

    As for the immediate issue at hand, the maximum efforts need to be made to prevent further escalation of ongoing India-Pakistan conflict and also to end this conflict as early as possible.

May 14, 2025 Posted by | India, Pakistan, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Business as usual: Australian government stalls on Defence reform as AUKUS woes grow

Above -Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles

Defence spending is lagging, AUKUS is stalling, and systemic mismanagement persists as Labor avoids hard structural reform.


Bernard Keane, May 11, 2025, https://www.themandarin.com.au/291901-business-as-usual-labor-stalls-on-defence-reform-as-aukus-woes-grow/

Having managed to get through an election campaign barely mentioning defence — despite the opposition trying to make it a late-stage vote winner — the newly expanded Labor government still faces a number of big challenges in the defence portfolio, and no easy answers.

The two big ones are well-known: the replacement of the US security guarantee with Trumpian chaos, which means Australia will have to strengthen its defence capability so that it has to rely less on the US, and the profound problems of AUKUS.

Despite some budget sleight of hand purporting to show an acceleration in defence spending, the government remains committed to increasing defence spending to just 2.33% of GDP — not merely well below the Trump administration’s demand for 3%, but below the Coalition’s planned increase to 2.5% and the calls from defence and security experts, as well as Labor luminaries like Kim Beazley, for a significant increase.

But the ability of the Department of Defence to handle any increase in spending — or even competently spend what it currently receives — is openly questioned even by hawks. Average major project slippage time, already alarming when the Coalition was last in power, noticeably deteriorated in Labor’s first term. The response of Defence appeared to try to hide embarrassing data from the Auditor-General under the pretence of national security.

Also characterising Labor’s first term was the admission of failure of departmental process, to the very highest echelons of Defence, in relation to the Hunter-class frigate project and the shocking audit of Defence’s dealings with Thales on munitions manufacturing (the second part of which is yet to arrive from the auditor-general).

With both defence minister Richard Marles’ track record in Labor first term, and his general insouciance toward revelations such as the Thales debacle — which included the revelation that the department had actively misled predecessor ministers — it seems unlikely Defence will face any real pressure to improve the incompetence and, quite possibly, corruption that marks its management of major procurement processes. A defence minister like Andrew Hastie, far more credentialed in military matters than most within the department, could have driven the kind of reform that would have gotten Defence backs up, and led to copious leaking against him, but improved the reliability and integrity of the department’s procurement processes. Instead, we’ll have to hope that a Labor government with a big majority and more confidence will be more willing to take on the fundamental problems in the portfolio.

A similar business-as-usual approach will likely characterise the unfolding disaster that is AUKUS. The grim reality is that US submarine construction rates are slowing, not accelerating as they need to if the US is to provide three Virginia-class nuclear submarines to Australia from 2030. In early April, the US Navy admitted to Congress significant delays in constructing its new Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, which shares some components with the Virginia class. While the builders of the Virginia-class boats are talking bravely of demand signals and additional investment, the build rate for the subs late last year was barely above half that required by AUKUS.

None of this, apparently, is of interest to the bureaucrats charged with overseeing AUKUS. The Mandarin applied under Freedom of Information laws to the Australian Submarine Agency to see what briefing it was providing to ministers on the problems in submarine construction in the US and the UK. No such documents, came back the answer. Blind faith that the US can double the rate of submarine construction in a couple of years is one thing, but remaining ignorant of how badly off track AUKUS is? That’s quite another.

One of the key problems of the Virginia-class boats for Australia is that they require huge crews — 135 sailors, compared to just 58 for Australia’s current submarines. That brings into focus a persistent and worsening problem — our inability to attract and retain ADF members. Last year the Navy was short around 900 people. The Army was short around 5000; only the RAAF is around its mandated strength. A change of recruitment agency for the ADF proved a disaster, with portfolio minister Matt Keogh expressing his “deep disappointment” with the provider’s “wholly deficient” performance. Critics say the problem is with the ADF itself, which is “too slow and too picky”. The government announced in mid-2024 the brilliant idea of opening up the ADF to personnel from Five Eyes. countries. Only problem is, they’re all suffering the same problems with defence recruitment. In fact, armies, navies and air forces around the world are suffering ongoing recruitment problems and have done so for years — even the People’s Liberation Army is struggling to attract Chinese youth to its ranks.

In each of these areas, clearly, business as usual won’t cut it. But that is what Defence is very good at, and its ministers are very bad at preventing. To prevent it, only structural arrangements that disrupt Defence’s normal processes will achieve results. The royal commission into ADF member and veteran suicide had the right idea — and the government rightly took its lead from the commission in its response. The commission recommended a new independent statutory body to oversee reform across the whole Defence/Veterans Affairs portfolio, not a new area of Defence. And it urged, and the government agreed, that central agencies be charged with implementing the commission’s recommendations: the result was a Prime Minister and Cabinet taskforce to start implementing reforms, with the help of external expertise.

An independent agency, and a PM&C-led implementation taskforce, was what was needed to ensure Defence didn’t simply default back to business as usual when it came to the mental health of its members and veterans. Only the oversight and interference of high-powered external bodies will compel Defence to change its culture.

And it’s the only thing that will enable the government to seriously tackle the biggest challenges in the portfolio over the coming years.

Bernard Keane

Bernard Keane is a columnist for The Mandarin. He was a Canberra press gallery correspondent covering politics, national security and economics, and a public servant and speechwriter in transport and communications. He is co-author of A Short History Of Stupid, which covers the decline of reason and issues with public debate.

May 14, 2025 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Close the US military bases in Asia!

The US acts as if Japan needs to be defended against China. Let’s have a look. During the past 1,000 years, during which time China was the region’s dominant power for all but the last 150 years, how many times did China attempt to invade Japan? If you answered zero, you are correct. China did not attempt to invade Japan on a single occasion.


Jeffrey D. Sachs, Swiss Standpoint, Sun, 04 May 2025, https://www.sott.net/article/499470-Close-the-US-military-bases-in-Asia

(2 May 2025) President Donald Trump is again loudly complaining that the US military bases in Asia are too costly for the US to bear. As part of the new round of tariff negotiations with Japan and Korea,1 Trump is calling on Japan and Korea to pay for stationing the US troops. Here’s a much better idea: close the bases and return the US servicemen to the US.

Donald Trump implies that the US is providing a great service to Japan and Korea by stationing 50,000 troops in Japan and nearly 30,000 in Korea. Yet these countries do not need the US to defend themselves. They are wealthy and can certainly provide their own defense. Far more importantly, diplomacy can ensure the peace in northeast Asia far more effectively and far less expensively than US troops.

The US acts as if Japan needs to be defended against China. Let’s have a look. During the past 1,000 years, during which time China was the region’s dominant power for all but the last 150 years, how many times did China attempt to invade Japan? If you answered zero, you are correct. China did not attempt to invade Japan on a single occasion.

You might quibble. What about the two attempts in 1274 and 1281, roughly 750 years ago? It’s true that when the Mongols temporarily ruled China between 1271 and 1368, the Mongols twice sent expeditionary fleets to invade Japan, and both times were defeated by a combination of typhoons (known in Japanese lore as the Kamikaze winds) and by Japanese coastal defenses.

Japan, on the other hand, made several attempts to attack or conquer China. In 1592, the arrogant and erratic Japanese military leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched an invasion of Korea with the goal of conquering Ming China. He did not get far, dying in 1598 without even having subdued Korea. In 1894-1895, Japan invaded and defeated China in the Sino-Japanese war, taking Taiwan as a Japanese colony. In 1931, Japan invaded northeast China (Manchuria) and created the Japanese colony of Manchukuo. In 1937, Japan invaded China, starting World War II in the Pacific region.

Nobody thinks that Japan is going to invade China today, and there is no rhyme, reason, or historical precedent to believe that China is going to invade Japan. Japan has no need for the US military bases to protect itself from China.

The same is true of China and Korea. During the past 1,000 years, China never invaded Korea, except on one occasion: when the US threatened China. China entered the war in late 1950 on the side of North Korea to fight the US troops advancing northward towards the Chinese border. At the time, US General Douglas MacArthur recklessly recommended attacking China with atomic bombs. MacArthur also proposed to support Chinese nationalist forces, then based in Taiwan, to invade the Chinese mainland. President Harry Truman, thank God, rejected MacArthur’s recommendations.

South Korea needs deterrence against North Korea, to be sure, but that would be achieved far more effectively and credibly through a regional security system including China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, than through the presence of the US, which has repeatedly stoked North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and military build-up, not diminished it.

In fact, the US military bases in East Asia are really for the US projection of power, not for the defense of Japan or Korea. This is even more reason why they should be removed. Though the US claims that its bases in East Asia are defensive, they are understandably viewed by China and North Korea as a direct threat – for example, by creating the possibility of a decapitation strike, and by dangerously lowering the response times for China and North Korea to a US provocation or some kind of misunderstanding.

Russia vociferously opposed NATO in Ukraine for the same justifiable reasons. NATO has frequently intervened in US-backed regime-change operations and has placed missile systems dangerously close to Russia. Indeed, just as Russia feared, NATO has actively participated in the Ukraine War, providing armaments, strategy, intelligence, and even programming and tracking for missile strikes deep inside of Russia.

Note that Trump is currently obsessed with two small port facilities in Panama owned by a Hong Kong company, claiming that China is threatening US security (!), and wants the facilities sold to an American buyer. The US on the other hand surrounds China not with two tiny port facilities but with major US military bases in Japan, South Korea, Guam, the Philippines, and the Indian Ocean near to China’s international sea lanes.

The best strategy for the superpowers is to stay out of each other’s lanes. China and Russia should not open military bases in the Western Hemisphere, to put it mildly. The last time that was tried, when the Soviet Union placed nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, the world nearly ended in nuclear annihilation. (See Martin Sherwin’s remarkable book, “Gambling with Armageddon” for the shocking details on how close the world came to nuclear Armageddon). Neither China nor Russia shows the slightest inclination to do so today, despite all the provocations of facing US bases in their own neighborhoods.

Trump is looking for ways to save money – an excellent idea given that the US federal budget is hemorrhaging $2 trillion dollars a year, more than 6% of US GDP. Closing the US overseas military bases would be an excellent place to start.

Trump even seemed to point that way at the start of his second term, but the Congressional Republicans have called for increases, not decreases, in military spending. Yet with America’s 750 or so overseas military bases in around 80 countries, it’s high time to close these bases, pocket the saving, and return to diplomacy. Getting the host countries to pay for something that doesn’t help them or the US is a huge drain of time, diplomacy, and resources, both for the US and the host countries.

The US should make a basic deal with China, Russia, and other powers. “You keep your military bases out of our neighborhood, and we’ll keep our military bases out of yours.” Basic reciprocity among the major powers would save trillions of dollars of military outlays over the coming decade and, more importantly, would push the Doomsday Clock back from 89 seconds to nuclear Armageddon.2

May 12, 2025 Posted by | ASIA, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Why Is US Congress Silent on the Manmade Nightmare It Is Enabling in Gaza? -Bernie Sanders

With Israel having cut off all aid, what we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities. This is methodical, it is intentional, it is the stated policy of the Netanyahu government.

  Bernie Sanders, May 08, 2025 , https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/congress-silent-gaza

I want to say a few words about an issue that people all over the world are thinking about—are appalled by—but for some strange reason gets very little discussion here in the nation’s capital or in the halls of Congress. And that is the horrific humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in Gaza.

Thursday marks 68 days and counting since ANY humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza. For more than nine weeks, Israel has blocked all supplies: no food, no water, no medicine, and no fuel.

Hundreds of truckloads of lifesaving supplies are waiting to enter Gaza, sitting just across the border, but are denied entry by Israeli authorities.

There is no ambiguity here: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government talks openly about using humanitarian aid as a weapon. Defense Minister Israel Katz said, “Israel’s policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers.”

Starving children to death as a weapon of war is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, the Foreign Assistance Act, and basic human decency. Civilized people do not starve children to death.

What is going on in Gaza is a war crime, committed openly and in broad daylight, and continuing every single day.

There are 2.2 million people who live in Gaza. Today, these people are trapped. The borders are sealed. And Israel has pushed the population into an ever-smaller area.

With Israel having cut off all aid, what we are seeing now is a slow, brutal process of mass starvation and death by the denial of basic necessities. This is methodical, it is intentional, it is the stated policy of the Netanyahu government.

Without fuel, there is no ability to pump fresh water, leaving people increasingly desperate, unable to find clean water to drink, wash with, or cook properly. Disease is once again spreading in Gaza.

Most of the bakeries in Gaza have now shut down, having run out of fuel and flour. The few remaining community kitchens are also shutting down. Most people are now surviving on scarce canned goods, often a single can of beans or some lentils, shared between a family once a day.

The United Nations reports that more than 2 million people out of a population of 2.2 million face severe food shortages.

The starvation hits children hardest. At least 65,000 children now show symptoms of malnutrition, and dozens have already starved to death.

Malnutrition rates increased 80% in March, the last month for which data is available, after Netanyahu began the siege, but the situation has severely deteriorated since then.

UNICEF reported Wednesday that “the situation is getting worse every day,” and that they are treating about 10,000 children for severe malnutrition.

Without adequate nutrition or access to clean water, many children will die of easily preventable diseases, killed by something as simple as diarrhea.

For the tens of thousands of injured people in Gaza, particularly the countless burn victims from Israeli bombing, their wounds cannot heal without adequate food and clean water. Left to fester, infections will kill many who should have survived.

With no infant formula, and with malnourished mothers unable to breastfeed, many infants are also at severe risk of death. Those that survive will bear the scars of their suffering for the rest of their lives.

And with little medicine available, easily treatable illnesses and chronic diseases like diabetes or heart disease can be a death sentence in Gaza.

What is going on there is not some terrible earthquake, it is not a hurricane, it is not a storm. What is going on in Gaza today is a manmade nightmare. And nothing can justify this.

What is happening in Gaza will be a permanent stain on the world’s collective conscience. History will never forget that we allowed this to happen and, for us here in the United States, that we, in fact, enabled this atrocity.

There is no doubt that Hamas, a terrorist organization, began this terrible war with its barbaric October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages.

The International Criminal Court was right to indict Yahya Sinwar and other leaders of Hamas as war criminals for those atrocities.

Clearly, Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas.

But Netanyahu’s extremist government has not just waged war against Hamas. Instead, they have waged an all-out barbaric war of annihilation against the Palestinian people.

They have intentionally made life unlivable in Gaza.

Israel, up to now, has killed more than 52,000 people and injured more than 118,000—60% of whom are women, children, and the elderly. More than 15,000 children have been killed.

Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment has damaged or destroyed two-thirds of all structures in Gaza, including 92% of the housing units. Most of the population now is living in tents or other makeshift structures.

The healthcare system in Gaza has been essentially destroyed. Most of the territory’s hospitals and primary healthcare facilities have been bombed.

Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been totally devastated, including almost 90% of water and sanitation facilities. Most of the roads have been destroyed.

Gaza’s education system has been obliterated. Hundreds of schools have been bombed, as has every single one of Gaza’s 12 universities.

And there has been no electricity in Gaza for 18 months.

Given this reality, nobody should have any doubts that Netanyahu is a war criminal. Just like his counterparts in Hamas, he has a massive amount of innocent blood on his hands.

And now Netanyahu and his extremist ministers have a new plan: to indefinitely reoccupy all of Gaza, flatten the few buildings that are still standing, and force the entire population of 2.2 million people into a single tiny area, where hired U.S. security contractors will distribute rations to the survivors.

Israeli officials are quite open about the goal here: to force Palestinians to leave for other countries “in line with President [Donald] Trump’s vision for Gaza,” as one Israeli official said this week.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said this week that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed,” and that its population will “leave in great numbers.”

For many in Netanyahu’s extremist government, this has been the plan all along: It’s called ethnic cleansing.

This would be a terrible tragedy, no matter where or why it was happening. But what makes this tragedy so much worse for us in America is that it is our government, the United States government, that is absolutely complicit in creating and sustaining this humanitarian disaster.

Last year alone, the United States provided $18 billion in military aid to Israel. This year, the Trump administration has approved $12 billion more in bombs and weapons.

And for months, Trump has offered blanket support for Netanyahu. More than that, he has repeatedly said that the United States will actually take over Gaza after the war, that the Palestinians will be pushed out, and that the U.S. will redevelop it into what Trump calls “the Riviera of the Middle East,” a playground for billionaires.

This war has killed or injured more than 170,000 people in Gaza. It has cost American taxpayers well over $20 billion in the last year. And right now, as we speak, thousands of children are starving to death. And the U.S. president is actively encouraging the ethnic cleansing of over 2 million people.

Given that reality, one might think that there would be a vigorous discussion right here in the Senate: Do we really want to spend billions of taxpayer dollars starving children in Gaza? You tell me why spending billions of dollars to support Netanyahu’s war and starving children in Gaza is a good idea. I’d love to hear it.

But we are not having that debate. And let me suggest to you why I think we are not having that debate.

That is because we have a corrupt campaign finance system that allows the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to set the agenda here in Washington.

In the last election cycle, AIPAC’s PAC and Super PAC spent nearly $127 million combined.

And the fact is that, if you are a member of Congress and you vote against Netanyahu’s war in Gaza, AIPAC is there to punish you with millions of dollars in advertisements to see that you’re defeated.

One might think that in a democracy there would be a vigorous debate on an issue of such consequence. But because of our corrupt campaign finance system, people are literally afraid to stand up. If they do, suddenly you will have all kinds of ads coming in to your district to defeat you.

Sadly, I must confess, that this political corruption works. Many of my colleagues will privately express their horror at Netanyahu’s war crimes, but will do or say very little publicly about it.

History will not forgive our complicity in this nightmare. The time is long overdue for us to end our support for Netanyahu’s destruction of the Palestinian people. We must not put another nickel into Netanyahu’s war machine. We must demand an immediate cease-fire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of the hostages, and the rebuilding of Gaza—not for billionaires to enjoy their Riviera there—but rebuilding Gaza for the Palestinian people.

May 10, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Depleted Uranium by Lynda Williams 2025

May 10, 2025 Posted by | depleted uranium | Leave a comment

Expulsion and Occupation: Israel’s Proposed Gaza Plan

May 7, 2025 Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.net/expulsion-and-occupation-israels-proposed-gaza-plan/

Killing civilians wholesale, starving them to convince those unaffected to change course, and shepherding whole populations like livestock into conditions of further misery would all qualify as heinous crimes in international law. When it comes to Israel’s war in Gaza, this approach is seen as necessary politics, unalloyed by the restraints of humanitarianism. When confronted with these harsh realities on the ground, unequivocal denials follow: This is not happening in Gaza; no one is starving. And if that were the case, blame those misguided savages in Hamas.  

As the conflict chugs along in pools of blood and bountiful gore, the confused shape of Israel’s intentions continues in all its glorious nebulousness. Pretend moderation clouds murderous desire. There is no sense that those unfortunate Israeli hostages captured by Hamas in its assault on October 7, 2023 matter anymore, being merely decorative for the imminent slaughter. There is even less sense that Hamas will be cleansed and removed from the strip, however attractive this idea continues to be.

Such evident limits have not discouraged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, who have decided that more force, that old province of the unimaginative, is the answer. According to the PM, the cabinet had agreed on a “forceful operation” to eliminate Hamas and salvage what is left of the hostage situation.

A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Brigadier-General Effie Defrin, has explained on Israeli radio that the offensive will apparently ensure the return of the hostages. What follows will be “the collapse of the Hamas regime, its defeat, its submission.” Anywhere up to two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza will be herded into the ruins of the south. Humanitarian aid will be arranged by the Israeli forces, to be possibly distributed through approved contractors.  

The IDF chief of staff, Lt. General Eyal Zamier, confirmed that the approved plan will involve “the capture of the Strip and holding the territories, moving the Gazan population south for its defence, denying Hamas and the ability to distribute humanitarian supplies, and powerful attacks against Hamas.”

Within the Israeli cabinet, ethnocentric and religious fires burn with bright fanaticism. The Israeli Finance Finister Bezalel Smotrich remains a figure who ignores floral subtlety in favour of the blood-stained sledgehammer. He remains that coherent link between cruel lawmaking and baffling violence. “Within a few months,” he boasts, “we will be able to declare that we have won. Gaza will be totally destroyed.” With pompous certitude, he also claimed that the next six months would see Hamas cease to exist.  

Such opinions, expressed at the “Settlements Conference” organised by the Makor Rishon newspaper in Ofra, a West Bank settlement, gives a sense of the flavour. Palestinians are to be “concentrated” on land located between the Egyptian border and the arbitrarily designated Morag Corridor. As with any potential abuser keen to violate his vulnerable charges while justifying it, Smotrich tried to impress with the idea that this was a “humanitarian” zone that would be free of “Hamas and terrorism.”

The program here is clear in its chilling crudeness. Expulsion, relocation, transfer. These are the words famously used to move on populations of sizeable number in history, often at enormous cost. That this should involve lawmakers of the Jewish state adds a stunning, if perverse poignancy to this. They, the moved on in history, the expelled and the condemned wanderers, shall expel others and condemn them in turn. Smotrich also points the finger to desperation and hopelessness, the biting incentives that propel migration. The Palestinians will feel blessed in their banishment. “They will be totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.”

Impossible to ignore in Smotrich’s steaming bile against the Palestinians is the broader view that no Palestinian state can arise, necessitating urgent, preventative poisoning. In addition to the eventual depopulation of Gaza, plans to reconstitute the contours of the West Bank, ensuring that Israeli and Palestinian traffic are separated to enable building and construction for settlements as a prelude to annexation, are to be implemented.

The issue of twisting and mangling humanitarian aid in favour of Israel’s territorial lust has raised some tart commentary. A statement from the Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a forum led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), does not shy away from the realities on the ground. All supplies, including those vital to survival, have been blocked for nine weeks. Bakeries and community kitchens have closed, while warehouses are empty. Hunger, notably among children, is rampant. Israel’s plan, as presented, “will mean that large parts of Gaza, including the less mobile and most vulnerable people, will continue to go without supplies.”

The UN Secretary General and the Emergency Relief Coordinator have confirmed that they will not cooperate in the scheme, seeing that it “does not adhere to the global humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality.”  

The same point has been made by the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Despite all being solid allies of Israel, they have warned that violations of international law are taking place. “Humanitarian aid must never be used as a political tool and a Palestinian territory must not be reduced nor subjected to any demographic change.”

To date, a promise lingers that the offensive will only commence once US President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar takes place. But no ongoing savaging of Gaza with some crude effort at occupation will solve the historical vortex that continues to drag the Jewish state risk and oblivion.

May 9, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Starmer prepares for attack by Russia

Officials asked to update 20-year-old contingency plans that would put UK on war footing after Kremlin threats

Tony Diver,Associate Political Editor, 05 May 2025

Britain is secretly preparing for a direct military attack by Russia amid fears that it is not ready for war…

Officials have been asked to update
20-year-old contingency plans that would put the country on a war footing
after threats of attack by the Kremlin. A classified dossier will set out
how the Government would respond to a declaration of war, including bunkers
to protect the Cabinet and the Royal family, public service broadcasts and
the stockpiling of resources. Experts have warned that the country is
vulnerable to an assault on its critical national infrastructure, including
gas terminals, undersea cables, nuclear power plants and transport hubs.

 Telegraph 5th May 2025,
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/05/05/starmer-prepares-for-attack-by-russia/

May 8, 2025 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

As Israelis Blockade Food to Gaza, 9,000 Children have been Admitted for Acute Malnutrition.

Juan Cole, 05/04/2025, https://www.juancole.com/2025/05/israelis-blockade-malnutrition.html

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said Friday that “malnutrition is … on the rise. More than 9,000 children have been admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year.”

At least 10 NGO aid kitchens have closed in recent weeks for lack of food, and 25 UN bakeries haven’t been operational for a month. The Israeli military has for two months been committing a war crime in preventing shipments of food from entering Gaza.

Meanwhile, a medical source in Gaza told the Anadolu Agency that on Saturday, a child “died from malnutrition and dehydration at Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in Gaza City.” Gaza medical authorities have documented 57 deaths from malnutrition in Gaza during the current conflict.

UNICEF says that over 75% of households in Gaza have reported declining access to water. Russell explained that many families with children have to choose between drinking, bathing and cooking.

Because of the lack of clean water, Russell explained, “acute watery diarrhea … now accounts for 1 in every 4 cases of disease recorded in Gaza. Most of these cases are among children under five, for whom it is life-threatening.”

UNICEF’s Russell said, “For two months, children in the Gaza Strip have faced relentless bombardments while being deprived of essential goods, services and lifesaving care. With each passing day of the aid blockade, they face the growing risk of starvation, illness and death – nothing can justify this.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its weekly report on Gaza on Wednesday that “On 25 April, the World Food Programme (WPF) reported that its food stocks in Gaza have been depleted, as the agency delivered its last remaining supplies to kitchens preparing hot meals. WFP additionally highlighted the impact of deteriorating nutrition on vulnerable groups, including children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly, warning that the situation has again reached ‘a breaking point.’”

OCHA added that “between 18 March and 27 April, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) recorded 259 attacks on residential buildings and 99 on IDP tents. Most of the attacks resulted in fatalities, including of women and children. Among the strikes on IDP tents, 40 reportedly took place in Al Mawasi area, in Khan Younis, where the Israeli army repeatedly directed civilians to seek refuge.”

Over 400 Palestinians seem to be being killed each week by Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, the vast majority women and children. Thousands have been wounded in the two months since the government of Benjamin Netanyahu breached the January ceasefire.

OCHA writes, “On 27 April, at about 20:10, 13 Palestinians, including a woman and her six children, were reportedly killed and others injured when a residential building was hit in southern Khan Younis. On 28 April, at about 00:30, 10 Palestinians, including at least three children, were reportedly killed and others, including a seven-year-old girl, were injured when a residential building was hit in Al Fakhoura area, west of Jabalya refugee camp, in North Gaza. On 28 April, at about 00:30, 10 Palestinians were reportedly killed and others injured when a residential building was hit in Al Karmah area in northwestern Gaza city.”

Israeli forces have been firing on Palestinian fishing boats, as fishermen desperately attempt to bring in some protein for their families.

May 6, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

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