Cruelty of Language — The New York Times’ Leaked Gaza Memo
The Intercept reporting on this issue matters greatly. Aside from the leaked memos, the dishonesty of language used by the New York Times – compassionate towards Israel and indifferent to Palestinian suffering – leaves no doubts that the NYT, like other US mainstream media, continues to stand firmly on Tel Aviv’s side.
By Ramzy Baroud, April 18, 2024, https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/cruelty-of-language-leaked-ny-times-memo-reveals-moral-depravity-of-us-media/—
The New York Times coverage of the Israeli carnage in Gaza, like that of other mainstream US media, is a disgrace to journalism.
This assertion should not surprise anyone. US media is driven neither by facts nor morality, but by agendas, calculating and power-hungry. The humanity of 120 thousand dead and wounded Palestinians because of the Israeli genocide in Gaza is simply not part of that agenda.
In a report – based on a leaked memo from the New York Times – the Intercept found out that the so-called US newspaper of record has been feeding its journalists with frequently updated ‘guidelines’ on what words to use, or not use, when describing the horrific Israeli mass slaughter in the Gaza Strip, starting on October 7.
In fact, most of the words used in the paragraph above would not be fit to print in the NYT, according to its ‘guidelines’.
Shockingly, internationally recognized terms and phrases such as ‘genocide’, ‘occupied territory’, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and even ‘refugee camps’, were on the newspaper’s rejection list.
It gets even more cruel. “Words like ‘slaughter’, ‘massacre’ and ‘carnage’ often convey more emotion than information. Think hard before using them in our own voice,” according to the memo, leaked and verified by the Intercept and other independent media.
Though such language control is, according to the NYT, aimed at fairness for ‘all sides’, their application was almost entirely one-sided. For example, a previous Intercept report showed that the American newspaper had, between October 7 and November 14, mentioned the word ‘massacre’ 53 times when it referred to Israelis being killed by Palestinians and only once in reference to Palestinians being killed by Israel.
By that date, thousands of Palestinians had perished, the vast majority of whom were women and children, and most of them were killed inside their own homes, in hospitals, schools or United Nations shelters. Though the Palestinian death toll was often questioned by US government and media, it was later generally accepted as accurate, but with a caveat: attributing the source of the Palestinian number to the “Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza”. That phrasing is, of course, enough to undermine the accuracy of the statistics compiled by healthcare professionals, who had the misfortune of producing such tallies many times in the past.
The Israeli numbers were rarely questioned, if ever, although Israel’s own media later revealed that many Israelis who were supposedly killed by Hamas died in ‘friendly fire’, as in at the hands of the Israeli army.
And even though a large percentage of Israelis killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7 were active, off-duty or military reserve, terms such as ‘massacre’ and ‘slaughter’ were still used in abundance. Little mention was made of the fact that those ‘slaughtered’ by Hamas were, in fact, directly involved in the Israeli siege and previous massacres in Gaza.
Speaking of ‘slaughter’, the term, according to the Intercept, was used to describe those allegedly killed by Palestinian fighters vs those killed by Israel at a ratio of 22 to 1.
I write ‘allegedly’, as the Israeli military and government, unlike the Palestinian Ministry of Health, are yet to allow for independent verification of the numbers they produced, altered and reproduced, once again.
The Palestinian figures are now accepted even by the US government. When asked, on February 29, about how many women and children had been killed in Gaza, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said: “It’s over 25,000”, going even beyond the number provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry at the time.
However, even if the Israeli numbers are to be examined and fully substantiated by truly independent sources, the coverage of the New York Times of the Gaza war continues to point to the non-existing credibility of mainstream American media, regardless of its agendas and ideologies. This generalization can be justified on the basis that NYT is, oddly enough, still relatively fairer than others.
According to this double standard, occupied, oppressed and routinely slaughtered Palestinians are depicted with the language fit for Israel; while a racist, apartheid and murderous entity like Israel is treated as a victim and, despite the Gaza genocide, is, somehow, still in a state of ‘self-defense’.
The New York Times shamelessly and constantly blows its own horn of being an oasis of credibility, balance, accuracy, objectivity and professionalism. Yet, for them, occupied Palestinians are still the villain: the party doing the vast majority of the slaughtering and the massacring.
The same slanted logic applies to the US government, whose daily political discourse on democracy, human rights, fairness and peace continues to intersect with its brazen support of the murder of Palestinians, through dumb bombs, bunker busters and billions of dollars’ worth of other weapons and munitions.
The Intercept reporting on this issue matters greatly. Aside from the leaked memos, the dishonesty of language used by the New York Times – compassionate towards Israel and indifferent to Palestinian suffering – leaves no doubts that the NYT, like other US mainstream media, continues to stand firmly on Tel Aviv’s side.
As Gaza continues to resist the injustice of the Israeli military occupation and war, the rest of us, concerned about truth, accuracy in reporting and justice for all, should also challenge this model of poor, biased journalism.
We do so when we create our own professional, alternative sources of information, where we use proper language, which expresses the painful reality in war-torn Gaza.
Indeed, what is taking place in Gaza is genocide, a horrific slaughter and daily massacres against innocent peoples, whose only crime is that they are resisting a violent military occupation and a vile apartheid regime.
And, if it happens that these indisputable facts generate an ’emotional’ response, then it is a good thing; maybe real action to end the Israeli carnage of Palestinians would follow. The question remains: why would the New York Times editors find this objectionable?
United States Hypocrisy – Again
BY ROBERT FANTINA, 24 Apr 24, https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/24/united-states-hypocrisy-again/—
The hypocrisy of the United States government knows no limits. On April 18, a proposal was submitted to the United Nations Security Council to admit Palestine as a full member, thus effectively recognizing the state of Palestine. Of the fifteen members of the Security Council, twelve voted in favor, two abstained, and the United States, using its veto power, opposed it. This, after frantic lobbying by the U.S. of the other nations on the Security Council to convince at least one of them to vote with the U.S., so the U.S. would not have to stand alone, again, in its support for the apartheid regime of Israel.
“’It remains the US view that the most expeditious path toward statehood for the Palestinian people is through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with the support of the United States and other partners,’ Vedant Patel, the State Department spokesman, told reporters earlier in the day.”
This writer is almost tired of pointing out the obvious: negotiations can only be effective when each party wants something the other has, that it can only obtain by surrendering something it has, that the other party wants. Israel takes what it wants from Palestine with complete impunity. And how can the establishment of an independent Palestine occur through negotiations when the current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there will never be an independent Palestine? The U.S. had the opportunity to make it happen on April 18, but chose not to.
Richard Gowan, the United Nations’ International Crisis Group said the following, prior to the vote: “The U.S. position is that the Palestinian state should be based on bilateral agreements between the Israelis and Palestinians. It does not believe that the UN can create the state by fiat.” This raises two interesting points:
1) First, Israel isn’t going to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu has made that clear.
2) If the U.S. does, in fact, not believe that the U.N. can create a state by fiat, how then does the U.S. explain the establishment of Israel? Did the U.N. not, in 1947 – 1948, created Israel by fiat?
The U.S. is the world’s best example of the double standard: it criticizes Russia’s crimes in Ukraine while supporting and even financing the same kinds of crimes, except on steroids, that Israel is committing in Gaza.
Government officials in the U.S. explain that President ‘Genocide Joe’ Biden is working to convince Netanyahu to allow more aid into Gaza, where children and adults are starving to death. All he need do to enable a flood of aid is tell Netanyahu that Israel will not receive another penny of U.S. ‘aid’ until the suffering of the Palestinians ends. But instead of that, he is sending hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weaponry to kill them. Why should Israel do anything different? It gets whatever it wants from the U.S. even as it spits in the U.S.’s collective eye.
Prior to the start of the Iraq War, massive protests were held around the world. Then President George Bush, in response to these protests said this: “Size of protest — it’s like deciding, well, I’m going to decide policy based upon a focus group.” Todd S. Purdum of The New York Times, commenting on this statement, said the following: “A focus group is a handful of people, carefully culled to reflect diverse viewpoints, chosen to help politicians or companies figure out how to sell a policy or a product.
Led by a facilitator, they are poked and prodded in a private room, asked about their likes and dislikes and encouraged to speak while strategists eavesdrop behind a one-way mirror.
“And while Mr. Bush may not like to acknowledge it, his administration does use focus groups, most recently to help determine how best to couch its public messages about domestic security.”
Perhaps Genocide Joe feels the same way; he can dismiss millions of people around the world, including massive numbers in the United States, who recognize ongoing genocide when they see it. He believes that such blatant violations of international law as invading and bombing hospitals and arresting and killing medical personnel and killing patients; bombing refugee camps; killing journalists; indiscriminately slaughtering men, women and children; dropping bombs on humanitarian aid workers and schools, mosques, churches and residential centers are not evidence of genocide. They are, he says, simply part of Israel ‘defending’ itself from the existential threat of a ragtag band of dedicated people who are resisting a brutal, decades long occupation.
And what of the existential threat to Palestine? For decades, Israel has been stealing more and more Palestinian land, establishing settlements that are illegal under international law, and arbitrarily killing, arresting and torturing Palestinian men, women and children. Why does Palestine not, in the eyes of the United States government, have a right to defend itself?
Genocide Joe is an elderly Zionist, believing the myths about Jews who oppose apartheid as being ‘self-hating Jews’, and not willing to recognize that it was the United Nations, and not God, who criminally displaced 750,000 Palestinians to establish the Zionist regime.
The United Nations created the problems that have plagued the Middle East for 76 years; the United States is not, never has been and can never be an honest player in resolving them. The United Nations must work to end the very un-democratic veto power in the Security Council, give more authority to the General Assembly which, unlike the 15 member-nation Security Council has representatives from 193 nations, and bring freedom to the Palestinians. The current genocide, which will be a stain on the records of many nations for generations to come, must end. The U.S. must not be allowed to enable it to continue.
Robert Fantina’s latest book is Propaganda, Lies and False Flags: How the U.S. Justifies its Wars.
Crackdown On Students And Information As Genocide Widens
Students are showing what normal human beings do when faced with evidence of unspeakable cruelty on a massive scal
LISA SAVAGE, APR 24, 2024, https://went2thebridge.substack.com/p/crackdown-on-students-and-information?r=3alev&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true [includes extracts and video from social media]
Students at college campuses across the U.S. are rejecting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and their encampments are spreading rapidly following violent repression by police at Columbia University. In addition to calling the NYPD on their own students, the geniuses in administration locked students out of their dorms and meal plans, and suspended them. Once they were suspended they could be arrested for trespassing — on a campus where their families have paid tens of thousands each year to house, feed, and educate them.
This repression has only caused the resistance at Columbia to grow.
Students don’t get their information about atrocities against the Palestinians from mainstream media that were long since captured by the military-industrial complex. Instead, they get their information from eye witness accounts shared on social media.
Is it any wonder that Congress in its wisdom just enshrined domestic spying as law and ramped up liability for social media companies and everyone who works there for sharing what the government deems “misinformation”?
It is said that truth is the first casualty of war. Since the U.S. has been continuously at war for decades, the ever tightening screws of information control are absolutely key to the WW3 project. World wars start with genocide (WWI was Armenians, WWII was European Jews). Before the 21st century these were conducted secretly, keeping the details from ordinary people until after the fact. Nowadays we watch genocide unfolding in real time, with new mass graves at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital the latest in the atrocity parade.
Students are showing what normal human beings do when faced with evidence of unspeakable cruelty on a massive scale: grieve, and turn the anger of grief into action.
TODAY. Oh it’s a great time to be an American – with shares in “Defense” companies!
The USA Congress knows this. These worthy persons understand that their job is to enrich weapons companies and the people “wise” enough to have shares in them. After all, “defense” is the USA’s fastest growing and most successful industry. And of course, that’s the job of a patriotic American government – to promote American business.
Some think that the proper role of government is not solely protection of people from attack, but also to provide for the general well-being of the people. But that second purpose is not a goal of American government. And I would argue that even the first purpose is not a real goal – as the practices of diplomacy, negotiation, discussion and respect for other countries would be the best methods – rather than bullying and sabre-waving.
Anyway, the U.S. Senate just passed a $95Billion Bill for weapons for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Law-makers of both stripes are keen to promote weapons. Probably the Congress will approve this.
The U.S. Congress has the power to pull back, to prevent wars. But once they’ve given the White House the money for weapons – then the President (advised by warmongers like Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken) can go ahead and wage war – Congress will then have no say.
Once the Congress approves an appropriation the President as commander-in chief can use the money any way he likes. If the aim of warmongers is eventual war against Iran, providing money for weapons will be Congress’s role in following this aim. Think tanks and media enthusiastically go along with this.
There seems to be no awareness that USA’s endless strikes on distant countries – Iraq , Syria, backing Israel against Palestine, Iran – are arousing fierce anger among millions of people. In Ukraine whole generations of men are being wiped out.
Weapons get used. Then you make and sell more weapons. That means continuing, endless wars. That’s the business. It’s great when there’s no, or relatively few, American soldiers killed. Terrific – only “the others” are dying.
It’s great for business. Lockheed Martin’s shares are up. Investing advice enthuses “Where there’s war, there’s money to be made, and rising geopolitical tension in the Middle East, and the two-year-long war in Ukraine are leaving investors to shield their portfolios with defense stocks………….no better time than being in the business of defense contracting than right now“
But one day – the shit will hit the fan! Shock horror – it might even happen in the lifetime of those making $millions from weapons sales.
Israeli Strikes in Rafah Kill 22, Including 18 Children
The bombardment came after the House approved $26 billion in spending to support the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians
by Dave DeCamp April 21, 2024 https://news.antiwar.com/2024/04/21/israeli-strikes-kill-22-in-rafah-including-18-children/
Israeli strikes hit the southern Gaza city of Rafah Saturday night into Sunday morning, killing 22 people, including 18 children, The Associated Press reported.
The bombardment came just hours after the US House of Representatives passed a $26 billion bill that includes about $17 billion in military aid for Israel to support the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
According to AP, one of the overnight strikes killed a man, his wife, and their three-year-old child. The woman was 30 weeks pregnant, and medical staff at the nearby Kuwaiti hospital were able to save the baby. The second strike killed two women and 17 children.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that the number of Palestinians killed in the Strip has reached 34,097, and 76,980 more have been wounded. The death toll is considered a low estimate since it doesn’t take into account people who are dead under the rubble.
Rafah is packed with over 1 million Palestinian civilians and has been getting hit with near-daily Israeli strikes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been threatening to launch a full-scale invasion of the city.
The US has claimed that it’s concerned about Netanyahu’s plans to invade Rafah but is not putting any real pressure on Israel since it continues to provide military aid and political support. US and Israeli officials discussed the potential assault last week, and the White House said the two sides had a “shared objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah.”
On Sunday, Netanyahu thanked the US for the new aid being passed through Congress and vowed to escalate in Gaza. “In the coming days, we will increase the military and diplomatic pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages and achieve our victory,” he said.
Where are France’s nuclear reactors and what is planned for more?
the six new sites will by no means triple French production, particularly since the older plants will increasingly be closed for repair and maintenance.
President Macron wants to triple atomic energy production by 2050
Richard Henshell, Saturday 20 April 2024
France is the third biggest producer of nuclear energy in the world and hopes to triple production by 2050. We look at where the country’s nuclear sites are and at President Macron’s plans for more.
Nuclear power represents up to 70% of the electricity produced in France at 282 Terawatt-hours (TWh), behind only China (395TWh) and the US (772TWh) and far ahead of the UK (42TWh).
However, many of its plants are approaching the end of their life-cycle. The majority of France’s 56 reactors date from the 1980s, and only two have been built since the year 2000.
In order to meet the requirements of the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, President Macron announced his plans to reinvest in France’s ageing nuclear plants during last year’s COP28 climate meeting in Dubai.
“Nuclear energy is back,” said Mr Macron (in English), adding that it was time to recognise the “essential role that nuclear energy can play in efforts to reach zero carbon dioxide emissions on a global level”.
“We will triple our capacity to produce nuclear energy between 2020 and 2050,” he said.
France’s 56 reactors are shared between 19 sites. Another reactor is scheduled to power up at Flamanville this summer, bringing the total to 57 reactors.
There are also plans to construct six new reactors at three existing plants:
- Two at Penly (Seine-Maritime) for 2035
- Two at Gravelines (Nord) for 2038
- Two at Le Bugey (Ain) for 2042
Construction is scheduled to start in summer 2024 on first of these new reactors in Penly, which like the others, will use the powerful new EPR-2 design. The estimated total cost for the six reactors is around €67.4 billion.
However, the six new sites will by no means triple French production, particularly since the older plants will increasingly be closed for repair and maintenance.
Indeed, in December 2021, the discovery of cracks in the emergency cooling systems of France’s four newest reactors led to them being shut down for over a year
Regardless, Mr Macron announced in February 2022 that France’s older plants could conceivably operate far into the future – beyond their 60th year or until they are no longer capable of producing electricity, or no longer safe.
Iran says nuclear weapons have no place in its nuclear doctrine
By Reuters, April 22, 2024,
Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Alex Richardson, William Maclean, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-says-nuclear-weapons-have-no-place-its-nuclear-doctrine-2024-04-22/
DUBAI, April 22 (Reuters) – Nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s nuclear doctrine, the country’s foreign ministry said on Monday, days after a Revolutionary Guards commander warned that Tehran might change its nuclear policy if pressured by Israeli threats.
“Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear programme only serves peaceful purposes. Nuclear weapons have no place in our nuclear doctrine,” ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said during a press conference in Tehran.
Following a spike in tensions with Israel, the Guards commander in charge of nuclear security Ahmad Haghtalab said last week that Israeli threats could push Tehran to “review its nuclear doctrine and deviate from its previous considerations.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last say on Tehran’s nuclear programme, banned the development of nuclear weapons in a fatwa, or religious decree, in the early 2000s.
Russia: West military support for Ukraine could lead to confrontation between world’s nuclear powers
Monday, 22 April 2024, https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/04/22/724164/Russia-Lavrov-Warns-Direct-War-With-West-Over-Ukraine
Moscow has warned of a direct confrontation between Russian troops and Western forces over the conflict in Ukraine that could end in catastrophe.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday the United States and NATO countries were obsessed with the idea of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia, adding that their military support for Ukraine has pushed the world to the brink of a direct clash between the world’s biggest nuclear powers that could end in catastrophe.
“The Westerners are teetering dangerously on the brink of a direct military clash between nuclear powers, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences,” Lavrov said at a conference on non-proliferation in Moscow.
“Of particular concern is the fact that it is the ‘troika’ of Western nuclear states [US, Britain and France] that are among the key sponsors of the criminal Kiev regime, the main initiators of various provocative steps. We see serious strategic risks in this, leading to an increase in the level of nuclear danger,” Lavrov warned.
Lavrov said that the Western countries were building a global missile system capable of eliminating rivals. He added that the US-led Western countries were placing nuclear weapons in military bases all across Europe, while medium- and shorter-range missiles were being planted in other regions across the globe and preparations were made to deploy nuclear weapons into space.
According to both Russian and US diplomats, the present clash between the West and Russia over Ukraine is the worst breakdown of diplomatic relations by the two sides in decades, ever since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis cut bilateral ties.
Despite the risky tension, Western leaders have vowed to continue to work with and to provide support to Kiev to cause “strategic defeat” of Russian forces in Ukraine, while ruling out any deployment of American or European troops in the former Soviet republic.
Lavrov’s remarks come just two days after US lawmakers approved billions of dollars in additional military aid to Ukraine.
Since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 to prevent NATO’s eastward expansion, it has repeatedly warned the US-led Western counties against arming Kiev and the rising nuclear risks – warnings which the US leadership says it has to take seriously, though the officials say they have seen no change in Russian nuclear posture.
Zionism Is In Its Flop Era
The hysterical reaction to the Columbia protests is proof.
JACK MIRKINSON, APR 22, 2024 https://www.discourseblog.com/p/zionism-is-in-its-flop-era?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=38606&post_id=143849689&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
As a New York City resident, I take an interest in where my tax dollars are spent. Yesterday, at least some of those dollars were being spent to pay NYPD cops to hang around—in riot helmets—outside the locked gates of Columbia University. (Presumably, Columbia paid for the festive balloons on the gates.)
The vibes at Columbia were exactly as strange and slightly ridiculous as that picture when I swung by on Sunday. I’m on record as saying that I don’t think we should spend much time as a society stressing about what happens on fancy college campuses, but the Columbia leadership’s wildly over-the-top reaction to the decision by some students to sit in tents on the quad as part of a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” had turned the school into a national news story, and the students are being very courageous in the face of the full repressive force of both Columbia and New York City. Besides (looks down shamefacedly) I am technically a Columbia alum, so I was intrigued.
Even two blocks away, you wouldn’t have known anything was going on. Morningside Heights was its usual placid self. At 116th and Broadway, a small clutch of protesters was penned in by barricades and chanting, watched over by yet more cops. It’s no slight on the protesters to say that this hardly seemed like a national security crisis.
But I suppose that’s in the eye of the beholder. As I strolled past the protesters, I passed a guy screaming into his phone, “I don’t fucking care! There’s a riot on campus! People are in danger!” Reader, there was no riot on campus. There wasn’t even much noise.
I didn’t stay long; you couldn’t get into the campus without a student ID and there wasn’t actually that much to see. But within hours, both New York Mayor Eric Adams and the White House (lol) had issued statements portraying the protests as dangerous bastions of antisemitic hate. (As far as I can tell, a couple of people who showed up to support the students said some stupid shit. The students themselves, many of whom are Jewish, have pointed out that this has nothing to do with them.)
Why is the president of the United States involving himself in this situation? Why are the cops parked in riot gear in front of a locked gate where basically nothing is happening? Why, for that matter, did Columbia President Minouche Shafik treat a peaceful encampment on the lawn as a declaration of war? Why did Columbia’s own security force try to shut down the student radio station that was reporting on the protests? Why, in other words, are these people freaking out so much?
Obviously, they want to nip all of this protest stuff in the bud. They want to show students, and Columbia’s donors, and the fanatical politicians hounding them, that they will make it dangerous to step out of line. And to do that, they are willing to go way, way overboard.
But there is something else you can sense in all of this—another current running through the crackdown. That current is desperation. This is the kind of wild swing you take when you sense your grip on things slipping away—when you are trying to contain something that is becoming stronger than you ever imagined possible.
We’ve all been there. We all know what it feels like when you’re in your flop era—when you’re throwing everything at the wall and nothing is sticking. And Zionism is going through a flop era in America.
The White House, and Eric Adams, and Columbia University are all looking around and noticing that the old rules about Israel and Palestine are no longer working like they used to. A majority of Americans oppose the genocide in Gaza, and have for months. Young people like the Columbia students strongly oppose it. They are not listening to the likes of Joe Biden anymore about this stuff.
How can I be sure about this? Well, since Columbia moved to shut down the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, similar protests have sprung up at universities across the country. Just this morning, Yale followed Columbia’s lead and forcibly cleared a student encampment. This student movement is growing, not fading. It turns out that a lot of people want to stand against genocide. It turns out that a lot of people think that Israel slaughtering children day after day is a bigger threat to a stable and just world than college students sitting in a tent. And because Columbia, and Eric Adams, and Joe Biden have no real answer to that reality, they are instead choosing to pretend that Kristallnacht II is upon us—to smear the Palestinian flag as the equivalent of a swastika, to turn young people protesting genocide into symbols of evil.
It’s not working.
Polish president: Poland ready to deploy allied nuclear weapons on its territory
by Chris York andThe Kyiv Independent, April 22, 2024
Poland is ready and willing to allow NATO allies to deploy nuclear weapons on its territory, Polish President Andrzej Duda said in an interview published on April 22.
Speaking to Fakt, Duda highlighted how Russia has already taken similar steps with its own allies, having transferred tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus last year.
The president said the topic of placing U.S. nuclear weapons in Poland “has been a topic of Polish-American talks for some time.”
“If our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing also on our territory to strengthen the security of NATO‘s eastern flank, we are ready for it,” he said.
“We are an ally in the North Atlantic Alliance, and we also have obligations in this respect, i.e., we simply implement a common policy.”……………………. https://kyivindependent.com/poland-nuclear-weapons-duda/
Russia-Ukraine war: EU ministers fail to pledge Patriot systems to Ukraine at key meeting – as it happened
Yohannes Lowe and Sammy Gecsoyler, 23 Apr 24 https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/apr/22/russia-ukraine-war-live-zelenskiy-chasiv-yar?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-66261a918f08839e09ac8c8b
Russia says new US aid to Ukraine will not change situation on battlefield
A new US package of military aid to Ukraine will not change the situation on the frontlines, where Russia has the upper hand, the Kremlin said.
“The Russian armed forces are improving their positions at the front … The money allocated and the weapons that will be supplied will not change this dynamic,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“They will lead to new victims on the Ukrainian side. More Ukrainians will die, Ukraine will suffer greater losses.”
In the Ukraine bill, of the $60.7bn, a total of about $23bn would be used by the US to replenish its military stockpiles, opening the door to future US military transfers to Ukraine.
Another $14bn would go to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, in which the Pentagon buys advanced new weapon systems for the Ukrainian military directly from US defence contractors.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday urged Washington to quickly turn the bill into law and proceed with the actual transfer of weapons, saying long-range arms and air defence systems were top priorities.
“I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces of Ukraine and we will have a chance for victory,” Zelenskiy said.
Russia said the American defence industry will be the real beneficiary of the package.
“We also recognise that most of this money will remain in the United States. The United States will become richer and will receive additional dividends by providing assistance to Ukraine. For (President Vladimir) Putin, this was expected,” Peskov said.
Heatwave in India: TV host faints during live broadcast as swaths of country reel from sweltering temperatures
India’s federal weather agency
has issued “severe heatwave” alerts for parts of India with
temperatures soaring to 42-44C. India witnessed the early onset of an
intense heatwave in March and April, leading to a huge impact on
agriculture production. A heatwave alert has been issued for Odisha and
West Bengal till 22 April with temperature peaking above 40C.
Independent 22nd April 2024
Poland: We’re ready to host nuclear weapons, (and work with Trump )
Polish President Andrzej Duda said atomic sharing has been a topic of Warsaw-Washington talks.
Politico, APRIL 22, 2024 , BY CLAUDIA CHIAPPA
Polish President Andrzej Duda said Poland is “ready” to host nuclear weapons on its territory if NATO decides to reinforce its eastern flank.
“Russia is increasingly militarizing the Königsberg oblast (Kaliningrad). Recently, it has been relocating its nuclear weapons to Belarus,” Duda said in an interview published Monday by Polish outlet Fakt.
“If our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing on our territory as well, in order to strengthen the security of NATO’s eastern flank, we are ready for it,” he added.
………………………………………………………….. Duda, who recently traveled to New York and met Republican 2024 candidate Donald Trump, spoke fondly of the former president, saying that the two have “a lot of common topics.”
“He is a politician with whom I directly cooperated with the United States for four years when he was the president of the United States,” Duda said. “I want to emphasize very strongly that we have been friends since then. I really like talking to him, because he is an extremely interesting personality and has a lot of experience, both political and business.” https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-ready-host-nuclear-weapons-andrzej-duda-nato/
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Oversees Simulated ‘Nuclear Counterattack’
The drill took place on Monday, according to the report. Seoul’s military had earlier announced that the North had fired several short-range ballistic missiles on Monday, with Tokyo confirming the launch.
World NewsAgence France-Presse April 23, 2024 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-oversees-simulated-nuclear-counterattack-5501429
According to report, Kim Jong Un “appreciated the high hit and accuracy” of the rockets.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has overseen a drill simulating a “nuclear counterattack,” state-run KCNA news agency said Tuesday, the latest in a volley of tests by Pyongyang this year.
The drill took place on Monday, according to the report. Seoul’s military had earlier announced that the North had fired several short-range ballistic missiles on Monday, with Tokyo confirming the launch.
The drill involved “super-large multiple rocket units” which “hit their island target” some 352 kilometres (219 miles) away, the report said.
It added that Kim “appreciated the high hit and accuracy” of the rockets.
South Korea’s military said Monday that the missiles flew from the Pyongyang area for about 300 kilometres before splashing down in the waters east of the Korean peninsula.
The launch is the second in less than a week by Pyongyang, which on Friday tested a “super-large warhead” designed for a strategic cruise missile, state media said. Seoul’s military confirmed it had detected cruise missile launches at the time.
Europe baked in ‘extreme heat stress’ pushing temperatures to record highs
Scorching weather has baked Europe in more days of “extreme heat
stress” than its scientists have ever seen. Heat-trapping pollutants that
clog the atmosphere helped push temperatures in Europe last year to the
highest or second-highest levels ever recorded, according to the EU’s
Earth-watching service Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO).
Europeans are suffering with unprecedented heat during the day and
are stressed by uncomfortable warmth at night. The death rate from hot
weather has risen 30% in Europe in two decades, the joint State of the
Climate report from the two organisations found. “The cost of climate
action may seem high,” said WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo, “but
the cost of inaction is much higher”.
The report found that temperatures
across Europe were above average for 11 months of 2023, including the
warmest September since records began. The hot and dry weather fuelled
large fires that ravaged villages and spewed smoke that choked far-off
cities. The blazes that firefighters battled were particularly fierce in
drought-stricken southern countries such as Portugal, Spain and Italy.
Guardian 22nd April 2024
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