Save date: GN 32nd Annual Meeting on Zoom - Saturday, July 20

 

Register now for July 20 GN Zoom meeting

­

The Global Network is proud to be in our 32nd year of organizing to stop the arms race in space.
 
It's actually a mixed blessing. We've not faded into the sunset but we've not yet stopped the aerospace industry from their agenda to move weapons and nuclear power into the heavens. We still have much work to do. So we continue to educate, organize and activate people around the world to join this quest.
 
Please mark your calendar now to join us on July 20th for our two-hour annual meeting.
 
We'll begin with a handful of 10-minute presentations by our leadership and then open the floor for questions and comments from those in the audience.
 
Latest developments from GN board members:  

•     Koohan Paik-Mander (Hawaii): Missile defense: the big "KICK ME" sign
•     Agneta Norberg (Sweden): US presence & military development in Sweden
•     Dr. Dave Webb (UK): Concerns about spaceports & militarisation of space
•     Choi Sung-Hee (Korea): Role of the space industry in South Korea
•     Aruna Kammila (India): Israel and Hamas issue
•     Karl Grossman (US): Mining the Sky
•     Dr Sandeepa Bhat B (India): Space Security from the Indian Perspective
•     Bruce Gagnon (US): Panel discussion moderator

Register in advance for this meeting:

When: July 20, 2024 10:00 am to Noon EDT    UTC (GMT) 14:00
 
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAuc-GvpjgoE9UfnpstI2Ef08hn1tz-OuyB  
 
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. 

­
Since 1992 we've met around the globe
­
Since the Global Network was founded we met each year in a different country where U.S. space warfare and surveillance facilities were located.  

This helped us share info with one another. We also always held a protest during our meeting at one of the space bases.   

When covid hit we had to suspend having those meetings in person and turned to Zoom as so many other organizations have done. It does cut down on carbon emissions and cost but we miss the in person touch. And sharing a meal and a beer as well.  

Please join us and get to know these good people.

 

It's always been about our love for the Earth, the Moon, the heavens and peace
­
We've been lucky to find special people all over the world that share our deep concern about protecting space from war.  

Most of us are not rocket scientists, we are ordinary people with various skills that add up to a sustainable organization that works well together.  

We are not funded by foundations or governments. Our money comes from grassroots people. Many of our supporters have been with us for decades.  

We thank everyone who has contributed in any way to the work of the Global Network during these 32 years.

'Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.' 

~ Henry David Thoreau

Ritter: Pentagon running the attacks on Russia

 

  

Scott Ritter: Russia’s Strategic Advances

Israel caught spying on ICC

 

 

Israeli officials are accused of using phone taps, spying and intimidation against ICC prosecutors to derail possible war crimes investigations. 

It’s a decade long operation against the world court, as Al Jazeera’s Soraya Lennie explains.

Still some Americans with a soul

 

 

Portland, Oregon nurse makes emotional return home after treating burn victims in Gaza.

Former US presidential candidate Nikki Haley writes ‘finish them’ on Israeli shell

 

Failed US presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has been photographed writing, “Finish them”, on an Israeli shell as she toured military locations on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

Danny Danon, a member of the Israeli parliament and former ambassador to the United Nations, posted the photo – which was taken as he accompanied Haley on her border visit – to his social media account.

“‘Finish Them’. This is what my friend the former ambassador Nikki Haley wrote,” Danon said in his post that shows a kneeling Haley writing on an artillery shell with a purple marker pen.

Haley was the US ambassador to the UN under former President Donald Trump and her term overlapped with Danon.

Very sick.

France sends more troops to Ukraine

 

Kiev Welcomes French ‘Military Instructors’, While Macron’s Foreign Legion Suffers Losses On Ukrainian Battlefields

SouthFront

On May 27, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Syrsky officially legalized visits by French military instructors to training centers in Ukraine.

    “I welcome the initiative of France to send instructors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian servicemen. I have already signed documents that will allow the first French instructors to visit our training centers soon and get acquainted with their infrastructure and personnel,” Syrsky reported after online talks with French Minister of the Armed Forces.

Meanwhile, those same “military instructors” already in Ukraine:

 

French soldier already dead in Ukraine

Another French militant was killed on Ukrainian frontlines. His body was found on a battlefield in the Donetsk direction. He was killed during Russian assault on one of Ukrainian strongholds.

The Frenchman had chevron of the Second Foreign Parachute Regiment of the French Foreign Legion. 

This is far from the first French servicemen killed on Ukrainian frontlines. LINK 

The first losses of the French Foreign Legion in Ukraine were previously reported in the battles near Chasov Yar. An officer of this unit was reportedly captured near Kleshcheyevka. Paris officially declares that it did not send servicemen of the Foreign Legion to Ukraine.

Taiwan: the 'Axis of Genocide' & Holocaust amnesia

 

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te (R) and US Representative Michael McCaul (L) during a meeting in Taipei on May 27, 2024.

Taiwan sides with the Génocidaires

Taiwan is no better than its western counterparts. Among the attendees at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day event held in Taipei on 17 April 2024 were Chair of the Taiwan-Israel Friendship Group in Knesset Boaz Toporovsky, Israel’s top representative to Taiwan Maya Yaron, Germany’s top representative to Taiwan Jörg Polster, and the sitting president of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan Han Kuo-yu. Intending to serve as a cover for imperialist crimes and national oppression, Yaron’s remembrance speech likened Hamas to the NSDAP [Nazi Party in Germany] and the anti-colonial Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to the Holocaust. This so-called Holocaust memory was instead Holocaust amnesia.

Israel, the attack dog of the United States, is a source of inspiration for the Taiwanese ruling establishment. After the Republic of China was booted out of the United Nations in 1971, the Kuomintang regime started to cozy up to Israel and then acquired the surface‐to‐surface Gabriel missiles from the Zionist state. The Gabriel was “equivalent to the Soviet‐ and Chinese‐made Styx, one of which sank an Israeli destroyer” in 1967. With the technical assistance of Tel Aviv, Taiwan subsequently modeled Hsiung Feng I, the island country’s subsonic anti-ship missiles, on the Gabriel in the late 1970s.

It is worth recalling that during the Cold War and afterward, both Taiwan and Israel insisted that the US- and UK-backed apartheid regime of South Africa had a right to exist and to oppress black people. Moreover, these three Cold War warriors had backed every war, aggression, and coup sanctioned by the United States. Taiwanese President Chiang Ching-kuo even awarded the Order of Propitious Clouds to Prime Minister of South Africa P. W. Botha in 1980 after the Soweto uprising.

The stance taken by Taiwan to boost its “international standing” has continued to this day with bipartisan support. The Taiwanese ruling elite rolls out the red carpet for US war criminals. Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were respectively granted the Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon in 2011 and 2022.

The Taiwanese ruling class, in the long tradition of being a frontline state and client of the US, wants the island to play a greater part on the world stage, similar to Israel. That was why Israel’s former top representative to Taiwan Omer Caspi had an affinity for the Taiwanese political establishment and likened the island of imperialist flag-waving to a “home away from home” in July 2023. This also explains why Toporovsky praised Taiwan for being “a beacon of democratic and liberal values” and saw the similarity between Israel and Taiwan as “small but strong democracies in a harsh environment”. The actual similarity between them was and is that these ruling classes are not at peace unless they are at war.

It is little wonder that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan has just donated half a million US dollars to Tel Aviv in March 2024 to back Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and its annexation of the West Bank. Furthermore, the Ministry refused to suspend Taiwan’s exports of technologies with military applications to Israel. Indeed, the government stressed that such measures would have been taken only if they had been handed down by the United Nations Security Council, which, in the eyes of the international working class, is an instrument of imperialist domination. By proactively aligning its “democratic and liberal values” with the US-led Axis of Genocide, the ruling class of Taiwan will rid itself of the role of a spectator and then turn into an executioner.

Backing imperialist domination and bourgeois political reaction, the ruling circles of Taiwan had the audacity to pontificate about “democracy, freedom, equality, and peace”, namely, a euphemism for the capitalist world order that the bourgeois sections of “the international community” sought to safeguard. 

~ This essay was reprinted in part from one submitted to the WSWS by Shih-Yu Chou. Now based in Taipei, she acquired her doctorate in politics from Sheffield University.

Palestine solidarity protest in Wells, Maine on June 8

  

Our monthly protests (since February 2022) around Maine will continue on Saturday, June 8 with a visit to Wells in southern Maine at 1:30 pm.

 

Please join us as coastal highway U.S. 1 begins to swell with out-of-state visitors. Help us take the message of Palestine solidarity directly to the public.
 
No more money for the zionist war on Palestine! Stop the killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank!
 
No more money for war in Ukraine!
 
No more money for our next war on China using Taiwan as the proxy!
 
Bring our war $$$$ home and deal with healthcare needs, education, declining infrastructure across our nation and more!
 
We want peace - not endle$$ war!

Upcoming protests:  

• Wells (Rt 1 & Rt 9) on June 8 at 1:30 pm
• Bath (Washington St at BIW) on July 27 9:00-11:00 am. Protest against another Aegis destroyer 'christening' 
• Wiscasset (RT 1 across from Red's Eats at the bridge) on July 27 at 1:30 pm

Cuba needs heart help

 

Let's raise $150,000 to send 300 heart pacemakers to Cuba. $500 will buy a heart pacemaker. 

Cuban surgeons will then insert it at no cost to the patient. 

Make checks payable to Global Health Partners, memo pacemakers, and mail to Global Health Partners, 39 Broadway, Suite 1540 New York, NY 10006 

For Card payments visit our website ghpartners.org/cuba2024 

US-NATO attack 3 Russian space early warning facilities

 

 

Putting the world on the brink of nuclear war 

 

SouthFront

On May 24, the Ukrainian military launched drone strikes on the Voronezh-DM strategic over-the-horizon long-range radar in Armavir in the Krasnodar region. The radar antennas were reportedly damaged.

This facility has nothing to do with the ongoing military operations in Ukraine. Over-the-horizon long-range radar stations of the Voronezh-type are part of the Missile Attack Warning System aimed to detect the launch of ballistic nuclear missiles. This is an element of Russian strategic security, space defense at great distances. It operates in a range of up to 6,000 km and up to 8,000 km in near space, simultaneously monitoring up to 500 different objects.

The Voronezh-DM in Armavir partially controls the territory towards the Indian Ocean, Southern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, North Africa and the Middle East.

On May 26, there was another attack on the Russian missile warning system that ended in failure. An unidentified drone crashed in the Orenburg region. The incident occurred near the city of Orsk, where another Voronezh-M type radar station is located nearby, it controls the sector from the Taklamakan desert to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

It was also revealed that the target of the attack on Crimea on May 23 was the Center for Deep Space Communications, involved in the management of the GLONASS satellite system. The facility located near the city of Alushta was reportedly damaged by 4 US-made ATACMS missiles.

Against this background, it is worth expecting attempts to disable another Russian Voronezh-M type radar station in the Leningrad region. In addition, by the end of 2024, the upgraded Voronezh-type radar station near Sevastopol should be put into operation.

Despite attempts by some European leaders to hide their involvement in the escalation, such attacks are not an independent initiative of Kiev. They were launched by NATO military with NATO missiles, with the reconnaissance support of NATO aircraft.

Kiev is but a puppet, fulfilling the orders of the Western warmongers who are eager to inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow.

These strikes took place after the launch of Russia’s exercises with non-strategic nuclear weapons. NATO moved to a new level of escalation and responded with strikes against the Russian nuclear missile shield.

Without timely detection and warning systems in Russia, an effective retaliatory nuclear strike against the United States and its satellites is impossible. Amid the failures on the frontlines in Ukraine, a defeated NATO is trying to overcome Moscow’s nuclear argument in order to ensure the possibility of a preemptive, disarming massive strike against Russia. These are not random strikes, but rather, a systematic attempt to weaken the Russian Missile Attack Warning System, which is putting the world on the brink of nuclear war. 

You can watch the short video about these provocative attacks here

Talking urgent sense

 

 

We’re the only anti-genocide party people in the US can vote for, says Green candidate Dr Jill Stein. 

Although the Democrats are trying to keep her off the ballot - especially in the state of New York.

The Democratic National Committee is at it again. Just when you think they couldn’t get more blatant with their shenanigans, they announce a new way to try to undermine the democratic process. Their newest scheme: to hire moles that will gather “on-the-ground intel to inform” on Jill - and try to find ways to keep her off the ballot.

This is utterly evil by the zionists!

 

 

Many people have been killed in an Israeli strike in northwestern Rafah. 

The tents of displaced people sheltering in the city near United Nations relief agency warehouses were hit. The injured have been taken to the city's Kuwait hospital. 

Eyewitnesses reported that the tents of the displaced people caught fire after the shelling. The Gaza Health Ministry says in a brief statement via its Telegram channel that a “large number” of Palestinians were killed and wounded as a result of an Israeli army strike on a displacement camp in the northwest of Rafah. 

The statement adds that a search for survivors is underway. 

Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary joins us on the phone from Gaza's Deir el-Balah to discuss the latest updates. 

 

You notice that western mis-leaders just express some limited outrage but don't call for any real international actions against Israel's war crimes.

If Russia did this they'd all be calling for massive sanctions. 

Why does Israel not get sanctioned?

Bruce

Gaza protest in Waterville, Maine on Saturday

 

 

Click on images for a better view

 

On Saturday about 40 folks gathered in Waterville for our monthly protest that we've been holding since February 2022 in different communities around Maine.

We met at a busy intersection where several lanes of traffic all merge into the heart of downtown. We vigiled for about 40 minutes and then marched on the sidewalk thru downtown. A newspaper reporter was inside one of the eateries as we passed and he ran after us and interviewed Lisa Savage and me.

A photographer (who dreams of working for a newspaper) heard our chanting and ran outside of his apartment along the downtown strip ('without putting on his socks' he told one of our folks) and began taking photos of the march.

After the march we gathered in a circle and passed the microphone and people talked about why they came. One young person said it was her first protest ever while others spoke about the horrors they are daily witnessing as the zionists (from Israel-US-EU) participate in unleashing genocide upon the people in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine.  Many commented that these protests are life giving to them during these difficult times.

My comment was that I come for those driving by who wave or honk. I want them to see they are not alone and hope our presence will give them more courage to speak out for an end to war crimes in Palestine.

Others addressed the conflicts US-NATO are waging on Russia (using Ukraine as a proxy) and the coming war with China using Taiwan as the proxy.

The Morning Sentinel ran an excellent front-page article on the protest with several pictures. The young reporter, that came running out of the cafe, did an good job of capturing the essence of the event. See the article here.

Our next monthly event will be in Wells, Maine on Saturday, June 8 at 1:30 pm at the intersection of coastal Route 1 and  Route 9. 

Join us if you can. 

Bruce  

~ Photos by MB Sullivan

Sunday song with a bonus from Harvard

 

 

 

Blinken’s blunders epitomize the bankruptcy of U.S. power & diplomacy

 

There’s colors on the street
Red, white, and blue
People shuffling their feet
People sleeping in their shoes
There’s a warning sign on the road ahead
There’s a lot of people saying we’d be better off dead
Don’t feel like Satan, but I am to them
So I try to forget it any way I can
Keep on rockin' in the free world

 
Strategic Culture Foundation Editorial

The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, officially that country’s top diplomat, made a crass remark that the Iranian people would be “better off”. This as the Islamic Republic had declared five days of mourning for the late president whose funeral in the city of Mashhad was attended by millions of Iranians.

President Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash along with the country’s much-respected Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and several other dignitaries who were also on board the aircraft. The fatal crash happened in treacherous weather over a mountainous region in northwest Iran as the president’s entourage returned from a visit to Azerbaijan.

Most of the world expressed shock and grief over the loss. The UN General Assembly held a minute’s silence and at the funeral, 68 nations were represented including officials from Russia and China.

The United States and Iran have been staunch adversaries for more than half a decade following the Iranian revolution in 1979. Nevertheless, it is a basic matter of diplomacy and etiquette for countries to show a token of sympathy at such a time of national mourning.

The disgraceful and cheap comments about the death of Iran’s president show how inadequate Blinken is as the supposed U.S. primary diplomat. But the failure is not merely a personal matter, it epitomizes the general collapse of Washington’s political quality and international standing.  The United States presumes to be a world leader but it evidently has no class. Biden, the president and Blinken’s boss, is a foul-mouthed crank who regularly insults other leaders with ignorant prejudice.

On Blinken’s insult over the Iranian president’s death, Russia’s presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed the disgust of many observers around the world when he said: “It is hard to believe that a diplomat — let alone a high-ranking official of a country such as the United States — would make such a clumsy remark, to say the least. In essence, it was an insult directed at an entire nation.”

Apart from the lack of human decency, there is a total lack of politics. Blinken’s offensive comment comes at a moment of extreme tension in the Middle East amid a genocide perpetrated by the Israeli regime with support from the United States. The powder-keg situation could explode at any time into an international war engulfing the entire region. Israel and Iran have already exchanged military blows.

All diplomats worth their salt should be trying to calm tensions, not inflame them. Blinken’s contemptible insult to the Iranian people is a reckless provocation.

But such sensibility and respect are too much to expect from Blinken who has shown himself to be way out of his depth as a diplomat.

Last week, the “top diplomat” embarrassed his office by playing guitar on stage in a bar during an official visit to Kiev. Blinken was in the Ukrainian capital promising billions of dollars more in military aid to prolong a bloody and futile proxy war against Russia. Reliable estimates put the Ukrainian military death toll at over 500,000 in over two years of combat. Yet, here was Blinken strumming electric guitar with a local rock band. Even more cringe-making was his choice of song, Neil Young’s ‘Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World’. Not only was Blinken tone deaf to the horror of war, but he was oblivious to the fact that the song is an explicit condemnation of American imperialist barbarity.

How could anyone be so stupid and insensitive? That is the measure of Antony Blinken right there.

 

Lamentably, Blinken has a lot of dubious company in Washington. Their collective arrogance and incompetence are driving the world to calamity. It is reported this week that Blinken is among those in Washington advocating for the supply of long-range U.S. weapons to strike Russian territory. Others pushing this recipe for World War Three include Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and former State Department official Victoria Nuland.

Blinken’s blunders should have seen him sacked long ago in disgrace. He was a chief cheerleader for arming the Kiev regime long before the conflict escalated in February 2022. He along with Nuland and others was instrumental in setting the course for this proxy war that runs the risk of spiraling into a nuclear war.

During his previous posts as national security advisor to President Obama and Biden when he was vice president, Blinken endorsed the NATO “human rights” war on Libya and the “pro-democracy” proxy war for regime change in Syria. The latter involved Washington arming sectarian terror gangs – until Russia and Iran put an end to that dirty operation.

This trail of disaster chartered by Blinken should have ensured his barring from ever ascending to the prominence of Secretary of State. However, that is assuming such appointments are made based on sanity and sound foreign policy.

No, Blinken is a war criminal whose ignorant narcissism knows no bounds. He is nothing but a useful tool for American imperialist warmongering. The guitar-playing, Harvard-educated Blinken is a manikin that provides a pseudo-liberal image to cover for the barbarity of US global power.

His ineptitude is leading the world to an abysmal state of confrontation in the Middle East and between nuclear powers over Ukraine.

What’s more though is the deplorable truth that Washington is full of clones like Blinken. The level of political culture in the U.S. establishment that spawns the likes of Blinken is so putrid and prevalent, that it is difficult to envisage any quality thinkers and leaders emerging.

The degeneration of politics and diplomacy in the United States has been on a long decline much like its global power. Some of Blinken’s more recent predecessors include Mike Pompeo (“we lie and cheat all the time”) and Hillary Clinton (who gloated about the murder of Muammar Gaddafi with “we came, we conquered, he died”); Condoleezza Rice (of Iraq war and rendition torture notoriety) and Colin Powell (who told barefaced lies to the UNSC over WMD). The list of degenerates goes on.

But in Blinken’s case, he’s probably the high point – or maybe that should be the low point – of polished incompetence.

Cometh the hour of U.S. failure, cometh the man who embodies abject failure. 

UK insanity: Boris shared his love for Azov Battalion

 

British lawmakers cheered a delegation of the notorious Azov Ukrainian military unit at a roundtable in Parliament on Wednesday, while former Prime Minister Boris Johnson called them “heroes.”

Johnson additionally calls for the Ukrainian government to be authorized to use Western weapons inside Russian territory. That means largely attacking civilians as they have done since 2014.

This would escalate the war which is exactly what the US-UK-NATO truly hope to do.

What comes after that would get very ugly for all of us. 

 

Boris holds Nazi flag shows his truce colors 

 

Founded as a neo-Nazi militia in 2014, Azov was a key participant in the fighting in Donbass prior to the outbreak of full-blown hostilities in 2022. During this time it was accused by the UN and several human rights organizations of engaging in torture, rape, and looting. It was eventually integrated into Ukraine’s National Guard, and in 2023 was expanded to a brigade.

 

Members of the Azov unit speak to the UK Parliament, London, on May 22

Get a library card and read some history....

 

Ukraine refuses negotiations...calls on U.S. for more missiles

 

 Aaron Maté: Desperation and Escalation in Ukraine. 

Keep supporting Julian Assange

 

 

It was good news to hear that Julian Assange gets another court hearing in London on his 'extradition' to the US legal case. Fingers crossed.

Last Saturday Lou Kimball and I went to a bridge in Bath, Maine to drop this Assange support banner. The road way is busy US Hwy 1 - the coastal route which is one of the most popular ways to head north-south in our state.

We were there an hour until the Bath police came and kicked us off the bridge. Over the years I've done this same kind of banner drops about various issues in the same spot and never had any problems - even when cops drove by and waved at us.

In fact just today during our weekly Thursday Gaza solidarity vigil in downtown Brunswick a city worker came and told us that we could not stake our big 'Ceasefire' banner into the ground. Even though we've been doing it for months and again city employees and city cops have driven by many times with no problem.

 

Banner back on Brunswick street on Friday - tied to tree

 

All these things though point to a growing government crackdown on free speech. 

It's a tough climate these days as we find it hard just to speak our minds.

Bruce

Is this the best way to distribute aid to Gaza?

 

As the Israeli blockade and attacks on the Gaza Strip continued, humanitarian aid was dropped from the air near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip. Palestinians flocked to the area to receive humanitarian aid.

If one is lucky to be near a parachute dropped pallet you might get a box of crackers or a couple cans of beans. Maybe a bag of flour or sugar.

But the really evil thing about this process is how it encourages starving and desperate people to push and shove their way to the pallet of aid. It encourages a break-down in the social order. That is likely what the US-EU-Israel really want in Gaza.

Another deadly factor about these chute drops is they have killed Gazans. Some people drowned while trying to retrieve them when they fell into the ocean or got hit when the pallet landed on them.

If the US truly wants aid to regularly and systematically get into Gaza then Washington should demand that Israel open the gates in Rafah and allow the long line of trucks, that are increasingly being attacked by Israel zionist citizens, to freely enter Gaza. Then the various aid groups that are still operating inside the devastated strip can distribute it in a proper way.

But if dis-information is your real goal then dropping some pallets of crackers from the sky is a good way to fool some people around the globe that aid is reaching the people.

West Bank

Another important story this week is the zionist escalation of attacks on the refugee camp in Jenin. Scores of Palestinians are being killed there and homes (just like in Gaza) are being destroyed. The key point is that Jenin is in the West Bank. Hamas does not operate there. Why is Israel now turning more and more Palestinian communities in the West Bank into another Gaza?

I think the answer is fairly obvious to anyone who is honest. This is just another step in Israel's full-bore genocide of the people of Gaza.

I don't have any real faith (and hope I am wrong) in the ICJ doing anything to stop the zionist apartheid state of Israel. But they are supposed to make some ruling this week.

If the 'international legal system of justice' wishes to have any credibility it must immediately declare Israel as an outlaw state and ban them from all international bodies. In addition the ICJ must declare a full-top to the war on Palestine and put global sanctions on Israel until they agree to a one-state solution - a truly democratic state of Palestine made up of all the people living in the current Israel. Palestinians, Jews, Christians all get one vote each.

No more apartheid Israel. They have abused their right to run the region. Those days are over.

Truth comes out

An Associated Press report published on Wednesday shed light on debunked allegations of sexual violence perpetrated by Palestinian fighters on 7 October. 

The report published by the AP, in which it confirmed that the allegations of the Zionist entity that the Palestinian resistance committed sexual violence on 7 October are not true, and that they were deliberately fabricated, is a new slap in the face of the promoters of these baseless allegations.

The report explores the testimony of Chaim Otmazgin, a volunteer with ZAKA Israeli search and rescue organization, that was used to document purported allegations of violence by Palestinian fighters on 7 October, but much of that testimony was later debunked. The examination of ZAKA’s handling of the now debunked stories shows how "information can be clouded and distorted in the chaos of the conflict,” the AP said. 

Hamas said the AP report and other articles “proved that they [sexual assault allegations] are pure lies and blatant fabrications”. The group called on US President Joe Biden and members of European countries to “apologise...stop repeating these false accusations against the resistance and the Palestinian people”.

Bruce

Arrogance from Estonia - break Russia up into small nations

   

 

NATO state’s PM calls for breakup of Russia

RT

 

The conflict between Moscow and Kiev should end with the defeat and breakup of the Russian Federation, Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has proposed.

Kallas made the suggestion on Saturday during a debate in the country’s capital, Tallinn, at an event dedicated to supporting Ukraine.

"Russia’s defeat is not a bad thing because then you know there could really be a change in society,” the prime minister told the 17th Lennart Meri Conference.

The Russian Federation is comprised of “many different nations” and suggested that they should become separate states after the end of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, she argued.

"I think if you would have more like small nations... it is not a bad thing if the big power is actually [made] much smaller,” Kallas said.

The Constitution of the Russian Federation describes the polity as a multinational state. According to the 2020-2021 census, the country’s population speaks 155 different languages, with Russian being the most common.

Estonia’s Prime Minister also urged Ukraine’s Western backers not to be afraid to do more to assist the government in Kiev in its fight with Moscow.

"Fear keeps us from supporting Ukraine. Countries have different fears, be it nuclear fear, fear of escalation, fear of migration. We must not fall into the trap of fear because that is what [Russia’s President Vladimir] Putin wants,” she said.

According to Kallas, the West must help Kiev “push Russia back to its borders” and continue to pressure Moscow via sanctions until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored. She also called for reparations to be paid and for the country’s leadership to be held accountable for the conflict.

The prime minister insisted that in order for stable peace to be achieved in Europe, Ukraine has to be made a member of both the EU and NATO.

In February, Russia issued an arrest warrant for Kallas over her campaign to destroy Soviet WWII memorials across Estonia.

The authorities in Moscow have said repeatedly that due to the unwillingness of both Kiev and the West to look for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, Russia will continue its military operation until all of its goals are achieved, including assuring the security of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine, the demilitarization and “denazification” of the country, and making sure that it never becomes a NATO member.

Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the Ukrainian conflict will be decided militarily in Moscow’s favor if that is the wish of the US and its allies. “If they want it to be on the battlefield, they will have it on the battlefield,” Lavrov stressed.

`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

This has long been the western colonial dream - break Russia up into smaller bits and steal their vast resource base. Over the last 600 years Europe (with US help) has invaded Russia repeatedly and always lost. They are at it again in a desperate Hail Mary try.

 

They wish to do the same with China by refusing to acknowledge that Taiwan and Hong Kong are provinces of China. And the west is doing their destabilization 'thing' in the Muslim regions of China trying to split them off.

 

This is a certain way to start a nuclear war. Why are these arrogant western mis-leaders so desperate to do this? Are they pathologically insane? Sure seems that way to me. Power hungry and greedy.

 

Bruce

Nuclear madness began in New Mexico

 

 

First We Bombed New Mexico is the untold story of Trinity, the world’s first nuclear bomb detonated in New Mexico one month before the bombing of Hiroshima. 

It is a story of government betrayal with tragic consequences.

Thousands of New Mexicans - mostly Hispanic and Native American - were exposed to catastrophic levels of radioactive fallout, never warned, never acknowledged and never helped afterwards. Generations of cancers followed.

Inspiring New Mexico Hispanic cancer survivor, Tina Cordova has catalyzed a movement seeking compensation for families - mostly Hispanic and Native - who suffer multi-generational cancers tied to that bomb – and who continue to be ignored.

This documentary is witness to the people’s narrative for voices not heard.

Biden: 'No genocide happening in Gaza'

 

 'Contrary to allegations against Israel made by the International Court of Justice, what's happening is not genocide,' says Joe Biden, at a celebration for Jewish American heritage month on Monday at the White House. 

Biden sided unambiguously with Israel after the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced he was pursuing arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister. Khan is also pursuing the arrests of three leading Hamas figures, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri – better known as Mohammed Deif – and Ismail Haniyeh over Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October last year.

How does U.S. debt impact the nation & world?

 

 

Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City.

Earlier he taught economics at Yale University (1967-1969) and at the City College of the City University of New York (1969-1973). In 1994, he was a Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Paris (France), I (Sorbonne). Wolff was also regular lecturer at the Brecht Forum in New York City.

Prof Wolff is the co-founder of Democracy at Work and host of their nationally syndicated show Economic Update.

In the interview, we discuss U.S. economic policy, latest tariffs and how protectionist measures will backfire, BRICS+ gaining momentum and surpassing G7 and more. 

NYT pro-space war article quotes Gagnon near end

 

Nury Vittachi (featured in this video) is a Sri Lankan journalist living in Hong Kong. 

 

On May 17 the New York Times (NYT) ran a front page story entitled:  

New Star Wars Plan: Pentagon Rushes to Counter Threats in Orbit

 

Citing rapid advances by China and Russia, the United States is building an extensive capacity to fight battles in space.

 

 

The article follows the usual mainstream corporate media script of pumping up the Russia and China threat, demanding more $$$ for the Space Force in order for the US to remain in 'control and domination' of space, and quotes various generals, aerospace industry boosters and political hacks from congressional districts (like Huntsville, Alabama) that are deeply involved in pushing a new arms race into space.

 

I was called by the NYT reporter who wrote the story and we spent at least 30 minutes discussing all the key aspects of the issue that I've been working on since 1982. 

 

Issues like the US and Israel blocking a new space weapons ban treaty at the United Nations for the past 20-some years, the Space Command planning document from 1997 called 'Vision for 2020' that lays out the whole sordid U.S. space strategy, the nuclear industry agenda to put nuclear power into space for mining the planetary bodies and to power space-based weapons, Pentagon planning of first-strike attacks on Russia and China using space weapons, the enormous cost of 'Star Wars' and much more.

 

 

 

In the end this quote by me appeared near the very end of the long article: 

 

Others contend that the United States itself is pushing too hard to turn space into a war-fighting zone.

 

“This is a quest for domination by the U.S.,” said Bruce Gagnon, a longtime peace activist from Maine who has called for a ban on all weapons in space.

 

The Pentagon is hardly deterred. It is working to coordinate its so-called counter-space efforts with major allies, including Britain, Canada and Australia, through a multinational operation called Operation Olympic Defender.

It reminds me of the media biz tale about calling someone for one or two lines that a reporter needs to fit into a story to cover the long gone concern about giving 'both sides' - what they used to name the 'fairness doctrine'. Reporters these days just call it 'dial a quote'.

 

Still it is the NYT.  

 

But that paper has been turned into a trash newspaper owned by greedy Wall Street oligarchs who ensure that 'All the news that is fit to print' has since been put through the wringer and comes out flattened and bled to death.

 

As Noam Chomsky said many years ago, 'How can you expect the American people to react to something they don't know anything about'?

 

Bingo!

 

When we first started out on this issue in the early 80's we could get some fairly regular coverage by corporate media. Even into the 90's that was still the case when the CBS-TV program 60 Minutes covered our protest and lawsuit against the launch of the Cassini plutonium probe in 1997.  But soon after that it mostly dried up and now we almost exclusively rely on alternative media outlets.

 

Journalism is not what it once was.

Bruce

U.S. billionaires joined Whatsapp group to 'change Israel narrative'

 

 

 Middle East Eye

Business leaders spoke to senior Israeli officials and New York mayor during Columbia encampment, according to Washington Post

American business leaders and billionaires set up a Whatsapp group to shape public opinion on Israel's war in Gaza and urged New York City's mayor to use police to disperse a pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University.

The contents of the Whatsapp group were reported by the Washington Post on May 16.

The group was set up on 12 October, days after Hamas's surprise attack on southern Israel, to "change the narrative" on Israel, including by conveying "the atrocities committed by Hamas... to all Americans".

Among the business leaders in the group were the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, Dell CEO and founder Michael Dell, and Joshua Kushner, a financier and brother to Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The contents of the chat were supplied to the Washington Post by unnamed people with direct access to it.

Last month, members of the chat, including billionaire Len Blavatnik, held a Zoom call with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, at a time when a pro-Palestinian encampment was taking place at Columbia University in the city.

During the call, attendees spoke about making political donations to Adams, and about how the business leaders could urge Columbia's president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police on campus.

Some members of the chat offered to pay for private investigators to help police during the protests.

According to the Washington Post, a member of the group wrote on the chat that such an offer had been accepted by Adams. New York's police denied using private investigators to manage the protests.

On 1 May, dozens of students were arrested as New York police officers wearing riot gear entered the main campus and broke up the encampment.

Police used an armored vehicle with a bridging mechanism to gain entry to Hamilton Hall building, which students had occupied and renamed Hind's Hall - after a five-year-old Palestinian girl who was trapped in a car in Gaza and was later found killed along with several of her relatives and two paramedics who tried to save her after they appear to have come under fire from Israeli tanks.

Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy said police entered Columbia University in response to "specific written requests" from the university.

“Any suggestion that other considerations were involved in the decision-making process is completely false,” he said.

“The insinuation that Jewish donors secretly plotted to influence government operations is an all too familiar antisemitic trope that the Washington Post should be ashamed to ask about, let alone normalise in print.”

'Win the war of public opinion'

The Whatsapp group had over 100 members, and was titled "Israel Current Events".

It was set up by real estate tycoon Barry Sternlicht, who was not directly a member of the chat but participated through a staffer.

The staffer said in October that the group's mission was to help "win the war" of public opinion in the US, while Israel worked to "win the physical war".

Israel's war on Gaza has killed over 35,000 Palestinians, most of whom are women and children, and displaced the vast majority of people in the besieged enclave.

More than a dozen of the Whatsapp group's members were on Forbes's annual billionaire list, according to the Washington Post.

Earlier during the war, the group's members attended private meetings with former Israeli prime minister and now opposition figure Naftali Bennett, war cabinet member Benny Gantz, and Michael Herzog, Israel's ambassador to the US.

The group's members also worked with the Israeli government to screen an Israeli military-compiled film displaying Hamas's 7 October attack, which left around 1,200 Israelis killed.

In November, Sternlicht reportedly launched a $50 million media campaign against Hamas, with the help of media and business magnates.

The chat was shut down this month by Sternlicht's staffer, who said the group's aims were moving beyond its initial objectives.

NYC cops beat peaceful people

 

 

Status Coup News

During a Free Palestine protest in New York City, NYPD ended up going crazy on the peaceful demonstration. 

From punching protesters in the stomach, to throwing multiple protesters on the ground in violent ways. 

NYC Mayor Eric Adams is up to his ears in campaign donations from zionists who have been demanding that he crack down on Palestine solidarity protests.  

Based on estimates of the size of the police force and the cost per officer, New York spent at least $200,000 on overtime alone for the four-hour raid to clear Columbia University Hamilton Hall, according to an analysis by The Intercept.

“Every dollar that we spend on policing, especially policing that is suppressing our constitutional rights in a democracy, is an affront against so many New Yorkers who are in desperate need for economic and social support,” said Jawanza Williams, director of organizing at VOCAL-NY, a community activist group. “The administration has a totally flipped, upside-down perspective when it comes to what should be a priority in the city’s spending and the city’s budget.”

This ain't gonna go down well with folks around the globe.

One chant by students in the Netherlands to police goes like this: 'We are people, what are you?'

Free Palestine! Stop zionist (Israel-US-EU) genocide!