Enough said for now....
Bruce
Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
Enough said for now....
Bruce
Seventy-five protesters gathered under threatening skies at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California at 6:30 am on Wednesday, November 20. Their mission: to speak out and briefly interrupt the shipment of weapons to Israel from this air base.
For 90 minutes, they showed banners such as “Stop Arms for War Crimes” and “Stop Travis: No US Weapons for Genocide. ” They delayed traffic on the busy six-lane roadway into the base by frequently pressing the button to allow pedestrian crossing. Fliers were handed out to receptive drivers. The flyers asked “Why are we blocking access to Travis Air Base and messing up your day?”. It was explained that while November 20 is World Children’s Day, weapons to Israel from Travis are being used to kill children. Bombs loaded onto planes at Travis and other US air bases have killed many thousands of children.
David Vidmar grew up on Travis Air Base. He said, “I am participating in the People’s Arms Embargo to honor my father as he would have been sickened by the indiscriminate targeting, slaughter and starvation of Gazan children and women in Israel’s genocide.”
In the second stage of the protest, protesters completely blocked the roadways into the base. Ultimately, they shut down all of the entry points to the base before Fairfield police arrived en masse and arrested those blocking the roadway. A total of 28 persons were arrested for blocking the north, south, and main entry gates to Travis AFB.
Some of those arrested were processed in a few hours. Ten persons were still in Solano County Jail six hours after the action. It is not known when they will be released. They include Toby Blome, David Hartsough and others who were organizers of this action.
The protesters have been charged with blocking the road and “not following a lawful order”.
Many people globally believe the US is violating international law by continuing to provide weapons for what the International Court of Justice describes as “plausible genocide”. One year ago many prominent US State Department and USAID officials criticized the Biden policy of blanket support for Israel. Yet it continues unabated. Today’s action at Travis AFB highlights the discrepancy.
~ Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the SF Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com.
The US just officially opened its new Aegis Ashore missile base in Poland (after nine years of construction) to go along with a similar one recently opened in Romania.
These launch platforms (same as what is found on Navy Aegis destroyers built in Bath, Maine) can fire either nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missiles (the first strike sword) or SM-3 interceptor 'missile defense' systems (the shield).
According to Simplicius:
This facility has the infamous dual-use MK41 vertical launchers (VLS) which fire the defensive SM-3 missiles, but are also capable of launching long-range nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles, amongst other things. The Rezidkowo base is only 160km from Kaliningrad and within Tomahawks’ range even of Moscow.
Russia’s now-unveiled Oreshnik [hazelnut] is essentially a direct counterweight to the Aegis Ashore.
So the US has created the ability to launch a first-strike with Tomahawk cruise missiles into Russia and the American people know virtually nothing about this 2024 Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse. What does any thinking person expect Russia to do? Imagine if Russia or China built a similar facility in Mexico or Canada - Washington would go ballistic!
As the video above reveals this new US launch facility is now a target.
These kind of intermediate-range missile systems used to be banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed by US
President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. The US pulled out of the treaty in 2019.
The US withdrew from the landmark 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002. That treaty banned missile defense systems. So it is clear that the Pentagon has been developing this offensive strategy for some time to encircle Russia and China with these 'sword and shield' missile systems on the land and at sea using Aegis destroyer platforms.
In July 2024 NATO announced that the US would, starting in 2026, deploy nuclear capable intermediate range missiles in Germany.
Of course this has led Russia and China to develop new missile technologies that could evade and overwhelm the US 'sword and shield' systems as we just witnessed Moscow fire the Oreshnik [hazelnut] missile that hit a vast Ukrainian military production facility in eastern Ukraine.
So the US in effect has created a new nuclear arms race due to its arrogant exceptionalism which moves the world closer and closer to WW3 and possibly nuclear Armageddon.
Bruce
Three days ago the President of China Xi Jinping opened a Chinese financed a deep-water port in Chancay, Peru.
LIMA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a $1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent.
Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening of the Chancay port, about 80 kilometres (48 miles) north of Lima on the Pacific Ocean, and signed a deal to widen an existing free trade agreement.Xi said that Chancay, a 15-berth, deep-water port, was the successful start of a "21st century maritime Silk Road" and part of China's Belt and Road Initiative, its modern revival of the ancient Silk Road trading route.
The U.S. is, according to Newsweek, considering Peru to be in its "backyard" (for the record: the distance between Washington DC and Lima, Peru, is 5,700 kilometer):
However, a Chinese state-owned enterprise running a deepwater port so close to U.S. soil has Washington worried. The project marks another significant expansion of China's presence in a part of the world the U.S. considers its sphere of influence."On the big geostrategic issues, the Peruvian government is not sufficiently focused on analyzing the benefits and threats to the country," an anonymous U.S. official told the Financial Times late last year.
U.S. Southern Command chief Army General Laura Richardson characterized China's infrastructure projects across the Caribbean, Central and South America as a security threat. "They're on the 20-yard line, in the red zone to our homeland," Richardson told Newsweek last year, referencing China's closer proximity.
Not to be outdone by China's generous investment the U.S. decided to publicly counter it. A day after Xi opened the port megaproject U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken dropped into Lima:
Secretary Antony Blinken @SecBlinken - 2:28 UTC · Nov 17, 2024Today we announced that the United States will support the city of Lima in building a new passenger train line that will expand access to reliable and affordable transportation for over 200,000 people every single day.
In his speech Blinken said:
“Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance.” Paul Simon, one of our great poets, wrote that line in one of his songs, and I think it speaks powerfully to each of us. Trains connect people. They bring communities together. They take distances down between us. And they are not just a symbol, but the practical manifestation of possibilities – the possibilities that come when we connect to each other. They’re so much a part of the national mythology of the United States, our own extraordinary construction project. And I’m so grateful today to be part of this project in helping create greater connectivity here in Peru.And so this is an exciting day in our partnership: The United States will support the City of Lima as it develops the new passenger train line that’s going to connect downtown to the eastern suburbs. The Caltrain rail system in California, as you’ve heard already, will contribute more than a hundred high-quality railcars and engines, and American companies will provide over 50 percent of the services for this project and the supplies for the project, from signaling equipment to railroad tracks to engineering and design expertise.
Caltrain? Why Caltrain?
Caltrain finds international buyer for retired diesel fleet - SFGate
Caltrain is sending its retired diesel fleet to Lima, Peru, where it will have a second chance at life by providing commuter rail service. On Saturday, the U.S. Department of State, Lima representatives and several world leaders will celebrate the next stage for the trains while gathering for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the Peruvian capital.
...
“These trains have a long and proud legacy of service that we’re proud to pass along to the people of Peru,” Caltrain Board Chair Dev Davis said in a news release. “The F40s hold a special place in the heart of train enthusiasts, and there’s no better task for them than to keep helping people get where they need to go.”Caltrain received $6.32 million from the deal, which involved selling 90 passenger cars and 19 diesel locomotives. Sam Sargent, Caltrain’s director of strategy and policy, told SFGATE on Friday that there were other buyers interested in the fleet, but the department was drawn to the offer from the Municipality of Lima, Peru, since it wanted to purchase the fleet wholesale.
The locomotives Caltrain is selling(!) to the city of Lima are 40 years old. As are the passenger cars they will be pulling. The locomotives' exhaust fuming engines had been made inoperable to get funding for the new electric trains:
To send the trains to Lima for further use, Caltrain had to first procure a waiver from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District so the trains could still return to service.
The people in Lima will surely notice how much more the U.S. is caring about its 'backyard' than China is.
COL. Douglas Macgregor on Netanyahu Arrest Warrant!
PLUS - Russia fires first ICBM in combat for the first time in history.
How Biden mistook the nuclear football for a chamber pot.
OAPs' stolen coal. Torpedoing the Trump battleship. And Russia's on the march.
This video features a review of the UK's role in the proxy war in Ukraine aimed at Russia.
From blocking early negotiations to end the war to constant British demands that Ukraine implement strategies that failed - one after the other.
Of course the US, Germany, France and other NATO nations also played huge roles in this failed operation.
In addition mercenaries from across the world were continually sent to Ukraine to augment their beleaguered troops.
And as we now see with the long-range missiles aimed inside of Russian territory, these so-called allies of Ukraine have armed them to the teeth ensuring maximum profits for western military corporations.
Then we have western corporations like Monsanto, Cargill, Blackrock and others that are buying up large parts of Ukraine.
The main goal is to inflict maximum damage on Russia, and this can only be achieved by weakening it from within. That is why the political and information confrontation is so important for the puppet Kiev regime, which is fiercely fighting using the weapons of fakes and provocations, including bloody operations on the ground that do not make any military sense like in the Kursk region of Russia where Ukraine has lost more than 30,000 troops.
The West, which has found itself in a desperate situation, is trying to put Moscow on time pressure while forcing it to give instant responses to any provocation.
"American servicemen are involved in [ATACMS] missile guidance... and coordinating their flights to deliver the strike. We can say this with complete confidence," Alexander Mikhailov, head of Russia's Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, told Sputnik.
If the Russian military does not respond to the recent strikes of ATACMS (range 190 miles) in the Bryansk region and now UK supplied Storm Shadow missiles (range of 560 kilometers) in Kursk and Crimea, Moscow risks suffering a severe image defeat. The West expects that by not responding, the Kremlin will lose confidence and this will fuel internal destabilization in the country.
On the other hand, any response to the western escalation will complicate Moscow’s relations with the United States, in particular with Trump, who is coming back to power. The sharp escalation of the confrontation means that some of the elite clans (neo-cons) of the US warmongers are out of control and playing their own dangerous and provocative game.
This situation could easily spiral out of control.
Note: Actually this graphic is old. The US has sent about $180 billion to Ukraine so far with billions more sent from EU nations.
On a bridge in Asheville, North Carolina. Banners made by Ken Jones. |
UNITED NATIONS, November 20.
The United States has used its veto right and blocked a UN Security Council draft resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a demand for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Gaza Strip prepared by the organization’s ten non-permanent members.
Fourteen of the 15 members of the Security Council voted in favor of the document. This is the fifth time that the United States has blocked resolutions providing for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip since tensions escalated in the Middle East last October.
The resolution was drafted by ten non-permanent members of the Security Council and consists of nine paragraphs, the first of which calls for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire respected by all parties. The document also calls for the release of all hostages held in the enclave, respect for international law by all parties, and humanitarian access to the civilian population of Gaza. The draft resolution also includes a clause stating that if the document is adopted, the UN Secretary General should submit a written report on the implementation of the resolution to the Security Council within three weeks.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, a total of 44,000 Palestinians have been killed and 104,000 injured in the enclave since tensions escalated last October.
Across the US, students and faculty are continuing to resist repressive measures by university administrations intended to stifle or even criminalize speech in support of Palestinian rights, as the genocide in Gaza continues.
Along with elite US institutions calling riot cops on their own students who have been holding sit-in protests, or attempting to prevent students from holding protests altogether, some universities have tried to categorize the political ideology of Zionism as a protected identity class in order to define anti-Zionist speech as racist hate speech.
“As long as I’ve been a teacher, I’ve been teaching about Palestine – it’s always been either central or integrated into the work that I do,” Maura Finkelstein told The Electronic Intifada Podcast.
Finkelstein, a scholar of anthropology and a writer, taught at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania for nine years.
She had been teaching a course on the anthropology of Palestine, a class that she says had been approved by the college.
But even though she was tenured, she was fired in May 2024 over her social media posts in support of Palestinian rights and against the political ideology of Zionism – a move that has been seen as a warning to other anti-genocide professors.
The firing followed months of targeted harassment by Israel lobby groups and individuals who pressured the university to fire Finkelstein, accusing her of “Jew hatred” over her anti-Zionist principles. Finkelstein is Jewish.
The Intercept reported that Finkelstein “was the subject of a campaign of thousands of anonymous, bot-generated emails sent every minute for over 24 hours to the school’s administrators – as well as local news outlets and politicians – demanding the professor’s removal.”
The college administration told Finkelstein that “numerous families of students had called to express concern about her position,” The Intercept notes. “A Change.org petition started in late October by unnamed ‘Muhlenberg College alumni and supporters’ called for Finkelstein’s firing over allegedly ‘pro-Hamas’ rhetoric; it gained over 8,000 signatures.”
Finkelstein told The Electronic Intifada that one of her social media posts – a repost to her personal account of a statement about refusing to normalize Zionism by the Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi – instigated condemnation by a Muhlenberg student who had never attended her class.
“Because the student identified as a Zionist, and because the student believed that Zionism and Judaism were the same, [the student claimed that] I was violating the equal opportunity non-discrimination policy that would essentially be denying the student access to an education,” Finkelstein said.
She explained that even though the student did not know her, “the student assumed from the social media posts that they would not be safe in my class. It went through a three-and-a-half-months-long investigation, it went through various faculty, staff and administrative panels, and I was told that I was terminated for cause, which is immediately no access to severance.”
“Perfect collision”
Finkelstein says that according to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), she is the first tenured professor to be fired since October 2023 over support for Palestinian rights.
“Of course, there were cases in the past,” she notes, citing professor Steven Salaita’s firing by the University of Illinois in 2014, as well as “countless adjuncts, visiting assistant professors, lecturers, other contingent faculty who have lost their contracts, who’ve lost their jobs without the same kind of foundation that would cause outrage.”
There is a fear, she says, for academics who are being sanctioned now “that if they go public with the story, they’ll never work in higher ed [education] again. And I think that that’s a real threat.”
With her own case, Finkelstein explains, it crystallizes at least two of the big crises in higher education right now.
One crisis is the “constant erosion of federal funding, of federal support [that] has created these institutions so that they’re completely, or almost completely, dependent on tuition and donor support,” which creates a financial model that “isn’t actually about education, this is about the accumulation of resources,” she says.
The second is that administrators are in a position where they “don’t know what Judaism is. They don’t know what Zionism is. They probably actually don’t know much about the decisions they’re making. What they do know is [that] if they alienate their financial base, they will collapse.”
Finkelstein says that she understands why some professors are scared to speak up in defense of Palestine and potentially lose their jobs. But, she adds, her colleagues should not self-censor.
“We all need to be talking about Palestine. We all need to be teaching about Palestine because, in an ideal world, they can’t fire us all.”
Bruce Gagnon joins Regis Tremblay (originally from Maine but now living in Crimea) for interview with comments on Trump's cabinet picks; more war; support of Israel; BRICS is major threat to Trumps world view.
Bruce questions if the 77 year old Trump will even finish his term! A
possible assassination? The onset of Dementia like Biden? A sudden heart
attack or stroke from eating all of those McDonald’s hamburgers and
fries? Who knows?
Follow Bruce's blog here: https://space4peace.blogspot.com/
The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space at: https://space4peace.org/
On November 16, 2024, activists from across Canada responded to a national call to action against corporations that participate in the production of military equipment for Israel, particularly the F-35.
One such company, Gastops, is based in Ottawa, the nation's capital. Gastops produces engine sensors that are used to reduce maintenance time for the F35. U.S. arms manufacturer Raytheon, which profits in many ways from Israel's genocidal war on Palestinians, has made a major investment in Gastops.
On the national day of action, Dimitri Lascaris reported from a protest held steps away from Gastops' headquarters in Ottawa.
As Lascaris explains, the Trudeau government is violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention by allowing Gastops' engine sensors to be delivered to Israel's airforce in a time of genocide.
Is Biden and NATO planning to escalate the proxy war in Ukraine now in order to ensure that Trump will not be able to successfully end the war?
Russia states they will be forced to respond directly to those nations who have provided these long-range missiles to Ukraine.
Moscow’s position on the issue was formulated clearly earlier this year by President Vladimir Putin, who has said that attacks along the lines requested by Zelensky would be impossible without the direct contribution of Western intelligence and military expertise, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated. If conducted, such strikes would mean that “NATO nations are at war with Russia,” he warned.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has praised the reported decision by the US to allow Ukraine to launch long-range missile strikes deep into Russian territory, describing it as a “decisive moment.”
France is still considering allowing Ukraine to target Russian territory with French-supplied missiles, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has said, after the US reportedly shifted its policy on the issue.
The decision by Washington “doesn’t change our assessment at the moment,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters on Monday, when asked if Chancellor Olaf Scholz would lift his ban on sending Taurus air-launched missiles to Kiev. Currently there is “no reason to make a different decision,” Pistorius added, speaking during a visit to a helicopter plant in Bavaria. Instead, the German military intends to provide 4,000 drones that use AI-assisted piloting, he said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock [Green Party] made it clear that Berlin supports Biden’s decision, insisting that the use of long-range weapons is within the right of self-defense.
The UK has not sent any long-range Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine for several months, likely due to its low stockpiles and a desire to use them more effectively, The Times reported on Sunday, citing sources. UK defense sources told The Times that the Labour Party’s stance on the matter likely stems from the fact that “UK stockpiles have reached a level below which military chiefs are not prepared to go,” as some missiles must be kept in reserve to protect London’s own interests.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday that he had initially supported the lifting of restrictions on strikes deep into Russia, and this issue will be discussed at the Foreign Ministers council.
Spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in the US Liu Pengyu underscored that Beijing condemns possible ATACMS missile strikes on Russian territory and actions that could lead to an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that Biden’s purported move means that America “has entered a phase of madness of North American imperialism.”
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space Coordinator Bruce Gagnon addresses the New York City Veterans For Peace monthly meeting Nov. 20, 2024.
An interview I did some years ago (when I still had hair on my head) during a speaking tour in southern California.
It was actually quite a wide ranging interview that still holds up today as the US arrogantly claims it intends to be the 'Master of Space' where it would determine which nations can get into space and which ones cannot.
The current rush to fill up Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) is just one illustration of that sordid reality.
Anyway, have a look and see what you think.
Bruce
We held another of our monthly protests in Farmington, Maine yesterday. (Each month we go to a different part of Maine.) Farmington is in a rural central part of the state. We've been doing these protests each month since February, 2022 to gather people opposing our nations enormous war appetite. Farmington is a part of the University of Maine system though a smaller school than most. It was originally a college for teachers.
Maine's population is 1.4 million, making it one of the least populated states in the nation. The largest city is Portland, which accounts for about 40% of the state's population. So we don't have a huge population base to draw on for these protests. Thus getting 30 people from across the state (from Biddeford in the south to the Belfast area further north) is a good deal.
In this moment many war strains are causing great stress for us. From the ever expanding genocide in Palestine, attacks by Israel (with full US support) on Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran, continued US-NATO weapons shipments to Ukraine and the insane plan to move NATO into the Asia-Pacific putting a clear target on China.
If there was ever a time for people of conscience to be in the street this is surely it.
I read just days ago that 44% of those who have been killed in Palestine are children. What does that tell you about the western support for the genocidal zionist war program?
Three big guys dressed in camo yelled at us at one point as they walked by saying 'You should have voted for Trump!' I yelled back 'We are not Democrats!' On their return I stopped one of them and we had a good chat. I told him I was a veteran which always kind of takes the hot air out of the balloon. He said he was opposed to the wars and I asked him what he would do if it turns out that Trump was just bluffing and keeps the wars going. He took a moment and basically said we'd be screwed for sure.
Because Farmington is in a rural part of the state we reached an audience that we don't get in the bigger cities. It was good to hear the steady numbers of honks we received - including some big blasts from truckers that drove through the town.
I know it was also very uplifting for the several folks who live in Farmington to get folks from around the state to join them. That kind of solidarity goes a long way.
We ended the day with a closing circle in a nearby gazebo and then many of us had a late lunch together. The circles are always a good time to get to know each other a bit more and to share our heartfelt reasons for coming together no matter the distance or the temperature.
Our next monthly protest will be in Freeport on December 21 at 1:30 pm. Freeport is the home of L.L. Bean and just days before Xmas we are guaranteed a huge audience. Please plan to join us for that one.
There are worrying signs that the well-funded pro-zionist lobby in the US intends to crack down on Palestine solidarity activity across the US during the in-coming Trump administration.
Don't sit back and watch the fireworks. Help stand for peace, justice and freedom of expression.
Bruce
According to the political scientist, in all likelihood attempts to replace the presidents of Brazil and Venezuela, and pit India, Russia and China against each other are coming.“In other words, he will seek to fragment the world majority, to upset the emerging unity. This non-Western world would be taken down. This is what Trump’s strategy will look like. Everything else is a matter of tactics,” the political analyst said.
Documents released the week reveal that the US is secretly working on a massive political interference operation in Cambodia.
Washington is using the exact same methods it used to create civil unrest in Hong Kong in 2019, and Bangkok in 2020, and in Moldova and Bangladesh this year, and a score of other places over recent years. (And in Ukraine in 2014.]
America has numerous units which discreetly provide large amounts of cash, protest guidance and media contacts to Pentagon-friendly anti-government groups in scores of countries. The technique is known as "hybrid warfare" or "color revolution".
ILLEGAL IN MOST PLACES
In Cambodia, the documents leaked this week indicate the involvement of multiple units, including the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros' Open Society Foundation, USAID and others.
The shocking details were revealed by The Sunday Guardian, an Indian newspaper, and followed up by the Khmer Times of Cambodia. In contrast to Asian journalists, Western mainstream media outlets automatically cover up, downplay or mislead readers about US hybrid warfare operations, despite the fact that these actions are illegal in most places.
The secret political interference operation in Cambodia is being led by "a cocktail of agencies situated in the US and other countries, in collaboration with political dissenters in Cambodia," the Sunday Guardian said. The aim, of course, is to "execute a long standing operation to remove the incumbent government from power and install a pro-Washington face in Phnom Penh."
BIG MONEY
The paper published what it said was a leaked email showing that opposition leader Mu Sochua was given at least US$55,000 US dollars from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations that would ensure "Major advocacy will continue till the end of 2024".
Another leaked document refers to operations continuing until 2028 and mentions a payment of 98,000 US dollars.
STAGES OF PLAN
The stages of the plan show the system is virtually a carbon copy of Washington's 2019 operation in Hong Kong.
The plan is to hurt Cambodia by getting the US Congress to pass a "Cambodia Human Rights and Democracy Act", – just like the US congress hurt Hong Kong by passing the "Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.
The plan said it would involve the usual US vassal states or allies in the region: Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
It said It would "advocate the EU Parliament for resolutions on Cambodia". And it would "push for targeted sanctions by the EU against high ranking officials of the Cambodian government for grave violations of human rights and corruption". They did the same thing to harm Hong Kong.
SOLE SUPERPOWER
Why does the US do this? In a 1992 defence policy document, the US declared that it, and it alone, should be the dominant power over the world, and particularly the people of Asia, the biggest portion of humanity.
Since then, it has worked hard to achieve this aim, using secret political interference, western media demonization of competitor nations, military shows of strength, economic coercion and so on.
But China's alternative plan, offering a multi-polar world in which countries have positive relationships based on mutually beneficial trading operations, has growing support.
Urgent action is needed. it is absolutely vital that every government in Asia immediately gets consultants who can dig up secret hybrid warfare operatives in their country. If they fail to do this – well, look at Ukraine for the result. If you want help, contact the present writer.
See more here on this story
Clashes erupt in the stands of the Stade de France during France-Israel nations league football match.
Several hundred pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered on the Place du Front Populaire, in Paris, in the run-up to the match at the Stade de France.
France said it had been preparing to host Israel's national football team in a match deemed "high risk" by the authorities after last week’s violence in Amsterdam.
France has announced exceptional measures to ensure security at the upcoming match, with the mobilisation of a total of 4,000 police officers and gendarmes.
Only 16,611 fans were in attendance at the 80,000 capacity stadium, mostly due to security concerns and a call for boycott, in what was the lowest turnout ever for a French national team match at the Stade de France in Paris.
Washington considers the Ukrainian leader to be “overly entitled” and may remove him from power, the SVR has claimed
RT
The US is considering holding an election in Ukraine next year as a “legitimate” means of replacing the government of Vladimir Zelensky, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) claimed on Monday.
Zelensky remains in power in Ukraine despite his term in office having officially expired [last] May. He earlier scrapped presidential elections, citing the martial law he imposed in 2022.
The US State Department believes Zelensky to be “overly entitled” and may organize presidential and parliamentary votes to remove him in 2025 despite the ongoing fighting, the SVR said in a statement.
According to the spy agency’s information, Washington has decided to begin preliminary work aimed at creating conditions for launching an election campaign in Ukraine.
The first stage of the plan will see US-funded NGOs using the structures of Ukrainian civil society under their control to put forward the initiative of holding an election.After it gets “broad public support,” the election candidates would be selected in coordination with the State Department, the SVR said. The observers for the votes will also be appointed by Washington-linked NGOs, it added.
The State Department expects this party to make it into the parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, and help the US to keep any future Ukrainian president in check, it added.The US has already initiated discussions on the creation of a new pro-American party in the country among Ukrainian activists on its payroll, the statement read. [This is a similar strategy that the Obama-Biden administration used to force the coup d'etat in Kiev in 2014.]
The SVR suggested that these activities prove the phrase “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” that American officials have repeated throughout the conflict is just an empty slogan. “In reality, the fate of this country and its puppet leaders will continue to be decided in high offices in Washington,” it said.
Last week, Zelensky extended the period of martial law and mobilization in Ukraine until February 2025, amending the relevant legislation for the 13th time since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in February 2022.
US President-elect Donald Trump Trump promised many times during his reelection campaign to put a swift end to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. A source close to Zelensky’s office told Strana.ua last week that the Ukrainian leader would be powerless to resist if Trump decides he wants him to stop fighting and pursue peace with Russia.
New Zealand’s parliament was suspended on Thursday after lawmakers from the Maori Party tore up a copy of a controversial bill on tribal rights and performed a traditional war chant in the legislature.
For nearly two centuries, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi has guided relations between New Zealand’s native Maori people and its white settlers. The treaty promised the natives that they would keep their lands and customs in exchange for accepting British rule, and has since been interpreted by parliament and courts to guarantee the Maori a broad range of rights – including hiring quotas and financial reparations.
The libertarian ACT party, part of the country's governing coalition, has argued that that the treaty discriminates against non-Maori people, and has put forward a bill that would dramatically narrow its interpretation.
During a vote on the bill on Thursday, Maori Party MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke tore up a copy of the legislation before breaking into a Haka, a traditional Maori war chant. Maipi-Clarke’s colleagues rose from their seats and joined in the chant, as did opposition lawmakers and spectators in the gallery.
Unable to quiet the shouting MPs, Speaker Gerry Brownlee cut the hearing short and suspended Maipi-Clarke from parliament for a day.
Despite the Maori Party’s opposition, the vote passed and the bill will now proceed to a public consultation process. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon opposed the bill, but his National Party voted to support it under the terms of an agreement signed with ACT last year. The National Party is the largest faction in New Zealand’s coalition government, with ACT and New Zealand First serving as junior partners.
Let this video speak for itself......
Is this a sign of the chaos coming to our nation?
Berlin's arrogance, as they joined the US-NATO failed Russia take down, has come back to haunt the people in Deutschland.
Even today the Green Party's Annalena Baerbock still supports cuts in domestic social spending and infrastructure in order to keep their step-child Zelensky and his corrupt cronies in the cash flow.
Baerbock admits in this video that they've spent 37 billion Euros on the Ukraine war that was always intended to bring regime change to Russia. How did that work out?
The ruling German 'traffic light coalition' is now collapsing and elections in the coming year will likely make major changes in the Berlin government.
The German total subservience to the Biden-Harris war on Russia led to their economic failure after Scholz stood next to Biden in a news conference and heard him say that the Nordstream pipeline would be destroyed. Scholz didn't utter a word of protest as they lost their cheap Russian natural gas.
Why does so much of Europe allow the US to treat them like minions?
One of the biggest questions for me was what happened to the once great anti-war movement in Germany? Since the 2014 US-NATO directed regime change in Ukraine, that led to civil war, those voices were lost in the wilderness. Very sad for Germany and the world at large.
Bruce