This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan – North Korea on Monday acknowledged for the first time that it deployed troops to Russia to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine, saying its soldiers “completely liberated the occupied area of Kursk region.”
Ukraine estimates as many as 14,000 North Korean soldiers, including 3,000 reinforcements to replace its losses, are in Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of Russia’s Kursk in an August counter offensive.
“The operations for liberating the Kursk area to repel the adventurous invasion of the Russian Federation by the Ukrainian authorities were victoriously concluded,” the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, reported, citing the country’s Central Military Commission.
The North’s deployment was made by “the order” of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in accordance with Pyongyang’s mutual defense treaty with Moscow, said the KCNA.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for talks with Kim in June last year when they announced the treaty, agreeing to offer each other military assistance “without delay” if either were attacked. They also underscored their shared defiance of Western sanctions and expanded cooperation in various sectors.
KCNA cited Kim as describing the activities as “a sacred mission to further consolidate” friendship and solidarity with Russia and “defend the honor” of North Korea.
A monument praising their heroism and bravery will be erected soon in Pyongyang and flowers will be placed before the tombstones of the fallen soldiers to pray for their immortality, said Kim, acknowledging troops killed in combat.
The North’s confirmation of the troop deployment came after Russia acknowledged that North Korean soldiers had been fighting in its war with Ukraine.
Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, confirmed their combat participation during a videoconference with Putin on Saturday, recognizing the crucial role they played in “liberating” the Kursk region.
In response, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Ukraine’s army was still fighting in Russia’s Kursk despite Moscow claiming the “liberation” of its western region.
“Our military continues to perform tasks in the Kursk and Belgorod regions – we are maintaining our presence on Russian territory,” he said.
The U.S. State Department also called for North Korea to stop its troop deployment and for Moscow to end any support to Pyongyang.
“The deployment of North Korean soldiers to Russia must end. Third-party countries like North Korea bear responsibility for the war,” said the State Department in a statement on Sunday.
During his first term, U.S. President Donald Trump met Kim three times, but made no progress on persuading him to give up his nuclear and missile programs in exchange for relief on sanctions.
Since the start of his second term, he has expressed an interest in re-establishing contact with Kim, although no developments appear to be imminent.
U.S. online publication Axios reported on Sunday that the Trump administration has quietly been holding discussions and consulting outside experts as it considers options for potentially resuming dialogue with the North.
Axios cited an unnamed senior U.S. official as saying that U.S. agencies are assessing North Korea’s current position and exploring potential avenues for engagement.
Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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A top Russian military commander was killed by a car bomb near Moscow. The attack happened just hours before US envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Friday, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik was killed by a car bomb in Balashikha, a city near Moscow. He served as deputy chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
According to TASS, Russian officials say Moskalik was the only person killed by the blast. Authorities believe the bomb was an IED containing submunitions and had the power of more than 300 grams of TNT.
The post Russian General Killed By Car Bomb In Moscow Before Talks With US appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania cite rising threats from Russia to justify once again using one of world’s most indiscriminate weapons
Rights groups have expressed alarm and warned of a “slippery slope” of again embracing one of the world’s most treacherous weapons, after five European countries said they intend to withdraw from the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines.
In announcing their plans earlier this year, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all pointed to the escalating military threat from Russia. In mid-April, Latvia’s parliament became the first to formally back the idea, after lawmakers voted to pull out of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which bans the use, production and stockpiling of landmines designed for use against humans.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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The governing regime in Kiev is desperately trying to maintain its US support, as a defeat of the US-led, NATO proxy war in Ukraine looms. It is citing the collapse of the government in South Vietnam in April 1975 as a warning, saying that something similar could happen in Ukraine. At the time, the US defeat in Vietnam was a huge blow to the image and standing of US imperialism in the world.
Such pronouncements by the Kiev regime reveal a recognition that ‘its’ Ukraine has become a satellite of the United States – much as South Vietnam was widely recognized to be half a century ago. Then as now, Washington and its allies are desperately seeking to maintain their economic and military dominance over the world and to stop rising movements of liberation by the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The post Ukraine Resembles The Fall Of Saigon In 1975 appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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JSC ROSOBORONEXPORT (part of Rostec State Corporation) is the organizer of the joint Russian exhibit at the SITDEF PERU 2025 International Defence Technology Exhibition, which will be held from 24 to 27 April 2025 in the General Headquarters of the Peruvian Army, Lima, Peru. The JSC “National Aviation Service Company” (NASC), Russia’s state intermediary for […]
The post ROSOBORONEXPORT to unveil latest Russian weapons and civilian equipment at SITDEF PERU 2025 appeared first on Asian Military Review.
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Why has US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on countries all around the world? And in particular, why is Trump waging a trade war on China? What are his real goals?
Well, to try to answer these questions, I spoke with the economist Michael Hudson, who is the author of many books, and who just published the new report “Return of the robber barons: Trump’s distorted view of US tariff history“.
Michael Hudson outlined the history of the use of tariffs in the United States and in other countries, and he explained how Trump is using tariffs as a weapon of class war, to benefit the rich at the expense of the vast majority of the population, and also how Trump is trying to reshape the global financial system, in order to benefit the United States at the expense of everyone else.
The post Trump’s Tariffs Hurt The US Much More Than China appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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President Donald Trump is again loudly complaining that the US military bases in Asia are too costly for the US to bear. As part of the new round of tariff negotiations with Japan and Korea, Trump is calling on Japan and Korea to pay for stationing the US troops. Here’s a much better idea: close the bases and return the US servicemen to the US.
Trump implies that the US is providing a great service to Japan and Korea by stationing 50,000 troops in Japan and nearly 30,000 in Korea. Yet these countries do not need the US to defend themselves. They are wealthy and can certainly provide their own defense. Far more importantly, diplomacy can ensure the peace in northeast Asia far more effectively and far less expensively than US troops.
The US acts as if Japan needs to be defended against China. Let’s have a look. During the past 1,000 years, during which time China was the region’s dominant power for all but the last 150 years, how many times did China attempt to invade Japan? If you answered zero, you are correct. China did not attempt to invade Japan on a single occasion.
You might quibble. What about the two attempts in 1274 and 1281, roughly 750 years ago? It’s true that when the Mongols temporarily ruled China between 1271 and 1368, the Mongols twice sent expeditionary fleets to invade Japan, and both times were defeated by a combination of typhoons (known in Japanese lore as the Kamikaze winds) and by Japanese coastal defenses.
Japan, on the other hand, made several attempts to attack or conquer China. In 1592, the arrogant and erratic Japanese military leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched an invasion of Korea with the goal of conquering Ming China. He did not get far, dying in 1598 without even having subdued Korea. In 1894-5, Japan invaded and defeated China in the Sino-Japanese war, taking Taiwan as a Japanese colony. In 1931, Japan invaded northeast China (Manchuria) and created the Japanese colony of Manchukuo. In 1937, Japan invaded China, starting World War II in the Pacific region.
Nobody thinks that Japan is going to invade China today, and there is no rhyme, reason, or historical precedent to believe that China is going to invade Japan. Japan has no need for the US military bases to protect itself from China.
The same is true of China and Korea. During the past 1,000 years, China never invaded Korea, except on one occasion: when the US threatened China. China entered the war in late 1950 on the side of North Korea to fight the US troops advancing northward towards the Chinese border. At the time, US General Douglas MacArthur recklessly recommended attacking China with atomic bombs. MacArthur also proposed to support Chinese nationalist forces, then based in Taiwan, to invade the Chinese mainland. President Harry Truman, thank God, rejected MacArthur’s recommendations.
South Korea needs deterrence against North Korea, to be sure, but that would be achieved far more effectively and credibly through a regional security system including China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea, than through the presence of the US, which has repeatedly stoked North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and military build-up, not diminished it.
In fact, the US military bases in East Asia are really for the US projection of power, not for the defense of Japan or Korea. This is even more reason why they should be removed. Though the US claims that its bases in East Asia are defensive, they are understandably viewed by China and North Korea as a direct threat – for example, by creating the possibility of a decapitation strike, and by dangerously lowering the response times for China and North Korea to a US provocation or some kind of misunderstanding. Russia vociferously opposed NATO in Ukraine for the same justifiable reasons. NATO has frequently intervened in US-backed regime-change operations and has placed missile systems dangerously close to Russia.
Indeed, just as Russia feared, NATO has actively participated in the Ukraine War, providing armaments, strategy, intelligence, and even programming and tracking for missile strikes deep inside of Russia.
Note that Trump is currently obsessed with two small port facilities in Panama owned by a Hong Kong company, claiming that China is threatening US security (!), and wants the facilities sold to an American buyer. The US on the other hand surrounds China not with two tiny port facilities but with major US military bases in Japan, South Korea, Guam, the Philippines, and the Indian Ocean near to China’s international sea lanes.
The best strategy for the superpowers is to stay out of each other’s lanes. China and Russia should not open military bases in the Western Hemisphere, to put it mildly. The last time that was tried, when the Soviet Union placed nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, the world nearly ended in nuclear annihilation. (See Martin Sherwin’s remarkable book, Gambling with Armageddon for the shocking details on how close the world came to nuclear Armageddon). Neither China nor Russia shows the slightest inclination to do so today, despite all of the provocations of facing US bases in their own neighborhoods.
Trump is looking for ways to save money – an excellent idea given that the US federal budget is hemorrhaging $2 trillion dollars a year, more than 6% of US GDP. Closing the US overseas military bases would be an excellent place to start.
Trump even seemed to point that way at the start of his second term, but the Congressional Republicans have called for increases, not decreases, in military spending. Yet with America’s 750 or so overseas military bases in around 80 countries, it’s high time to close these bases, pocket the saving, and return to diplomacy. Getting the host countries to pay for something that doesn’t help them or the US is a huge drain of time, diplomacy, and resources, both for the US and the host countries.
The US should make a basic deal with China, Russia, and other powers. “You keep your military bases out of our neighborhood, and we’ll keep our military bases out of yours.” Basic reciprocity among the major powers would save trillions of dollars of military outlays over the coming decade and, more importantly, would push the Doomsday Clock back from 89 seconds to nuclear Armageddon.
- First published at Other News.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jeffrey Sachs.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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A single, brief phrase always comes to mind when I think of Germany. Whatever may be the specific matter to hand, sooner or later my thoughts go to three words that seem to me — and to many others, given they have survived so long in the discourse — to capture some essence of the nation and its place in the world.
“Germany is Hamlet.” For a long time I attributed this pithy observation to Gordon Craig, among Germany’s great 20th century historians. Craig (Germany, 1866–1945; The Germans) was noted for succinct observations of this kind. He saw Germany as a nation divided in history between its humanist achievements (Goethe et al., Kant et al., Thomas Mann et al.) and its regrettable givenness to varieties of absolute power.
The post Germany In Crisis Part 2: A Short History Of Exploding Gas Pipelines appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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The U.S. relationship with Ukrainian fascists began after the Second World War. During the war, units of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) took part in the Holocaust, killing at least 100,000 Jews and Poles.
Mykola Lebed, a top aide to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the fascist OUN-B, was recruited by the C.I.A. after the war, according to a 2010 study by the U.S. National Archives.
The government study said, “Bandera’s wing (OUN/B) was a militant fascist organization.” Bandera’s closest deputy, Yaroslav Stetsko, said: ““I…fully appreciate the undeniably harmful and hostile role of the Jews, who are helping Moscow to enslave Ukraine…. I therefore support the destruction of the Jews and the expedience of bringing German methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine….”
The post On Neo-Nazi Influence In Ukraine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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Secretary of Marco Rubio said today (Friday) that “If it’s not possible to end the war in Ukraine , we need to move on.” Rubio told reporters that the Trump could decide this “in a matter of days…” (NYTimes, 4/18/2025)
The context: Russia has made its conditions very clear. (1) Ukraine must not join NATO. (2) Ukraine must give up the four oblasts and Crimea. 3) Ukraine must be demilitarized and not pose a military threat to Russia.
Although to this point Trump been unwilling or unable to do so, he must accept these nonnegotiable conditions and do it against the opposition of European leaders. Or conceivably, he could simply walk away.
British political analyst Alexander Mercouris reports that European leaders are meeting in Paris to, in their words, achieve a “fair and lasting peace in Ukraine” and for them, this means a “Ukrainian victory.” Even as they voice this objective, reliable reports indicate that Russian recruitment is running at 1,000 per day, which is more than enough to replace lost soldiers. Ukrainian forces are steadily getting smaller and for the first time, external military analysts can foresee the fall of Kiev as a real possibility. Russian forces are making significant gains and Ukrainians are retreating in several areas. Finally, there is no question that Europe lacks the resources to achieve anything in Ukraine.
Presumably, the US will explain to the Europeans that they’re engaged in a dangerous fantasy and that peace will occur only by accepting the Russian demands (see above). However, the British, French and Danish are considering sending troops to Ukraine via Romania. This will be absolutely unacceptable to Russians but will come as no surprise to them. The few thousand (probably French) soldiers entering Odessa will be annihilated. Here one wonders how long French citizens would tolerate the war if coffins began returning home. (Note: Some of you may recall my earlier post about European and US intervention in the Russian Civil War and how they were expelled. Russian citizens will be reminded once again of Western intentions).
Given the above, one is forced to wonder why European leaders are doing everything possible to undermine and sabotage any meaningful peace talks? Why are they pursing a doomed policy that’s bankrupting their economies? Why alienate the US and Trump? I don’t have a definitive answer but I suspect that Mercouris is close to one when he speculates that European leaders hate Russia and have come to loathe Donald Trump. They cannot accept that they’ve lost the war and Trump was actually correct. I’ll leave for another day to speculate about what this means for the Democrats and unprincipled “progressives” (think AOC and Bernie Sanders) who gave left cover to US imperialism in its proxy was in Ukraine. In my opinion, they have much to answer for.
The post Have We Reached a Milestone in Ukraine? first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Island states tend to be anxious political entities. Encircled by water, seemingly defended by natural obstacles, the fear of corrupting penetration is never far. Threats of such unwanted intrusion are embellished and magnified. In the case of Australia, these have varied from straying Indonesian fishermen who are seen as terrors of border security, to the threatened establishment of military bases in the Indo-Pacific by China. With Australia facing a federal election, the opportunity to exaggerate the next threat is never far away.
On April 14, the specialist military publication Janes reported that Indonesia had “received an official request from Moscow, seeking permission for Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) aircraft to be based at a facility in [the country’s] easternmost province.” The area in question is Papua, and the relevant airbase, Biak Numfor, home to the Indonesian Air Force’s Aviation Squadron 27 responsible for operating surveillance aircraft of the CN235 variety.
Indonesian government sources had informed the magazine of a request received by the office of the defence minister, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, following a February meeting with the Security Council of the Russian Federation Sergei Shoigu. This was not the first time, with Moscow making previous requests to Jakarta for using a base for its long-range aircraft.
The frazzled response in Australia to the possibility of a Russian presence on Indonesian soil betrays its presumption. Just as Australia would rather not see Pacific Island states form security friendly ties with China, an anxiety directed and dictated by Washington, it would also wish those in Southeast Asia to avoid the feelers of other countries supposedly unfriendly to Canberra’s interests.
Opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who has an addict’s fascination with security menaces of the phantom variety, sprung at the claims made in Janes. “This would be a catastrophic failure of diplomatic relations if [Australian Foreign Minister] Penny Wong and [Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese didn’t have forewarning about this before it was made public,” he trumpeted. “This is a very, very troubling development and suggestion that somehow Russia would have some of their assets based in Indonesia only a short distance from, obviously, the north of our country.”
The Albanese government has tried to cool the confected heat with assurances, with the PM reaffirming Canberra’s support for Ukraine while stating that “we obviously do not want to see Russian influence in our region”. It has also accused Dutton for a streaky fabrication: that Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto had “publicly announced” the details.
Australia’s Defence Minister, Richard Marles, also informed the press that he had spoken to his counterpart Sjamsoeddin, who duly replied “in the clearest possible terms [that] reports of the prospect of Russian aircraft operating from Indonesia are simply not true.”
Besides, a country such as Indonesia, according to Marles, is of the friendly sort. “We have a growing defence relationship with Indonesia. We will keep engaging with Indonesia in a way that befits a very close friend and a very close friendship between our two countries.” This sweetly coated nonsense should have gone out with the façade-tearing acts of Donald Trump’s global imposition of tariffs, unsparing to adversaries and allies alike.
Marles continues to operate in a certain twilight of international relations, under the belief that the defence cooperation agreement with Jakarta “is the deepest level defence agreement we’ve ever had with Indonesia, and we are seeking increasing cooperation between Australia and Indonesia at the defence level.” Whether this is the case hardly precludes Indonesia, as an important regional power, from conducting defence and foreign policy on its own terms with countries of its own choosing.
In January, Jakarta officially added its name to the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group, an alternative power alignment that has been foolishly disregarded in terms of significance by the United States and its satellites. Subianto’s coming to power last October has also heralded a warmer turn to Moscow in military terms, with both countries conducting their first joint naval drills last November in the Java Sea near Surabaya. (Indonesia is already a market for Russian fighter jets, despite the cloud of potential sanctions from the US Treasury Department.) For doing so, self-appointed disciplinarians, notably such pro-US outlets as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, have questioned the country’s fabled non-aligned foreign policy. Engaging Russia in cooperative military terms supposedly undermined, according to the think tank’s publication The Strategist, Jakarta’s “own stated commitment to upholding international law.”
Such commentary is neither here nor there. The Indonesian military remains jealous and proprietary, taking a dim view of any notion of a foreign military base. Retired Major General TB Hasanuddin, who is also a Member of Commission I of the Indonesian House of Representatives, points to constitutional and other legal impediments in permitting such a policy. “Our constitution and various laws and regulations expressly prohibit the existence of foreign military bases.”
Any criticism of Jakarta’s recent gravitation to Moscow also refuses to acknowledge the flexible, even sly approach Indonesia has taken to various powers. It has done so while maintaining a firm independence of mind. In the afterglow of the naval exercises with the Russian Navy, Indonesia’s armed forces merrily went about the business of conducting military exercises with Australia, named Keris Woomera. Between November 13 and 16 last year, the exercise comprised 2,000 personnel from the navy, army and air force from both countries. As Australia frets and fantasises about the stratagems of distant authoritarian leaders, Indonesia having the last laugh.
The post Flexible and Sly: Indonesian Defence Policy, Russia, and Australian Anxiety first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Writing in his cell as a political prisoner in fascist Italy after World War I, the philosopher Antonio Gramsci famously declared: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
A century later, we are in another interregnum, and the morbid symptoms are everywhere. The U.S.-led order has ended, but the multipolar world is not yet born. The urgent priority is to give birth to a new multilateral order that can keep the peace and the path to sustainable development.
We are at the end of a long wave of human history that commenced with the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama more than 500 years ago.
The post Birthing A New International Order appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan – Two Chinese nationals captured while fighting for Russia in Ukraine said they were tricked by false promises and online recruitment ads into enlisting, and criticized Moscow for exploiting foreign fighters in its war effort.
“I wanted to make money, but I didn’t expect to end up in a war,” said Zhang Renbo, a former firefighter from China, during a Ukrainian government press conference on Monday.
He and Wang Guangjun, both born in the 1990s, are the first confirmed Chinese nationals captured fighting in the Russian ranks against Ukraine. Their capture was announced by President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this month, who said “several hundred” Chinese citizens are believed to be fighting for Russia.
Wang said he lost his job last summer and came across a TikTok ad offering a lucrative opportunity to join the Russian military. The recruiter promised him a salary far above the Chinese average and offered to pay for travel and paperwork.
But soon after arrival, Wang claimed, the Russians confiscated his phone and bank card. He was unable to access the promised pay or contact anyone back home.
“Everything we heard from the Russians was a lie,” Wang said.
Radio Free Asia has not independently verified the men’s claims.
The two men said they signed enlistment contracts voluntarily but without any connection to the Chinese government.
Both claimed they were initially offered non-combat jobs – Wang in the military directly, Zhang through construction work – only to be placed on the battlefield later. Their route into the war passed through Moscow and Russian-occupied Donetsk before they reached the front lines.
Wang said he had been at the front for just three days before he was captured.
He described being sheltered by Ukrainian soldiers during a Russian gas attack after his capture and said he had been treated well ever since. In the video of the press conference, the two men appear to be in good health.
Zhang, who comes from a wealthier background, said he never saw any Ukrainian troops until the moment he was taken prisoner. Both men said they had not killed anyone during their time on the battlefield.
The two criticised Russia sharply during the press conference and discouraged other Chinese nationals from joining the conflict.
“It’s better not to participate in wars at all,” Wang said. “Real war is completely different from what we have seen in movies and on TV.”
They also denied any involvement by the Chinese state in their recruitment.
When asked whether Beijing was aware of their actions, they said China had issued general warnings against travelling to conflict zones and noted that Chinese citizens who join foreign militaries could face legal consequences. Still, both said they hoped to return to China as part of a future prisoner exchange.
“I understand there may be punishment,” Zhang said. “But I still want to return home and to my family.”
Russia has increasingly turned to foreign nationals to fill its ranks in Ukraine, recruiting fighters from countries including India, Nepal, Syria, and reportedly North Korea.
As many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of Kursk in an August counterattack, according to the U.S. and Ukraine. Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow has acknowledged their presence.
According to Wang, he was placed in a training camp alongside recruits from Central Asia, Ghana, and Iraq, and said communication with commanders was limited to gestures.
Edited by Stephen Wright.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Of the many things said — insightful things, wise things, some foolish things — as the results of Germany’s national elections arrived on Sunday evening, Feb. 23, the most remarkable to me was the exclamation of the Federal Republic’s new chancellor-to-be: “We have won it,” Friedrich Merz declared before his supporters in Berlin as the exit polls, which proved accurate, gave the conservative Christian Democratic Union the largest share of the vote.
Merz is one of those political figures given to speaking before he thinks, and nobody seems to have taken this outburst as anything more than the election-night utterance of an exuberant victor.
The post Germany In Crisis Part 1: The Lost Man Of Europe appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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A March 29 article on America’s involvement in the war in Ukraine in The New York Times by Adam Entous “reveals that America was woven into the war far more intimately and broadly than previously understood.” “Understood” is a euphemism. It means the American and global public were lied to.
The article reveals that the war in Ukraine truly was, as former British prime minister Boris Johnson and U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio have already said, a proxy war against Russia. U.S. military and intelligence were involved in every stage of the war, including supplying the weapons, the training, the planning, the war-gaming, the intelligence and the targeting.
The post Blockbuster Article Prepares Americans For Defeat In Ukraine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
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We are passionate supporters of all but one of the items on the Hands Off agenda for the April 5 rallies. We couldn’t agree more that the corrupt U.S. government should stop destroying, privatizing, firing, and giving away the post office, schools, land, Social Security, healthcare, environmental protections, and all sorts of essential public services. But we are deeply disturbed to see NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) on the list of items that we are rallying to protect.
Many people believe that NATO is a peace-loving, defensive alliance, but the opposite is true. During the past 30 years, NATO has fomented a vast arc of violence stretching from Libya to Afghanistan, leaving villages bombed, infrastructure destroyed, and countless dead.
Originally formed in opposition to the Soviet Union, NATO not only failed to disband with the fall of the Soviet Union, but it increased from 16 members in 1991 to 32 members today. Despite promises not to expand eastward, it ploughed ahead against the advice of senior, experienced U.S. diplomats who warned that this would inflame tensions with Russia. While Russia bears full responsibility for invading Ukraine,1in violation of the UN Charter, we cannot deny the disastrous role played by NATO in provoking and then prolonging the war in Ukraine. Two years ago, then NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted that insisting on NATO membership for Ukraine had brought on the Ukraine war. “[Putin] went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders,” he said.
The inclusion of NATO in the Hands Off list contradicts the basic Hands Off agenda. Right now, at the bidding of President Trump, NATO is openly and aggressively pressuring its member nations to move money from healthcare, retirement funds, and clean energy to weapons and militarism. Watch a video of the Secretary General of NATO publicly telling the European Union to move money from healthcare and retirement to war. It should be clear which side of the Hands Off agenda NATO is on.
NATO is a destabilizing, law-breaking force for militarization and war provocation. Its existence makes wars, including nuclear wars, more likely. Its hostility toward the few significant militaries in the world that are not among its members fuels arms races and conflicts. The commitment of NATO members to join each others’ wars and NATO’s pursuit of enemies far from the North Atlantic risk global destruction.
We would be happy to expand the Hands Off demands to international issues, such as Hands Off Palestine or Yemen or Greenland or Panama or Canada. But we do object to including a destructive institution like NATO, an institution that systematically and grossly violates the commitment to settle disputes peacefully contained in the UN Charter. If we are truly committed to human needs and the environment, as well as peace, diplomacy, and the UN Charter, then we should eliminate NATO from the Hands Off agenda.
We should go beyond that. We should recognize that while many government agencies are being unfairly cut and need to be defended, one enormous agency that makes up over half of federal discretionary spending is being drastically increased and needs to be cut. That is the Pentagon. The U.S. government spends more on war and war preparation than on all other discretionary items combined. Of 230 other countries, the U.S. spends more on militarism than 227 of them combined. Russia and China spend a combined 21% of what the U.S. and its allies spend on war. Of 230 other countries, the U.S. exports more weaponry than 228 of them combined. The U.S. spends more on war per capita than any other nation, except Israel.
This is not normal or acceptable, or compatible with funding human and environmental needs. NATO has taught people to measure military spending as a percentage of a nation’s economy, as if war were a public service to be maximized. Trump has recently switched from demanding 2% of economies for war to 3%, and then almost immediately to 5%. There’s no logical limit.
Companies that profit from war, like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, will always push for more military spending. So will NATO. While NATO allies consider Russia their most immediate and direct threat, their long-term adversary is China. The constant search for enemies leads to a vicious cycle of arms races. But there is a different path: the pursuit of disarmament negotiations, the rule of law and global cooperation. If we pursued that path, we could move massive amounts of money away from weapons to invest in addressing the non-optional dangers of climate, disease, and poverty.
The rational and moral international piece of the Hands Off agenda should be to eliminate both NATO and the voracious militarism that threaten the future of life on this planet.
NOTE:
The post Why Are HANDS OFF Rallies Supporting NATO? first appeared on Dissident Voice.1 It is a matter or record:
* that the current violence in Ukraine began with the US abrogation of a promise not to expand NATO one inch further east in 1990
*that the Obama administration engineered a coup to overthrow the elected president Yanukovych of Ukraine in 2014, and this precipitated the overwhelming Crimean vote to secede from Ukraine
* that Donbass oblasts voted also to secede from Ukraine, and that Ukraine began bombing Donbass
* that German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande signed on as guarantors of the Minsk Accords, which they admitted was to give Ukraine time to militarize and join NATO
* that US secretary of state Marco Rubio has admitted that it is a proxy war waged against Ukraine
If this is factually accurate, then to state “Russia bears full responsibility for invading Ukraine” is fallacious. — DV EdThis post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Now that Phil Goff has ended his term as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to the UK, he is officially free to speak his mind on the damage he believes the Trump Administration is doing to the world. He has started with these comments he made on the betrayal of Ukraine by the new Administration.
By Phil Goff
Like many others, I was appalled and astounded by the dishonest comments made about the situation in Ukraine by the Trump Administration.
As one untruthful statement followed another like something out of a George Orwell novel, I increasingly felt that the lies needed to be called out.
I found it bizarre to hear President Trump publicly label Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator. Everyone knew that Zelenskyy had been democratically elected and while Trump claimed his support in the polls had fallen to 4 percent it was pointed out that his actual support was around 57 percent.
- READ MORE: Explainer: What was actually wrong with what Phil Goff said?
- ‘We need to stand up for what is right’ — Phil Goff doesn’t regret Trump comments
Phil Goff speaking as Auckland’s mayor in 2017 on the nuclear world 30 years on . . . on the right side of history. Image: Pacific Media Centre Trump made no similar remarks or criticism of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and never does. Yet Putin’s regime imprisons and murders his opponents and suppresses democratic rights in Russia.
Then Trump made the patently false accusation that Ukraine started the war with Russia. How could he make such a claim when the world had witnessed Russia as the aggressor which invaded its smaller neighbour, killing thousands of civilians, committing war crimes and destroying cities and infrastructure?
That President Trump could lie so blatantly is perhaps explained by his taking offence at Zelenskyy’s refusal to comply with unreasonable and self-serving demands such as ceding control of Ukraine’s mineral wealth to the US. What was also clear was that Trump was intent on pressuring Ukraine to capitulate to Russian demands for a one sided “peace settlement” which would result in neither a fair nor sustainable peace.
It is astonishing that the US voted with Russia and North Korea in the United Nations against Ukraine and in opposition to the views of democratic countries the US is normally aligned with, including New Zealand.
Withdrew satellite imaging
It then withdrew satellite imaging services Ukraine needed for its self defence in an attempt to further pressure Zelenskyy to agree to a ceasefire. No equivalent pressure has yet been placed on Russia even while it has continued its illegal attacks on Ukraine.Trump and Vance’s disgraceful bullying of Zelenskyy in the White House as he struggled in his third language to explain the plight of his nation was as remarkable as it was appalling.
What Trump was doing and saying was wrong and a betrayal of Ukraine’s struggle to defend its freedom and nationhood.Democratic leaders around the world knew his comments to be unfair and untrue, yet few countries have dared to criticise Trump for making them.
Like the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, everyone knew that the emperor had no clothes but were fearful of the consequences of speaking out to tell the truth.
As New Zealand’s High Commissioner to the UK, I had on a number of occasions met and talked with Ukrainian soldiers being trained by New Zealanders in Britain. It was an emotionally intense experience knowing that many of the men I met with would soon face death on the front line defending their country’s freedom and nationhood.
They were extremely grateful of New Zealand’s unwavering support. Yet the Trump Administration seemed to care little for that country’s cause and sacrifice in defending the values that a few months earlier had seemed so important to the United States.
The diplomatic community in London privately shared their dismay at Trump’s treatment of Ukraine. The spouse of one of my High Commissioner colleagues who had been a teacher drew a parallel with what she had witnessed in the playground. The bully would abuse a victim while all the other kids looked on and were too intimidated to intervene. The majority thus became the enablers of the bully’s actions.
Silence condoning Trump
By saying nothing, New Zealand — and many other countries — was effectively condoning and being complicit in what Trump was doing.It was in this context, at the Chatham House meeting, that I asked a serious and important question about whether President Trump understood the lessons of history. It was a question on the minds of many. I framed it using language that was reasonable.
The lesson of history, going back to the Munich Conference in 1938, when British Prime Minister Chamberlain and his French counterpart Daladier ceded the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, was clear.
Far from satisfying or placating an aggressor, appeasement only increases their demands. That’s always the case with bullies. They respect strength, not weakness.
Czechoslovakia could have been part of the Allied defence against Hitler’s expansionism but instead it and the Czech armaments industry was passed over to Hitler. He went on to take over the rest of Czechoslovakia and then invaded Poland.
As Churchill told Chamberlain, “You had the choice between dishonour and war. You chose dishonour and you will have war.”
The question needed to be asked because Trump was using talking points which followed closely those used by the Kremlin itself and was clearly setting out to appease and favour Russia.
A career diplomat, trained as a public servant to be cautious, might have not have asked it. I was appointed, with bipartisan support, not as a career diplomat but on the basis of political experience including nine years as Foreign, Trade and Defence Minister.
Question central to validity, ethics
“The question is central to the validity as well as the ethics of the United States’ approach to Ukraine. It is also a question that trusted allies, who have made sacrifices for and with each other over the past century, have a right and duty to ask.The New Zealand Foreign Minister’s response was that the question did not reflect the view of New Zealand’s Government and that asking it made my position as High Commissioner untenable.
The minister had the prerogative to take the action he did and I am not complaining about that for one moment. For my part, I do not regret asking the question which thanks to the minister’s response subsequently received international attention.
Over the decades New Zealand has earned the respect of the world, from allies and opponents alike, for honestly standing up for the values our country holds dear. The things we are proudest of as a nation in the positions we have taken internationally include our role as one of the founding states of the United Nations in promoting a rules-based international system including our opposition to powerful states exercising a veto.
They include opposing apartheid in South Africa and French nuclear testing in the Pacific. We did not abandon our nuclear free policy to US pressure.
In wars and in peacekeeping we have been there when it counted and have made sacrifices disproportionate to our size.
We have never been afraid to challenge aggressors or to ask questions of our allies. In asking a question about President Trump’s position on Ukraine I am content that my actions will be on the right side of history.
Phil Goff, CNZM, is a New Zealand retired politician and former diplomat. He served as leader of the Labour Party and leader of the Opposition between 11 November 2008 and 13 December 2011. Goff was elected mayor of Auckland in 2016, and served two terms, before retiring in 2022. In 2023, he took up a diplomatic post as High Commissioner of New Zealand to the United Kingdom, which he held until last month when he was sacked by Foreign Minister Winston Peters over his “untenable” comments.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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At the rural orphanage where I volunteered, the place resembled a Dickensian workhouse. The staff’s main tools were antipsychotics and violence. The experience gave me a window into Putin’s Russia
By Howard Amos. Read by Harry Lloyd
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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European leaders gathered in Paris on March 27 for another summit on the war in Ukraine, continuing discussions launched alongside peace negotiations initiated by the Trump presidency. The stated goal of the meeting was shaping a roadmap towards a “robust peace.”
Judging from the conclusions of the summit, European heads of state continue to believe such a peace will be achieved by prolonging sanctions on Russia, financing more weapons for Ukraine, and preparing a so-called “reassurance force” to be deployed after a future ceasefire.
The post Europe Insists On Continued Sanctions, Troop Deployment In Ukraine appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
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From Russia to the US, those who seek to uphold the law are coming under increasing pressure
What the law says on paper is irrelevant if it cannot be upheld, or even stated clearly. That is why lawyers are targeted – with harassment, disbarment from the profession or even jail – by repressive regimes.
Russia’s attempts to suppress the voice of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny did not end with his death in an Arctic prison colony. In a bleak coda, three of his lawyers have been jailed for several years. Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptser and Igor Sergunin were found guilty of participating in an “extremist organisation” for relaying his messages to the outside world.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
