This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan – Ukrainian forces are holding off a nearly 50,000 troops, including 11,000 North Koreans, in Russia’s Kursk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, confirming U.S. media reports that Russia had amassed a large force including the North Koreans to push Ukrainian invaders off Russian soil.
The deployment of the North Koreans to help Russia fight its war against Ukraine has raised fears in the West and in South Korea of a dangerous escalation of Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Ukrainian troops “continue to hold back” the “nearly 50,000-strong enemy group” in Kursk, Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram on Monday after receiving a briefing from General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.
Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into Russia’s southwestern Kursk region on Aug. 6 and have captured more than two dozen settlements there, Ukraine says.
While Russia has managed to reclaim some settlements, the front line has seen little change in recent months.
The New York Times, citing U.S. and Ukrainian officials, reported on Sunday that the Russian military had assembled about 50,000 soldiers, including North Koreans, to launch an assault to reclaim territory in Kursk.
Similarly, CNN quoted an unidentified U.S. official as saying Russia has gathered a “large force of tens of thousands” of troops and North Korean soldiers to participate in an imminent assault.
The Ukraine president previously said that North Korean troops fighting against Ukrainian forces were taking casualties in Kursk.
“Currently, 11,000 North Korean soldiers are present on Russian territory near the Ukrainian border, specifically in Kursk Oblast,” he said at a press conference at the European Political Community summit in Budapest last Thursday.
“Some of these troops have already taken part in combat operations against Ukrainian forces, and there are already casualties,” he added, without providing further information on the number of casualties.
The Kremlin has not commented on the presence of North Korean troops on its territory. At a meeting of the U.N. Security Council last week, Russia declined to answer questions from the United States about its deployment of North Korean troops.
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For years, China was widely seen as isolated North Korea’s sole major ally, but its ties with Russia have recently grown much closer.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a landmark treaty on a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” on June 19 in Pyongyang after summit talks, which includes a mutual defense assistance clause that applies in the case of “aggression” against either of the signatories.
Russia’s state news agency TASS reported on Saturday that Putin signed a law to ratify the treaty with the North, which includes a mutual defense clause in the event of “aggression” against either signatory.
Putin mentioned on Thursday the possibility of Russia and North Korea holding joint military exercises. He did not comment on the reports about North Korean troops in Russia but noted that the agreement with North Korea did not contain anything new but restored an arrangement that they had during the Soviet era.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also has signed off the treaty, the North’s state media reported on Tuesday.
The treaty will take effect from the day both sides exchange ratification instruments, said the Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea has supplied Russia with large quantities of weapons for its war in Ukraine, particularly missiles and artillery shells, though both countries deny it.
Edited by Mike Firn.
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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US President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin did not have a phone conversation about the Ukraine conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
The Washington Post claimed on Sunday that Trump called Putin after winning a new term as US president to discuss his vision regarding how the Ukrainian crisis could be deflated. Peskov said on Monday that the article was a “vivid example of the quality of information published by even some respectable outlets.”
“This absolutely does not correspond to reality. This is pure fiction. This information is simply false,” he told the press.
Kiev previously denied the claim made by the Washington Post in its piece that the Ukrainian government was informed about the phone call beforehand and gave its consent to the US-Russian engagement.
“Reports that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance of the alleged call are false,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters on Sunday.
Trump had claimed while on the campaign trail that he could end the Ukraine conflict “in 24 hours,” if US voters grant him a second term in office. He reportedly intends to leverage US military and financial aid to Ukraine to pressure both Moscow and Kiev to achieve a compromise.
Russia, which currently has the advantage on the battlefield, has said that it will only accept an outcome that addresses the core causes of the Ukraine conflict. Those include NATO’s enlargement in Europe and Kiev’s discriminatory policies against ethnic Russians, according to Moscow.
The Washington Post reported a phone call between Trump and Putin based on accounts by sources “familiar with the matter,” who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The post WaPo Putin-Trump Call Claim “Pure Fiction” – Kremlin first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan – Ukraine has released an audio clip of what it says are intercepted radio communications between North Korean soldiers in Russia, as media reported that Russia had gathered 50,000 soldiers in its Kursk region, including North Korean troops, to attack Ukrainian positions there.
In the audio, uploaded by the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, or DIU, on YouTube on Sunday, soldiers can be heard exchanging coded terms in North Korean-accented Korean.
“Mulgae hana, Mulgae dul,” was one exchange, which translates as “Seal one, Seal two”.
In another recording, a soldier says, “wait,” apparently giving an instruction to a subordinate.
The DIU said it intercepted the radio communications on Saturday, adding that the signals were about “ordering them to return immediately.”
Ukraine and the United States estimate that North Korea has sent 11,000 troops to help Russia in its war against Ukraine, with these forces reportedly stationed in the Russian border region of Kursk, which Ukrainian forces aided in early August. Moscow has faced challenges in reclaiming territory from Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian troops have held parts of Kursk since then and Russia has struggled to re-take them.
The Ukrainian military suggests that the North Koreans may engage in combat in the coming days. The Pentagon has also confirmed the presence of a “small number” of North Korean soldiers on the front lines, speculating they may be deployed in “some type of infantry role.”
The New York Times, citing U.S. and Ukrainian officials, reported on Sunday that the Russian military has assembled about 50,000 soldiers, including North Koreans, to launch an assault to reclaim territory in Kursk.
Similarly, CNN quoted an unidentified U.S. official as saying Russia has gathered a “large force of tens of thousands” of troops and North Korean soldiers to participate in an imminent assault.
Strategic partnership
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law to ratify a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty with North Korea, which includes a mutual defense clause in the event of “aggression” against either signatory, Russia’s state news agency TASS said on Saturday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a plenary session as part of the 21st annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Krasnodar region, Russia, Nov. 7, 2024. The treaty was signed in Pyongyang on June 19 as Putin was visiting North Korea. Commenting on the treaty, Putin said on Thursday that it did not contain anything new but the two countries had returned to a similar arrangement that they had during the Soviet era.
“The treaty we signed with North Korea was the one we’ve signed with other countries. It was with the Soviet Union, then of course it ceased to exist, and we actually returned to it. That’s all. There is nothing new there,” said Putin, as cited by TASS in a separate report.
Putin also mentioned the possibility of Russia and North Korea holding joint military exercises.
“Why not? We’ll see,” Putin was cited by TASS as saying, without commenting on reports about North Korean troops in Russia.
Possible Russian support
South Korea and its allies have speculated that North Korea could get Russian assistance with its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for its help for Russia to fight Ukraine, which has included large volumes of weapons including missiles and artillery shells.
The South Korean military said that an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, that North Korea tested on Oct. 31, was launched without the test of a new engine, which could suggest Russian assistance.
North Korea test fired what it said was a Hwasong-19, a new model, not an improved version of an existing missile. It was launched without testing a new engine, said South Korean lawmaker Yoo Yong-won, who was briefed by the South’s Defense Intelligence Agency.
“Considering the increased length and diameter of the missile’s fuselage and the increased maximum altitude, we can say the Hwasong-19 is a new ICBM that is different from the Hwasong-18,” the agency said, cited by Yoo.
The agency said that the fact that North Korea developed and launched the new missile without having to test its engine lent weight to the possibility of Russian technical assistance. Media also reported the possibility that Russia had provided North Korea with the engine.
North Korea reported a ground-based engine test for a medium-range ballistic missile on Nov. 15 last year, and on March 20 this year disclosed a multi-stage engine ground-based test for a new medium- to long-range hypersonic missile.
The South Korean military said that North Korea had not been confirmed as conducting any additional solid-fuel engine tests since March.
“There is a possibility that the North is receiving technologies from Russia under the name of ‘cooperation in the field of space technology’ that could be used for ballistic missile development,” the agency said.
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North Korea first tested an ICBM in July 2017. It tested two more that year, including one in November that traveled for 50 minutes and reached an altitude of 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles).
Over the next five years, the North did not test any ICBMs, but in March 2022, it launched one that blew up shortly after takeoff.
North Korea tested four ICBMs in 2022 and 2023. The Oct. 31 test was the first this year.
Edited by Mike Firn.
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 Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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War never changes. The circumstances, participants, causes and locations may vary, but the essence remains unchanged: war is always a tragedy, since it is waged by people against people. And the suffering of the most vulnerable, silent victims of any conflict – children – always remains unnoticed. While activists and volunteers sound the alarm and try to organize humanitarian aid, the kings of the information field – media corporations – prefer to discuss the main actors of the conflict and cover politics and economics, as the most effective way of attracting an audience.
Under the current circumstances, it would not go amiss to once again pay attention to such problems caused by war as child trafficking, destruction of families, lack of education and medical care, as well as the constant threat to life and health. Thus, according to the Council of Europe report, Ukrainian children forced to leave their homes continue to face serious danger. The influx of refugees into EU countries immediately led to an increase in the number of cases of kidnapping, illegal adoption and exploitation. As the Council of Europe representatives state, officials do not always manage to detect and prevent the threat in time, which is why the number of victims continues to grow inexorably.
At the same time, it is important to take into account that serious problems are still remain in Ukraine as well. According to the USAID report, since the early 1990s, the country has been “a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking”. Despite the gravity of the situation, the government has not been able to eradicate the problem, which has only worsened since the Covid-19 pandemic and with the outbreak of the war. Now, when all the attention of the Ukrainian authorities is focused on the war, new waves of mobilization are coming one after another, and officials are discussing the possibility of women conscription, there is almost no hope left for preserving families and ensuring the proper level of safety for children.
Reading such reports and news, one cannot help but wonder: is the continuation of the conflict worth such a threat to future generations? Soon it will be three years since the US and the EU have been spending enormous sums on militarization and maintaining the war, instead of thinking about peace and looking for ways to achieve it through negotiations. The decision of the outgoing US administration to urgently transfer several billion dollars to Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration is particularly worrying, since it does not seem to even assume proper control over the spending of funds. Why does no one even try to think about how such decisions affect the lives of civilians and their future?
The post A Silent Cry in the Fog of War first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Martin Averick.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Ever since the November 5 defeat of the so-called ‘Democratic’ Party and of its unanimous neoconservative obsession to defeat Russia with the help of Ukrainians (claiming all the time that doing this is necessary in order to protect Americans and America’s ‘democracy’), the Bilderburg member Donald Graham, who at the 2013 Bilderburg meeting met privately with Jeff Bezos and agreed to sell him the Washington Post, has been instead using his Foreign Policy magazine in order to increase the pressure upon President Joe Biden to escalate the U.S. Government’s proxy-war in Ukraine against Russia up to and including World War Three (WW3).
On November 5, the magazine headlined “The Biden Administration Now Has an Expiration Date — and a To-Do List,” and reported:
As of late October, the Biden administration still had $5.5 billion it could throw into Ukraine’s war chest. In the past, that has come in the form of air-defense batteries, battle tanks, and long-rage U.S. firepower that can help Ukraine balance the playing field against a larger neighbor with seemingly inexhaustible manpower and ample assistance from allies in Asia. …
With no reason to worry about spiking oil and gasoline prices, the United States may be more amenable not only to Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, but also to the unsheathing of additional sanctions on miscreant oil producers such as Iran and Venezuela, which skated clear of sanctions all year thanks to U.S. worries about the domestic impact of an energy war.
On November 7, it headlined “Ukraine Now Faces a Nuclear Decision: Under a new Trump administration, Ukraine’s government can’t avoid considering a nuclear weapon,” and reported:
Last month, with little fanfare, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made the stakes of the ongoing war in Ukraine as clear as possible…. “Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons and that will be our protection or we should have some sort of alliance,” he said. “Apart from NATO, today we do not know any effective alliances.”
It was the first time the Ukrainian president had revealed an outcome that has become, for the war’s observers, increasingly inescapable. In this war for Ukraine’s survival, with Kyiv facing both declining men and materiel, the only surefire way of preventing Ukraine’s ongoing destruction is NATO membership—a reality that has gained more supporters since the war’s beginning but still remains years away. Barring such an outcome, as Zelensky outlined, only one option remains: developing Ukraine’s own nuclear arsenal and returning it to the role of a nuclear power that it gave up some three decades ago. …
Putin, after all, has only grown increasingly messianic and monomaniacal in his efforts to shatter Ukraine. Previous designs on simply toppling Kyiv have given way to outright efforts to “destroy Ukrainian statehood,” especially following Ukraine’s successful occupation in Russia’s Kursk region [“Kyiv has secured a substantial political victory in Kursk whether it stays or decides to withdraw from this territory in the coming months. It has called Putin’s bluff and made a mockery of his stated “red lines” and nuclear bluster.”], as the Moscow Times recently reported. With Ukrainian statehood — and even Ukrainian identity, given Russia’s genocidal efforts — at stake, any nation would understandably pursue any option available for survival. …
This reality has been made blindingly clear by recent archival work from a number of scholars, poring through overlooked U.S. and Ukrainian documents. For instance, Columbia University’s George Bogden has recently published extensively on the internal debates in both the United States and Ukraine surrounding Kyiv’s post-Soviet arsenal…
In both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations, U.S. officials placed continued emphasis on reassuring Russia that Moscow could have regional primacy — and that the United States was not trying to take advantage of the power vacuum emerging in the Soviet rubble…
The reason why the GHW Bush Administration agreed to this demand by Gorbachev was that during WW2, many Ukrainians in western Ukraine sided with Germany against Russia and participated eagerly not only in wiping out Jews but in assisting the Germans and Nazi-supporters such as the anti-Russian FInns to kill Russian troops. If Bush would have gone along with what Graham’s propaganda-magazine says he should have done, then Gorbachev would never have allowed the break-up of the Soviet Union, because it would quickly have meant war against Ukraine.
Basically, Graham is propagandizing for Biden to cross all of Russia’s (or ‘Putin’s’ — as-if Putin doesn’t really represent the Russian people) national-security red lines. Graham’s basic argument is that though the U.S. and its colonies (‘allies’) have their national security to protect, Russia (China, and other countries that America’s billionaires demand to control) don’t. This gives the U.S. regime carte blanche to subterfuge, coup, sanction, and/or outright invade, wherever and whenever they want to; or like Elon Musk famously said, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” (Britain’s Guardian featured an article on 25 November 2023, “‘We will coup whoever we want!’: the unbearable hubris of Musk and the billionaire tech bros. Challenging each other to cage fights, building apocalypse bunkers – the behaviour of today’s mega-moguls is becoming increasingly outlandish and imperial”. However, it’s not ONLY “the billionaire tech bros.” but ALL of U.S.-and-allied billionaires who control the U.S. Government and tolerate, if not outright demand, further expansion of the U.S. empire, regardless of the national-security needs of other countries.)
On 4 June 2024, the internationally well-known geostategic analyst Pepe Escobar headlined at youtube “Putin and China Issue a GRAVE Warning: Tensions Near Breaking Point”, and he reported that WW3 is wanted by Bilderberg=NATO because the billionaires who control Western Governments want to nullify Governments’ debts (such as America’s $36 trillion); they’re now desperate, and EU/NATO breakup will likely come soon. So: these post-Kamala-Harris articles from Donald Graham’s propaganda-mill Foreign Policy are clearly in line with that scenario by Escobar on June 4th, not because they are truthful or even realistic, but because they clearly display this desperation by the billionaires, to retain control over international institutions, and even their willingness to risk destroying the world in order to achieve it.
I don’t know whether Escobar is correct that cancellation of debts is an objective — much less a main objective — in this, but the reality of the rest of his analysis is hard to refute; and, on 18 October 2024, I headlined an article documenting this, “The Collapsing U.S. Empire.” It opened:
The neoconservative dream, ever since neoconservatism started on 25 July 1945, has been for the U.S. Government to take over the entire world, but this 79-year-old dream for them (nightmare for everyone else) has now practically ended, because after having played nuclear chicken against Russia ever since that date, the U.S. Government has finally — as-of 9 October 2024 (Biden’s cancellation then of his planned October 12th Ukraine-war victory summit at America’s Rammstein Air Force Base in Germany) — come to the painful realization that their plan (ever since at least 2006) to win a nuclear war against Russia, is unrealistic, and would only leave this planet virtually uninhabitable, a lose-lose war for both sides, instead of to produce the neocons’ ardently hoped-for win-lose war (in which, of course — as the neocons have imagined — the U.S. regime emerges victorious) against Russia.
The neoconservative chorus (singing to the music of America’s billionaires) are trying to persuade the U.S. public to support what is, effectively, all-out U.S.-and-‘allied’ aggression against Russia. All of this is based upon the lie that Russia started Ukraine’s war on 24 February 2022, America didn’t start it on 20 February 2014.
On October 10, I headlined “Biden’s plan calls for WW3 to start after Election Day.” People such as Donald Graham evidently want it to turn out to be true — notwithstanding that America’s Government — NOT Russia’s, had started this war. I still have some hope that it won’t. But if it won’t, then Biden will lose his most ardent supporters, neocons (which include virtually all U.S. billionaires — even the ones who prefer Trump). They will feel that he betrayed them. And, in that case, it will have been so — he did.
However, in either case, a deluge will come soon. Because the collapse of the American empire will not be able to go smoothly. I agree with Escobar on that.
The post How & Why the Washington Post‘s Former Owner Now Pushes Biden to Go Nuclear Against Russia 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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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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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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Warnings are not enough. After Victoria Roshchyna’s death, we need zero tolerance of the detention and brutal treatment of female reporters
Last summer I began receiving messages about the disappearance of 26-year-old Victoria Roshchyna, a young Ukrainian journalist, who had gone missing while reporting from occupied east Ukraine.
Since we began our Women Press Freedom project, I and my colleagues at the Coalition for Women in Journalism have received a lot of messages of concern about the safety of female journalists all over the world, but I vividly remember the pain and terror that peppered the SOS calls from Roshchyna’s friends and colleagues.
Kiran Nazish is the director and founder of the Coalition for Women in Journalism and Women Press Freedom
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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Read a version of this story in Korean
Authorities in North Korea are searching for the source of reports that North Korean soldiers had been sent to Russia to join in the Ukraine conflict, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that North Korea has sent some 10,000 troops to Russia, and that they will likely be sent to fight against Ukraine “over the next several weeks.” More than 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been moved close to the front in western Russia, South Korea’s presidential office said Wednesday.
But while the rest of the world closely monitors the deployment, North Korea has dismissed reports that its soldiers would join the conflict as “rumor” to its own citizens.
“Do not try to find out information that the government has not told you. Our participation in the Ukraine War is a rumor.”
This was a warning from North Korea’s Ministry of State Security after college students started spreading news that North Korean soldiers were on the ground in Russia, a resident of the northern province of Ryanggang told Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.
Now, North Korean authorities are searching for the source of the reports and are enlisting students to inform on those responsible, said a university student in the same province, who also declined to be named for security reasons.
The ministry sent investigators on Oct. 21 to the nation’s top school Kim Il Sung University, and also to the Pyongyang University of Music and Dance, the student told RFA Korean.
“On Oct. 23, students at my university were told to anonymously report anyone who had spread the rumors,” he said. “Currently, each faculty department is holding a meeting to find out who is spreading these rumors.”
He said the ministry guaranteed to maintain the confidentiality of those who report on their fellow students.
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As news of the deployment spread, military families began to wonder about the whereabouts of their enlisted children, so the ministry dismissed the reports as rumor in order to prevent panic, the student said.
“The news of North Korean troops’ participation in the Ukraine War began to spread around Oct. 10, starting with major universities in Pyongyang,” he said. “There are many children of high-ranking officials at those universities, so important news that is not otherwise well known to the public always spreads quickly among them.”
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un visits the 2nd Corps of the Korean People’s Army at an undisclosed location in North Korea on Oct. 17, 2024. This photo This was released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on Oct. 18, 2024. Military families, meanwhile, are frantically making phone calls to try to get in touch with their enlisted children, the Ryanggang resident said.
“The families are anxious after it became known that Kim Jong Un had dispatched troops to Ukraine,” he said, adding that rumors of possible North Korean involvement in Ukraine had spread previously during summits between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Residents did not pay much attention at those times,” he said. “They didn’t take it seriously and treated it as just another rumor.”
But this time things are different. Residents are more certain that what the government is saying is just a rumor is actually a certainty, he said.
“Nowadays, the trend is to have one child in a family, so if a child goes to the military and dies, the family line will be cut off.”
Translated by Claire S. Lee Edited by Eugene Whong.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Moon Sung Whui for RFA Korean.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.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.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.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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It’s been a long time but worth remembering, if you can, that when the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, the whole world watched in horror. The events of that day were repeated on television over and over and over again, to the point where they became afterimages lodged in people’s minds.
As a result, although the buildings were not brought down by the impact of planes (no plane hit Building 7) but by explosives planted in the buildings (see this and this, among extensive evidence), most people thought otherwise, just as they thought that the subsequent linked anthrax attacks were directed by Osama bin Laden when they were eventually proven to have originated from a U.S. military lab (thus an inside job), and, as a result of a massive Bush administration/corporate media propaganda campaign, most Americans supported the invasion of Afghanistan, the subsequent invasion of Iraq, and decades of endless wars that continue to this day, bringing us to the edge of nuclear war with Iran and Russia.
It is impossible to understand the United States’ full-fledged support today for Israel’s genocide in the Middle East without understanding this history. Israel’s genocide is the United States’ genocide; they cannot be separated.
All these wars involve the machinations of the neo-conservative clique that in 1997 formed the Project for the New American Century that ran George W. Bush’s administration and whose protégées have come to exert great control of the foreign policies of Democratic and Republican administrations since. It is not that they lacked power before this, as a study of American foreign policy as far back as the Lyndon Johnson administration and its non-response to Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS Liberty confirms.
Contrary to the widespread claims that Israel runs U.S. Middle East foreign policy, I think it is important to emphasize that the reverse is true.
It is convenient to claim the tail wags the dog, but it is false.
Israel’s war crimes are U.S. war crimes. If the U.S. wanted to stop Israel’s genocide and expansion of war throughout the region, it could do so immediately, for Israel is totally reliant on U.S. support for its existence – as they like to say, “It’s existential.”
All the news to the contrary is propaganda. It is a sly game of responsibility ping-pong: shift the blame, keep the audience guessing as they hit their little hollow ball back and forth.
Control of the Middle East’s oil supplies and travel routes has been key to American foreign policy for a very long time. Such geo-political control is linked to the United States’ endless war on Russia and the control of natural resources throughout the vast region (a look at a map is requisite), stretching from the Middle East to southwest Asia up through the Black and Caspian Seas through Ukraine into Russia.
In both cases, the attacks of September 11, 2001 and Israel’s genocide of Palestinians whose ultimate target is Iran (America’s key enemy in the region as far back as the CIA’s 1953 coup d’état against Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh), savage wars of extermination have been promoted through decades of carefully orchestrated propaganda. In the former case, through the mainstream corporate media’s magic of repetitive cinematic images, and in the latter, through their absence. To be shown photos of many thousands of dead and mutilated Palestinian children does not serve the U.S./Zionist’s interests. Propaganda’s methods must be flexible. Show, conceal.
The September 11 attacks and the current genocide, each in its own way, have been justified and paid for with similar but different credit cards without spending limits, the so-called wars on terror waged on the visual credit card of planes hitting buildings preceded and followed by endless pictures of Osama bin Laden, and the genocide of Palestinians on the holocaust credit card minus images of slaughtered Palestinians or any awareness of the terrorist history of the Zionist’s century-long racial nationalist settler movement of “ethnically cleansing” Palestinians from their land.
To know this, one has to read books, but they have been replaced by cell phones, functional illiteracy being the norm, even for college graduates who are treated to four years of wokeness education and anti-intellectualism that reduces their thinking to mush and graduates them with sciolistic minds at best. I am being kind.
The eradication of historical knowledge and the devaluation of the written word are key to ignorance of both issues. Digital media and cell phones are the new books, all few hundred words on an issue conveying information that conveys ignorance. Guy DeBord put it succinctly: “That which the spectacle ceases to speak of for three days no longer exists.” Amnesia is the norm.
To which I might add: that which the mass media spectacle continues to speak of or show images of for many days exists, even if it doesn’t. It exists in the minds of virtual people for whom images and headlines create reality. The electronic media is not only addictive but hypnotically effective, producing cyber people divorced from the material world. News and information have become a form of terrorism used to implode all mental defenses, similar to the floors at the World Trade Center that went down boom, boom, boom.
The war crimes of US/Israel are readily available for viewing outside the coverage of the corporate mainstream media. Most of the world views them, but these are the unreal people, the ones who don’t count as human beings. These war crimes are massive, ruthless, and committed proudly and without an ounce of shame. To face this fact is not acceptable.
Those who pretend ignorance of them are guilty of bad faith.
Those who support either Harris or Trump are guilty of bad faith twice over, acting as if either one does not support genocide or that genocide is a minor matter in the larger scheme of things.
Choosing “the lesser of two evils” is therefore an act of radical evil hiding behind the mask of civic duty.
That it is commonplace only confirms these words from the English playwright Harold Pinter’s extraordinary Nobel Address in 2005:
The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El
Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it.
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
Little has changed since 2005, except that these crimes have increased along with the propaganda denying them, together with vastly increased censorship – Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Russia via Ukraine, etc. – all targets of U.S. bombs, just like Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, etc. Now the U.S. has brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and the voting public is all worked up over choosing between candidates supporting genocide and the massively expanded Israel attack on neighboring countries. It is a frightening spectacle of moral indifference and stupidity as we await the Israel/U.S. bombing of Iran and Iran’s response.
Yet I ask myself and I ask you: Is there a connection between the voting public’s support for these war criminals and attention deficit disorder, amnesia, and dementia?
Or is this embrace of the demonic twins’ – US/Israel – foreign policy a sign of something far worse? A death wish?
Soul death?
The post Soul Suicide in the Ballot Box as Palestinians Are Butchered 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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Ukraine urged North Korean soldiers arriving in Russia to surrender, offering them food and shelter, as the United States and NATO confirmed for the first time they have evidence of North Koreans deployed to Russia.
North Korea and Russia have denied that North Korean soldiers are being sent to help Russia with its war in Ukraine but South Korea and its allies have warned of a dangerous escalation of the conflict.
“We appeal to the soldiers of the Korean People’s Army who were sent to support the Putin regime. Don’t die senselessly on foreign soil. Do not repeat the fate of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers who will never return home,” said the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate, or GUR, in a Korean-language message on its Telegram messaging channel on Wednesday.
“Surrender! Ukraine will provide you with shelter, food, and warmth,” it added, introducing its surrender hotline “I Want to Live.”
The project was originally designed to help Russian servicemen in Ukraine who did not want to participate in the Russian invasion, launched in February 2022, to safely surrender to Ukrainian forces.
As of June, more than 300 Russian soldiers had surrendered through the hotline, according to the Ukraine government.
“It doesn’t matter how many soldiers Pyongyang sends or to which sector – they will be accepted. Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camps are ready to receive soldiers of any nationality, religion, or ideology,” the GUR said.
The message was posted with a video, just over a minute long, showing facilities where surrendered North Korean soldiers would stay.
“In camps, prisoners of war are housed in large, warm, bright rooms with separate sleeping quarters. They receive three meals a day, and their diet includes meat, fresh vegetables, and bread,” the narrator of the video said in the Korean language.
A message posted on the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate’s Telegram channel for the surrender hotline “I Want to Live” project. (Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate) Ukraine’s message to North Korean soldiers came after the U.S. and NATO confirmed they had evidence that North Korean troops had deployed to Russia.
Lloyd Austin, the U.S. defense chief, said it remained to be seen what exactly Pyongyang’s forces were doing there, but according to South Korean and Ukrainian warnings, they were preparing to join Russia’s side in the war in Ukraine.
Austin added the U.S. was also still attempting to determine what North Korea would get in return for helping Russia with manpower.
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‘Security consequences’
NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said in a statement that alliance members had “confirmed evidence of a DPRK troop deployment to Russia.”
“If these troops are destined to fight in Ukraine, it would mark a significant escalation in North Korea’s support for Russia’s illegal war and yet another sign of Russia’s significant losses on the front lines,” Dakhlallah said.
The Democratic People’s of Republic of Korea, or DPRK, is North Korea’s official name.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has warned that the involvement of North Korean troops could significantly escalate the conflict.
The U.S. and NATO confirmation followed a report by South Korea’s spy agency that more than 3,000 North Korean troops had been sent to Russia, with the total expected to reach 10,000 by December.
The South has vowed to take “phased” measures in response to growing military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow, including sending weapons to Ukraine for the first time.
In response, Russia’s foreign ministry warned on Wednesday that South Korea would pay a heavy price if it got involved.
“They should think about the security consequences if they get involved in the Ukrainian crisis. The Russian Federation will react to those aggressive steps, if our citizens are under threat, under peril,” said ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
“We sincerely hope that the Seoul authorities are guided by common sense,” she added.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova attends a press conference in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, June 11, 2024. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters) Zakharova also dismissed the reports of the North’s troop dispatch as “fake.”
“The armed forces of North Korea exist, but you should turn to Pyongyang to identify their location,” she said. “I cannot [understand] why there has been so many gossips, so many loud noises around this. This is a propaganda work.”
“Russian cooperation with North Korea in military and other areas corresponds to international law … That is the first, and the second is that we don’t inflict any damage to South Korea,” she added.
“I cannot understand so much fuss about it coming from Seoul.”
On Monday, North Korea’s representative to the United Nations dismissed reports it was sending soldiers to support Russia in its war as “groundless rumors,” adding that its cooperation with Moscow was “legitimate and cooperative.”
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.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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The death toll in Russia’s war on Ukraine is reaching alarming new heights. Roughly 1 million soldiers and civilians on both sides have been killed or wounded, a recent in-depth review of available data published by the Wall Street Journal found. As Russia attempts to secure key towns and cities in the Donbas region, the war of attrition along the front line has become extremely violent as the…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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“War is not healthy for children and other living things,” reads a poster titled “Primer” created by the late artist Lorraine Schneider for an art show at New York’s Pratt Institute in 1965. Printed in childlike lowercase letters, the words interspersed between the leaves of a simply rendered sunflower, it was an early response to America’s war in Vietnam. “She just wanted to make something that…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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A North Korean representative to the United Nations dismissed reports the country is sending soldiers to support Russia in the war in Ukraine as “groundless rumors,” adding that its cooperation with Moscow was “legitimate and cooperative.”
It was the first public comment from a North Korean official since South Korea’s spy agency last week said the North had decided to send about 12,000 troops to fight Russia’s war in Ukraine, and had already dispatched 1,500 soldiers to Vladivostok for training.
“As for the so-called military cooperation with Russia, my delegation does not feel any need for comment on such groundless stereotyped rumors aimed at smearing the image of the DPRK and undermining the legitimate, friendly and cooperative relations between two sovereign states,” said the North Korean official during a session of the U.N. General Assembly First Committee on disarmament and international security on Monday.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, is North Korea’s official name.
The official’s remarks came in response to the Ukrainian envoy’s comment that the North was planning to soon send “large-scale” regular troops to help Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.
Russia said on Monday it would continue to strengthen ties with North Korea, while declining to confirm South Korea’s report.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Oct. 10 dismissed speculation of North Korean troops going to Ukraine as “fake news.”
The United States said it could not confirm the report, while North Korea’s state-run media outlets had remained silent at time of publication.
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In a separate U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday, South Korea’s ambassador to the U.N., Hwang Joon-kook, called for an immediate halt to the growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia.
“We are well aware that North Korea is a habitual violator of international norms and Security Council resolutions. However, recent actions by Pyongyang have even surprised us,” said Hwang.
He denounced Russia for “taking a gamble” out of desperation by involving a third country in its aggression and said its military cooperation with the North would potentially make Pyongyang “an active belligerent in warfare.”
“Russia and North Korea must immediately stop violating international obligations,” said Hwang.
“It is hard to believe that a permanent member of the Security Council would take such a gamble and shift the course of the war.”
North Korea and Russia have moved closer over the past year or more amid widespread suspicion that North Korea has supplied conventional weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly submitted a bill to the lower house of parliament on Monday to ratify a treaty to raise its relationship with North Korea to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The change was agreed by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 19 in Pyongyang after summit talks during the Russian president’s state visit.
The new partnership includes a mutual defense assistance clause that would apply in the case of “aggression” against one of the signatories.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was seeking a “strong reaction” from countries who have acknowledged that North Korea is becoming more involved in Russia’s war against his country.
South Korea’s spy agency said last Friday that North Korea had dispatched 1,500 special forces troops to Russia’s Far East for training.
NATO and the United States said they could not confirm the report, while North Korea had remained silent at time of publication.
Speaking in his nightly video address on Sunday, Zelenskyy said there was ample satellite and video evidence that North Korea was sending not only equipment to Russia, but also soldiers to be prepared for deployment.
“I am grateful to those leaders and representatives of states who do not close their eyes and speak frankly about this cooperation for the sake of a larger war. We expect a normal, honest, strong reaction from our partners on this,” he said.
“If the world remains silent now and we have to engage soldiers from North Korea on the front line in the same way we have to defend ourselves from [Iranian] Shahed drones, this will certainly benefit no one in the world and only prolong the war,” Zelenskyy added.
“Unfortunately, instability and threats can significantly increase after North Korea becomes trained for modern warfare.”
Zelenskyy’s remarks came after South Korea’s National Intelligence Service released detailed satellite images it said showed a first deployment, saying it estimated the North could send about 12,000 soldiers.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service says North Korean personnel were gathered within Russia’s Ussuriysk military facility, pictured on Oct. 16, 2024. (Airbus Defense and Space via South Korea’s National Intelligence Service/AFP) South Korea’s presidential office said North Korea’s troop movement to Russia was being closely tracked in coordination with its allies, and the South would continue to monitor the situation and take all necessary measures proactively.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday he could not confirm reports that North Korea had sent troops to Russia ahead of a possible deployment, but added that it would be concerning, if true.
NATO chief Mark Rutte said Friday the alliance could not confirm the South Korean intelligence agency’s report but it was in “close contact” with its partners.
The foreign ministers of France and Ukraine said on Saturday that the involvement of North Korean regular troops to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would be a serious escalation of the war.
In South Korea, the ruling People Power party warned of the possibility of North Korea using the advanced military technology Russia is expected to provide in return for the deployment to provoke South Korea.
“The party will actively support our government’s policies and put the safety of our people first,” it said on Monday.
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North Korea and Russia have moved noticeably closer over the past year or more amid widespread suspicion that North Korea has supplied conventional weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
A day before South Korea’s announcement, Zelenskyy cited Ukrainian intelligence reports saying that North Korean personnel had already been deployed in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, with an additional 10,000 troops being prepared to join the fight.
He suggested that Russia was relying on North Korean forces to compensate for its substantial troop losses, as many young Russians seek to avoid conscription. The Ukraine government estimated that, as of Sunday, Russian casualties were almost 680,000 since the start of the war.
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-Hyun told lawmakers in early October that North Korea was likely planning to send troops to Ukraine to fight alongside Russia.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Oct. 10, however, dismissed that as “fake news.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly submitted a bill to the lower house of parliament on Monday to ratify a treaty to raise its relationship with North Korea to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which was agreed by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 19 in Pyongyang after summit talks during the Russian president’s state visit.
The new partnership includes a mutual defense assistance clause that would apply in the case of “aggression” against one of the signatories.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Freedom of religion is a fundamental human right, the UN Human Rights Office has stressed in a comment to the Russian newspaper Izvestia following an armed raid on a church in central Ukraine earlier this week.
On Thursday, videos emerged on social media showing dozens of armed men in military-style clothing clashing with believers at St. Michael’s Cathedral, belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), in the city of Cherkasy.
The unidentified raiders reportedly used tear gas, smoke grenades and fired a gas pistol into the crowd. Icons, documents and some $60,000 – raised by the congregation for the needs of the church – were reportedly stolen. At least 12 people were hospitalized as a result of the standoff, according to the UOC. It blamed the attack on “schismatics” from the Kiev-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).
A representative of the UN Human Rights Office told Izvestia on Friday that “while we cannot yet confirm the specific details of these events, we emphasize that freedom of religion is a fundamental human right.”
“Attacks on civilian believers are prohibited under international human rights and humanitarian norms,” the representative was quoted as saying.
Ukrainian diocese ‘goes underground’ after raid on cathedralThe Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine is currently working to establish additional details on the incident, the official added.
In an earlier comment to TASS, the press service of the UN Human Rights Office called the videos of the church raid in Cherkasy “alarming.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday that Moscow calls on “the relevant international human rights organizations” to look into the attack.
“The Kiev regime is doing everything it can to outlaw and disband the canonical church [UOC]. And [Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky’s Western backers continue to indulge in deepening the religious schism in Ukraine,” Zakharova stressed.
Ukraine has been gripped by religious tensions for years, with two rival entities claiming to be the country’s true Orthodox Church.
The Kiev government supports the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which was created only in 2018 and which the Russian Orthodox Church considers schismatic. Zelensky has explained the moves against the UOC by citing its alleged links to the Moscow Patriarchate and the need to protect Ukraine’s “spiritual independence” and deprive Russia of an opportunity to “to manipulate the spirituality of our people.”
The persecution of the UOC intensified after the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. Several of its churches have been seized by force, and criminal cases have been opened against clerics. A law banning the activities of the UOC in Ukraine officially came into force in late September.
The post Armed Raid on Cathedral in Ukraine first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Foreign secretary discussed China’s treatment of Uyghurs and support of Russia as well as ‘areas of cooperation’
David Lammy pressed his Chinese counterpart on human rights concerns and China’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during talks in Beijing, the Foreign Office has said.
The foreign secretary had been under pressure to take a tough line on a range of human rights issues with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, when the pair met on Friday during Lammy’s first visit to China since taking office.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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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.
