Ten days before Donald Trump will be inaugurated in Washington DC on January 20, there will be another inauguration in Caracas. Two contenders claim they will receive the Venezuelan presidential sash.
Nicolás Maduro’s claim to the presidency is backed by the finding of the Venezuelan electoral authority (CNE) that he won 51.95% of the vote in the July 28th contest. This was subsequently confirmed by their supreme court (TSJ), after a thorough examination of the voting records.
Edmundo González Urrutia’s claim is based on informally collected voting tallies from 70 to 80% of the precincts showing that he won anywhere from 55 to 75% of the total vote (depending on the source). In contrast, the official CNE electoral authority found he lost with 43.18% of the vote.
Several times a year, the U.S. Defense Department launches ballistic missiles from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. These ballistic missiles are generally intercepted by missiles launched 4,200 miles away from the Ronald Reagan Missile test range located in the Marshall Islands.
U.S. officials said the recent U.S. missile test launch was just part of routine and periodic activities to reassure U.S. allies that its nuclear deterrent “is safe, secure, reliable and effective to deter 21st-century threats.” However, several days ago, on December 10, 2024, Guam became an even bigger military target in the Pacific with the activation of a missile intercept site.
A report from the government watchdog Public Citizen released Friday gives the who, what, when, where, and why of the Pentagon’s flagship Replicator initiative — a program to increase the number of weapons, particularly drones, in the hands of the U.S. military. In the report, Public Citizen re-ups concerns about one particular aspect of the program. According to the report’s author…
Grab a book instead of my phone had been my mantra since November 5 as I sought to protect myself from the despair of political doomscrolling. Since then, I finished Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. I’m now halfway through East of Eden by John Steinbeck and have almost finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird to my 11-year-old daughter. I hadn’t been ready to accept the reality of another four years…
For several weeks, Jamie Boyle of Virginia has been checking to see if the ballots she and her husband mailed on October 4 to an elections office in Pennsylvania have been processed. As of late October, she’s still waiting. Now Boyle, whose husband serves in the Army, is worried about a series of lawsuits filed by Republicans, including the Republican National Committee…
The Biden administration is sending an advanced anti-missile defense system and 100 U.S. troops to Israel in advance of expected retaliatory strikes against Iran. This marks the first significant deployment of American troops to Israel since the beginning of its assault on Gaza, though the U.S. has spent an estimated tens of billions of dollars on the Israeli military and related operations.
The Pentagon confirmed Sunday that it has authorized the deployment of an advanced antimissile system and around 100 U.S. troops to Israel as the Netanyahu government prepares to attack Iran — a move that’s expected to provoke an Iranian response. Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, press secretary for the U.S. Defense Department, said in a statement that at President Joe Biden’s direction…
My first forays into activism were for peace: as an elementary school student blowing up balloons for a protest when the white train carrying nuclear warheads passed through my hometown in Idaho, organizing a protest of the first Gulf War in junior high school, writing letters to protest Army recruiters being allowed on school grounds in high school. I love peace so much that I studied it in college – my bachelor’s degree is in Peace and Global Studies.
So it was with some surprise that I found myself sobbing tears of gratitude recently during a military speech. September 2nd was the 45th anniversary of the founding of the Nicaraguan Army, and President Daniel Ortega began his speech to the troops by talking about peace.
“Today we are able to hold this celebration in times of peace, and how much has it cost to reach this stage of peace. Peace meaning well-being for the poorest.…In peace we can fight poverty. In peace we can ensure education for all families, for the children of working-class families, rural families, poor families with low incomes.”
As I listened to the President’s address, I didn’t just tear up, I sobbed tears of gratitude. Gratitude to the Nicaraguan Revolution for identifying poverty as its number one enemy and fighting against that enemy with everything it’s got. Gratitude for being able to see with my own eyes the alleviation of so much suffering in my time. Gratitude that I’ve been able to contribute my grain of sand to this struggle.
Gratitude that we are not alone in this, that we are working in concert, struggling shoulder to shoulder with the government of the people of Nicaragua to vanquish poverty together in this beautiful country.
My tears, however, were also tears of sorrow for my country of birth. I have always held a vain hope for a similar struggle against poverty in the United States. I went to school with kids who didn’t have enough to eat, with kids who were constantly sick because their parents couldn’t afford to take them to the doctor, with kids whose families didn’t have running water or a good way to heat their house. In the thirty years since I left home, the situation for families like theirs has only gotten worse, for the simple reason that the well-being for the poorest is not in the interests of those that govern the United States.
When I was growing up in the 1980s and early 90s, my sister and I attended public school in Idaho. Every year, like schoolkids all around the U.S., we were required to raise money for the school: selling candy bars door-to-door; making desserts for bake sales; asking businesses to sponsor us for each mile we’d ride in the annual Bike-A-Thon when we would pedal five and a half miles with our classmates, then go back and collect the money…all just to get enough cash to keep the school going.
Yet, 43% of the U.S. annual budget goes toward military spending. As the old protest poster says, “It’ll be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.” So, during President Ortega’s speech to the Nicaraguan Army, I was also crying for all those who are suffering in the U.S., with no hope of poverty alleviation from their government.
Unlike the U.S., Nicaragua has actually been invaded by a foreign country in recent history – mostly by the U.S. Nicaragua suffered 10 years of U.S. proxy war which targeted civilians, health centers and schools. Nicaragua suffered a U.S.-led and funded coup attempt in 2018, is currently suffering under illegal unilateral coercive measures – sanctions – and suffers continued destabilization attempts by the U.S.
Yet, even with such real threats to national security, Nicaragua’s total military spending is only 3% of the national budget.
Where does Nicaragua invest the majority of its funds? In peace. In, as President Ortega says, the “well-being of the poorest.”
Social spending is 53% of Nicaragua’s annual budget – free education from preschool through university, universal free health care, low-income housing, low-interest loans and much more.
Nicaragua knows what it is like to live in times of war, and therefore peace is truly precious here. It is such a privilege to be able to experience living in a country that is truly at peace, and to see what can be accomplished when peace, the well-being of the poorest, is prioritized. May peace always reign in Nicaragua!
The thing I hate about Western electoral politics in general and US presidential races in particular is that they take the focus off the depravity of the US-centralised Empire itself, and run cover for its criminality.
In the coming months you’re going to be hearing a lot of talk about the two leading presidential candidates and how very very different they are from each other, and how one is clearly much much worse than the other.
But in reality the very worst things about both of them will not be their differences — the worst things about them will be be the countless ways in which they are both indistinguishably in lockstep with one another.
Donald Trump is not going to end America’s non-existent “democracy” if elected and rule the United States as an iron-fisted dictator, and he’s certainly not going to be some kind of populist hero who leads a revolution against the Deep State.
He will govern as your standard evil Republican president who is evil in all the usual ways US presidents are evil, just like he did during his first term.
His administration will continue to fill the world with more war machinery, implement more starvation sanctions, back covert operations, uprisings and proxy conflicts, and work to subjugate the global population to the will of the empire, all while perpetuating the poisoning of the earth via ecocidal capitalism, just as all his predecessors have done.
And the same will be true of whatever moronic fantasies Republicans wind up concocting about Kamala Harris between now and November. She’s not going to institute communism or give everyone welfare, implement Sharia law, weaken Israel, take everyone’s guns, subjugate Americans to the “Woke Agenda” and make everyone declare their pronouns and eat bugs, or any of that fuzzbrained nonsense.
She will continue to expand US warmongering and tyranny while making the world a sicker, more violent, and more dangerous place for everyone while funneling the wealth of the people and the planet into the bank accounts of the already obscenely rich. Just as Biden has spent his entire term doing, and just as Trump did before him.
Caitlin Johnston’s article on YouTube.
The truth is that while everyone’s going to have their attention locked on the differences between Trump and Harris these next few months, by far the most significant and consequential things about each of these candidates are the ways in which they are similar.
The policies and agendas either of them will roll out which will kill the most people, negatively impact the most lives and do the most damage to the ecosystem are the areas in which they are in complete agreement, not those relatively small and relatively inconsequential areas in which they differ.
You can learn a lot more about the US and its globe-spanning empire by looking at the similarities between presidential administrations than you can by looking at their differences, because that’s where the overwhelming majority of the abusiveness can be found.
But nobody’s going to be watching any of that normalised criminality while the drama of this fake election plays out. More and more emotional hysteria is going to get invested in the outcome of this fraudulent two-handed sock puppet popularity contest between two loyal empire lackeys who are both sworn to advance the interests of the Empire no matter which one wins, and the mundane day-to-day murderousness of the Empire will continue to tick on unnoticed in the background.
US military commander’s casual declaration of independence from democratic control.
“Regardless of who’s in our political parties &whatever is happening in that space, it’s allies &partners that are always our priority”
The other day the US Navy’s highest-ranking officer just casually mentioned that the AUKUS military alliance which is geared toward roping Australia into a future US-driven military confrontation with China will remain in place no matter who wins the presidential election.
“Regardless of who is in our political parties and whatever is happening in that space, it’s allies and partners that are always our priority,” said Admiral Lisa Franchetti in response to the (completely baseless) concern that Trump will withdraw from military alliances and make the US “isolationist” if elected.
How could Franchetti make such a confident assertion if the behaviour of the US war machine meaningfully changed from administration to administration? The answer is that she couldn’t, and it doesn’t. The official elected government of the United States may change every few years, but its real government does not.
To be clear, I am not telling you not to vote here. These elections are designed to function as an emotional pacifier for the American people to let them feel like they have some control over their government, so if you feel like you want to vote then vote in whatever way pacifies your emotions.
I’ve got nothing invested in convincing you either way.
Whenever I talk about this stuff I get people accusing me of being defeatist and interpreting this message as a position that there’s nothing anyone can do, but that’s not true at all. I’m just saying the fake election ritual you’ve been given by the powerful and told that’s how you solve your problems is not the tool for the job.
You’re as likely to solve your problems by voting as you are by wishing or by praying — but that doesn’t mean problems can’t be solved. If you thought you could cure an infection by huffing paint thinner I’d tell you that won’t work either, and tell you to go see a doctor instead.
Just because the only viable candidates in any US presidential race will always be murderous empire lackeys doesn’t mean things are hopeless; that’s just what it looks like when you live in the heart of an empire that’s held together by lies, violence and tyranny, whose behavior has too much riding on it for the powerful to allow it to be left to the will of the electorate.
Cultivate A Habit Of Small Acts Of Sedition
Fighting the machine can be disheartening and disappointing as power comes up victorious time and time again. But that doesn’t mean you are powerless, and it doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do.https://t.co/O0vZRHX2ue
Your vote won’t make any difference to the behavior of the empire, but what can make a difference is taking actions every day to help pave the way toward a genuine people’s uprising against the empire later on down the road.
You do this by opening people’s eyes to the reality that what they’ve been taught about their government, their nation and their world is a lie, and that the mainstream sources they’ve been trained to look to for information are cleverly disguised imperial propaganda services.
What we can all do as individuals right here and now is begin cultivating a habit of committing small acts of sedition. Making little paper cuts in the flesh of the beast which add up over time. You can’t stop the machine by yourself, but you can sure as hell throw sand in its gears.
Giving a receptive listener some information about what’s going on in the world. Creating dissident media online. Graffiti with a powerful message.
Amplifying an inconvenient voice. Sharing a disruptive idea. Supporting an unauthorised cause. Organizing toward forbidden ends. Distributing eye-opening literature.
Creating eye-opening literature. Creating eye-opening art. Having authentic conversations about real things with anyone who can hear you.
Every day there’s something you can do. After you start pointing your creativity at cultivating this habit, you’ll surprise yourself with the innovative ideas you come up with.
Even a well-placed meme or tweet can open a bunch of eyes to a reality they’d previously been closed to. Remember: they wouldn’t be working so frantically to restrict online speech if it didn’t pose a genuine threat to the Empire.
Such regular small acts of sabotage do infinitely more damage to the imperial machine than voting, talking about voting or thinking about voting, which is why voting, talking about voting and thinking about voting is all you’re ever encouraged to do.
The more people wake up to the fact that they’re running to nowhere on a hamster wheel built by the powerful for the benefit of the powerful, the more people there will be to step off the wheel and start pushing for real change in real ways that matter — and the more people there will be to help wake up everyone else.
Once enough eyes are open, the people will be able to use the power of their numbers to force real change and shrug off the chains of their abusers like a heavy coat on a warm day.
There is nothing that could stop us once enough of us understand what’s happening. That’s why so much effort goes into obfuscating people’s understanding, and keeping everyone endlessly diverted with empty nonsense like presidential elections.
There are constants in this world — occurrences you can count on. Sunrises and sunsets. The tides. That, day by day, people will be born and others will die. Some of them will die in peace, but others, of course, in violence and agony. For hundreds of years, the U.S. military has been killing people. It’s been a constant of our history. Another constant has been American military personnel killing…
On May 17, legislation was introduced and referred to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Cosponsored by Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) and U.S. Representative Max Miller (R-OH), H.R. 8445 went largely under the radar, a strange outcome given the real effect it will have on furthering U.S. support for the Zionist project — in this case through direct support for those wishing to…
The U.S. military presence in Central and West Africa is proving increasingly unwelcome. On Wednesday, the State Department announced that the U.S. would soon begin “an orderly and responsible withdrawal” of its more than 1,000 U.S. service members currently deployed in Niger.” A mere 24 hours later, came reports that the Pentagon will withdraw its 75 Army Special Forces personnel as early as next…
An Australian author and advocate, Jim Aubrey, today led a national symbolic one minute’s silence to mark the “blood debt” owed to Papuan allies during the Second World War indigenous resistance against the invading Japanese forces.
“A promise to most people is a promise,” Aubrey said in his open letter marking the debt protest — “unless that promise is made by the Australian government.”
After the successes of Australian and US troops against the Japanese in New Guinea, the Allies continued the advance through what was then Dutch New Guinea then on to the Philippines.
The first landing was at Hollandia (now Jayapura) in April 1944, which involved the Australian navy and air force.
Aubrey said in his letter:
“The Australian government’s WWII remembrance oath to Papuan and Timorese allies by the RAAF in flyers dropped over East Timor and the island of New Guinea — ‘FRIENDS, WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU!’ — is in reality one of history’s most heinous bastard acts in war
and diplomacy.
“Betrayal is the reality of this blood debt and includes consecutive Australian governments’ treachery and culpability as a criminal accomplice and accessory to six decades of the Indonesian government’s crimes against humanity.
“Barbarity that shames us! Genocide, ethnocide, infanticide, and relentless ethnic cleansing.
Aubrey, spokesperson for Genocide Rebellion and the Free West Papua International Coalition, said that he and supporters were commemorating the Second World War “Papuan sacrifice for us” — Australian and American servicemen and women — four days before ANZAC Day without inviting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese or any government minister [and] without inviting US President Biden.
“To have them with us on this special solemn occasion, while honouring the fact that many of us — children and grandchildren – would not be here if it were not for Papuan courage, loyalty, and sacrifice so steadfastly given to our forebears, would be dishonourable.
‘Heartless complicity’
“We condemn outright their heartless complicity and premeditated exploitation of Papuans in their time of peril. A blood debt not honoured by a single Australian government or US administration!
Author Jim Aubrey salutes the Morning Star flag of West Papuan independence earlier today . . . “A blood debt not honoured by a single Australian government or US administration.” Image: Genocide Rebellion
“Lest We Forget . . . six decades of providing the Republic of Indonesia with an environment of impunity for crimes against humanity — 500,000 victims in Western New Guinea, 250,000 in East Timor [now Timor-Leste after the 1999 liberation].
“Future historians will teach their undergraduates that Australian governments did forget! That Australian governments also contravened Commonwealth and State criminal codes by helping the Indonesian government prevent the legal decolonisation of Western New Guinea and achieve their subsequent unlawful annexation; and by concealing and destroying evidence of the 1998 Biak Island Massacre.
“It is not only a matter of honour and truth, it’s personal. I have only just discovered that my father and my uncle were Australian servicemen in the Pacific Theatre campaigns across New Guinea.
“Honourable Australians and Americans, however, only need to know our duty of care and our international obligations cannot be compromised for political and economic plunder. The victims of crimes against humanity deserve the support and the protection they are by law, by right, and decency entitled to.
“Pacific Island nations look to the East for a relationship of integrity in their international affairs. Who can blame them with Australian governments track record of treachery, dishonour, and their demeaning elitism and history in the genocide of indigenous peoples.”
The United States government said it is immune to 27 lawsuits filed by local and state governments, businesses, and property owners over the military’s role in contaminating the country with deadly PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.” The lawsuits are a small fraction of the thousands of cases brought by plaintiffs all over the country against a slew of entities that manufactured, sold…
As Israel continues its relentless bombardment and siege of Gaza, where hunger and dehydration have reached deadly levels, Hamas has accused Israel of “thwarting” efforts to reach a ceasefire deal. A Hamas delegation in Cairo said that Israel has insisted on rejecting elements of a deal for a phased process that would culminate in an end to Israel’s assault on Gaza, as well as ensuring the entry…
A federal court in California has ruled that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza “plausibly” amounts to genocide, but dismissed a case aimed at stopping US military support for Israel as being outside the court’s jurisdiction.
“There are rare cases in which the preferred outcome is inaccessible to the court. This is one of those cases,” the US district court in the northern district of California ruled. “The court is bound by precedent and the division of our coordinate branches of government to abstain from exercising jurisdiction in this matter.
Hanwha’s multipurpose unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), the Arion-SMET, has completed a week-long field test conducted by the US Marine Corps and US Army. This accomplishment marks a significant milestone for the robotic vehicle, positioning it as a potential contender in the global UGV market. The field tests were carried out as part of the Foreign […]
The US Air Force (USAF) and US Navy (USN) has grounded their V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft fleets on 6 December, following a crash of a CV-22B operated by the USAF 353rd Special Operations Wing in the waters off Yakushima Island in Japan on 29 November. “Preliminary investigation information indicates a potential materiel failure caused the […]
A new OCCRP investigation reveals details of how Chinese-born fraudsters Cary Yan and Gina Zhou paid more than US$1 million to UN diplomats to gain access to its headquarters in New York, before embarking on a controversial plan to set up an autonomous zone near an important US military facility in the Pacific Ocean.
For years, Hilda Heine’s remote archipelago nation of just 40,000 people was best known to the world for Cold War nuclear testing that left scores of its islands poisoned.
Sitting in the centre of the Pacific Ocean, the country was a strategic but forgotten US ally.
But the arrival of a couple of mysterious strangers threatened to change all that. With buckets of cash at their disposal, the Chinese pair, Cary Yan and Gina Zhou, had grand plans that could have thrust the Marshall Islands into the growing rivalry between China and the West, and perhaps fracture the country itself.
Public controversy
First proposed in 2017, while Heine was still president, Yan and Zhou’s idea raised public controversy.
With backing from foreign investors, the couple planned to rehabilitate one irradiated atoll, Rongelap, and turn it into a futuristic “digital special administrative region.”
The Marshall Islands Journal’s front page on 9 September 2022 reporting Cary Yan and Gina Zhou being extradited from Thailand to the US to face bribery and related criminal charges in New York. Image: MIJ screenshot/APR
The new city of artificial islands would include an aviation logistics center, wellness resorts, a gaming and entertainment zone, and foreign embassies.
Thanks in part to the liberal payment of bribes, Yan and Zhou had managed to gain the support of some of the Marshall Islands’ most powerful politicians. They then lobbied for a draft bill that would have given the proposed zone, known as the Rongelap Atoll Special Administrative Region (RASAR), its own separate courts and immigration laws.
Heine was opposed. The whole thing reeked of a Chinese effort to gain influence over the strategically located Marshall Islands, she told OCCRP.
A map of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Image: Credit: Edin Pasovic/James O’Brien/OCCRP
The plan was unconstitutional and would have created a virtually “independent country” within the Marshall Islands’ borders, she said.
The new Chinese investor-backed zone would also have occupied a geographically sensitive spot just 200 km of open water away from Kwajalein Atoll, where the US Army runs facilities that test intercontinental ballistic missiles and track foreign rocket launches.
Became a target
But when President Heine argued against the draft law, she became a target herself. In November 2018, pro-RASAR politicians backed by Yan and Zhou pushed a no-confidence motion to remove her from power.
She survived by one vote.
Even then, the president said she had no idea who this influential duo really were. Although they seemed to be Chinese, they carried Marshall Islands passports, which gave them visa free access to the United States. Nobody seemed to know how they had obtained them.
World Organisation of Governance and Competitiveness representatives Gina Zhou (left) and Cary Yan (center) at a restaurant in New York. Image: OCCRP
“We looked and looked and we couldn’t find when and how they got [the passports],” Heine said. “We didn’t know what their connections were or if they had any connections with the Chinese government.
“But of course we were suspicious.”
The plan came to an abrupt end in November 2020, when Yan and Zhou were arrested in Thailand on a US warrant. After being extradited to face trial in New York, they pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to bribe Marshallese officials.
Both were sentenced earlier this year. Zhou was deported to the Marshall Islands shortly after her sentencing, while Yan is due for release this November.
But although the federal case led to a brief burst of media attention, it left key questions unanswered.
Who really were Yan and Zhou? Who helped them in their audacious scheme? Were they simply crooks? Or were they also working to advance the interests of the Chinese government?
OCCRP spent nearly a year trying to find answers, conducting interviews around the world and poring through thousands of pages of documents.
What reporters uncovered was a story more bizarre — and with far broader implications — than first expected.
Aubrey Belford, Kevin G. Hall and Martin Youngare investigative writers for the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Republished with permission.
In Stalin’s Soviet Union, years into the Great Terror, the Soviet secret police began rounding up military leaders. In 1937, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky was arrested on manufactured charges of spying for the Nazis. After being tortured into confessing his “crimes,” he was summarily shot. Over the next two years, in the run-up to World War II, an estimated 35,000-plus Soviet military officers were…
The Philippine Air Force (PAF) has taken possession of a third Cessna-208B (C-208B) Grand Caravan EX intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft following an acceptance ceremony witnessed by Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr at Clark Air Base on 19 September, the service announced the next day. The latest C-208B aircraft was handed over […]
Barely a day passes without a story in the British or Australian media that ramps up fear about the rulers in Beijing, reports the investigative website Declassified Australia.
According to an analysis by co-editors Antony Loewenstein and Peter Cronau, the Australian and British media are ramping up public fear, aiding a major military build-up — and perhaps conflict — by the United States and its allies.
The article is a warning to New Zealand and Pacific media too.
Citing a recent article in the Telegraph newspaper in Britain headlined, “A war-winning missile will knock China out of Taiwan – fast”, says the introduction.
“Written by David Axe, who contributes regularly to the outlet, he detailed a war game last year that was organised by the US think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“It examined a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and concluded that the US Navy would be nearly entirely obliterated. However, Axe wrote, the US Air Force ‘could almost single-handedly destroy the Chinese invasion force’.
“‘How? With the use of a Lockheed Martin-made Joint Air-to-Surface Strike Missile (JASSM).
“‘It’s a stealthy and highly accurate cruise missile that can range hundreds of miles from its launching warplane,’ Axe explained.
“‘There are long-range versions of the JASSM and a specialised anti-ship version, too — and the USAF [US Air Force] and its sister services are buying thousands of the missiles for billions of dollars.’
“Missing from this analysis was the fact that Lockheed Martin is a major sponsor of the CSIS. The editors of The Telegraph either didn’t know or care about this crucial detail.
“One week after this story, Axe wrote another one for the paper, titled, ‘The US Navy should build a robot armada to fight the battle of Taiwan.’
“‘The US Navy is shrinking,’ the story begins. ‘The Chinese navy is growing. The implications, for a free and prosperous Pacific region, are enormous.’”
Branding the situation as “propaganda by think tank”, the authors argue that some sections of the news media are framing a massive military build-up by the US and its allies as necessary in the face of Chinese aggression.
“These repetitive media reports condition the public and so allow, or force, the political class to up the ante on China,” Loewenstein and Cronau write.
A U.S. military firefighter for 32 years, Kurt Rhodes trained and performed his duties with aqueous film forming foam, or AFFF — a highly effective fire suppressant that he never knew contained PFAS chemicals, now known to be harmful to human health. New federal research links testicular cancer in U.S. service members to the “forever chemicals,” adding to a growing body of evidence of the dangers…
A formerly classified document published Friday by NPR revealed how the Pentagon dismissed highly credible evidence of civilian deaths caused by the October 2019 U.S. assassination of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria. In a raid hailed by then-U.S. President Donald Trump as “impeccable,” U.S. special forces stormed al-Baghdadi’s hideout just outside Barisha in Idlib province on…
As China’s influence rises in the Pacific Islands, PNG Prime Minister James Marape is worried that the China-Solomon Islands Security Agreement will lead to the Solomon Islands surpassing PNG’s dominant position in Melanesia.
So the Marape government decided to negotiate separately with the US and Australia on two separate agreements they wished to conclude last May.
The US rapidly resolved negotiations and the PNG-US Defence Cooperation Agreement was officially signed before Australia had even concluded its draft Bilateral Security Treaty.
Marape has defended the US-PNG agreement several times in Parliament, while raising some constitutional concerns on an Australia-PNG treaty during his meeting with Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.
PNG has chosen the US to be the first defence partner, although Australia is PNG’s closest neighbour and long-time partner.
Advance draft of treaty
To its advantage, the US had acquired an advance draft of the Bilateral Security Treaty and knew Australia intended to be PNG’s first security partner.
The US discovered that PNG would not cooperate with other countries in the Pacific Islands security area without Australia’s approval.
So the US then made adjustments to the Defence Cooperation Agreement, revising or deleting articles that concerned PNG in order to settle the agreement ahead of its treaty with Australia.
It was planned that the negotiation between Australia and PNG would be finished in April, but the US intervened and asked PNG to pause the talks with Australia and work on its own Defence Cooperation Agreement first.
The US made commitments during the negotiation with PNG to step up its security support and assistance and cover shortfalls in assistance that Australia had not fulfilled.
Marape and his cabinet had arrived at the belief that Australia was not fully committed to assisting PNG develop its defence force.
There was apparently an internal report revealing that Australia’s intent was not to enhance and elevate some areas of security cooperation but to ensure PNG continued to rely on Australia for all its security needs.
Australia’s process paused In its negotiation, considering that Australia was trying to prevent US dominance in the Pacific Islands region, the US asked PNG not to share the Defence Cooperation Agreement with Australia.
As a result, Australia’s negotiation process with PNG was paused.
The PNG government, frustrated by empty promises, considered the PNG Defence Force would never be developed in cooperation with Australia, so decided instead to work with a more powerful partner.
PNG knows that its own geopolitical position is becoming of increasing importance, but believes Australia has never respected its position. So PNG decided to use this opportunity to reduce its dependence on Australia.
It also seems the US has supported the Marape government in stifling opposition in PNG to assure the Defence Cooperation Agreement can be implemented smoothly.
For example, Morobe Governor Luther Wenge was initially opposed to the agreement but joined Marape’s Pangu Party and supported it after Marape gave K50 million to his electorate development fund.
Wenge later publicly criticised Australia, saying it did not want PNG to develop its own defence force.
Long mutual history
Australia is PNG’s long-term partner and closest neighbour and we have a long mutual history in economic, political and security cooperation.
My colleagues and I believe that Marape should not betray Australia because it has been tempted by the US, which seems to have intervened to dilute or even ruin our bilateral relationship.
Even though Marape explained to Australia that the Defence Cooperation Agreement would not affect the bilateral relationship, there is no doubt that the relationship with the US will have priority.
So Marape has tightened his control over the mainstream media, social media posts have been deleted for no reason and voices opposing the Defence Cooperation Agreement cannot be heard.
We hope some influential media and Australian friends will help us to protect PNG’s national interest and our bilateral relationship with Australia.
This correspondent’s anonymous article was first published by Keith Jackson’s PNG Attitude website and is republished here with permission.
The defence cooperation agreement talks of reaffirming a strong defence relationship based on a shared commitment to peace and stability and common approaches to addressing regional defence and security issues.
Money that Marape ‘wouldn’t turn down’ University of PNG political scientist Michael Kabuni said there was certainly a need for PNG to improve security at the border to stop, for instance, the country being used as a transit point for drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine.
“Papua New Guinea hasn’t had an ability or capacity to manage its borders. So we really don’t know what goes on on the fringes of PNG’s marine borders.”
But Kabuni, who is completing his doctorate at the Australian National University, said whenever the US signs these sorts of deals with developing countries, the result is inevitably a heavy militarisation.
“I think the politicians, especially PNG politicians, are either too naïve, or the benefits are too much for them to ignore. So the deal between Papua New Guinea and the United States comes with more than US$400 million support. This is money that [Prime Minister] James Marape wouldn’t turn down,” he said.
The remote northern island of Manus, most recently the site of Australia’s controversial refugee detention camp, is set to assume far greater prominence in the region with the US eyeing both the naval base and the airport.
US fighter jets now (21.06.23) at Jacksons International Airport, Port Moresby.
Kabuni said Manus was an important base during World War II and remains key strategic real estate for both China and the United States.
“So there is talk that, apart from the US and Australia building a naval base on Manus, China is building a commercial one. But when China gets involved in building wharves, though it appears to be a wharf for commercial ships to park, it’s built with the equipment to hold military naval ships,” he said.
Six military locations
Papua New Guineans now know the US is set to have military facilities at six locations around the country.
These are Nadzab Airport in Lae, the seaport in Lae, the Lombrum Naval Base and Momote Airport on Manus Island, as well as Port Moresby’s seaport and Jackson’s International Airport.
According to the text of the treaty the American military forces and their contractors will have the ability to largely operate in a cocoon, with little interaction with the rest of PNG, not paying taxes on anything they bring in, including personal items.
Prime Minister James Marape has said the Americans will not be setting up military bases, but this document gives them the option to do this.
Marape said more specific information on the arrangements would come later.
Antony Blinken said the defence pact was drafted by both nations as ‘equal and sovereign partners’ and stressed that the US will be transparent.
Critics of the deal have accused the government of undermining PNG’s sovereignty but Marape told Parliament that “we have allowed our military to be eroded in the last 48 years, [but] sovereignty is defined by the robustness and strength of your military”.
The Shiprider Agreement has been touted as a solution to PNG’s problems of patrolling its huge exclusive economic zone of nearly 3 million sq km.
Another feature of the agreements is that US resources could be directed toward overcoming the violence that has plagued PNG elections for many years, with possibly the worst occurrence in last year’s national poll.
But Michael Kabuni said the solution to these issues will not be through strengthening police or the military but by such things as improving funding and support for organisations like the Electoral Commission to allow for accurate rolls to be completed well ahead of voting.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Former Papua New Guinean prime minister Peter O’Neill says the controversial US-PNG Defence Cooperation Agreement threatens the country’s sovereignty.
He said the agreement negotiation was started in 2016 by his government but it was different in content from the one signed with the US.
O’Neill said the agreement encroached into sovereignty of Papua New Guinea, particularly Article 3 of the Agreement that relates to giving immunity to US military personnel.
He said this section stated that PNG was conceding its jurisdiction over to the visiting forces and it further stated that the US forces would have exclusive rights over criminal jurisdictions against US military personnel.
“Bear in mind the Australian ECP that was challenged by the Morobe Governor Luther Wenge and the Supreme Court nullified the agreement and this agreement is similar in nature.
“By when we are adopting in this Parliament, we are conceding our jurisdiction over to the US government so we just need to be careful about what we are saying.
“Additionally [the] agreement says that the US government has exclusive rights to exercise civil and administrative jurisdiction over the US personnel for all their acts while on duty.
Notification of arrest
“Any act done outside of duty will come under PNG jurisdiction but PNG authorities will immediately notify the US authorities, and properly transfer the personnel over to the US authorities, that the US authorities will be notified of the detention or arrest and that their properties will be inviolable.
“This is not in line with the provisions of our Constitution. That was tested by the Wenge challenge so I think Parliament and government need to take heed of this,” he said.
O’Neill said Paragraph 4 stated that US personnel would have the authority to impose discipline measures in the territory of PNG in accordance with US laws and regulations.
He said Manus, Jackson International Airport, Nazab Airport, Lae Port, Lombrum, and Momote Airport were areas the US would have “unlimited access” to and control over these facilities and areas.
“This is what we have agreed to and they will not pay one single toea and, according to Article 5 Paragraph 2, these properties will be given access without rental and charges to the US.
“And further on Article 6, US forces can position their equipment, their personnel, supplies and materials at any of these places.”
O’Neill said that when talking about “ownership” of infrastructure, nothing would be fixed to the ground and they would remove them and go away with them.
Exempt from all fees
He said the agreement, according to Article 9 paragraph 2, said that all the people that would come to PNG (US military personnel and contractors) would be exempted from all other immigration requirements — including payment of fees, taxes and duties — for entry or exiting the country.
He said that under Article 12 Paragraph 4, the US personnel would be exempted from paying taxes, including on income, salary and emoluments.
“So there will be no revenues from salary and wages tax and in Paragraph 5 [it] states that includes their contractors [that] they engaged [who] will be also exempted,” O’Neill said.
“I can’t see any agreement about training of our personnel, I can’t see any of our personnel being engaged with the US Army and I can’t see any specific investment in the infrastructure in the country.
“So what are we doing this agreement for?
“There is no specifics of what benefit is coming as it is not mentioned in the agreement.
“In the Ship Rider Agreement, we are giving almost exclusive rights to our waters. Therefore we need to be careful.
“I know our lawyers are having a look at it, and probably see [if] that it is in compliance with our Constitution, but I think there needs to be further clarity into this agreement,” he said.
Jeffrey Elapa is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Guam has long faced tensions due to the heavy United States military presence on the island.
But as Washington moves to counter China’s presence in the region it is sending more soldiers and missiles to the US territory and updating naval facilities.
There are an estimated 22,000 American troops on Guam currently and that figure is expected to increase up to 27,000.
Director of the Pacific Islands Development Programme at the Hawai’i-based East West Center, Dr Mary Therese Hattori, told RNZ Pacific the military build-up makes Guam a target and puts the safety of its indigenous Chamorro people at risk.
Dr Hattori, who is a Chamorro herself, said the reaction from the locals to the US military presence varies.
“We are seeing all of this tension in the region and it may mean that more of a military build-up and greater defence capabilities on Guam will actually make us a target,” she said.
“The current administration will highlight positives; the employment opportunities for locals, the investment for local infrastructure.”
Chamorro people feeling ‘unsafe’
But she said the people were feeling less safe.
“So, while the country may feel that it is better defended, the safety of the Chamorro people is not part of the equation.”
“We are seeing all of this [military] tensions in the region and it may mean that more of a military build-up and greater defence capabilities on Guam will actually make us a target.
“We feel less safe because Guam is now part of the target . . . you know, the tip of the spear is going to break first in a battle,” she added.
Guam, which has a population of just under 170,000, is still one of the few places where the indigenous people are denied a right to self-determination so that is still an issue.
East-West Centre’s Dr Mary Therese Hattori . . . “The US really needs to take a look at its track record and its relationships and meaningful engagement with Pacific Islands.” Image: EWC
US presenting as ‘Pacific nation’
Dr Hattori said the US is putting itself forward as a Pacific nation and claiming to have commitment and a deep desire for meaningful engagement with the region in response to China’s engagement in the Pacific.
“But as a Chamorro woman, who lives in the state of Hawai’i, I would argue that US really needs to take a look at its track record and its relationships and meaningful engagement with Pacific Islands with which it has historic relations [such as] American Samoa, Guam, the COFA [Compact of Free Association] nations, and native Hawai’ians.”
“So, look at the track record; look at Red Hill [Hawai’i], the contamination of the water, lack of self-determination on Guam, military build-up, environmental degradation.”
“If this is how US treats Pacific nations with whom it has historic ties, how can other Pacific islanders really believe that the US wants to be a true partner and a Pacific nation,” she added.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A bombshell new investigation from The Intercept reveals that former U.S. national security adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was responsible for even more civilian deaths during the U.S. war in Cambodia than was previously known. The revelations add to a violent résumé that ranges from Latin America to Southeast Asia, where Kissinger presided over brutal U.S.
Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape says the increased United States security involvement in Papua New Guinea is driven primarily by the need to build up the Papua New Guinea Defence Force and not US-China geopolitics.
Last night, despite calls for more public consultation, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Defence, Win Bakri Daki, penned the Bilateral Defence Cooperation and Shiprider agreements at APEC house in Port Moresby.
Prime Minister Marape said the milestone agreements were “important for the continued partnership of Papua New Guinea and the United States.”
“It’s mutually beneficial, it secures our national interests,” he said.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape . . . maintains that the controversial defence agreement is constitutional in spite of public criticism and a nationwide day of protests by university students. Image: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ Pacific
He said the penning of the new defence pact elevated prior security arrangements with the US under the 1989 Status of Forces Agreement.
Despite public criticism, Marape maintains the agreements are constitutional and will benefit PNG.
He said it had taken “many, many months and weeks” and passed through legal experts to reach this point.
The Shiprider agreement will act as a vital mechanism to tackle illegal fishing and drug trafficking alongside the US, which is a big issue that PNG faces in its waters, Marape said.
“I have a lot of illegal shipping engagements in the waters of Papua New Guinea, unregulated, unmonitored transactions take place, including drug trafficking,” he said
“This new Shiprider agreement now gives Papua New Guinea’s shipping authority, the Defence Force and Navy ‘full knowledge’ of what is happening in waters, something PNG has not had since 1975 [at independence],” Marape said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken . . . “Papua New Guinea is playing a critical role in shaping our future.” Image: RNZ Pacific/Getty/AFP
Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed those sentiments and stressed that the US was committing to the growing of all aspects of the relationship.
“Papua New Guinea is playing a critical role in shaping our future,” Blinken told the media.
He said the defence pact was drafted by both nations as “equal and sovereign partners”.
It was set to enhance PNG’s Defence Force capabilities, making it easy for both forces to train together.
He too stressed the US would be transparent.
For all their reassurances, both leaders steered clear of any mention of US troop deployments in PNG despite Marape having alluded to it in the lead up to the signing.
Reactions to the security pact Although celebrated by the governments of the US and PNG as milestone security agreements the lead up to the signings was marked by a day of university student protests across the country calling for greater transparency from the PNG government around the defence pact.
The students’ president at the University of Technology in Lae, Kenzie Walipi, had called for the government to explain exactly what was in the deal ahead of the signing.
“If such an agreement is going to affect us in any way, we have to be made aware,” Walipi said.
Just before the pen hit the paper last night, Marape again sought to reassure the public.
“This signing in no way, state or form terminates us from relating to other defence cooperations we have or other defence relationships or bilateral relationships that we have,” Marape said.
He added “this is a two-way highway”.
Students from the University of Goroka stage an early morning protest yesterday against the signing of the PNG-US Bilateral Defence Cooperation Agreement. Image: RNZ Pacific
Students at the University of Papua New Guinea ended a forum late last night and blocked off the main entrance to the campus as Prime Minister Marape and State Secretary Blinken signed the Defence Cooperation agreement.
They are maintaining a call for transparency and for a proper debate on the decision.
Hours before the signing, they presented a petition to the Planning Minister, Renbo Paita, who received their demands on behalf of the Prime Minister.
Students at the University of Technology in Lae met late into the night. Students posted live videos on Facebook of the forum as the signing happened in Port Moresby.
The potential impact of the agreements signed in Port Moresby overnight on Papua New Guinea and the Pacific will become more apparent once the full texts are made available online as promised by both the United States and Papua New Guinea.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Extending my heartfelt thanks to Prime Minister Marape and the people of Papua New Guinea for hosting me. I am grateful to have met with Pacific Islands leaders and to demonstrate our commitment to working together with our Pacific neighbors to address our shared challenges. pic.twitter.com/mpVCnIGDAT
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) May 22, 2023
Walen Parange 
