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Moldovan Opposition Leader Shor Calls for Joining Union State of Russia and Belarus

Sputnik – 06.06.2024

Moldova should grow closer to Russia, so it would be worth discussing the possibility of joining the Union State of Russia and Belarus, Moldovan opposition politician Ilan Shor, the leader of “Pobeda” (Victory) political bloc, told Russian media.

“Russia is our friend, our partner; we should move forward together. Moreover, I believe that there is a possibility to expand even the format of the Russia-Belarus Union State. There is a possibility for consideration and for dialogue. This is important,’ Shor clarified.

According to the politician, only by uniting could Moldova and Russia stand against the West, as Moldova itself is needed by the West only for its own purposes.

“Why do they need Moldova? And I’ll tell you – it’s a testing ground. A testing ground of free hands for war. It’s a testing ground to bully. Maybe they’ll send immigrants to us at some point. We have nothing in common with them. Here [with Russia and Belarus] we’ve been in the same family for years, we know each other, we speak the same language. We understand each other, we have common values,” he added.

Most Moldovans believe in a future with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Shor said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

“We believe that the only way out for the Republic of Moldova today is to become a full-fledged, full member of the EAEU. We really understand today that we want to become a participant of the platform, a unified platform in the field of economy, in the field of ideology, in the field of foreign policy, in the field of security policy. Today this is more important for Moldova than ever,” Shor emphasized, addressing the SPIEF session “The Greater Eurasian Partnership as a New Pole of Growth: Potential and Prospects”.

Shor claimed that the majority of Moldovan voters have already become disillusioned with the European Union and European values, as politicians who entered power on these slogans are closing opposition television channels in the republic and removing unwanted politicians from elections.

“We clearly understand that today the majority of the people of Moldova believe in a future with the EAEU… We have had enough of fairy tales and carrots on sticks for the last 20 years. Today we want real friendship, cooperation and mutual understanding and relations,” he declared.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

USS Liberty Massacre: A Pivotal Moment in the Hostile Takeover of America

By Kevin Barrett | Crescent | Dhu al-Qa’dah 24, 1445

In corporate America, hostile takeovers are commonplace. They occur when an aggressor—a larger corporation or rich individuals—seizes control of a smaller corporation without asking permission.

What few recognize is that the United States itself has been subjected to a hostile takeover. Since the aggressor, the illegitimate settler colony known as “Israel,” is much smaller than the US, the takeover has necessarily been surreptitious.

As of June, 2024, Israel’s gradual takeover of the US has become obvious and undeniable—a proverbial “elephant in the living room.” In this election year, all three major presidential candidates compete for Israel’s favor, even as the whole world recoils from the zionist genocide of Gaza. The Democratic incumbent, Joe Biden, supplies the butcher Netanyahu with all the weapons he needs to massacre tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children, uttering only occasional peeps of pro forma protest in a lame attempt to mollify his base.

Biden’s Republican challenger, Donald Trump, openly supports the genocide and calls on Israel to “finish the job” (of massacring Palestinians). Most bizarrely of all, the independent challenger Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who offers a refreshing alternative to mainstream approaches on other issues, has staked out the most pro-genocide position of the three.

Kennedy’s position is puzzling for many reasons. As the “alternative” candidate, he might be expected to take an alternative position on Palestine, especially since it would markedly enhance his slim chances of becoming president. Young Americans oppose genocide and side with Palestine, as the ongoing campus protests demonstrate. If RFK Jr. harnessed that youthful energy by reversing course and announcing his support for Palestine, he would immediately gain tens or even hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic youthful volunteers who would start ringing doorbells and promoting his candidacy, just as anti-Vietnam-war students did for his father in 1968.

Since polls show that most Democratic voters oppose Biden’s pro-Israel stance, and that American public opinion overall is following world public opinion in the direction of ever-stronger support for Palestine, RFK Jr. could conceivably win a plurality of votes, and the presidency, by leading that shift. Instead, he has chosen to doom his candidacy by echoing the ultra-genocidal ravings of his handler, Rabbi Schmuley Boteach.

Though Kennedy decries the corrupt forces that have taken over America, and denounces the coups d’état that killed his father (1968) and uncle (1963), he seemingly fails to recognize who was behind the takeover and the killings. Kennedy knows and openly states that his father was not killed by the hypnotized Palestinian patsy Sirhan Sirhan. He acknowledges Sirhan’s innocence and has worked to free him from prison. But the significance of the fact that the perpetrators chose a Palestinian to falsely take the blame apparently escapes him.

In his blockbuster book, Brothers, David Talbot presents convincing evidence that Robert F. Kennedy was murdered because he was about to become president—and use the power of his office to bring to justice the killers of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. So, who were those killers? Michael Collins Piper’s Final Judgment makes a strong case that David Ben Gurion, the Israeli Prime Minister who resigned under pressure from JFK, and Israel’s CIA mole James Jesus Angleton, were the ringleaders. The motive: Prevent JFK from shutting down Israel’s nuclear program, and insert Israel’s asset Lyndon B. Johnson into office to oversee the 1967 land-grab war.

Anyone who doubts that Johnson was an Israeli asset needs to read Peter Hounam’s Operation Cyanide: How the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War III. Hounem discovered evidence that then-President Johnson scrambled US nuclear bombers on highest-level alert more than one hour before the USS Liberty was attacked by Israel on June 8, 1967. Then when the ship miraculously stayed afloat, radioed for help, and identified its attackers as Israelis, the President of the United States issued a treasonous order: “I want that goddamn ship going to the bottom. No help. Recall the wings.”

Most Americans have no idea that Israel attempted to sink the unarmed US spy ship USS Liberty and murder its crew of 293 sailors so the attack could be falsely blamed on Egypt. Nor do they realize that the zionists succeeded in killing 34 sailors and wounding 171. Even less do they know that the sitting US president was complicit and yearned for the death of every one of those 293 American servicemen.

Why don’t more Americans know about the USS Liberty massacre? A draconian cover-up, in which surviving sailors were told to keep quiet or bad things would happen to their families, persisted for decades. Simultaneously the mainstream media published a smattering of ludicrous assertions that the Israelis had attacked the ship by accident. Those were rare exceptions to a general blackout on the topic.

Why would the media cover up such a sensational story? That question raises an even more basic one: Who controls the media? The president who followed Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, knew, but was afraid to talk about it in public. Privately, he discussed the matter with friends and advisors like the Rev. Billy Graham, who told Nixon that powerful Jews “are friendly to me because they know that I’m friendly with Israel. But they don’t know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country.” “You must not let them know,” Nixon replied.

“This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain” Graham continued. Nixon: “Do you believe that?” Graham: “Yes, sir.” Nixon: “Oh boy. So do I. I can’t ever say that, but I believe it.”

Today, as we approach the 57th anniversary of Israel’s massacre of American sailors aboard the USS Liberty, the United States of America has gone even further down the drain than it was in 1972, when Nixon’s conversation with Graham took place. Today, anyone who mentions the extraordinary power of America’s 2% Jewish minority, specifically its organized lobby groups and sway over media, finance, politics and organized crime (which are not mutually exclusive categories) will be viciously smeared, their careers and reputations ruined by a group so powerful that it has prohibited any mention of its power.

Some try to avoid the smears by speaking of the “zionist lobby” rather than the “Jewish lobby.” But the distinction is largely semantic. Virtually all of the power of organized Jewry supports zionism, including every one of the 50 groups represented at the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Since the zionist entity defines itself as the “Jewish state” and its presumptive citizens as all Jews on Earth, regardless of where they live, calling its American contingent “the Jewish lobby” is reasonable and accurate—just as Irish-Americans who lobby for Ireland, albeit without the power of their Jewish counterparts, are an “Irish lobby.”

Others prefer the term “zionist” because it includes so-called Christian zionists like Billy Graham. But as the tapes of his conversations with Nixon show, Graham’s professed zionism was insincere. The only reason Graham pretended to support Israel was the same reason Nixon pretended to support Israel: Both men were terrified by the power of the Jews. And while there are, no doubt, some sincere Christian zionists, they are mere useful idiots in the quintessentially Jewish project of building an ever-expanding, ever-more-powerful Jewish state representing not just Israel’s Jewish citizens, but all the Jews of the world.

Looking back on the 1967 war and its context, including the USS Liberty massacre, one is struck by the Jewish state’s willingness to engage in risky and reckless behavior. Normally, if a small nation of just a few million people murdered a sitting US president, as Israel did in 1963, it might expect to be scrubbed from the face of the Earth. “Oy vey, if we get caught!” Israeli leader Golda Meir was reported to have said shortly after the JFK assassination. Meir also said, on two occasions, that Israel would destroy the world with nuclear weapons rather than accept military defeat. (The source for both statements was Meir’s personal friend, former lead Mideast BBC correspondent Alan Hart.)

Today, the zionist entity is still taking enormous risks—and pushing the world toward nuclear Armageddon. Its genocide of Gaza has cast it as the enemy of all humanity. Its repeated attacks on regional countries, and its assassinations of Iran’s top generals and suspected assassination of the Iranian president and foreign minister, have brought the Muslim East, and the world, to the proverbial precipice. And its complete death grip on power in America has destroyed the American republic and is driving the now-fascist US empire to destruction.

Like the brave soldiers on the wounded USS Liberty, who cobbled together makeshift communications equipment after the zionists had bombed their antenna, and managed to broadcast a message revealing the identity of their attackers, we need to piece together what is left of our Enlightenment-era free communications network and use it to inform the world who the enemy really is.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | 2 Comments

Israeli lobby silencing anti-Zionist academics at Australian university

By Maram Susli – Al Mayadeen – June 6, 2024

Yet another University of Sydney academic has been targeted for offending the Australian Zionist lobby, a major funder of the university.

In a lecture to first-year students, Professor Sujatha Fernandes accused “Israel” of lying about “Hamas beheading babies and carrying out mass rape,” and accused the Australian media of spreading those lies to shore up support for “Israel’s” ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

Alex Ryvchin, co-chief of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, demanded that Professor Fernandes be investigated, and the university has capitulated to the demand. The Rupert Murdoch media has also initiated a witch hunt against the professor.

This comes two weeks after the University of Sydney won its appeal over the unfair dismissal of Sydney Lecturer Dr. Tim Anderson, who was similarly attacked by the Zionist lobby for criticising “Israel.

When asked to comment on the case of fellow academic Professor Fernandes, Dr. Anderson, said:

“The Murdoch media claims she is being ‘investigated’ for her comments, exactly how they started with me. I am sure they will further target her for speaking the plain truth about the Israeli regime.”

Dr. Anderson fought a lengthy legal battle with the university, starting in 2019, after being dismissed for including a lecture slide that compared Israeli atrocities to those of Nazi Germany. The case began with university managers claiming Anderson’s social media comments had offended Israelis and their supporters.

Intellectual freedom in Australia is defined in industrial agreements. In Dr. Anderson’s case, the Federal Court initially affirmed the right to academic freedom, but its most recent decision has muddied that position. In particular, Judge Michael Lee now asserts that the burden is on the individual claiming intellectual freedom to prove that they were acting in the highest professional standards, without providing clear criteria. Overall, five Federal Court judges ruled in favour of Anderson, but the last two tipped the balance against him.

Regarding his dismissal, Dr. Anderson stated:

The reasons behind my sacking were:

(1) Pressure from the Israeli lobby, including corporate media and Israeli funding at the University of Sydney.

(2)  Corruption by University of Sydney managers, and

(3) Reactionary politics at the Federal Court of Australia, which dismantled five years of previous decisions on intellectual freedom.

The power of the Zionist lobby in Australia comes from their direct funding of universities and their influence in the media. The National Advisory Committee on Jewish Education, which has donated more than half a million dollars annually to the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, exemplifies this. The committee’s chair, Emeritus Professor Suzanne Rutland, noted on her CV that the committee was a branch of the World Zionist Organisation (WZO), one of the groups instrumental in the creation of “Israel”. Additionally, the committee provided bonuses to all University of Sydney senior managers based on their performance, creating a financial incentive to target professors who criticize “Israel”.

Growing concerns arise regarding evidence of foreign interference in Australian universities due to these practices. The witch hunt against these professors has caused a chilling effect, and academics may begin to self-censor in future academic discourse on “Israel”.

The Israeli and US funding for the University of Sydney has corrupted managers and killed intellectual freedom at Australia’s oldest university.

The continued attacks on these academics come in the context of the International Court of Justice ruling that there is credible evidence that “Israel” is committing a genocide in Gaza. The story of babies being beheaded on October 7th has been conclusively debunked, and the story of rapes on Oct 7 was found to have a lack of evidence. After examining all of the 5,000 photos, 50 hours of videos, and audio from October 7, the UN Secretary General’s report said, “No tangible indications of rape could be identified.” The report goes on to say that the UN did not find a single victim of sexual violence on Oct 7, despite their best efforts to encourage victims to come forward.

In spite of the control that the Zionist lobby has over the faculty, students of Sydney University continue their weeks-long protest against the genocide in Gaza, demanding that Sydney University divest from “Israel”.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Hundreds killed by Israel in south Lebanon since 8 October

The Cradle | June 6, 2024

According to statistics published by the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, Israeli attacks on south Lebanon have resulted in a total of 1,603 casualties, including 401 deaths, since 8 October.

The data published on the ministry’s website indicates that 87 percent of casualties were men, 96 percent were Lebanese nationals, and 57 percent were aged between 25 and 44 years.

The primary causes of these injuries are evident, with 44 percent resulting from blunt trauma, 35 percent from the blast radius of bombings, and 16 percent from chemical exposure – in many cases, white phosphorus.

The data additionally underscores a daily average of 18 casualties, five of them requiring urgent medical treatment at local hospitals, and one fatality.

According to Hezbollah’s military media, around 330 of its fighters have been killed by Israel on the battlefield. Going by the numbers reported by the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the remaining 71 deaths are those of civilians and journalists.

Additionally, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported that 94,126 residents of southern Lebanon have since been displaced.

Israeli aggression has caused significant damage to Lebanon’s forests and agricultural land.

Earlier this week, Hezbollah rockets ignited massive wildfires in the Israeli north, resulting in extensive damage to forest reserves and several hospitalizations due to smoke inhalation.

Hezbollah has been gradually escalating its daily operations against Israeli military sites and settlements since October. The movement opened a front against Israel on 8 October, one day after the start of the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, in support of the Palestinian resistance factions.

Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem have made it clear that Hezbollah’s operations will not stop until Israel stops its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Beyond Rafah: What the Zionist entity is headed toward

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | June 5, 2024

The tunnel systems have not been destroyed, the weapons capabilities of the Resistance remain, and the fighters have survived some of the toughest onslaughts the Israelis are capable of mustering.

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has set the invasion of Rafah as the route to a comprehensive victory against the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza. This is a lie, and the Zionist regime will not achieve its war goals, so what comes next when the Israeli public is faced with the truth?

The Zionist entity launched its genocidal military campaign against the Gaza Strip, claiming that it sought to both dismantle Hamas and retrieve its captives by force. Neither was achieved in around 8 months of confrontations, despite having inflicted massive death and destruction on a scale that hasn’t been seen since the Vietnam War.

Before the Israelis launched their ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, the line of propaganda was to pretend as if their unprecedented bombing campaign was going to dismantle the Palestinian Resistance’s complex web of tunnels underneath the besieged coastal territory. We heard about all the various munitions that were supposedly going to penetrate the tunnel systems and destroy the majority of them, prior to any face-to-face fighting.

When “Israel” did invade the Gaza Strip, it soon became clear that they were not even trying to penetrate the majority of the tunnels, despite their propaganda. The Zionist army came in on the ground, choosing to set up positions in open areas, before packing their soldiers in armored personnel carriers, tanks, and militarized bulldozers, refraining from using infantry to clear areas prior to penetrating them. They were subsequently met with tough resistance from the Palestinian armed factions. As for the tunnels and the attempts to recapture their captives, the rescue missions were all foiled, and the Israelis seemed to only be sealing off tunnel entrances they found, instead of sending forces underground to fight face-to-face.

The Zionist entity then set its sights on Gaza City, choosing to target the northern sector of the coastal territory in the initial stages of the invasion. Despite their attempts to completely ethnically cleanse the north, hundreds of thousands remained steadfast on their lands and refused to leave. Petty tactics were then employed by the Israeli ground forces, such as flying their flag in areas they managed to reach temporarily in their armored vehicles and tanks.

All this was going on as their leadership claimed that the “Hamas headquarters” was situated under the Al-Shifa Hospital, for which they released a CGI video depicting a multi-layered tunnel system. After finally invading the Shifa medical complex, the Zionist regime was outed as a bunch of liars as no headquarters was found there. Nonetheless, their evidence-free conspiracy theories about Hamas using hospitals as military headquarters’ and bases continued to drive the invasion of the north.

Suddenly, after being pointed out as having fabricated evidence in the north of the alleged “Hamas bases” and “Hamas headquarters” underneath hospitals, they began to pivot to Khan Younis. Khan Younis is the “real Hamas headquarters” they told their own settler population and the international community, deciding to invade the city in December, after the conclusion of a brief cessation of hostilities and prisoner exchange. In early January, they had already besieged the city of Khan Younis completely, finding no “Hamas headquarters”, and then began to obsess over the southernmost city of Rafah.

For months, the threats to invade Rafah were constant, and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, asserted that his regime could not win the war without invading Rafah, and we repeatedly heard about the authorization of the operation to force a ground incursion into the area. This was met with international condemnation and a series of contradictory remarks from the US President, Joe Biden, who still can’t decide on what his “red line” actually is.

On May 6, Hamas called the Israeli-US bluff and accepted a ceasefire proposal. This was despite the fact that Netanyahu had been talking about his unwillingness to accept any ceasefire with Hamas for over a week prior. Although the Israeli premier was promising an invasion of Rafah, the US Secretary of State was publicly lauding the ceasefire proposal and urging Hamas to take it during his visit to West Asia. When Hamas decided to accept the proposal, which was almost identical to the one that was promoted by the US and elements within the Israeli regime’s leadership, it caused shockwaves, and the Zionist military responded by launching its invasion that same day.

The Israelis made a fatal mistake, however, deciding to also invade the al-Zaytoun neighborhood near Gaza City and Jabalia, both located in the north of the Gaza Strip. The invasion of Jabalia appeared to be an attempt to try and pull off a propaganda victory, by extracting the bodies of Israeli captives killed by their own airstrikes. However, they were surprised by the level of fighting waged against their soldiers by the Palestinian Resistance, who not only inflicted heavy losses on the Zionist invaders but, in the case of Jabalia, managed to pull off one of the toughest battles of the entire war as well.

The Zionist entity is renowned for concealing its casualties, but it could not hide all of them, and the public was exposed to daily reports about incidents in which their soldiers were killed and dismembered. This was a major embarrassment because the Israelis had told their own people that they managed to dismantle all of the Resistance battalions in the north months before, which clearly was not true.

Then came the announcement last Saturday from Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, who informed the world that an ambush had taken place in which the Resistance group managed to capture, kill, and injure the members of a force that they lured into a tunnel. The very next day, after increased rocket fire into the surrounding settlements during the weeks prior, al-Qassam launched a barrage of rockets from Rafah that struck north of “Tel Aviv”, managing to cause impacts and bypass the Iron Dome system. Embarrassed and in disarray once again, the Zionist entity decided to commit a series of massacres against civilians, the most egregious taking place against refugees sheltering in tents northwest of Rafah City.

All of this is to say that the Zionist regime is now faced with a dead end, as it will not find victory in Rafah and will fail as it did everywhere else. Not one of the dozen armed Resistance groups operating in the Gaza Strip have been defeated, let alone Hamas. The tunnel systems have not been destroyed, the weapons capabilities of the resistance remain, and the fighters have survived some of the toughest onslaughts the Israelis are capable of mustering. Moreover, the captives have not been extracted by force and now they have lost even more in Jabalia. So what is next?

The Zionists are out of real options in the Gaza Strip, they have not found any reasonable plan for a day-after scenario, and once they meet failure in Rafah, there is nowhere else they can claim is the “real Hamas headquarters” any longer. This is why they have to pivot away from Gaza and find another target.

The single biggest thorn in the side of the Israelis right now is the Lebanese Resistance. Over the course of the war, Hezbollah and its allies have annihilated the Israeli monitoring and defense capabilities, smashed their military sites to pieces, destroyed many settler housing units in the bordering settlements, and forced over 100,000 Israeli settlers to flee in fear. The Israeli economy in the north has been paralyzed and the image of the Zionist army has been dismantled, as Hezbollah uses Israeli soldiers and military bases as test subjects for its military equipment.

What the Israelis could do is to either wrap up their invasion of Rafah quickly or continue it in a slow fashion, while deciding to launch a limited military operation against Lebanon. In the event that this occurs, it is not likely for the Zionist regime to commit suicide, and so, it is more likely that, despite the propaganda that they will release about such an operation, they would attempt to prevent it from spilling over into a full-scale war.

If “Israel” chooses this option, it understands well that Hezbollah will respond with unprecedented strikes that will shake the entity to its core, which will result in the sidelining of the Gaza war. Not only will the Israeli settler population be focused almost entirely on Lebanon, but so too will most of the world and certainly the international community. This would provide them with the opportunity to bring a close to the Gaza war and conclude a prisoner exchange while ensuring that it looks like they are attempting to restore their broken image. Such a scenario would also buy Netanyahu and his leadership more time in power.

If this happens, the course of the struggle will not come to a conclusion, however, as there is another very obvious front and that is the occupied West Bank. It is possible that the Israeli leadership could then shift its focus again, this time to the usurpation of what is known as area C of the West Bank; an area which constitutes around 60% of the total territory. For a long time, the Zionists have sought to seize this area, but due to external pressures from their allies, they have refrained from doing so.

The excuse in the West Bank will be the Resistance groups, which are primarily operating in the north of the territory and would work to justify a large-scale military campaign. In the event that a ceasefire is already concluded in Gaza, they could then go in without the fear of the resistance in the Gaza Strip pulling off a major defensive attack and seizing the land they seek. This would be the embodiment of their decades-long plot to divide the four parts of Palestine from each other, that being the 1948 territories, occupied eastern part of al-Quds, the West Bank, and Gaza. If Netanyahu manages to end his bloody campaign of terrorism and genocide in the West Bank, it is the one place where he can actually extract what appears on paper to be a victory and it may be enough, in his mind, to save him from the inevitable political death he is slowly dying today.

What is mentioned above may not occur in the exact order listed, but it is almost inevitable that the war on Gaza is going to shift to Lebanon and the West Bank in the foreseeable future. Unless the Zionist regime comes up with another excuse to maintain the course of the war in Gaza for a longer period of time, which will delay the pivot to other fronts, it seems like what lies beyond Rafah will be Lebanon and/or the West Bank. The decision to delay the invasion of Rafah for so long seems to have been down to the fact that this will be the end of their justifications for remaining at war in Gaza. The response to what the Zionist Entity is planning will be in the hands of the resistance.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Iran strongly rejects IAEA allegations in new resolution

Press TV – June 6, 2024

Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations has firmly rejected allegations by the IAEA against the Islamic Republic’s peaceful nuclear program.

In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the rotating president of the UN Security Council Joonkook Hwang on Thursday, Amir Saeed Iravani said Tehran’s decision to take remedial measures is in full compliance with its inherent right under Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The resolution was issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors on Wednesday.

The Iranian diplomat also lambasted Britain, France and Germany – known as the E3 – for spearheading the anti-Iran resolution at the UN’s nuclear agency.

Tehran, he said, “rejects all the allegations” in the E3’s letter and “reiterates its position concerning its peaceful nuclear program and the JCPOA.”

Iravani said the E3 continues to level unfounded allegations against Iran for non-compliance with JCPOA commitments.

“Iran’s decision to take remedial measures was in full accordance with its inherent right under paragraphs 26 and 36 of the JCPOA, in reaction to the United States’ unlawful unilateral withdrawal from the agreement on 8 May 2018, and the subsequent failure of the E3 to uphold their commitments. The objective behind Iran’s decision, which was made a full year after the US’s unlawful withdrawal and the E3/EU’s failure to fulfill their sanctions-lifting obligations, was crystal clear: to restore a balance in reciprocal commitments and benefits under the JCPOA,” Iran’s ambassador to the UN said.

“The claim that the E3 has consistently upheld its JCPOA commitments is simply untrue. On the contrary, the E3 has constantly failed to honor its obligations under paragraph 20 of Annex V of the JCPOA. This significant non-compliance is still ongoing. The E3’s failure to implement its sanctions-lifting commitments specified in paragraph 20 of Annex V of the JCPOA on Transition Day (18 October 2023) as an unjustifiable unilateral is a clear example of substantial non-performance of their obligations, thereby violating both the JCPOA and UNSC Resolution 2231 (2015),” Iravani stated.

He said Tehran has persistently complied with its obligations under the Comprehensive Safeguard Agreements (CSA), including through maximum cooperation with the UN nuclear agency to implement its verification activities in Iran, emphasizing that Iran has so far been under the most “robust verification and monitoring activities” of the IAEA.

“Iran’s decision to enrich uranium in Fordow was a remedial measure in response to non-compliance of the United States and E3/EU with their legally binding obligations under Resolution 2231 (2025) and their significant non-performance under the JCPOA commitments. That decision was also made in exercising Iran’s rights expressly stated in paragraphs 26 and 36 of the JCPOA and in full accordance with its inherent rights under the NPT and the commitment under CSA. However, all such activities have been and continue to be under the supervision of the IAEA,” Iravani further wrote in the letter.

Iran’s UN envoy also stated that Iran’s commitment to its obligations under the NPT remains steadfast.

“States parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) shall not be prevented from exercising their inalienable rights under the Treaty to develop research, production, and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in full conformity with articles I and II of the Treaty. Any allegation to the contrary is baseless and categorically rejected. The claim that Iran’s nuclear program has reached a critical and irreversible point, coupled with assertions that Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities pose a threat to international peace and security, are entirely false and unfounded,” he said.

In conclusion, Iravani said Iran “reaffirms its unwavering commitment to diplomacy. It has repeatedly shown its willingness to resume talks with the aim of full implementation of the JCPOA by all participants. The JCPOA is a hard-won multilateral diplomatic achievement that remains the best option with no alternatives. It exemplified successful dialogue and diplomacy, effectively averting an undue crisis. Its revival is indeed in the interest of all participants.”

Iran asserts that it runs one of the most transparent peaceful nuclear energy programs among the IAEA’s members.

The Islamic Republic has also repeatedly voiced its readiness to resolve differences with the IAEA within a framework of constructive and mutual interaction and technical cooperation.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Potential US Tactical Nuke Deployment in Asia-Pacific Could Bring Catastrophic Fallout – Expert

Sputnik – 06.06.2024

The director of the Knowfar Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies, Li Jian, provided insight regarding the potential deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons in the western Pacific Ocean in an interview with Sputnik.

“The question of US nuclear weapon deployment has a long history,” Jian told Sputnik, highlighting advancements in US tactical nuclear capabilities, such as the B61-12 bomb, and the completion of testing for various aircraft models.

“Since the US Department of Defense purchased 400 B61-12 tactical nuclear bombs, there needs to be somewhere to deploy them,” Jian emphasized.

The expert outlined potential deployment sites in the western Pacific, including military bases in South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Diego Garcia island.

“If tactical nuclear weapons are deployed directly in South Korea, this would become a direct factor of strategic containment against Russia’s Far East, Northern China, and North Korea,” the expert warned.

Addressing concerns in Northeast Asia, Jian questions the likelihood of deployment in South Korea over Okinawa due to prevalent anti-war and anti-nuclear sentiments among the Japanese, particularly island locals. He cautioned that such actions could disrupt the regional strategic balance, exacerbate arms races, and impede nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

US Senator Roger Wicker, the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a report on May 29 urging a significant increase in US military preparedness, particularly against nations like North Korea and China.

Titled “Peace Through Strength,” the report suggests exploring new strategies, including a “nuclear sharing agreement in the Indo-Pacific and re-deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons in the Korean Peninsula.” This call comes in the wake of the US Army’s deployment of the Mid-Range Capability, also known as the Typhon Weapon System, to Northern Luzon, Philippines, for the Salaknib 24 exercises in April.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

ASEAN States Will Not Support US Plans to Deploy Missiles in Region – Official

Sputnik – 06.06.2024

JAKARTA – Member states of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) are unlikely to positively assess the plans of the United States to deploy shorter- and intermediate-range missiles in the region, Indonesian Ambassador to Russia Jose Tavares has told Sputnik.

In April, a spokesperson for the US Army Pacific told Sputnik that the US was on track to deploy a new medium-range missile system in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of 2024.

“I don’t think anyone in our region would appreciate if other countries deployed armament in our region,” the ambassador said, speaking about ASEAN’s reaction to the US Plans to deploy such missiles in the region.

He added that Indonesia has always been advocating peace and stability in the region and hopes that major powers also adhere to these principles.

Jakarta hopes that Southeast Asia will be a region of cooperation and common good and not a center of an arms race, the ambassador said.

He added that the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone has yet to be ratified by the nuclear-weapon states while expressing hope that it will happen soon.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Zelensky rejects Indonesia’s peace plan – media

RT | June 6, 2024

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has rejected a peace plan by Indonesia aimed at settling the conflict with Russia, the Antara news agency reported on Thursday, citing Indonesian President-elect and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto.

The minister proposed a peace plan to end the Ukraine conflict at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense summit in Singapore on Saturday, calling for a demilitarized zone and a United Nations referendum in what he described as disputed territory.

Speaking to reporters following his meeting with incumbent President Joko Widodo on Thursday, Subianto said he had met Zelensky in Singapore and outlined Indonesia’s plan to achieve a ceasefire with Russia.

“[Zelensky] did not agree [with the initiative], however, we will continue to try,” he said.

The proposal formulated by Indonesia includes a ceasefire and the establishment of a demilitarized zone that would see each party withdraw 15km from their current forward positions.

The zone would be observed and monitored by a UN peacekeeping mission, Subianto said. A UN referendum would then be held “to ascertain objectively the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants of the various disputed areas.”

Jakarta, which pursues a policy of non-aligned diplomacy, had previously attempted to mediate peace between Russia and Ukraine.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko dismissed the plan, claiming that “there are no disputed territories between Ukraine and the Russian Federation to hold referendums there.”

Commenting on the Ukraine “peace summit” due to take place at Burgenstock Resort in Switzerland on June 15 and 16, Subianto said the president had yet to decide about Indonesia’s participation but added that “all relevant parties” should attend the event.

Russia has not been invited to the summit, which is expected to address Zelensky’s so-called ‘ten-point peace plan’. The proposal demands a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from all territories that Ukraine considers its own, for Moscow to pay reparations, and for Russian officials to present themselves to war crimes tribunals.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Laws of War – Matt Orfalea

Matt Orfalea | May 25, 2024

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June 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Neocon Star Julie Smith is ‘Worthy’ Successor of Warmongering Victoria Nuland

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 06.06.2024

US Permanent Representative to NATO Julianne Smith was nominated on June 5 to fill Victoria Nuland’s shoes and become under secretary of state for political affairs. What’s known about Smith?

  • From 2009 to 2012, Julie Smith served as the director of European and NATO policy at the United States Department of Defense and then as the deputy national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden from 2012 to 2013.
  • In 2016, The Intercept called Smith a “rising star in the Democratic foreign policy establishment” akin to neocon and warmonger Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland’s husband.
    In January 2016, Smith signed Hillary Clinton’s anti-Bernie Sanders letter, bashing his desire to normalize ties with Iran. The letter was part of Clinton’s broad smear campaign against Sanders, then her Democratic presidential rival.
  • Testifying before the Senate in February 2017, Smith accused Russia of continuously undermining US interests at home and abroad and peddled the “Trump-Russia collusion” hoax.
  • Between 2014 and 2018, Smith worked in the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) funded by major US defense contractors.
  • She also worked at consultancy firm WestExec Advisors, founded by Antony Blinken and Michele A. Flournoy in 2017, that is suspected of secret lobbying on behalf of US military corporations. Over a dozen WestExec alums joined the Biden administration, triggering concerns “about the potential for groupthink, conflicts of interest, (…) legalized corruption” and “monopolization of foreign policymaking” by corporate interests, per The Intercept. According to the New York Times, some of WestExec’s clients – which the firm keeps on the hush-hush – got hefty contracts from the Pentagon.
  • In May 2020, Smith accused China of undermining US leadership by providing aid to Europe to fight the COVID-19 pandemic; in July 2020 she called to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
  • In March 2022, Smith groundlessly accused Russia of using chemical and biological weapons amid Russia’s revelations with regard to a network of Pentagon-funded secret bio-weapons labs in Ukraine.
  • In December 2022, she announced an effort to step up arms production by NATO member states amid the Ukraine conflict and strongly advocated enhancing NATO military presence in Europe “to ensure that Russia can never attack NATO” in December 2023.
  • “We do consider the Russian threat to the NATO alliance to be the preeminent threat that we’re grappling with,” Smith told an online briefing on April 4, 2020.
  • At the same press briefing she stressed that NATO’s engagements will not be limited to one region, expressing willingness to challenge Russia and China simultaneously and adding that “a lot of the security challenges we face today don’t have any geographic boundaries.”
  • In October 2023, Smith asserted to the press that the US and NATO will continue to support Ukraine and Israel amid the latter’s Gaza war.

Being a darling of the military-industrial complex, Smith is likely to follow in the footsteps of her predecessor, Victoria Nuland, and continue stoking tensions in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | 2 Comments

Russia’s Shoigu Accuses NATO of Training for Invasion of CSTO Countries

Sputnik – 06.06.2024

ALMATY – Sergei Shoigu, a former Russian defense minister who now chairs the national security council, accused NATO on Thursday of increasing the number of military drills along the western and northern flank of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in what he said was a preparation for invasion.

“The alliance has been building up military presence and deploying new weapons along the northern and western flanks of the collective security zone. The number of airspace provocations is on the rise, and numerous military exercises are being conducted to train, among other things, for an invasion of CSTO countries’ territories,” Shoigu told fellow secretaries of CSTO member states’ security councils.

He called “NATO’s continuous expansion” a direct threat for CSTO allies. The Russian official said the West was using the conflict in Ukraine as a weapon against Russia in the hope of inflicting as much damage as possible.

“The West is pursuing the obvious goal of using Ukraine as a weapon against Russia in order to inflict as much damage as possible on our country. It has become absolutely clear that the attempt to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia has failed,” Shoigu said.

Turning to the CSTO’s eastern flank, Shoigu said Russia was concerned about new militant training camps cropping up across Afghanistan and jihadists flocking to the Central Asian country from Syria and Iraq. He said the risk of terrorist spillovers was increasing.

June 6, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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