Greece shipwreck explained: The claims and counterclaims

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JUNE 17, 2023 

With the Ukrainian offensive under way for a fortnight, all eyes are on the battlefields, and, crucially, Russias options ahead. In a little over three weeks from now, the NATO will be holding a summit in Vilnius and the West has choices to make too. We are arriving at a fork in the road. 

The NATO expected the Ukrainian forces to punch through key Russian fortifications by now. In reality, they are struggling to get anywhere near the sprawling layered fortifications and in that desperate attempt, are taking  massive losses, entrapped in minefields and taken to pieces by Russian artillery and missiles and the dreaded multi-role attack helicopters known as Alligator.

The signposts are best seen in Russian President Vladimir Putins Kremlin press conference on Tuesday, lasting over three hours, with war correspondents. In just a weeks time after Ukraines offensive began, 2530 percent of the supplied equipment (from NATO) has been destroyed, Putin said. 

Putin underscored three things. First, the goals set for the special military operations are fundamental for us because Ukraine is part of the effort to destabilise Russia. What does that mean? 

It means Russian operations will not end without realising the twin objectives of demilitarising Ukraine and uprooting the present neo-Nazi regime in Kiev. The security and welfare of the Russian population also remains a cardinal objective no more pogroms. Putin said Russia is going about realising these objectives gradually, methodically.

Second, Putin flagged: The Ukrainian defence industry will soon cease to exist altogether. What do they produce? Ammunition is delivered, equipment is delivered and weapons are delivered  everything is delivered. You wont live long like that, you wont last. So, the issue of demilitarisation is realised in very practical terms. 

Third, the Kremlins preference so far has been to continue to grind down the Ukrainian military, whilst giving selective responses whenever any red lines were crossed eg., Russian strikes on Ukraines energy system, the destruction of the headquarters of the Ukrainian military intelligence. By the way, in that Kiev strike, Russia claims to have seriously injured Ukraines spy chief Kyrylo Budanov, the poster boy of western media. 

Going forward, Putin said everything will depend on the potential that is left at the end of this so-called c...

Strategic Culture Foundation | June 16, 2023

Russias economy is performing strongly, according to recent forecasts from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The outcome defies earlier predictions by the United States and its European allies which held that Western sanctions would bring the Russian economy to its knees and force it to submissively Cry Uncle.

When the conflict in Ukraine escalated 16 months ago (after eight years of NATO-sponsored aggression using the Kiev Neo-Nazi regime), various Western politicians and pundits were relishing the prospect of the Russian economy collapsing from Total War launched against its international banking and trade.

Well, it didnt turn out like that. Far from it. As the World Bank noted above, the Western sanctions have simply helped Russia boost alternative markets in China, India, and elsewhere around the globe. A principal earner for Russia is energy exports of oil and gas. Increased sales to Asia have maintained revenues despite the loss of European markets due to Western sanctions.

The paradoxical thing is that U.S. and European sanctions against Russia while intended to cripple the Russian economy have actually made the latter stronger.

Michael Hudson, an American global economics analyst, points out: The sanctions have obliged Russia to become self-sufficient in food production, manufacturing production and consumer goods.

Hudson also notes that the U.S. geopolitical strategy is to use sanctions in order to make its supposed European allies more dependent and subservient to Washington.

Another respected commentator, Glenn Diesen, a Norwegian geoeconomics professor, likened the use of Western sanctions to the self-destructive behavior of self-harm. The United States and European Union, he says, have handed over a huge market to the rest of the world.

Diesen also observes that 85 percent of the worlds population lives in countries that do not comply with Western sanctions against Russia. This global majority is more than ever creating new forms of trade and finance that obviate Western control. A major impetus for this positive development is the necessity bequeathed by Washingtons systematic abuse of power and privilege.

The repercussions...

In April, Bellingcat hosted its third hackathon, with the event focussing on increasing the accessibility of tools used for digital investigations. 

This sought to address an issue that Bellingcat has previously identified based on our survey of open source researchers: there are many tools that can be helpful in investigations, but theyre often difficult for researchers to configure and use. Many of them require installing one or more software packages, or have a command line interface, which can be intimidating for researchers who arent familiar with programming.

Were excited to present the final projects from this hackathon here with a brief explanation as to what they can do. We hope to see them used by open-source researchers in the future. In addition, Bellingcat is offering Tech Fellowships to the developers of the winning projects to further develop their tools.

In the latest hackathon, many aspects of accessibility were creatively addressed by different projects. Initially we anticipated the hackathon would lead to new browser interfaces for existing tools, but instead projects simplified complicated parts of workflows or organised information from documents addressing other important dimensions of accessibility.

We were happy to see several developers have participated in all three of Bellingcats hackathons and that a community is coalescing around the intersection of open-source software and open-source research. Tech Fellowships are being offered to the developers of the winning projects to further develop their tools, and if youd like to learn more about the hackathons, dont forget to check out the results of our first and second events.

Were excited to present the final projects from this hackathon below with a brief explanation about what they can do. We hope open source researchers will be able to use these new tools in the near future.

Top Prizes

First Place: Project Sentinel was developed by Myth and Laurence and is an interface for searching for documents from Indias Armed Forces Tribunal website. These documents detail complaints made against the Indian military from personnel or their family members. While they are publicly available online they are not centrally organised and are difficult to...

Greece shipwreck: UN calls for urgent investigation into deadly disaster

According to the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, Kievs sponsors reportedly demanded that the regime eliminate as many Russians as possible as a condition for sending weapons. The case shows how the West really does not expect a Ukrainian victory on the battlefield, only seeking to weaken Russia as much as possible.

Kievs defense chief Aleksey Reznikov claimed during an interview to Foreign Policy that Western supporters, before establishing a policy of unlimited military aid, demanded from Ukraine that as many Russian citizens as possible be killed. Once the extermination of Russians is guaranteed, Western support will be maintained as long as it takes, informed the minister.

He told

Jamaica is a global producer of bauxite, a critical material used to produce aluminum. The Caribbean island, most well-known globally for its vibrant tourism industry, has exploited this red dirt for decades. While the industry remains profitable, there has been significant push-back recently, including a recent landmark Supreme Court ruling against a new mining project.

The importance of Red Dirt

In 2022, Jamaicas bauxite production totaled 7,048kt, up 22% from 2021, and the Caribbean island accounts for 2% of global bauxite production. The major global producers are Australia, China, Guinea, Brazil, and India; Jamaica hovers around the 10th place according to Statista, though other outlets put Jamaica in the seventh spot.

The top mining projects on the island are the St. Ann Bauxite Mine (owned by the government of Jamaica and New Day Aluminium), Windalco Mine (owned by United Company Rusal), and Alpart Project (owned by Jiuquan Iron and Steel: JISCO). In late 2021, United Company RUSAL (UC RUSAL) began making payments towards the US$35 million Bauxite Production Levy owed for the April 2018 to September 2021 period. In early June 2023, Mining Minister Floyd Green met with JISCO Alpart to discuss the companys plans for the reopening and resumption of plant operations, which has been stalled since 2019.

The post Bauxite: Jamaicas Lucrative Red Dirt appeared first on Geopolitical Monitor.

The late writer, broadcaster and wit Clive James formulated what he called the Barry Manilow Law:

Everyone you know thinks Barry Manilow is absolutely terrible. But everyone you dont know thinks hes great. (James, cited Martin Amis, Inside Story, Vintage, 2020, e-book, p.74)

Everyone you know thinks BBC News is absolutely terrible. But everyone you dont know thinks its great.

The BBC wasnt always quite this bad. When we started out in 2001, people like Director of News Richard Sambrook and Newsnight editor Peter Barron sent us long, respectful replies to our analysis. We were invited to appear on BBC One, BBC Two and BBC radio (we were interviewed by BBC Radio Five Live). Barron even blogged about us positively on the BBC website.

All of this has gone. Our criticisms, now, are met with paranoid silence. And there is much for BBC journalists to be paranoid about, for they are now clearly operating as de facto agents of state.

When the US targeted Syria for regime change in 2011, a flood of anti-Assad atrocity claims and pro-rebel propaganda washed across the BBCs news pages. The BBCs campaign ended the moment the US campaign for regime change ended. When Iran, Venezuela and Libya fell under the US crosshairs, the same BBC propaganda machine cranked into action. Similarly, anyone measuring BBC performance 2022-2023, will find hundreds of reports and comment pieces country is technically not at war with Russia certainly Russia is not attacking us. It couldnt be more obvious that when the green light for war and regime change is on, the BBC is expected to host daily propaganda pieces to generate public support.

In his superb...

Click to see full-size image

Originally published by IslamicWorldNews

The main root cause of the Talibans border clashes with Afghanistans neighbors is that the Taliban militants possess insufficient know-how regarding international border laws and regulations. More importantly, the Taliban rulers do not make any effort to prevent tensions with their neighbor states!

Afghanistan is a landlocked country, which does not have any access to free waters. And the prelude to the establishment of stability and security in such a region is cooperation with neighboring states in order to create appropriate condition for economic and political growth along with issues such as security and stability.

Unfortunately, following five decades of conflict and bloodshed in Afghanistan, the country is still involved in ethnic clashes as well as pursuit of self-interest by powerful individuals and one-dimensional governments. Hence, it can be predicted that the war-torn...

BY SHIRAZ AKRAM | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | JUNE 15, 2023

In 2017 the BBC announced its intention to assemble a dedicated team to fact check and debunk deliberately misleading and false stories masquerading as real news.  News chief James Harding proclaimed that the Reality Check team would be weighing in on the battle over lies, distortions and exaggerations. Harding continued: The BBC cant edit the internet, but we wont stand aside either. Harding goes further to say the corporation had been inundated by news in 2016 because the world was living in an age of instability.

It appears that the BBC has not coped particularly well with this excess of news and the methods employed by the Reality Check team have not generated the desired outcome. According to data compiled by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, the BBC has experienced a decline in public trust from 75% to just 55%, with other mainstream TV broadcasters and print news suffering a similar decline over the same period, from 2018-2022. Further to this, the most recent global annual report published by the Edelman Trust Barometer placed the U.K. in 26th position, ahead of only South Korea and Japan in terms of public faith in media. The survey clearly tells us that the U.K. remains one of the countries with the lowest faith in media.

So what is driving this decline in trust? Is fake news to blame? Or, paradoxically, could the efforts of the BBC to counter such stories be exposing its own limitations? A typical example of how BBC Reality Check chooses to weigh in is illustrated in this 2022 report, Does video show Russian prisoners being shot? The report is unable to provide sufficient evidence to debunk the authenticity of the footage, which, the BBC states, has been claimed to show Ukrainian soldiers shooting Russian prisoners of war. Instead, it offers the reader a discourse, the content of which is clearly riddled with omission, selection and presentation bias. The report reads like a crude attempt to defend a narrative, rather than an objective attempt to elucidate a news story.

Consider this...

By Guy Blaise Feugap, World BEYOND War Cameroon Chapter, June 15, 2023

In the Global South, anti-democratic practices in times of crisis are emerging as a common problem. This was observed by participants in the new Residencies for Democracy programme, designed to connect people working to solve democracy problems with host organisations with the necessary expertise, under the coordination of Extituto de Poltica Abierta and People Powered since February 2023. The Cameroon Chapter of WBW is contributing to this project through the Demo.Reset programme, designed by Extituto de Poltica Abierta to develop collective knowledge about deliberative democracy and share ideas across the Global South, with the collaboration of over 100 organisations in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Asia, India and Eastern Europe.

In sub-Saharan Africa, there is a history of electoral violence linked to non-transparent and non-inclusive democratic processes. Given the security challenges facing these countries and the experience of electoral conflicts on the continent, which have literally plunged some countries into a vicious cycle of war, World BEYOND War seeks to ensure that young people are effectively taken into account in democratic processes. In Cameroon for instance, the most recent elections with public participation were the presidential election on 7 October 2018 and the municipal and legislative elections on 9 February 2020. They have led to tensions added to the security context marked by several conflicts and crises, notably with calls for a boycott of certain political parties, threats and killings of some who have expressed their right to vote or stood as candidates, and the persistent contestation of the results of the October 2018 presidential election. As a result of these facts, it is legitimate to fear, as in 2018, violence during the next elections, with the presidential one taking place in 2025. Mechanisms are needed now to ensure the participation of young people.

...

Egypt has 'applied' to join Brics, says Russian ambassador

Sputnik 14.06.2023

BEIJING Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday put forward a three-point proposal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the meeting with his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas.

First, the basis for settling the Palestinian issue is the establishment of an independent state of Palestine with full sovereignty within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, Xi Jinping was quoted as saying by the Chinese national broadcaster.

Second, the Chinese president pointed out that the needs of the Palestinian economy should be met and the international community should increase humanitarian and development assistance to Palestine.

Third, the right course of peace negotiations should be followed. Respect the historical status quo of Jerusalems religious shrines, refrain from radical and provocative statements and actions, promote a larger, more authoritative and more influential international peace conference, create conditions for the resumption of peaceful talks and make concrete efforts to help Palestine and Israel coexist...