Oreshnik Missiles May Soon be Deployed in Belarus

Posted on December 7, 2024 by Keld Bach

After the presidents of Russia and Belarus signed security agreements in Minsk on Friday, Alexander Lukashenko asked Vladimir Putin about obtaining some of Moscow’s cutting-edge Oreshnik (Hazelnut tree) missiles. Putin said that the missiles could be deployed in Belarus in the second half of 2025, when the system fully enters service. Oreshnik missiles are capable of carrying kinetic warheads that strike at hypersonic speeds, that is up to Mach 10. Russia has already placed nuclear weapons in Belarus and expanded its nuclear protection to include Belarus as part of their Union State partnership.

Source: RT International

Header image is a screenshot from RT News, cropped and framed by me. See also:

Posted in Imperialism & Colonialism, War & Terror | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sergey Lavrov’s Interview with Tucker Carlson

Posted on December 6, 2024 by Keld Bach



Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has given an exclusive interview to conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson this week. The two talked about a wide range of topics of international concern, primarily the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as the state of US-Russia relations.

Read the full text of the conversation on RT International.

Posted in Imperialism & Colonialism, Media & Journalism, Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amnesty International investigation concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza

Posted on December 5, 2024 by Keld Bach

Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, the organization said in a landmark new report published today.

The report, ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, documents how, during its military offensive launched in the wake of the deadly Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel has unleashed hell and destruction on Palestinians in Gaza brazenly, continuously and with total impunity.

“Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction. Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International. 

Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now.

“States that continue to transfer arms to Israel at this time must know they are violating their obligation to prevent genocide and are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide. All states with influence over Israel, particularly key arms suppliers like the USA and Germany, but also other EU member states, the UK and others, must act now to bring Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza to an immediate end.”

Over the past two months the crisis has grown particularly acute in the North Gaza governorate, where a besieged population is facing starvation, displacement and annihilation amid relentless bombardment and suffocating restrictions on life-saving humanitarian aid.

“Our research reveals that, for months, Israel has persisted in committing genocidal acts, fully aware of the irreparable harm it was inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza. It continued to do so in defiance of countless warnings about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and of legally binding decisions from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to take immediate measures to enable the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,” said Agnès Callamard. 

“Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.”

Full article: Amnesty International

Posted in Anti-War & Non-Violence, Human Rights & Justice, Imperialism & Colonialism, Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Thanks a Billion, Dad

Posted on December 2, 2024 by Keld Bach

Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Sunday before jetting off on a trip to Africa, signing the pardon despite repeated pledges “not to interfere” with the DoJ’s work.

Hunter Biden, the first child of a sitting US president ever to be criminally charged and convicted, was found guilty of two counts of willful tax evasion, and a separate charge related to lying about his illegal drug use while purchasing a handgun.

He was to be sentenced in both cases in mid-December before Sunday’s surprise pardon by his dad clearing the 54-year-old of legal responsibility for the crimes. The maximum penalty in the tax case was 17 years, while the gun charge carried a punishment of up to 25 years behind bars.

Along with the criminal tax charges, Hunter also faced six misdemeanor tax offenses, including failing to pay his taxes on time and making false business deductions in returns.

Through the course of the criminal investigations and trials into Hunter Biden, some observers have been peeved about the Justice Department’s focus on comparatively trivial tax and gun charges instead of potentially far more serious crimes.

Representative James Comer, chairman of a House Oversight Committee investigation into the Biden family over suspicious business activities revolving around an pay-to-play corruption scheme by Hunter which allegedly saw the collection of over $20 million in bribes to secure access to his powerful father during the Obama years, hinted as much in his reaction to Sunday’s pardon.

“Joe Biden has lied from start to finish about his family’s corrupt influence peddling activities. Not only has he falsely claimed that he never met with his son’s foreign business associates and that his son did nothing wrong, but he also lied when he said he would not pardon Hunter Biden,” Comer said.

In August 2024, Comer’s investigators released a damning 300-page report detailing “impeachable conduct” by the president and alleged criminal activity by his son. This included allegations related to Hunter Biden’s lucrative no-show job on the board of a Ukrainian energy company beginning in 2014 (which culminated in the post-coup government’s firing of a local prosecutor investigating suspected money-laundering activity), and charges of similar pay-to-play schemes involving corrupt business dealings with actors across Eurasia.

Source: Sputnik International. See also: The Laptop from Hell.

Header image is courtesy of Getty Images, cropped and slightly enhanced by me.

Posted in Culture & Society, Finance & Economy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

And the Winner is… AIPAC

Posted on November 5, 2024 by Keld Bach

Regardless of who becomes president, the Jewish lobby will make sure that the U.S. always supports Israel unconditionally! (professor John Mearsheimer)

Original image is courtesy of AIPAC, modified by me.

Posted in Culture & Society, Democracy & Liberty | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

BRICS – A New Multipolar World Order Emerging

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Keld Bach

Around 20,000 delegates from over 30 countries, including senior officials and heads of state, attended the three-day international forum in Kazan. The West cannot control this bloc, and that is hard for Western leaders to accept.

The leaders of Russia, India, China, South Africa, the UAE, and Egypt, as well as the UN secretary-general, gathered in the Russian city of Kazan for the 16th annual BRICS Summit. The event, which has also welcomed a host of potential BRICS partner countries, has been widely seen as a snub to the West and a signal that Russia has not been isolated by Ukraine-related sanctions.

[…]

Of all the efforts and initiatives that are rightly seen as driving the new world order, BRICS, the now nine-nation bloc – originally formed by Brazil, Russia, India and China – is arguably the most important. From the outset, it included states that had the potential to embody, in theory and in practice, fundamental changes in the balance of power. Therefore, the BRICS were not inherently inapplicable to the criteria of effectiveness developed by Western political science to assess the success of international organizations.

The creation of such an association was in itself a major achievement.

Firstly, because it included countries with very different foreign policy interests. That is, their desire to act together was underpinned by sufficiently reliable objective circumstances to make cooperation between such different powers meaningful.

Secondly, because the emergence of BRICS signaled from the outset the West’s inability to control the evolution of international governance. The last major achievement of the US and Europe in this area was the creation of the G20 in 2009, a group of countries chosen by the West to share responsibility with Washington for the damage caused to the global economy by the US financial crisis of 2008. But as none of the other G20 countries wanted to do so, the impact of the group’s activities was rather insignificant. At the same time, even though the G20 has almost completely lost its relevance, it is still used by large developing countries as a way to increase their international presence.

In the case of BRICS, for the first time, Western countries did not initiate or lead the process.

Full story at: RT International

Header image by Islamic Republic News Agency, cropped and slightly enhanced by me.

Posted in NWO & Global Governance | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Controversial Hannibal Directive

Posted on October 15, 2024 by Keld Bach

The Hannibal Directive is a command issued by the Israeli military. Its purpose is to prevent the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by using heavy fire to stop the abductors – even if that may harm or kill those being taken.

It has been used during Israeli operations during the past two decades but has come under scrutiny since the 7 October attacks and Israel’s war on Gaza.

An investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in July 2024 reported that the Israeli army used the directive when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing an estimated 1,139 people.

More than 250 soldiers, civilians and foreign nationals were also kidnapped and taken into Gaza following the attack.

But use of the directive, it is alleged, resulted in the deaths of Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Why is it called the Hannibal Directive?

Amidror, one of the writers of the directive, said that the name of the directive “was chosen at random and has no real meaning”.

But in 2003, Uri Avnery, an Israeli journalist, reported that the name was chosen deliberately.

Hannibal was a Carthaginian general and statesman from what is now modern-day Tunisia who fought the Romans during the Second Punic War. Most famously, he marched his forces including war elephants over the Alps to strike against Rome. Hannibal took his own life in 181 BCE to avoid falling into Roman hands.

Read the full story at the Middle East Eye.

Original photo by Reuters, modified by me. Related:

Posted in Imperialism & Colonialism, War & Terror | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

A Historical Timeline of Israel’s Brutality Towards Palestinians

Posted on October 14, 2024 by Keld Bach



The narrative around October 7 often overlooks the deep-rooted history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. This timeline reveals key events dating back to 1897, when the First Zionist Congress was held, through the Nakba in 1948, and decades of subsequent violence. The focus on a single day obscures a much longer story of displacement and systemic injustice that continues to affect Palestinians today.

Posted in Imperialism & Colonialism, Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

R.I.P. Tom Feeley

Posted on October 12, 2024 by Keld Bach

I’ve just learned that Tom Feeley, the founder and editor of the independent news outlet, Information Clearing House, recently has died. Below, the sad message from his son, Michael Feeley:

“On September 9 dad passed away from cancer. He died here at home with his family by his side. He was happy in his final days and slipped away peacefully in his sleep. My dad was a great man and was the best father a kid could ask for, and wonderful grandfather to my sons. We were happy to have had him here the past two years. He said it was a gift-which you all gave him.

I’m sorry to inform you this way. Unfortunately, we do not have access to ICH, I think dad didn’t want his work to be messed with. I want to thank everyone for your support over the years. He loved each and every one of you and was proud of the work you did, together.”

May you rest in peace, Tom. You will be sorely missed by the many of us who were daily being informed by your truth-seeking reports. Image slightly enhanced by me.

Posted in Media & Journalism | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza I Al Jazeera Investigations

Posted on October 11, 2024 by Keld Bach



This feature length investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit exposes Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip through the medium of photos and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves during the year long conflict.

The I-Unit has built up a database of thousands of videos, photos and social media posts. Where possible it has identified the posters and those who appear.

The material reveals a range of illegal activities, from wanton destruction and looting to the demolition of entire neighbourhoods and murder.

The film also tells the story of the war through the eyes of Palestinian journalists, human rights workers and ordinary residents of the Gaza Strip. And it exposes the complicity of Western governments – in particular the use of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus as a base for British surveillance flights over Gaza.

“The west cannot hide, they cannot claim ignorance. Nobody can say they didn’t know,” says Palestinian writer, Susan Abulhawa.This is “the first livestream genocide in history … If people are ignorant they are wilfully ignorant,” she says.

Posted in Imperialism & Colonialism, Videos & Documentaries, War & Terror | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment