Say, Why Are House Dems Calling On Biden To Give Up Full Control Of Nuclear Weapons?

Which answer do you want first — the fun answer, or the better answer? Let’s start off with the fun answer, but first, let’s specify precisely what House Democrats want from Joe Biden. A letter signed by three dozen of his party’s caucus urges the new president to relinquish full control over the country’s nuclear weapons in favor of a committee approach…

Israel is carrying out a major expansion of its Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev desert, where it has historically made the fissile material for its nuclear arsenal.

Construction work is evident in new satellite images published on Thursday by the International Panel on Fissile Material (IPFM), an independent expert group. The area being worked on is a few hundred metres across to the south and west of the domed reactor and reprocessing point at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, near the desert town of Dimona.

Pavel Podvig, a researcher with the programme on science and global security at Princeton University, said: “It appears that the construction started quite early in 2019, or late 2018, so it’s been under way for about two years, but that’s all we can say at this point.”

Russia is developing Hmeimim Air Base on the Syrian coast so that it can receive strategic nuclear bombers, Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported on February 9.

According to the Russian daily, Russia is extending Hmeimim’s runway to receive long-range strategic aircrafts capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Once the development is complete, Russia will be able to deploy strategic bombers at the air base. From Hmeimim, the bombers will be able to attack terrorist groups in Syria and support Russian forces in the Mediterranean, Nezavisimaya Gazeta claimed.

A five-year extension of the arms reduction treaty came into force earlier this month, as Moscow and Washington managed to find common ground before the deal expired to preserve global peace and security.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has stated that any possible replacement of the New START treaty with a new pact would be impossible without a discussion concerning US missile defence.

"If the US is not ready to move on [this] then there are little chances of having a new deal to replace the New START, we should focus on the missile defence problem. Otherwise, arms control will be in question", Ryabkov said at a press conference.

Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, birthplace of the atomic bomb and critical US nuclear weapons production facility, remains under threat from wildfires despite several high profile, expensive blazes in recent decades.

A recent audit by the US Energy Department’s inspector general found that threat-reduction measures such as the maintenance of the lab’s network of fire roads, strategic clearing of vegetation in the surrounding area as well as the production of a coherent preparedness and mitigation plan had not been carried out

Photographic evidence included in the report indicated a tree density of 400 to 500 per acre, 10 times the recommended safe level of 40 to 50 trees per acre.

New Mexico features among a number of states in the American west which have been ravaged by increasingly intense wildfires in recent years, exacerbated by continuing droughts and reduced winter rainfall year-on-year.

A United Nations report has revealed how North Korean hackers stole $300 million in digital assets last year. It’s a warning to the West that sanctions are futile, because Pyongyang will stop at nothing to become a nuclear power.

The UN report was released on Monday and detailed how North Korea had evaded sanctions in 2020 and continued to advance its nuclear weapons program, having “produced fissile material, maintained nuclear facilities and upgraded its ballistic missile infrastructure.”

Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said the country’s nuclear program is peaceful, and it will be the fault of others if it is pushed towards the path of creating nuclear weapons.

“The leadership [of Iran] has explicitly stated that the production of nuclear weapons is against Sharia law, and the Islamic Republic forbids it, but if a cat gets backed [into a] corner, it may act as it wouldn’t have acted while free,” Alavi said, as cited by Iranian media.

If they push Iran in this direction, it won’t be the fault of Iran, but the fault of those who have pushed Iran.

Black Americans are more hesitant than whites to take the COVID vaccine. Reasons for that hit close to home in Savannah, and include a classified military operation in the 1950s that dropped hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes — mosquitoes that many believe were infected with disease — on Carver Village.

“They didn’t tell anybody, and it happened,” said Chatham County Commission Chairman Chester Ellis. “And so that leaves some apprehension, especially when you have residents of that area who’ve been there since the ’50s. And so my job as neighborhood president, and also as chairman of the County Commission, is to kind of calm the storm down to let them know that this vaccination is not like that.”

The head of US Strategic Command is warning that nuclear war with Russia or China is “a real possibility,” pointing to “destabilizing” behaviors of America’s rivals. He also claims the Pentagon is not “stuck in the Cold War.”

“There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state,” STRATCOM chief and Vice Admiral Charles Richard wrote in the February issue of the US Naval Institute's monthly magazine.

STRATCOM, which oversees the US nuclear arsenal, views the probability of nuclear war as low. But with Russia and China advancing their capabilities and continuing to “exert themselves globally,” Richard said STRATCOM must understand what it's facing.

Just days ago on January 30th, Steve Quayle had linked to this 'flashback story' over at the Telegraph titled "Blackjack: A Slideshow Story", with Steve warning in an SQnote that story, which was about a series of nuclear terrorist attacks on major western cities, was major 'predictive programming'.

With the Telegraph story claims in the beginning of it that the 'slideshow' presented within it was completely fictional, it detailed for us a scenario we see being 'pitched' by the globalists today, with a 'fictional' report done by an intelligence agency (though in the UK) warning of an imminent terrorist attack carried out by "...a coalition of extremists, Islamists and Christian doomsday cultists who may have acquired the means to carry out a mass-casualty attack".

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill into law on Friday extending the New START treaty, the last piece of arms control between the US and Russia. Putin signed the extension after both houses of Russia’s parliament voted unanimously in favor of extending New START on Wednesday.

The Kremlin said in a statement that the bill signed by Putin extends the treaty until February 5th, 2026. “The extension of the treaty is in line with Russia’s national interests as it makes it possible to maintain transparency and predictability in strategic relations between Russia and the US,” the statement said.

The New START limits the number of missiles, bombers, and nuclear warheads each power can have deployed. First signed in April 2010 and entered into force in 2011, the New START was due to expire this February.

Amidst a deadly global pandemic and rising, a threat of climate change, and nuclear war, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (The Bulletin) has set its 2021 clock at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to armaggedon.

In a press conference on Wednesday, January 27th, Rachel Bronson, the director of The Bulletin, stated that “we are now at the two-minute warning due to the man-made threats of climate change and nuclear war.”

According to Bronson, what is especially disturbing about our current moment is the “undermining of science and law-based approaches to solving major world problems and discarding of international agreements by influential leaders.”

Following China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying's recent speech at a regular press conference urging the US to open its Fort Detrick Laboratory to inspectors on Monday, this somewhat mysterious biological lab that handles sensitive disease resources in Maryland has become a hot topic on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

“If the US truly respects facts, then please open the biological lab at Fort Detrick, show more transparency to issues like its 200-plus overseas bio-labs, invite WHO experts to conduct origin-tracing in the United States…,” Hua said at the conference.

Her request was quickly supported by Chinese netizens online with people urging the US to respond.

The secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, discussed extending the New Start arms treaty in a phone call with new U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Russian news agencies reported on Monday.

The arms control treaty, which is due to expire on Feb. 5, limits the United States and Russia to deploying no more than 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads each.

A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier on Monday that experts from Russia and the United States had started “practical” work on the treaty extension.

It has already been tested three times but so far China is saying nothing.

The JL-3, the country’s most advanced submarine-launched long-range missile, is projected to be fully integrated with the PLA’s next generation of submarines in 2025, but China has not officially confirmed that it is even under development.

Nevertheless, it is still a threat and one of a number of missiles that could put the People’s Liberation Army within striking distance of the continental United States, according to an American military report.

Get the latest insights and analysis from our Global Impact newsletter on the big stories originating in China.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that President Biden is seeking a five-year extension of New START, the last nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia that is set to expire on February 5th.

The report cited two senior US officials, and Biden himself has previously said that he favors the extension. Russia’s stance on New START is that they are ready to make the five-year extension with no preconditions. Washington and Moscow appear to be able to be prepared to make an agreement, but they have to work quickly.

New START limits the number of missiles, bombers, and nuclear warheads each power can have deployed. If the treaty lapses, there will be no constraints on either country’s nuclear arsenal, and it could spark a new nuclear arms race.

A team of legal experts is set to file the first cases against the NATO alliance on behalf of people who developed cancer after being exposed to depleted uranium munitions during the Serbian bombings in 1999.

The first lawsuit is expected to be filed before the Higher Court in Belgrade on Wednesday, following years of extensive work by a team of legal experts led by lawyer Srdjan Aleksic. Dozens of other lawsuits will be filed before other courts across the country as well. The team is seeking to win compensation of at least €300,000 ($363,500) for each Serbian victim who developed cancer.

During the Cold War, the UK’s powerful nuclear arsenal was one of the key sticking points in disagreements between Moscow and Washington regarding the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe. In 1987, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to US demands and signed a treaty banning them. The US scrapped the agreement in 2019.

Although the UK’s nuclear arsenal is dwarfed by that of its principal ally, the US, to the point where President Donald Trump reportedly didn’t even know the country was a nuclear power at one point, Britain’s nukes are nevertheless a potent deterrent that can “devastate even the largest of countries”, The National Interest contributor Kyle Mizokami writes.

The commander overseeing the nation’s nuclear arsenal said Tuesday that any cuts to modernization efforts would force a reconsideration of America’s nuclear strategy just as adversaries China and Russia are advancing differing nuclear threats to America.

“Let me be very clear: You cannot life-extend Minuteman III,” began Adm. Charles Richard, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, describing the 50-year-old intercontinental ballistic missiles that form the land-based leg of America’s nuclear triad.

In recent months, progressive Democrats have questioned the need for expensive upgrades and the land-based component altogether, but Richard said such a delay would jeopardize America’s nuclear deterrent.

China's transporter erector launcher (TEL), which carries and fires DF-17 hypersonic missiles, has received a stealth camouflaged cover that makes it more challenging for the US and allies to identify via reconnaissance satellites, according to state-run newspaper Global Times.

TEL is a ground-based vehicle with an integrated prime mover (tractor unit) that can carry and elevate a DF-17 into a firing position.

The upgraded TEL was spotted in a video celebrating the founding of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force last week and was published initially on the Chinese website 81.cn.

According to the video, the camouflaged missile transporter has a hypersonic missile encased inside a shell as it traverses desert terrain.

For decades, U.S. policy makers have asked, “How do we get North Korea to give up nuclear weapons?” and have come up empty-handed. As the Biden administration prepares to take office, perhaps it’s time to ask a different question: “How do we get to peace with North Korea?”

Here’s the dilemma facing Washington. On the one hand, the U.S. doesn’t want to allow North Korea to have nuclear weapons because that may encourage other countries to do the same. (Washington is already busy trying to halt Iran’s nuclear ambition, while a growing number of conservative voices in Japan and South Korea are also calling for acquiring their own nukes.)

Every recent US administration has performed a perverse ritual as it has come into office. All have agreed to undermine US law by signing secret letters stipulating they will not acknowledge something everyone knows: that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal.

Part of the reason for this is to stop people focusing on Israel’s capacity to turn dozens of cities to dust. This failure to face up to the threat posed by Israel’s horrific arsenal gives its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a sense of power and impunity, allowing Israel to dictate terms to others.

But one other effect of the US administration’s ostrich approach is that it avoids invoking the US’s own laws, which call for an end to taxpayer largesse for nuclear weapons proliferators.

Moscow has ordered an advanced air-defense system to be readied for action on the remote Kuril Islands in the Sea of Japan, just days after claiming to have intercepted a US warship that sailed into Russian waters in the region.

Colonel-General Gennady Zhidko, the regional commander of the Air Defense Forces, personally inspected the S-300V4 missile launcher, and praised its operators' "training to act upon detection of any violation of the air borders of the Russian Federation in the Kuril Islands."

The news comes only a week after the country's navy reportedly threatened to ram the USS 'John McCain', a US destroyer, which it says was detected two kilometers inside Russian waters off the coast of the Far Eastern capital Vladivostok.

One of Russia’s state-of-the-art Borei class nuclear-powered submarines, Vladimir Monomakh, has test-fired a salvo of four intercontinental ballistic missiles for the first time ever, as part of a recent military drill.
Stunning footage released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Saturday demonstrates the moment sailors on the K-551 Vladimir Monomakh submarine man their battle stations before launching a devastating payload of RSM-56 Bulava (‘Mace’) ballistic missiles towards their target some 5,000 kilometers away.

The United Nations General Assembly called on Israel to “renounce possession of nuclear weapons” in a 153-6 vote on Monday, with 25 abstentions.
Israel was asked “not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons.”

video was released on November 23 by Sandia National Laboratories that shows a US F-35A fighter flying at supersonic speed 3000 meters above sea level, launching a B61-12 nuclear bomb (non-nuclear warhead equipped). The bomb did not fall vertically but glided until the tail section rocket ignition gave a rotational motion and the B61-12 (satellite-guided system) headed for the target and hit 42 seconds after launch. The test was carried out on August 25 at the Tonopah shooting range in the Nevada desert.

An official statement confirmed its full success: it was a real nuclear attack, proof that the fighter carried out at supersonic speed and in stealth attitude (with nuclear bombs placed in its internal hold) has the capability to penetrate through enemy defenses.

The assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh sent shock waves across the Middle East.

Tehran accuses Israel of being responsible for the brazen attack and has pledged retaliation. While proof for the accusation does not exist, Fakhrizadeh’s death fits a pattern previously linked to Israel – a long list of moves against officials in Iran and its nuclear programme, which Israel continues to consider perilous to its existence.

Could it be possible that the phrase “dark winter” has some sort of deeper meaning that most of us are not meant to understand? We have heard that phrase over and over again in recent weeks, and usually it has been used in discussions regarding the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it also turns out that “Dark Winter” was also a code name for a high level simulation that was conducted back in 2001. That simulation envisioned a scenario in which a widespread smallpox attack was unleashed inside the United States. As you will see below, the simulation was “designed to spiral out of control”, and the hypothetical consequences were absolutely disastrous.

Russia has called for the US to halt the deployment of nuclear weapons on the territory of NATO’s European members, arguing it both violates the terms of existing treaties and makes a devastating conflict more likely to happen.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told a meeting sponsored by energy companies Chevron and Transneft on Monday that Moscow “hopes that the United States will stop ‘sharing’ nuclear weapons with its allies, and stop deploying nuclear weapons in countries that do not possess such weapons… Obviously, this leads to destabilization, in addition, new risks appear,” he added, “and this is a violation of Articles 1 and 2 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

We recently highlighted the possibility that the US and China "may well be on the road to war, and nuclear war is no longer unthinkable." For years, we've discussed the relentless quest of Washington elites, preparing the empire for the inevitable collision with China as the battle for economic supremacy nears.

The rapid modernization of the military under the Trump administration, costing taxpayers $2 trillion, was an important signal in gauging Washington Warhawks' level of military preparedness as the threat of rising China increases by the day.

President Trump has described the trillions of dollars allocated to the military as a "colossal rebuilding" effort - something he says has 'never been done before.' Trump has routinely described all sorts of new military technology, including fifth-generation stealth jets, hypersonic missiles, and increased nuclear weapon capability.

Over five years ago we titled "Are missiles returning to Comiso? (Sicily)." [1] This hypothesis was ignored by the entire political spectrum and dismissed by some self-styled expert as "alarmist." The alarm, unfortunately, was well founded.

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

In August 2019 the United States withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing Russia's alleged violation of the agreement's terms.

Russian President Vladimir Putin Says US exit from Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was a "grave mistake" which creates the risk of a renewal of the nuclear arms race.

"We consider the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty, as a result of which it has ceased to operate, a serious mistake that increases the risks of unleashing a missile arms race, increasing confrontational potential and sliding into uncontrolled escalation," reads the statement cited by the Kremlin press service.

Recent satellite imagery suggests that Russia may be working to resume testing of its 9M730 Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile program in Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago above the Arctic Circle. This highly controversial missile, which is codenamed SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO, has suffered a number of mishaps during development work in the past, including a deadly explosion last year.

CNN was first to report that work might have resumed at the test site, drawing upon satellite images from Planet Labs that had been analyzed by researchers Michael Duitsman and Jeffrey Lewis at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Two U.S. officials also told CNN that they were aware that Russia “has been preparing to test missiles as part of its advanced weapons program.”

For one year the countries will cap deployed and non-deployed warheads both — the latter have never been part of a deal because they're impossible to verify

The US is urging countries that have ratified a UN treaty that bans nuclear weapons to withdraw their support for the pact. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is approaching ratifications from 50 countries, which is needed to bring the treaty into force.

The TPNW requires all ratifying countries “never under any circumstances … develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” The TPNW also bans the transfer or use of nuclear weapons and requires its participants to promote the treaty to other countries.

The Associated Press obtained the US letter to the signatories of the treaty. The letter says Washington’s NATO allies and the five original nuclear powers, the US, Russia, China, France, and the UK, all “stand unified in our opposition to the potential repercussions” of the TPNW.

On Tuesday, Moscow said it is ready to offer the US a mutual one-year freeze on both sides’ nuclear arsenals to extend the New START treaty for the same period. The freeze on warheads is a key US demand to extend the treaty, which will expire in February 2021 if an agreement is not reached.

“Russia offers to prolong New START for one year, and it is ready to take on the political obligation along with the USA to freeze the amount of its nuclear warheads for that period. This position can be implemented strictly on the understanding that the freezing of the warheads will not be accompanied by any additional demands from the side of the US,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

A fleet of B-52 bombers based at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana lined the runway ready for takeoff in a display of air power and American military might.

A group of eight of the Boeing Stratofortress' were pictured on October 14 in what is known as an 'Elephant Walk'.

An elephant walk is a procession of military aircraft taxiing close in formation right before a minimum interval takeoff.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to extend the last nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia for one year with no preconditions. The proposal to renew the New START, which will expire in February 2021, was almost immediately shot down by the US.

National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien called Putin’s offer a “non-starter” if Moscow does not agree to freeze its nuclear warheads. O’Brien said the US made a proposal to Moscow to extend the treaty for a year in exchange for Russia and the US to cap all nuclear warheads for that year.

In pursuit of nuclear deterrence, the United States has occasionally crossed over the line into schemes seemingly more appropriate for a James Bond movie than the defense budget, but few were as crazy as Project Iceworm.

Throughout the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union were locked in steady competition not only for the most capable and powerful nuclear weapons, but for novel approaches to deliver them.

Both world powers were aware that any nuclear attack would likely begin with strikes against the opposing nation’s nuclear arsenals aimed at limiting their capacity to respond in kind. As such, massive efforts were undertaken to make huge nuclear weapons mobile, hidden, or otherwise insulated from attack.

Numerous reports strongly suggest that Germany hosts certain amount of the American nuclear weapons as a member of the NATO alliance, but these reports remain unconfirmed on the official level.

The German Luftwaffe took part in secretive drills codenamed "Steadfast Noon", which involved the use of aircraft designed to carry nuclear weapons at times of war, Deutschen-Presse Agentur has reported. According to the news agency, the drills took place at Nörvenich Air Base in North Rhine-Westphalia land of Germany, which is believed to be a possible site hosting the US missiles, allegedly deployed in the country.

The DPA said the Luftwaffe was not using the actual nukes in the military exercise, but were rather practising the transportation of these armaments from the underground warehouses where they are purportedly stored, and training in attaching them to nuclear-capable aircraft.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to extend the last nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia for one year with no preconditions. The proposal to renew the New START, which will expire in February 2021, was almost immediately shot down by the US.

National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien called Putin’s offer a “non-starter” if Moscow does not agree to freeze its nuclear warheads. O’Brien said the US made a proposal to Moscow to extend the treaty for a year in exchange for Russia and the US to cap all nuclear warheads for that year.

The New START limits the number of missiles, bombers, and nuclear warheads each power can have deployed. The US wants other weapons to be included in a new arms control deal. Russia is open to further limitations for a future treaty but wants to extend New START as it is. Moscow has repeatedly offered to extend the treaty for five years with no preconditions, as the agreement allows.

At the start of this week it was widely reported that President Trump is seeking a last minute pre-election nuclear deal with Russia given the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is set to expire by this upcoming February.

Russia and the US have held recent talks for its five-year extension in Vienna and Helsinki within past weeks, but there's little substantial progress despite optimistic statements by the US delegation. Russia has consistently pushed for an unconditional five-year extension of the treaty, but it appears Putin is now ready for some level of compromise.

On Friday Putin informed the Russian Security Council of plans to push for an extension of at least one year without any preconditions.

New satellite analysis has found that China has expanded its capacity for building nuclear-powered submarines at one of its largest shipyards.

The US Naval Institute (USNI) news site reported this week that commercial satellite imagery has revealed work on a new construction hall at the Bohai shipyard – a major site for China’s nuclear submarine programme – that could make room for two additional submarines to be built simultaneously.

The latest hall resembles another one built there in 2015, which is believed to be intended for construction of a new generation of nuclear submarines, according to the report.

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This could mean the shipyard will have capacity for four or five submarines in the sheds at one time, including room for two more at the new hall and potentially another one at a third, older construction hall.

The Trump administration’s negotiations with Russia over the last nuclear arms control treaty between the two powers continue to falter. On Tuesday, Marshall Billingslea, President Trump’s envoy for arms control, said he believes the US and Russia reached an “agreement in principle” to extend the New START treaty temporarily, but Russia quickly rejected these comments.

Moscow’s top arms control negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, said in response to Billingslea’s comments that Washington’s proposal to renew the vital arms control treaty is “unacceptable.”

The New START limits the number of nuclear warheads each power can have deployed. Russia has offered to extend the treaty for five years with no preconditions, as the agreement allows. The US has been demanding additional concessions from Russia for a shorter extension.

On August 21st, six nuclear-capable B-52H Stratofortress bombers, representing approximately one-seventh of the war-ready U.S. B-52H bomber fleet, flew from their home base in North Dakota to Fairford Air Base in England for several weeks of intensive operations over Europe. Although the actual weapons load of those giant bombers was kept secret, each of them is capable of carrying eight AGM-86B nuclear-armed, air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) in its bomb bay. Those six planes, in other words, could have been carrying 48 city-busting thermonuclear warheads. (The B-52H can also carry 12 ALCMs on external pylons, but none were visible on this occasion.) With such a load alone, in other words, those six planes possessed the capacity to incinerate much of western Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg.

President Trump wants to seal a nuclear deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the November election. Top officials from both countries have been working ardently to meet the deadline, according to a report.

The two leaders have discussed arms control over a series of phone calls the pair shared in the past six months as their envoys negotiated in Vienna, Axios reported on Sunday.

The talks gained new momentum after Robert O’Brien, national security adviser, met with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, in Geneva on Oct. 2, leading Trump’s arms control envoy, Marshall Billingslea, to cut short a trip to Asia so he could huddle with Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov in Helsinki.

As the clock winds down on the last remaining U.S.-Russian arms control treaty, the United States and Russia remain locked in a stalemate with numerous obstacles blocking the path to prolonging the agreement. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration will only contemplate a short-term extension of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) if Russia agrees to a framework for a new trilateral treaty that verifiably covers all nuclear warheads, includes those of China in the future, and makes changes to the painstakingly negotiated New START verification regime.

Arms control talks between the US and Russia resumed in Helsinki on Monday as the fate of the New START hangs in the balance. Earlier reports indicated the negotiations were not going well, with the US demanding unreasonable concessions from Moscow. But a Trump administration official told The Wall Street Journal that the two sides are making progress and could agree on the framework for a new treaty soon.

“This is the first time the US has heard concrete proposals from the Russian Federation,” the official said after Monday’s talks. “We have an agreement on the way forward in terms of form. Where we have a lot of work to do is in terms of substance.”

President Trump’s envoy for arms control, Marshal Billingslea, said in a tweet that Monday’s meeting brought “important progress.”

The US anti-missile defense systems being installed near Russia’s borders can be “inconspicuously” transformed into offensive weapons, Vladimir Putin has said, adding that he knows “year by year” how Washington will develop its missile program.

Talking about NATO’s ballistic missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, Russia’s president said that the Americans are now deploying their missiles at these military complexes.

Russia and the United States will hold their latest round of nuclear arms control talks in Helsinki, Finland on Monday, following the last round in Austria over the summer.

The two major nuclear powers have yet to agree on the conditions for extending what's widely considered the most significant nuclear arms reduction treaty, New START, set to expire in February 2021 if the two sides don't agree to renew it. So far ongoing talks between Moscow and Washington have failed to extend it by up to five years, despite pressure to strike an extension by America's allies.

New START is the last remaining Russia/US arms control agreement.

Expiring on February 5, 2021 if not renewed, the Trump regime rejected Vladimir Putin’s offer to extend the agreement for another five years with no pre-conditions.

On September 28, Politico reported that Trump officials “asked the military to assess how quickly it could pull nuclear weapons out of storage and load them onto bombers and submarines if an arms control treaty with Russia” expires in February, citing three unnamed sources, adding:

The Trump regime “wants to underscore that it is serious about letting the treaty lapse if Russia fails to meet (its) demands.”

CHINA has unveiled its “ultimate doomsday weapon” during one of the nation’s biggest military parades.

The terrifying super-nuke took centre stage at a huge arms showcase held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, to mark 70 years of Communist rule.

For many decades governments around the world, especially in the USA, have fired tens of thousands of rounds of CS gas at their own people in an attempt to control “civil unrest”. The media falsely labels CS gas as “tear gas” rather than calling it what it is, poisonous gas. The original tear gas was relatively benign, irritating the eyes and mucus tissues but was not poisonous. CS gas, on the other hand, will kill you if you are exposed to enough of it.

CS gas is so toxic that it has been banned under international conventions governing the laws of war. In other words the USA, or any government signitory to these pacts, is not permitted to use CS gas in wartime against soldiers or civilians. To do so would be a War Crime or Crime Against Humanity. Yet these same governments commit Crimes Against Humanity almost every day, not hesitating to use poisonous CS gas against their own people.

The US has made Russia an offer it hopes she won’t refuse: accept a new arms control deal including no limits on NATO weapons in Europe, or deal with a modernized American nuclear arsenal on its doorstep.

Following the US’ unilateral withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty last year, the 2011 New START treaty remains the only arms control deal in force between Moscow and Washington. However, it’s due to expire in February, and negotiations to replace it remain deadlocked.

Now the US says it wants to extend New START by less than five years, and only by a memorandum of intent, rather than a binding treaty, according to Marshall Billingslea, US special presidential envoy for arms control, who spoke with the Russian daily Kommersant on Sunday.

In these final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign, U.S. voters’ attention is being consumed by a maelstrom of crises — a merciless pandemic, a battered economy, a society ruptured by racist police violence and deadly structural inequalities, climate chaos and a fragile democracy.

Who has time to worry about nuclear war?

But just as warnings of a climate crisis and pandemics have been borne out, experts have long sounded the alarm about nuclear weapons, whether their use is triggered by impulse, accident or miscalculation.

The Trump administration is looking for a foreign policy victory ahead of the November election in the form of nuclear concessions from Russia. The fate of the last nuclear arms control treaty hangs in the balance as the administration is leveraging its renewal to be tough on Moscow.

The New START limits the number of warheads each signatory can have deployed and includes a verification regime, and is set to expire in February 2021. Arms control talks between Washington and Moscow have been ongoing for months.

Moscow has repeatedly offered to extend the New START for five years without preconditions, as the treaty allows, but the US has so far rejected that offer. According to a report from CNN, the Trump administration has assessed that Russia is “desperate” to renew the New START and that they will be willing to make concessions to hold up the treaty.

Trump Administration officials have been saying this for weeks, but on Friday reiterated their intentions to try to enforce a UN Security Council resolution that includes broad sanctions against Iran. Officials say they expect every nation to comply.

The glaring problem with this is that the resolution doesn’t exist, at least not as an active resolution the US wants. The P5+1 nuclear deal gave the US the authority to reimpose sanctions on Iran, but the US had withdrawn from that pact years ago. Though the Trump Administration argued that didn’t matter, the UN has virtually unanimously rejected their interpretation, and rejected the UN Security Council resolution. The US believes the resolution becomes active Sunday, but the reality is it just doesn’t exist legally.

Current nuclear war plans are among any nuclear-armed military’s most closely guarded secrets. Details of one such attack plan recently became available, however, revealing that the United States envisaged using 80 nuclear weapons in case of war with North Korea. The way this particular detail emerged is also pretty unusual — the associated passage appeared in U.S. journalist Bob Woodward’s book Rage, detailing President Trump’s administration, which was published this week.

During the early 1950s War on Korea the U.S. used biological weapons against North Korea and China. Bombs designed to spread leaflets were filled with plague infested rats and dropped on Korean towns. Various infecting insects were released. Leaflets were contaminated with small pox and then distributed. Several local epidemics were caused by these attacks.

The program was a continuation of one which a special unit of the Imperial Japanese Army had developed during the second world war. Unit 731 and its leaders were not indicted for the war crimes they had committed during the war but integrated into the U.S. biological warfare program.

It is the belief held by top officials within the U.S. military industrial complex that their ideology of appropriate morality is to prevail and that one must use these mind-over-matter techniques to achieve the ultimate goal, “the power to manipulate reality”, that global dominance can be achieved without wiping out the world.

A PAKISTANI minister has threatened India with a nuclear attack in "the bloody last war" and says only Muslims will survive.

Sheikh Rashid made the threat of nuclear war, claiming that Pakistan has very precise weapons which are “small and perfect” and are able to target specific regions.

On Saturday we reported that Dr. Li-Meng Yan - a Chinese virologist (MD, PhD) who fled the country, leaving her job at a prestigious Hong Kong university - appeared last week on British television where she claimed SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, was created by Chinese scientists in a lab.

In the past few months, the Black Sea is a lot less quiet than it ought to be. A mostly land-locked sea with decades of treaties designed to keep interlopers from sending warships into the area willy-nilly, the source of tension is in the skies, with U.S. planes showing up just outside of Russian airspace. There have been times where such interceptions are reported twice or even thrice a week, usually with Russian Su-27 fight jets intercepting U.S. Navy surveillance planes that were moving to the outskirts of Russia’s airspace.

This culminated at the end of August, with an overflight by U.S. strategic bombers of the entire NATO alliance. Nominally a show of solidarity, it quickly became provocation when one of the bombers, a nuclear-capable B-52, made a beeline for the Black Sea, and headed for Russian airspace. An interception followed, and the usual U.S. complaining about how “unprofessional” that was. An incident with spy planes happened at the same time.

Danielle Stephens ran her fingers down a long list of her relatives' names and sighed.

All of them had been diagnosed with cancer. Most of them had died, many before they were 55.

Like Stephens, 81, they had all spent their lives in Kingman, Arizona, where during the Cold War they often watched the early morning sky lit up by orange flashes from atomic bombs detonated at a government testing site in the Nevada desert less than 150 miles north of the city.

"Back then, no one thought the tests were dangerous," said Stephens, who ran a cattle ranch with her husband.

Taiwanese warplanes intercepted Chinese planes and chased them off.

With military tensions surrounding Taiwan already on the rise, the island decided this would be a good time to conduct a series of missile tests from several areas. This sparked an immediate reaction from China, in the form of multi-role fighter jets.

The Defense Ministry reported the planes entered Taiwanese airspace early Wednesday, but that Taiwanese planes intercepted them and chased them back out of the area. China sent Su-30 and J-10 fighters. No serious incidents were reported.

Taiwanese officials condemned the “unilateral actions,” and tried to link them to President Tsai’s call for a coalition of democracies to defend freedom in the region. It seems clear, however, that the missile tests precipitated the reaction from China.

While Sino-US relations are set to dominate the Southeast Asia summit on Wednesday, foreign ministers of ten Southeast Asian countries could discuss the recent North Korean ballistic missile activity that suggests a launch could be nearing.

New commercial satellite imagery of North Korea's Sinpo South Shipyard, first revealed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), shows the rogue nation could be preparing to test-fire a Pukguksong-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from a submersible test stand barge.

CSIS wrote, "activity is also noted around the static test stand on the south side of the Sinpo South Shipyard where vehicles or equipment appear to be positioned around the rail-mounted service stand and test stand strong arm (used to raise a launch tube or missile into the vertical position for testing). Similar activity has been seen in the past, both for maintenance and before ejections tests."

Defense firm Northrop Grumman has announced it has landed a major defense contract to lead in developing America's Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program.

It won a whopping $13.3 billion Air Force contract to build the Pentagon's next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), crucial in nuclear deterrence.

A Northrop Grumman press release said that a team nationwide that will include over 10,000 engineers, scientists and technicians will spend eight-and-a-half years building the new missile, with an expected operational goal of 2029.

Both Congressional Democrats as well as arms control groups have remained fierce critics. Former Defense Secretary William Perry said in a statement in association with the nuclear nonproliferation group Ploughshares Fund, subsequently cited in The Hill, “The highest probability of starting a nuclear war is a mistaken launch caused by a false alarm and a rushed decision to launch nuclear-armed ICBMs.”

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has partnered with an Israeli-based startup, called Xtend, to pilot test the Skylord drone, initially developed for the gaming world, which would be used as a drone interception system on the modern battlefield.

The Skylord drone is small and extremely fast and uses a net to disable small enemy drones. Skylord is equipped with a camera and automatic tracking software. The operator can control the drone via virtual reality and augmented reality glasses.

"Using an augmented reality (A.R.) device and single-handed controller, a military operator may employ the ... system to control the drone and perform complex tasks remotely, with great ease and precision. Its interface enables the operator to immerse themselves or 'step into' a remote reality and engage targets effectively yet safely," according to a statement from Xtend.

A clandestine Saudi nuclear programme, revealed by whistle-blowers, has been confirmed by satellite images showing a large compound, in a suspicious location in the middle of the desert, a checkpoint, towering security fences, a big building about 150 feet on a side and pools for the collection of uranium waste; a typical blueprint for yellow-cake mills.

In one of its latest reports, The Wall Street Journal, has uncovered a facility constructed in a remote area in Saudi Arabia for extracting uranium yellow-cake from uranium ore. Ironically, the facility is located near a solar-panel production area.

Such undeclared nuclear capabilities in the hands of the KSA are extremely worrying, in light of the abysmal Saudi human rights record, the last thing anyone would wish for is a nuclear armed KSA.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has defended Washington’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia after a watchdog report said the State Department failed to “fully assess” the risk of civilian deaths in war-torn Yemen.

Pompeo said on Wednesday that his department “did everything by the book” in regards to arms sales to Riyadh in May 2019.

“I am proud of the work that my team did. We got a really good outcome. We prevented the loss of lives,” he claimed.

News / Foreign Policy
US Secretary of State Pompeo defends Saudi arms sales after damning watchdog report on Yemen
Thursday, 13 August 2020 9:24 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 13 August 2020 11:05 AM ]
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (L) talks with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during a rally with fellow Democrats before voting on H.R. 1, or the People Act, on the East Steps of the US Capitol on March 08, 2019 in Washington, DC. (AFP photo)

A new study for the US Air Force argues that a large-scale adversarial drone swarm attack could be classified as a "weapon of mass destruction" (WMD), a term commonly used to describe chemical, biological, or radioactive weapon capable of causing widespread death and destruction, reported Intelligent Aerospace.

Zachary Kallenborn, a senior consultant at ABS Group, specializing in drone swarms, WMD terrorism, and WMD warfare, authored the report for the Air Force Center for Strategic Deterrence Studies at Air University Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama where he makes the case that some weaponized drone swarm attacks could be viewed as a WMD:

"Drone swarms can also serve in traditional WMD roles. They would be highly effective as mass-casualty weapons, especially against soft targets," writes Kallenborn.

Drone swarming technology, one that is deployed in squadrons, able to autonomously operate in a pack, is the future of warfare on the modern battlefield.

Iran has urged the international community to pressure the Israeli regime into joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Deputy Representative of the Islamic Republic to the United Nations Es’haq Al-e Habib says the international community must force Tel Aviv to join the NPT and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to access its nuclear facilities considering the Israeli regime's destructive role in the region.

Addressing a virtual meeting on the anniversary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) on Thursday, Al-e Habib stressed that the destructive role of the United States and Israel has prevented the realization of a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Free Zone in the Middle East.

In what is a turn-up for the books, a senior voice of the Catholic Church made something of an impression this month that did not incite scandal, hot rage, or the commencement of an investigation. It did, however, agitate a few editors. Archbishop John C. Wester of San Fe, in speaking at the online Hiroshima Day vigil, had put up his hand to defy the validity and morality of nuclear weapons and, along with them, the idea of nuclear deterrence. One of the organisers of the event, the veteran peace activist Rev. John Dear, claimed it had “never happened before.”

Dear had a point. There has been a shift within Catholic ranks urged along by Pope Francis on that most fatuous of strategic doctrines, nuclear deterrence. Before the United Nations General Assembly in June 1982, Pope John Paul II chose to argue that nuclear “‘deterrence’ based on balance, certainly not as an end in itself but as a step on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable.”

“I fear Biden will choose war again,” Paul asserted. “He supported war in Serbia, Syria, Libya. Joe Biden will continue to spill our blood and treasure. President Trump will bring our heroes home.”

“If you hate war like I hate war, if you want us to quit sending $50 billion every year to Afghanistan to build their roads and bridges instead of building them here at home, you need to support President Trump for another term,” said Paul, who has long been a fierce critic of former President Obama's foreign policy, including overt intervention in Libya, and covert action toward destabilizing Syria.

The sites in question are a pair of sites that the IAEA has claimed might have been nuclear sites, based on Israeli allegations and US backing of Israeli allegations. The US has pushed the IAEA to investigate the sites.

Iran did grant the IAEA access before, and it didn’t find anything definitive one way or another. They’ve kept asking for extra visits, even though Iran insisted neither was relevant to their nuclear program, and that letting them just keep visiting keeps it unresolved forever.

This puts things in an endless loop, where the US will ensure the IAEA keeps saying the issue is open, and Iran can’t resolve the matter outright, and has to just keep responding or be accused of a coverup.

When the Trump administration withheld billions of dollars in security aid to Pakistan in 2018, the logic then was that the Pakistani military would be forced to form greater ties with the US and surrounding allies to reclaim lost aid.

Fast forward today, the new reality, Pakistan abandoned the West and its allies for China.

Pakistan quickly bolstered ties with China via billions of dollars in Belt and Road projects over the last two years. China has also provided the Pakistani military with aircraft, weaponry, and other advanced hardware. The cooperation between both countries has taken another giant leap as China just delivered the first of four "most advanced" warships to the Pakistani Navy, a move that will clearly upset India and the US.

Following reports that this is a specific concern of Israel, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he believes it is a “real risk” that Saudi Arabia will get nukes, and that the US views it as a “top priority” to try to prevent the Saudis from getting such arms.

Recent reports, all centering on the Israeli narrative, claim the Saudis are processing yellowcake uranium, and that they are getting secret help from China that could lead to the acquisition of nuclear arms in the future.

This is an unusual place for the administration to be in, as they general support arming the Saudis to the teeth, and Pompeo has repeatedly gone to bat for the idea that the Saudis need more arms for their “emergency” state. Those are US-made arms, of course.

Israel concerned Saudis might get nuclear arms with 'China's help'

Following reports that this is a specific concern of Israel, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he believes it is a “real risk” that Saudi Arabia will get nukes, and that the US views it as a “top priority” to try to prevent the Saudis from getting such arms.

Recent reports, all centering on the Israeli narrative, claim the Saudis are processing yellowcake uranium, and that they are getting secret help from China that could lead to the acquisition of nuclear arms in the future.

This is an unusual place for the administration to be in, as they general support arming the Saudis to the teeth, and Pompeo has repeatedly gone to bat for the idea that the Saudis need more arms for their “emergency” state. Those are US-made arms, of course.

A June memo noted the OBIGGS system, once believed to be fixed, is continuing to turn up manufacturing flaws that reduce F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin’s confidence that the plane can weather a direct lightning hit without blowing up.

“The F-35B as a composite type aircraft does not provide inherent passive lightning protection,” the US Marine Corps (USMC) said in 2018, when Marine Corps Times reported the service was buying 14 LBA Technology lightning rods to protect F-35Bs at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan.
"To be clear, lightning protection is widely considered a best practice for all flight line operations and is an essential safeguard for all aircraft, not just the F-35,” USMC spokesperson Capt. Christopher Harrison told the publication. “Procuring portable lightning rods simply provides a reliable, cost-effective precautionary measure to protect the aircraft when they are located elsewhere on the flight line.”

Update: Adding fuel to the fire that Coughlin describes below, Global Times Editor Hu Xijin tweeted the following earlier today:

The more US aircraft carriers come to the South China Sea and exert pressure on China, the more it will prompt the PLA to develop complete and reliable methods against them. Once a war begins, these aircraft carriers are more likely to become vulnerable targets.

Authored by Con Coughlin via The Gatestone Institute,

China's decision to launch a fresh round of military exercises close to the disputed territory of Taiwan demonstrates that Beijing's communist rulers have little intention of backing down in their increasingly provocative confrontation with America and its allies.

73 years ago, at 11:02 am on August 9th, 1945, an all-Christian bomber crew dropped a plutonium bomb, on Nagasaki, Japan. That bomb was the second and last atomic weapon that had as its target a civilian city. Somewhat ironically, as will be elaborated upon later in this essay, Nagasaki was the most Christian city in Japan and ground zero was the largest cathedral in the Orient.

These baptized and confirmed airmen did their job efficiently, and they accomplished the mission with military pride. There was no way that the crew could not have known that what they were participating in met the definition of an international war crime (according to the Nuremberg Principles that were very soon to be used to justify the execution of many German Nazis).

In retaliation for Washington slapping sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, along with several mainland officials, China on Monday has slapped sanctions on ten American lawmakers - all Republicans - over their support for the Trump Administration's decision to strip Hong Kong of its "special status" and America's hectoring of Chinese (and HK) officials over their support for the new Beijing-imposed national security law.

Critics, including the US, UK and most western Democracies, have accused Beijing of willfully violating international law by imposing these "illegal" changes to the HK Basic Law, a UN-registered international treaty. Now, Beijing is accusing the US of foreign meddling in Hong Kong.

Angry Lebanese plan major protest on Saturday, one day before team investigating explosion reports to cabinet.

Dozens of bags of fireworks were stored in the same hangar as thousands of tonnes of ammonium nitrate at Beirut’s port and may have been a decisive factor in igniting the explosive chemical compound that fuelled Tuesday’s huge explosion, a former port worker and other sources have told the Guardian.

As angry Lebanese plan a major protest in central Beirut on Saturday, scrutiny has focused on how 2,750 tonnes of the dangerous material could have been stored so close to residential neighbourhoods for years – despite repeated warnings of the risk it posed.

A former port worker, Yusuf Shehadi, told the Guardian he had been instructed by the Lebanese military to house the chemicals in warehouse 12 at the port despite repeated protests by other government departments.

Russia has deployed an advanced S-300 air defense system to Libya to support the forces of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar against the Turkish military and its proxies, local media reported on August 5.

According to photos surfacing online, the supposed S-300 system is deployed near the town of Ras Lanuf, a key oil export port controlled by the Libyan National Army (LNA). The town is located more than 200km away from the port city of Sirte, which the LNA is defending against Turkish-led forces.

The circulating photos supposedly show a 96L6E Cheese Board radar and a transporter erector launcher (TEL) similar to those used in S-300 and S-400 air-defense systems. This 3D early-warning and acquisition radar has a range of 300 km and can track up to 100 targets simultaneously.

China has delivered six military drones to Serbia after the Balkan country moved to purchase them in a controversial deal a year ago which has put NATO on edge.

Though Serbia has an official policy of military neutrality vis-a-vis NATO, there's been increased cooperation over the past few years. However, both the Chinese drone acquirement and Present's Aleksandar Vucic recently signaling he'd like to acquire the S-400 anti-air defense system from Russia has caused Washington to threaten sanctions.

Was President Harry Truman “a murderer,” as the renowned British analytic philosopher Gertrude Elizabeth Anscombe once charged? Were the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki indeed a war crime and a crime against humanity, as she and other academic luminaries have publicly claimed? A Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at Oxford and Cambridge, who was one of the 20th century’s most gifted philosophers and recognizably the greatest woman philosopher in history, Dr. Anscombe openly called President Truman a “war criminal” for his decision to have the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki leveled by atomic bombs in August 1945 (Rachels & Rachels 127). According to another academic critic, the late American historian Howard Zinn, at least 140,000 Japanese civilians were “turned into powder and ash” in Hiroshima.

There hadn’t been much word out of last week’s US-Russia nuclear talks in Vienna, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Wednesday that the two sides are working together and have made progress, though he continued to say he believes Chinese involvement is necessary to move forward.

China has been a stumbling block in the talks for months, as President Trump has insisted any new deals include limits on China, while China isn’t interested in getting involved in talks. To be fair, US and Russian nuclear arsenal size are many times that of China’s and limitations don’t make much sense in that context.

If anything gets China involved, it would be the Pentagon’s call for sea-launched nuclear arms, something China has objected to. At the same time, it’s not clear what China can offer in trade for limiting US first-strike capabilities.

There is a need to rule out the possibility of a nuclear war, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a message to the participants of a memorial ceremony in Hiroshima on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing.

When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open.
At a quarter past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite.

I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, then I walked down to the river where the survivors still lived in shanties.

I met a man called Yukio, whose chest was etched with the pattern of the shirt he was wearing when the atomic bomb was dropped.

He described a huge flash over the city, "a bluish light, something like an electrical short," after which wind blew like a tornado and black rain fell. "I was thrown on the ground and noticed only the stalks of my flowers were left. Everything was still and quiet, and when I got up, there were people naked, not saying anything. Some of them had no skin or hair. I was certain I was dead."

OURCE: ERIC ZUESSE
The great investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald gave an hour-long lecture on how America’s billionaires control the U.S. Government, and here is an edited summary of its opening twenty minutes, with key quotations and assertions from its opening — and then its broader context will be discussed briefly:

“How Congress Maintains Endless War – System Update with Glenn Greenwald” - The Intercept, 9 July 2020

2:45: There is “this huge cleavage between how members of Congress present themselves, their imagery and rhetoric and branding, what they present to the voters, on the one hand, and the reality of what they do in the bowels of Congress and the underbelly of Congressional proceedings, on the other. Most of the constituents back in their home districts have no idea what it is that the people they’ve voted for have been doing, and this gap between belief and reality is enormous.”

Today, an unprecedented campaign of propaganda is shooing us all off like rabbits. We are not meant to question the daily torrent of anti-Chinese rhetoric, which is rapidly overtaking the torrent of anti-Russia rhetoric. Anything Chinese is bad, anathema, a threat: Wuhan …. Huawei. How confusing it is when “our” most reviled leader says so.

The current phase of this campaign began not with Trump but with Barack Obama, who in 2011 flew to Australia to declare the greatest build-up of US naval forces in the Asia-Pacific region since World War Two. Suddenly, China was a “threat”. This was nonsense, of course. What was threatened was America’s unchallenged psychopathic view of itself as the richest, the most successful, the most “indispensable” nation.

While on a research trip to the Iraqi city of Basra in 1996, environmental engineer Souad Al-Azzawi encountered a mother taking care of three young children, all of them sick and unable to move on their own. With no idea why her children were ill, the mother hoped Al-Azzawi had come to help her family. Unfortunately, there was little Al-Azzawi—or anyone else—could do.

As the director of the doctoral program in environmental engineering at the University of Baghdad, Al-Azzawi had been researching radioactive contamination in Basra for years. She would go on to publish studies showing that cases of leukemia in children in Basra increased by 60 percent between 1990 and 1997, and that the number of children born with severe birth defects increased by a factor of three.

In a 227-179 vote Monday, the House passed an amendment to the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) specifically forbidding any spending to carry out a nuclear weapons test. President Trump is reportedly keen to conduct such a test.

The vote passed heavily on party lines, and will set up a fight to reconcile this NDAA with the Senate version, as the Senate’s version has an amendment from Sen. Cotton (R-AK) that sets aside $10 million specially to reduce the time required to conduct the test.

The US hasn’t conducted a test in decades, but President Trump sees a quick test as leverage to try to get his way on nuclear arms limitation talks, which have been stalled on US demands that China agree to participate.

A nuclear test is likely to fuel a strong international backlash, and provoke other nations to test. It will also make it difficult for the US to criticize other nations for their own nuclear development, when they are flagrantly ignoring international norms.

The UK needs to rethink its priorities in light of the economic destruction wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic. It can no longer afford to play in the big league by remaining a nuclear power.

Coronavirus has given the global economy a real kick in the teeth, with many countries seeing large swathes of their national economies grind to a halt. Total losses will reportedly amount to $12 trillion this year, equivalent to a five percent decline of the global economy.

The UK government has already spent an extra £190 billion since the start of the pandemic, well in excess of the nation’s entire annual healthcare budget, and it is believed that expenditure over the course of the current financial year (April 2020-April 2021) will amount to around £300 billion.