Why did no Australian media outlet tell us the easily discovered truth about the compromising of the integrity of the Australian submarine decision process revealed by US journalists last week?

On October 18th the Washington Post published a closely documented article by Craig Whitlock and Nate Jones titled “Former U.S. Navy Leaders Profited From Overlapping Interests On Sub Deal”.

A public call to ban The Grayzone by a UK Foreign Office veteran and psy-ops specialist confirms the malign intentions of British intelligence.

The Arvamusfestival (Opinion Festival) convened this August by the Estonian Foreign Ministry featured as its centerpiece an English-language panel on “how to deal with misinformation…in the interests of curbing its propagation.” 

BY KIT KLARENBERG

The Conservative (“Tory”) Party has been in power in the United Kingdom for 12 years, with a long line of forgettable Prime Ministers surfing over restive voters who demanded Brexit, reduced immigration, and more national sovereignty [How long have the Conservatives been in power and who were the Prime Ministers, by Caroline Westbrook, Metro, October 20, 2022].

The United Nations abruptly wrapped up its anti-torture mission to Australia on Sunday after inspectors were not allowed to visit numerous jails and detention centers in the country, according to the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT).

"Usually doors are only closed if officials have something to hide," Stuart Rees, Australian academic, human rights activist, and author, told Sputnik. "Too often, even in democracies, leading politicians like to think that their (outdated) views of sovereignty entitle them to ignore UN obligations. A certain authoritarianism implies that State forms of punishment and containment should never be challenged."

BY EKATERINA BLINOVA

The U.S. public relations firm helping Egypt organise COP27 also works for major oil companies and has been accused of greenwashing on their behalf, openDemocracy can reveal.

Hill+Knowlton Strategies, which has worked for ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and Saudi Aramco, is managing communications for Egypt’s presidency of the U.N. climate conference, which will take place next month in Sharm El Sheikh.

By Ben Webster and Lucas Amin
openDemocracy

The EU seeks to outright confiscate Russian assets rather than just freeze them, but the bloc has yet to lay the legal groundwork for doing so, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday.

The official delivered her remarks during a conference devoted to the rebuilding of Ukraine, which was attended by a number of Kiev’s prominent international donors.

“Our aim is not only to freeze, but to seize the assets,” she said, although cautioning that establishing a legal base for such a move is “not trivial.” 

According to von der Leyen, the EU has created a task force that includes various international experts “not only to map out what has been frozen,” but also to see what the legal preconditions would be for seizing Russian assets and using them for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, spent over an hour in a Ukrainian basement bomb shelter on Tuesday due to an air raid warning, his country’s state broadcaster ARD reported.

Correspondent, Rebecca Barth, posted an image of Steinmeier and other officials sharing a small room with a crowd of people on Twitter.

No aerial attacks on the city were reported during the day, and the incident coincided with Kiev making a strong appeal for Berlin to deliver Iris-T air defence systems.

To that end, Ukrainian officials had even placed Iris flowers in the president’s train carriage, while he travelled to Kiev, along with cards asking for the equipment.

Plastic recycling has turned out to be a “failed concept” used by global corporations as a “smokescreen,” Greenpeace USA has said, urging companies to focus on abandoning single-use plastic.  

In a report titled ‘Circular Claims Fall Flat Again’ and released on Monday, the environmental organization stated that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by US households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons, or 5%, were recycled. 

At least 15 retired US generals and admirals have taken exorbitant paychecks from the Saudi Defense Ministry since 2016, according to a Washington Post report published on Tuesday.

Over 500 former service members have advised foreign governments in arrangements that sometimes pay significantly more than a four-star general’s top annual salary of $203,698, the paper said.

Federal law requires retired military personnel to obtain government authorization to receive any sort of funding or gifts from foreign governments or state-owned firms. However, it’s largely a formality and approvals are “almost automatic,” with 95% of requests granted, according to the Post.

A midterm national election will be taking place in the United States in two weeks. American voters will, at least to a certain extent, be expressing their approval or disapproval on major issues like management of the economy and immigration, though they will curiously have no one to vote for if they are appalled by the nuclear brinksmanship that the Joe Biden administration has been engaging in with Ukraine and Russia.

BY PHILIP GIRALDI

I have covered enough wars to know that once you open that Pandora’s box, the many evils that pour out are beyond anyone’s control. War accelerates the whirlwind of industrial killing. The longer any war continues, the closer and closer each side comes to self-annihilation.  Unless it is stopped, the proxy war between Russia and the U.S. in Ukraine all but guarantees direct confrontation with Russia and, with it, the very real possibility of nuclear war.

BY Chris Hedges

New economic data shows that China’s policy of “Dynamic Zero Covid,” or maintaining the lockdowns-and-testing regimen long abandoned in the West as a tool for controlling COVID-19 outbreaks, was not the economic drag Western experts predicted it would be.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that the country’s gross domestic product increased by 3.9% in the third quarter of 2022 as compared to the previous year, China Daily reported. Moreover, in the first three quarters of 2022, China’s GDP grew by 3%.

History is but full of errors, of corrections, of misunderstandings, of biases, of confusions. Our desires to know — fostered by our tutors, are interfered with by our childish wishes to play games — are belittled by our commanders and sent on wild errands by priests. Armies need far more obedient fodder than they need philosophers and astronomers. Thus in order to kill more people, we need to know less. 

The historian owes the dead nothing but the truth.

             Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre

BY GUS LEONISKY

Competitors at the FIFA World Cup will grace stadia built in near-slave labour conditions and enjoy the receptions and hospitality of a state with a brutal penal system.

Sports stars are often adored like dumb show animals, suitably pretty, happily disposed to the cause they are paid for. For the FIFA Men’s World Cup being held in Qatar next month, football can count on the face of former English star David Beckham as its prized animal. This month, the principle-free player signed a 10-year contract worth £150 million to be the state’s culture and tourism ambassador.

THE SAUDI-LED oil cartel OPEC+’s announcement earlier this month that it was cutting 2 million barrels of oil per day — a move that would drive up the price of oil just a month before midterm elections — rankled Democrats in Washington. They accused Riyadh of aligning itself with Russia, another powerful member of OPEC+, which would indeed profit off the move. “What Saudi Arabia did to help Putin continue to wage his despicable, vicious war against Ukraine will long be remembered by Americans,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

BY Ken Klippenstein