saucisson

London (AFP) – The United States, Britain and Australia said Tuesday they would begin collaborating on hypersonic missile strike and defence capacity, as rivals Russia and China advance rapidly in the cutting-edge technology.

The trio said they would work on hypersonics in an expansion of their recent AUKUS defence alliance, which is to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines to counter China's growing military clout.

They pledged "new trilateral cooperation on hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, and electronic warfare capabilities" in a statement by US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Ukraine will look to Israel for inspiration concerning its future security arrangements, arguing that an “absolutely liberal” Kiev is now “impossible” after Moscow’s attack in late February.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, the president said security would be the “number one” issue for Ukrainians for the next decade, even going so far as to forecast a lasting armed military presence in the streets.

Priti Patel, who will soon decide whether to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher, has links to a group that has attacked Assange in the media for a decade, Matt Kennard reports. 

By Matt Kennard 
Declassified UK

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is spruiking the coalition’s accomplishments claiming, ‘Our Government’s economic plan to create more jobs is working’. However, his statistics based on these claims crumble under scrutiny.

In essence, there are five claims he tweeted recently:

• unemployment has dropped to 4% in Feb;
• 77,000 jobs were created;
• the participation rate is at a record high;
• female unemployment is at a 48 year low of 3.8%; and
• 375,000 more Aussies are in work than pre-COVID-19.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered anger, vitriol, and bigotry in the United States and much of the democratic West. It is an atmosphere of intolerance that surpasses the immediate post-9-11 period (especially the lead-up to the Iraq War) and even the height of McCarthyism in the early and mid-1950s. Indeed, it is reminiscent of the toxic ideological environment in the United States during World War I.

The EU is clearly on a diplomatic war path vis-à-vis China. In the most recent (April 1, 2022) virtual EU-China summit, the Europeans clearly told Beijing that the latter’s support for Russia in its ongoing military operation in Ukraine will have a serious cost i.e., a rupture in the EU-China economic ties. China, on the other hand, emphasised the need to treat EU-China ties separately from the crisis unleashed by the US’ irresponsible push for NATO’s eastward expansion to encircle Russia. Beijing has also emphasised that the EU needs to follow an independent foreign policy.

Americans find it difficult to determine whether the Biden administration’s policy decisions regarding Ukraine are the product of a deliberate strategy, extraordinary incompetence, or some combination of both.

Ten days into the Russian intervention, the propaganda coming out of Kiev was already so preposterous The New York Times felt compelled to publish a piece headlined, “In Ukraine’s Information War, a Blend of Fact and Fiction.” This was a baldly rendered apologia for the many “stories of questionable veracity,” as The Times put it, then in circulation. I do love The Times for its delicate phrasing when describing indelicate matters.

BY Patrick Lawrence

Documents expose how Australian government misled citizens

The authorities have sought to undermine digital privacy since at least 2015

Qatari state news outlet Al Jazeera has published previously unseen, and heavily redacted documents, on Tuesday, which paint a troubling picture of the closed-door conversations that preceded the implementation of Australia's Assistance and Access Act. It comes after the broadcaster grappled with the Canberra government for nearly five years over a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in relation to the far-reaching legislation, announced in 2017, that became law the following year. 

If the Russian army has won the war against the Banderites in Ukraine, Nato has won the cognitive war against its own citizens in the West. The Atlantic Alliance has developed a new form of propaganda based on what it denounced a short time ago: Fake News, that is to say not false information, but biased information. How to protect yourself from it?

COGNITIVE WAR - RISING TENSIONS (13)

The war propaganda changes its shape

by Thierry Meyssan

This article is a follow-up to : 

Western media has attempted to defend Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from accusations that his government is closely linked to neo-Nazi forces by highlighting that he is a Russian-speaking Jewish man, as well as by refusing to disclose that groups like the Azov Battalion are fascist and complicit in crimes against humanity.

In an April 1 interview with Fox News, Zelensky was asked about the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and its presence in the country’s armed forces - a question almost no other Western media outlet has dared to ask him.

In an appearance on the MSNBC show Velshi, The Modern War Institute’s John Spencer explicitly advocated direct U.S. military conflict with Russia due to allegations of war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday defended her 2008 decision to impede Ukraine from joining NATO, in response to criticism by the country’s authorities.

Merkel and French ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy were blasted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who urged the former officials to come to the country to witness the alleged mass killings of civilians pinned by Kiev on Moscow.

“I invite Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years,” Zelensky said in an overnight video address, blasting the Franco-German initiative to block Ukraine’s ascension into NATO back in 2008 as a “miscalculation.”

PUTIN: — They've hated my guts for the last 20 years... How de we endear ourselves to the West?...

LAVROV: — I know... Indulge in a few war crimes...

P: — Sounds terrible!...

L: — It is, but we've got great role models...

P: — Who?

L: — The USA...

P: — You're kidding me...

L: — They do war crimes all the time and EVERYONE loves them!

P: — But we really don't want to hurt anyone, except the Ukrainian military and the Nazis...

L: — Don't worry, the Ukrainian secret services have been trained in Hollywood...

P: — What do you mean?

L: — They've become expert at staging fake innocent deaths with tomato sauce...

P: — You mean fake Cinema Vérité? But the US do WAR CRIMES for real...