The US is preparing Australia to fight its war against China
The United States is not preparing to go to war against China. The United States is preparing Australia to go to war against China.
Defence and military weapons manufacturing industries in Australia are now largely owned by US weapons corporations – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Thales, NorthropGrumman. The deep integration of Australia’s defence industries and economy into the US military-industrial complex greatly influences Australia’s foreign/defence policies.
The Threat. All these preparations are justified by the false premise that China presents a military threat. China has not invaded anywhere. It has never proposed use of force against other countries. It has enshrined in its Constitution the ‘Three No’s – No military alliances; No military bases; No use, or threat to use, military force. China has, however, reserved the right to use force to prevent secession by Taiwan.
Guardian, By John Lander, Feb 1, 2023 Edited transcript of a speech to the Committee for the Republic, Salon, 18 January 2023.
The ANZUS Treaty
A look at the ANZUS Treaty and the way it has been manipulated over time will explain why I have come to this conclusion.
Originally defensive in concept, the ANZUS Treaty was seen by Australia from its very beginning as a means to “achieve the acceptance by the USA of responsibility in SE Asia” (Percy Spender) to shield Australia from perceived antagonistic forces in its region. It has, however, developed into an instrument for the furtherance of US ability to prosecute war globally – previously in Iraq and Afghanistan, currently against Russia and potentially against China.
The ANZUS Treaty, usually referred to in reverential tones as “The Alliance”, has been elevated to an almost religious article of faith, against which any demur is treated as heresy amounting to treachery. Out of anxiety to cement the US into protection of Australia, the Alliance has been invoked as justification for Australia’s participation in almost every American military adventure – or misadventure – since WW II.
Unlike NATO or the Defence Treaty with Japan, the ANZUS treaty actually provides no guarantee of protection, merely assurances to consult on appropriated means of support in the event that Australia should come under attack.
On the other hand, the Alliance has facilitated the steady growth of American presence in Australia, to the point that it pervades every aspect of Australian political, economic, financial, social and cultural life. Australians fret about China “buying up the country”, but American investment is ten times the size.
They are unaware or uncaring that almost every major Australian company across the resources, food, retail, mass media, entertainment, banking and finance sectors has majority American ownership. Right now US corporations eclipse everyone else in their ability to influence our politics through their investment in Australian stocks.
The transfer of Australian assets to American ownership has continued unabated: In the second half of 2021 then Treasurer Josh Frydenberg approved the transfer of $130 billion of Australian assets to foreign private equity funds, benefiting Goldman Sachs who facilitated the transactions, by multimillions of dollars. Josh Frydenberg now is employed by Goldman Sachs:
- Sydney Airport – Macquarie Bank led by a NY investment banker
- AusNet (electricity infrastructure) $18 billion takeover by Brookfield – NY via Canada
- SparkInfrastructure (electricity) $5.2 billion takeover by American interests
- AfterPay financial transaction system $39 billion takeover
- Healthscope, second-biggest private hospitals group (72 Hospitals) taken over by Brookfield and now controlled in the Cayman Islands.
The USA and the UK between them represent nearly half of all foreign investment. China plus Hong Kong represents 4.2%. The 4 big “Aussie” banks are dependent on foreign capital which dictate local banks’ policies and operations.
Defence and military weapons manufacturing industries in Australia are now largely owned by US weapons corporations – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Thales, NorthropGrumman. The deep integration of Australia’s defence industries and economy into the US military-industrial complex greatly influences Australia’s foreign/defence policies.
That, plus US capture of Australia’s intelligence and policy apparatus through the “Five Eyes” network and ASPI (which has lobbyists from American arms manufacturers on a Board headed by an operative trained by the CIA) means that the US is able to swing Australian policy to support America in almost all its endeavours.
Despite the fact that it contains no guarantee of US protection of Australia, the Treaty and further arrangements under its auspices, such as the 2014 Force Posture Agreement and now AUKUS, have greatly facilitated US war preparation in Australia. This has accelerated exponentially in the past few years. The US now describes Australia as the most important base for the projection of US power in the Indo-Pacific.
Indicators of war preparations
* 2,500 US marines stationed in Darwin practicing for war with the Australian Defence Forces, soon to include the Japanese Defence Forces
* Establishment of a regional HQ for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Darwin
* Lengthening the RAAF aircraft runways in Northern Territory at our expense for servicing US fighters and bombers
* Proposed stationing of 6 nuclear weapons-capable B52 Bombers at RAAF Tindal in NT
* Construction of massive fuel and maintenance facilities in Darwin NT for US aircraft
* Proposed acquisition of eight nuclear-propelled submarines at the cost of $170 billion for hunter-killer operations in the Taiwan Strait
* Construction, at the cost of $10 billion, of a deep water port on Australia’s east coast for US and UK nuclear powered and nuclear missile-carrying submarines
* The long-established satellite communications station known as Pine Gap in central Australia has recently, and is still being, expanded and upgraded. It is key to the command and control of US forces in the Indo-Pacific (and even as far afield as Ukraine)
The Government and right wing anti-China analysts and commentators, whose opinions dominate main stream media, accept the Defence Minister’s contention that this militarisation enhances Australia’s sovereignty by strengthening the range and lethality of Australia’s high-end war-fighting capability to provide a credible deterrent to a potential aggressor.
Many analysts and commentators outside the governing elite, including myself, argue that these arrangements effectively cede Australian sovereignty to America. This is especially because of the provisions of the Force Posture Agreement of 2014, entered into under the auspices of ANZUS.
I understand that a paper has been circulated to the Committee, expounding the details of the FPA, so in summary, it gives unimpeded access, exclusive control and use of agreed facilities and areas to US personnel, aircraft, ships and vehicles and gives Australia absolutely no say at all in how, when where and why they are to be used.
All Australian analysts, whether sympathetic or antipathetic to China, agree on one point. That is, that if the US goes to war against China over the status of Taiwan, or any other issue of contention, Australia will inevitably be involved.
The Threat
All these preparations are justified by the false premise that China presents a military threat. China has not invaded anywhere. It has never proposed use of force against other countries. It has enshrined in its Constitution the ‘Three No’s – No military alliances; No military bases; No use, or threat to use, military force. China has, however, reserved the right to use force to prevent secession by Taiwan.
It has recently rapidly increased its defence capability in response to the fearsome US naval presence and war-fighting exercises just off its coastline. Its defence budget is one third that of the US and the bases that it has constructed in the South China Sea pale into insignificance compared to the hundreds of bases that the US has ranged all around China.
So, if China is not a military threat, why is it designated as the primary systemic threat of the collective West, led by the US? The answer lies in the word “systemic”. China has expressed a determination to revamp the global financial system to make it fairer for developing countries. Kissinger is reputed to have said: “If you control money, you control the world”. The US currently controls world finance and China (with Russia) is out to change that.
The US, which played the leading part in the establishment of the post-World War II institutions, has become a leading revisionist, abandoning the UN for “coalitions of the willing”. The US has declined to join important Conventions like those on the Law of the Sea and on Climate. It has refused to accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, and has exempted itself from the Genocide Convention. It has played a leading part in the weakening of the World Trade Organisation by imposing trade restrictions on other countries, while not agreeing to new appointments to the WTO’s appellate tribunal, so preventing that body from functioning.
China is the second-largest (or by some calculations, the largest) economy in the world. It is the major trading partner of over 100 countries, mainly in the global south, but including Australia and a number of other Western countries. Hence China has the clout to undermine the “international rules-based order” set up by, and for the benefit of, the West.
China has already established an alternative to the Anglo-American international financial transaction system: – the Cross-border Interbank Payments System CIPS, (in which, ironically a number of Western banks are shareholders). In collaboration with Russia and within the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa) China is creating an alternative to the almighty dollar as the preferred currency for trade and for national reserve holdings.
It seems that the US has concluded that, since it can’t constrain China economically, it will have to get it bogged down in a long-drawn-out war to hinder its economic growth and hamper its infrastructure development cooperation with other countries. On 25 March 2021 President Biden vowed to prevent China from overtaking the US as the most powerful country in the world – “not on my watch” he said.
Nevertheless, the latest CSIS computer modelling, like previous modelling by the Rand Corporation, indicates that all involved in a Sino-US war would lose.
Proxy War
All of these analyses overlook one significant point. US determination to pursue the Wolfowitz doctrine of preventing the rise of any power that could challenge US global supremacy (neither Russia, nor Europe, nor China) has not diminished, but has morphed into a strategy of fighting its adversaries by proxy.
This has been clearly demonstrated by the war in Ukraine. A White House press briefing on 25 January 2022, before the Russian intervention, stated that “the US, in concert with its European partners, will weaken Russia to the point where it can exercise no influence on the international stage”.
Political leaders from Biden, through Pelosi and on to Members of Congress have told Ukraine that “your war is our war and we are in it for as long as it takes”. Congressman Adam Schiff put it bluntly that “we support Ukraine… to fight Russia over there, so that we don’t have to fight it over here”.
In the case of China, defined in the NDS as the principal threat to the US, the proxy of choice is clearly Taiwan. The strategy envisages:
• a world-wide media campaign (going on for several years already) to portray China as the aggressor;
• goading China into taking military action to prevent Taiwan’s secession;
• leaving Taiwan to conduct its own defence, with constant resupply of arms and equipment from the US, at great profit to the military/industrial complex;
• sustaining Taiwan sufficiently to keep China ‘bogged down’, thus hampering its economic development and its infrastructure cooperation with other countries;
• avoiding direct military engagement, in order to maintain the full capacity of US forces, while China’s would be significantly depleted; Although Biden has publicly re-affirmed adherence to the ‘One China’ principle, the US has been goading China by;
• stationing the bulk its naval power off the coast of China;
• ‘freedom of navigation’ and combat exercises in the South China Sea and Taiwan Straits;
• visits by senior US officials using US military aircraft;
• creation of a putative ‘Air Defence Identification Zone’ (ADIZ) extending well over mainland territory and then alleging Chinese violation of it;
• secretly providing military training personnel (whilst denying it);
• including Taiwan in the Summit for Democracy (9-10 December 2021), implying it is a separate country;
Many Australian politicians, (although not the present government), joined in goading China, by encouraging Taiwan to consider the possibility of declaring independence, which would trigger military action by China.
If Australia were to make good on its promise to ‘save Taiwan’, it would be devastated:
• The Australian navy would be obliterated, given the disparity between China’s and Australia’s forces;
* command/control centres (and possibly cities) in Australia could be wiped out by Chinese missiles. Australia has no anti-missile defence;
• To preserve its own assets, and to forestall the descent into nuclear conflict, the US would not engage directly in defence of Australia;
• US ‘support’ would be through massive arms sales to replace our losses – just as in Ukraine – at further profit to the US military/industrial complex;
• ASEAN is unlikely to support Australia. It has renewed and up-graded its Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China. Each member country has infrastructure projects under China’s BRI, which they would not want to jeopardise in a ‘no-win war’;
Support from India is unlikely, despite its membership of the Quad – which is nothing more than a consultative dialogue. India has security commitments to China under the SCO and gets its arms from Russia, which has a “better than treaty” relationship with China.
• Australia relies heavily on China for many daily necessities. In a war, deliveries from China would be severely disrupted.
The increasing size of China’s economic (and, by extension military) strength, to which Australia contributes important resources and from which it derives so much benefit, is portrayed as a threat to Australia’s security. This has Australia trapped in the absurd policy paradox of preparing to go to war against China to protect Australia’s trade with China.
Recent developments in Taiwan, particularly the county and municipal elections, which caused the President, Tsai Ingwen, to resign her leadership of the pro-Independence Party, suggest that Taiwan prefers the status quo and is unwilling to be the proxy of the US in a war with Beijing.
Australia thus becomes the potential proxy.
In the name of the Alliance, American service personnel (active and retired) are now embedded in Australian defence policy making institutions and in command and control positions within the ADF. All of the American military assets installed in Australia under the Alliance and the AUKUS deal, are now “interchangeable” with the ADF, making it possible to use them as putative Australian forces against China, while the US stands aside and maintains the same pretence of “no engagement”, as it is doing in Ukraine.
This is why I said at the beginning that the US is preparing to send Australia to war against China.
Whilst these are the dangers that the ANZUS Alliance poses for Australia if the US instigates a war against China, there are risks for the US also.
1. There would be crippling expense that further exacerbates the US wealth divide and related domestic political breakdown. Supplying the weaponry and everything else required for a proxy war with China would be a bigger drain on the US budget than the Ukraine conflict. The expenditure would flow back to the military industrial complex, constituting a further massive transfer of wealth from the ordinary taxpayer to the plutocrat billionaires. It would blow out the already unsustainable national debt, and either take away from expenditure on essential services and infrastructure, or, if they print money, further blow out inflation. The political and social breakdown that the US is already suffering as a consequence of its real economic decline and widening wealth gap could only intensify to breaking point.
2. The slide into a direct war would probably be inevitable. Planning a proxy war is all very well as an academic exercise, but sticking with those plans when the fighting starts will be very difficult. There are already lunatic politicians and “experts” in the US who think America can win a direct war, so when China starts bombing Australia, and good old Aussie “mates” are dying in massive numbers, the voices of those in the US advocating direct engagement will be amplified. Combined with the already extreme polarisation of US politics in which ONLY war is bipartisan, the risk that extremists will take the US into direct conflict, and a nuclear showdown with China, is very serious.
3. The folding in of Japan into the AUKUS arrangements will increase the risk that Japan would be obliged to assist Australia in any military conflict with China. The US, because of its Defence Treaty with Japan, would then be obliged to join in the fighting, vitiating its plan to avoid direct military engagement.
A point of historical irony:
I’ll wind up with a bit of historical irony, in which I was personally involved:
In the early 70’s, we had been kept completely in the dark about the secret Kissinger visits to China, until the plan for Nixon to visit was announced. Feeling blindsided by a momentous change in US policy towards China, we produced Policy Planning Paper QP11/71 of 21 July 1971.
It recognised.. “political disadvantage resulting from the manner in which the United States conducts its global policies” and argued that this would mean that. “The American alliance, in a changing power balance, will mean less to us than it has in the past.”
It went on:
“If anything, this argument has been strengthened by recent United States actions and America’s failure to consult us on issues of primary importance to Australia. Accordingly, we shall need, now more than ever, to formulate independent policies, based on Australian national interests and those of our near neighbours…”
This is even more true today than it was in the 1970’s. For example, Australia was not consulted in the precipitate US withdrawal from Afghanistan, despite our role as ‘loyal’ supporter of the US in that ill-advised conflict. Our indignant protestations were met with Biden’s statement that “America acts only in its own interests”.
Our present predicament is due largely to the failure of a succession of Australian Governments to take this analysis to heart and act upon it. Prime Minister Fraser, who replaced Whitlam, ironically came to a very similar view towards the end of his life, which he set forth in detail in his book ‘Dangerous Allies’, but too late to do anything about it. He identified the paradox that Australia needs the US for its defence, but it only needs defending because of the US.
A couple of pertinent quotes, first from the late Jim Molan:
“Our forces were not designed to have any significant independent strategic impact. They were purely designed to provide niche components of larger American missions.”
We were, in his view, abdicating our own defence and cultivating complete dependence on the Americans.
And from Chris Hedges:
“Finally, the neo-cons who have led the U.S. into the serial debacles of Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Ukraine, costing the country tens of trillions of dollars and even greater amounts of destroyed reputational capital, will claim their customary immunity from any accountability for their savage failures and cheerily move on to their next calamity. We need to be on the lookout for their next gambit to pillage the treasury and advance their own private interests above those of the nation. It will surely come.”
An (incomplete) list of some of the commentators from whom I have drawn:
John Menadue – former secretary PM&C
Richard Tanter – military analyst, Nautilus Foundation
Brian Toohey – author (political and historical analysis)
Mike Scrafton was a senior Defence executive, and ministerial adviser to the minister for defence
Paul Keating was the prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996.
Geoff Raby AO was Australia’s ambassador to China (2007–11); He was awarded the Order of Australia for services to Australia–China relations and to international trade.
Gregory Clark began his diplomatic career with postings to Hong Kong and Moscow. He is emeritus president of Tama University in Tokyo and vice-president of the pioneering Akita International University.
Dr Mike Gilligan worked for 20 years in defence policy and evaluating military proposals for development, including time in the Pentagon on military balances in Asia.
Jocelyn Chey AM is Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney and Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University and UTS. She formerly held diplomatic posts in China and Hong Kong. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
Joseph Camilleri is Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, and President of Conversation at the Crossroads
David S G Goodman is the Director, China Studies Centre, University of Sydney.
Geoff Miller was Director-General, Office of National Assessments, deputy secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador to Japan and the Republic of Korea, and High Commissioner to New Zealand.
Cavan Hogue was Ambassador to USSR and Russia. He also worked at ANU and Macquarie universities.
‘We need a plan B’: Unions have ‘deep concerns’ about AUKUS pact.
The shipbuilding federation – which represents unions including the AMWU, Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Workers Union – is urging the government to build an additional six conventionally powered submarines in Australia before the arrival of a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
The shipbuilding federation – which represents unions including the AMWU, Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Workers Union – is urging the government to build an additional six conventionally powered submarines in Australia before the arrival of a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
Matthew Knott, February 7, 2023 https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/we-need-a-plan-b-unions-have-deep-concerns-about-aukus-pact-20230206-p5ciaf.html
Labor’s traditional union allies say they harbour deep concerns about Australia’s plan to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and fear the AUKUS pact will not deliver the promised bonanza of Australian manufacturing jobs.
The federal government is preparing to announce the details of its nuclear-powered submarine plan in March, with preparation under way for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to travel to Washington for a possible joint press conference with US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
During a visit to Washington over the weekend, Defence Minister Richard Marles said AUKUS would create “thousands” of new local jobs and expressed confidence Australia would not be left with a capability gap between the retirement of the current Collins class fleet and the arrival of nuclear-powered vessels.
Despite Marles’ assurances, Australian Shipbuilding Federation of Unions national convener Glenn Thompson said he remained “apprehensive” about a possible capability gap and urged the government to develop a backup plan in case AUKUS falls over.
“It’s one thing to say that this is going to create thousands of jobs, but you actually have to be able to build something well in advance of whatever AUKUS comes up with,” said Thompson, an assistant national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU).
“It’s of great concern to us about where the workforce is coming from and how are we addressing the issue of Australia’s sovereignty.”
Thompson noted there had been no pledge from the government that AUKUS would create as many local jobs as the 5000 positions promised under the cancelled contract with French company Naval Group.
The shipbuilding federation – which represents unions including the AMWU, Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Workers Union – is urging the government to build an additional six conventionally powered submarines in Australia before the arrival of a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
Marles last week stated definitively that the government “has no plans for any conventionally powered interim submarine capability, as we move towards gaining the nuclear-powered submarine capability”. Senior defence figures, including in the Navy, have fiercely resisted the idea of an interim conventional submarine.
“There’s a whole lot of uncertainties,” Thompson said of the AUKUS pact. “I just think from a capability perspective the country needs to have a plan B.”
Thompson said he feared local construction of the nuclear-powered submarines would not begin until the late 2040s or early 2050s, a decade after the Collins-class vessels begin being decommissioned.
“It’s very rare that these defence projects deliver on time,” he said. “By the mid-2040s you could have two-thirds of the existing fleet retired, so there could be a substantial capability gap.”
Marles told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age last month that AUKUS would be “a genuine three-country collaboration”, raising expectations Australia will acquire a joint next-generation submarine model combining American and British technology.
While not specifying what proportion of the submarines would be built in Australia, Marles said the Osborne Naval Shipyard in Adelaide would play a major role in the project.
“We must develop an industrial capability in Australia,” he said. “That’s the only way this can work, and that’s what will be expected of us by both the UK and the US.”
Marles told parliament on Monday the government was “on track” to make its AUKUS announcement in the very near future.
He said while there had been a “very real potential of a capability gap opening up with our submarines, I am confident that the pathway we announced will provide a solution to this”.
Newcastle radiation risk: Police call in EPA to help remove radioactive device from burnt out vehicle at Merewether
By Madeline Link, February 8 2023, POLICE have called in the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to help remove a radioactive device from a burnt out vehicle found at Merewether Golf Course…………… (Subscribers only) https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/8077712/radiation-risk-police-call-in-epa-to-help-remove-radioactive-device-from-burnt-out-car/
Penny Wong overruled department by sending observer to anti-nuclear treaty meeting
The Labor party committed to sign and ratify the treaty after considering a range of factors that appear to be high hurdles to pass.
FOI documents reveal officials were nervous that going to Vienna gathering would be a sign of Australia wanted to join the treaty
Penny Wong overruled her department and insisted on sending an observer to the first meeting of countries that support a landmark United Nations treaty banning nuclear weapons, new documents reveal.
A trove of documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws shows nervous officials warned the foreign minister of “significant” risks if Australia went to the gathering in Vienna shortly after last year’s election.
Those risks included that “Australia’s attendance could be misinterpreted as a first step” in actually joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which is opposed by the United States and other nuclear weapons states.
Despite Anthony Albanese championing the treaty prior to forming government, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade also issued a general warning that joining the agreement “could carry risks for our strategic interests”.
The relatively new treaty imposes a blanket ban on developing, testing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons – or helping other countries to carry out such activities.
It now has 92 signatories, 68 of which have formally ratified it, and is strongly backed by neighbours such as Indonesia and New Zealand.
Australia has not yet taken steps to join the treaty, and continues to consider its position. The Labor party committed to sign and ratify the treaty after considering a range of factors that appear to be high hurdles to pass.
Defence Minister insists nuclear submarine deal will not damage Australia’s sovereignty
By Richard Wood • Senior Journalist 9 News, Feb 9, 2023
Defence Minister Richard Marles is hitting back at claims the AUKUS military alliance will undermine the future of Australia’s military sovereignty.
In a speech to Parliament today, he will seek to ease worries that the defence pact between Australia, Britain and the US poses any risk.
Former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Turnbull have critcised AUKUS, saying it makes Australia too dependent on the US…………
Marles’ speech to MPs comes ahead of next month’s announcement about the type of nuclear-propelled submarine technology Australia will obtain. https://www.9news.com.au/national/aukus-submarine-pact-will-not-compromise-australian-sovereignty-defence-minister-says/906cf0bc-0c2f-426b-9720-0acaae9ad5c8
Former Australian PM Tony Abbott joins board of UK climate sceptic thinktank
Christina’s note: The mad monk rides again. Madder than ever. As he’s an enthusiastic promoter of the nuclear industry, it is puzzling that Abbott is still a climate denialist.
Nowdays, the nuclear industry pushes their lie that nuclear beats global heating. So a good nuclear zealot should believe in climate change.
Abbott says ‘we need more genuine science and less groupthink’ in announcing position at Global Warming Policy Foundation
Guardian. Graham Readfearn 7 Feb 23
The former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has joined the board of a UK-based thinktank that has been highly critical of climate science and action on global heating.
Since its launch in 2009, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has become known for its consistent attacks on climate science, the risks of global heating and – more recently – policies to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
The group, founded by the former Thatcher government treasurer Sir Nigel Lawson, is facing a complaint from three UK MPs and a not-for-profit campaign group accusing the GWPF of inappropriately claiming status as an educational charity while carrying out lobbying and skewed research.
Abbott said he was pleased to join the foundation “because it’s consistently injected a note of realism into the climate debate”………………
Dr Jerome Booth, the foundation’s chairman, said Abbott brings “a global perspective and policy insight at the very highest level” and he would help the group “to foster a culture of debate, respect and scrutiny in policy areas that are currently dominated by intolerance, high emotions, moral reasoning and confusion”.
Abbott is currently an adviser to the UK government’s Board of Trade. His name was raised last month as a possible replacement for the late senator Jim Molan in the upper house.
During his prime ministership between 2013 and 2015, Abbott drove to dismantle much of the country’s public policy architecture on climate change, successfully repealing a legislated price on carbon, defunding the independent Climate Commission but failing to dismantle the Climate Change Authority and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
In 2017, he flew to London to deliver the GWPF’s annual lecture, where he suggested natural factors could be to blame for global warming, that CO2 was a trace gas and hinted at a global conspiracy to tamper with temperature data to make global heating seem worse.
The foundation is seen as influential among some conservatives. Conservative MP Steve Baker resigned as a GWPF trustee when he became minister for Northern Ireland.
A group of Conservative MPs and peers – several with links to the foundation – have formed the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, which has used the GWPF’s work as part of its advocacy.
The GWPF’s non-charitable arm – the Global Warming Policy Forum – runs a project called Net Zero Watch, which claims to scrutinise climate and decarbonisation policies.
The foundation has several Australian links. As the Guardian reported, one of its earliest funders was Australian billionaire hedge fund manager Sir Michael Hintze, who last year was handed a seat in the House of Lords at the recommendation of the former UK prime minister Boris Johnson.
Four Australian climate sceptics sit on the GWPF academic advisory board, including mining industry figure Prof Ian Plimer and controversial marine scientist Dr Peter Ridd of the Institute of Public Affairs, an Australian thinktank known to promote climate science denial.
The late Cardinal George Pell also delivered a GWPF annual lecture in 2011.
Presenting a report last year, the GWPF’s director, Dr Benny Peiser, said: “It’s extraordinary that anyone should think there is a climate crisis.”
Last year three MPs – one each from Labor, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats – joined with a not-for-profit campaign group to complain to the UK’s Charity Commission.
The group questioned if the GWPF was breaking charity rules by commissioning unbalanced research and carrying out political advocacy from charitable funds……………….. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/07/former-australian-pm-tony-abbott-joins-board-climate-sceptic-thinktank-global-warming-policy-foundation
The US shooting down a Chinese spy balloon is a risk for Australia’s tired submarine fleet
Michael West Media, by Rex Patrick | Feb 6, 2023 |
For many Australians watching the events over the past week, where the United States Air Force tracked a Chinese balloon overflying US territory and then shot it down, might seem to be of indirect significance to our security. Former senator and submariner, Rex Patrick suggests that it is of direct significance to Australia, increasing the risk we might be drawn into war in South East Asia.
Over the weekend the US Air Force shot down a Chinese balloon. The United States have said that the balloon was carrying out intelligence gathering. The Chinese Government has said it wasn’t. They claim it was just a wandering weather balloon. That’s important for reasons I’ll come back to, but I first need to provide some background – not about balloons, but about another surveillance platform.
What submarines do
Submarines can perform a whole range of different tasks in time of war……………………….
In preparing for war they train, they engage in tactical development and they conduct intelligence gathering. It is the latter which is their most important and challenging tasks………………….
Balloons and ballast tanks
…. Imagine a South Korean, Japanese or Australian submarine operating very close to (or perhaps inside) China’s territorial waters conducting intelligence gathering. China might now be inclined to treat that submarine the same way the United States treated a balloon purported to be conducting intelligence collection.
If detected, even if just outside of their territorial waters, the Chinese will just say they were inside their waters when, or in the minutes before, they were engaged. We’ll say, just as the US has for the balloon, that we weren’t spying and they’ll say we were.
And getting detected in our newest Australian submarine, the 20 year old HMAS Rankin, is far more likely than is the case for South Korea’s newest submarine, the 1 year old ROKS Dosan Ahn Changho, or Japan’s newest submarine, the 1 year old Tōryū.
The stakes are greater for us because Australian governments of various political flavours have left us with ageing Collins Class submarines to carry out this most serious and complex of peace time tasks.
One option would be to eventually withdraw our ageing Collins class submarines from surveillance operations anywhere close to Chinese waters, but that’s unlikely. Our Navy and our government will be anxious to continue to do all they can to assist the United States Navy in the Northern Pacific, in the Sea of Japan and the South China Sea.
Alliances are not just pieces of paper, they are dynamic relationships in which there’s a strong obligation to contribute and share risk.
The China risk
The risks are likely to increase in the years ahead, as China continues to ramp up military tensions in an effort to coerce Taiwan into some form of political subordination to Beijing.
The possibility that China will choose a vessel of a US ally to make an example of cannot be dismissed.
And that risk will be disproportionately carried by our Navy as it operates a submarine force with decreasing relative capability across the next two decades or longer. Thanks to government spending $170bn pursuing a distant nuclear-powered capability, our submariners will be at greater risk in less capable vessels than our so-called ‘great and powerful’ friend.
For a long time, we’ve been able to see Defence procurement failures and kick ourselves on account of cost to the taxpayer. Now, as the balloon goes up in the South China Sea, the lack of capability may well cost us many lives.
It’s not just about a war before the arrival of new submarines in 2040, its all the peace time intelligence operations between now and then. https://michaelwest.com.au/the-us-shooting-down-a-chinese-spy-balloon-is-a-risk-for-australias-tired-submarine-fleet/—
‘Save the only planet we have’: Tony Abbott joins climate-sceptic think tank
EMMA ELSWORTHY, FEB 07, 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/07/former-australian-pm-tony-abbott-joins-board-climate-sceptic-thinktank-global-warming-policy-foundation
The former Australian PM says he has joined the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a UK think tank founded by a ‘climate denier-in-chief’.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott, who once compared taking action on climate change with killing goats “to appease volcano gods”, has joined the board of a UK climate-sceptic think tank founded by a politician dubbed “the climate denier-in-chief”.
Abbott said he was pleased to join the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), which “consistently injected a note of realism into the climate debate”, despite the charity spearheading the backlash against the UK government’s net-zero goal.
“All of us want to save the only planet we have, but this should not be by means which impoverish poorer people in richer countries and hold poorer countries back,” Abbott said of his appointment.
“Right now, in countries like Australia, the impact of climate policy is to make electricity less affordable and less reliable rather than perceptibly to cool the planet.
“We need more genuine science and less groupthink in this debate. That’s where the GWPF has been a commendably consistent if lonely voice.”
The GWPF was founded in 2009 by Thatcher-era chancellor Nigel Lawson, who reportedly resigned from the House of Lords last month. Described by UK Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay as the “climate denier-in-chief”, Lawson claimed that “global warming is not a problem” in a 2021 article written for The Spectator during the COP26 in Glasgow.
The foundation’s director, Benny Peiser, also made headlines for spurious statements, including that he found it “extraordinary that anyone should think there is a climate crisis” and that climate “alarmism” was driven by “scientists’ computer modelling rather than observational evidence”.
Despite Lawson’s apparent departure from politics, his foundation continues to cause a headache for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. There has been outrage after a UK register of interests disclosure revealed Conservative MP Steve Baker accepted a £10,000 (A$17,464) donation from the chair of GWPF’s Net Zero Watch.
The campaign arm has urged the UK government to recommit to fossil fuels, commission a fleet of coal-fired power plants, and wind down wind and solar completely, while its alleged breaches of charity law were the subject of a complaint from three British MPs in October.
This isn’t Abbott’s first brush with the foundation. In 2017 he delivered an eyebrow-raising annual lecture that suggested climate change was “probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm”.
Abbott also claimed that photos from his electorate showed the sea level hadn’t risen. (The Bureau of Meteorology found last year that the rates of sea level rise to the north and south-east of Australia have been “significantly higher” than the global average for the past 30 years.)
“Contrary to the breathless assertions that climate change is behind every weather event, in Australia the floods are not bigger, the bushfires are not worse, the droughts are not deeper or longer, and the cyclones are not more severe than they were in the 1800s,” Abbott said at the time.
In an echo of Lawson’s claim that rising temperatures are “no bad thing: many more people die each year from cold-related illnesses than from heat-related ones”, Abbott suggested in 2017 that sweltering heatwaves are good, actually.
“There’s the evidence that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide (which is a plant food after all) are actually greening the planet and helping to lift agricultural yields,” he said. “In most countries, far more people die in cold snaps than in heatwaves, so a gradual lift in global temperatures, especially if it’s accompanied by more prosperity and more capacity to adapt to change, might even be beneficial.”
Heat is the biggest natural killer in Australia (and in the US) and has been for the past 200 years, with fatalities outstripping all other natural killers including bushfires, cyclones and floods. Research has found there were 36,000 deaths associated with heat in Australia between 2006 and 2017.
Endgame is going on in Ukraine crisis
When studying today’s daily AFU troop losses and considering Ukraine’s recent presidential order, according to which even underage children at 16-17 aged can be called for armed service, the overall military situation of Ukraine appears to be catastrophic. Anyway, the situation is totally opposite to the picture the western MSM is propagating “Ukraine is winning … Ukraine is winning”. No doubt, Ukraine has already lost the war and by the same token, the NATO as well.
The US ending its financial, humanitarian and particularly military support promptly would cause Ukraine to completely collapse and RAND cites several reasons, why doing so would be sensible, not least because a Ukrainian victory is regarded as both “improbable” and “unlikely,” due to Russian “resolve,” and its military mobilization having “rectified the manpower deficit that enabled Ukraine’s success in the Kharkiv counteroffensive.”
Great Power Relations, February 7, 2023 | Seppo Niemi
Basically, great power competition and the fight for hegemonic control between America on the one side and Russia and China on the other, is being fought on two fronts.
The one is Ukraine war with enlarging NATO engagement, the other front is financial with America facing a coordinated attack by Russia and China on its dollar hegemony. The Russians are planning a replacement trade settlement currency, which could unleash a flood of foreign-owned dollars onto the foreign exchange markets. In fact, the second front encases also the third front, the formation of global alliances. Ultimately, there is a competition of new world order and fight for global power (world hegemon).
All these topics have been analysed in various articles on this website and will be analysed also in the future but this article focuses again on military side of this subject, because there is, as the title indicates, endgame currently going. Some fundamental factors are now emerging for further analysis.
Frontline news
The Biden administration as well as Pentagon know that Ukraine’s army is not able to hold the current defense line in its east part. The big fear is that the Ukrainian army will totally collapse and run away, when the frontline is breached in Ugledar, Bakhmut, Seversk and Krasny-Liman.
Russia’s winter offensive is going in full speed but in another way than western “experts” assumed. No “Big Arrows” so far but slowly accelerating pressure along the whole frontline and when break-points emerge, they will be utilized immediately throwing more reserves in those places from back-areas. Due to autumn mobilizations and very low KIA-rate, Russia has plenty of trained reserves available.
The reason for this kind of warfare is the fact that western spy satellites follow the ground situation 24/7 covering the whole theatre of operations. Russia fully knows and understands that and therefore hide their military operations to the latest possible point, thus holding a surprise moment. However, 1-2 massive, “Big Arrow” Russian offensives are probable during February-April period.
A new wave of activity is expected for the Russian side during February. The recent changes in the command of the operation appear to have been carefully planned in order to elevate the combat to a new level and several of Moscow’s strategic objectives may soon be achieved, radically changing the course of the conflict. Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, was promoted to the position of Commander of the Joint Forces of the Russian Federation in the Special Military Operation Zone. Gerasimov’s arrival to power seems to have been a move towards the final stage of the special military operation.
Obviously, a major offensive (Big Arrow) is being prepared for February with the probable aims: 1) Reaching the borders of the regions recently reintegrated into the Russian Federation, pacifying the new oblasts. 2) capturing Nikolaev, Odessa, as well as the entire Black Sea coast, reaching Transnistria. 3) seizing/blocking Kiev, forcing a political capitulation of the Zelensky regime until early March.
The territory of Belarus will become the main springboard for the upcoming strike. In parallel to Belarus, Zaporozhye and Lugansk are also key zones for the Russian strategy. It is expected that massive attacks will come from these regions during the offensive, destroying enemy units in a short period of time which will allow a rapid Russian advance on the battlefield, reaching the zones listed in the above-mentioned objectives. For the offensive to be successful, Russian forces will focus on blocking all enemy’s supply lines. The main route of arrival of supplies to Ukraine is the border with Poland, where there is the transit of NATO’s ammunition and military equipment.
Some days ago, Washington announced preparing a new package of military aid worth $2.2 billion that is expected to include longer-range rockets for the first time. Soon thereafter, in a televised interview, Sergei Lavrov said an important principle of policy: “We’re now seeking to push back Ukrainian army artillery to a distance that will not pose a threat to our territories. The greater the range of the weapons supplied to the Kiev regime, the more we will have to push them back from territories which are part of our country.”
Latest statistics of losses
A Turkish newspaper, Hurseda Haber, published January 25, 2023, an article of military losses by parties in Ukraine war with the data, allegedly produced by the Israeli Secret Service Mossad. Here is this highly interesting statistical comparison: [graph on original]….
Russian Ministry of Defense (RMOD) statistics since February 24, 2022 up to December 31, 2022. Ukrainian losses: 355 aircraft, 199 helicopters, 2779 UAV, 7350 tanks and armoured vehicles, 4713 artillery & MLRS systems (as well as 7859 units of special military equipment)………….
Late January 2023, the well-informed American Col.(ret.) Doug Macgregor put the numbers of dead on the Ukrainian side (video) at 122,000 killed plus 35,000 missed in action (presumed dead). The number of dead Russians (including Wagner forces and Donbas militia) is at 16,000 to 25,000 with 20 to 40,000 additionally wounded. The numbers are in good consistency with those figures of Mossad.
When studying today’s daily AFU troop losses and considering Ukraine’s recent presidential order, according to which even underage children at 16-17 aged can be called for armed service, the overall military situation of Ukraine appears to be catastrophic. Anyway, the situation is totally opposite to the picture the western MSM is propagating “Ukraine is winning … Ukraine is winning”. No doubt, Ukraine has already lost the war and by the same token, the NATO as well.
Statistics of January 2023 [graph on original]
Please, note that just in January 2023, Russia has destroyed more than 300 AFU tanks and armoured vehicles, nearly three times more than what the West has promised to deliver to Ukraine over next half of year and all those western tanks are old models with old technology.
NATO tank deliveries – Leopard hunting begins
Promises of tank deliveries by models and countries: Leopard 2 totalling about 50 (Germany, Poland, others), Abrams M1 up to 31 (the US) and Challenger 2 up to 14 (the UK); totalling approx. 100 tanks. None of those models, now in delivery plan, are in production or are produced in last 15-20 years.
Germany has issued a permit to export Leopard 1 main battle tanks to Ukraine, on February 3. Berlin had approved German arms-maker Rheinmetall’s plans to sell 88 of the older Leopards to Kyiv, once these are repaired, for a total cost of more than €100 million. The Leopard 1, which first entered service in the 1960s, is the forerunner of the more advanced Leopard 2. The tank is armed with a 105 mm Royal Ordnance L7A3 L/52 rifled gun.
The big problem is and will be, how to obtain the required 105 mm ammunition for the Leopard 1 tanks. The tank features moderate armor, only effective against low caliber autocannons and heavy machine guns. This makes it vulnerable to most, if not all second and third generation anti-tank weapons.
These decisions regarding western tank deliveries to Ukraine disclose that all possible old scrapping equipment has been dug up now.
Modern tank warfare
Technological innovations have made main battle tanks (MBT) more survivable but anti-tank weapons have become even more effective outstripping MBT’s protective capabilities…………………………………………..
Western optics, media hype
Western MSM debated in “hothead” mood about the deliveries of tanks to Ukraine, suddenly dozens of “tank experts” came to public and demanded vociferously “express delivery of Leopards”.
When considering the matter in light of the analytical background, stated above, it appears once again how “mass hysteria” or “herd stupidity” is a rapidly contagious disease. In addition, it easily causes an anti-action, which is already happened on the frontlines. Leopard hunting begins.
Russia’s state tech corporation Rostec has already warned that existing Russian anti-tank missiles and shells are more than capable of destroying Western-made tanks, specifically the German Leopard 2. Pro-Russian military Telegram channels are already sharing posters pointing out the weak points of Challenger 2, Abrams and Leopard 2 tanks………………….
Report of RAND Corporation
RAND Report: Avoiding a Long War; U.S. Policy and the Trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict; January 2023.
The RAND Corporation, a highly influential American security think tank funded directly by the Pentagon, has published a landmark report stating that prolonging the proxy war is actively harming the US and its allies and warning Washington that it should avoid “a protracted conflict” in Ukraine. The war, Report says, represents “the most significant interstate conflict in decades, and its evolution will have major consequences” for Washington, which includes US “interests” being actively harmed. “The costs and risks of a long war in Ukraine are significant and outweigh the possible benefits of such a trajectory for the United States.”
The US ending its financial, humanitarian and particularly military support promptly would cause Ukraine to completely collapse and RAND cites several reasons, why doing so would be sensible, not least because a Ukrainian victory is regarded as both “improbable” and “unlikely,” due to Russian “resolve,” and its military mobilization having “rectified the manpower deficit that enabled Ukraine’s success in the Kharkiv counteroffensive.”
It is so funny that the top Pentagon thinkers just say publicly these facts, while the entire US mainstream media, which also represents the US government, is out there saying the precise opposite. They are still literally saying that Russia is losing and Ukraine winning as their colleagues in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. The US media is just not even mentioning this RAND report at all.
What makes the RAND Report on Ukraine so significant, is not the quality of the analysis but the fact that the US’s most prestigious national security think-tank has taken an opposite position on the war than the Washington political elite and their globalist allies. This is a very big deal.
Keep in mind, wars end when a critical split emerges between ruling elites that eventually leads to a change in policy. RAND report represents just such a split. It indicates that powerful elites have broken, one part thinks the current policy is hurting the United States. This shift is going to gain momentum until it triggers a more-assertive demand for negotiations. Thus, the RAND report is the first step towards ending the war.
Biden administration has told repeatedly that the US will support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” The United States should not undermine its own interests to pursue the unachievable dream of expelling Russia from Ukraine. The US plan to reshape Europe and the global balance of power by degrading Russia is turning out to fail badly and backfiring worse. Rational members of the foreign policy establishment should evaluate Ukraine’s prospects for success and weigh them against the growing likelihood that the conflict could unexpectedly spiral out-of-control.
The RAND report seems to represent the views of the Pentagon and the US Military establishment, who believe the United States is racing headlong towards a direct conflagration with Russia. In other words, the report may be the first ideological broadsides against the neocons, who run the State Department and the White House. It appears now this split between “War Department” and “State Department” will become more visible in the days ahead.
RAND report is just the first in a long line of falling dominoes. As Ukraine’s battlefield losses mount, the flaws in Washington’s strategy will become more apparent and will be more sharply criticized. American people will question the wisdom of economic sanctions that hurt US closest allies while helping Russia. Why the United States is following a policy that has precipitated a strong move away from the dollar and US debt? Why the US deliberately sabotaged a peace deal in March 2022, when the probability of a Ukrainian victory is near zero. The Rand report seems to anticipate all these questions as well as the “shift in mood” they will generate. This is why the authors are pushing for negotiations and a swift end to the conflict.
Peace talks … or not
There have been some peace talks between the US and Russia in last couple of months. William Burns, the CIA’s director was to meet his opposite Russian intelligence chief Naryshkin in Ankara in November 2022. This back-channel meeting was to explore compromises before America finds itself to sacrifice the Ukrainian population in a proxy war……………………………….
Militarily, the consensus of western expert opinion within the US and allied countries has changed from Russia’s losing the war in 2022 (Russian forces pulled back from Kharkiv and Kherson), to the Ukrainian forces losing the war, while NATO runs out of weapons and ammunition to send there and yet Russia unrelentingly continues to supply new weaponry and ammunition and slowly to take new ground in Ukraine. This war of attrition is going very badly now against the West (the US and its foreign allies, especially the ones in Europe: EU and NATO).
Economically, expert opinion in the west is increasingly saying their sanctions that were meant to strangle Russia’s economy have been by now a massive failure, which has probably been doing more damage to America’s European allies than to Russia. If this turns out to be true also in the mid-term (highly likely), then the entire belief-system that has been standing behind the West’s anti-Russia sanctions is going to collapse.
In addition, being deeply disappointed with all agreements with the West, Russia’s distrust on any deal with the west is huge. Thus, it is highly likely that the war will go to the bitter end, to the unconditional surrender of Ukraine.
EU – Ukraine summit in conjunction with EU – NATO declaration
European public attention was on Ukraine as the EU’s top officials visit Kyiv for a historic summit, February 2-3, the first to be held in an active war zone. Kyiv wants to join the bloc within two years but Ukraine got cold shoulder on rapid EU entry……………………..
By this summit, once again, the EU publicly and officially engaged closely and tightly with the destiny of Ukraine. Similar engagement was made with the NATO by “Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation, 10 January 2023”.
From this on, the destinies of the EU, the NATO and Ukraine have been combined and tied so closely that one part collapsing will make a domino effect to the rest.
Final look over the situation
As to the NATO, it is a good reason to take a look at the real and practical track record: military operations in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, which all ended in total defeat, debacle and turmoil.
Afghanistan and Ukraine are almost the same size in terms of land mass and the US/NATO failed to defeat a bunch of Afghani goat herders, who had no air power or artillery. The US and NATO poured billions of dollars into Afghanistan and failed to vanquish the Taliban, who easily took control of Kabul in August 2021, causing NATO troops to escape in total disarray.
In Ukraine, NATO is continuing its disarmament mission, more and more heavy weapons and other military material are poured in the black hole of Ukraine; Russia destroys them and NATO’s warehouse alert limits show red. Military material is simply finished in Europe and there is no military-industrial capacity to produce required quantities in next few years.
War fighting is a messy, complicated, resource intensive activity. “War is dirty business” as a British General said in Falkland operation. The conflict in Ukraine is exposing NATO as an impotent anachronism. If/when Russia wins militarily in Ukraine, the “raison d’etre” for NATO will be in question, in fact it disappears. Why any country is interested in applying the membership in such impotent alliance with such a failure track record?
If the reader can set aside emotion and consider the current situation unfolding in Ukraine, the evidence shows that Kiev’s army (AFU) is moving backwards on all frontlines. Without support from the United States and NATO, Ukraine does not have the manpower, munitions, tanks, artillery, air craft, financial resources and industrial capability to stop Russia. Even with more Western support flowing in, Ukraine will still lack the manpower to block the Russian advance.
Western analysts and MSM are downplaying the Russian offense in the Donbass along the Ukrainian defensive line that stretches from Bakhmut to Seversk in the north and to Ugledar in the south as some sort of sideshow with no strategic importance. That is nonsense. As said above, Russian winter offensive is underway on multiple fronts and Ukraine is paying a heavy toll. https://greatpowerrelations.com/endgame-is-going-in-ukraine-crisis/
Dr. Helen Caldicott Says The World Is Closer To Nuclear Annihilation Than Ever Before
In Interview Released Today Famed Peace Activist, Dr. Helen Caldicott, says the World is Closer to Nuclear Annihilation than Ever Before
Caldicott believes the Doomsday Clock should be at 20 seconds to midnight.
Dr. Helen Caldicott is concerned that we are the closest we have ever been to nuclear annihilation and that citizens are no longer informed as to the incomprehensible destruction and suffering that it would bring.
Caldicott told Breaking Green, “I think we are in an extremely invidious position where nuclear war could occur tonight, by accident or design. “She added that “it is the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, that the two huge nuclear behemoths are facing each other militarily.”
Dr. Caldicott described to Breaking Green the nightmarish effects of a nuclear war, as she had described to worldwide audiences during the Cold War. As cofounder of Physicians for Social Responsibility in the USA, her talks awakened a generation.
Caldicott believes that many people are engaging in “psychic numbing” or blocking out the reality of the threat as the Doomsday Clock is now set at 90 seconds to midnight.
Video of Caldicott’s description of nuclear war to Breaking Green can be viewed at https://globaljusticeecology.org/helen-caldicott/ .
The interview is available at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1785184/12121153 .
Breaking Green is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.
Ukraine purges libraries of Russian-language books – official
Christina note: Does this remind you of anything?
Germany in 1933?
Rt.com 8 Feb 23, More than 10 million volumes have been pulled from the shelves, a senior Rada MP has said.
Ukraine has removed millions of copies of Russian-language books from its public libraries, Yevgeniya Kravchuk, a senior member of the country’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, said on Monday.
She stated that the Culture Ministry had provided recommendations on what titles should be taken off the shelves.
This move was provoked by an initiative declared by the Ukrainian government to “overcome the consequences of Russification,” which in practice means purging schools of certain literature, renaming streets, and dismantling monuments to Russian historical figures……………….
Ukraine has a sizable Russian-speaking minority, and many Ukrainian speakers are fluent in Russian.
In June, the Ukrainian Education Ministry proposed removing more than 40 books by Russian and Soviet authors from the curriculum. The list included the works of such renowned classical writers as Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Alexander Pushkin, as well as Boris Pasternak and Mikhail Sholokhov, both of whom won the Nobel Prize for literature. Ukrainian Culture Minister Aleksander Tkachenko urged the world in December to “boycott” Russian culture, arguing that Moscow has been using it for propaganda………………….. https://www.rt.com/russia/571099-ukraine-purges-russian-books/
Hooray – Australia’s cultural cringe is over! We’re gonna be important, like Ukraine!
Bewdy, mate!
For a long time, we thought we wasn’t as good as other countries. I mean – we have to live near to all those yellow and brown people, who speak Asian languages and can’t even talk proper Strine (that’s Australian lingo)
But we have shown we was tough, – we wiped out heaps of blackfellas.
However, lately the blacks have got uppity, and so have the women. Hell, we even had a woman Prime Minister for a while. Things haven’t been real good for real blokes.
By the way, good to see the back of that Jacinda Adern, back in the bedroom and kitchen, where a woman belongs
Anyway, proper Australian blokes can hold their heads up high, now. Australia’s not frittering away its money on soppy stuff – education, health, welfare. Nah – we’re buying $171 billion of nuclear submarines, and lots of secret stuff for Pine Gap. And we’re welcoming American tough guys and their stuff to Northern Australia – and buying everything we can from our favourite shops – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Thales, NorthropGrumman. (check this all out at The US is preparing Australia to fight its war against China)
Best of all – we’re learning something we’d forgotten during the namby-pamby decades – how to hate the Chinks.
And, thanks to our best mate the USA, we’re gonna run a war against China. USA will sell us all the weapons, and we’ll show that we can do the brave fighting. And Australia will at last really be BigTime.
Our Prime Minister will be adored by the Western world, and strut around the world in the limelight, just like Zelensky.
Though I’m not sure that P.M Anthony Albanese will be up to it. Bring back Scott Morrison, or better still, Peter Dutton.
West is best for wind farm performance as renewables blow away gas market share — RenewEconomy
Western Australia takes up six out of 10 spots in the top rankings for wind farm performance in January, with South Australia occupying the remaining four. The post West is best for wind farm performance as renewables blow away gas market share appeared first on RenewEconomy.
West is best for wind farm performance as renewables blow away gas market share — RenewEconomy
AGL’s coal sore: Boring is OK in share markets, clueless is not — RenewEconomy
AGL has yet to demonstrate a “story” that investors could realistically embrace. The post AGL’s coal sore: Boring is OK in share markets, clueless is not appeared first on RenewEconomy.
AGL’s coal sore: Boring is OK in share markets, clueless is not — RenewEconomy
Wind turbine failure rates are rising – has the industry gone too big, too fast? — RenewEconomy
Faulty components in turbines still under warranty are starting to savage the profits of some of the industry’s biggest players. So what’s going on? The post Wind turbine failure rates are rising – has the industry gone too big, too fast? appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Wind turbine failure rates are rising – has the industry gone too big, too fast? — RenewEconomy
Antinuclear 