#exporters operating foreign

[zvaigzdelasas]

The US is reported to have made more than 100 weapons sales to Israel, including thousands of bombs, since the start of the war in Gaza, but the deliveries escaped congressional oversight because each transaction was under the dollar amount requiring approval.

The Biden administration has [publicly] become increasingly critical of the conduct of Israeli military operations in Gaza and the failure to allow in meaningful amounts of humanitarian aid, with the death toll now over 30,000 and with famine looming. But it has kept up a quiet but substantial flow of munitions to help replace the tens of thousands of bombs Israel has dropped on the tiny coastal strip, making it one of the most intense bombing campaigns in military history.

The Washington Post reported that administration officials informed Congress of the 100 foreign military sales to Israel in a classified briefing. Few details are known of the sales, because keeping each one small meant their contents remained secret, but they are reported to have included precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid.

The White House spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, declined to comment on the report on Wednesday.[...]

“This doesn’t just seem like an attempt to avoid technical compliance with US arms export law, it’s an extremely troubling way to avoid transparency and accountability on a high-profile issue,” Ari Tolany, director of the security assistance monitor at the Centre for International Policy thinktank, said.

She added that, in exploiting the loophole, the Biden administration was following the steps of its predecessor.

“They’re very much borrowing from the Trump playbook to dodge congressional oversight,” Tolany said. The state department office of the inspector general found that between 2017 and 2019, the Trump administration had made 4,221 below-threshold arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, worth an estimated total of $11.2bn.

The under-the-radar deliveries made by the Biden administration to Israel were additional to the three major military sales that were made public since the start of the war: $320m in precision bomb kits in November and 14,000 tank shells costing $106m and $147.5m of fuses and other components needed to make 155mm artillery shells in December. The December deliveries of tank and artillery shells also sidestepped congressional scrutiny because they were made under an emergency authority.[...]

“We continue to support Israel’s campaign to ensure that the attacks of 7 October cannot be repeated. We have provided military assistance to Israel because it is consistent with that goal,” Matthew Miller, the state department spokesperson, said. “We support Israel’s legitimate military campaign consistent with international humanitarian law.”

The state department has been vague about how much effort it is putting into assessing whether Israeli forces are committing war crimes. A process called Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG) was set up in September last year, before the Gaza war, to make assessments of the use made of US armaments, and Israel’s military operations are under review, but the process is slow and does not commit the administration to taking remedial action.

6 Mar 24

[metamatar]

One of the world’s top arms exporters, Israel exports annually as much as $7 billion worth of military technology, or 2.2 percent of its Gross Domestic Product. An additional 1.35 percent of GDP is dedicated to military research and development, and 6.7 percent is spent on its defense budget— the world’s second largest military budget as a percentage of GDP after Saudi Arabia. All told, 10.25 percent of the Israeli economy is involved directly in arms. Comparatively, for the United States, the world’s top weapons exporter, arms account for around 3.7 percent of its economy. Israel is actually the world’s largest arms supplier per capita, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the World Bank, at ninety-eight dollars; it is followed by a distant Russia at fifty-eight dollars, and Sweden at fifty-three dollars.

These figures do not include the contribution from natural resources exploited under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.50 They do not factor in the service sector’s revenue or general industry and construction taking place in the West Bank. Such figures are difficult to quantify, since many companies operate in the West Bank but have offices in Tel Aviv to obscure where operations take place. Nor does this account for Israeli exports into the Occupied Territories, which are 72 percent of Palestinian imports and 0.16 percent of Israeli GDP. All told, the Israeli economy is deeply involved in a web of expenditure and profit around the ongoing occupation and expansion of settlements.

American military aid supplanting open-ended government grants has had the effect of increasing arms production and diminishing the overall economic reach of the state. No longer is foreign aid and imperialist incentive directly invested in the working class. Israeli workers are now rewarded through the arms economy. This is why, despite the lack of social mobility and the economic degradation of neoliberalism, the working class remains committed as ever to Zionism.

The working class has become dependent on the education, housing, and career opportunities that their participation in the IDF affords them. They have found routes for advancement in the military-fueled high-tech industry, with over 9 percent of workers concentrated in high-tech. And as pensions and real wages are eroded, the cheaper cost of settlement living in the Occupied Territories has become essential.

#war economy #israel

[fatehbaz]

On April 21, Ali Hussein Julood, a 21-year-old living in the Iraqi town of Rumaila, on the outskirts of one of the world’s largest oil fields, died from leukaemia. He was told by doctors that pollution from gas flared in the nearby field, which is operated by British Petroleum (BP), had likely caused his cancer. “Gas flaring” is a low-cost procedure used by oil companies to burn off the natural gas expelled during drilling. [...] [I]t also contributes to global warming [...]. Some of the pollutants released during this process, such as benzene, are known to cause cancers and respiratory diseases. Ali, who had been battling cancer for six years when he died, was only the latest victim of the environmental degradation caused by international oil companies like BP in Iraq.

In towns and villages near the country’s vast oil fields, thousands of other men, women and children are still living under smoke-filled skies and suffering avoidable health problems because company executives insist on putting profit before lives. [...]

[A] confidential report from the Iraqi health ministry recently obtained by the BBC blamed pollution from gas flaring, among other factors, for a 20 percent rise in cancer in Basra, southern Iraq between 2015 and 2018. A second leaked document, again seen by the BBC, from the local government in Basra showed that cancer cases in the region are three times higher than figures published in the official nationwide cancer registry.

Like many other problems and crises that are devastating the lives of ordinary Iraqis today, the chain of events that led to the poisoning of southern Iraq’s skies by international oil companies also started during colonial times.

---

In the early 20th century, as its navy transitioned from coal to petrol, Britain found itself in increasing need of oil to run its empire and fuel its numerous war efforts. [...] In 1912, Britain formed the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) with the purpose of acquiring concessions from the Ottoman Empire to explore for oil in Mesopotamia. Following World War I, it brought modern-day Iraq under its own mandate [...]. By 1930, the TPC was renamed the Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC) and was put under the control of a consortium made up of BP, Total, Shell and several other American companies. Together, they pushed for a series of “concession agreements” with the newly formed Iraqi government which would give them exclusive control of Iraq’s oil resources on pre-defined terms for long periods. By 1938, the IPC and its various subsidiaries had already secured the right to extract and export virtually all the oil in Iraq for 75 years. These concessions were granted to the IPC and its subsidiaries while Iraq was ruled by British-installed monarchs and under de facto British control. Thus the state had almost no negotiating power against the British-led consortium [...] In 1955, the Iraqi government started to voice its desire to use the gas being flared in Rumaila and Zubair for electricity generation. In 1960, while negotiating a concession with the IPC, then-Iraqi Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim formally asked the company to let Iraq exploit the gas that it was not using. The same demand came up again and again [...], but IPC and its subsidiaries repeatedly turned the Iraqi government down. [...]

Following the 2003 invasion, the Iraqi oil industry was once again privatised as a result of pressure from the US and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As was the case in the early 20th century, any negotiations on oil extraction rights took place when Iraq was still under foreign occupation [...]. When the process of auctioning off oil fields in southern Iraq began in 2008, the Iraqi government offered foreign oil companies long contracts of up to 25 years, reminiscent of the early concessions agreements with the IPC. These included stabilisation clauses, which insulated foreign companies from legal changes that might emerge over the course of their contracts. This meant that the companies were, and continue to be, unaffected by any environmental regulations passed by the Iraqi government to reduce pollution [...].

---

Looking back at the development of the oil industry in southern Iraq makes apparent that the kind of pollution that killed Ali has been in the making for some 70 years. His death – like the deaths of many others who succumbed to pollution-related cancers in his country – was not an unavoidable tragedy, but the natural consequence of a long history of colonial violence and extractive capitalism.

Predatory colonial practices that began over a century ago caused southern Iraq’s vast oil reserves to be left under the sole control of foreign companies today – companies that over and over again put profit before the lives of the Iraqi inhabitants of the lands they exploit.

Ali’s death is yet more proof that colonial violence is far from over and that it has many different faces.

---

Text by: Taif Alkhudary. “Southern Iraq’s toxic skies are a colonial legacy.” Al Jazeera (English). 12 June 2023. [Some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[carionto]

Just a little push

The conflict between Humanity and the United Federation was in it's early slow stages. After the rather unexpected attack on the symbolic Death Kebab there was a lot of buzz and light skirmishes in the nearby systems, but no noteworthy confrontation.

The placement of the Death Kebab was provocative by design, and with both sides so far away from one another, there could not be any mass fleet formation without plenty of advance notice. Special operations units, however, are everywhere.

Unlike Humanity, who currently only has Earth as a planet under their direct control and with a notable population, the Federation is vast - core worlds surrounded by buffer manufacturing and agriculture and all manner of other production focused systems, which themselves are further surrounded out by new colonies, annexed planets, "contract" aka slave worlds.

Getting close to Earth without being spotted by any number of civilian organizations is nigh impossible, and when you count the military intelligence and surveillance networks, there's hardly an atom that remains unregistered. Certain people with, let's say, less than honest intentions, still manage to find ways to keep their activities hidden. For a while at least.

These kinds of skills, when employed by a trained operative with the highest grade equipment, make them virtually invisible everywhere else. A poorly guarded third-rate mining colony? Why, with just a little preparation, you could float an entire Dreadnought up to their atmosphere before they noticed. Assuming they would even care after offering a slightly more lucrative deal than the Federation.

For this particular mission, however, they would care.

Vrontaria was a very productive system with nearly a dozen orbital shipyards and hundreds of mining, processing, and export operations that account for roughly 4% of the entire Federation military hardware supply, and nearly a fifth of all their capital ship production. Thus, it was quite heavily guarded, with every nearby system monitored for any suspicious activity.

What they didn't monitor all too well were the mostly useless planets and moons within the Vrontaria system itself. Of particularly little interest was the resident gas giant - Omk.

And why would anyone bother regularly scanning the interior of a gas giant for foreign matter, everyone knows entering the "atmosphere" of a gas giant will just crush everything. Right?

*glances sideways*

:D

It took the better part of a month, but the special unit managed to covertly install about five thousand gravitational pulse thrusters and all necessary power generators within the upper layer of Omk, but just far enough below the storms to make their activity not make any visible change. For comparison, one such thruster can accelerate an entire Dreadnought. Slowly, sure, which is why they have at least 6 to be able to maneuver, and Omk was not the largest gas giant in the Galaxy, about two thirds of Jupiter.

So, one day not long after, someone on Ja'Ulnika, the main planet of the Vrontaria system, noticed that Omk was a little bit further along its orbital path than it should be.

Concerning.

Then they took more precise measurements and realized it was going faster than before.

Very concerning.

Finally, they had someone go up to it and then they noticed all of the thrust force coming from one side of it, changing its orbit to get far too close to Ja'Ulnika for comfort.

Panic inducing to say the least.

By the time a full force of combat ships arrived to sort out this mess and start disabling all these planet-moving thrusters, scans showed they had self-destructed. Even if they had the ability to retrieve anything from the inside of a gas giant, at this point it would be worthless scraps.

The final orbit of Omk would put it on a course to capture Ja'Ulnika in its gravitational well in two years time and take it along for a joyride to orbits outside the habitable zone, rendering it inhospitable in around 5-6 years. Not to mention the carnage tides would cause on a world without its own moon. Or any other catastrophic events that might occur when a planet is essentially kidnapped into a becoming moon.

Wars are fought on many fronts. inevitable devastation and unavoidable future reduction in capacity force you to act in ways you would rather not. Sometimes creating a logistical nightmare that your enemy has to deal with no matter what can be the greatest killing blow that a swift and spectacular showdown space battle could never be.

#humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #humans are deathworlders #humanity fuck yeah #carionto

[simply-ivanka]

Germany Should Have Listened to Trump

Tuesday 2.27.2024 Wall Street Journal

By Walter Russell Mead

Trump was right about Berlin’s self-defense and risky energy dependence on Russia.

The lower house of Germany’s Parliament voted to legalize the recreational use of cannabis last week. It was a timely move. Germany’s leadership class is going to need all the mellow it can find in a world that isn’t going Germany’s way.

Russian advances in Ukraine and American paralysis over the next aid package are reinforcing the reality that Germany needs to defend itself but lacks the power to do so. So are developments in the Red Sea, where German manufacturers must cope with shipping delays as the Biden administration fails to keep the vital waterway clear.

Forget the 2% of gross domestic product that Germany has repeatedly promised and failed to spend on defense. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius shocked many observers this month when he said that in the new world situation, Germany may have to spend as much as 3.5% of GDP for defense.

The economic news is also grim. Last year Germany’s GDP shrank 0.3%, and last week the government slashed 2024 growth estimates to a pitiful 0.2%. Economists expect negative growth during the first quarter of 2024, placing the country in recession. The outlook for housing is bleak, with business confidence reaching all-time lows. The news in manufacturing is little better. This month the widely followed HCOB German Flash Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 46.1, the eighth month in a row that the index has pointed to decreasing economic activity.

Energy prices are a particular sore spot. The chemical giant BASF announced €1 billion in spending cuts in its German operations, blaming a mix of weak demand in the German market and “structurally higher energy prices.” Enormous U.S. subsidies under the so-called Inflation Reduction Act are leading German companies to look across the Atlantic.

Chinese competition is another massive worry. China long ago passed Germany as the world’s largest car producer. Increasingly, especially in electric vehicles, it is challenging Germany as both a low-cost and high-quality manufacturer. Beijing aims to marginalize German capital goods and automobile companies in China while Chinese exporters challenge German dominance in world markets.

With the associations representing the small and medium-size Mittelstand firms that make up the heart of the German economy warning in a rare joint open letter about Germany’s loss of competitiveness, Economy Minister Robert Habeck isn’t mincing words. The economy is in “rough waters.” The “competitiveness of Germany as an industrial location” is in doubt.

It isn’t all doom and gloom. The outlook for the service sector is brighter than for manufacturing, and as the Journal reported last week, the Ifo Institute’s business-climate index improved slightly this month. The best that can be said for the outlook? “The German economy is stabilizing at a low level,” according to Ifo’s president.

Meanwhile, Germany’s dysfunctional three-party coalition government is paralyzed by internal struggles. The largest party in the coalition, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), is deeply divided over foreign policy, with many nostalgic for good relations with Russia and allergic to military spending. The SPD also wants Biden-like government spending initiatives to revive the German industrial machine and expand social benefits. The Greens, the next-largest party, are by German standards foreign-policy hawks but continue to press for a rapid energy transition that drives up costs for business and consumers. The third party in the coalition, the Free Democrats, wants to hold the line on government spending. As if this weren’t enough trouble, the conservative opposition parties have a blocking minority in Parliament’s upper house.

This is not where Germans thought they would be. Sixteen months ago, I visited Berlin and heard from a stream of government officials, think tankers and economists that everything was working fine. Russia was failing in Ukraine. The energy transition would boost German competitiveness and employment. Germany’s Mittelstand would handle anything China could throw at it.

Under the circumstances, it’s no surprise that antiestablishment parties are growing in Germany. The far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) currently has more support than any of the governing parties, with one recent poll showing the AfD at 19%, the Social Democrats at 14%, the Greens at 13%, and the Free Democrats at 4%.

The most bitter pill of all for Germany’s establishment may be the realization that on the most important issues facing Germany, Donald Trump was right where they were wrong. Getting in bed with Vladimir Putin for cheap energy was both foolish and deeply disloyal to the West. German defense policy was self-defeating and dangerous. China wasn’t a reliable partner.

“Ich bin ein Berliner,” was President John F. Kennedy’s message to Germany. If Donald Trump returns to the White House, his message will likely be “Das habe ich gleich gesagt,” or “I told you so.”

#Today's #Wall Street Journal #Trump Was Right About Everything #trump 2024 #trump #president trump #repost #donald trump #art #nature #democrats #Biden #Obama #love #Russia #Germany #landscape #fashion #leadership #honest #integrity #guts #energy #GNP #NATO #DIY #GIF #IG #Europe #listen

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The Canadian government used an opaque U.S. military sales program to provide Saudi Arabia with billions of dollars worth of armoured vehicles, some of which were shipped out urgently after the Kingdom joined the war in Yemen, according to government documents and an arms sales database consulted by The Breach.

It’s the second-largest weapons export deal in Canadian history. But the Saudi clients have never been disclosed by the Canadian government. Nor has the fact been reported that the deal was struck at the behest of a U.S. plan to beef up the Saudi military.

In 2009, under former prime minister Stephen Harper, a Canadian crown corporation signed a deal on behalf of weapons manufacturer General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada to provide 724 light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia. Government documents show that, as late as 2018, deliveries of the $2.9-billion worth of LAVs were still being fulfilled.

The vehicles manufactured in Canada were of the same make later seen being used in Saudi Arabia’s operations in Yemen for years.

The documents provide more evidence that the Canadian government may have knowingly supplied armoured vehicles for use in Yemen.  [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada, @halfwar-halfpeace, @vague-humanoid

#cdnpoli #Foreign Policy #Saudi Arabia #Yemen #canadian imperialism #proxy war #western imperialism #war crimes #neoliberalism

[girlactionfigure]

🔅Wed morning - ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

🔻No rockets since 5pm yesterday.

🔸Relative quiet… is the war winding down? On the enemy side, it is their holiday and they are focusing on prep instead of attacks for the moment.  On the Israel side, also prep for a Rafah operations and dealing with US political pressures — while the hostages (if alive) languish in hellish conditions.

▪️CANADA BANS ARMS TO ISRAEL.. (but not to Hamas) Canada announced a ban on arms exports to Israel due to Israel defending itself from Hamas.  The Canadian government's decision to stop the supply of arms to Israel comes against the backdrop of growing pressure from the NDP, the left-wing wing of the government on which Trudeau's coalition depends for its continued survival, which claims in recent weeks that it is not doing enough to "protect the civilian population in Gaza." 

▪️UK SAYS CEASEFIRE SHOULD BE PERMANENT.. Britain's Foreign Minister, David Cameron: "We must try and turn a ceasefire into a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. This will happen if several conditions are fulfilled - we must remove the Hamas leadership from Gaza and we must dismantle the terrorist infrastructure”.

▪️MORE ON EILAT MISSILE.. Sunday night, a cruise missile from the Houthis / Yemen fell in an open area north of Eilat. The Air Force wishes to confirm it was being monitored.

▪️IRAQI MILITIAS, WE ATTACKED ISRAEL AIRPORT.. The pro-Iranian militias in Iraq claim again: we attacked Ben Gurion Airport with a suicide drone.

▪️A NUMBER OF SENIOR HAMAS PEOPLE TAKEN OUT.. over the past week, 3 Hamas commanders as well as other Hamas leadership types have been eliminated.

▪️DEAD SEA DRILL.. an exercise will take place in the Dead Sea area, in order to maintain the alertness and competence of the forces. The exercise will begin in the afternoon and end in the night, and as part of it, a lively movement of the security forces will be felt in the area.  IT’S A DRILL.

▪️PROTESTS.. Distraught hostage families together with “the women's protest” group block Ayalon North highway: "This is on you - do not return from Qatar without a deal."  The police forced them to the side of the highway, where they are being allowed to continue their protest.

#Israel #Realtime War Updates #October 7 #Operation Swords of Iron #Hamas Massacre #Israel/HamasWar

[intersectionalpraxis]

Heyo! As a Canadian, are there any particular ways we can help Palestine? Also, who are the companies actively shipping shit to israel?

Hello! Thank you so much for the question. I'd first like to take the opportunity to state that the federal government in Canada right now -the Trudeau Government -has been terribly consistent with supporting the IOF. For DECADES -since the creation of the settler state (which should not be a surprise to anyone, of course), Canada has a LONG 'diplomatic' history of being pro-Isnotreal. For folks who don't know/aren't aware, since we often hear about/talk about the US's imperialistic policies and actions against many communities around the world (which, again is understandable given the billions in military aid they give to Isnotreal and the sheer amount of militaristic aggression and violence the US unleashes daily to people they deem a 'threat' to their empire) -but I always remind folks to not forget that Canada is equally awful and problematic.

The Trudeau government, like many MP's across party lines, have supported the IOF and the Trudeau government has denied genocide 'allegations' against Isnotreal at the ICJ. Trudeau is also the one who advocated for a "humanitarian pause," after stumbling on his words a few months ago, and has, from time to time, 'condemned,' the IOF military for going 'overboard' when he trickles in his little empathetic 'we are so concerned for the people in Gaza,' while in the same breath saying the IOF didn't strike hospitals... (side eyes).

These are some recent examples (the first in June, and December of 2023, respectively) -which shows proof that Canada exports weapons to the IOF (but often through the US -the article below addresses this). Since you asked about about which companies are shipping to Isnotreal, the only one I can reference is CN Rail [Canadian National Railway] (which is where some protests have happened), but there aren't any other particular companies I can reference because shipments are done relatively in secret, so there's not a strong/direct paper trail, so to speak. this is an except from the first article below:

"Canada doesn’t normally release many details on defence exports to Israel or other countries. Since 2015, however, the largest annual categories of shipments fall into three categories: bombs, torpedoes, missiles and other explosive devices; aircraft, drones, aero engines, aircraft equipment for military use and electronic equipment; spacecraft and components." "A 2020-2021 study by the House of Commons foreign affairs committee obtained records that shed some light on the goods Canadian firms were seeking permission to export to Israel, including transport vehicles, circuit boards for Israel’s fleet of F-15 and V-22 aircraft and components for radios." "The Canadian-made components that go into each F-35 don’t show up in Ottawa’s records of military goods exports because they are shipped to the United States, where the aircraft’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, is based, and Global Affairs Canada does not publish the full value of annual military exports to the U.S."

It is very concerning how the Canadian government operates this way, and we should all be demanding more transparency about arms transfers to the US. Project Ploughshares, the research committee that they spoke about in the first article, is a resource I would look into if you want to learn more about this. They focus on "disarmament efforts and international security specifically related to the arms trade..." I've attached their website below. You can also access previous webinars, reports, and commentary on their page on these topics.

There were 2 successful direct action protests in Canada, one in Winnipeg and the other in Montreal, in November and December of last year, respectively. Both of whom were blocking railways in an effort to raise awareness about Canada supporting and sending arms to Isnotreal.

This also happened recently:

Now, what can be done on our ends? Plenty -sharing and creating posts about what is happening -and telling the world we won't remain silent on the genocide happening in Gaza.

This is the most updated BDS movement list for you to boycott companies and brands that either profit off of or indirectly support the genocide of Palestinian people:

Oxfam also created this small article about what we can do to help which I find is a great start:

Some of the actions include emailing the Prime Minister (they have a template for you to work with), and I wanted to also include emailing your MP's (Members of Parliament), to demand a ceasefire.

There is also a current petition in parliament right now you can sign -it's a demand to a ceasefire, and also demands an investigation into Canadian arms deals/sells in Isnotreal -and for more transparency into this, generally speaking (you can read everything the MP outlines below). This is open until February 19th, 2024. I may also make a separate post about this too:

There are some petitions on change.org I know people have set up, so you can take a look there of course. There is also a source that Oxfam links -they have a section of current events/resources where you can take action. The most recent national march for Gaza was in December 2023 (it took place in Ottawa, on unceded and un-surrendered Algonquin territory -Parliament Hill), and I am sure more will be planned for those able to attend/what is accessible to you.

I know this was quite long, but I hope this offers some direction and clarity, if not encourages more people to look into some of these topics and issues more deeply. Thank you once again for sharing this today. I will also be updating my page soon.

As always, free Palestine!

#feminist #feminism #social justice #free palestine #freepalastine🇵🇸 #settler violence #settler colonialism #free gaza #current events #canada #canada politics #members of parliament #liberals #justin trudeau #trudeau news #canadian politics #world politics #us imperialism #activism #protest #petition #ceasefire now #ceasefire #end the occupation

[palestinegenocide]

Key Developments

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveils “postwar plan” for Gaza, where Israel would control security and play a role in civilian affairs 

Palestinian presidency rejects Netanyahu’s plan, calling for an independent Palestinian state.

 Israeli Finance Minister Ben Smotrich set to approve more than 3,000 housing units in West Bank as “Zionist revenge” for shooting operation outside Maale Adumim.

Israeli forces launch series of attacks on Central Gaza, killing 40 Palestinians and injuring at least 100 others.

Israeli forces re-enter besieged Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, as aid agencies strategize how to evacuate 140 stranded patients.

Several Israeli human rights organizations call upon countries to restore UNRWA funding. 

West Bank: Israeli forces detain two ten-year-old children from Sinjil, north of Ramallah.

UN Experts: Arms exports to Israel must stop immediately.

Foreign ministers gathered for the G20 summit in Rio De Janeiro to discuss the importance of a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state.

Israeli Army Radio reports that it is “preparing for war” in Lebanon.

Israeli airstrike kills two paramedics in the town of Bint Jbeil, Lebanon.

#israel #free gaza #gaza strip #gazaunderattack #genocide #israel is a terrorist state #free palestine #gaza #palestine #jerusalem #news #palestine news #key developments #lebanon #unrwa #unrwafunding #west bank #tel aviv #rafah #un #nasser hospital #khan younis #netanyahu #benjamin netanyahu #netanyahu a criminal of war

[unhonestlymirror]

In Russia, a new textbook on history for senior classes was presented. In it, Ukraine was called an ultranationalist state, and Russia was called a country of opportunities.

Its author is the assistant to the President of Russia and former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky. In the textbook for 11th grade, the chapters on the period 1970-2000 have been completely rewritten, and a chapter from 2014 to the present has been added. A separate section is devoted to "special operation" in Ukraine.

Here are some quotes:

"Ukraine is an ultra-nationalist state. Today, any dissent in Ukraine is harshly persecuted, opposition is prohibited, everything Russian is declared hostile"

HAHAHA. Do you know how many Ukrainians - lawyers, doctors, teachers - still speak in russian, even when they hate russia? Do you know how many of them listen to russian music? Not even talking about the amount of vatņiki.

"The unprecedented and unthinkable happened again. The West stole the total assets of the Russian state, stored in their banks, for a total amount of more than 300 billion dollars."

In addition, Switzerland has been accused of insufficiently implementing sanctions against Russian oligarchs and of helping Russia by banning the re-export of war material to Ukraine.

"After the departure of foreign companies, many markets are open to you. Open fantastic opportunities for a career in business and own startups, don't miss this chance. Today, Russia is truly a country of opportunities."

Don't miss a fantastic opportunity to die in prison or as an occupier.

#stop russian aggression #genocide of ukrainians #support ukraine #russia is a terrorist state

[humanrightsupdates]

China: Carmakers Implicated in Uyghur Forced Labor

BYD, GM, Tesla, Toyota, VW Risk Using Tainted Aluminum

Global carmakers, including General Motors, Tesla, BYD, Toyota, and Volkswagen, are failing to minimize the risk of Uyghur forced labor being used in their aluminum supply chains, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 99-page report, “Asleep at the Wheel: Car Companies’ Complicity in Forced Labor in China,” finds that some carmakers have succumbed to Chinese government pressure to apply weaker human rights and responsible sourcing standards at their Chinese joint ventures than in their global operations, increasing the risk of exposure to forced labor in Xinjiang. Most have done too little to map their aluminum supply chains and identify links to forced labor.

“Car companies simply don’t know the extent of their links to forced labor in Xinjiang in their aluminum supply chains,” said Jim Wormington, senior researcher and advocate for corporate accountability at Human Rights Watch. “Consumers should know their cars might contain materials linked to forced labor or other abuses in Xinjiang.”

The link between Xinjiang, a region in northwestern China, the aluminum industry, and forced labor is the Chinese government-backed labor transfer programs, which coerce Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims into jobs in Xinjiang and other regions.

Human Rights Watch reviewed online Chinese state media articles, company reports, and government statements and found credible evidence that aluminum producers in Xinjiang are participating in labor transfers. Human Rights Watch also uncovered evidence that fossil fuel companies that supply coal to aluminum producers in Xinjiang have received labor transfer workers at their coal mines. Xinjiang’s aluminum smelters depend on the region’s abundant and highly polluting coal supplies to fuel the energy-intensive process of aluminum production.

In 2023, domestic and foreign manufacturers in China produced and exported more cars than any other country. Since 2017, the Chinese government has committed crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and cultural and religious persecution, and has subjected Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim communities to forced labor inside and outside Xinjiang.

#human rights #xinjiang #uyghurs

[zvaigzdelasas]

Officials from the UK Foreign Office and the business department held an online meeting with British business leaders in November to encourage companies to take advantage of the “great opportunity” to support Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev’s rebuilding agenda.[...]

In the days after Baku’s military operations the UK government publicly condemned the Aliyev regime’s “unacceptable use of force” in Nagorno-Karabakh and warned that it had “put at risk efforts to find a lasting peaceful settlement” in the region.

But a recording of the online meeting, shared with the Guardian by campaigners at Global Witness, includes one senior UK government official encouraging business leaders to take advantage of the financial opportunities in the “huge western chunk of the country that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up”.

“The Azerbaijan government is supporting what it calls ‘the great return’, which is essentially providing the opportunity for the 700,000 [internally displaced people], these refugees, to basically return to Karabakh. So you have this great opportunity here actually,” the official said.

It is not clear whether the official was referring to Nagorno-Karabakh specifically, part of the far larger Karabakh region. Aliyev set out plans in 2020 to rebuild the “liberated districts” of the Karabakh region in western Azerbaijan, which includes Nagorno-Karabakh. The president said it was important that all displaced Azerbaijan citizens return to Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent districts where they used to live.

A second government official told business leaders: “[There’s] a great opportunity here actually. [It was] just an empty land that was ready to be built over from scratch.”

Jonathan Noronha-Gant, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, said: “Behind closed doors, the UK government is calling Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh a ‘great opportunity’. What century are these officials living in? It’s not a great opportunity for the UK, nor for the people who were displaced.”

In the recording the first official said UK companies were “well-placed” to collaborate with the Azerbaijan government to provide infrastructure advice to “a government which has financial means given that it has very large energy resources”. Azerbaijan owns one of the world’s largest gasfields, Shah Deniz in the Caspian Sea, and is a growing exporter of gas to Europe.[...]

A UK government spokesperson said: “These comments from UK officials have been misrepresented. Discussions of reconstruction referred to the UK government’s public work to assist with possible future development in the new towns being built for those displaced by decades of conflict.

“The UK is not involved in commercial activity or reconstruction efforts in the area of Nagorno-Karabakh region recovered by Azerbaijan through its September 2023 military operation.[...]

The Guardian revealed last year that Azerbaijan’s share of two large oil and gas projects operated by British oil company BP had earned its government almost $35bn (£28.6bn), or more than four times its military spending since 2020 when war broke out in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.[...]

BP also plans to build a 240MW solar farm in Azerbaijan’s “liberated lands”, according to Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister. The Azerbaijani prime minister, Ali Asadov, met with the BP head of production, Gordon Birrell, recently to discuss the Sunrise solar project, which is planned for an area near the ghost city of Jabrayil, which was left in ruin after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.

22 Feb 24

[readingsquotes]

"... despite Democrats’ repeated suggestion that Netanyahu is the impetus for Israel’s war, political analysts say that in reality the prime minister’s actions are in step with Israel’s political mainstream. “Schumer is operating in this fantasy that if you get rid of Netanyahu, you might be able to get somebody else who’s more moderate who could then save the relationship between the US and Israel under the pretense of support for progressive values and democracy,” said Omar Baddar, a Palestinian American political analyst. But this narrative ignores how Israeli politicians almost across the board agree with Israel’s conduct in Gaza, as do the majority of Israelis. Yair Lapid, the former prime minister and head of the Israeli opposition, supports the ongoing assault, as does war cabinet member Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s main political rival and the man who, according to polling, would become prime minister if Israel held elections today. Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, noted that many Democrats might welcome Gantz replacing Netanyahu, but the change of guard would alter little about Israel’s conduct in Gaza. “There is a danger to the idea that replacing Netanyahu will fix everything. It will not,” Duss said. “It could create a grace period where bad things continue to happen, but the US feels better about it. We need to oppose that.”

Instead of constituting a substantive shift in US support for Israel, experts say, Democrats’ emboldened critique of Netanyahu should be understood as an attempt to respond to growing voter frustration without changing policy, as the Biden administration remains unwilling to use US aid and arms exports to Israel as leverage to demand a change in behavior. In this context, the choice to focus on Netanyahu “is a political decision to avoid outright criticism of Israel’s war conduct,” said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. For Schumer, in particular, blaming Netanyahu as an individual was a way “to avoid the implication that he is lessening his support for the Israeli state or the Israeli people,” she said. “Instead, Schumer is focusing on a man who is unpopular among Democrats to say, ‘See, we are standing up for our values, so voters should stop being mad at us.’”

...

But ultimately, the Democratic narrative about “Netanyahu’s war” doesn’t reflect reality—not only because the assault on Gaza enjoys broad support in Israel, but also because Israel could not continue its assault without a constant supply of US arms and military funding. Senior Democrats’ fixation on the Israeli prime minister thus serves to sideline debate about US policies that could actually bring the war to an end. “Refusing to condition aid or impose sanctions—or do anything that would actually have a chance of influencing Netanyahu—shows that the Biden administration and Democratic Party leadership are not interested in ending the Gaza assault. They’re just interested in managing it,” said Tariq Kenney-Shawa, US policy fellow at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. While anonymous US officials have repeatedly told news outlets that the Biden administration is considering conditioning aid to Israel or slowing down weapons shipments, no such move has occurred; indeed, on Monday, the State Department said that Israel had complied with the requirement that countries receiving US weapons follow international law, despite a wide range of flagrant violations documented by numerous human rights organizations."

#palestine #free palestine #isreal #gaza #apartheid #genocide #colonization #us politics #american imperialism

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Trump gave Moderna all the patent-waivers it needed to make a vaccine

There’s a lot of competition for the title of “Most On-The-Nose Symbol of Late Stage Capitalism,” but I think there’s a strong case for awarding the crown to “Vaccine Apartheid” — the decision to deny covid vaccines to billions of poor people in the Global South.

Here’s how that went down: countries in the poor world were arm-twisted into signing the WTO agreement on pain of being shut out of global trade (these former colonies had all been forcibly converted to export crop economies that relied on rich-world countries for seed and Big Ag tech, so opting out of trade wasn’t an option).

Part of the WTO is the TRIPS (AKA “Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights”) — a treaty that binds WTO members to respect each others’ patent rights. This is an inarguably bad deal for poor countries, which is why the USA didn’t respect foreign patents until they became a net patent exporter.

One way this can go horribly wrong? Pharmaceuticals. The marginal costs of producing most drugs are very low, but Big Pharma wants to charge all the traffic can bear — markups of tens of thousands of percent! They say this is to recoup R&D, but R&D costs are largely borne by public institutions, with pharma giants privatizing the gains from those public expenditures.

Once a drug is invented and tested, it can be made very cheaply, so poor countries could benefit from it, even given their very modest means, and poor countries can’t afford to pay rich world prices. Cheap drug prices for the global south won’t cut into full-price sales for the poorest 3 billion people. They’re not ever gonna pay US prices.

But this still would be bad for pharma’s business model, which is predicated on raking in those five-figure margins from people in the rich world, some of whom are quite poor (thanks, inequality!). If there’s a low-cost source of pharma’s products somewhere else in the world, then desperate people in the rich world will figure out how to import those low-cost drugs, and a giant pharma company’s stock buybacks and dividends will be reduced from hella-billions to mere umpty-billions.

So if you’re a poor country, signing onto the WTO and the TRIPS means that nearly everyone in your country just won’t have access to lifesaving drugs. This is such an obvious bad deal that the WTO negotiators from the global south balked at it, so the WTO threw them a bone: IP Waivers.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/25/the-other-shoe-drops/#quid-pro-quo

Here’s how those (are supposed to) work: if there’s a terrible emergency, say, a pandemic, then the WTO can grant “IP Waivers” to poor countries, which say, “Since this is such an humanitarian disaster, we’re going to temporarily lift your obligation to respect rich, offshore corporations’ patents. You can make their drugs, or import them from another poor country that’s doing so.” Sometimes these waivers make it free to use foreign companies’ patents, other times, they set a fixed cost (a “compulsory license”) for practicing a patent.

IP Waivers are as much as part of the global patent system as patent protections are: they’re the quid-pro-quo that justified poor countries’ tying their own hands and agreeing not to make drugs that would improve the quality of life for the people who live there.

But corporatists and Ayn Rand trufans hate IP Waivers. Back when South Africa and other global south countries were in danger of collapsing under the AIDS pandemic, they petitioned the WTO for an IP Waiver for AIDS drugs, which were otherwise priced beyond their means.

They had a real shot at it, too! But then, the Gates Foundation (yes, that Gates Foundation) sent its operatives to Geneva to argue against any such thing, insisting sovereign countries should beg rich foreigners to donate medicine to them, and if the rich foreigners didn’t want to, they should just let their people die and their nation fail:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation

Gates and his Foundation epitomize the idea that the only way to organize public health issues is through the whims of unaccountable billionaires, rather than democratically elected governments. When Oxford University announced plans to make its vaccine patent-free, Gates changed their mind, talking them into an exclusive deal with Astrazeneca instead:

https://khn.org/news/rather-than-give-away-its-covid-vaccine-oxford-makes-a-deal-with-drugmaker/

Rather than trusting billions in the global south to decide how to make and distribute vaccines, Gates set up a program called COVAX, whereby rich people and rich countries could donate covid vaccines — enough to treat just a tiny slice of the world’s poorest people.

https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines

Meanwhile, at the WTO, the global south showed up calling for an IP Waiver for covid vaccines. The rich world’s pharma companies having laid out plans to delay vaccination until 2025 for 2.5 billion people in 125 countries, the case for a covid vax waiver was very strong.

Big Pharma went on the offensive. They paid ghoulish “experts” — like Howard Dean, now an unregistered pharma lobbyist — to spread the racist lie that poor brown people are too stupid to make their own vaccines (the largest vaccine factories are in the global south).

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/21/wait-your-turn/#vaccine-apartheid

They also promoted the dangerous, medically incoherent theory that poor people should “wait their turn.” This isn’t merely an inhumane, vicious ideology, it’s also a recipe for cooking up lot of covid variants, including those that escape vaccine immunity and re-infect people in the rich world. Leaving 2.5 billion people unvaccinated for years and years, incubating variant after variant, is the gift that keeps on giving…to the virus.

The idea that we can deny vaccines to half the world is like the idea that we can create a swimming pool with a "pissing" and "non-pissing" end, and doom all the people who can't afford the pay toilets to swim in the pissing end - without all of us marinating in piss.

It’s…ironic? Tragic? Tragironic? Because, of course, the vaccines were made with public money — direct state intervention in the market, in the form of R&D and production subsidies and purchase guarantees. The people insisting that unfettered markets are the only way to produce vaccines are manifestly wrong.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/16/entrepreneurial-state/#patient-zero-money

To its credit, the Biden administration backed the IP Waivers, but they didn’t throw a lot of weight behind it, and the corporate lobby outmaneuvered them, killing waivers by arguing that any kind of IP Waiver would be the end of vaccine production forever:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/10/comrade-ustr/#vaccine-diplomacy

But now, a trove of Trump administration documents that Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) forced the US government to release shows that these very same pharma companies enjoyed luxuriant, expansive IP Waivers of their own. Writing in The Intercept, Lee Fang details how Moderna, in particular, demanded and received waivers:

https://theintercept.com/2022/08/23/covid-vaccine-patents-moderna-big-pharma-section-1498/

All in all, the Trump admin granted IP Waivers to 62 US companies making drugs, PPE, and medical equipment. These waivers allowed their recipients to march into their rivals’ patent rights and seize them, without permission, in order to produce the drugs, supplies and equipment needed to fight the virus.

These waivers were granted under 28USC§1498 (aka Section 1498), a rule that allows government contractors to demand a compulsory license to their rivals’ patents, indemnifying them — and often, the government — from patent liability. Beneficiaries of the S1498 waivers include Moderna, but also Corning, Eli Lilly, Merck, Qiagen, Sanofi and Siemens.

S1498 dates back to 1910 and came into widespread use in WWI, when the US government expropriated the Wright Brothers’ airplane patents to create an air force. S1498 got another lift in WWII, under similar circumstances.

It has been quiescent since, and, indeed, the Trump administration kept its use of waivers a secret. KEI was tipped off to their use thanks to a lawsuit filed by two of Moderna’s competitors, who complained that Moderna “simply used the patented technology without paying for it or even asking for a license.”

KEI cofounder James Love told Fang that he supports the use of waivers for covid vaccines: “I’m glad they did it.” But he pointed out that even as Moderna was relying on these waivers, they were also denouncing the idea of waivers for poor countries as an existential risk to all pharma research.

Meanwhile, Moderna’s vaccine was “really one of the most profitable biopharmaceutical products of all time.” The CEO who oversaw its production has liquidated $400m in stock. The company received $2.48b in public subsidy to make the vaccine.

Anyway, enjoy your variants. Mask up, everyone!

[Image ID: The Earth, floating in space, with its southern hemisphere in flames; it is being irradiated by a beam-weapon fired by a Death Star-style coronavirus molecule, bearing the Moderna logo.]

#pluralistic

[mariacallous]

ODESA, Ukraine—In his office overlooking Odesa’s Pivdennyi Port on the Black Sea, Viktor Berestenko smiled contentedly at the half-dozen large international cargo ships just beyond the harbor. “It’s as beautiful as your first kiss,” said the grinning president of the Association of International Freight Forwarders of Ukraine. Speaking to Foreign Policy in late March Berestenko was only too happy to inform me that Ukraine’s three free ports—all in and around Odesa—are operating 24/7, and that the country’s grain exports are back to prewar levels.

The restoration of Black Sea trade is a major breakthrough for Ukraine, in stark contrast to the losses it has endured this year on the eastern fronts. In the Black Sea theater, Ukraine has pulled off the unthinkable: beating back the esteemed Russian Navy even though it has next to no naval force of its own.

From the tiny swath of coastline around Odesa, Ukraine has stymied Moscow’s attempt to landlock and hobble its economy by rendering it unable to market its voluminous agricultural exports. In the spring of 2022, the Russian military barricaded Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and brought exports to a standstill. This forced Ukraine to shift to land routes to market its goods and caused worldwide grain prices to spike, which raised concerns about famine in the Middle East and Africa. Today, Russia still occupies 16 Ukrainian ports. But the Black Sea front looks more hopeful for Ukraine than at any time since the war’s onset more than two years ago.

The Ukrainian fleet lost 80 percent of its vessels after the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014. But, relying a combination of missile systems and unmanned drone boats guided by advanced GPS and cameras, Ukraine’s armed forces claim to have crippled a third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. They have also upended the Russian supply lines that serve thousands of troops in the occupied areas of southern Ukraine.

On March 24, Ukraine landed another blow, reportedly using U.K.- or French-made air-to-surface missiles, taking out two large Russian landing ships and other infrastructure near the occupied Crimean port city of Sevastopol. Russia’s fleet has suffered such a drubbing that it prompted the firing of its top admiral, Nikolai Yevmenov, in mid-March. Today, Russia’s remaining ships are in docked in berths along the far side of the Crimean Peninsula, out of sight but not entirely out of Ukraine’s reach.

“Russia wanted to turn the Black Sea into a big Russian lake. But Ukraine reversed it,” said Volodymyr Dubovyk, the director of the Center for International Studies at the Odesa Mechnikov National University. “Russian ships today don’t venture into the northwest of the Black Sea.”

This cover has enabled Ukraine to improvise a sea corridor that begins in Odesa and hugs the safe shores of NATO members Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey as ships travel southwest en route to the Bosphorus Strait, through which most Black Sea trade passes. Exploiting a bumper crop, Ukraine is now exporting as much grain—corn, wheat, and barley—as it did before the war, as well as other goods, and has opened its Odesan ports for nighttime business to handle yet more. Prior to the war, Ukraine traded more grain than the entire European Union and supplied half of the globally traded sunflower oil, as well as iron ore and fertilizer, according to Bloomberg.

“This is enormously important for Ukraine’s economy, for the Odesa region, and for our future,” said Sergey Yakubovskiy, an economist at Odesa National University. “We have to do everything to keep this route open and reliable.”

Ukraine’s asymmetric Black Sea strategy relies ever more upon Ukraine-made drone boats—known as uncrewed surface vessels (USVs)—that speed across the water beneath Russian radar carrying up to 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds) of explosives. These projectiles have sunk or disabled some of the 24 lost Russian warships, evidence that Ukraine’s domestic arms production has been stepped up and is increasingly consequential in the absence of anticipated U.S. and European assistance. According to the Guardian, there are currently 200 drone manufacturing companies in Ukraine, some of them bankrolled by crowdfunding campaigns. In December 2023, they delivered 50 times as many robotic explosives as in the entire year of 2022, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation.

Ukraine’s strategy is to maintain its presence in the Black Sea with the prospect of soon acquiring the longer-range missiles that it needs to hit Crimea itself and Russia proper beyond it, Dubovyk said. For Ukraine, he explained, the pressing issue is what comes next. “Crimea is in play, and if Ukraine can put more pressure on Russia there, it can make the occupation untenable. It would change the war’s logic if Russia couldn’t supply the eastern fronts from Crimea,” he said.

Russia’s response has been to target Odesa’s ports, energy infrastructure, and housing blocks with ballistic missiles. Seldom does a day pass without air raid sirens in the port city, which send its residents scrambling into their cellars. In March alone, Russian attacks killed 32 civilians.

One would think that the new coastal sea route would obviate Ukraine’s need to access EU markets via land, namely through Central Europe, and thus ameliorate the friction it has caused between the Central Europeans and Ukraine. Following Russia’s invasion, the EU allowed Ukraine tariff-free access to its markets, which had the effect of undermining the Visegrad Group states’ own grain trade and prompting farmers to take to the streets in anger, above all in Poland. Now, logically, trade could revert to its previous routes and the injurious tiff come to an end.

Not so quickly, explained Yakubovskiy, the economist. He pointed out that Ukraine’s new sea corridor is a temporary and unsanctioned byway, possible now only as a result of Russia’s naval weakness and an informal agreement between Russia and Ukraine not to target civilian shipping. It could end at any moment, he said.

As for Russia, it is not likely to improve its Black Sea positions soon. This is because Turkey controls the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits, and Ankara has chosen to adhere to the letter of the 1936 Montreux Convention, which prohibits the passage of warships through the straights into the Black Sea in a time of war. Russia thus has no way of getting reinforcements to its ports.

The upshot of Russia’s retreat from Black Sea waters and Turkey’s control of the straits has put Ankara in the driver’s seat. Whether Ukraine maintains its new trade route thus depends, to some extent, on Turkey.

In the past, Ankara has shown itself deft at using leverage to promote its own interests, whatever they may be. It could turn Viktor Berestenko’s bliss into a short-lived fling.

[tomorrowusa]

In addition to bombing maternity hospitals, playgrounds, and apartment buildings, Putin's war criminals are now bombing cathedrals.

This was the second time that the vast, sand-yellow Transfiguration Cathedral, which sits in the heart of Odesa’s Unesco-listed historic centre, had been attacked: in the 1930s, it was torn down during Joseph Stalin’s atheism drive. On Sunday morning, the rebuilt version was hit during a Russian airstrike on the city. A missile blew a large hole in the roof, collapsed the altar and left several walls charred by fire. It was one of several strikes on the southern port city in the early hours. Schools, residential buildings and a revered 19th-century mansion also suffered damage. One person was killed and 14 were hospitalised, the regional governor said.

Central Odesa is a designated World Heritage Site.

Putin is having another major hissy fit. His three-day "special operation" to wipe out Ukraine as a country began on 24 February 2022 and marks its 17th month today. He is currently attacking the port city of Odesa because that is where most of Ukraine's grain is exported. If Putin can't have Ukraine, developing countries can't have grain.

Russia has been hitting Odesa relentlessly since Moscow last week pulled out of a deal allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported from the city’s Black Sea ports. The Russian defence ministry has also threatened to treat commercial ships attempting to dock in Odesa as military targets in order to ensure that no grain can leave the city. “Russia’s current strategy is to destroy Odesa. They would never really attack foreign-flagged ships coming to Odesa, so they are attacking Odesa to make it clear that it’s too dangerous here,” said Oleksiy Honcharenko, a Ukrainian MP from the city. He said Ukraine urgently needed more air defence systems. Even by the standards of Russia’s ruthless war strategy, a missile strike on a historic cathedral – one that was consecrated by the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, no less – was a shocking development. The priests at the scene were dumbfounded. “This is barbarism, it’s terrorism. The people who did this are not people at all,” said Myroslav Vdodovych, the cathedral’s chief priest, as he walked through the ruins in a fluorescent orange helmet, taking calls on his mobile phone and directing emergency workers to spots where there was still rubble to clear.

Of course it's terrorism. Russia has become a terrorist state under Putin. Putin runs the country like the head of a fascist mafia.

We need to send ATACMS and F-16s to Ukraine. Fortunately Ukrainian pilots are already in the process of being trained to fly F-16s.

A lot of the terrorist missiles used against Ukraine are fired from planes flying over the international waters of the Black Sea. Ukraine needs the ability to shoot down Putin's flying terrorists. Let them sleep with the fishes along with the Moskva.

#invasion of ukraine #odesa #grain exports #transfiguration cathedral in odesa #russians bombing churches #world heritage site #russia is a terrorist state #vladimir putin #putin is a war criminal #give atacms to ukraine #give f-16s to ukraine #stand with ukraine #россия - террористическая страна #владимир путин #военные преступления #путин хуйло #долой путина #бей путина #путлер #путин – это лжедмитрий iv а не пётр великий #объект всемирного наследия #руки прочь от украины! #геть з україни #вторгнення оркостану в україну #одеса #спасо-преображенський собор #україна переможе #слава україні! #героям слава! #будь сміливим як україна