The threat of war in Europe between Russia and a United States-sponsored聽client-state in Ukraine is real, writes William Briggs. The security of Europe and the world is under direct threat and we receive, as always, a skewed and distorted view of what is going on.
Ukraine
As tensions heat up on the Ukraine-Russia border, Vijay Prashad looks at the factors and interests behind what is happening.
In a statement to the Senate on June 13, the federal government confirmed it will sell uranium to Ukraine despite significant safety and security concerns raised by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT).
In February a JSCOT investigation found that existing safeguards were 鈥渘ot sufficient鈥 and there was a risk Australian nuclear material would disappear in Ukraine.
It is official: solidarity and activism are, according to the Ukrainian government, criminal acts. It seems paradoxical, but it is true.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Petro Poroshenko has demanded the Italian government extradite members of the so-called Anti-Fascist Caravan (AFC), a group of activists who recently visited the separatist region of Donbass in eastern Ukraine.
I have been filming in the Marshall Islands, which lie north of Australia, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Whenever I tell people where I have been, they ask, "Where is that?" If I offer a clue by referring to "Bikini", they say, "You mean the swimsuit."
Few seem aware that the bikini swimsuit was named to celebrate the nuclear explosions that destroyed Bikini island. Sixty-six nuclear devices were exploded by the United States in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 -- the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for twelve years.
Russia's initiation of air strikes in Syria on September 30, a year after a US-led coalition began air strikes in Syria 鈥 both officially targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) 鈥 began the latest round of speculation of a 鈥渘ew Cold War鈥 with Russia and its allies pitted against the US and other Western imperialist powers.
The Dutch Safety Board released its long-awaited report on October 13 into the downing of flight MH17 at the Gilze-Rijen military airbase. It came 15 months after the disaster that killed 298 people, said the next day.
Board chairperson Tjibbe Joustra criticised the Kiev government for allowing civilian aircraft to fly through a dangerous war zone.
Leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France emerged from negotiations in Minsk, Belarus on the morning of February 12, after 16 hours of talks, and announced that agreement had been reached for a ceasefire in Ukraine's civil war.
The conflict has divided Ukraine since the overthrow of the unpopular, but democratically elected, president Viktor Yanukovich in February last year.
The statement below was released by the Party of the European Left (EL) on November 17. The EL is a Europe-wide political party that formed in 2004. It is composed of 26 member parties and seven observer parties. Visit www.european-left.org for more information. *** A delegation of the Party of the European Left (EL), headed by two of its vice presidents, Margarita Mileva and Maite Mola, returned on November 16 after a four-day visit to Kiev.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is determined to blame the Russian government for the tragic deaths of 298 civilians, including 38 Australians, when Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine. Abbott went as far as to threaten to 鈥渟hirtfront鈥 Russian President Vladimir Putin during the November 15 and 16 G20 Summit in Brisbane.
鈥淭here is a taboo,鈥 said the visionary Edward Said, 鈥渙n telling the truth about Palestine and the great destructive force behind Israel. Only when this truth is out can any of us be free.鈥
For many people, the truth is out now. At last, they know. Those once intimidated into silence can't look away now.
Staring at them from their TV, laptop and phone is proof of the barbarism of the Israeli state and the great destructive force of its mentor and provider, the US, the cowardice of European governments, and the collusion of others, such as Canada and Australia, in this epic crime.
If you were in Newport and Cardiff in south-east Wales during the first week of September, you might have thought you鈥檇 entered a warzone. Instead, it was simply the September 4 and 5 NATO Summit.
As NATO warships drifted ominously into the harbour and US Osprey and Nighthawk helicopters thundered in the sky, above mile after mile of steel fencing, disgruntled residents were left taking to Twitter to complain about their desks shaking at work.
鈥淭he amount of helicopters I have heard today makes it sound like we鈥檙e at war,鈥 one said.
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