These members of Congress signed a lettercondemning the International Court of Justice decision that Israel is likely committing acts of genocide in Gaza. Shame on you for not uphold the rule of international law and for not protecting the lives of innocent civilians.
Genocide Deniers . . .
Christopher H. Smith (R)
Young Kim (R)
Rudy Yakym III (R)
Adrian Smith (R)
Jerry L. Carl (R)
Frank J. Mrvan (D)
Barry Loudermilk (R)
Kathy Manning (D)
Andy Barr (R)
Julia Letlow (R)
Elissa Slotkin (D)
Jenniffer González-Colón
Robert J. Menendez (D)
Vern Buchanan (R)
Doug Lamborn (R)
Ronny L. Jackson (R)
Ted W. Lieu (D)
Dan Goldman (D)
Tom McClintock (R)
Jimmy Panetta (D)
Kathy Castor (D)
Brad Sherman (D)
Michael Waltz (R)
August Pfluger (R)
Grace Meng (D)
Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R) (Oregon)
Mariannette Miller-Meeks
David Rouzer (R)
Michael T. McCaul (R)
Tim Burchett (R)
Jared Moskowitz (D)
Josh Gottheimer (D)
J. Luis Correa (D)
Robert Garcia (D)
Darin LaHood (R)
Bradley Scott Schneider
Nathaniel Moran (R)
Anthony D’Esposito (R)
John Rose (R)
Andrew Ogles (R)
Garret Graves (R)
Erin Houchin (R)
Elise M. Stefanik (R)
Keith Self (R)
Brad Finstad (R)
Carlos A. Gimenez (R)
Trent Kelly (R)
W. Gregory Steube (R)
Gregory F. Murphy (R)
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R) (Washington)
Michael V. Lawler (R)
Jack Bergman (R)
Jake LaTurner (R)
Debbie Lesko (R)
John R. Curtis (R)
Darren Soto (D)
Kay Granger (R)
Bill Huizenga (R)
Lisa C. McClain (R)
Diana Harshbarger (R)
Doug LaMalfa (R)
Burgess Owens (R)
Chuck Edwards (R)
Mike Rogers (R)
Susan Wild (D)
Dina Titus (D)
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D) (Washington)
Gary J. Palmer (R)
David G. Valadao (R)
Robert E. Latta (R)
Michael R. Turner (R)
Kevin Hern (R)
Nick LaLota (R)
Lucy McBath (D)
Dean Phillips (D)
Mike Garcia (R)
Tony Gonzales (R)
Jodey C. Arrington (R)
David J. Trone (D)
Michael K. Simpson (R)
H. Morgan Griffith (R)
Robert B. Aderholt (R)
Scott H. Peters (D)
Ron Estes (R)
Patrick T. McHenry (R)
David Kustoff (R)
Carol D. Miller (R)
Neal P. Dunn (R)
Mark E. Amodei (R)
John R. Carter (R)
Dan Newhouse (R) (Washington)
Mike Bost (R)
Guy Reschenthaler (R)
Charles Fleischmann (R)
Wiley Nickel (D)
Frank Pallone (D)
Aaron Bean (R)
Andrew S. Clyde (R)
Bruce Westerman (R)
Donald Norcross (D)
Jared Golden (D)
Juan Vargas (D)
Chris Pappas (D)
James A. Himes (D)
Brittany Pettersen (D)
Virginia Foxx (R)
Max L. Miller (R)
Kevin Kiley (R)
Dan Meuser (R)
Haley M. Stevens (D)
Randy Feenstra (R)
John R. Moolenaar (R)
Glenn “GT” Thompson (R)
Michelle Steel (R)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D)
Michael Guest (R)
Lois Frankel (D)
Donald G. Davis (R)
Rick W. Allen (R)
Sam Graves (R)
Nicole Malliotakis (R)
Sheila Cherfilus-McCormi
Ken Calvert (R)
Salud Carbajal (D)
Harriet M. Hageman (R)
Brandon Williams (R)
Bryan Steil (R)
William R. Keating (D)
Joseph D. Morelle (D)
C. A. Dutch Ruppersberg
Marcus J. Molinaro (R)
Derrick Van Orden (R)
Dusty Johnson (R)
Tom Emmer (R)
Kat Cammack (R)
Michael Cloud (R)
Juan Ciscomani (R)
Derek Kilmer (D) (Washington)
John H. Rutherford (R)
Mike Gallagher (R)
Ryan K. Zinke (R)
Steve Cohen (D)
Pat Fallon (R)
Don Bacon (R)
Ami Bera (D)
Vicente Gonzalez (D)
Jay Obernolte (R)
Joe Wilson (R)
Andrew R. Garbarino (R)
Jake Auchincloss (D)
Jim Costa (D)
Tim Walberg (R)
Greg Landsman (D)
Mikie Sherrill (D)
Claudia Tenney (R)
Henry Cuellar (D)
Zach Nunn (R)
Richard Hudson (R)
Randy K. Weber (R)
Mike Carey (R)
Raja Krishnamoorthi (D)
María Elvira Salazar (R)
Jim Banks (R)
Patrick K. Ryan (R)
Morgan Luttrell (R)
Mike Levin (D)
Dan Crenshaw (R)
C. Scott Franklin (R)
French Hill (R)
Steve Womack (R)
Andy Harris (R)
Ashley Hinson (R)
Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R)
Wesley Hunt (R)
Russ Fulcher (R)
Darrell Issa (R)
Susie Lee (D)
Monica De La Cruz (R)
Angie Craig (D)
David P. Joyce (R)
Lloyd Smucker (R)
Greg Stanton (D)
Ann Wagner (R)
Brian Fitzpatrick (R)
Robert J. Wittman (R)
Frank D. Lucas (R)
Yadira Caraveo (D)
Cliff Bentz (R) (Oregon)
Bill Posey (R)
Brian J. Mast (R)
Gus M. Bilirakis (R)
Julia Brownley (D)
Ritchie Torres (D)
Mike Ezell (R)
Shri Thanedar (D)
Adam B. Schiff (D)
John James (R)
Glenn Grothman (R)
Jefferson Van Drew (R)
Brian Babin (R)
Blaine Luetkemeyer (R)
Ruben Gallego (D)
Elijah Crane (R)
Thomas H. Kean (R)
Nicholas A. Langworthy (I)
Matt Cartwright (D)
Mike Quigley (D)
Josh Harder (D)
Mike Flood (R)
Andy Biggs (R)
Special Mention:
John Fetterman (D) The Guardian reports that As people have watched with increasing horror as Israel has bombarded Gaza, Fetterman told Semafor in January that “Israel is really a beacon of the kind of values, the American values and progressive ideals, that you want to see”.
Israeli politician Benny Gantz. (Photo: via Gantz TW Page)
The immunity prevents Gantz and Eshel from being prosecuted in the Supreme Court of Justice on charges of war crimes during Israeli operations.
The Supreme Court in the Netherlands has ruled to grant legal immunity to the former Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, and the former Commander of the Air Force and Director General of the Ministry of the Army, Amir Eshel, Israel’s Channel 7 reported on Friday.
The highest Dutch court confirmed rulings by judges in two lower courts that Gantz and Eshel are protected from prosecution because of their “functional immunity”.
The future liberated and de-Zionised Palestine may look now as a fantasy, but unlike Fantasy Israel, it has the best chance to galvanize locally, regionally and globally every person with a modicum of decency. Israel’s … Continue readingJ
The immunity prevents them from being prosecuted in the Supreme Court of Justice on charges of war crimes during Israeli operations.
The civil lawsuit was filed against Gantz and Eshel in September 2019 by Ismail Ziada, a Dutch-Palestinian citizen, who lost six family members in an airstrike during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Ziada, who is a Dutch citizen, said in a statement that he was “disappointed and angered” by the decision.
Ideological shifts do not appear and disappear overnight. Regardless of the outcome of Israel’s protests, the ideological shifts in Israel are seismic and long-lasting. The late Israeli commentator, Uri Avnery, wrote, “I am increasingly worried … Continue reading
“The court has once again chosen to put politics over people and blocked access to justice”, Ziada said, adding that he is considering appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.
For his part, Gantz welcomed the ruling, crediting Israel’s “stong and independent judicial system”, which protects Israeli officials “even in front of international courts”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. (Photo: via Facebook)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated on Monday that “all of Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law and a substantial obstacle to peace.”
Guterres made his comment as he expressed his deep concern about the Israeli government’s announcement that it is “legalizing” nine settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank.
Such outposts are illegal under international and even Israeli law.
“If these measures are implemented, they would further undermine prospects for a viable two-state solution,” Guterres’s spokesman told journalists.
The UN head called for an end to unilateral measures that undermine prospects for a political solution on the basis of UN resolutions, international law, and bilateral agreements.
The Israeli Knesset passed on Tuesday the so-called “Emergency Regulations in Judea and Samaria” or Apartheid. The “temporary” measure is voted on every five years.
The bill was first adopted in 1967 after ‘Israel’ occupied the West Bank. It addresses the legal status of Zionist settlers living in the occupied West Bank by maintaining their Israeli citizenship and rights, although they live beyond the green line— Israel’s internationally recognized borders.
Tuesday’s vote passed in the first reading.
The legislation allows Zionist settlers to appear in Israeli courts for offenses committed in the occupied West Bank. It also allows, contrary to international law, to jail Palestinians from the West Bank inside ‘Israel’.
Palestinians call it the apartheid law as it puts in place a two-tiered system—one for Zionists and another for Palestinians.
The bill is expected to pass in the second and third readings.
Meanwhile, the extremist security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir ordered prevention of the celebrations of the release of the ex-Palestinian prisoner Maher Younes and confiscation of the Palestinian flags. Ben-Gvir also ordered the Zionist police to resort to force in dealing with the secular protests against the government.
Opposition versus Government
The opposition figures in Knesset, including the former PM Yair Lapid and defense minister Benny Gantz, launched a major rhetorical attack on the premier Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of leading the entity into a civil war.
Gantz warned Netanyahu against striking the juridical system to avenge what the latter views as unjust trials, describing this as “unpatriotic”.
For his part, Lapid wondered about the consequences of losing the USA as the primary ally and deactivating the juridical authorities in the entity.
Former PM Yair Lapid and defense minister Benny Gantz
West Bank Report
The Palestinian resistance fighters targeted two Israeli military checkpoints in Ramnallah and Nablus, occupied West Bank.
According to well-informed sources, the Zionist occupation forces blocked Qalandiya checkpoint after it came under an IED attack.
In Nablus, the Palestinian resistance fighters attacked Israeli checkpoint 17with an IED, which led the enemy troops to close the crossing.
It is worth noting that the Palestinian Resistance fighters in Jenin, Nablus and Al-Quds are intensifying their gun attacks on the Zionist posts and checkpoints as the rate of operations has increased remarkably.
Palestinian Resistance fighters in the northern West Bank city of Jenin (photo from archive).
Meanwhile, the Zionist occupation forces launched a large-scale campaign of arrests across the West Bank. In details, the Israeli troops arrested a number of Islamic Jihad Movement’s cadres, including the ex-prisoners Wahid Abu Maria, Mohammad Wahid Abu Maria, Abdullah Mohammad Abu Maria, and Hamde Mohammad Abu Maria.
Israeli occupation forces arrest a Palestinian man in the West Bank (December 17, 2021).
Posted on November 27, 2022 by worldpeacewithjustice
November 26, 2022
Canadian member of Ontario’s provincial parliament, Joel Harden. (Photo: via Wikipedia)
– Paul Salvatori is a Toronto-based journalist, community worker and artist. Much of his work on Palestine involves public education, such as through his recently created interview series, “Palestine in Perspective” (The Dark Room Podcast), where he speaks with writers, scholars and activists. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
This week Joel Harden, a Canadian member of Ontario’s provincial parliament, made this unnecessary apology:
“I would like to apologize unreservedly to the Jewish community for comments I made during an interview with the Ottawa Forum on Israel Palestine. I spoke in a way that perpetrated an antisemitic stereotype towards Jewish neighbours. I regret my choice of words and sincerely apologize to the Jewish community. You have my commitment that it won’t happen again and I will continue to work with Jewish leaders who can help me understand antisemitism.”
Specifically, the apology was made in reference to this statement he made in the interview, in August 2021:
“If I were to name…the single greatest threat, the single greatest origin of violence in the Middle East, it is unquestionably the state of Israel and the way in which they feel absolutely no shame in defying international law, doing whatever they want.”
There’s nothing wrong with this since, first, it’s no secret that Israel has absolutely no reservations about and is routinely breaking international law (as confirmed by the United Nations, Amnesty International, other major human rights organizations the world over) and, second, whether Israel is in fact “the single greatest origin of violence in the Middle East” is at worst only debatable.
Given that Israel is constantly demolishing Palestinian properties, opening live fire and killing Palestinian civilians, illegally raiding Palestinian homes, physically and mentally (as through its military) harassing Palestinians, detaining them without any charge whatsoever, and holding them indefinitely behind bars (often referred to more nicely as “administrative detention”)—just to name a few of its crimes and in addition to its periodic bombing of Gaza (a densely open-air prison where Palestinians are wholly defenseless)—it is hardly a farfetched a view that Israel is the “single greatest origin of violence in the Middle East.”
To go any further at this point in listing Israeli crimes is simply to repeat what’s already been public for long. Motasem A Dalloul, in a recent article published in Middle East Monitor, succinctly notes what ultimately needs to be stressed:
“For 70 years Israel has been the subject of numerous UN resolutions, statements of condemnation and rulings of the illegality of its policies against Palestinians and yet no sanctions have been imposed against it nor have Palestinians been given aid to combat its aggression.”
In fact, as in the cast of Harden, we see the opposite, namely politicians and others apologizing for truthfully speaking to the illegality in question. Aside from such apologies being unnecessary they reflect four problematic issues, concerning Israeli ideologues.
First, Israeli ideologues, including the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) that took exception to Harden’s statement, don’t want to be criticized about Israeli criminality. Ever. In their view, if you draw attention to any of the various modes in which they are engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, whether outside the head (e.g. bombing of Gaza and Israeli settlement displacement) or inside the head (e.g. erasing Palestine from our memory and concerns), is already to have gone too far. And we know where that leads: being called “antisemitic.”
Stated bluntly, if you think that taking issue with what Israel is doing to Palestine is “antisemitic”, there’s something seriously amiss. Not with the person taking issue but with your thinking. It is so ludicrous to associate, at a very basic level, antisemitism with legit criticism of any state at all, let alone Israel, that the burden of proof is on you—not me—to explain the logic of that. Recalling, as I write, my time as a philosophy instructor, it would have admittedly made for an interesting assignment, where students would be challenged to demonstrate their argumentative abilities.
But should you have handed in, say, an essay where the constant refrain throughout is that criticism of Israel amounts to “antisemitism”, despite the criticism focused exclusively on its actions alone, you’d of course receive a failing grade. By the same token—and if we’re sincere about being “modern” (a word progressives and liberals love to apply to themselves) such that we accept that truth requires justifying what we say with material facts—equating criticism of Israel as antisemitic is empirically bankrupt.
Second, Israeli ideologues lie about the Palestinian struggle for justice and history. And no one among them corrects them for doing so. One example that immediately comes to mind is how they do this with respect to the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” So often they, perfectly illustrated in this recent op-ed, attack it as a call to pro-Palestinian terrorism. Had Harden or any other Canadian politician done the same the ideologues would not come after them. It’s as if the Israeli ideologue cannot process the basic idea that the phrase refers to the rightful liberation of the Palestinian people, covering the geographic expanse of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
What they’d like the world to falsely believe is that it means annihilating Israelis. No doubt this is a kind of fear-mongering to not only vilify Palestinians and their allies but also to drum up further support for the continuation of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Sociopaths act similarly. They manipulate you to believe in certain lies so you, acting accordingly, advance some particular agenda. Even when doing so is to your own or others’ detriment.
Third and finally, Israeli ideologues are selective about what they mean by “antisemitism.” Preposterous criticism of Israel, for them, amounts to such hatred but slandering or demeaning Jews as “self-hating” for supporting the Palestinian struggle for justice is not. An egregious incident where this happened, involving Palestinian solidarity expressed by Hasidic Jews in Toronto this year and detailed well by Montreal activist and writer Yves Engler, is a case in point. CIJA, among other Israeli ideologues, surely knows about this. They are, without fail, vigilant in documenting all antisemitic incidents that happen in Canada. They however do not respond to those where the targets of the incidents are pro-Palestinian.
Ignoring antisemitism when it occurs against pro-Palestinian Jews while condemning all other forms of antisemitism (perceived, such as criticism against Israel, or real, such as denying a person entry somewhere because they are Jewish), is more than turning a blind eye. It’s outright deplorable. It means that the pro-Palestinian Jew is “less” a Jew. Conversely, and following this perverse logic, being “Jewish” entails supporting the Israeli oppression of Palestine. Should you challenge that you are a “traitor” to other “real” Jews who will not come to your aid or safety?
Those publicly endorsing such thinking should be apologizing for offending being antisemitic. Those, however, fighting for Palestinian justice—Jews and non-Jews alike—have nothing to be sorry about. Remember this, dear Palestinian allies. As much as each of us is flawed, not perfect, and have things about ourselves that we have to work on, you do no harm when you oppose the unconscionable crimes that Israel—as a violent state and not the exclusive representative of worldwide Jewry—perpetrate daily against the Palestinian people. You will likely offend those who, lacking conscience, want it otherwise. But that is their failing. Not ours.
Do not let it deter you from engaging in the Palestinian struggle. There is lots of good, however difficult, work left to be done.
Volker Türk is the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. (Photo: Jean Marc Ferré, via UNHCR Website)
Dozens of Palestinian and international organizations have called on the new UN human rights chief to prioritize the human rights situation in Palestine.
In a letter on Monday, the organizations welcomed new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, who officially began his new role that day.
Among the 65 signatories were the Palestinian prisoners’ rights group Addameer and legal NGO Al-Haq, in addition to Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the UK.
“The Palestinian people [have been] denied their right to self-determination, they have been enduring over seven decades of Israel’s settler-colonialism and apartheid, and 55 years of belligerent occupation,” the organizations wrote.
“Gaza residents [have been] surviving in near-unliveable circumstances for 15 years, and Palestinian refugees [are] unable to exercise their right of return.”
The groups said they want the human rights situation in Palestine to be at the top of Türk’s agenda.
“For far too long, the question of Palestine has been treated as an exception to the implementation of international law,” they added.
The letter raised Israel’s use of administrative detention against Palestinians, which allows it to jail detainees indefinitely without charge.
Moreover, the letter addressed the 5,330 Palestinians killed by Israel’s “five full-scale military offensives” in Gaza between 2008 and 2022. It also drew attention to the recent increase in its military incursions into occupied West Bank cities.
The UK-based organization Friends of Al-Aqsa (FoA) condemned British Prime Minister Liz Truss’s proposed relocation of the British Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
In a statement, a copy of which was sent to The Palestine Chronicle, FoA said that “Israel is an apartheid state whose ongoing occupation of Palestinian land is a flagrant violation of international law.”
“As with the rest of occupied Palestine, Israel denies Palestinians in East Jerusalem basic human rights and inflicts a cruel system of oppression and domination in an attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their ancestral lands,” the statement added.
.@PalestineChron 'Among the policy changes that she pledged to effect in office was to review the relocation of her nation’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Former US President Donald Trump did the same thing during his tenure in the White House.'https://t.co/Q7PD9jBOTT
— PLO Department of International Relations (@PalestinePDP) October 5, 2022
Therefore, “a move of the British Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would send a clear message of British support for the violation of international law,” it concluded.
On September 22, Truss said she is considering relocating the British embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York.
A Russian national, Alexander Vinnik, who now faces more than 50 years in prison, has been arrested in the United States. On Thursday, he was actually fraudulently taken out of Europe to San Francisco in violation of all international legal norms. Apparently, this is how Washington responded to the verdict of the Brittney Griner, convicted in the Russian Federation for drug smuggling. Why is Washington abducting Russian citizens and is there a way to stop this, in fact, hostage-taking?
Alexander Vinnik, whom the United States accuses of cybercrime, was taken from Greece to the United States. “Everything happened and was staged as a kidnapping,” RIA Novosti reports the words of one of Vinnik’s family members. Relatives reported that the Russian citizen was taken from Greece to Boston on a private plane in violation of all legal procedures. “Alexander was allowed to call home from Boston,” a member of Vinnik’s family said. Later, the Russian was transported on a company plane to San Francisco.
The police at the Athens airport on Thursday evening claimed that they knew nothing about Vinnik’s extradition and that he had been taken to Athens. Employees of the consular department of the Russian Embassy in Greece were not allowed to see a Russian citizen, although he asked for a meeting. The Kremlin is monitoring the fate of Vinnik, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The procedural norms of Greek law did not allow to immediately send Vinnik from Greece to the United States, but in Athens “they turned a blind eye to this,” a relative of the captured Russian told RIA Novosti. “The Greeks will again say that they did not know, forgot, were confused, that they are sorry. As before, there was an extradition document with a fake signature of the Minister of Justice, and then it turned out that he did not sign anything,” the source said.
From an international legal point of view, the entire mechanism of Vinnik’s deportation to the United States via Greece is inadequate, so Russia equates such cases with kidnappings, Pavel Gerasimov, Honored Lawyer of the Russian Federation, Vice President of the Union of Lawyers of Russia, explained to the newspaper VIEW. “In any case, foreign security forces had to appeal to the representatives of Russia in Interpol with the justification for sending Vinnik to the United States. But no one contacted either our Foreign Ministry or law enforcement officers,” the lawyer stated.
It should be noted that simultaneously with the American operation to kidnap a Russian from Greece, Joe Biden complained about the “unlawful” detention in Russia of US citizen Brittney Griner and the “unacceptable” sentence. Recall that a Russian court on Thursday found Griner guilty of smuggling drugs into our country. The judges sentenced the American to nine years.
Biden promised that the US authorities would use “all possible means” to return Griner and another American serving time in Russia, Paul Whelan, to their homeland. In mid-June, the Moscow City Court found this former Marine guilty of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in a strict regime penal colony.
It can be assumed that the American side will try to use Vinnik captured in Greece (along with another compatriot of ours serving time in the USA – Viktor Bout) to bargain for the extradition of Griner and Whelan. Note that at the end of July, reports appeared in the American press that Biden approved a plan to exchange Whelan and Griner for Booth. Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken discussed the exchange of prisoners in a telephone conversation. Lavrov urged the head of the State Department to return to “quiet diplomacy” on this issue, the Foreign Ministry said.
It is also worth noting the briefing held on Thursday by the Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council (NSC) USA by John Kirby. According to TASS, a White House official was asked whether Washington believes that Russia will accept the American proposal, which does not involve an equal exchange of prisoners – one for one or two for two? That is, it was initially assumed that the United States intended to offer one Russian in exchange for two Americans. “I can say that we have made a serious offer… I won’t go into details, but we urge them (the Russians) to accept it,” Kirby replied evasively. It can be assumed that Vinnik, who was taken by private plane to the United States, may become this second Russian, who is supposed to be exchanged for convicted drug smuggler Griner and spy Whelan.
Regardless of whether a person is guilty (in this case, a Russian Vinnik) or not, the law must act, but the absolute arbitrariness on the part of the United States is comparable to extortion,
State Duma deputy Oleg Morozov told the newspaper VIEW. “This practice is on a par with the bombing of Iraq, when the United States didn’t care what others thought about it. They are detaining a Russian citizen on the territory of a third country and they don’t care what the law says and the world community thinks about it,” the politician stressed. Incidents like the capture of Vinnik have long been part of the international practice of the United States, stated Deputy Morozov. “There are many cases when Russian citizens are detained on the territory of third countries, and then absolutely illegally and secretly extradited to the territory of the United States, where they are put on trial,” the source said.
Let’s explain – several countries are involved in the Vinnik case, which has been going on for more than five years, and the Strasbourg Court was involved. In July 2017, a Russian IT specialist was arrested in Greece at the request of the United States. The American investigation accused Vinnik of creating a BTC-e cryptocurrency exchange without a license from the United States authorities, through which, according to the American side, billions of dollars were laundered. The Russian was also accused of failing to register his activities with the US Financial Intelligence Service (FINCEN) and failing to comply with anti-money laundering requirements. In the United States, 33-year–old Vinnik faces 55 years in prison – in fact, life imprisonment.
In January 2020, Greece extradited Vinnik, not to the United States but to France. Here, a Russian IT specialist was charged with 19 criminal offenses. A French court acquitted Vinnik of all charges brought by France and sentenced him to five years on one American charge. Moreover, the judges considered that the Russian had committed not a criminal offense, but a misdemeanor. The term of imprisonment ended, but Vinnik remained in prison. He was already supposed to be returned to Greece for extradition to the United States. However, the European Court of Human Rights banned the transfer of Vinnik to Greek justice. On Thursday, a Paris court decided to release Vinnik as part of the extradition case to the United States – Paris formally refused to transfer the Russian to the Americans. But the same French court immediately ordered to detain the Russian citizen and redirect him under escort to Greece. The very next day, a private plane took Vinnik from Athens to Boston.
As lawyer Gerasimov explained, the normal scheme from the point of view of international law should have looked like this: Greece detains Vinnik at the request of the French, since the case against him was opened in France. Further, in the French court, the process takes place with the participation of a representative of Russia, and the Russian consulate had to respect the rights of our citizen. Including consideration of the issue of Vinnik’s extradition to Russia.
“But the participation of American representatives in this case without substantiating the cross–border nature of the crime in general would be impossible by law, since Vinnik is not a US citizen,” the lawyer pointed out. – Another justification for American involvement could be that it was the United States that suffered the main damage from Vinnik’s alleged crime. But Washington has not provided any justification.” Moreover, at the stage of discussing extradition, the American side did not contact Moscow in any way, so the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a note of protest.
Now, in order to be able to exchange Vinnik or simply extradite him to Russia, he must be convicted in the United States, Gerasimov explained. “After that, Moscow tells Washington that the Russian side is ready to accept Vinnik to serve his sentence in Russia. This starts a two-way dialogue. If the two states agree, and if Vinnik arrives in Russia, then here he has the right to appeal for a judicial review and try to prove that the American court made an unfair decision,” the lawyer detailed.
At the same time, lawyer Gerasimov added, it cannot be ruled out that the arrested Russian may be transported to Puerto Rico or to the base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where a special prison is still operating. “Legally, this will not be an American territory, but the same US law enforcement agencies will “work” with the detainee there,” the lawyer noted. “You can only be safe without committing crimes. But in any case, it is better to rest in the Crimea, and not abroad,” the interlocutor added, not without sarcasm.
The issue of countering American international racketeering is primarily a political issue, said Deputy Morozov. “It’s impossible to live by the principle of “what if the Americans accuse me of something, so I can’t move beyond the Ural Mountains.” The only way to answer is what Russia, China and many other countries are doing now: they break the world order established by the Americans, refuse to participate in an unfair world order and will offer the world completely different norms and rules,” the interlocutor stressed. – Sooner or later we will come to a world where Americans will no longer be allowed to engage in extortion. In the meantime, the United States, unfortunately, acts on the principle of might is right, that they themselves are the law.”
In the meantime, the Russian Foreign Ministry has outlined Moscow’s position: our side is ready to discuss the exchange of prisoners with the United States, but only within the framework of the channel that was approved by the presidents of the two countries at a meeting in Geneva last June. This was stated on Friday by the head of Russian diplomacy Sergey Lavrov, commenting on reports about the plan approved by Biden to rescue Griner and Whelan.
Evidence shows that Russia’s special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine is a legally justified, critically necessary, and predictable response to the US’ recent escalation of its decades-long aggression against Russia in Ukraine–militarily, in the international corporate media, in cyberspace, and in the political-economic arena. The US’ hostile actions against Russia were summarized in a 2019 US-Army funded RAND Corporation blueprint for “Over Extending and Unbalancing Russia.” Underlying US actions is its aim is to dismember and asset-strip Russia–to appropriate its coveted oil, gas, and mineral resources and vast agricultural lands–and to enable US investors’ access to Russia’s economy. This is a step towards the US’ overarching goals of controlling Central Asia and achieving full spectrum dominance or global hegemony. Although the US war against Russia in Ukraine started years ago, US aggression escalated under the Biden administration and created conditions that posed an immediate existential threat to Russia and necessitated its military response.
In 2014, the US initiated a proxy war against Russia by engineering the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically-elected president. This ignited a bloody civil war on Russia’s border in which the US-installed and US-armed Kiev regime attacked the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk whose largely ethnically Russian residents opposed the US coup. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) documented the Kiev regime’s attacks that killed thousands of civilians and terrorized the populace. In 2015, the US-installed then-president, Petro Poroshenko, publicly articulated Kiev’s anti-Russia stance and its policy for the Donbass:
“We will have jobs—they will not. We will have pensions—they will not. [….] Our children will go to schools and kindergartens—theirs will hide in the basements.” Popular Ukraine pundits openly called for Donbas residents’ extermination. In 2015, Congress lifted its ban on funding Ukraine’s neo Nazi militias and placed US military trainers on the ground inside Ukraine. NATO and the CIA also began training Ukraine regime forces–effectively establishing Ukraine as a de facto US/NATO mercenary state. During the past eight years, Russia exhibited enormous restraint as the US and Ukraine violated the Minsk Protocols and rejected requests for diplomacy. In 2021, US aggression against Russia increased dramatically once Biden took office–in Ukraine and in the Black Sea. US actions and Ukraine President Zelensky’s public statements generated immediate threats to the survival of the Russian nation-state.
Russia’s Military Response Was Over-Determined By Four Existential Threats
The US government and the corporate media falsely characterize Russia’s special operation as entirely ‘unprovoked’ and an ‘illegal invasion’. These allegations ignore four conditions which each independently compelled President Putin and the Duma to initiate Russia’s denazification and demilitarization operation and which establish this intervention as consistent with international legal norms.
Chief among the factors necessitating Russia’s immediate military response were indications of an imminent new massacre as 125,000 Ukraine forces amassed along the border of Donbass in December of 2021. This was never reported in the US corporate press. Instead, the US government and corporate media repeatedly stated that Russian troops were gathering on Ukraine’s border (inside Russia) and predicted an impending Russian invasion. In hindsight, US intelligence could make this accurate claim because it was aware of the menacing buildup of Ukraine forces. Anticipating an imminent massacre, Russia was obligated to intervene militarily because it had a Responsibility to Protect (R2P) the citizens of Donbass. R2P is a political commitment to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity; it was endorsed by the United Nations at its 2005 world summit.
Second, on February 19, 2022, Ukraine President Zelensky announced that Ukraine would seek to acquire nuclear weapons, saying, “I want to believe that the North Atlantic Treaty and Article 5 will be more effective than the Budapest Memorandum.” Zelensky’s expressed desire to acquire nuclear weapons represented a dangerous threat to Moscow and signaled that the window of opportunity for conventional military intervention was closing. It is unlikely that Zelensky operates completely autonomously; Biden publicly bragged about his control over Ukraine government policies and has remunerated Zelensky following Zelensky’s implementation of anti-Russia policies and actions.
Third, Zelensky’s repudiation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances was a reminder of Ukraine’s intent to join NATO. For years, US President Biden advocated NATO membership for Ukraine, assuring Zelensky as recently as December 11, 2021 that this was in Ukraine’s own hands. NATO membership would entail NATO nuclear missiles inside Ukraine, aimed at Moscow. Ukraine’s geographic proximity to Russia eliminates the crucial minutes in which Moscow could verify and respond to an attack and would effectively place Russia and the US at DEFCON Level Two. The US dismissed Russia’s December 17, 2021 verbal and written requests for a diplomatic response to its security concerns. Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken deliberately rejected Russia’s entreaties and ignored the predictable consequences of Ukraine’s potential NATO membership. Renowned international relations scholars, diplomats and politicians, including John Mearsheimer, Jack Matlock, George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, and William Perry warned that NATO membership for Ukraine was a dangerous provocation which would trigger Russia’s military response.
A fourth threat requiring Russia’s intervention was the presence of US Department of Defense-operated biolabs inside Ukraine. Russia’s concerns were validated on March 11, 2022 when Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland admitted during Congressional questioning that the Ukraine biolabs contained ‘biological materials’ which the US ‘did not want to fall into Russian hands’. While the pathogenic biological agents in these biolabs do not technically constitute bioweapons, they can become bioweapons once there is a ‘mechanism for spreading the agent.’ A delivery mechanism need not be sophisticated to be effective. Bioweapons researcher, Jeffrey Kaye, described the extreme level of US secrecy surrounding the biolabs. Kaye noted that the Director of the Pentagon’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, Robert Pope, did not reassure when he stated that, “the Ukraine biolabs currently did not have the ability to manufacture bioweapons.”
Russia’s Intervention Is Consistent with International Law
These four US-generated conditions represented urgent existential threats to the Donbas and to the Russian nation-state and contradict US claims that Russia ‘illegally invaded Ukraine’ and that Russia’s intervention was unprovoked. Russia was compelled to intervene militarily to neutralize these threats and its response is consistent with the United Nations Charter of 1945 concerning international rules governing a state’s use of military force. The United Nations allows two exceptions to its prohibition of the use of force in international law: “self-defence under Article 51, and military measures authorised by the Security Council in response to “any threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression.” In particular, the UN Charter notes, “there is no problem – and never has been – with that state, without first seeking Security Council approval, using military force ‘preemptively’.’ Both exceptions apply to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine: Russia perceived an imminent threat to the Donbas and an imminent threat to the Russian nation-state. The immediacy of these threats obviated any requirement that Russia seek prior UN Security Council approval. Seeking UN approval would be futile, in any case, because the United States, a permanent UN Security Council member, is the principal combatant generating the hostilities.
Under the Biden administration, what began in 2014 as a US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine transformed into the US’ direct war against Russia. The US’ covert and overt military actions establish it as a legal “co-belligerent.” Now, the US continues to flood Ukraine with billions of dollars of heavy weapons and provides intelligence to guide Ukraine’s attacks on Russian forces. The US blatantly states that it wants to “weaken” Russia and that Russia must be defeated. This is the US whose regime change wars in the Middle East killed 5 million; whose 1955-1975 war against Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia cost 3.4 million military and civilian lives. This is the US CIA whose coups and illegal interventions around the globe since its 1947 inception left a trail of bloodshed and chaos. Russia is legally and crucially defending the Donbas and the Russian nation-state against the US quest for global domination. The US generated four existential threats to the Donbas and to the Russian nation-state that necessitated Russia’s immediate intervention. The US—not Russia—is the illegal aggressor in Ukraine.
Families of the seven Yemeni migrants reveal to Al Mayadeen English who killed their sons as Ansar Allah, Saudi coalition trade blames.
‘Tortured to death’: Saudi Army kills seven Yemeni migrants trying to cross border amid UN silence
Yemeni migrant Abdullah Hasan Saeed left his village in Al-Hudaydah on May 9 toward the Yemeni crossing-border of Al-Raqo to find a job in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On May 12, his father Hasan received a call from the Republican Hospital in Saada telling him the Saudi Army has tortured and killed his son.
“A Saudi bullet in his back killed him,” Hasan, father of Abdullah, told Al Mayadeen English in a phone call. He added, “There are also signs of torture on his body.”
Abdullah, 28, is one of seven Yemeni citizens tortured and killed by the Saudi Army while on their way to the Kingdom seeking job opportunities to make a living.
Saudi Arabia launched a military aggression against Yemen in 2015 following the success of Ansar Allah popular revolution to topple the US-Saudi-backed corrupt government of Abed-Rabu Mansour Hadi.
On May 12, Al-Masirah TV, citing its reporter in Saada, reported that seven corpses of Yemeni migrants tortured and killed by the Saudi Army in the bordering area of Al-Raqo have arrived at the Republican Hospital in Saada.
Insan Organization condemned this crime and published the names and images of four out of the seven citizens tortured and killed:
– Abdullah Hasan Said, from Al-Hudaydah Province
– Abdullah Darweesh, from Al-Hudaydah Province
– Khaleel Darweesh, from Al-Hudaydah Province
– Mohammed Al-Badani, from Ibb Province.
“The Saudi soldiers have tortured several Yemeni civilians along the border area of Al-Raqo until they died, as seven bodies of civilians arrived in the Republican Hospital in Saada, bearing signs of torture by beating and electrocution,” Yemeni Eye of Humanity Center For Rights and Freedoms said in a statement, pointing that the number of victims will most likely increase.
“This crime revealed the true face of this takfiri Wahhabi regime that rules Saudi Arabia and does not accept coexistence with others,” the statement added.
Ahmed Abu Hamra, Director of Eye of Humanity Center For Rights and Freedoms, condemned this Saudi crime, saying, “The Saudi regime’s record is full of daily crimes in the border areas.”
“We have contacted all UN organizations regarding these crimes, but organizations do not take any action,” he noted.
Full-fledged crime
On May 13, the Saudi-led coalition in a statement published by Saudi Press Agency (SPA), said, “Ansar Allah’s allegations that there are deaths in the border area of Al-Raqo, with the Saudi forces dealing with them, are untrue.”
“Dozens of migrants were killed in the process of forced displacement and armed clashes launched by the Houthis,” SPAreported, citing the US-backed Saudi coalition allegations in the statement.
Hasan, father of Abdullah, from Al-Marawi`ah District of the port city of Al-Hudaydah, denied the Saudi allegations and accused the Saudi Army of killing his son Abdullah. “He was killed by a Saudi bullet over a Saudi territory off Al-Raqo area.”
Asked what job Abdullah was seeking in the Kingdom, he replied, “He used to work in restaurants.”
Yemeni Ministry of Health said on May 12 in a statement that the torture and killing of the seven Yemeni citizens is “a full-fledged crime and a grave violation of international and humanitarian law…”
“The coalition continues to shed Yemeni blood by various means, whether by airstrikes, rocket-propelled grenades and artillery, or torture till death,” it added.
The Ministry also called on the United Nations to hold the Saudi-led coalition accountable for war crimes and to refer these crimes to the International Criminal Court.
Mourning
Hasan Saeed said his son Abdullah was married and the father of a 3-year-old boy and a 40-day-old baby girl.
“The whole family is mourning his death,” Hasan told Al Mayadeen English. “He was working to feed his sons and five other brothers and sisters.”
Mohammed Ali, a neighbor of Abdullah, said the entire village is mourning the death of Abdullah.
“He was very kind to all who knew him,” Ali told Al Mayadeen English.
“The UN has been covering the Saudi atrocities against Yemenis and the international community should put an end to this discrimination against Yemenis,” Ali cried out.
Tortured to death
Khaleel Darweesh had spent two years in the Saudi Kingdom gathering money to get married. In 2021, he returned home to Yemen to get married. Now his wife is pregnant in the second month, his brother Hamed said.
Khaleel Darwish while in Saudi Arabia (Exclusive)
After Eid Al-Fitr, Khaleel Darweesh, his brother Hamed, and cousin Abdullah Darweesh left Al Marawi`ah District of Al-Hudaydah toward Al-Raqo crossing border aiming to return to the Kingdom.
However, Khaleel and his cousin Abdullah decided to cross the border on May 11, leaving behind Hamed in Al-Raqo market, and they were captured and tortured to death by the Saudi Army using water and electricity.
Khaleel Darweesh left along with brother Hamed right (Exclusive)
“They weren’t killed in clashes with Ansar Allah, as the Saudi coalition claimed,” Hamed told Al Mayadeen English.
“They were peaceful migrants carrying nothing other than food and water,” the 32-year-old Hamed explained.
Hamed survived the torture because he said he didn’t travel with Khaleel and Abdullah on the night of May 11 and remained at Al-Raqo market until the second day.
Hamed received the news of migrants being tortured to death on May 12 and went to look, but found his brother Khaleel and cousin Abdullah amongst the tortured migrants.
Khaleel during his wedding party wearing Yemeni uniform (Exclusive)
“I found their frozen bodies,” Hamed told Al Mayadeen English of his brother and cousin. “I wish they were killed by bullets rather than being tortured to death.”
“I will never try again entering the kingdom of torture and terrorism,” Hamed told Al Mayadeen English when asked if he plan to return to the Kingdom as a survivor. “It is the Kingdom of barbarism, and the UN is silent about Saudi crimes against Yemeni migrants.”
The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
Beirut – On April 2, an agreement between Yemen and the countries of the US-backed Saudi-led aggression has been reached. The ceasefire which took effect, was supposed to last for two months, after seven years of aggression and siege on the already impoverished country. However, the Saudi-led coalition reneged on the agreement and breached Yemeni sovereignty several times.
How were these breaches distributed?
The first breach was on the April 8 where US-Saudi aggression mercenaries launched a large-scale march on the south of Marib on Friday. A military source stated that the popular committees responded to the advance of mercenaries, pointing out that this action coincided with intensive flights of the coalition aircrafts in Yemeni airspace.
The second breach was when a residential neighborhood in Taaz governorate was targeted with heavy artillery. This showed the real intentions behind the earlier announced stance as civilians expressed their condemnation to the criminal act that violated the international law.
Furthermore, on April 20, a military source reported that Saudi aircrafts had breached Hajja, Sanaa, Maarib, Amran, and Saada provinces 59 times to-date, according to Sabaa agency.
Moreover, two people were killed by the Saudi army on the northern borders of Yemen on April 27 in Shada province – Saada governorate, recording a new breach.
Nonetheless, two humanitarian flights from Jordan and Egypt to Sanaa Airport had been agreed upon weekly during the two-months ceasefire. Several days ago, the Saudi aggression announced the cancelation of these flights alleging that the passengers who are being selected as patients from Sanaa are actually Iranian backed-up groups who are trying to manipulate these trips.
Regarding the cancelation of the trips, Yemeni Minister of Health Taha al Motawakel told Yemen’s al-Masirah network, “It is the most important item in the ceasefire agreement. The cancelation of the trips reveals the real intentions of the Saudi-led coalition and its moral free-fall, as an intended siege is taking place on Yemen, which makes things worse for more than 30,000 patients who need to undergo treatment outside Yemen”.
In accordancse with the aforementioned, the Saudi-led coalition proves again that its honesty towards the Yemeni people is fake, as hundreds who have suffered from the aggression need treatment and the countries backing the war deliberately tightened the noose on Yemen, once again revealing its true face.
Related Video
After violating the armistice, the CH4 plane was shot down in Hajjah
The truce between steadfastness and collapse in the continuation of the siege
Looting of oil from occupied ports, tightening of the siege on free cities
Multiple Eid convoys from Sanaa to the Almoravids on the fronts
“Israel” tried to disguise itself as an honest mediator between Russia and Ukraine, but honesty is a trait that is hard to come by once the occupation’s history is full of atrocities and war crimes.
Chile and other Latin-American countries that subscribe to the UN Charter and its resolutions, as well as international law organizations, including the ICJ, must commit themselves to their own actions
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict comes to revalue the need for the rule of International Law and a renewal of the commitment of the entire international community to subscribe to it.
The defense of the sovereignty of Ukraine revives the neglected relevance of promoting the sovereignty of Palestine based mainly on:
– The withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Palestinian territories declared in resolution 181 of the UN General Assembly of November 29, 1947, that “recommended” the partition of Palestine into two States, but without “Israel” allowing the consolidation of the Palestinian State.
– Allow the return of Palestinian refugees expelled from their homes by “Israel”, according to resolutions 194 of December 11, 1948, and 3236 of November 22, 1974, recognizing the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people.
– Israeli withdrawal from Occupied Palestine, including the Eastern part of occupied al-Quds, is based on Resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016, of the UN Security Council, which emanates from this body and is binding.
– End of colonialism and Israeli apartheid considered a form of racial discrimination according to Resolution 3379 of the UN General Assembly in 1975.
– End of the colonial expansion based on settlements of settlers brought from other nations to Palestine, based on Resolutions 446 of March 22, 1979 and 2334 of December 23, 2016 of the UN Security Council (both binding resolutions).
– Demolition of the Separation Wall or “Shame” that penetrates into Palestinian territory expropriating more territories, declared illegal by the International Court of Justice on July 9, 2004
Since 1948, and even before, with the action of the Zionist terrorist organizations, which later became the Israeli army, “Israel” has systematically invaded Palestine, expelling its original population, periodically bombing and committing crimes against the civilian population, selectively assassinating the political leaders of the Palestinian people including their former president Yasser Arafat, demolished their homes and farm fields, seized water sources, turned the West Bank into a huge concentration camp, violently expelled the residents of al-Quds and other Palestinian cities, changed the names and in general the legal status of the territory, prohibited free expression and the operation of NGOs for the defense of Human Rights, converted Gaza into the largest extermination camp and, ultimately, undermined the possibilities of installing a Free and democratic Palestinian state as declared by the national charter of the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine.
It is ironic to see how “Israel” first offered itself as the venue for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and currently offers itself as a mediator since it is the state most condemned by the UN and international human rights organizations and one of the key suppliers of weapons to Ukraine. Therefore, ending this international hypocrisy is imperative today, since we run the risk of widening the lock gates of more flagrant inconsistencies and violations of the norms that regulate coexistence among peoples.
Chile and other Latin-American countries that subscribe to the UN Charter and its resolutions, as well as international law organizations, including the ICJ, must commit themselves to their own actions, as well as promote in the regional economic and political organizations of Latin America and The Caribbean, initiatives that lead to oblige “Israel” to cease its violations, respect international laws and adopt UN resolutions without conditions.
It is appropriate that those who have an international tradition to respect and promote international human rights. Along these lines, they are compelled to adhere to the reports of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and promote the existence of all the facilities for the investigation of the International Criminal Court on war crimes committed by “Israel”.
It is important that the Latin American countries deploy a diplomatic crusade at the international level so that the United States, Great Britain and the European Union, mainly, are consistent between their speech and their international action so that, just as they have deployed innumerable and forceful sanctions against Russia, similarly condemn and promote condemnation and similar sanctions against the Israeli regime so that it respects international law. It is pertinent that governments that set themselves up as defenders of democracy, do not jeopardize their declared values of respect for peace, justice, sovereignty, and self-determination, that they assume the moral obligation of consequence between their words and actions and honor the reputation of the states those they represent so as not to be condemned by history as only defenders of interests of power and hegemony.
Promoting the peaceful and respectful coexistence of the legality that the international community has imposed on itself is today transcendent for the world that we are bequeathing to future generations.
The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
Following Putin’s announcement about selling gas for Rubles only to hostile nations, I decided to reach out to Michael Hudson and ask him (my level, primitive) questions. Here is our full email exchange:
Andrei: Russia has declared that she will only sell gas to “hostile countries” for Rubles. Which means that to non-hostile countries she will continue to sell in Dollars/Euros. Can these hostile countries still purchase gas from Russia but via third countries?
Michael Hudson: There seem to be two ways for hostile countries to buy Russian gas. One seems to be to use Russian banks that are not banned from SWIFT. The other way would indeed seem to be to go through what looks to develop as a formal or informal third-country bank or exchange. India and China would seem to be the best positioned for this role. U.S. diplomats will be pressing India to impose its own sanctions on Russia, and there is a strong pro-U.S. constituency there. But even Modi sees the obvious superior benefits of benefiting from India’s geopolitical position with Russia and China’s Belt and Road Initiative relative to whatever the U.S. has to
Back in the 1960s the West dealt with the Soviet Union using barter deals. Arranging this barter became a big banking business. Barter is the typical “final stage” of the deterioration of a credit economy into a money economy that breaks down. Over the medium term, a new international financial organization needs to be created as an alternative to the dollarized IMF to handle such intra-bloc transactions in today’s new multipolarizing world.
Andrei: These hostile nations would pay extra for that service, but they would not have to get Rubles. Is that even possible?
Michael Hudson: Presumably Russia would not absorb the added bank costs of avoiding U.S. sanctions. It would simply add them on to the price, after setting the price at which it hopes to end up with – preferably at the original “old” ruble/euro or ruble/dollar exchange rate, not the post-attack depreciated rate.
Andrei: Question: Do you believe that the EU will agree to pay Roubles or will they take the total loss of 40% of their energy?
Michael Hudson: They will pay – or be voted out of office. If they WERE to cut their energy imports from Russia, the distress-price of gas would soar and there would be drastic shortages disrupting the economy. Energy is productivity and GDP. For Russia, of course, this is an opportunity to make the break now instead of later – and leave NATO to take the blame for the interruption of supply. So if I were Russia, I would not be in a hurry to help solve the foreign-payment problem. The same goes for non-oil raw materials, from neon to palladium to titanium, nickel and aluminum.
Andrei: So far, this applies only to natural gas. Do you believe that Russia will extend this to petroleum, wheat and fertilizers and, if yes, what will the effect from this be for the world economy?
Michael Hudson: All Russian exports are affected by these currency controls, because all bank transfers are sanctioned in the way discussed above. Russia has no use for dollars or euros, because these can be grabbed. It needs to have complete control over whatever monetary assets it receives, now that past norms of international law and financial policy no longer apply.
Andrei: Russia has A LOT of natural resources and a lot of technologies/commodities. If she is successful in her efforts to become paid in Rubles, could it be that the Ruble, which would then be a natural resources/ commodities backed currency, could become a major “refuge” currency.
Michael Hudson: I’m not sure what a “refuge” currency is, but the ruble will become a self-standing currency. If its balance of trade and payment improves, the problem may be to keep it from rising. If that happens, the question will be whether a rising ruble would oblige buyers of Russian exports to pay more in their own currency. A new multilateral financial system is in the process of being structured as we’re having this discussion. Will there be speculation? Forward selling? Short squeezes and Soros-type raids? Who will be the participants and under what rules …?
Andrei: How hard a hit would this Russian decision potentially have on the dollar? And MBS negotiating with the PRC for oil sales in Renminbi. Do you think that China and Russia will bring down the Petrodollar and will we see a commodities-backed Ruble and a commodities-backed Yuan replacing the Dollar?
Michael Hudson: The petrodollar will remain between the United States and its allies. But alongside it, there will be the Saudi-yuan and India-yuan arrangements for trade in oil, minerals, industrial products and probably international investment. Trade in these products will be able to occur in a number of currencies, probably on a number of exchanges. It is not clear whether some formal or informal arbitrage may develop between these areas. That is part of what is to be designed. To oversee and regulate the resulting financial and trade arrangements, an alternative to the IMF is needed. The U.S. will not join any organization in which it does not have veto power, so we will see a division of the world into different trading and monetary areas. The result is not so much a conflict as two quite different operating philosophies as the non-U.S. world develops its alternative to financialized neoliberalism.
Andrei: The US has basically stolen Russian gold and foreign currency. The Russians claim that the US has shot itself in the foot and that this will ruin the reputation of the dollar, do you agree with that?
Michael Hudson: Absolutely: Iran after the Shah was overthrown, Afghanistan’s foreign reserves earlier this year, Venezuela’s gold held in the Bank of England, and now Russia. Even timid Germany has asked that airplanes begin flying its gold held in the New York Fed back to Germany!
Andrei: do you think that Russia will retaliate against the US/UK/EU and nationalize/seize their assets in Russia or even in countries friendly to Russia (China?)?
Michael Hudson: Russia is very careful to do everything according to international law – which, of course, has a wide variety of precedents and excuses, and whose courts tend to be dominated by U.S. judges backing U.S. versions of what is legal under whatever it announces to be the “rules-based order of the day” instead of the “rule of law” along UN lines. To the extent that NATO investors abandon their assets in Russia, these may be sold – perhaps at a distress discount – to buyers who promise to maintain the business. Russia might impose severe fines for abandonment, as when landlords abandon buildings causing local expenditures on cleanup costs. Abandonment causes a “public nuisance.”
This would be a cause for immediate confiscation of current taxes, rent payments and salaries or payments for current supplies (including electricity and fuel) are not paid. Think what would happen if the gas bill were not paid and pipes froze and flooded a property. There is an entire world of penalties that could be applied.
International law provides for some recovery of assets wrongly confiscated – as the U.S. confiscations of Russian-owned reserves and personal property would seem to be. At this point Russia really has nothing to lose. It looks like there is not going to be much Russian-European cross investment for quite some time. Russia finally has given up on its hopes to “turn West” after 1991. It was a dream that turned into a nightmare, and President Putin and Lavrov have expressed their disgust with Europe acting in so uncivilized a matter. So for Russia – and increasingly other countries – NATO Europe and North America are the new barbarians at the gate. Russia is turning
That of course is precisely the aim of U.S. policy – to lock Europe into its own dollarized neoliberal order, blocking any mutual prosperity achieved by trade and investment with Russia or, behind it, with China. It looks like today’s sanctions are permanent for the next few years. So of course Russia needs to keep formerly NATO-owned enterprises operating. Let the NATO investors recover compensation from what the United States has grabbed. (Hint: the U.S. may simply begin to grab China’s or Latin American or near Eastern reserves to pay NATO investors who have lost in Russia. That is the model of using Afghan money to pay victims of Saudi Arabia’s 9/11 attack two decades ago.)
Andrei: finally, what question, if any, did I forget to ask and what would you reply to it?
Michael Hudson: Your questions are about specific problems and solutions. But the overall resolution needs to be system-wide, not patchwork. These specific problems cannot really be solved without a far-reaching institutional restructuring of the international financial system, world trade, a world court, and a UN without US veto power. And such an institutional reformation requires an economic doctrine to provide its basic principles. A New International Economic Order will be constructed on non-neoliberal principles – along the lines of what used to be called socialism, when that was what people expected industrial capitalism to be evolving into.
Andrei: thank you so much for your time and expertise!!
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the ‘Israeli’-occupied Palestinian territories submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council [UNHRC], in which he concluded that the situation in the occupied territories amounts to apartheid.
In a 19-page report submitted to the body on Tuesday, Michael Lynk said ‘Israelis’ and Palestinians lived “under a single regime which differentiates its distribution of rights and benefits on the basis of national and ethnic identity, and which ensures the supremacy of one group over, and to the detriment of, the other.”
“The political system of entrenched rule in the occupied Palestinian territory which endows one racial-national-ethnic group with substantial rights, benefits and privileges while intentionally subjecting another group to live behind walls, checkpoints and under a permanent military rule… satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the existence of apartheid,” he added.
Lynk said that while the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories differed from that experienced in South Africa, it still amounted to apartheid.
Apartheid is a legal term defined by international law that refers to systematic oppression by one racial group over another.
“There are pitiless features of ‘Israel’s’ ‘apartness’ rule in the occupied Palestinian territory that were not practiced in southern Africa, such as segregated highways, high walls and extensive checkpoints, a barricaded population, missile strikes and tank shelling of a civilian population, and the abandonment of the Palestinians’ social welfare to the international community.
“With the eyes of the international community wide open, ‘Israel’ has imposed upon Palestine an apartheid reality in a post-apartheid world.”
Lynk is slated to formally release his report on Thursday ahead of a debate on Agenda Item Seven, the permanent UNHRC item reserved for ‘Israeli’ human rights abuses against Palestinians and other Arabs.
In the report, the Canadian academic argued that ‘Israel’ was pursuing a strategy of “strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian territory into separate areas of population control, with Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem [al-Quds] physically divided from one another.”
‘Israel’ uses Gaza, Lynk said, for the “indefinite warehousing of an unwanted population of two million Palestinians.”
The issuing of thousands of work permits for Palestinian laborers in the West Bank and Gaza to work in the occupied territories amounts to the “exploitation of labor of a racial group,” the report said.
Last month, Amnesty International labelled ‘Israel’ an apartheid entity, becoming the latest organization to join a cadre of human rights groups that have used the term to describe the ‘Israeli’ treatment of Palestinians.
Despite the increasing number of rights groups labelling Zionist policies as amounting to apartheid, the United States and the occupation regime’s other western allies have refrained from making any such declarations.
In perfect Chinese diplomatic terms, it looks like business as usual. Taken outside of the perfect diplomatic terms, it is a true spanking.
Let’s take one paragraph only and remember a few things first:
Washington, as usual, threatened and danced something like the haka and warned Xi not to support Russia in any way or the consequences would be dire for China. Washington threatened with equally applied sanctions and other dire unmentionables. Apparently, Washington can support who it wants, but China is in some form prohibited from exactly that. Hypocritically they want it both ways. That era is over.
A few hours before the ‘summit’, China had a perfectly normal sail-by through the Taiwan Straits of their aircraft carrier Shandong. Yes, this is ‘likely routine’ says their spox. Sure, it was highly likely just routine. It must have been a wonderful day for the Shandong to take a little sail through the Taiwan Straits.
A few hours before the ‘summit’ Global times had an interview with an unnamed official. (Is China playing the US game here by not naming the official?). This is the take-away: “The international community can fairly judge who is frank and open and who is up to something, who is easing the situation and who is aggravating tension, who is promoting peace talks and who is pouring fuel on the fire, and who is maintaining peace and stability and who is provoking confrontations between blocs.”
Xi Jinping made a pre-summit statement: Countries should not come to the point of meeting on the battlefield. Conflict and confrontation are not in anyone’s interest. Peace and security are what the international community should treasure the most.
So, this is the milieu that Biden walked into at the online summit. We must know by now what this is all about. None of the boring line-up of US representatives could bend China to their will to support sanctions against Russia, so, time for a Presidential Summit to yet again attempt to split China and Russia. This is how perfectly ridiculous this attempt is: Can you help me fight your friend so that I can concentrate on fighting you later?
Here is how it went:
President Biden expounded on the US position and expressed readiness for communication with China to prevent the situation from exacerbating.
Simply said: How can we make a deal so that the US/Nato alliance remains a unipolar world and all others must be subservient.
President Xi pointed out that China does not want to see the situation in Ukraine to come to this. China stands for peace and opposes war. This is embedded in China’s history and culture.
Simply said: Hey Biden, mistake number one! You do not know who you are talking to, but now I’m going to tell you
China makes a conclusion independently based on the merits of each matter.
China advocates upholding international law and universally recognized norms governing international relations.
China adheres to the UN Charter and promotes the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security. These are the major principles that underpin China’s approach to the Ukraine crisis.
China has put forward a six-point initiative on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, and is ready to provide further humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and other affected countries.
All sides need to jointly support Russia and Ukraine in having dialogue and negotiation that will produce results and lead to peace.
Simply stated: This is the crux of the matter and seemingly you are unable to grasp it!
The US and NATO should also have dialogue with Russia to address the crux of the Ukraine crisis and ease the security concerns of both Russia and Ukraine.
Message: Go away and take your position and money with you! You had your opportunity and you became a warmaker, coercing others to your will. Enough is enough! We have principles, law and morals and ethical standards. You hold on to ‘positions’ favorable to you only.
China is active in the EU as well and the discussion does not remain dry and diplomatically correct.
China is playing into its strengths, saying what is correct in terms of its own national interest and it happens to co-incide with that of the non-insane world. The spokespeople are highly educated, clear, exceptionally well-spoken, and smart. They also mercilessly dig in the knife when opportunity shows. In a recent press conference:
CCTV: US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said that the US is concerned about Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure which caused civilian casualties. However, China has yet to state its position explicitly. How does the foreign ministry view such criticism from other countries on China?
Zhao Lijian: Human lives are precious. Civilian casualties under all circumstances are heart-rending and lamentable. China has all along called for every effort to avoid civilian casualties. We still remember that in March 1999, the US-led NATO, without the Security Council’s mandate, flagrantly unleashed a ruthless bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days, killing at least 2,500 innocent civilians and injuring around 10,000 people, most of them civilians. Over the past two decades or so, the US conducted tens of thousands of air strikes in places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. The number of innocent civilians killed can be anywhere between 22,000 and 48,000. When professing its concern for the welfare of the Ukrainian people, shouldn’t the US first express concern over the civilian casualties caused by all these military operations?
I particularly enjoyed this vignette:
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that any support to Russia, military or any other type of support, would actually help Russia conduct a brutal war against an independent sovereign nation, Ukraine, and help them to continue to wage war which is causing death, suffering and an enormous amount of destruction.
This was the comment of the Chinese spokesperson:
Chinese people can fully relate to the pains and sufferings of other countries because we will never forget who bombed our embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. China does not need a lecture on justice from the abuser of international law. As a Cold War remnant and the world’s largest military alliance, NATO continues to expand its geographical scope and range of operations. What kind of role has it played in world peace and stability? NATO needs to have a good reflection.
Currency
Against this backdrop, the news filtered out about The Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and China designing a new monetary and financial system bypassing the U.S. dollar, supervised by Sergei Glazyev and intended to compete with the Bretton Woods system which is now less than 50% of the currency flow in the world. While news is still very scarce on this front, it fulfilled the purpose of telling Biden once again to go away if US/NATO cannot be a serious contender to building a peaceful and prosperous world.
Godfree Roberts, in his last newsletter, did an overview of the major historical milestones. I am not sure if the concept of a special drawing rights fiat currency revaluated regularly against a basket of currencies will be the way this rolls out. Stand by! Much more incoming! We will see.
DOLLAR’S END – Farewell, Inordinate Privilege
Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar says Ukraine triggered a perfect storm in commodities that could weaken the Eurodollar system, contribute to inflation in Western economies, and threaten their financial stability. Pozsar said China’s central bank is uniquely placed to backstop such crisis, paving the way for a much stronger yuan. Reuters, Mar. 13, 2022.
Saudi Arabia Considers Accepting Yuan Instead of Dollars for Chinese Oil Sales: Talks between Riyadh and Beijing have accelerated as the Saudi unhappiness grows with Washington. WSJ, Mar. 14, 2022
–o0o–
In 2009, after helping to rescue the US from the GFC, Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the Peoples Bank of China, said, “The world needs an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and able to remain stable in the long run, removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.”
After helping rescue America from the GFC, PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan observed, “The world needs an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and able to remain stable in the long run, removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.”
Zhou proposed SDRs, Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic reserve currency dynamically revalued against a basket of trading currencies and commodities. Broad, deep, stable, and impossible to manipulate. Nobelists Fred Bergsten, Robert Mundell, and Joseph Stieglitz approved: “The creation of a global currency would restore a needed coherence to the international monetary system, give the IMF a function that would help it to promote stability and be a catalyst for international harmony”. Here’s what’s happened since:
2012: Beijing began valuing the yuan against a currency/commodity basket
2014: The IMF issued the first SDR loan
2016: The World Bank issued the first SDR bond
2017: Standard Chartered Bank issued the first commercial SDR notes.
2019: All central banks began stating currency reserves in SDRs
Mar. 14, 2022: “In two weeks, China and the Eurasian Economic Union – Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan – will reveal an independent international monetary and financial system. It will be based on a new international currency, calculated from an index of national currencies of the participating countries and international commodity prices”.
The currency resembles Keynes’ invention Special Drawing Rights.SDRs are a synthetic currency which derives its value from a global, publicly traded basket of currencies and commodities. Immense beyond imaging, and stable as the Pyramids. Everyone gets a seat at the table and a vote. It may eventually be administered by an arm of the UN.
SDRs pose a serious alternative to the US dollar, both for the EAEU, the BRI’s 145 member states, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), ASEAN, and the RCEP. Middle East countries, including Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, are keenly interested.
Less well known is that the EAEU, the BRI, the SCO, ASEAN, and the RCEP were discussing a merger before the currency news hit.
It is reasonable to expect them to join this new, cooperatively managed, stable reserve currency regime in which they can settle their trades in stable, neutral, predictable SDRs.
Biological labs
China is not losing any opportunity to bring this front and center. This is their last list of questions:
If the concerns are “disinformation”, why doesn’t the U.S. release detailed materials to prove its innocence? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
What did the U.S. spend the $200 million on? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
What kind of research has the U.S. conducted on which pathogens? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
What is it trying to hide when the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine deleted all relevant documents on its website? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
Why does the U.S. insist on being the only country in the world to oppose the establishment of a multilateral verification mechanism though it claims to abide by the Biological Weapons Convention? – Question by Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian on U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine.
What is happening with Belt and Road? About the data: On January 21, 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) released its data for “China’s investments and cooperation in countries along the Belt and Road” covering the period of January to December 2021. According to these data, Chinese enterprises invested about US$20.3 billion in non-financial direct investments in countries “along the Belt and Road”. Furthermore, there were 560 newly signed projects with a contract value of over US$100 million. The MOFCOM data focus on 55 countries that are “along the Belt and Road” – meaning on a corridor from China to Europe including South Asia. For this report, the definition of BRI countries includes 142 countries that had signed a cooperation agreement with China to work under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative by the end of 2021. To analyze investments in these countries, we base our data on the China Global Investment Tracker and our own data research at the Green Finance & Development Center affiliated with Fudan University, Shanghai. As with most data, they tend to be imperfect.
Chinese joke
On a somewhat of a lighter note: The Chinese Netizens are in the majority siding with Russia so completely and so enthusiastically, that China’s WeChat and Douyin had to crack down on vulgar jokes and netizens were told in no uncertain terms that they cannot make fun of international news events. The very high support for Russia is becoming a clear talking point despite the somewhat muted and correct Chinese diplomatic statements.
So, here is a joke for you.
Bear and Dragon take a walk in the gardens. Bear is a little overcome with his serious responsibilities in the world and presents emotionally somewhat tired and despondent. As the walk proceeds, Dragon says to Bear .. Out with it! What has you so despondent? Bear thinks a moment and says: We’ve been friends for a long time. So, if I need a very large amount of money very quickly, will you give it to me?
Dragon, known for taking time to ponder the imponderables, walks on for a while and then comes to a firm stop. NO, says Dragon, I will not give it to you!
Bear’s shoulders fall .. but Dragon continues: I will lend it to you. 1.5 trillion the moment you ask for it, no interest, no repayment terms, pay me back when you can.
Very apt & timely article by international criminal lawyer, Christopher Black.
Excerpts:
“In my opinion Russia acted in accordance with international law under Article 51 of the UN Charter for the following reasons;
First, the Kiev regime was mounting a major offensive with NATO’s help against the Donbass Republics with the intent of destroying them. Intensive shelling had already begun days before Russia acted, the shelling of civilian buildings and infrastructure, which resulted in scores of thousands of civilians fleeing into Russia. During that period the Kiev regime also attempted to assassinate a leader of the Republics with a car bomb. Russia had no choice but to protect the Donbass peoples and since the Security Council could do nothing, and the EU and NATO were supporting the Kiev offensive against the Donbass, Russia was the only nation that could act.
The request for military assistance from the Donbass Republics also compelled Russia to send in its forces to help push back the Kiev forces from the territories of the Republics.
Second, Russia itself had been attacked multiple times by Kiev regime forces. Saboteurs were sent into Crimea time and again to carry out raids, assassinate officials, to destroy infrastructure. They even cut Crimea’s water supply, a crime against humanity. Just a few days before Russia acted a Kiev reconnaissance unit invaded Russia but was detected and destroyed. Russia had every right under The Caroline Doctrine to go after the attackers and to prevent further attacks.
…In this case the threat was more than imminent. It was on-going and increasing. The only effective and proportional defensive response was to destroy the offensive forces being deployed. These forces include not only Kiev regime government forces but also the nationalist, Nazi brigades supporting and spearheading the Kiev offensive and all the NATO equipment being supplied to them to conduct the Kiev offensive.
Thirdly, the deeper issue was the imminent threat to Russia from NATO posed by its continuous expansion to the east, its continuous build up of forces and offensive structure pointed at Russia and the completion this September of the American missile systems in Poland, Romania and Ukraine which could then be used to launch a nuclear attack against Russia.
We remember that in the past few months the NATO nations have conducted military exercises that included practicing launching nuclear attacks on Russia. We also remember that the USA has a first strike nuclear war policy, claiming the right to use nuclear weapons wherever and whenever they deem fit. It was evident that they were practising attacks because that was and is their intention.
Russia demanded the Americans withdraw those systems, and to withdraw NATO from Eastern Europe. They flatly refused. Ukraine talked of acquiring nuclear weapons and threatening Russia with them. It would take time for them to manufacture but there was nothing to stop the Americans from giving them nuclear weapons, under their control, as the Americans have done with Germany, for instance.
Russia could do nothing, keep the peace, and watch, as the weapons for its destruction were installed and made ready to fire; to commit suicide in other words, or it could defend itself. It warned the US that it would do so, and had the right to do so, the same right the Americans always claim to have, but again Russia was ignored. It had to act or face destruction and subjugation.
We remember that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, in 1962, the Americans threatened to invade Cuba and to attack the USSR because nuclear missiles had been placed in Cuba to protect it against American aggression. President Kennedy established the precedent principle that when a nation feels its existence is at stake from nuclear weapons it has the right to use force to protect itself pre-emptively. Russia is acting on the same principle.
Lastly, the NATO powers have lately relied on their bogus legal doctrine of “responsibility to protect” that they invented after the fact to try to justify their aggression against Yugoslavia. No such doctrine exists in international law but they claim the right to use it nevertheless. It applies, according to them, when a military action is justified, though illegal, “for legitimate humanitarian reasons.’ They were warned that this false doctrine could be turned against them. Russia has not referred to it at all, but if NATO can rely on it for their wars of aggression, then surely Russia can rely on it to justify their military action to defend the Donbass, and themselves.
When one takes account of all the factors that governed the Russian decision to send its forces into Ukraine it is clear that in law they had the legal right to do so whereas the United States continues its illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq and Syria to this day and the NATO media powers and governments say nothing, because they are all complicit in those invasions. If the United States and the NATO alliance had complied with international law in the first place as set out in the UN Charter, the world would not be in this mess. They caused this, not Russia. The responsibility is entirely theirs and they will be judged for it.” https://christopher-black.com/the-legality-of-war/
Meeting of the Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine
In accordance with its commitments and exclusively for humanitarian purposes, the Russian Federation has opened ten humanitarian corridors from 10 a.m. Moscow time today to evacuate civilians and foreign citizens from Kiev, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol cities, including one humanitarian corridor from each city to the Russian Federation, as well as one through the territories controlled by the Kiev authorities to the west, to Poland, Moldova and Romania.
Of the ten routes we proposed, the Ukrainian side agreed on only two – on Kiev and Mariupol directions. At the same time, once again not a single humanitarian corridor to the Russian Federation. At the same time, the Kiev authorities additionally announced four more routes from Izyum, Energodar, Volnovakha and in the Zhytomyr direction. For humane purposes, we agreed with them.
Official Kiev, as before, continues to reject humanitarian corridors towards Russia, arguing that there are simply no civilians and foreign citizens who want to go to the territory of the Russian Federation.
We have already talked about this – it is a lie and a cynical deception. At the same time, the results of daily monitoring show the opposite – 23,127 more people have taken refuge in the Russian Federation from the horrors and arbitrariness staged by nationalists in the last 24 hours alone, and there are already 2,619,026 of them from almost 2,000 settlements of Ukraine.
And this is not just statistics, it is the fate of people, their hopes for the end of the daily nightmare, despair from the hopelessness of the situation. The Kiev authorities have legalized crimes against humanity, ignore numerous cases of looting, robbery, banditry, and sanctioned the use of weapons by nationalists against the civilian population, including women and children.
Another provocation of nationalists was recorded in Kharkov, where, in order to conceal research on nuclear topics, militants of territorial defence battalions blew up one of the buildings of the Physics and Technology Institute on Akademicheskaya Street. Up to 50 employees of the institution can be under the rubble.
In addition, in the same city, in the basement of an art school on Yesenin Street, militants hide the bodies of civilians killed during a punitive operation against persons who did not support the criminal Kiev regime.
In Sumy, nationalists conduct raids on private households, during which, under threat of physical violence and murder, forcibly seize food, fuel, equipment, as well as personal cars from people.
The Kiev authorities have banned the mayors of cities from any contacts with the Russian side, including on the organization of humanitarian corridors. All those who disagree are simply shot.
Taking into account our responsibility for the humanitarian component and ensuring the safety of the exit of civilians and foreign citizens forcibly held by nationalists in the blocked settlements, from 10 a.m. by means of objective control, including unmanned aerial vehicles, intensive monitoring of the situation on humanitarian routes is being conducted.
The results of objective control again show that the ceasefire is actively used to intensively regroup units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and national battalions in defensive positions, as well as to move weapons and military equipment to more advantageous positions.
To date, more than 7,000 from 21 foreign countries remain hostage to Ukrainian neo-Nazis, whom the nationalists continue to hold as “human shield”.
The fate of these foreign citizens has been the subject of round-the-clock cooperation with representatives of the relevant diplomatic agencies.
Please note that by the decision of the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, foreign students evacuated from the territory of Ukraine will be able to continue their studies at Russian universities according to quotas for foreign students. To this end, the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia is already preparing notes to the embassies of the relevant foreign states.
In addition, foreign partners express particular concern about the lack of the possibility of safe passage of ships from the ports of Ukraine due to the high mine danger created by the Kiev authorities in their internal waters and territorial sea, as well as possible provocations by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including shelling of ships from the shore.
Currently, there are more than 50 foreign vessels in Ukrainian ports, crewed by foreign citizens of Azerbaijan, Greece, Georgia, Egypt, India, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, the Philippines, Jamaica and a number of others.
Ukraine’s actions to create a mine danger violate the provisions of international humanitarian law in terms of mine installations that threaten the safety of civilian vessels of third States. The concern of the Russian side in this regard was stated on March 10 at an extraordinary session of the Council of the International Maritime Organization, which is a specialized agency of the United Nations.
We call on the Ukrainian side to strictly comply with the norms of international humanitarian law and ensure the safe exit of foreign vessels from Ukrainian ports and the territorial sea.
We emphasize once again that the Russian Armed Forces do not pose a danger to navigation in the Azov, Black Seas, as well as other areas of the World Ocean.
More than 9,500 temporary accommodation centres continue to operate in the regions of the Russian Federation.
A sufficient number of buses and supporting transport for the transportation of refugees are kept in constant readiness at checkpoints and temporary accommodation places. They are equipped with everything necessary for a temporary stay, hot meals are provided, mobile medical centres are deployed.
Federal executive authorities together with the subjects of Russia, various public organizations, patriotic movements have prepared more than 16,500 tons of humanitarian aid.
1,671 tons of humanitarian cargo have already been delivered to Ukraine, 212 humanitarian actions have been carried out, including 26 actions in Chernigov region, as well as in Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, during which 250 tons of basic necessities, medicines and food were transferred to the civilian population of the liberated areas.
Today, 23 humanitarian actions are being held in Kharkov, Zaporozhia, Kiev and Chernigov regions, during which 284 tons of basic necessities, including food, are being transferred to the population.
Despite this, 34,555 people, including 3,562 children, were evacuated from the dangerous zones of various regions of Ukraine, as well as the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics, during the day without the participation of the Ukrainian side, and more than 223,000 people have been evacuated since the beginning of the special military operation, 50,258 of them children. The state border of the Russian Federation was crossed by 23,253 vehicles, of which 1,249 per day.
In addition, today the Russian Armed Forces ensured the safety of the movement of a humanitarian convoy from Energodar city to Zaporozhye, consisting of 13 buses, 130 private cars with 957 refugees, and also managed to evacuate more than 62,000 refugees from Sumy in Poltava direction within a day.
As for the statement of the President of Ukraine about the impossibility of evacuation from Volnovakha and Mariupol, we explain.
The variant of evacuation from Volnovakha proposed by the Ukrainian side, due to ignorance of the true situation on the “ground”, once again puts official Kiev in an absurd position, since this locality is currently completely controlled by the units of the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic, who are already building a peaceful life in Volnovakha.
Appropriate humanitarian measures are being carried out with the population, and none of the residents are going to leave their homes.
About the situation in Mariupol. The city is blocked, all bridges and approaches to the city are destroyed, the main roads are mined by nationalists, and armed men walk through the streets, open fire indiscriminately, thereby forcing the civilian population to stay in their homes.
Attempts of the sappers of Donetsk People’s Republic to demine the approaches to Mariupol have not been successful, as the nationalists are firing at them intensively from various types of weapons. Unfortunately, due to the fault of the Ukrainian side, the evacuation from Izyum to Lozovaya failed. This is the route and the humanitarian corridor that the Kiev authorities themselves offered us. Traffic routes are mined, sections of the road are fired from small arms and mortars by units of the territorial defence of Ukraine on the approaches to Lozovaya.
A rights group said the criminal Zionist regime has refused to hand over the bodies of nine Palestinian children, whom it has killed since 2016.
Reporting the matter on Tuesday, Defense for Children International – Palestine [DCI] said the practice was in violation of both the international law and the principles of human rights.
The international law, which the regime was contravening by withholding the bodies, “includes an absolute prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and stipulates that parties to armed conflict must bury the dead in an honorable manner,” the DCI said.
“It falls under the policy of collective punishment practiced by the occupation against the Palestinian people, and the harm caused to the families of the martyrs as a result, amounts to collective punishment that violates international humanitarian law,” it added.
The Palestinian children were all under 18, when they were murdered by the regime under the pretext of “carrying out stabbing attacks.”
The youngest of the children, who were martyred as early as 2016 and as late as December 2021, were two 15-year-old.
The DCI called 2021 the deadliest year for Palestinian children since 2014, with ‘Israeli’ occupation forces killing as many as 76 Palestinians inside the occupied territories and the Tel Aviv-blockaded Gaza Strip.
As early as 1967, when the regime occupied huge swathes of Palestinian and other regional Arab territories, the regime started setting up cemeteries inside closed-off military zones, where it would retain the bodies of the people, who had been killed as a result of its aggression.
An ‘Israeli’ occupation committee approved a plan for the construction of 1,500 new settler units in the occupied East al-Quds, as the Zionist regime steps up its land grab and forced eviction policies in the Palestinian territories in defiance of international law.
The Tel Aviv regime’s so-called organization and building committee of the al-Quds municipality on Thursday said it had approved the plan for constructing 1,500 units in East al-Quds, the Palestinian Information Center reported.
The illegal settler units are to be built on an annexed land located between the French Hill and the Hebrew University in the holy city, and the construction will begin on an area that stretches over 150 dunums.
The new settlement scheme will include 500 rooms for Zionist students, 200 fortified rooms, several settling towers and public buildings, the report added.
Since early January, the Tel Aviv regime has approved four settlement expansion schemes, including a plan to expand the Hebrew University.
More than 600,000 Zionists occupy more than 230 settlements built since the 1967 ‘Israeli’ occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
All ‘Israeli’ settlements are illegal under international law as they are built on occupied land. The United Nations Security Council has condemned Tel Aviv’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.
In addition to expanding its illegal settlements, the ‘Israeli’ entity restricts freedom of movement for Palestinians not only in and out of Palestine but also within it. Zionist settlers, backed by the military, also routinely storm the al-Aqsa mosque and provoke clashes with Palestinian worshipers.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 