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Friday, March 31, 2023
China Inc. keen on setting up shop in the U.S. despite tensions - Nikkei Asia
China Inc. keen on setting up shop in the U.S. despite tensions - Nikkei Asia: NEW YORK -- Foreign companies have for years been shifting production away from China as relations between Washington and Beijing deteriorated. But no
What to do with Yucca Mountain? | News | 2news.com
What to do with Yucca Mountain? | News | 2news.com: Legislation is circulating in Nevada's capitol to devote Yucca Mountain to renewable energy.
Saudi Arabia makes move towards Russia-China bloc — RT World News
Saudi Arabia makes move towards Russia-China bloc — RT World News: Riyadh has become a “dialog partner” with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian bloc led by China
The global nuclear energy market is a geopolitical battleground
The global nuclear energy market is a geopolitical battleground: By weaving energy security into the heart of our national security strategy, we can bolster our capacity to deter and resist authoritarian aggression.
Thursday, March 30, 2023
Why Ukraine may embrace China’s peace plan – Asia Times
Why Ukraine may embrace China’s peace plan – Asia Times: A gloomy assessment of Ukraine’s prospects for victory against Russia emerged from a recent private gathering of former top US soldiers, intelligence officials and scholars with resumes reaching fr…
To Hell and Back - America’s Remarkable Unwillingness to Support Its Veterans -TomDispatch.com
To Hell and Back - TomDispatch.com
Andrea Mazzarino, Former Soldiers Without a Future
Posted on March 30, 2023
It’s the military from hell — and, no, I don’t mean the Russian army, though, it certainly qualifies. Few now doubt that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal (and not just because of those Ukrainian children his forces exported to Russia for adoption). Launching a war of aggression is crime enough (for me at least). But here’s the strange thing: despite the recent 20th anniversary of President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq based on a total set of fabrications, including that Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, a war that would cause hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths and thousands of American ones, help launch the Islamic State, and create chaos in the region, you would be hard-pressed to find mainstream articles here referring to Bush and his top officials as war criminals.
Cartoonist Rob Rogers, however, managed to catch the essence of this moment recently by drawing a half-naked Vladimir Putin, standing amid bones and blood under a headline that reads: “20 years later: the legacy of the Iraq invasion.” Scrawled on a wall behind the Russian president is a bloody “Mission Accomplished” — the infamous line displayed on a banner behind Bush as, in May 2003, he gave a speech on an aircraft carrier declaring his war a raging success. Putin is saying, “Ukraine had WMD!”
Last year, however inadvertently, even Bush himself admitted to Putinesque behavior. Stumbling in a speech he was giving, he condemned “a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” (He meant Ukraine, of course.)
Today, however, TomDispatch regular, co-founder of the invaluable Costs of War Project, and military spouse Andrea Mazzarino explores a rarely acknowledged aspect of that criminal war of ours. She focuses on how so many of the American military personnel dispatched to fight it and the rest of the disastrous Global War on Terror have suffered until this very day, while this country largely turned its back, leaving them in the lurch. It is, in truth, a tale from hell, but let her explain. Tom
Leftist Protesters Fail to Disrupt Christian Library Story Hour in DC
Leftist Protesters Fail to Disrupt Christian Library Story Hour in DC: A Christian story hour for children went on at a Washington, D.C., public library Wednesday despite some leftists' attempts to prevent it.
The global nuclear energy market is a geopolitical battleground
The global nuclear energy market is a geopolitical battleground: By weaving energy security into the heart of our national security strategy, we can bolster our capacity to deter and resist authoritarian aggression.
"We just wear our scars on the outside": Band of wounded warriors healing through music - CBS News
"We just wear our scars on the outside": Band of wounded warriors healing through music - CBS News: Members of the band The Resilient have lost limbs overseas, but that's not stopping them from creating music together
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Fifth Sunday in Lent
Fifth Sunday of Lent
Have you ever been in a hospital waiting room – waiting for news? Hoping for a miracle, praying your heart out? Making promises to God? “Let my loved one get well. Bring them through this operation, and I promise I will do this or that.”
Then the doctor comes out and you know right away by the look on his face that it is bad news. And perhaps for a while you feel God has let you down. We feel like Martha in today’s Gospel. She is mad at Jesus. It sounds polite in the story: “If You had been here, my brother would never have died.”
In reality, she is very upset. He had healed so many, a hundred others that He didn’t even know. And now, when His best friend needs Him, He is out of town. Against all expectations, He delays two days/ Some of the grieving Jews are not particularly impressed by Jesus’ tears. Could not He, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man from dying? But Jesus’ love for Lazarus goes beyond what His sister had been silently asking: “Do not let him die.”
Listen again to the dialogue with Martha and Jesus: “You brother will rise again, Martha. I know he will rise again, in the resurrection on the last day.” Whoever lives and believes in Him will never die. In other words, eternal death is not separation of soul from the body, but separation of the soul from God.
This is so important that Jesus asks her, “Do you believe this?” I wonder if she paused before she said yes. Then Jesus does the unexpected. He orders that the stone be rolled away from the tomb. Then he calls out loudly for Lazarus to come out. Picture the scene: hundreds of people standing around, straining to see what he is going to do.
The silence was deafening. You could have heard a pin drop. The voice of Jesus rang out through those hills, and to the shock and dismay of all, Lazarus appears out of the darkness of the tomb, and Jesus orders that he be untied and set free. This was probably one of the greatest miracles of Jesus – and probably the one that sealed His fate. The raising of Lazarus was the crucial moment in the plot to kill Jesus.
The popularity of Jesus reached a critical level after this miracle. And thus, the level of threat to the status quo leadership was overwhelming. From this point on, they plot openly against Him. Ironically, it would be the act of restoring a friend to life. That would set in motion the events that led to Jesus’ death.
It could be said that as Jesus stood before the tomb, He called Lazarus out so that He could go in. He was changing places with Lazarus. There are many lessons to be taken from this Gospel, but perhaps it all comes down to how you answer the question Jesus poses to Martha:
“I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever is alive and believes in Me will never die.” I leave you with the same question. Do you believe this? Do you believe this?
Fr. Bob Warren, SA
Yours in Christ,
Father Bob Warren, S.A. Signature
Fr. Bob Warren, SA
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Christoph Trebesch on Twitter: "📢New paper on China's role in global finance and the difficulties of the Belt and Road. Sebastian Horn, @carmenmreinhart, Brad Parks and I show that China has created a new global system of rescue lending to countries in debt distress (large bailouts) 👇This is what we find, a🧵 https://t.co/qIOzS3W4Wp" / Twitter
An Iran-linked U.S. death in Syria raises the question: When will this intervention end? Guest Post Defense Priorities
GREAT POWERS
An Iran-linked U.S. death in Syria raises the question: When will this intervention end?
A U.S. Army Sgt. conducts a dismounted patrol in Syria on January 26, 2023. Photo: DoD
The death of an American contractor in Syria last week was a reminder that the U.S. retains a much-ignored military presence in the war-torn country. American boots have been on the ground in Syria for the better part of a decade, under three administrations, though military intervention there was never authorized by Congress.
And while the Biden administration swore swift retaliation for this attack and any others like it, the White House didn’t seem to consider the bigger question at hand: Why are U.S. forces still in Syria, and why can’t they come home?
The danger of staying
“A U.S. contractor was killed and another contractor and five U.S. service members were injured” by a self-destructing drone of Iranian origin in Syria last week. The U.S. retaliated with airstrikes on Iran-linked groups. [NYT / Eric Schmitt]
“Make no mistake, the U.S. does not—does not, I emphasize—seek conflict with Iran,” President Joe Biden said a day later. “But be prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people.” [NBC / Courtney Kube et al.]
"As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing," said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. "No group will strike our troops with impunity." [DoD]
Biden officially notified Congress of the strikes after the fact, characterizing them as a defensive action and a deterrent to Iran. [CNN / Nikki Carvajal et al.]
National Security Council member John Kirby said more U.S. action could be coming. [CBS]
Other recent developments in U.S.-Syria relations—and interactions with Syrian partners Iran and Russia—include:
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley visited Syria in early March and said he believes keeping a U.S. military presence there indefinitely is worth the risk. [Reuters / Phil Stewart]
Milley characterized the mission as “an enduring defeat of ISIS and continuing to support our friends and allies in the region.” [Reuters / Phil Stewart]
Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich of CENTCOM said last week that armed Russian jets flew over a U.S. garrison in Syria almost daily in March. [NBC / Courtney Kube]
Interventionist voices including former CENTCOM chief Gen. Kenneth McKenzie and the Wall Street Journal editorial board have urged the Biden administration toward a more aggressive military posture in Syria.
The 900 U.S. troops still in Syria are reportedly “running an extensive aerial surveillance network, … coordinating the [Syrian Democratic Forces’] more than 100,000 fighters, and facilitating civilian aid, stabilization, and tribal engagement.” Iran-linked attacks are a “constant threat.” [Politico / Charles Lister]
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted in congressional testimony last week that U.S. sanctions on Iran have “created real economic crisis in the country” while doing little to shift Tehran’s behavior. [Reuters / David Lawder and Kanishka Singh]
The logic of leaving
“Few people like to talk about it, but the U.S. has been in a proxy war with Iran in Iraq and Syria for years. … Every now and then, the violence comes into public view.” [Edward Wong]
“Under what conditions would the Biden administration deem the mission of 900 U.S. troops in Syria to be accomplished, allowing the mission to end?” [Stephen Wertheim]
The logic Biden used for removing U.S. troops from Afghanistan applies to Syria. Since a U.S. intervention should be defined by clear, achievable goals, and since long-range strikes, instead of occupying forces, can accomplish U.S. counterterrorism goals, there is no good case for keeping U.S. troops in Syria either:
The 900 U.S. forces currently occupying territory in eastern and southern Syria, risk conflict with Syrian forces and local militias, as well as Russian, Iranian, and Turkish forces, as last week’s attack reminds.
The Islamic State’s territorial caliphate in Syria was eliminated in 2019. The few, small, remote areas the remnants of ISIS now hold are largely within territory held by Syrian government forces. Local forces can fight the remnants of ISIS.
None of the other standard rationales for keeping U.S. forces in Syria—protecting the Kurds, countering Iran and Russia, unseating the Assad regime—justify keeping troops in Syria either. [DEFP / Natalie Armbruster]
Zelensky, UN official discuss nuclear plant fears - The Boston Globe
Zelensky, UN official discuss nuclear plant fears - The Boston Globe: The United Nations’ atomic energy chief warned during a meeting Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the perilous situation at Europe’s largest nuclear plant “isn’t getting any better” as relentless fighting in the area keeps the facility at risk of a disaster.
The War of Surprises in Ukraine - TomDispatch.com
The War of Surprises in Ukraine - TomDispatch.com
Rajan Menon, A War for the Record Books
March 28, 2023
Yes, as TomDispatch regular Rajan Menon points out today, the world was surprised first by Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and then by his army's failure to capture Kyiv and obliterate the government of Volodymyr Zelensky. In truth, though, we Americans probably shouldn't have been. After all, it shouldn't have been all that hard to recall a similar American-style scenario -- say, the U.S. military's disastrous attempt to defeat a rebel movement (and North Vietnamese forces) in South Vietnam in the last century or to do something similar in Afghanistan in this one. Either of those might, in retrospect, have been considered American Ukraines. In fact, it almost seems like an unnoticed truth of our moment that the more money a country puts into its military, the less striking the results from its use in the world.
Yes, until Ukraine, the Russian military, funded and upgraded by President Vladimir Putin, was thought to be a winner of a force. Today, pressed to the edge of who knows what and having thrown a private mercenary outfit (the Wagner Group) and tens of thousands of barely trained prison convicts into the front lines of death in Ukraine, it looks unimpressive as hell. Strangely enough, however, despite losses of every sort over the last three-quarters of a century, the world's best-funded military (by a country mile) is still considered impressive as hell (and I don't use that word lightly). Explain that as you will.
And by the way, the Russians never took the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, but in the American version of their war -- the invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- the U.S. military did indeed take Baghdad and little good it did them. Perhaps what we need on this increasingly odd planet of ours is a new assessment of the significance of traditional military power. If only. In that context, let Menon (who has seen the war in Ukraine firsthand) take you through the true strangeness of Vladimir Putin's attempt to invade and conquer his neighbor. Tom
Monday, March 27, 2023
The BRICS Has Overtaken The G7 In Global GDP - Silk Road Briefing
The BRICS Has Overtaken The G7 In Global GDP - Silk Road Briefing: By Chris Devonshire-Ellis The India-based Megh Updates platform, one of the world’s largest online informational platforms in terms of views, has stated that BRICS countries have officially overtaken G7 in share of world PPP GDP, and that this trend can be expected to continue. The BRICS currently include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa,[.....]
Sunday, March 26, 2023
What is Depleted Uranium - the new entrant in Russia-Ukraine conflict which is keeping world on edge
What is Depleted Uranium - the new entrant in Russia-Ukraine conflict which is keeping world on edge: Russia and the UK continue to engage in a new, bitter war of words over the British side's plan to supply Ukraine with armour-piercing shells with Depleted
PG&E faces time crunch on Diablo Canyon license renewal as California weighs nuclear plant’s future | Utility Dive
PG&E faces time crunch on Diablo Canyon license renewal as California weighs nuclear plant’s future | Utility Dive: Utility industry news and analysis for energy professionals.
Saturday, March 25, 2023
Rogue Economics
Rogue Economics
From The Middle Class…. To The Rich:
America’s LAST Wealth Transfer
A Strange Force (Not Inflation) Is Taking The U.S. By Storm: Transferring Wealth
From The Middle Class to The Rich… PhD Nomi Prins Uncovers What’s Happening
and Reveals Her “New American Era Blueprint” for Protecting & Profiting in 2023
Guest Post About Kohelet Policy Forum -
This is a letter I have sent to the Washington Post about their full page article about the right-wing Israeli think tank Kohelet.
To the editor,
Washington Post.
The Washington Post has performed a notable public service by publishing the important article, “The Secretive Israeli Think Tank Behind Netanyahu’s Judicial Overhaul.”
This think tank, Kohelet Policy Forum, has long advocated for annexation of the West Bank, gender segregation inside Israel, and a weaker Supreme Court. It has contempt for non-Orthodox streams of Judaism and for the rights not only of Palestinians but of the LGBTQ community and of women. It is largely financially supported by ultra-Orthodox Jewish Americans.
The policies of Israel’s far-right government have been rejected by the overwhelming majority of American Jews, including such traditional supporters of Israel as Abraham Foxman, the long-time leader of the Anti-Defamation League, Prof. Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, and the leaders of Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Judaism.
When Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who called for the Palestinian village of Huwara to be “wiped out” and said, “there’s no such thing as Palestinians,” visited Washington earlier this month, no member of the Biden administration would meet with him. Neither would any of the major American Jewish organizations. William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations, called his statements “disgusting.”
Zionism itself is becoming a minority view within the Jewish community. Zionism proclaims that Israel is the “homeland” of all Jews and that Jews living outside of Israel are in “exile.” In fact, Judaism is a religion of universal values, not a nationality. The homeland of Jewish Americans is the United States. They are American by nationality and Jews by religion, just as other Americans are Protestant, Catholic or Muslim.
In 1841, in the dedication of America’s first Reform synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina, Rabbi Gustav Poznanski told the congregation, “This country is our Palestine, this city our Jerusalem, this house of God our temple.”
Israel would do well to confine its concerns to its own citizens. Almost all Jewish Americans believe in freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Israel, sadly, is a theocracy. Non-Orthodox rabbis cannot perform weddings, conduct funerals, or have their conversions recognized. In fact, Jews have less religious freedom in Israel than anyplace in the Western world.
Shira Rubin has performed a notable service with her article about Kohelet Policy Forum.
Sincerely,
Allan C. Brownfeld,
Editor of ISSUES,
The quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism
(www.ACJNA.org)
Friday, March 24, 2023
USA befürchten, durch den chinesischen Vorschlag in die Enge getrieben zu werden – Anti-Spiegel
USA befürchten, durch den chinesischen Vorschlag in die Enge getrieben zu werden –
Anti-Spiegel
https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/2023/usa-befuerchten-durch-den-chinesischen-vorschlag-in-die-enge-getrieben-zu-werden/
USA fears being cornered by the Chinese proposal
China's peace plan
While German media claim that the Chinese peace proposal for Ukraine is not taken seriously internationally, the truth is quite different.
24. March 2023
German media like to refer to the peace plan presented by China as an "alleged" peace plan and they have continuously claimed during the Chinese president's visit to Moscow that the plan is not to be taken seriously and "internationally controversial". This formulation is only partially true, because the fact that the plan is internationally controversial is mainly due to the fact that the West rejects it. However, this means that the West is quite alone internationally.
The Chinese peace plan is reasonable, because it also includes the history of the conflict, which must be resolved if there is to be a negotiated peace that ends the bloodshed. And as is well known, the West has played an important role in this history by ignoring Russia's security interests and arming Ukraine and advancing its accession to NATO. That was the main reason for the escalation of the war a year ago.
There are legally valid agreements between the West and Russia that state that no state may enforce its security interests at the expense of the security interests of another state. It is precisely this agreement that the West violated when it forced Ukraine's accession to NATO. China's peace plan provides, among other things, to establish this provision worldwide, which the US-led West does not like at all.
However, German media consumers do not know anything about it, because the German media conceal this and other details and backgrounds of the Chinese peace plan. But in the rest of the world, all this is known very well, which is why China's peace plan outside the West is not criticized, but is welcomed as quite reasonable.
This is also known in the USA, as Bloomberg has now reported. According to Bloomberg, the US government is very worried about the Chinese peace plan, because the rejection of the plan by the USA openly shows the rest of the world that the US is not interested in peace in Ukraine. I have translated the Bloomberg article so that German readers can get their own picture.
Start of the translation:
The USA fears that a war-tired world could accept China's peace offer for Ukraine
The USA is on the sidelines of the action, while the Chinese-Russian "Brother's Festival" strengthens relations
Some uncomfortable realities of Xi's visit to Putin in Moscow
Xi Jinping's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow put the Biden administration in an unpleasant situation: she was on the sidelines when her two opponents discussed a peace proposal for Ukraine, which the USA considered unacceptable.
US officials have publicly expressed very skeptical about the Chinese idea and claimed that the demand for a ceasefire would reward Moscow's invasion by cementing its territorial gains. Secretly, however, the meetings and the proposal within the government have caused a feeling of discomfort, which in turn led to questions about the general attitude of the USA towards the two countries.
According to a government representative who does not want to be named because he talks about internal consultations, the USA fears being cornered by the Chinese proposal. Regardless of the reservations of the USA, if it rejects the proposal outright, China could give other nations that are tired of the war - and the economic damage it causes - the impression that Washington is not interested in peace.
If the US rejects the agreement, "China will probably increasingly spread the message that the US is against a ceasefire, that the US is against the end of the war," said Bonny Lin, Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who used to serve in the Pentagon. There will be many ways in which China will try to interpret the results of the meeting between China and Russia in such a way that the USA is presented in a negative light.
The debate on China's version of a peace plan is just one of the many unpleasant aspects of Xi's three-day visit to Moscow this week, at which the Chinese head of state was warmly welcomed by Putin. The two countries promised to deepen their partnership even further.
The Biden administration has tried to keep China on the sidelines since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, but the opposite seems to have happened. As Xi and Putin are getting closer and closer, China finds an open-minded audience for its broader diplomatic efforts around the globe.
At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Senator Jeff Merkley asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a statement on what the Oregon Democrat described as a "three-day brother festival with Putin and Xi, who celebrate their authoritarian power." Blinken admitted that this was a continuation of the promise of the two nations shortly before the war to maintain a "partnership without borders".
"This is no surprise - both countries have completely different worldviews than we do," Blinken said. "They could find a common cause in opposing the worldview that we and so many other countries in the world are trying to defend and advance."
Blinken did not mention all the countries that refused to take sides despite the insistence of the USA.
China has disregarded the US sanctions because of the partnership of its companies with Russia, bought oil from the Iranian regime despite Western warnings and helped to bring about diplomatic détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Important global economic powers such as India and Brazil refuse to choose between China and the West because they do not want a new Cold War.
And a week ago, Honduras began to abandon its diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of economic relations with China.
The move was "a sign of my determination to fulfill the government plan and expand the borders in harmony with the nations of the world freely," President Xiomara Castro explained in a tweet.
Deteriorating bonds
All this is happening at a time when relations between the USA and China, which began to crumble with the trade war of former President Donald Trump, are further deteriorating. This was underlined by the excitement about the alleged Chinese spy balloon, which triggered a national outcry in the USA and angry accusations between Washington and Beijing.
This episode nullifies the attempt to stabilize relations at the end of last year through a personal summit between President Joe Biden and Xi in Indonesia. This led to a tense meeting between Foreign Minister Antony Blinken and the Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi in Munich, and Xi later warned against "comprehensive containment and oppression by Western countries under the leadership of the USA."
US officials argue that their sharp words have an effect on Beijing. They say that the public warnings from the US that China could provide deadly aid to Russia have prompted the Xi government to think twice about this idea. The USA continues to supply Ukraine with weapons - they announced new ammunition worth 325 million dollars this week - in coordination with European countries that are setting up new delivery schedules themselves.
The Biden administration has tried to get China to face the Ukraine crisis on the terms of the USA, but "Xi is now interfering on its terms," said Christopher K. Johnson, president of China Strategies Group, a political risk consulting firm. "And I think that this is likely to cause some confusion within the government."
Since Washington is constantly pursuing a hard line towards China, some analysts believe that China may have effectively given up an early improvement in relations with the US.
The less China sees the opportunity to work with the US, "the more likely it is to pursue these other paths and options," said Melanie Sisson, a foreign policy associate at the Brookings Institution. "And this will mean in many ways and in many places that they will try to shatter the US's relations with other countries."
End of translation
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