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Ugandan president comments on relations with Russia

Museveni
© Handout/Russian Foreign Miistry/AFPUgandan President Yoweri Museveni press conference July 26, 2022
Uganda is seeking closer cooperation with Russia and refuses to fight "other people's enemies," the country's leader, Yoweri Museveni, said during a joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the city of Entebbe on Tuesday. The Ugandan president said:
"We want to trade with Russia and we want to trade with all the countries of the world. We don't believe in being enemies of somebody's enemy. We want to make our own enemies, not fight other people's enemies. This is our doctrine,"
The African leader noted that Russia, and the Soviet Union before it, have supported Uganda and the African anti-colonial movement for over 100 years and have never caused the country any harm.

Noting Uganda's rich natural resources, Museveni said he hoped his country could further increase cooperation with Russia in areas such as space science, nuclear energy, medicine, and food.

He also insisted that he didn't understand the calls for Africa to "automatically" take an anti-Russian stance, noting that Uganda can't turn against countries that have never caused it any harm, especially considering it has even forgiven its colonial oppressors of the past and now works with them as well.

The joint press conference was held amid Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's diplomatic tour of Africa and marked the first time a top Russian official has ever visited Uganda.

Briefcase

Prominent lawyer argues Steve Bannon's guilty verdict could be overturned

Bannon
© Getty ImagesSteve Bannon
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon's guilty verdict could be overturned, one prominent lawyer argued.

In an interview with Newsmax host Greta Van Susteren, former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz spoke about a jury in Washington, D.C., convicting Bannon on two charges of contempt of Congress for ignoring a subpoena. Dershowitz called the conviction "entirely in violation of the Constitution" and predicted that a higher court will "very likely" overturn it.

After Van Susteren said the D.C. district where the trial was held is "94 percent Democrat," Dershowitz chimed in, "Well, not only that, but probably 97 percent Trump haters."
"And all you had to do was say, 'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this man Bannon worked for Trump.' That's the end of the case. Entirely predictable and entirely in violation of the Constitution. The only provision of the Constitution which appears basically twice is trial by jury, in front of a fair jury. Number one he didn't have a fair jury. Number two the judge took his defenses away from him. The judge denied him a jury trial. They wouldn't allow him to put on evidence that he believed there was an executive privilege involved and he wanted a judicial determination before he violated the executive privilege. That issue could not be presented to the jury.

"As I predicted on this show and other shows before, this conviction was a foregone conclusion. The only issue is will it be reversed by an appeal. Either by the appellate court in the District of Columbia or by the Supreme Court. I think it's very likely that this conviction will be reversed at some point."

War Whore

What is this 'rules-based international order' that Western elites keep talking about?

macron and biden
© AP / Susan Walsh
US President Joe Biden has beaten the drum that Americans will have to pay high prices for energy for "as long as it takes" to stick it to Russia in Ukraine. A couple of months ago, when one of Biden's advisors, Brian Deese, was quizzed about the president's response to the price hikes on CNN, he replied: "This is about the future of the liberal world order and we have to stand firm."

In 2016, then Vice-President Joe Biden said to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a visit to Ottawa: "The world is going to spend a lot of time looking to you Mr. Prime Minister as we see more and more challenges to the liberal international order than any time since the end of World War Two."

French President Emmanuel Macron invoked a similar concept of fighting to maintain a certain "world order" during his press conference at the conclusion of the G7 Summit this June in Germany, when he said that the Russia-Ukraine conflict upsets the principles of international rules that have been established since 1945. Macron didn't elaborate, but that was the year the United Nations was created and France was given a permanent seat on its security council alongside the US, Russia, the UK, and China.

Dominoes

Kremlin warns West of response to RT France ban

rt france
© Vitaly Belousov / Sputnik
Moscow will apply "similar reciprocal" measures to Western media working in Russia in response to the ban of RT France from broadcasting in the EU, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. This comes after the EU's top court on Wednesday upheld a decision to prohibit RT France from airing its shows, accusing the channel of unfair coverage of the Ukraine conflict.

"The encroachment on the freedom of speech, the freedom of the media, in European states, including France, is both concerning and regrettable," Peskov told reporters. "The Europeans are stomping out the same ideals they're imposing across the globe."

Peskov promised "reciprocal pressure" on Western media working in Russia. "We will similarly not allow them to work in our country. There won't be a soft approach to this issue."

Earlier in the day, the European Court of Justice upheld a ban on RT France from broadcasting its content in the bloc. The judges ruled that the channel was "not capable of demonstrating an overall balanced treatment by the latter of information" concerning the conflict.

Magnify

How professional lobbyists have worked to generate enthusiasm in Washington for a long proxy military conflict in Ukraine

Javelin anti-tank missiles
© AP Photo/Efrem LukatskyJavelin anti-tank missiles
If you've wondered why so much Western media coverage of the Ukraine conflict seems to be based on "Kiev says," the answer is largely down to the power of lobbying. The Ukraine is always good and Russia is always bad narrative didn't create itself.

On July 11, Washington DC-based public affairs consultancy Ridgely Walsh registered as a Foreign Agent on behalf of Ukrainian interests with the US Justice Department.

The company - which typically advises Silicon Valley big hitters such as eBay, Google, Snapchat, SpaceX, and Uber - is just the latest Beltway operator to enlist under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). This is archaic and abstruse legislation thrust to the forefront of the mainstream news agenda during the 'Russiagate' hoax of the Donald Trump presidency.

Last July, just 11 US-based firms were registered as lobbyists for Ukrainian clients under FARA. Over the course of 2021, these influencers attempted to pressure Washington to kill the Nord Stream 2 project, increase lethal aid shipments to Kiev, and post ever-more US and NATO forces along Russia's border.

Wolf

NATO's arsonist-in-chief Jens Stoltenberg wants the Western public to pay for a Ukrainian fire he helped to ignite

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg
© javier soriano/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesNATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg delivers his opening speech on Day 1 of the NATO summit at the Ifema center in Madrid.
EU members should 'stop complaining' and 'pay the price' for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, says leader of the bloc which started it all

The General Secretary of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, took it upon himself recently to lecture the members of the European Parliament about the need to "pay the price" necessary to keep Ukraine able to function and fight in its ongoing conflict with Russia. What he failed to admit was the major role he himself played in bringing about this conflict.

The Norwegian has an important role. In many ways, one can liken it to that of a fire commissioner whose job is to bring together various neighborhood fire departments into a large mutual aid pact, where a fire in one district automatically causes the resources of the neighboring districts to be dispatched in response. That's Article 5 of NATO's Charter in a nutshell.

Map

The Middle East is no longer the US's backyard, it's over

Biden Middle East
US President Joe Biden's visit was a complete failure and shows that Washington no longer possesses the power that it claims over the region — neither diplomatically, nor militarily. The Biden administration failed to achieve any of its primary objectives in the region with his visit and instead of sending a strong message to its rivals in Tehran, affirmed that there is no military solution available against the Islamic Republic.

When the Biden administration announced that the President would make his first trip to the Middle East, by visiting both Tel Aviv and Riyadh, talk began to emerge of many major developments that may follow. Saudi Arabia and Israel were expected to grow significantly closer towards a normalization deal, with some progress seemingly made on that front, the only thing that seemed to change was Riyadh opening its skies to Israeli aircraft, and other than this, there really isn't anything to show for Joe Biden's visit.

An "Arab-Israel Axis" made headlines in the Western media prior to President Biden's visit to the region, with many expecting — following statements made about the potential for an "Arab NATO", by the King of Jordan, Abdullah II — a major unity deal to be discussed at the Arab Summit. At the very least, it was expected that the Israeli proposal for a joint air defense alliance against Iran — to be formed between Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members and Israel — would be discussed, yet there was no discussion about this at the Arab Summit meeting that Biden took part in.

Monkey Wrench

Hezbollah's drones: No more safe skies for Israel

Hezbollah drones
The democratization and development of drone warfare among West Asia's resistance factions present a grave threat to the airspace security of their regional foes, notably Israel, vis-à-vis the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance in particular.

In this sense, it is not just conventional, ballistic, or surface-to-surface precision guided missiles that threatens Israel, the state that once enjoyed qualitative military superiority in the region's skies, and which, over the years of conflict with Arab states, excelled in aerial warfare.

Indeed the proliferation of lethal yet cost-effective, "kamikaze" drones are the new and evolving threat to Israel, spelling the end of the short-lived monopoly it once relished.

Hezbollah drones, activated

On 2 July, Lebanon's resistance movement Hezbollah dispatched three unarmed drones over the Karish gas field, in the disputed maritime economic zone between Lebanon and northern Israel.

The reconnaissance drones' flight close to the Energean production vessel reinforced the Jewish state's fears of the potential danger posed by drones. Overnight, Tel Aviv also realized that Hezbollah is very serious about carrying out its threat to prevent Israel from extracting gas from the disputed field.

Eye 1

Former Greenpeace President Dr. Patrick Moore Says the Elites Have a 'Suicide Pact' to Reduce the World's Population

Dr. Patrick Moore
"We're now facing a situation where a huge number of very powerful organizations and elites at an international and at national levels are calling for policies that are basically a suicide pact.

Basically a death wish of some sort."


Full Show

Magnify

Hungary sets up defense body in response to Ukrainian conflict, European economic crisis

orban
© ReutersPrime Minister Viktor Orban
The Hungarian government has set up a new Defense Council led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban which has been given special decision-making authority, the PM's press secretary Bertalan Havasi announced on Tuesday.

As quoted by Hungarian news agency MTI, Havasi explained that the council was created in response to the military conflict in Ukraine and the ensuing economic crisis in Europe. He also noted that increased pressure from migration had made it necessary to pay special attention to protecting Hungary's security and sovereignty in the coming years.

The council will deal with proposals and reports regarding national security, public safety, border controls, national defense, migrant cases, natural disaster protections, counter-terrorism efforts and defense developments.