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Question

Mystery object found near Nord Stream pipeline could point to culprit

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 24 Mar 2023 02:48 UTC
unknown object
© Danish Ministry of DefenseUnknown object
Russia says it is supporting efforts to recover forensic evidence from the underwater site of the Nord Stream sabotage blasts, which may provide clues as to the culprit behind it. Images of a new mystery object have emerged, with Moscow saying it is vitally important that it be carefully examined.

The Kremlin in a Friday briefing called the recovery and examination of the object "critically important" as it has been discovered lying next to one of the damaged Nord Stream pipelines.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a daily briefing:
"It is critically important to determine what kind of object it is, whether it is related to this terrorist act - apparently it is - and to continue this investigation. And this investigation must be transparent."
The Danish Energy Agency has invited the Russia's Gazprom (owner of Nord Stream 2 AG) to assist in salvaging the mystery object. It was actually Putin who was the first to publicly reference the object and ongoing investigative efforts to ascertain what it is, per the AFP:
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who revealed the discovery of the object earlier this month, said experts believe that the object could be a signal antenna to activate an explosive in that part of the pipeline.

...The Danish energy agency released a photo late Thursday of the cylindrical object standing near the Nord Stream 2 pipeline at the bottom of the sea.

The agency said it is "possible" that the object is a maritime smoke buoy, 40 centimeters tall and 10 centimeters wide, and that it "does not pose an immediate safety risk."

Comment: See also: Seymour Hersh: The Nord Stream Cover-up

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Stop

Ukraine not ready for offensive - Zelensky


RT
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 10:30 UTC
zelensky
© Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/AFPUkraine President Volodymyr Zelensky
Kiev's troops are suffering from a lack of ammunition, the Ukrainian president has said...

Ukraine has not yet accumulated enough resources to stage an offensive, President Vladimir Zelensky has admitted.

In an interview released on Saturday by the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri, Zelensky said that the situation on the frontline "was not good," explaining that Kiev's forces lacked enough ammunition to launch an operation.

On the subject of an offensive, the Zelesnky stated:
"We can't start [it] yet. Without tanks, artillery and [US-supplied rocket launchers] HIMARS, we cannot send our brave soldiers to the front lines. We are waiting for ammunition to arrive from our partners."
Zelensky claimed Russian troops had been firing three times as many shells as the Ukrainian side. In light of this, he reiterated his calls for Kiev's Western backers to send more arms and urged them to sign off on deliveries of fighter jets.

Comment: No tanks, artillery, rockets, ammo...new shirt?

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Document

Russia should copy US 'Hague Invasion Act' - top lawmaker


RT
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 18:24 UTC
Volodin
© Sputnik/Vladimir FedorenkoRussian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin
Moscow should have a right to take any step necessary to protect Russian citizens, the State Duma chair believes...

Russia needs legislation that would give its president free rein when defending the country's citizens in case international structures, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), make decisions that contradict the nation's constitution, the State Duma Chairman, Vyacheslav Volodin said on Saturday. He cited US law as an example.

The US adopted the American Service-Members' Protection Act in 2002 - nicknamed "The Hague Invasion Act." The legislation was designed to protect America's military personnel as well as elected and appointed officials from prosecution by international criminal courts, to which Washington is not a party.

The act authorizes the US president to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel" detained or imprisoned on behalf of the ICC, since the US is not a party to the Rome Statute regulating its activities. The authorization implies potential military action, leading to the act's informal name.

According to Volodin, Russia needs to move in the same direction. The lower house head suggested further strengthening national legislation by banning outright any ICC activities on Russia's territory and introducing criminal liability for aiding or supporting the international body's activities.
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Attention

Why's the west paranoid about the Putin-Xi summit?

Salman Rafi Sheikh
New Eastern Outlook
Sun, 26 Mar 2023 19:31 UTC
Xi and Putin
© Grigory Sysoyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via APChinese President Xi Jinping, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin walk after their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, March 20, 2023.
The recently concluded summit consolidated Russia's and China's joint bid to challenge the US-dominated global system as well as concerted US efforts to undermine, using any means, emerging global powers. That the push to challenge this system is gaining momentum, evident from the support that both Russia and China continue to receive from the non-Western world, has left the West - especially, the US - paranoid about the future of the system they created after the Second World War. This growing paranoia is at the heart of an arrest warrant that the International Criminal Court issued last week against Putin. Ridiculous as this may sound, such actions only reveal the West's inner anxieties about the failure of their combined efforts to defeat Russia in Ukraine.

On the contrary, even as reports in the mainstream US media show, assembling enough military strength from within NATO countries for Ukraine against Russia has become an extremely difficult task, as more and more NATO countries are becoming "worried" about their own ammunition stockpiles. In addition to this, as reports in the US media show, there are growing differences between Washington and Kyiv as well with regard to the conduct of the war. How will Russia be defeated in such a case? For many Western powers - especially, the US and its old allies (the UK) - this is nothing short of a nightmare.

This nightmare is exacerbated by the Russia-China alliance. China, as it stands, has more manufacturing capacity today than the US-Europe combined. And, it is strong enough a military power to confront any western power in the Pacific or beyond. What can the West do to break this alliance? There is virtually no way the West can do any damage to this alliance; hence, the growing paranoia.
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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: NewsReal: Exceptionalist Overdrive: US Scorns Russia-China Alliance, Touts US Leadership


Sott.net
Sun, 26 Mar 2023 20:23 UTC
tiktok jinping putin newsreal
© Sott.net
US Congress members made a complete ar$e of themselves last week when grilling TikTok's CEO about his 'Chinese Communist Party ties' and his social media platform's 'malign influence on American children', paving the way - they hope - for the dehumanization the Chinese people in Americans' eyes, a prelude to some form of crazy 'war' against the world's most populous country.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the historic summit between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping inspired much fear and loathing from Washington's permanent bureaucracy - albeit disguised in weasel words and 'exceptionalist' dogma about 'the unbeatable power of US leadership'. The signs, however, are clear: the US is no longer the country most others look to - for anything...


Running Time: 01:32:22

Download: MP3 — 63.4 MB

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Airplane

Phillip Washington, Biden's pick to head FAA, withdraws name from nomination

Patrick Reilly
New York Post
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 16:35 UTC
phillip washington faa
© CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesPhillip Washington, Biden's nominee for the head of the Federal Aviation Administration
Washington pulled his name due to "an onslaught of unfounded Republican attacks" on his experience according to a White House official

President Joe Biden's pick to lead the Federal Aviation Administration is withdrawing his name from the nomination weeks after he was grilled by Republican lawmakers for not being qualified to head the agency, according to reports.

Phillip Washington, decided to pull his name from consideration due to "an onslaught of unfounded Republican attacks" on his service and experience, a White House official told CNN on Saturday.

Comment: Thank heavens this completely unqualified person will not be any where near an airport, other than as a passenger. Why Biden put forward such a ill-suited candidate other than the compulsive need to virtue-signal to his ever-shrinking base with 'diversity hires'?

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Yoda

Valdai director: The West's standoff with Russia and China is a big opportunity for the world's second-tier powers

Timofey Bordachev
RT
Thu, 23 Mar 2023 18:51 UTC
xi jinping africa china leaders
© XinhuaChinese President Xi Jinping chairs a China-Africa leaders' meeting in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019.
With the US distracted by its attempts to "contain" Moscow and Beijing, other players have a window of freedom

We can argue all we like about how the new international order will look but one thing is clear: it will not resemble any previous incarnation. History does not tend to repeat itself, which always means that recourse to historical analogies remains a sign of intellectual unpreparedness for contemporary events.

It's the same today - any attempt to find a firm basis for comparison between the past and the processes and phenomena of international life that we currently observe is inevitably confronted with convincing arguments as to why this or that analogy is not appropriate. It was even difficult in the past, when the main issue was the changing power capabilities of a relatively small group of states. It is all the more impossible to find examples now, in a completely changed international context. And it is very likely that paying attention to the context will help us to better visualize the contours of the order that will emerge in a few years, if not over decades.
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Yoda

Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova exposes CNN 'reporter' as propagandist CNN would fire if he weren't

Eric Zeusse
The Duran
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 18:44 UTC
Maria Zakharova Frederik Pleitgen Cnn
CNN hack Frederik Pleitgen attempts to spar with Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, March 24, 2023
This CNN reporter, Frederik Pleitgen, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, on 16 June 2022, challenged Russia's press spokesperson Maria Zakharova, by saying that "This is a rules-based forum for the whole world," referring there to the U.S. regime's self-created "rules" instead of to existing international laws, but then he abruptly switched to alleging that Russia's invasion of Ukraine "is a violation of international law." She documented that it is not.

In the process, and in response to Pleitgen's follow-ups, Pleitgen displayed not only ignorance of the history that had led up to and produced this invasion, but he rejected the very idea that the history that had left Russia no realistic alternative to invading after, on 7 January 2022, both the United States and NATO said, in response to Russia's 17 December 2022 formal presentation of their base-line essential national-security demands, which included a promise that Ukraine not be allowed into NATO, not only no, but that they refused even to negotiate about those demands.
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Rocket

Why hypersonic missiles DO actually matter

Scottie
ScottiesTech.Info
Tue, 21 Mar 2023 12:39 UTC
Game Over missile launch
I recently had the misfortune to read an article on CNN entitled: What to know about hypersonic missiles fired by Russia at Ukraine

I say "misfortune" because clearly, the individual who wrote it was trying very hard to downplay the significance of hypersonic weapons in the hands of the USA's declared adversary - aka Russia.

The above-mentioned article is actually an extended version of a shorter one at CNN published just a day earlier. That earlier article (now missing) was even worse - for both its purely propagandistic nature, as well as the author's breathtaking display of simple ignorance regarding the subject matter of his article.

But, whatever. So let's take a look at hypersonic missiles...
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Eye 1

Why Manhattan DA's hush money case against Trump doesn't look sexy anymore

Ekaterina Blinova
Sputnik
Sun, 26 Mar 2023 06:01 UTC
Donald Trump MAGA
© AP Photo / Matt Freed
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's "hush money" case against Donald Trump is bursting at the seams, with US legal experts ridiculing the DA's effort to put the former president behind bars, and some Democratic lawmakers warning against using the US court system as a pawn in a political game.

Last Saturday, former President Donald Trump signaled that he could be arrested on March 21 in connection with an ongoing investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg concerning Trump's alleged 2016 payment of $130,000 in hush money to adult movie star Stormy Daniels.

Trump's announcement triggered a lively debate, with US conservatives lambasting Bragg for pushing what they called a heavily politicized case.

The potential indictment, mentioned by Trump, should have followed a series of testimonies by former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, a disbarred lawyer and convicted felon who turned against his former client.

While many saw Cohen as Bragg's future "star witness" in a possible trial against Donald Trump, Cohen's former legal adviser Robert Costello came forward on March 20 to testify before the Manhattan grand jury with more than 300 emails contradicting his former client's statements. In addition, another letter on behalf of Cohen to the Federal Election Commission was unveiled shredding Cohen's claims.

Comment: See also:

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