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Slovakia's PM Fico: Ukraine's 'rampant neo-Nazis' were cause of war, Kiev NATO membership is attempt to start WWIII


Pravda Ukraine
Sat, 24 Feb 2024 21:48 UTC
Robert Fico
© AP ArchiveRobert Fico said he would visit Kiev and meet with his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal. "I will tell him that I am against the membership of Ukraine in NATO and that I will veto," he said.
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has said that Russia started its war against Ukraine in 2014 because "Ukrainian neo-Nazis" were "rampant".

Source: European Pravda, with reference to Aktuality, a Slovakian news outlet


Comment: Up until a year or so prior to Russia's SMO, media outlets throughout the West had reported on Ukraine's 'Nazi problem', then, suddenly, the reporting stopped.


Details: Fico said on Facebook that the war started in 2014 because "Ukrainian neo-Nazis" were "rampant".

He said that the Russian Federation's military invasion of Ukraine is also partly serving to "mislead Russia into thinking that NATO will not expand further east".

Comment: Fico has been extremely outspoken regarding the corruption and lies in Western politics, and as you can see in the interview posted below, he admits that in his defiance to not repeat the propaganda:
"I don't know how long we can stay in government. We're under a lot of pressure. I have never experienced things like this before. But as long as i am in government, i will argue that Ukraine's entry into NATO is just a reason to start World War III."
Indeed it does appear that the West is now intent on significantly escalating the situation: Korybko: Russia's Avdeevka win will reverberate across Europe and accelerate geostrategic shifts

More facts from Fico: Ukraine proxy war "didn't work, Russia is NOT on its knees, West prevented TWO chances for peace" - Slovakia's PM Fico

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Stock Down

Why Fed rate hikes used to cause the classic emerging-market crisis but now seem to boomerang on the US

Henry Johnston
RT
Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:33 UTC
FedRes
© Getty ImagesUS Federal Reserve
Once at the mercy of Fed policy, much of the world is now resistant to the interest-rate turmoil that always starts in Washington...

For decades, the prospect of higher US interest rates struck terror in the hearts of anyone whose fortune or fate was tied to emerging markets. As certain as night follows day, tightening policy in the US translated into financial turmoil in developing countries across the globe.

Now, with the Federal Reserve poised to retreat from the tightening cycle begun in March 2022, it is perhaps time to take stock of a startling fact: despite the sharpest US rate hikes in four decades, emerging markets have emerged relatively unscathed.

But the significance of this goes beyond the absence of headlines about leery-eyed traders panic-dumping Thai bahts and Brazilian reals. Not just have emerging markets avoided the type of turmoil usually associated with US tightening, but the roles have almost switched. It is the US itself that has begun exhibiting decidedly emerging-market-like characteristics as it confronts what may very well end up being a major sovereign debt crisis right at its front door.
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Monkey Wrench

Romania throws wrench in push to make Rutte next NATO chief

Natalia Drozdiak, Peter Martin
Bloomberg News
Thu, 22 Feb 2024 00:00 UTC
chart
Romania has notified other NATO members that it plans to nominate its president as a candidate for the defense alliance's secretary general, according to European officials.

The nomination of President Klaus Iohannis will complicate other allies' efforts to install outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as the next chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But Rutte remains the clear favorite for the post, as the US, Germany and the UK all backed him Thursday to lead the alliance of 31 members once Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's term ends in October.

Some members on the alliance's eastern flank have withheld a green light as they push for greater representation by the region in senior roles within the organization. The most recent chiefs of the alliance have been from Nordic countries or the Netherlands.

Iohannis' press office didn't respond to phone calls seeking comment. A spokesperson for Rutte said it's up to NATO allies to decide on the next secretary general and declined to comment further.

European and US officials said the Romanian push would probably just prolong the process before Rutte ultimately wins the bid.

"The United States has made it clear to our allies, our NATO allies, that we believe Mr. Rutte would be an excellent secretary general for NATO," White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday, hours after a UK endorsement of Rutte's candidacy for the post. The German embassy in Washington said in a social media posting that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz supports Rutte, citing his "immense experience, extensive security policy experience and profound diplomatic skill."

Comment: Solidarity is outcome absolute. Others need not apply.

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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: NewsReal: Ukraine War 2-Year Anniversary: The West is Still Losing


Sott.net
Sun, 25 Feb 2024 18:17 UTC
ukraine anniversary trump assassination newsreal
© Sott.net
Following their breakthrough in Avdeyevka outside Donetsk city, the Russians are advancing on multiple points along the contact line in territory formerly known as Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky continues whining about insufficient funds and weapons, despite bleeding Western armories and treasuries dry. As we pass the two-year mark since Russia stunned the world with its lightning-quick assault deep in to Ukraine, existential desperation is seeping from every pore of Western leadership.

Also in this NewsReal, the Houthis are successfully hitting multiple US-UK cargo ships, warships and tankers (and Israel's economy has shrunk by 20%), Trump is all but guaranteed to win the US election (unless he's assassinated?), Google's woke AI is launched (and deservedly panned for being idiotically racist), and French president Macron is practically chased out of an agricultural fair by farmers angry at, among other thing, Ukrainian grain flooding the market.

It's Clown World, and we're all condemned to suffer it!


Running Time: 01:29:15

Download: MP3 — 61.3 MB

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Attention

Israel: Masada 2024?

JUlian MacFarlane
News Forensics
Fri, 23 Feb 2024 17:29 UTC
For modern Israelis the Siege of Masada represents Jewish heroism — it is a cornerstone of national identity — a heroic 'last stand' for Israel. According to the story, the heroic defenders of the stronghold held out against the Romans for three years, finally committing suicide rather than accept defeat. Moral: Israel cannot be defeated.

Soldiers inducted into the Israeli Defense Forces take an oath, "Masada shall not fall again".
Masada
© News ForensicsMasada
The Masada story took hold however in the 1930s when an Israeli archaeologist named Shmaryahu Gutman began organizing treks to Masada for youth organizations to promote Zionism. By 1948 Masada had become a cornerstone of the national identity,

The trouble is that, while Masada exists today as an archaeological site. the story is a myth. There is no evidence that it happened — not at least as we are told.

If there was a Siege of Masada at all, it probably took only six weeks. There is no evidence of a suicide or massacre — very few skeletons have been recovered from the site. The defenders of the site were Sicarii, a semi-religious militia using profits from robbery, contract killing and kidnapping to support a vague messianic ideology — not Jewish nationalists nor especially anti-Roman, just hoping for power.

In addition:

Judaism holds life to be the highest human value and never hopeless, even when it is difficult or tragic. Judaism regards murder and suicide as terrible sins.

Jewish law is quite clear.

Come to think of it maybe Masada and the Sicarii are the symbols of Israel today. Israel's Masada complex tells us more than Zionists would like to admit.
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Dollar

Corruption bonanza: Pentagon investigating 50 cases of Ukraine aid fraud


RT
Sun, 25 Feb 2024 14:34 UTC
Ukraine corruption
In one instance, shipping manifests were mysteriously changed before arms packages reached the country

The Pentagon's inspector general has opened more than 50 cases into possible "theft, fraud or corruption, and diversion" of military aid to Ukraine. Allegations of graft surfaced almost immediately after the aid began flowing to Kiev and Inspector General Robert Storch has declared that more investigations are likely to follow.


Comment: Remember war is a racket and theft, fraud and corruption also happens in the US in connection with the huge taxpayer funded aid to Ukraine.


Speaking at a briefing on Thursday, Storch said that though no allegations have been substantiated yet, "that may well change in the future," according to Bloomberg. Additional investigations will be necessary "given the quantity and speed" of weapons being sent to Ukraine, he noted.

One case highlighted by Storch involved unidentified items arriving in Poland as part of a wider weapons shipment, before disappearing from a shipping manifest when they were sent across the border into Ukraine in June.

While the case of the disappearing equipment was highlighted in a report by Storch's office last year, the inspector did not say at the time whether the items had been lost or stolen. Instead, his office stated that Pentagon personnel "did not have required visibility and accountability of all types of equipment during the transfer process."

Comment: Corruption in Ukraine is only one side of the coin. As numerous US officials have said, 90% of aid to Ukraine actually stays in the US, where the main part goes to the industrial military complex. This is the other side of the coin, namely the US side where money is used for grease politicians and to inflate weapons prices enormously. So when the US pretend to investigate corruption in relation to Ukraine, it fails deliberately to investigate the connected corruption in the US, including Sleepy Joe and his extended family.

See also:

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Handcuffs

Neil Oliver: 'They Want Blood & Julian Assange!'

Neil Oliver
YouTube
Thu, 22 Feb 2024 13:15 UTC
Neil Oliver
Neil Oliver
...are we just a whipped dog licking the hand of its master!


Comment: See also:

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X

Two years after the start of the SMO, the West is totally paralyzed

Pepe Escobar
Strategic Culture Foundation
Sat, 24 Feb 2024 00:00 UTC
Putin
© odyssee.com
Exactly two years ago this Saturday, on February 24, 2022, Vladimir Putin announced the launching - and described the objectives - of a Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine. That was the inevitable follow-up to what happened three days before, on February 21 - exactly 8 years after Maidan 2014 in Kiev - when Putin officially recognized the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

During this - pregnant with meaning - short space of only three days, everyone expected that the Russian Armed Forces would intervene, militarily, to end the massive bombing and shelling that had been going on for three weeks across the frontline - which even forced the Kremlin to evacuate populations at risk to Russia. Russian intel had conclusive proof that the NATO-backed Kiev forces were ready to execute an ethnic cleansing of Russophone Donbass.

February 24, 2022 was the day that changed 21st century geopolitics forever, in several complex ways. Above all, it marked the beginning of a vicious, all-out confrontation, "military-technical" as the Russians call it, between the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder, its easily pliable NATOstan vassals, and Russia - with Ukraine as the battleground.

There is hardly any question Putin had calculated, before and during these three fateful days, that his decisions would unleash the unbounded fury of the collective West - complete with a tsunami of sanctions.
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Star of David

Netanyahu unveils 'Day After Hamas' plan


RT
Fri, 23 Feb 2024 11:30 UTC
Benji
© Ronen Zvulun/APIsraeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu • Cabinet Meeting • Defense Ministry • Tel Aviv • January 7, 2024
The Israeli PM wants the "complete demilitarization" of Gaza, which he says should be governed by "local officials"...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has formally unveiled his plan for Gaza's future after the conflict with Hamas ends, placing a strong emphasis on the "deradicalization" of the Palestinian enclave.

The one-page document titled 'The Day After Hamas' was submitted to the Israeli government for discussion on Thursday, setting out proposed actions for the immediate, medium, and long term.

It reiterates Netanyahu's stance that the Israel Defence Forces will "continue the war until the complete destruction of the military capabilities and governmental infrastructure of Hamas," and until Israeli hostages are returned and a robust security architecture is in place.

In the medium-term, the prime minister wants Israel to "maintain operational freedom of activity" in the enclave for security purposes, without any time limit. "There will be a complete demilitarization in the Gaza Strip of any military capacity, beyond what is required for the needs of maintaining public order."

Netanyahu also suggested maintaining a "southern closure" of the Gaza-Egypt border to prevent any smuggling into the enclave, noting that the perimeter should be guarded in cooperation with Cairo and with US assistance.


Comment: Smuggling? Only the Biden admin. would be this stupid to oblige.


Comment: Perhaps Hamas has a 'Day after Netanyahu' plan.

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Attention

What is the US doing in a disputed triangle on the Jordan/Syria/Iraq border?

Iason Athanasiadis
Stimson
Tue, 20 Feb 2024 00:00 UTC
men on ridge
© UnknownJordanian Forces and US Marines
The U.S. drone that struck on a bustling Baghdad evening on Feb. 7, 2024, instantly killed its target - three men in a Jeep. Among those who died were two commanders of an Iran-aligned militia whose commander had been assassinated in Baghdad four years earlier by the U.S. drone that also killed Qasem Soleimani, Iran's most important general. Bystander videos shot in the Mashtal neighborhood of the Iraqi capital just after the latest strike showed only a burning vehicle. The pinpoint assassination appeared even more audacious for having been executed during rush hour.

The targeting was part of a sequence of U.S. operations responding to a Jan. 28, 2024, drone attack that killed three Americans in a U.S. facility known as Tower 22 tucked into the Jordanian side of the border with Syria. The assailants believed to belong to Kataib Hezbollah, the same Iraqi Shi'ite militia whose members were killed in Baghdad, managed to overcome the base's aerial defenses by using an Iranian-made Shahed-101 drone to drift over the base in the wake of a returning American drone. Besides the three killed, the attack wounded more than 40 soldiers. They were the first U.S. casualties since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel plunged the region into a new crisis.

Comment: USA: 'Your land is my land'. (Note: Israel says the same thing.)

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