At the last meeting of the Tripartite Contact Group in Minsk (TKG) on June 15th, (the body which led to creation of the Normandy Four and the Minsk Agreement), Kiev arrived at a surprising position which effectively eliminates a path to regain control over the Donbass. Kiev's change of position leaves only a military option open.

The Minsk Agreement contained a number of requirements from both sides; from Kiev it required a change in the constitution in the direction of a federal state. Such changes would trigger on the Donbass side the eventual hand-over of rule back to Kiev. But Kiev to date has failed to make constitutional changes, contrary to the terms of the Minsk Agreement.

On The Ukrainian delegation at the talks of the Tripartite Contact Group in Minsk (TKG) predictably stated the need for the full resumption of Ukrainian rule over the territory of the DPR and LPR. With this, Kiev insisted on the resumption of work of Ukrainian state institutions in these territories, as well as tax and settlement systems "within the framework of the Ukrainian legal field".

According to the office of the President of Ukraine, such demands were put forward during the next meeting of the group, held on June 15. Obviously, these requirements are clearly contrary to the package of measures to implement the Minsk agreements, approved by the UN Security Council. Aware of this fact, the Ukrainian side stated the optionality of its implementation.

The Department of Justice has slapped ex-national security advisor John Bolton with a lawsuit, seeking to stop the publication of his upcoming book, insisting it contains classified material and must complete a pre-print review.

Filed on Tuesday, the 27-page complaint requests that Bolton be ordered to obtain "written authorization" to publish the memoir - The Room Where It Happened - which has been billed as a tell-all account of his time working in the White House under the Donald Trump administration.

Publishing the book would be a "clear breach of agreements [Bolton] signed as a condition of his employment and as a condition of gaining access to highly classified information," DOJ said in its filing, arguing the book is "rife" with such material.

There has been remarkable news in the last few days: much of the Israel lobby in the United States is in open revolt against the Israeli government to try and stop annexation of the West Bank.

The rightwing group AIPAC has for once given politicians a green light to criticize Israel over annexation; hardliners such as Robert Satloff, David Makovsky and Democratic Majority for Israel are urging Israel not to annex West Bank lands, and the Democratic group J Street is pushing a letter to Netanyahu signed by 28 Democratic senators saying it would "betray our shared democratic values" by denying the possibility of a Palestinian state, along with statements from nine Senate candidates.

Maybe most important, Haim Saban, a leading Democratic donor, is reported to have sherpa'd an op-ed by a UAE ambassador urging Israel not to annex. The bombshell op-ed in a rightwing Israeli publication has enraged Trump's pro-Israel ideologues who paved the way for annexation under the Trump "peace plan."

Israel should be punished with EU-wide sanctions if it goes ahead with its planned annexation of further Palestinian territory, the World Council of Churches has said in a letter to the foreign ministers of the 27-country block.

"The EU must surely suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement," said the umbrella body in reference to the 1995 contract. The deal, which has made the EU Israel's largest trading partner, became a major bone of contention since the 2009 assault on Gaza in which the Israeli military killed at least 1,383 Palestinians, including 333 children.

Urging the EU not to make exceptions for Israel, the council said that the body should apply sanctions on Israel "at least commensurate with those adopted by the EU in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea."


In its response to Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014, the EU blacklisted hundreds of Russian individuals and firms, subjecting them to entry bans and freezing of EU properties. Critics often point to this disparity to argue that the block is unwilling to uphold its own laws when it comes to Israel.

"The unilateral annexation of yet more of the territory that remains to Palestinians cannot lead to justice or to peace, but only to greater injustice," wrote the body, which was established in 1948 with 350 member churches and 500,000 followers among them.

Turkey has launched new military operation Claw-Tiger in the northern Iraqi region of Haftanin against forces of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and "other terrorist elements", the Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.

"#Operation Claw-Tiger is being carried out as part of our legitimate defense rights arising from international law oriented against the PKK and other terrorist elements that have recently attempted increased harassment and attacks on our police station and base areas," the ministry said, as cited by the Anadolu news agency.


According to the ministry, Turkish forces have already entered Haftanin, and are supported by the Air Force, ATAK helicopters, UAVs and unmanned combat aerial vehicles.

Dolores Cahill promised to 'debunk' pandemic in interview with alt-right activist

A University College Dublin (UCD) professor, who chairs the Eurosceptic Irish Freedom Party, has been asked to resign from a leading European Union scientific committee over online claims she made about the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an hour-long interview with a popular alt-right activist on May 10th, which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, Prof Dolores Cahill promised to "debunk the narrative" of the pandemic.

Many of them also voted to attack Iraq and Syria, and their party was the first to bring in discriminatory immigration controls. Why is Labour's stance on race so confused and contradictory?

Labour leader Keir Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner had themselves photographed "taking the knee" in their office to remember George Floyd, killed by the Minneapolis Police, in the gesture that has been adopted by the Black Lives Matter protests. Afterwards, Labour's MPs knelt outside Parliament. The London and Tower Hamlets Mayors, Sadiq Khan and John Biggs made their own contribution to the commemoration by having the statue of slave trader Robert Milligan removed from the West India Docks he built.

The performance is an insight into Labour's confused stance on race. On the one hand, the party thinks it "owns" the black vote and can put pressure on the government over its racist positions. On the other, Labour's own record is marked by race discrimination.

When Jamaican immigrants first arrived in Britain on the SS Empire Windrush in 1948, Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones told the Cabinet it was a problem that would have to be dealt with. It was the beginning of a long history of race discrimination. In 1968, it was Harold Wilson's Labour government that first brought in race-based immigration controls, when it refused entry to Commonwealth citizens who didn't have a grandparent born in Britain.

North Korea on Tuesday demolished an inter-Korean liaison office in a town on the border with South Korea in an escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The North Korean state news agency, KCNA, reported Tuesday that the office was "completely ruined."

South Korea's vice unification minister, Suh Ho, who co-headed the liaison office, said the incident was "unprecedented in inter-Korean relations," calling it "a nonsensical act that should have not happened."

"We express deep regret and strongly protest against it," Suh said.

One of the most disturbing aspects of American foreign policy since 9/11 has been the assumption that decisions made by the United States are binding on the rest of the world, best exemplified by President George W. Bush's warning that "there was a new sheriff in town." Apart from time of war, no other nation has ever sought to prevent other nations from trading with each other, nor has any government sought to punish foreigners using sanctions with the cynical arrogance demonstrated by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The United States uniquely seeks to penalize other sovereign countries for alleged crimes that did not occur in the U.S. and that did not involve American citizens, while also insisting that all nations must comply with whatever penalties are meted out by Washington. At the same time, it demonstrates its own hypocrisy by claiming sovereign immunity whenever foreigners or even American citizens seek to use the courts to hold it accountable for its many crimes.

The conceit by the United States that it is the acknowledged judge, jury and executioner in policing the international community began in the post-World War 2 environment, when hubristic American presidents began referring to themselves as "leaders of the free world." This pretense received legislative and judicial backing with passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 (ATA) as amended in 1992 plus subsequent related legislation, to include the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act of 2016 (JASTA). The body of legislation can be used to obtain civil judgments against alleged terrorists for attacks carried out anywhere in the world and can be employed to punish governments, international organizations and even corporations that are perceived to be supportive of terrorists, even indirectly or unknowingly. Plaintiffs are able to sue for injuries to their "person, property, or business" and have ten years to bring a claim.

Would be emperor Donald Trump has announced the 'Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act', to tighten the genocidal siege on the Syrian people. Without a hint of irony, this new edict imposes even more serious obstacles to the Syrian people getting access to energy, food and medicines, while claiming its purpose is to 'protect' those same people.

However the move comes as (1) a shrinking US military presence faces resistance attacks in both Syria and Iraq, (2) Washington's allies are abandoning the US-led 'coalition' in Iraq, (3) Trump has undermined his local allies in Lebanon and Iraq, by threats and economic turmoil, (4) US open support for further ethnic cleansing in Palestine has helped drive the international image of Apartheid Israel to an all-time low, (5) European states have serious tensions with Washington over US-driven economic wars on Iran, Russia and China, and (6) US allies including the UAE and Kuwait are re-establishing their ties with Damascus.