“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

Writing today's Open Thread was more challenging than normal this week. Should controversial topics be avoided. Stick to discussing food. Except this showed up Friday at The Guardian news .

The UN’s cultural body has added the cooking of Ukrainian borscht to its list of endangered cultural traditions, accepting Ukraine’s petition to fast-track its application following the invasion by neighbouring Russia.

Ukrainian borscht-making “was today inscribed on Unesco’s list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding”, Unesco said in a statement on Friday.

Should linked sources be limited to those supporting the current Unites States narrative. I have never been comfortable to limiting myself to approved information sources. An early lesson in life was there are only a few times it is necessary to agree and repeat the opinion of someone else. Those times were generally related to passing a test for an educational course reach a goal.

Consider myself a life long student of many subjects not a teacher. While I may share my opinions and information sources it is not my intent to have everyone agree.

Appears the potential world wide risk for nuclear war related to Ukrainian activities may have some twists and turns to the story.

Nuclear family: How Ukraine helped North Korea develop the world's deadliest weapons
Russia Times - July 1, 2022

How does a country which is effectively cut off from the rest of the world even achieve this level of technology? You might be surprised, but we must go to Ukraine for answers.
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“It wasn’t Ukraine sending their engines to North Korea – it was the work of North Korean scientific and technical intelligence in Ukraine that made it all happen. Apparently, the liquid-fuel rocket engines had been acquired there illegally even prior to 2014,” the expert concluded.
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In August 2017, The New York Times, citing Michael Elleman, a missile expert with the lobby group Institute of International Strategic Studies (IISS), reported that the DPRK had most likely used the RD-250 engines to design its own intercontinental ballistic missile.
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“It’s likely that these engines came from Ukraine – probably illicitly... The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. I’m very worried,” Elleman said. The experts at the IISS, however, believed that the official authorities in Kiev were not involved in the smuggling operation.
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However, in a 2018 report by the 1718 Sanctions Committee (DPRK), the Ukrainian authorities admitted that, in all likelihood, the engine for North Korea’s ballistic missiles was created using components of the RD-250 engine produced by Yuzhmash. They added that, in their opinion, the deliveries must have been made through Russian territory. Of course, they would say this.
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In 1994, Kiev finally discarded the last of its remaining nuclear arsenal, of around 1,000 missiles it had retained after the collapse of the USSR. The plan was to pass half of them on to Russia and to destroy the rest – as part of the US-funded disarmament program.

But in 2005, ex-president of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko confirmed that the previous administration had sold X-55 cruise missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to Iran and China “through several figureheads,” as he put it. The range of these missiles is 2.5 thousand kilometers, so this scam practically meant an increased threat of nuclear attack for Israel and Japan.

Starting from the 1990s, representatives of North Korea were caught red-handed trying to get hold of Soviet nuclear missile technology on many occasions. Kashin believes Pyongyang has been conducting scientific and technical intelligence in Ukraine for quite a while now.
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Mikhail Khodarenok, a military analyst and retired colonel, reminded RT about the chaos and anarchy that reigned in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine, affecting many areas of life in the 1990s.

“Back then, Ukraine saw much of its critically important technology leak out of the country. We can trace Ukrainian influence in both China’s and Iran’s strategic cruise missile arsenals. And it’s not surprising – everyone did their best to survive in those turbulent times. And many things may indeed have been done without the involvement of [the] Ukrainian leadership.”
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Another issue that has likely played into the hands of North Korean technology hunters is the ‘brain drain’ phenomenon, with dozens of Soviet engineers fleeing abroad after the Belovezh Accords were signed in 1991, disbanding the USSR.

The post-Soviet de-industrialization of Ukraine took stable income and career prospects away from dozens of professionals working at the Ukrainian aerospace manufacturer Yuzhmash. So these people were forced to look for other ways to make a living.

A reminder conflict in the South China Seas would not simply disappear if Peoples Republic of China would abandon its claims of sea territory related t0 the Nine--dashed Line. Republic of China (Taiwan) has its own claims disputes.

Taipei Dismisses Manila’s Protest Over Drills Off Disputed South China Sea Island Sputnik News - June 29, 2022

The quarrel centers around Taiping Island, the largest of the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands. The island, which the Philippines calls Ligaw, also has several other claimants, but has been under Taipei’s control since 1956.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry has dismissed the Philippines’ objections to its drills off Taiping Island, saying it has a “right” to the live-fire exercises after Manila issued its “strong objection.”
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The disputed island is situated in the middle of the Spratly Islands archipelago – a large group of islands, islets, cays and reefs sprinkled across an area of 425,000 square kilometers, and contested by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Taiwan and the Philippines have no formal diplomatic relations, instead maintaining ties with the People’s Republic of China, but do enjoy strong economic links. They have repeatedly clashed over the Spratlys, as well as the Scarborough Shoal and the Batanes archipelagic province of the Philippines.
The dispute over control of the South China Sea and its island territories has been turned into a major potential geopolitical and military flashpoint between claimants, as well as the United States, which has no claims to the area, but has classified it as a “matter of US national interest.”

The Associated Press site apnews conveniently presents a summary of news for the past two days under various headings. I often use to spot a subject not included in local or state newspaper sites. Such as this find today.

Experts: US Court fractures decades of Native American law The Associated Press - July 1, 2022

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding state authority to prosecute some crimes on Native American land is fracturing decades of law built around the hard-fought principle that tribes have the right to govern themselves on their own territory, legal experts say.

The Wednesday ruling is a marked departure from federal Indian law and veers from the push to increase tribes’ ability to prosecute all crimes on reservations — regardless of who is involved. It also cast tribes as part of states, rather than the sovereign nations they are, infuriating many across Indian Country.
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Criminal justice on tribal lands already is a tangled web, and the ruling likely will present new thorny questions about jurisdiction, possible triple jeopardy and how to tackle complicated crimes in remote areas where resources are stretched thin. States had power to prosecute crimes involving only non-Natives on reservations before this week’s ruling.

What is on your mind today?