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“In the cabaret of globalization, the state shows itself as a table dancer that strips off everything until it is left with only the minimum indispensable garments: the repressive force.”

-- Subcomandante Marcos

News and Opinion

Rehearsal for 'Armageddon' Underway as NATO and Russia Hold Nuclear Exercises

As NATO on Monday began its annual rehearsal for nuclear war in Europe and Russia prepared to conduct its own nuclear drill amid Cold War-like tensions inflamed by the invasion of Ukraine, peace advocates underscored the imperative for de-escalation in order to avert catastrophe. ...

The U.S. military stockpiles dozens of B61-12 tactical nuclear warheads at Kleine Brogel, each up to 30 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945, killing over 100,000 people.

According to Belgium's VRT News, Belgian F-16 pilots will train how to drop the bombs, while ground crews will practice transporting the weapons from underground bunkers and loading them on warplanes.

U.S. B-52 bombers based at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota will also fly to Europe to participate in the drill, which will take place over Belgium, the North Sea, and the United Kingdom, according to NATO.

Russia has been informed of the exercise, which is scheduled to last until October 30.

Major shift in Putin's stance on Ukraine

Attacks on Russia’s Belgorod Region Intensify

Ukrainian shelling targeted Russia’s Belgorod region on Sunday, wounding three people, local authorities said.

“Three members of the same family suffered wounds in the shelling in Belgorod. Two men with shrapnel wounds were taken to the hospital and a woman received outpatient treatment,” Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram.

Belgorod borders Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, where Ukrainian forces made significant territorial gains in a counteroffensive last month. Attacks have been reported inside Belgorod throughout the war, but they have intensified in recent weeks.

Video: Hillary Predicts Blowback From U.S.-Funded N@zis In Ukraine

Politico, EU weapons fund runs dry. Surovikin, complete surrender. Ukraine braces for blackouts.

EU’s weapons kitty runs dry as Ukraine seeks more arms

A much-touted EU fund meant to help countries replace weapons shipped to Ukraine is increasingly unable to cover an influx of reimbursement requests — and it hasn’t even sent out its first payment. Days after Russia’s war began, the EU set up a €‎500 million pot, encouraging countries to arm Kyiv and ask the EU to foot the bill. After looking at the receipts it received, Brussels determined it could cover about 85 percent of the costs, according to estimates shared by three diplomats.

Then the EU authorized an even bigger pot — eventually totaling €1.5 billion. That’s when the flood of receipts started. The EU got so many requests that it calculated Brussels could only cover roughly 46 percent of the asks, the estimates show. The plummeting percentage angered Poland, one of the EU’s largest weapons donors to Ukraine — and a leading reimbursement seeker, having submitted €1.8 billion in receipts, according to the diplomats. For days, the country blocked a final agreement on disbursing the second tranche of money, hoping to negotiate a higher rate.

“For them, below 50 percent is just too little,” one diplomat noted. But Warsaw ultimately relented, agreeing on Wednesday to the 46 percent figure, according to diplomats. The move came as frustration mounted among other member countries who saw Poland as standing between them and large EU payments.

Still, the waning payback scheme risks damaging the EU’s reputation as a reliable military partner — just as Ukraine implores Europe for more weapons to aid a counteroffensive and fend off renewed Russian bombardments. Already, EU powers Germany and France are facing criticism for not donating enough, while some smaller countries say they’re running low on supplies.

AOC BLASTS Tulsi Gabbard: She Voted For More DEFENSE INCREASES Than I EVER Have, Look It Up

Israel vexed as Australia reverses recognition of 'capital' Jerusalem

Interesting article. Shows how certain kinds of things rise to the top:

Docs Point to Israeli Army’s 1948 Biological Warfare

On April 1, 1948, David Ben-Gurion wrote in his journal about “the development of science and speeding up its application in warfare.” A month and a half later, he wrote about “biological materials” that were purchased for $2,000. Only now, 74 years later, has a connection between these two entries come to light. The disturbing story behind them was recently uncovered by historian Benny Morris and historian and Israel Prize laureate Benjamin Z. Kedar following extensive archival research. Evidently, the excerpts from the diary of the man who would become Israel’s first prime minister are traces of his involvement in a secret operation to poison the drinking water of Arab communities during the War of Independence.

This operation was partially exposed decades ago when rumors and oral testimonies were reported in newspapers and books about an attempt in 1948 by the IDF to poison wells in Acre and Gaza by adding bacteria to the drinking water. However, only now, in Morris and Kedar’s research, has the “smoking gun” been revealed – in the form of official documentation. The newly unearthed documents show that this operation was much broader in scope than earlier believed and that other top military and political figures besides Ben-Gurion were involved.

“We uncovered a lot of new information. We deciphered how the operation developed through its various stages; we discovered who authorized, organized and controlled the operation, and how it was carried out in different areas,” Morris says. “We have a much fuller picture now, and one that is based in part on IDF documentation,” Kedar adds. ...

The operation began in April 1948, when fears of an invasion by Arab armies were mounting. The plan was to poison wells in abandoned Arab villages as well as in Jewish locales that were due to be evacuated by the state-in-the-making. The idea was to prevent Arabs from returning to their villages and from settling in Jewish locales that would fall into their hands.

The operation initially focused on the area between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and later expanded to Acre in the north and Gaza in the south. The evidence indicates that it later included – either in planning or in effect – other communities such as Jericho, Be’er Sheva, Ilaboun, Bidu, Beit Suriq, Beit Mahsir and Har-Tuv (after the Jews were evacuated). The possibility of adding targets outside of Israel such as Cairo and Beirut was also proposed, but nothing came of it. The idea behind that was to hinder the Arab armies’ advance.

The documents show that Ben-Gurion was at the top of the pyramid. Below him was Yigael Yadin, who oversaw the military side of the operation. The operation was commanded by Yohanan Ratner. Initially, the top man in the field for the group was Moshe Dayan, who went on to become the IDF chief of staff and defense minister. The documents indicate that Dayan served as the smuggler who conveyed the bacteria from the Science Corps to different points throughout the country.

David Shaltiel, commander of the Etzioni Brigade in Jerusalem, was also involved in the operation. Intelligence officer Ezra Helmer (later Omer, head of the Haganah General Staff Intelligence Department) also joined at a later stage. The identity of another person who was involved in the operation remains uncertain. In cables, he is referred to as “Mizrahi.” ... On the scientific side, the production of the poison, were people from the IDF Science Corps Bet, a subunit in the Science Corps that dealt with biological warfare. It was headed by Alex Keinan, who went on to found the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Nes Tziona. The scientific work was overseen by the Katchalski (Katzir) brothers: biophysicist Ephraim Katzir, the first commander of the Science Corps and later an Israel Prize laureate and the fourth president of Israel; and his older brother, scientist Aharon Katzir of the Weizmann Institute, who was killed in the 1972 terror attack at Lod Airport. “A series of assistants who went on to become professors in Israeli academia were also involved in the operation,” Morris says.

The operation echoed the plan of the “Avengers” led by Abba Kovner to poison water and food sources in Germany after World War II to cause mass killing.

Gazprom CEO says gas price cap would lead to supply halt

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller on Sunday said plans to cap the price of Russian gas exports would cause supplies to be halted, echoing a similar threat from President Vladimir Putin.

The conflict in Ukraine has prompted European Union customers to reduce their purchases of Russian energy while the G7 and the EU are trying to impose a price cap on Russian oil and gas.

"Such a one-sided decision is of course a violation of existing contracts, which would lead to a termination of supplies," Miller said in comments broadcast on state television.

Senator raises alarm Saudis could share US defense technology with Russia

A senior Democratic lawmaker has raised alarms about the possibility that sensitive US defense technology could be shared with Russia by Saudi Arabia in the wake of the kingdom’s recent decision to side with Moscow over the interests of the US.

Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate armed services committee who has proposed a one-year freeze on weapons sales to Saudi following Opec+’s decision to cut oil production, said he would “dig deeper into the risk” in discussions with the Pentagon.

“I want some reassurances that they are on top of it and if there are risks, I want to determine what can be done to mitigate those risks immediately,” Blumenthal said in an interview with the Guardian.

The comments show the depth of the rift that has emerged between the Saudi monarchy and Democrats in Washington, who have reacted with fury against a recent decision by the Opec oil cartel to begin cutting oil production next month by 2m barrels a day. ...

While Republicans on Capitol Hill have been far less vocal about the Opec+ move, Blumenthal said his discussions with colleagues indicated there would be bipartisan support for measures to curb weapons sales, which is an issue likely to be taken up formally next month.

Iran breaching nuclear deal by providing Russia with armed drones, says UK

Britain has joined France in viewing the Iranian supply of armed drones to Russia for devastating use in Ukraine as a breach of Iran’s obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal. ...

The drone strikes continued in Ukraine on Monday, killing three more people, according to the mayor of Kyiv.

Despite the French-British belief that Iran is breaching the UN security council resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal by supplying the drones, there is no immediate plan to refer the issue to the UN, but diplomatic sources said the issue was live.

A spokesperson for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said Iran’s supply of drones to Russia constituted a breach of UN security council resolution 2231, which was unanimously adopted six days after the nuclear deal was signed in Vienna, and called on UN member states to refrain “from actions that undermine implementation of commitments”.

“The UK has condemned Iran’s decision to supply drones and training to Russia. Iran supplying drones is inconsistent with UN security council resolution 2231 and is further evidence of the role Iran plays in undermining global security,” the spokesperson said.

Japan’s PM orders Unification church investigation as scandal engulfs party

Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has ordered an investigation into the Unification church as he attempts to revive his political fortunes amid a scandal linking his party to the religious group. Kishida had initially been reluctant to increase scrutiny of the church – whose members are colloquially known as Moonies – but on Monday his education minister, Keiko Nagaoka, said the probe would begin “immediately”. Depending on the outcome, the church could lose its tax-exempt status, media reports said. ...

The political fallout from Shinzo Abe’s death has put Kishida on the defensive amid a slew of revelations linking the church to hundreds of MPs in his ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP). A party investigation that was intended to draw a line under the scandal had the opposite effect when it revealed that about half of the LDP’s lawmakers had associated with the organisation.

The controversy has sent Kishida’s cabinet’s approval ratings plummeting, with voters apparently unconvinced by his calls for LDP lawmakers to cut their ties to the church.

The Unification church, a deeply conservative organisation founded by the Rev Sun Myung Moon in South Korea in 1954, has been accused of pressuring members in Japan to pay exorbitant sums for “spiritual” items that will purportedly relieve them of bad ancestral karma. The church, which is denounced as a cult by its critics, has denied any wrongdoing.

In recent months, former members have publicly criticised the church’s recruitment and fundraising methods – revelations that have increased the pressure on Kishida.

New Report Vindicates Critics Who Opposed 2015 Repeal of US Oil and Gas Export Ban

In 2015, fossil fuel industry executives and lobbyists adamantly claimed that lifting a 40-year-old ban on U.S. oil exports would benefit consumers in the form of lower prices at the pump.

Environmentalists and consumer advocates disagreed, warning gasoline costs would likely rise for the sake of higher industry profits.

A report published Monday—nearly seven years after former President Barack Obama signed a measure that lifted the export ban—makes the case that recent events have vindicated opponents of the industry-led repeal effort as gas prices rise and fossil fuel corporations celebrate record profits.

"The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made clear that the boom in U.S. production and exports has not removed Americans from the wild swings of energy markets," reads the report released by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, part of the coalition that mobilized against ending the export ban originally enacted in 1975.

"Indeed, with the U.S. economy now more tightly interlinked with global energy markets, consumers are even more vulnerable to international supply shocks and punishing price swings," the report argues. "In the long run, we must as a planet wean ourselves from our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels that have sowed turmoil and chaos, as has been so evident during this tumultuous year."

The new report details how the U.S. has gone from exporting "nearly zero liquefied natural gas" to becoming "the world's largest natural gas exporter" in the years since Republican lawmakers and Obama teamed up to repeal the export ban, unleashing pollution in frontline communities at home and more climate chaos abroad.

As oil and gas companies have sold their products for higher prices in foreign countries than they could domestically, "the promised benefits of the end to the U.S. export ban" for American consumers "either failed to materialize or were much less impressive than touted by industry," argued report author Alan Zibel, research director at Public Citizen.

"Over the past decade, the fossil fuel industry has reoriented itself to prioritize profits from consumers overseas, jacking up prices for American consumers, while putting the climate at peril, exploiting public lands, and leaving marginalized Gulf Coast communities in the lurch," Zibel said in a statement. "The Biden administration must start thinking seriously about ways to gauge whether exports are in the public interest, and start making the interests of frontline communities, public lands and the climate a much higher priority."

Public Citizen's report highlights a study commissioned by former President Donald Trump's Department of Energy that "claimed, preposterously, that consumers would benefit" from U.S. gas exports "due to their natural gas industry stock market investments," just one example of the promised benefits of ending the export ban.

"The study failed to mention that few low-income people own any stock, let alone shares of natural gas exporters," the report adds.

In 2022, amid global energy market chaos spurred by Russia's assault on Ukraine, U.S. crude oil exports have surged, with roughly 29% of production going overseas in the first half of the year, according to Public Citizen's analysis of data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

"That is more than double the 12% exported in 2017 and quadruple the 7% exported in 2016, the first full year of unrestricted crude oil exports," the report notes. "Unprecedented exports of natural gas contribute directly to soaring U.S. natural gas prices, tying the prices families in the U.S. pay for heating their homes to global calamities."

Meanwhile, Public Citizen points out, data indicates that heating costs for U.S. households using natural gas will be around 28% higher compared to last year. The residential price of electricity is also projected to rise by 7.5%.

"The fossil fuel industry has hailed the twin booms in oil and natural gas exports, claiming that they will be a boon to American consumers and national security," the report continues. "But the economic instability and damage to local communities and the planet created by this rapid export expansion are only now becoming clear."

Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program, said in a statement that "the consequence of America becoming the largest fossil fuel exporter in the world has upended domestic energy markets, and exposes U.S. households to punishing energy burdens."

"It is not in the public interest to justify exports overseas that result in increased energy poverty and energy insecurity for tens of millions of Americans," said Slocum.

The destructive impacts of surging oil and gas exports hardly come as a surprise to Slocum, who warned Congress during July 2015 congressional testimony that lifting the longstanding export ban would "result in higher gasoline prices for U.S. motorists and small businesses."

Public Citizen's report was published as U.S. gas prices are ticking up again ahead of the winter season following Saudi-led OPEC's decision to slash oil production by two million barrels a day starting in November.

Green groups argued that the U.S. should respond to OPEC's move by reinstating the ban on oil exports, but the Biden administration has yet to do so as the fossil fuel industry lobbies against the proposal.

Short of reviving the export ban, Public Citizen on Monday called on the Biden administration and Congress to impose a windfall profits tax on oil and gas producers and exporters, "subject crude oil exports to regulatory oversight," and block the approval of any new liquefied natural gas export terminals.

"In the long run, we must as a planet wean ourselves from our dangerous dependence on fossil fuels that have sowed turmoil and chaos, as has been so evident during this tumultuous year," the report states. "Lawmakers and the Biden administration must be skeptical about industry-supported policies that further a massive expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure and put industry profits over people."

Recession IMMINENT? Economic Downturn Expected By Oct 2023. Housing Prices DROP, Mortgage Rates SOAR

Will the economic slowdown take the wind out of the US tech industry’s sails?

Amid an ongoing slowdown in the tech industry, with potential layoffs looming, investors are expecting another rough season of earnings reports from the sector.

The next two weeks will see earnings calls from Meta, Twitter, Tesla, Google and others – and analysts are warning of more slowdowns, as economic headwinds including rising inflation and fears of recession continue.

“The biggest question now is, how bad is it?” said Scott Kessler, a technology industry analyst at global research firm Third Bridge. “There are a lot of variables to consider, and some areas seem to be holding up while others are getting hit pretty hard.”

Experts say not much has changed since the last round of earnings brought mixed results for companies in the space including Meta, Netflix and Amazon. The backslide on earnings comes after the pandemic brought consecutive quarters of growth for the space, with lockdowns forcing much of the world inside and online.

Analysts are bracing to see if the disappointing results this year represent a halt of Silicon Valley’s golden era or simply an expected slowdown of its explosive growth over the last few years.

How Texas’s gun laws allow Mexican cartels to arm themselves to the teeth

Saying he wants to make the US-Mexico border as safe as possible for his state, Texas’s governor Greg Abbott last month signed an order designating Mexican drug cartels as “terrorist organizations” and urged the Joe Biden White House to do the same. But the same border that Abbott insists he wants to make safer is actually being destabilized by Texas’s lax gun laws, which the governor defends and which the Mexican cartels exploit to arm themselves – legally – to the teeth, according to officials left to grapple with the situation.

Despite Mexico’s well-documented high levels of violence, legally purchasing guns there is actually quite difficult. The nation of nearly 130 million people has a single store that can legally sell guns. On a military base in Mexico City, that store was selling fewer than 40 guns a day in recent years, and it’s prohibited from even advertising its wares.

But the infamously violent cartels that Abbott and other Republicans blame for violence along the border have found another route to stockpile weapons: the United States. Mexican foreign affairs ministry legal adviser Alejandro Celorio Alcántara estimates that half a million guns annually are purchased legally in the US and then brought into Mexico illegally. About 70% of guns seized in Mexico from 2014 to 2018 and submitted for tracing had originally come from the US, according to officials with the American bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives (ATF).

It’s a situation that bewilders leaders of Mexican communities who have collectively grieved more than 150,000 killings – mostly at gunpoint – since 2006.

Los Angeles city councilmembers cut from committee roles amid pressure to resign

Two Los Angeles city councilmembers have been removed from their committee roles after they were caught on tape in a conversation in which city leaders used racist and disparaging language about constituents and colleagues in a scandal that has thrown LA politics into turmoil.

Mitch O’Farrell, the acting city council president, announced on Monday that he would cut Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo from their committee assignments, the Los Angeles Times reported. De León chairs the committee on poverty and homelessness and has roles on committees dealing with finance, public works and environmental issues while Cedillo oversees the housing committee and serves on committees overseeing immigrant rights and environmental issues.

The move means the pair’s influence in city hall has dwindled and they have largely become token figures, unable to participate in the day-to-day work of the council and unwanted in council chambers, where their appearance is likely to cause an uproar.

“These members have lost all credibility, all standing,” O’Farrell said during a news conference at city hall. O’Farrell said the only path forward was through their resignation or a recall election in the case of De León, whose term ends in 2024. Cedillo lost his seat in the primary and will be replaced in December.

Over the last week, De León and Cedillo have resisted calls to resign over their comments crudely discussing Black voters and Indigenous residents of LA in a conversation about redistricting. They apologized for their role in the conversation last week.

FBI SITTING ON EVIDENCE Against Joe And Hunter Biden

Progressives Say New Midterm Poll Must Be 'Wake Up Call' to Democrats

With new polling showing that Republicans have gained a significant advantage in the upcoming midterm elections, progressives on Monday said Democrats must spend the next three weeks laser-focused on the U.S. economy and their plans to end price-gouging and rein in corporate power to help working people.

The New York Times/Siena College poll showed that 49% of likely voters now plan to support Republican candidates, while 45% favor Democrats. In September, the same poll showed Democrats with a one-point lead.

"This poll should be a wake-up call for our party," said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

Independent voters particularly have swung toward Republican candidates, with 51% now saying they would support a Republican. In September, Democrats had a three-point lead with independents.

Despite widespread outrage over the right-wing majority of the U.S. Supreme Court's June ruling which overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for at least 13 states to outlaw abortion care, women who identify as independent voters showed the largest shift toward Republicans in the past month. They favored Democrats by 14 points in September, and now they support Republicans by a margin of 18 points.

The newest poll data was gathered between October 9 and 12, with 792 likely voters responding.

While President Joe Biden has recently unveiled policies that have the support of a majority of Americans, including his decisions to pardon people with federal marijuana possession offenses and to cancel some student debt for certain borrowers, voters reported that they plan to make their decisions in November based on the rising cost of living and inflation.

GOP CLOBBERS Dems On Inflation As Left Runs Scared

Wildfires in US west fueling extreme weather in other states, study finds

Images showing thick clouds of wildfire smoke drifting thousands of miles away have become commonplace in the US in recent years as the country’s western states battle megablazes with increasing frequency. But a new study from US Department of Energy suggests the harmful impact of those behemoth blazes may extend much further.

The new study, published by the department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for the first time links extreme hail, dangerous deluges, and the growing risk of flash floods in states like Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Nebraska to the growing intensity of wildfires in the west.

As fire season in the west stretches longer, sparking threats earlier in the year, big blazes are increasingly coinciding with storm formations in other states, the research showed. “Western wildfires significantly increase the intensity of severe storms over the central United States,” said Dr Jiwen Fan, an earth scientist at the lab. “This is the first study where we are really showing that wildfires can have a significant impact on the downstream weather.” ...

The high levels of heat produced by fires can shift air pressure in the atmosphere, which creates strong winds that flow toward the east, Fan explained. Those gusts are able to deliver particles from the fires’ billowing smoke and more atmospheric moisture. Together, these conditions amplify storms already brewing in those areas.

US Atlantic coast now a breeding ground for supercharged hurricanes – study

The US Atlantic coast has become a breeding ground for super-charged hurricanes which are likely to batter coastal communities even harder if the world remains hooked on fossil fuels, a new study found.

Global heating caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning oil, gas and coal is the main factor contributing to increasingly severe storms and flooding affecting the American east coast over the past four decades. Rapid intensification has led to storms gathering strength so quickly it has become increasingly difficult to provide timely warnings and evacuation orders to residents.

The warming planet is poised to bring hurricanes that intensify quicker and, with them, a heightened risk of flooding to east coast communities which modeling suggests will get even worse without radical action to curb greenhouse gases, according to the study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

“The nearshore environment has absolutely become more favorable for hurricanes near the Atlantic coast and that’s very consistent with the rising hurricane intensification we’ve observed in the region,” said Karthik Balaguru, a climate scientist and lead author. “Our findings have profound implications for coastal residents, decision- and policy-makers.”

Analysing storm activity and the conditions that shaped them, the researchers found that the rates at which hurricanes gathered speed near the US Atlantic coast increased significantly between 1979 and 2018. The Atlantic coast has a unique mix of environmental conditions not found in the Gulf of Mexico, another hurricane hotspot, that makes eastern US states particularly vulnerable to rapidly intensifying and wetter storms, according to researchers from the department of energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Westerners Live in Denial, Convinced They’re the Good Guys

The Neocons and the Woke Left Are Joining Hands and Leading Us to Woke War III

EU Plays Hardball With Serbia Over Its Russia Ties

Three Good Pieces On The War In Ukraine

How To Make Peace In Ukraine

Chris Hedges: They Crush Our Song for a Reason

Cold Wars, Hot Planet, and New Geopolitical Firestorms

Is the UK About to Hit the Wall?

Electric Cars & Resource Wars

Atlanta Fed President Bought Low and Sold High in 2020 as the Fed Bailed Out Wall Street; Then He Failed to Report those Trades

Australian animal rescuers expect big death toll from floods

Drought-hit Mississippi River reveals 19th-century trading ship

Confronting Anti-China Rhetoric by Politicians That Fuels Anti-Asian Attacks

Germany says it knows who sabotaged Nord Stream, but...

A Little Night Music

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