The Dutch Government has said it will ease its COVID-19 restrictions from Wednesday despite record reported infections, which have come despite the restrictions and the country being 90% vaccinated. The BBC has the story.
Dutch hospitality settings, including bars, restaurants and museums, have been shut since December 18th in a bid to curb the spread of the Omicron variant.
But despite the restrictions, COVID-19 cases have continued to increase, with some 60,000 now recorded per day.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte told a news conference that the country was “taking a risk” in easing the restrictions.
Mr Rutte, who has faced growing calls for a relaxation of restrictions in recent weeks amid falling deaths and admissions to intensive care, added that the new rules will be effective until March 8th.
Cafes, bars and restaurants will be allowed to open until 10pm, though to gain entry patrons will be required to show a negative test result, prove they are vaccinated or have recently recovered from a coronavirus infection.
Nightclubs will remain closed, and capacity at sporting and cultural events will be limited to 1,250 people.
The reopening follows a wave of anger from many hospitality sector employees, who were left disappointed by the government’s decision to allow shops, gyms, hairdressers and sex workers to resume business on January 15th while their sector was kept in lockdown.
Cafes in several cities opened in defiance of the restrictions the weekend before last, and dozens of museums and theatres opened as beauty salons for a day in protest.
Public support for the strict measures has also waned steadily over the past month and large demonstrations against the rules have become more frequent in the capital, Amsterdam.
Mr Rutte alluded to this anger during his news conference, telling reporters that the government was “consciously looking for the limits of what is possible, because of the great tensions and cries for help in recent days”.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Ernst Kuipers warned that the virus is “not the flu”, but said that relaxing the curbs was important.
“Living for longer with restrictive measures harms our health and our society,” he said.
It’s almost as though lockdowns and vaccines don’t prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Worth reading in full.
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“Police are offering zombie knife owners cash”
Pray tell – what is a zombie knife and how can I make a few of them?
Seriously, precisely which sort of blithering idiot comes up with this idea?
https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives
How much more banned do they need to be?
But the government will ban zombie knives wef 24 Sep 2024. Hooray! /sarc
These are zombie knives, not real knives as such because they ain’t sharp but, look offensive!
Meanwhile the self respecting terrorist will be packing a very real machete that can purchased from a garden centre!
https://tass.com/world/1830461
‘We need to decompress this conflict as quickly as possible, and we need to get back to negotiations with Russia, Ukraine and other players. What Russia essentially wanted was neutrality from Ukraine. That is absolutely simple’
Jill Stein, a 74-year-old physician and an environmental activist, was officially nominated as the Green Party’s presidential candidate for the upcoming election during a party convention on Saturday. Her running mate is Professor Butch Ware.’
What’s really going on?
So there you have it. If you think that negotiations are going to solve anything, then you are part of the ‘Green Blob’, the problem, not the solution.
Russia is not interested in good-faith negotiations with Ukraine to end the war.
Putin and the Kremlin have notably intensified their expansionist rhetoric about Ukraine since December 2023 and have increasingly indicated that Russia intends to conquer more territory in Ukraine and is committed to destroying Ukrainian statehood and identity.
Russia has been preparing for a possible conventional war with NATO in the future, and the Kremlin likely views anything short of Ukrainian capitulation as an unacceptable threat to Russia’s ability to fight such a war.
Putin outlined uncompromising demands on June 14 for Ukrainian capitulation as prerequisites for any “peace” negotiations, including Ukraine’s recognition of Russian control over the entirety of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts – including the areas of these oblasts that Russian forces currently do not occupy.
Putin outright rejected any negotiated ceasefire during a press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on July 5, claiming that a ceasefire would allow Ukraine to regroup and rearm.
Putin stated that Russia instead favors a “complete” and “final” end to the war. Putin continued to demonstrate his unwillingness to negotiate with Ukraine during a meeting on August 12, during which he portrayed Ukraine as an actor with whom Russia is not interested in negotiating.
The response to the ‘Lesson 0’ series has been overwhelming so I am happy to accede to the supplications of its fast growing legion of fans.
Conventional Deterrence for Dummies: Lesson 0
A document written in 1977 shows us, in stark clarity, how badly we have been led since 1991.
‘A stable nuclear balance makes imperative a stable conventional balance in Europe. Without that stability there can be no political or military counter to expanding (Russian) influence in the Near East, South Asia, Africa, or in the great ocean basins upon which an interdependent world relies. Not the least of these ocean areas are the North Atlantic and North Pacific-vital to North Americans.’
‘It is in the context of the objective of preventing and controlling war that the subject of land forces must be addressed.
(‘There is one air-land battle, one thing, one operation.’ <A subject to be addressed on another day>)
If the “what” of modem strategy includes preventing the outbreak of conflict, the psychological effect of military force during periods of nonactive conflict becomes all-important.
An Atlantic community paralyzed by its military inferiority in Europe could only wring its hands as (Russian) power and influence moved unimpeded into the so-called Third World, portions of which provide the materials upon which the industrial, economic, and social health of the industrial West depend.
Erosion of the effectiveness of the Atlantic army will inevitably result in an erosion of political will, strategic flexibility, and freedom of action.
As a bare minimum, it is the role of the Atlantic army to replace the strategic nuclear deterrent as the instrument with which the attack option is foreclosed to (Russia).
But that is a bare minimum. In a modern strategy the Atlantic army must provide for the West a sense of security to a degree that will encourage it to act and react in respect to global events with confidence. That forecloses to (Russia) the options of intimidation, blackmail, and political leverage.
I doubt that one can place in priority the value of strategic nuclear forces, naval forces, theater nuclear forces, and conventional land forces. As a matter of fact, I am quite sure one cannot. All are links in the chain of defense, deterrence, and strategic freedom of action. None can be slighted or emphasized at the expense of another.’
‘While agitation for the reduction of US forces in Europe has subsided for the moment, it could rise again if within the US it is thought or perceived, however fairly or unfairly, that Atlantic partners are not bearing an equitable burden.’
Lieutenant General DeWitt C. Smith, Jr., 1977
General DeWitt C Smith served in WW2, Korea and Vietnam, earning a Silver Star Medal, two Bronze Star Medals and three Purple Hearts.
He served as Commandant, US Army War College 1974-77, 1978-80
Do you really think the perpetrators of military conflicts of today have anything to learn from the 1970s?
Russian ‘preparations for a conventional war’ with NATO couldn’t have gone well, given the evidence of their performance so far. Their army isn’t going to be in Paris for Christmas. Berlin looks unlikely.
The limitations revealed in the re-supplying of and recruiting for both armies have become obvious. There will be no war of industrial production as between 1941 and 1945. Huge minefields laid by both sides have frozen the fighting. Drones are the 21st century Gothas.
Neither side can replicate the outcome of the original Kursk battle. If anything, this ‘incursion’ – by three brigades, not an army corps – demonstrates Russia’s weakness to, well, incursion, not NATO’s.
In any case, how would a ‘conventional war’ between Russia and NATO end? By negotiation?
Deterrence is about preventing war.
It is the psychological effect of credible Land Forces that achieve the desired effect of deterrence.
We may well perceive that Russian air/land forces are poorly equipped and badly led. But ‘quantity has a quality all of its own’ as Britain, America and everyone else discovered when the Chinese army attacked in Korea.
Meanwhile furrowed brows in the Kremlin become unfurrowed, their owners emboldened as numpty western politicians make much play of ‘The Peace Dividend’. The Kremlin’s perception remains the same: ‘how many divisions does the Pope have?’
There is no longer, arguably, even one single formed armoured division in Western Europe.
That is why Russia believes it can engage in population driven imperialist expansionism with impunity.
Unsurprisingly, those closest to Russia display the greatest enthusiasm for conventional deterrence.
Poland will shortly be able to field 1500 modern main battle tanks. Finland can put an army of half a million in the field very quickly.
We should be doing our bit. We are not. And, without us, the U.S. is, understandably, increasingly reluctant to participate.
We know how a conventional war between Russia and Western Europe ends: a new iron curtain.
I looked across the old one into East Germany and what I saw was extremely unpleasant. The many, often fatal, attempts to escape westwards indicate that an existence there was extremely unpleasant.
That is why NATO has expanded.
Nothing to do with ‘aggression’, everything to do with nation states exercising their rights, guaranteed by OSCE Treaty, to determine their own foreign affairs/international agreements. And they all, unsurprisingly, wish to deter Russia by joining NATO.
Russia also made the same OSCE commitment, of which it is now in flagrant breach. That is another reason why negotiations/agreements with Russia cannot be relied upon.
From an EU briefing on the OSCE
The Helsinki Final Act was signed with the goal of advancing a “true and lasting peace” in the region. The signatories agreed to foundational guiding principles such as respect for sovereignty, political independence, and territorial integrity of states. It also included respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and fulfilment of obligations under international law.
Russia has itself endorsed OSCE Summit and Ministerial decisions reaffirming those same principles. But in its war of aggression against Ukraine, Russia has demonstrated utter disregard for every Helsinki Final Act principle.
‘Determined, in consequence, to give full effect to the results of the Conference and to assure, among their States and throughout Europe, the benefits deriving from those results and thus to broaden, deepen and make continuing and lasting the process of détente, The High Representatives of the participating States have solemnly adopted the following:
The participating States will respect each other’s sovereign equality and individuality as well as all the rights inherent in and encompassed by its sovereignty, including in particular the right of every State to juridical equality, to territorial integrity and to freedom and political independence.
They will also respect each other’s right freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems as well as its right to determine its laws and regulations.
Within the framework of international law, all the participating States have equal rights and duties. They will respect each other’s right to define and conduct as it wishes its relations with other States in accordance with international law and in the spirit of the present Declaration.
They consider that their frontiers can be changed, in accordance with international law, by peaceful means and by agreement.
They also have the right to belong or not to belong to international organizations, to be or not to be a party to bilateral or multilateral treaties including the right to be or not to be a party to treaties of alliance; they also have the right to neutrality. ‘
And your point is?
The world has changed massively since 1975. Perhaps you can tell us whether anything the Soviet Union signed is still valid for Russia.
Clearly, the study of history is, in part, an exercise in avoiding the mistakes of the recent past.
The Helsinki Conference (1 August 1975) established the respect of borders in Europe in ‘The Helsinki Final Act’ around which the OSCE, of which Russia is a member, was established.
https://www.oscepa.org/en/members/member-countries/russian-federation
The OSCE Charter confirms the principles of ‘The Helsinki Final Act’
Justifying the invasion of Ukraine by claiming a feeling of insecurity is an attempt to dissimulate a conscious and complete violation since 2014 of all the provisions of the text of ‘The Helsinki Final Act’, which reaffirmed the international borders that had resulted from the conclusion of the Second World War.
Russia joined the Council of Europe on February 28, 1996. At the time of the illegal annexation of Crimea the Assembly reiterated that this act constituted a serious violation of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, the Helsinki Final Act of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), as well as the Statute of the Council of Europe and the commitments undertaken by Russia upon accession to this Organization.
By now, the entire world knows exactly what Putin is up to. After all, for decades, Putin has warned that Russia is on the path to extinction. His war has killed untold numbers of people — but it is also an attempt to force millions of people into Russian citizenship.
Any negotiation can only be for reasons of expediency; pointless.
I do not wish to be impertinent but are you being paid to pump out a mass of anti-Russian propaganda on a daily basis? If not, what is driving your compulsion? The only Ukrainian I know (whose family left the country when he was a child) says he does not understand why Ukraine could not remain neutral, i.e. not join NATO, and thereby avoid any Russian aggression.
You have previously accepted that Ukraine will not be allowed (by NATO) to join NATO, and Putin has no objection to Ukraine joining the EU, so what exactly is Ukraine fighting for? To retrieve their lost territories, perhaps? Well they should not have shelled those territories daily since 2014 then, or do you disagree with that? If they had not murdered 16,000 of their own citizens in those territories then perhaps those territories would have voted to remain part of Ukraine in the recent referendums, who knows?
Why are you quoting texts from 1977, written during the Cold War era and hardly relevant to today? You refer to an “Atlantic army”: is that supposed to be NATO? What exactly is the point of any country joining NATO which, freely admitted by US officers, is primarily a US institution (understandable, since USA pays ten times more for its upkeep than any European country) and used as nothing more than an international extension to the US Army, i.e. driven by US policy?
If NATO were such an amazing defence institution, why does UK, or any other member of NATO, still need an army, navy and air force? On the other hand, if we retain our fighting forces, why do we need NATO? Is it true that NATO bombed the city of Belgrade, in the middle of Europe, on 78 consecutive days in 1999? That does not sound like a purely defensive organization.
Referring to your texts of today, you write (1) Russia is not interested in good-faith negotiations with Ukraine to end the war, (2) Putin and the Kremlin have notably intensified their expansionist rhetoric about Ukraine since December 2023 and (3) Russia has been preparing for a possible conventional war with NATO in the future.
The continued attacks on civilians (note civilians, not military forces) in Russia, as well as repeated serious attacks on nuclear power plants, prove that the current government is not worthy of being treated as a serious negotiating partner. Putin has repeatedly stated he is not interested in governing a population that does not want his governance, which is why he was always reticent to attack Ukraine, and which is why your repeated insistence that Russia intends to rule the world is utter nonsense. Finally, Russia is not preparing for a war with NATO but Russia is regrettably fighting a war against NATO today – and clearly not doing too badly.
And when you talk of nuclear deterrence, who was it who withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) five years ago? USA, despite which Russia continued to adhere to the restrictions until USA/NATO recently started practising deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe (Denmark?).
As I have written before, it is time UK (and especially USA) stopped thinking it is our duty to police the world or, to be more precise, impose our ‘values’ on foreign countries. Are Russia and China seriously supposed to be a problem to world peace? How many countries have they invaded to impose a foreign rule? And how many countries has USA invaded to impose a foreign rule? And if Russia and China were really such a problem to the world, why are so many countries rushing to join BRICS?
Excellent post.
Good points, but you’re trying to reason with AI fella. You’ll find most of the bots last post here https://osce.usmission.gov/the-russian-federations-ongoing-aggression-against-ukraine-77/ and here https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/russias-violation-of-osce-principles-undermines-comprehensive-security-in-europe-uk-statement-to-the-osce
Agreed. Why do we have to put up with a robot spewing out endless propaganda on only one subject, all day every day, covering the comments pages and wasting everybody’s time?
Moderator, anyone???
It’s literally a copy and paste machine. All anyone needs to do is copy fragments of the bots posts into Google and you’ll get, word for word, the source. And I mean word for word – the bots algorithm doesn’t even mix it up a bit. Anyone expending their energy replying may as well use that time to write love letters to a kettle instead.
Wow— nice bit of sleuthing you’ve done! And it will help everybody to stop wasting time and energy on writing letters to a kettle, as you so aptly put it. Thanks for that!
Got it, thank you. Have a good evening!
I write on here to inform the uninformed.
For example, you ask why members of NATO need their own armed forces. Ignorance of this degree is surprising. Ignorance but still the confidence to comment on such matters is, frankly, a great deal worse than surprising.
NATO has no armed forces of its own, only those of its members. It is a defensive alliance of member states, not a military establishment in its own right.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9426/#:~:text=Does%20NATO%20have%20its%20own,AWACS%20early%20warning%20radar%20aircraft
How many countries have Russia and China attacked?
Korea, Tibet, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, Burma, Malaysia, The Philippines, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine (twice)…………
INF Treaty?
Russia deployed an operational unit of the treaty-noncompliant cruise missile now known as the SSC-8. On March 8, 2017, General Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that “violates the spirit and intent” of the INF Treaty.
The United States revealed both the U.S. name for the missile of concern, the SSC-8, and the apparent Russian designation, the 9M729.
After repeatedly denying the existence of the 9M729 cruise missile, Russia has since acknowledged the missile.
Russia cheated by conducting legally allowable tests of the 9M729, such as testing the missile at over 500 km from a fixed launcher (allowed if the missile is to be deployed by air or sea), as well as testing the same missile from a mobile launcher at a range under 500 km.
By putting the two types of tests together, Russia was able to develop an intermediate-range missile that could be launched from a “ground-mobile platform” in violation of the treaty.
If you seriously think that Russia is fighting a war against NATO, then you know nothing of war, less of NATO.
You had better hope that you never find out.
How many countries have Russia and China attacked?
Korea, Tibet, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, Burma, Malaysia, The Philippines, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine (twice)…………
Please forgive my ignorance and elaborate. Are we talking about WWII?
Twenty years ago, Noam Chomsky listed the crimes of each US president since Eisenhower, as presented in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BXtgq0Nhsc. I have transcribed the video below. It is fascinating reading (in my opinion).
Eisenhower:
Overthrew the conservative nationalist government of Iran with a military coup. Led to 25 years of brutal dictatorship, finally overthrown in 1979.
Overthrew the first, and last, democratic government in Guatemala by military coup and invasion, which led to massive atrocities which are still continuing – that is after almost 50 years.
In Indonesia he conducted the major clandestine terror operation of the post-war period up until Cuba and Nicaragua, in an effort to break up Indonesia, strip off the outer islands where most of the resources are, and undermine what was then considered as the threat of Indonesian democracy. Indonesia was too free and open, it was allowing a political party of the poor to participate: they were gaining a lot of ground, so Eisenhower supported and helped instigate a military rebellion in the outer islands. This is just for starters.
Kennedy:
invaded South Vietnam. During the Eisenhower administration, they had blocked a political settlement in 1954 and instituted a kind of Latin American-style terror state which had killed maybe 60 or 70 thousand people by the end of the Eisenhower period, and had instigated a response, a reaction, that Kennedy recognized could not be controlled internally, so he simply invaded. In 1962, about a third of the bombing missions that were carried out by the US Air Force, US planes with South Vietnamese insignia but US pilots. He authorized napalm, he began the use of chemical weapons to destroy food crops. They began programmes which drove millions of people into what amounted to concentration camps.
In the case of Cuba, it was just a massive campaign of international terrorism which almost led to the destruction of the world – it led to the missile crisis.
Johnson:
Expanded the war in Indochina to the point where he ended up probably leaving three or four million people dead.
He invaded the Dominican Republic to block what looked like a potential democratic revolution there.
He supported the Israeli occupation in its early stages.
Ford:
Ford was only there for a short time but long enough to endorse the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, which became about as close to genocide as anything in the modern period. They pretended to oppose it but secretly supported it – in fact, not so secretly. Immediately after the invasion, the US did join the rest of the world in formally condemning it at the Security Council but Ambassador Moynihan was kind enough to explain to us in his words that his instructions were to render the United Nations utterly ineffective in any actions it might take to counter the Indonesian invasion and he says proudly that he did this with considerable success, and his next sentence says in the next few months it seems that about 60 thousand people were killed, and then he goes off to the next topic. That was the first few months: it went on to probably hundreds of thousands. Formally, the US announced the boycott of weapons but secretly it increased the supply of weapons, including counter-insurgency equipment, so that the Indonesians could consummate the invasion.
Carter:
As the Indonesian atrocities were increasing – they peaked in 1978 – Carter’s flow of weapons to Indonesia increased. When Congress imposed human rights restrictions – by then there was a human rights movement in Congress to block the flow of advanced weaponry to Indonesia – Carter arranged through Mondale, the Vice President, to get Israel to send US Skyhawks to Indonesia to enable Indonesia to complete what turned out to be near genocide, killing maybe a quarter of the population.
In the Middle East, Carter had just won the Nobel Prize. His great achievement was the Camp David agreements. The Camp David agreements are presented as a diplomatic triumph for the United States. In fact, they were a diplomatic catastrophe. At Camp David, the United States and Israel accepted finally Egypt’s 1971 offer which the US had rejected at the time, except that now it was worse from the US-Israeli point of view because it included the Palestinians. In order to get Israel to accept Egypt’s 1971 offer, after a major war and atrocities and so on, Carter raised military and other aid to Israel to more than 50% of total aid worldwide. Israel used it at once in exactly the way they said they were going to do, as every sane person knew, as an opportunity to attack their northern neighbour, first in 1978 then in 1982, and to increase integration of the occupied territories.
Contd.:
Reagan:
Reagan was the first president to have been condemned by the International Court of Justice for what they called the unlawful use of force, meaning international terrorism, in the war against Nicaragua. The Security Council endorsed it in two resolutions, both of which were vetoed by the United States.
Bush:
We can begin with the invasion of Panama, which according to the Panamanians killed about 3,000 people. Since it was never investigated, we do not know if that is true or not. This was done in order to kidnap a disobedient thug who had been supported by the United States right through his worst atrocities – Noriega. Noriega, who was brought to Florida and tried for crimes that he had committed mostly on the CIA payroll.
You could go into the details of the war in Irak but there were plainly opportunities – they might not have worked but there were opportunities – for diplomatic settlement which the Bush administration refused to consider and, incidentally, the press would not report, with a single exception: Long Island Newsday, which did report the whole story throughout accurately, and is the only newspaper in the country to have done so. The Bush administration then did attack and the attack was carried out in a manner which is criminal under the laws of war. They attacked infrastructure. If you attack New York City and you destroy the power system, the sewage systems and so on, that amounts to biological warfare, and that is the nature of the attack.
Then came a sanctions regime, which was mostly Clinton but began with Bush, which by conservative estimates killed hundreds of thousands of people, while strengthening Saddam Hussein.
Clinton:
One of Clinton’s very minor escapades was sending a couple of cruise missiles to Sudan to destroy what they knew to be a pharmaceutical plant. There was no intelligence failure. According to the only estimates we have from the German ambassador and the regional director of Near East Foundation, which does field work in Sudan, both of them estimated several tens of thousands of deaths from one cruise missile. Very serious. If somebody did that to us, we would regard it as bad news.
In the Middle East, for example, Clinton began by declaring past UN resolutions, in the words of his administration, “obsolete and anachronistic” because we are finished with that. No more international law. Then comes a period called a peace process, except that during the peace process, Israeli settlement, which means settlement paid for by the US taxpayer and supported by US military aid and diplomacy, continually increased. The most extreme year was Clinton’s last year: the highest level of settlement, the highest since 1992. Meanwhile the territories were cantonized and broken up into small regions with infrastructure projects and new settlement. I don’t know what you call that but it’s under military occupation, and if anyone else was doing it we would call it a war crime.
Post WW2 Russian and Chinese foreign interventions
Stalin: China, Finland, Poland, East Germany.
Malenkov: Korea
Kruschev: Hungary, Poland, Albania,
Brezhnev: Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, China, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Congo, Indonesia, Yemen, Afghanistan
Gorbachev: Georgia, South Ossetia
Yeltsin: Abkhazia, Transnistria, Tajikistan, Chechnya
Putin: Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Ukraine (twice), Central African Republic, Mali, Burkina Faso
Mao Zedong: Tibet, Korea, India, Vietnam, Malaysia
Liu Shaoqi: Laos, Vietnam
Lia Xiannian: India
Hu Jintao: Mali
Xi Jinping: India, Burma, Malaysia, The Philippines, Indonesia.
We know what both Russia and China are up to because they have told us:
‘And, if you believe the forecasts and the estimates are based on actual work, the real work of people who understand this, who have devoted their whole lives to this, in 15 years, there may be 22 million fewer Russians. I ask you to think about this figure: a seventh of the country’s population. If the current trend continues, the nation’s survival will be in jeopardy’ Putin 2000
For decades, Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia is on the path to extinction. His war has killed untold numbers of people — but it’s also an attempt to force millions of people into Russian citizenship.
China’s 2019 Defence White Paper shows China’s willingness to use force in a variety of scenarios including projection of military power across much of the eastern hemisphere.
Key points of the White Paper are:- • China’s Defence Ministry warns against seeking Taiwan independence. • China’s national goal is to protect its interest and security. • South China Sea and Diaoyu Islands are inseparable from China. It claims that building infrastructure, deploying defensive capabilities on the islands and reefs and conducting patrols around the waters of the South China Sea is within its national sovereignty.
That is why negotiations are pointless, because both Putin and Xi Jinping have made it clear that these strategies are non negotiable.
Deterrence is the only game in town.
We know what to do; we have done it before; it worked.
Britain’s interventions overseas since WW2 are a bit of a mixed bag, particularly regarding Egypt, Cyprus, Kenya, Aden, Iraq, Libya.
Nevertheless, interventions in Korea, Malaysia, Borneo, Kuwait, Oman, Zimbabwe, The Falklands, Sierra Leone, have been generally welcome.
I really must stop but every entry you make is full of challenges.
If Putin maintains that Russians are dying out then he is correct: fertility rates have halved world-wide compared to 60 years ago. See: https://expose-news.com/2024/08/16/fertility-rates-in-western-countries-are-below-replacement/.
Russia’s reaction to the problem is to financially assist couples wishing to have children, as opposed to the West’s policy of inviting unlimited numbers of immigrants.
In May, Putin signed an Executive Order on Russia’s development goals through 2030 and for the future until 2036, with the following content:
In order to ensure sustainable economic and social development of the Russian Federation, strengthen its state, culture and values, and economic sovereignty, increase Russia’s population and raise the people’s living standards while relying on traditional national spiritual and moral values and the principles of patriotism, human priority, social justice and equal opportunities, ensure state security and public safety, openness to the outside world, economic development based on fair competition, entrepreneurship and private initiative, high efficiency and technological effectiveness, the President set forth the following national development goals of the Russian Federation through 2030 and for the future until 2036:
– preservation of the population, strengthening health and improving the wellbeing of people, supporting families;
– self-fulfilment of each person, unlocking their talents, and educating a patriotic and socially responsible person;
– comfortable and safe living environment;
– ecological well-being;
– stable and dynamic economy;
– technological leadership;
– digital transformation of state and municipal administration, the economy, and social sphere.
I am not sure about the last point, because Russia is also promoting a digital currency, but otherwise I do not get the impression that Putin is a cruel dictator setting out to conquer the world. In fact, I would be quite happy if the western world had the same targets.
Of course Putin is trying to encourage an increase in the birth rate within Russia……but, unsurprisingly, given the state of the country, the misery of incompetent bureaucratic totalitarianism, it isn’t working. Russia’s population declined by one million in 2021.
So, instead, through invasion, the Kremlin accumulates cheap labour power, appropriating Ukrainian state investment in the birth, care, and education of its former citizens; their reproductive labor; and even their personal relations that allow them to survive in Russia without state support. This — together with the appropriation of companies and the devastation of territories now to be redeveloped — is a typical process of imperialist accumulation by dispossession.
There were an estimated 1.34 million excess deaths in Russia during the so-called pandemic, which had nothing to do with the global drop in fertility. Plus Russia is at war. There is more than one reason for recent demographic changes (world-wide).
Cheap labour power through invasion? What labour power? The poor Ukrainians are dying in their thousands or have fled to Europe. Imperialist accumulation by dispossession – what nonsense.
Here are your Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region, wearing WWII Waffen SS helmets, taunting a poor Russian passer-by, calling him “Ivan” and making him agree he is a “Swine” in German. He is only hoping he will not be machine-gunned. Charming people, the Ukrainians.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-81424-zelensky-doubles-down?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#media-cf2a4f10-ba34-495a-8b59-8e2abaa987b4
Russia is at war because Putin wished for war.
There was no pandemic, ‘excess deaths’, just a bad ‘influenza like illness’ season.
Putin has talked about a declining population as an existential threat to Russia for decades. Read his speeches.
But, like do many totalitarian dictators before him, he has just made things worse; millions dead or fled.
If you can’t see that, then you clearly can’t see much of anything at all.
Yes – and I see another Maidan Coup has just occurred in Bangladesh, with renta-mob ousting a democratically elected government, and just happening to install a chronically US-tamed PM – enabling NATO to control the Bay of Bengal.
How many US backed coups have occurred even since the start of the Ukraine War? Pakistan, Somalia, Bangladesh… too many to remember. The defence of democracy is the strongest anti-democratic force in the world today.
It seems very popular in Moscow.
In a message addressed to Foreign Affairs Adviser Md Touhid Hossain, the Russian Foreign Minister said he was glad to learn about Hossain’s appointment to the post of the Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
“The Russia-Bangladesh relations are based on the solid foundation of friendship, traditionally binding the peoples of our countries,”
Russian Minister Lavrov.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Press release on the situation in Bangladesh.
1479-05-08-2024
On August 5, Bangladeshi media reported the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her cabinet, which was preceded by mass protest rallies whose participants demanded to bring to justice the officials responsible for deadly anti-government student protests in July.
The situation in the country is controlled by the Bangladeshi Army. A transitional government is expected to be formed soon.
According to our Embassy in Dhaka, no injuries of Russian citizens were reported.
Moscow operates on the premise that changes in the Bangladeshi government constitute an internal affair of that country. However, we look forward to the internal political processes in that friendly country returning to the constitutional norms as soon as possible.
“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
Andy Warhol is quoted as saying this in 1968, long before any concept of the internet and social media. In those days if you had an opinion you had a rant down the pub, you wrote to the local paper or maybe you got on a soap-box at Hyde Park Corner. This caused me to reflect how the internet and social media has in some strange way bought Andy Warhol’s prophecy to be true, although as we are seeing at the moment for some people it is proving to be more 15 minutes of infamy.
“Jailed for riot comments: justice or creeping censorship?”
Back in the days of my youth none of these people being jailed for facebook posts would have come to the attention of TPTB. They would have had the same opinions and would have expressed them to anyone prepared to listen but rarely would those opinions have go them into any trouble. From my work days I know that different people vary greatly in their ability to express themselves well by the written word. When email started people were having to be advised that you should not write an email using the same language and style as if you were chatting to them over a pint in the bar. And yet we have now given everyone the very powerful tool of the internet and social media and in some case we are now using that tool as a rod with which to beat them.
I only raise this as a possible discussion point, I have no ready answer of solution but I do feel this warrants some further discussion.
I couldn’t help noticing the BBC’s almost obsessive interest in Nigel Farage’s earnings. They kept going on about it on R4 and it was a prominent news item on the evening news too.
What’s the problem? He presents a program, he gets paid.
Besides, this coming from an organization that pays millions to Gary Lineker for nattering about football and paid Hew Edwards 400k after he was taken off air.
It’s the drip, drip, drip effect of a type of Chinese whisper. I expect they hope that if they keep on mentioning it, it will work it’s way almost into the subconscious of their listeners, causing them to form the thought that there is something ‘shady’ about Nigel Farage. I would have thought by now though that they are preaching to the converted though. most right minded people long ago gave up listening to or watching their drivel. I detest the BBC.
Net Zero Britain Poor China Rich – latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, your new MP, your local vicar, online media and friends online.
Start a local campaign. We have over 200 leaflet ideas on the link on the leaflet.
I wonder what will happen to Simon Goddek now X ceases to function in Brazil?
I am sure he will be fine as he is resilient, but Brazil does not appear to be heading towards a free society.
Brazilian Patriot Jair Bolsonaro is the True Leader of Brazil.
Guess you don’t know about virtual private networks then?
The most chilling, Orwellian, news item is this:
So if boys express an interest in masculine stereotypes then they will be reported to an agency that will ‘fix’ the wrong-think. It’s important for the state to keep society feminised; by doing so they can continue unabated with their bloodless coup. We’ve made it ridiculously easy for them.
“‘Justin Welby should quit!’”
Yes, Emma Webb is right, but let us point out that ANYONE can criticise, insult or “mock” Christianity without being IMPRISONED.
And yet two Englishmen have just been IMPRISONED for 8 months each for “MOCKING ISLAM”.
The Globalists are sneaking Sharia Law into English Law on the back of alien “hate” laws, claiming that mocking Islam is “racist” or a “hate crime”. No one ever claims that about Christianity.
ISLAM IS NOT A RACE. Mocking Islam or any other religion is not a hate crime. Hate crime does not exist in the West. It is an alien concept being forced upon western democracies by alien cultures opposed to Freedom of Speech.
These two Englishmen, Phil Hoban and James Gettings, should be immediately released from prison, all charges dropped, and their FAKE CONVICTIONS OVERTURNED.
UK Man Jailed After Mocking Muslims at Non-Violent Anti-Migration Protest (breitbart.com)
Welby is a place man ! Just like Khant he’s there to help destroy England & the uk as a whole !
Welby is certainly working for Satan.
“Tried for a tweet”
Well done to the Daily Sceptic for also featuring Freedom of Speech problems in other countries, such as Christians in Finland.
Here’s one from Australia:
I refused to do a Welcome to Country at my Christian conferences. Now I’m being taken to the Human Rights Commission | Daily Mail Online
“Civil servants lashed out at Queensland’s Department of Justice and Attorney-General office the following month, after staff were told to remove their shoes and wiggle their toes.”
“Mr Pickering said a majority of Aussies would be confronted by having someone regularly ‘welcome them’ to the land their families have lived on for 100 years.”
No. This is weird:
🎜 I can feel it coming in the air tonight 🎜
It’s the Ginger Growler he’s got a whiff of !
My Lad just put the kick off of Man City v Chelsea on Sky ! They Kneeled !!!! What The Living F-CK is going on , I thought that was history ?? What have I missed ,
Oh no! How awful— I thought all that nauseating, shameful grovelling was over. They might as well lick the boots of all the Ethnic African players, while they’re at it.
The fans should turn their backs on the whole grotesque spectacle, and vote with their feet, refusing to attend any more matches until the grovelling is banned.
RadioGenoa on X: “Lion among sheep. https://t.co/JPHySaHelQ” / X
RadioGenoa on X: “”Get up you old Swedish woman, I must sit down now!” How much longer do we have to endure this? https://t.co/SvD9q53THh” / X