First and second, Associated Press and Reuters stories related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both made available at about 4 p.m. EDT and linked to others. These are followed by two Consortium News pieces, made available at about 2 p.m., by Patrick Lawrence and Joe Lauria.  — MCM

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Zelenskyy at the UN accuses Russian military of war crimes, by Oleksandr Stashevskyi and Edith M. Lederer | The Associated Press BUCHA, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Russians of gruesome atrocities in Ukraine and told the U.N. Security Council today that those responsible should immediately be brought up on war crimes charges in front of a tribunal like the one established at Nuremberg after World War II. Zelenskyy, appearing via video from Ukraine, said that civilians had been tortured, shot in the back of the head, thrown down wells, blown up with grenades in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars. “They cut off limbs, cut their throats. Women were raped and killed in front of their children. Their tongues were pulled out only because their aggressor did not hear what they wanted to hear from them,” he said, recounting what he described as the worst atrocities since World War II. Over the past few days . . . READ MORE . . .

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In U.N. speech, Ukraine’s Zelenskiy accuses Russia of worst war crimes since WW2, by Michelle Nichols, Humeyra Pamuk and Doina Chiacu | Reuters UNITED NATIONS — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the United Nations Security Council today that “accountability must be inevitable” for Russia as he accused invading Russian troops of committing “the most terrible war crimes” since World War Two. Zelenskiy showed a short video of burned, bloodied and mutilated bodies, including children, in Irpin, Dymerka, Mariupol and Bucha, where Ukraine accuses Russian troops of killing hundreds of civilians. Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia then told the Security Council that Russian troops are not targeting civilians, dismissing accusations of abuse as lies. He said that while Bucha was under Russian control “not a single civilian suffered from any kind of violence.” Zelenskiy questioned the value of the 15-member U.N. Security Council, which has been unable to take any action over Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine because Moscow is a veto power, along with . . . READ MORE . . .

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The U.S. Bubble of Pretend, by Patrick Lawrence | Special to Consortium News It  is perfectly obvious by now, to anyone who cares to look, that mainstream media in America and the other Western powers are not reporting the Ukraine crisis accurately.Let me try that another way: The government-supervised New York Times and the rest of the corporate-owned media on both sides of the Atlantic lie routinely to their readers and viewers as to why Russia intervened in Ukraine, the progress of its military operation, the conduct of Ukrainian forces, and America’s role in purposely provoking and prolonging this crisis. So far as I know, this is the first war in modern history with no objective, principled coverage in mainstream media of day-to-day events and their context. None. It is morn-to-night propaganda, disinformation and lies of omission — most of it fashioned by the Nazi-infested Zelensky regime in Kiev and repeated uncritically as fact. There is one thing worse than this degenerate state of affairs. It is the extent to which . . .  READ MORE . . .

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Questions Abound About Bucha Massacre, by Joe Lauria | Consortium News  Within hours of news Sunday that there had been a massacre at Bucha, a town 63 kms north of the Ukrainian capital, the verdict was in:  Russian troops had senselessly slaughtered hundreds of innocent civilians as they withdrew from the town, leaving their bodies littering the streets. Unlike their judicial systems, when it comes to war, Western nations dispense with the need for investigations and evidence and pronounce guilt based on political motives: Russia is guilty. Case closed. Except the case hasn’t even been opened yet and the sentence is already being proposed. READ MORE . . .

First and second, the beginnings of Reuters and Associated Press stories from Ukraine, made available before 9 a.m. EDT and linked to others concerning the war there. Fourth and fifth, a glance at NATO’s 2022 Annual Report from the Socialist Worker, and a link to the report in its entirety. — MCM

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In Ukrainian street, a corpse with hands bound and a bullet wound to the head, by Simon Gardner | Reuters BUCHA, Ukraine — A man lay sprawled by the roadside in the Ukrainian city of Bucha on Sunday, his hands tied behind his back and a bullet wound to his head, one of hundreds of local residents that officials say have been found dead in the wake of five weeks of Russian occupation. Bucha’s deputy mayor, Taras Shapravskyi, said 50 of the dead residents, found after Russian forces withdrew from the city late last week, were the victims of extra-judicial killings carried out by Russian troops, and the officials have accused Moscow of war crimes. Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement issued on Sunday that all photographs and videos published by the Ukrainian authorities alleging “crimes” by Russian troops in Bucha were a “provocation,” and no resident of Bucha suffered violence at the hands of Russian troops. Reuters was not able to independently verify who was responsible for killing the dead residents. But three bodies seen by Reuters reporters on Sunday — the corpse with the hands bound and two others which did not have bound hands — bore bullet shots to the head consistent with what Bucha mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk and his deputy described as executions. READ MORE . . .

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Russia faces growing outrage amid new evidence of atrocities, by Oleksandr Stachevskyi and Nebi Qena | The Associated Press BUCHA, Ukraine — Russia faced a fresh wave of condemnation on today after evidence emerged of what appeared to be deliberate killings of civilians in Ukraine. Some Western leaders called for further sanctions in response, even as Moscow continued to press its offensive in the country’s east. Western allies, though united in outrage, appeared split on how to respond. Poland, which is on Ukraine’s border and has taken in large numbers of refugees, angrily singled out France and Germany for not taking more strident action and urged Europe to quickly wean itself off Russian energy, while Berlin said it would take a longer-term approach. Ukrainian officials said the bodies of 410 civilians were found in towns around the capital, Kyiv, that were recaptured from Russian forces in recent days. In Bucha, northwest of the capital, Associated Press journalists saw 21 bodies. One group of nine, all in civilian clothes . . . READ MORE . . .

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NATO Sets Out Its Strategy for Even More Military Build-up, by Nick Clark | Socialist Worker NATO sees Russia as a threat to U.S. power—and has poured arms and soldiers into eastern Europe accordingly. That’s not the latest statement from the Stop the War Coalition—but the picture NATO paints itself in its annual report released on March 31. The report gives an outline of what the U.S.’s military alliance got up to in 2021 and spells out its aims for the years ahead. It all comes packaged in the ­language of “cooperation” and “security.” But once you strip out the guff, what the report really says is NATO’s biggest concern is containing Russia and China. READ MORE . . .

For an online copy of NATO’s 2022 Annual Report, click HERE.

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TO BE CONTINUED

Below please find the opening paragraphs of an essay outlining international law as it pertains to war crimes and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Made available on April 1 by Consortium News, it is the second part of a two-part series by former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer and former United Nations arms inspector Scott Ritter. The first part is HERE. — MCM

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Russia, Ukraine & the Law of War: War Crimes

By Scott Ridder

During his recent four-day European tour, U.S. President Joe Biden made headlines when, during a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda, he described Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a man who I quite frankly think is a war criminal,” adding “I think it will meet the legal definition of that as well.”

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, condemned Biden’s comment as “unacceptable and unforgivable rhetoric on the part of the head of a state whose bombs have killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.”

Biden made his remarks following a statement issued by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in which Blinken announced that the State Department had made a formal assessment that the Russian military had committed war crimes in Ukraine. “Based on information currently available,” Blinken said, “the U.S. government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine. “Our assessment,” Blinken added, “is based on a careful review of available information from public and intelligence sources.”

According to Blinken, “Russia’s forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded. Many of the sites Russia’s forces have hit have been clearly identifiable as in-use by civilians.” Blinken declared that this category “includes the Mariupol maternity hospital” as well as “a strike that hit a Mariupol theater, clearly marked with the Russian word for ‘children’ — in huge letters visible from the sky.”

Blinken’s accusations echo those made by the Ukrainian government and organizations such as Amnesty International. Karim Khan, the lead prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, has announced that his office will begin investigating allegations of Russian war crimes committed during its ongoing military operation in Ukraine.

The narrative that paints Russia and the Russian military as perpetrators of war crimes, however, runs afoul of actual international humanitarian law and the laws of war. The issue of jus in bello(the law governing conduct during the use of force) set forth a framework of legal concepts which, when allied to specific actions, help determine whether an actual violation of the law of war has occurred.

Jus in bello is derived from treaties, agreements, and customary international law. Two sets of international agreements, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, serve as the foundation for the modern understanding of jus in bello, regulating, respectively, what is permissible in the execution of war, and the protections provided to non-combatants, including civilians and prisoners of war. “Grave breaches” of jus in bello can be prosecuted in courts of relevant jurisdiction as war crimes.

Starting from the proposition that war is little more than organized murder, the issue of how to define what constitutes murder sufficient to be categorized a being of a criminal nature is far more difficult that one might think. Michael Herr gave voice to this reality in his book, Dispatches, about America’s war in Vietnam, when he observed that, “Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”

One of the key considerations that distinguishes a legitimate act of war, and a war crime, is the notion of “military necessity.” According to the precepts set forth in the law of war, military necessity “permits measures which are actually necessary to accomplish a legitimate military purpose and are not otherwise prohibited by international humanitarian law. In the case of an armed . . . READ MORE . . .

Reprinted below is a message by Elizabeth Woodworth, which she subtitled “A new way to run the world’s ‘global brain.” It is apparently her first communication in Jilly’s Newsletter. Click HERE  for the original. Worth noting is that eight of  the prominent medical and scientific authorities she lists as having been “systematically suppressed by social media” are on a longer list of individuals to whom Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dedicates his 2021 book The Real Anthony Fauci. — MCM

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Proposal to Elon Musk to Create a Charitable Trust to Purchase and Run Twitter, or to Create a Replacement

By Elizabeth Woodworth | Jilly’s Newsletter

Introduction

On March 25, 2022, Elon Musk tweeted a question that was voted on.  by more than two million people:

Afterwards, he concluded, on March 26: “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.”

Considering that Twitter was launched March 21, 2006, why has Musk questioned its principles now?

Perhaps because it has become obvious to those paying attention that during this two-year pandemic, many critical thinkers with longstanding contributions have suffered the permanent loss of their Twitter accounts. For example, Dr. Robert Malone, an early contributor to mRNA technology development, and with more than half a million followers, was suspended December 29, 2021.i

This kind of banishment has been studied.

Following the June 2019 formation of the “Trusted News Initiative” (TNI), a one-voice media emerged to broadcast the official Covid-19 narrative – and to silence anyone on social media who challenged it:

“An international process of editorial standardization delivered unprecedented news coverage of the monopolized message:

1. The pandemic threatens the survival of all humanity
2. There is no therapy to cure the sick
3. It is necessary to confine the whole population, and
4. The delivery will come only from a vaccine.”ii

However, we knew from the outset that Covid-19 kills only 0.23% (approx. 1 in 400) of those infected.iii

And we have also known that there has never been a vaccine successfully deployed against a coronavirus.

Now, two years later, we see that neither the lockdowns nor the vaccines offered significantly lasting protection to the public.

Indeed, they simply delayed the herd immunity that, according to bio-statistician Dr. Knut Witkowski, usually follows within weeks if our natural defenses are free to encounter a virus.ivHe therefore recommended shielding the elderly and letting the virus circulate. After a million views of his April 2020 YouTube comments, they were removed – one of the earliest acts of censorship.

Many other medical voices calling for focused protection of the elderly/vulnerable – and for early antiviral treatment with the WHO “essential medicines” hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin – were systematically suppressed by social media. Behind it all lay the TNI’s early warning system.v

Those suppressed include the following prominent professors and researchers at the tops of their fields, with outstanding publication histories,vi and conflict-of-interest-free credentials. Each is linked to his or her Google Scholar publication record:

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, epidemiologist, Stanford University

Dr. Sunetra Gupta, infectious disease epidemiologist, Oxford Univ.

Dr. Martin Kulldorff, epidemiologist, formerly of Harvard, now the Brownstone Institute

Dr. Robert W. Malone, early contributor to of mRNA technology

Dr. Peter A. McCullough, former Vice-Chair Int. Med., Baylor Univ.

Dr. Didier Raoult, microbiologist and director, IHU Méditerranée Infection; Professor at Aix Marseille Université

Dr. Harvey A. Risch, Prof. Epid., Yale School of Public Health

Dr. Knut M. Wittkowski, biometrician, 20-year head, biostatistics/epid., Rockefeller University

Dr. Michael Yeadon, former VP of respiratory research, Pfizer.

Two major problems have become obvious:

1. The world does not have an apolitical, non-commercial, uncensored independent discussion forum open to all;
2. This circumstance has forced people to self-censor on existing platforms for fear of being silenced in the strange new social media world that has emerged from Covid-19.

Question? Is there an organizational model that could be used to set up a permanent global democratic discussion platform that is:

1. open to all
2. free of charge for public use
3. non-discriminatory for participation, but has rules of civility;
4. legally established by a governing document such as a constitution, with a clear statement of purpose to enable democratic discussion;
5. running as a society, a foundation, or a cooperative, having an internally elected governing board to head its administration;
6. initially financed by its settlor (see below) to be self-sustaining through investments;
7. strictly non-commercial, not intended to realize profits, or to be listed on the stock market;
8. employing methods to block bots, which are used to massively distort the perception of opinion popularity and generality
9. a world resource, strictly apolitical, and is registered accordingly;
10. structured to exist and perform through time for its beneficiary, the world public

The answer: Yes, there is such a model.

These conditions can all be fulfilled by a charitable trust.

A Brief Introduction to Charitable Trusts

First, what is a trust?

A trust is:

“a relationship created at the direction of an individual, in which one or more persons hold the individual’s property subject to certain duties to use and protect it for the benefit of others.”vii

Basic Concepts:viii

The person who creates the trust is the settlor.

The person who holds the property for another’s benefit is the trustee.

The person who is benefited by the trust is the beneficiary, or cestui que trust.

The property that comprises the trust is the trust res, corpus, principal, or subject matter. For example, a parent signs over certain stock to a bank to manage for a child, with instructions to give the dividend checks to him/her each year until s/he becomes 21 years of age, at which time s/he is to receive all the stock.

The parent is the settlor, the bank is the trustee, the stock is the trust res, and the child is the beneficiary.

A trustee takes legal title to the trust res, which means that the trustee’s interest in the property appears to be one of complete ownership and possession, but the trustee does not have the right to receive any benefits from the property. The right to benefit from the property, known as equitable title, belongs to the beneficiary.

Charitable Trusts ix

The purpose of a Charitable Trust is to accomplish a substantial social benefit for some portion of the public. The law favors charitable trusts by according them certain privileges, such as an advantageous tax status. Before a court will enforce a charitable trust, however, it must examine the alleged charity and evaluate its social benefits. The court cannot rely on the settlor’s view that the trust is charitable.

To be valid, a charitable trust must meet certain requirements. The settlor must have the intent to create a charitable trust, there must be a trustee to administer the trust, which consists of some trust property, and the charitable purpose must be expressly designated. The beneficiary must be a definite segment of the community composed of indefinite persons.

Charitable Purpose A charitable purpose is one that benefits, improves, or uplifts humankind mentally, morally, or physically. The relief of poverty, the improvement of government, and the advancement of religion, education, or health are some examples of charitable purposes.

Beneficiaries The class to be benefited in a charitable trust must be a definite segment of the public. It must be large enough so that the community in general is affected and has an interest in the enforcement of the trust, yet it must not include the entire human race. Within the class, however, the specific persons to benefit must be indefinite.

A trust for designated persons or a trust for profit cannot be a charitable trust. A trust to “erect and maintain a hospital” might be charitable even though the hospital charges the patients who are served, provided that any profits are used solely to continue the charitable services of the hospital.

As a general rule, a charitable trust may last forever, unlike a private trust. In a private trust, the designated beneficiary is the proper person to enforce the trust. In a charitable trust, the state attorney general, who represents the public interest, is the proper person to enforce the trust.x

Conclusion

A longstanding charitable trust, financed by its investments to provide a global town square for the free exchange of human ideas, could survive over time.

Twitter offers a remarkably creative, versatile, high-functioning model. Tweets can be searched back to 2006; its platform is a virtual historic record of world events for much of this century.

Millions of people hang out in its rich environment of 500 million new tweets per day,xi enjoying the tremendous resources of what might be called “the global brain”.

If Mr. Musk did not purchase Twitter outright, he could duplicate the functionality that the world has come to love.

i Robert W. Malone, “Permanently suspended on Twitter…and how to find me,” December 29, 2021. (https://rwmalonemd.substack(dot)com/p/permanently-suspended-on-twitter?s=r).

ii Laurent Mucchielli, “How is built the ‘legitimate information’ on the Covid crisis,” UMR 7305, CNRS and Aix-Marseille University, April 2020 (https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/MS-Mucchielli.pdf). Translation from French.

iii Ioannidis J. “The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data,” Bull World Health Organ., Epub Oct. 14, 2020 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33716331/).

The British Medical Journal, citing this article, reported: “Clearly, mortality is age-stratified from covid-19. The corrected median estimates of IFP [Infection Fatality Rate] for people aged lower than 70 years is currently 0.05%, [2] which, for the population less vulnerable to deaths, is similar to influenza. However overall estimates for covid-19 are higher [i.e., 0.23%], due to the higher fatality rate in elderly people.” BMJ October 6, 2020 (https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3883/rr).

iv Edward Peter Stringham, “Stand Up for Your Rights, says Bio-Statistician Knut M. Wittkowski, American Institute for Economic Research, 20 April 2020 (https://www.aier.org/article/stand-up-for-your-rights-says-bio-statistican-knut-m-wittkowski/).

v Elizabeth Woodworth, “COVID-19 and the Shadowy ‘Trusted News Initiative’: How it Methodically Censors Top World Public Health Experts Using an Early Warning System,” 22 January 2022 (https://www.globalresearch.ca/covid-19-shadowy-trusted-news-initiative/5752930).

vi A scientist’s credibility can be estimated by how often his/her published articles are cited in the indexed, peer-reviewed literature. This is quantified as the h-index number, and can be found by searching an author’s name on Google Scholar, e.g., Harvard Medical School biostatistician and epidemiologist, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, has been cited 26,087 times and has an h-index of 77. (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WNEj34MAAAAJ&hl=en).

vii https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/trust

viii Ibid.

ix Ibid.

x Ibid.

xi Omnicore, “Twitter by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts,” 22 February, 2022 (https://www.omnicoreagency.com/twitter-statistics/)

Subscribe to Lizzy’s Newsletter

By Elizabeth Woodworth  ·  Launched 2 days ago

Welcome, dear readers! I want to lighten up our world: to integrate common sense and constructive imagination in tackling problematic and divisive topics.

First and second, the beginnings of Associated Press and Reuters reports, both made available at about 8 a.m. EDT. Third, a TeleSUR report from last Thursday. Next, via Popular Resistance, a look at the war in Ukraine and its global economic context by Australian commentator Cameron Leckie. — MCM

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Ukraine documents alleged atrocities by retreating Russians, by Oleksandr Stashevskyi | The Associated Press BUCHA, Ukraine — Ukrainian troops are finding brutalized bodies and widespread destruction in suburbs of the capital as Russian soldiers withdraw and Moscow focuses its attacks elsewhere, including missile strikes today that targeted fuel and ammunition supplies in southern and eastern Ukraine. Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a small city northwest of Kyiv, saw the bodies of at least nine people in civilian clothes who appeared to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs.  . . . Authorities said they were documenting evidence as Ukraine’s military reclaims territory and discovers indications of execution-style slayings to add to their case for for prosecuting Russian officials for war crimes. Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said scores of killed civilians were found on the streets of Bucha and the Kyiv suburbs of Irpin and Hostomel in what looked like a “scene from a horror movie.” READ MORE . . .

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Ukrainians and Europeans accuse Russians of committing atrocities, by Issam Abdallah and Pavel Polityu |Reuters * Zelenskiy spokesman says Russian actions look like war crimes * EU, UK officials express outrage * Dead civilians scattered on streets of recaptured town near Kyiv * Russia says draft deal not ready for top-level talks * Missiles land near port city of Odesa | LVIV/ODESA, Ukraine — Ukrainian and European officials expressed outrage on today at what they said were atrocities committed by Russian forces near Kyiv before they withdrew from the region to focus their attacks elsewhere. The mayor of Bucha, a town 37 km (23 miles) northwest of the capital, said on Saturday that 300 residents had been killed during a month-long occupation by the Russian army. Victims were seen by Reuters in a mass grave . . . READ MORE . . .

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Russia Creates Working Groups to Probe US-Controlled Biolabs. From TeleSUR. A Russian parliamentary commission held its first meeting on Thursday, announcing the establishment of four working groups to investigate U.S.-controlled biolabs in Ukraine. The commission heard information from the Russian Defense Ministry on the investigation into biological research by American specialists in Ukraine. During Russia’s special military operation, the dangerous biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine were revealed, said Irina Yarovaya, deputy chairperson of the State Duma. “Dangerous both for Russia and for Ukraine itself. We are talking about secret activities controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense, with signs of the development of biological weapons,” she said. “The commission has instructed the working groups on defense, security and international law to start working on materials on the involvement of Hunter Biden in the project in Ukraine, as well as an invitation for explanations from him and Victoria Nuland.” The investment fund Rosemont Seneca, currently managed by U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, financed the Pentagon’s military biological program in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said last week. READ MORE . . .

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Ukraine: A Decisive Transfer of the Balance of Power from West to East, by Cameron Leckie | Pearls and Irritations. Very few mainstream Western reporters, if any, appear to be located where the bulk of the fighting is, namely in the Donbass and around Mariupol. . . . We should thus take a healthy dose of skepticism about the media reporting and analysis of the war – from all sides. . . . The Russian military . . . has effectively fixed in place the garrisons defending Ukraine’s major cities leaving them incapable of supporting the troops in the Donbass. Meanwhile Russia is progressively destroying the military infrastructure of the Ukraine . . . . With Russian forces on the verge of completing the capture of Mariupol, it will only be a matter of time before the Ukrainian forces in the Donbass are fully encircled and subsequently destroyed or forced to surrender. . . . The writing is on the wall that Russia, barring outside intervention . . . will achieve its military objectives. The direct Russo-Ukraine conflict is however just one level of this conflict. Ukraine is actually an unfortunate pawn in the much bigger conflict. As long time Russia analyst Gilbert Doctorow notes this is a ‘full-blown proxy war between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, and it is about ending or perpetuating American global hegemony.’  Whilst the war in Ukraine will end sooner or later, the implications at a global scale of this proxy war will be of much greater consequence for a much greater period of time. READ MORE . . .

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TO BE CONTINUED

Sometime in the 1950s a history teacher sought to reassure his students that World War III would not be be fought with nuclear weapons; rather, he said, the weapons would be economic. The first item below is the beginning of a column in today’s Berkshire Eagle by James Brooke, a semi-retired foreign correspondent who recently moved back to the United States from Ukraine, that lends itself to that prediction.  Second and third, the beginnings of Reuters and Associated Press summaries from late this morning EDT, both linked to other stories. Fourth, a TeleSUR report linked to others from the news service. — MCM

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War in Ukraine threatens food security across the globe, by James Brooke | The Berkshire Eagle The Russia-Ukraine war is taking Black Sea grain out of world markets, causing what Goldman Sachs calls the biggest disruption to global grain markets in half a century. With Ukrainian and Russian wheat and corn bottled up in port terminals and farm silos, the biggest victims are the biggest customers: countries from Middle East and North Africa. A decade ago, from Tunisia to Syria, high food prices fueled protests known as the Arab Spring. Today, as Lebanon’s wheat supplies dwindle, the price of black market flour has increased by 1,000 percent. In Egypt, dependent on Ukraine and Russia for 81 percent of its wheat imports, authorities plan to spend an extra $1 billion this year to subsidize bread. . . . After the end of communism 30 years ago, Ukraine and Russia adopted western farming methods and private land ownership. Yields soared and both countries became . . . Eagle subscribers can READ MORE . . .

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Red Cross trying again to escort evacuation convoy out of Ukraine’s Mariupol, by James Mackenzie | Reuters * People escaping from Mariupol describe ordeal * Ukraine official sees heavy battles ahead * Pope Francis implicitly criticises Putin * Missiles hit Ukrainian cities | ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — The Red Cross was renewing efforts to evacuate civilians in a convoy from the besieged port of Mariupol on Saturday as Russian forces looked to be regrouping for fresh attacks in southeast Ukraine. Encircled since the early days of Russia’s five-week old invasion, Mariupol has been Moscow’s main target in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Donbas. Tens of thousands of civilians are trapped there with . . . READ MORE . . .

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Zelenskyy: Mines in wake of Russian retreat keep Kyiv unsafe, by Nebi Qena and Yuras Karmanau | The Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine — As Russian forces pull back from Ukraine’s capital region, retreating troops are creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and “even the bodies of those killed,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Saturday. Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv and building its troop strength in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian fighters reclaimed several areas near the capital after forcing the Russians out or moving in after them, officials said. The visible shift did not mean the country faced a reprieve from more than five weeks of war or that the more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return soon. Zelenskyy said he expects departed towns to endure . . . READ MORE . . .

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Europol Deploys Teams in Countries Around Ukraine. From TeleSUR. The European Police Agency (Europol) on Friday reported on the deployment of forces in countries bordering Ukraine under the argument of fighting the passage of criminals and terrorists. In order to protect the countries of the community bloc and Ukrainian refugees from criminal threats, and at the request of those countries, Europol now has agents in Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Moldova, and soon in Hungary, according to a statement from the Netherlands-based agency. According to United Nations data, more than four million people have left Ukraine since late February, following the special military operation deployed by Russia in that country. That figure represents about one-tenth of the population of that nation and constitutes the largest exodus in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). . . . READ MORE . . .

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FROM LATE YESTERDAY: WHO IS ROLAND ANGLE?

 

Some readers may remember an entry from last October (HERE) titled “Meet Roland Angle,” introducing or re-introducing Roland Angle a few weeks after the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth board selected him to replace Richard Gage as president of the organization. In the profile below, a writer at AE911Truth has another go at telling the world about Angle and reminding people of the circumstances of the changing of the guard there. A more readable format is HERE. — MCM

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Roland Angle embarks on the most important mission of his life

By Craig McKee

While he may not be well known to many in the 9/11 Truth Movement, the new chief executive officer of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth has a background that couldn’t be more appropriate for the critical role he has taken on.

Named CEO in October 2021 after the departure of founder Richard Gage, Angle brings to the battle for 9/11 truth more than 50 years’ experience as a civil engineer. He has owned three engineering firms, has taught engineering principles to high school students, and was trained in the use of explosives during his time with the Special Forces of the U.S. Army Reserves in the 1960s.

Featured in two AE911Truth films, “9/11: Explosive Evidence — Experts Speak Out” (2012) and “SEVEN” (2020), Angle has been involved in the organization since its early days. In fact, in 2007, he became one of the earliest signatories of the AE911Truth petition, which has now been signed by more than 3,500 architects and engineers.

When he accepted the invitation to join the AE911Truth board of directors in 2016, Angle made it clear that a key objective of his would be to strengthen the organization’s outreach to engineers since the engineering establishment’s endorsement of the official story of 9/11 has been a significant obstacle to attaining a new investigation. To this end, he created Project Due Diligence (PDD), which has become one of the most effective programs ever at AE911Truth.

“The last step in the cover-up is really the most important, because they had to bring in leaders from the engineering community to oversee the examination of the evidence and the compiling of the reports,” Angle says.

He explains that some 500 engineers were involved in the official investigations into the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, and about two dozen decisions were “deliberately made to derail the investigations’ ability to reach an accurate conclusion.” Among these, he lists: “destroying the evidence, refusing to test for incendiaries, refusing to release their analysis and their computer models, and fabricating stories about the fireproofing removal.”

To get PDD rolling, Angle teamed up with longtime AE911Truth volunteer Tony Szamboti in 2017 to create a presentation, tailored to engineers, on the controlled demolition evidence. He also put together a team of volunteer presenters, all engineers and all signatories of the AE911Truth petition. They began in 2018 to make presentations to engineering groups — especially to branches of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the National Society of Professional Engineers.

The result of the 36 presentations made by PDD over the last four years is that every single engineer who attended one of the sessions said at the end that they were convinced of the scientific validity of the information that was presented. Meanwhile, the national leadership of the ASCE is discouraging the local chapters from allowing PDD to present to their members.

Angle asserts that engineers have a responsibility to assess the evidence themselves rather than taking for granted that the official story is correct.

“We have a contract with society to ensure the public welfare and safety, and that’s our job, and we need to take it seriously,” he says. “And what we see now creeping into our profession around these major events is a false narrative that we cannot tolerate.”

As CEO, Angle doesn’t seek the spotlight nor is he concerned with taking credit for the work he does. He believes in a team approach, in part so the credibility of the organization doesn’t rest entirely on one person’s shoulders. He focuses on the work that must be done if the 9/11 Truth Movement is ever going to achieve the breakthrough the world so badly needs. And he never loses that focus.

The importance of keeping that focus was made all the more clear last August when off-topic statements by Richard Gage were seized upon by the mainstream media to push successfully for the removal of a 30-minute segment from Spike Lee’s NYC Epicenters 9/11 to 2021½ — an eight-hour docuseries on HBO — that was devoted largely to AE911Truth’s efforts. The segment featured a dozen of the organization’s experts along with 9/11 family members Bob McIlvaine and Drew DePalma and 9/11 survivor William Rodriguez.

Gage’s statements, which he made numerous times despite the board passing a resolution directing him to stop, and staff members repeatedly urging the same, ended up being instrumental in denying the 9/11 Truth Movement what would have been a watershed moment for the cause.

Angle’s determined commitment to the mission of AE911Truth is strengthened not only by his engineering expertise and military training but also by his understanding of the devastating impact of wars that are justified through psychological manipulation. And 9/11 has been used to justify a number of wars.

His perspective on war and propaganda was profoundly influenced by his father, a career Navy man who, through a stroke of luck, avoided an almost certain death in the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A radio operator on the USS Arizona, his father had been sent to Massachusetts for radar training and was on his way back to the ship when the attack occurred.

All the radio operators on the Arizona that day — many of them close friends of Roland’s father — were killed.

Angle was born just two months after Pearl Harbor, and for much of his early childhood his father was away. Even after retiring from the Navy in 1958, his father rarely spoke about his war experiences to his family.

“I grew up with the very real feeling that wars were being fought and people were being killed,” Angle recounts. “When my father was out at sea on duty, I was always very conscious of that fact. We worried about what was happening to him and what could happen to him. So, the presence of war was more than just an intellectual concept to us. It was something that we lived with all through my early years of life.”

As U.S. involvement in Vietnam was about to escalate in the early 1960s, Angle faced the very real possibility that he, too, would be fighting, and maybe dying, in a war — in this case one he didn’t believe in.

He made a decision to enlist in the Army Reserves Special Forces so he would be less likely to see combat but would also receive the best training possible. This way, if he did have to see combat, he’d have the best chance of survival.

“It turned out that this strategy worked because the unit I was in was never called up.”

Angle describes his father as a man of very few words, which is why he remembered so much of what he did say.

“He made a couple of remarks that I remember very distinctly. One was: ‘Rich people declare wars and poor people fight them.’ And the second was: ‘Don’t believe anything you read or hear and only half of what you see.’”

Angle’s father taught him that to understand what is really happening in the world it is necessary to read between the lines of media reports.

“I puzzled over that for a long time, because I looked between the lines and there was nothing there. It was blank. What did he possibly mean by that? But over time, I came to understand that a lot of what you’re reading is only partially true, and mingled in with that is some form of propaganda or disinformation or misinformation, and you have to learn how to parse out what the real story is.”

While in the military, Angle read Mao Tse Tung’s book On Guerilla Warfare, and this removed any doubt he had about whether the war in Southeast Asia was right.

“It confirmed my notion that we were fighting on the wrong side, because our training was essentially all about how to kill people effectively.”

Angle got a further dose of reality when he started seeing his friends coming back from Vietnam. Or not coming back at all.

“Those who were drafted went to Vietnam, and some of them were killed there,” he recalls. “Some had their lives pretty much wrecked by their experience. They died of Agent Orange or alcoholism when they came back. They could never stabilize their lives.”

Very little appears to have changed in 60 years. Poor people are still dying in rich people’s wars, and the world is still being assaulted with propaganda that sells these wars to the people using all manner of manipulation.

And while Roland Angle never wanted to be leading the most recognized organization in the 9/11 Truth Movement, he knows how vital its work is to the cause and how vital it is that this work continue.

“I certainly didn’t anticipate that this was where I was going to be at this point in my life,” he says. “However, I didn’t feel like I could turn it down. I felt the responsibility, and I certainly want to see the organization succeed in its mission.”

First, second and third, beginnings of a pair of Associated Press stories and a Reuters summary of events related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. — MCM

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Ukraine strike on Russian territory reported as talks resume, by Nebi Qena and Yuras Karmanau | The Associated PressKYIV, Ukraine — Talks to stop the fighting in Ukraine resumed today, as another attempt to rescue civilians from the besieged port city of Mariupol broke down and Russia accused the Ukrainians of launching a cross-border helicopter attack on an oil depot. The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said the alleged airstrike by a pair of helicopter gunships caused multiple fires and injured two people. A Kremlin spokesman said the incident on Russia’s territory could undermine the negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian representatives. “Certainly, this is not something that can be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of the talks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied when asked if the strike could be viewed as an escalation of the war in Ukraine. It was not immediately possible to verify the claim that Ukrainian helicopters targeted . . . READ MORE . . .

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Biden oil move aims to cut gasoline prices ‘fairly significantly’, by Zeke Miller and Josh Boak | The Associated Press WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden yesterday ordered the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve for six months, a bid to control energy prices that have spiked after the United States and allies imposed steep sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The president said it was not known how much gasoline prices could decline as a result of his . . . READ MORE . . .

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Russian gas flows to Europe despite Putin deadline, by Sergiy Karazy | Reuters * Gas still flowing to Europe despite Putin threat to cut it off * Hopes for evacuations from Mariupol but aid not allowed in * Workers collect the bodies in recaptured Irpin | IRPIN, Ukraine — Russia allowed gas to keep flowing to Europe on today despite a deadline for buyers to pay in roubles or be cut off, and peace talks resumed, with Moscow saying it would respond to a Ukrainian offer. An order by President Vladimir Putin cutting off gas buyers unless they pay in roubles from today had caused alarm in Europe, where it was seen as Moscow’s strongest card to play to retaliate for Western financial sanctions. . . . Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the decree would not affect shipments which were already paid for, only becoming an issue when new payments were due in the second half of the month. . . .  Negotiations aimed at ending the war resumed by video link, even as Ukrainian forces made more advances on the ground in a counterattack that has repelled the Russians from Kyiv and broken the sieges of some cities in the north and east. Russia said . . . READ MORE . . .

TO BE CONTINUED

First and second, a Reuters investigative report on how increased Kremlin actions against what it terms “foreign agents” in Russia are affecting them, and an Associated Press summary on events related to the war in Ukraine. Next, a pair of Consortium News editors talk with a pair of economists on what Western sanctions against Russia could do to a globalized economy. — MCM

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Putin targets enemies at home as his missiles strike Ukraine, by LENA MASRI | Reuters LONDON — Long before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the mass detentions of Russian peace protesters, the Kremlin was already stifling dissent – with choking bureaucracy. Throughout 2021, the Kremlin tightened the screws on its opponents . . . using a combination of arrests, internet censorship and blacklists. The crackdown accelerated after Russia invaded Ukraine. Now a Reuters data analysis and interviews with dozens of people chart these tactics’ success in eroding civil freedoms. A widely used weapon in the Kremlin’s armoury is the state’s register of “foreign agents.” People whose names appear on this official list are closely monitored by the authorities.  Among them is Galina Arapova, a lawyer who heads the non-profit . . . READ MORE . . .

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Heavy fighting rages near Kyiv as Russia appears to regroup, by Nebi Qena and Yuras Karmanau | The Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine — Heavy fighting raged on the outskirts of Kyiv and other zones today amid indications the Kremlin is using talk of de-escalation as cover while regrouping and resupplying its forces and redeploying them for a stepped-up offensive in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an early morning video address that Ukraine is seeing “a buildup of Russian forces for new strikes on the Donbas, and we are preparing for that.” Meanwhile, a convoy of buses headed to Mariupol in another bid to evacuate people from the besieged port city after the Russian military agreed to a limited cease-fire in the area.  And a new round of talks aimed at stopping the fighting was scheduled for Friday. READ MORE . . .

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CN Live! — Ukraine: The Economic Fallout. Consortium News editors Joe Lauria and Elizabeth Vos interview economists Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff about the economic war against Russia and its boomerang effect on the West. Listen and read the transcript HERE.

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TO BE CONTINUED