“Putin puts nuclear forces on high alert, escalating tensions,” is the headline over an Associated Press report Sunday afternoon EDT. Other AP stories linked to that one are headed: “Ukraine invasion spotlights the delicate state of democracy,” “Sorting fact, disinformation after Russian attack on Ukraine,” “Ukrainian invasion: What to know as Putin alerts nuclear force” and “Explainer: How is Russia-Ukraine war linked to religion?”
Many Saturday morning newspapers carried an AP story headed, in one of them, “Kyiv Under Threat.” A teleSUR report on Saturday was headed “Lavrov; ‘Russia Does Not Plan to Occupy Ukraine.’”
Below, this weekend’s Weekender leads with a news release from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth on the efforts of a family in England to get a new inquest into the death of Geoffrey Campbell in the collapse of the North Tower at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. It is followed by several articles of news and analysis on the war in Ukraine. — MCM
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British 9/11 family says newly disclosed report used at son’s 2013 inquest proves ‘insufficiency of inquiry’ Following the February 11th disclosure of the sole document entered as evidence at Geoff Campbell’s inquest in 2013, Mr. Campbell’s family on Feb. 23 sent a letter to the office of UK Attorney General Suella Braverman in which they bolstered their claim that the first inquest involved an “insufficiency of inquiry” and thus that a new inquest into Mr. Campbell’s death on 9/11 should be ordered.
The family’s pending application for a new inquest, submitted on August 26, 2021, is based on two separate grounds. First, they argue there is significant additional evidence not considered at the first inquest that has a reasonable possibility of overturning the original verdict. Second, they contend that the coroner at the first inquest did not conduct a sufficient inquiry because she concluded that the North Tower’s destruction was due to the airplane impact without considering any evidence at all as to the cause. READ MORE . . .
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President Biden was right this past week that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent. Click on each to read AP accounts Friday and Saturday. They have been updated above on Sunday afternoon. What follows is a selection of views related to the war under way. Several are from the website popularresistance.org.
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Chronicle of a War Foretold: Chris Hedges writes, “After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a near universal understanding among political leaders that NATO expansion would be a foolish provocation against Russia. How naive we were to think the military-industrial complex would allow such sanity to prevail. I was in Eastern Europe in 1989, reporting on the revolutions that overthrew the ossified communist dictatorships that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. READ MORE . . .
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How the U.S. Instigated the Ukraine Crisis: Rick Sterling begins, “Russia has sent troops into Ukraine and attacked Ukrainian military forces. In a one hour address, President Putin said the goal was the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine. It is now clear the Russian statements and proposed peace treaty in December 2021 were deadly serious. At that time the Russians said the US and NATO were crossing red lines, they felt threatened and would not abide this endlessly. Now they have taken action. In his address Thursday, Russian President Putin gave a frank explanation which comes after years of complaints. The Russians have complained bitterly about the U.S.-promoted 2014 coup in Ukraine, the eastward expansion of NATO, the installation of missiles in Romania and Poland, the pretense that the missiles were for defense against Iran, the 2019 US withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement, the aggression against Russian speaking Ukrainians in the east. READ MORE . . .
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Britain Forgets Its History of Unleashing War in Europe. By Gavin O’Reilly. In the early hours of Thursday morning, in what will perhaps finally result in the COVID-19 mainstream media narrative being permanently banished from the headlines, almost nine years of Western provocations via its Eastern European proxy state Ukraine would culminate in Russia launching a military intervention into its Western neighbour – with attempts to resolve the situation peacefully by Moscow over the past several months ultimately proving fruitless due to Kiev failing to implement its side of the Minsk Agreements, which would see a federalisation solution in which the breakaway pro-Russian Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, located in the predominantly ethnic Russian Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, being given a degree of autonomy whilst still remaining under the rule of Kiev – both Republics being given formal recognition by Moscow on Monday instead, in response to the breakdown in negotiations. READ MORE . . .
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‘Russia Hits Back.’ Consortium News begins a two-hour program on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its causes, aims and likely results, HERE. Commentators include Alexander Mercouris, Mark Sleboda, Scott Ridder and Tony Kevin. From an introduction: “After 30 years of NATO expansion towards its borders, and eight-years of a coup regime’s attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine, Russia has taken military action to ‘demilitarize’ and ‘de-nazify’ the country. The world has rallied against Moscow, seeking to destroy its economy. It seems like that was the plan along. Russian President Vladimir Putin fully explained the reasons for Russia’s military intervention, which has been totally ignored by the corporate media. Instead it portrays him as a madman hellbent on conquering Europe. If you disagree with that assessment, of course, you are his puppet.”
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Nuclear Reactors and Ukraine: In an emailed message, Richard Heinberg recommends an article by Bennett Ramberg titled The Risk of Nuclear Crisis in Ukraine examining “an important angle of the unfolding geopolitical contest that most people are ignoring. Ukraine has 15 aging, poorly designed civilian nuclear reactors and the smoldering legacy of Chernobyl. Nuclear power supplies half of Ukraine’s electricity, but these reactors are vulnerable not just to bombs and artillery fire, but also cyberattacks. The results of a direct hit or power outage could be apocalyptic for the region. Radiation is no respecter of national borders, and Russia could be among the countries impacted. Nuclear power and war are both things we should work against; where both exist in one place, the dangers are simply unmanageable. There is a lesson here for those who recommend nuclear power as a climate solution: Don’t go there.” Heinberg, a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, asks readers with thoughts on this topic to please share them with me when you get a chance.