RT News - December 27th 2022

Serbia builds up artillery and troops on its border with Kosovo, putting its army on the highest level of combat readiness in response to Pristina's reported attacks on ethnically-Serb areas. In depth report.

Tehran accuses London of a 'totally destructive role in anti-government riots'. That's after the arrest of several dual UK-Iranian citizens suspected of leading the unrest. 500 people died during the unrest, including Iranian police.

The White House pressured Twitter to suppress accurate information on COVID-19 that didn't fit with the government's guidance - that's according to the latest Twitter Files revelations.

165 million Indians died as a result of British colonialism, over a period of 40 years, academic study: https://mronline.org/2022/12/14/british-empire-killed-165-million-indians-in-40-years/#:~:text=In%20the%20report%2C%20the%20scholars,Nazi%20holocaust%2C%E2%80%9D%20they%20noted.

Ukraine wants a UN brokered peace summit - but without Russia (1)

Over 100 thousand Zambians, supported by the UN, are suing a UK firm for health complications from exposure to mining pollution over a 50-year period.

12 people have died and more have been injured in tribal clashes in Sudan.

The Taliban have told Sec. Blinken to mind his own business over women's rights in Afghanistan.
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Below 1) --- Ukraine calls for UN-brokered ‘peace summit’
2) --- Hawks in Congress may drag the US into conflict over Taiwan
3) --- One of UK's ‘most powerful warships’ longer in repair than at sea – The Times
4) --- China to ease strict Covid-19 policies
5) --- Key ally hints at Boris Johnson comeback
6) --- Twitter pushed the Pentagon’s Middle East war propaganda, and both will likely get away with it (OPED)
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Via RT website 26 Dec, 2022 21:11

1) --- Ukraine calls for UN-brokered ‘peace summit’

Russia would only be invited after facing international prosecution, says Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba

Kiev has proposed holding a so-called "peace summit" by the end of February to mark the anniversary of Russia's military operation against Ukraine. The initiative was announced by Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, who also set out Ukraine's conditions for inviting Moscow to the event.

In an interview with AP published on Monday, Kuleba admitted that while Ukraine will do whatever it can to win its ongoing military conflict with Russia in 2023, diplomacy will play an important role. "Every war ends in a diplomatic way," Kuleba said, adding that "every war ends as a result of the actions taken on the battlefield and at the negotiating table."

The minister added that the UN was "the best venue for holding this summit, because it is not about making a favor to a certain country" and suggested UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as mediator for the event.

"He has proven himself to be an efficient mediator and an efficient negotiator, and most importantly, as a man of principle and integrity. So we would welcome his active participation," Kuleba said about Guterres.

Asked about the matter of inviting Russia to this "peace summit," Kuleba insisted Moscow must first face an "international court" and be prosecuted for supposed war crimes. He also dismissed Putin’s recent calls for negotiations, stating that everything Russia does on the battlefield "proves" that Moscow does not want to talk.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky addressed G20 leaders in Indonesia and laid out a ten-point "peace formula," which includes the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops, an "all for all" prisoner swap, and a tribunal for those Kiev accuses of aggression.

Russia, meanwhile, has insisted that Kiev must "recognize the reality on the ground" as a prerequisite for any peace negotiations, including the new status of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye as parts of Russia.
https://www.rt.com/russia/568965-ukraine-un-peace-summit/
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27 Dec, 2022 00:37

2) --- Hawks in Congress may drag the US into conflict over Taiwan

Even if the Biden administration would like to hold back on provoking China, American legislators keep testing Beijing’s red lines

By Timur Fomenko, a political analyst

Just before Christmas, the US Congress passed the bumper National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which sets out all military spending by the US for the coming year.

The key to understanding the NDAA is that it is an annual ritual, its size gets bigger and bigger, and ultimately it will never fail to pass. Despite this, it is a hotly negotiated bill because it is a question of who should get what and why – the US military industrial complex wants its money, making it a fest for lobbying and arms procurement.

But the bill is also a competition as to which US senators can successfully use it to force through their agendas on other areas. As is the case with bumper-sized bills on Capitol Hill, especially before the session terminates with the end of the year, many congressmen engage in a process of “piggybacking,” where they strive to attach smaller bills to the bigger NDAA bill to get them passed. As one unusual example of such piggybacking, in 2020 China sanctions related to Tibet were passed as part of a Congressional Stimulus Bill. This is how the Congressional game works.

As a result, the NDAA bill, especially because of its national security implications and highly militaristic nature, is ripe for anti-China bills of every kind to be attached to it and pushed through, and as it happens a bill known as the “Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act” (TERA), which mandates up to $10 billion in annual military assistance for the island against China, was lobbed in with NDAA by hawkish senators and passed.

China wasn’t happy, and responded with the biggest show of force since Nancy Pelosi’s highly provocative visit to the territory in August. As described by the Associated Press, on Christmas Day Beijing sent “71 planes and seven ships toward Taiwan in a 24-hour display of force directed at the island”, sending tensions rocketing again. The exercises are a reminder that even though there has been some small-scale rapprochement between China and the West, in reality nothing has changed regarding Taiwan, and more so than the administration itself, it is the US Congress that is actively ramping up the tensions here.

Taiwan has become the centrepiece of the US strategy to contain China. Washington wants to maintain the island’s de-facto independence and separation from the mainland at all costs, seeing it as a strategic, technological, political and military bulwark. Taiwan is a crucial piece on the chessboard, and as that piece falls, it will allow China to gain military hegemony across the Asia-Pacific region through the sea lanes it will subsequently control. Thus, despite professing to follow the “One China Policy” wherein the US supposedly acknowledges Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, Washington has increased its support to the island significantly and encouraged it to pursue pro-independence adventurism, which has served to raise tensions.

However, the strategy doesn’t end there. As tensions heat up, and Beijing responds, the US turns around and calls China “the aggressor” and accuses it of destabilizing the region. Having thus played up the peril, it then lobbies other countries in the region, such as the Philippines, Japan and South Korea, to take sides, and states that they cannot remain neutral. This allows the United States to maximize its own power projection in the region, raise tensions and break regional integration between some of these countries and China. It is no surprise, given this, that many US hawks, particularly in Congress, relish the thought of deliberately escalating tensions further.

Because of this, the biggest provocations from the US over Taiwan in the year 2022 have not actually come from President Joe Biden or his administration, but from congressmen. While this notoriously includes Nancy Pelosi’s trip to the island, many other lawmakers have also jumped on the bandwagon and followed suit. Worse still, the conflict in Ukraine has also served to embolden these lawmakers and anti-China figures to push harder on Taiwan, leading them to draw parallels between the two situations, something that has also been encouraged from leaders in Taipei who have been determined to get attention over their support for Kiev.

Likewise, there is a growing accumulation of Taiwan-related support bills coming from hawkish senators such as Bob Menendez and Marco Rubio. Owing to the US separation of powers, it is difficult for the White House to maintain perfect control over its foreign policy, and it is often left making false reassurances to Beijing, even though Washington’s own actions are different in practice. This means that even if Biden is specifically choosing not to raise tensions at a certain time, congressmen have the power to do so anyway, with stunts such as this.

This all means that come 2023, there will be no alleviation of Taiwan-related tensions, and the matter will only get worse. US congressmen will continue to push political boundaries on the issue to provoke Beijing into reacting, as it did on Christmas Day, and with Pelosi’s visit, framing mainland China as an aggressor and stoking regional instability. China may feel it is demonstrating deterrence and acting tough, but the ultimate outcome of this is that things are only getting worse. Taiwan is a vicious circle. How much longer can it keep going until Beijing snaps?

#OPED: The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
https://www.rt.com/news/568939-us-biden-provoke-china-taiwan/
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26 Dec, 2022 16:35

3) --- One of UK's ‘most powerful warships’ longer in repair than at sea – The Times

The HMS Prince of Wales has suffered a series of costly failures since its launch in 2019

The British Royal Navy’s largest ship, the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier, has spent more time docked for repairs than on duty since it was commissioned in 2019, The Times reported on Monday. The vessel is currently sitting in a Scottish dockyard with a broken propeller shaft.

The £3.2 billion ($3.8 billion) warship has spent only 267 days at sea since entering active duty in December 2019, the newspaper reported, citing Ministry of Defense figures. Christmas Eve marked the 268th day it has spent undergoing repairs.

In a lecture earlier this month, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, chief of the Defence Staff, admitted that the carrier has been a source of “deeply frustrating” problems. Such megaships “are massive capital projects where sometimes things will go wrong,” Radakin added.

The Royal Navy describes the Prince of Wales as “one of the most powerful surface warships ever constructed in the UK.” Capable of launching NATO’s latest F-35B multirole combat aircraft, its flight deck is 70 meters wide and 280 metrers long, and with aircraft onboard it takes a crew of around 1,400 to operate.

The carrier’s malfunctions began with two major floods in 2020. The second flood filled the engine room with thousands of gallons of seawater, resulting in the Prince of Wales missing a planned trip to the US and returning to its home port of Portsmouth for six months of repairs.

The carrier managed to sail to Gibraltar in 2021, but disaster struck again a year later when it broke down shortly after leaving Portsmouth en route to the US this August. Engineers discovered damage to its propeller shaft, which naval officials reportedly blamed on the crew forgetting to grease it adequately.

A Royal Navy spokesman told The Times that repairing the damaged shaft will take until Spring 2023, after which time the Prince of Wales will return to Portsmouth to undergo more “pre-planned maintenance.”

The Labour Party has condemned Britain’s Conservative government for allowing the ship to repeatedly break down on its watch.

“We need our fleet at sea, not stuck in dock,” shadow defense secretary John Healy said. “HMS Prince of Wales is a NATO flagship and ministers cannot allow problems to undermine the ability of our armed forces to lead joint exercises.”
https://www.rt.com/news/568955-uk-aircraft-carrier-repairs/
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26 Dec, 2022 18:42

4) --- China to ease strict Covid-19 policies

The national coronavirus response level will be downgraded from the top ‘A’ level to ‘B’, the health commission has said

China has announced several significant changes to how it will manage Covid-19 outbreaks. Strict lockdowns affecting entire communities will no longer be implemented, while those arriving in the country will not be subjected to quarantine, the Chinese National Health Commission (NHC) announced on Tuesday.

The virus behind the Covid-19 disease is becoming increasingly “less pathogenic,” the NHC said in a statement explaining the decision to downgrade it from an infection requiring “A level control measures” to one demanding the less strict “B level” response.

“Although the number of people infected is large, the pathogenicity [of Covid-19] has decreased significantly compared with the early stage [of the pandemic], and the resulting disease will gradually evolve into a common respiratory infectious disease,” the NHC said.

The new classification will take effect on January 8, 2023, the statement said. Under the new rules, those infected with Covid-19 will no longer be subjected to “isolation,” and their close contacts will not be identified, the NHC said.

People coming to China will still need to take a Covid-19 test 48 hours before departing to the country but will not have to do another one upon arrival, the statement said, adding that quarantines for new arrivals were being “cancelled.”

Downgrading the Covid-19 response level also means that the regional authorities will not be able to lock down entire communities in case of an outbreak.

The new set of measures China is introducing to combat Covid-19 will focus on vaccination and protecting those aged 65 or older. The health authorities across the country are also being told to stockpile the necessary drugs and prepare hospital beds to be able to treat Covid-19 patients when needed.

China has been pursuing a so-called ‘zero-Covid’ policy with strict lockdowns and widespread testing since the first outbreak of the pathogen in the city of Wuhan in late 2019. Beijing significantly relaxed the curbs earlier in December, which prompted a spike in new infection numbers.

Bloomberg claimed last week that up to 248 million people, or nearly 18% of China’s total population, was infected with Covid-19 in December alone. The NHC officially claimed only 14,285 infections last week, along with seven deaths.
https://www.rt.com/news/568960-china-ease-strict-covid-policies/
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26 Dec, 2022 14:37

5) --- Key ally hints at Boris Johnson comeback

The former prime minister will be the Conservative Party’s only hope if it suffers defeat in local elections, Nadine Dorries said

An electoral humiliation in May could see former UK prime minister Boris Johnson return to office by next Christmas, ex-culture secretary Nadine Dorries has told the Express. Dorries remained one of Johnson’s staunchest supporters even after he was ousted from Downing Street in July.

“I think there is a chance if the polls keep sliding by this time next year we will see Boris Johnson back in Downing Street,” Dorries told the British newspaper on Monday

Dorries reasoned that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s low popularity, coupled with the prospect of defeat in local elections in May, will make Conservative MPs realize that they owe their political careers to Johnson, who in 2019 steered the party to its largest majority since 1987 under Margaret Thatcher.

“Many of the ­people who were anti-Boris realize they are nothing without their seat,” she continued. “They have no voice, no one is interested in what they will have to say, not even down at the job center.”

Johnson resigned in July following months of scandals centering around the breaching of his own coronavirus lockdown rules. While a wave of resignations within his own cabinet helped push Johnson out, his replacements – Liz Truss followed by Rishi Sunak – did little to resurrect the party’s popularity with voters.

According to a recent poll, the Conservatives would lose almost 300 seats if a general election were held immediately, and the Labour Party would storm to a 314-seat majority. According to the poll, Sunak would not just lose the premiership, but forfeit his own Yorkshire constituency.

The upcoming local elections will not directly threaten Sunak’s grip on power, but will serve as a barometer of public opinion on his government. A resounding defeat will likely embolden Labour to call for a general election before the scheduled date of January 2025. Labour leader Keir Starmer demanded a general election in October following Truss’s resignation.

"I think the local elections in May are going to be absolutely difficult for us but Rishi won't walk,” Dorries told the Express.

Dorries backed Johnson throughout the ‘Partygate’ scandal and accused Sunak and other key Tories of orchestrating a “coup” to remove him from office. Since stepping down following the appointment of Truss in September, Dorries has been working on a book about Johnson’s “downfall,” and is expected to be named on Johnson’s resignation honors list and awarded a peerage.
https://www.rt.com/news/568950-boris-johnson-return-dorries/
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26 Dec, 2022 15:44

6) --- Twitter pushed the Pentagon’s Middle East war propaganda, and both will likely get away with it

The social media platform has been aiding the US Department of Defense in pushing its agenda through fake accounts

(Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the recently-released No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using “Humanitarian” Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests.)

Information continues to roll out about how Twitter knowingly became a conduit for US propaganda efforts abroad that only serve to produce more violence and chaos. Sadly, this news has seemingly been greeted with a collective yawn by both the US corporate press and the American public.

A recent article by The Intercept details how Twitter facilitated efforts by US Central Command (CENTCOM), a division of the US Defense Department, to spread propaganda, particularly in and about the Middle East, using fake accounts posing as private individuals in the region.

These accounts were given special treatment by Twitter, which accorded them the same privileges as ‘blue-checked’ verified accounts, which, as The Intercept article describes, “would have bestowed a number of advantages, such as invulnerability to algorithmic bots that flag accounts for spam or abuse, as well as other strikes that lead to decreased visibility or suspension.”

And, of course, this was being done at a time when Twitter was deleting hundreds of accounts it viewed as associated with the Russian government and designating other such accounts as “Russian-state affiliated media” even when, as in the case of some of my friends, such as Fiorella Isabel, these accounts were of private individuals writing in their own, personal capacity.

One example of an account given “priority service” by Twitter was @yemencurrent (now deleted), which, among other things, “had emphasized that U.S. drone strikes were ‘accurate’ and killed terrorists, not civilians, and promoted the U.S. and Saudi-backed assault on Houthi rebels in that country.” Such a whitewashing of the US-Saudi war on Yemen – a war barely covered in the US press and therefore barely known to most Americans – is especially infuriating given that that war has been marked by the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure on a colossal scale and by the US government’s willful failure to even properly account for civilian casualties.

The US’ own Government Accountability Office has, in a restricted-access document reported upon by the New York Times in June, concluded that, since the war began in 2015, “[t]he State Department and the Defense Department have failed to assess civilian casualties caused by a Saudi-led coalition in the catastrophic war in Yemen and the use of American-made weapons in the killings . . . .”

The NYT also reported that earlier, “in August 2020, the State Department inspector general issued a report that said the department had failed to take proper measures to reduce civilian deaths.” The result has been an estimated 150,000+ deaths, including nearly 15,000 civilians, and one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in history.

And yet, Twitter aided and abetted CENTCOM’s misinformation campaign through fake accounts claiming that civilians were somehow not being harmed by US-manufactured weapons – claims that deceive American taxpayers about the war they are bankrolling, and which are designed to prime the government pumps for more aid to this unholy conflict that President Biden had promised to stop funding.

According to The Intercept article, other fake CENTCOM accounts given priority by Twitter “focused on promoting U.S.-supported militias in Syria and anti-Iran messages in Iraq.” Again, few Americans are aware that many of these militia groups the US has backed in Syria, while claiming to be “moderate rebels,” have themselves carried out terrible atrocities against civilians in that country. Fake Twitter accounts promoting such militia groups only further obfuscate this subject.

As for the “anti-Iran messages in Iraq” and elsewhere, The Intercept explains that, as reported earlier by the Stanford Internet Observatory, some of the fake Twitter accounts falsely “accuse Iran of ‘threatening Iraq’s water security and flooding the country with crystal meth,’ while others promoted allegations that Iran was harvesting the organs of Afghan refugees.” Such propaganda has a dual purpose: to gin up tensions and conflict between nations in the Middle East and to manufacture consent in the US for potential armed conflict between the US itself and Iran.

In other words, Twitter has been aiding and abetting the US Defense Department in war propaganda, an act that was established to be a crime in the post-WWII Nuremberg trials. If we had a fair and working system of international law, Twitter and Defense Department officials involved in such offenses would indeed be investigated. However, we do not have such a system. Therefore, it is up to the American people to act, having learned of such misconduct by their government and by the social media companies they rely upon to hold them accountable.

It is also up to Americans to finally realize that, when it comes to matters of war and peace, they are being lied to constantly, and they must withhold their consent for the wars that our government undertakes with the help of traditional and social media alike.

#OPED The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
https://www.rt.com/news/568943-twitter-pushed-pentagon-propaganda/
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