https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/russia-wins-landmark-wto-national-security-case-190405135306187.html

Russia has won a dispute about "national security" at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in a ruling that may lend support to global car tariffs that could be imposed by the United States.

The WTO panel ruling on Friday - the first ever on the right to a national security exemption from global trade rules - awarded Russia a legal victory in the Ukrainian transit dispute.

The panel also confirmed the WTO's right to assess national security claims, denting US arguments that national security was not subject to review by the global trade body.

Any such claim should be "objectively" true and relating to weapons, war, fissionable materials or an "emergency in international relations", it said.

Kiev went to the Geneva-based trade body in 2016, complaining of a huge reduction in trade with Asia and the Caucasus region after Russian President Vladimir Putin banned road and rail transport from Ukraine unless the route also went through neighbouring Belarus.

Russia argued that the diversion was necessary to protect its national security following a conflict with Ukraine over the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The panel said there "existed a situation in Russia's relations with Ukraine that constitutes an emergency in international relations", which meant Russia had "met the requirements" for invoking national security.

Russia's Economy Minister Maxim Oreshkin said the ruling, which can be appealed by either side within 60 days, had recognised Ukraine's arguments to be unfounded and said the issue was of "systemic importance" for the WTO.

Friday's decisions could have ramifications for a number of WTO cases hinging on claims of national security threats, including US President Donald Trump's tariffs for steel, aluminium and potentially cars.

Canada, the European Union and several other US trading partners have asked the WTO to determine if the tariffs are indeed necessary to protect the US's national security.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/iaea-asks-saudis-for-safeguards-on-first-nuclear-reactor/

The head UN nuclear inspector said Friday that his agency is asking Saudi Arabia to agree to safeguards on nuclear material that could arrive by the end of the year for its first atomic reactor.

Satellite imagery recently emerged of the Argentine-built project on the outskirts of Riyadh, which comes amid controversy in Washington over President Donald Trump’s approval of nuclear projects with the oil-rich kingdom.

But Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said there was nothing secret about the reactor and that Saudi Arabia informed the Vienna-based UN body about its plans in 2014.

He said the IAEA has encouraged Saudi Arabia to put into force a comprehensive safeguards agreement, under which the agency ensures that nuclear material is not being diverted to weapons use.

Saudi Arabia in 2005 signed with the IAEA a so-called small quantities protocol, which exempts countries from inspections if they have no or minimal nuclear programs.

“We have proposed to Saudi Arabia to rescind and replace it by the full-fledged comprehensive safeguards agreement,” Amano told reporters in Washington.

“They didn’t say no, they didn’t say yes, and they are now giving thoughts. We are waiting,” he said.

“For now, they don’t have the material, so there is no violation,” he said.

Amano said that Saudi Arabia may bring in nuclear material “by the end of the year,” although he cautioned that nuclear projects frequently get delayed.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s top crude exporter, has announced plans to spend $80 billion to build 16 nuclear reactors over the coming two decades as it diversifies energy.

The first project, being built by Argentina’s state-backed nuclear company INVAP, is a so-called low power research reactor, or LPRR, that is generally used to train technicians.

“Saudi Arabia has been dragging its feet for 30 years on getting meaningful agreements in place, but the LPRR means they must abide by international rules,” said Robert Kelley, a US Energy Department veteran and former director of nuclear inspections at the IAEA.

“Argentina is not going to supply the nuclear fuel if they don’t,” said Kelley, now a distinguished associate fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

He said that the reactor, with its small size, was insignificant by itself but was “opening a can of worms,” including the prospect of the Trump administration sharing sensitive technology without review.

US Energy Secretary Rick Perry told a recent Senate hearing that his department had given the go-ahead for six applications by US companies to do nuclear work in Saudi Arabia.

The approvals come even though Saudi Arabia has not sought a so-called Section 123 Agreement to guarantee the peaceful use of nuclear technology, which is required under US law before any transfer of sensitive material.

Saudi Arabia has come under sharp criticism in the United States over the civilian death toll in its offensive in Yemen and for the murder and dismemberment of US-based dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi.

“If you cannot trust a regime with a bone-saw, you should not trust them with nuclear weapons,” Democratic Representative Brad Sherman told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a hearing last week.

Pompeo, in an interview Friday with CBS, signaled that the United States would ensure that Saudi Arabia does not develop nuclear weapons.

“We will not permit that to happen anywhere in the world. The president understands the threat of proliferation,” he said.

Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has warned that the kingdom would seek nuclear weapons if its arch-rival Iran obtains one.

The Trump administration has allied itself closely with both Saudi Arabia and Israel and withdrawn from an international accord with Iran under which Tehran drastically curbed its nuclear program.

Amano, who met with Pompeo in Washington, reiterated that the IAEA has verified that Iran remains in compliance with the agreement, which is strongly backed by the Europeans.

https://fair.org/home/to-ramp-up-fear-of-russia-in-africa-nyt-downplays-massive-us-military-presence-on-continent/?awt_l=KEkPG&awt_m=hw1pIYdHE2R._TQ

The New York Times (3/31/19) added to its series of reports depicting Official Enemies surpassing the US in the race for global dominance. It seems that having taken control of the Arctic (FAIR.org, 9/15/15), the nuclear domain (FAIR.org, 3/7/18) and a whole host of other spaces the US is “behind” in, Russia is now gobbling up Africa—a threat the US, presumably, must counter with an even greater military build-up.

The report, “Russia’s Military Mission Creep Advances to a New Front: Africa,” by Eric Schmitt, asserting an uptick in Russian weapons contracts and military training exercises in Africa, is thin on context and hard numbers, but is artificially fortified with a series of anecdotes and frightening quotes. Since the obvious rejoinder to any discussion of increased Russian presence in Africa is, “OK, but what is the US’s current reach?” the Times hangs a lampshade on the inconvenience with this throwaway line:

The United States military has a relatively light footprint across Africa.

About 6,000 United States troops and 1,000 Defense Department civilians or contractors work on a variety of missions throughout Africa, mainly training and conducting exercises with local armies.

According to documents obtained by the Intercept’s Nick Turse (12/1/18), the US currently has 34 military bases in Africa; Russia has zero. The Times doesn’t tell us how many “contractors’ and “troops” Russia has in Africa, so it’s not clear what the so-called “light footprint” is “relative” to. Is it 10? 100? 10,000? If it’s a lot less than 6,000, then the story is a bit of a dud. Alas, we’re simply left guessing at the “relative” size of Russia’s Africa presence.

Also worth noting: “Light footprint” is the same Orwellian phrase the Pentagon has been using for years to obscure the growth of AFRICOM, as in this AFRICOM press release (6/13/12) :

AFRICOM Will Maintain Light Footprint in Africa — The United States has no plans to seek permanent bases in Africa, and, in the spirit of the new defense strategic guidance, will continue to maintain a “light footprint” on the continent, the top US Africa Command officer said.

It’s always reassuring when the paper of record adopts the US government’s preferred press release language. (See also New York Times, 1/25/12 , 3/1/19.)

Aside from quotes from US military brass, Schmitt’s report was primarily propped up with testimony from weapons contractor-funded think tanks, namely the Institute for the Study of War and the Center for International and Strategic Studies, which both provided urgent, stakes-raising narratives:

Russia is seeking more strategic bases for its troops, including at Libyan ports on the Mediterranean Sea and at naval logistics centers in Eritrea and Sudan on the Red Sea, according to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, a research organization in Washington….

“Moscow and its private military contractors are arming some of the region’s weakest governments and backing the continent’s autocratic rulers,” said Judd Devermont, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “This engagement threatens to exacerbate current conflict zones.”

Panic over a creeping Russia menace in Africa is timed, not coincidentally, with congressional debate over the Defense budget, submitted by Trump two weeks ago. In addition, some congressional Democrats and Republicans are working to erode what little caps exists for the military budget, with a planned vote next week in the House for lifting limits on discretionary Defense spending.

Needless to say, the primary funders of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Institute for Study of War—the think tanks whose juicy quotes and studies bolster the primary arguments of the articles’ premise—stand to make tens of billions in profit from both of these legislative efforts. Having the New York Times provide marketing collateral for these efforts is no doubt useful in convincing an increasingly war-weary public, and accordingly war-wary Congress, to rubberstamp yet another record-setting Pentagon budget.

For hawkish arms industry-funded groups like CSIS, the answer is always to build more weapons systems and to paint enemy states in the most sinister light possible. One 2017 study by FAIR (5/8/17) found that while commenting on Korea, CSIS’s experts either explicitly backed its funder Lockheed Martin’s THAAD weapons system, or its central value proposition that it would ward off a hostile North Korea, 30 out of 30 times.

>>6083609

There were zero examples of a CSIS rep downplaying a threat or arguing against more military spending. When asked in email to provide an example of CSIS saying any threat was exaggerated or advising against any kind of military spending increase, the CSIS spokesperson declined to comment.

The primary purpose of organizations like CSIS and ISW is to push the weapons systems of the corporations that fund them. Any analysis of their reports, studies or media appearances will show that at least 99 percent of the time, they come down on the side of hyping threats and pushing for the shiny new publicly funded instruments that would counter those threats.

This glaring conflict of interest, as usual, isn’t disclosed by the New York Times. A particularly strange omission, since it was the Times itself in 2016 that, citing leaked emails, argued (8/7/16) that CSIS was acting as a thinly veiled lobbyist for its weapons-maker funder General Atomics, and was, according to its own report, “blurring the line between researchers and lobbyists.”

“As a think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies did not file a lobbying report,” Eric Lipton and Brooke Williams reported, “but the goals of the effort were clear.”

They are clear indeed. Yet since that time, CSIS has continued to be the go-to source for analyzing global threats for the Times, without even a token disclosure.

Also as usual, the article went to no skeptical voices for any comment; the only sources sought were war makers and those funded by war makers. They all worked to paint a one-sided, cartoon picture of a Russian takeover of Africa, complete with the patented New York Times double standard of motives: Russia is said by Schmitt to be seeking “new economic markets and energy resources.” The United States? Simply there to provide “foreign aid” and “train and conduct exercises with local armies.” In the Times, the idea that the US would also be motivated by securing markets and resources would be tantamount to lizard people conspiracy theory talk. But for Russia, it’s simply taken for granted.

In the Times, Official Enemy threats are unquestionably bad, and unquestionably sinister in nature. The only answer? Let the Pentagon gravy train run its course, year in and year out, because invariably there will always be, with the help of the New York Times, the specter of an enemy threat “advancing on a new front.”

https://fair.org/home/to-ramp-up-fear-of-russia-in-africa-nyt-downplays-massive-us-military-presence-on-continent/?awt_l=KEkPG&awt_m=hw1pIYdHE2R._TQ

https://thehill.com/policy/international/437530-british-police-stationed-outside-ecuador-embassy-following-wikileaks

British police are prepared to arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange if he is ousted from his sanctuary at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Officers with London's metropolitan police department were stationed outside the embassy Friday morning following messages from WikiLeaks claiming that Assange would be moved out of the facility within hours or days, The Associated Press reported.

Police told reporters that Assange faces a warrant for his arrest in the United Kingdom, which he has been avoiding for years by living in the Ecuadorian diplomatic compound, and officers said that they are “obliged to execute that warrant should he leave the Embassy," according to the AP.

The news comes hours after a Twitter account representing WikiLeaks cited a high-level source in the Ecuadorian government who said that Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno, himself at the center of a corruption scandal triggered by leaked documents, was seeking to oust Assange from the embassy.

In a post on the organization's legal defense blog, WikiLeaks claimed that the move was punishment for Assange's alleged involvement in the leak of the INA Papers, which implicated Moreno in corruption schemes.

"The leak has sparked a congressional investigation into President Moreno for corruption. Moreno can’t be summoned for a criminal probe while he remains president. He is currently being investigated and risks impeachment," the blog post read.

Assange's lawyers have maintained that he had nothing to do with the leak. If he is ousted from the embassy, he could be arrested by British authorities and possibly extradited to the U.S., where he faces charges under seal.

“Remember that WikiLeaks has an internal organization and Mr. Assange is no longer in the editor," Assange's lawyer said, according to the legal defense blog.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/britain-must-follow-germanys-example-to-help-end-yemens-civil-war/

Unlike the United Kingdom, which has exported £5.7 billion of arms to the Saudi-led military coalition bombing Yemen to smithereens, Germany has largely been a passive spectator to the conflict. To the extent Berlin is involved at all, it is with political statements calling on the country’s warring sides to sit down and talk. During a donor conference last month, Germany pledged over £86m (€100 m) in humanitarian aid for a Yemeni population sorely in need of international assistance.

Just as important as what the German government is doing, however, is what it’s not doing: selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, the country responsible for most of the civilian casualties in Yemen as it seeks to drive the Houthis back into their caves in the north. Last week, German chancellor Angela Merkel decided to extend the temporary moratorium for another six months—a freeze that is desperately annoying to the UK and France, both of whom would rather pretend the Saudis are doing their best in order to justify business as usual.

Jeremy Hunt has testified that resolving Yemen’s civil war is a top item on his ministry’s agenda. So it comes as a bit of a surprise that Hunt penned a letter to his German colleague asking him to loosen the Saudi arms moratorium. It’s surprising because some of those very same weapons are being used by the Saudis to pound targets in Yemen which, in turn, kill more civilians and make the prospects of a political solution to the war more difficult. Hunt’s request has, unsurprisingly, gone down badly in Berlin.

The French are none to pleased either. Because Germany refuses to export defence equipment, any French hardware even remotely using German parts or technology is off the shelf for export. Paris is griping about sunk costs and beginning to suggest that future German-French cooperation on joint defence projects could be at risk if Merkel doesn’t stop being so strict. As one French official told the Financial Times:

“We are basically betting the future of the French defence industry on co-operation with Germany, and that requires guarantees that we will not become the victim of domestic German political games.”

In all fairness to France, arms export policy is a domestic political issue for the Germans. In order to get the Social Democrats on board a coalition government, Merkel agreed to cease arms sales to any nation participating in Yemen’s civil war. While Merkel has shown some leniency on taking a second look at the policy, the Social Democrats are dead set against more exports to the Saudis. And it’s not hard to see why.

Riyadh’s military campaign in Yemen has been a bumbling catastrophe for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose credibility as a leader is already severely shaken after the Jamal Khashoggi murder, slower-than-expected foreign investment, the kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister, and the counterproductive blockade on Qatar. The Saudis have prosecuted the war so abysmally that US lawmakers—who generally see any country in Middle East opposed to Iran as worthy of support—voted across party lines to withdraw all military assistance to the Saudi coalition within 30 days of the bill’s passage (Trump will veto the resolution once it crosses his desk). The statistics coming out of Yemen are horrifying: 24 million people in need of humanitarian aid; 3.3m displaced; 20 million (about 67 per cent of the population) hungry; and all kinds of civilian structures levelled to the ground in indiscriminate airstrikes from bombs sold by the US, the UK, and France. Just last week, a medical facility operated by Save the Children was demolished in one of those strikes; seven people were killed in the attack, including four children.

None of this is especially appealing to Germans, who remain sceptical of outside interventions and are much more prone to searching for diplomatic ways out of a crisis. Nobody in Germany is voting for a party based on whether it wants to sell weapons to Arab monarchies. Indeed, taking such a position would likely hurt rather than help.

For Angela Merkel, suspending arms to Saudi Arabia is the right call—morally, strategically, and diplomatically. German and European defence manufacturers will lose money, but Europeans will be able to sleep at night knowing that fewer of their bombs are being callously dropped on hospitals, markets, mosques, wedding halls, and homes.

If anything, Western governments should be applauding Germany for its stance. And after they applaud, they ought to follow Berlin’s lead.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/washington-senator-registers-lobby-cambodia-224941806.html

Washington state Republican Sen. Doug Ericksen has registered as a foreign agent in order to consult and lobby for the country of Cambodia.

Under documents filed with the U.S. Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Ericksen signed an agreement between PacRim Bridges LLC — a company he formed in 2017 — and the Kingdom of Cambodia on March 25.

Under the contract, first reported by Politico, PacRim will receive $500,000 a year to provide consulting services and to "work to support legislation that is positive for Cambodia." Among the services offered by PacRim will be arranging for cultural exchanges and visits by Cambodian delegations.

Ericksen is CEO of PacRim, and former Republican Rep. Jay Rodne serves as general counsel and chief legal officer.

Ericksen said Friday that while he didn't think he was required to file with the federal government, he did so because "I wanted to make sure everything was transparent and clear."

He said that while the contract includes language on supporting legislation beneficial to Cambodia as part of the work, his work will focus more on improving the image of a country that he sees as an emerging economy. "Our goal is to advise and consult with the people of Cambodia to improve relations with the United States," Ericksen said.

Because the Washington Legislature does not run year-round, many lawmakers hold outside employment. Administrators in the House and Senate were not aware of any other lawmakers who have registered as a foreign agent while serving in the Legislature. According to Jennifer Strus, attorney for the Legislative Ethics Board, nothing in the state Ethics in Public Service Act prohibits it.

"As with any member with outside employment, he may not lobby the Washington state legislature on behalf of his employer," Strus wrote in an email.

Ericksen was elected to his third term in the Senate in November, winning by just 46 votes. He previously served six terms in the House. In 2017, he temporarily served as communications director for the Environmental Protection Agency transition team following President Donald Trump's election.

He had received criticism for previous trips to Cambodia, including one to observe the country's July 29 elections that the White House had said were "neither free nor fair and failed to represent the will of the Cambodian people."

It its 2018 human rights report on Cambodia, the State Department cited several areas of concern in the country, including "unlawful or arbitrary killings carried out by the government or on its behalf; forced disappearance carried out by the government; torture by the government; arbitrary arrests by the government."

Ericksen said he doesn't dispute the human rights findings, but he said his trips there "paint a different picture."

He said that his interest in the country developed following a meeting with a Cambodian delegation at the state Capitol in the spring of 2016, followed by his first trip to the country with his family that summer.

Talks following his trip to observe the elections led to this new role. Ericksen said he did his research to make sure it wouldn't run afoul of any laws or rules.

"People talk about the optics, but nothing about the reality of a conflict of interest, because there is none," he said.

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonprofit group that works to limit money in politics, said that while there may not be any legal or ethical questions, "I find it highly unusual for a country to hire a state senator to be a lobbyist."

"I would certainly want to know what the Cambodian government thought they were getting," he said.

Ericksen said he believes the relationships he has forged in Cambodia will help the two countries work together on issues ranging from anti-terrorism to combating human trafficking. "I think it's a really unique opportunity to actually help people," he said.

Haaretz: https://outline.com/j8Dd9n

At the beginning of a secret meeting held on July 9, 1963 in Jerusalem, the main speaker apologized to his guests. “I must first of all apologize and ask to be forgiven for the delay,” said Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. He then immediately turned to the subject for which he had gathered the forum.

“The purpose I invited you to meet with me – besides that the matter itself is agreeable and important – is to speak about a single matter,” said Eshkol.

Those present in the room were senior journalists, members of the “editors committee,” an informal forum that met from time to time with the prime minister, ministers and senior government officials to receive classified – and not for publication – information. Eshkol quoted David Ben-Gurion, whom he had replaced only two weeks earlier: “It is possible to speak about things with the newspaper editors and if you ask for the things not to be reported, they can be trusted.”

After that he tackled the matter for which he gathered the group: Publication of articles on the nuclear reactor in Dimona – which was inaugurated only a short time before – in violation of the previous agreement on the matter. “In the last two or three weeks, on those things that according to what is acceptable it was required not to talk about in the press – the talking began,” said Eshkol. “And I mean what we call ‘the science and research in Dimona.’”

The minutes of this meeting, which were originally classified as “Secret” and kept in the Defense Ministry, were recently scanned and uploaded to the Israel State Archive website. Fifty-six years after they were written, someone decided that the time had come to declassify the material and the document was no longer sensitive. But on Thursday night, the document, which was marked as "not declassified," was pulled from the archive's website and is no longer available for view. Examining the document gives us a rare and fascinating glimpse into the Israeli policy of deliberate “ambiguity” on nuclear matters, which continues to this day, on the activities of the military censor and the complex relations between the government and the press in those days.

The minutes of the meeting show that other meetings preceded this one, in which the newspaper editors were brought up-to-date on nuclear matters. Eshkol reminded those present that in the past they had been told secrets with the understanding and agreement that while they knew these things, they were not to be written or spoken about. But later the newspaper editors had acted without any restraint and Eshkol told them he was “very worried.”

>>6083754

Eshkol rebuked the editors for publishing reports and articles that exposed state secrets. “There are sections in the press … that you need to be blind or deaf and lacking understanding, for those who read it not to know that Israel is busy with atomic energy not for the purpose of peace but for the military and defense,” said Eshkol. “One can assume that the Arabs are reading this, and the Americans and the French,” he added. “The American embassy immediately copies such an article and it goes everywhere it shouldn’t go.”

“The time is nearing when there will be a need for negotiation with countries and with nations on this matter,” added Eshkol. “Because of this, it has become more critical and severe and practical.” He told the forum that this is why he was asking them explicitly: “The matter of Dimona, the matter of atomic research – don’t mix it with any other matters.”

The newspaper editors asked questions, asked for explanations and voiced reservations. Arye Dissenchik, the editor of Maariv, noted that in the past they had been requested that there not be “noise all the time around this matter, and not to keep it in the picture.”

Jacob Amit, the editor of Al Hamishmar, tried to calm the fears of the new prime minister. “This body can be trusted. … We are happy about the trust we have earned, and I am certain that we will not disappoint in the future either,” he said.

“One thing is certainly clear: The matter is completely internal and secret, and it was obvious to all of us that this is not a matter for discussions and writing … It was clear to all of us that what they are doing in Dimona is not a matter for writing openly,” added Amit.

He asked: “And is it not clear to all of us that this is not the way we need to write, if we assume the government wants to prepare nuclear weapons for deterrence?” He answered his own question: “I propose we accept now too … that we are all interested that these things will not be written about. Everything does not need to be written about in the press. … I propose we say here to the prime minister that we have accepted upon ourselves this self-restraint, … that on this matter we sometimes place the yoke of the censor on ourselves.”

Amit’s colleague Isaac (Izik) Remba, the editor of Herut, had a similar opinion. “Everything that happens from the aspect of security, we are all interested in not causing damage to the country. … I propose to accept this formulation – every problem of the atomic activity and Dimona, we don’t need to publish about it,” said Remba.

>>6083754

>>6083761

Gershom Schocken of Haaretz did not agree with this far-reaching approach and warned against attempts to censor opinion pieces related to the nuclear issue. “The press is free to express opinions. As far as I recall, we have never been asked not express opinions on this matter,” said Schocken. “If the censor thinks that talking about certain types of weapons could well endanger the country’s security, the censor in the past has also used its authority and I assume it will do so in the future.”

Eshkol attacked Schocken’s approach. “The boundaries are not so blurred. If within this disagreement one says, ‘We aren’t doing so,’ and another says, ‘You are making all the preparations to make an atomic bomb, and this is during an argument, to prove that it is not necessary and harms Israel – this is expressing an opinion, but it says we are going and making an atomic bomb. Is the boundary so unclear?” said Eshkol.

The premier even made a veiled threat: “Nonetheless, I support and ask that the agreement be as was agreed to, … that on this matter there is no question of expressing opinions. It is possible to find a lot of weaknesses and ways to criticize the government or to express opinions about the government, but to actually bring this as an example – you are opening a dangerous front.”

Shimon Peres, who was deputy defense minister and responsible for establishing Israel’s nuclear program, participated in the meeting. He too disagreed with Schocken’s urging that publication of opinion pieces on the nuclear issue be allowed. “But if you write that it is forbidden to build an atomic bomb and for that we need to impose supervision on Dimona – is that expressing an opinion or presenting a news item? It’s clear that it reveals something,” said Peres.

Peres spoke out in public about the ambiguity surrounding Israel’s nuclear plans later on. “The reactor, there is no doubt it has given Israel a new dimension. This is the biggest compensation for the smallness of [Israel]. Here the technology compensated for territory, geography,” he was quoted as saying in his 2003 Hebrew biography “Al P’nei Haim Rabim.”

>>6083754

>>6083761

>>6083767

“That the reactor is all the time in a mysterious, murky state is okay because it is clear enough to be used as a deterrent for enemies, and murky enough so as not to provoke the anger of the world. This has given Israel self-confidence. Everyone has felt that the option to destroy us is gone,” he added.

In the meeting with the journalists in 1963, he presented one of the problematic articles – as far as he was concerned – to the editors, which had been published at the time on the matter. “According to this article, it is clear we are making nuclear weapons,” Peres rebuked them. At the meeting, he asked the newspaper editors “not to publish about France’s help … and the research material,” referring to the fact that the reactor had come from France and that French engineers aided Israel in building it.

Eshkol told the participants that the military censor was the one who asked him to gather the forum. “My address is the censor. He told me, ‘Speak with the editors, maybe it is worth talking about another time.’” Eshkol admitted that he was not happy to use the censor in a sweeping way, and said: “I know that we are not so enthusiastic for there to be fear of the censor in the land of the newspapers.” But he still concluded: “This is a matter of oversight.”

Eshkol asked to reach a “patriotic agreement of responsible people” with the editors. He explained: “This is something whose harm is enormous. … The matter is serious, grave and could well cause damage.” He tried appealing to the Zionist hearts of the editors, saying: “It is unimaginable that on this matter someone will want to harm or burden or make things difficult. … I ask you to lend me a hand on this matter,” said Eshkol.

He summed up the meeting: “I am asking the newspaper editors to be responsible for their papers not writing about the subject of atomic research and on the matter of atomic power, in a way that it will be possible to understand that Israel is working on this matter and using it for military power.”

https://outline.com/j8Dd9n

https://original.antiwar.com/Reese_Erlich/2019/04/05/ukraine-elections-putin-and-trump/

Ukrainians can chose a crook or a clown as their new president. So far the clown is winning.

Volodymyr Zelensky, a prominent comedian without political experience, received 30% of the vote in a multi-candidate election last Sunday. Incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, a corrupt oligarch, came in second with 16%. They face a runoff election later this month.

Like Donald Trump and comedian Beppe Grillo in Italy, Zelensky capitalized on his entertainment fame to run as an outsider staunchly opposed to corruption. Zelensky campaigned as if he was the character in his hit TV series, according to Nicolai Petro, a political science professor at the University of Rhode Island.

“He’s just an average guy who runs into increased corruption,” Petro told me in a phone interview. “He maintains fundamental honesty, and that’s what he’s saying as a political candidate.”

The election comes at a crucial time. The dispute over Crimea continues, and Russian troops back armed insurrection in eastern Ukraine. The conflict has killed 13,000 people and displaced millions.

Conflict between Russia and the US is also heating up as both sides compete for profits and spheres of influence in the region. And, interestingly enough, the conflict is connected to the Russiagate scandal. More on that in a bit.

During a reporting trip to Kiev on a blustery winter day I saw over 5000 young people waving huge yellow and blue Ukrainian flags as they converged on the city’s central square. They had just forced the prime minister to resign.

“It’s a great victory,” one student told me. “It’s a day I will remember all of my life.”

The year was 1990 when Ukraine was still part of the USSR. Ukrainian nationalists were convinced that forming a separate nation would lead to democracy and economic prosperity. It didn’t work out that way.

Ordinary people in the USSR were legitimately angry at the government and Soviet-style socialism because of a lack of housing, food and quality medical care. But opportunist leaders, backed by various western countries, manipulated that anger for their own power and profit.

Ukraine had the second largest economy among the Soviet republics with abundant natural resources, industry and a rich agricultural base. A Soviet pipeline carried natural gas through Ukraine to western Europe. Nowadays, both the US and Russia seek to dominate Ukraine for geo-political reasons, according to Lev Golinkin, a journalist and memoirist born in Ukraine.

“The US considers Ukraine to be part of Russia’s backyard,” he told me in a phone interview. “The US believes that if you can turn Ukraine into a western democracy, then Russians will want the same.”

Russian officials have the same concerns, only in mirror image. Russia doesn’t want Ukraine to join NATO and have hostile troops posted along its border. Vladimir Putin often talks about combating discrimination against Russian speakers living in Ukraine.

“Putin has positioned himself as a protector of the Russian world,” said Golinkin.

Over the past 20 years Ukraine has seen a series of mass demonstrations, elections and coups that have brought pro-western or pro-Russian governments to power. In 2004 the so-called Orange revolution replaced a corrupt, pro-Russian government with one backed by the US.

>>6083794

In 2013 elected President Viktor Yanukovych angered western powers by blocking plans for Ukraine to associate with the European Union. Ukrainians returned to Kiev’s central Maidan Square to protest against Yanukovych.

These demonstrations, dubbed the Maidan Revolution, included strong participation by Svoboda (Freedom), an anti-Semitic, pro-fascist political movement, as well as oligarchs bent on installing themselves in power.

The Obama administration played an active behind the scenes role in choosing Ukraine’s new leaders, as revealed in a tapped phone conversation between two high level US diplomats.

“Talk about meddling,” said Golinkin. “They are talking like corporate managers and the country is theirs.”

Petro Poroshenko, a pro-US billionaire chocolate manufacturer, won hastily called elections in 2014, campaigning as an outsider. Three members of Svoboda joined the cabinet, and one became deputy prime minister.

Russia retaliated by instigating an independence movement in Crimea, a key region of Ukraine populated mostly by ethnic Russians.

In Russia’s view, “the Crimean parliament had the right to self determination,” said Professor Petro. Crimea voted 95% to leave Ukraine and join Russia.

Meanwhile, according to the government in Kiev, out of uniform Russian troops invaded eastern Ukraine, an industrialized area with a large majority of Russian speakers. Allied with local militias, Russian troops still occupy parts of eastern Ukraine.

The US denounced Russian aggression and imposed harsh sanctions. Russia has weathered the storm, however, and Ukraine continues to face a low intensity war.

>>6083794

>>6083803

During the 2016 US presidential campaign, Donald Trump opposed pretty much anything Barack Obama supported. Obama had made Putin into a major US enemy. Trump promoted a right wing isolationism that included sympathy for strongman Putin. The Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia over the issue of Ukraine. Within days of taking office, Trump explored lifting those sanctions.

The possibility of warming relations with Russia freaked out the Washington establishment. FBI Director James Comey initiated a secret investigation of the Trump presidential campaign. I think officials such as Comey and CIA Director James Clapper used the claims of Russian manipulation of the US election as a cover to prevent warming of US-Russian relations.

Mainstream Democrats jumped on the anti-Russia bandwagon and attacked Trump from the right. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi infamously said, "It seems that Putin is Trump’s puppeteer, and that House Republicans have decided to join the charade.”

That’s very dangerous indeed.

Imagine if a progressive Democrat wins the 2020 presidential election and adopts policies opposed by the Washington establishment, say withdrawing US troops from South Korea. Would the FBI investigate Bernie Sanders for colluding with North Korea?

The FBI and CIA actions are completely unconstitutional, notes Professor Petro.

“Senior political appointees can really undermine the president’s policies,” he said. “I’ll give you three words: The Deep State.”

>>6083794

>>6083803

>>6083812

Presidential candidates Zelensky faces Poroshenko in a runoff election April 21. Zelensky has expressed willingness to negotiate with Russia while Poroshenko has publicly refused. Right wingers in Ukraine oppose any reconciliation with Russia and will seek to prevent talks no matter who wins.

As the world has seen, independent outsiders have a much harder time governing than campaigning. Nevertheless, a peaceful resolution of the Russia/Ukraine conflict is essential. Let’s hope that either side can make some headway.

https://original.antiwar.com/Reese_Erlich/2019/04/05/ukraine-elections-putin-and-trump/

>>6083844

Appreciate your adding context, anon.

>>6083834

As if you're literate.