alanjjohnstone
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Respected political commentator John Pilger talks of a coming war with China.
HIROSHIMA AT 77: John Pilger — Another Hiroshima is Coming — Unless We Stop It Now
“…We are not meant to question the daily torrent of anti-Chinese rhetoric, which is rapidly overtaking the torrent of anti-Russia rhetoric. Anything Chinese is bad, anathema, a threat…”
The Bank of England determines if the UK is in recession
In the USA, it is eight economists who form an independent group called the Business Cycle Dating Committee, part of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Fact-checking the fact-checkers
Most of the “Fact-Checking” Organizations Facebook Uses in Ukraine Are Directly Funded by Washington
UNESCO has launched an anti-conspiracist campaign with Twitter called Think Before Sharing
https://en.unesco.org/themes/gced/thinkbeforesharing
“Conspiracy theories can be dangerous: they often target and discriminate against vulnerable groups, ignore scientific evidence and polarize society with serious consequences. This needs to stop.”
I always find it hypocritical that Amnesty or Human Rights Watch reports are trumpeted when it echoes criticism of your enemies but disavowed when it challenges your friends.
This applies to the Left as well as to the Right such as when Israeli apartheid is exposed yet when the Sandinista regime is called out, these organisations automatically become tools of the CIA.
I note the IAEA is raising an issue on the threat to nuclear power stations.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62449982But weren’t we always assured that these installations were built in such a manner to survive “terrorist” attacks? So now they are vulnerable targets.
This might be of interest
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/04/white-working-class-fiction-tories-obsessed
A report from Class, the union-funded thinktank, on new attitudes to race and class in Britain explains you cannot predefine the beliefs and values of a class, it says, and then filter for people whose views correspond to them. Instead, the researchers built their sample on a points system, taking into consideration class identity, housing tenure, education level, occupation, household income, and if and how one might pay a £500 emergency bill.
The “uberisation” of certain sectors such as academia, coupled with general pay stagnation and a public sector pay freeze, have combined to mean that old blue collar/white collar distinctions are no longer meaningful. You can have what used to be called a “middle-class job” and still struggle to meet your basic needs.
Their views will be ignored but opinion polls in America do not reflect the bellicose policies advocated by the chicken-hawks of the pro-Israel lobby and instead diplomacy should be the policy
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/08/05/polling-makes-clear-americans-dont-want-war-iran
In a survey of 1,330 likely voters, 78 percent of respondents said Washington must use its best diplomatic tools to “put an immediate end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program,” while only 12 percent agreed with the statement that the United States “must go to war with Iran in order to slow down its nuclear weapons development.”
74 percent of likely voters polled said they supported a deal that would use international monitoring to stop Iran’s nuclear program from progressing. On the other side, eight percent favored military action that would set the program back “by years,” and five percent supported the current path, even if it would allow Iran to develop a weapon in the next year.
A slim majority (56 percent) of Republicans would support a “new agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program,” even if that accord was based on the original deal.
Germany’s antziganism commissioner, Mehmet Daimagüler, seeks to ensure that aid to Ukraine reaches Roma communities. He said Roma faced discrimination in Ukraine, particularly in regards to education and health care.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-commissioner-urges-more-aid-for-roma-in-ukraine/a-62726762
He said Romani refugees are treated differently from other migrants and are sometimes subject to harassment and assault.
I found this article on the propaganda war a good read.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/8/4/western-media-and-the-war-on-truth-in
“…it is no surprise that governments, whether autocracies or democracies, lie about wars for tactical or strategic reasons. In fact, there is a fancy name for it – stratagem, which means to deliberately send untrue signals to unsettle the enemy while reassuring one’s own side…”
Amnesty International has said the Ukrainian army is endangering the life of civilians by basing themselves in residential areas…
“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/04/ukraine-civilians-army-bases-amnesty-russia-war
Ukrainian forces were using some schools and hospitals as bases, firing near houses and sometimes living in residential flats. The report concluded that this meant in some instances Russian forces would respond to an attack or target residential areas – putting civilians at risk and damaging civilian infrastructure.
It also criticised the Ukrainian army for not evacuating civilians who could be caught up in the crossfire.
While the Chinese provocative military exercises are rightly criticised, so too should the US one be.
5,000 soldiers from Indonesia, the United States and other countries have begun joint combat exercises on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, signalling stronger ties.
Garuda Shield sees the participation of several other countries, including Australia and Japan, making it the largest ever.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/3/us-indonesia-hold-joint-military-drills-amid-china-concerns
Forget the Sunak and Truss opinion polls, it is hard to believe but if Boris was standing he would trounce both.
Is the Tory Party full of masochists?
PRC’s announcement of six large exclusion zones around Taiwan starting on Thursday, and lasting for four days, has the potential to turn this into a full-scale crisis. Three of the six zones intrude into Taiwan’s 12-mile limit. That is unprecedented. If China were to move ships or aircraft into those areas, it would amount and invasion of Taiwan territory.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-asia-62377353
I am painfully aware that when Russia announced its exercises on Ukraine’s borders, the majority opinion here on the forum was that it was not going to lead to an invasion.
Nevertheless, I do not anticipate hostilities to break out…yet.
It will set the ball rolling in so many ways that was never intended.
Georgia taxpayers can now list embryos as dependents on their tax returns. Officials added that taxpayers filing returns from 20 July onward can claim a deduction of up to $3,000 for any fetus whose heartbeat could be detected.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/02/georgia-embyros-tax-dependents-fetus
In a news release on Monday, Georgia’s department of revenue said it would begin to “recognize any unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat … as eligible for [an] individual income tax dependent exemption”.
