British Warmongering Is Making Sure Escalation Is The Only Way Forward

The West Changed From Condemning To Praising A Neo-Nazi Organisation.
In June 2015, both Canada and the United States announced that their own forces will not support or train the Ukrainian Azov regiment, citing its neo-Nazi connections.
In October 2019, 40 members of the U.S. Congress led by Representative Max Rose signed a letter unsuccessfully calling for the U.S. State Department to designate Azov as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.
In April 2022, Representative Elissa Slotkin repeated the request – which included other white supremacist groups – to the Biden administration.
In 2016, Facebook first designated the Azov regiment a “dangerous organisation”.
Under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organisations policy, Azov was banned from its platforms in 2019.
The group was placed under Facebook’s Tier 1 designation, which includes groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and ISIL (ISIS).
Users engaging in praise, support or representation of Tier 1 groups are also banned.
However, on February 24, 2022, the day Russia launched its invasion, Facebook reversed its ban, saying it would allow praise for Azov.
( Bishnu Rathi, 12.02.2023 )  ..  tfiglobalnews.com

Palestinian Children Abused In Israeli Detention.
Palestinian minors arrested by Israeli forces face immense emotional and physical abuse, according to the rights group Save the Children, which has revealed the tragedy minors go through as detainees in a new report.
In the report, the group said some of the former child detainees it spoke to reported violence of a sexual nature, while many others were beaten, handcuffed and blindfolded in small cages in detention centres and upon being moved between centres.
The report says: “The main alleged crime for these detentions is stone-throwing, which can carry a 20-year sentence in prison for Palestinian children.”
It is estimated that between 500 and 1,000 children are held in Israeli military detention each year.
( Aljazeera, 10.07.2023 )  ..  aljazeera.com

Tories Accept Donations From People With Connections To Dictators.
While the Tory press have been up in arms over who the Labour Party accepts donations from, whipping up a moral panic over anything and everything, their outrage machine goes silent when it comes to the Tory party accepting money from those with links to dictators.
While the Sun and Daily Mail have slammed Labour leader Keir Starmer for accepting money from Dale Vince, a key funder of Just Stop Oil, they seemed not to be very concerned about the Tories accepting money from those with links to the Putin regime or to the former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.
The Labour Party has come under pressure from the Tory press to distance itself from Vince who has given it £1.5 million.
This despite the fact that Starmer has condemned the actions of Just Stop Oil and made clear that his donations have no impact on Labour Party policy.
Meanwhile, the Tory press have expressed little outrage over the Conservative Party accepting money from a former minister who served in the government of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.
Last week it was reported that Egyptian-born billionaire Mohamed Mansour has donated £5million to the Conservative Party to help them fight the next election.
After Mansour was made a senior treasurer of the Conservatives in December 2022, Labour said Sunak could not claim to stand up for integrity when there was “a billionaire who was a part of Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime being put in charge of drumming up donations”.
The Tories clearly have no issue with appointing someone who served in the regime of a brutal dictator, to a senior post within their party or accepting his money.
Amnesty International have reported a ‘litany of abuses’ which were committed during Mubarak’s 30 year rule, including torture, a crackdown on free-speech and any political opposition and widespread human rights abuses.
The Tory press of course made very little mention of Mansour’s ties to Mubarak and the human rights abuses that occurred under his rule.
The Conservative Party has also accepted donations from Lubov Chernukhin, wife of a former Putin Minister, who has donated more than £2million to the Conservatives from 2012 to 2020.
Chernukhin, is also on a ‘secret advisory board’ with direct access to Boris Johnson.
Her husband Vladimir, served as Mr Putin’s deputy finance minister in the early 2000s.
( Basit Mahmood, 30.05.2023 )  ..  leftfootforward.org

ISIS Fighter In Ukraine Received British Weapons And SAS Training.
A Belarusian criminal who was reported dead last month (April) in Ukraine claimed to have received training from Britain’s Special Air Service.
He was also filmed in possession of UK-supplied rocket launchers.
The man, Daniil Lyashuk, came from a far-right hooligan background until he converted to Islam and expressed support for jihadist groups like Islamic State, earning the nickname Mujahid (‘holy warrior’).
He led a pro-Ukraine militia despite a conviction from a Kyiv court for torturing detainees in the Donbas.
Lyashuk made the claim about receiving SAS training on his official telegram channel on March 27, 2023.
The post has been viewed over 100,000 times.
His death on the frontline near Bakhmut was reported five days later.
( Phil Miller, 04.05.2023 )  ..  declassifieduk.org

Farmers Are Polluting Rivers By Spreading Excess Manure.
A loophole in pollution legislation allows farmers to pollute rivers by spreading excess manure, with those acting unlawfully not facing any action in most cases.
The government introduced new farming rules for water in 2018, aimed at cleaning up England’s waterways.
However, after lobbying from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), including at least two meetings with ministers, the guidance was watered down.
Some farm businesses pollute waterways by spreading excess animal waste on their land.
When it rains, this runs off into local rivers, causing nutrient pollution and in severe cases, ecosystem collapse.
Natural England recently downgraded the status of the River Wye, a designated special area of conservation, due to a decline of key species.
The decline is due partly to large quantities of manure being washed into the river from nearby farms.
( Helena Horton and Billy Stockwell, 13.07.2023 )  ..  theguardian.com

UK Government fraud has almost quadrupled under Rishi Sunak from £5.5billion to £21billion.
The Commons’ Public Accounts Committee compares the two years before the 2020 pandemic under Theresa May’s Government with the two years that followed when Rishi Sunak was Chancellor under Boris Johnson.
HM Revenue and Customs, which was the direct responsibility of Sunak, contributed enormously to the rise in fraud after the then Chancellor approved £97billion to be spent on the pandemic furlough scheme, the bounce back loan scheme, and his ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme to combat the downturn in the economy during the Coronavirus crisis.
Fraud and error reached it highest ever known figure at DWP.
This was almost entirely due to the expansion of Universal Credit payments during the pandemic.
The Department for Health and Social Care is also listed as a “department for concern” because of the huge sums wasted on ineffective personal protection during the pandemic and the fact its agency, the UK Health Security Agency,  which ran the hugely expensive test and trace programme, could not provide enough figures to allow the National Audit Office to audit its accounts.
( David Hencke, 06.06.2023 )  ..  bylinetimes.com

Has Zelensky Officially Declared Himself The Dictator Of Ukraine?
Democracy in Ukraine is in peril as President Vladimir Zelensky is taking steps to consolidate power and limit democratic processes.
While he has not explicitly declared himself a dictator, his recent actions and statements suggest that he is willing to use any means necessary to stay in power.
One of Zelensky’s most concerning moves has been to delay elections while martial law is in place in Ukraine.
This effectively denies the people of Ukraine the right to choose their leaders through democratic processes.
The delay of elections in Ukraine has been criticised by opposition leaders and citizens alike, who see it as an attempt to consolidate power and prevent political opposition from challenging Zelensky’s rule.
Another concerning move by Zelensky has been his call for Ukrainian migrants not to return to Ukraine.
Zelensky had asked Ukrainian migrants who had traveled to the rest of Europe not to return to Ukraine because he had the fear that the migrants would spread truth about Ukrainian corrupt leadership and Zelensky would lose his seat.
The call for migrants not to return was seen as an attempt to silence dissent and maintain power.
Zelensky’s actions clearly suggest that he is willing to use any means necessary to maintain power, even if it means spreading fear and intolerance.
Since the beginning of hostilities in February 2022, Kiev has enacted laws criminalising political dissent, banned multiple opposition political parties and imposed strict censorship on the media and internet alike.
The country’s authorities have even persecuted the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church over its alleged ties with Russia, despite the church having severed its formal ties with Moscow early in the ongoing conflict.
These actions by the Ukrainian authorities are deeply concerning and suggest a continued slide towards authoritarianism.
( Abhijeet Sen, 15.05.2023 )  ..  tfiglobalnews.com

British Warmongering Is Making Sure Escalation Is The Only Way Forward.
It’s hard to ignore the extent to which the UK is playing an outsize role in Ukraine.
Last year (2022), shortly after the start of the war, the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, hurried to Kyiv – presumably on Washington’s instructions – apparently to warn Zelensky off fledgling peace talks with Moscow.
At around the same time, the Biden administration made clear it favoured an escalation in fighting, not an end to it, as an opportunity to “weaken” Russia, a geo-strategic rival along with China.
Since then, the UK has been at the forefront of European efforts to entrench the conflict, helping to lobby for the supply of weapons, training and military intelligence to Ukrainian forces.
British tanks and thousands of tank shells – including, controversially, some made from depleted uranium – are being shipped out.
The UK also added hundreds of long-range attack drones to the inventory.
And an unspecified number of £2million-a-blast Storm Shadow cruise missiles, with a range of nearly 300km, have started arriving.
Ben Wallace, Britain’s defence secretary, said the missiles were already in use, adding that Kyiv alone was deciding on the targets.
Storm Shadow allows the Ukrainian military to strike deep into Russian-annexed parts of Ukraine – and potentially at Russian cities too.
Britain now pays little more than lip service to the West’s claim that its role is only to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression.
The supply of increasingly offensive weapons has turned Ukraine into what amounts to a proxy battleground on which the Cold War can be revived.
( Jonathan Cook, 24.05.2023 )  ..  declassifieduk.org

Two French Neo-Nazis Arrested After Returning From Ukraine.
The arrest of two heavily armed French neo-Nazis returning from Ukraine highlights a looming problem for NATO states sponsoring the proxy war, and their conspiracy of silence on the nature of the threat.
On April 24, 2023, two French neo-Nazis were jailed for 15 months, nine of which were suspended, for possessing assault rifle ammunition.
The pair had returned to Paris from Ukraine two days earlier, and were arrested at customs.
Both were on the radar of French domestic spying agency DGSI, which held files on them for endangering state security.
According to the French outlet Mediapart, one was a veteran of Chasseurs Alpins (Alpine Hunters), France’s elite mountain infantry force.
He was thrown out of the military after his neo-Nazi sympathies were exposed online.
The other is a notorious local far-right activist.
As in many other Western countries, hundreds of French citizens have traveled to Kiev to take up arms against Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
According to the DGSI, at least 30 of the French foreign fighters are known fascists.
( Kit Klarenberg, 09.05.2023 )  ..  thegrayzone.com

Zelensky Is No Longer Ashamed To Broadcast His Jewishness.
In its bid to deflect from the influence of Nazism in contemporary Ukraine, U.S. media has found its most effective PR tool in the figure of Zelensky, a former TV star and comedian from a Jewish background.
It is a role the actor-turned-politician has eagerly assumed.
Zelensky has not only ceded ground to the neo-Nazis in his midst, he has entrusted them with a front-line role in his country’s war against pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russian forces.
Raised in a non-religious Jewish family in the Soviet Union during the 1980’s, Zelensky has downplayed his heritage in the past.
“The fact that I am Jewish barely makes 20 in my long list of faults,” he joked during a 2019 interview in which he declined to go into further detail about his religious background.
Zelensky is no longer ashamed to broadcast his Jewishness.
“How could I be a Nazi?” he said aloud during a public address.
For a U.S. media engaged in an all-out information war against Russia, the president’s Jewish background has become an essential public relations tool.
Behind the corporate media spin is a complex and increasingly close relationship between Zelensky’s administration and the neo-Nazi forces invested with key military and political positions by the Ukrainian state, as well as the power these open fascists have enjoyed since Washington installed a Western-aligned regime through a coup in 2014.
Indeed, Zelensky’s main financial backer, Ukrainian Jewish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, has been a major supporter of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other extremist militias.
The Azov Battalion, which is now a part of the Ukrainian National Guard, is regarded as the most ideologically passionate and militarily driven unit fighting pro-Russian Ukrainians in the eastern Donbas region.
( Bishnu Rathi, 12.02.2023 )  ..  tfiglobalnews.com

Neo-Nazi Accused Of Murdering Immigrants In Possession Of British Weapons.
A neo-Nazi accused of murdering immigrants has filmed himself in possession of five anti-tank rockets that Britain supplied to Ukraine.
Sergei Korotkikh can be seen with UK-made missile launchers in three videos posted to his Telegram channel.
Campaign Against Arms Trade said the discovery is “very troubling”.
It adds to evidence that some weapons sent by Britain to Ukraine have ended up in the hands of extremist forces.
Sergei Korotkikh, who is originally from Belarus, founded a Russian neo-Nazi group around 20 years ago – the National Socialist Society.
It spread fear in Moscow by targeting darker-skinned guest workers from the Caucasus and central Asia.
The group was banned and its members convicted of dozens of racist murders.
Korotkikh is alleged to have killed two migrants in 2007, beheading one of the victims – Shamil Odamanov – on camera beneath a swastika flag.
He would not be charged with murder until 2021, by which time he had long since left the country.
Korotkikh’s murky past in Russia did not stop him being welcomed to Ukraine.
He moved there in 2014 when the country was split over its relationship with Moscow.
He joined the Azov battalion, a neo-Nazi militia founded by Ukrainian far-right activist Andriy Biletsky to fight against pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas.
Korotkikh quickly acquired Ukrainian citizenship in a ceremony conducted by the then president, Petro Poroshenko.
Meanwhile the Azov battalion was integrated into Ukraine’s National Guard.
( Phil Miller, 17.05.2023 )  ..  declassifieduk.org

Prisoners Accused Of Murder Released In Ukraine To Fight Russia.
When Zelensky took office in May 2019, the Azov Battalion maintained de facto control of the strategic southeastern port city of Mariupol and its surrounding villages.
As Open Democracy noted, “Azov has certainly established political control of the streets in Mariupol. To maintain this control, they have to react violently, even if not officially, to any public event which diverges sufficiently from their political agenda.”
Attacks by Azov in Mariupol have included assaults on “feminists and liberals” marching on International Women’s Day among other incidents.
As war with Russia drew closer, Zelensky awarded Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the “Hero of Ukraine” commendation.
Known as “Da Vinci,” Kosyubaylo keeps a pet wolf in his frontline base, and likes to joke to visiting reporters that his fighters “feed it the bones of Russian-speaking children.”
When Russian forces entered Ukraine on February 24, 2022, encircling the Ukrainian military in the east and driving towards Kiev, President Zelensky announced a national mobilisation that included the release of criminals from prison, among them accused murderers wanted in Russia.
He also blessed the distribution of arms to average citizens, and their training by battle-hardened paramilitaries.
With fighting underway, Azov’s National Corps gathered hundreds of ordinary civilians, including grandmothers and children, to train in public squares and warehouses from Kharviv to Kiev to Lviv.
On March 1, 2022, Zelensky replaced the regional administrator of Odessa with Maksym Marchenko, a former commander of the extreme right Aidar Battalion, which has been accused of an array of war crimes in the Donbas region.
A 2016 report by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHA) has accused the Azov regiment of violating international humanitarian law.
The report detailed incidents over a period from November 2015 to February 2016 where Azov had embedded their weapons and forces in used civilian buildings, and displaced residents after looting civilian properties.
The report also accused the battalion of raping and torturing detainees in the Donbas region.
( Bishnu Rathi, 12.02.2023 )  ..  tfiglobalnews.com

Britain’s Mainstream Media, Its Army And The Israel Lobby All Joined Forces To Ensure Jeremy Corbyn Did Not Become Prime Minister.
An investigation by journalist Matt Kennard concluded that during his leadership, Jeremy Corbyn had been the target of 34 major national media stories openly sourced by former or current officials in the UK’s intelligence and military establishment, including MI5 and MI6.
The stories all cast him as a danger to British security.
Other governments were involved too.
U.S. secretary of state and former CIA director Mike Pompeo hinted in a private meeting with Israel lobby leaders that the U.S. government could stage its own intervention to stop Corbyn becoming prime minister.
Over the years there was a constant stream of alarming headlines about the alleged threat Corbyn posed to Jews—despite his decades of anti-racist campaigning.
In July 2018, three pro-Israel, British Jewish newspapers published identical front-page editorials claiming that a Corbyn-led government posed an “existential threat to Jewish life in this country” due to the “Corbynite contempt for Jews and Israel.”
During the 2019 general election campaign, right-wing columnist Simon Heffer claimed on live radio that Corbyn “wants to reopen Auschwitz”—the most notorious Nazi death camp where Jews were systemically murdered on an industrial scale during the Holocaust.
In December 2019, Corbyn announced he would step down as Labour leader, after losing the general election.
Keir Starmer succeeded him in April 2020 and intensified the party’s purges of Corbynites, saying he wanted to support “Zionism without qualification.”
Then in October 2020 Corbyn was suspended from the party altogether.
He had made an objectively factual statement that the scale of anti-Semitism in Labour had been exaggerated by his political enemies.
( Asa Winstanley, 30.05.2023 )  ..  declassifieduk.org

A Without Competition £1.6Billion Contract For Asylum Seeker Prison Barges.
An Australian travel firm previously slammed for its handling of Covid quarantine hotels has been quietly handed a £1.6billion contract covering the UK’s new asylum seeker “accommodation ships”.
Corporate Travel Management (CTM) was put in charge of the lucrative two-year arrangement in February 2023, weeks before the government revealed it would use a barge as its first offshore accommodation for asylum seekers.
The contract was awarded directly to CTM without competition.
Ministers have repeatedly refused to detail the projected cost of PM Rishi Sunak’s controversial asylum vessels, while insisting they will be cheaper than using hotels.
( Lizzie Dearden, 16.06.2023 )  ..  independent.co.uk

Tories Cost British Taxpayer £3Million In Severance Payouts.
The chaos at the heart of government last year (2022) cost the British taxpayer more than £3million in severance fees, because of the huge turnover of ministers and advisers over the course of three prime ministerships.
The government spent hundreds of thousands of pounds paying off senior ministers, including the former prime ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, and another £2.9million in payouts to their advisers.
( Kiran Stacey and Aubrey Allegretti, 20.07.2023 )  ..  theguardian.com

Half Of Local Bus Routes Have Been Axed Since 2010.
Since the Tories came to power, many small towns no longer have adequate public transport and residents are forced to use cars – if they can.
Pensioners have been left stuck and entire communities are stranded, with people struggling to go shopping or getting to GP and hospital appointments.
Figures show there has been a dramatic fall in the number of services operating across England since the Tories came to power.
Many small towns are now “transport deserts” with inadequate public transport options for residents to be able to travel conveniently without driving.
Official data from the Traffic Commissioners shows there were a total of 17,394 registered bus routes in 2010.
But this has plummeted with just 8,781 now remaining.
Around 2,160 services were lost in just the last year alone.
The West Midlands has been the hardest hit region, with the number of registered routes falling from 2,221 to 702 since 2010, a drop of more than two thirds.
( Lucy Thornton and John Stevens, 07.08.2023 )  ..  mirror.co.uk