RT News - June 27 2024 late

Ukraine is being used as a landfill for radioactive waste, these materials could be used to construct a dirty bomb - or many dirty bombs. Russian M.O.D. The likelihood of such a false-flag has been of concern to Russia since 2022.
Former British MP Andrew Bridgen has said he is concerned of such a false flag attack happening in Europe and has cited unnamed military services sources. Igor Nikulin (former member of UN Biological Weapons Commission) says that Ukraine would need help to created a dirty bomb. He also said that institutional bodies can't be trusted to independently do their jobs since the start of Russia's SMO in 2022. Please see https://tass.com/world/1714983 "Soros family makes deal with Kiev to use Ukrainian land as toxic waste dump"

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Short take: Police fire tear gas into crowds in the Kenyan capital, as protesters demand the president step down, despite him already conceding on unpopular IMF-pushed reforms. Bolivian President Luis Arce survives an attempted coup. While the general who aimed to orchestrate the regime change is arrested and charged with terrorism and armed insurrection. The Bolivian foreign ministry earlier accused US embassy staff of foreign interference in the Latin American country, which is a global powerhouse of lithium reserves. (See very last entry below) Lebanese officials seek legal action against a British newspaper that claimed the Beirut airport is storing weapons for Hezbollah. We spoke to a correspondent who investigated the claims.

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Russia strikes Ukrainian airfields set to house Western-supplied jets – MOD 27 Jun, 2024 10:45

1) Kiev’s backers have promised to provide as many as 60 US-designed F-16 fighters, but none have been delivered yet

Russian forces have struck Ukrainian airbases that were set to house Western-supplied fighter jets, including US-designed F-16s, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has reported.

The Russian military launched a group strike on Thursday morning, employing long-range sea-based weapons, the Kinzhal hypersonic missile, and unmanned aerial vehicles to attack the “airfield infrastructure of Ukraine, planned to accommodate aircraft from Western countries,” the ministry said in a statement.

“The goal of the strike has been achieved. All designated targets have been hit,” it added, without specifying the number or location of the airfields that were struck.

The report comes as Kiev’s Western backers, including the US, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands, have pledged to provide Ukraine with as many as 60 F-16s by the end of the year. However, none of the jets have yet been supplied.

Deliveries have apparently been held up because Ukrainian pilots are still only learning to operate the jets. Once they have completed their training by the end of the year, there will still only be a “handful” of pilots, according to recent media reports, which have also noted that Ukraine doesn’t have enough maintenance crews to service the jets.

Given that Kiev would not have sufficient pilots to operate all 60 of the donated F-16s, the chief of aviation of Ukraine’s Air Force Command, Sergey Golubtsov, suggested earlier this month that some of the jets could be stationed at bases in neighboring NATO countries.

However, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan emphasized last week that the plan is “to put the F-16s in Ukraine,” stressing that under a recently signed ten-year security agreement between Washington and Kiev, the warplanes would have to be based in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Moscow has repeatedly warned that any Western weapons delivered to Ukraine will be considered “legitimate targets” for strikes by Russian forces, including foreign-supplied fighter jets and the bases that house them.

Russian State Duma Defense Committee chairman Andrey Kartapolov has also stressed that if any Western-supplied F-16s are used by Kiev in combat operations while stationed at NATO airfields, then these facilities would also become legitimate targets for Moscow.
https://www.rt.com/russia/600087-ukraine-western-planes-attack/
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2) Australian politician blames Assange for years of captivity 27 Jun, 2024 08:11

It was the WikiLeaks founder’s own decision to resist extradition, senior opposition figure Simon Birmingham has said

The opposition leader in the Australian Senate, Simon Birmingham, has claimed Julian Assange’s years of confinement in the UK were the result of his own actions, as he evaded lawful extradition requests.

On Wednesday, the Wikileaks founder walked free from a courtroom in a remote US Pacific territory, after pleading guilty to a single count of conspiracy to obtain and disseminate national defense information – in exchange for a sentence that amounted to the time he spent in UK custody fighting a US extradition request. The Australian government, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, had sought his release.

In an interview with Sky News Australia on Thursday, Simon Birmingham predicted that “the prime minister’s embrace of Mr. Assange might not age very well, once Mr Assange starts tweeting again.”

He insisted that Assange should not be considered an innocent Australian citizen, persecuted by an authoritarian government.

“Mr. Assange evaded lawful extradition requests, first by hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy, then by using his legal rights in the United Kingdom to challenge them over many years,” Birmingham said. “The reason it has taken so long to resolve this is his decision to challenge it in that way.”

Ecuador granted Assange political asylum in 2012 due concerns that a Swedish extradition request for the Wikileaks founder was a ruse to have him sent to the US. American espionage charges, which were made public years later, could have landed the Australian up to 175 years of prison time.

The Australian Senate opposition leader claimed that the publishing of classified materials by WikiLeaks endangered the sources of US allies, including Australia, which is a member of the Five Eye intelligence-sharing group.

A similar argument was made by US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, who claimed during a daily briefing on Wednesday that Assange “put the lives of our partners, our allies and our diplomats at risk, especially those who work in dangerous places, like Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Some journalists, including Associated Press reporter Matt Lee, challenged him – pointing out that the court verdict specifically said that there were no victims in the case and that the US government never identified to the public any individual put in harm’s way by WikiLeaks.

“Just because people were able to mitigate the harm done by your actions, that doesn’t absolve you,” Miller responded, comparing publication of leaked documents to reckless driving.
https://www.rt.com/news/600079-assange-bad-actor-australia/
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3) ‘House of Fools’ remark sparks row between top Russian officials 27 Jun, 2024 13:58

The speaker of the State Duma has taken issue with Russia’s top investigator for allegedly slighting the legislature

Vyacheslav Volodin, the chair of the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, has accused a fellow senior official of insulting voters by jokingly calling the legislature a “House of Fools.”

The strong reaction followed remarks by Aleksandr Bastrykin, who heads the Investigative Committee of Russia. During a debate about migration controls at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum on Thursday, Bastrykin, a strong proponent of tougher controls, complained that MPs were slow in implementing expected reforms.

”I’d really want to know when our State Dura – sorry about that – approves good laws,” he said.

”Dura” means “foolish woman” in Russian and resembles the word “Duma”, the name commonly used for the lower house of the national legislature.

Volodin took offense at the supposed slip and told journalists that Bastrykin had offended all Russian citizens who elect MPs to the chamber to represent their interests.

The Investigative Committee’s spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko, commenting on the issue later on Thursday, said Bastrykin “in no way wanted to offend” MPs, but rather sought “to draw their attention to the need for legislative changes in the field of migration” by quoting “one of multiple comments on social media.”

The “House of Fools” joke isn’t new; it was introduced into Russian political slang by journalist Vladimir Pozner in 2013. Speaking at a television show he hosted, the political commentator called the lower chamber that way, before quickly correcting himself, as he was criticizing a proposed law that would affect the press and him personally.

While some people took the apparent slip of tongue as intentional, Pozner insisted it was a mistake and apologized in a later episode.
https://www.rt.com/russia/600104-bastrykin-volodin-state-duma/
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4) EU to U-turn on Ukrainian exports – FT 27 Jun, 2024 09:11

The bloc has reportedly decided to reimpose tariffs on cheap eggs and sugar to protect its own farmers

The EU is set to reimpose tariffs on sugar and egg imports from Ukraine on Friday to protect the bloc’s farmers from a flood of cheap goods, the Financial Times (FT) has reported.

EU member states decided earlier this year that they would apply an “emergency brake” if Ukrainian imports reached a certain volume.

Eggs and sugar imports have now hit that level, the FT said, citing people familiar with the situation. Tariffs amounting to €419 ($448) per ton of white sugar and €339 ($362) per ton of raw sugar will be announced on Friday, the publication reported. Eggs will cost an additional 32 cent per kilogram, it added.

Ukraine has become the EU’s leading supplier of eggs after the bloc’s poultry industry suffered from bird flu outbreaks in recent years. Imports from Ukraine jumped by three-quarters in 2023, and continued to rise at the start of this year, according to EU data.

Last week, tariffs were reintroduced on Ukrainian oats as imports also reached the relevant ceiling.

The decision to limit Ukrainian imports follows months of protests by farmers. Agricultural workers argue that the EU’s policies are threatening their livelihoods.

After the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, Brussels dropped all tariffs and quotas on Kiev’s farming goods for a period of one year to allow its agricultural products to be shipped to global markets.

Farmers in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and other neighboring countries staged protests, complaining that they simply could not compete with cheap Ukrainian imports that were not subject to the same tariffs and regulations as EU-produced goods.

In April, EU lawmakers extended Kiev’s duty-free access to member states’ markets but also decided to introduce caps on Ukrainian farm imports such as oats, corn, maize, honey, eggs, poultry, and sugar. Duties would be applied to the listed produce if imports exceed average levels of past years.

The expected reintroduction of tariffs comes just days after the EU opened membership talks with Kiev, “an agricultural powerhouse,” the FT said. The move underlines how difficult Ukraine’s accession negotiations will be, it added.
https://www.rt.com/news/600085-eu-tariffs-ukraine-sugar-eggs/
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5) Russian city abandons waste recycling program 27 Jun, 2024 15:58

Vladivostok has been struggling with infrastructure and staffing issues, according to local media

Russia’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok has abandoned the practice of separate waste collection for recycling, due to operating setbacks, local media reported on Thursday.

The VladNews website, citing a local environmental body, wrote that the city has been struggling with a lack of infrastructure and staff to remove and process the waste. As a result, a decision was made to start removing recycling containers throughout the city.

“It is physically impossible to cope with the current problems, so first of all we need to restore order,” Aleksey Borisov, the acting director of the Primorsky Environmental Operator (PEO), was quoted as saying.

PEO is part of the Russian Environmental Operator (REO), a public company established by President Vladimir Putin to form a new system for handling solid municipal waste.

Borisov said recruiting drivers to collect garbage was a major issue, and cited a local law restricting foreigners from being hired for the position.

Vladivostok is the second-largest city in the Russian Far East, with a population of nearly 600,000 as of 2024. It is the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean.

In 2019, the Russian government launched a ‘waste disposal reform’ project to promote recycling and trash-sorting, following on from previous efforts to tackle critically overfilled landfill sites and unauthorized dumps across the country.

The project was designed to improve the process of collecting, transporting and processing waste, and to introduce nationwide separation of recyclable and non-recyclable trash.

As part of the program, many yard waste collection sites were equipped with two containers instead of usual single one, to sort the garbage. More than 320,000 containers for separated waste have been set up across the country since 2019, according to REO. As a result, it is expected that 100% of waste in Russia will be sorted by 2030, the operator has said.
https://www.rt.com/russia/600097-russia-vladivostok-waste-recycling/
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6) Russian MPs to appeal to UN over ‘US biolabs’ in Africa 27 Jun, 2024 12:51

The continent should not be used as “a testing ground” by Washington, lawmaker Aleksandr Babakov has stated

The Russian State Duma is preparing an appeal to the UN regarding the alleged activity of US military biolaboratories in Africa, Deputy Chairman Aleksandr Babakov has said.

In an interview with Russian media on Wednesday, Babakov stated that Africa should not be used as a “testing ground” by Washington.

According to the MP, the US is continuing “racist colonial policies towards the people of Africa.” Political elites in Washington lecture the world on democracy, while simultaneously deploying troops in sovereign states and instigating color revolutions, Babakov claimed.

He asserted that these actions have now escalated to conducting experiments on humans and creating biolaboratories as the US military seeks to engineer new weapons.

“This issue needs to be addressed at the UN Security Council, and we are currently preparing an appropriate appeal to the UN,” the Russian lawmaker stated.

On Tuesday, the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, claimed that Washington is expanding its biological military presence across Africa. He highlighted Africa as a new zone of interest for the US Defense Department and related agencies.

“Because Russia has managed to halt the implementation of biological warfare programs in Ukraine’s liberated territories, the Pentagon is forced to transfer incomplete research under Ukrainian projects to other regions,” Kirillov alleged.

Russia has documents confirming the rapid expansion of the US biological warfare presence in Africa, the general added.

At the end of last year, Kirillov said Russia had obtained documents proving that the US had conducted research on bioweapon components and highly dangerous pathogens in Ukraine.
https://www.rt.com/africa/600098-africa-us-un-biolaboratories/
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7) Israel reports ‘progress’ in US arms shipments 26 Jun, 2024 21:00

The two countries have moved forward on the issue of munitions supply, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has claimed

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday reported making “significant progress” on the issue of US munitions supply to the country during a series of meetings with top officials in Washington this week.

The minister made the remarks after a meeting with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, which concluded his visit to the US. During the talks, “obstacles were removed and bottlenecks were addressed” on several issues, including the supply of munitions to West Jerusalem, Gallant stated.

“I would like to thank the US administration and the American public for their enduring support for the State of Israel,” he stated.

During the meeting with Sullivan, the two “discussed developments in Gaza and the various efforts undertaken to bring the hostages back to Israel,” the minister revealed. The talks also revolved around “Israel’s commitment to ensuring the safe return of Israeli communities to their homes in the north by changing the security reality in the area, and the important cooperation between Israel and the United States vis-à-vis Iranian aggression and its nuclear ambitions,” he added.

Israeli media reports, however, suggested the minister might have overstated the success of the talks. An unnamed US official told Channel 12 that the White House fears the munitions could end up being used for launching a new campaign in Lebanon against the militant group Hezbollah. Therefore, a shipment of heavy aerial bombs that Washington has withheld will not be delivered even after Israel concludes its operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the source told the broadcaster.

The US put on hold delivery of weapons to Israel in early May amid calls for it to scale back its assault on Rafah. The shipment in question reportedly included 3,500 heavy aerial bombs for fighter jets. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had told him the White House was actually “working day and night to remove these bottlenecks” in arms shipments.

Israel declared war on Hamas after the Palestinian militant group launched a surprise attack in the south of the country, taking over 200 hostages and leaving more than 1,200 dead. The Gaza campaign has inflicted widespread destruction on the Palestinian enclave, with more than 37,000 Palestinians killed over the months of fighting and heavy artillery and aerial bombing, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
https://www.rt.com/news/600070-israel-us-arms-progress/
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8) NATO to give Ukraine ‘something solid’ at summit – NYT 27 Jun, 2024 11:41

The bloc wants to ensure that its upcoming gathering in Washington is “smoother” than last year’s, the paper reported

NATO intends to offer Ukraine a new military headquarters to manage aid and weapons donated by the West, instead of a pathway to membership, at the bloc’s summit in Washington next month, the New York Times has reported.

According to US and NATO officials cited by the paper on Wednesday, the new HQ would assure Ukraine of NATO’s long-term commitment to its security and serve as a “bridge” for Kiev to eventually join the US-led military bloc in the future.

The administration of US President Joe Biden and the NATO leadership “came up with the idea as a way to give something solid to Kiev at the summit, even as they maintain the time is not right for Ukraine to join,” the NYT reported.

The hope is that the offer will “satisfy” Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who sees joining NATO as a top priority, leading to “a smoother summit than the last one, a year ago in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he made his unhappiness clear when Ukraine was not offered a firm timeline for membership negotiations,” the article claimed.

Back then, Zelensky slammed NATO’s decision not to hand an invitation to Ukraine as “unprecedented and absurd,” insisting in a social media post that “uncertainty” on the issue was a sign of the bloc’s “weakness.” The comments left US officials “furious,” according to the Washington Post.

The unnamed officials who spoke to the NYT, said that the headquarters would be based at a US military facility in Wiesbaden, Germany, and headed by a three-star general – most likely an American one – reporting directly to the head of the US European Command, General Christopher Cavoli.

The mission – called the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) – is expected to put all aid to Kiev under one umbrella. NATO states have so far been assisting Ukraine on a country-by-country basis. The HQ will also coordinate Western training of Kiev’s troops, the sources said.

As a NATO project, NSATU would remain operational even if Donald Trump, who has expressed skepticism about continuing to support Kiev, wins the US presidential election in November, the officials stressed.

Preventing Ukraine from joining NATO has been cited by Moscow as a key goal of its military operation, launched in February 2022.

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would be prepared to immediately start peace talks with Kiev if it were to withdraw all of its troops from Russia’s Donbass, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and formally state that “it no longer plans to join NATO.” Putin’s peace proposal was instantly rejected by both Ukraine and its Western backers.
https://www.rt.com/news/600088-nato-summit-us-ukraine/
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9) World headed for ‘food wars’ – major commodities trader 26 Jun, 2024 20:22

Geopolitical tensions and protectionist policies have been exacerbating inflation globally, according to Olam Agri

The world is facing “food wars” as geopolitical tensions have triggered a rise of protectionism amid concerns about waning supplies, according to one of the largest global agricultural commodity traders, Olam Agri, as cited by the Financial Times on Wednesday.

The Singapore-based trading house is part of the wider Olam Group, which operates in more than 60 countries and supplies food and industrial raw materials to 22,000 customers worldwide.

“We have fought many wars over oil. We will fight bigger wars over food and water,” Olam Agri’s chief executive Sunny Verghese was quoted as saying at the Redburn Atlantic and Rothschild consumer conference last week.

The CEO warned that trade barriers imposed by governments seeking to prop up domestic food stocks had exacerbated food inflation.

According to the report, food prices started to climb in the wake of the pandemic and soared after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict and Western sanctions against Russia. The restrictions have resulted in some exports of grain and fertilizers being blocked, deepening food insecurity in poorer countries and exacerbating the cost-of-living crisis.

At the same time, big agricultural commodity traders reaped record profits in 2022, Verghese pointed out.

According to the CEO, the elevated food price inflation was in part the result of government intervention as wealthier countries stockpiled surpluses of strategic commodities which had “created an exaggerated demand-supply imbalance.”

“India, China, everybody has got buffer stocks,” Verghese said, adding: “That is only exacerbating the global problem.”

Climate change, which has hampered agricultural production globally, has also led to the rise of protectionism worldwide, Verghese argued. He mentioned Indonesia banning palm oil exports in 2022 to protect the local market and India imposing export restrictions on certain types of rice last year in an effort to curb rising domestic prices.

“You’re going to see more and more of that,” Verghese said.

He called on the gathering of consumer industry executives, which included the heads of Coca-Cola and Associated British Foods, to “wake up” and take more action on climate change.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned earlier that the world is advancing toward a catastrophic future where tens of millions of people will be at risk of famine unless climate change is adequately addressed. Extreme weather events are having a significant negative impact on crops, herds, and ecosystems, prompting further concerns about global food availability, he said.
https://www.rt.com/news/600069-world-food-wars-inflation/
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10) BBC criticized over ‘bizarre’ voting question 27 Jun, 2024 09:54

Pollster Scarlett Maguire claims a journalist asked her how she voted in the last election before she was allowed on air

A regular contributor to British state broadcaster the BBC has claimed she was asked to disclose how she voted in the last election before being allowed on air. After she expressed incredulity on social media, an anonymous BBC representative told The Telegraph that the inappropriate question had been posed by an inexperienced employee by mistake.

Scarlett Maguire, a director at polling company JL Partners, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday: “Bizarre interaction this morning just before going into an interview at the BBC. Was asked *how I voted* at the last election as a precondition for coming on air. Is this standard practice for guests now??”

An unnamed BBC source put the incident down to a junior employee misinterpreting the “guidelines around impartiality on this occasion,” according to The Telegraph.

Under the BBC’s internal rules, staff should not “automatically assume” that their guests are free from bias, and should elicit “appropriate information about their affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints.”

In an unrelated case last November, Al Jazeera reported that eight BBC employees had accused the broadcaster of failing to accurately cover the conflict in Gaza due to “lack of critical engagement with Israel’s claims.”

The month before, the BBC launched an investigation into six reporters and a freelance contributor working for its Arabic service, who were accused of exhibiting anti-Israel bias and cheering attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on social media.

Around the same time, Israeli President Isaac Herzog lambasted the BBC for using the word “militants” as opposed to terrorists in reference to Hamas members. Later, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Peter Lerner suggested that the broadcaster owed Israel an apology after expressing doubts over IDF claims regarding Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. Israeli forces entered this medical facility, claiming that it was being used by Hamas as an arms depot, and was connected to the group’s extensive network of underground tunnels.

In January 2023, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi claimed that the “bias, the lack of objectivity and, frankly, a continuing colonial mindset, is blatantly visible” in a BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The program alleged that Modi’s government discriminated against Muslims, and claimed that the politician may have played a role in instigating ethnic riots in 2002.
https://www.rt.com/news/600082-bbc-asks-contributor-last-elex/
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Key points about the situation in Bolivia:

Development of events
- The square before the government building in La Paz has been occupied by the military. Army units break into the building, according to the Telesur TV channel.

- An armored vehicles reportedly entered the presidential palace territory.

- Staff of government and parliament buildings has been evacuated, according to El Deber.

The general’s intentions
- Bolivian General Zuniga, dismissed from the position of an Army Commander, announced that he intends to "take the Homeland back."

- Zuniga was dismissed after he announced his readiness to arrest ex-President Evo Morales.

- Morales accused Zuniga of a coup attempt. He called for a "civil mobilization for protection of democracy" and announced a strike and road blocking.

International reaction
- The Foreign Ministry of Bolivia called on the international community to support the legitimate government of President Luiz Arce.

- President of Honduras Xiomara Castro announced that she convenes an emergency meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called the coup attempt outrageous and expressed his solidarity with Arce.

- President of Mexico Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador condemned the coup attempt and stated total support to the incumbent president of the republic.

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