It’s the biggest and most controversial Defence project in the country’s history with $368B worth of eggs put in the one basket. The Government would have you believe it’s all going well. Former project manager and submariner Rex Patrick serves up the truth.

In April 2024, MWM set out the high-level risks associated with the AUKUS nuclear submarine program; political, economic, technical and management, with the article delving into some of the risks already in play.

But with the project having passed its third birthday, it’s worth looking at the various stages of the plan on record to see how things are unfolding.

This piece was originally published in the June 1996 issue of Monthly Review.

It is based on an article previously published in the December 28, 1995 issue of the Egyptian Al Ahram Weekly, translated from French by Pascale Ghazaleh and edited by Mona Anis, assistant editor.

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By Samir Amin (re-posted Nov 26, 2024)

This ain’t a click bait title. It is a legitimate question. I discussed it with George Galloway, Thursday morning my time, before we learned of Russia’s missile strike on the massive Yuzhmash defense plant in Dnipropetrovsk. Since then, there has been some troubling warning indicators.

BY LARRY JOHNSON

Consider the following:

The United States opened a new military base in Poland two weeks ago — one step closer to Russia.

Vice Admiral Buchanan announced this week that the United States is prepared to fight and win a nuclear war with Russia.

For the third year in a row the nations of the world, meeting in solemn climate conclave, have vowed to cook their children and grandchildren alive.

COP29, chaired by petro-state Azerbaijan and stuffed to the gills with 1773 oil industry lobbyists, was never going to deliver more than tokenism and lip service to the greatest compound crisis ever to befall H. sapiens.

Any move by outgoing US President Joe Biden to help Ukraine obtain nuclear weapons would be “insane”and would amount to treason, Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed.

The House representative from Georgia was reacting to a post on Tuesday by entrepreneur Mario Nawfal, who weighed in on efforts by the Biden administration to boost military aid to Kiev, including alleged discussions on nuclear arms.   

Nawfal described the purported talks as a “desperate” move “to tip the scales against Russia” before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, which would mark an “unprecedented escalation” in the conflict.  

French far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen was on Monday holding talks with Prime Minister Michel Barnier as her party intensified warnings it was prepared to topple his government in a move that would fling France into political crisis.

The UK and France have “reactivated”talks on sending troops to Ukraine, French newspaper Le Monde reported on Monday. The idea has already caused a rift among European NATO members.

Back in February, French President Emmanuel Macron caused controversy by declaring his willingness to send ground troops to Ukraine “to prevent Russia from winning this war.” The statement was quickly disavowed by NATO officials, while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters that Ukraine’s Western backers were “unanimous” in their opposition to the idea.

More than 1,000 doctors and nurses are among at least 44,211 people killed in Israel’s 13-month assault on the Gaza Strip, officials in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave said Sunday.

“Over 310 other medical personnel were arrested, tortured, and executed in prisons,” Gaza’s Government Media Office also said in a statement, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency. “The Israeli army also prevented the entry of medical supplies, health delegations, and hundreds of surgeons into Gaza.”

PLEASE STOP BLAMING RUSSIA FOR THE WAR IN UKRAINE — BLAME NATO.

Angela Merkel's book will be launched with fanfare in the West but also in China. Tickets for Tuesday evening's initial presentation of the former German chancellor's 736-page opus at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin sold out online within minutes of going on sale a few weeks ago.

Ukraine/Russia – Interview given by M. Christophe Lemoine, Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, to LCI (excerpts)

Paris, 20 November 2024

Q. – What’s your reaction, France’s reaction to the immediate development, i.e. the firing of Storm Shadow missiles at positions in the Kursk region? We’ve got a lot more details coming in, we’re going to see the images. It’s reportedly a [command] post where North Korean officers were operating, in Marino, which is in the Kursk region. It’s in keeping with what the Americans said: you can fire, the Ukrainians can fire these weapons in this region. What’s France’s view on this?

Below is my column in The Hill on new evidence released by the House related to the January 6th riot. The J6 Committee fueled doubts about the official accounts by using only Democratically-appointed members and skewing the evidence. The new information further undermines the narrative pushed by both members and the media.

    by Jonathan Turley 

Here is the column:

In the space of a couple of days this week two completely unprecedented attacks occurred that have the potential to rewrite world history. The US and UK directly attacked Russia and, for the first time ever in war, an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile was fired – by Russia. Naturally, most people in the West paid little attention.

Herbicide atrazine, widely used on agricultural crops in the US, Canada, and Australia, was banned in the European Union in 2004 after it was found to surpass the regulatory limits of pesticide (0.1µg/L) in groundwater. It has also been banned in over 40 countries. Sputnik investigates why is the US in no hurry to follow suit.

Registered initially in 1958 by CIBA-GEIGY, atrazine has been a major agricultural herbicide in the US for more than 30 years. Manufactured by Swiss-based agrochemical giant Syngenta, it is a chlorinated triazine systemic herbicide.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that a controversial US missile defense base in Poland is a potential target of the Russian military, comments that come amid soaring tensions as the US just authorized Ukraine to strike Russian territory with long-range NATO missiles.

US President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, has laid out the incoming administration’s strategy for addressing the Ukraine conflict. He said the Trump team will begin working on negotiations from the very first day of Trump’s term, which begins on January 20.

Speaking on Fox News on Sunday, Waltz emphasized that a key priority will be organizing talks between Russia and Ukraine, with the aim of bringing both sides together to negotiate a ceasefire or peace agreement. “We need to discuss who is at this table, whether it will be an agreement, a truce, how to put both sides at the negotiating table, and then what is the scope of the deal,” he said.