US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reached out to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu, on Wednesday, for the first time in months, to discuss the incident in which an American spy drone went down in the Black Sea waters off Crimea. 

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Shoigu told Austin that the incident was caused by the Americans violating the airspace restriction declared by Russia, with all the proper international notifications in place. Shoigu called US drone flights off the Russian coast “provocative in nature” and risked an escalation of tensions in the Black Sea. 

The US MQ-9 Reaper drone fell in the Black Sea after engaging in a sharp maneuvering as Russian fighter jets were scrambled to identify the aircraft flying in the direction of Crimea with its transponders turned off. The US European Command raised the alarm, apparently forgetting how the US Air Forces unleashed a war on "balloons" last month.

BY EKATERINA BLINOVA

"The United States and NATO have created an already intolerable situation around Russian borders, especially in the Black Sea region. They are present there in different capacities. There are [US/NATO] reconnaissance aircraft and drones [in the region]," Ivan Konovalov, a military expert and political analyst, told Sputnik.

Speaking out strongly against AUKUS at the Press Club yesterday, Paul Keating’s concern is that Australia’s security has been laid limp upon the altar of small target politics by the two key Ministers – Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles.

By Mike Gilligan

Movie star Steven Seagal made an appearance at the inaugural meeting of the International Russophile Movement in Moscow on Tuesday, claiming he was actually "a million percent Russian" himself. The actor received Russian citizenship back in 2016 and currently serves as a special envoy of the Russian Foreign Ministry on humanitarian relations between Moscow and Washington.

Speaking at a press conference following the event, Seagal said that roughly half of Americans still "love"Russia despite the ongoing international turmoil. The actor also spoke about his ancestry – his grandfather immigrated to America from Russia – revealing what it means for him to be Russian.

A vessel allegedly linked to the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines is currently anchored off the north-east coast of Germany in the Baltic Sea, Der Spiegel has reported. The German news website also claimed one of the e-mail addresses used by the alleged bombers might point to Ukrainian involvement.

According to Monday's report, Der Spiegel journalists found the ‘Andromeda’ yacht on the Bug peninsula in the Dranske municipality, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern region, which used to serve as a base for the German Democratic Republic’s Navy.

Here’s the thing for everyone who doubts me: if I didn’t know what was going on, how would I be able to make all of these predictions?

Do I just guess, and somehow always end up correct?

I said, explicitly, that the narrative from all of the top figures in the GOP was going to be that we should end the Ukraine war in order to focus on starting a war with the Chinese. I said it before any of them said it, and now they’re all saying it.

Former prime minister Paul Keating has launched an extraordinary attack on the Albanese government over its adoption of the AUKUS pact, accusing it of making the worst foreign policy decision by a Labor government since the attempted introduction of conscription during World War One.

By Matthew Knott

We think that MATTHEW WAS THE JOURNO WHICH KEATING TOLD HIM TO GO AWAY IN SHAME AND NOT COME BACK...

San Diego: Australians are being urged to accept hard decisions to fund a decades-long plan to build nuclear-powered submarines after the potential $368 billion cost sparked a political furore over whether the nation could afford the mammoth outlay on a stronger defence force.

The federal government said the investment was essential to shield the country from security threats by purchasing an interim fleet of nuclear-powered submarines from the United States in the 2030s before building a future fleet in Adelaide that would enter service in the 2040s.

But the Greens said the increase in defence spending would require future cuts to health and education and warned they would not help in parliament to make any savings, while the Coalition warned against ‘‘cannibalising’’ other defence programs to pay for the submarines.

Oliver Stone is a filmmaker with 3 Oscar wins and 11 Oscar nominations. His films include Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, Scarface, JFK, Nixon, Alexander, W, Snowden, and documentaries where he has interviewed Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygAqYC8JOQI

OUTLINE:

0:00 - Introduction

2:54 - Nuclear power

15:52 - Russia and US relations

21:07 - JFK and the Cold War

FRI

[This article was originally published in April, 2021 at which time Raytheon had obtained $2.36 billion in Pentagon contracts since Austin’s appointment. Since that time, CAM has kept tabs on Raytheon’s contracts and the article has been updated.—Editors]

The Pentagon has awarded the defense giant Raytheon Technologies, the second largest weapons-maker in the world, over $30 billion in government contracts since Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III’s confirmation on January 22nd, 2021.

 Jeremy Kuzmarov

Austin was on Raytheon’s board of directors prior to his confirmation.

The new currency should be able to become an “external money” storage of capital and reserves down the road, not just a settlement unit.

Ah, the joys of the Big Circle Line (BKL, in Cyrillic): circumnavigating the whole of Moscow for 71 km and 31 stations: from Tekstilshchiki – in the old textile quarter – to Sokolniki – a suprematist/constructivist gallery (Malevich lives!); from Rizhskaya – with its gorgeous steel arches – to Maryina Roscha – with its 130 meter-long escalator.

BY PEPE ESCOBAR

NEW MODERN DIS-FUNCTIONAL SOCIETY: 

SOCIAL CLASSES AND WESTERN VALUES BEYOND THE OLD CLASS WARFARE OF WORKERS, BOURGEOIS MIDDLE CLASS AND RULERS (NOBILITY AND KINGS) WHO WERE IMBUED WITH THE FEAR OF GOD. NOW:

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has offered bipartisan support to pass budget savings the Albanese government will need to fund the massive submarine program, expected to cost more than $200 (now about $400) billion for at least eight submarines.

Senior administration officials maintain that unity between Washington and Kyiv is tight. But the fractures that have appeared are making it harder to credibly claim there’s little daylight between the U.S. and Ukraine as sunbeams streak through the cracks.

For nine months, Russia has laid siege to Bakhmut, though capturing the southeastern Ukrainian city would do little to alter the trajectory of the war. It has become the focal point of the fight in recent weeks, with troops and prisoners from the mercenary Wagner Group leading the combat against Ukrainian forces. Both sides have suffered heavy losses and reduced the city to smoldering ruins.