Up to 11,000 troops marched on Moscow’s iconic Red Square on Monday as Russia celebrated the 77th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II. The conflict is largely called the Great Patriotic War in Russia, and May 9 is one of the country’s most revered holidays.

The marching columns represented all branches of Russia’s Armed Forces, including airborne troops, military police, national guardsmen and cadets.

More than 130 armored vehicles were led by the iconic T-34-85 tank, which was one of the main ‘workhorses’ of the Red Army during the war. The state-of-the-art T-90M Proryv (Breakthrough) main battle tanks, S-400 air-defense missile systems, and Yars thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, were among other top-notch weapons showcased on the Red Square.

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In response to the Trump administration's trade war that began in 2018, at the same time that China was raising tariffs to retaliate against the United States, it was reducing its tariffs on imports from most of the rest of the world. China lowered its applied MFN tariffs from 8.0 percent at the kickoff of the trade war to 6.6 percent by the time the Phase One agreement was signed, in January 2020.

There is a legislated process prescribing how government grants should be administered, but it clearly is not being followed and  we need an integrity commission to enforce it.

An important issue for many voters in this election – particularly the Teal Independents – is government integrity and the need to establish a national integrity commission with teeth.

Labor is supporting this initiative, but the stumbling block is opposition from the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.

According to Morrison, members of parliament are accountable to voters and should be able to allocate funding for community grants and infrastructure without undue fear of being investigated.

Paolo Gentiloni made a speech at the Peterson Institute for International Economics: Transatlantic economic policy in times of war.

the Institute is an "independent organisation" that has roots in all the usual non-independent sources: US administrations, CIA, and other institution that consider the entire world (and the universe, including the moon) as their oyster. We shall investigate the institute’s policies after looking at that hypocritical speech by Paolo — who must be very busy, considering his allocation of tasks in the EU. But in reality, his main job is to BULLSHIT the usual crap about “economy” and such turd polishing devices...

AS for previous notations GusNotes IN CAPS/(BOLD) on this stupid speech by this macaroni, from Europe: 

THE USA SPY ON OUR [French/EU] COMPANIES AND WAGE AN ECONOMIC WAR on us - Ali Laïdi — May 7, 2022

Ali Laïdi is one of France's foremost specialists in economic warfare. He explains here how the United States ... abuse their dominant position, to economically tame the world. Between espionage and extraterritoriality, all means are good to ensure the monopoly of power. It would be very naive to believe, in this type of balance of power, that our allies are necessarily our friends!

SEE MORE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hnm-lLER-s

(Get Jules Letambour to translate for you)

See also: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/36561

Meanwhile:

MADE IN CRAPLAND

 Vladimir Putin is a clever guy. He would have had to know that “invading” Ukraine was going to be a moment full of brickbats, of NATO collusion and of US forceful hegemony. He would know the ultimate goal of the US: Destroy Russia… We know. We’ve known this since 1919 (possibly since 1917 after the Russian Revolution, and especially since the end of WW2 — after the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the planet had been planned from 1905 in England.

 As mentioned before, Putin is doing us a favour…. He is exposing the hypocrisy of the US Empire at a great cost to himself and Russia. Despite the super-propaganda of the Western media, showing Putin as a nutcase, Putin is far less belligerent than every preceding US presidents going back to Washington. The US boffins hate this.

SWIFF has screened ITHAKA, a documentary about the plight of Julian Assange’s father, John Shipton, as he campaigns for the release of his son.

Last weekend’s screenings (29 April and 1 May) were followed by an audience Q&A with John Shipton and brother, Gabriel Shipton.

ITHAKA, produced by Gabriel Shipton and Adrian Devant, focuses on John Shipton and his journey to get his son released from prison.

Gabriel and Adrian recruited Australian director Ben Lawrence – director of Ghosthunter and Hearts & Bones – to tell the story about the Free Assange movement, and its many variants around the world, as John and family connect with supporter networks, generate and receive media interviews, and at the same time support Julian and his mental health struggles via the limited access they have to him.

We are living in an age of civil war. Civil wars were almost nonexistent until the twentieth century. Except in a handful of cases—the American and English civil wars, the French Revolution—it was rare for citizens to mobilize soldiers to fight for control over their government. This didn’t mean that violence didn’t break out. Average citizens engaged in all sorts of brutality against one another; they assaulted strangers, neighbors, spouses, children, and members of their community. They just didn’t tend to fight over political control.

BY Barbara F. Walter

Can the World Feed Itself? Historic Fertilizer Crunch Threatens Food Security

A run-up in prices and shortage of man-made nutrients are forcing the agriculture industry to adapt, and the impact could be severe.

For the first time ever, farmers the world over — all at the same time — are testing the limits of how little chemical fertilizer they can apply without devastating their yields come harvest time. Early predictions are bleak.

[back in February 3, 2022] President Joe Biden spoke of the United States having a “new hope” and “a moment of renewal” as the nation observes the National Day of Prayer.

In a proclamation issued the day before the observance, Biden explained that, on the Day of Prayer, “we recognize the healing power of prayer, especially as we recover from the trauma and loss of the COVID‑19 pandemic.”

“Today we find ourselves in a moment of renewal — of lives saved, of new jobs created, and of new hope for rebuilding America,” stated Biden.

The recent pact between China and the Solomon Islands has exposed the manifest hypocrisy with which the United States and Australia view their relationship with smaller members of the Pacific community. The Solomon Islands have recently signed a security deal with China. The details of the arrangement have not been publicly disclosed, but it is believed to provide for periodic visits by Chinese warships to the small Pacific Island nation, and for the provision of Chinese assistance in maintaining public order.

BY James O’Neill

The visit to India on April 21-22 by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is not an ordinary event for either side.

As far as India is concerned, the way its leadership has developed relations with each of the leading players in the current phase of the Great Game, one of which is the former metropole, does not contradict New Delhi’s overall (relatively) neutral positioning at the world’s gaming table. However, this positioning itself is subject to a number of serious challenges, with the main one stemming from the complex nature of relations with the second global power, which today is the People’s Republic of China.

Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Andriy Melnyk sparked a culinary-themed diplomatic dispute by calling Olaf Scholz an unstatesmanlike “liverwurst sausage” over the chancellor’s refusal to visit Kiev. Scholz said Monday that he had no plans to travel to Ukraine for the time being due to Kiev’s snub of President Frank-Walter Steinmeier last month.

Senior Free Democratic Party politician and Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki has stepped out in defence of his coalition ally Scholz, insisting that the chancellor is not a sausage.

The Nuremberg Rallies (officially Reichsparteitag, meaning Reich Party Congress) refer to a series of celebratory events coordinated by the Nazi Party in Germany.