Sweden and Finland will not become NATO members if they continue to ignore Ankara’s extradition demands, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag has said. 

“Until now, none of the persons accused of terrorism, whose extradition from Sweden and Finland was requested by Turkey, have been returned,” Bozdag told reporters on Saturday. 

“Our expectation is not about those accused of fraud. The Swedish and the Finnish governments should understand this very well.” 

Bozdag said the process of Sweden and Finland joining NATO “will not move a step forward” unless the matter is resolved.  

Several Russian soldiers involved in the military operation in Ukraine have been hospitalized with severe chemical poisoning, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

Traces of Botulinum toxin Type B, which is an “organic poison of artificial origin,” have been discovered in samples taken from the servicemen, the ministry said, accusing Kiev of “chemical terrorism.”

The Russian troops were “hospitalized with signs of severe poisoning” after being stationed near the village of Vasilyevka in Zaporozhye Region on July 31, the statement said.

“The Zelensky regime has authorized terrorist attacks with the use of toxic substances against Russian personnel and civilians” following a string of military defeats in Donbass and other areas, the ministry insisted.

The British government has suggested Russia should not be allowed to attend the November G20 summit in Bali.

"Russia has no moral right to sit at the G20 while its aggression in Ukraine persists," a spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said, according to Reuters.

The spokesman also reportedly praised Indonesia, the summit host, for its efforts “to ensure that the impacts of Russia's war are considered in G20 meetings” while welcoming the country’s decision to invite Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to the meeting, despite his country not being a member of the Group of 20 leading economies.

The latest anti-Russia salvo from the UK comes after Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said last month she would be ready to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin at the event.

Australian-born American billionaire, Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire has consistently led the charge in pushing anti-China narratives in the Western media. Encompassing a long list of highly influential media, including both television and print media in the liberal and conservative camps, the list of talking points aimed at Beijing is immense. 

On instructions from my Government, and further to our previous letters regarding violations of international law and aggressive practices by United States forces present illegally in north-eastern Syria and the Tanf area in the south-east, I should like to draw your attention to the following:

On 12 May 2022, the United States Treasury Department published what it called “Syria General License 22 Authorizing Activities in Certain Economic Sectors in Non-Regime Held Areas of Northeast and Northwest Syria”. It also published responses to frequently asked questions about the exceptions covered by this so-called “licence” in areas occupied by United States and Turkish forces in north-eastern and north-western Syria.

In his message launching the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on April 4, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres offered the following chilling observation:

“Climate scientists warn that we are already perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate impacts.

But high emitting governments and corporations are not just turning a blind eye; they are adding fuel to the flames.

A great humanitarian uproar in recent weeks demanding the safe shipping of Ukrainian grain to ease a hunger crisis in Africa and elsewhere is deceptive on many levels. Not the least is who owns the land on which the grain is grown and whether that grain is actually illegal GMO patented corn and other grains. A corrupt Zelenskyy regime has quietly made deals with the major GMO agribusiness companies in the West who have been stealthily taking control of some of the world’s most productive “black earth” farmland. 

The 2014 CIA Coup

Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska has sued opposition activist Aleksey Navalny and his associates over an “investigation” posted on YouTube in 2018 that accused the aluminum tycoon of giving bribes to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Tweeting about the lawsuit on Wednesday, Navalny called on the US, EU and UK to impose more sanctions on Deripaska and Lavrov.

The opposition blogger is currently in prison for a series of transgressions, from defrauding a French company and donors to his political campaigns, to contempt of court. He claims to be a victim of political persecution by President Vladimir Putin’s government.

The series of major explosions at Russian military bases on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea over the past week mark the beginning of a new, even more dangerous phase in the imperialist war waged on Ukrainian territory against Russia.

Ukrainian officials have all but admitted that Kiev is behind the attacks, threatening that more is to come. Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, described the explosions as part of a beginning counteroffensive. “Our strategy is to destroy the logistics, the supply lines and the ammunition depots and other objects of military infrastructure. It’s creating a chaos within their own forces.” Hinting at plans to strike the Russian-built Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea with the Russian mainland, Podolyak stated, “Such objects should be destroyed.”

On August 2, 2022, a scandal occurred in the Senate of Australia – the upper house of parliament. One of its members, a representative of the Green Party Lidia Thorpe during her taking the oath of office as a senator called the British Queen Elizabeth II, who is the formal head of Australia, a colonizer.

President of the Senate Sue Lines demanded that Thorpe read the oath again, without adding extra words to the official text. After a short pause, Lidia Thorpe fulfilled the requirement of the President of the Senate, taking the oath again without her own additions. This incident demonstrated the increase of the negative attitude of a considerable proportion of Australian society towards the British monarchy.

BY Petr Konovalov

US Representative Liz Cheney has reacted to being voted out of Congress by 37 percentage points in Wyoming’s Republican primary by comparing herself to Abraham Lincoln, and hinting that she’ll try to follow his path to the White House.

“The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all,” Cheney told supporters in Jackson, Wyoming, after losing Tuesday’s contest. “Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our union, and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history.”

The variety of opinions on what the governor-general should or should not have done serves to highlight the vague responsibilities of the role (“What G-G should have asked then-PM”, August 17). We are perhaps being unreasonable in criticising the G-G when the role appears to depend entirely on his or her definition of it. It now clearly needs a defined job specification against which all potential future candidates would be assessed, and which would also act as a guide – or deterrent – to future PMs tempted to act as Scott Morrison has done. Either that, or the role should go only to a constitutional lawyer. 

Penny Ransby Smith, Lane Cove

Social media behemoth Meta is beefing up its information-control tactics as the US heads into the 2022 midterm elections, tightening rules on voting misinformation and advertising. The changes were announced in a blog post on Tuesday.

The company will ban new political, social and electoral issue ads during the last week before the election, ensuring no “October surprises” – factual or otherwise – will disturb the information ecosystem. Editing existing ads will also be forbidden, and ads encouraging people not to vote or questioning the legitimacy of the results will not be permitted.

Julia Gillard delivered a gushing speech to the American Congress in March 2011. Then eight months later she agreed to US Marines in Darwin.

Julia Gillard laid it on thick in her speech to Congress…..you can do anything…we have shared values….you can do anything…we are doing our part in Uruzgan province….you brave and free people…you can do anything.

Then, in some political difficulty at home later in the year she was anxious for President Obama to visit Australia and address the Parliament. Kim Beazley, our Ambassador in Washington was very keen to help. As part of the deal to lock in the Obama visit Gillard agreed to the rotation of Marines through Darwin with US hopes for more future basing in Perth and Cocos-Keeling.

BY JOHN MENADUE

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will meet with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Thursday. Discussions will likely include grain shipments from Ukraine and the endangered Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric announced the meeting on Tuesday, saying that Guterres was invited to Lviv by Zelensky. Guterres will also visit Odessa, a port city where grain shipments across the Black Sea recently restarted after Russia and Ukraine struck a deal with Turkey and the UN to ensure their safe passage.

The three-way meeting will focus on maintaining cooperation on these shipments, and “ending the Ukraine-Russia war through diplomatic avenues,” Erdogan’s office said in a statement.