On a dreary summer day in 1944, SS Gruppenführer Baron Otto Wächter and Nazi Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler paced in front of the men of the 14th SS-Volunteer Division “Galicia” they had created. Wächter, who escaped the Nurenburg tribunals via the infamous Catholic Church rat lines, would later die in Italy before he could reach Argentina.

The killer who created the notorious Kraków Ghetto also formed the Waffen-SS Galizien, which would become the First Division of the Ukrainian National Army. There is no official record from that June day when these two diabolical men reviewed Ukrainian SS troops, but it seems sure that the pass and review ended with Heil Hitler and “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine).

 

The big banks have raised their mortgage rates following the decision to lift the cash rate to 1.35 per cent.

The Reserve Bank of Australia raised the rate by 50 basis points to 1.35 per cent on Tuesday, marking the third consecutive rise in a row.

Commonwealth Bank was the first to jump, saying on Wednesday morning it would pass on the rise in full by increasing rates on its variable home loan products. Two big bank rivals, ANZ and NAB followed later in the day, along with Macquarie Bank.

The Pentagon is set to dramatically increase spending on stratospheric aerostats, which are now being touted as able to boost US capabilities against Chinese and Russian hypersonic missiles, Politico reported on Tuesday.

The project, called Covert Long-Dwell Stratospheric Architecture (COLD STAR), was originally designed to spot drug traffickers. The Pentagon started testing 25 of the balloons in the state of South Dakota as a pilot project in 2019.

After former Energy Minister Angus Taylor expressed shock at the current flood devastation, Greenpeace CEO David Ritter explains why it wasn't hard to see coming.

HEY, ANGUS TAYLOR, you look surprised by the catastrophic flooding events. Can this be because you have been ignoring the warnings about climate change impacts? Here's a dozen or so expert warnings about increases in storms and floods that you may have ignored.

 

BY David Ritter

 

Anthony Albanese has shown during his recent trip to Europe that he is a prime minister addicted to hyperbole and oblivious to how countries can change in unexpected ways.

He told NATO leaders China aimed to become the most powerful nation in the world and its strengthening relations with Moscow “posed a risk to all democratic nations”. It’s most unlikely all democratic countries will be at risk. For a start, Russia will be in no condition to go to war with any other country after its abhorrent decision to invade Ukraine. It could be bogged down for years in a guerrilla war. China faces  a growing number of countries, including those in NATO, which are committed to containing its military and economic growth.

 

BY BRIAN TOOHEY

 

In recent weeks, a newly emboldened right-wing Supreme Court struck down a more than century-old New York law restricting the carrying of concealed weapons and a nearly 50-year-old precedent on abortion.  Meanwhile, the January 6th Committee has been laying out in graphic televised detail how our last president tried to subvert the 2020 election. 

 

Sergey Lavrov used to compare the West to a wounded predator. According to him, it should not be provoked because it would be taken by madness and could break everything. It is better to accompany it to the graveyard. The West does not see it that way. Washington and London are leading a crusade against Moscow and Beijing. They roar and are ready for anything. But what can they really do?

 

RISING TENSIONS (25)

The agony of the West

by Thierry Meyssan

 

Before his retirement, Graham E. Fuller was the Vice President of the “National Intelligence Council at CIA”, responsible for the intelligence assessment of the global situation. And he still observes the geopolitical situation very closely as one of the most experienced experts. He has now published a short analysis of the war in Ukraine and Europe’s disastrous – not to say suicidal – policy.

 

When will Europe finally wake up?      by Graham E. Fuller, British Columbia, Canada

 

 

At the G7 Summit in Germany, on June 26, 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden made a pledge to raise $200 billion within the United States for global infrastructure spending.

 

With attempts to 'cancel' Pushkin, Ukraine's drive to eradicate Russian language and culture has reached the level of farce

 

The military operation affected the attitude towards Russians in the country. How will Moscow respond to that?

 

By Alexander Nepogodin, аn Odessa-born political journalist, expert on Russia and the former Soviet Union.

 

The first attempts to divide Ukrainian citizens into ‘natives’ and ‘outsiders’ began almost immediately after the country gained independence in 1991, and have continued with varying degrees of intensity to this day.

The Olympics are now the summit of political games, sponsorship favourism, secrecy and drugs, including those that WADA is not looking for. It is a compliment to any team to manage to swim in these murky waters without spitting turds…

 

It’s time for the FREE world (the real one not the US dependent one) to create their own Olympic Games and give the miss to the old ones. When Charles Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin re-invented the ancient Greek games, it was to unite the nations of the world, regardless of their status and actions. But the US Empire has highjacked this ideal to turn it into a mean spirit. 

 

Of course the new games could not be called Olympics and the participants would have to find a title defining their hopes and sporting achievements. 

The Albanese Government is continuing the Coalition's habit of using condescending language to discuss Pacific Island relations, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.

WHEN WILL THIS nonsense on the familial connection between Australia and the Pacific end? In 2018, Australia’s then Pentecostal Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, drew upon a term that his predecessors had not. On 8 November that year, he announced that Australia’s engagement with the region would be taken to another level, launching a “new chapter in relations with our Pacific family”.

 

The recent festival of big Western politics – which began with a meeting of the European Council, continued with the G7 Summit, and ended with a major NATO gathering – provides plenty of food for thought about the fate of the world.

On the surface, what we have seen is impressive: The West is showing unprecedented unity in the face of the Russian campaign in Ukraine.

 

BY Fyodor Lukyanov

 

Why the West has failed to get the rest of the world on board to support its confrontation with Russia

 

Of all the people on planet earth, the Irish should understand the Donbass inhabitants seeking independence. But the media at large — even in Ireland — point at “Russia invasion of Ukraine” rather than to “the liberation of the Donbass” from the fascist Ukrainian government.

 

The Irish should know better. They have been tested by the situation and by a worldly spread Western media that is blind to the cause of the Donbass people, because it suits the Russophobia that has been cultivated by Western governments for more than 20 years. 

 

So, Foreign Policy, a news outlet that is Russophobic to the hilt, pokes hot irons to the Irish neutrality:

 

APRIL 21, 2022, 4:00 PM

Monday marks the 246th Independence Day of the United States of America. Two-hundred-and-forty-six years ago, the founding fathers of the US wrote that "All men are created equal". The authorities seems to be following this dictum－literally. The equality they promote is limited to men alone.

On June 24, the US Supreme Court ruled against Roe vs Wade, denying US women the right to an abortion. A 10-year-old girl who got pregnant after being raped in Ohio was denied an abortion as her state does not allow it once fetal cardiac activity is detected, in the sixth week of pregnancy. She was thus travelling to neighboring Indiana, which can prove very risky for her; she might bleed on the way, or suffer some kind of lifelong damage. But, who cares?