EU citizens are being asked to make great sacrifices to support a sanctions regime against Moscow over its military offensive in Ukraine. But how long will Western consumers be willing to live without creature comforts?

What a difference a month can make. Not long ago, Moscow and Berlin had the champagne on ice for an expected ribbon-cutting ceremony on Nord Stream 2, a planned 1,234-km (766 mile) pipeline extending from Russia to Germany that would have kept Europe warm and toasty for decades. Now, EU officials are advising their citizens to dial back their time in the shower and invest in wool sweaters as calls for decoupling from Russian energy supplies ratchet up. 

In recent days, a wave of false accusations against Russia emegerged in the West, alleging that its military committed war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine, during its special operation to denazify Ukraine. This is despite the fact that, in addition to official statements by the Russian authorities about the fake nature of these allegations, a senior Pentagon official has already stated that the US has no independent confirmation of the information spread by Kiev about civilian casualties in this Ukrainian town. Moreover, a former UN inspector for monitoring of the elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction Scott Ritter explicitly pointed out that the Ukrainian authorities are known for loud propaganda statements and should present medical evidence before making any allegations about the events in Bucha.

On Tuesday, the House passed a non-binding resolution expressing “unequivocal support” for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While the bill easily passed, 63 Republicans voted against the measure, earning them the ire of the foreign policy establishment. 

The legislation was introduced by Congressman Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA) at the beginning of December. The resolution calls on President Joe Biden to “adopt a new Strategic Concept for NATO that is clear about its support for shared democratic values and committed to enhancing NATO’s capacity to strengthen democratic institutions” and “establish a Center for Democratic Resilience within NATO headquarters.”

CIA

US intelligence officials leaked information about the Ukraine conflict that wasn’t “rock solid” and outright made up some claims, all to win an “info war”against the Kremlin, according to an NBC News report on Wednesday. The officials admitted to, and boasted about, releasing this misinformation.

The man who has accused Scott Morrison of “racial vilification” in a Liberal Party ballot more than a decade ago, Michael Towke, has gone further in new claims about the reaction from a cabinet minister to his explosive claims in recent days.

Mr Towke claims a federal cabinet minister has texted him to say “I believe you” in response to his statement on the weekend about the Prime Minister’s conduct in 2007 when the two men sought the party’s endorsement for the federal seat of Cook, a contest Mr Morrison won.

saucisson

London (AFP) – The United States, Britain and Australia said Tuesday they would begin collaborating on hypersonic missile strike and defence capacity, as rivals Russia and China advance rapidly in the cutting-edge technology.

The trio said they would work on hypersonics in an expansion of their recent AUKUS defence alliance, which is to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines to counter China's growing military clout.

They pledged "new trilateral cooperation on hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, and electronic warfare capabilities" in a statement by US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Ukraine will look to Israel for inspiration concerning its future security arrangements, arguing that an “absolutely liberal” Kiev is now “impossible” after Moscow’s attack in late February.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday, the president said security would be the “number one” issue for Ukrainians for the next decade, even going so far as to forecast a lasting armed military presence in the streets.

Priti Patel, who will soon decide whether to extradite the WikiLeaks publisher, has links to a group that has attacked Assange in the media for a decade, Matt Kennard reports. 

By Matt Kennard 
Declassified UK

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is spruiking the coalition’s accomplishments claiming, ‘Our Government’s economic plan to create more jobs is working’. However, his statistics based on these claims crumble under scrutiny.

In essence, there are five claims he tweeted recently:

• unemployment has dropped to 4% in Feb;
• 77,000 jobs were created;
• the participation rate is at a record high;
• female unemployment is at a 48 year low of 3.8%; and
• 375,000 more Aussies are in work than pre-COVID-19.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered anger, vitriol, and bigotry in the United States and much of the democratic West. It is an atmosphere of intolerance that surpasses the immediate post-9-11 period (especially the lead-up to the Iraq War) and even the height of McCarthyism in the early and mid-1950s. Indeed, it is reminiscent of the toxic ideological environment in the United States during World War I.

The EU is clearly on a diplomatic war path vis-à-vis China. In the most recent (April 1, 2022) virtual EU-China summit, the Europeans clearly told Beijing that the latter’s support for Russia in its ongoing military operation in Ukraine will have a serious cost i.e., a rupture in the EU-China economic ties. China, on the other hand, emphasised the need to treat EU-China ties separately from the crisis unleashed by the US’ irresponsible push for NATO’s eastward expansion to encircle Russia. Beijing has also emphasised that the EU needs to follow an independent foreign policy.

Americans find it difficult to determine whether the Biden administration’s policy decisions regarding Ukraine are the product of a deliberate strategy, extraordinary incompetence, or some combination of both.

Ten days into the Russian intervention, the propaganda coming out of Kiev was already so preposterous The New York Times felt compelled to publish a piece headlined, “In Ukraine’s Information War, a Blend of Fact and Fiction.” This was a baldly rendered apologia for the many “stories of questionable veracity,” as The Times put it, then in circulation. I do love The Times for its delicate phrasing when describing indelicate matters.

BY Patrick Lawrence

Documents expose how Australian government misled citizens

The authorities have sought to undermine digital privacy since at least 2015

Qatari state news outlet Al Jazeera has published previously unseen, and heavily redacted documents, on Tuesday, which paint a troubling picture of the closed-door conversations that preceded the implementation of Australia's Assistance and Access Act. It comes after the broadcaster grappled with the Canberra government for nearly five years over a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in relation to the far-reaching legislation, announced in 2017, that became law the following year.