alanjjohnstone
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“…U.S. military encirclement of China threatens to escalate into an Asia-Pacific war, with the Korean Peninsula at the focal point of this dangerous path. Garrisoned with nearly 30,000 combat-ready U.S. forces manning the astonishing 73 U.S. military bases dotting its tiny landmass, South Korea is the most critical frontline component of U.S. military escalation in northeast Asia.
Since the Obama administration’s 2012 “pivot to Asia,” Washington has intensified tensions with Beijing, doubling down on a “full-scale multi-pronged new Cold War” through the Indo-Pacific Strategy pursued by both the Trump and Biden administrations. Sixty percent of U.S. naval capacity has been transferred to the Asia-Pacific region, and 400 out of 800 U.S. worldwide military bases and 130,000 troops are now circling China…”
US Is Maintaining Tensions With North Korea to Draw in Allies Against China
Whether Thunberg was so condemning of capitalism may not be clear but the movement she initiated, Fridays For Future, has been more damning of the capitalist system.
“The capitalistic system continuously puts profit over people,” the youth-led Fridays for Future movement said in a statement. “Corporations’ greed for more profit is driving the destruction of ecosystems and the climate…”
https://fridaysforfuture.org/march-3/
Then they go and spoil it by saying only “fossil capitalism” is the culprit
Christian Aid charity was forced to spend about £700,000 defending itself against accusations that it had provided “material support” to terrorists, chief executive Patrick Watt has said.
The complaint, filed in 2017 by the New York-based Zionist Advocacy Center (TZAC), dragged on for more than five years before being thrown out by the US courts.
TZAC has brought similar complaints under the US false claims act against Norwegian People’s Aid, Oxfam and the Carter Center, the NGO set up by the former president Jimmy Carter and his wife. While the first was settled out of court with the US government for just over $2m, with more than $300,000 awarded to TZAC, the other two were dismissed.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/all-out-war-in-the-pacific-taiwan
“…there are signs that Beijing and Washington are preparing for something so much more serious: armed conflict over Taiwan. Reviewing recent developments in the Asia-Pacific region raises a tried-and-true historical lesson that bears repeating at this dangerous moment in history: when nations prepare for war, they are far more likely to go to war.”
Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defence for policy, told members of the House of Representatives that Russian forces are unlikely to make significant territorial gains in the next year.
“You may see small portions of territory change hands in the coming weeks and months. I do not think that there’s anything I see that suggests the Russians can sweep across Ukraine and make significant territorial gains anytime in the next year or so.”
“It is difficult [to predict how long we will need to support Ukraine through the war] as we do not know the exact trajectory of the conflict. The conflict may end in six months, or it may end in two or three years,” the official said.
He described the war’s frontlines as a “grinding slog”.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ukraine-news-live-putin-forces-050524778.html
Ethnic Cleansing?
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the West Bank village of Huwara “I think the village of Huwara needs to be wiped out. I think the state of Israel should do it,”
The merchants of death or as Bob Dylan called them, the masters of war reaping its harvest.
Weapons and defense contractors received nearly half – $400bn – of the $858bn in the USA’s 2023 defense budget.
“There’s high demand for weapons to transfer to Ukraine and to replenish shrinking US stockpiles … contractors are seeing billions of dollars in Ukraine-related contracts.” said Julia Gledhill, who investigates defense spending at the government watchdog the Project On Government Oversight.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/01/ukraine-lobbyists-washington-defense-industry
As in many countries Israel is restricting protests.
Police used stun grenades and water cannon, and were filmed kneeling on the neck of a demonstrator as he was detained.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-64810148
National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said he backed the measures being used, saying the force “must use all the means at its disposal to maintain public order and the daily routine of Israeli citizens”.
Netanyahu wrote, “The right to protest is not the right to anarchy.”
Strange that such actions were never used against the settlers rioting. Nor was it described as anarchy.
Frankfurt municipal administration, known as the Magistrat, decided on Friday to ban Roger Waters’ concert scheduled for May 28. The Magistrat, led by a coalition of the Social Democrats, Greens, and Free Democrats, who are in a coalition at the federal level, and the pro-EU Volt party, instructed the Frankfurt Messe venue to terminate Waters’ concert “immediately and for good cause.”
“The background to the cancellation is the persistently anti-Israeli appearances by the former Pink Floyd front man, who is considered one of the anti-Semites with the largest reach in the world,” stated a report on the official website of the Frankfurt municipality on Friday.
The US encirclement of China
Pentagon Prepares for Island Combat in the Pacific as US-China Tensions Rise
“Clearly, senior Pentagon officials believe that a war with China is becoming increasingly likely, and that, when and if such a conflagration erupts, it will entail heavy fighting over key islands in that region.”
Israel has released all suspects arrested after a Sunday night rampage by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, which killed one Palestinian, injured hundreds and destroyed Palestinian homes and property.
The Israeli police told the Times of Israel that six suspects had been released on Monday, and that a further two were released to house arrest on Tuesday. No other settlers are believed to have been arrested.
The release of the settlers arrested fits into a wider pattern, with only 3 percent of investigations into attacks against Palestinians resulting in a conviction and 93 percent of investigations closing without an indictment, according to the Israeli rights group Yesh Din.
Every year, hundreds of attacks have been carried out by Israelis living in illegal settlements against Palestinians and their properties in the occupied West Bank.
So far in 2023, at least four Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
Now posted on our WSM blog
https://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm/2023/02/28/marxistische-inflatietheorie/And permanently to our Dutch language section of the WSM website
