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May 6, 2024182 – By INTE-DROP
UK’s Ministry of Defense (File photo)
The world media picked up the news that during the “call on the carpet” of British Ambassador to Russia N. Casey, the diplomat was informed of Moscow’s unequivocal position regarding the possible use of British long-range missiles by Ukraine on Russian territory. As
VO already reported , the British Ambassador was handed a note stating that the Foreign Office itself (in the words of the head of the department, D. Cameron) disavowed statements that the missiles were against Russian territory (at least that which London officially considers as such ) will not be applied.
The ambassador was told that the Russian side views D. Cameron’s words as evidence of a serious escalation and confirmation of London’s increasing involvement in military operations on the side of Kyiv. N. Casey was warned that the response to Ukrainian strikes using British
weapons on Russian territory could be any British military facilities and equipment on the territory of Ukraine and beyond its borders.
In this regard, foreign media are discussing an issue related to specific British targets that could be struck by the Russian Armed Forces outside Ukraine. Considering the fact that there are dozens of British military bases (and other facilities) outside the British Isles itself, any of them could become a target. Moreover, if British missiles fly deep into Russia, then the targets may well be military facilities on the territory of Great Britain itself.
At the same time, Western military experts, commenting on the Russian note, decided to highlight several foreign British facilities – a British military base on the Falkland Islands (Malvinas), a base on the territory of Gibraltar, as well as military facilities in African countries (for example, in Sierra Leone). It is noted that the “African scenario” may well be implemented by Russia if the Ukrainian Armed Forces actually start firing British missiles deep into the Russian Federation. At the same time, the reference is to the Russian contingent that arrived at the former American military base in Niger even before the withdrawal of the Americans from its territory.
The Falklands option seems less clear to British experts due to the fact that Argentine President Miley is not suspected of sympathizing with Russia. However, Miley has repeatedly raised the issue of the need to withdraw the British military from the islands, which Argentina considers its own. And Russia, in principle, could turn the British military in the Falkland Islands into targets, thereby helping Argentina regain sovereignty over the islands. Western political scientists and politicians fear this.
The target in the form of a British contingent in Gibraltar, over the issue of whose ownership London constantly enters into discussions with Madrid, is also not obvious. But Western experts also do not discount this possibility, given the contradictions within NATO.
And there is also a significant British military presence directly on the borders of Russia. For example, the contingent in Estonia.
London has not yet officially commented on the note handed to the ambassador in Moscow.
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Asylum seekers in UK ‘hide or flee to Ireland’ for fear of deportation to Rwanda
Tuesday, 07 May 2024 11:16 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 07 May 2024 11:16 AM ]
Immigration officers carry out a detention visit in one of several operations across the UK in 2024.
Asylum seekers are going into hiding or fleeing to Ireland as the UK government is proceeding with a plan to detain them for deportation to Rwanda, reports say.
The detentions began a week ago under the controversial Rwanda scheme, with the first deportation flights expected to take off in July.
“Frontline asylum charities report people leaving their asylum accommodation in order to avoid arrest. They are raising the alarm about the increasing risks of destitution and exploitation,” Lou Calvey, the director of the charity Asylum Matters, said.
The Guardian questioned whether the officials had anticipated the asylum seekers’ reaction, citing the growing fallout from the high-profile round-ups that the government is dealing with following the dissemination of its message about detaining people for Rwanda.
It is not clear whether officials had anticipated that some asylum seekers would go into hiding and others would go to Ireland, it said.
According to the report, asylum seekers who have attended regular reporting sessions at centers around the UK have said that they had never seen things so quiet.
“I walked right in and didn’t have to queue at all. In all the years I’ve been reporting I’ve never seen it so deserted,” said one man from Belarus who has been in the UK for more than a decade, but is still fearful the Home Office could detain him even though he isn’t among those identified in the initial cohort of returns.
The initial cohort includes those who illegally arrived between January 2022 and June 2023.
UK plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda morally disgraceful
The British plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is unworkable and morally disgraceful.
Another asylum seeker, who has received a notice of intent for Rwanda, said he got several calls from friends in his community urging him to go into hiding.
A Syrian refugee also said he was calling on asylum seeker friends at risk of being deported to Rwanda to hide.
“I was an asylum seeker in 2020 when the Home Office was trying to deport as many asylum seekers as possible to European countries they had passed through before Brexit started. Some asylum seekers went into hiding then and I can see that it is happening again because of Rwanda.”
The first week of round-ups saw at least one asylum seeker going on hunger strike and another threatening suicide.
The detentions, however, have not acted as a deterrent for small boat crossings, with 1,420 people crossing in the last seven days up to Sunday.
Meanwhile, Ireland, that removed a tent city of asylum seekers in the heart of Dublin outside the International Protection Accommodation Services center last week, saw the return of tents close to where they were before.
The Irish authorities are expected to provide more accommodation later this week to deal with the unprecedented numbers of asylum seekers, some arriving from the UK.
Critics of the Rwanda scheme say the deportations breach international law.
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By Shahrokh Saei
Partners in crime
May 8, 2024 – 21:47 – Tehran Times
The ends justify the means: Former top US general condones Israeli massacres in Gaza
TEHRAN – Israel has perpetrated heinous crimes in the Gaza Strip since launching war on the besieged Palestinian territory more than seven months ago.
It has slaughtered nearly 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7, many of whom are women and children.
The regime has regularly launched deadly strikes on residential buildings under the pretext of targeting Hamas fighters in response to the surprise military operation that the resistance group carried out in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Medical sites have not been spared in Israeli assaults too.
The Israeli army has brutally killed patients and medical staff in its raids on hospitals.
Last month, hundreds of bodies were recovered from a mass grave inside the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis after Israeli forces withdrew from the city on April 7.
Bodies were also retrieved from mass graves at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Following the discovery of the mass graves, Palestinian officials revealed horrifying details about the tragedy.
They said dozens of the bodies were found with bound hands while others still had medical tubes attached to them. It indicates that they may have been buried alive.
Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman with the UN’s human rights office, also said some of the bodies found at the Khan Younis hospital were “found with their hands tied and stripped of their clothes”.
Israel had stormed the hospitals and carried out cold-blooded massacres there. The Israeli army claims that Hamas uses hospitals as its command centers. The regime, however, has failed to provide any evidence to back up its claims.
Despite such appalling atrocities, Israel has not been held accountable so far.
In addition, the US, which is Israel’s main supporter, has brushed off calls to use its leverage to bring a halt to the regime’s killing machine.
The US has supported Israel’s narrative that it has the right to self-defense.
General Mark Milley implies that political purpose justifies the slaughter of Palestinian civilians at the hands of Israeli forces. Although American officials have sharpened criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s deadly military campaign in Gaza following domestic backlash, they have not taken any practical actions to stop the war of genocide in Gaza.
The US could cut military aid to Israel and take firm measures at the UN Security Council if it wanted to halt Israel’s brutal onslaught.
Israel is an apartheid regime that does not scruple to commit barbaric crimes against Palestinians.
The US has turned a blind eye to these atrocities because it has perpetrated similar acts.
Apart from the atomic bombings of Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 which killed tens of thousands of people, the US has claimed the lives of a large number of civilians during its military invasion of countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US has always tried to justify the tragic deaths of civilians. American officials have claimed that the country’s armed forces target “militants” who use civilians as human shields.
Former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley has made up similar excuses to justify Israel’s brutal onslaught on Gaza.
“I feel horrible for the innocent people in Gaza that are dying, but we shouldn’t forget that, we, the United States killed a lot of innocent people in Mosul, Raqqa, that, we, the United States killed 12,000 innocent French civilians as here we are in the 80th anniversary of Normandy,” the former top American commander made the comments at AI Expo for National Competitiveness at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) on May 7 and 8.
He was referring to the US attacks in Iraq and Syria at a time when the Daesh terror group occupied parts of the Arab nations and Allied bombings of French villages and cities during the Second World War.
The US has claimed that it deployed forces to Iraq and Syria to eliminate Daesh. However, the US is accused of abetting the terror group. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump accused the administration of then president Barack Obama of founding Daesh.
“We destroyed 69 Japanese cities not including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We slaughtered people in massive numbers, innocent people who had nothing to do with their government. Men, women and children. War is a terrible thing but if it is gonna have meaning; if it is gonna have any sense of morality there has to be a political purpose and it must be achieved rapidly with the least cost,” Milley added.
His comments, in fact, are reminiscent of the idiom, “the ends justify the means”.
Israel is using the same pretexts to justify its war of genocide in Gaza.
Israel has tried to demonize Hamas by likening it to the Daesh terror group. But, Hamas has become more popular than ever among Palestinians because it has put up resistance against the occupying regime in the face of its brutal war on Gaza.
Israel like the United States can kill more civilians but it won’t be able to crush the Palestinian resistance through military operations.
Netanyahu has vowed to continue the Gaza war until “total victory” over Hamas. But, he should know that the war will end sooner or later and his regime will suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of the Palestinian resistance.
BIG BROTHER in the 21. Century 