A ‘Terrorist’ in New Zealand

On 3rd September 2021, a Sri Lankan refugee,  Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen, 32, living in Auckland New Zealand , stabbed 6 people with a knife he had just picked up from a supermarket shelf.

According to later reports the man had been once again seeking asylum in New Zealand for some years, but had been denied because of previous violent actions and an interest in ISIS literature, and had been released from a New Zealand prison 3 years before the attacks.

During the subsequent years from Ahamed’s release, he had been constantly followed by Police when out and about in Auckland, to monitor his actions and keep others safe.

Auckland was in lockdown 4 at the time of the supermarket attack- masks required and no less than 2 metres between people in places like supermarkets. Within hours the New Zealand prime minister was announcing that this was a ‘terrorist attack’, and that the man was known to her. However Ahamed Aathill Mohamed made no known statements about allegiance to ISIS immediately before his death, and no terrorist organization attributed the stabbings to themselves.

The terror, trauma and physical danger to those he attacked is beyond question, and this blog does not in any way endorse his or any other person’s violent behaviour to others.

With 60 seconds of his knifing of 6 people in the supermarket, he was fatally shot 7 times by Police with semi automatic weapons, who had been following him.

We might contrast his fatal shooting with the response of the Police to a knife attack by a New Zealand European in Dunedin some 4 months before, when at least 4 people were injured. The man was apprehended without injury, and is now in gaol, and has been described as having a mental health issue.

Or again the horrendous Mosque shootings in Christchurch in March 2019 where 51 people were killed and 40 injured, by a white supremacist using automatic rifles, the white male was subdued, unharmed, heroically by a police officer.

While we acknowledge that every violent incident is different and must necessarily be handled differently by Police, it does seem strange that a man in an enclosed supermarket aisle with a kitchen knife, could not be subdued without fatal consequences, by a number of police officers who were presumably wearing protective clothing.

Police subsequently noted that their policy is to shoot for the largest body surface area (i.e. the torso) so that they don’t miss the target, but clearly other options than shooting the attacker were possible, or alternatively those seven shots could have immobilised him in that enclosed space, without causing his death.

We know that Ahamed’s life history before his arrival in New Zealand as a young man was incredibly traumatic- witnessing his father being kidnapped and almost killed, and himself being tortured by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

The Spinoff notes that Ahamed ‘had been in New Zealand since 2011 when he arrived on a student visa. He made a claim for refugee status soon after, but was declined. He appealed, and was granted the status the following year. The prime minister said on Friday that his claim was based on a fraudulent document’

We also know that Ahamed had been on remand (i.e. charged with an offence but not convicted in court) in New Zealand for threatening activities for some years before his conviction – during which time he was held in prison, but was not able to access any supports that might have reduced his risk to himself or others because he had at that stage not been convicted and the government was attempting to deport him. Additionally once released from gaol after his conviction, he was constantly tailed by armed Police; actions which would not have helped his fear and paranoia.

It is clear that Ahamed was acutely distressed because of his trauma, but did not receive the necessary supports by New Zealand authorities to reduce the impacts of that trauma and distress. Instead, he was immediately labelled a ‘terrorist’ by the New Zealand prime minister and the New Zealand media after his death, and there was no call for an independent review into his death.

Is it coincidental that 3 violent attacks were handled so very differently by Police; that a dark skinned man could so easily be deemed a terrorist and shot dead, but two white males, despite the acute violence of their attacks, be subdued without fatality?

We are informed that the New Zealand government, in a knee-jerk reaction to this attack, now wants to ‘tighten’ the responses around ‘terrorist activities’. Andrew Geddis has noted that the draft legislation’s proposal, allowing for people to be prosecuted for planning an activity, but not actually executing that plan , is currently an unheard of judicial procedure in New Zealand.

Listen to the University of Otago Peace and Conflict studies debate about the ‘terrorist attack’ below.

We need to acknowledge too, that no act of violence is acceptable; whether it be in a persons’ home, a random attack in public, a terrorist attack, or violence by the state.

The terror of those 2997 killed, and the trauma experienced by those many bereaved and the first responders to the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001, are very real and still raw. However the barbaric responses to those attacks by the United States and their ‘Coalition of the Willing’, defies both logic and humanity. Millions of people in Arab nations killed, economies and environments ravaged, and thousands tortured or drone murdered, with the rationale being suppression of terrorism, rather than the reality of more arms sales and theft of foreign resources, and the resultant creation of more angry terrorists.

As Chris Hedges notes, those responses are the work of evil killers. The fact that ex President George W Bush can stand up on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and be applauded in Western media for his demonic destruction of Iraq, and Afghanistan, defies belief.

In any sane and just society, such a man ( along with the deranged Tony Blair and their other neoliberal cronies)

Tony Blair shaking hands with Mike Pompeo (ex U.S. Secretary of State)

would have long ago been locked away for their lifetimes – for the common good.

What we desperately need now is for ex-colonial states like New Zealand, to show global leadership in addressing terror threats, in the absence of leadership from the larger powers.

We need to undertake more research to explore opportunities to better respond to threats of violence, to implement strategies that reduce group and individual threats of terror; through acknowledging the genuine basis of the anger, trauma and fear that created those threats, acknowledging that often our state responses to ‘terror’ threats by ‘others with dark skins’ is a relic of our racist and colonial history, (as witnessed by New Zealand Police’s infamous ‘anti-terrorist’ raids into the Ureweras in 2007); and beginning to treat responses to terror threats as a normal and just and equitable part of our range of enforcement and judicial responses to violence, which respects everyone’s human rights, rather than something that needs to be responded to beyond the normal rule of law.










Western Hypocrisy on Afghanistan


















Afghanistan, Laos….





– Booker T. Washington

























As Kabul Is Retaken, Papers Look Back in Erasure






John Pilger: The Great Game of Smashing Nations


The United Nations & ‘Human Rights’



















Justice & the International Criminal Court (ICC)

Field of sunflowers
Field of sunflowers





Impact  of sanctions










All Lives Matter

Don't spit on the floor
Don’t spit on the floor

George Floyd was killed by  Minneapolis police officers on  May 25th  2020.  Preliminary  autopsy  reports showed that  George’s air supply was cut off at  the neck  by  external  ongoing pressure.

The videos of the event clearly shows police officer Derek  Chauvin  kneeling on  George’s neck  while George gasps that  he can’t breathe.  Derek  seems to   looking for approval  from  the 3 other police officers  nearby.

The Wikipedia graph  below shows the number of  deaths  probably caused by  Police officers in  the U.S. over the past 11  years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States 

Year (Total) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Pre-2009 (170) Click here for the lists
2009 (72) List not separated by month (click here for the full year)
2010 (297) 14 29 36 25 28 26 31 17 22 27 13 29
2011 (172) List not separated by month (click here for the full year)
2012 (608) 32 27 24 40 41 66 92 90 67 48 43 38
2013 (344) 49 20 36 15 33 21 19 31 41 33 36 10
2014 (635) 56 17 23 20 27 45 27 106 78 57 92 87
2015 (849) 98 84 110 100 88 77 127 47 28 31 25 34
2016 (200) 13 19 18 12 11 7 22 8 15 15 48 12
2017 (138) 9 16 15 16 9 8 10 9 6 6 7 27
2018 (403) 108 78 82 88 2 10 6 11 5 3 5 5
2019 (133) 17 24 30 20 9 17 3 4 1 4 0 4
2020 (16) 0 6 4 0 5 1

The U.S : a society founded on violence and where violence is repeatedly touted as the  complete solution to  both  external  (usually imagined ) and internal  threats.

A showdown  shoot ’em up on Main Street  with the bad guy  will restore all  things to  rights.

The U.S. , a country  that,  unlike most other countries,  glorifies its constitutional  guarantees of its citizens to  carry guns  as  the right to  “freedom”.  A country  where individual  ‘freedoms’  (usually for the more wealthy and  ‘productive”) are prioritised  above the right of collective safety and wellbeing.

In addition , when  we consider that of the  “40% of the two million armed (U.S.) forces deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. Twenty-five to forty percent of them develop PTSD, clinical depression, sleep disturbances, or suicidal thoughts”  and 50% of those  do  not receive the help  and support they  need, we can  understand  that there is a vast  pool of fucked-up  and  extreme violence socialised  men in that  society. War does not destroy the victim alone.  As Muhammed Ali,  the great  black  boxer said about being conscripted for the genocicdal  war against Vietnam:one. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” he said. “No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end.”

President Trump is undoubtedly one of the most incompetent,  ignorant and  bigoted of U.S.  presidents,  and his actions  both  during the ongoing pandemic, and  his  response to  the  sometimes violent demonstrations that have occurred in response to  George Floyd’s murder, have been  extraordinarily counter-productive and dangerous. However it is clear that his actions are applauded by  a large proportion of the United States’  population.  Donald Trump  is a symptom,  not a cause,  of America’s dysfunction.

America is a country  where lying and cheating, cheap  exploitation and  unmitigated violence  at  all  levels of society are projected  as  capitalism  unfettered – an  Ayn Rand society where anything goes, and to hell  with  anyone  and anything  else. Such  a society (despite the country’s enormous wealth  from its natural  resources) is destined for  disaster.  Former President Obama was a master at saying all  the right things,  while continuing to  lie, cheat,  steal  and murder  on behalf of the “exceptional  nation”.

It is a  society and culture that has pursued the propaganda of selling “product” , no  matter the cost  to  vulnerable workers or the environment, or the lies required to make that sale, with  religious zealotry for over a hundred years. And as a consequence, where those who  are not wealthy are not worthy. Adam Shatz ,in “America Explodes’  describes the phenomenon of systemic racism in America  with great  clarity.

The disjunct between  those in power staying “all  the right things”  about  prejudice poverty and violence,  and the reality on  the ground has in the past 20  years,  grown to become an enormous  sink-hole of hypocrisy. It is vital  that  all  people recognise that actions and good conduct  alone determine whether we are a force for good or evil in  this world. Words are cheap.

And we have seen  this commodification of “terror’  creep  all  across the globe  in  the last decade like a virus. Police  officers around the world now dress in  absurd black  clothing or camouflage outfits  armed with   sub-machine guns. Such  foolish  role-playing  dress-ups encourages  police (often with minimal training in  de-escalation and  risk  assessment) to behave like  frightened ‘warriors’ in  a war setting,  where no  such  threat exist.

And again,  while the U.S.  leads the world in  its violent persecution of coloured people (both  deaths and incarcerations) it is by no means alone. Here in New Zealand  (with  a population of 5 million people)  there are  often 2 or 3 deaths a year by  Police of  usually  rangatahi  tane (young Maori men), along with a vastly disproportionate number of men in  gaols ( with  a global   imprisonment ranking up  there with the United States )  who are Maori.

A  supreme irony then  that  one of the bigger earlier demonstrations for “Black  Lives Matter’  outside of the U.S. , was in  Auckland, New Zealand.

However the lead  global agency for systematic violence,  brutality and torture must  surely go  to Israeli  ‘security ‘ forces operating day  and night against  largely defenseless Palestinians for the past 70  years (with unequivocal and unquestioning support by  the United States  and its Western  allies for this brutality) . And not because Palestinians are a threat  to  the huge Israeli  military  juggernaut,  but because they have land that  Israeli  settlers covet.

What  is needed therefore,  is not simply righteous indignation and protestations  at  police brutality, but a systematic global  assessment of where the fault lines that  lead to  to  violence and exploitation of  the vulnerable members of   all of our societies, occur. Once those systemic and sociological  drivers of  violence  and exploitation are identified  – (and named-and they  are  both  complex and  many)-  have been identified,  then  a complete overhaul of   global societal  values  and systems is required.

Footnote:The current simplistic motions in the United States to “defund  the Police”  will  create ever more divisions in  an  already  fractured society  and the potential   for vigilante groups on  the “right”  and “left’  to  determine ‘justice for others.

An  impartial government  policing system  ( one federal  system)  with  regulations that  underscore that  no  police-person  is immune from  prosecution for  violence; that  recognizes but does not excuse,  the roles that  colonialism,  slavery, discrimination, poverty and  historical  injustice have played in creating communities which  tend to be more dangerous,  and addresses those needs;  that  ensures that  every  police officer is extensively  trained in  de-escalation,  conflict  management,  and only uses force as a very  last resort (which can be prosecutable) and that   the endemic U.S.  culture of violence  and gun  use is recognised  and addressed.

And on  the issue of of pulling down memorials (or books, songs or movies  etc)  to past victories of white supremacists, it is well  to remember our past; to  acknowledge  the impact of  our society’s past  prejudices, evils and cruelties,  as well as  the joy, peace  and equality we have created. If we are to  be civilized. And, as Lea Ypi  so  eloquently notes, in  her lessons from  the pulling  down of the symbols of  the Albanian  Communist Party in 1991,  ‘If we scratch the surface, we may discover that since capitalism has historically relied on colonial structures to survive, it may be difficult to demand the end of one without demanding the end of the other’. 

It may  be useful  to  note that most of the statues and monuments  about important people ( almost exclusively men) are of people who  lives were dominated by  the need for power,  fame and/or  money. These were damaged people often  exposed to  early trauma in  their lives, and a determination to  succeed at  all and any cost.

To  know where we have come from  is to empower us.  It is well  to remember where  other societies’ book  burnings and erasure of history  have led us in  the past.


LEE CAMP: Nineteen Facts About American Policing That Will Blow Your Mind


Black Owner of Yaya’s BBQ Killed by Louisville Police Often Gave Them Free Meals

Racist Killing and Impunity

Dispatches From Kansas City: The ‘Insurrection’ That Wasn’t (May 30-31, 2020)







That ‘Deal of the Century’

Jared Kushner,  Donald Trump’s son-in-law, who  has read 25 books on the Palestinian issue, has just released the Trump regime’s  bizarre ‘Deal of the Century’, or in U.S. doublespeak, ‘Peace to Prosperity: a Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian  and Israeli  people’.

As Craig Murray   notes in his summary  of the proposal, the Kushner plan, and the responses to  it from Western  governments, underscore the  long-term hypocrisy  of Western  nations and particularly the United States ( as the ‘honest’  broker)  in pretending to  support the much  brutalized Palestinian people into  believing there could ever be such  a thing as a  viable ‘two  state  solution”.

Mountains & Cliffs
Mountains & Cliffs

If it were not for the fact  that  successive Israeli governments since 1948, have terrorized, stolen, destroyed houses, lands and property,  tortured and imprisoned many thousands of  Palestinians  (including many children)  for the crime of wanting to  retain  their own  homes and lands, then  this could almost be some stupid farce;  a joke by  puerile amateurs who  know nothing of history,  and certainly nothing about human  rights or even compassion.

If you have the stomach  for it,  read the daily litany of extreme abuse, racism  and terror inflicted by  Israeli  army soldiers and “settlers”  on  the Palestinian  people  at  https://imemc.org/

The news outlet  IPSNews, notes: The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has described the much-ballyhooed US Middle East peace plan as “more like Swiss cheese– with the cheese being offered to the Israelis and the holes to the Palestinians”.

The Ever Shrinking “Palestine” https://www.palestinecampaign.org/

As we, and increasing members of the  politic have  demonstrated with  facts over the years, a two  state solution was never going to  be a viable option for Palestinians whilst  the Israeli  regime continued to  steal  lands from  an  embattled Palestinian people .

There is now only one solution;  and that  is a single state entity which  recognizes all  peoples in  the lands of what  is now Israel/Gaza and the West  Bank  as having equal  rights:  which  recognises the right of return of   those millions of Palestinians  dispossessed of their lands  and liberty since 1948 by  the Israeli  machine, and which  provides appropriate compensation for those losses….





Who Made the Palestinian Authority a ‘Police State?’

THE ANGRY ARAB: Trump ‘Solves’ the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Relevant NewAntarctica Links

Christmas 2017 & The Dishonest Broker


Le Mesurier, Syria, Corruption & the OPCW

James Le Mesurier
James Le Mesurier









White Helmets | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix – YouTube





External Links

The Sad Death of James Le Mesurier




The USA’s History Of Controlling The OPCW To Promote Regime Change


Who is James Le Mesurier?

OPCW Losing Credibility As Even More Revelations Surface On Douma


Relevant New Antarctica Links

Lieutenant-General Soleimani & the Red Flag of Qom

No flies in Syria

Lock ’em up!-NOW!

With  dear little Mike Pompeo immediately accusing Iran of attacking two Japanese-bound   tankers  in  the Gulf of Oman  with  supposed “torpedoes” or limpet mines   (note that limpet mines have limited effect  above the waterline and would only punch  a small hole in a large tanker, and that  torpedoes have not been known to fly out of the water to  hit targets above the waterline) – we reach  new heights of lunacy  within  the United States foreign  policy  arena.   The attack  was precisely timed to  ‘fit’  with  Iran’s meeting with  a Japanese foreign  policy team attempting to  defuse  a confrontation  between  Iran  and the U.S. -which  cannot be defused.  (Clear principle of mediation Mr Trump (oh wise and great  mediator!) –  where one party is  attempting  to threaten and bully another party into total  submission-  no  agreement  is possible until  the bullying party desists. The  other party will  fight  to  defend itself unless  physically defeated. Where the bullied is aware of the bully’s strengths and weaknesses , the bullied party can  and will come up  with alternative strategies that  defeat  the bully  at  their own  game…they  are after all,  fighting for their survival and their lives, not for new profits in  the weapons industry..

It is quite likely that  one of John Bolton’s terrorist allies, like his good friends the brutal  MEK , played a part in  the tanker bombings after having not achieved the desired result a few weeks ago in a botched attack  on other tankers  in the Gulf that  caused minimal  damage . The fact  that Pompeo,  -ex CIA Director, ( it tells one a lot about ‘intelligence’  agencies  when  they have   men  with the extraordinarily limited intellectual  capacities like Pompeo  at  their heads ) has immediately come out saying it was ‘Iran  wot did it’, does somehow demonstrate the crudity and stupidity of  American  foreign  policy, and its total  reliance on  violence and intimidation as its sole  foreign policy tool.( with  a little bit of bribery  and corruption thrown in for good measure)

The United States has been forthright in saying that  Iran  does not behave like a ‘normal  country’ . What  they  mean  is that Iran  does not accept the United States’  right to  impose its will  and ‘values ( such  as they  are)  on other countries – Iran  does not behave according to  ‘accepted international  norms’.

An article by  Christopher Black in  New Eastern Outlook   article by  notes that  the (U.S.)  ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy Report’, of June 1, 2019 includes the statement that, “We will not accept policies or actions that threaten or undermine the rules-based international order (my emphasis)– an order that benefits all nations. We are committed to defending and enhancing these shared values”.

Christopher Black  notes that, ‘”What they mean by “rules based international order” is not the order of international law as accepted by the world governments in the United Nations Charter and other international agreements but a US imposed international order, – an order that does not yet exist except in the fantasies of these gangsters-but which they never stop trying to impose on the world, an order of militarism, fear, and tyranny for the rest of the world”.

The fact  that  the United Kingsom’s current government can  immediately endorse the wild accusations  of these crazed and foolish  Americans about  Iran  being the cause  of the tanker attacks , is not unsurprising. Britain  since the First  World War has promoted and supported  the  brutal Saud tribe in Arabia and its fanatical  Wahhabist ( and anti-Shi-ite)  teachings, and used to  such  great  effect  in Libya, Iraq Afghanistan and Syria  in  promoting sectarian division and violence to  provide power and profit for both British  and American  business interests in  the Middle East.

What  is perhaps most disturbing in  recent analyses of the rumours that  the U.S.  will  bomb Iran’s non-existent nuclear  bomb facilities -even  by those opposed to  the bombing-is that  this is not going to  end  well for the United States. As with  the previous multiple acts of murder against  the Iranian  people;  (not least  the attack  by  USS Vincennes on an  Iranian civilian   jumbo-jet which  killed 290  people in 1988: -(just one of so  many attacks the United States has never apologised for ; let only compensated the victims for)we see the complete absence of analyses of  what  terror,  murder and destruction  such  attacks will  inflict  on Iran’s 80  million people -already  under atack  from  years of United States’ vicious sanctions . As with  almost every  United States war;   this is a rascist war- a war of agression against darker skinned peoples who  clearly are no  match for ‘exceptional’  (white) Americans like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.

It’s time to  acknowledge that  the United States is simply a rogue state that  needs to  be controlled by  others more mature and steady and with some modicum of intelligence. Hvaing pychopaths at  the helm  does not bode well  for the survivability of the planet.

Lock  ’em up  NOW!


The MEK and the Bankrupt U.S. Policy on Iran


This Outlaw Power







The Broader View Reveals the Ugliest of Prospects


The New Ukraine: A Pathway to Peace with Zelenskiy?

With  the election of the  comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine may possibly be entering a new era-  or not….

With  no  known  specific  policy  agenda items Zelenskiy is a blank  canvas,  but there are drivers that  indicate where  the new government may  head,  based on  historical  trends.

While promising to  eliminate the endemic corruption that  has been  rampant in  Ukraine since  the Soviet Union was dismantled on December 25th  1991 ( as have many  other recent politicians like Brazil’s new president Bolsonaro or President Trump’s ‘draining of the swamp’) Zelenskiy’s credentials are not promising. His main  backer appears to be the  Ukrainian /Israeli/Cypriot  billionaire ( the second or third richest  person  in Ukraine) Ihor Kolomoyskiy,  who  fled Ukraine in  2016  (to  Israel?) after being accused by  Ukrainian officials of embezzling $5 billion from  his now nationalized Privatbank.  Once favoured by  the post Maidan   Ukrainian government and appointed governor of the  Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Kolomoyskiy is  also   accused of  using his wealth  and paramilitary  forces  to  threaten other businesses into  submission. Wikipedia notes that: Kolomoyskyi has used Privat’s “quasi-military forces” to enforce hostile takeovers of companies, sending a team of “hired rowdies armed with baseball bats, iron bars, gas and rubber bullet pistols and chainsaws” to forcibly take over a Kremenchuk steel plant in 2006,[26]and has used “a mix of phony court orders (often involving corrupt judges and/or registrars) and strong-arm tactics” to replace directors on the boards of companies he purchases stakes in.[27

You  may be amused (or not)  of this account of  Kolomoyskiy’s  behaviour  in 2014  in attempting to  reclaim  his ‘rightful’  ownership of “Ukrtransnafta”  a Ukrainian  company which  manages the transport of oil through the Ukrainian pipeline network.

Kolomoyskiy also owns the TV channel on which Zelenskiy’s comedy programmes were shown and has provided security, lawyers, and vehicles for the candidate.  Zelenskiy however,  denies,  somewhat  implausibly, any influence  by  Kolomoskiy on his political  agenda as president.

The former President Poroschenko, the confectionery  billionaire and   apparent CIA asset, attempted to  portray  Zelenskiy ( and all  the other presidential  candidates) as Putin’s stooges;  a  ploy that  has been used extensively by   Ukrainian American  intelligence assets in the Ukraine since the breakup  of the Soviet Union. Zelenskiy, while speaking Russian,  does not appear to  have the inclination or motivation to  break  away  from  these current Ukrainian  mindsets,  although he has indicated a willingness to  at  least  talk  to  the Russians about the breakaway  primarily  Russian  speaking  oblasts of  Donetsk and  Lugansk .

Despite a lack  of  evidence ( somewhat  surprising in  this age of satellite  imagery) Ukraine and many  Western  governments have continued to  insist  that  Russia is directly militarily involved in  the breakaway  regions. The Minsk  Protocol of 2014, designed to  halt the   savage war between  the  breakaway Donbass paramilitaries and the Ukrainian   government and paramilitary forces (many of the paramilitary  having neo-nazi connections and using nazi-like terms to describe their  ‘untermenschen’ Russian speaking opponents) , has failed to  stop  the fighting,  with  both  sides accusing the other of breaking the agreement.  Kolomoisky   himself has been  accused  of ‘funding the Aidar, Azov, Donbas, Dnieper-1, and Dnieper-2 battalions that engaged in a brutal campaign of looting, torture and murder during Kiev’s Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) military action against eastern Ukraine, starting in April 2014 as well  as being involved in  the burning of Odessa’s Trade Union building with much  loss of life .  Russia issued a warrant in 2014 for Kolomoyskyi’s arrest  for “organizing the killing of civilians”.

Despite monitoring by  an independent OSCE force, violations of the ceasefire by  both parties  continue to  occur on  a day  by  day  basis.  We can be thankful at  least  that  former president  Poroschenko’s attempts to  further stir up  racial  hated using the bigotry  of the far right groups,  have not won the day  in Ukraine ( for now).  For  that, Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian  Jewish   communities too  will  be thankful; despite his  billionaire sponsor’s apparent support for those groups; Patriots of Ukraine, Right Sector (Pravy Sektor) and White Hammer .

While   inflation and unemployment have reduced somewhat  since 2017,  Ukraine  continues to  be  mired deep in  a financial  crisis,  with   the EU and IMF stating that  they do  not consider Ukraine has done enough  to  reduce  government corruption  or  government subsidies . Zelenskiy will  be caught between  the need to  satisfy  his billionaire supporters,  satisfying  the demands of the IMF  and EU, while appeasing his voters and improving their lot,  and somehow reducing the scale of the conflict  in  the East.

As the media onslaught and  historical emnity to  ‘foreigners’   and national ‘patriotism’  of western  Ukrainians has surged   since Soviet days ,  the window of opportunity for reconciliation between Eastern ,  largely  Russian  speaking Ukrainians  and  the Western  EU oriented populations has begun  to  close.  Fears of a Russian invasion  have been  fanned  relentlessly by    intelligence operatives from U.S.  and U.K.  and several  other Western European  states with  Ukrainian media increasingly hyping the perceived threat  to  the benefit of the oligarchs and  political  forces.  As Ukraine’s biggest  trading partner,  and with   its  many hundreds of years of ethnic , religious  and language  connections , Russia  seems unable to  counter that  spin. For the medium  term  at  least  that  may mean  a Ukrainian nation both  divorced from  its historical  Rus  roots,  and also unable to  to  achieve recognition as a European  nation.

A nation  which  can   achieve harmonious integration of both of these paths ,  despite outside  interventions ,  would be the best  of futures. Can Zelenskiy begin  the  perilous journey  down  that  pathway; juggling the  competing interests of Russians,  Europeans and Americans  whilst maintaining Ukrainian independence?- it is just possible….



ConsortiumNews comments to  the above webpage  by  “Abe”







Zelenskii beat Poroshenko – what will happen next?



The Moral Right to Govern

The  arrest  of Julian  Assange  for absconding while  on bail from  a UK court;  (a charge that  normally requires a non custodial ( non-prison) sentence) and  his proposed extradition to  the United States for  ‘conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network in 2010″  alongside Chelsea Manning, raises important issues , not only for journalistic freedom, but also puts into  question the right of those in power to  have any  moral  capacity to make any decisions for  the publics they  supposedly represent .  Assange’s real  crime is that  his website Wikileaks exposed, and continues to  expose, the criminal  behaviour of state actors.

The U.K.  judge, Judge Michael Snow,  presiding over Assange’s arrest,  made the highly unprofessional  and unscrupulously  biased comment  when  describing Assange in  his  legal judgement as a “narcissist, who can’t get beyond his own selfish interests” and found him guilty of failing to surrender to bail in 2012.  No  doubt “Justice” Snow, considered it contemptable that  an  upstart  colonial  boy like Assange should challenge his imperial  betters in  such an unseemly way.  The personal characterization of Julian Assange by Judge Michael Snow was “highly improper,” Mads Andenas, former UN special rapporteur on arbitrary detention noted.    Should being   a narcissist ever become a chargeable crime then  certainly most judges and every politician would be spending long periods in  incarceration. As Craig Murray  notes: One key fact gave away Snow’s enormous prejudice. Julian Assange said nothing during the whole brief proceedings, other than to say “Not guilty” twice, and to ask a one sentence question about why the charges were changed midway through this sham “trial”. Yet Judge Michael Snow condemned Assange as “narcissistic”. There was nothing that happened in Snow’s brief court hearing that could conceivably have given rise to that opinion. It was plainly something he brought with him into the courtroom, and had read or heard in the mainstream media or picked up in his club. It was in short the very definition of prejudice, and “Judge” Michael Snow and his summary judgement is a total disgrace.

Its noted that  the current prime minister of the U.K. Theresa May  stated in  related to  Assange’s arrest  that “This goes to show that in the United Kingdom, no one is above the law”. . One assumes   that  May  will   therefore proceed to  the nearest  Police Station to  confess her direct  complicity  in genocide in Yemen, and that her predecessor Cameron  will  come forward to be  charged with war crimes in Libya and Syria and that  the ever determinedly evil  Tony Blair will  finally confess to  his monumental  war crimes in Iraq and elsewhere.

Similarly the media’s  constant attempts prior to Assange’s  arrest over the previous 6 years to  characterize him  as some objectionable human  being;  including his not  emptying the kitty litter for his little cat (who was voluntarily extradited to safety in November 2018) ,  or his personal  hygiene (one wonders how much  those journalists  might smell  after being incarcerated in  virtual  solitary  confinement for 7 years?) clearly demonstrates the depths to  which   Western  mainstream  journalism  has sunk, and its cosy-ing up  to “intelligence’  services determined to punish  and get  rid of Assange. ( as well as the extensive limitations of its case in  attempting to justify locking Assange up).   One can  expect  the (linked) type of response from  newspapers like the Daily Mail,  but  Mainstream  media’s attempts to  character assassinate

Assange have continued after his  arrest. Note the language in this screenshot from  the  ‘respectable’  news outlet  Reuters from 12th  April  2019 ,  stating that   Assange  was being indited for sexual  offences (charges which  as the U.N. has noted,  were dropped almost two  years ago). Wikipedia notes: ‘On 19 May 2017, the Swedish chief prosecutor applied to the Stockholm District Court to rescind the arrest warrant for Julian Assange,[39] effectively ceasing their investigation against Julian Assange.[40] The case may be reinstated until the expiration of the statute of limitations. Additionally, Britain’s arrest warrant pertaining to bail violations remains open. In 2013, Sweden tried to drop Assange extradition but the English Crown Prosecution Service dissuaded them from doing so.[41]

There appears to  be some  not inconsiderable discrepancy  between  the intent and motives of the two  women  involved in  the Swedish  rape cases and the Swedish  prosecution’s account of events.

Or  we can note another ‘respectable’  media  U.K.  outlet,  with its  ongoing wild accusations  ( screenshot below)   that  Assange and Wikileaks were somehow

connected to  Russia’s “military intelligence  spy agency”  who supposedly ( without a shred of evidence)  had   hacked the U.S.  Democratic Party’s  servers,  exposing the very  real corruption within  the party to ‘select”  Hilary  Clinton  as a presidential  hopeful..

The  numerous attempts by  the UK Justice system  to  force Sweden  to  maintain  its prosecution case for rape against  Assange,  despite their clear resistance, is one more  line of evidence of conspiracy  against  justice by  those currently  in  power in  the United Kingdom.  Ms. Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions  tweeted that the expulsion of Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London exposed him to “risks of serious human rights violations”. 

However it should be noted that  the U.K.;  like its ‘partner’  the U.S. , takes no  cognizance of its  extensive human  rights violations, as it  is  apparently above international  law. In December 2018 the U.N.  has noted that the U. K.  should: ‘abide by its international obligations” and allow Mr. Assange safe passage out of the embassy.

“States that are based upon, and promote the rule of law, do not like to be confronted with their own violations of the law, that is understandable. But when they honestly admit these violations, they do honour the very spirit of the rule of law, earn enhanced respect for doing so, and set worldwide commendable examples,” said a statement released by the Working Group.




Of course it should be remembered that  those U.K.  and U.S. people in  positions of power are the very  same people who  ultimately will  face extradition  to  The Hague and life-time imprisonment  for their war crimes and facilitation of genocide in Iraq,  Afghanistan, Libya,  Syria and now Yemen,  and whom Wikileaks has exposed as genocidal  abnd corrupt  psychopaths,  time and time again.

It is now high  time for the public in  both  the  United States and the United Kingdom,   to  acknowledge that  those who  rule    those two  nations (and who  view themselves as the ‘elite’  despite all  the evidence  to  the contrary of their minimal  vision and intelligence),  are simply  parasites  who  have no  moral  right to  rule. That  in  fact  they  are the people who  need to be in  the dock  now for  their well documented war-crimes and murders of many millions of people world-wide in  their corrupt drive for power and more money.

They  are  in  fact  truly psychopaths.

Perhaps the conclusion can  best  be left to  a quote from President Roosevelt in 1944 and  recently re-quoted by  the courageous and articulate Richard Falk: It seems apt to recall President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 message on German war crimes directed at the German people in the midst of World War II: “Hitler is committing war crimes in the name of the German people. I ask every German and every man everywhere under German domination to show the world by his action that in his heart he does not share these insane criminal desires. Let him hide the victims, help them to get over their borders, and do what they can to save them from the Nazi hangman. I ask him also to keep watch and to record the evidence that will one day be used to convict the guilty.” (emphasis added) Is this not precisely what Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange have been doing?

As Richard Falk notes,  the attempt to  extradite Assange to  answer for  his access to,  and publication of, criminal  wrongdoing by  state actors, and thereby  muzzle the release of further information on  state criminal  activity, is indisputably an international  act of criminality  in  itself.






Chelsea and Julian are in Jail. History Trembles.





Julian Assange Arrested, Take Action Now


Assange’s ‘Conspiracy’ to Expose War Crimes Has Already Been Punished