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Last month was one of the warmest Julys on record, says UN
UN says tem­per­a­tures near­ly half a de­gree above av­er­age last month, as EU mon­i­tor records record-low Antarc­tic sea ice.
Published On 9 Aug 2022

Live: Funeral takes place for Dillon Quirke, brother and sister laid to rest
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Stay up to date with all the latest news with this three-minute video update.

British postal workers to hold four days of strikes over pay
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British postal workers will hold four days of strikes in August and September in protest over pay, marking the latest announcement of industrial ac

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UK staring at blackouts and gas cuts amid extreme cold in January
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Predicting several days of winter where the colder weather could be coupled with gas shortages, the UK will reportedly undergo organized blackouts

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Under Beijing's national security law, four Hong Kong locals arrested for sedition
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Tax returns of Donald Trump must be turned over to congressional committee, appeals court rules
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Joe Biden signs documents supporting Sweden and Finland's bid to join NATO
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A week after Senate ratified the entrance of nordic countries Finland and Sweden into North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), US President Joe B

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 Is Taiwan’s Independence Worth War?
Strategic Culture Foundation (RSS)

Unlike in the Cold War, time is not necessarily on the side of the United States and its allies.

Patrick J. BUCHANAN

When a man knows he is about to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully, said Dr. Samuel Johnson.

If there is any benefit to be realized from the collision between China and the U.S. over Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, it is this: America needs to reflect long and hard upon what it is we will fight China to defend in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. China, after all, is a nuclear-weapons nation with a manufacturing base larger than our own, an economy equal to our own, a population four times ours and fleets of warships larger in number than the U.S. Navy.

An air-naval-and-missile war in the Western Pacific and East Asia would be no cakewalk. A massive barrage of anti-ship and hypersonic missiles launched by China could cripple and conceivably sink the U.S. carrier Ronald Reagan now in the South China Sea. The Reagan carries a crew of thousands of sailors almost as numerous as the U.S. casualty lists from both Pearl Harbor and 9/11, the worst attacks in and on the U.S. outside of such Civil War battles as Gettysburg and Antietam.

What in East Asia or the Western Pacific would justify such losses? What would justify such risks?

Since President Richard Nixon’s trip to China, and President Jimmy Carter’s abrogation of the mutual defense treaty with the Republic of China on Taiwan in 1979, the U.S. is not obligated to come to the defense of Taiwan against China, which claims that island the size of Maryland as “part of China.”

Our military posture has been one of “strategic ambiguity.” We will not commit to go to war to defend Taiwan, nor will we take the war option off the table if Taiwan is attacked. But if the U.S. went to war to defend Taiwan, what would it mean? We would be risking our own security and possible survival to prevent from being imposed on the island of Taiwan the same regime lately imposed on Hong Kong without any U.S. military resistance.

If Hong Kong, a city of 7 million, can be transferred to the custody and control of Beijing without resistance from the U.S., why should it be worth a major U.S. war with China to prevent that same fate and future from befalling 23 million Taiwanese?

The retort comes instantly. Allow China to take Taiwan without U.S. resistance, and our treaties to fight for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand become suspect. Belief in the U.S. commitment to fight for the nations of East Asia and the Western Pacific would dissipate. The entire architecture of Asian defense against Communist China could disintegrate and collapse.

If we allowed Taiwan to be taken by China without intervening, it is argued, the value of U.S. commitments to fight to defend scores of allies in Europe and Asia would visibly depreciate. U.S. credibility would suffer a blow as substantial as the loss of South Vietnam in 1975.

The fall of Saigon was followed by the loss of Laos and Cambodia to communism, the overthrow of the shah, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the strategic transfer of Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Grenada to the Soviet bloc, and the rise of Euro-communism on the Old Continent.

Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, and the bellicose reaction of Beijing, should raise other relevant questions. If this should lead to a U.S.-China war, what would we be fighting for? And what would victory look like?  A restoration of the status quo ante? Permanent independence for Taiwan, which would r...

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 When Will Foreign Leaders Start Asking to Speak to America’s REAL Government?
Strategic Culture Foundation (RSS)

By Caitlin JOHNSTONE

During the furor over Nancy Pelosi’s incendiary Taiwan visit last week, I was watching an appearance by Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp on the show Rising which brought up the under-discussed point that US officials going to Taipei is actually a continuation of a trend that had already been happening under the Trump administration.

DeCamp pointed out that China began regularly flying planes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone after Trump administration officials made similar visits to Pelosi’s.

“That started happening regularly after August 2020 when President Trump sent Alex Azar to Taiwan,” DeCamp said. “He was his health secretary. He was the highest-level cabinet official to visit Taiwan since 1979. The following month, in September 2020, they sent Keith Krach. He was the undersecretary for economics in the State Department, and he was the highest-level State Department official to visit Taiwan since 1979. So these are unprecedented steps, and since then we’ve seen more Chinese military activity in the region.”

Later in the interview Rising’s Briahna Joy Gray asked DeCamp if these escalations against China from the Trump administration into the Biden administration were a “kind of blob foreign policy decision that is not partisan.” DeCamp explained how in 2018 the US military began officially transitioning from emphasis on “counter-terrorism” in the Middle East toward “great power competition” with China and Russia, with the ultimate target being China.

“If you look at all the really hawkish think tanks in Washington that are funded by the arms industry, it’s all about this so-called great power competition,” DeCamp said. “Russia right now seems to be the more imminent issue I guess, but China seems to be in the long run. And we’ve seen this from just about every government agency — the Pentagon, the FBI, the State Department, the CIA — say that China is the long-term so-called threat. And we’ve seen Biden say this, and this is kind of the name of the game in Washington right now.”

In the lead-up to Pelosi’s visit, Moon of Alabama spotlighted this strange phenomenon where US foreign policy moves along the same trajectory regardless of political party or election results with a collection of recent articles that have all raised this subject independently. This one from Naked Capitalism stands out the most right now:...

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At least 15 sol­diers killed in north­ern Burk­i­na Faso blasts: Army
News | Today's latest from Al Jazeera (RSS)

Army says the ex­plo­sions oc­curred on a rur­al road in the Bam province of the coun­try’s Cen­tral-North re­gion.
Published On 9 Aug 2022

France to res­cue whale strand­ed in Seine and send it to salt­wa­ter
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A four-me­tre-long whale has been strand­ed in a riv­er since last week and is now fight­ing for its life un­til trans­fer.
Published On 9 Aug 2022

Con­gres­sion­al pan­el can look at Trump’s tax records, court rules
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The rul­ing adds to the for­mer pres­i­dent’s grow­ing list of le­gal chal­lenges as he hints at a 2024 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign.
Published On 9 Aug 2022

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Al­bu­querque po­lice ar­rest ‘sus­pect’ in killing of US Mus­lim men
The slay­ing of four Mus­lim men in New Mex­i­co had sparked fear among Mus­lim-Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try.
Published On 9 Aug 2022

Record rainfall leaves 11 dead in South Korea (VIDEO)
RT World News (RSS)

Flooding has devastated parts of Seoul and other areas, resulting in a rising death toll and at least six people reported missing

Torrential downpours for two straight days and counting have inundated Seoul with its heaviest flooding on record, leaving at least 11 people dead and six reported missing.

The South Korean capital was hit with a combined 496.5 millimeters (20 inches) of rain on Monday and Tuesday, and an additional 100-300 millimeters is forecast to fall in the area by Thursday, according to the Korean Meteorological Administration (KMA). The downpours were so intense at so...

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Twitter blocks Russian foreign ministry
RT World News (RSS)

According to the ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, the seven-day-long suspension was imposed on August 5

Twitter has temporarily suspended the account belonging to Russia’s foreign ministry, officials in Moscow have revealed. According to the ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, the punitive measure was imposed after the diplomats cited a Russian military commander, who had alleged the US could have been behind the Covid-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, Zakharova posted a message on her Telegram channel, saying that on August 5, Twitter “...

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NATO actions raise risk of nuclear conflict – Russia
RT World News (RSS)

The US-led alliance’s practice of “nuclear sharing” must end, Moscow’s envoy tells UN atomic conference

The deployment of US atomic weapons on the territory of non-nuclear NATO members goes against the nonproliferation treaty (NPT), increases the risk of conflict, and hinders disarmament efforts. This was the message the Russian delegation delivered to the UN conference on nuclear nonproliferation in New York, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said on Tuesday.

“NATO openly declared itself a nuclear alliance. There are US nuclear weapons on the territory of non-nuclear allied states in the bloc,” said Igor Vish...

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Poll shows impact of January 6 probe on US public opinion
RT World News (RSS)

The House committee’s televised hearings have failed to change voter views regarding the January 2021 Washington riot

More than a year of investigation by a congressional committee and nine televised hearings – packaged expertly by a former ABC News executive – have had essentially zero impact on public opinion about the January 6 US Capitol riot, a new poll has revealed.

The Monmouth University poll, released on Tuesday, showed that the Democrat-led House committee had failed in its efforts to...

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The Pogues’ bass player Darryl Hunt dies aged 72
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The punk band said they were ‘saddened beyond words’ to share the news.

Sport Ireland chief: We may provide financial support in event of blackouts
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Chief executive Dr Una May said the authority had considered the possibility of energy shortages this winter.