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offsite link Ukraine Buys Huge Amounts of Russian Fue... Fri Jan 20, 2023 08:34 | Antonia Kotseva

offsite link Turkey Has Sent Ukraine Cluster Munition... Thu Jan 12, 2023 00:26 | Jack Detsch

offsite link New Israeli Government Promises to Talk ... Tue Jan 10, 2023 21:13 | Al Majadeen

offsite link Russia Training Iranian Pilots Ahead of ... Tue Jan 10, 2023 15:19 | The Times of Israel

offsite link Lukashenko Abolishes Copyright Protectio... Tue Jan 10, 2023 15:05 | Nikki Main

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Human Rights in Ireland
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offsite link UN human rights chief calls for priority action ahead of climate summit Sat Oct 30, 2021 17:18 | Human Rights

offsite link 5 Year Anniversary Of Kem Ley?s Death Sun Jul 11, 2021 12:34 | Human Rights

offsite link Poor Living Conditions for Migrants in Southern Italy Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:14 | Human Rights

offsite link Right to Water Mon Aug 03, 2020 19:13 | Human Rights

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Lockdown Skeptics

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offsite link Climate Change is ?Slowing the Earth?s Rotation? Fri Mar 29, 2024 13:00 | Sallust
If you weren?t already gibbering in your boots at the prospect of devastating climate change, it's time to think again. Apparently, the movement of water from the 'melting icecaps' is slowing the rotation of the Earth.
The post Climate Change is “Slowing the Earth’s Rotation” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Hancock Fails to Have Bridgen Libel Case Thrown Out Paving Way for Full Trial Fri Mar 29, 2024 11:00 | Sally Beck
Matt Hancock, the ex-Health Secretary, has failed in his bid to have Andrew Bridgen's libel case thrown out after Hancock branded him antisemitic, paving the way for a full trial.
The post Hancock Fails to Have Bridgen Libel Case Thrown Out Paving Way for Full Trial appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link DEI Wokery is Swallowing Small Businesses Too Fri Mar 29, 2024 09:00 | C.J. Strachan
It's not only large corporations with hyperactive HR departments that are succumbing to efficiency-sapping wokery, says C.J. Strachan. Small and medium-sized enterprises are being swallowed up by DEI as well.
The post DEI Wokery is Swallowing Small Businesses Too appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Are We Being Gaslit Over the Cause of the Princess of Wales?s Cancer? Fri Mar 29, 2024 07:00 | Melissa Kite
First Charles and then Kate ? it's hard to ignore the soaring cancer rate when two members of the Royal Family are diagnosed within weeks. But are we being gaslit about what's behind the surge, asks Melissa Kite.
The post Are We Being Gaslit Over the Cause of the Princess of Wales’s Cancer? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Fri Mar 29, 2024 00:04 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the virus and the vaccines, the ?climate emergency? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Moscow attack reminds us of the links between Islamists and Kiev's fundamentalis... Tue Mar 26, 2024 06:57 | en

offsite link Failure to assist a people in danger of genocide, by Hassan Hamadé Tue Mar 26, 2024 06:32 | en

offsite link Yugoslavia March 24, 1999 The Founding War of the New Nato, by Manlio Dinucci Sun Mar 24, 2024 05:15 | en

offsite link France opposes Russian Korean-style peace project in Ukraine Sat Mar 23, 2024 11:11 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N°79 Fri Mar 22, 2024 11:40 | en

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Plane Truth

category international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis author Wednesday January 24, 2007 20:18author by SWM PR - Small World Media Report this post to the editors

CD Stelzer investigates the secret role of freight airlines under contract to the US military and asks why they are allowed to refuel at civilian airports all over the world

ISLAND – WINTER 2006/2007 On three successive nights in early August 2006, members of the Trident Ploughshares raided Prestwick Airport in Scotland. After breaching security fences with wire cutters, the anti-war activists observed US Air Force transport planes on the tarmac and in a nearby service hangar. In two instances, they brazenly boarded military aircraft, rummaging through their interiors before being arrested.
The activists suspected the Americans of using the airport as part of an operation to resupply Israel with deadly munitions. They did not find the evidence they sought, but news of their arrests stirred a controversy in the United Kingdom. The ensuing debate over airport security among other issues overshadowed what the protesters had discovered.
At Prestwick, the ‘citizen inspectors’, as they call themselves, observed Atlas Air and Polar Air Cargo planes mixed in with the military aircraft. The same company — Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings of Purchase, New York, owns the two commercial transporters. Both are registered as private businesses, offering a wide range of services to civilian customers.
Both companies are also part of the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) — an arm of the United States Air Force. Frequent use of Prestwick by CRAF carriers is one reason the assorted scofflaws gave for committing their acts of civil disobedience.
The activists say they knew about the suspicious activities of these particular air cargo companies because their Irish counterparts at Shannon Airport, so-called ‘plane spotters’ had long reported on them.
Despite the clamour of anti-war protesters on both sides of the Irish Sea, few details concerning these US military-sponsored flights have been released.
To date, officials in Ireland and the United Kingdom have remained mostly reticent, failing to acknowledge any impropriety with respect to the US military’s use of civilian air facilities.
When asked directly, a spokesperson for the US Air Force Air Mobility Command (AMC) at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois refused to divulge whether CRAF planes specifically carry weapons, preferring instead to generically refer to all cargoes as Defence Department ‘freight’.
The AMC spokesperson also denied that CRAF planes are engaged in any intelligence-related activities, contradicting a 1996 Defense Department regulation that allows ‘classified material up to and including Secret [to] be transmitted outside the United States’ on board CRAF aircraft.
A spokesperson for the Atlas Air Worldwide declined to comment, as well, saying only that ‘as a matter of corporate policy, we do not publicly comment on our customers, their cargo, routes or schedules’.
There is no doubt, however, that CRAF planes are hauling weapons. In a recent letter obtained by ISLAND through Senator David Norris’ office, Minister for Transport Martin Cullen cited five instances in which Polar Air Cargo flights had been granted exemptions by the Government to fly weapons or munitions through Irish air space. In September, the US Defence Department allocated another $2.3 billion to the CRAF programme for the next fiscal year. Teams of American civilian airlines bid on these lucrative military contracts.
This year, as in the past, Atlas and Polar teamed up with Federal Express, which scored a contract valued at between $185 million and $1 billion — nearly half of CRAF’s current budget. The Pentagon implemented the CRAF programme in 1991, during the first Gulf War. But doling out military air support work to the private sector goes back even further.
The US defence establishment started employing commercial airlines several decades ago, a habit that has had the side effect of blurring the line between civilian and military aviation. More important, it creates a gray area used to finance US covert operations. A close look at a company once closely affiliated with Polar Air Cargo is a good way of shedding some light on this murky netherworld.

[The rest of this feature can be read in the current issue of ISLAND.]

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