Tag Archives: ukraine

An alternative VE Day message – Standing with Ukraine

By Richard Kilpatrick and Michael Anderson | Sun 11th May 2025 - 10:56 am

An alternative VE day message – Standing with Ukraine. 

In 2025, the world marks 80 years since Victory in Europe (VE) Day. But the war in Ukraine rages on – a stark reminder that peace and freedom can never be taken for granted.

While we celebrate the end of an old conflict, millions of Ukrainians are still living through the devastation of an ongoing war.

On behalf of the European Movement UK we went to Ukraine, to put Ukrainian voices in front of a British audience and to ensure their voices are not forgotten.

We are presenting these stories in a new film: Flags in the Wind.

In Flags in the Wind, we hear from the voices of everyday Ukrainians forced to flee their homes in Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Kyiv, relocating to the humanitarian hubs around Lviv.

By hearing their experiences, we discover the resilience of a people, the horrors of war, and the determination to set an example to the people of Europe in the face of tyranny. 

With contributions from Ukrainian citizens, veterans, senior politicians, and rehabilitation centre clinicians, Flags in the Wind delivers a sober message at a time when Europe is remembering the end of World War II.

Since we were founded in 1949,our mission at the European Movement has always been to promote peace, democracy, and unity across Europe.

This film is a direct expression of that purpose – reminding us that standing together in the face of aggression is essential to protecting our shared, European future.

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Mark Valladares

19 March 2025 – yesterday’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 20th March 2025 - 7:30 am
  • US-Russia call: Putin is “stringing Trump along”
  • NICs vote: Labour MPs vote for “health tax” on GPs, pharmacies and care homes
  • Conservative local election launch: “buck stops” with Badenoch
  • “Time for a fair deal for farmers” – Carmichael to introduce Food Supply Chain Fairness Bill
  • Scottish Government admits it failed to conduct safeguarding review
  • Minister visited Skye House just months before cruelty allegations surfaced
  • Severn Estuary Commission Report – Get on with Building the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon
  • Rennie responds to damning evidence session on funding crisis at Dundee University

US-Russia call: Putin is “stringing Trump along”

Responding to Putin’s phone call with Trump, Calum Miller MP, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson, said:

Donald Trump’s fawning call with Putin couldn’t be more different to his and JD Vance’s shameful bullying of Zelensky in the Oval Office.

It’s clear Trump is being played by Putin – stringing him along and currying favour even as his savage war machine continues to push deeper into Ukraine.

Now is the time for the UK and our allies in Europe and the Commonwealth to redouble our efforts to support Ukraine’s defence and achieve a lasting peace.

NICs vote: Labour MPs vote for “health tax” on GPs, pharmacies and care homes

Responding to the Government voting to reject a Liberal Democrat amendment which would have exempted health and care providers from the national insurance rise, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

Labour MPs today have voted for a health tax on GPs, dentists, pharmacies, hospices and care homes, and it is patients who will pay the price.

The Liberal Democrats are proud we have led the fight to exempt health and care providers from this misguided tax hike, and we will not give up now.

On April 6th worried social care providers and GP surgeries are going to be hit with bills they simply cannot afford. Rachel Reeves must finally see sense, U-turn on this disastrous policy and exempt health and care providers from this damaging jobs tax.

Conservative local election launch: “buck stops” with Badenoch

Commenting on the Conservatives’ local election launch tomorrow (20th March) a Liberal Democrat spokesperson said:

The buck stops with bungling Badenoch. If she fails to deliver in the local elections, the writing will truly be on the wall for her and for the Conservative Party.

Whilst they compete with Reform and tilt ever further to the right, the Liberal Democrats are focused on delivering for residents on issues including the cost of living, sewage in our rivers and the emergency in our NHS and care.

We’re hearing on the doorsteps that people haven’t forgiven the Conservatives for all the damage they’ve done. If Kemi speaks to voters tomorrow, she will doubtless hear the same. Voters have a clear choice in May, and across the country, including in Buckinghamshire, they are turning to the Liberal Democrats as community champions who will stand up for them.

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Tony Paterson

Let Lib Dems, not Farage, “Reform UK”

By Tony Paterson | Wed 19th March 2025 - 11:55 am

At this time of crisis, the Lib Dems must seize back the `Reform UK’ initiative from Nigel Farage and his ramshackle party. Freedom is at stake.

Voting intentions (polling data from 10 March) are 15% for the Lib Dems and 23% for Reform UK (from 11% and 25% last December). Here’s how to build on this poll hike.

Farage’s stated belief in electoral reform contains an inherent contradiction: while he ostensibly champions PR, his dream of being PM in 2029 hinges on First Past The Post being maintained.      

To be recognised as the real party of reform, the Lib Dems must recapture the initiative. First, use PR as a protest vehicle for appealing to voters disenchanted with a system which gave 2/3 of seats to a party with only 1/3 of the votes. 

Secondly, keep flagging up Farage’s championing of Putin during the 2024 GE campaign, when, pointing to NATO’s and the EU’s eastward expansion, he claimed that ‘we provoked this war’. Already in 2014, in an interview with GQ magazine, Farage had named Putin as the world leader he most admired. And let’s not forget his many appearances on Russia Today, at least three of them after Putin invaded Crimea in 2014.

But more recently, Farage has been presenting himself as the voice of moderation within his party. We must highlight Farage’s volatility, contrasted with our consistent liberalism.

Ed Davey, who is stalwartly supporting Ukraine, has proposed large increases in our defence spending as a percentage of GDP and, over the past few weeks, has used many of his PMQs to back Ukraine, is best placed to challenge Reform UK over UK military reform. Farage’s well publicised association with Trump makes it hard for him to follow suit. Polling data shows how deeply split Reform voters are over whether their party would do better with or without Farage.

World War III, using modern means of warfare to undermine Western freedom and democracy, has already begun. (See Economist `Want to stop a third world war?’, 30.5.24). Warfare today is hybrid: insidious, dangerous, but not always obvious. It includes ‘grey zone’ warfare: ‘salami-slicing’ (as Putin did to Crimea in 2014, severing it from Ukraine while causing little Western reaction), cyber warfare, sabotaging crucial infrastructure, etc. 

Ideologically, the strategy involves harnessing populism to build up far-right parties across Europe, including in the UK. How can we jolt the country as a whole into recognising that we, on the other hand, stand for freedom and democracy?  

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George Cunningham

Trump’s steal deal with Russia on Ukraine

By George Cunningham | Tue 18th March 2025 - 1:52 pm

This weekend, the party will be debating the F14 motion “The UK’s Response to Trump” at conference.

Recent statements by our party and the motion itself pretty much encapsulate the UK public’s feeling about the Trumpist revolution in the United States. The Lib Dems, as an opposition party, can more easily be the voice of reality, saying what the UK government dares not to say as it seeks in vain to seek some shred of common ground with Washington, especially over the future of Ukraine.

The reason for Trump’s partiality towards Putin is simply that the business opportunities are too tempting for making money for his family, associates and MAGA agenda.

Here Trump’s model is a reflection of Putin’s, with his entourage of compliant oligarchs. The US context however makes Trump’s oligarchs not quite as beholden to him, having mostly made their own money rather than looted it.

Trump’s long business relations with Russia are well-documented.  That they are alive and well was recently reinforced by the reported presence of long time Trump associate Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev acting as a go-between at the US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th March 2025 - 8:30 am

Ukraine

The Ukraine ball has bounced from Ukraine’s court to Russia’s court and now back into America’s court.

Donald Trump has always claimed a special relationship with Vladimir Putin– “He listens to me…the war would never have started if I had been in office…I can stop this war in 24 hours.”

Not if Vladimir can help it. As I write this Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff is flying back to Washington after exhausting talks in the Kremlin. He went asking Putin to agree to a 30-day ceasefire. Ukraine had already—under pressure from Trump—said yes.

Putin said…I’ll think about it. Actually he was a bit more diplomatic. He prefaced his hesitation with the normal flattery that must precede any exchange with the American president. He said that he is “aligned” with Trump and “expressed solidarity” with the man in the White House.

Then the Russian leader said: “I need more information,”which is another way of saying “I’ll think about it,”which is another way of stalling.

Putin is stalling because at the moment he is on the offensive. It looks as if he might soon push the Ukrainians out of their Kursk salient. He continues to inch forward in the Donbas and every captured inch improves his negotiating position.

That negotiating position has not changed for three years: Ukraine out of NATO and EU and demilitarised. International recognition for the annexation of the Donbas and Crimea. Sanctions lifted. Zelensky replaced by a Russian puppet.

Trump, however, is not focused on Putin’s long-term aims. He wants a ceasefire now. He has demanded it and has threatened renewed sanctions if his ultimatum is not met. It hasn’t been and Trump’s next move will reveal more about his role as honest broker.

Trump’s tariff rollercoaster

Tariffs up, down, off, on. Markets crave certainty. They fear uncertainty and they panic at chaos.

Trump’s muddled tariff policy is causing the stock market to dive. And according to Trump’s past statements, the stock market is the best judge of his economic policies.

He started off well. His election in November was followed by big rises. Nasdaq and the Dow Jones reached record highs in December. The S&P 500 two months later. American business was anticipating an economic boom fuelled by a bonfire of government regulations. It didn’t believe that Trump would actually follow through with threats of tariffs.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Buy American, Save Ukraine.

By Tom Arms | Sat 8th March 2025 - 9:11 am

There is an outside, long shot chance of saving Ukraine and the Western Alliance—Buy American.

I don’t mean American cars or cereal. I mean something which really costs—American weaponry, American satellite links and American intelligence.

The money is there, $300-plus billion in frozen Russian assets that was being held back for Ukrainian reconstruction. There is not much point in saving it for reconstruction purposes if there is no country to reconstruct.

On top of that the normally frugal Germans are about to remove the EU debt brake and leap into a defense spending spree. And across Europe taxes are set to rise and welfare budgets cut to pay for what is now a defense emergency.

The purpose of the rapid rise in defense spending is to fill the huge hole left by the withdrawal of the United States from Ukraine and probably Europe as a whole. The problem is that no matter how big the budget it will take at least five—probably more—years to rebuild military forces and defense industries, and Putin is banging on Europe’s door today.

That is why British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky pressed Donald Trump for security guarantees as part of any ceasefire agreement.

The problem is that Trump does not see any advantage for him—or America—in providing such guarantees. It involves expensive aid until a ceasefire agreement is reached; commits US forces to a clash with Russia if Putin—as expected—breaks the ceasefire and potentially interferes with his plans to buddy up with fellow autocrat and would block access to Russian natural resources.

So give him a cash incentive with a bit of ego boosting thrown in for good measure. This is the kind of enticement Trump easily understands.

To start with the US gets the mineral rights deal he is demanding for past aid. Next,Trump is the recognised point man in negotiations with Vladimir Putin, but he has to consult and keep informed  European leaders and Zelensky.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: A British Knight in King Donald’s Court

By Tom Arms | Sat 1st March 2025 - 9:20 am

The British Foreign Office set a low bar for Sir Keir Starmer’s trip to America—Don’t fall out with King Donald. He succeeded.

That is not to say that substantive issues were not discussed. They were and included:

Tariffs – and the possibility, nay probability,  of reviving the Johnson era US-UK trade deal that could exempt Britain from the crippling tariffs that Trump has threatened to impose on the EU.

The Chagos Islands – Trump is inclined to go along with the British position.

And Ukraine – On this top of the agenda item Sir Keir failed. Trump was immovable – No backstop. No security guarantees and total confidence in the honesty of fellow dissembler Vladimir Putin.

The tete a tete started with a cringe-making pantomime when in front of the world’s media the prime minister reached into his suit pocket and drew out a letter from King Charles III.

It was the expected invitation to Trump to make an historic second state visit to Buckingham Palace.

Royal Family fan Donald evinced childlike surprise and delight at the expected letter and the friendly tone was set for the private talks in the Oval Office. The first box was ticked.

An Anglo-American trade deal has long been one of Trump’s priorities. Not because of any love for the royal family or the homeland of his mother. No, Donald Trump wants a trade deal with Britain because he hates the EU. It is a threat to American trade hegemony. Trump wants to encourage its break-up and insure that Britain does not return to the European fold by pulling it closer to America.

In any upcoming trade talks the British public will be focused on chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-fed beef and higher prices for NHS drugs. The attention of Trump’s negotiators will be on coordinating regulations across a wide-range of goods and services to make it more difficult for Britain to negotiate re-entry into the European single market and/or customs union.

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Tom Arms

The End

By Tom Arms | Sat 1st March 2025 - 7:00 am

February 28, 2025 may well go down in history as the day that the Western Alliance ended and the world was suddenly thrown into an unknown future by a White House bully and his initialled sidekick.

The undynamic duo’s treatment of the president of a country which has sacrificed thousands upon thousands of lives in the cause of the protection of the West shamed the United States and countries who have been in alliance with America.

“Say thank you. Say thank you,” shouted J.D. Vance when he should have been thanking Zelensky for the ultimate sacrifices his countrymen and women have made.

“You are not showing any respect,” said Donald Trump, sounding more like a mafia don then the leader of the Free World. It was draft dodger Trump who should have been respecting wartime leader Zelensky who has—against all odds—held out against the Russian war machine for three years.

Several times Zelensky tried to say thank you and explain his position, but each time he was shouted down by Vance and/or Trump.

At one point Trump pursed his lips shook his head back and forth and repeated in a childishly petulant mocking voice: “I don’t want a ceasefire. I don’t want a ceasefire.”

Again, Zelensky tried to explain that he wants an end to the war but that any ceasefire must come with security guarantees because Putin has broken every ceasefire, treaty and agreement that Ukraine has negotiated with the Russian dictator.

Zelensky flew to Washington to sign a deal which would hand over a major chunk of his country’s mineral rights. Trump said the rare earths that American companies would mine was compensation for the aid that America has given Ukraine. Zelensky agreed to that but also wanted assurances that included in the deal would be future security guarantees. A deal which gave away billions worth of mineral rights in perpetuity without protecting Ukrainian territorial integrity was worthless.

But Trump and Vance were determined to secure the rights and at the same time withdraw American support and bully Zelensky into effectively surrendering to Russia. And it was done before a television audience of billions in what appeared to be an attempt to humiliate the Ukrainian leader. The result was possibly the most disgraceful scene in diplomatic history.

European leaders, Democrats and officials from the first Trump administration seemed to regard it as just that.

John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, said on X: “Trump and Vance have declared themselves to be on Russia’s side in the Russo-Ukraine war, This is a catastrophic mistake for America’s national security. And let’s be clear: Trump and Vance now personally own that policy. It is not the view of a majority of Americans of either or no political party.”

>H.R. McMaster another former national security advisor in the first Trump administration, said it is  “impossible to understand” why Trump and Vance “seem determined to put more pressure on President Zelensky while they seem to be coddling Putin—the person who inflicted this terrible war in Ukraine.”

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a post on X said the “outrageous display” from Trump and Vance was “disgraceful” and “downright un-American.”

French president Emmanuel Macron said: “We should respect those who have been fighting since the beginning,”

“Ukraine, you’ll never walk alone,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said via X. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said, “Ukraine, Spain stands with you.” Friedrich Merz, the likely incoming German leader, also said he stands with Zelensky before adding that the “aggressor and victim in this terrible war” must never be confused. Top diplomats for the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland issued similar messages of support for Kyiv and the Ukrainian president.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised Zelensky for his “dignity” and said the bloc will continue working with him “for a just and lasting peace.”

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said: “Estonia’s support for Ukraine remains unwavering. It is time for Europe to step up. We do not need to wait for something else to happen; Europe has enough resources, including Russia’s frozen assets, to enable Ukraine to continue fighting,”

The diplomatic meltdown at the White House comes as European leaders—including Zelensky—are preparing to meet in London on Sunday to discuss their next moves in the Ukrainian imbroglio. Host Sir Keir Starmer sees Britain as bridge between Europe and America. The problem is that Trump and Vance appear to be intent on burning that bridge.

Here is the transcript of Trump, Zelensky, and Vance’s contentious exchange. It has been edited for length and clarity.

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Mark Valladares

24 February 2025 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Mon 24th February 2025 - 10:45 pm
  • DIY heating: More than nine in ten Scots using alternatives to central heating this winter
  • Cole-Hamilton: UK must stand strong against Putin three years on from illegal invasion
  • Labour should ditch plans for health “superboards”
  • Crown Estate Bill – Labour treating Wales with contempt

DIY heating: More than nine in ten Scots using alternatives to central heating this winter

  • Scots who are worried about the cost of heating have changed how they heat their homes this winter to help cut bills.
  • Scottish Liberal Democrats are calling for an emergency home insulation programme to help those in fuel poverty.

A shocking new poll commissioned by the Liberal Democrats has revealed that 66% of Scots say they are worried about the cost of heating their home this winter, as they reveal the alternative methods they are using to keep warm this winter.

The poll reveals that a staggering 96% of Scots who are worried about the cost of heating their home this winter have made changes to how they heat their homes.

Of those, 46% have lowered the thermostat temperature and almost a third (29%) have reduced the number of rooms being heated.

To keep warm this winter, 66% of Scots have worn additional clothing, 56% have used more blankets and throws and 38% have been drinking more hot beverages.

Worryingly, 5% of those who are worried about heating costs have revealed they have visited a warm bank this winter. Warm banks are free, safe spaces where people can go to warm up if they can’t afford to heat their homes.

Around 34% of all households in Scotland are estimated to be fuel poor. The energy price cap is set to rise by 5% in April, increasing average annual household bills to £1,823 from April this year.

Liberal Democrat Scottish affairs spokesperson Christine Jardine MP said:

Both the Scottish and UK governments are failing to support Scots with heating their homes during the difficult winter months.

After the UK Labour Government axed universal winter fuel payments, vulnerable pensioners were left to choose between heating and eating. Meanwhile, on the SNP’s watch, fuel poverty has soared to record levels and it could take ministers 100 years to heat eligible homes.

My party has been working hard to try and unpick some of that damage, and after our talks with the Scottish Government, we’ve ensured that all pensioners in Scotland will receive help with their heating bills next winter.

Ministers still have a lot more to do, which is why we want to see the Scottish Government rolling out a nationwide insulation programme. That’s how we can meet the scale of the challenge and provide a win-win of cutting emissions and energy bills.

Cole-Hamilton: UK must stand strong against Putin three years on from illegal invasion

Speaking three years on from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has said that the UK must stand strong against Putin and boost support for Ukraine by seizing frozen Russian assets, working in close step with Europe and increasing defence spending.

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Zachary Barker

Third Anniversary of the Invasion of Ukraine: There Are No Easy Options Left

By Zachary Barker | Mon 24th February 2025 - 11:15 am

Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy

Three years ago the Russian invasion of Ukraine became too loud for Europe and the world to ignore. The truth that those same countries could not admit before then, is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had actually started in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea and the start of the Donbass War. Far from fighting for their independence for three years, Ukrainians have actually been fighting for over 10 years.

What prevented Ukraine’s now allies, and the US, from recognising what …

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The Voice

Davey: Give Ukraine a critical boost using frozen Russian assets

By The Voice | Mon 24th February 2025 - 8:22 am

Commenting on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said:

For three years, the brave Ukrainian people have heroically defended their country against Putin’s war machine. Now we face an era-defining moment which will determine the future of our continent for generations to come.

Now, more than ever, we must stand firmly in support of our Ukrainian friends, resist Trump’s alarming attempts at a stitch up with Putin and work with our European neighbours to defend freedom and democracy.

That should start immediately, using the £40 billion of Russian assets frozen by the UK

…

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 23rd February 2025 - 8:48 am

Europe and United States

The European tag team of Starmer and Macron is off to Washington next week. The British Prime Minister and the French President will be trying to persuade Trump to save the Western Alliance by continuing to back Ukraine.

It will be a difficult if almost impossible task given the flood of anti-Zelensky, anti-European and pro-Russian rhetoric that has been pouring out of Washington. But they must but try.

Macron will be the first to arrive. He will sit down with President Trump on Monday.

The French president has taken the lead in trying to rally Europe-wide support for Ukraine with two Paris summits within a few days of each other. He has argued for years that the danger of American isolationism required Europe to increase its defences to fill the American vacuum.

At the summits he proposed that European countries despatch a peacekeeping force of up to 30,000 troops to guard key parts of Ukraine’s infrastructure. They would be supported by Western air and sea power.

Keir Starmer arrives at the White House on Thursday. The British took the lead in supporting Ukraine and continue to do so. The prime minister supports the idea of a peacekeeping force, but only as part of a ceasefire agreement and only with “an American backstop.”

Starmer has been vague about what the backstop would involve, but it is likely that he would want a guarantee of US air support.

However, the peacekeeping proposal could be dead in the water before it reaches the Oval Office. Germany is opposed to it. Chancellor Olof Scholz said such a proposal is premature and would be a serious escalation. Vladimir Putin has rejected any deal that involves European troops based in Ukraine.

Ukraine

What are the negotiating positions in Ukraine? There are four actors, only two of which have started talking: The US, Russia, Ukraine and Europe.

Donald Trump’s immediate objective is clear: Stop the fighting. And he appears ready to concede victory to Russia to achieve that aim. Longer-term, Trump clearly wants to withdraw American military support from Europe and move it into the Indo-Pacific region. The US president also appears to want rehabilitate Russia in order to gain access to that country’s natural resources.

Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine. In the short term he wants recognition for the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Donbas Region (including parts which it has not occupied). He also wants guarantees that Ukraine will be demilitarised; will not be allowed to join NATO and that no western (European or American) troops will be based in Ukraine. He also wants a pro-Russian government in Kyiv. Putin wants to win so that he can use victory in Ukraine as a springboard to exert Russian influence over Eastern Europe and beyond so that Russia is once again a Great Power.

Ukraine’s wants are simpler. It wants Russia out of its territory and guarantees that it will be protected in the future through membership of NATO. In the short-term Volodomyr Zelensky will agree to a ceasefire along the current front line if it is backed up by European/American peacekeepers.

Europe is riddled with differences. Despite what many Americans think, Europe is not one country. It is 27 members of the EU, Britain and a few small states. But with a few exceptions, Europe is united in wanting to contain a resurgent Russia and regards Ukraine as fighting a war on its behalf. Europeans regard NATO and American support as crucial in their aims. Europe—as a collection of countries—has given more aid to Ukraine than anyone else. After years of American pressure they are increasing defense spending and building up their militaries to replace American troops. But it takes time and they face an uphill task persuading Donald Trump to give them that time.

NATO

Here’s the good news: Donald Trump cannot unilaterally decide to withdraw from NATO. In December 2023 the NATO Enhancement Act was passed by Congress (co-sponsored by the current Secretary of State Marco Rubio). This bill required the president to seek a two-thirds majority of the Senate before withdrawing from the NATO Alliance.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Zelensky’s Options

By Tom Arms | Sat 22nd February 2025 - 9:40 am

Volodomyr Zelensky has had a tough job since February 2022. And since the election of Donald Trump it has become a whole lot tougher.

In just the past ten days the American president and his acolytes have gone over his head and behind his back to negotiate directly with Russia’s Vladimir Putin; accused Zelensky of being a dictator; demanded virtual total control of the Ukrainian economy; ruled out Ukrainian membership of NATO and the return of territory; accused Ukraine of starting the war and undermined negotiations by announcing that Russia “holds the cards.”

Trump has also damaged relations with NATO allies by cutting them out of any negotiations about Ukraine’s future, despite the fact that Ukraine is in Europe and the Europeans have contributed more to its defense then the US.

But hold on. Zelensky and his European allies have a few cards of their own.

The biggest ones involve cash. Russia is spending and leaking money and earning less and less while its bills pending pile grows bigger and bigger.

Let’s start with its Sovereign Wealth Fund (aka National Wealth Fund or NWF). This has been the main source of ready cash for Putin’s “special military operation.” In January 2022, the NWF coffers held $210 billion. At the start of this year, the fund had dwindled to $116 billion. But wait, it’s even worse than that. Almost all of the war spending comes from liquid reserves which have shrunk more than 75 percent from $130 billion to $40 billion.

At the current rate of spending, Putin will run out of liquid cash in less than a year. His borrowing options are limited. The IMF and World Bank are out of the question, as are western commercial banks. This leaves the Chinese who would doubtless drive a hard bargain.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Ukraine – Europe Missed A Trick

By Tom Arms | Fri 14th February 2025 - 7:38 pm

Europe has missed a trick. Ukraine was primarily a European problem. Russia was threatening European security, and by extension, the NATO alliance as a whole. But to most Americans the war in Ukraine, as Neville Chamberlain said in 1938 about Czechoslovakia—“is a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.”

But America coughed up billions. That is not to say that European countries—including the UK—have not dug deep. Since 2022 Europe has given slightly more than the US – $65.9 billion compared to $65 billion from Washington. Another $8.59 billion has come from non-European countries Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

But the Biden Administration was far and away the single biggest contributor propping up Ukraine. With Trump in the White House that prop is likely to be kicked away—possibly as soon as this weekend’s Munich Security Conference.

Europeans admit that their over-reliance on the American military umbrella has made them complacent about their security. Since the end of the Cold War defense budgets have shrunk to a shadow of their former selves. Germany, for instance was in 1985 spending 2.87 percent of its GDP on defense. When Russia invaded Ukraine the figure had been cut by more than half to 1.33 percent.

Budget cuts meant cuts in troop numbers. 478,000 (1985 figure) in Germany to 183,000 in 2022. Britain went from 334,000 to 153,000 over the same period.

But more importantly was a drop in investment in defense industries.  Troop levels can be boosted relatively easily. But researching the latest weapons, building a factory and assembly line and starting production takes time. 1985 figures for European investment in defense industries are difficult to find, but since the invasion of Ukraine there is a clear recognition that it was not enough. In 2021 the figure was $222 billion and in 2024 it had jumped to $330 billion.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 9th February 2025 - 8:30 am

Germany

Germany’s Friedrich Merz is gambling big. The leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is gambling with the upcoming elections, his political career, his country’s future and Europe’s future.

He is gambling that by opening—ever so slightly—the door to the German far-right that he will be able to slam it shut again after winning elections on February 23.

Ever since the end of the Second World War the mainstream political parties have maintained a firewall (or “Brandmauer”) between themselves and any far-right, neo-Nazi party that might undermine the political consensus that Germany maintain a sense of contrition for its Nazi past.

In recent years that has meant no coalitions, no deals, no talk of parliamentary support with the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD).

Merz blew a hole in the Brandmauer at the end of January when he used AfD votes in the Bundestag to push through the first reading of an anti-immigration bill.  The “Influx Limitation Law” would have tightened existing immigration laws and grant police powers to detain people due for deportation and to deport immigrants at the border.”

The move provoked a stern protest from Merz’s predecessor, elder statesperson Angela Merkel. “I consider it wrong,” she said in a statement, “to abandon this commitment (the firewall) and, as a result to knowingly allow a majority vote with AfD votes in the Bundestag for the first time.”

The vote also sparked off a series of anti-AfD and pro-immigration demonstrations over the weekend.

The result was defeat for the bill at its second reading this week as 12 members of Merz’s own party voted against him.

Merz was unrepentant and has vowed even tougher anti-immigration laws if he wins the election. At the moment his party is predicted to win 30 percent of the vote. The AfD is projected to secure the number two slot with 20 percent of the vote while the opposition coalition of the Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals is likely to come in third with 29 percent.

Merz is gambling that his politics will steal some of the AfD’s far-right clothes and push up his share of the vote. But he also risks losing the centrist votes that were secured by Angela Merkel’s moderate positions. And his defeat at the second reading undermines Merz’s leadership of the CDU and runs the risk of pushing Germans concerned about immigrants into the arms of the AfD.

Europe

“Europe,” Trump recently warned, “you are next.”

The newly-elected American president was referring to those “lovely, lovely tariffs” that he is imposing left, right and centre, especially on those who dare to disagree with him.

Trump has never liked the EU. With half a billion reasonably well-off people, it is the world’s largest trading bloc, and trading bloc’s exist to protect the economic interests of their members, and they use the leverage that their size gives them to negotiate the best possible trading terms.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 26th January 2025 - 10:07 am

United States

A stroke of the pen is not enough to end America’s birth right citizenship laws. Donald Trump has so many more political and legal mountains to climb before his presidential decree can take effect.

First there is the law. Already 24 Democratic states have launched lawsuits opposing Trump’s sudden end to birth right citizenship.

They are on firm ground. The Fourteenth Amendment of the US constitution says: “All persons born…in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

Trump claims that birth right citizenship has never challenged in the courts. That is wrong. In the …

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Tony Paterson

Love is not enough

By Tony Paterson | Mon 23rd December 2024 - 9:28 am

`Love is Enough’ is a wonderful song. Well done to Ed Davey and the Bath Philharmonia Young Carers Choir on having targeted the target Christmas  Number 1 spot. As a sentiment, though, it only reflects one side of the essential components that make us who we are as a political movement and segment of British society.  

At Party Conference in Bournemouth in 2023, I helped found a new Affiliated Organisation called Liberal Democrat Friends of Ukraine, focusing primarily on the bellicose military objective of helping Ukraine to defend itself against Putin’s aggression. Humanitarian support and reconstruction aid are our other priorities. It was the right thing to do – for Ukraine but also for Britain.

That Conference in September 2023 passed a belligerent motion urging the Government, `in defence of liberal values’, to:-

Do all it realistically can, in view of Putin’s brazen actions, to help arm Ukraine, including with longer-range precision weapons,…. to defeat Russia. Continue to strengthen the supply of British arms and ammunition to Ukraine… 

Fantastic. Lib Dem Friends of Uraine works closely with sister AOs like the Armed Forces and Hong Kong. We are about values. Membership of Lib Dem Friends of Ukraine alone has surged to about 350, much of it since Brighton 2024. So many Party members care about this.

Standing back from the `Peace Dividend’ mindset that has catastrophically got us, since 1989, to where, militarily, we are now, we can see how Utopian the daydream was.

Liberal, advanced democracies, including ours, have slid into a vicious circle of 1939 ostrich groupthink.

All parties seem to think that voters would question whoever was honest enough to spell out the substantially higher share of GDP that would be needed to re-arm, and adequately defend Ukraine and ourselves.

Responding to this, they collectively encouraged voters to believe that there was no danger – leaving the UK insufficiently capable, apart from our excellent at sea nuclear deterrent.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 24th November 2024 - 10:41 am

COP 29

COP 29 is in trouble. It was inevitable. This year’s climate change conference is in oil-producing Baku, Azerbaijan, and host president Ilham Aliyev is using the conference to push oil and gas as “a gift from God.”

This is encouraging the Saudis who are working hard to strike the phrase “transition away from fossil fuels” from previously agreed communiques.

Then there is the question of the transfer of money from the developed to the developing world; partly to compensate them from the effects of climate change problems created by the industrial north and partly to help them transition away from fossil fuels to clean, green energy.

Previous communiques talked about $100 billion. Now it is generally agreed that $1.3 trillion is a more realistic figure. A big fine, global figure which is facing the problem of devilish detail. What for instance, constitutes a developing country. Officially Saudi Arabia, China and India are all developing countries. The Saudis are as rich as Croesus, China has the second largest economy in the world and India the fourth and will soon be third.

And how will this transfer of $1.3 trillion be organised? Will it be hand-outs which might well end up in some dictator’s Swiss bank account? Will private investments which can create a return for the Western investor be counted in the $1.3 trillion, or research and development grants? All this is being negotiated as I type and will probably be unresolved long after the conference ends.

In fact, the protracted negotiations are proving to be an insurmountable hurdle for the understaffed Azerbaijani diplomatic service. They have been forced to turn to the British and Brazilians to help sort out the muddle and—hopefully—produce a communique.

Any real progress is likely to have to wait until the next COP summit. But that is unlikely to achieve anything because the world’s second largest polluter and the world’s largest per capita—the United States—will not be attending. Donald Trump has promised to withdraw from the COP summits and “drill, baby, drill.”

Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his sacked defense minister Yoav Gallant this week had arrest warrants issued for them by the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Hamas leader Mohammed Deif has also been charged but he is unlikely to ever appear in court simply because he has been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces.

There are 123 countries who are signatories to the ICC. This means, according to international law by which they have pledged to abide, if Netanyahu, Gallant or the ghost of Mohammed Deif, step on their territory, they must arrest them.

Britain and the Netherlands have confirmed that Netanyahu faces such a fate if he dares to visit them.

America has condemned the arrest warrants as “outrageous” and said that the Israelis are safe with them. Well, they have a legal out. The Clinton Administration signed up to the ICC and its obligations but George W. Bush “unsigned”, so the US is under no legal obligation to work with the court. Other countries which are not signatories are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and China.

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Mark Valladares

7 November 2024 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Thu 7th November 2024 - 10:30 pm
  • ONS GP Survey: Two in five who could not get through to GP did nothing about symptoms
  • Interest rate cut: Govt must work to deliver growth, especially through small businesses
  • Davey to visit Ukraine charity: “Leaders across Europe must stand up to Putin”

ONS GP Survey: Two in five who could not get through to GP did nothing about symptoms

Responding to the latest ONS Survey, which showed that two in five (39%) people who were unable to contact their GP in the past month opted to do nothing about their ailment, Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson, Helen Morgan MP said:

Our primary care services are at breaking point. Patients are left completely without options, instead letting their issues get worse when they are unable to get the care they need.

The blame for this shocking state of affairs lies squarely with the Conservative Party whose years of shameful neglect has broken our NHS.

It is now down to the new government to rise to this challenge and rescue our health service. That is why it is so disappointing to see that instead of supporting our GPs they are piling more pressure on them with their national insurance hike.

The new government needs to urgently rethink these proposals, scrap the GP penalty and get patients the care they deserve.

Interest rate cut: Govt must work to deliver growth, especially through small businesses

Commenting after the Bank of England has cut interest rates to 4.75%, Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP said:

This is welcome news for families across the country who are still living with the consequences of Conservative economic failure.

Notwithstanding, millions of households are still struggling with sky high mortgage payments two years on from the Conservatives’ disastrous mini-budget.

The burden of fixing the Conservatives’ mess has fallen on struggling households for too long. As rates are cut, the new Government must work to deliver growth in the economy, especially through small businesses and high streets.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 27th October 2024 - 9:23 am

North Korea at al

China is unhappy. So is Belarus. Both countries are worried about North Korea sending troops to Russia in the middle of the Ukraine war.

President Xi Jinping is worried that the move will de-stabilise the Korean Peninsula, escalate and complicate the Ukraine War, increase Russian influence in the Far East and potentially drag China into a head-on conflict with NATO.

Alexander Lukashenko is concerned that the appearance of non-Russian troops in Ukraine will increase pressure on him to send Belarussian soldiers in support of the Kremlin.

Xi hates uncertainty. He likes his foreign policy to run along diplomatic railway lines painted bright red so that others know not to cross them. If there are going to be any spanners to be thrown, he wants to toss them and control their flight and consequences.

He does not like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. He is uneasy about the hereditary communist dictator’s nuclear arsenal. He supplies the regime with just enough aid and trade to keep them going, but not enough to threaten the status quo. This is because for the past 74 years one of the chief aims of China is to keep Korea divided and to maintain North Korea as a buffer state between the Chinese border and 25,000 American soldiers in South Korea. Anything which threatens to disrupt that policy is bad news in Beijing.

The bromance between Vladimir Putin and Kim threatens to upset this delicately balanced apple cart. Kim will want something in return for his troops. It will almost certainly include Russian military help which will embolden the mercurial North Korean leader and increase the threat to South Korea and Japan.

Belarus is on the frontline in the Ukraine War. The initial attack in 2022 was launched from its territory. Lukashenko is closely allied with Russia and continues to provide bases and logistical support. But Lukashenko knows he is unpopular. He clings to power with the help of the Belarussian KGB (yes, they retained the name of the old Soviet organisation). Committing his small military force of 50,000 to the Ukraine War would be unpopular and threaten his rule.

By the way, just everyone else is also unhappy about North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine.  It adds a new and dangerous dimension by internationalising the conflict.

Russia

Russia is unhappy too. The recent referendum in Moldova on closer ties with the European Union did not go the way the Kremlin wanted. It was extremely close: 50.46 percent in favour of closer ties and 49.54 percent against.

The Russians did everything they could to push the vote the other way. They played fast and loose with bribery, intimidation and misinformation. A BBC reporter was filmed being approached by a voter asking for the payment she had been promised.

The misinformation focused on an expensive advertising campaign which claimed the EU planned to brainwash Moldovan children to turn gay or transgender. The gay community is generally unpopular throughout Eastern Europe.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 13th October 2024 - 10:25 am

France

As I sat down to write, French Prime Minister Michele Barnier was making last minute adjustments to his budget before presenting it to the National Assembly.

So, there may be a few unintentional omissions from this piece, but not too many because the problems of the French economy have been widely circulated in advance of the Barnier budget.

On Friday morning Barnier was widely expected to introduce an austerity budget of cuts and higher taxes totalling $66 billion – or two percent of the French GDP. Two-thirds will come in cuts in government spending and one third in tax increases.

The savings will come from a six-month delayed pension increase and $20 billion in cuts to government departments. The newly-appointed Barnier also wants to cut local government subsidies for businesses. To raise money, Barnier plans to introduce a temporary super tax on firms with more than a $1.1 billion turnover and households with earnings over $547,000.

The super tax is likely to have no problem in the French legislature. There is very little sympathy in France – or most everywhere else – for the rich. Pensioners are another problem. National Rally leader Marine Le Pen has already accused the government of “stealing from the elderly.” As for government cuts, the devil is in the detail and those details will only become clear in the coming weeks of debate.

It is clear, however, that something must be done to deal with the government deficit which is expected to exceed six percent of GDP in 2024.

President Emmanuel Macron had a reputation as a good money manager. And back in January 2020 he appeared to have the economy under control. Then the pandemic struck. Macron pledged to “protect” the French people “whatever it costs.” Government spending leapt to 59 percent of GDP – more than Germany or Spain or any other OECD country.

As the pandemic eased, Russia invaded Ukraine and the price of oil and grain rapidly rose along with almost every inflation marker. Macron’s economic plans went out the window.

But the parlous state of the French economy is not Barnier’s only problem. He is prime minister of a minority government with France’s left and right wing parties broadly united in their opposition. But not completely, Le Pen’s RN favours cuts in government but not cuts in pension payments.  The left joins them on behalf of pensioners but also opposes any cuts in government spending.

Barnier’s hope is to gain broad support from the Gaullist parties and then play off the left and right over specific aspects of France’s finances.

The budget has to be agreed by December. If Barnier fails to win the support of a majority of the National Assembly then he has the option of using emergency measures to push it through. But that is highly unpopular and could easily lead to the collapse of his government.

United States

Trump may have broken the law – again. This time the law in question is known as the Logan Act.

The Logan Act was passed in 1799 shortly after the creation of the United States. It makes it illegal for private individuals to conduct diplomacy or negotiations with foreign governments without authorisation from the federal government. Breaching it can cost a fine and three years in prison

The law makes sense. The Secretary of State – or any of his officials – don’t want their efforts being contradicted or undermined by an individual negotiating with a different agenda.

According to the latest book by investigative journalist Bob Woodward, Donald Trump spoke with Russian president Vladimir Putin at least seven times since leaving the White House. Of course, they may have just been exchanging recipes or discussing when to send Putin the latest health care products. That, however, seems unlikely given wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 15th September 2024 - 9:35 am

United States

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene WAS the female darling of the Republican far-right. No longer. The new girl on the block is 31-year-old Laura Loomer who is so far to the right that right-wing Ms Greene has called her “mentally unstable and a documented liar.”

Ms Loomer is also emerging as a confidante of Donald Trump. She travelled on his plane to the 10 September presidential debate in Philadelphia and is said to have fed him the story about immigrants eating pets in Ohio.

She continued with the former president to New York and was with him when he attended the bipartisan services to commemorate the 9/11 terrorist attack. This despite the fact that Ms Loomer has claimed that 9/11 was an “inside job” perpetrated by the Deep State liberal elite.

Laura Loomer loves right-wing conspiracy theories. In her playbook the mass shootings at Last Vegas, El Paso and Parkland were all staged by the anti-gun lobby. The winter storm that disrupted the Iowa caucus was created by meteorologists hired by Deep State Democrats to help Republican candidate Nikki Haley.

Ms Loomer proudly identifies as an “Islamaphobe.” When told that 2,000 Muslim immigrants had drowned while crossing the Mediterranean, she tweeted: “Good. Here’s to 2,000 more. “

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have all banned her for spreading hate speech and misinformation, although Elon Musk reinstated her account. She has also been banned by the online banking services Paypal, Gofundme and Venmo. The taxi services  Uber and Lyfft have barred her from using their vehicles because of her attempts to ban Muslim taxi drivers. She is suing all of the above – unsuccessfully.

Twice Ms Loomer has run for Congress for a Florida seat. Twice she lost and twice she was endorsed by Donald Trump. She has written for Alex Jones’s Infowars; The Geller Report which pushed the Obama birther lie; Rebel Media which describes as a counter-Jihad platform and Veritas, a major broadcaster of conspiracy theories.

Ms Loomer denies that she is a White Supremacist but proudly admits to being a White Nationalist. She is not a Christian nationalist because she is Jewish and has been the target of death threats from the anti-Semitic wing of America’s far right.

Her loyalty to Donald Trump is rock solid. She told the Washington Post: “If Trump doesn’t get in I don’t have anything. Ms Loomer attacked Florida governor Ron de Santis and his wife for daring to challenge the former president and has advised Trump that he should make a list of those who have challenged him in the courts and elsewhere and, when re-elected president, “execute them for treason.”

United States – more

What if Trump loses? Will there be a repeat of January 6 when rioters stormed the US capitol in a vain attempt to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory?

Unlikely. But only because this time around Biden – not Trump – controls the security apparatus. And he has put in place an array of measures to protect not only the capitol building, but the entire metropolitan area of Washington DC.

No. If there is a threat to the election it will be in the voting booths, the counting rooms, the election boards and the courts.

As in 2020, Trump is planting the seeds for a legal challenge in case the vote goes against him. This time his objections will be based on illegal immigrants voting for Harris. He told a rally in Las Vegas this summer that “the only way they can beat us is to cheat.”

In the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin the Trump-controlled Republican National Committee has put 102 election deniers on local and state election boards. In Georgia, for instance, the election deniers control the state-wide board and have already introduced rules that allow them to delay voter certification while they conduct “investigations” into “unspecified irregularities.”

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Ukraine – Shrewdness or Mistake?

By Tom Arms | Sat 17th August 2024 - 9:36 am

Ukraine has introduced a new strategic weapon in its war with Russia. How it uses this weapon could determine the course of the conflict.

There is a heavily-defended 600 mile frontline between the Russian army in Eastern Ukraine and the Ukrainian military, grouped mainly on the western bank of the Dnieper River. Movement along this frontline has been incremental, much like the western front of World War I.

Defended by poorly-trained Russian conscripts is the 650-mile border between northeast Ukraine and the Russian oblasts of Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod.

Ukraine’s military commander Oleksandr Syrsky has crossed a 10-mile stretch of that border to become the first military leader since World War Two to invade Russia. As of Friday, Ukrainians have established their dominance in 800-square miles of the Kursk oblast; set up a military administration in the Russian town of Sudzha and gained control of 81 other towns and villages.

General Syrsky declared: “We are here to stay.  A spokesperson for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, said: “We have no intention of staying. We will leave.”

The Syrsky stay strategy is likely to lead to failure and defeat. The diplomats’ approach contains the seeds of victory.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 11th August 2024 - 10:21 am

United States

Weird is the new catchword of the American presidential elections. It is weird that Donald Trump – a convicted felon – is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

It is weird that J.D. Vance – an anti-abortionist who claims that America is run by a miserable “bunch of childless cat ladies” – is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

It is weird because both those images sound totally “un-American” and thus unlikely to win the votes of the American electorate. So it is weird that those two men have been nominated for the two highest offices in America.

Not weird is that Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, has been chosen by Kamala Harris to be her running mate in the presidential elections. Governor Walz is – as they like to say – as American as apple pie.

For a start he is from the mid-West which is often viewed as the traditionally American part of America. He attended Nebraska State College where he met his wife Gwen. They have two children – very American.

He taught high school social studies and coached the football team. The team went on to win the state championships. That is very, very American story almost worthy of a based-on-a-true-story Netflix film.

Walz was in the National Guard for 24 years, and reached the rank of Master Sergeant. Military service is almost a requirement for American politicians.

He served six terms in Congress before being elected Governor of Minnesota in 2018. He was re-elected in 2022. It was while he was Governor that Republicans have veered away from his all-American roots and towards what they might regard as weirdness. Walz legalised marijuana, passed strict gun laws, affirmed abortion rights, introduced free school meals and free college tuition. The liberal democrats love him. Which could explain why he is also chair of the Democratic Governors Association.

Walz is also credited with coming up with the catchword “weird” to describe Trump and Vance. President Biden had been focused on Trump’s threat to democracy. Walz reckoned that threat talk was a bit of a stretch for most American voters. “Weird” is easier to understand.

Bangladesh

From Nobel prize-winning micro-banker to leader of Bangladesh is quite a leap. But at the tender age of 84 Professor Muhammad Yunus has made the jump.

He replaces Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed who has fled the country after an estimated 400 people died in student-led riots against her quota system for the civil service.

Yunus probably doesn’t need the headache of running a country of 170 million people. He already secured the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the micro-finance banking system which has lifted millions out of poverty.

Yunus’s Grameen Bank pioneered micro-credit which is acknowledged as one the factors that transformed Bangladesh from the world’s second poorest country to the 38th wealthiest.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 28th July 2024 - 10:30 am

Gaza

The world was presented with two alternative approaches to the Gaza War this week. The first was brokered by China. The second was outlined by Benjamin Netanyahu in an address to a Joint Session of the US Congress.

The first was supported by the feuding leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, 12 other Palestinian factions and a big chunk of the Global South. The second was received with a standing ovation by America’s Republican lawmakers but boycotted by dozens of Democrat Congressmen.

The Chinese-brokered deal is aimed at ending the schism between Fatah which rules the West Bank as the Palestinian Authority and Hamas which has governed Gaza since ejecting Fatah in 2007. The bitter split between the two has been one of the chief obstacles to implementing the much sought after two-state solution.

On Tuesday the Palestinian factions agreed to form an interim reconciliation government. They also agreed to jointly demand a ceasefire; a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the West Bank; elections and they established the bones of a reconstruction programme for Gaza.

On Thursday, Netanyahu denied that Israel was blocking aid to Gaza; claimed that only a few civilians had died; called for the total destruction of Hamas; made no reference to the two-state solution and insisted that a post-war Gaza should be a “demilitarised and de-radicalised” enclave under Israeli military control.

Among those boycotting Netanyahu’s address was former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. She described his speech as “by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honoured with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States.”

Ukraine

Another visitor to Beijing this week was Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba. It was the first visit to China by a Ukrainian official since the Russian invasion, and indicates a Ukrainian shift in emphasis from the military to the diplomatic.

The Ukrainians see the Chinese as the only third party power with any leverage over Vladimir Putin. Kuleba told his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi that Ukraine was ready to negotiate in good faith, but he added: “No such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side.” Wang agreed that that the “conditions and timing are not yet ripe.”

Vladimir Putin, for his part, is sticking to his demands that Ukraine handover the four regions his troops have occupied in eastern Ukraine; promise not to join NATO and agree to demilitarisation.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th June 2024 - 9:28 am

Gaza

 Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leadership share a common interest: It is to neither’s advantage at this stage to end the Gaza War. But neither is in either party’s interests to be seen as the bad guy.

In the case of the Israeli prime minister it is the fact that once the war is over he will face an overpowering clamour for a general election. It is an election which he will almost certainly lose as the Israeli electorate will hold him to account for the events that led up to the October 7th Hamas attack.

And then, once he is out of office, Netanyahu is likely to exchange the prime minister’s official residence for a prison cell via a trial on charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust. Fleeing the country is not an option because by then the International Criminal Court will have issued an arrest warrant for war crimes – unless he flees to America.

With Hamas the story is different. There are two wars being fought in the eastern Mediterranean. One is on the ground and in the air over a strip of land 26 miles long and 2.5 miles wide. The other is a war in the court of international public opinion. Hamas is losing the first and winning the second.

The longer the military war continues. The greater the disproportionate losses in human terms between Palestinians and Israelis and the greater the victory for Hamas. Already it has secured diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state from six EU countries—Norway, Spain, Slovenia, Cyprus, Sweden and Ireland.

Hamas has repeatedly proven that it puts political objectives before Palestinian lives. A string of historical precedents would have told them that the October 7th attack and the taking of hostages would have resulted in a highly disproportionate number of dead and injured Palestinians. It is also clear that Hamas has used hospitals, schools and Palestinian civilians, as shields.

So, where does that leave the prospects for peace and the diplomatic brokering of the US, Egypt and Qatar? At the moment US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is focused on the lack of Hamas’s enthusiasm for the latest peace proposal. Hamas say they have responded with “positivity” but Blinken says that the Hamas’s “positivity” includes “unworkable” changes.

Part of the latest problem is ownership of the plan currently on the table. It was announced by President Biden. But in his announcement he said it was an Israeli plan. However, as Hamas’ has been keen to point out, no Israeli official has publicly endorsed the plan.

In fact, official Israeli pronouncements continue to focus on continuing the war until Hamas’s “governing and military capabilities have been destroyed and the hostages returned.” There is also the political problem that Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners will withdraw from the government if the plan outlined by Biden goes ahead. This would result in an election which Netanyahu would lose.

Israeli problems and positions in turn appear to be in direct conflict with a Hamas demand that Israel commit in writing to ending the fighting before it agrees to any plan from anyone. Until this deadlock is resolved and the Americans come up with a plan that allows both sides to achieve the aims they want without fighting, then the war continues.

Ukraine

Shortly after the Russians invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the West froze $325 billion in Russian assets.

Almost immediately the call went out to hand the money over to Ukraine to finance its war against Russia. But there was a problem with this tactic which can easily be summed up with one word – hypocrisy.

Putin was being condemned for contravening international law with his naked war of aggression. But confiscating Russian assets and handing them over to Ukraine would also break international law. And respect for international law is at the root of what Ukraine and the West is fighting for. Putin wants to create a world where might is right. America and its allies want to retain a world based on respect for international law.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 2nd June 2024 - 10:00 am

South Africa

Three decades of ANC rule in South Africa look set to end. The final votes from Wednesday’s election have yet to be counted and are expected to be announced on Sunday. But the general consensus is that the party that ended apartheid will garner about 45 percent of the vote. Which means it is coalition time.

The downfall of the ANC vote is evidence of the well-worn political truism that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. In 2004 the African National Congress won 70 percent of the vote. It dropped to 57 percent in 2019 and is projected to drop between 10 and 15 points in this election.

The reason for the collapse of the ANC vote is corruption, poor governance and economic mismanagement leading to a flight of capital and an unemployment rate of 37 percent.

Corruption reached its peak under the presidency of Jacob Zuma whose misuse of government funds led to his ousting in 2018. In 2020 he was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment for contempt of court. He served only three, but he is still barred from serving in parliament.

Zuma’s successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, made some progress towards resolving the corruption problem, but it was too little too late> Unemployment – especially among the urban youth – remains troublingly high. Zuma, in the meantime has emerged as leader of a new KwaZulu Natal-based political party, Umkhonto we Size (MK) or Spear of the Nation.

MK has surprised political pundits by beating the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to take third place in the polls. Both the EFF and MK have adopted radical agendas which include the expropriation of white-owned land and widespread nationalisation. MK also wants to return more political power to the traditional trial chieftains.

MK took votes away from both the ANC and EFF. Another winner from this week’s was the Democratic Alliance (DA) who appear to have won the confidence the white South African voter. A fifth party is the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) is—like MK– also based in Natal. The most likely coalition is between the IFP, Democratic Alliance and ANC.

Europe

Europe’s far-right parties appear set to sweep the boards in European Parliament elections held on 6-9 June.

Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy are on the rise. Marine Le Pen is current favourite to win the 2027 and her National Rally party is currently at 30 percent in the opinion polls. Viktor Orban’s Fidesz has a stranglehold on Hungary and Geert Wilder’s Party for Freedom won elections in the Netherlands. Far-right parties, in Spain, Belgium, Slovakia, Sweden and Austria are growing or having a stake in government.

There is, however, a chink, in the far-right armour: Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland (Afd) has swung too far to the right even for Europe’s far-right. Recently, there top candidate for the European Parliament, Maximilian Krah, said that members of the wartime SS were not automatically “criminals.” Krah is also being investigated by the police for accepting payments from China and Russia. His problems followed a secret meeting in a hotel outside Berlin where senior officials in the AfD discussed the mass deportation of non-ethnic Germans, including German citizens.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 19th May 2024 - 10:09 am

Russia and China

It took Vladimir Putin just nine days for Putin to go from his inauguration in the Kremlin to Zhongnanhai – the seat of China’s political power and the home of President Xi Jinping.

At the end of the two-day visit the “partnership without limits” had been elevated to one in which there are now “no forbidden areas of cooperation.”

The two countries – and the two leaders – are united in their common goal of dismantling the liberal Western political order that has dominated the world since 1945. Democracy, they are convinced, has had its day. It is time now for Sino-Russian orchestrated autocracy.

The current pivot of the Beijing-Moscow axis is the Ukraine War. This war presents both problems and opportunities for China. On the one hand, Russian failure would be regarded as a disaster. On the other, Xi Jinping is conscious of the need to prevent Sino-American relations from deteriorating too quickly. China is not ready to step into American shoes.

So, Xi Jinping exploits Russia to poke, needle and goad Washington. He talks of “no forbidden areas of cooperation” but then urges Putin to row back on the nuclear rhetoric. China has yet to recognise the Russian annexation of Luhansk and Donetsk and – so far—has refused to supply Russia with obvious weaponry. It buys more oil from Russia but is playing hardball on the Russian request for a gas pipeline that would replace revenues that Gazprom has lost in Europe.

China, has however, ignored Western sanctions against Russia. In 2022 Russian imports of Chinese machine tools grew by 120 percent and in 2023 they rose another 170 percent.

Machine tools are just one industrial category which Secretary of State Antony Blinken has complained loudly about as helping the Russian war effort. This equipment either has a hidden defense element or it is categorised as dual-use, which means it can be used for civilian or military purposes.

Other similar categories of Chinese exports have grown exponentially since Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border. Semi-conductor exports rose from $230 million in 2021 to £407 million in 2023. The machinery for making computer chips grew from $3.5 million to $180 million over the same period. Computer chips are essential for the conduct of high-tech 21st century warfare.

Russian oil

Russian oil and gas are financing Putin’s Ukraine War. So, this week, the Russian president had good news and bad news about his war coffers.

Oil revenues are up. Gas revenues are down.

Gazprom – the state gas monopoly – lost $6.9 billion in 2023. Its first annual loss since the bad old days of Russian financial chaos 20 years ago. The reason for the drop is Western sanctions and the closure of the gas pipelines Nordstream 1 and 2. Russian gas sales to Europe were down 55.6 percent. They will be even lower next year.

The picture provided by Rosneft – the Russian oil equivalent – is much rosier. Its profits were up a record 13 percent to $14.07 billion. The reason for its financial success were India, Putin’s friends in OPEC and the end of the pandemic.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has completely ignored Western sanctions and exploited Putin’s difficulties by buying huge quantities of oil at discounted prices, India then reaps a nice profit by selling the processed oil to third countries via the world market.

The OPEC countries meanwhile, have obliged President Putin by keeping oil production down and prices up. At the same time demand for energy has grown as the world economy recovers from the Covid pandemic.

But what about the coming year. Gazprom’s revenues are unlikely to rise. It takes time to build alternative destination pipelines and storage facilities. As for oil prices, demand is starting to fall. India has reached the limits of how much oil it can process and world economic growth is expected to drop to 2.7 percent in 2024 compared to 5.5 percent in 2022.

So, what Putin needs is a first class money manager to ensure that the maximum efficiency is squeezed out of every rouble. That is why he has appointed economist Andre Belousov as his new Minister for Defense.

Putin is his own commander-in-chief. He already has a Chief of Staff in the form of General Valery Gerasimov. What he needs is someone who can organise a defense budget that is now 6.7 percent of the country’s GDP before oil prices start to go the way of gas prices.

United States

In 1923, the US Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, was hauled before the courts for accepting a $350,000 bribe that allowed an oil company to drill in protected reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming.

This is the crux of the Teapot Dome Scandal which was recognised as America’s biggest political scandal until Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: War is Expensive

By Tom Arms | Sat 27th April 2024 - 10:01 am

The $61 billion in in military aid that the US Congress voted for Ukraine this week is in the nick of time. The Ukrainians were literally running out of bullets to hold back the Russian steamroller.

But war is expensive. How much bang can the Ukrainians get for their American bucks?

Let’s start with the workhorse of the battlefield – the humble 155 mm artillery shell and the Howitzers that fire them. For the past few months a steady stream of shells from North Korean and Russian munitions factories has meant that the Russians have been lobbing five times as many shells into the Ukrainian frontline than the Ukrainians have into the Russian.

It has been working. The Russians have gradually pushed forward all the way along the 620-mile front and have captured the town of Aadvika. But the release of the American aid means that the Ukrainians can now start firing back at an anticipated rate of 8,000 shells a day.

Each basic 155mm shell costs $3,000. The all-singing, all dancing precision-guided variety can set you back as much as $130,000 a shell. The Anglo-American built howitzer that fires them costs $4 million.

The howitzers have a range of up to 20 miles, which puts them near the front and in harm’s way. The popular HIMARS (the acronym for America’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) is deadly accurate up to 186 miles. This means its mobile launcher (cost $20 million each) can be fired from relative safety. But make each shot count. The missiles cost $434,000 each.

NATO has been reluctant to provide F-16 fighter jets (price $50 million plus approximately $4 million for each air-launched cruise missile). But the Americans have given the Ukrainians thousands of Avevex Phoenix ghost drones at $60,000 a drone. These can be used for reconnaissance or to carry a high explosive on suicide missions.

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Mark Valladares

9 April 2024 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Tue 9th April 2024 - 11:20 pm
  • Hospital’s spend £3million on pest control as patients suffer from rats and insects
  • Cameron and Trump: European leaders’ summit needed to seize frozen Russian assets
  • Cole-Hamilton: SNP have failed to help A&E recover
  • Lib Dems launch London Transport Policy – Blackie: “No more bus cuts”

Hospital’s spend £3million on pest control as patients suffer from rats and insects

  • Staff report being bitten by bugs as rats roam maternity and emergency wards
  • Freedom of Information requests reveal NHS Hospitals coping with 18,000 pest incidents since 2021
  • Liberal Democrat Leader demands urgent repair fund for crumbling hospitals

Freedom of Information Requests by the Liberal Democrats have revealed the extent of pests roaming NHS Hospitals. As the NHS repair backlog reaches record levels, these new revelations show staff and patients subjected to poor conditions.

Since 2021, over 60 NHS Trusts have reported £3.7 million spent on pest control at their hospitals. Imperial College NHS Trust, which includes St.Mary’s Hospital London, spent a staggering £383,597 on pest control, including dealing with 748 pest incidents last year alone.

East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust spent £119,199 to deal with mice in the kitchen, maggots in the mortuary and rat droppings in a corpse bag, amongst many other pests.

The most shocking incidents were reported by East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Trust, which includes Colchester Hospital and Ipswich Hospital. Staff reported:

  • Black insects are biting the legs of staff
  • Ants and fly infestations
  • Rats in the ambulance area

At Ashford NHS Trust, dead headless pigeons and dead rabbits, as well as slug and ants were reported. Royal United Hospitals Bath reported pests in the children’s ward and breast clinic.

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