RichardPearce comments

It is interesting that the number of 'Shahed drones' that have been fired by Russia and the Free Yemen Army exceeds the number of Shahed drones Iran manufactured.

And lack the cameras that are standard on the actual drones Iran made.

Unlike the US etc, Iran doesn't mass produce a stupifying surplus of weapons on a cost plus contract, and then sell them to unsavory characters, Iran's miniscule military spending depends on a proof of concept mass production run, then duplicating the ABILITY to mass produce enough to defend itself for long enough to design and start building an upgraded version incorporating what lessons the first week or two of actual war usage offers.

And a country that invests more in educating and training scientists and engineers than it does on manufacturing weapons upgrades what weapons it produces almost as frequently as 'fast fashion' changes.

So, when Iran decides to give the legitimate, democratically elected governments of Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria the weapons and shield needed to allow them to drive the illegal occupiers from their territories, the country that hijacks ships will deem that aggression, but who outside the White Bloc will see it that way?

GuantanamoIsNotAmerica should know that the governments of two or more territories choosing to become parts of a single entity is properly call AMALGAMATION, not annexation. That, despite the willingness of the governments involved, he uses the term for an unwilling union says something.

So, instead of buying their nuclear fuel from Russia, they should buy it from the US (where it will fund the illegal invasion and occupation of Syria, the illegal occupations of Iraq and Cuba, and no doubt at least one more overthrow of a democratically elected government this decade) because that is so much better.

Remind me, which country actually has used a nuclear weapon in an act of war

So, basically Biden has shut America's businesses out of the country that is dominating innovation in high tech.

He's either cutting America's nose off to spite China's face, or deluded (either by his advisors, or his age) that China isn't even more the global powerhouse on the science underlying technology than America was at it's height (when it comes to both volume in general, and 'high value' volume, the top 5 institutions producing peer reviewed scientific papers in EVERY one of the branches of science of each of the things Biden has chosen are in China. In most of them, that's true even of the top 10 institutions)

Hey, conveniently at hand, and hanging in a convenience store are easily confused concepts. He probably misremembered which was the actual regulation.

So, Japan deciding to 'unilaterally suspend' some Japanese-Russian trade agreements (and break several global trade agreements specifically where they applied to Russia) somehow wasn't detrimental to Japanese citizens and businesses, only the direct response was.

I wonder, does Hirokazu Matsuno also believe that swimming in a river when the forecast is that a typhoon is about to hit isn't dangerous, only the sudden surge in flow when the typhoon hits is?

But when the Israeli regime does it, it's a method to prevent causing civilian casualties by 'knocking on the door'.

At least according to the backers of the Kyiv regime when it's another one of their pet, undemocratic 'democratically elected governments'

Funny how America's numerous invasions aren't grounds for people viewing it, and the coup installed regimes it backs, with suspicion and concern.

Especially given that it is one of the holdouts not pledging no first use of nuclear weapons. The only nuclear weapons threat Russia has made is in the case of major attacks on Russia.

PS, given that Zelensky's attack on a civilian tanker was carried out using an Iranian sea drone (unless of course you see superficial resemblance and an accusation not grounds for believing that drone was Iranian) did the Japanese representatives voice their concerns about Iran arming both sides?

Funny how an attempt by WESTERN Ukrainians reacting to the Kiev regime canceling elections by trying to make sure Zelensky would die in his war on eastern Ukrainians got so little attention.

They'll have had experts on building on sand foundations, experts on metal fatigue, experts on bearings, erosion, dynamic loading due to winds.

But did they have anyone with ice road experience?

Because an ice road that will withstand a heavily loaded convoy of big trucks driving across it, and their heavy trailers being parked on it for the season, will give way under an unloaded truck being parked on it for a few hours with the engine running. The small, but persistent vibration from the engine does what the flexing under the large loads won't. And my WAG is that that's why it was shut down, and hasn't been fixed.

I'm glad that TINC is admitting that the US has no right to seize ANY Russian or Iranian vessels, or to threaten Iranian vessels in their EEZ, which makes his previous claims last week that it did disingenuous.

And I hope he continues to admit that truth as the US continues to try and protect pirates and smugglers and vessels that have caused collisions in the Persian Gulf.

Someone has conflated American/White Bloc sanctions for valid international sanctions, and American accusations of bad behavior for evidence of actual bad behavior, the sort of alternate facts thinking Trump and his crowd engage in.

So, the folks who think that the American government can seize ships in violation of international law, harass ships sailing in their own country's waters halfway around the world from America are freaking out that China is copying American behavior in a sea that is called Chinese.

Like Trump freaking out about other people's lies, it would be amusing if it wasn't so dangerous.

So, Russia targeted MILITARY sites, not 'critical infrastructure', and apparently supplying support to a democratic government dealing with terrorists and an illegal invasion is a bad thing according to the US, and vessels that do so should be subject to sanctions or even targetted with weapons.

It's all there in the article, just quietly.

Well, the usual unreasoning hatred of China permeates, as always.

Perhaps if China were to offer a free trade agreement to Australia, as long as it closed its borders to ships, planes, and people who entered what is legally recognized as Chinese territory (Taipei) without clearing China's immigration and customs, they, and Australia, would be happy.

Valid reasons for invading countries, according to the same people calling Russia a fascist country

Overthrowing a foreign backed corrupt government (Yemen)

Preventing the overthrow of your government by a foreign backed group (Syria)

Political unrest/civil war (long list of Latin American countries)

Though, of course, they all boil down to the one common denominator, breaking away from Washington's control.

But intervening in a civil war between a coup installed regime and the population that wants their peaceful, unified, democratic country back, well that makes you a fascist dictator (unless you live in the White House, of course, then you're a humanitarian no matter how many people you starve, kidnap and torture, bomb, shoot, terrorize...)

Love how, when the White Bloc violates an international agreement, it is the other side's responsibility when the agreement falls apart, according to the same people who insist that when the other side violates an agreement and the White Bloc pulls out of it, it is the other side's responsibility.

Biden to the world 'Demand Russia stop protecting Ukrainians from the Kyiv regime and let it ship most of its grain to Europe'.

Africa's governments to Biden 'Stop making it hard for us to buy Russia's fertilizer and grain so we can feed ourselves'.

Guess which message gets a story in JT.

Of course, the American blocking of Russian grain and fertilizer has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this.

Nor the American backed ABSOLUTELY NOT A COUP that overthrew the last democratically elected government a united and peaceful Ukraine had.

Nope it is all ENTIRELY the fault of people refusing to let America dictate what happens.

As numerous posters and America's Spin Masters tell us with a frequency and intensity PJB and the short Austrian didn't even fantasize about matching.

Something that the American public isn't likely to have heard is that Iran is one of the top 5 nanotechnology powers. They also adopted a 'just in time, mass produced out of off the shelf components' approach to military procurement (out of necessity at the time, but have continued it well past the point where they could have switched to the NATO style of military procurement) meaning that if things go HOT with American forces, everything fired at the American ships, planes, drones, missiles, and their bases and launch sites will be top of the line from day one, and what's being fired by them a week later will have been modified, tweaked, upgraded, or redesigned based on what worked, or didn't, on day one.

In real terms, it'll play out like the 'shock and awe' phase of the first Bush's war on Iraq, but with NATO forces playing the Iraqi military.

Somehow I don't think having American military personnel involved in smuggling operations is going to scare Iran into not enforcing the laws as is their international responsibility. And if the navigator or captain of a vessel they're on thinks that that exempts it from navigation rules, Iran will educate them.

Think that the US is having difficulty forcing Russia to allow them to turn Ukraine into a 'the only law that applies is that the US gets to do whatever it wants' zone? Wait until Iran turns the Persian Gulf into a no go zone for America's warships, and forcibly removes the illegal American military presence in Syria, and Iraq

And when the world tells America to stop holding Russia's fertilizer and grain hostage?

If the US navy were protecting civilian ships, there wouldn't be an oil tanker, parked in American waters, with a cargo the US declares it seized lawfully, still waiting, after years, to be unloaded, because no private company wants to take on the liability of participating in an act of piracy, something that is considered a universally prosecutable crime.

If the US had as many solar power plants as China, 5% of its electricity would be solar. If Americans cut their electricity use to the same level as Chinese, and had as many solar power plants as China, 10% of its electricity would be solar.

And yet the American PR shouting points are that China is the problem.

Do you believe the facts, or the American spin?

Lots of people are projecting the bad behaviors of the country who's citizens have a carbon footprint over twice the size of China's citizens.

And given that China has, under actual construction, as many solar energy projects as the US has under construction, in the planning process, or just announced by politicians trying to greenwash their high carbon footprint policies, and, to use the phrasing America's PR industry has promoted, approving new solar plants at the rate of THREE a week, is actually on a straight line to meeting its decarbonization goals, unlike the country who's prolific consumption of fossil fuels and active cover up and denial of the problem of global warming has us now in the era of global boiling and on our way to the era of global baking.

Lots of, shall we say interesting, contentions in the article treated as if they were facts.

The simple reality is that Iran's nuclear energy and isotopes program remains FULLY compliant with not only the NNPT but the now in force international law, the Nuclear Weapons Prevention treaty.

Iran has not supplied ANYONE with its MILITARY drones (the ones that it used to precision target the illegal US airbase that launched the terrorist attack on the Iraqi military commander and the Iranian counterterrorism expert on their way to a meeting with the democratically elected President of Iraq).

Iran has been trying to ENSURE the safe use of its waters for International shipping by enforcing the laws that international law requires it to, despite US attempts to turn Iranian waters into a place where piracy and dangerous navigation are protected.

Now, when a certain other regime held ONE person with no charges or trial, the international press refused to allow the regime to substitute any euphemisms (the most ironic one they trotted out was guest of the state, which the media ruthlessly trolled) until the regime actually admitted that Robert Sobukwe was a POLITICAL PRISONER.

And, unlike the more famous prisoner of Robyn Island, they didn't keep him in general population, but built an entirely separate building to hold him in, with guards ordered to shoot any prisoner who got within earshot of him.

Didn't save the regime.

Larr FlintToday  02:27 pm JST

Is there anyone beside Africa and some 3rd world countries that listen to Mr. Xi and China?

Love the Trumplike contempt for the majority of the world, which, BTW, also represents the majority of the world's economy.

That for a large part of my youth, Japan would have been lumped into the scorned category by most Americans and Europeans like Larry shouldn't be overlooked.