darkcalling

German readers of RT remember how small acts of hope helped them rebuild their lives after the war

Interesting read, not too long but too long to really post it all here.

The fate of Germans in the aftermath of World War II continues to be a subject of reflection and discussion. The memories are as varied as the people who lived them.

Sadly, the number of eyewitnesses who can share their firsthand experiences is dwindling with each passing year. That makes it all the more important to give a voice to those who are still with us. RT’s German-language editorial team recently reached out to its readers, inviting them to record and submit their own recollections – or the stories passed down by relatives – about the early postwar years.

From East and West, Germany and Austria, readers shared a broad range of experiences: encounters with Russian soldiers, both positive and negative, and personal reflections on the war itself. These deeply personal letters from our German readers have now been translated into English.

(archive link)

*The former child porn researcher had subjected his daughter to years of sexual abuse *

A child rapist who worked for five years with the Western OSINT agency Bellingcat killed himself shortly before he was due to be imprisoned, recently published Dutch court documents reveal.

The operative, known under the alias Daniel Romein, took his life in 2022 after being sentenced to prison for sexually abusing his own daughter.

Romein had been involved in the investigation of the MH17 crash by the Western-funded “open-source intelligence” group, as well as in the Stop Child Abuse initiative, dedicated to geolocating explicit materials involving minors.

The news was first made public by independent Dutch journalist Eric Van De Beek last month, and the surrounding events were further explored in a piece released by The Grayzone last Friday.

Van De Beek said that Romein hadn't died from “cardiac arrest” in December 2022 as previously reported, stating a close friend had confirmed that the ex-Bellingcat operative had taken his own life.

The researcher, who worked for Bellingcat between 2014 and late 2019, was sentenced to 36 months in prison earlier that year for prolonged sexual abuse of his daughter, the journalist claimed, citing an anonymized court case on the matter. The case was released by Dutch authorities only in March of this year after repeated inquiries by independent media, Van De Beek noted.

[...]

The court materials quote a lackluster letter of apology sent by the defendant to his daughter when the scandal became public, in which he appeared to blame her.

The case also revealed that the defendant had been convicted of possession of child pornography “over 15 years” prior.

Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins, when questioned by The Grayzone, denied that Romein’s firing in December 2019 had been related to his criminal past.

In August 2021, Romein was stripped of his European Press Prize, which had been awarded for his work on the Stop Child Abuse project. At the time, the Netherlands-based non-profit cited “unidentified substantiated complaints” from different individuals as the reason for its decision. (RT)

[Bellingcat founder Eliot] Higgins did not respond to requests for clarity on why Romein was suddenly terminated after five years of work with his organization.

[...]

The shocking revelation that Bellingcat relied on a convicted pedophile to handle its investigations into child sexuality exploitation has effectively been buried by legacy media outlets, which frequently cited the organization to accuse designated enemy states of everything from chemical attacks to assassinations. (Grayzone)

(archive link to RT coverage)

Grayzone piece: https://thegrayzone.com/2025/05/02/bellingcat-operative-dies-conviction/

Basically they've committed to sourcing all iPhones for the US market from India which requires doubling production capacity.

On Tuesday, Indian Telecommunications Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said Apple “has decided to source and produce all its mobile phones in India in the years to come.”

[...]

Trump says his tariff campaign is part of a broader effort to revive US manufacturing and bring jobs back home. The measures have been paused until July while the administration seeks bilateral agreements.

Indian Trade Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday the two sides were making “very good” progress and expected to finalize a deal soon.

Industry experts say shifting production from China may not be easy, as high-value components like semiconductors are still made there, and chip manufacturing in India is “five to ten years away.”

This doesn't free them from Chinese semiconductor components but I will note many top US decoupling planners never actually expected or wanted to fully remove all Chinese inputs from the global production system so it's important not to crow unduly about that.

These planners merely intended to have measures to prevent China from moving up the value chain, to keep them a low value unfinished products maker 10 years behind the US and west technologically and to keep finished products including the brands themselves firmly in the hands of the west. This is why Huawei was banned. They seek to keep the high-ground, the lions-share of the profits which is selling the assembled device (and pressuring component manufacturers for maximum discounts with threats), as well as the ability to use that commanding position to discipline other countries by controlling flows of those finished products via companies in the west that obey US sanctions. As well as of course products compromised by NSA backdoors in design, by 14 eyes intelligence sharing and national security letters forcing cooperation inside the western development branches of these companies, etc which are leveraged to maintain western dominance via their vast intercept, hacking, spying, blackmail operation.

In my opinion this is just further proof that decoupling is proceeding albeit slowly. Not perhaps to plans of being ready for a war next year or 2028 but eventually and next decade likely.

I think 10 years for semiconductors in India may be optimistic but I expect they'll make SOME progress by then and western firms will also have some plants in the west they can use so there will be a shortage over Taiwan but not an implosion.

(archive link)

“The Russian people will never forget the sacrifice of the Korean special forces,” Russian President Vladimir Putin declared. “We will forever honor these heroes who gave their lives for Russia, for our shared freedom.” He praised the allied units for fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with Russian troops, defending the country as if it were their own.

[...]

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called the soldiers who fought in Kursk “heroes,” framing their involvement as a “sacred mission” to strengthen ties with Russia. Pyongyang plans to erect a monument in their honor.

While official numbers remain classified, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service estimates that up to 15,000 North Korean troops have fought on Russia’s side.

According to Russian war correspondent Alexander Kots, the North Koreans began with intensive training at Russian ranges before being deployed to the front. “They lived in field conditions,” he said. “At first, they were held in reserve, then moved to more active positions – eventually participating in direct assaults.” The troops reportedly impressed Russian commanders with their discipline, coordination, and tenacity. And they had a standing order: never be taken alive.

One Russian soldier remarked that this ethos reminded him of Wagner Group fighters, who were known to carry grenades “just in case.” “They were instantly accepted by our former Wagner guys,” he noted.

Another correspondent, Semyon Pegov of WarGonzo, described their combat debut near Kursk as “nothing short of cinematic.” Drones captured footage of large North Korean formations advancing steadily, five to six meters apart, under heavy Ukrainian artillery fire – including cluster munitions.

At first, it seemed the group had been wiped out. But hours later, survivors emerged from the snow and resumed the assault. “Seventy percent of them got up and pressed forward, covering up to eight kilometers in a single day,” Pegov reported, adding that casualties were in the dozens.

[...]

North Korean troops were primarily stationed in the southern Suzhansky district – around the villages of Plekhovo, Guevo, and Kurilovka. The contingent included special forces, conscripts, and a dedicated medical evacuation unit.

[...]

Military analyst Boris Rozhin suggested North Korea may continue rotating units through Russia’s conflict zones to build a combat-hardened force – one group at a time.

[...]

According to Russian outlet Mash, the troops lived separately and communicated via a designated interpreter. They were equipped with North Korean-made weapons, including the 170mm “Koksan” artillery piece. They also sampled Russian food – and reportedly became fans of Russian rap music.

The language barrier proved to be a significant hurdle at first. To overcome it, the soldiers memorized a cheat sheet of 20 essential Russian commands like “Take cover,” “Cover me,” and “Fire!” – allowing them to train without an interpreter.

A Russian officer with the callsign ‘Kondrat’ said the most difficult challenge was adjusting the North Korean troops’ attack strategies. “They wanted to charge in formation, textbook-style,” he explained. “We had to convince them that small, flexible units were more effective – and they adapted quickly once the bullets started flying.”

“Once one wave stalled, another would follow with the same relentless rhythm and fatalism,” a Russian battalion member remarked. “What drives men to fight like that? It must be something stronger than fear of death.”

Putin has announced the complete liberation of Kursk with the last Ukrainian elements eliminated or driven from the internationally recognized Russian region of Kursk.

‘Not a single North Korean violated his oath’: How our allies helped us liberate Kursk

Pyongyang’s troops showed discipline, coordination and disregard for death, contributing greatly to the defeat of Ukrainian invaders

Until this moment, Russia had neither confirmed nor denied the presence of DPRK (North Korean) troops on the front line. Strictly speaking, we were not obligated to notify anyone about it. This is a matter of bilateral relations and agreements. Meanwhile, North Korean units gradually began to arrive in Russia during the Kursk campaign.

At first, they underwent training at military ranges, familiarizing themselves with modern combat tactics, mastering drone operation skills, and adapting to field realities. Then, the “combat Buryats,” as our military jokingly and covertly called them, were transferred to the Kursk region. They lived in field conditions to avoid attracting attention. Initially, they held the third line of defense, then the second, and eventually, they were tested in fortifications and, finally, in assaults.

Korean soldiers distinguished themselves by their coordination, discipline, a fatalist disregard for death, and remarkable endurance. Understandably so – they were mostly young, strong, well-built men, decently trained back home, particularly the units from the Special Operations Forces. They made a significant contribution to the liberation of the Korenevsky District, fought in battles near Staraya and Novaya Sorochina, and broke through to Kurilovka.

They had a strict rule – never to be captured alive, and never to surrender voluntarily.

Incidentally, the enemy tried to persuade them to do just that by dropping counterfeit DPRK banknotes, bearing inscriptions in Korean that read: “Surrender! Kim Jong-un has driven you to death and starved your families. Place a yellow flag before you, raise your hands, and loudly shout ‘Freedom!’ Then slowly walk toward the Ukrainian soldiers and follow their instructions.”

Not a single Korean soldier violated his oath or allied commitments. For Pyongyang, it was crucial to gain experience in modern warfare, study the tactics and technologies of a potential enemy (“the collective West”), and acquire knowledge that had been inaccessible due to sanctions. These objectives were achieved. Moreover, under the framework of a comprehensive bilateral agreement, the Koreans made a substantial contribution to the defeat of the Ukrainian forces on our soil.

Their arrival allowed us to maintain pressure on other sections of the front, continue the offensive in the Donbass, and inflict enormous damage on the invasion force, which consisted of 95 (!) battalions.

Coverage: https://www.rt.com/news/616375-north-korea-kursk-russia/

https://www.rt.com/russia/616373-north-koreans-liberate-kursk/

https://www.rt.com/russia/616360-kursk-region-liberation-putin-recap/

So as expected DPRK troops did not enter into territory previously recognized as being part of Ukraine, they merely participated in fighting within historical Russian borders in a defensive capacity. Hence all claimed "captures" of Koreans by Ukraine are fabrications likely involving Russian minorities from the east.

I hope the lessons they learned from their combat are taken back and widely shared and discussed to better prepare and harden the DPRK against any future attacks by the imperialist US.

(archive link)

The US president is reportedly not interested in informal diplomatic contact with China on trade

US President Donald Trump has stifled almost every channel of diplomatic outreach with China, aiming to deal directly with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, as the trade war between the two superpowers escalates, Politico has reported citing anonymous sources.

Ahah. All the claims of China not wanting to negotiate proven false yet again. They've been reaching out through the usual channels but Trump isn't interested.

The US president is adamant about direct negotiations with Xi, and has stifled other diplomatic avenues, Politico wrote on Saturday, citing anonymous former US State Department officials and an industry official.

Trump has not authorized White House delegates to engage with Beijing, the outlet cited its sources as saying. In addition, the Senate has not confirmed a US ambassador to China, Trump has not nominated an official to lead a diplomatic effort, and Washington has thus far not reached out to the Chinese embassy, Politico reported.

“The backchannels don’t work because President Trump doesn’t want them to,” [...]

“Trump wants to deal directly with President Xi in the same way he has with Putin,” he said.

Washington is waiting for Beijing to reach out and call first, CNN wrote earlier this month, citing anonymous officials.

Trump doesn't want to flinch first because of saving face. Xi understandably doesn't want to deal with this. Trump sees himself as some incredible negotiator and I think has an innate admiration for people he sees as "strongmen" according to western propaganda hence his desires to get directly together with Putin and Xi to act tough and feel tough standing up to them. He thinks he can talk "Mano a Mano" or man to man and get the best deal.

This bodes badly for any resolution to this obviously as Trump is going to keep pushing for a sit-down with Xi.

A very extreme example of Ukrainian Nazism supporters (this guy openly wanted to topple the US government because he believed it was controlled by Jews and saw Ukraine as a based Nazi bastion). Some kid killed his parents and was in talks with someone online about hoping to kill Trump and get asylum in Ukraine.

A Wisconsin teenager accused of murdering his parents also plotted to assassinate US President Donald Trump and flee overseas while framing Russia for the crime, according to an unsealed FBI affidavit.

Nikita Casap, 17, was charged last month with first-degree murder after police found the bodies of his mother and stepfather, both shot in the head, inside their Waukesha home. He was arrested in Kansas after fleeing in a stolen vehicle with $14,000 in cash, passports, and the family dog. Officers also recovered an unloaded revolver, boxes of ammunition, and two cell phones during the traffic stop.

“Casap appears to have written a manifesto calling for the assassination of the President of the United States. He was in touch with other parties about his plan to kill the President and overthrow the government of the United States,” the warrant unsealed on Friday stated

[...]

Agents also found screenshots of a three-page document titled “Accelerate the Collapse,” created on February 28. The manifesto called for political violence, including the assassination of the president, to spark societal chaos and “protect the white race.” It argued that it was “necessary to accelerate the collapse” of what it called “Jewish-occupied governments,” beginning with the United States. “The white race cannot survive unless America collapses,” Casap claimed.

(ABC News archive link)

I hope this isn't true. Signal is in the ways that matter compromised by US national intelligence. They demand phone numbers to sign-up and though it's possible they can't read the messages they know who is talking to whom and that's far more interesting to intelligence and drone targeting.

Because with that you find someone using it who is a known member of Ansar Allah, you then find who they're talking to, those are also probable members or supporters of the movement and you find who those people are talking to and suddenly you have a network of people to drone strike along with their phone numbers which can be used with hacking of cell networks to reliably pin-point their location.

This is bad opsec and I almost think this whole press person added accidentally thing may be an op to get more people aware of Signal and on it as opposed to other platforms.

(Archive link)

They're building a luxury building which might as well be a victory monument on the site of an army compound NATO bombed in 1999.

Jared Kushner plans to build a luxury hotel on the site of a military headquarters in Belgrade bombed by NATO in 1999

The location for the new hotel in central Belgrade is the General Staff building, a former Yugoslav army headquarters heavily damaged during NATO’s 78-day bombing of Serbia and Montenegro over the Kosovo conflict. Over 500 cilviians were killed by the US-led military bloc throughout the months-long raids, which had no backing from the UN.

The Serbian government last year approved a multimillion-dollar deal with Affinity Global Development, to redevelop the location. The agreement includes a 99-year lease for a three-block area and plans to build a Trump-branded hotel, luxury apartments, offices, shops, and a memorial for bombing victims.

Opposition parties have criticized the deal, while President Aleksandar Vucic and his government have defended it as a move to modernize the capital.

Monday’s protest coincided with Serbia’s Remembrance Day, marking the anniversary of the start of NATO’s bombing campaign on March 24, 1999. Demonstrators gathered around the ruins of the former military complex, demanding the site be restored as a heritage landmark and that redevelopment plans be scrapped. Protesters described the complex as “a monument to NATO aggression” and objected to “gifting it” to American developers.

Videos shared online showed crowds chanting anti-NATO slogans and holding signs that read “f--k NATO and Trump Tower” and “we will never forget,” alongside the dates of the 1999 airstrikes. Protesters waved Serbian flags, as well as banners opposing NATO and the EU. Some demonstrators waved flags from Russia, China, North Korea, and Palestine.

If these are the same protestors who've been trying to protest or oust the current government there it seems they're pretty cool.

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The US has demanded curbs to Beijing’s alleged influence over the country’s key waterway

Panama will not renew its participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, President Jose Raul Mulino said on Sunday.

The announcement comes on the heels of Mulino’s meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who demanded “immediate changes” to management of the Panama Canal, a key waterway built by the US in the early 20th century and handed over to Panama in 1999. Washington believes that China has too much influence over the waterway.

“The 2017 memorandum of understanding on the Belt and Road Initiative will not be renewed by my government,” Mulino told reporters following the talks with Rubio, adding that his government will also study the possibility of terminating the deal earlier, as it is not due for renewal for a couple of years.

During the talks, Rubio warned Mulino that by allowing China’s involvement in the canal, Panama is violating the 1977 treaty with the US which guarantees the permanent neutrality of the waterway. Rubio said that unless the country reduces Chinese influence, which Washington views as “a threat to the canal,” it could face potential US retaliation.

Rubio’s warning followed threats made over the past few weeks by US President Donald Trump, who said Washington could retake control of the Panama Canal if China’s presence around the waterway is not reduced and Panama does not lower the “ridiculous fees” the US has to pay for using it.

[...]

Under the [Belt and Road], Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings in 2021 won a 25-year contract for control over two ports at the canal’s entrances, and a consortium of Chinese companies has launched the construction of a $1.3 billion bridge over the waterway.

We're seeing something happening.

All these wealthy and powerful people who snubbed Trump now flock to him to talk. Class is now on full display as even those who disdained him now flock to be courtiers in his court. Capitalist diversity initiatives designed to paper over the exploitation of the system with carefully tested language and a few hiring preferences are being tossed out. The long, decades-old corporate push in this direction has been discarded.

This is a sea-change and a departure from the collective shrug of the powerful to his first election years ago.

The question is are they visiting Trump to kiss his ring? Or are they visiting him to make him kiss theirs and telling him what the plan is now that they're onboard with the reactionary side of the culture war and are shifting messaging and strategies a bit?

The Democrat-led but empire supported push for cracking down on "disinformation" and "misinformation" which targeted domestic problematic elements outside the grip of mainstream media as well as enemies of empire is being rolled back and in its place I think we have increasingly naked jingoistic power politics. No longer do they hide behind and clutch the supposed liberal values which they've so long used to push the agenda.

Now it's no longer talk of combatting disinfo but I think of just directly fighting Russia and China. The supreme court ruling on Tiktok shows they're open to just admitting that they don't think the values they've long said others need to embrace apply such as free speech are something they need to hide and conceal their motives behind. It's not working much more, their hypocrisy is laid bare with Ukraine, with Gaza, etc. So now it becomes discarded in favor of the same national security excuses for censorship that they've long derided China and Russia and other nations for as being undemocratic for exercising.

It I think illustrates the great possibility we do see greater pushes of control, greater censorship, breaking of encryption, roll-backs of rights granted during the good times such as the first amendment and those of privacy. The boot in other words coming down.

It also gives me pause. Though I largely think liberals are histrionic when it comes to claiming Trump is going to suspend elections and seize power, I admit all these moves have me questioning whether there isn't a small chance that the bourgeoisie and empire would at this junction be fine with a suspension of the institutions and norms in order to carry out crack-downs and to solidify their grasp on power as an empire, to prepare for the well underway cold war with China/Russia. It would give them a certain plausible deniability to carry out unpopular work and then discard certain people should they need to fall back on liberal ideals in a few years after doing most of the dirty work. I'm not saying given his age he'll necessarily last beyond his 4-year mandate, I am saying he might be allowed to wield power in ways that most would assume is proscribed by the institutions of US liberal capitalist 'democracy'.

At the very least we can say that reaction seems ascendant and there is a growing danger for the working class, for minorities, for women as all pretenses of capitalism adopted after the fall of the USSR are being discarded and if you want to war with China, if you want to win a cold war you need to ramp up the reaction at home. This goes beyond Trump's last win or a bunch of petite boug shit-heads getting together with some tea because a black guy won. This I think represents a real, and possibly enduring shift in domestic politics and perhaps international strategy to match though on that we'll have to wait and see.

This along with pushes for re-arming, for increasing "defense" spending and cutting welfare and embracing wackos like RFK jr (whose deranged ideas for the mentally ill and neurodivergent are just a new age coat of paint on old protestant 'tough-it-out' slave mentality work ethics and an excuse to bring back workhouses for cheap domestic manufacturing off the backs of the incarcerated, the differently abled, etc) the truncheon is out, the steel-tipped boots are ready to step on necks. We enter interesting and dangerous times.

Basically NYT doing something catch and kill-ish, maybe limited hang-out better describes.

The New York Times’ recent “bombshell” presents facts that have been known for a long time – and does its best to sanitize them

The New York Times recently published a piece admitting that an unprecedented amount of “collateral damage” has been permitted by the Israeli military. However, in order to sanitize the revelations it claims to be uncovering, it omits key statistics that were previously revealed.

Presented as a bombshell piece, the December 26 article reveals that Israel had sent through an order that permitted killing up to 20 civilians for each low-level Hamas target. “The order, which has not previously been reported, had no precedent in Israeli military history,” the article reads.

However, in early April of 2024, an Israeli media outlet called +972 Magazine had not only published this fact, citing sources within Israel’s military, but uncovered much more damning figures detailing what was to be considered “acceptable” collateral damage.

The +972 article revealed that the Israeli airstrike that killed Hamas’ Shujaiya Battalion Commander, Wisam Farhat, was authorized to kill 100 civilians. Even more shocking was the infamous case of Ayman Nofal, the commander of Hamas’ Central Gaza Brigade, where, according to the sources, “the army authorized the killing of approximately 300 civilians.”

The +972 report was mentioned in passing by The New York Times, with the caveat that Israel’s military had denied it. However, +972 Mag’s investigative work on this topic did not begin in April. In fact, a piece published in November of 2023 cited a source who claimed the following:

“The numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [permitted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage.”

So, while a big deal is made of the fact that such high numbers of collateral damage have “no precedent in Israeli military history,” the IDF has been knowingly writing off civilians as collateral damage for years. One need only look at literally any UN report on Israel’s past military conduct to see it.

It isn’t only in Gaza that such horrendous “collateral damage” has been normalized, it has also been the case in Lebanon. When Israel carried out the assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, it openly announced that it estimated the total death toll to be around 300, as a result of leveling a number of civilian buildings in southern Beirut.

There is literally nothing in the article published by The New York Times that is new; all it does is affirm what has already been reported, yet it is done in a way that works to water the killings down by omitting key facts and repeating old tropes.

For example, it repeats as proven fact the widespread allegation that Hamas purposely embeds itself amongst civilians to use them as human shields, a point that has been found at least questionable before.

What is undeniable however, is that Israel uses Palestinians as human shields, as has been copiously documented throughout the war and used to be an accepted part of Israel’s military doctrine.

[...]

If we go by Israel’s official figures for the number of alleged Hamas militants killed, they rise at such a rate that it doesn’t match the death toll figures accepted by the United Nations. While the official death toll in Gaza is nearly 46,000, with 10,000 missing and presumed dead, the only way Israeli “Hamas fighter” figures make sense is if the toll is much higher. However, accepting a higher death toll in order to give Israel’s claims about Hamas fighters more legitimacy would mean that The New York Times would face another issue: they would then have to wrestle with the fact that the killing only escalated in November of 2023.

[...]

Nowhere in the New York Times article is there any mention of the slaughter of civilians where no military target is located, there is no mention of the mass torture, sexual abuse, or demolition of homes for the pure vanity of soldiers. Everything is framed as a military that went a little overboard after the Hamas-led October 7 attack.

(archive link)