World
Biden: Putin’s nuclear threat brings risk of ‘Armageddon’
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine has brought the world closer to “Armageddon” than at any time since the Cold-War Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. President Joe Biden said.
Putin celebrated his 70th birthday to a chorus of fawning praise from officials. But with his seven-month invasion unravelling, public events appeared more muted than just a week ago, when he staged a huge concert on Red Square to proclaim the annexation of nearly a fifth of Ukrainian land, Reuters reported.
In a clear repudiation of Putin’s record, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Russia’s most prominent human rights group, Memorial, which Moscow has shut down over the past year. A Ukrainian human rights group and a campaigner against abuses by the pro-Russian government in Belarus were also awarded.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv’s forces were swiftly recapturing more territory, including more than 500 sq km in the south where they burst through a second major front this week.
Russia’s failings on the battlefield have brought unusual public recrimination from Kremlin allies, with one Russian-installed leader in occupied Ukrainian territory going so far as to suggest Putin’s defence minister should have shot himself.
Biden said the prospect of defeat could make Putin desperate enough to use nuclear weapons, the biggest risk since U.S. President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev faced off over missiles in Cuba in 1962.
“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” Biden said in New York. “For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they’d been going.”
Putin was “not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons, because his military is, you might say, is significantly underperforming,” Biden said.
Concern so far has been over the prospect of Russia deploying a so-called “tactical” nuclear weapon – a short-range device for use on the battlefield – rather than the “strategic” weapons on long-range missiles that Washington and Moscow have stockpiled since the Cold War.
But Biden suggested it made little difference: “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a vocal supporter of the war, led birthday tributes for Putin with a prayer for God to “grant him health and longevity, and deliver him from all the resistances of visible and invisible enemies”.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, a once-breakaway region Putin reconquered in war 20 years ago, congratulated “one of the most influential and outstanding personalities of our time, the number one patriot in the world, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin”.
Ukrainian forces have advanced swiftly since bursting through the Russian front in the northeast at the start of September, and in the south this week.
Since Putin proclaimed the annexation a week ago, Ukraine has recaptured the main Russian bastion in northern Donetsk, and a swath of territory on the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson.
Ukrainian rescuers had retrieved 11 bodies and rescued 21 people from the rubble of buildings destroyed in missile attacks there, the State Emergency Service said in a statement. Reuters journalists saw bodies being carried out of the rubble.
Russia’s RIA news agency reported that a Ukrainian missile had hit a bus in the Russian-controlled city of Kherson, killing four and wounding three civilians.
Israel established a covert military installation in the Iraqi desert to support its air operations against Iran, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal, citing individuals familiar with the matter, including U.S. officials.
The report said the facility was used as a logistical hub for the Israeli Air Force and also housed special forces, as well as search-and-rescue units prepared to assist any downed pilots during operations.
According to the newspaper, the base was built with the knowledge of the United States shortly before the onset of what it described as a joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran.
The report added that Israeli forces conducted airstrikes against Iraqi troops on at least one occasion after they allegedly came close to discovering the site, in order to prevent exposure of the facility.
The existence of the installation reportedly came under threat in early March, when Iraqi state media said a shepherd had alerted authorities to unusual military activity in the area, including helicopter movements. Iraqi forces were subsequently dispatched to investigate.
The Wall Street Journal further reported that Iraqi troops were struck by Israeli air operations while approaching the area, based on accounts from sources familiar with the incident.
Later in March, Iraq submitted a complaint to the United Nations alleging that foreign forces were involved in attacks in the area and initially attributed responsibility to the United States. However, the report cited a source familiar with the matter as saying the U.S. was not involved.
At the order of U.S. President Donald Trump, the Defense Department on Friday released dozens of previously classified files on alleged UFO sightings to provide what it called “unprecedented transparency” to the American people, though analysts said many of the documents had already been made public.
The disclosure of documents, photos and videos of “unidentified anomalous phenomena” will be followed by future releases as more materials are declassified, the Defense Department said in a statement, Reuters reported.
Trump was the latest president to release U.S. government reports on UFOs, a disclosure process that began in the late 1970s. Experts said the batch of around 160 files released on Friday contained new videos of known sightings but gave no conclusive evidence of alien technology or extraterrestrial life.
The files include a 1947 report of “flying discs” as well as grainy photos of “unidentified phenomena” taken from the moon’s surface by the 1969 Apollo 12 lunar mission and a transcript of the Apollo 17 crew describing unidentified objects seen from the moon in 1972.
‘BRIGHT PARTICLES’ DURING APOLLO 17
Apollo 17 mission pilot Ronald Evans reported “a few very bright particles or fragments or something that go drifting by as we maneuver,” based on the transcript.
“Roger. Understand,” mission control replied.
“These files, hidden behind classifications, have long fueled justified speculation – and it’s time the American people see it for themselves,” Hegseth said in a statement.
The records release is likely to fuel fresh debate over government secrecy and the possible existence of life in the cosmos.
“Whereas previous Administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” Trump said in a statement. “Have fun and enjoy!”
The move was welcomed by U.S. Representatives Tim Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna, both proponents of declassifying UFO files. Luna said an additional tranche of material was expected in about 30 days.
“The files show that UAP are not simply a matter of speculation or public curiosity,” Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb said in an email to Reuters. “The government has collected records.”
The images from Apollo 12 and 17 were fascinating but could be the result of asteroid impacts on the lunar surface, Loeb said.
DISTRACTION FROM POLITICAL PROBLEMS?
Some critics cast the UFO disclosures as a distraction from Trump’s political woes, including the unpopular U.S. military campaign against Iran and public pressure to release further files tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I really don’t care about the UFO files. I just don’t. I’m so sick of the ‘look at the shiny object’ propaganda,” former Republican U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X.
UAP investigator Mick West said the administration of former President Joe Biden disclosed much of the same information as Friday’s release.
“They’re evidence of us not being able to identify a small white dot that’s a long distance away,” the Sacramento, California-based analyst said of the new UAP videos and images.
Independent journalist Leslie Kean said the release showed there was still a lot of government information on UAP that should be disclosed. Kean co-authored a 2017 New York Times story on a secret Pentagon UAP program, which prompted Congress to push for declassification of UFO documents.
“I think we’ve already proven the existence of UAP, but that doesn’t mean we’ve proven they’re alien or extraterrestrial or that we know what they are,” said Kean.
World
Trump says United States will get uranium from Iran
One of Trump’s central objectives in launching military strikes against Iran was to ensure Tehran does not develop a nuclear weapon.
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States would get enriched uranium from Iran, as the two countries struggle to reach an agreement on ending the Gulf war, Reuters reported.
“We’re going to get it,” Trump told a reporter as he left a White House event.
One of Trump’s central objectives in launching military strikes against Iran was to ensure Tehran does not develop a nuclear weapon. Iran has yet to hand over more than 900 pounds (408 kg) of highly enriched uranium.
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