Agrégateur de flux

(Own report) - German military experts have initiated a debate on NATO's nuclear rearmament. The Western war alliance has "become more important" through the Ukraine crisis, wrote a high-ranking specialist of the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS) in Berlin in a recently published discussion paper. In this context, "nuclear deterrence" must again become a topic of discussion. The "entire deterrence package" must put be on the agenda, not only nuclear arms in general, but also Europe-based US nuclear weapons - not least of all, those stored in Germany. Beyond the threat of nuclear war, the danger of a further barbarization of future wars is looming in the wake of the regeneration of the West. A former head of the Policy Planning Staff of the German Defense Ministry is proposing that Berlin consider procuring depleted uranium munitions for the Bundeswehr to combat Russian tanks. Depleted uranium is extremely destructive, even after their battlefield use. In Iraq for example, where NATO countries used these weapons, vast areas are contaminated still today.

New Zealanders are pretty irked by the revelation that their government used taxpayer money to air-freight nearly 1,000 sheep to Saudi Arabia.

The sheep shipment was part of a $4.4 million deal (6 million New Zealand dollars) to set up a New Zealand-sponsored “agribusiness service hub and demonstration farm” in eastern Saudi Arabia. The New Zealand government says the scheme is an important investment for its country, where sheep famously outnumber people six-to-one, and where the meat trade with Saudi Arabia is worth millions.

But many are blasting it as a move to mollify the powerful Saudi businessman who owns the farm where the sheep have been sent, and who also has invested deeply in New Zealand’s own sheep industry.

New Zealand announced a general ban on shipments of live farm animals in 2004, amid outrage from animal rights groups over livestock packed into “reeking, squalid” ships and a shipping disaster in which more than 5,000 sheep died on an Australian vessel en route to Saudi Arabia.

The ban left Saudi tycoon Hamood Al Ali al-Khalaf sheep-hungry and angry over the loss of business.

Skeptical Kiwis see the new sheep delivery as undue compensation for the well-connected al-Khalaf at a time when New Zealand is trying to cement a free trade deal in the Gulf. New Zealand jetted the sheep to Saudi Arabia late last year, but the scheme is just now making news after Prime Minister John Key’s recent visit to the Gulf to negotiate the trade deal.

Further fueling the anger is the revelation, from New Zealand television network TVNZ, that al-Khalaf also was the buyer of the animals that died in the 2004 sheep disaster.

“If this is the man who was behind the lamb deaths that led to the ban on live sheep in the first place then [Prime Minister] John Key and [Trade Minister] Tim Groser have just made fools of themselves at the taxpayer’s expense,” opposition trade spokesman David Parker told TVNZ.

New Zealand’s Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy has called the scheme “a sound investment” – and one that can eventually “help us land the free trade agreement.” The government says the 2004 shipping disaster was why the sheep traveled by plane this time around.

Halal meat orders from Muslim have long brought New Zealand, as well as Australia, lots of business. But many Kiwis’ response to the latest deal is: “Baa, humbug!”

Bethany Clarke/Getty Images for Wool Week

More than 350 American soldiers and 80 US Army vehicles will begin a 400 kilometer "cavalry march" across Romania, with cover from US Air Force, on their way to multinational exercises, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday.

C’est une des traductions concrètes des annonces présidentielles : la marine va pouvoir densifier sa
Plus d'infos »