Since the beginning of the Cold War the number of countries able to independently produce fighter aircraft has declined sharply, with advances in technologies and growing complexity and cost meaning that today only China and the United States can produce their top fighters without any foreign technologies or components. As fighters have become more sophisticated and costly with each generation, the numbers produced have contracted significantly.
Joe Biden praised the Top Gun fighter jet pilot who shot down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina today after he vowed to 'take care of it.'
An F-22 Raptor out of Langley Air Force base took the balloon down with a single AIM-9X sidewinder missile at 2.38pm, separating its surveillance payload and sending it plummeting towards the ocean off Myrtle Beach.
The Chinese government said Saturday that President Biden’s decision to shoot down the spy balloon that crossed America was an “excessive reaction” and that it “retains the right to respond further.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has unveiled a draft of its new plan to censor so-called “misinformation” and “disinformation” online.
The United Nations health agency recently released a zero draft of its international pandemic treaty.
The treaty will give the unelected global organization new powers to “tackle” anything that it deems to be “false, misleading, misinformation, or disinformation” if passed.
Participants in the Ukraine-EU summit, held in Kiev on February 3, will be frustrated, as the goals of Russia’s special military operation will be achieved, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Saturday.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said the supply of more advanced U.S. weaponry to Ukraine will only trigger more retaliatory strikes from Russia, up to the extent of Russia's nuclear doctrine.
"All of Ukraine that remains under Kyiv's rule will burn," journalist Nadana Fridrikhson quoted him as saying in a written interview with her.
Previous constant headlines of the Ukraine-Russia war were put on pause Friday into Saturday as the American public's attention and discourse got temporarily consumed by the bizarre Chinese 'spy balloon' saga, which grew more dramatic by the hour until it was shot down by the Pentagon over the Atlantic Ocean.
The war in Ukraine is not just about Ukraine and Russia with the U.S. and NATO acting as seemingly benevolent supporters of Ukraine, as the Western media portray.
The United States and its NATO allies are deeply involved in the conflict.
The military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 – after 20 years of futile occupation – was a calculated “reorganization of firepower” against Russia, says Pepe Escobar.
Ukraine is merely a proxy and ultimately cannon fodder for American imperial planners.
