All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

By Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky having to vehemently deny that Oleksii Reznikov has been replaced as Ukraine Minister of Defence in the wake of a corruption scandal, it demonstrates that national unity is eroding and distrust in the government is growing. This is a nightmare situation for Ukraine since Zelensky initially came to power on the back of an anti-corruption platform and the latest scandal comes as Russia is reportedly preparing for a major offensive.

In the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament), Zelensky called for an end to “rumours or any other pseudo-information” relating to Reznikov being dismissed. Although the Ukrainian president evidently hoped that this would alleviate the corruption allegations, the first major scandal of his administration since the war began in February 2022, speculation ran rife.

He pointed out that only the president can dismiss a minister, stressing in a Telegram post that: “We are taking personnel and institutional steps at various levels in the defence and security sector that can strengthen Ukraine’s position.”

David Arakhamia, an ally of Zelensky and a senior member of parliament, was quoted on February 5 as saying that Reznikov would be reshuffled from the defence ministry and given another portfolio. This was allegedly in response to a corruption scandal at the defence ministry. A day later he said that there would be no cabinet changes “this week.”

For most of 2022, in the lead up to the US Congress election, the Republican candidates highlighted the corruption in the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence and questioned the misuse of funds that Washington continuously sends to Kiev.

As it appears though, Reznikov has not been reshuffled. It is recalled that he has gained a lot of influence lately, visiting the American-controlled Ramstein Airbase in Germany and being described as a “good friend” by Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin. So long as Reznikov continues to serve US interests, it is unlikely that Washington will order Kiev to remove him. However, the moment Reznikov is no longer of use, the US will not hesitate to get rid of him.

It cannot be overlooked that the first article about corruption in the Ukraine Ministry of Defence appeared in the weekly newspaper Zerkalo Nedeli, which has connections with the American Embassy and receives grants from abroad to survive. The dire situation that the Ukrainian Armed Forces find themselves in could be a motivating factor for, what Zelensky says, are “rumours” and “pseudo-information” about the reshuffling of Reznikov as the US might want a stronger figure leading the defence ministry.

Reznikov is not a good defence minister. He is a lawyer and has little understanding of his position, meaning that he is effectively the civilian face of the ruling junta. In fact, Reznikov admitted to making a “pact” with Ukrainian Chief of Command Valeriy Zaluzhny.

“We agreed that I wouldn’t lecture him on how to fight. I’m not an artillery man. I’m an attorney, a lawyer working as defense minister,” he said.

A corruption scandal began on January 21 when Zerkalo Nedeli exposed in an article a procurement scheme in which the Defense Ministry paid double and triple the market prices for certain army provisions. Rather than acknowledge the obvious corruption, Reznikov instead accused the journalists of “manipulating” the facts just before the Ramstein meeting. In fact, it was Reznikov being manipulative as he attempted to shift focus away from the corruption scandal and onto the Ramstein meeting. The defence minister admitted that this was a “communicative failure”, but the damage was already done.

It is recalled that on January 24, Deputy Defence Minister for Supply, Vyacheslav Shapovalov, resigned from his post. This was followed by the USB arresting two people involved in the corrupt procurement scheme. Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who was also responsible for procurement, is suspected of embezzling nearly $3 million through the purchase of substandard bulletproof vests for soldiers. Volodymyr Tereshchenko, the deputy foreign trade coordinator, is accused of misappropriating $1.3 million in budgetary funds in a similar manner to Khmelnytsky.

Reznikov has not been accused of direct involvement, but he accepts responsibility for his subordinates and says he will stepdown immediately if Zelensky orders it. Corruption scandals in the Defense Ministry cost Petro Poroshenko his presidency and allowed Zelensky to come to power on the back of an anti-corruption platform. For this reason, even though Zelensky denies it for now, we could see the removal of Reznikov in the near future or the Ukrainian president could face major political and civilian backlash and risk upsetting the already fragile unity of the nation.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

A slice of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address that calls for closer analysis:

Putin’s invasion has been a test for the ages. A test for America. A test for the world.

Would we stand for the most basic of principles?

Would we stand for sovereignty?

Would we stand for the right of people to live free from tyranny?

Would we stand for the defense of democracy?

“Would we stand for the most basic of principles?”

It is important to parse what Biden said. Notice how this is spoken as a series of questions. Biden is not saying that the US stands for the most basic of principles. Neither is he saying that the US (“we”) stands for all principles. He speaks to just the most basic principles. What are those “most basic of principles”?

Is sabotage not a violation of a most basic principle? Veteran journalist Seymour Hersch investigated the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines and the evidence shows that the US did it.

How about America’s much ballyhooed fidelity to so-called free trade?

Take the case of China in which the US has recently begun seizing aluminum products imported from China, accusing China of using forced labor in Xinjiang for these products. The US, under Donald Trump’s tenure, had Canada arrest Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver International Airport and place her under house arrest for three years. (What is it they say about justice delayed? Meng was released with all charges against her dismissed by the judge.) The US has applied strong-arm tactics worldwide to have countries reject purchase of Huawei’s 5G network. It tried to force China to give America the social media sensation Tik Tok. It is coercing countries to prevent China from buying chip technology. Is this principled economic competition?

Adhering to signed treaties would seem to qualify as a most basic principle? Yet the string of broken treaties that the US had entered into with Indigenous nations speaks not to standing for principle.

Certainly not committing or partaking in genocide should be at, or very near, the top of a most basic principle list. But the US is founded through genocide and dispossession.

“Would we stand for sovereignty?”

This question is better posed as “Have we stood for sovereignty?”

Does the US respect the sovereignty of Venezuela in trying to impose an unelected Juan Guaido as the Venezuelan president or by abducting Venezuelan diplomats? Does the US respect the sovereignty of Syria by invading the country, stealing the oil and wheat, and attempting regime change? Has the US ever respected the sovereignty of Haiti where it has overthrown elected leaders and occupied the country, exploiting it as a low-wage workforce? In recent times, there is much speculation of an imminent invasion of Haiti by the US. There is also the US’s absence of respect for sovereignty in the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Honduras, Peru, Brazil, Guatemala, Iraq, Iran, Chagos archipelago, Cuba, etc.

And most egregiously, the US has destroyed the sovereignty of the Indigenous nations on Turtle Island.

“Would we stand for the right of people to live free from tyranny?”

How about Palestinians who suffer under Jewish Israeli tyranny? When has Biden stood for Palestinians to live free from tyranny? In fact, Biden proudly claims to be a Zionist.

What is the US but a tyranny of the 1%-ers over the masses? Universal health care, a most basic principle in many countries, is thwarted at each foray by the 1%-ers against the will of the majority of Americans. The US is a country with over half-a-million people enduring the indignity of homelessness. Isn’t that a basic principle? The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25:1) says it is. And the US is a signatory. No matter. It is a non-binding declaration and not a treaty. But then treaties don’t seem to matter either to the US.

Emphatically, the Indigenous people in the undeniably stolen landmass called the US live under tyranny.

“Would we stand for the defense of democracy?”

Is democracy what the US stands for in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, etc?

What is democratic about mandating experimental so-called vaccines on the population? Writer Ben Bartee considers this to reveal an anarcho-tyranny. As time passes, the establishment’s fraudulent COVID-19 narrative crumbles more and more.

In the case of the US, there are two business parties that control what is fallaciously called democracy. However, if the people would choose social democracy and the pliable Bernie Sanders is their candidate of choice, then the big-money wheels will step in to undo any democratic expression that they consider unacceptable. Thus, the US winds up with a worn-out, intellectually diminishing Biden and his reviled vice president Kamala Harris — a woman whose integrity was destroyed in the presidential debates by Tulsi Gabbard.

The US can claim to stand for democracy when its claim to be such is a sham because the media is part of the controlling apparatus. As Michael Parenti explains in his book Democracy for the Few, democracy in the US is controlled by the moneyed class.

So what the hell was Biden going on about in the speech? And why were all these politicians clapping?

And how does America fare on Biden’s test?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is a screenshot from the video above

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on State of the Union Address: How Does America Perform on Biden’s Test?
  • Tags: ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The Kremlin said on Thursday the world should know the truth about who sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines and that those responsible should be punished after an investigative journalist said U.S. divers blew them up at the behest of the White House.

A sharp drop in pressure on both pipelines was registered on September 26 and seismologists detected explosions, triggering a wave of speculation about sabotage to one of Russia’s most important energy corridors.

In a blog post, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh cited an unidentified source as saying that U.S. navy divers had destroyed the pipelines with explosives on the orders of President Joe Biden.

Reuters was unable to corroborate the allegations. The White House dismissed them as ‘utterly false and complete fiction’. Norway’s foreign ministry said the allegations were ‘nonsense’.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Hersh’s blog post deserved more attention and that he was surprised it had not been covered more fully by Western media.

‘The world must find out the truth about who carried out this act of sabotage,’ Peskov told reporters. ‘This is a very dangerous precedent: if someone did it once, they can do it again anywhere in the world.’

He called for ‘an open international investigation of this unprecedented attack on international critical infrastructure’, adding: ‘It is impossible to leave this without uncovering those responsible and punishing them.’

Click here to read the full article on Daily Mail Online.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Daily Mail: “Russia Demands Those Responsible for Nord Stream Blasts Must be Named and Punished After Investigative Reporter Claims Joe Biden Ordered US Navy to Destroy the Gas Pipeline”
  • Tags: ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Abstract

It is now well established from autopsy studies and adverse effect monitoring that the COVID-19 vaccines can cause death. The vaccine-dose fatality rate (vDFR), which is the ratio of vaccine-induced deaths to vaccine doses delivered in a population, has recently been measured by us to be as large as 1 % in India and when “vaccine equity” campaigns were applied in high-poverty states of the USA, and to be 0.05 % in Australia, with data that is not discriminated by age group. Here, we provide the first empirical evaluations of age‑stratified vDFRs, using national all-cause mortality and vaccine rollout data, for Israel and Australia. We find that the vDFR increases dramatically with age for older adults, being exponential with a doubling time of approximately 5.2 ± 0.4 years. As a result the vDFR is an order of magnitude greater in the most elderly population than the all-population value, reaching 0.6 % for the 80+ years age group in Israel and 1 % for the 85+ years age group in Australia, compared to < 0.01 % for young adults (< 45 year olds). Our results imply that it was reckless to prioritise vaccinating those deemed to be in greatest need of protection.

*

It is well established that the COVID-19 vaccines can cause death, as seen from:

  • detailed autopsy studies (Choi et al., 2021; Schneider et al., 2021; Sessa et al., 2021; Gill et al., 2022; Mörz, 2022; Schwab et al., 2022; Suzuki et al., 2022; Tan et al., 2022; Yoshimura et al., 2022; Onishi et al., 2023),
  • adverse effect monitoring (Hickey and Rancourt, 2022),
  • a recent survey study (Skidmore, 2023),
  • studies of vaccine-induced pathologies (e.g., Goldman et al., 2021; Kuvandik et al., 2021; Turni and Lefringhausen, 2022; Edmonds et al., 2023; Wong et al., 2023), and
  • more than 1,250 peer-reviewed publications about COVID-19 vaccine adverse effects (React 19, 2022).

In particular, a study of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data for the USA showed that the COVID-19 injections can be understood as individual challenges to the body, and that “toxicity by dose” is a good first-order model of the phenomenon for the adverse effect of death (Hickey and Rancourt, 2022). An exponential increase of lethality with median age of those dying following injection was observed (Hickey and Rancourt, 2022).

There is also the known vaccine injury compensation programmes of states worldwide, which include death resulting from the COVID-19 vaccines (Mungwira et al. 2020; Wood et al., 2020; Crum et al., 2021; Kamin-Friedman and Davidovitch, 2021). Japan, Canada and the UK have granted compensation for COVID‑19 vaccine induced deaths (The Japan Times, 26 July 2022; Corbett, 6 September 2022; Wise, 2022).

We are pursuing a research program to quantify the vaccine-dose fatality rate (vDFR), which is the ratio of vaccine-induced deaths to vaccine doses delivered in a population. We do this at the population level of states, using epidemiological methods applied to all-cause mortality (ACM) and vaccine rollout data, by time (day, week, month), by jurisdiction and by age group (Rancourt et al., 2022a; Rancourt et al., 2022b; Rancourt, 2022).

Here we report our first age-stratification results.

We recently demonstrated that the COVID-19 vaccine rollouts caused significant increases in mortality in India, the USA, Australia, and Canada (see Rancourt et al., 2022a; and references therein).

Rancourt showed that the vaccine rollout in India (350 million doses) synchronously caused 3.7 million excess deaths, corresponding to a vDFR of 1 %; and provided comprehensive reasons for concluding a causal relation to the vaccine rollout rather than coincidence involving other causes (Rancourt, 2022).

Our work on the Australian data established a non-age-stratified (all-population) mean vDFR of 0.05 %, in a phenomenon of step-wise increase in mortality synchronous with the vaccine rollout, which was also present in each of the eight states of Australia and in each of the age groups of the most elderly residents (Rancourt et al., 2022a).

Such determinations of vDFR are possible — despite the inherent difficulty in assigning cause to excess mortality, especially despite the difficulty in discerning excess mortality caused by the imposed pandemic-response conditions (or “COVID-19 conditions”) — in two kinds of circumstances:

  1. Jurisdictions in which there is essentially no measurable excess integrated ACM in the pre-vaccination period of the declared pandemic (typically 11 March 2020 to 1 January 2021),[1] followed by a large and sudden step-wise increase in ACM by time, synchronous with the vaccine rollout in the jurisdiction, and sustained through multiple-dose cycles of vaccination (e.g., Australia, India, Israel).
  2. Cases in which a specific vaccine rollout (e.g., first booster in Australia, “vaccine equity” campaign in the USA, first-dose in Ontario) is synchronous with an anomalous peak in ACM, which is not confounded by occurring at a seasonal peak position inferred from the historic trend.

In all these cases, which we have studied, the vaccine rollouts occur at significantly different times, for different jurisdictions and age groups, yet are always synchronous with the step-wise increases and anomalous peaks in ACM. In this regard, the graphs in our most recent paper and its appendices are compelling (Rancourt et al., 2022a; their figures 1A through 1D, 2, 4, 6A through 6D, 7, 8 and 9; their appendix figures A1-F1 (9 panels) and A2-F1), as are the graphs for India (Rancourt, 2022).

In addition, the all‑population vDFRs, for individual states and for individual anomalous peaks in ACM, are all comparable in magnitude, in the range of approximately 0.03 % − 1 % (Rancourt et al., 2022a ; Rancourt et al., 2022b ; Rancourt, 2022).

The robust criteria described by Ioannidis (2016) for proving causality are amply satisfied:

  • Experiment: The same phenomenon is independently observed in distinct jurisdictions, for distinct age groups, and at different times, which constitutes ample verification in independent real-world large-scale experiments.
  • Temporality: The many step-wise increases and anomalous peaks in ACM are synchronous with vaccine rollouts, and the peaks in ACM have the same shapes and widths as the synchronous peaks in vaccine dose delivery by time; including in jurisdictions in which excess integrated mortality did not occur until vaccination was implemented after approximately one year of the declared pandemic.
  • Consistency: The phenomenon is qualitatively the same and of comparable magnitude in each occasion in which it is observed.

Here, we perform the age-stratification analysis for Australia, and we add Israel.

Our method for quantification of vDFR by age group (or all-population) is as follows (Rancourt et al., 2022a):

  1. Plot the ACM by time (day, week, month) for the age group (or all-population) over a large time scale, including the years prior to the declared pandemic.
  2. Identify the date (day, week, month) of the start of the vaccine rollout (first dose rollout) for the age group (or all-population).
  3. Note, for consistency, that the ACM undergoes a step-wise increase to larger values at the date of the start of the vaccine rollout.
  4. Integrate (add) ACM from the start of the vaccine rollout to the end of available data or end of vaccinations (all doses), whichever comes first. This is the basic integration time window used in the calculation, start to end dates.
  5. Apply this window and this integration over successive and non-overlapping equal-duration periods, moving as far back as the data permits.
  6. Plot the resulting integration values versus time, and note, for consistency, that the value has an upward jog, well discerned from the historic trend or values, for the vaccination period.
  7. Extrapolate the historic trend of integrated values into the vaccination period. The difference between the measured and extrapolated (historic trend predicted) integrated values of ACM in the vaccination period is the excess mortality associated with the vaccination period.
  8. The extrapolation, in practice, is achieved by fitting a straight line to chosen pre-vaccination-period integration points.
  9. If too few points are available for the extrapolation, giving too large an uncertainty in the fitted slope, then impose a slope of zero, which amounts to using an average of recent values. In some cases, even a single point (usually the point for the immediately preceding integration window) can be used.
  10. The error in the extrapolated value is overwhelmingly the dominant source of error in the calculated excess mortality. Estimate the “accuracy error” in the extrapolated value as the mean deviation of the absolute value difference with the fitted line (mean of the absolute values of the residuals) for the chosen points of the fit. This error is a measure of the integration-period variations from all causes over a near region having an assumed linear trend.
  11. Apply the same integration window (start to end dates during vaccination) to count all vaccine doses administered in that time.
  12. Define vDFR = (vaccination-period excess mortality) / (vaccine doses administered in the same vaccination period). Calculate the uncertainty in vDFR using the estimated error in vaccination-period excess mortality.

The same method can be adapted to any region of interest of sub-annual duration, by translating the window of integration (of the region of interest) backwards by increments of one year.

The above-described method is robust and ideally adapted to the nature of ACM data. Integrated ACM has a small statistical error. The large time-wise integration window removes difficulties arising from intrinsic seasonal variations. The historic trend is analysed without introducing any model assumptions or uncertainties beyond assuming that the near trend can be modelled by a straight line, where justified by the data itself. Such an analysis, for example, takes into account year to year changes in age-group cohort size arising from the age structure of the population. The only presumption is that a locally linear near trend for the unperturbed (ACM-wise unperturbed) population is realistic.

The calculation of the excess ACM by age group and for all-population for Australia is illustrated in Figure 1 (age groups as indicated in the figure), as follows. We used the three points sequentially preceding the vaccination period and imposed a horizontal line (zero slope of the fitted straight line), throughout (Figure 1).

The details such as sources of official data, start and end points of integration, and methods for matching ACM and vaccine rollout data by age group, are provided in Appendix 1.

The integration period for Australia was fine-tuned and updated ACM data was implemented (see Appendix 1), compared to our previous analysis (Rancourt et al., 2022a), and the results are essentially identical.

Figure 1:  Australia, 2015-2022, by age group as indicated. ACM by week (light blue); integrated ACM by 80-week vaccination-period integration window (dark blue, points), the last point being for the actual vaccination period itself; extrapolation line used to calculate the excess ACM in the vaccination period (orange). See the text for a description of the method, and Appendix 1 for details.

The youngest age group for Australia (0-44 years, Figure 1) shows our chosen extrapolation method not to be optimally suited to the ACM trend, however, in this age group the ACM is small, so this makes little difference. Furthermore, our method here automatically ensures that this difficulty is reflected in a larger estimated error, which is propagated to the calculated excess ACM.

We do the same for Israel. The calculation of the excess ACM by age group and for all‑population for Israel is illustrated in Figure 2 (age groups as indicated in the figure), as follows. Here we chose to use different sets of points to use in the extrapolation, as described in Appendix 1, and as can be surmised from Figure 2 itself.

In this way, we account for the different historical trends in ACM that occur in the different age groups for Israel, and we avoid the point immediately preceding the vaccination period where it appears to include a significant excess mortality in the pre‑vaccination period of the declared pandemic.

The details such as sources of official data, start and end points of integration, and methods for matching ACM and vaccine rollout data by age group, are provided in Appendix 1.

In terms of specific features in ACM by time, examples of synchronicity between ACM peaks and vaccine dose rollouts for Israel are shown in Appendix 2.

Figure 2:  Israel, 2000-2022, by age group as indicated; and on expanded time axis 2015-2022 for all-population, as indicated. ACM by week (light blue); integrated ACM by 97-week vaccination-period integration window (dark blue, points), the last point being for the actual vaccination period itself; extrapolation line used to calculate the excess ACM in the vaccination period (orange). See the text for a description of the method, and Appendix 1 for details.

For Israel (Figure 2), although there is necessarily a degree of arbitrariness in the choice of the points to include in the linear regression, this does not significantly affect the results since:

  1. The effect (age-stratified excess ACM in the vaccination period) is large enough not to be sensitive to the said arbitrariness.
  2. The integrated ACM for the vaccination period is generally significantly and anomalously greater than its value for the immediately preceding integration period.
  3. Essentially the same result (age-stratified excess ACM in the vaccination period) occurs if we use the simplest possible method of taking the extrapolated vaccination-period ACM to be equal to the value for the immediately preceding point, which amounts to removing mortality occurring pre-vaccination in the pandemic period while assuming a locally constant trend in integrated ACM.

Tables 1 and 2 give the resulting age-stratified (and all-population) vDFR values for Australia and Israel, respectively. See Appendix 1 for details.

The results from Tables 1 and 2 are plotted in Figure 3, with exponential fits, both on linear and logarithmic scales for vDFR.

Figure 3: vDFR, which is the ratio of vaccine-induced deaths to vaccine doses delivered in the population of the specified age group, versus age for Israel (orange) and Australia (blue), on full (top) and expanded (middle) linear scales, and with semi-log scale (bottom). Horizontal bands are for the all‑population values of vDFR. The age (X-axis value, years) assigned to a given age group is the starting age of the window of ages for the age group.

In Figure 3, the age (X-axis value, in years) assigned to a given age group is the starting age of the window of ages for the age group. This particular choice makes little difference because translating the x values by any constant number, for example, does not affect the doubling time obtained by fitting an exponential function, and only slightly affects the y intercept at x = 0 (the prefactor in the exponential).

The fitted exponentials (Figure 3) are of the form:

y  =  A exp( x / k ) or

vDFR  =  A exp( Age / k )

where A is the prefactor.

The doubling time (T2) is related to k as:

T2  =  k ln(2).

The fitted values of k (and T2) are:

This doubling time by age of approximately 5 years for risk of dying per injection of the COVID-19 vaccines is approximately half of the doubling time by age of 10 years for risk of dying per year of all causes in a modern human population, and of the main old-age diseases cancer, pneumonia and heart disease (Strekler and Mildvan, 1960). This implies a toxicity effect rather than simply inducing death by old age.

Furthermore, there is a non-exponential constant vDFR for young adults (vDFR ≈ 0.005 %, 20-40 years, Figure 3, Table 2). This suggests an accidental mechanism of death with a constant probability for these ages. One might postulate, for example, that vDFR is a product of a constant (age-independent) probability of accidental intra-vascular injection and a constant probability of death given intra-vascular injection. One might further postulate that one or both of these probabilities is larger in athletes with highly developed vascular systems and rapid circulatory rates (Cadegiani, 2022; Klein et al., 2022).

Our all-population value of vDFR of approximately 0.05 % (Figure 3, Tables 1 and 2) implies that in the USA, following the administration of approximately 670 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to date (669.60 million doses, up to 31 January 2023, Our World in Data),[2] approximately 330,000 USA residents would have died from the COVID-19 vaccines (1 in 1,000 on a population basis), assuming that elderly and vulnerable individuals are not more abundant or more aggressively targeted than in Australia or Israel. This number is comparable to the 278,000 fatalities found by Skidmore (2023) in his survey study for the USA. Our number of 330,000 is probably an underestimate, in light of the exponential dependence of vDFR with age that we have demonstrated and the known exceptionally large pools of highly vulnerable residents in the USA (Rancourt et al., 2022b).

Most importantly and concretely, our results establish a large vDFR in elderly people, as large as the 1 % measured for India when frail elderly people and patients with comorbidities were targeted (Rancourt, 2022), and when the same was presumably done in the high-poverty states of the USA, under the banner of vaccine equity programmes (Rancourt et al., 2022b).

The public health notion that elderly and vulnerable individuals must be prioritized for COVID-19 vaccination assumes:

  1. a constant age-independent vDFR
  2. a small value of the vDFR optimistically estimated from managed trials, funded by the pharmaceutical industry

Our research shows that both assumptions (i and ii) are false, and far from reality in the field, on the scale of nations.

The said public health notion has always been baseless since it was not anchored in any sufficient evaluation of age-stratified risk of fatality from the injection (e.g., Veronese et al., 2021; Abbatecola et al., 2022; Gao et al., 2022), and is now proven to be contrary to reality. Prioritizing elderly people for vaccination, in the absence of relevant data, was reckless. Norway may be the only jurisdiction that immediately and publicly recognized a problem and changed its policy regarding vaccinating the most elderly and frail (Reuters, 18 January 2021; Fortune, 15 January 2021).

Some readers will be tempted to compare our results (Figure 3) with published age‑stratified COVID-19 infection fatality rates (IFR) (e.g., COVID-19 Forecasting Team, 2022; Pezzullo et al., 2023). While in principle this is a correct approach of risk-benefit analysis, we believe that the IFR studies are not reliable, for the following reasons:

  1. The deaths in the numerator of IFR are “COVID-19 deaths”, and this cause of death assignation is susceptible to bias and is highly uncertain (e.g., Rancourt et al., 2022c; Rancourt et al., 2021).
  2. The number of infections, in the denominator of IFR, is reliant on molecular antibody tests, which are not specific and have not been sufficiently validated (e.g., Rancourt, 2021).
  3. If the IFR evaluations were valid, then it would be virtually impossible for jurisdictions like India and Australia to have no detectable excess ACM in the pre‑vaccination period of the declared pandemic.
  4. We do not detect any excess ACM that can be attributed to COVID-19 in the jurisdictions that we have studied in detail (USA and all its states; Canada and its provinces; France and its departments and regions; Australia and its states).

The COVID-19 vaccines did not only not save lives but they are highly toxic.

On the global scale, given the 3.7 million fatalities in India alone, having vDFR = 1 % (Rancourt, 2022), and given the age-stratified vDFR results presented in this work, it is not unreasonable to assume an all-population global value of vDFR = 0.1 %. Based on the global number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered to date (13.25 billion doses, up to 24 January 2023, Our World in Data),[3] this would correspond to 13 million deaths from the COVID-19 vaccines worldwide. By comparison, the official World Health Organization (WHO) number of COVID-19 deaths to date is 6.8 million (6,817,478 deaths, reported to WHO, as 3 February 2023),[4] which are not detected as COVID-19 assignable deaths in ACM studies.

We are continuing our research on ACM, extending it to many national and sub-national jurisdictions. We hope that the present report will help put an end to the misguided and baseless public health policy that elderly people should be prioritized for vaccination.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Sources

Abbatecola et al. (2022): Angela Marie Abbatecola, Raffaele Antonelli Incalzi, Alba Malara, Annapina Palmieri, Anna Di Lonardo, Giorgio Fedele, Paola Stefanelli, Gilda Borselli, Marcello Russo, Marianna Noale, Stefano Fumagalli, Pietro Gareri, Enrico Mossello, Caterina Trevisan, Stefano Volpato, Fabio Monzani, Alessandra Coin, Giuseppe Bellelli, Chukwuma Okoye, Susanna Del Signore, Gianluca Zia, Elisa Bottoni, Carmine Cafariello, Graziano Onder. /// Monitoring COVID-19 vaccine use in Italian long term care centers: The GeroCovid VAX study. /// Vaccine, Volume 40, Issue 15, 2022, Pages 2324-2330, ISSN 0264-410X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.02.064.

Cadegiani (2022): Cadegiani FA. /// Catecholamines Are the Key Trigger of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine-Induced Myocarditis: A Compelling Hypothesis Supported by Epidemiological, Anatomopathological, Molecular, and Physiological Findings. /// Cureus. 2022 Aug 11;14(8):e27883. doi: 10.7759/cureus.27883. PMID: 35971401; PMCID: PMC9372380. https://doi.org/10.7759%2Fcureus.27883

Choi et al. (2021): Sangjoon Choi, SangHan Lee, Jeong-Wook Seo, Min-ju Kim, Yo Han Jeon, Ji Hyun Park, Jong Kyu Lee, Nam Seok Yeo /// Myocarditis-induced Sudden Death after BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination in Korea: Case Report Focusing on Histopathological Findings /// Journal of Korean Medical Science 2021; 36(40): e286. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2021.36.e286

Corbett (6 September 2022): Neil Corbett /// Maple Ridge woman compensated for mother’s death from COVID-19 vaccine. /// Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News, 6 September 2022, https://www.mapleridgenews.com/news/maple-ridge-woman-compensated-for-mothers-death-from-covid-19-vaccine/ – archived here: https://archive.is/wNoYF

COVID-19 Forecasting Team (2022): COVID-19 Forecasting Team. /// Variation in the COVID-19 infection–fatality ratio by age, time, and geography during the pre-vaccine era: a systematic analysis. /// Lancet 399 (2022) 1469-1488, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02867-1.

Crum et al. (2021): Crum T, Mooney K, Tiwari BR. /// Current situation of vaccine injury compensation program and a future perspective in light of COVID-19 and emerging viral diseases. /// F1000Res. 2021 Dec 7; 10: 652. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.51160.2. PMCID: PMC8733825. https://doi.org/10.12688%2Ff1000research.51160.2

Edmonds et al. (2023): Edmonds, R, Schönborn, L, Habben, S, Paparoupa, M, Greinacher, A, Schuppert, F. /// Vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination: Two cases from Germany with unusual presentation. /// Clin Case Rep. 2023; 00:e6883. doi:10.1002/ccr3.6883. https://doi.org/10.1002/ccr3.6883

Fortune (15 January 2021): LARS ERIK TARALDSEN , NAOMI KRESGE , AND  BLOOMBERG /// Sick patients over 80 could be a COVID vaccine risk, Norwegian health officials warn: The country has conducted autopsies on 13 people who died shortly after receiving the first dose of the vaccine. /// Fortune (15 January 2021), https://fortune.com/2021/01/15/sick-elderly-covid-vaccine-risk-norway-warning/ – archived: https://archive.ph/LPhlt

Gao et al. (2022): Gao, J., Lun, P., Ding, Y.Y. et al. /// COVID-19 Vaccination for Frail Older Adults in Singapore — Rapid Evidence Summary and Delphi Consensus Statements. /// J Frailty Aging 11, 236–241 (2022). https://doi.org/10.14283/jfa.2022.12

Gill et al. (2022): James R. Gill, Randy Tashjian, Emily Duncanson /// Autopsy Histopathologic Cardiac Findings in 2 Adolescents Following the Second COVID-19 Vaccine Dose. /// Arch Pathol Lab Med 1 August 2022; 146 (8): 925–929. doi: https://doi.org/10.5858/arpa.2021-0435-SA

Goldman et al. (2021): Goldman Serge, Bron Dominique, Tousseyn Thomas, Vierasu Irina, Dewispelaere Laurent, Heimann Pierre, Cogan Elie, Goldman Michel. /// Rapid Progression of Angioimmunoblastic T Cell Lymphoma Following BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccine Booster Shot: A Case Report. /// Frontiers in Medicine, vol. 8, 2021, DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2021.798095,   https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.798095

Hickey and Rancourt (2022): Hickey, J. and Rancourt, D.G. /// Nature of the toxicity of the COVID-19 vaccines in the USA /// ResearchGate [Preprint] (9 February 2022). Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358489777_Nature_of_the_toxicity_of_the_COVID-19_vaccines_in_the_USA /// Archived at: https://archive.ph/LZpRj

Ioannidis (2016): Ioannidis, J. P. A. /// Exposure-wide epidemiology: revisiting Bradford Hill. /// Statist. Med., 35: 2016, 1749– 1762. doi: 10.1002/sim.6825. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.6825

Kamin-Friedman and Davidovitch (2021): Kamin-Friedman, S., Davidovitch, N. /// Vaccine injury compensation: the Israeli case. /// Israel Journal of Health Policy Research, 10, 54 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13584-021-00490-w

Klein et al. (2022):  Klein BM, Dugan ES, LaCombe AD, Ruthmann NP, Roselli EE, Klein AL, Emery MS. /// Complex Management Decisions in a Professional Athlete With Recurrent Pericarditis. /// JACC Case Rep. 2022 Sep 7;4(17):1090-1093. doi: 10.1016/j.jaccas.2022.05.015. PMID: 36124145; PMCID: PMC9481902. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaccas.2022.05.015

Kuvandik et al. (2021): Anıl Kuvandık, Ecenur Özcan, Simay Serin, Hülya Sungurtekin. /// Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease After the COVID-19 Vaccination. /// Turk J Intensive Care, DOI: 10.4274/tybd.galenos.2021.91885. https://cms.galenos.com.tr/Uploads/Article_50671/TYBD-0-0.pdf

Mörz (2022): Mörz, M. A /// Case Report: Multifocal Necrotizing Encephalitis and Myocarditis after BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccination against COVID-19. /// Vaccines 2022, 10, 1651. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10101651

Mungwira et al. (2020): Mungwira RG, Guillard C, Saldaña A, Okabe N, Petousis-Harris H, Agbenu E, et al. /// Global landscape analysis of no-fault compensation programmes for vaccine injuries: A review and survey of implementing countries. /// PLoS ONE 15(5): e0233334. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233334

Onishi et al. (2023): Naoaki Onishi, Yuki Konishi, Toshiyuki Kaneko, Naohiro Maekawa, Akihira Suenaga, Shinnosuke Nomura, Takayasu Kobayashi, Shokan Kyo, Marie Okabayashi, Hirooki Higami, Maki Oi, Nobuya Higashitani, Sayaka Saijo, Fumiko Nakazeki, Naofumi Oyamada, Toshikazu Jinnai, Tomoko Okuno, Tomoyuki Shirase, Kazuaki Kaitani. /// Fulminant myocarditis with complete atrioventricular block after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination: A case report. /// Journal of Cardiology Cases, 2023, ISSN 1878-5409, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jccase.2023.01.004

Pezzullo et al. (2023): Angelo Maria Pezzullo, Cathrine Axfors, Despina G. Contopoulos-Ioannidis, Alexandre Apostolatos, John P.A. Ioannidis. /// Age-stratified infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in the non-elderly population. /// Environmental Research, Volume 216, Part 3, 2023, 114655, ISSN 0013-9351, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2022.114655.

Rancourt (2021): Rancourt, DG /// Do Face Masks Reduce COVID-19 Spread in Bangladesh? Are the Abaluck et al. Results Reliable? /// denisrancourt.ca (20 September 2021) /// https://denisrancourt.ca/entries.php?id=106 – archived: https://archive.ph/yHbWO – republished: https://www.globalresearch.ca/do-face-masks-reduce-covid-19-spread-bangladesh-abaluck-et-al-results-reliable/5756323?pdf=5756323

Rancourt (2022): Rancourt, DG /// Probable causal association between India’s extraordinary April-July 2021 excess-mortality event and the vaccine rollout /// Correlation Research in the Public Interest, 5 December 2022 /// https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-indias-extraordinary-april-july-2021-excess-mortality-event-and-the-vaccine-rollout/

Rancourt et al. (2021): Rancourt, D.G., Baudin, M. and Mercier, J. /// Nature of the COVID-era public health disaster in the USA, from all-cause mortality and socio-geo-economic and climatic data. /// Research Gate (25 October 2021) /// http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.11570.32962

Rancourt et al. (2022a): Rancourt, D.G., Baudin, M. and Mercier, J. /// Probable causal association between Australia’s new regime of high all-cause mortality and its COVID-19 vaccine rollout. /// Correlation Research in the Public Interest, 20 December 2022 /// https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-australias-new-regime-of-high-all-cause-mortality-and-its-covid-19-vaccine-rollout/

Rancourt et al. (2022b): Rancourt, D.G., Baudin, M. and Mercier, J. /// COVID-Period Mass Vaccination Campaign and Public Health Disaster in the USA: From age/state-resolved all-cause mortality by time, age-resolved vaccine delivery by time, and socio-geo-economic data /// Research Gate (2 August 2022) /// http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12688.28164  /// Also available at: https://vixra.org/abs/2208.0023

Rancourt et al. (2022c): Rancourt, D.G., Baudin, M. and Mercier, J. /// Proof that Canada’s COVID-19 mortality statistics are incorrect. /// Correlation Research in the Public Interest, 5 October 2022 /// https://correlation-canada.org/report-proof-that-canadas-covid-19-mortality-statistics-are-incorrect/

React 19 (2022): React 19. /// 1250+ COVID Vaccine Publications and Case Reports: Collection of peer reviewed case reports and studies citing adverse effects post COVID vaccination. /// 9 July 2022, https://react19.org/1250-covid-vaccine-reports/, archived here: https://archive.ph/T4hPV

Reuters (18 January 2021): REUTERS/Stephane Mahe /// Norway advises caution in use of Pfizer vaccine for the most frail /// Reuters (18 January 2021), https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/norway-advises-caution-use-pfizer-vaccine-most-frail-2021-01-18/  – archived: https://archive.ph/Ze0Cv

Schneider et al. (2021): Schneider, J., Sottmann, L., Greinacher, A. et al. /// Postmortem investigation of fatalities following vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines. /// Int J Legal Med 135, 2335–2345 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02706-9

Schwab et al. (2022): Schwab, C., Domke, L.M., Hartmann, L. et al. /// Autopsy-based histopathological characterization of myocarditis after anti-SARS-CoV-2-vaccination. /// Clin Res Cardiol (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00392-022-02129-5

Sessa et al. (2021): Sessa, F.; Salerno, M.; Esposito, M.; Di Nunno, N.; Zamboni, P.; Pomara, C. /// Autopsy Findings and Causality Relationship between Death and COVID‑19 Vaccination: A Systematic Review. /// J. Clin. Med. 2021, 10, 5876. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10245876

Skidmore (2023): Skidmore, M. /// The role of social circle COVID-19 illness and vaccination experiences in COVID-19 vaccination decisions: an online survey of the United States population. /// BMC Infect Dis 23, 51 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-023-07998-3

Strekler and Mildvan (1960): STREHLER BL, MILDVAN AS. /// General theory of mortality and aging. /// Science. 1960 Jul 1;132(3418):14-21. doi: 10.1126/science.132.3418.14. PMID: 13835176. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.132.3418.14

Suzuki et al. (2022): Hideto Suzuki, Ayako Ro, Aya Takada, Kazuyuki Saito, Kino Hayashi. /// Autopsy findings of post-COVID-19 vaccination deaths in Tokyo Metropolis, Japan, 2021. /// Legal Medicine, Volume 59, 2022, 102134, ISSN 1344-6223, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.legalmed.2022.102134

Tan et al. (2022): Lii Jye Tan, Cai Ping Koh, Shau Kong Lai, Woon Cheng Poh, Mohammad Shafie Othman, Huzlinda Hussin. /// A systemic review and recommendation for an autopsy approach to death followed the COVID 19 vaccination. /// Forensic Science International, Volume 340, 2022, 111469, ISSN 0379-0738, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2022.111469.

The Japan Times (26 July 2022): Japan grants first payment for death related to COVID vaccination. /// https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/07/26/national/science-health/japan-first-covid-19-vaccine-compensation/ – archived here: https://archive.ph/OfUhm

Turni and Lefringhausen (2022): Conny Turni and Astrid Lefringhausen /// COVID-19 vaccines – An Australian Review. /// Journal of Clinical & Experimental Immunology. 7(3):491-508. https://www.opastpublishers.com/open-access-articles/covid19-vaccinesan-australian-review.pdf

Veronese et al. (2021): Nicola Veronese, Mirko Petrovic, Athanase Benetos, Michael Denkinger, Adalsteinn Gudmundsson, Wilma Knol, Christine Marking, George Soulis, Stefania Maggi, Antonio Cherubini. /// Underrepresentation of older adults in clinical trials on COVID-19 vaccines: A systematic review. /// Ageing Research Reviews, Volume 71, 2021, 101455, ISSN 1568-1637, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2021.101455.

Wise (2022): Wise J. /// Covid-19: UK makes first payments to compensate injury or death from vaccines. /// BMJ2022; 377 :o1565 doi:10.1136/bmj.o1565. https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o1565

Wong et al. (2023): Hui-Lee Wong, Ellen Tworkoski, Cindy Ke Zhou, Mao Hu, Deborah Thompson, Bradley Lufkin, Rose Do, Laurie Feinberg, Yoganand Chillarige, Rositsa Dimova, Patricia C. Lloyd, Thomas MaCurdy, Richard A. Forshee, Jeffrey A. Kelman, Azadeh Shoaibi, Steven A. Anderson. /// Surveillance of COVID-19 vaccine safety among elderly persons aged 65 years and older. /// Vaccine, Volume 41, Issue 2, 2023, Pages 532-539, ISSN 0264-410X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.11.069.

Wood et al. (2020): Nicholas Wood, Kristine Macartney, Julie Leask, Peter McIntyre. /// Australia needs a vaccine injury compensation scheme: Upcoming COVID-19 vaccines make its introduction urgent. /// Australian Journal of General Practice (AGJP), doi: 10.31128/AJGP-COVID-36. https://doi.org/10.31128/ajgp-covid-36

Yoshimura et al. (2022): Yukihiro Yoshimura, Hiroaki Sasaki, Nobuyuki Miyata, Kazuhito Miyazaki, Koji Okudela, Yoko Tateishi, Hiroyuki Hayashi, Ai Kawana-Tachikawa, Hiromichi Iwashita, Kazuho Maeda, Yoko Ihama, Yasuyoshi Hatayama, Akihide Ryo, Natsuo Tachikawa  /// An autopsy case of COVID-19-like acute respiratory distress syndrome after mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 vaccination  /// International Journal of Infectious Diseases 121 (2022) 98–101, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2022.04.057

Notes

[1] The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020 (the “declared pandemic”). Vaccine rollouts typically did not start until late December 2020 and early January 2021, although several national jurisdictions had significantly later starts.

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-covid-vaccinations?country=~USA, consulted on 6 February 2023.

[3] https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations, as archived on 30 January 2023 here: https://archive.ph/u2gEO

[4] https://covid19.who.int/, as archived on 6 February 2023 here: https://archive.ph/boboE

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense


Appendix 1: Data and Methods

Data

Table A1 describes the data used in this work and the sources of the data.

Table A1. Data retrieved. All-cause mortality (ACM), vaccine rollouts, population.

* At the date of access, data were available from week-1of 2015 (week finishing on January 4, 2015) to week-38 of 2022 (week finishing on September 25, 2022).

** At the date of access, data were available from week-1 of 2000 (week starting on January 3, 2000) to week-50 of 2022 (week starting on December 12, 2022).

+ The reports of September 16, 2022 have been used in this work, reporting data as at September 14, 2022.

++ At the date of access, data were available from Sunday December 20, 2020 to Tuesday October 25, 2022.

1 5 age groups: 0-44, 45-64, 65-74, 75-84, 85+

2 8 age groups: 0-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80+

3 19 age groups for vaccine doses 1 and 2: 5-11, 12-15, 16-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-84, 85-89, 90-94, 95+ (Excel file report, AG 2022a) and 14 age groups for vaccine doses 3 and 4: 5-11, 12-15, 16-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70+ (PDF file report, AG 2022b)

4 9 age groups: 0-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, 80-89, 90+

5 18 age groups: 0-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-84, 85+

In addition to the data retrieved as per Table A1, we also examined cumulative vaccine dose by time data for Australia, as per our previous paper about Australia (Rancourt et al., 2022), from https://www.covid19data.com.au/vaccines.

In all the calculations and illustrations, both all-cause mortality (ACM, mortality from all causes of death) and numbers of vaccine doses administered are for the specific jurisdiction and age group.

Vaccine data for Australia are given as cumulative data (AG, 2022a and AG, 2022b). Vaccine data for Israel are given as incremental data (Data Gov, 2022).

In the vaccines data of Israel, when the number of doses administered in a day is between 1 and 15, inclusively, the data shows “<15” (Data Gov, 2022). In order to have a figure to work with, we replaced “<15” by 15, choosing the upper bound of this unknown value. The net effect of this approximation is negligible.

For the vaccine data in Australia, doses 1 and doses 2 are given for 19 age groups (AG, 2022a), which cover the age groups of the ACM by age data (ABS, 2022). However, for doses 3 and 4, 14 age groups are given (AG, 2022b), which do not match the same age groups as for the ACM by age data (ABS, 2022). For this reason, we proceeded as follows.

Figure A1 is the figure from the Australian Government, on page 7 of their report (AG, 2022b):

Figure A1. Vaccinations by age from the Australian Government, report of September 16, 2022, page 7 (AG, 2022b).

First, we estimate the number of doses 3+4 administered by age group from this figure (Figure A1). This is done in Table A2.

Table A2. Estimation of the number of doses 3+4 by age group from AG, 2022b.  Scale used = 1,000,000 people for 2.9 cm.

Next, we estimate the number of doses 3+4 for the missing age groups: the 70‑74, 75‑84 and 85+ age groups. We assume and use a simple proportion of the population of those age groups (ABS, 2021). This is done in Table A3.

Table A3. Estimation of the number of doses 3+4 for the 70-74, 75-84 and 85+ age groups.

Finally, we sum the estimations from Table A2 and Table A3 into relevant age groups to get the final number of doses 3+4 by ACM age group for Australia. This is done in Table A4.

Table A4. Estimation of the number of doses 3+4 by age group in Australia.

These age groups (Table A4) match those of the mortality data for Australia. Note that for the age group 0-44, doses 3 and 4 are for ages 16-44 years. There is no data for doses 3 and 4 for ages 0-15 years in Figure A1 (AG, 2022b).

Vaccination periods

For Israel, we use the same start date (week) of the vaccination period for all age groups. The integration of number of vaccine doses over the vaccine period is inclusive of the first and last weeks defining the said period. The same holds for integrated ACM periods.

For Australia, we use the vaccine-period end-date cumulative value of number of administered vaccine doses.

Table A5 defines the vaccination periods used in this work.

Table A5. Vaccination periods for Australia and Israel used in this work.

“The week number is based on the ISO (International Organization for Standardisation) week date system. In this system, weeks are defined as seven-day periods which start on a Monday. Week 1 of any given year is the week which starts on the Monday closest to 1 January, and for which the majority of its days fall in January (i.e. four days or more). Week 1 therefore always contains the 4th of January and always contains the first Thursday of the year. Using the ISO structure, some years (e.g. 2015 and 2020) contain 53 weeks.” (definition from ABS, 2022).

Trendlines

Table A6 describes the method used to calculate the trendlines fitted to ACM integrated over the periods of equal duration as the duration of the vaccination period. The said trendlines are used to calculate the baseline integrated mortality in the vaccination period, in order to obtain the excess ACM of the vaccination period.

Table A6. Method to estimate the trendlines. For Australia, we use the integrated ACM of the 3 periods prior to the vaccination period, each period being of duration equal to that of the vaccination period (80 weeks) and consecutive to each other, and we calculate the average. For Israel, we use the integrated ACM of the number of periods indicated in the table, prior to the first period directly preceding the vaccination period, each period being of duration equal to the duration of the vaccination period (97 weeks) and consecutive to each other, and we fit a linear trend.

* This is the number of integrated ACM points (periods) used to calculate the trendlines.

The error in the calculated baseline value of integrated ACM over the vaccination period is estimated as the average of the absolute values of the residuals (fit to data) for the points (periods) used in the fit.

References for Appendix 1

ABS (2021): Australian Bureau of Statistics /// Population: Census – Information on sex and age /// accessed 30 January 2023 https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/population-census/2021 — Note: The census that we used is for 2021, which was released in 2022.

ABS (2022): Australian Bureau of Statistics /// Provisional Mortality Statistics /// files “Provisional Mortality Statistics, Weekly Dashboard, Jan – Sep 2022” and “Deaths by week of occurrence, 2015-21” /// accessed 23 January 2023 https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provisional-mortality-statistics/latest-release

AG (2022a): Australian Government /// COVID-19 vaccination – vaccination data – 16 September 2022 /// accessed 23 January 2023 https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/covid-19-vaccination-vaccination-data-16-september-2022?language=en

AG (2022b): Australian Government /// COVID-19 vaccine rollout update – 16 September 2022 /// accessed 30 January 2023 https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-update-16-september-2022?language=en

CBS (2022): Central Bureau of Statistics /// לוחות ותרשימים /// file “Death of Israeli residents, by week, gender, population group and age, 2000-2022” /// accessed 16 January 2023 https://www.cbs.gov.il/he/Pages/search/TableMaps.aspx?CbsSubject=%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%94%20%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%97%D7%9C%D7%AA%20%D7%97%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D

Data Gov (2022): Government databases /// גילאי המתחסנים /// accessed 29 December 2022 https://data.gov.il/dataset/covid-19/resource/57410611-936c-49a6-ac3c-838171055b1f

Rancourt et al. (2022): Rancourt, D.G., Baudin, M. and Mercier, J. /// Probable causal association between Australia’s new regime of high all-cause mortality and its COVID-19 vaccine rollout. /// Correlation Research in the Public Interest, 20 December 2022 /// https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-australias-new-regime-of-high-all-cause-mortality-and-its-covid-19-vaccine-rollout/

Appendix 2: ACM and Vaccine Rollout Coincidences, for Israel, by Age Group

We have previously illustrated synchronicity between anomalous all-cause mortality (ACM) peaks and vaccine rollouts for:

  • Australia (and each of its states New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland),
  • the USA (and its high-poverty states),
  • the USA state of Michigan, and
  • the Canadian province of Ontario

(See: Rancourt, D.G., Baudin, M. and Mercier, J. /// Probable causal association between Australia’s new regime of high all-cause mortality and its COVID-19 vaccine rollout. /// Correlation Research in the Public Interest, 20 December 2022 /// https://correlation-canada.org/report-probable-causal-association-between-australias-new-regime-of-high-all-cause-mortality-and-its-covid-19-vaccine-rollout/)

Here, we examine this question for Israel and some of its age groups (as indicated), in the following Figure A2‑F1:

Figure A2 F1:  Israel, 2019-2022, for (top to bottom, and as indicated) all ages, 80+ years, 70-79 years, 60-69 years, and 50-59 years. All-cause mortality (ACM) by week (pink, left y-scale); successive vaccine dose rollouts for doses 1, 2, 3 and 4, as numbers of doses administered by week (black and overlapping greys, right y-scale). The sources of all data are given in Appendix 1.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Age-stratified COVID-19 Vaccine-dose Fatality Rate. Israel and Australia

Zelensky Tours Europe While His People Suffer on the Battlefield

February 10th, 2023 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continues his search for international support in the West. Now, the Ukrainian leader has left his people on the battlefield and started a tour in Europe. In addition to his “begging” speeches, constantly demanding money and weapons, Zelensky has also made it clear that he has never respected and does not plan to start respecting the Minsk Accords admitting that his policy is focused on the extermination of the people of Donbass.

Zelensky’s journey began in London, where he met British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and King Charles III. Then, the neo-Nazi leader went to Paris, where he was received with honors by President Emmanuel Macron, and was even awarded a medal of an important French military order. Zelensky also met with German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz, who was then in Paris.

In Paris, Zelensky made a controversial statement, admitting that he has never tried to implement the Minsk Accords. According to him, the commitments of the accords are “impossible” to be fulfilled. He said he had warned both Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the past that there was no possibility of Kiev fulfilling the terms of the deal. Zelensky also commented that there are no plans to resume the terms of the protocols. Emphatically, he stated that he “will not be able to implement it” – which, in other words, means that Kiev will continue to try to exterminate the people of Donbass.

The President then traveled to Brussels, where he spoke at EU headquarters. At the European Parliament, Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia intends to abolish the “European way of life”, but Ukrainian forces “will not allow that”. According to him, Ukrainians are on the battlefield fighting for all Europeans. Zelensky further argued that Kiev is fighting and resisting for the values of the EU and the freedom of the entire continent. In practice, he thus “justifies” his requests for military aid since he gives a “reason” for the European bloc to show interest in supporting him.

“We are defending against the most anti-European force of the modern world — we are defending ourselves, we Ukrainians on the battlefield, along with you (…) Europe will always be, and remain Europe as long as we (…) take care of the European way of life”, he said.

The neo-Nazi president was vastly applauded by European officials. In her address, European Parliament’s leader Roberta Metsola thanked the Western powers for their policy of support for Kiev and said some “inspiring” words to Zelensky, declaring that he “must” win. Indeed, she endorsed the argument that Ukraine would be fighting for the entire European continent in the current conflict. Metsola also promised the sending of new military packages, thus attending the “beggar”.

“You need to win and now (EU) member states must consider quickly as the next step providing long-range systems and the jets that you need to protect your liberty”, she said.

This was not Zelensky’s only diplomatic victory. On January 9, the UK promised to start a new military training program for Ukrainian troops and also said it was looking into the possibility of sending F-16 planes to Kiev’s forces. New similar agreements are expected to be announced in the coming days. In fact, this shows that the Ukrainian president’s “begging” campaign has been successful and that there is still interest on the part of the West in keeping Kiev as a proxy in a war against Russia.

However, these new aid packages are insufficient to reverse the military scenario of the conflict, as several analysts have made clear recently. The imminence of the Russian victory is admitted even by the authorities and media outlets of some NATO countries, with the Kiev army currently being in its moments of coming defeat since the beginning of the conflict. Therefore, even though there is a diplomatic victory on the part of Zelensky, since he manages to raise European support, the effects of this “victory” on the battlefield are close to null.

In addition, his visit to Europe could have an adverse effect among Ukrainians, as the president has left the country at a moment of intense difficulty, when Russia is starting a new offensive. With heavy bombings in strategic areas, the first hours of February 10 were marked in Ukraine by fear about how the conflict will escalate in the coming days. Obviously, the absence of the country’s national leader at a time as delicate as the current one is not something that pleases Ukrainians – and this will certainly bring some internal problems that will aggravate the government’s crisis.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Zelensky Tours Europe While His People Suffer on the Battlefield
  • Tags:

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Analysis by Attorney Todd Callender

Our thanks to Truth Justice and Vince Clements for this tweet.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Pfizer’s Deadly Covid Vaccine: “The Tide Has Changed”. Swiss President Under Investigation, War Crimes Tribunal in Thailand

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

In a rare win, the World Health Organisation has backed down on proposed International Health Regulation amendments for compulsory vaccination and lockdowns. It is a win yet the pandemic treaty, that would do the same thing again, is still waiting in the wings.

Transcript

This week represents a rare victory for Australian sovereignty.

A victory for common sense, decency and humanity.

And a victory against the sprawling monster of unelected, unaccountable foreign bureaucrats at the World Health Organisation.

You will recall the WHO proposed to change their health regulations that guide member states in the event of a disease outbreak, like COVID, from guiding member states to being mandatory on member states, including Australia.

This would have represented a complete destruction of Australian sovereignty, and a fundamental re-imagining of the powers of the World Health Organisation.

Last December the Liberal/National Morrison Government voted in favour of these changes, yet many sensible countries voted against, and the proposal was lost.

Undaunted the World Health Organisation tried again this year.

After months of heavy criticism, One Nation and those opposing these measures have had a big win.

The Final Report from the International Health Regulations Review Committee released this week has dropped the proposed changes.

The World Health Organisation will remain an advisory body.

Dystopian demands, such as allowing the World Health Organisation to make binding health orders overriding state and federal control, have been thrown out.

This includes the proposed powers that would have allowed the WHO to control:

  • systems for proof-of-vaccination or vaccination status,
  • quarantine procedures,
  • citizen travel & mobility,
  • forced vaccination,
  • lockouts,
  • lockdowns,
  • mandatory detention and,
  • other unacceptable infringements on people.

Gone is the universal ‘health passport’ – or vaccine passport – that was going to control the ability of citizens to travel between countries in a permanent capacity.

It was decided that this would raise ‘ethical’ and ‘discriminatory’ concerns. A global digital vaccine passport will no longer be developed under the committee’s powers.

For now.

The committee will remain confined to actual public health emergencies rather than ‘potential health risks’ – removing the widely held fear that their scope could be extended to ‘climate lockdowns’ and other human rights abuses.

Which would have been possible because WHO had proposed to remove human rights from the regulations.

After a backlash the committee now strongly recommends the retention of the existing text, which is quote “full respect for the dignity, human rights, and fundamental freedoms of persons as an overarching principle”.

This is a critical back down.

The WHO committee working on these changes has just recommitted to its fundamental human rights pledge in defiance of the proposed amendments.

The findings of the committee agreed with the concerns that One Nation raised regarding threat to sovereignty.

In their final report, the committee said that it was, quote: “concerned that the proposals may unduly impinge on the sovereignty of state parties” and make recommendations “binding” instead of voluntary.

In the end, the committee validated the fears raised on the international stage and within the free press.

Fears I raised and for which I was called a conspiracy theorist.

I was correct.

Their decision to throw out this attempt to grab power from sovereign governments  is a crucial first step in stopping unelected global bureaucracies from overstepping their purpose.

Pauline Hanson first raised the UN’s treasonous work in parliament in 1996. In my first senate speech in 2016 I called for Australia to exit the UN – AusEXIT.

We’ve been so strongly outspoken against ceding Australian sovereignty to the unhinged UN-WEF alliance that the WEF recently specifically called us out.

We’re getting under their skin.

This fight is not over.

All of the terrifying proposed powers that have been summarily rejected this week, are duplicated in the proposed WHO Pandemic Treaty.

The Pandemic Treaty is a second attempt to turn WHO into the world health police.

The Pandemic Treaty is alive and well, sitting in the system waiting for our “leaders” to signed.

If the Pandemic Treaty were to be approved, it would enforce all of the binding health powers that others in WHO have just rejected. What a mess.

The World Health Organisation is too big, too bureaucratic, too removed from the people it is supposed to help, corrupt, incompetent, dishonest and above all else, too close to the Pharmaceutical industry.

The next step to protect Australia’s health sovereignty is to make sure that the Pandemic Treaty is rejected and that the Prime Minister does not sign it.

For concerned Australians who have written to their members of parliament and who received a stock reply saying the treaty has to go through Parliament first – that is actually not true.

The WHO Pandemic Treaty includes a provision that it becomes binding on Australia the moment our WHO representative signs it.

No Parliamentary oversight required.

Screw that.

One Nation’s work continues.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Reclaim the Net

European Parliament Embraces War Criminal Zelenskyy

February 10th, 2023 by Kurt Nimmo

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

On Thursday, Reuters reported Zelenskyy and his entourage in Europe “heard from several European Union leaders at a summit that they were ready to provide Kyiv with aircraft to help fight against Russia’s invasion.”

“The question of long-range weaponry and fighter jets for Ukraine has been resolved,” declared Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff. “Details still to follow.”

The “taboo” of sending weapons capable of reaching hundreds of kilometers inside Russia is about to be broken, according to Reuters, the “news” agency that collaborated with the CIA.

“Mr. Zelensky received standing ovations before, during and after his speech to European lawmakers,” reported The Hindu. “He held up an EU flag after his address and the entire legislature stood in somber silence as the Ukrainian national anthem and then European anthem ‘Ode to Joy’ were played.”

More like an ode to mass murder.

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said the “next step” is to provide “long range systems” and fighter jets to the ultranationalists. Metsola said the “response” to the Russian effort to denazify and disarm the regime in Kyiv “must be proportional to the threat, and the threat is existential.”

Metsola, elevated to the presidency of the European Parliament by a secret vote cast by MEPs (not European citizens), is taking the war to the next level.

The EU is encouraging the ultranationalist regime in Kyiv to resume its ethnic cleansing, torture, rape, and other war crimes committed in the Donbas and anywhere else Ukrainians dare to speak Russian, attend an Orthodox Church, celebrate Russian traditions, or speak out against atrocities committed by neo-nazi thugs.

Metsola and her fellow collaborationists should be required to read “War crimes of the armed forces and security forces of Ukraine: torture and inhumane treatment,” a second report on neo-nazi war crimes in Ukraine issued by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

The PDF document reveals in gruesome detail the war crimes committed by the Ukrainian state following the USG-orchestrated coup in Kyiv that brought avowed neo-nazis to power.

The data that has been accumulated since the first report by the Foundation for Democracy Studies provides ground to conclude that torture and inhumane treatment inflicted by the Security Forces of Ukraine (SBU), by the Ukrainian armed forces, the National Guard and other formations within the Interior Ministry of Ukraine, as well as by illegal armed groups, such as Right Sector, have not only continued but are gaining in scale and are becoming systematic.

According to the report,

The prisoners were electrocuted, beaten cruelly and for multiple days in a row with different objects (iron bars, baseball bats, sticks, rifle butts, bayonet knives, rubber batons).

Techniques widely used by the Ukrainian armed forces and security forces include waterboarding, strangling with a ‘Banderist garrotte’ and other types of strangling.

In some cases prisoners, for the purposes of intimidation, were sent to minefields and run over with military vehicles, which led to their death.

Other torture methods used by the Ukrainian armed forces and security forces include bone-crashing, stabbing and cutting with a knife, branding with red-hot objects, shooting different body parts with small arms.

The prisoners taken captive by the Ukrainian armed forces and security forces are kept for days at freezing temperatures, with no access to food or medical assistance, and are often forced to take psychotropic substances that cause agony.

An absolute majority of prisoners are put through mock firing squads and suffer death and rape threats to their families.

Many of those tortured are not members of the self-defense forces of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR).

The Convention on Human Rights “prohibits in absolute terms torture, irrespective of other circumstances,” and the state committing these violations “is responsible for the actions of all of its agencies, such as the police, security forces, other law enforcement officials, and any other State bodies who hold an individual under their control, whether they act under orders, or on their own accord,” the authors write.

In other words, there is more than enough evidence to convict the Man in Green and his ultranat associates of serious war crimes. In addition, the USG and the EU are guilty of supporting and facilitating the above-listed crimes. Add to this the owners and management of the corporate war propaganda media.

The EU-USG war crimes collaborationists are busy attempting to prevent Russia from protecting civilians in Donetsk, Luhansk, Mariupol, Melitopol, Kherson, and Crimea. It is fair to say they are war criminals and apologists of neo-nazi terror.

Finally, the following video is supremely disgusting—a war criminal and his collaborator in mass murder, torture, and rape play kissy face for the camera.

In a more sane and less cruel world, both these nauseating creatures would be in a tribunal docket similar to the one that sentenced to death Martin Bormann, Hermann Goering, Wilhelm Keitel, Julius Streicher, and other unrepentant Nazis.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Kurt Nimmo on Geopolitics.

Kurt Nimmo is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

This interview took place on January 25, 2023, one day after the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the hands of the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds before midnight—in large part due to developments in Ukraine. Dr. Helen Caldicott, an Australian peace activist and environmentalist, discussed the extreme and imminent threat of a nuclear holocaust due to a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia in Ukraine. She also addressed the announcement by the U.S. Department of Energy of a controlled nuclear reaction and outlines the relationship between the nuclear power industry and nuclear weapons.

Caldicott is the author of numerous books and is a recipient of at least 12 honorary doctorates. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize by physicist Linus Pauling and named by the Smithsonian as one of the most influential women of the 20th century. Her public talks describing the horrors of nuclear war from a medical perspective raised the consciousness of a generation.

Caldicott believes that the reality of destroying all of life on the planet has receded from public consciousness, making doomsday more likely. As the title of her recent book states, we are “sleepwalking to Armageddon.”

Steve Taylor: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently set the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight. What is the Doomsday Clock, and why is it now set to 90 seconds to midnight?

Helen Caldicott: For the last year, it’s been at 100 seconds to midnight, which is the closest it’s ever been. Each year they reset the clock according to international problems, nuclear problems. Ninety seconds to midnight—I don’t think that is close enough; it’s closer than that. I would put it at 20 seconds to midnight. I think we’re in an extremely invidious position where nuclear war could occur tonight, by accident or by design. It’s very clear to me, actually, that the United States is going to war with Russia. And that means, almost certainly, nuclear war—and that means the end of almost all life on Earth.

ST: Do you see similarities with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis?

HC: Yes. I got to know John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, later in his life. He was in the Oval Office at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. He once told me, “Helen, we came so close to nuclear war—three minutes.” Three minutes. We’re in a similar situation now.

ST: So back then, though, famously, the world held its breath during the missile crisis.

HC: Oh, we were terrified. Terrified, absolutely terrified.

ST: That doesn’t seem to be the case today.

HC: Today, the public and policymakers are not being informed adequately about what this really means—that the consequences would be so bizarre and so horrifying. It’s very funny; New York City put out a video as a hypothetical PSA in July 2022 showing a woman in the street, and it says the bombs are coming, and it’s going to be a nuclear war. It says that what you do is go inside, you don’t stand by the windows, you stand in the center of the room, and you’ll be alright. I mean, it’s absolutely absurd.

ST: That is what you were fighting against back in the ’70s and ’80s—this notion that a nuclear war is survivable.

HC: Yes. There was a U.S. defense official called T.K. Jones who reportedly said, don’t worry; “if there are enough shovels to go around,” we’ll make it. And his plan was if the bombs are coming and they take half an hour to come, you get out the trusty shovel. You dig a hole. You get in the hole. Someone puts two doors on top and then piles on dirt. I mean, they had plans. But the thing about it is that evolution will be destroyed. We may be the only life in the universe. And if you’ve ever looked at the structure of a single cell, or the beauty of the birds or a rose, I mean, what responsibility do we have?

ST: During the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. did not want missiles pointed at it from Cuba, and the Soviet Union did not want missiles pointed at it from Turkey. Do you see any similarities with the conflict in Ukraine?

HC: Oh, sure. The United States has nuclear weapons in European countries, all ready to go and land on Russia. How do you think Russia feels—a little bit paranoid? Imagine if the Warsaw Pact moved into Canada, all along the northern border of the U.S., and put missiles all along the northern border. What would the U.S. do? She’d probably blow up the planet as she nearly did with the Cuban missile crisis. I mean, it’s so extraordinarily unilateral in the thinking, not putting ourselves in the minds of the Russian people.

ST: Do you feel we’re more at risk of nuclear war now than we were during the Cold War?

HC: Yes. We’re closer to nuclear war than we’ve ever been. And that’s what the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists indicated by moving the clock to 90 seconds to midnight.

ST: Does it seem like political leaders are more cavalier about nuclear exchange now?

HC: Yes, because they haven’t taken in what nuclear war would really mean. And the Pentagon is run by these cavalier folks who are making millions out of selling weapons. Almost the whole of the U.S. budget goes to killing and murder, rather than to health care and education and the children in Yemen, who are millions of them starving. I mean, we’ve got the money to fix everything on Earth, and also to power the world with renewable energy. The money is there. It’s going into killing and murder instead of life.

ST: You mentioned energy. The Department of Energy has announced a so-called fusion breakthrough. What do you think about the claims that fusion may be our energy future?

HC: The technology wasn’t part of an energy experiment. It was part of a nuclear weapons experiment called the Stockpile Stewardship Program. It is inappropriate; it produced an enormous amount of radioactive waste and very little energy. It will never be used to fuel global energy needs for humankind.

ST: Could you tell us a little bit about the history of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where scientists developed this fusion technology?

HC: The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory was where the first hydrogen bombs were developed. It was set up in 1952, by Edward Teller, a wicked man.

ST: There is this promotion of nuclear energy as a green alternative. Is the nuclear energy industry tied to nuclear weapons?

HC: Of course. In the ’60s, when people were scared stiff of nuclear weapons, there was a Pentagon psychologist who said, look, if we have peaceful nuclear energy, that will alleviate the people’s fear.

ST: At the end of your 1992 book If You Love This Planet, you wrote, “Hope for the Earth lies not with leaders, but in your own heart and soul. If you decide to save the Earth, it will be saved. Each person can be as powerful as the most powerful person who ever lived—and that is you, if you love this planet.” Do you stand by that?

HC: If we acknowledge the horrifying reality that there is an extreme and imminent threat of nuclear war, it’s like being told that as a planet, we have a terminal disease. If we’re scared enough, every one of us can save the planet. But we have to be very powerful and determined.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Helen Caldicott is an author, physician and one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear campaigners. She helped re-invigorate the group Physicians for Social Responsibility, acting as President from 1978-1983. Since its founding in 2001, she has served as President of the U.S. based Nuclear Policy Research Institute, later called Beyond Nuclear, which initiates symposia and educational projects aimed at informing the public about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and nuclear war. She was the subject of the 1982 Academy Award-winning documentary short ‘If You Love This Planet.‘ Her latest book: ‘Sleep-Walking to Armageddon: The Threat of Nuclear Annihiliation‘ featuring some of the world’s leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders addressing the political and scientific dimensions of today’s nuclear war threat. She is a long standing contributor to Global Research. 

Steve Taylor is the press secretary for Global Justice Ecology Project and the host of the podcast Breaking Green. Beginning his environmental work in the 1990s opposing clearcutting in Shawnee National Forest, Taylor was awarded the Leo and Kay Drey Award for Leadership from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment for his work as co-founder of the Times Beach Action Group.

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Featured image is licensed under Creative Commons


Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

Towards a World War III Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War is one of the most important books currently available. The information is heart rending, scary and absolutely  accurate” Dr Helen Caldicott, Co-Founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Award Winning Author.

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute  

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

This is an absolute stunner of a video, from the House Oversight Committee.

“”I have effects from the vaccine…it was the 2nd shot that I now developed asthma that has never gone away…I have tremors in my left hand….I have occasional heart pain that no doctor can explain.” – Rep. Nancy Mace.

“We received legal demands to remove content from the platform from the US government and governments all around the world” – Vijaya Gadde, Head of legal, policy and trust at Twitter.

I am willing to bet the Trudeau Liberal government has its hands dirty in the silencing of Canadian doctors on Twitter and other social media platforms.

I don’t have my Twitter account back yet, so maybe there is a Trudeau loyalist still hiding on Twitter staff, keeping Canadian physician voices silent.

Meanwhile, censorship in Canada is ramping up with the soon-to-be passed Bill C-11 which will effectively kill free speech for 38 million Canadians.

There’s a great article on Bill C-11 by a retired Manitoba Judge, Brian Giesbrecht (click here).

Click here to view the video.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

5G Radiation: Court Case Against UK Government

February 10th, 2023 by B.N. Frank

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Opposition to 5G has been and continues to be worldwide due to numerous issues associated with the controversial technology.  This has limited, slowed, and/or stopped deployment, including near airports in the U.S. (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) and India (see 1, 2) due to dangerous interference issues with aviation equipment.  Additionally, since 2017, doctors and scientists have been asking for moratoriums on Earth and in space due to biological and environmental health risks (see 1, 2, 3, 4) and the majority of scientists oppose deployment.  Since 2018 there have been reports of people and animals experiencing symptoms and illnesses after it was activated (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).  In 2019, telecom executives gave U.S. congressional testimony that they had NO independent scientific evidence that 5G is safe.  Some researchers have also warned that activation may be contributing to COVID-19 infections as well as hundreds of thousands if not millions of bird deaths.  After 3 years, UK activists who filed a lawsuit against the government in re 5G deployment have finally had their days in court.

From RF Info:

Action against 5G hearing February 2023

Official report from AA5G: link TBC

The Judicial Review was finally heard this week, after 3 years of hard work. The courtroom had to be changed due to the high number of public in attendance. It was an amazing turnout of maybe 60-70 public on both days. There was not one spare seat in Court 73. Notwithstanding any result, huge thanks must go to the claimants Karen and Vicky for 3 years of stirling work, courage and fortitude, and to the legal team for staying the course and rising to the difficult challenge.

The original grounds presented for Judicial Review were initially rejected, but on appeal last year two grounds were permitted to proceed to hearing. The legal case background can be seen here.

There are differing opinions, lay and expert, about how the case was constructed and the particular points of focus, but setting these aside we can report as follows:

The two grounds permitted to proceed are:

1. The failure to provide adequate or effective information to the public about the risks and how, if it be possible, it might be possible for individuals to avoid or minimise the risks;

2. (a) The failure to provide adequate and sufficient reasons for not establishing a process to investigate and establish the adverse health effects and risks of adverse health effects from 5G technology and/or for discounting the risks presented by the evidence available; and/or (b) failure to meet the requirements of transparency and openness required of a public body.

These grounds advance a breach of the Human Rights Act 1998 by omissions and failings in violation of the positive obligations to protect human life, health and dignity, required to be met by Articles 2, 3 and/or 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Monday 6th February 2023

Michael Mansfield (MM) carefully laid out the Claimants position over a 5 hour briefing to the presiding Judge Mary Stacey.

The public should be informed with transparency about risks that they encounter or are forced to encounter. Where there is a hazard it must be articulated and signposted so that we are equipped to make choices regarding our relationship to it. Of course this ideal scenario is increasingly moot since environmental exposure is being forced upon us with ‘no place to hide’.

The government have aligned themselves with guidelines from the ICNIRP, which espouse only a thermal model of risk, which is contested by many. This case was not to concern this debate, the science underpinning policy cannot be challenged in an administrative court.

MM points out that the government have nonetheless taken ICNIRP guidelines as their chosen standard, but have inferred and transposed unwarranted and misleading claims on top of them – claims that ‘5G is safe’.

No definition of the spectrum of risk has been offered to the public, and no reference made to the guidance and evidence from other bodies that was discounted by the government, but which shows that the issue is very real.

Where there is a credible quality and quantity of contradictory evidence about a hazard, a fact which in itself demands serious debate, then this must also imply a level of risk, which is not being presented. Instead, we see vague phrases such as ‘unlikely to cause harm’, and ‘exposure shouldnt increase’ peppering the government advertising for 5G.

This attitude also stands in contrast to PHE advice that “adults should be able to make their own informed choices”. We should be able to choose a precautionary or preventive approach to our RF exposure, but we cannot without information, and increasingly cannot as public space is filled with RFR.

When the Government chose to positively advertise and advance the cause of 5G they also assumed the responsibility to transparently inform the Public about the known hazards to health (even if this doesnt guide their policy), ways to mitigate these, and to have procedures for monitoring and reporting cases of injury or harm.

Further, the elected ICNIRP guidelines are not protective of existing vulnerable groups who ought to be considered and who deserve to be given information to assist them (but have not been).

Harm arising from exposure to non-ionising radiofrequency radiation is notably a recorded disease or illness recognised by the WHO, since 2005, in the International Classification of Diseases, ICD-10.

Tuesday 7th February 2023

The defence had failed to submit minor applications with the required N244 Forms. They were rebuked by the Judge for a lack of procedural rigour.

“You are the Government and you cannot even comply with the most basic rules and procedures of the court. You have had two months to get this right.”

After an embarrassing start the Defence drew their line in the sand and doubled down with their claims that 1. ‘5G is THE SAME as the others Gs, a mere branding exercise’ and 2. that ‘there is No Risk from RFR as long as exposure is below the ICNIRP guideline levels’.

The Defence further claimed that because there was no risk there was no positive obligation triggered under their treaty obligations (EEC Charter) to qualify their policy, or under the ECHR to opine on safety or monitor said risk.

The Defence even went so far as to suggest that there should perhaps be a voluntary effort made by the government to combat the perception that 5G ‘does carry risk’, by controlling narratives that suggest otherwise.

This did not go down well with the audience.

Claim 1, Judge Stacey clarified that the court cannot resolve a dispute of facts around ‘5G is / is not novel’. MM however was able to point out that the fact was established already in the Defence bundle where the novel nature of 5G systems (phased array/adaptive antennas) is acknowledged by the ICNIRP themselves as adding a new dimension to public exposure, that exposure is increasing, and the characteristics of that exposure is changing.

Claim 2, was summarily dismissed by MM in his right to reply as a fundamentally over-extended and false inference that the ICNIRP say that ‘5G is safe’. They simply do not. They cannot. It is not their place. They do refer to some studies that show ‘no substantive’ risk, but there are very few studies, and so the absence of studies does not prove safety! (there are of course many other studies, and also logical extrapolation from 4G hazards, that show that there is certainly a spectrum of risk – but these cannot be debated here)

This a very abbreviated version of the two days of course. Tuesday morning felt rather gloomy after the Defence dug in with its rigid position that 5G is safe and therefore the grounds requiring the Government to properly inform the Public were moot, but MM soundly rebutted this position as untenable and grossly misleading, even by the standards of the body whose guidelines they defended their position with.

The Judge recognises the importance and urgency of the case. She was not able to give a decision immediately of course, but would give it the further consideration and the attention it deserves as soon as possible. This process can take weeks to months, but she assures us that her target was days or weeks.

What sort of result can we expect? One possibility is that the Judge dismisses both grounds, the other is that she rules in favour of the grounds and draws up some recommendations.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Activist Post

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The US on Thursday hit Iran with fresh sanctions that targeted companies accused of facilitating the sale of Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals to Asia.

The US Treasury Department said that the sanctions targeted “six Iran-based petrochemical manufacturers or their subsidiaries, and three firms in Malaysia and Singapore involved in facilitating the sale and shipment of petroleum and petrochemicals.”

The US has been increasing sanctions on Iran throughout the Biden administration, but more so since indirect talks to revive the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, have been stalled. In November, President Biden was caught on camera saying the JCPOA is “dead” but that he couldn’t announce it.

Besides the sanctions, the US has also expressed support for protesters inside Iran and is stepping up military cooperation with Israel. Last month, the US and Israel held their largest-ever joint military exercises that involved massive live-fire drills meant to send a message to Iran.

The joint exercises also sent a message to the region that the US backs the controversial new Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu, which has vowed to expand settlements in the West Bank and eventually annex the territory.

Following the exercises, Israel launched a drone attack against a military facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan. US officials told The Wall Street Journal that Israel was responsible for the attack and said it came at a time when the US and Israel were discussing ways to contain Tehran’s military capabilities.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

 

 

 

 

Since Russia began its special military operation in Ukraine almost a year ago, one of the key features of the collective West’s response, alongside sanctions and the expulsion of Russian diplomats, has been the accommodation of refugees fleeing the conflict, with millions of Ukrainians being housed across Europe since last February, including 70,000+ in the 26-County Irish State.

The first question that springs to mind regarding this approach however, is that if it is being done out of genuine concern for those fleeing conflict in Ukraine, then why was it not implemented in 2014 when that war first began?

In April of that year, following five months of Western-instigated violence in response to then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to suspend an EU-trade deal in order to pursue closer ties with neighbouring Russia, the ethnic Russian Donbass region in the east of the country would break away to form the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, their residents having little choice lest they face genocide and ethnic cleansing at the hands of the anti-Russian neo-Nazi elements which composed the new Western-backed Kiev government.

A war on both Republics would follow, involving neo-Nazi paramilitaries such as Azov Battalion and Right Sector, which despite efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully via the federalisation solution offered by the Minsk Accords, would ultimately result in 14,000 deaths over the space of 8 years.

Despite this slaughter, no mainstream campaign existed in Ireland during the same period intended to expel Ukrainian diplomats or to welcome those fleeing conflict in the Donbass.

Likewise, no similar campaign has existed for those fleeing other conflicts such as that in Yemen, classed as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by the United Nations, with a paltry 70 Yemenis being granted access to social services in the 26 Counties in the past year, in comparison to 72,609 Ukrainians in the same period following Russia’s intervention.

It must also me asked that if Leinster House genuinely cared about the plight of refugees fleeing conflict, then why contribute to the conflicts that created those refugees in the first place by allowing US warplanes to land in Shannon Airport over the past 20 years?

Since the Russian operation began in Ukraine last February, talks of the 26 County State joining an EU army have increased amongst establishment voices also, with the stated aim of such an alliance being to ‘act in complementarity’ with NATO, the coalition having been a key contributor to the refugee crisis over the past two decades by laying waste to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

With these facts established, it can safely be concluded that Leinster House’s ‘concern’ for refugees has little to do with helping those fleeing war, and much like the wider West’s support of Ukrainian ‘freedom fighters’ being a cover to use Ukraine as a proxy to tie Russia down in an Afghan-style military quagmire, the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil coalition is using emotive media coverage of the Ukrainian conflict as a means to swell the labour market and to keep wages stagnant on behalf of the corporate class.

Indeed, protests related to the effects of such a move would arise in late November, when upwards of 300 migrants were suddenly moved into a disused office block in East Wall, a working-class area of inner-city Dublin. Residents would begin what would go on to become weekly demonstrations over the move, citing the lack of consultation with community officials beforehand, the suitability of the office block for accommodation, and the lack of transparency on whether those who had been moved into the office block had been vetted.

Despite these protests receiving support from residents of the office block themselves, the Irish mainstream media would, in lockstep, decry them as being ‘anti-refugee protests’ and ‘organised by the far-right’, a label that would also be applied to similar protests that emerged around Dublin and other locations in response to other wildly unsuitable locations chosen by Leinster House to accommodate adult migrants, including a school in Drimnagh, like East Wall, another working-class area of Dublin.

This dismissal of ordinary working class people’s concerns as ‘far-right’ bears a stark similarity to mainstream media descriptions of last year’s Freedom Convoy in Canada, when in response to a government mandate requiring all truck drivers re-entering from the US having to be vaccinated, a nationwide protest would begin in the second-largest country in the world.

The government of Justin Trudeau – like Leo Varadkar, another ‘Young Global leader’ of the World Economic Forum – would respond in an authoritarian fashion, freezing the bank accounts of protest organisers and attacking demonstrators with mounted Horses and teargas. An approach, that with the head of the 26-County police force condemning the current protests and secretive police units monitoring organisers, may soon become a reality on the other side of the Atlantic.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Gavin O’Reilly is an activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism. Secretary of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee, a campaign group set up to raise awareness of Irish Republican political prisoners in British and 26 County jails. His work has previously appeared on American Herald Tribune, The Duran, Al-Masdar and MintPress News. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Support him on Patreon.

Featured image: Leo Varadkar (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Ukraine and the Republic of Ireland: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is a World Economic Forum “Young Global Leader”.

‘Resistance Is Continual in Nicaragua’

February 10th, 2023 by Daniel Kovalik

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Dan Kovalik first became aware of a place called Nicaragua in the autumn of 1979.

Two new students joined the school he attended as an 11-year-old at Milford, Ohio, in the United States. The students, Juan and Carlos, were both from Nicaragua and, it turns out, they were the sons of the former dictator of the country, Anastasio Somoza who had just been ousted by the popular Sandinista revolution.

Kovalik doesn’t pretend that this sparked any real awareness or sudden interest in revolutionary politics but it did ignite a curiosity about Nicaragua and the region as well as the role of the US.

But in his introduction to his excellent new book, Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention and Resistance, Kovalik says how shocking he found the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador in 1980 while he was saying Mass in a hospital chapel.

The killing of the archbishop by US-backed paramilitaries forced Kovalik for the first time to really “question the nature of my country and government.”

He also tells of a very right-wing teacher who invited a leader of the terrorist group the Nicaraguan Contras to speak at his school.

Kovalik was told that the US-backed Contras were fighting a battle for freedom against the Sandinistas. It wasn’t until he became more politically engaged at college that the truth of the situation began to be revealed and, over time, he became more involved in supporting the revolution.

Over 40 years later as a now renowned human rights lawyer who has written widely on Venezuela, Russia, the CIA, Iran, Bernie Sanders and lots more, why this book now about Nicaragua?

“One of the sparks was the 2018 coup attempt in the country. It just drew me even closer to the revolution.

“But I also realised that a lot of people had abandoned Nicaragua and had been taken in by the Western propaganda about the country being a dictatorship.”

Kovalik calls out those activists on the left who felt able to support other left governments but not Nicaragua.

“Nicaragua is somehow seen as different by people who support Cuba and Venezuela.”

While some accuse the country of being a dictatorship the fact is “Nicaragua has a multiple party democracy and introduced the first democratic elections in 1984.

“That the Sandinistas were voted out of power in 1990 — at virtual gunpoint by the US — and were out of power for 17 years is basically ignored,” he adds.

I ask Kovalik why he chose to foreground resistance in the title of the book when most writers would be content to provide a historical narrative.

“Resistance is continual in Nicaragua,” he says.

The Sandinista revolution was a real David and Goliath story that really does go under the radar.

“The country is very small and poor but when called on, time after time, the Nicaraguan people have risen to the challenge.

“It really is a story of resistance which must be told and retold as often as possible.”

Nicaragua, alongside Cuba, he says, are really the only remaining remnants of armed revolutionary defeats of US-backed forces in Latin America.

“Both countries have faced sanctions but have continued not just to accept solidarity but even with all the pressures they face to provide support to others in the face of US hostility and economic sanctions and military threats.”

The story of Nicaragua is not a tale of resistance without success. Kovalik points to the success of the country in promoting women’s equality.

“Nicaragua is something like seventh in the whole world for women’s equality, which is a major achievement when you consider the resources they have at their disposal.

“It’s an absolute cornerstone of the revolution that, again, goes largely unseen,” he says.

But, Kovalik says, this is no time for self-congratulation. The continuing efforts of the US to overthrow governments in the region and their recent support for the coup in Peru must ring alarm bells for everyone.

He says: “There are still plenty of dangers out there which should tell everyone that we can’t take anything for granted. Nothing is permanent.

“Progress can easily be thwarted so it’s really important that we do all that we can to help consolidate the revolution and not allow others — inside or outside the country — to undermine it.

“Measures to defend and consolidate the Sandinista revolution will be portrayed as dictatorship so we have to vigorously refute this argument.

“The first duty of any revolution is to defend the revolution from attacks.”

Kovalik called on progressives in Britain to step up support for the right of the people of Nicaragua to determine their own future.

“On the whole I’m hopeful for the future as long as we all come together to stop the interference of the US in Latin America and pressure is applied to governments across the world to end sanctions.”

Kovalik adds: “The people of Nicaragua really appreciate the solidarity that is given to them. They especially love visits to their country and the desire to help — so why not visit?

“Material support is of course also really important if you can’t visit yourself.

“The world is better off with the revolution of the Sandinistas so we all have to do what we can to defend them,” he says.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dan Kovalik is speaking at the Latin American Adelante! conference in London today, Saturday January 28. His book, Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention and Resistance, is published by Clarity Press in paperback and costs £24.15.

Featured image: A mural commemorating the third anniversary of the Nicaraguan revolution Photo: Susan Ruggles (Source: Internationalist 360)

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on ‘Resistance Is Continual in Nicaragua’
  • Tags:

The Arsenal of Democracy Isn’t

February 10th, 2023 by imetatronink

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

As I originally wrote in my July 10, 2022 article Wunderwaffe Du Jour:

“The US military is not built nor equipped for protracted high-intensity conflict. Nor can it supply a depleted proxy army with the means to prosecute a protracted high-intensity conflict.”

The incontrovertible reality is that the US and its NATO allies are presently incapable of supplying the massive material demands of modern industrial warfare, as Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Alex Vershinin articulated so well in this essential June 2022 analysis: The Return of Industrial Warfare.

And yet the public discussion of potential war always includes convinced voices proclaiming that, just like in the Second World War, US industry could very rapidly ramp up to produce armaments of surpassing quality, and in overwhelming quantities.

This titillates the biases of American exceptionalists in general, and is a particularly seductive fantasy of the #EmpireAtAllCosts cult drones propagandizing for filthy lucre at the countless armaments-industry-funded “think tanks” in Washington and London.

But the notion that the rapidly declining empire can resurrect the Arsenal of Democracy band for one final farewell tour is a singularly delusional vanity.

You see, for all its massive plunder of the public purse, the US armaments industry is effectively a modestly scaled high-end boutique.

And there is simply no way this domestic US industry can expeditiously expand its production. It would literally take years – probably a full decade – for the US to expand its military production to a seriously potent industrial scale.

For one, the labor pool for these industries is extremely finite and highly specialized. In the overwhelmingly financialized and service-oriented US economy, there is a shocking dearth of technical expertise of ALL kinds.

It’s not simply a boomer cliché that “kids these days are innocent of almost any mechanical know-how”.

If the US wants to staff new armaments factories any time soon, it will have to import the skilled labor from Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

Beyond that, the permitting of new factories, with the attendant bureaucratic delays, public hearings, environmental impact studies, and various special interest road-blocking … well, everyone knows how these things work now in America.

It took five years to build the Hoover Dam in the early 20th century. It would take FIFTY here in the early 21st century – if it could be built at all.

Those clamoring for the US to intervene in the Ukraine war in order to “teach those filthy Russians a lesson they’ll never forget” simply have no conception of the catastrophe that would ensue were their dreams to be fulfilled.

If the Pentagon consented to such an undertaking, it could probably amass no more than 250,000 combat-capable troops in the theater, and to do so would entail the evacuation of virtually every major US military base on the planet (and most of the minor ones).

It could probably assemble an additional quarter million troops from the active reserves and National Guard units in the United States. That said, it is empirically impossible that 500,000 combat troops could be satisfactorily equipped for high-intensity conflict such as would be the scenario in a war between the US and Russia in eastern Europe. And even if they could be assembled and equipped, it would be an insufficient force to face over a million Russian troops, close to a third of which are already “battle-hardened” from almost a year of high-intensity combat in Ukraine.

In anticipation of the casualties attendant to great power warfare, it would become necessary for the United States to reinstitute conscription almost immediately. If a strong anti-war movement had not already been incited by its previous actions, conscription in America would almost certainly induce a widespread political upheaval, with large and aggressive public protests cropping up in all the major cities of the nation.

And, of course, it should go without saying that Russia would not simply remain passive (as did Iraq in 1991 and 2003) while the United States concentrated a huge force on its borders preparatory to an invasion. A shooting war would ensue even before the US was able to position in eastern Europe the men and equipment required to launch an assault against Russian forces in Ukraine.

Most meaningfully, even if the US/NATO could magically materialize a million and a half soldiers on the Polish, Romanian, and Lithuanian borders, it would not be able to sustain such a massive force for more than just a few weeks; likely less than a month. It would turn into the most humiliating military debacle in American and European history, and the Russians would sing songs about it for centuries to come.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from the author

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The Arsenal of Democracy Isn’t
  • Tags:

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has blocked the Ukrainian government and its military from using Starlink technology to fly and control drones, after earlier in the war SpaceX gifted thousands of Starlink dishes to Ukraine to help the population stay connected to the internet.

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell in a statement asserted that Starlink technology was “never meant to be weaponized”. According to BBC, “She made reference to Ukraine’s alleged use of Starlink to control drones, and stressed that the equipment had been provided for humanitarian use.”

Shotwell confirmed that the ‘surprise decision’ was taken due to it never being the company’s intent to allow Starlink to be used “for offensive purposes” in remarks given before a conference in Washington DC. Shotwell further said Ukraine had utilized the technology

“in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement,” according to Reuters.

After Musk provided the Starlink systems, the Ukrainian military quickly became dependent on them given the extreme battlefield conditions, including damage to existent communications infrastructure and frequent power outages. Additionally the Russians would often jam signals, thus Starlink allowed Ukrainian troops to circumvent these factors.

The Wednesday announcement from SpaceX was met with anger in Kiev, after already there’s been an avalanche of Ukrainian government criticism aimed at Musk personally over his ‘Russia-Ukraine peace poll’ offered in October. As Bloomberg observed during that prior spat and tensions, Musk’s tweets were “drawing the wrath of Ukrainians” merely for his proposing a negotiated solution which involved territorial concessions for the sake of lasting peace.

Zelensky’s office issued a denunciation on Thursday, complaining that Musk’s company has failed to understand or acknowledge Ukraine’s right of self-defense in making the decision.

Presidential spokesman Mykhailo Podolyak suggested Musk is playing into Putin’s hands, stating SpaceX must decide whether it’s “on the side of the right to freedom” or “on the Russian Federation’s side and its ‘right’ to kill and seize territories”.

It must be remembered that soon after last year’s Russian invasion, Ukrainian officials essentially begged Musk to come to the rescue. A direct plea by Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, at the time resulted in confirmation from Musk himself: “Starlink service is now active in Ukraine,” Musk affirmed in reply.

But when tensions arose after Musk expressed ‘unpopular’ opinions regarding the war, including a plea for both sides to reach compromise rather than see the world spiral into WW3, the US-based billionaire asserted that he is ‘obviously’ pro-Ukraine given SpaceX had spent $80 million on Starlink in the country, or essentially a massive wartime donation.

Musk recently pointed out he’s “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” when it comes to SpaceX policy in Ukraine…

From there, a debate ensued over whether the Pentagon would foot the bill for further Starlink development and maintenance in the country. The systems were increasingly seen as essential to the Ukrainian military’s effective operations if it hoped to push back Russia. However, Musk acknowledged that his company couldn’t just keep picking up the tab ‘indefinitely’.

But after all of this, Ukrainian officials alongside pundits in the West echoed tired old Russiagate-style smears of Musk somehow being “Putin’s puppet”. Some mainstream publications went so far as to claim Musk was receiving orders from the Kremlin, at a moment the controversy reached the height of absurdity.

A low point was reached in the October saga when Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany told Musk to “fuck off” in a reply on Twitter. And yet, awkwardly despite these intense public attacks the Ukrainian government has of necessity remained heavily reliant on the services Musk provides.

It goes without saying that Ukraine’s government might want to be careful about biting the hand that feeds it. Without doubt, SpaceX has the capability to further reduce Kiev’s military reliance on the technology, which again the company has stressed was only meant for humanitarian purposes.

After all, Starlink + armed drones?…

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from The Telegraph

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Two months after the election of the new government of Israel, the blurred picture is becoming more transparent, and it seems one can offer some more informed insights about its composition, personalities, and possible future policies and reaction to them.

It would not be an exaggeration to define Benjamin Netanyahu as the least extreme member of this government, which tells you about the personalities and policies of all the others.

There are three major groups in the government, and I am not referring here to various political parties, but rather to socio-political formations. In the first group are the ultra-orthodox Jews, both the European and Arab Jews orthodoxies. What characterizes them is the process of Zionization they underwent since 1948.

Zionization of Ultra-Orthodox Jews

From a marginal role in politics, only for the sake of their communities, they belong now to the captains of this new state. From being moderate and adhering to sacred Jewish precepts that do not allow Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land, they now emulate the Israeli secular right: supporting colonization in the West Bank, the siege on the Gaza Strip, employing racist discourse toward the Palestinians where they are, advocating harsh and aggressive policies and, at the same time, trying to take over the public space and Judaize it, according to their own strict version of Judaism.

The only exception is Neturei Karata, loyal to their long-term anti-Zionism and solidarity with the Palestinians.

National Religious Jews

In the second group are the national religious Jews, mostly living in colonies, on expropriated Palestinian land in the West Bank, and recently creating “learning centers” of settlers in the midst of mixed Arab-Jews towns in Israel.

They support both the criminal policies of the Israeli army and the actions by settler vigilantes that harass Palestinians, uprooting their orchards, shooting at them, and disputing their way of life.

Their aim is to give both the army and these vigilantes a freer hand in oppressing the occupied West Bank, with the hope of pressuring more Palestinians to leave. This group is also the backbone of the Israeli secret service command and dominates the cadre of senior officers in the army.

The two groups mentioned so far share the wish to impose stricter apartheid inside Israel against the 48 Arabs and, at the same time, begin a crusade against the LGBT community while demanding a more strict marginalization of women in the public space.

They also share a messianic vision and they believe they are now in a position to implement it. At the center of this vision is the Judaization of sacred sites that are now “still” Islamic or Christian. The most coveted site is Haram al-Sharif.

The first precursor was the provocative visit by the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir to the Haram. The next step will come on Passover, with an attempt to fully invade the Haram with Jewish prayers and ministers. Similar actions will be taken in Nablus, Hebron, and Bethlehem. How far they will go is difficult to predict.

Marginalization of Likud’s Secular Jews

The second group also has representatives in the major party of the government, the Likud. But most of the Likud members are part of a third socio-political group: the secular Jews who are also adhering to traditional Jewish practices.

They try to distinguish themselves by claiming that economic and political liberalism is still an important pillar in the Likud’s political platform. Netanyahu used to be one of them but now seems to desert them when it comes to dividing the spoils, namely marginalizing them in the government. He needs the others more than his own party, to avoid trial and remain in power.

The Zionist Project

The prominent members of all these groups arrived with pre-prepared legislation initiatives and policies: all of them, without any exception, are meant to allow an extreme right-wing government to dispense of whatever has remained of the charade called the Israeli democracy.

The first initiative already began, sterilizing the judicial system in such a way that it could not, if it ever wished to, defend the rights of minorities in general or that of the Palestinians more specifically.

To be honest, all the previous Israeli governments were informed by this overall disregard for the civil and human rights of Palestinians. This is just a phase of making it more constitutional, more mainstream, and more apparent, without any attempt to hide the aim behind it: to have as much historical Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians in it as possible.

However, if this materializes in the future, it will take Israel further into its neo-Zionist destiny; namely, the truthful fulfillment and maturation of the Zionist project: a ruthless settler colonial project, built on apartheid, ethnic cleansing, occupation, colonization and genocidal policies.

A project that, so far, escaped any significant rebuke from the Western world and one which is tolerated by the rest of the world, even if it is censured and rejected by many in the global civil society. So far, it is only due to Palestinian resistance and resilience that it failed to be triumphant.

End of ‘Fantasy Israel’

This new reality brings to the fore a series of questions, that one has to ask, even if at the moment we cannot answer them.

  • Will the Arab and Muslim governments, which only recently joined the immunization of this travesty, realize that it is not too late to change course?
  • Will new governments of the Left, such as the one elected in Brazil, be able to lead the way for a change of attitude from above that would reflect democratically the one that is demanded from below?
  • And will Jewish communities be shocked enough to wake up from the “fantasy Israel” dream and realize the danger of present-day Israel, not only to Palestinians but to Jews and Judaism as well?

These are questions that are not easy to answer. What we can stress is, once more, a call for Palestinian unity so as to enhance the struggle against this government and the ideology it represents. Such unity would become a compass for a powerful global front that is already there, thanks to the BDS movement, and is willing to continue its work of solidarity and enhance it further and wider: galvanizing governments, as well as societies, and bringing back Palestine to the center of global attention.

The three components of the new Israeli government did not always coexist easily; so there is also a possibility of an earlier political collapse since all in all we are talking about a group of incompetent politicians when it comes to running such an intricate economy as the Israeli one. Probably, they will not be able to arrest the high inflation, rise in prices, and swelling unemployment.

However, even if this is going to happen, there isn’t an alternative fourth socio-political group that can lead Israel. So, a new government would be formed by another combination of the same forces, with the same intent and policies.

We should treat this as a structural challenge, not a one-off, and prepare for a long struggle, based on even more enhanced international solidarity and tighter Palestinian unity.

This rogue government, and what it represents, will not be there forever; we should do all we can to shorten the wait for its replacement with a much better alternative not only for the Palestinians but also for the Jews, and everyone else that resides in historical Palestine.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article first published on the Palestine Chronicle website.

Ilan Pappé is a historian, socialist activist, professor at the University of Exeter, and supporter of the Campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS).

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Alberta’s COVID-19 double vaccinated population developed severely damaged immune systems after their jabs, and by January 2022 Omicron (BA.1) wave #5, they were the sickest group of Albertans, leading the province in infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths (see part 1).

Instead of halting the COVID-19 vaccine rollout as science and medical ethics required, Jason Kenney’s Alberta government deleted this data from their website and pressed on with booster shots, which failed after only 2 months, requiring even more data to be censored, and deleted by our government (see Part 2).

On March 19, 2022, Alberta entered into COVID-19 (BA.2) wave #6, led by the triple vaccinated who made up 33% of the “currently hospitalized”, 48% of “new cases” and 50% of “active cases” (click here).

See link to Interview to Stew Peters 

 

By June 24, 2022, COVID-19 Wave #6 was over, and throughout the wave, the triple vaccinated continued to get sicker and sicker. As of June 24, 2022, the triple vaccinated made up 52% of hospitalizations and 58% of all deaths (click here).

By June 24, 2022, the triple vaccinated were showing significantly more immune system damage than the double vaccinated. How do we know this? It’s in the numbers (click here).

38% of Albertans were 3x-jabbed => 52% of hospitalizations, 58% of deaths.

39% of Albertans were 2x-jabbed => 27% of hospitalizations, 20% of deaths.

We can compare the 2x and 3x vaccinated to each other (the government would treat them the same); but we can’t compare them to the unvaccinated who were treated and tested very differently in the hospitals, in order to make the vaccines look better.

By June 24, 2022, the Alberta government had administered 1.7 million 1st booster shots and 191,000 2nd booster shots (click here).

Since the latest COVID-19 wave seemed to be over, the Alberta government simply ignored the fact that the triple vaccinated population was now showing even more immune system damage than the double vaccinated population.

From June 25, 2022 onward, Canada has been in a permanently sustained Omicron wave (some have called these mini-waves #7, #8, #9).

This ongoing wave has been once again driven by the triple vaccinated. But notice something important – the hospitalizations have never come down. We now have an elevated background level of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations of over 4000 patients in Canada. The vaccinated are now being infected and re-infected…over and over.

Alberta’s “top killer” announced…

On July 6, 2022, CTV news reported the following story (click here):

The number one cause of death in Alberta in 2021 was “unknown causes”, killing 3362 Albertans, up from 522 in 2019 (an increase of 544%). This caused quite an outrage among Albertans, who began asking serious questions: why were these “unknown causes” not being investigated? Why were autopsies not being done?

Mark Steyn covered this on his show “The Steyn Line” on GBN UK at 5:38 minute mark (click here)

Let’s look at the situation in Alberta hospitals just one week later on July 11, 2022 (click here).

81% of hospitalizations were vaccinated (50% were triple vaccinated).

83% of deaths were vaccinated (63% were triple vaccinated).

With triple vaccinated at only 38.4% of the population, they were disproportionately filling the hospitals and morgues. Sadly, this is the last data set we would ever see.

With the international community watching the disaster unfolding in Alberta with #1 cause of death being “unknown causes”, the Alberta government decided to delete and permanently terminate the “vaccine outcomes” section on their website, on July 21, 2022 (click here).

Once again, instead of terminating the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, as science and medical ethics required, Jason Kenney’s Alberta government chose instead to deprive Albertans of the crucial data they needed to make informed medical decisions.

This was a crime. And I have just walked you through the crime scene.

British Columbia data and cover-up were even worse…

Many of us used to access and look at hospitalization data in British Columbia, especially as the BC Centre for disease control would put out nice donut charts that were easy to read:

The July 16, 2022 BC COVID-19 health outcomes by vaccination status charts showed:

87% of hospitalizations were vaccinated (67% were triple vaccinated)

89% of deaths were vaccinated (77% were triple vaccinated)

Admittedly, this data was even worse than Alberta’s. But here is the crucial point. BC’s population was more boosted: 52% vs 38.4% in Alberta. And they were doing worse. To put it very plainly: more COVID-19 jabs meant worse health outcomes.

To give credit where credit is due, BC Public Health Authorities actually announced their cover-up on July 28, 2022 (click here):

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control has stopped reporting case outcomes by vaccination status on its COVID-19 Surveillance Dashboard because the data had become “hard to interpret,” according to the Ministry of Health.”

At least they had the courage to stand behind their crime against the population of British Columbia. Alberta’s Public Health authorities simply deleted the data from their website on July 21, 2022 and didn’t inform the Alberta public at all.

In Part 4, I will wrap up this series by a look at how all this data on severe damage to the immune systems of the double and triple COVID-19 vaccinated, which Jason Kenney’s Alberta government repeatedly covered up, ties into the excess mortality and sudden deaths we are seeing now.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Alberta’s “Pandemic of the Triple vaccinated”: Excess Deaths Surge Past 10,000 — Evidence of Government Cover-up

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

It is just over three years since the then Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the then British prime minister, Boris Johnson, went head to head in one of the most important general elections in British history.

Last weekend, Johnson and Corbyn found themselves in confrontation once again.

Johnson, now out of office, but still able to rely on his powerful following in the mainstream media, has emerged as the loudest and most exuberant British voice pressing for an escalation of the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the former Labour leader makes the case for caution. Corbyn told Global’s Lewis Goodall:

“The priority has to be an intervention to bring about a ceasefire. Listen, if Ukraine and Russia can talk about a grain deal then it’s obviously possible they can talk. And what happens if there is no ceasefire? Many, many thousands more are going to be killed.”

Corbyn’s latest intervention has, so far as I can tell, been entirely ignored by the British mainstream media and political establishment.

No wonder. They are without exception gung-ho for an escalation of British (and western) involvement on the Ukraine battlefield.

This became clear when British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced last month what he called the “most significant package of combat power to date, to accelerate Ukrainian success”.

The announcement of a squadron of Challenger 2 tanks was welcomed by almost everyone, including current Labour leader, Keir Starmer, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party.

In so far as Wallace was criticised, it was for not doing more.

An unofficial envoy

I have never seen such unanimity on the floor of the House of Commons – not even when just 13 MPs (including Jeremy Corbyn) out of 650 opposed Britain’s role in the calamitous Libyan intervention of March 2011.

Today, support for Britain’s involvement is universal – with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak allowing former prime minister Johnson to play the role of unofficial envoy. Last month Johnson met international finance chiefs at Davos, where he pressed the case for sending tanks to Ukraine.

He then travelled to Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and argued for a major escalation of the war. “This is the moment to double down,” he declared, “and to give the Ukrainians all the tools they need to finish the job.”

On returning to Britain, he went further and demanded that Ukraine should be invited to join Nato. Such a move would automatically mean the West would be at war with Russia. Not just that, Johnson urged that fighter jets should be sent to Ukraine.

From Kyiv, he went to the US, where he amplified the case for war and at one point seemed to be arguing that Ukraine should join the European Union.

Everywhere he went, Johnson was met with huge and largely favourable publicity. Sunak arranged for the trip to Kyiv to be paid for by the British taxpayer in a sign that Johnson is playing the role of unofficial envoy.

Foreign wars

The omerta surrounding Corbyn’s recent warnings against escalation can partly be explained by the fact he is not, like Johnson, a former prime minister. Furthermore, Corbyn has been turned into a non-person in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

But he has an annoying habit of being right about foreign wars.

This is not the first time that the former Labour leader has been the voice of caution when the British political class have rushed towards conflict. He took a brave and principled stand when Tony Blair blindly followed George W Bush into the Iraq disaster. He has been vindicated by his prescient warnings over Afghanistan and Libya.

Moreover, Corbyn was right at the time, and not just in retrospect.

By contrast, Johnson is a mess. When he was UK foreign secretary, Britain defended the Myanmar government while it was raping, burning and exterminating the Rohingya Muslims. In a display of double standards, it stood with Saudi Arabia while it waged war in Yemen.

As PM, Johnson told MPs that the Taliban could not win, just a month before the fall of Kabul. Three months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he told MPs that failure to invest in tanks made sense when the “old concepts of fighting big tank battles on European landmass are over”.

Actions without consequences

I am a long-term student of Johnson’s lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations. Given his long record of confident statements that later turn out to be false, there’s a case for treating what he has to say with caution.

Take for example this statement in Davos on fears that a threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin might use nuclear weapons: “Nonsense. He’s not going to use nuclear weapons, OK? He’s like the fat boy in Dickens, he wants to make our flesh creep. He wants us to think about it. He’s never going to do it.”

Casual, jokey comments like this about the threat of nuclear war should not be made, especially when the other side is warning of the horrible possibility that they might indeed be used.

Western politicians such as Johnson are manifestations of a long period of peace and prosperity when actions did not have consequences, and rhetoric was just words.

It’s always worrying when all political leaders agree on any subject. If Britain and the West are to engage more deeply in Ukraine, we need a serious, informed debate about war objectives and the hazards ahead.

That means hearing less from Boris Johnson – and rather more from Jeremy Corbyn.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in both 2022 and 2017, and was also named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Drum Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He was also named as British Press Awards Columnist of the Year in 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His latest book is The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong about Islam, published in May by Simon & Schuster. His previous books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran and The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The earthquake that hit Syria is a major catastrophe, and what exacerbated the issue is the status quo in Syria due to its war on terrorism and its backers, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told Al Mayadeen on Tuesday.

“The sanctions on Syria made the disaster all the worse,” Mekdad said. “The state is following up on the mobilization of aid domestically and abroad, and President Bashar Al-Assad requested that all the state’s capabilities be employed in search and rescue operations.”

“All of the hospitals in Syria have been asked to treat earthquake victims,” Mekdad said, noting that Syria had asked through its ambassadors for international aid to confront the disaster it has been struck with.

“Many countries have sent aid to Syria, and we thank all the leaders who contacted us, sending their condolences and expressing their will to give us aid,” the Syrian top diplomat told Al Mayadeen. “The situation is very hard, and regardless of the amount of aid sent to Syria, it needs much more.”

“Aid from Europe does not need a request and bureaucracy, as humanitarian aid is not subject to sanctions,” Mekdad explained. “Humanitarian aid is not subject to sanctions in accordance with international laws, so this is not an excuse.”

Some Arab states were quick to provide aid while others pledged to send assistance, he said. “Syria has suffered from double standards despite there being numerous countries in contact with Damascus through back channels.”

“Western countries provided millions of dollars to terrorism and failed, and now they dream of rapprochement with Syria,” the foreign minister stressed, underlining that “Syria is steadfast in the face of terrorism, and it is suffering as a result of the earthquake, as thousands need relief.”

US sanctions standing in Syria’s way

Commenting on the harsh situation in Syria due to the war and blockade, Mekdad told Al Mayadeen that terrorist groups destroyed all of Syria’s capabilities, from vehicles to cranes and bulldozers, among other equipment, at a time when the competent authorities need them because people are trapped under the rubble.

“The US sanctions are prohibiting Syria from accessing anything, including medicine,” the top diplomat said.

The Syrian official directed a message to US President Joe Biden, asking:

“Didn’t the Syrian state open border crossings to allow humanitarian aid to make it to armed-groups-held areas.”

“The aid making it to areas held by armed groups were being sold to the people,” he said. “They planned that aid only makes it through to armed groups and terrorists, and Syria is ready to let aid make it to all regions on the condition that it does not make it into the hands of terrorists.”

Syria received no communication from Turkey

Mekdad told Al Mayadeen that Syria received no communication from Turkey as he was touching on coordination with Ankara under these circumstances. “There was no coordination between Syria and Turkey, even on the humanitarian level – though it is needed.”

“There are efforts being made by the Iranian and Russian allies to help,” Mekdad revealed. “Iran desires to join the joint efforts.”

He also commented on the claims of Syria having asked for aid from the Israeli occupation, stressing that his country did not consider “Israel” to be a state, calling it the Zionist entity. “Many assassinations are carried out through Jabhat Al-Nusra and other groups with direct Israeli support.”

The Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth website claimed that the Israeli occupation received an aid request from Russia to help Syria based on Damacus’ request following the devastating earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey. Syria completely denied this claim.

A Syrian official source completely denied the claims of Israeli occupation Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of having received a request for aid from a Syrian official.

If Netanyahu ever received such a request, it is definitely from his allies and friends in ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra, among other terrorist organizations, the Syrian source said.

Israeli public broadcaster KAN revealed earlier in the day that Russia did not ask “Israel” to send aid to Syria.

Israeli KAN political affairs correspondent Amichai Stein said a source in the Kremlin denied that Moscow had asked “Tel Aviv” to send aid to Syria. “We do not need to ask Israel to help Syria because we will be doing that ourselves.”

A Syrian source previously denied to Al Mayadeen the Israeli claims of “Tel Aviv” having received a request for aid from any Syrian party.

A Syrian source previously denied to Al Mayadeen the Israeli claims of “Tel Aviv” having received a request for aid from any Syrian party.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Monday that he had agreed to a request from Damascus to send aid to Syria after the devastating earthquake that struck it.

On Monday, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, killing thousands, mainly in Turkey and Syria, and leveling houses and other facilities, including public infrastructure.

Syrian sources also denied to Al-Watan Syrian newspaper the allegations of Israeli officials regarding a request submitted by Syria to the Israeli entity for relief aid.

Furthermore, the sources confirmed to the newspaper that everything published in the Israeli media “is not more than a propaganda campaign for its Prime Minister.”

“How can Syria ask for help from an entity that killed and participated in killing Syrians over the past decades?” the sources asked.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad held earlier a meeting with UN representatives and various NGOs in a bid to explain the impact of the unilateral sanctions that are drastically affecting the situation in the country and the humanitarian response to it.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Al Mayadeen English

This Week’s Most Popular Articles

February 10th, 2023 by Global Research News

Video: Pfizer Criminality Exposed: Thailand’s Royal Princess In Coma after Covid Pfizer Vaccine Booster

Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, February 9, 2023

Setting the Record Straight; Stuff You Should Know About Ukraine

Mike Whitney, February 6, 2023

How the Super-Rich Destroy Our Minds

Emanuel Pastreich, February 6, 2023

Video: Vitamin D Is More Effective Than the COVID-19 Jab

Colin Todhunter, February 6, 2023

Tavistock Et Al, Black Cars, Torn Jeans and LGBTQ: Social Engineering, Mind Manipulation

Peter Koenig, February 3, 2023

U.S. Act of War against the European Union: President Biden Ordered the Terror Attack against Nord Stream. High Treason against the People of Europe

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 8, 2023

Secret Document: Germany’s Bundeswehr is Preparing to Wage War on Russia

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 5, 2023

“Deviation Maneuvers”, Towards A “One World Order”? Fierce War in Ukraine, Militarization of Covid Vaccine

Peter Koenig, February 6, 2023

Video: Covid Vaccine, 55 Performers Collapsing or Dying on Stage or Live Camera in Late 2022 through 2023

Brian Shilhavy, February 3, 2023

Video: Pfizer’s “Secret” Report on the Covid Vaccine. Beyond Manslaughter. The Evidence is Overwhelming. The Vaccine Should Be Immediately Withdrawn Worldwide

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 5, 2023

How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline

Seymour M. Hersh, February 9, 2023

Pfizer COVID/Vaxx Campaign is a Fraud: Criminal Charges against President of Switzerland

Pascal Najadi, February 8, 2023

The Truckers Freedom Convoy – And The Grapes of Wrath

Dr. Francis Christian, February 4, 2023

The Chinese Spy Balloon Hoax

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, February 7, 2023

Prediction of a Disenchanted World “Inside the Iron Cage”

Edward Curtin, February 8, 2023

Victoria Nuland: “FxxK the EU.” Nord Stream Is “A Hunk of Metal at the Bottom of the Sea”

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 8, 2023

China Balloon Opportunism and Hypocrisy

Kurt Nimmo, February 4, 2023

Graphene COVID Kill Shots: Let the Evidence Speak for Itself

Dr. Ariyana Love, February 4, 2023

How Tyranny Overran the United States While You Were Watching YouTube

Emanuel Pastreich, February 1, 2023

US Declares War on Turkish Tourism Economy. Ankara Retorts: “Take Your Dirty Hands off Turkey”

Steven Sahiounie, February 6, 2023

What Was COVID Really About? Triggering a Multi-Trillion Dollar Global Debt Crisis. “Ramping Up an Imperialist Strategy”?

By Colin Todhunter, February 10, 2023

In 2021, an Oxfam review of IMF COVID-19 loans showed that 33 African countries were encouraged to pursue austerity policies. The world’s poorest countries are due to pay $43 billion in debt repayments in 2022, which could otherwise cover the costs of their food imports.

Distract, Divide and Conquer: The Painful Truth About the State of Our Union

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, February 09, 2023

Step away from the blinders that partisan politics uses to distract, divide and conquer, and you will find that we are drowning in a cesspool of problems that individually and collectively threaten our lives, liberties, prosperity and happiness.

Corrupt and Fraudulent: Laying Bare the Adani Group

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, February 09, 2023

There is nothing Gautam Adani will not do for money.  In this sense, he is admirably dedicated to greed, so much so he has become its foremost caricature worthy of permanent enthronement.  Mark this man’s name in the scriptures of eternity.

Latest mRNA Vaccine for RSV Wins Expedited Review

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, February 09, 2023

Get ready. A new mRNA shot is barreling down the runway and may be available as soon as fall 2023. This time, it’s not to target SARS-CoV-2 but, rather, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a pathogen that typically causes mild cold-like symptoms.

Why’d the CIA Chief Unexpectedly Tell the Truth About Russian-Chinese Ties?

By Andrew Korybko, February 09, 2023

William Burns’ surprisingly accurate assessment of Russian-Chinese ties coincides with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s upcoming trip to Beijing, which is aimed at advancing the incipient Sino-American New Détente. The CIA chief is thus tempering expectations about how far their discussions over far-reaching mutual compromises will go so that nobody gets the false expectation that China will dump Russia as a quid pro quo for comparatively “normalizing” ties with the US.

Western Powers ‘Blocked’ Ceasefire Early in Ukraine War: Former Israeli PM Bennett

By Jack Montgomery, February 09, 2023

Bennett, who was prime minister and then alternate prime minister in Israel during a confusing period of coalition politics prior to the return of Benjamin Netanyahu as head of government in December, said that “there was a good chance of reaching a ceasefire” before the Western powers “curbed” negotiations in a wide-ranging interview uploaded to YouTube.

UK to Train Ukrainian Pilots, Supply Long-range Weapons to Kiev

By South Front, February 09, 2023

The United Kingdom will train Ukrainian fighter pilots and provide long-range weapons to Kiev forces, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a statement on February 8, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in London on a visit.

Number of Pentagon Bases in the Philippines Increased Under Outcry Against US Push to War

By Andrew Corbley, February 09, 202

Under a renegotiation of an agreement known as the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the US has been given permission to occupy or build military sites in 9 different locations across the Philippines. The decision caused an uproar among the population who have been in between the US and her enemies in two different wars, which together may have caused 2 million Filipino dead.

Israel Must be Held Accountable by the International Community

By Michael Jansen, February 09, 2023

Last week, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports sharply critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians living in the 1967 occupied territories. On February 1, Amnesty called on Israel to “dismantle the system of apartheid which is causing so much suffering and bloodshed”.

America’s “Rules-based International Order”: U.S. Attempt to Control Russia and China, Replace U.N.

By Eric Zuesse, February 09, 2023

The U.S. Government is ratcheting up its attempt to control Russia and China and to impose America’s undefined “rules-based international order” to replace the U.N.’s existing, and far more clearly defined, international laws (which are produced not by any one nation, but instead by all member-nations of the U.N. and in accord with the structure and procedures set forth within the U.N.’s Constitution, the U.N. Charter).

  • Posted in NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on Selected Articles: What Was COVID Really About? Triggering a Multi-Trillion Dollar Global Debt Crisis. “Ramping Up an Imperialist Strategy”?

Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War

February 9th, 2023 by Antony C. Black

First published by Global Research on July 19, 2017

***

Of the many myths that befog the modern political mind, none is so corrupting of the understanding or so incongruent with historical fact as the notion that the wealthy and the powerful do not conspire.

They do.

They conspire continually, habitually, effectively, diabolically and on a scale that beggars the imagination. To deny this conspiracy fact is to deny both overwhelming empirical evidence and elementary reason.

Nevertheless, for the astute observer of the ‘Great Game’ of politics, it is an unending source of wonderment to stumble across ever more astounding examples of the monstrous machinations of which wealthy and powerful elites are capable. Indeed, it is precisely here that authors Docherty and Macgregor enter the fray and threaten to take our breath away entirely.

Thus, the official, canonized history of the origins of the First World War, so they tell us, is one long, unmitigated lie from start to finish. Even more to the conspiratorial point is the authors’ thesis that – and to paraphrase a later Churchill who figures prominently in this earlier story – never were so many murdered, so needlessly, for the ambitions and profit of so few.

In demolishing the many shibboleths surrounding the origins of the ‘Great War’ (including ‘German responsibility’, ‘British peace efforts‘, ‘Belgian neutrality’ and the ‘inevitability’ of the war), Docherty and Macgregor point the finger at what they argue is the real source of the conflict: a more or less secret cabal of British imperialists whose entire political existence for a decade and a half was dedicated to the fashioning of a European war in aid of destroying the British Empire’s newly emerging commercial, industrial and military competitor, Germany.

In short, far from “sleepwalking into a global tragedy, the unsuspecting world”, Docherty and Macgregor contend, “was ambushed by a secret cabal of warmongers” originating not in Berlin, but “in London”.

I must confess at this juncture to a certain bias in granting credence to such a striking thesis, this if only on general principle alone. After all, one straight look at present day political reality is to look square into the maw of Orwell’s nightmare. Moreover, three decades of independent journalism have led me to conclude not only that virtually nothing of what is presented as ‘news’ is remotely true, but that the conventional writing and presentation of history itself is as phoney as a three dollar bill. Still, one does demand a credible argument or two. Let’s look at a few of those contained in ‘Hidden History’.

The Players

Before launching pell-mell into the argumentative labyrinth it is apropos that we first sketch the central cast of characters of this grim story.

Cecil Rhodes (Source: Wikipedia)

In the beginning there was Cecil Rhodes, the prime minister of Cape Colony but who, the authors remind us, was “in reality a land-grabbing opportunist” whose fortune had been underwritten in equal parts “by brutal native suppression and the global mining interests of the House of Rothschild”. Rhodes had, apparently, long talked of setting up a secret ‘Jesuit-like society’ in aid of furthering the global ambitions of the British Empire. In February of 1891 he did just that enlisting the services of his close associates, William Stead, a prominent journalist, and Lord Esher, a close advisor to the British Monarchy.

Two others were soon drawn into the inner circle of the clandestine group: Lord Nathaniel (Natty) Rothschild of the famous British and European banking dynasty, and Alfred Milner, a brilliant academic and colonial administrator who would quickly become the organizing genius and iron-willed master of ceremonies of the group.

These central four would later be joined by: Lord Northcliffe, the owner of ‘The Times’, who would complement Stead in propagandizing and softening up the British public for war with Germany; Arthur Balfour and Herbert Asquith, two future British Prime Ministers who would provide the needed parliamentary influence; Lords Salisbury and Rosebery who brought an additional wealth of political connections to the table; and Lord Edward Grey, he to whom, in the final analysis as British Foreign Secretary in 1914, it would fall to hammer the final nail in the coffin of European peace.

Of particular importance was the addition of Prince Edward (soon to be King Edward VII) who, despite his playboy image, was, in fact, an astute political operative whose frequent international social forays provided the perfect cover for helping to forge the, often secret, military and political alliances between Russia, France, Britain, and Belgium.

This core Praetorian Guard then extended its tentacles to all reaches of the British (and eventually, international) power hierarchy by vigorously recruiting its ‘Association of Helpers’, the myriad of lower down bureaucrats, bankers, military officers, academics, journalists, and senior civil servants, many, as it turns out, hailing from Balliol and All Souls Colleges, Oxford.

And, too, the legendary Churchill, liberally inflated with his own bombast and well lubricated with Rothschild money, would rise to take his anointed place amongst the war-hungry secret elect.

Early Adventures

The first foray of this elite cabal played out in South Africa with the deliberate fomentation of the (2nd) Boer War (1899 – 1902). Gold had been discovered in the Transvaal region in 1886 and British imperialists were determined to grab it. After a number of failed machinations by Rhodes himself to topple the Boers, the secret elite was dealt an ace when Alfred Milner was appointed high commissioner for South Africa. Seizing the moment, Milner, without passing Go, proceeded straight to war and, in his infamous scorched earth policies and adamant demands for unconditional surrender, demonstrated the general martial philosophy that would later be deployed against Germany.

A map of the British Empire as it was in 1898, prior to the Second Boer War (1899-1902). (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Following the defeat of the Boers, Milner & Co. (Rhodes had died during the ‘peace negotiations’) quickly penetrated the main organs of British imperial governance including the Foreign, Colonial, and War Offices. Arthur Balfour went one better by establishing, in 1902, the Committee for Imperial Defence (CID). The latter proved especially significant in helping to almost completely bypass the British Cabinet in the years, months and days leading up to August, 1914. Indeed, Balfour would prove to be one of only two permanent members of this all-important imperial institution; the other being Lord Fredrick Roberts, commander-in-chief of the armed forces and close friend of Milner. It was Roberts who would later appoint two tragically incompetent hangers-on, Sir John French and Douglas Haig, to their First World War posts overseeing the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers.

The year 1902 also saw the establishment of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty. Britain had long feared for its Far East empire at the hands of Russia and sought to bolster Japan as a counterweight. The alliance bore fruit in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese conflict in which Russia was dealt a decisive defeat. Always with the long-term goal in mind, however, i.e. war with Germany, Milner et al adroitly switched bait and immediately began wooing Czar Nicholas II resulting in the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. In the same period (1904) Britain – with the crucial assistance of Edward VII –  broke its near thousand-year enmity towards France and signed the Entente Cordial with its former rival.

During this same time frame (1905) a more or less secret agreement was made with King Leopold II allowing Belgium to annex the Congo Free State. This was, for all intents and purposes, an alliance between Britain and Belgium; one which was, over the next decade, to be continually deepened with numerous (mostly secret, meaning withheld from the British Parliament) bilateral military agreements and ‘memorandums of understanding’, and which unequivocally put paid to any notion of Belgium being some sort of ‘neutral’ party in the upcoming conflict with Germany.

The core alliance was now complete, i.e. Britain, Russia, France and Belgium, and all that was needed was to secure the fealty and obeisance of the British colonies. In aid of the latter Milner convoked The Imperial Press Conference of 1909 which brought together some 60 newspaper owners, journalists and writers from across the Empire who hobnobbed with another 600 or so British journalists, politicians and military figures in a grand orgy of war-mongering propaganda. The martial message was then duly delivered to the unwitting colonial multitudes. The success of the Conference could be seen most visibly in Canada where, despite the extreme divisiveness of the issue, the nation would eventually send more than 640,000 of its soldiers to the killing fields of Europe, this all on behalf of a tiny handful of British imperialists.

The Moroccan ‘Crisis’

Docherty and Macgregor duly remind us that renowned historian Barbara Tuchman, in her Pulitzer-Prize winning book, ‘The Guns of August’, “made it very clear that Britain was committed to war by 1911 at the latest.” Indeed, preparations for war had proceeded apace since at least 1906.

Still, 1911 marked a turning point when the secret elite first made bold in attempting to ignite war with Germany. The pretext was Morocco. Now, truth to tell, Britain had no direct colonial interests in Morocco, but France and Germany did. By this time the cabal in London – with Edward Grey as Foreign Minister – had inducted a key French minister, Theophile Declasse, into their confidences and were able to engineer what was essentially a false flag operation in Fez. France then followed this up with an army of occupation. Germany posted a minimalist response by sending a small gunboat to Agadir whence the entire British press – reflecting Britain’s ‘deep state’ interests – went into high hysteria condemning German ‘threats to British sea-lanes’ etc. The fuse to war was only snuffed out in the final hour when France’s (recently elected) socialist Premier, Joseph Caillaux, initiated peace talks with the Kaiser. War with Germany would have to wait.

In the meantime, Britain, under the direction of its secret mandarins – i.e. almost entirely beyond Parliamentary review or approval – continued their preparations for war. To this end, for example, Churchill, who by 1911 had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, redeployed the British Atlantic fleet from Gibraltar to the North Sea and the Mediterranean fleet to Gibraltar. Simultaneously, the French fleet was moved from the Atlantic to cover Britain’s absence in the Mediterranean. These maneuvers were all strategically aimed at Germany’ North Sea navy. The pieces on the global chessboard were being positioned.

In France the leftist peacenik Caillaux was, in 1913, replaced as Premier with one of the British elites very own ‘helpers’ in the person of Raymond Poincare, a right-wing, rabid Germanophobe. Poincare quickly acted to remove his anti-war ambassador to Russia, George Louis, and substitute him with the revanchist Declasse. Meanwhile in America the secret cabal, acting largely through the Pilgrims Society and through the Houses of Morgan and Rockefeller, machinated to have an unknown but pliable democrat, Woodrow Wilson, elected over the publicly-controlled central bank advocate, President Taft. It was from this lofty perch that the Anglo-American ‘deep state’ launched the US Federal Reserve System, a private central bank dedicated from the get-go to funding the war against Germany.

The Balkan Sting

The simple tale repeated ad nauseam regarding the circumstances surrounding the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, so Docherty and Macgregor tell us, contains as little veracity as, say, the official version of the assassination of JFK two generations later. Indeed, the structural similarities between the two – from the virtual total stand-down of security through to the clear evidence of state complicity (in this case, starting in Serbia, but leading straight to London) – are remarkable. Suffice to say that there was a domino-like chain of events that then ensued – it’s just that the events weren’t driven by base human instincts and ineluctable forces beyond all human control as is commonly proffered, but rather by calculating minds and conspiratorial design.

Thus, immediately following the assassination, there was widespread international support for Austria-Hungary which was widely perceived as the aggrieved party. Nevertheless, the usual suspects, having helped stage the murder in the first place, were able to deftly turn the propaganda tables against both Austria and Germany by means of an ingenious ruse. Having secretly obtained the contents of the ‘Note’, which contained Austria’s (reasonable under the circumstances) demands for Serbian contrition, the secret cabal were able to gain direct input into the crafting of the ‘Serbian Reply’. The ‘reply’, of course, was designed to be unacceptable to Austria. Simultaneously, France’s President, Poincare, decamped to Moscow to assure the Czar and his generals that, should Germany act to uphold its alliance responsibilities towards Austria, France would back Russia in launching a full scale European war. France, naturally, knew that England – or rather its elite imperial clique – was similarly committed to war. It was during this opportune moment, in fact, when Grey and Churchill connived to purchase the Anglo-Persian Oil Company so securing the necessary oil supplies for the British navy.

All the while Kaiser Wilhelm and Chancellor Bethmann were conspicuous in being the only statesmen genuinely seeking peace. Their subsequent vilification by hordes of appropriately housebroken historians thus rings with the same Orwellian tone as the present-day establishment demonization of nations and individuals resisting the American Imperium.

Grey Hits It Home

Having contrived to fan the flames of a local Balkan fire into a general European inferno, British Foreign Minister Grey and Prime Minister Asquith subsequently deployed every dirty trick in the diplomatic playbook to vitiate any possibility of peace and, instead, to guarantee war.

On July 9th, for instance, the German ambassador to London, Prince Lichnowsky, was repeatedly reassured by Grey that Britain had entered no secret negotiations that would play into war. This, of course, was an outright lie. On July 10, Grey then deceived Parliament into believing that Britain had not the slightest concern that events in Sarajevo might lead to a continental war. Meanwhile, the Austrian Prime Minister, Berchtold, was similarly deceived by all three Entente governments that their reaction to the ‘Note’ would not go beyond a diplomatic protest. However, by the 3rd week of July all of these self-same governments did an about-face and declared a complete rejection of Austria’s response.

On July 20, as already noted, the French Prime Minister, Poincare, went to St. Petersburg to reaffirm their two nations’ respective martial agreements. On July 25, Lichnowsky arrived unannounced at the British Foreign office with a desperate plea from the German government imploring Grey to use his influence to halt Russian mobilization. Incredibly, no one was available to receive him. Russia had, in any case, secretly begun mobilization of its armed forces on July 23, while, on July 26, Churchill quietly mobilized the British fleet at Spithead.

None of the foregoing, of course, was subject to democratic oversight. As Docherty and Macgregor put it,

“As far as the [British] public was concerned, nothing untoward was happening. It was just another summer weekend.”

On July 28th, Austria, despite not being in a position to invade for another fortnight, declared war on Serbia. Meanwhile, the British Foreign Office began to circulate rumours that German preparations for war were more advanced than those of France and Russia even though the exact opposite was, in fact, the case. Matters were quickly racing beyond Wilhelm’s control.

On the 29th, Lichnowsky again begged Grey to prevent a Russian mobilization on Germany’s borders. Grey’s response was to write four dispatches to Berlin which post-war analysis proved were, in truth, never sent. The dispatches turned out to be merely part-and-parcel of the elaborate charade to make it look as if Britain (and, specifically, he, Grey) was doing all it could in the effort to avert war. Also on the evening of the 29th did Grey, Asquith, Churchill, and Richard Haldane meet to discuss what Asquith called the ‘coming war’. Docherty & Macgregor once again here emphasize that these four men were virtually the only people in Britain privy to the impending calamity, i.e. not the other Cabinet members, not the members of Parliament, and certainly not the British citizenry. But then, they were its architects.

On the 30th, the Kaiser wired Czar Nicholas a heartfelt appeal to negotiate the prevention of hostilities. Indeed, Nicholas was so moved by Wilhelm’s plea that he decided to send his personal emissary, General Tatishchev, to Berlin to broker a peace. Unfortunately, Tatishchev never made it to Berlin, having been arrested and detained that very night by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sazonov, who, as ‘Hidden History’ cogently evinces, had long been an asset of the secret cabal in London. Under sustained pressure from senior members of his military Nicholas finally relented and on the afternoon of the 30th ordered general mobilization.

The official announcement of Russian mobilization effectively closed all doors to peace. The Germans, realizing that they had been set up, and also realizing that they were about to be attacked on two fronts – from the west by France, and from the east by Russia – finally, on Aug. 1, ordered their own mobilization; tellingly, the last of the continental powers to do so. Here, however, Germany made a crucial tactical error: it elected to follow up its mobilization with a formal, honour-bound declaration of war on France. By doing so it fell deeper into the trap laid by Grey & Co. who had, all along, machinated to do everything possible to guarantee war without, however, being seen to have officially caused the war.

Still, Grey had one last card to play in order to convince both a war-leery Cabinet and House of Commons to abandon their common sense and plunge headlong into a full-scale pan-European war. For just as the myth of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ would, in a later era, serve to advance American imperial aggression, so here did the myth of poor, benighted little ‘neutral Belgium’ carry the banner for British imperialism.

The Speech That Sealed The Fate of Millions

On the 2nd of August, 1914 Prime Minister Asquith convened a special Cabinet meeting to discuss the (manufactured) crisis. Though the Cabinet was in no mood to countenance British involvement in a continental war, they soon found themselves pressured and hedged about by revelations of a ‘web of [military and political] obligations, which they had been assured were not obligations, [and] had been spun around them as they slept’. Moreover, Grey crucially kept from them the fact that the German ambassador, Lichnowsky, had, only the day before (Aug. 1), specifically offered to guarantee Belgian neutrality. Indeed, Grey’s deception might never have come to light but for the fact that Chancellor Bethmann exposed the offer in the Reichstag on Aug. 4th.

With the Cabinet sufficiently brow-beaten, confounded – and deceived, i.e. Asquith, without Cabinet approval or knowledge, had already issued orders for the mobilization of the Army and Navy –  it now only remained to hoodwink Parliament. And so, on Aug. 3rd, Sir Edward Grey took to the pulpit and began what was to be an epic panegyric to the follies of peace and the virtues of war. Here too the audience was not particularly receptive, but the sermon soon gathered force.

Having first set the tone by announcing that peace in Europe ‘cannot be preserved’, Grey then moved on to a stunning series of lies and misrepresentations concerning the intricate and long-formulated military agreements between England, France, Russia and Belgium. According to Grey, they didn’t exist. But what of the dense skein of diplomatic agreements? There were no such agreements, there were no such entanglements. Parliament was ‘free’ to vote its conscience, to exercise its democratic mandate. Just as long, of course, as it didn’t vote for peace.

All of the foregoing was, in any case, mere preamble to the centerpiece ploy of Grey’s speech: Belgian neutrality. That the latter was an out-and-out sham was only surpassed in duplicity by Grey’s concealment, not only from Cabinet but now from Parliament, of Germany’s offer to guarantee exactly the point under contention, i.e. Belgian neutrality. Instead, Grey produced, for dramatic affect, an emotional telegram from the King of Belgium to King George pleading for assistance. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect if it had it been deliberately designed for the occasion. Which, of course, it was. Also pre-planned were the post-sermon affirmations in favour of war by the various opposition party leaders. They had all been vetted and brought onside by Churchill prior to the day’s session. Only Ramsay MacDonald, head of the Labour Party, swam against the well-orchestrated tide of ‘inevitability’ that was the constant and unerring motif of Grey’s martial peroration.

The day’s session ended without debate; Asquith had not allowed any to occur, though he had been pressured by the Speaker of the House to reconvene later that evening. In between Grey sealed the deal, i.e. war, by firing off an ultimatum to Germany demanding that it not invade Belgium even though he, Grey, knew that such an invasion had already begun. As Docherty and MacGregor phrase it, this was a “masterstroke”. War could not now be avoided. And though the night session witnessed a vigorous and substantive debate which largely demolished Grey’s stance, it was all for nought. At the appointed moment Arthur Balfour, “former Conservative Prime Minister and a member of the Secret Elite’s inner circle, rose menacingly. He had had enough.” Using the full weight of his magisterial authority he condemned, ridiculed and dismissed the naysayers’ anti-war arguments as, the ‘very dregs and lees of the debate’. With the Commons thus emotionally bullied into silence, so ended the last chance for peace in Europe.

Plus Ca Change

What strikes one again and again whilst reading ‘Hidden History’ is the ring of truth that resonates from every page, from every revelation. That such a tiny, elite group of individuals, completely beyond democratic control, could determine the fate – and deaths – of millions should shock us. It should, but it doesn’t really. It doesn’t because we see the same phenomenon occurring now, repeatedly, before our very eyes. Indeed, the current state of ‘permanent war’ is, more or less, the unconscious condition of modernity itself.

Docherty & Macgregor have made a fine contribution here. They have gone beyond what David Irving so aptly labelled as the ‘court historians’, i.e. those historians essentially prostituted to elite / establishment consensus, and given us a glimpse of what it really means to write history. And if there is any lesson – or rather counter lesson – we can take from it, it is that we are doomed to repeat history only so long as we listen to those dedicated to obscuring and inverting it. In short, to those who lie to us.

Title: Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War

Authors: Gerry Docherty and Jim MacGregor

Publisher: Mainstream Publishing; Reprint edition (September 1, 2014)

ISBN-10: 1780576307

ISBN-13: 978-1780576305

Click here to order.

Featured image from Amazon

  • Posted in English, Mobile
  • Comments Off on Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War

First published on Global Research on February 4, 2023

“On December 15, about three weeks after her third Pfizer booster shot, Princess Bajrakitiyabha Narendira Debyavati collapsed with heart issues and went into a coma.

“The 44-year old eldest daughter of the King in Thailand, and likely heir to the throne, had reported to be in excellent health prior to the vaccination and collapse while training her dogs.

The media seemed to generally lose interest after a January 9 update in which it was reported the princess remained in a coma and, according to the palace, has now been diagnosed with “severe heart arrhythmia resulting from inflammation following a mycoplasma infection.

One authority recently suggested that Thailand was preparing to declare its contracts for Pfizer vaccine “null and void” and go after the vaccine maker for damages.

Propagandists in the media have launched into overdrive to try to discredit such news, and to claim “no evidence” of a vaccine tie to the sudden illness of the princess (without mentioning that there is no evidence exonerating the vaccine, either). 

Google and other Big Tech companies, as well as their “fact-checkers” have repeatedly disseminated disinformation and censored accurate information on Covid and vaccines on behalf of vaccine industry interests.” (Sheryl Attikson)

“One daughter of the present king Rama X collapsed and is in a coma… within 23 days after the third shot, 44 years old, never been seriously ill, collapsed and is now in a coma.

The diagnosis that was given by the authorities and by the university is so ridiculous – she’s supposed to have a bacterial infection that will never do what she suffered from.

And so we are determined, and the activists in Thailand who have been on this many many months now – great guys, also a professor from the University of Bangkok, he’s gotten in touch with the Royal Family, and we are sending information to the Royal Family to alert them to the fact that in all probability the princess is suffering as a victim of this jab, as so many people around the world have been suffering.

Sucharit Bhakdi, fmr. professor of microbiology at University of Mainz, Germany

 

Top Thai officials are pulling off their gloves against Pfizer Bio N Tech and could become the first country in the world to Nullify the contracts between the government and Pfizer.

Which would mean Pfizer would have to pay back billions of dollars because of their jabs to the Thai people. 

Video

Comment by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Our thoughts are with Thailand’s Princess Bajrakitiyabha

A decision by Thailand to repeal its contractual relationship with Pfizer has to be carefully thought out. What we are dealing with on the part of Pfizer is a criminal endeavor applied Worldwide. 

The Royal Thai Government should “nullify” its contracts with Pfizer, while contemplating a formal criminal legal procedure against Pfizer, (which incidentally already has a criminal record for fraudulent marketing with the US Department of Justice)  (2009). 

We are no longer in the realm of “fraudulent marketing”. 

The vaccine was launched in mid-December 2020. A Confidential Report by Pfizer released under Freedom of Information in October 2021, confirms unequivocally based on data recorded from mid-December 2020 to the end of February 2021 that the vaccine is a toxic substance resulting in mortality and morbidity. 

The Report which is now in the public domaine. It should be consulted by the Royal Thai Government:

Pfizer had already received more than 1,200 reports of deaths allegedly caused by the vaccine and tens of thousands of reported adverse events, including 23 cases of spontaneous abortions out of 270 pregnancies and more than 2,000 reports of cardiac disorders.”

The evidence is overwhelming. The data compiled from mid-December 2020 to the end of February 2021 unequivocally confirms “Manslaughter”. Based on that evidence, Pfizer had the responsibility to immediately cancel and withdraw the “vaccine”. 

Pfizer’s Worldwide marketing of the Covid-19 Vaccine beyond February 28th, 2021, is no longer an “Act of Manslaughter”.

Murder as opposed to Manslaughter implies “Criminal Intent”.

Pfizer’s Covid 19 Vaccine constitutes a Criminal Act. From a legal standpoint it is an “Act of Murder” applied Worldwide to a target population of 8 billion people. It’s a multibillion dollar project.

What is contained in  Pfizer’s “confidential” report is detailed evidence on the impacts of the “vaccine” on mortality and morbidity.

This data which emanates from the “Horse’s Mouth” can be used to confront as well as formulate criminal legal procedures against Pfizer.

See detailed article below

Video: Pfizer’s “Secret” Report on the Covid Vaccine. Beyond Manslaughter. The Evidence is Overwhelming. The Vaccine Should Be Immediately Withdrawn Worldwide

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, January 31, 2023

See also

 

Bombshell Document Dump on Pfizer Vaccine Data

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 29, 2022 

Among all major Big Pharma actors, Pfizer has a criminal record in the U.S.    (2009 DoD Judgment)

 

Video: Pfizer Has a Criminal Record. Is It Relevant?

By US Department of Justice

The Pfizer Confidential Document

Click here to Access the Pfizer 5.3.6 Document 

Seymour Hersh: The CIA Is Filled with Criminals

February 9th, 2023 by Seymour M. Hersh

Important article by Seymour Hersh, first published by Global Research on June 7, 2018

***

When a reporter has covered 50 years of American foreign policy disasters, the last great untold story may be his own.

That, more or less, is the premise behind a new memoir by Seymour Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been revealing secrets and atrocities—and often secret atrocities—to great acclaim since he exposed the My Lai Massacre in 1969.

Hersh’s book, economically titled Reporter, is focused on the work.

“I don’t want anybody reporting about my private life,” he once said, and Hersh abides by his own request.

In lieu of the personal, we’re treated to the professional: Hersh’s rise from the City News Bureau of Chicago to the United Press International to the Associated Press.

His breakthrough, however, was as a freelancer: Hersh, famously, received a tip about William Calley, a court-martialed Army lieutenant accused of killing 109 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in a village nicknamed “Pinkville.”

Calley was elusive. Hersh drove into Fort Benning and found him under house arrest. For the resulting dispatches, Hersh was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting in 1970.

Hersh continued to report—most notably, perhaps, for The New Yorker—on post-9/11 activities; the Iraq War; Iran; and, contentiously, the killing of Osama bin Laden.

He is now at work on a book about former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Hersh and I recently met at his office in Washington, DC, where I found his desk covered in stacks of files. We talked, and kept talking over lunch, about myriad topics, including protecting sources, self-care, Gina Haspel, and revealing secrets.

THE OFFICE

Elon Green: Let’s talk about why you wrote the memoir in the first place: The book about Dick Cheney you were contracted to write was put on hold because you believed, with good reason, that you couldn’t protect your sources.

Seymour Hersh: I couldn’t do it. I was giving my sources chapters—which I do, not all the time, but stuff that’s relevant, sensitive—and they thought Cheney would figure out who was talking. They were worried.

So I had to go see Sonny Mehta [at Knopf], who paid me a lot of money for that Cheney book. Don’t forget, when I got through with The New Yorker, by the time Obama’s elected, I had a record of a lot of good work, so I signed a contract for a lot of money. I signed a contract in about ’11 and I started working full-time—scads of interviews—and I was told within two months not to put anything in the computer by somebody who was still inside working for Cheney. And I said, “Oh, god.” I said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to connect it to the internet.” He says, “You’re not listening to me.” I said, “No. Fucking. Kidding.” The guy said I couldn’t protect him.

So I went to see Sonny Mehta. It was a lot of money. And they said, “Do this memoir and we’ll see if we can get you off the schneid.” That’s the only reason I ever did one.

Anyway, keep on going. Let’s get a bunch done before we go eat.

Elon Green: You’ve got a photo of Henry Kissinger above your computer. He wasn’t a nemesis, necessarily, but…

Seymour Hersh: You know, Kissinger used to insist when [The Price of Power] was coming out that he didn’t know me. And one of the things I would always do, even with an archenemy, I would always call. And he would take the calls. The day after the book came out, I was supposed to go on Nightline. Was a very big show back in the ’80s. Huge audience. But the night before I was on, [Ted Koppel] brought up my book. Kissinger was on; the papers that night were all full of my book. Kissinger said, “This is outrageous. I’ve never met him. I don’t know him.”

And so, here… [Hersh produces a transcript of a taped phone call with Kissinger] I would call up and ask him about the secret bombing in Cambodia. He said, “We’re retroactively off the record.” I said, “We’re talking off the record?” He said, “Okay, all right.” I said, “On background.” But that means I can write it. He knows the difference between off the record and on background.

And so it turns out he was getting a transcript an hour after I called. He was getting a transcript after saying it was on background. The motherfucker! But that’s just the way it was. Anyway, keep on going.

Elon Green: Bob Woodward once said his worst source was Kissinger because he never told the truth. Who was your worst source?

Seymour Hersh: Oh, I wouldn’t tell you.

Elon Green: You write that you chased the incredibly vague My Lai tip because you were convinced your colleagues in the Pentagon press room wouldn’t. Why wouldn’t they?

Seymour Hersh: I was worried about The New York Times, if you notice, but I knew the guys in the Pentagon press room wouldn’t do it. It was so hard to report there. Don’t forget, anytime you saw a senior officer, they had to log [your name] in. If you had a good story, you had to see five or six different people with bullshit to mask the one guy that told you something important.

Elon Green: So it wasn’t a matter of not wanting to tell the story?

Seymour Hersh: I don’t know. [Press room colleagues] treated me like some sort of rare, exotic animal.

I knew from my own experiences that the war was bad and shit. And by the way, I never thought for one minute that the fact that I learned OJT that the war sucked made me a lefty. I mean, I was. I am a liberal. But I was just somebody who knew the war sucked. I learned by just going to lunch with these guys. They were saying how we have to kill everybody because there are six lieutenant colonels and only one of you is gonna make colonel, and it’s the one that kills the most. So in the last six months of your rotation as a battalion commander, you just fucking….You got 2,000 deaths, man. That’s how bad it was.

I was dead set against the war. It was the right thing to be. Anybody with any fucking brains was. Half the guys in the military were thinking of quitting.

We should go. We can get into a restaurant across the street. I can get my little salad. I don’t eat much. I’m reading this book [gestures to James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty]. This guy is nuts. He’s definitely strange.

LUNCH

Elon Green: How do you document your interviews? Do you use shorthand? Tape record?

Seymour Hersh: I take notes and I go over them. I have a good memory and use a lot of shorthand. All those little adjectives and adverbs, I’ve got a little dash for or something. I just write the keywords. My handwriting is bad, which is good. I understand it and nobody else does. Then I immediately annotate. I sit down, sometimes in the car if I’m on the road. I never tape anything.

Look, if I’m seeing a foreign president—they’d want to tape and I’d want to tape. But I have it transcribed by somebody else. Too boring.

Elon Green: But taping is good for capturing speech patterns and stuff like that.

Image on the right: Seymour Hersh

Seymour Hersh: When I talk about something secret and I show up with a tape recorder, I’m dead.

Elon Green: The New York Times’s reliance on Kissinger wasn’t shocking, but it was grotesque. Max Frankel calling him “Henry.” How do you think their friendliness with Kissinger affected coverage?

Seymour Hersh: Horrible. They missed Watergate! He convinced them there was nothing there.

Elon Green: Kissinger was beloved by reporters because he was accessible. Not much has changed; folks like Paul Ryan and John McCain still get glowing coverage just because they talk to reporters.

Seymour Hersh: Of course. That’s what it’s all about. Trump does, too. The secret to Trump, I think, is he wants to be loved by The New York Times as much as by Fox News. He talks to them a lot, more than they tell you. He waits outside—apparently there’s a corridor from the press room to the bathroom, and he’s hanging around that corridor. He likes to yap.

Elon Green: Do you think the Times’s desire to keep Trump talking makes them pull their punches?

Seymour Hersh: No, I don’t think they’re pulling punches. I think they’re overpunching. I mean, what are they going to do if they don’t indict him? What are they going to do?

Elon Green: Given the amount of really horrible things you’ve covered over the years, you seem very stable emotionally.

Seymour Hersh: I don’t socialize with nobody—not with people in government, even my good sources. I have old friends. Most of them are not in government. I like tennis and sports. I had rotator cuff surgery recently, so I’m about a month away from getting back. I’ll go the gym maybe today or tomorrow.

Elon Green: So it’s really about having a boundary between work and the rest of your life…

Seymour Hersh: Yeah, there’s a big boundary. Do I get depressed? Yes. But everybody should be, now.

Here, you have to have one of these. See what you’re missing. [Hersh puts some tuna tartare on my plate.]

Elon Green: Thank you. You mentioned three instances of Richard Nixon beating his wife.

Seymour Hersh: Oh, god.

Elon Green: You decided not to report on them or even tell an editor. If you got that same information today, what would you do?

Seymour Hersh: I was talking to the Nieman fellows [about the beating incidents], after Nixon was gone. I thought it was off the record. The thing I misjudged is the anger of the women when I didn’t realize [the abuse] was a crime. You will see, in the book you have, the readers’ copy, that I changed it.

You know, my wife likes opera, and I’ve learned to like a lot of it—Verdi, other stuff. And SiriusXM, which has an opera channel that we listen to in the car, announced that it’s no longer going to play any operas conducted by [James] Levine. And that stuff seems crazy to me. But I assume that, for a lot of women, it would be right. I don’t know. I’m still at a strange place on all this stuff. But at least you’ll see the change I made—that was a heartfelt change. I’d thought about it.

But I wouldn’t start an investigation, even now. I got it from inside the hospital. I had a problem from the beginning about reporting it, because the initial source came from—it was the doctor.

Elon Green: So it was mostly about protecting the source? I misunderstood that in the book.

Seymour Hersh: What I did do, I asked John Ehrlichman about it, and I was curious. Before he died, he was talking a lot to me. And he knew of other times Nixon did it. Everybody knew he did it, he said. Oy vey iz mir, as my father would say. I mean, what the fuck?

But I didn’t even want to say that it was a source issue, because that would get back to the hospital. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I never, never thought they were taping [the Nieman remarks].

On the other hand, as Jack Kennedy used to say, “Nothing is off the record. Nothing.” The Kennedys were tough.

Elon Green: How did you become acquainted with the chief of CIA Counterintelligence, James Angleton?

Seymour Hersh: In ’72, I got invited to one of those old-fashioned dinners by a senior Times guy, a very elegant man. After dinner, the women were excused. My wife said, “Never again.” Right? And we smoked cigars—it was the first time I ever met James Angleton. Come on.

Elon Green: Angleton was fascinating. Are there still people like him in the intelligence agencies?

Seymour Hersh: No. He was smart—really, really smart. I think this Gina [Haspel] is very smart. I watched her testify. She’s very bright. I know some things about her. Yeah, she did torture, but everybody knew about that the torture, including Congress. What I do know, from my friends, is the stuff she files is really good. Since she’s been Acting Director for about three months, she’s done great reporting.

Elon Green: In a memo to Abe Rosenthal in March of ’75, while you were reporting on a Russian submarine, you wrote: “I’m not going around shooting off my mouth about ongoing [reconnaissance] operations, but when one of the programs seems risky and over-priced, and there’s a legitimate news peg, it doesn’t make sense not to tell the American people about it.”

Then you noted, “I was such a purist.” Do you feel like you’re now less or more of a purist?

Seymour Hersh: If there’s something they were doing that was right, I didn’t touch it. But some of the operations that have been described to me as good turn out to be crazy, or stuff that seemed right turned out to be shit.

I saw an old senator yesterday, had to go to some fancy party in Georgetown. Full of spies and Brits. This town doesn’t change. It was at a very fancy club, and there was British spy, a guy from MI6. All sorts of people from the Agency were there. I can’t stand that stuff. I got outta there in an hour.

The whole source business—I know a bunch of people who are “out” that could get anything they wanted if I ask them.

Elon Green: So a source not being “in” is not necessarily an impediment to good information?

Seymour Hersh: You have to be careful, but you have to deal with guys that are known to be good guys on the inside and trusted. It’s very ideological, but you can get information. There’s [an Agency] guy; I was screaming at him once about fucking up the FBI after 9/11. And he said to me, “Sy, you don’t get it. The FBI catches bank robbers and we rob banks.” I thought to myself, Fuck! That’s just exactly right. They’re criminals, what the CIA does. It’s all criminal activity. If you’ve ever watch The Americans, it’s an exaggeration, but….I tell my wife, “They don’t shoot people like that.” Take out the killing and that’s what people do. They do this kind of shit—stupid stuff.

Let’s do a few more and get out of here. I need to go back to my office.

Elon Green: Again and again, your stories expose the deceit of politicians, but they also expose the reporters who defended them. Ted Koppel, who was critical about your reporting on Kissinger, later acknowledged that he’d been offered the job of State Department spokesman and “struggled with it for about three or four weeks” before turning it down.

Seymour Hersh: Here’s what got me about Ted…

[Waitress: Any coffees or cappuccinos, gentlemen?]

No, I think just the check and we’ll share it. We’ll share it. That’s what we should do. I always do that. You don’t want to buy me and I don’t want to buy you.

So anyway, here’s what happened: It’s very strange about Ted. I like him. I was in Jerusalem with my wife. I have a friend in Mossad, and he writes me. He was here undercover and I got to know him.

Israel is strange, man. Anyway, so I’m here for a wedding. He called up, this guy, his name is Dudu. I met him in the early ’80s. He came up to me at a party and said, “We ought to talk.” He said he was a businessman, lived in Bethesda. And the thing about him, his oldest son—I coach soccer for kids. I had two kids early, and God knows, after dinner my wife would say, “You take the 3-year-old, I’ll take the 1-year-old.” I’d say, “No, no, no, I’ve got to go to my office because I’m saving America.” You know what I mean? But I figured out, by the last kid, I’d go to his games and coach soccer for about 10 years. I coached soccer to the point where the boys were about 12. And after a practice I’d say, “Let’s go. We’re going to run three miles now. Get in shape.” And if I walked away and turned around quickly there’d be five of these: [gestures] Fuck you signs. That’s when I gave up.

But anyway, what I learned later is that you can’t save the world. So this guy from Mossad, we became friends. I liked him. There wasn’t much I could do with him. One day I took him, there’s a wonderful little German restaurant here called the Mozart Café. And this was ’86, ’87…

Elon Green: You had started to say something about Ted Koppel, if you want to finish that thought…

Seymour Hersh: I was in Jerusalem and we were at that wonderful hotel in East Jerusalem. Hard to get into. And he was there, and so we had a great time, this was about 10 years ago. And then before that, before I knew what he said in 2005, I didn’t know about that till I was working on the book. I knew a little bit about it, I knew he’d been close to Kissinger because Kissinger was on his show all the time.

I was at an off-the-record thing after 9/11, on the First Amendment before the New York Bar. It was an off-the-record deal. And [Koppel] was on the platform. And off the record he was awesome about how fucked up things were—he got it. On the air he wasn’t. I know he’s bright. He’s a refugee, you know what I mean? He’s a landsman, in a way. But there’s something muting about the business. I can’t stand cable television. It’s just so dumb.

Elon Green: In your memoir, you say, “I can write now what I could not [in 1990], which was that the CIA had impeccable intelligence, conversation on nuclear issues in real-time, from deep inside the Pakistan nuclear establishment.” Why couldn’t you report that?

Seymour Hersh: Because the person who told me was still in. [Now] he’s long gone.

Elon Green: Did you run that by him while you were working on the book to make sure it was okay to disclose?

Seymour Hersh: He’s gone completely crazy. It’s been 30 years.

BACK IN THE OFFICE

Elon Green: In a footnote, you mentioned that George Soros asked to meet with you after one of your 9/11 stories in The New Yorker, and you initially declined. Why?

Seymour Hersh: Because it was a story about intercepts of the Saudis. I knew he would guess correctly that there was a lot of talk about oil, so I thought his purpose was not necessarily marginal. I had never met George and I didn’t wanna go. But he then went to Morton Abramowitz, who’s a friend of mine, who had been ambassador to Thailand among other things. And Mort called up and said he’s going to give me $50,000 [for Abramowitz]. Ten people are going to come to that dinner and [Soros] is gonna to pay $5,000 each to me if you come. So how could I say no? So I said yes and fuck if they didn’t have it; they’re all brokers.

Elon Green: Stock brokers?

Seymour Hersh: Oil brokers! George is a master, man. I avoid those guys like the plague.

Elon Green: You write that you knew about atrocities during the Iraq War, including Americans destroying with acid the bodies of detainees who had died during torture. But you didn’t report it because Cheney would have destroyed your sources. How did you protect your sources during the Bush years?

Seymour Hersh: It was hard—by not writing stuff I knew.

Elon Green: It wasn’t so much about how you wrote about them, it’s that you didn’t write about them?

Seymour Hersh: Here, don’t speak. [Hersh produces a memo] You’re just going to watch right there. I just happened to pull this out today. The classification on this is above the world. It’s something about a brief on Gray Fox. I’ve never heard of Gray Fox and you’ve never heard of Gray Fox, ok? The date of this paper is [redacted].

That’s a report to the Secretary of Defense about what’s going on with Afghan detainee issues. That’s some low-intensity work there, special ops. Specific issues about prisoners. What the fuck? I have never been able to find out what happened to [the prisoners]. I have some bad thoughts, because we thought everybody that was a tough little kid was Al Qaeda. I’ve asked everybody. It’s scary. The capacity to do stupid fucking things in America is just fucking scary.

I don’t publish that stuff. A lot of guys would just go with it. I want to know why. First of all, I don’t know anything about what happened. The suggestion, obviously, is somehow some people were hurt or put away, but I don’t know that, either. And I was worried about getting the source of all that exposed. I don’t know if that was a memo written to five people or four or six or seven. And I can’t be sure if there’s some designator in it. You know, they’re very sophisticated now in tracing papers.

Elon Green: You describe Mary McGrory as “a fearless and moral voice.” Who do you see as such a person today?

Seymour Hersh: You’re talking to somebody who grew up with a New York Times that had Tony Lewis, Tom Wicker, and Russell Baker writing columns. Now, there’s some good stuff. But there’s too many screeds about Trump from the columnists. Tom Friedman still runs around the world, but I don’t see enough reporting being done by the columnists. Yes, we talk about immigration and shrieking about the president, but there’s nobody writing about what to do and how to solve it.

Elon Green: If we could return to the Cheney book for a moment: You didn’t want to publish the book because of threats to your sources, and the risk to their careers?

Seymour Hersh: Prosecution! Obama’s prosecuting. Remember the guy that went to jail? Risen’s source? I don’t know the inside story, but what the hell? He’s prosecuting people left, right, and center.

Elon Green: I think there’s a disproportionate amount of resources focused on the White House as opposed to Congress. Do you agree with that?

Seymour Hersh: It’s catnip, man; the White House is catnip. And Obama was catnip. I gave Obama a lot of slack. I know he lied about bin Laden; I just know it, I don’t care if it’s never proven, I don’t care if anybody cares. I know he made a deal with the Pakistanis. I know that he made a deal not to tell and he told about it. The bottom line is he did order a hit; he did kill him; he worked closely with the Pakistanis. How could you not?

Elon Green: Were you reluctant to publish the bin Laden story?

Seymour Hersh: I was eager to run it.

Just this week, there was a story in The New York Times about a book by a former head of the Pakistani intelligence service. He said the same thing. In the book, he said money was paid, which is also what I understand.

Elon Green: Did you suspect there would be backlash to your story?

Seymour Hersh: Did I suspect there’d be backlash? My experience has been, when you have a major story like that—if you go back and look, the White House controlled the story for two weeks. Reporters were begging for something different and exclusive. At one point, one of the big stories was about a dog that was brought by the SEALs on the trip. The dog was apparently barking in Urdu [laughs].

I’m just saying, when you have a story like that, in which everyone gets involved in briefings—McDonough, Brennan—this is obviously about reelection.

Elon Green: Did the backlash and disbelief from non-experts tell us anything about the importance of the official bin Laden narrative as put forth by the government and other reporting?

Seymour Hersh: Well, it’s not a new phenomenon that when there’s a crisis, the White House controls the story. What I find pernicious now about cable television is that, at any given moment on any given day, the White House can give the networks the leak and they get right to it. No one verifies it. They just put out “breaking story,” “breaking news.” But I remember there was a lot of rage at my story, a lot of anger, and a lot of very good reporters said “this can’t be true.” And I remember thinking to myself, Don’t they have mothers? Hasn’t anyone told them that, a year or two later, there might be a different story coming out?

But I’m used to this.

Elon Green: “I will return to the Cheney book when those who helped me learn what I did after 9/11 will not be in peril,” you write. When would that be?

Seymour Hersh: Now. One of the problems is, one of those who helped me is now working for this—working still inside.

There’s still a deep core—it’s not paranoia, it’s not something like a deep state. But I have to think of a way to incorporate what I have.

[Phone rings, Hersh answers and chats for several minutes.]

Elon Green: Even though he’s not in office, Dick Cheney remains a threat to your sources?

Seymour Hersh: Yeah. Directly.

Elon Green: And yet you’re still doing the book.

Seymour Hersh: Oh, my God. It’s my meal ticket, man. I mean, we live hand to mouth. I think it’s gonna be the next book.

Elon Green: Do younger CIA agents treat you differently than the older generation?

Seymour Hersh: No, I hardly know them. There’s no contact. There used to be a time, believe it or not, when I would go every year to meet the rising GS-12s of the National Security Agency. We would talk about the press. These are linguists and cryptographers. I used to always joke that I’m gonna leave self-addressed stamped envelopes here and stuff like that. But there’s no contact anymore. They’re too uptight. And maybe they’re right to be. Maybe the press has changed.

I always thought my business as a reporter was to take a dispute and resolve it. I mentioned in the introduction about treating things as the tip. The first story the Times wrote on [Hillary Clinton’s] email—that was off-the-top, flimsy, one or two days after they had it. They had no idea what a good story it was.

In the book I’m writing, I can segue into this stuff; I’m writing a lot about what was going on in the FBI. There was a lot going on that was counter-Trump, I will tell you that. I’m telling you, it’s the missed story of all time.

OK, couple more. We gotta go.

Elon Green: Why did a presidential commission investigating the CIA believe you were working for foreign intelligence?

Seymour Hersh: How’d you find that story?

Elon Green: I, um, just happened to be reading the Miami Herald.

Seymour Hersh: Yeah! ’Cause Angleton was crazy. I had to be working for foreign intelligence. He’s nuts. That’s why I went to Colby. But nobody’s asked me about that. Of course they were looking at me. There was a fascination with me in the CIA. There’s a study called “William Colby as Director of Central Intelligence 1973-1976” by Harold Ford, a historian. It was written in ’93, declassified in 2011. And chapter seven is “Hersh’s Charges Against the CIA.” There’s 12 pages on me.

Two years before I published [the story on CIA operations against the anti-war movement], in December of ’74, they were tracking me that long. All sorts of intercepts of me. They’re taping me every time I call Colby at home! Colby knew all about this criminal activity, and they never told Justice. So I went to see Larry Silberman, who was the number two man in Justice. So I go to Silberman, call him up and say, “I better tell you something. The CIA’s got this shit going on.” So then, the day I’m writing the story, Silberman calls Colby, and he’s taped. Taped even Silberman! Ford wrote that “On 21 December, Silberman told Colby that Hersh had phoned to tell him in advance of Colby’s meeting with Silberman on the 19th.”

The whole thing is amazing.

Elon Green: So Angleton really thought that you were—

Seymour Hersh: Oh, what else could he think? He was such a nut. They were so crazy. He used to talk to me, and tried to bribe me.

Elon Green: What?

Seymour Hersh: [Angleton] tried to bribe me not to do the domestic spying story. He gave me a story that I feared was true about something going on in Russia. And I thought, what the fuck is this? So I called Colby, not knowing they taped everything. I had his home number. I said, “I got a problem, what the fuck is this?”

Colby told me later that was the final straw, and that’s why he said he had to fire [Angleton]—because it was an ongoing operation.

Which I didn’t write about. I have no idea if it’s true or not because it’s a whole hall of mirrors.

Corrupt and Fraudulent: Laying Bare the Adani Group

February 9th, 2023 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

There is nothing Gautam Adani will not do for money.  In this sense, he is admirably dedicated to greed, so much so he has become its foremost caricature worthy of permanent enthronement.  Mark this man’s name in the scriptures of eternity.

For the unfamiliar reader, the $218 billion Adani imperium, one specialising in transport, infrastructure, and mining, is vast, with far reaching feelers, prongs and tentacles that have made their mark in a number of countries.  Along the way, Adani’s companies have made quite a name for themselves.  Employment laws have been breached and treated with disdain.  Broader human rights abuses have featured.  Governments and regulators have been lied to.  No environment is ecologically safe from the company’s activities, despite their assertions to the contrary.

The gallivanting, amoral CEO has also made quite a habit of cultivating politicians across the globe.  These representatives, weaklings as they are, have shown themselves amenable to changing their minds in the face of Adani’s overtures.

Despite all their efforts, GA and key members of the group, of which 8 hail from his family, have not been immune from criticism.  A number of reports abound from non-government organisations and activists noting a most predatory record.  But the evaluation from the short seller Hindenburg Research, whose findings were published last month, approached the conduct of the conglomerate Adani Group a bit differently.

The central claim of the US investment firm is that the group has “engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.”  Having spoken to dozens of individuals, including former senior executives, and conducting a review of thousands of documents and visiting a number of sites across a half-dozen countries, the picture that emerges is even uglier than first thought.

For one, the image of financial security and reliable solvency comes across as a fiction.  In addition to grossly inflated valuations, the Adani companies have taken on substantial debt.  Shares of inflated stock have been pledged in order to secure loans.

A sense of the false accounting picture given by Adani’s accounts can be gathered from the practices of Gautam Adani’s younger brother, Rajesh, who was accused by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) for being a key figure in a diamond import/export trading scheme in 2004-2005.  Rajesh had used a number of offshore shell companies to generate artificial turnover.  Gautam’s brother-in-law, Samir Vota, was also in on the scheme, making a number of false statements to the regulators.

The saga of corrupt behaviour continues through the activities of Vinod Adani, Gautam’s older brother.  This most shady of figures plays a key role in managing dozens of shell entities that serve the functions of stock manipulation and money laundering.  The latter part is achieved through using money from Adani’s private companies to bloat the balance sheets of the listed companies.

Adani’s response to the claims, one running into 413 mostly irrelevant pages, was to accuse the US firm of being in “flagrant breach of applicable securities and foreign exchange laws”, conduct becoming the “Madoffs of Manhattan”.  A nationalist narrative was also injected into the rebuttal: to attack the Adani Group was nothing less than attacking Indian success itself.

Hindenburg Research’s counter to such bluster was chastening.  India, “a vibrant democracy and an emerging superpower with an exciting future”, was being “held back by the Adani Group, which has draped itself in the Indian flag while systematically looting the nation.”

Since January 24, the date chosen by Hindenburg Research to release its findings, Gautam Adani’s unnaturally inflated personal wealth has been pared back.  From being the third richest man, he is now out of the top 20.  Within days, the conglomerate’s market value was wiped to the striking sum of $113.6 billion.  The company has promised to prepay loans with $1.1 billion and call off its secondary share sale.  The collateral used by the companies to secure funds has also suffered a fall in value.

Despite the rich number of allegations directed at Gautam, the family and his associates, another country and its government have fallen under the group’s spell.  On January 31, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Adani shook hands to formally confirm the $1.18 billion sale of the port of Haifa that had been agreed upon earlier in the month.  The Indian billionaire was wistfully nostalgic on the occasion, noting that Indian troops had “led, in 1918, one of the greatest cavalry charges in military history” in Haifa.

Netanyahu hopes to leverage investments made in the Haifa project to create a trade route linking the Mediterranean and the Gulf, thereby bypassing the Suez Canal.  In the words of the overly confident Israeli Prime Minister, Haifa would “become the entry point and exit point for a vast number of goods that will reach the Mediterranean and Europe directly, without having to go around the Arabian peninsula.”

To do so, the Abraham Accords are being touted as the economic centrepiece, enabling rail links to be established in Saudi Arabia, through Jordan and ultimately to Haifa port itself.  But Netanyahu, himself no creature to accusations of corruption, is facing a figure and business partner in freefall.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.  He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from Greenpeace

Latest mRNA Vaccine for RSV Wins Expedited Review

February 9th, 2023 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Moderna just moved one step closer to bringing mRNA-1345, an RSV shot, to market

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted the experimental shot fast-track designation in August 2021

Now, Moderna’s mRNA RSV shot has been given Breakthrough Therapy Designation, which allows for faster development and an expedited review period

RSV is usually not serious; most people experience only mild, cold-like symptoms and recover on their own in a week or two

Moderna plans to file for FDA approval of mRNA-1345 in the first half of 2023

Along with Moderna’s mRNA RSV shot, Pfizer and GSK have also developed RSV vaccines that are awaiting regulatory approval

*

Get ready. A new mRNA shot is barreling down the runway and may be available as soon as fall 2023. This time, it’s not to target SARS-CoV-2 but, rather, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a pathogen that typically causes mild cold-like symptoms.

Pfizer and Moderna are racing to bring their RSV shots to market, and Moderna just moved one step closer with its mRNA-1345. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the experimental shot fast-track designation in August 2021. Now, Moderna’s mRNA RSV shot has been given Breakthrough Therapy Designation, which allows for faster development and an expedited review period.1

WEF Warns of RSV ‘Tripledemic’

You may have seen RSV making headlines more often than usual this winter — in lock-step with the mRNA shots soon to be released to save us all from it. In November 2022, the World Economic Forum (WEF) warned RSV could cause a “tripledemic” along with COVID-19 and flu.2

It reported case numbers of RSV rising in the U.S. and Canada, because children weren’t exposed to this and other common infections during COVID-19 lockdowns.3 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also warned:4

“CDC surveillance has shown an increase in RSV detections and RSV-associated emergency department visits and hospitalizations in multiple U.S. regions, with some regions nearing seasonal peak levels. Clinicians and public health professionals should be aware of increases in respiratory viruses, including RSV.”

Still, RSV is usually not serious; most people recover on their own in a week or two. While it can lead to severe illness, including bronchiolitis and pneumonia, in infants younger than 1 year and older adults, almost all children have had an RSV infection by their second birthday5 — and most recover from it just fine.

We saw from Operation Warp Speed how pharmaceutical companies and governments have bragged about the speed with which they can approve new shots, however. And the RSV shot is no different. At this point, the obligatory RSV propaganda seems perfectly timed to ramp up with the coming release of a new RSV jab.

Moderna’s mRNA RSV Shot Is on the Way

The FDA granted Moderna’s mRNA-1345 Breakthrough Therapy Designation based on a Phase 3 trial involving 37,000 adults aged 60 years and older.6 The mRNA RSV shot had a reported efficacy of 83.7% against RSV-associated lower respiratory tract disease. Moderna plans to file for FDA approval of mRNA-1345 in the first half of 2023.7

The shot initially would be intended for adults aged 60 and over, but Moderna is also testing its mRNA RSV shot in children via an ongoing Phase 1 trial.8 “With this designation, we look forward to productive conversations with the FDA in the hopes of bringing our RSV vaccine candidate for older adults to the market safely and quickly,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said.9

Moderna’s RSV shot uses the same lipid nanoparticle as its COVID-19 injection. The primary difference between the two shots is the coding of the mRNA. In the RSV shot, the mRNA encodes for a prefusion F glycoprotein. Prefusion F protein is a protein that mediates the RSV virus’ entry into your cells and is known to elicit a neutralizing antibody response.10

Under normal circumstances, it’s hard to imagine an RSV vaccine built on a novel mRNA platform getting fast-tracked, but we’re no longer in normal times. The rollout of mRNA COVID-19 shots has, as predicted, paved the way for any number of new mRNA-based injections going straight to human trials. RSV is just the beginning.

Moderna Has 48 mRNA Shot Programs Underway

At the WEF’s Davos Agenda 2022, at a session titled “COVID-19: What’s Next?”11 Bancel was open about Moderna’s plans to combine multiple shots, such as a COVID-19 shot, a flu shot and RSV shot, into one injection — coming in 2023 — to avoid “compliance issues.” He said:12

“The other piece we’re working on is for 2023, is how do we make it possible from a societal standpoint that people want to be vaccinated?

And we’re going to do this by preparing combinations, we’re working on the flu vaccine, we’re working on an RSV vaccine, and our goal is to be able to have a single annual booster, so that we don’t have compliance issues, where people don’t want to get two to three shots a winter, but they get one dose, where they get a booster for corona, and a booster for flu and RSV, to make sure that people get their vaccine.”

When asked how soon this would occur, he continued:13,14

“So the RSV program is now in Phase 3, the flu program is in Phase 2 and soon in Phase 3, I hope as soon as second quarter of this year. So the best case scenario would be the fall of 2023, as a best case scenario …”

At the 2023 WEF meeting in Davos, Bancel again spoke about mRNA shots, this time stating he’d “like to have mRNA capacity on every continent.”15 It seems they’re well on their way.

As of January 2023, Moderna has 48 programs in development, including “36 programs in clinical trials encompassing investigational mRNA infectious disease vaccine candidates and mRNA therapeutic candidates spanning seven different modalities.”16 In a news release, Bancel reported:17

“Applying our experience and using our mRNA platform, we are developing vaccine candidates that we believe could one day help prevent hospitalizations and deaths from some of the most prevalent respiratory viruses.

We are also progressing several respiratory vaccine candidates, including combination vaccines against multiple respiratory viruses, and are committed to building our respiratory franchise.

By pursuing combination products to protect against a range of diseases, we believe that we can potentially help decrease morbidity and mortality from respiratory disease, lower healthcare costs and increase health security globally.”

Moderna Made mRNA ‘Breakthrough’ Right Before Pandemic

The Pentagon’s secretive Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been working for years to develop an antibody to any virus within 60 days of collecting blood from a survivor.18

Its Pandemic Prevention Platform program, known as P3, “aims specifically to develop a scalable, adaptable, rapid response platform capable of producing relevant numbers of doses against any known or previously unknown infectious threat within 60 days of identification of such a threat in order to keep the outbreak from escalating and decrease disruptions to the military and homeland.”19

DARPA also lunched ADEPT:PROTECT (Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics: Prophylactic Options to Environmental and Contagious Threats) to develop technologies — like mRNA — that can be rapidly deployed against emerging infectious diseases and biological weapons.20

It was September 2019 when Moderna announced it had developed mRNA-1944 — the first systemic mRNA therapeutic to show production of a secreted protein in humans — courtesy of financial support from DARPA’s ADEPT:PROTECT program.21 Months later, the COVID-19 pandemic would result in the development of the first experimental mRNA gene therapy, which has been distributed among the masses. The Highwire reported:22

“With uncanny foresight, Moderna’s expeditious mRNA endeavor … had immediate manufacturing support from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to ensure the pandemic’s gene-editing jabs traversed the globe. Significantly, CEPI was founded in 2017 by the WEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the governments of Norway and India.

Aligned with the same goals as DARPA, CEPI is a global syndicate of public-private organizations whose mission is to highlight pandemic threats, continuously prepare for the next “Disease X,” and advance vaccines.

Presently, over 13 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered worldwide. With vaccine manufacturers protected from liability, evidence increasingly indicates that mRNA injections are not just failing but, more significantly, are causing many serious adverse events, including myocarditis, increased risk of cancer and stroke, and death.”

Will mRNA RSV Shots Trigger a Public Health Disaster?

Past attempts to develop RSV vaccines have ended in tragedy, particularly in the 1960s. In a trial on infants, two babies died after first appearing to tolerate the shot. The problem occurred during the following cold and flu season, when 80% of those vaccinated caught RSV and had to be hospitalized. Only 5% of those who received the placebo shot were hospitalized for RSV.23

The issue is antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), a problem that’s also occurred in the development of coronavirus shots. In 2020, Timothy Cardozo of NYU Langone Health and Ronald Veazey with the Tulane University School of Medicine set out to determine if enough research existed to require clinicians to disclose the specific risk that COVID-19 shots could worsen disease if the recipient is exposed to circulating virus — similar to what occurred in the RSV trial.

They reviewed preclinical and clinical evidence, which revealed that ADE is a significant concern, noting:24

“COVID‐19 vaccines designed to elicit neutralizing antibodies may sensitize vaccine recipients to more severe disease than if they were not vaccinated. Vaccines for SARS, MERS and RSV have never been approved, and the data generated in the development and testing of these vaccines suggest a serious mechanistic concern:

… that vaccines designed empirically using the traditional approach (consisting of the unmodified or minimally modified coronavirus viral spike to elicit neutralizing antibodies), be they composed of protein, viral vector, DNA or RNA and irrespective of delivery method, may worsen COVID‐19 disease via antibody‐dependent enhancement (ADE).”

They concluded that, in order to meet medical ethics standards of informed consent, people who receive COVID-19 shots should be clearly warned of the “specific and significant COVID-19 risk of ADE.”25 This didn’t happen, and it likely won’t for RSV shots, either.

More RSV Shots in the Pipeline

Along with Moderna’s mRNA RSV shot, Pfizer and GSK have also developed RSV vaccines that are awaiting regulatory approval. Pfizer is even targeting its RSV shot to pregnant women, claiming it can help prevent RSV in newborns. While Moderna is also planning trials in pregnant women, GSK stopped its pregnancy trial in 2022 due to safety concerns.26

But no matter which pharmaceutical company ends up being first to bring it to market, the RSV vaccine is clearly on the way. It could potentially be available by fall 2023, and the way RSV was hyped over the winter, it likely won’t be long before this shot moves beyond the older people target and expands to infants and children, becoming another requirement on the official vaccine schedule.

But considering the multitude of problems associated with the mRNA COVID-19 shots, I’m not optimistic about the development of a fast-tracked mRNA shot against RSV. The risks of these experimental, fast-tracked shots are serious, while, in most cases, RSV is not.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Notes

1, 9 Investor’s Business Daily January 30, 2023

2, 3 World Economic Forum November 16, 2022

4 U.S. CDC, Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection (RSV)

5 U.S. CDC, Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection (RSV), Symptoms and Care

6, 8, 16, 17 Moderna January 17, 2023

7 Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News January 20, 2023

10 Nature Communications May 8, 2019; 10: 2105

11 World Economic Forum, COVID-19: What’s Next? January 17, 2022

12, 13 World Economic Forum, COVID-19: What’s Next? January 17, 2022, 7:20

14 Substack, Eugyppius January 19, 2022

15, 18, 22 The Highwire January 25, 2023

19 DARPA, Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3)

20, 21 Moderna September 12, 2019

23 Nature December 15, 2022

24, 25 Int J Clin Pract. 2020 Oct 28: e13795

26 Nature January 27, 2023


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

William Burns’ surprisingly accurate assessment of Russian-Chinese ties coincides with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s upcoming trip to Beijing, which is aimed at advancing the incipient Sino-American New Détente. The CIA chief is thus tempering expectations about how far their discussions over far-reaching mutual compromises will go so that nobody gets the false expectation that China will dump Russia as a quid pro quo for comparatively “normalizing” ties with the US.

An Unexpected Narrative Development

The US is simultaneously waging information warfare campaigns against Russia and China, including those which are aimed at manipulating perceptions about their partnership by falsely suggesting an impending split between them, which is why CIA Director William Burns’ latest assessment was so surprising. Despite all the lies that he and his institution have pushed in the past, he deserves credit for finally setting the record straight about those two’s relations.

The Truth About Russian-Chinese Ties

According to Reuters, he told the participants at a Georgetown University event on Thursday that “I think it’s a mistake to underestimate the mutual commitment to that partnership, but it’s not a friendship totally without limits.” In a single sentence, he rubbished the false narrative about a supposedly impending Sino-Russian split as well as the equally false one claiming that those two have allegedly formed an “alliance” against the US-led West’s Golden Billion in the New Cold War.

Detailed insight into their relations can be obtained by reviewing the following seven analyses:

They’ll now be summarized for the convenience of those who don’t have the time to read them.

In brief, Russia and China closely cooperate on their shared goal of gradually reforming International Relations in order to end unipolarity, but there are limits to how far they’ll go. Beijing balked at supporting Moscow’s special operation since it fears Washington’s secondary sanctions, and it’s presently exploring the parameters of far-reaching mutual compromises with the US. Nevertheless, it’s unrealistic to predict an impending Sino-Russian split since their ties remain mutually beneficial.

Assessing American Sincerity Towards The New Detente

Burns’ surprisingly accurate assessment of their ties coincides with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s upcoming trip to Beijing, which is aimed at advancing the incipient New Détente. The CIA chief is thus tempering expectations about how far their discussions over far-reaching mutual compromises will go so that nobody gets the false expectation that China will dump Russia. What both parties really want is to explore whether it’s possible to comparatively “normalize” their bilateral relations for the time being.

The Military-Strategic Imperatives For Temporarily “Normalizing” Chinese-American Relations

The immediate motivation in doing so is to preemptively avert a conventional conflict between them by miscalculation, which neither can afford to have happen. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published a study last month of what it claimed were the most extensive war-game simulations ever conducted over a potential Taiwan Conflict, which concluded that this scenario would be mutually disadvantageous for the American and Chinese militaries.

Adding a sense of urgency to all of this, a memo from four-star Air Force General Mike Minihan leaked at the end of January where he warned his officers that they should be ready to fight a conventional war against China by 2025. The Pentagon subsequently distanced itself from his prediction, but the resultant impression was that at least one faction within the US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) is actively pining for war with China, which raises serious concerns.

That scandal broke out around the same time that the influential RAND Corporation published a study advising against an indefinite perpetuation of NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine on the partial basis that this scenario would degrade the US’ military-strategic capabilities against China. These three events over the past month confirm that threat perceptions of China are once again on the minds of American decisionmakers after they’ve spent the last year obsessing over Russia.

The US’ Strategic Recalibration In The New Cold War

Coupled with the ongoing discussions over a New Détente, the CIA chief’s surprisingly accurate assessment of Russian-Chinese relations, and Blinken’s upcoming trip to Beijing, it’s possible to intuit the ways in which the US is recalibrating its strategic calculations in the New Cold War. The first observation is that the US is beginning to realize that the Ukrainian Conflict is sapping its military capabilities that could otherwise have been invested in more effectively “containing” China.

The New York Times reported in late November that the US’ military-industrial complex can’t indefinitely sustain the pace, scale, and scope of armed assistance to Kiev. This was seconded last month by Naval Secretary Carlos Del Toro, who said that his country might soon have to choose whether to meet its minimum national security needs or Ukraine’s. The emerging dilemma is that the US must either find a “save-facing” retreat from that proxy war or further delay its “Pivot to Asia” against China.

The second observation is that the seemingly inevitable transition from prioritizing Russia’s “containment” to China’s will take some time to achieve since the US cannot refocus the bulk of its military efforts from Europe to the Asia-Pacific right away. This process has already started as evidenced by NATO’s de facto expansion to that part of the hemisphere via AUKUS+, which refers to this US-centric network’s informal inclusion of Japan, the Philippines, and likely also the Republic of Korea.

Building upon this, the third observation is that the US’ interests are best served by achieving the comparative “normalization” of ties with China during his interim period instead of risking a conventional conflict by miscalculation before its aforementioned military posturing is complete. Even though the preceding worst-case scenario would be mutually disadvantageous like the CSIS predicted, China might still feel compelled to initiate it as a last-resort out of desperation to safeguard its interests.

With this in mind, the fourth observation is that the US must manage China’s threat perceptions of it during this sensitive military-strategic transition in order to prevent that from happening, ergo why it’s reciprocating President Xi Jinping’s interest in a New Détente that he initiated last November. His calculations are also to buy time for his country too, albeit in the hopes that China’s military capabilities will make such a “great leap forward” in the next few years that they’ll successfully deter the US.

And finally, regardless of whatever series of mutual compromises that China and the US might agree to in pursuit of this mutually beneficial end of comparatively “normalizing” their ties for the time being, both acknowledge that it’s unrealistic to expect it to include the scenario of China dumping Russia. This last observation about the US’ recalibrated grand strategic calculations in the New Cold War places Burns’ surprisingly accurate assessment of Russian-Chinese relations in their proper context.

Strategic Dynamics Of The Seemingly Intractable Sino-American Security Dilemma

The CIA chief doesn’t want anyone on his side to get false expectations about the outcome of the ongoing discussions over a Sino-American New Détente lest some “deep state” factions seek to sabotage this process out of spite that it doesn’t include an anti-Russian dimension. This doesn’t mean that he’ll succeed, but just that he’s doing his utmost to clarify the limits to the far-reaching mutual compromises that they might agree to so as to buy time for their military posturing against one another.

Basically, the US is finally realizing that it failed to “contain” Russia and is thus depleting valuable military resources by indefinitely perpetuating this unsuccessful campaign that could otherwise be more effectively invested in attempting to “contain” China, which is America’s only systemic rival. The real battle of the 21st century isn’t going to be between the US and Russia over Ukraine, but between the US and China over which of those two will become the predominant power in the emerging world order.

Even so, neither of them wants a conventional conflict to break out since it would be mutually disadvantageous, hence why they’d rather militarily posture against one another in the hopes of gaining an edge vis-à-vis their rival and thus deterring them from initiating that worst-case scenario. Therein lies the crux of their security dilemma though since each might still in theory feel compelled to proactively avert the other’s selfsame posturing that they consider to be an unacceptable threat to their interests.

To explain, China might initiate regional military hostilities in the near future out of fear that the window of opportunity for preventing its comprehensive “containment” by the US via AUKUS+ is rapidly closing. Similarly, the US might initiate the same – whether indirectly by ordering Taiwan to cross Beijing’s red lines via a “declaration of independence” or even directly through a “first strike” – out of fear that failing to do so sometime soon would lead to China making strong enough military strides that fully deter it.

In other words, the Sino-American security dilemma is defined by both fearing that the other’s evolving military postures in the Asia-Pacific will give them an edge that could then be leveraged to blackmail their rival into some sort of unacceptable strategic concessions. What’s so dangerous about these dynamics is at that both the lead-up to that scenario as well as this scenario itself are fraught with tremendous risk that one or the other will proactively initiate military hostilities to avert that outcome.

This insight shows how unprecedentedly high the global strategic stakes are when it comes to their ongoing discussions over a New Détente. China and the US each want to at least temporarily delay the seemingly inevitable exacerbation of their military rivalry, yet they’re also unsure whether doing so will truly give them an edge over the other or if it’ll inadvertently compel their counterpart to proactively initiate hostilities out of perceived desperation if they think the window of opportunity is closing.

As it presently stands, however, there seems to be a shaky consensus between them that it’s better to go forward with temporarily delaying everything than risk their tensions quickly spiraling out of control if they refuse to do so. This observation is evidenced by the progress that’s been achieved thus far as proven by Blinken’s upcoming trip to Beijing aimed at taking their talks even further, as well as the CIA chief’s timely clarification that the US shouldn’t expect China to dump Russia as an implied quid pro quo.

Concluding Thoughts

If the US wasn’t serious about temporarily putting off the seemingly inevitable exacerbation of military tensions with China, then Burns wouldn’t have unexpectedly told the truth about Russian-Chinese ties at this particular point in time in order to temper expectations about the New Détente. From this, it can be concluded that the US is seriously considering a “face-saving” exit strategy from the Ukrainian Conflict later this year in order to gradually refocus on prioritizing China’s “containment” over Russia’s.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Bennett, who was prime minister and then alternate prime minister in Israel during a confusing period of coalition politics prior to the return of Benjamin Netanyahu as head of government in December, said that “there was a good chance of reaching a ceasefire” before the Western powers “curbed” negotiations in a wide-ranging interview uploaded to YouTube.

Israel is one of a number of states traditionally seen as being aligned with the West, along with the likes of India and Turkey, which have played little or no part in efforts to support Ukraine militarily or engage in the sanctions war with Russia, with Bennett explaining that while “the Americans expect… that we all rally for Ukraine” this would not necessarily have been in Israel’s interests.

By way of example, Bennett cited Israeli interests in Syria, where “once or twice a week we attack the Iranian presence… Russia, the superpower, has the S-300 there, and if they press the button Israeli pilots will fall.”

“Who will save them? Biden? Zelensky? It [would have been] my problem,” he said, having earlier suggested that he had “made sure that Israel would have free rein in Syria” during his first in-person meeting with President Vladimir Putin — an ally of the Syrian and Iranian governments — prior the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“[M]y focus is on Israel’s interests… My people,” Bennett said, explaining why he chose to position himself as a more non-aligned mediator between Putin and Zelensky after the outbreak of hostilities — and claiming that, without Western interference, his efforts might have succeeded.

Perhaps one of the more embarrassing claims made by Bennett with respect to the early period of the war is that he personally secured a guarantee from Putin that he would not kill President Volodymyr Zelensky, with the Ukrainian leader allegedly “in a secret bunker” before this promise was made.

Only after Bennett informed Zelensky of this gentleman’s agreement “by WhatsApp or Telegram”, the Israeli claimed, did the Ukrainian “[go] to his office and [film] himself there on his phone” saying “I’m not afraid.”

Of greater geopolitical consequence, however, is Bennett’s account of his efforts to mediate a ceasefire between the two sides, which saw him fly into Russia and then Germany — despite having previously “made a point of never setting foot in Germany because of the Holocaust” — in search of a compromise agreement.

Bennett said that he had approached U.S. President Joe Biden, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan before becoming “a pipeline” for negotiations between Putin and Zelensky, and that everything was “fully coordinated” with Biden, President Emmanuel Macron of France, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany — who was said to be “very distressed” by the impact of the war on his country’s supply of Russian gas.

Click here to read the full article on Breitbart.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The United Kingdom will train Ukrainian fighter pilots and provide long-range weapons to Kiev forces, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a statement on February 8, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in London on a visit.

“I am proud that today we will expand that training from soldiers to marines and fighter jet pilots,” Sunak said.

According to a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office, Ukrainian pilots will develop skills that will allow them to be able to “fly sophisticated NATO-standard fighter jets in the future.”

The office didn’t clarify on which fighter jets Ukrainian pilots will be trained. The Royal Air Force is currently mainly made of Eurofighter Typhoon jets.

London intends to coordinate efforts in this area with its allies in order to “meet Ukraine’s defense needs.” Earlier, the Prime Minister’s Office noted that the shortest jet pilot training course lasts 36 months.

“[Sunak] will also offer to begin an immediate training programme for marines. That training will be in addition to the recruit training programme already running in the UK, which has seen 10,000 Ukrainian troops brought to battle readiness in the last six months, and which will upskill a further 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers this year,” the Prime Minister’s Office said, adding that the program will be additionally expanded this year.

“The Prime Minister will also offer to provide Ukraine with longer range capabilities,” the statement reads. The main goal of this step is to “disrupt Russia’s ability” to target Ukrainian facilities, as well as to “help relieve pressure on Ukraine’s frontlines.”

The exact type of the long-range weapons in question was not revealed. One of the UK’s main long-range systems is the Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile, which can hit ground targets as far as 560 kilometers away from its launch point.

The UK was one of few countries that began shipping weapons to Kiev forces even before the start of the Russian special military operation last year.

Under the leadership of Sunak, the UK continues to push for more armament for Ukraine. Last month, London pledged to supply 14 Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Kiev forces, which opened the way for other Western countries to provide similar modern tanks. Now, it is apparently trying to promote the rehabilitation of the Ukrainian Air Force.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image: A Royal Air Force Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 flies past the audience during the 2019 Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford, England, July 20, 2019. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Jennifer Zima)

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

According to Colonel Markus Reisner, the military strategist of the Austrian Ministry of Defence, Ukraine does not need NATO soldiers, as they are already there on the frontlines as mercenaries.

In a video posted on the Intel republic Telegram channel, the Austrian can be seen and heard giving his view on the situation. Reisner’s remark came in response to a question posed during a press conference at the AIES Institute. One of the journalists asked him who would be managing the proposed transfer of tanks to Ukraine – NATO servicemen or Ukrainians.

Reisner replied that if the military from Austria or NATO countries retired from service and became mercenaries, then they could no longer be considered representatives of the armies of their states.

He explained that the serviceman takes off his uniform, signs a contract and goes to Ukraine – now he is not a soldier, for example, of the Austrian armed forces, but a contract mercenary. In his opinion, there are a large number of mercenaries on the territory of Ukraine and not soldiers of the alliance.

Earlier, Viktor Zolotov, the head of the Russian Guard, announced an increase in the number of mercenaries from European countries fighting on the side of the armed forces of Ukraine.
 .
These mercenaries have considerable experience of participating in armed conflicts in various countries of the world, as well as relevant training he suggested.
.
Last December, Andrei Marochko, an officer of the People’s Militia of the LPR, claimed that he had proof that mercenaries from more than 30 countries are fighting on the side of the Ukrainian military.

According to him, most of the conversations recorded by intelligence networks were in English with various dialects, along with some in the German, French, Italian and Polish languages.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image: Image of Russian troops in Ukraine. Credit: Ukraine MoD/Facebook

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Number of Pentagon Bases in the Philippines Increased Under Outcry Against US Push to War

Menacing Winter Wonder

February 9th, 2023 by Barbara Nimri Aziz

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Those images from the December blizzard engulfing Buffalo in upstate New York were shocking. Hard to grasp the reality. That ghostliness was not only from the icy, white shroud covering everything. There were also the deaths of citizens who ventured outside, or who simply couldn’t get back home.

That calamity was especially unsettling for those of us who live hardly four hours’ drive from there. By contrast. Here in Delaware and Sullivan counties we were covered by an appealing two-inch layer of snow. Whatever cold reached us from Buffalo was discomfitingly bearable. We carried on with our daily affairs, simply taking care to cover up with an extra layer of wool and ensuring we had a good supply of heating oil.

Yet, we were aware that, notwithstanding the unpredictability of global climate changes, our Catskill winter had hardly begun. We faced another two months with below zero temperatures, high fuel bills, frozen pavements, the toil of clearing our driveways.

About this weekend freeze, luckily we’d been forewarned. Media and utility companies sent out bulletins: stock up on needs; keep faucets open; remain indoors. As the temperature began to drop, even the ubiquitous pickup trucks with their sturdy snowplows in front were stilled.

My vigil began in the assumed safety of indoors. It was hard to relax; while regularly feeding the wood stove, I peered warily into the night. The then layer of snow from last week’s light fall glistened in the sharp rays of moonlight.

Then, from the north west, the wind arrived in a sudden whoosh. It was forecast to last for 24 hours! That’s unusually long, I thought. If it were to rain, we’d be transformed into that spectral Buffalo scene.

The temperature continued to drop, the wind to increase. At times, throughout the evening I heard a loud clap outside. In the sky. If some tree had fallen close to the house, I wasn’t about to check. A long, aching crack of a falling, frozen tree rose in the nearby woods, echoing into the dark. I waited for the crash, but was distracted by another sound, a whistling across the walls of my house. Was the wind finding slivers of space to force that cold inside? And then what?

The walls around me groaned as the storm beat at them. I went from room to room inspecting for cracked windows, wondering how I might seal anything found broken. Another clap exploded somewhere above the house! Had something fallen on the roof, maybe smashed the car.

Although I knew the forecast warned the temperature would continue dropping for another 24 hours, I repeatedly checked my phone’s weather app– -19 C, -20 C, -24 C. It didn’t subside in the morning nor throughout Friday! Such fierce wind combined with these temperatures was new for me, even after a childhood in snowbound, cold Canadian winters.

My main worry was a power cut. Not unusual in winter, and common in such high winds. I readied three flashlights and charged up my phone.

I would not sleep soundly because of that wind, also because I set my alarm every two hours to replenish the wood stove. (I had calculated that it would need sixteen good-sized logs, one for every hour until I could venture out to the woodpile.)

Morning light finally arrived, but the temperature still stood at minus 24 C. It seemed an act of mercy that the wind hadn’t downed any electric lines. Not yet! By 10 a.m. the sun offered a hint of warmth, flowing through windows onto the carpets. The wind continued howling. The road beyond Beaverkill was empty. But the forecast announced the storm would ease after six hours.

Late afternoon, I spotted two pickups speeding along the road on the far side of the valley. Closer to the house, wild turkeys poked at the gravel. It seems we’d turned a corner.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Barbara Nimri Aziz whose anthropological research has focused on the peoples of the Himalayas is the author of the newly published “Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”, available on Amazon

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author


“Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”

By Barbara Nimri Aziz

A century ago Yogmaya and Durga Devi, two women champions of justice, emerged from a remote corner of rural Nepal to offer solutions to their nation’s social and political ills. Then they were forgotten.

Years after their demise, in 1980 veteran anthropologist Barbara Nimri Aziz first uncovered their suppressed histories in her comprehensive and accessible biographies. Revelations from her decade of research led to the resurrection of these women and their entry into contemporary Nepali consciousness.

This book captures the daring political campaigns of these rebel women; at the same time it asks us to acknowledge their impact on contemporary feminist thinking. Like many revolutionaries who were vilified in their lifetimes, we learn about the true nature of these leaders’ intelligence, sacrifices, and vision during an era of social and economic oppression in this part of Asia.

After Nepal moved from absolute monarchy to a fledgling democracy and history re-evaluated these pioneers, Dr. Aziz explores their legacies in this book.

Psychologically provocative and astonishingly moving, “Yogmaya and Durga Devi” is a seminal contribution to women’s history.

Click here to order.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Menacing Winter Wonder

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Liberal billionaire George Soros is tied to at least a staggering 253 media organizations around the world, according to a new study conducted by MRC Business. 

MRC Business, part of the conservative Media Research Center, found that Soros uses his charities to build relationships with news outlets and “activists media” organizations.

“The journalism groups Soros supports have the ability to mold public opinion on practically every continent and in many languages. They also insulate him from inquiry because reporters see him as an ally, not a target for investigation,” MRC Business analysts Joseph Vazquez and Daniel Schneider wrote.

“The 92-year-old philanthropist’s multimillion-dollar efforts promoting his bizarre ‘open society’ agenda encompass some of the most radical leftist ideas on abortion, Marxist economics, anti-Americanism, defunding the police, environmental extremism and LGBT fanaticism,” they continued. “In the United States, Soros is known for his massive involvement backing liberal policies and politicians. Since the 2016 election, he has spent at least $200 million backing political candidates, which includes $29 million for local prosecutors and district attorneys.”

Soros was the largest donor to Democrats during the midterm elections but MRC Business says that’s “just a drop in the bucket compared to the over $32 billion he pumped into his Open Society Foundations (OSF) since 1984 to shape politics to his liking on a global scale.”

Soros is tied to The Marshall Project, the Biden administration’s since-dismantled Disinformation Governance Board, Project Syndicate, openDemocracy (based in the United Kingdom), the Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network, NPR, ProPublica, Free Press, a “litany of left-wing activist groups,” and a plethora of other outlets. Many of the outlets Soros helps bankroll are relied on by Big Tech and other journalists as sources of information, while others simply echo left-wing talking points.

Click here to read the full article on Fox News.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on George Soros Can Influence Global Media with Ties to at Least 253 Organizations, Study Finds
  • Tags:

Video: Twitter Files and the Death of Russiagate

February 9th, 2023 by Joe Lauria

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Matt Taibbi joins CN Live! to discuss the implications of his Twitter Files revelations, including his latest on Hamilton 68 and its fatal blow to the Russiagate narrative. With Chris Hedges and John Kiriakou. Watch the replay.

In the latest installment of the blockbuster Twitter Files, reporter Matt Taibbi has revealed that probably the most important source behind the maniacal media output on the Russiagate story was a lie.

Hundreds of articles and television segments in the major U.S. Media, which kept the Russiagate fiasco front and center in American political life for several years, was fueled by a website called Hamilton 68.

The name comes from Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Papers No. 68, in which he writes about the danger of foreign interference in U.S. elections. Hamilton 68 was launched in August 2017, less than a year after Hillary Clinton’s defeat to Donald Trump and just as Democrats increasingly blamed alleged Russian interference for Clinton’s defeat.

As the hysteria over unproven allegations of Russia’s role gathered steam, Hamilton 68 appeared. It became a go-to source for corporate media by saying it had a list, which it refused to make public, of Twitter accounts it was monitoring. There are conflicting statements from Hamilton about whether these were bots or real people, and whether they were direct agents of Russia or unwitting dupes.

Taibbi writes:

“The two founders of Hamilton 68, the blue-and-red team of former counselor to Marco Rubio Jamie Fly and Hillary for America Foreign Policy Advisor Laura Rosenberger, told Politico they couldn’t reveal the names of the accounts because “the Russians will simply shut them down.”

Twitter, the files Taibbi discovered say, did not buy Hamilton’s story and privately pushed back. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s trust and safety chief at the time, said in one internal email: “I think we need to just call this out on the bullshit it is.” He also threatened to give Hamilton an ultimatum, either they release the list, or Twitter would.

Twitter only obtained the list by reverse engineering data requests made by Hamilton back in 2017.

Taibbi’s reporting indicated these were real people indeed. Only about 30 Twitter accounts on the list were Russian, the rest real Americans, Britons and Canadians.

Most were Trump supporters, with Twitter handles like @TrumpDyke. But some were not, such as myself before I became editor-in-chief of Consortium News, when I was only a writer for the site, publishing several articles debunking Russiagate in 2017.

On Hamilton’s advisory council sits former senior U.S. officials, several with intelligence backgrounds, such as Michael Chertoff, former Homeland Security chief; former acting C.I.A. director Michael Morell; Rick Ledgett, a former NSA deputy director; Clint Watts, a former F.B.I. counter-intelligence officer; Mike Rogers, a former F.B.I. Agent and member of the U.S. House intelligence committee; former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul; former Estonian President Toomas Ilves and thrown in for good measure: John Podesta, chairman of the Clinton campaign and arch-neoconservative Bill Kristol.

Hamilton 68 has blamed the media for misinterpreting its data and ignoring its appeals to correct their stories.

Hamilton 68 was rebranded Hamilton 2.0 in December and its secret list has now been replaced by a public list that only names government officials and media from Russia, China and Iran.

We asked someone from the Alliance for Securing Democracy to appear on this show and received no reply.

This troubling story underscores the gross failure of corporate media, like CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post, and even fact-checking sites like PolitFact and Snopes, to be skeptical of intelligence sources, whether active or retired. It also exposes the failure of members of Congress to not let the facts get in the way of a story that serves their political interests, as Senators Diane Feinstein and Mark Warner became reliant on Hamilton 68. Academia was also taken in.

Taibbi’s revelations add to a litany of facts that have repeatedly debunked the Russiagate tale: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report that found no connection between Russia and the Trump campaign; the president of CrowdStrike’s admission under oath to Congress of finding no evidence of any hack of the DNC servers; an NYU study showing minimal impact of Russian Facebook posts and the Clinton campaign paying for both CrowdStrike, and former MI6 agent Christopher Steele’s fabulous opposition research on Trump.

The Hamilton Twitter File may at last be the final nail in the Russiagate coffin.

Our special guest tonight is independent journalist Matt Taibbi, a former reporter for Rolling StoneMagazine and author. His latest book is Hate, Inc. Matt also runs Racket, a Substack publication where his Hamilton 68 story was published.

We are also joined by former New York Times correspondent and author Chris Hedges, whose latest book is The Greatest Evil is War. And by John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer, author of The Reluctant Spy, and the man who blew the whistle on the agency’s torture program.

Hosts: Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria. Producer: Cathy Vogan.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from The Intercept

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Last week, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports sharply critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians living in the 1967 occupied territories. On February 1, Amnesty called on Israel to “dismantle the system of apartheid which is causing so much suffering and bloodshed”. Amnesty argued that since the British-based organisation launched its “major campaign against apartheid one year ago, Israeli forces have killed 220 Palestinians, including 35 in January 2023 alone. Unlawful killings help maintain Israel’s apartheid system and constitute crimes against humanity, as do other serious and ongoing violations by Israeli authorities such as administrative detention and forcible transfer”.

Amnesty called for Israel to be held accountable by the international community. The organisation’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard made the point that the failure to do so “has given Israelis] free rein to segregate, control and oppress Palestinians on a daily basis, and helps perpetuate daily violence. Apartheid is a crime against humanity, and it is frankly chilling to see the perpetrators evade justice year after year”.

Callamard accused Israel of attempting to “silence findings of apartheid with targeted Smear campaigns, and [argued] the international community allows itself to be cowed by these tactics”.

Amnesty reported, “Under apartheid, Israeli authorities control every aspect of Palestinians’ lives and subject them to daily oppression and discrimination through territorial fragmentation and legal segregation. Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories [OPT] are segregated into separate enclaves, with those living in the Gaza Strip isolated from the rest of the world through Israel’s illegal blockade, which has caused a humanitarian crisis.”

In addition to enforcing apartheid on Palestinians, Amnesty listed other war crimes Israel is committing in the occupied territories: planting Israeli colonists in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, forcing Palestinians to leave their home areas (to make way for colonies or military zones), and demolishing Palestinian homes and entire villages.

On February 2, Human Rights Watch (HRW) castigated Israel for its use of “collective punishment against Palestinians” by sealing and demolishing homes of Palestinians who attack Israelis. HRW accused the Israeli army of “unlawfully” mounting raids on Palestinian cities and refugee camps and Israeli colonists of attacking “Palestinians and their property [but] rarely face punishment for these crimes.”

While HRW local representative Omar Shakir said Palestinian attacks on Israel civilians were “reprehensible crimes,.. such attacks cannot justify Israeli authorities intentionally punishing the families of Palestinian suspects by demolishing their homes and throwing [their families] out on the street”. Home demolitions and “sweeping movement restrictions” are glaring examples of unlawful collective punishment.

HRW wrote, “International Humanitarian law, including the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibits collective punishment, including the relatives of those accused of committing crimes, in all circumstances. Courts around the world have treated collective punishment as a war crime” although this is rejected by Israel’s Supreme Court.

Although the release of these damning reports coincided with the arrival in Jerusalem of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he expressed his condolences to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the “horrific terrorist attack” by a young Palestinian who killed six Israelis and a Ukrainian outside a building used as a synagogue in the illegal Nevi Yacov colony on the edge of Jerusalem. Blinken said nothing in public about 10 Palestinian deaths during Israel’s army raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank and two Palestinian fatalities on the eve of his arrival. Instead, he mouthed US support for the “two state solution” involving the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (plus Gaza) although he is well aware Israeli colonisation has made this impossible and the US is at fault for refusing to halt this enterprise before it became too late.

Blinken called on “all sides now to take urgent steps to restore calm, to de-escalate” with the aim of creating a sense of security for both Israelis and Palestinians.” Blinken is blinkered to the harsh fact that there can be no security for either Israelis or Palestinians as long as Israel continues to create and expand colonies, impose apartheid on Palestinians, conduct armed raids into Palestinian urban areas, and commit collective punishment against Palestinians. Instead of exerting pressure on Netanyahu to halt these illegal activities, Blinken reiterated the mantra that the US commitment to Israel is “iron clad”. Unless the US changes its approach, the cycle of violence will continue, waxing at times of unending Israeli provocations which heighten Palestinian feelings of hopelessness and make youngsters lash out.

To make matters worse, Israel’s peaceniks have been sidelined by the rightward shift of the country to the point that Netanyahu’s new government is the most hard-line, chauvinist, and expansionist ever. It is committed to expanding colonisation, cracking down on Palestinian resistance, and promoting both ultra-nationalism and religious orthodoxy.

Instead of taking a firm line with Netanyahu on his plan to reduce the powers of the Supreme Court, Blinken weakly urged Netanyahu to build a consensus about his intentions.

Blinken ignored the hundreds of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to protest against Netanyahu’s plan to undermine Israeli democracy by overhauling the court. These demonstrations have been the largest ever unrelated to the occupation and Israel’s forever wars. Since the emergence of the state almost 75 years ago, the court’s role to rein in excesses and illegalities has been increasingly important because Israel has no constitution to use as guidance.

Netanyahu, who is currently on trial for corruption and breach of trust, seeks to subvert the court to evade legal cases against sitting politicians, like himself and his choice for health and interior minister, Arie Deri, the leader of the Sephardi Shas party which has 11 seats in the Knesset and could bring down the current government by pulling out of the coalition.

Deri served nearly two years in prison in 2000-2002 for accepting bribes. In 2011, he resumed his leadership of the party, was re-elected to the Knesset but in 2018 was indicted for fraud, breach of trust, interfering in court proceedings, money laundering, and tax dodging. In 2021 most charges were dropped except tax evasion on condition he would not serve in public office for several years. Despite this deal, he was given two portfolios by Netanyahu when he formed his cabinet last December. The Supreme Court ruled last month he could not serve and was replaced by two Shas legislators chosen by Deri who remains as influential as ever.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from PressTV

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Israel Must be Held Accountable by the International Community
  • Tags: ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The U.S. Government is ratcheting up its attempt to control Russia and China and to impose America’s undefined “rules-based international order” to replace the U.N.’s existing, and far more clearly defined, international laws (which are produced not by any one nation, but instead by all member-nations of the U.N. and in accord with the structure and procedures set forth within the U.N.’s Constitution, the U.N. Charter).

America is seeking to replace the U.N.’s weak but existing international democracy among nations and impose, in place of it, a strong international dictatorship that the U.S. Government intends to impose by means of America’s 900 foreign military bases and of whatever consent which that imperial Government can obtain from its ‘allies’ or vassal-nations or colonies (over which the U.S. Government holds considerable sway by virtue of its dollar being the international reserve currency and its control over the IMF and World Bank and by other international agencies that likewise are effectively under the control of the U.S. Government).

By contrast: Russia, China, Iran, and many other countries, are fully committed to build upon and strengthen the U.N.’s international democracy, and would need to be militarily defeated by the U.S. and its ‘allies’ in order for them to yield to the dictatorship that the U.S. Government demands.

There is no way, other than via a World War Three (which would destroy the entire world), that the dictates by the U.S. Government and its ‘allies’ will be complied with, by them — the countries that insist upon preserving their own sovereignty over their own land.

America’s international sanctions that haven’t received the approval of the U.N. are the cause of most international conflicts in today’s world, and are examples of U.S. laws which the U.S. Government demands that the world’s other Governments must comply with in order for those other Governments and their citizens to avoid being punished by “secondary sanctions” that those American laws authorize for the American Government to apply against any nation or person that refuses to comply with America’s primary-sanction laws, which primary sanctions are directed against the Governments that the U.S. Government most wants to control (i.e., to add to the U.S. Government’s existing empire), such as Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, North Korea, and Cuba.

Because Cuba is virtually bordering on the United States, there is objective reason for the U.S. to be concerned lest another major world power would place forces there against America (such as was the issue in 1962), but none of the other countries is at all a legitimate national-security concern to Americans — yet the U.S. Government pretends otherwise. ONLY imperialism is America’s actual reason for its having 900 military base in foreign lands.

The U.S. Government is now expanding its NATO military alliance against Russia so as to make NATO become also a military alliance against China, effectively to globalize its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and turn it into the entire world’s militarized police force coercing all non-U.S. Governments, and thus becoming the dictator to the entire world.

On 4 February 2023, the Wall Street Journal headlined “China Aids Russia’s War in Ukraine, Trade Data Shows: Despite sanctions, Moscow equips its jet fighters, submarines and soldiers with help of Chinese companies”, and opened:

China is providing technology that Moscow’s military needs to prosecute the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine despite an international cordon of sanctions and export controls, according to a Wall Street Journal review of Russian customs data.

The customs records show Chinese state-owned defense companies shipping navigation equipment, jamming technology and jet-fighter parts to sanctioned Russian government-owned defense companies.

Those are but a handful of tens of thousands of shipments of dual-use goods — products that have both commercial and military applications — that Russia imported following its invasion last year, according to the customs records provided to the Journal by C4ADS, a Washington-based nonprofit that specializes in identifying national-security threats.

C4ADS is a ‘charity’ for ‘peace’ that is staffed largely by retired American military experts, and its arguments are founded upon the view that any nation which disobeys the U.S. Government is a ‘threat’ to American national security; in other words, it is solidly neoconservative or U.S.-imperialistic, “You’re either with us or you’re against us”; and they won’t be satisfied (i.e., they assume that there won’t be ‘peace’) until America’s empire includes each and every nation. For them, ‘peace’ can exist only upon the basis of force; everything in international relations is a zero-sum game.

Victory should always go to the strongest. Might makes right. That’s basically the source the WSJ is citing as its authority here. This doesn’t mean the source (C4ADS) is necessarily lying, but that it is arguing for the U.S. to control Russia. Its argument favors continuation of the control over Ukraine on Russia’s border, that the U.S. Government had won in February 2014 in a coup that overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected Government.

This might-makes-right view is popular in America.

Polls (such as this one published on 6 February 2023) show that the American public overwhelmingly favor the result of that coup, which started the war in Ukraine, but don’t know that it had been a coup at all (far less one that was run by U.S. President Obama’s people), which was called by one American expert “the most blatant coup in history.” It was hidden from the American public by the U.S.-and-allied news-media, just like the fact in 2002 had been hidden from them that there no longer were any WMD in Iraq — America and its ‘allies’ invaded there only on the basis of lies. (And even to this day, Americans don’t know that fact.)

The WSJ article continues:

Customs and corporate records show Russia is still able to import … technology through countries that haven’t joined the U.S.-led efforts to cut off Moscow from global markets. Many of the export-controlled products are still flowing through nations such as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, whose governments are accused by Western officials of flouting the sanctions and controls. Turkish officials have said the sanctions are ineffective and that Ankara is playing an important role as an interlocutor with Russia. Under pressure from the U.S., Turkey has moved to halt some financial and business ties.

Notice the WSJ’s sly clause there, “whose governments are accused by Western officials of flouting the sanctions and controls,” implanting in the reader the false idea that those “sanctions and controls” were by international law instead of by imperialistic dictat, and were also implanting the false idea that “Western officials” there represented international law instead of their own U.S.-and-allied international tyranny.

America is now blatantly demanding other nations to comply with laws that the U.S. Government imposes that have no international validity under existing U.N.-authorized international law.

In effect, the U.S. Government is now openly at war against the U.N. itself and trying to replace it by brute force, not only militarily, but via the IMF and other U.N.-authorized organizations, so as to turn them all against the U.N. itself.

America has conquered its ‘allies’ (including — since February 2014 — Ukraine), and is at war against all other nations — its economic “competitors” — all of which it equates (in its implicitly zero-sum way) with being its diplomatic and military ‘enemies’.

If a person defines “evil” as the adjective that refers to any person who prefers zero-sum games to positive-sum games — prefers coercion to cooperation — then is the U.S. Government the most evil force in the world today? That is the question which should be debated and discussed the most, nowadays. Because: a person’s answer to it affects that person’s entire outlook and behavior toward society. The ramifications of this issue are immense.

For example: perhaps America is the world’s most competitive (zero-sum) nation and China is the most cooperative (positive-sum) nation, and perhaps this is the main reason why America especially craves to defeat China. Is that just a difference in ideology, or is it also a difference in ethics: a contest between evil and good?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Duran.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Global Times

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

“I know only one thing: that I know nothing.” –Socrates

I’ve been reading “The Science Delusion” by Rupert Sheldrake, a timely treatise on fallible humans’ hubris.

It ought to be required reading for all public school children, so that they may understand how little the authorities actually know about life on Earth, how it works, and what it means (if anything.)

Knowledge is provisional. It’s multi-pronged. It’s contingent on the observer. And it’s complicated.

Exhibit A is the infamous double-slit experiment of quantum mechanics fame, which defies the laws of physics previously considered absolute fact.

 

The double-slit dilemma stretches the limits of my understanding of physics. I understand it shows light behaving like a wave and a particle at the same time, and the same particle on dual paths simultaneously. These are substantial things for physicists to have been wrong about for hundreds of years.

What discovery tomorrow will similarly undermine basic tenets of 2023 scientific knowledge?

This is the problem with orthodoxy of any kind. It’s a major flaw in conservative thinking in general. By “conservative,” I don’t mean the right-wing political ideology but the unwillingness to embrace new ideas in favor of old ones for no other reason than they are already established.

Whereas the high priest class once dominated the social hierarchy, sciencism is the trendy new religion of the intellectual elite – equally dogmatic in its epistemological approach to studying the natural world.

God died (metaphorically) unceremoniously about 200 years ago. But because there’s good evidence humans actually require someone or something to revere and to center culture around as a source of meaning, the bearded, robed God of the Bible was replaced with technocratic Science™, and scientists, as the object of worship in industrialized society.

But man, no matter how well-credentialed, doesn’t know very much more now than he did 200 years ago relative to the vast undocumented Great Beyond, which is still largely a mystery.

95% of the world is dark matter, as Sheldrake notes in his book, among multiple other illustrations of the limits of human knowledge.

No one has ever even objectively observed dark matter; we’re still as a collective species totally in the dark, metaphorically, on what dark matter actually is or how it works or how it interacts with light matter. It’s a total proverbial black box.

Given that 95% of the universe is locked in a black hole, untouched by human consciousness, you would expect some humility from the so-called “experts.”

For all the impressive achievements over the past several hundred years, they understand literally nothing about 95% of the matter in the universe. Their knowledge, in the best-case scenario, represents an infinitesimally small fraction of all the knowable knowledge out there in the ether.

Instead of humility, we’re treated to the weasel  Anthony Fauci, seated on the throne at the apex of the institutional hierarchy, declaring himself The Science™ with a straight face on national television, to a cacophony of uncritical applause by the neoliberal ruling class.

Hallelujah!

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Daily Bell.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Armageddon Prose and/or Substack, Locals, Gab, and Twitter. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from TDB

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on ‘Sciencism’ Is Religious Fundamentalism by Another Name
  • Tags:

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Now and then, even the most seasoned politician happens to slip up and accidently speak the truth. This is what occurred during a recent debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, when the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock openly stated that “we are fighting a war against Russia”. The German government was quick to say her words had been “misinterpreted”, but the truth is that she did nothing more than say it how it is.

Almost a year into the conflict, the narrative of Western intervention in Ukraine — that “Nato is not at war with Russia” and that “the equipment we’re providing is purely defensive” — is being revealed for what it always was: a fiction. Last month, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, another kernel of truth slipped through the cracks at a briefing by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley. Austin and Miller stated in no uncertain terms that the US was committed to going “on the offensive to liberate Russian-occupied Ukraine” — which, according to the United States, includes both the entire Donbas and Crimea.

The admission that the weapons being provided by the US and Nato are of an offensive, not defensive, character marks a significant U-turn for the Biden administration. In March last year, Biden promised the public that the US would not send “offensive equipment” and “planes and tanks” to Ukraine, because this would trigger “World War III”. Indeed, just a few months ago, the provision of tanks to Ukraine was still deemed unthinkable.

Yet in the coming months, the US is planning to deliver 31 Abrams tanks, and even Germany, after weeks of reluctance, has caved in to the immense pressure coming from Washington and other allies. The German government has agreed to send 14 of its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, and has also given the go-ahead to a number of other European countries which want to send their own German-made Leopard 2 tanks. Meanwhile, the UK has committed 14 of its own tanks. In total, Ukraine is set to receive around 100 tanks, but the number is likely to go up (Zelensky has asked for 300-500).

This is simply the latest in a long list of red lines that the US and Nato have crossed since the start of the conflict. At the start of the war, the New York Times cautioned that the overt supply of even small arms and light weaponry — initial provisions were limited to rocket launchers and anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles — “risks encouraging a wider war and possible retaliation” from Russia, while US officials ruled out more advanced weaponry as too escalatory. Just two months later, the Biden administration backtracked and announced that it would in fact be sending Mi-17 helicopters, 155-mm Howitzer cannons and Switchblade “kamikaze” drones.

At that point, a new red line was drawn: despite Kyiv’s requests, the US said it would not provide Ukraine with long-range rocket systems capable of striking inside Russian territory (the M270 MLRS and the M142 HIMARS) due to concerns in Washington that this “could be seen as an escalation by the Kremlin”. It took the administration just two weeks to change its mind, on the condition that Ukraine would not use them against targets on Russian territory — until, in December, that line was crossed as well, when Ukraine hit airfields hundreds of kilometres into Russia (with the US’s approval). The about-face over the shipment of battle tanks was just as quick, as we’ve seen.

In this apparently never-ending escalation, the only question is: what’s next? Ukraine is now pushing for Western fourth-generation fighter jets, such as the US F-16s. Biden and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have ruled this out, but there’s no reason to believe they won’t backpedal on the F-16s as well, just as they’ve done on every other self-imposed red line. The Ukrainians, for their part, seem pretty confident. As the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksii Reznikov, recently stated: “When I was in DC in November [2021], before the invasion, and asked for Stingers, they told me it was impossible. Now it’s possible. When I asked for 155-millimeter guns, the answer was no. HIMARS, no. HARM [missiles], no. Now all of that is a yes. Therefore, I’m certain that tomorrow there will be…F-16s.”

We can, therefore, expect fighter jets to be on the agenda at the Nato meeting next week. Several European countries, including France, have already signalled their openness to sending fighter jets to Ukraine and, according to Politico, Ukrainian pilots could soon start training on the F-16s in the United States. In the meantime, Lockheed Martin — one of the many US defence companies making a killing thanks to the conflict — has announced that it is going to ramp up production to meet the extra demand.

Jet fighters aside, however, we need to acknowledge that we are alreadyat war with Russia, as the German Foreign Minister inadvertently admitted. The fact that there has been no formal declaration of war is beside the point: the United States has not officially declared war since the Second World War, but this has not stopped it from intervening militarily in dozens of countries. The presence of actual American or Nato soldiers on the ground (though there have been reports of the presence of US special operations forces in Ukraine) is also, ultimately, of secondary importance. By providing increasingly powerful military equipment as well as financial, technical, logistical and training support to one of the warring factions, including for offensive operations (even within Russian territory), the West is engaged in a de facto military confrontation with Russia, regardless of what our leaders may claim.

Western citizens deserve to be told what is going on in Ukraine — and what the stakes are. Perhaps the wildest claim being made is that “if we deliver all the weapons Ukraine needs, they can win”, as former Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recently asserted. For Rasmussen, and other Western hawks, this includes retaking Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 and which it considers of the utmost strategic importance. Many Western allies still consider this an uncrossable red line. But for how long? Just last month, the New York Times reported that the Biden administration is warming up to the idea of backing a Ukrainian offensive on Crimea.

This strategy is based on the assumption that Russia will accept a military defeat and the loss of the territories it controls without resorting to the unthinkable — the use of nuclear weapons. But this is a massive assumption on which to gamble the future of humanity, especially coming from the very Western strategists who disastrously botched every major military forecast over the past 20 years, from Iraq to Afghanistan. The truth is that, from Russia’s perspective, it is fighting against what it perceives to be an existential threat in Ukraine, and there is no reason to believe that, with its back against the wall, it won’t go to extreme measures to guarantee its survival. As Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, put it: “The loss of a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war. Nuclear powers do not lose major conflicts on which their fate depends.”

During the Cold War, this was widely understood by Western leaders. But today, by constantly escalating their support for Ukraine’s military, the United States and Nato appear to have forgotten it, and are instead inching closer to a catastrophic scenario. As Douglas Macgregor, the former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, has written: “Neither we nor our allies are prepared to fight all-out war with Russia, regionally or globally. The point is, if war breaks out between Russia and the United States, Americans should not be surprised. The Biden administration and its bipartisan supporters in Washington are doing all they possibly can to make it happen.” According to a number of experts, a Ukrainian offensive on Crimea is one of the most likely ways this conflict could lead to nuclear warfare. Excluding a such extreme outcome, and barring a peaceful resolution to the conflict, the most likely scenario is the “Afghanistanisation” of Ukraine: a protracted conflict that could potentially last years, given that it is just as unlikely that Nato will allow Ukraine to be militarily defeated — whatever that would entail.

The simple truth, then, is that no one can “win” this war. Meanwhile, a protracted war only increases the likelihood of a direct conflict between Russia and Nato. This is now even acknowledged by the RAND corporation, the very influential and ultra-hawkish US military think tank. In a new report titled Avoiding a Long War, the authors warn against the risk of a “protracted conflict”, saying that this would lead to “a prolonged elevated risk of Russian nuclear use and a Nato-Russia war” that would seriously jeopardise US interests. “Avoiding these two forms of escalation”, they argue, is therefore “the paramount US priority” — also higher than “weakening Russia” or “facilitating significantly more Ukrainian territorial control”. This means that US interests would be best served by focusing on reaching “a political settlement” that might deliver a “durable peace”, for example by “condition[ing] future military aid on a Ukrainian commitment to negotiations”.

Ultimately, catastrophic scenarios aside, this is the most likely way in which the war will end — with a deal in which neither side loses or wins. Delaying this inevitable outcome simply means imposing more unnecessary death and destruction on Ukraine — and more economic suffering on a continent that is fast reaching breaking point.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Thomas Fazi is an UnHerd columnist and translator. His latest book is The Covid Consensus, co-authored with Toby Green.

Featured image is from Donbass Insider

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on We Are Already at War with Russia. Never-ending Escalation Will Result in Catastrophe.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Important Report by Michael Klare.

Preface and Executive summary below. Link to Complete Report

 

Preface

In commencing work on this document, I attended the Kalaris Intelligence Conference at Georgetown University in September 2019. Among the featured speakers at the conference, which focused on the military applications of artificial intelligence (AI),
was Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, then-director of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC). After expounding for 30 minutes on the benefits of utilizing AI for military purposes, Shanahan opened the floor for questions. Quickly raising my hand, I inquired, “I understand your enthusiasm about exploiting the benefits of AI, but do you have any doubts about employing AI in computerized nuclear command-and-control systems?”

“You will find no stronger proponent of the integration of AI capabilities writ large into the Department of Defense,” he responded, “but there is one area where I pause, and it has to do with nuclear command and control.” Given the immaturity of technology today, “We have to be very careful. [You need to] give us a lot of time to test and evaluate.”

This dichotomy between the impulse to weaponize AI as rapidly as possible and the deep anxiety about the risks in doing so runs throughout the official discourse on what are called “emerging technologies”—which, in addition to artificial intelligence, include robotics, autonomy, cyber, and hypersonics. The military utilization of these technologies, as claimed by their proponents, will provide U.S. military forces with a significant advantage in future wars against other well- armed major powers. At the same time, analysts within and outside the defense establishment have warned about potentially catastrophic consequences arising from their indiscriminate use.

The same dichotomy arises, for example, in the Final Report of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, submitted to Congress and the White House in February 2021. “Our armed forces’ competitive military-technical advantage could be lost within the next decade if they do not accelerate the adoption of AI across their missions,” the report warns in its opening pages. To ensure this does not occur, the armed forces must “achieve a state of military AI readiness by 2025.” Much of the rest of the 756-page report focuses on proposals for achieving this status—many of which have since been incorporated into legislation or Pentagon directives. But once one reads deep into the report, they will find misgivings of the sort expressed by General Shanahan.

“While the Commission believes that properly designed, tested, and utilized AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems will bring substantial military and even humanitarian benefit,” the report states, “the unchecked global use of such systems potentially risks unintended conflict escalation and crisis instability.” In recognition of this danger, the report devoted four pages to a few modest steps for reducing the risk of such dangers, but buried them in a long list of recommendations for accelerating the weaponization of AI.

We at the Arms Control Association believe that appeals for the military utilization of emerging technologies and assessments of their destabilizing and escalatory dangers require a better balance. While not denying that certain advanced technologies may provide potential military benefits, this primer aims to balance the scales by way of a thorough and rigorous appraisal of the likely downsides of such utilization. In particular, it focuses on the threats to “strategic stability” posed by the military use of these technologies—that is, the risk that their use will result in the accidental, unintended, or premature use of nuclear weapons in a great-power crisis.

By publishing this report, we aim to better inform policymakers, journalists, educators, and members of the public about the race to weaponize emerging technologies and the dangers inherent in doing so. While the media and the U.S. Congress have devoted much attention to the purported benefits of exploiting cutting-edge technologies for military use, far less has been said about the risks involved. Hopefully, this primer will help overcome this imbalance by illuminating the many dangers inherent in the unconstrained exploitation of these technologies.

The primer is organized into six chapters, each based on an article that originally appeared in ACA’s flagship journal, Arms Control Today (ACT).

Chapter 1, “The Challenges of Emerging Technologies,” introduces the concept of “emerging technologies” and summarizes the debate over their utilization for military purposes and their impact on strategic stability. It highlights the centrality of artificial intelligence in many of these advances, particularly the development of autonomous or “unmanned” weapons systems. Chapter 1 also provides a brief overview of the four technologies given close examination in this report: autonomous weapons systems, hypersonic weapons, cyberweapons, and automated battlefield decision-making systems. This chapter is based on an article that first appeared in the December 2018 issue of ACT.

Chapter 2, “Autonomous Weapons Systems and the Laws of War,” focuses on lethal autonomous weapons systems. Devices of this sort combine combat platforms of varying sorts—planes, tanks, ships, and so on—with AI software enabling them to survey their surroundings, identify possible enemy targets, and, under certain predetermined conditions, independently decide to attack those targets. This chapter identifies the types of unmanned weapons now being developed and deployed by the major powers and discusses the moral and ethical objections about their use, as well as their potential conflict with the laws of war. This chapter is based on an article that first appeared in the March 2019 issue of ACT.

Chapter 3, “An ‘Arms Race in Speed’: Hypersonic Weapons and the Changing Calculus of Battle,” examines hypersonic weapons, or projectiles that fly at more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5). Projectiles of this sort appeal to military officials given their speed and maneuverability, but also pose a threat to strategic stability by endangering key defensive assets of nuclear-armed states, possibly leading to the premature use of nuclear weapons. This chapter is based on an article that first appeared in the June 2019 issue of ACT.

Chapter 4, “Cyber Battles, Nuclear Outcomes? Dangerous New Pathways to Escalation,” looks at cyberspace and the dangers arising from the offensive use of cyberweapons in a great-power conflict. As the chapter suggests, a cyberattack on an adversary’s nuclear command, control, and communications systems during such a crisis might lead the target state to believe it faces an imminent nuclear attack and so prompt it to launch its own nuclear weapons. This chapter is based on an article that first appeared in the November 2019 issue of ACT.

Chapter 5, “’Skynet’ Revisited: The Dangerous Allure of Nuclear Command Automation,” considers the implications of automating combat decision- making systems. While such systems—such as the Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command-and- Control (JADC2) enterprise—could theoretically help battlefield commanders cope with the deluge of incoming information they are often confronted with, they might also usurp the role of humans in combat decision-making, leading to accidental or inadvertent escalation. This chapter is based on an article that first appeared in the April 2020 issue of ACT.

Finally, Chapter 6, “A Framework Strategy for Reducing the Escalatory Dangers of Emerging Technologies,” summarizes the analyses articulated in the first five chapters and provides an overarching strategy for curtailing the indiscriminate weaponization of emerging technologies. While no single approach can adequately meet a challenge of this magnitude, a constellation of targeted measures—ranging from awareness-raising to unilateral actions, Tracks 2 and 1.5 diplomacy, strategic stability talks, confidence-building measures, and formal agreements—could, in time, slow the pace of weaponization and bolster strategic stability. This chapter is based on an article that first appeared in the December 2020 issue of ACT.

As General Shanahan indicated in 2019, the initiation of nuclear combat represents the “ultimate human decision.” During the Cold War, the world’s top leaders came face-to-face with the risk of Armageddon, prompting significant arms control efforts to reduce that risk. Today, however, developments in geopolitics and technology are again increasing the danger of nuclear weapons use. We hope that this primer will help readers understand the technological aspects of this danger and spur them to advocate for reasonable limitations on the military use of destabilizing technologies.

Executive Summary

Increasingly in recent years, the major powers have sought to exploit advanced technologies— artificial intelligence (AI), autonomy, cyber, and hypersonics, among others—for military purposes, with potentially far-ranging, dangerous consequences. Similar to what occurred when chemical and nuclear technologies were first applied to warfare, many analysts believe that the military utilization of AI and other such “emerging technologies” will revolutionize warfare, making obsolete the weapons and the strategies of the past. In accordance with this outlook, the U.S. Department of Defense is allocating ever- increasing sums to research on these technologies and their application to military use, as are the militaries of the other major powers.

But even as the U.S. military and those of other countries accelerate the exploitation of new technologies for military use, many analysts have cautioned against proceeding with such haste until more is known about the inadvertent and hazardous consequences of doing so. Analysts worry, for example, that AI-enabled systems may fail in unpredictable ways, causing unintended human slaughter or uncontrolled escalation.

Of particular concern to arms control analysts is the potential impact of emerging technologies on “strategic stability,” or a condition in which nuclear- armed states eschew the first use of nuclear weapons in a crisis. The introduction of weapons employing AI and other emerging technologies could endanger strategic stability by blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear attack, leading to the premature use of nuclear weapons.

Animated by such concerns, arms control advocates and citizen activists in many countries have sought to slow the weaponization of AI and other emerging technologies or to impose limits of various sorts on their battlefield employment. For example, state parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) have considered proposals to ban the development and the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems—or “killer robots,” as they are termed by critics. Other approaches to the regulation of emerging technologies, including a variety of unilateral and multilateral measures, have also advanced in recent years.

AI and Autonomous Weapons Systems

Among the most prominent applications of emerging technologies to military use is the widespread introduction of autonomous weapons systems— devices that combine AI software with combat platforms of various sorts (ships, tanks, planes, and so on) to identify, track, and attack enemy targets on their own. Typically, these systems incorporate software that determines the parameters of their operation, such as the geographical space within which they can function and the types of target they may engage, and under what circumstances.

At present, each branch of the U.S. military, and the forces of the other major powers, are developing— and in some cases fielding—several families of autonomous combat systems, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), unmanned surface vessels (USVs), and unmanned undersea vessels (UUVs).

The U.S. Navy, for example, intends to employ a fleet of USVs and UUVs to conduct reconnaissance operations in contested areas and, if war breaks out, launch antiship and land-attack missiles against enemy targets. The U.S. Air Force has embraced a “loyal wingman” approach, whereby armed UAVs will help defend manned aircraft when flying in contested airspace by attacking enemy fighters. The U.S. Army seeks to reduce the dangers to its frontline troops by developing a family of robotic combat systems, including, eventually, a robotic tank. Russian and Chinese forces are developing and deploying unmanned systems with similar characteristics.

The development and the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems like these raise significant moral and legal challenges. To begin with, such devices are being empowered to employ lethal force against enemy targets, including human beings, without significant human oversight—moves that run counter to the widely-shared moral and religious principle that only humans can take the life of another human. Critics also contend that the weapons will never be able to abide by the laws of war and international humanitarian law, as spelled out in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the Geneva Convention and 1949. These statutes require that warring parties distinguish between combatants and non-combatants when conducting military operations and employ only as much force as required to achieve a specific military objective. Proponents of autonomous weapons claim that the systems will, in time, prove capable of making such distinctions in the heat of battle, but opponents insist that only humans possess this ability, and so all such devices should be banned.

In recognition of these dangers, a concerted effort has been undertaken under the aegis of the CCW to adopt an additional protocol prohibiting the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems. As the CCW operates by consensus and state parties have opposed such a measure, proponents of a ban are exploring other strategies for their prohibition, such as an international treaty under UN General Assembly auspices. Some members of the European Union have also proposed a non-binding code of conduct covering LAWS deployment, requiring continuous human supervision of their use in combat.

Hypersonic Weapons

Hypersonic weapons are usually defined as missiles than can travel at more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) and fly at lower altitudes than intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which also fly at hypersonic speeds. At present, the United States, China, Russia, and several other countries are engaged in the development and fielding of two types of hypersonic weapons (both of which may carry either nuclear or conventional warheads): hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), unpowered projectiles that “glide” along the Earth’s outer atmosphere after being released from a booster rocket; and hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs), which are powered by high-speed air-breathing engines, called “scramjets.”

Weapons of these types possess several capabilities that make them attractive to military officials. Due to their high speed and superior maneuverability, hypersonic missiles can be used early in a conflict to attack high-value enemy assets, such as air-defense radars, missile batteries, and command-and- control (C2) facilities. Since hypersonic missiles fly closer to the Earth than ICBMs and possess greater maneuverability, they may be capable of evading anti- missile systems designed to work against other types of offensive weapons.

All three major powers have explored similar types of hypersonic missiles, but their strategic calculations in doing so appear to vary: The United States currently seeks such weapons for use in a regional, non-nuclear conflict, whereas China and Russia appear to be emphasizing their use in nuclear as well as conventional applications.

The U.S. Air Force has undertaken the development of two such missiles for use in a regional context: the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), slated to be the first U.S. hypersonic weapon to enter service, and the hypersonic attack cruise missile (HACM). Concurrently, the U.S. Army and Navy have been working jointly on a common hypersonic boost-glide vehicle for use by both services, along with booster rockets to carry the HGV into the atmosphere. Russia has deployed the nuclear-armed Avangard HGV on a number of its SS-19 Stiletto ICBMs, while China has tested the Dongfeng-17 (DF-17), a medium-range ballistic missile fitted with a dual-capable (nuclear or conventional) HGV warhead.

While most of these weapons programs remain in the development or early deployment stage, their presence has already sparked concerns among policymakers and arms control advocates regarding their potential impact on strategic stability. Analysts worry, for example, that the use of hypersonic weapons early in a conventional engagement to subdue an adversary’s critical assets could be interpreted as the prelude to a nuclear first-strike, and so prompt the target state to launch its own nuclear munitions if unsure of its attacker’s intentions.

At present, there is no established venue in which officials of China, Russia, and the United States can meet to discuss formal limits on hypersonic weapons. The U.S.-Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue could serve as a possible forum for direct talks between government officials on these topics. While Washington paused the dialogue following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two sides should return to the table as soon as circumstances allow. A U.S.-China strategic dialogue, if and when established, could address similar concerns.

Cyberattack and Nuclear C3

The cyberspace domain—while immensely valuable for a multitude of public, private, and commercial functions—has also proven to be an attractive arena for great-power competition, given the domain’s vulnerability to a wide variety of malicious and aggressive activities. These range from cyberespionage, or the theft of military secrets and technological data, to offensive actions intended to disable an enemy’s command, control, and communications (C3) systems, thereby degrading its ability to wage war successfully. Such operations might also be aimed at an adversary’s nuclear C3 (NC3) systems; in such a scenario, one side or the other—fearing that a nuclear exchange is imminent—could attempt to minimize its exposure to attack by disabling its adversary’s NC3 systems.

Analysts warn that any cyberattack on an adversary’s NC3 systems in the midst of a major crisis or conventional conflict could prove highly destabilizing. Upon detecting interference in its critical command systems, the target state might well conclude that an adversary had launched a pre-emptive nuclear strike against it, and so might launch its own nuclear weapons rather than risk their loss to the other side.

The widespread integration of conventional with nuclear C3 compounds these dangers. For reasons of economy and convenience, the major powers have chosen to rely on the same early-warning and communications links to serve both their nuclear and conventional forces—a phenomenon described by James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as “entanglement.” In the event of a great-power conflict, one side or the other might employ cyberweapons to disable the conventional C3 systems of its adversary in the opening stages of a nonnuclear assault, but its opponent—possibly fearing that its nuclear systems are the intended target— might launch its nuclear weapons prematurely.

The utilization of cyberspace for military purposes poses significant challenges for arms control. Existing means of inspection and verification cannot currently detect cyberweapons, whose very existence is often hard to prove. With the proliferation of cyberweapons creating new and severe threats to strategic stability, policymakers bear responsibility for developing strategies to prevent accidental and unintended escalation. Some of the most effective, stabilizing measures, analysts agree, would be U.S.-Russian and U.S.-Chinese bilateral agreements to abstain from cyberattacks on each other’s NC3 systems.

Automated Battlefield Decision-Making

With the introduction of new hypersonic weapons and other highly capable conventional weapons, the pace of warfare will likely increase and, as a result, exacerbate the pressure on battle commanders to make rapid combat decisions. In response, the militaries of the major powers plan to rely increasingly on AI- enabled battlefield decision-making systems to aid human commanders in processing vast amounts of data on enemy movements and identifying possible combat responses.

Within the U.S. military, the principal mechanism for undertaking the development of automated systems of this sort is the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) program. Overseen by the Air Force under its Advanced Battlefield Management System, JADC2 is envisioned as a constellation of computers working together to collect sensor data from myriad platforms, organize the data into digestible chunks, and provide commanders with a menu of possible combat options. While JADC2 is initially intended for conventional operations, the program will eventually connect to the nation’s NC3 systems.

The increased automation of battlefield decision- making, especially given the likely integration of nuclear and conventional C3 systems, gives rise to numerous concerns. Many of these technologies are still in their infancy and prone to often unanticipated malfunctions. Skilled professionals can also fool, or “spoof,” AI-enabled systems, causing unintended and possibly dangerous outcomes. Furthermore, no matter how much is spent on cybersecurity, computer systems will always remain vulnerable to hacking by sophisticated adversaries.

Given these risks, Chinese, Russian, and U.S. policymakers should be leery of accelerating the automation of their C3 systems. Ideally, government officials and technical experts of the three countries should meet—presumably in a format akin to the U.S.-Russian Strategic Stability Dialogue—to consider limitations on the use of any automated decision- making devices with ties to nuclear command systems. Until meetings of this sort become feasible, experts from these countries should meet in neutral venues to identify the dangers inherent in reliance on such systems and explore various measures for their control.

An unmanned Boeing MQ-25 T1 Stingray test aircraft, left, refuels a manned F/A-18 Super Hornet, June 4, 2021, near MidAmerica Airport in Mascoutah, Illinois. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Boeing)

A Framework Strategy for Reducing the Escalatory Risks of Emerging Technologies

Military leaders of the major powers aim to exploit the perceived benefits of emerging technologies as rapidly as possible, in the belief that doing so will give them a combat advantage in future great-power conflicts. However, this drive to exploit emerging technologies for military use has accelerated at a much faster pace than efforts to assess the dangers they pose and to establish limits on their use. It is essential, then, to slow the pace of weaponizing these technologies, to carefully weigh the risks in doing so, and to adopt meaningful restraints on their military use.

Given the variety and the complexity of the technologies involved in this endeavor, no single overarching treaty or agreement will likely be able to institute restraints on all of the technologies involved. Thus, leaders of the relevant countries should focus on adopting a framework strategy, aimed at advancing an array of measures which, however specific their intended outcome, all contribute to the larger goal of preventing unintended escalation and enhancing strategic stability.

In devising and implementing such measures, policymakers can proceed in a step-by-step fashion, from more informal, non-binding measures to increasingly specific, binding agreements. The following proposed action steps are derived from the toolbox developed by arms control advocates over many years of practice and experimentation.

  • Awareness-Building: Efforts to educate policymakers and the general public about the risks posed by the unregulated military use of emerging technologies.
  • Track 2 and Track 1.5 Diplomacy: Discussions among scientists, engineers, and arms control experts from the major powers to identify the risks posed by emerging technologies and possible strategies for their control. “Track 2 diplomacy” of this sort can be expanded at some point to include governmental experts (“Track 1.5 diplomacy”).
  • Unilateral and Joint Initiatives: Steps taken by the major powers on their own or among groups of like-minded states to reduce the risks associated with emerging technologies in the absence of formal arms control agreements to this end.
  • Strategic Stability Talks: Discussions among senior officials of China, Russia, and the United States on the risks to strategic stability posed by the weaponization of certain emerging technologies and on joint measures to diminish these risks. These can be accompanied by confidence-building measures (CBMs), intended to build trust in implementing and verifying formal agreements in this area.
  • Bilateral and Multilateral Arrangements: Once the leaders of the major powers come to appreciate the escalatory risks posed by the weaponization of emerging technologies, it may be possible for them to reach accord on bilateral and multilateral arrangements intended to minimize these risks.

The failure to adopt such measures will allow for the application of cutting-edge technologies to military systems at an ever-increasing tempo, greatly magnifying the risks to world security. A more thorough understanding of the distinctive threats to strategic stability posed by certain destabilizing technologies and the imposition of restraints on their military use would go a long way toward reducing the risks of Armageddon.

Click here to read the full report.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Assessing the Dangers: Emerging Military Technologies and Nuclear (In)Stability

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, lethal autonomous weapons systems, and hypersonic missiles pose a potentially existential threat that underscores the imperative of arms control measures to slow the pace of weaponization, according to a new report published Tuesday.

The Arms Control Association report—entitled Assessing the Dangers: Emerging Military Technologies and Nuclear (In)Stability—”unpacks the concept of ’emerging technologies’ and summarizes the debate over their utilization for military purposes and their impact on strategic stability.”

The publication notes that the world’s military powers “have sought to exploit advanced technologies—artificial intelligence, autonomy, cyber, and hypersonics, among others—to gain battlefield advantages” but warns too little has been said about the dangers these weapons represent.

“Some officials and analysts posit that such emerging technologies will revolutionize warfare, making obsolete the weapons and strategies of the past,” the report states. “Yet, before the major powers move quickly ahead with the weaponization of these technologies, there is a great need for policymakers, defense officials, diplomats, journalists, educators, and members of the public to better understand the unintended and hazardous outcomes of these technologies.”

Lethal autonomous weapons systems—defined by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots as armaments that operate independent of “meaningful human control”—are being developed by nations including China, Israel, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The U.S. Air Force’s sci-fi-sounding Skyborg Autonomous Control System, currently under development, is, according to the report, “intended to control multiple drone aircraft simultaneously and allow them to operate in ‘swarms,’ coordinating their actions with one another with minimum oversight by human pilots.”

“Although the rapid deployment of such systems appears highly desirable to many military officials, their development has generated considerable alarm among diplomats, human rights campaigners, arms control advocates, and others who fear that deploying fully autonomous weapons in battle would severely reduce human oversight of combat operations, possibly resulting in violations of international law, and could weaken barriers that restrain escalation from conventional to nuclear war,” the report notes.

The latter half of the 20th century witnessed numerous nuclear close calls, many based on misinterpretations, limitations, or outright failures of technology. While technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) are often touted as immune to human fallibility, the research suggests that such claims and hubris could have deadly and unforeseen consequences.

“An increased reliance on AI could lead to new types of catastrophic mistakes,” a 2018 report by the Rand Corporation warned. “There may be pressure to use it before it is technologically mature; it may be susceptible to adversarial subversion; or adversaries may believe that the AI is more capable than it is, leading them to make catastrophic mistakes.”

While the Pentagon in 2020 adopted five principles for what it calls the “ethical” use of AI, many ethicists argue the only safe course of action is a total ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems.

Hypersonic missiles, which can travel at speeds of Mach 5—five times the speed of sound—or faster, are now part of at least the U.S., Chinese, and Russian arsenals. Last year, Russian officials acknowledged deploying Kinzhal hypersonic missiles three times during the country’s invasion of Ukraine in what is believed to be the first-ever use of such weapons in combat. In recent years, China has tested multiple hypersonic missile variants using specially designed high-altitude balloons. Countries including Australia, France, India, Japan, Germany, Iran, and North Korea are also developing hypersonic weapons.

The report also warns of the escalatory potential of cyberwarfare and automated battlefield decision-making.

“As was the case during World Wars I and II, the major powers are rushing ahead with the weaponization of advanced technologies before they have fully considered—let alone attempted to mitigate—the consequences of doing so, including the risk of significant civilian casualties and the accidental or inadvertent escalation of conflict,” Michael Klare, a board member at the Arms Control Association and the report’s lead author, said in a statement.

“While the media and the U.S. Congress have devoted much attention to the purported benefits of exploiting cutting-edge technologies for military use, far less has been said about the risks involved,” he added.

The report asserts that bilateral and multilateral agreements between countries that “appreciate the escalatory risks posed by the weaponization of emerging technologies” are critical to minimizing those dangers.

“As an example of a useful first step, the leaders of the major nuclear powers could jointly pledge to eschew cyberattacks” against each other’s command, control, communications, and information (C3I) systems, the report states. A code of conduct governing the military use of artificial intelligence based on the Pentagon’s AI ethics principles is also recommended.

“If the major powers are prepared to discuss binding restrictions on the military use of destabilizing technologies, certain priorities take precedence,” the paper argues. “The first would be an agreement or agreements prohibiting attacks on the nuclear C3I systems of another state by cyberspace means or via missile strikes, especially hypersonic strikes.”

“Another top priority would be measures aimed at preventing swarm attacks by autonomous weapons on another state’s missile submarines, mobile ICBMs, and other second-strike retaliatory systems,” the report continues, referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles. “Strict limitations should be imposed on the use of automated decision-support systems with the capacity to inform or initiate major battlefield decisions, including a requirement that humans exercise ultimate control over such devices.”

“Without the adoption of measures such as these, cutting-edge technologies will be converted into military systems at an ever-increasing tempo, and the dangers to world security will grow apace,” the publication concluded. “A more thorough understanding of the distinctive threats to strategic stability posed by these technologies and the imposition of restraints on their military use would go a long way toward reducing the risks of Armageddon.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Featured image: U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jacob Puente secures a Lockheed Martin AGM-183A to a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber at Edwards Air Force Base in Kern County, California on August 8, 2020. (Photo: Giancarlo Casem/USAF)

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on New Report Unpacks Dangers of Emerging Military Tech, From AI Nukes to Killer Robots
  • Tags: ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Khaled Hboubati, demanded on Tuesday, February 7, that Western countries, specifically the US and its allies, lift their siege and sanctions on Syria so that rescue and relief work can proceed unimpeded, after the country was devastated by a powerful earthquake on Monday.

“We need heavy equipment, ambulances and fire fighting vehicles to continue to rescue and remove the rubble, and this entails lifting sanctions on Syria as soon as possible,” Hboubati said at a press conference on Tuesday, as reported by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

A powerful earthquake registering a magnitude of 7.8 struck Turkey and Syria on Monday. Over 5,000 people have been reported dead so far. In Syria alone the death toll was 1,602 on Monday. These numbers are only expected to rise as a large number of people are suspected to be still buried under the debris of houses that collapsed in the earthquake and its aftershocks.

Kahramanmaraş, a city in Turkey, was reported to be the epicenter of the earthquake, and the nearby city of Gaziantep—home to millions of Syrian refugees—was reportedly hit the hardest. Relief and rescue operations in Turkey have been affected by bad weather as several of the affected areas have received heavy rain and snowfall on Monday and Tuesday.

Syria’s northern provinces such as Idlib, Latakia, Hama, and Aleppo have also been badly affected by the earthquake. Some of the affected areas in Idlib and Aleppo are under rebel control and densely populated by refugees from other parts of the country.

Though several countries including the US and its allies have extended their support to Turkey in its relief and rescue work, they have refused to extend similar assistance to Syria. The US State Department made it clear on Monday that it was only willing to support some work carried out in Syria by NGOs, but that it would have no dealings with the Bashar al-Assad government. “It would be quite ironic—if not even counterproductive—for us to reach out to a government that has brutalized its people over the course of a dozen years now,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, as quoted by Al Jazeera.

On Monday, the Syrian government had issued an appeal to the international community asking for help. Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad is quoted in Al-Mayadeen as having said that his government was willing “to provide all the required facilities to international organizations so they can give Syrians humanitarian aid.”

Sanctions hamper relief and rescue work

Claiming that “Current US sanctions severely restrict aid assistance to millions of Syrians,” the American Arab anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) asked the US government on Monday to lift its sanctions. While it said that the NGOs working on the ground were doing a commendable job, it also said that the “lifting of the sanctions will open the doors for additional and supplemental aid that will provide immediate relief to those in need.”

The US Congress had adopted the so-called Caesar Act in 2020, according to which any group or company doing business with the Syrian government faces sanctions. The act extends the scope of the previously existing sanctions on Syria, imposed by the US and its European allies since the beginning of the war in the country in 2011.

The impact of sanctions on Syria’s health and other social sectors and its overall economic recovery have been criticized by the UN on several occasions in the past. The UN has also demanded that all unilateral punitive measures against Syria be lifted.

Meanwhile, countries such as China, Iran, Russia, Cuba, Algeria, and the UAE, among others, have expressed their willingness to provide necessary support to Syria, and have sent relief materials already.

Al-Mayadeen has however reported that the delivery of international aid, as well as the speed of relief and rescue work in Syria, continue to be impeded as the Damascus international airport is not fully operational at the moment. The airport was hit by an Israeli missile on January 2 and repair work is not yet complete.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image: The Syrian Arab Red Crescent demanded Western countries to lift sanctions on Syria to help with rescue and relief work, February 7, 2023. (Photo: SANA)

Biden Bullies China. But It Won’t Work

February 9th, 2023 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

There is no question that the circumstances surrounding the “balloon affair” between the United States and China are dodgy. Burlesque does not belong to China’s diplomatic toolbox. China never used balloons to browbeat adversaries. 

Unsurprisingly, expert opinion largely tends to go along with the Chinese contention, which implies that Beijing had no need to resort to such outmoded and difficult-to-control means such as a gas-filled balloon hoisted at 60000 feet above ground propelled by the winds to conduct surveillance over America’s super secret nuclear weapon sites when it has as sophisticated means as Americans would have to spy other countries through satellites. That seems a credible rationale, isn’t it? 

The big question is, can the balloon affair be the work of Vayu, the Hindu god of the winds, who in Indian mythology also is believed to act at times as the divine messenger of the gods? 

Seriously, Beijing insists that a Chinese company’s weather test balloon “with limited self-steering capability” deviated far from its planned course and was blown by winds across North America sometime early last week. 

From available details, Pentagon was all along tracking that wayward balloon and, in fact, President Biden was kept informed, who had promptly ordered it to be shot down, but inexplicably, nothing was done for days until on Saturday, as it drifted off the US’ east coast heading toward the vast Atlantic Ocean, it was brought down in a blaze of media publicity. 

However, a day earlier, on Friday, the White House abruptly announced the postponement of a major two-day visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken (during which he was expected to meet President Xi Jinping.) 

Biden took these extreme steps despite China’s plea that this was “entirely an unexpected situation caused by force majeure and the facts are very clear” and Beijing, in fact, even expressed “regret” (which is tantamount to an amende honorable, as the French would say.) 

Furthermore, there was even a conversation on Friday between Blinken and Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. Beijing’s readout noted that the two top officials “communicated with each other on how to deal with a chance occurrence in a calm and professional manner.” 

The initial Chinese Foreign Ministry press releases (here and here) were in a manifestly  conciliatory spirit. But Blinken chose to do some grandstanding and took a tough posturing calling it “an irresponsible act and a clear violation of US sovereignty and international law that undermined the purpose” of his forthcoming trip to Beijing. 

According to a Xinhua news agency report, the Chinese Foreign Ministry since expressed “strong dissatisfaction and opposition towards the US use of force to attack China’s civilian unmanned airship” and flagged that the “Chinese side had clearly asked the US side to properly handle the matter in a calm, professional and restrained manner.” 

The Chinese Foreign Ministry added, “Under such circumstances, the US use of force is a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice. China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the company concerned, and reserve the right to make further responses if necessary.”  

All in all, to borrow the Biblical metaphor, “the cloud as small as a man’s hand rising out of the sea” turned out to be a torrent on the way. That’s where the real danger lies. The Biden Administration is already “over-militarising” the US-China relationship, as pointed out thoughtfully by Harlan Ullman, a noted author and senior advisor at the Atlantic Council, recently. (Is the US over-militarising its China strategy?)  

The Biden Administration estimates that it has garnered a valuable chip by putting China on the wrong foot and ratcheting up tensions. In the language of gambling, Biden considered himself an “advantage player” who can choose to do nothing, or play the chip and run. 

The balloon affair is not without potential to be inflated to trigger a confrontation with China, but Biden might prefer to use it to intimidate Beijing and to create the backdrop for the impending landing of the NATO in the Asia-Pacific region. 

In the first ever Asian tour by the alliance’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg sharply criticised China on Tuesday, from Tokyo, for “bullying its neighbours and threatening Taiwan” and forewarning that “transatlantic and Indo-Pacific security is deeply interconnected.”

Equally, it just cannot be a coincidence that out of the blue, the Wall Street Journal in an exclusive report on Sunday, seemingly unrelated to the balloon affair, alleged that China “is providing technology that Moscow’s military needs to prosecute the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine despite an international cordon of sanctions and export controls.” 

The report claims that available “customs data show Chinese state-owned defence companies shipping navigation equipment, jamming technology and fighter-jet parts to sanctioned Russian government-owned defence companies.” 

The Journal based its report entirely on customs data provided by C4ADS, “a Washington-based nonprofit that specializes in identifying national-security threats“, which is of course distinguishable as a proxy of the US intelligence. 

Rivals and partners 

Simply put, Beijing is being threatened from all sides that Biden would now have the nuclear option to rally the entire “collective West” and start piling sanctions against China even if Xi Jinping keeps the strategic restraint not to invade Taiwan.

An editorial today in China Daily, the official newspaper, on Stoltenberg’s Asian trip takes note that his thesis of transatlantic and Indo-Pacific security being Siamese twins and the proposition that Russia and China form an evil axis threatening the rules-based international order “is something strategists in Washington are trying hard to peddle around the world.” 

To cap it all, the Stoltenberg visit, the balloon affair and the ensuing media build-up, and, most important, the Blinken trip to China (where he was reportedly to meet President Xi Jinping in what was touted by the Biden Administration as an effort to build a “floor for the relationship”) — all these also coincide with an important round of consultation in Moscow on Friday by Ma Zhaoxu who was recently promoted to a full ministerial position to oversee the daily affairs of the Chinese foreign ministry.   

The Foreign Ministry readout in Moscow (in Russian) on Ma’s consultations in Moscow stated that the two sides “carefully considered” their bilateral cooperation in the UN area — Ma is a former UN envoy —  and went on to say that he and his Russian counterpart deputy foreign minister Sergey Vershinin “paid special attention to persistent attempts by representatives of some countries to undermine the authority of the UN by using its platform to put pressure on sovereign states, as well as creating alternative and inclusive mechanisms outside the framework of the Organization in line with the concept of a ‘rules-based world order.’ ” 

Another meeting by Ambassador Ma with Russian DFM Andrey Rudenko “highly assessed” the Sino-Russian relations, confirmed “the mutual commitment to their gradual development” and discussed the “prospects for expanding bilateral ties in 2023.” (here)

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also received Ma Zhaoxu. Notably, the Russian Foreign Ministry press release highlighted that “They noted their rejection of confrontational policies, as well as attempts by individual countries to interfere in the internal affairs of other states, or to restrain their development by imposing sanctions and other illegitimate methods. The officials reaffirmed their intention to reliably defend the sovereignty, security, and development interests of the two countries, and to build together a more just and democratic multipolar world order.” 

Evidently, the Biden Administration realised that one main objective of Blinken’s trip to Beijing — ie., to weaken the Sino-Russian axis — was going to be a non-starter. The US’ sustained efforts to turn the Ukraine conflict as a tool to sabotage China-Russia relations have failed spectacularly. The economic and military ties between Beijing and Moscow are only  growing stronger. President Xi Jinping’s expected visit to Russia in spring heralds the steady upward trajectory of in the “no limits” partnership. 

Lavrov captured the verve of the Russian-Chinese partnership when he said in a TV interview on Friday that “although we do not create a military alliance, our relations are of a higher quality than military alliances in their classic sense, and they have no bounds or limits. And there are no taboo topics either. They are indeed the best in the history of both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, and the Russian Federation.” 

In reality, Russia and China are optimally acting out of their national interests. Thus, Russia sees the US as an “enemy” that (foolishly) seeks its destruction and dismemberment, while the US, for China, is but a rival and potential opponent. A Moscow pundit Dmitri Trenin caught the subtle nuances recently when he wrote, 

“This is not enough to form a military alliance between Moscow and Beijing. China naturally values its economic interests in US and European markets, and Beijing may change its mind in favour of a military alliance only if Washington becomes its enemy. For the sake of Russia alone, China is not willing to take this step.” 

The balloon affair can be regarded as a defining moment. It exposes that while China was approaching Blinken’s visit in good faith with the purpose of finding constructive ways forward, Washington didn’t view things the same way. That said, Beijing was under no illusions, either. A CGTN video clipping Friday was titled Blinken’s visit to China: A candid talk or political tactics? 

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Although US President Joe Biden’s policy on Russia is guided by the interests of the American military industrial complex and his son’s business activities in Ukraine, the US also has other special interests in the Eastern European country, especially relating to titanium.

Newsweek magazine revealed that the US and its NATO allies have an interest in Ukraine’s large titanium reserves. This is because Ukraine is one of seven countries that produces titanium sponge, the basis for making titanium plates. China, which represents 57% of global ore production, and Russia, with 13%, are also part of the select group.

The location of these reserves adds a geographic factor for the US to contend with and puts the country in a delicate situation as it imports more than 90% of titanium for its aviation, technology, and weapons industry. The volatility is only heightened because Washington is waging a trade war against Moscow and Beijing through sanctions.

Furthermore, the US no longer has titanium sponge in its national defence stockpile and the last domestic producer closed in 2020. Washington made this decision despite the fact that titanium is among the 35 minerals of great importance to its economy and national security.

From a more practical point of view, titanium is a critically important metal as it is extremely resistant. Just as importantly, it is 45% lighter than other resistant materials, such as steel. For these reasons it has been widely used for producing military equipment, such as planes, war helicopters, ships, tanks and even long-range missiles.

“[Titanium] is a key vulnerability. We’re talking about our ability to produce more planes, we’re talking about our ability to produce munitions. They all rely on titanium, and we’ve allowed ourselves to grow reliant on foreign suppliers for these things. Russia has previously been one of those primary suppliers,” a source close to the US defence industry told Newsweek.

This is one of the major reasons for the US’ interest in Ukraine. This is especially the case as it forms a part of the American strategy to become less dependent on countries it considers an adversary. For this reason, Washington wants to prioritize trade relations with Ukraine in this field.

It is worth noting that there are other Ukrainian resources that may be of interest to the US, such as corn, wheat and grains. However, the US is also interested in Ukraine’s oil, natural gas, steel, nickel, palladium and copper.

“Ukraine has really significant deposits of rare earth minerals, and if we play our cards right could actually be a really attractive alternative to Russian and Chinese sources, which is where a lot of dependency currently is,” one congressional staffer told Newsweek.

Washington found an ally in post-2014 coup Ukraine. The current Zelensky government has proposed to be a close partner of the US and the European Union, just like his predecessors since Maidan, and has actively sought to establish closer trade relations with the two actors.

According to Newsweek, “winning improved access to Ukrainian titanium will help the US in its simmering conflict with China, which policymakers expect to dominate the 21st century.”

However, for all the US’ hope surrounding Ukrainian titanium, the outcome of the war remains a major issue. According to the Kiev-based GMK Center in an article titled ‘Ukrainian titanium: the export of titanium ores from Ukraine decreased by 42% y/y in 2022’, the war in Ukraine “also affected the titanium industry, in particular, the mining of titanium ores and the production of titanium products.”

“Last year, the export volume of titanium ores decreased by more than 40%. In addition, the sanctions policy and the return to state ownership of titanium assets can lead to a redistribution of the market,” the author’s article added.

It is clear that the war has significantly affected the Ukrainian titanium industry and companies have not disclosed their production figures. According to market estimates though, production has significantly decreased. This should not be considered surprising when we know, in one example, that the Velta company was operating at only 50% of its capacity due to a decrease in electricity supplies.

The war has indefinitely postponed Ukraine’s strategic plans with the US in the titanium industry. Although Ukraine is one of the seven countries that produces titanium sponge and occupies a leading position in the global production and reserves of ilmenite ores, which is of huge interest to Washington, the war has uncertain outcomes and thus makes strategic planning in this industry difficult.

For example, Ukraine could lose all its Black Sea ports and most of its titanium reserves and industries to Russian forces. In such a scenario, it would be questionable whether the US would have the same enthusiasm for Ukrainian titanium.

What is evident is that the US has huge interests in Ukrainian titanium and was one of many reasons why Washington emboldened Ukraine to war with Russia. However, it is seemingly unlikely that Ukraine can be the titanium partner that Washington hopes, especially in the pursuit of replacing Russia and China.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Justice Department Fights Lawsuit Over Secret JFK Files

February 9th, 2023 by Kevin Gosztola

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The United States Justice Department (DOJ) will fight a lawsuit intended to force President Joe Biden and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to release records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

On October 19, 2022, prior to the release of thousands of documents in December, the Mary Ferrell Foundation sued [PDF] Biden and NARA for allegedly failing to fulfill their duties under the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.

The complaint suggested that the “clear and convincing evidence” standard for postponing the release of records was not followed. Instead, a number of records were withheld yet again due to flimsy claims of “anticipated harm.”

Biden was also accused of failing to go record-by-record to identify the particular harm that would occur if an assassination record was made public.

According to the foundation, Biden declined to provide dates for records when it would be “reasonably anticipated that continued postponement would no longer be necessary.” Plus, dates for reviewing the records again were not set.

Jefferson Morley, journalist and vice president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, reported in his JFK Facts newsletter that DOJ attorneys had moved to dismiss the foundation’s lawsuit.

In their request for dismissal [PDF], the government insists that Biden followed the criteria in the JFK Records Act for postponing the release of records.

“Nothing in the JFK Act authorizes federal courts to second-guess the President’s determinations in that regard,” the motion for dismissal declares.

It adds, “If the President does decide to postpone the deadline [for disclosure of records], the underlying basis for the decision is also left entirely to the President’s discretion.”

The government maintains that the JFK Records Act does not limit Biden’s authority to “postpone the 25-year deadline for disclosing all assassination records.”

Biden Hasn’t Followed The Process He Outlined For JFK Assassination Records

By October 26, 2017, twenty-five years after the passage of the JFK Records Act, the secrecy surrounding the “decades-long effort” to release all JFK assassination records was supposed to come to an end.

Despite the deadline, on April 26, 2018, President Donald Trump postponed the disclosure of an “unspecified number of unidentified assassination records” for three and a half years.

Biden delayed the release yet again in 2021, claiming the National Archives needed more time to further review assassination records. A date for disclosure was set in December 2022.

Notably, the memo that Biden issued laid out a process for a one-year review and instructed agencies to draft an unclassified letter that included written descriptions of the “types of information for which the agency” proposed “continued postponement” and reasons for the postponement. It called for an unclassified index and a “specific proposed date” when agencies believed each withheld record could be released.

Though explanations for keeping each record secret were supposed to appear in the federal register (a centralized system for executive branch publications), none have been published.

The Mary Ferrell Foundation asserts that explaining to the public why certain assassination records can still not be released was required under the JFK Records Act, and that would seem to be reflected in Biden’s 2021 memo.

Justice Department attorneys, on the other hand, defend Biden, even though he has failed to follow the process outlined in his own memo.

Furthermore, it is unclear what proposed redactions from the DOJ, Defense Department, State Department, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were accepted or challenged by NARA.

More Than 10,000 Records Kept From The Public

It is estimated that more than 10,000 records are still secret due to opposition from within the CIA and various other executive branch agencies.

Following the release of records in December, CNN reported that researchers were frustrated. “The vast majority of the almost 1,500 documents released by the National Archives as new appear to be duplicates of previously released documents with only a few redacted words now revealed, often the name of a CIA case officer or the location of an overseas agency station that investigators had already pieced together. Some have no changes whatsoever.”

The Mary Ferrell Foundation is one group of researchers that were deeply disappointed. For many years, they have managed the “largest searchable electronic collection of materials related to the JFK assassination” in order to further the pursuit of the truth of how Kennedy was murdered.

Judge John Tunheim, who served as the chairman of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) established by the JFK Records Act, previously said, “It’s time to release all the files.”

Tunheim described the standard for keeping records secret because they may name or involve informants. Agencies are expected to provide evidence that the informant is still alive and that there would be concrete harm if their name was disclosed.

He recalled that the ARRB had previously approved the postponement of a file that contained “evidence of a country’s president’s cooperation with the CIA.” Since that political party is no longer in control and has not been in power for a “long time,” there is “little risk of a government going down because of the release of that information.” Material of that nature should be public.

“There may be some hiccups in the agencies about releasing files, but these same sorts of things happened 30 years ago,” Tunheim concluded. “In the interests of transparency and honesty, everything should be released so that we [can] say that nothing is being hidden anymore.”

Lawrence Schnapf, the attorney representing the Mary Ferrell Foundation in their lawsuit, highlighted the fact that not all the records are in the control of the executive branch. For example, the Robert F. Kennedy Trust had JFK assassination records.

“[Attorney General] Robert F. Kennedy had his own Mar-a-Lago event. An hour after the president was killed, Robert F. Kennedy seized the records in the Oval Office, took them, and eventually they were deposited in the JFK Library.”

“We believe those records probably involve Cuba, maybe some embarrassing stuff. But they’re still being withheld,” Schnapf added.

This example is why they sued the National Archives, along with Biden. Schnapf and the Mary Ferrell Foundation believe NARA has not completed “outstanding search requests” and new searches for assassination records “known to exist but that are not part of the JFK collection.”

Another set of records still being kept secret include CIA files on George Joannides, who was the “chief of covert action at the CIA station in Miami and served as case officer for a New Orleans-based CIA-funded exile group that had a series of encounters with Lee Oswald in 1963.”

The Assassination Records Review Board’s final report in 1998 noted that the “CIA, FBI, Secret Service, and other organizations intentionally destroyed documents.” No meaningful action has ever been taken to deal with this serious matter.

As the lawsuit recalls, the JFK Records Act was passed in response to public pressure to end the secrecy around JFK assassination documents, which stemmed from executive branch agencies preventing their “timely disclosure.”

It is incredible that over 30 years later—and more than five years after a key deadline—the Justice Department asserts that under the JFK Records Act executive branch agencies are fully within their right to keep denying the public records without providing any sort of reasoning. That goes entirely against the statute.

In 2021, Biden acknowledged, “Almost 30 years since the [JFK Records] Act, the profound national tragedy of President Kennedy’s assassination continues to resonate in American history and in the memories of so many Americans who were alive on that terrible day; meanwhile, the need to protect records concerning the assassination has only grown weaker with the passage of time.”

If the Justice Department and the various executive branch agencies have their way, when officials finally release the last batch of assassination records there will no longer be any Americans alive who lived through the tragedy.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image: Photo from the Justice Department’s website and in the public domain

“The Threat of Woke-ism to Academic Freedom”

February 9th, 2023 by Prof. Anthony J. Hall

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Concerted efforts have been made to remove Prof. Frances Widdowson from her faculty position at the Mount Royal University in Calgary. One view of her status is that Prof. Widdowson has been “fired” even though her tenured status has not been properly terminated according to widely-recognized university codes of conduct.

Seeking to make way for its institution-wide program of “indigenization,” the administration of Mount Royal University sought to push aside her prominently-published critique of what she refers to as the “Aboriginal Rights Industry.” Her politically incorrect analysis extends to the legacy of Indian residential schools, federally-funded and church-run institutions that dominated Indian education in Canada until the late 1960s.

Building from this base, the prolific scholar of contemporary controversy in the academy has been widening her analytic approach to encompass the subject of “wokism,” the pedagogy presently in the ascendancy at most universities. The term, “woke” was first coined to identify the misguided extremism of many professors and their students.

In this time of Trudeau and Biden, the woke tribe is pushing forward deformed versions of their left-leaning attitudes with the support of many governments, Wall Street and numerous giant corporations. Among the goals of wokism seems to be the construction of radically transformed models of society that will undermine traditional families, national sovereignty, parliamentary institutions, religious freedom, and individual human rights including free speech, bodily autonomy and the property rights of middle class people.

There are some aspects of Prof. Widdowson’s commentary on the so-called Aboriginal Rights Industry and on the legacy of Indian residential schools that I find to be overstated or, occasionally, just plain wrong. Over two decades of academic work in the antecedents of today’s “Indigenous Studies” departments, I developed interpretations that sometimes run against the grain of Prof. Widdowson’s analytic framework.

That being said, however, Prof. Widdowson’s thoughtful reading of a wide array of pertinent primary and secondary sources leads the prolific scholar to many conclusions that deserve consideration as the basis for deeper reflections as well as possible revisions in interpretation. Especially in these times when overemphatic zealotry so dominates public discourse, it is especially important that teachers at all levels do their utmost in their pedagogy to highlight different opinions, perspectives and voices.

I took this approach when I was in the saddle as Associate Professor of Native American Studies at the University of Lethbridge. In this capacity I sometimes invited my intellectual foe, Prof. Tom Flanagan of the University of Calgary, to address my students. Prof. Flanagan’s students include former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, current Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, and Rebel News firebrand Ezra Levant. Where Prof. Flanagan’s critique of a wide constitutional interpretation of “Aboriginal and Treaty Rights” came from the right-wing of politics, Prof. Widdowson’s revisionism is more inspired by left-leaning thinkers.

Mob Rule at Alberta’s University of Lethbridge?

See this.

Prof. Widdowson was invited by Philosophy Prof. Paul Viminitz to make a presentation at the University of Lethbridge on Feb. 1. This invitation was at first embraced by the University’s administration. Its President, Dr. Mike Mahon, then changed the University’s position two days before the talk was scheduled to take place. Dr. Mahon was subjected to concerted pressure by some students, faculty members and Native organizations that objected to allowing space for a politically incorrect interpretation of the boarding schools’ legacies.

The reversal caught the attention of the Alberta Minister of Advanced Education, Demetrios Nicolaides, who responded to Dr. Mahon’s effort at cancellation by announcing the following, “I believe it is important for our universities and colleges to foster a strong culture of free speech and diverse viewpoints, even when those viewpoints are deemed controversial, or even offensive, barring speech intended to incite hatred or violence of course.”

 Former Premier Rachel Notley, still the NDP Leader in Alberta. then responded. Notley will be facing off against current Premier Danielle Smith in a hotly contested provincial election in May. Notley replied to Nicolaides as follows: “The idea of having someone come and speak at the university, to a student body that consists of many Indigenous students, about how they somehow benefited from residential schools is deeply troubling to me.”

See this.

 Rather than submit to the dictates of the powerful interests that had decided to cancel her talk, Prof. Widdowson decided she would attend the U of L as originally planned. She would share her presentation in the public space of the U of L’s Atrium. Her host, Prof. Viminitz, concurred with this decision and helped facilitate the presenter’s attendance.

The University’s fiddling with the on-off switch on this public presentation helped arouse polarized responses in the community. Several hundred community members attended. Students largely from the Education Faculty, The Liberal Education Faculty, and the Indigenous Studies Department played an important role in drumming and chanting to prevent Prof. Widdowson from being heard.

Another component of the attendees had come specifically to hear what the controversial professor had to say. Then there were those who were drawn by curiosity. They wanted to listen to the presenter and her detractors to better understand what all the fuss was about.

After returning home from the event a Lethbridge colleague of mine sent me the letter of Prof. Mark Mercer, President of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship. This letter, condemning Dr. Mahon for his failure to respect and defend academic freedom, is published below.

Clearly Dr. Mahon was not interested in dealing with such a critique. Instead he congratulated those who drowned out the words of their nemesis with loud drumming, chants and also by amplifying a discordant electric guitar playing heavy metal. After the event the outgoing U of L President justified his cancellation of  Prof. Widdowson’s talk by indicating “It is clear that the harm associated with this talk is an impediment to meaningful reconciliation.” In the words of the Toronto Sun editorialist, Lorne Gunther, Dr. Mahon “totally and cravenly reversed himself.” He gave into the “pitchforks-and-torches brigate” as he “cowered behind political correctness and victimhood bafflegab.”

See this.

After the event Dr. Mahon praised the event as “a reflection of the values of the University of Lethbridge.” He added, “I would like to express my sincere appreciation to our community members for conducting themselves in such a peaceful and powerful manner.”

See this.

Many of those I talked to in attendance profoundly disagreed that the militant drumming down of legitimate public discourse was a peaceful strategy and a honourable display of university values. Many remarked on the irony of hearing the phrase, “no room for hate” emanating from such emotionally-charged zealots intent on drowning out the basis for any public discourse at all.

In spite of it all Prof. Widdowson moved from the Atrium space into a long wide hallway where she did manage some short exchanges with a few interested parties who had come to the U of L to hear her talk on how Wokism is destroying academic freedom.

After about 90 minutes of chaotic activity the head of the University’s security division announced from a podium that the situation had become so dangerous that the event would have to be shut down. He did so after securing an agreement from Prof. Widdowson that she would leave the building via an underground passageway while accompanied by a squad of protective security guards.

Open Response from the President of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship

“Cancelling Dr Widdowson’s talk is an outrage that will stain the University of Lethbridge for years.”

31 January 2023
Michael J. Mahon PhD
President and Vice-Chancellor
The University of Lethbridge
4401 University Drive
Lethbridge, AB T1L 3M4 

Dear President Mahon,

I am writing as president of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS), an organization of university faculty members and others dedicated to the defense of academic freedom and the merit principle in higher education. 

Your statement on Monday 26 January 2023, “Statement from the President – – Controversial Guest Speaker Appearance,” violated the important principle of institutional neutrality by describing Frances Widdowson’s  view as “in conflict with a number of values held by the University” and by (falsely) suggesting that Dr. Widdowson “seeks to minimize the significant and detrimental impact of Canada’s residential schools system.”  A university performs its social mission by enabling competing interpretations and views to be heard and debated.  When the university itself states a position on a matter of controversy, it renders itself inhospitable to robust and candid debate.  The university must remain neutral so that scholars, students and all other interested parties can discuss matters freely and openly in their search for truth.

Nonetheless, in your 26 January statement, you properly and firmly rejected calls to cancel Dr Widdowson’s talk, “How `Wokeism” Threatens Academic Freedom,” a talk organized by University of Lethbridge philosophy professor Paul Viminitz. In that statement, you affirmed the “commitment” of the University of Lethbridge “to protect free inquiry and scholarship [and] facilitate access to scholarly resources.”  You added the “Guest speakers … are afforded the same commitment to freedom of expression as members of our campus community.” 

Those who object to Dr Widdowson’s views may voice their disagreement, “but they may not obstruct or interfere with others’ freedom of expression.  Debate or deliberation on campus may not be suppressed because the ideas put forward are thought by some, or even most, to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or misguided.”

Despite the violation of the principle of institutional neutrality in the 26 January statement, you and the University of Lethbridge would have acted well and commendably were that the end of the matter. In ensuring that Dr. Widdowson may speak on campus and explaining the University of Lethbridge’s commitment to academic values and its academic mission, you would have performed your duties as a university president well.

Unfortunately, on 30 January, you updated your statement by retracting it and cancelling Dr. Widdowson’s scheduled talk.

In doing so, you have expressed disdain for discussion and debate and violated Dr. Viminitz’s right, as a professor at the University of Lethbridge, to fair use of university resources.  (Both Dr Widdowson and Dr Viminitz are on the Board of Directors of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship.  They have recused themselves from SAFS’ involvement in this case.)

Nothing that you mention in your 30 January statement justifies your action.  That some members of the University of Lethbridge community were upset that Dr Widdowson was scheduled to speak should have been held by you to be irrelevant to the university’s mission to promote inquiry and discussion.  You noted in your 26 January statement that the university may restrict “expression that violates the law, defames an individual, or constitutes a threat or harassment.  Dr Widdowson’s talk would have done none of these and in your 30 January statement you give no reason for thinking it would.

As a professor at Lethbridge, Dr Viminitz may invite speakers to campus and organize public talks featuring guests of the university.  Cancelling Dr Widdowson’s talk is tantamount to violating Dr. Viminitz’s academic freedom.  It is also to deny the many members of the university community who wished to hear Dr. Widdowson speak on campus the opportunity to do so. 

You mention “harm associated with this talk,’ harm independent of defamation, threat or harassment.  In doing so you stretch the concept of harm so thin and wide that just about anything is covered by it.  Anyone who wishes to shut down a talk in the future need only mention harm and you will be unable to find a principle to which to allow the talk to proceed.

That, as you claim, “this talk is an impediment to meaningful reconciliation” is not only false but dangerous, for it militates against openness and candor in discussions of reconciliation. 

Reconciliation, which, admirable as it may be, is not an academic value, must respect freedom of expression and academic freedom if it is to be mutual and lasting.

Cancelling Dr Widdowson’s talk is an outrage that will stain the University of Lethbridge for years.

We respectfully request that you respond to our letter. With your permission, we will post your response along with this letter on our website.

Sincerely,

Mark Mercer, PhD.
President, Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS)
1801 Chestnut Street
Halifax, NS  V3H 3T7
President@safs/ca
http://www.safs.ca
Facebook : https//www.facebook.com/safs.ca/ 

Professor of Philosophy
Halifax, Nova Scotia
[email protected]
http://professormarkmercer.ca/

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Anthony Hall is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Step away from the blinders that partisan politics uses to distract, divide and conquer, and you will find that we are drowning in a cesspool of problems that individually and collectively threaten our lives, liberties, prosperity and happiness.

These are not problems the politicians want to talk about, let alone address, yet we cannot afford to ignore them much longer.

Foreign interests are buying up our farmland and holding our national debt. As of 2021, foreign persons and entities owned 40.8 million acres of U.S. agricultural land, 47% of which was forestland, 29% in cropland, and 22% in pastureland. Foreign land holdings have increased by an average of 2.2 million acres per year since 2015. Foreign countries also own $7.4 trillion worth of U.S. national debt, with Japan and China ranked as our two largest foreign holders of our debt.

Corporate and governmental censorship have created digital dictators. While the “Twitter files” revealed the lengths to which the FBI has gone to monitor and censor social media content, the government has been colluding with the tech sector for some time now in order to silence its critics and target “dangerous” speech in the name of fighting so-called disinformation. The threat of being labelled “disinformation” is being used to undermine anyone who asks questions, challenges the status quo, and engages in critical thinking.

Middle- and lower-income Americans are barely keeping up. Rising costs of housing, food, gas and other necessities are presenting nearly insurmountable hurdles towards financial independence for the majority of households who are scrambling to make ends meet. Meanwhile, mounting layoffs in the tens of thousands are adding to the fiscal pain.

The government is attempting to weaponize mental health care. Increasingly, in communities across the nation, police are being empowered to forcibly detain individuals they believe might be mentally ill, even if they pose no danger to others. While these programs are ostensibly aimed at getting the homeless off the streets, when combined with the government’s ongoing efforts to predict who might pose a threat to public safety based on mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA), the specter of mental health round-ups begins to sound less far-fetched.

The military’s global occupation is spreading our resources thin and endangering us at home.America’s war spending and commitment to policing the rest of the world are bankrupting the nation and spreading our troops dangerously thin. In 2022 alone, the U.S. approved more than $50 billion in aid for Ukraine, half of which went towards military spending, with more on the way. The U.S. also maintains some 750 military bases in 80 countries around the world.

Deepfakes, AI and virtual reality are blurring the line between reality and a computer-generated illusion. Powered by AI software, deepfake audio and video move us into an age where it is almost impossible to discern what is real, especially as it relates to truth and disinformation. At the same time, the technology sector continues to use virtual reality to develop a digital universe—the metaverse—that is envisioned as being the next step in our evolutionary transformation from a human-driven society to a technological one.

Advances in technology are outstripping our ability to protect ourselves from its menacing side, both in times of rights, humanity and workforce. In the absence of constitutional protections in place to guard against encroachments on our rights in the electronic realm, we desperately need an Electronic Bill of Rights that protects “we the people” from predatory surveillance and data-mining business practices.

The courts have aligned themselves with the police state. In one ruling after another, the courts have used the doctrine of qualified immunity to shield police officers from accountability for misconduct, tacitly giving them a green light to act as judge, jury and executioner on the populace. All the while, police violence, the result of training that emphasizes brute force over constitutional restraints, continues to endanger the public.

The nation’s dependence on foreign imports has fueled a $1 trillion trade deficit. While analysts have pointed to the burgeoning trade deficit as a sign that the U.S. economy is growing, it underscores the extent to which very little is actually made in America anymore.

World governments, including the U.S., continue to use national crises such as COVID-19 to expand their emergency powers. None are willing to relinquish these powers when the crisis passes. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the U.S. government still has 42 declared national emergencies in effect, allowing it to sidestep constitutional protocols that maintain a system of checks and balances. For instance, the emergency declared after the 9/11 has yet to be withdrawn.

The nation’s infrastructure is rapidly falling apart. Many of the country’s roads, bridges, airports, dams, levees and water systems are woefully outdated and in dire need of overhauling, and have fallen behind that of other developed countries in recent years. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that crumbling infrastructure costs every American household $3,300 in hidden costs a year due to lost time, increased fuel consumption while sitting in traffic jams, and extra car repairs due to poor road conditions.

The nation is about to hit a healthcare crisis. Despite the fact that the U.S. spends more on health care than any other high-income country, it has the worst health outcomes than its peer nations. Experts are also predicting a collapse in the U.S. health care system as the medical community deals with growing staff shortages and shuttered facilities.

These are just a small sampling of the many looming problems that threaten to overwhelm us in the near future.

Thus far, Americans seem inclined to just switch the channel, tune out what they don’t want to hear, and tune into their own personal echo chambers.

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, no amount of escapism can shield us from the harsh reality that the danger in our midst is posed by an entrenched government bureaucracy that has no regard for the Constitution, Congress, the courts or the citizenry.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Distract, Divide and Conquer: The Painful Truth About the State of Our Union
  • Tags:

Prediction of a Disenchanted World “Inside the Iron Cage”

By Edward Curtin, February 08, 2023

This is one of those stories hard to believe.  When I first heard it, I thought it was a joke, some sort of parable, and my friend who was telling it to me had had too much to drink or was just pulling my leg.  I’m not sure.  Like so much in today’s world, the difference between fiction and fact has become very blurry.

How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline

By Seymour M. Hersh, February 09, 2023

Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.

From Progress to Bans: How Close Are Human Microchip Implants?

By Daniel J. Lohrmann, February 08, 2023

Many state governments are passing laws to prevent forced microchip implants on employees and others. For example, Wyoming just passed such a bill. According The Hill, “to date, at least 10 state legislatures in the United States have passed statutes to ban employers from requiring employees to receive human microchip implants.”

French Unions Stage Third Day of General Strikes Against Pension Reform

By Abayomi Azikiwe, February 08, 2023

President Emmanuel Macron of France has introduced a bill within the National Assembly which would make significant changes to the pension system established as a result of working class struggles over the decades.

Pfizer COVID/Vaxx Campaign is a Fraud: Criminal Charges against President of Switzerland

By Pascal Najadi, Todd Callender, and Alexandra Bruce, February 08, 2023

Pascal Najadi, a retired banker from Switzerland is at the center of a potentially huge sea change in the legal fight against the Globalist COVID financial fraud/bioterrorism campaign. Pascal has filed criminal charges of Abuse of Office under Article 310 of the Swiss Criminal Code against Swiss President Alain Berset, who is also that country’s former Minister of Health.

Russia-Ukraine war 2.0: First Tanks, Then F16s… Where Does this End?

By Jonathan Cook, February 08, 2023

Almost as soon as major Nato countries, led by the US, promised to supply Ukraine with battle tanks, the cry went up warning that tanks alone would be unlikely to turn the war’s tide against Russia.  The subtext – the one western leaders hope their publics will not notice – is that Ukraine is struggling to hold the line as Russia builds up its troop numbers and pounds Ukrainian defences.

Truth About Tanks: How NATO Lied Its Way to Disaster in Ukraine. Scott Ritter

By Scott Ritter, February 08, 2023

Tank warfare has evolved. The large force-on-force armored battles that were the hallmark of much of WWII, the Arab-Israeli conflicts, which served as the foundation of operational doctrine for both NATO and the Soviet Union (and which was implemented in full by the United States during Operation Desert Storm in 1991), has run its course.

Ballooning Paranoia: The China Threat Hits the Skies

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, February 08, 2023

On January 28, a device reported to be a “high-altitude surveillance balloon” entered US airspace in Alaska.  It then had a brief spell in Canadian airspace before returning to the US via Idaho on January 31.  On February 4, with the balloon moving off the coast of South Carolina, a decision was made by the US military to shoot it down using a F-22 Raptor from the 1st Fighter Wing based at Langley Air Force Base.  The Pentagon has revealed that the collecting of debris is underway.

Vietnam Sees a Shared Future with China

By M. K. Bhadrakumar, February 08, 2023

The resignation of Vietnam’s President Nguyen Xuan Phuc a fortnight ago had an inevitability about it. The media was rife with speculation for weeks implicating Phuc’s close family members in corruption scandals. 

Open Letter to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia re Dr. Charles Hoffe, February 6, 2023

By Elizabeth Woodworth, February 07, 2023

Dr. Charles Hoffe has been a physician in the Lytton community of British Columbia for nearly 30 years, looking after a largely native community after having gained his medical schooling from the University of Witwatersrand, the second ranked clinical medical university in South Africa.

  • Posted in NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on Selected Articles: Prediction of a Disenchanted World “Inside the Iron Cage”

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

 

In recent developments, Germany’s Prosecutor General Peter Frank confirmed “there is no evidence to blame Russia for the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines”:

“It currently has not been proven (…) The investigation is ongoing (…) We are currently evaluating all this forensically. [The suspicion] that there had been a foreign sabotage act [in this case], has so far not been substantiated”, he said during the interview with Die Welt.

If it’s not Russia, Who Did It? 

“No evidence of foreign sabotage” of an act which has created social havoc and hardship in the European Union, with rising energy prices? People are freezing, unable to pay their heating bills. This crisis which emanates from Washington has been conducive to a process of impoverishment all over Europe from a never-ending surge in energy prices.

The Evidence is There: It is Being Ignored by Germany’s Prosecutor Peter Frank as well as by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

It had been ordered by the president of the United States. Joe Biden. They know it!  They are liars.

Victoria Nuland: “Fxxk the EU” Again

President Biden’s decision to order the sabotage of Nord Stream (see below) is now confirmed by a recent January 2023 declaration by Victoria Nuland to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“Senator Cruz, like you I am and I think the administration is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”

click Victoria Nuland or image below to view the video of her statement:

VIDEO  

The US Continues Escalating in Ukraine

F**k the EU again:  “A Hunk of Metal at the bottom of the Sea”

You do not need a Prosecutor to lead an “expert investigation” into Who’s Behind this Act of War against more than 400 million Europeans. 

Joe Biden’s February 2022 Statement

 

“We will, I promise you, we will be able to do that”, says Joe Biden February 7, 2022

President Joe Biden:

“If Russia invades that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2.”

Reporter: “But how will you exactly do that, since the project is in Germany’s control?”

Biden:“We will, I promise you, we will be able to do that.”  (emphasis added)

Joe Biden: “There will be no longer a Nord Stream 2”

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

When I started campaigning to kick the military and defence sector off UK university campuses in 2017, little did I know that the organisation I would go on to co-found, Demilitarise Education, would discover these partnerships are worth over £1bn.

These are lucrative relationships, with money flowing between parties in the form of academic and research partnerships and investments. But £1bn is still far below the total we eventually expect to uncover.

What is the precise nature of these relationships, and how did the arms trade so closely enmesh itself in higher education?

In our findings so far, research partnerships account for £576m, or roughly 55% of the total figure. This is university research funded by weapons-producing companies and/or government bodies for military technology, aeronautics or other arms-related projects.

It often involves arms companies like BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce or QinetiQ directly as ‘industry partners’.

Accounting for £495m, or roughly 45% of the total, are monetary investments. These are made by universities either directly in arms companies themselves, or indirectly through third-party investments or fund managers like Barclays, Lloyds or BlackRock holding shares in arms companies.

A small proportion of the figure (<0.1%) comes from consultancy fees, where private arms companies pay universities for their expert input into research, development, and business operations.

A further aspect is academic partnerships which, while forming only a small proportion of the monetary value of partnerships overall, are perhaps the most visible to students.

Academic partnerships include the development of learning and career opportunities between universities and the arms industry/defence sector, such as sponsored academic awards, careers fairs and graduate schemes.

From our research so far, the universities with the largest involvement in the arms trade are Bristol and Birmingham whose partnerships value above £50m.

King’s College London, the University of Sheffield and the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine are at around £40m, with the universities of Nottingham, Glasgow, Cambridge and University College London close behind.

The £1bn figure is just the tip of the iceberg – with many universities refusing to be transparent. By September 2023, we will have compiled research on every university in the country. This data will drive the campaign for total demilitarisation.

Taking over universities

How did we get here? The arms trade takeover of universities can be partly explained in financial terms. In a commercialised, marketised context, universities have become increasingly driven by profit motives, by their bottom line.

The deep pockets of the arms industry give ample opportunity for them to exploit universities for weapons research and development.

This commercialisation process has changed how universities view their role and how knowledge is produced, as university research and education activities have been turned into a market into which arms companies can bid for space.

Take for instance, the University of Sheffield. It launched the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) two decades ago with support from aerospace giant Boeing, with the Centre now boasting partnerships with the likes of BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce.

Doctoral researchers and engineering students in the AMRC work on projects like using robotics to enhance the manufacturing capacities of BAE Systems – a company for which arms account for 97% of total sales.

Or take the University of Bristol, which has partnered with the likes of Leonardo, QinetiQ and Rolls-Royce to offer a Master’s course in Aerial Robotics – essentially drone development.

These kinds of partnerships change the way that education is oriented. But they have not arisen solely through commercial, market processes, but have been spurred on by successive governments’ militarisation agendas.

Militarisation

The UK government sees major advantage in hosting weapons-related research in universities, and historically fostered such research ties when privatising publicly-owned research laboratories.

Government research bodies such as the Defence and Science Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) regularly co-sponsor research programmes backed by weapons companies and the Ministry of Defence (MoD), supporting projects with public funds to bring military technology programmes into universities.

And while these bodies are classified as non-military, they commit enormous amounts of funds and energy towards building “national defence capability”. For instance, a £4.5m EPSRC and DSTL-sponsored research project on autonomous aircraft has been undertaken in collaboration with ‘industry partners’ including BAE Systems, Thales and QinetiQ.

These commercialisation and militarisation processes have been described as the instrumentalisation of education. Arms companies and military bodies treat universities as sites to further their profit or defence motives, undermining universities’ value-free and social-benefit model of knowledge production.

Corporate profit

There is ample evidence of the ways in which the UK military and arms companies treat universities as key to achieving their corporate objectives.

Take, for instance, Physics and Astronomy Doctoral Training at the University of Exeter being designed in line with MoD priorities in the field of electromagnetic materials. This Doctoral Training is then run in partnership with the US Air Force, Thales and QinetiQ.

Or take the £12m accepted by the University of Bristol for research projects, titles of which are withheld, from BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, GKN and Northrop Grumman between 2017/18 and 2020/21. Over this period, Bristol accepted over £500,000 from the same companies for “consultancy” services rendered.

This is an urgent issue since arms-sponsored research agendas, particularly in engineering departments, undermine or distract from the ability of universities to create knowledge and innovation for the public good.

The military sector and arms industry make their profits from resource exploitation, conflict and the building-up of weapons reserves: the exact things generating instability. Research which could fuel peaceful, sustainable innovation can easily be crowded out, particularly given that defence research has more links to security policy making than research on human security.

Undermining values

When, back in 2018, I put it to Dame Nancy Rothwell, Vice Chancellor of the University of Manchester, that its research collaborations with BAE Systems undermined the values that the university should represent, her response was telling.

Rothwell suggested that while our government does it, why wouldn’t they?

But it is not only that the government does it, it is that they actively encourage and co-sponsor companies like BAE in university research. The state, our educational institutions, private entities in the arms trade – they are all party to this military-industrial-academic complex.

The concerns of a Yemeni student at the University of Manchester, whose relatives may have been killed by BAE-produced weaponry, appear to matter not: the national agenda of securitisation and militarisation mean that British defence manufacturing is being promoted  even when it is complicit in serious human rights breaches.

Young minds from primary school all the way through to universities, are being manipulated into believing that war is normal and that British military operations actually help people.

The truth is, our security relies on the health of the planet and people, not on the health of our militaries, and military spending is not based on a sound analysis of national security.

Tip of the iceberg

The way we document these partnerships is through our university and arms trade database, which profiles every brick and mortar university in the country.

The first thing we track is whether a university has a stated policy regarding their relationship to the military and defence sector, before digging deeper into their partnerships to see if their ethical commitments hold up.

Along with student activists in our community, we use Freedom of Information (FoI) requests to try to pry open university files and find out about their specific partnerships: financial and investment ties, research projects, consultancy services, sponsorships, and academic or careers links.

But this is often not straightforward: information on university-arms trade research is often contractually protected, and universities withhold information on their investments to protect their “commercial interests”.

For instance, while the University of Glasgow publishes its investment information under its ‘Socially Responsible Investment’ commitments (its £2.5m investment in the arms trade not apparently violating its social responsibility), others like the University of Cambridge keep this information hidden, withholding it on the basis of commercial sensitivity.

Beyond FoI disclosures, the database is also populated by information drawn from our partners, such as Stop Killer Robots in their excellent report on university involvement in autonomous weapons system development, and from information published by the likes of the EPSRC.

Partial demilitarisation

Some universities, for example Bedfordshire, Wrexham Glyndŵr and University of the Arts London, have made the first steps towards ending their partnerships with the arms trade.

But what we’ve seen so far has been partial demilitarisation – in either investments or careers – with exclusions for some companies based on criteria like where their arms are sold or the type of weapons produced.

Because of that, we created the Demilitarise Education Treaty, a document which acts as a guide to change and comprehensive demilitarisation. Presenting university leaders with this evidence, from the dED database paired with the Treaty, is a powerful step within student demilitarisation movements.

The joint aim is the creation of a global precedent where it is unacceptable for universities to partner with the defence sector.

To create a more peaceful world, our universities should support and develop innovations to help us face modern-day security challenges – rather than investing in ones that negatively contribute to the increasing threats we face.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Jinsella is the Co-Founder & Executive Director of Demilitarise Education. You can support the Demilitarise Education petition by going here.

Featured image is from Freenations

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The £1BN-Plus Deals: The Arms Trade is Enmeshed in Britain’s Universities

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Mere days after the United States pompously announced that it has soundly defeated an adrift weather balloon, another absurdity has taken the headlines in the mainstream media. Apparently, China somehow managed to overtake America in the number of ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) launchers. This was reported by the Wall Street Journal on February 7, citing the Senate’s and House’s Armed Services Committees. According to WSJ, the commander of the US Strategic Command, which oversees America’s nuclear forces, notified the US Congress about the supposed Chinese advantage.

“The number of land-based fixed and mobile ICBM launchers in China exceeds the number of ICBM launchers in the United States,” the commander stated.

The author of the WSJ article himself admitted that the US is currently modernizing its entire nuclear triad (land, sea and air-launched nuclear weapons) and that “it has a much larger nuclear force than China”. The Strategic Command also notified US lawmakers that America still has more land-based ICBMs than China, as well as several times more thermonuclear warheads mounted on those missiles. Worse yet, the report doesn’t even include SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) and strategic bombers that make the US dominance even more pronounced.

But US officials and experts are claiming that “many of China’s land-based launchers still consist of empty silos”, meaning that Beijing “potentially has more launch options”. The lawmakers cited these launchers as “a portent of the scale of China’s longer-range ambitions and are urging the US to expand its own nuclear forces to counter the Russian and Chinese forces”. According to Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, “China is rapidly approaching parity with the United States”.

“We cannot allow that to happen. The time for us to adjust our force posture and increase capabilities to meet this threat is now,” Rogers stated.

He then criticized America’s compliance with the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), claiming this is “inhibiting the US from building up its arsenal to deter Russia and China”. And while China isn’t included in the treaty (set to expire in 2026), Russia is, meaning that Moscow is also “inhibited” by it, making the assertion all the more illogical. On the other hand, many US experts are now claiming that it’s in the US interest to preserve treaty limits with Russia and to also attempt to draw Beijing into it, while still continuing with constant modernization of America’s nuclear arsenal.

Rose Gottemoeller, a US arms control expert who took part in negotiating the New START, stated: “It’s in our national interest to keep the Russians under the New START limits. We need to complete our nuclear modernization according to plan, not pile on new requirements.”

The WSJ report posits that the US is now trying to deal with Russia and China by using a mix of arms control treaties and upgraded nuclear forces. The Pentagon’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review identified both superpowers as strategic rivals, stating that “by the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history, face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries.”

However, while claiming that it wants to preserve the New START, the troubled Biden administration seems to be working towards eliminating it. Just last week, the US accused Russia of violating the treaty by refusing to allow on-site inspections, although the US itself is doing the same, meaning Moscow is simply responding in kind. Such actions indicate that Washington DC might be trying to sabotage the New START because it’s frustrated that China isn’t included in it.

The Pentagon claims that Beijing will increase its current arsenal of 400 warheads to 1,500 by 2035. At present, China’s nuclear arsenal includes an unspecified number of mobile ICBM launchers, while the US military claims that the Asian giant also operates approximately 20 liquid-fueled, silo-based ICBMs, but that it’s also building three ICBM silo fields intended to house approximately 300 modern solid-fueled missiles. For comparison, the US fields 5,428 warheads, with at least 400 land-based ICBMs. In other words, the current American nuclear arsenal is over 13 times larger than China’s, while its land-based ICBMs outnumber Beijing’s by more than 20 times.

US experts are often debating what China plans to do with the aforementioned silos it’s now allegedly building. Some claim that, while Beijing currently doesn’t have enough nuclear-tipped ICBMs to fill all silos, it might leave some empty or install conventionally armed missiles. Still, the sheer magnitude of the mental gymnastics used by the US political establishment to present itself as the “party in jeopardy” in this case is ludicrous for anyone familiar with the size of America’s nuclear arsenal. Even with the assertion that China will have 1,500 nuclear weapons in 2035, including 400 land-based ICBMs, the US would still have a 3:1 advantage, making the accusations against Beijing a moot point.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Things are getting psychotic. As you listen to EU leaders, all parroting identical ‘good news’ speaking points, they nonetheless radiate basal disquietude – presumably a reflection of the psychic stress from, on the one hand, repeating ‘Ukraine is winning: Russia’s defeat is coming’, when, on the other, they know the exact opposite to be true: That ‘no way’ can Europe defeat a large Russian army on the landmass of Eurasia.

Even the colossus of Washington confines the use of American military power to conflicts that Americans could afford to lose – wars lost to weak opponents that no one could gainsay whether the outcome was no loss, but somehow ‘victory’.

Yet, war with Russia (whether financial or military) is substantially different from fighting small poorly equipped and dispersed insurgent movements, or collapsing the economies of fragile states, such as Lebanon.

Initial U.S. braggadocio has imploded. Russia neither collapsed internally to Washington’s financial assault, nor fell into chaotic regime change as predicted by western officials. Washington underestimated Russia’s societal cohesion, its latent military potential, and its relative immunity to Western economic sanctions.

The question worrying the West is what the Russians now will do next: Continue to attrit the Ukrainian army, whilst simultaneously de-stocking NATO’s weapons inventory? Or roll out the gathering Russian offensive forces across Ukraine?

The point, simply put, is that the very ambiguity between the threat of the offensive and implementation is part of the Russian strategy to keep the West off-balance and second-guessing. These are the psychological warfare tactics for which General Gerasimov is renown. Will it come; from whence, and where will it go? We do not know.

Russia’s timing will not be shaped by the western political calendar; but when, and if, an offensive becomes propitiate to Russian interests. Furthermore, Moscow has its eye on two fronts: the financial war (which may argue for a slower military roll out to allow levels of economic pain to accrete) and the military situation (which may, or may not, favour the slow incremental, extirpation of the Ukrainian capacity to fight at all). Former Senior Adviser to the U.S. Defence Secretary, Colonel Douglas Macgregor, sees a big force roll out – and soonish. He may be right.

This latter consideration must be set against the bigger picture: Russia primarily is engaged in the roll-back of U.S. hegemony, and pushing NATO out from the Asian ‘Heartland’. Russians have known for some time that the ‘Global Order system’ is not sustainable (post-WWII structures are already clearly visible in the rear-view mirror). And both Russia and China appreciatethat there is no graceful – or short cut – way to undo such a large system.

The latter know that the West cannot be trusted and is destined to fall. For some years, Russia and China have been restructuring their economies and building their militaries – preparing for the inevitable collapse of the U.S. empire (whilst keeping fingers crossed that the ‘fall’ will not entail Apocalypse).

In practice, both Russia and China have been at pains to moderate that collapse, as far as possible. No one benefits from an uncontrolled implosion of the U.S. However, the U.S. is taking steps too far with its Ukraine project, and Russia is going to use this conflict to facilitate the end of the U.S. empire – there is really no other option.

As Kelley Beaucar Vlahos in the American Conservative underlines, U.S. factions have been preparing Russia’s ‘burial’ for many years. Indeed, one of most damaging facts to emerge from Matt Taibbi’s ‘Twitter Files’ exposé has been: “how aggressive congressional lawmakers and federal agency officials were – in pushing a cynical narrative that brought the social media giant to heel whilst setting up the Russian bogeyman that haunts U.S. foreign policy and posturing in the Ukraine war today”.

That concocted story of Russia trying to destroy U.S. democracy brought public buy-in for a new war with Russia.

This existential fight can’t stop now: It might be argued that the Europeans and Americans are in a bubble of everything is optics and ‘all’ is PR immediacy and theatre – and we all need to play this game. They may well also be projecting the same zeitgeist onto the Russians and the Chinese, believing that they must think similarly: No values, no belief in anything, except whatever plays best on MSM.

Looked at from this perspective, it truly is a cultural clash – one reflecting the western incapacity for empathy. The West genuinely may think that Putin’s attention is focussed above all on ratings – just as it is for Macron, Scholz and Biden – and that when hostilities end, it will be business as usual. They may genuinely not understand that this is not how the rest of the world thinks.

Within this mindset exists, ‘‘War is business’ … Tanks a lot, Now Give Us F-16s!’ No sooner had the U.S., Germany and other NATO powers announced the major release of main battlefield tanks for Ukraine, than Kiev immediately started demanding the supply of F-16 warplanes. Indeed, Ukrainian defence official Yuriy Sak brazenly commented about the relative ease of the “next big hurdle” of acquiring F-16s fighter jets:

“They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us HIMARS [missiles], then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get.”

This is a prime example of ‘war as business’ syndrome – and politics is about amassing money. That means F-16s are up next, and that means Poland – F-16s would not be based at an airbase in Ukraine. And extending the battlespace to Poland, inevitably would lead to more ‘war as business’: Tanks, APCs and F-16s. The Military Complex will be rubbing its hands in glee.

Predictably, the war-zealots’ frustration with the collective West’s failure to stem the tide of Ukrainian defeat is growing, and has been further compounded by the Rand Corporation(Pentagon-funded) report last week which amounted to a forensic rebuttal of the justifying rationale for the war in Ukraine. Emphasising that, though Ukrainians are doing the fighting, their flattened cities and decimated economy does not comport with Ukrainian interests.

The Report warns that the U.S. should avoid ‘a protracted conflict’, declaring Ukrainian victory as ‘improbable’ and ‘unlikely’ – and significantly warns of the conflict bleeding into Poland. The contingency that the U.S. risks inadvertently sliding towards nuclear war over several ‘issues’ is also highlighted.

On this last point, the Rand Report is prescient: The head of the Russian delegation to the OSCE this week has publicly warned that should western armour-piercing depleted uranium, or beryllium projectiles be deployed in Ukraine – as were used by the U.S. in Iraq and Yugoslavia with devastating consequences – Russia would view a such deployment as constituting the use of dirty nuclear bombs against Russia, with ensuing consequences.

If there were any doubts about Russian ‘Red Lines’, and where they lie, there can be none now. Just to be clear, ‘consequences’ equals a possible Russian nuclear response. The West has been warned.

If frustration at the failing Ukrainian military project be ‘the cause’, desperation is the sequel.

“Like you, I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea”, Victoria Nuland opined last week. This statement shows impotence, more than anythingelse (translated, Nuland is saying, OK folks, we are not impotent as – wink, wink – we still managed to destroy the gas pipeline for the EU).

The whole PR campaign for more tanks looks more like an attempt to give extra morale to Ukrainians and their supporters in Europe (given that the tanks will not change the course of war) – a ‘going through the motions’, effectively nothing more significant. Ditto for the political proposals put forward by Secretary of State, Blinken, and Victoria Nuland last week. They look to have been drafted knowing they would be rejected in Moscow – and they were.

Yet to give the Blinken-Nuland combination their due, if neo-cons are hopeless at the execution of their war projects – which almost invariably end disastrously – they are brilliant at manipulating States into becoming their accomplices – contrary to their own national interests.

Where the neocons have been given free-range is on destroying Europe, politically, economically and militarily. The U.S. itself (and the wider world) must be absolutely astonished at the degree of European subservience, and the absolute control of EU leadership that these neo-cons have exercised.

NATO’s members were never strongly united behind Washington’s crusade to fatally weaken Russia. The EU (especially French and German) populace has no stomach for body bags. But the neo-cons correctly espied the European Achilles Heel: It was Poland, Lithuania, the other Baltic Republics and the Czech Republic. The U.S. neo-cons allied themselves with this radical Russophobic faction who want Russia dismembered and pacified, and to seize the levers of EU foreign policy away from France and Germany. The latter sat silent and impotent at Bucharest in 2008, when the NATO ‘door’ was thrown open to Georgia and Ukraine. Why did they not then express their reservations which they say they had at the time?

Weak leadership has lifted the lid on the European Pandora’s box, for all the old ghost European animosities, jealousies and naked ambitions to waft out as dark vapours. Is there anyone who can close its lid now?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Pope Francis‘ unprecedented message during his African tour early February relates sustainable peace and unity, economic development and citizenry welfare. The messages also touch on social questions especially how to forge an illuminating future devoid of ethnic rivalries, corruption and distrust that have fueled so many bloody conflicts in Africa. The 86-year-old pope brilliant words were received with resonating applause, especially crowds consisting the youth, down-trodden and marginalized citizens during his tour to Africa.

Pope Francis was urged conflict-ridden African countries to work towards peace and reconciliation. For decades, many African countries still bear the scars of civil war. The political differences and horrific atrocities have affected much-needed Africa’s unity. It has further contributed to weak institutions, slowed down development, and the under-development consequently provides grounds for new conflicts. Across Africa, most of the civil wars leave thousands of people dead, million displaced, and deeply impoverished.

The Pope underlined the fact that lands in the great African continent have suffered greatly from lengthy conflicts, and these conflicts were driven by greed for resources at the expense of innocent victims, and denounced “economic colonialism” in the continent. Pope Francis demanded that foreign powers stop plundering Africa’s natural resources, and the multinational extraction industries. He recalled how many people arrive in north Africa hoping to cross the Mediterranean into Europe, only to find themselves “taken to camps, and suffering there. Let us pray for all those people.”

Across Africa, during political campaigns, almost all the potential candidates eyeing for the presidential position make skyline promises and pledges to uproot corruption. Military also use corruption as one of the reasons for overthrowing constitutionally elected governments. The practical reality is that corruption has become part and particle of African political culture, and politicians are always getting involved in flagrant violations of constitutions.

Transparency International, a Berlin-based global NGO that focuses on reducing graft, these past years, has attempted researching and documenting reports on corruption. It says corruption, in practice, is worldwide. It ran a survey in sub-Saharan Africa in 2022 to attempt to measure the level of corruption.

The latest survey report says only a few countries, though, stood out as remarkably clean across Africa. Its report for 2022, indicated that there is a seated corruption in the majority of African countries, except few countries such as Botswana, Seychelles and Cape Verde. The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) reveals that 124 countries have stagnant corruption levels, while the number of countries in decline is increasing. This has the most serious consequences, as global peace is deteriorating and corruption is both a key cause and result of this.

It also show that corruption and conflict feed each other and threaten durable peace. On one hand, conflict creates a breeding ground for corruption. Political instability, increased pressure on resources and weakened oversight bodies create opportunities for crimes, such as bribery and embezzlement. Unsurprisingly, most countries at the bottom of the CPI are currently experiencing armed conflict or have recently done so.

On the other hand, even in peaceful societies, corruption and impunity can spill over into violence by fuelling social grievances. And siphoning off resources needed by security agencies leaves countries unable to protect the public and uphold the rule of law. Consequently, countries with higher levels of corruption are more likely to also exhibit higher levels of organized crime and increased security threats.

Corruption is also a threat to global security, and countries with high CPI scores play a role in this. For decades, they have welcomed dirty money from abroad, allowing kleptocrats to increase their wealth, power and geopolitical ambitions. The catastrophic consequences of the advanced economies’ complicity in transnational corruption became painfully clear following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In this complex environment, fighting corruption, promoting transparency and strengthening institutions are critical to avoid further conflict and sustain peace.

“Leaders can fight corruption and promote peace all at once. Governments must open up space to include the public in decision-making – from activists and business owners to marginalized communities and young people. In democratic societies, the people can raise their voices to help root out corruption and demand a safer world for us all,” explained Daniel Eriksson, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Transparency International.

Under the presidency of Jacob Zuma, who ruled South Africa from 2009 to 2018, corruption was at its highest. Zuma participated in anti-apartheid struggle until South Africa finally attained its independence in 27 April 1994. He held various positions in ruling African National Congress (ANC) until he was elected president of South Africa. Before that, he was the deputy to President Thabo Mbeki, but was dismissed of corruption over arm deals. There were multiple graft scandals, that he was forced to step down in February 2018, and currently spends time in prison, and faces corruption allegations in court.

In January 2018, as elected president of the African National Congress, Cyril Ramaphosa has raised hopes that he will stamp out corruption.

“Corruption must be fought with the same intensity and purpose that we fight poverty, unemployment and inequality. We must also act fearlessly against alleged corruption and abuse of office within our ranks,” Ramaphosa declared in his maiden speech after his election. “We must investigate without fear or favor the so-called ‘accounting irregularities’ that caused turmoil in the markets and wiped billions off the investments of ordinary South Africans,” he added.

Last May 2021, the South African commission investigating corruption and graft, Ramaphosa acknowledged that the ruling ANC party did little to prevent corruption, including by his predecessor Jacob Zuma.

“State capture and corruption have taken a great toll on our society and indeed on our economy as well,” Ramaphosa said. “They have eroded the values of our constitution and undermined the rule of law. If allowed to continue they would threaten the achievement of growth, development and transformation of our country.”

South Africa is not an isolated case. It’s neighboring southern States including Mozambique and Angola have similar horrible cases. After 38 years of rule, in 2017 President dos Santos stepped down from MPLA leadership. in efforts to fight corruption, Angolan leader João Lourenço removed many of the country’s top politicians including Isabel dos Santos who were seriously corrupt under Jose Eduardo Dos Santos.

From the Maghreb coastline to Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia are all engulfed with corruption. Sudan, located in northeast Africa, has economic crisis, social problems despite its huge natural resources. Apparently, Omar al-Bashir, who had ruled the country for 30 years, did little for native country, his motherland, monopolized political power and ran deeply corrupt government. The New York Times wrote that Sudan’s economy was largely shattered due to political tyranny, deep-seated corruption and poor policies.

Peter Fabricius, Research Consultant from the South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies (ISS), cited corruption, poor policies and strategies quite recently in his article headlined – African Coups Are Making A Come Back – as some of the factors affecting sustainable development in Africa.

Nigeria has also experienced the worst and the highest levels of corruption. In an interview, Ambassador Uche Ajulu-Okeke with thirty-year achievements in the Nigerian Foreign Service spoke about the present-day Federal Republic of Nigeria, located in West Africa. Several years after its independence, the leaders have not succeeded in rebuilding the state institutions enough to reflect all-inclusive ethnic diversity, let alone in adopting Western-style democracy that takes cognizance of different public opinions on development issues in the country. The struggle for and misuse of power have brought the country into a stalemate, disrupting any efforts to overcome the deepening economic and multiple social crisis.

She further pointed to nepotism at all levels and institutions of government. Morbid corruption. Endemic kleptocracy. Ethnic cleansing and persecution of Christians and ethnic capture of the military and security apparatus of the state. Massive corruption and widespread kleptocracy with indigenous ethnicities in power making strenuous effort to capture state resources to the exclusion of other ethnic groups.

Still in West Africa on the Atlantic coast, Guinea said it would prosecute former president Alpha Conde, who was toppled in a military coup last September, for mismanagement, misuse of power and corruption, for murder and other crimes committed during his time in office. Conde will be among 27 former senior officials to face prosecution.

Mineral-rich but deeply poor and saddled with a reputation for corruption, Guinea has enjoyed few periods of stability since gaining independence from France in 1958. Many Guineans initially welcomed the coup but there is growing discontent in the nation of 13 million people.

Reports documented extravagant lifestyles of a small elite class in Africa. Such lifestyles are not separately linked to corruption and misuse of siphoned funds. The case of the following: British Broadcasting Corporation reported last September 2021, quoted an official statement that “wherever possible, kleptocrats will not be allowed to retain the benefits of corruption” and that was the case relating to the Justice Department of the United States decision to seize $26.6m (£20m) from Equatorial Guinea’s Vice-President Teodorin Nguema Obiang Mangue.

He is popularly known for his unquestionable lavish lifestyle, he has been the subject of a number of international criminal charges and sanctions for alleged embezzlement and corruption. He has a fleet of branded cars and a number of houses, and two houses alone in South Africa.

Teodorin Nguema has often drawn criticisms in the international media for lavish spending, while majority of the estimated 1.5 million population wallows in abject poverty. Subsistence farming predominates, with shabby infrastructure in the country. Equatorial Guinea consists of two parts, an insular and a mainland region. Meanwhile, Equatorial Guinea is the third-largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.

In Mozambique, Armando Ndambi Guebuza, the oldest son of of the former President Armando Guebuza has been targeted and accused of allegedly receiving the biggest share of the money embezzled from the loans mobilized with State guarantees, having pocketed US$33 million (equivalent €28 million). With the money, Armando Ndambi Guebuza bought top-of-the-range cars, some of which he gave to friends, and in addition purchased real estate inside and outside the country and paid for super high-class leisure trips. Armando Ndambi Guebuza used his influence with his father to make business schemes possible and to take advantage of his wealth for himself and his associates.

Still in southern Africa, and back to Angola which has its own corruption tales. As known, it is a country on the west coast of southern Africa. It is the second largest Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) country in both total land space and by population (behind Brazil), and is the seventh largest country, endowed with natural resources, in Africa.

Understandably, this is just one isolated case here. Isabel dos Santos amassed an empire worth more than $2 billion as the daughter of the former president. Dos Santos has come under scrutiny after a number of media outlets, including the New York Times, the BBC and The Guardian published articles based on the “Luanda Leaks” – a cache of some 700,000 documents related to her allegedly corrupt business dealings that were released to the International Consortium of Investigation Journalists (ICIJ).

Dos Santos was appointed to head Angola’s state oil company Sonangol in 2016 when her father was still the president of the country. (He finally retired in 2017 after ruling Angola for 38 years.) Growing revenue from resources including oil has created opportunities for corruption, an estimated $32 billion disappeared from government under Dos Santos administration, according a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço asserted in his many speeches, promised to scale up the fight against systemic corruption, at least, a new narrative for Angolans and the entire Africa. Arguably, he has the mandate to discharge that responsibility for the benefits of his people. Whether João Lourenço will deliver his dedication in tackling corruption head-on and reducing economic graft in his country, time will definite tell. The society is watching.

Angola, Mozambique and South Africa are members of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). Notwithstanding so many problems that hinder Africa’s development, the postcolonial period has seen quite an array of oppressive systems. The so-called democratic but dictatorial regimes, many previous military dictatorships have primarily failed to develop the economic, leaving dilapidated structures. Siphoning state coffers through dubious and opaque means is still the order of the day.

While African politicians continue blaming foreign actors and external factors for their economic woes. The statist economic systems of the past fifty years miserably failed to create free and prosperous African societies, even while they have been incredibly beneficial to Africa’s ruling elites and people who are politically connected.

William Gumede, an Honorary Associate Professor, Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand; and author of the recently released bestselling ‘Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times’ wrote a briefing paper for the Foreign Policy Centre in which he criticized Western countries for protecting their allies by turning a blind-eye to official corruption by ruling parties and leaders in the name of the so-called ‘war on terror’ or craftily overlooked corruption in order to secure mineral or oil rights as well as lucrative contracts.

“Civil society in Western countries and new emerging powers entering Africa should also hold their governments and businesses to account to ensure they are not overseeing corrupt and opaque operations. Corrupt governments, businesses and individuals – from Western as well as new emerging powers must be named and shamed in order to feel the reputable effects of corrupt activities,” he suggested in the policy paper.

Corruption in business is often not seen in a serious light by business leaders either globally or locally. The global financial crisis was essentially caused by corrupt and greedy bankers, traders and those working in the corporate sector. Yet, many of these business leaders and companies now flourish in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, as if they are blameless. Companies should be compelled to adhere to a set of integrity standards (in which they would foreswear corrupt activities) when trading in government contracts.

African public officials often dismiss international organizations’ corruption reports on Africa, saying these reports are infused by Western bias. African critics claim that such analysis overlooks corruption in Western countries and only focuses on developing countries. This is of course true, but only to some extent. The hypocrisy issue is a valid but separate debate and should not downplay the real seriousness of corruption at home.

Alternatively, Western countries look the other way when corrupt African governments are their allies, this has in fact encouraged corruption. Western business organizations also exacerbate corruption by colluding in corrupt practices. China, as a new emerging power on the block, has continued these age old practices in return for investment opportunities.

The organs of the state, that is the executive, the legislature and judiciary and the fourth estate (media must necessarily do more effective investigative journalism to uncover wrongdoing) must engage in “checks and balances” – this to a considerable extent, will scale back corruption in society. The political leader and the executive must periodically account for certain decisions in parliament.

In the long-term, the best antidote to corruption is to foster values (fairness, transparency, public accountability) across the continent which reward honesty and discourage dishonesty. Besides setting up anti-corruption committees and commissions, civil society organizations at the grassroots should step up public campaigns across Africa against corruption. The masses must know the extent of corruption, the impact it has on public service delivery, and how to monitor as well as report it, and the importance of holding their elected leaders and public servants more vigorously to account.

In final conclusion, it is worthy, at least, to keep in mind the suggestion made by the Republic of Ghana’s Vice President, Mahamudu Bawumia, who in May 2022 stated: “Building strong institutions means putting in place the right systems and practices that ensure transparency and brings about efficiency. As the saying goes, the biggest disease is corruption and the vaccine is transparency. The fact is that corrupt people hate transparency and public accountability.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a regular contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Pope Francis Scratches the Surface of Africa’s Ethnic Rivalries, Political Corruption
  • Tags:

From Progress to Bans: How Close Are Human Microchip Implants?

February 8th, 2023 by Daniel J. Lohrmann

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

A headline from The Hill in January 2023 proclaimed “Human microchip implants take center stage.”

Here’s how that article begins:

“The novelty of replacing one’s ‘home key’ with a microchip implant is gaining worldwide interest, but there’s another more compelling story under the surface. Why is this technology — an integrated circuit the size of a grain of rice — reviled by some and celebrated by self-proclaimed human cyborgs?

“Arguably, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet offers the most elegant explanation: ‘Nothing is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.’ However, it would be prudent to tell Prince Hamlet that not all microchip implants are designed alike, and understanding the technological design enables one to better evaluate the competing viewpoints. Today, more than 50,000 people have elected to have a subdermal chip surgically inserted between the thumb and index finger, serve as their new swipe key, or credit card. In Germany, for example, more than 2,000 Germans have opted to receive these implants; one man even used it to store a link to his last will and testament. As chip storage capacity increases, perhaps users could even link to the complete works of Shakespeare.”

The article goes on to provide an update of many advances and concerns in the practice of inserting microchips into humans, and this blog is referenced several times.

Indeed, I have written about microchip implants from a cybersecurity and privacy perspective three times before, and it is clear to me that inquiring minds still want to know: What is the future of microchip implants?

Why do I say that with confidence? Because blogs on this topic of microchip implants still receive very high page views and lots of interest from global readers. For your reference, here are those three blogs:

Microchip implant stories from the past year

Back in March of last year, Wired magazine offered this video on “The Science Behind Elon Musk’s Neuralink Brain Chip”:

And in April 2022, the BBC published this story on microchip implants that let you pay with your hand. Here’s an excerpt:

“Patrick Paumen causes a stir whenever he pays for something in a shop or restaurant.

“This is because the 37-year-old doesn’t need to use a bank card or his mobile phone to pay. Instead, he simply places his left hand near the contactless card reader, and the payment goes through.

“‘The reactions I get from cashiers are priceless!’ says Mr. Paumen, a security guard from the Netherlands.

“He is able to pay using his hand because back in 2019 he had a contactless payment microchip injected under his skin.”

But last December, another article asked if microchip implants in the human brain are still too dangerous. The article does a great job in covering the many benefits and drawbacks of the microchip implants, from curing diseases to complications in getting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.

Meanwhile, many state governments are passing laws to prevent forced microchip implants on employees and others. For example, Wyoming just passed such a bill.

According The Hill, “to date, at least 10 state legislatures in the United States have passed statutes to ban employers from requiring employees to receive human microchip implants.”

Final thoughts

Back in 2018, I listed a number of key questions that I think need to be answered as this human chip implant practice moves forward. I still think these are the right questions (and some are starting to get answered):

  • What are the benefits of implanting the chip(s)?
  • Is implanting chips physically and emotionally safe?
  • Who owns the data on the chip?
  • Who has access to the data — and when?
  • Do the chips communicate, somehow, with outside networks?
  • How are chips updated when flaws are found?
  • Can the chips be hacked? Assuming yes, what security is in place to stop unauthorized access to data and manipulation of data?
  • Do religious beliefs forbid the practice?
  • Is implanting the microchip truly voluntary? Will it still be voluntary tomorrow or in 10 or 20 years?
  • Is the practice medically necessary?
  • Are incentives offered to those who participate?
  • Are penalties coming for those who don’t participate?
  • Will being chipped start as an exception and become the rule?
  • Will ethical and moral processes and procedures be breached by hackers? (No way to stop the bad actors once you begin.)
  • What laws are put in place on this implanted chip topic?
  • What company policies are affected?

On a wider scale, since the Internet is an accelerator for good and evil at the same time, what good or evil outcomes will we see from this implanted chip trend?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Daniel J. Lohrmann is an internationally recognized cybersecurity leader, technologist, keynote speaker and author.

Featured image is from Shutterstock/Kitreel

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on From Progress to Bans: How Close Are Human Microchip Implants?
  • Tags:

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Washington’s political establishment says China was spying on US sovereign territory with what China has called their ‘weather balloon.  China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry Spokesperson issued a statement:

The airship is from China. It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course. The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace due to force majeure. The Chinese side will continue communicating with the US side and properly handle this unexpected situation caused by force majeure

However, the Western mainstream-media has been non-stop with the hysteria on China’s “spy balloon” invading US sovereign territory, but when it comes to the US government and its Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) who has consistently invaded the airspace of many sovereign countries, it is barely mentioned and forgotten.  The bottom line is that the China balloon story is all about war propaganda.  The US and its allies are setting the stage for another war, this time against China.

The Associated Press (AP)

China balloon: Many questions about suspected spy in the sky’ reported on what the Pentagon has claimed regarding China’s spy balloon, “The Pentagon says the balloon, which is carrying sensors and surveillance equipment, is maneuverable and has shown it can change course. It has loitered over sensitive areas of Montana where nuclear warheads are siloed, leading the military to take actions to prevent it from collecting intelligence.”  Brigadier General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary said, “the balloon was not a military or physical threat” and that “once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.”

CNN also jumped in on the propaganda bandwagon and published What is a suspected Chinese spy balloon doing above the US?’, and surprisingly asked a legit question, “Don’t spies use satellites now?”

But CNN switched back to  its propaganda mode when they reported on what Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia and former Royal Australian Air Force officer had said, “Using balloons as spy platforms goes back to the early days of the Cold War. Since then, the US has used hundreds of them to monitor its adversaries.”

So, the US has used these types of balloons in the past, “But with the advent of modern satellite technology enabling the gathering of overflight intelligence data from space, the use of surveillance balloons had been going out of fashion.  Or at least until now.” 

They mention the advancement of “miniaturization of electronics” which complements the idea of “floating intelligence platforms.”  Layton said that “Balloon payloads can now weigh less and so the balloons can be smaller, cheaper and easier to launch.”  An article published by The Washington Post ‘How do stratospheric Balloons Work? Here’s a Visual Guidesaid that “Experts in national security and aerospace said the craft appears to share characteristics with high-altitudes balloons used by developed countries around the world for weather forecasting, telecommunications and scientific research.”   

The Democrats and Republicans are united against a common adversary and that is China.  They say how dare the Chinese Communist Party release a surveillance balloon on our sovereign territory and defy international law.  Well, it is true that a foreign object that invades a sovereign country’s airspace  does violate international law, but for decades, the US has invaded the sovereign airspace of many countries around the world including Nicaragua, Venezuela, Iran, and others.

So let’s go back to November 11th, 1984, the United Press International (UPI) headlined with Nicaragua said U.S. spy planes Sunday broke the sound… reported that Nicaragua said U.S. spy planes Sunday broke the sound barrier twice over the country, causing minor damages and fueling the leftist Sandinista government’s fears of an American invasion.

The SR-71 or its more accurate name, The SR-71 “Blackbird” is used for “strategic reconnaissance” or in other words, to spy on its adversaries.  The SR-71 Blackbird is manufactured by Lockheed Martin, a heavyweight in the MIC was identified by the Sandinistas during the time of the Iran-Contra affair “Within two hours of each other, what the Nicaraguans identified as a U.S. SR-71 ‘Blackbird’ jets flew over Managua and other cities, breaking the sound barrier with a loud boom.”

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is RQ-170-Sentinel.jpg

Another incident happened on December 5th, 2011, this time in Iran. Lockheed Martin’s RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was noticed in the city of Kashmar, located in northeastern Iran and was seized by a cyberwarfare unit from Iranian forces.  The Cyberwarfare unit gained control of the UAV spy drone and landed the plane although the western media reported that the spy plane was shot down.  The Obama regime initially denied Iran’s claims but later admitted that the aircraft that was supposedly shot down, was a US drone.  Iran did file a complaint to the United Nations over the US violating its airspace shortly after.  The RQ-170 Sentinel Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is described in Airforce-technology.com as

“a high altitude and long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed and manufactured by Skunk Works, a division of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the United States Air Force (USAF)”

and that “The UAV can capture real-time imagery of the battlefield and transfer the data to the ground control station (GCS) through a line of sight (LOS) communication data link.”

It was also used against various countries, “The low-observable design enables the aircraft to fly on the borders of Iran, China, India and Pakistan for capturing real-time information regarding missile tests, telemetry and multispectral intelligence.”

On July 21st, 2019, Venezuela’s airspace was also violated by the US military as Reuter’s headlined with U.S. says Venezuelan plane aggressively shadowed a U.S. military aircraftnot mentioning that it was a spy plane, “The U.S. military on Sunday accused a Venezuelan fighter aircraft of “aggressively” shadowing a U.S. Navy EP-3 Aries II plane over international airspace, in yet another sign of the increasing hostility between the two nations.”  Keep in mind that that Obama had imposed sanctions against Venezuela, “The encounter between the U.S. and Venezuelan planes occurred on Friday, the same day that the Trump administration announced it was sanctioning four top officials in Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency.”  The US military had issued a statement about the incident and said that “it had determined the “Russian-made fighter aggressively shadowed the EP-3 at an unsafe distance in international airspace for a prolonged period of time, endangering the safety of the crew and jeopardizing the EP-3 mission.”

So, what was that mission?  To spy on Venezuela’s oil fields?  This was during the time when the Trump regime’s hostilities towards the Maduro government was at an all-time high,  “U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly used sanctions in an effort to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose 2018 re-election has been deemed illegitimate by the United States and most Western nations.”  The EP-3 stems from the P-3 Orion.  The P-3 Orion is an anti-submarine and surveillance aircraft also developed by Lockheed Martin in the 1960’s for the US Navy.  The EP-3 known as ARIES (Airborne Reconnaissance Integrated Electronic System) has specific capabilities that can intercept various signals.  It is an aircraft that is operated by naval personnel with specific skills that includes cryptographers, technicians and even linguists to translate intercepted messages in foreign languages.

Online news website ‘The Drive’ is one of the internet’s main sources for news, features and guides about modern automotive culture and other technologies has a section called ‘The War Zone’ published an article titled The U.S. Army’s Newest Spy Plane in Action in Africa and Latin America admits that “After almost getting canned in 2012, the enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System is now snooping abroad.”  “Rules for thee, and not for me” is the US model, so “snooping abroad” is I guess justified.  According to The Drive:

The first version of the U.S. Army’s newest spy plane is in action in Africa and Latin America. At the same time, the service is finishing tests of three additional sub-variants in Arizona.  On March 12, 2017, Scout Warrior first reported these overseas deployments. The War Zone subsequently learned only some of the four signals intelligence-focused versions of the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS-S) were snooping abroad.

In an Email, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Sean Smith confirmed this particular model was supporting U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) operations. “There are no other EMARSS variants fielded or deployed at this time,” he added.  Despite its name, the EMARSS-S has a suite of signal-snooping gear to track and listen in on enemy communications, as well as the ability to record full-motion video during the day or at night. Each aircraft also has work stations connected to the controversial Distributed Common Ground System – Army (DCGS-A) intelligence data network, which is supposed to help collect, compile, and distribute information rapidly across units

Not only do they openly admit that the US has spy planes in Africa and Latin America, to them it makes perfect sense!

Sending the aircraft to work with AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM makes perfect sense for early deployments. The regions these commands work are relatively low threat environments for American aircraft, but offer no shortage of work tracking drug smugglers, terrorists, and insurgents in remote areas

Let me get this straight, they are using spy planes “to track drug smugglers, terrorists, and insurgents”?  Call me cynical but “tracking drug smugglers, terrorists and insurgents” is only a half-truth.  Maybe in a small number of cases they have tracked real drug smugglers and others, but the US government has been involved in drug smuggling operations in the past, just ask the CIA.  As for tracking terrorists, the US government and the intelligence community has supported terrorists in the Middle East and Latin America for decades and as for tracking insurgencies of let’s say, in Iraq, it is usually against US and NATO occupiers, so who are they fooling?

In Central and South America and Africa, Army spy planes such as the RC-12X Guardrail Common Sensor (GRCS) and EO-5C Airborne Reconnaissance Low – Multisensor (ARL-M) already fly routine missions, in cooperation with other aircraft and personnel from the U.S. Air Force, American law enforcement agencies, local security forces, and private contractors. After 9/11, the Pentagon found renewed interest in monitoring terrorist groups and potential hotspots in Africa with a similar mix of assets

To the US establishment, any form of spying on its territory is considered a declaration of war, but any violation of airspace of their perceived enemies anywhere in the Global South is justified because the US government can do whatever they want and bypass international law.  The Chinese spy balloon story is to create fear that an enemy is collecting data on its nuclear missile sites and on the American people.  Now they are accusing China of spying on Latin America with another balloon which asks the obvious question, why?  China has a good relationship with most of Latin America.  The US establishment, the MIC and the mainstream media are all pushing for a new war with a nuclear power that has a formidable military that would fight any foreign invasion on its territory.  China is not interested in becoming a global empire, it is the US who wants to remain a global empire.  It’s all war propaganda, nothing more, and nothing less.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCN

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

President Emmanuel Macron of France has introduced a bill within the National Assembly which would make significant changes to the pension system established as a result of working class struggles over the decades.

Macron and his neoliberal political party presented itself during the 2022 elections as a viable alternative to the ultra-right wing National Front headed by Marine Le Pen.

Despite the fact that many workers viewed Macron as a lesser threat to the gains made by the French unions, one of the first pieces of legislation introduced in the second administration of the incumbent has been the attack on pensions. The plan is to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 while imposing higher contributions from the workers themselves by mandating that people be employed for 43 years to collect full pension benefits.

A broad coalition of French workers and youth have answered Macron’s policies with a series of general strikes and mass mobilizations. On February 11, another day of demonstrations will be held aimed at filling the streets of Paris and other major cities throughout the country.

Transportation systems are being halted, employees in the oil and energy industries have impeded fuel deliveries and access to electric power, schools are being closed as teachers and students join other workers to oppose the Macron agenda. These periodic general strikes are highlighting the potential political power of organized labor and their allies among the youth and other sectors of the population.

On January 19, the 31st and February 7, 2.8 million workers and hundreds of thousands of youth responding to the call of the National Student Union, participated in walkouts and marches. These manifestations have been largely peaceful although there were some clashes with police and property damage in Paris and other municipalities.

In light of the one-day general strikes during January and early February, the unions are contemplating even more militant initiatives against the pension reforms. These work stoppages are taking place amid higher rates of inflations not experienced in the western capitalist states since the 1970s and 1980s.

Unions representing the railway workers said they would continue their strike into Wednesday (Feb. 8) in order to emphasize the seriousness of the crisis. Oil workers also pledged to extend their stay away by another day.

Neoliberalism and the Plight of the Working Class

Despite the outpouring of unions and students over the recent period and the 2022 oil worker’s strike, the Macron forces appeared to be firmly committed to their neoliberal agenda which places greater burdens on the very class which are most impacted by inflation. French-based multinational energy firms remain largely unscathed by the government’s policy imperatives as Macron seeks to replace the decline in natural gas resources from Russia by negotiating new deals with Algeria and other states.

Although Macron was re-elected in June for another term of office, his political party failed to win a majority within the National Assembly. The French Senate is already dominated by the Republican conservatives and therefore the Renaissance Party of Macron, formerly known as the La Republique En Marche, will have to draw support for its pension reforms from the right-wing opposition.

Therefore, it is incumbent upon the unions and students to advance a broader economic program which provides specific alternatives to the ruling class parties which dominate French politics during this period. A coalition of Left forces in the National Assembly are attempting to sharpen the debate surrounding the pension reforms. The outcomes of this political debate will undoubtedly be influenced by the independent actions of the working class.

It will take militant and revolutionary initiatives of the workers and youth to defeat the neoliberal policies of Macron. Absent persistent agitation and organizing, the ruling class will prevail, setting the stage for even more draconian attacks on the wages and social benefits of the masses of people.

According to the Associated Press:

“French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne defended the government plan Tuesday (Feb. 7) but suggested there was room for adjustments. ‘I’m convinced there are points of agreement to be found. I’m convinced that we can improve this text together. It will be through debate, confronting ideas and, of course, respect,’ she said, noting graffiti that appeared on the meeting place of the National Assembly, including a door marked with 60. If nothing is done, Borne said, taxes and social charges will increase, along with unemployment and lower purchasing power. That would cost retirees with modest pensions and ‘all those who worked all their lives, and certainly not the big bosses,’ she said.” See this.

The Russian special military operation in Ukraine has prompted sanctions by the European Union (EU) member-states and the United States against Moscow. These sanctions and the imperialist-engineered failure to negotiate an accord between Kiev and Moscow, have worsened the economic situation in Western Europe and other geopolitical regions of the world.

Simultaneously in Britain, unions representing railway, healthcare, educational and other workers have engaged in one-day strike actions as well. The Conservative Party government of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has imposed an austerity budget on the workers employed in the public sectors of the country.

There is much at stake in the recent manifestations of the class struggles which are unfolding in France and Britain. Workers and oppressed peoples in North America should follow these developments in Europe in order to gain lessons for the ongoing assaults on their wages and living standards in the world’s leading capitalist and imperialist state.

Consequently, the social plight of the working class in France and other European states are igniting industrial actions as witnessed in Britain since the beginning of 2023. The working class is becoming poorer while the energy firms and financial institutions are reaping huge profits.

A report on the actions of the trade union federations says that:

“Speaking at the protest, head of the CGT, one of France’s main unions, Philippe Martinez called for ‘tougher, more, and more massive’ strikes, while Laurent Berger, general secretary of the CFDT, said: ‘We will try to be even stronger this Saturday [when more protests are planned)’. Mr Martinez said: ‘The government cannot remain deaf to the immense majority of workers [who oppose reforms]. It continues to be stubborn despite protests, so yes, we must go up a gear with more marked, longer, tougher, more numerous, more massive and extended strikes.’”

Numerous union leaders and opponents of the pension reforms see no other alternative to withholding their labor in protests against the policy changes. Through their actions the workers and youth are attempting to influence the National Assembly debate to reject the pension reforms.

The same above-mentioned article conveys the sentiment of the workers: “Virginie Gonzales, general secretary of the UGICT-CGT told BFMTV: ‘I fear that without blocking the economy, we will not be heard; or at least, not listened to.’ Ecologist MP Sandrine Rousseau added: ‘I’m very angry that the government is asking people who are already doing a lot of work to take longer to get to retirement. Their bodies are in pain, they are exposed to psycho-social risks, burnouts, and a loss of meaning.  ‘Retirement is the reward for this work. I would say that a ‘right to laziness’ from the age of 60 is legitimate, and even before, perhaps.’ She added that the reforms would also ‘worsen’ women’s position at work.”

The Capitalist Economic Crisis and the Role of the Working Class

A recent study by the French governmental statistical agency is predicting that the second largest EU economy will experience marginal growth during 2023. The forecast for far less than one percent growth is taking into account the industrial actions of the workers and youth.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned of the potential of a global recession by the concluding months of this year. Although the rise in inflation has somewhat eased, there are indicators which can impact employment and wages which are not keeping up with the rate of price hikes.

Food and energy prices in Europe are absorbing larger amounts of the salaries of workers. These realities are bound to prompt demonstrations and industrial actions in defense of the gains made during the labor struggles of the second half of the 20th century.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who claimed he acted as an intermediary between Russia and Ukraine at the start of the special operation, said in a video that Russian President Vladimir Putin assured him that he would not kill his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. This revelation comes as Benjamin Netanyahu is back in power and is driving Israel even closer to Ukraine and further away from Russia.

“He gave me two great concessions,” Bennett said on February 4 of his March 5, 2022 meeting with Putin. It is recalled that Bennet flew to Moscow in an effort to mediate only weeks after the special military operation began in February 2022. “I knew Zelensky was under threat, in a bunker… I said to [Putin], ‘Do you intend to kill Zelensky?’ He said, ‘I won’t kill Zelensky’.”

The former Israeli Prime Minister said he immediately contacted the Ukrainian president after this revelation and told him, “I’ve just come out of a meeting — [Putin] is not going to kill you.

“[Zelensky] asked me, ‘Are you sure?’ I said 100 percent. [Putin’s] not going to kill you.”

Bennett recalled:

“Two hours later, Zelensky went to his office, and did a video selfie in the office, [in which the Ukrainian president said,] ‘I’m not afraid.’”

According to Bennett, Putin agreed not to demand the disarming of Ukraine. In fact, that same weekend, Zelensky dropped Ukraine’s demand to become a NATO member. However, as recalled, Zelensky once again demanded for Ukraine to be fast-tracked into NATO after Russia announced the inclusion of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson oblasts into the Russian Federation in September 2022.

Bennett also said that “everything I did [in the mediation effort] was coordinated with the US.”

This is an unsurprising detail since Kiev refuses to negotiate with Moscow because of Zelensky’s desire to carry out orders from Washington and London. The Anglo alliance effectively controls Kiev, proving that Zelensky is not a political actor but a puppet. Despite this, the West still continues to allude that Russia is refusing to negotiate.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the argument that Russia refuses to negotiate on the Ukraine issue is a lie, which Moscow will continue to refute.

“Our diplomacy has a job to do, on a daily basis, to explain what’s going on, to expose the lies, especially the current lies about our denial to negotiate,” he said.

Although Bennet attempted to portray himself as a mediator that is balancing between Kiev and Moscow, his actions have led to direct military support for Ukraine, and this policy will certainly not relax under Netanyahu.

Axios revealed on February 1 that the new Israeli government is conducting a policy review on its position on the Ukraine War. The report said, citing three unnamed Israeli officials, that Netanyahu ordered the policy review after returning to office in late December and discussed the matter with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken when they met in Jerusalem on January 30.

Netanyahu reportedly stressed to Blinken that Israel will not reduce humanitarian aid and support for Ukraine, with a senior Israeli official claiming that the Biden administration knows that Jerusalem will not shift Israel’s position closer to Moscow.

Blinken none-the-less urged Israel to provide more support for Kiev, saying that “Russia’s ongoing atrocities only underscore the importance of providing support for all of Ukraine’s needs – humanitarian, economic, and security.”

When meeting with Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, Blinken said: “We appreciate Israel’s humanitarian assistance,” adding that “we look forward to discussing what more can we do.”

Confirming the Axios report, Netanyahu hinted at a policy shift in an interview with CNN on January 31, saying he was “looking into” providing Kiev with “other kinds of aid” besides humanitarian.

Russia warned Israel against arming Ukraine following the CNN interview.

“We say that all countries that supply weapons [to Ukraine] should understand that we will consider these [weapons] to be legitimate targets for Russia’s armed forces,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned.

“Any attempts — implemented or even unrealized but announced for the supply of additional, new or some other weapons — will lead to an escalation of this crisis. And everyone should be aware of this,” she added.

Although Israeli officials and media have attempted to downplay their country’s support for Ukraine, stressing that it does not extend beyond humanitarian support, The New York Times reported last month that the US military was shipping hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to Ukraine from a massive stockpile in Israel.

Senior European officials told Haaretz last month that “Israel agreed to underwrite the purchase of millions of dollars of ‘strategic materials’ for Ukraine” because of American pressure. The materials were transferred via a NATO country and Jerusalem allowed the transfer of Israeli-made weapons, including electro-optical and fire-control systems, by NATO countries to Ukraine.

In addition, it was revealed by Haaretz that Israel has stepped up its intelligence assistance to Ukraine in recent weeks by providing intel on Iranian drones.

In this way, Israel is playing a major role in attempting to limit the success of the Russian military operation in Ukraine despite continuous claims that it is balancing its interests and relations between the two warring parties. Israel, for its part, now faces the risk of Russia no longer tolerating its uncontested airstrikes in Syria and could deepen its military and intelligence ties with Iran.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Israel Deepens Support for Ukraine Despite Claims of Balancing Its Relations with Russia
  • Tags: ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

A new peer-reviewed study found a positive statistical correlation between infant mortality rates (IMRs) and the number of vaccine doses received by babies — confirming findings made by the same researchers a decade ago.

In “Reaffirming a Positive Correlation Between Number of Vaccine Doses and Infant Mortality Rates: A Response to Critics,” published Feb. 2 in Cureus, authors Gary S. Goldman, Ph.D., an independent computer scientist, and Neil Z. Miller, a medical researcher, examined this potential correlation.

Their findings indicate a “positive correlation between the number of vaccine doses and IMRs is detectable in the most highly developed nations” — which, on average, administer the most vaccine doses to infants.

The authors replicated the results of a 2011 statistical analysis they conducted, and refuted the results of a recent paper that questioned those findings.

Miller spoke to The Defender about the study and its implications for infant and childhood vaccination schedules.

The more doses, the higher the infant mortality rate

In 2011, Miller and Goldman published a peer-reviewed study in Human and Experimental Toxicology, which first identified a positive statistical correlation between IMRs and number of vaccine doses.

The researchers wrote:

“The infant mortality rate (IMR) is one of the most important indicators of the socio-economic well-being and public health conditions of a country. The U.S. childhood immunization schedule specifies 26 vaccine doses for infants aged less than 1 year — the most in the world — yet 33 nations have lower IMRs.

“Using linear regression, the immunization schedules of these 34 nations were examined and a correlation coefficient of r = 0.70 (p < 0.0001) was found between IMRs and the number of vaccine doses routinely given to infants.”

In the above figures, “r” refers to the correlation coefficient, a number that ranges from -1 to 1. Any figure above zero is understood as a positive correlation, with figures between 0.6 and 0.79 considered a “strong” positive correlation, and 0.8 and above a “very strong” positive correlation.

The “p-value” indicates the extent to which the predictor’s value, in a linear regression analysis, is related to changes in the response variable.

A p-value of 0.05 or below is considered statistically significant, and indicative that the predictor and the response variable are related to each other and move in the same direction.

In the same 2011 study, which used 2009 data, the researchers found the highest positive correlation in countries that administered the most vaccine doses to infants (between 21 and 26 months old).

“Linear regression analysis of unweighted mean IMRs showed a high statistically significant correlation between increasing number of vaccine doses and increasing infant mortality rates, with r = 0.992 (p = 0.0009),” the researchers wrote.

Miller told The Defender:

“In 2011, we published a study that found a counterintuitive, positive correlation, r = 0.70 (p < .0001), demonstrating that among the most highly developed nations (n = 30), those that require more vaccines for their infants tend to have higher infant mortality rates (IMRs).”

However, “critics of the paper recently claimed that this finding is due to ‘inappropriate data exclusion,’ i.e., the failure to analyze the ‘full dataset’ of all 185 nations.”

According to Miller:

“A team of researchers recently read our study and found it ‘troublesome’ that it’s in the top 5% of all research outputs. They wrote a rebuttal to our paper to ‘correct past misinformation’ and to reduce the impact of vaccine hesitancy.

“Their paper has not been published but it was posted on a preprint server.”

Miller said he and Goldman “wrote our current paper to examine the various claims made by these critics, to assess the validity of their scientific methods and to perform new investigations to assess the reliability of our original findings.”

The original paper studied the U.S. and 29 other countries with better IMRs “to explore a potential association between the number of vaccine doses … and their IMRs,” finding a strong positive correlation.

The 10 researchers — Elizabeth G. Bailey, Ph.D., a biology assistant professor at Brigham Young University, and several students associated with her Bioinformatics Capstone course who wrote the rebuttal to Goldman and Miller’s 2011 analysis — combined “185 developed and Third World nations that have varying rates of vaccination and socioeconomic disparities” in their analysis.

“One stated rationale behind Bailey’s reanalysis (and additional new investigations) is to reduce the impact of vaccine hesitancy, which ‘has intensified due to the rapid development and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine,’” Goldman and Miller said. “They also appear to be targeting our study for a potential retraction.”

Miller explained the methodology Bailey’s team used:

“The critics select[ed] 185 nations and use linear regression to report a correlation between the number of vaccine doses and IMRs.

“They also perform[ed] multiple linear regression analyses of the Human Development Index(HDI) vs. IMR with additional predictors and investigate IMR vs. percentage vaccination rates for eight different vaccines.”

According to Miller, “Despite the presence of inherent confounding variables in their paper, a small, statistically significant positive correlation (r = 0.16, p < .03) is reported that corroborates the positive trend in our study (r = 0.70, p < .0001).”

In other words, there is still a positive correlation between the IMR and the number of vaccine doses, albeit weaker, among the 185 countries Miller’s critics studied.

However, this positive correlation is “attenuated in the background noise of nations with heterogeneous socioeconomic variables that contribute to high rates of infant mortality, such as malnutrition, poverty, and substandard health care” — meaning that there are confounding factors in poorer nations that significantly contribute to their higher IMRs.

Miller explained the difference in methodologies:

“We both used linear regression to analyze a potential correlation between the number of vaccine doses and IMRs. However, we analyzed the 30 most highly developed nations with high vaccination rates (consistently above 90%) and uniformity of socioeconomic factors.

“In contrast, our critics analyzed 185 nations with variable vaccination rates (ranging from less than 40% to greater than 90%) and heterogeneous socioeconomic factors.

“By mixing highly developed and Third World nations in their analysis, our critics inadvertently introduced numerous confounders. For example, malnutrition, poverty, and substandard healthcare all contribute to infant mortality, confounding the data and rendering the results unreliable.”

Miller and Goldman also conducted three other types of statistical analysis: odds radio, sensitivity and replication analyses. These tests confirmed their findings, as they wrote in their new paper:

“Our odds ratio analysis conducted on the original dataset controlled for several variables. None of these variables lowered the correlation below 0.62, thus robustly confirming our findings.

“Our sensitivity analysis reported statistically significant positive correlations between the number of vaccine doses and IMR when we expanded our original analysis from the top 30 to the 46 nations with the best IMRs.

“Additionally, a replication of our original study using updated 2019 data corroborated the trend we found in our first paper (r = 0.45, p = .002).”

Put differently, the new study, which used 2019 data, found a somewhat weaker positive correlation of .045, but nevertheless confirmed a connection between the number of infant vaccine doses and IMRs.

Miller explained that, unlike the critics’ dataset of 185 countries, no adjustments for vaccination rates were necessary for his dataset, as “Vaccination rates in the countries that we analyzed generally ranged from 90-99%.”

He added that the odds ratio analysis considered 11 variables, including child poverty, and, “None of these variables lowered the correlation below 0.62.”

Similarly, said Miller, “In our sensitivity analysis, where we successively analyzed nations with worse IMRs than the United States, an additional 16 nations could have been included in the linear regression of IMRs versus the number of vaccine doses, and the findings would still have yielded a statistically significant positive correlation coefficient.”

Miller told The Defender the positive correlation he and Goldman identified grew stronger when the data were limited to highly developed countries, which tend to require a larger number of doses:

“When we replicated our 2009 study using 2019 data, we once again found a statistically significant positive correlation between the number of vaccine doses and IMRs. Although the correlation was less robust (r = 0.45, p = .002) than our original finding, it corroborated the direction of the trend initially reported.

“When our 2019 linear regression analysis was limited to the top 20 nations, the correlation coefficient increased (r = 0.73, p < .0003), revealing a strong direct relationship between number of vaccine doses and IMRs.”

Miller noted that his critics’ paper based its conclusions on results it found for “high” and “very high developed nations” as categorized by HDI.

Their paper stated, “A re-analysis of only highly or very highly developed countries similarly shows that human development index (HDI) explains the variability in IMR, and more recommended vaccine doses does not predict more infant death.”

However, Goldman and Miller, in their new paper, challenged the use of HDI as a predictor of overall health in a country, noting that HDI looks only at “educational levels, income per capita, and life expectancy” and that multiple scholars have identified “severe misclassification in the categorization of low, medium, high, or very high human development countries.”

“As we discuss in our paper, up to 34% of HDI-classified nations are misclassified due to three sources of error, so it is unreliable,” Miller told The Defender. “Although our critics reported a strong correlation between HDI and IMR, this reveals no specific health measures that might be positively or negatively influencing IMR.”

Miller also noted, “An alternative index, the Human Life Indicator (HLI) was created to address HDI shortcomings. While Denmark was recently ranked fifth in the world by HDI, it fell to 27th place with HLI; the U.S. was recently ranked tenth by HDI while HLI ranked it 32nd.”

In summarizing the shortcomings of his critics’ study, Miller said:

“It was inappropriate for our critics to combine data from nations with highly variable vaccination rates and heterogeneous socioeconomic factors.

“In Third World nations, several factors contribute to a high infant mortality rate, thus when all 185 nations are analyzed (rather than limiting the analysis to the most highly developed homogenous nations), a positive correlation between number of vaccine doses and IMRs is attenuated or lost in the background noise of these other factors.”

Infant deaths spike in days following vaccination, data show

Miller previously studied the association between pediatric vaccines and sudden infant death, in a 2021 paper titled “Vaccines and sudden infant death: An analysis of the VAERS database 1990–2019 and review of the medical literature.”

Commenting on the findings of that research, Miller said:

“Of the 2,605 infant deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) from 1990 through 2019, 58% clustered within three days post-vaccination, and 78% occurred within seven days post-vaccination, confirming that infant deaths tend to occur in temporal proximity to vaccine administration.

“The excess of deaths during these early post-vaccination periods was statistically significant (p < 0.00001).”

Combined with the findings of his most recent paper, Miller argued that “Vaccines are not always safe and effective. Vaccine-related morbidity and mortality are more extensive than publicly acknowledged.”

He added:

“In all nations, a causal relationship between vaccines and sudden infant deaths is rarely acknowledged. Yet, physiological studies have shown that infant vaccines can produce fever and inhibit the activity of 5-HT [serotonin] neurons in the medulla, causing prolonged apneas and interfering with auto-resuscitation.”

Miller also highlighted the sequence in which vaccines are administered as a potential factor contributing to IMRs. He told The Defender:

“Global health officials do not test the sequence of recommended vaccines nor their non-specific effects to confirm they provide the intended effects on child survival. More studies on this topic are necessary to determine the full impact of vaccinations on all-cause mortality.

“In Third World nations, numerous studies indicate that DTP and inactivated polio (IPV) vaccines have an inverse safety profile, especially when administered out of sequence. Multiple vaccines administered concurrently have also been shown to increase mortality.”

Miller said that based on his latest study, “We do not know whether it is the vaccinated or unvaccinated infants who are dying at higher rates.” However, he noted most nations in his sample “had 90-99% national vaccination coverage rates.”

“In our paper, we provide plausible biological evidence that the observed correlation between IMRs and the number of vaccine doses routinely given to infants might be causal,” Miller said.

As a result, argued Miller, “more investigations regarding health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations … would be beneficial,” adding that “Health authorities in all nations have an obligation to determine whether their vaccination schedules are achieving desired goals.”

“Much more research needs to be done in this field, but more studies will only achieve limited positive change until more individuals and families begin to make the connection between vaccines and adverse events,” Miller said.

“Also, legislators and health authorities must permit people to accept or reject vaccines without intimidation or negative consequences.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

Featured image is from CHD

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Higher Infant Mortality Rates Linked to Higher Number of Vaccine Doses, New Study Confirms

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

“No one knows who will live in this [iron] cage in the future….” – Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

I would prefer not to relay the following very strange story given to me by a fellow sociologist, but he had done me a number of favors, and since he asked me to do him a favor in return, I feel obligated.  I don’t know what to make of the whole thing.  Following this brief introduction, you will find the manuscript he handed me. I realize you are getting this third hand, but there’s nothing I can do about that.  I don’t know his friend.  When he asked me to print it for him, I told him I would prefer not to, but then guilt got the best of me, so here it is.

This is one of those stories hard to believe.  When I first heard it, I thought it was a joke, some sort of parable, and my friend who was telling it to me had had too much to drink or was just pulling my leg.  I’m not sure.  Like so much in today’s world, the difference between fiction and fact has become very blurry.

Let me call him Sean, since these days holding a strong dissenting opinion can cost you your job.  He is a professor who, like the character David in John Fowles’ story, “The Ebony Tower,” teaches art history.  And like Fowles’ character he is a very frustrated academic.  In Sean’s case, he has had to contend with the transformation of his college from a place of learning to a place where “Woke” ideology stifles dissent.  Perhaps more importantly, he has suffered from extreme writer’s block.  He had just been telling me how, after years of writing copiously in his private journals, he had grown nauseated by it because it seemed so self-involved, concerning self and family stuff he was sick of.  He wanted to write articles and books, yet when he tried, he couldn’t.  All his energy had been going into his futile daily journals, where he felt trapped by family matters.  Until one recent day at the bar where we regularly meet, he heard this strange story.  It jolted him.

Here is what he told me over beer at the tavern.  I am paraphrasing, but because his tale was so startling, I know I have the essentials right.  He said:

“It was late in the afternoon last Wednesday when I came in here for a beer.  I was feeling very tired that day, though depressed would be more accurate.  The teaching routine seemed absurd to me.  I wasn’t writing.  I felt at a dead end.  I guess I was.  Anyway, you know that guy Tom whom we’ve talked to here before?  Well, he was here and we got talking.  The place was empty.  It turns out his last name is Finn – Tom Finn.  His father was Russell Finn, the famous painter, you know, the one the mainstream media gush over.  A realistic sentimentalist is the way I’ve heard him described, although I would say he was a sick fabulist trying to repaint history for Hallmark Cards.  Anyway, so this Tom Finn had had a few beers, and as he got talking, the both of us had a few more.  It became obvious that he was obsessed with his father.  He didn’t say that exactly, but I could guess it from the snide remarks about him he’d laugh out of the side of his mouth.  I asked him about a big traveling exhibit of his father’s paintings which I had recently read about in the newspapers; had he seen it?  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t go to that kind of crap.  That’s his bag of marbles.’  Things like that.

“It turns out the son is also a painter, but he said nothing about his own work, just that he painted.  He talked all about his father’s work, how his father stole ideas, wasn’t very good, etc.  I told him I agreed that his father’s work was overhyped and mediocre, but that my experience studying art taught me that was true for every era.  I was trying to be nice, something I tend to overdo.  I got the impression he turned to painting by default, it being some kind of knee-jerk reaction to his father, some kind of Oedipal contest.

“It turns out his real obsession is toys, no shit, and he got very animated as he talked about them.  He wanted me to come over to his house to see his vast toy collection.  The invitation was so weird, and with the beer’s effects, I couldn’t refuse.  It was nearly dinner time, so I called Sara and told her I’d be late.  I was actually interested in what made him tick.  I mean, why would a grown man – I’d say he is in his mid-forties – collect fucking toys?  And weirder still, he said his specialty was tiny plastic figures of all sorts.  Of these he had more than 25,000 – for some reason he emphasized that number – that he’d periodically put on display at local libraries.

“So I followed him over to his house which is on that street adjoining the university where a number of art history professors live.  Oak Terrace, I think it is.  I couldn’t help laughing when I saw all those abstract sculptures decorating their lawns.  It was getting dark and they were spotlighted.  What a juxtaposition – so perfect – so-called realism and cerebral abstraction side-by-side.  And both utter bullshit.  I was reminded of a description of Russell Finn’s paintings that I once read: Cute wallpaper for readers of Reader’s Digest.

“Actually, Finn’s house is quite cute itself.  When we were going in, I had to restrain myself from saying to him, ‘Life’s cute, isn’t it?’  I don’t think he would have appreciated that, although it’s very possible that he wouldn’t have known what the hell I was getting at.  He’s a toy collector after all and what’s cuter than that.

“I’ll tell you this.  I wasn’t prepared for what he showed me.  He took me down to his finished basement, which he called ‘the laboratory.’  When he switched on the lights the room was empty except for the walls.  They were covered with shelves about six inches apart that ran from wall to wall and ceiling to floor.  It gave the large room this incredibly bizarre look as though it were a prison cell.  There were even spotlights that illuminated the shelves, upon which, right along the outer edges looking out, he had lined up his collection of little figures.  As we stood in the middle of the room, it was as though thousands of little people were staring at us, the giants. I felt as though I was hallucinating. Finn just chuckled when I said, ‘Pretty fucking amazing!”  Then he said, ‘I like the perspective, don’t you?’   I knew he didn’t expect an answer and I could only chuckle in response, even as I felt a chill on the back of my neck.  It was so eerie that I had to contain a shudder.  For a brief moment I had the feeling that the door we had entered was going to shut and be bolted and that something terrifying was about to unfold.

“But at that moment he gestured to me to follow him to another door, over which a sign read, ‘The Family Fun Room.’  ‘This is my favorite,’ he said with a smile.

“In the middle of this pink painted room there was a cage that extended from floor to ceiling, and in the cage, sitting on stools, were two life-sized and very realistic figures of a man and a woman.  They were both dressed in those black and white stripped prison uniforms you’ve seen in old movies.  The woman was facing away from the man.  I couldn’t tell who the woman was, but I immediately recognized the man.  It was Finn’s father, down to the most realistic detail.  He was holding a small toy figurine and was looking into its face.  The door to the cell was padlocked shut.  ‘That’s to make sure they can’t escape,’ Finn said with a straight face.  ‘Now that I got them where I want them, I can’t take any chances.  They’re dangerous and can cause me a lot of grief.’

“He then closed the door and we went upstairs.  Neither of us said a word.  He offered me a beer, but I declined.  I felt spooked, some dreadful feeling in my gut.  I told him I had to be leaving, which I did.  On the way out I noticed a framed photograph in the foyer.  It was a picture of Finn at about the age of nine or ten with his parents and sister.  They are sitting together on a couch, the two kids caught between the parents.  No one is smiling.  Behind them on the wall is the father’s famous painting of a family of four sitting on a couch.  In that one, everyone is smiling and the father in the painting is Finn’s father.  As you probably know, that was one of his father’s favorite techniques – to put himself in his paintings.  Such a cute double-message: I did it, of course, but how could I have done it when I’m in it.  You’re left wondering: who really did it?  Who executed the painting of these happy people. But since it’s all supposed to be so amusing, you’re left to chuckle, to think, how cute, how tricky.  You’re supposed to smile.  But no one was smiling in the picture on the wall.  It seemed like a house of smoke and mirrors and I was damn glad to leave.

“As I drove home, I sure as hell wasn’t smiling.  There was something terribly disturbing about it all.  I felt nauseated, disgusted, really disturbed.  Maybe it seems obvious, but I felt there was a connection between this weird experience and myself.  A double connection, actually.  I won’t go into all the details now, and you know about my writer’s block, but this bizarre experience has left me with a new sense of freedom, some kind of opening to a new way to write that at the time I couldn’t put my finger on.  I’ve come to think of it as writing beyond a cage of categories.

“I thought about all the stuff we talk about, the political propaganda about everything, the loss of a sense of reality, the illusions and delusions with the digital technology, the warmongering by the U.S against Russian, the covid bullshit, all of it, all the stuff we share over beers.  Especially the disconnect between the private and the public and the two-faced nature of a way of living that is so fucking phony.  I realized why I had been hiding in my notebooks, how they had become my cage.

“To top it all off, when I got home and told Sara about my experiences with Tom Finn, the cage and all, she didn’t believe me.  She accused me of having drunk too much, which I had to admit I did.  She said I was scaring her with such a ridiculous tale and that I was sounding like a deluded conspiracy nut.

“Anyway, I’ve told no one else about Finn.  I’m afraid they wouldn’t believe me either.   You’re a sociologist and know all about Max Weber’s prediction of a coming disenchanted world with its iron cage.  Shit, I feel like I had a small glimpse of it.  Do you think anyone would believe me if I told this story?

“Do you?”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.

Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts.  He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

Featured image is from GLEN BOWMAN

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Prediction of a Disenchanted World “Inside the Iron Cage”

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Construction will reportedly soon begin on a mine that’s expected to become the United States’ largest source of lithium. This mine is viewed as critical to Joe Biden’s $2 trillion clean energy plan by powering the nation’s increased production of electric vehicles.

On Monday, a US district judge denied the majority of legal challenges raised by environmentalists, ranchers, and indigenous tribes, upholding that the federal government’s decision to approve the Thacker Pass mine in 2020 was largely not made in error. However, chief judge Miranda Du did agree with one of the protesters’ claims, ordering the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to complete a fresh review to determine if Lithium Americas Corp has the right to deposit waste rock on 1,300 acres of public land that the mining project wants to use as a waste site.

Because this waste site may not contain valuable minerals, there’s a possibility that this land may not be validly claimed as a waste site under current US mining laws, Du wrote in the order. A mining law from 1872 requires that mining projects must validate all claims to public lands before gaining federal approval, and that means Lithium Americas must now provide evidence that valuable minerals have been found on the proposed Thacker Pass waste site to resume the project.

Although this review may set back the project’s major construction timeline by as much as six months, that doesn’t seem to be a big concern for Lithium Americas. Reuters reported that the company met with BLM today to begin the review. The company’s chief executive, Jon Evans, told Reuters that because lithium has previously been found throughout the project area, Lithium Americas considers Du’s order to conduct a review an “easy fix.”

Calling it a win for the mining project, Evans confirmed that preparations for the mine site would promptly begin, projecting that heavy construction would be underway by this summer.

In the order, Du rejected claims that the project could disturb wildlife, degrade air quality and groundwater sources, or overlook the cultural significance of Thacker Pass to local tribes, determining that BLM adequately weighed environmental and cultural impacts before approving the project.

Ars could not immediately reach BLM for comment. Lithium Americas linked Ars to a statement the company posted today, saying that it would be working closely with BLM to review the waste site and saw no reason to further delay construction.

“The favorable ruling by the Federal Court confirms the permitting process for Thacker Pass was conducted thoroughly and responsibly, and results in there being no impediment to commencing construction,” Lithium Americas wrote in the statement.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Ashley Belanger is the senior tech policy reporter at Ars Technica, writing news and feature stories on tech policy and innovation. She is based in Chicago.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Creation of Largest US Lithium Mine Draws Closer Despite Protest Over Land Use
  • Tags: ,