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As the 2024 Olympics approach, it is necessary to reflect on some sensitive topics. The future of the Olympic movement is uncertain. The constant ideologization of sports, driven by a myriad of factors from the attempt to “isolate Russia” to the promotion of the “woke agenda”, has led to the gradual end of fair and inclusive competitions.

Due to pressure from the gender lobby, the distinction between the sexes in competitions is increasingly blurred, which threatens the survival of sport as a whole, but even more particularly of women’s sport. A political-ideological impasse is also created to marginalize and criminalize any criticism of the presence of trans-athletes (biological males) in the female categories, accelerating the decline of competitions.

More than that, pressure from the trans lobby has also caused problems in conventional doping control systems, there now being a huge discussion about who should or should not be covered by special doping rules according to gender identification.

Added to all this is the pressure from certain lobbyists to convert practices that have never been associated with sports into Olympic categories – such as pole dancing, for example. Also, there is still a lack of real solutions for a fair and definitive inclusion of electronic sports in competitions, with little dialogue about the necessary adaptations.

In parallel, it is necessary to remember that the politicization of sport by regulatory organizations has led to international embarrassment and tension. The banning of Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competitions due to the conflict in Ukraine has established a negative milestone in the history of sports, something that will not be reversed anytime soon.

We should also mention the more “classic” problems of the sports industry. Big Media companies strive to obtain exorbitant profits through broadcasts of major events, turning the sporting spectacle into a mere commodity.

From a geopolitical point of view, it is possible to see that this phenomenon is somehow related to the decline of the Western unipolar order. Sports federations, like any other international organizations, work according to certain ideological ties and political agendas. In a Westernized and liberal world, sporting competitions are organized to serve the interests of Western elites – and, as such a geopolitical order collapses, the quality of sporting events is also affected.

There is a solution to this problem growing from the emerging world. The non-Western world is organizing to propose alternatives to conventional sporting events. Events such as the BRICS Games show that it is possible to create fair, de-ideologized competitions with a true sporting spirit, which do not act as mere pieces of propaganda for the liberal establishment.

Furthermore, the growth of the Phygital Movement in emerging countries has led to heavy investment in this area, as can be seen with the planning of the “Games of the Future” in Kazan, Russia. These are competitions that mix elements of physical and electronic sports, overcoming conventional barriers, providing inclusive sporting experiences that combine the traditional with the modern.

Between February 21st and March 3rd, more than 260 international delegations will be in Kazan to compete in the Games of the Future. Even traditional Russian games such as Russian billiards and sambo, which have no place in competitions organized by the West, will be released. The event tends to be a milestone in the history of the Phygital Movement.

In 2024, TV broadcasters will profit billions from the conventional Olympics – which, interestingly, could not be placed in a better place than today’s France, whose health problems (such as bedbug and rat infestations) and social problems (such as farmers’ protests for better living conditions) tend to make the Olympics at least “messy”. However, what we are seeing now is the end of the Western monopoly on sports.

With the growth of intra-BRICS international cooperation and the self-isolation of the West due to its own agendas, the future of sport will certainly be decided in the emerging countries.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on X (ex-Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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[This article was originally published in November 2023.]

Israel possesses the world’s largest skin bank, a medical facility that stores human skin for later use in treating burns and skin cancers. This bank was established in 1986 under the supervision of the military medical sector of the occupying army, which provides its services internationally, especially to requests from Western countries.

Israeli occupation authorities been stealing organs from the bodies of dead Palestinian, a heinous criminal practice that has been revealed in several reports and through testimonies of Israeli doctors who participated in this gruesome practice, violating professional ethics and constituting a crime against humanity, Al-Ghad reported.

In contrast, this Israeli bank differs from other banks worldwide in that its supply of these vital organs does not come solely from voluntary donors. Instead, documented cases of stealing skin from the bodies of Palestinians have been recorded, individuals whose organs are also stolen.

There is compelling evidence of Israelis engaging in trafficking these stolen organs, making the entity the largest market for organs in the Middle East.

Where Did Israel Get This Inventory From?

Expert in Israeli affairs Anas Abu Arqoub says,

“The Israeli skin bank is the largest in the world, surpassing the American skin bank that was established 40 years before it, noting that Israel’s population is much smaller than the United States.”

Arqoub emphasizes that the theft of organs from Palestinian bodies is not just suspicions, stating,

“Even the Israeli media acknowledges that it is an extraction process without the knowledge of the dead’s families.”

The reserve of human skin held by the Israeli occupation state, equivalent to 170 square meters, stored within the Israeli skin bank, confirms Arqoub’s account. The number is considered unreasonable since Israel ranks third in its population’s refusal to donate organs, attributed to Jewish religious beliefs.

Handing over Palestinian bodies to their families without organs!

The details of the story date back to 2001 when Swedish investigative journalist Donald Boström published an investigation exposing the theft of organs from the bodies of Palestinian martyrs and their trafficking by Israeli entities. This was the first time this crime was revealed to the international public.

Boström did not stop at this point but published another investigation on the same subject in 2009 in the pages of the Swedish magazine “Aftonbladet.” The investigation mentions that the Israeli Ministry of Health launched a national campaign to encourage organ donation in 1992. However, despite that, a significant gap persisted between the demand and the supply of donations.

Coinciding with that campaign, cases of the disappearance of several Palestinian youth began, only to return afterward in closed coffins. The Israeli authorities imposed on their families to bury them at night without funerals.

Boström says,

“I was in the region at that time, and on several occasions, UN employees contacted me concerned about the developments. The individuals who contacted me said that organ theft certainly happened, but they were prevented from doing anything about it.”

These contacts prompted the journalist to delve further into the issue, so he went to interview the families of the dead who confirmed the theft of their sons’ organs before their killing. Among them was the son of the martyr Bilal Ahmed Ghannan, who was 19 years old when the Israeli army arrested him in the village of Um al-Tut in the West Bank in 1992. He returned with a body without internal organs, from the neck to below the abdomen.

The Israeli medical authorities did not deny the torture and theft of Bilal’s organs. At that time, the director of the Israeli Institute of Forensic Medicine, Chen Kugel, said that Bilal’s family could be right because they “took everything that could be taken from all the bodies that came to the Institute of Forensic Medicine,” without the family’s consent. His family did not receive any explanation, apology, or compensation for what happened.

Israeli Confessions of Organ Theft from Palestinians

In a 2009 documentary on the issue, there are admissions from the former director of the Israeli Institute of Forensic Medicine, Yehuda Hiss, confirming the theft of organs from the bodies of Palestinian in the institute. Hiss stated,

“We took corneas, skin, heart valves, and bones … Almost everything was done unofficially to a large extent… and permission was not sought from the families.”

In her study on dealing with the bodies of Palestinians at the Abu Kabir Forensic Medicine Center in Tel Aviv, published in a book titled “On Their Bodies,” anthropologist Meirav Feis stated that she witnessed “how they take organs from the bodies of Palestinians. In return, they leave the bodies of soldiers intact.”

The researcher added,

“They take corneas, skin, and heart valves in a way that makes the absence of those organs unnoticed by non-specialists. They replace corneas with plastic bodies and remove the skin from the back so that the family does not see it. In addition, the bodies of the dead are used in medical schools in Israeli universities for research purposes.”

Feis said,

“In the first intifada, the army effectively allowed the institute to extract organs from Palestinians under a military procedure that required dissecting the bodies of Palestinian prisoners. The autopsy procedure was accompanied by the removal of organs used by the Israeli skin bank, established in 1985 to treat burns suffered by Israeli soldiers.”

Trafficking in the Organs of Palestinian Casualties

Israel is one of the largest markets for trafficking in human organs in the world, and the largest in the Middle East. Media reports revealed that the Israeli entity is involved in killing Palestinians to steal their internal organs illegally and trade them within an illegal international network.

In 2009, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested an Israeli settler named Levy Izhak Rosenbaum. After investigating him, it was revealed that he played the role of a broker in organ-selling operations in the United States for the benefit of a criminal cell led by rabbis, politicians, and government officials in Israel.

Journalist Donald Boström, in his mentioned investigation, suggests a connection between this network and the theft of organs from Palestinian martyrs taking place in “Israel.” Boström said,

“Half of the kidneys transplanted to Israelis since the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century were illegally purchased. The Israeli health authorities have full knowledge of this activity but do nothing to stop it.”

In a report published by the Israeli newspaper “Haaretz” in 2016, Israel admitted to losing dozens of bodies of Palestinians. The newspaper quoted statements from sources in the Israeli judicial and security apparatuses about the loss of 121 bodies of Palestinians held by the occupation authorities since the 1990s.

Continued Organ tTheft

Following the explosion of the organ theft scandal in 2009, the Israeli government tried to evade the proven charges against it. The spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Health at that time, Einav Shimron Greenboim, issued a statement saying,

“The practice mentioned in the investigation is an old story that ended years ago.”

Doubts persist about the continuation of these unethical practices that violate human rights, as indicated by the Israeli authorities’ continued detention of dozens of bodies of Palestinian dead, justifying it as a punitive measure.

According to Abdel Nasser Farwana, the head of the Studies and Documentation Unit at the Palestinian Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission, Israel still holds more than 370 bodies of Palestinian and Arab bodies who died in different circumstances and years apart. He added,

“The list of these detained martyrs includes individuals who died from the 1970s until around 2023.”

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The White House is closing in on a decision to send missiles to Ukraine with a range of nearly 200 miles. The Biden administration is discussing the potential weapons shipment but lacks funding to finance the transfer. President Biden is pressing House Republicans to approve a massive war spending bill that includes $61 billion for Ukraine. 

The US has provided Ukraine with short and medium-range missiles for its HIMARS missile launchers. Biden is now close to deciding to provide Kiev with the long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) that can hit targets at 190 miles. 

The potential change in White House policy comes after Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“I just came here from a meeting with Secretary Blinken,” Kuleba told a small group of reporters in Munich on Saturday. “I spent a very good part of the time arguing in favor of ATACMS.”

The US official who spoke with NBC News about the White House discussions explained that ATACMS “would allow Ukraine to strike farther inside the Russian-held Crimean Peninsula.” Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014, and often responds to attacks on the Peninsula with massive attacks on Ukrainian cities. 

A defense official told NBC News that the Pentagon could not send the arms without Congressional funding. The Senate passed a nearly $100 billion supplemental defense spending bill that included $61 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, and funding for Washington’s military build-up in the Pacific targeting China. 

President Biden has pressed the House to pass the bill, but Speaker Mike Johnson allowed the body to go into recess. Even if House Republicans relent and pass the aid package, Kiev is struggling to field enough soldiers. 

Ukraine has suffered recent losses on the battlefield, including Adviivka, the critical Donbas city. During the retreat, as many as 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers were captured or are missing.

Additionally, the West is struggling to produce enough weapons to send to Ukraine. The defense official speaking with NBC News admitted the Pentagon had a limited supply of long-range ATACMS. 

“It took Europeans too much time to start ramping up or waking up or dusting off their defense industries,” Kuleba said. “We will pay with our lives throughout 2024 to give your defense industries time to ramp up production or new lines.”

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Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, opinion editor of Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Will Porter and Connor Freeman.

Featured image: The M57A1 Army Tactical Missile System missile is fired over the cab of an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launcher. New battle conditions call for the Army to have precision lethal and nonlethal fires that can be fired from land to produce effects in all domains, as joint, multidomain operations are expected to be increasingly common. (U.S. Army photo)

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History remembers the Mongols as a pastoral nomadic people from Central Asia who made a significant impression on the world’s history. In essence, the Mongol territorial occupation was of a scope and range never equaled as stretching from Central Europe to the Korean Peninsula and from the middle of Siberia to Asia Minor and the Persian Gulf.

The Mongols even attempted seaborne military invasions of Japan (in 1273−1274 and 1281) and Java (1292−1293). The Mongol invasion during two centuries (from the beginning of the 13^th century to the beginning of the 15^th century) was, in fact, the last but at the same time most violent, assault on pastoral tribes with its effects being considerable for the world history of the time. 

As a direct consequence of the Mongol military invasion, the political-social organization of a bigger part of Asia followed by East and part of Central Europe was changed. Some human groups were exterminated, some were removed and dispersed, and some of the regions suffered tremendous changes of the ethnic features. It became followed by the fact that both the distribution and influence of the most numerous world religions became tremendously changed.

In addition, the trade and other traffic links between Europe and Asia were broken for a longer time as traveling was not safe.

Nevertheless, from an ethnic viewpoint, the focal outcome of the Mongol invasion in Asia and Europe was the wide dispersal of the tribes of Turkic origin over the region of West Asia.

It had to be said that Mongol native land was, in fact, barren and, therefore, not supporting a large population. The Mongols, actually, had been no numerous people which was the reason why their most prominent leader and unifier, Genghis Khan (real name Temujin, 1162/7−1227) augmented his armies from loyal Turkic tribes.

The name/title Genghis Khan means “ruler of all”.

Consequently, soon, the Turkic people outnumbered the native Mongols, and the Turkish language became spread out in Asia with the Mongol armies.

Naturally, the minority of Mongol speakers became absorbed by the Turkic mass and the Mongol language survived only in the original Mongol homeland – Mongolia.

The Turks even before the Mongol conquest were prominent with their Seljuk sultanate of Rum in Asia Minor but by breaking up this sultanate, Mongols cleared the way for the creation and existence of the greatest of the Turkish empires – the Ottoman. 

During the Mongol military invasions in Asia and Europe, they faced three religions and their associated cultural products: Islam (both Sunni and Shia), Buddhism, and Christianity (both Catholic and Orthodox).

However, the Mongol attitude towards the three of them was in practice different. The Mongols, actually, professed a traditional shamanism that was embodied in the Law of Genghis Khan (Yasa). Nevertheless, they felt the powerful attraction of the new faiths by occupation of the lands around Mongolia which, in fact, have been associated with higher levels of civilization compared to Mongols one.

Islam at first was unfavorable: Baghdad as the administrative Islamic center was both captured and sacked in 1258 and the Islamic caliph was killed.

Nevertheless, the historical destiny was that Islam slowly occupied the souls of the Mongol/Turkic conquerors and a powerful revival began. In fact, this revival was directly connected with the collapse of the Christian religion in Asia in general. Before, the Mongol/Turkic invasion, Christianity in (West) Asia looked very prosperous as Christianity was present throughout Asia but mostly in its western portions. 

Buddhism, as well as Islam, emerged from the Mongol/Turkic experience stronger than it entered it. Buddhism had little success westward Altai Mts., however, in the eastern portions of the Asian continent the Mongol dynasty gave Buddhism a superior place within the society of China (in both Chin Empire and Sung Empire). 

The early life of Temujin (later Genghis Khan) is covered in the clouds of legend due to the lack of relevant historical sources. As a matter of fact, Mongol-speaking tribes lived for centuries generally within the territory of present-day Mongolia.

Nonetheless, they need an extraordinary person who would politically and nationally unite all Mongol tribes and furthermore transform them into the biggest land empire in the world history. Temujin, born either in 1162 or 1167 was the son of a Mongol tribal leader.

Up to 1206 he united all the Mongol tribes and established a single unified Mongolia. After the unification of Mongolia, his first political task was to subdue other non-Mongol neighboring tribes and in 1211 to invade the northern Chinese Empire of Chin which was finally conquered in 1234 (after his death) many years after the breaking of the Great Chinese Wall.

The southern Chinese Empire of Chin became totally destroyed. Peking (Khanbalik) was taken by the Mongols in 1215.

However, Temujin turned their army to the west in the military attack on the Kara-Khitai Empire (a state between the Aral Sea and the Uighurs).

The next to be attacked was the Empire of the Khwarizm Shah (from the land between the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean). That became the first Islamic state to be conquered and barbarically plundered by the Mongols. The Mongols did not face any bitter resistance from the peoples of Central Asia and quickly reached the Caucasus Mts. In 1221 (southern) and 1223 (northern).

The tribal polities united by Temüjin to found the Mongol Empire (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Temujin died in 1227 leaving his empire extended from the Pacific to the Black Sea. However, his military conquests have been prolonged by his successors. Nevertheless, before he died, he made a rule for his succession to the throne of the Mongol Empire. By this provision, Temujin divided the whole empire among his four sons/relatives.

Therefore, Batu (a grandson of Temujin) organized a Mongol military invasion of East and Central Europe.

Consequently, the principalities of North Russia became occupied in a quick (Blitzkrieg) winter action of 1237/1238.

The capital of the Kievan Rus’ – Kiev, was taken in 1240 (and razed to the ground) ending consequently the first independent state of the East Slavs.

The Mongols of Batu in 1240 started a two-directional military action on Poland and Hungary. During the assault, the Oder River was passed at Racibórz in Poland and the army of Batu quickly swept northwards down the river valley.

The city of Breslau in German or Wrocław in Polish became bypassed but on April 9^th, 1241 combined German/Polish army was heavily defeated at Liegnitz/Legnica on the very border with the Holy Roman Empire. Only several days later, another Mongol army defeated the Hungarian army at Mohi in North Hungary. However, Europe became saved from further successful Mongol military raids only by the death of the Great Khan Ogedei (December 1241) as disputes over the throne between the successors arose and, therefore, Batu led his European army back to the lower Volga River (that was old Mongol military base) during the winter of 1242/1243. Kublai Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, succeeded in completing the occupation of China.

Christian Europe was saved from the Mongol military attacks for the reason of the death of Ogedei in 1241, the death of the Great Khan Möngke in 1259 saved the Islamic territories and peoples in Asia. The Mongol Great Khan Möngke decided to extend the boundaries of the Mongol empire to the east and west but in principle against the Chinese Empire of Sung as well as against the Assassins and the Islamic Caliphate up to Egypt. By himself, Möngke took charge of the war against China. The Western military campaign was in the charge of his younger brother, Hülegü. The Order of Assassins was conquered and Baghdad fell in 1258.

After the death of Möngke in 1259, armed conflict took place between rival groups that was causing Hülegü to concentrate his main forces in Trans-Caucasus leaving only weak forces in the Middle East. However, such development became soon known by the Egyptian authority of the Mameluke Empire/Sultanate (existing from 1250 to 1517). In other words, the Mameluke sultan took the opportunity to attack the Mongol army in Palestine (of pagan enemies of the faith). It was a famous battle near Nazareth at Ain Jalut on September 3^rd, 1260 in which better armed and more numerous Mameluke army decisively defeated the Mongols. This battle, in fact, became a turning point of the time as the Mongol advance in the West was never again renewed to some serious degree. More important, the legends of their invincibility on the battlefield disappeared forever. 

The death of the Mongol leader Möngke (1259) ended the short-lived political unity of the Mongols and their huge empire.

The succession was for the first time decided by armed conflict. Kublai became ultimately successful in the struggle for the throne. The direct authority of succeeding Great Khans was in the eastern portion of the empire.

However, the western territories of the khanates of Chagatai (from Altai Mts. to the River of Amu Darya), Il-Khan (Persia), and Golden Horde (from the River of Yenisei to behind the River of Dnieper) gradually became independent states. Kublai ruling the Empire of the Great Khan stretching from the River of Amur up to the Himalayas Mt. became involved in the stubborn struggle with the southern Chinese Sung Empire up to 1279 and by unsuccessful efforts to conquer Japan in 1281 (due to terrible sea-storm).

Nonetheless, it was obvious that such a vast territory of the Eurasian Mongol Empire could not be administered by only one ruler.

In Persia and China, the Mongol ruling dynasties came to an end in less than a century.

In both khanates of Chagatai and Golden Horde society was of the lesser level of urbanization while the population was partly nomadic. As a matter of direct consequence, on these territories the Mongol rule lasted longer: for instance, on the lands of ex-Kievan Rus’, it lasted for more than two centuries. Nonetheless, the time of Tamerlane (Timur, 1336−1405) marked the ultimate end of the Mongol age of conquests.   

It has to be especially underlined that the Mongol appearance at the top of the world stage from 1206 to 1405 was both very sudden but extremely devastating too.

Several old states (kingdoms and empires) disappeared due to the Mongol conquest, destruction, plundering, and extermination of the citizens. The question, nevertheless, arose what was the reason for their quick and successful military success in Eurasia?

The answer is the result of the superior military strategy at the time, an excellent and very mobile cavalry, physical endurance, discipline, as well as coordinated way of military actions. The horsemanship of the Mongol cavalry was the most effective in military history.

It is usually not a very known fact that the Mongols had a military institution that we can call today a modern general staff. Nonetheless, on the other hand, the opposing armies either in Asia or (especially in) East Europe have been in the majority of cases uncoordinated, bulky, and therefore not so maneuverable on the battlefield.

Probably, the military invasion and quick occupation of the Kievan Rus’ in 1240 was the best example of the Mongol tactics and methods. As a result, the biggest part of the Kievan Rus’ became occupied for only several months during the winter campaign when the Mongol cavalry was moving across the frozen rivers with great speed. Historically, that was the only successful winter military invasion of Russia. 

As a matter of fact, the Mongols did not make any innovations concerning the old traditions of living as the nomads of the Central Asian steppes. Simply, the Mongols used both the methods and strategy of the earlier cavalry armies of the steppe nomads. However, under several masterminded military and political leaders (starting with Temujin and finishing with Tamerlan), these have been brought to the top of military efficiency producing the most terrible instrument of war of the time. 

Nonetheless, regarding the history of the Mongol Empire from 1206 to 1405 military deeds are best studied and known while, on the other hand, the social or cultural legacy is very difficult to discover and follow due to the lack of relevant sources.

The Mongol lordship was comparatively short and they did not succeed in establishing some distinctive and longtime civilization.

By 1368 the Mongols were expelled from China and in 1372 a Chinese army burned Karakorum.

The Mongol conquests, in fact, are understood as the end of an epoch. Historically it is quite known that city dwellers and peasants have been constantly in danger by attacks from both the fierce riders from the steppes and highlanders from the mountains. However, during the time of the Mongol Empire both gunpowder and firearms were invented that meant no longer the battle was going to be decided by endurance and manpower. Russia and China had suffered very much from nomad aggression by the people from the steppes which was the reason that during the succeeding centuries after the Mongol Empire, both nations firmly executed the policy of the pacification of wild and warmongering steppes’ herdsmen. 

The Mongol Empire before 1259 was the greatest land empire in history that was established by the ruthless and capable cavalry armies of Temujin and his direct successors.

The empire was composed of loosely related nomadic tribesmen who have been living in felt huts (yurts) and subsisted on meat and fermented mares’ milk (koumiss).

The empire stretched from the Korean Peninsula and Java to Poland and from the Tungus’ land to the Persian Gulf and Asia Minor. The Mongol armies were experts at siege warfare, learning from the Chinese.

The Byzantine Empire (the East Roman Empire) as well as West Europe became saved from further Mongol invasion only by the death of Ogedei in December 1241 just as his advance guard reached the Adriatic littoral (Dalmatia) while Japan was not invaded just due to kamikaze – sacred wind that destroyed the navy of Kublai Khan. 

Timur/Tamerlane or Tamburlaine, born Timur Lenk, (in power from 1369 to 1405) was the last great Mongol conqueror ruling his empire from Samarkand. He was leading an army combined by Mongols and several Turkic tribes and conquered a vast land which included Persia, North India, and Syria in the Middle East. Timur defeated the Ottoman army in the 1402 battle near Ankara (Angora), but died during an invasion of China. However, his, paradoxically, destroyed what remained of the Mongol Empire (Khanate of the Golden Horde and Chagatai Khanate). 

The Chagatai Khanate ended with the death of Timur while the Khanate of Golden Horde, which became reduced in territory and weakened in power due to his attacks, survived up to 1480 when the power of the Tartars was broken by Ivan III (the Great, 1462−1505).

The word horde is derived from the Mongol ordo (camp). The word golden recalls the splendid of the central camp of the khan Batu. He as the grandson of Genghis Khan invaded 1238 the Kievan Rus’ with the army composed of Mongol-Kipchaks. Batu burned Moscow and in 1240 occupied Kiev – the capital of the state. Golden Horde existed from 1242 to 1480 ruled by the Tartars of the Mongol Khanate of the Western Kipchaks. The army of Batu quickly swept through East Europe (including the Balkans) and after this military campaign, Batu founded his camp at Sarai on the Lower Volga River. The Mongol destruction of Kiev led to the rise of Moscow where in the course of time resistance to the Golden Horde started. Nevertheless, Timur defeated the Golden Horde in 1391 which tremendously weakened the Horde and its military power. Consequently, independent khanates emerged in Crimea and Kazan. 

Finally, as the last Mongol political inheritance, Timur was an ancestor of the Mogul dynasty in India. 

Contemporary Map on Mongolia

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

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Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about a horribly one-sided “analysis” published by The Telegraph. The author, Andrew Lilico, made a number of laughable claims about Russia and its military, insisting that it could never defeat the United Kingdom or the European Union, combined or separately. At that moment, London’s forces were going through at least two humiliating episodes. This is particularly true for the UK’s Navy, the very cornerstone of its military power projection capabilities. Two weeks ago, the situation was quite bad, as the Royal Navy was already in disarray. One of its two aircraft carriers, HMS “Queen Elizabeth”, broke down, missing a major NATO naval exercise. Then the Type 45 (also known as the Daring-class) destroyer HMS Diamond was forced to withdraw from the Red Sea after suffering “technical difficulties” (London refused to acknowledge if the Houthis had anything to do with “encouraging” the said “difficulties”).

And yet, this was nowhere near the end of the British military’s troubles. Namely, only a few days later, the second Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, failed to depart for the largest NATO exercise in 2024 due to a “minor fuel leak” that was reportedly detected on February 10. However, reports didn’t link this “minor leak” to the delay in the ship’s departure, meaning there might as well be other major problems with the aircraft carrier, infamous for numerous instances of breaking down or experiencing “minor technical difficulties” in barely half a decade of service. HMS Prince of Wales was to replace her sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth as the lead ship of the Nordic Response 2024 naval drills, part of the wider Steadfast Defender 2024 exercise slated to take place in March. This would mean that the UK’s entire fleet of aircraft carriers is effectively out of service. And yet, its strategic planners want to go to war with Russia, an actual military superpower.

Worse yet, Moscow quite literally pioneered the modern concept of anti-ship warfare, with a plethora of missiles (including hypersonic) and torpedoes that are absolutely unmatched. And the UK’s most important military branch, the Royal Navy, is breaking down without coming anywhere near a Russian ship. Still, this isn’t even the icing on the cake when it comes to London’s “minor technical difficulties”. Namely, in the aforementioned analysis I wrote two weeks ago, I questioned whether the UK’s strategic arsenal is functioning properly. Although such information is certainly a state secret, it seems that my hypothesis was just confirmed, as London admitted that one of its UGM-133A “Trident II” (also known as “Trident D5”) missiles failed during a recent launch test. According to British media, this was the second time in a row that the troubled SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile), a weapon of strategic importance, has failed.

The previous test, conducted back in 2016, also failed. The last successful launch was in 2012, when HMS Vigilant, a Vanguard-class SSBN (nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine), fired a “Trident II” during a test. This means that the UK hasn’t had a successful SLBM launch in well over a decade, but it still believes that it can go up against Russia, a country with the world’s largest and most powerful strategic arsenal. The latest “Trident II” test was from the lead ship of its class, the HMS Vanguard, with reports indicating that London’s Defense Secretary Grant Shapps was overseeing it. The SLBM’s booster rockets failed and it fell into the sea “close to the launch site”, as the Sun reported (the “launch site” being the HMS Vanguard submarine itself). And yet, Secretary Shapps insists that he has “absolute confidence in ‘Trident’s’ submarines, missiles and nuclear warheads”. Perhaps he should recheck the definitions of the words “absolute” and “confidence”.

The UK relies solely on these submarines and missiles for its strategic capabilities. Had “Trident II” damaged the HMS Vanguard, it would’ve taken one-quarter or 25% of London’s strategic arsenal out of service, as the “Perfidious Albion” has only four such vessels, each armed with up to 16 SLBMs. It should be noted that HMS Vanguard just finished a seven-year-long overhaul and refueling. However, to make matters even worse, Secretary Shapps and the Head of the Royal Navy Admiral Sir Ben Kay were both on board the submarine during the launch test. The failures are also an embarrassment for the United States, as the missiles are manufactured by Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon’s premier military supplier. Still, all this didn’t prevent Secretary Shapps from adding to the general embarrassment by saying that “an anomaly did occur during the test on 30 January this year,”, but that “Trident II” SLBM is still “the most reliable weapons system in the world”.

According to his assessment, the test “reaffirmed the effectiveness of the UK’s nuclear deterrent” and that the “anomaly was event specific”, with “no implications for the reliability” of the UK’s strategic arsenal. London’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) made similar statements, insisting that HMS Vanguard and its crew had been “proven fully capable in their operations and that “the test had reaffirmed the effectiveness of the UK’s nuclear deterrent”, reaffirming Secretary Shapps’ statement that “Trident II” is the “most reliable weapons system in the world”. These sorts of dangerous self-delusions show just how out of touch the political West is when it comes to its assessments of starting a thermonuclear war against not one, but multiple global and regional superpowers, be it Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, etc. For instance, Pyongyang is often the first target of Western propaganda and ridicule, but its strategic arsenal has been proven to work flawlessly.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinated doctors continue to die suddenly around the world, although the deaths have slowed down slightly.

Feb. 9, 2024 – BRAZILIAN DOCTOR DEAD – 52 year old Cardiologist Dr. Gilmar Do Nascimento collapsed while exercising at a health club and died suddenly on Feb. 9, 2024.

 

 

Feb. 5, 2024 – NSW, Australia – Dr.Mike Davis died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm on Feb. 5, 2024. He leaves behind 3 children.

Feb. 4,2024 – Brescia, Italy 26 year old Dr.Sofia Filippini had a “sudden illness” at her home on Feb. 4, 2024 and died unexpectedly in the hospital.

Click here to read the full article.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image is from COVID Intel

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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According to Wikipedia and other CIA-controlled Establishment media, you are currently visiting:

an extremist website
a far-right website
a conspiracy theory website
a misinformation website
a far-left conspiracy website
or something of that nature.

In other words, you are visiting an independent website that searches for the truth, wherever the trail of evidence may lead.

The Powers-that-be do not like websites that question or contradict the Official Narratives, whether those narratives pertain to the Covid plandemic, the “safe and effective” Covid clot-shots that are actually quite harmful, climate change alarmism, the US/NATO war against Russia via proxy Ukraine, the subservience of the US Democrat/RINO Uniparty to globalist forces, or the ongoing US-backed Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people,

Silicon Valley traitors like Google and Facebook do NOT want you to share any such information, facts, opinions, reports, interviews, or documents.

Visiting any truth-telling independent website could disorient persons who have been brainwashed by the Mainstream Media (MSM) into believing the MSM’s lies and propaganda.  As former CIA Director William Casey said,

“We shall know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American people believes is false.” 

And CIA ex-Director William Colby observed: “The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media.” 

So scrap everything you think you’ve learned from the New York Times, the Washington Post, your city newspaper, and the major TV networks.

Important Takeaways

• President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. were all assassinated by US Government-orchestrated plots.  These murders laid the groundwork for today’s belligerent US Empire run by a power-hungry, corrupt Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-

Academia-Think-Tank complex.

• The three aforementioned murders were all the result of conspiracies.  The CIA popularized the term “conspiracy theory” to discredit anyone who questions the nonsensical official explanation for JFK’s murder.  Today the CIA-controlled Mainstream Media uses the term reflexively to smear and marginalize anyone who questions the Official Narratives regarding the Covid scamdemic, the lethal Covid genetic “vaccines,” the stolen elections of 2020 and 2022, the demonization of Vladimir Putin, or any other issue.
• The three World Trade Center towers in New York were destroyed on September 11, 2001 by carefully planned controlled demolition and other technologies, NOT by 19 Muslim terrorists in planes.  Was it an inside job or an Israeli job?  You decide. See here.
• Joseph Biden stole the 2020 Presidential election.  Trump won by a big margin.  Biden, though senile, confused, and mentally unfit for the job, knows he is an illegitimate usurper.
• The Covid “vaccines” are NOT “safe and effective.”  They’re not effective—they don’t stop infection or prevent transmission.  And they most definitely are NOT safe.  These dangerous, untested genetic cocktails have already killed and severely injured millions of people in the US and around the world.  They should all be taken off the market immediately.
• The “Covid-19 pandemic” was a globally orchestrated scam based on:
  • fraudulent PCR diagnostic tests designed to yield false-positives up to 97% of the time
  • mountains of junk data of nonexistent “Covid cases”
  • wholly unscientific and counterproductive lockdowns, mask mandates, and absurd social-distancing rituals
  • 24/7 fear-porn propaganda generated by the Pharma-controlled Mainstream Media, the government, and the World Health Organization which is largely owned by billionaire vaccine fanatic Bill Gates, a college dropout with no medical training
  • an alleged virus that has been shown to exist ONLY as a computer simulation supplied to the US by a Chinese Communist Party-directed bioweapons lab
  • There was no apocalyptic killer virus.  If any “novel” coronavirus does exist, it was milder than the seasonal flu according to the heavily padded official data
• There is no climate emergency.  “Climate change,” formerly known as man-made “global warming,” is a hoax designed to advance a globalist cabal’s agenda. (See References below.)  The same globalist cabal was behind the Covid scamdemic.

In conclusion, do NOT believe anything you read or hear in the corporate-controlled, CIA-massaged establishment media.  Be skeptical of everything in the self-styled “liberal” and “progressive” media as well, since most of them support censorship, self-censorship, and the globalist cabal’s agenda on many key issues.

Question everything.  You should also question what you read and hear in the online independent news media, which may be the only place these days where the truth can emerge.

The truth will out.

This has been a Public Service Announcement.

 

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This article was originally published on LewRockwell.com.

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”
-George Orwell, 1984

With each step, with each successive advancement in weaponized technology — which come faster and faster as the rate of development skyrockets — the corporate state inches closer to achieving its ultimate objective of totalitarian control.

Soon, barring effective resistance, suppressing information counter to approved narratives ex post facto will become unnecessary because verboten information will never make it out of the womb into the public consciousness in the first place.

In the end, of course, the social control will descend to the level of the individual mind itself, with neurological implants or other tools rendering the very act of wrongthink impossible.

We’re now on Step #2 of this three-part descent into techno-hell.

Via Reuters:

“Google (GOOGL.O) is preparing to launch an anti-misinformation campaign across five countries in the European Union (EU), the company told Reuters ahead of the bloc’s parliamentary elections and tougher new rules tackling online content.”

In June, EU citizens will elect a new European Parliament to pass policies and laws in the region and lawmakers fear the spread of misinformation online could sway voters.

France, Poland and Germany accused Russia on Monday of putting together an elaborate network of websites to spread pro-Russian propaganda.

Europe’s Digital Services Act, which comes into force this week, will require very large online platforms and search engines to do more to tackle illegal content and risks to public security.

From this spring, Google’s internal Jigsaw unit which operates to tackle threats to societies, will run a series of animated ads across platforms such as TikTok and YouTube in five EU countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland.

Building on previous campaigns the company has tested in Germany and central Europe, Jigsaw said the new project was an opportunity to reach citizens in countries with some of the largest number of voters in the EU, utilising the company’s local expertise in these regions.

The ads will feature so-called ‘prebunking’ techniques, developed in partnership with researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Bristol, aimed at helping viewers identify manipulative content before encountering it…

‘We’ve spent so much time having these really polarised debates. Our democracy is at stake, and the temperature just keeps getting higher and higher,’ said Beth Goldberg, head of research at Jigsaw.”

Via Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review:

“It has been shown that debunking and fact-checking can lack effectiveness because of the continued influence of misinformation: once people are exposed to a falsehood, it is difficult to correct (De keersmaecker & Roets, 2017; Lewandowsky et al., 2012). Overall, there is a lack of evidence-based educational materials to support citizens’ attitudes and abilities to resist misinformation (European Union, 2018; Wardle & Derakshan, 2017). Importantly, most research-based educational interventions do not reach beyond the classroom (Lee, 2018).

Inoculation theory is a framework from social psychology that posits that it is possible to pre-emptively confer psychological resistance against (malicious) persuasion attempts (Compton, 2013; McGuire & Papageorgis, 1961). This is a fitting analogy, because ‘fake news’ can spread much like a virus[1] (Kucharski, 2016; Vosoughi et al., 2018). In the context of vaccines, the body is exposed to a weakened dose of a pathogen—strong enough to trigger the immune system—but not so strong as to overwhelm the body. The same can be achieved with information by introducing pre-emptive refutations of weakened arguments, which help build cognitive resistance against future persuasion attempts. Meta-analyses have shown that inoculation theory is effective at reducing vulnerability to persuasion (Banas & Rains, 2010).”

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This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Armageddon Prose.

Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Note

[1] Well-trained liberals go wild for any such virus analogy, in which an alleged social ill is turned magically by a snap of the fingers and a propaganda blitzkrieg into a pseudo-Public Health™ issue.

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

The Roman Emperor who allegedly appointed his horse to the Roman Senate has long been a hallmark of arrogance. The US State Department has now exceeded it by declaring that Russian President Putin’s gift of a car to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un violated “international sanctions.” Washington’s sanctions are “international” sanctions that prohibit the President of Russia, an independent country, from giving a present to the leader of another independent country. There you have it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Washington were to tell Putin that brushing his teeth violates international sanctions.

Russia should never have honored such a charge with a reply. Instead, Putin should have given Kim Jong-un another car. But if a reply was made, it should have ridiculed Washington’s assumption that the US controlled Putin’s gift-giving. Instead, the usually astute Maria Zakharova fell into the trap and disputed that Russia had violated “international” sanctions, thus placing Russia on the defensive about the power Washington wields over Putin’s personal decisions.

Now the President of Russia has committed a new crime. He gave a present disapproved by Washington to another head of state.

What image does Washington’s attempt to micro-manage Putin’s personal behavior create of the United States? Is Washington going to further emphasize its impotence by imposing more ineffectual and pointless sanctions?

Will Washington ever stop making a fool of America?

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

When the Red Army seized control of Berlin in early May 1945 hoisting the Soviet flag on the Reichstag building within the besieged city, jubilations erupted across Europe and around the world.

The European phase of the Second Imperialist War cost the lives of tens of millions of people in the fight against fascism.

In the North African state of Algeria thousands of people went into the streets on May 8, 1945 celebrating the defeat of the German military while at the same time demanding an immediate end to French colonialism. Instead of joining in with the people of Algeria, a country which had been subjected to imperialist rule since 1830, the French police and military opened fire killing thousands in one of the largest massacres of the colonial period.

Details related to this horrendous act of repression ordered by the French military and government were suppressed and then denied by the officials in Paris. Algeria, as a result of the German occupation of France after 1940, had become the de facto capital of the European state.

In one account of the massacre, it emphasizes that:

“Panic ensued and clashes between the Algerians and French quickly led to violence with the French using all attempts to control the population. The colonial forces launched an air and ground offensive against several eastern cities, particularly in Setif and Guelma. The head of the temporary government of France at the time, General De Gaulle, ordered for farmers and villagers from surrounding areas to be killed in what quickly became lynching operations and summary executions. Thousands of bodies accumulated so quickly that burying them was impossible, so they were often dumped in wells or surrounding ravines. The violence would continue until 22 May when the tribes surrendered. By then, 45,000 Algerian men, women and children in and around the region of Setif, Guelma and Kherrata had been killed along with 102 French casualties.” 

The May 8 massacre and subsequent events in Algeria fueled nationalist sentiment which eventually created the conditions for the initiation of an armed struggle nine years later in November 1954. The war of liberation lasted until 1962 when the French imperialists were forced to grant independence to Algeria after 132 years of occupation.

These events in Algeria during the post-war period were by no means isolated incidents. The following year beginning on August 12, 1946, thousands of African miners struck in the Union of South Africa. The strike was led by J.B. Marks of the Communist Party and the African National Congress (ANC).

The mine bosses and police responded to the strike with brute force. At least 9 miners were killed and more than 1,200 were wounded and injured. Although the strike was ruthlessly suppressed, the degree of militancy exemplified by the African Miners Union would have an impact on the overall struggle for national liberation led by the ANC and its allies during the subsequent years during the 1950s.

In the Gold Coast, later known as Ghana, the African military veterans were angered over the failure of the British colonial forces to pay benefits for their service during the Second Imperialist War. On February 28, 1948, during a demonstration by the ex-servicemen in the capital Accra, the British security forces opened fire on the march killing three people. In response, strikes and rebellions erupted throughout various regions of the country.

According to one account of these developments:

“The people’s protests lasted five days. By 1st March the colonial governor had declared a state of emergency and put in place a new Riot Act. On 12th March the governor ordered the arrest of ‘The Big Six,’ leading members of the UGCC, which included Kwame Nkrumah, as he believed they were responsible for orchestrating the disturbances. The Big Six were incarcerated in remote northern parts of the country. It was around this time that Nkrumah and the other five began to have significant disagreements over the direction of the movement for independence. By 1949 Nkrumah had broken away from the UGCC to form the Convention People’s Party (CPP) taking the masses of the people with him. The CPP, through a campaign of ‘Positive Action,’ achieved an end to the Gold Coast colony and brought the new dawn of independent Ghana on 6th March 1957.” 

Impact of the Cold War on the African American Struggle

These events in Africa had a tremendous impact on people of African descent in the U.S. Even prior to the Rand Miners’ strike of 1946, the Council on African Affairs (CAA) led by Dr. William A. Hunton, Paul Robeson and others held a solidarity rally with the South African movement at Madison Square Garden in New York City on June 6, mobilizing tens of thousands. The CAA was founded in 1937 by Robeson, Hunton, Max Yergen and many others.

However, after the conclusion of World War II, the CAA would come under fire by the U.S. government which labelled the organization as a “communist front.” Similar attacks were also carried out against the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) since both organizations were supported by the Communist Party.

Robeson, Du Bois and his wife, Shirley Graham Du Bois, were targeted for their support of the socialist states and national liberation movements in Africa. After they attended the Paris Peace Conference of 1949 their passports were confiscated, and Du Bois was later charged with being an “agent of a foreign power” due to his opposition to the Cold War which threatened the commencement of another global conflagration this time involving the socialist states and U.S. imperialism.

Although the case against W.E.B. Du Bois collapsed, many others were indicted between 1948 and 1951 on numerous charges including failure to register as a foreign agent and conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government. The Smith Act, which outlawed the advocacy of the violent overthrow of the government, was utilized in the indictments and prosecutions of more than 100 members of the Communist Party. Lawyers which provided legal assistance to the defendants were held by the judge in contempt of court and faced disbarment and jail sentences.

The Cold War and the Mass Civil Rights Movement

In May 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Brown v. Topeka ruling which declared that the “separate but equal” decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896 was inherently unconstitutional. The following year with the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi and the quest for justice in the case by his mother, Mamie Till Mosby, created an atmosphere of discontent among the African American people.

Although the Mississippi courts refused to convict the two murderers of Till, by December of 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott erupted sparked by the arrest of Mrs. Rosa L. Parks of the NAACP who had worked closely with E.D. Nixon, an organizer for the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister in Montgomery, became the spokesperson for the movement.

After the successful conclusion of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 when the Supreme Court ruled against segregation in the municipal transportation service, King and his comrades founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. Although a Civil Rights Bill was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1957 aimed at strengthening the capacity of the Justice Department to enforce the right to vote among African Americans, progress remained extremely slow for the remainder of the decade.

However, by 1960, student demonstrations erupted across the South against legalized segregation involving public accommodations and private businesses. During April, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed at an SCLC sponsored conference held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Ella Baker, who had served as the executive secretary of SCLC, encouraged the students to form their own independent organization.

SNCC moved throughout various areas of the South to organize local communities and students to advance the struggle against segregation and later for voting rights. The Mississippi Summer Project of 1964 brought together numerous Civil Rights groups in the state where they engaged in voter registration and the formation of the Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).

Other important developments in 1964 would prove highly significant. Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam forming the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) on June 28 after a tour of the African continent and several countries in West Asia. Malcolm’s emphasis on armed self-defense, Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism had a monumental influence on SNCC and other young people.

By 1966, when Stokely Carmichael, later known as Kwame Ture, became SNCC chairman, Black-led urban rebellions had increased in their frequency across the U.S. It was the work of SNCC in Lowndes County, Alabama in 1965-66 which led to the creation of the original Black Panther Party. The Black Panther concept rapidly spread to other regions of the U.S. In October 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in Oakland, California under the leadership of Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

Black Panther Party march

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Congress continued their repressive campaigns against the leadership of social movements under the guise of fighting communism and subversion.

Many people were killed during the more than 200 urban rebellions which took place between 1964 and 1970. More than twenty members of the Black Panther Party were murdered by police and those operating in their interest. Hundreds of Panthers and members of other revolutionary organizations were framed on trump-up charges and sent to jails and prisons.

Therefore, the attempted suppression of national liberation movements in Africa coincided with the efforts to overthrow the socialist countries while simultaneously targeting Black-led social movements in the U.S. These developments further exposed the falsehood that the U.S. political system was based upon democratic practice and the right to due process.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Algerian massacres during May 1945; All images in this article are from the author

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Vorab gebührt Tucker Carlson und Wladimir Putin große Anerkennung dafür, dass sie sich bereit erklärten, miteinander zu sprechen — oder besser gesagt, dass Präsident Putin mit Tucker Carlson gesprochen hat, war es doch eine Lektion in russischer Geschichte, Kultur und Seele, die Präsident Putin nicht nur Tucker erteilt hat, sondern dem Rest der westlichen Welt, die mehrheitlich keine Ahnung davon hat, was Russland ist und wie es tickt.

Tucker teilte unmittelbar nach seinem Interview seine Überlegungen dazu mit …

„Man muss schon verrückt sein, zu glauben, dass Russland die Krim aufgeben wird.“

„Man muss schon ein Idiot sein, wenn man dächte, Russland sei eine Expansionsmacht — es ist bereits riesig und braucht kein zusätzliches Territorium.“

„Man muss schon ein Idiot sein, zu glauben, Russland könne mit Panzern in Wien einmarschieren. Für solche Absichten gibt es keine Beweise.“

Und bezüglich des Wunsches der US-Führung nach einem Regimewechsel in Russland: „Wir werden von Irren regiert.“

Hier ist das gesamte Interview mit Transkript zu finden.

Nach diesem mit hoher Spannung und Erwartungen angekündigten Interview wurde Tucker Carlson von westlichen Medien und Politikern umfassend dämonisiert — „Wie können Sie es wagen, mit unserem Hauptfeind zu sprechen!“, lautete der allgemeine Tenor.

Frau von der Leyen, nicht gewählte Präsidentin der Europäischen Kommission, sprach davon Tucker Carlson durch ein Einreiseverbot in die EU zu „sanktionieren“. Das ist mehr als lächerlich und wird niemals geschehen. Das schiere Ausmaß der Propaganda einer solchen Äußerung zeigt, wie verzweifelt die EU ist, in die Fußstapfen der USA zu treten — fallen doch die EU sowie die Herren in Washington rapide auseinander.

In den USA wurde lauthals gefordert, Tucker die US-Staatsbürgerschaft zu entziehen und ihm die Wiedereinreise in die USA zu verbieten. Und diese Stimmen waren sogar lauter als jene, die den von der Biden-Regierung verantworteten Immigrationsskandal an der texanischen Grenze anprangerten, von dem viele fürchten, er könne sich von einer Destabilisierung der US-Gesellschaft zu einem regelrechten Bürgerkrieg auswachsen.

Dies ist der Stand der Dinge in einer nicht verrückten, sondern untergegangenen Welt. Wie kommt man da wieder raus?

Tucker Carlson versuchte eine Öffnung dem Osten, Russland, gegenüber; er bereitete damit ein Friedensangebot vor und appellierte damit an das Gewissen von US-Politikern. Wird es funktionieren? Das bleibt abzuwarten.

All jenen, die noch immer der Verleumdung Wladimir Putins durch den Mainstream Glauben schenken, jedoch immer mehr Zweifel hegen und die Wahrheit erfahren wollen, erzählt Putin eine außergewöhnliche wahre Geschichte über Russland — bis zurück ins 8. Jahrhundert — und legt dabei sehr deutlich dar, dass nicht nur die östliche, sondern auch die westliche Ukraine — Kiew — historisch ein Teil Russlands sind.

Vergleicht man diese russische Kenntnis der Geschichte mit dem zionistischen Anspruch auf Palästina, weiß man, wer die Wahrheit spricht und wer für Größe, Dominanz und Macht lügt wie gedruckt — um ein Groß-Israel zu schaffen, das aus dem Nichts gestampft wird, und um sich der Welt als „das auserwählte Volk“ zu präsentieren.

Glücklicherweise wird das Licht schließlich über die Dunkelheit siegen und die Zionisten werden ihre niederträchtigen Ziele nicht erreichen. Unglücklicherweise jedoch könnte ihre Niederwerfung wegen der krankhaften Unterstützung durch westliche Führer jahrelang dauern — und die Zahl der Todesopfer während dieser Zeit könnte astronomisch hoch werden.

Und wer sagt oder glaubt überhaupt, dass das Ganze mit Groß-Israel aufhören wird?

Nach dem, was heute zu sehen und auch in den Aussagen von Präsident Putin zu lesen ist, ist der Westen wild entschlossen, in einen Krieg gegen den Iran zu ziehen — wegen dessen Reichtümern und weil er durch seine Verbindung zu Russland und China eine Störung für den Westen darstellt.

Dieser Westen ist eine Kombination aus dem sterbenden Imperium USA und der Marionette Europa mit ihrer nicht gewählten Führung sowie den einzelnen EU-Ländern mit Implantaten des Weltwirtschaftsforums wie den Young Global Leaders (YGL), also Tyrannen, die privilegiert genug waren, Klaus Schwabs Akademie für Diktatur und Faschismuslehre zu durchlaufen, wie Trudeau, Macron, Von der Leyen, Scholz, Rutte und andere.

Der Iran ist ein Machtzentrum für die neuen BRICS. Ein Angriff gegen den Iran vonseiten des Westens wäre so selbstmörderisch wie ein Angriff gegen Russland oder China. Russland hat derzeit die Führung der BRICS inne. Unter Wladimir Putin wird dies eine starke Führung sein.

Nichts hiervon hat Präsident Putin in Worte gefasst — aber sowohl das, was er nicht gesagt hat und zwischen den Zeilen gelesen werden kann, als auch das, was er gesagt hat, macht Präsident Putin zu einem beeindruckenden Diplomaten und führenden Staatsmann. Der Westen hat niemanden seiner Art vorzuweisen. Dieses Interview könnte ein herausragender Meilenstein (in) der Geschichte werden.

Obwohl er jahrelang ununterbrochen mit westlichen Beleidigungen und Sanktionen überschüttet wurde, kam Putin kein einziges beleidigendes Wort gegen westliche Führer über die Lippen — im Gegenteil: Als er von Tucker gefragt wurde, wie Putins Amtskollegen auf dessen Annäherungen, Gespräche oder Verhandlungsvorschläge beispielsweise zur Ukraine reagierten, sagte Putin, dazu würde er sich nicht äußern, und der gute Journalist, der Tucker sei, solle doch besser direkt an der Quelle nachfragen.

Es ist auch klar, dass Russland keinerlei Expansion anstrebt und auch nicht in mindestens den letzten 300 Jahren. Russlands Territorium von etwa 17,1 Millionen Quadratkilometern — davon etwa 16,4 Millionen Quadratkilometer Landmasse, die etwa 11 Prozent der gesamten Landmasse der Erde darstellen — mit den Reichtümern der dort befindlichen Rohstoffe ist so riesig, dass kein Bedarf an noch mehr besteht, wie Putin früher bereits mehrfach betont hat.

Es gibt überhaupt keinen Grund, warum die skandinavischen Länder, die kürzlich der NATO beigetreten sind, eine russische Invasion fürchten sollten. Die hässliche Wahrheit ist, dass die Führung dieser Länder dies weiß, aber dennoch bei der Russland-Russland-Russland-Dämonisierung der US, EU und NATO mitspielt.

Glauben sie, dass das gut für sie ist? Oder wurden sie gezwungen, sogar bedroht, mitzuspielen? Was bekommen sie im Gegenzug für die von ihnen verbreiteten Lügen und die Angst, die sie den Menschen einpflanzen? Für das Verbrechen, das sie begehen? Als Putin über die vom Westen sogenannte „Invasion“ der Ukraine am 22. Februar 2022 sprach, stellte er klar, dass der Krieg bereits 2014 begonnen hatte, als am 21. Februar 2014, fast auf den Tag genau acht Jahre zuvor, der demokratisch gewählte und russlandfreundliche Präsident Janukowitsch durch einen Putsch gestürzt wurde und aus der Ukraine fliehen musste.

NATO-Generalsekretär Stoltenberg sagte kürzlich dasselbe — dass der Krieg bereits 2014 begann.

Der große Diplomat Präsident Putin sagte nicht, dass dieser Staatsstreich von den USA mithilfe der Europäischen Union inspiriert und von langer Hand geplant wurde — erinnern Sie sich an Victoria Nulands berüchtigtes „f*ck the EU“ —, aber für die meisten Zuhörer und natürlich auch den Interviewer Tucker Carlson war dies offensichtlich.

Präsident Putin war sichtlich tief enttäuscht und beunruhigt, als er herausfand, dass das Minsk-Abkommen von September 2014 und „Minsk II“ von März 2015, die beide von Frankreich und Deutschland unterstützt wurden und nach denen die Ukraine im Wesentlichen abrüsten, neutral werden und ihre Gesellschaft entnazifzieren sollte, nie eingehalten werden sollten.

Im Dezember 2022 sagte die damalige Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel gegenüber der Zeit:

„Das Minsker Abkommen von 2014 war ein Versuch, der Ukraine Zeit zu verschaffen; sie nutzte dies auch, um stärker zu werden, wie man heute sehen kann.“

Das war eine Ohrfeige — nicht nur für Wladimir Putin. sondern für den Großteil der „unschuldigen“ — noch immer gläubigen — Welt.

Die brillante und möglicherweise beste Zusammenfassung des 2 Stunden und 7 Minuten langen Interviews vom 9. Februar 2024 erfolgte in einem sechsminütigen Video von Scott Ritter im Gespräch mit Sputnik auf „X“:

Herr Ritter lobte sowohl Präsident Putin als auch Tucker Carlson für ihren Mut und ihre Kühnheit in vielerlei Hinsicht sowie vor allem für ihre Professionalität, sich zusammenzusetzen und über die Ukraine zu sprechen. Wie wir inzwischen jedoch wissen, war das Interview viel mehr als ein Austausch von Ansichten, Fragen und Antworten über die Ukraine. Das Interview war vielmehr eine Lektion für die Welt über die gemeinsame Vergangenheit von Russland und der Ukraine und — unausgesprochen — über die westliche Einmischung in eine eindeutig interne Angelegenheit.

Scott Ritter bezeichnete das Interview als eine „Tour de Force“, bei der der russische Präsident ein US-Publikum in die Nuancen russischer Geschichte und die Komplexität der russischen Seele einführte. Wenn man nämlich nicht einmal die Grundlagen der russischen Geschichte und die Funktionsweise Russlands versteht, unternimmt man laut Scott Ritter eine Reise ohne Landkarte. Er glaubt, dass dies vielleicht den eigentlichen Wert dieses Interviews darstellt — eine Landkarte zu zeichnen.

Scott Ritter meint, Putin habe nicht nur für Tucker Carlson eine Landkarte erstellt, damit er versteht, was Russlands Herz und Seele ausmacht, sondern für die gesamte westliche Welt, die nun beginnen kann, dies zu begreifen.

Erneut versuchte Präsident Putin, den Westen verstehen zu lassen, worum es Russland geht — nämlich nicht um Aggression und Expansion, sondern um das Streben nach Harmonie und Frieden bei gleichzeitiger Verteidigung der Ostukraine — und hier vor allem den Donbass — vor den Nazi-Aggressionen Kiews. Er weiß genau, wovon er spricht.

Die Nazi-Streitkräfte des Stepan Bandera kämpften Seite an Seite mit Hitlers Nazi-Armee gegen die Sowjetunion und verursachten unzählige Tote und Elend.

Herr Putin sprach in diesem Interview eindeutig von einer unbedingten Entnazifizierung der Ukraine und wies auch auf die drei anderen Hauptziele der russischen Intervention hin: Die Ukraine zu einem neutralen Staat zu machen, keine NATO in der Ukraine und zuvorderst die Verteidigung der russischen Gemeinden, vor allem in der Ostukraine, vor den Nazi-Aggressionen Kiews.

Tucker Carlson öffnete die Tür zu einem modernen Russland, dazu, Präsident Putin zu verstehen, zur Geschichte Russlands und zur russischen Seele. Präsident Putins unermüdliches Bemühen um Harmonie und Zusammenarbeit ist vielleicht einer der wichtigsten Eckpunkte, der sich durch das gesamte Interview zieht.

Herr Putin weiß natürlich, dass der Westen bis jetzt keinerlei Interesse an einem Bemühen um Kooperation und ein harmonisches Zusammenleben mit Russland hat. Im Gegenteil — der Westen möchte Russland schwächen, daher der sinnlose Krieg, der mit Billionen von Dollars und Euros an Steuergeldern der USA und der EU finanziert wird, um Russland zu beherrschen und sich seiner Rohstoffe zu bemächtigen.

Trotz dieser Erkenntnis könnten Putins positive Signale und Schwingungen eines Tages Früchte tragen. Das ist der Sinn der Bemühungen um Frieden, von Zusammenarbeit und Freundschaft — und es ist ein Hauptziel der Philosophie des Tao.

Laut RT (Russia Today) vom 10. Februar 2024 wurde das zweistündige Interview in den ersten Stunden nach seinem Erscheinen am Freitag, dem 9. Februar mehr als 46 Millionen Mal auf Carlsons „X“-Account (früher Twitter) und knapp eine Million Mal auf YouTube aufgerufen.

In einem früheren Beitrag auf „X“ Anfang der Woche beschuldigte Carlson die westlichen Medien, „ihre Leser und Zuschauer“ anzulügen, indem sie Kiews Standpunkt verbreiteten und den Russlands ignorierten.

„Das ist falsch“, sagte er. „Die US-Amerikaner haben das Recht, alles über einen Krieg zu erfahren, in den sie verwickelt sind.“

Marija Sacharowa, Pressesprecherin des russischen Außenministeriums, sagte in einem Gespräch mit der russischen Zeitung Izvestia:

„Das ist phänomenal. Ihre Reaktion entlarvt die Verlogenheit ihrer Ansätze so sehr, dass man es, offen gesagt, nicht glauben kann.“

Laut Frau Sacharowa „erlitten sie einen hysterischen Anfall — das Weiße Haus, das Außenministerium, all die Mainstream-Medien schreien lauthals nur eines: Dass man es (Präsident Putins Video) nicht ansehen solle und dass ein US-Journalist dieses Interview nicht führen sollte.“

Sie fügte hinzu, dass ein solches Verhalten den Bemühungen Washingtons, sich als Leuchtturm der Moral, der Menschenrechte, der Demokratie (Anmerkung des Autors: wenn es denn je eine „Demokratie“ gab) und der Meinungsfreiheit zu präsentieren, den Wind aus den Segeln nimmt.

Frau Sacharowa hat mehr als Recht, und was sie sagt, gilt auch für die rückgratlose EU. Bleiben wir dran und warten auf weitere Folgen dieses Interviews — und hoffentlich wenden sich diese vom Negativen ins Positive.

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Redaktionelle Anmerkung: Dieser Text erschien zuerst unter dem Titel „Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin Interview: What President Putin Really Said”. Er wurde von Gabriele Herb ehrenamtlich übersetzt und vom ehrenamtlichen Manova-Korrektoratteam lektoriert.

Dank an das Manova Magazin.

Peter Koenig ist geopolitischer Analyst und ehemaliger leitender Wirtschaftswissenschaftler bei der Weltbank und der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO), wo er über 30 Jahre lang in der ganzen Welt tätig war. Er ist Autor von Implosion – Ein Wirtschaftsthriller über Krieg, Umweltzerstörung und Konzerngier und Co-Autor von Cynthia McKinneys Buch “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter des Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Er ist auch ein nicht ansässiger Senior Fellow des Chongyang Instituts der Renmin Universität in Peking.

Foto: Ververidis Vasilis/Shutterstock.com

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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From inside the Gaza Strip, Ibtisam Madhi, a Gazan freelance journalist, who specializes in reporting on social issues for The Intercept and +972 Magazine, recently reported how Zionist Israel’s war has intentionally, methodically, perpetrated ruin against thousands of years of rich heritage in Gaza that Palestinian experts decry as cultural genocide.

   Left: 13^th Century Qasr al-Basha (Pasha Palace) in Gaza City; Right: Omari Mosque, Oldest in Northern Gaza

 

Left: Ruins of Qasr al-Basha; Right: Ruins of Omari Mosque

 

The Great Omani Mosque (al-Masjid Ghazza al-Kabir), the largest and oldest mosque in Northern Gaza’s ‘Old City’, originally was an ancient temple, believed to stand on the site of a Philistine temple going back some 2,500 years, that, originally, was dedicated to Marnas – god of rain and grain. Local legend has it that it once was used by Samson who is said to be buried under the once existing mosque.

Carved on the upper tier of the temple’s columns, that were originally brought from a 3^rd century Jewish synagogue in Caesarea Meritina, the columns depicted Jewish cultic objects – a menorah, a shofar, a lulav and etrog – surrounded by a decorative wreath with the inscription “Hananyah Son of Jacob”, in both Hebrew and Greek. 

Eventually, the temple was later transformed into a Byzantine church in the 5^th century and in the 7^th century was converted into an Arabic mosque during the historical period of the Islamic conquests. In the 10^th century, the Arab geographer Ibn Battuta described it as “exquisitely beautiful”.

Though later destroyed by the Mongols in 1260, it was then restored again, following a major earthquake, by the Ottomans in the 15^th century that, in turn, was severely damaged by the British during WWI yet, again, restored in 1925, by the Supreme Muslim Council, 

Before it was utterly destroyed by the Zionists in 2023, this Jewish symbol had passed through the centuries as a testament to demonstrate peaceful co-existence between Arabs and Jewish peoples. since turned it into virtual rubble.

In Terms of Degrees of Savagery, Zionism Puts ISIS to Shame

By now, after nearly five months of incessant, indiscriminate, methodical, genocidal pounding of the Palestinians total way of life in their former homelands of Palestine by the conquering Zionists, if not the previous seventy-five years of the same ill-treatment by these new Jewish barbarians of literally every last remnant trace of anything that remotely smacks of the memory or former existence of the Palestinians, in what the Zionists now call Ersatz Israel, the stark reality of it all should be blatantly obvious to anyone who has given what all is happening so much as even half-a-moment of conscious thought to it all. 

For this is one of the worst examples in living memory of mass extermination ever committed against the human race by the human race upon itself.

Courtesy, for sure, of not just the tyrant Bibi Netanyahu and entire invading population of Zionist Jewry’s Settler Colonial Project; but especially of President Biden, one of its main architects, if not its chief architect and conqueror, as well as every: American politician; American citizen, politicians and citizenry, as well as , those of Canada, England, France, Germany, and every other so-called one-time Western politician and nation of the world. Especially if they all still pride themselves on being, or aspiring to becoming, truly democratic, freedom-loving peoples and political states; rather than just the pawns, dupes and cannon fodder of yet the 21^st century’s new insidious brand of fascism the world has yet to witness; especially with the impending return of Trumpism and his/its in-coming hordes of MAGA-ITES. Or should one more correctly label them as a new species of human MAGGOTS that feed on dead or dying carrion?

But does anyone, or enough of everyone’s, really care, or is the world simply sleep-walking towards some eventual monumental world, AI-induced conflict that will end up becoming a 1,000 X’s 1,000 ‘Gaza’s’ or ‘Ukraine’s?

Yes, Ukraine another one of those hideous way station stops along the way by the MAGGOTS that feed on America’s and the world’s dead or dying body, intent upon leading us all to hell and damnation.

Keeping up with all the constant carnage is almost too much for the sanity of the human mind to bear; or as Aussie’s, who have such a knack for always slipping in a bit of humorous wisdom in the most dreadful of circumstances, would say in such instances, “How much can a Koala Bear? Or, as still many other so wise humorists among them might also say to all the megalomaniacal war monger politicians and militarists who persist in spewing out so much crap that is leading the world to the edge of the precipice, “Hey mate! Why don’t you finally give your other end a chance for a change?”

Persisting scary images of a future filled with the barbarian ISIS hordes of the recent past returning en masse immediately come to mind.

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Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American writer who, in previous lives, has been involved in a wide range of diverse and varied worlds, including the Criminology profession with an American police department, and later for a brief-time in the capacity of clandestine communications with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. For decades, in various professional capacities as an educator, researcher, geo-political analyst, and writer. Irwin has sought to call attention to a broad spectrum of world problems pertaining to the degradation and unsustainability caused by a host of environmental-ecological-spiritual-ideological issues that exist between the conflicting world philosophies of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

Irwin is the author of the book, “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a spiritual odyssey among the native peoples of North America that over the decades has produced numerous articles pertaining to: Ireland’s Fenian Movement; native peoples Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance Movement; AIPAC, Israel & the U.S. Congress anti-BDS Movement; the historic Battle for Palestine & Siege of Gaza, as well as; the many violations constantly being waged by industrial-corporate-military-propaganda interests against the World’s Collective Soul. To examine a portion of the eclectic body of his work goggle: “Jerome Irwin, writer” The author and his wife are long-time residents on the North Shore of British Columbia.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: The oldest mosque in Gaza, the Omari Mosque, was severely damaged in Israeli bombardment, 2 January 2024 (Mohammed al-Hajjar/MEE)

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Valentine’s Day in the Arab world is called, Eid al Hob, translated into ‘Love Holiday’. When Former Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, returned to Beirut recently, his followers clearly showed their love of him in the hundreds as he prayed at his father’s grave on February 14.

Hariri’s father, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, was assassinated on February 14, 2005 in Beirut.  

Hairi founded the Future Movement party in 2007, and served as Prime Minister from November 9, 2009 to June 13, 2011.  After three years abroad, he returned to Lebanon on August 8, 2014 and served a second term as Prime Minister from December 18, 2016 to January 21, 2020.

Hariri endorsed Michel Aoun as President in 2016, and this demonstrated Hariri was willing to make big compromises to ensure short-term political stability.

In November 2017, while on a visit to Saudi Arabia, he was detained by Saudi officials and forced to resign. However, Arab and Western leaders stepped in to negotiate his release and return to Lebanon. This was apparently a message from the Saudi leadership to Hariri of their displeasure at his compromise with the Iranian-backed resistance group, Hezbollah.

In 2019, protests began in Lebanon against the corrupt ruling elite. Lebanese currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value, leaving Lebanese families below the poverty line. A huge explosion in the port of Beirut in August 2020 killed more than 200 people, and most people blame the political elite for the reason no one has been held to account.

Hariri had a working relationship with Hezbollah as he balanced the views of the Sunni sect in Lebanon with the Shite sect, two of the three largest sects in Lebanon, but was never able to address the fundamental problems facing Lebanon.

On January 24, 2022 he announced that he had suspended his involvement in political activities and he did not run in the parliamentary elections on May 15, 2022. 

“I am convinced that there is no room for any positive opportunity for Lebanon in light of Iranian influence, international confusion, national division, flaring sectarianism and the withering of the state,” Mr. Hariri said on TV.  Since then, he has been living a private life in UAE.

Like his father, Hariri had a leadership vision that encouraged business, stayed close to the US and France, and maintained good relations with Saudi Arabia, where he was born, raised and holds citizenship.

On February 18, Mufti of the Lebanese Republic, Sheikh Abdul-Latif Derian, met with Hariri at Dar al-Fatwa, where they discussed the current situation in Lebanon, and ways of promoting the national morale.

At the Maison du Centre, Hariri met with former Parliamentary Vice-President Elie Ferzli, Aounist MP Alain Aoun, Marada leader and presidential candidate Sleiman Frangieh and his son, MP Tony Frangieh.

“In my opinion, Hariri’s return to political work has begun, and will be decisive,” said Ferzli. 

Hariri also met privately with Speaker of the House Nabih Berri.  Previously, he had met separately with the US Ambassador, Lisa Johnson, and Najib Mikati, the caretaker Prime Minister. Hariri also received other ambassadors based in Lebanon, including France’s Herve Magro and Egypt’s Ala’ Moussa.

Lebanon is a small country, but has been used as a place for regional powers to fight for control. From one side there is the US Embassy which tries to protect the interests of Israel, the neighbor to the south. Iran flexes its muscles through the support of Hezbollah, which provides the security of Lebanon’s southern border.  Israel has invaded and occupied Lebanon in the past which left thousands dead, injured and imprisoned in the south. Israel continues to occupy Shebaa Farms in the south. The Lebanese Army is too weak to protect Lebanon from Israel because the US government refuses to give them the weapons and training they need.  Also, there is the influence from France which has historical ties in Lebanon, including linguistic commonalities.

Can Hariri return to Lebanon and solve its many woes?  It will take more than just one man to repair the economic scene, banking reforms, sectarian strife, and competing foreign pressures. Band-aids and stop-gap fixes will not be enough. Lebanon needs a vast systemic rehabilitation, and doesn’t even have an elected President yet.

While Hariri was in Beirut, groups marched in Tarik Jdeideh, a Sunni district of Beirut. Since then, he has traveled back to his home in UAE. His followers dubbed their support as the “March of the Return”, and perhaps Hariri will return in March, fulfilling their hopes and wishes for a new beginning.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Bleak economic prospects further hurt France’s fragile economy, but President Emmanuel Macron still insists on prioritising assistance for Ukraine and pursuing anti-Russia agendas rather than dealing with the ever-increasing problems in his own country.

French Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire reduced the country’s economic growth forecast to 1% in 2024 and announced that the Macron government would cut spending, estimated to be about €10 billion, in all ministries and in some programs to compensate for the drop in productivity and to meet obligations to reduce France’s budget deficit by 4.4% in 2024.

“The principle of responsibility is to act at the right time with rigour, but without brutality, to maintain control of our public finances, deficits and debts,” said Le Maire in an interview with channel TF1 on February 18.

“I am committed to not increasing taxes…We have cut them and won’t deviate from this line. French people can’t bear any more tax,” he added.

As France’s economic outlook worsened, Macron tried to improve finances by introducing unpopular labour reforms and without resorting to austerity or tax increases, but spending soared amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy crisis instigated following sanctions on Russia after the country’s launch of the special military operation on Ukraine in February 2022.

France’s public debt has risen from €1 trillion in 2003 to €3 trillion in 2023, with most of this increase occurring under Macron’s leadership. At the same time, debt servicing costs have soared due to inflation. Although the French government has already cut €16 billion in an attempt to reduce its deficit from 4.9% in 2023 to 4.4% of economic production this year, Macron is in a dilemma as he only has unpopular options to try and improve the country’s current economic predicament.

Le Maire tried to justify the bad economic prospects by saying,

“It is still positive growth, but it takes into account the new geopolitical context,” referring to the Gaza-Israel and Ukraine wars.

Sanctions imposed on Russia due to the conflict in Ukraine have caused energy prices and general inflation to soar, but Paris still increased the military budget by an astronomical 40%, to €413 billion, for 2024 to 2030, compared to the previous seven-year cycle.

Yet, amongst this economic chaos, the French president not only increased the military budget but also signed on February 16 in Paris with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky a bilateral agreement, valid for ten years, on security guarantees for Ukraine, including €3 billion in military aid to Kiev in 2024.

“This is a sign of our determination to support Ukraine in the long term,” Macron declared at a press conference following the meeting with Zelensky, which was broadcast on the Elysee Palace’s official X platform account.

EN DIRECT | Conférence de presse du Président @EmmanuelMacron et du Président de l’Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. https://t.co/o37pZDwIJ5

— Élysée (@Elysee) February 16, 2024

Also, according to Macron, the agreement encompasses the commitments made in the G7 format on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023. In addition to supplying military equipment compatible with weapons provided by NATO, the aid will be used to train Ukrainian soldiers and strengthen Ukraine’s defence industry, including joint production of weapons in Ukraine with French companies.

After postponing his visit to Ukraine, then scheduled for February 13-14, Macron announced that he would go to Kiev in mid-March. This was Zelensky’s third visit to the French capital since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, demonstrating how he is nothing more than a proxy for the Western elites in Paris, London, Berlin, Brussels, and Washington. 

Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg commented that he is already seeing the consequences of the US’s failure to make a decision on continued support for Ukraine. At the same time, the Ukrainian president, after meeting with Macron in the French capital, reinforced the search for ammunition and travelled again to Germany for the Munich Security Conference to hold a series of bilateral meetings with global leaders.

Ukraine is already effectively rationing its artillery, as ammunition supplies from allies are insufficient, and its biggest ally, the US, is experiencing an impasse in Congress over a new shipment of military aid to Kiev.

However, what is beyond doubt is the fact that Macron is prioritising an anti-Russia agenda to ultimately serve US interests, a far cry from his bold announcement of a Europe stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok and call for European sovereignty. Macron pursues this agenda without relenting in support for Ukraine, even at the expense of his own suffering citizens and economy.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Republican Representative Andy Ogles told activists who were calling for a ceasefire at Congress that “I think we should kill them all”, in reference to Palestinian children in Gaza.

The shocking response, experts have said, clearly indicates the extent of the United States’ responsibility for the crime of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Social media activist user Saira Rao responded on X:

“Andrew Ogles, a sitting member of Congress, says the quiet part out loud ‘I think we should kill ‘em all.’ He states WE (America) are responsible for killing all Palestinians (genocide),” adding that “Congress + Biden + Entire Cabinet are ALL WAR CRIMINALS.”

Many questions have been raised about the personal and professional life of the Republican representative from the state of Tennessee, as he said that he has earned a higher educational degree even though his transcripts show that he failed in every subject. Newspapers have also wondered about the source of the mysterious funds for his election campaign, as he received $320,000 without having a reasonable explanation for the source of these funds.

The controversial representative had previously proposed a draft law prohibiting those holding Palestinian citizenship from entering the US.

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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On February 20, it was clear that things were not going to be made easy for Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who infuriated the US imperium, the national security establishment, and a stable of journalists upset that he had cut their ill-tended lawns. He was too ill to attend what may well be the final appeal against his extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States.  Were he to be sent to the US, he faces a possible sentence amounting to 175 years arising from 18 venally cobbled charges, 17 spliced from that archaic horror, the Espionage Act of 1917.

The appeal to the High Court, comprising Justice Jeremy Johnson and Dame Victoria Sharp, challenges the extradition order by the Home Secretary and the conclusions of District Judge Vanessa Baraitser who, despite ordering his release on risks posed to him on mental health grounds, fundamentally agreed with the prosecution. He was, Varaitser scorned, not a true journalist. (Absurdly, it would seem for the judge, journalists never publish leaked information.)  He had exposed the identities of informants. He had engaged in attempts to hack computer systems. In June 2023, High Court justice, Jonathan Swift, thought it inappropriate to rehear the substantive arguments of the trial case made by defence.

Assange’s attorneys had informed the court that he simply could not attend in person, though it would hardly have mattered. His absence from the courtroom was decorous in its own way; he could avoid being displayed like a caged specimen reviled for his publishing feats. The proceedings would be conducted in the manner of appropriate panto, with dress and procedure to boot.

Unfortunately, as things chugged along, the two judges were seemingly ill versed in the field they were adjudicating. Their ignorance was telling on, for instance, the views of Mike Pompeo, whose bilious reaction to WikiLeaks when director of the Central Intelligence Agency involved rejecting the protections of the First Amendment of the US Constitution to non-US citizens. (That view is also held by the US prosecutors.) Such a perspective, argued Assange’s legal team, was a clear violation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

They were also surprised to be informed that further charges could be added to the indictment on his arrival to the United States, including those carrying the death penalty. To this could be added other enlightening surprises for the judicial bench: the fact that rules of admissibility might be altered to consider material illegally obtained, for instance, through surveillance; that Assange might also be sentenced for an offence he was never actually tried for.

Examples of espionage case law were submitted as precedents to buttress the defence, with Edward Fitzgerald KC calling espionage a “pure political offence” which barred extradition in treaties Britain had signed with 158 nation states.

The case of David Shayler, who had been in the employ of the British domestic intelligence service MI5, saw the former employee prosecuted for passing classified documents to The Mail on Sunday in 1997 under the Official Secrets Act. These included the names of various agents, that the agency kept dossiers on various UK politicians, including Labour ministers, and that the British foreign intelligence service, MI6, had conceived of a plan to assassinate Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. When the UK made its extradition request to the French authorities, they received a clear answer from the Cour d’Appel: the offence charged was found to be political in nature.

Mark Summers KC also emphasised the point that the “prosecution was motivated to punish and inhibit the exposure of American state-level crimes”, ample evidence of which was adduced during the extradition trial, yet ignored by both Baraitser and Swift. Baraitser brazenly ignored evidence of discussions by US intelligence officials about a plot to kill or abduct Assange.

For Summers, chronology was telling: the initial absence of any prosecution effort by the Obama administration, despite empanelling a grand jury to investigate WikiLeaks; the announcement by the International Criminal Court that it would be investigating potential crimes committed by US combatants in Afghanistan in 2016, thereby lending gravity to Assange’s disclosures; and the desire to kill or seek the publisher’s extradition after the release of the Vault 7 files detailing various espionage tools of the CIA.

With Pompeo’s apoplectic declaration that WikiLeaks was a hostile, non-state intelligence service, the avenue was open for a covert targeting of Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.  The duly hatched rendition plan led to the prosecution, which proved “selective” in avoiding, for instance, the targeting of newspaper outlets such as Freitag, or the website Cryptome.  In Summer’s view, “This is not a government acting on good faith pursuing a legal path.”

When it came to discussing the leaks, the judges revealed a deep-welled obliviousness about what Assange and WikiLeaks had actually done in releasing the US State Department cables.  For one thing, the old nonsense that the unredacted, or poorly redacted material had resulted in damage was skirted over, not to mention the fact that Assange had himself insisted on a firm redaction policy.   No inquiry has ever shown proof that harm came to any US informant, a central contention of the US Department of Justice.  Nor was it evident to the judges that the publication of the cables had first taken place in Cryptome, once it was discovered that reporters from The Guardian had injudiciously revealed the password to the unredacted files in their publication.

Two other points also emerged in the defence submission: the whistleblower angle, and that of foreseeability.  Consider, Summers argued hypothetically, the situation where Chelsea Manning, whose invaluable disclosures WikiLeaks published, had been considered by the European Court of Human Rights.  The European Union’s whistleblower regime, he contended, would have considered the effect of harm done by violating an undertaking of confidentiality with the exposure of abuses of state power.  Manning would have likely escaped conviction, while Assange, having not even signed any confidentiality agreements, would have had even better prospects for acquittal.

The issue of foreseeability, outlined in Article 7 of the ECHR, arose because Assange, his team further contends, could not have known that publishing the cables would have triggered a lawsuit under the Espionage Act.  That said, a grand jury had refused to indict the Chicago Times in 1942 for publishing an article citing US naval knowledge of Japanese plans to attack Midway Island.  Then came the Pentagon Papers case in 1971.  While Summers correctly notes that, “The New York Timeswas never prosecuted,” this was not for want for trying: a grand jury was empanelled with the purpose of indicting the Timesreporter Neil Sheehan for his role in receiving classified government material.  Once revelations of government tapping of whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was revealed, the case collapsed.  All that said, Article 7 could provide a further ground for barring extradition.

February 21 gave lawyers for the US the chance to reiterate the various, deeply flawed assertions about Assange’s publication activities connected with Cablegate (the “exposing informants” argument), his supposedly non-journalistic activities and the integrity of diplomatic assurances about his welfare were he to be extradited.  The stage for the obscene was duly set.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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The Kiev regime’s inability to use air power effectively means that the only way for its forces to get indirect fire support is with NATO-sourced long-range missiles. What’s more, the belligerent alliance also provides all the necessary ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) data to target Russian troops and assets. It can even be argued that the Neo-Nazi junta’s overlords also keep choosing which targets should be hit, effectively making them a party to the conflict.

NATO supplied both the tracked M270 MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) and wheeled M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System). These systems can fire a plethora of short-range rockets and missiles, including the MGM-140 ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System), a US-made tactical/theater ballistic missile system with a maximum engagement range of approximately 300 km and a supersonic speed of up to Mach 3.

While the MGM-140’s capabilities are far from Russian counterparts, such as the now legendary “Iskander” with a hypersonic speed (up to Mach 8 while also maneuvering) and a range of approximately 500 km, this is still enough to jeopardize logistics, as well as civilian settlements deeper within Russian territory. Pairing the ATACMS with adequate ISR, which NATO fields extensively, particularly in the vicinity of Russian borders, can make it quite a challenge.

Namely, its battlefield performance can be significantly amplified through the effective usage of real-time ISR data that essentially acts as a major force multiplier. This is where the legal “grey areas” of warfare get even more complicated. Namely, Moscow is doing its best to keep the scope of the SMO localized, but NATO continues to escalate, as evidenced by the resurgent presence of its ISR platforms around Russia’s borders.

This is particularly concerning in the Black Sea, where the Russian military already shot down some of NATO’s ISR assets, resulting in several months of pause in flights close to the SMO (special military operation) zone. However, the belligerent alliance restarted this highly destabilizing practice in the last half a year or so. In the meantime,

ATACMS has already been delivered and used in combat, with Russian military sources reporting that several have been shot down back in October. And yet, this isn’t enough for the United States and NATO. Namely, Washington DC wants to provide an enhanced ATACMS variant that could be used against targets “beyond Crimea”, implying that the political West is ready to target Moscow’s undisputed territory. According to NBC News, this is already underway, with their latest report claiming new ATACMS deliveries include the unnamed longer-range version of the missile.

NBC blamed former US President Donald Trump and “his Republican allies in Congress” for delays to American arms shipments for the Kiev regime, lamenting over the Senate’s $95 billion “aid” bill that is yet to be approved by the House of Representatives. However, NBC admitted that unnamed Pentagon officials told them that the US has a limited inventory of ATACMS and that it is not likely to send them to the Neo-Nazi junta without money to replenish its own stockpiles first. Considering the fact that the ATACMS version Washington DC is yet to deliver has a longer range and is in limited supply even in the American arsenal, it’s very likely that the M57E1 is the variant in question. It’s the latest iteration of the missile, delivered to the Pentagon no sooner than 2017. It could also be the older M57, which has been in production from 2004 to 2013. Both of these have a maximum firing range of approximately 300 km.

Pentagon officials say that if Congress approves more funding, the US could provide the longer-range ATACMS immediately. However, if this doesn’t happen, the officials stated that they do not rule out asking other US vassals and satellite states to provide the missiles, indirectly suggesting that it could request Poland and Romania to do so, as both countries operate ATACMS and are geographically closest to Ukraine. If this happens, Russia certainly has ways to respond immediately.

However, it will be very difficult to do so without escalating the conflict. Moscow is approximately 650 km away from Kharkov, meaning that weapons such as ATACMS could theoretically reach not too far from the areas around the Russian capital. This region has been the industrial heartland of Russia for centuries, meaning that protecting it is a top priority for the Kremlin, while this is just another proxy war for the US.

Moscow has many ways to respond to this sort of escalation and it certainly won’t hold back. This includes the possibility of shooting down all of NATO’s ISR assets in the vicinity of Russian borders, most likely unmanned ones first, which could serve as a warning shot to the world’s most aggressive military alliance. In many ways, this would be a step toward ending the Kiev regime’s NATO-backed terror bombing tacticsthat already killed thousands of civilians in Donbass and elsewhere in former Ukrainian regions that joined Russia.

Although President Vladimir Putin offered the possibility of a peaceful settlement (for God knows which time) in his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, he most certainly won’t allow the political West to (ab)use his goodwill as a weakness. Moscow’s patience with the ever-escalating belligerence of the US and its vassals and satellite states is certainly unmatched. However, it’s not endless.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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As we mark two full years since Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian government forces have withdrawn from Avdiivka, a town they first captured from the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in July 2014. Situated only 10 miles from Donetsk city, Avdiivka gave Ukrainian government forces a base from which their artillery bombarded Donetsk for nearly ten years. From a pre-war population of about 31,000, the town has been depopulated and left in ruins.

The mass slaughter on both sides in this long battle was a measure of the strategic value of the city to both sides, but it is also emblematic of the shocking human cost of this war, which has degenerated into a brutal and bloody war of attrition along a nearly static front line. Neither side made significant territorial gains in the entire 2023 year of fighting, with a net gain to Russia of a mere 188 square miles, or 0.1% of Ukraine.

And while it is the Ukrainians and Russians fighting and dying in this war of attrition with over half a million casualties, it is the United States, with some its Western allies, that has stood in the way of peace talks. This was true of talks between Russia and Ukraine that took place in March 2022, one month after the Russian invasion, and it is true of talks that Russia tried to initiate with the United States as recently as January 2024.

In March 2022, Russia and Ukraine met in Turkey and negotiated a peace agreement that should have ended the war. Ukraine agreed to become a neutral country between east and west, on the model of Austria or Switzerland, giving up its controversial ambition for NATO membership. Territorial questions over Crimea and the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk would be resolved peacefully, based on self-determination for the people of those regions.

But then the U.S. and U.K. intervened to persuade Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelenskyy to abandon the neutrality agreement in favor of a long war to militarily drive Russia out of Ukraine and recover Crimea and Donbas by force. U.S. and U.K. leaders have never admitted to their own people what they did, nor tried to explain why they did it.

So it has been left to everyone else involved to reveal details of the agreement and the U.S. and U.K.’s roles in torpedoing it: President Zelenskyy’s advisers; Ukrainian negotiators; Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Turkish diplomats; Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who was another mediator; and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, who mediated with Russian President Vladimir Putin for Ukraine.

The U.S. sabotage of peace talks should come as no surprise. So much of U.S. foreign policy follows what should by now be an easily recognizable and predictable pattern, in which our leaders systematically lie to us about their decisions and actions in crisis situations, and, by the time the truth is widely known, it is too late to reverse the catastrophic effects of those decisions. Thousands of people have paid with their lives, nobody is held accountable, and the world’s attention has moved on to the next crisis, the next series of lies and the next bloodbath, which in this case is Gaza.

But the war grinds on in Ukraine, whether we pay attention to it or not. Once the U.S. and U.K. succeeded in killing peace talks and prolonging the war, it fell into an intractable pattern common to many wars, in which Ukraine, the United States and the leading members of the NATO military alliance were encouraged, or we might say deluded, by limited successes at different times into continually prolonging and escalating the war and rejecting diplomacy, in spite of ever-mounting, appalling human costs for the people of Ukraine.

U.S. and NATO leaders have repeated ad nauseam that they are arming Ukraine to put it in a stronger position at the “negotiating table,” even as they keep rejecting negotiations. After Ukraine gained ground with its much celebrated offensives in the fall of 2022, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley went public with a call to “seize the moment” and get back to the negotiating table from the position of strength that NATO leaders said they were waiting for. French and German military leaders were reportedly even more adamant that that moment would be short-lived if they failed to seize it.

They were right. President Biden rejected his military advisers’ calls for renewed diplomacy, and Ukraine’s failed 2023 offensive wasted its chance to negotiate from a position of strength, sacrificing many more lives to leave it weaker than before.

On February 13, 2024, Reuters Moscow bureau broke the story that the United States had recently rejected a new Russian proposal to reopen peace negotiations. Multiple Russian sources involved in the initiative told Reuters that Russia proposed direct talks with the United States to call a ceasefire along the current front lines of the war.

After Russia’s March 2022 peace agreement with Ukraine was vetoed by the U.S., this time Russia approached the United States directly before involving Ukraine. There was a meeting of intermediaries in Turkey, and a meeting between Secretary of State Blinken, CIA Director Burns and National Security Adviser Sullivan in Washington, but the result was a message from Sullivan that the U.S. was willing to discuss other aspects of U.S.-Russian relations, but not peace in Ukraine.

Image of Russian troops in Ukraine. Credit: Ukraine MoD/Facebook

And so the war grinds on. Russia is still firing 10,000 artillery shells per day along the front line, while Ukraine can only fire 2,000. In a microcosm of the larger war, some Ukrainian gunners told reporters they were only allowed to fire 3 shells per night. As Sam Cranny-Evans of the U.K.’s RUSI military think-tank told the Guardian, “What that means is that Ukrainians can’t suppress Russian artillery any more, and if the Ukrainians can’t fire back, all they can do is try to survive.”

A March 2023 European initiative to produce a million shells for Ukraine in a year fell far short, only producing about 600,000. U.S. monthly shell production in October 2023 was 28,000 shells, with a target of 37,000 per month by April 2024. The United States plans to increase production to 100,000 shells per month, but that will take until October 2025.

Meanwhile, Russia is already producing 4.5 million artillery shells per year. After spending less than one tenth of the Pentagon budget over the past 20 years, how is Russia able to produce 5 times more artillery shells than the United States and its NATO allies combined?

RUSI’s Richard Connolly explained to the Guardian that, while Western countries privatized their weapons production and dismantled “surplus” productive capacity after the end of the Cold War in the interest of corporate profits, “The Russians have been… subsidizing the defense industry, and many would have said wasting money for the event that one day they need to be able to scale it up. So it was economically inefficient until 2022, and then suddenly it looks like a very shrewd bit of planning.”

President Biden has been anxious to send more money to Ukraine–a whopping $61 billion—but disagreements in the U.S. Congress between bipartisan Ukraine supporters and a Republican faction opposed to U.S. involvement have held up the funds. But even if Ukraine had endless infusions of Western weapons, it has a more serious problem: Many of the troops it recruited to fight this war in 2022 have been killed, wounded or captured, and its recruitment system has been plagued by corruption and a lack of enthusiasm for the war among most of its people.

In August 2023, the government fired the heads of military recruitment in all 24 regions of the country after it became widely known that they were systematically soliciting bribes to allow men to avoid recruitment and gain safe passage out of the country. The Open Ukraine Telegram channel reported, “The military registration and enlistment offices have never seen such money before, and the revenues are being evenly distributed vertically to the top.”

The Ukrainian parliament is debating a new conscription law, with an online registration system that includes people living abroad and with penalties for failure to register or enlist. Parliament already voted down a previous bill that members found too draconian, and many fear that forced conscription will lead to more widespread draft resistance, or even bring down the government.

Oleksiy Arestovych, President Zelenskyy’s former spokesman, told the Unherd website that the root of Ukraine’s recruitment problem is that only 20% of Ukrainians believe in the anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism that has controlled Ukrainian governments since the overthrow of the Yanukovych government in 2014. “What about the remaining 80%?” the interviewer asked.

“I think for most of them, their idea is of a multinational and poly-cultural country,” Arestovych replied. “And when Zelenskyy came into power in 2019, they voted for this idea. He did not articulate it specifically but it was what he meant when he said, ‘I don’t see a difference in the Ukrainian-Russian language conflict, we are all Ukrainians even if we speak different languages.’”

“And you know,” Arestovych continued, “my great criticism of what has happened in Ukraine over the last years, during the emotional trauma of the war, is this idea of Ukrainian nationalism which has divided Ukraine into different people: the Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers as a second class of people. It’s the main dangerous idea and a worse danger than Russian military aggression, because nobody from this 80% of people wants to die for a system in which they are people of a second class.”

If Ukrainians are reluctant to fight, imagine how Americans would resist being shipped off to fight in Ukraine. A 2023 U.S. Army War College study of “Lessons from Ukraine” found that the U.S. ground war with Russia that the United States is preparing to fight would involve an estimated 3,600 U.S. casualties per day, killing and maiming as many U.S. troops every two weeks as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did in twenty years. Echoing Ukraine’s military recruitment crisis, the authors concluded, “Large-scale combat operations troop requirements may well require a reconceptualization of the 1970s and 1980s volunteer force and a move toward partial conscription.”

U.S. war policy in Ukraine is predicated on just such a gradual escalation from proxy war to full-scale war between Russia and the United States, which is unavoidably overshadowed by the risk of nuclear war. This has not changed in two years, and it will not change unless and until our leaders take a radically different approach. That would involve serious diplomacy to end the war on terms on which Russia and Ukraine can agree, as they did on the March 2022 neutrality agreement.

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Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022. They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image: The ruins of Avdiivka. Photo Credit: Russian Defense Ministry

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Let me start by pointing out that the above was the topic of a three-part article I wrote that was published on the VT Foreign Policy website on December 31, 2023, entitled: “Is World War III About to Start?”

In this article I did not postulate a definitive answer. Of course, some would say that WWIII has already begun. But let’s explore further.

We know that the U.S. has been in a continuous state of some level of war mobilization since at least 1940. That’s coming up on a century ago. Of course, some would say that when WWII began, it was really just a continuation of WWI, when the U.S. had troops fighting in Europe from 1917-1918. So that takes us to well over a century ago.

But why another world war now? Let’s explore some history.

When Germany invaded Poland at the start of WWII in September, 1939, it was more than a year before the U.S. was formally at war, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

But well before, in 1940, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration began to use Lend-Lease to supply military assistance to the Western Allies, acquisitions that they were allowed to purchase on credit.

To this day, however, few are aware of how much by way of armaments was also provided to the Soviet Union via Lend-Lease. This included tanks, artillery, and whole factories to help build the Soviet war machine. It also included equipment needed to eventually build atomic weapons.

All of these transfers to the Soviets were concealed from Congress and the public but originated with actions by actors/agents within the Roosevelt government. U.S./Soviet collaboration was also concealed from Hitler, who said he would not have invaded the Soviet Union had he known of its vast hidden stores of war materiel. This was part of the U.S./British plan to trap Hitler into action that would complete the destruction of Germany begun during World War I.

It wasn’t until after World War II had ended when, under President Harry Truman, the U.S. broke away from its Soviet wartime ally, which now became our enemy when the “Cold War” was engineered into existence.

Few are aware that the impetus for U.S. policy during and after WWII came from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Always the most prominent American “think tank” since its inception at the end of WWI, the CFR was/is a U.S.-situated creation of the London/New York-based “Money Power.” The leading U.S. figure in the CFR’s scheming is believed to have been Bernard Baruch. Members of the Rockefeller family and their associates have also been heavily involved in the CFR and have provided funding for much of its program.

Before the CFR came into existence, the U.S. branch of the Money Power had been headed by J.P. Morgan and was concentrated then, as now, in New York City. Allied with Morgan was the newly-minted fortune of John D. Rockefeller. Under the stage-managing of the European Rothschilds, both Morgan and Rockefeller connived in setting up the Federal Reserve in 1913. Col. House was tasked with getting U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to go along and sign the legislation.

The immediate purpose of the Federal Reserve was to provide Great Britain and France with the money to fight Germany in WWI. But France was, and remains, secondary. The Federal Reserve was, above all, central to an Anglo-American objective to take over the world.

The purpose of this takeover was to expand the grip over the world economy of the empire of usury. It was through usury, which had been prohibited in Europe during the Middle Ages and by the Islamic religion since its founding, that the world’s bankers have confiscated the wealth of every nation in which they have been allowed to dominate. Usury requires the constant generation of surplus profits to feed the bankers’ greed. Military force is the means by which the proceeds of usury are secured.

By means of WWI, the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires, along with their ancient aristocratic cultures whose wealth was in land, were destroyed. The main reason these empires were obliterated and their kings removed or, in Russia’s case, killed, was the vast amount of debt they had incurred by borrowing from Europe’s bankers. After the war, their property was forfeited as bankers’ collateral.

Thus much of central and eastern Europe was obliterated during the war, with Turkish control of the Middle East terminated.

Britain and the U.S. were the two powers most united with the Money Power, whose wealth has been based on private banking and usury for the last 400 years, since the time of Cromwell. By the early 19^th century it’s been the Rothschilds at center stage, even in the U.S., with the Rockefellers in league.

Now Russia was turned over to the Bolsheviks, who were hidden agents of the Money Power and collectors on the usurers’ debt claims. Britain took control of Palestine as a League of Nations mandate, having issued the Balfour Declaration as the first step in creation of a Jewish national state.

The Rothschilds provided the funds for Jewish conquest of Palestine and for building the Israeli Zionist entity.

Back to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Its purpose was/is to assure that in all future wars, the U.S. government would be controlled by the Money Power, which is exactly what has happened. Britain has a corresponding organization, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, or Chatham House.

This was a branch of the Round Table, set up by Nathaniel Rothschild and Alfred Lord Milner, using the legacy of Cecil Rhodes from his diamond and gold mining enterprises in South Africa.

In 1939-1940, as WWII was beginning in Europe, the CFR commenced writing a series of reports that it imposed on the Roosevelt Administration, laying out a future program whereby the U.S. would assume military dominance over the entire world. The Rockefeller Foundation paid for these studies.

The CFR program for global military dominance has been the overriding U.S. geopolitical objective ever since; always, of course, on behalf of the Money Power, with the U.S. providing the military might. It’s said that “all wars are economic.”

The U.S. has chosen to attain its economic goals by brute force, no longer by means of hard work, diplomacy, or cooperative venture. It has seen most of the other nations of the world as its enemies or subjects, but above all, as debtors to its banks. In response, the U.S. is viewed increasingly by the rest of the world as a schoolyard bully, or as a harsh debt collector.

The U.S. has been engaged in “endless wars” since 1941: WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, you name it.

This is why the U.S. generated the “War on Terror” and is now engaged in a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine to control Europe and Eurasia.

It’s why the U.S. is engaged in another proxy war on the side of genocidal Israel in the Middle East in order to keep control the oil resources of the Islamic world.

It’s the purpose of the U.S. military doctrine of “Full-Spectrum Dominance,” meant to put a stop to competition anywhere on the planet or even in cyberspace or outer space.

Always Britain has been at America’s side with its “special relationship,” egging us on, seeming to play the role of “America’s poodle.” The action arm for endless war has been the faction known as “Neocons.”

But even behind control of oil has been control of banking and collection of the profits from usury. Whenever the U.S. takes over a country, it’s the banks that move in first, often with the International Monetary Fund as the leading edge of the takeover. This control is executed by the “jackals” who work for the intelligence agencies.

Meanwhile, the military establishment of both the U.S. and Britain employ many thousands of highly-educated individuals in researching the most ingenious methods possible of killing their fellow human beings. In a technological age there is no limit to how gruesome and unconscionable these methods can be. It’s these military researchers who have been at the forefront of bioweapons development using gain-of-function research.

This is the context in which we can ask the question, “Is World War III About to Start?”

We mean by this, of course, is the U.S. about to engage in all-out nuclear war against the nations identified as its “adversaries”?

At present, these are Russia and China, the only nations appearing to be seriously challenging Full-Spectrum Dominance. Also identified as a near-term enemy is Iran. Israel and Ukraine, both U.S. proxies, appear to have been assigned the role of instigators.

But don’t forget, it’s always been on behalf of the Money Power and its usury, which began its takeover of America more than two centuries ago, even before the U.S. Constitution was written.

It was through this takeover that the wealth accruing to Americans from their work and from the resources of the land began to flow upwards into the hands of those in charge of the monetary system, with a portion of it being used to pay for the military machine that would gradually put the entire world under its control—or so they think.

We can reasonably ask whether this is how people are meant to live, so obviously filled with greed, hate, and hubris. Is this what American religious fundamentalists intend to help bring about?

The American Geopolitical Institute will be studying these matters in the weeks and months ahead.

“Every human enterprise must serve life, must seek to enrich existence on earth, lest man become enslaved where he seeks to establish his dominion!” —Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, 1876-1943), Translation by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, 2014.

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Our Country, Then and Now

by Richard C. Cook

ISBN: 9781949762853

E-book ISBN: 978-1-949762-86-0

Year: 2023

Our Country Then and Now takes us on a 400-year journey through America’s history, providing unique snapshots from African enslavement, native dispossession, financial scandals, and wars of expansion and aggression, interspersed with tales from author Richard C. Cook’s ancestry—from Puritan forebears to fighters in the American Revolutionary War and the Civil War, to Midwest Pioneer farmers and their relations with native nations.

Click here to order.

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There have been several interesting developments relating to Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza and its people, but one might well question the motives of at least one of the principal players in the drama, namely Joe Biden’s United States government.

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In the aftermath of the First Imperialist War, African Americans and people of African descent around the world escalated their movements to end colonial domination, legalized segregation and the super-exploitation of their land, resources and labor.

Is Truth As Mighty As Evil?

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Today we know the facts. The mRNA jabs did not protect, did not prevent transmission, did not reduce the severity of the disease, but actually made the “vaccinated” more likely to catch Covid and to die or be injured from it. We also know that few of the deaths were from the virus.

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Most of the world has watched the Israeli assault on Gaza in horror. As tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced, tens of millions of people around the world have poured onto the streets to demand an end to the violence. But a few select others have taken to the pages of our most influential media to demand an escalation of the violence and that the United States help Israel strike not just Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon but Iran as well.

“I might have once favored a cease-fire with Hamas, but not now,” wrote Bush-era diplomat Dennis Ross in The New York Times, explaining that “if Hamas is perceived as winning, it will validate the group’s ideology of rejection, give leverage and momentum to Iran and its collaborators and put [our] own governments on the defensive.”

In the wake of Hamas’ October 7 assault, arch-neoconservative official John Bolton was invited on CNN, where he claimed that what we witnessed was really an “Iranian attack on Israel using Hamas as a surrogate” and that the U.S. must immediately respond. When asked whether he had any evidence, given the implications of what he was saying, he shrugged and replied, “This is not a court of law.”

On December 28, Bolton doubled down on his hawkish stance, writing in the pages of Britain’s Daily Telegraph that “The West may now have no option but to attack Iran” – a position he has held for at least a decade.

Meanwhile, in an interview with Saudi state-funded broadcaster Iran International, senior Bush official Mark Wallace bellowed that, “This is Iran’s work. Iran will suffer at the hands of retribution and will suffer the consequences of supporting this terror group and its horrific attack on Israel.” Wallace continued:

No civilized country wants further conflict. But the Iranians are forcing the civilized world’s hand. And you will see a dramatic response soon as the United States, Israel, and our allies begin to position assets around the world in preparation.”

If there was any doubt as to what sort of “dramatic response” Wallace wanted to see, he added a message to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: “I look forward to seeing you hanged from the end of one of your own ropes.”

Iran was recently the victim of a deadly terrorist attack. As mourners commemorated the U.S. assassination of Qassem Soleimani, two bombs exploded, killing 91 and injuring hundreds more. In this context, it was understandable why Iranian officials pointed the finger at the U.S. and Israel.

Warmongers, Inc

What these individuals all have in common is that they are board members of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a shadowy but influential organization dedicated to pushing the West toward a military confrontation with the Islamic Republic.

Founded in 2008, the group is led by neoconservative hawks and has close ties to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence. It does not divulge where it receives its copious funding. However, it is known that right-wing Israeli-American billionaire Sheldon Adelson was a source. There is strong circumstantial evidence that Gulf dictatorships may also be bankrolling the group, although UANI has strongly denied this. In 2019, Iran designated UANI as a terrorist organization.

When asked by MintPress what he made of UANI’s recent statements, Eli Clifton, one of the few investigative journalists to have covered the group, said, “It’s very consistent with the positions and advocacy that the organization has taken since its inception.” Adding,

United Against Nuclear Iran does not miss an opportunity to try to bring the United States closer to a military conflict with Iran. And on the other side of the equation, they also have worked very hard to oppose efforts to de-escalate the U.S.-Iran relationship.”

UANI’s board is a who’s who of high state, military and intelligence officials from around the Western world. Among its more notable members include:

• CEO Mark Wallace, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and deputy campaign manager for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection.
• Chairman Joe Lieberman, former senator and Democratic vice-presidential nominee for the 2000 election.
• Tamir Pardo, Director of the Mossad, 2011-2016.
• Dennis Ross, former State Department Director of Policy Planning and former Middle East Envoy under George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
• Field Marshall Lord Charles Guthrie, ex-Chief of Staff of the U.K. Armed Forces.
• Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida.
• August Hanning, President of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), 1998-2005; State Secretary at the Federal Interior Ministry, 2005-2009.
• Zohar Palti, former head of the Political-Military Bureau, Israeli Ministry of Defense; former Director of Intelligence of the Mossad.
• Frances Townsend, Homeland Security Advisor to President George W. Bush.
• John Bolton, former U.S. National Security Advisor and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
• Roger Noriega, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and Ambassador to the Organization of American States.
• Otto Reich, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and architect of the 2002 U.S. coup against Venezuela.
• Michael Singh, White House Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs, 2007-2008.
• Giulio Terzi di Sant-Agata, former Italian Foreign Minister.
• Robert Hill, former Minister of Defense of Australia.
• Jack David, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2004-2006.
• Mark Kirk, U.S. Senator for Illinois, 2010-2017.
• Lt. Gen. Sir Graeme Lamb, ex-Director of U.K. Special Forces and Commander of the British Field Army.
• Norman Roule, former CIA Division Chief and National Intelligence Manager for Iran at the Director of National Intelligence.
• Irwin Cotler, Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General, 2003-2006.
• Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, U.K. Minister of State for Security and Counter Terrorism, 2010-2011.

In addition, notable former board members include ex-CIA Director R. James Woolsey; head of Mossad between 2002 and 2011, Meir Dagan; and one-time chief of British spy agency MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove.

For 15 years, UANI has organized conferences, published reports, and lobbied politicians and governments, all with one goal: pushing a neoconservative line on Iran. “UANI are a force multiplier. They provide at least the veneer of an intellectual infrastructure for the Iran hawk movement. They did not invent being hawkish on Iran, but they sure made it a heck of a lot easier,” Ben Freeman, Director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy Program at the Quincy Institute, told MintPress.

Find someone who loves you as much as the Washington Post loves demanding we bomb Iran. 🇮🇷 pic.twitter.com/O2gBOKbvM1

— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) July 7, 2022

Conflicts and Conflicts of Interest

For such a large, well-financed, and influential organization filled with senior officials, United Against Nuclear Iran keeps its funding sources very quiet. However, in 2015, Clifton was able to obtain a UANI donor list for the 2013 financial year. By far and away, the largest funders were billionaire New York-based investor Thomas Kaplan and multibillionaire Israeli-American casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.

Kaplan, whose $843,000 donation supplied around half the group’s 2013 funding, is a venture capitalist investor concentrating on metals, particularly gold. He is the chairman of Tigris Financial and the Electrum Group LLC. Both of Kaplan’s firms employ UANI CEO Mark Wallace as CEO and COO, respectively.

A 2010 Wall Street Journal article titled “Tigris Financial Goes All-in on Gold” noted that the company had bet billions of dollars on the price of gold rising, more than the reserves of the Brazilian central bank. As Clifton has noted, both Kaplan and Wallace have marketed gold to clients as the perfect commodity to hold if there is increased instability in the Middle East. Therefore, both Kaplan and Wallace stand to make massive sums if the U.S. or Israel were to attack Iran, making their UANI warmongering a gigantic and potentially profitable conflict of interest.

Adelson provided the majority of the rest of UANI’s funding. The world’s 18th-richest individual at the time of his 2021 death, the tycoon turned his economic empire into a political one, supporting ultraconservative causes in both the United States and Israel. Between 2010 and 2020, he and his wife donated more than $500 million to the Republican Party, becoming GOP kingmakers in the process. He would often vet Republican presidential candidates at his casino in Las Vegas, and it was often said that this “Adelson Primary” was almost as important as the public one.

An ardent Zionist, Adelson bankrolled numerous pro-Israel lobby projects, such as AIPAC, One Jerusalem and Taglit Birthright. He also owned Israel Hayom, the country’s most-read newspaper, with 31% of the national share. Relentlessly pro-Netanyahu, it was said that the Israeli prime minister asked his friend Adelson to set up a newspaper to help his political career.

Adelson and his influence have been one of the driving forces of American hostility towards Iran. In 2013, during a conversation with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, he called for the United States to stop negotiating and drop a nuclear bomb on Iran to show that “we mean business.”

A potential third, even more controversial, source of funding is the Gulf monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Leaked emails show UANI officials soliciting support from the Emirati royal family. Both Mark Wallace and Frances Townsend, for example, emailed the Emirati Ambassador to the U.S. detailing cost estimates for upcoming events and inquiring about support from the UAE.

Thomas Kaplan himself is extraordinarily close to the nation. “The country and the leadership of the UAE, I would say, are my closest partners in more facets of my life than anyone else other than my wife,” he told the Emirati outlet, The National News, which also detailed his friendship with Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.

Thomas Kaplan chats with UAE monarch Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed. Credit | Brunswick PR

Putting Iran in the Crosshairs

One of United Against Nuclear Iran’s primary activities, Iranian political commenter Ali Alizadeh told MintPress, is to create a worldwide “culture of fear and anxiety for investing in Iran.” The group attempts to persuade businesses to divest from the Islamic Republic and sign their certification pledge, which reads as follows:

The undersigned [Name], the [Title] of [Company] (the “Company”), does hereby certify on behalf of the Company that until the Iranian regime verifiably abandons its drive for nuclear weapons, support for terrorism, routine human rights violations, hostage-taking, and rampant anti-Americanism as state policy, that neither the Company nor any subsidiary or affiliate of the Company, directly or through an agent, representative or intermediary.”

One corporation that UANI targeted was the industrial machinery firm Caterpillar. UANI hectored the firm, even erecting a roadside billboard outside its headquarters in Peoria, IL, insinuating that they were aiding Iran in constructing a nuclear weapon. Caterpillar quickly ordered its Iran projects terminated. Wallace took heart from his group’s victory and warned that other businesses would be targeted.

A billboard erected by United Against Nuclear Iran near Caterpillar’s Illinois headquarters. Photo | United Against Nuclear Iran

These have included French companies such as Airbus and ​​Peugeot-Citroen, who were threatened with legal action. In 2019, UANI earned an official rebuke from the Russian Foreign Ministry for attempting to intimidate Russian corporations trading with Tehran. “We think such actions are unacceptable and deeply concerning,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. “Attempts to pressure and threaten Russian business … are a follow-up on the dishonorable anti-Iranian cause by the U.S. administration,” she added, hinting at collusion between the government and the supposedly non-governmental organization.

Some of UANI’s campaigns have been markedly petty, including pressuring New York City hotels to cancel bookings with Iranian officials (including then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) visiting the city on United Nations business. Others, however, have been devastating to the Iranian economy, such as the SWIFT international money transfer terminating its relationship with Tehran, cutting the country off from the global banking system.

On UANI’s actions against businesses, Freeman said: “It’s effective, and (in some cases, at least) it’s to the detriment of the people of Iran; it’s to the detriment of these companies; and it’s to the detriment of peace in the region.”

While the group presents itself as against a nuclear Iran, UANI was strangely opposed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the deal between Iran and the West that limited the former’s nuclear technology research in exchange for sanctions relief from the latter. As MintPress reported at the time, UANI spent millions on T.V. advertisements trashing the agreement. As Wallace noted, “We have a multi-million-dollar budget, and we are in it for the long haul. Money continues to pour in.”

After the JCPOA was signed, UANI hosted a summit attended by senior Israeli, Emirati, and Bahraini officials, touting its failures. Once UANI’s John Bolton was named Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor, he persuaded the president to withdraw entirely from the deal. Bolton has deep connections to the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian political group widely identified as a terrorist organization. He has, for some time, considered them a government in waiting after the U.S. overthrows the current administration. “Before 2019, we will celebrate in Tehran,” he told the group in 2018, predicting that, with him at the helm, the Trump administration would soon cause the downfall of the Iranian government.

Bolton has long been a hardliner on regime change. “To stop Iran’s bomb, bomb Iran,” read the title of his 2015 New York Times op-ed. Yet this appears to be the dominant position at UANI. In March, Ross published an article in The Atlantic headlined “Iran needs to believe America’s threat,” which demanded that the U.S. “take forceful action to check Tehran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb.” Failure to do so, Ross claimed, would provoke Israel to do so itself – a “much more dangerous scenario,” according to him. Yet only two years previously, Ross called on the U.S. to “give Israel a big bomb” to “deter Iran,” noting that the “best way” to stop the Iranian nuclear program was to supply Israel with its own nukes, thereby taken as a given that Iran was indeed pursuing nuclear weapons itself (a highly questionable claim at the time) and ignoring Israel’s already existing 200+ stockpile of nuclear missiles.

“It doesn’t seem like UANI ever really took seriously the possibility of a diplomatic means to constrain Iran from continuing to increase its enrichment levels and moving towards a nuclear weapon,” Clifton told MintPress. “As a matter of fact, they generally fought tooth and nail against the JCPOA. They are eager to push the United States toward confrontation with Iran using the possibility of Iranian nuclear weapons as a reason,” he added.

Intelligence Connections

That UANI is headed by so many state, military and intelligence leaders begs the question: to what extent is this really a non-governmental organization? “That is one of the dirty secrets of think tanks: they are very often holding tanks for government officials,” Freeman said, adding:

The Trump folks all had to leave office when Biden won, so a lot of them ended up in think tanks for a while, four years, let’s say. And if Trump wins again, they will bounce back into government. And the same is true of Democratic administrations, too.”

The U.S. government also clearly has a longstanding policy of outsourcing much of its work to “private” groups in order to avoid further scrutiny. Many of the CIA’s most controversial activities, for example, have been farmed out to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a technically non-governmental organization funded entirely by Washington and staffed with ex-state officials. In recent years, the NED has funneled millions of dollars to protest leaders in Hong Kong, organized an attempted color revolution in Cuba, organized anti-government rock concerts in Venezuela, and propped up dozens of media organizations in Ukraine.

These sorts of institutions blur the line between public and private sectors. But a 2014 legal case raises even more questions about UANI’s connections to the U.S. government. After UANI accused Greek shipping magnate Victor Restis of working with the Iranian government, he sued them for libel. In an unprecedented move for what was a private, commercial lawsuit, Attorney General Eric Holder intervened in the lawsuit, ordering the judge to shut the case down on the grounds that, if it continued, it would expose key U.S. national security secrets. The case was immediately dropped without explanation.

In the past, when the Justice Department has invoked state secrets, a high-ranking state official has offered a public statement as to why. Yet, this time, nothing was offered. Reporters at the time speculated that much of the material Restis wanted to make public was possibly given to UANI by either the CIA or Mossad, which would have revealed a network of collusion between state intelligence agencies and a supposedly independent, private non-profit. Given the glut of ex-Mossad and CIA chiefs at UANI, this speculation is perhaps not as wild as it might seem.

UANI’s funders certainly also have extensive connections to Israel. Kaplan is the son-in-law of Israeli billionaire Leon Recanati and is said to be close with Prime Ministers Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid. He has also employed a number of Israeli officials at his businesses. An example of this is Olivia Blechner, who, in 2007, left her role as the Director of Academic Affairs at the Israeli Consulate General in New York to become Executive Vice-President of Investor Relations and Research at Kaplan’s Electrum Group – a rather perplexing career move.

Adelson, meanwhile, was given what amounted to an official state funeral in Israel, one that even Prime Minister Netanyahu attended. He was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem – one of the holiest sites in Judaism and an honor that very few figures receive.

A Network of Regime Change Groups

While United Against Nuclear Iran is already a notable enough organization, it is actually merely part of a large group of shadowy non-governmental groups working to cause unrest and, ultimately, regime change in Iran. These groups all share overlapping goals, funders and key individuals.

One example of this is the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), a non-profit that purports to exist to “combat the growing threat posed by extremist ideologies.” Yet the group focuses largely on Islamist extremism – and only those groups that are enemies of the U.S., Israel and the Gulf Monarchies (about whose extremism and violence the CEP has nothing to say). Ten members of the CEP’s leadership council are also on UANI’s board, including Wallace, who is CEO of both organizations.

Another group headed by Wallace is the Jewish Committee to Support Women Life Freedom in Iran. This organization claims to be focused on improving women’s rights in Iran. It very quickly, however, divulges that this is a vehicle for regime change. On its homepage, for example, it writes:

These freedom fighters continue with no sign of relenting on their calls for regime change. Calls for “Woman Life Freedom” and the removal of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei echo from rooftops, down street corridors, across campus hallways, and on government billboards. These brave Iranians have expressed their hatred for the ruling clerics not only in their words, but in their actions.”

Seven members of the Jewish Committee to Support Women Life Freedom in Iran’s steering group – including Wallace and Kaplan – also lead UANI.

Mike Wallace, second from right, poses with prominent anti-Iran figures at a lobbying event in Italy, February 2023. Photo | Twitter

Kaplan is well-known as a conservationist. However, his group, Panthera, which works to preserve the world’s 40 known species of big cats, has also been accused of being a secret regime change operation. Panthera has a number of UANI officials on its board or conservation council, including Wallace and Lamb (the ex-director of U.K. Special Forces and Commander of the British Army). Also on the council are Itzhak Dar, former Director of the Israeli Secret Service, Shin Bet, and General David Petraeus, former CIA Director and Commander of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

In 2018, Iranian authorities arrested eight individuals working with Panthera inside the country. All eight were convicted of spying on behalf of the U.S. and Israel. While many in the West decried the trials as politically motivated, any organization led by these figures is bound to cause suspicions.

This is especially the case as Wallace is also a founder of PaykanArtCar, an organization that attempts to use art to, in its words, “advocate for the restoration of human rights and dignity for all in Iran.” All three team members of PaykanArtCar also work at UANI.

The final group in this Iran regime change network is the International Convention for the Future of Iran. Set up by Wallace himself, the organization’s website explains that it exists to “end the repression of the regime and bring true change to Iran.” Further purposes are to “connect the Iranian opposition in exile [i.e., the MEK] with policymakers in the United States and internationally” and to “offer program grants and technical support” to groups working to overthrow the government. However, judging by the lack of updates and the group’s Twitter profile having only 31 followers, it appears that it has not had much success achieving its goals.

In short, then, there exists a network of American NGOs with the mission statements of helping Iran, opposing Iran, preserving Iran, and bombing Iran, all staffed by largely the same ex-U.S. government officials.

Iran, however, is not the only target in Wallace’s sights. It appears that he is also trying to give Turkey similar treatment. Wallace is the CEO of the Turkish Democracy Project, a non-profit established to oppose the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who, it says, has “dramatically altered Turkey’s position in the international community and its status as a free and liberal democracy.” The Turkish Democracy Project denounces what it calls Erdoğan’s “destabilizing actions in and beyond the region, his systemic corruption, support for extremism, and disregard for democracy and human rights.” There are no Turkish people among the Turkish Democracy Project’s leadership. But there are seven UANI board members at the top, calling the shots.

A Lesson From History

The history of Iran has been intimately intertwined with the United States since at least 1953 when Washington orchestrated a successful coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had refused U.S. demands to stamp out Communist influences in his country and had nationalized the nation’s oil. The U.S. installed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a puppet ruler. An unpopular and authoritarian ruler, the Shah was overthrown in the Revolution of 1979. Since then, it has become a target for regime change, and its nuclear program is something of an obsession in the West.

Often orchestrated by UANI officials while they were in government, the U.S. has carried out a sustained economic war against Tehran, attempting to collapse its economy. American sanctions have severely hurt Iran’s ability to both buy and sell goods on the open market and have harmed the value of the Iranian rial. As prices and inflation rose rapidly, ordinary people lost their savings.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. turned the screw once again, intimidating both businesses and nations into refusing to sell Tehran vital medical supplies. Eventually, the World Health Organization stepped in and directly supplied it with provisions – a factor in the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the agency.

While U.S. actions have severely harmed the Iranian economy, a future bright spot may come in the form of BRICS, the economic bloc that Iran – along with Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE – joined on January 1. American economic power on the global stage appears to be waning. However, This new reality might spur Washington policymakers to reconsider a military option, as UANI desperately wants them to.

It is perfectly reasonable to be worried about Iran – or any country, for that matter – developing atomic bombs. Nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to human civilization, and more actors with access to them increase the likelihood of a devastating confrontation. Already in the region, India, Pakistan, Israel and Russia possess them. But it is only the United States that has ever used them in anger, dropping two on Japan and coming close to doing so in China, Korea and Vietnam. And given the U.S.’ recent track record of attacking countries that do not possess weapons of mass destruction (e.g., Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan) and not touching those who do (such as North Korea), it is entirely understandable why Iran might want one. As Freeman said:

I certainly do not want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. But at the same time, you can also believe that it would be catastrophic if the U.S. were to engage in a war with Iran…And the concern with groups like UANI is that they are taking that [the worry of Iran getting a nuclear weapon] and pushing that argument to a point where it might lead to an active conflict.”

The slaughter in Gaza has been horrifying enough. More than 22,000 people have been killed in the Israeli invasion, and a further 1.9 million displaced. Israel is also simultaneously bombing the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon. The U.S. is facilitating this, sending billions of dollars in weaponry, pledging iron-clad political support to Israel, silencing critics of its actions, and vetoing United Nations resolutions.

But United Against Nuclear Iran is eager to escalate the situation to a vastly greater level, urging Washington to attack a well-armed country of nearly 90 million people, erroneously claiming that Iran is behind every Hamas or Hezbollah action. “This is not a nuclear non-proliferation organization” Clifton said, noting that there are plenty of genuine already existing peace and environmental groups worried about nuclear weapons that either supported the JCPOA or said it did not go far enough. “Their focus is more on working towards regime change in Iran rather than actually supporting efforts that might prevent Iranian nuclear weapons,” he added.

IF UANI gets its way, a conflict with Iran might spark a Third World War. And yet they are receiving virtually no pushback to their ultra-hawkish pronouncements, largely because they operate in the shadows and receive virtually no public scrutiny. It is, therefore, imperative for all those who value peace to quickly change that and expose the organization for what it is.

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Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017, he published two books, Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Featured image: Illustration by MintPress News

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

The Kiev regime’s deep-rooted connection with Ukrainian WWII-era Neo-Nazi movements is an axiom. Denying this is futile, as many of the junta’s soldiers unashamedly display Nazi insignia, while the state-sponsored promotion of the cult of Nazi collaborators such as Stepan Bandera, Yaroslav Stetsko, Roman Shukhevych and others of their ilk is a clear proof that this isn’t some spontaneous reaction of an extremist minority, but a carefully orchestrated policy. In the last decade, there has been a systematic whitewashing of Nazism, with an entire generation of children and young people raised to essentially adore the aforementioned figures. Many soldiers of the Kiev regime who have been fighting in the last several years were just kids at the time when NATO organized the Maidan coup that brought the Neo-Nazi junta to power and pushed Ukraine into the ongoing bloodbath.

These children (many in their 20s now) were radicalized into thinking that the ideology that quite literally sees them as “Untermenschen” is something “good” or even “desirable”.

They were never told what Hitler’s Generalplan Ost included and that they would’ve almost certainly never even been born had Nazi Germany succeeded in its genocidal intentions of global proportions.

Worse yet, they’ve been convinced that the Russians, their closest kin (historically, genetically, culturally, religiously, you name it), are their “mortal enemy”. Not to mention the fact that the only reason why there are Ukrainians nowadays at all is precisely the victory won by tens of millions of Russians and other peoples of the Soviet Union. This hard-fought triumph was paid for in blood, with nearly 30 million people slaughtered in the most brutal ways imaginable, at least seven million of whom were from Ukraine.

Ironically, many of those now fighting under the banner of Bandera and his Nazi overlords are the descendants of people who actually fought in the Red Army, many of them for the entire duration of WWII. This includes the Kiev regime frontman Volodymyr Zelensky himself [of Russian Jewish descent], whose grandfather Semyon Zelensky was a Red Army soldier (see below), while his father and three brothers were killed by the Nazis.

Tomb of Zelensky’s Grandfather

And yet, his grandson had no qualms about declaring Bandera a “Ukrainian hero”.

Thus, the live-action role-playing (or so-called “larping” for short) of Nazism by many Ukrainians is quite literally the ridicule of the sacrifice made by their ancestors and their closest kin in Russia and elsewhere in the former USSR. Still, one would think that the mindless emulation of that despicable ideology would be limited to mere formality. However, nothing could be further from true.

Namely, the Neo-Nazi junta is determined to follow its ideological forefathers at every step of the way. This doesn’t only include the raising of what can only be described as its own iteration of the infamous Volkssturm, a military force effectively composed of civilians pressed into service virtually overnight, but also the emulation of Nazi German military strategy, one that led to its defeat on the battlefield (unfortunately, only on the battlefield, it would seem). In a recent piece published by Business Insider, American military analyst Michael Peck essentially admitted that the Kiev regime is using Berlin’s failed WWII-era tactics. According to his assessment, the Neo-Nazi junta is trying to opt for the same type of mobile, aggressive defense, a desperate German strategy to stop or at least slow down the Red Army that was rapidly advancing in all directions.

Peck noted that the Wehrmacht was both outnumbered and outgunned. However, he disregarded a notable difference between them – the Kiev regime is not really outnumbered (and never was). On the contrary, it enjoys a significant numerical advantage over the Russian military. Still, Moscow’s strategic and technological superiority comes into play, serving as a massive force multiplier for its troops. And yet, the Neo-Nazi junta is still using the same approach that led its ideological idols to a disastrous defeat. To his credit, Peck at least acknowledged the obvious by admitting that the much-touted counteroffensive failed and that the Kiev regime forces are experiencing a chronic lack of munitions and strength to fight the Russian military. He criticized the hopes of conducting “active defense” against Moscow’s forces, as that would require much larger and better-equipped units.

Although Peck didn’t directly compare the current strategic situation with WWII, he stated that the Red Army was continually on the attack after Stalingrad, implying that the recent defeat at Avdeyevka could be a similar ominous sign for the Neo-Nazi junta, particularly as the Russian military hasn’t stopped its offensive operations after taking control of the town. The strategy used by Nazi Germany, primarily devised by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein (whom Peck described as “legendary”), was a “mobile defense that would take advantage of German tactical and operational prowess, especially of the elite panzer divisions”. According to the author’s assessment, von Manstein is “famous for his ‘backhand blow’ concept of letting the Soviets advance into German-occupied territory, and then launching an exquisitely timed counterattack to encircle and destroy their spearheads”.

However, Peck conceded that “this was more of a strategic rather than a tactical concept”. Theoretically, the Kiev regime’s manpower and equipment were supposed to be enough to conduct operations the same way von Manstein did. Its domestic units, initially composed of modernized Soviet-era weapons, were heavily augmented and even replaced by NATO equivalents (oftentimes the latest variants that haven’t even been inducted by the Western nations sending them). And yet, this not only failed to improve the Neo-Nazi junta forces, but it turned out that Soviet-era weapons and doctrine were actually superior. The core ideas of von Manstein’s strategy are maneuvering and willingness to lose ground to trap an advancing enemy. However, the Kiev regime forces lack the ability to maneuver in the era of advanced ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance).

Moscow’s virtually unprecedented long-range strike capabilities make it effectively impossible to conduct any such maneuvers, which only results in further deterioration of the effectiveness of this WWII-era strategy that already led to Germany’s defeat way before the Soviet Union/Russia had any advanced ISR. Interestingly, Peck admits that NATO also adopted von Manstein’s approach during the (First) Cold War. In fact, even more interestingly, the Nazi Field Marshal served as a top NATO adviser, despite his previous sentence for war crimes against both civilians and POWs (prisoners of war) during the Nuremberg trials. This controversy serves as yet another proof that the political West never really renounced the deranged ideology of its geopolitical predecessor, while Ukraine is the unfortunate place where the Neo-Nazi experiment is by far the most evident and abundant.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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“I definitely will not be taking any more of this COVID booster shot.

…

I took my first shot and felt fine for the first 15 minutes. And as I was walking to work, I was paralyzed in the middle of the street with a sharp stabbing pain in my cerebellum, at the base of my skull. I’ve suffered from migraine my whole life but I’ve never ever felt anything like this in that spot.”

Click here to watch the video

 

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image is from COVID Intel

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Recently I attended the funeral of one of my former patients, a remarkable woman for very many reasons. She was in her late 50’s and she suffered from several significant chronic illnesses, so her death was not unexpected. I am not at liberty to reveal anything that could lead to her identification of course, but I can say that in addition to long-standing physical problems she had what we in psychiatry like to call a ‘major mental disorder’.

Unfortunately the ‘system’ did not do a very good job with her — the system of basic psychiatric care — and she suffered as a result. When I took over her care we were able to develop a very solid partnership and she had a long period of mental and emotional stability before she passed away. But this is not the subject of my report, though perhaps in future I will weigh in with observations about general psychiatry and some glaring shortcomings.

I will add, however, that she was one of the few patients in my care who spoke openly to me about not wanting to take the covid jab.

As the service began, stirring up memories and appreciations, the man sitting to my right turned to me and said,

“An awful lot of people have been dying in their 50’s lately.” I nodded in affirmation, and he followed this up with “I thought I could count on getting into my 70’s, but I guess not.”

There was an air of resignation, an acceptance of a new ‘reality’ in the way he spoke to me.

I said something to the effect that this wasn’t normal and I also remarked that I had a theory about what was happening, but the time and place were not conducive to a discussion: we were there after all to pay homage to the deceased. I made the assumption that he would have dismissed my ‘theory’ — but who knows?

I conclude from his brief aside that a regular fellow like the man beside me has begun to notice something disquieting, and that others too are noticing. Will they however move along a trajectory of new expectations, or will they make the connection as Denis Rancourt and others have between the covid jab and excess morbidity and mortality?

My friend Ed Curtin, in an enlightening essay on ‘coincidences’ calls attention to one facet of propaganda that is often overlooked, namely, the inculcation of convictions based on slow and steady processes, through imperceptible influences and relentless repetition over time.

I’ve had the impression that the covidian onslaught has been purposefully benumbing us and inuring us to a strange new world of earlier death. We’re meant to believe it’s normal for kids to have heart attacks, for athletes to drop dead on the playing field in unaccustomed numbers, for aggressive and untreatable cancers to emerge of a sudden.

What would have been unthinkable not so long ago is strangely coming to be accepted as the way things are. Back in the 70’s, it took a mere 50 deaths for the Swine Flu vaccine to be stopped in its tracks. But for the covid jab juggernaut the association of millions of fatalities is as nothing.

Ben Franklin once wrote that the only certainties of life were death and taxes. I wonder whether the man to my right today has silently amended this famous utterance to ‘early death and taxes’. Or whether four hard years under the covid propaganda machine have not permanently lowered his expectations, and that he will be curious enough about what is happening to the friends and acquaintances around him to start asking a few questions.

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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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If the nations of the world–particularly the United States and the Arab countries–wanted to stop Israel’s slaughter, torture and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, they could do so tomorrow with suspension of oil, arms and technology imports and exports to Israel. Though “Free Palestine” “and Let Gaza Live” protesters may shut down bridges, occupy train stations and march by the millions in cities across the globe, key governments–the US, UK, Germany, Canada, Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and India– continue to keep commerce humming, monarchies in place and an empire standing even in the midst of what the World Court ruled was a plausible case of genocide. Members of the United Nations would do the world a favor if they followed the lead of South Africa at the International Court of Justice  to condemn both in deed and action the crimes of Israel. 

Stop the Weapons

First the good news.

US Labor for a Ceasefire

In a February press release, seven national unions and over two hundred local unions announced the formation of the National Labor Network for Ceasefire (NLNC) to “end the death and devastation” in the Middle East, and to build support for the ceasefire among unions around the country. According to the NLNC, Unions calling for a ceasefire represent over 9 million union members, more than half the labor movement in the United States. The seven national unions include: American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA), the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), the National Education Association (NEA), National Nurses United (NNU), the United Auto Workers (UAW), and the United Electrical Workers (UE).

Whether the NLNC will join CODEPINK, Teachers Against Genocide, Doctors Against Genocide and other organizations on Capitol Hill opposed to President Biden’s request for a $95 billion war spending supplemental–$14 billion for weapons for Israel–seems unlikely–though not impossible–in an election year when the specter of another Trump union-busting presidency casts a fearful shadow. The  AFL-CIO, representing 12.5 million workers, voted in January to endorse Biden’s re-election. 

The NLNC joins the Democratic Party of five states: Texas, Hawaii, New Mexico, Arizona and Washington–and over 40 cities calling for a ceasefire.

Italy, Spain & Belgium Suspend Arms

Until recently Italy was responsible for five percent of  Israeli weapons purchases–helicopters and naval artillery–over the last ten years. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani claims, however, that Italy stopped all weapons shipments to Israel following that nation’s collective punishment of Gaza for October 7th. 

If true, Italy joins Spain and Belgium, which have also suspended arms sales or ammunition shipments to Israel during its bombardment of Gaza. 

Dutch Court Says No

In mid-February, a Dutch appeals court instructed the Netherlands to stop sending F-35 fighter jet components to Israel. “The court finds that there is a clear risk that Israel’s F-35 fighter jets might be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law,” ruled the court in response to a lawsuit filed by Oxfam and other human rights groups.

The court ruled the Dutch government had seven days to halt the supply of fighter jets and eight weeks to appeal.

UK Outrage

Human rights organizations, the Global Legal Action Network in the UK and Al-Haq, in Ramallah, have taken legal action against the UK to halt arms sales to Israel totaling over $600-million since 2015, with the UK sending F-35 fighter jets to Israel for its assault on Gaza.

Palestinian rights activists, among them two Israeli dissidents Stavit Sinai and Ronnie Barkan were put on trial in the UK in January after the Bristol-area office of Elbit UK was sprayed with red paint, its windows sledgehammered. Elbit UK is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, an Israeli-based company that manufactures 500 pound bombs, artillery shells and drones for Israel’s genocide Gaza. Sinai, who lives in Germany but flew to England for the protest, said, “Taking action outside of the country where the crimes are taking place… has been proven to be extremely efficient to exert pressure on the perpetrators.”

Pushback in Canada

In an Open Letter (2/5/23) to Mélanie Joly, Canada’s prime minister, over a dozen organizations, including the Anglican Church of Canada, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam Canada, demanded Canada halt its weapons and military hardware sales to Israel that have totaled more than $100 million during the past decade. Canada’s foreign ministry insists it has not issued any permits for “full weapon systems for major conventional arms or light weapons to Israel for over 30 years.”  Ceasefire advocates argue their government is not being transparent about the parts it supplies for missiles and bombs while continuing “to approve arms exports since October 7 despite the clear risk of genocide in Gaza.”

U.S. as Biggest Arms Exporter to Israel

Chief among those governments that aid and abet Israeli genocide is the United States, which has has a history of raiding the treasury to subsidize its proxy in the oil and gas rich Middle East. According to the State Department, the US has handed Israel’s military apparatus over $130-billion dollars since 1948, when Zionist terrorists destroyed over 500 villages, burning some to the ground, to establish a Jewish state on Palestinian land.

U.S.-supplied military equipment arriving in Israel, December 2023. [Source: timesofisrael.com]

The State Department proudly asserts US subsidies have made the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), known to critics as Israel Occupation Forces (IOF), “one of the world’s most capable, effective militaries …”

Since October 7th, the US has supplied Israel with 15,000 bombs, 57,000 artillery shells and one-hundred 2,000 pound bunker busters to penetrate deep underground tunnels beneath apartments, hospitals and refugee camps, turning densely populated neighborhoods into graveyards. 

War Profiteers

In a report entitled, “The Companies Profiting from Israel’s 2023-2024 Attacks on Gaza,” the American Friends Service Committee documents the role of US military contractors in aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza:

Raytheon (RTX), headquartered in Waltham, MA, outfits the Israeli military with air-to-surface missiles for its F-16 fighter jets, as well as internationally-banned cluster bombs and bunker busters. Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, VA, furnishes Israel with Longbow missile delivery systems while Lockheed Martin, its main office in Bethesda, MD, supplies Israel with Hellfire missiles, F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, their engine parts maintained by  Pratt & Whitney,  a Farmington, CT company that in 2015 signed a 15-year contract with the Israeli military.

“Pratt & Whitney is humbled and honored by the confidence Israeli leadership has placed in us and we look forward to working with local industries to provide continued, long-term support to the Israeli warfighter,” said Bennett Croswell, president, Pratt & Whitney Military Engines.

China as Producer of F-35 Parts for the US

A deeper dive into the weapons supply chain suggests China could play a decisive role in stopping the genocide by shutting down production of magnets used in Honeywell-supplied turbo machine pumps and circuit boards for the F-35 fighter jets bombing Gaza. In 2022, the Pentagon–upon realizing the F’35’s parts were manufactured in China– placed deliveries of the parts on hold only to reverse itself two days later with a waiver for parts deemed too critical to block.

What if … ?

What would happen if US military contractors acceded to the demands of anti-war protesters in Massachusetts, California and Arizona holding demonstrations and die-in’s in front of Raytheon’s offices? If Congress and the White House pulled the plug on the annual near $4 billion subsidy for the Israeli military? If universities followed through on student resolutions, such as the measure passed at the University of California at Davis, to divest from companies profiting off the Israeli occupation? 

Since the US provides Israel with roughly 15% of its military budget, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition might have to rethink their campaign of Palestinian erasure or step up their shopping elsewhere, perhaps in Germany which has increased its weapons exports to Israel tenfold since October 7th, with permit approvals close to $323 million, according to Reuters.

Arab Complicity with Israeli Genocide

In June, 2023, a few months before the Hamas raid, on the eve of a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, Israel’s Defense Ministry reported the country had in 2022 exported over $12 billion in military products–drones, missile, rockets, air defense systems– with almost a quarter of the sales to Arab countries party to the Abraham Accords, bilateral normalization agreements. The Israel Defense Ministry would not identify its arms clients, but signatories and supporters of the Abraham Accords include the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.

Mint Press’ Minar Adley reports Morocco is building a military intelligence base for Israel in Afso on the border with Algeria, a country that has resoundingly condemned Israel’s genocide and pushed the UN Security Council to support a ceasefire. In “Why Morocco will not cut ties with Israel,” the Atlantic Council’s Sarah Zaaimi argues that despite massive street heat and a Moroccan consulate in Gaza, the government of Morocco will not break with Israel because the relationship is “a matter of national security for a monarchy that’s succeeded in surviving for twelve centuries.” Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, plans to construct two weapons factories in Morocco, while Elbit Systems has established Elbit System Emirates  in the UAE to promote “long term cooperation” with the Israeli military. 

CNN reports that in January the US–under the radar, without fanfare or press—sealed a deal with Qatar to continue operating for another ten years the US’ largest military base in the Middle East. The base that can house up to 10,000 troops Is a “pivotal hub for the US Central Command’s air operations in or around Afghanistan, Iran and across the Middle East.” Next door, at US naval headquarters in Bahrain, the US Fifth Fleet– stationed in the Red Sea with 7,000 US sailors–takes its cue from  a command center.

Let’s Not Overlook India …

India tops the list as the largest importer of weapons from Israel, accounting for over 40% of Israel’s exports, but the relationship is not limited to imports from israel. According to Middle East Eye, India co-produces weapons with Israel while coordinating joint military drills. For Indian leader Nadrendra Modi, a right-wing nationalist bent on violent subjugation of India’s 20 percent Muslim population, Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s brutal treatment of the Palestinians raises few concerns. In fact, Israel’s 75-year history of Palestinian erasure serves as a model for Indian nationalists spewing hateful rhetoric, forming lynch mobs and looting and torching Muslim homes.

AlJazeera reports an estimated 130 countries, including Colombia, have purchased drones and spying technology from Israel, though Israel suspended weapons shipments to Latin America after Colombia’s left-leaning President Gustavo Petro, a former Marxist revolutionary, declined to condemn the Hamas October 7th  attacks, later comparing Israel’s destruction in Gaza to the heinous actions of Nazi Germany.

Stop the Oil

First the good news (well sort of …)

Yemen’s Houthis launched a solidarity blockade of Red Sea shipments to Israel resulting in an 85% drop in activity at Israel’s port of Eilat. Unfortunately, the Answar Allah’s demands for a ceasefire and commitment to uphold the UN Convention on Genocide has resulted in US bombings of the impoverished nation’s capital Saana, one of the oldest cities in the Middle East.

Oil: From Azerbaijan through Turkey to Israel 

Despite Turkish President Erdoigan’s tough anti-Israel rhetoric, Turkey remains a principal oil supplier to Israel with miles of pipelines that deliver oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, suppliers of anywhere from 40- 60% of Israel’s oil, through Turkey’s port of Ceyhan in the Eastern Mediterranean. Earlier, on October 21st, the tanker Seaviolet reportedly carried one million barrels of oil from Muslim Azerbaijan to Israel’s port of Eilat on the Red Sea, though since then Yemen’s Houthis have blockaded Red Sea shipments to israel.

So how is oil reaching Israel now? 

British Petroleum, which has drilled for oil in Azerbaijan for three decades, is cumventing the Red Sea blockade to ship crude oil via the Horn of Good Hope in Africa, but there’s a more efficient solution for those intent on undermining the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

“Zionist Land Bridge”

Mint Press News cites Israel’s Hebrew Television Station Channel 13 reports that Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE are together undermining the Houthis’ efforts to block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the passageway to the Suez Canal for a quarter of global trade, including oil to Israel. Rather than reroute ships through the treacherous waters of Africa’s Cape of Good Hope –adding a month and a million dollars in fuel to the journey–the four Arab countries have established land corridors, with goods first unloaded at the ports of Dubai and Bahrain, then transported overland on highways from the UAE to Saudi Arabia, then onto Jordan until the cargo reaches Israel via the 115-mile long Jordan Highway overlooking the Dead Sea.

While Israel imports almost all of its oil, it also exports crude to Bulgaria, India, Italy, Palestine and Australia, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (EOC), a data visualization tool developed at the MIT Media Lab.

A Gas Grab

For months there’s been speculation that Israel viewed October 7th as an opportunity to ethnically cleanse Gaza in order to exploit the coastal area’s natural gas resources. To grab the goods, however, Israel would first have to remove the Palestinians who might claim title. In keeping with a plan hatched by the euphemistically named Defense Ministry, Israel told a million Palestinians to go south to Rafah for safety, only to bomb residential buildings while ramping up for a ground invasion of the city that straddles Egypt. Palestinian-rights advocates say this  “go south” edict is to push Gazans further south into the scorching Sinai desert, into Egypt’s lap, into tent cities, into an exile reminiscent of the first Nakba in 1948 when Israel drove 750,000 Palestinians from their land to bar them from ever returning. 

The pieces of the puzzle come together. 

In February Israel approved gas exploration licenses to six Israel and international companies for natural gas exploration in Palestine maritime areas off the coast of Gaza. Several organizations–Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights–warn Israel it had better cancel those contracts or face the consequences for violating international law. In a world, however, where Israel repeatedly violates international law–including orders from the World Court to stop killing Palestinians and provide massive humanitarian aid— it’s unlikely those contracts will be canceled any time soon unless there is a tsunami of civil unrest or a collective uproar in the 193-member UN General Assembly. Under the Uniting for Peace resolution the General Assembly could with a 2/3rd’s vote (129 members) exert enormous pressure by sanctioning Israel and suspending it from UN activities. 

Stop the Tech

First the good news …

Internal dissent rocks Google in the United States, where employees waving Palestinian flags shut down Market Street (12/14/23) in San Francisco to protest Google’s Project Nimbus, a 1.2 billion contract with the Israeli military for cloud computing engineered by Google and Amazon. Months earlier, before October 7th, hundreds of Amazon and Google tech workers protested the contract in four cities across the country with signs reading, “No Tech for Apartheid.” In an open letter, anonymous employees in 2021 charged the Nimbus contract greenlights “unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land.”

Multinational corporations like Microsoft, Google, IBM and Intel all have offices in Israel. Google’s 8,000 square mile campus in Tel Aviv occupies eight floors of Electra Tower, with one floor reserved for Google’s “Campus Tel Aviv,” a hub for entrepreneurs and start up companies. Hewlett-Packard–a target of the global BDS movement– profits off the Israeli occupation with biometric identification-hand and facial recognition–used at checkpoints throughout the West Bank, where excruciating wait times can take Palestinians all day to reach family in a village 30 miles away.

A boycott of Israel’s technology-computers, electronics, cybersecurity software–could send Israel’s economy into an inflationary spiral, for high tech contributes 18% of the gross domestic product, employs over 12% of the workforce, accounts for half the country’s exports and contributes 30% of the tax base, according to CNN.

Israel’s surveillance technology includes Pegasus spyware that can invade your cell phone, capture text messages and collect passwords, border drones that monitor the movement of migrants across the Mediterranean, thermal cameras that can see through walls during police raids and facial recognition software for cameras at checkpoints and borders.

One of Israel’s biggest trading partners is the European Union, which in 2018 purchased Elbit Systems drones to track and collect intelligence on asylum seekers. Critics charge the use of these drones without offering rescue operations for refugees risking their lives violates the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor has long wanted the contracts canceled. Professor Richard Falk, Chair of Euro-Med’s Board of Trustees, said the purchase is outrageous considering the “repressive and unlawful ways” drones are used to oppress Palestinians in the occupied territories. 

In the UAE, where dissent is outlawed and labor unions forbidden, those who might protest their country’s cozy relationship with Israel risk prison and torture, so it’s not surprising that the royal family easily welcomed an Israeli tech hub to Abu Dhabi in 2022 and announced plans for a UAE technology institute in Haifa come 2024. “We will work on some of the most interesting challenges in AI and at the same time contribute to the vision of scientific collaboration articulated in the Abraham Accords,” writes Yoelle Maarek, the soo-to-be director of the center, who previously worked as an executive at Google, IBM, Amazon, and Yahoo.

Another top shopper for Israeli tech is India, which, according to the New York Times,  bought Pegasus Spyware in 2017  to keep tabs on opponents of Modi’s ultra-nationalist regime. 

And it’s no secret that Saudi Arabia is one of Israel’s best customers for Israeli tech used to hack the phones and spy on people deemed enemies of the state. Though the planned normalization agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel is off the table for now, Saudi Arabia’s 620-billion Public Investment Fund (PIF) continues to invest in Israeli tech start-ups. 

Coming attractions on the tech market …

The Israeli military says it’s relying on an artificial intelligence-based system  called Habsora (the Gospel) to “produce targets at a fast pace” in Gaza, where to date Israel has killed over 28,000 and wounded over 68,000 people. Richard Moyes, a researcher for Article 36, a team of policy experts based in the UK, discounts the accuracy of AI algorithms, telling  The Guardian, “We’re seeing the widespread flattening of an urban area with heavy explosive weapons, so to claim there’s precision and narrowness of force being exerted is not borne out by the facts.” 

What It’s Going to Take

If nations anywhere in the supply chain are serious about ending genocide in Gaza and preventing a wider war, they can invoke the S in BDS and sanction Israel, prohibiting imports and exports of oil, weapons and technology. If the US, Canada, UK, Germany, India and the Arab countries complicit in Israel’s slaughter refuse to reverse course–if they insist on aiding and abetting genocide in the face of the International Court of Justice’s condemnation and global outrage over Israel’s slaughter, then it’s time for other countries to expose Israel and its abetters in a criminal tribunal on the floor of the United Nations to put the criminals, from Biden to Netanyahu, on trial for genocide. 

Until that time, CODEPINK joins the global call to the UN General Assembly to sanction Israel as it brazenly violates International Court of Justice orders to stop killing and wounding Palestinians and start providing massive humanitarian aid. Our New York City delegation, which has encouraged countries to file declarations in support of South Africa’s case at the ICJ, delivers a strategic message as the delegation visits the UN missions: “NO MORE WEAPONS, OIL OR TECH FOR ISRAEL.”

 It may be cliche to say, “If there’s a will, there’s a way,” but the truth is the collective power of the world–or even a sliver of the world–could stop the slaughter tomorrow.

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Marcy Winograd volunteers as the Coordinator of CODEPINK CONGRESS and a co-producer of CODEPINK Radio. She also co-coordinates CODEPINK’s World Court Campaign to support South Africa’s case against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. A retired English and government teacher, Marcy blogs about militarism and foreign policy. 

Featured image: Never Again and Again and Again – by Mr. Fish

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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New York – Albert Einstein College of Medicine MD/PhD student – 33 year old Ricardo Perez Dulzaides died suddenly in early November 2021 from a pulmonary embolism and cardiac arrest (GoFundMe).

Remembering Ricardo Perez Dulzaides 

Einstein is deeply saddened by the unexpected illness and death of our M.D./ Ph.D. student Ricardo Perez Dulzaides. Ricardo died of complications following a pulmonary embolism and cardiac arrest. He was just 33 years old.

Few people in Einstein’s Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) have followed a path similar to Ricardo. Through adversity, Ricardo developed the resilience and resourcefulness to build many opportunities for himself—always seeking to improve his life and that of his family.

Born in Cuba, at age 9 he immigrated to the United States with his parents and younger brother. A close-knit family, they settled in Miami.

Initially they lived in a garage until they had accumulated sufficient money to move to a house. Ricardo’s maternal grandparents followed them to Miami a few years later and lived with Ricardo’s family.

Hard-Working Go-Getter 

Ricardo had an entrepreneurial spirit and a strong determination to succeed. In high school, he expanded a landscaping business that he started with the help of his father and worked in the local supermarket to help support his family.

After high school, he entered Miami Dade Community College. However, Ricardo was forced to prioritize work to help support his family when his mother lost her job during the 2008 financial crisis. After a year at Miami Dade, he took a leave of absence, sold the landscaping business, and started working as a long-haul truck driver.

 

Ricardo with his fellow MSTP students and program director Myles Akabas, M.D./Ph.D.

Eventually he became an owner-operator, responsible for finding and negotiating loads on a route from Miami to California to New York and back to Miami. It was this experience that kindled Ricardo’s interest in health and medicine. As he noted in his MSTP application:

“Being on the road constantly created poor eating and sleeping habits that were psychologically and physically taxing. Most of my coworkers were unhealthy: being morbidly obese, sitting for long periods as they drove cross country, and feeling unhappy with their lives. In truck stop magazines and online searches, I often found articles that confirmed that the risk of chronic illness increases for drivers. Seeing these conditions first hand, I felt bad for my fellow drivers, and this kept nagging at me: something needed to be done. I became interested in a career in health care because of a desire to help my fellow truck drivers deal, to serve them by translating knowledge to improve their health.”

Focused on Helping Others

After three years as a truck driver, Ricardo was able to return to school full-time. He completed an associate of arts degree at Miami Dade Community College and then entered Florida International University (FIU) where he double majored in chemistry and biology, and graduated summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

At FIU, Ricardo sought out opportunities to expand his horizons. He was introduced to scientific research through the NIH-supported MARC U*STAR program. His Honors thesis research in the laboratory of Dr. Laura Serbus earned him co-authorship on a paper. Following graduation, Ricardo joined the Doctorate Development Program at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. He worked in the laboratory of Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology & immunology, and former chair of microbiology & immunology at Einstein.

Promising Future Physician-Scientist 

In June 2018, Ricardo entered the Einstein MSTP. In preclinical course work, he discovered his passion for clinical investigation because he wanted the outcome of his work to connect directly to improving people’s lives. He chose to do his Ph.D. thesis research with Drs. Qibin Qi and Robert Kaplan in the Ph.D. in Clinical Investigation track.

Ricardo with his fellow MD students and Sherry A. Downie, Ph.D.

Ricardo devised a clever way to study whether meal timing might influence health by altering the composition of the human gut microbiome. He reanalyzed detailed food intake data from over 16,000 community volunteers in the NIH Study of Latinos cohort. By dissecting eating patterns reported by study participants, he sought to understand how dietary habits might influence one’s risk of metabolic disease. 

He made rapid progress over just a few months of hard work, absorbing all the literature he could find on the topic and delighting his colleagues with his ideas, enthusiasm, and curiosity. Ricardo also was awarded support through an Einstein Aging Research Training Grant (T32) this summer. Through this funding, he was testing the hypothesis that earlier mealtimes may yield favorable metabolic changes and beneficial effects on healthy aging partially through the human gut microbiota and its related metabolites.

“Ricardo had a tremendous zest for life,” said Myles Akabas, Einstein’s MSTP director. “He was curious about the world and the people around him. He had a deep love for his friends and family. He loved to regale people with stories about his adventures and described them with unbridled enthusiasm. He was proud of his accomplishments and of being a member of the Einstein MSTP.”

He added, “We, in turn, were incredibly proud to have Ricardo as a member of the MSTP and the Einstein community. His wonderful spirit, enthusiasm, and the joy he brought to people will be missed by everyone who knew and loved him.”

Ricardo also had a strong commitment to increasing diversity and helping those coming up the ladder behind him. He possessed a warm, outgoing personality and a loyalty and love for those close to him. While things did not always work out as Ricardo had planned, he had the grit, determination, creativity, and perseverance to rise to the challenges and flourish.

Ricardo summarized his life experience and career goals in his MSTP application:

“My experiences in the laboratory have taught me to embrace every challenge as an opportunity to push the limits of our knowledge and elevate the status quo. My clinical exposure has instilled in me a deep respect for patients who constantly relativize what is truly important in life. Finally, my time volunteering and serving the community is a constant reminder that I did not get here alone and I am now in a position to give back. I can still remember a time when I was hauling refrigerated chicken cross-country for a living. Grounded in these experiences, I am determined to overcome the challenges that lie ahead and to dedicate my life to upholding the Hippocratic Oath.”

Ricardo’s life was cut short unexpectedly and tragically. We will miss his warm smile, good humor, keen intellect, and his unique, positive perspective on life.

May his memory be a blessing and an inspiration for us all.

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My Take…

I reflect on Ricardo’s final Twitter post: “12 people are responsible for up to 65% of anti-vaccine content”. It’s the last thing he would post on Twitter before dying suddenly from pulmonary embolism & cardiac arrest, some of the most common COVID-19 Vaccine adverse events.

This morning I did an over 1 hour interview with the wonderful Dr.Sherri Tenpenny on Turbo Cancers, and then I did some reading on Twitter, catching posts by the incredible Erin Elizabeth, as well as Ben Tapper and RFK Jr. I love Erin Elizabeth’s work on Twitter, she’s one of my favourite follows.

Come to think of it, that’s 4 of the 12, responsible for 21% of the world’s “anti-vaccine content”. Looks like I hit the “anti-vaccine” motherload today and didn’t even know it!

In reality, Ricardo was murdered by the COVID-19 Cartel, that falsely smeared and defamed those 12 individuals.

How did Ricardo fall for the COVID-19 propaganda that ultimately killed him?

Ricardo fled Communist Cuba when he was 9 years old.

I fled Communist Czechoslovakia when I was 9 years old.

Ricardo completed an associate of arts degree at Miami Dade Community College (2011-2013) and then entered Florida International University (FIU) where he double majored in chemistry and biology (2013-2016). He then did a Doctoral Diversity Program at Johns Hopkins 2016-2018 and entered into MD/PhD Program in 2018.

 

So his undergraduate schooling was from 2011 to 2018.

My undergraduate schooling at University of Toronto was from 1997 to 2001.

In terms of our University education, we are one entire generation apart, even though at start of the pandemic in early 2020, he was 32 and I was 40. Not that big of an age gap.

Leftism/Wokeism

Ricardo shows up on Twitter on Jan.24, 2021 already heavily brainwashed regarding the 2020 election and January 6 nonsense. He believes the mainstream media. He reposts AOC. He talks about 2020 election “disinformation”.

 

 

 

 

His Twitter bio features him wearing a mask, leftist divisive identity politics focus on race & gender, and even the following extremely ironic “health/political literacy over disinformation”.

 

 

His Facebook Profile features him wearing another mask and holding his vaccine card. This profile remains after his death.

 

 

Conclusion

Ricardo and myself were only 8 years apart, both immigrants who fled a Communist regime.

We both worked extremely hard to find success, however, I finished my undergraduate schooling in 2001, while he finished his in 2018.

While I experienced some leftist ideology at University of Toronto and leaned just left of centre during my days there, Ricardo was literally bathed and drowned in far left and woke ideology and for a much longer period of time (7 years).

I was never exposed to the type of extreme far left and woke ideology in University, he was.

Once the pandemic hit, he was completely brainwashed, unable to think critically and think for himself. He virtue signaled with pictures of himself wearing masks, holding vaccine cards and mocking “anti-vaccine content”.

And then he died suddenly, almost certainly from COVID-19 Vaccine injuries.

If a Cuban immigrant who fled Communism, couldn’t see through the evils of leftism and woke-ism, and fell for every propaganda trick of the left and its controlled media, should we be surprised that other medical students never stood a chance?

They are coming out of medical schools and residency programs brain dead.

And the medical establishment is leading them straight off a cliff. This may be the first time in history that a profession murders its own students, its own apprentices, in the pursuit of a greater agenda. Ricardo never saw it coming.

“Health/political literacy over disinformation” is what he saw himself practicing, but in reality, he fell completely for disinformation and it cost him his life.

 

 

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image is from COVID Intel

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Is this statement true or false: Israel is justified in flattening Gaza because the Palestinians elected Hamas in 2006 which proves they support terrorism.

1. True
2. False

The answer is “2”. The 2006 elections do not prove that the Palestinians support terrorism. Quite the contrary. What the polling data shows is that the majority of people voted on issues completely unrelated to terrorism. Here’s what they voted for:

1. Safety and Security (37%)
2. Decreased Corruption (25%)

What a surprise, eh? So, the Palestinians want the same thing that people want everywhere; More security and less corruption.

No one—and I mean no one—voted for Hamas because they thought the group would instigate more bloody confrontations with Israel.

The fact that “safety and security” were the Number 1 issue, shows that there’s no appetite for more conflict at all. Palestinians—at least the majority of Palestinians—want peace. That’s what all the surveys tell us.

Unfortunately, the media has tried to convince people that the opposite is true, that the people of Gaza voted for Hamas because they still cling to the idea of “pushing the Jews into the sea.” But that’s just not true. See for yourself:

An exit poll conducted by Near East Consulting on 15 February 2006 on voters participating in the 2006 PA elections revealed the following responses to major concerns:

Support for a Peace Agreement with Israel:

79.5% in support
15.5% in opposition

Should Hamas change its policies regarding Israel:
Yes – 75.2%
No – 24.8%

Under Hamas corruption will decrease:
Yes – 78.1%
No – 21.9%

Under Hamas internal security will improve:
Yes – 67.8%
No – 32.2%

Hamas government priorities:
1) Combatting corruption
2) Ending security chaos
3) Solving poverty/unemployment

Now, I know that many people would like to scapegoat the Palestinians for the ghastly massacre that is going on today, but it just doesn’t square with the facts. Palestinians voted for Hamas—not because they thought the group was a perfect match with their own values—but because they appeared to be less corrupt than the disreputable puppets in Fatah. Americans should be sympathetic to these feelings given the similarities between the 2006 Gaza balloting and the 2016 Presidential elections in the US. In the American election, many people voted for Trump—not because they couldn’t see he was a deeply-flawed candidate with no political experience—but because his opponent was the most crooked and vindictive politician in American history. Trump was clearly the ‘lesser of two evils’, just as Hamas was the lesser of two evils.

But there’s more to this story than most people realize. And, that is, that Hamas had ordered the complete cessation of suicide bombings more than a year before the election. Did you know that?

It’s true; no more suicide missions, no more blown-up buses, retail shops and coffee houses. No more bereaved families, wailing mothers and endless funeral processions. It all stopped. And it stopped because Hamas stopped it.

Did the voters in Gaza know that?

Of course, they knew that, and it’s doubtful that Hamas would have won the election is the group had continued with the bombings. Because that’s not what the ‘average guy’ wants.

And, guess what happened after the bombings stopped?

Then Hamas decided to enter the political arena. Again, this was a significant development that was downplayed in the media but sent tremors through the Israeli political establishment.

Why?

Because Israeli leaders put the two developments together and could see what was going on. Hamas was shifting its approach from armed struggle to a political track. That is a tectonic change in policy that represented a grave threat to Israel’s broader Zionist strategy which involves the seizing of more land to form a Greater Israel.

But how was Israel going to seize more land if the Hamas boogieman had transformed himself into a dovish politician who no longer engaged in acts of terrorism? That is the conundrum that Israel faced.

It’s also worth mentioning, that as soon as Hamas won the election, they declared a unilateral ceasefire with Israel. (which put even more pressure on Israel.) In other words, Israel continued the attacks on Gaza, but Hamas refused to respond.

Additionally, Israel imposed a suffocating blockade on Gaza that has persisted until today. And the reason they did this, was because the threat of ‘peace breaking out’ was too serious to ignore. If Hamas was going to pursue a peaceful political track, then Israel would have to increase the provocations, the incitements and the brutality.

But, why?

Once again, it’s because Israel needs a boogieman to justify its operational plan for territorial expansion. It’s that simple. They can’t simply take the land by force without first concocting a pretext that will conceal their real motive. So, even though everyone knows that Israel is expelling the Palestinians in order to control all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, they still need to justify the operation in terms of a (fictitious) national security threat that they need to confront. Hamas, of course, is that fictitious threat that must be eradicated by turning all of Gaza into a smoldering pile of rubble. See how it works? Check out this brief excerpt from an article at Counterpunch in 2007:

Hamas recently renounced violence by maintaining a unilateral ceasefire for well over a year. The same period saw a steady escalation of Israeli raids, arrests, killings, and settlements in the occupied territories. Everyone, including Israel’s general staff, knows that Hamas would return to a ceasefire if it thought Israel were serious about reciprocating. Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal’s recent proposal for a 10-year ceasefire was summarily rebuffed. Pushing the Wedge in Palestine, Counterpunch

Bottom line: The Palestinians voted for the wrong party, so the Palestinians had to be punished. That’s not the way democracy is supposed to work.

And, what is particularly ironic about these developments, is that it was the United States that forced the elections to begin with. The Palestinians didn’t care about elections. How were elections going to help them? No, it was the Bush Administration and their risible democracy-spreading agenda that forced the balloting. In fact, Bush and Co pumped $2.3 million into the Palestinian elections via USAID which was “allegedly designed to bolster the image of President Abbas and his Fatah party.”

Interesting, isn’t it, that we actually know how much money was spent meddling in a foreign election. And, yet —even after all that meddling—the plan failed. Hamas won anyway.

And that is when Israel freaked out. They said the elections proved that the Palestinians supported terrorism which—as we’ve already shown—is not the case at all. The Palestinians did not vote for terrorism, they voted for security and honest government. The whole Israel-media narrative is a fairytale.

But the critics are correct in saying that Hamas steadfastly refused to acknowledge “Israel’s right to exist”. That is true, but there’s also an explanation. Here’s more from James Brooks:

As for ‘recognizing Israel’s right to exist’, we simply note that Israel has yet to recognize the state of Palestine’s ‘right to exist’. Israel currently forbids a Palestinian state and negates the Palestinians’ national rights daily with its strangling military occupation. Under the circumstances, it hardly seems unreasonable for Hamas to withhold recognition of this ‘right to exist’ until it is reciprocated in word and deed.” (Counterpunch)

He’s right; why should Hamas make concessions to Israel that Israel won’t make to Hamas? All Israel needs to do is accept UN Resolutions requiring it to stay within its 1967 internationally-accepted borders, and everything will be fine. Which brings us to the next point, which is; Is Hamas willing to live side-by-side with Israel in peace?

And, the answer is: Yes, it is. This is from an article by Elaine Hagopian:

After Hamas won the elections in 2006, its leadership accepted a two-state solution based on the pre-war June 4, 1967 borders, but this was unacceptable to Israel. Earlier, Israel destroyed secular Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority President Arafat for failing at Camp David in July 2000 to comply with its demands to accept permanent Israeli control over Palestinian life and land confined in enclaves. Hamas became the new challenge to Israel’s vision. Gaza: History Matters, Counterpunch

Let me get this straight: Hamas accepts a two-state solution?

Yep, it sure does, in fact, here it is from the horse’s mouth himself. This is a short excerpt from a Washington Post interview with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in 2006. Haniyeh said that he wanted to see an end the “vicious cycle of violence” and vehemently denied the claim that “Hamas is committed to destroying Israel”. He said, “We do not have any feelings of animosity toward Jews. We do not wish to throw them into the sea. All we seek is to be given our land back, not to harm anybody….We are not war seekers nor are we war initiators. We are not lovers of blood. We are oppressed people with rights.”

Wa Post: “Would Hamas recognize Israel if it were to withdraw to the ’67 borders?”

Haniyeh: “If Israel withdraws to the ’67 borders, then we will establish peace in stages… We will establish a situation of stability and calm which will bring safety for our people.

Wa Post: “Do you recognize Israel’s right to exist?”

Haniyeh: “The answer is to let Israel say it will recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, release the prisoners and recognize the rights of the refugees to return to Israel. Hamas will have a position if this occurs.”

Wa Post: “Will you recognize Israel?

Haniyeh: “If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian people a state and give them back all their rights, then we are ready to recognize them.”

Haniyeh’s answers are straightforward and rational. He asked for nothing that isn’t already required under existing United Nations resolutions; a return to the 1967 borders, basic human rights, and settlement of the final status issues. An agreement could be facilitated tomorrow if Israel was willing to conform to international law. Instead, Israel has chosen to invade Gaza. Here’s more from Haniyeh:

“We want what Americans enjoy — democratic rights, economic sovereignty and justice. We thought our pride in conducting the fairest elections in the Arab world might resonate with the United States and its citizens. Instead, our new government was met from the very beginning by acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White House. Now this aggression continues against 3.9 million civilians living in the world’s largest prison camps. America’s complacency in the face of these war crimes is, as usual, embedded in the coded rhetorical green light: “Israel has a right to defend itself.” The Gaza Bloodbath, Counterpunch

Here’s a bit more on the topic:

In 2009, former President Jimmy Carter visited the West Bank and Gaza where he met with Ismail Haniyah, who he thought would be a reliable partner in future negotiations. Carter also met with Hamas Chief Khaled Meshaal in Damascus who assured the ex-president that Hamas would accept any agreement reached between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, provided it was approved by the Palestinian people in a national referendum. Carter’s interaction with Hamas leaders disproved western pro-Israel pundits who had claimed that Hamas would never commit to such an agreement. They were wrong. Hamas wants peace. Here’s a short blurb from an article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2015:

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Hamas leader Khaled Meshal is in favor of the peace process with Israel and that Hamas is not a terrorist organization.

Carter also told Israel Channel 2 on Saturday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not in favor of a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

“I don’t see that deep commitment on the part of Netanyahu to make concessions which [former prime minister] Menachem Begin did to find peace with his potential enemies,” Carter said.

Of Meshal, the ex-U.S. leader said, “I don’t believe that he’s a terrorist. He’s strongly in favor of the peace process.” Carter added that he “deplored” terrorist acts by Hamas and would support moderate members of the group. Jimmy Carter: Hamas leader favors peace, Netanyahu not committed to 2 states, JTA

So, let’s summarize:

Jimmy Carter wants a two-state solution based on UN Resolutions requiring Israel to stay within its 1967 internationally-accepted borders.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshal wants a two-state solution based on UN Resolutions requiring Israel to stay within its 1967 internationally-accepted borders.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh wants a two-state solution based on UN Resolutions requiring Israel to stay within its 1967 internationally-accepted borders.

So, what’s the problem? It looks like everyone agrees.

But, no, Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t agree, in fact, he is adamantly opposed to any Palestinian state within the area from the Jordan to the Sea. And Netanyahu not only has a powerful military machine to back him up, but he also has influential friends in Washington that will provide him with as many bombs and weapons as he needs to drive defenseless civilians off their historic homeland and into Egypt.

So, the peace process cannot move forward which means the bloodletting will continue for the foreseeable future. It is the great tragedy of our time. Here’s one last excerpt from an interview between Alexander Cockburn and Khaled Meshal that took place in 2008:

I know very well that the American people are very kind people. But our problem is with the foreign policies of successive American administrations. We accepted a state of… Palestine on the borders of 1967. The international community failed to pressure Israelis to do the same. So, what is left for Palestinians to do, except resist? For our part, we prefer the peaceful path. But we find the peaceful path blocked. Hence, the Palestinians are left with no option but the resistance. And this is what explains why the Palestinian people elected Hamas and why, amid famine and hunger and siege inflicted on the Palestinian people today, you find the same thing: the Palestinian people are supporting Hamas…. Alexander Cockburn’s 2008 Interview With Hamas’ Khaled Meshal, Counterpunch

American president John F Kennedy reiterated these same sentiments in March 1962 at an address on the first Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress when he said:

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

Indeed.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).  

Featured image is from TUR

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

If Western media are to be believed, after the countless failures of their poisonous preparations clumsy Russian chemists seem now to have finally gotten it right. Alexei Navalny is reported to be dead and the Kremlin Borgias can now say: Gotcha!

However, unfortunately for the orchestrators of the new media stunt that after February 16 plunged the Western political class and MSM into a hysterical frenzy, the carefully crafted delusion began to unravel as soon as it was launched.

First off, it turned out that the politicians and media began to react as if on cue literally just a quarter hour after the obscure website of the Russian penitentiary system posted the news of Navalny’s death.

Observe the highly indicative chronological sequence of events and draw your own conclusions about the plausibility of their indignation.

Аt approximately 2:19 p.m. on February 18, 2024, the website operated by the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area (surely not in the favourites section of most people’s computers) reported the death of convict Alexei Navalny in Prison Colony No. 3.

Literally, 15 minutes later, a flurry of cut and paste commentary and accusations from Western political hacks began to pour in:

• 2:35 pm, Tobias Billström (Sweden): ‘Terrible news about Navalny. If the information about his death in a Russian prison is confirmed, it will be another heinous crime by Putin’s regime.’
• 2:35 pm, Barth Eide (Norway): ‘I’m deeply saddened by the news of Navalny’s death. The Russian government bears a heavy burden of responsibility for this.’
• 2:41 pm, Edgars Rinkevics (Lithuania): ‘Whatever your thoughts about Alexei Navalny as a politician, he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin. That’s a fact and that is something one should know about the true nature of Russia’s current regime.’
• 2:50 pm, Jan Lipavsky (Czech Republic): ‘Russia still treats foreign policy issues the same way it treats its citizens. It has turned into a violent state that kills people who dream of a beautiful, better future, such as Nemtsov and now Navalny, who was imprisoned and tortured to death.’
• 2:51 pm, Stéphane Séjourné (France): ‘Navalny paid with his life to fight against a system of oppression. His death in a penal colony reminds us of the realities of Vladimir Putin’s regime.’
• 3:02 pm, Charles Michel (EU): ‘The EU holds the Russian regime solely responsible for this tragic death.’
• 3:10 pm Kiev regime kingpin Zelensky: ‘Clearly, he was killed by Putin, like thousands of others who were tortured to death.’ (And just as clearly Gonzalo Lira was murdered by you, one would be inclined to respond to Zelensky in his face.)
• 3:16 pm (media), 4:50 pm (social media), Jens Stoltenberg (NATO): ‘We need to establish all the facts, and Russia needs to answer all the questions.’ (How about waiting for the facts to be established first and then asking questions?)
• 3:20 pm, Mark Rutte (Netherlands): ‘Navalny’s death once again bears witness to the immense brutality of the Russian regime’;
• 3:30 pm, Maia Sandu (Moldova): ‘Navalny’s death in a Russian prison is a reminder of the regime’s egregious suppression of dissent.’
• 3:35 pm, Annalena Baerbock (Germany): ‘Like no one else, Alexei Navalny was a symbol for a free and democratic Russia. That is precisely the reason he had to die.’
• 3:43 pm, Ursula von der Leyen (EU): ‘A grim reminder of what Putin and his regime are all about.’
• 3:49 pm, Ulf Kristersson (Sweden): ‘The Russian authorities, and President Putin personally, are responsible for Alexei Navalny no longer being alive.’
• 3:14 pm, Olaf Scholz (Germany): ‘He has now paid for this courage with his life. This terrible news demonstrates once again how Russia has changed and what kind of regime is in power in Moscow.’
• 3:25 pm, Antony Blinken (USA): ‘Beyond that, his death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia bears responsibility for this.’
• 5:28 pm, Emmanuel Macron (France): ‘In today’s Russia, free spirits are put in the Gulag and sentenced to death.’

Are we expected to believe that these ministers and officials have nothing better to do than to unceasingly monitor the website of the Russian Penitentiary service, in the hope of finding bits of information to which they might publicly react?

Note should be taken that within 15 minutes to two hours following the 2:19 p.m. announcement of Navalny’s death no autopsy had or could have been performed.

There was no forensic evidence whatsoever on which any conclusions about the causes and circumstances of Navalny’s demise could have been based. The only factual data that could have been known to these hacks at the time when they made their comments was that Navalny was exercising in the prison courtyard when he suddenly collapsed. A blood clot was suspected according to prison medical staff. What might that indicate?

It suggests, as Paul Craig Roberts has cogently argued, that outwardly at least Navalny’s observable manner of death was identical to that of numerous victims of the mRNA “vaccine.” Thousands of vaccinated young athletes and even airline pilots are dying in exactly the same way.

Where could Navalny possibly have received the fatal “vaccine,” which as former British Prime Minister Theresa May was fond of saying, “highly likely” was a shot manufactured by Pfizer, statistically the deadliest of them all? Not just by Theresa’s but in Navalny’s case more importantly by any reasonable person’s evidentiary standards, the answer is very simple.

After his botched “Novichok poisoning” in Russia in 2020, Navalny was flown to Berlin where he received treatment at the top of the line Charité hospital. That was at the height of the Covid commotion. The hospital communique on his condition may have been redacted by Western intelligence agencies, but it is inconceivable that patient Navalny would have been hospitalised there without first being injected with the vaccine. In Germany, rigorous hospital protocol made that obligatory. We have no direct evidence that while in Germany Navalny did receive the jab, but under the circumstances that appears to be the logical and natural conclusion.

The leading authority in such matters, Theresa May, would be simply obliged to agree that this would be a scenario that was “highly likely.” Unless she were prepared to contradict herself, of course.

So there you have it, as Andrey Martyanov would put it.

None of the West’s sock puppet politicians took that into consideration before issuing hackneyed carbon copy statements all of which appear to have been redacted by the same propaganda spin bureau.

Navalny’s death, whatever may have been its direct cause, could not have been better timed from the standpoint of his Western masters. For them, it came as a godsend, serving as a double distraction. Firstly, to turn attention away from the collapse of the Ukrainian front, not just in Avdeevka but along the entire line of contact. Secondly, to reframe perception and neutralise the impact of the truth bombs which exploded in the course of Tucker Carson’s interview.

It is – to reverse Teresa’s now famous dictum – highly unlikely that the reach of Western agencies extends to the remote prison camp in Magadan. The outcomes that from the standpoint of Navalny’s psychopathic controllers would be “good,” amongst which Navalny’s exploitable death would be a conspicuous benefit, easily could have happened fortuitously.

Even Freud was obliged to admit that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

The psychopaths that Navalny foolishly agreed to serve probably got lucky. By dropping dead when he did Navalny performed his last and perhaps most valuable service to at least partially offset the huge investment they had made in him. 

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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.  

Featured image is from Indian Punchline

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Rethinking Srebrenica

By Stephen Karganovic

Rethinking Srebrenica examines the forensic evidence of the alleged Srebrenica “massacre” possessed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Even though the ICTY created more than 3,500 autopsy reports, many of these autopsy reports were based on bone fragments, which do not represent complete bodies. An examination of the matching femur bones found reveals that there were only about 1,900 complete bodies that were exhumed. Of these, some 1,500 autopsy reports indicated a cause of death consistent with battlefield casualties. Only about 400 autopsy reports indicated execution as a cause of death, as revealed by ligatures and blindfolds. This forensic evidence does not warrant the conclusion of a genocide having taken place.

Karganovic examines the events that took place in Srebrenica in July 1995 in a wholistic manner instead of restricting it to a three-day event. The ten chapters cover:

1) Srebrenica: A Critical Overview;

2) Demilitarization of the UN Safe Zone of Srebrenica;

3) Genocide or Blowback?;

4) General Presentation and Interpretation of Srebrenica Forensic Data (Pattern of Injury Breakdown);

5) An Analysis of the Srebrenica Forensic Reports Prepared by the ICTY Prosecution Experts;

6) An Analysis of Muslim Column Losses Attributable to Minefields, Combat Activity, and Other Causes;

7) The Genocide Issue: Was there a Demonstrable Intent to Exterminate All Muslims?;

8) ICTY Radio Intercept Evidence;

9) The Balance Sheet; and

10) Srebrenica: Uses of the Narrative.

• ASIN:‎ B0992RRJRK
• Publisher: ‎Unwritten History, Inc.; 2 edition (July 8 2021)
• Language: ‎English

Click here to purchase. 

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Today I will address the bi-partisan US foreign policy since before 2011 to collectively punish the Syrian people for their refusal to capitulate to the nefarious agenda of the US and its global alliance which includes the UK, Israel, Gulf States, Turkey and EU states. This agenda includes regime change and the partitioning of Syrian territory along sectarian lines that are beneficial to the Israeli and US destabilisation project. 

To put my arguments in perspective we must bear in mind that the US has used its veto at the UNSC to enable Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and all occupied territories including the West Bank, while providing the bombs to massacre Palestinians contained in what is little more than an open air extermination camp. Also increasing funding to the far right, Netanyahu-led extremist coalition regime responsible for de facto genocide. 

I will address the unilateral coercive measures (known as sanctions), the recent spate of Israeli assassinations on Syrian territory, the US illegal occupation of Syrian territory directly and by proxy, the US theft of Syrian oil and agricultural resources, the recent US aggression against Syria and Iraq, US backing of terrorist groups in Syria including ISIS – and I will ask the question – Is the Biden administration working for US national interests and security or for the interests of Israel in the region? 

Firstly it would take too much time for me to cover the extensive history of CIA/MI6 regime change operations against Syria that span more than 75 years. However I would draw your attention to a TIME magazine article in December 2006 – Syria in [George W.]Bush’s Crosshairs. I quote 

The Bush Administration has been quietly nurturing individuals and parties opposed to the Syrian government in an effort to undermine the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Unilateral Coercive Measures – Sanctions are very often described, by those enforcing them, as “non-lethal” measures. I would argue that sanctions, when used as a brutal and vindictive component of a neo-colonialist hybrid war strategy, are arguably more devastating than a military war. 

When they are imposed by global super-force nations against target nations like Syria, in conjunction with a proxy war that has been fomented and sustained by the same nations, it becomes as much a weapon of mass destruction as the terrorist/mercenary armies these US aligned nations have unleashed upon the Syrian people. 

Thus it is almost impossible to speak about the economic sanctions against Syria in isolation and without referring to the parallel measures that ensure they hit the poorest people in Syria the hardest.

Terrorism can be defined by the “unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property in order to coerce or intimidate a government or the civilian population into furtherance of political or ideological objectives”.

The act of withholding means of sustaining life to innocent civilians in order to coerce an entire nation into submission to foreign agendas in the region must surely qualify as economic terrorism. The destruction of essential civilian infrastructure is a war crime, the withholding of essential resources or occupation of those resources is also a war crime. 

The correlation between economic and military coercion was made clear by previous Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s point-man on Syria, Ambassador James Jeffrey, who not only described Al Qaeda as a “US asset” in Syria but also bragged openly about the misery that sanctions had brought to the Syrian people:

And of course, we’ve ratcheted up the isolation and sanctions pressure on Assad, we’ve held the line on no reconstruction assistance, and the country’s desperate for it. You see what’s happened to the Syrian pound, you see what’s happened to the entire economy. So, it’s been a very effective strategy….

In 2022 UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures and human rights, Alena Douhan urged sanctioning States to lift unilateral sanctions against Syria, warning that they were perpetuating and exacerbating the destruction and trauma suffered by the Syrian people since 2011. I quote from the report: 

I call on sanctioning states and regional organisations to lift or suspend all unilateral sanctions applied to Syria, Syrian nationals and companies without authorization of the UN Security Council, and the use of which cannot be justified as countermeasures in accordance with international law.

I urge the U.S. Government to cease the state of national emergency regarding Syria as being contrary to article 4 of the ICCPR, and to bring national legislation into accordance with international law.

I urge the immediate lifting of all unilateral sanctions that prevent early recovery, rebuilding and reconstruction of critical infrastructure and services, including water and electricity, bank transactions, access to fuel, electricity, sewage, shelter and housing, transportation, education, health, agricultural and industrial machinery – to give hope to the Syrian people and establish conditions for the return of refugees.

What has been the response of US lawmakers to the UN recommendations? To  pass the Anti Assad Normalisation Act in the House in a 389-32 vote. The Bill expands on the criminal Caesar Act which was introduced under President Trump in order to extend sanctions to  punish any nation that came to the assistance of the Syrian people and society already crippled by 12 years of war and devastation of essential infrastructure.

 The bipartisan bill was spearheaded by Republican chairman of the Middle East foreign affairs subcommittee Joe Wilson who perhaps coincidentally received $ 40,000 in sponsorship from AIPAC (Israel lobby) in late 2023. Since 2011 Israel has actively participated in the regime change war – arming and providing medical treatment for extremist fighters in Syria, including Al Qaeda and ISIS. 

Another sponsor of the Bill was Republican French Hill who has been active in visiting and expressing support for “opposition” in north-west Syria in 2023, an area controlled by Al Qaeda and affiliates –  Idlib was described by Brett McGurk as the largest Al Qaeda haven since 9/11. Also read – Are Al Qaeda affiliates fighting alongside U.S. ‘rebels’ in Syria’s south?

Occupation – many in the US are not aware that US forces occupy one third of Syrian territory illegally. The justification of being in Syria to fight ISIS is dishonest. In 2016, in a closed UN session with Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry and Syrian so-called opposition that was recorded and published by the NYT – this recording confirmed three things: 

1:  Obama policy in Syria was the removal of the Syrian government and President Bashar Al Assad

2:  In order to accomplish this primary goal, the White House was willing to watch the rise of ISIS in the hope that ISIS would advance on Damascus and pressure President Assad into stepping down

3.  Weapons that were for the “rebels” under the Obama Train and Equip program mysteriously ended up in the hands of ISIS. 

Further links for U.S. support for ISIS in Syria – here, here, here, here , here, here , here, here and here. Local sources here, here, here and here.

US occupation troops inside Al-Tanf base. (Photo Credit: Karoun Demirjian/The Washington Post)

The territory that is occupied by the US – comprising 22 military bases and an estimated 3000 military personnel is in the north east bordering Iraq and south east on the border with Jordan.

In the north-east the US manages holding camps for ISIS, these terrorists are regularly transported by US helicopters and vehicles to carry out attacks against Syrian Arab Army positions, the PMU anti-ISIS Iraqi military on the border with Iraq and are taken into Iraq from Syria where their operations have included attacks on Iraq’s electricity infrastructure. 

In the north-east the US occupies Syrian oil and agricultural resources with the collaboration of the Kurdish separatists known as the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces).

Approximately 85% of Syrian oil is stolen and traded or taken to US bases in Iraq. This has resulted in severe energy deprivation for the Syrian people – no heating fuel, no fuel for transport, no fuel for hospital generators, electricity rationing (in some areas as little as one hour per day) and food/wheat shortages as much of this production is in the north-east. 

2019 – Dana Stroul – Joe Biden’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense – then co-chair of the Syria Study Group – boasted of the US “owning one third of Syria territory describing it as: 

..the economic powerhouse of Syria, where the hyrdrocarbons are [..] as well as the agricultural powerhouse

Stroul describes this as only one area of leverage against the Syrian government, the second is the political and diplomatic isolation of the “Assad government”, preventing the return of embassies to Damascus and third is the economic sanctions architecture and maximum pressure campaign. 

How is the occupation of Syrian essential resources in the interests of US national security? It isn’t. It is again about punishing the Syrian people for their victory in a 12 year war waged by the US to effect regime change, a war that has failed. 

In the south-east at the largest US coalition illegal military base inside Syria on the border with Jordan, Al Tanf, the US has established a 55km exclusion zone around the camp where they train and recruit extremist groups including ISIS. Adjacent to Al Tanf is the Rukban Refugee Camp which holds Syrian civilians hostage while preventing Russian or Syrian humanitarian aid deliveries – also used as a recruitment and training hub for illegal militant groups. 

Attacks on Syrian Arab Army positions and civilians have been carried out by ISIS from Al Tanf on a more regular basis since early 2023. Israel has also used the air space over Al Tanf to carry out attacks against Syrian territory. Israel has also carried out a spate of assassinations on Syrian territory since October 7th – targeting senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp advisors in Damascus and throughout Syria, bombing central Damascus in January, destroying a four storey apartment block. 

US Aggression – there were reports of an attack by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq at the end of January against a US outpost, reportedly in north-east Jordan – killing three US military and injuring a significant number of others. However sources inside Syria have informed me that the strike was in an area between Al Tanf and Rukban on Syrian territory.

If true, that must raise the question why the US claims it was in Jordan. The answer appears to be quite simple – the US is illegally in Syria, therefore there would be no justification for a “self defence” retaliation such as the one conducted in the early hours of 3rd February. 

The reality is that the US “shock and awe” aggression did not target the IRI positions – rather it targeted Syrian infrastructure, including the electrical power station of Al Mayadin east of Deir Ezzor. It also targeted Syrian Arab Army personnel, particularly in areas where they are fighting ISIS. It targeted PMU forces that are integrated into the Iraqi military – also responsible for fighting ISIS on the border with Syria. It targeted civilians and ammunition/supplies depots belonging to the SAA and PMU – in other words, it degraded the ability of these official national military forces to fight ISIS.

Again, coincidentally – immediately after the US attacks, ISIS conducted four attacks against PMU positions in Iraq and over the next few days increased attacks against SAA in the central desert areas east of Homs City – an area targeted early on in the regime change war for its natural gas resources. 

Who do these attacks benefit? Israel. The destabilisation of Syria and Iraq should be seen through the lens of the 1996 policy document commissioned by then Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (produced by Dick Cheney and Richard Perle) –  Clean Break Doctrine: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. Its agenda was a western-backed list of regime changes and sectarian partitioning projects in the ME to comply with the regional agenda of Israel, US and UK. 

Recommendations included direct attacks on Syrian territory and against Syrian targets in Lebanon. A move to contain Syria and plans to remove Saddam Hussein in Iraq to weaken Syria’s position in the region and to strengthen Jordan as Israel’s ally. 

When I ask who does US foreign policy in the ME benefit most – I should quote from a recent interview given by Democrat presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. 

“Israel is critical and the reason it’s critical is because it is a bulwark for us in the Middle East. It is almost like having an aircraft carrier in the Middle East. It is our oldest ally, it’s been our ally for 75 years. It has been an incredible ally for us in terms of the technology exchange and building the Iron Dome which we have paid a lot for – has taught us enormously about how to defend ourselves against missile attack. That military expenditure – 75% goes to US companies under the agreement, under the MOU. If you look at what’s happening in the Middle East now. The closest allies to Iran are Russia and China. Iran also controls all of Venezuela’s oil, Hezbollah is in Venezuela, they have propped up the Maduro regime and so they control that oil supply. BRICS, Saudi Arabia is now joining BRICS so those countries will control 90% of the oil in our world. If Israel disappears, the vacuum in the Middle East, Israel is our Ambassador, our beachhead in the ME, it gives us ears and eyes in the ME, it gives us intelligence, the capacity to influence affairs in the ME. If Israel disappeared Russia and China would be controlling the ME and would control 90% of the world’s oil supply and that would be cataclysmic for US national security.”

What is clear from this statement is that Israel is little more than a policy instrument for the US, the Israeli population is irrelevant and the Palestinians are to be made extinct. For most in power in the US. “national security” translates into the control of world resources that will only benefit a tiny percentage of the US population. 

What is cataclysmic for US military personnel deployed illegally to countries where they are not invited, is the legitimate and increased Resistance against US policy in the region that has grown exponentially since October 7th. There were already 160 attacks on illegal US bases in Syria and Iraq prior to the alleged Tower 22 attack, which had also resulted in casualties. Why are US troops in Syria uninvited – enabling ISIS to maintain maximum pressure on an already exhausted population, stealing resources and facilitating the starvation of the Syrian people? Why is anyone surprised that there is now significant push back? 

 Why are US troops still in Iraq after they have been asked to leave? It is not for the benefit of the American people. It is for the benefit of Israel and the prevention of a global south recovery from decades of US allied military adventurism and neocolonialist ravages.

The world is transforming rapidly however since October 7th and US unipolar hegemony is no longer a viable foreign policy. What is the solution? For the Biden administration and the bi-partisan war hawks it seems to be more war instead of peace and negotiation. 

Please campaign for an end to US interference and military presence in the region and force an end to the support and arming of the Zionist settler-colonialism project. The consequences of not doing so are too terrible to contemplate for global security. 

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There have been several interesting developments relating to Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza and its people, but one might well question the motives of at least one of the principal players in the drama, namely Joe Biden’s United States government.

Last Tuesday the United States, acting to protect Israel, vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution, arguing that it would “jeopardize” the ongoing negotiations between the two parties to release the Israeli hostages and it wouldn’t be “conducive to a sustainable peace and would instead empower Hamas.” 13 of the 15 members of the Security Council supported the resolution, Britain abstained, and US alone voted against it. It was the third humanitarian resolution incorporating a ceasefire vetoed by Washington over Gaza, each of which was intended by the White House to give Israel a completely free hand to deal with the Palestinians.

The resolution had been proposed by Algeria and it called for an immediate ceasefire and the expediting of emergency humanitarian assistance to the in-peril Gazan population. The UN has been warning that a humanitarian catastrophe that could kill hundreds of thousands is about to take place if nothing is done to reverse what is being called a genocide due to the deliberate employing of famine and disease, not to mention the killing of more than 30,000 Palestinians by the Israeli military aided and abetted by the US. After the UN vote, the Algerian ambassador to the UN said Washington’s lone opposing vote should be understood as “approval of starvation as a means of war against hundreds of thousands of Palestinians” and “it implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted upon” those Palestinians in Gaza.” The Algerian resolution also came at a time when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is beginning its separate review of whether Israel has used the past month to mitigate or cancel its genocidal acts in Gaza.

Opinion polls suggest that most Americans oppose what Israel and Washington are doing, but they have little ability to influence choices made by Congress and the White House, which are overwhelmingly inclined to defer to Israeli points of view due to the fact that they have been bought by the powerful Zionist Lobby in the US. Nota bene one of the biggest sellouts to Israel of all time, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who, with impeccable timing given both the Algerian proposal and the ICJ review, stated last week that Israel has not used any weapons provided by the United States in its military action against Gaza. She said,

“There’s nothing that we have sent since Oct. 7 that has contributed to this brutality. In the longer run, they are in a dangerous neighborhood.”

That is, of course a complete lie, as the Biden Administration has carried out hundreds of airlifts of “emergency” weapons to the Jewish state, to include the 2,000 pound bunker buster bombs whose use against hospitals and other large buildings has been well-attested to by some of the eyewitness journalists, medical doctors and UN officials who have managed to avoid being targeted and assassinated by Israel.

What followed on the Monday announcement by US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield about the impending Algerian veto surprised many who were watching developments.

The media were informed that Washington would be presenting its own rival Security Council draft resolution that would call for a temporary ceasefire and which also would advise Israel against launching a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza over Ramadan, which starts on March 10^th, due to the fact that more than a million Gazans are trapped in the region with, quite probably, nowhere to go. The resolution calls for a “viable plan” for protecting civilians in Rafah, whatever that is supposed to mean, which Israel will presumably ignore, and it includes no sanctions if Israel refuses to comply. The US indicated that its draft document would be discussed in the UN over the next several weeks or more and might be subject to considerable editing, but it set no time table for initiating the temporary ceasefire apart from “as soon as practicable,” which is where a warning flag went up for me and others.

Smoke rises during an Israeli ground operation in Khan Younis, seen from a camp for displaced Palestinians in Rafah, southern Gaza. Reuters

The resolution gives Israel considerable freedom of action without any bothersome timetable to worry about and “temporary” means it can resume military action when it wishes to do so and there is no threat of possible punishment if Israel does decide to invade Rafah and kills another 30,000 Palestinians while doing so.

It is well known in Washington circles that follow foreign policy and Biden’s wars that the US doesn’t make any moves on the Middle East without complete prior consultation with the Israelis. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has even participated in Israeli War Cabinet meetings. Against those weak but positive moves spelled out in the resolution, there is the fact that Netanyahu and his political allies, long opposed to a two-state solution, have recently repeatedly rejected proposals for any Palestinian sovereign entity which means that the intention is to destroy and/or annex Gaza. Israel is in fact using its formidable lobby and international press/narrative control to work assiduously to isolate the Palestinians by blocking any recognition by individual countries or as a full member at the UN. The greatest effort is inevitably being directed at working to keep the United States under control. Both Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan carefully coordinate every step the administration takes with the Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs and former ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer who reports directly to Netanyahu.

Nor is there any hint in what is included in the upcoming US resolution regarding what Biden and Netanyahu might seek to do afterwards to end the conflict.

In fact, Netanyahu has indicated that he is quite willing to expand the fighting as his government has moved to restrict access to Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan on “security grounds,” hardly a conciliatory move, while also widening the conflict with Hezbollah by an airstrike deep into Lebanon. Nevertheless, nearly everyone, except Israel and its US lobby, agrees that both justice and political realities demand that some kind of genuine Palestinian state should be allowed to develop if the ancient land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is ever to find peace. Predictably, the problem is in the details, not to mention that Israel’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that no such an entity will ever be allowed to exist to challenge Israeli political and military supremacy in the region. And, for the moment, Netanyahu has the force majeure and both the active and passive support from the United States that he needs to enforce his writ over nearly all the occupied and under siege territory that he clearly sees as Eretz or Greater Israel.

Given the reality of who is capable of doing what to whom, the United States is perhaps hesitantly taking the lead on proposing something like a revived two-state solution to the problem, as originally envisioned in the UN partition that created Israel in 1948 as well as in the Oslo Accords of 1993, even though most Middle East experts have long asserted that such a formula can no longer succeed or even be attempted. Given the horrors taking place in Gaza, there is inevitably some interest in resuscitating a political formula that has already failed, largely because the existing Palestinian Authority (PA) has long since lost its legitimacy in the eyes of its most important audience, the Palestinian people. Any suggestion that a unity government for Palestinians combining the PA and Hamas is somehow viable is therefore delusional. Both Washington and Jerusalem know that, so one might consider that talk of some kind of empowered and enabled government for Palestinians is at best notional.

To be sure, the proposals that hHamasave been leaked in one form or another appear to be a way for the United States to save face and give some Palestinians a token voice while also funding and supplying weapons to Israel to enable and even advance the crushing of the Gazans and increasingly also of the West Bank Palestinians by the Netanyahu regime. Leading extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in the Israeli government have made no attempt to conceal their desire to expel the Palestinians from the historic Palestine, killing them as necessary if they resist or attempt any “intifada” type uprising such as occurred in Gaza in October.

The United States and some Europeans are recognizing that a Palestinian state with what amounts to full sovereignty will not be allowed due to Israeli resistance and willingness to militarily destroy any such entity, but some leaders are nevertheless hoping to create some sort of “semi-sovereign” disarmed Palestinian government that will be entirely subservient to Israel in every way that matters. As a model, it would function similarly to how Israel currently retains and sometimes holds back the excise and other taxes due to the rump Palestinian Authority governing entity in Ramallah, making it a “subcontractor of the Israeli occupation,” that is completely surrounded and dominated by Israel.

Biden’s impending Gaza proposal also has a domestic political aspect. With Israel’s slaughter of Gazans still continuing, a situation that is enabled by Washington’s unflinching support of Israeli behavior, serious problems as the US is an active participant in a genocide are beginning to surface as the war spreads throughout the Middle East. One presumes that Blinken has finally decided that something must be done to salvage the international reputation of the United States while also undoing damage to Joe Biden’s electoral prospects as American voters increasingly are disgusted by the images of dead and tortured Palestinians that flash on national television screens nightly.

Aware that Netanyahu wants the war to continue until total victory to include opposition to the development of any Palestinian government entity, Blinken has reportedly asked the State Department to conduct a review and “present policy options on possible US and international recognition of a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza” if presumably it does end and is not completely annexed by the Jewish state. Netanyahu, for his part is also reading the political tea leaves that show his popularity is sharply declining. He counters that by repeating claims that Israel is winning what will be a long war completely destroying Hamas and, to show that he is serious, he has recently rejected a serious Hamas proposal for a ceasefire followed by prisoner and hostage exchanges and talks to resolve the conflict.

So the United States’ UN security Council resolution to advance some kind of peace process between Israel and the Palestinians might be much ado about nothing, just a way to buy time and to help Biden transform himself and his administration to make it look like they are interested in peace and reconciliation when they are really acting on behalf of Israel. As usual, the reality is in the details and we will soon enough know what the US president and his advisers have been up to and what they expect to achieve beyond the dissemination of the characteristic bipartisan lies and evasions that have constituted US foreign policy since 9/11.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from TUR

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In the aftermath of the First Imperialist War, African Americans and people of African descent around the world escalated their movements to end colonial domination, legalized segregation and the super-exploitation of their land, resources and labor.

The Pan-African Congress held in Paris during 1919 represented a turning point in the political consciousness and organizational capacity of the Black masses globally.

A central figure in this process was Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) in 1909. Du Bois was a graduate of Harvard University in 1896 where he wrote his Ph.D. Dissertation on the suppression of the African slave trade.

By 1900, Du Bois was involved in the Pan-African Conference held in London from July 23-25. After WWI, the historian and social scientist in response to the Paris Peace Conference called for another gathering, this time entitled the Pan-African Congress.

Image: Pan-African Congress of 1919

Although the resolutions of the Pan-African Congress in Paris during 1919 were limited in their militancy due to the strength of imperialism even in the wake of the pillage involving millions during the war, the gathering was a clear reflection of the heightened consciousness of peoples throughout the oppressed nations. In that same year, the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) was founded by African workers in Cape Town, South Africa where it embarked upon an unprecedented strike against racism and exploitation.

Also in the summer of 1919, white racist mobs backed by police and national guardsmen invaded African American communities in cities such as Chicago, Knoxville and Washington, D.C. attacking, robbing, burning and murdering African American people. However, in contrast to the lynchings in the rural and urban South, veterans from the war organized defense brigades where they fought back with a vengeance against the racists.

Consequently, the stage was set for a surge in organizations advocating armed self-defense, desegregation, Socialism, Nationalism and Pan-Africanism. Du Bois had established “The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races” in 1910 just one year after the NAACP was founded. The magazine played a pioneering role in the development of what became known as the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

The Role of Jessie Redmon Fauset in the Harlem Renaissance and Pan-Africanism

In 1919, Du Bois recruited educator and writer Jessie Redmon Fauset and appointed her as the literary editor of The Crisis. Fauset had been born into an impoverished family in New Jersey in 1882.

Despite her humble origins she was able to excel academically at the Philadelphia High School for Girls and later won a scholarship to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Fauset earned a bachelor’s degree at the Ivy League institution in classical languages and literature in 1905. Later she received a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1919. She would work as a high school teacher in Washington, D.C. while gaining notoriety as a poet and writer of short stories, essays and novels.

As literary editor of The Crisis she was described by legendary poet, novelist, composer, playwright and public intellectual Langston Hughes as the “midwife” of the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes noted that it was Fauset who published his first poems in The Crisis. Other figures which rose to prominence during the 1920s such as Jean Toomer, Countee Cullen and Claude McKay were given access to The Crisis which had broad circulation during the 1920s.

Image: Jessie Redmon Fauset 

The Second Pan-African Congress organized by Du Bois was held in late August and early September of 1921 in the European capitals of London, Paris and Brussels. Fauset represented the NAACP at the gatherings and later wrote an extensive report in The Crisis entitled “Impressions of the Second Pan-African Congress” published in the November edition of the magazine. Following her detailed description of the Congress, “A Manifesto to the League of Nations” was reprinted. (See this)

The League of Nations formed after the conclusion of the First Imperialist War and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, agreed to accept the manifesto from the Pan-African Congress delegation as outlined by Fauset in her report. Nonetheless, the United States never joined the inter-governmental organization even though President Woodrow Wilson was given a Nobel Peace Prize for his participation in the post-war talks and the Treaty of Versailles.

Fauset’s interest in Pan-Africanism had begun before she joined The Crisis magazine in 1919. The first issue of the Journal of Negro History, founded by Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1915-16, features a book review by Fauset on the history of Haiti which was written by T.G. Steward. Prior to going to the Second Pan-African Congress, she co-authored an article with Cezar Pinto on the Brazilian abolitionist Jose Do Patrocinio who worked tirelessly for the liberation of Africans still enslaved in the South American state during the 1870s and 1880s. The article entitled “The Emancipator of Brazil” appeared in the March 1921 issue of The Crisis. (The Crisis, Vol. 21, No. 5. (March, 1921). (marxists.org)

The literary editor and mentor traveled regularly to France to study at the University of Paris Sorbonne. She was fluent in French and other languages in which she taught in high schools before and after leaving The Crisis.

In 1925, Fauset visited Algeria, then a French colony in North Africa. She would write a two-part report published in The Crisis in their April-May 1925 editions entitled “Dark Algiers The White” where she recounts her experience in the living quarters of the colonized population. France occupied Algeria from 1830 to 1962 when a guerrilla war led by the National Liberation Front (FLN) forced the French government to grant independence to the country. (See this)

The Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s would come to a screeching halt when the stock market collapsed in October of 1929. The economic downturn disproportionately impacted African people leading to a new phase in the struggle to end racism and national oppression on an international scale.

The Great Depression, the Rise of Fascism and the Second Imperialist War

As the U.S. and the entire capitalist world fell into an unprecedented economic depression in the 1930s, resistance movements arose at a rapid pace. Efforts aimed at organizing labor unions and winning recognition by the corporations and later public entities accelerated.

In several European states the crisis had already taken hold in the years following World War I when inflation and unemployment reached astronomical levels. The Treaty of Versailles has often been cited as fueling the financial downfall in the 1920s and 1930s.

Italy, where a fascist government came to power in 1922 under Benito Mussolini, embodied aspirations to revive the ancient empire of Rome. In 1896 at the Battle of Adwa, the First Italo-Ethiopian War resulted in the defeat of the Kingdom of Italy in their campaign to expand its colonial holdings. Earlier in 1889, the Italians seized Eritrea and later signed the Treaty of Wuchale which supposedly protected Ethiopia from attack.

Nonetheless, the fascist Italian regime had no intentions of abiding by the treaty and seven years later attempted to seize control of Ethiopia. The defeat of Italy in 1896 is still commemorated every year in Ethiopia as an historic event which impacted the entire struggle against colonialism.

Nearly four decades later in October 1935, Mussolini’s army invaded Ethiopia again causing massive casualties. The use of mustard gas by the Italians and other atrocities prompted international outrage. In the U.S. and Britain, committees arose among African Americans and people of African descent living in England calling for the withdrawal of Italian forces.

Socialist and Pan-Africanist organizers C.L.R. James and George Padmore, both of whom were originally from Trinidad-Tobago, then living in the United Kingdom, formed the International Friends of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935-36. In the U.S., African Americans set up recruiting stations to send volunteers to fight against the fascists occupying Ethiopia.

The events of 1935 portended much for the future of Europe and the world. When Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party took power in 1933 in Germany it signaled the imminent threat of fascism in Europe. By 1941, both Britain and the U.S. were brought into the war against the fascists and the imperial expansionist regime in Japan.

During the Second Imperialist War, heavy fighting took place in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Eastern and Western Europe. Due to the imperialist character of the war, fierce battles were fought in the North African states of Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya. The Italians had fought against the anti-colonial resistance in Libya from 1911 to 1931. When the Italian army failed to defeat Britain in North Africa during the early 1940s, fascist Germany sent in their troops in a failed attempt to secure the region for the expansionist aims of Berlin and Rome.

By the conclusion of World War II, a reconfiguration of international power dynamics came into being. The U.S. would emerge as the undisputed dominant imperialist state while the Soviet Union not only reclaimed their territory from Nazi occupation during 1941-43 the Red Army drove the Nazis across Eastern Europe back into Germany where they met their inevitable defeat in May 1945.

After the conclusion of WWII, the struggle against colonialism, imperialism and racism accelerated. However, the emergence of an anti-capitalist bloc with the revolutions in Vietnam, North Vietnam and China along with the rise of socialism in Eastern Europe, would pose a monumental challenge to the aims of the U.S. to consolidate hegemonic control over the globe.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Chicago racist terror of 1919 (All images in this article are from the author)

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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“The remedy is worse than the disease.”—Francis Bacon

The government never cedes power willingly.

Neither should we.

If the COVID-19 debacle taught us one thing it is that, as Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged, “Rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.”

Unfortunately, we still haven’t learned.

We’re still allowing ourselves to be fully distracted by circus politics and a constant barrage of bad news screaming for attention.

Three years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which gave world governments (including our own) a convenient excuse for expanding their powers, abusing their authority, and further oppressing their constituents, there’s something being concocted in the dens of power.

The danger of martial law persists.

Any government so willing to weaponize one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security will not hesitate to override the Constitution and lockdown the nation again.

You’d better get ready, because that so-called crisis could be anything: civil unrest, national emergencies, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters.”

COVID-19 was a test to see how quickly the populace would march in lockstep with the government’s dictates, no questions asked, and how little resistance the citizenry would offer up to the government’s power grabs when made in the name of national security.

“We the people” failed that test spectacularly.

Characterized by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch as “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country,” the government’s COVID-19 response to the COVID-19 pandemic constituted a massively intrusive, coercive and authoritarian assault on the right of individual sovereignty over one’s life, self and private property.

In a statement attached to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Arizona v. Mayorkas, a case that challenged whether the government could continue to use it pandemic powers even after declaring the public health emergency over, Gorsuch provided a catalog of the many ways in which the government used COVID-19 to massively overreach its authority and suppress civil liberties:

“Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale.Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private. They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on. They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too. They surveilled church parking lots, recorded license plates, and issued notices warning that attendance at even outdoor services satisfying all state social-distancing and hygiene requirements could amount to criminal conduct. They divided cities and neighborhoods into color-coded zones, forced individuals to fight for their freedoms in court on emergency timetables, and then changed their color-coded schemes when defeat in court seemed imminent.”

Truly, the government’s (federal and state) handling of the COVID-19 pandemic delivered a knockout blow to our civil liberties, empowering the police state to flex its powers by way of a bevy of lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc.

What started off as an experiment in social distancing in order to flatten the curve of an unknown virus (and not overwhelm the nation’s hospitals or expose the most vulnerable to unavoidable loss of life scenarios) quickly became strongly worded suggestions for citizens to voluntarily stay at home and strong-armed house arrest orders with penalties in place for non-compliance.

Every day brought a drastic new set of restrictions by government bodies (most have been delivered by way of executive orders) at the local, state and federal level that were eager to flex their muscles for the so-called “good” of the populace.

There was talk of mass testing for COVID-19 antibodies, screening checkpoints, mass surveillance in order to carry out contact tracing, immunity passports to allow those who have recovered from the virus to move around more freely, snitch tip lines for reporting “rule breakers” to the authorities, and heavy fines and jail time for those who dared to venture out without a mask, congregate in worship without the government’s blessing, or re-open their businesses without the government’s say-so.

It was even suggested that government officials should mandate mass vaccinations and “ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.”

Those tactics were already being used abroad.

In Italy, the unvaccinated were banned from restaurants, bars and public transportation, and faced suspensions from work and monthly fines. Similarly, France banned the unvaccinated from most public venues.

In Austria, anyone who had not complied with the vaccine mandate faced fines up to $4100. Police were to be authorized to carry out routine checks and demand proof of vaccination, with penalties of as much as $685 for failure to do so.

In China, which adopted a zero tolerance, “zero COVID” strategy, whole cities—some with populations in the tens of millions—were forced into home lockdowns for weeks on end, resulting in mass shortages of food and household supplies. Reports surfaced of residents “trading cigarettes for cabbage, dishwashing liquid for apples and sanitary pads for a small pile of vegetables. One resident traded a Nintendo Switch console for a packet of instant noodles and two steamed buns.”

For those unfortunate enough to contract COVID-19, China constructed “quarantine camps” throughout the country: massive complexes boasting thousands of small, metal boxes containing little more than a bed and a toilet. Detainees—including children, pregnant women and the elderly— were reportedly ordered to leave their homes in the middle of the night, transported to the quarantine camps in buses and held in isolation.

If this last scenario sounds chillingly familiar, it should.

Eighty years ago, another authoritarian regime established more than 44,000 quarantine camps for those perceived as “enemies of the state”: racially inferior, politically unacceptable or simply noncompliant.

While the majority of those imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps, forced labor camps, incarceration sites and ghettos were Jews, there were also Polish nationals, gypsies, Russians, political dissidents, resistance fighters, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals.

Culturally, we have become so fixated on the mass murders of Jewish prisoners by the Nazis that we overlook the fact that the purpose of these concentration camps were initially intended to

“incarcerate and intimidate the leaders of political, social, and cultural movements that the Nazis perceived to be a threat to the survival of the regime.”

How do you get from there to here, from Auschwitz concentration camps to COVID quarantine centers?

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to connect the dots.

You just have to recognize the truth in the warning: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This is about what happens when good, generally decent people—distracted by manufactured crises, polarizing politics, and fighting that divides the populace into warring “us vs. them” camps—fail to take note of the looming danger that threatens to wipe freedom from the map and place us all in chains.

It’s about what happens when any government is empowered to adopt a comply-or-suffer-the-consequences mindset that is enforced through mandates, lockdowns, penalties, detention centers, martial law, and a disregard for the rights of the individual.

This is the slippery slope: a government empowered to restrict movements, limit individual liberty, and isolate “undesirables” to prevent the spread of a disease is a government that has the power to lockdown a country, label whole segments of the population a danger to national security, and force those undesirables—a.k.a. extremists, dissidents, troublemakers, etc.—into isolation so they don’t contaminate the rest of the populace.

The slippery slope begins with propaganda campaigns about the public good being more important than individual liberty, and it ends with lockdowns and concentration camps.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the danger signs are everywhere.

COVID-19 was merely one crisis in a long series of crises that the government has shamelessly exploited in order to justify its power grabs and acclimate the citizenry to a state of martial law disguised as emergency powers.

Everything I have warned about for years—government overreach, invasive surveillance, martial law, abuse of powers, militarized police, weaponized technology used to track and control the citizenry, and so on—has become part of the government’s arsenal of terrifying lockdown powers should the need arise.

What we should be bracing for is: what comes next?

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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.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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The U.S. used its veto at the UN Security Council for the third time in this war to block a call for an immediate ceasefire:

The U.S. vetoed an Algerian proposal at the United Nations Security Council that called for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, saying that a cessation of hostilities without securing the release of hostages in Hamas’s captivity would only prolong the conflict.

The U.S. circulated a draft resolution ahead of the vote calling, instead, for a temporary cease-fire in Gaza “as soon as practicable” and in tandem with the release of all hostages taken on Oct. 7, as the Biden administration increasingly clashes with the Israeli government over the conduct of the war.

The Biden administration’s hostility to a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza is indefensible. They once again bring lasting disgrace on themselves and on the United States with this latest veto. The need for a humanitarian ceasefire is obvious and overwhelming. Every humanitarian relief agency has been pleading for one for months for this reason. Voting against a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire is a vote for famine and mass death.

Hundreds of thousands of people are already living in famine conditions. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than 70,000 have been injured, the health care system has all but collapsed, and relief efforts are severely restricted. Under these circumstances, anything less than an immediate and extended ceasefire is completely inadequate to address the needs of the civilian population. An immediate ceasefire is also the best chance that the remaining hostages have to survive and to be released. Putting off a ceasefire until it is “practicable” (decided by whom?) likely means that it will be put off indefinitely. The administration’s preferred solution has so many caveats and conditions attached that their temporary ceasefire would probably never happen.

The U.S. is still providing cover to the Israeli government after it has spent more than four months inflicting collective punishment on the entire population of Gaza with devastating effect. While the administration may claim to oppose an Israeli ground assault in Rafah, it refuses to do any of the things that would put meaningful pressure on Netanyahu and his allies to get them to stop. When presented with an opportunity to endorse a humanitarian ceasefire, the U.S. could have at least abstained to signal its dissatisfaction with Netanyahu if there was anything to signal, but instead our ambassador vetoed it. The U.S. won’t lift a finger to prevent catastrophe in Gaza, and instead it actively opposes the states that are trying to act. There is nothing surprising about this, but it needs to be stated clearly all the same.

A temporary ceasefire would be better than nothing, but it would not be enough to prevent mass starvation. Conditions have already been allowed to deteriorate so much that many people that have been weakened by hunger and disease will still perish even if the fighting stopped tomorrow. Further delay in halting the campaign doom tens and eventually hundreds of thousands of people to death from starvation and disease. These are deaths that can be prevented, but they won’t be if the U.S. keeps protecting Netanyahu’s government and its atrocious war.

The administration’s draft resolution calls for a “viable plan” for protecting civilians in Rafah in the event of a major Israeli operation, but there won’t be any such plan because it isn’t possible to launch a major military operation that protects civilians in an area where more than a million people have crowded together to find refuge from the slaughter. Biden keeps wanting to split the proverbial baby while pretending to care about the welfare of the child, but it can’t be done.

The ambassador’s defense of the U.S. veto is an insult to the intelligence of people everywhere. Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield reportedly said that proposals like the the Algerian-sponsored resolution “aren’t conducive to a sustainable peace and would instead empower Hamas.” This is just mindless repetition of the same talking points that the administration has used since October. Extremists and rejectionists thrive on conflict, so a ceasefire would deal a blow to Hamas by depriving it of a conflict. Even if a humanitarian ceasefire doesn’t lead to a sustainable peace right away, it would prevent massive loss of innocent life. Opposing peace in the name of some imaginary “sustainable peace” in the future is as cynical as it gets.

Even more insulting is the ambassador’s claim that ceasefire proposals like this one “deprive Israelis and Palestinians of the “security, dignity and freedom” they desire.” When you cast a vote against a humanitarian ceasefire, you are declaring to the world that you have no interest in the security, dignity and freedom of Palestinians, and you have also said that you don’t care whether they live or die. The rest of the world sees the U.S. position for what it is, and no one is buying the administration’s absurd spin.

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Featured image: Palestinians line up to fetch some water in a refugee camp in Gaza. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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The United States’ bid to prosecute Julian Assange is “state retaliation”, the High Court has heard in his final bid to escape extradition.

The Wikileaks founder faces extradition to the US over an alleged conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

In a January 2021 ruling, then-district judge Vanessa Baraitser said that Assange should not be sent to the US, citing a real and “oppressive” risk of suicide, while ruling against him on all other issues.

But later that year, US authorities won their High Court bid to overturn this block, paving the way towards Assange’s extradition.

Lawyers for the 52-year-old are now asking for the go-ahead to challenge the original judge’s dismissal of other parts of his case to prevent his extradition.

During the first day of the hearing on Tuesday, Mark Summers KC argued the US prosecution of Assange would be retribution for his political opinions, meaning it would be unlawful to extradite him under UK law.

The barrister said: “This is a paradigm example of state retaliation for the expression of political opinion.

“The district judge did not address it, had she done so, it would have been fatal to her decision.”

US Will Go to Any Lengths to Protect Own Officials Over War Crimes

In written submissions, Mr Summers and Edward Fitzgerald KC, also for Assange, added:

“The evidence showed that the US was prepared to go to any lengths, including misusing its own criminal justice system, to sustain impunity for US officials in respect of the torture/war crimes committed in its infamous ‘war on terror’, and to suppress those actors and courts willing and prepared to try to bring those crimes to account.

“Mr Assange was one of those targets.”

Mr Summers later told the High Court in London that the US authorities had developed a “breathtaking” plan to either kill or kidnap Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he remained for around seven years.

The barrister later said the plan “only fell apart when the UK authorities weren’t very keen on the thought of rendition, or a shootout, in the streets of London”.

Mr Fitzgerald later said Assange, who did not attend Tuesday’s hearing, is being prosecuted for an “ordinary journalistic practice”.

He told the court:

“He is being prosecuted for engaging in ordinary journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information, information that is both true and of obvious and important public interest.”

The barrister later described the case as a “legally unprecedented prosecution” and said that the 52-year-old faced a “real risk he will suffer a flagrant denial of justice” if he was extradited.

The first day of the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice was attended by dozens of journalists and members of the public, with scores of supporters of Assange gathering outside the central London courthouse from 8am.

Addressing the crowd ahead of the hearing, Assange’s wife Stella Assange said:

“We don’t know what to expect, but you’re here because the world is watching.

“They just cannot get away with this.

“Julian needs his freedom and we all need the truth.”

US authorities are opposing Assange’s bid for an appeal, telling the court his case is “unarguable” and should not be allowed to proceed to a full hearing.

James Lewis KC, for the US, said in written submissions that Assange’s conduct is “consistently and repeatedly misrepresented” in the appeal bid.

The barrister described the amount of classified material provided to Assange as “unprecedented”, adding:

“The appellant threatened damage to the strategic and national security interests of the United States and put the safety of individuals at serious risk.”

Mr Lewis, who is expected to make oral arguments on behalf of the US on Wednesday, added that the original judge ruled Assange was not being prosecuted for political reasons but “because he is alleged to have committed serious criminal offences”.

“This decision is unimpeachable and there is no error to show that the district judge got it wrong,” he continued.

He added that it was “simply not credible” that a journalist would be immune from criminal prosecution in these circumstances.

The hearing before Dame Victoria Sharp and Mr Justice Johnson is due to conclude on Wednesday with their decision on whether Assange can bring the appeal expected at a later date.

Reporters Without Borders director of campaigns Rebecca Vincent said:

“For the first time in three years, today in court we heard substantive arguments about the wider implications of the Assange case, not only his worrying state of mental health as was considered in previous appeals. Assange’s legal defence made powerful arguments about the political nature of the actions Assange has been charged with, the unprecedented use of the Espionage Act to target journalistic activity, the alarming planning by CIA officials to assassinate Assange, and the protections the European Court of Human Rights would apply to this case — which are among the reasons RSF also defends this case.

“We remain concerned by Assange’s inability to appear in court today despite having been granted rare permission to do so. The wrought-iron cage where he would have been held sat empty, while deliberations about his future took place in his absence. During our last visit to him in Belmarsh prison on 16 January, he was also unwell and in pain, having broken a rib from excessive coughing. The fact that he is now not well enough to attend court or even follow proceedings online again highlights the risks to his physical and mental health that exist in his current detention conditions, which would be exacerbated if extradited. He should be immediately released.”

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Dominic Ponsford is the editor in chief of Press Gazette and has more than 20 years experience in journalism. Former Paul Foot Awards finalist and PPA editor of the year nominee 2022.

Featured image: Supporters of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange protest outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London, during his continuing extradition hearing. Picture date: Wednesday April 20, 2022. Picture: PA Wire

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Temple University Medical Student who was about to graduate, 36 year old Dr. Michael Louis Neeb, died suddenly from acute pancreatitis. He was mandated COVID-19 Vaccines at Temple University.

More cases of fatal Pancreatitis:

Dec. 4, 2024 – Taunton, UK – 23 year old Abi Elizabeth Munro, a new mother, died suddenly from acute pancreatitis.

Nov. 4, 2023 – Matt Wetzel had acute pancreatitis which put him in a coma, on a ventilator and 24 hours dialysis for a month. “Several of my organs completely shut down”, “it was highly questionable if I was going to live or not” “After two full months in the hospital I had dropped over 50 lbs.”

Sep. 6, 2023 – Somerset County, NJ – 47 year old US Army Veteran Jaime Ayuso died after a battle with “end stage pancreatitis.”

Aug. 18, 2023 – Appleton, WI – 25 year old Cole Cavanaugh came down with severe case of necrotizing pancreatitis. He deteriorated rapidly, developed pneumonia, sepsis and eventually died on Sep. 11, 2023.

June 2023 – Seatac, WA – Jorge Alejandre went to hospital for stomach pain, where he was admitted to ICU and placed in a medically induced coma, on a ventilator. He had acute pancreatitis and his kidneys had started failing.

Mar. 16, 2023 – 34 year old Penny “Veronica” Vitela died suddenly from pancreatitis. “She was suffering on and off from pancreatitis but last week it turned severe. On Wednesday night she went to sleep and she simply never woke up.”

Aug. 21, 2021 – Shara Berrio died suddenly after a “very short and unexpected illness with pancreatitis.”

Literature (15 papers): 

• 2021 Apr (Parkash et al) – 96 yo female developed pancreatitis few days after 1st Pfizer dose

• 2021 Jun (Cieslewicz et al) – 29 yo female doctor developed pancreatitis one day after 1st Pfizer dose
• 2021 Jun (Walter et al) – 43 yo male was diagnosed with acute necrotising pancreatitis 10 hours after 2nd Pfizer dose.
• 2021 Oct (Brittain et al) – 46 yo male developed pancreatitis 2 days after 1st Pfizer dose.
• 2021 Dec (Kantar et al) – 17 yo male developed mild pancreatitis 12hr after 1st Pfizer
• 2022 (Kalra et al) – 14 yo female developed pancreatitis shortly after 2nd Pfizer dose
• 2022 Jan (Ozaka et al) – 71 yo female developed pancreatitis 2 days after 1st Pfizer dose
• 2022 Feb (Mousa et al) – 22 yo female developed pancreatitis 1 week after 1st dose of Pfizer.
• 2022 Apr (Fakhreddine et al) – 64 yo male developed acute pancreatitis few days after 3rd dose of Pfizer
• 2022 Jun (Rodrigues et al) – 65 yo male developed autoimmune pancreatitis with IgG4 related disease 2 weeks after 1st dose of mRNA.
• 2022 Sep (Patel et al) – 63 yo male developed IgG4 related autoimmune pancreatitis two months after 2nd mRNA dose.
• 2022 Sep (Dey et al) – 24 year old pregnant female developed acute pancreatitis 1 week after 1st Pfizer dose.
• 2022 Oct (Cacdac et al) – 82 yo male developed acute pancreatitis hours after 3rd Pfizer dose.
• 2023 Jan (Boskabadi et al) – 28 yo developed pancreatitis 3 days after 2nd dose of Sinopharm

• 2023 Jun (Stollberger et al) – 31 yo female developed pancreatitis 10 days after 2nd dose

2022 Jan (Ozaka et al) – 71 yo female developed pancreatitis 2 days after 1st Pfizer dose. This is what pancreatitis looks like on a CT scan.

My Take…

How rare is pancreatitis after COVID-19 Vaccination?

Not as rare as I would have thought.

 

Some of the cases in the literature are identified as “autoimmune pancreatitis”.

The pancreas does accumulate a small amount of Lipid nanoparticles (with mRNA) and when spike protein is expressed locally, an abnormal inflammatory (autoimmune) process would be expected.

What concerns me is this: none of the published cases in 2021 and 2022 were fatal.

Will COVID-19 Vaccine Induced auto-immune diseases become fatal over time? I believe so.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image is from COVID Intel

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Alexei Navalny’s Death and Curious Well-Timed Coincidences

By Edward Curtin, February 20, 2024

Once the death in a Russian prison of the Western backed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was announced on Friday, February 16, 2024, it was immediately followed by a cascade of anti-Russia pronouncements whose aim was to not only continue the demonization of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin but to serve other purposes as well.

Creating Invisible Enemies – Timeline to Launch of the Trillion-dollar COVID-19 Deception

By Mark Keenan, February 20, 2024

A crucial step in implementing the Covid-19 pandemic hoax was that the definition of a pandemic needed to be significantly changed prior to Covid-19. The WHO advisory group needed to be able to declare a pandemic even when there was not an enormous number of deaths and illnesses obvious in the community.

Julian Assange’s Final Appeal. Chris Hedges

By Chris Hedges, February 20, 2024

Julian Assange will make his final appeal this week to the British courts to avoid extradition. If he is extradited it is the death of investigations into the inner workings of power by the press.

Ukraine War: Failed Attack on Belgorod. General Syrsky Targets Civilians

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, February 20, 2024

Kiev once again attacked Belgorod. In a brutal bombing raid against the Russian border city on February 15, neo-Nazi forces killed at least six people, including one child. The fact that the attack occurred in the first days of Aleksandr Syrsky’s military administration is perhaps a sign that the new Ukrainian top general will follow a strategy focused on terrorist incursions against Russia’s demilitarized zone.

Navalny’s Death – A Western-Instigated “False Flag”?

By Peter Koenig, February 20, 2024

Killing Aleksei A. Navalny, a lawyer and President Putin’s strongest adversary, would not be beyond Western secret services, just to strike at Vladimir Putin. Mr. Navalny’s death was announced on Friday, 16 February 2024. He was 47.

2 Baptist Pastors and US Senators Vote for More Killing of Palestinians in Gaza

By Colonel Ann Wright, February 20, 2024

Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) voted for $14 billion for Israel. He is a Baptist preacher from Georgia. For 19 years Warnock was the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr.’s former congregation.

Guangxi: An Unknown but Spectacular Development Model

By Jan Jonckheere, February 20, 2024

The Guangxi region in southern China is poverty-stricken, but its level of development shoots up like an arrow to the sky. What is the secret of this spectacular development model? Jan Jonckheere, a Belgian China expert made a study tour of the region and looked for answers.

A mídia ocidental está mais uma vez usando métodos de infoguerra para desviar a opinião pública da realidade das linhas de frente ucranianas. A recente morte do oposicionista russo Alexey Navalny serviu de desculpa para os meios de comunicação ocidentais disfarçarem mais um fracasso ucraniano – em Avdeyevka, uma cidade importante em Donbass, onde os russos obtiveram uma importante vitória.

Navalny morreu em 16 de fevereiro enquanto cumpria pena em uma prisão no Ártico. O caso ainda está em investigação, mas todas as evidências apontam para uma morte natural, decorrente de uma síndrome cardíaca súbita. No entanto, como esperado, os jornais ocidentais publicaram artigos questionando a morte e sugerindo um envolvimento criminoso por parte do governo russo.

Materiais distorcidos e tendenciosos publicados pela imprensa ocidental levaram a opinião pública a acreditar que o governo russo assassinou Navalny. Para fortalecer a narrativa, criou-se um mito em torno da imagem do dissidente russo, descrevendo-o como um grande líder da oposição, capaz de liderar um movimento nacional para desafiar o governo de Vladimir Putin. No entanto, nada disso é verdade.

Promovendo um ultranacionalismo xenófobo e semelhante ao nazismo, Navalny nunca foi um líder popular na Rússia. O seu projeto de polarização étnica da sociedade russa, com forte hostilidade contra os muçulmanos e os cidadãos russos do Cáucaso, foi fomentado pela inteligência ocidental devido às expectativas da OTAN de gerar fricções internas entre os russos. O divisionismo étnico e o separatismo sempre foram apostas ocidentais para atacar a Rússia – e o movimento racista de Navalny foi usado pelas agências ocidentais para promover tais objetivos.

No entanto, por razões óbvias, tais ideias fascistas nunca foram populares na Rússia, razão pela qual Navalny não conseguiu estabelecer uma oposição política sólida a Vladimir Putin. Como líder político, ele era quase irrelevante, razão pela qual não havia interesse por parte de Moscou em eliminá-lo. Não por acaso, as acusações ocidentais são desprovidas de qualquer evidência, sendo apenas histórias infundadas.

No entanto, há uma razão muito específica pela qual o Ocidente está a explorar o “caso Navalny”. A morte do oposicionista ocorreu durante a retirada das tropas ucranianas de Avdeyevka. A cidade esteve sob intensa disputa militar durante meses, com enormes esforços de guerra de ambos os lados para alcançar o controle total da área. Os ucranianos sofriam pesadas perdas na região, razão pela qual alguns analistas se referiam a Avdeevka como uma espécie de “Bakhmut 2.0”.

Localizada nos arredores de Donetsk, Avdeyevka é uma cidade de elevado valor estratégico, uma vez que as forças ucranianas estabeleceram uma fortaleza militar na região que possibilitou ataques contra outras cidades importantes. Assim, sem a presença ucraniana em Avdeyevka, a segurança de Donetsk melhorará exponencialmente. Neste sentido, a libertação de Avdeyevka é uma conquista importante para a Rússia, dado o objetivo de Moscou de pacificar completamente os seus Novos Territórios.

Da parte da Ucrânia, porém, a retirada parece uma humilhação. Kiev está militarmente enfraquecida e tem muitas dificuldades em assegurar as suas posições, não conseguindo conter o avanço das tropas russas. As retiradas de cidades importantes como Avdeyevka são ainda mais catastróficas para os ucranianos, pois são derrotas significativas, que, além do impacto militar, afetam diretamente o moral das tropas.

Na verdade, a derrota em Avdeevka foi também um grande golpe contra o comando militar de Aleksandr Syrsky. Esperava-se que o novo chefe das forças ucranianas seguisse uma estratégia de “moedor de carne” na cidade, repetindo os graves erros que cometeu em Bakhmut. No entanto, a realidade atual na Ucrânia impediu-o de repetir os mesmos métodos. Kiev já não tem capacidade de mobilização suficiente para substituir perdas massivas, razão pela qual um “Bakhmut 2.0” teria danos irreversíveis. Syrsky teve que reconhecer as limitações e ordenar a retirada de Avdeevka em seus primeiros dias no comando, o que foi sem dúvida uma humilhação.

Todos estes fatores são extremamente prejudiciais para o Ocidente. Mais uma vez, a Rússia deixou claro à opinião pública global que está a derrotar a OTAN na guerra por procuração travada através da Ucrânia. As consequências de mais uma vitória russa no campo de batalha poderiam ser desastrosas para os planos da OTAN, uma vez que os cidadãos ocidentais poderiam simplesmente compreender que esta já é uma guerra perdida e começar a exigir o fim do envio de armas para Kiev. Assim, para evitar isto, os meios de comunicação ocidentais apostaram no “caso Navalny” para distrair o público e disfarçar o fracasso ucraniano.

A cobertura da morte de Navalny, combinada com teorias conspiratórias sobre o alegado “envolvimento do Kremlin”, ajudou os países da OTAN a tentar esconder o fato de terem sofrido uma pesada derrota no campo de batalha. Além disso, serviram para tentar difamar o governo russo durante um ano eleitoral, aumentando as acusações de “tirania”. No entanto, os efeitos deste tipo de manobra de infoguerra tendem a ser cada vez menos relevantes, uma vez que, após décadas de mentiras e censura, a confiança da opinião pública ocidental nos grandes meios de comunicação está evidentemente a deteriorar-se.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

 

Artigo em inglês :Western media using Russian dissident’s death to disguise Ukrainian military failure, InfoBrics, 19 de Fevereiro de 2024

Imagem : InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

Os sentimentos anti-russos dos líderes europeus impedem-os de agir racionalmente face à atual onda de protestos em todo o continente. Numa declaração recente, o primeiro-ministro checo, Peter Fiala, acusou os manifestantes de serem “apoiantes de Moscou”, desacreditando as reivindicações dos agricultores ao associá-los a um “inimigo” da UE.

Fiala fez a sua declaração quando as manifestações atingiram o seu auge na República Checa. No dia 19 de fevereiro, centenas de tratores bloquearam as principais ruas de Praga, interrompendo o tráfego nas áreas próximas ao Ministério da Agricultura. Os protestos ocorrem no meio de uma “revolta camponesa” na Europa, com os trabalhadores rurais exigindo o fim da importação de grãos ucranianos e uma revisão das “políticas verdes” da UE.

Reagindo à pressão dos camponeses, Fiala fez uma publicação na sua conta no X (antigo Twitter) afirmando que os manifestantes não pretendem realmente proteger os interesses dos agricultores. Segundo ele, os manifestantes são meros “apoiadores do Kremlin” e pretendem desestabilizar a Europa para favorecer os interesses russos, sendo a agricultura uma mera desculpa para convocar manifestações.

Segundo o líder checo, o governo local já está em diálogo com os agricultores para tentar satisfazer os seus interesses. No entanto, nega que os manifestantes tenham ligações com organizações laborais e sindicatos rurais, deslegitimando assim os protestos. Fiala afirma que Praga procura constantemente proteger os “reais” interesses dos agricultores, mas afirma que os manifestantes nada têm a ver com tais interesses, sendo apenas desordeiros pró-Rússia que “complicam” a vida de outros cidadãos checos.

“A manifestação de hoje tem pouco a ver com a luta por melhores condições para os agricultores. A manifestação é organizada por pessoas que, por exemplo, não escondem o seu apoio ao Kremlin e perseguem outros objectivos que não os interesses dos agricultores (…) O governo está continuamente conversando com todos que estão interessados ​​no diálogo. É por isso que somos capazes de encontrar boas soluções. Fizemos isso muitas vezes nos últimos dois anos. Infelizmente, os organizadores das manifestações de hoje não estão entre aqueles que se preocupam em melhorar a qualidade de vida do nosso país e a sua prosperidade. Mostra também o seu progresso, que complica a vida dos cidadãos da capital e não trará quaisquer soluções para os problemas reais dos agricultores checos.”

Um dos principais argumentos de Fiala contra a legitimidade das manifestações é a falta de participação das principais organizações de agricultores do país, como a Câmara Agrária, o Sindicato Agrícola e a Associação da Agricultura Privada. No entanto, Fiala ignorou o facto de estes mesmos grupos, embora ausentes nos protestos do dia 19, terem anunciado que vão lançar a sua própria manifestação contra as políticas verdes da UE, marcada para o dia 22. Portanto, o argumento de Fiala parece inválido, uma vez que as organizações rurais oficiais partilham os mesmos interesses que os manifestantes autônomos.

Na verdade, a insatisfação com o rumo da agricultura europeia é um fenômeno generalizado. Há protestos em todo o continente, desde os países mais ocidentais, como França e Espanha, até aos mais orientais, como a Polônia e os Bálticos. Os trabalhadores rurais europeus são alguns dos mais afetados pelas políticas irresponsáveis ​​da UE de apoio à Ucrânia. Como é sabido, os estados europeus mantêm desde 2022 uma política de importação sistemática de grãos ucranianos. Com o objetivo de apoiar economicamente Kiev, estes países começaram a comprar massivamente produtos agrícolas ucranianos baratos e, assim, deixaram de proteger os seus próprios agronegócios nacionais, culminando numa grande crise social.

Sendo a Ucrânia um dos países mais férteis e produtivos do mundo, as nações da Europa Ocidental são incapazes de competir no mercado agrícola com Kiev, razão pela qual os trabalhadores rurais europeus estão a ir à falência. Neste sentido, a exigência do fim da importação de produtos ucranianos é uma necessidade básica dos camponeses europeus.

No mesmo sentido, o fim das políticas verdes é vital para que a produção agrícola europeia seja viável. Enfrentando vários problemas económicos e baixa produtividade, os agricultores europeus dependem da ajuda governamental para pagar a produção e o transporte de cereais. No entanto, a UE impõe uma agenda ideológica ambientalista radical e faz com que os seus produtores rurais “paguem a conta” do aquecimento global, tornando o agronegócio inviável.

Portanto, as reivindicações dos trabalhadores parecem justas e naturais. Os agricultores lutam pelos seus direitos e por melhores condições de vida e de trabalho. Não há provas de que tais trabalhadores sejam verdadeiramente “pró-Rússia”. Se entre eles há sentimentos de simpatia pela Rússia, estes decorrem naturalmente da sua rejeição da ideologia anti-russa da UE, que é diretamente responsável pelas perdas sofridas por eles.

Enquanto os líderes europeus estiverem mais preocupados em acusar os manifestantes do que em resolver os seus problemas, a crise continuará a piorar.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Artigo em inglês : Czech farmers accused of being ‘pro-Russian’, InfoBrics, 20 de  Fevereiro de 2024.

Imagem : InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

 

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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In practical terms, the indisputable geopolitical changes and the restructuring of global power architecture have significant impact on Russia’s military influence in Saharan-Sahel region, an elongated landlocked territory located between North Africa (Maghreb) and West Africa, and also stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. Almost all West African countries face a kind of multilayered crisis. But the G5 Sahel group was established in February 2014 to maintain security in the western part of the Sahel region and coordinate a joint armed forces to fight against growing terrorism.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have withdrawn from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and, more significantly have also created their own military bloc citing reasons as follows: the bloc’s failure to provide no support against the jihadists, the imposition of “illegal sanctions” that are harming the people and that the bloc has fallen under the influence of and indiscriminately manipulated by foreign governments.

By creating their own Alliance of Sahel States (AES), it exposes ECOWAS powerlessness, weaknesses and its long-term inability and incompetency to deal with regional problems through mediation. In the ECOWAS guidelines, Article 91 of the bloc’s treaty stipulates that member countries remain bound by their obligations for a period of one year after notification of their withdrawal. For better or for worse, these interim military governments have adopted hardline stance, consistently delayed in fixing concrete dates to hold democratic elections.

With renewed and full-fledged interest, Russia has ultimately begun making inroads into the Sahel region after two historical marked summits in Black Sea resort city of Sochi (October 2019) and in St. Petersburg (July 2023). Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned this security issue during his opening and closing speeches at the summit, and even previously, indicating its importance on Russia’s agenda with Africa.

At the end, both Russian and African leaders reaffirmed their collective stance to deal with the persistent ethnic conflicts and militant threats among the magnitude of wide range of priorities. In fact, there were five key documents and one of them is on ‘Strengthening Cooperation to Combat Terrorism’ which neatly relates this article under discussion.

That elongated region constantly faces frequent threats of terrorism from militant groups, which requires adequate security action measures needed to combat the threats. The biggest vulnerabilities in this regard include weak border control, unprotected industrial facilities, and large urban areas where it becomes easy to disappear into a crowd.

Russia has rich experiences as in developing an effective set of measures to counter terrorism, curtail illegal activity, and provide dependable protection for citizens. Therefore, Russia’s Ministry of Defense together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses readiness to coordinate in sharing their experiences with African partners and particularly in the Saharan-Sahel.

Revisiting the first summit declaration which says in part, “firm intention to fully contribute to achieving peace and security” points to the principles of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity on these countries in the region. The first primary step is implementing joint programmes to build the necessary capacity of the requesting African States and train African peace keeping personnel at specialized educational institutions of the Russian Federation and African States.

For fear and concerns about the new rise of terrorism, the Sahel-5 countries are turning to Russia. Now it is capitalizing on the opportunity, to broaden its geography of diplomacy covering fragile countries and eyeing as possible the leeway for penetrating into the entire region. Since the start of 2024, most of the interim military leaders have visited the Kremlin. During both meetings with Chad and Niger, several critical issues were raised including military assistance to fight growing terrorism, and efforts to strengthen political dialogue and promote partnerships relating to trade and the economy in the region.

Russian Foreign Ministry has explained in a statement posted on its website, that Russia’s military-technical cooperation with African countries is primarily directed at settling regional conflicts and preventing the spread of terrorist threats and fighting the growing terrorism in the continent. Worth noting with precision here that Russia, in its strategy on Africa is reportedly looking into building military bases on the continent. Russia has signed bilateral military-technical cooperation agreements with more than 20 African countries.

In October 2021, a cargo plane has delivered four helicopters, weapons and ammunition from Russia to Mali, according to the military-led authorities in the West African country. “Mali bought these helicopters from the Russia Federation, a friendly country with which Mali has always maintained a very fruitful partnership,” Interim Defence Minister Sadio Camara told the local media in the capital, Bamako, that the weapons and ammunition were gifts from Russia. A year later, Camara paid tribute to what he called Mali’s “win-win partnership with the Russian Federation” during during a ceremony, L-39 and Sukhoi-25 jets as well as Mi-24P helicopter gunships were displayed.

In December 2021, two years after the first Russia-Africa summit, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted in his speech:

“Russia will continue supporting it with the supply of arms and hardware and personnel training, including peacekeepers, as it is very important to help put an end to this evil and other challenges and threats, including drug trafficking and other forms of organized crime.”

For instance, Lavrov explicitly points to creating favourable conditions for the implementation of Russian projects in Chad, including in the field of energy and the extraction of mineral resources. Establishing, at laest, relative peace is necessary for holding substantive and credible elections and for economic development pursuits.

Lavrov also indicated that Russia would support G5 Sahel group by providing weapons and training peacekeepers, but at the same time, Moscow would always insist that those African countries should find ways to solve their problems themselves and the international community needs to provide them with support through the UN Security Council and other agencies. The Foreign Minister at a press conference following talks with Chad’s top diplomat Mahamat Zene Cherif, referred to those countries as Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Mauritania.

According to several narratives, Russia pushed the Wagner mercenaries (military instructors) into the entire region which primary focus on combating terrorism. After the death of Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin last year, the Wagner group has now, beginning 2024, transformed and rebranded as a military structure called the Africa Corps, which works under the Russian Defense Ministry appeared on Telegram channel last November. Moscow is now laying the foundations for its military deployment in Burkina Faso and negotiating with Niger to become a key military ally.

The latest developments are that on January 28, 2024, the military juntas of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger jointly announced their immediate exit out of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The three earlier in September formed the Alliance des États du Sahel (translates in English as the Alliance of Sahel States), a security defence pact forged in response to the threat of ECOWAS military intervention in Niger. This military cooperation emerged following the detainment of Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, by the military junta led by Abdourahamane Tchiani.

In December 2023, Nigerien Prime Minister, Ali Mahamane Lamine Zeine, had already asked for the creation of a Russian military base during his working visit to discuss military and economic ties in the Kremlin.

He was appointed by the military, which came to power in a coup in July 2023. Mondafrique reported Ali Lamine Zeine was on tour of Iran, Russia, Serbia and Turkey, accompanied by the ministers of defense, petroleum, sports, commerce and other senior officials. Niger’s new government intends to diversify partnerships in defense, agriculture and energy and develop relations in the trading of oil and medical equipment. At the same time, Niamey is looking to Moscow as an alternative to Western assistance.

Military statistics are hard to find at the State Ministries and Agencies, but media reports cited as many as 250 Wagner operatives in Ségou, a town in central Mali, and a group of military personnels have also deployed to the city of Timbuktu, occupying former Operation Barkhane bases that were turned over to the Malian army by French forces in December 2021. With regards to training and offering military capacity-building, Russia has trained thousands of military from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger in Military Academy and Universities in the Russian Federation.

There have been arguments these past several months. In February for example, the Director General of Radio France International (RFI), Jean Marc argued that the latest development in ECOWAS presents an opportunity for Africa to build new bridges and alliances. The fundamental question lies with ECOWAS, about its effective and making positive impact as regional bloc. In reality, it is all about Africa’s autonomy, equal partnership, and building new bridges. There are plenty of foreign interventions like Russia, that’s a fact; but it is up to African countries to choose who to align with.

Research reports further published by The Conversation, Agence France Press, British Broadcasting and many others, indicated that the unilateral withdrawal of three West African countries would be hit by trade regulations and restrictions, thus impacting on the population and the economy. The three are landlocked and among the poorest in the world, already illustrates their disadvantage and limited position.

In addition and to a large degree, the Sahelian countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger depend more on regional trade than coastal countries, such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana or Nigeria. Without free access to the ports of Cotonou, Lomé, Abidjan or Tema, Sahelian imports would be far more expensive. And their expulsion further means exclusion from participating in the single continental African free landscape and the formation of new Confederation would definitely provide any suitable solution to the root causes and future ambitions.

Notwithstanding the complexities of the evolving political situation especially in West Africa, Russia has simply turned its back to the standing guidelines and explicit positions of both ECOWAS and the African Union (AU) with respect to “unconstitutional changes” across Africa. Russia has overwhelmingly declared support for military take-overs and consequently set the precedence, that any other group of gun-throttling soldiers could overthrow democratically elected government. Of course, Russia has the right to operate on the basis of bilateral mechanism, but at the same has to show uttermost respect to guidelines and protocols set by the regional and continental organization, according to the summary of several African expert interviews for this article.

On the other hand, Russia hopes that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) could still preserve unity despite the withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger from the association, Vsevolod Tkachenko, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Africa Department, said in an enlightening interview with TASS News Agency in February 2024.

Despite the threat it (the exit) poses to regional and continental integration, Russia has offered an overarching support to the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) as these French-speaking countries are fighting to uproot neo-colonialism. The diplomat noted that the move “was in many ways a response to the recent pressure actions taken by the community against Ouagadougou, Bamako and Niamey.” In the interview, Vsevolod Tkachenko, however, emphasized the the fact that ECOWAS “is under the influence of foreign powers, having become a threat to member states and their peoples.”

As previously the AU Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat repainted again the “bleak picture” with a “litany of difficulties” confronting many African countries during the 37th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) summit held, from 14th to 15th February, at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Faki spoke of “worrying trends” in the North Africa, Horn of Africa and also in West Africa.

Moussa Faki Mahamat blasted a failure to counter multiple “unconstitutional changes of government” following a string of coups in West Africa and warned the scourge of “terrorism” was diverting money away from vital social needs to military spending. In practical reality, the summit was now concerned about looking inward, closely protecting their sovereign prerogatives rather than investing in collective security, somehow to fund most of its budget rather than foreign donors. Gabon and Niger were absent from the summit following their suspension over coups last year — joining Mali, Guinea, Sudan and Burkina Faso, which are also barred for similar reasons.

Usually referred to as the G5 Sahel, it is the vast semi-arid region that consists of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. The Saharan-Sahel region remains largely underdeveloped and the greater part of the population impoverished, terrorist organizations including Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are operating and have contributed to the frequent violence, extremism and instability in this vast region. In addition to insecurity and instability, these countries are engulfed with various socio-economic problems combined with traditional cultural practices that have lessened development. The system of governance and poor policies also largely hinder sustainable development.

Nevertheless, there is hope in the near future to overcome all these existing smooth development roadblocks, with Russia pledging enormous diverse support especially within the context of its renewed bilateral interest in Saharan-Sahel region, which is as much a land of opportunities as it is of challenges. Although it has abundant human and natural resources, offering tremendous potential for rapid growth, there are deep-rooted challenges – environmental, political and security – that may affect the prosperity and peace of the Sahel. That however, Russia’s collaboration with Saharan-Sahel countries will be on the basis of international law, primarily the UN Charter, relevant UN Security Council resolutions, the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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It is no secret that the West is hellbent to destroy President Putin, to force a Western friendly regime-change, so that finally after how many failed attempts (?) the West can take over this vast Russia, largest country in the world, by far the richest in natural resources which the West covets.

This too will be a failure.

Killing Aleksei A. Navalny, a lawyer and President Putin’s strongest adversary, would not be beyond Western secret services, just to strike at Vladimir Putin. Mr. Navalny’s death was announced on Friday, 16 February 2024. He was 47.

Washington and the EU surely have their people “infiltrated” in the Kremlin and other high security places where they can do harm.

Mr. Navalny was imprisoned at the IK-3 penal colony north of the Arctic Circle located in Kharp in the Yamalо-Nenets Region, about 1,900 km northeast of Moscow.

“When Alexei’s lawyer and mother arrived at the colony in the morning of Monday, 19 February, they were told that the cause of Navalny’s death was sudden death syndrome,” Ivan Zhdanov, who directs Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said on Saturday. See this.

The WEF’s Mr. Schwab and company, and those pulling the strings and pushing the agenda, the Financial Military, ID, Media, Pharma (FMIMP) Complex, know no limits.

Nothing could stop the West, especially not during the come hell-or-high-water implementation of Agenda 2030, alias the Great Reset.

If the “MUST SUCCEED NOW” comes to a breaking point, no lives are spared. No lives are sacred.

The dark Death Cult Masters know they are running out of time. They are in a tug of war with the ever-increasing number of people awaking and resisting. Believe it or not, the targets of UN Agenda 2030 / Great Reset have been advanced to 2025.

Why would President Putin kill his adversary, who is safely locked away in a prison in Siberia, almost 2,000 km north of the Kremlin?

Makes no sense.

Makes even less sense to have this presumed “murder” committed on the very day, when the Munich Security Conference (MSC, Febr 16-18, 2024) opened its doors to a plethora of “the rich and famous” —politicians with names, famous or infamous, like Antony Blinken, current US Secretary of State; Hillary Clinton, current Chancellor of Queen’s University of Belfast (remember, “We came, we saw, he died” about Mohammed Khadafi, see video below); John Kerry, the “Climate Czar”, Joe Biden’s Special Envoy on Climate, and many more.

Ms. Clinton, former NY Senator, and former Secretary of State (Obama Administration) gives an interview on PBS to Christian Amanpour of Amanpour & Co. on Alexei Navalny’s death, saying that there was no doubt in her mind that Navalny’s death was the direct “result of Putin’s brutality.

“ She also referred to a video conference of the day before [15 February] with Mr. Navalny from the prison, on “some kind of a legal appearance during which he [Navalny] looked healthy and he was his usual confident, joke-cracking self….”

See full interview below.

Ms. Yulia Navalnaya, Alexei Navalny’s widow, also appears at the MSC, calling for justice. She is, of course, right, calling for justice. Where is justice, who represents justice? For Ms. Navalnaya’s sake, for their children and for the Navalny family, indeed, justice should be found.

See this from BBC.

Absurdity abounds. During comments on reports of Navalny’s death, President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass a US$95 billion aid package that includes a new infusion of money to help Ukraine in its war against Russia. See this.

The MSC was the perfect occasion to lambast President Putin, to denigrate him, to call him names, including “murderer”.

It looks like Navalny’s death was perfectly planned, so perfectly, it sounds and looks almost naïve to believe that President Putin would choose such a moment in time – the MSC – to get rid of his opposition leader.

In other words, the planners behind this presumed murder, were addressing the Western “Putin haters” in the hope that pressure would mount, trusting to get closer to President Putin’s demise.

Anybody who saw Tucker Carlson’s interview with President Putin knows that Putin’s level of intellect and diplomacy is way beyond murdering an adversary. Despite being the heaviest sanctioned man and country – Russia – in the world, President Putin did not say one negative or “bad” word against any of his Western antagonists and aggressors.

President Putin’s tone was, though one of deception, not failing to express his hope for reestablishing days of harmony between the West and Russia, between the West and the East. See this full 2-hour Tucker Carlson interview.

It is therefore highly unlikely that Mr. Navalny’s death was a Kremlin inside job. Just think, cui bono – who benefits?

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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The February 12, 2024 U.S. Senate vote on $14 billion to Israel shows the depravity of most of the members of the legislative body.

In particular it showed the hypocrisy of the two senators who are pastors of a Christian denominations as well as the shallowness of the few senators who called for a cease-fire and then voted for money to kill more Palestinians. Only three Senators who caucus with the Democrats voted against the funding—Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.)

Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) voted for $14 billion for Israel. He is a Baptist preacher from Georgia. For 19 years Warnock was the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr.’s former congregation. He is the fifth and youngest person to serve as Ebenezer’s senior pastor since its founding, and he has continued with the position while serving in the Senate.

Warnock was elected with the help of volunteers who came to Georgia from all over the country… and by funds from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that wanted desperately for the Democrats to be in charge of the Senate so that Israel super-supporter Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) would become the Senate majority leader. Schumer ties President Joe Biden as the strongest supporter for the state of Israel in the U.S. government. They both have protected the criminal actions of the state of Israel for decades, throughout Biden’s 36 years in the Senate, eight years as vice president, and now three years as president and Schumer’s 25 years in the Senate.

A small group of us caught Senator Warnock outside the door of the private entrance to his office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on February 12, less than 15 hours before the early morning vote on $14 billion to Israel to continue the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

In our appeal to his Christian values, we pleaded with him as a pastor, the only pastor in the Senate, to not vote for money for Israel to continue the killing in Gaza. He shook the hands of each in our group, our red-stained hands from our daily protests, symbolizing the blood on the hands of those protecting Israeli crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. Warnock thanked us for our comments but would not say he would call for a cease-fire, and he didn’t say he was voting for the money to Israel and why.

But, as an aside, Warnock mentioned that he was not the only pastor in the Senate. We asked who the other one was?

Image: Official portrait photograph of Senator James Lankford, the senior senator from Oklahoma (Official U.S. Senate photo by Dan Rios, from the Public Domain)

Warnock replied, “James Lankford,” to which our group gave a collective groan. Lankford is from Oklahoma and is known as an ultra-conservative and is a strong supporter of Israel. He said that Israel is fighting “morally” while Hamas is not. Lankford was for 15 years the director of student ministry for the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma.

During the 2022 Georgia run-off election, Warnock’s 2018 sermon in which he condemned Israel for directing fire at unarmed Palestinian protesters near Israel’s separation fence with the occupied Gaza Strip was dug up by opponent former Sen. Kelly Loeffler.

As an African-American church leader, Warnock certainly knew of Israeli apartheid actions in Gaza and the West Bank. In 2019, he signed a statement published on the website of the National Council of Churches which compared Israeli control of the West Bank to “previous oppressive regimes” such as “apartheid South Africa” and said that the “ever-present physical walls that wall in Palestinians” are “reminiscent of the Berlin Wall.”

The statement was signed by several Christian faith leaders who traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories in late February and early March of 2019 as part of a joint delegation including representatives of “historic Black denominations of the National Council of Churches” as well as “heads of South African church denominations of the South African Council of Churches.”

Despite his comments that challenged the Israeli apartheid treatment of Palestinians and Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza, Warnock interestingly received campaign donations from the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) and began parroting its agenda, which includes supporting unconditional aid for Israel; condemning the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement; and strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship. All of this to get another Democratic Senator so that Chuck Schumer would become the Senate majority leader.

15 hours after our conversation with Pastor Warnock, at 5:00 am in the morning of February 13, the two Christian pastors in the U.S. Senate voted for $14 billion for Israel to continue the killing of massive numbers of Palestinians.

Would Martin Luther King, Jr. be proud of Ebenezer Church Senior Pastor Warnock? I think not!

As Warnock is a pastor in the footsteps and in the church of Martin Luther King Jr., one is quite sure that MLK in heaven is not pleased with Pastor Warnock’s vote for more military funding for Israel and for Ukraine.

One hopes that MLK comes to Warnock in his dreams to give him counsel for any future votes, votes that one would hope would reflect an abhorrence to genocide instead of bowing to Israeli political pressure.

[From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.]

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Ann Wright is a 29 year US Army/Army Reserves veteran who retired as a Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. In December 2001 she was on the small team that reopened the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the co-author of the book “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”

Featured image: Warnock with President Biden at Ebenezer Baptist Church, 2023 (Source: Public Domain)

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Israel is waging a concerted campaign aimed at destroying UNRWA, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said in an interview published Saturday.

Philippe Lazzarini said calls for his resignation were part of the Israeli government’s push.

“Right now we are dealing with an expanded, concerted campaign by Israel aimed at destroying UNRWA,” he told the Swiss newspaper group Tamedia.

“It is a long-term political goal because it is believed that if the aid agency is abolished, the status of the Palestinian refugees will be resolved once and for all – and with it, the right of return. There is a much larger political goal behind this.

“Just look at the number of actions Israel is taking against UNRWA,” the main aid body in the Gaza Strip, he said.

He cited measures in the Israeli parliament, moves to remove the agency’s VAT exemption and orders for contractors at Israel’s port of Ashdod to “stop handling certain food deliveries for UNRWA”.

“And all these demands come from the government.”

Furthermore, Lazzarini says more than 150 UNRWA installations have been hit since the Gaza war began.

Israel has called for Lazzarini to step down following claims that a Hamas tunnel had been discovered under its evacuated Gaza City headquarters.

Lazzarini said the tunnel was 20 metres below ground and UNRWA as a humanitarian organisation did not have the capabilities to be examining what was underground in Gaza.

Analysis: Israeli accusations against UNRWA are part of a long-running interest in disbanding the UN agency and nullifying the issue of Palestinian refugees

The end of UNRWA? Why Israel is targeting the Palestinian refugee agency ⬇️

✍️ @langloisajlhttps://t.co/sHsv3cBTXx

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) February 5, 2024

He also said Israel was alone in calling for him to quit and there was “no reason” to comply with a single UN member state’s demand for him to go, “especially since my resignation would not improve the situation at UNRWA”.

“The criticisms are not concerned with me personally, but with the organisation as a whole. The calls for resignation are part of the campaign to destroy UNRWA”, he said.

Israel has killed more than 28,800 people since it began its unprecedented air and ground assault on Gaza on October 7, following the surprise attack by Hamas in southern Israel which left about 1,160 dead.

Hamas took more than 250 people hostage, around 130 of whom are still in Gaza – including 30 who are presumed dead from Israeli airstrikes.

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Featured image: Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) holds press conference in Jerusalem on October 27, 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stirred controversy when he said,

“What is happening in the Gaza Strip and with the Palestinian people did not exist at any other historical moment. Or rather, it did: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”

He continued,

“It is not a war between soldiers and soldiers. It is a war between a well equipped army on the one hand and women and children on the other.”

Lula is not the first world leader to compare Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to Hitler over his actions in Gaza — Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan made the same comparison.

Since Hitler murdered six million Jews, the comparison is hurtful. It could also be rejected on grounds of scale. Hitler not only killed all those European Jews, he also killed 6 million Poles. And consider Ukraine:

“of the 41.7 million people living in Ukrainian Soviet Republic before the war, only 27.4 million were alive in Ukraine in 1945. Official data says that at least 8 million Ukrainians lost their lives: 5.5 – 6 million civilians, and more than 2.5 million natives of Ukraine were killed at the front. The data varies between 8 to 14 million killed, however, only 6 million have been identified.”

While Netanyahu’s policies are not like those of Nazi Germany in almost any respect if we consider absolute numbers and consider the scale of killing, Lula is not completely in error if we consider more qualitative aspects of history and look to European fascism as a whole and not just the German National Socialists (who were peculiar in many ways).

First: Keeping People Stateless on the Basis of Ethnicity

For instance, the Fascists stripped citizenship from millions of people and made them stateless, without the rights that come from a direct relationship to a state of their own. Chief Justice Earl Warren defined citizenship as “the right to have rights.”

Hitler took citizenship from German Jews but also from the Roma and from persons of African heritage.

Netanyahu keeps 5.5 million Palestinians in the occupied territories stateless and without citizenship. So his policies in this narrow regard are similar to those of the National Socialists in the 1930s. In essence, the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are living under something like the Nuremberg Laws. Their establishments and homes are attacked by militant Israeli squatters with impunity in a sort of rolling Kristallnacht.

Note that by Israeli law, Israeli squatters in the occupied Palestinian territories have all the citizenship rights of other Israelis. So the lack of rights on the West Bank is not territorial. It is by ethnicity.

Netanyahu has boasted about derailing the Oslo Peace Accords and presents himself as the only one who can prevent a Palestinian state from being established. He reiterated his opposition to any international diplomatic track that leads to a Palestinian state just this weekend.

Second: Deprivation of Basic Individual Rights

Another feature of Fascism, underlined by Robert Paxton, is the elimination of individual rights. Israel’s regime over the occupied, stateless Palestinians fully demonstrates this feature. Palestinians can be arrested under “administrative detention” without charge or trial or habeas corpus and held for months or years. We have seen a treatment of detained Palestinians in Gaza that constitutes war crimes. It is alleged that forms of torture are practiced.

Third: Total War

Netanyahu’s Gaza campaign has demonstrated a reckless disregard for the lives of innocent noncombatants, who make up nearly all of the nearly 30,000 people so far killed, and who have been deprived of domiciles and sufficient food and potable water by the Israeli military.

Total war was adopted as a military strategy by fascist states, according to historian Alan Kramer. One academic summarized his argument:

“Kramer indicated a very interesting question regarding the specificity of the kind of war implemented by fascist regimes during the thirties and the forties, characterized by its genocidal nature and opened, according to him, with the colonial war launched by Italy in Abyssinia [Ethiopia] in 1935. Kramer underlined that the specificity of this particular way of waging war typical of fascism would define itself by the final elimination of the «distinction between combatants and non-combatants», pointing how in the six years of this conflict between 350.000 and 760.000 Ethiopians were killed, victims of an asymmetric war based on the overwhelming use of air force, chemical weapons and politics of collective terror against any sign of real or imagined resistance.”

The fascist way of war eliminates the distinction between combatants and non-combatants and wreaks mass death on the latter to achieve military aims. There doesn’t seem much doubt that Netanyahu is waging total war on Gaza and Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and a whole plethora of Israeli officials have repeatedly insisted that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza. This, even though half of Gaza’s population consists children.

Total war easily leads to genocide, of course, which is why the International Court of Justice has found it at least plausible that Netanyahu is waging a genocide in Gaza, attempting to destroy a people in part or in whole because of who they are.

So, no, Netanyahu is not a Hitler. But, yes, his policies bear a strong resemblance to those of inter-war Fascism.

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Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page 

Featured image is from Informed Comment

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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As part of its genocide against the Gaza Strip that has been ongoing since 7 October 2023, the Israeli army has been using small drones (or quadcopters) to fire directly at Palestinians, killing and injuring many of them, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has documented.

Israel’s army has increased its use of electronic-controlled quadcopters—which were previously restricted to use for intelligence purposes—for killing and injuring Palestinians. The Israeli army has escalated its premeditated murders, extrajudicial executions, and judicial killings against Palestinian civilians through direct targeting with snipers and drones in various regions of the Gaza Strip, in addition to aerial and artillery bombardment of residential areas, Euro-Med Monitor said.

According to the rights organisation, Israeli sniping operations, killings, and executions primarily target unarmed civilians in shelter centres, hospitals, streets, and populated residential areas; these civilians pose no threat or danger to anyone, as they are not participants in any hostilities.

Based on investigations conducted by Euro-Med Monitor, the Israeli army is using small killer drones fitted with machine guns and missiles from the Matrice 600 and LANIUS categories, which are highly mobile and versatile, i.e. ideal for short-term operations. Their systems can automatically search buildings and create maps to identify possible targets; carry lethal or non-lethal payloads; and carry out a variety of missions for military personnel and special forces.

These drones have killed dozens of civilians, confirmed Euro-Med Monitor, by firing automatic machine guns mounted beneath the aircraft at random gatherings or by shooting directly at people.

The rights group documented the 12 February killing of two brothers, Muhib Osama Ezz El-Din Abu Jama, 19, and Elyas Osama Ezz El-Din Abu Jama, 17, who was mentally and physically disabled, in Rafah’s Al-Shaboura refugee camp, in the south of the Gaza Strip. “We heard gunfire around us at around 1:45 in the evening,” Osama, the father of the two victims, told the Euro-Med Monitor team. “Not knowing what was going on, as we were inside the tents, I went outside to look around and saw everyone running. Hearing gunfire, my boys woke up and asked what was going on.”

Osama stated that “in less than a minute” a quadcopter overhead started shooting “right at our tent”. He was wounded, he said, and two of his sons were killed, one of whom had both mental and physical disabilities. “Then we left the tent and ran so that I could protect what was left of my children,” he continued. “We entered somebody’s house, and I kept bleeding for three hours, until the ambulance arrived and took me to the hospital.”

He added that, “After bringing me to the Kuwaiti Hospital, which was unable to treat me, they moved me to Abu Youssef Al-Najjar Hospital [in Khan Yunis], where they bandaged my wound, retained the shrapnel, and informed me that they would check on the injury later [due to crowding].”

On the same day (12 February), Euro-Med documented the killing of 16-year-old Mahmoud Alaa Awad Al-Assar and his 21-year-old sister, Asmaa Alaa Awad Al-Assar. An Israeli quadcopter shot the siblings north of Badr Camp, northwest of the city of Rafah.

The rights group also received reports of the killing of two Palestinians and the grave injury of a third on 8 February, after an Israeli quadcopter drone opened fire at a refugee school near Al Awda schools, east of Khan Yunis.The Geneva-based organisation pointed to the killing of another Palestinian civilian by an Israeli quadcopter on the very same day; the victim was killed while trying to access the Internet on the roof of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis.

Another victim, Muhammad Diab Abdel Qader Barhoum, was shot and killed by a quadcopter drone on 4 February, just before noon, as he was heading to the town of Al-Nasr, north of Rafah City, to feed his sheep. Euro-Med Monitor also stated that four more Palestinians, including two children, were killed on 21 January when quadcopter planes opened fire on Al-Aqsa University, which houses thousands of displaced people, west of Khan Yunis.

The rights group also reported that Israeli quadcopter drones opened fire on Palestinians who had gathered to receive flour brought by United Nations trucks. Fifty Palestinians were killed and dozens more were injured during the 11 January incident. Testimonies gathered by Euro-Med Monitor indicate that dozens of residents gathered on Al-Rashid Street, which had been devastated by Israeli bulldozers in recent weeks, and were awaiting the arrival of the trucks. The quadcopter drones arrived suddenly, however, and started shooting at the residents.

The surviving residents fled the area and managed to transfer the wounded, while the dead remained on the ground. Later that day, the aid trucks arrived, and hundreds of residents gathered again in the hope of receiving a share of flour, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the northern Gaza Valley are currently starving for the fourth consecutive month now. Euro-Med Monitor said that numerous people were killed or injured in similar shooting incidents that have now occurred at least six times later in the area, which is close to the Kuwait roundabout on Salah al-Din Road, south of Gaza City.

Euro-Med Monitor also drew attention to the killing of 13-year-old Amir Odeh on 24 December 2023. Odeh was shot in the chest by a quadcopter drone while in a room at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s (PRCS) headquarters in Khan Yunis. ”Amir was suddenly hit by a gunshot fired from a quadcopter through the window of the room,” the child’s father told the Euro-Med Monitor team, “while the youngster was playing with his cousins in a room on the eighth floor of the PRCS building, to which we had been evacuated.”

He added, “I carried Amir, who had a wound on the left side of his chest, to Al-Amal Hospital, which is housed within the PRCS’s main office, where he was proclaimed dead.”

Yet another Israeli drone fired a missile at a man on 3 February who was riding a small electric bicycle several metres south of the Palestine Street and Al-Thawra Street intersection in Gaza City, killing him at the scene. The victim was identified as Jihad Muhammad Jumaa Al-Dardasawi, 50, a resident of Al-Turkman neighbourhood in the area of Al-Shujaiya, east of Gaza City. Initial examination of the corpse revealed that Al-Dardasawi was directly targeted by an Israeli drone, resulting in multiple holes in his body, including at least four in his back and one in his thigh; a closer look at the crime scene and a video clip confirm that Al-Dardasawi was the target of a tiny missile, the shrapnel of which scattered and left dozens of craters and openings in a nearby wall.

An Israeli drone fired the missile at Al-Dardasawi, killing him, according to an eyewitness who spoke with the Euro-Med Monitor researcher who recorded the incident. The target area was not experiencing any fighting at the time of the missile launch, the eyewitness stated.

Since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, hundreds of Palestinian civilians have been killed or wounded by Israeli snipers and quadcopter drones, in addition to those killed during the Israeli army’s ground incursions, which began at the end of October 2023. More recently, Israel has started to use quadcopter drones in a systematic and widespread manner to carry out extrajudicial executions and premeditated killings of Palestinian civilians, according to testimonies gathered by Euro-Med Monitor. These drones are used in particular against civilians who attempt to return and inspect their homes after the Israeli military retreats from areas it has attacked by land or air.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, health workers have noticed that the bodies of most victims of the aforementioned executions and field killings show evidence of unusual gunshots, which differ from ordinary gunshots in that they leave a different shape on the victim’s body when they penetrate it. This is because they are not bullets fired from rifle-type weapons, but from quadcopter drones. Because of their frequent presence in the airspace, Euro-Med Monitor noted that these particular aircraft are also being used to terrorise, intimidate, and harm the psychological well-being of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army converted this drone—which was originally designed to be used for photography—into an air weapon for intelligence gathering, and has subsequently repurposed it for the deliberate and direct execution of unlawful targets. Developed by Israeli military industries, the quadcopter drones are one meter in diameter, with various capabilities and tactical features. They are easy to programme and operate electronically remotely, with a design akin to that of helicopters. These drones have very precise eavesdropping instruments and high-quality cameras, and can carry out additional military duties like shooting and carrying bombs, as well as be modified to become suicide drones.

Euro-Med Monitor emphasised that while drones are not illegal weapons, as in weapons that are prohibited internationally, their use must adhere to international humanitarian law regulations that apply to armed conflicts, just like any other weapon that is allowed to be used. Importantly, these regulations ensure respect for the principles of distinction and proportionality, and require taking all necessary precautions before carrying out a military attack.

Given their advanced technology and advantages over most other weapons, such as their ability to monitor areas with cameras, conduct real-time surveillance, and accurately track, fire at, and move quickly with a target, Euro-Med Monitor emphasised that the main goal of using these drones as weapons in other armed conflicts has been to prevent or reduce civilian casualties in military attacks. Now, however, Israel is intentionally using them to target Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, the rights group contended; this is evident as the majority of Israel’s targeting takes place in public spaces where it is easy to distinguish fighters from civilians, and because the Israeli military flies planes over the areas it targets for periods of time that are long enough to allow for the precise monitoring and evaluation of field conditions, plus most of the killings occur within a close targeting range.

In a primary report submitted to UN special rapporteurs and the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) last December, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented dozens of cases of field executions carried out by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. The rights group requested an immediate investigation into these crimes, calling for the perpetrators to be held accountable, and justice for all victims. It also called on the parties to take a position opposing the widespread killing operations carried out by Israeli forces targeting Palestinian civilians, especially the field executions and physical liquidations in the Gaza Strip.

In addition, Euro-Med Monitor demanded the establishment of an international legal team, commitment to secure its entry into the Gaza Strip, and the initiation of an inquiry into these and other instances of Palestinian civilians being killed by Israeli forces. The rights group reiterated that the UN special rapporteurs and the ICC Prosecutor must facilitate the launch of international human rights committees that would visit the Strip and document the magnitude of Israel’s crimes against Palestinian civilians.

According to international human rights law, Israeli extrajudicial and judicial executions of Palestinian civilians—whether through direct liquidation or sniping and shooting operations—violate their right to life, stressed Euro-Med Monitor. The Geneva Conventions classify them as war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and they are a fundamental component of the genocide that Israel has been committing against the Gaza Strip’s inhabitants since 7 October 2023.

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Julian Assange will make his final appeal this week to the British courts to avoid extradition. If he is extradited it is the death of investigations into the inner workings of power by the press.

If Julian Assange is denied permission to appeal his extradition to the United States before a panel of two judges at the High Court in London this week, he will have no recourse left within the British legal system. His lawyers can ask the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a stay of execution under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.” But it is far from certain that the British court will agree. It may order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction or may decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard by the court.

The nearly 15-year-long persecution of Julian, which has taken a heavy toll on his physical and psychological health, is done in the name of extradition to the U.S. where he would stand trial for allegedly violating 17 counts of the 1917 Espionage Act, with a potential sentence of 170 years. 

Julian’s “crime” is that he published classified documents, internal messages, reports and videos from the U.S. government and U.S. military in 2010, which were provided by U.S. army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. This vast trove of material revealed massacres of civilians, torture, assassinations, the list of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and the conditions they were subjected to, as well as the Rules of Engagement in Iraq. Those who perpetrated these crimes — including the U.S. helicopter pilots who gunned down two Reuters journalists and 10 other civilians and severely injured two children, all captured in the Collateral Murder video — have never been prosecuted. 

Julian exposed what the U.S. empire seeks to airbrush out of history. 

Julian’s persecution is an ominous message to the rest of us. Defy the U.S. imperium, expose its crimes, and no matter who you are, no matter what country you come from, no matter where you live, you will be hunted down and brought to the U.S. to spend the rest of your life in one of the harshest prison systems on earth. If Julian is found guilty it will mean the death of investigative journalism into the inner workings of state power. To possess, much less publish, classified material — as I did when I was a reporter for The New York Times — will be criminalized. And that is the point, one understood by The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El País and The Guardian, who issued a joint letter calling on the U.S. to drop the charges against him.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other federal lawmakers voted on Thursday for the United States and Britain to end Julian’s incarceration, noting that it stemmed from him “doing his job as a journalist” to reveal “evidence of misconduct by the U.S.”

The legal case against Julian, which I have covered from the beginning and will cover again in London this week, has a bizarre Alice-in-Wonderland quality, where judges and lawyers speak in solemn tones about law and justice while making a mockery of the most basic tenants of civil liberties and jurisprudence.

How can hearings go forward when the Spanish security firm at the Ecuadorian Embassy, UC Global, where Julian sought refuge for seven years, provided videotaped surveillance of meetings between Julian and his lawyers to the CIA, eviscerating attorney-client privilege? This alone should have seen the case thrown out of court. 

How can the Ecuadorian government led by Lenin Moreno violate international law by rescinding Julian’s asylum status and permit London Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian Embassy — sovereign territory of Ecuador — to carry Julian to a waiting police van? 

Why did the courts accept the prosecution’s charge that Julian is not a legitimate journalist? 

Why did the United States and Britain ignore Article 4 of their Extradition Treaty that prohibits extradition for political offenses? 

How is the case against Julian allowed to go ahead after the key witness for the United States, Sigurdur Thordarson – a convicted fraudster and pedophile – admitted to fabricating the accusations he made against Julian? 

How can Julian, an Australian citizen, be charged under the U.S. Espionage Act when he did not engage in espionage and wasn’t based in the U.S when he received the leaked documents? 

Image: Julian Assange was secretly recorded while living at the Ecuadorean embassy in London. (Source: EPV)

Why are the British courts permitting Julian to be extradited to the U.S. when the CIA — in addition to putting Julian under 24-hour video and digital surveillance while in the Ecuadorian Embassy — considered kidnapping and assassinating him, plans that included a potential shoot-out on the streets of London with involvement by the Metropolitan Police? 

How can Julian be condemned as a publisher when he did not, as Daniel Ellsberg did, obtain and leak the classified documents he published? 

Why is the U.S. government not charging the publisher of The New York Times or The Guardian with espionage for publishing the same leaked material in partnership with WikiLeaks? 

Why is Julian being held in isolation in a high-security prison without trial for nearly five years when his only technical violation of the law is breaching bail conditions when he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy? Normally this would entail a fine. 

Why was he denied bail after he was sent to HM Prison Belmarsh? 

If Julian is extradited, his judicial lynching will get worse. His defense will be stymied by U.S. anti-terrorism laws, including the Espionage Act and Special Administrative Measures (SAMs). He will continue being blocked from speaking to the public — except on a rare occasion — and being released on bail. He will be tried in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia where most espionage cases have been won by the U.S. government. That the jury pool is largely drawn from those who work for or have friends and relatives who work for the CIA, and other national security agencies that are headquartered not far from the court, no doubt contributes to this string of court decisions.

The British courts, from the inception, have made the case notoriously difficult to cover, severely limiting seats in the courtroom, providing video links that have been faulty, and in the case of the hearing this week, prohibiting anyone outside of England and Wales, including journalists who had previously covered the hearings, from accessing a link to what are supposed to be public proceedings.

As usual, we are not informed about schedules or timetables. Will the court render a decision at the end of the two-day hearing on Feb. 20 and Feb. 21? Or will it wait weeks, even months, to render a ruling as it has previously? Will it permit the ECtHR to hear the case or immediately railroad Julian to the U.S.? I have my doubts about the High Court passing the case to the ECtHR, given that the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, which created the ECtHR, along with their Commissioner for Human Rights, oppose Julian’s “detention, extradition and prosecution” because it represents “a dangerous precedent for journalists.” Will the court honor Julian’s request to be present in the hearing, or will he be forced to remain in the high-security HM Prison Belmarsh in Thamesmead, south east London, as has also happened before? No one is able to tell us.  

Julian was saved from extradition in January 2021 when District Judge Vanessa Baraitser at Westminster Magistrates’ Court refused to authorize the extradition request. In her 132-page ruling, she found that there was a “substantial risk” Julian would commit suicide due to the severity of the conditions he would endure in the U.S. prison system. But this was a slim thread. The judge accepted all the charges leveled by the U.S. against Julian as being filed in good faith. She rejected the arguments that his case was politically motivated, that he would not get a fair trial in the U.S. and that his prosecution is an assault on the freedom of the press.

Baraitser’s decision was overturned after the U.S. government appealed to the High Court in London. Although the High Court accepted Baraitser’s conclusions about Julian’s “substantial risk” of suicide if he was subjected to certain conditions within a U.S. prison, it also accepted four assurances in U.S. Diplomatic Note no. 74, given to the court in February 2021, which promised Julian would be treated well.

The U.S. government claimed in the diplomatic note that its assurances “entirely answer the concerns which caused the judge [in the lower court] to discharge Mr. Assange.” The “assurances” state that Julian will not be subject to SAMs. They promise that Julian, an Australian citizen, can serve his sentence in Australia if the Australian government requests his extradition. They promise he will receive adequate clinical and psychological care. They promise that, pre-trial and post-trial, Julian will not be held in the Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, Colorado.

It sounds reassuring. But it is part of the cynical judicial pantomime that characterizes Julian’s persecution.

No one is held pre-trial in ADX Florence. ADX Florence is also not the only supermax prison in the U.S. where Julian can be imprisoned. He could be placed in one of our other Guantanamo-like facilities in a Communications Management Unit (CMU). CMUs are highly restrictive units that replicate the near total isolation imposed by SAMs. The “assurances” are not legally binding. All come with escape clauses. 

Should Julian do “something subsequent to the offering of these assurances that meets the tests for the imposition of SAMs or designation to ADX” he will, the court conceded, be subject to these harsher forms of control. If Australia does not request a transfer it “cannot be a cause for criticism of the USA, or a reason for regarding the assurances as inadequate to meet the judge’s concerns,” the ruling reads. And even if that were not the case, it would take Julian 10 to 15 years to appeal his sentence up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which would be more than enough time to destroy him psychologically and physically. Amnesty International said the “assurances are not worth the paper they are written on.” 

Julian’s lawyers will attempt to convince two High Court judges to grant him permission to appeal a number of the arguments against extradition which Judge Baraitser dismissed in January 2021. His lawyers, if the appeal is granted, will argue that prosecuting Julian for his journalistic activity represents a “grave violation” of his right to free speech; that Julian is being prosecuted for his political opinions, something which the U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty does not allow; that Julian is charged with “pure political offenses” and the U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty prohibits extradition under such circumstances; that Julian should not be extradited to face prosecution where the Espionage Act “is being extended in an unprecedented and unforeseeable way”; that the charges could be amended resulting in Julian facing the death penalty; and that Julian will not receive a fair trial in the U.S. They are also asking for the right to introduce new evidence about CIA plans to kidnap and assassinate Julian.

If the High Court grants Julian permission to appeal, a further hearing will be scheduled during which time he will argue his appeal grounds. If the High Court refuses to grant Julian permission to appeal, the only option left is to appeal to the ECtHR. If he is unable to take his case to the ECtHR he will be extradiated to the U.S.

The decision to seek Julian’s extradition, contemplated by Barack Obama’s administration, was pursued by Donald Trump’s administration following WikiLeaks’ publication of the documents known as Vault 7, which exposed the CIA’s cyberwarfare programs, including those designed to monitor and take control of cars, smart TVs, web browsers and the operating systems of most smart phones. 

The Democratic Party leadership became as bloodthirsty as the Republicans following WikiLeaks’ publishing of tens of thousands of emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and senior Democratic officials, including those of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman during the 2016 presidential election. 

The Podesta emails exposed that Clinton and other members of Obama’s administration knew that Saudi Arabia and Qatar — which had both donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation — were major funders of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They revealed transcripts of three private talks Clinton gave to Goldman Sachs — for which she was paid $675,000 — a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe. Clinton was seen in the emails telling the financial elites that she wanted “open trade and open borders” and believed Wall Street executives were best positioned to manage the economy, a statement that contradicted her campaign promises of financial reform. They exposed the Clinton campaign’s self-described “Pied Piper” strategy which used their press contacts to influence Republican primaries by “elevating” what they called “more extreme candidates,” to ensure Trump or Ted Cruz won their party’s nomination. They exposed Clinton’s advance knowledge of questions in a primary debate. The emails also exposed Clinton as one of the architects of the war and destruction of Libya, a war she believed would burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate. 

Journalists can argue that this information, like the war logs, should have remained secret. But if they do, they can’t call themselves journalists.

The Democratic leadership, which attempted to blame Russia for its election loss to Trump — in what became known as Russiagate — charged that the Podesta emails and the DNC leaks were obtained by Russian government hackers, although an investigation headed by Robert Mueller, the former FBI director, “did not develop sufficient admissible evidence that WikiLeaks knew of — or even was willfully blind to” any alleged hacking by the Russian state.

Julian is persecuted because he provided the public with the most important information about U.S. government crimes and mendacity since the release of the Pentagon Papers. Like all great journalists, he was nonpartisan. His target was power.

He made public the killing of nearly 700 civilians who had approached too closely to U.S. convoys and checkpoints, including pregnant women, the blind and deaf, and at least 30 children. 

He made public the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians and the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 to 89, at Guantánamo Bay detention camp. 

He showed us that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered U.S. diplomats to spy on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other U.N. representatives from China, France, Russia, and the U.K., spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords. 

He exposed that Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA backed the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing him with a murderous and corrupt military regime. 

He revealed that the United States secretly launched missile, bomb and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians. 

No other contemporary journalist has come close to matching his revelations.

Julian is the first. We are next. 

*

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Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.

Featured image: Assange – by Mr. Fish

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

In my essay on the death of Alexei Navalny published two days ago, I remarked at the end that once my live on air interview with TRT World several hours previous was put up on the internet I would provide the link.

Regrettably, it now appears that editors at the Turkish broadcaster overruled the journalists who took the interview.

The taped version never reached the internet. This is sad, but understandable given my direct accusations on air that ‘the Brits did it.’ The courtesies of NATO membership obviously won out over dissemination of a painful truth. So be it.

I note in passing that overall global viewer interest in the death of Navalny, as shown by visitor figures to the many broadcasts posted on youtube.com by television networks over the past two days have appeared to me to be very low.

I do not include here the videos on CNN, NBC and Al Jazeera which will catch an audience numbering 100,000 or more for whatever they post. Given that the main purpose of the ‘cancel Navalny’ operation was to wipe away the positive PR impact of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin that garnered 1 billion ‘hits,’ one may say that poor Alexei, MI6 asset that he was, died in vain.

The commentaries on Navalny’s demise put up by TRT itself came to between a few dozen ‘hits’ and several thousand ‘hits.’ I took special pleasure in seeing that the fraudulent ‘president in exile’ of Belarus, Tikhanovskaya, got something like 95 views for her remarks on Navalny. These vox populi figures give you the true ratings of Navalny’s importance, not the propagandistic 5 and 10 minute segments you will watch on BBC News in this Sunday morning’s news wrap-up.

When I published my article, I held back part of my analysis of Navalny’s death so as to leave some points for readers to discover in the video. Now I will publish those points below.

*

These remarks concern first of all the question of why the U.K. might have been interested in arranging the murder of Navalny for the sake of fomenting a burst of anti-Russian, anti-Putin passions.

As I said to my interviewer, Britain is actively engaged in a not-so-secret war against Russia. It has provided the sea-going surface drones that have damaged or sunk several ships of the RF Black Sea fleet. It has encouraged and assisted the several attacks on the Crimea bridge since the start of the Special Military Operation. It is facilitating what might be called acts of terror against the Russian homeland.

A news brief in RIA Novosti this morning sets out the claim that the shoot-down over Belgorod oblast  (RF) a couple of weeks ago of an IL-76 Russian transport plane was ordered and directed by British advisers to the Kiev regime without the consent of the Kiev military unit responsible for air defense. Just remember that the plane was downed by US made Patriot missiles which are very costly and of which Kiev has a very limited supply. Normally the Patriots would be launched only after approval by top Ukrainian military and political officials. That plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war about to be exchanged for Russian POWs. The fact that a prisoner exchange nonetheless went ahead despite the tragedy seemed implausible at the time unless you consider that the Ukrainian side had nothing to do with the jet’s downing and probably persuaded the Russians of that fact. The Brits did it!

Looking back at the early days of the war, we know full well that the peace treaty which Russian and Ukrainian negotiators initialed in Istanbul in week five of the war was sabotaged by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson during his visit to Kiev. He urged Zelensky to fight on, with Western assistance, and in this way the UK is responsible for the deaths of half a million Ukrainian males in the fighting ever since.

I rest there my case of deep British involvement in the Ukraine war and in doing what they can to harm and discredit Russia. But then, as some readers wrote in, how could British forces reach so far into Russia as the remote penal colony in the North where Navalny was being held and carry out his murder? The answer is very simple: they did it by proxy.

As we know from occasional news items on fires, explosions and other acts of sabotage being carried out deep inside Russia, the Ukrainian intelligence agencies have many operatives working clandestinely inside the Russian Federation. They are all native Russian speakers, without a hint of some cockney accent, and they can travel anywhere. They work hand in glove with their British comrades in arms. Once near the penal colony, it would be child’s play to smuggle inside any chemical agent they wished to provoke the embolism said to have caused Navalny’s death. And for money, any number of fellow inmates would have been ready to administer the poison.

And so, to paraphrase Annalena Baerbock, I say: take that Rishi Sunak!

*

In my article I pointed to the remarkable timing of the murder of Navalny, coming as it has in the month before Russian presidential elections, just as happened six years ago when the Skripal poisonings in Salisbury, U.K. captured global news to the detriment of Vladimir Putin. However, there is also other circumstantial evidence that the death/murder of Navalny was not some fortuitous medical accident but a carefully planned false flag operation in which the Brits, having lost empire, army and fleets still remain world class.

Let us note that his death came the day before the opening of the Munich Security Conference at which so many leaders of the Collective West were gathering for the purpose of condemning Russia as an autocratic and predatory state and to pressure the U.S. Congress to appropriate further funding and arms shipments to Ukraine.  There was Zelensky taking the podium to condemn the supposed Navalny-slayer Vladimir Putin. And there was the wife, now widow of Alexei Navalny speaking to reporters at the Munich Conference to vow revenge on Putin. How interesting that she had been invited to Munich beforehand, as if the planners knew of the coming death well in advance.

However much the jackals of our mainstream media seek to dominate world news with the latest false flag operation against Russia, it will all be for nothing. The full victory of Russian forces in the pivotal city of Avdiivka, just outside Donetsk city reported by Russian Defense Minister Shoigu to Vladimir Putin before television cameras yesterday demonstrates clearly which way this war is going.

Navalny is dead, the dogs are braying, and the caravan moves on.

*

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

In this article I provide extracts from my book No Worries No Virus. The book details:

• comprehensive evidence of the Covid-19 hoax;
• technical analysis and evidence showing that a Covid-19 virus causing disease simply does not exist (no evidence of being isolated, ever);
• evidence the pandemic situation was planned with a purpose;
• analysis indicating the Covid-19 death numbers are fraudulent;
• flawed modelling and false case numbers used to justify world lockdown;
• the fraudulent Covid-19 PCR test used to create false case numbers;
• the work of Dr Stefan Lanka and other experts demonstrating that pathogenic viruses causing disease do not exist – virology took a wrong turn
• relevant world events between 1913 to 2019 that help one gain a deeper realisation of the agenda behind the Covid-19 world lockdown; 
• analysis of the World Economic Forum technocratic reset agenda.

Definition of a Pandemic Was Changed by the WHO – It’s a Pandemic Even if No One Dies

A crucial step in implementing the Covid-19 pandemic hoax was that the definition of a pandemic needed to be significantly changed prior to Covid-19. The WHO advisory group needed to be able to declare a pandemic even when there was not an enormous number of deaths and illnesses obvious in the community. They did this 14 years ago, just prior to the swine flu pandemic hoax by removing the requirement “for there to be enormous numbers of deaths and illnesses to an infectious agent”. The new definition simply states “a global pandemic can be declared when there are more cases of that disease than normal”. The reason for this drastic change of definition was never explained. In this new definition, any flu could be quickly turned into a pandemic. Thus, a pandemic could now be declared even if no one was dying from the disease.

Remember the 2009/2010 Swine Flu Fraud – A Trial Run for the 2020 Covid-19 Hoax

The WHO had persuaded countries, including Germany and Ireland, to agree to purchase vaccines if a pandemic was declared. With this new pandemic definition in place, the WHO, which is an organisation closely linked with the vaccine companies, declared the swine flu pandemic in 2009 with absolutely no evidence. The result was that swine flu vaccines were sold to governments on the basis of ‘sleeping’ contracts in which governments had agreed to purchase vaccines in the event of a declared pandemic. However, the swine was by no means the deadly killer virus that the pharmaceutical corporations and the WHO stated it was. They predicted millions of deaths ‘if’ people didn’t get vaccinated, but in reality, there were hardly any deaths from swine flu at all, if any. Sound familiar? 

In Germany, the virologist, Mr. Drosten, was one of those creating panic in the population, repeatedly stating over and over again that the swine flu would kill millions of people. This corporate hoax was exposed by Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, who was a member of the German Bundestag.

Most of the German people rejected the swine flu vaccine and millions of doses of the vaccine had to be destroyed. In 2010, the Irish government was also obliged to purchase several million vaccine doses for the H1N1 swine flu.

The so-called ‘expert advisors’ that advised the governments were later exposed. It appears they had received large ‘kickbacks’ from the swine flu vaccine manufacturers[1]. This appears to have been a clear case of rigged market fraud producing billions of dollars of profits for pharmaceutical companies, whilst the taxpayers of these countries footed the bill. However, no-one was held to account. Could this have been a trial run for the 2020 Covid-19 hoax?      

The Covid-19 pandemic appears to have been a repeat of this formula on a worldwide scale to create a rigged market worth potentially trillions of dollars via the sale of over 50 billion vaccines; and to create fear and social chaos. This facilitated increased government control via so-called health measures including mass vaccination.

Note also that in Germany the Covid-19 pandemic appeared to have been declared based on one opinion – the same person as in the swine flu hoax. In March, 2020, the German Bundestag announced an Epidemic Situation of National Importance, and, based on this announcement, all essential constitutional rights were suspended for an unforeseeable time. It appears that this government decision was based on only a single opinion, i.e., that of Mr. Drosten, and was, therefore, a violation of the principle of listening to both sides before making a decision. It appears that Mr. Drosten is the same person whose scare-mongering tactics were central to the swine flu hoax/corporate scam 12 years earlier. 

Creating Invisible Enemies – ‘Viruses’ Become Enemies of the World’s Governments

After the so-called ‘fall of communism’ in The Soviet Union in 1990, the NATO powers had no more enemies left to fight. However, the military-industrial complex of mega-corporations needed countries to have ‘enemies’ so that heightened tensions and even wars might take place. The obvious outcome of this ratcheting up of geopolitical tensions invariably leads to vast arms sales and increased military budgets being justified. Communism in The Soviet Union was to be replaced by a more capitalist system, and the elites realised that they were running out of enemies that would justify vast government expenditure on military contracts. 

[Aside: The deeper story of the connection between western capitalist banks and communism in Russia is referred to in my book Transcending the Climate Change Deception Toward Real Sustainability. Both capitalism and communism have been, in reality, just tools used by a group of financialists that control world banking (commonly referred to as globalists) to achieve their plans of controlling the world’s wealth and resources.]

Enemies have often been fabricated or ‘hyped-up’ in order to create fear, anger, and angst amongst the general population, thereby justifying vast amounts of taxpayer’s money/government funding being spent on military-industrial projects. 

“I’m running out of Demons” – Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, while attempting to justify a $300 billion military in the post-cold-war era 

The owners of the mega-banks and mega-corporations of the military industrial complex are the real winners of every war as wars create vast debt and require huge amounts of industrial production. By 1990 it was time to ‘create’ more enemies. These enemies were to be terrorists and invisible viruses. A crisis has to be created that enables, or gives an excuse, for the government puppets to do what has been ‘advised’ by international institutions of the unelected world government, such as NATO, the UN, the WEF, and the WHO. 

After the terrible events of 911, which was clearly a controlled demolition, see the videos in this article, the event appears to have been used as an excuse to launch a ‘war on terror’ to find ‘invisible terrorists’.

My research indicates that the terrible events of 911 were pre-planned as a pre-text for implementing geo-political plans that had been drawn up years beforehand, including the invasion of seven countries in the middle-east. Amidst the ongoing debate about who was responsible for 911, I note that in an interview Dr Alan Sabrowsky, Director of Studies at the US Army War College, 2010, described with astonishing candor intriguing facts on the implication of Israel in 9/11 events that are by and large unheard of in mainstream media[2].

“It is 100% certain that 911 was a Mossad (Israeli intelligence) operation… all of them (the buildings) were wired for demolition… 911 has led directly to 60,000 Americans dead and wounded, God knows how many hundreds of thousands of people in other countries we have killed or wounded or made homeless, if Americans ever know that Israel did this they are going to scrub them off the earth… the Zionists are playing this as truly an all or nothing exercise…” – Dr Alan Sabrowsky, Director of Studies, US Army War College, 2010 

“Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and do that, let me tell you… We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it” – Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon 

The US then spent years supposedly chasing Osama Bin Laden, who, the world was told, was a terrorist hiding in a cave somewhere. In the US, ‘The Patriot Act’ was passed in which people’s freedoms and rights of privacy were encroached upon, sound familiar? You may recall also that there were months of corporate media propaganda priming the world population for a US invasion of Iraq. During that time, the media had spent months telling the world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. However, it was later proved that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at all. The invasion of Iraq had been justified by that lie. 

The next war was to be germ warfare against an invisible bio-terror, i.e., viruses.

My research indicates that simulation games/pandemic exercises took place from 1999 to 2005, and the Rockefeller ‘Lockstep’ scenario, a strategy for totalitarian control during a pandemic, was published in 2010. The people participating in these simulation games/pandemic exercises included senior government officials, leading journalists, high-ranking members of the bio-pharmaceutical industry, the WHO, etc., mass vaccinations were a regular part of these simulation games. 

According to researcher Paul Schreyer, the exercises were named ‘Dark Winter’ (2001), ‘Global Mercury’ (2003), ‘Atlantic Storm’ (2005), ‘Clade X’ (2018), and the infamous ‘Event 201’ (2019)[3]. The pandemic preparedness plans implemented after the so-called real Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 had been simulated and discussed for about 20 years. These previous simulations contained language, such as:

“The question is how and to what extent we enforce these things. How much violence do you use to keep people in their homes?… In the event of a pandemic basic civil rights, such as the right of assembly or freedom of movement could no longer be taken for granted”.  

Schreyer describes that, in 1998, a chapter titled ‘Twenty First Century Germ Warfare’, written by Homeland Security’s Biodefense Programs Director appeared in a Pentagon internal strategy paper, called ‘Battlefield of the Future: 21^st Century Warfare Issues’.

That same year, the Center for Civilian Bio-Defense was founded, it is now named the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University. So, now the US had a centre for ‘combatting the invisible enemy’, i.e., germs, and germs have been ‘re-packaged’ as a national bio-security threat. Note that that this centre was also a partner of the WEF event 201 pandemic simulation games that took place twenty years later in 2019.

Pandemic Exercises Since 1999 – Timeline to Covid-19 Launch

It is described by Paul Schreyer that pandemic simulation symposiums were held in 1999 and 2000, sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. In 2002, various governments launched initiatives to improve health security worldwide. These initiatives included testing for a flu pandemic and international level pandemic simulations. In 2003, the pandemic simulation ‘Global Mercury’ took place. This was a command-post exercise involving Global Health Security Agenda (GHSAG) nations. This group consisted of more than 70 countries, international and non-government organizations, private sector companies that had come together to combat global health threats posed by infectious diseases, as well as the WHO and the European Commission. The simulation included practising getting information to the media and eliminating all contrary information via censorship and ‘information flood’ strategies. In 2005, the pandemic simulation ‘Atlantic Storm’ took place. In this one, Madelaine Albright, played the US President. 

It appears that all these simulation exercises were also about the removal of human rights, mass vaccination, and authoritarian politics. In 2009, the aforementioned so-called ‘swine flu pandemic’, a trial run for Covid, was launched in the real world. In 2010, the Rockefeller ‘Scenarios for the Future’ document was published, which includes the infamous ‘Lockstep’ scenario. 

In 2017, health ministers from the G20 countries met for the first time ever in Berlin and exercised a pandemic scenario of a respiratory virus. In this same year, the International Advisory Board on Global Health was founded, including members from the Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust. In 2018, another pandemic scenario took place. The title of this one was: ‘High ranking elitist sect develop virus to reduce world’s population’. 

In October 2019, just 3 months before the so-called real pandemic, the infamous WEF Event 201 pandemic simulation exercise took place, this was a high-level coronavirus simulation exercise, and participants included high-level representatives from the Gates Foundation, The UN Foundation, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the vaccine manufacturer Johnson and Johnson, Edelman, major airline corporations, and a former Deputy Director of the CIA.

All these simulations were funded by ultra-rich foundations. Event 201 was attended by top representatives of governments and the ultra-rich mega-corporations of the world. This was their final practice run. Such people are the corporate arms and legs of the so-called elites.

Rockefeller Foundation Rehearsal and ‘Lockstep’ Strategy for Totalitarian Control

A document by the Rockefeller Foundation over a decade ago predicts, in detail, everything that has happened during Covid-19. It predicted the worldwide pandemic, worldwide lockdown, the collapse of the world economy, and the enforcement of authoritarian control. The document is titled ‘Scenario for the Future of Technology and International Development’.

That says it all: ‘a scenario for the future’. It has a chapter called ‘Lockstep’, in which a global pandemic is reported as if it had happened in the past, but which is obviously intended as a rehearsal of a future ‘means to control the population’. The Rockefeller document defines ‘Lockstep’ as:

“A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership”

The ‘Scenario for the Future’ compares two different responses to their predicted pandemic: the US only ‘strongly discouraged’ people from flying, while China enforced mandatory quarantine for all citizens. The US response is accused of being a health danger, while the enforcement of a lock-down is praised. The Lockstep document came to the conclusion that the only way to mitigate a worldwide pandemic was by using China’s hardcore police state lockdown as the model worldwide.

Then in March 2020, after the Covid-19 pandemic was ‘declared’ in real-life, nearly every government implemented almost the exact same plans, at the exact same time, as had been described in detail in the Rockefeller ‘Lockstep’ strategy. This is obviously not by chance or coincidence. The document describes the implementation of totalitarian controls – see a relevant excerpt below:

“The Chinese government’s quick imposition and enforcement of mandatory quarantine for all citizens, as well as its instant and near-hermetic sealing off of all borders, saved millions of lives, stopping the spread of the virus far earlier than in other countries and enabling a swifter post-pandemic recovery… During the pandemic, national leaders around the world flexed their authority and imposed airtight rules and restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of face masks to body-temperature checks at the entries to communal spaces like train stations and supermarkets.”

Obviously, the flexing of authority is the desired response. However, it gets worse, according to this ‘Scenario of the Future’:

“Even after the pandemic faded, this more authoritarian control and oversight of citizens and their activities stuck and even intensified….  In developed countries, this heightened oversight took many forms: biometric IDs for all citizens, for example, and tighter regulation of key industries whose stability was deemed vital to national interests.”

Rockefeller Handbook on Implementing Authoritarian Control During a Pandemic

In the above Rockefeller Foundation scenario, a global pandemic must result in increased control, where people happily surrender their freedom, in order to feel safe again. That was step one. The Rockefeller Foundation then came forward with step two, which was a handbook on how to implement new authoritarian control systems during a pandemic.  This handbook is titled ‘National Covid-19 Testing Action Plan – Pragmatic steps to re-open our workplaces and our communities’. The book recommends that all the required control mechanisms and networks are to be in place before the world society is allowed to open up again.

The overall plan becomes clear when you combine the two Rockefeller documents. Firstly, they declare a worldwide pandemic with a coronavirus and conclude what it should lead to, namely, a whole new police-state of authoritarian control based on the Chinese model. Secondly, they give practical recommendations on how to apply this control system. The following are illustrations and quotes from their handbook on authoritarian control:

‘Digital apps and privacy-protected tracking software should be widely used to enable more complete contact tracking…. In order to fully control the Covid-19 epidemic, we need to test the majority of the population on a weekly basis.’

In their ‘Scenario of the Future’, the entire world population should get a digital ID that indicates who has received all the vaccines. Those people without sufficient vaccinations would be denied access to schools, concerts, restaurants, churches, public transport, etc. When the Covid-19 pandemic was declared the above authoritarianism is exactly what seemingly almost all governments called for and implemented. 

Why Did Almost All Governments Respond in Unison to the Pandemic in the Exact Same Way?

Why did almost all governments worldwide comply and respond to the pandemic in almost the exact same way and with almost the exact same plans, at the exact same time, as had been described in detail in the Rockefeller ‘Lockstep’ strategy. The entire world was placed into ‘lockdown’, contact tracing was rapidly deployed, and plans for mass vaccination were unleashed everywhere. It was as if all governments of the world had been hypnotised to move in ‘lockstep’ by a stage hypnotist. Even a flock of sheep being herded by a sheep dog would not have moved in such a uniform fashion.

After the pandemic was declared ‘pandemic preparedness plans’ had been put into action. These plans were to be activated in all the WHO member countries when a pandemic was declared. The plans were initially crafted by corporate partners of the WHO, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Word Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. The corporate-mass-media played their corrupt part by psychologically priming the populations to hope for mass vaccination to save themselves from supposed impending death.

Various doctors and scientists were pointing out that the Covid PCR test was bogus, but these professionals were not given an input into public policy, nor were they given a platform on corporate and government media channels, and some even lost their jobs. Judy Wilyman, an expert who has carried out PhD research on government rationales for vaccination policy, sums up the situation, as follows: 

“The WHO is no longer using objective scientific information in the design of global health policies that all member countries have signed up to under the international health regulations. National governments have lost their sovereignty by signing up to these corporations and this is putting the human race at serious risk to their health and being able to be controlled and surveilled by the government. “ —Judy Wilyman PhD

Worldwide Contact Tracing Was Not to Control a Virus, It Was an Attempt to Control Humanity

Bill Gates has also talked about the utilisation of a digital ID to control people, asserting that only people who have taken the Covid-19 vaccines should be allowed to travel, go to school, attend meetings, and go to work[4]. Development programs for linking vaccines to digital ID’s had already been launched[5], and Gates already has a patent on the technology, called WO2020-060606, that enables the tracing of an individual’s body anywhere[6]. Furthermore, Gates had wanted to set up a worldwide monitoring network, which will track everyone who has come into contact with Covid-19[7].

Given the above information it is not surprising that contact tracking and tracing was rapidly introduced after the pandemic was declared, despite the numerous warnings about the threat of contact tracing to human freedom and privacy. In essence, those people aware of the fake pandemic that would not consent to this tracking and tracing, were in a state of conflict with their own governments, their own national institutions, and with almost all of the media.

Bio-metric Technology to Monitor the World Population

Big-tech and big-pharma want all of us connected to worldwide networks that can monitor us constantly. They would like to dictate to us whether we can move freely or not, during so-called pandemics.  In 2015, Richard Rothschild patented a method that involves the use of bio-metric technology to transmit a person’s health information to ‘the cloud’, where the data is analysed to indicate whether the person is suffering from a virus, such as so-called Covid-19, see the accompanying screenshot[8].

Why did Richard Rothschild, who is a lawyer, want to do this? When all this data is in ‘the cloud’, it can be used by the authorities to monitor and control us. In ‘the cloud’, the data is fed to artificial intelligence computer algorithms. The cloud technology is owned and controlled by big-tech, who we know are already involved in worldwide public-private partnerships with governments, for example, via the mechanisms of the WHO, the WEF, and various foundations. If contact tracing is established long-term, the worldwide monitoring of the population becomes entirely possible. This appears to be the future that these mega-narcissists have attempted to implement. 

Coronavirus Pandemic Simulation 3 Months Before the Real Coronavirus Pandemic 

Three months before the actual coronavirus pandemic was proclaimed by the WHO, Bill Gates, in partnership with the WEF and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, organized an event in New York City, called Event 201.

The event was a ‘Coronavirus pandemic simulation exercise’ and contained the slogan “We need to prepare for the event that becomes a pandemic”. Bill Gates organized a practice event for a worldwide coronavirus pandemic, right before the worldwide coronavirus pandemic happened. This was not a coincidence, the Event 201 simulation was in reality planning, practicing, and preparation for the ‘actual’ coronavirus pandemic. The participants in the simulation event include some of the same people that became deeply involved in fighting the so-called real pandemic and profiteering from it, as well. The following quotes are from the Event 201 Coronavirus pandemic simulation:

“we are at the start of what appears will be a severe pandemic and there are problems emerging that can only be solved by global business and governments working together” – Tom Ingelsby, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

“public health agencies have issued travel advisories while some countries have banned travel from the worst affected areas… Countries are reacting in different ways as to how best to manage the overwhelming amount of dis- and mis-information circulating over the internet, in some cases limited internet shutdowns are being implemented” – Coronavirus pandemic news broadcast simulation

“governments need to be willing to do things that are out of their historical perspective – it’s really a war footing that we need to be on” – Stephen Redd, U.S. Centers for Disease Control

“the social media platforms have to step forward…   partnering with the scientific and health communities to counterweight if not flood the zone of… information” – Matthew Harrington, Edelman 

“a step up on the part of the governments on enforcement actions against fake news” – Lavan Thiru, Monetary Authority of Singapore 

Shortly after this Coronavirus pandemic simulation, Bill Gates expressed his excitement about selling vaccines in the next year in the following tweet displayed below. In summary, the world’s no. 1 vaccine dealer guaranteed a global Coronavirus pandemic to occur in the next few years. He then organised a simulation for an imminent Coronavirus pandemic, stating that vaccines will be the only solution. Subsequently, he then tweets how excited he is about selling vaccines in the next year. About two months after that, the Covid-19 pandemic breaks out. As evidenced in my book No Worries No Virus the Covid case numbers were false as they were based on the bogus PCR test. Gates then proclaims that the only solution for humanity is to buy his vaccines. 

Smoking Gun: $100 Billion Bill Gates Contact TRACE Deal Six Months Before Covid-19

If you think all the above is a coincidence, then please examine the following conundrum: how can you negotiate a $100 billion deal involving the by-products of monitoring a pandemic via tracing technology in August 2019 i.e., six to seven months before the outbreak of the pandemic even happens? But that is exactly what Bill Gates did. It appears this smoking gun situation was first reported by experienced researchers John Moynihan and Larry Doyle. They reported how Bill Gates negotiated a $100 billion contact tracing deal with a Democrat Party congressman sponsor of the controversial testing reaching and contacting everyone (TRACE) act six months before the pandemic occurred[9].

John Moynihan and Larry Doyle described that:

• in the US, the controversial TRACE act was brought before the house by Bobby L Rush.
• representatives from the Gates foundation met with congressman Rush in Rwanda, east Africa, in mid-August 2019, to discuss who would score the windfall from a government contact tracing program. The event Rush travelled to was underwritten by the Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Fund.
• Why would you need to establish a government contact tracing program in August 2019? There was no pandemic then and no one was supposed to have even heard of Covid-19 at this stage. Just six months after this reported meeting the so-called pandemic hit and just nine months after the meeting Rush introduced the $100 billion HR6666 contact tracing TRACE act. 
• This established a CDC program for national contact testing and contact tracing. Amazingly, how did they know this $100 billion contact testing and tracing system was needed nine months ahead of schedule? It appears this ‘perfect storm’ was in reality a rigged market of corporate profiteering, as mass vaccinations and mass contact tracing were, consequently, in big demand. 
• The deal was for $100 billion for the first year and sanctions “such sums as may be deemed necessary for any subsequent fiscal years during which the emergency period continues”. This was, in essence, a blank cheque for a government-controlled contact-tracing system to track people that are ‘deemed’ dangerous or infected”. 

Based on the research of John Moynihan and Larry Doyle it appears that the whole situation reeks of premeditated corruption, profiteering, and sinister surveillance.”

The WEF Attempted a World Technocratic ‘Reset’ at the Same Time as the Pre-orchestrated World Covid Lockdown

Note that in March 2020, central bankers launched a planned and co-ordinated financial ‘reset’ under cover of world lockdown; and Covid-19 was an excuse for an attempted WEF world technocratic ‘reset’ at the same time as the pre-orchestrated world lockdown.

These topics, including the WEF reset plan for a Fourth Industrial Revolution and the constraints of this so-called new world order technocracy are detailed in my book No Worries No Virus.

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Mark Gerard Keenan, is a former scientist at the UK Government Dept. of Energy and Climate Change, and at the United Nations Environment Division. He is author of the following books:

• Moon Landing 2023 – Science or Science-fiction?
• Godless Fake Science
• Transcending the Climate Change Deception Toward Real Sustainability
• CO2 Climate Hoax – How Bankers Hijacked the Real Environment Movement
• No Worries No Virus
• Demonic Economics and the Tricks of the Bankers
• The Lies of Green Politics and How the Green Party Betrayed the People of Ireland

Mark’s E-books in PDF format are available at https://mkeenan.ie/shop/.

Make a donation for Mark’s articles via Paypal.

Notes

[1] Sources: https://www.globalresearch.ca/who-scandal-exposed-advisors-received-kickbacks-from-h1n1-vaccine-manufacturers/19587

https://greatgameindia.com/who-vaccine-industry/

April 2009, The H1N1 Pandemic: Political Lies and Media Disinformation regarding the Swine Flu Outbreak – Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization at: https://www.globalresearch.ca/political-lies-and-media-disinformation-regarding-the-swine-flu-pandemic/13433

[2] Sources: https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2012/01/05/911-and-israel-alan-sabroskys-candid-interview/ 

https://www.scribd.com/document/58318030/US-Military-Knows-Israel-Did-9-11-Alan-Sabrosky-USMC

[3] Sourced from an article by Paul Schreyer titled ‘Pandemie-Planspiele – Vorbereitung einer neuen Ara?’ (Translation: Pandemic preparation for a new era?)

[4] Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3563&v=FIGjQMlLFj8&feature=emb_logo

[5] Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/201909/id2020-and-partners-launch-program-to-provide-digital-id-with-vaccines

[6] Source: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2020060606

[7] Source: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/23/21232782/bill-gates-coronavirus-contact-tracing-interviewers-database-analysis

[8] Source: https://nl.espacenet.com/searchResults?ST=singleline&locale=nl_NL&submitted=true&DB=&query=covid+rothschild

[9] Sources describing the Bill Gates $100 billion TRACE deal (August 2019)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_waL-VmC_0&feature=youtu.be

https://truepundit.com/exclusive-bill-gates-negotiated-100-billion-contact-tracing-deal-with-democratic-congressman-sponsor-of-bill-six-months-before-coronavirus-pandemic/

HR 6666 (sponsor Bobby Rush) https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6666/titles

Bobby Rush Travels to Ruanda in August 2019

https://projects.propublica.org/represent/members/R000515-bobby-l-rush/privately-funded-travel/116 

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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To attribute weighty moral codes to athletes has always been a silly pastime of the judging classes and flesh admiring voyeurs.  But sporting bodies, in a manner similar to the clergy, demand something called the level playing field.  Fairness and fair play imply that sports people will follow various principles and rules in competition.  They will, for instance, do nothing to unravel and disturb this understanding of détente between the supremely talented.  We are all gifted on Olympus; may the best athlete behave in accordance with accepted practices.  No need for superior sporting machinery, superior equipment, enhanced biceps, steroid-boosted bodies.  To do so would upset the balance.

The historical record suggests otherwise.  Spectators who barrack for an athlete or a team will not mind the odd tinkering with rules, a streak of sharp practice. The same for those playing the sports. The Fair Play principle, revered and cherished by officials and gatekeepers noisy about equitable performance on pitch and field, has become a ritualised and abused fetish, the comical effigy one salutes at big sporting carnivals even as it is being burned.

Organisations such as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) exist to defend these principles through drug testing, but they operate unevenly and tyrannically.  They are also of questionable effect; in the undergrowth of performance is always the nagging suggestion that many athletes do participate undetected.  WADA’s own estimate is that anywhere up to 40% of athletes may have taken performance-enhancing substances at the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021.

Countries, seeing their sporting figures as extensions of the State and its values, have also been loose with their manipulation of fair play, subverting rules using their athletes as surrogates for national glory.  To win gold at the Olympics, for instance, is to win credit with the home audience and favour for politicians and grey officials.  All must therefore be done to get the result: doping, meddling, cheating.  It’s all a matter of degree.

With such standards of hypocrisy at play, it is little wonder that the concept of an Enhanced Games has taken so long to make it to the planning stage.  The figures involved should make participants wary, but PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel and its creator Aron D’Souza have expressed a desire to finance drug dabbling and experimentation, featuring heavily doped bipeds performing to the fullest of their juiced abilities.  Five events in Australia are planned to feature the body beautiful, and the body potentially ruined: swimming, gymnastics, weightlifting, track and field, and combat.

As the site hails, “Backed by the world’s top venture capitalists, the Enhanced Games is the Olympics of the future.  When 44% of athletes already use performance enhancements, it is time to safely celebrate science.” The project is adamant in stating, tersely, that, “Sports can be safer without drug testing.” That leaves the athletes free to partake in experimentation, where science can be used “for the pursuit of human excellence.”

D’Souza, an Australian, London-based lawyerly entrepreneur, knows what appeals. He derides the organisers of the Olympics, the corrupted fat cats who bag huge salaries while most athletes participate for a barely manageable pittance. “The IOC (International Olympic Committee) has effectively been a one-party state running the world of sport for 100 years,” he reasons.  “And now the opposition party is here.  We are ready for a fight.”  He suggests a profit-sharing model for drug taking participants, with cash incentives for those breaking records.

The games sound like a pharmaceutical free for all, lubricated by venture capital, and it is by no means clear how informed consent will work in this regard.  Keen to break records, and keen to avoid being institutionally excoriated and publicly shamed for doing so, is hardly a recipe for sober judgment.  This is despite D’Souza’s assertion that athletes are adults with “a right to do with their body what they wish – my body, my choice; your body, your choice.”  The one-party state becomes substituted by a cadre of investors, doctors and advisors, all keen on getting their results from the bodies on show.

The games proposal, argue two University of Canberra academics in the often sterile columns of The Conversation, “does not set out how the increased risk to athletes exploited for commercial gain will be managed.  The games also propose to include events in which the burgeoning elite competitors are young and vulnerable, such as gymnastics and swimming, which may have serious implications for these children and their carers.”

Publicity for the events has already seen over 500 registered athletes, along with a sprinkling of Olympians. Canadian bobsledder Christina Smith, who participated in the 2002 Winter games, is a member of the event’s Athlete Commission.

James Magnussen, an Australian swimmer, Olympian, and two-time world champion in the 100m freestyle has made a very public declaration that he will “juice up”. And why not?  His brain turned mushy after being told that he was the golden boy at the London Olympics in 2012.  Australian sporting commentators were convinced that the swimming events he participated in were his, absurdly declaring him victorious in advance of the events.  As things turned out, he was silvered and bronzed.

Formerly known as The Missile, Magnussen is keen to spend six months on a regime to “juice to the gills” in order to compete for A$1.5 million if he breaks the 50m world record. Things are already starting to sound hazy for the aspirant: “I’m going to need one of those super suits to float me, because if I get unbelievably jacked, then I’ll sink.”

Some of the critics may sound like spoilsports (well, anti-doping ones), but the relevant dangers are substantial. Are athletes in their right mind in saying yes to such a distorting diet, becoming, effectively taut assets of body and matter for venture capitalism?  Given the babbling from Magnussen, distinctly not.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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Kiev once again attacked Belgorod. In a brutal bombing raid against the Russian border city on February 15, neo-Nazi forces killed at least six people, including one child. The fact that the attack occurred in the first days of Aleksandr Syrsky’s military administration is perhaps a sign that the new Ukrainian top general will follow a strategy focused on terrorist incursions against Russia’s demilitarized zone.

The attack was carried out using a Western-supplied RM-70 “Vampire” multiple launch rocket system. Several missiles were fired against Belgorod, with more than a dozen of them being neutralized by Russian defense forces. Some missiles, however, hit civilian targets, resulting in casualties. It is possible that the number of deaths will increase in the coming days, considering that several people remain hospitalized with serious injuries.

Photos and videos recorded by local residents have been circulating on the internet showing the consequences of the bombings. As can be seen in the images, the targets did not have any military relevance, being facilities such as shopping centers and other commercial points. The absolute absence of military impact in the Ukrainian operation proves Kiev’s intention to kill civilians, which is why the attack can be classified as terrorist.

The repeated attacks against Belgorod – the same region where a few weeks ago Kiev shot down a plane with Ukrainian prisoners inside – have generated concern among local authorities. The regional government asked the population to remain on maximum alert, encouraging residents to seek shelter in safe facilities.

There are some reasons why Belgorod is a city particularly targeted by Kiev for this type of terrorist incursion. As a border city and geographically close to Ukraine, Belgorod becomes a relatively easier target than other Russian territories, increasing the neo-Nazi regime’s interest in launching attacks in the region. Not by chance, in December, Ukrainian forces killed 25 Russians and injured more than 100 others during a violent attack on Belgorod.

Russian authorities have spoken out several times about the seriousness of such attacks, emphasizing that acts of terrorism are absolutely intolerable and that strikes in the undisputed and demilitarized zones of the Federation legitimize major retaliatory measures. As it condemns terror, Moscow does not retaliate with similar attacks, being careful to avoid civilian casualties. The focus of retaliatory operations is Ukrainian military and infrastructure facilities. In this sense, high-intensity Russian strikes against such targets are expected in the coming days.

An interesting detail is that the attack occurred in the first days of Alesaksandr Syrsky‘s military administration. The new commander-in-chief of the armed forces has generated expectations among analysts about what his stance will be in the current Ukrainian crisis. Some biased pro-Western experts believe that Syrsky will lead relevant strategic moves and allow Ukraine to “change the game” on the battlefield, while more realistic analysts claim that he will only repeat in current battles what he did previously in the “meat grinder” of Bakhmut, when he led Ukrainian troops in a suicide operation, generating unnecessary losses for Kiev.

Considering the incident in Belgorod, it is possible to predict that the tactics used by Syrsky will consist of a combination of a “meat grinder” on the front lines with the increase in terrorist operations on the border and demilitarized regions. This combination makes sense for current Ukrainian ambitions, since, weakened and without any chance of winning the war, the neo-Nazi regime just needs to strive to continue fighting in order to “prove” to its Western sponsors that it is “worth” receiving more weapons. Terrorist attacks have no strategic value from a military point of view, but work as operations of a psychological nature, leading Western public to think that Ukraine is capable of hitting Russia deeply – thus legitimizing the sending of long-range weapons.

However, it is unlikely that Syrsky’s tactics will have a relevant effect in the long term. Ukraine is too weak to continue resisting retaliation for every terrorist act. If it suffers many massive Russian attacks, Kiev will quickly have completely destroyed its remaining military infrastructure. Furthermore, on the battlefield the Ukrainian regime is unable to continue creating new “meat grinders”. Kiev’s mobilization capacity is decreasing day by day, which is why it will not be possible to repeat new Bakhmut-like scenarios without militarily collapsing.

In parallel, it is necessary to highlight that these Ukrainian terrorist attacks are generating less and less positive effects on Western public opinion. Instead of proving itself capable of winning the war, Kiev simply proves itself as a state willing to kill innocent people to serve NATO’s interests. With the current growth of critical opinions on Ukraine in Western countries, the strategy of garnering support through terrorism could be truly “suicidal” for the neo-Nazi regime.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.  

Featured image: Shopping center bombed by Ukrainian forces, Belgorod, Russia, Feb. 15, 2024. | Photo: X/ @karpov16

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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The conflict between the Kiev regime’s former Chief of the General Staff Valery Zaluzhny and its frontman Volodymyr Zelensky has been brewing for well over a year and a half. Fault lines and factionalism kept escalating, reaching a boiling point after the failure of the much-touted counteroffensive. Zaluzhny promised to “never” back down, but on February 8, he did just that. This raises the obvious question, why now? Well, the ongoing developments on the frontlines might be the most obvious answer. The area in and around Avdeyevka, a town some 15 km north/northwest of Donetsk, has been heavily contested since the start of the NATO-orchestrated war back in 2014. The Neo-Nazi junta took firm control of the town only in 2017, after which it became one of its most heavily fortified strongholds.

The Kiev regime forces used the town as a staging ground for escalating artillery strikes on Donetsk and other areas in Donbass, killing thousands of civilians. This turned Avdeyevka into a major target for the Russian military after the start of the special military operation (SMO). Moscow launched regular strikes on the town (mostly evacuated and turned into a military outpost at that point) in order to at least reduce the frequency of attacks on Donetsk. NATO and its Neo-Nazi puppets invested enormous resources into turning Avdeyevka into a virtual fortress, prompting Russian forces to make slow and careful progress around the town in order to weaken its defenses and disrupt logistics. These deliberate, incremental advances started paying off back in December when the situation became critical.

The political West and the Kiev regime were still hoping to see Moscow launch a major attack that would’ve led to thousands of casualties among its troops, but this never happened. Encircling Avdeyevka from three sides, leaving only a small area to the west opened, the Russian military created yet another cauldron. Ground forces secured the areas around the town, repelling any attempts to break the semi-siege, while artillery and aviation would pummel the troops in the town. Worse yet (for the Neo-Nazi junta), the supply corridor to the west served to provide a false sense of security, as Russian forces kept firm fire control over the area, destroying any reinforcements with ease. The Kiev regime forces have been defeated in a similar manner all across the frontline, including in Artyomovsk.

Losing that city (previously known as Bakhmut) was a major defeat, despite the mainstream propaganda machine’s attempts to present it as a “minor” thing. Realizing the same would happen in Avdeyevka, the Neo-Nazi junta decided to fall back before the Russian military completed a full encirclement. This is yet another proof that Moscow’s decision to make incremental advances is a far better (albeit more time-consuming) alternative to launching direct attacks on heavily fortified urban strongholds. Simply put, Russia is in no hurry (unlike the Kiev regime and its NATO overlords), meaning that it can easily afford to sacrifice time in order to prevent losses in manpower and equipment. By February 17, the Neo-Nazi junta forces were in a situation where defense became completely unfeasible.

The newly appointed top commander, General Oleksandr Syrsky, had no choice but to officially order a retreat from Avdeyevka. However, in reality, his forces have been doing exactly that during the entire last week.

This is where Zaluzhny’s decision to leave the “hot potato” to Zelensky and his entourage becomes all the more logical. He had a choice to end his military career with a major defeat or leave it to those who have always been trying to oust him, thus switching responsibility entirely to them. What’s more, he can use this for political gain, presenting the loss as something that “he would’ve never allowed”. However, the situation on the ground shows that nothing would’ve prevented the fall of Avdeyevka, which even General Syrsky himself admitted, justifying his decision to withdraw.

“Based on the operational situation around Avdeyevka, in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen, I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines,” Syrsky posted on Facebook.

It’s clear that the Kiev regime’s new top general realized that his career as the Chief of the General Staff would start off quite badly if he decided to defend Avdeyevka at all costs, resulting not just in a humiliating defeat, but also in far worse losses than is already the case. Syrsky also ordered two assault brigades, led by Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavsky, to provide some cover to retreating forces.

This entire group found itself in a very difficult situation, as the Russian military never stopped advancing. Supported by drone, artillery and air strikes, it reached Lastochkino, just west of Avdeyevka. According to military sources, approximately 1,500 Kiev regime soldiers were neutralized by February 18. The mainstream propaganda machine is already engaged in damage control.

Namely, Western media are claiming that, all of a sudden, the town has “no strategic value” and that “Moscow’s losses are disproportionate to Avdeyevka’s importance”, which is the complete opposite of what they’ve been saying in previous months. Some have been insisting that the retreat was “orderly”, but footage published by the Russian military shows a large number of forces fleeing Avdeyevka on foot, many picked off by FPV drones and artillery. Simultaneously, regular Russian forces (aviation in particular) are launching strikes to prevent the Neo-Nazi junta from establishing a new line of defense west of Avdeyevka. Interestingly, while Kiev was losing the “strategically irrelevant” town, the troubled Biden administration tried guilt-tripping US Congress into sending more “aid”.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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The Guangxi region in southern China is poverty-stricken, but its level of development shoots up like an arrow to the sky. What is the secret of this spectacular development model? Jan Jonckheere, a Belgian China expert made a study tour of the region and looked for answers.

Two-track Policy

Guangxi is an autonomous region in southern China. It is home to nearly 50 million people from various ethnic groups. The region is hilly and characterised by so-called karst landscapes, of which Guilin is the best known.

It is a poverty-stricken region. Its GDP per inhabitant is 64 times lower than that of United Kingdom. In 2015, in Guangxi 6.3 million people lived in extreme poverty, 13 per cent of the population. The Chinese government decided to tackle this situation of poverty and underdevelopment. A twin-track policy emerged. 

On the one hand, a large-scale poverty reduction project was coupled with robust economic and technological investment in the region. On the other hand, trade and economic cooperation was strongly promoted, mainly with Southeast Asian countries.

Poverty Reduction, Plus Economic and Technological Investment 

With the help of international organisations such as the World Bank, the government designed a large-scale plan to fight poverty. It sent an army of researchers to 5,000 villages to determine the condition of each family. It put the data obtained into a database for processing.

Over the past five years, Guangxi has also relocated 710,000 people from inhospitable areas to other places. Almost all the relocated villagers have been able to find jobs near their new homes as a result.

One of the most striking aspects of the poverty reduction programme was cooperation with the more prosperous and neighbouring Guangdong province.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

From 2016, this richer province invested a lot of money in poverty alleviation projects, covering infrastructure, employment, education and health. These joint projects and investments brought about infrastructure improvements, such as the construction of roads to connect isolated villages and improve access to markets. 

This made it easier to trade local products and boosted economic activity, which helped improve the livelihoods of local people.

Guangdong also sent tens to hundreds of teachers, doctors and nurses to Guangxi. Two Communist Party cadres were also sent per district to oversee and coordinate the whole project. 

A good example of cooperation between the two regions is the twinning for poverty alleviation of Shenzhen, a multi-million-dollar city from Guangdong, with Hechi, Guangxi’s city with the highest poverty rate. Companies from Shenzhen were urged to invest in Hechi. Dozens of schools in Shenzhen were linked to schools in Hechi and the same happened with hospitals. 

The amounts of money released for this large-scale development project are nothing short of impressive. In 2018, enterprises from Guangxi and Guangdong signed hundreds of cooperation projects with a total investment of 394 billion yuan ($55 billion). By comparison, the total official development aid from all rich countries combined amounted to $211 billion last year. 

The investments did not only happen in the industrial sector. Livestock cooperatives were set up for farmers who had barely been making ends meet growing maize. Young people got the opportunity to receive vocational training. 

Guangdong and Guangxi also set up a joint programme to reduce poverty through tourism development in the region with its karst landscapes.

These programmes not only helped generate income for people previously living in poverty, but also contributed to developing skills and strengthening the local economy.

In technological development, Guangxi has focused on innovation and cooperation with leading technology centres, such as the Zhongguancun Technology Park in Beijing. The establishment of an innovation zone in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi, has led to the establishment of high-tech enterprises and the promotion of research and development. 

That technological innovation makes full use of artificial intelligence and big data. Based on it, tickets for the metro, for example, are being replaced by photos. Drones are introduced into agriculture, and thanks to AI, smart irrigation, cameras, sensors and temperature systems controlled via smartphone and cloud computing, people are growing fruit and vegetables with remote control.

After all, China expects fewer and fewer farmers to be available so the evolution towards high-tech agriculture seems inevitable.

The public sector is not lagging behind technological development either. 7,000 buses run on electricity today, but Nanning plans to replace this fleet with hydrogen-powered buses. 

Gateway to Southeast Asia

This innovation strategy is also designed in the context of the New Silk Roads, especially with a view to the Southeast Asian countries, also known as the ASEAN countries. In other words, besides poverty reduction and its own economic development, Guangxi also focused on promoting trade and economic cooperation with countries in the region. 

ASEAN countries: Map: Wikimedia Commons 

This approach has been successful. In recent years, trade between Guangxi and ASEAN has grown significantly. This was partly due to initiatives such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the largest trading bloc in the global economy. Currently, trade with other RCEP countries accounts for 56 per cent of Gaungxi’s foreign trade. 

The 15 member states of the RCEP represent about 30% of the world’s population and 30% of global GDP. Map: Wikipedia

A major share of that trade is agricultural products, and there we see a shift from traditional trade in fresh fruit to processed food products. Exports of electric passenger cars, lithium-ion batteries and solar cells also saw a surge.

Guangxi has positioned itself as a major player in regional cooperation and trade in Southeast Asia in just a few years, which in turn contributes to the region’s economic development.

Powerful Development Model 

Through a combination of public investment, cooperation with a prosperous neighbouring province and innovative developments, Guangxi has undergone an impressive transformation. 

The results have been spectacular. In less than a decade, extreme poverty was not only eliminated, but the region also leapt forward in terms of economic development and technological innovation. From a backward agricultural region, it has now become a major trading partner in Southeast Asia. 

Guangxi is internally poised to shift from poverty reduction to reviving its rural areas. It will not hesitate to deploy smart solutions for doing so. Now this is only done internally, but later the region will also offer those solutions to ASEAN countries and states along the New Silk Roads.

The Western development model for countries of the Global South is largely based on the funding of foreign NGOs focused on mainly local projects. Exceptions aside, this does not yield much more than some fiddling at the margins.

China is responsible for three quarters of the eradication of extreme poverty worldwide. Graph: World Bank

Despite all good intentions-let us assume they inspired Western initiatives- and billions of development aid, countries in the global South remain locked into their role as exporters of cheap raw materials and importers of expensive finished and technological products, and thus remain poor. 

Here we see a much more powerful development model at work. Since the 1980s, China has contributed for three quarters to the eradication of extreme poverty worldwide and has managed to escape economic and technological underdevelopment

It gives food for thought. 

Various sources, own visit. 

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Jan Jonckheere is the editor of the Belgian website chinasquare.be.

Featured image: Guangxi is known for its karst towers in the landscape. Foto: Wikimedia Commons 

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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No universal history leads from savagery to humanitarianism, but there is one leading from the slingshot to the atomic bomb. —Theodor Adorno

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed tirelessly to be acting in the name of the Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust with Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. In truth, the actions of his regime and military these past few months has placed them much closer to the guards than the inmates at Hitler’s death camps during this dark period in human affairs.

In other words, and put more simply, when your response to genocide is more genocide, you become precisely that which you claim to be against. This is precisely where we are now after five months of the IDF’s murderous and wholly indiscriminate military campaign against the people of Gaza.

Throughout, and to its eternal shame, the West along with Arab governments in the region have stood by and offered nothing in the way of serious and meaningful intervention. Supine and tepid calls for humanitarian pauses, temporary cessations, ceasefires, the provision of humanitarian aid, all have dropped and evaporated like snowflakes on the ground, such has been their impotence.

The result is 13,000 Palestinian children being thus far sent to their deaths under the missiles and bombs of a 21st century military machine in the hands of a government comprised of men with 14th century minds.

Netanyahu and his supporters will not be happy until the history, culture and entire existence of the Palestinians are relegated to the museum. This is both evident and implicit in the mad slaughter they have and are currently engaged in.

A twisted conception of the world as being fashioned on the basis of might is right and racial hierarchy has throughout human history produced monsters. And in this respect, Benjamin Netanyahu is merely the latest in a long line. In this respect, too, he has inflicted a moral injury of every one of us still in possession of a beating hard and a conscience, not to mention consciousness.

In Washington there currently resides not the leader of the free world, but a man engaged in an exercise of trying to cover his own arse. Biden’s cognitive decrepitude is only matched by his moral turpitude; his lack of scruples only matched by his surplus of hypocrisy. In providing Netanyahu with a blank cheque in Gaza in terms of military aid, while at the same time urging restraint, his is an administration with an ocean of blood on its hands and a desert of credibility. ‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here,’ Shakespeare once warned in words that are eminently applicable now, today, as these words are being written.

‘The last Christian died on the cross,’ Nietzsche claimed, and who could possibly argue that the most prominent misanthrope in world philosophy was wrong in that assertion?

Joe Biden could quite literally pick up the phone and put a stop to this now. With the requisite political will and basic common decency, he could halt the arms transfers to Israel and order an immediate ceasefire. That instead he is allowing this madness to go on is a grim legacy that will forever define both him as a man and his tenure as President of the United States.

Turning to the UK, the unelected incumbent in Number-10, Rishi Sunak, is what happens when a political system is allowed to become the wholly owned subsidiary of a country’s banking and financial sector. Mediocre is the very best that can be said of a small man with even smaller ideas.

His opponent Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, seems intent on arriving in Downing Street after this year’s general election on a wave lethargy rather than euphoria. Reds under the bed has been replaced by antisemites under the bed, with he of the lacquered bouffant eagerly embracing the role of a latter day Matthew Hopkins, infamous 17th century English witchfinder general.

With his ongoing defenestration of the Labour Party of any residual dissenting voices when it comes to the UK riding shotgun for Israel, Starmer’s time as leader of the opposition has drilled home the profound truth that tyranny is less the product of totalitarian political systems and more the product of the totalitarian ideas that sustain political orthodoxy in any given space and time. And, too, whenever those ideas come under challenge, said democracy is exposed as a cloak behind which mendacity resides, ruthlessly seeking malcontents to expose and miscreants to punish.

In Sunak and Starmer, Benjamin Netanyahu has himself patsies on whom he could not be more reliant. It is why when voters across the UK are asked to make a comparison come polling day later this year, on the issue of foreign policy at least they would be wise to ponder the words of Gore Vidal, one of the greatest wits in the history of American letters.

Vidal: ‘One does not bring a measuring rod to Lilliput.’

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Featured image: Slaughterhouse – by Mr. Fish

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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“The initial COVID-19 panic (and the ultimate economic shut-down that will kill small businesses) was no mistake; it wasn’t an overly cautious WHO or Dr. Fauci that made the call in haste. The panic and over-reaction was planned and prepared for. Bill Gates (and his billionaire’s club [the World Economic Forum]) held an exercise called “Event 201” in preparation for a coronavirus pandemic in which he calculated 33 million deaths would occur world-wide. Anthony Fauci also predicted a pandemic would happen while Donald Trump was president.

We see the actions of the WHO, Fauci, and Bill Gates – who somehow is the go-to authority on SARS COV 2 having never taken a medical course in his life. Laugh all you want but this is the New World Order attempting to take over.

And they can do it. They own the media, even FOX. They even own two of the major news outlets, Reuters and the AP. They have created a false reality in which anyone that questions what they are doing is labeled a conspiracy theorist. There IS a conspiracy and you are witnessing it right now. This makes no sense at all unless you factor in an active conspiracy of disinformation and lies.”  

– An anonymous respondent, reacting to an important Tony Robbins video (that interviewed a handful of highly-qualified health experts who never get interviewed by Mainstream Media journalists, whose narrative, though false, misleading and corporate-controlled, appears to be sacrosanct.)

“The Gates Foundation and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the NIH, are both currently exploring gene-based treatments for HIV, together with other therapies … This collaboration is an ambitious step forward, harnessing the most cutting-edge scientific tools and NIH’s sizable global HIV research infrastructure to one day deliver a cure and end the global HIV pandemic.”

— NIAID director Anthony S. Fauci, MD

“Bill Gates wants the entire population vaccinated with a new mRNA-based COVID19 vaccine, and he wants the lock downs to continue until this vaccine is developed. Once it is developed, only those who have a COVID19 vaccine certificate will be allowed to travel.”

— Brian Shilhavy, Editor, Health Impact News

“Moderna dispatched vaccine vials to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Md. The NIAID clinic aims to test the vaccine on about 20 to 25 healthy volunteers by late April (2020). The goal of the study will be to see if two doses of the vaccine are safe and produce a response in the immune system to fight off COVID-19 infection.”

— NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci, commenting on the unprecedented speed at which a potential vaccine for a global disease outbreak could be created.

“Deborah Birx sits on the Board of The Global Fund, which is heavily funded by Bill Gates’ organizational network … The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave The Global Fund a $750 million promissory note in 2012.“

— Journalist Jordan Schactel

 “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a key partner of the Global Fund, providing cash contributions, actively participating on its board and committees, and supporting the Global Fund’s advocacy, communications and fundraising efforts. The Gates Foundation has contributed US$2.24 billion to the Global Fund to date, and pledged US$760 million for the Global Fund’s Sixth Replenishment, covering 2020-2022.”

– From the Global Fund’s website

“The media hacks who push the pro-vaccine propaganda and hide the truth are complicit in crimes against humanity…The entire vaccine machine is built on lies of omission and fraudulent science. billions of dollars are quietly paid out by NVICP to vaccine injured people, but the overwhelming majority of vaccine injuries are never reported. Of the thousands that are reported, only a tiny few are compensated. Therefore, the real amounts that should have been paid out to vaccine injured people is in the trillions.”

– Dr William Christenson

“Fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. The CDC’s entire vaccination propaganda campaign rests on their claim that side effects from vaccination are exceedingly rare, but according to the blatantly pro-over-vaccination, and Big Pharma-funded CDC, in 2016 alone, VAERS received 59,117 vaccine adverse event reports. Among those reports were 432 vaccine-related deaths, 1,091 permanent vaccine-related disabilities, 4,132 vaccine-related hospitalizations, and 10,274 vaccine-related emergency room visits. What if these numbers actually represent less than 1% of the total as this report asserts? You multiply those numbers by 100.”

– William Christenson

“The second point I could make is that in relationship to aluminum, being a nephrologist for a long time, is the potential for aluminum and central nervous system toxicity was well established by dialysis data. To think there isn’t some possible problem here is unreal.”

— Dr. Weil (Pediatrician representing the Committee on Environmental Health of the Academy, testifying at the CDC’s infamous Simpsonwood conference – 2000)

“Aluminum and mercury are often simultaneously administered (ie, injected intramuscularly) to infants … However … there is absolutely no data, including animal data, about the potential for synergy, additivity, or antagonism … from the simultaneous exposure to these two (metallic) salts in vaccines.”

– Dr Walt Ornstein (testifying at the Global Vaccine Safety Summit 2019)

”… vaccines like DPT contain the neurotoxin aluminum!! This vaccine adjuvant is causing huge problems … especially in vaccines such as Gardasil 9, which has the highest levels of aluminum of any vaccine. But research into its toxic effects is being suppressed. Professor Chris Exley, who is the World Expert in aluminum toxicity in living organisms, has found the link between aluminum adjuvants and autism, MS (multiple sclerosis), CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) and other chronic conditions. Exley’s research funding has dried up. ‘They’ don’t want you to know that aluminum (in vaccines) is harmful and has never been tested for safety ….”

– Angio Svizzera

“Our very great concern is that children worldwide are being exposed to unrecognised toxic chemicals that are silently eroding intelligence and causing disrupting behaviours, truncating future achievements, and damaging societies, perhaps most seriously in developing countries.”

– Philippe Grandjean, MD, MPH

“Safety testing, which typically requires months and years for other medical products, often lasts only a few days with vaccines – not nearly long enough to spot cancers or chronic conditions like autoimmune diseass (e.g. juvenile diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis), allergic illnesses (e.g. food allergies, allergic rhinitis, eczema, asthma), or neurological and neurodevelopmental injuries (e.g. ADD, ADHD, narcolepsy, epilepsy, seizure disorders, and autism). Vaccine manufacturer’s vaccine inserts that accompany every vial of mandated vaccines include warnings about these and over 400 other injuries including many serious immune, neurological, and chronic illnesses for which FDA suspects that vaccines may be the cause.”

– Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“Many of these illnesses became epidemic in American children after 1986, coterminous with the exploding vaccine schedule. For American kids born in 1986, only 12.8% had chronic diseases. That number has grown to 54% among the vaccine generation (those born after 1986) in lockstep with the expanding schedule.”

– Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“The children who comprise this vaccine-injured generation are now aging out of schools that needed to build quiet rooms and autism wings, install wobble chairs, hire security guards and hike special ed spending to 25% to accommodate them. They are landing on the social safety net which they threaten to sink. … The good news for Big Pharma, of course, is that many of these vaccine-injured children have lifelong dependencies on unaffordable blockbuster drugs like insulin, Adderall, anti-psychotic drugs, Epi-Pens, asthma inhalers, and diabetes, arthritis, and anti-seizure meds made by the same companies that made the vaccines.”

– Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“An overwhelming majority of the FDA officials directly charged with licensing vaccines, and the CDC officials who effectively mandate them for children, have personal financial entanglements with vaccine manufacturers. These ‘public servants’ are often shareholders in, grant recipients from, and/or paid consultants to vaccine manufacturers, and, occasionally, even patent holders of the very vaccines they vote to approve. Those conflicts of interest motivate them to recommend ever more vaccines with minimal support from evidence-based science”

– Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“The FDA receives 45% of its annual budget from the pharmaceutical industry. The World Health Organization (WHO) gets roughly half its budget from private sources, including Pharma and its allied foundations. And the CDC, frankly, is a vaccine company; it owns 56 vaccine patents and buys and distributes $4.6 billion in vaccines annually through the Vaccines for Children program, which is over 40% of its total budget.”

— Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“The HHS (US Health and Human Services partners with vaccine makers to develop, approve, recommend, and pass mandates for new products and then shares profits from vaccine sales. HHS employees can personally collect up to $150,000 annually in royalties for products they work on. For example, key HHS officials collect money on every sale of Merck’s controversial HPV vaccine Gardasil, which also yields tens of millions annually for the agency in patent royalties.”

— Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“In 1986, Congress—awash in Pharma money (the pharmaceutical industry is number one for both political campaign contributions and lobbying spending on legislators over the past 20 years) enacted a law granting vaccine makers blanket immunity from liability for injuries caused by vaccines. The subsequent gold rush by pharmaceutical companies boosted the number of recommended inoculations from twelve shots of five vaccines in 1986 to 54 shots of 13 vaccines today. A billion-dollar sideline grew into the $50 billion vaccine industry behemoth.”

— Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“Since vaccines are liability-free – and effectively compulsory to a captive market of 76 million children – there is meager market incentive for companies to make them safe. The public must rely on the moral scruples of Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, and Pfizer. But these companies have a long history of operating recklessly and dishonestly, even with (the many drug) products for which they can be sued for injuries. The four companies that make virtually all of the recommended vaccines are all convicted felons.  Collectively they have paid over $35 billion since 2009 for defrauding regulators, lying to and bribing government officials and physicians, falsifying science, and leaving a trail of (incurable chronic illnesses) injuries and deaths from products they knew to be dangerous and still sold under pretense of safety and efficacy.”

– Robert F. Kennedy, Jr

“The CDC takes funding from industry… It is outrageous that industry is apparently allowed to punish the CDC if the agency conducts research that has potential to cut into profits.”

— Jerome R. Hoffman, MD, UCLA Professor of Medicine

“…there is no data that shows that vaccines only have protective effects. It is time to change our perception of vaccines. Vaccines are not merely a protective tool against a specific disease, they affect the immune system broadly. In spite of protecting against the diseases, DTP-vaccinated children had fivefold higher mortality than children who didn’t receive the vaccine.”

— Dr. C. Stabell Benn, M.D. Ph.D. Professor in Global Health University of Southern Denmark

“The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical (and vaccine) industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful.”

– Arnold Seymour Relman, MD (1923-2014), Harvard Professor of Medicine and former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine

“The American Academy of Pediatrics derives a majority of its outside contributions – estimated at more than $25 million per year – from pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines. The pediatricians that the AAP represents derive the majority of their annual revenues from the administration of vaccines to their pediatric patients.”

— J.B. Handley

“The majority of studies that authorities point to as proof that vaccines do not cause autism have been published in a journal called Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. As we know, the AAP is a trade union for pediatricians.”

– J.B. Handley

“You’d be amazed at the number of physicians who don’t know what’s in a vaccine. They’ll say, well, there’s the bacteria, the virus you want to vaccinate against, and then there’s a little immune stimulant in there to help stimulate the immunity so they react against those viral antigens. They don’t know about these other chemicals in there like aluminum, mercury, formaldehyde, special proteins, special lipids that are known to be brain toxic, that are known to induce autoimmunity in the brain. They’re not aware of that. They don’t know that MSG is in a lot of vaccines―monosodium glutamate, a brain excitotoxin. They’re not aware of what’s in the vaccine they’re giving! 

—Russell Blaylock, MD

“Most physicians haven’t got a clue about vaccines. Physicians are undeservedly endowed with a mantle of authority and therefore most of their patients think vaccines are simple, safe and effective. And therefore there is nothing much to know about vaccines except that they somehow illicit an immune response and magical antibodies will protect the inoculated patient for life. Total ignorance. But that’s what ‘The Snake’ tells physicians starting in medical school; and, since medical school (and nursing school) professors are also undeservedly endowed with a mantle of authority, both of whose healthcare professional group believed it from the start. Until they get bit.”

– Anonymous Anti-Over-Vaccination activist parent

“The vaccine manufacturers, the Center for Disease Control, the FDA, and the various medical associations have failed miserably in their duty to protect our children….As a full-time professional research scientist for 50 years, and as a researcher in the field of autism for 45 years, I have been shocked and chagrined by the medical establishment’s ongoing efforts to trivialize the solid and compelling evidence that faulty vaccination policies are the root cause of the epidemic.…Mercury, one of the most toxic substances known, is used as a preservative in many vaccines. Some infants have had 125 times the maximum allowable limit of mercury injected … in one day, in vaccines.”

— Dr. Bernard Rimland, Director, Autism Research Institute and editor of Autism Research Review International, issued in a statement on July 14, 2003: “The Autism Epidemic Is Real, And Excessive Vaccinations Are the Cause”

“The really sad thing is the amount of doctors I’ve spoken to who say to me, ‘Del, I know that vaccines are causing autism, but I won’t say it on camera because the pharmaceutical industry will destroy my career just like they did to Andy Wakefield.’”

— Del Bigtree, Producer of “Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe“

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This was originally published on LewRockwell.com in 2020.

Dr Kohls is a retired rural family physician from Duluth, Minnesota who has written a weekly column for the Reader Weekly, Duluth’s alternative newsweekly magazine since his retirement in 2008. His column, titled Duty to Warn, is re-published around the world. 

He practiced holistic mental health care in Duluth for the last decade of his family practice career prior to his retirement in 2008, primarily helping psychiatric patients who had become addicted to their cocktails of psychiatric drugs to safely go through the complex withdrawal process. His Duty to Warn columns often deals with various unappreciated health issues, including those caused by Big Pharma’s over-drugging, Big Vaccine’s over-vaccinating, Big Medicine’s over-screening, over-diagnosing and over-treating agendas and Big Food’s malnourishing food industry. Those four entities can combine to even more adversely affect the physical, mental, spiritual and economic health of the recipients of the medical treatments and the eaters of the tasty and ubiquitous “FrankenFoods” – particularly when they are consumed in combinations, doses and potencies that have never been tested for safety or long-term effectiveness.

Dr Kohls’ Duty to Warn columns are archived at: 

http://duluthreader.com/search?search_term=Duty+to+Warn&p=2;

http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls;

http://freepress.org/geographic-scope/national; https://www.lewrockwell.com/author/gary-g-kohls/; and 

https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles 

Featured image is from SHTFplan.com

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Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

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There is propaganda by commission and propaganda by omission, the former often serve to conceal the latter. Timing is crucial.

That the U.S. President Joseph Biden, his British, NATO, Israeli allies, and their corporate media mouthpieces are in need of a major propaganda victory is obvious. They are losing the war in Ukraine, have been condemned throughout the world for the genocide in Gaza, and are ruling over a disintegrating empire.

Biden and Netanyahu’s political lives are at serious risk. And so they have just rolled out a full-court propaganda press effort aimed at covering their losses. It should be crystal clear to anyone who can use logic to see the timing involved.

The great French scholar of propaganda and technology, Jacques Ellul, wrote years ago that propaganda

“is not the touch of a magic wand. It is based on slow constant impregnation. It creates convictions and compliance through imperceptible influences that are effective only by continuous repetition.”

However, once this groundwork has been laid over time – as it has been with the continuous anti-Russia Putin hysteria and support for Israel’s Zionist policies – it can be intensely ratcheted up in exigent circumstances when the long-serving narrative is in jeopardy, such as it is now.

Once the death in a Russian prison of the Western backed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was announced on Friday, February 16, 2024, it was immediately followed by a cascade of anti-Russia pronouncements whose aim was to not only continue the demonization of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin but to serve other purposes as well.

With one fell stroke, the calm history lesson about Ukraine, Russia, and U.S./NATO that Putin had just delivered to the world via Tucker Carlson disappeared down the memory hole, as Biden, without any evidence, declared that “Putin and his thugs” and Putin’s “brutality” are responsible for Navalny’s death. This, of course, is a replay of the false charges sans evidence waged against Russia for an earlier poisoning of Navalny, the Skripals (since disappeared by the British government), Alexander Litvinenko, et al.

Shortly after, Zelensky, performing his puppet routine while coincidently appearing at the Munich Security Conference – on Saturday, February 17, a day after Navalny’s death was announced – with Navalny’s then widow, said it was “obvious” that Putin had killed Navalny, while Biden pushed for more money for Ukraine’s doomed war against Russia, a U.S./NATO war created by the U.S. from the start with its aggressive military push to Russia’s borders and its 2015 Ukrainian coup d’état that ousted the pro-Russian leader, setting the stage for Russia’s incursion into Ukraine in February 2022. That Putin told Carlson these obvious facts, while slyly mentioning to Carlson that he understood that Carlson once tried to join the CIA, is now for most people in the West history lost behind the headlines, if it ever were anything more.

All this happened while Russia pushed through Ukraine’s defenses and took the city of Avdeevka, which had long been contested. With each day that passes, it is obvious that Biden’s Ukraine war strategy is that of a desperate politician on the ropes and that Putin has completely outfoxed the American desperados and their NATO European stooges. The MSM prefer to suggest otherwise, that hope is just around the corner if we send billions more dollars and weapons, and if with the help of our British friends, we take the war further into Russian territory and risk a nuclear confrontation. But we are in a propaganda war for the minds of the Western public.

Much of the rest of the world has seen through the risible MSM headlines used to delude the public that Russia is the great threat to world peace and stability. Like the previous Russia-gate lies, this ongoing one, coinciding with Navalny’s death, is timed to divert the public’s attention from key ongoing matters.

Tomorrow and Wednesday, Julian Assange will have his final appeal in a British court to prevent his extradition to the United States. Biden wants this journalist prosecuted for doing the job that the MSM have failed to do: Exposing the facts about the ruthless U.S. killing machine. But the bruhaha about Navalny has rendered the absolute hypocrisy over the torture and imprisonment of the innocent and brave Assange secondary and “inconsequential.” As intended, this has now become an afterthought as the mainstream media’s Russia-obsessed headlines flow uninterruptedly. The New York Times, the key propaganda organ for the Biden administration and the deep-state, reports just today that “The gravity of President Putin’s threats is now dawning on Europe” and “Navalny’s Widow Promises to Carry on Opposition Leader’s Work.”  These are typical Times’ rants.  As is its Magazine article headline from yesterday “Marilyn Robinson [the writer and friend of Barack Obama] Considers Biden a Gift of God.”

I don’t think the Palestinians would agree, but then too, their slaughter by Israel with U.S. assistance – more than 29,000 Palestinians in Gaza alone have been killed so far – and the coming IDF invasion of Rafah, have also been pushed to the back pages or to nowhere by the propaganda about Navalny and Russia.

I won’t mention the Russian election in mid-March that might possibly factor into all this since we all will be dutifully and timely told that the evil killer Putin is a dictator, ignorant, ruthless – add your own adjectives – and is no doubt trying to rig the fair-and-square U.S. November presidential election – for someone, just as he did in 2016.

Nor mention The NY Times article of February 17 by David Sanger and Julian Barnes that the “U.S Fears Russia Might Put a Nuclear Weapon in Space.”

Everyone knows that the Russians are coming to get us, as they always have. They probably killed JFK, right?

It’s easy to follow along as this propaganda eruption circles the Internet like painted ponies on a carousel. There will be no time to stop and think, to pause; to ask what the hell is going on? The ponies will dip and bob and make you dizzy.

For more corroboration of these matters, read the political analyst Gilbert Doctorow’s astute piece on how the Turkish broadcaster TRT World refused to post the interview that they did with him. Doctorow claims British intelligence killed Navalny. For some reason this should not be broached, according to TRT.

Remember: The Russian are Coming

Whether Doctorow is right or not, only a very dimwitted person would think that Putin would have Navalny killed. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing so.

Yet the MSM and their government overlords consider most people very stupid and so are trying to blitz them with obvious propaganda through commission and omission. We have heard this story before.

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This article was originally published on the author’s website, 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 Land Destroyer Report

French “Democracy” Establishes Medical Tyranny

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, February 19, 2024

Professor Michel Chossudovsky, director of Global Research, has examined the new French law that defines dissent from official medical narratives as a “sectarian aberration” and criminalizes dissent from medical narratives, such as “the mRNA vaccine is safe and effective.”  

It Is Dark Before the Dawn, but Israeli Settler Colonialism Is at an End

By Ilan Pappe, February 20, 2024

Professor Ilan Pappe spoke at IHRC’s annual Genocide Memorial Day in London, UK on 21^st January 2024, on the need to understand that the genocide of Palestinians we are currently witnessing, as brutal as it is, is also the demise of the so-called Jewish state. We need to be ready to imagine a new world beyond it.

Children Dying or Disabled from Strep A Sepsis

By Dr. William Makis, February 19, 2024

8 year old Barbara Data had Strep A Septic shock in May 2023. It led to multiple organ failure and cardiac arrest but she survived. As a result of septic shock she had double below knee amputation in July 2023 and lost some digits in both hands.

Polish Farmers to Block Entire Border with Ukraine as Well as Transport Hubs, Railway Depots and Seaports

By Julian Rose, February 19, 2024

After the shock discovery of thousands of tons of illegal Ukraine rapeseed at a fuel, gas train and truck depot near the Ukraine border, Polish farmers vowed to step-up their actions against all food imports from outside the EU and increase pressure on Brussels and the Polish government to abandon the implementation of ‘Green Deal’ and outlaw uncontrolled mass food imports entering Poland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin Bursts the Bubble of Western “Perception Managers”

By Mark Taliano, February 19, 2024

Vladimir Putin’s conditions for Peace are not unreasonable. They include no NATO expansion into Ukraine and denazification of Ukraine. These are not unreasonable demands, especially considering that the installed Banderite/Washington-controlled dictatorship has been bombing Russian-speaking civilians in eastern Ukraine since 2014.

Farmers’ Protest in India Reignites. A Struggle for the Future of Food and Agriculture

By Colin Todhunter, February 19, 2024

In 2021, after a year-long protest, India’s farmers brought about the repeal of three farm laws that were intended to ‘liberalise’ the agriculture sector. Now, in 2024, farmers are again protesting. The underlying issues and the facilitation of the neoliberal corporatisation of farming that sparked the previous protest remain and have not been resolved.  

Assange’s Final UK Court ‘Moment of Truth’ Arrives as Wife Warns He ‘Will Die’ If Extradited to the US

By Zero Hedge, February 19, 2024

Tuesday, February 21 is the big day and ‘moment of truth’ for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his legal team. That is when two high court judges in London will hear arguments on whether Assange can appeal a ruling to extradite him to the United States, where he would most certainly spend the rest of his life in prison, likely in a harsh ‘supermax’ federal facility.