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Washington’s hard power display of taking out Al-Qaeda’s Al-Zawahiri will not be reciprocated by Beijing over Pelosi’s provocative visit to Taiwan. It does however, definitively bury the decades-long era of cooperative US-Chinese relations.

This is the way the “Global War on Terror” (GWOT) ends, over and over again: not with a bang, but a whimper.

Two Hellfire R9-X missiles launched from a MQ9 Reaper drone on the balcony of a house in Kabul. The target was Ayman Al-Zawahiri with a $25 million bounty on his head. The once invisible leader of ‘historic’ Al-Qaeda since 2011, is finally terminated.

All of us who spent years of our lives, especially throughout the 2000s, writing about and tracking Al-Zawahiri know how US ‘intel’ played every trick in the book – and outside the book – to find him. Well, he never exposed himself on the balcony of a house, much less in Kabul.

Another disposable asset

Why now? Simple. Not useful anymore – and way past his expiration date. His fate was sealed as a tawdry foreign policy ‘victory’ – the remixed Obama ‘Osama bin Laden moment’ that won’t even register across most of the Global South. After all, a perception reigns that George W. Bush’s GWOT has long metastasized into the “rules-based,” actually “economic sanctions-based” international order.

Cue to 48 hours later, when hundreds of thousands across the west were glued to the screen of flighradar24.com (until the website was hacked), tracking “SPAR19” – the US Air Force jet carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – as it slowly crossed Kalimantan from east to west, the Celebes Sea, went northward parallel to the eastern Philippines, and then made a sharp swing westwards towards Taiwan, in a spectacular waste of jet fuel to evade the South China Sea.

No “Pearl Harbor moment”

Now compare it with hundreds of millions of Chinese who are not on Twitter but on Weibo, and a leadership in Beijing that is impervious to western-manufactured pre-war, post-modern hysteria.

Anyone who understands Chinese culture knew there would never be a “missile on a Kabul balcony” moment over Taiwanese airspace. There would never be a replay of the perennial neocon wet dream: a “Pearl Harbor moment.” That’s simply not the Chinese way.

The day after, as the narcissist Speaker, so proud of accomplishing her stunt, was awarded the Order of Auspicious Clouds for her promotion of bilateral US-Taiwan relations, the Chinese Foreign Minister issued a sobering comment: the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland is a historical inevitability.

That’s how you focus, strategically, in the long game.

What happens next had already been telegraphed, somewhat hidden in a Global Times report. Here are the two key points:

Point 1: “China will see it as a provocative action permitted by the Biden administration rather than a personal decision made by Pelosi.”

That’s exactly what President Xi Jinping had personally told the teleprompt-reading White House tenant during a tense phone call last week. And that concerns the ultimate red line.

Xi is now reaching the exact same conclusion reached by Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year: the United States is “non-agreement capable,” and there’s no point in expecting it to respect diplomacy and/or rule of law in international relations.

Point 2 concerns the consequences, reflecting a consensus among top Chinese analysts that mirrors the consensus at the Politburo: “The Russia-Ukraine crisis has just let the world see the consequence of pushing a major power into a corner… China will steadily speed up its process of reunification and declare the end of US domination of the world order.”

Chess, not checkers

The Sinophobic matrix predictably dismissed Xi’s reaction to the fact on the ground – and in the skies – in Taiwan, complete with rhetoric exposing the “provocation by American reactionaries” and the “uncivilized campaign of the imperialists.”

This may be seen as Xi playing Chairman Mao. He may have a point, but the rhetoric is pro forma. The crucial fact is that Xi was personally humiliated by Washington and so was the Communist Party of China (CPC), a major loss of face – something that in Chinese culture is unforgivable. And all that compounded with a US tactical victory.

So the response will be inevitable, and it will be classic Sun Tzu: calculated, precise, tough, long-term and strategic – not tactical. That takes time because Beijing is not ready yet in an array of mostly technological domains. Putin had to wait years for Russia to act decisively. China’s time will come.

For now, what’s clear is that as much as with Russia-US relations last February, the Rubicon has been crossed in the US-China sphere.

The price of collateral damage

The Central Bank of Afghanistan bagged a paltry $40 million in cash as ‘humanitarian aid’ soon after that missile on a balcony in Kabul.

So that was the price of the Al-Zawahiri operation, intermediated by the currently US-aligned Pakistani intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). So cheap.

The MQ-9 Reaper drone carrying the two Hellfire R9X that killed Al-Zawahiri had to fly over Pakistani airspace – taking off from a US base in the Persian Gulf, traversing the Arabian Sea, and flying over Balochistan to enter Afghanistan from the south. The Americans may have also got human intelligence as a bonus.

A 2003 deal, according to which Islamabad facilitates air corridors for US military flights, may have expired with the American withdrawal debacle last August, but could always be revived.

No one should expect a deep dive investigation on what exactly the ISI – historically very close to the Taliban – gave to Washington on a silver platter.

Dodgy dealings

Cue to an intriguing phone call last week between the all-powerful Chief of Staff of the Pakistani Army, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, and US deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. Bajwa was lobbying for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to release a crucial loan at the soonest, otherwise Pakistan will default on its foreign debt.

Were deposed former Prime Minister Imran Khan still in power, he would never have allowed that phone call.

The plot thickens, as Al-Zawahiri’s Kabul digs in a posh neighborhood is owned by a close advisor to Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of the “terrorist” (US-defined) Haqqani network and currently Taliban Interior Minister. The Haqqani network, needless to add, was always very cozy with the ISI.

And then, three months ago, we had the head of ISI, Lieutenant General Nadeem Anjum, meeting with Biden’s National Security Advisor  Jake Sullivan in Washington – allegedly to get their former, joint, covert, counter-terrorism machinery back on track.

Once again, the only question revolves around the terms of the “offer you can’t refuse” – and that may be connected to IMF relief. Under these circumstances, Al-Zawahiri was just paltry collateral damage.

Sun Tzu deploys his six blades

Following Speaker Pelosi’s caper in Taiwan, collateral damage is bound to multiply like the blades of a R9-X missile.

The first stage is the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) already having engaged in live fire drills, with massive shelling in the direction of the Taiwan Strait out of Fujian province.

The first sanctions are on too, against two Taiwanese funds. Export of sable to Taiwan is forbidden; sable is an essential commodity for the electronics industry – so that will ratchet up the pain dial in high-tech sectors of the global economy.

Chinese CATL, the world’s largest fuel cell and lithium-ion battery maker, is indefinitely postponing the building of a massive $5 billion, 10,000-employee factory that would manufacture batteries for electric vehicles across North America, supplying Tesla and Ford among others.

So the Sun Tzu maneuvering ahead will essentially concentrate on a progressive economic blockade of Taiwan, the imposition of a partial no-fly zone, severe restrictions of maritime traffic, cyber warfare, and the Big Prize: inflicting pain on the US economy.

The War on Eurasia

For Beijing, playing the long game means the acceleration of the process involving an array of nations across Eurasia and beyond, trading in commodities and manufactured products in their own currencies. They will be progressively testing a new system that will see the advent of a BRICS+/SCO/Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) basket of currencies, and in the near future, a new reserve currency.

The Speaker’s escapade was concomitant to the definitive burial of the “war on terror” cycle and its metastasis into the “war on Eurasia” era.

It may have unwittingly provided the last missing cog to turbo-charge the complex machinery of the Russia-China strategic partnership. That’s all there is to know about the ‘strategic’ capability of the US political ruling class. And this time no missile on a balcony will be able to erase the new era.

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This article was originally published on The Cradle.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Cradle

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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*

Why don’t they get rid of the muzzle?

While the health law specifies that a generalized obligation is no longer conceivable without prior discussion by the deputies, the minister manages to continue to impose it on us while the epidemic is over, the early treatments recognized and the ineffectiveness of the mask on the population obvious![1][2] HIS OWN ROLE IS UNMASKED.

Constantly reactivated, the obligation to wear a mask causes a return of the trauma. This mask is not only a false protection, but a continuation of the destruction of our Humanity, towards transhumanism.

Even more serious than in the first analysis:

“The obligation of the generalized wearing of the mask is emblematic of the management of the “pandemic”. This constraint is not of a sanitary nature and testifies to a nonsense; it is a commandment presenting itself, at the same time, as a law and its destruction. It is the passage to the act of an exit from the Political.

The reasons for the obligation can be summarized in the fact that, without it, there would be no manifest sign of the supposed “extreme seriousness” of the covid. The centrality of wearing a mask lies in the fact that, by constantly reminding us of the “pandemic”, the constraint places us in the gaze of the power confiscating our intimacy“[3].

“Obligation then becomes a supreme law conditioning our “freedom” and instituting a negative relationship with oneself and with the other. It enjoins us to renounce our human life. The reality of death being no longer channeled by culture, it covers the totality of existence.

Thus, the corona mask is not the articulation of the symbolic and the real. It is therefore not a mask, because it is not veiling.”[4]

“Something of the Real is captured: the desire for relationship. From then on, the people who put on the mask do not carry the word, but the cry of the one who has become a person. They exhibit both the rejection of the other and what results from it, their own annihilation.

“The wearing of the corona mask produces a loss of “symbolic appetence”, of this desire of relation manifesting itself outside the satisfaction of the elementary needs of the survival. The “primordial meeting with the other” is an impulsive push, that of the drive of life, essential in the installation of a bond with the outside.”

This natural desire, this drive of life, is today attacked by the wearing of the mask and its perpetuation after the suppression of the emergency law and any danger of this small virus clearly testifies to its instrumentalization by the globalist, eugenicist and transhumanist power. The normal man must disappear in their eyes and they use their means.

“The wearing of the corona mask leads to an indifferentiation of the ego and the not-ego, of the subject and the object. (…). From this indifferentiation, results a fusion with the things themselves. The corona mask thus allows the installation of a schizophrenic structure, where the individual identifies himself with the objects of the speech. He becomes his mask”.

Thus the media power of the billionaires takes hold on the Human via the MASK tool.

THE MASK, A TOOL OF POWER THAT IS HARMFUL TO HEALTH[5]

The publication of decrees (of a questionable legality, jurists are looking into it) authorizing a pharmacist, doctor or health establishment to impose it, as soon as the French law abolishing the state of emergency was voted on July 26, 22, the same day, demonstrates the certain will as a TOOL of power to pursue the conditioning of the populations.

Let’s not doubt that pretexts such as pollution, ozone or the Lockness monster will be used by the leaders not to let go of its very efficient collaborator, the muzzle.

This would be only moderately serious, if this piece of fabric infected and infecting with various miasmas did not keep the global population in fear and thus in submission to the ruling bodies. In spite of the numerous worldwide proofs of the ineffectiveness of the mask against viruses and its danger of spreading bacteria and fungi (especially in frail, cancerous, immunocompromised people, primary or secondary to gene injections, etc.), the attraction of the cloth persists for reasons that psychiatrists will shed light on by helping us understand how it works.

“The world through a mask is not the same. It is uncomfortable, strange, and out of step with our normalcy.”[6]

It can be both amusing and terrible to read psychoanalysts’ reflections during covid19 about the mask:

“A strange game is played around the mask in the practices and we know that language is also non-verbal. This body speaks to us a lot with the mask object! There are those who wear it easily, those who forget it, those who will not come and who may take the option of the line as a space of freedom created, those who talk about it with anger to feel locked up, suffocated and objectified and those who twist it in all directions as if they wanted to tear it off their face as if this double skin disturbed them. Others who no longer see it.

There are also those who, “by chance” at the moment of opening the door of the office, have just broken their mask by putting it on. A nice missed act, isn’t it?

This was the case of this patient, who in life, could no longer bear the mask of the simulacrum. In front of the door, her mask had cracked. So it was a good thing and we talked about it.

And of this other one who realized in front of my door that she “left without”, letting go for the first time on so many superstitious prohibitions.

Bravo ! In front of the door of the office, yes, the masks fall as the missed acts have always multiplied. Masked and unmasked at the same time.”[7]

Fear is embedded after these months of manipulation and it is difficult to get out of it like the distressing spectacle of masked drivers alone in their cars, young people running on a beach, mask stuck by sweat and heat wave, and worse: Pelosi who faces Chinese planes to land in Taiwan and comes out masked on the airport tarmac. Was it fear or manipulation on her part? How sad!

BEWARE! DESPITE THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ANY SERIOUS COVID RISK, THE GLOBALISTS WOULD LIKE TO RE-IMPOSE THE MASK ON US

“In the whole choreography of the pandemic, the body does not speak. The mask is a gag. Fixed on the mouth, it forbids speech, the vehicle par excellence of the relation to others, speech being, of all the functions of the body, the most closely linked to the common existence”.

Let’s be vigilant and spread all the information that shows its inefficiency, its harmfulness and its toxicity. Let’s inform our neighbors and friends who are still afraid of the risk for themselves of this infecting and dehumanizing rag. Let us not take lightly its prolongation beyond the infections that antibiotics will overcome, the disorders induced towards schizophrenia and psychosis should not be underestimated. We already see the damage in some normal people who were previously covid and have become very “special” and deaf to all reasoning.

THE MASK PROMOTES COVID INFECTIONS[8][9]

“The disadvantages and risks include that a cloth mask becomes a culture medium for a wide variety of bacterial pathogens and a collector of viral pathogens; given the hot, humid environment and the constant source, where home fabrics are hydrophilic while medical masks are hydrophobic.”[10]

Global experience has confirmed this statement by Prof. Rancourt of December 2020.

Jacinda Ardern “baffled” by the spike in COVID infections in New Zealand, a country where masks are mandatory (anguillesousroche.com)

Non-masked countries are less infected

The UK government’s own investigation found that the evidence for the effectiveness of face masks in stopping the spread of COVID-19 in schools is “inconclusive.”[11]

The UK government’s SAGE advisor, Dr. Colin Axon, judged the masks as “comfort blankets” that do virtually nothing, recalling that the COVID-19 virus particle is up to 5,000 times smaller than the holes in the mask.

“The small sizes are not easy to understand, but an imperfect analogy would be to imagine marbles being shot at builders’ scaffolding, some might hit a pole and bounce off, but most would obviously pass through,” Axon said.

A prospective randomized study in Denmark with 6,000 participants[12] also found that:

“there was no statistically significant difference between those who wore masks and those who did not when it came to being infected with Covid-19,” the Spectator reported.

WHO BETRAYED SCIENCE

A “show and tell”

It is indeed within the framework of a “show and tell” that the WHO recommends to wear the mask, while at the same time, it recognizes that this device does not make it possible to stop the virus and to protect the person who wears it. The advantage that the organization sees in this incentive lies in the modification of the behavior of the populations, who are encouraged to make their own masks and thus take an active part in their destruction.”[1].

The WHO,[13] whose perverse and toxic role in this Covid crisis is well-documented, overturned on June 5, 2020 more than a decade of decisions by public health agencies around the world that did not recommend masks for the general population.

The WHO made its 2020 recommendation on the preventive medical intervention of face masks for the general population worldwide by acknowledging:

“At present, the widespread use of masks by healthy individuals in the community setting is not yet supported by high-quality direct scientific evidence and there are potential benefits and harms to consider.”

WHO and local public health officials are impeding scientific progress, promoting “observational studies” without controlled trials, rather than protecting public health. It should be of great concern to all that the WHO’s pretext of “a growing body of observational data on mask use by the general public in several countries” has morphed into the mantra of “a growing body of evidence,” which is on the lips of virtually every public health official and city mayor in the country.”

This mantra of “a growing body of evidence” is advanced as the false miracle justification for draconian masking laws, under real circumstances in which:

• There have been NO new randomized studies supporting masking
• All of the many past randomized studies do not support masking

None of the known harms of masking have been studied (application to the general population).

This is the opposite of science-based policy.

Politicians and public health officials are implementing the worst decision model that can be applied in a society that claims to be rational and democratic: forced preventive measures without scientific basis, while recklessly ignoring the consequences.

Denis Rancourt proves as early as 2020 that there is no scientific evidence to support forced masking on the general population, and that all medical studies of the last decade indicate the opposite: DO NOT recommend forced masking of the general population.

Recall in detailed summary in numerous articles that face mask requirements for the entire population cause:

– generalized discomfort,
– breathing difficulties,
– vision problems (e.g., glasses fogging up),
– impaired communication,
– psychological social distancing,
– skin irritation and infections,
– altered self-expression,
– prolonged exposure to bacterial cultures near the eyes, nose and mouth
– possible collection and administration of viral pathogens that would not otherwise be inhaled, and
– possible amplification of the particle size fraction of exhaled aerosol of infectious particles.

The mantra of “more and more evidence” is totally misleading[14]

Wearing a mask is particularly harmful for children at risk of learning disabilities. Let’s be vigilant in fear of bad ideas at the start of the school year[15][16][17]. Let’s protect them from the useless and toxic gene injection, but also from the wearing of the mask that the enfermistes might want to impose on us at the beginning of the school year in September 2022.

The compulsory wearing of masks for children is maltreatment ! FranceSoir reminds us of an article from August 2020. They knew! It is very illogical and extremely serious to demand masks for children, because they do not contaminate others. It is totally aberrant to demand masks for children in class when, contrary to the flu epidemics, the school is not a place of propagation of Covid19 (9) and in case of flu which is frequently transmitted by the children in school, they have never been subjected to such an obligation nor to the flu vaccines.

Of the more than 3700 articles on children and Covid listed on PubMed on 17/8/2020 and the 70 specifically dedicated to possible transmission by children, none of them provides evidence of transmission from a child to another child or to an adult in the real world.[18]

These articles all confirm, without exception, that Covid 19 is rare and almost always benign in children, that children under 19 are not infected by schoolmates but usually by parents at home, that they do not infect adults, and that confinement of children and cessation of school activities are responsible for frequent behavioral and social psychological disturbances, in addition to an obvious impact on their schooling. ALL THESE ARTICLES HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED BY WORLDWIDE EXPERIENCE.

Let us never forget: the mask is a technique of confinement

“The current treatment of our bodies immediately brings to mind the technique of confinement used in the prison of Guantanamo. This camp inaugurates a new exhibition, not of the body, as in the old regime or in the early capitalism, but of its image, more precisely a negation of the body image.

Not only were the prisoners’ eyes masked by opaque glasses, but their nose and mouth were covered by a surgical mask. The body of the prisoner is confiscated, not to subdue it, but to keep it locked within itself. Nothing must distract the prisoner’s mind from an imprisonment, which must be perceived as having no beginning and above all no end.

Compared to the reception, without explicit condemnation, of the images of Guantanamo, the enrolment in the “war against the coronavirus” is an additional stage in the renunciation of our humanity. (…)

In the “war against the coronavirus“, aptly named by President Macron in March 2020 and endorsed by the term “commando” that the new Minister of Health is expected to create, military language is omnipresent, and there is no longer any distinction between inside and outside. This psychotic fusion exists not only at the individual level, but also at the societal level.

The manufacture of psychosis has long been a concern of our leaders. The sensory deprivation techniques applied at Guantanamo Bay allowed for the manufacture of psychotic individuals in two days. These techniques were a direct application of research by behavioral psychologists, including Donald O. Hebb of McGill University in Quebec.

Unmasking the death drive

The principle of identity is essentially lodged in the face, the wearing of a mask is presented as an original fact, carrying an obsessive-compulsive disorder preventing any registration of the other.

If the face makes the social link possible, the corona mask is an unveiling that steals the features of its wearer. It “lifts the lock of the ego and gives free rein to the gush of the impulse“.

The wearing of the corona mask, as a support of the pulsional equipment, is in the heart of the “sanitary” device. It has for function the decomposition of the symbolic body, the annihilation of what makes us human beings.

The wearing of the mask prevents any rupture with the discourse of power and allows the eternal return of the trauma. It is a fetish replacing any symbolization.

But to symbolize is already to establish a distance with the super-moic injunction and to exist as a “we“, it is to refuse to be “taken one by one” in this war against the human race and thus to counter an “attack of the collective through the individuals” by Jean-Claude Paye, Tülay Umay whose article should be read in extenso.

In conclusion, the use of the mask, beyond the multiple physical, societal, educational, etc. disadvantages that we have quickly perceived as mistreatment of both children and adults, is much more than that.

It is the tool of the conscious perversity of the leaders who persecute us, want to dehumanize us and do it in full conscience.

The order authorizing its continuation in hospitals, published on the same day as the removal of the emergency covid law [France] on July 26, 2022 is a tragic demonstration of this.

They knew, they know and they should quickly understand that we also know, and that their regrets, even remorse, such as those of JF Delfraissy and A Fischer, will not be enough to absolve them of their grave decisions which have ruined too many lives and will continue to ruin more, as the deleterious effects of all their liberticidal decisions will be spread out over decades, as much by their psychological consequences as by the long term complications of gene injections

Dr. Nicole Delépine

This article was originally published by  nouveau-monde.ca and mondialisation.ca

Notes :

[1] L’APHP ose imposer le masque après le 1er août : est-ce légal ? — Nouveau Monde (nouveau-monde.ca)

[2] Les masques sont inutiles et dangereux : l’expérience désastreuse de la Nouvelle-Zélande — Nouveau Monde (nouveau-monde.ca)

[3] Coronavirus. Ceci n’est pas un masque ! | Mondialisation — Centre de Recherche sur la Mondialisation Par Jean-Claude Paye et Tülay Umay, 13 avril 202

[4] « La pulsion de mort est la structure même de la pandémie. Générique et universelle, elle se « fonde sur une détresse physiologique et sur la rage impuissante » de l’infans, de celui qui ne peut parler. Elle empêche tout libre arbitre et induit une acceptation généralisée du port du masque. Cette pulsion devient la revendication d’un idéal qui est d’échapper à la condition humaine et ainsi l’acceptation d’un passage vers le transhumanisme. » CQFD

[5] Les masques sont inutiles et dangereux ! Stop aux mensonges médiatiques ! | Mondialisation — Centre de Recherche sur la Mondialisation mise à jour de la bibliographie internationale fin juin 2022

[6] Le monde à travers un masque : l’impact psychologique — Nos Pensées (nospensees.fr)

[7] Masque et acte manqué — Psychologue.net

[8] France – L’AFNOR prouve que le masque « grand public » recommandé par le gouvernement est une véritable escroquerie. | Mondialisation — Centre de Recherche sur la Mondialisation

[9] Fögen Z. The Foegen effect: A mechanism by which facemasks contribute to the COVID-19 case fatality rate. Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Feb 18
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35363218/
L’obligation de porter un masque a causé plus de décès COVID, conclut une étude (anguillesousroche.com)

[10] Face Masks, Lies, Damn Lies, and Public Health Officinals: “A Growing Body of Evidence” | PDF | Randomized Controlled Trial | Infection (scribd.com) Masques faciaux, mensonges, foutus mensonges et responsables de la santé publique : « Un nombre croissant de preuves »
Un nouveau mantra vil est sur les lèvres de tous les responsables de la santé publique et de tous les politiciens de la campagne mondiale pour imposer un masquage universel au grand public :
« il y a un nombre croissant de preuves ».
Cette phrase propagandiste est un vecteur conçu pour atteindre cinq objectifs principaux :
• Donner la fausse impression qu’un bilan des preuves prouve désormais que les masques réduisent la transmission du COVID-19 ;
• Assimiler à tort les commentaires faits dans des lieux scientifiques avec des « preuves » ;
• Masquer le fait qu’une décennie de preuves de niveau politique prouve le contraire : que les masques sont inefficaces contre les maladies respiratoires virales ;
• Masquer le fait qu’il existe désormais une preuve d’observation directe que les masques en tissu n’empêchent pas l’exhalation de nuages ​​de particules d’aérosol en suspension (dessus, dessous et à travers les masques) ;
• Détourner l’attention des méfaits et risques connus considérables dus aux masques faciaux, appliqués à des populations entières.

[11] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59895934

[12] Henning Bundgaard Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask WearersFREE A Randomized Controlled Trial Annals of Internal Medicine
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6817?s=09&journalCode=aim
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32829745/

[13] Attention l’OMS veut manipuler à nouveau le monde via le moneypox (monkeypox) | Mondialisation — Centre de Recherche sur la Mondialisation

[14] revue de la littérature scientifique par Denis Rancourt concernant l’(in)efficacité mesurée des masques pour réduire le risque de transmission des maladies respiratoires virales, article publié le 11 avril 2020 chez ResearchGate, intitulé « Les masques ne fonctionnent pas : un examen de la science pertinente à la politique sociale de COVID-19 ». lu quelque 400 000 fois sur ResearchGate, publié dans plusieurs lieux et objet de nombreux articles de commentaires et d’interviews. Ils ne peuvent pas dire qu’ils ne savaient pas.

[15] Cavadini, T., Fort, M., Pascalis, O., & Gentaz, É. (2022). Quels sont les effets du port du masque sur la reconnaissance des visages et des émotions chez les enfants et les adultes ? Apports des recherches. A.N.A.E., 176, 113-125.

[16] Discussions autour des effets du port du masque — Psychologie du Développement Sensori-Moteur, Affectif et Social — UNIGE

[17] Impact of lip-reading on speech perception in French-speaking children at risk for reading failure assessed from age 5 to 7 | Cairn.info

[18] • Weiyong Liu .et al: Detection of Covid-19 in Children in Early January 2020 in Wuhan, China N Engl J Med. 2020 2 avril ; 382 (14) : 1370-1371
• Liu Y, Yan L-M, Wan L, et al. Viral dynamics in mild and severe cases of COVID-19. Lancet Infect Dis. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S1473 -3099(20)30232 -2
• Hong H, Wang Y, Chung H-T, Chen C-J, Clinical characteristics of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in newborns, infants and children, Pediatrics and Neonatology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedneo.2020.03.001.
• Wu Z, McGoogan JM. Characteristics of and important lessons from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in China: summary of a report of 72 314 cases from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. • JAMA 2020; published online Feb 24. DOI:10.1001/jama.2020.2648
• Jonas F Ludvigsson macroanalysis of Covid 19 in children. Acta Paediatr. 2020 23 mars.
• Peter Brodin Why is COVID-19 so mild in children? Editorial Acta Paediatrica 24 March 2020
• Ji Young Park First Pediatric Case of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Korea J Korean Med Sci. 2020 Mar 23;35(11)
• LiangSua the different clinical characteristics of corona virus disease cases between children and their families in China – the character of children with COVID-19 Emerging Microbes & Infections 2020, VOL. 9
• Qinxue Shen Novel Coronavirus Infection in Children Outside of Wuhan, China Pediatr Pulmonol. 2020 Apr 7. doi: 10.1002/ppul.24762. Online ahead of print
• Ya-Nan Han et al A Comparative-Descriptive Analysis of Clinical Characteristics in 2019-Coronavirus-infected Children and Adults Pediatrics April 2020
• Haiyan Qiu Clinical and epidemiological features of 36 children with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Zhejiang, China: an observational cohort study Lancet Infect Dis. 2020 25 mars; S1473-3099 (20) 30198-5.
• Zhonghua Er Ke Za Zhi pour la Société de pédiatrie et Association médicale chinoise : Recommandations pour le diagnostic, la prévention et le contrôle de la nouvelle infection à coronavirus 2019 chez les enfants (première édition intermédiaire). 2020 ; 58 : 169–74.]., Chinese Journal of Pediatrics
• Wen Yan Jiao et al Behavioral and Emotional Disorders in Children during the COVID-19 Epidemic THE JOURNAL OF PEDIATRICS 2020 www.jpeds.com

[19] in « Un taxi pour l’enfer », fim documentaire américain réalisé par Alex Gibney

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The nation’s first class action settlement involving a COVID shot mandate should be a wake-up call to every employer that did not accommodate or exempt employees who opposed the COVID shots for religious reasons. NorthShore University HealthSystem will pay more than $10.3 million for unlawfully discriminating against more than 500 current and former health care workers and for denying religious exemptions from the COVID shot mandate.

There is no pause button on the federal employment law under Title VII. Employees do not lose their right to reasonable accommodation for their religious beliefs simply because an employer or even the federal government pushes a vaccine mandate under the guise of a pandemic. It is past time for employment law attorneys to stop sitting on the sidelines. They need to help people obtain justice.

Liberty Counsel has been working with thousands of employees who face these abusive and unlawful mandates.

Liberty Counsel settled the nation’s first classwide lawsuit for health care workers over a COVID shot mandate and NorthShore will pay $10,337,500 to compensate these employees who were victims of religious discrimination, and who were punished for their religious beliefs against taking an injection associated with aborted fetal cells.

As part of the settlement agreement, NorthShore will also change its unlawful “no religious accommodations” policy to make it consistent with the law, and to provide religious accommodations in every position across its numerous facilities. No position in any NorthShore facility will be considered off limits to unvaccinated employees with approved religious exemptions. In addition, employees who were terminated because of their religious refusal of the COVID shots will be eligible for rehire if they apply within 90 days of final settlement approval by the court, and they will retain their previous seniority level.

This is a historic, first-of-its-kind class action settlement against a private employer who unlawfully denied hundreds of religious exemption requests to COVID-19 shots. The agreed upon settlement was filed in the federal Northern District Court of Illinois and must be approved by the court. Employees of NorthShore who were denied religious exemptions will receive notice of the settlement, and will have an opportunity to comment, object, request to opt out, or submit a claim form for payment out of the settlement fund, all in accordance with deadlines that will be set by the court.

The amount of individual payments from the settlement fund will depend on how many valid and timely claim forms are submitted during the claims process. If the settlement is approved by the court and all or nearly all of the affected employees file valid and timely claims, it is estimated that employees who were terminated or resigned because of their religious refusal of a COVID shot will receive approximately $25,000 each, and employees who were forced to accept a COVID shot against their religious beliefs to keep their jobs will receive approximately $3,000 each.

The 13 health care workers who are lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit will receive an additional approximate payment of $20,000 each for their important role in bringing this lawsuit and representing the class of NorthShore health care workers.

Liberty Counsel will receive 20 percent of the settlement sum, which equals $2,061,500, as payment for the significant attorney’s fees and costs it has required to undertake a lawsuit against NorthShore and hold it accountable for its actions. This amount is far less than the typical 33 percent usually requested by attorneys in class action litigation.

In October 2021, Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter to NorthShore on behalf of numerous health care workers who had sincere religious objections to NorthShore’s “Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policy.” If NorthShore had agreed then to follow the law and grant religious exemptions, the matter would have been quickly resolved and it would have cost it nothing. But, when NorthShore refused to follow the law, and instead denied all religious exemption and accommodation requests for employees working in its facilities, Liberty Counsel filed a class action lawsuit, along with a motion for a temporary restraining order and injunction.

Liberty Counsel Vice President of Legal Affairs and Chief Litigation Counsel Horatio G. Mihet said, “The policy change and substantial monetary relief required by the settlement will bring a strong measure of justice to NorthShore’s employees who were callously forced to choose between their conscience and their jobs.”

Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel said: “Let this case be a warning to employers that violated Title VII. It is especially significant and gratifying that this first classwide COVID settlement protects health care workers. Health care workers are heroes who daily give their lives to protect and treat their patients. They are needed now more than ever.”

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It has been several weeks since the police execution of Jayland Walker, 25, in Akron, Ohio on June 27.

After public outrage over the death of Walker, who was shot 46 times by a group of eight law-enforcement officers, Mayor Daniel Horrigan declared a state of emergency while numerous people have been arrested and charged with serious crimes for merely exercising their democratic rights.

Tensions remain extremely high in Akron due to the continuing anger and disgust of the shooting death of Walker. During the July 4 holiday weekend, people poured into the streets prompting police reactions which led to arrests and minor incidents of property destruction.

Nonetheless, over the last month there are lingering fears of further social unrest and violence in Akron. A National Night Out event which was scheduled in several districts of the city for August 4 had been cancelled in at least four areas.

The event scheduled to be held in Akron’s Goodyear Heights, Highland Square, Middlebury and Kenmore neighborhoods will not take place. Event planners and officials are claiming that safety concerns and potential demonstrations could occur resulting in the disruption of the celebrations.

Every municipal ward sponsors the annual gathering which is initiated by community leaders or a council member. Ostensibly the campaign is designed to facilitate police and community relations with an underlying theme of crime reduction.

In Ward 10, Councilwoman Sharon Conner made the decision to cancel the event. She indicated that everyone had a right to protest although she was concerned that many people living in the district were gun owners. Conner was concerned about a possible adverse reaction by some residents to demonstrations demanding justice for Jayland Walker.

Earlier on July 29, a car caravan designed to build support for the termination of employment and prosecution of the police involved in the brutal shooting, moved its way through several neighborhoods in Akron slowing down and blocking traffic in some instances. This action represented a form of civil disobedience which could not be ignored by the city administration and the general public.

There were dozens of vehicles which participated in the demonstration on July 29. Obviously, the protest was becoming quite effective prompting the police to use forceful tactics to put the action to an end.

An article published by the Akron Beacon Journal described the situation as follows:

“The caravan formed at about 7:30 p.m. near Inman Street and Archwood Avenue, according to police, who said the protesters blocked intersections as they moved through the city. The group traveled to a neighborhood in Kenmore, then to Lock 3 and around Main Street, according to police Lt. Michael Miller. ‘Members of the group reportedly began chanting and intentionally disturbing citizens who were downtown to enjoy the entertainment at various venues,’ Miller said in a news release.”

Therefore, according to this police version of events reported by the local media, the disruption of the entertainment areas could not be tolerated by the local authorities. Rather than risk a repeat of the police attack and arrests on July 29, the August 4 National Night Out events would pose a risk to the normal operations of the city.

This same report from the Beacon Journal continued by noting that:

“Protesters later demonstrated near the Akron Police Department on South High Street, moving south to the Polsky Building. A vehicle trying to leave the Polsky parking deck collided with a protester’s vehicle at the site, police said. Protesters said on social media that the driver of the exiting vehicle intentionally slammed into them; police say the person was attempting to get out of the parking deck.”

The names of the three people arrested had not been released by the police according to press reports. Despite these demonstrations, Mayor Horrigan and Police Chief Stephen Mylett have failed to make any public statements specifically related to the case. Eight of the officers involved in the firing of more than 90 shots have been placed on administrative paid leave pending the completion of an investigation.

City Administration and Police Have Refused to Issue an Apology to the Family of Walker

On July 15, a preliminary autopsy of Walker was released to the public by Summit County Medical Examiner Dr. Lisa Kohler. The report indicated that Walker had sustained numerous serious wounds which could have resulted in his death.

Kohler said that she could not determine the number of shots fired by the eight officers who discharged their weapons. She said that 46 bullets either struck or grazed Walker during the incident.

Walker was unarmed at the time of the police shooting. Officers claim that Walker had fired at them during a chase which lasted for several minutes. Walker exited the vehicle attempting to flee from the police when he was gunned down. Police then claimed that a handgun was found in the vehicle which Walker was driving.

Walker’s family has expressed extreme skepticism over this version of the killing articulated by the police. The family and its lawyer point to the fact that Walker was fleeing unarmed and consequently posed no threat to the police.

Moreover, the administration and the police have refused to publicly apologize to the Walker family for the circumstances surrounding the death of their loved one. Such a posture has created an atmosphere in Akron which has eroded even further the general attitude among African Americans towards the mayor and the police chief.

The lawyer representing the family of Walker, Atty. Bobby DiCello of the Dicello, Levitt, Gutzler firm, emphasized in the aftermath of the statement by the medical examiner that the city administration is doing more to protect the police rather than the family of the deceased. DiCello said:

“If [city leaders] were focused on protecting Jayland, they wouldn’t have to protect anyone right now. Because nothing was found in his system, it underscored the senselessness [of his killing]. He panicked and paid for it with his life. They could have released the autopsy and an apology, but they didn’t. The reason why is because they are afraid of the courtroom process. The subject needs to be: Where is the public apology? Enough of the quiet nice words. We are not interested in secret concern. We are interested in a public apology for taking a life that was not necessary. … At the end of the day, there shouldn’t have been a single bullet fired.”

United Nations to Investigate the Police Killing of Jayland Walker

A recently created United Nations Human Rights Council division has expressed an interest in investigating the police killing of Jayland Walker. This was revealed when the International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement contacted the law firm representing the family of Walker.

This UN project was officially established during 2021. It represents an outcome of the mass demonstrations which swept the United States and the international community during mid-2020 in the aftermath of the brutal police and vigilante killings of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The UN Human Rights Council convened a full session during the summer of 2020 on the racial profiling and murders of African Americans by law-enforcement in the U.S. The hearing took place at the UN offices in Geneva, Switzerland. One of the brothers of George Floyd, Philonise, addressed the hearing on June 17 asking for the assistance of the international community in bringing justice to African Americans subjected to racial discrimination.

Several African Union (AU) member-states, including Botswana, motivated the convening of the UN Human Rights Council hearing two years ago. The hearing was based upon a resolution passed at the aegis of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik Shabazz) during the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit held in July 1964 in Cairo, Egypt. The OAU, founded in 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was transformed into the AU in 2002. At the time, Malcolm X was the leader of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), which was patterned to a significant degree on the OAU formed one year before.

On the UN Human Rights Council website there is language which describes the mandate for the International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement. The document reads:

“The Expert Mechanism’s mandate is detailed in resolution 47/21. It is established ‘in order to further transformative change for racial justice and equality in the context of law enforcement globally, especially where relating to the legacies of colonialism and the Transatlantic slave trade in enslaved Africans, to investigate Governments’ responses to peaceful anti-racism protests and all violations of international human rights law and to contribute to accountability and redress for victims.”

This development represents the continuation of the legacy of Pan-Africanism and Internationalism within the African American struggle in the U.S. As Malcolm X emphasized during the last year of his life (1964-65), the plight of Black people in the U.S. must be brought before the UN and other global bodies in order to expose the human rights violations and crimes against humanity suffered by now more than 40 million people of African descent.

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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 is from Abayomi Azikiwe

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***

 

 

 

 

Because of the science-based concerns explained in a series of three Open Letters to Parents and Pediatricians (see links below), we urgently ask pediatricians around the world to call for an immediate halt to the global campaign to vaccinate children against COVID.

The three Open Letters are intended to help parents, grandparents, and physicians to better understand and appreciate the following:

• The human immune system is ingeniously complex, beautifully collaborative, extraordinarily competent, and precious.
• The interplay between the immune system and viruses involves complex and delicate adjustments (ongoing counter-moves) on the part of both the virus and the immune system—at both the individual level and the population level.
• Compared to the complex, comprehensive, multidimensional, collaborative approach used by the natural immune system (to protect us from infection), the COVID vaccines use a simplistic, unidimensional, exclusionary approach that sidelines and disrupts important components and functions of the immune system.
• The mass COVID vaccination campaign profoundly disturbs the immune ecosystem, with extremely worrisome short-term and long-term consequences—at both the individual level and the population level.
• In fact, the COVID mass vaccination campaign is responsible for abnormally generating a prolonged series of dominating new variants that become increasingly infectious, increasingly vaccine-resistant (due to “immune escape”), and inevitably more virulent. This mass vaccination campaign has failed to appreciate the complexity and delicacy of the immune ecosystem and, thereby, has prolonged the COVID pandemic and made it much more dangerous.
• Children, in particular, must be protected from the harmful effects (at both the population level and the individual level) of the COVID mass vaccination campaign.
• When given to infants and toddlers, the COVID vaccines interfere with the foundational education of a child’s innate immune system. Our concern is that this interference will irreversibly render those children less able to handle not only SARS-CoV-2 but many other glycosylated viruses, and also predispose those children to autoimmune disease and malignancies.
• There is desperate need for a representative panel of international experts—comprised of exemplary virologists, immunologists, vaccinologists, evolutionary biologists, epidemiologists, and other relevant experts—to engage in respectful, healthy, inclusive, honest, objective, rigorously scientific, video-archived, public dialogue about the COVID mass vaccination campaign, particularly the mass vaccination of children.  So far, such dialogue has not occurred.
• Since the WHO, CDC, FDA, NIH, AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics), pharmaceutical companies, conventional media, and most physicians have chosen not to engage in the above-mentioned dialogue and have failed to stop the misguided COVID mass vaccination of children—the activism of concerned, respectful, informed parents, grandparents, and pediatricians represents our best hope to bring about an immediate halt to the COVID vaccination of children, until proper scientific dialogue and thorough re-evaluation of the COVID vaccination campaign occur.

We would much prefer that the issues raised in the three Open Letters be addressed via healthy scientific dialogue, by an above-mentioned panel of exemplary experts. Unfortunately, proponents of the mass vaccination campaign have shown no interest or willingness to engage in such dialogue, despite repeated pleas by scientists and physicians who have challenged the scientific merits of the prevailing COVID narrative and its mass vaccination campaign.

In the absence of such dialogue, we call for an immediate halt to the mass COVID vaccination of children, until proper scientific dialogue and thorough re-evaluation of the COVID vaccination campaign has occurred.  We urgently and strongly encourage pediatricians around the world to join us in that call for an immediate halt.  It is our hope that the three Open Letters will stimulate, facilitate, and focus dialogue on the most profoundly important aspects of the COVID situation.  We encourage proponents of the mass COVID vaccination campaign to review the information presented in the three Open Letters and respectfully challenge aspects with which they disagree. We welcome such challenge, for that is the purpose and the tradition of healthy scientific dialogue.

Please share this letter as widely as possible—with parents, friends, colleagues, and organizations.

An Open Letter to Parents and Pediatricians Regarding COVID Vaccination. This is the original Open Letter.  It provides 1078 references, click here.

Open Letter, Part II: A Review and Update, click here.

Open Letter to Parents Regarding COVID Vaccination—Part III: Questions to Ask Your Physician—One Pediatrician’s Responses, click here.

Other relevant links and video interviews:

• Intra-pandemic vaccination of toddlers with non-replicating antibody-based vaccines targeted at ASLVI[1]- or ASLVD[2]-enabling glycosylated viruses prevents education of innate immune effector cells (NK cells). (Dr. Vanden Bossche and Dr. Rennebohm), click here.
• Video-interview regarding the initial Open Letter to Parents and Pediatricians (Dr. Rennebohm and Dr. Philip McMillan), click here.
• The Immunologic Rationale Against C-19 Vaccination of Children (Dr. Vanden Bossche), click here.
• Predictions on the Evolution of the COVID 19 Pandemic (Dr. Vanden Bossche), click here.
• An Explanation of why the COVID mass vaccination campaign has prolonged the COVID pandemic, made it more dangerous, and is now paving the way for appearance of new pandemics—involving monkeypox, avian flu, RSV, and polio. (Dr. Vanden Bossche), click here. 
• Immuno-epidemiologic ramifications of the C-19 mass vaccination experiment: Individual and global health consequences. (Dr. Vanden Bossche), click here.
• A Call for an Independent International COVID Commission (Dr. Rennebohm), click here.

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Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche’s Website: www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org

Dr. Rennebohm’s Website: www.notesfromthesocialclinic.org

Featured image: The drawing at the beginning of this document is by Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945), a compassionate German artist who was deeply concerned about children, mothers, human suffering, poverty, injustice, and war. If she were with us today, Kathe would undoubtedly be deeply concerned about the mass COVID vaccination of children.

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***

 

The Russian Defence Ministry announced yesterday that at around 9.20 a.m. Moscow time, Razoni, ship flying the flag of Sierra Leone, left Odessa port in Ukraine as part of the recent grain deal. Razoni is carrying a cargo of maize to Istanbul port. 

The MOD said the “control of the humanitarian operation for the departure of the first ship carrying agricultural products was planned with the active participation of Russian officers who are part of the Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul.” 

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday, “this is a good and important first step” that the first ship with 26-, 27,000 tons of grain sailed out of Odessa.

Searching for the needle in a haystack is exciting, as there could be sudden surprises. There are growing signs that the diplomatic front on Ukraine conflict is livening up. 

On Monday, the US President Joe Biden offered talks with Russia. In his statement ahead of the tenth Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, Biden reiterated the US’ “shared belief” with Russia that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” and that “my administration has prioritised reducing the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”  

Biden continued: 

“I’ve worked on arms control from the earliest days of my career, and the health of the NPT has always rested on meaningful, reciprocal arms limits between the United States and Russian Federation. Even at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were able to work together to uphold our shared responsibility to ensure strategic stability. Today, my Administration is ready to expeditiously negotiate a new arms control framework to replace New START when it expires in 2026. But negotiation requires a willing partner operating in good faith. And Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression in Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and constitutes an attack on fundamental tenets of international order. In this context, Russia should demonstrate that it is ready to resume work on nuclear arms control with the United States.” 

Simultaneously, Blinken also alluded to Russia’s key role for “making sure that countries with nuclear weapons, including the United States, pursue disarmament; making sure that countries that don’t have nuclear weapons do not acquire them by upholding and strengthening nonproliferation; and making sure that countries can engage in the peaceful use of nuclear energy, something that is even more vital as we deal with the challenges posed by climate change.” 

Blinken has had a makeover lately pushing back an avalanche of hawkish opinion represented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, US Senate, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian Parliament who demand that Russia be formally designated a state sponsor of terrorism, a label reserved for North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Iran. 

Indeed, Blinken’s phone call to Russian FM Sergey Lavrov on prisoner exchange was a US-Russia re-engagement since February and therefore a subtle messaging in itself. (Biden’s offer of talks has come within the week.) 

These fresh tidings need to be seen alongside the trend of the “collective West” lately working to ease the anti-Russian sanctions. The following developments suggest a pattern: 

• Canada announced on July 9 — on Germany’s request and  Washington’s backing — while also ignoring Ukraine’s objections, a waiver of sanctions that allowed the return of equipment for Nord Stream 1 pipeline so as to support Europe’s access to “reliable and affordable energy”; 
• European Union issued a guideline on July 13 (in relation to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad) “that the transit of sanctioned goods by road with Russian operators is not allowed under the EU measures. No such similar prohibition exists for rail transport” (via Lithuania.)
• On August 1, the UK eased some restrictions to allow companies to provide insurance and reinsurance to Russian entities, which have implications for shipping and aviation industries. 
• The EU also allowed “exemption (for Russia) from the prohibition to engage in transactions with certain state-owned entities as regards transactions for agricultural products and the transport of oil to third countries.” 
• Bloomberg had reported on June 13 that “US government is quietly encouraging” agricultural and shipping companies to buy and carry more Russia’s fertilizer, whose exports are down 24% this year as “many shippers, banks and insurers have been staying away from the trade out of fear they could inadvertently fall afoul of the rules… and (Washington) is in the seemingly paradoxical position of looking for ways to boost them (Russian exports.)”

However, on the war front, Russia’s special military operations to grind the Ukrainian forces are continuing, albeit without significant changes on the battlefield. The current frontline in Donbass appears to be along the Bakhmut –Soledar-Seversk line where Ukrainian forces try to slow  down the Russian offensive on the cities of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk from the eastern direction.

Positional battles are also going on along the entire frontline in Eastern and Southern Ukraine. The western media, prompted by the Kiev regime, is hyping up an imminent Ukrainian “counteroffensive” in the southern region of Kherson, but that is a stretch. In fact, in the weekend, Ukraine’s 128th Mountain Assault Brigade in Zaporozhye direction reportedly suffered such heavy losses that demoralised troops began abandoning combat positions and desertion from the frontline. 

Although Razoni sailed out yesterday, Russian strikes also destroyed one launcher of  US-made anti-ship Harpoon missile system in Odessa Region while high-precision strike also destroyed two advanced US rocket launchers of HIMARS in Kharkov.

Against such a convoluted backdrop, an opinion is building up in the US that the Kiev regime is stringing the West, and needs to be firmly told that all good things must come to an end.

Reflecting this nascent thinking, the National Interest featured a piece last week by two influential American think tankers close to the Democratic Party circles who had served in the White House and  State Department under the Obama administration. Read it here. 

Conceivably, there is a convergence here with Russia’s grouse that but for Kiev’s intransigence, peace talks are possible. Putin has invited Turkish president Recep Erdogan to meet up at Sochi on Friday. (here , here.) Erdogan had said he hoped the recent grain deal would be a turning point for the resumption of political talks between Ukraine and Russia to end the armed conflict. (here)

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The collapse on Sunday afternoon of four of the sixteen northern towers of Beirut port’s ruined grain silos has revived Lebanese fears and trauma over the explosion two years ago today that devastated the area and deepened frustration over the failure of successive governments to deal with either the causes of the blast or its aftermath.

On August 4, 2020, 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely in a port warehouse detonated, causing a massive blast which killed 219 people, wounded 6,000 and damaged or destroyed the homes of 300,000 in three adjacent neighbourhoods.

The fall of the silos, the cloud of toxic dust this raised, and the threat posed by the rest of the gutted towers has provided the government with arguments to override popular objections to the demolition of the 50-year old, 48-meter-tall towers.

The collapse of the silos was caused by a fire which was ignited by hot weather in tonnes of fermenting grain which should not have remained after the explosion because of the risks it posed. The grain smouldered for two weeks at the base of the towers, caused them to lean, and filled the air with noxious fumes. Nearby householders were told to remain in-doors with windows and doors closed. The Lebanese Red Cross distributed KN95 face masks used against COVID to families in the area.

Firemen dispatched to deal with the situation found that water made the fire worse and foam did not smother it. Helicopters were barred from taking action as the rotors’ downdraft could bring down the silos which could fall at any time. Four did.

When the government headed by Najib Mikati decided in April that the silos had to be bulldozed and the area cleared, blast survivors, families of fatalities and Lebanese still shocked by the event rejected this plan. They argued that the silos should be shored up and preserved as a memorial to victims and as evidence to convict politicians of homicidal neglect of the volatile material stored in a warehouse with other combustible material.

Residents of West Beirut, in particular, argued that the silos should stand because their presence protected their sector of the city by absorbing most of the blast wave which remained powerful enough to shatter windows in buildings at the southern edge this part of the capital.

A Lebanese friend visiting Cyprus said he wanted the blackened and blasted silos to be saved as an historical site to be visited by coming generations of Lebanese and, after decades, studied by scholars. It is unlikely, however, that the silos will survive unless serious efforts are made to preserve them at a time Lebanon has no money to do this.

The silos have become an icon and a tourist destination.Visitors to Beirut are routinely taken to the fenced-off port to see the blackened husks of the grain towers which had survived the blast, the largest non-nuclear explosion since World War II.

The freighter carrying the highly volatile material entered Beirut port in November 2013 with the aim of loading heavy machinery bound for Aqaba before continuing to Mozambique to deliver the main cargo.  However, when the machinery was lifted onto the ship and placed on the hold coverit buckled, alerting port officials to the poor condition of the vessel, which was declared unseaworthy and detained. The Russian captain and three crew members were held on the ship as caretakers for a year until a court ruled they should go home. Before leaving, the captain warned that the ammonium nitrate was deteriorating and was a serious danger to the port. Bankruptcy prompted the operator to abandon the ship after it was seized for non-payment of $100,000 in fees.

The cargo was shifted to an ill maintained warehouse where it remained until it exploded. The ship sank in 2018. Ownership of both the ship and its cargo has been disputed since the blast. Nothing was done by the Lebanese authorities for more than six years.

In December 2019, Port officials warned President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab about the severe danger posed by the material but nothing was done until the beginning of August 2020 when Syrian welders were told by port officials to make repairs on the warehouse doors.  It is suspected that sparks from their tools may have triggered the blast. They were killed along with firefighters who turned up to fight the fires ignited by the explosion.

Teams of Lebanese citizens responded to the blast by rescuing survivors from the ruins of their homes and offices and by clearing away debris.  Hospitals struggled to care for the wounded and reassure their relatives. Lebanese formed groups to help families repair homes and civil society organisations provided food and medicine for the homeless. The state was largely absent.

An Armenian survivor told this correspondent she appealed two young volunteers passing on a motor bike to bring her injured niece down from her flat on the fifth floor of a damaged building.  “Please, Ali, please Ali”, the woman said she cried. Ali and his friend braved the broken and debris littered stairs, saved the young woman and commandeered a car to take herto hospital. The Armenian lady guided us to the blasted building which has been beautifully restored. “All this was done by local groups with foreign money.” Nothing came from the government which was and remains paralysed to this very day by political deadlock and multiple economic and social crises.

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Israel is convinced that Moscow’s threat to close down the Jewish Agency in Russia is retaliation for the Zionist state’s positions on the war in Ukraine. In fact, Israel now fears that the crisis with Russia will escalate further, which has prompted officials in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice, and the National Security Council, to hold urgent discussions to assess the situation.

The feeling is that Israel is running out of time to deal with the crisis with Russia, because the Russian Jews in the occupation state maintain close links with their homeland. Israeli diplomats are working to guarantee that the “vital” activities and services provided by the Jewish Agency continue.

By closing the offices of the agency, Russia has dealt a severe blow to Jewish migration from the country to Israel, hence the occupation state’s concern. There is now even more tension between Moscow and Tel Aviv.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Israel’s interim Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has taken a hard line against the Russians. He was the first to join the West in issuing strong condemnations of President Vladimir Putin and accusing Moscow of “war crimes”. He also led Israel’s decision to support the condemnation of Russia at the UN. He has not spoken to Putin since taking over as prime minister, nor did the Russian leader call to congratulate him on his new role. This suggests that Russia’s closure of the Jewish Agency is purely political, an act of revenge, although it is alleged that the agency has broken Russian law.

Jewish immigrants to Israel from Russia are increasing in number, with 19,168 people making the move since the beginning of the year. In the whole of 2021, only 7,824 Jews made “aliyah”. The figures show that so far this year 48 per cent of all Jews migrating to Israel are from Russia.

Israel’s position on the war in Ukraine is not the only reason for the crisis with Russia. Another reason being talked about in Israel is the occupation state’s ongoing aggression in Syria, especially the recent attack that led to the closure of Damascus International Airport, and the attack on the port of Tartus, where there is a Russian naval base.

A third reason is related to the Russian demand for ownership of Alexander’s Court in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, which was blocked by an Israeli court. Putin sent a personal message to former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in this regard, but nothing happened, and things got to the point where Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke about the alleged “Jewish roots” of Adolf Hitler.

It is understandable to be astonished at Israel-Russia relations right now. They once enjoyed an era of mutual interests and harmony which led to great success for Jewish capitalists in Moscow, where some occupied influential positions in the Kremlin and others owned major media outlets. It also led to the largest migration of Russian Jews, close to one million people, to Israel between 1990 and 2006. That was the largest such migration since the upheaval of the occupation of Palestine in 1948.

Israel’s selective humanitarian façade: welcoming Ukrainians – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor]

Israeli leaders made routine official visits to Moscow. Of all world leaders, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Kremlin more than any other between 2016 and 2020. Moreover, the strategic regional environment saw Israel boosting its desire to build bridges with Russia, as the Middle East became a very competitive arena.

Decision-making circles in Tel Aviv intensified their communication with their counterparts in Moscow, after realising the weakening of the US position in the region, especially since President Joe Biden took office and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq. It slowly dawned on Israeli officials that Washington was leaving behind a huge vacuum.

None of this prevented Israel from following the West in its position on Ukraine, in line with the international stance and the return of a Cold War atmosphere. Israel has been trying to curry favour with both sides in the war, as it usually does, but it did not succeed this time. Hence, the deteriorating relations with Moscow. The longer the war continues, the higher the price that Israel will have to pay.

Israelis tend to agree that they do not want the current tension with Moscow to become irreversible to the point that Russia would ban Israel’s air force jets from using Syrian airspace; that would be a nightmare scenario for Tel Aviv. At the time of writing, Israel does not have a clear idea of what its reaction would be if things get to that stage, but it would push it into a corner and limit the options on its northern front.

Many Israelis believe that they will need a miracle to get Russia to reverse the decision to close the Jewish Agency. Moscow seems to be heading towards the end of Jewish migration from Russia, and orders from the highest levels have been issued in this regard. This is not a whim, but a serious initiative stemming from the Kremlin’s vision for global leadership.

Hence the Israeli worry that things will not stop at the closing down of the Jewish Agency. Other Jewish institutions that disseminate information about Israel and teach the Hebrew language may also face closure. Putin appears to have decided to escalate the crisis with Israel, and the occupation state’s efforts and achievements over the past thirty years may well be negated as a result.

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***

New Jersey police may have used blood samples taken from babies to investigate crimes, according to public defenders in the state.

According to a lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender (OPD), the practice came to light after a case in which New Jersey State Police successfully subpoenaed a testing lab for a blood sample drawn from a child. Police then performed DNA analysis on the blood sample that reportedly linked the child’s father to a crime committed more than 25 years ago.

The suspect then became a client of the OPD, which alerted the office to the techniques used to identify the man. The lawsuit, filed jointly by the OPD and the New Jersey Monitor, now seeks to compel the state of New Jersey to disclose information on the full extent of the practice.

All babies born in the state of New Jersey are required to have a blood sample drawn within 48 hours as part of a mandatory testing program that screens them for 60 different disorders. These samples are processed in a state-run lab, which shares data with the state health authority and communicates results to parents.

The blood samples are not directly shared with law enforcement agencies. But if police are able to reliably obtain the samples through subpoena, then effectively, the disease screening process is entering all babies born in the state into a DNA database with no ability to opt out.

According to the lawsuit, parents and the public at large are unaware that blood samples taken from their children could be used in this way.

“The New Jersey Monitor believe the public would be shocked by what has occurred in OPD’s client’s case and that law enforcement agencies are skirting warrant requirements in this way,” a section of the lawsuit reads. “It also believes that parents in particular would be shocked to learn that their children’s blood samples are being stored by the Department of Health for more than twenty years and are being accessed by law enforcement agencies without their knowledge or consent so that their DNA could be analyzed.”

Per reporting in the New Jersey Monitor, prior to the lawsuit, public records requests filed by the Monitor and the Public Defender’s Office seeking information on subpoenas served to the lab that conducts the disease screenings were denied by the state.

A spokesperson for the New Jersey State Police said the department could not comment on pending litigation.

Across the US, DNA collection laws differ widely from state to state. While states require that a person be charged with a crime before their DNA can be collected or that a determination be made by a judge to take a sample from a suspect, others allow it to happen any time an arrest is made. Laws around the length of time that samples can be held for also vary: some states require that they be expunged if criminal charges are not pressed within a certain length of time, but others — including New York — have been criticized for retaining the DNA of people who were never charged.

Read the case file here.

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***

The European Medicines Agency today recommended adding a warning for two types of heart inflammation to Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine, marketed under the brand names Nuvaxovid and Covovax, based on a small number of cases reported in those who received the vaccine.

According to a statement, the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee — responsible for assessing and monitoring the safety of human medicines — concluded that “myocarditis and pericarditis can occur following vaccination with Nuvaxovid.”

“The Committee is therefore recommending listing myocarditis and pericarditis as new side effects in the product information for Nuvaxovid, together with a warning to raise awareness among healthcare professionals and people receiving this vaccine,” the statement said.

The Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee also requested the “marketing authorization holder of Nuvaxovid provides additional data on risk of side effects occurring.”

According to Reuters, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) flagged a risk of heart inflammation from the Novavax vaccine in early June.

However, the agency on July 13 granted Novavax’s request for Emergency Use Authorization of the vaccine for adults 18 and over in the U.S.

Novavax hoped people who opted not to take Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines — both of which are associated with a risk of heart inflammation — would favor its shot because it “relies on technology used for decades,” Reuters reported.

The FDA’s “Fact Sheet for Healthcare Providers Administering Vaccine” now includes a warningthat “clinical trial data provide evidence for increased risks of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of tissue surrounding the heart) following administration of Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted.”

The FDA’s “Fact Sheet for Recipients and Caregivers” states that for most people who have had myocarditis or pericarditis after receiving the vaccine, symptoms began within 10 days following vaccination and that vaccine recipients should seek medical attention right away if they experience chest pain, shortness of breath, feelings of having a fast-beating, fluttering or pounding heart.

Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart muscle that can lead to cardiac arrhythmia and death. According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, myocarditis can result from infections, but “more commonly the myocarditis is a result of the body’s immune reaction to the initial heart damage.”

Pericarditis is inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart that can cause sharp chest pain and other symptoms.

Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that use mRNA technology, and the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine that uses adenovirus vector technology, the Novavax vaccine uses a more traditional vaccine technology.

As The Defender reported in June, that may be one reason the committee recommended the vaccine — in the hope that “unvaccinated holdouts,” suspicious of the newer technologies or allergic to components of the mRNA vaccines, will be more likely to get the Novavax shot.

Despite a unanimous vote by the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel, members raised several concerns about the Novavax vaccine, including heart-related adverse events observed during the clinical trials.

FDA documents show multiple instances of myocarditis and pericarditis reported after the administration of the Novavax vaccine:

“Multiple events of myocarditis/pericarditis were reported in temporal relationship to NVX-CoV2373 [the Novavax vaccine used during the trials] administration, similar to myocarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and raising concern for a causal relationship to NVX-CoV2373.

“Events of lymphadenopathy were infrequent but reported by a higher proportion of participants in the NVX arm, with the highest rate observed after Dose 2 (0.2%).

“Review of the data also identified small imbalances in certain thromboembolic events, including cardiac and neurovascular events, hypersensitivity events, cholecystitis, uveitis, cardiac failure, and cardiomyopathy.

“Data from passive surveillance during post-authorization use in other countries also indicate a higher-than-expected rate of myocarditis and pericarditis (mainly pericarditis) associated with the vaccine.”

In a safety database encompassing data from 40,000 Novavax vaccine recipients, four young men, ages 16 through 28, reported myocarditis or pericarditis within 20 days of injection, though one of the four had a viral illness that may have caused the symptoms.

One trial participant reported myocarditis after being injected with a placebo.

According to the FDA, there were 26,000 people in the Novavax clinical trial. Yet, only 21,000 of the 26,000 people who received the vaccine during the trial were “followed for at least 2 months.”

It is unknown if any participants developed heart inflammation after the two-month follow-up period, why the other 5,000 clinical trial participants were not followed or whether those individuals experienced heart inflammation.

In briefing documents released June 3, the FDA wrote:

“These events raise the concern for a causal association with this vaccine, similar to the association documented with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.”

The FDA asked Novavax to “flag” myocarditis and pericarditis as an “important identified risk” in its materials accompanying the vaccine. However, Novavax has not yet agreed to do so.

“Based on our interpretation of all the clinical data supporting NVX-CoV2373 … we believe there is insufficient evidence to establish a causal relationship,” the company said in a statement.

Novavax claimed that “natural background events” of myocarditis can be expected in any large database and the “totality of the clinical evidence” is “not enough to establish an overall causal relationship with the vaccine.”

Novavax on Monday asked the World Health Organization to expand emergency use listing of its vaccine for adolescents ages 12-17. Japan, Australia and the EU previously authorized the vaccine for that age group.

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Megan Redshaw is a staff attorney for Children’s Health Defense and a reporter for The Defender.

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***

A new Kaiser Family Foundation survey has found that very few Americans are getting their children “vaccinated” for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), despite aggressive prodding by Joe Biden, the current White House occupier, and Rochelle Walensky of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among other plandemic shills.

Children under age five are by far the least jabbed demographic in America today, with more parents than not saying that they absolutely will not, under any circumstances, roll up their children’s sleeves for a DNA modification injection – this includes many parents who got jabbed themselves.

The New York Times hilariously claimed that resistance to jabbing children has to do with “lack of access” to the shots, this being a major concern expressed among Black and Hispanic parents.

“About 44 percent of Black parents worried about having to take time off from work,” the Times added.

Amazingly, just seven percent of parents with children under five say they have gotten their children jabbed for the Fauci Flu – this after more than a month of relentless propaganda from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) via all their lapdog media outlets.

“Forty-three percent say they will never get their kid vaccinated against the virus under any circumstance,” reported the Daily Caller. “Another 13 percent said they would only do so if it were required for an activity such as school.”

Does anyone take the Biden regime seriously anymore?

It is not just Republicans, by the way, who are rejecting the shots for their children. Twenty-two percent of Democrats say they will not jab their under-five children, compared to just 15 percent who say they already have.

Among Democrat parents who are vaccinated themselves, 27 percent say they will not jab their under-five babies compared to 11 percent who already have.

“Parents listed a lack of research, concern about side effects and vaccine safety as the top reasons not to want the vaccine for their toddler,” the Daily Caller noted.

“Another factor is that many parents simply don’t think their kid needs a shot: 53 percent of parents of kids between six months and four years old said that the health risk associated with getting the COVID-19 vaccine is greater than the risk of getting the virus itself for kids.”

For the Biden regime, which is committed to getting multiple jabs in every arm, this is a disaster and a disappointment. Clearly, most of America is no longer listening to what Biden has to say, which just goes to show that the emperor has no clothes.

It turns out that the United States is one of the only countries in the world that “emergency authorized” Chinese Virus injections for children. Most other countries said no way to the jab, which makes the Biden regime a global anomaly on the matter.

“Any parent subjecting their infants or child of any age to the jab is guilty of child abuse,” wrote a commenter.

“The evidence is now clear: the jab doesn’t protect against COVID; ask Joe Biden. It destroys your own immune system. Kids are at virtually zero risk from what’s now a cold. AND, most importantly, you’re exposing your child to the very stark prospect of heart disease and death from the experimental gene therapy.”

Another stressed that there is zero chance any parent is refusing the shot due to “lack of access,” which is just another media crock excuse.

“The true reason is lack of trust,” this person added, thanking Tony “I am science” Fauci.

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***

Never before have so many athletes dropped dead than since early 2021 when Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccines” were first unleashed under Operation Warp Speed.

According to the data, athlete deaths are up 1,700 percent compared to the monthly averages recorded since 1966. And if things continue on their current trajectory, the 2022 data will show upwards of a 4,120 percent increase in athlete deaths.

In March of this year alone, three times as many athletes died compared to the previous annual average. That increase shows no signs of slowing as the full impact of Fauci Flu shots on public health is only just getting started. (Related: Check out our earlier coverage about some of the athletes who have died following the release of Chinese Virus injections.)

According to research out of Switzerland that was published back in 2006, between 1966 and 2004 – this is 39 years – there were 1,101 “sudden deaths” among otherwise healthy athletes under the age of 35. Comparatively, between January 2021 and April 2022 – this is just 16 months – there were at least 673 sudden deaths among athletes of the same demographic.

“This number could, however, be much higher,” notes Exposé News. “So that’s 428 less than the number to have died between 1966 and 2004. The difference here though is that the 1,101 deaths occurred over 39 years, whereas 673 recent deaths have occurred over 16 months.”

Before Fauci Flu shots, only about 28 athletes per YEAR died for no apparent reason – in 2021 there were at least 394 deaths!

To give you a better understanding of the increase in deaths being seen, consider the fact that from 1966 to 2004, the annual average of sudden athlete deaths was 28. In January 2022 alone, three times that number occurred in just one month. That same tripling of deaths was seen in March 2022 as well.

“The 2021 total equates to 394 deaths, 14x higher than the 1966 to 2004 annual average,” Exposé Newsexplains. “The Jan to April 2022 total, a period of 4 months, equates to 279 deaths, 9.96x higher than the annual average between 1966 and 2004.”

“However, if we divide the 66 to 04 annual average by 3 to make it equivalent to the 4 months’ worth of deaths so far in 2022, we get 9.3 deaths. So in effect, 2022 so far has seen deaths 10x higher than the expected rate.”

These are shocking statistics that prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that covid injections are killing people at an astounding rate. And these are athletic people who one would think have a greater resiliency than the average person consuming SAD (standard American diet) “food” and barely exercising.

Is there something to these shots that targets the healthy more than the unhealthy? Or is the time still coming for the unhealthy to succumb, en masse, to the same fate as these now-deceased athletes?

People all across the health spectrum are getting sick and dying from the shots even as you are reading this, so perhaps there is no discrimination happening. The shots are poison, and eventually that poison catches up to you.

A recent study published in the journal Circulation found that signs of cardiovascular damage, which is probably what took out many of the athletes, increase drastically following one’s second injection with the mRNA (messenger RNA) shot from either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna.

“The risk of heart attacks or other severe coronary problems more than doubled months after the vaccines were administered, based on changes in markers of inflammation and cell damage,” Exposé News explains, offering further insight into the matter.

“Patients had a 1 in 4 risk for severe problems after the vaccines, compared to 1 in 9 before. Their 5-year heart attack risk went from 11% to 25% thanks to the vaccines (that is a 227% increase).”

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***

The U.S and South Korea are about to play war games again, and this time they’re going for the jugular.

For their first joint military exercises in five years, the Americans and South Koreans will polish up what military people here call the “kill chain” in which they target the North’s missile and nuclear sites plus bases needed to supply, refuel, and rearm them.

Sources familiar with the U.S.-South Korea military alliance say the games will climax in a “decapitation” exercise where they play at invading the heart of the North Korean command structure and taking out the leader, Kim Jong Un. Although it’s only a game, he’s sure to take it personally as he did in September 2017 when he ordered the North’s sixth, and most recent, nuclear test after that year’s war games.

The U.S. will not acknowledge—formally or officially—that decapitation is on the agenda. Unofficially, though, that’s the name of the game, as explained to The Daily Beast by those familiar with the upcoming exercise as well as the exercises of five years ago.

Analysts warned the mere mention of decapitation infuriates Kim, already intimidated by the concept of the “kill chain.” Fearful of assassination, wary of discontent among his own poverty-stricken people, he’s reportedly tightened security.

One of Kim’s greatest fears is being caught out in the open in a drone attack similar to those that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri at his home in Kabul on Sunday and Iran’s most feared military commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Aware that he could well be the primary target in any “preemptive strike,” Kim makes himself extremely hard to find, only moving about at night, in different vehicles, accompanied by dozens of bodyguards.

“Decapitation is a mission to capture or kill a high-value target, e.g., manhunting,” David Maxwell, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who joined in the annual games during his five tours in South Korea, told The Daily Beast. “If you get the head of the military forces (which is Kim Jong Un), theoretically you gut the head of the snake.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korea’s defense minister, Lee Jong-sup, agreed last weekend on holding the exercises for the first time since Donald Trump canceled them right after his summit with Kim in Singapore in June 2018 during which he professed they “fell in love.” The exercises, to begin this month, are called Ulchi Freedom Shield, named for a seventh-century general who defeated Chinese invaders.

The decision of the Americans and South Koreans to tighten their bond by joining forces on land, air, and sea fulfills the promises of South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol to improve strained relations. His predecessor, the left-leaning Moon Jae-in, reluctantly tolerated exercises only on computers rather than real live war games, which are seen as essential for the alliance, because he wanted to pursue reconciliation with the North. Now U.S. and Korean forces will go beyond their theoretical command post exercises, known as CPX, to field training exercises (FTX), in a show which Ankit Panda of the Carnegie Endowment said “could involve significant mobilization.” About 50,000 South Korean and nearly 20,000 U.S. troops joined in the last such games five years go.

The “kill chain,” said Panda, is the first axis of South Korea’s “three-axis defense plan” focusing “on the intelligence and strike capabilities necessary to detect and preempt North Korean missile launches.” Second is “Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation,” KMPR, climaxing in the decapitation in which special forces snuff the target—one Kim Jong Un—in an intricately choreographed shock strike. Third is air and missile defense.

“The ‘kill chain’ concept emerged about 10 or so years ago,” said Steve Tharpe, who’s made a career here first as an army officer, then as a civilian official with the U.S. command. “It involves detection and preemptive strike if an impending North Korean major attack is certain. Leadership decapitation would be part of the KMPR.”

U.S and South Korean troops will play the war games at a time of mounting tensions between the two Koreas. Kim has promised to “annihilate” South Korea in what he called “a grave warning to the conservative South Korean government and warmongers” in response to reports the South was seriously considering a “preemptive strike” against the North’s nuclear and missile facilities.

For the first time Kim mentioned Yoon by name, warning his government could be “wiped out” by the North’s “nuclear deterrent.” The U.S., by “holding large-scale joint exercises,” he said, is pushing relations “to a point that is irreversible.”

Analysts are convinced North Korea is ready for its seventh nuclear test—its first since 2017—as the Americans and South Koreans target Kim and his closest aides in another decapitation game.

“Decapitation resembles attacks on the North Korean nuclear forces in that you have to locate the target, refine that location and identify the possible munitions that could be used against it,” said Bruce Bennett, long-time Korea analyst at the RAND Corporation. “The first task could be done by a drone or reconnaissance aircraft,” he said, but Seoul also has decided “to create a brigade of special forces to help perform this function.”

This brigade, he said,

“would presumably be inserted into various locations in North Korea, presumably in North Korean uniforms, trying to find evidence of Kim’s presence or the presence of other regime leaders, refine that information, and then direct an attack on the target.” The attack “could be assisted by drones” or “simply involve shining a laser on the target, simulating the giving of guidance for a laser guided bomb.”

“I personally think that the preemptive strike option against North Korea is a bad idea,” Steve Tharpe told The Daily Beast, “It would immediately lead to a full-scale war—a resumption of full-scale warfare—Korean War: Part II.”

Another Korean War, he predicted, “would make the war in Ukraine pale in comparison, even if nuclear weapons weren’t used.” And “if nerve agents and nukes are used, we would probably see a greater number of deaths here than occurred during the fighting from 1950 to 1953—Korean War: Part I”

Tharpe is confident the North Korean leadership doesn’t want another all-out Korean War knowing “that will lead to their demise regardless of how many casualties they inflict.” The danger, he said, “is a misjudgment of the situation that leads to unnecessary war.”

Credit the military of South Korea, the Republic of Korea, with introducing the term “kill chain” in the first place. “It’s an ROK concept of how to defend South Korea,” a spokesman at the headquarters of U.S. Forces Korea and the United Nations Command told The Daily Beast. What it means, said a South Korean military spokesman, is: “When North Korea fires missiles, we will attack the North Korean missile system.”

Neither the American nor South Korean spokesmen, however, would talk about “decapitation,” an informal term for the grand finale to the “kill chain”—and a word seen as exacerbating tensions.

“I would caution against saying publicly that ‘decapitation’ of North Korea’s leadership might be the premise of any exercise,” said Evans Revere, a retired senior U.S. diplomat who’s been focusing on North Korea issues for years. “Suggesting that elimination of Kim Jong Un and his inner circle would be the goal of the alliance would deeply anger the North Korean regime and require the strongest possible response from Pyongyang.”

North Korea “understands what the United States and the Republic of Korea are capable of doing and what they might try to do in the event of a conflict,” said Revere. “There’s no need to rub Pyongyang’s face in this harsh reality.”

The notion of rehearsing the assassination of Kim Jong Un by beheading his regime inevitably raises questions among those who would love to get rid of the man but wonder if killing him would solve all that much. Undoubtedly there would be a power struggle, possibly including his younger sister Kim Yo Jong, waiting in the wings, but then what?

Colonel Maxwell compared possible decapitation to the killing of Osama Bin Laden. “Does it work in practice or only in theory,” he asked, suggesting decapitation of the head might not accomplish the goal of destroying the enemy.

Choi Jin-wook, president of the Center for Strategic and Cultural Studies in Seoul, saw decapitation as crucial to victory. “For a dictatorship like North Korea,” he told The Daily Beast, “it is the best strategy to get rid of the dictator to win the war.”

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Breaking: Taiwan — Nancy Pelosi Has Landed

By Peter Koenig, August 03, 2022

Ms. Pelosi is the highest ranking US official visiting Taiwan in 25 years. Her visiting Taiwan happened despite the 2-hour phone conversation just a few days ago, between US President Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping. President Xi warned Biden: “Who plays with fire, will be burnt by fire.” Apparently to no avail.

Video: The Current Hike in Interest Rates, Danger of Collapsing Supply Chains: Economist Ernst Wolf

By Ernst Wolff and Reiner Fuellmich, August 03, 2022

In this session, Wolff talks about the hike in interest rates by central banks and why they represent an attack on the middle class. He also talks about the danger of collapsing supply chains as well as the role of Russia (or Putin) and China (or Xi Jinping) in current world affairs and the threat of a third world war.

Food Shortages: WEF Globalists Promote Diet of Bugs — and Cannibalism

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, August 03, 2022

Time and again, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and its global collaborators have “predicted” the future with stunning accuracy, sometimes years in advance, and then when the predictions come true they pretend as though they had nothing to do with it.

The EU Has Begun Its Retreat. “First Steps in Unraveling Energy and Food Sanctions on Russia”

By Alastair Crooke, August 03, 2022

The EU has begun its retreat: It has taken the first steps in unraveling energy and food sanctions on Russia. Will other steps follow? Or will the pan-West, Russia-phobic axis strike back with further belligerence?  Nothing is settled yet, but were the retreat to continue, and the separate Ukraine grain export accord hold together, it will be generally good news for the Region.

Joe Biden’s “Arms Control Talks” Offer to Russia – Genuine Move or More Hot Air?

By Drago Bosnic, August 03, 2022

On Monday, August 1, US President Joe Biden said that the United States is ready to continue arms control negotiations with Russia. The apparent offer was to resume talks on a possible replacement for the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), otherwise known as SNV-3 in Russia.

Spain Admits Spraying Deadly Chemtrails as Part of Secret UN Program: One Month After March 2020 COVID-19 Lockdown

By Baxter Dmitry, August 03, 2022

The Spanish government ordered [April 16, 2020, a month after March 2020 lockdown] the military to quietly spray lethal chemtrails on its citizens with UN authorization under the cover of the “state of emergency for the management of the health crisis situation caused by Covid-19.“

Legacy of Shinzo Abe: Corruption and Hopeless Japanese Economy

By Prof. Joseph H. Chung, August 03, 2022

For the last ten years, the world was watching with curiosity, worries and admiration of Shinzo Abe’s imposing political performance in Japan and the world. Now, he is no more. His departure may make some people sad; his death may bring relief for some others; his absence may make some people worried. The reaction of the people in Japan, Korea, China and in the world may vary great deal depending on the impact of what he was and what he did to different countries and various people.

130 Coast Guard Members Sue Federal Government Over Vaccine Mandates

By Michael Nevradakis, August 03, 2022

The lawsuit, filed July 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas —  Galveston Division, also challenges the constitutionality of the mandate. The number of plaintiffs exceeds 130 and will likely end up surpassing 200, according to Dale Saran, one of the attorneys representing the service members.

Has China Been Bluffing?

By Kim Petersen, August 03, 2022

Across the Eurasian continent, China finds itself being provoked by the US’s oleaginous adherence to the One China policy to which it is a signatory. Beijing has in recent days warned of severe consequences to be borne by the US and separatists in Taiwan (there are vociferous protests in Taiwan against Pelosi’s visit) if US House speaker Nancy Pelosi were to land in Taiwan.

Mismanaging a Pandemic: Failures in the COVID-19 Narrative

By Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null, August 03, 2022

A careful review of thousands of scientific studies and interviews with leading medical professionals and physicians allows us to construct a more honest perspective about our federal health agencies’ and the World Health Organization’s successes and failures in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

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On August 13, 2021, the Canadian government announced that anyone who hadn’t been vaccinated against Covid would soon be barred from planes and trains. In many cases, The Backward could no longer travel between provinces or leave the country. If you lived in Winnipeg and wanted to visit your mother on her deathbed in London or Hong Kong or, perhaps, Quebec City, you’d better get jabbed—or resign yourself to never seeing your mother again. 

Jennifer Little, the director-general of COVID Recovery, the secretive government panel that crafted the mandate, called it “one of the strongest vaccination mandates for travelers in the world.”

It was draconian and sweeping, and it fit neatly with the public persona that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had cultivated—that of the sleek, progressive, forward-looking technocrat guided by fact and reason. The Canadian Medical Association Journal, in a June 2022 article, observed that “Canada had among the most sustained stringent policies regarding restrictions on internal movement.”

But recently released court documents—which capture the decision-making behind the travel mandate—indicate that, far from following the science, the prime minister and his Cabinet were focused on politics. (Canadians are hardly alone. As Common Sense recently reported, American public-health agencies have also been politicized.)

Two days after announcing the mandate, Trudeau called a snap election—presumably expecting that his Liberal Party, which was in the minority in the House of Commons, would benefit from the announcement and be catapulted into the majority. As it turned out, the Liberals failed to win a majority in the September 2021 election. In the meantime, roughly five million unvaccinated Canadians were barred from visiting loved ones, working or otherwise traveling. (Trudeau, for his part, stayed in power. Even though the Conservatives have won the popular vote in the past two elections, because of Canada’s parliamentary system, they have been denied the top job.)

The court documents are part of a lawsuit filed by two Canadian residents against the government. Until last month, they were under seal.

Both plaintiffs are business owners. Both have family in Britain. Both have refused the vaccine on the grounds of bodily autonomy. Both were reluctant to identify their businesses out of fear of losing customers.

One plaintiff is Karl Harrison. In his affidavit, Harrison, 58, said that he and his partner, Emma, had immigrated in 2009 from Britain to Canada. (He became a Canadian citizen in 2015.) They have two children, a 24-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter, and they live in a tony neighborhood in Vancouver. He’d always been an entrepreneur.

“I was involved in establishing, owning and co-owning over 40 venues of one sort or the other—restaurants, bars, music venues and comedy clubs,” he told me. “One music venue is fairly well known, called The Bedford. Ed Sheeran got his start there.”

Since 2000, Harrison had been involved in the travel industry.

“We have a company in the U.K., Ireland, Spain, and we’re the largest retailer of packages for Disneyland Paris,” he said.

He also has an 88-year-old mother in Britain, and he was furious that, for months, he couldn’t visit her.

“When you’ve got oppressive government behavior,” he told me, “you’re only left with only three choices: accept it, fight it or leave. I can’t accept it. I moved my family here, and I would be letting them down if we moved away—so I’m in fight mode.”

The other plaintiff is Shaun Rickard, whose father, also in Britain, is suffering from late-stage Alzheimer’s. Rickard, 55, lives in the town of Pickering, outside Toronto, and he owns a small exterior-siding and eaves-contracting business. He portrayed himself as something of an activist.

“I guess I’m the Lone Ranger,” he told me. “When I see something wrong, evil, corrupt happen, I feel I have to speak up.”

He was surprised when Trudeau announced the travel mandate.

“I said to myself, ‘Holy fuck, how can this be happening here?’” He added that the only way to stop it would be “through revolution, which is never going to happen in Canada, or through the courts, and the latter is what we did.”

So, in the fall of 2021, Rickard launched a GoFundMe to do battle with his government. In November, Harrison, who had learned of Rickard on social media, reached out to him. In December, they jointly filed suit.

Rickard said that, so far, the lawsuit had cost the two plaintiffs about $186,000—of which, Rickard had raised $121,000 on GoFundMe. (In February of this year, when the Canadian government invoked the Emergencies Act in response to the truckers protesting a separate vaccine mandate in Ottawa, GoFundMe forced Rickard, like those raising money for the truckers, off the site.)

Rickard and Harrison’s attorney, Sam Presvelos, said that all government decisions related to public health demanded transparency. “Civil servants shouldn’t hide behind a shroud of secrecy,” Presvelos told me.

The whole point of the case was to lift that shroud and cast a spotlight on the unscientific basis of the mandate.

Among other things, the court documents indicate:

• No one in the COVID Recovery unit, including Jennifer Little, the director-general, had any formal education in epidemiology, medicine or public health.
• Little, who has an undergraduate degree in literature from the University of Toronto, testified that there were 20 people in the unit. When Presvelos asked her whether anyone in the unit had any professional experience in public health, she said there was one person, Monique St.-Laurent. According to St.-Laurent’s LinkedIn profile, she appears to be a civil servant who briefly worked for the Public Health Agency of Canada. St.-Laurent is not a doctor, Little said.

  (Reached on the phone, St.-Laurent confirmed that she was a member of COVID Recovery. She referred all other questions to a government spokesperson.)

• Little suggested that a senior official in the prime minister’s Cabinet or possibly the prime minister himself had ordered COVID Recovery to impose the travel mandate. (During cross-examination, Little told Presvelos repeatedly that “discussions” about the mandate had taken place at “senior” and “very senior” levels.) But she refused to say who had given her team the order to impose the travel mandate. “I’m not at liberty to disclose anything that is subject to cabinet confidence,” she said.
• The term “cabinet confidence” is noteworthy because it refers to the prime minister’s Cabinet. Meaning that Little could not talk about who had directed the COVID Recovery unit to impose the travel mandate because someone at the very highest levels of government was apparently behind it.
• In the days leading up to the implementation of the travel mandate, transportation officials were frantically looking for a rationale for it. They came up short.

That was made clear by an email exchange in the latter half of October 2021 between Aaron McCrorie and Dawn Lumley-Myllari. McCrorie is the associate assistant deputy minister for safety and security in Transport Canada, the department that houses COVID Recovery. Lumley-Myllari is an official in the Public Health Agency of Canada. In the email exchange, McCrorie seemed to be casting about for a credible rationale for the travel mandate. This was less than two weeks before the mandate was set to kick in.

“To the extent that updated data exist or that there is clearer evidence of the safety benefit of vaccination on the users or other stakeholders of the transportation system, it would be helpful to assist Transport Canada supporting its measures,” McCrorie wrote.

Four days later, on October 22, McCrorie emailed Lumley-Myllari again:

“Our requirements come in on October 30”—in just over a week—”so need something fairly soon.”

On October 28, Lumley-Myllari replied to McCrorie with a series of bullet points outlining the benefits, generally speaking, of the Covid vaccine. She did not address McCrorie’s question about the transportation system, noting that the Public Health Agency of Canada was updating its “Public health considerations” with regard to vaccine mandates.

Two days later, on October 30, the travel mandate took effect.

Then, eight-and-a-half months later, on June 14, 2022, government officials announced that they were suspending the mandate—although they made it clear that they could bring it back at any time.

Within days, government lawyers filed a motion seeking to shut down Harrison and Rickard’s suit on the grounds that it was now moot—and, Presvelos said, to make sure the public never saw the court documents. (Since the case was still open, and court documents are unavailable to the public while cases are open, shutting it down would have sharply reduced the likelihood of anyone seeing government officials’ testimony.)

So, on July 12, Presvelos filed an additional damages motion, arguing that his clients had suffered damages during the mandate. Neither Harrison nor Rickard said they wanted money. The point was to make sure the suit didn’t go away and the court documents were made public.

But even so, the inner workings of the COVID Recovery unit and, more generally, the Trudeau government’s thinking around the travel mandate remain opaque.

COVID Recovery has no website, and its name appears almost nowhere in government records. (There is a brief mention of the unit in the guidance document announcing that, effective June 20, the travel mandate would be suspended.)

“The Trudeau government has claimed to follow The Science on COVID, but that science is strangely different than it is everywhere else,” Bruce Pardy, a law professor at Queens University and a former board member at the conservative Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, said in an email. “Instead, its policies are based on spite, divisiveness, and pure politics. COVID now serves as an excuse to punish the government’s ideological enemies.”

Harrison and Rickard wanted to expose the truth behind the mandate: that it was driven by politics, not science. They believed they had a right to refuse a vaccine about which they had come to have doubts. They said they were doing this for all Canadians, even those who thought they were wrong.

“What I have personally struggled with and have found to be the most unconscionable and objectionable aspects of how this pandemic has been managed,” Rickard said in his affidavit, “is the unnecessary hateful, vindictive and divisive behavior that I have witnessed from neighbors, friends, family members, colleagues and our government. The words and action of our government, which has entrenched policies based on vaccination status, without reflecting the risk of those unvaccinated, is far from the warm, caring, and thoughtful Canada I remember living in.”

In September, a judge will decide whether to quash the lawsuit. So far, 16 government officials have testified. Even though this kind of case almost never goes anywhere—there have been several court challenges to the mandates, and all of them have been rejected—Harrison and Rickard, in a way, have already won: They have cast a spotlight on how the sausage gets made. It may not matter.

“I find the idea of helplessness prevalent in Canada,” Harrison told me. “The idea of protesting doesn’t come naturally here. There’s a tendency for people to keep their head down, which I don’t understand, and the government exploits that.”

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Rupa Subramanya is a freelance columnist for National Post and Nikkei Asia. She’s previously written for publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Foreign Policy. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.

Featured image is from collision.conf, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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***

Guest is Ernst Wolf, an economist, financial expert and author. Some of his book are the following:

• Wolff of Wall Street: Ernst Wolff explains the global financial system. (2020)
• The international financial order as a criminal construct of the Deep State. In: Wernicke/Mies (Eds.): Facade Democracy and the Deep State. At On the Way to an Authoritarian Age

In this session, he talks about the hike in interest rates by central banks and why they represent an attack on the middle class.

He also talks about the danger of collapsing supply chains as well as the role of Russia (or Putin) and China (or Xi Jinping) in current world affairs and the threat of a third world war.

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Abstract

All-cause mortality by time is the most reliable data for detecting and epidemiologically characterizing events causing death, and for gauging the population-level impact of any surge or collapse in deaths from any cause.

Such data is not susceptible to reporting bias or to any bias in attributing causes of death. We compare USA all-cause mortality by time (month, week), by age group and by state to number of vaccinated individuals by time (week), by injection sequence, by age group and by state, using consolidated data up to week-5 of 2022 (week ending on February 5, 2022), in order to detect temporal associations, which would imply beneficial or deleterious effects from the vaccination campaign.

We also quantify total excess all-cause mortality (relative to historic trends) for the entire covid period (WHO 11 March 2020 announcement of a pandemic through week-5 of 2022, corresponding to a total of 100 weeks), for the covid period prior to the bulk of vaccine delivery (first 50 weeks of the defined 100-week covid period), and for the covid period when the bulk of vaccine delivery is accomplished (last 50 weeks of the defined 100-week covid period); by age group and by state.

We find that the COVID-19 vaccination campaign did not reduce all-cause mortality during the covid period.

No deaths, within the resolution of all cause mortality, can be said to have been averted due to vaccination in the USA.

The mass vaccination campaign was not justified in terms of reducing excess all-cause mortality.

The large excess mortality of the covid period, far above the historic trend, was maintained throughout the entire covid period irrespective of the unprecedented vaccination campaign, and is very strongly correlated (r = +0.86) to poverty, by state; in fact, proportional to poverty. It is also correlated to several other socio-economic and health factors, by state, but not correlated to population fractions (65+, 75+, 85+ years) of elderly state residents.

The excess all-cause mortality by age group (also expressed as percentage of pre-covid-period all-cause mortality for the age group) for the whole USA for the entire covid period through week-5 of 2022 is:

all ages	1.27M	23%
0-24	13K	12%
25-44	109K	41%
45-64	274K	27%
65-74	319K	30%
75-84	316K	24%
85+	240K	14%

 

The corresponding fatality risk ratios are relatively uniform with age (non-exponential and non-near-exponential with age; and even skewed towards young adults), which holds essentially for all states, and for all examined periods within the covid period. This fundamental result implies that a dominant cause of excess mortality could not have been assigned COVID 19, which consistently has been measured to have a strong near-exponential infection fatality ratio with age. The implication is further corroborated by the absence of correlation between all-age-group-integrated excess mortality and age, by state. COVID-19 was not a dominant cause of excess mortality during the covid period in the USA.

All of our observations can be coherently understood if we interpret that the covid-period socio-economic, regulatory and institutional conditions induced chronic stress and social isolation among members of large vulnerable groups (individuals afflicted and co-afflicted by poverty, obesity, diabetes, high susceptibility to bacterial respiratory infection [inferred from pre-covid-period antibiotic prescription rates], old age, societal exclusion, unemployment, drug and substance abuse, and mental disability or serious mental illness), which in turn caused many of these individuals to be more and fatally immunocompromised, allowing them to succumb to bacterial pneumonia, at a time when a documented national pneumonia epidemic raged and antibiotic prescriptions were systemically reduced; in addition to possible comorbidity from COVID-19 vaccine challenge against individuals thus made immunocompromised, under broad and hastily implemented “vaccine equity” programs.

Click here to read the full report.

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The World Economic Forum envisions a food system that doesn’t include animal foods or require a large land footprint. In fact, for several years now, the WEF has promoted the idea that we should get used to eating bugs and drinking reclaimed sewage. Both are now being rolled out

In a July 2022 article, The New York Times took the WEF’s dystopian projections to a whole new level, announcing that the time to consider cannibalism is now upon us.

Interpretation: The WEF and its allies are manufacturing food shortages, which in some areas may progress into actual famine, and they want you to know that when that time comes, it’s OK for you to eat your neighbor

In addition to a recent rash of books and TV shows that glorify cannibalism, there’s lab-grown human steak “art,” and vegan meat designed to taste like human flesh. In 2019, a Swedish professor also argued for cannibalism as a more sustainable alternative to eating bugs.

Much of the supposed “inspiration” behind the promotion of unnatural diets is said to come from a desire to save the planet. While that’s admirable, it’s important to realize that the “green” agenda — as it is currently promoted — is nothing but a scare tactic to bring people to the point of accepting living conditions that would otherwise be unacceptable, such as eating a diet of bugs, drinking reclaimed sewage water and even, apparently, cannibalism

Screenshot, July 23, 2022

Time and again, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and its global collaborators have “predicted” the future with stunning accuracy, sometimes years in advance, and then when the predictions come true they pretend as though they had nothing to do with it.

It’s worth remembering, then, that WEF founder Klaus Schwab, during the May 2022 meeting in Davos, clearly stated that the future doesn’t just happen, it is “BUILT — by us,” referring to himself and the other attendees in the room. So, make no mistake, they truly believe they have the right to decide the fate of the world, and that you and I have no say in the matter.

That fate was in June 2020 formally announced under the banner of “The Great Reset,” by Schwab himself.¹ This “build back better” scheme involves the complete reorganization and restructuring of all parts of society, including finance, industry, education, “social contracts,” the energy sector and the food system.

As far as the food system is concerned, the WEF envisions a food system that doesn’t include animal foods or require a large land footprint. In fact, for several years now, the WEF has promoted the idea that we should get used to eating bugs^2,3,4 and drinking reclaimed sewage. As just one example, in mid-October 2018, the WEF posted on Twitter:⁵

“Good grub: why we might be eating insects soon.”

Bugs, Sewage and Cannibalism — The Cabal’s Plans for You

The WEF’s many predictions are now rapidly turning into reality, and its selfish agendas are, of course, hailed as brilliant and necessary by its media allies. For example, in February 2021, Time magazine⁶ insisted we really ought to eat more bugs to save the planet, and in May 2021, Bloomberg announced that “The Future of Water Is Recycled Sewage, and We’ll All Be Drinking It.”⁷

Indeed, California has already started its toilet-to-tap transition.⁸ July 23, 2022, The New York Times^9,10 then took the WEF’s dystopian projections to a whole new level, announcing that the time to consider cannibalism is now upon us:

“An image came to Chelsea G. Summers: a boyfriend, accidentally on purpose hit by a car, some quick work with a corkscrew and his liver served Tuscan style, on toast. That figment of her twisted imagination is what prompted Ms. Summers to write her novel, ‘A Certain Hunger,’ about a restaurant critic with a taste for (male) human flesh.

Turns out, cannibalism has a time and a place. In the pages of some recent stomach-churning books, and on television and film screens, Ms. Summers and others suggest that that time is now … Can you stomach it?”

The NYT writer, Alex Beggs — who also writes for the food magazine, Bon Appétit — goes on to list several recent TV shows and films featuring cannibalism in a romanticized light. Well, how else do you brainwash people — especially young people — into accepting the unacceptable if not by glamorizing it through the magic of tell-a-vision? And it’s working. A Reddit message board dedicated to the Showtime series “Yellowjackets” has 51,000 members.

“The show’s tension is in the knowledge that you know cannibalism is coming, but when? And why?” Beggs writes. The show, no doubt, mirrors a tension the elitists of the world actually want to emerge in real life.

“What in the world are you talking about?” you may ask. Let me put it bluntly and not beat around the bush: The WEF and its allies are manufacturing food shortages, which in some areas may progress into actual famine, and they want you to know that when that time comes, it’s OK for you to eat your neighbor.

You’ll be saving the planet, and yourself. Cannibalism is a “win” for the world, so don’t be squeamish. Heck, you might even enjoy it, and there’s no need to be riddled with useless guilt. You’re still a good person.

That’s the subliminal message being broadcast through these articles, books and TV shows that normalize cannibalism, and it’s not by accident. Need I remind you that the NYT deputy managing editor, Rebecca Blumenstein, is a WEF member?¹¹ She knows what’s coming.

And then, of course, there’s the fact checkers insisting The NYT “did not publish an article that normalizes cannibalism,”¹² which is basically proof that it did just that. Those of us who read it did not misunderstand its unstated purpose. The New York Times has also written glowing tributes to Marina Abramovic, whose “art” involves graphic references to cannibalism.¹³

Lab-Grown Human Steak

In addition to books and TV shows that glorify cannibalism, there’s lab-grown human steak, and vegan meat designed to taste like human meat. Starting with the former, in December 2020, steak grown from human cells was featured as “art” at the Design Museum in London, U.K.¹⁴

The creator of the “Ouroboros Steak” — a reference to the ancient alchemical symbol of the snake that devours its tail and is reborn from itself — claimed the installation was a critique against the meat industry, and arose from spending a year “imagining how climate change might impact the future of food consumption.”¹⁵

He was reportedly upset about the fact that “the focus quickly became centered on accusations that we were promoting cannibalism.” At the time, The New York Times reported:¹⁶

“‘Ouroboros Steak’ examines, but does not promote, auto-cannibalism as a satirical take on the increasing demand for meat products around the world, which scientists have warned will likely contribute to carbon emissions and reduced biodiversity.

The designers hoped that shocking audiences with the suggestion would trigger an examination of environmental responsibility and the clean-meat industry, which has promoted itself as producing ‘kill-free’ food, although most companies heavily rely on fetal bovine serum harvested during the slaughter of pregnant cows for cell cultivation.”

While the designers may have had pure intentions, the end result is still something that benefits the depraved agenda of the global elite. It’s also worth noting that livestock — raised in a regenerative fashion, and not in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) — actually have a very positive impact on the climate.

Are They Trying to Normalize Cannibalism? Absolutely

Taking the human steak idea a step further, a company called BiteLabs claims to be selling artisanal salami made from lab-grown celebrity flesh.¹⁷ According to their website, they intend to collect biopsy samples from celebrities, isolate the muscle cells, and then grow the celebrity meat using a proprietary bioreactor.

The lab-grown flesh is then cured, dried, aged and spiced according to Italian tradition. It’s unclear whether any celebrities have signed up to become salami, but the company does appear to be real. New York Grub Street wrote an article about the startup in 2014.¹⁸ IFL Science¹⁹ followed up in January 2022, noting that “It’s perfectly possible” to create salami from cloned celebrity meat.

Other examples of an ongoing effort to normalize cannibalism include a 2018 article discussing the benefits of teenage blood plasma,²⁰ said to have rejuvenating effects. A 2.5-liter order was said to cost about $8,000 at the time. In a bit of predictive programming, the film “Soylent Green” — in which the protagonist realizes the government food being handed out is made from humans — was set in the year 2022.²¹ And then, there’s Katy Perry (below).

Vegan Burger Made to Taste Like Human Flesh

Continuing the parade of cannibalism-normalizing trends, in June 2022, a vegan burger said to “taste like human meat” won a silver award at the annual Cannes Lions festival of Creativity.^22,23 The human meat burger, made from soy, mushrooms, wheat protein, plant-based fats and a secret spice mix, debuted during a 2021 Halloween festival in Stockholm, Sweden.

The video above was the ad for that event. While they state that “no humans were injured in the development of this product,” one obviously wonders how they came up with the taste profile for human meat in the first place.

Perhaps they invented it, and it actually doesn’t taste anything like human flesh. Who’d be able to tell the difference? Either way, this is yet another example where the idea of cannibalism is embraced and lauded.

‘Cannibals Against Climate Change’

Coincidentally, another Swede, professor Magnus Soderlund, made headlines in 2019 by suggesting “humans should become cannibals to fight climate change, because eating human flesh is more ‘sustainable’ than the meat industry.”²⁴ He even insisted cannibalism was a more sustainable option than a diet of insects. While his concept didn’t grow legs right then and there, it seems someone, somewhere, took note of his insane ideas.

While cannibalism has indeed featured on and off throughout human history, it was typically — although with some notable exceptions — a measure of last resort. People ate family members and neighbors to survive famine.²⁵

To suggest that the most advanced human civilization in known memory start eating each other “to save the environment” is unreasonable in the extreme. We have regenerative farming methods that would ease most of our environmental concerns. There’s absolutely no reason to jump from industrial farming all the way to cannibalism.

Green Agenda Seeks to Normalize Lowered Standard of Living

Much of the supposed “inspiration” behind the promotion of unnatural diets is said to come from a desire to save the planet. While that’s admirable, it’s important to realize that the entire “green” agenda — as it is currently promoted — is nothing but a ruse, a scare tactic, to bring people to the point of accepting living conditions that would otherwise be unacceptable, such as eating a diet of bugs, drinking reclaimed sewage water and even, apparently, cannibalism.

The green agenda is based on cherry-picked flawed ideas, such as the idea that nitrogen fertilizer is a pollutant that must be reined in by eliminating farming. Without farmers, what will we eat? The technocratic, transhumanist-loving cabal’s answer: Weeds, bugs and, possibly, each other.

It sounds wild and crazy, but they really do want to get rid of as many people as possible, and no strategy is ethically off-limits, be it the promotion of abortion, the elimination of fossil fuels without having a workable replacement, the mandating of experimental gene transfer injections, insect diets, reclaimed sewage water or cannibalism.

By the way, a number of U.S. states have also adopted alkaline hydrolysis²⁶ as an alternative to cremation, where dead bodies are dissolved and the water from the process is flushed down the sewer. What could possibly go wrong by combining the flushing of water used to dissolve human remains into the sewer and then repurposing that same water into drinking water? Even if mostly symbolic, this too is a form of cannibalism.

Why Are the Elitists’ ‘Answers’ so Gross?

If you’re like most, you’re probably wondering why everything the technocratic cabal presents as “the answer” to our global woes is so darn gross and dehumanizing. The simple answer is that we’re not human to them. We’re a commodity, like cattle, that exist for their benefit and exploitation. They’re “above” the rest of us. We may not have a caste system, officially, but there are two classes in this world.

Before farmers realized that mad cow was created by the feeding of bovine parts back to cattle, this practice was commonplace. And, frankly speaking, the technocratic elitists see us the same way. Why not feed useless eaters back to the ones that still have some worker-bee value? To them, that’s just plain rational.

It’s efficient, and technocracy is based in large part on the efficiency of any given system. Robots are more efficient than humans, hence robots are the better choice. Artificial intelligence is more efficient than the human intellect, and hence they want to merge with it. What to do with useless humans, is the question. And the answer is to get rid of them, in whatever way works, without raising the ire of too many peasants.

Celebrities Embrace Bug Diet

For now, the normalization of cannibalism is still in its infancy. But the fact that bugs are on the menu — now, today — is undeniable. Celebrities, of course, have a role to play in any successful social engineering project, and in the video above, the actress Nicole Kidman takes one for the team.

“Three million people in the world eat bugs, and I’m one of them,” she says, wolfing down a number of different insects, some live and others fried for a crispy crunch. You can bet your bottom dollar that the fried ones were fried in seed oils. My skepticism of her genuineness aside, research has concluded that celebrities can indeed “persuade people to eat insects.” As reported by PsychReg.org:²⁷

“Using celebrity endorsements in adverts for insect-based foods can increase people’s willingness to include insects in their diet, finds new research from BI Norwegian Business School (BI), Chuo University, Miyagi University, and Oxford University.

To combat and prevent a global food crisis, we need to explore alternative protein sources. The UN has urged people to consider the consumption of insects as they are nutritious, sustainable, and readily available worldwide. However, many struggles with the concept of eating insects …

The findings showed that celebrities’ perceived trustworthiness, knowledge about insect-based foods, and appropriateness are crucial factors in increasing people’s willingness to eat insects.

However, different genders responded differently: For men, ads featuring actors or athletes were most effective, while only actors effectively influenced women. In comparison, musicians did not appear to be as influential. Using musicians in ads made women less willing to consume insect-based foods …

‘Our findings demonstrate that celebrity endorsement can be a very effective strategy to increase consumer interest in eating more insects, as long as the right celebrity is targeted at the right gender.'”

Obviously, this research is not languishing in a hidden drawer. The technocratic Great Reset adherents are putting the findings to work. Examples of celebrities espousing the deliciousness and healthiness of bugs include Drew Barrymore, Robert Downey Jr., celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie, just to name a few.²⁸

Other Types of ‘Cannibalism’

While cannibalism is now being approached in a more head-on manner, humans have been ingesting and taking in other humans in other ways for many years. For example, human aborted fetal cells are frequently used in the development of vaccines.

And, while human cells are not present in the final product, DNA fragments and cell proteins can still be present. To learn more about this process, see this article. A short excerpt reads as follows:²⁹

“Apart from any moral conflict one might have over the use of aborted fetuses for vaccine production, we need to remember that DNA from the aborted fetuses actually ends up invaccines as a contaminant …

Independent research³⁰ has found that vaccines manufactured in human fetal cell lines contain ‘unacceptably high levels of fetal DNA fragment contaminants,’ These fragments, while in trace amounts, are still biologically active once injected into the body of another individual via vaccine.

Vaccines elicit systemic immune activation and inflammatory responses, which increases the likelihood of foreign DNA uptake into the host’s genome. And in fact, it has been found that fetal cell DNA can spontaneously integrate into the genome of the vaccinated person.”

Other products that use aborted fetus parts in their development include cosmetics, pharmaceutical drugs and flavor enhancers found in many foods and beverages.³¹ Is the use of aborted fetal cells in these kinds of products justifiable?

When Ends Justify the Means, Bad Things Happen

Surprisingly, according to Human Life International (HLI),³² a supposedly pro-life, Catholic organization, it is justifiable if it’s “in the service of humanity.” HLI believes vaccines are in the service of humanity, so therefore the use of aborted fetal cells in the development of vaccines is acceptable. Cosmetics, however, cannot save lives, so therefore, the “disgusting practice” of using fetuses in the creation of cosmetics should be opposed.

It seems to me that this is really splitting hairs. HLI is basically saying that the ends justify the means, even if otherwise deemed abhorrent and potentially unhealthy (as injecting another person’s DNA fragments can be). By that rationale, cannibalism could be justified in the name of environmental protection (as some people insist), and I really don’t think we ought to go there.

As mentioned earlier, we have good, solid solutions for our environmental concerns. Regenerative agriculture — which includes and indeed requires livestock — is the way to go if we really want to clean up the globe, reduce water consumption and normalize weather.

The notion that our only way out is a diet of insects and cannibalism is foolishly ignorant in the extreme, and needs to be opposed at every turn. Those are not foundational solutions in the least. They are tools to enslave, denigrate and dehumanize humanity, invented by people who see every steak on your plate as something that has been stolen from theirs.

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Notes

¹ WEforum June 3, 2020

² WEF July 12, 2021

³ Newswars March 22, 2021

⁴ Twitter WEF January 21, 2021

⁵ Twitter WEF October 14, 2018

⁶ Time February 26, 2021

⁷ Bloomberg May 19, 2021

⁸ LA Times July 22, 2022

⁹ The New York Times July 23, 2022 (Archived)

¹⁰ Twitter NYT July 23, 2022

¹¹ Real Clear Politics May 23, 2022

¹² Misbar Fact Check July 25, 2022

¹³ New York Times Novemer 18, 2011 (Archived)

^14, 15, 16 The New York Times December 7, 2020 (Archived)

¹⁷ Bitelabs.org

¹⁸ Grub Street February 27, 2014

¹⁹ IFL Science January 18, 2022

²⁰ The Times September 8, 2018

²¹ Maajid Nawaz Substack July 27, 2022

²² Washington Examiner June 28, 2022

²³ NY Post June 28, 2022

²⁴ Daily Mail September 9, 2019

²⁵ Vox July 22, 2015

²⁶ Cremation Association Alkaline Hydrolysis

²⁷ Psychreg.org February 1, 2022

²⁸ Buzzing Substack April 1, 2022

²⁹ Think Love Healthy July 6, 2017

³⁰ Issues Law Med 2015; 30(1): 47-70

³¹ J&J Ranch August 24, 2021

³² HLI January 7, 2022

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***

 

The EU has begun its retreat: It has taken the first steps in unraveling energy and food sanctions on Russia. Will other steps follow? Or will the pan-West, Russia-phobic axis strike back with further belligerence?  Nothing is settled yet, but were the retreat to continue, and the separate Ukraine grain export accord hold together, it will be generally good news for the Region.

The bigger issue is of whether – even a more substantive EU retreat ensues – this will make a difference to the larger economic paradigm. Unfortunately, the answer is very probably not.

The EU’s seventh package of sanctions on Russia, whilst ostensibly posing as an increase in sanctions (which it is for certain gold imports into the EU that have no real impact on Russia) – and with a small extension of the list of controlled (mainly tech) items – the package represents, in reality, a concealed retreat.

For, as one digs deeper, the package substantially alleviates sanctions in key areas. Firstly, the package ‘clarifies’ aviation measures (Comment: Though opaquely worded, this passage seems to be quietly permitting the export of spare Airbus parts to Russian aviation fleets). The package says that to avoid any negative consequences for food and energy security around the world – and for clarity – the EU extends the exemption to transport of agricultural products, (food) and fertiliser exports and the transport of oil from Russia to third countries. Furthermore, it exempts third party purchases of pharmaceutical and medical products from Russia.

The EU likes to claim that their sanctions never included food and fertilisers, and that the suggestion that they did, is propaganda. Their argument, however, is disingenuous. The EU sanctions’ legalistic wording was so open, so opaque, that it was not clear whether they did, or didn’t. Trading companies understandably feared retroactive fines for breaking sanctions. They had the bitter experience of the US Treasury refusing to say explicitly what was allowed, and which not; and in the case of Iran, out of the blue, hitting European banks with monstrous fines.

The explicitness matters: Food, agricultural products and fertiliser transported to Third Countries are exempt from sanctions. States like Egypt can now import wheat from Ukraine, Russia – and effectively from Belarus too, (since it now forms a single market with Russia).

Equally, the third country transport of Russian oil to states such as China, India, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are now explicitly exempt.

Here is another disingenuity – if not hypocrisy – implicit within this exemption. The EU, all along, has been virtue signalling how they would ban Russian energy sales to the EU – and how that the resulting loss of revenue to Russia, would starve, and cripple Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

Well, first Russia insisted on payment for its gas in roubles. The EU said ‘no’, but then relented.  Then the EU targeted Russian oil, and the G7 touted a ‘cap’ on oil prices.  But states such as China and India said ‘no’.  And now, the EU has relented on the transport of Russian oil by Third Parties. (Greek and Cypriot tanker owners had already arm-twisted their governments into insisting on an earlier exemption, for them).

What is going on? The oil market has been volatile recently, as the US has tried to manipulate the ‘paper market’ (which is way larger than the physical market), in order to contrive a dip in prices in the Bent and WTI index. Again, the object has been to hurt Russia – and to facilitate Yellen’s ‘oil cap’ by getting prices closer to the $60 a barrel on which Yellen has set her capping hopes.

It hasn’t worked, and it seems the White House just wants oil prices down – full stop.  Even the hawk, Victoria Nuland, said Friday that the US and its allies need Russian oil supplies to enter world markets, otherwise the cost of this resource will start to rise again: “We need to see the presence of Russian oil on the world market, otherwise the shortage of oil will lead to a new rise in prices.”

Realism seeps in!  Putin achieves all his key demands in respect to the food crisis – and today, is even selling a slightly increased volume of oil.

The price of oil will indeed fluctuate. It will respond however, more to the effects arising from depth reached in the coming recession, than on market manipulation, and Yellen’s price capping efforts.  The western Establishment is still trying to get its head around the new reality that commodities are seen to have innate value, whereas fiat currencies such as the dollar don’t.  The new commodity era represents a psychological global shift towards intrinsic value, at time of rising inflation.

And where will that ‘now exempted’ Russian oil transit, be headed?  Why, to the EU (largely). This is where the disingenuity becomes evident: India buys Russian oil, runs it through its refineries, and sells ‘Indian refined products’ where?  To the EU.  Ditto for other cargos.  Ditto for Saudi Arabia. Those vessels’ bills of lading won’t mention Russia as they arrive at their EU destination.

In short, the EU is quietly facilitating the bypass of its own proclaimed ‘crushing’ sanctions regime.

Might this this small step of retreat however, tip the wind out from the swelling sail of economic crisis?  No. There are two major sources of inflation. There’s the supply side and the demand side. Either one of them can drive inflation, but they’re very, very different in terms of how they work.

The supply side, as the name implies, comes from input. The supply just isn’t there. Farm prices are going up because fertilizer prices are going up, partly because of the war in Ukraine. Oil prices are going up because there’s a global shortage, and there’s disruption in supply chains.

So what can the ECB do about that? Nothing. Does the ECB drill for oil? Does the ECB run a farm? Does the ECB drive a truck? Does the ECB pilot a cargo vessel across the Pacific or load freight at the Port of Los Angeles?

No, the Central Bankers do none of those things, and so they can’t fix that part of the problem. Raising interest rates has no impact on the supply side shortages we’re seeing. And that’s the direction from which inflation – that is driving European recession – is blowing.

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Alastair Crooke is Director of Conflicts Forum; Former Senior British Diplomat; Author.

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***

On Monday, August 1, US President Joe Biden said that the United States is ready to continue arms control negotiations with Russia. The apparent offer was to resume talks on a possible replacement for the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), otherwise known as SNV-3 in Russia. The treaty is the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between Russia and the US. In a statement during the 10th conference on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Biden said that his administration “is ready to negotiate a new arms control framework,” but then also added that the US would refuse negotiations with Russia while it was still engaged in Ukraine.

“I’ve worked on arms control from the earliest days of my career, and the health of the NPT has always rested on meaningful, reciprocal arms limits between the United States and Russian Federation. Even at the height of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were able to work together to uphold our shared responsibility to ensure strategic stability. Today, my administration is ready to expeditiously negotiate a new arms control framework to replace New START when it expires in 2026. But negotiation requires a willing partner operating in good faith. And Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression in Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and constitutes an attack on fundamental tenets of international order. In this context, Russia should demonstrate that it is ready to resume work on nuclear arms control with the United States. China also has a responsibility as an NPT nuclear weapons state and a member of the P5 to engage in talks that will reduce the risk of miscalculation and address destabilizing military dynamics. There is no benefit to any of our nations, or for the world, to resist substantive engagement on arms control and nuclear non-proliferation,” Biden stated.

If we ignore the regular myths and false talking points about “Russia’s unprovoked, brutal attack on the vibrant Ukrainian democracy”, the statement seems to be rather reasonable, which has become quite a seldom occurrence these days, especially coming from the US president or anyone in the US government. Biden also mentioned China, indicating that the belligerent thalassocracy sees Beijing as more than just a regional military rival in the Asia-Pacific area.

This approach is not new, as former president Trump was adamant that any new strategic arms control talks should include China. However, it’s the first time the Biden administration clearly and unambiguously hinted at China as one of the possible parties to any new strategic arms control treaties. With China fast-tracking the development of a number of systems aimed at cementing its position as a military superpower, the US is clearly aware that by 2026, when the New START is set to expire, Beijing will have even more strategic assets that Washington DC simply cannot ignore.

However, for its part, Russia doesn’t seem convinced that the US is genuine in its supposed “desire to maintain strategic security.” Former president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, dismissed Biden’s statement, adding that it was “out of place in a changed world.” Medvedev, now serving as the Deputy Head of Russia’s Security Council, stated he had repeatedly warned Washington DC that major issues such as the framework to replace the New START could never be done without Russian involvement. Medvedev, writing on his Telegram channel, said Biden had reluctantly “spat out” the call for new talks.

“All this, of course, is good. But let me say it once again – the situation now is much worse than in the Cold War. A lot worse! And through no fault of our own. The main thing is… … do we really need this? The world is a different place,” Medvedev wrote.

Medvedev’s statements on the matter are not new. For months, especially since the start of Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO’s crawling aggression, Medvedev has been expressing deep frustration and anger over the open belligerence of the political West, particularly the US. And he’s certainly not alone in this. A Russian foreign ministry source had earlier expressed puzzlement about Biden’s proposal.

“Is this a serious statement or has the White House website been hacked?” a Russian foreign ministry source told Reuters. “If this is still a serious intention, with whom exactly do they intend to discuss it?”

On Wednesday morning, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov himself also weighed in and stated that the US made no formal appeal to resume talks on the matter.

“It has become their habit to announce things over the microphone and then forget about them,” Lavrov said. “There have been no approaches to us to restart the negotiation process.”

In 2011, the New START Treaty was signed by Medvedev and Obama, creating an international legal framework for the US and Russia to limit the deployment of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and strategic bombers/missile carriers. However, given the US track record with international treaties, especially those concerning military matters, it’s questionable how much Russia can rely on anything the US says.

In addition, Russia also enjoys a considerable advantage in a number of strategic weapon systems, be it the Eurasian giant’s second-to-none hypersonic weapons (which have already been used in battle and which the US still lacks entirely), doomsday underwater drones or advanced ICBMs. Thus, it’s unclear why the US would even suggest a new treaty and, more importantly, why Russia would accept it.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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***

Although it is unlikely that Beijing will conduct a military annexation of Taiwan in the coming years, Nancy Pelosi’s provocative visit to Taipei will undoubtedly push Beijing closer to Moscow, which could perhaps even extend as support for Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. Confirmed responses against Taiwan include a blockade threat and targeted sanctions.

The speaker of the US House of Representatives landed at Taipei airport on August 2, the first high profile American visit since 1997. When warned by Chinese President Xi Jinping that “those who play with fire will eventually get burned,” Washington, in an attempt to downplay the trip, assured Beijing of its commitment to the “One China” policy and said the visit was Pelosi’s own personal decision.

The Chinese leadership has thus far not reacted to Pelosi’s provocation in a serious way, only announcing military exercises around the island and some sanctions. Another potential response by Beijing could be a strengthening of relations with Moscow, perhaps even over the Ukraine battlefield.

Beijing may have analyzed the balance of power in the region and came to the conclusion that in the near future it cannot solve the Taiwan issue by military means. At the same time, the unprovoked American action could force China to end attempts to stabilize relations with the US and instead supply Russia with significant economic and technical-military support.

To date, China has been mostly quiet about the situation in Ukraine, with some Chinese companies even leaving Russia due to fear of sanctions. It can be expected that China will now be more assertive in providing Russia with support, such as drones and other military equipment.

Although support for Russia is only conjecture at this point, what is certain is that with the large-scale exercises announced to take place from August 4-7 in the waters around Taiwan, Beijing is reminding Taipei how easily the island can be completely blockaded at sea and air, with the US able to do very little to prevent this.

China, under the guise of exercise drills, are effectively closing the entire sea space around Taiwan so that no vessels, even civilian ships, can enter the island’s ports without their approval. The Chinese military currently has the forces and means, including aircraft carriers, to blockade Taiwan without major issue. This is likely just a show of force though that will not lead to a military solution for unification.

Despite the fact that Beijing considers Taiwan to be a “rebel province” and always opposes any contact between Taiwanese representatives and foreign officials, especially high-ranking or military officials from countries that Beijing has diplomatic relations with, there is currently no danger that Pelosi’s visit will lead to a Chinese attack on the island as its military currently does not have enough power for such an operation.

That potential could be achieved within a decade though if China decides to quickly build the necessary ships and accumulate military power. Attacking Taiwan requires amphibious ships and although China does not have enough at the moment, they are building them. According to the assessment of US military experts, if Beijing quickly builds such ships, it would only take five to six years.

Meanwhile, it was announced on August 3 that Beijing decided to impose sanctions on two Taiwanese foundations for secessionist activities, thus prohibiting mainland companies from cooperating with businesses that donate to these two organisations.

“Under the guise of democracy and development cooperation, the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy and the Foundation for International Cooperation and Development, organisations related to ‘Taiwan’s independence’ and are actively participating in separatist activities to achieve independence for Taiwan in the international arena, do their best to approach anti-Chinese forces abroad, attack and smear mainland China, and use money to expand the so-called ‘international space’ for Taiwan,” said Ma Xiaoguang, director of the information bureau at the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing.

He pointed out that “Mainland China has decided to impose disciplinary measures on the aforementioned funds and prohibit them from cooperating with Mainland China organisations, enterprises and individuals.”

The statement emphasised that organisations, enterprises and individuals in mainland China are prohibited from cooperating and conducting any transactions with the companies Speedtech Energy, Hyweb Technology, Tianliang Medical (Skyla), SkyEyes GPS Technology and other businesses that donated to these funds. Leaders of the respective businesses were also barred from entering mainland China.

Although many speculated that China would militarily respond to Pelosi’s visit, especially following the strong rhetoric from Beijing, it would appear that this was another case of “China’s final warning”, a Russian proverb that originated in the former Soviet Union to refer to Beijing’s constant warnings but inaction over Taiwan provocations. It appears that for now the response is limited to targeted sanctions and reminding Taiwanese authority’s that the People’s Liberation Army Navy and Air Force can easily blockade the island, but for now provide no direct military action.

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

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***

President Biden on Monday sent mixed signals to Moscow in an apparent offer to negotiate a replacement to the New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia.

In a statement to the 10th conference on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Biden said his administration “is ready to expeditiously negotiate a new arms control framework to replace New START when it expires in 2026,” but then suggested he wouldn’t negotiate with Russia while it was fighting in Ukraine.

“But negotiation requires a willing partner operating in good faith. And Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression in Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and constitutes an attack on fundamental tenets of international order. In this context, Russia should demonstrate that it is ready to resume work on nuclear arms control with the United States,” Biden said.

Responding to Biden’s statement, a Russian Foreign Ministry source expressed puzzlement to Reuters.

“Is this a serious statement or has the White House website been hacked?” the source said. “If this is still a serious intention, with whom exactly do they intend to discuss it?”

The US cut off arms control talks with Russia after Moscow invaded Ukraine on February 24th. Russian officials have said they’re interested in resuming the dialogue, but besides Biden’s statement, the US hasn’t shown much interest. A US official told The New York Times back in June that “it’s almost impossible to imagine” the US and Russia negotiating a New START replacement before it expires in 2026.

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

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***

 

Western observers used to regard Kenya as a regional leader but the truth is that this role is actually played by Ethiopia, which isn’t just a sincerely sovereign state unlike its neighbor, but also had the foresight to prioritize agricultural production years ago and is thus able to manage the global food crisis caused by the US-led West’s anti-Russian sanctions much better than anyone else in Africa.

The perfect storm is crashing into Kenya as its worst drought in 40 years combines with its de facto compliance with the US-led West’s anti-Russian sanctions to create a major crisis. CNN warned about the consequences earlier this week, which Sputnik followed up on by reminding everyone of the major role that Russia used to play in helping Kenya meet its people’s nutritional needs. Those two pieces were preceded in mid-July by a report alleging that “(Kenyan) Traders have shunned Russian supplies, fretful of repercussions following the sanctions”, which resulted in a decrease of 13.3 billion Kenyan shillings’ worth of imports from Russia (roughly equivalent to $111 million).

Even though Kenya hasn’t formally jumped on the US’ bandwagon by sanctioning Russia, its Ambassador to the UN sent a very strong signal to his country’s businessmen in early March that they shouldn’t trade with that country when he compared Russia’s special operation in Ukraine to Western colonialism. This East African country generally enjoys economic and political stability but is widely regarded as an Anglo-American proxy in the region. That explains its de facto compliance with their anti-Russian sanctions, which has proven disastrous since Russia used to supply the lion’s share of its wheat and a sizeable amount of its fertilizer too.

The impending crisis that this purely political decision has caused could be devastating for Kenya’s traditional stability, yet Russia still remains eager to resume its agricultural exports to that East African country if it has the interest in receiving them. This is because that Eurasian Great Power pursues a strictly non-ideological foreign policy and still respects that Kenya hasn’t formally sanctioned it even though it’s informally done so. The optics of Nairobi officially eschewing compliance with Washington’s sanctions play to Moscow’s advantage by showing that the entire Global South remains opposed to these unilateral economic restrictions that violate international law.

Kenya’s situation stands in stark contrast to neighboring Ethiopia’s, whose visionary leadership represented by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed wisely foresaw the need to prioritize agricultural production years ago. That forward-looking policy resulted in its Agriculture Minister reporting earlier this summer that its wheat output is expected to jump a whopping 70% this year. Furthermore, unlike Western-dominated Kenya, Ethiopia is fiercely sovereign and has literally fought for the past two and a half years to defend itself from the Western-backed TPLF-driven Hybrid War of Terror that was unleashed against it as punishment for this civilization-state’s principled neutrality in the New Cold War.

This explains why the Russian-Ethiopian Strategic Partnership is the centerpiece of Moscow’s renewed engagement with the wider region while Russian-Kenyan relations have been put on the backburner due to Nairobi’s decision to appease its Anglo-American partners. Western observers used to regard Kenya as a regional leader but the truth is that this role is actually played by Ethiopia, which isn’t just a sincerely sovereign state unlike its neighbor, but also had the foresight to prioritize agricultural production years ago and is thus able to manage the global food crisis caused by the US-led West’s anti-Russian sanctions much better than anyone else in Africa.

The lessons to be learned are several and each is equally important. First, some African countries like Kenya give off the pretense of sovereignty by not officially joining the West’s sanctions even though they’re informally complying with them. Second, this has proven to be disastrous for their food security, which leads to the third lesson of this amounting to the self-inflicted destabilization of their own societies. Fourth, all of this could have been avoided had their leadership had the wisdom to prioritize agricultural production, and the last takeaway is that Ethiopia avoided all of these strategic pitfalls and is thus the leader that all other African states should consider following.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

With Nancy Pelosi’s plane supposedly just an hour or so away from landing in Taiwan…

09-0540 #SPAR19 is over Indonesia, heading toward east and tracked by 300k users.

05-0730 #SPAR20 is on ground at SZB airport (Kuala Lumpur).https://t.co/bgOQx4RZYu pic.twitter.com/zWyVUkHJtF

— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) August 2, 2022

… below we have compiled all the latest rapidly moving news on the fluid situation, courtesy of Newsquawk

• Several Chinese warplanes flew close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday morning and several Chinese warships have stayed close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait since Monday, according to a source briefed on the matter cited by Reuters. It was also reported that Taiwan’s Defence Ministry reinforced its combat alertness level from Tuesday morning to Thursday noon, according to the official Central News Agency citing sources.
• Global Times’ Hu Xijin says “Based on what I know, in response to Pelosi’s possible visit to Taiwan, Beijing has formulated a series of countermeasures, including military actions.”
• China’s Foreign Ministry says their position on US House Speaker Pelosi’s potential Taiwan visit is clear, will take all necessary measures to preserve interests.
• The plane (SPAR19) likely carrying the delegation of US House Speaker Pelosi is in the air, having departed Kuala Lumpur. It is taking a route around the Philippines to Taiwan. Sources suggest this is designed to minimize the security risks, according to CNN’s Rogin. Follows FlightRadar24 showing the craft in-flight earlier, no confirmation that Pelosi is onboard or as to its destination/flight path.
• SET News expects US House Speaker Pelosi in Taipei at 21:30 local time (14:30BST/09:30EDT).
• “Both of aircraft carriers of the PLA Navy have reportedly moved out from their homeports respectively amid Pelosi’s possible visit to the island of Taiwan, which media reported could happen Tuesday evening.”, according to Global Times.
• Xiamen Air in East China’s Fujian Province announced on Tuesday the adjustment of some of its flights due to flow control, via Global Times. Geographically, the Fujian province is in close proximity to Taiwan
• PLA’s Eastern Theater Command conducts live-fire drills in East China Sea, practicing subjects such as air defense, anti-reconnaissance, missile defense, and long-range sea strikes, via CCTV.
• The PLA could send warplanes across the median line that divides the Taiwan Strait if US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits the democratic island, and analysts say it could start happening more regularly, SCMP reports

Separately, Global Times’ outspoken former editor in chief, Hu Xijin tweeted on Tuesday

“Based on what I know: in response to Pelosi’s possible visit to Taiwan, Beijing has formulated a series of countermeasures, including military actions.”,

whilst several Chinese warplanes reportedly flew close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait (see figure below) on Tuesday morning and several Chinese warships have stayed close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait since Monday, according to a Reuters source briefed on the matter. Further reports also highlighted that the Chinese military will hold exercises in the South China Sea from August 2-6 and a warning was issued – with entry to an area in the sea prohibited due to military exercises from Tuesday to Saturday, according to Global Times.

SCMP highlights some potential military options the PLA can take:

• Sending warplanes to Taiwan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)
• Flying across the median line – a buffer zone the US established in 1954 which China denies (see figure below) – and/or flying over Taiwan.
• Deploying warships in waters near Taiwan.
• Conducting missile tests in waters near Taiwan.

Economic: SGH Macro Advisors, citing their sources, suggest that ‘Beijing has floated economic retaliation against the United States as well”, which if realised, would be an “unexpected and major wildcard for markets” as participants focus on military responses. The desk suggests export restrictions of “daily necessities” to the US could be targeted in a bid to directly influence supply and thus exacerbate inflation at a time of elevated prices and slowing growth.

Market Impact

• STOCKS: Chinese and Taiwanese stocks took a hit during Tuesday’s session, with downbeat sentiment observed across European cash and US futures. Economic retaliation from Beijing will likely keep stocks under pressure. It’s also worth being aware of the Chinese giants listed in the US – such as Alibaba, and Tencent, whilst Taiwanese contract chip manufacturer TSMC is also watched amid the Co’s over-50% market share in the chip production sector – any hindrances in operations could be bearish for chip supply.
• FX: Desks note of potential haven flows into the Buck amid Pelosi’s risky trip, with ING warning of potential shockwaves across FX markets: “The dollar, the yen (which may break below 130.00 already today) and CHF should be the main beneficiaries, while CNY and China-sensitive currencies (along with high-beta currencies in general) could come under pressure. Here, AUD and NZD appear mostly vulnerable in G10”, ING says.
• BONDS: Haven bids in the fixed income space have been clear, with the upside continuing in Europe’s Tuesday trade. It’s also worth noting that reports last week suggested that Mainland China has reduced its holding of US debt, with the total dropping under the USD 1tln mark for the first time in 12 years, with analysts in China suggesting US Treasuries themselves are risk assets.

Here are some market-related quotes:

• “The relationship between the US and China was just about to enter into a period of review, with a move from the US to reduce China tariffs” – Ikuo Mitsui, Aizawa Securities.
• “I do expect a negative feedback loop into China-related equities especially those related to the semiconductor and technology sectors as Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan is likely to harden the current frosty US-China tech war,” said Kelvin Wong, analyst at CMC Markets
• “There is no way people will want to put on risk right now with this potential boiling point. The potential ramifications of Pelosi’s planned visit are huge.” Neil Campling, Mirabaud Securities.

MAP: Military facilities and strategic security locations in Taiwan, and mainland China’s amphibious staging areas, via AFP.

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Introduction

For last ten years, the world was watching with curiosity, worries and admiration of Shinzo Abe’s imposing political performance in Japan and the world.

Now, he is no more. His departure may make some people sad; his death may bring relief for some others; his absence may make some people worried.

The reaction of the people in Japan, Korea, China and in the world may vary great deal depending on the impact of what he was and what he did to different countries and various people.

Therefore, the way the people single out and value the legacy of Shinzo Abe can vary.

As for me, Shinzo Abe left two legacies, Abenomics and remilitarization of Japan. Many ask if these two legacies will survive. My view is that both will survive to make the future of Japan uncertain.

In this paper, I will deal only with Abe’s economic legacy. His legacy of Japan’s remilitarization will be the object of another paper.

This paper will focus on these issues:

• Nature of the ailment of the Japanese economy
• Corruption of Leadership
• Asset Bubble and Corruption
• Structural Weakness of the Japanese Economy
• Conclusion

Nature of the Ailment of Japanese Economy

Before we tackle Abenomics, it seems important to discuss the nature of the Japanese economic problem. The post-war performance of the Japanese economy was the envy of the world. The annual rate of Japanese GDP was 20% in the 1950s, 9.2% in the 1960s, 4.5% in the 1970s and 5.0% in the 1980. Then, suddenly, in the 1990s, it had free fall to 1.72%. Since the 1990s, the annual rate GDP was about 1%. Often Japan experienced minus growth of its GDP.

The fall of GDP growth of 5.0% in the 1980s to 1.72% in the 1990s was just incredible. How can one explain this? In the 1980s, the Japanese GDP was as much as 40% of the American GDP. This even alarmed the Americans. The Japanese was the number two economy in the world.

There can be many factors responsible for this, but, as far as I am concerned, the basic factor is the corruption of the leadership. It is my argument that the mega-inflation of asset price in the 1980s, the 1989 explosion of asset bubble, the failure of coping with the structural problems of the Japanese economy can be the key factors. But, these factors are attributable, in the first place, to the corruption of the leadership.

Corruption of Japanese Leadership

The Japanese economic miracle was the product of the Meiji model of tripartite cooperation among politicians, large corporation and bureaucrats. This model was adopted in the 1950s by Kishi Nobusuke who became prime minister for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 1957. This model was known as the “Golden Triangle” model.

Image on the right: Kishi Nobusuke (Licensed under the public domain)

This model was adopted also by Gen Park Chung-hee in the 1970s for Korea and it was behind the Han River miracle.

The dynamic of this model evolves from cooperation to collusion and finally to the establishment of “corruption community”. In this community, the core group is the oligarchy composed of large corporations, key political leaders and influential bureaucrats. The roles within the oligarchy vary. The large corporation is to fund the activities of the community and exert influence on key national policies to their advantage. The role of the politicians is to pass laws, regulations and other measures to accommodate the corporations’ needs. And, the role of the bureaucrats is to implement these policies.

In the corruption community, we find periphery groups who are linked to the core group and who benefit from the community activities which are often illegal or immoral.

The survival of the corruption community depends on media and the judiciary system. The role of the media is to produce propaganda for the community and hide the illegal and immoral activities. The function of the judiciary system is to punish dissidents on the one hand, and, on the other, overlook the wrong doings of the corruption community members.

The corruption community is a threat to the society, because it works for the promotion of the community’s self-interests at the expense of those of the people. The oligarchs seem to think that what is good for them is good for all.

In Japan, the oligarchs are composed of the far-right conservatives led by the Kishi Nobusuke-Shinzo Abe line of political and economic forces which have ruled Japan every year, except for five years, since 1957, the year when Kishi Nobusuke became prime minster for the LDP.

Kishi Nobusuke was one of most cruel and racist rulers of Manchuria in the 1930s. He was maternal side grand-father of Shinzo Abe. He was the right hand man of Tojo Hideki during WWII. He was A-class war criminal.

We see below a list of events which indicate the corruption of LDP members.

1948: Takeo Kurusu, former cabinet minister under Prime Minister Hitoshi Ashida (Democratic), was arrested along with other influential politicians for the bribes received from Showa Electric Company.

1962: Fumio Abe, former cabinet minister (LDP) (not related to Shinzo Abe), was arrested for giving secret information concerning the future direction of high way construction to an Iron & Steel Company Abe was treated with a dinner worth USD 6,000. In addition, he received USD 480,000. Abe denied all these and he resigned from his position

1964: Eisaku Sato, former prime minister (LDP), brother of Kishi Nobusuke, was involved in so many scandals that he was called “Black Mist”. LDP led by Sato extorted the business for money. The speaker of the Lower House was involved in the scandal of fraudulent bank drafts.

1976: Kakui Tanaka, former prime minster (LDP) was implicated in the scandal surrounding the purchase of airplane built by the American firm, Lockheed

1989: the Recruit Scandal: the Recruit was a company of labour recruit brokerage, real estate and other businesses. The company sold its stocks before going public to large number of politicians at low price amounting to USD 1.2 million allowing the politicians to make fortune by selling stocks at a very high price. This was hidden bribes given to the politicians. Two former prime ministers (LDP) were involved, namely Yasuhiro Nakasone (1982-1987) and Noboru Takeshita (1987-1989).

1989: Tajao Fujinami, former chief cabinet Secretary (LDP) was convicted for receiving 40 million Yen and unlisted stocks from Recruit Co.

1992:  Shin Kanemaru, LDP king maker was forced to resign from his Diet seat for relationship with known organized crime organization

1993: Shin Kanemura, former director general of the Japanese Defence Agency was arrested for receiving bribes from a construction company

1998: Yoichi Otsuki, former Ministry Finance (LDP) official, hanged himself with his necktie in his apartment after his apartment was searched.

1998: Shokei Arai, former LDP politician hanged himself in a Tokyo hotel after learning his imminent arrest for receiving bribes from a brokerage house

1999: Muneo Suzuki, vice-minister of the cabinet of Keizo Obuchi (LDP) put pressure on the Foreign Ministry to fund the Japanese-Russian Friendship. In 2002, he was arrested for receiving bribery from two Hokkaido companies

2001: Yukio Koshimori, former mayor of Okushiri was arrested for bribery, sentenced foe two year jail terms but sentence was  suspended

2003-2006: Tadahiro Ando, Goveronor Miysaki Prefecture was convicted for bid-rigging

2017: As many as 63 current employees of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (LDP) secretly negotiated with university to assure their post-retirement university jobs.

2018: Okayama University opened the Veterinary School against any justifiable reason. It was argued that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe allowed, because the head of the University, Kotaro Kake was a close friend of the Prime Minister.

2019: Tsunekazu Takeda, former president of the Tokyo Olympics Committee chairman, resigned for being involved in the scandal of brine of USD 2.3 million given to African IOC members.

2019 December: Tsukasa Akimoto, LDP Diet member, was appointed by Shinzo Abe to lead the promotion of integrated resorts. He was indicted for receiving bribes from a Chinese gambling house. He was fined USD 33,610.

2020 January: Takamori Yoshikawa, former minister of agriculture (LDP) was indicted for taking bribes from egg producer.

2020 March: Masako Akagi, widow of former official of Ministry of Finance (LDP), Toshio Akagi, sued the government claiming that her husband killed himself after the Ministry officials forced him to falsify public document on the land deal scandal involving the former Prime Minster Shinzo Abe and his wife, Akie.

2020 May: Hiromu Kurokawa, head of Tokyo high prosecutor, close friend of Shinzo Abe, tried to change the regulation to extend the retirement age so that he could say longer in his office. But he could not do it, he had to step down after the revealing of his illegal gambling.

2020 June: Katsuyuki Kawai, former Justice Minster (LDP) and his  wife Anri distributed USD 280,000 to 94 Hiroshima local politicians during Anri’s campaign for upper house election on January 2019. Katsuyuki Kawai was imprisoned for three years.

2020 August: Three corporate executives were arrested for bribing witnesses at the trial of the former Lawmaker Tsukosa Akimoto indicted for receiving bribe of 3 million yen from a Chinese gambling house.

2021 February: 11 officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication were reprimanded for accepting expensive dinner, taxi tickets from a media company

2021: Isshu Sugawara, former Trade Minister (LDP), was indicted for bribing USD 4,800 to 33 organizations and 29 individuals. In 2021, in six months, there were four lawmakers who had to resign for bribery charges.

What you have seen above are cases of corruption which have been reported. It is more than possible that these cases are a just a tip of an immense iceberg of corruption.

There are other indicators of the corruption of the LDP. For instance, the political dynasty and LDP’s monopoly of power are additional indicators of corruption.

In Japan, family succession of politics is an integral part of the national political world. Since WWII, only 10% of Japanese prime ministers had no political background. No less than 45% of prime ministers inherited their seats from their fathers.

Japan is supposed to be a liberal democratic country. One of the basic conditions for a liberal democracy is the change of government in function of the quality of the government performance. It is a known political fact that there is a positive correlation between the extent of corruption and the longevity of the government in power.

It is so because, if the party keeps power for long, it is inevitable that the members of the governments become tempted to promote laws and regulations favourable to their personal or group interests at the expense of those of the people.

As of 2020, out of 75 years since 1945, the LDP has ruled Japan for 70 years. Under such situation, corruption is inevitable. Even in Canada, one of most authentic liberal democracies in the world, when the Liberal Party stayed in power for ten years, one could detect signs of corruption in Ottawa.

Is there any global indicator of corruption of the leadership? I think that the longevity of premiership is such indicator. In Japan, the occupants of prime minister change so frequently that the office of Prime Minister is called “revolving-door Prime Minister Office”.

Since 1946 until 2022, Japan had 34 prime ministers. Shinzo Abe was prime minster twice, 2006-2007 and 2012-2020. Shigeru Yoshida was also prime minister twice (1946-1947 and 1948-1954).

Of 34 prime ministers, only 13 could keep the premier job more than two years.

In total, only six prime ministers kept their job for more than 3 years: Shigeru Yoshida (6 years:1948-1954), Kishi Nobusuke (3 years:1957-1960), Hayato Ikeda (4 years:1960-1964), Eisaku Sato (8 years:1964-1972) Junichiro Koizumi (5years:2001-2006) and Shinzo Abe (8 years: 2012-2020).

These six prime ministers ruled Japan for 34 years. Hence, 28 prime ministers ruled Japan for only 36 years, which implies that these 28 prime ministers governed only 1.28 years.

There was even a prime minister who had the shameful reputation of being prime minister for only 65 days. It was Tanzan Ishibashi (December 23, 1956-February 25, 1952). There was also a prime minster for 69 days; it was Sosuke Uno (January 3, 1989 to August 10, 1989).

The interesting question is why. There can be several reasons for the revolving-door prime ministers’ office. But, the main reason is the involvement in various scandals involving bribes, influence peddling, illegal diffusion of government information, sex scandal, all sorts of kick-backs, illegal job appointments and many other illegal or immoral activities of the LDP politicians.

Another key factor of the short longevity of prime ministers is the in-fight among the faction within LDP.

In the LDP, there are seven factions: Seiwa, Taro Aso, Heisei, Kochikai (Kishida), Atarashi Nami (New Wave), Shigeru Ishida and Bancho Policy Analyse Institute.

Of these seven factions, the Seiwa faction is the oldest, the largest and the most powerful. It has been dominated by the family of Shinzo Abe. This faction was recently run by Hiroyaki Hosoda nominated by Shinzo Abe. Moreover, the Seiwa faction is the most far-right faction. The New Wave faction is also far-right faction but it is a minor faction.

In a way, the lifespan of prime minister in Japan depends also on which faction the prime minister belongs and how well he or she serves and promotes the faction’s interests. The promotion of the wellbeing of the ordinary Japanese people seems far from the main concerns of the Japanese politicians.

Shinzo Abe has been able to stay long time as prime minster because he belonged to the Seiwa faction.

The assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has shed additional light on the corruption culture in Japan. The close relations between the LDP and the Church of Unification (CU) began between Kishi Nobusuke, former prime minister, (LDP) and the CU founder, Sun-myung Moon, in the 1950s.

These relations were inherited by Shintaro Abe, former foreign minister (LDP) and by Shinzo Abe (former prime minster (LDP)). Kishi Nobusuke was maternal side grandfather of Shinzo Abe, while Shintaro Abe was Shinzo Abe’s father.

The close LDP-CU relation soon degenerated into corrupted collusion and complicity. The CU has provided funding and logistic support to LDP political activities, while LDP protected the wrong doings of the CU. As a result, the CU was allowed to register as Christian Church, while it is regarded by authentic Christian Church as a “Cult organization.”

As a result, the CU could expand extensively its members and its activities. It is reported that Japanese account for 70% of members of the CU. It is also reported that 80% of the wealth of the CU comes from Japan.

The influence of CU on Japanese politics appears substantial. For instance, many politicians could be members of the CU. Many LDP politicians admit having received s political support from the CU. More than 100 CU members are advisors of Japanese lawmakers.

One thing sure is that the LDP-CU collusion is not designed to promote the interests of the ordinary Japanese people. The collusion’s objectives is the promotion of the interests of LDP’s political and personal interests on the one hand and, on the other, the pursuit of spiritual and monetary interests of the CU. In short, the LDP-CU collusion is an integral part of the corruption culture in Japan.

There is another reason for the perpetuation of the corruption culture in Japan. It is the incompetence of opposition parties to take power by winning elections.

It appears that the Japanese people are not keen in electing opposition parties. Robert Whiting explains why:

“Perhaps one reason such corruption continues is that most people do not see a connection between their lives and the ruling class and so do not feel personally aggrieved by the massive theft of their national resources. They pay their taxes and have no ideas where their earnings are going. Or, may be, they know but they don’t want to think about it. Politicians in Japan operate in their own self-contained world apart from normal law abiding people-much like organized crime.” (Robert Whiting, July 20, 2020, robertwhiting.substack.com)

Whiting also suggests that the culture of “wa” (harmony) discourages whistleblowers.

He adds:

“Political contributions-mostly illicit sort-are essential lubricants of cooperative interactions in Japanese fractious power struggle. Political corruption is endemic in a system run by an oligarchy operated in a gift culture.”

In fact, it has been reported that a Japanese lawmaker spends as much USD 2 million in two years to buy votes. So, the voters vote the rich party and the LDP is rich.

To sum up, the corruption culture is so deep, so wide and so persistent that Japan is facing and will be facing quasi impossible challenge of freeing from the sickness of corruption.

Asset Bubble and Corruption

The primary cause of the ailment of the Japanese economy was the asset bubble of the 1980s. After three decades of phenomenal growth of the Japanese economy, 1980s was the decade where the oligarchs could enjoy the fruits of Japan’s economic success. As we saw above, the Japanese GDP reached 40% of American GDP and even threatened the economic hegemony of the U.S.

In the 1980s, money was plenty due to the global integration of finance, low interest rate, the access to the huge postal savings and the money generated by exports of goods and services.

The easy access to money led the oligarchs to pour money into speculative stocks and real estate. There were undoubtedly illegal and immoral transactions of assets by the oligarchs, but due to the complicity of the corrupted judicial system, these illegal or immoral activities could have been ignored or overlooked. This would have surely expanded and intensified the asset speculative activities and inflated the asset bubbles.

The outcome of the asset speculation had produced asset bubble never seen in modern time. For example, the value of stocks which had accounted for 60% of GDP in 1985 increased to 152% of GDP in 1989. In the period between 1985 and 1989, the Nikkei Stock index rose from 13,000  to 39,000.

Large corporations made quick money through “Zaitech.” In fact, almost 40% to 50% of the income of large corporations came from Zaitech activities.

The land value of the Imperial Palace was large enough to buy the entire land of the State of California. Between 1980 and 1989, the value of commercial buildings rose six times, while that of residential properties rose by four times.

As for the value of real estate, the value of Japanese real estate was four times of that of the U.S. despite the fact that the Japanese territory was mere 3.7% of that of the U.S.

I am just scandalized to learn that such insane thing could happen.  How in the world Japan could have let this happen? The simple answer to this question is clear enough. It was the short-sighted egoistic greed of the ruling oligarchs led by the LDP.

There is another disturbing question. It was obvious that the asset bubble would sooner or later bring a catastrophe. Then, why did somebody not warn the coming danger?

Surely, there were competent economists in Japan; surely there were asset market experts in the country of the rising sun. Why in the world, they did not speak up and warn the clearly foreseeable tragic outcome?

There are two possible answers. Either they kept silence because they became rich through asset speculation or they had no access to media to publicize their view. What had to come has happened.

In short, the asset bubble was the result of the oligarchs’ corruption culture.

The bubble was too large to be held; it had to explode. It did explode with thunder in 1989. This was what happened. Given the danger of skyrocketing asset bubble, the Bank of Japan jacked up the interest rate from 2% to 6% in 1989.

Well, that was it. The panic hit the entire Japan. The price of stocks in the Tokyo stock market fell by 60%. The real estate price had free fall of 80%.

The national policy designed to fight the bubble explosion was also very problematic, if not a complete failure. The obvious results of the bubble explosion were economic recession. Countless companies went bankrupt; the value of dwelling went below the due amount of mortgage debt; banks had to cope with bad loans. The fall of asset price was just too deep to recover.

Thus, the recession and even deflation was imminent. The Bank of Japan should have cut down the interest rate immediately, but it cut down the interest from 6% to 0% only in 1994. God knows why the Bank of Japan waited so long before reacting to the recession. It was too little too late.

The Japanese economy just could not come out of the deepening economic slowdown. The fundamental ailment of the post-bubble Japanese economy was something no country had experienced before; it required something bold as policies. But, Japan applied the usual economic policies comprising the fiscal policy and the monetary policy.

But, they did not work. Japan had to wait for the saviour. The saviour came in 2012 on back of the white horse with three arrows raped in the bag of Abenomics.

In Abenomics, the first arrow was the monetary policy; the second arrow, the fiscal policy; and the third arrow, the structural adjustment.

But, Abenomics failed for the simple reason that the policy relied almost exclusively on the expansion of money supply through traditional fiscal policy and monetary policy.

In fact, the money provided by public debt was as much as 250% of GDP. The money coming from the policy of Quantity Easing (QE) represented as much as 88% of GDP as of 2019.

The fiscal arrow flew too far and missed the target. The monetary arrow went too far and went to the wrong direction. The structural adjustment arrow even failed to leave the quiver.

The deluge of money was not able to revive corporate investments, exports of goods and services and domestic demand. You ask why?

The answer was that the ailment of the Japanese economy was not a problem of the shortage of money. The root of the problem were the structural problems.

Abenomics did not handle the deep structural malaise of the Japanese economy. True, on paper, third policy of the Abenomics was the policy of structural adjustment, but this policy went nowhere largely due to the corruption culture of the oligarchs.

The Structural Weakness of the Japanese Economy

There were major structural problems of the Japanese economy:

• Losing global competitiveness of major corporations,
• Increasing inequality of income distribution, and
• Decreasing active population.

In the period between 2005 and 2011, the fall of global market share of major corporations was as follows: Toyota, from 51% to 41%; Honda, from 39% to 29%; DRAME memory from 39% to 9%.

Moreover in the period between 2001 and 2011, the rate of profit of major corporations fell as follows: Mazda, from 4.3% to 2.8%; Toyota, from 9.9% to 2.0%; Honda, from 8.5% to 2.9%.

The dramatic loss of global competitiveness and profit of these major corporations was not cyclical, it was structural. The feasible explanation is the Zaitech, which allowed Japanese corporations to neglect investments in costly technology development and make quick money through asset speculation, especially commercial real estate speculation.

What Abenomics should have done was the liquidation of insolvent firms instead of bailing out them with money generated by the fiscal policy and the monetary policy. These companies were the Zombie companies; that is, good for nothing companies. It is most likely that these zombie companies were the friends of the corrupt oligarchs. It is also possible that the part of the bailout-money went into the personal pockets of the members of the corruption community.

The successful structural adjustment was the policy applied by President Kim Dae-jung of Korea during the financial crisis of 1997-1998. President Kim undertook bold structural adjustment of Chaebols which were responsible for the crisis. He liquidated a great number of insolvent Chaebols; he forced the Chaebols to specialize themselves and improve global competitiveness; he forced the Chaebols to be more transparent in accounting; he forced the Chaebols to stop circular financing.

As a result of this policy, Korea could pay back its debt to the IMF before debt maturity.

The widening income gap for decades between the rich and the poor was another structural disease of the Japanese economy.

This is partly due to interrelated neo-liberalism and corruption culture. The two most central parts of economic neoliberalism are the decreasing power of the government and limitless competition. To be competitive, the firm must save labour cost and material cost. To save labour cost, wage should not increase meaning decreasing workers’ income. To save material cost, cheap intermediate goods were imported leading to the decline of domestic production of these goods and this invites decrease of workers’ income.

On the other hand, limitless competition means decreasing number of surviving winners. The combination of all these factors invites unequal income distribution in favour of the rich. The government can make the income distribution more equal through transfer income and other income assistance programs. But, in Japan, the corruption culture prevented the government from adopting such policy.

As a result, as time went by, the income distribution was getting worse. That is, the domestic consumer demand which accounts more than 60% of the domestic demand was bound to fall.

One of the reasons for the failure of Abenomics was, precisely, the weak domestic consumer demand due to unequal income distribution in favour of the rich. In fact, the average income of ordinary Japanese people has been frozen and has fallen for decades.

True, a small part of the fiscal policy money and monetary policy money went to the ordinary people. But, the consumer did not spend on the purchase of goods and services; they saved for the uncertain future.

Another structural problem of the Japanese economy is the increasing number of the aged who now represent almost 30% of the population. This means decreasing number of working population. Remember that GDP is the number of working population multiplied by the worker’s production of goods and services.

The Japanese population will decrease from 126 million in 2019 to 100 million in 2050. Now, the aged population of 65 + increased from 17.4% in 2000 to 28% in 2019, while the active population of the age group of 15-64 fell from 67.5% to 59.3% in 2019

This change in the demographic structure of the population is shared by most of the developed countries. In these countries, the solution has been immigration. In average, in OECD countries, immigrants account for 12% of the population as against 1.6% in Japan. The government of Japan had tried to boost immigration of people, but, it has failed mainly because of the racism which has been also responsible for Japan’s imperialism in the past and at present.

The tradition of people’s submission to authorities and the popular priority given to stability and fear of changes can be another structural problem. Since the 1960s, the world seldom saw massive political protest movement against the government in Japan.

Moreover, even if they do, the government just ignore them. We saw this in 2021 during the Tokyo Summer Olympics. Almost 90% of the population were against or the postponement of the Games. But, the Suga government just ignored it. What was more incredible was the fact that the Japanese people did not go any further. This explains why LDP has kept the power for so long despite, the corruption of the oligarchs.

Conclusion

To sum up, the decade-long stagnation of the Japanese economy can be attributable to the loss of corporative global competitiveness, worsening income distribution leading to weakening domestic demand, the falling number of working population and the absence of organized protests against the wrong doings of the oligarchs These are all structural problems and the possibility to overcome them is low due to the corruption culture dominated by the oligarchs.

The government of Fumio Kishida may try to revive the economy. He many envisage means to solve the decades-long ailment of the Japanese economy through remilitarization. It may provide temporary stimuli to the economy, but in the long run, it cannot assure the sustained growth of the economy. What is even worse is the possibility that it will lead to wars and destroy the foundation of the economy.

Fumio Kishida may try to tackle some of the structural problems of the Japanese economy. In fact, he said that more equal distribution of income is needed for its recovery. But, this requires that he will survive as prime minister. We saw how vulnerable and unstable the position of prime minister is in Japan.

Kishida was appointed by Shinzo Abe because Abe could exert his influence on Japanese politics through Kishida. In other words, the probability of Kishida’s survival as prime minster depends on how much he can carry on economic policy set up by Abe.

Shinzo Abe and his friends of the oligarchy have avoided the needed structural adjustment, which would harm the interest of the oligarchy. Therefore, as long as Kishida continues Abe’s policy, he may remain as prime minister for a while. On the other hand, if he pursues a different direction from Abe’s policy, it is likely that he will be promptly replaced.

Under these conditions, the decades-long stagnation of the Japanese economy will continue.

But it is my hope that Kishida succeeds with his own economic policy and revive the Japanese economy not only for Japan but the world.

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Dr. Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and member of the Research Center on Integration and Globalization (CEIM) of Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM). He is Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from Oriental Review

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Against all odds, this afternoon, Tuesday August 2, 2022, Ms. Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives arrived in Taipei, capital of Taiwan – which is part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). See this as reported by the NYT as BREAKING NEWS.

Ms. Pelosi is the highest ranking US official visiting Taiwan in 25 years.

Her visiting Taiwan happened despite the 2-hour phone conversation just a few days ago, between US President Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping. President Xi warned Biden: “Who plays with fire, will be burnt by fire.” Apparently to no avail.

What will be the consequences?

What is amazing though is the fact that China did not intervene in Ms. Nancy Pelosi’s visit. China could have scrambled a couple of military aircraft to guide Pelosi’s aircraft to a forced landing and then proceeding to arrest her. She entered Chinese territory without permission.

Source: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Facebook

In the US, an illegal entry could end up with imprisonment.

Remember when in December 2018, Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, was detained in Canada, at the request of the US. Ms. Meng Wanzhou was under house arrest by the Canadian authorities and freed by Canada after three years.

Why did China not apply similar standards for Ms. Pelosi?

It would have been a peaceful, yet extremely embarrassing situation for the United States.

China could have jailed her, or alternatively, in a gesture of good will, sent her straight back to Washington.

In a UN Resolution, passed on 25 October 1971, the United Nations recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as “the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations” and removed “the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek” from the United Nations. Thus, recognizing that Taiwan was an integral part of the PRC.

Washington followed suit, recognizing the PRC as the sole representative of China following the Joint Communiqué of the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China, also known as the Shanghai Communiqué (1972) signed by  President Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao Zedong

Were there some behind the curtain arrangements between China and the US?

Or is this the first step to a much more serious escalation of a conflict that has been simmering and even flaring up ever-so-often?

Time will tell.

China being a peace-loving nation, it will be interesting to observe how this conflict will pan out.

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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 lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and 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 is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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More than 130 U.S. Coast Guard members filed a class action lawsuit alleging the religious exemptions they filed in response to the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for military service members were unlawfully denied.

The lawsuit, filed July 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas —  Galveston Division, also challenges the constitutionality of the mandate.

The number of plaintiffs exceeds 130 and will likely end up surpassing 200, according to Dale Saran, one of the attorneys representing the service members.

The suit names four defendants: Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); Linda L. Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard; Lloyd Austin, secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Plaintiffs are either active-duty or reserve members of the Coast Guard, and all “have sincerely held religious beliefs that prohibit them from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.”

According to the complaint, under the August 24, 2021, DOD vaccine mandate, the military theoretically offers “medical, administrative, and Religious Accommodation Requests (RARs) to the mandate,” while the Coast Guard’s vaccine mandate, issued two days later, “incorporates the provisions of the DOD mandate.”

The suit alleges:

“In practice, only servicemembers with medical or administrative reasons for an exemption from the mandate are accommodated, and even those sparingly, while RARs are universally denied unless the requester is eligible for administrative separation – i.e. imminently leaving the Service.”

This “conclusively demonstrates that the Armed Services have systematically and willfully violated service members’ free exercise rights under RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] and the First Amendment,” the lawsuit states.

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British professor Orlando Figes, who specializes in Russian history, wrote that the 2008 Russian intervention in Georgia on the side of the breakaway enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia had exposed American timidity and scuppered NATO membership hopes for Georgia. (Figes, The Story of Russia, (Metropolitan Books, 2022): 285-286.) Was there a lesson learned by the West?

In 2021-2022, Ukraine joining NATO was identified as a red line by Russia. US, Ukraine, and NATO paid scant heed to Russian security concerns and the outcome is the current fighting in Ukraine.

Putin had issued a warning in April 2021: “But if someone mistakes our good intentions for indifference or weakness and intends to burn or even blow up these bridges, they must know that Russia’s response will be asymmetrical, swift and tough.”

💬Vladimir #Putin: We really do not want to burn bridges.

But if someone mistakes our good intentions for indifference or weakness and intends to burn or even blow up these bridges, they must know that Russia's response will be asymmetrical, swift and tough. pic.twitter.com/6W8vkpGL0P

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) April 21, 2021

Across the Eurasian continent, China finds itself being provoked by the US’s oleaginous adherence to the One China policy to which it is a signatory. Beijing has in recent days warned of severe consequences to be borne by the US and separatists in Taiwan (there are vociferous protests in Taiwan against Pelosi’s visit) if US House speaker Nancy Pelosi were to land in Taiwan.

Nonetheless, Pelosi is now in Taiwan, saying her visit “honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.” Even NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman said that Pelosi was being “utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible.”

If the government in China ever still had any doubts (of course, they didn’t) about malicious American intentions, they have all evaporated now.

Chinese media has described the trip to Taiwan as American hypocrisy at its best.

Despite the trip being “utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible,” one has to hand it to the US that it was gutsy. The US didn’t back down. Pelosi did show up. But it required keeping her date, time, and place of arrival under wraps, and she was emboldened by the presence of accompanying US aircraft carriers.

Hung Hsiu-chu, former chairwoman of the Taiwanese political opposition Kuomintang, sees some in the US tolerating Pelosi’s risky move to test Beijing’s red lines.

Among the speculated actions that China might undertake are sending fighter planes into what Taiwan contends is its airspace and sending naval ships into waters that Taiwan lays claim to; and that “the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] will strike Taiwan military targets … and the mainland could also consider speeding up legislation for a national reunification law and even publish a timetable for reunification which will impose real pressure on the US and Taiwan authorities.”

As to when Beijing will respond, the Global Times noted, “The Chinese mainland really knows the importance of ‘strategic patience.’”

Joint maritime and air exercises by the PLA were announced by senior colonel Shi Yi, a spokesperson at the PLA Eastern Theater Command, that will surround Taiwan in five directions.

It is well known that Putin does not bluff. Now the question is whether the administration of Xi Jinping bluffs. The world is about to find out what China means when it warns of “serious consequences.”

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Kim Petersen is an independent writer and former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Facebook

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A careful review of thousands of scientific studies and interviews with leading medical professionals and physicians allows us to construct a more honest perspective about our federal health agencies’ and the World Health Organization’s successes and failures in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

In less than a month after the mRNA experimental vaccines were rolled out, medical professionals and clinical physicians started to voice their deep concerns and issue dire warnings. After serious vaccine associated injuries and deaths were reported in Norway and Germany, a number of skeptical doctors became fearful that mass vaccination campaigns would worsen the pandemic. Norwegian officials warned against vaccinating older patients with pre-existing illnesses. Opinions in the Israel National News stated that Pfizer used the nation as an experimental staging ground to roll out its Covid-19 vaccine; Israel was the first country to launch a nation-wide vaccination campaign. Consequently Israel was responsible for the most aggressive Covid-19 vaccination campaign, and medical experts were quick to observe that the risk of vaccine injury would be higher in people previously infected.

In the US, following the first month of vaccinating Americans en masse with Moderna’s and Pfizer’s experimental mRNA vaccines, over 29,000 adverse events requiring special medical assistance or hospitalization were reported.  Many critics of vaccination eagerly pointed out that these Covid-1i9 vaccine injuries had only been recorded in the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). However, for over fifteen years, VAERS has come under considerable scrutiny as a horribly inadequate and failed system to accurately monitor actual serious adverse vaccination events. The actual number of injuries and deaths is likely 900 percent higher.

The Covid Vaccines Do Not Prevent SARS-2 Infection

After Moderna’s and Pfizer’s first clinical trial reports were prematurely announced to the media, one of the most repeated talking points was that the vaccines were 95 percent effective. Since the length of the mRNA vaccine trials were interrupted long before their scheduled completion in order to rush them through the FDA and other nations’ regulatory agencies for emergency use approval, the length of vaccine-derived immunity was never properly evaluated. Nor was it possible to make any reliable determination about the injections long-term safety profile. The federal government’s intended message was to persuade Americans that vaccination would protect one from SARS-2 infection. However it did not take long before government health departments started to report a rise in breakthrough cases. The vaccines were far less effective than people were led to believe. In Israel, tens of thousands of Israelis had tested positive within two weeks after receiving the first vaccine dose, and cases increased for those who received a second dose. Six months into the vaccination period there was still no certainty for how long immunity would last. Vaccinated persons were still required to wear masks and social distance. Ergo, what good were these vaccines?

The British Medical Journal’s associate editor Peter Doshi challenged the trustworthiness of the 95 percent efficacy figure, which was based solely on confirmed PCR tests. The decision to rely upon PCR testing to diagnose positive Covid infections was dubious from the start. PCR was not developed either to confirm or diagnostically identify a live viral infection.  What was not reported in Pfizer’s original press releases were the “suspected” and “unconfirmed” Covid-19 cases in both the vaccinated and placebo groups. After these cases are included into the final calculation, the Pfizer vaccine’s effectiveness nosedived to approximately 19 percent, far below the 50 percent threshold to authorize its emergency use, according to Doshi.  Evidently, Pfizer seemingly ignored the 3,410 unconfirmed Covid-19 cases from its original press release. Another red flag in Pfizer’s initial report was the exclusion of 371 trial participants from their efficacy analysis.  Pfizer failed to explain the rationale for excluding these individuals.

Screenshot from The BMJ

As the scientific evidence mounted against mRNA vaccines’ efficacy, even Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had to backtrack on his company’s earlier claims. Since breakthrough cases with the Delta and Omicron variants among the fully vaccinated were escalating at an unprecedented rate, it became impossible to keep the lie alive without jeopardizing Pfizer’s credibility. Speaking at a healthcare conference hosted by JP Morgan, Bourla admitted that “two doses of the vaccine offers very limited protection, if any. Three doses with a booster offer reasonable protection against hospitalizations and deaths.”  Speaking on Fox News on July 12, Anthony Fauci also admitted that the Covid-19 vaccines “don’t protect overly well against infection.”

The steady increase of studies indicates the vaccines do not provide any robust and long-term protection.  Now that the speed of the virus’ mutation rate has increased, giving rise to completely new SARS strains, government health ministries and independent researchers are observing that despite higher vaccination compliance, mortality rates continue to rise dramatically. Recently in the Netherlands, Dutch research Dr. Andre Redert found no mortality reduction from mass vaccination.

Depending upon the individual’s health status and the strengths and weaknesses of his or her immune system, vaccine immunity can begin to wane rapidly after 3 months or earlier following vaccination. At best, immunity seems to last no longer than 5-6 months for the average person.

Nor did boosters improve matters. Nobody in the federal health agencies and drug industry cautioned at what point do repeated boosters create irreparable damage to the body’s immune system. If we anticipate the emergence of new SARS-2 mutations in the future, when will constant booster shots for every new variant cease? Fourteen months into Israel’s vaccination campaign, and being compelled to approve a fourth shot, medical experts advising the Israeli health ministry raised an alarm. As reported in the New York Times, the Israeli scientists noted “that too many shots might actually harm the body’s ability to fight Covid… [and] might cause a sort of immune system fatigue.” According to the scientists there is no evidence that more boosters can prevent Omicron infections.

Natural Immunity is Superior to Vaccine-Induced Immunity

In her article published in Lancet’s October 2020 issue, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky wrote, “there is no evidence or lasting protective immunity to SRS-CoV-2 following natural infection.” In May 2021, Dr Marty Makary at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine harshly criticized the poorly regulated vaccination roll out. The health agencies dismissed the fact that over a half of Americans had already developed some degree of natural immunity against coronavirus. In Makary’s opinion, this constitutes “one of the biggest failures of our current medical leadership.”  “There is more data on natural immunity,” Dr. Makary argued, “than there is on vaccinated immunity because natural immunity has been around longer.”

The containment of the spread of new SARS-2 variants worsens when our government officials and medical experts stand by their erroneous statements in order to push a false narrative about sufficient vaccine-immunity. Dr. Paul Alexander, an epidemiologist and former Covid-19 pandemic advisor to the World Health Organization and the US Department of Health and Human Services, has collated over 150 studies showing that natural acquired immunity is more robust and superior to the Covid-19 injections.

Therefore, this is no longer a debatable argument between two opposing sides comparing their respective supporting evidence.  There is no credible study to even suggest that the vaccines provide strong immunity. A Cleveland clinic study followed over 52,000 individuals for five months and concluded that unvaccinated persons who had been infected with the SARS-2 virus would likely not benefit from the vaccines. In December 2020, there was evidence that Covid infection was 99.9 percent effective in producing antibodies that might protect people from later infections.  This was data Senator Rand Paul presented before Congressional hearing. Bloomberg, which otherwise walks in lockstep with the CDC, reported a study indicating that natural immunity was 13 times greater than vaccine-induced immunity. When the Delta variant was ravaging Israel, the Maccabi Healthcare Services database, which enrolls 2.5 million Israelis, found that those previously infected with SARS-2 were much less likely than those who were vaccinated and never infected to contract the Delta variant, develop symptoms and be hospitalized with serious complications. A Washington University School of Medicine study suggests that natural immunity might last throughout one’s life for a notable percent of the population. Persons with low levels of neutralizing antibodies may still be protected from SARS-2 if they have robust T-cell immunity. On the other hand, the vaccines at best seem to provide no more than 6 months immunity.

A very fascinating and interesting study, which was never reported by the mainstream media, came from Cardiff University and the University of London. The researchers discovered a new type of senescent killer immune cell that was self-renewing that may explain why natural immunity can last far beyond the timeframe previously thought. Vaccination is unable to stimulate these new types of senescent T-cells.  As tens of billions of dollars continue to be spent on research, one lesson the pandemic has taught us is that the immunological and vaccine sciences know less about the body’s immune system than previously believed. Discoveries such as the Cardiff/London research are challenging the entire vaccination paradigm. And now we are witnessing this directly as massive vaccination campaigns to vaccinate entire populations are proving to be far less promising to stop any pandemic. In retrospect, if all of the dollars spent to develop experimental and poorly tested vaccines had been spent to effectively treat SARS-2 infections, millions of lives would have been saved and we would not be faced with a global scourge of vaccine injuries and deaths

Myths of Contagion

Perhaps the biggest scandal during widespread PCR testing of populations was how it was interpreted and portrayed to the public through a compromised media. Putting aside the gross misuse of PCR testing, a myth was created that anyone exposed to a person suspected of infection posed a danger to others. This myth generated an irrational paranoia among those who blindly embraced the government’s narrative.  There was no public reporting about the growing evidence of viral transmission that distinguishes symptomatic from asymptomatic infections. In a December 2020 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, symptomatic people infected someone else in the house 18 percent of the time. We can compare that with asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic cases who only infected someone else 0.7 percent of the time. This supports a Chinese study that followed 455 individuals who were exposed to asymptomatic infected carriers. None of the 455 persons tested positive after five days.

There may be several reasons for this surprising anomaly. Perhaps the most likely explanation is that none of the assumed carriers were actually infected. This would conform with the growing consensus that PCR testing is completely unacceptable for diagnosing active viral infection.

Concealing the Risks of Covid-19 Vaccines

Source: Health Impact News

Worries over the short and long term risks of the Covid-19 vaccines continue to mount. The educational nonprofit organization Physicians for Informed Consent focuses on statistical analysis of the available scientific literature of medical interventions. In a report released in early 2022 noted there is a lack of proven benefits for priortizing mass Covid-19 vaccination. Nor was there any consensus that the vaccines lessened mortality. Before the FDA approved Pfizer’s mRNA gene therapy shots for children 6 months and older, the organization warned about serious safety risks.  Their warnings went unheeded. Even the New York Times charged the CDC with withholding reams of data pertaining to the vaccines’ safety.

There remains no rationale for vaccinating children under 18. After the CDC analyzed test results from sites across the United States, the agency determined that the vaccine was only 60 percent effective two to four weeks after 12-16 year olds received a second dose. By the second month, the vaccines were only 20 percent effective and hit bottom at zero effectiveness around the fifth month. As we stated above, the mRNA vaccines confer no benefit to those who were previously infected and have natural immunity. In the FDA’s 66-page briefing document of Pfizer’s data, according to the CDC, by February 2022, over 74 percent of children and adolescents had serologic evidence of previous infection.

In the wake of rising vaccine injuries and deaths, government health ministries are making efforts to conceal their policies’ carnage. In Israel, leaked documents reveal that the Israeli government concealed crucial safety data from the public in order to approve childhood booster shots. A commissioned study of adverse events from Pfizer’s vaccine found that children in the 5-11 age group had twice as many injurious events as children in the 12-17 age group.

Last year, the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT) requested the FDA turn over all of the Pfizer documents submitted to the agency for emergency use approval of its mRNA vaccine. The FDA failed to comply and the PHMPT subsequently sued.  A court order forced the FDA to publish all confidential documents.  Among the tens of thousands of pages of Pfizer trial data and documents the FDA is required to hand over during the remainder of the year, attorneys discovered an appendix listing 1,291 vaccine adverse effects. These include many life-threatening conditions based upon Pfizer’s own clinical research. Consequently, the company was fully aware of their mRNA vaccine’s potential catastrophic consequences to public health.

As of July 16, 2022, the European Union’s EudraVigilance database of suspected adverse drug reactions recorded over 46,600 deaths and 4.6 million injuries associated with the Covid-19 vaccines. Among the five vaccines approved in the EU, Pfizer’s vaccine accounts for nearly half of all injuries and deaths (44.3 percent).  We mention the EudraVigilance monitoring system because it is far more robust and transparent compared to the CDC’s VAERS, which has been plagued for decades with a lack of independent oversight.

Gradually, a clearer picture of the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine risks and their causes is emerging.

A Chinese study published in the journal Cell noted that many vaccinated persons show symptoms that mimic SARS-2 infections. These include alterations in recipients’ hemoglobin, coagulation profiles, electrolyte imbalances and renal functions.

In the UK, the British Health Security Agency has become so worried about on the ground facts that it has refused to publish further data on Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths based upon a person’s vaccination status. The Agency earlier reported that persons who were triple vaccinated developed Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. The double vaccinated were suffering from Antibody Dependent Enhancement.

Official data from the Canadian government shows that on average, triple vaccinated Canadians were losing as much as 75 percent of their immune system capability compared to the natural immune system of the unvaccinated. Data reveals that the fully vaccinated account for 9 in every 10 covid-19 cases, and 7 in every 10 hospitalizations and deaths across Canada. Consequently, the vaccinated are unable to fight other viruses, bacteria, and cancer.

Similar to the Canadian statistics, the New Zealand government reported a 74 percent loss of immune strength among those triple vaccinated.

In the CDC’s VAERS reporting system, among the vaccinated we find a 68,000 percent increase in strokes, 44,000 percent increase in heart attacks, 5,000 percent increase in life threatening injuries and a 6,800 percent increase in deaths.

While men have been shown to be at a higher risk of heart complications, women are being ravished with a rise in irregular menstrual conditions. A recent peer-reviewed study in the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics shows alarmingly high rates of irregular bleeding and menstrual changes after receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA injection. The study included fully vaccinated women aged 18-50 with no history of gynecological comorbidities and abnormal menstruation. Following vaccination, twenty-three percent experienced irregular bleeding. In Israel, Dr. Yaffa Shir-Raz at the University of Haifa discovered that 90 percent of vaccinated women reported that their interrupted menstrual cycles were long term and worried they may be permanent.

Last autumn in the US, among adults aged between 25 and 40 years, there was an 84 percent in excess mortality. In the March 25, 2022 issue of the journal Pediatrics, two-thirds of vaccinated adolescents diagnosed with myopericarditis had persistent heart abnormalities months later their initial diagnosis. Despite this deep concern, the CDC continues to claim that heart inflammation from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are “mild.”

Finally it should be noted that reports of miscarriages and fetal deaths among vaccinated pregnant women are rising exponentially. According to America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), there has been nearly 2,000 percent increase in fetal deaths. In one round of documents the FDA has had to turn over, data shows that mRNA from Pfizer’s injection accumulates in the ovaries over time. After analyzing Pfizer’s own data, it became clear that 82% to 97% of the documented pregnancy outcomes resulted in fetal death. (The 15-point variation was dependent on the final outcome of those in the “outcome pending” category). Earlier in 2021, official UK data revealed that cases of ovarian cancer were at an all time high. The UK Medicine Regulator received over 40,000 reports relating to reproductive and menstrual disorders suspected as adverse reactions to the Covid-19 injections in 2021 alone.

Conclusion

A common pattern the nation has witnessed throughout the Covi-19 pandemic during the past two years has the government’s recourse to emergency powers, executive orders and threats against those who criticize or refuse to be obedient. This is not only notable in the US, but among all the western nations most aligned to the US.  Such measures for tackling national crises, in the absence of civil discourse and professional scientific debate is characteristic of authoritarian governments. Strong-arm dictates and draconian rules to destroy a population’s speech and freedom has always been a devious ploy to conceal the wrongful intentions of leaders and their minions who execute their harsh policies.

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Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.

Dr. Gary Null is host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on alternative and nutritional health and a multi-award-winning documentary film director, including his recent Last Call to Tomorrow

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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“Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning.”—Investigative journalist Annette Fuentes

This is what it means to go back-to-school in America today.

Instead of making the schools safer, government officials are making them more authoritarian.

Instead of raising up a generation of civic-minded citizens with critical thinking skills, government officials are churning out compliant drones who know little to nothing about their history or their freedoms.

And instead of being taught the three R’s of education (reading, writing and arithmetic), young people are being drilled in the three I’s of life in the American police state: indoctrination, intimidation and intolerance.

From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment he or she graduates, they will be exposed to a steady diet of:

• draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior,
• overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech,
• school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students,
• standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking,
• politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them,
• and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.

Roped into the government’s profit-driven campaign to keep the nation “safe” from drugs, disease, and weapons, the schools have transformed themselves into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, strip searches and active shooter drills.

Young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.

Students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.

Students have been suspended under school zero tolerance policies for bringing to school “look alike substances” such as oregano, breath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar.

Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, fingers positioned like guns) can also land a student in hot water, in some cases getting them expelled from school or charged with a crime.

Not even good deeds go unpunished.

One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.

Having police in the schools only adds to the danger.

Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers (a.k.a. school resource officers) to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in the years since the Columbine school shooting.

Indeed, the growing presence of police in the nation’s schools is resulting in greater police “involvement in routine discipline matters that principals and parents used to address without involvement from law enforcement officers.”

Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.

In the absence of school-appropriate guidelines, police are more and more “stepping in to deal with minor rulebreaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes. What previously might have resulted in a detention or a visit to the principal’s office was replaced with excruciating pain and temporary blindness, often followed by a trip to the courthouse.”

Not even the younger, elementary school-aged kids are being spared these “hardening” tactics.

On any given day when school is in session, kids who “act up” in class are pinned facedown on the floor, locked in dark closets, tied up with straps, bungee cords and duct tape, handcuffed, leg shackled, tasered or otherwise restrained, immobilized or placed in solitary confinement in order to bring them under “control.”

In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids—some as young as 4 and 5 years old—for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums.

Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.

Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers in the nation’s public schools.

This is what happens when you introduce police and police tactics into the schools.

Paradoxically, by the time you add in the lockdowns and active shooter drills, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.

For example, a middle school in Washington State went on lockdown after a student brought a toy gun to class. A Boston high school went into lockdown for four hours after a bullet was discovered in a classroom. A North Carolina elementary school locked down and called in police after a fifth grader reported seeing an unfamiliar man in the school (it turned out to be a parent).

Police officers at a Florida middle school carried out an active shooter drill in an effort to educate students about how to respond in the event of an actual shooting crisis. Two armed officers, guns loaded and drawn, burst into classrooms, terrorizing the students and placing the school into lockdown mode.

These police state tactics have not made the schools any safer.

The fallout has been what you’d expect, with the nation’s young people treated like hardened criminals: handcuffed, arrested, tasered, tackled and taught the painful lesson that the Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) doesn’t mean much in the American police state.

So what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now—the children growing up in these quasi-prisons—but for the future of this country?

How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?

Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when, for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?

As we’ve seen with other issues, any significant reforms will have to start locally and trickle upwards.

For starters, parents need to be vocal, visible and organized and demand that school officials 1) adopt a policy of positive reinforcement in dealing with behavior issues; 2) minimize the presence in the schools of police officers and cease involving them in student discipline; and 3) insist that all behavioral issues be addressed first and foremost with a child’s parents, before any other disciplinary tactics are attempted.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, we must start by running the schools like freedom forums.

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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.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent comments on menstrual irregularities met with serious rebuttal from gynecologists, who say COVID-19 vaccines should not have been injected into pregnant women without adequate safety testing.

“Well, the menstrual thing is something that seems to be quite transient and temporary, that’s one of the points,” Fauci said in an appearance on Fox News on July 25, upon being asked about the effect of vaccines on menstrual cycles.

“We need to study it more,” Fauci added.

Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and has been a frontman for COVID vaccine information in the United States.

Dr. Christiane Northrup MD, a former fellow in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, remarked to The Epoch Times on Fauci’s comments:

“Unfortunately the menstrual problems we are seeing are far from transient and temporary. Many women have been bleeding daily or having heavy, irregular, painful periods for an entire year. And some of these are well past menopause. Something is way off here. ”

Dr. James Thorp is an extensively published 69-year-old physician MD board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as maternal-fetal medicine, who has been practicing obstetrics for over 42 years.

“The significant and dramatic changes in menstrual patterns occurring after COVID-19 vaccines should not be marginalized. It is indicative of major adverse effects on women of reproductive age. The stakeholders claimed that the vaccine would remain at the injection site in the deltoid muscle. This was misinformation. The lipid nanoparticles (LNP’s) are now known be distributed throughout the entire body and to be concentrated in the ovaries according by at least two studies. Schadlich and colleagues demonstrated concentration of the LNP’s in ovaries of different mouse species and Wistar rats, in vivo, in vitro and by sophisticated microscopic imaging in 2012,” he told The Epoch Times.

A lipid nanoparticle is an extremely small particle, a fat-soluble membrane that is the cargo of the messenger RNA.

Pfizer’s Internal Documents

Pfizer’s internal documents, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, show a 118-fold increase in the concentration of LNPs from the time of injection to 48 hours.

“The LNP’s are known to include toxic substances including polyethylene glycol and pseudo-uridinated mRNA. The limited number of ovum in the ovaries (about 1 million) are exposed to potentially toxic substances and could potentially have catastrophic effects on human reproduction,” Thorp said.  

“The stakeholders claimed that the pseudo-uridinated mRNA could not be reverse transcribed into the human DNA. This was misinformation,” he added, referring to a Swedish study published in February 2022 that concluded that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is able to enter human liver cells and is converted into DNA.

Thorp and former Pfizer VP Michael Yeadon believe that the medical industrial complex had unequivocal evidence on the vaccine’s danger in pregnant women.

“This is proven not only by VAERS but also by Pfizer’s own internal document ‘Pfizer 5.3.6 post-marketing experience’” Thorp said.

Within the first 90 days of trials, there were 1,223 deaths, multiple severe adverse effects, and a 45 percent complication rate in pregnancy cases (274) that occurred in vaccinated mothers (124).

The 2012 study, mentioned by Thorp earlier, says that after testing with different mouse species and Wistar rats, “a high local accumulation of nanoparticles, nanocapsules and nanoemulsions in specific locations of the ovaries was found in all animals.”

Yeadon believes that the pharmaceutical industry “definitely knew,” since 2012, that the lipid nanoparticles would accumulate in the ovaries of women that took the vaccines.

“No one in the industry or in leading media could claim ‘they didn’t know about these risks to successful pregnancy,’” Yeadon told The Epoch Times in April.

Sidestepping Responsibility

Northrup fears that there could be much more data related to reproductive damage that hasn’t been discovered yet.

“The phrase ‘this requires more study’ whilst downplaying the current evidence of harm is a common way to discount the experience of thousands of women. Unfortunately, academic doctors do this all the time as a way to sidestep responsibility for the untoward effects of their treatments,” Northrup said.

“The female menstrual cycle is considered a vital sign as important as blood pressure and body temperature when it comes to health assessment. Our initial findings of bleeding and decidual cast shedding in women who have been exposed to those who have had the experimental injection suggest that what we’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. The reproductive effects of this shot could be far worse than we’ve been led to believe,” Northrup previously told The Epoch Times.

Tiffany Parotto, lead researcher of MyCycleStory, a survey that found many problems in women after they took the COVID vaccines, told The Epoch Times in May that she was distressed about the censorship and deletion of a Facebook group of about 21,000 members where women were talking about their menstrual irregularities.

Fauci’s office did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

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Enrico Trigoso is an Epoch Times reporter focusing on the NYC area.

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***

For several months the nation of Sri Lanka has been imperiled with the looming threat of complete economic collapse as fuel, food and other commodity prices skyrocketed.

Former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa became the central focus of the youth-led democracy movement as the GotaGoGama encampment was established demanding the immediate resignation of Rajapaksa as president and the removal of his cabinet.

At its height the camp’s activism attracted tens of thousands of people demanding an end to the former administration. Eventually the presidential compound was overrun by angry protesters necessitating the removal of Rajapaksa as president.

These events have sparked a debate within the democracy movement on a possible shift in tactics and strategy.  Some felt that the growth of the GotaGoGama camp served its purpose in the removal of the ousted regime during July. At the same time, there are others who take a different view of the current situation recognizing that nothing has changed fundamentally for the majority of the people in Sri Lanka with the ascendancy of a career politician to the position of president.

Image on the right: Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (Source: Countercurrents)

After the fleeing into exile of Rajapaksa, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed president by a majority within the Sri Lankan parliament. Although Rajapaksa fled due to political unrest, Wickremesinghe immediately imposed a state of emergency as a first step in plans to remove democracy movement demonstrators away from the central areas of the capital and the presidential residence which had been stormed in mid-July.

Some of the demonstrators occupying the camp said that they were attacked by a paramilitary grouping which were accompanied by soldiers. One activist from the Frontline Socialist Party, Pubudu Jagoda, told Al Jazeera: “Some in the military told us a group in civilian clothes arrived in a bus and put military uniforms on inside the bus before launching the attack.” There were allegations that some members of the paramilitary grouping were intoxicated.

In a recent analysis published by Al Jazeera it observes that:

“Vimukthi Dushantha, a convener of the Black Cap movement, says his group decided to leave the village to launch their next phase of the struggle, which he said was titled ‘Aragalaya 4.0’ after the Sinhala word for ‘struggle’. ‘Our main slogan at GotaGoGama was for Gotabya to leave. Now he is gone,’ he told Al Jazeera. ‘We believe the role of GotaGoGama as the centre of the protest is now over. The next phase of the protest should focus on introducing political, social and economic reforms.’”

The IMF and 21st Century Imperialism

The current government in Colombo is involved in negotiations with the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) in efforts to restructure existing debts. Such discussions absent of public interventions by trade unions, opposition parties and other important sectors of the working class and minorities will fail to address the critical issues looming behind the existing catastrophe.

Bailout packages supervised and coordinated by the IMF often result in even deeper hardships for the majority of the population in affected states. There is the forced downsizing of the civil service, including education workers, the privatization of publicly owned enterprises and the consequent heightening of political repression needed to enforce the dictates of Washington and Wall Street.

Western press reports on the developing situation in Sri Lanka frames the entire narrative on issues of corruption and lack of democratic practice. The debt crisis in Sri Lanka is largely due to the western financial institutions contrary to initial articles claiming that loans taken from the People’s Republic of China were at the core of the economic meltdown.

However, a review of the actual Sri Lankan debt by Ben Norton in an article reprinted in Monthly Review Online says of the present situation:

“Sri Lanka has a history of struggling with Western debt burdens, having gone through 16 ‘economic stabilization programs’ with the Washington-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF). These structural adjustment programs clearly have not worked, given Sri Lanka’s economy has been managed by the IMF for many of the decades since it achieved independence from British colonialism in 1948. As of 2021, a staggering 81% of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt was owned by U.S. and European financial institutions, as well as Western allies Japan and India. This pales in comparison to the mere 10% owed to Beijing.”

In order of amount owed the following financial institutions have been listed: BlackRock (U.S.), Ashmore Group (Britain), Allianz (Germany), UBS (Switzerland), HSBC (Britain), JPMorgan Chase (U.S.) and Prudential (U.S.). The Asian Development Bank debt owed by Sri Lankan represents the U.S. penetration of regional financial markets since this institution is dominated by Wall Street interests.

In recent years, Sri Lankan economic policy has been dominated by neo-liberal approaches to foreign investments. If there is agreement between the IMF and the Wickremesinghe administration, it will represent the 17th attempt conducted by the global financial institutions in relation to this South Asian island-nation.

Wickremesinghe announced in his first speech on July 30, just ten days after he was elected by the parliament to serve out the remainder of Rajapaksa’s term of office, that an agreement over financial assistance from the IMF had been postponed until September. The new president claimed that as prime minister he had wanted to conclude the talks with the IMF in late May.

Nonetheless, Wickremesinghe said that the advent of 100-days of mass demonstrations and the GotaGoGama encampment was responsible for the failure to reach an accord with the IMF. He made an appeal for the members of parliament to unite in order to save the country from an even worse economic disaster.

The Political Character of the Opposition

Sri Lanka has a decades-long history of a diverse political landscape extending from the independence struggles of the 1930s and 1940s through the acquisition of independence and the establishment of self-government after 1948. Between 1948-1953, the government followed a pro-western trajectory until the conclusion of the Korean war when there was a decline in rubber production and the rapid rise in prices for staple foods such as rice.

A general strike in 1953 and the subsequent turn towards non-alignment and socialist orientation was embarked upon by Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike who was elected in 1956. Efforts to build national unity in the country among the various ethnic groups led to his assassination in 1959. The slain leader’s wife, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, later became the leader of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP) and won the elections of 1960 becoming the world’s first woman prime minister.

Today there are organized parties within the opposition operating from various ideological perspectives from the right to the left. Some left parties have in recent years formed alliances within larger groupings within parliament, and consequently, among some youth, they have lost credibility.

In addition, there has been historically a weaponization of ethnicity by the majority Sinhalese population. The civil war which lasted from 1983 to 2009, was fought over the discrimination and persecution suffered by the minority Tamil community based in the north of the country. Sinhalese people are largely Buddhist in regard to their religious affiliations. The Tamils are a majority Hindu with some Christian adherents.

Over the last two decades there has also been the targeting of the Muslim minority population which followed a similar course as what has taken place in the western countries. The recent demonstrations during 2022, have been centered in the south of the island which is dominated by the Sinhalese. Other groups did join in the mass demonstrations as the crisis worsened.

In an extensive interview published by the London-based International Socialist Journal (ISJ) in June with Ahilan Kadirgamar, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Jaffna in Sri Lanka, provides an overview of the recent events inside the country. Kadirgamar is the Vice President of the Federation of University Teachers Association.

Kadirgamar highlighted the youthful character of the demonstrations which have occurred over the last few months. However, the organized working class entered the struggle with 1,000 unions participating in May Day actions.

According to Kadirgamar:

“[P]olitical parties are mobilizing their social bases. Both the main opposition party, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (United People’s Power), and the far-left Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP; People’s Liberation Front) have been organizing large protests in recent months. They are both preparing for elections in the future. But there is no clear leadership for the street protest movement, partly because it represents the coming together of different forces. The left today is mainly concentrated in the trade unions, because the ‘left’ political parties have been discredited by their affiliation with the Rajapaksas. These include the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Sri Lanka Equal Society Party) and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka. There is a strong left among students, particularly around the Frontline Socialist Party, which split from the JVP about a decade ago. The students have always been militant, which is one of the reasons why Sri Lanka still has free education, and they recently organized a very serious protest that surrounded the prime minister’s house. Nonetheless, they lack demands and a clear path forward and have also failed to put forward the kind of program needed to end the crisis.”

Taking these factors into consideration, the Sri Lankan people must work out a political program that can unite the disparate forces which characterize the opposition to the eminent neo-liberal policies advocated by the existing regime. The struggle in Sri Lanka is by no means an isolate one since it is reflective of the overall world crisis of capitalism and imperialism in the third decade of the 21st century.

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

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***

The EU and the UK have slowed efforts to have Russia shut off from the most important maritime insurance market amid concerns that a full insurance ban would limit global oil supply and push oil prices even higher, the Financial Times reports, citing UK and EU officials.

The UK was set to join an EU insurance ban after the UK and the European Union agreed in May to jointly shut off Russia’s access to oil cargo insurance. Under those plans, Russia would be effectively shut out of more than 90% of the global oil shipment insurance market.

The insurance ban was to be a much bigger deal than the actual EU embargo on Russian oil imports, as it would cripple Russia’s ability to export crude anywhere in the world, analysts said at the time.

However, the UK has yet to introduce such restrictions on maritime insurance, FT notes. The UK participation with the scheme is crucial because London and the UK are home to many of the world’s biggest maritime insurers.

“There is no current UK ban affecting global shipments of Russian oil,” Patrick Davison, underwriting director of the Lloyd’s Market Association, told the FT.

The EU has also eased some of the initial insurance restrictions after saying ten days ago that

“With a view to avoid any potential negative consequences for food and energy security around the world, the EU decided to extend the exemption from the prohibition to engage in transactions with certain state-owned entities as regards transactions for agricultural products and the transport of oil to third countries.”

Thus, the EU effectively still allows transactions with Russia’s state oil firms if the transportation of oil is for third countries, that is, such outside the EU.

Concerns about soaring energy prices have prompted the United States to look to convince major oil importers, including Russia’s key buyers these days, China and India, to endorse a plan to cap the price of Russian oil they are buying. The G7 group of leading industrialized nations, led by the United States, is considering waiving the ban on insurance and all services enabling transportation of Russian oil if that oil is bought at or below a certain price, yet to be decided.

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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. 

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***

Under a new law, Germans will be able to change their gender and first name without having to undergo any surgery once a year, every year if required.

Yes, really.

The Self-Determination Act will allow transgender, intersex, and non-binary people to change their gender at will merely by visiting a registry office and signing a piece of paper.

The need to submit a medical report or obtain expert opinion in court proceedings has been eliminated by the new legislation, which is expected to pass parliament before Bundestag members go on vacation.

“For the disabled, the law is humiliating. We will finally replace it with a modern law of self-determination. The Self-Determination Act will improve the lives of transgender people and recognize gender diversity,” said Family Minister Lisa Paus.

“In many areas, society is further ahead of legislation. As a government, we have decided to create a legal framework for an open, diverse and modern society,” she added.

The law officially codifies gender dysphoria, a mental illness, into being a fundamental right, with the condition having previously been treated (correctly) as a sickness.

“A moderate majority of Germans, 46 percent, approve of the government’s plans, while 41 percent of respondents reject the law, according to a representative survey by the YouGov Institute,” reports Remix News.

The only strong opposition to the new law comes from feminist groups who fear women are being erased and the right-wing AfD party.

According to the AfD’s Stephan Brandner, the law “has nothing to do with freedom but is an expression of blatant denial of reality. In biology, laws cannot simply be ignored.”

The CDU party also warned that the new law could lead to “arbitrariness,” while the FDP says it would make it easier for criminals to hide from the authorities or creditors by changing their name.

However, the legislation is expected to pass anyway, representing another full frontal assault on sanity and once again debunking the myth that the LGBT community is “marginalized,” when in fact it enjoys full state backing.

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***

At the launch of widespread mass inoculation of the public with Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine, BNT162b2, media, physicians’ spokespeople,  and government officials communicated widely that the injected drug would be retained at the injection site muscle tissue and in local lymph nodes. The components were supposed to be metabolized in a day or so, leaving only induced SARS CoV-2 Spike antigen to evoke a therapeutic immune response. A short pulse of drug effect would be followed, they claimed, by limited production of Spike antigen. 

However, newly released internal Pfizer documents show that this is not true.  In fact, the injection causes widespread distribution of the material in tissues and this distribution persists for at least two days, and probably much longer. These facts are the exact opposite of what was publicized.

A cluster of FDA-released Pfizer documents — “Final Report: A Tissue Distribution Study of a [3H]-Labelled Lipid Nanoparticle-mRNA Formulation Containing ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 Following Intramuscular Administration in Wistar Han Rats” [see this], 2.4 NONCLINICAL OVERVIEW [see this], “MODULE 2.6.5. PHARMACOKINETICS TABULATED SUMMARY” [see this] and the heavily redacted  report “R&D STUDY REPORT No. R-20-0072 – EXPRESSION OF LUCIFERASE-ENCODING MODERNA AFTER I.M. APPLICATION OF GMPREADY ACUITAS LIPID NANOPARTICLE FORMULATION“ [see this] — all examine tissue distribution of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine BNT162b2. These documents will be addressed in this report.

Pfizer Study 185350, ”Final Report: A Tissue Distribution Study of a [3H]-Labelled Lipid Nanoparticle-mRNA Formulation Containing ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 Following Intramuscular Administration in Wistar Han Rat”, is one of 21 preclinical Prizer studies involving mice, rats and rhesus macaque non-human primates. Study No. 185350 (Sponsor Reference ALC-NC-0552) was summarized in Pfizer’s “2.4 Nonclinical Overview” and was separately published as a Final Report dated September 24, 2020.

Contained in that document is the following identification of the source:

Test Facility Study No. 185350 REDACTED

SPONSOR: Acuitas,

6190 Agronomy Road,

Ste. 402,

Vancouver, V6T 1Z3 Canada

Sponsor Reference No. ALC-NC-0552

This study was made up  of 42 male and 21 female Wistar Han rats. These rats were injected with 50 or 100 micrograms of BNT162b2 mRNA/LNP (lipid nanoparticle) product labelled with a radioactive tracer material, 3H. Then the rats were sacrificed at intervals of 0.25 hours (15 minutes); 1 hour; 2 hours; 4 hours; 8 hours; and then at 1 and 2 days.

The results of 21 male and 21 female sacrificed rats are presented.

The 100-microgram dose was associated with loss of weight and apparent toxicity in two animals. Unfortunately, the full results of the 100-microgram dose were not presented at all. [see this, p. 11.]

This is very important. The 100 microgram dose was considered too toxic to continue to use in the experiment, so the dosage was cut in half. 100 micrograms is the amount in the Moderna injections.

The 50 microgram dose was not safe. One female rat in the 50-microgram dose exhibited piloerection and hunched posture. [see this, p.19.]

The injection did not stay at the injection site, as we were promised it would. Rather, following injection, the drug was persistent at the injection site, with a third of the dose remaining in muscle tissue for two days in males, and a sixth of the dose remained in females for the same duration.

But it did not all stay in the deltoid muscle. From the injection site in the deltoid muscle, mRNA/ Lipid Nanoparticles appeared in blood and plasma fifteen minutes after injection and persisted for the entire duration of the two-day study.

On page 20 of “Final Report: A Tissue Distribution Study of a [3H]-Labelled Lipid Nanoparticle-mRNA Formulation Containing ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 Following Intramuscular Administration in Wistar Han Rat,” the authors note that widespread distribution to “most tissues” occurs by the time of first analysis at 15 minutes after injection.

There was greater accumulation in blood when compared to plasma, and males generally had higher concentrations than females with lower blood to plasma ratios. No explanation for these differences was offered.

The major tissues that contained the drug concentration, aside from muscle at the injection site, were identified as being the liver, spleen, adrenal glands, and ovaries. The drug persisted in tissues throughout the duration of the study. The meaning and potential implications of the persistence in tissues was not addressed. [see this, p. 21]

Top: highest mean concentrations. Bottom: equivalent % dose.

The next two tables present the overall tissue distribution data from this study. It is reasonable to conclude, thus, that BNT162b2 is distributed throughout the body and persists for at least two days, the duration of the study. [see this, pp. 7-8] Tissue specimens were harvested but, unfortunately, no microscopic analysis of these specimens is presented at all, so potential damage to various organs was not evaluated.

A separate pharmacokinetic study, “PF-07302048,” looked at the persistence of the LNP (lipid nanoparticle) transport vessel with a test mRNA inside consisting of LNP coating wrapped around Luciferase mRNA, Figure 2.4.3-1 below. [“R&D STUDY REPORT No. R-20-0072 – EXPRESSION OF LUCIFERASE-ENCODING MODRNA AFTER I.M. APPLICATION OF GMPREADY ACUITAS LIPID NANOPARTICLE FORMULATION”, see this]

The object of this study was to follow the LNP vessel in plasma and liver, and then measure transcription of mRNA inside target organs to validate the delivery model using the bioluminescent properties of Luciferase to identify transcription of the mRNA in target tissues. [see this]

From this study, we learn that the two measured components of the lipid nanoparticle coating, ALC-0315 [(4-hydroxybutyl) azanediyl]di(hexane-6, 1-diyl) bis (2-hexyldecanooate)] and ALC-0159 (2-[2-(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N, N-ditetradecylacetamide) are detectable in plasma after 300 hours – that is to say, 12.5 days – which fact raises the issue of how long the contents of the LNP vessel with the mRNA inside persists, and what the implications are of prolonged occupation of host cells by this material. In this study, the BNT162b2 was injected intravenously, accelerating the dissemination of drug. [2.4 NONCLINICAL OVERVIEW, see this, p.16]

This study of the biodistribution of the LNP coating containing Luciferase mRNA found that not only was the mRNA transcribed, but the LNP “vessel” components ALC-0315 and ALC-0159 were retained in the liver and in the plasma for at least 12.5 days. The fate of the Luciferase mRNA was not discussed.

With respect to degradation of the mRNA component, we learn from “2.4 Nonclinical Overview” that Pfizer/Acuitas did not study at all the degradation of the synthetic mRNA in BNT162b2. Similarly, there was no analysis by Pfizer of protein products from BNT162b2 provided. [see this, p.20]

Several serious questions are raised by these results:

1. How long does the BNT162b2 mRNA persist in human tissues? Where does it go in the host cell? How long does it persist inside the cell? What proteins does it produce, and for how long?
2. Is there any possibility that the BNT162b2 mRNA can be transcribed into DNA, then incorporate into the host genome? If this happens what are the implications?
3. What are the toxicities from the lipid nanoparticle coating?
4. Was Pfizer obligated to answer these questions prior to human testing?
5. Doesn’t proper informed consent require answers to these questions?

Fortunately, answers to these important questions are beginning to appear:

1a. Duration of mRNA in tissues:

In a July 19, 2022, article, the essayist Joomi reviews the topic of how long BNT162 b2 containing mRNA stabilized by a synthetic nucleotide 1N-methyl pseudouridine persists in human tissues. [see this]

A January 2022 human lymph node biopsy study from Stanford University found that the mRNA from both Pfizer and Moderna persists for at least two months, which was the duration of the study. [see this]

1b. Proteins produced from BNT162b2 mRNA:

Spike protein is produced after the mRNA is transcribed, and has been found in vivo for at least four months after inoculation. [see this]

Proteins transcribed from the mRNA have not been completely characterized yet. SARS-CoV-2-like Spike protein has been identified as long as four months after inoculation with LNP/mRNA in human exosomes. Toxicity of Spike protein has been described and is reviewed in  the essay “We’re still being misled about how long the mRNA vaccines last in the body.” [see this]

2. What is the fate of BNT162b2 mRNA?

We were informed that “RNA is required for protein synthesis, does not integrate into the genome, is transiently expressed, and is metabolized and is eliminated by the body’s natural mechanisms and, therefore is considered safe.” [Alberer, M. et al. Safety and immunogenicity of a mRNA rabies vaccine in healthy adults: an open-label, non-randomized, prospective, first-in-human phase 1 clinical trial. Lancet 90, 1511-1520 (2017).] [Sahin, U. e al. Personalized RNA mutanome vaccines mobilize poly-specific therapeutic immunity against cancer. Nature 547, 222-226 (2017).]

However, Alden, et. al., reporting in Current Issues in Molecular Biology 2022, 44, 1115-1126, found BNT162b2 mRNA is reverse transcribed into host DNA beginning six hours after contact with BNT162b2:

“In the BNT162b2 toxicity report, no genotoxicity nor carcinogenicity studies have been provided. Our study shows that BNT162b2 can be reverse transcribed to DNA in liver cell line Huh7, and this may give rise to the concern if BNT162b2-derived DNA may be integrated into the host genome and affect the integrity of genomic DNA, which may potentially mediate genotoxic side effects. At this stage, we do not know if DNA reverse transcribed from BNT162b2 is integrated into the cell genome. Further studies are needed to demonstrate the effect of BNT162b2 on genomic integrity, including whole genome sequencing of cells exposed to BNT162b2, as well as tissues from human subjects who received BNT162b2 vaccination.” [see this]

This study did not identify DNA transcribed from BNT162b2 mRNA in the host genome following transcription.

However, Zhang et. al., working at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, demonstrated fragments of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA integrated in host DNA in “Reverse-transcribed SARS-CoV-2 RNA can integrate into the genome of cultured human cells and can be expressed in patient-derived tissues,” published in 2021 in PNAS, vol. 118, no. 21:

“We show here that SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be reverse-transcribed and integrated into the genome of the infected cell and be expressed as chimeric transcripts fusing viral with cellular sequences. Importantly, such chimeric transcripts are detected in patient-derived tissues.” [see this]

So, scientists are getting close to knowing whether BNT162b2, with its synthetic mRNA, is translated into host DNA and is now a permanent part of human genetic material. If so, the next step is to determine what the implications are.

3. What are the toxicities from the lipid nanoparticle coating?

More research is required to understand the implications of LNP concentration in various organ tissues. It is thought that the PEG component (the polyethylene glycol that coats the LNP) is responsible for anaphylaxis, an often rapid-onset major physiologic event that requires emergency treatment.

4. Was Pfizer obligated to answer these questions prior to human testing?

5. Doesn’t proper informed consent require answers to these questions?

The answers to questions 4 and 5 are “yes,” and the reasons should be obvious now. Basic information about functioning of this mRNA product, BNT162b2, was not known at the time of mass inoculation; and, therefore, a proper risk, benefits and complications discussion was compromised by lack of information. Informed consent is not possible in such a situation.

In conclusion, many negatively consequential shortcuts were made in the development of BNT162b2.

Many omissions in basic research evaluation of BNT162b2 were kept hidden, and there was outright misinformation regarding some of the work that was done.

Assumptions rather than actual research to determine where BNT162b2 goes, what it does, and how long it lasts were made that proved to be false and constitute intentional mis/dis/mal information. We were told that the prodrug, BNT162b2, consisting of a lipid nanoparticle coating of synthetic messenger ribonucleic acid (modRNA), would be deposited in muscle tissue at the injection site and would be migrate to local lymphatics prior to rapid degradation producing Spike antigens for a limited period of time that would produce a desired immune response.

However, Pfizer in its very early Phase 1 trial with mice, rats, and rhesus non-human primates learned that the LNP/mRNA is rapidly disseminated throughout the body and remained in tissues for as long as it was studied, 48 hours for BNT162b2 and 12.5 days for the LNP/Luciferase mRNA test product.

No effort was expended to determine what proteins are produced by the modRNA, what their physiological actions are and how long they are produced as well as what toxicities and adverse events might be anticipated with widespread usage of the LNP/mRNA prodrug.

FOIA requests for internal documents from federal health care agencies, independent review board members, approximately 140 clinical investigators and Pfizer personnel should be made.

Billions of doses were administered to billions of people. The scale of this potentially massive medical misstep is large.

Ten months to develop novel gene therapy for a novel virus is well short of the five to 10 years usually required to develop, test and refine such a product. After billions of doses have been given to children and adults around the world, possibly altering the course of human evolution, the public is now seeing the unfortunate consequences of cutting corners.

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The COVID-19 Endgame: Global Governance, “Digital Tyranny” and the Depopulation Agenda

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 03, 2022

The Worldwide QR Verification Code project lays the groundwork for the instatement of a “Digitized Global Police State” controlled by the financial establishment. It’s part of what the late David Rockefeller entitled “The March towards World Government” based on an alliance of bankers and intellectuals.

Poland’s President Duda Compares the Warsaw 1944 Uprising Against Nazi Occupation to the Battle of Mariupol

By Andrew Korybko, August 02, 2022

Duda has sought to merge Poland and Ukraine into a de facto confederation since his historic trip to Kiev in late May, to which end his government is actively inventing new so-called “national myths” to justify this geopolitical project aimed at legitimizing his country’s regional hegemonic goal.

History: Discover Persian Poet Jalal al-Din Rumi’s “Spiritual Geopolitics”

By Pepe Escobar, August 02, 2022

Mystic poet, Sufi, theosophist, and thinker, Jalal al-Din Rumi remains one of the most beloved historical personalities in history, east and west. A wanderer in search of the light, he famously characterized himself thus: “I am nothing more than a humble lover of God.”

Video: Is the Biden Administration Really Foolish Enough to Send Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, or Is It Just a Balloon of Hot Air? Don DeBar and Peter Koenig

By Peter Koenig, Don DeBar, and Press TV, August 02, 2022

Press TV interviews Peter Koenig, geopolitical activist from Geneva and Don DeBar, activist and commentator from Westchester, New York, to look at whether deployment of US carrier strike group is a sign of military confrontation and why the US is after provoking China while it is involved in other military activities, like in Ukraine.

Court Blocks U.S Air Force from Punishing Unvaccinated Troops Seeking Religious Waivers

By Rachel Cohen, August 02, 2022

A federal district court judge has stopped the Air Force from expelling or otherwise punishing thousands of troops who have applied for a religious waiver to avoid COVID-19 vaccination, under a newly minted class-action lawsuit.

Testimonies from COVID Jab Injured: “mRNA ‘Vaccine’ Genocide 2021-2022”

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, August 02, 2022

If you or someone you love still does not understand the risks of the COVID jab, watch the video “mRNA ‘Vaccine’ Genocide 2021-2022: Testimonies from the Victims and Medical Staff,” above. I don’t care if you already well understand the risks, I am beyond confident you will benefit from watching what these shots are doing.

Without Consent: DNA from Newborn Babies Is Being Used by Law Enforcement and Science

By Jesse Smith, August 02, 2022

Police departments in New Jersey have recently come under fire for using DNA from newborn babies to solve crimes without public knowledge or consent. The DNA is also being obtained without a warrant, a blatant violation of the law.

Policing the World Is a Full-Time Job. Washington Is “Addicted to War”: Dr. Philip Giraldi

By Philip Giraldi, August 02, 2022

Every leader and top official now in power in the so-called Western World seems to have forgotten that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 as an alliance that was ostensibly defensive in nature, intended to counter the expansion of Soviet style communism in Europe.

Saudi Arabia Unveils Plans for Dystopian “Linear” City that Will Cram 9 Million People Into a Giant 109-Mile-Long Mirrored Wall

By Julian Conradson, August 02, 2022

As if the World Economic Forum’s Agenda 2030 wasn’t bad enough already – eating bugs, living in pods, medical tyranny, an international surveillance state, etc. etc… the architects of the Great Reset have now unveiled how they plan to deal with the millions of “useless eaters” who will inevitably be needed to sustain the dystopian cities of the future.

Inflation Reduction Act: Another DC Lie. “Green Energy” Programs Will Lead to Increased Cronyism and Waste

By Rep. Ron Paul, August 02, 2022

The Affordable Care Act, No Child Left Behind, and the USA PATRIOT Act received new competition for the title of Most Inappropriately Named Bill when Senate Democrats unveiled the Inflation Reduction Act. This bill will not only increase inflation, it will also increase government spending and taxes.

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Duda has sought to merge Poland and Ukraine into a de facto confederation since his historic trip to Kiev in late May, to which end his government is actively inventing new so-called “national myths” to justify this geopolitical project aimed at legitimizing his country’s regional hegemonic goal. The latest one is that the Warsaw Uprising and Battle of Mariupol are supposedly the same even though this isn’t factually true.

Polish President Duda disrespected the Warsaw Uprising by comparing it to the Battle of Mariupol during his speech at a photo exhibition of both events. He asked, “How similar are those photographs? How identical is the bestiality of those who kill, demolish and destroy the lives of innocent people? These photographs are disturbing, some of them very much so, but they reflect the disturbing reality of Warsaw during World War II, especially during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, when fighting was under way here and when the Germans were ruthlessly killing civilian residents in the Polish capital. And sadly today’s Russian invasion of Ukraine is similarly ruthless.”

Regardless of his counterfactual rhetoric, these two events have nothing in common. The Warsaw Uprising was carried out by Poles against their genocidal Nazi occupiers who had already slaughtered six million of them in the span of less than six years, many of whom were exterminated at the many Nazi death camps that the fascist forces established on occupied Polish territory. The Battle of Mariupol, by contrast, was fought by Neo-Nazis against the anti-fascist alliance of Russia and the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). Neither Moscow nor its regional ally committed genocide against the locals unlike those Ukrainian forces who’ve been carrying out such crimes for over the past eight years.

The only superficial comparison between the Warsaw Uprising and the Battle of Mariupol is that both cities were destroyed due to street-by-street combat, but there’s nothing else in common between them. The Polish rebels were punished by their Nazi occupiers for daring to rise up against them while the Ukrainian occupiers punished the locals in a similar way as their Nazi idols did the Poles for the exact same reason related to them rebelling against fascist occupation. The Nazis against whom the Poles fought in Warsaw wanted to indefinitely perpetuate their genocide while the Russian and DPR forces against whom Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis fought in Mariupol wanted to end Kiev’s genocide of the locals.

Falsely comparing these two events like Duda just did is a shameless example of information warfare, which is being waged against both Russia as well as his own Polish people. It’s obvious what this provocation intended to achieve with respect to worsening the first-mentioned’s international reputation while it’s less clear to casual observers what it meant to accomplish when it comes to Poles. Duda has sought to merge Poland and Ukraine into a de facto confederation since his historic trip to Kiev in late May, to which end his government is actively inventing new so-called “national myths” to justify this geopolitical project aimed at legitimizing his country’s regional hegemonic goal.

The latest one is that the Warsaw Uprising and Battle of Mariupol are supposedly the same even though this isn’t factually true as was just explained. The purpose in pushing this false comparison is to artificially manufacture popular support for Poland’s post-modern expansionism into that crumbling former Soviet Republic, which many at home are increasingly becoming skeptical about after it’s led to unexpected costs for average Poles, especially since it appears as though Germany played Poland into being its “useful idiot” for expanding the EU’s influence there. For that reason, Warsaw is desperate to emotionally manipulate its people into supporting this geopolitical project on a false propaganda basis.

Therein lies the perniciousness of the counterfactual comparison between the Warsaw Uprising and the Battle of Mariupol. Duda disrespected the martyrs, survivors, and their descendants of the first-mentioned by implying that they’re no different than the Ukrainian Neo-Nazis who lost Donbass’ most important port. Ironically, those same so-called “defenders” also glorify their descendants who genocided over 100,000 Poles in Volhynia during World War II, which makes Duda’s comparison doubly disrespectful but exposes how actively his government is engaging in historical revisionism in its desperate bid to artificially manufacture popular support for its de facto confederation with Ukraine.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

 

 

 

 

 

John Leake is a best-selling an “experienced non-fiction, true crime author”. Having just read what must be described as an extraordinary ‘telling’ of the COVID-19 saga, this book is the narration of true crime on a scale that could top the list in the history of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’.

The book chronicles the unique role of national governments across the world and their health agencies, led by the USA and WHO, which followed an agenda that led to completely avoidable fatalities numbering several million. The question is why?

The usual culprits are money and power. But to ascribe cause to these two is woefully insufficient. The sheer magnitude of the ‘dark agenda’ –  coordinated and played out by governments, health agencies, the medical establishment (hospitals, doctors and chemists) and the massive and deliberate disinformation by the legacy media – defies such easy explanations. As one journalist on Leake’s team put it, “but this is evil”.

Dr. Peter McCullough says it will take a legion of investigators and investigative journalists to “untangle and delineate what would ultimately be revealed as a massive crime against humanity”.

This book is in part that investigation, zeroing in on why treatment protocols (especially early treatment) were side-lined, leading to disastrous consequences. The book is an impressive, accurate and lucid telling of this crime on a global scale, with its lens on the USA.

John Leake could not have wished for a more authoritative voice than Peter McCullough, his co-author. McCullough, a practising board certified internist and cardiologist, is the most published author in history in the field of cardio-renal medicine.

By 2020, he had published over 60 peer reviewed academic medical papers. In addition to his medical doctorate, McCullough has been awarded eight medical certifications from various societies. He is now a published leading expert in treatment protocols, particularly early treatment for COVID-19.

The ‘McCullough Protocol’, which has evolved over 22 months, has helped treat millions of patients worldwide, saving countless numbers of people from hospitalisation and death. Because ‘the battle’ is being fought on the grounds of medical authority, only medical doctors of the unique calibre and expertise of someone like Dr. Peter McCullough are in a position to take up the cudgels.

McCullough also has the vital qualities of integrity and courage that allow him to take on this vastly unequal fight against the bio-pharmaceutical complex that includes the US government and its health agencies (the FDA, CDC, NIAID) and the WHO.

The book sets out the timeline of the ‘pandemic’. The WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020, using a highly inaccurate and faulty RT-PCR at high CTs (cycle thresholds) above 40. Those who tested positive and had no symptoms were labelled ‘asymptomatic’, a new category of COVID patients that ratcheted-up the numbers required for declaring a pandemic.

Dr Fauci (assuming the mantle of the US’s chief public health officer) declared on 16 March 2020 that his institute the NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the US National Institutes of Health – NIH), had developed a promising vaccine to combat SARS-COV-2 at a substantial investment. This was promoted as humanity’s only hope.

Fauci forgot to mention that the NIH co-owned the patent. This was ‘warp speed’ indeed.

Interestingly, during a simulation at Event 201 on 28 October 2019, it was stated that CEPI (the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovation) was already working on a corona virus vaccine, the first step of its business plan (BP) published in November 2016. CEPI was launched in January 2017 in Davos by the Gates Foundation, the WEF, the governments of Norway, Japan, and India and the Wellcome Trust.

The book notes that treating COVID-19 with existing drugs was not part of the BP. That is why there was no interest in re-purposed drugs like hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), which had been approved since 1955 by the FDA as a malaria prophylaxis. Billions of doses had been administered over the decades. The drug is safe, cheap and easy to manufacture.

Research teams in China were reporting favourable results for treating COVID-19. McCullough says, “the only thing in the literature is HCQ. We should take the Indian medical Council’s (ICMR) recommendation to use it”.

The other re-purposed drug that has been successful in treating COVID-19 as a prophylactic and at every stage of the disease is the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. It would be hard to overstate the significance of the effectiveness of ivermectin: it is an inhibitor of SARS-COV-2 in vitro. A single treatment effected “approximately 5000-fold reduction in virus at 48 h in cell cull culture” (Study by Monash University of Australia).

Ivermectin is FDA approved and like HCQ is widely available, off-patent and inexpensive. It is on the WHO model list of essential medicines. Since its discovery in 1989, ivermectin has cured two great scourges (river blindness and elephantiasis) and has been widely prescribed.  Like HCQ, ivermectin is hugely effective at mitigating COVID-19 disease and death.

Both drugs are derived from natural sources. HCQ (natural ancestor, quinine) is derived from the cinchona bark (discovered by the Quechua of Peru) and ivermectin is a bioactive compound derived from a soil bacterium (Streptomyces avermectinius). Its discoverer Satoshi Omura and his colleague at the Merck Institute Dr William Campbell won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for ivermectin in 2015.

In 2017, the report from The Journal of Antibiotics reported: “enigmatic multifaceted ‘wonder drug’ continues to surprise and exceed expectations”. The journal presented ivermectin’s therapeutic properties against an array of pathogens, including viruses.

Both HCQ and ivermectin should be of star value for India because they fit in so well with her 5,000 year history of medicinal plant science in Ayurvedic healing traditions. Both were used to great effect for treating COVID-19, especially in UP (Uttar Pradesh). Unfortunately, despite the data, the Indian government and WHO withdrew support for it.

The authors note that the impressive evidence that both drugs were effective treatments for the virus was stonewalled by Fauci and the CDC and met with a wall of silence by the legacy media. Inexplicably, remdesivir was the only drug authorised and made available in US public hospitals; a drug without a safety profile and which could be fatally toxic, leading to kidney failure.

Furthermore, compared to the price at ‘pennies’ of HCQ and ivermectin, remdesivir was priced at over $3,000 per treatment, but took a mere $10 to produce! The message from Gates was: “there is no treatment apart from remdesivir. Stay home — wait for the vaccine”.  

Readers are informed that health agencies told the medical profession that nothing could be done to treat COVID-19, backed by the press that emblazoned this therapeutic nihilism. A panicked public was denied any form of treatment – wait till your lips are blue and then go to the hospital. Patients were isolated and alone, no relatives were allowed to visit.

When they reached the point where they could not breathe, they were put on mechanical ventilators, a death knell: 80% died. Ivermectin was resolutely and tyrannically denied – even when there was no hope that the patient would survive and against the pleading of husbands, wives, parents.

Incredibly, even court orders were flouted. In the few instances where hospital doctors were explicitly ordered to stand aside and let a protocol of ivermectin be administered, such patients recovered and fast. The others? They died.

In Texas alone, 45,000 died. Peter McCullough estimates around 70% of COVID-19 fatalities could have been prevented. By Christmas 2021, that figure was 610,000 preventable deaths. He said, “there is so much focus on the vaccine, where is the focus on people sick right now”. 

The proven solutions to the virus in HCQ, ivermectin and other drugs, (methylprednisolone, heparin, azithromycin, zinc and orthomolecular medicine, specifically high dose vitamin C), proved that this was a most treatable virus,  or as Prof Didier Raoult pronounced – game over!

Despite this, experimental (unapproved and untested) vaccines were rolled out at warp speed under Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA). The explicit legal, statutory requirement is that there must be no adequate, approved and available alternatives.

Herein lies the authors’ tale of horror and fraud, with profits of trillions of dollars for vaccine manufacturers, (who are also indemnified from causing harm), through an official policy of a needle in every arm.

At the same time, various monetary incentives came into play to boost COVID patient numbers via a hastily drafted CARES Act (Corona Virus Aid, Relief and Economic Security). Medicare has determined a COVID-19 admission to hospital will entitle the establishment a payment of $13,000. If that patient goes on a ventilator, the payment is threefold or $ 39,000!

It is also acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as “probable” or “presumed” where a definite diagnosis cannot be made. From November 2020, hospitals also got an additional 20% add-on payment when a prescribed government drug was used – remdesivir.

The book also sets out a conflict of interest so colossal that it defies credulity.

The Gates and Fauci partnership, (with the Wellcome Trust) controls around 57% of global bio-medical research funding. The Gates foundation is invested in virtually every vaccine and also controls much of the mass media. Excluding contractual payments to the news media, in 2020, the Gates Foundation grants were of the order of $250 million. The full scope of its funding is unknown. This explains the slander, the massive disinformation and fake news.

An intrepid battalion of medical warriors like Dr. Peter McCullough has refused to kowtow to the raging medical tyranny.  The pandemic has demonstrated that the light of consciousness has dimmed globally. Yet “we live in order to become conscious” (CG Jung).

Doctors and medical scientists of immeasurable stature were junked, their careers ‘cancelled’ for safeguarding our medical freedom. If we should lose our medical freedom, we lose every freedom. These scientists have prevailed, however, and have thrown a lifeline to millions through early treatment protocols. This book is about them.

In finishing, it is worth noting that we now have evidence – and it is growing – that EUA vaccines, which have been mandated by governments, the WHO and private industry, are associated with increased risk of disease and death from COVID-19. By July 2021, the CDC VAERS system recorded 6,207 deaths (quoted by Leake).  

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Aruna Rodrigues is Lead Petitioner in the PIL in the Supreme Court of India for a moratorium on GMOs since 2005. She is also part of a dedicated group of researchers into COVID-19, its policies, vaccines and health impacts ([email protected]). 

Featured image is from Amazon

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Mystic poet, Sufi, theosophist, and thinker, Jalal al-Din Rumi remains one of the most beloved historical personalities in history, east and west. A wanderer in search of the light, he famously characterized himself thus: “I am nothing more than a humble lover of God.”

The era of Rumi’s father – Sultan Bahaeddin Veled (1152-1231) and son (1207-1273) – was an extraordinary socio-political rollercoaster. It’s absolutely impossible for us today to understand the ideas, allusions and parables that trespass Rumi’s magnum opus, the six-volume Masnevi, in 25,620 couplets, without delving into some serious time travel.

In the Masnevi, written in Persian – the prime literary language in West and Central Asia in those times – Rumi used poetry essentially as a tool for teaching divine secrets, explaining them via parables. The Rumi Project is to show Man the path to Divine Love, leading him from a low stage to the highest. Squeezed and subdued by the techno-feudalism juggernaut, we may now need to heed these lessons more than ever in history.

The Masnevi became hugely popular across Eurasia immediately after Rumi’s death in 1273 – from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to Central Asia, Iran and Turkey. Then, slowly but surely, the man and the opus ended up reaching even the collective west (Goethe was mesmerized) and inspiring a wealth of learned commentaries, in Persian, Ottoman Turkish, Urdu and English.

“The master from Anatolia”

Let’s start our time travel in the 11th century, when some Turkish tribes, after crossing Transoxiana, began to settle in northern Persia. These new Turkish tribes – from the Ghaznavids to the Seljuks (actually the branch of a Turkoman tribe) – constituted fabulous dynasties that played a key role in the inter-mixing of Turkic and Persian culture (what the Chinese today, applying it to the New Silk Roads, call “people to people contacts”).

Islam spread very fast in Persia under the rule of the religiously tolerant Samanids. That was the foundation stone for Mahmud of Ghazna (998-1030) to form a great Turkish empire, from northeastern Persia to very remote parts of India. Mahmud made a great impression on Rumi.

While the Ghaznavids remained powerful in eastern Persia, the Seljuks established a powerful empire not only in parts of Iran but also in the remote lands of Anatolia (called Arz-I Rum). That’s the reason why Rumi is called Mavlana-yi Rum (“the master from Anatolia”).

Rumi as a kid lived in legendary Balkh (part of Khorasan in northern Afghanistan), capital of the Khwarazm empire. When he and his father were still there, the king was Ala al-Din, who came from a dynasty established by a Turkish slave.

After a series of incredibly messy kingdom clashes, Ala al-Din saw himself pitted in battle against the king of Samarkand, Osman Khan. That ended up in a massacre in 1212, in which Ala al-Din’s soldiers killed 10,000 people in Samarkand. The young Rumi was shocked.

Ala al-Din wanted to be no less than the absolute ruler of the Muslim world. He refused to obey the Caliph in Baghdad. He even started entertaining designs on China – where Genghis Khan had already conquered Pekin.

Ala al-Din sent an envoy to China who was very well treated by Genghis, who had an eye on – what else – good business between the two empires (the Silk Road bug, again). Genghis sent his ambassadors back, full of gifts. Ala al-Din received them in Transoxiana in 1218.

But then the governor of one of his provinces, a close relative, robbed and killed some of the Mongols. Genghis demanded punishment. The Sultan refused. Well, you don’t want to pick up a fight with Genghis Khan. He duly started a series of massacres in Persia, and inevitably the Khwarazm empire – along with its great cities, Samarkand, Bukhara, Balkh, Merv – collapsed. By then, Rumi and his father had already left.

Like Baghdad, each of these fabulous cities was a center of learning. Rumi’s Balkh had a mixed culture of Arabs, Sassanians, Turks, Buddhists and Christians. After Alexander The Great, Balkh became the hub of Greco-Bactria. Just before the coming of Islam, it was a Buddhist hub and a center of Zoroastrian teaching. All along, one of the great centers of the Ancient Silk Roads.

On the road with 300 camels

The hero of Rumi’s Masnevi, Ibrahim Adham, like the Buddha, had relinquished his throne for the love of God, setting the example for the Sufism that later came to flourish across these latitudes, known as the Khorasani school.

As Prof Dr Erkan Turkmen, who was born in Peshawar and today is a top scholar at Karatay University in Konya, and author, among others, of a lovely volume, ‘Roses from Rumi’s Rose Garden’ says, there are two top reliable sources for the extraordinary pilgrimage of Rumi’s father Bahaeddin and his family from Balkh to Konya, with books, food and house ware loaded on the back of 300 camels, accompanied by 40 religious people. The sources, inevitably, are father and son (Rumi’s account is written in verse).

The first major stop was Baghdad. At the entrance gates, the guards asked who they were. Rumi’s father said, “We are coming from God and shall go back to Him. We have come from the non-existent world and shall go there again.”

Caliph al-Nasir summoned his top scholar Suhreverdi, who immediately gave the green light to the newcomers. But Rumi’s father did not want to stay under the protection of the Caliph, who was noted for his cruelness. So after a few years he left for Mecca on a Hajj and then to Damascus – which was an extremely well organized city at the time of the Abbasids and the Seljuks, crammed with 660 mosques, more than 40 madrassas, 100 baths and plenty of famous scholars.

The final steps on the family journey were Erjinzan in Anatolia – already a center of trade and culture – and then Larende (now Karaman), 100km south of Konya. Today, Karaman is only a small Turkish province, but in those times extended as far as Antalya to the south. It housed a lot of Christian Turks, who wrote Turkish using the Greek alphabet.

That’s where Rumi got married. Afterwards, his father was invited by Sultan Ala al-Din Kayqubad I (1220-1237) to Konya, finally establishing himself and the family until his death in 1231.

The Seljuks in Anatolia erupted into history in the year 1075, when Alp Arslan defeated the Byzantines in the legendary battle of Manzikert. A century later, in 1107, Qilich Arslan defeated the Crusaders, and the Seljuk empire began to spread very fast. It took a few decades before Christians started to accept the inevitable: the presence of Turks in Anatolia. Later, they even started to intermix.

The golden era of the Seljuks was under Sultan Ala al-Din Kayqubad I (the one who invited Rumi’s family to Konya), who built citadels around Konya and Kayseri to protect them from the coming Mongol invasion, and spent his winters at the beautiful Mediterranean coast in Antalya.

In Konya, Rumi did not get into politics, and does not seem to have had close relations with the royal family. He was widely known either as Mevlana (our master) or Rumi (the Anatolian). In Turkey today he is simply known as Mevlana, and in the west as Rumi. In his lyrical poetry, he uses the pseudonym Khamush (Silent). Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP – a highly materialistic enterprise wallowing in dodgy businesses – is not exactly fond of Rumi’s Sufism.

Under the Green Dome

As we’ve seen, Rumi spent most of his childhood on the road – so he never attended regular school. His early education was provided by his father and other scholars who followed the family to Karaman. Rumi also met many other famous scholars along the way, especially in Baghdad and Damascus, where he studied Islamic history, the Quran, and Arabic.

When Rumi was about to finish the 6th volume of the Masnevi, he fell ill, under constant fever. He passed away on 17 December, 1273. A fund of 130,000 dirhams was organized to build his tomb, which includes the world-famous Green Dome (Qubbat ul-Khazra), originally finished in 1274 and currently under renovation.

The tomb today is a museum (Konya holds astonishing relics especially in the Ethnography and Archeology museums). But for most pilgrims from all lands of Islam and beyond who come to pay their spiritual tributes, it is actually regarded as a lover’s shrine (Kaaba-yi Ushaq).

These lines, inscribed in his splendid wooden sarcophagus, may be a summary of all that Rumi attempted to teach during his lifetime:

“If wheat is grown on the clay of my grave, and if you bake bread of it, your intoxication will increase, the dough and the baker will go mad and the oven will also begin to recite verses out of madness. When you pay a visit to my tomb, it will seem to be dancing for God has created me out of the wine of love and I am still the same love even if death may crush me.”

A Sufi is by definition a lover of God. Islamic mysticism considers three stages of knowledge: the knowledge of certainty, the eye of certainty, and the truth of certainty.

In the first stage, one tries to find God by intellectual proof (failure is inevitable). In the second stage, one may be tuned in to divine secrets. In the third stage, one is able to see Reality and understand It spiritually. That’s a path not dissimilar to reaching enlightenment in Buddhism.

In addition to these three stages, there are paths to follow toward God. Choosing a path – Tarikat – is a very complicated business. It can be any Sufi order – such as Mavleviya, Kadriya, Nakshbandiya – under the guidance of a sheikh of that particular Tarikat.

In these absurdist times of grain diplomacy barely able to remedy the toxic effects of imperial sanctions, part of a proxy war of civilizations, a Rumi verse – “The celestial mill gives nothing if you have no wheat” – may open unexpected vistas.

Rumi is essentially saying that if one goes to a flour mill without wheat, what shall we gain? Nothing but the whiteness of one’s beard and hair (because of the flour). In the same vein: “If we have no good deeds to take with us to the other world, we will gain nothing but pain in the heart, while if we have developed our spiritual being, we will gain honor and Divine Love.”

Now try to explain that to a crusading collective west.

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This article was originally published on The Cradle.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) (Photo Credit: The Cradle)

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

A federal district court in California on Friday denied Google’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the Silicon Valley giant is violating federal antitrust laws by preventing fair competition against its YouTube video platform. The lawsuit against Google, which has owned YouTube since its 2006 purchase for $1.65 billion, was brought in early 2021 by Rumble, the free speech competitor to YouTube.

Its central claim is that Google’s abuse of its monopolistic stranglehold on search engines to destroy all competitors to its various other platforms is illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which makes it unlawful to “monopolize, or attempt to monopolize…any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations.”

It is rare for antitrust suits against the four Big Tech corporate giants (Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon) to avoid early motions to dismiss. Friday’s decision against Google ensures that the suit now proceeds to the discovery stage, where Rumble will have the right to obtain from Google a broad and sweeping range of information about its practices, including internal documents on Google’s algorithmic manipulation of its search engine and the onerous requirements it imposes on companies dependent upon its infrastructure to all but force customers to use YouTube.

Founded in 2013, Rumble began experiencing explosive growth in the run-up to the 2020 election. Americans were encountering escalating and aggressive Big Tech censorship of political content as the election approached. Conservative politicians, followed by a wide range of heterodox voices on the right and left, began migrating by the millions away from Google’s YouTube to Rumble, which has promised and provided far more permissive free speech rights. That was at the time when Google and other Big Tech platforms — at the urging of the Democratic-controlled Congress— began aggressively increasing its censorship of political video content on YouTube in the name of combatting “disinformation” and “hate speech.”

The explosive user growth which Rumble enjoyed in 2020 has continued to rapidly increase, as Big Tech generally, and Google specifically, clamped down further on dissident views in the name of the COVID pandemic, and now even more so with respect to the US/NATO role in the war in Ukraine. More and more prominent politicians, journalists and commentators, along with smaller content creators, have either been banned by YouTube or left on their own accord to join Rumble as Google’s crackdown on free speech intensifies. The ability to speak more freely on Rumble regarding the most contentious political debates has become one of the key drivers of the exodus of users from YouTube to Rumble.

During the COVID pandemic, Rumble allowed far greater questioning of the claims and policies of U.S. public health official Dr. Anthony Fauci and the World Health Organization — regarding the virus’s origins, the efficacy of masks, and the justifiability of vaccine mandates — than Big Tech platforms permitted. For the first year of the pandemic, Big Tech users who questioned or rejected the official story that COVID-19 was zoonotic rather than due to a lab leak in Wuhan were silenced or banned: a censorship policy that was reversed only when the Biden administration itself admitted that it did not know the answer to that question and would officially investigate it.

Similarly, Americans who were stifled or outright barred by Big Tech from citing pre-election revelations about Joe Biden from the archive of his son obtained by The New York Post found a place, on Rumble, where they could openly reference and discuss them. And Rumble has aggressively resisted pressure campaigns from the U.S. government and corporate media outlets and outright legal bans enacted by the EU requiring all platforms to cease allowing “pro-Russian” news outlets such as RT and Sputnik to be heard.

Rumble’s user growth, driven overwhelmingly by growing anger toward Big Tech censorship and de-platforming, has continued to swell this year. As Investor Place’s Ian Cooper wrote in April, “its user base hit a new record of 41 million monthly active users in the first quarter of 2022. That is 22% growth quarter-over-quarter.” Moreover, “Rumble is setting user engagement records. In the first quarter of 2022, Rumble users watched about 10.5 billion minutes per month.”

As discussed on this page and as was reported by The Washington Post, I was one of a group of nine journalists and commentators, along with former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), to make Rumble my primary home for video journalism in mid-2021 based on support for its free speech principles and the need for alternatives to centralized Big Tech repression. Though the purpose of that Post article was to predictably malign Rumble as a cesspool of hate speech and disinformation — relying on and extensively quoting a “disinformation” expert who happens to partner with U.S. and British intelligence agencies and Big Tech platforms such as Google and Facebook — The Post was forced to acknowledge how significant Rumble’s growth has been (and since that August, 2021 Post article, the growth has increased further):

Rumble has grown from 1 million active users last summer to roughly 30 million, said the site’s chief executive Chris Pavlovski, a Canadian tech entrepreneur who worked a brief internship at Microsoft and founded a viral-joke website before launching Rumble in 2013. And its traffic has exploded: According to data shared with The Washington Post by the analytics firm Similarweb, visits in the United States to the site grew from about 200,000 in the last week of July 2020 to nearly 19 million last week — a 9,000 percent increase.

Though Rumble’s audience size is still significantly smaller than YouTube’s, the threat posed by Rumble to YouTube is real. Rumble’s imminent merger with the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) CF Acquisition Corp. VI will effectively make Rumble a public company and is likely to arm it with far greater capital to compete even more robustly with YouTube.

But the major obstacle to competing with Big Tech giants generally, and Google specifically, is that these companies have acquired such extreme market dominance in so many key areas of the internet that they abuse that power to prevent competition and crush any competitors who pose a challenge. That these four Big Tech giants are classic monopolies in violation of the antitrust law was the emphatic conclusion of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law’s comprehensive 2020 report, a conclusion that now has ample support from leading members of both parties.

The lawsuit brought by Rumble against Google is designed to ensure free and fair competition, so that the public is not effectively forced to use YouTube but can instead fairly choose among Google’s competitors as well. The primary allegation is that Google abuses its power as the dominant search engine and destroys free competition for online video platforms by manipulating its algorithms to prevent YouTube’s competitors, including Rumble, from being found by the public.

Attempts to find Rumble videos through Google searches are purposely thwarted by burying Rumble’s videos and instead redirecting the user to YouTube, the lawsuit alleges. Google’s “chokehold on search is impenetrable, and that chokehold allows it to continue unfairly and unlawfully to self-preference YouTube over its rivals, including Rumble, and to monopolize the online video platform market.” I often am unable to find my own videos using Google’s search engines even when I recall the title of the video more or less perfectly, and have frequently heard the same complaint from viewers.

Further illegal monopolistic acts alleged by the complaint include Google’s manufacturing of its Android phones with a pre-installed YouTube app as the default video setting, and imposing agreements on other Android-based mobile smart device manufacturers to pre-install YouTube, place it in the most prominent position, and prevent users from deleting it. The court summarized the alleged anti-competitive results of Google’s behavior this way (citations omitted):

[Google] “requires Android device manufacturers that want to preinstall certain of Google’s proprietary apps to sign an anti-forking agreement.” [Rumble] alleges that once an Android device manufacturer signs an anti-forking agreement, Google will only provide access to its vital proprietary apps and application program interfaces if the manufacturer agrees: “(1) to take (that is, pre-install) a bundle of other Google apps (such as its YouTube app); (2) to make certain apps undeletable (including its YouTube app); and (3) to give Google the most valuable and important location on the device’s default home screen (including for its YouTube app).”

As another example, [Rumble] asserts that “Google provides share of its search advertising revenue to Android device manufacturers, mobile phone carriers, competing browsers, and Apple; in exchange, Google becomes the preset default general search engine for the most important search access points on a computer or mobile device.” And, by becoming the default general search engine, Google is able to continue its manipulation of video search results using its search engine to self-preference its YouTube platform, making sure that links to videos on the YouTube platform are listed above the fold on the search results page.” [Moreover], Google’s revenue sharing agreements allow it to maintain a monopoly in the general search market and online video platform market).

As a result of the denial of Google’s motion to dismiss the complaint, the lawsuit will now proceed to the discovery stage. After denying Google’s request to dismiss the lawsuit prior to discovery, the judge scheduled a conference at which a discovery plan would be established. This phase of the lawsuit is when one party can obtain a broad range of documents from the other relevant to the claims of the lawsuit.

The antitrust specialist Matt Stoller, Research Director of the American Economic Liberties Project, said about the ruling: “Getting past the motion to dismiss stage is quite meaningful, and depending on what turns up in discovery Google could be in serious trouble.” This ruling should enable Rumble to acquire and utilize extremely revealing documents about how Google exploits its algorithms to manipulate search results on its dominant search engine, as well the burdensome requirements it imposes on other companies dependent on Google’s infrastructure to ensure prominent promotion of YouTube.

Google did not respond to requests for comment on the judicial ruling. Rumble’s statement was naturally celebratory: “We welcome the court’s decision, which is a significant step toward ending Google’s unlawful preferences for YouTube and helping to put creators first. We look forward to starting discovery.”

When Rumble first filed the suit, its founder and CEO, Chris Pavlovski, told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that the company’s data specialists had determined that, with its search engine algorithmic manipulations, “Google has redirected up to 9.3 billion visitors to YouTube instead of to Rumble.” These anti-competitive practices by Google, he argued, destroy the possibility for innovation and competition: “Imagine being a tech entrepreneur trying to build an online video platform. You absolutely do not have a shot. You do not have a chance. You have pre-installed YouTube apps on phones. You have a rigged search engine. You have no ability to compete in this market.”

Lawsuits like these have the ability to unite people across the political spectrum. Stoller, one of the nation’s leading scholars on the question of Big Tech monopolistic dominance, noted that “the case leverages antitrust action by the government pursued under both Trump and Biden. It’s also notable that this ruling came from an Obama-appointed judge. Clearly concentrations of power worry both sides.”

Regardless of whether one is an avid admirer of the modern iteration of capitalism, there is nothing to cheer when a tiny group of corporate behemoths can corner a market and prevent competition. That is particularly true when — as is obviously the case for Big Tech — the “market” in question is now the primary means by which Americans gather information, politically organize, receive and disseminate news, and question and debate the most consequential political controversies. The political and propagandistic aspects of these anti-competitive practices substantially elevate the public interest in fostering free and fair market competition. To allow a tiny number of tech monopolists to maintain a stranglehold on the digital public square is self-evidently dangerous, especially as they escalate their censorship regime, due to some combination of their own political interests, the demands of the majority political party in Washington, and the incessant grievances of their own work force.

These dangers are not abstract. Perhaps they were most vividly seen in January, 2021, when Parler — designed as a free speech alternative to Facebook and Twitter — became the most-downloaded app in the country, fueled by anger over the pre-election censorship of the New York Post‘s reporting on Joe Biden’s activities in Ukraine and China as well as the banishment of President Trump by a consortium of Big Tech firms. As soon as Parler rose to the top spot, Democratic politicians such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and censorship activists groups such as Sleeping Giants demanded that Google and Apple immediately remove Parler from their app stores, preventing any further downloading. Other Democratic lawmakers then demanded that Amazon Web Services, the dominant hosting company that had enabled Parler’s website, terminate its agreement with Parler.

Within forty-eight hours, all three Silicon Valley monopolies complied with these demands. Parler instantly went from the most popular app in the country — thanks to the free speech principles it upheld — to utterly crippled if not destroyed. It attempted to come back but never really recovered. That was as brute and stark a display of Big Tech’s ability and willingness to destroy any successful competitors as one might imagine. And in the process, they not only abused their anti-competitive dominance to destroy one of their few successful competitors but also, heeding the demands of Democratic Party politicians, abolished one of the few significant venues on the internet where Americans could gather to freely question and dissent from the orthodoxies and pronouncements of their leaders.

The New York Times, Jan, 10, 2021

There are other antitrust actions currently pending against the Big Tech giants from both private companies and, increasingly, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). But this suit from Rumble has enormous potential to open competition in the vital video uploading market and, perhaps even more importantly, shed substantial light on the extremely opaque and guarded algorithmic manipulations Google uses to force down the public’s throat the content it wants them to see while hiding that which it does not want them to see.

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Press TV interviews Peter Koenig, geopolitical activist from Geneva and Don DeBar, activist and commentator from Westchester, New York, to look at whether deployment of US carrier strike group is a sign of military confrontation and why the US is after provoking China while it is involved in other military activities, like in Ukraine.

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As if the World Economic Forum’s Agenda 2030 wasn’t bad enough already – eating bugs, living in pods, medical tyranny, an international surveillance state, etc. etc… the architects of the Great Reset have now unveiled how they plan to deal with the millions of “useless eaters” who will inevitably be needed to sustain the dystopian cities of the future.

Their solution? Cram them all into a giant wall.

Yes… really. Despite the inherent evils of walls – especially those that denote the borders of a country – cities of the future are being designed as linear structures in order to reduce the environmental footprint of the inhabitants.

This week, Saudi Arabia unveiled its plans for a new futuristic city that will house 9 million people within a massive 1,500ft high, 109-mile-long mirrored wall in the middle of the desert. To put that in perspective, the reflective eyesore will be taller than the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower once it is completed.

A promotional video was released on Monday touting the advanced city as “the future” of civilization due to its “revolutionary” design and reduced economic footprint. It will be located in the heart of the Saudi Arabian desert along “key global trade routes,” and developers boast that it will have a year-round temperate climate because of its open ventilation and supposed sustainable renewable energy production.

The video caused immediate backlash online from both sides, with many calling the project ‘hellish’ and ‘dystopian;’ however, some found humor in the hypocritical solution. Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire retweeted the video, calling the idea Nobel-Prize-worthy because – if deployed correctly – it could solve more than just one issue.

From Knowles:

“Saudi Arabia figured out a way to cram all the city-dwelling libs into a giant wall that they never have to leave and convinced them it’s really cool and progressive.

If we can build it on the southern border, Mohammad bin Salman deserves a Nobel Prize.”

Build a wall, make Mexico pay for it, and put all the libs inside it.

Genius. https://t.co/bH0XcZTEHw

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 27, 2022

If only it were that simple.

Despite the jokes, the video makes clear that this is a serious project. “A revolution in civilization is taking place,” the narrator explains.

The new “linear city,” dubbed ‘Neom’ by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, will be outfitted with the most advanced technology available, including vertical farms, facial recognition, zero-emission transportation, cloud seeding, and other programs that are in development. The city will apparently even feature some chilling dystopian extras like robot cage fights and a fake moon.

And, of course, everything will be run by “advanced AI.”

The Wall Street Journal also uncovered some additional details from leaked internal documents, many of which sound like a total long shot at ever becoming a reality. There are plans to “autonomously harvest and bundle” produce from community farms” and build “a high-speed train [that] will run under the mirrored buildings.” There will also be a stadium “1,000 feet above the ground,” and there are plans to build a marina underneath the city.

Even though the giant structure looks like a continuous wall, ‘The Line’ will eventually be comprised of two huge parallel buildings that are connected to each other.

Unsurprisingly, people will be crammed into small living quarters that are “organized in 3 dimensions” and grouped together in what the project calls “unique communities.” Each one of these sections will house its own shopping center, medical services, food districts, recreation centers, and communal work sites. If individuals ever need to move between sections, residents of the dystopian city will reportedly be able to travel from one end of the wall to the other in 20 minutes using the linear city’s zero-emissions public transportation system.

The project’s developers tout that residents will be able to access everything they need within a five-minute walk from their pods homes. It seems that nobody in ‘Neom’ will own their own car.

Watch:

While the dystopian project seems farfetched and some are questioning if it will ever come to fruition, there is a good chance that it will be built as MBS views the project to be his “legacy.” The Saudi Crown Prince is so enamored with the linear city that he called it his version of Egypt’s “pyramids,” according to the Wall Street Journal. The only thing that will seemingly stop the project from being completed at this point is a failure in the technology.

Plus, the project likely has the WEF-Klaus Schwab stamp of approval, as MBS is deeply aligned with the globalist organization. Back in January, he spoke at the WEF conference as a special guest and has met with WEF leadership numerous times over the past few years. He has also signaled his support of the WEF’s Vision 2030 – a subsection of Agenda 2030.

In all, MBS has reportedly budgeted a whopping $500 billion for the development of ‘Neom’ already – and, as mentioned above, he is determined to see this through.

Only time will tell if the seemingly over-ambitious project will be completed.

A second promotional video for the linear city was also released on Monday. Watch below:

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Recently, Nancy Pelosi‘s possible visit to Taiwan has been making headlines around the world. The US congresswoman is making her tour in the Indo-Pacific region and, although her current official landing schedule does not include Taipei, there are evidence that she still secretly plans to visit the island, despite warnings from China that such an act would be immediately responded. The case has generated one of the biggest security crises of recent times.

The last days of July were marked by fears of a large-scale conflict in the Pacific. Despite repeated Chinese messages disallowing her visit to Taiwan, Nancy Pelosi started a trip to the Indo-Pacific region, landing in Hawaii and staying for hours without providing news about the next destination of her tour.

Beijing made it clear that it would interpret the visit as a territorial invasion and put its military forces on alert. The Chinese Army’s website even published a message saying “Get ready for war!”. Several Chinese politicians, journalists and state officials published statements asserting that Beijing would shoot down any US aircraft if they illegally entered Taiwan’s airspace, especially US escort fighter jets.

A surprise program of large-scale military exercises was announced, with a big contingent of Chinese troops and equipment being deployed in the regions closest to the island, mainly in Fujian province, which is less than 180 kilometers from Taiwan. Naval maneuvers also began in the Strait. And, as expected, Taipei responded immediately by mobilizing troops.

During all this time, Pelosi remained untraceable and uncommunicative. Different versions of Pelosi’s real location circulated on the internet, until sources reported that her plane had turned off the location for security reasons. The US government also remained silent, with the only official statement being a note stating that Washington’s intelligence did not believe in any danger arising from a possible visit by the congresswoman to the island, despite the mobilizations that were taking place.

On the morning of July 31, finally, it was informed that Pelosi had traveled to Guam, Micronesia, where she herself finally published the itinerary of the trip, announcing subsequent landings in Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea, in addition to the Japan, which she had already visited. A few hours later, Pelosi landed in Singapore.

At first, after hours of anxiety over the possible start of a conflict, the news that Taiwan was not on Pelosi’s schedule was seen as a “hope”, but the situation did not really improve. Beijing said it had intelligence data indicating that the congresswoman was still secretly planning to land on the island, with an alleged plan for her to arrive in Taipei on Aug. 4. The case then remained tense, there being still great fears about a possible visit and consequent Chinese military response.

Supporting Taipei, the US, South Korea and Japan have announced a joint plan for military exercises. Switzerland has vowed to reverse its historical neutrality and impose severe sanctions on China in the event of an attack on the island. On the other hand, Iran declared its full support for China and the Moscow’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated the Russian position of absolute recognition of Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, which obviously implies the right to decide whether or not a foreign citizen can enter the island. It is important to remember that the US acknowledges One-China principle which states that Taiwan is a part of China.

In fact, the Pelosi case only illustrates a situation that has become typical of American foreign policy: putting global security at risk for nothing. There was no reason for Washington to authorize Pelosi’s Indo-Pacific tour amidst the tensions with China. And even if the tour was somehow “essential” for American interests, the right thing to do would be to make it clear that the congresswoman, who has a personal history of pro-Taiwan activism, would not be visiting Taipei. There was no reason to leave the world in fear of a new war.

However, if the information that Pelosi will try to land in Taipei on August 4th is correct, the situation will be even more serious. If this happens, there is a real possibility that China will respond militarily, even shooting down US aircraft escorting Pelosi’s plane. And, of course, such a response could be seen by Washington as a declaration of war, which would lead the world into a conflict between two nuclear powers.

Indeed, the irresponsible provocations of the US have reached their peak. By sending Pelosi to the Indo-Pacific, the US government has put the world on the brink of WWIII.

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

Featured image: Pelosi at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2022 (Licensed under the public domain)

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Guest is Prof. Dr. Martin Schwab, a law scholar and university professor.

He talks about the mask mandate as the new school year is fast approaching. Dr. Schwab provides several sample letters to parent and teachers’ associations, as well as ministries and school boards, who oppose this mandate.

All sample letters are available here.

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In October 2019, Jake Sullivan, who became U.S. National Security Advisor in 2021, stated in an interview that the U.S. needed a clear threat to rally the world and play the role of saviour of mankind and that China could be that organizing principle for U.S. foreign policy. In the 2019 interview, he acknowledges that the problem was that people were not going to believe that China is a global threat, that their view of China is too positive and that the United States would need a “Pearl Harbour moment,” a real focusing event to change their minds, something he calmly stated that “would scare the hell out of the American people.”

According to Sullivan, from the same man who called for Libyan and Syrian military interventionism, American exceptionalism needed “rescuing” and “reclaiming,” not of course with actual qualitative actions that would earn one’s position as a model of true democratic governance with American citizens and the world, but rather through ever aggressive PR and media shame-based social conditioning, labeling whoever points out the clear hypocrisy of these statements as “threats to national security.” Actors like Sullivan have shown that they are willing to do anything to achieve that “Pearl Harbour moment,” even if acts of terrorism on their own people are required in order to paint their “enemy” as a monster in the eyes of their citizens.

This is by no means a new strategy. Operation Gladio is a perfect example of how NATO conducted a decades-long secret war against its own European citizens and elected governments under the guise of “communist terrorism.”

In 1962, General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, proposed Operation Northwoods, which was a proposed false-flag operation against American citizens, which called for CIA operatives to both stage and actually commit acts of terrorism against American military and civilian targets and subsequently blame the Cuban government in order to justify a war against Cuba. The plan was drafted by General Lemnitzer specifically and has a striking similarity with NATO’s Operation Gladio.

The logic of Northwoods was the stripe of Gladio. The general staff inclined towards prefabricated violence because they believed benefits gained by the state count more than injustice against individuals. The only important criterion is reaching the objective and the objective was right-wing government.

Operation Northwoods memorandum March 13, 1962.

There was not a single item in the Northwoods manual that did not amount to a blatant act of treason, yet the U.S. military establishment dispatched “Top Secret – Justification for U.S. military Intervention in Cuba” straight to the desk of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, for onward transmission to President Kennedy.

Needless to say, President Kennedy rejected the proposal and a few months later General Lemnitzer’s term was not renewed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, having served from October 1st 1960 to September 30th 1962.

However, NATO lost no time, and in November 1962 Lemnitzer was appointed commander of U.S. European Command and as Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO, the latter to which he served from January 1st, 1963 to July 1st, 1969.

Lemnitzer’s was a perfect fit to oversee the cross-continental Gladio operations in Europe. Lemnitzer was a prime motivating force in setting up the Special Forces Group in 1952 at Fort Bragg, where commandos were trained in the arts of guerilla insurgency in the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe. Before long, the men who proudly wore distinctive green berets were cooperating discreetly with the armed forces of a string of European countries and participating in direct military operations, some of them extremely sensitive and of highly dubious legality.

The New American Century

Jake Sullivan’s statement that we need a “Pearl Harbour moment” is nothing new.

In September 2000 a report titled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century” was published by none other than The Project for the New American Century. In the report it is written (pg. 51):

“…the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Interestingly, within this same report, published by The Project for the New American Century, it is written (pg. 60):

“Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and ‘combat’ likely will take place in a new dimensions: in space, ‘cyber-space,’ and perhaps the world of microbes…advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”

Richard Perle, called the “Prince of Darkness,” by his adversaries and the “Pentagon’s Brains” by his admirers was an acolyte of Albert Wohlstetter, you could say the “brains” behind the RAND Corporation (for more on this refer here). Paul Wolfowitz was another of Wohlstetter’s acolytes. The followers of Wohlstetter were so numerous, whom Perle said Donald Rumsfeld was among (1), that they called themselves “the St. Andrews prep” boys. (2)

Perle stated (3) the 2003 invasion of Iraq was “the first war that’s been fought in a way that would recognize Albert [Wohlstetter]’s vision of future wars. That it was won so quickly and decisively, with so few casualties and so little damage, was in fact an implementation of his strategy and his vision.”

In fact, this call for the need of a “Pearl Harbour moment” originally came from the Wohlstetters themselves.

A New Pearl Harbour Moment

In the mid-1950s, Roberta Wohlstetter, Albert’s wife and RAND peer, produced her seminal analysis of Pearl Harbour, recognised by the Pentagon as a definitive work of twentieth-century American military history. The study began as an internal RAND document based on unclassified documents drawn from the congressional record.

Warner Schilling noted in his perceptive review of Roberta’s work on Pearl Harbour that

“The main concept that Mrs. Wohlstetter brings to bear on these events [is that]…the pictures of the world that government officials build from intelligence…are not so much a matter of the ‘facts’ their sources make available as they are a function of the ‘theories’ about politics already in their minds which guide both their recognition and their interpretation of said ‘facts’.”

The primary practical lesson of Roberta’s Pearl Harbour was that the United States should invest in rapid and aggressive means for responding to surprise attacks (for more on this story refer here).

On January 12, 2003, Los Angeles Times published an article titled “Agenda Unmasked,” where they write:

“In the hours immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, long before anyone was certain who was responsible for them, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld reportedly asked that plans be drawn up for an American assault on Iraq…

At first consideration, Rumsfeld’s early targeting of Iraq seems odd. Too little was known, too much uncertain. But the Defense secretary’s desire to attack Iraq was neither impulsive nor reactive. In fact, ever since the first American war against Iraq in 1991, Rumsfeld and others who planned and executed that war have wanted to go back and finish what they started. They said so in reports written for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in the last years of the George H.W. Bush administration, and they continued the push when they were out of power during the Clinton years. In the spring of 1997, their efforts coalesced when Rumsfeld, Cheney and others joined together to form the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, and began concerted lobbying for regime change in Iraq.

In an open letter to President Clinton dated Jan. 26, 1998, the group called for “the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power,” and in a letter dated May 29, 1998, to then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.)… Signatories to one or both letters included Rumsfeld; William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine and chairman of the PNAC; Elliott Abrams, the convicted Iran-Contra conspirator whom President Bush last year named director of Middle Eastern policy for the National Security Council; Paul D. Wolfowitz, now Rumsfeld’s deputy at the Pentagon; John R. Bolton, now undersecretary of state for arms control; Richard N. Perle, now chairman of the Defense Science Board; Richard Armitage, now Colin Powell’s deputy at the State Department; and Zalmay Khalilzad [another Wohlstetter acolyte(4)], former Unocal Corp. consultant and now special envoy to Afghanistan.

… They expected that the radical changes in U.S. military policy they favored would have to come slowly in the absence of, as the PNAC report “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” put it, a “catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” On Sept. 11, 2001, they got their Pearl Harbor.”

As the Los Angeles Times article also observes, without 9/11 as their Pearl Harbor, their entire campaign against terror in the Middle East could never have been justified.

In fact, since the disastrous PR campaign of the Vietnam War, most American had become horrified at the prospect of entering any more foreign wars on the clearly false and hypocritical terms of bringers of “peace” and “freedom.”

9/11 changed all that.

Thus, when Jake Sullivan observes that there is not enough anti-China sentiment to bolster an image of the United States as a “saviour of mankind” against China and that America is in need of a “Pearl Harbour moment” I would be very wary.

The circus around Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in the coming days, and evident glee that is coming forth from many of these neocons frothing at the mouth over this prospect is a clear sign that something incredibly reckless and stupid is about to happen.

Pelosi’s airplane might indeed be shot down on her completely irrelevant and unnecessary trip to Taiwan, and if it is, don’t be surprised if it was the Americans themselves who are behind it, who have shown they are willing to do anything for that “Pearl Harbour moment.”

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Cynthia Chung is a lecturer, writer and co-founder and editor of the Rising Tide Foundation (Montreal, Canada). She can be reached at cynthiachung.substack.com

Notes

(1) Alex Abella (2008), “Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire,” Harcourt Books

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Ron Robin (2016), “The Cold War They Made: The Strategic Legacy of Roberta and Albert Wohlstetter,” Harvard University Press.

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A federal district court judge has stopped the Air Force from expelling or otherwise punishing thousands of troops who have applied for a religious waiver to avoid COVID-19 vaccination, under a newly minted class-action lawsuit.

Southern District of Ohio Judge Matthew McFarland’s July 27 decision to certify the case, Doster v. Kendall, as a class-wide complaint temporarily protects at least 100 airmen and guardians who are part of ongoing lawsuits contesting the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate, and more than 9,000 others affected by the policy, according to Siri & Glimstad, a law firm representing the plaintiffs.

The group now includes anyone in the active duty Air Force and Space Force, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, U.S. Air Force Academy and Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps who have asked for a religious exemption to the vaccine since Sept. 1, 2021, showed a sincere religious belief opposing the jab, and whose requests were denied or are not yet settled.

“Members who submitted requests for religious accommodation may cancel or amend previous voluntary retirement or separation requests, or requests to transfer to the Air Force Reserve,” McFarland wrote.

The Air Force and Space Force must also accept unvaccinated people who otherwise qualify to join the military, he added.

This marks the second time a federal court has barred a branch of the military from separating members for failing to comply with the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The Navy became the first to halt that practice in March, when a judge granted class-action status in a case representing Navy SEALs who refused the shots on religious grounds.

Department of the Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek confirmed July 28 that the department, which includes the Air Force and Space Force, will comply with the order.

As of July 11, the Air Force had already kicked out more than 830 airmen and guardians who refused vaccination, according to its most recent data.

The number of exemptions sought has fluctuated over the last several months as some people decided to get the shots or leave the service instead of seeking accommodation. As of July 12, the Air Force had denied about 6,800 initial religious waiver requests and 3,600 appeals, and has not ruled on nearly 3,500 more cases.

In contrast, 135 airmen and guardians have secured religious exemptions so far.

That included 106 in the active duty Air Force, three in the active duty Space Force, 22 in the Air Force Reserve and four in the Air National Guard, according to court documents in Doster v. Kendall. The Air Force does not publish religious accommodation data by component in its twice-monthly updates.

The department has also awarded about 430 waivers for medical reasons, including 286 for active duty airmen and guardians, and 105 administrative exemptions, including 83 among Reservists.

In the Ohio case, 2nd Lt. Hunter Doster of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and more than a dozen other plaintiffs argue the Air Force is forcing them to lose their livelihoods or violate their religious beliefs by receiving vaccines they say are impure or have ties to abortion.

Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA products used cells replicated from a fetus aborted in the 1970s to make sure the vaccines worked in human cells. The fetal cells were not used to produce either vaccine, National Geographic reported last fall.

Johnson & Johnson uses cells replicated from a fetus aborted in 1985 to produce its vaccine, but those cells are filtered out from the final product.

Some service members have opted for Covaxin, a vaccine made in India and endorsed by the World Health Organization, or Adjuvanted, made by Maryland-based Novavax and approved for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration. Neither product claims to use cell lines or tissue derived from human fetuses, making them potential winners for those who object to abortion.

Everyone who joins the military must receive a slate of several vaccines to enter, including chickenpox, rubella and hepatitis A. Each of those shots also involves cell tissue derived from fetuses, as does one version of the rabies vaccine. Rabies shots are required only for some service members in certain career fields.

The Air Force had a chance to convince the judge not to green-light the class action, but declined to engage with the plaintiff’s arguments in a written rebuttal. So the judge went ahead and broadened the suit.

“Defendants fail to raise any persuasive arguments for why the court should not extend the preliminary injunction issued on March 31, 2022, to cover the class members,” McFarland wrote in the order.

The Air Force can still take an airman or guardian’s vaccination status into account when considering them for upcoming assignments, deployments or other operational decisions.

All but approximately 14,000 airmen and guardians, about 3% of Department of the Air Force troops, are fully vaccinated.

Nearly 91 million COVID-19 cases have been reported in the United States so far, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 1 million people have died from the virus; about two-thirds of the country is fully vaccinated.

“COVID-19 vaccination significantly lowers your risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death if you get infected,” the CDC said. “Compared to people who are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations, unvaccinated people are more likely to get COVID-19, much more likely to be hospitalized … and much more likely to die.”

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Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), the Washington Post, and others.

Featured image: Tech. Sgt. Nicole Rodriguez, a medical technician with the 920th Aeromedical Staging Squadron, administers a COVID-19 booster shot Jan. 9 at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. (Staff Sgt. Matthew Matlock/Air Force)

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***

“mRNA ‘Vaccine’ Genocide 2021-2022: Testimonies from the Victims and Medical Staff,” tells the stories of people around the world who have been injured by the COVID jab

Their struggle, their pain, their deaths deserve to be acknowledged for what they are — the result of medical malfeasance, regulatory corruption and societal “mass formation” insanity driven by media fearmongering and outright lies

A common thread in these stories is the consistent dismissal by the medical community. Even in cases where the doctors do suspect a COVID jab injury, they still have no idea how the symptoms are caused or how to treat them, so they just send the victims home. Successful treatments appear to be extremely rare, which adds insult to injury

The COVID shot is the most dangerous drug in the history of modern medicine, and these dangers were foreseen and predicted by many respected and well-educated doctors and scientists, whose voices were censored

All-cause mortality by time is the most reliable measure from which we can detect true catastrophic events, and all-cause mortality started spiking AFTER the COVID jabs were rolled out. These increases also correlate to a nation’s COVID jab rate

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If you or someone you love still does not understand the risks of the COVID jab, watch the video “mRNA ‘Vaccine’ Genocide 2021-2022: Testimonies from the Victims and Medical Staff,” above. I don’t care if you already well understand the risks, I am beyond confident you will benefit from watching what these shots are doing.

Most of us, including me, have no direct contact with people who have been killed or injured by the COVID jabs. These clips help each of us understand just how truly morally reprehensible these jabs are. They have killed hundreds of thousands and disabled millions more. I strongly encourage you to watch this video and share it with everyone you know.

But you must be forewarned. The imagery is emotionally disturbing, so prepare yourself. However, we need to start looking at reality with eyes wide open. The victims of these experimental gene transfer injections deserve to be seen to help us better understand the nefarious bioweapon that has been unleashed on the helpless.

The Great Lie

In early 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris, among many others, publicly urged everyone to get the COVID jab, which she promised was “safe and effective.” We’re called to love our neighbors, “and getting vaccinated is truly an extension of that,” Harris insisted.

At best, she was misinformed. At worst, she lied. The facts are that the COVID shot is the most dangerous drug in the history of modern medicine, and these dangers were foreseen and predicted by many respected and well-educated doctors and scientists. Alas, their voices were censored — in some cases, it appears, at the direction of the White House administration itself.

COVID Jab Victims Deserve To Be Acknowledged

The victims’ struggle, their pain, their deaths deserve to be acknowledged for what they are — the result of medical malfeasance, regulatory corruption and societal “mass formation” insanity driven by media fearmongering and outright lies to support the shift to global tyranny and slavery.

Celebrities, politicians, health agency officials, news anchors, doctors, nurses, academics and countless others pushed, shamed and threatened as many as they could into getting the shot, and everyone now needs to see what the result of that was and how these unsuspecting individuals around the world have suffered.

There are so many stories included in the video, I won’t try to summarize them. I really encourage you to watch the video. A common thread in these stories that is worth noting, however, is the consistent dismissal by the medical community.

Even in cases where the doctors do suspect a COVID jab injury, they still are beyond clueless as to just how the symptoms are caused or, even more importantly, how to treat them. So, they just send the victims home, or refer them out to other specialists whose knowledge is just as lacking. Successful treatments appear to be extremely rare, which only adds insult to injury.

The Guilty Must Be Held to Account

In the short video above, Greg Reese, who created “The COVID Genocide” documentary, shares his reasons for making it. “They want to destroy the world,” he says, referring to the globalist cabal that are the planners, if not actual orchestrators, of this medical genocide.

They believe they will get away with it by ignoring the evidence and censoring anyone who claims to have been injured, or anyone who openly grieves the death of a loved one who was killed by the shot. We cannot let that happen. “They’re like a wildfire that needs to be put out,” Reese says. “We need some serious war crime tribunals.”

Global Campaign to Raise Awareness of COVID Jab Injuries

Others are also taking up the fight to ease the COVID jab victims plight. There’s now a global online campaign underway to raise awareness and break the silence around COVID jab injuries.

The founders of the campaign, #CanWeTalkAboutIt, encourage people who have been injured by the jab to share their personal stories everywhere they can. As reported by The Defender,¹ “The campaign also seeks to help people injured by the vaccines network and locate resources and information in their own countries and communities.”

To participate, post a black-and-white photo, with your right sleeve rolled up and wearing a Band-Aid to illustrate that you got the jab, on your social media network with the #CanWeTalkAboutIt hashtag, along with a short description of the injuries you experienced. Agnieszka Wilson, one of the campaign founders, told The Defender:²

“If you take a headache pill and you see that there’s a side effect that makes your skin blue, then you obviously might say ‘okay, it might be from that, right?’ But when it comes to vaccines, you can’t really talk about these things.

We all heard and knew that the rollout [of COVID vaccines] was starting and we were going to see a lot of damage done by these vaccines. But people were really scared, and especially [scared of] being associated with … organizations that were stamped as anti-vax organizations.

We all also knew that media was silencing it. These people were denied that these were vaccine injuries [but] we were seeing all of these things happening. So I thought, we need to do something, we need to start making people aware that these are actually dangerous vaccines.

There’s no disease in the world [that you cannot talk about] … you can talk about cancer, you can talk about any kind of disease out there, but not this. They have scientists that are willing to do research on this, scientists from the big institutions, and they’re just being ignored.

There’s something more going on … Why is media being silent? Why are we not talking about this? There’s never been a drug in history that has had so many side effects and no one is talking about it.

I always work globally; I thought now we need to do something globally, we need to do a campaign that’s going to start breaking the silence around this issue because people need to know. We don’t want any more people to take the shot, especially after what I’m seeing in all of these groups.”

Disability and Death Statistics Tell the Tale

In addition to the many thousands of personal stories shared on social media, a variety of statistics also support the experiences shared:

If You’re Injured, What’s Next?

If you’ve been injured by the COVID jab, first and foremost, never ever take another COVID booster, other mRNA gene therapy shot or regular vaccine. The same goes for anyone who has taken one or more COVID jabs and had the good fortune of not experiencing debilitating side effects.

Your health may still be impacted long-term, so don’t take any more shots. As for treatment, there still aren’t many doctors who know what to do, although I suspect we’ll see more doctors specializing in COVID jab injuries in the future.

Doctors who have started tackling the treatment of COVID jab injuries in earnest include Dr. Michelle Perro (DrMichellePerro.com), whom I’ve interviewed on this topic. Perro is a pediatrician who over the past couple of years has also started treating adults injured by the jab. Another is Dr. Pierre Kory (DrPierreKory.com).

Strategies to Eliminate Spike Protein

Both Perro and Kory agree that eliminating the spike protein your body is now continuously producing is a primary task. Perro’s preferred remedy for this is hydroxychloroquine, while Kory typically uses ivermectin. Both of these drugs bind and thereby facilitate the removal of spike protein.

Kory also believes there may be ways to boost the immune system to allow it to degrade and eventually remove the spike from your cells naturally, over time. One of the strategies he recommends for this is TRE (time restricted eating), which stimulates autophagy, a natural cleaning process that eliminates damaged, misfolded and toxic proteins. Another strategy that can do the same thing would be sauna therapy.

Strategies to Boost Immune Function and Quell Inflammation

Inflammation and lowered immune function must also be addressed in most jab-injured patients. Remedies in Perro’s toolbox include:

As a member of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), Kory helped develop the FLCCC’s post-vaccine treatment protocol called I-RECOVER. Since the protocol is continuously updated as more data becomes available, your best bet is to download the latest version straight from the FLCCC website at covid19criticalcare.com²³ (hyperlink to the correct page provided above).

Other Helpful Remedies

Other remedies that can be helpful for COVID jab injuries include:

• Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, especially in cases involving stroke, heart attack, autoimmune diseases and/or neurodegenerative disorders. To learn more, see “Hyperbaric Therapy — A Vastly Underused Treatment Modality.”
• Pharmaceutical grade methylene blue, which improves mitochondrial respiration and aid in mitochondrial repair. At 15 to 20 milligrams a day, it could potentially go a long way toward resolving some of the fatigue many suffer post-jab. It may also be helpful in acute strokes. The primary contraindication is if you have a G6PD deficiency (a hereditary genetic condition), in which case you should not use methylene blue at all.
• Near-infrared light, as it triggers production of melatonin in your mitochondria²⁴ where you need it most. By mopping up reactive oxygen species, it too helps improve mitochondrial function and repair. Natural sunlight is 54.3% infrared radiation,²⁵ so this treatment is available for free.

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Notes

^1, 2 The Defender July 22, 2022

^{3, 4, 5, 15} The Center Square January 1, 2022

⁶ Euro News Weekly June 8, 2022

⁷ Daily Mail Australia June 8, 2022

⁸ Circulation February 16, 2009; 119: 1085-1092

⁹ European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation December 2006; 13(6): 859-875

¹⁰ Good Sciencing Athlete Deaths

¹¹ Americas Frontline Doctors November 18, 2021

¹² Rumble Highwire with Del Bigtree April 22, 2022

¹³ Twitter TexasLindsay April 25, 2022

¹⁴ Twitter TexasLindsay April 23, 2022

¹⁶ Fortune India December 30, 2021

¹⁷ Steve.kirsch.substack January 3, 2022

^18, 19 Zero Hedge February 5, 2022

²⁰ Twitter, Ed Dowd February 2, 2022 Account Deleted by Twitter

²¹ ZeroHedge January 3, 2022

²² Euromomo.eu Data as of Week 52, 2021

²³ Covid19criticalcare.com

²⁴ Physiology February 5, 2020 DOI: 10.1152/physiol.00034.2019

²⁵ Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology February 2016; 155: 78-85

Featured image is from Vaccine Injury News

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***

Police departments in New Jersey have recently come under fire for using DNA from newborn babies to solve crimes without public knowledge or consent. The DNA is also being obtained without a warrant, a blatant violation of the law.

According to The Verge:

New Jersey police may have used blood samples taken from babies to investigate crimes, according to public defenders in the state.

According to a lawsuit filed by the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender (OPD), the practice came to light after a case in which New Jersey State Police successfully subpoenaed a testing lab for a blood sample drawn from a child. Police then performed DNA analysis on the blood sample that reportedly linked the child’s father to a crime committed more than 25 years ago.

The blood samples are not directly shared with law enforcement agencies. But if police are able to reliably obtain the samples through subpoena, then effectively, the disease screening process is entering all babies born in the state into a DNA database with no ability to opt out.

According to the lawsuit, parents and the public at large are unaware that blood samples taken from their children could be used in this way.

Biometric Update provides further details, stating:

Unless parents claim a religious exemption, all babies in New Jersey are sampled. All states and the District of Columbia store the blood, but practices and policies vary.

There seems to be a shared sense of the unusualness of taking DNA evidence without a warrant from a subject who could not provide informed consent and without a parent’s permission.

New Jersey’s public defender office learned of the practice and tried twice to use the state’s open public records law to get more information about the practice. They were twice denied, according to Law360, and the public defender office sued.

The two agencies are due to appear in court September 8.

The state of Michigan has revealed it will destroy more than 3 million dried blood spots taken from babies and kept in storage as part of a settlement over consent and privacy in the digital age. The state routinely draws blood by pricking the heels of newborns to check for rare diseases, but leftover samples are stored in cities like Lansing and Detroit and can potentially be used by scientists, for a fee, without parental consent. The practice has also occurred in other states such as California, New York, and Minnesota where the blood samples can be kept for decades.

No to be outdone, private corporations are also involved in gathering large amounts of DNA and other health data. In 2019 Google partnered with Ascension, the second largest health care system in the country to develop an artificial intelligence-powered health service by collecting American’s medical data. The project was dubbed Project Nightingale and it gave Google access to over 50 million patient medical records. Google is using the records to create a system that can identify and predict health concerns before a patient has even visited a doctor.

More recently at an Aspen Institute Security Forum, Jason Crow, a U.S. representative from Colorado and member of the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committees warned that DNA provided to companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry could be used to create bioweapons targeting specific individuals. The DNA obtained by these companies is innocently shared by customers expecting to receive reports that detail conditions of their health and/or genetic lineage, but could be used without their knowledge or consent for nefarious purposes.

Crow further stated that:

People will very rapidly spit into a cup and send it to 23andMe and get really interesting data about their background… And guess what? Their DNA is now owned by a private company. It can be sold off with very little intellectual property protection or privacy protection and we don’t have legal and regulatory regimes to deal with that.

It’s important to note that Ancestry was sold to Blackstone Group, a private equity investment firm and the world’s largest landlord for $4.7 billion in December 2020. The acquisition raised concerns that Blackstone could use the Ancestry DNA database to discriminate against potential tenants based on race, religion, and other categories, though company representatives have denied the accusations.

Surveillance capitalism has thrived as people voluntarily hand over their most intimate details to unscrupulous companies looking to make a profit. Sadly, it’s unknown how many people have been duped into forking over their DNA to Ancestry and other companies believing it would never not be shared, sold, or stolen. Connecting people to their past and helping them understand their genetic makeup through DNA are noble services that could turn into a nightmare if that information is placed in the wrong hands.

With the advent of “precision medicine” and the on demand drug manufacturing industry, representative Crow’s warning about DNA takes on even stronger meaning. When major corporations like Blackstone and Google have access to DNA and personal health records it further cements the idea that a biomedical security state is being built right before our eyes.

We are experiencing a real-life Jurassic Park scenario where instead of dinosaur DNA being traded and replicated it is human DNA that is being bought and sold to the highest bidder.

Data and DNA harvesting is turning humans into exploitable and controllable assets. What’s even worse is that this is now occurring in many states from birth. With much of our DNA being stored in giant databases owned by multinational American and Chinese corporations, governments, militaries, and intelligence agencies have access to a pool of information that could target individual citizens for a plethora of reasons under the guise of improving public health.

The powers behind the budding biomedical security state want to know everything about us while hiding everything from us. Blowing the lid off of this high stakes agenda has never been more important.

To protect against the threats raised by representative Crow and many others sounding the alarm, citizens should check consumer DNA services including Ancestry, 23andMe, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch for a policy that allows for the removal and destruction of DNA data, though the damage may have already been done. It may also be wise to obtain legal representation in the event of an illegal seizure of DNA data by police without consent.

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This article was originally published on the author’s website, Truth Unmuted.

Jesse Smith is an independent journalist who operates the Truth Unmuted website. Truth Unmuted is dedicated to exposing the lies, motives, and methods of the global cabal trying to force humanity into a new world order. The website covers issues such as technocracy, globalism, transhumanism, politics, health, and other relevant topics that tie into global agendas.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Truth Unmuted

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Every leader and top official now in power in the so-called Western World seems to have forgotten that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 as an alliance that was ostensibly defensive in nature, intended to counter the expansion of Soviet style communism in Europe. That role continued to be the raison d’etre of the organization until communist governments themselves collapsed in both Russia and in the Eastern European states that collectively made up the Warsaw Pact during the 1990s. After that point, NATO no longer had any reason to exist at all as the alleged military threat posed by the Kremlin and its allies vanished virtually overnight.

But clever politicians were quick to put the alliance on life support instead of simply dismantling it. Lacking the threat posed by the Warsaw Pact, NATO was forced to come up with other reasons to maintain military forces at levels that could quickly be enhanced and placed on a wartime footing. Washington and London took the lead in this, citing the now shopworn defense of a “rules based international order” as well as of “democracy” and “freedom.” And fortunately for the national defense industries and the generals, it soon proved possible to find new enemies that provided justification for additional military spending. The first major engagement outside the obligations defined by the original treaty took place in Europe to be sure, but it was in the Balkans where of NATO during the 1995 Operation Deliberate Force. The war ended after the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Paris on December 14^th 1995. Peace negotiations were finalized a week later but fighting resumed between Kosovo and Serbia in the following year, which led to another NATO intervention that eventually ended with the restoration of Kosovo’s autonomy and the deployment of NATO forces, which bombed the Serbs to compel their compliance with a draft cease fire agreement.

NATO also played a role improbably enough in the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, which was justified by claiming that an Afghanistan free to set its own course would become a hotbed of terrorism which would inevitably impact on the United States and Europe. It was a paper-thin argument, but it was the best they could come up with at the time and it also eventually involved soldiers from additional friendly countries like Australia. As we have subsequently seen, however, it was all an argument without merit as Afghanistan became a money pit and a graveyard for thousands of locals and foreign soldiers. It is now again in the hands of the Taliban after a bungled withdrawal of US forces and the collapse of the puppet government in Kabul that Washington had installed.

Turn the clock forward to the present. As everyone but President Joe Biden has recognized, the United States and NATO are currently engaged in a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, which many observers already believe has some of the attributes of World War III. As Russia neither threatened nor attacked any NATO member state, the argument that the response in arming and training Ukraine was defensive was rendered irrelevant. Nor can it be credibly be claimed that Russia is a haven for terrorists, quite the contrary. Nevertheless, Biden has stated that the US will be in the fight on behalf of Ukraine for “as long as it takes.” Does he mean years, and all done without a declaration of war by Congress as required by the US Constitution?

And more appears to be coming. Joe Biden, during last week’s trip to Israel, made clear that the United States is “prepared to use all elements of its national power” to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and has signed a pledge with the Israeli government to commit itself to do so. If Biden presses the argument that Iran is an international threat due to its impending development of nuclear weapons, will he appeal to NATO to support a joint military option to disarm it? I believe he just might do that. And he might just want to consider how the entire set-up and framing of the issue by Israel is somewhat of a trap. Israel considers Iran’s current nuclear program to be intended to create a weapon, which “they continue to develop,” and there are plenty in the US Congress who would agree with that.

So, if Iran is clearly creating a thermonuclear device, the time to strike is now, isn’t it? And bear in mind how the US/Israeli campaign to condemn is multifaceted. Shortly before the meetings held by Biden and his crew with the Israelis, US government sources set the stage for what was to come by going on the offensive regarding reports that Iran may be selling highly capable offensive drones to Russia for use in Ukraine as well as subsequent claims coming out of Washington that the Iranians are seeking to assassinate senior US officials in revenge for the killing of Revolutionary Guards General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. One wonders why they waited so long and why the White House has chosen to publicize these stories at this point.

And the US and NATO are also getting involved with China’s geopolitical policies, on a path that Beijing is warning is extremely hypocritical and which might lead to armed conflict. The signs that the Chinese might be targeted by NATO, possibly over the Taiwan independence issue, came following a stark warning by US Secretary of State Tony Blinken delivered at the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June. Blinken accused China of “seeking to undermine the rules-based international order,” the same type of critique recently leveled against Russia and Iran. Blinken’s comment was elaborated on by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who observed how “China is substantially building up its military forces, including nuclear weapons, bullying its neighbors, threatening Taiwan … monitoring and controlling its own citizens through advanced technology, and spreading Russian lies and disinformation.”

Stoltenberg’s indictment of China was followed by a NATO issued “strategic concept” document last that declared for the first time that China poses a “systemic challenge” to the alliance, alongside a primary “threat” coming from Russia. The document copied Blinken’s language, citing “The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.”

Finally, the US and British governments collaborated to condemn China as the “biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security.” The declaration came in a July 6^th joint news conference in London, where Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, and Ken McCallum, director general of Britain’s MI5, accused China, like Russia, of interfering in US and UK elections. Wray also warned the business leaders in the audience that the Chinese government has been “set on stealing your technology, whatever it is that makes your industry tick, and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian initially responded a few days after the NATO summit, observing that the “so-called rules-based international order is actually a family rule made by a handful of countries to serve the US self-interest,” adding that “[Washington]observes international rules only as it sees fit.” Addressing the issue of the role of NATO specifically, Zhao accused Blinken of using NATO to “hype up competition with China and stoke group confrontation.” He added that “The history of NATO is one about creating conflicts and waging wars…arbitrarily launching wars and killing innocent civilians, even to this day. Facts have proven that it isn’t China that poses a systemic challenge to NATO, and instead it is NATO that brings a looming systemic challenge to world peace and security. Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, [NATO] has not yet abandoned its thinking and practice of creating ‘enemies’ … It is NATO that is creating problems around the world.”

China has a point. What NATO is threatening is war, as it is a military alliance. The Chinese appear to understand that NATO is the world’s largest military bureaucracy which has developed since 1991 an overriding institutional commitment to ensuring its permanent existence, if not expansion, even after it has clearly outlived its own usefulness. So Beijing might justifiably wonder, how does China – on the other side of the globe – fit into NATO’s historic “defensive” mission? How are Chinese troops or missiles now threatening Europe or the US in ways they weren’t before? How are the Americans and Europeans suddenly under military threat coming from China?

The Chinese appear to understand that if there is no threat to “defend” against, then a threat must be manufactured, and that is precisely what we are seeing vis-à-vis Russia, China, Iran and even Venezuela.

Washington has become addicted to war and NATO is the chosen tool to give those wars the patina of legitimacy. To launch those conflicts requires either inventing an imaginary threat, or, as in the case of Russia, provoking the very threat the “defensive” bureaucracy was designed to deter or thwart. All indications are that NATO – now embracing 30 countries – is doing both and the results could easily be disastrous for all parties involved. Former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard particularly abhors the cynical recklessness of the Biden Administration driving the process, explaining how “The reality is, President Biden, members of Congress, leaders in our country, the wealthy, they will have a safe place to be in the event of a nuclear war that they are behind causing while the rest of us in America and Russia, people around the world, will be decimated from this event.”

Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges has also defined the unthinkable that is at stake, and it is past time for Americans and Europeans to take note and stop the madness. Hedges opines that “The massive expansion of NATO, not only in Eastern and Central Europe but the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia, presages endless war and a potential nuclear holocaust.” One might also note that New Yorkers are now being informed about what to do if there is a nuclear attack. Yes, that is precisely the problem – we have an administration in Washington that should be protecting the people living in this country, not setting up scenarios that might lead to their slaughter. Will someone please point that out to Joe Biden?

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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.

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***

With the war in Ukraine waging since February 24 and no immediate end in sight, Western commentators and experts have begun urging the US and its allies to start talks with Russia over the situation in Ukraine before its “too late.”

Samuel Charap, senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, and Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations, urged in an opinion piece published in the New York Times for the West to continue providing material support for the Ukrainian military, but in close consultation with Kiev to “begin opening channels of communication with Russia” as “an eventual cease-fire should be the goal, even as the path to it remains uncertain.”

With the US having pledged about $24 billion in military aid to Ukraine, more than four times Ukraine’s 2021 defence budget, in addition to other countries pledging another $12 billion, the authors claim that although the West are committed to helping Ukraine, they do not want to escalate the conflict into a major power war.

“For as long as both Russia and the West are determined to prevail over the other in Ukraine and prepared to devote their deep reserves of weapons to achieve that goal, further escalation seems almost preordained,” the experts wrote.

They stress that discussions are absolutely necessary, despite being politically risky, as the war in Ukraine has the potential to bring Russia and NATO into direct conflict. An argument can be made that Russia and NATO are already in direct conflict as the Atlantic bloc already provides weapons and training to the Ukrainian military and encourages former soldiers and volunteers to fight against Russian forces. This is in addition to espionage and surveillance assistance, diplomatic and political support, and medical aid.

According to the authors, Russia has red lines, which although are not exactly known in their entirety, they can be assumed. The experts give the example that if the Ukrainians are given particular systems or capabilities that could directly target Russian territory, it is likely that Moscow will consider that as a red line being crossed. It is for this reason that when US President Joe Biden recently announced that Ukraine would be supplied with multiple-launch rocket systems, the longest-range munitions that could strike Russia were withheld.

“The premise of the decision was that Moscow will escalate — i.e. launch an attack against NATO — only if certain types of weapons are provided or if they are used to target Russian territory,” they claimed. “The goal is to be careful to stop short of that line while giving the Ukrainians what they need to ‘defend their territory from Russian advances,’ as Mr. Biden said in a statement in June.”

To the experts, this creates a conundrum as for now the West is unwilling to send their military forces directly to Ukraine, but a Russian victory is unacceptable. At the same time, if Ukraine somehow succeeded in halting Russia’s advance thanks to the help of Western weapons, that would constitute an unacceptable defeat for Moscow, which could compel the Russian military to “double down” in its operation.

Charap and Shapiro stress that

“The determination of both the West and Russia to do whatever it takes to prevail in Ukraine is the main driver of escalation” and that only through talks can a de-escalation begin. As they say, “The best way to prevent that dynamic from getting out of control is to start talking before it’s too late.”

Although the pair are undoubtedly correct in their analysis that talks are the best way to resolve the conflict, what they do omit is the complete unwillingness from the Ukrainian side since 2014 to discuss issues, as well as the encouragement Kiev receives from Washington and London to not engage in negotiations with Moscow. The very crisis in Ukraine today is because of Kiev’s refusal to negotiate and discuss, whilst committing towards a path of ultra-nationalism, militarisation and even nuclearization.

The two analysts in this way do not necessarily say anything profound as discussions were always the way to resolve the issues between Moscow and Kiev, even before the events of 2014. The problem is that they do not highlight that Kiev, with encouragement from Washington, is completely unwilling to engage in discussions despite Moscow’s willingness.

There may be some gaps in their analysis, but more importantly, having experts from RAND and the European Council on Foreign Relations urging in the New York Times for discussions to begin to end the war in Ukraine is a major narrative shift from the encouragement for prolonged fighting usually found in influential Western think tanks and media outlets, including by these three aforementioned institutions.

With the special military operation continuing for half a year and with no end in sight, Western analysts grossly underestimated Russia’s determination, overestimated Ukraine’s capabilities and miscalculated the effectiveness of sanctions. Now there is a growing acceptance in the academic and media sphere that Russia is in full control of the situation in Ukraine and it alone decides when its military operation will conclude. Because of this reality, it may be in the best interest of the West to open serious negotiations as it could be the only way to have any influence over the outcome of the conflict. The political classes of the West are yet to accept this reality though.

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

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***

The Affordable Care Act, No Child Left Behind, and the USA PATRIOT Act received new competition for the title of Most Inappropriately Named Bill when Senate Democrats unveiled the Inflation Reduction Act. This bill will not only increase inflation, it will also increase government spending and taxes.

Inflation is the act of money creation by the Federal Reserve. High prices are one adverse effect of inflation, along with bubbles and the bursting of bubbles. One reason the Federal Reserve increases the money supply is to keep interest rates low, thus enabling the federal government to run large deficits without incurring unmanageable interest payments.

The so-called Inflation Reduction Act increases government spending. For example, the bill authorizes spending hundreds of billions of dollars on energy and fighting climate change. Much of this is subsidies for renewable energy — in other words green corporate welfare. Government programs subsidizing certain industries take resources out of the hands of investors and entrepreneurs, who allocate resources in accordance with the wants and needs of consumers, and give the resources to the government, where resources are allocated according to the agendas of politicians and bureaucrats. When government takes resources out of the market, it also disrupts the price system through which entrepreneurs, investors, workers, and consumers discover the true value of goods and services. Thus, “green energy” programs will lead to increased cronyism and waste.

The bill also extends the “temporary” increase in Obamacare subsidies passed as part of covid relief. This will further increase health care prices. Increasing prices is a strange way to eliminate price inflation. The only way to decrease health care costs without diminishing health care quality is by putting patients back in charge of the health care dollar.

The bill’s authors claim the legislation fights inflation by reducing the deficit via tax increases on the rich and a new 15 percent minimum corporate tax. Tax increases won’t reduce the deficit if, as is going to be the case, Congress continues increasing spending. Increasing taxes on “the rich” and corporations also reduces investments, slowing the economy and thus increasing demand for government programs. This leads to increasing government spending and debt. While there is never a good time to raise taxes, the absolute worst time for tax increases is when, as is the case today, the economy is both suffering from price inflation and, despite the gaslighting coming from the Biden administration and its apologists, is in a recession.

The bill also spends 80 billion dollars on the IRS. Supposedly this will help collect more revenue from “rich tax cheats.” While supporters of increasing the IRS’s ability to harass taxpayers claim their target is the rich, these new powers will actually be used against middle-class taxpayers and small businesses that cannot afford legions of tax accountants and attorneys and thus are likely to simply pay the agency whatever it demands.

Increasing spending and taxes will increase the pressure on the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low, thus increasing inflation. If Congress was serious about ending inflation, it would cut spending — starting with overseas militarism and corporate welfare. A Congress that took inflation seriously would also take the first step toward restoring a free-market monetary system by passing Audit the Fed and legalizing competition in currency.

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***

Russia is “a big, main and highly influential player in the world energy map,” according to the new secretary-general of OPEC, Kuwaiti former oil executive, and OPEC governor Haitham al-Ghais.

Speaking to Kuwait newspaper Alrai in an interview quoted by Reuters, Al-Ghais also said that OPEC was not competing with Russia on the oil market and that Russia was vital for the success of the OPEC+ agreement.

The Kuwaiti official will attend his first OPEC+ meeting as OPEC secretary-general this week. According to early reports, the group will likely discuss keeping oil production unchanged in September from August, although some sources told Reuters it might also talk about a modest increase.

According to Al-Ghais, the oil market is currently “very volatile and turbulent.” The OPEC official also noted in his interview that “OPEC doesn’t control oil prices, but it practices what is called tuning the markets in terms of supply and demand.”

Al-Ghais also echoed the opinions of fellow OPEC members, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, that the oil price rise was not only the result of the Ukraine war but the consequences of processes that began much earlier.

“All the data confirm that prices began to rise gradually and cumulatively, and before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian developments, due to the prevailing perception in the markets that there is a shortage of spare production capacity, which has become confined to a few and limited countries,” OPEC’s new secretary-general told Alrai.

He added that prices could rise further because of insufficient investment in new production. Just how high oil could go, however, Al-Ghais declined to predict.

The Kuwaiti oil official assumed the office of OPEC secretary-general today and will serve for a term of three years. He can be reelected but only once. He replaces Nigeria’s Mohamed Barkindo, who passed away earlier this year.

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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.

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***

 

 

 

 

 

I want to draw your attention to an extraordinary but little-known book titled Vaccination, Social Violence, and Criminality: The Medical Assault on the American Brain. It was published in 1990 and it’s out of print but there are still a few used copies available on Amazon and eBay. It was written by Harris L. Coulter (1932 – 2009) a visionary medical historian (with a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Columbia University) who also co-authored A Shot in the Dark with Barbara Loe Fisher in 1986.

Vaccination, Social Violence, and Criminality is as close as our movement gets to a Unified Field Theory. Coulter argues that everything from the social upheaval of the 1960s to the sharp rise in autism, cranial nerve palsies, depression, suicide, eating disorders, learning disabilities, seizures, allergies, family dissolution, demyelinating disorders, sexual violence, and other forms of psychopathy & sociopathy — all stem, at least in part, from pervasive subclinical encephalitis (and post-encephalitic syndrome) as a result of vaccines. Coulter provides extensive references from the scientific and medical literature at the end of each chapter to document his claims (this was before science and medicine started censoring all discussion of vaccines).

I disagree with Coulter’s claim that vaccines led to the civil unrest in the 1960s. The U.S. war in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia combined with the draft and the introduction of high dose progesterone birth control pills are much better explanatory factors. The fact that the CIA/FBI/deep state systematically assassinated the most important political leaders of that era added to the chaos.

But there is growing evidence that the rest of Coulter’s theory is on target. Of course I would add many other disorders — ADHD, Alzheimers, childhood cancers, diabetes, Gulf War Syndrome, ME/CFS, etc. that have since been linked with vaccines. I would point out that emissions from coal fired power plants, plastics, pesticides, herbicides, nuclear weapons tests, fire retardants, EMF, and other pharmaceuticals (notably Tylenol and SSRIs) also likely play a role. And human actions are not driven solely by toxicants, there is still human agency and social factors always play a role as well. But the story of our era is a mass poisoning event wrought by vaccines (and other seeming technological miracles that have tremendous, rarely acknowledged, downsides).

What’s remarkable is that Coulter came to this conclusion so early — 1990 was just the fourth year of the genocide (if one starts counting from the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act) or the 25th year of the genocide (if one starts counting from the 1965 Immunization Assistance Act). The book was written before the widespread deployment of the internet enabled people to quickly share information.

The book is also an interesting time capsule. In the book, Coulter is still contending with psychoanalytic theories (that have since become passé), he still believes that appeals to science will somehow convince the gatekeepers to do the right thing (we now know that they are psychopaths), and he has no idea how much worse things were about to become (he’s describing a small minority of the population with these disorders and now they are everywhere).

I think Coulter does a brilliant job of mapping the various pathologies associated with vaccine-induced pervasive subclinical encephalitis. But what fascinates me — and what I want to write about today — are the ways in which this mass poisoning event reshapes what is normal and what is desirable in a society. If 95% of the population is poisoned (they are), including nearly all of the elites (they are), then EVERYTHING in society will be warped by these toxicants — including hopes, dreams, norms, and ideals.

Let’s work through some examples:

I think a strong case case be made that post-modernism (‘there are no universals’) — is the result of vaccine injury. Everything from Foucault now needs to be interpreted in light of this possibility. It is strange to suggest that one could not possibly come to understand another person’s perspective — and that all we can do is celebrate difference. But if the dendrites in the brain necessary to process empathy are damaged by mercury poisoning (from vaccines and other sources) — it would make sense that lots of people might conclude that Foucault and post-modernism have it exactly right.

State Senator Richard Pan in California is clearly a criminal psychopath. Devoid of normal human feelings, he grins like a Cheshire Cat for hours as THOUSANDS of parents testify every year about the vaccine injury suffered by their children. And this criminal psychopath is ADORED by his Democratic colleagues who see him as an ideal pediatrician politician. But of course many of the other members of his party in the state legislature are similarly afflicted. Like is attracted to like.

Facebook was invented by severely vaccine-injured Harvard University student, Mark Zuckerberg, to publicly humiliate a female student who rejected his advances. This is not a normal way to respond to disappointment. Facebook is now used by 2.9 billion people worldwide. When Facebook first launched, remember how weird we all thought it was that people were expected to just blurt out what they were doing in their status update? That is not how normal people communicate. Heretofore, communication was based on dialogue. Now publicly announcing, into a digital void, what we are doing throughout the day is seen as normal (because of course it is to a planet full of people dealing with pervasive subclinical encephalitis).

Bill Gates appears badly vaccine-injured. He’s spent millions of dollars on coaching to cover it up but his pathologies have a way of slipping out in nearly every interview. Melinda too. (It’s interesting that they appear to have spent no money on detox nor healing.)

Bill Gates’ obsessive focus on monopolies and control; the fact that everything he touches becomes so much worse (he invests in farms and fertilizer, then there are food shortages; he invests in Common Core and our educational system collapses; he invests in public health and suddenly there is a pandemic); and his fondness for known pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — these are not the actions of a healthy person. But Bill and Melinda Gates are seen as exemplary citizens (the best of the best) by people like Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta who are similarly afflicted.

Giving the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to the inventors of CRISPR — during the middle of a global pandemic caused by CRISPR — is not normal. But it feels normal and desirable to the members of the Nobel Prize committee because they too are damaged by chronic brain inflammation and other vaccine-induced harms. CRISPR was exciting, the pandemic was exciting, the Nobel Prize committee was excited, they apparently did not care how many people died.

Klaus Schwab at the World Economic Forum is a textbook psychopath — he dresses like a psychopath, talks like a psychopath, and thinks like a psychopath (“you will own nothing and be happy”). He doesn’t hide it, he writes books telling everyone exactly how he plans to enslave them. But he is celebrated by business and political leaders throughout the world because they are damaged just like him.

Zuckerberg, Gates, and Schwab are such obvious examples, but the harms go well beyond them to impact all facets of modern society.

Elite universities are unable to conduct proper risk benefit analysis in connection with Covid-19 vaccines. They gleefully turn the students in their care over to the pharmaceutical industry and seem unconcerned when these students later develop myocarditis and drop dead. This is a strange way for universities to conduct themselves.

Pediatrics has seen a 277-fold increase in autism over the course of the last fifty years and nearly the entire profession is unable to see it or acknowledge it. Yes, that’s a story of cultural and financial capture, shame, and self-deception. But the entire profession is also affected (to varying degrees) by the same harms that they inflict.

All public health institutions in the U.S. — CDC, FDA, NIH — have failed in response to a relatively straightforward problem over the last two years. When I watch Peter Marks, Amanda Cohn, or Paul Offit speak, I believe that I am staring at psychopaths who have been elevated to the highest echelons of their profession by other like-minded individuals.

Our taste in art and music is likely affected as well. The fact that Limp Bizkit ever got played on the radio is a sign of a society in catastrophic decline.

The corruption, chaos, coarsening, and unravelling of our society since 1965 may all stem, at least in part, from the fact that our brains and bodies are so inflamed. And the fact that all of this dysfunction is celebrated, normalized, and sought after is a sign of a society in the grips of a mass poisoning event.

I’m sure you can think of 100 more examples (and I look forward to reading your thoughts in the comments).

The reason it feels like we are living in an insane asylum is because we are. Upwards of 95% of the population may be dealing with pervasive subclinical encephalitis and post-encephalitic syndromes. So logic, reason, empathy, desire, connection, and all other human attributes are affected by the way that this interferes with brain and bodily functions.

One of my takeaways from all of this is that it has been a waste of time to try to convert the gatekeepers. Pan, Zuckerberg, Gates, Schwab etc. will never come to their senses because they are not physically capable of it — quite literally their brains and body are too damaged right now. If they are involved in any way, they will only makes things worse. That doesn’t excuse their actions, it just suggests that we should put our energies into replacing them rather than convincing them.

Also, if we are going to survive as a species we need to block the introduction of new toxicants into our bodies and detox, if we can, the toxic junk that is currently inside us.

The movement for medical freedom has become the monks and nuns who are fighting to save civilization. While the vaccine-injured Neros set fire to the world we are trying to preserve a sense of what normal human functioning looked like before everyone got poisoned. But what I’m realizing is that the scale of what we are up against is so much larger than we are usually willing to admit. My concern is that vaccine injury has become so pervasive in our society that now it just seems like culture (which is exactly how Pharma wants us to experience it). Healing is possible but that can only begin if we acknowledge what is happening.

The humbling thing about this is that we are nearly all affected — even those of us who are fighting to stop this toxic tyranny. So it’s a useful reminder to hold our own thoughts lightly and practice grace with ourselves and others.

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Some of you, after thirty months of nuclear-grade media propaganda, are inclined to doubt everything that appears in the press. While journalists certainly circulate their share of falsehoods, lies are not their preferred strategy and almost always originate outside major press organs, with the self-serving statements of regime officials. The problem with lying, is that it’s expensive and requires more coordination than widely distributed media operations command. Their preferred approach is rather one of emphasis. Regime-friendly reporters will scour the earth for every last story supporting government policies, and amplify these meagre items to the point of absurdity; at the same time, they’ll do everything possible to ignore or downplay information injurious to their preferred narratives, however significant it might be.

Now, it is generally all too apparent what the media have chosen to amplify. These are all the stories that you’re absolutely sick to death of and that never seem to go away. It’s a lot harder to work out all the things the press is currently burying, because absences are by their nature subtle things. Nevertheless, it is whatever the press is not saying, that is the most important of all.

It’s in this spirit that I draw your attention to how completely the earliest days of the pandemic have been memory-holed. Particularly the crucial months from January to March 2020 are almost never discussed, although this was the period of greatest dynamism and invention, when the vaccines were developed, mass testing inaugurated, longstanding pessimism about the efficacy of masking overturned, and novel, continent-wide house-arrests imposed upon hundreds of millions.

You can glean some hint of the reasons for this nearly universal decision to ignore recent history from papers like this one, on The early phase of the COVID-19 epidemic in Lombardy, Italy. Its authors delve into contact tracing data to find a total of 527 infections with symptom-onset dates preceding the celebrated 20 February 2020 diagnosis of Patient 1, Mattia Maestri, in Codogno. Maestri’s positive test was held to be the beginning of the Italian outbreak, and back then, there was much speculation in the press about the identity of the mysterious Patient 0 from whom he had contracted SARS-2. And yet, as German and Italian public health officials traded accusations about where the first infections had really originated, contact tracers in Italy knew for a fact that Maestri was very far indeed from the origins of the European pandemic – closer to Patient 100,000 than to Patient 1.

While there was still relatively little testing in those early days, the authors of our paper find evidence that, as of 20 February, “SARS-CoV-2 was already circulating in at least 222 out of 1506 municipalities” in Lombardy, “with sustained transmission across all the Lombardy provinces.”

Still worse for Team Lockdown, the early pandemic, insofar as it admits of reconstruction, shows “A decreasing trend in the net reproduction number … following the detection of the first case” in February.

From eugyppius

The authors of the paper include public health officials and scientists from Lombardy, and they try to put a happy face on this awkward revelation, writing that “early interventions” should receive credit for the “more marked” decline in the effective reproduction number in Lodi (LO), Bergamo (BG) and Cremona (CR) from later February, and that specifically “the set-up of a quarantine area around the initial epicenter of the outbreak in the province of Lodi played a crucial role in controlling the infection locally.” Yet, as even their supplementary table shows, there were no quarantines anywhere in Lodi until 24 February, maybe five days after the estimated R(t) peak there. The tepid early measures in Bergamo and Cremona, meanwhile, weren’t imposed until 2 March, long after the observed growth in infections had entered its terminal decline in both regions.

Another point emerges from this data, too. Look at that chart of provincial R(t). Yes, R(t) is declining in the big hot-spots, but where is it still increasing after the end of February? In Como (CO), Lecco (LC), Mantova (MN), Sondrio (SO) and Varese (VA).

Now consider this heat map of infection incidence as of 9 March:

From eugyppius

The earliest reported infection, discovered in a preserved nasopharyngeal sample of a 4 year-old boy, happened before 21 November 2019 – in Milan (MI). By November at the latest, we can be confident that the virus was circulating in Milan. By the time of this map, though, the hot spots all appear to be in a roughly equidistant ring around Milan. By the end of February, the only places the virus is still accelerating, is in the still further outlying regions – places like Como, Mantova and Sondrio. It looks for all the world like the virus had burned through Milan without anybody noticing at all, and when the Tomas Pueyos of the world descended upon us with their mass testing and their lockdowns, they were a few months too late. The hotspots they found were secondary infection sites at best.

By the time pandemicists started rooting through their bag of tricks, the virus had been circulating for months with nobody noticing. This is one of the most crucial and eagerly ignored facts of the whole pandemic. Those early patients were hospitalised at very high rates and – in accordance with Chinese advice – subjected to aggressive mechanical ventilation, which killed a great many of them. Maestri, Patient 1, was a 38 year-old recreational marathoner, and he probably would’ve had far less trouble with SARS-2, had he not made the grave mistake of testing positive. Alas, he almost died after spending weeks on a ventilator.

These are at least some of the reasons why our media and our public health officials are desperate to forget those early days. In March 2020, real infections were already in decline. The apparent surge in infection numbers was an illusion caused by the introduction of mass testing programs. Mass containment made everything worse.

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Biden Administration had an option to stop the Ukraine War from taking place in the first place by not inviting Ukraine to join NATO and making Ukraine a neutral country. But it chose the war. Why? Why suddenly so much concern for the people of Ukraine?

Is it because it is a country populated by white people? In 1994, President Clinton did nothing while genocide of Tutsi ethnic Rwandans was going on in Rwanda resulting in the deaths of some 500,000 to 662,000. Was that utter neglect because these were black people?

Or is it because there is a considerable number of Ukrainians living in the United States who would vote for Biden’s reelection in 2024? Or is it because usually a war president gets reelected? Or was it that Biden wanted to look “macho”, a president who cowed down Russia, our long-created perennial enemy? Or are Biden administration, and the Pentagon pursuing the policy suggested by recent Rand Corporation thesis to break up Russia by weakening it by this brutal war? Or are he and the democrats paying back the ‘defense’ contractors—for their donations to the Democrats during elections– with billions of dollars in profit by this war?

Many times, our politicians get their clue from the many think tanks such as The Rand Corporation, existing in the country.

The Rand Corporation’s April 2019 article on Russia recommends that we should overextend and weaken Russia by directly addressing its vulnerabilities, anxieties, and strengths, exploiting areas of its weakness while undermining Russia’s current advantages. Further it states that “Russia’s greatest vulnerability, in any competition with the United States is its economy.” It seems, that is what United States has embarked upon to do by provoking Russia to invade Ukraine. United States’ purpose in this regard being to weaken Russia militarily by this proxy war but also to weaken Russia economically by brutal sanctions ever imposed on a country to such a degree ever, which this war has provided the United States the excuse for doing just that.

It could be a combination of some or all these factors while thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and Ukrainian civilians are being killed with this unfortunate war that could have been avoided as many foreign policy experts opine.

Our government has doled out more than $54 billion in arms and other categories to Ukraine during this Ukraine War. Much more to come as the war drags on.

These billions in donation to Ukraine, a country that is 9,181 kilometers away from the United States and has no strategic value to the United States.

These billions are not coming from our president’s or other politicians’ pockets, they are taxpayers’ money which will ultimately be paid by us, taxpayers. Have they asked us the taxpayers whether they should donate such huge amount to a country which has done nothing for America?

President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, supposedly made $11 million from 2013 to 2018, being made member of Board of Directors of Ukraine gas company Burisma, though he had no knowledge of gas production, refining or transportation.

Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Michell McConnel, Jill Biden, etc. went and paid visit to Zelensky and his wife. Why so much love and respect for Ukraine and its president as if he had become a world statesman suddenly?

All these billions of dollars for Ukraine while nothing for America’s poor! By the way, what has Ukraine done for the United States? Why so much love and concern for Ukraine while America’s economy is in dire state and millions of middle-class and poor Americans are suffering?

Total number of homeless in America in 2021 was 580,466 people with New York City having highest number of the order of 77,943.

Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization, says 54 million Americans are going hungry today. Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) cites 140 million poor and “low-wealth” people in America today, which is 42 percent of the U.S. population. What a shame for the richest country in the world!

Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) says “Thinking Beyond Ukraine: Their War is Not Our War.” These activists have pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic could be addressed in the United States with $16 billion, while $60 billion per year in federal housing vouchers could solve the U.S. homelessness crisis.

“How dare we stand by as billions are spent on war when children all over the world, and here in Kensington (a Philadelphia neighborhood), go without water, healthcare, food, or a place to lay their heads tonight,” said Cheri Honkala, PPEHRC’s–Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign—founder.

In America today, 1 in 6 kids are in families below the poverty line. The [official] poverty rate is 14.4% as of February 2022.

The child poverty rate in January 2022 was 17%.

Some 3.4 million children live in poverty in America as of February 2022. In other words, 1 in 6 US kids are in poverty. Some 14.4 % of America’s population or around 45,950 million Americans live in poverty today. 6 in 10 Americans don’t have $500 in their savings account. This shows how much majority of Americans are struggling to make two ends meet. Inflation has surged to more than 7%, the fastest in the last 40 years. Some 69% of Americans have less than $1000 in their savings account; that is in the richest country in the world.

Because of this Ukraine War, provoked by the US and its NATO allies, hundreds of millions of people, especially in Africa and Asia are suffering from food scarcity. Because of this war, the whole world is suffering from oil, gas, and food scarcity. Did America take this into account while provoking Russia to invade Ukraine?

Despite all this poverty in America, Biden administration doles out $54 billion to a country which has no strategic importance to the United States. What has our government done for the struggling poor millions in this country? Instead of taking care of its own poor people, the US is bent on hegemonic domination around the world.

Hundreds of millions of people are suffering and will suffer because of this avoidable war, not to mention the poor people of Ukraine as well as those of Russia.

Ultimately, United States’ provocation of Russia resulting in this brutal but avoidable war will go down in history as one the most irresponsible and reckless act committed by the United States, a foreign policy blunder that could trigger a nuclear war between Russia and the United States.

*

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Chaitanya Davé is a Chemical Engineer based in Southern California, founder and president of “Pragati Foundation”, a non-profit charity helping the poor villagers of India, Nepal, Haiti, USA-homeless. Author of three books: Crimes against Humanity, A Shocking Record of US Crimes since 1776-2007, Collapse: Civilization on the Brink-2010, and Capitalism’s March of Destruction (2016-20).

Images in this article are from the author

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***

Pretty horrific scenes today at the detention center near the village of Yelenovka which Ukraine bombed late last night with American HIMARS. Press Secretary of the DPR Military Command, Eduard Basurin, said there are a confirmed 53 Ukrainian POWs dead, 71 injured.

The stench of death was everywhere. Burnt corpses, bodies cause of death shrapnel…blood splatters everywhere

Ukraine did this, intentionally, to its own people, its own soldiers, soldiers who had surrendered and, as Basurin pointed out, were confessing their crimes against Donbass civilians, their murdering of Donbass civilians, which came from commanders’ orders, which came from Kiev.

HIMARS are a powerful multiple launch rocket system with GPS navigation. It is indisputable, except in lying Western media, that Ukraine intentionally killed its own soldiers using Western weapons.

If you #StandWithUkraine, you stand with this massacre of its own soldiers.

*

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Featured image is from The Unz Review

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***

The execution of four well-known democracy activists by the military junta in Myanmar in June 2022 has angered and incensed those who cherish freedom and justice all over the world.   The four , Phyo Zeyar Thaw, Kyaw Min Yu, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw have become immortalised in the noble struggle of the Myanmar people for their dignity and humanity. By killing these peaceful dissenters, the junta has in fact signed its own death warrant.

Since staging a coup  against the democratically elected government of the day, the National League for Democracy (NLD), on the 1^st of February 2021, the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw, has become increasingly brutal and desperate. It has killed more than a thousand five hundred protesters including at least 44 children. It has detained thousands more. Torture of detainees is rife and rampant. Scores of people have disappeared.

Both the president, Min Nyint and State Counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi are in jail. So are the Ministers, deputy Ministers and NLD members of parliament. Some civil servants, leaders of civil society, a number of Buddhist monks and scores of men and women from all walks of life are also behind bars.

The media is shackled. The Judiciary is totally subservient to the junta. The universities are mere appendages of the bureaucracy. All formal religious institutions are under the dictates of the military elite.

Though Myanmar in the course of the last 60 years has known brief periods of freedom, it has been in the grip of the military most of the time since General Ne Win conducted a coup against the civilian government in 1962. It is against this backdrop that one should view the February 1^st2021 coup and the more recent execution of dissenters.

Given this tragic history of suppression and oppression, it is remarkable that the flame of dissent has been kept alive for so long in Myanmar. Even in the last two years since February 1^st, a lot of ordinary people have openly defied the junta through actions such as the striking of pots and pans in unison— a symbolic attempt to drive away evil — and organising a silent strike on the first anniversary of the coup this year which saw the closing of shops and the halting of all outdoor activities as men, women and children stayed at home. There have been even signs of a civil disobedience movement developing in protest against the excesses of the junta.

Even before the 2021 coup, in a situation where the military was already flexing its muscles, it is remarkable that millions of voters came out to support the NLD in the November 2020 election handing it a huge victory, 396 out of 476 parliamentary seats while the military backed party won only 33 seats. That was a dramatic expression of dissent within an environment where military dominance was overwhelmingly evident. Indeed, it is so obvious that it was because of the NLD’s performance that the military elite conducted the coup a few months later. The military elite knew that the people had repudiated its rule, had rejected its ruthless power.

When a people have demonstrated so much courage, shown such tenacity in the face of great odds, how should we as their neighbours respond?   Some ASEAN governments have expressed unhappiness over the junta’s use of force against peaceful protestors but on the whole the regional grouping has refrained from advocating any punitive measures against the junta in Myanmar. The time has come for ASEAN to change its stand. As a collective it should now state explicitly that executing dissenters is the ultimate act of violence and it expects Myanmar to desist from such behaviour immediately. If it does not, then ASEAN will suspend all military, economic and educational ties with Myanmar. The same message should go out to all other countries that currently interact with Myanmar in these and other related spheres. Within Asia, China and India are cases in point.

It will not be easy for a number of ASEAN states or for China and India to act against Myanmar. They have often argued that such action will only drive a wedge between them and the ruling elite in Myanmar and it will become even more difficult to persuade the latter to change its behaviour. They forget that their present ‘soft’ stance has only encouraged the Myanmar military elite to become harsher and even more callous and cruel.

In this situation, civil society groups within ASEAN and Asia and citizens in general in the continent should pressurise their governments to act on the basis of fundamental moral principles. To do otherwise is not only a betrayal of their conscience but also a repudiation of those sacred values that lie at the heart of the illustrious civilisations that constitute our heritage.

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Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, Founder and President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST), prominent human rights advocate, author and academic, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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

Smoking Gun: US Government, CDC Colluded with Google, Twitter, Facebook to Censor Important Information About Experimental COVID Vaccines

By Lance Johnson, August 01, 2022

America First Legal (AFL) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to investigate unconstitutional acts between the federal government and the Big Tech social media platforms. AFL obtained 256 pages of communication between the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Google, Facebook and Twitter. These pages document egregious violations of the US Constitution and provide evidence that the Federal Government violated the Nuremberg Code.

The Collapse of Government – The Rise of Resistance and Awareness

By Julian Rose, August 01, 2022

Wherever you look in the world today, governance is failing and governments are falling. And even where governments hold-on, premiers, prime ministers, presidents and parliamentarians tumble around them; disgraced and exposed for one seedy scandal after another.

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales Calls for a Global Campaign to Eliminate NATO

By Jeremy Kuzmarov, August 01, 2022

In interview with British journalist, Morales says the U.S. uses NATO to provoke wars and sell weapons. U.S./UK-backed coup against him in 2019 was undertaken for lithium and because his government advanced an alternative economic model to the neoliberal “Washington Consensus.”

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi: Mission Accomplished! “Draghi Has Transformed Italy Into a Belligerent Country Against Russia”

By Manlio Dinucci, August 01, 2022

Draghi has not only transformed Italy into a belligerent country against Russia by sending weapons and instructors to the Ukrainian forces but has promoted sanctions against the Russian central bank and the admission of Ukraine to the EU. For these and other “merits” the authoritative USA Fortune magazine includes Mario Draghi among “the 50 greatest leaders in the world”.

Hepatitis Outbreak of Unknown Cause Among Children: A Direct Result of AstraZeneca’s COVID “Vaccine” According to Virologist Dr. Ann-Cathrin Engwall

By Ethan Huff, August 01, 2022

A respected virologist-immunologist has written a letter to the esteemed British Medical Journal (BMJ) explaining that a new outbreak of “acute hepatitis of unknown origin in children” is a direct result of AstraZeneca’s viral vector Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “vaccine.”

Tunisia’s New Constitution Angers the US. Remember “The Arab Spring”

By Steven Sahiounie, August 01, 2022

On Friday, Tunisia’s foreign ministry summoned an official from the US Embassy after Secretary of State Antony Blinken caste aspersions on Tunisia’s democracy. Othman Jerandi, Tunisia’s Foreign Minister, told Natasha Franceschi, US acting chargé d’affaires that the statement was an unacceptable “interference in the national internal affairs”.

Australia and the Road to Nuclear War

By William Briggs, August 01, 2022

The Australia, United Kingdom and United States (AUKUS) agreement, alongside the anti-China Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) alliance of the US, India, Japan and Australia, can only be seen as a threat to China. China is particularly critical of AUKUS’s commitments to new bases, long-range strike capability and especially the nuclear submarine deal for Australia. AUKUS opens the door for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to expand into the Indo-Pacific.

Venezuelan Gold Reserves: Caracas Protests ‘Astonishing’ Ruling in Favor of US-backed Guaidó

By Ricardo Vaz, August 01, 2022

On Friday, the High Court of England and Wales decided in favor of opposition politician Juan Guaidó and dismissed a new effort by the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) to regain control over the reserves worth an estimated US $1.7 billion.

No Farmers, No Food, No Life

By Dr. Carla Peeters, August 01, 2022

Current policies in many parts of the world place a priority on climate change for realizing a green new deal. Meanwhile, such policies will contribute to children dying from severe malnutrition due to broken food systems, with shortages of food and water, stress, anxiety, fear, and dangerous chemical exposure.

The Netherlands: Higher Vaccine Uptake, Higher Mortality

By Thorsteinn Siglaugsson, August 01, 2022

During the past few months, indications of a positive correlation between all-cause mortality and Covid vaccines has been growing. To demonstrate the existence of this correlation it is however crucial to be able to compare the rate of mortality and the vaccine uptake within a relatively homogenic population.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

People injured by COVID-19 vaccines may not realize it, but the pretense that post-vaccination injuries and deaths are just “sad coincidences” — far from being unique to the pandemic jabs — is a trick as old as vaccination itself.

So-called “fact-checkers” are having to work double-time to come up with ways to deny the undeniable fact that COVID-19 vaccines are causing injuries and deaths on a massive scale.

The shot pushers and their media enablers have taken cover-up tactics to absurd new heights by, for example, chalking up the rash of fatal heart attacks and overnight deaths in athletes and young adults to a fluky condition referred to variously as “sudden adult death syndrome” or “sudden arrhythmic death syndrome” (SADS).

What the COVID-19 vaccine-injured do not necessarily recognize, however, is the pretense that post-vaccination injuries and deaths are just “sad coincidences” — far from being unique to the pandemic jabs — is a trick as old as vaccination itself.

Facilitated by well-honed semantic and statistical flimflam, public health officials’ core strategy for perpetuating their fiction is to profess innocence — making unabashedly unsubstantiated pronouncements about vaccine safety, on the one hand, while on the other hand, declaring themselves “baffled” by ailments that emerge in the aftermath of a given vaccine’s rollout.

From 1899 to 2022 — has anything changed?

In an astonishingly frank and prescient book, “The Fallacy of Vaccination,” published in 1899, Dr. Alexander Wilder called attention to the “growing conviction” among “profounder thinkers and observers” that vaccination was not only “utterly useless as a preventive” but “actually the means of disseminating disease afresh where it is performed.”

Wilder noted, “whenever a vaccinator or corps of vaccinators set out upon a vaccinating crusade, there follows very generally a number of deaths from … maladies which have been induced by the operation. …”

Wilder also blew the whistle on the suppression and concealment of vaccine adverse events and deaths, describing a fellow physician’s urging of his “professional brethren to be slow to publish fatal cases of small-pox after vaccination” and outlining other shenanigans that sound all too familiar today:

“Occasionally … a death by vaccination is published, and immediately the effort is put forth assiduously to make it to be believed that it was from some other cause. The statistics of small-pox, purporting to distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated persons, are too often not quite trustworthy. Many persons who have been vaccinated are falsely reported as unvaccinated.

“Even when death occurs as the result of vaccination, the truth is concealed and the case represented as scarlet fever, measles, erysipelas [bacterial skin infection], or some ‘masked’ disease, in order to prevent too close questioning.”

The intentionality of the suppression seemed obvious to Wilder, who added, “Further argument is met by stolid silence, and by an apparent concert of purpose to exclude carefully all discussion of the matter from medical and public journals, and to denounce all who object.”

Similar sleight-of-hand was on full display during the recent Novavax-focused meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

In the ably summarized live-blog account by internist Dr. Meryl Nass — a member of the Children’s Health Defense scientific advisory committee — Nass noted CDC’s faking of COVID-19 data to hide the far-greater hospitalization and death rates among the COVID-19-vaccinated as compared to the unvaccinated.

Conveniently for the CDC, Nass noted, the only charts not “up to date by the day” were those presenting vaccination status versus outcome.

However, despite CDC’s “mumbo jumbo,” Nass pointed out, the agency was unable to hide the higher rate of myocarditis in mRNA-vaccinated males within a week of dose two — 75.9 times higher for 16- to 17-year-olds and 38.9 times higher in 18- to 24-year-olds.

Polio: another example of ‘mumbo jumbo’

With New York State recently reporting a case of “vaccine-derived polio,” and U.K. scientists declaring a “national incident” after allegedly finding “genetic sequences” of poliovirus in London sewage water, it appears public health authorities might be preparing to resurrect polio as the bogeyman du jour.

At first blush, the concession that nearly all modern paralytic polio cases are iatrogenically (medically) caused by the oral polio vaccine — shared by no less than the World Health Organization and CDC — seems unexpectedly and refreshingly candid.

However, public health authorities have no intention of conceding that the official story of poliomyelitis (where “myelitis” refers to spinal cord inflammation) is otherwise full of more holes than Swiss cheese.

There is, and always was, ample evidence to suggest that poisoning — whether by lead arsenate, DDT, or later, the toxic ingredients in polio vaccines themselves — is the most credible explanation for the paralytic symptoms and deaths that were labeled as “polio.”

In fact, early public health luminary Bernard Greenberg, founding chair of the biostatistics department at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, testified before Congress that polio vaccination had “actually increased incidents of polio” and that “misuse of statistical methods had made the opposite seem true.”

Greenberg was referring to a change in the diagnostic criteria for “paralytic poliomyelitis.” implemented in the mid-1950s, which began to require at least 60 days of paralytic symptoms to earn the diagnosis, versus previously, just 24 hours of such symptoms.

As Greenberg did not hesitate to point out, the victory claimed by the first polio vaccines, which began to be administered around the same time, was entirely undeserved.

In the present day, “acute flaccid paralysis” and “acute flaccid myelitis,” which have a clinical picture virtually identical to polio, are the diagnoses of choice for childhood paralysis cropping up all over the world, including in the U.S.

In countries like India, where tens of thousands of children have developed acute flaccid paralysis, doctors explicitly linked the condition to oral polio vaccination. But decades of published reports also associate paralysis with other childhood vaccines, such as pertussis-containing and aluminum-containing vaccines.

In fact, historical reports of spinal cord inflammation, including not just poliomyelitis but other forms of myelitis, track closely with pediatric vaccination trends, and with the concurrent rise in the practice of pediatric injection.

Earlier generations of doctors even described polio cases that followed pediatric injections as “provocation paralysis,” while more recent generations of clinicians have noted the similarity between “polio” and injection injuries dubbed “traumatic neuritis.”

On the current vaccine schedule for American children, clinical trial or post-marketing data link 17 different vaccines to “myelitis,” “encephalomyelitis,” “acute disseminated encephalomyelitis” and/or “transverse myelitis.”

Transverse myelitis also has been making an appearance with COVID-19 vaccines.

Sidestepping the obvious explanation

Since the “polio” era, there are many other examples of diagnoses intended to obfuscate rather than elucidate vaccination as a cause of illness and death — and gaslight sufferers.

These include autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Among the environmental causes put forth as plausible triggers for the neuroimmune disorders labeled as “ASD,” heavy metal poisoning — principally via vaccination — is one of the most consistent contenders.

Meticulous landmark papers published in 2004 and 2012 demonstrated strong parallels between the brain effects of mercury intoxication and ASD brain pathology. Later papers furnished similar evidence with respect to aluminum.

As for SIDS, the diagnosis first entered into vogue around the same time (in the early 1970s) that the vaccine load for children in the U.S. doubled.

Although the 1970s vaccine schedule appears restrained by today’s immoderate standards, young children of that decade not only began receiving 13 vaccines instead of seven, but also went from mostly receiving one shot at a time to often getting two at once, including five one-two punches of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) and oral polio vaccine — both subsequently taken off the U.S. market due to their troublesome adverse event profile.

SIDS deaths, which by definition affect “seemingly normal, healthy infants,” and toddler deaths categorized as “sudden unexplained deaths in childhood” typically occur “in close temporal association following vaccination,” with nine of 10 SIDS deaths occurring around the same time as two- and four-month “well-baby” visits.

Nevertheless, scientists continue to state that the unpredictable deaths “elude … scientific understanding.”

The deception continues

Sadly, vaccine-injured individuals often are enlisted in the artifice.

Desperate for help, they discover they cannot gain access to the halls of medicine unless they self-censor any discussion of vaccination as the source of their health problems and instead acquiesce to “idiopathic” or “genetic” explanations, or punt to some of the more than 70,000 codes in the International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10) — while eschewing the tiny handful of codes pertaining to “adverse effect of vaccines and biological substances.”

A new ICD code relevant to “new diseases of uncertain etiology or emergency use” was designated for “COVID-19 vaccines causing adverse effects in therapeutic use, unspecified.” However, it remains to be seen whether any health professionals will be brave enough to use it.

Meanwhile, as The Exposé satirically reported on July 24, “It feels like we can’t go a single week without hearing about the re-emergence, or emergence of a disease or ailment” — including a “mysterious” outbreak of hepatitis among children, the SADS phenomenon, monkeypox and, of course, polio.

All of these outbreaks, the journalists noted, “are ‘coincidentally’ occurring after millions of people worldwide have been injected with an experimental mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.”

As the recent New York and U.K. reports of vaccine-induced polio illustrate, these threats, whether real or imagined, are likely to mobilize further hostility toward the unvaccinated — including the New York communities fiercely ostracized a few years ago for rejecting measles vaccines for religious reasons.

In addition, the specter of a polio resurgence will be used to harangue the growing number of parents who, for whatever reason, have been increasingly deferring vaccination for their children.

In short, it would be naive to expect any breakthroughs in truth-telling from official corners any time soon.

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All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

Wherever you look in the world today, governance is failing and governments are falling. And even where governments hold-on, premiers, prime ministers, presidents and parliamentarians tumble around them; disgraced and exposed for one seedy scandal after another.

Be it money, sex, fraud, despotism, embezzlement or quite simply a pandemic of lies. It barely matters, over and over again the inimitable lust for power takes precedence over the responsibility to earn the trust of the nation.

So widespread has this ‘failure to govern’ epidemic become that one is justified in asking whether the electoral system – which supposedly underlies ‘democracy’ – has any merit left in it at all?

Well, you might say “It’s not the system it’s the quality of the candidates that’s the problem.” And clearly that is a big problem, as evidenced by the pandemic of failure to deliver.

But isn’t there something wrong with expecting unaware, uninvolved and unsuspecting members of the general public to choose who should lead their countries? Isn’t this a receipt for chaos and corruption?

Yes, quite obviously it is. By and large, whoever is chosen to take on this leadership role turns out to be a mirror of the mentality which put them there.

This seems to come as a shock to most. The electorate appears to want someone on the platform who miraculously rises above their own moral, intellectual and visionary shortcomings. They want a bold, brave and bright Moses figure to lead them out of the desert of their daily afflictions, which, they believe, must have been caused by the previous ‘useless leaders’ they had such unreasonable hopes for.

So the merry-go-round continues. Each time getting more surreal and more systemic in its inability to address the real needs of the country, its people, or any fundamental sense of direction and purpose.

Here we are.

But the laws of the universe strongly suggest that anything which becomes fundamentally incapable of evolving into something better, but lingers on in a state of abject sterility, lands up in – or as – a black hole. An inwardly collapsing gravitational graveyard.

The only way such an outcome can be circumvented, here on earth, is by many people becoming individually aware enough to take back control of their destinies; while recognising that – together – they can run their lives according to another formula.

We are all faced with this choice, never more starkly than today.  Either get sucked into the black hole which awaits all those who do nothing/take no action – or – form aware, decentralised, autonomous groups with the determination to act as a responsible governing body at the neighbourhood and community level.

The key words are ‘aware’ and ‘responsible’. Without awareness no action can serve the cause of breaking free. Without accepting a level of responsibility, no action can become reality.

What exactly is this ‘awareness’ I refer to?

Quite simply, it is a condition in which recognition of the endemic levels of falsity and deception in society – and particularly in the political sphere – lead to the realisation that one must stop mindlessly obeying authoritarian voices of destruction and take action to establish a better and more just way of life.

You see, this is where so many submit to the coward within. Instead of following their heart led instincts to rebel, they submit to their ‘false intellect’ whose judgement is always “that’s not possible because we can never be more powerful than ‘them’.”

So Mr and Mrs X, who have moaned almost ceaselessly about the corruption and inept performance of those they elected (or didn’t) into office, take the standard position that in spite of witnessing their elected representatives being incapable of dispensing justice and common sense, the only thing to do is wait for the next election and once again try to get their candidate/party into office. This is, let us not mince our words, a direct route to the black hole.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, there will not be another ‘election’. This sham is over. The entire tragic-comedy has already imploded. If you think in terms of ‘democracy’ and ‘governance according to the will of the people’, the unaware can’t, or won’t, believe that this ship has sunk to the bottom and cannot be salvaged.

But for the aware, it’s no longer about choices. We must take the tiller and face the music.

It’s not a lullaby or a sonata, but a hand to hand grappling with those who want to destroy us. Which, in some cases, includes those indoctrinated ones who live amongst us and follow orders. Orders that emanate from such devious old hands as Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum and his fellow henchmen. Orders that are passed-on and repeated by the brain frozen bureaucrats and technocrats whose jobs depend upon being proper robots.

There are no more bona fide ‘governments’ in existence in this world. Just a facade of fake interest directed towards those who put the elected members on their pedestals.

While these members, enjoying their apotheosis of parliamentary power, have their minds only on the next election, defection or rejection. That’s called ‘government’.

While that stuff will no doubt continue to be played-out on the world stage for a while longer, it is simply a facade for our distraction.

This planet is the territory of ‘The Great Reset’ now. An instrument for enforcing what is euphemistically called ‘net zero’. 

What kind of gibberish is ‘net zero’? Does it mean anything?

No, actually it doesn’t. It is simply the reductionist algorithm (Al-Gore-rythm) and digital way of getting around having to say ‘zero carbon’. Because ‘zero carbon’ has been exposed as meaning ‘zero CO2’. And ‘zero CO2’ means zero life on Earth. The black hole.

Yes, under Herr Klaus Schwab’s Fourth Reich, we will be disposable.

Since, in some circles, it has been known for years that depopulation and the reprogramming of those that remain, is the true meaning of the two words ‘Great Reset’. And ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’ is nothing less than the techno-binary control mechanism for the digitalisation and robotisation of human kind.

The ‘Transhuman’.

For the aware, the time for debate about the nature of what lies ahead, is passed.

The aware are ‘The Resistance’.

‘The Resistance’ is a four dimensional energetic force, operating on physical, mental, psychic and spiritual planes. It encompasses a rising consciousness and capacity for universal vision and action.

The enemy of mankind operates on just two/three dimensional planes. It lacks any warmth or empathy. It is devoid of spirituality. It is coldly wedded to the material world and deeply fears the manifestation of spirit and human courage. It knows not love at all. But does know ‘how to smile’.

‘The Resistance’ is the new government. It will not need to be elected, it will simply come to be.

It is already apparent – and is growing. It is you and I, God and the future of Life on Earth.

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Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher. Julian’s acclaimed book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is vital reading for this time:  http://julianrose.info/. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from American Friends Service Committee