Global Research

Vaccines Are the New ‘Purity Test’

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, April 06 2021

As predicted last year, vaccine passports are being rolled out across the world, including the U.S. As reported by Ron Paul in his Liberty Report,1,2 which streamed live March 29, 2021, the Biden Administration is “seriously looking into establishing some kind of federal vaccine passport system.

Rwanda: Installing a US Protectorate in Central Africa

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 06 2021

From the outset of the Rwandan civil war in 1990, Washington’s hidden agenda consisted in establishing an American sphere of influence in a region historically dominated by France and Belgium. America’s design was to displace France by supporting the Rwandan Patriotic Front and by arming and equipping its military arm, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA)

Video: Myanmar: US-backed Opposition Is Armed

By Brian Berletic, April 06 2021

After weeks of denying the violence carried out by US-backed opposition groups in Myanmar, US-funded propaganda outlets like “Myanmar Now” are finally admitting and making excuses for the opposition fighting government security forces with war weapons.

A Fresh Voice Debunking Disinformation on Syria with Real Eyewitness Testimonies and a Genuine Anti-Hegemonic Context

By Dr. Ibrahim Alloush, April 06 2021

Moving back and forth between personal eyewitness testimonies and a broader objective contextualization of the Syrian conflict, “Voices from Syria” debunks disinformation about Syria with primary personal accounts, evidence, documentation, common sense, and sheer reason.

Human Rights for Children: Saving Children from COVID Measures Abuses

By Peter Koenig, April 06 2021

Children’s mask wearing (as well as for senior adults) causes chronic headaches and fatigue, because blood and brain receive insufficient oxygen which may lead to lasting damage, including memory loss. Children suffer psychological traumas. Depression and suicide rates increase exponentially.

COVID-19: Pandemic? Or Cult?

By Michael J. Talmo, April 06 2021

For the overwhelming majority of people, COVID-19 is a religion. On faith, they blindly accept that SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19. On faith they believe that COVID-19 PCR, antigen and antibody tests are accurate.

Why Is the Biden Administration Pushing Ukraine to Attack Russia?

By Rep. Ron Paul, April 06 2021

On March 24th, Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky signed what was essentially a declaration of war on Russia. In the document, titled Presidential Decree No. 117/2021, the US-backed Ukrainian leader declared that it is the official policy of Ukraine to take back Crimea from Russia.

Goodbye War on Terror, Hello Permanent Pandemic

By Children’s Health Defense, April 06 2021

Those in positions of power have long recognized that conditions of fear and panic furnish exploitable opportunities to restructure society. COVID-19 is certainly a textbook example of this observation, illustrating that well-tuned fear campaigns can persuade many people to abandon essential medical and individual freedoms.

UK Government Has Planned for Vaccine Passports All Along

By Steve Watson, April 06 2021

Despite consistently denying it, the UK government has planned for the rollout of vaccine passports all along, prompting charges that the “Covid passes are shrouded in government cover ups, lies and shady contracts.”

The Agri-Food Model, Unregulated Gene Editing Technologies

By Colin Todhunter, April 06 2021

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and an assortment of high-profile figures and policy makers are pushing for unregulated gene-editing technologies, the rollout of bio-synthetic food created in laboratories, the expanded use of patented seeds and the roll back of subsidies and support for farmers in places like India.

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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Starting on 7 April 1994, in less than three months, nearly one million Rwandans – the exact figure has not yet been determined – were exterminated because they were (or supposed to be) Tutsis. Tens of thousands of moderate Hutus were also slaughtered. This was indeed a genocide, that is, the deliberate destruction of an entire community through mass murder in the aim of preventing their biological and social reproduction.

In this context, it is crucial to investigate the role played by international financial institutions. Everything we know leads us to believe that the policies imposed by these institutions, the main financial backers of General Juvénal Habyarimana’s dictatorial regime accelerated the process resulting in the genocide. In general, the negative impact of these policies is not taken into consideration to explain the tragic unfolding of the Rwandan crisis. Only a few authors highlight the responsibilities of the Bretton Woods institutions [1], which have rejected any kind of responsibility.

At the beginning of the 1980s, when the debt crisis exploded in the Third World, Rwanda (like its neighbour Burundi) had very little debt. Whereas in other parts of the world, the World Bank and IMF were abandoning their go-go loan policy and preaching abstinence, they adopted a very different attitude with respect to Rwanda to which they granted major loans. Between 1976 and 1994, there was a twenty-fold increase in Rwanda’s external debt. In 1976, it amounted to $49 million, while it was nearly $1 billion in 1994, increasing especially rapidly as of 1982. Its principal creditors were the IFIs or International Financial Institutions — the World Bank, the IMF, and similar institutions, and the WB and the IMF played the most active role in this debt process. In 1995, IFIs held 84% of Rwanda’s external debt.

The dictatorship in place since 1973 guaranteed that there would be no progressive structural changes in the country. That explains why it was actively supported by Western powers such as Belgium, France, and Switzerland. In addition, it could be a rampart against the countries in the region that were still mulling over thoughts of independence and progressive change (for instance, neighbouring Tanzania where there was the progressive President Julius Nyerere, one of the African leaders in the Non-Aligned Movement).

Image on the right: The massacre at Nyarabuye took place in the grounds of a Catholic Church and school. Hundreds of Tutsis, including many children, were slaughtered at close range, Rwanda, 1994.

Throughout the 1980s and up until 1994, Rwanda received many loans, but the dictator Habyarimana embezzled much of them. The loans granted were supposed to be used to better integrate Rwanda’s economy into the world economy by developing its capacities to export coffee, tea, and tin (its three main export products), which was detrimental to the crops cultivated there to satisfy local needs. This model worked until the middle of the 1980s, when the price of tin, then that of coffee, and finally tea, collapsed. Rwanda, for which coffee was the main source of hard currency, was hit hard by the breaking up of the coffee cartel at the beginning of the 1990s by the United States.

Using international loans to prepare for the genocide

Only a few weeks before the Patriotic Front of Rwanda launched its offensive in October 1990, the government of Rwanda signed an agreement with the IMF and the WB in Washington to implement structural adjustment measures.

When they were implemented in November 1990, the Rwandan currency dropped by 67%. By way of compensation, the IMF granted strong currency loans for quick disbursement so that the country could keep importing goods. The funds were used to artificially improve the balance of payments. The prices of imported goods skyrocketed: for instance, the price of petrol went up by 79%. Selling imported goods on the domestic market made it possible for the government to pay the army’s wages, and the number of recruits increased in staggering proportions. The structural adjustment measures included a decrease in public spending, wages were frozen, and there were massive layoffs in the civil service, but part of the savings were used for the army.

Whereas the prices of imported goods increased, the price at which producers could sell coffee was frozen, as imposed by the IMF. As a result, hundreds of thousands of small coffee producers went bankrupt [2], and together with the most deprived layers of city dwellers they became a permanent supply of soldiers for Interahamwe and army recruiters.

The following measures were among the ones the WB and IMF imposed in Rwanda: an increase in consumption taxes and a decrease in corporate taxes, an increase in direct taxes on low-income families through a reduction of fiscal advantages for large families, and restrictions on credit facilities to farmers.

To account for its use of loans from the IMF/WB, Rwanda was allowed to submit old invoices for imported goods. This practice made it possible for the government to pay for the massive purchase of weapons intended for the genocide. Military expenses increased three-fold between 1990 and 1992 [3]. Over this period of time, the WB and the IMF sent out several missions of experts, who highlighted the positive consequences of the austerity policies enforced by Habyarimana, yet threatened to discontinue payments if military expenses increased further.

The Rwandan government then used various ploys to conceal military expenses: Lorries bought for the army were accounted for in the budget of the transport ministry, a significant portion of the petrol used in the army or militia vehicles was part of the budget for the ministry of health. The WB and the IMF eventually stopped providing financial support in early 1993, but they did not expose the existence of bank accounts the Rwandan government had in foreign banks on which there were substantial amounts of money still available to buy more weapons. It can be said that they failed in their duty to control the use of the funds loaned. They should have stopped their loans in early 1992 when they learned the money was being used to buy weapons. They should have warned the UN at once. As they went on supplying support until 1993, they helped a government that was preparing a genocide. As early as 1991, human rights organisations had tried to draw international attention to the massacres that paved the way for the genocide. The World Bank and the IMF systematically supported a dictatorial regime, with the help of the US, France, and Belgium.

Exacerbated social contradictions

For the genocidal project to be achieved, more than just a government was needed to devise it and acquire the necessary tools; the people also had to be impoverished and driven to a level of desperation at which they were ready to do anything. 90% of the population in Rwanda was living in the countryside, and 20% of farm families owned an acre or less. From 1982 to 1994, most of the farming population fell into poverty, while a few others at the other end of the social spectrum were accumulating a huge amount of wealth. Professor Jef Maton states that in 1982 the richest 10% of the population made 20% of rural income; in 1992 they had grabbed 41%, in 1993 45%, and in early 1994 51% [4]. The disastrous social consequences of the IMF and WB enforced policies combined with the plummeting price of coffee (itself a consequence of policies applied by the Bretton Woods institutions, and the US doing away with the cartel of coffee producers at that time) played a key role in the Rwanda crisis. Habyarimana’s regime exploited the widespread social discontent to carry out the genocide.

The genocide’s financiers

Betwen 1990 and 1994, Rwanda’s main arms suppliers were France, Belgium, South Africa, Egypt and China. China also provided 500,000 machetes. Egypt – whose joint minister of Foreign Affairs, responsible for relations with the African continent, was none other than Boutros Boutros-Ghali – granted Rwanda a 6 million-dollar interest-free loan in 1991 to purchase arms for its infantry divisions. When the genocide got under way, France and the British firm Mil-Tec provided arms to the rampaging army via the Goma airport across the border in Zaire – violating the 11 May 1994 UN embargo on arms sales to Rwanda (Toussaint, 1996b). Once the Rwandan capital, Kigali, had been overrun by the opposition FPR, a certain number of the key leaders of the genocide were received by the French president. Rwandan leaders-in-exile set up the head office of the Banque Nationale du Rwanda in Goma, with the help of the French army. Until August 1994, the Banque disbursed funds to repay debts for previous arms purchases and to buy new arms. Private banks (Belgolaise, Générale de Banque, BNP, Dresdner Bank, among others) accepted payment orders from those responsible for the genocide and repaid those who financed the genocide.

Rwanda after the genocide

After the fall of the dictatorship in July 1994, the World Bank and the IMF demanded that the new Rwandan government limit the number of public-sector employees to 50% of the number agreed upon before the genocide. The new government complied.

Initial financial assistance provided by the USA and Belgium in late 1994 went towards repaying the Habyarimana regime’s debt arrears with the World Bank. Financial aid from the West has been barely trickling into the country since then, despite the urgent need to rebuild the country, and provide for the more than 800,000 refugees on its soil since November 1996.

According to David Woodward’s report for Oxfam, agricultural production did recover somewhat in 1996. However, it was 38% lower than usual first harvests and 28% lower than usual second harvests. Industry was taking longer to recover: only 54 out of 88 industrial concerns in operation before April 1994 had resumed activity; most were operating well below previous levels. At the end of 1995, the total value of industrial production was 47% of its 1990 levels.

A 20% wage increase in the public sector in January 1996 was the first such rise since 1981; official estimates, however, are that 80% of public-sector workers live below the poverty line. It comes as no surprise that Rwandans prefer to work in NGOs as drivers and cooks rather than in the public sector. These poverty statistics are not peculiar to the public sector: in 1996, the World Bank estimated that 85 to 95% of Rwandans lived below the threshold of absolute poverty.

It should be noted that there has been a significant increase in the number of households run by women: from 21.7% before the genocide to 29.3% now, with peaks of 40% in some districts. Their situation is particularly disturbing in view of the profound discrimination against women in such matters as inheritance, access to credit and property rights. Even before the genocide, 35% of women heads of households earned less than 5,000 Rwandan francs (17 dollars) per month; the corresponding figure for men was 22%.

In spite of a high rate of adoption of orphans (from the genocide and AIDS deaths), there are between 95,000 and 150,000 children without families.

In the education system, only 65% of children are enrolled in primary schools; and no more than 8% in secondary schools (Woodward, 1996).

In 1994, Rwanda’s foreign debt had reached nearly one billion dollars, the totality of which had been contracted by the Habyarimana regime. Five years later, the debt had increased by about 30% and Rwanda repaid 31 million dollars (figures for 1999).

The debt contracted before 1994 fits the definition of “odious debt” perfectly: it follows that the new regime should have been totally exonerated from paying it off. The multilateral and bilateral creditors knew very well who they were dealing with when they lent money to Habyarimana’s regime. After the change of regime, there was not the slightest justification for transferring their claims onto the new Rwanda. Nevertheless, it was done quite shamelessly.

The new Rwandan government that came into power in 1994 tried to persuade the WB and the IMF to renounce their loans. The two institutions refused, threatening to cut off funding if Kigali persisted. They put pressure on Kigali to keep quiet about the aid they had provided to the Habyarimana regime, in exchange for new loans and a promise of future debt cancellation as part of the initiative in favour of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC), launched in 1996.

One can only deplore that the government should have accepted such blackmail. The consequences are pernicious: continued structural adjustment, with its disastrous social and economic consequences, and an increase in foreign debt. In complying, the government of Kigali has gained “good pupil” status in the eyes of the IMF, the WB and the Paris Club. Worse still, the Rwandan regime has become the accomplice of the USA and Great Britain whose policy is to weaken the Democratic Republic of Congo, by taking part, as of August 1998, in the military occupation of its neighbour, the DRC, and by plundering its natural resources.

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Interview with Eric Toussaint, spokesperson and co-founder of the international network of the Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM). Interview by Benjamin Lemoine

Debt audits: an abortive precedent – the examples of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo

What were the first testing grounds of the CADTM method for countering illegitimate debt?

That should be put in the context of the convergence between the CADTM and various movements active in France and elsewhere. The CADTM was very much involved, for example, in solidarity with the neo-Zapatista movement, which appeared publicly on 1 January, 1994 in Chiapas (Mexico), and we travelled to Mexico several times. The CADTM also participated as a co-organiser of the big mobilisation of October 1994 in Spain against the meeting the World Bank and the IMF held to celebrate their half-century of existence. That action was part of the worldwide “Fifty years, it’s enough” campaign. As for the contacts in France, I mentioned the LCR, the “Ca suffat comme ci” campaign of 1989, and the “Other Voices of the Planet” collective, created in 1996 to organise the counter-G7; to those we need to add AITEC [5] and the CEDETIM [6], led by Gus Massiah [7]. There is also the Survie (Survival) movement, led at that time by François-Xavier Verschave [8], which struggled against France’s domination of Africa and well understood the importance of the issue of debt. Survie had close ties with the CADTM, in part because Survie, like the CADTM, was very active in denouncing the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and “Operation Turquoise,” organized by Mitterrand. In 1995, a delegation from the CADTM went to Rwanda and an international CADTM assembly was held in Brussels with the question of the genocide and the responsibilities of creditors at the core of the program. And, starting in 1996, the CADTM launched the audit of Rwanda’s debt with, at that time, the new regime in Kigali headed by Paul Kagamé still in power. Kagamé wanted to achieve clarity about the debt, and a team of two people who worked closely with the CADTM was set up. Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian, a university professor in Ottawa who often wrote for Le Monde diplomatique, and Pierre Galand, then Secretary of Oxfam in Belgium, went to Kigali and conducted the investigation in close liaison with the CADTM. I talked extensively with them and wrote an article entitled “The Financiers of the Genocide,” which attracted a certain amount of attention [9].

Did that inspire the CADTM’s methodology regarding debt audits?

Yes, even if the experience ended up being frustrating. Not many people know that one of the missions of Operation Turquoise was to get hold of all the documentation of Rwanda’s central bank in Kigali and transfer it all in a container to Goma in the DRC, to prevent the new authorities from getting access to written evidence revealing how strong France’s support for the genocidal regime of Juvénal Habyarimana had been. When Laurent-Désiré Kabila launched his offensive against Mobutu in 1996 from eastern Congo, Kagamé was able to get that container and bring it back to Kigali, and opened the archives, which Michel Chossudovsky and Pierre Galand worked on [10]. 

In other words, they found the “black box”… 

Absolutely, and the French banks’ involvement in financing General Habyarimana’s weapons purchases was clear. Egypt and China were also implicated because they supplied a lot of the machetes, but the French provided the more sophisticated equipment to the genocidal Rwandan army. So originally – and this is an element that reappears in our later experiences – internationalist movements made contact with a head of State, Paul Kagamé, who wanted transparency and who made documentation that usually remains secret available to the experts. Kagamé, with that resource in hand, threatened the USA, France, the World Bank, and the IMF with publicizing the financing of the genocide. Washington and Paris, along with the World Bank and the IMF, all said, in essence: “Don’t spill the beans! In exchange for your silence, we’ll reduce Rwanda’s debt by opening a maximum line of credit at the World Bank and the IMF. We’ll reduce the amount of the repayment, and we’ll pre-finance it with new loans.” And Kagamé played along. It was a very frustrating experience, not only in terms of energy and ethics, but also because of the precedent it would have set. Because before the Habyarimana regime, the level of Rwanda’s debt was very low; the entire debt repayment being demanded of Rwanda was debt contracted by a despotic regime, and so was a typical example of the doctrine of odious debt, somewhat like the debt the DRC faced. 

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, after the overthrow of the dictator Mobutu in 1996-1997, Pierre Galand and I worked in collaboration with the new authorities in Kinshasa (Pierre Galand was the one who maintained the actual contacts) and above all with the social movements. Several Congolese members and sympathisers of the CADTM who had spent 20 years in exile in Belgium had returned to their country after Mobutu’s fall and held posts in Kinshasa [11]. We also had long-standing contact with Jean-Baptiste Sondji, a Congolese former Maoist militant who had become Minister of Health in the Kabila government. 

In these cases, what support or alliances do you look for?

Personally I made an outright priority of relations with social movements (trade unions, small farmers’ organisations, student organizations, etc.) I didn’t have a great deal of trust in the new DRC government, except to some degree Jean Baptiste Sondji as an individual. The issue was to challenge the repayment of the debt that was being demanded of the DRC by regimes and institutions that had supported Mobutu and enabled him to remain in power for over 30 years. Laurent-Désiré Kabila had set up an Office des biens mal acquis (“Office of illicitly acquired property”) and there was a clear link between personal enrichment related to corruption and the country’s indebtedness. And in fact in that also turned out to be a disappointment, because Kabila negotiated a deal with the Swiss bankers at a time when there was the possibility that the DRC could get the Swiss courts to force Swiss bankers who were complicit in Mobutu’s misappropriations to return the money he’d deposited with them. But scandalously, Kabila agreed to a secret transaction with the Swiss bankers and abandoned the legal action that was under way. 

I went to Kinshasa during the summer of 2000 to work with the Congolese social movements and NGOs on the issue of the odious debt the DRC was being required to repay. My book Your Money Or Your Life was very successful in the academic community and among the Congolese Left [12]. In Belgium, the former colonial power, the CADTM had developed a strong campaign for cancellation of the DRC’s odious debt and freezing of the Mobutu clan’s assets in Belgium [13]. We had helped author a brochure common to all NGOs and North/South solidarity organisations active in Belgium demanding cancellation of the DRC’s debts [14]. Along with these activities conducted by the CADTM, organisations in the DRC became members of the international CADTM network (in Kinshasa, the Bakongo area, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi). The lesson to be learned from these attempts to denounce odious debt in Rwanda and in the DRC is that the governments can’t be trusted. Absolute priority has to be given to working with the grass-roots citizens’ organisations, with the social movements and with individuals who are determined not to give up until clarity is achieved and action is taken by the governments.

Translated by Snake Arbusto, Suchandra De Sarkar and Vicki Briault.

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Eric Toussaint is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France. He is the author of Debt System (Haymarket books, Chicago, 2019), Bankocracy (2015); The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man (2014); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago, 2012 (see here), etc.
See his bibliography. He co-authored World debt figures 2015 with Pierre Gottiniaux, Daniel Munevar and Antonio Sanabria (2015); and with Damien Millet Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. He was the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt from April 2015 to November 2015.

Notes

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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As predicted last year, vaccine passports are being rolled out across the world, including the U.S. As reported by Ron Paul in his Liberty Report,^1,2 which streamed live March 29, 2021, the Biden Administration is “seriously looking into establishing some kind of federal vaccine passport system, where Americans who cannot (or will not) prove to the government they have been jabbed with the experimental vaccine will be legally treated as second-class citizens.”

Paul warns that this system “will quickly morph into a copy of China’s ‘social credit’ system, where undesirable behaviors are severely punished.” I’ve been saying the same thing for many months now, and there’s every reason to suspect that this is indeed where we’re headed.

Indeed, listen to Ilana Rachel Daniel’s emotional plea from Jerusalem, Israel, where a “Green Pass” is now required if you want to enter any number of public venues and participate in society.

Daniel, who emigrated from the U.S. to Israel 25 years ago, is a health adviser, activist and information officer for a new political human rights party called Rappeh.

The COVID-19 data simply don’t support the rollout of this kind of draconian measure, as the virus is clearly in decline and has become endemic in most parts of the world. In the absence of a serious, truly massively lethal threat (which COVID-19 isn’t), having to show vaccine papers in order to travel and enter certain social venues is clearly more about imposing top-down government control than actually safeguarding public health.

We’re Looking at the End of Human Liberty in the West

Mandatory vaccine passports will be massively discriminating, and are quite frankly senseless, considering the so-called COVID-19 “vaccines” don’t work like vaccines. They’re designed to lessen symptoms when the inoculated person gets infected, but they do not actually prevent them from getting infected in the first place, and they don’t prevent the spread of the virus.

As such, vaccine passports are nothing but loyalty cards, proving you’ve submitted to being a lab rat for an experimental injection and nothing more, because in reality, vaccinated individuals are no safer than unvaccinated ones. It’s a truly mindboggling ruse, and unless enough people are able to see it for what it is, the world will rather literally be turned into a prison planet.

As noted by former Clinton adviser and author Naomi Wolf (whom I hope to interview in the near future), mandatory COVID-19 passports would spell the “end of human liberty in the West.” In a March 28, 2021, interview with Fox News’ Steve Hilton, she said:^3,4

“‘Vaccine passport’ sounds like a fine thing if you don’t understand what those platforms can do. I’m [the] CEO of a tech company, I understand what these platforms can do. It is not about the vaccine, it’s not about the virus, it’s about your data.

Once this rolls out, you don’t have a choice about being part of the system. What people have to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all. It can be merged with your Paypal account, with your digital currency. Microsoft is already talking about merging it with payment plans.

Your network can be sucked up. It geolocates you everywhere you go. You credit history can be included. All of your medical and health history can be included.

This has already happened in Israel, and six months later, we’re hearing from activists that it’s a two-tiered society and that basically, activists are ostracized and surveilled continually. It is the end of civil society, and they are trying to roll it out around the world.

It is absolutely so much more than a vaccine pass … I cannot stress enough that it has the power to turn off your life, or to turn on your life, to let you engage in society or be marginalized.”

Largest Medical Experiment in the History of the World

As noted by Donald Rucker, who led the Trump Administration’s health IT office, the individual tracking that goes along with the vaccine passport will also help officials to evaluate the effectiveness and long-term safety of the vaccines. He told The Washington Post:⁵

“The tracking of vaccinations is not just simply for vaccine passports. The tracking of vaccinations is a broader issue of ‘we’re giving a novel biologic agent to the entire country,’ more or less.”

In other words, health officials know full well that this mass vaccination campaign is a roll of the dice. It’s the largest medical experiment in the history of the world, and vaccine certificates will allow them to track all of the millions of test subjects. This alone should be cause enough to end all discussions about vaccine mandates, yet the experimental nature of these injections is being completely ignored.

Again, by shaming people who have concerns about participating in a medical experiment and threatening to bar them from society, government officials are proving that this is not for the greater good. It’s not about public health. It’s about creating loyal subjects — people who are literally willing to sacrifice their life and the life of their children at the request of the government, no questions asked.

Vaccinations Are the New ‘Purity Test’

Wolf also points out the horrific history of IBM, which developed a similar but less sophisticated system of punch cards that allowed Nazi Germany to create a two-tier society and ultimately facilitated the rounding up of Jews for extermination. I will be publishing an entire article about this in a couple of days.

Suffice it to say, some of the most gruesome parts of history are now repeating right before our eyes, and we must not turn away from this ugly truth. Doing so may turn out to be far more lethal than COVID-19 ever was.

Watch the video here.

The short video above features a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor who compares mask wearing to, as a Jew, having to wear a yellow star to mark their societal status. However, back then, everyone understood what was happening, she says.

At no point were they lied to and told that wearing the star was for their own good, which is what’s happening now. So, in that respect, the current situation is far more insidious. She says the “hypocrisy in the public narrative,” which claims that we need to wear masks to protect the old, “is absolutely unbearable.” “I would love to die in a state [of] freedom,” she says, “than live like this.”

She adds that at her age, her life expectancy is short, and she would gladly exchange her death for the life and happiness of the next generations. She wants the younger generations to have the freedom “to live their lives, as I have lived mine.” “To see people defile their children with masks is something totally unbearable to me,” she says. Vaccine credentials, in my view, are even more comparable to the Jewish yellow star, but in reverse.

Not having the certificate will be the yellow star of our day, which will allow business owners, government officials and just about anyone else, to treat you like a second-class citizen and deny you access to everything from education, work and travel, to recreation, social engagements and daily commerce — all under the false guise of you being a biological threat to all those who have been vaccinated.

According to the public narrative, vaccine certificates are a key aspect of getting life back to normal, but the reality is the complete converse, as they will usher in a markedly different society that is anything but normal.

Florida Bucks the Trend

As a resident of Florida, I must applaud Gov. Ron DeSantis who announced March 29, 2021,⁶ he will issue an executive order forbidding local governments and businesses from requiring vaccine certificates. He’s further calling on the state legislature to create a measure that will allow him to sign it into law.

“It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply participate in normal society,” he said.

States and countries that do decide on such a requirement are also bound to face the problem of black market vaccination certificates, which have already started emerging.^7,8

As reported by the Daily Beast,^9,10 a number of health care workers have been caught bragging about forging vaccination cards on their social media channels. Apparently, they have not yet realized the public nature of the internet, but that’s beside the point.

In Florida, a man working at a web design company was fired after posting a TikTok video advertising fake vaccine cards,¹¹ and in Israel, where the two-tier society is already forming, a man was recently arrested for making and selling forged COVID-19 vaccination certificates, which are now required for entry into restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels, swimming pools and other public venues throughout the country.¹²

Around the world, people are also being arrested for administering fake vaccines^{13,14,15,16,17} and selling bogus COVID-19 tests.^18,19

Eugenics and Hygiene Obsessions

While it’s often considered bad policy to compare anything to the Nazi regime, the comparisons are growing more readily identifiable by the day, which makes them hard to avoid.

Aside from the parallels that can be drawn between mask wearing and/or vaccine “papers” and the Jewish yellow star, there’s the Nazi’s four-step process for dehumanizing the Jews,²⁰ — prejudice, scapegoating, discrimination and persecution — a process that indoctrinated the German people into agreeing with, or at least going along with the plan to commit genocide.

In present day, the public narrative is not only building prejudice against people who refuse to wear masks or get an experimental vaccine, but is also using healthy people as scapegoats from the very beginning, blaming the spread of the virus on asymptomatically infected people.

With the rollout of vaccine certificates, we are stepping firmly into discrimination territory. The last step will entail persecution of non-vaccinated individuals. This in and of itself also harkens back to the Nazi regime, which was obsessed with “health guidelines” that eventually led to the mass-purging of “unclean” Jews. As reported by Gina Florio in a December 2020 Evie Magazine article:²¹

“When Hitler first came to power in Nazi Germany, he kicked off a series of public health schemes. He started by setting up health screenings all over the country, sending vans around to every neighborhood to conduct tuberculosis testing, etc.

Next up was factory cleanliness — he launched a robust campaign encouraging factories to completely revamp their space, thoroughly clean every corner … After the factories, the next mission was cleaning up the asylums …

What started as seemingly innocent or well-meaning public health campaigns quickly spiraled into an extermination of races and groups of people who were considered dirty or disgusting. In short, the beginning of Hitler’s reign was a constant expansion of who was contaminated and who was impure …

We’re seeing an obsession with covering our faces all the time so we don’t spread disease or deadly germs; most public places we walk into won’t even allow us to enter without slathering our hands in hand sanitizer; and people act terrified of someone who isn’t wearing a mask.

Nobody can say with a straight face that this is normal behavior … We’re even seeing people advocate for some kind of tracking device to show that a person is vaccinated or ‘clean’ enough to enter a venue … Let’s hope we can all learn the lessons from the past and we don’t witness history repeat itself.”

History Is Repeating Itself

Indeed, everyone calling for vaccine certificates — which became part of the public narrative early on in the pandemic — is guilty of following in the well-worn footsteps of this infamous dictator, repeating the very same patterns that were universally condemned after the fall of the Third Reich.

Highlighting them all would be too great a task for one article, so two glaring examples will have to suffice. In December 2020, Andrew Yang, an entrepreneurial attorney with political ambitions, tweeted the following:²²

“Is there a way for someone to easily show that they have been vaccinated — like a bar code they can download to their phone? There ought to be … Tough to have mass gatherings like concerts or ballgames without either mass adoption of the vaccine or a means of signaling.”

Signaling what, if not your “unclean” biohazard state? In his March 2021 Tweet, law professor, political commentator and former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Harry Litman, was more direct about the ill intent behind vaccine certificates, saying:²³

“Vaccine passports are a good idea. Among other things, it will single out the still large contingent of people who refuse vaccines, who will be foreclosed from doing a lot of things their peers can do. That should help break the resistance down.”

Comments like these demonstrate that vaccine passports are about creating justification for segregation, discrimination and elimination of certain groups of people, in this case, people who don’t want to be part of the experimental vaccine program.

The justification is that they’re too “unclean,” too “unsafe” to freely participate in public society and must therefore be identified and shut out. In reality, it’s really about identifying the noncompliant.

During the Nazi reign, those slated for segregation, discrimination and elimination were identified by their affiliation with Judaism (there’s controversy as to whether Jewishness is an issue of race, ethnicity, religion, national identity or familial bonds, which you can learn more about on JewInTheCity.com,²⁴ but all were relevant criteria in the Nazi’s hunt for Jews).

Today, the global elimination strategy foregoes such identities, and focuses instead on identifying who will go along with the program and who will be a noncompliant troublemaker.

In short, vaccine passports are a device to identify who the loyal subjects of the unelected elite are, and who aren’t. Those unwilling to enter the new world of technocratic rule without a fuss are the ones that need to be eliminated, and willingness to be a test subject for an unproven experimental treatment is the litmus test. It’s really not more complicated than that.

This is essentially the conclusion drawn by Mike Whitney as well, detailed in a recent article²⁵posted on The Unz Review. I would encourage you to read the entire article as it succinctly summarizes the reasons behind the current censorship. I’ve reached out to Whitney and hope to be able to interview him about this in the near future.

In his article, he points out that behavioral psychologists have been employed by the government to promote the COVID-19 vaccination campaign and maximize vaccine uptake. They also have a “rapid response team” in place to attack the opinions of those who question the “official narrative.”

Mike also highlights a National Institutes of Health report²⁶ titled, “COVID-19 Vaccination Communication: Applying Behavioral and Social Science to Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Foster Vaccine Confidence,” which lays out the intent to turn vaccine refusers into social outcasts as a tool to coerce compliance.

“This is very scary stuff,” Whitney writes.²⁷ “Agents of the state now identify critics of the COVID vaccine as their mortal enemies. How did we get here? And how did we get to the point where the government is targeting people who don’t agree with them? This is way beyond Orwell. We have entered some creepy alternate universe …

If behavioral psychologists helped to shape the government’s strategy on mass vaccination, then in what other policies were they involved? Were these the ‘professionals’ who conjured up the pandemic restrictions?

Were the masks, the social distancing and the lockdowns all promoted by ‘experts’ as a way to undermine normal human relations and inflict the maximum psychological pain on the American people?

Was the intention to create a weak and submissive population that would willingly accept the dismantling of democratic institutions, the dramatic restructuring of the economy, and the imposition of a new political order? These questions need to be answered …

Vaccination looks to be the defining issue of the next few years at least. And those who resist the edicts of the state will increasingly find themselves on the outside; outcasts in their own country.”

Will You Obey?

As detailed in “Will You Obey the Criminal Authoritarians?” the 1962 Milgram Experiment (embedded above for your convenience), tested the limits of human obedience to authority, proving most people will simply follow orders, even when those orders go against their own sound judgment. They’ll commit atrocious acts of violence against others simply because they were told it’s OK by an authority figure.

We’ve already seen examples of this during the past year’s mask mandates. Suddenly, people felt empowered to verbally harass, pepper spray and physically attack others simply for not wearing a mask. Families were kicked off planes because their toddlers wouldn’t wear a mask. People were even shot for the grievous “crime” of not wearing a mask.

If those things were allowed to happen over mask wearing, one can only imagine what will be tolerated, if not encouraged, when vaccine certificates take full effect. The most obvious answer is to take a firm stand against devolution into inhumanity, regardless of whether you think COVID-19 vaccinations are a good idea or not. The question is, will you? In many ways, the months and years ahead will test the ethics and humanity of every single one of us.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) recently posted more than 50 video presentations from the pay-for-view Fifth International Public Conference on Vaccination held online October 16 to 18, 2020, and made them available to everyone for free.

The conference’s theme was “Protecting Health and Autonomy in the 21st Century” and it featured physicians, scientists and other health professionals, human rights activists, faith community leaders, constitutional and civil rights attorneys, authors and parents of vaccine injured children talking about vaccine science, policy, law and ethics and infectious diseases, including coronavirus and COVID-19 vaccines.

In December 2020, a U.K. company published false and misleading information about NVIC and its conference, which prompted NVIC to open up the whole conference for free viewing. The conference has everything you need to educate yourself and protect your personal freedoms and liberties with respect to your health.

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity. I was a speaker at this empowering conference and urge you to watch these video presentations before they’re censored and taken away by the technocratic elite.

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Notes

¹ YouTube Ron Paul Liberty Report March 29, 2021

² The Verge March 29, 2021

³ Real Clear Politics March 29, 2021

⁴ The Epoch Times March 29, 2021

⁵ Washington Post March 28, 2021 (Archived)

⁶ Bay News 9 March 29, 2021

⁷ France 24 February 2, 2021

⁸ Info Security February 10, 2021

⁹ Daily Beast March 29, 2021

¹⁰ Daily Beast March 29, 2021 (Archived)

¹¹ Yahoo News March 29, 2021

¹² Jerusalem Post March 22, 2021

¹³ Huffington Post January 27, 2021

¹⁴ Fox 22 March 27, 2021

¹⁵ BBC News February 16, 2021

¹⁶ Hindustan Times September 26, 2020

¹⁷ Metro UK January 15, 2021

¹⁸ MSN November 6, 2020

¹⁹ ABC News December 7, 2020

²⁰ BahaiTeachings Hitler’s Four-Step Process for Dehumanizing the Jews

²¹ Evie Magazine December 19, 2020

²² Twitter Andrew Yang December 18, 2020

²³ Twitter Dr. Mercola March 29, 2021

²⁴ Jew in the City

^25, 27 The Unz Review March 25, 2021

²⁶ NIH.gov COVID-19 Vaccination Communication: Applying Behavioral and Social Science to Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Foster Vaccine Confidence

Featured image is from Mercola

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Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is highly concerned by a Statistics Canada publication on hate crimes in Canada which referenced claims from a non-rigorous “audit” on antisemitism by the lobby group B’nai Brith Canada. CJPME is concerned that the inclusion of B’nai Brith’s claims in a Statistics Canada publication not only gives undeserved credibility to a flawed methodology, but also inadvertently perpetuates the false notion that protesting Israel’s human rights abuses is equivalent to hate crimes and antisemitic violence.

In its publication “Police-reported hate crime, 2019,” Statistics Canada showed that according to police-reported metrics, hate crimes targeting the Jewish population decreased by 20% in 2019, albeit remaining at an unacceptably high level. However, Statistic Canada contradicted its own conclusion by comparing it with B’nai Brith Canada’s “Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents” for 2019, noting their finding of “a record number of anti-Semitic incidents for the fourth consecutive year.”

CJPME notes that it is highly unusual for Statistics Canada to highlight studies or claims from non-statistical, non-governmental organizations. In fact, B’nai Brith’s “audit” notes up front that it “focuses on antisemitic incidents that both meet, and fall short of, the Criminal Code definition of a hate crime,” thus making its conclusions incomparable with Statistics Canada data. Moreover, although Statistics Canada made it clear that B’nai Brith’s conclusions differed from its own, it did not explain the discrepancy but instead presented B’nai Brith’s conclusions as a potentially credible alternative.

The apparent endorsement by Statistics Canada of B’nai Brith’s “audit” is troubling due to its methodology, which purposefully conflates horrific incidents of antisemitism and white supremacist violence alongside legitimate political expression about Israel and its violations of human rights. Some of the “incidents” in B’nai Brith’s 2019 audit include a “Boycott Israeli Apartheid” sticker positioned next to Israeli products in grocery stores; a politician expressing concern about a Palestinian lawmaker held indefinitely under Israeli administrative detention; federal funding for a “Muslim Voting Guide” which presented a boycott of Israel in a positive light; and a pro-Palestinian protest against a York University event promoting the Israeli Defense Forces. B’nai Brith’s failure to distinguish between cases like these and incidents involving swastikas or racist slurs, for example, makes its conclusions about overall numbers and trends highly suspect.

CJPME notes that prominent Canadian researchers on antisemitism have pointed out the flaws with B’nai Brith’s methodology. In a recent study, Robert Brym (University of Toronto) and Rhonda Lenton (York University) outline a number of reasons to “temper the alarm generated by the B’nai Brith Canada data,” including that they “lump together under the rubric of antisemitism actions that are clearly antisemitic with various types of action that are critical of Israel.” The study further points to survey-based research from eleven Western countries showing a “comparatively low” degree of correlation between those who hold antisemitic views and those who hold anti-Israel attitudes, providing further evidence why these dimensions should not be conflated. For reasons such as these, CJPME believes that B’nai Brith’s audit should not be listed next to rigorous government-produced data on the Statistics Canada Website, and has reached out asking for a correction. CJPME also argues that B’nai Brith’s audit should be treated with significant skepticism, and not given undue credence by reputable government agencies like Statistics Canada.

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Joe Biden lo aveva annunciato nel suo programma elettorale: «Mentre il presidente Trump ha abbandonato alleati e partner, e abdicato alla leadership americana, come presidente farò immediatamente passi per rinnovare le alleanze degli Stati uniti, e far sì che l’America, ancora una volta, guidi il mondo» (il manifesto, 10 novembre 2020). Promessa mantenuta. La portaerei Dwight D. Eisenhower e il suo gruppo di battaglia, composto da 5 unità lanciamissili, hanno «attaccato dal Mediterraneo Orientale postazioni dello Stato Islamico in Siria e Iraq» poiché questo «ha rivendicato un attacco a Palma in Mozambico». Lo comunica ufficialmente la US Navy il 31 marzo, senza spiegare come l’Isis, sconfitto in Siria e altrove soprattutto in seguito all’intervento russo, ricompaia ora minaccioso con sospetta puntualità.

Dopo aver lanciato l’attacco dal Mediterraneo Orientale – area delle Forze navali del Comando Europeo degli Stati uniti, con quartier generale a Napoli-Capodichino – la portaerei Eisenhower ha attraversato il 2 aprile l’appena riaperto Canale di Suez, entrando nell’area del Comando Centrale Usa che comprende il Golfo Persico. Qui si è unita alla portaerei francese Charles de Gaulle che, su richiesta di Washington, ha assunto il 31 marzo il comando della Task Force 50 del Comando Centrale Usa, schierata non contro l’Isis ma in realtà contro l’Iran. Il fatto che Washington abbia chiesto a Parigi di guidare con la sua nave ammiraglia una forza navale Usa rientra nella politica della presidenza Biden, che mantiene comunque il controllo della catena di comando poiché la Task Force 50 dipende dal Comando Centrale Usa.

Lo conferma l’esercitazione Warfighter che, pianificata dall’Esercito Usa, viene effettuata dal 6 al 15 aprile da divisioni statunitensi, francesi e britanniche a Fort Hood e Fort Bliss in Texas, a Fort Bragg in North Carolina, e a Grafenwoehr in Germania. In questa esercitazione, brigate francesi e britanniche operano all’interno di una divisione Usa, mentre brigate Usa operano all’interno di divisioni francesi e britanniche, sempre però secondo il piano Usa. La Warfighter integra la grande esercitazione in corso Defender-Europe 21, che l’Esercito Usa in Europa e Africa effettua fino a giugno insieme ad alleati e partner europei e africani, per dimostrare «la capacità degli Stati uniti di essere partner strategico nei Balcani e nel Mar Nero, nel Caucaso, in Ucraina e Africa».

Partecipa alla Defender-Europe 21 il V Corpo dell’Esercito Usa che, appena riattivato a Fort Knox nel Kentuky, ha costituito il proprio quartier generale avanzato a Poznan in Polonia, da dove comanda le operazioni contro la Russia. Il 31 marzo, su richiesta statunitense, il generale polacco Adam Joks è stato nominato vice-comandante del V Corpo dell’Esercito Usa. «È la prima volta- comunica l’Ambasciata Usa a Varsavia – che un generale polacco entra nella struttura di comando militare degli Stati uniti». In altre parole, il generale Adam Joks continua a far parte dell’esercito polacco ma, quale vice-comandante del V Corpo Usa, dipende ora direttamente dalla catena di comando che fa capo al Presidente degli Stati uniti.

Rientrano nella stessa politica le nuove Brigate di assistenza delle forze di sicurezza, unità speciali dell’Esercito Usa che «organizzano, addestrano, equipaggiano e consigliano forze di sicurezza straniere». Sono impegnate «a sostegno di una legittima autorità di governo» in Medioriente, Asia, Africa, America Latina ed Europa, attualmente nel quadro della Defender-Europe. Esse sono un efficace strumento per lanciare, con la copertura dell’«assistenza», operazioni militari di fatto sotto comando Usa.

Ciò spiega perché, dopo una relativa tregua, il capo di stato maggiore ucraino, Ruslan Khomchak, ha dichiarato il 1° aprile che l’esercito di Kiev «si sta preparando per l’offensiva nell’Ucraina orientale», ossia contro la popolazione russa del Donbass, usando anche «forze di difesa territoriale» (come il reggimento neonazista Azov), e che in tale operazione «è prevista la partecipazione di alleati Nato».

Manlio Dinucci

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Observers are in a passionate debate over what’s really driving the latest Donbass destabilization, with the most prominent hypotheses being either domestic Ukrainian politics or the US’ regional geostrategic ambitions, but the argument can also compellingly be made that the concept of so-called “vaccine nationalism” is playing a largely under-discussed role in events.

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Saudi Arabia is showing genuine concern that Marib could be lost to Ansar Allah, and it is doing all but impossible to defend it.

On April 3^rd, media reported that Riyadh had deployed US-made MIM-104 Patriot air-defense systems to Marib, in an attempt to avoid the most negative scenario.

Since 2015, the Houthis (as Ansar Allah are known) have launched 115 ballistic missiles and 140 rockets at Ma’rib city.

The effectiveness of the Patriot defense batteries is questionable, as they failed to protect any of Aramco’s facilities back in 2019.

Also, on April 3^rd, the Saudi-led coalition announced that it had thwarted an attack attempt by the Houthis with a booby-trapped boat.

The water-borne Improvised Explosive Device was destroyed off the coast of the town of al-Salif in western Yemen. Saudi-led coalition warships have been targeted repeatedly by such devices throughout the 6 years of the war. G_2(A)

The warships are predominantly used to shell al-Hudaydah, as well as other Houthi positions near the coast.

Saudi Arabia, furthermore, continues its heavy airstrike activity, with at least 17 carried out on April 3^rd.

Despite that, the Houthis captured the al-Ahkum area in Hayfan district, southern Yemen. Heavy clashes are continuing in the area near Marib, in the Madghal district.

Meanwhile, in Syria, Russia continues its activities in support of the Damascus government, targeting ISIS terrorists in the central region, as well as the militants in Greater Idlib.

In Central Syria, the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out about 70 airstrikes on ISIS terrorists. At least 15 terrorists were killed in the recent wave of raids.

On April 4^th, Russian forces lost their Orlan-10 drone in Greater Idlib, a few kilometers away from the Turkish border. It reportedly crashed as a result of a technical failure. The wreckage was recovered by the militants. In March, Russia lost a Forpost drone, and previously it lost another Orlan-10 drone back in February.

In Northern Syria, the fighting between Turkey, the factions it supports and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces is continuing.

On April 4^th, a Turkish combat drone targeted a quarry controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in al-Hasakah. A bulldozer was destroyed.

The SDF are currently being targeted both by Ankara, and by ISIS terrorists due to their activities against the interests of both.

There seems to be a lull in heavy hostilities in Syria, but this is more than likely a calm before the coming storm.

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Background

The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights is a postgraduate joint center located in Geneva, Switzerland. The faculty includes professors from both founding institutions and guest professors from major universities. – The Geneva Academy is affiliated with the University of Geneva.

Dr. Nils Melzer has been the Swiss Human Rights Chair (HR Chair) at the Geneva Academy since March 2016. As HR Chair he develops and promotes the Geneva Academy expertise in HR via policy work, cutting-edge research, expert meetings, the development of partnerships and teaching. Since November 2016, Nils Melzer has also been the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.

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Dear Dr. Melzer,

As UN special Rapporteur on Torture, your mandate comprises three main activities:

1) transmitting urgent appeals to States with regard to individuals reported to be at risk of torture, as well as communications on past alleged cases of torture;

2) undertaking fact-finding country visits; and

3) submitting annual reports on activities, the mandate and methods of work to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly.

See this for full description of mandate.

Dr. Melzer, your first mandate as Special Rapporteur on Torture is appealing urgently on States and Nations with regard to individuals that are at risk of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. This is the case with children, being forced to wearing masks, including in class, physical distancing, as well home schooling, out of touch with their friends and colleagues, but forced to be repeatedly covid tested in schools with the hurtful RT-PCT test (RT-PCT = reverse transcription of the polymerase chain reaction). A case in point – though not exclusive – is Switzerland, where cantonal authorities are compelling schools to periodically test children from as young as Kindergarten to pre-college level.

Children’s mask wearing (as well as for senior adults) causes chronic headaches and fatigue, because blood and brain receive insufficient oxygen which may lead to lasting damage, including memory loss. Children suffer psychological traumas. Depression and suicide rates increase exponentially.

At the same time, children are increasingly being coerced via teachers and community authorities to be vaccinated against Covid-19, even though the mRNA-type “vaccines” almost the only so-called vaccines available in Europe and the US, are not officially considered as “vaccines” by CDC, but “experimental gene therapies,” i.e. primarily the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnsons and Johnson and a number of other GAVI-supported COVAX injections, or so-called vaccines.

These so-called vaccines – or rather gene-therapy experimental inoculations – are known to be dangerous, see Doctors for Covid Ethics Rebuttal Letter to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and bear special long-term risks for children.

Dr. Melzer, this is an Urgent Appeal – to save Human Rights for children around the world from cruel and inhuman covid measures applied to them, including to adolescents and young adults, measures that have nothing, but absolutely nothing to do with health protection but everything with oppression towards long-term slavery, and yes, a systematic and massive-style depopulation.

You recently said correctly and wisely “Sadly, today, torture remains a very real part of situations of conflict and violence”. What many of the 193 UN member governments are forcing their children to go through is a form of torture, especially considering their potential – and likely – long-term effects – see again the report of Doctors for Covid Ethics.

You added, that you won’t be able to:

“save the world single-handedly as a Special Rapporteur, …..  that there are hundreds of stakeholders – organizations, NGO’s, UN agencies and individual experts – who have been working on torture issues for decades. [However], a Special Rapporteur’s independence means I can pick up issues that have remained under the radar of the international community, bring them to the table and try to drive cooperation.”

Dear Dr. Melzer, what I described before as cruel and inhuman acts against children, akin to torture, is one of those issues you mentioned. Therefore, my quest today – my Appeal to you, as Human Rights Representative – is to please pick up the issue of Covid-based Human Rights abuses on the world population, but particularly on children.

What the absurd covid measures do to the world is a crime, but what they are doing to children is beyond a crime; it is totally immoral, destructive for our powerless children, and for the future of these children, as well as for society as a whole, as children are our societies’ future. And worse of all, these measures have nothing to do with health protection – but absolutely nothing. They are sheer tyranny to control.

Children behind masks, social distancing, locked-down, remote schooling — deprived from meeting, talking and playing with their peers, friends, instead scaring them into losing their personalities, their self-assurance and self-esteem – results not only in a physical health problem, but also a psychological health issue which over time has untold, uncountable collateral damage, including total submissiveness for today’s children.

Our children are vulnerable – they are our future.

They need their Human Rights defended.

Dear Dr. Melzer – please speak up for them, at the UN, at UNICEF, in front of the 193 UN member governments, which follow all more or less the same insane covid narrative, the same covid Human Rights abuse – and especially the same Human Rights abuse on children.

Thank you.

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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 has worked for over 30 years on water and environment 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)

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

Featured image is from Prachatai/Flickr/cc

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Carrying all of the attributes of a globalized unconventional war to affect “regime-change”, the war on Syria has polarized the regional and international landscape perhaps more than any other conflict since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc three decades ago.  A good part of that polarization still revolves around the “meaning” of a decade of ongoing death, destruction, displacement, and despair in Syria today.   

The narratives of the Syrian War couldn’t have been so diametrically opposed, with an anti-Syrian axis trying to impose, through its omnipotent presence, a self-serving version of events.  Only this concoction of international and regional villains has had a historically proven record of occupation, interventionism, covert operations, and reactionary proclivities.  Therefore, its charade of humanitarianism and liberal rhetoric goes not only against its quintessential grain, but against the very facts on the ground, namely: 1) their active support of terrorist, takfiri, and secessionist groups in Syria, be they local or imported from outside Syria, 2) their imposition of a criminal blockade on Syrians in those parts of the country which are not controlled by terrorist, takfiri, or secessionist mobs, that is, on most of Syria, 3) their pillage and plunder of natural resources in occupied parts of Syria, and 4) their launching of military strikes against the Syrian Arab Army and/or its allies, that is, against the only bulwark standing between terrorist, takfiri, and secessionist hordes on one hand, and Syria on the other.

Image on the right: Dr. Ibrahim Alloush (Source: Mark Taliano)

Moving back and forth between personal eyewitness testimonies and a broader objective contextualization of the Syrian conflict, “Voices from Syria” debunks disinformation about Syria with primary personal accounts, evidence, documentation, common sense, and sheer reason.

While deconstructing the fallacies shrouding the Syria War with lies and innuendos, “Voices from Syria” tells the story of a gruesome case-study of a Fourth Generation Warfare in progress, its mind games, and overlapping theaters of mayhem.  As such, Mark Taliano proceeds agilely to link this particular case-study with two important catalysts without which it cannot possibly be understood: 1) global strategies to subjugate independent states to an overarching matrix of hegemony, i.e., imperialism, 2) the dark forces lurking in the deep recesses of that matrix, i.e., international financial capital, and its links to its facades, and its regional and local proxies, be they state or non-state actors.

So in the end, “Voices from Syria” becomes a case-study of the use of local and foreign terrorists, foreign-financed NGO’s, massive disinformation campaigns, and regional allies in conducting asymmetrical warfare to subdue and tear an independent state asunder, in conjunction with standard tools from the imperialist toolkit like occupation and selective military strikes by the US government and NATO allies.

In terms of literary style, “Voices from Syria” is both personal enough to convey the suffering of the Syrians living through the calamities of the war on their country in their own voices, and general enough to tie that suffering into the wars on Iraq and Libya and the occupation of Palestine, that is, into imperialist designs for the region as a whole.

In the process, Mark Taliano emerges as an unconventional leftist, who uses his analytical tools to explore the topology of real contradictions on the ground, and to pick his side accordingly.  The point, after all, is to be anti-imperialist, if one is to be progressive at all.  Alas, this is precisely the point too often missed by the liberal leftists who end up storefront preachers for imperialism.

Especially in the 21^st Century, pro-imperialists sometimes adopt leftist jargon, and those actually bearing the full brunt of the resistance against imperialist hegemony may sometimes seem too far removed from anything progressive by the standards of Western leftists.  Not being able to discern which stances are effectively anti-imperialist and which are not has been the downfall of too many a leftist.  Mark Taliano is one of the select few who do NOT make that mistake.  He is able to stay open to the nuances of the local culture without preconceived Euro-centric 19^th Century notions.  This enabled him to see the alignment of forces on the ground as they actually are.  Reading reality rigorously is what it is all about.  In this case, “Voices from Syria” presents the reality of the war on Syria better than anything one can find in the mainstream.

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The pdf version of the Second Edition will shortly be available for purchase online at Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

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Hamas has been a strongly maligned actor within the western mainstream media.  The concise and well written “Engaging the World” by Daud Abdullah presents a clear picture of Hamas’ attempts to act as an international state actor while at the same time continuing its role as a liberation movement against Israeli occupation.  It is a very honest work, describing Hamas’ success in presenting a critical pragmatic formulation of its actions for other state actors, at the same time indicating where it has not succeeded, through its own relative political weakness in relation to considerable outside influences.

Starting positions

Above all it is not a polemical work attacking Israel or highlighting the history of Israel transgressions but limits itself strictly to what is indicated in the title.  It examines foreign policy, Hamas’ attempts, successful and otherwise, to present its position to other countries.  Yes, it does indicate its obvious position as considering “Israel in Palestine as a manifestation of European colonialism, acknowledging that the Zionist enterprise in Palestine could never have succeeded without western political and military support.”

Abdullah goes on to indicate that Hamas is “not attempting to establish a religious state or theocracy….it is seeking a civil state with an Islamic framework of reference through which the executive can be held accountable to the people.”  Having identified  those two large encompassing positions,  the book proceeds to examine how Hamas has attempted to be both idealistic and realistic at the same time, a rational actor in its attempts to pursue its relationships with outside political entities.

Much of that is regional as Hamas “sought to avoid involvement in disputes between competing regional alliances” a not easy task when Arab countries tend to have strong internal conflicts and disputes (e.g. Iraq invading Kuwait, Saudi Arabia against Yemen, Qatar et al).  Hamas reaches much farther abroad than its neighbours, engaging with the rest of the world.

Oslo

One position they do not accept – an internal one – is that of the PLO and its armed wing Fatah, considered to have been co opted through the Oslo process and and subsequent manipulation by the western community in its actions as being the enforcement police acting for the Israelis.  The second chapter, “Rejecting the call to Oslo” outlines Hamas initiative to “situate the movement within the framework of international law….to enhance the  international legitimacy of the movement…allowing it to reserve the right to accept or reject proposals or resolutions that did not uphold the rights of the Palestinian people.”

One of the more intriguing incidents is presented in chapter 3, “Opportunities from Marj az Zuhur” something I was vaguely familiar with but obviously had not recognized its importance before reading this section.  This history indicates how significant the PLO – Hamas split was, how the Arab League operated with double standards, how for Israel it was “ill conceived and destined to fail,” but for Hamas it was a turning point that “evoked the solidarity of people across religious and political divides.”

2006 and Gaza

A brief examination of “Relations with the USA” leads directly into another highly significant chapter and a major turning point, “The 2006 elections and the trial of democracy”.  It was this sequence of events which “highlighted all the posturing and pretence involved in the U.S. portrayal of itself as a champion of democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere.”

Abdullah recognizes that for “failing to see and avoid the trap that was set for them…both organizations [Hamas and the PLO] are responsible.”  However at the same time, Hamas’ position was strengthened “because its political leaders were seen as competent, open, untarnished by corruption and unwilling to compromise their ideals.” Since then, Israel has militarily attacked the Gaza enclave three times against all standards of humanitarian and war law.

Beyond…

The rest of the record examines Hamas’ relationships with the European Union, the global south, Russia, and China, all a mixture of successes and resistance. It ends with an interesting account of Hamas’ interactions with the government of Syria and other Syrian leaders during the protests and civil war in Syria.  Syria had been one of the strongest supporters of Hamas but the difficult situation in Syria proved too difficult for Hamas to negotiate its way through.  It was viewed as “an internal problem” that hopefully “no foreign powers would have an excuse to interfere in their internal affairs.”

Contentions

Perhaps, as with most historical accounts, current events do not fit well within most people’s perspectives.  There are two points, both intersecting with the U.S. and its allies, that fit within this possibly ‘too close for a good view’ perspective.  First is the apparent view that Syria’s problems were internal – yes, they were, but they were also seriously aggravated by U.S. interference along with its regional allies, notably Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and of course Israel.  It is noted that “A bloody civil war ensued.”  And again, yes it did, but highly influenced, highly interfered with by the just mentioned adversaries to the Assad government.

The second item I have difficulty with is the argument that “Although the right to armed struggle is upheld in UN Resolutions 2955 and 3034 of December 1972, the stronger trend in contemporary relations is for disputes to be resolved peacefully.”   The counterpoint to this is a simple examination of U.S. foreign policy, its use of extremist forces to do much of their work, to use both covert and overt actions to influence and overthrow a wide variety of non-obliging governments, and the current use of economic sanctions to strangle the economy of whatever country they deem offensive to their privileges.

Conclusion

Neither of these two points refutes the overall position of Hamas – it means that perhaps in another few years, these events may take on a different meaning.  In the closing Abdullah acknowledges that internal weaknesses need to be addressed, and “Ultimately, the greatest losses from the rift have accrued neither to Hamas nor Fatah but to the Palestinian national project.”

For the future, Abdullah recognizes that Hamas may have to face “realities on the ground” that may affect their favoured policy of non-alignment on the international scene.   He recognizes that “Palestine…no longer seems to be a central issue for many regional governments,” while at the same time “Palestine remains one of the great moral and political issues of our time; it unites people everywhere.”

He sees that the “international community moves towards a multipolar world”, an indicator that both my contention about U.S. foreign policy and the need for a political realignment “contributing to the formation of new global alliances,”  have actually been recognized and acknowledged.

A necessary read

“Engaging the World: The Making of Hamas’s Foreing Policy” deserves to be read by anyone interested in foreign affairs, in particular the MiddleEast (which admittedly affects most of the world).  It should serve as a guide for any academic programs that contends to be about international affairs, foreign policy, or any other formulation of geopolitical interests.  At the same time it is readily accessible to any other interested reader and while some background information on the overall history of the region is helpful, “Engaging the World” can also stand alone as an introduction to events in the Middle East.

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On March 24th, Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky signed what was essentially a declaration of war on Russia. In the document, titled Presidential Decree No. 117/2021, the US-backed Ukrainian leader declared that it is the official policy of Ukraine to take back Crimea from Russia.

The declaration that Ukraine would take back Crimea from Russia also followed, and was perhaps instigated by, President Biden’s inflammatory and foolish statement that “Crimea is Ukraine.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was a chief architect of the US-backed coup against Ukraine in 2014, continued egging on the Ukrainians, promising full US support for the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine. Many Americans wonder why they are not even half as concerned about the territorial integrity of the United States!

Not to be outdone, at the beginning of this month US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin – who previously served on the board of missile-maker Raytheon – called his counterpart in Ukraine and promised “unwavering US support for Ukraine’s sovereignty.” As the US considers Crimea to be Ukrainian territory, this is clearly a clear green light for Kiev to take military action.

Washington is also sending in weapons. Some 300 tons of new weapons have arrived in the past weeks and more is on the way.

As could be expected, Moscow has responded to Zelensky’s decree and to the increasingly bellicose rhetoric in Kiev and Washington by re-positioning troops and other military assets closer to its border with Ukraine. Does anyone doubt that if the US were in the same situation – for example, if China installed a hostile and aggressive government in Mexico – the Pentagon might move troops in a similar manner?

But according to the media branch of the US military-industrial-Congressional-media complex, Russian troop movements are not a response to clear threats from a neighbor, but instead are just more “Russian aggression.”

The unhinged US “experts” behind the 2014 coup against the elected Ukrainian president are back in power and they are determined to finish the job – even if it means World War III! The explicit US backing of Ukraine’s military ambitions in the region are a blank check to Kiev.

But it is a check that Kiev would be wise to avoid cashing. Back in 1956 the US government pumped endless propaganda into Hungary promising military backing for an uprising against its Soviet occupiers. When the Hungarians, believing Washington’s lies, did rise up they found themselves all alone and facing Soviet retaliation.

Despite the cruel US propaganda, at least Eisenhower was wise enough to realize that no one would benefit from a nuclear war over Budapest.

Why is it any of our business whether Crimea is part of Ukraine or part of Russia? Why is it any of our business if the Russian-speaking population of eastern Ukraine prefer being aligned with Russia?

Why, for that matter, are unproven allegations of Russian meddling in our elections a violation of the “rules-based international order” but an actual US-backed coup against an elected Ukrainian government is not?

We are seeing foreign policy made by Raytheon and the other US military contractors, through cut-outs in government like Austin and others. Feckless US foreign policy “experts” believe their own propaganda about Russia and are on the verge of taking us to war over it.

It seems as if Americans are sleepwalking through this dangerous minefield. Let us hope they soon wake up before we’re all blown up.

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Those in positions of power have long recognized that conditions of fear and panic furnish exploitable opportunities to restructure society. COVID-19 is certainly a textbook example of this observation, illustrating that well-tuned fear campaigns can persuade many people to abandon essential medical and individual freedoms.

One of the key elements in the propagandist’s toolkit for perpetuating fear is repetition, particularly if the fear messages come from different directions and sources and are cloaked in a veneer of officialdom and respectability.

Thus, in the first few months of 2021, we have seen a proliferation of admonishments telling Americans that pandemics pose an “existential threat” to the United States and are here to stay.

‘Existential threats’ — history repeats

In January, a bipartisan commission released a dramatic 44-page report calling for an “Apollo Program for Biodefense,” explicitly comparing the proposal to the efforts that first landed humans on the moon. The commission laid the groundwork for its report in 2015, when it published a National Blueprint for Biodefense.

Now, seizing the COVID-19 moment, the commission is making the case for a vastly expanded biodefense budget — amounting to billions of biodefense dollars annually — to implement its conveniently ready-to-go blueprint.

Key members of the Biodefense Commission used the “existential threat” language in the aftermath of 9/11 in reference to terrorism — the same language they are using now regarding pandemics. Commission Chair Joseph Lieberman championed the post-9/11 creation of the Department of Homeland Security; Co-chair Thomas Ridge served as the first Homeland Security director.

Around 2014, world leaders began signaling their intent to swap out the War on Terror for a new narrative. That fall, President Obama hosted the first major meeting of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) — which he later elevated to a national priority — and soon thereafter pronounced the terrorist threat “over-inflated.”

Observing the downplaying of terrorism by Obama and senior administration officials, including then-Vice President Biden, journalists at The Guardian chimed in, calling assertions of an “existential [terrorist] threat” hyperbolic, “zany” and “absurd.” The next year, the Biodefense Commission issued its National Blueprint.

Brace yourself

Dovetailing with the Biodefense Commission’s report, the media are telling the public to “start planning for a permanent pandemic.” For example, deploying the loaded language so favored by propagandists, German-American writer Andreas Kluth warned Americans on March 24 (in Bloomberg) of a “global arms race” pitting “coronavirus mutations … against vaccinations,” suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 could “become our permanent enemy, like the flu but worse.”

A former writer for The Economist and a self-styled interpreter of historical successes and failures, Kluth conjures up a foe — a mutating virus too “protean and elusive” to ever be conquered — that undoubtedly hits the biodefense wonks’ sweet spot. Far from rejecting pandemic hyperbole as “zany” or “absurd,” Kluth instead cheerlessly advises Americans to brace for “endless cycles of outbreaks and remissions, social restrictions and relaxations, lockdowns and reopenings.”

Ironically, Kluth argued last July in favor of a revival of “classical liberalism,” clarifying that he meant “not in the American sense of ‘left’ but in the European sense of ‘freedom.’”

Kluth also assures residents of the U.S. and other wealthy nations that vaccination “a couple of times a year” will be part of the “new normal.” Arguing for realism, however, he cautions that vaccination against “the latest variant in circulation” will never occur “fast or comprehensively enough to achieve herd immunity.”

The most positive notes Kluth seems able to strike are his conclusions that this “Brave New World needn’t be dystopian” and that, with each successive lockdown, “we [will] damage the economy less than in the previous one.”

Global control grid

As Children’s Health Defense and others have pointed out, COVID-19 — and the spectre of pandemics more generally — offer a handy pretext for the wider financial and governance overhaul that is unfolding, benefiting the few while building out a global control grid for the many.

In this context, we should not be surprised to see that the Biodefense Commission’s report highlights 15 core technology priorities that would fundamentally restructure society and daily life — in both the physical and digital realms — in the service of pathogen vigilance. These include:

• A National Public Health Data System to “integrate, curate and analyze” granular data at all levels in “real time.”
• Artificial-intelligence-driven “digital pathogen surveillance” involving tracking of data sources like social media, online forums and internet search queries.
• “Pathogen transmission suppression in the built environment,” including “air filtration and sterilization systems” that could involve diffusion of nanoparticles (no consent required) via HVAC systems.
• “Needle-free” methods of drug and vaccine administration to “increase uptake” and work around “the logistical challenges of delivering these pharmaceuticals to potentially billions of people.”

In light of these stated priorities, it is interesting to note that the Biodefense Commission’s Ridge heads up an eponymous Beltway security consulting firm, while Lieberman serves as senior counsel for a New York law firm whose roster of financial services, real estate and (bio)technology clients includes Google and Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals.

Teva announced in February that it is in discussion with COVID-19 vaccine makers about possible “co-production” of some of the shots. The same day, Teva’s CEO told CNBC’s Meg Tirrell (who asked about this “very bright spot in Teva’s business”) that the company was “proud to be the partners” for the distribution and logistics of Pfizer’s experimental vaccine in Israel which, as of mid-March, had administered the shots to nearly 60% of the population, “more doses per capita than any other country,” according to Tirrell.

Teva’s CEO said nary a peep about the experts who are warning that Pfizer’s injection of Israelis is producing mortality far in excess of what would be expected from COVID itself.

Like Teva’s CEO, Andreas Kluth has been an enthusiastic booster of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology, happy about synthetic mRNA’s endless permutations and the possibility of telling cells “to make whatever protein we want.”

While acknowledging that experimental mRNA vaccines had problems in the past (such as their tendency to cause “fatal inflammation” in animals), Kluth celebrates the COVID-19 pandemic as the “grand debut of mRNA vaccines and their definitive proof of concept,” stating: “Henceforth, mRNA will have no problems getting money, attention or enthusiasm — from investors, regulators and policymakers.”

In short, permanent pandemics promise to be good for technocracy and good for Big Business.

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Something’s rotten in Georgia, and it’s not the peaches: Gov. Brian Kemp just signed into law a regressive omnibus bill containing a number of provisions that will make voting harder. This is the law that infamously makes it a crime to provide food or drink to anyone waiting in line to vote — and Black voters will likely suffer disproportionately because poll closures in predominantly Black communities have led to hours-long lines. In response, voting rights activists — such as members of the New Georgia Project and other groups — have been calling out corporations that made political contributions to the Republican lawmakers.

Coca-Cola, for instance, has been the target of plenty of backlash from voting advocates, in part because it’s one of the biggest companies based in Georgia. But Coca-Cola also made political contributions to the very politicians who wrote, passed, and signed this bill into law. For example, according to Follow the Money, Coca-Cola gave to Brian Kemp’s gubernatorial campaign in 2018. Other corporate donors to Governor Kemp included SunTrust Bank, Philip Morris USA, Koch Industries, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, Home Depot, Delta Airlines, and Pfizer.

Republican State Rep. Barry Fleming, who authored some of the Georgia legislation, also received corporate donations from companies including United Health Group, Coca-Cola, Philip Morris USA, Comcast, Walmart, Allstate Insurance, AT&T, Publix, SunTrust Bank, Georgia-Pacific, General Motors, and Koch Industries.

This strategic focus on the corporate backers of Republican lawmakers has already had an impact: 72 current and former Black executives from a wide range of companies have all condemned the new Georgia law. This includes Kenneth Chenault, a former CEO of American Express; Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of Merck; Roger Ferguson Jr., the chief executive of TIAA; Raymond McGuire, a former executive at Citigroup; Ursula Burns, a former chief executive of Xerox; and Richard Parsons, a former chairman of Citigroup. Delta, another Georgia-based company that initially offered a lukewarm endorsement of the bill, reversed course. CEO Ed Bastian wrote a memo to employees, stating,

“After having time to now fully understand all that is in the bill, coupled with discussions with leaders and employees in the Black community, it’s evident that the bill includes provisions that will make it harder for many underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives. That is wrong.”

Meanwhile, the CEO of Coca-Cola, James Quincy, said,

“This legislation is wrong, and needs to be remedied, and we will continue to advocate for it both in private and in now even more clearly in public.”

This newfound responsiveness on the part of these companies may have been inspired, at least in part, from threats to boycott. This is nothing new: boycotts have historically been used by activists of all political stripes in the United States. The successful Montgomery bus boycotts in the mid-1950s are now famous. But this is far from the only organized abstention used to advance the cause of civil rights. It’s largely forgotten now, but Martin Luther King Jr. called for boycotts of companies that had poor civil rights records in his final “Mountain Top” speech. In fact, King called for boycotts of companies including Wonder Bread and, notably, Coca-Cola. “Our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you,” he said. “Go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola . . .”

The very next day, King was assassinated.

Now, 53 years later, his daughter, Bernice A. King, is calling on Georgia corporations to uphold the pledges they made in 2020 in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. An open letter jointly penned by King, Al Vivian, and John-Miles Lewis, states that in the run-up to the omnibus bill’s passage, “Corporations did not go far enough to ensure every voting citizen had fair and equitable access to the most basic of American rights – the right to participate in the electoral process; the right to have a voice in our shared future. The failure of corporate leaders across our state to live up to their racial equity commitments made in the last year disregards and disrespects our fathers’ tireless work and jeopardizes the soul of Georgia and the promise of democracy. . . . when the first test came challenging our corporations to move from words to action, to stand on behalf of disenfranchised voters, there was shocking silence. . . . The lack of action is not only ethically wrong and morally reprehensible, it hurts the corporate bottom line. Racism is bad for business.”

Now that the legislative session in Georgia is over, the fight moves to the courts. So far three different lawsuits have challenged the new regressive law. It remains to be seen how forcefully Georgia corporations will aid (or oppose) this litigation. Will they put their money where their mouth is and end corporate contributions to the politicians who created this law? If not, they may face more sustained and robust boycotts that hit them where it hurts — although some, like Stacey Abrams, have noted that boycotts don’t just hurt companies, they hurt the people who work for them too.

At the end, the letter writers express, corporations should “[u]se your power to retire propagandized politics in the state legislatures and promote the passage of HR1 – For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act currently before the Congress.”

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Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi visited Riyadh on March 31 and spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Al Yamamah palace. Following the exchange, the Iraqi Prime Minister said “relations with Saudi Arabia have accelerated in a positive direction,” adding “we have managed to overcome many challenges that were hindering the progress of our relationship.”

Because Iraq is in a dire economic situation, it needs to consolidate its relations with various regional partners. Iraq is facing a medical, economic and security crisis, hence the importance of Kadhimi’s trip to Saudi Arabia. His visit confirms that Baghdad’s relationship with Riyadh is improving, and this poses problems for Iran.

Kadhimi went to Riyadh with his ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance, Interior, Oil, Agriculture and Housing. Judging by the Iraqi delegation, the trip had a mostly economic imperative. With this in mind, the two countries recently reopened their main border post at Arar, something more than symbolic since Saudi Arabia funded the reconstruction of the border post to the tune of $75 million. In addition to Arar, the two countries intend to reopen a second crossing point at Al-Jemayma. This will create another gateway for imports to reach Iraq as the majority arrives from Iran.

Saudi Arabia plans to increase its investments in Iraq with some 6,000 projects worth nearly $3 billion. Riyadh plans to finance projects in the food industry, energy and infrastructure. While it is not limited to the hydrocarbon sector, it remains the heart of the Iraqi economy. Oil infrastructure is damaged after 40 years of conflict despite the fact that Baghdad depends on oil revenues to finance 97% of the state budget.

Saudi investments are not only for economic intentions. In the context of the Saudi-Iranian rivalry, it looks like Iraq is back on the centre stage. Indeed, the powerful Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias in Iraq reacted negatively to the rapprochement with Riyadh. In a predominantly Shi’ite Iraq, the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have great influence. Divided even among themselves, the PMU act according to nationalist and confessional beliefs, with many of the militias in the PMU completely subservient to Tehran.

This is where all the difficulty lies for the Iraqi government. The militias were intended, in the long term, to be integrated into the regular army. But these militias have sought to maintain their autonomy vis-à-vis the government with their own mode of financing based on quasi-institutionalized levies and taxation which parasitize the state budget and its functioning. However, Baghdad’s economic dependence on Iran remains significant, especially as electricity and gas come from the neighbouring country.

For Iran, it needs significant influence over Baghdad as it views Iraq as a buffer state and essential for its security. It is imperative for Tehran that Iraq is never again a threat like it was under Saddam Hussein. This is not Tehran’s unique interest however as Iraq is a strategic issue for every global and regional power. Even under the Trump administration, there were sanctions exemptions for Iraq. These exemptions were immediately extended by Joe Biden so that the Arab country can continue sourcing electricity and gas from Iran without punishment. Almost 30% of internal energy consumption comes from Iran.

Kadhimi’s trip to Riyadh aimed to balance regional powers and ensure that the Saudis become an important partner that can help reconfigure the regional order. By improving relations with Saudi Arabia, it could also suggest that Kadhimi, a Shi’ite himself, is rebalancing his country’s ideology back towards pan-Arabism after Iraq split along sectarian lines following the U.S. invasion in 2003. Using Iraq’s overwhelming Arab identity to counterbalance religious sectarianism, Kadhimi is engaged in a difficult task of balancing Iran and Saudi Arabia in order to be able to diversify his country’s economic partners.

For Baghdad, the endless rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia jeopardizes recovery and reconstruction. For Tehran, it relies on Iraq to serve as a buffer for its own security and is therefore unlikely to retract its relations with Iraq for building its ties with Saudi Arabia. For Riyadh, this is part of the long process of rapprochement with a lot of the Arab World after it backed ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other radical groups against Syria, Iraq and Libya, and thus allowed Iran and its new rival Turkey to have greater influence than they did previous to those countries’ respective wars. None-the-less, Baghdad must now play a very careful balancing game as it relies on Iran for energy but will need Saudi Arabia for reconstruction.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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Now that we are allowed to meet up in groups of six outside their homes, Matt Hancock is warning us not to do anything foolish, like hug one another or breach the two metre rule. “Do it safely,” he tweeted. “Don’t blow it now”.

But in fact, the people who shouldn’t “blow it” are Boris Johnson, Sir Patrick Vallance, Chris Whitty and, yes, Matt Hancock. That is the view of Martin Kulldorff, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, biostatistician and epidemiologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts, and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration.

Professor Kulldorff has told the UK Government and its scientific advisors exactly who they should be listening to and why if they want to save lives – and it doesn’t include vaccinating the entire population, including children. He said this on Twitter on March 15th – “Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. Covid vaccines are important for older high-risk people and their care-takes. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.” – and Twitter attached a health warning to his Tweet: “This tweet is misleading. Learn why health officials recommend a vaccine for most people.” Because, of course, a 22 year-old graduate in Whiteness Studies sitting in Twitter’s HQ in Silicon Valley knows much more about infectious diseases than a Harvard professor of medicine.

Speaking to me in an exclusive interview for Lockdown Sceptics, Kulldorff said:

That warning was rather silly. When making unscientific claims, media often refer to ‘health officials’ or ‘health experts’ without naming those experts. I challenge Twitter to name vaccine epidemiologists who think that everyone must get the Covid vaccine, including children and those with immunity from prior infection.

Equally strange, they even concur with my tweet when they say “most people” rather than “all people”. Right now, children are clearly not part of “most people”, since a Covid vaccine has not yet been approved for them and we know nothing about efficacy or potential adverse reaction in children. Since most children are asymptomatic or only mildly symptomatic, it will be hard to show that the vaccine can reduce symptoms, hospitalisations or mortality in children, requiring a large sample size in countries that still has considerable disease spread.

I have worked with vaccines for a couple of decades, but Twitter clearly thinks that scientific discussions about these things are dangerous. Maybe social media is dangerous to those in power. I do hope that social media is dangerous to the lockdowns that have done so much damage to public health during this past year. The enormous collateral public health damage, which is being documented by Collateral Global, is something that we will continue to live with, and die with, for many years to come. It truly is a public health tragedy of epic proportions.

The catastrophic impact of the lockdowns on public health has been exacerbated by headlines and adverts striking the fear of god into millions, making them less likely to seek medical help for non-Covid diseases.

The media has been very reluctant to report reliable scientific and public health information about the pandemic. Instead they have broadcast unverified information such as the model predictions from Imperial College, they have spread unwarranted fear that undermine people’s trust in public health and they have promoted naïve and inefficient counter measures such as lockdowns, masks and contact tracing.

While I wished that neither SAGE nor anyone else would argue against long-standing principles of public health, the media should not censor such information. During a pandemic, it is more important than ever that media can report freely. There are two major reasons for this: (i) While similar to existing coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 is a new virus that we are constantly learning more about and because of that, it takes time to reach scientific conclusions. With censorship it takes longer and we cannot afford that during a pandemic. (ii) In order to maintain trust in public health, it is important that any thoughts and ideas about the pandemic can be voiced, debated and either confirmed or debunked.

Kulldorff thinks that the UK Government and its scientific advisors’ response to the pandemic – England is now into its third lockdown – is “incomprehensible”. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance initially got it right, then did a disastrous U-turn

I hope that the UK Government will quickly reverse course to avoid further unnecessary damage from both COVID-19 and the lockdowns. Why the UK Government and SAGE are not looking at public health more broadly is incomprehensible to me. Chris and Patrick got it right in early March 2020, when they argued for focused protection of high-risk older people without a destructive lockdown for children and young adults. Chris, Patrick, take advice from yourself from a little over a year ago. You can complement that with the extensive knowledge of epidemiology professors such as Sunetra Gupta and Carl Heneghan at Oxford University, Ellen Townsend at the University of Nottingham, Francoix Balloux at University College London and Paul McKeigue at University of Edinburgh.

It should now be obvious to everyone that lockdowns, masks and contract tracing failed to protect older high-risk people, as it could not suppress and contain COVID-19, with far too many deaths as a result. Lockdowns are just a dragged out let-it-rip strategy. That was clear to most infectious disease epidemiologists already a year ago. The fatal logical flaw of the lockdowners has been that we must lock down because COVID-19 is dangerous. The opposite is true. Because it is a very dangerous disease among the old, they should have been properly protected through focused protection.

Instead of continuing to take advice from those who were wrong then, Boris should listen to those who were right. In the UK, you have the world’s preeminent infectious disease epidemiologist in professor Sunetra Gupta. She can help implement a focused protection strategy of older high-risk individuals through vaccination and other means, while removing the lockdowns. If the Prime Minister needs the comfort of company with other politicians, get in touch with Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida.

Life in Florida, as we know, is now almost back to normal. No mask mandates, no restrictions on freedom and no incoming digital vaccine passports. But that is all set to continue here in the UK, with, among other things, the Department for Education insisting that masks should continue to be worn in classrooms in secondary schools when kids return to school after the Easter break. As Jay Bhattacharya pointed out in an interview for Lockdown Sceptics, the evidence that masks protect the wearer from infection is weak and statistically insignificant – and Prof Kulldorff agrees.

In Sweden, kids are not required to wear masks in schools and schoolchildren don’t have to get tested either. Schools did require that kids with e.g. a fever or a cough stay home, whether or not it was due to Covid or some other bug. If headmasters do that, they can let kids be kids and live normal lives. Inducing unwarranted fear in the public goes against one of the basic principles of public health. It has had major negative public health consequences on both physical and mental health. For example, children should not be afraid of infecting others, of playing with other children, of going to school, of playing sports, of hugging friends or their grandparents, of going outside, of seeing a mask-less person. That must stop. Period.

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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and an assortment of high-profile figures and policy makers are pushing for unregulated gene-editing technologies, the rollout of bio-synthetic food created in laboratories, the expanded use of patented seeds and the roll back of subsidies and support for farmers in places like India.

These neoliberal evangelists despise democracy and believe that state machinery and public money should only facilitate the ambitions of their unaccountable mega-corporations.

Corporations are jumping on the ‘sustainability’ bandwagon by undermining traditional agriculture and genuine sustainable agrifood systems and packaging this corporate takeover of food as some kind of humanitarian endeavour.

The watchdog organisation Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) notes that the European Commission has committed to a fundamental shift away from industrial agriculture. With a 50 per cent pesticide reduction target and a 25 per cent organic agriculture goal by 2030, CEO argues that business as usual is no longer an option. In effect, this creates an existential crisis for corporate seed suppliers and pesticide manufacturers like Bayer, BASF, Corteva (DowDupont) and Syngenta (ChemChina).

However, these corporations are fighting back on various fronts, not least by waging an ongoing battle to get their new generation of genetic engineering techniques excluded from European regulations. They do not want plants, animals and micro-organisms created with gene-editing techniques like CRISPR-Cas to be subject to safety checks, monitoring or consumer labelling. This is concerning given the real dangers that these techniques pose.

For example, a new paper published in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe, authored by Dr Katharina Kawall, indicates the negative effects on ecosystems that can result from the release of gene-edited plants. These unintended effects come from the intended changes induced by genome editing, which can affect various metabolic processes in the plants.

The new paper adds to a growing body of peer-reviewed research that calls into question industry claims about the ‘precision’, safety and benefits of gene-edited organisms.

Recent research by the Greens and the European Free Alliance in the European Parliament indicates that 86 per cent of Europeans who have heard of genetically engineered (GE) food want products containing GE organisms to be labelled as such. Some 68 per cent of respondents that have heard of new genetic engineering methods demand that food produced with these techniques, such as CRISPR, to be labelled as GE. Only three per cent agreed with the industry’s proposal to exempt these products from safety testing and labelling.

Regardless, with the help of 1.3 million euros from the Gates Foundation, the industry is paving the way for deregulation by widespread lobbying of policy makers and promoting these technologies on the basis of them protecting the climate and ‘sustainability’. Through greenwashing, the industry hopes its ‘save-the-planet’ products can dodge regulation and gain public acceptance in an era of ‘climate emergency’.

Not for the first time, the lobbying that the Gates Foundation is engaging in displays complete contempt for democratic processes or public opinion. In 2018, The European Court of Justice ruled that new genetic engineering technologies should be regulated. As described by Marie Astier and Magali Reinert in the French publication Reporterre, Gates is very much at the centre of trying to bypass this ruling.

Of course, it is not just the European agrifood sector that is being targeted by Bill Gates and global agrifood players. India has very much been in the news in recent months due to the ongoing mass protest involving farmers who want three recent farm acts repealed.

Environmentalist Vandana Shiva has described on numerous occasions how the Gates Foundation through its ‘Ag One’ initiative is pushing for one type of agriculture for the whole world. A top-down approach regardless of what farmers or the public need or want. The strategy includes digital farming, in which farmers are monitored and mined for their agricultural data, which is then repackaged and sold back to them.

Along with Bill Gates, this is very much the agrifood model that Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Bayer, Syngenta, Corteva and Cargill have in mind. The tech giants recent entry into the sector will increasingly lead to a mutually beneficial integration between the companies that supply products to farmers (pesticides, seeds, fertilisers, tractors, drones, etc) and those that control the flow of data (on soil, weather, pests, weeds, land use, consumer preferences, etc) and have access to digital (cloud) infrastructure. A system based on corporate concentration and centralisation.

Those farmers who remain in the system will become passive recipients of corporate directives and products on farms owned by the Gates Foundation (now one of the largest owners of farmland in the US), agribusiness and financial institutions/speculators.

The three pieces of farm legislation in India (passed by parliament but on hold) are essential for laying the foundation for this model of agriculture. The legislation is The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.

The foreign and home-grown (Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani) billionaires who have pushed for these laws require a system of contract farming dominated by their big tech, big agribusiness and big retail interests. Smallholder peasant agriculture is regarded as an impediment to what they require:  industrial-scale farms where driverless tractors, drones and genetically engineered seeds are the norm and all data pertaining to land, water, weather, seeds and soils is controlled by them.

It is unfortunate that prominent journalists and media outlets in India are celebrating the legislation and have attempted to unjustifiably discredit farmers who are protesting. It is also worrying that key figures like Dr Ramesh Chand, a member of NITI (National Institute for Transforming India) Ayog, recently stated that the legislation is necessary.

When these figures attack farmers or promote the farm acts, what they are really doing is cheerleading for the destruction of local markets and independent small-scale enterprises, whether farmers, hawkers, food processers or mom and pop corner stores. And by implication, they are helping to ensure that India is surrendering control over its food.

They are doing the bidding of the Gates Foundation and the global agrifood corporations which also want India to eradicate its buffer food stocks. Some of the very corporations which will then control stocks that India would purchase with foreign exchange holdings. At that stage, any notion of sovereign statehood would be bankrupt as India’s food needs would be dependent on attracting foreign exchange reserves via foreign direct investment or borrowing.

This would represent the ultimate betrayal of India’s farmers and democracy as well as the final surrender of food security and food sovereignty to unaccountable global traders and corporations.

The farm legislation is regressive and will eventually lead to the country relying on outside forces to feed its population. This in an increasingly volatile world prone to conflict, public health scares, unregulated land and commodity speculation and price shocks.

MSP, malnutrition and helping farmers

Consider that India has achieved self-sufficiency in food grains and has ensured that, in theory at least, there is enough food available to feed its entire population. Yet hunger and malnutrition are still major issues.

Initial results from the National Family Health Survey round 5 (NFHS-5) released in January indicate a stagnation or deterioration in most factors related to the nutrition status of the Indian population. These findings have not accounted for the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown, which could see severe long-term adverse impacts on poverty, health and nutrition.

The survey findings suggest that people’s ability to access good quality diets has been impacted by the economic slowdown in recent years and a subsequent deterioration in poverty and consumption. Such a conclusion might not be too far off the mark given the findings of the consumption expenditure survey of the National Statistical Office (2017-18).

In a December 2019 article, economist S Subramanian writes:

“Employing the modest Rangarajan Committee poverty line… we find that the… proportion of the population in poverty, has climbed up from 31% to 35%, thus inverting a long trend of declining poverty ratios. If the poverty line is raised by 20% to a less modest but still modest level, then we find… [poverty]… rises precipitously from 42% to 52%.”

Supporters of the farm legislation are fond of saying the impact will be higher income for farmers and greater efficiency in food distribution. They fail to acknowledge that the neoliberal policies they have backed over the years have driven many farmers out of agriculture, into debt or to the edge of bankruptcy. They are now pushing for more of the same under the banner of helping farmers.

These policies mainly stem from India’s foreign exchange crisis in the 1990s. In return for up to more than $120 billion in World Bank loans at the time, India was directed to dismantle its state-owned seed supply system, reduce subsidies, run down public agriculture institutions and offer incentives for the growing of cash crops to earn foreign exchange.

The plan involves shifting at least 400 million from the countryside into cities. We have seen the running down of the sector for decades, spiralling input costs, withdrawal of government assistance and the impacts of cheap, subsidised imports which depress farmers’ incomes. The result is an acute agrarian crisis.

Through the new farm laws, the Modi government is now trying to accelerate the planned depopulation of the countryside by drastically reducing the role of the public sector in agriculture to that of a facilitator of private capital.

There is a solution to poverty, hunger and rural distress. But it is being side-lined in favour of a corporate agenda.

The Research Unit for Political Economy (RUPE) notes that minimum support prices (MSP) via government procurement of essential crops and commodities should be extended to the likes of maize, cotton, oilseed and pulses. At the moment, only farmers in certain states who produce rice and wheat are the main beneficiaries of government procurement at MSP.

RUPE says that since per capita protein consumption in India is abysmally low and has fallen further during the liberalisation era, the provision of pulses in the public distribution system (PDS) is long overdue and desperately needed. RUPE argues that the ‘excess’ stocks of food grain with the Food Corporation of India are merely the result of the failure or refusal of the government to distribute grain to the people.

(For those not familiar with the PDS: central government via the Food Corporation of India (FCI) is responsible for buying food grains from farmers at MSP at state-run market yards or mandis. It then allocates the grains to each state. State governments then deliver to the ration shops.)

If public procurement of a wider range of crops at the MSP were to occur – and MSP were guaranteed for rice and wheat across all states – it would help address hunger and malnutritional as well as farmer distress.

Instead of rolling back the role of the public sector and surrendering the system to foreign corporations, there is a need to further expand official procurement and public distribution. This would occur by extending procurement to additional states and expanding the range of commodities under the PDS.

Of course, some will raise a red flag here and say this would cost too much. But as RUPE notes, it would cost around 20 per cent of the current handouts (‘incentives’) received by corporations and their super-rich owners which do not benefit the bulk of the wider population in any way.

Furthermore, if policy makers were really serious about ‘sustainability’ and boosting the rural economy, they would reject the fake high-tech corporate controlled ‘sustainability’ agenda and a reliance on rigged and unstable global markets. They would embrace an approach to agriculture based on agroecological principles, short supply chains and local markets. If the last 12 months have shown anything, it is that decentralised regional and local community-owned food systems are now needed more than ever.

But a solution that would genuinely serve to help address rural distress and malnutrition does not suit the agenda of the Gates Foundation and its corporate entourage.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific 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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Cultivated by the US government as human rights activists, Uyghur American Association leaders partner with far-right lawmakers and operate a militia-style gun club that trains with ex-US special forces.

On March 21, US-government-funded Uyghur activists were caught on video disrupting a gathering against anti-Asian racism in Washington DC, barking insults at demonstrators including, “Wipe out China!” and “F**k China!” The Uyghur caravan flew American and “East Turkestan” flags and drove vehicles adorned signs bearing slogans such as, “We Love USA,” “Boycott China,” and “CCP killed 80 million Chinese people.”

Really wild stuff downtown. A Stop Asian Hate rally is clashing with a Pro-Uighur drive by. The pro-Uighur group is shouting “F— China!” The Asian rally is responding by calling them “racist.” pic.twitter.com/h8a2hB4Oqe

— Nic Rowan (@NicXTempore) March 21, 2021

Organized by the Uyghur American Association (UAA), the drive-by heckling of anti-racist demonstrators drew widespread condemnation on social media, including from other sections of the Uyghur separatist movement. Salih Hudayar, the self-proclaimed “Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile,” slammed “the UAA’s reckless drive-by” for causing “severe backlash against Uyghurs,” and insisted that Uyghur Americans were “not racist.”

The UAA has attempted to distance itself from accusations of extremism and racism, stating that its members’ actions were misrepresented. Despite refusing to rescind their call for China to be “wiped out,” the UAA declared that it “condemns any form of bigotry and stands with all victims of racism.”

Reposting from April 2020 – Uyghurs have been the victim of state-sponsored racism in the Chinese colony of East Turkestan and are facing genocide in China. With first-hand experience, Uyghur American Association condemns any form of bigotry and stands with all victims of racism. https://t.co/UrCnBiQXaE

— Uyghur American Association (@Uyghur_American) March 22, 2021

However, an investigation by The Grayzone into the Uyghur separatist movement in the Washington DC area has uncovered a jingoistic, gun-obsessed subculture driven by the kind of right-wing ideology that was on display during the March 21 car caravan through downtown.

Leading figures of the UAA operate a right-wing gun club known as Altay Defense. Proudly dressed in US military fatigues, Altay Defense drill in advanced combat techniques with former members of US special forces who also train private mercenaries and active duty US service members. Members of the militia-style gun club espouse pro-Trump politics and anti-immigrant resentment.

From the Instagram account of Altay Defense

The UAA is the US-affiliate of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), an international network whose first president outlined an objective to precipitate the “fall of China” and establish an ethno-state in Xinjiang. The recipient of millions of dollars of funding the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US government-sponsored entity, this network works closely with Washington and other Western governments to escalate hostilities with China.

Despite claiming to represent the interests of China’s Uyghur and Muslim minority populations, many of the UAA’s closest allies represent some of the anti-Muslim, far-right forces in Washington, from Republican Rep. Ted Yoho to the Family Research Council, as well as the FBI.

During the pandemic, the UAA and members of its affiliate organizations helped inflame anti-Asian resentment by spreading far-right propaganda referring to Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus,” and claimed that China was waging a “virus war” against the world, “[p]urposefully, intentionally export[ing] the virus to cause the pandemic.”

Behind its carefully constructed image as a peaceful human rights movement, the UAA and its offshoots in the DC-based Uyghur separatist lobby are driven by far-right ideology and envision themselves as militant foot soldiers for empire.

“I belong to America!” Uyghur human rights leader teams up with far-right, Islamophobes in anti-China crusade

The UAA’s ultra-patriotic reverence of the US and fanatical anti-China politics have been on full display under the organization’s current president, Kuzzat Altay.

A demonstration organized by the UAA in Washington DC on June 21st, 2020, to “thank the Congress and the White House for passing the [Uyghur Human Rights and Policy Act] into the law.”

Altay frequently takes to social media to make his allegiance to Washington known.

“May GOD bless you American Veterans! May GOD bless America!” declared Altay on Veterans Day in 2019.

Shortly following the illegal US assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, Altay left no doubt as to where he stands: “Looks like the war just started […] I belong to America!”

Amid the US uprisings against police brutality and systemic racism sparked by the murder of George Floyd, Altay chided Black Lives Matter protesters, saying that he “support[ed] peaceful protestors […] but do[es] not support looters, rubbers [sic] and criminals”

“Your LOVE for #America should be greater than your HATE for #Trump,” Altay pronounced.

The degree of Altay’s infatuation with the US is only matched by the ferocity of his enmity towards China. “The most normal thing that I could ever imagine is anti-China activities every freaking day,” Altay stated on July 25, 2020. “You should help us to stop China. China is ALREADY the common enemy of humanity.”

Kuzzat Altay (left) and fellow Uyghur separatists visiting Rep. Ted Yoho

Altay is a staunch supporter of Washington’s new Cold War agenda. Applauding the Trump administration’s trade and technology war, Altay declared “[a]ll counties [sic] should treat #Huawei as war criminals.”

Despite claiming to be the international representatives of Xinjiang’s predominantly Muslim, Uyghur ethnic group, and struggling against religious persecution, Altay and his comrades have routinely teamed up with far-right, Islamophobic forces in the US to advance their separatist campaign.

The UAA has worked closely with Republican Rep. Ted Yoho, a homophobic, anti-abortion ultra-conservative who once told a Black constituent that he was not sure if the Civil Rights Act was constitutional. Yoho was one of only four lawmakers to vote againstlegislation making lynching a federal hate crime. In a high-profile dust-up on Capitol Hill, he reportedly called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “fucking bitch.” In 2019, Yoho was one of 24 members of Congress to vote against a resolution condemning bigotry because it included anti-Muslim discrimination.

Yoho has also ardently supported regime change in Venezuela, defended US missile strikes against Syria, and proclaimed that the “US army must defend Taiwan” against China.

A demonstration organized by the Uyghur American Association in Washington DC. Rep. Ted Yoho appears at the center of the photograph, with Kuzzat Altay to his right and Rushan Abbas to his left

In 2019, Altay spoke on a panel of US government-funded Chinese dissidents organized by the Family Research Council (FRC). The FRC has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) due to

Retired US General and undersecretary for defense under former President George W. Bush, Jerry Boykin, serves as the FRC’s vice president. Boykin is a virulent Islamophobe who believes that the religion is evil and should be outlawed, and that there should be “no mosques in America.” During a sermon at an evangelical church during the US war on Iraq, Boykin boasted of taking on a Muslim warlord in Somalia: “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol,” he declared. Boykin’s anti-Muslim tirades grew so extreme that he was investigated by the US Department of Defense and drew a rebuke from Bush.

In recent years, Altay has organized several events for Uyghur Americans in collaboration with the FBI, the federal law enforcement agency notorious for its surveillance of Muslim Americans and ensnaring countless mentally troubled young Muslim American men in manufactured terror plots. In 2020, the UAA organized an “FBI Workshop for Uyghur Community” which aimed to teach Uyghur Americans about “the role of the FBI in protecting Uyghurs” and how “Uyghurs [can] communicate with the FBI”.

Graphic designed for an “FBI Citizens Seminar” hosted by the Uyghur American Association

Throughout the pandemic, Altay and fellow leaders of the Uyghur separatist movement have incessantly spread right-wing conspiracy theories blaming China for Covid-19 and all related deaths. Such disinformation has played a key role in whipping up anti-Asian racism in the US and West.

Altay’s Twitter page is an endless stream of noxious, far-right coronavirus-related propaganda.

“I support @realDonaldTrump’s decision to call it ChineseVirus,” declared Altay on March 18, 2020, defending Trump against criticism from “[p]eople whining about racism.”  Altay also routinely referred to Covid-19 as “Wuhan virus” and “CCP virus”, as have WUC leaders such as Dolkun Isa and Rushan Abbas.

Altay promoted Steve Bannon’s claims that the “CCP unleashed [Covid-19] on the world”, and would later echo this sentiment. “China [p]urposefully, intentionally exported the virus to cause the pandemic,” Altay declared on July 5, 2020. “No war has kileed [sic] more people than China’s Virus war.”

World-famous UFC champion @TeamKhabib’s father has passed away because of #CCPVirus.

China Purposefully, intentionally exported the virus to cause the pandemic.

550,000 people died. No war has kileed more people than China’s Virus war. #HoldChinaAccountable pic.twitter.com/EAayRykilr

— kuzzat Altay (@KuzzatAltay) July 5, 2020

Altay also endorsed right-wing conspiracy theories which claimed that Covid-19 was engineered as a bioweapon in a Wuhan lab and the World Health Organization was controlled by the Chinese government.  

Kuzzat Altay’s political activities are a reflection of the deeply rooted right-wing culture that pervades the Uyghur separatist movement.

Foot soldiers for empire: Uyghur human rights activists training with US military instructors for “mission readiness”

Leading members of UAA have founded Altay Defense, which arranges for constituents in the Uyghur separatist movement to receive arms training by former US special forces soldiers and instructors. The organization boasts that “[a]ll security training [is] provided by former special force officer!”

The Instagram page of Altay Defense

A mission statement published by Shadow Hawk Defense outlines a goal to train “elite armed security professionals, who serve the high threat needs of the US government, military, and intelligence communities,” including “hosting and training classified security personnel.” The facility employs “trainers [who] have years of experience training contractors for the U.S. Government” with the goal of “achieving mission readiness.”

In a recent interview, Shadow Hawk’s co-founder and Director of Training, Randy Weekely, described his work in detail: “I teach military contractors before they deploy to these ‘other places’, defensive tactics, CQB [close-quarters battle], pistol, rifle, bounding, attack on vehicles, all the skills that they need […] before they deploy.”

Screenshot of Shadow Hawk Defense website

Altay Defense receives instruction from James Lang, a former US Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and works as a firearm instructor for the US Department of Defense. Lang also operates Ridgeline Security Consultants, which provides firearms and tactical training to “prepare law enforcement officers [and] armed security professionals […] to survive and win deadly force confrontations.”

Altay Defense’s primary instructor is former US Army Ranger, Jim Lang

Leaving little to the imagination, UAA members conduct training using assault rifles while dressed in official-seeming battle dress fatigues bearing the US flag.

Altay Defense is led by Faruk Altay, brother of UAA President Kuzzat Altay and nephew of Rebiya Kadeer, who is perhaps the most prominent international figurehead of the Uyghur separatist movement.

A look at Faruk Altay’s online activity reveals him to be a far-right, anti-communist, ultra-nationalist.

“Trump is the best!!!” Altay posted to Twitter in 2018.  Altay also expressed support for Trump’s border wall and seemingly justified the “Stop the Steal” Capitol riot which took place on January 6, 2021. He has also shared an anti-immigrant meme comparing Central American migrants to the international criminal gang MS-13.

Faruk Altay flaunts his dedication to the US military, posting images on social media of himself dressed in US military fatigues, wearing a skull face mask, and holding an assault rifle, with captions reading: “I STAND WITH UYGHUR, TIBET, HONG KONG, AND FREEDOM AGAINST COMMUNISM”.

Altay refers to himself as a “freedom fighter” taking “revenge for my father,” and refers to his children as “[m]y future West Point officers!

Far from a lone wolf, Faruk Altay has been joined by leading figures of the Uyghur separatist movement. Social media posts show UAA President Kuzzat Altay, Murat Ataman, and Bahram Sintash, among others attending Altay Defense training sessions.

Kuzzat Altay (second from the left) at an Altay Defense training session

Faruk Altay (left), Kuzzat Altay (center), and Murat Ataman (right) at an Altay Defense training session

Murat Ataman is affiliated with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)– the funding engine of the US government’s regime change apparatus – UAA offshoot Uyghur Human Rights Project. A veteran of the Uyghur separatist movement, Ataman he works for US military and intelligence contractor, General Dynamics, and has previously held positions at the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Veteran Affairs.

Murat Ataman embracing Nancy Pelosi

Bahram Sintash is also affiliated with the NED-funded UHRP, authoring reports which allege that the Chinese government is demolishing Uyghur mosques and shrines. Sintash was a key player in lobbying efforts to urge the US Congress to pass the Uyghur Human Right Policy Act of 2019, visiting more than 380 members of Congress.

In his spare time, Sintash keeps company with the far-right, evangelical Xinjiang researcher Adrian Zenz. During a meeting at Radio Free Asia (RFA), Sintash referred to Zenz as “the CIA agent,” and the US government-sponsored broadcasting service as “the original CIA branch of RFA’s headquarters in DC.”

While Sintash may have been sarcastic, the New York Times has described RFA in no uncertain terms as part of a “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the CIA.”

Adrian Zenz (middle) and Bahram Sintash (right) at Radio Free Asia headquarters in Washington DC

As prone as they might be to unalloyed expressions of right-wing jingoism, the leaders of UAA operate at the heart of a multi-million dollar lobbying complex funded and cultivated by the US government.

Uyghur separatist movement cultivated by the US government for “toppling” Beijing

Established in 1998, the Uyghur American Association (UAA) is the Washington DC-based affiliate of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which claims to be “the sole legitimate organization of the Uyghur people” around the world. Portrayed by Western governments and media as the leading voice for Uyghur interests and human rights, the WUC has played a central role in shaping Western understanding of Xinjiang.

As The Grayzone previously reported, the WUC is a right-wing, anti-communist, and ultra-nationalist network of exiled Uyghur separatists who have stated their intention to bring about the “fall of China” and establish an ethno-state called “East Turkestan” in Xinjiang. The WUC has developed deep ties to Washington’s regime change establishment and received extensive US government-funding and training.

In recent years, the WUC has worked closely with US and Western governments, and partnered with fraud-prone pseudo-scholars such as Adrian Zenz to intensify their New Cold War against China, advocating for Chinese policy in Xinjiang to be labeled ‘genocide,’ along with sanctions and boycott.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has been central to the rising international prominence of the Uyghur separatist movement. In 2020, the NED boasted that it has given Uyghur groups $8,758,300 since 2004 (including $75,000 in annual funding to the UAA) and claimed to be “the only institutional funder for Uyghur advocacy and human rights organizations.”

“As a result of NED’s support, the Uyghur advocacy groups have grown both institutionally and professionally over the years,” said Akram Keram, a program officer and regional expert at NED. “These groups played critical roles in introducing the Uyghur cause in various international, regional, and national settings against China’s false narratives, bringing the Uyghur voice to the highest international levels, including the United Nations, European Parliament, and the White House. They provided firsthand, factual resources documenting the atrocities in East Turkistan, informing and inspiring the introduction of relevant resolutions, sanctions, and calls for action to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable.”

“The National Endowment for Democracy has been exceptionally supportive of UAA,” echoed former UAA President, Nury Turkel, in 2006, “providing us with invaluable guidance and assistance” and “essential funding.” According to Turkel, thanks to NED support, the “UAA and UHRP have gained a new level of influence and credibility among media organizations in the U.S. and other countries.”

“In short, NED has helped us to increase our credibility in Washington and throughout the world. We are very moved by and grateful for their steadfast assistance,” stated Turkel.

Turkel confirmed that the UAA aims to leverage Washington’s support to advance regime change in China. In 2006, he told his allies, “as we witnessed the ‘Tulip Revolution’ and the toppling of the former government of Kyrgyzstan, our hopes were again reinforced.” Turkel emphasized that the US-sponsored color revolution sent a “strong message” to China, and recalled how he was immediately summoned to Bishkek to coordinate with the new government.

The NED helped the UAA launch the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) in 2004, serving as its principal source of funding, with $1,244,698 in support between 2016 and ’19 alone. The UHRP has brought together leading figures of the WUC, including Turkel and Omer Kanat, and NED, with former NED Vice President, Louisa Greve, serving as the group’s Director of Global Advocacy.

The UAA’s leadership consists of US national security state operators including employees of the US government, US propaganda network Radio Free Asia, and the military-industrial complex. Past leaders of the organization include:

Nury Turkel, former President (2004-2006) — Co-founded the UHRP with the NED. In 2020, Turkel was appointed a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Rebiya Kadeer, former President (2006-2011) — A self-described oligarch and longtime figurehead of the Uyghur separatist movement. According to The New York Times, Kadeer’s “[d]issidence brought the end of her Audi, her three villas and her far-flung business empire”. Kadeer’s husband, Sidik Rouzi, worked for US government media outlets Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. Under Kadeer’s leadership, the WUC and UAA forged close ties with the Bush administration.

Ilshat Hassan Kokbore, former President (2016-2019) — Since 2008, Kokbore has worked with notorious private US military and intelligence contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton. Edward Snowden was employed at the firm when he decided to blow the whistle on the National Security Agency’s invasive, all-encompassing system of mass surveillance.

Omer Kanat, former Vice President – Serves as the WUC’s Chairman of the Executive Committee. Kanat helped found the WUC and has been a permanent fixture in its executive leadership. The veteran operative has a lengthy history of work with the US government, from serving as senior editor of Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur Service from 1999 to 2009 to covering the US wars on Iraq and Afghanistan and interviewing the Dalai Lama for the network. In an interview with Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal at a 2018 NED awards ceremony in the US Capitol building, Kanat took credit for furnishing many of the claims about internment camps in Xinjiang to Western media.

Rushan Abbas, former Vice President — Previously boasted in her bio of her “extensive experience working with US government agencies, including Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of State, and various US intelligence agencies.” Served the US government and Bush administration’s so-called war on terror as a “consultant at Guantanamo Bay supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.” Following a disastrous publicity appearance on Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” question and answer forum, during which participants blasted Abbas as a “CIA Asset” and US government collaborator, she has attempted to scrub her biographic information from the internet. Abbas currently heads the WUC affiliate organization, Campaign for Uyghurs.

The UAA current leadership includes:

Kuzzat Altay, President — Nephew of Rebiya Kadeer. As documented above, Altay is a rabid anti-communist and ardently pro-US. He has favorably compared the establishment of Israel to the separatist movement for “East Turkestan.”

Elfidar Itebir, Secretary — Sister of Elnigar Itebir, who was appointed by the Trump administration as Director for China in the White House National Security Council. Itebir’s father, Ablikim Baqi Iltebir, worked for the US government media outlet, Radio Free Asia, from February 2000 to August 2017

Arslan Khakiyev, Treasurer  — Previously worked at Radio Free Asia for over 18 years. Khahkiyev’s wife, Gulchehra Hoja, has worked for Radio Free Asia since 2001.

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The weekly deluge of US media reports of Uyghur oppression in Xinjiang is clearly designed to appeal to liberal sensibilities, presenting the struggle of an oppressed minority against a tyrannical government, and omitting any pieces of context that might prove disruptive to the David-versus-Goliath narrative. But it is becoming clear that some profoundly illiberal forces lie behind the veneer of a peaceful campaign for human rights.

The US government has engaged in a marriage of convenience with a Uyghur separatist movement that is firmly aligned the gun-obsessed, anti-immigrant subculture of Trumpism. As the Biden administration turns up the heat on China, it has turned a blind eye to the far-right politics of one of its most important proxy groups.

The UAA did not respond to multiple requests for interviews from The Grayzone sent by email and on Twitter.

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Ajit Singh is a lawyer and journalist. He is a contributing author to Keywords in Radical Philosophy and Education: Common Concepts for Contemporary Movements (Brill: 2019). He tweets at @ajitxsingh.

All images in this article are from The Grayzone unless otherwise stated

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is visiting India and Pakistan this week. His trip to South Asia is a major event because of the larger strategic context in which it’s occurring. Russia’s top diplomat will be accompanied by Russian Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, who’s expected to brief both regional countries about the latest progress in the Afghan peace process. Moscow recently hosted yet another round of talks on this issue which saw all sides make progress towards a political solution to the long-running war, but it wasn’t without a little bit of controversy.

Some in India were upset that their country wasn’t invited to participate. That wasn’t an intentional slight on Russia’s part since it clarified that only those states which have ties with both warring parties – the Kabul government and the Taliban (which is designed by many as a terrorist group) – would join the talks in order to facilitate further progress. India doesn’t have any ties with the Taliban and had also only participated in previous rounds of Russian-hosted talks in an unofficial capacity as a result. Nevertheless, Mr. Kabulov is expected to bring the Indians up to speed about what was accomplished.

The Russian Foreign Minister might also update India about the outcome of his recent trip to China. Moscow previously praised February’s synchronized disengagement agreement between Beijing and New Delhi which saw them responsibly take steps to peacefully resolve last summer’s dispute along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Russia passionately believes in the merits of trilateral coordination through the Russia-India-China (RIC) framework, so its top diplomat will probably discuss that as well even though it isn’t the main item on his agenda. It’s important for Russia, India, and China to more closely cooperate against American aggression.

Speaking of which, India’s planned purchase of Russia’s S-400 air defense systems will probably be among the most important topics that Foreign Minister Lavrov discusses during his trip. The US is threatening to sanction India if it goes through with this deal under the controversial “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” (CAATSA). This stance is extremely counterproductive for its own national interests since it stands to complicate those two countries’ newfound strategic partnership. India thought that it could trust the US as a reliable ally but it’s quickly learning that such an optimistic expectation might have been premature.

Russia is arguably a much more reliable ally for India than the US ever will be, but economic ties between the two continue to disappoint their supporters. It’s for this reason that Foreign Minister Lavrov will likely discuss ways to scale them up in order for trade to finally reach its full potential with time. One of the most exciting means through which this could be accomplished is through the Vladivistok-Chennai Maritime Corridor (VCMC) that both sides unveiled in September 2019 during Prime Minister Modi’s attendance at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivistok as President Putin’s guest of honor at the time.

Moving along to Pakistan, Foreign Minister Lavrov’s trip will be first time in many years that Russia sent its top diplomat to the South Asian country. Russia and Pakistan used to be Cold War-era rivals and even fought a proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, which is why it’s ironic that it’s Afghanistan of all issues that’s largely responsible for their rapid rapprochement in the present day. Both sides will of course discuss the Afghan peace process, but also other topics of shared interest such as anti-terrorist cooperation and energy. Earlier this year, Russia agreed to build the Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline, which will begin construction this summer.

Moreover, Foreign Minister Lavrov will likely learn more about Pakistan’s multipolar grand strategy that its political, diplomatic, and military leaders simultaneously unveiled in the middle of last month during the inaugural Islamabad Security Dialogue. Pakistan envisions itself serving as the “Zipper of Eurasia”. It believes that its geostrategic location and hosting of the Belt & Road Initiative’s (BRI) flagship project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) enable it facilitate the integration of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

It’s for these strategic reasons why Foreign Minister Lavrov’s trip to South Asia is a major event. Not only will it advance the Afghan peace process, but it’ll also strengthen Russia’s regional presence in South Asia. Moscow will reinforce its traditional relations with New Delhi while continuing to pioneer its new partnership with Islamabad. This shows how important South Asia has become, both for the 21^st century in general and Russian grand strategy in particular. Russia’s balanced approach in dispatching Foreign Minister Lavrov to both India and Pakistan perfectly epitomizes the win-win principles of President Putin’s Greater Eurasian Partnership.

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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.

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***

As the murder trial of Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd proceeds, the prosecution will try to portray the defendant as a “bad apple.” In his opening statement, prosecutor Jerry Blackwell alerted the jurors that they would hear police officials testify Chauvin used excessive force in violation of departmental policy to apply restraints only as necessary to bring a person under control. However, this argument obfuscates the racist violence inherent in the U.S. system of policing.

The first prosecution witness to testify about Minnesota Police Department (MPD) policies was retired Sgt. David Ploeger, the supervising police sergeant on duty the day Chauvin killed Floyd. It was his job to conduct use of force reviews. Ploeger testified,

“When Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officer,” when he was handcuffed on the ground and no longer resisting, “they could have ended the restraint.”

Lt. Richard Zimmerman of the MPD also testified about what constitutes authorized use of force. He said that once a person is secure or handcuffed, “you need to get him out of the prone position as soon as possible because it restricts their breathing.” When a person is cuffed behind his back (as Floyd was), “it stretches the muscles back,” making it “more difficult to breathe.” Once cuffed, Zimmerman added, “you have to turn them on their side or have them sit up,” noting, “you have to get them off their chest” because that constricts the breathing “even more.”

“If your knee is on a person’s neck, that could kill him,” Zimmerman said. “Pulling him down to the ground facedown and putting your knee on a neck for that amount of time, it’s just uncalled for,” he declared. Zimmerman saw “no reason why the officers felt they were in danger,” which is “what they would have to feel to use that kind of force.” The restraint of Floyd “should have stopped once he was prone on the ground and had stopped putting up resistance,” he stated.

But many Minneapolis police officers receive “Killology training” through the police union, where they are taught to kill rather than de-escalate conflict situations. This training violates the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, which require officers to, “as far as possible,” use nonviolent techniques before resorting to force and firearms.

The MPD reported that its officers used violence against Black people at seven times the rate they used violence against white people, during the period from 2015 to 2020.

Prosecutors will likely try to isolate Chauvin as one of “a few bad apples.” That may be an effective prosecutorial strategy to convince jurors they should convict him. But this “rogue cop” characterization — also used after the 1991 Rodney King beating and the police killings of Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling and Breonna Taylor — obscures the systemic nature of police violence against Black and Brown people in the United States. Even the best training in the world cannot teach police, who are licensed to kill and deployed to enforce a racist system, not to be racist.

Black people who are unarmed or not attacking police are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white people, the Brookings Institution found. Moreover, police kill Black people at more than twice the rate of whites even though Black people account for less than 13 percent of the U.S. population. More than 75 percent of the time, chokeholds are applied on men of color.

Prosecutors were compelled to bring charges against Chauvin because the whole world had seen him kill Floyd. After massive protests erupted following the horrifying video of Chauvin’s torture of Floyd — now known to have lasted nine minutes and 29 seconds — the MPD fired Chauvin and prosecutors charged him with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. They later added a charge of second-degree murder.

But what would have happened if eyewitnesses had not recorded Floyd’s death? Would Chauvin have been fired and charged with murder?

Police Impunity Is the Norm

Officers know that they rarely face any semblance of accountability for killing Black people. “Officers were charged with a crime in only one percent of all killings by police,” Mapping Police Violence reported in 2020.

For nine minutes and 29 seconds, Chauvin continued to choke Floyd as several bystanders watched, many visibly recording the killing. Chauvin didn’t try to hide what he was doing. As eyewitness Genevieve Hansen testified, Chauvin looked “comfortable” with his weight on Floyd’s neck.

Other police killings of Black people have happened in similarly open ways. Michael Brown was killed while walking down a public street, his body left on the ground for four hours. Eric Garner was choked to death on a public sidewalk after he was suspected of selling illegal untaxed cigarettes. Both of those killings, which occurred in 2014, sparked public outrage. Although there was video footage in each case, none was as clear and graphic as the images that documented Floyd’s death. Neither Officer Darren Wilson who killed Michael Brown nor Officer Daniel Pantaleo who killed Eric Garner was ever indicted.

“Excited Delirium” Is a Racist Myth Used to Blame Victims

As eyewitness after eyewitness who saw Chauvin torture Floyd to death presents emotional testimony, the defense is attempting to distract the jury’s attention away from his brutal murder by laying the ground work to falsely claim that Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes was not the cause of death.

Defense attorney Eric Nelson alerted the jury during his opening statement that it would “learn about things such as … excited delirium.” MPD Officer Thomas Lane pointed his gun at Floyd who was sitting in his car before he was pulled out and choked to death. Although Lane aided and abetted Chauvin by holding Floyd’s legs, Lane asked at one point while Chauvin was choking Floyd, “Should we roll him on his side?” Chauvin replied, “No, staying put where we got him.” Lane then said, “I am worried about excited delirium or whatever,” as Chauvin maintained his knee on Floyd’s neck.

“Excited delirium” is a catch-all defense used to absolve police for killing Black people. According to the Brookings Institution, “[t]he diagnosis is a misappropriation of medical terminology, used by law enforcement to legitimize police brutality and to retroactively explain certain deaths occurring in police custody.” This diagnosis “inaccurately and selectively combines various signs and symptoms from real medical emergencies.”

Indeed, Chauvin’s defense attorneys are falsely implying that Floyd died from drug abuse, as Mike Ludwig reported in Truthout. Pursuant to the “war on drugs,” Black people are disproportionately targeted by police, although they use drugs at the same rate as whites.

Derek Chauvin is a rotten apple. So is Officer Lane who held Floyd’s legs, and Officer J.A. Kueng who held Floyd’s back while Chauvin choked him to death. So is Officer Tou Thoa who kept bystanders from providing aid to Floyd.

But they are only four of myriad officers who kill Black people with impunity. They are not just “a few bad apples.” These officers are emblematic of the systemic racist police violence against Black people in the United States. Regardless of the outcome in the Chauvin trial, the entire system must be indicted as racist and violent, in and of itself.

The International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence against People of African Descent in the United States, for which I am serving as a Rapporteur, heard testimony from family members and attorneys about police killings of 43 Black people and the paralyzing of another, all of whom were unarmed or not threatening the officers or others. The commission, which is investigating whether police violence against Black people in the U.S. amounts to gross violations of international human rights and fundamental freedoms, will release its 200-page report in mid-April. It contains recommendations addressed to national and international policy makers.

As Chauvin’s trial continues, we must remember that this is not simply the story of one “rogue cop.” It is a window into the anti-Black violence perpetrated routinely by police in this country, as part of a brutal and racist system.

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Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. 

She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Vor circa einem Jahrzehnt hatte ich das Vergnügen, in Seattle mit amerikanischen Bürgern zusammenzuleben. Ihre Herzlichkeit, Hilfsbereitschaft und Offenheit haben mich zutiefst beeindruckt – und überrascht: hatte ich doch wegen der mörderischen US-amerikanischen Kriegspolitik und den weltweiten „Kreuzzügen“ der US- Regierungen starke Vorbehalte mitgebracht.

Rolf Winter, ein deutscher Journalist, der einige Jahre in New York City lebte und die Vereinigten Staaten durchreiste, dokumentierte seine Erkundungen in drei Büchern. Das bekannteste ist der Bestseller von 1989 „Ami go home“ (1). Diese eindeutige Aufforderung kommt einem wieder in den Sinn, wenn man die von der US-Regierung initiierte psychologische Kriegsführung gegen Russland in den Massenmedien über sich ergehen lassen muss und nach dem Sinn des militärischen Manövers „Defender Europe 21“ auf dem Balkan nahe der russischen Grenze fragt. Siehe hierzu „Global Research“.

„Krieg liegt in der Luft“

Bereits kurz nach Ausrufung der Corona-Pandemie bezeichnete der ehemalige sowjetische Staatschefs Michail Gorbatschow die politische Lage als äußerst besorgniserregend und meinte laut „Sputnik News“ vom 12. März 2020: „Krieg liegt in der Luft.“ (2)

Und der ehemalige stellvertretende Sekretär des US-Finanzministeriums und Mitherausgeber des „Wall Street Journals“ Paul Craig Roberts schrieb am 25. März einem Artikel in “Global Research” mit dem Titel: „Die Samen des Krieges säen. Mangel an Vertrauen in China und Russland. ‚Washingtons hegemoniale Bestrebungen könnten zu einem verheerenden Krieg führen‘“ (3).

„Operation Balkan: Werbung für Krieg und Tod“ 

Die älteren Bürger Serbiens haben in den späten 1990er Jahren schmerzlich erlebt, wie der Angriffskrieg der US-Regierung und der NATO-Vasallen gemeinsam mit „eingebetteten“ Journalisten der Massenmedien vorbereitet wurde, welche Verbrechen unter dem Kriegs-Code-Namen „Barmherziger Engel“ von den Aggressoren begangen wurden und wie unbarmherzig deren Völkermord bis heute bei Jung und Alt nachwirkt.

Die Balkanexpertin und Wiener OSZE-Diplomatin Mira Beham und der Politikwissenschaftler Jörg Becker haben mit ihrem Buch „Operation Balkan: Werbung für Krieg und Tod“ ein einmaliges Dokument über die Vorgehensweise und Wirkung von Public Relations PR (Öffentlichkeitsarbeit) verfasst (4):

„Dass Regierungen PR-Unternehmen beauftragen, um ihr Image aufzubessern, ist bekannt. Wenig bekannt ist allerdings, dass es von Regierungen in Auftrag gegebene PR-Kampagnen gibt, um Feindbilder aufzubauen, Kriege vorzubereiten oder Diktaturen zu beschönigen. Die Autoren zeigen anhand der Balkankriege und auf der Grundlage einer Analyse von 157 Verträgen zwischen ex-jugoslawischen Kunden und amerikanischen PR-Agenturen exemplarisch, wie mit Hilfe von Publik Relations Krisen- und Kriegskommunikation betrieben wird. Dabei wird untersucht, wie es mittels PR-Strategien als quasi privatisierter Propaganda gelingt, geschlossene Kommunikationskreisläufe zwischen Politik, Militär, Medien, NGOs und think tanks herzustellen, in denen die immer gleichen Kernbotschaften zirkulieren. Diskutiert werden auch die Konsequenzen dieser Privatisierung von (Kriegs-) Kommunikation.“ (5)

„Wir Europäer sagen NEIN zu einem Krieg gegen Russland!“

Am 8. Mai 2018 initiierte ich zusammen mit meinem Freund, dem Sozial- und Politikwissenschaftler Ullrich Mies, eine Öffentliche Erklärung in den fünf Sprachen Deutsch, Englisch, Niederländisch, Serbisch und Russisch:

„Wir Europäer sagen NEIN zu einem Krieg gegen Russland!“

Diese Erklärung erschien in diversen Online-Zeitungen und wurde von vielen europäischen Bürgern und namhaften Persönlichkeiten unterschrieben. Sie kann in der „Neuen Rheinischen Zeitung NRhZ“ noch immer eingesehen und unterschrieben werden (6). Die Erklärung im Wortlaut:

Zwei Weltkriege sind genug!

In der Vergangenheit ließ sich Deutschland in den Ersten Weltkrieg hineinziehen und hat im Zweiten Weltkrieg dem russischen Volk unermessliches Leid zugefügt.

Wir werden nicht zulassen, dass sich dies noch einmal wiederholt!

Wenn die deutsche Vasallen-Regierung in Komplizenschaft mit den Kriegstreibern in Großbritannien und Frankreich unter der Führung der USA und der NATO einen neuen Angriffskrieg gegen Russland plant, dann tut sie das nicht in unserem Namen! 

Zu Krieg und Frieden haben wir, die Bürgerinnen und Bürger, das letzte Wort!

Wir sagen NEIN zu Krieg und Gewalt in den internationalen Beziehungen und verurteilen die fortgesetzte Kriegstreiberei, Aufrüstung und Militarisierung!

Angefügt ist die Urteilsbegründung des Internationalen Militärgerichtshofs in Nürnberg 1946:

„Die Entfesselung eines Angriffskrieges ist nicht bloß ein internationales Verbrechen. Es ist das schwerste internationale Verbrechen, das sich von anderen Kriegsverbrechen nur dadurch unterscheidet, dass es in sich alle Schrecken der anderen Verbrechen einschließt und anhäuft.“ (7)

„Plädoyer für den Abschied von einem gewalttätigen Land“

Das ist der Untertitel von Rolf Winters Bestseller „Ami Go home“. In einem weiteren Buch aus dem Jahr 1990 mit dem Titel „Die amerikanische Zumutung. Plädoyers gegen das Land des real existierenden Kapitalismus“ schreibt Winter:

„Bemerkenswert ist die ständig wachsende Bereitschaft der Welt, sich mit der amerikanischen Unerträglichkeit abzufinden, sie, sozusagen, zu ignorieren oder so zu tun, als hätte es mit ihr doch ihre Ordnung.“ (8)

Dieser Einschätzung des Amerika-Kenners kann man sich uneingeschränkt anschließen:

Was habt ihr Amis hier in Europa sowie im Nahen, Mittleren und Fernen Osten zu suchen?

„Imperium USA: Eine skrupellose Weltmacht“ ist der Titel eines neueren Buches des Schweizer Friedensforschers Daniele Ganser (9). Dieses Imperium ist die größte Bedrohung für den Weltfrieden.

Deshalb: Ami Go Home!

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel ist Diplom-Psychologe und Erziehungswissenschaftler.

Fußnoten

(1) Winter, R. (1989). AMI GO HOME. Plädoyer für den Abschied von einem gewalttätigen Land. Hamburg

(2) https://de.rt.com/meinung/115202-vier-jahre-albtraum-ohne-neuen-krieg/

(3) https://www.globalresearch.ca/sowing-seeds-war/5740893

(4) Becker, J., Beham, M. (2008²). Operation Balkan: Werbung für Krieg und Tod. Baden-Baden

(5) A. a. O. Rückdeckel

(6) http://www.nrhz.de. Wer noch unterzeichnen möchte, schicke bitte eine eMail mit (Titel), Vorname, Nachname und Ort (Ort wird nicht veröffentlicht). Bitte hier klicken und das sich öffnende eMail-Fenster verwenden

(7) A. a. O.

(8) Winter, R. (1990). Die amerikanische Zumutung. Rückdeckel

(9) Ganser, D. (2020). Imperium USA: Die skrupellose Weltmacht. Zürich

Featured image: Halstuch, entworfen von Pablo Picasso für die dritten Weltjugendfestspiele in Berlin (DDR), 1951 (from Dr. Rudolf Hansel)

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The official expert scientists in the ruling class have declared that getting COVID after being fully “vaccinated” with the experimental gene therapies is “expected.” Meaning these shots don’t work as vaccines and are being mislabeled.

Using all the buzzwords to get the brainwashed masses to believe they still need this vaccine, many missed reading between the lines.  They have admitted now that the “vaccines” don’t protect against getting or spreading COVID-19. They have also admitted now that it is gene therapy, not a vaccine, and it will alter your genetic material.

Epidemiologists in Washington state have now admitted that they have evidence of at least 102 fully vaccinated people testing positive for COVID-19 since the beginning of February, the state’s health department confirmed Tuesday.

It’s fascinating that people can read these words with their own brain, then proceed to share Pfizer or Moderna’s “studies” that magically conclude that the mRNA shots provide immunity, when we are being told they don’t.  So who’s lying? Big Pharma? Or the ruling class?

Even slave master Fauci says you can still get and spread COVID after being “vaccinated”:

The rulers want you to know that the number of people who come down with COVID after vaccination is small. The cases after getting “vaccinated” are expected, according to the DOH, and the 102 people represent just .01% of the 1,000,000 fully vaccinated Washingtonians.

“Finding evidence of vaccine breakthrough cases reminds us that, even if you have been vaccinated, you still need to wear a mask, practice socially distancing, and wash your hands to prevent spreading COVID-19 to others who have not been vaccinated,” said Umair A. Shah, MD, MPH, Secretary of Health, according to a report by K4 News Oklahoma. an NBC affiliate. So even if you are vaccinated, you can still get COVID-19 and spread it.

Let’s follow the illogic of this statement for a moment.  If the vaccinated can still get COVID and spread it to the unvaccinated, when the unvaccinated become vaccinated they can still spread it to? Because if the vaccinated can still get it, vaccinating everyone won’t stop the virus from spreading. So what is the real reason we are all expected to take the gene therapy shots?

These seem to be questions that most Americans are too dumbed down to even ponder, let alone ask.

Additionally, are 1 million Washingtonians fully vaccinated? Can we trust their numbers? We already know we can’t trust their COVID numbers and we are being lied to constantly.

Stay alert.  People are figuring this hoax out in bigger numbers.  But we know the ruling class won’t let this go and the “vaccines” are a part of the New World Order agenda.

We need to remain alert and prepared. It’s hard to say what they will try to pull off next as people wake up to their enslavement.

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US Europe Command has raised its posture to the highest level, “potential imminent threat”, as USAF surveillance flights have tracked Russia’s border over the past 48 hours.

The current flare of tensions sparked on March 26, when four Ukrainian military servicemen were killed by a landmine while inspecting minefields near the village of Shumy. Kiev and their partners the US and NATO used the deaths to blame the forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic, who denied any attacks.

Dmitry Peskov, the Russian presidential spokesman, said the Kremlin was worried the Ukrainian side might create the risk for a civil war if they initiated provocation in southeastern Ukraine.  Peskov added that Russia would take “additional measures” if NATO were to use provocation.

The US forces are now on high alert in Europe and blaming “Russian aggression” in the area. An official from NATO said to Reuters that Russia was undermining efforts to reduce tensions in eastern Ukraine.

Rebels seized parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk region in April 2014, and the Kremlin says Russian “volunteers” have been assisting the rebels.

Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman, said during Friday’s briefing,

“I would like to warn the Kiev regime and the hotheads that are serving it or manipulating it against further de-escalation and attempts to implement a forceful scenario in Donbass.”

Zakharova said that Ukrainian officials regularly accuse Russia, while not adhering to, and implementing the agreements reached previously on settlement in eastern Ukraine.

“At the same time, Kiev is trying to convince everyone that Moscow is allegedly a conflict side and that it allegedly has some obligations within the Minsk Package of Measures,” Zakharova added.

The Minsk Agreements outline the conflict sides in Donbass as Kiev, Donetsk, and Lugansk. However, Kiev attempts to place blame on Moscow.

Zakharova said,

“The unwillingness of Ukrainian negotiators to recognize this fact and their refusal to find agreements with Donbass is the reason that hinders the establishment of long-lasting peace in the region.”

US President Joe Biden spoke by phone with Mr. Zelensky in Kiev on Friday. The White House said in a statement that the call “affirmed the United States’ unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbas and Crimea.”

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project bypasses Ukraine.  When completed it will connect Russia’s Ust-Lug and Germany’s Greifswald with natural gas. The construction of the pipeline from the coast of Russia through the Baltic Sea was expected to be completed before the end of 2019 and will be 1,220 km long.

Ukraine, the US, Poland, and the Baltic States oppose the pipeline, while Russia’s Gazprom is in alliance with several European companies.

Ukraine stands to lose approximately $3 billion annually in gas transit fees because of the bypass.

Source: Mideast Discourse

The US is pressuring European allies, and private companies, involved in the pipeline to stop their involvement in Nord Stream 2, and the US is planning broader sanctions against the Russian project within the month.

The Rose Revolution was a US-instigated ‘regime change’ project in Georgia in November 2003, which culminated in the ousting of President Eduard Shevardnadze. At the same time, it served as a proxy attack on Russia, which had been close to Georgia.

Demonstrators led by Mikheil Saakashvili, who was funded by George Soros, stormed the Parliament session with red roses in hand.

US support for the Shevardnadze government declined from 2000 to 2003, with pressure coming from George Soros, Richard Miles, the US ambassador to Georgia, and allies of the Bush administration, including a visit from James Baker, the former U.S. Secretary of State.

The US and allied organizations gave financial assistance to NGOs and opposition parties within Georgia. This tactic was classical US State Department procedure to bring about ‘regime change’, or other manipulations in foreign countries.

The 2014 Ukrainian revolution from November 2013 to February 2014 culminated in the ousting of the elected Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, who had been close to Russia, and the overthrow of the Ukrainian government.

US Senator John McCain came in December 2013 to rally protesters,

“We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently, and the destiny you seek lies in Europe.”

The Obama administration backed ‘regime change’ in Ukraine, and Vice President Joe Biden was handed the Ukrainian file to manage.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in China on March 22 and met with the Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.  The two discussed recent developments with the US and urged the US to rethink the damage it has caused to international peace.

Lavrov and Yi urged the US to stop its global bullying tactics, and interference in other countries’ internal affairs, and to stop forming alliances with other nations to manipulate and provoke confrontations.  The two urged all countries to follow the UN Charter to boost peaceful international relations.

Chinese spokesperson Hua Chunying said,

“China and Russia, standing shoulder to shoulder with close cooperation and firm opposition to hegemony and bullying, have been a pillar of world peace and stability.”

Lavrov called for promoting other international currencies that can replace the US dollar and gradually move away from the Western-controlled international payment system so that the risks posed by US or Western sanctions against Russia and China can be reduced, and several Russian banks have joined the China International Payment System to facilitate bilateral trade settlements.

The four dead Ukrainian servicemen may be used to stop Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The men who died while inspecting minefields may be used as a tool to blame Russia for Ukrainian inaction on the Minsk Agreements, and to prevent the important Russian pipeline from completion.  The US-NATO war machine has worked in collusion before in Serbia, Libya, and Syria. Biden’s bullying and manipulations in Ukraine and Russia may prove to be the first test of his administration on the world stage.

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Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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***

With the White House continually provoking tensions against Russia and China, the doyen of American foreign policy, Henry Kissinger, dramatically warned Washington last week to either agree to a new international system or continue pushing tensions that are leading to a situation similar to the eve of World War One.

In a Chatham House webinar with former British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt last Thursday, 97-year-old Kissinger called on the U.S. to create a balance with existing global forces, adding

“if you imagine that the world commits itself to an endless competition based on the dominance of whoever is superior at the moment, then a breakdown of the order is inevitable. And the consequences of a breakdown would be catastrophic.”

The veteran diplomat urged the U.S. to understand that not every issue has “final solutions” and warned

“if we don’t get to an understanding with China on that point, then we will be in a pre-World War One-type situation in which there are perennial conflicts that get solved on an immediate basis but one of them gets out of control at some point.”

However, the idea that the U.S. should stop imposing its will on everyone else will not be easily accepted in Washington. This is attested by the sharp rhetoric and personal insults that U.S. President Joe Biden continually levels against his Russian and Chinese counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.  

High-ranking Chinese official Yang Jiechi told U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on March 18 in Alaska that “the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.” Then, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi boldly said days later on March 22 during their meeting in Beijing that they “jointly safeguard multilateralism, maintain the international system with the UN at its core and the international order based on international law, while firmly opposing unilateral sanctions as well as interference in other countries’ internal affairs.”

Kissinger’s career is washed in blood when we remember his backing of Pakistan during Bangladesh’s War of Independence despite the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people and mass rape; orchestrated a military coup in Chile to remove democratically elected Allende in favor of the Pinochet dictatorship; tacitly supported Indonesia’s mass killing of hundreds of thousands of East Timorese; and, blessed Turkey’s invasion of northern Cyprus that led to 200,000 Greek refugees without a right of return – among many other things.

However, his most recent statement about the U.S. and the international system is actually a mature proposal that would be beneficial for world peace if the Biden administration accepts his advice that the global order is changing. It is unlikely that Washington is ready to unilaterally end its hard and soft power aggression as it falsely believes it can maintain a unipolar order.

It is always difficult for Great Powers to accept that the world has changed, especially when it is to their detriment. The behavior of the Biden administration, which deliberately uses threatening and inappropriate rhetoric, demonstrates that it will not rationally accept a multipolar world system, especially since Russophobia and Sinophobia are on the rise.

Personal insults against Putin and Xi are an expression of American impotence, especially when we consider that the U.S. historically did not engage in this kind of rhetoric when it was at the zenith of its power. The U.S. is no longer the world’s sole superpower and its rivals are no longer accepting such aggression, which is exactly why the Chinese delegation that went to Alaska last month clearly stated that it does not accept any language of force.

An additional problem for the U.S. is whether its allies will strain their relations with China and Russia, and whether they will accept being pushed into conflicts with them. There are indications that the most important European countries will resist U.S. demands. This is evidenced by the Nord Stream 2 issue where American attempts to prevent its construction are being met with resistance from important European Union countries despite the endless complaints from minnows like Lithuania and Poland.

Robert Gates, former director of the CIA and U.S. Secretary of Defense, admitted in a recent interview with the Washington Post that sanctions against Russia do not any good for the U.S. In The National Interest, Robert Kaplan describes Russia as a “problem from hell” because it cannot be subdued. Kaplan offered reasons why it is necessary for Russia to “move away from its one-sided alliance with China” and find balance with the U.S.

Washington’s misguided policy of aggression to maintain a unipolar world order worked in the favor of China and Russia, especially in accelerating their cooperation. The West can no longer suppress China’s economic power or Russia’s military power. Military strategists in the West are aware that the Russo-Sino cooperation cannot be compensated by anything. In the end, Washington will have to resort to a strategy resembling Kissinger’s suggestion of finding equilibrium, whilst also accepting the multipolar reality that has been established.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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***

GR Editor’s Note

It is worth noting that while AstraZenaka has been the object of suspension, the vaccine related deaths and injuries are significantly larger in regards to the Pfizer vaccine.

How is it that AstraZeneka has been the object of restrictions by 18 European governments, while no limitations have been considered with regard to Pfizer and Moderna Inc.

Are these Big Pharma companies competing with one another?

Below is the Eudra Vigilance data on vaccine deaths and injuries for the period December 27, 2020 to March 13, 2021 pertaining respectively to AstraZeneka, Pfizer and Moderna.

The deaths and injuries associated with the BioNTech/ Pfizer vaccine are significantly larger:

2,540 deaths and 102,100 injuries 

Moreover, the number of deaths  recorded in relation to the Moderna vaccine is more than double that of AstraZeneca:

973 deaths and 5939 injuries 

Here is the Breakdown:

Total reactions for the experimental vaccine AZD1222 (CHADOX1 NCOV-19) from Oxford/ AstraZeneca: 451 deaths and 54,571 injuries to 13/03/2021

Total reactions for the experimental mRNA vaccine Tozinameran (code BNT162b2, Comirnaty) from BioNTech/ Pfizer: 2,540 deaths and 102,100 injuries to 13/03/2021

Total reactions for the experimental mRNA vaccine mRNA-1273 (CX-024414) from Moderna: 973 deaths and 5,939 injuries to 13/03/2021

EudraVigilance states with regard to the data:

“Only a detailed evaluation and scientific assessment of all available data allows for robust conclusions to be drawn on the benefits and risks of a medicine.”

Michel Chossudovsky  April 5, 2021

***

The Netherlands has temporarily halted the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for people aged under 60 as a “precaution”.

In a statement on Friday afternoon, the country’s health ministry said it was acting on a new report from independent advisory body Lareb.

The report concerned five women in the country aged between 25 and 65 who had gone on to suffer blood clots after receiving the shot. “Similar reports have also come from other EU countries,” the Dutch authorities added.

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***

About a decade ago, I had the pleasure of living with American citizens in Seattle. Their warmth, helpfulness and openness impressed me deeply – and surprised me: after all, I had brought strong reservations with me because of the murderous US war policy and the worldwide “crusades” of the US governments.

Rolf Winter, a German journalist who lived in New York City for several years and travelled the United States, documented his explorations in three books. The best known is the 1989 bestseller “Ami go home” (1). This clear call comes to mind again when one has to endure the psychological warfare against Russia initiated by the US government in the mass media and asks about the sense of the military manoeuvre “Defender Europe 21” in the Balkans near the Russian border. See “Global Research“.

“War is in the air”

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, shortly after the Corona pandemic was declared, already described the political situation as extremely worrying and said, according to “Sputnik News” of 12 March 2020: “War is in the air.” (2)

And former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the “Wall Street Journal” Paul Craig Roberts wrote an article in “Global Research” on 25 March entitled: “Sowing the seeds of war. Lack of confidence in China and Russia. ‘Washington’s hegemonic ambitions could lead to a devastating war‘” (3).

“Operation Balkans: Advertising War and Death” 

The older citizens of Serbia painfully experienced in the late 1990s how the war of aggression of the US government and NATO vassals was prepared together with “embedded” journalists of the mass media, what crimes were committed by the aggressors under the war code name “Merciful Angel” and how relentlessly their genocide continues to reverberate among young and old to this day.

The Balkans expert and Vienna OSCE diplomat Mira Beham and the political scientist Jörg Becker have written a unique document on the procedures and effects of public relations PR in their book “Operation Balkans: Advertising War and Death” (4):

“It is well known that governments hire PR companies to improve their image. What is little known, however, is that there are PR campaigns commissioned by governments to build up enemy images, prepare for wars or whitewash dictatorships. The authors use the Balkan wars and an analysis of 157 contracts between former Yugoslavian clients and American PR agencies as examples to show how public relations is used to communicate crises and wars. The study examines how PR strategies, as quasi-privatised propaganda, succeed in creating closed communication circuits between politics, the military, the media, NGOs and think tanks, in which the same core messages always circulate. The consequences of this privatisation of (war) communication are also discussed.” (5)

“We Europeans say NO to war against Russia!”

On 8 May 2018, together with my friend, the social and political scientist Ullrich Mies, I initiated a Public Declaration in the five languages German, English, Dutch, Serbian and Russian:

“We Europeans say NO to war against Russia!”

This declaration appeared in various online newspapers and was signed by many European citizens and well-known personalities. It can still be viewed and signed in the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung NRhZ” (6). The declaration in the wording:

Two world wars are enough!

In the past, Germany allowed itself to be dragged into the First World War and in the Second World War it inflicted immeasurable suffering on the Russian people.

We will not allow this to happen again!

If the German vassal government, in complicity with the warmongers in Britain and France, under the leadership of the USA and NATO, is planning a new war of aggression against Russia, it is not doing so in our name!

We, the citizens, have the last word on war and peace!

We say NO to war and violence in international relations and condemn the continued warmongering, armament and militarisation!

Attached is the reasoning of the judgement of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg 1946:

“The unleashing of a war of aggression is not merely an international crime. It is the most serious international crime, differing from other war crimes only in that it includes and accumulates within itself all the horrors of the other crimes.” (7)

“Plea to say goodbye to a violent country”

This is the subtitle of Rolf Winter’s bestseller “Ami Go home”. In another 1990 book entitled “The American Imposition. Pleas against the Land of Real Existing Capitalism” Winter writes:

“What is remarkable is the world’s ever-growing readiness to come to terms with American intolerability, to ignore it, so to speak, or to pretend that it is all right after all.” (8)

This assessment by the connoisseur of America can be unreservedly endorsed:

What are you Yanks doing here in Europe and in the Near, Middle and Far East?

“Empire USA: A Ruthless World Power” is the title of a recent book by the Swiss peace researcher Daniele Ganser (9). This empire is the greatest threat to world peace.

Therefore: Ami Go Home!

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is a graduate psychologist and educationalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(1) Winter, R. (1989). AMI GO HOME. Plea for a farewell to a violent country. Hamburg

(2) https://de.rt.com/meinung/115202-vier-jahre-albtraum-ohne-neuen-krieg/

(3) https://www.globalresearch.ca/sowing-seeds-war/5740893

(4) Becker, J., Beham, M. (20082). Operation Balkans: advertising war and death. Baden-Baden

(5) op. cit. back cover

(6) http://www.nrhz.de

(7) Op. cit.

(8) Winter, R. (1990). The American Imposition. Back cover

(9) Ganser, D. (2020). Imperium USA: The unscrupulous world power. Zurich

Featured image:  Neckerchief designed by Pablo Picasso for the Third World Youth Festival in Berlin (GDR), 1951 (Source: Dr. Rudolf Hansel)

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***

Once again, Kiev is leading a new escalation of violence in the Russian border. In the past few days, the autonomous republics of Donbass have been suffering from violations of the ceasefire agreement by Ukrainian forces, which has raised tensions and worried experts about the possibility of a return to the status of the war before the Minsk conferences. To make matters worse, Washington is acting provocatively, asserting full support for Kiev and solidarity with the aggressors in the conflict.

Joe Biden and the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, held last Friday, April 2, their first telephone conversation since the American leader took office. On the occasion, the leaders discussed several topics, including the tensions on the border with Russia. Biden and Zelensky agreed that what is happening in eastern Ukraine is a “Russian aggression” and that it must be contained by the mutual efforts of their two countries. In a statement after the conversation, a White House spokesperson said: “President Biden affirmed the United States’ unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbass and Crimea”.

The conversation between the American and Ukrainian presidents takes place at a particularly difficult time, coinciding with a new escalation of violence in the Donbass region. In fact, Ukraine has never strictly complied with the terms of the Minsk agreements, which imposed a ceasefire on the war, but it has consistently acted in a aggressive and destructive way, with attacks, illegal arrests and murders. Still, after the rise of Biden – knowing the more interventionist position of the new American president – Kiev began to invest even more in military pressure in regions bordering Russia, not only in the Donbass, but also in the Crimea region and other areas close to Russia. Kiev gradually shows interest in making its entire border with Russia a NATO occupation zone.

In February, Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Vladislav Krikliy asked the Western military alliance to monitor airspace across the border with Russia. In early April, Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the exponential increase of US military personnel on the Russian-Ukrainian border, warning of the dangers of NATO actions in the region, which was responded by Lloyd Austin, Pentagon’s leader, with a declaration of American support for Kiev in the face of “Russian aggressions” – jargon extremely repeated by Americans and Ukrainians, but completely unfounded. On the occasion, Peskov warned that Moscow will take all necessary measures to defend Russian borders, which was seen later with a large move of Russian troops to the conflict zones in Donbass and Crimea. According to American intelligence data, about 4,000 Russian soldiers have been deployed in these regions, which has generated negative reactions on the part of NATO. Moscow declared that these military actions are normal and should not be a cause for concern.

It is curious to note how Ukraine has promoted an increase in violence but is unable to deal with the consequences of its own actions. This Saturday, a Ukrainian soldier was killed, and others were injured in the explosion of a landmine in Donbass. Kiev uses cases like this to endorse the rhetoric of Russian aggression and call for support for NATO, but in fact, Russia is not yet directly involved in Donbass, only providing logistical support to popular militias in the region. The recent troops’ moves have had no effective military results – they have only put Russian soldiers on standby in the face of threats.

Indeed, Kiev does not have the capacity to deal with the conflict, not even facing only popular militias, but in its anti-Russian ideological extremism, the government prefers to risk the lives of its own soldiers by investing in an escalation of violence in order to justify a NATO intervention on the basis of an alleged “Russian aggression” – when the aggressor is precisely Kiev. It is important to emphasize the Ukrainian government’s belief that, in fact, NATO will intervene in favor of Kiev’s forces, as local disputes in eastern Ukraine were so important that Washington risked a direct confrontation with Russian interests in the region. This is something that seems unrealistic even for an ideologically committed president like Joe Biden – he certainly can intervene in the region in some way to help Ukraine, but it will not happen in the way Kiev apparently hopes.

The entire Russian border region is fraught with tensions and conflicts and this will not stop anytime soon. The correct path to be followed is the collective abdication of violence and resolution through diplomatic means.

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Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

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***

Numerous statements by Ukrainian and Russian officials reported this Easter Sunday bode ill for hopes of diminishing tensions in Eastern Ukraine. Growing indications of impending intervention by the Pentagon and NATO make the situation yet more grim. U.S. European Command has raised its Ukraine watch level from possible crisis to potential imminent crisis, the highest level, according to Stars and Stripes.

The past few days have witnessed a phone conversation between President Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky and a similar exchange between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his, Defense Minister Andrii Taran. In both instances the American officials assured their Ukrainian allies of American support not only in their steadily mounting conflict with the Donetsk and Lugansk republics in the Donbass in what was formerly Eastern Ukraine, but with its war of words, and veiled words of war, with Russia which borders the two republics.

Ukraine reports a government soldier being killed in an explosion and Donetsk states a child was killed and a woman wounded in an attack in its territory by a Ukrainian drone strike.

The deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, Konstantin Kosachev, evoked the death of the child to warn the NATO and European Union nations in Europe that their silence on the Ukrainian government’s resumption of shelling in the Donbass is providing the Kiev government carte blanche to continue and to escalate the current conflict into a prelude to all-our war. A war, moreover, on the Russian border, one that it’s difficult to imagine Moscow being able to stand aloof from for long. His words included, “Yesterday, for the first time since July 2020 a Ukrainian shelling of the DPR [Donetsk People’s Republic] was conducted and a six-year-old child died,” and he bemoaned the fact that “there is no word about this” from Ukraine’s and Russia’s partners in the Normandy Contact Group, France and Germany. (The Normandy Format was established in 2014 when fighting in the Donbass erupted in order to deescalate the conflict and reach a peaceful settlement between its participants.)

Instead the French-German statement emphasized “support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders,” a reference to Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea, and added: “We are closely monitoring the situation and in particular Russian troop movements, and call on all sides to show restraint and to work towards the immediate de-escalation of tensions.” A more partisan appraisal is hard to imagine, and is yet more disturbing as it casts Russia in the role of potential aggressor against Ukraine as well as siding with Kiev in its armed conflict with the Donbass republics.

The Ukrainian government is proving increasingly successful in its endeavors to recruit the U.S. and NATO into the conflict on its side and to direct their attention toward Russia as an adversary.

The government press agency TASS paraphrased the above-Russian senator reflecting that the catastrophe in Eastern Ukraine could have been prevented at its inception in 2014 “if Europe had refused to accept the coup d’état in Ukraine or had demanded the new authorities ‘fully observe common European values in regard to its citizens.’”

The same source cited the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament – the Russian State Duma – Vyacheslav Volodin, who in the same tone of urgency and condemnation his colleague in the upper house adopted toward France and Germany, wrote this about Ukrainian authorities’ current behavior:

“The Ukrainian leaders’ rhetoric has gone too far, adding to the tensions and aggravating the conflict. It is fraught with the most serious consequences. What are Ukrainian officials saying? Do they call for the settlement of the situation? No. Their actions are geared to intimidate people, to fan tensions in the region.”

The two Russian parliamentarians doubtlessly reflect the position of the government as a whole; one which reveals the highest degree of alarm over prospects of the war near Russia’s border affecting its national security as well.

In equally blunt language the lawmaker added, “one should bear in mind that not everything that is advantageous for the United States is in Europe’s interests.” President Joe Biden’s relation to Ukraine before but particularly since the coup and resulting war of 2014 was sufficient indication of what to expect from Washington once he entered the White House. Such apprehensions have not proven unwarranted. The Russian speaker extended his indictment of U.S. responsibility for the current crisis by accusing the U.S. of doing nothing in the seven years since the American-backed coup there to assist the nation’s economy. “The country has lost its sovereignty in practically all areas,” he added, emphasizing that not even a single batch of the coronavirus vaccine has been sent to Ukraine: “If the United States charges even its NATO partners for protection, it will demand trice as much from Ukraine.”

Shifting his attention to Kiev, he said:

“Before it is too late, Ukrainian leaders must spare no effort to implement the Minsk accords. Stop escalating the situation in Donbass if you don’t want to finish your political careers in the Hague.”

While the Russian legislator lambasted Washington, a major Ukrainian official appealed to it to enter the fray. The country’s deputy prime minister and the head of the ominous-sounding Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine – that means of course not only Donetsk and Lugansk but Crimea, now part of Russia, as well – Oleksiy Reznikov, recently advocated that the U.S. join the Normandy Format and the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, the latter currently consisting of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, also created seven years ago. He said: “A discussion – at the level of Ukraine – [with the] participation of the United States [regarding the Donbass] is absolutely possible and acceptable at different levels….[The] United States…can begin to work both in the Normandy format and at the level of ambassadors and coordinators of the Trilateral Contact Group.”

The U.S. joining the Normandy Contact Group would stack it four to one against Russia, with three members of the NATO Quad allied with Kiev against it.

On the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of NATO on April 4, while the Russian foreign ministry accused NATO’s increased arms spending of fueling a global arms race, Ukrainian President Zelensky called on the military bloc to grant his country a Membership Action Plan, the final stage to full NATO membership, one used by the sixteen countries that have joined the alliance since 1999. To highlight Ukraine’s value to Washington and NATO, Zelensky boasted of the fact that Ukraine this year will engage in fifteen multinational military exercises abroad and host nine at home. The latter will include this year’s iteration of Rapid Trident, Sea Breeze, Cossack Mace, Warrior Watcher, Riverine, Three Swords and Silver Sabre.

The Sea Breeze multinational naval drills will be the twenty-first iteration of the exercise, one which includes the participation of U.S. anti-missile Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers and is employed to integrate U.S. and NATO military forces in the Black Sea for operations in the region. Until 2014 they were based in Crimea. In 2006 the theme of the war games was to “simulate the defence of a peninsula caught between a totalitarian state and a democratic one.” It was cancelled by the Ukrainian government of pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko because of local anti-NATO protests.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Colonel-General Ruslan Khomchak, made this offer to NATO:

“We effectively utilize NATO partnership tools and mechanisms to support…engagement with the Alliance, that has progressed even further with Ukraine’s recognition as an Enhanced Opportunities Partner. Ukraine is now one of six Enhanced Opportunities Partners, alongside Australia, Finland, Georgia, Jordan and Sweden. And we work on particular practical measures to add practical value to such cooperation format.”

He reminded NATO that Ukraine has supplied the military bloc with troops for Kosovo and Afghanistan (he didn’t mention to the U.S. in Iraq as well) and pledged to contribute to the NATO Mission in Iraq and NATO Operation Sea Guardian in the Mediterranean Sea, such efforts contributing to “reaching military criteria of a full-fledged NATO membership.” The quid pro quo will be NATO getting more involved in Ukraine.

Roman Mashovets, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine on National Security and Defense and the Defense Industry, recently met with the head of the NATO Representation to Ukraine, Alexander Vinnikov, and advocated that NATO hold joint air patrols in Ukrainian air space. The Ukrainian press reported that “Ukraine has offered NATO to hold joint military exercises in response to Russia’s moves to amass troops near the Ukrainian border.” That is as direct a call for NATO air and ground forces to be deployed against Russia as can be made.

The NATO envoy was in accord. Vinnikov, again according to a Ukrainian news source, “expressed condolences over Ukraine’s losses in recent weeks in the fight against Russian aggression in Donbas,” and stressed that Ukrainian government assessments of the fighting in the east of the country “will be passed to the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.”

Efforts of the sort detailed above indicate a clear intent to involve the U.S. and NATO in Ukraine’s worsening confrontation with not only the Donbass but Russia as well. They may herald as direct a clash between the first two and the last as the world has yet seen.

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People casually refer to the current lockdowns as being “because of COVID” or “the pandemic”. That is a lie. Our governments are imposing restrictive, counter-productive measures on us, not COVID.

The notion that there is a pandemic caused by a ‘killer virus” is illusory. The data underpinning the lie is invalid.

COVID-19, a term that covers a broad range of symptoms, has always had high survival rates.

According to Dr. John Ioannidis,

“of every seroprevalence study conducted to date of publication with a supporting scientific paper (74 estimates from 61 studies and 51 different localities around the world) the median infection survival rate from COVID-19 infection is 99.7 percent.  For COVID-19 patients under 70, the meta-analysis finds an infection survival rate of 99.95%.” (1)

Clearly, COVID is not a “plague to be feared”, or a “killer virus”, as it is presented to us by Mainstream Everything in as many as 190 countries. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) conveniently “redefined” the word “pandemic” to exclude mortality rates in 2009. (2)

Foundational to the Big Lie is data. Mainstream Everything would have us believe that SARS-COV-2 tests are not only reliable, but that they are also key to resolving the (fabricated) crisis (sic). The data, however, is invalid. The WHO has admitted as much.

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky explains that,

”the World Health Organization (WHO) tacitly admits one year later that ALL PCR tests conducted at a 35 cycle amplification threshold (Ct) or higher are INVALID. But that is what they recommended in January 2020, in consultation with the virology team at Charité Hospital in Berlin. If the test is conducted at a 35 Ct threshold or above (which was recommended by the WHO), segments of the SARS-CoV-2 virus cannot be detected, which means that ALL the so-called confirmed “positive cases” tabulated in the course of the last 14 months are invalid.” (3)

Clearly, unelected “controllers” have been selling us a Lie to impose lockdown measures, to destroy economies, and to inject us with experimental vaccines.

There is nothing democratic about any of this. Compliant politicians are lying to us.

The boot of totalitarianism is currently on our faces, and it will continue to extinguish our rights, our freedoms, our livelihoods, and our lives, for as long as we collectively allow it.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net where this article was originally published.

Notes

(1) Oliver May, “Risk of Asymptomatic Spread Minimal. Variants Over-Hyped. Masks Pointless. An Interview With Professor Jay Bhattacharya.” Lockdown Skeptics, 25 March, 2021. (Risk of Asymptomatic Spread Minimal. Variants Over-Hyped. Masks Pointless. An Interview With Professor Jay Bhattacharya – Lockdown Sceptics) Accessed 02 April, 2021.

(2) Mark Taliano, “False Perception Fabrication Inc.” www.marktaliano.net, 24 March, 2021 (False Perception Fabrication Inc. – Mark Taliano) Accessed 02 April, 2021.

(3) Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, “The WHO Confirms that the Covid-19 PCR Test is Flawed: Estimates of “Positive Cases” are Meaningless. The Lockdown Has No Scientific Basis.” Global Research, 19 March, 2021. (The WHO Confirms that the Covid-19 PCR Test is Flawed: Estimates of “Positive Cases” are Meaningless. The Lockdown Has No Scientific Basis – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 02 April, 2021.

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***

The extraordinary confluence between the signing of the Iran-China strategic partnership deal and the Ever Given saga in the Suez Canal is bound to spawn a renewed drive to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and all interconnected corridors of Eurasia integration.  

This is the most important geoeconomic development in Southwest Asia in ages – even more crucial than the geopolitical and military support to Damascus by Russia since 2015.

Multiple overland railway corridors across Eurasia featuring cargo trains crammed with freight – the most iconic of which is arguably Chongqin-Duisburg – are a key plank of BRI. In a few years, this will all be conducted on high-speed rail.

The key overland corridor is Xinjiang-Kazakhstan – and then onwards to Russia and beyond; the other one traverses Central Asia and Iran, all the way to Turkey, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. It may take time – in terms of volume – to compete with maritime routes, but the substantial reduction in shipping time is already propelling a massive cargo surge.

The Iran-China strategic connection is bound to accelerate all interconnected corridors leading to and crisscrossing Southwest Asia.

Crucially, multiple BRI trade connectivity corridors are directly linked to establishing alternative routes to oil and gas transit, controlled or “supervised” by the Hegemon since 1945: Suez, Malacca, Hormuz, Bab al Mandeb.

Informal conversations with Persian Gulf traders have revealed huge skepticism about the foremost reason for the Ever Given saga. Merchant marine pilots agree that winds in a desert storm were not enough to harass a state of the art mega-container ship equipped with very complex navigation systems. The pilot error scenario – induced or not – is being seriously considered.

Then there’s the predominant shoptalk: stalled Ever Given was Japanese owned, leased from Taiwan, UK-insured, with an all-Indian crew, transporting Chinese merchandise to Europe. No wonder cynics, addressing the whole episode, are asking, Cui Bono?

Persian Gulf traders, in hush hush mode, also drop hints about the project for Haifa to eventually become the main port in the region, in close cooperation with the Emirates via a railway to be built between Jabal Ali in Dubai to Haifa, bypassing Suez.

Back to facts on the ground, the most interesting short-term development is how Iran’s oil and gas may be shipped to Xinjiang via the Caspian Sea and Kazakhstan – using a to-be-built Trans-Caspian pipeline.

That falls right into classic BRI territory. Actually more than that, because Kazakhstan is a partner not only of BRI but also the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

From Beijing’s point of view, Iran is also absolutely essential for the development of a land corridor from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea and further to Europe via the Danube.

It’s obviously no accident that the Hegemon is on high alert in all points of this trade corridor. “Maximum pressure” sanctions and hybrid war against Iran; an attempt to manipulate the Armenia-Azerbaijan war; the post-color revolution environment in both Georgia and Ukraine – which border the Black Sea; NATO’s overarching shadow over the Balkans; it’s all part of the plot.

Now get me some Lapis Lazuli

Another fascinating chapter of Iran-China concerns Afghanistan. According to Tehran sources, part of the strategic agreement deals with Iran’s area of influence in Afghanistan and the evolution of still another connectivity corridor all the way to Xinjiang.

And here we go back to the always intriguing Lapis Lazuli corridor – which was conceptualized in 2012, initially for increased connectivity between Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

Lapis Lazuli, wonderfully evocative, harks back to the export of an array of semiprecious stones via the Ancient Silk Roads to the Caucasus, Russia, the Balkans and North Africa.

Now the Afghan government sees the ambitious 21^st century remix as departing from Herat (a key area of Persian influence), continuing to the Caspian Sea port of Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan, via a Trans-Caspian pipeline to Baku, onwards to Tblisi and the Georgian ports of Poti and Batumi in the Black Sea, and finally connected to Kars and Istanbul.

This is really serious business; a drive that may potentially link the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

Since Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea in 2018, in the Kazakh port of Aktau, what’s interesting is that their major issues are now discussed at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), where Russia and Kazakhstan are full members; Iran will soon be; Azerbaijan is a dialogue partner; and Turkmenistan is a permanent guest.

One of the key connectivity problems to be addressed is the viability of building a canal from the Caspian Sea to Iran’s shores in the Persian Gulf. That would cost at least US$7 billion. Another issue is the imperative transition towards container cargo transport in the Caspian. In SCO terms, that will increase Russian trade with India via Iran as well as offering an extra corridor for China trade with Europe.

With Azerbaijan prevailing over Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh flare up, while finally sealing a deal with Turkmenistan over their respective status in the Caspian Sea, impetus for the western part of Lapis Lazuli is now in the cards.

The eastern part is a much more complicated affair, involving an absolutely crucial issue now on the table not only for Beijing but for the SCO: the integration of Afghanistan to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

In late 2020, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan agreed to build what analyst Andrew Korybko delightfully described as the PAKAFUZ railway. PAKAFUZ will be a key step to expand CPEC to Central Asia, via Afghanistan. Russia is more than interested.

This can become a classic case of the evolving BRI-EAEU melting pot. Crunch time – serious decisions included – will happen this summer, when Uzbekistan plans to host a conference called “Central and South Asia: Regional Interconnectedness. Challenges and Opportunities”.

So everything will be proceeding interconnected: a Trans-Caspian link; the expansion of CPEC; Af-Pak connected to Central Asia; an extra Pakistan-Iran corridor (via Balochistan, including the finally possible conclusion of the IP gas pipeline) all the way to Azerbaijan and Turkey; China deeply involved in all these projects.

Beijing will be building roads and pipelines in Iran, including one to ship Iranian natural gas to Turkey. Iran-China, in terms of projected investment, is nearly ten times more ambitious than CPEC. Call it CIEC (China-Iran Economic Corridor).

In a nutshell: the Chinese and Persian civilization-states are on the road to emulate the very close relationship they enjoyed during the Silk Road-era Yuan dynasty in the 13^th century.

INSTC or bust

An extra piece of the puzzle concerns how the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) will mix with BRI and the EAEU. Crucially, INSTC also happens to be an alternative to Suez.

Iran, Russia and India have been discussing the intricacies of this 7,200 km-long ship/rail/road trade corridor since 2002. INSTC technically starts in Mumbai and goes all the way via the Indian Ocean to Iran, the Caspian Sea, and then to Moscow. As a measure of its appeal, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Oman, and Syria are all INSTC members.

Much to the delight of Indian analysts, INSTC reduces transit time from West India to Western Russia from 40 to 20 days, while cutting costs by as much as 60%. It’s already operational – but not as a continuous, free flow sea and rail link.

New Delhi already spent $500 million on a crucial project: the expansion of Chabahar port in Iran, which was supposed to become its entry point for a made in India Silk Road to Afghanistan and onward to Central Asia. But then it all got derailed by New Delhi’s flirting with the losing Quad proposition.

India also invested $1.6 billion in a railway between Zahedan, the key city in southeast Iran, and the Hajigak iron/steel mining in central Afghanistan. This all falls into a possible Iran-India free trade agreement which is being negotiated since 2019 (for the moment, on  stand-by). Iran and Russia already clinched a similar agreement. And India wants the same with the EAEU as a whole.

Following the Iran-China strategic partnership, chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Mojtaba Zonnour, has already hinted that the next step should be an Iran-Russia strategic cooperation deal, privileging “rail services, roads, refineries, petrochemicals, automobiles, oil, gas, environment and knowledge-based companies”.

What Moscow is already seriously considering is to build a canal between the Caspian and the Sea of Azov, north of the Black Sea. Meanwhile, the already built Caspian port of Lagan is a certified game-changer.

Lagan directly connects with multiple BRI nodes. There’s rail connectivity to the Trans-Siberian all the way to China. Across the Caspian, connectivity includes Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan and Baku in Azerbaijan, which is the starting point of the BTK railway through to the Black Sea and then all the way from Turkey to Europe.

On the Iranian stretch of the Caspian, Amirabad port links to the INSTC, Chabahar port and further on to India. It’s not an accident that several Iranian companies, as well China’s Poly Group and China Energy Engineering Group International want to invest in Lagan.

What we see in play here is Iran at the center of a maze progressively interconnected with Russia, China and Central Asia. When the Caspian Sea is finally linked to international waters, we will see a de facto alternative trade/transport corridor to Suez.

Post-Iran-China, it’s not far-fetched anymore to even consider the possible emergence in a not too distant future of a Himalaya Silk Road uniting BRICS members China and India (think, for instance, of the power of Himalayan ice converging into a shared Hydropower Tunnel).

As it stands, Russia is very much focused on limitless possibilities in Southwest Asia, as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made it clear in the 10^th Middle East conference at the Valdai club. The Hegemon’s treats on multiple fronts – Ukraine, Belarus, Syria, Nord Stream 2 – pale in comparison.

The new architecture of 21^st century geopolitics is already taking shape, with China providing multiple trade corridors for non-stop economic development while Russia is the reliable provider of energy and security goods, as well as the conceptualizer of a Greater Eurasia home, with “strategic partnership” Sino/Russian diplomacy playing the very long game.

Southwest Asia and Greater Eurasia have already seen which way the (desert) winds are blowing. And soon will the masters of international capital. Russia, China, Iran, India, Central Asia, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Korean Peninsula, everyone will experience a capital surge – financial vultures included. Following the Greed is Good gospel, Eurasia is about to become the ultimate Greed frontier.

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. 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 frequent contributor to Global Research.

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***

The Oxford AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine is facing a further wave of scepticism and restrictions as Canada and Germany halt its use in younger patients, citing reports of clotting disorders in recently vaccinated people.

On 30 March, Canadian provinces suspended the use of the vaccine in people aged under 55. The pause was recommended by the country’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), which pointed to reports of “rare cases of serious blood clots” in Europe.1 These included instances of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), the agency said. Most but not all cases had occurred in women aged under 55, and the syndrome typically appeared 4 to 16 days after receiving the vaccine. The fatality rate among those developing such clots had been as high as 40%, said Shelley Deeks, vice chair of NACI, announcing the recommendations. “There is substantial uncertainty about the benefit of providing AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccines to adults under 55, given the potential risks,” she said, presenting the recommendation as a temporary measure while more data are gathered.

The announcement came just as Canada expected delivery of 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine offered by US president Joe Biden. About 500 000 shots of the vaccine have been given in Canada so far.

Several Canadian newspapers accused the government of overreacting just as the country slides into a third wave. “Constantly changing guidelines are undermining public trust in all vaccines,” argued the editorial board of the Toronto Star, noting that NACI had once recommended against the AstraZeneca vaccine in the over-65s.2

Germany looks towards Sputnik

The EMA’s report and the new Canadian guidance described the mechanism postulated by researchers who do believe that the vaccine is triggering clots. Unusually, patients exhibit thrombocytopenia, a shortage of clotting platelets in blood tests, even as they suffer clots. The same apparent contradiction is seen in heparin induced thrombocytopenia, and also sometimes in thrombosis associated with covid-19.

This type of adverse event is being named vaccine induced prothrombotic immune thrombocytopenia. An antigen or protein generated by vaccination with AstraZeneca’s product is activating platelets to begin clotting, University of Greifswald researcher Andreas Greinacher told a press conference on 31 March. His team’s research awaits publication in the Lancet but a draft version, not peer reviewed, is online.5

Greinacher expressed astonishment that their findings were being used to justify restricting the vaccine. “People being severely sickened by covid-19 outnumber those who suffer from the vaccination reaction by several orders of magnitude,” he said. “To stop or to avoid vaccination only for the fear of getting an extremely rare, adverse reaction would be completely wrong.”

But such reassurance is increasingly falling on deaf ears in countries where the vaccine is a distant third favourite behind those of Moderna and Pfizer. In Ontario, despite soaring covid-19 case numbers, premier Doug Ford said this week, “I’d rather wait a month or two for Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson than roll the dice on AstraZeneca.”

Bavaria’s prime minister Markus Söder complained that repeated bad news stories had sunk in with the public. “At AstraZeneca we can expect some new problem every day. And you can feel that in the perception outside,” he said, arguing that the vaccine should simply be given to “whoever wants it and who dares to do it.”

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Notes

1. Health Canada. NACI rapid response: recommended use of AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine in younger adults. 30 March 2021. www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/immunization/national-advisory-committee-on-immunization-naci/rapid-response-recommended-use-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-younger-adults.html.

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***

Nothing makes better sense to the political classes than small time demagoguery when matters turn sour. True, the United Kingdom might well be speeding ahead with vaccination numbers, and getting ever big-headed about it, but there is still good reason to distract the voters.  Coronavirus continues to vex; the economy continues to suffer. In February, the Office of Statistics revealed that Britain’s economy had shrunk by 9.9%.  The last time such a contraction was experienced was in 1709, when a contraction of 13% was suffered as a result of the Great Frost which lasted for three devastating months.

With Brexit Britain feeling alone, it is time to resort to mauling targets made traditional during the 2016 campaign to exit the European Union: the asylum seeker, the refugee and anyone assisting in that enterprise.  And the person best suited to doing so is the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, who outlined the government’s New Plan for Immigration on March 24^th.  It has three objectives with one overarching punitive theme “to better protect and support those in genuine need of asylum.”  The authenticity of that need will be aided by deterring “illegal entry into the UK, thereby breaking the business model of criminal trafficking networks and protecting the lives of those they endanger”.  Those with “no right to be” in the UK will also be more easily “removed”.

It is in the nature of such policies to conceal the punitive element by extolling virtues. 

“The UK accepted more refugees through planned resettlement schemes than any other country in Europe in the period 2015-2019 – the fourth highest resettlement schemes globally after the USA, Canada and Australia,” reads the policy statement. “The UK also welcomed 29,000 people through the refugee family reunion scheme between 2015 and 2019. More than half of these were children.”  

This self-praise ignores the inconvenient fact that the UK received fewer applications for asylum than European states such as France and Germany in 2020.  According to the UNHCR, both countries received four times the number in 2020.  “The number of arrivals in the UK in 2020,” remarks academic Helen O’Nions, “was actually down 18% on the previous year.”

It does not take long, however, to identify and inflate the threats: people crossing the English channel in their “small boats reached record levels, with 8,500 … arriving this way” in 2020.  Sinister imputations are made: 87% of those arriving in small boats were male.  In 2019, 32,000 illegal attempts were made to enter the UK, but foiled in Northern France while 16,000 illegal arrivals were detected in the UK.

The Home Office laments the rapid increase of asylum claims; decisions cannot be made “quickly”; “case loads are growing to unsustainable levels”.  Never mind the UN Refugee Convention and human rights: what matters is bureaucratic efficiency.  To achieve that, Patel hopes to “stop illegal arrivals gaining immediate entry into the asylum system if they have travelled through a safe country – like France.”  Any arrivals doing so could not be said to be “seeking refuge from imminent peril”.  Stiffer sentences are also suggested for those aiding asylum.  “Access to the UK’s asylum system should be based on need, not on the ability to pay people smugglers.”

Much of what the Home Office makes of this is nonsense.  It entails a fantasy about a model cut, idealised asylum seeker: those with state documents from the persecuting state, clearly of the identifiable sort, all morally sound.  The murkier reality necessitates deception as an indispensable part of the process.  To not have documents makes travel impossible.  Alternative routes and means are therefore required.

The threat to relocate and refuse those seeking asylum would also breach the UK’s own Human Rights Act of 1998, obligating the state to prevent people from being returned to places where they are at the risk of torture, inhuman, degrading treatment or cruel and unusual punishment.  That principle is also a cardinal feature of the Refugee Convention.

The view from those who actually have more than a passing acquaintance with the field is vastly different from Patel’s.  Politely, some 454 immigration scholars in the UK have told the Home Secretary in an open letter that she does not know what she is talking about.  The New Plan, for instance, may have 31 references, but “there is just one reference to research evidence, a research paper on refugee integration.”  The undersigned scholars suggest that Patel look more deeply, as the plans being proposed “not only circumvent international human rights law, but are also based on claims which are completely unfounded in any body of research evidence.” 

The scholars also note that asylum seekers and refugees lack safe and legal routes, with countries across Europe, North American and Australasia going “to huge efforts and massive expense in recent decades to close down access to the right to asylum.”

The markings of the New Plan resemble, all too closely, the Australian approach of discrimination which has become an exemplar of how to undermine the right to asylum: an obsession with targeting those people smuggling “gangs” and associated business rackets, merely code for targeting those fleeing persecution; distinguishing the method of arrival in order to demonise the plight of the asylum seeker; the decision that, irrespective of the claims of asylum, no sanctuary would ever be given to certain individuals because they chose to jump a phantom queue and not know their place.

The open letter also notes the “distinct and troubling echoes” of “the Australian Temporary Protection Visa programme and the vilification of people with no option but to travel through irregular means to flee persecution and seek sanctuary.” 

Another unsavoury aspect of the British turn in refugee policy towards the antipodean example can be gathered by the possible use of offshore detention centres.  Canberra relies on the liberal use of concentration camps on remote sites in the Pacific, centres of calculated cruelty that serve to destroy the will of those whose governments have already done much to encourage their flight.  The official justification is one of killing asylum seekers with kindness: We saved you from almost certain drowning at sea, only to seal you within the confines of legal purgatory.  In the New Plan, one senses a touch of envy for it. 

In October last year, it was revealed that the UK Prime Minister’s office was considering the detention of asylum seekers in places as varied as Moldova, Morocco and Papua New Guinea.  According to documents obtained by The Guardian, the Foreign Office had been charged with a task by Downing Street to “offer advice on possible options for negotiating an offshore asylum processing facility similar to the Australian model in Papua New Guinea and Nauru”.  Patel herself had flirted with the idea of establishing centres at Ascension and St. Helena, though she has had to content herself with ill-suited military barracks on the mainland that facilitated the spread of COVID-19.

Alison Mountz, in The Death of Asylum, makes much of this transformation of the island from a point of transit to that of hostile containment.  From field research conducted in Italy’s Lampedusa Island, Australia’s Christmas Island and the US territories of Guam and Saipan, Mountz argues that “the strategic use of islands to detain people in search of protection – to thwart human mobility through confinement – is part of the death of asylum.”  Officials such as Patel are happy to help matters along. 

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: Priti Patel speaking at a fringe event organized by Brexit Central, during the Conservative Party annual conference. Source: Empics Entertainment

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***

On 57th anniversary of military coup in Brazil, the National Security Archive Posts Declassified Documentation on Brazilian Regime’s Effort to Subvert Democracy and Support Dictatorship in Chile

The Chilean ambassador to Brazil, Raúl Rettig, sent an alarming cable in March 1971 to his foreign ministry titled “Brazilian Army possibly conducting studies on guerrillas being introduced into Chile.” Multiple sources had informed the Embassy that the Brazilian military regime was evaluating how to instigate an insurrection to overthrow the Allende government. The military had established a “war room” with maps and models of the Andean mountain range along the Chilean border to plan infiltration operations, stated the cable, classified “strictly confidential.” According to Rettig’s report, “the Brazilian Army apparently sent a number of secret agents to Chile who would have entered the country as tourists, with the intention of gathering more background on possible regions where a guerilla movement might operate.” No date had yet been set, one informant said, to initiate this “armed movement.”

The revealing Rettig cable is one of hundreds of documents obtained from Brazilian, Chilean and U.S. archives by investigative reporter Roberto Simon for his new book, Brazil against Democracy: the Dictatorship, the Coup in Chile and the Cold War in South America. Published in Brazil last month, the book exposes the clandestine role Brazil’s military regime played in the September 11, 1973, coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power, as well as the Brazilian contribution to Chile’s apparatus of repression during his 17-year dictatorship.

“The book shows how the Brazilian military dictatorship actively worked to undermine Chile’s democracy during the Allende years and, after 1973, to help the Chilean junta consolidate its power,” Simon noted in an interview with the National Security Archive. “Brazil provided direct support to, and a model for, the Pinochet dictatorship.”

In addition to Brazil’s reported plan to foment an anti-Allende insurrection in Chile, the book contains numerous other historical revelations, among them:

• Within days of Salvador Allende’s historic election on September 4, 1970, the U.S. ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry, met with Brazil’s ambassador in Santiago, Antonio Cândido da Câmara Canto, and shared details of initial U.S. efforts to block Allende’s inauguration. On White House orders, Korry said, the Embassy was passing hostile information about Allende to Chilean military commanders and threatening to cut off economic aid and credits if he assumed the presidency of Chile. Ambassador Câmara Canto’s report on the meeting was considered so important in Brazil that Foreign Minister Mario Gibson Barboza summarized it in a report to the President of the military regime, General Emílio Garrastazu Médici.
• The Brazilian military established back-channel communications with Chilean military officers who opposed Allende and even secretly arranged for some of them to come to Brazil for discussions about coup plotting.
• Brazilian agents established ties with the pro-terrorist Patria y Libertad organization in Chile. After a failed coup attempt in June 1973, Brazil provided protection and asylum for senior members of Patria y Libertad.
• Brazil obtained intelligence on early coup plotting, identifying military officials who were preparing to overthrow Allende. At one meeting held at the El Bosque airbase on August 2, 1973, Chilean officers evaluated the elements of the 1964 coup in Brazil to see what might be useful for their plans to assume power.
• In the days after the September 11, 1973, military golpe, Brazil’s foreign ministry aided the new Chilean junta’s diplomatic effort to present the coup in the most positive light. The book provides new details on Brazil’s effort to be the first country to officially recognize Chile’s new military regime. Brazilian officials also helped draft some of the initial speeches for Pinochet’s representatives at the United Nations to justify the bloody coup at the U.N. General Assembly. Brazil also poured considerable economic aid and financial credits into Chile following the coup, totaling over $1.2 billion in today’s dollars.
• Brazil sent a team of intelligence agents to Santiago to participate in the prisoner interrogations at the National Stadium, which became a mass detention, torture, and execution center after the coup. According to the book, the secret mission was led by Colonel Sebastião Ramos de Castro, from Brazil’s intelligence service, the Serviço Nacional de Informações, (SNI).
• Brazil trained dozens of officials and agents from the feared Chilean secret police force, DINA, among them agents who participated in international assassination missions including the car-bombing of former Ambassador Orlando Letelier and his colleague, Ronni Karpen Moffitt, in Washington D.C. Senior military officials also spent considerable time in Brazil, among them Humberto Gordon, who was stationed in Brasília as a “military attaché” in 1974 and rose to become head of Pinochet’s secret police agency, the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI).
• Drawing on U.S. intelligence records declassified in 2019, the book presents a more detailed description of Brazil’s role in the Southern Cone collaboration of secret police forces known as Operation Condor. Brazil, according to one CIA document, attempted to “control” Condor’s missions, resisting efforts by Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina to engage in targeted assassination operations outside the Southern Cone, and preferring to engage in a number of bilateral rendition operations to kidnap and disappear leftist opponents in the region. According to a 1977 State Department intelligence analysis, Brazil – along with its smaller allies, Paraguay and Bolivia – was “(acting) as a damper on Condor,” and Brazilian officials had stopped attending Condor meetings.

The book highlights a dramatic scene in December 1971 when the head of Brazil’s military regime, General Emílio Garrastazu Médici, came to Washington and met privately with President Richard Nixon at the White House. The two leaders candidly discussed efforts to depose Allende. Médici told Nixon that Allende would be overthrown “for very much the same reasons that Goulart had been overthrown in Brazil,” and “made it clear that Brazil was working towards this end.”

Nixon responded “that it was very important that Brazil and the United States work closely in this field” and offered “discreet aid” and money for Brazilian operations against the Allende government. Nixon made clear that Brazil could help the U.S. defeat Allende and other leftist governments and movements throughout Latin America and said he “hoped we could cooperate closely, as there were many things that Brazil as a South American country could do that the U.S. could not.”

The now famous Nixon-Médici Oval Office meeting was recorded in a Top Secret White House memorandum of conversation that the National Security Archive first obtained and publicized in 2009; the Archive also posted CIA intelligence summaries of reaction to the meeting by some Brazilian military officers, including one who believed that “the United States obviously wants Brazil to ‘do the dirty work’” in South America.

But, the abundance of documentary evidence that Roberto Simon has meticulously gathered for O Brasil Contra A Democracia reveals that Brazil did its own ‘dirty work’ in Chile—as well as in Uruguay, Bolivia, and other parts of the Southern Cone. Although the military regime may have coordinated and collaborated with the Nixon administration, Brazil’s military dictatorship acted for its own geo-political preservation, rather than at the behest of Washington.

“The image of Brazil’s military regime as ‘Washington’s puppet,’ fully aligned with the regional superpower, is a myth that relegates Brazil to a mere subsidiary role in the region,” Simon asserts in his introduction. “The book demonstrates that the opposite was true: the Brazilian dictatorship had its own motivations – strategic, ideological, economic and more – to intervene in Chile.”

Indeed, the book represents a watershed publication for the historiography of the overthrow of democracy and advent of dictatorship in Chile—a historiography which has, until now, focused almost exclusively on the role of U.S. covert intervention in the September 11, 1973 military coup. “This book is a game changer for the historical narrative on imperial intervention in Chile,” according to Peter Kornbluh, who directs the Chile and Brazil documentation projects at the Archive. “It provides a far fuller understanding of the history of foreign violations of Chile’s sovereignty, and suggests there is more to be learned.”

Read the documents here.

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Featured image is from National Security Archive

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Guided by an Indigenous leader, we drove down dusty roads in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve, a “green island” encircled by oil palm plantations in the Brazilian Amazon.

Uniform rows of oil palms cover huge swaths of land here in the northeast of the state of Pará, once home to a vibrant expanse of rainforest. Our Mongabay reporting team was there to discover if the palm oil business, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, is sustainable and ecologically responsible, as industry representatives told us.

Federal prosecutors have pursued the country’s leading palm oil exporters in the courts for the past seven years, alleging the companies are contaminating rivers, poisoning the soil, and harming the livelihoods and health of Indigenous and traditional peoples, charges the companies deny.

The stories of abuse we heard from our guide seemed almost unbelievable. After hearing dozens of claims of water contamination in the Indigenous villages, the local chief, Lúcio Tembé, led us to a mill run by Biopalma da Amazônia — Brazil’s top palm oil producer and exporter — close to the Acará River, which meanders through the forest for almost 400 kilometers (250 miles) before spilling out into the Amazon gulf.

“Look,” Tembé said, “they will throw [palm oil] residue in the river!”

Leaving our car, we watched from the riverbank, filming as unmarked trucks, and then a man with a shovel, dumped waste into the waterway. Tembé told us that the dark brown residue was a toxic sludge of organic materials, insecticides and herbicides from local palm oil mills. Every day, dozens of trucks dump this waste into the Acará River, he added.

Industry representatives would later tell us that such things do not happen, and that palm oil production isn’t harmful to human health or to the environment. But the dumping we saw, as well as the rapid onset of coughing, shortness of breath, nausea and headaches when we inhaled the fumes from palm trees doused with pesticides, was enough to convince us that these claims were worth pursuing.

Over the past year we investigated allegations made by local communities of widespread abuses by palm oil companies in Brazil, discovering what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities.

“The oil palm only brought a lot of problems. First of all, it brought destruction of our fauna, our flora, our rivers,” Tembé said as he looked out over the Turé River, close to the Turé-Mariquita reserve, an Indigenous territory about 250 km (150 mi) south of the city of Belém on Brazil’s north coast. “This water isn’t clean. But in the past we drank it. This river and the forest around it were like a supermarket for the population; it was where we fished, where we hunted.”

The rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities are protected under Brazil’s Constitution and international accords to which Brazil is a signatory. The Constitution also establishes that all Brazilians have the right to an “ecologically balanced environment.”

But laws issued by Pará state have often overshadowed these commitments in practice. Biopalma’s mill and one of its plantations lie adjacent to the Acará River and were constructed without a buffer zone as is required by law, according to documents seen by Mongabay.

Since 2014, federal prosecutors have faced a legal battle to approve a forensic investigation into pesticide contamination and the socioenvironmental and health impacts in Biopalma’s production zone in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve. “These are not minor problems faced by Indigenous peoples,” Felício Pontes Júnior, one of the federal prosecutors, wrote in a legal filing in the case. “The defendant [Biopalma] is aware of the Indigenous complaints.”

The claims date back to 2012, when Indigenous and traditional communities first raised the alarm. When the lawsuit was filed, a judge rapidly issued an injunction allowing a forensic investigation, but this was later overturned by another judge. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office appealed and a final ruling is yet to be issued.

“The company says it has no impact. So, if it says it doesn’t have [an impact] and we say it does, let’s do the forensic report,” Pontes Júnior told Mongabay in a phone interview in January.

Aerial view of Biopalma’s Castanheira mill and palm plantation just a few meters away from the Acará River, in Tomé-Açu municipality, in northern Amazon’s Pará state, on November 12, 2019. Image by Wilson Paz for Mongabay.

A troubled industry booms

Palm oil has become ubiquitous in consumer societies. It’s one of the primary vegetable oils produced and traded worldwide. That’s partly because of its immense versatility: 80% of its production is channeled into the food industry, where it’s a key ingredient in consumer products made by conglomerates like Unilever and Nestlé.

Though most of us will never see it in its raw state, many of us will eat it in some form today. Various derivatives of palm oil are found in chocolate, ice cream, cookies, margarine and countless other products. It’s found in hygiene, beauty and cleaning items and even at the gas pump in the form of biodiesel. Rich in vitamins A and E and the best substitute for trans fats, which were banned in the United States in 2018, it is the oil of choice of global capitalism.

But researchers are growing increasingly concerned over the socioenvironmental crises its popularity has brought to many rural communities in tropical nations. The damage done to rainforests, wildlife, Indigenous peoples and water supplies in Malaysia and Indonesia, which together account for 85% of global palm oil production, is well documented, as are problems in Africa, where the industry has grown in recent years. Less studied and publicized to date are its impacts in the Brazilian Amazon.

Though Brazil accounts for just 1% of global palm oil production (about 540,000 tons in 2020), the industry is spreading rapidly here. Oil palm coverage in northern Pará — today responsible for about 90% of Brazilian production — increased almost five-fold to 236,000 hectares (583,169 acres) between 2010 and 2019. While national production dipped slightly in 2018, production in Pará rose by 47,653 tons (3.2%) over the same period.

Despite a push by the government of then-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to stimulate palm oil production in 2010 by mandating its use as a biofuel, almost allBrazilian production is still used in the food industry, mostly as a soybean oil substitute. Lula also launched a national biodiesel program in 2004, and a sustainable palm oil production program in 2010, which further stoked demand.

When it was launched, the sustainability policy aimed to guarantee the supply of biofuel while protecting the environment by banning deforestation in native forest areas for the expansion of corporate plantations.

Pará has the highest deforestation rate in Brazil. Although cattle ranching and soy cultivation are the top drivers of deforestation, there are increasingly concerns about the damage associated with palm oil in the region. Researchers expect a massive expansion of the Amazon oil palm crop by 2030, driven by a government target to double the proportion of biodiesel used in the country and phase out fossil fuels.

Most of Brazil’s palm oil production is controlled by eight companies. The top producer, Biopalma, was a subsidiary of Brazilian mining giant Vale, which is responsible for the two most catastrophic environmental disasters in Brazil’s history in terms of affected area. As part of a divestment plan, Vale sold Biopalma at the end of 2020 to Brasil BioFuels S.A. (BBF), an energy company. In a document sent to Brazil’s antitrust regulator, Cade, BBF said all its oil palm is used for power generation.

Brazil exported almost 90,000 tons of palm oil in 2017, mostly to Colombia, the European Union, the U.S. and Mexico, according to Trase, a research group run by the Stockholm Environment Institute and the NGO Global Canopy. Biopalma accounted for almost three-quarters of these exports. The company, which has operated in Pará since 2007, has announced an ambitious goal of becoming the largest palm oil producer in the Americas.

‘Poisoned’ water

As the palm oil industry expands in Brazil, the threat of water contamination has become a growing concern. We visited Turé-Mariquita in the Amazon’s dry season, when companies spray agrochemicals in huge quantities. Activists say that in the rainy season, when river levels rise substantially and flood the land, all the accumulated toxins enter the river system, polluting the water and killing fish and other aquatic life.

We weren’t the first visitors to experience the impact of the oil palm plantations. Researchers Jamilli Medeiros de Oliveira da Silva and Brian Garvey told us how they had bathed in a stream near the Acará River where it flowed past a pesticide-drenched field.

“Our skin itched and we stayed sick for two, three weeks,” says Garvey, a researcher with the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland. “Several studies show that the water is contaminated. We witnessed them [Biopalma staff] dumping poison just a few meters from the river.”

A 2014 analysis by a federal laboratory under the umbrella of the Ministry of Health identified banned pesticides like endosulfan in rivers and streams near oil palm plantations in the Acará region. Researchers collected data from 18 aquatic locations and identified the presence of pesticides in 80% of samples collected during the rainy season, with some agrochemicals linked to hormonal disorders and cancer.

There’s no lack of anecdotal evidence regarding pesticide poisoning. “My husband’s aunt died of cancer,” Indigenous leader Uhu Tembé told Mongabay in the Yriwar village. “We say that’s because of this [oil palm-linked pollution], because these diseases didn’t exist in our village before. And today there is a lot of disease in our village … In the summer, we have a lot of headaches because that’s when they [the companies] throw poison.”

Cíntia Tembé, another resident of the Turé-Mariquita reserve, speaks of witnessing a previously healthy young man, whose job it had been to spray chemicals over the oil palms, fall ill and die in the local hospital. “He arrived there with exaggerated pain in the abdomen,” she said at his home in the Arar Zena’i village. “It was terrible. Blood started to come out of his ear, nose, eyes … as if something had burst inside him.”

Brazil is the largest consumer of agrochemicals on the planet, purchasing about a fifth of all pesticides produced globally. Dr. Peter Clausing, a toxicologist at the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) in Germany, said four out of nine pesticides approved for use in oil palm plantations in Brazil are listed as “highly hazardous.” Two of them — glufosinate-ammonium and methomyl — are banned in the European Union.

Waste generated during palm oil production contains a considerable amount of organic nutrients and heavy metals that can contaminate rivers, pollute the air and generate greenhouse gases. The effluent is typically released into rivers as a cheap and easy disposal method, according to Clausing.

Alleged palm oil residue being dumped in the Acará River, close to Biopalma’s Castanheira mill in Tomé-Açu municipality, northern Amazon’s Pará state, on November 12, 2019. Image by Thaís Borges for Mongabay.

“My sister died of cancer because she drank water from the [Turé] river,” Emídio Tembé, chief of the Tekena’i Indigenous village, told Mongabay in 2019, during our visit to the Turé-Mariquita reserve. “She died of cancer [three] years ago due to poisoned water,” he added, referring to the pesticides sprayed by Biopalma. “It’s been nine years since we could not drink water from the river because it’s polluted with poison.”

When Biopalma began planting its oil palm crop in the Turé-Mariquita area in 2010, residents told us, locals experienced a mysterious wave of chronic, debilitating, and sometimes fatal, symptoms: headaches, itching, skin rashes and blisters, diarrhea and stomach ailments. Many of the health complaints arose shortly after drinking from or bathing in local streams and coincided with the annual pesticide-spraying season.

The accounts of the impact of oil palm pesticides on Indigenous and traditional communities are supported by a 2017 study that found traces of three pesticides (two of them typically listed among those used in oil palm cultivation) in the major streams and wells used by the Tembé people in Turé-Mariquita.

According to research from the University of Brasília (UnB), the number of reported cases of skin disorders in 2011 and 2012 increased considerably. “About a year after planting, there were many complaints of skin diseases and headaches. It was quite intense for about six months,” a local health worker told the researchers. “In 2005, the rates of skin diseases, diarrhea, flu and headaches were almost zero.”

Among the pesticides found in surface and underground water in the reserve were glyphosate-based herbicides. Glyphosate has been shown to be carcinogenic and has been banned or restricted in more than 20 nations, although not in Brazil. Also detected in samples of surface water and sediment taken by the researchers was the insecticide endosulfan, a persistent organic pollutant banned in Brazil in 2010.

“The most important scientific finding of this study is the identification for the first time, at least as far as we know from the scientific literature, of glyphosate-based herbicide residues in environmental water samples, both superficial and underground, in an Indigenous reserve surrounded by oil palm,” Sandra Damiani, the UnB researcher who conducted the study, told Mongabay. “In addition, our data also corroborates the presence of residues of other organic contaminants in the environment, this time not only in water, but also in sediment samples collected in the same water bodies studied.”

Damiani said they found contaminant residues in all six sampled streams and 40% of the wells sampled. Residue presence in groundwater samples was considered “particularly worrying” because these water sources are the only alternative to streams for Indigenous people in the area.

“We noticed a very large increase [in the number] of water wells after the company arrived,” Damiani told Mongabay. “And the presence of residues in the wells was a surprise, and it was something that caught our attention and requires great care because the [Indigenous] population uses either the stream directly or underground wells. If both have contaminants, what will they do?”

The maximum levels of glyphosate and endosulfan residues found in the water by the researchers were 45.5 micrograms per liter (μg/L) and 0.03 μg/L, respectively. While these are within the legal bounds in Brazil, they are well above the much stricter levels set by the European Union. “This is a controversial discussion,” Rosivaldo Mendes, a researcher at the laboratory that analyzed the samples, told Mongabay. “For me, the safe limit is having nothing [in the water].”

Following the disclosure of her findings to the authorities, Damiani says, she was told that the companies agreed to not use pesticides around Indigenous reserves in the future.

BBF, the energy company that acquired Biopalma, said in a statement it was unable to assess the accuracy of the academic studies since it did not have access to the results of the analysis. The company said it “faithfully complies with the environmental standards and procedures applicable to palm oil production and is unaware of the situation reported in such a study.”

Legally, the glyphosate limit for drinkable water in Brazil is 500 μg/L. “Water is [only] considered unsafe if it is above [this level],” Mendes said, adding he disagrees with this parameter.

Brazilian legislation sets no limits for any pesticide residue found in sediments, even though they could potentially contaminate crops and pose a public health risk. Damiani’s sampled sediments were found to contain DDT and its degradation products at levels that greatly exceed the thresholds established by the National Environment Council, a regulatory body. DDT is banned in more than 40 countries, including Brazil and the U.S. There is no national limit on sediment contamination with endosulfan.

Damiani said they found residues of at least one contaminant in almost a third of the 33 samples collected in the Turé-Mariquita reserve, with a much higher percentage for glyphosate-based herbicides in water collected during the dry season. Two-thirds of the groundwater samples and more than a third of surface samples contained traces of glyphosate-based herbicides.

Nazaré Coutinho Pereira, a resident of the Tembé Indigenous Reserve looks over the Acará-Mirim river. Image by Karla Mendes.

Research from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) also detected glyphosate in water samples collected in the municipality of Tailândia, another key oil palm cluster in Pará’s northeast. The 2018 study also found atrazine, a widely used weedkiller, and the presence of aquatic plants, indicative of water pollution from nitrogen-, phosphorus- and potassium-based fertilizers. Its use is not allowed for palm oil in Brazil but family farmers often refer to atrazine as one of the main pesticides used in palm crops, researchers told Mongabay.

In this region, the top palm oil producers are Agropalma, the country’s second-largest producer and exporter, and Belem Bioenergia Brasil (BBB).

Agropalma is the only Brazilian company certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the world’s leading palm oil sustainability certification scheme. It is a subsidiary of the Brazil-based Alfa conglomerate, a major player in the finance, insurance, agribusiness, building materials, communications, leather and hotel sectors.

BBB previously counted Brazilian oil giant Petrobras, the firm at the center of the Lava Jato corruption scandal that landed former president Lula in jail, as one of its main shareholders. It is now controlled by Portuguese oil company Galp and Ecotauá Participações, a holding company.

The UFPA study, led by Rosa Helena Ribeiro Cruz, collected nine water samples in the tributaries of sub-basins of the Anuerá and Aui-Açu rivers. The toxicological tests, carried out by the same laboratory that analyzed the samples collected in the Turé-Mariquita reserve, found “significant levels of glyphosate,” but still within the regulatory limits, from two collection points in the outflowing streams from BBB’s plantations, Cruz said.

Atrazine within Brazil’s regulatory limit of 2 μg/L was also detected at two points — outflowing streams from BBB site and in a community closer to Agropalma’s plantations, the researcher noted — including an intersection between oil palm, corn and soybean crops. Banned in the EU, the herbicide is still often detected in water samples two decades after its use was prohibited. Atrazine is quite toxic, and potentially carcinogenic to humans, and persists in the environment, especially in water bodies.

“There is no way to say that there is no water contamination,” Cruz said. “We came to the conclusion that this pesticide glyphosate is being used. But as they are pesticides that are under the ground, in the water, it will be diluted.” She added that no previous data on river contamination for Tailândia were available.

No traces of pesticides were detected from collection points inside Agropalma’s plantations, where the researchers were escorted by company minders.

“BBB didn’t let us enter the company [plantation area], only Agropalma. But we were accompanied all the time,” Cruz told Mongabay, adding that the collection points were chosen by the company. “Two people were assigned to accompany us and at the same point where we did the collection, they did it too. But then there is this doubt: I don’t know if they really took us to the points where there is leaching into the soil… They wanted us to do my analysis inside their laboratory, they wanted us to stay inside Agropalma, paying for [our] lunch, coffee, dinner, all support, but we didn’t accept it.”

Agropalma’s director of sustainability, Tulio Dias Brito, said the company does not use atrazine. He also challenged the research, claiming that the points where Cruz detected atrazine do not have any connection with Agropalma’s area.

“They are far from Agropalma and … they are upstream… So, there is no way, even if I had sprayed… an atrazine truck at a stream of Agropalma, it would not reach this point,” Brito told Mongabay in an interview in February.

Geographer Daniel Sombra, coordinator at UFPA’s Laboratory of Environmental Analysis and Cartographic Representations, disagrees. Although the natural watercourse is upstream, he said, it could also flow downstream, given the high level of variation of the tides of the Amazon rivers.

“[This point] is 2 km upstream on the Aiu-Açu river… It may be that they [the pesticides] came from upstream plantations, which are from other properties, including family farms cultivating oil palm, some linked to BBB. But it is not impossible that the effects deposited downstream could move 2 km upwards,” noted Sombra, who built the maps for Cruz’ thesis. “So, it is undetermined whether it really came from upstream or downstream. The fact is: the pesticides collected are typical residues of palm monoculture.”

Brito also challenged the research’s allegations about the presence of aquatic plants as indicative of water pollution from nitrogen-, phosphorus- and potassium-based fertilizers, claiming that the photos from the study didn’t show any macrophyte superpopulation; the existence of many factors in the area could have triggered macrophyte growth, including sun incidence and a nearby road, while laboratory testing for these substances was lacking. Brito also argued that none of the collection points are close to Agropalma, adding that other factors should be taken into account.

Brito says Agropalma has collected water samples from the outflowing streams and within its area as well to check the presence of phosphorus and nitrogen at eight pre-selected points since 2015, as one of the requirements of the Palm Oil Innovation Group (POIG), an industry group. The results of the sampling are recorded and published in the company’s annual sustainability report.

“When comparing streams that cross the palm plantation, we compare them with streams that only cross primary forests,” Brito said. “The species composition is not exactly the same: some populations are favored, others are disadvantaged, but the ecological function is fulfilled. And the water quality is adequate, it is good.”

Moreover, he said that Agropalma has monitored watercourses within its farms in partnership with NGO Conservation International and UFPA’s department of biological sciences, which monitor water quality and aquatic fauna on company property. “So far, we have not received any indication of contamination,” he noted. He also cited a UFPA study that found that oil palm plantations “appear to be one of the least deleterious for native fauna” compared to the different options available for use of soil in the Amazon basin.

According to Brito, Agropalma only uses herbicides, mostly glyphosate, but is testing other compounds. “Our mission is not to use [glyphosate] anymore,” he said. “But it is very difficult because we have to keep the crown of the plants clean. And we also publish every year the amount of active ingredients that we use.”

Smallholders quoted in Cruz’s research said that glyphosate, known locally as mata-mato, was the main pesticide used in oil palm cultivation in Tailândia, even though they said the risks are unknown.

Brito said Agropalma only provides glyphosate after carrying out the due training with farmers.

In a statement, Gilberto Cabral, a BBB spokesman, said the company observes “the best practices applicable in environmental terms” and “without substantial change in land use.” According to him, the trees were planted between 2011 and 2015 in areas that had been used as pastures or areas that were already degraded before 2005.

However, he noted, Tailândia’s land is also used by independent palm producers and by producers of other crops, such as corn and soybeans, “with recurrent use of pesticides in all areas sown.”

As a means of environmental monitoring, Cabral said, the company periodically analyzes surface waters, upstream and downstream, and underground, in order to detect any changes.

“The company strictly observes the dosages and other instructions expressed on the labels and package inserts of the few pesticides it uses, since we prioritize preventive, mechanical (brushing) and biological (Bacillus thuringiensis) means of control on a large scale,” he wrote.

Roberto Yokoyama, the head of the Brazilian Association of Palm Oil Producers (Abrapalma), said if the contamination of watercourses has indeed occurred in Pará, there should be an official investigation.

Yokoyama challenged Cruz’ research, claiming the levels of atrazine found in watercourses and the fertilization period were misrepresented. He also challenged the methodology used by the researcher and argued that the study did not present evidence that proved palm oil plantations were the source.

“The data and results that the master’s thesis presents, in fact, do not indicate that oil palm plantations were responsible for the application of atrazine and glyphosate in their plantations,” Yokoyama wrote.

Aerial view of palm crops in Tomé-Açu municipality, in northern Amazon’s Pará state, on November 11, 2019. Image by Wilson Paz for Mongabay.

Scientific evidence of health impacts

Several studies provide evidence of the harmful health impacts of the contaminants found in Turé-Mariquita and Tailândia. Endosulfan levels of 0.01 μg/L (a third of the concentration found in the water in Damiani’s study), for example, have been shown to be lethal to fish. Studies also detected serious health issues linked to exposure to DDT, diuron and glyphosate-based herbicide residues. There is also growing evidence for atrazine’s carcinogenic potential.

Another concern is the possible proliferation of cyanobacteria and the generation of cyanotoxins in streams containing glyphosate-based herbicides. Cyanotoxins are powerful natural poisons, and some can cause rapid death by respiratory failure.

The regulations governing the use of pesticides in Brazil apply only to the active ingredients, and fail to consider the toxicity of the complete formulation, as well as the interaction between contaminants, whose health impacts can be worse but are often not studied or poorly understood. Lab tests using human cells have shown that glyphosate formulations can be up to a thousand times more toxic than just the active ingredient alone, which means that individual analysis of active ingredients can underestimate the risks to living organisms.

Brazil banned the use of endosulfan in 2010 and DDT in phases from 1985 to 2009, citing their high toxicity and the capacity for bioaccumulation and persistence in the environment. Both are considered persistent organic pollutants under the Stockholm Convention, a global treaty.

It’s thought the DDT found in the Turé-Mariquita samples may have originated from its widespread use to control malaria-bearing mosquitos in the Amazon.

At least seven herbicides and 16 insecticides are currently used in oil palm cultivation in Brazil and other countries that grow the crop. Damiani notes the lack of transparency regarding agrochemicals used by Brazilian palm oil companies, as well as the amounts and periods of application — a lack of publicly available data that could potentially conceal much higher exposure of Amazonian communities to oil palm pesticides.

Damiani obtained access to pesticide data collected by prosecutors from Biopalma and other palm oil firms. “Scientific research corroborates the Tembé’s claims,” she said. But “this data we obtained is [just] a snapshot of a reality that requires more frequent monitoring.”

Another study in 2014 by the Instituto Evandro Chagas (IEC), the federal laboratory that carried out the testing for Damiani’s and Cruz’ studies, found endosulfan residues and cyanobacteria, but no pesticide residues, in another oil palm-growing area. According to Mendes, the lab researcher, further systematic analysis of the impacts of oil palm plantations’ pesticide use in Pará is needed, but previous attempts to secure funding have failed.

While the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve’s residents can point to Damiani’s study to corroborate their claims, their neighbors, including in the Tembé Indigenous Reserve, have voiced similar contamination and disease concerns, but lack any scientific evidence to support their accounts.

Their ancestral lands abut oil palm plantations owned and operated by BBB. The reserve’s Indigenous inhabitants say BBB is shirking its obligations by denying the existence of a tributary of the Acará-Mirim River that runs inside one of their oil palm plantations. Mongabay visited the area and verified the existence of a river inside the property.

In the nearby village of Acará-Mirim, Funai, the federal agency for Indigenous affairs, has set up a water supply system at the center of the community. But it doesn’t reach Nazaré Coutinho Pereira’s house by the banks of the Acará-Mirim River. “We keep drinking this water because there’s no [other] option,” Pereira said. “We consume a lot of water to drink, to wash, [but] the body always becomes itchy and we need to take medicine.

“[When] we fill a can with this water, in a few hours we can see a finger of mud in the bottom of the pan,” she added. Come the rainy season, she said, “all the poisons, all the dirt comes … dead animals on top, oxen, horse, they throw everything in the river … and we drink the juice from it all.”

Pereira said she has experienced symptoms including diarrhea after drinking the once-clean river water, something that didn’t happen in the past. “I feel my stomach get big, it gets full, unwilling to eat,” she said. “I also have urinary infections very often.” Residents who drink from Funai’s water supply also describe similar symptoms, she added.

In a statement, BBB denied the use of pesticides, saying it only used “mineral fertilizers that contribute to the growth of plants, both cultivated and native.” The company acknowledged the existence of a river called “Rio Pequeno” near its farm, but said that its plantations “are within a regulatory distance from this water body.”

It added its technicians are investigating the situation, including “rigorous analysis of all water bodies near the plantations.” The company said it received on February 18 a complaint from the Tembé Indigenous Association of Vale do Acará about the carrying of liquid effluents, distributed in the planting plots as complementary organic fertilizer, for streams that flow into the river that serves the community in which they live.

A decade-long legal battle

Local communities have frequently pursued legal action against Brazil’s major palm oil players. Biopalma has been targeted by the Tembé people of the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Reserve and by small farmers and Afro slave-descendant quilombola communities.

The Tembé say they were not properly consultated before Biopalma’s oil palm venture got up and running. “We were not listened to for this project; when we saw it, the project was already established around our territory,” Lúcio Tembé, chief of the Turé Indigenous village, said. Pontes Júnior, the federal prosecutor, points to a loophole in Brazilian law that requires a buffer zone of 10 km (6 mi) and a socio-environmental impact study for ventures around conservation areas, but not around Indigenous reserves.

For large development projects, like dams, such a buffer zone is also mandatory for Indigenous reserves, given the potentially harmful impacts of these types of developments. But palm oil plantations are considered an “agrosilvopastoral culture” with “low polluting and degrading potential” by the state environmental council, and so are not required to go through the same licensing process, instead qualifying for a simplified licensing process.

Brazil is a party to international conventions that require consultation with, and consent by, Indigenous and traditional communities who will be impacted by major development projects. In this case, however, there was no prior consultation, and the impact was not assessed, Pontes Júnior said. “Everything depends on [getting] this forensic report. From this forensic report, a series of other actions will be triggered… [But] without this forensic report I have my hands tied in this action,” he said.

In a statement, the Federal Circuit Court for the First Region in Brasília said a rulingmay be made in March.

Another enabling factor in the oil palm industry’s environmental violations can be found in the plantation licensing process. In Pará, the state government didn’t acknowledge the presence of Indigenous or traditional communities when granting licenses for oil palm cultivation, prosecutors say.

The Turé-Mariquita reserve, for example, was demarcated in 1991, 16 years before Biopalma arrived in the region. The Tembé themselves have been present in Pará since the second half of the 19th century, when they were forced to migrate from neighboring Maranhão state.

Since their first recorded contact with Portuguese colonizers in 1615 in Maranhão, the Tembé have had to face forced proselytization by missionaries, slavery, infectious diseases, persecution, conflict, and extreme droughts that devastated the land. A branch of the Tupi-Guarani family, they called themselves Tenetehara but in the migration process came to be called the Tembé in Pará; those who remained in Maranhão are called the Guajajara.

The presence of several quilombola settlements, or quilombos, also dating back more than a century was similarly ignored during the licensing process. State and federal prosecutors say this renders the process invalid, given the lack of attention paid to the impacts on these communities. Pontes Júnior and state prosecutors Eliane Cristina Pinto Moreira and Raimundo Moraes have also called on the Pará state environmental council, Coema, to reform its palm oil licensing policy to introduce more regulation, but the requests have been rejected.

Researchers at UFPA have found that Biopalma’s Castanheira processing mill, next to the Acará River, received two separate licenses — one from the municipality of Acará and one from the state — yet neither defines any buffer zone requirements. “The conditions are ridiculous, i.e., annual reports of activities, something that the legislation already establishes… The environmental authority simply relies on the companies’ self-monitoring procedures,” lead researcher Elielson Pereira da Silva told Mongabay. He added that the environment secretary in Acará had only shown him the documents on condition he not make any copies or photograph them.

In a statement, Pará’s Secretariat of Environment and Sustainability (Semas-PA) said
it carried out inspections from May to December 2019 in six municipalities, including Acará and Tomé Açu, and at the time “there were no violations of current environmental standards.”

In relation to the pollution of watercourses, Semas-PA said it plans to inspect the area; there are also scheduled inspections for Tailândia’s oil palm farms, but monitoring rivers and streams within Indigenous Reserves is the responsibility of the federal government, it added.

Brazil’s Ministry of Health, Funai, and the municipalities of Acará and Tailândia did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

‘Desperate’ strategy to be heard

Brazilian companies like Biopalma portray their operations as sustainable to consumers in Latin America, Europe and the U.S. But palm oil companies the world over have long been accused of destroying traditional livelihoods, leaving poverty and social deprivation in their wake. In Pará, the industry has left many Indigenous and traditional residents feeling estranged from their culture, which is deeply intertwined with the natural world.

By 2019, Biopalma’s plantations had encircled the Tembé’s lands, and local resistance morphed into campaigns of direct action against the company. Tired of nearly a decade of fruitless campaigning for compensation through official channels, the Tembé took direct action, seizing company vehicles in the hope of forcing Biopalma to hear their concerns. Uhu Tembé, an Indigenous leader, told Mongabay how she and her husband seized a Biopalma tractor during the protest and used it to bulldoze oil palm trees near the village of Yriwar in the Turé-Mariquita reserve.

“We have been asking for [Biopalma’s] help for a long time to clean the area so we can plant; they never answered. Then we decided to get their machinery to do it ourselves … because we’ve been asking them for ten years,” Uhu said, pointing to the tractor that sat outside her home for three months. “We are cleaning it up here to plant our cassava, corn, rice. We don’t eat this here,” she added, pointing to oil palms. “They did not respect our land, our area. That’s why we feel outraged.”

Frustration with palm oil companies has grown across the region over the last years, and the seizure of company property by the Turé-Mariquita residents is not an isolated case.

Like the Indigenous communities, the quilombolas have also protested against Biopalma, blocking roads to call for development assistance. But such actions may have provoked violence, including the murder of a quilombola leader in 2018, and an arson attack on the home of another.

The Mongabay team visited the village of Acará-Mirim in the neighboring Tembé Indigenous Reserve the day after residents had seized tractors and a car from BBB. Indigenous leader Valdevan Evangelista dos Santos Tembé said their goal was to force a dialogue with the company, and that they would return the vehicles once an agreement was reached. In the meantime, residents used the machinery to prepare the area to plant crops.

“All Indigenous leaders in Acará-Mirim and Cuxiu-Mirim villages agreed to do this protest. We agreed to put on war paint [over] our bodies, take our bows and arrows and seize the company’s … tractors,” Valdevan Tembé said. “What was our objective? To bring the company’s manager to our village to talk to us and sign an agreement. We would only give them back their machines after they start the construction works they promised us.”

The protests have had some successes. For Valdevan Tembé and his neighbors, BBB committed to conducting a social and environmental impact study to determine if the plantations had damaged the Indigenous communities. BBB said the study was contracted and is being carried out at the moment, with completion expected for the first semester of this year to be “the basis for the adoption of measures to mitigate any impacts.”

BBB also made some improvements to the road requested by the Acará-Mirim villagers, Lúcio Tembé said.

In Turé-Mariquita, Biopalma went to court to get its machines back. The villagers handed them back three months after seizing them, with the company agreeing to pay each community 30,000 reais (about $5,600) quarterly for three years to finance local development projects, according to Urutaw Turiwar Tembé, chief of the Yriwar Indigenous village. “It is not enough for us, but it was what they gave us. We fought for more, but we failed,” he said.

But none of these projects have been completed so far, Urutaw Tembé said, due to higher costs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. According to him, instead of paying the quarterly amount, Biopalma only paid annually.

The Indigenous have tried to seal a new deal to replace the amount for the obligation for carrying out the projects, regardless of the amount but “it became very complicated to negotiate” after Biopalma’s sale to BBF, Urutaw Tembé noted.

In a statement, BBF said its relationship with Indigenous communities close to palm plantation areas “is always maintained in a spirit of technical and social cooperation” under agreements made last year that included providing clean drinking water, ensuring food security, and educational and cultural schemes.

November 2015 saw the first major mobilization of Indigenous people, quilombolas, ribeirinhos (traditional riverside dwellers) and residents of neighboring communities against the palm oil firms. About 140 people came together and occupied Biopalma’s Vera Cruz headquarters, paralyzing the company for 11 days.

The protest began when Biopalma started operating a ferry on the Acará River, close to the Vila Formosa quilombola community. The quilombolas asked if they could also use the company ferry to travel to other communities or even to the city, but were rebuffed, leading to the occupation. Days later, a judge intervened and the protesters left peacefully. Biopalma denounced the occupation, alleging its property had been looted, and a judge in Acará ordered the arrest of the leaders of the associations involved in the occupation. One quilombola leader was jailed for eight months.

However, in a counterargument of appeal signed in early 2020 in defense of the Tembé’s November 2019 protests against Biopalma, federal prosecutor Felipe Moura de Palha e Silva said the demonstration was a legitimate act of Indigenous resistance made in response “to the years of illicit conduct by the company, which severely damages their health,” and was carried out “in a desperate attempt to at least be heard [in] a dispute over Indigenous rights.”

The prosecutor encouraged both sides in the conflict to engage in mediation over Biopalma’s omission of environmental impacts and the need for corrective environmental licensing, among other points of contention. “For these issues, the company omits and tries to criminalize the demonstration of the Indigenous people through lawfare and police procedures,” Silva wrote.

In a statement, Biopalma said it filed a repossession suit given “the repeated undue seizures of agricultural machinery” through “serious threats like wielding melee weapons against Biopalma employees.”

Residents of Yriwar village watch Biopalma’s seized tractors knocking down palm trees a few meters away from their house. Image by Thais Borges.

Fewer game animals, more pests

The arrival of the oil palm plantations in the Amazon has driven out the wildlife that Indigenous and traditional communities often hunt for food and ushered in an influx of disease-carrying insects and venomous snakes, the communities say.

Before the plantations encircled the reserve, “we [easily] found, very close to here, paca, armadillo, a lot of fish,” said Nazaré Coutinho Pereira from Acará-Mirim village. “Hunting has changed because there are no more [animals]. It is difficult for us to find [animals to hunt] … There’s nothing else [left], neither hunting nor fish.”

In Yriwar village, residents say game animals like tapir and tortoise have disappeared since Biopalma arrived. And even when they do catch animals, they are afraid to eat them due to the risk of pesticide poisoning. The few animals that remain, such as foxes, reportedly also suffer symptoms such as hair loss, while many others have been found dead from no obvious cause, according to Lúcio Tembé.

The cultivation of oil palms close to Indigenous reserves affects livelihoods and lifestyle quality in other ways beyond depriving residents of hunting and fishing. Urutaw Tembé said they have seen an increase in the number of insects and snakes.

The plantations “touched our territory [and] didn’t respect the buffer zone. This has brought us a lot of damage today: insects, lizards … that we had never seen [before]. Venomous snakes, many snake species … flies, flies that bother us. It ends up hurting the children’s bodies, triggering allergies,” he said.

According to Indigenous residents, the swarms of pests are caused by the loss of native vegetation and the large number of rodents attracted by fallen palm leaves. The snakes, in turn, are drawn by the abundance of the rodents, posing a serious health threat to residents, for whom the nearest clinic is an hour’s drive away and the closest hospital about four hours away.

Urutaw Tembé also complained about the damage caused by the planting of pueraria (Pueraria phaseoloides), a crop in the pea family that is used by the oil palm companies to fix nitrogen in the soil, control weeds, and reduce erosion. The Tembé say it attracts insects during the dry season that burrow beneath the skin, causing rashes.

Indigenous chief Lúcio Tembé poses for a photograph in front of Biopalma’s Castanheira mill, just a few meters away from the Acará River, in Tomé-Açu municipality, northern Amazon’s Pará state, on November 12, 2019. Image by Thaís Borges for Mongabay.

Forests replaced by palm crops

Biopalma has said in the past that it established its plantations only on already cleared land, but Indigenous residents and researchers dispute this.

Sandra Damiani from UnB, who investigated the pesticide use in the area, said she found evidence of about 300 hectares (740 acres) of deforestation for oil palm around Turé-Mariquita, where old-growth forests were felled as loggers first encroached, followed by agricultural settlers, a mining company whose pipeline crosses the reserve, and finally by Biopalma.

Studies have shown that the conversion of forests into oil palm plantations is a major problem, not only locally, but across northeast Pará. Research suggests between 9%and 39% of oil palm production occurred in deforested areas in Pará between 1989 and 2014, raising concerns about future expansion. This casts into doubt Biopalma’s claim, and that of other companies, that their oil palm production stems only from previously cleared land.

Another study found that 40% of oil palm expansion in Pará had replaced woody vegetation, despite the government’s ban on oil palm plantations expanding into forests and lands deforested before 2008.

The use of heavy machinery on the plantations also has an impact on biodiversity by scaring off game animals, Damiani said. The reduction in both abundance and diversity of animals was noticed immediately by Indigenous people after the planting of palm oil crops bordering their land, she said. Numerous bird species, for example, were no longer seen after the conversion to oil palm.

The native vegetation in the now-deforested territory outside the Indigenous reserve was important for the community to collect non-timber forest products, including herbs and honey that are used as medicines, vines for making of utensils, seeds for handicrafts, and fruits such as pequiá (Caryocar villosum), uxi (Endopleura uchi), bacuri(Platonia insignis) and bacaba (Oenocarpus bacaba).

The Indigenous people initially welcomed the increased access to urban centers that the new roads laid by Biopalma facilitated. But the roads also increased exposure to outsiders, making them feel that they were losing control of their territory. Another consequence of more roads has been an increase in illegal logging in the area. Numerous studies in the Amazon have identified road construction as an important vector of deforestation, and the Mongabay team regularly saw trucks loaded with timber passing through the area.

In a statement, BBF said it has identified “the role of illegal deforestation gangs in areas close to its farms” since it took control of Biopalma in November 2020 and had reported the allegations to the authorities. It added that palm oil crops were “planted in the parcels of land authorized under the terms of the applicable environmental legislation.”

Truck loaded with palm oil fruits in Tomé-Açu municipality, northern Amazon’s Pará state, on November 12, 2019. Image by Thaís Borges for Mongabay.

Deforestation in quilombola areas is also occurring as the direct result of oil palm expansion. Nearly 4,800 hectares (11,900 acres) of forest was cleared between 2007 and 2018 to make way for oil palms in the municipality of Acará, according to research by Jamilli Medeiros de Oliveira da Silva at São Paulo State University (UNESP). The study looked at satellite imagery from Mapbiomas — a network of NGOs, universities and tech firms that include Google — and crosschecked them with NASA’s Landsat 5 and 8 data.

This further disproves the companies’ and government’s claims that oil palm plantations were established only on previously cleared land.

In 2010, the federal government launched an agroecological zoning program for palm oil cultivation in deforested areas in the states that make up the Brazilian Amazon. Called ZAE-Dendê, it offered benefits to palm oil companies for meeting certain sustainability requirements. But as Damiani and da Silva found in their research, some areas were deforested and overlapped onto traditional quilombola communities.

Adriano Venturieri, the researcher who led the palm oil agroecological zoning program, said the quilombola communities were not considered because their presence was not formally acknowledged at the time. He added the program may be updated at any time to include this data.

Quilombolas affected

Like the Indigenous communities impacted by the plantations, the quilombola communities in Acará — the third-largest palm oil-producing municipality in Brazil —complain about similar issues arising from the plantations, including deforestation, reduced water levels in their streams, and pesticide pollution.

“They wanted to plant oil palm here. We did not allow it,” José Renato Gomes de Gusmão told Mongabay at his home in 19 de Massaranduba, a quilombola village in the Tomé-Açu region. “People who live close [to the palm plantations] got sick [with] too much poison. The waters are gone, with so much poison that they throw. The streams are all gone.

“I don’t like it,” he added. “The palm brought a lot of income, a lot of jobs… [But] it is not healthy.”

Researchers Brian Garvey and Jamilli Medeiros de Oliveira da Silva said they heard similar stories of water contamination in quilombola communities close to the Acará River. In 2016, a palm oil spill in the river left a yellow slick on the water’s surface for more than a week. Quilombola communities including Vila Formosa village, where the protest over Biopalma’s ferry began, were devastated as the fish they relied on died out. Since then, fish catches have declined, and even the river dolphins have disappeared, residents say.

In 2019, two palm oil spills near Agropalma’s plantations in Tailândia polluted the Acará River and its tributaries. The company’s director of sustainability, Tulio Dias Brito, said all of the oil was collected and the impact was “virtually nonexistent.”

“We have the floating barriers that surround oil in the river … We managed to surround the oil there and we managed to collect it to the last drop,” he told Mongabay. “No fish, no tree died. So, there was no environmental impact. Although the volume was a few tons of hollow oil, which is a relatively large volume, the environmental impact was zero, objectively speaking … We have all the proof: the photo before, the photo after.”

Elielson da Silva from UFPA visited the area in the days after the second oil spill in October 2019 and documented the environmental impacts, including water contamination and the death of animals and fish. “There was contamination. I was there. I photographed people, I witnessed the [damages of the] oil spill,” he told Mongabay, adding that residents said that there were three oil spills that year.

Water contamination issues derived from both pesticides and oil spills have been faced by quilombola communities close to Agropalma’s concession for several decades, but the situation worsens each year, especially the degree of fish contamination, a quilombola, who talked on condition of anonymity after receiving death threats, told Mongabay.

“The water is muddy, it’s dark; it’s so dark that we cannot have any visibility,” the source said.

After the 2019 oil spills, the source noted, one of the main impacts was scarcity of fish. The fishes are only coming back now, the source noted. “The fish eat the palm oil; it fills its belly. Then you go fishing, when you open the fish, where its tripe ends from its gills, everything is full of oil palm… The oil hardens inside the fish… The fish dies with that inside.”

Photographs from an environmental inspection released by Tailândia municipality and seen by Mongabay corroborate the allegations of negative environmental impacts from Agropalma’s oil spill. The document, dated May 2019, ordered that steps be taken to repair the rivers and streams.

In a statement, Semas-PA said it had recorded an infraction notice against Agropalma, without providing further details.

Palm fruits stored on the road in Tomé-Açu municipality, northern Amazon’s Pará state, on November 12, 2019. Image by Thaís Borges for Mongabay.

Community-wide impacts

During our investigation, we witnessed how the oil palm plantations impact the daily lives of people living in the wider Pará community — at a school, for example, which was surrounded by palm trees. Although the companies say the agrochemicals they use are not toxic, this particular school endured a forced three-day closure while the firm was spraying, residents told Mongabay.

“There was no class for three days [and] no one could pass through the area,” said Alex de Oliveira Pimentel, a local farmer. “[The company] said [the pesticide used] was organic, [that] it wasn’t unhealthy… But the requirement was that nobody could pass through the area for 48 hours.”

Aerial view of a school completely surrounded by oil palm plantations in Tomé-Açu municipality, in northern Amazon’s Pará state, on November 13, 2019. Image by Wilson Paz for Mongabay.

Beyond the contamination of the soil and water, Pimentel said farmers have lost their crops due to the spread of pests and disease from the palm plantations, including butterfly infestations destroying fruit crops like dragon fruit and cashew.

When the big agribusiness companies first came to the Tomé-Açu region, they approached several small farmers with an offer to lease their lands for oil palm cultivation. Some resisted, unwilling to turn over their land to grow a then-unknown crop.

Among them was José Edimilson Ramos Rodrigues, one of many farmers in his community who rejected the lease offer. But that has not stopped the community from feeling the impact of the plantations, which now surround them. The residents have regularly complained about water contamination, reduced fish catches, and animal deaths since the oil palms were planted close to the river.

Rodrigues said he has noticed some changes in local crops, including a vine that now grows in coconut trees and which he said didn’t exist before. He said the damage done far outweighs any benefits from the lease offer. “There’s no way. What we must do is try to avoid … so that it won’t happen again,” he said.

Lax agrochemical controls

The spread of pesticide use in Indigenous and traditional communities has once again shone a light on the lax regulatory climate governing the sales and use of harmful chemicals in Brazil. Only one company is officially approved by Pará state to sell pesticides in Tailândia, but a thriving illegal market has flourished, selling glyphosate under the local name mata-mato. The farmers’ union in Tailândia, Sintraf, told UFPA researcher Rosa Helena Ribeiro Cruz that the palm oil companies do not dispose of the packaging properly, opening the possibility for misuse later on. Proper package disposal is regulated by a federal law, which holds the farmer, vendor and manufacturer legally responsible for any such misuse.

Tailândia’s farmers also said they were initially given personal protective equipment by Agropalma and BBB, but the supplies were short-lived, even though people began falling ill due to the use of pesticides.

Brito, the Agropalma director, denied all the accusations. According to him, the company collects the agrochemical packaging, which is incinerated. He said Agropalma also controls all glyphosate provided to farmers and provides appropriate safety equipment.

Cabral, BBB spokesman, said it is common for farmers to plant other crops in areas adjacent to palm groves, which are managed separately. Pesticide packaging supplied by the company is “inert and recyclable” and is collected by local companies after use; the use of appropriate safety equipment is also inspected, he added.

Sintraf also told Cruz that the use of pesticides by the palm oil firms had led many local farmers to adopt new practices, heavily reliant on agrochemical use, and abandon their traditional farming methods. This has compounded the pollution of rivers, as up to half the farmers in some communities have switched to using pesticides.

The Ministry of Health launched a health surveillance program in the 1990s for people exposed to pesticides, but the system failed to produce any reports for Tailândia, Cruz noted.

For some federal prosecutors, the problems caused by the palm oil industry’s inroads into the Amazon over the past decade are a repeat of what they witnessed with the cattle, soy and mining sectors and all development projects.

“The palm oil [sector] doesn’t differ at all from the other monocultures established here in the Amazon,” prosecutor Felipe Moura de Palha e Silva told Mongabay. “The modus operandi follows a primer as well, which is a primer for violating the rights of communities.”

In Tomé-Açú, game animals and fish were once plentiful. Now only oil palm trees grow, in some cases within meters of the Indigenous reserves.

“The palm oil company left us in a space like an egg … Only the company profits,” said Urutaw Tembé, pointing to oil palms just a few feet from his home in Yriwar village. “We are dying with pesticides, with water contamination. How does a company like this come from outside to enrich [itself] on our land? We don’t accept it … We will keep fighting.”

Residents of the village of Acará-Mirim in the Tembé Indigenous Reserve use with seized tractors from palm oil company Belem Bionergia Brasil (BBB) on November 14, 2019. Image by Karla Mendes

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Karla Mendes is a staff contributing editor for Mongabay in Brazil. Find her on Twitter: @karlamendes

Sources

Damiani, S., Ferreira Guimarães, S. M., Leite Montalvão, M. T., & Sousa Passos, C. J. (2020). “All that’s left is bare land and sky”: Palm oil culture and socioenvironmental impacts on a Tembé Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon. Ambiente & Sociedade, 23. doi:10.1590/1809-4422asoc20190049r2vu2020l6ao

Da Silva, J. M. O. (2020). O território quilombola do Alto Acará/PA como resistência à expansão do agronegócio do dendê (The quilombola territory of Alto Acará / PA as resistance to the expansion of palm oil agribusiness) (Master’s thesis, São Paulo State University, São Paulo, Brazil). Retrieved from https://repositorio.unesp.br/handle/11449/194439

Kogevinas, M. (2019). Probable carcinogenicity of glyphosate. BMJ, 365, l1613. doi:10.1136/bmj.l1613

Benami, E., Curran, L. M., Cochrane, M., Venturieri, A., Franco, R., Kneipp, J., & Swartos, A. (2018). Oil palm land conversion in Parà, Brazil, from 2006-2014: Evaluating the 2010 Brazilian sustainable palm oil production program. Environmental Research Letters, 13(3), 034037. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aaa270

Cruz, R. H. (2018). Impactos socioambientais de produção de palma de dendê na Amazônia paraense: Uso de agrotóxicos e poluição ambiental nas sub-bacias hidrográficas, Tailândia (PA) (Socioenvironmental impacts of palm oil production in Amazonian Pará: Use of pesticides and environmental pollution in hydrographic sub-basins, Tailândia (PA)) (Master’s thesis, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Brazil). Retrieved from http://repositorio.ufpa.br/jspui/handle/2011/10316

Smedbol, É., Gomes, M. P., Paquet, S., Labrecque, M., Lepage, L., Lucotte, M., & Juneau, P. (2018). Effects of low concentrations of glyphosate-based herbicide factor 540® on an agricultural stream freshwater phytoplankton community. Chemosphere, 192, 133-141. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2017.10.128

Damiani, S. (2017). Impactos socioambientais do cultivo de dendê na terra indígena Turé-Mariquita no nordeste do Pará (Socioenvironmental impacts of oil palm cultivation in the Turé-Mariquita Indigenous Territory in northeastern Pará) (Master’s thesis, University of Brasília, Brasília, Brazil). Retrieved from https://repositorio.unb.br/handle/10482/31503

Furumo, P. R., & Aide, T. M. (2017). Characterizing commercial oil palm expansion in Latin America: Land use change and trade. Environmental Research Letters, 12(2), 024008. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa5892

Myers, J. P., Antoniou, M. N., Blumberg, B., Carroll, L., Colborn, T., Everett, L. G., … Benbrook, C. M. (2016). Concerns over use of glyphosate-based herbicides and risks associated with exposures: A consensus statement. Environmental Health, 15(1). doi:10.1186/s12940-016-0117-0

Dislich, C., Keyel, A. C., Salecker, J., Kisel, Y., Meyer, K. M., Auliya, M., … Wiegand, K. (2016). A review of the ecosystem functions in oil palm plantations, using forests as a reference system. Biological Reviews, 92(3), 1539-1569. doi:10.1111/brv.12295

Vijay, V., Pimm, S. L., Jenkins, C. N., & Smith, S. J. (2016). The impacts of oil palm on recent deforestation and biodiversity loss. PLOS ONE, 11(7), e0159668. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0159668

Mesnage, R., Arno, M., Costanzo, M., Malatesta, M., Séralini, G.-E., & Antoniou, M. N. (2015). Transcriptome profile analysis reflects rat liver and kidney damage following chronic ultra-low dose roundup exposure. Environmental Health, 14(1). doi:10.1186/s12940-015-0056-1

Mesnage, R., Defarge, N., Spiroux de Vendômois, J., & Séralini, G.-E. (2014). Major pesticides are more toxic to human cells than their declared active principles. BioMed Research International, 2014, 1-8. doi:10.1155/2014/179691

Saldanha, G. C., Bastos, W. R., Torres, J. P. M., & Malm, O. (2010). DDT in fishes and soils of lakes from Brazilian Amazon: Case study of Puruzinho Lake (Amazon, Brazil). Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society, 21(2), 306-311. doi:10.1590/s0103-50532010000200016

Stanley, K. A., Curtis, L. R., Massey Simonich, S. L., & Tanguay, R. L. (2009). Endosulfan I and endosulfan sulfate disrupts zebrafish embryonic development. Aquatic Toxicology, 95(4), 355-361. doi:10.1016/j.aquatox.2009.10.008

Featured image: Harvest time at a palm oil plantation in Pará, Brasil. Photo by Miguel Pinheiro/CIFOR.

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It was clear from the title and the promotion of the Netflix documentary Seaspiracy that it was going to adopt a similar approach to the highly influential 2014 documentary Cowspiracy, which uncovered the sheer scale and destructive impact of animal agriculture.

Seaspiracy follows Ali, an activist and filmmaker who embarks on a journey of discovery which starts with beach clean-ups, before exposing viewers to the more serious issues of plunder and devastation of the oceans, and even the brutal world of modern slavery.

The 90-minute documentary covers a lot of ground and makes for informative viewing, weaving interviews with scientists and activist into a strong narrative.

Lifting the lid

Like Cowspiracy before it, Seaspiracy takes the form of an exposé, shining a light on industry practices that will shock and disgust audiences, and displaying alarming statistics which paint a picture of ocean ecosystems on the brink of collapse.

We’re told that sharks are killed at a rate of over 11,000 per hour across the world, mostly as by-catch from commercial fishing, with some shark species populations declining by more than 90 percent in just the last few decades. Six out of seven species of sea turtle are either threatened or endangered, and seabirds have declined by around 70 percent due to competition with the fishing industry for their natural source of food.

Much of the information in the film will be known to environmentalists. Previous campaigns have highlighted the horrors of the shark finning industry and of ‘ghost gear’ – fishing nets and equipment that continues to wreak havoc for years after being discarded. Documentaries like The Cove have also covered parts of this story before.

But this information will be new to many viewers, and the framing of the film – lifting the lid to expose a secretive and corrupt industry – acts as an effective hook which compels viewers to watch on and discover more.

The issue of plastics in the ocean has gained considerable public interest in the last couple of years, and this is where the film begins. The narrative then moves on to the “whale in the room” – that industrial fishing itself, and our massive demand for fish, is the real problem.

‘Sustainable’

The film then takes aim at ocean conservation groups like the Marine Stewardship Council and the Earth Island Institute, as well as certification schemes which claim to offer consumers a ‘sustainable’ seafood option. Using clips taken from interviews with staff at these organisations, and commentary from other conservationists, notably George Monbiot, the film offers a simple but powerful critique of their approach which attempts to work with the fishing industry to curb its worst excesses.

The suggestion that these groups are complicit or even entirely ‘bought’ by the fishing industry may be unfair, and the heavily edited interviews, packed with leading questions and absent of context, tell us little about the activities or motivations of the organisations involved. But what the film gets right here is far more important than what it gets wrong.

The inability of conservationists and government agencies to truly know what goes on at sea, or to enforce the most even the basic laws and standards, is painfully obvious. Alongside a failure of public and political engagement with the issue, this is leading to rapid destruction of the world’s most diverse ecosystems, and with them the very life systems on which we depend.

Seaspiracy does an excellent job of describing the complex relationships found in ocean food chains and explains how the extinction of some species can lead to the loss of many more. It also highlights the profound dependence we have on marine ecosystems to regulate the climate.

By far the planet’s largest store of both carbon and heat, the condition of the oceans has an enormous impact on the climate and our ability to prevent a run-away climate emergency. Destruction of oceanic plant and animal life by industrial fishing is likened to deforestation on land, but on an even greater scale, undermining the ocean’s ability to remove and store carbon from the atmosphere.

Innocent

The film uses graphic and deeply upsetting footage throughout. Even those who struggle to empathise with marine animals will surely be affected by its depictions of the violence and cruelty inflicted on fish, sharks, dolphins and whales at the hands of humans.

The emotionally powerful footage sets the scene for the latter part of the film, which explains the extraordinary sensory and communicative capacities of fish, challenging the viewer to overturn their preconceptions of fish as simple or lesser animals.

Veteran oceanographer Dr Sylvia Earle gives some of the most thoughtful commentary on this topic.

“We feel pain, we feel touch, but fish have a lateral line down their sides that senses the most exquisite little movements in the water, so you see a thousand fish moving like one fish…

“Those who say it doesn’t matter what you do to a fish because they can’t feel anything, or that they can’t relate to pain, or they can’t sense danger in the future… well they haven’t really observed fish.

“I think it’s a justification for doing dastardly things to innocent creatures. That’s the only explanation I can think of for treating fish with such a barbaric attitude.”

Hope

The film closes by addressing some of the concerns that viewers might have about no longer eating fish, and rightly draws the conclusion that eliminating fish from our diets is the single biggest thing each of us can do to protect our oceans.

No doubt Seaspiracy will be criticised for reducing the complexities of the fishing industry into a somewhat vague global conspiracy.

But the simplicity of its message is also its strength, standing in stark contrast to the innumerable sustainability initiatives which leave most of us entirely confused about the causes of ocean degradation and unaware of the basic choice we have to make.

Doubtless this film will help to change people’s minds about the fishing industry.

If you haven’t already, watch it and use it to open conversations with family and friends about what we can do to protect our seas and the animals that live in them. Stick with it to the end and you’ll be offered a hopeful vision of the future, based on the incredible resilience of ocean ecosystems and their ability to recover, if only we would give them the chance.

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Tim Thorpe is a campaigns and policy officer at The Vegan Society and tweets at @TimSRT. He has a background in environmental science and conservation and writes about farming and environmental issues. Interested in veganism and the environment? Why not take the seven-day planet-saving vegan pledge at www.vegansociety.com/plateup.

Featured image: Fish near a FAD in the Pacific Ocean. Photo: © Paul Hilton / Greenpeace.

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Father Steve Kelly, S.J., a Jesuit priest and longtime nuclear resister, arrived in Tacoma, Washington March 30th to appear in the US District Court on a warrant for a previous probation violation. 

Kelly had been arrested on a charge of trespassing at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Silverdale, Washington during a Pacific Life Community nonviolent direct action in March 2017. Kelly refused to cooperate with a federal judge’s imposition of supervised release following his September 2017 trial, and an arrest warrant was issued. Kelly has consistently refused cooperation with any sentencing terms throughout his history of resistance.

After being taken in chains from Brunswick, Georgia, where he had been imprisoned for his part in the 2018 Kings Bay Plowshares, Kelly arrived in Tacoma, Washington on March 30, 2021, and was scheduled to have a preliminary court hearing before a Federal judge the next day on the outstanding warrant. Because of Kelly’s intention to appear in person at all court proceedings, he waived his appearance and was represented by his attorney, Blake Kremer. Magistrate Judge David Christel set another court hearing for April 13^th. Kelly is currently enjoying the hospitality of the Federal Detention Center (FDC), SeaTac, Washington.

After the preliminary hearing ended, Kremer worked with the probation office and their post-release unit to resolve probation issues. Although the initial recommendation was that Kelly be ordered to live in a halfway house and continue to be supervised by the court, Kremer argued that kelly will have served his maximum sentence by the April 13^th hearing date and therefore the court could not impose any additional conditions. The probation office agreed, and on April 1st   changed their position, writing:  “we will be recommending Father Kelly’s term of probation to be revoked and he be sentenced to time served with no option for supervision to follow.”

Kelly was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in the Jesuit order in 1990, and engaged in his first Plowshares action – “Jubilee Plowshares” – in 1995. Since then, he has participated in numerous Plowshares actions and other witnesses against nuclear weapons and war making. In that time he has spent over 10 years behind bars, and roughly one-third of that time in solitary confinement (for non-cooperation).

Most recently, on April 4, 2018, on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Kelly and others, known as the the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, entered Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, the US Navy’s East Coast Trident nuclear ballistic missile submarine base. All seven defendants pled not guilty, insisting that they had not entered the base to commit a crime, but rather to prevent one from occurring, the crime of “omnicide”, the destruction of the human race which is possible in a nuclear war. In the face of this threat that the US nuclear arsenal poses to the world, they believed what they had done was not illegal, but a “symbolic disarmament”, an act of necessary civil resistance. All seven were found by a jury to be guilty on three felony counts and a misdemeanor charge.

Fr. Kelly conducting Mass and shared Eucharist at the Bangor Trident base on March 12, 2015. (photo by Leonard Eiger, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action)

Prior to the action at Kings Bay, Kelly and four others, in what is known as the Disarm Now Plowshares, were arrested at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor on All Souls Day, November 2, 2009, after entering the nuclear warhead storage area at Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific, to expose the nuclear warheads that are deployed on OHIO Class “Trident” ballistic missile submarines. Bangor is home to the Largest Concentration of Deployed Nuclear Weapons in the U.S.

The combined fourteen ballistic missile submarines at Bangor and Kings Bay, carrying the Trident II D5 ballistic missile armed with some combination of W76-1 (100 kiloton) warheads and W88 (475 kiloton) warheads, in addition to some small number of the newer “low-yield” W76-2 warhead are, in addition to being what the US government calls “the most survivable leg of the US nuclear triad,” arguably a first-strike nuclear weapon, which is inherently destabilizing to any efforts toward cooperation and disarmament efforts with Russia. The continuing warhead modernization and current construction of the next generation of ballistic missile submarines, with plans for a new warhead and missile, is contributing to a new and far less stable nuclear arms race.

As a person of deep spiritual convictions, Fr. Kelly understands that “It’s a Sin to Build a Nuclear Weapon,” as Jesuit Father McSorley once wrote. McSorley explained that, “The taproot of violence in our society today is our intention to use nuclear weapons. Once we have agreed to that, all other evil is minor in comparison. Until we squarely face the question of our consent to use nuclear weapons, any hope of large scale improvement of public morality is doomed to failure.”

Reaching to the heart of Gospel teachings, in Kelly’s own words: “The Gospel has many instances of the parables of Jesus inserting himself between the flock and the dangers; namely the thief and the wolf. In today’s or rather contemporary application of the Gospel is that Christ is incarnate in the poor in the flock and the thief is the budget dedicated to war profiteering and nuclear annihilation. The wolf is the ever-present danger of the threat and, God forbid, the use of nuclear weapons. So it is my life long quest to imitate the Good Shepherd. I will insert myself between the dangers and the flock.”

“In order to use my limited time I will, along with others, try to embody the vision given to us through the prophet Isaiah. It is a conversion of weapons to devices for human production. The gift of Isaiah 2:4 is an economic, political, and moral conversion of the violence of nuclear annihilation. With others, I hope to be instruments in God’s hands for showing a way out of the escalation, the proliferation of this scourge of humanity. I feel strongly that Martin Luther King Jr. would agree with the principle I attribute to Gandhi that we cannot be fully human while one nuclear weapon exists.”

Aside from Fr. Kelly’s deeply held, and practiced, beliefs, courts in the US have consistently refused to allow Kelly (and other Plowshares activists) to present any kind of reasonable defense. Federal prosecutors have asked, and judges have agreed, in nearly every case, to prohibit the defendants from introducing anything constituting a reasonable defense – including religious motivations, international law and treaties, Nuremberg principles, necessity defense, or the existence, numbers, or lethality of nuclear weapons, all of which are established, public knowledge and/or precedent.

In contrast to the repressive court system in the US, Plowshares actions have also occurred in Australia, Germany, Holland, Sweden, New Zealand and Scotland, Ireland, and England, and many of the trials in these cases resulted in jury acquittals, In the case of the Pitstop Ploughshares, five members of the Catholic Worker Movement who damaged a United States Navy C-40 transport aircraft (enroute to Iraq) at Shannon Airport, Ireland in 2003, were allowed to present a reasonable defense and were acquitted by a jury that determined the defendants had acted to save lives and property in Iraq.

Rather than prosecute Fr. Kelly and others who attempt to shine the light of conscience on nuclear weapons, which represent an omnicidal threat to humanity, the US government should instead listen to their warnings and begin, as required by Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), to which the US is a signatory, to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

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Jordan has detained a former crown prince at home and arrested two senior ex-officials and several others, sources have told Middle East Eye, amid a possible coup plot.

A large number of security forces have been deployed on Amman’s main streets and around its most sensitive sites.

Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, the 41-year-old half-brother of King Abdullah II and crown prince until 2004, has been detained at home, sources in Amman said, though the government has denied he has been arrested.

“We asked him to stop activities and movements that are used against Jordan’s stability,” the Jordanian army said in a statement.

The army added that Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a member of the royal family, and Bassem Awadallah, who was director of King Abdullah’s office in 2006, have been arrested following “comprehensive investigations undertaken by security agencies”.

In a video sent to the BBC by his lawyer on Saturday evening, Prince Hamzah denied any wrongdoing and said he was not part of any conspiracy. He also accused the country’s leaders of corruption, incompetence and harassment.

In the video, he said:

“I had a visit from the chief of general staff of the Jordanian armed forces this morning in which he informed me that I was not allowed to go out, to communicate with people or to meet with them because in the meetings that I had been present in – or on social media relating to visits that I had made – there had been criticism of the government or the king.”

He said that he was not accused of making the criticisms himself.

However, he went on to say:

“I am not the person responsible for the breakdown in governance, the corruption and for the incompetence that has been prevalent in our governing structure for the last 15 to 20 years and has been getting worse… And I am not responsible for the lack of faith people have in their institutions.

“It has reached a point where no one is able to speak or express an opinion on anything without being bullied, arrested, harassed and threatened.”

‘Investigations are continuing’

A senior Middle East intelligence official briefed on the events told the Washington Post that investigations were ongoing into an attempt to unseat the king. The Post reported that tribal leaders and members of the Jordanian security establishment are said to have been involved in the plot.

“At least 20 more people involved with Prince Hamzah have been arrested at the same time,” a Jordanian source told MEE.

“It could be a failed coup attempt, but nobody knows the exact details.”

Major General Yousef Huneiti, chairman of Jordanian armed forces, said:

“The investigations are continuing. We will announce the results when we finish. All procedures were taken according to law. All people are under the law. Jordan’s safety and stability is the priority.”

Yaser al-Majali, director of Hamzah’s office, and Adnan Abu Hammad, who manages the prince’s palace, are among the detainees.

Sharif Hassan bin Zaid was formerly King Abdullah’s special envoy to Saudi Arabia. Some local websites in Jordan say he holds Saudi citizenship.

Following his work in the king’s office and a stint as finance minister, Awadallah established new businesses in UAE and Saudi Arabia. Some sources say he works as a consultant for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Hamzah is the son of the late King Hussein and his fourth wife, the US-born Queen Noor. He was replaced as crown prince in 2004 in favour of King Abdullah’s son Hussein.

In a statement, the Saudi royal court said:

“We stand with Jordan and support the decisions of King Abdullah to preserve the security of his country.”

Meanwhile, the US State Department described King Abdullah as a “key partner” and said he “has our full support”.

Egypt voiced its support for the king and his efforts “to maintain the security and stability of the kingdom against any attempts to undermine it”, Egypt’s presidential spokesman wrote on Facebook.

The Gulf Cooperation Council said in a statement that the GCC stood with Jordan and all its measures to maintain security and stability.

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This important article by Dr. Mike Yeadon was first published in November 2020

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How a novel virus met a partly-immune population

In Spring 2020 a novel coronavirus swept across the world: novel, but related to other viruses. In the UK, unknown at the time, around 50% of the population were already immune. The evidence for this is unequivocal and arose due to prior infection by common cold-causing coronaviruses (of which four are endemic). This prior immunity has been confirmed around the world by top cellular immunologists. There is even a very recent paper from Public Health England on the topic of prior immunity and a wealth of other evidence from studies on memory T-cells, studies on household transmission and on antibodies.

Because of the extent of the prior immunity, and as a result of heterogeneity of contacts, once only a low percentage of the population, perhaps as low as 10-20% had been infected, “herd immunity” was established. This is why daily deaths, which were rising exponentially, turned abruptly and began to fall, uninterrupted by street protests, the return to work, the reopening of pubs and crowded beaches during the summer. (See this explainer by the data scientist Joel Smalley.)

Immunity to ordinary respiratory viruses occurs mainly through T-cells which ‘take a picture of the invader’ at a molecular level, ‘reproduce’ it on certain immune cells and essentially ‘never forget a face’. This T-cell immunity is robust and durable. Those exposed to the highly related SARS virus in 2003 still have this immunity 17 years later. In relation to SARS-CoV-2, the pattern of immunity to date is identical and after around 800 million infections across the world, there is no convincing evidence for significant levels of re-infection. Not only are those who’ve been infected and have now recovered immune (they cannot get ill again with the same virus), but importantly they do not participate in transmission. (See my article on what SAGE got wrong for Lockdown Sceptics.) Furthermore, because the immune response is diverse, a proportion of them will also be immune to novel but similar viruses in the future.

In Spring, however, this virus did kill or hasten the end for approximately 40,000 vulnerable people, who were mostly old (median age 83, which is longer than that cohort’s life expectancy when born) and many of whom had multiple other medical conditions. There were some rare and very unfortunate younger people who also died, but age is clearly the strongest risk factor.

But due to extraordinary errors in modelling created by unaccountable academics at Imperial College, the country was told to expect over a half a million deaths. Three Nobel prize-winning scientists wrote to that modelling team in February correcting their errors. This was done confidentially. This expert, third-party estimate was remarkably accurate – it predicted that there would be a total of 40k deaths from COVID-19. I believe this is in fact correct and is what has happened. While I have no proficiency in modelling, I can distinguish predictions that are biological plausible from those which are literally incredible. When inputs to a model are wrong or missing, their outputs cannot be trusted. The Imperial model made the extreme assumption that there was zero prior immunity in the population or social contact heterogeneity.

It is now appreciated that this virus is less of a threat to those under 70 than seasonal flu, even with a flu vaccine, which routinely provides <50% effectiveness and usually much less.

The ease with which humans develop immunity to this virus is striking. Incidentally, it is this immune adeptness which has probably played an important role in why, against prior pessimism, many vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 have apparently ‘worked’ (though there is much to criticise about how efficacy has been defined, because a reduction in the propensity to become PCR positive has not previously been regarded as a leading indicator of the degree to which a vaccine will protect a population against severe illness).

Available evidence suggests that herd immunity at a national level (in England) was attained as early as May. (Joel Smalley again.) There have been no alternative explanations promulgated for the force which bore down on infections and deaths during the largely unmitigated spreading of the virus early in Spring. As an example of evidence that we are at herd immunity, London is relatively peaceful in relation to the virus now, having been the national epicentre in Spring, with hundreds of deaths daily in the capital.

Government actions have been nothing but peculiar from the very beginning

In any other year, that would be the end of the tale. Neither the existence of prior immunity nor that herd immunity can be readily reached without us noticing are new.

What was new was the belief that forcing citizens to run and hide from a respiratory virus with greater contagiousness than ‘flu was other than a fool’s errand. Acts of Parliament giving the executive a degree of power more suited to a war, and with it, a budget 10 times larger than any previous such emergency, were also deemed necessary, none of these being justified by the situation or by science. (See Jonathan Sumption make this point.)

We were invited to “Save the NHS” by not attending hospitals or seeing our doctors: soon both were heavily restricted and have remained so ever since. Most corrosively, broadcasters were and still are heavily constrained from free expression by innocent-sounding Ofcom guidelines.

I am of the view that the effect of these guidelines approximates censorship. When scientific debate is stifled, people die. Science requires the airing of opinions and debate to allow the evolution of ideas. Censorship has meant that nothing has been learnt, no model adjusted and errors compounded.

The Government was told to expect a ‘second wave’, and a huge one at that. This was mystifying. Virus don’t do waves and no reason to expect an exception on a truly unprecedented scale has ever been forthcoming. I hasten to distinguish what I have termed a secondary ripple from what SAGE means by a ‘second wave’.

The secondary ripple term recognises that not everyone will have been infected by mid-summer. As an important aside, I’ve invited many to consider how long it takes for an influenza epidemic, which we experience most years, to criss-cross the country before apparently burning out, only to occur the next year, because it’s one of the few respiratory viruses which mutates so quickly that, by the time a year has gone by, it’s sufficiently different from what our immune systems have seen before that it can wreak brief havoc upon us once again. The answer to that time question is variously given as three to four months.

I ask readers to consider how long might it be expected to take for a more contagious respiratory virus like SARS-CoV-2 to thoroughly criss-cross the country. It seems hard to credit that with taking longer than four months. We know the virus was in the UK at least by February 2020 (potentially earlier) and so by June it’s not at all unlikely that it had travelled almost everywhere. It has been argued that perhaps lockdown was very effective and so many people will still be susceptible, as SAGE claims. We know that is not correct. Lockdown was started far too late to repress the spread of the virus, as even Professor Whitty agreed in giving testimony to a parliamentary select committee in the summer. As he said, the lockdown began after the peak of infection – the outbreak was already in retreat by Mar 23rd.

Remember also that just because we were in ‘lockdown’ doesn’t mean much changed when it came to the transmission of the virus. Many people continued to go to work, other people still shopped almost every day, supply chains for all essential goods continued with few interruptions. Hospitals were open and, for the most part, extremely busy, as were care homes. The virus travelled along these routes and did not need to travel far, having reached every major urban centre before anyone even thought of locking us down or any other measures. When lockdown was lifted, there wasn’t the slightest alteration in the long, slow decline in the number of daily deaths. Personally, I don’t think there’s any evidence that the spring lockdown achieved anything in terms of saving lives from SARS-CoV-2, but there is evidence it contributed to some deaths, including deaths from non-COVID-19 causes. Reflecting back, months after, its main effect was to condition us to accept SAGE’s guidance as this was followed by the Government and echoed by media. This doesn’t mean locking people down is a sensible policy. The onus remains on its advocates to persuade us that it is, and I’m afraid they’ve not persuaded me.

So, no: there’s no good reason to think that large proportions of the nation were spared exposure to the virus as a result of the first lockdown. But it is true that some regions did experience less deaths in spring than others and while some are almost certainly due to more extensive prior immunity, others probably were incompletely exposed. That’s what I mean by secondary ripple: as transmission was increased by cooler weather, a limited amount of disease did reappear. But this was always going to be local, self-limiting and under no circumstances a public health emergency for a city, let alone a nation. This secondary ripple started at the beginning of September and was over by the end of October. Symptom-tracking data, NHS triage data and notified disease data all support that hypothesis. After this ripple, immunity levels in the underexposed pockets of the country have been topped up to herd immunity levels. From now on, COVID-19 outbreaks will be a feature of winter but will not be able to spread beyond small outbreaks.

No, what SAGE meant by a ‘second wave’ was a really big one, with twice as many deaths as in spring 2020. This is completely without precedent.

Planning for a ‘second wave’ might have led to its very creation

Viruses don’t do waves (beyond the secondary ripple concept as outlined above). I have repeatedly asked to see the trove of scientific papers used to predict a ‘second wave’ and to build a model to compute its likely size and timing. They have never been forthcoming. It’s almost as if there is no such foundational literature. I’m sure SAGE can put us right on this.

The post-WW1 “Spanish flu” appears to be all there is where it comes to evidence of waves. Most scholars accept that what most likely happened was that more than one infectious agent was involved. It was 102 years ago and no molecular biological techniques indicate multiple waves of a single agent then or anywhere else. In any case, that was influenza. There have been no examples of multiple waves since and the most recent novel coronavirus with any real spread (SARS) performed one wave each in each geographical region affected. Why a model with a ‘second wave’ in it was even built, I cannot guess. It seems completely illogical to me. Worse, as far as the public can discern, the model fails to account for the unequivocally demonstrated population prior immunity, to which must be added the recently-acquired immunity arising from the spring wave. This is why I’m reasserting what I’ve been argued for months – a ‘second wave’ cannot happen and must, perforce, not be happening as described

Despite the absence of any evidence for a ‘second wave’ – and the evidence of absence of waves for this class of respiratory virus – there was an across-the-board, multi-media platform campaign designed to plant the idea of a ‘second wave’ in the minds of everyone. This ran continually for many weeks. It was successful: a poll of GPs showed almost 86% of them stated that they expected a ‘second wave’ this winter.

As research for this piece, I sought the earliest mention of a ‘second wave’. Profs Heneghan and Jefferson, on Apr 30th, noted that we were being warned to expect a ‘second wave’ and that the PM had, on Apr 27th, warned of a ‘second wave’. The Professors cautioned anyone making confident predictions of a ‘second’ and ‘third wave’ that the historical record doesn’t provide support so to do.

I looked for mentions by the BBC of a ‘second wave’. The following report was on June 24th and at least two of the three scientists interviewed were SAGE members. The strange thing though is that SAGE minutes (brought into the public domain by Simon Dolan’s judicial review) early in the year made no mention of a sizeable ‘second wave’. Not one. On February 10th, there was a mention of multiple waves for post-WW1 flu. On Mar 3rd and 6th, there is mention of a single SARS-CoV-2 wave with most (95%) of the impact early on. What looks to be the final document, Mar 29th, still just refers to one wave. This is what history and immunology teaches. So, what happened later in the year to alter the clearly held view of SAGE that the virus would manifest itself in a single wave? We need SAGE to tell us.

PCR is a powerful tool, but has weaknesses when used on an industrial scale

Despite this bothersome oddity about a ‘second wave’ and almost as if there was a plan for one, the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing infrastructure in the UK began to be reshaped.

PCR is a quite remarkable technique, which has unparalleled ability to find truly tiny quantities of a fragment of a genetic sequence, right down to the level of finding a single, broken fragment of a virus in a messy biological sample. There are notable limitations, well known to those who’ve personally used PCR in a research context. The most important one is its propensity to suffer from contamination, and the integrity of a PCR is very easily destroyed by invisible levels of contamination even in the hands of an expert, working alone and on a small handful of samples.

This is a good moment to mention that the PCR test protocol for SARS-CoV-2, which everyone in the world is now using, was invented in the lab of Prof Drosten in Berlin. The scientific paper in which the method was described was published in January 2020, two days after the manuscript was submitted. One of the authors of the paper is on the editorial board of the journal that published it. There is concern that this extremely important article, which contains a PCR test protocol that has been used to run hundreds of millions of PCR tests across the world, including the UK, was not peer-reviewed. No peer review report has been released, despite many requests to do so. Furthermore, as a method, it contains numerous technical weaknesses, some of which are serious and highly complex. Suffice to say that a very detailed dissection of the paper and of the Drosten protocol has been made by Drs Borger and Malhotra, experienced and concerned molecular biologists. A group of other medics and scientists (of which I am one) have put their names to a letter, which accompanies the dissection, to the whole editorial board of the journal, Eurosurveillance, demanding that the paper be retracted. This was submitted on Nov 26th.

In addition, the Portuguese high court determined two weeks ago that this PCR test is not a reliable way to determine the health status or infectiousness of citizens, nor to restrain their movements. Other countries are also receiving legal challenges, one being submitted earlier this week in Germany by Reiner Fuellmich, a lawyer who successfully sued VW in relation to diesel emissions (The YouTube video in which Fuellmich sets out the principal points of concern about the misuse of PCR has been removed). I am aware of other legal challenges being assembled in further countries, including Italy, Switzerland and South Africa. With the scientific validity of this test under severe challenges, I believe it must immediately be withdrawn from use.

There are deep concerns internationally about the reliability and selectivity of this PCR test protocol and this should be borne in mind through the rest of this article.

NHS labs ran PCR competently in spring

In spring, the relatively constrained amount of PCR testing was at least conducted independently by very many, experienced labs and I am of the view that it was trustworthy, reaching more than adequate numbers of tests by the end of May (50k per day). Now it’s being run in newly-established large, private labs and most of their current staff are far less experienced than those in the NHS labs. We have no idea why this has happened. Regardless of any concerns about testing capacity, the need was and should have been expected only to be of limited duration. Remember, viruses don’t do waves and we’d already been fully exposed to the virus. Of course, it was argued that “a second wave was coming”, so we’d need more capacity. But as I’ve already shown, the certainty of expectation of a ‘second wave’ was bizarre and unaccountable.

So why was PCR testing removed from NHS labs? One answer is because they didn’t have the capacity to cope with testing requirements for a ‘second wave’. But this is circular: it was simply impossible to claim with certainty that there’d be such a wave. Also, it’s not true that the NHS labs couldn’t cope. As a staff member there pointed out: “I want to know why the new super-labs have been set up, because if they gave the NHS labs the (consumables) resources they could easily do the tests. Our lab has been ready for ages to do large numbers of tests. We have the equipment and we have staff. We lack only the test kits and these are not available to any new labs, either.”

It wasn’t just NHS lab staff who were perturbed by the move. I’m quoting extensively from this article because it contains crucial information. The President of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences (IBMS), the leading professional body in the field of biomedical science, said:

It concerns me when I see significant investments being made in mass testing centres that are planning to conduct 75,000 of the 100,000 tests a day. These facilities would be a welcome resource and take pressure off the NHS if the issue around testing was one of capacity. However, we are clear that it is a global supply shortage holding biomedical scientists back, not a lack of capacity. The profession is now rightly concerned that introducing these mass testing centres may only serve to increase competition for what are already scarce supplies and that NHS testing numbers will fall if their laboratories are competing with the testing centres for COVID-19 testing kits and reagents in a ‘Wild West testing’ scenario. The UK must avoid this for the sake of patient safety. It is clear that two testing streams now exist: one delivered by highly qualified and experienced Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) registered biomedical scientists working in heavily regulated United Kingdom Accreditation Services (UKAS) accredited laboratories, the other delivered mainly by volunteer unregistered staff in unaccredited laboratories that have been established within a few weeks. This has presented another key concern – in that we have not been involved in assuring the quality of the testing centres and are now being kept at arm’s length from their processes, even when they exist close to large NHS laboratories.

On proof reading this article, I was struck at how powerful the case was for keeping things under the quality control of the NHS. What could the motives against this sensible plan have possibly been?

These testing facilities were presumably expected to be temporary. If so, why would it make sense to spend large sums of money and to displace equipment and consumables, which were the sole key missing item when the Lighthouse super-labs were announced, instead of using existing, keen, accredited staff who knew what they were doing? Those new labs would be as limited by consumables as the NHS labs.

We never really needed mass testing of those without symptoms

Arguably, we would never have been short on capacity if we had limited the testing to those with symptoms. The only reason one might even consider mass testing of those without symptoms is if you were convinced that those without symptoms were significant sources of transmission. This has always seemed to me to be a very tenuous assumption. Specifically, respiratory viruses are spread by droplets of secretions and generally the expulsion of these is linked to the symptoms of infection – coughing in particular. Humans have evolved over millions of years to recognise threats to health by close observation of the health status of others. It works well. We’re familiar with avoiding those with flu-like symptoms in winter and behaving responsibly by staying away from work and vulnerable people when we are symptomatic. The burden of proof rests with those claiming something very different in the case of SARS-CoV-2 to show conclusively that asymptomatic people are indeed major sources of transmission. I don’t think that case has at all been made. The medical literature on this is contradictory but almost all the papers claiming such transmission originated in China.

Consequently, there is simply no need to get into the business of mass testing the population. Indeed, as we will see, such mass testing brings with it, when using PCR as the method, a severe risk of what we call a “PCR false positive pseudo-epidemic”. This could never happen if we were not using PCR mass testing of the mostly well. So, for whatever reason and against all historical precedent and immunological reasoning, a major initiative was launched with the goal of reaching 500,000 tests a day by year’s end. Again, unaccountably, the Government didn’t just get on and build these new labs, working in parallel with the available NHS capabilities. Instead, responsibility for testing was swept out from 44 NHS labs, with skilled and accredited staff who’d already been running SARS-CoV-2 PCR. In their place, new labs were created, outside the help and control network of the Institute of Biomedical Sciences. These Lighthouse Labs are still not all fully accredited under UKAS to ISO 15189, a quality management system accreditation relating to medical laboratories.

There is a reliable test, fully-characterised and already validated with real-world use

At the end of October, the British Army was called in to help Liverpool City Council find the cases which the ONS PCR testing survey predicted should be there but which were no longer being found in the numbers expected. It was possible that people were no longer coming forward to be tested, though there is no way to be sure of this. Despite not having sought consent from the parents of school children and the absence before the survey began of proper protocols and ethics review, scores of thousands of people were tested using a lateral-flow test (LFT). (See here and here for more details on the LFT.) These look rather like the familiar pregnancy test kits you can purchase over the counter. They look similar, because they use related tried and trusted technology to detect virus proteins in the swab, not RNA. All tests have limits and weaknesses. However, the LFTs are not subject to the same flaws as PCR – specifically the risk of over-amplification and of cross-contamination before the test is actually run. LFT has similar sensitivity and specificity in the lab to PCR. It is certainly capable of identifying the same proportion of those truly infected as PCR.

In brief, the army found very few people with positive LFT results, only slightly higher than the background operational false positive rate: just over 0.3%, values expected when the tests are used in the real world. Since testing began, the positive rate has tended to a mean of 0.7% which might mean a few people were positive. My own experience of reading around this area is that this (around 0.7%) is almost certainly the true false positive rate when, in the real-world, careful but inexpert people administer the LFT. It meant that, in the city in the centre of the national hotspot for COVID-19, almost no one had the virus. This experiment has been repeated for 8,000 people in Merthyr Tydfil resulting in 0.77% testing positive. That these two test series have returned such similar values suggests that this is indeed the true, operational false positive rate for the LFT, though another test series will be helpful in refining that possible interpretation. Some leapt to criticise the LFT, as if it was its fault that it couldn’t find the expected cases. Of course, to many of us, the results were exactly what we’d expected, because we were by then sure that PCR was wildly over-reading. PCR has gone wrong before and Occam’s razor indicated that this was by far the most likely explanation for the otherwise inexplicable failure of PCR “cases” to correlate with symptomatic disease. These are the kind of results expected in populations protected by herd immunity. They’re completely inconsistent with a city and town in the grip of a highly-infectious respiratory virus.

To the Lighthouse

By September, the great bulk of PCR testing was being run by large, private labs, some of which are called Lighthouse Labs, and I’ll use this term as a coverall for all such labs. It was as September began that literally incredible things started to happen. Students returning to University towns were all required to submit to swabbing and PCR testing. We were then told there was an epidemic running through young people and it was just a matter of time before it reached the elderly and that would be that. The percentage of tests which were returning positive started skyrocketing, reaching in some towns values that were close to those in A&E at the peak of the pandemic in April. Strong linkage was observed between numbers of tests run and their positivity. This is most odd and can happen if the error rate increases with the pressure on the testing system.

Now, in late November, we are told there are sometimes 25,000 new “cases” daily and that several hundred daily “COVID-19 deaths” are occurring. How can this be happening if I’m right and the population has achieved herd immunity (as supported by large numbers of scientific papers detailing extensive T-cell immunity, as well as careful examination of the profile of deaths in spring vs recently, and the examination of patterns of deaths around the country recently as compared with spring)? It’s a conundrum.

As the numbers of daily PCR tests conducted began to climb very steeply, reaching 370,000 per day in mid-November, many of us have had the uncomfortable feeling that the chances of PCR testing on this scale returning accurate results are vanishingly small. To avoid cross-contamination and to have such high throughput flies in the face of decades of relevant experience for some of us. The classic triad of speed, throughput and quality always has one of them as the lead, limiting factor. In this case, my entire career experience tells me that the limiting factor is quality.

How we can square these claims of tens of thousands of daily “cases” and an unprecedented ‘second wave’ of deaths with the unfeasible quantity of testing using a technique considered by bench experts difficult to perform reliably even on a small scale?

A PCR false positive pseudo-epidemic looks just like a real epidemic, but isn’t

It’s important to appreciate while digesting this counter-narrative which, unlike the official line, is at least internally consistent, that the only data suggesting a ‘second wave’ is upon us are PCR results. Everything is dependent on this. A “case” is a positive PCR test. No symptoms are involved. A “COVID-19 admission” to a hospital is a person testing positive by PCR before, on entry or at any time during a hospital stay, no matter the reason for the admission or the symptoms the patient is presenting. A “COVID-19 death” is any death within 28 days of a positive PCR test. If there is any doubt about the reliability of the PCR test, all of this falls away at a single stroke.

I have to tell you that there is more than common-or-garden doubt about the PCR mass testing that purports to identify the virus. We have very strong evidence that the PCR mass testing as currently conducted is completely worthless.

At this point, it’s appropriate to give the game away and invite you to read the explanation that the team of which I’m part have assembled.

In brief: the pandemic was over by June and herd immunity was the main force which turned the pandemic and pressed it into retreat. In the autumn, the claimed “cases” are an artefact of a deranged testing system, which I explain in detail below. While there is some COVID-19 along the lines of the “secondary ripple” concept explained above, it has occurred primarily in regions, cities and districts that were less hard hit in the spring. Real COVID-19 is self-limiting and may already have peaked in some Northern towns. It will not return in force, and the example again is London. Even here, certain boroughs, e.g. Camden and Sutton, have had minimal positive test results. I’ve explained a number of times how this happened – the prominent role of prior immunity is often ignored or misunderstood. The extent of this was so large that, coupled with the uneven spread of infection, it needed only a low percentage of the population to be infected before herd immunity was reached.

That’s it. All the rest is a PCR false positive pseudo-epidemic. The cure, of course, as it has been in the past when PCR has replaced the pandemic itself as the menace in the land, is to stop PCR mass testing.

In case you’re still not convinced and think several hundred people are dying of COVID-19 each day, please watch this 10 min explainer video, created by data scientist Joel Smalley. By the end you will appreciate how the difference between reporting date and date of occurrence in relation to deaths and the large difference in this regard between COVID-19 deaths, most of which occur in hospital, and non-COVID-19 deaths, many of which happen at home, gives at any moment an impression of excess deaths which, when corrected for this differential delay, collapses into nothing or into such a small signal that surely it’s not faintly a public health concern. It’s also important to be aware that, for the best of intentions, physicians are too quick to assign COVID-19 as the cause of death, partly because the death sometimes has the right kind of elements, but mostly because the rules require them to: any death within 28 days of a positive test has to be recorded as a COVID-19 death, no matter what the circumstances. The degree of misattribution is so large that the number of deaths from the top 10 leading causes have been pushed far below normal levels, which is highly suggestive of these deaths having been mislabelled. Do note, you should at this point expect some excess deaths, if from nothing else, a number of people dying – mostly at home – from non-COVID-19 causes, a result of restricted access to healthcare for eight months.

I think the evidence is unequivocal that we are in a PCR false positive pseudo-epidemic

It’s happened before, with whooping cough (caused by a bacterium, but the technique for diagnosing the disease was the same, PCR). Hundreds of apparent “cases” were diagnosed at a hospital in New Hampshire using PCR and physicians fitted the symptoms of various coughs and colds to what the “gold standard test” was telling them. In fact, not a single person had the disease. The positivity in the PCR test was around 15%, but no actual infection was found. 100% of the PCR positives were false. Unrealistically high positivity and no recent, independent confirmation of infection is now the situation in UK.

To the Lighthouse (again)

How can this PCR false positive pseudo-epidemic be occurring? A false positive is simply a positive outcome of a test when the item sought was absent from the original sample (there are a variety of sources of false positives and they are often ignored or confused). Most false positives in PCR occur due to cross-contamination. This can occur if a sample containing the virus is even briefly in contact with a sample not containing the virus. Contamination can and does happen at any of the stages from sample acquisition all the way into the reaction vessel in which the cyclical amplification of PCR takes place. This contamination can include the reference material used to confirm the test run is working, the so-called positive control, itself a piece of synthetic viral RNA. Such positive controls are potent sources of error as they are an intensely concentrated supply of the very material sought in miniscule amounts by the test, right down to a single, broken fragment of virus. Other common sources of contamination are a small number of samples which actually do contain the virus, which almost certainly continues to circulate at low levels and may already have become endemic (like the four, common cold-inducing coronaviruses, OC43, HKU1, 229E and NL63).

It is my opinion, and I am not alone, that industrialized molecular biology PCR mass testing is and always was unfeasible on the scale it’s currently being conducted. With high speed and throughput, something has to give and in this case it’s quality. Here are just a few of the reasons why you should no longer have any faith or confidence in the PCR testing in use in UK. As the drive to industrialize the process proceeded, responsibility for PCR testing was mostly moved into one centralised set of facilities called Lighthouse Labs. I shall describe testimony (for Milton Keynes) and video evidence (Randox in Northern Ireland) which are concordant.

We have horrifyingly clear evidence that the work processes, staffing, lack of quality control and external validation means that this facility cannot work reliably and produce trustworthy testing results. I have spoken at length to the brave scientist who’s blown the whistle on the Milton Keynes super-lab, Dr Julian Harris, who is one of the most experienced lab PCR scientists in the UK. He was been involved in high biosecurity level labs since 1987 and has operated PCR for decades. What’s been missed in the expose is that his concerns are not only with health and safety (though these are important). Almost any building can be adapted to carry out a highly sensitive assay such as PCR, while keeping contamination issues down to a minimum. The problem with the Milton Keynes site is the lack of thought that went into minimising thr risk of contamination of the COVID-19 PCR Assay. To this should be added the fact they have no appropriate biosafety level 2 and contagion expertise on site (as clearly stated in the HSE reports that can be viewed at the foot of Julian Harris’s article for Lockdown Sceptics here). It is this that is a recipe for disaster in terms of the inflation of positive test results by the generation of false positives.

No-one competent is inspecting these facilities, staff processes and results. The only person capable of looking from stem to stern who’s actually done so is Dr Julian Harris and he unequivocally condemns the operation. He highlighted overcrowded, bioinsecure workspaces, the absence of health and safety training, poor safety protocols and a lack of suitable PPE, such as the enforcement of wearing paper-visitor lab coats when handling swab samples in Class II BSCs – was this to cut down on laundry expenses? Handwashing facilities were available, but as the HSE discovered, they were often out of soap, sanitizer and towels, a consequence of personnel not knowing where to go to replenish these supplies.. The Health and Safety Executive was called in (by Dr Harris). Management of the facility failed to answer requests to set up a visit, so eventually, they made unannounced visits in late-September (see letters from the HSE at the base of Dr Harris’s piece). Their visits, which most unusually (and tells us of the degree of concern they felt) were accompanied by HM Inspector of Health and Safety, uncovered safety breaches at the Lighthouse Lab in Milton Keynes.

“I found they’ve got no experience with this sort of facility or handling bio-hazardous materials, and then they’re just launched into this activity,” Dr Harris says of the Milton Keynes team. Dr Harris was so troubled by what he saw that he contacted the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). He saw two people using biosecurity cabinets – enclosed, ventilated workspaces where scientists open the tubes containing the contaminated swabs – which were only calibrated to have protective airflow for one person. “Once you disrupt that [airflow] by overloading plus too much disruption of the veil nearest the operator, you might as well be working on an open bench. It just disrupts the whole reason for a cabinet to protect the operator. And it is really disturbing,” Dr Harris says. He alleges that the lab recruited local young people to work long shifts.

Dr Harris says he saw mobile phones being used in the labs and then taken to the canteen. The HSE visited the Milton Keynes lab and found five material breaches of health and safety legislation. A UK Biocentre manager admitted to the HSE that the training in place did not look “robust enough” for these new recruits. Dr Harris tells me that there was little or no Health and Safety training at all, despite the facility being rated BSL2.

It’s not only procedural issues in the labs that are concerning. With individual PCR tests, the scientist views the change in signal vs cycle and determines whether a test is positive, negative or indeterminate. In high throughput mode, this can only be done by software. Thus, the choice of provider is absolutely crucial to the accuracy and trustworthiness of the output, not only for an individual sample but also at a population level. For reasons not explained, the facility chose a software product which was apparently inferior to another. Why did the Lighthouse Lab choose an inferior product? In the example given, it ‘under-called’ positives but that doesn’t tell you that’s what it does now. What it does tell us is that it’s less reliable at ‘calling’ results. Surely the firm whose product performed better and had already passed regulatory standards would have been the better choice?

Underscoring their problems with staffing, the Lighthouse Lab did have a quality management system (QMS) specialist while Dr Harris worked there. However, that person resigned and, as far as I know, has not yet been replaced with someone of equivalent experience. This will undoubtedly have contributed to continuing failure to be UKAS accredited to ISO 15189, quality and competence in medical laboratories. While this can be seen as voluntary, the customer (Her Majesty’s Government) determines whether or not such accreditation is essential. Given there has never been a medical diagnostic test of such importance in the entire history of the nation, HMG must surely have specified ISO 15189 accreditation. If they have not, that is in my view a severe dereliction of duty. In any case, its absence does not in any way reduce the need to run these critical PCR tests to the highest standards and for the output to be trustworthy.

Separately, though the HSE accreditation doesn’t prove quality and accuracy of the end product, the test results, and that the facility is still not so accredited, indicates a continuing failure to get to grips with the overlapping issues in the lab which directly pertain to end-to-end sample integrity.

This detailed recounting of evidence is not designed to be a teach-in on health and safety, important though that is. It is instead to demonstrate that neither management nor staff have the scrupulous attention to every detail required to ensure sample integrity from end-to-end, which is merely the starting point to have any chance at all to successfully run this delicate and powerful technique, which is notoriously susceptible to cross-contamination of the smallest kind. Although the integrity of the laminar airflow is preserved in the cabinets – simultaneously protecting operator and sample – it does not cater for the overloading of the working area and clogging up the back grates that is dangerous for sample integrity and contagion exposure of personnel.

Micro-pipetting (dispensing volumes ranging from 1ml down to 0.0005ml) relies on highly accurate pipetting devices and their proper use is crucial in any application of molecular biology technologies and it is therefore the case with PCR. These micropipettors are used by personnel throughout the COVID-19 testing process. If misused, that can result not only in the incorrect volume of sample being withdrawn and dispensed into another receptacle, but can be the cause of contaminating test samples. As most staff had little to no PCR experience and in many cases, no experience of professional laboratory work at all, this would contribute to the inaccuracy of the end product – the COVID19 test results. As a hallmark of how low the hiring bar has been set, the Milton Keynes facility has a staff member who carries out ‘pipette training’. Dr Harris commented that even this individual had difficulties in understanding the standing operating procedure used for the pipette training, having come from their previous role of stacking shelves in Tesco’s. Micropipetting is a fundamental skill usually learnt at the beginning of a scientific career. I’ve never heard of such a role anywhere before in 39 years of conducting and supervising laboratory work in UK.

It is imperative that those performing liquid handling in a biofacility comprehensively understand how liquid biosamples can spread by droplets and aerosols. Most importantly, how they can inadvertently contaminate the sample(s) as well as expose the personnel to contagion. These skills must become second-nature – acquired over many months to years – before anyone is allowed to step foot in such a biohazardous environment.

Finally, I asked Dr Harris when, in the sequence of steps, the ‘negative control’ samples were placed. The most vulnerable part of the task to cross-contamination is the bag opening to sample placement in the final, racked tubes, which are then placed into the automated workflow, finally dispensing sample for testing into the PCR plate. Therefore, I expected to be told that there were at least two negative control swab samples (unused with their own bar codes) that were included at this initial stage of the process. One should insert some unused tubes early on, so that, if there was cross-contamination, it would be detected in the final, PCR step.

But no. The sole, negative control that is used at Milton Keynes is virus-free medium, carefully placed into a designated well as part of the first stage of the automated liquid handling process, where simultaneously 0.2ml of each sample is transferred to a well of a 96-well plate, each well containing the virus inactivation buffer. But this bypasses the first steps where cross-contamination may occur – that is, during the initial processing of samples. That’s not only bad scientific technique but, in my view, bad scientific acumen. If I was teaching an undergraduate student, and they came up with this as an experimental design, I would fail them. It’s no wonder that the positivity rate – the percentage of tests which come up positive – is so high as to be literally unbelievable. I’m sure the Lighthouse Lab tells its client that there’s no evidence of cross-contamination, as the negative controls are consistently free of virus. Yet we drive our entire national policy on the strength of this?

Randox

There are a small group of large labs which were set up at speed to become “Lighthouse Labs” or “Superlabs”. A second one, the Randox facility in Antrim, Northern Ireland, has been the subject of a Channel 4 Dispatches program. This detailed documentary film centres on this very large, private contract lab testing over 100K COVID-19 samples per day using PCR. Watching this program with an eye of someone experienced in lab procedures related to mass testing (though not this technique) I observed: workers cutting open plastic bags containing swab samples in tubes, some of which had leaked. The scissors were then used to open the next bag and so on. Tubes were wiped externally using a wipe, but the same wipe was used to mop the outsides of several tubes in a row. The tubes were then placed on their sides in a tray, where they were free to roll around and touch other tubes. Workers kept on the same pair of disposable gloves while opening a large number of such bags, one after another. A worker commented that just under 10% of tubes with red caps leaked. Randox stated that it didn’t make the tubes and that a fix was in progress.

Firstly, using scissors or any sharp instruments shouldn’t be used with biohazardous samples in BSL2/3/4 facilities. The exposure of the biosample contents to the air-conditioned room environment, plus the sample fluid contaminating cardboard boxes, is a recipe for disaster and could lead to:

1. Cross-contamination between samples
2. Cross-contamination between samples and personnel
3. Cross-contamination between sample and the room environment
4. Exposure of personnel to contagion of unknown origin(s)

A consultant microbiologist, who’d run an NHS pathology lab for 1- years, commented for the film: “If you have a tube which has leaked and is in your unpacking environment, it’s then quite easy for that to get onto other tubes. If the leaked sample was positive, it would cause the other tubes to become positive. These are very sensitive tests we’re using and it’s very easy to get (contamination-related) false positives. We would be shut down if we performed that way”.

Taking Milton Keynes and Randox together, I contend that there was a policy decision to create an expectation in the minds of most people that a ‘second wave’ was expected, and that this would require increased testing capability. The conditions which resulted from these industrialisation attempts (Lighthouse Labs and similar) by virtue of the poor sample handling evidenced in two examples (Milton Keynes, in the same building which houses the U.K. Biobank, and Randox, on a former military base) actively created that ‘second wave’ (of misdiagnosed cases, admissions and deaths). I believe the unavoidable conclusion is that the mechanism whereby large numbers of “cases” were and still are being created is insidious, uncontrolled and undetected cross-contamination during the swab sample processing stages.

I have no doubt that those conducting the manual steps of pipetting are doing their best. But they do not have the skills and experience of this technique, which must be performed repetitively and for hours, while never creating a burst of micro-aerosol as they drive the thumb plunger on the pipette slightly too fast, or creating a micro-splash as they change the disposable tip. They must never contaminate a fingertip of a glove as they open a potentially leaking tube and then touch another. They must never disturb the laminar airflow in the hoods so as to facilitate invisible levels of contamination from one tube to another. There are so many ways in which miniature levels of contamination compromise sample integrity and increase the number of positives, and no one has taught them to avoid them all.

In these two PCR mass testing factories, among the largest, there is now strong evidence of completely inadequate effort to ensure that end-to-end sample integrity is maintained. These are, in my view, simulacra of proper testing facilities. Meanwhile, daily testing capacity has grown considerably, approaching the goal of conducting 500,000 tests by PCR daily.

Criticisms of PCR (again)

Even if the Lighthouse Labs did work from a technical perspective, the Government has admitted that PCR’s characteristics as a test are literally out of control. Lord Bethel confirmed in a written answer that the UK Government does not know the operational false positive rate (OFPR). While the Government claimed it could adopt as an estimate a range from prior related tests (0.8-2.3%) this is tendentious. These earlier tests were done by highly experienced lab scientists working at relatively small scale. Each PCR test will have a unique false positive rate dependant on the design of the test and it cannot be deduced from other tests. The Lighthouse Labs are mostly staffed by young and inexperienced people, many of whom have never previously worked professionally in a lab. It is absurd to suggest the combination of inexperienced staff, coupled with an industrialized process of a technique so sensitive to cross-contamination that such cross-contamination is a routine problem in research labs performed by careful, knowledgeable scientists, could yield reliable, trustworthy results.

I maintain that lack of knowledge of the OFPR alone renders this PCR test in this configuration completely incapable of providing trustworthy results. If this was a diagnostic test in use in the NHS today, no physician would submit a patient sample to it, because it would be impossible to interpret a positive result. Of course, it is a diagnostic test in use today.

In summary, I argue that it is criminally dangerous to drive policy based in any way on this test (set up the way it is) and its results. No amount of argument or prevarication can alter these damning facts.

Conclusions

Source: Public Health England weekly national Influenza and COVID- 19 surveillance report, Week 48 (w/e Nov 26th)

The entire ‘second wave’ is supported solely on the back of a flawed mass PCR test, which at industrialized scale was never, in my view and the views of others skilled in PCR, capable of delivering trustworthy results. I have detailed the evidence supporting the claim that the autumn PCR test results are not reliably detecting COVID-19 infection. It may seem a leap to damn the PCR test and claim that there isn’t an epidemic but a pseudo-epidemic. But even in the hands of skilled and careful people, the strange phenomenon of the PCR false positive pseudo-epidemic has occurred several times before. In large, industrialised labs, it is very likely that significant and unmeasured cross-contamination related false positive rates are occurring.

The key sign of a PCR false positive pseudo-epidemic is the relative paucity of excess deaths equal to the deaths claimed to be occurring as a result of the lethal infective agent. This key sign is present.

The unprecedented “’second wave’ conundrum is solved. It’s of course not happening, but why a ‘second wave’ was talked up, months before unreliable PCR testing data was brought into service, demands deeper investigation. It’s not a science matter: not unless the team predicting the wave can produce the scientific literature upon which the prediction and modelling was based.

As a reference, I spent over an hour consulting with the owner-manager of a well-run facility in another country, which mainly serves private clients. This person only hires staff to do this kind of work who have at least four years’ experience of PCR, not just of highly competent laboratory experience. These will in almost all cases be post-doctoral students, having already obtained a research-based PhD involving use of PCR techniques.

Those who observe that PCR testing at scale elsewhere seems to run well tell us only that it can be done acceptably if it’s set up carefully. That’s assuming you can trust their results, something to which my research cannot extend. In any case, in no way does that observation undermine any of what I’ve written.

Until we end the use of PCR mass testing, there is no chance that “cases” will reduce to very low levels. Lateral flow tests must become the gold standard test for COVID with PCR only used for confirmatory diagnosis. This will minimise the number of PCR tests that need to be performed allowing testing to return to competent NHS laboratories. Without such an intervention, even if the virus stopped circulating, I believe we’ll still hear of tens of thousands of “cases” every day, and several hundred deaths.

As the above graph clearly shows, there was a notable peak of excess deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 in the spring, but it has not returned. As noted earlier, some excess deaths are now to be expected at very least as a consequence of prolonged and widespread restricted access to the NHS.

So, just one wave, as expected. The ‘second wave’ of “cases” and even “COVID-19 deaths” are an artefact of flawed testing.

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In the shadow of the decline of the value of the Turkish lira and the weakness of the Turkish economy resulting from many factors, the most important of which is the loss of profits from the tourism season on the one hand and the policies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s son-in-law Berat Bayrak when he was Minister of Finance and how the value of the lira declined during his reign and his attempt to court Germany, perhaps for some aid from here or from over there.

These financial problems called on Ankara to financially limit the support of its militants and mercenaries in northern Syria by cutting the salaries.

There may be other reasons behind the suspension of salaries, among them the pressure on the factions to implement a Turkish plan that is being prepared in northern Syria and its features are still ambiguous.

 As it has been reported that Turkey has stopped the salaries of the so-called Watani Army militants loyal to it in northern Syria about two months ago.

The sources said that a state of discontent and restlessness prevails in the ranks of the Ankara factions militants against the background of their salaries being cut off, noting that the Turkish intelligence services responsible for communicating with the armed factions and financing them, have deducted sums from the salaries of the militants in exchange for military allowances.

It should be noted that members of the Syrian National Army are organizing a protest in the city of Al-Bab, east of Aleppo, due to the delay of the officers ’salaries for more than 70 days.

The sources pointed out that the last salary received by the Ankara factions militants from the Turkish side was in the first month of this year, while the funding was cut off during the months of February and March, without any clarifications from the Turkish side about the reasons for stopping salaries and when they can return again.

The sources stated that the suspension of salaries was preceded by another similar incident, during which Turkish intelligence officials promised the armed factions financial rewards after they took control of Tal Abyad in the northern countryside of Raqqa. However, Turkish officials later delayed the delivery of the bonuses and then evaded them, and no amount was paid to the militants.

On the other hand, sources reported that there are 500 militants who were transferred again from northern Syria towards Libya via Turkey. Ankara is trying to reduce the economic burdens left by supporting armed groups in northern Syria by transferring them to several countries, as happened in Libya and Azerbaijan.

Against the background of these activities, Al-Nusra once again raises the prices of fuel in its areas of control.

Where the Al-Nusra Front organization once again raised fuel prices within the areas under its control in northern Syria, where its affiliated Watad company, which has a monopoly on the sale and import of fuel from Turkey, issued the decision to raise prices, justifying it by the decline in the value of the Turkish lira against the US dollar.

Sources indicated that Al-Nusra raised the price of a gas cylinder to 88.5 Turkish liras, after it was 80.5 Turkish liras, and set the price of one liter of imported gasoline at 6.30 Turkish liras instead of 5.31 Turkish liras.

As for the price of a liter of imported diesel, it increased by half a Turkish lira to become 6 lira, after it was 5.49, at a time when the price of refined diesel was recorded at 4.27 Turkish lira.

This increase in fuel prices is considered the second imposed by the Al-Nusra Front during the current month, as the prices previously witnessed a rise on which was described at the time as unprecedented in terms of its high percentage, which came in conjunction with the collapse of the value of the Turkish lira. People in areas controlled by armed groups are forced to deal with them

This is what leads to general discontent on the part of the people of the areas occupied by these armed factions. This matter did not stop the Levantine Front from its desperate actions to compensate for the lack of Turkish support for it, so it stole equipment, machinery and tractors from the people living in the city of Afrin and sold them in dollars on the pretext that the people did not pay an imposed tribute. by them

Where the sale of agricultural tractors in the city of Azaz, which is under the control of the Turkish-backed armed factions in the northern countryside of Aleppo revealed the scale of the thefts that the militants commit against civilians and their property that are confiscated from them under various pretexts in various regions, to sell them in other areas under the pretext that they are war spoils.

The sale of tractors by the militants of the Levant Front faction in favor of the so-called local councils in the Azaz area, so it became clear later that these tractors were stolen from people in the city of Afrin and its villages, under the clause of confiscation because of their owners’ refusal to pay Royalties on their agricultural business.

Sources indicated that the Shamiya gunmen sold the stolen tractors at the amount of $ 2,300 to several “local councils” in the villages of the Soran district of the Azaz area.

The sources added that other sales took place in the village of Kafrghan, and not only agricultural tractors, but also, several motorcycles stolen from Afrin, which were sold to militants as war spoils taken by the SDF.

Since Turkey and the armed factions took control of it, Afrin region has been witnessing continuous robbery and looting of their properties, in addition to the displacement that is taking place. 

They were presented to him by the various factions that are expelling the people of the region from their homes and lands, and housing the militants and their families in their place.

All these desperate actions and behavior by the Turkish factions are nothing but confirmation of their involvement in the looting and theft of factories, facilities, and infrastructure in the areas, they occupied during the previous conflict with the Syrian army.

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Read part I here:

Canada Ties to the U.S. Empire: Lester Pearson and the Myth of Canada as “Peaceable Kingdom”

By Richard Sanders, March 31, 2021

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Pearson was central to the constitutional coup that propelled him into power by orchestrating the toppling of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker (1957-1963).

John F. Kennedy had no love for Canada’s Progressive Conservative leader. “My brother really hated only two men in all his presidency,” said Robert Kennedy. “One was Sukarno [Indonesia’s left-wing president] and the other was Diefenbaker.” The central focus of JFK’s hatred for Diefenbaker was his defiant refusal to allow the U.S. to arm Canadian missiles with American nuclear warheads.^[1]

Diefenbaker’s demise was orchestrated by a bevy of highly skilled experts in covert action from the CIA, State Department, White House and Pentagon, plus two successive U.S. ambassadors to Canada, America’s leading pollster (aided by the world’s best computer technology), and the U.S. Air Force general who then led NATO.

McGeorge Bundy, then Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, even bragged that acting U.S. Secretary of State “George Ball and I knocked over the Diefenbaker government….”^[2]

As usual, these American coup artists relied on local compradors to aid their efforts in replacing an uncooperative ally.

Diefenbaker had to go and who could be better than Pearson to replace him? For decades, Pearson had proven himself as a stalwart supporter of U.S. imperial interests. Canadian co-conspirators included an RCAF commander, the air marshal who chaired Canada’s military chiefs of staff, Liberal power brokers and top newsprint journalists.

Although Pearson was America’s man in Ottawa, U.S. power brokers knew that he sometimes had to pander to a large swath of the Canadian electorate which had anti-American feelings.

To retain support from these voters, Pearson had to appear to be more critical of the U.S. than he really was. This was revealed by Walton Butterworth, the JFK-appointed U.S. Ambassador to Canada (1962-1968), in a secret telegram at the climax of the U.S. coup in early February 1963.

His once-secret message, recalling that “Diefenbaker first came to power on wave of anti-U.S. jingoism,” scorned him as an “undependable, unscrupulous political animal” who U.S. authorities had just “boxed … in.”

Butterworth noted that when Diefenbaker cried foul regarding the U.S. forceful intrusion into Canadian politics which soon resulted in Dief’s demise, “Pearson and other party leaders could not permit him [to] pose as [the] sole spokesman for Canadian nationalism; hence they had to protect their flanks and join chorus of protest at our ‘intrusion.’”^[3] Butterworth continued with the following assessment of the quickly unfolding situation and what lay ahead with Pearson’s anticipated ascension to power:

“[W]e are forcing Pearson to go faster and further than he desires in the direction we favor. … [W]e are entering new phase in U.S.-Canadian relations. … We look forward to … greater Canadian realization of their need to cultivate good relations with us…. [W]e think we will wish [to] take more coolly appraising look at concessions we offer in return for their readiness to accommodate themselves to us…. [W]e do not want to buy same asset time and again as is now the case. We have reached point where our relations must be based on something more solid than accommodation to neurotic Canadian view of us and world. We should be less the accoucheur [midwife] of Canada’s illusions.”^[4]

U.S. ambassador to Canada Walton Butterworth with JFK in the White House. [Source: Jfklibrary.org]

Within a few months after assuming power, Pearson’s government not only allowed the U.S. to arm Canada’s ground-launched Bomarc missiles, it announced Canada’s acquisition of “nuclear weapons for the Honest John missiles and CF-104 fighter aircraft in Europe and … the CF-101 (Voodoo) fighter aircraft in Canada.”^[5]

Canada’s Bomarc missiles. [Source: legionmagazine.com]

So blatant was Pearson’s duplicity, that future prime minister Pierre Trudeau denounced him in 1963 as “a defrocked priest of peace.”  Trudeau revealed that Pearson reversed Liberal Party policy on nuclear weapons without consulting the national council,… its executive committee, … the parliamentary caucus or even with his principal advisors. The ‘Pope’ had spoken. It was up to the faithful to believe … [T]he Pentagon … obliged Mr. Pearson to betray his party’s platform … Power presented itself to Mr. Pearson; he had nothing to lose except honour. He lost it. And his whole party lost it with him.^[6]

Coup in Brazil, 1964

When Brazil elected a left-wing party by a huge margin in 1960, the U.S. began coordinating a coup that ushered in years of military dictatorship.

The coup was justified by wild claims that Brazil’s elected officials might turn into communists. It was supported by Brazilian Admiral Carlos P. Botto who, having backed fascism during WWII, went on to work closely with the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN), and its leader Yaroslav Stetsko,^[7] in creating the pro-fascist World Anti-Communist League.

Canadian officials, both Liberal and Tory, shared their rabid phobia about the rising popularity of communism in Latin America. After a 1961 government mission to South America, Progressive Conservative MP Pierre Sevigny told parliament that in Brazil, Canada had allies who want to cooperate with us and to prevent … the birth of subversive movements in that country where huge illiterate populations are living, which, if they were to be subjected to communist influence, could easily cause a social and economic revolution.^[8]

The Liberals shared this right-wing mindset. “Canadian reaction to the military coup,” said historian Rosana Barbosa, “was careful, polite and allied with American rhetoric.”

Barbosa, a Brazilian-Canadian, says Pearson, who became prime minister the year before the coup, “did not publicly criticize the new regime. Pearson’s foreign policy … was supportive of the United States.”^[9]

Pearson’s pro-coup stance was good for business, especially the Brazilian Power and Light Co. (Brascan), one of Canada’s biggest profiteers in Latin America. As revealed in Let Us Prey (1974), there was a revolving door between Brascan and the Liberal cabinets of St. Laurent, Pearson and Trudeau.

For example, Robert Winters, who held two cabinet posts under St. Laurent and was Pearson’s trade minister, became Brascan’s president. Winters praised Brazil’s coup regime, saying it “was dedicated to the principles of private enterprise” and “create[d] a climate friendly to foreign capital.”

Jack Nicholson, Brascan’s CEO in Brazil in the 1950s, held three cabinet posts under Pearson. Mitchell Sharp, whose career began under St. Laurent in 1947, held the trade and finance posts in Pearson’s cabinet.

After a stint as Brascan’s vice president, Sharp returned to politics and was appointed Trudeau’s foreign minister.^[10] Another Brascan executive in Trudeau’s cabinet was Anthony Abbott,^[11] who held three finance-related posts in the late 1970s.

[Source: coat.ncf.ca]

Invasion in the Dominican Republic, 1965

In February 1963, the Dominican Republic elected a pro-Castro government led by Juan Bosch, which lasted only seven months.

When a military junta seized power in a coup that September, expelling the elected president, Bosch’s supporters fought to regain control, and in April, led by Colonel Francisco Caamaño retook the National Palace. To prevent Caamaño’s forces from restoring a revolutionary government, the U.S. invaded with 20,000 Marines.

U.S. Marines in the Dominican Republic in 1965. [Source: pinterest.com]

Two weeks after the U.S Marine invasion, Canadian government representatives were approached by Caamaño, who asked for recognition. Pearson declined.

New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Tommy Douglas, the father of Canada’s free health-care system, asked Pearson what evidence he had from the U.S. “that the forces of Colonel Caamaño, which are seeking to re-establish the elected government … are indeed communist controlled and communist dominated.”

When Pearson replied that they “[c]ertainly … have communists in their … controlling group,” Douglas asked again for proof and Pearson said he could not assess the degree of their communist “infiltration.”^[12]

It did not seem to occur to either that the legitimacy of pro-Bosch forces was its overwhelming popular support and that, if people wanted a communist government, they should be allowed to have one.

Pearson revealed his total bias in support of the U.S. invasion by saying that the coup regime was a legitimate “government” that had to protect “law and order” by stopping an “insurrection” by dangerous pro-Bosch forces.

In 2000, Liberals institutionalized this Pearsonian tradition of justifying U.S. invasions with humanitarian-sounding narratives by helping to create a deceptive UN doctrine called the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P).

Chrétien’s foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, rallied support from mainstream peace, human rights and development activists for NATO’s illegal 1999 war against Yugoslavia.

In 2004, Prime Minister Paul Martin, Jr.’s, Liberal government used R2P memes to disguise Canadian ground troops used in the U.S.-led invasion, regime change and occupation of Haiti (the Dominican Republic’s neighbor), as if they were humanitarian “peacekeepers.”^[13]

Supporting U.S. Nuclear War Policies

From the Cold War’s earliest days, Pearson was a strong voice for the idea that the moral forces of the “democratic West” had to amass a vast arsenal of weapons for a possible world war against “the totalitarian East.”

This, ironically, is why Pearson saw his key role in creating NATO as one of his most valuable gifts to global peace. From its inception in 1949, before the Soviets had tested a single atomic bomb, U.S. nuclear weapons have been a cornerstone of NATO’s “defense” policies. From the Soviet perspective, having been under attack by Western forces obsessed with its containment and annihilation since 1917, it responded to NATO’s creation by forming the Warsaw Pact in 1955.

By 1950, left-leaning peace groups around the world were busy supporting the Stockholm Peace Appeal. This petition campaign, promoted by the communist-led World Peace Congress, called for “the unconditional banning by all countries of the atomic weapon as an instrument of aggression and mass extermination of people.”

The appeal also asked governments to declare that they would “regard as a war criminal that government which first uses the atomic weapon against any country.” By February 1950, this “petition for peace,” bearing the signatures of 500,000 Canadians, was presented to government officials in Ottawa.

In a letter to a Vancouver newspaper to correct “a false report by an Ottawa reporter,” Rev. James Endicott, chairman of the Canadian Peace Congress, said “We are proud that this petition, which originated in Canada, was circulated to all countries in the world, gaining the endors[ment] of 450 million men and women.”^[14]

Peace float built by Canadian Peace Congress in the 1950s. [Source: focusonsocialism.ca]

Not surprisingly, this successful campaign, which rallied widespread public opposition to NATO’s bellicose “first use,” nuclear-weapons policies, also enraged many Cold Warriors, including Lester Pearson.

In a March 1950 address to 500 civil servants about a week after Endicott’s letter was published, Pearson said Canada would “take every … measure to find and root out treason and sedition in our midst.”^[15] (Sedition and treason carry penalties of 14 years and life imprisonment, respectively.)

Pearson’s speech, quoted in an Ottawa paper, singled out the Canadian Peace Congress for a moralizing rebuke:

“[B]e on guard against the more immediate menace of the individual who beneath the mask of loyal service to the country, or wearing the mantle of the Peace Congress has knowingly or unknowingly sold his soul to Moscow.”^[16]

In response, Peace Congress activist Edith Holtom wrote to the paper, saying:

“If enough Canadians, including civil servants, would protest against selling the soul of Canada to American militarism, there would be no need for Mr. Pearson to refer to peacemakers as a menace…. [H]ow dare Mr. Pearson call a person a menace who joins … with thousands of others to warn our government of what might happen if changes are not made in policy-making?”^[17]

Later, in a 1951 speech to the well-heeled Sudbury Chamber of Commerce and Kiwanis Club, Pearson branded the Canadian Peace Congress an agent of “foreign aggressive imperialism.”^[18]

Besides the Liberals and Conservatives, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), forerunner of the NDP, also saw the Peace Congress as a menacing threat. The CCF executive forbade members from joining the Congress and threatened disciplinary action against CCFers who signed the Stockholm Appeal.^[19]

Pearson had such contempt for the Congress that when 50 engineering students made a coup-like effort to destroy its University of Toronto chapter, he said in their support:

“If more Canadians were to show something of this high-spirited crusading zeal, we would very soon hear very little of the Canadian Peace Congress and its works. We would simply take it over.”^[20]

Imperialist Pro-NATO Propaganda

Pearson was groomed for political power by another loyal Canadian servant of imperial interests—Mackenzie King, who had appointed him foreign minister in 1948.

King’s ascent to power had been aided by his work as “labor adviser” for billionaire John D. Rockefeller, Jr., America’s anti-union, robber baron who financed fascism and collaborated with the Nazis.^[21]

From his unelected cabinet post, Pearson was well-placed to guide his gullible boss. An example of Pearson’s early, pro-U.S. advice occurred in 1946, when King was considering whether to take Canada along a middle path between the hardened Cold War extremes of the U.S. and the USSR. To convince King that he should hitch Canada securely to America’s anti-Soviet wagon, Pearson wrote a memo telling him that without some fundamental change in the Soviet state system and in the policies and views of its leaders, the USSR is bound to come into open conflict with western democracy.^[22]

With this prediction, said historian Joe Levitt, “Pearson seemed to be asserting that a war with the Soviet Union was virtually inevitable.” Levitt noted that, “Pearson may have worded the memo … to play on … King’s fears of the Soviet Union” so that he would bow to U.S. demands for greater military access to Arctic regions claimed by Canada.^[23]

[Source: coldwarteamprojectfall2014]

Pearson’s fear-mongering was clear from his very first speech to Parliament: “There is no doubt that fear has gripped the world again,” he said, “fear arising primarily out of … the brutal domination of revolutionary communism, based on the massive and expanding militarism of totalitarian Russia.”^[24]

Pearson’s anti-Red hyperbole knew few bounds and smacked of ethnic hatred: “[T]he crusading and subversive power of communism,” he claimed, “has been harnessed by a cold-blooded, calculating, victoriously powerful Slav empire for its own political purposes.”^[25] (Emphasis added.)

To Pearson and other Cold Warriors, the world was torn apart by a battle between pure good and utter evil. Describing these mortal foes in 1951, he said “there are two sides whose composition cuts across national and even community boundaries.” These forces, led by the U.S. and USSR, Pearson said, represented “freedom vs. slavery.”^[26]

Anti-communist leaflet. [Source: pinbalking.blogspot.com]

Pearson also warned that a war between freedom and slavery would take place for one of only two reasons. World War III, he said, would result from an accident, or “a deliberate and controlled explosion brought about by the calculated policy of the hard-faced despots in the Kremlin, men hungry for power and world domination.”^[27]

Hypocrisy and Doublethink: “Free Europe” vs. “Free Quebec”

Pearson’s bombast also exaggerated Soviet control over what he slurred as their “completely servile” “puppet regimes.”^[28] When discussing nonaligned Yugoslavia, he referred to the “unquestioning and slavish obedience that the Kremlin demands.” With regard to Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, and “the subjugation of states by soviet communism,” Pearson spoke of “communist pressure to liquidate every element of national independence and every trace of opinion or feeling which is not abjectly subordinate to Soviet Russia.”^[29]

But Pearson was blind to the subservience of Canada and its NATO allies to the U.S. Pearson had such faith in Western morality that he declared in 1959 that “western democratic governments have no aggressive or imperialistic designs.” Similarly, he said “Americans … are perhaps the least imperialistically minded people that have ever achieved great power in the world.”^[30]

As Canadian Dimension magazine founder, Cy Gonnick, explained in 1975, “Canada’s role, as devised by Pearson, was to assist the United States to achieve its goals, which were by definition the same as Canada’s.” Canadian servility to the U.S. was summed up by a top Pearson colleague: “We can tell our neighbour when we think he is wrong,” said John Holmes, Canada’s chargé d’affaires in Moscow in 1947-1948 and a top bureaucrat at external affairs (starting in 1953 into the 1960s), “but we know that in the end we will, in our own interest, side with our neighbour right or wrong.”^[31]

In a speech in Vancouver in 1948, Pearson expressed faith that “democracy” in the U.S.-led “free world” had, by its treatment of the global poor, proven “its superiority as a form of government and a way of life.” Pearson then boiled everything down to the West’s existential struggle with evil. In one corner of the globe was America’s “free, expanding progressive democracy.” In the other, was the USSR’s “tyrannical and reactionary communism.”^[32]

The so-called free world countries, said Pearson, being “strong, healthy and progressive,” had to “protect themselves from the threat of a sudden attack by an aggressor communist state.” Pearson also believed the U.S.-led free world must “remove the menace of aggressive communism, at home … [and] abroad.”^[33]

To “remove” the Red Menace, Pearson said Canada and other “free” nations had to “pay tribute” to the U.S. by foregoing their own independent foreign policies. He outlined this strategy to the elitist Empire Club of Canada and Toronto’s equally affluent Canadian Club by saying:

“we must recognize and pay tribute to the leadership being given and the efforts being made by the United States in the conflict against Communist imperialism, and realize that if this leadership were not given we would have little chance of success in the common struggle. Secondly, we must never forget that our enemy gleefully welcomes every division in the free democratic ranks and that … there will be times when we should abandon our position if it is more important to maintain unity in the face of the common foe.”^[34]

Vive le Ukraine Libre

The hypocrisy of Cold War “doublethink”^[35] is illustrated by Pearson’s indignant reaction to Charles de Gaulle’s “Vive le Québec libre” speech in 1967. During his visit to Montréal for Canada’s centenary celebrations, the French president’s allusion to an independent Quebec outraged Prime Minister Pearson. De Gaulle’s reference to a “free Quebec” was nothing compared to the onslaught of “free Ukraine” propaganda that Canada had beamed at the USSR for the previous 15 years.

Under Pearson’s guidance, CBC International broadcasts had long provoked ethnonationalist schisms in the USSR. From its very first Ukrainian-language program, on Canada’s 85^th birthday (July 1, 1952), the CBC’s Voice of Canada had collaborated with Canada’s far-right Ukrainian émigrés to drive a political wedge into the USSR.

Canada’s Cold War propaganda broadcasts were part of a U.S.-led political/psychological warfare campaign to exploit internal Soviet conflicts and to foment the break-up of that extremely multicultural country.

Canada’s mass media decried de Gaulle’s call for a free Quebec. In covering the French president’s speech, most newspapers across Canada quoted from Pearson’s speech at a huge July 31, 1967 rally of anti-Soviet Ukrainian youth on Parliament Hill.^[36] (See photo.)

This rally of 1,500 uniformed, anti-communist Ukrainian youth marching in formation, was organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC).^[37]

It had been created by King’s government in 1940 to unify Canada’s right-wing Ukrainian groups. While the UCC regularly meddled in Soviet politics by demanding a “free Ukraine,” it was happy to be used as a backdrop for Pearson to condemn de Gaulle’s meddling in Canadian politics.

In 1967, Pearson used 1,500 uniformed Ukrainian youth as a backdrop to decry de Gaulle’s “Vive le Québec libre” speech and to praise Canada’s “two founding races.”  Another speaker, Yuri Shymko, helped lead the Ukrainian youth movement which still glorifies Stepan Bandera as a hero. During WWII, Ukrainian scouting troops recruited for Bandera’s fascist army and for the Waffen SS Galicia. These formations took part in killing Poles and Jews, and collaborated in the Nazi invasion of the USSR which killed 27 million Soviet citizens. [Source – Ukraine: A Captive but Unconquerable Nation, Bulletin of the World AntiCommunist League, June 1969; diasporiana.org.au]

In Pearson’s speech, he acknowledged only “two founding races and languages and cultures in Canada, British and French.” Ignoring Canada’s genocide of First Nations, he also left out Britain’s conquest of New France in 1760. “In our country,” Pearson claimed, “we have required neither revolution nor civil war nor outside intervention to settle our differences.”^[38]

These amnesic state myths were echoed by Yuri Shymko, who told the crowd:

“Canada is one of the few countries of the world that can proudly and justly say it has maintained throughout its young history the principle that men of all races and nationalities shall live and prosper in peace, liberty and equality.”^[39]

Shymko was described in 1967 news stories as “a leader of the Ukrainian Youth Organization.” Then 26, he went on to become a member of parliament. Shymko continues to lead Ukrainian nationalists who glorify Stepan Bandera, a WWII fascist leader whose armed forces massacred Jews, Poles and communists.^[40]

Pearson’s “Full-Spectrum” Anti-Red Crusade

Pearson believed that Western civilization’s global war against communism had to be fought on all fronts, using weapons from all fields of culture. To amass the arsenal needed for this full-spectrum war, Pearson tailored his rhetoric to suit his audience. To his allies in Canada’s old boys’ clubs, he said the anti-communist struggle has not yet become a shooting war, except in Korea, but … goes on in the field of economics, finance, and public opinion, and extends far beyond any military or even political operation.

“Strength,” he reminded this wealthy audience of corporate movers and shakers from the Empire Club of Canada and Toronto’s Canadian Club, should not “be interpreted in military terms alone, but has also its economic, financial and moral aspects.”^[41]

In 1952, Pearson became chancellor of his alma mater, Victoria College. In his speech, he focused on the need to fight the Reds using “intellectual and spiritual weapons”:

“It would be a mistake to believe we can … defeat communism by force. Among other things, communism is an idea. No idea, however perilous or noxious, as communism is, can be killed by bayonets or even by an atomic bomb. As an idea, it must be resisted by intellectual and spiritual weapons….”^[42]

To fight his Cold War crusade against communism, Pearson often wielded Christian rhetoric. For instance, when promoting the creation of NATO in early 1949, he said “Canada should not remain aloof” because aggressive forces outside Canada allied to subversive forces within it … [could] lead the world into war between totalitarian Communism and the Christian democratic way of life.^[43]

Comic promoting alleged Soviet plot to take over Canada. [Source: pinbalking.blogspot.com]

Having absorbed a zeal for imperialism thanks to the influence of his family, church and literature, Pearson grew to equate anti-communism  with “spiritual faith” and “Christian morality.” These he saw as “the basis for the individual and for society.”^[44]

Lester Pearson at a conference in San Francisco in 1945 held by what subsequently became the UN. [Source: thediscoverblog.com]

Within his black-and-white universe, the Cold War’s rivals were engaged in a mythic, existential battle between the evil darkness of totalitarian communism and the pure, radiance of civilized Western capitalism. This cartoon ethos left no room for grey areas in between. Canadians had to either embrace the enlightened “free world,” or be damned and condemned as diabolical Reds.

In one parliamentary polemic, Pearson contrasted the “dark practice of government through tyranny and ignorance” behind “the shadow of the iron curtain,” with the glowing “human spirit” that made Europe the “fountainhead of light and progress” for “a thousand years.” Pearson’s melodramatic tropes shone when he said Europe’s “light still burns, and that eventually it will help lift the darkness that now surrounds it.”^[45]

Pearson and other Cold Warriors had zero-tolerance for communism. Their anti-Red phobia was akin to the “one-drop rule” that dominated the most racist societies. Apartheid regimes in South Africa and the U.S. institutionalized the hatred of their power elites in social systems that disempowered those alleged to have even a single drop of black African blood in their veins. Similarly, Cold Warriors like Pearson were intolerant of individuals, groups and foreign leaders said to be “tainted” by the dreaded “Red” political blood; “Pinkos” could not be tolerated. In the 1960s, it was known in Canada’s peace/anti-war movement that Pearson was a jingoistic Liberal war hawk, this is no longer the case. His image is now all but completely rehabilitated.

Despite his role in leading Canadian complicity in U.S./NATO-led wars and coups, Pearson is now heralded as an icon of peace by many Canadians who view themselves as progressives. This whitewashed invocation of Canada’s Pearsonian tradition is nowhere stronger than among the torchbearers of the Liberal Party.

For example, in 2017, when Canada’s current deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, was foreign minister, she called Pearson a “Canadian icon” who promoted “peace, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law around the world.”^[46]

Her statement was made at a media event staged to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize. This commemoration was co-sponsored by Canada’s Department of Global Affairs and Pearson College in British Columbia.

Pearson College is a private, government-funded^[47] boarding school for teens that is part of the prestigious United World College (UWC) movement. Alumni from its eighteen colleges on four continents have included youth who ended up becoming heads of state, CEOs, venture capitalists, religious and military leaders, celebrity artists, actors, powerful members of the Fifth Estate and Cold War Liberal hawks like Freeland herself.

As a precocious teen, Freeland’s Russophobic, anti-communist ideologies were strengthened by her two-year attendance at the UWC’s Adriatic College in Italy. She had already been ingrained in these belief systems by powerful influencers in her anti-Soviet Ukrainian-Canadian community and her family.^[48] These included Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Khomiak, who was given safe haven in Canada after working as Nazi Germany’s leading Ukrainian-language news propagandist in WWII.^[49]

Mikhailo Khomiak (to the right of the man smoking and immediately behind woman in headdress) with Nazi press administrator Emil Gassner, who is on the right, looking away. [Source: peoplesvoice.ca]

Canada’s Pearson College was the second of eighteen elite, international schools in the UWC network that was established by anti-communist admirers and military leaders of NATO’s Defense College in Paris.^[50]

Statue of Lester Pearson on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. [Source: waymarking.com]

But the exaltation of Pearson as Canada’s most noble peace hero is not limited to the halls of government power or such elitist, pro-NATO institutions as Pearson College.

Remarkably, Pearson is now regarded with tremendous respect even by leading forces in Canada’s mainstream peace movement. For example, Canada’s largest and best-known peace organization, Project Ploughshares, has effectively buried Pearson’s role as a vociferous Cold War-monger and helped to construct the mythology that now surrounds and protects his name.

Although Ploughshares has for 45 years done much exemplary work, including the documentation of Canada’s military exports, it has also helped to reverse the much-deserved, negative reputation that Pearson once had in the peace movement.

Mandated by, and accountable to, the Canadian Council of Churches, Ploughshares has received considerable financial support from this country’s largest religious bodies and from Canadian governments, both Liberal and Conservative alike. (Since 1999, Ploughshares has received at least $2.4 million in grants and contracts from the federal government.^[51])

Ploughshares’ obfuscation of Pearson’s imperialist, pro-war record is expressed in its internet presence. Of the 40 articles that reference Pearson within Ploughshares’ website,^[52] none mention his promotion of U.S. coups and wars. Instead, the majority invoke his name in a positive light by mentioning the government-established Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, which trained military personnel from 1994 to 2013.

Only one article contains even a passing critique of Pearson’s prowar legacy by briefly mentioning his role in arming Canadian missiles with U.S. nuclear warheads.^[53]

This 2009 article was written by then-retired Ploughshares co-founder Ernie Regehr who, two years later, accepted the UN Association of Canada’s “Pearson Peace Medal.” This award is given annually to a Canadian who has contributed to those causes to which Lester B. Pearson devoted his distinguished career: aid to the developing world; mediation between those confronting one another with arms; succour to refugees and others in need; equal rights and justice for all humanity; and peaceful change through world law and world organization.^[54]

The Ploughshares website highlights Regehr’s receipt of this medal at the very top of a special webpage called “Milestones,” which lists the group’s greatest achievements. The only photo on this page shows Regehr receiving the medal from Canada’s Governor General during a pomp-filled ceremony at his palace-like mansion in Ottawa.^[55] It also notes that the Pearson Peace Medal had been received by Ploughshares’ other co-founder, Murray Thomson, 21 years earlier from another governor general.

Ploughshares’ “Milestones” page also notes that Regehr accepted the World Peace Award from the World Federalists of Canada.^[56] The first recipient of this award was Lester Pearson himself in 1972.

The World Peace Award (in 2001) and the Pearson Peace Medal (in 2017) were bestowed upon Lloyd Axworthy,^[57] who was the Liberal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade during Canada’s active participation in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Axworthy, who—like Freeland—carries on the Pearsonian war-hawk tradition, oversaw the export of billions of dollars’ worth of Canadian weapons systems to the U.S. and dozens of other countries. He, like Pearson, has received considerable praise in the pages of Ploughshares’ website.

Despite Pearson’s long career of promoting the multifarious crimes of empire, his status as a Canadian peace-cult hero seems unlikely to be revoked anytime soon. Still glorified by the corporate media, politicians of all stripes, and even the peace movement, Pearson remains a seemingly irremovable fixture in the mythology of Canada, “the peaceable kingdom.”

However, as the foreign affairs bureaucrat, diplomat and political leader who spearheaded the warmongering, social phobia of extreme anti-communism in post-war Canada, Pearson will eventually be widely recognized as a godfather of the Cold War and an ideological patriarch of its hate-filled propaganda.

*

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Richard Sanders is an anti-war activist and writer in Canada. In 1984, he received an MA in cultural anthropology and began working to expose Canada’s complicity in U.S.-led wars. In 1989, he founded the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT), which led to a 20-year municipal ban on Ottawa’s arms bazaars.

Notes

[1] Richard Sanders, “A Plot ‘Made in the U.S.,’” Press for Conversion! Issue 43, January 2001, pp. 23-25. http://bit.ly/Cda-Coup ; Richard Sanders, “1962-1963, Canada: ‘Knocking Over’ Dief the Chief”
https://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue43/articles/1962_1963_canada.htm; CIA Fingerprints: The Americans behind the Plot to Oust John Diefenbaker
https://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue43/articles/cia_fingerprints.htm; Key Quotations on the events of January 1963
https://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue43/articles/key_quotations_on_the_events.htm

[2] Ibid.

[3] Telegram from the Embassy in Canada to the Department of State, Ottawa, Feb. 3, 1963, 3 p.m., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Volume XIII, Western Europe and Canada.
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v13/d445

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ernie Regehr, “Canada and the nuclear arsenal,” in Canada and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1983, p. 109.

[6] Pierre Trudeau, Cité Libre, April 1963, cited by Walter Gordon, “Liberal leadership and nuclear weapons,” in Regehr 1983, ibid.

[7] Richard Sanders, “Yaroslav Stetsko: Leader of pro-Nazi Ukraine, 1941,” Cold War Canada, op. cit., p. 49. https://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/70/70_49.htm

[8] Pierre Sevigny, Hansard, Sept. 7, 1961, p. 8083. http://bit.ly/Sevigny64

[9] Rosana Barbosa, Brazil and Canada: Economic, Political, and Migratory Ties, 1820s to 1970s, 2017, pp. 8-9. http://bit.ly/Cda-Brazil

[10] Robert Chodos (ed.), Let Us Prey, 1974, pp. 14-17. http://bit.ly/Brascan

[11] Barry Buys, Canadians in Brazil, Brascan and Brazilian Development, 1996, p. 67. http://bit.ly/BuysBrascan

[12] Hansard, May 11, 1965, p. 1152. https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC2603_02/75?r=0&s=3

[13] Richard Sanders, “R2P: Typecasting Canada as Hero in Theatres of War,” Press for Conversion!, Mar. 2007, pp. 11-12. http://bit.ly/RS-r2p

[14] James G Endicott, “That Peace Appeal,” letter, Vancouver News-Herald, Mar. 21, 1951, p. 4. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/72058532/the-vancouver-news-herald/

[15] “Our Duty to Root Out Treason, L.B. Pearson tells CS Group,” Ottawa Journal, Mar. 27, 1950, p. 8. http://bit.ly/Pearson-CPC

[16] Ibid.

[17] Edith Holtom, “A Peace Congress View,” Ottawa Citizen, Apr. 4, 1950, p. 32. http://bit.ly/Holtom

[18] Lester Pearson, “Communism and the Peace Campaign,” April 20, 1951, in John Price, Orienting Canada: Race, Empire, and the Transpacific, 2011, p. 230. http://bit.ly/antiCPC

[19] Anthony Mardiros, William Irvine: Life of a Prairie Radical, 1979, p. 229. http://bit.ly/BanNukes

[20] Reginald Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945-1957, 1996, p. 375.

[21] Richard Sanders, “Rockefeller Assoc,” Press for Conversion! Mar. 2004. http://bit.ly/JDR-2

[22] Joseph Levitt, Pearson and Canada’s Role in Nuclear Disarmament & Arms Control Negotiations, 1945-1957, 1993, p. 46. http://bit.ly/Levitt

[23] Ibid.

[24] Lester Pearson, Words and Occasions: An Anthology of Speeches and Articles Selected from his Papers, 1970, p. 82. http://bit.ly/LBP-70

[25] Ibid., p. 70.

[26] Lester Pearson, “Canadian Foreign Policy in a Two Power World,” Apr. 10, 1951. http://bit.ly/lp51

[27] Ibid.

[28] Lester Pearson, Hansard, Nov. 16, 1949.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Lester Pearson, Diplomacy in a Nuclear Age, 1959, p. 53.

[31] Cy Gonick, Inflation or Depression, 1975, p.87.

[32] Pearson 1970, op. cit., p. 75.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Pearson, Apr. 10, 1951, op. cit.

[35] “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both…. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient.” George Orwell, 1984, 1949, p. 220. http://bit.ly/1984-DT

[36] Author’s collection of news articles, Jul. 31-Aug. 3, 1967. http://bit.ly/freeQuebec

[37] Aya Fujiwara, Ethnic Elites and Canadian Identity: Japanese, Ukrainians, and Scots, 1919-1971, 2012. http://bit.ly/UCC1967

[38] Gordon Pape, “Full Acceptance of French a Requirement says Pearson,” Montreal Gazette, Aug. 1, 1967, p. 2. http://bit.ly/Aug1-1967

[39] “PM Stresses Political Unity to Ukrainians,” Calgary Herald, Jul. 31, 1967, p. 9. http://bit.ly/ch-67

[40] Richard Sanders, “Yuri Shymko: From Bandera youth leader, MPP and MP, to elder statesman,” Cold War Canada, op. cit., pp. 60-61.
https://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/70/70_60-61.htm

[41] Pearson, Apr. 10, 1951, op. cit.

[42] Pearson 1970, op. cit., p. 112.

[43] “Pearson Hits Progressive Conservatives,” Winnipeg Free Press, Feb. 5, 1949, p. 6. http://bit.ly/Christ-vs-Reds

[44] Pearson 1970, op. cit., p. 113.

[45] Lester Pearson, cited by B.T.R., “Need We Fight the Russians?” Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 16, 1949, p. 30. http://bit.ly/OC11-16-49

[46] Chrystia Freeland statement on the 60^th anniversary of Pearson receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace, Dec. 10, 2017. http://bit.ly/Pearson-Icon

[47] Pearson College has received at least $14.18 million in government grants since 1995. (This figure, adjusted for inflation, is the value of these grants in 2021 dollars.)

Public Accounts of Canada, https://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/201/301/public_accounts_can/pdf/index.html

$100,000 (2006-07) ($126,325 in 2021 dollars)

$4 million (1997-98) ($6.08 in 2021 dollars)

$5 million (1994-95) ($7.98 in 2021 dollars)

[48] Richard Sanders, “Getting them young: Instilling Ukrainian patriotism in children and youth,” Cold War Canada, op. cit., pp. 52-54. https://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/70/70_52-54.htm

[49] Richard Sanders, The Chomiak-Freeland Connection, March 2017.
https://coat.ncf.ca/research/Chomiak-Freeland/C-F1.htm

[50] Richard Sanders, “Pearson College and NATO’s United World Colleges,” Cold War Canada, op. cit., p. 8.  https://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/70/70_8.htm

[51] Richard Sanders, “Project Ploughshares and the myth of Canada’s noninvolvement in the Iraq War,” 2013. https://coat.ncf.ca/articles/Ploughshares-IraqMyth_Funding.htm

Richard Sanders, “Additional data on government funding of Project Ploughshares,” complied March 8, 2021. https://coat.ncf.ca/articles/Ploughshares-AddedFundingNotes.htm

[52] Google search of the Ploughshares website for the word “Pearson,” retrieved Mar. 6, 2021. https://www.google.com/search?q=site:https://ploughshares.ca+pearson

[53] Ernie Regehr, “Our Nuclear Ambivalence Must End,” Waterloo Region Record, 2009. https://ploughshares.ca/pl_publications/our-nuclear-ambivalence-must-end/

[54] Governor General David Johnston, “Presentation of the Pearson Peace Medal to the Honourable Lloyd Axworthy,” May 19, 2017. https://www.gg.ca/en/media/news/2017/pearson-peace-medal

[55] Milestones. https://ploughshares.ca/about-us/milestones/

[56] Murray Thomson, The Pearson Peace Medal Recipients http://www.unac.org/copy-6-of-new-page

[57] Lloyd Axworthy, The Pearson Peace Medal Recipients http://www.unac.org/copy-22-of-new-page

Featured image: Lester B. Pearson with John F. Kennedy. Pearson played a founding role in NATO (1949) and was former Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs from 1948 to 1957. As leader of Canada’s Liberal Party from 1958 to 1968, he was Prime Minister from 1963 to 1968. [Source: natoassociation.ca]

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Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., is a physicist and activist who works tirelessly to defend the environment and protect biodiversity from multinational corporations. Her life’s work has culminated in the creation of seed banks that may one day save future generations’ food sovereignty, but how she got there is a fascinating story, chronicled in the documentary “The Seeds of Vandana Shiva.”

Shiva, “a brilliant scientist” who became “Monsanto’s worst nightmare and a rock star of the international organic food movement,”¹ grew up in a Himalayan forest, where her father, a forest conservator, carried out inspections. She would travel up to 45 miles a day with her father as a young girl, and as they traversed the forest he taught her everything about the trees, plants and herbs therein.

“We had a classroom out in the forest,” Shiva said, but her formal studies were done in a convent which, at that time, didn’t regard science as a subject fit for girls. Shiva wanted to study physics, though, and she was especially intrigued by Einstein and his connections of intuition with science. “Everyone has their favorite person that they want to be,” she said. “Einstein was the shaper of the dream of my life.”

A Search for Knowledge as a Whole

Watch the video here.

The filmmakers of The Seeds of Vandana Shiva are allowing for a FREE special stream through April 8th, 2021. CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT  getting the film out into the world to build awareness around industrial agriculture vs regenerative farming and food.

Shiva got a scholarship to attend Chandigarh University in Punjab, India, and from there she went on to the Bhabha National Atomic Research Center in Mumbai, India, for training in atomic energy. Later, her sister, a medical doctor, asked her about the health and environmental effects of nuclear technology and radiation.

As Shiva grasped the devastation nuclear energy had caused, she said, “I realized that a science that only teaches you how to modify nature without the understanding of what that modification does to the larger world is not a complete science.”

She gave up her idea of being a nuclear physicist and instead went looking for knowledge as a whole. She studied on her own, finding quantum theory, and while pursuing a Ph.D. in Canada, went to visit some of her favorite spots, including an oak forest she held close to her heart.

When she arrived, the forest had been cut down to make room for apple orchards, changing the entire microclimate in the area. The loss of something that she felt was a part of her impacted her deeply and set the stage for her environmental activism.

The Tree Hugging Movement Is Born

Shiva states that her involvement in the contemporary ecology movement began with the Chipko movement in 1973.² The timber mafia were cutting down trees throughout the Indian Himalayas, taking away this precious resource from the rural villagers who depended on the forest for subsistence.

The government denied villagers access to the land and the lumber, while the logging companies cleared out forests, leading to problems with erosion, depleted water resources and flooding.

The villagers, primarily women, fought back in the best way they could, by physically embracing the trees to stop the loggers. Chipko is a Hindi word that means “to hug” or “to cling to,”³ and the movement spread, creating what became widely known as the tree hugging movement.

The women of Chipko taught Shiva how much women who hadn’t been to school knew about the interconnectedness of nature, but it took a major flood to make the government realize that what the women were saying was right. The revenue that came in from the forest logging was little compared to what they had to pay for flood relief.

In 1981, the government listened to the women and ordered a ban on logging in the high-altitude Himalayas, while tree hugging became a worldwide practice of ecological activism.

1982: The Water Wars

The Ministry of Environment invited Shiva to conduct a study on the impact of limestone mining in the Mussoorie hills. There were “scars all along the mountains,” and she went straight to the women in the community and asked what the key issue was. It was water. The rainfall in limestone creates giant caves and cavities, which act as nature’s aquifers.

Up in those mountains, Shiva said, the mining was robbing the valley of its water source — billions of dollars’ worth of water resources — while the miners’ wastes were destroying stream flows, villages were being washed away and workers were being exploited.

When word of Shiva’s study got out, both her father and infant son were threatened, but she continued on with her research, following her father’s advice that “as long as you follow your conscience you have nothing to fear.” Ultimately, Shiva’s calculations showed that the limestone left in the mountain contributed more to the economy than the extraction of limestone from the mountain.

Just as in the case of the forest in the Himalayas, in which the government was forced to recognize that the forest left standing contributed more than their conversion into timber. Shiva’s study was the basis of a Supreme Court ruling that led to the mining being discontinued.⁴

The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology

Shiva went on to found the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, which she called the Institute for “Counter Expertise.” The goal was to counter the “expertise” of the destroyers and “bring to the front the knowledge of those who were defending the Earth and their lives.”

Shiva was able to carry out independent research because she didn’t rely on funding from outside sources. “You can have a billion-dollar grant and hire researchers to do the work, who don’t know about the issue,” she said, or you can have just a few thousand dollars and work with communities, where the people become the researchers. This is important, Shiva noted, as “When money is your master, then your conscience is no more your guide.”

During this time, she also challenged the standing law in India, which stated that the father would automatically become the natural guardian of the children in cases of divorce. She went directly to the Supreme Court and became the first case in which the court decided the mother should get custody of the child, setting precedent for all of India.

In 1985, she was invited to Nairobi for a U.N. conference on women, where she spoke about women and the environment, including the Chipko movement, stating that it was the first time the link was made between environmental degradation and its impact on women. In 1988, her book “Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development” was published, marking the beginning of eco-feminism. Shiva went on to write more than 20 books.

The Violence of the Green Revolution

In 1984, Shiva was working for United Nations University on conflicts over resources when an eruption of extremist violence broke out in Punjab. Religion was blamed for the unrest, but it was more likely a battle over resources. That same year, a gas leak from a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, had devastating consequences, killing 3,000 people immediately and 30,000 more in the aftermath, with many still suffering health effects to this day.

“My head is in a spin,” Shiva said of her mindset at the time. “That’s when I realized Punjab is the home of the Green Revolution.” The Green Revolution is the name given to the introduction of chemical agriculture to the developing world, which was promised to bring more food, more prosperity and more peace.

The movement even earned a Nobel Peace Prize but, Shiva said, “death ensued.” It didn’t add up. “You’re supposed to give a Nobel Peace Prize for peace, but this is war,” she said.

When she turned her research efforts toward the Green Revolution, she found that, as a result of this new chemical-based agriculture, soils and rivers were dying and desertification was taking place, while 25% of small farmers were dispossessed.

“This was an agrarian crisis,” Shiva said, “not a religious conflict.” She uncovered that many of the people being killed were those in positions of bureaucratic power, “controlling the architecture that allowed the Green Revolution to happen.”

This led Shiva to write another book, “The Violence of the Green Revolution.” Once she understood that the promises of the Green Revolution were a lie, she moved her focus to truly sustainable agriculture.

Putting Patents on Life

In 1987, Shiva was invited to a biotechnology meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, which was attended by some independent scientists along with U.N. officials and the agro-chemical lobby, which would soon turn into the biotech lobby.

The focus was on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that would allow them to patent seeds, securing the GMO seeds’ future growth and the ability to collect royalties from farmers.⁵ An international treaty was discussed to move GMOs and patented seeds globally. Shiva told IDR:⁶

“This is why the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), World Trade Organisation (WTO), General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), and others came into the picture. What was most horrifying was their ambition to limit this to a total of just five companies that would control food and health globally. Today, we have four — I call them the poison cartel.”

While the spin was to position GMOs as essential to feeding the world, Shiva said, “the reality was that they were the door to owning life on Earth.” The patented seeds also necessitated monocultures, so the same seeds could be sold everywhere, and people could be replaced with herbicides and machines. It ushered in industrialized farming while eliminating small farms.

On the flight home from Switzerland, she said, she began thinking about how to deal with this and by the time she got off the flight, “A seed was speaking to me … Farmers with their own seed, fighting for their seed freedom, are the biggest force in the world against seed monopoly.”

Navdanya: The Right to Save Seeds

In 1994, Shiva founded Navdanya, a nonprofit organization promoting biodiversity, organic farming and seed saving. She traveled to villages where women would give her seeds, and she started saving them and encouraging farmers to do the same. A training and research farm was created in order to have a seed bank where all the seeds were collected and to have research on how biodiversity and native seeds can feed the world.

But saving seeds and creating seed banks was only one aspect. The other was to create awareness, including translating the information into different languages to tell the world about the importance of saving seeds and protecting crops. There are now at least 127 seed banks in India, which will keep growing, along with a network of farmers and seed savers who have been trained in organic farming.

Shiva has also traveled the globe to warn other countries, including those in Africa, about plans to displace rural farmers so investors can turn the land into industrial farms to export the commodities. She said:

“A handful of multinational corporations … is driving species extinction. The poisons they have deployed are pushing the disappearance of bees, the disappearance of pollinators, the disappearance of insects, the disappearance of biodiversity.

Industrial agriculture is not only destroying biodiversity, it is destroying the soil and releasing large amounts of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere … This is not a food system. It is not an ecological system. It is a recipe for destruction of the planet’s health and the destruction of our health.”

Regenerative agriculture and animal husbandry are the next and higher stage of organic food and farming. They’re not only free from toxic pesticides, GMOs, chemical fertilizers and concentrated animal feeding operations, but are also regenerative in terms of the health of the soil, the environment, the animals and rural farmers. As Shiva put it, “Regenerative agriculture provides answers to the soil crisis, the food crisis, the climate crisis and the crisis of democracy.”⁷

In short, regenerative agriculture practices aim to rebuild soil health, restore ecosystems and promote human health through the growing of nutrient-dense food, while providing farmers with economic and financial stability. Shiva is confident this can be done, as long as humans embrace their interconnectedness while acting on an individual level to be agents of change:

“Food can be grown in abundant, ecologically sustainable and just ways. But to do this we need a shift in our perception. We need a change in paradigm. We are part of nature. We must participate in her processes. We have to understand our interconnectedness, our oneness on this Earth. But this is not how Big Food and Big Agriculture works.”

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I’m [former] Senator Dick Black [Virginia State Senate] and I’m a retired colonel who served in uniform for thirty two years. I love my country. I flew two hundred and sixty nine combat missions in Vietnam as a Marine helicopter pilot and crash landed once after machine gun fire cut my flight controls. Afterwards, I made 70 combat patrols as a ground air controller for the 1st Marine Division. I was in intense, fierce combat during almost the entire time and I was wounded. My radio men were both killed beside me.

So with that background, let me say that I’m appalled by the indecency of American aggression towards Syria. Just the other day, Secretary of State Tony Blinken chastised his Chinese guest in Anchorage, Alaska, by saying that he thought that they failed to respect the rules based order, without which there would be much more violence in the world. But what is the the “rules based order” that we’re always touting? Seems that the rules are whatever the United States decides it wants at a given moment. By what right do we seize other nations ships on the high seas?

Now, the rule says that doing so is an act of war. We’re not at war. So the rules go on to say that if you’re not at war, then seizures of ships on the high seas are acts of piracy. Are these not acts of piracy when we seize these ships? What rules allow us to establish naval blockades on Syria, Iran and Venezuela? Are those not acts of war? What rules based order says that we can punish Germany for conducting a gas pipeline to Russia?

What rules in this rules based order allow us to dictate the trade of sovereign nations? The American march of conquest spans the globe. We’ve invaded sovereign nations like Serbia, Yemen and Syria, leaving them all in smoldering ruins. Does the rules based order not prohibit wars of aggression? Did we not prosecute Nazis at Nuremberg for just such actions? What rules make wars of aggression crimes for Nazis, but not for us? We’re told that we’re fighting a war on terror, but we’re not. 

We’re closely allied with terrorists like al-Qaida in an endless quest to destroy Arab civilizations throughout the Middle East. Few Americans can even name all of our wars Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Ukraine, none of them attacked us. We attacked all of them. Just look at the case of Syria. Remember what Syria once was. Before the war, Syria had a nicely balanced economy, produced most of its own industrial goods. Produced its fuel and agricultural products, had very little poverty and enjoyed thriving trade, and it was financially responsible. It enjoyed 40 years of peace with Israel.

And the Constitution drafted under President Assad guarantees equal rights for women. And importantly, it guarantees religious freedom in three different parts of the text. I read it. Syria is a model for other Arab states, especially ones like Saudi Arabia, which have no constitution at all. We call Syria’s president a dictator, but in twenty fourteen, he was overwhelmingly elected by the people of Syria, in a fair and free election. It was very heavily monitored. 

There were lots of observers, all agreed that it had been a true and valid election. So. Syria is a model of elective democracy, if you want to call it that, for the for the Arab world. But the Americans pretend that the election never happened, and yet many Syrians, who spent 15 hours in the blazing sun so that they could vote for President Assad, were targeted and killed by U.S. backed rebels who fired mortars into their midst and killed them.

Now, after 10 years of war, I think it’s important to recognize after 10 years of war, not a single rebel leader has ever emerged as a popular figure. The West, loves the terrorists that the people of Syria despise.

You know, we’re taught to hate President Assad because he cracked down on rioters in 2011 and they say that he gassed his people, but that’s not true because we decided to attack Syria 10 years before all of that. In 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered the Pentagon to draft plans to overthrow seven countries in the Middle East, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off with Iran. Not one of them had harmed the United States. In twenty six or in two thousand six, the US embassy in Damascus drew up detailed plans to destabilize and overthrow Syria. 

Those were widely disseminated to the Pentagon, to various unified command. They went to NATO. They went widely across the world, the specific plans to destroy, stabilize and overthrow Syria. And that was long before any demonstrations had ever occurred in Syria. And yet we claim them as the reason that we oppose President Assad. In March of 2011, the United States, U.K. and France attacked and overthrew Libya. They brutally executed Colonel Gaddafi. The US then turned over control of a Libyan airfield to the Turks who used it to transport advanced weapons that had been plundered from Libya and send them eventually to supply the terrorists that were organizing in Syria.

In 2011, also during the Arab Spring, the highly secretive Central Intelligence Agency Special Activities Center sent paramilitary teams into the sovereign territory of Syria to identify, train, equip and lead terrorist to overthrow the Syrian government. In twenty thirteen, Barack Obama formalized, formalized this long-standing support for anti Syrian terrorists by secretly authorizing CIA program Timber Sycamore under program Timber Sycamore, the CIA Special Operations Division, trained, armed and paid thousands of terrorists to fight …. those armies totally under our control.

And in one case, a group in Aleppo. We had paid over a thousand of their people salaries, giving them arms, giving them training. And it wasn’t until they kidnaped a small Palestinian boy who was being treated in a hospital. They kidnapped him. They took him to the central square in Aleppo. And in order to terrorize the people into not fleeing Aleppo, which was being cordoned off by Syrian troops, they took him to the center in a pickup truck.

They grabbed a little boy by the hair. They took a knife and they slashed his head off. And then they paraded it. They held it up and waved it in front of the crowd as a warning. Don’t escape from Aleppo. We paid the salaries of every man who held that boy’s head aloft, we gave them their weapons, they gave them we gave them their truck, we gave them everything that they needed. And it was only after that very gruesome incident that we decided, well, that’s an embarrassment. We better not pay them. We have been paying terrorists like this throughout the war.

NATO and the United States have maintained an intense propaganda campaign against Syria from the outset. Sarin gas attacks that killed civilians were blamed on President Assad. But not one reporter ever asked why Assad would use gas against children, but not against armies of terrorists bearing down on the capital of Damascus. The reason is obvious, there is no answer for that. And the journalists are smart enough to know that if they ask that question, their career in journalism is finished.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis admitted in twenty eighteen that the US had no evidence that Assad had ever used sarin gas. Two courageous Turkish members of parliament were quickly accused of treason after they revealed an indictment, a criminal indictment, that showed how an al-Qaida cell had infiltrated two point two kilos of sarin gas across the border from Turkey for use in Syria, most likely going to Damascus for the initial attack. That was the red line attack that almost sent American troops into Syria.

So why do we attack Syria? Well, there are a number of reasons, part of it ties in with Israeli foreign policy. But the US also seeks to capture oil and gas routes serving South Asian to pipeline access as Saudi has an intense desire to impose harsh Wahhabi Islam on the religiously harmonious areas. The Turks cast a greedy eye on the industrial city of Aleppo. The Turks also want to capture the oil and the agricultural produce of the nation that is produced in northern Syria.

So there are many people who have these desires and and there are many reasons behind the war. Certainly, the American arms dealers profited immensely from the lucrative deals like the six hundred BMP-71 anti-tank missiles that the Central Intelligence Agency rushed to al-Qaida in 2014 to prepare them to attack across the Turkish border. It was only with those CIA provided anti-tank weapons that the al-Qaida terrorists were able to break through the Syrian armor and the Syrian lines and seize the beautiful town of Kessab and behead the Christians who were there and all of the churches and then smash ancient tombstones with  sledgehammers. 

That was done thanks to the CIA. Al-Qaida never could have broken the Syrian lines without those anti-tank missiles. Many of these terrorist groups have sworn to behead the Christians and the Alawites and to make sex slaves of their wives and daughters. One jihadist famously drove his American- made Humvee into battle with a naked slave girl, slashed, lashed to his windshield. And he knew that the soldiers would hesitate to shoot at his Humvee as long as there was an innocent girl lashed to the windshield.

And then that’s why he used it. That’s why he put this poor girl up there and drove her first into battle as a shield. In twenty fifteen, U.S. troops illegally invaded northern Syria and unlawfully seized Syria’s oil. We authorized an American oil company to build a refinery for one hundred and fifty million dollars and to drill for more oil on sovereign Syrian land. Before the war, Syria never needed oil or natural gas because it was so self-sufficient, it exported a little bit, but it was not a big oil producing country.

But what was important is that it provided all of the fuel, all of the gasoline, all of the heating fuel for the power plants and so forth and in Syria. But now. The legacy of the nation has been stolen by the United States, leaving Syrians to freeze to death in the winter as we steal their fuel. The same region, northern Syria is the breadbasket of the country. It grew enough wheat to feed the entire nation to export a little bit.

But this, too, has been stolen. We gave it to the Kurds who are shipping Syrian wheat to Turkish merchants while Syrian peasants starve. To tighten the noose on Syria, Secretary Mike Pompeo bragged about cutting Syria off from sources of currency and blockading oil tankers arriving from Iran. He’s right. We’ve caused immense death, disease and suffering for poor Syrians. Americans are routinely reminded that sanctions don’t affect the common people, only the leaders. Rubbish, that’s a total lie.

Sanctions do nothing but attack the innocent, the poor, the helpless. They are the most cruel and barbaric type of warfare that we can wage. We steal food, fuel and medicine from the poor. We blockade supplies for rebuilding so that Syrian man must fight for a living or starve. If we ended the blockade, they could work rebuilding the country. Syrians are tired of war, we’ve imposed 10 years of war on them. They want to rebuild. The young man,

the time that fighting wars was was exotic is over, they want to go home, they want to build families, they want to rebuild their homes and their businesses. But the United States blockades all materials necessary for rebuilding. So that young Syrian man must fight for a living or starve. As it is, the only work is fighting, which will go on as long as we continue funding it. The world must reject … ten years against the Syrians. But we’ve oppressed the Iraqi people for 30 years, we’ve dropped over a quarter of a million bombs on Iraq.

And we bombed them even while we sit in military base camps occupying the country. This madness must stop. I thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today.

Richard H. (Dick) Black served as a member of the Virginia State Senate, representing the 13th District, which encompasses parts of both Loudoun and Prince Williams Counties, from 2012 to 2020.

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John Heartfield’s famous photomontage of a newspaper cabbagehead had the caption “Whoever Reads Bourgeois Newspapers Becomes Blind and Deaf!” The caption is even more true now as the 21st Century moves into its third decade.

Western reporting of all kinds is strained through the filters of corporate dominated intellectual managerial classes in every sphere: science, law, culture, medicine and finance, in foreign and domestic news media, in non governmental organizations and in multilateral international agencies. Directly or indirectly, every area of reporting has become increasingly shaped by corporate funding,

The Western intellectual managerial classes have generally abandoned fundamental reporting norms and standards. Western organizations and institutions claiming to be accountable and transparent are not – neither UN bodies nor regional institutions like the Organization of American States, nor any of the major international NGOs. Practically invariably, reporting by these kinds of agencies systematically omits facts inconvenient to their findings, denies relevant actors a fair chance to make their case, and systematically avoids corroboration of their findings by genuinely independent sources.

This chronic reporting crisis reflects the reality of class power relations in North America and Europe. As Henry Wallace wrote in the New York Times on April 9th 1944. “The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.” Wallace’s comments prefigured the fascist union of corporate and government power in North America and Europe which since the time of the Cold War has successfully manipulated Western public opinion on every issue of international importance.

Thus, people in the West generally continue to see themselves as morally superior to people in the majority world. They continue to talk about their countries in North America or the European Union as democracies whose leaders mean well, have the best interests of their peoples at heart and generally seek to do good in the world. Every few years, Western electorates vote for which flavor of fascism they prefer, apparently unaware that dictatorships too have elections and elite leadership struggles.

These three articles, one from early 2019 and two from last year, along with the accompanying references, treat the case of Nicaragua and the failed coup attempt of 2018 as one more example of the West’s chronic reporting crisis. It is a crisis which, in the most anti-democratic way, denies a true and fair account of events to people in North America and Europe.

Nicaragua’s experience very much reflects the systematic poisoning of information sources in the West in relation both to other countries and also to other contexts, of which the sadistic persecution of Julian Assange is perhaps the most emblematic.

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The UK Government’s reporting system for COVID vaccine adverse reactions from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency released their latest report today, April 1, 2021.

The report covers data collected from December 9, 2020, through March 21, 2021, for the two experimental COVID vaccines currently in use in the U.K. from Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

They report a total of 713 deaths and 495,345 injuries recorded following the experimental vaccines.

That is an increase of 119 deaths and 90,820 injuries recorded since last week. 95 of the 119 recorded deaths this past week followed AstraZeneca COVID injections.

More than 20 countries had suspended injections of the AstraZeneca experimental COVID shots due to concerns over fatal blood clots, but the European Medicines Agency (EMA) concluded that there was no link between the AstraZeneca experimental COVID shots and the fatal blood clots, and urged countries to resume vaccinations because “the benefits outweigh the risks.”

Some nations resumed the shots, such as Germany, but now have halted them again due to more deaths resulting from blood clots. See: After 9 Deaths, Blood Clot Concerns over AstraZeneca Experimental COVID Shot Prompts Germany to Halt Injections Again

The UK, on the other hand, never suspended the shots, agreeing with the EMA’s assertion that the shots were not related to the fatal blood clots in a statement issued March 18th.

Following this statement, the UK’s “Yellow Card” reporting system for adverse vaccine reactions added 95 new deaths and 82,667 new injuries this past week following injections of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 injections.

Of these 713 recorded deaths following COVID-19 injections, 421 follow AstraZeneca injections, and 283 follow Pfizer injections, while 9 deaths are unspecified.

Of the 495,345 injuries reported following COVID-19 injections, 377,487 are following AstraZeneca injections, 116,627 are following Pfizer injections, and 1231 are unspecified.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency report released today states that about 13 million doses of the Pfizer shots have been administered as of March 21, 2021, and about 15.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca shots have been administered.

As of 21 March 2021, for the UK, 40,883 Yellow Cards have been reported for the Pfizer/BioNTech, 99,817 have been reported for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine, and 379 have been reported where the brand of the vaccine was not specified. (Source.)

Earlier today (April 1, 2021), a group that identifies themselves as “Doctors for Covid Ethics,” which reportedly consists of over 100 doctors and scientists from 25 countries, including Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and Former Chair, Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, issued a Press Release and letter to the European Medicines Agency, criticizing them for not taking action regarding the reported adverse events following COVID injections, specifically the AstraZeneca shots.

Excerpts:

Regrettably, your reply of March 23 is unconvincing and unacceptable. We are dismayed that you choose to respond to our request for crucially important information in a dismissive and unscientific manner. Such a cavalier approach to vaccine safety creates the unwelcome impression that the EMA is serving the interests of the very pharmaceutical companies whose products it is your pledged duty to evaluate. The evidence is clear that there are some serious adverse event risks & that a number of people, not at risk from SARS-CoV-2, have died following vaccination.

1. You concede that the “vaccines”, which are more accurately described as investigational gene-based agents, enter the bloodstream but you can obviously provide no quantitative data. In the absence of the latter, any scientific assessment you purport to have undertaken lacks foundation.

2. Your statement that non-clinical studies do not indicate any detectable uptake of the vaccines into endothelial cells lacks credibility. We demand to see the scientific evidence. If not available, it must be assumed that endothelial cells are targeted.

3. Auto-attack could not have been excluded in animals unless they had been immunologically primed beforehand. We demand evidence that such experiments had been performed. Similar experiments have been undertaken before with previous, unsuccessful candidate vaccines, and fatal, antibody-dependent enhancement of disease was observed.

4. We requested scientific evidence, not a vague description of what was purportedly seen in non-valid animal experiments. Your cursory mention of laboratory findings in humans is cynical. In view of the plausible connection between production of spike protein and the emergence of thromboembolic serious adverse events (SAEs), we demand to see the results of D-dimer determinations. As you are aware, D-dimer is a very good test as an aid to diagnose thrombosis.

After delivery of our letter to you on March 1, events followed that debunk your response to our last three queries to an extent that can only be termed embarrassing. As we feared, severe and fatal coagulopathies occurred in young individuals following “vaccination”, leading 15 countries to suspend their AZ-“vaccination” program.

Read the full press release here.

The latest UK COVID-19 mRNA Pfizer- BioNTech vaccine analysis report:

• 3204 Blood disorders including 1 death
• 1462 Cardiac disorders including 39 deaths
• 10 Congenital disorders
• 1108 Ear disorders
• 23 Endocrine disorders
• 1758 Eye disorders
• 12,682 Gastrointestinal disorders including 14 deaths
• 34,688 General disorders including 126 deaths
• 26 Hepatic disorders
• 652 Immune system disorders including 1 death
• 2653 Infections including 51 deaths
• 669 Injuries including 2 deaths
• 1339 Investigations including 1 death
• 741 Metabolic disorders including 1 death
• 15,714 Muscle & tissue disorders including
• 43 Neoplasms
• 22,156 Nervous system disorders including 19 deaths
• 45 Pregnancy conditions including 2 deaths
• 1796 Psychiatric disorders
• 294 Renal & urinary disorders including 2 deaths
• 605 Reproductive & breast disorders
• 4932 Respiratory disorders including 19 deaths
• 8425 Skin disorders including 1 death
• 34 Social circumstances
• 83 Surgical & medical procedures
• 1462 Vascular disorders including 4 deaths

Total reactions for the COVID-19 mRNA Pfizer- BioNTech vaccine: 283 deaths and 116,627 injuries

The latest UK COVID-19 vaccine Oxford University/AstraZeneca analysis report:

• 2411 Blood disorders including 2 deaths
• 3768 Cardiac disorders including 51 deaths
• 29 Congenital disorders
• 2574 Ear disorders
• 60 Endocrine disorders
• 4566 Eye disorders
• 39,998 Gastrointestinal disorders including 6 deaths
• 131,533 General disorders including 196 deaths
• 87 Hepatic disorders
• 1109 Immune system disorders including 1 death
• 7375 Infections including 47 deaths
• 2201 Injuries including 1 death
• 4542 Investigations
• 4679 Metabolic disorders including 2 deaths
• 47,015 Muscle & tissue disorders including 1 death
• 63 Neoplasms including 1 death
• 81,702 Nervous system disorders including 49 deaths
• 46 Pregnancy conditions
• 6756 Psychiatric disorders
• 1044 Renal & urinary disorders including 1 death
• 839 Reproductive & breast disorders
• 10,643 Respiratory disorders including 40 deaths
• 20,379 Skin disorders
• 88 Social circumstances
• 279 Surgical & medical procedures including 1 death
• 3662 Vascular disorders including 22 deaths

Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine Oxford University/AstraZenec vaccine: 421 deaths and 377,487 injuries.

For the COVID-19 vaccine brand unspecified analysis they report:

• 5 Blood disorders
• 7 Cardiac disorders including 2 deaths
• 11 Ear disorders
• 18 Eye disorders
• 132 Gastrointestinal disorders
• 418 General disorders including 4 deaths
• 2 Hepatic disorders
• 2 Immune system disorders
• 22 Infections including 1 death
• 11 Injuries
• 18 Investigations
• 32 Metabolic disorders
• 128 Muscle & tissue disorders
• 265 Nervous system disorders
• 31 Psychiatric disorders
• 8 Renal & urinary disorders
• 4 Reproductive & breast disorders
• 32 Respiratory disorders including 2 deaths
• 73 Skin disorders
• 1 Social circumstance
• 11 Vascular disorders

Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine brand unspecified vaccines: 9 deaths and 1231 injuries.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency concludes:

The overall safety experience with both vaccines is so far as expected from the clinical trials.

Based on current experience, the expected benefits of both COVID-19 vaccines in preventing COVID-19 and its serious complications far outweigh any known side effects.

In the meantime, fully vaccinated people continue to get sick with COVID, prompting one to ask just what these “benefits” to COVID vaccination actually are?

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The current state of affairs in northeastern Syria is bordering on the absurd.

In an unexpected twist, US-backed militants seized a shipment of US-made missiles that were en route to other militants also supported by America. The shipment included 2 TOW anti-tank guided missiles, 24 AK-type assault rifles, a designated marksman’s rifle, two gun tubes and ammo.

On March 28th, the Syrian Task Force, a joint force of the Turkish Police, Counterterrorism Unit and the National Syrian Army (SNA) took the weapons shipment.

Most SNA factions were once backed by the US, which supplied them with TOW ATGMs until late 2017. They are also currently and continually supported by Turkey.

Turkey said that the weapons consignment was seized because it was heading towards the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).  The SDF is the most important US ally in Syria, but it is comprised of the PKK and YPG, whom Ankara deems as terrorist organizations.

US forces in Syria need all the support they can get, and as such they are delivering supplies to its presumed allies.

On March 27th, in addition to smuggling oil, a large US convoy smuggled 38 trucks of Syrian wheat from the Hasaka governorate into northern Iraq. Just days earlier, on March 25th, 18 more trucks with wheat were taken out of Syria.

In Hasaka, the SDF is carrying out its expansionist work, displacing home-owners in the vicinity of a helipad. The positions are to be used to counter the attacks and movements of Turkish-backed militants coming from Ras al-Ayn and Afrin.

And sure enough, Turkish forces, as well as militants backed by Ankara, renewed shelling on the Hasaka countryside. They shelled the two villages of al-Khashma and al-Dardara to the north of the town Tal Tamer on March 27th.

In response to Turkey’s shelling and attacks, the SDF carried out an operation towards Raqqa. As a result, eight Turkish-backed militants were either killed or wounded. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, SDF fighters blew up a militant position near the town of Umm al-Manajir in the northern outskirts of the town of Ain Issa.

Still, even without the SDF attacking any positions, in Afrin the Turkish-backed militants continue fighting even amongst themselves. On March 27th, militants of the Hamza Division clashed with a group which recently defected from the division and joined the al-Sham Corps. At least 11 were either killed or injured.

Northern Syria appears to be in a perpetual state of chaos, with several sides attempting to steal away resources to forward their own interests. Turkey, the US, and the militants that they back are taking the chance to do so, since the Damascus government and Russian support are more focused on Greater Idlib, and the ISIS-infested central region.

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Top German scientists have found that wearing certain types of face masks for long periods of time could result in potentially hazardous chemicals and harmful microplastics being inhaled deep into human lungs.

Professor Michael Braungart, director at the Hamburg Environmental Institute and co-founder of the world-renowned Cradle to Cradle environmental standard has told Ecotextile News that mask wearers unwittingly run the risk of breathing in carcinogens, allergens and tiny synthetic microfibres by wearing both textile and nonwoven surgical masks for long periods of time.

His recent findings have been backed up by another leading industry textile chemist Dr. Dieter Sedlak, managing director and co-founder of Modern Testing Services Augsburg, Germany in partnership with Modern Testing Services Global, Hong Kong who found elevated concentrations of hazardous fluorocarbons, formaldehyde and other potentially carcinogenic substances on surgical face masks: “I can only say 100 per cent that I have similar concerns to Prof. Braungart.”

With over 40 years in the business, Dr. Sedlak, who was also the former Global Product Safety Director at a major global Specialty Chemicals supplier is one of the most respected figures in the textile chemicals sector and helped to develop various leading EHS chemical management systems and RSL concepts used today by major global apparel and footwear brands.

Initial analytical tests by both of these experts have now thrown into doubt the wisdom of whether people should be wearing certain types of masks for hours on end. Particularly schoolchildren, factory workers and long-haul flyers who may be at a greater risk from the long-term damage to lungs through exposure to both restricted chemistry and microplastics – perhaps outweighing the short-term risk of any exposure to the coronavirus?

“What we are breathing through our mouth and nose is actually hazardous waste,” said Professor Braungart, who ran preliminary tests on used surgical masks that found traces of chemicals such as the known carcinogen aniline as well as formaldehyde and optical brighteners – both heavily restricted on consumer goods by European and US authorities to minute parts per million concentrations.

Separate studies by Dr. Sedlak have also shown the presence of compounds such as 2-butanone oxime (carcinogenic) blocked diisocyanates used as crosslinkers for perfluorocarbons (PFCs) on face masks. Used in the textile sector as oil and water repellents on fabrics, by-products of PFCs are known to be bio-persistent and their use is heavily restricted by authorities in Europe and the USA. Last year, a group of US scientists called for all per- and poly-fluorinated substances (PFAS) to be treated as one single class of chemistry and said they should be avoided for non-essential uses due to their hazardous toxicological and eco-toxicological profile.

“Honestly, I had not expected PFC’s would be found in a surgical mask, but we have special routine methods in our labs to detect these chemicals easily and can immediately identify them. This is a big issue,” explained Dr. Sedlak.

“It seems this had been deliberately applied as a fluid repellent – it would work to repel the virus in an aerosol droplet format – but PFC on your face, on your nose, on the mucus membranes, or on the eyes is not good.” Along with PFCs, he also detected – besides the PFC crosslinkers – compounds such as formaldehyde and acetaldehyde whereas a GCMS chromatogram showed “100s of peaks from other contaminants.”

Microfibre concern

Like Sedlak, Braungart noted that surgical masks have been designed to be worn for very specific purposes such as by clinicians or for a short period of time before being discarded. They are not designed to be crumpled up in people’s pockets where the “friction and damp environment promotes both fibre abrasion and encourages bacterial colonisation over time,” he said.

This abrasion can, he says, cause the release of tiny microplastics as the polypropylene fibres break down from mechanical wear and tear, finding in tests that some masks shed microfibres classed as hazardous ‘dust’ by the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV). Fibres of this type of geometry that meet this dust standard are also referred to as ‘WHO fibres’ after earlier work by the World Health Organisation on asbestos.

Textiles preferable to nonwovens?

During the on-going pandemic most people are now also wearing masks and face coverings made from traditional textile materials that would normally be used to make our clothing.

Thankfully, the risks associated with harmful chemicals on clothing are lower than ever, but the risks aren’t zero. “The risks associated with clothing tend to be due to skin contact, apart from babies that tend to suck anything they can get near their mouth – and therefore it is normal to have tougher, more stringent chemical standards for babywear textiles,” according to textile chemical expert, Phil Patterson of Colour Connections, who also works with the highly respected ZDHC Foundation on chemical management.

“In my opinion, textile masks do not begin to pass this most basic hazard test for kids, for whom the risks of COVID have been categorically demonstrated to be miniscule,” he said.

Potential litigation risks?

One unforeseen problem for those mandating the continued and long-term wearing of face masks, such as governments and businesses, is the potential for future litigation if they are proven to have any long-term adverse impacts on human health – especially since long-term studies have yet to be undertaken.

Patterson, who has advised some of the world’s biggest clothing retailers and brands on chemical management agrees this could be an issue.

“I’d be very wary of mandating masks, as some chemicals and fibres may have long-term effects – and that possibly opens the floodgates of personal injury claims at some stage in the future.”

Big brands

Nate Sponsler, director at the AFIRM Group that represents over 30 well-known consumer brands, such as Amazon, Nike and Levi Strauss, in a bid to reduce the use of harmful substances in textiles says it’s early days when looking at face masks. “We have not yet done any formal data aggregation or studies specific to face masks, so I’m glad this issue is being highlighted,” he said.

He says textile face masks are a different issue to surgical face masks where he says he’s “not surprised” to see potential hazardous substances based on fluorine applied to these masks, given that they’re designed for use in the medical sector, “where all kinds of exemptions for chemistry on PPE exist,” he said.

He also noted that for kids face masks “the AFIRM best practice would be to use organic cotton, and for adults where more materials and chemistry are being used (such as prints for example), this does require more due diligence.”

Masks have been an integral part of the global response to the coronavirus and a necessary intervention – especially at the height of the pandemic. But as we start to emerge from this global health crisis, leading scientists are now questioning whether the real risk of exposure to potentially hazardous chemicals from long-term mask wearing is actually much higher than the risk of coming into contact with the Sars-CoV-2 virus – especially for children and young adults who are in the low-risk category when it comes to developing severe COVID-19.

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***

Given the present atmosphere in Washington in which there is no lie so outrageous as to keep it out of the mainstream media, a great deal of policy making takes place without even key players in the government knowing what is going on behind their backs. Of course, there is a long tradition of government lying in general but most politicians and officials have probably convinced themselves that they are avoiding the truth because complicating issues might lead to endless debate where nothing ever gets done. There may be some truth to that, but it is a self-serving notion at best.

The real damage comes when governments lie in order to start or continue a war. The Administration of George W. Bush did just that when it lied about Iraq’s secular leader Saddam Hussein seeking nuclear weapons, supporting terrorists and developing delivery systems that would enable Iraq to attack the U.S. with the nukes. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice knew she was not telling the truth when she warned that “the problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” She also was a key player in the Bush team approval of the CIA’s use of torture on captured al-Qaeda.

Rice is, by the way, not in jail and is currently a highly esteemed elder statesman serving as Director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Likewise for her friend and patron Madeleine Albright who famously declared that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to U.S. imposed sanctions were worth it. In the United States the only ones who are ever punished are those who expose the crimes being committed by the government, to include a number of whistleblowers and journalists like Julian Assange.

The active American military role in lying probably started at Valley Forge but it came into prominence with the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which was an alleged attack by the North Vietnamese on U.S. Navy ships that led to an escalation in Washington’s direct role in what was to become the Vietnam War, which produced 58,000 American dead as well as an estimated three million Vietnamese. No one was punished for faking the casus belli and today Vietnam is a communist state in spite of the martial valor of the U.S. Army.  Overall commander of US forces in Vietnam General William Westmoreland, who died in 2005, repeatedly advised the media and the White House that the American military was “winning” and there would be victory in six more months. General Westmoreland knew he was lying, as the Pentagon Papers subsequently revealed, and he also proved reluctant to share his plans with the White House. He even developed a contingency plan to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam without informing the president and Secretary of Defense.

Prize winning investigative reporter Gareth Porter has written an article “Trump Administration Insider Reveals How US Military Sabotaged Peace Agreement to Prolong Afghan War” that describes how the brass in the Pentagon currently are able to manipulate the bureaucracy in such a way as to circumvent policy coming out of the country’s civilian leadership. The article is based in part on an interview with retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat arms officer who served as an acting senior adviser to the Secretary of Defense during the last months of Donald Trump’s time in office.  He would have likely been confirmed in his position if Trump had won reelection.

Porter describes the negotiations between the Taliban and Trump’s Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, which began in late 2018 and culminated in a peace agreement that was more-or-less agreed to by both sides in February 2019. The Pentagon, fearing that the war would be ending, quickly moved to sabotage a series of confidence building measures that included disengagement and cease fires. In short, US commanders supported by the Pentagon leadership under Secretary of Defense Mike Esper as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continued to attack Taliban positions in spite of the agreements worked out by the diplomats, blaming all incidents on the Taliban. They also used their “perception management” media contacts to float fabricated stories about Taliban activity, which included the false account of Russians paying Taliban fighters bounties for every American they could kill.

After the 2020 election, which Donald Trump appeared to have lost, Esper, Central Command chief General Kenneth McKenzie and the senior field commander General Scott Miller took the offensive against any withdrawal by sending a memo to the president warning that no troops should be removed from the country until “certain conditions” had been met. An enraged Trump, who believed that the disengagement from Afghanistan was the right thing to do, then used his authority to order a withdrawal of all US troops by the end of the year. He also fired Esper, replacing him with Christopher Miller as SecDef and brought in Macgregor, who had openly expressed his belief that the war in Afghanistan should be ended immediately as well as the wars in the Middle East.

Macgregor and Miller reasoned that the only way to remove the remaining troops from Afghanistan by year’s end would be to do so by presidential order. Macgregor prepared the document and President Trump signed it immediately. On the next day November 12^th, however, Colonel Macgregor learned that Trump had subsequently met with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, national security adviser Robert O’Brien and Acting Secretary Miller. Trump and Miller were told by Milley and O’Brien that the orders he placed in the memorandum could not be executed because a withdrawal would lead to a surge in violence and would damage chances for an eventual peace settlement. Trump was also told that an ongoing US presence in Afghanistan had “bipartisan support,” possibly a warning that he might be overruled by Congress if he sought to proceed. Trump later agreed to withdraw only half of the total, 2,500 troops, a number that has continued to remain in place under President Joe Biden. A current agreement has the US withdrawing those last soldiers, together with allied NATO troops, by May 1^st but it is under attack from Congress, think tanks, the mainstream media and the military leadership for the same reasons that have been cited for staying in Afghanistan over the past twenty years and predictably Biden has folded. Last week he announced that some American soldiers will remain in country to maintain stability after the deadline.

The story of Trump and Afghanistan is similar to what took place with Syria, where plans to withdraw were regularly reversed due to adroit maneuvering by the Pentagon and its allies. It remains to be seen what Joe Biden will do ultimately as he is being confronted by the same forces that compelled Trump to beat a retreat. The more serious issue is, of course, that the United States of America portrays itself as a nation that engages only in “just wars” and which has a military that is under control and responsive to an elected and accountable civilian government. As Afghanistan and Syria demonstrate, those conceits have been unsustainable since the US went on a global dominance spree when it launched its War on Terror in 2001. All indications are that the Pentagon will be able to maneuver more effectively in Washington than on the battlefield. It will continue to have its pointless wars, and its bloated “defense” budgets.

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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 https://councilforthenationalinterest.orgaddress is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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***

The costly rollout of screening for covid-19 among asymptomatic students at UK universities has found very few positive cases since its launch in December, an investigation by The BMJ has found.

Its research shows a mass testing system across UK campuses that is inconsistent and shrouded in secrecy. Almost two thirds of higher education institutions are not collecting data on numbers of students being tested, and a third are not logging how many test positive.

Experts have described campus testing as haphazard and messy, with an “outrageous” price tag. One said that the scheme was putting political ambitions above the goals of science or health.

Among 69 institutions that disclosed three months’ worth of data to The BMJ under the Freedom of Information Act, 1649 positive results were reported from 335 383 tests carried out, a rate of 0.5%.

The BMJ’s research found widespread reluctance among universities and colleges to share information about the costs of testing and its effect on containing the virus. More than three quarters of institutions refused to disclose how much money they had received from the government to set up mass testing. Some cited confidentiality agreements with the Department of Health and Social Care for England as the reason for the non-disclosure.

Experts said the findings—revealed as many universities are poised to welcome students back to campuses after the Easter holidays—cast major doubts on the cost effectiveness, the ethics, and the scientific rigour behind mass screening and called for the programme to be halted.

Allyson Pollock, professor of public health at Newcastle University, and a vocal critic of the testing programme, said, “The clear message from the data is that the mass testing is haphazard, fragmented, disjointed, and absolutely the antithesis of public health. What we have got is a very fine illustration of why we need this programme to go to the [national] screening committee and to be properly evaluated before any more rollouts of tests happen.”

Box 1

How does mass testing of students work?

After numerous outbreaks of covid-19 on UK university campuses last autumn, the government invited universities to test asymptomatic students from December 2020, with the aim of containing the virus before students returned home for Christmas. Most universities taught online only in January and February but continued to offer asymptomatic testing to students who were on campus.

Students are tested under supervised conditions with rapid lateral flow devices, which do not require laboratory processing, such as the Innova tests, which the UK government has spent over £1.3bn on purchasing.1

Two tests a week are recommended, followed by a PCR confirmatory test after a positive result. Government guidance says that twice weekly testing should continue indefinitely, although where this was not possible testing once a week “may be appropriate where students only visit campus once a week.”2

Read the full article on the BMJ.

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The WHO is promoting a new international pandemic treaty to be drawn up and signed by the world’s nations. In their announcement on March 30th 2021 entitled COVID-19 shows why united action is needed for more robust international health architecture, the WHO (World Health Organization) predictably appeals to vague general principles and noble-sounding values in an attempt to entice humanity to support its quest for globalism and more centralization of power.

While it doesn’t use the buzzword sustainable this time, it does use another of its favorite buzzwords equitable. The WHO claims that everyone must have “universal and equitable access” to “safe, efficacious and affordable vaccines, medicines and diagnostics” for the current and future pandemics, however it has already gone wrong, since as the facts have shown, COVID is not a pandemic but rather an operation, an agenda, a PCR casedemic and a scamdemic. Those skeptical of authorities asking for more collaboration as a ruse to grab more power should note that the current EU structure came about first via treaties. So let’s take a closer look at the words used to push this new international pandemic treaty.

Right on Cue, 23 World Leaders Plus WHO Boss Read Their Scripts to Promote International Pandemic Treaty

When the NWO (New World Order) wants to push their agenda forward, they roll out their devoted system-servers, bootlickers and gofers to get the public on board. In this case, the NWO controllers have used the 3 most powerful Western European leaders (UK prime minister Boris Johnson, German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron), 20 other world leaders plus WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (24 signatories in all), to push the idea of an international pandemic treaty. This NWO move is very predictable since it follows their time-tested formula of creating a crisis then exploiting that crisis to consolidate power, as they always do with false flag operations. Here is the letter reproduced in full:

“The Covid-19 pandemic is the biggest challenge to the global community since the 1940s. At that time, following the devastation of two world wars, political leaders came together to forge the multilateral system. The aims were clear: to bring countries together, to dispel the temptations of isolationism and nationalism, and to address the challenges that could only be achieved together in the spirit of solidarity and cooperation: namely, peace, prosperity, health and security.

‘Today, we hold the same hope that as we fight to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic together, we can build a more robust international health architecture that will protect future generations. There will be other pandemics and other major health emergencies. No single government or multilateral agency can address this threat alone. The question is not if, but when. Together, we must be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly coordinated fashion. The Covid-19 pandemic has been a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is safe.

‘We are, therefore, committed to ensuring universal and equitable access to safe, efficacious and affordable vaccines, medicines and diagnostics for this and future pandemics. Immunisation is a global public good and we will need to be able to develop, manufacture and deploy vaccines as quickly as possible. This is why the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) was set up in order to promote equal access to tests, treatments and vaccines and support health systems across the globe. ACT-A has delivered on many aspects but equitable access is yet to be achieved. There is more we can do to promote global access.

‘To that end, we believe that nations should work together towards a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response. Such a renewed collective commitment would be a milestone in stepping up pandemic preparedness at the highest political level. It would be rooted in the constitution of the World Health Organisation, drawing in other relevant organisations key to this endeavour, in support of the principle of health for all. Existing global health instruments, especially the International Health Regulations, would underpin such a treaty, ensuring a firm and tested foundation on which we can build and improve.

‘The main goal of this treaty would be to foster an all-of-government and all-of-society approach, strengthening national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics. This includes greatly enhancing international cooperation to improve, for example, alert systems, data-sharing, research, and local, regional and global production and distribution of medical and public health countermeasures, such as vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and personal protective equipment.

‘It would also include recognition of a ‘One Health’ approach that connects the health of humans, animals and our planet. And such a treaty should lead to more mutual accountability and shared responsibility, transparency and cooperation within the international system and with its rules and norms.

‘To achieve this, we will work with heads of state and governments globally and all stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector. We are convinced that it is our responsibility, as leaders of nations and international institutions, to ensure that the world learns the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic.

‘At a time when Covid-19 has exploited our weaknesses and divisions, we must seize this opportunity and come together as a global community for peaceful cooperation that extends beyond this crisis. Building our capacities and systems to do this will take time and require a sustained political, financial and societal commitment over many years.

‘Our solidarity in ensuring that the world is better prepared will be our legacy that protects our children and grandchildren and minimises the impact of future pandemics on our economies and our societies. Pandemic preparedness needs global leadership for a global health system fit for this millennium. To make this commitment a reality, we must be guided by solidarity, fairness, transparency, inclusiveness and equity.’”

An Analysis of the Call for an International Pandemic Treaty

It is useful to take a closer look at some of the language, themes and modes of persuasion employed in this letter.

Firstly, notice how the writers frame the COVID plandemic as similar to a war. That was always the idea: to orchestrate a disruption with the impact of a world war without having to actually conduct a hot war. Wars have always served the NWO, not only as a tremendous source of hate, murder and mayhem, not only for depopulation, but also as a massive force of chaos that allows for restructuring in the aftermath.

Secondly, note the appeal to protection and safety: “a more robust international health architecture that will protect future generations.” Whatever you think of COVID, its spread or not had little to do with how “robust” the world “health architecture” was. This is just a blatant cry for world government. As Plato once said, “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”

Thirdly, note the firm prediction that “there will be other pandemics and other major health emergencies … The question is not if, but when” which is exactly in alignment with Bill Gates’ warning of Pandemic 2 or Pandemic II. This is more fear and more predictive programming to entice you to surrender and acquiesce to the idea of an inevitable new normal with wholesale deprivation of freedom and rights.

Fourthly, notice how the writers appeal to humanity’s commonality (“nobody’s safe until everyone is safe”) which echoes another idea that has been used as nauseam by officials during this scamdemic (“we are all in this together”). The idea is based on pretending they care about the common welfare of society and humanity while systematically exploiting the average person’s compassion to gain power. It also blatantly ignores the obvious truth that each person, being bestowed with an immune system, is responsible for their own health. As an aside, since those exposing the COVID scamdemic are being labeled as COVID deniers, I wonder if all those pushing the COVID cult could justly be labeled immune system deniers?

Fifthly, such a treaty, if it ever became a reality, would pave the way for even more shared surveillance so that there is literally nowhere you can go in the world without some authority knowing everything about you: “… greatly enhancing international cooperation to improve, for example, alert systems, data-sharing …”

Sixthly, the idea of such a treaty is also to make vaccines mandatory worldwide and reduce or eliminate vaccine hesitancy: “research, and local, regional and global production and distribution of medical and public health counter measures, such as vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and personal protective equipment.”

In the sentence “The main goal of this treaty would be to foster an all-of-government and all-of-society approach, strengthening national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics” the underlying idea is to make sure everyone is forcibly included in the governmental remedy. It’s “all-of-society” which means mandatory rules for everyone (except the rulemakers who can break the rules with contempt). You don’t want to wear a mask, take a vaccine or stay under house arrest? Tough! We are all in this together, so do what you’re told, you filthy peon.

Lastly, the letter finishes by appealing to “solidarity, fairness, transparency, inclusiveness and equity”which just goes to show that the politically correct woke mentality is everywhere and that you must submit to the religion of inclusivity, even if you don’t want to be included.

Final Thoughts

We need to be hyper-aware of such attempts to make order out of chaos and to exploit people’s fear and ignorance to centralize power. This idea of an international pandemic treaty is yet another steppping stone on the way to a NWO One World Government. We would do well to remain vigilant in the face of any further calls for consolidation of decision-making, regardless of whether they are draped in peace, protection, prosperity, sustainability, solidarity, fairness, transparency, inclusiveness or equity – or whatever other sparkly and glittery garb the NWO manipuators use to disguise their nefarious agenda.

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Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles, author of the book Cancer: The Lies, the Truth and the Solutions and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com. Makia is on Steemit and LBRY.

Sources

https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/op-ed—covid-19-shows-why-united-action-is-needed-for-more-robust-international-health-architecture

https://thefreedomarticles.com/covid-cult-and-the-10-stages-of-genocide/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/operation-coronavirus-next-phases-resurgence-prediction-bioterror-attack/

https://thefreedomarticles.com/political-correctness-language-thought-control/

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At this hour, more Russian military forces are massed near Ukraine’s borders than we have ever seen before.  Western military leaders say that they are concerned that the troop movements that we have witnessed in recent days may be leading up to an invasion, and if an invasion does happen it will greatly test the resolve of the Biden administration, EU leaders and NATO brass.  In particular, the hawks in the Biden administration would almost certainly not be willing to just sit back and let the Russians conquer all of Ukraine.  There would likely be a major response by the United States, and that could set off a chain reaction that could ultimately spark World War 3.

So what made the Russians suddenly move a massive invasion force toward Ukraine?

Well, it turns out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky essentially signed a declaration of war against Russia on March 24th.  The document that he signed is known as Decree No. 117/2021, and you won’t read anything about it in the corporate media.

I really had to dig to find Decree No. 117/2021, but eventually I found it.  I took several of the paragraphs at the beginning of the document and I ran them through Google translate…

In accordance with Article 107 of the Constitution of Ukraine, I decree:

1. To put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine of March 11, 2021 “On the Strategy of deoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol” (attached).

2. To approve the Strategy of deoccupation and reintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (attached).

3. Control over the implementation of the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, enacted by this Decree, shall be vested in the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

4. This Decree shall enter into force on the day of its publication.

President of Ukraine V.ZELENSKY

March 24, 2021

Basically, this decree makes it the official policy of the government of Ukraine to retake Crimea from Russia.

Of course the Russians will never hand over Crimea willingly because they consider it to be Russian territory, and so Ukraine would have to take it by force.

This is essentially a declaration of war against Russia, and Zelensky would have never signed such a document without the approval of the Biden administration.

Following the signing of Decree No. 117/2021, we started to see Russian forces pour into Crimea and into separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine at a staggering rate.

For example, you can watch a column of Russian tanks being transported by rail right here.

Крым, 30 марта pic.twitter.com/yaMoN7leio

— IgorGirkin (@GirkinGirkin) March 30, 2021

And you can see a massive column of Russian forces on the Crimea bridge right here.

Russian military equipment on the Crimean Bridge. 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled howitzers, various trucks, BMP-3 IFVs.

29.03.21 pic.twitter.com/c4W2aNqp5M

— Status-6 (@Archer83Able) March 31, 2021

In addition, it is being reported that the 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade is on the move, and that is not a good sign at all.

For those who don’t know, this isn’t the brigade you want to see on the move.

The 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade is an airborne brigade of the Russian Airborne Troops. The brigade was first formed in 1979 and fought in the Soviet–Afghan War, the 1st & 2nd Chechen War. https://t.co/lAthOpiIvw

— ASB News / MILITARY〽️ (@ASBMilitary) March 31, 2021

The Russians are taking Zelensky’s declaration of war very seriously, but the corporate media in the western world is blaming “Russian aggression” for the increase in tensions in the region.

But the truth is that the Russians never would have made any of these moves if warmongers in the Biden administration had not given Zelensky the green light to sign Decree No. 117/2021.

And what most people in the western world don’t know is that fighting has already begun in Ukraine.  The ceasefire that was agreed to in July 2020 has been violated hundreds of times over the past week…

The OSCE’s civilian Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has reported hundreds of cease-fire violations in recent days. On March 26, four Ukrainian soldiers were killed and two others injured in the eastern part of the country.

The Ukrainian military said its soldiers were hit by a mortar attack it blamed on Russian troops. Russia denies having a military presence in eastern Ukraine, where it backs separatist forces.

At this point, the ceasefire of July 2020 is completely dead.

In response to the renewed fighting, U.S. European Command “has raised its alert status to the highest level”…

U.S. European Command has raised its alert status to the highest level after fighting resumed between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian soldiers in the Donetsk Region of eastern Ukraine, marking the end of a June 2020 ceasefire, and Russian forces began building up military equipment along the border.

And we just learned that the chairman of the joint chiefs actually had a telephone call with his counterpart in Russia on Wednesday to address the escalating situation…

In a statement on Facebook on Wednesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that at the initiative of the U.S., chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, had a telephone conversation with his counterpart. “Issues of mutual interest were discussed,” the statement said.

In the days ahead, the corporate media in the western world is going to continue talking about “Russian aggression”, and the Russians are going to continue to blame Zelensky and the Biden administration for the rise of tensions in the region.

Ultimately, we could spend countless hours debating who is in the right and who is in the wrong.

But what really matters is keeping this from escalating into a global conflict.  Because if someone does something really stupid and the Russians feel a need to send their invasion force into Ukraine, there will be no going back ever.

I have been warning about a future conflict between the United States and Russia for a very long time, and we have never been closer than we are right now.

With Trump in the White House, relations with Russia were relatively stable, but now Joe Biden is in charge.

Biden is a hothead that is showing signs of advanced cognitive decline, and he is surrounded by a team of warmongers that are determined to put Russian President Vladimir Putin in his place.

The inmates are running the asylum, and it won’t take much of a mistake at all for things to go horribly, horribly wrong.

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When you ask somebody why they are choosing to take the covid vaccine or why they are wearing a mask, they may respond, “because science.” The next question to ask is, how many of these people have actually gone through the science of vaccines and whether or not masks may be an effective tool for limiting the spread of COVID?

From what I see, the majority of people receive their information from mainstream media organizations, which are organizations that have strong ties to pharmaceutical corporations and governments, and are known for presenting one perspective that favours a particular agenda while completely ridiculing the other. They sometimes go as far as labelling another perspective as a “conspiracy theory” despite the fact that there is ample, credible evidence to support the claims of that perspective. Do people simply believe things because they feel that everybody else believes it too? What are the social and cultural implications of not being in alignment with the majority?

Due to reliance on a single media source, many people are not shown information and perspectives that tell a different or more complete story, especially when it comes to “controversial” topics. Often times, these topics are avoided using ridicule in place of addressing points brought up from other perspectives. We’ve seen a lot of this with COVID, an unprecedented amount of censorship of science has taken place with regards to all things COVID, and many academics have been speaking up about it for quite some time.

A quote I often like to use to demonstrate this, and one I’ve used many times before, comes from Dr. Kamran Abbasi, a recent executive editor of the prestigious British Medical Journal, editor of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, and a consultant editor for PLOS Medicine. He is editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and JRSM Open. He recently published a piece in the BMJ, titled “Covid-19: politicization, “corruption,” and suppression of science.”

Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid-19 has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public health. Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an emergency—a time when it is even more important to safeguard science.

I also recently wrote an article about Vinay Prasad MD MPH, an associate professor at the University of California San Francisco. He is one of many experts in the field during this pandemic who has been criticizing Facebook fact-checkers for their missteps in claiming content is false when it is not.

One of the best examples of suppression is “anti-lockdown” rhetoric. Multiple dozens of studies have shown and concluded that lockdowns do not reduce COVID infection, will kill more people than COVID due to lack of access to health care, starvation and more, and cause a wide range of other health and economical issues. Regardless, the experts who have been publishing and sharing this information have been heavily censored. And culturally, we’re pretending that there’s no science to oppose lockdowns.

I recently wrote an article by Dr. Sunetra Gupta, an Oxford professor who is regarded by many as the world’s pre-eminent infectious disease epidemiologist. She is one of many who explains that lockdowns have done nothing to protect people from COVID, and that they have caused a great deal of harm.

Why is it that such an alarming amount of respected experts who oppose the measures being taken to combat COVID, are being ridiculed, ignored, and unacknowledged, yet a political doctor, somebody like Anthony Fauci, can get all of the air time he pleases? Why aren’t all perspectives, science and data shared equally? Why have effective “alternative” treatments been ignored and the vaccine made out to be the only option?

Below are the top four reasons why COVID vaccine hesitancy is at an all time high among people of all backgrounds.

1. A Lack of Trust In Government & Pharmaceutical Companies.

First I’d like to draw your attention to a quote taken from a paper published in the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy by professor Paddy Rawlinson, from Western Sydney University.

Critical criminology repeatedly has drawn attention to the state-corporate nexus as a site of corruption and other forms of criminality, a scenario exacerbated by the intensification of neoliberalism in areas such as health. The state-pharmaceutical relationship, which increasingly influences health policy, is no exception. That is especially so when pharmaceutical products such as vaccines, a burgeoning sector of the industry, are mandated in direct violation of the principle of informed consent. Such policies have provoked suspicion and dissent as critics question the integrity of the state-pharma alliance and its impact on vaccine safety. However, rather than encouraging open debate, draconian modes of governance have been implemented to repress and silence any form of criticism, thereby protecting the activities of the state and pharmaceutical industry from independent scrutiny. The article examines this relationship in the context of recent legislation in Australia to intensify its mandatory regime around vaccines. It argues that attempts to undermine freedom of speech, and to systematically excoriate those who criticise or dissent from mandatory vaccine programs, function as a corrupting process and, by extension, serve to provoke the notion that corruption does indeed exist within the state-pharma alliance.

There are many examples that illustrate why so many people simply cannot trust these institutions when it comes to anything, let alone health. Another one comes from comes from a paper published in 2010 by Robert G. Evans, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Vancouver School of Economics, UBC.  The paper, titled “Tough on Crime? Pfizer and the CIHR”  is accessible through the National Library of Medicine (PubMed), and it outlines how Pfizer has been a “habitual offender” constantly engaging in illegal and criminal activities. This particular paper points out that from 2002 to 2010, Pfizer has been “assessed $3 billion in criminal convictions, civil penalties and jury awards” and has set records for both criminal fines and total penalties. Keep in mind we are now in 2021, that number is likely much higher.

A fairly recent article published in the New England Journal of Medicine focuses on outlining why those injured by the COVID-19 vaccine won’t be eligible for compensation from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) because COVID is still an “emergency.” It also brings up the topic of vaccine hesitancy.

It mentions that among African Americans, many are hesitant to get their COVID vaccine because of events like the Tuskegee syphilis study. The study used African Americans to see how syphilis progressed. The people with syphilis were told they were receiving free treatment, but they were really receiving nothing. This also happened after the discovery of a cure, the people were still not given the cure or any other known treatment. They were lied to.

It wasn’t until a whistleblower, Peter Buxtun, leaked information about the study to the New York Times and the paper published it on the front page on November 16^th, 1972, that the Tuskegee study finally ended. By this time only 74 of the test subjects were still alive. 128 patients had died of syphilis or its complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had acquired congenital syphilis.

The study in the NEJM points out:

In a Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted in August and September 2020, it was found that 49%of Black respondents would probably not or definitely not take a Covid-19 vaccine, as compared with 33% of White respondents. Similarly, a Pew Research Center poll from November found that although 71% of Black respondents knew someone who had been hospitalized or died from Covid-19, only 42% intended to get a Covid-19 vaccine when it became available. These findings indicate a need to provide strong safety nets and supports to encourage Covid-19 vaccine adoption in vulnerable communities, including adequate injury compensation.

One study estimates up to 31 percent of  surveyed Americans may not take the vaccine. That’s a lot of people if you extrapolate it out to the entire population. And it’s hard to really know how many people won’t. CNN has made it seem as if Donald Trump supporters will not be taking the shot, if this is the case that could be more than 50 percent of Americans, or at least all those who voted for Trump, which is a big number.

There are countless examples, it’s not just within the black community. Multiple polls in Canada and the United States have shown that what seem to be quite a large minority will not be getting the vaccine. This also includes medical professionals. For example 50 percent of healthcare workers and hospital staff in Riverside County are refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Keep in mind that Riverside County, California has a population of approximately 2.4 million. A survey conducted at Chicago’s Loretto Hospital shows that 40 percent of healthcare workers will not take the COVID-19 vaccine once it’s available to them.

Vaccine hesitancy among physicians and academics is nothing new. To illustrate this I often point to a conference held at the end of 2019 put on by the World Health Organization (WHO). At the conference, Dr. Heidi Larson a Professor of Anthropology and the Risk and Decision Scientist Director at the Vaccine Confidence Project Emphasized this point, having  stated,

The other thing that’s a trend, and an issue, is not just confidence in providers but confidence of health care providers. We have a very wobbly health professional frontline that is starting to question vaccines and the safety of vaccines. That’s a huge problem, because to this day any study I’ve seen…still, the most trusted person on any study I’ve seen globally is the health care provider.

2. The Virus Has A 99.95 Survival Rate.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, from the Stanford University School of Medicine recently shared that the survival rate for people under 70 years of age is about 99.95 percent. He also said that COVID is less dangerous than the flu for children.  This comes based on approximately 50 studies that have been published, and information showing that more children in the U.S. have died from the flu than COVID. This correlates with data from Sweden as well.

Jonas F Ludvigsson a paediatrician at Örebro University Hospital and professor of clinical epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute has published research showing that out of nearly 2 million school children, zero died from covid despite no lockdowns, school closings or mask mandates during the first wave of the pandemic.

There is a perception out there that COVID is no more dangerous that other severe respiratory illnesses, which are the second leading cause of death worldwide, and that covid is similar to already existing coronaviruses that have circled the global for decades affecting hundreds of millions of people a year and killing tens of millions.

Another issue raised by many, which is a matter of public record now, is the fact that it’s very unclear as to how many deaths marked as COVID are, and were, actually a result of COVID.

These are reasons why people view the vaccine as unnecessary. In some cases, people feel that the risk of vaccine injury is greater than the risk of dying from COVID, which may actually be quite true. This is a completely separate debate, but here is data from the (US) Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS):

This system (VAERS) has been known to only capture about 1 percent of vaccine injuries. A 2010 HHS pilot study by the Federal Agency for Health Care Research (AHCR) in the United States found that 1 in every 39 vaccines causes injury, a shocking comparison to the claims from the CDC of 1 in every million. For example, From 1990 to 2007 there were about 80,000 US cases of Kawasaki disease; during the same period just 56 US cases were reported to VAERS–0.07%. (Hua et al, Pediatr Inf Dis J 2009: 28:943-947) The cause of KD is unknown; it is rare, it is very serious, and it is prevalent among young and frequently vaccinated children. If any event deserves prompt reporting to VAERS it is Kawasaki disease, but this does not happen.

Keep in mind that approximately 100 million people in the U.S. have had at least one shot.

On top of this you have reports of deaths all over social media. There seem to be hundreds of examples but at the end of the day, there is not a proper system in place to properly track adverse reactions and deaths. The mainstream is not at all interested in that conversation either.

3. Some People Don’t Know How Safe And Effective The Vaccine Is

Dr. Peter Doshi, an associate editor at the British Medical Journal published a piece in the journal issuing a word of caution about the supposed “95% Effective” COVID vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. It outlines multiple reasons why the effectiveness claimed by the pharmaceutical companies is called into question.

You can also read a piece that dives deeper into this question that we recently published, here.

The vaccine is being heavily marketed as a saviour, which is the case with almost all vaccines despite many concerns being raised over the years. One great example is with regards to aluminum containing vaccines. Scientists have discovered that injected aluminum is very different from ingested aluminum. Injected aluminum doesn’t exit the body, and can be detected within the brain years after injection. Is this “anti-vax”? No, it’s just science, these are legitimate concerns.

When it comes to the COVID vaccine, there are concerns, especially since the mRNA technology used in many of the vaccines is new.

A few other papers have raised concerns, for example. A study published in October of 2020 in the International Journal of Clinical Practice states:

COVID-19 vaccines designed to elicit neutralising antibodies may sensitise vaccine recipients to more severe disease than if they were not vaccinated. Vaccines for SARS, MERS and RSV have never been approved, and the data generated in the development and testing of these vaccines suggest a serious mechanistic concern: that vaccines designed empirically using the traditional approach (consisting of the unmodified or minimally modified coronavirus viral spike to elicit neutralising antibodies), be they composed of protein, viral vector, DNA or RNA and irrespective of delivery method, may worsen COVID-19 disease via antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE). This risk is sufficiently obscured in clinical trial protocols and consent forms for ongoing COVID-19 vaccine trials that adequate patient comprehension of this risk is unlikely to occur, obviating truly informed consent by subjects in these trials.

In a new research article published in Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, veteran immunologist J. Bart Classen expresses similar concerns and writes that “RNA-based COVID vaccines have the potential to cause more disease than the epidemic of COVID-19.”

For decades, Classen has published papers exploring how vaccination can give rise to chronic conditions such as Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes — not right away, but three or four years down the road. In this latest paper, Classen warns that the RNA-based vaccine technology could create “new potential mechanisms” of vaccine adverse events that may take years to come to light.

A few years ago, a team of Scandinavian scientists conducted a study and found that African children inoculated with the DTP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) vaccine, during the early 1980s had a 5-10 times greater mortality than their unvaccinated peers.

They state:

It should be of concern that the effect of routine vaccinations on all-cause mortality was not tested in randomized trials. All currently available evidence suggests that DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis.Though a vaccine protects children against the target disease it may simultaneously increase susceptibility to unrelated infections.

I’m placing this study here to show that some vaccines may have unknown long term health consequences, even if they do offer some protection to the targeted disease.

4. There May Be Protection From Infection

As with most viruses, the host gains immunity from infection. Take the measles virus. A child has a 0.01 chance of dying from the measles, yet if they survive the virus, they have lifetime protection against the virus, a strengthened and more evolved immune system, and may even have more possible protection from a select few cancers.

Furthermore, it’s very questionable whether the MMR vaccine is effective. There is a long history of measles outbreaks in highly vaccinated populations. Children are required to get one shot, then the antibodies run out so they are required to get a second. A third one seems to be in the works. It’s not even clear if the vaccine is more dangerous than the measles or not.

Martin Kulldorff, a medical professor at Harvard university and vaccine safety expert recently tweeted,

After having protecting themselves while working class were exposed to the virus, the vaccinated #Zoomers now want #VaccinePassports where immunity from prior infection does not count, despite stronger evidence for protection. One more assault on working people. 

He also recently tweeted:

Trust in #vaccines is declining, but don’t blame the tiny group of anti-vaxxers. It is those pushing #VaccinePassports, arguing that all must be vaccinated, and those censoring vaccine discussions that are undermining trust in vaccines.

There are multiple studies hinting at the point the professor makes, that those who have been infected with covid may have immunity for years, and possibly even decades. For example, according to a new study authored by respected scientists at leading labs, individuals who recovered from the coronavirus developed “robust” levels of B cells and T cells (necessary for fighting off the virus) and “these cells may persist in the body for a very, very long time.” This is just one of many examples. There are studies that suggest infection to prior coronaviruses, which prior to COVID-19 circled the globe infecting hundreds of millions of people every single year, can also provide protection from COVID-19.

The Takeaway

At the end of the day, there are ample concerns about the COVID vaccine, its effectiveness, the safety of it in the short term and in the long term. Despite these concerns, the vaccine is heavily marketed as unquestionably safe and effective. A fifth category could have been added to this article, and that’s the ridicule and acknowledgments of other, cheap effective treatments that have shown to have a tremendous amount of success. It seems these treatments would have rendered the vaccine useless and unnecessary, but the vaccine is a multiple billion dollar product.

We have to consider these things in this day and age. Would the “powers that be” really prevent and ridicule treatments that could have saved many lives, and can save many lives and render it useless and dangerous, despite so much evidence that says otherwise, to make the vaccine perceived as the only solution.

Do we really want to live in a world where we give a small group of people the ability to mandate vaccines in order to have access to certain freedoms we enjoyed prior to COVID? Is this right? Is this ethical? If we allow them to do this, what else will we allow them to do in the future?

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Fifteen million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J’s) vaccine failed quality control after workers at a Baltimore manufacturing plant negligently combined ingredients from AstraZeneca and J&J’s COVID vaccine.

The mix-up forced regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines and prompted an investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

According to The New York Times, the plant is run by Emergent BioSolutions, a manufacturing partner with J&J and AstraZeneca, whose vaccine has yet to be authorized for use in the U.S.

Emergent has been cited repeatedly by the FDA for problems such as poorly trained employees, cracked vials and mold around one of its facilities, according to records obtained by the Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act.

AstraZeneca and J&J’s COVID vaccines employ the same technology which uses a version of a virus — known as a vector — that is transmitted into cells to make a protein that then stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies.

However, J&J’s and AstraZeneca’s vectors are biologically different and not interchangeable.

Federal officials said Emergent’s mistake was human error that went undiscovered for days until J&J’s quality control checks uncovered it, according to people familiar with the situation. By then, up to 15 million doses had been contaminated, reported The Indian Express.

The error does not affect any J&J doses currently being distributed and administered in the U.S., as those were produced in the Netherlands where operations have been fully approved by federal regulators.

“As with the manufacturing of any complex biologic medication or vaccine, the start-up for a new process includes test runs and quality checks to ensure manufacturing is validated and the end product meets our high-quality standards,” J&J said in a statement Wednesday. “This approach includes having dedicated specialists on the ground at the companies that are part of our global manufacturing network to support safety and quality.”

Details of the issue were identified and addressed with Emergent and the FDA, J&J said.

An FDA spokesperson told news outlets:

“FDA is aware of the situation, but we are unable to comment further. Questions about a firm’s manufacturing facilities should be directed to that firm.”

As reported by The Defender, J&J has never made a vaccine, but since entering the pharmaceutical market in 1959, the company has made a lot of headlines and has been fined billions of dollars for bad, including some illegal, behavior.

Developing a vaccine requires many years and necessitates the establishment of an R&D infrastructure vastly different than the structure required for conventional drug development. Yet the company was able to rush to market its first vaccine for a viral strain identified just 14 months ago.

J&J has a relationship with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations and has a $1 billion deal with the U.S. government to provide 100 million doses of its Emergency Use Authorization experimental vaccine.

According to the FDA, J&J’s vaccine consists of a “replication-incompetent recombinant adenovirus type 26, a SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and contains the following inactive ingredients: citric acid monohydrate, trisodium citrate dihydrate, ethanol, 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HBCD), polysorbate 80, sodium chloride, sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid. The adenovirus is also grown in the PER.C6® aborted fetal cell line.

Polysorbate 80, an ingredient in J&J’s vaccine, is a suspected underlying cause of anaphylactic COVID vaccine adverse reactions. Studies show that polysorbate 80 disrupts the normally protective blood-brain barrier.

As The Defender Reported, the FDA authorized J&J’s single-dose COVID vaccine in late February with a reported overall efficacy rating of 66% for preventing “moderate to severe COVID-19.” The vaccine was only 42.3% effective about a month after getting the shot in people 60 or older who had comorbidities.

Although the FDA identified no safety concerns with J&J’s COVID vaccine, suspected vaccine injuries associated with the vaccine have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System since March 2 — the primary mechanism for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.

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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

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Once again, tensions are rising on the border between Venezuela and Colombia. Colombian paramilitary groups continue to use force to provoke, intimidate and encircle the Venezuelan government, serving the interests not only of Bogota, but of NATO – of which Colombia is an international partner.

On Thursday, two Venezuelan soldiers died after being hit by a landmine explosion during an operation near the border with Colombia. On the same occasion, nine Venezuelan combatants were injured and are being treated at a military hospital. The Venezuelan government has classified the case as a terrorist attack. Interestingly, the incident comes just after the Venezuelan Ministry of Defense announced the death and arrest of several Colombian paramilitaries in the border region, last Saturday.

These paramilitaries were members of irregular armed militias supported and financed both by the Colombian government and by its international partners (US and NATO) and since the beginning of the American crusade against the Maduro government, they have acted strongly on the border, carrying out attacks on soldiers of the Venezuelan armed forces and rehearsing a major invasion against the Bolivarian country. In response to Colombian provocations, the Maduro government launched the so-called “Operación Escudo Bolivariano 2021” (Operation Bolivarian Shield 2021), in March this year. According to official government data, the Operation has been successful in controlling the advance of the militias, but says it has difficulty mainly due to the ample aid received by these groups, which are financially and logistically supported by Bogota and Washington.

The Operation’s activities began on March 21 and have already killed 13 Colombians and four Venezuelans. Maduro says Bogotá has an interest in raising the confrontation to a conflict between the regular forces of both countries, which would be supported by the US Southern Command. Although these allegations are speculative, it is a statement that is consistent with the concrete data, considering the high degree of violence in the attacks by Colombian militias and the multifaceted military nature of Colombia.

It is necessary to understand that Colombia is a great military pluriverse, where regular and irregular armed forces coexist. Irregular forces are divided into paramilitary groups, guerrillas, criminal factions, drug cartels, mercenaries, political parties’ militias, among others. All of these organizations operate in parallel, controlling different regions and sometimes collaborating or fighting each other or the regular forces. With all this diversity of armed groups, the Colombian government does not immediately use its regular armed forces to serve its interests but calls the militias to carry out activities in an irregular manner, disguising the real intentions of the government.

These militias have ample firepower and receive abundant material aid, so that they manage to provoke their enemies strongly, however, they maintain an atmosphere of instability and uncertainties about the government’s plans, considering that it is not the regular armed forces that are in action. And this can be interpreted as a form of rehearsal for the future use of the armed forces. The mercenaries provoke Venezuela expecting responses at the same level of violence, so that Bogota then hardens the measures and can “justify” the use of its armed forces. Maduro, in denouncing this, demonstrates great strategic expertise and precisely for that reason the Venezuelan president has asked extreme caution to the forces of his country, so that they do not act with intensity beyond what is necessary and do not encourage a direct confrontation.

The fact that these tensions have been rising steadily in recent months shows that analysts who predicted a relief in anti-Venezuela policies (which were one of the marks of the Trump administration) with Biden’s election were wrong. The Democrat changed his speech in relation to the South American country and remains inert in the face of the unmeasured and unnecessary violence with which NATO-supported Colombian mercenaries have been working in the border areas, invading villages, and attacking Venezuelan military bases. Biden previously promised to try to negotiate a deal with Maduro so that new elections could be called in exchange for easing sanctions, however, after his election, the new president said he would not talk with Maduro in the short term, breaking his previous promise.

On American action in Colombia and support for irregular groups, Washington remains silent, when it should be held responsible internationally for stimulating conflicts and violating national sovereignty – which would be even more serious if investigations on the relations between groups supported by Bogota and Washington and the drug trafficking in South America were carried out, but it is something Washington tries to ignore in order to keep its accusation against Maduro of being a drug trafficker coherent.

Finally, as long as there is support from Washington and Bogota for mercenary groups, the violence will continue to escalate. Tensions are likely to reach an almost irreversible point in the near future, but it is too early to talk about a direct confrontation with regular forces.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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