All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

The UK Government’s reporting system for COVID vaccine adverse reactions from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency released their latest report today, March 4, 2021.

The report covers data collected from December 9, 2020, through February 21, 2021, for the two experimental COVID vaccines currently in use in the U.K. from Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

They report a total of 460 deaths and 243,612 injuries.

For the COVID-19 mRNA Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine analysis they report:

  • 2033 Blood disorders including 1 death
  • 1032 Cardiac disorders including 25 deaths
  • 3 Congenital disorder
  • 713 Ear disorders
  • 10 Endocrine disorders
  • 1242 Eye disorders
  • 9360 Gastrointestinal disorders including 11 deaths
  • 26,394 General disorders including 111 deaths
  • 17 Hepatic disorders
  • 466 Immune system disorders
  • 1863 Infections including 33 deaths
  • 393 Injuries including 1 death
  • 965 Investigations
  • 525 Metabolic disorders including 1 death
  • 11,565 Muscle & tissue disorders
  • 20 Neoplasms
  • 16,107 Nervous system disorders including 14 deaths
  • 29 Pregnancy conditions including 1 death
  • 1235 Psychiatric disorders
  • 187 Renal & urinary disorders
  • 338 Reproductive & breast disorders
  • 3575 Respiratory disorders including 12 deaths
  • 6042 Skin disorders including 1 death
  • 16 Social circumstances
  • 45 Surgical & medical procedures
  • 992 Vascular disorders including 1 death

Total reactions for the COVID-19 mRNA Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine: 212 deaths and 85,179 injuries

For the COVID-19 vaccine Oxford University/AstraZeneca analysis they report:

  • 799 Blood disorders
  • 1516 Cardiac disorders including 30 deaths
  • 13 Congenital disorders
  • 891 Ear disorders
  • 24 Endocrine disorders
  • 1613 Eye disorders
  • 17,597 Gastrointestinal disorders including 5 deaths
  • 56,377 General disorders including 146 deaths
  • 22 Hepatic disorders
  • 410 Immune system disorders
  • 3016 Infections including 32 deaths
  • 668 Injuries including 1 death
  • 1878 Investigations
  • 2057 Metabolic disorders including 2 deaths
  • 19,241 Muscle & tissue disorders
  • 13 Neoplasms including 1 death
  • 34,656 Nervous system disorders including 14 deaths
  • 19 Pregnancy conditions
  • 2773 Psychiatric disorders
  • 453 Renal & urinary disorders including 1 death
  • 229 Reproductive & breast disorders
  • 4059 Respiratory disorders including 10 deaths
  • 7872 Skin disorders including 1 death
  • 39 Social circumstances
  • 117 Surgical & medical procedures including 1 death
  • 1274 Vascular disorders including 1 death

Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine Oxford University/AstraZenec vaccine: 244 deaths and 157,637 injuries

For the COVID-19 vaccine brand unspecified analysis they report:

  • 4 Blood disorders
  • 2 Cardiac disorder including 1 death
  • 9 Ear disorders
  • 11 Eye disorders
  • 79 Gastrointestinal disorders
  • 289 General disorders including 1 death
  • 1 Hepatic disorders
  • 1 Immune system disorders
  • 10 Infections including 1 death
  • 5 Injuries including 1 death
  • 11 Investigations
  • 26 Metabolic disorders
  • 77 Muscle & tissue disorders
  • 177 Nervous system disorders
  • 22 Psychiatric disorders
  • 7 Renal & urinary
  • 1 Reproductive & breast disorders
  • 18 Respiratory disorders including 1 death
  • 38 Skin disorders
  • 1 Social circumstances
  • 7 Vascular disorders

Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine brand unspecified vaccines: 4 deaths and 796 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.

Full details found on the UK Government website.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Health Impact News

The Dangerous US/NATO Strategy in Europe

March 5th, 2021 by Manlio Dinucci

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

The NATO Dynamic Manta anti-submarine warfare exercise took place in the Ionian Sea from February 22 to March 5. Ships, submarines, and planes from the United States, Italy, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Belgium, and Turkey participated in it. The two main units involved in this exercise were a US Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarine and the French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle together with its battle group, and a nuclear attack submarine was also included.

Soon after the exercise, the Charles de Gaulle carrier went to the Persian Gulf. Italy, which participated in the Dynamic Manta with ships and submarines, was the entire exercise “host nation”: Italy made the port of Catania (Sicily) and the Navy helicopter station (also in Catania) available to the participating forces, the Sigonella air station (the largest US / NATO base in the Mediterranean) and Augusta (both in Sicily) the logistics base for supplies. The purpose of the exercise was the hunt for Russian submarines in the Mediterranean that, according to NATO, would threaten Europe.

At the same time, the Eisenhower aircraft carrier and its battle group are carrying out operations in the Atlantic to “demonstrate continued US military support for allies and a commitment to keep the seas free and open.” These operations – conducted by the Sixth Fleet, whose command is in Naples and base is in Gaeta – fall within the strategy set out in particular by Admiral Foggo, formerly head of the NATO Command in Naples: accusing Russia of wanting to sink with its submarines the ships connecting the two sides of the Atlantic, so as to isolate Europe from the USA. He argued that NATO must prepare for the “Fourth Battle of the Atlantic,” after those of the two World Wars and the cold war. While naval exercises are underway, strategic B-1 bombers, transferred from Texas to Norway, are carrying out “missions” close to Russian territory, together with Norwegian F-35 fighters, to “demonstrate the readiness and capability of the United States in supporting the allies.

Military operations in Europe and adjacent seas take place under the command of US Air Force General Tod Wolters, who heads the US European Command and at the same time NATO, with the position of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, this position is always covered by a US General.

All these military operations are officially motivated as “Europe defense from Russian aggression,” overturning the reality: NATO expanded into Europe with its forces and even nuclear bases close to Russia. At the European Council on February 26, NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg declared that “the threats we faced before the pandemic are still there,” placing first “Russia’s aggressive actions” and, in the background, a threatening “rise of China.” He then stressed the need to strengthen the transatlantic link between the United States and Europe, as the new Biden administration strongly wants, taking cooperation between the EU and NATO to a higher level. Over 90% of the European Union’s inhabitants, he recalled, now live in NATO countries (including 21 of the 27 EU countries). The European Council reaffirmed “the commitment to cooperate closely with NATO and the new Biden administration for security and defense, “making the EU militarily stronger. As Prime Minister Mario Draghi pointed out in his speech, this strengthening must take place within a complementarity framework with NATO and in coordination with the USA.

Therefore, the military strengthening of the EU must be complementary to that of NATO, in turn, complementary to the US strategy. This strategy actually consists in provoking growing tensions with Russia in Europe, so as to increase US influence in the European Union itself. An increasingly dangerous and expensive game, because it pushes Russia to militarily strengthen itself. This is confirmed by the fact that in 2020, in full crisis, Italian military spending stepped from 13th to the 12th worldwide place, overtaking the place of Australia.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The Dangerous US/NATO Strategy in Europe
  • Tags: ,

Ex-PMs Call on Japan to ‘Eradicate’ Nuclear Power

March 5th, 2021 by Bradley K. Martin

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Ex-PMs Call on Japan to ‘Eradicate’ Nuclear Power

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

A closed-door Bogotá summit of fugitive Venezuelan insurrectionists highlighted James Story’s role as Washington’s manager of the radical right-wing opposition. So who is the US “virtual ambassador” to Venezuela?

US “virtual ambassador” to Venezuela James “Jimmy” Story promised to answer a series of questions sent to him by The Grayzone this February 24. But after a Whatsapp exchange with this reporter during which Story offered to explain why he regularly alternated between Gargamel and the Smurfs as his avatar on the messaging app, the promised exchange never took place.

On March 2, Story’s assistant, David Fogelson, informed The Grayzone that the virtual ambassador “won’t be able to do the interview.” He offered no further details on Story’s turnabout.

That same day, during a Zoom event with the Venezuelan American Association of the US, Story boasted that his willingness to accept a few critical questions from his online audience “shows a transparency that the regime [in Caracas] does not show.”

The Grayzone’s unanswered questions to Story related to a closed-door summit the ambassador hosted between February 19 and 26 at the Bogotá Marriott hotel.

In a meeting at his home listed on the summit’s agenda, the ambassador served up barbecued meats and fine libations to a group of fugitive Venezuelan insurrectionists and far-right opposition leaders as they planned the next phase of the US-backed regime-change operation against the elected leftist government in Caracas.

The details of the meeting came to light after a Colombian official leaked news of the meeting to Venezuela’s government.

“Here is the agenda from the meeting that someone from the Duque government, angered that this is taking place on their soil, sent us,” tweeted the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, on February 22.

The tweet was accompanied by a screenshot of a document which outlined the itinerary of the conference, which was called “Visit of the Venezuelan Presidential Commission.”

According to Rodríguez, the summit’s attendees included right-wing opposition leader Leopoldo López, attorney and former lawmaker Julio Borges, and former Exxon lawyer Carlos Vecchio, who now serves as “ambassador” for Guaidó in Washington.

All three men are currently evading either criminal charges or prison sentences in Venezuela for crimes ranging from incitement of violence to participation in attempts to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Following the delegates’ arrival to Bogotá, the first event listed on their agenda was a welcome barbecue which took place on Sunday, February 21. Story confirmed the cookout on his weekly “Alo Embajador” YouTube livestream, noting that he roasted a pig. Joined by Juan Guaidó as his guest, Story insisted that he did not serve 18-year-old whiskey, as the Colombian source claimed to Rodríguez.

According to the agenda tweeted by Rodríguez, the Venezuelan coup-plotters spent Monday, February 22, gathered at Story’s residence. Topics for discussion included how to encourage “a transition from a position of strength” in Venezuela as well as the potential for unity among opposition parties.

The week-long summit also allotted time for conversations exploring the possibility of invoking the interventionist “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine in order to justify the invasion of Venezuela under the guise of humanitarian protection, as well as at least six “meetings with Washington.” Insistent that a broad panoply of the opposition was on board with Washington’s agenda, Story claimed to The Grayzone that 25 parties participated in the conference.

Several US agencies were listed in agenda documents as participants in the meetings. They included the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs; the State Department Office of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); and the White House National Security team. Think tanks were also listed as participants, but were left unnamed.

The event highlighted Story as the Biden administration’s de facto manager of the radical wing of Venezuela’s opposition that seeks regime change at all costs. The apparent outcome of the meeting suggested he has played a pivotal role in ensuring continuity between the Trump and Biden administrations on Venezuela.

On March 2, a week after the summit in Bogotá, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken formally recognized Juan Guaidó as “Interim President,” endorsing the maximalist Trump policy that rejected negotiations or any accommodation with Venezuela’s elected, UN-recognized President Nicolás Maduro.

Despite his central role in the Venezuelan regime-change scheme, Story has escaped the international scrutiny that other US officials like former State Department liaison to Venezuela Elliott Abrams have received. Story’s backstory may be less intriguing than that of Abrams, and certainly less sordid. However, he has been at the forefront of the US infiltration of South America, and helped set the stage for the assault on Venezuelan sovereignty through his participation in the Plan Colombia counter-insurgency campaign that consolidated Bogotá as a right-wing base of US influence.

Portraits of a putschist

James Story’s official title is US ambassador to Venezuela, though he has not worked inside the country since March of 2019. He is currently based in neighboring Colombia, where he coordinates Washington’s efforts to overthrow the Maduro government from within the US embassy in Bogotá.

In his official biography, he is described as a “career Senior Foreign Service Officer” with experience working in Afghanistan, Mozambique, Mexico, and Brazil.

Following a three-year stint as the US Consulate General in Rio, Story moved to Caracas in July of 2018 to serve as deputy chargé d’ affaires. The Venezuelan government had expelled chargé d’affaires Todd Robinson in May of that year, making Story the highest ranking US official in Venezuela.

Within six months of Story’s arrival in Venezuela, in January of 2019, the US announced its recognition of Juan Guaidó, a previously unknown opposition lawmaker, as president. As he worked to propel the coup, Story got close and personal with the self-proclaimed “interim president” and other opposition leaders.

On March 3, 2019, Story posted a photo to his Facebook profile showing himself on a friendly hike with former presidential candidate and rightist opposition figure Henrique Capriles Radonski during his time in Caracas.

“Climbed the Avila today with former Mayor, Governor, and Presidential candidate Henrique Capriles,” Story declared.

“The Venezuelan people love him,” Story enthused.

The following afternoon, Story posted a photo he took of Guaidó standing on top of a car surrounded by supporters with the caption, “Venezuela’s Interim President Juan Guaidó is back.”

Guaidó was returning from a regional tour during which he participated in a failed attempt to violate Venezuela’s sovereignty by ramming a convoy of USAID trucks across the country’s border. Story’s photo shows him in close proximity to the self-proclaimed “president,” and suggests he played a role in shepherding Guaidó from place to place.

Two weeks after publishing the photo, on March 11, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza informed Story that US diplomatic staff were no longer welcome in the country.

Story’s attraction to toppling leftist leaders was not limited to Venezuela. When a far-right military coup drove Bolivia’s elected president, Evo Morales, out of the country, destroyed his house, burned his sister’s home, poisoned his dogs, and orchestrated a national campaign of terror against his supporters, Story took to Facebook to celebrate the anti-democratic putsch.

In March 2020, Story promoted the multimillion-dollar bounty the Trump administration placed on the heads of Venezuelan President Maduro and several political allies on the dubious grounds that they were leaders of a previously unknown and likely non-existent drug cartel allegedly called “Cartel of the Suns.”

The photos remain on Story’s Facebook page as mementos of his proud role as de facto manager of the radical figures vaulted by the US to the helm of Venezuela’s opposition, and of his own dedication to regime change by any means.

When appearing in the US media, however, Story assumes a dramatically different image as a Southern gentleman with a careful, diplomatic touch.

AP’s February 1, 2019 puff piece of James Story

Behind the puff pieces, Story’s real role comes to light

In a glowing profile of James Story, whom it billed as a “steely huntsman at helm of embattled US Embassy in Caracas,” the Associated Press proclaimed that the diplomat’s “down-home Southern charm has opened doors.”

“In a rare feat for U.S. diplomats in Venezuela, who are usually ensconced in the hilltop U.S. Embassy compound liaising with opposition politicians,” gushed the AP, “Story has managed to establish a rapport with a number of powerful Venezuelan government officials, all the while gingerly sidestepping the political minefield running through anti-Maduro Miami that has made engagement a risky endeavor for any U.S. official. He also won the respect of his staff by joining the embassy’s softball team within days of arrival.”

Since his expulsion from Venezuela in March 2019, Story has worked out of the US embassy in Bogotá under a variety of titles, with former US President Donald Trump most recently appointing him to serve as “ambassador” to Venezuela in May of 2020.

Due to the US’ continued recognition of Guaidó – despite his failure to secure control of Venezuela’s government or even unite the country’s fractured opposition – no official diplomatic ties currently exist between Caracas and Washington. Until news of the recent summit of Venezuelan fugitives in Bogotá came to light, Story’s duties as “virtual ambassador to Venezuela based in Colombia” remained shrouded in mystery.

In its fawning portrait of Story, the AP quoted his former boss, US diplomat John Feeley, as saying “he can deftly sip cocktails with the diplomats but his heart is still somewhere duck-hunting in an early morning blind.”

Story brought his interest in foreign intrigue together with his passion for southern hospitality by serving up platters of grilled pork to a crew of fire-breathing coup leaders gathered at his home in Bogotá. But Story’s talents extended beyond charming the representatives of Latin American oligarchy, and into the murky world of drug wars and paramilitary repression.

A drug warrior defends bombing peasants with chemical weapons

Perhaps the most disturbing yet little known detail in James Story’s biography relates to his time working out of the US embassy in Colombia.

For roughly 25 years, the US oversaw an aerial fumigation program in Colombia, spraying approximately 4.4 million acres of its land with the cancer-causing herbicide known as glyphosate. (In the US, this substance is known as RoundUp. Its manufacturer, Monsanto, has paid out $10 billion to settle a class action lawsuit filed by cancer victims.)

The aerial crop eradication policy had a devastating impact on Colombia’s rural population. Thousands of people are estimated to have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the fumigations, while people living in affected areas “report[ed] skin, respiratory and gastrointestinal issues” according to the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).

“In addition to impacts on human health, environmental damages are also rampant. Spraying has led to massive crop loss,” CIEL added. “Residual spray has led to chemical seepage into groundwater and aquifers. The destruction of non-targeted plants has damaged some of the most biologically diverse regions, jeopardizing their very existence.”

In 2011, CNN featured a rare report exposing the US aerial fumigation program’s role in destroying the livelihoods of Colombian farmers. The CNN segment covered a documentary about Avelardo Joya, one of the 3.5 million Colombians internally displaced under the US government’s Plan Colombia counter-insurgency campaign.

The US crop eradication policy ruined Joya’s cacao and plantain farm, making him a refugee in his own country.

“They’ve destroyed our food,” Joya lamented to the filmmakers. “That’s the only thing they destroy, because our food crops cannot resist the poison they drop.”

To balance its report, CNN managed to find one voice willing to speak positively about the fumigation program. It belonged to the current US “virtual ambassador” to Venezuela.

“The aerial eradication program run by the government of Colombia has been extraordinarily successful,” Story proclaimed from within the comfort of his air-conditioned office, where he worked at the time as director of the narcotic affairs section of the US embassy.

Story went on to claim the policy resulted in a 40 percent drop in coca cultivation, while admitting, “there is some drift that happens” with regard to neighboring farms.

The full CNN segment featuring Story’s comments is embedded below:

Watch the video here.

According to the US embassy’s website, its narcotic affairs section in Colombia “advises the Ambassador on counternarcotics policy and works in close coordination with DOJ, DHS, and U.S. military counterparts.”

The US “virtual ambassador” to Venezuela has been marketed as an affable Southern gentleman, and there’s little reason to doubt he can serve up a lip-smacking rack of ribs. But the real story about Story lies behind the media-crafted image of the “steely huntsman,” and in the bowels of the US national security architecture, where coups are hatched, puppets are groomed, and peasants are transformed into refugees by the millions.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Anya Parampil is a journalist based in Washington, DC. She has produced and reported several documentaries, including on-the-ground reports from the Korean peninsula, Palestine, Venezuela, and Honduras.

The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican GomorrahGoliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

How Russia responds to Israel’s attacks on Iranian targets inside Syria could make all the difference as to whether the region boils over into full-scale war or continues to simmer at its current, already dangerous, level.

In an official statement last week, the special envoy of the president of Russia to Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, indicated that Moscow was rapidly losing patience with Israel over airstrikes against alleged Iranian targets on Syria soil.

“Sooner or later, the cup of patience, including the Syrian government, may be overflowing, and a retaliatory strike will follow, which will accordingly lead to a new round of tension. These attacks must be stopped, they are counterproductive. We hope that the Israeli side will hear our concerns, including concerns about the possible escalation of violence in Syria.”

The language, though diplomatic, leaves little room for misinterpretation. By using the term “including” about the Syrian government losing patience, Lavrentiev left no doubt that the other “inclusive” party was Russia. This linkage carries over into the not-so-veiled threat of a “retaliatory strike” and “possible escalation of violence.” In short, Lavrentiev’s warning was as blunt a threat against Israel that could be made short of stating the obvious – if Israel continues to bomb Syria, Russia will have no choice but to shoot down their planes.

From the moment Russia dispatched its armed forces to Syria in September 2015 to prevent the collapse of the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad at the hands of US-backed Islamist terrorists, it has found itself at the nexus of competing geopolitical games. One of the main issues confronting Russia was avoiding conflict in its airspace between its air force and the anti-Islamic State coalition headed up by the United States. This task was complicated by the fact that the US was really using the campaign to counter Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) as a cover for training and equipping Islamist forces dedicated to the removal of President Assad. The US also sought to leverage its influence with Syrian Kurds to create an autonomous region in northeast Syria that operated outside the control of Damascus.

Russia faced a similar problem with Turkey, a NATO member whose Ottoman-like ambitions led to engage in a policy that, if successful, would have resulted in the absorption of the Syrian province of Aleppo into the Turkish political sphere. Like the US, Turkey had engaged in a years-long process of organizing and arming anti-Assad forces. These forces operated under the direct control of the Turkish armed forces, and when Russia supported Syrian government efforts to reclaim territory lost to these groups, its aircraft frequently became involved in direct military operations against Turkish military forces.

Iran is likewise deeply ensconced in Syria. Like Russia, Iran’s involvement came at the explicit invitation of the Syrian government. Iran’s Syrian engagement pre-dates that of Russia; indeed, it was Iran which helped convince the Russians of the necessity for intervention. As such, Russia and Iran have had common purpose when it comes to stabilizing the security situation inside Syria. However, Iran’s involvement goes beyond simply helping Syria, and instead is part and parcel of a larger regional strategy built around the concept of an “axis of resistance” which would further Iran’s regional security and ambition. As such, Iran has used the Syrian conflict as a cover for facilitating military support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, both in terms of allegedly supplying that organization with precision-guided munitions capable of reaching Israel, but also establishing a de facto second front by helping Hezbollah establish itself in the Golan region of southern Syria.

The Iranian actions have been deemed threatening by Israel, which has responded by undertaking a concerted campaign of airstrikes designed to destroy and deter what it deems to be “malign Iranian” activity. Russia, which recognizes the absolute need for Iranian involvement in Syria, has sought to pressure Iran to reduce its presence along Syria’s contentious border with Israel. But there has been little Russia can do about Iran’s efforts to arm Hezbollah, given that this activity operates in parallel with the resupply of other pro-Iranian forces operating inside Syria. As such, Russia has taken a “hands off” approach when it comes to Israeli military strikes against targets affiliated with any Iranian activity not directly tied to supporting the Syrian government. While Russia has repeatedly cautioned Israel about the destabilizing effect of its airstrikes, Russia has avoided making any direct threats against Israel. Lavrentiev’s statement changes this calculus.

Israel has been preparing for a broader conflict with Iran, with some Israeli security experts predicting that “southern Syria could turn into the arena of the first northern war between Israel and the Iranian forces” sometime in 2021. A major calculation for Israel which could govern the viability of such a conflict is how Russia would react. Currently, Russia has stood down its air defense network in Syria and has reportedly prevented Syria from employing advanced surface-to-air missile systems provided to it by Russia. Russia likewise has kept its combat aircraft from operating in areas where they could encounter Israeli aircraft. This policy of restraint seems to have emboldened Israel, which recently increased both the scope and scale of its airstrikes against Iranian positions inside Syria.

By declaring that Russia’s “cup of patience” will soon run out regarding Israel’s actions in Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev has made it clear that Israel can no longer assume Russian inaction in the face of continued attacks on Iranian targets inside Syria. The question is whether Israel believes Russia is bluffing, or whether it can defeat any Russian actions in response to continued air strikes in Syria. In this, Israel would do well to reflect on Russia’s recent history, “bluffing” is not part of the lexicon. It would likewise do well to consider the potential repercussions of what Russian “retaliation” and “escalation of violence” might entail. Russia recognizes that a solution to the problems of Syria will only come after a lengthy period of diplomacy and political change. By threatening Israel with violence, Russia is sending a signal that Israel would do well to embrace the same logic. While there may be no military solution to the Syrian puzzle, there could very well be military consequences for any Israeli miscalculation.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

Featured image is from Sputnik International

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Continued Israeli Airstrikes on Syria Are Testing Moscow’s Patience, Jerusalem Would Do Well Not to Poke the Russian Bear
  • Tags: , , ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has decided to look into war crimes committed in the Israeli-Occupied Territories of Palestine. Outgoing chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said that the decision to go forward was reached after a painstaking 5-year review. The investigation will begin in 2014, suggesting that the court will consider war crimes by both Israeli officials and Hammas ones during the 2014 Gaza conflict.

Ms. Bensouda had announced on February 6 of this year that the Court had found that it had the competency to investigate war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but had not yet decided whether actually to do so.

Now it is clear that there is an appetite on the court to go forward.

The Rome Statute that acts as a charter for the ICC defines Apartheid as a war crime, such that Israel flooding its own citizens onto Palestinian land as grabby squatters may well be part of the court’s brief. Israeli actions contravene the 1949 Geneva Conventions on occupied territories.

Al-Quds al-Arabi [Arab Jerusalem], a pan-Arab London daily, quoted the foreign ministry of the Palestine Authority as welcoming the decision, saying that it demonstrated the court’s principled stand and its independence, and its dedication to the principles of the 2002 Rome Statute.

The state of Palestine brought the motion to the International Criminal Court in 2018 after having tried for three years to get the far right, expansionist government of Binyamin Netanyahu to stop colonizing Palestinian land and resources. The state of Palestine was recognized as a permanent observer state by the UN General Assembly in 2012, giving it the same status that the Vatican enjoys. That status allowed Palestine to join the International Criminal Court in 2015.

The ICC cannot investigate Israel proper, since Tel Aviv is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and the court only has jurisdiction over signatories. The only other way the court can intervene is if the UN Security Council forwards a case to it, as happened when Moammar Gaddafi began shooting down Libyans in February, 2011. Because the US generally wields its veto to protect Israel, the International Criminal Court is unlikely to get a referral regarding Israel.

Since, however, Palestine joined the ICC in 2015, and since Palestine brought a complaint in 2018, the court has decided that it now has jurisdiction over the Palestinian territories. Since those are where most of the war crimes occur, the court now has a wide range of issues to consider.

Al-Quds al-Arabi notes that Bensouda cautioned that this process would take some time. Some work will be delayed because of the pandemic. The first step will be to set priorities for investigation.

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced the court’s decision, saying “The United States firmly opposes and is deeply disappointed by this decision. The ICC has no jurisdiction over this matter. Israel is not a party to the ICC and has not consented to the Court’s jurisdiction, and we have serious concerns about the ICC’s attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel.”

He added that the US ““will continue to uphold our strong commitment to Israel and its security, including by opposing actions that seek to target Israel unfairly.”

Blinken is flat out wrong on every point he makes. The ICC is not investigating crimes on Israeli soil, but in the Palestinian Occupied territories. Since Palestine as a permanent UN observer state is a member of the ICC and invited the court into its territory, the International Criminal Court has every right to investigate violations of the Rome Statute that took place in those territories. As for Israeli personnel, if they committed their crimes in Palestine, they are liable to prosecution.

The ICC is not treating Israel unfairly. It will also look at Hamas violations. Moreover, it isn’t unfair to investigate a country for committing war crimes when it has actually, like, committed war crimes. Blinken sounds like every convict in prison, who has been unfairly persecuted and never did murder that old lady to get at her purse.

Blinken already let the crown prince of Saudi Arabia off without sanctions for murdering Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Now he is running interference for Netanyahu. He is quickly becoming the face of American hypocrisy, which only wants sanctions on Russians and Iranians who are rivals but never on officials from countries that talk nice about the US.

Although it may itself be under scrutiny, Al Jazeera says, the Hamas party-militia that rules the Palestinian Gaza Strip welcomed the announcement. Spokesman Hazim Qasim said, “Hamas welcomes the decision of the International Criminal Court to investigate the crimes of the Israeli Occupation against our people.” He added, “Our resistance is a legitimate resistance and comes within the framework of defense on our people.”

For his part, Israeli foreign minister Gabriel “Gabi” Ashkenazi rejected the decision of the ICC, calling it “morally and legally bankrupt.” He said, “The decision to open an investigation against Israel is beyond the court’s mandate, and a waste of the international community’s resources by a biased institution that has lost all legitimacy.”

Al-Quds al-Arabi further quoted Ashkenazi as saying, “Israel will take all necessary steps to protect its citizens and its troops from legal persecution.”

I think all criminals view legal prosecution as a form of persecution.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image: Israeli soldier aim at Palestinians protesting confiscation of their land by Jewish settlements in Kufr Qadoom vsillage near the West Bank city of Nablus, Oct. 11, 2019. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Senators Go After Endless Wars

In a long overdue effort Bipartisan Senators Introduce Bill to Strip Biden of War Powers.

Sens. Tim Kaine and Todd Young on Wednesday introduced bipartisan legislation that would repeal decades-old authorizations for the use of military force in the Middle East, amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran in the region.

Kaine (D-Va.) and Young (R-Ind.) unveiled the measure as lawmakers have expressed frustration with President Joe Biden’s decision to launch airstrikes in Syria last week without first seeking congressional approval. It also comes just hours after an Iraqi military base housing U.S. troops and civilian contractors was hit by rocket attacks.

The bill would repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations that cleared the way for a prolonged military conflict in Iraq, culminating in calls from Democrats and Republicans alike to end the so-called “forever wars” in the region.

Senators from across the ideological spectrum signed onto the Kaine-Young bill as co-sponsors on Wednesday, including Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

“Last week’s airstrikes in Syria show that the executive branch, regardless of party, will continue to stretch its war powers,” Kaine said. “Congress has a responsibility to not only vote to authorize new military action, but to repeal old authorizations that are no longer necessary.”

Biden angered congressional Democrats when he launched airstrikes against Iran-backed military installations in Syria, with lawmakers lamenting that the White House did not consult with Congress ahead of time and did not properly notify them about the strikes.

Congress has largely abdicated its constitutional authority to declare war, and presidents from both parties have used outdated authorizations to legally justify U.S. military action — including, and perhaps most notably, the 2001 authorization for the use of military force against al Qaeda and the Taliban, which was approved in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The Kaine-Young bill, though, only deals with the 1991 and 2002 measures, which are entirely focused on Iraq.

No Longer Necessary?!

Not quite. Those bills were never necessary and never should have been passed at all, in any form.

Bush, Obama, and Trump all made terrible use of those bills.

Congress and Congress alone should authorize war and be damn careful when it does.

Warmongers on both sides, notably Hillary Clinton, agreed to fight a stupid second war with Iraq on what any reasonable person should have seen as a pack of lies by Bush and Cheney.

We are still there needlessly and senselessly.

Republicans would not strip Trump but some will be happy to strip Biden. Better late than never, but still not enough.

One Step Further

Congress should go one step further and set a timeline for all troops to return from everywhere starting with the Mideast and Cuba, preferably immediately.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is Sen. Tim Kaine (Public Domain)

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Bipartisan Senators Seek to Strip Biden of War Powers

This Week’s Most Popular Articles

March 5th, 2021 by Global Research News

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on This Week’s Most Popular Articles

The Impact of COVID-19 on Pediatric Mental Health

March 5th, 2021 by FAIR Health

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on mental health, particularly on that of young people. Defining the pediatric population as individuals aged 0-22 years, and focusing on the age groups 13-18 years and 19-22 years, FAIR Health studied the effects of the pandemic on US pediatric mental health. To do so, FAIR Health analyzed data from its database of over 32 billion private healthcare claim records, tracking month-by-month changes from January to November 2020 compared to the same months in 2019. Aspects of pediatric mental health investigated include overall mental health, intentional self-harm, overdoses and substance use disorders, top mental health diagnoses, reasons for emergency room visits and state-by-state variations. Among the key findings:

Overall Mental Health

  • In March and April 2020, mental health claim lines1 for individuals aged 13-18, as a percentage of all medical claim lines, approximately doubled over the same months in the previous year. All medical claim lines (including mental health claim lines), however, decreased by approximately half. That pattern of increased mental health claim lines and decreased medical claim lines continued through November 2020, though to a lesser extent.
  • A similar pattern was seen for individuals aged 19-22, though the changes were smaller. In general, the age group 19-22 had mental health trends similar to but less pronounced than the age group 13-18.

Intentional Self-Harm

  • Claim lines for intentional self-harm as a percentage of all medical claim lines in the 13-18 age group increased 90.71 percent in March 2020 compared to March 2019. The increase was even larger when comparing April 2020 to April 2019, nearly doubling (99.83 percent).
  • Comparing August 2019 to August 2020 in the Northeast, for the age group 13-18, there was a 333.93 percent increase in intentional self-harm claim lines as a percentage of all medical claim lines, a rate higher than that in any other region in any month studied for that age group.

Overdoses and Substance Use Disorders

  • For the age group 13-18, claim lines for overdoses increased 94.91 percent as a percentage of all medical claim lines in March 2020 and 119.31 percent in April 2020 over the same months the year before. Claim lines for substance use disorders also increased as a percentage of all medical claim lines in March (64.64 percent) and April (62.69 percent) 2020 as compared to their corresponding months in 2019.

Mental Health Diagnoses

  • For the age group 6-12, from spring to November 2020, claim lines for obsessive-compulsive disorder and tic disorders increased as a percentage of all medical claim lines from their levels in the corresponding months of 2019.
  • For the age group 13-18, in April 2020, claim lines for generalized anxiety disorder increased 93.6 percent as a percentage of all medical claim lines over April 2019, while major depressive disorder claim lines increased 83.9 percent and adjustment disorder claim lines 89.7 percent.

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on mental health. Infection-related fears, bereavement, economic instability and social isolation have triggered and exacerbated mental health issues.2 In a survey in March 2020, 45 percent of adults reported that worry and stress related to coronavirus had had a negative impact on their mental health.3 A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the prevalence of depression reported in June 2020 was approximately four times that reported in the second quarter of 2019, and the prevalence of anxiety in June 2020 was about three times that in the second quarter of 2019.4 More than 42 percent of respondents surveyed by the US Census Bureau in December 2020 reported symptoms of anxiety or depression that month, a rise from 11 percent the previous year.5

Young people have proven especially vulnerable to mental health issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. School closures, having to learn remotely and isolating from friends due to social distancing have been sources of stress and loneliness. A review of the international literature identified high rates of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic symptoms among children during the pandemic.6 A CDC report showed that, starting in April 2020, the proportion of mental health-related emergency room (ER) visits for children under 18 among all pediatric ER visits increased and stayed elevated through October.7 Students surveyed at seven American universities reported largely negative impacts of COVID-19 on their psychological health and lifestyle behaviors.8

In a series of studies, FAIR Health has examined several aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first brief projected the costs to the nation of inpatient services for COVID-19 patients.9 The second brief analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on hospitals and health systems.10 The third brief concerned the impact of COVID-19 on healthcare professionals.11 The fourth brief profiled COVID-19 patients by illuminating some of their key characteristics.12 The fifth brief examined the impact of the pandemic on dental services.13 A white paper analyzed risk factors for COVID-19 mortality.14

This white paper concerns the impact of the pandemic on pediatric mental health in the United States. FAIR Health herein defines the pediatric population as including individuals aged 0-22, in order to encompass not only children and adolescents but young adults. The focus of most of the study is on the age groups 13-18 (people in middle school and high school) and 19-22 (the college-age population).

To study the impact of the pandemic on these age groups, FAIR Health analyzed data from its database of over 32 billion private healthcare claim records, the nation’s largest such repository, which is growing by over 2 billion claim records per year. The analysis includes month-by-month changes from January to November 2020 compared to the same months in 2019. Aspects of pediatric mental health investigated include overall mental health, intentional self-harm, overdoses and substance use disorders, top mental health diagnoses, reasons for ER visits and state-by-state variations. Among the factors considered are age group, gender, region and place of service (in particular, telehealth versus office visits).

FAIR Health is a national, independent nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing transparency to healthcare costs and health insurance information. The data in its repository of private healthcare claims are contributed by over 60 payors and third-party administrators who insure or process claims for private insurance plans. The dataset includes data on fully insured and employer self-funded plans and Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C) enrollees, but not on uninsured individuals or those on Medicare Parts A, B and D.15 Those insured under other government programs, such as Medicaid, CHIP, and state and local government programs, are also not included.

Read full report here.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is by Xavier Donat

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Astounding new figures out of France suggest what is no doubt a broader global trend of hesitancy and skepticism when it comes to the current big push to ‘vaccinate all’. 

Reuters in covering the country’s vaccine rollout finds that merely around “half of health workers in French care homes do not want to be vaccinated” — even after many of these routinely witness the ravages of COVID-19 on the elderly and infirm.

“There’s a complete loss of trust,” one home health care worker and trade union representative was cited in the report as saying, reflecting resistance to the growing pressure put on often underpaid staff in difficult working conditions who are being ordered to get vaccinated lest they risk the safety of the elderly patients. And another reflected a common answer of “I’m going to wait a bit”.

The intense skepticism and pushback stems from the fact that it’s both the government that’s reportedly underpaying them, while also demanding they get the jab.

Reuters presents a common refrain among the frontline care-givers as follows:

Marie-France Boudret, who works in a French home for the elderly, watched a patient suffocate to death in front of her because COVID-19 had infected his lungs. But when her employer offered her a vaccine against the virus, the nurse hesitated.

“I have some doubts,” said Boudret, 48. “I prefer to wait.”

The trend is also being observed across Europe, raising deep concerns among health officials that the elderly population remains at great risk to the degree that large portions of health workers refuse or at least delay the jab.

The report offers as nearby examples Germany and Switzerland, where resistance to the vaccine among home healthcare staff could be even greater than in France. “In Germany, care home operator BeneVit Group surveyed staff in November and found only 30% wanted to get vaccinated,” writes Reuters.

*

Over the past year France has struggled to contain a series deadly coronavirus outbreaks at nursing homes and elderly care facilities, akin to similar tragedies in New York and other places in the US:

And of Switzerland, the report cites the following: “Peter Burri, head of ProSenectute, Switzerland’s biggest advocacy group for seniors, said at most half of nursing staff in the medical sector were willing to get inoculated.”

France has lately been debating whether or not older people with pre-existing conditions should receive AstraZeneca’s vaccine. Previously Paris warned against it, however, on Tuesday government health officials revised the stance which had been taken out of caution over lack of data from clinical trials, and has now lifted the ban for people 65 and up.

Currently France is approaching the 4 million mark (at 3.8 million) in terms of recorded total COVID invections since the pandemic began, including over 87,000 deaths.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Viacheslav Lopatin | scaliger – stock.adobe.com

Selected Articles: The Dangers of A “Sino-American Hot War”

March 4th, 2021 by Global Research News

Trump & Biden’s Secret Bombing Wars

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, March 04 2021

Unbeknownst to many Americans, the U.S. military and its allies are engaged in bombing and killing people in other countries on a daily basis. The U.S. and its allies have dropped more than 326,000 bombs and missiles on people in other countries since 2001, including over 152,000 in Iraq and Syria.

The Dangers of A “Sino-American Hot War”: Joe Biden’s China Policy. Can He Stop the Shooting War Against China?

By Prof. Joseph H. Chung, March 04 2021

The forty years of the Cold War have made us endure hunger, fear and hopelessness. The year old pandemic has made us desperate and vulnerable. Now, we are facing a new global threat, namely the Sino-American hot war which may mean the end the human civilization.

Biden Does Not Say Where and How ‘America Is Back’

By Michael Jansen, March 04 2021

US President Joe Biden insists, “America is back.” He says the US has returned to the world stage as a prominent actor and leader after four years of absence and wrong-headed policies adopted by the Trump administration. But, Biden does not say where and how “America is back.”

Biden, Afghanistan and Forever Wars

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, March 04 2021

The papers are full of suggestions on what US President Joe Biden should do about his country’s seemingly perennial involvement in Afghanistan. None are particularly useful, in that they ignore the central premise that a nation state long mauled, molested and savaged should finally be left alone.

The Bamiyan Buddhas: An Afghan Tale

By Pepe Escobar, March 04 2021

The destruction process started with the legs of the Great Buddha: one of them was already cut at the knee and the other at the femur. It took them four days – using mines, explosives and even artillery. The Taliban forced local Hazara youth to drill holes in the statues: those who refused were shot dead.

Orwell in Disguise: US Congress Passes the So-Called “For the People Act”

By Stephen Lendman, March 04 2021

Congressional legislation most always serves special interests, not all Americans equitably. Deceptive Orwellian language disguises intent. It’s common practice for much congressional legislation.

Death Rates Skyrocket in Israel Following Pfizer Experimental COVID “Vaccines”

By Brian Shilhavy, March 04 2021

We have previously reported how Israel rapidly vaccinated the highest percentage of their population with experimental COVID vaccines after the Israeli government struck a bargain with Pfizer to secure millions of doses of their mRNA COVID vaccines.

Our Children Are Crying. “The Covid Stranglehold”

By Peter Koenig, March 04 2021

This world needs a generation that can lead us out of the mess of dystopian values that was created predominantly by a western civilization of greed. The covid crisis, man-made, served the destruction of the world economy, as well as the ensuing World Economic Forum (WEF) designed “Great Reset”.

Putin Blasts World Economic Forum “Honchos” at Davos “Gabfest”

By Mike Whitney, March 04 2021

Why is Vladimir Putin standing up to the richest and most powerful men in the world? Why is he bad-mouthing their “pet project” Globalization and trash-talking their “Great Reset”?

Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Rose 150% in Major U.S. Cities, Finds Study

By Countercurrents.org, March 04 2021

Hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans rose 150% in U.S.’s largest cities last year, even as overall hate crimes decreased, according to alarming new data released Tuesday.

Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration’s Eleventh-hour Approval of Dangerous Pesticide Banned in More than 100 Countries

By Center For Biological Diversity, March 04 2021

Public-interest groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency today over its rushed decision in the final days of the Trump administration to reapprove previously cancelled uses of the dangerous pesticide aldicarb on Florida oranges and grapefruits.

  • Posted in NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on Selected Articles: The Dangers of A “Sino-American Hot War”

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Congressional legislation most always serves special interests, not all Americans equitably.

Deceptive Orwellian language disguises intent.

It’s common practice for much congressional legislation.

On Wednesday, majority House Dems passed so-called HR 1 — For the People Act of 2021.

There’s nothing remotely democratic about their hostile to peace, equity, justice, and the rule of law agenda.

They stole Election 2020 and likely have more of the same in mind ahead.

HR 1 passed almost entirely along party lines.

Majority Dem House members adopted the measure in 2019.

It died in the GOP controlled Senate, perhaps facing a repeat defeat ahead.

Pelosi’s dark hands are pushing the measure opposed by the ACLU. See below.

Any measure 791 pages in length contains provisions to oppose, not support.

Few if any congressional members read the measure and other overly lengthy ones they vote up or down on anyway.

According to Pelosi, “(e)verything is at stake (sic). We must win this race, this fight (sic).”

“At the same time as we are gathering here to honor our democracy (sic), across the country over 200 bills are being put together, provisions are being put forward to suppress the vote (sic).”

She and other undemocratic Dems know all about voter suppression and related dirty tricks.

There’s nothing remotely democratic about a notion they abhor.

HR 1 contains provisions to facilitate election theft ahead.

Former congressman Ron Paul called the measure “one of the most dangerous bills for both election integrity and free speech that I have ever seen.”

HR 1 “is an attempt by the absolute worst of the Washington, DC statists to take over your state and local elections, while they institutionalize seriously questionable practices like universal mail-in and early voting.”

“Pelosi sponsored HR 1, a bill designed to allow her party to take over elections, and she did it as soon as she retook the speaker’s gavel.”

Provisions include:

“Forcing states to allow same-day walk-up voter registration.”

“Making it illegal to clean out voter rolls of deceased or non-residents.”

“Forcing states to allow early voting.”

“Forcing states to allow vote-by-mail, which is fraught with opportunities to commit fraud.”

“Forcing taxpayers to subsidize candidates they don’t align with politically, and

“Policing online speech about elections with new broad and sweeping powers.”

“They also fear any dissenters to their agenda, because it’s so unpopular among the general public, they know they must crush any dissent at the same time.”

“HR 1…also empowers federal regulators to categorize and regulate speech.”

The ACLU said the following about HR 1.

It supports provisions that “strengthen federal protections for the right to vote.”

Other provisions are unacceptable.

They “unconstitutionally burden the speech and associational rights of many public interest organizations and American citizens.”

“These provisions will chill speech essential to our public discourse and would do little to serve the public’s legitimate interest in knowing who is providing substantial support for candidates’ elections.”

In its current form, the ACLU opposes HR 1.

It should be split into a number of measures to be considered separately.

The ACLU supports legislation that strengthens the democratic process — opposing what goes the other way.

HR 1 as now drafted falls short.

The ACLU urged congressional members “to vote ‘no’ on passage of the bill” in its current form.

House members passed what an evenly divided Senate can defeat by use of the filibuster that requires a 60% majority to end debate.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Orwell in Disguise: US Congress Passes the So-Called “For the People Act”

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Why is Vladimir Putin standing up to the richest and most powerful men in the world?

Why is he bad-mouthing their “pet project” Globalization and trash-talking their “Great Reset”?

Does he really think these corporate mandarins and “silver spoon” elites are going to listen to what he has to say or does he realize that they’re just going to hate him more than ever? Why is he doing this?

Here’s what’s going on: At the end of January, Putin was given the opportunity to address the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland (online). The WEF is a prestigious assembly of political leaders, corporatists and billionaire elites many of whom are directly involved in the massive global restructuring project that is currently underway behind the smokescreen of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Powerful members of the WEF decided that the Coronavirus presented the perfect opportunity to implement their dystopian strategy which includes a hasty transition to green energy, A.I., robotics, transhumanism, universal vaccination and a comprehensive surveillance matrix that detects the location and activities of every human being on the planet. The proponents of this universal police state breezily refer to it as “The Great Reset” which is the latest make-over of the more familiar, “New World Order”. There’s not a hairsbreadth difference between the Reset and one-world government which has preoccupied billionaire activists for more than a century. This is the group to which Putin made the following remarks:

“I would like to speak in more detail about the main challenges ..the international community is facing…. The first one is socioeconomic….. Starting from 1980, global per capita GDP has doubled in terms of real purchasing power parity. This is definitely a positive indicator. Globalisation and domestic growth have led to strong growth in developing countries and lifted over a billion people out of poverty….Still, the main question… is what was the nature of this global growth and who benefitted from it most…..

… developing countries benefitted a lot from the growing demand for their traditional and even new products. However, this integration into the global economy has resulted in more than just new jobs or greater export earnings. It also had its social costs, including a significant gap in individual incomes…. According to the World Bank, 3.6 million people subsisted on incomes of under $5.50 per day in the United States in 2000, but in 2016 this number grew to 5.6 million people....

Meanwhile, globalisation led to a significant increase in the revenue of large multinational, primarily US and European, companies…In terms of corporate profits, who got hold of the revenue? The answer is clear: one percent of the population.

And what has happened in the lives of other people? In the past 30 years, in a number of developed countries, the real incomes of over half of the citizens have been stagnating, not growing. Meanwhile, the cost of education and healthcare services has gone up. Do you know by how much? Three times…

In other words, millions of people even in wealthy countries have stopped hoping for an increase of their incomes. In the meantime, they are faced with the problem of how to keep themselves and their parents healthy and how to provide their children with a decent education….

These imbalances in global socioeconomic development are a direct result of the policy pursued in the 1980s, which was often vulgar or dogmatic. This policy rested on the so-called Washington Consensus with its unwritten rules, when the priority was given to the economic growth based on a private debt in conditions of deregulation and low taxes on the wealthy and the corporations….

As I have already mentioned, the coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated these problems. In the last year, the global economy sustained its biggest decline since WWII. By July, the labour market had lost almost 500 million jobs…. In the first nine months of the past year alone, the losses of earnings amounted to $3.5 trillion. This figure is going up and, hence, social tension is on the rise.” (“Session of Davos Agenda 2021 Online Forum, Putin Addresses World Economic Forum, Jan 27, 2021)

Why is Putin telling his elitist audience these things?

Does he think these fatcats don’t know how the system works or how it was originally set up?

Does he think they are unaware of the glaring flaws in a system that shifts all of the profits to obscenely wealthy corporations and scheming elites while working people slip further into debt and desperation?

Putin knows how globalisation works, just as he knows who it was designed to benefit. It’s no secret. Check out this quote from the Russian president in a speech nearly 5 years ago:

“Back in the late 1980s-early 1990s, there was a chance not just to accelerate the globalization process but also to give it a different quality and make it more harmonious and sustainable in nature. But some countries that saw themselves as victors in the Cold War, not just saw themselves this way but said it openly, took the course of simply reshaping the global political and economic order to fit their own interests.

In their euphoria, they essentially abandoned substantive and equal dialogue with other actors in international life, chose not to improve or create universal institutions, and attempted instead to bring the entire world under the spread of their own organizations, norms and rules. They chose the road of globalization and security for their own beloved selves, for the select few, but not for everyone.” (President Vladimir Putin, Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club)

“To the victor belongs the spoils”? Isn’t that what Putin is saying, that Washington figured its Cold War triumph entitled them to create a system whereby they could pillage and loot the rest of the world with impunity?

Indeed, that is precisely what he’s saying. And he knows what he’s talking about, too.Putin has followed developments in global trade for over 20 years. He knows the system is rigged and he knows who rigged it. And now he’s telling them in no uncertain terms that they are responsible for the mess the world is in today. “The world is in crisis, because you fu**ed up.” That’s what he’s saying. It’s not a subtle message, he’s simply laying it on the line. Check out this blurb from an earlier speech by Putin where he shows that he’s not just a capable leader but also an astute critic of social trends linked to globalization:

“It seems like elites don’t see the deepening stratification in society and the erosion of the middle class…(but the situation) creates a climate of uncertainty that has a direct impact on the public mood. Sociological studies conducted around the world show that people in different countries and on different continents tend to see the future as murky and bleak. This is sad. The future does not entice them, but frightens them. At the same time, people see no real opportunities or means for changing anything, influencing events and shaping policy. As for the claim that the fringe and populists have defeated the sensible, sober and responsible minority – we are not talking about populists or anything like that but about ordinary people, ordinary citizens who are losing trust in the ruling class. That is the problem…. ” (President Vladimir Putin, Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club)

In this one brief comment, Putin shows that he has a better grasp of ‘what is going on’ in the west than any of the numbskulls in congress today. And notice how he ignores the hype about “racial justice”, BLM, “white supremacy” and the other “racialized” bunkum that’s propagated in the media today. He’s not hoodwinked by that nonsense. He knows it’s just another diversion promoted by the cadres of dirtbags who use race and identity politics to conceal their role in the ongoing class war. That’s what’s really going on. The men that Putin is addressing in his speech are the very same men who are doing everything in their power to eviscerate democracy, skewer the middle class and grind America’s working population into dust. It’s plain old class war dolled-up to look like racial unrest. Here’s more from Putin:

“…During the past 20 years we have created a foundation for the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution (AKA–“The Great Reset”) based on the wide use of AI and automation and robotics. The coronavirus pandemic has greatly accelerated such projects and their implementation. However, this process is leading to new structural changes, I am thinking in particular of the labor market. This means that very many people could lose their jobs unless the state takes effective measures to prevent this. Most of these people are from the so-called middle class, which is the basis of any modern society.

…. The rise of economic problems and inequality is splitting society, triggering social, racial and ethnic intolerance. Indicatively, these tensions are bursting out even in the countries with seemingly civil and democratic institutions that are designed to alleviate and stop such phenomena and excesses.

The systemic socioeconomic problems are evoking such social discontent that they require special attention and real solutions. The dangerous illusion that they may be ignored or pushed into the corner is fraught with serious consequences.” (Putin, WEF)

Putin understands that the Covid-related lockdowns and closing of “non-essential” businesses is merely prelude for the massive societal restructuring project elites have in store for us. They’ve already put millions of people out of work and expanded their surveillance capabilities in anticipation of the social unrest they are deliberately inciting. Putin thinks this futuristic strategy is unnecessarily reckless, disruptive and fails to account for intensifying social animosities and widening political divisions that are bound to have a catastrophic impact on democratic institutions. But Putin also knows that his appeal for a more cautious approach will be brushed aside by the billionaire powerbrokers who set the policy and call the shots. Here’s more:

“Society will still be divided politically and socially. This is bound to happen because people are dissatisfied not by some abstract issues but by real problems that concern everyone regardless of the political views that people have or think they have. Meanwhile, real problems evoke discontent.”

This is a recurrent theme with Putin and one that shows that he has a deeper understanding of what is really happening in both the United States and Europe than any of his peers.

Populist candidates, like Trump, have not gained momentum due to thier abilities and charisma, but because the financial situation of millions of Americans continues to deteriorate forcing them to seek remedies outside the establishment candidates. The economic distress is real and widespread and, as Putin notes, it is expressing itself in outbursts of discontent, frustration and rage. Here’s more:

“So, the key question today is how to build a programme of actions in order to not only quickly restore the global and national economies affected by the pandemic, but to ensure that this recovery is sustainable in the long run, relies on a high-quality structure and helps overcome the burden of social imbalances. Clearly… economic growth will largely rely on fiscal incentives with state budgets and central banks playing the key role.

Actually, we can see these kinds of trends in the developed countries and also in some developing economies as well. An increasing role of the state in the socioeconomic sphere at the national level obviously implies greater responsibility and close interstate interaction when it comes to issues on the global agenda.

Calls for inclusive growth and for creating decent standards of living for everyone are regularly made at various international forums. This is how it should be, and this is an absolutely correct view of our joint efforts.

It is clear that the world cannot continue creating an economy that will only benefit a million people, or even the golden billion. This is a destructive precept. This model is unbalanced by default. The recent developments, including migration crises, have reaffirmed this once again.” (Putin, WEF)

Putin’s recommendations, of course, are going to be dismissed with a wave of the hand by the men in power. The last thing these sociopaths want is “inclusive growth.. and decent standards of living for everyone.” That’s not even on their list, and why would it be. After all, they know what they want. “They want more for themselves and less for everyone else.” (George Carlin) Which is why the system works the way it does, because it was constructed with that one solitary goal in mind.

Putin also acknowledges the need for greater state intervention in the economy to counterbalance the more destructive effects of “smash and grab” capitalism. And, while he rejects the swift and far-reaching structural changes (The Great Reset) that would precipitate massive social upheaval, he does support a larger role for the state in providing essential fiscal stimulus, employment and a more equitable distribution of the wealth. This does not imply that Putin supports state socialism. He does not. He merely supports a more regulated and benign form of Capitalism that veers from the “scorched earth” model backed by powerful members of the WEF and other elitist organizations.

With that in mind, Putin makes these specific recommendations:

“We must now proceed from stating facts to action, investing our efforts and resources into reducing social inequality in individual countries and into gradually balancing the economic development standards of different countries and regions in the world. This would put an end to migration crises.”

The focus of this policy aimed at ensuring sustainable and harmonious development are clear. They imply the creation of new opportunities for everyone, conditions under which everyone will be able to develop and realize their potential regardless of where they were born and are living

I would like to point out four key priorities, as I see them.

First, everyone must have comfortable living conditions, including housing and affordable transport, energy and public utility infrastructure. Plus, environmental welfare, something that must not be overlooked.

Second, everyone must be sure that they will have a job that can ensure sustainable growth of income and, hence, decent standards of living. Everyone must have access to an effective system of lifelong education, which is absolutely indispensable now and which will allow people to develop, make a career and receive a decent pension and social benefits upon retirement.

Third, people must be confident that they will receive high-quality and effective medical care whenever necessary, and that the national healthcare system will guarantee access to modern medical services.

Fourth, regardless of the family income, children must be able to receive a decent education and realize their potential. Every child has potential.” (Putin, Davos)

What does it mean that the current president of Russia is now throwing his weight behind a program that is nearly identical to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s economic Bill of Rights? Doesn’t that seem a bit odd? After all, Putin is a devout Orthodox Christian, a strong proponent of the traditional family, a self-avowed social conservative, and a hardscrabble survivor of the failed Soviet state. Who would have thought that such a man would support a program that provides a decent standard living to every member of society regardless of their circumstances?

But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Putin is pushing for a return to the heavily-regulated “Heyday” of 20th Century capitalism, when workers’ wages were still on the rise, when college tuition and health care were still affordable, and when the American Dream was still within reach of the average guy. People were happier then, because they felt that if they applied themselves, worked like hell, and stashed their savings in the bank; they’d eventually reach their goal. But that’s not true anymore. People are much more pessimistic now and no longer believe that America is the land of opportunity.

Putin wants to rekindle that optimism. He wants to avoid social unrest by implementing programs that provide a more equitable distribution of the wealth. This isn’t a return to Communism. It’s sensible way to soften the harsher effects of unrestrained capitalism, which is presently ravaging the West. Here’s Putin again:

“This is the only way to guarantee the cost-effective development of the modern economy, in which people are perceived as the end, rather than the means…. A strategy, also being implemented by my country, hinges on precisely these approaches. Our priorities revolve around people, their families, and they aim to ensure demographic development, to protect the people, to improve their well-being and to protect their health. We are now working to create favourable conditions for worthy and cost-effective work and successful entrepreneurship and to ensure digital transformation as the foundation of a high-tech future for the entire country, rather than that of a narrow group of companies.

We intend to focus the efforts of the state, the business community and civil society on these tasks and to implement a budgetary policy with the relevant incentives in the years ahead….” (Putin, Davos)

Imagine a political leader who actually put the needs and well-being of his people before the special interests of his deep-pocket donors and shady corporate buddies. Imagine a leader who stood eye-to-eye with the big money guys and told them that their system “sucked” and that they were taking too much for themselves leaving nothing for anyone else. Imagine a leader who invited more criticism, hectoring, demonizing and punitive sanctions for “speaking truth to power” in order to stand on the side of ordinary working people, pensioners, cast-offs and the other victims of this globalist rip-off system.

The reason Putin spoke out at the WEF confab and put himself at risk, was because Putin is one of the “good guys” who actually believes that everyone deserves a shot at a decent life. And that’s what sets Putin apart from the other leaders in the world today. He doesn’t just “talk the talk”, he also “walks the walk.”

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

On Saturday Mumia Abu-Jamal was hospitalized.  When he put in a sick call slip and was seen by the SCI Mahanoy medical staff he was taken immediately to the hospital suffering chest pain and shortness of breath. Diagnosed with congestive heart failure he was given a battery of tests.  It is unclear how long Mumia was hospitalized, but by Wednesday he was in isolation in the prison’s infirmary.  This diagnosis of a weakened heart requires careful monitoring and treatment.

At the hospital his seriology blood test was positive for Covid-19. This followed three negative, or false negative COVID-19, tests  and a negative antigen test administered recently by the medical staff at SCI Mahanoy.

After initial treatment for fluid build up in his body, he was discharged from the local private hospital and put in isolation in the prison infirmary.   On Wednesday he was able to reach his supporters who were gathering in Philadelphia at 3 Penn Sq. outside the DA’s office, demanding that he receive appropriate medical attention.  He expressed his gratitude for the world wide support and attention to his and other elders with life threatening conditions in prison.

We must remember that the prison infirmary at SCI Mahanoy is the very same place that in 2014 diagnosed Mumia as having critically low blood sugar, ie a diabetic episode or reaction to a topical steroid he was taking for a raging skin condition.  The infirmary then ignored the notation in his chart to monitor his blood sugar levels for three weeks.  It was not until  he fainted and went into renal failure that he was rushed to the hospital.  His lawsuit in that case Abu-Jamal v. Wetzel is still pending.  It took a federal civil rights lawsuit, the order of a preliminary injunction, and world wide protests for Mumia to receive the fast acting anti viral cure to his belatedly diagnosed Hepatitis C.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections has repeatedly failed to provide adequate care for our family members.

We, the people, must toss aside our fears.  It is not the time to hesitate and we cannot give into despair. Decarceration is not a dream; it is a necessity.

We need to take action now!

*

Please consider reaching out to the following:

  • Gov Tom Wolf: 717-787-2500
  • PA DA Larry Krasner: 267-456-1000; @DA_LarryKrasner
  • Prison SCI Mahanoy: 570-773-2158
  • PA DOC Secretary John Wetzel: 717-728-2573

Script:

My name is _____ and I demand:

1. The immediate and unconditional release of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has congestive heart failure & has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and is vulnerable.

2. The immediate release of all political prisoners.

3. The immediate release of all elders, aging prisoners over the age of 50, people who have contracted COVID, and all others who are especially vulnerable to death through COVID-19.

Write Mumia a personal note:

Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg, FL 33733

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Mumia Abu Jamal Has Congestive Heart Failure and Is COVID-19 Positive
  • Tags:

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Russophobic US-led Western actions continue sinking to new depths.

In short order, they hit a new low under Biden, hardliners controlling his geopolitical agenda, and their EU counterparts.

Last December, former US envoy to Russia Thomas Pickering said sanctions imposed on Russia by Washington weren’t working, adding:

“It’s a huge country, great resilience, lots of resources.”

Pickering predicted tougher sanctions by Biden, along with pushing US allies to go in the same direction.

Russia earlier warned Washington and Brussels that it reserves the right to respond in its own way at a time of its choosing to “unlawful self-defeating” sanctions by its policymakers over Navalny or for other unacceptable reasons.

On March 2, Brussels in cahoots with the Biden regime imposed unlawful sanctions on “high-profile” Russian officials.

According to the Official Journal of the European Union, they include the following individuals:

Prosecutor-General Igor Krasnov, Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin, Federal Penitentiary Service head Alexander Kalashnikov, and Director of the National Guard Viktor Zolotov, among others.

Targeted individuals are barred from traveling to EU countries. Any assets held in the West will be frozen.

Shortly after the above was announced, the Biden regime followed suit with its own sanctions.

They include export controls on seven Russian officials, along with a Russian research institute.

US/EU actions were coordinated. According to a White House spokesperson, Russia was sanctioned for poisoning (sic), arresting and imprisoning Navalny, along with actions against protesters in Russian cities last month.

The spokesperson defied reality by claiming that the US “is neither seeking to reset our relations with Russia, nor are we seeking to escalate,” adding:

“We believe that the United States and our partners must be clear and impose costs when Russia’s behavior crosses boundaries that are respected by responsible nations, and we believe there should be guard rails on how these adversarial aspects of our relationship play out.”

“(A)s part of a robust inter-agency response to the poisoning (sic) and imprisonment of opposition figure Alexey Navalny, the Treasury Department is designating seven senior members of the Russian government.”

In addition, 14 Russian entities were blacklisted. Thirteen are private companies, nine located in Russia, three in Germany, one in Switzerland, plus a Russian research institute.

The spokesperson falsely accused them of involvement in chemical and biological weapons development and production — citing no evidence because none exists.

Further actions against Russia are coming, he added.

Tuesday’s coordinated US/EU actions escalated US-led hostility toward Moscow.

They further undermined mutual trust. Russian relations with the West are at a new low through no fault of its own.

In public remarks since taking office, Biden and hardliners around him expressed implacable hostility toward Moscow.

The US and EU sanctioned Russia on the phony pretext of human rights violations related to legal actions against convicted felon Navalny, cracking down on foreign orchestrated street protests on his behalf that turned violent, and expelling EU diplomats for participating in them.

Pretexts are easy to invent. If what’s explained above didn’t happen, something else would have been used as an excuse for sanctioning Russia.

Vladimir Putin earlier explained that the US sanctioned Russia 46 times during Trump’s tenure — by the White House and Congress, what Sergey Lavrov called “far-fetched pretexts.”

He also warned that Moscow is prepared to cut ties with the EU if unlawful sanctions by Brussels harm Russia’s economy.

Earlier he called what’s now unfolding in Washington and Brussels “sanctions for the sake of sanctions, for one’s own pleasure to punish.”

They “do not bring fruit and cannot divert us from our policy of protecting the nation’s interests.”

Lavrov’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said if more EU sanctions are imposed on Russia, an appropriate response “will follow inevitably.”

“It is absolutely unacceptable to use human rights and refer to democratic principles as a geopolitical instrument.”

“(W)e reaffirm our fundamental position that it is unlawful to impose unilateral restrictions in bypassing the UN Security Council.”

In response to US/EU sanctions announced Tuesday, Sergey Lavrov said the following:

The latest Western measures are “illegitimate and unilateral of the kind (that the US and) EU members who follow (its) example almost always resort to without any reason.”

An appropriate Russian response will likely follow ahead.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

We have previously reported how Israel rapidly vaccinated the highest percentage of their population with experimental COVID vaccines after the Israeli government struck a bargain with Pfizer to secure millions of doses of their mRNA COVID vaccines.

Vera Sharav wrote:

It is astonishing that the government of Israel entrusted the health of the people to Pfizer; by entering into a secret contract that enrolled the Israeli population to become research subjects, without their knowledge or consent.

To date, Israel has vaccinated over 53% of their population, twice the percentage of the next closest nation, Britain, with 26.9%.

Source.

The “official news” published by the corporate media claiming that the vaccines have been effective in reducing rates of COVID in Israel has been scrutinized and examined by Aix-Marseille University Faculty of Medicine Emerging Infectious and Tropical Diseases Unit’s Dr. Hervé Seligmann and engineer Haim Yativ, who published their results on a discussion forum website called “Nakim.”

The information quickly went viral, and has now been translated into several languages and addressed on various news sites around the world, including Arutz Sheva 7, IsraelNationalNews.com.

Mordechai Sones writes:

A front-page article appeared in the FranceSoir newspaper about findings on the Nakim website regarding what some experts are calling “the high mortality caused by the vaccine.”

The paper interviews Aix-Marseille University Faculty of Medicine Emerging Infectious and Tropical Diseases Unit’s Dr. Hervé Seligmann and engineer Haim Yativ about their research and data analysis.

They claim that Pfizer’s shot causes “mortality hundreds of times greater in young people compared to mortality from coronavirus without the vaccine, and dozens of times more in the elderly, when the documented mortality from coronavirus is in the vicinity of the vaccine dose, thus adding greater mortality from heart attack, stroke, etc.”

Dr Hervé Seligmann works at the Emerging Infectious and Tropical Diseases Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Aix-Marseille University, Marseille, France. He is of Israeli-Luxembourg nationality. He has a B. Sc. In Biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and has written over 100 scientific publications.

FranceSoir writes that they follow publications, data analyzes, and feedback from various countries on vaccination, and have therefore taken an interest in the Nakim article, asking to interview them in order to understand their analysis and its limitations.

The authors of the article declare they have no conflicts or interests other than having children in Israel.

After a presentation, the authors discussed their data analysis, the validations carried out, limitations, and above all, their conclusions that they compare with data received via a Health Ministry Freedom of Information Act request.

Their findings are:

  • There is a mismatch between the data published by the authorities and the reality on the ground.
  • They have three sources of information, besides the emails and adverse event reports they receive through the Internet. These three sources are Israeli news site Ynet, the Israeli Health Ministry database, and the U.S. federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database.
  • In January 2021, there were 3,000 records of vaccine adverse events, including 2,900 for mRNA vaccines.
  • Compared to other years, mortality is 40 times higher.
  • On February 11, a Ynet article presented data related to vaccination. The authors of the Nakim article claim to have debunked this analysis based on data published by Ynet itself: “We took the data by looking at mortality during the vaccination period, which spans 5 weeks. By analyzing these data, we arrived at startling figures that attribute significant mortality to the vaccine.”
  • The authors say “vaccinations have caused more deaths than the coronavirus would have caused during the same period.”
  • Haim Yativ and Dr. Seligmann declare that for them, “this is a new Holocaust,” in face of Israeli authority pressure to vaccinate citizens.

They also invite specialists to complete their analyses, and intend to pursue legal follow-up to their discovery. The Health Ministry was not available for comment on a FranceSoir query regarding the findings.

The authors also deplored “the fact of not being able to communicate on this vital information” to their fellow citizens.

Full article here.

Mordechai Sones also has his own radio broadcast in Israel, and a few weeks ago he began his broadcast by reading the names of 28 people who have died following the Pfizer experimental COVID mRNA injections.

The list begins with some elderly Rabbis, but also includes young people who reportedly had no existing health problems and died suddenly, including a 25-year-old woman.

After reading these 28 names, Mordechai states:

The list continues, but cannot be brought here in its entirety due to time constraints.

An Israeli man who posted this reading on YouTube stated:

I made this short video with an audio broadcast of Mordechai Sones; so that I could pass on the information that many people here in Israel have been dying after receiving the Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccine.

But none of this information seems to be making it into the mainline media.

I am calling on everyone to pray and seek the Lord to have this evil thing stopped immediately.

Here is the video from our Rumble Channel, and it is also on our Bitchute Channel.

I think it is safe to conclude that what is happening in Israel right now with the massive roll out of the experimental Pfizer COVID mRNA vaccine is a test of what the Globalists desire to roll out in other countries around the world, so everyone should be watching carefully what Israel is doing right now to see what is probably coming to the U.S. and other countries around the world.

From Mordechai Sones’ Facebook Page.

Israel has now started a “Green Pass” program that requires people to show proof of COVID vaccination to gain entrance to “registered” places of business. This was published yesterday, 2/28/21 in The Jerusalem Post:

The country is expected to further return to routine on Sunday and to facilitate this, the Health Ministry will roll out its “green passport” program.

A green passport will be required to enter certain places and to participate in certain activities. Only people who have been vaccinated or have recovered from coronavirus will be eligible for one.

As part of the program, registered gyms, theaters, hotels, concerts and synagogues will be able to operate starting next week.

“We are giving a huge line to vaccinators,” Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said on Thursday during an extensive briefing.

“This is the first step back to an almost normal life.”

Welcome to the new “almost normal.” Will the Israelis and other populations around the world comply with this?

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Health Impact News

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans rose 150% in U.S.’s largest cities last year, even as overall hate crimes decreased, according to alarming new data released Tuesday.

There were 122 hate crimes targeting Asian-Americans in 16 of the U.S.’s most populous cities in 2020, according to a study of police records by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, compared to 49 such crimes in those cities in 2019.

The first spike in anti-Asian hate crimes occurred in March and April, according to the study, “amidst a rise in COVID cases and negative stereotyping of Asians relating to the pandemic.”

New York City saw the biggest increase, recording 28 such hate crimes in 2020 compared to only three in 2019 — an 833% jump. Other cities with especially large upticks included Philadelphia and Cleveland, which both saw 200% increases; and Boston and Los Angeles, which both saw increases of over 110%.

These spikes, according to the study, occurred even as overall hate crimes in those cities fell 7%, a drop likely caused by coronavirus lockdown measures, which created “a lack of interaction at frequent gathering places like transit, commercial businesses, schools, events, and houses of worship.”

The study, first reported by Voice of America, is seen as a reliable predictor of annual FBI hate crime statistics for the whole country, released every November.

Brian Levin, executive director at the hate and extremism center, told HuffPost he predicts the FBI data for 2020, once it is released this fall, will show a “century-high” number of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.

“For our Asian-American friends and neighbors, this is similar to a post 9/11 time, similar to what we saw with Muslims and Arab-Americans,” Levin said, referring to the increase in hate crimes targeting those groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), whose district in Queens has recently seen anti-Asian hate crimes, told HuffPost that racist rhetoric and misinformation from public officials is to blame.

“We saw discriminatory rhetoric coming from President Trump and Members of Congress including from the highest-ranking Republican in the House,” Meng said in a statement Tuesday.

“Although Donald Trump is no longer in office, his past anti-Asian rhetoric and use of terms like ‘Chinese virus’ and ‘Kung-flu’ continues to threaten the safety of the Asian American community,” Meng said, adding that “so many Asian Americans” are currently “living in fear.”

For more than a year, Asian Americans have faced a deluge of attacks fueled by racist, nativist and xenophobic sentiments surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. As president, Trump exacerbated these attacks by continually referring to the pandemic using racist terms and scapegoating China, where the virus was first detected, to downplay his shambolic response to the pandemic.

This hate and fearmongering is another chapter in a long history of racism, nativism and xenophobia against Asian Americans, beginning in the 19th century, when Asian immigrants were deemed “the yellow peril” and accused of being filthy disease carriers.

Throughout the pandemic, Asian-American and Pacific Islander advocacy groups and local governments have recorded sharp upticks in anti-Asian racist attacks and harassment. Since last March, the group Stop AAPI Hate has collected nearly 3,000 reports from 47 states and the District of Columbia — everything from being verbally attacked or spat on to being physically assaulted or denied services. The number is likely an undercount because the incidents are self-reported.

In recent weeks, there has been a wave of high-profile incidents, including in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area, both with large and robust Asian American communities. Many of the attacks have involved older Asian Americans.

In one of his first acts as president, Joe Biden condemned anti-Asian racism and pledged to take more action, and the Department of Justice has said it will devote more resources to investigating such incidents.

Meng, in her statement to HuffPost on Tuesday, said she also plans to reintroduce her COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which would require the DOJ to provide Congress with regular updates on the status of reported hate incidents tied to the pandemic.

Local law enforcement in places like New York and California have also started more concerted efforts since last year, though some Asian American advocacy groups have expressed concern about law enforcement involvement.

Death of an elderly Thai immigrant after being shoved to the ground, slashing face of a Filipino-American in the face, and slapping of a Chinese woman and then set on fire are 3 of the main recent violent attacks on Asian-Africans. Violent attacks on Asian-Americans is part of a surge in abuse since the start of the pandemic a year ago.

From being spat on and verbally harassed to incidents of physical assault, there have been thousands of reported cases in recent months.

Advocates and activists say these are hate crimes, and often linked to rhetoric that blames Asian people for the spread of Covid-19.

The FBI warned at the start of the Covid outbreak in the U.S. that it expected a surge in hate crimes against those of Asian descent.

Late last year, the UN issued a report that detailed “an alarming level” of racially motivated violence and other hate incidents against Asian-Americans.

It is difficult to determine exact numbers for such crimes and instances of discrimination, as no organizations or governmental agencies have been tracking the issue long-term, and reporting standards can vary region to region.

The advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate said it received more than 2,800 reports of hate incidents directed at Asian Americans nationwide last year. The group set up its online self-reporting tool at the start of the pandemic.

Local law enforcement is taking notice too: the New York City hate crimes task force investigated 27 incidents in 2020, a nine-fold increase from the previous year. In Oakland, California, police have added patrols and set up a command post in Chinatown.

In recent weeks, celebrities and influencers have spoken out after several disturbing incidents went viral on social media.

Here are some of the recently reported attacks:

  • An 84-year-old Thai immigrant in San Francisco, California, died last month after being violently shoved to the ground during his morning walk.
  • In Oakland, California, a 91-year-old senior was shoved to the pavement from behind.
  • An 89-year-old Chinese woman was slapped and set on fire by two people in Brooklyn, New York.
  • A stranger on the New York subway slashed a 61-year-old Filipino American passenger’s face with a box cutter.
  • Asian-American restaurant employees in New York City told the New York Times they now always go home early for fear of violence and harassment.
  • An Asian-American butcher shop owner in Sacramento, California found a dead cat – likely intended for her – left in the store’s parking lot; police are investigating it as a hate crime.
  • An Asian-American family celebrating a birthday at a restaurant in Carmel, California, was berated with racist slurs by a Trump-supporting tech executive.
  • Several Asian-Americans homeowners say they have been abused with racial slurs and had rocks thrown at their houses.

Situation in California

Over six million Asian-Americans live in California, according to the latest population estimates, by far the most in any U.S. state. They make up more than 15% of residents in the state.

In Los Angeles County, hate crimes against Asian Americans are up 115%, CBS News reported.

There are more local efforts to combat the hate too.

In Orange County, neighbors stepped in to help out an Asian American family after a group of teenagers repeatedly targeted them for months with little police intervention. Neighbors now stand guard outside the family’s home each night, the Washington Post reported.

A March 2, 2021 report from California by KABC said:

Surveillance camera video shows vandals ringing the doorbell at the Ladera Ranch home of Haijun Si and his family in the middle of the night. Sometimes, the culprits pound on the door, throw rocks and shout out racial slurs. The family has been harassed for months.

“This harassment started almost immediately upon them moving here and the fact that it’s so clearly tied to their race is deeply upsetting,” said Olivia Fu, a Ladera Ranch resident.

Fu was among a large group of community members who held a cultural festival over the weekend to show unity and condemn hate and racism.

“We need to stand in solidarity with the Asian community,” said one speaker at the event.

Small business owners in Orange County’s nail salon industry joined local government and law enforcement leaders to stand against an increase in hate crimes against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders.

There’s growing concern about a string of violent attacks on Asian Americans.

In New York, a man was stabbed in the back in Chinatown Thursday night. A suspect is now in custody charged with a hate crime.

In another brutal incident, a Chinese woman was attacked outside a bakery.

“Sad, fearful, most of all outraged. This is 2021, it’s unacceptable,” said California Sen. Dave Min, who participated in the weekend community event.

With incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes on the rise during the pandemic, two SoCal congresswoman are introducing a measure to help protect the AAPI community.

In Los Angeles, authorities are investigating a possible hate crime at a Buddhist temple in Little Tokyo. Vandals knocked over lanterns, shattered a window and set a fire in the entryway.

In Orange County, community volunteers have formed a neighborhood watch, sitting outside the Si family’s home to keep vandals away.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

Video: The Dark Future of Health Passports

March 4th, 2021 by Hugo Talks

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

“We know they really want you to get a vaccine passport. That is the ultimate goal.” 

Watch the video below.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Video: The Dark Future of Health Passports

Do Not Rollout COVID-19 Vaccine Passports

March 4th, 2021 by David Nolan

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

We want the Government to commit to not rolling out any e-vaccination status/immunity passport to the British public. Such passports could be used to restrict the rights of people who have refused a Covid-19 vaccine, which would be unacceptable.

Sign the petition here.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Pixabay

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Do Not Rollout COVID-19 Vaccine Passports

Biden, Afghanistan and Forever Wars

March 4th, 2021 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

The papers are full of suggestions on what US President Joe Biden should do about his country’s seemingly perennial involvement in Afghanistan.  None are particularly useful, in that they ignore the central premise that a nation state long mauled, molested and savaged should finally be left alone.  Nonsense, say the media and political cognoscenti.  The Guardian claims that he is “trapped and has no good choices”.  The Wall Street Journal opines that he is being “tested in Afghanistan” with his opposition to “forever wars”.  The Washington Post more sensibly suggests that Biden take the loss and “add it to George W. Bush’s record.” 

The Afghanistan imbroglio for US planners raises the usual problems.  Liberals and Conservatives find themselves pillow fighting over similar issues, neither wishing to entirely leave the field.  The imperium demands the same song sheet from choristers, whether they deliver it from the right side of the choir or the left.  The imperial feeling is that the tribes of a country most can barely name should be somehow kept within an orbit of security.  To not do so would imperil allies, the US, and encourage a storm of danger that might cyclonically move towards other pockets of the globe. 

It never occurs to the many dullard commentators that invading countries such as Afghanistan to begin with (throw Iraq into the mix) was itself an upending issue worthy of criminal prosecution, encouraged counter-insurgencies, theocratic aspirants and, for want of a better term, terrorist opportunists.

The long threaded argument made by the limpet committers has been consistent despite the disasters.  Drum up the chaos scenario.  Treat it as rebarbative.  One example is to strain, drain and draw from reports such as that supplied by the World Bank.  “Conflict is ongoing, and 2019 was the sixth year in a row when civilian casualties in Afghanistan exceeded 10,000.  The displacement crisis persists, driven by intensified government and Taliban operations in the context of political negotiations.”  The report in question goes on to note the increase in IDPs (369,700 in 2018 to 462,803 in 2019) with “505,000 [additional] refugees returned to Afghanistan, mainly from Iran, during 2019.”

The come remarks such as those from David von Drehle in the Washington Post.  His commentary sits well with Austrian observations about Bosnia-Herzegovina during the latter part of the 19th century.  “Nearly 20 years into the US effort to modernize and liberalize that notoriously difficult land, Taliban forces once more control the countryside, and they appear to be poised for a final spring offensive against the parts of the Afghan cities that remain under government control.”  The savages, in short, refuse to heel. 

Von Drehle, to his credit, at least suggests that the US take leave of the place, admitting that Washington was unreservedly ignorant about the country.  He quotes the words of retired L. General Douglas Lute: “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan.”  Tellingly, the general admitted that, “We didn’t know what we were doing.”

Fears exist as to how the May 2021 deadline for withdrawing all US military forces looms.  Anthony H. Cordesman is very much teasing his imperial masters in Washington as to what is best.  “Writing off the Afghan government will probably mean some form of Taliban victory.”  This is hardly shocking, but Cordesman prepares the terrain for the hawks.  “This will create increased risks in terms of extremism and terrorism, but it is far from clear that these risks will not be higher than the risks of supporting a failed Afghan government indefinitely into the future and failing to use the same resources in other countries to support partners that are more effective.”  This is the usual gilded rubbish that justifies the gold from a US taxpayer.  But will it continue to stick?

A few clues can be gathered on future directions, though they remain floated suggestions rather than positions of merit.  The Biden administration’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance waffles and speaks mightily about democracy (how refreshing it would be for him to refer to republicanism) which, in a document on national security, always suggests overstretch and overreach. “They are those who argue that, given all the challenges we face, autocracy is the best way forward.”  But he also inserts Trumpian lingo.  “The United States should not, and will not, engage in ‘forever wars’ that have cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.”

Afghanistan comes in for special mention, and again, the language of the Trump administration is dragged out for repetition.  “We will work to responsibly end America’s longest war in Afghanistan while ensuring that Afghanistan does not again become a safe haven for terrorists.”  Not much else besides, and certainly no express mention of grasping the nettle and cutting losses.  And there is that troubling use of the word “responsibly”.

The default position remains the use of force, which the US “will never hesitate to” resort to “when required to defend our vital national interests.  We will ensure our armed forces are equipped to deter our adversaries, defend our people, interests, and allies, and defeat the threats that emerge.”  Again, the stretch is vast and imprecise.

Given that position, the withdrawal of the remaining 2,500 US troops in the country is bound to become a matter of delay, prevarication and consternation.  Quiet American imperialism, at least a dusted down version of it, will stubbornly continue in its sheer, embarrassing futility.  The imperial footprint will be merely recast, if in a smaller form. 

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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]

The Bamiyan Buddhas: An Afghan Tale

March 4th, 2021 by Pepe Escobar

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

In the beginning, they were the Bamiyan Buddhas: the Western  Buddha statue, 55 meters high, and the Eastern, 38 meters high, carved for decades since 550 A.D. from porous sandstone cliffs, the intricate details modeled in clay mixed with straw and coated with stucco.

Xuanzang, the legendary traveling monk of the early Tang dynasty who journeyed to India in search of Buddhist manuscripts, saw them in all their – colored – glory in the 7th century.

Then, with Islam taking over these high central lands of Afghanistan, local Hazara folklore slowly turned them into the Romeo and Juliet of the Hindu Kush.

They became “Solsol” (“year after year”, or, more colloquially, the prince of Bamiyan) and “Shahmana” (“the king’s Mother”, or colloquially a princess from a remote kingdom). As lovers, they could not be united as a couple in this world; so they chose to turn into statues and stand close to each other forever.

And then, twenty years ago, after a millennium and a half of living history, the Taliban blew them up.

Killing Romeo and Juliet

Solsol and Shahmana lived since their inception among the Hazaras, who speak Dari, a Persian dialect with numerous words of Mongol and Turk origin. The Hazaras are partly descendants of Genghis Khan’s troops who infiltrated these mountains in the 13th century. Hazaras – who I had the pleasure to meet mostly in Kabul in the early 2000s – remain essentially Mongols, but linguistically Persianized, having adopted the old agricultural tradition of the Iranian mountains.

The Hazaras are diametrically opposed by the Pashtuns  – who had an extremely complex ethno-genesis before the early 18th century, when they coalesced into great federations of nomad tribes. Their code of conduct – the Pashtunwali – is straightforward, regulating most of all a mechanism of sanctions.

The number one sanction is death: this is a poor society, where sanctions are physical, not material. Islam added moral elements to pashtunwali. And then there are juridical norms imposed by hereditary noblemen – which function like the carpet tying the room together: these come from the Turk-Mongols.

The modern Afghan state was created in the late 19th century by Abd-ur-Rahman, the “Iron Emir”. He pulled that off via a “Pashtunization” of the region that was locally known as the north of Turkestan. Then he integrated the Hazaras in the central mountains via bloody military campaigns.

Hazara lands were opened to Pashtun nomad tribes – who featured not only shepherds but also merchants and caravan entrepreneurs. Increasingly plunged into debt, the Hazaras ended up becoming economic hostages of the Pashtuns. Their way out was to emigrate to Kabul – where they hold mostly menial jobs.

And that brings us to the heart of the problem. Hazaras are Shi’ites. Pashtuns are Sunni. Pashtuns consider themselves the owners of Afghanistan – even as there’s persistent, major infighting among Pashtun groups. Pashtuns simply detest the Westphalian concept of the nation-state: most of all they see themselves as an empire within an empire.

This implies that ethnic minorities are marginalized – if they can’t find some sort of accommodation. Hazaras, because they are Shi’ites, were extremely marginalized during Taliban rule, from 1996 to 2001.

The Taliban rolled out en masse from Pakistani madrassas in 1994:  the overwhelming majority were Pashtuns from rural areas between Kandahar and Paktiya. They had spent many years in camps scattered along the Pakistani tribal areas and Balochistan.

The Taliban became instantly successful for three reasons:

  1. Implementation of Sharia law.
  2. Their fight against the lack of security after the 1980s jihad instrumentalized by the Americans to give the USSR its “own Vietnam” (Brzezinski’s definition), and the subsequent warlord anarchy.
  3. Because they incarnated the return of the Pashtuns as the leading Afghan force.

No reincarnation?

All of the above supplies the context for the inevitable destruction of Solsol and Shahmana in March 2001. They were the symbols of an “infidel” religion.  And they were situated in Shi’ite Hazara land.

Months later, after 9/11, I would learn from Taliban officials close to ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef in Islamabad that first they blew up “the little one, which was a woman” then “her husband”; that implies the Taliban were very much aware of local folklore.

The destruction process started with the legs of the Great Buddha: one of them was already cut at the knee and the other at the femur. It took them four days – using mines, explosives and even artillery. The   Taliban forced local Hazara youth to drill holes in the statues: those who refused were shot dead.

Yet that was not enough to kill oral tradition. Even the young Hazara generation, born after the smashing of the Buddhas, still delights in the tale of Solsol and Shahmana.

But will they ever reincarnate as living statues? Enter the usually messy “international community”. In 2003, Unesco declared the site of the Bamiyan Buddhas and the surrounding caves a “World Heritage Site in Danger.”

Still, Kabul and Unesco can’t seem to agree on a final decision. As it stands, Solsol will not be rebuilt; Shahmana, maybe. On and off, they resurrect as 3-D holograms.

What happened so far is “consolidation work at the Eastern Buddha niche”, finished in 2015. Work at the Western Buddha niche started in 2016. A Bamiyan Expert Working Group gets together every year, featuring the administration in Kabul, Unesco experts and donors, mostly German and Japanese.

Ishaq Mawhidi, the head of the Culture and Information Department of Bamiyan, is sure that “90 percent of the statues can be rebuilt with the debris”, plus fragments of smaller statues currently preserved in two large warehouses on site.

The Afghan Ministry of Culture correctly argues that reconstruction work will require a formidable team, including Buddhism scholars, archeologists specialized in Gandhara art, historians, ethnographers, historiographers specialized in the first centuries of the first millennium in Afghanistan.

It will have to be eventually up to wealthy donors such as Berlin and Tokyo to willingly finance all this – and justify the costs, considering Hazara lands barely have been granted with working roads and electricity by the Kabul central government.

It’s always crucial to remember that the Bamiyan Buddhas blow up is a crucial case of deliberate destruction of world cultural heritage – alongside appalling instances in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Mali. They all connect, directly and indirectly, to the causes and consequences of imperial Forever Wars and their spin-offs (never forget that the Taliban initially were fully courted by the Clinton administration).

The Buddha of Dushanbe

In the end, I never managed to see Solsol and Shahmana. The Taliban would not issue a travel permit for foreigners under any circumstances. After 9/11 and the expulsion of the Taliban from Kabul, I was negotiating a safe passage with Hazara fighters, but then something bigger came up: bribing a Pashtun commander to take a small group of us to Tora Bora to see the Empire B-52 Show against Osama bin Laden.

Instead of Solsol and Shahmana – either standing up in their niches, or blown up to smithereens – I finally managed to see the next best option: the reclining Buddha of Dushanbe.

Afghanistan may be the “graveyard of empires” – the last act being enacted as we speak. And, to a certain extent, a graveyard of Buddhas. But not neighboring Tajikistan.

The original Buddha of Dushanbe saga was published by Asia Times in those heady 9/11 days. It happened as my photographer Jason Florio and myself were waiting for days for a helicopter to take us to the Panjshir valley in Afghanistan.

Eighteen years later, like a Jorge Luis Borges short story, it all came down full circle before I traveled the Pamir highway in late 2019. I went to the same museum in Dushanbe and there he was: the 13 meter-long “sleeping lion”, found in the Buddhist monastery of Ajinateppa, resting on pillows, in glorious parinirvana, and fully restored, with help from an expert from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

Somewhere in unknown spheres beyond space and time, Solsol and Shahmana will be benevolently smiling.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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.

Featured image: Smaller 38 meter “Eastern” Buddha (Public Domain)

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The Bamiyan Buddhas: An Afghan Tale

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

“Children are the world’s most valuable resource, and its best hope for the future”. – John F. Kennedy

What President Kennedy said over half a century ago, is more valid today than ever. This world needs a generation that can lead us out of the mess of dystopian values that was created predominantly by a western civilization of greed. The covid crisis, man-made, served the destruction of the world economy, as well as the ensuing World Economic Forum (WEF) designed “Great Reset”. If not stopped by our youth and coming generation, Covid cum Great Reset is about to give civilization the final blow.

However, the dark forces of the Global Cabal, the Deep State, has plunged humanity – all 193 UN member states at once, into a global catastrophe of epic proportions. To break that globalist spell and to get out of the disaster still unfolding, the world needs thinking people, courageous people, informed and awakened people; people who are not afraid to swim against the stream, to stem the ever-increasing flow of misinformation and government and media lies. It takes educated people. It takes people who dare to resist.

We are experiencing today just the contrary. The minute global elite that has taken a covid-stranglehold on the world’s 7.8 billion people, is doing everything to keep our children, the generations that are supposed to lead the world and humanity into a bright future, uneducated, scared, socially unfit to communicate, to take initiatives, to lead. Today’s youth is depressed by this constant fear propaganda, by the authorities (sic) rules of confinement, not being able to see their friends, to play with them, communicate with them, to do the healthiest social activities there are – exchanging ideas with peers, acquaintances and friends.

One might think, there is a purpose behind it all. Could it be, that this minute diabolical Globalist Cabal, those who are behind “The Great Reset”, co-authored by the WEF’s founder and CEO since the NGO’s creation in 1971, Klaus Schwab – could it be that these people have a plan, namely to leave the world to a generation of uneducated, fear-indoctrinated people, who are used to and have been trained to follow orders, obey authorities and believe their very leaders’ (sic) lies and fall for their manipulations?

Screenshot from weforum.org

It doesn’t take rocket science to believe that this could, indeed, be part of the Cabal’s “demonic” plan: breaking our society apart. Leaving behind no natural and new leaders to shape the world according to the real needs of the people, of our children – not the imposed “needs” of an egocentric dictatorial cabal.

*

In a new book (in German), “Generation Mask – Corona: Fear and Challenge” (Generation Maske – Corona: Angst und Herausforderung), the immunologist and toxicologist Professor Stefan W. Hockertz illustrates the plight of our children in this artificially induced age of corona. He asks in particular the question, what does this pandemic – better called plandemic – do with our children and adolescents?

They are being flooded by autocratic measures they do not understand, like being forced to cover their faces by wearing masks in school, it’s like a forced-hiding of their identity from their friends and peers; being obliged to follow strict rules of social distancing – don’t get close to your friend, for the protection of your health, you need a distance to your friend, you can no longer freely communicate, and even if you could, due to the covered face, you could not read your friends facial expressions – which is key to any useful conversation, between kids as well as adults.

Our kids in the west are being fear-induced and permanently indoctrinated, by radio, TV-broadcasts, by permanently having to listen to “case” figures, infections, hospitalizations and death rates. Never mind, that most of these figures are false or distorted, made even more meaningless by absurdly obsessive testing-testing-testing.

To crown it all off – newspapers and magazines depict pictures of coffins, not one or two, but hundreds, mass graves – they are utterly disturbing for adults, let alone for children – fear is being weaponized and replaced by more fear – followed by depression, the perspective of no future — and often and ever more frequently ending in suicide, children’s, adolescents’ suicides are skyrocketing.

Children who are the least vulnerable to the covid disease, are forced into mass-testing, entire communities, by order of the mayor or the governor – all the way to kindergarten. Testing with hurtful nasal swaps, as often as once or twice a month, and if positive – high percentages of these PCR tests – so far, the only covid test method available in the west – are false positives.

The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test is a technique used to “amplify” small segments of DNA. If over-amplified, the test results become positive, false positives. Maybe there is a purpose for over-amplifying – increasing the “case figures”, justifying more repression. If one kid tests positive in one of the periodic school tests – the entire class is ordered into quarantine, schooling from home, via computer, Skype, Zoom.

That’s in the wealthy west. What about in the Global South, where not everybody can afford the necessary electronic equipment for “home-schooling”? – There will simply be no schooling, no learning – no interchange with classmates. No education.

Testing is traumatic, especially for young children. It is hurtful and scares a kid on several levels, physically – a swap-stick deep into the upper nose, into the sinus cavities, is hurtful and can be even traumatic for children; – and psychologically, what if I’m positive? “All my school mates and teachers have to stay home because of me”; or “I could infect my parents and frail grand-parents”.

Guilt is everywhere. Guilt is like fear. It makes people pliable, manipulable – takes all initiative and enthusiasm for life away.

For many kids – this continuous repression makes them aggressive, frustrated and eventually so depressed, that many see no way out – as they see no future in their lives. They are crying from despair, crying from fear, crying from isolation – crying for not being able to congregate with their friends, classmates and peers – and crying for seeing no way out.

What is being done to our children is inhuman. The unilateral, viciously applied repressive measures of confinement, not being able to physically go to school and mix and exchange with friends is destructive. It may leave a deep dent in the social and psychological fabric and subsequent behavior of this future post-covid generation.

No doubt, with a few exceptions, most of the 193 UN member countries applying the same oppressive rules, are aware of what they are doing. They know what and why they are doing what they are doing. They are in complicity and in one way or another corrupted and perhaps coerced to adhere to the dictate from “above” – or else, if they don’t follow the ruling narrative. Yet, with a minimum of integrity of our leaders, this would not be happening.

First, they destroy the world’s economy in proportions never seen in recent history,

then they destroy our future generations – so there are no flag-bearers of a new generation into a bright future, once we, our children’s parents, have disappeared out. Our children are being primed as slaves for a minute diabolical elite, to become transhumans for the Great Reset.

*

In his book, Dr. Stefan Hockhertz articulates these concerns and worries of the children, for parents, teachers and authorities to understand them. With the objective of stemming against this catastrophically oppressive trend, Dr. Hockhertz also uses the book to uncover lies and manipulations of governments and the media.

He corrects false information and outright lies, but also invites to a dialogue for bringing about more objectivity and less dictatorial rules. After all, this is not a deadly pandemic, but has developed into a plandemic – where clearly a set of different, societally harmful objectives is being played out – and relentlessly pursued.

As an immunologist and toxicologist, Dr. Hockhertz also corrects the highly propagated alleged over-fatality and informs about the dangers of the “vaccines”, especially the RNA-based inoculations. He warns against these vaccines – which, in fact, are no vaccines, but rather gene-therapy injections. They have not been sufficiently researched and tested to be considered safe. To the contrary, primary inoculation results are disastrous in terms of serious side effects and death rates. And this only after less than six months into a worldwide vaccination campaign.

See also Dr. J. Bart Classen’s January 18, 2021 peer-reviewed Research Paper “COVID-19 RNA Based Vaccines and the Risk of Prion Disease”, written for the SCIVISION Publication “Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ISSN 2639-9458) – (see this).

The paper points to the potential medium- to long-term disabling neurological effects, especially degenerative diseases, that may be linked o RNA-based inoculations. This would be disastrous for children. Entire generations could be wiped out, so to speak.

We must not allow this to happen. We must listen to our children’s grief. We must clear the path for a bright future for our children, for our successor generation and for the future of humanity.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

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 by Xavier Donat

Biden Does Not Say Where and How ‘America Is Back’

March 4th, 2021 by Michael Jansen

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

US President Joe Biden insists, “America is back.” He says the US has returned to the world stage as a prominent actor and leader after four years of absence and wrong-headed policies adopted by the Trump administration. But, Biden does not say where and how “America is back.”

America is certainly not back to generating the hopes raised by the advent of the Obama-Biden administration in early 2009. As the first black US president, Barack Obama promised and was expected to deliver on his promises, particularly to this region and the wider Muslim world. On January 22, 2009, two days after his inauguration, Obama appointed former Senator George Mitchell as special envoy for the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Mitchell was a highly significant choice, as he must have been the first senior level figure with Lebanese background to be selected to broker a deal. As the man who made his name as a peacemaker in the successful Northern Ireland peace process, he was told to get to the area “as soon as possible” to relaunch negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. Obama followed up his appointment with an interview with Al Arabiya television on January 26, in which he expressed optimism over the possibility of a settlement between Palestinians and Israelis.

Obama met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on May 19 to urge freezing Israeli colonisation and a deal based on the “two-state solution” involving the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Obama recommitted the US to this goal and reiterated his demand for a halt to Israeli colonisation during his encounter with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on May 28.

On June 4, Obama made history by delivering a speech at Cairo University in which he called for the creation of a Palestinian state, an end to Israeli colonisation of Palestinian lands, and negotiations with Iran.  Obama’s aim was to reset relations with the Muslim world and “communicate that the Americans are not your enemy”.

Obama failed miserably on the Palestinian front due to Israeli intransigence. He also failed to convince Muslims of US goodwill. But, he did launch negotiations with Iran which culminated in the signing in 2015 of the landmark agreement providing for curbing Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting punitive sanctions.

Biden has, so far, done nothing on the Palestinian front but to promise to renew humanitarian funding cancelled by Donald Trump without committing to sums and delivering cash, and he is making a mess of dealings with Iran over the nuclear programme abandoned by Trump in 2018.

During his election campaign, Biden repeatedly vowed to return to the Iran nuclear deal, Obama’s chief foreign policy success.  As his vice president, Biden was involved in the effort to bring Iran to the negotiating table and secure its adherence to an agreement which was win-win for all concerned. As soon as he took office, Biden should have promptly signed an executive order for US reentry to the deal, as he did to rejoin the Paris climate accord, from which Trump also withdrew the US. By taking urgent action, Biden would have preempted efforts by members of his own administration to stall reentry and by pro-Israeli lobby groups and legislators to block the return of the US.  Biden failed this test, putting the nuclear accord at great risk.

During his election campaign, Biden repeatedly vowed to return to the Iran nuclear deal, Obama’s chief foreign policy success. As his vice president, Biden was involved in the effort to bring Iran to the negotiating table and secure its adherence to an agreement which was win-win for all concerned. As soon as he took office, Biden should have promptly signed an executive order for US re-entry to the dea, as he did to rejoin the Paris climate accord, from which Trump also withdrew the US. By taking urgent action, Biden would have pre-empted efforts by members of his own administration to stall reentry and by pro-Israeli lobby groups and legislators to block the return of the US.  Biden failed this test, putting the nuclear accord at great risk.

First and foremost, Biden and his senior aides insist that Iran should be first to return to comppliance with the terms of the accord by halting uranium enrichment to levels above 3.67 per cent purity, dispose of its stocks of enriched uranium above the amount permitted, warehouse advanced centrifuges banned by the deal, and allow UN inspectors to continue conducting snap inspections of undeclared installations and sites.

Iran has, quite rightly, responded by arguing that since Trump walked away from the deal, Biden should first return he US to compliance by rejoining the deal and lifting sanctions imposed by Trump. Tehran was in full compliance when Trump withdrew and continued to comply for 14 months before resorting to retaliation. Iraq insists that it has taken such action in line with Article 36 of the accord which allows it to reduce compliance if one or more signatories  do not comply.

While Biden has stuck to his demand that Tehran should be first, he was offered a face-saving proposal by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif who, on February 1, suggested that the two sides should ask the European Union Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell to create a mechanism which would enable Iran and the US to return to the deal simultaneously. Although this amounted to a serious concession by Tehran, Zarif’s proposition was ignored by the US and its allies, the three Western European signatories of the deal, Britain, France and Germany.

Instead, the Europeans proposed an informal meeting of all seven signatories of the deal, including themselves, the US, Iran, Russia and China, to discuss compliance. The US accepted but, following days of deliberation, Iran rejected the invitation.

Iran’s refusal came after the US conducted air raids in eastern Syria on pro-Iranian Iraqi Shia militia factions. Washington claims the bombings, Biden’s first, were in retaliation for recent rocket attacks on Iraqi bases hosting US forces and Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone where the US embassy is located. US Defence Secretary LLoyd Austin justified targeting fighters in Syria by saying they belong to the same groups attacking US forces and personnel in Iraq. The Pentagon chose to hit in Syria because strikes in Iraq would increase pressure on Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi from powerful Shia militia commanders and politicians to order the full withdrawal of US forces from that country.

War-torn Syria has become a free-fire zone where anyone can bomb without worrying about criticism or consequences. Israel has been lobbing missiles into Syria on a weekly basis without interference or comment by Biden or his administration.

The administration has added insult to injury by submiting a complaint against Iran to the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Organisation (IAEA), currently meeting in Vienna. Although the US is responsible for the crisis over the nuclear accord, the administration accuses Iran of non-compliance and of refusing to explain particles of enriched uranium found by IAEA inspectors in undeclared locations. Since censure of Iran by the IAEA could torpedo the accord, Biden is playing a dangerous game which can only roil this unstable region if the US and Iran do not return to full compliance with the nuclear deal. “America is back!” Indeed. Back to traditional bad behaviour.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image: The Israeli and American flags displayed on the walls of the Old City in Jerusalem (Photo: Yonatan Sindel)

Hugo Chávez’s Legacy: Unity and Anti-imperialism

March 4th, 2021 by Nino Pagliccia

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

This March many remember Hugo Chávez. He passed away eight years ago. It is a very short time when measured in terms of the fresh memories we have of him. He is remembered as the Comandante, Comandante Supremo, creator of the Bolivarian Revolution, founder of the Fifth Republic. He has been the architect of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, of which he was president from 1999 to 2013, and one of the most progressive constitutions in the world.

Some, interpreting his own words on August 5, 1999, believe he was the reincarnation of Simón Bolívar, not in a metaphysical sense, but in an ideological sense. During the first session of the National Constituent Assembly that produced the 1999 Constitution, he said:

When we ask in Venezuela today, where does this revolution come from? We inevitably have to fall back into the figure and time, and in the Bolivarian context when the first republics that arose in that Venezuelan land were born. ‘It is Bolívar,’ Neruda said, ‘who wakes up every 100 years’: but Neruda, who was a revolutionary, assimilated Bolívar’s awakening with the awakening of the people. He wakes up every 100 years, when the people wake up. This is where this revolution comes from.”

But many believe he is still among us in terms of his legacy. There is no aspect of human development, political leadership, ideological renovation and geopolitical impact that Chávez has not influenced in some noticeable way.

Venezuela today is the epicenter of a revolutionary movement that wants to establish a different political paradigm for Latin America; a paradigm with an autochthonous ideology with historical and cultural elements, not only repeating the past, but also adding new elements and experiences from the global context of our era. Chávez called this new paradigm Socialism of the 21st Century.

His generosity of thinking made it implicit that he was not offering a final worked out theory or ideology. Chávez only indicated the path towards a just society. His path had clear landmarks leading in the correct direction such as independence, sovereignty, justice, peace, UNITY, democracy, popular power, ANTI-IMPERIALISM. Some he marked in capital letters, in a figure of speech. But the work had to be done with the involvement of all Venezuelans as protagonists, as builders of their just society.

What Chávez unmistakably provided was a solid foundation on which to build that society. A foundation that would reunite Venezuelans and Latin-Americans to their historical roots, and with that it would be able to resist the US endless imperial hybrid warfare. He was well aware of Simón Bolívar’s famous statement, “The United States seems to have been created by Providence to plague [Latin] America with misery in the name of freedom”. Chávez offered “Bolivarianism” as the antidote to the plague.

Perhaps the two words of which we are often defensive, Bolivarian Revolution, capture Chávez’s full legacy when we look at the core of their meaning.

The word Bolivarian” revives the independence values ​​of the 19th century based on the integrationist vision of Simón Bolívar, the idea of ​​civic-military unity of Ezequiel Zamora, and the liberating popular education of Simón Rodríguez, who was the mentor of Simón Bolívar. Hugo Chávez took from them his own vision of building the Bolivarian Patria Grande (Great Homeland) based on the original principles of sovereignty and independence, with the people as protagonists. Recalling in an interview the founding of the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement in 1982, the forerunner of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, Chávez said: That was what we were pursuing, a revolution, a political, social, economic and cultural transformation inspired in the proposition of Bolívar [Zamora and Rodriguez]. This is how we designed what we have called the ‘tree with the three roots’, which is our ideological source.

These historical roots are what make us identify the Venezuelan political phenomenon, with nationalistic and patriotic characteristics, as “Bolivarianism.”

However, in the expression “Bolivarian Revolution”, it is the word “Revolution” that identifies the “tree with three roots” or the “ideological source” of Bolivarianism. It is the word Revolution that is associated with Chavismo. But Chavismo is a projection of Bolivarianism into the future. It is a growing entity that is inevitably shaped by the political environment and the global context at every single point in time.

Chavismo with its Bolivarian roots is what is known as the Bolivarian Revolution. These two words cannot be separated without irremediably losing its original meaning. The tree cannot be separated from the roots without losing the harvest of its fruits.

In the span of eight years since the death of Hugo Chávez Venezuela has undergone one of the most severe economic warfare launched by the US with criminal coercive measures that are crippling the Venezuelan economic system. But Chávez’s legacy as he originally offered it still stands today. His legacy included his trust in the Venezuelan people and his political successor, Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela owes it to the Maduro government and the Venezuelan people to hold on to his legacy at any cost because the Bolivarian project has not been completed, and it will not be completed unless all are on board.

Imperialism is seeking to create cracks in the Bolivarian Revolution at the slightest sign of weakness. This is the time to pay attention to Chávez’s landmarks. Two in particular: UNITY and ANTI-IMPERIALISM, and follow the compas that points to socialism. If the road is blocked, a detour may be necessary that will rejoin the main path. This is not the time to enter the dangerous political maze of doubts and blames. And it is never the time to be divided. The Bolivarian Revolution cannot die. The price of losing the Bolivarian Revolution is too high.

As Fidel once said, “History tells us that a defeated revolution must pay the victors in blood.”

Perhaps Hugo Chávez meant to give us another message with his image of the tree with three roots. A tree resists the impacts of stormy winds by bending before returning to its straight position, otherwise it snaps and dies.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Nino Pagliccia is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from EFE/Miguel Gutierrez

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

The forty years of the Cold War have made us endure hunger, fear and hopelessness.

The year old pandemic has made us desperate and vulnerable. Now, we are facing a new global threat, namely the Sino-American hot war which may mean the end the human civilization.  

These are the three post-WWII era mega crises. These crises have different causes, but one of the most important causes is the selection of wrong leaders who make wrong judgments and execute misleading decisions because of their political debts, personal interests, unrealistic ambitions and corruption.

Therefore, the only way to prevent mega crises is the proactive participation of ordinary people in policy decisions. The virtue of ordinary people’s proactive participation has been shown in South Korea. The South Korea’s success in the anti-COVID war was possible because of President Moon Jae-in’s inspiring leadership and ordinary Koreans’ enthusiastic proactive participation.

The present paper has the following messages.

First, Washington is prepared to undertake a shooting war, if China continues to threaten its global interests. As for China, it is too big and too strong to go back; it will increasingly assert itself either for bargaining purpose or preparing for the hot war. In other words, the shooting war is very possible.

Second, Washington tries to avoid the shooting war, if possible, because it is costly.

Third, Washington will try to subjugate China through China taming (bashing) operation. China bashing will likely to fail.

Fourth, since China bashing is likely to fail, Washington may choose the shooting war as the solution.

Fifth, since Washington cannot succeed with China bashing and since the shooting war is too costly, the wise alternative approach is its cooperative and productive coexistence with China.

Sixth, China should make it clear that it has no ambition to replace the U.S. as global hegemonic power on the one hand and, on the other, try to harmonize its regime with the American regime.

Before we get into the main body of the paper, I thought I should say a few words on the current scholarly debate on the possible Sino-American shooting war. There are those who claim the possibility of shooting war, while there are those who argue that the shooting war can be avoided.

For instance, Graham Allison, in his book “Destined for War” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 2017), claims that Sino-American shooting war is a real possibility. Allison explains that when a new power challenges the existing one, the shooting war has been the rule rather than exception. The rival powers fall into complex and complicated dynamics of hostile relations that leads to the hot war. Allison calls this dynamics as “Thucydides Trap” referring to ancient Greek historian, Thucydides, who wrote about the war between Athena (new power) and Sparta (existing power).

According to Allison, in the world, there have been nineteen Thucydides traps of which only three avoided the shooting war, one of which was the rivalry between the U.S. and the British Empire.

On their part, Fena Zhang and Richard Ned LeBow in their book “Taming Sino-American Rivalry” (Oxford University Press: 2020) argue that the shooting war between the U.S. and China can be avoided through persuasion and diplomacy. Moreover, these authors make an important point that the probability of the shooting war depends also on leader’s wisdom and leadership quality.

This paper discusses two types of China bashing: the ideological bashing and the economic bashing.

Ideological China Bashing 

There are those who describe the U.S.-China conflict as civilization clash. However, a closer look at the history of Washington-Beijing relations shows that this view is only partially true. During the era of the Cold War (1950-1990) the Washington-Beijing relation was cordial, friendly and even cooperative.

In 1970, Richard Nixon went to see Mao Zedong and he was successful in normalizing the bilateral diplomatic relations in 1979. What made these countries to cooperate was the threat of the Soviet Union which was the common enemy of both countries. Since the opening of China by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, the Sino-American relations were not hostile, even cordial.  George W. Bush was hostile to the Chinese politico-economic regime, because it was not a Christianity-based regime. But, the 911 tragedy made him to cooperate with China to fight against international terrorism. This shows that Washington does cooperate with Beijing when it is necessary

True, under Barack Obama, the Sino-American relations were more hostile and belligerent, but this had little to do ideology; it was rather the friction attributable to Beijing’s militarization of the South China Sea and Washington’s China containment strategy.

However, under Donald Trump, the Chinese regime has become one of the chief components of Washington’s China demonization.

In the post-CIVID era, the ideological conflict may become more serious, if China’s assertiveness intensifies and if Washington’s hegemonic status is compromised. The Washington’s establishment will argue that the Chinese socialism with Chinese characteristics will threaten Washington’s politico-economic regime. Therefore, China should be induced – even forced – to change its present regime and adopt the American regime. The question is: “Will China do it?”

I argue that China will never adopt the so-called “Washington democracy” or capitalism for two reasons. One is the very philosophical foundation of the Chinese system and the other is the weakness of American system.

China cannot escape from thousands-year old philosophical and religious traditions.

The Chinese system of thoughts has been formed by Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.

Confucius statue, Shanghai

These three systems of thoughts seem to have provided the philosophical foundation of Chinese politico-economic system, namely, pragmatism, harmonious social order.

The Chinese pragmatism is largely inspired by Taoist notion of relative truth. According to Taoism, the universe is governed by the harmonious co-existence of the positive energy (yang) and the negative energy (Um). There is nothing absolute; there is no absolute truth; everything is relative. This way of thinking has provided the justification of Chinese pragmatism. This is a sharp contrast to the philosophical and religious tradition of the West which highly values the dichotomy of bad-good and the exclusive absolute truth. As a result, the Western politico-economic regime is dogmatic and exclusive.

The importance of harmony is another Chinese philosophical tradition. Taoism as well as Buddhism highly value harmony through compassion, humility and frugality in human relations including interpersonal relations, the ruler-ruled relations and inter-government relations.

The third element of Chinese way of thinking attaches paramount importance to the hierarchical social order. The hierarchical social order derives from collectivism requiring the subordination of personal interests to those of the collective entity such as family and the country. However, such social order is possible only through harmonious social relations made possible by obedience. This notion of harmonious hierarchical social order comes from the teaching of Confucius.

The combination of pragmatism, value relativism and harmonious social order explain the pragmatic nature of Chinese socialism à la Chinoise (Chinese way) where the political system is socialism ruled by the Communist Party in which the ruler-ruled relations are Confucian relations in which the ruler “looks after the citizens” with paternalistic love and the citizens obey ruler for the good of the country. It appears that this system will not change easily even in the long run, because it is very soul of the Chinese people; it is a part of Chinese DNA. It is about the time that Washington establishment stops demonizing China for its regime.

There is another reason for China’s reluctance of adopting American democracy. In the eyes of Chinese opinion leaders, American democracy is a failure, because it is unable to solve racism, human right violation, mass killing on the streets, starving children, the worsening income distribution and rising poverty. It is possible that the Chinese people think that their hybrid politico-economic regime is not inferior to the American system.

There is another worry for Washington; it is the alleged danger of the propagation of  “Chinese socialism”. This is a big surprise to me. Is the American regime is so weak that it is threatened by the Chinese regime? But, China has no intention of making its regime a politico-economic gospel and spread in Asia and throughout the world. Even if China wanted it, it has to confront the objection by Asian countries including ASEAN countries and South Korea. These countries are not what they were in the 19th century. They are no longer Chinese tributary countries; they are prosperous and they can defend themselves.

As for the Chinese relations with Washington, Xi Jinping made it clear that China wanted to coexist peacefully with Washington. Xi Jinping said this:

“The vast Pacific Ocean must have enough space to accommodate both China and the United States.” (quoted by Zhand-Le Bow, p.111)

The implication of the foregoing analysis is that Washington should give up the ambition of making China to adopt American democracy and the neo-liberal capitalism. Moreover, it is about the time to stop the demonization of China by the fabrication of the danger of global domination of Chinese regime. There is no danger of “Yellow Peril.” The more productive approach of Washington’s China policy would be one of peaceful and cooperative coexistence.

This is precisely what Xi wants. On June 7-8, 2013, at the shirtless talk with Barack Obama at the Sunnylands Estate in California, Xi Jinping (left) proposed a new inter-super power relations based on no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win relations. This is important to remember this. China has no ambition of replace the U.S. as the master of the world; even if it wanted, it cannot. So, Biden should stop ideological China bashing.

 

Economic China Bashing 

The fundamental objective of Washington’s strategy of economic war is to prevent Chinese economy from catching up the American economy. Washington’s strategy consists in preventing the Chinese economy from growing faster than the American economy. To do this, Chinese economy should be made less productive, while the American economy should be made more productive. The economic war can takes place in three areas of economic activities: the demand for goods (and services), the supply of goods and the economic regime change.

Demand-side Strategy

The demand-side strategy involves the measures designed to increase the country’s domestic and foreign demand on the one hand and, on the other, debilitate the rival country’s foreign demand and domestic demand.

The American domestic demand had been falling even before the pandemic because of the lopsided income distribution caused by pro-business neoliberal government policies. Moreover, the prolonged pandemic has given the coup de grâce to the domestic demand. The pandemic has totally destroyed the SMEs that are the creators of jobs and the sources of the income of the ordinary Americans. For China, the early removal of lockdown has made possible the early revival of the economy. As a result, as far as the domestic demand is concerned, China is doing better than the U.S.

China’s foreign demand for goods involved in the Sino-American economic war is its exports of goods to the U.S. In 2019, its value was USD 360 billion.

On the other hand, American foreign demand is its exports to China; its value was USD 110 billion. This means that China’s dependence on the American market is 3.17, while the American dependence of the Chinese market is 0.67. In other words, as far as the foreign demand is concerned, China is more vulnerable than the U.S. However, China can increase more easily its foreign demand than the U.S. because China can diversify its exports partners by exporting more to developing countries. As for Washington, its main trade partners being developed countries, its capacity to diversify its trade partners may not be easy. It is to be noticed that, in 2021, the GDP growth rate for developing countries will be 7.4% as against 5.4% for developed countries. This may make the diversification of Chinese exports more effective.

The outcome of the demand-side Sino-American battle is not clear cut, but one thing sure is that the U.S. will not be the winner.

Supply-side Strategy

The supply-side strategy consists in expanding the country’s production capacity and reducing that of the rival country. The production capacity is determined in function of the supply of production factors such as labour, capital, technology, knowledge, and entrepreneurship as well as the number of firms producing goods and services.

For the time being, the U.S. seems to have, relatively speaking, more weapons in hand. First, Washington may continue to re-shore American firms in China. But the possibility is not great. In fact according to a recent survey results announced by American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai on September 9, 2020 as many as 92% pf American firms in China will remain in China despite the pandemic and the Sino-American trade war. This is understandable, because the cost of re-shoring and resettlement could be high.

The second weapon Washington has is more effective. Its objective is the prevention of the transfer of American knowledge and technology to China. The ammunitions include the reduction of the number of the Chinese students in the U.S., the restriction of the activities of U.S.- based Chinese media, the penal punishment of the theft of technologies, the sanctions against American firms selling technologies to Chinese forms, the creation of a black list of Chinese companies which deserve surveillance and other measures. These ammunitions will sooner or later hurt the Chinese economy.

China would like to hit back, but the impact of the hit may not be great for the simple reason that China depends much on American knowledge and technology. But, China will try to strengthen its self-sufficiency in technology and knowledge and in the long run it may succeed.

In short, as far as the supply-side war is concerned, the U.S. seems to have favourable edge over China.

Structural Adjustment Strategy

The long-run results of Sino-American economic war depend on the extent to which the domestic market can lead the economic growth. The decades-long experience with neoliberal economic system has given us one lesson, namely, the fact that we cannot rely on the exports of goods for sustained economic growth. This is due to several related factors.

First, as the universal reduction of tariffs continues, the marginal positive impact of free trade on GDP growth is decreasing. Second, as more and more advanced technology is applied for the production of exported goods, the exports-generated jobs is decreasing. Third, as more and more imported intermediary goods are used for the production of exported goods, the trickling effects of exports on the economy is declining. For these reasons, the sustained growth of the economy increasingly depends on the domestic market which depends on SMEs.

The lopsidedness of income distribution is more than the issue of social justice and welfare; it is now the issue of sustained economic growth. The unequal income distribution in favour of the rich and against the ordinary people means the weakening of the domestic demand and, if it continues, economic growth itself will be compromised. Indeed, the decades-long stagflation in Japan was due to the shrinking income of ordinary Japanese people for decades leading to the destruction of SMEs and the domestic market.

The lopsidedness of income distribution is often measured by the Gini coefficient. It varies from zero to 100. The higher the Gini, more lopsided becomes the income distribution in favour of the rich. In 2019, the U.S. pre-tax Gini was 48.7, the highest among developed countries.

We distinguish between the pre-tax Gini and after-tax Gini. The difference between the two represents the efficiency of the government’s effort to improve the income distribution.

The following figures show the effectiveness of government’s efforts of improving the income distribution of advanced countries: Australia (20.2%), Canada (26.0%), Demark (41.0%), France (41.3%), Germany (35.5%), U.K (21.4) and the U.S. (13.2%). Thus, the U.S. has not only the worst income distribution but also the most inefficient income redistribution policy.

Chinese Gini is the same as the U.S. Gini. But the reasons can be different. In the U.S. the high Gini is due to the government’s failure to tax sufficiently large corporations and to distribute the tax money to ordinary Americans. On the other hand, the high Gini in China is related to the low level of economic growth. The Gini is high at the early stage of economic growth, but, as the economy grows further it falls.

We have examined the nature of Sino-American economic war. We have examined the demand-side and supply-side strategies. We have not found any winner. We have examined also the structural adjustment strategy. Here, China may have some advantage. However, one thing is clear; there is no guarantee that the China will win.

To conclude, the possibility of Washington’s wining the ideological war and the economic battle looks uncertain. If this is the case, Washington might conclude that the only way of subduing China would be the shooting war.

But, the shooting war is costly. So, if Washington wants to avoid the war, and if it cannot succeed in China bashing, the only way left is the coexistence with China. Washington should reconsider Xi Jinping’s win-win cooperative coexistence. That is what the world would like to see, because it is good for the global security and prosperity.

It is sincerely hoped that Biden will envisage the U.S.-China policy not in terms of short-run interest of Washington but in terms of log-run interests of the U.S. and the world.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co-director of the East Asia Observatory (OAE) of the Study Center for Integration and Globalization (CEIM), University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM).

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

  • Posted in English, Mobile
  • Comments Off on The Dangers of A “Sino-American Hot War”: Joe Biden’s China Policy. Can He Stop the Shooting War Against China?
  • Tags: ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Black Americans have been the least inclined of any racial or ethnic group to say they’d get vaccinated against the coronavirus. The proportion of Black people who said they’ll probably or definitely take the shot has risen over time – but even by mid-January, with two COVID-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use in the U.S., only 35% of Black survey respondents said they’d get it as soon as they could, or already had gotten the shot.

Will you get a COVID-19 vaccine?

The Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed American adults in mid-January, asking “When an FDA approved vaccine for COVID-19 is available to you for free do you think you will…?” Black participants were least likely to say they had already received the shot or were hoping to be immunized as soon as possible. Black adults (43%) were significantly more likely than white adults (26%) to say they wanted to “wait and see.”

At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately harmed Black, Indigenous and other people of color in comparison to white members of American society. With Black Americans being hospitalized at rates 2.9 times higher than white Americans and dying from COVID-19 at rates 1.9 times higher, you might assume that Black people would be lining up at breakneck speed to receive the vaccine as soon as it’s available to them.

But the Black community has reasons for distrust – even beyond what might be attributed to the mixed messaging of the nation’s COVID-19 response. And it’s not a simple or sole matter of miseducation. I’m a medical humanist and bioethicist who studies history, ethics and literature to understand racial and gender health disparities. My research explores the history of unethical and abusive treatment Black Americans have experienced at the hands of the medical establishment. Based on past experience, Black people have many legitimate reasons to be in no hurry to get the vaccination.

A troubling track record

The American medical establishment has a long history of unethical treatment of Black research subjects. Medical ethicist Harriet A. Washington details some of the most egregious examples in her book “Medical Apartheid.” There’s the now notorious Tuskegee syphilis experiment, in which the government misled Black male patients to believe they were receiving treatment for syphilis when, in fact, they were not. That study went on for a total of 40 years, continuing even after a cure for syphilis was developed in the 1940s.

Perhaps less widely known are the unethical and unjustified experiments J. Marion Sims performed on enslaved women in 1800s U.S. that helped earn him the nickname the “father of modern gynecology.” Sims performed experimental vesicovaginal fistula surgery on enslaved women without anesthesia or even the basic standard of care typical for the time.

Sims experimented on Anarcha, a 17-year-old slave, over 30 times. His decision not to give anesthesia was based on the racist assumption that Black people experience less pain than their white peers – a belief that persists among medical professionals today. Historian Deirdre Cooper Owens elaborates on this case and many other ways Black women’s bodies have been used as guinea pigs in her book “Medical Bondage.”

Cases of medical malfeasance and malevolence have persisted, even after the establishment of the Nuremburg code, a set of medical ethical principles developed after World War II and subsequent trials for crimes against humanity.

In 1951, doctors harvested cervical cancer cells from a Black woman named Henrietta Lacks without her permission. Researchers went on to use them to create the first immortal cell culture and subjected her descendants to ongoing study for years without informed consent. Investigative journalist Rebecca Skloot details the cascade of ethical violations in her book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” Despite heightened awareness after the book’s publication, the ethical violations continued when a group of scientists mapped the HeLa genome without her family’s knowledge or consent.

Advances in genomics are still being used to resuscitate theories of racial “science.” For example, a now-debunked 2007 study purported to isolate a so-called “warrior gene” in Maori Indigenous men and argued they are genetically “hard-wired” for violence. Scientists and news outlets in the U.S. jumped on board, suggesting there’s a genetic predisposition for Black and Latino males to engage in gang activity.

Legal scholar Dorothy E. Roberts explains in her book “Fatal Invention” how incidents like this one perpetuate the harm of race-based science. Using biological data and flawed reasoning tainted by racial stereotyping reinforces racist beliefs about Black people. Such logic focuses on purely biological factors and ignores the social and systemic factors that produce negative and inequitable health outcomes.

While there is now an ample body of scholarly research that reveals these truths about racism in the medical establishment, Black Americans need only to gather around the kitchen table with a few friends and family to share and hear personally experienced stories of medical malfeasance.

Present-day persistence of racism in health care

Even though their experiences at the hands of researchers like J. Marion Sims were central to advances in modern gynecology, today Black women have not benefited from these advances to the same degree as white women. Black women still suffer worse outcomes and more deaths from gynecologic cancers and have worse health and more deaths affiliated with childbearing, just to name two.

When tennis star Serena Williams gave birth, she saw firsthand how Black women are disbelieved by the medical establishment. She might have died from postpartum blood clots if she hadn’t advocated for herself in the face of dismissive medical professionals.

Black people are acutely aware of this history of racism in the medical establishment, and the ways it persists today on both an individual and a collective level. Stereotypes about Black patients, whether the result of explicit or implicit bias, continue to affect the care they receive and their medical outcomes. Again and again, when surveyed, Black Americans report that medical providers don’t believe them, won’t prescribe necessary treatments, including pain medication, and blame them for their health problems.

And the association between racism and increased disease cases and deaths has held true during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overcoming these challenges

Ongoing trust issues around the COVID-19 vaccines are just the latest indication of racial health disparities in the U.S.

Still, there are ways to begin to close the COVID-19 racial health and mortality gap. Vaccinations for Black people may otherwise continue to lag in proportion to population size.

An important first step is for health care workers and policymakers to learn these painful histories and develop strategies informed by an understanding of the systemic racism Black Americans face.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

 is Associate Professor of English, affiliate with Africana Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies, Clark University.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Many Black Americans Aren’t Rushing to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine – A Long History of Medical Abuse Suggests Why
  • Tags: ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

On Tuesday’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, the eponymous host exposed many of the ills emanating from lockdown restrictions, including the devastating effect wrought on American children, whom he noted are now “10 times more likely to die from suicide than from the coronavirus they’re meant to be protected from.”

During a blistering opening monologue, Carlson referenced a recently published FAIR Health study, The Impact of COVID-19 on Pediatric Mental Health, which highlights the developments in the mental health of children as a result of locking down the country.

The statistics therein demonstrate that “kids are depressed and dejected and they are regressing.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on mental health, particularly that of young people. School closures, having to learn remotely, and isolating from friends due to social distancing have been sources of stress and loneliness,” Carlson said.

“Among children aged 13 to 18 – teenagers – insurance claims for intentional self-harm were up 90 percent in March of 2020 compared to the previous year. The next month, in April, self-harm cases rose by nearly 100 percent.”

Continuing, Carlson drew attention to the astronomical rise in “claims for medical help related to drug overdoses,” which rose by “95 percent in March and then to 119 percent in April, and those numbers remained elevated through the fall.”

“Why was this happening? Mental illness caused by coronavirus lockdowns.”

“For the age group 13 to 18 in April 2020, insurance claims for generalized anxiety disorder increased 93.6 percent. As a percentage of all medical claims in April of 2019, major depressive disorder claims increased 83.9 percent and adjustment disorder claims by 89.7 percent.”

Concluding from the above, Carlson made the grim observation that “children are 10 times more likely to die from suicide than from the coronavirus they’re meant to be protected from.”

“That is the new normal that Andrew Cuomo and The New York Times are working to make permanent in this country,” he stated.

Carlson flagged the extreme-leftist teachers’ unions of America as perpetuating the lockdown problem, noting in particular the president of the Los Angeles Teachers’ Union, Cecily Myart-Cruz, who said, “Some voices are being allowed to speak louder than others. We have to call out the privilege behind the largely white, wealthy parents driving the push for a rushed return.”

Matt Meyer, the head of the Berkeley teachers’ union, also came under fire after it was revealed by a group of parents that he has been sending his children to private school for in-person education, defying his own public advocacy for the shutdown of public schools.

Speaking in January, Meyer said,

“Real-life children do not keep their masks on, they do not keep distance from each other or their teachers. Given the realities of working with real children in person, we need to account for the inevitable lapses in risk mitigation practices by choosing a standard of lower transmission for reopening.”

Dr. Marty Makary, professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Health, told Carlson that “public health research always lags behind reality. … We’re going to see a lot of research come out on the restrictions, particularly against kids, and this is the first of many research studies and it looks pretty grim.”

Using the national FAIR Health study, Makary lamented the “91 percent increase in kids, Tucker, who come to us as doctors because they tried to hurt themselves at a time when all medical utilization has been cut in half.” He noted there has been a “300 percent increase in some parts of the country where there are very strict restrictions against kids and school closures.”

Makary added that there has been “a 63 percent increase in overdoses. Twenty-three percent of all emergency room visits at one point last year were from mental illness complaints.”

“This is the first of many studies that’s going to tell us that many of these policies were basically an abuse by one group that has power over another group, and they exercise that power unfairly just because they could.”

Makary described the “fundamental problem” with accountability for locking down as a result of having “not looked at the totality of data on the health of kids and health consequences.”

He explained:

“If you were to ask me if you left your home could you get bacterial meningitis, the answer will always be yes; but if people stay isolated there will be more health consequences against that individual, and as a scientist, you’ve got to look at the totality of data on health outcomes. Those CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines that came out, Tucker, they were flawed. They were filled with dogma, they contradicted top CDC scientists who published in the journal the American Medical Association three weeks prior that schools don’t significantly contribute to transmission, and if they were applied to the airline industry, every plane in the U.S. would be grounded. Why is it that adults get to pack into planes, and they do it safely with masks, but kids are last in the reopening plan? That is an abuse of power.”

Carlson added that the reason for keeping schools shut is not the science, as has been demonstrated, but rather it is on account of the teachers’ unions that have “inordinate political power.”

Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume told Carlson that “as powerful as I thought they (teachers’ unions) were, I did not realize they were powerful enough to do what they’ve succeeded in doing.”

“We saw the most recent manifestation of that when the director of the CDC came out and said, you know, that the science shows it’s safe to reopen schools without everyone being vaccinated. And in a matter of hours, really, the Biden administration had come out and said, ‘Well, she (the director) was speaking for herself,’ which gave you a sense of how afraid the Biden administration, newly in power, is of what the teachers’ unions say,” continued Hume.

Hume laid blame on “the effect of the media coverage in particular, and of a lot of the pronouncements of public health officials as well” for the “nation’s attitude” on allowing children back to school.

This narrative was, according to Hume, “very powerful and the sense of fear that it engendered in the American body politick has been the strongest thing we’ve seen, really, in terms of people’s unwillingness to face the data as it became clearer and clearer.”

“Scientists have said, almost in (sic) the beginning, that this is a disease that way disproportionately affects the elderly and those with certain attendant comorbidities, and that everyone else was, if not completely safe against the disease, then largely so.”

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Public-interest groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency today over its rushed decision in the final days of the Trump administration to reapprove previously cancelled uses of the dangerous pesticide aldicarb on Florida oranges and grapefruits.

The decision allows 100,000 acres of citrus to be treated with up to 2.5 million pounds of products containing aldicarb, a pesticide banned in more than 100 countries and one of only 36 pesticides classified as “extremely hazardous” by the World Health Organization.

“This approval of aldicarb is just one more assault on the men and women who harvest our citrus crops in Florida, who do ‘essential’ work but who are treated as dispensable,” said Jeannie Economos, coordinator of the Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project at Farmworker Association of Florida. “No one should risk their health and the health of their families in the course of doing a hard day’s labor feeding America.”

Aldicarb’s approval on Florida citrus came with lightning speed after a legally mandated public comment period that ended on Jan. 6. One day later, more than 100 pages of risk assessment documents were finalized, and on Jan. 12 — eight days before the transition to a new presidential administration — the Trump EPA finalized the approval.

“The outrageous decision to just ignore all the troubling research and expand use of this dangerous neurotoxin reeks of political interference,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’re asking the court to make the EPA do its job and protect people and the environment. Florida’s rivers, lakes and streams should not be a dumping ground for poisons forbidden in countries across much of the globe.”

This approval came after representatives from the citrus industry lobbied the EPA, which had previously committed to banning aldicarb, to approve use of the neurotoxic pesticide on the nation’s citrus. The lobbying efforts included a meeting directly with the agricultural advisor to then-EPA administrator and Trump loyalist Andrew Wheeler.

“The former Trump administration is no longer in charge of EPA, but many of the actions it took at the behest of chemical agriculture remain in place,” said Dr. Olga Naidenko, Environmental Working Group’s vice president for science investigations. “Aldicarb is a potent neurotoxic pesticide that is especially risky for young children who are exposed through food or proximity to the fields where it’s sprayed. The EPA must follow the science and not the demands of the pesticide industry and ban the use of aldicarb on Florida’s citrus crops.”

In addition to being designated as “extremely hazardous” by the WHO, aldicarb is also one of the few pesticides — along with DDT — subject to regulation under the Rotterdam Convention, an international treaty designed to reduce trade of the most hazardous chemicals in the world. The United States is one of only a few countries around the world that has not ratified the treaty.

Aldicarb is a known neurotoxin that can impair normal brain development in young children. Harms to people are similar to those seen in wildlife, where exposure can cause developmental defects, dizziness and blurred vision, abdominal pain and vomiting.

In 2011 the EPA and Bayer reached an agreement to end the use of aldicarb in the United States after the EPA found that its ongoing use posed unacceptable dietary risks to infants and young children. The crop use that resulted in the highest risk to infants and children was citrus, which Bayer agreed to cancel immediately. While the other uses of aldicarb were being phased out, AgLogic applied for, and received, approval for use on a small subset of other crops, like cotton and sweet potatoes.

After the 2011 phaseout of most uses, U.S. agricultural use of aldicarb has been consistently low, with under 100,000 pounds used each year. Despite its low use in recent years, aldicarb was detected in drinking-water systems in six states serving nearly 1 million people between 2015 and 2017.

The EPA’s approval of aldicarb on Florida citrus crops is projected to exponentially increase use across the state.

Today’s lawsuit was filed by the Farmworker Association of Florida, Center for Biological Diversity and Environmental Working Group in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration’s Eleventh-hour Approval of Dangerous Pesticide Banned in More than 100 Countries
  • Tags: , ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

A no-holds-barred carnage of wolves in Wisconsin last week, which ended with trophy hunters killing nearly twice the sanctioned quota of animals in just under 60 hours, offers a terrible glimpse into just what lies ahead for these beloved native American carnivores unless the Biden administration moves swiftly to restore their federal protections.

Wisconsin’s wolf hunt was, from start to finish, an example of the worst wildlife management practices. The state was not prepared for a February hunt and was forced by a court ruling to rush into one without a clear, updated, scientific plan. ​

A whopping 2,380 wolf hunting permits — twice as many as are typically issued for hunts in the state — were made available for a quota of 119 wolves over what was supposed to be a week-long season. Little if any input was sought from Wisconsinites and tribal nations, which have opposed the hunts, or from the scientific community. The hunt also occurred during the breeding season for wolves, putting pregnant females in the crosshairs.

In less than 60 hours, 216 wolves had been slaughtered and all of the hunting zones had to be closed. We now know that nearly half the wolves killed were females. Entire wolf families were likely destroyed. And worst of all, nearly 85 percent of the animals killed were hunted down by packs of dogs — an extremely cruel and unsporting practice that no other state allows for wolf hunting.

“The swift pace of the wolf kills, mostly by hunters using trailing hounds, took the DNR by surprise. And the overage was made worse by a state statute that requires 24-hour, rather than immediate, notice of the season closure,” Paul A. Smith, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s outdoors editor, wrote in an article critical of the hunt.

We have issued many warnings predicting exactly such a horrific scenario since the federal delisting of wolves last year by the Trump administration. In Wisconsin, where some state officials and lawmakers had begun plotting a wolf hunt even before the federal delisting was finalized, we led a strong campaign to stop a February hunt, convincing the state’s Natural Resources Board and Gov. Tony Evers, in a letter, that an early hunt would be unscientific and illegal, with disastrous consequences for the wolves. Shortly after receiving our letter, the DNR announced they would not open a trophy hunt until November 2021 and committed to transparency and broad public engagement before doing so. Soon after, we helped thwart another attempt by some lawmakers to open a February hunt.

Unfortunately, an out-of-state trophy hunting group sued the state to open season earlier this month—a request the court granted, opening the door to a bloodbath. ​

In amicus briefs we filed with the court, we argued ​this hunt was ​not only scientifically unjustifiable but illegal under the state’s own law. The consequences of the court’s misguided decision underscores the importance of our fight — in federal court and elsewhere — to return Endangered Species Act protections to wolves.

We already know that Wisconsin is planning to open another hunt in the fall. And it is not the only one. In the Northern Rocky Mountains, where wolves had already lost their federal protections prior to the January national delisting, states are trying drastically to expand their trophy hunting seasons. Some lawmakers in Montana, for instance, are pushing forward numerous bills that would radically increase the number of wolves killed by trophy hunters and trappers. Wolves also continue to face grave threats in Idaho and Wyoming.

Wildlife agencies in other Great Lakes states, like Minnesota and Michigan, have committed to working to update their state wolf management plans and consult with scientists and tribes prior to considering a trophy hunting or trapping season. But in Minnesota some state lawmakers are trying to force a hunt, and bills were recently introduced that would require a season for wolves. However, another bill that would prohibit such a season was recently introduced as well. And in Michigan, the Senate Natural Resources Committee recently passed a resolution to urge the Natural Resources Commission to hold a wolf hunt even prior to updating their state management plan.

We have even seen a bill introduced in the 117th Congress by Rep. Thomas Tiffany, R-Wisc., that would remove gray wolves in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Wyoming from the Endangered Species Act indefinitely. The bill seeks to preempt any litigation that could potentially lead to federal protections being restored to wolves.

If you live in one of these states, it is crucial that you keep a watchful eye on decision-makers and continue to speak up for wolves. With trophy hunters raring to go after America’s wolves, and given the clout they have, in many cases, with state DNR officials and some lawmakers, this is a tough fight. But we have the majority of Americans, who are opposed to wolf trophy hunting, on our side and we are working to stop this cruel pastime on several fronts. ​

We are now suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service over the delisting decision to remove gray wolves in the lower 48 states from the Endangered Species Act, and we will continue to press the Biden administration’s Department of the Interior to restore federal protections for this species. We will also continue to fight state plans to open and expand wolf trophy hunts. Wolves need all of our help, and yours. These gorgeous animals today occupy only 15 percent of their historic range in this country: they are far from recovered, and in no state to withstand more carnage, in Wisconsin or anywhere else they call home.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Sara Amundson is president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.

Featured image: A whopping 2,380 wolf hunting permits — twice as many as are typically issued for hunts in the state — were made available for a quota of 119 wolves over what was supposed to be a week-long season. Photo by JAMcGraw/iStock.com

Territorial Dispute Growing Between Guyana and Venezuela

March 4th, 2021 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

An old territorial dispute in South America is reaching its most tense point in decades. The territory known as Essequibo has been mutually claimed by Guyana and Venezuela since the 19th century when Guyana still belonged to the United Kingdom. In 1897, the Venezuelan and British authorities agreed to submit their dispute to an arbitrary international court in Paris, which ruled that the land belonged to the UK. For decades, the arbitration decision was accepted by Caracas, but in 1948 Venezuelan authorities revealed some irregularities in the trial, which were documented in old government files. As a result, the decision was considered null, and years later, in 1963, Venezuela formally submitted its territorial claim to the United Nations, and the dispute remains unresolved till today, when the interests of foreign oil companies threaten to increase the tensions.

As a region rich in oil, Essequibo has recently entered the map of the large multinationals in this sector, especially the American Exxon Mobil. More than that, the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela and the political alignment of Guyana with Washington contribute to create an even more controversial scenario. Guyana has the support of the large private oil sector and the American government, while Venezuela remains alone. Last year, the case was filed with the International Court of Justice, but Venezuela did not accept it and remained out of the trial.

However, in a sentence on December 18, 2020, the Court proclaimed its competence to intervene in the dispute, despite Venezuela’s position. It is necessary to highlight that, regardless of any decision taken by the Court over who really has sovereignty in Essequibo, this sentence must be considered null, since the absence of Venezuelan consent prevents the execution of the sentence. The need for consent is one of the most elementary principles of international law and the very fact that the Court declares itself competent already leads us to question whether its judges are really impartial – clearly, the norms of international law are being violated in favor of Guyana.

Guyana has publicly admitted that its expenses for the court case in The Hague were paid by Exxon Mobil. Although the American oil company has been operating in Guyana for decades, its interest has been greatly increased with the recent discoveries of oil reserves and investors are willing to do anything to ensure the exploration of local natural resources. Currently, Exxon Mobil is interested in expanding its facilities over an area of more than 26,000 square kilometers, which not only crosses the disputed territory in Essequibo, but also violates Venezuelan undisputed national territory.

With this scenario of clear attack on Venezuelan national sovereignty and possible collaboration of the International Court with one of the parties, Venezuela is at a disadvantage mainly due to its diplomatic weakness. Venezuela, at this point, lacks sufficient influence to cause the Court to review its decision or judge the case in a really partial way. For that, only strong international alliances can help Caracas. The large nations that are not aligned with Washington and have so far cooperated strongly with Venezuela, Russia and China, might be provoked by the Venezuelan government to incite international pressure in this regard. Only these two countries can mediate a parallel agreement that may be established between Caracas and The Hague in order to choose between two paths: either Venezuela agrees to submit to trial on the condition that there is a partial judgment and without the influence of private companies, or the Court declines jurisdiction. As the first scenario is unlikely and difficult to monitor, the most viable route would be for The Hague to abdicate any form of judgment.

It is important to mention that, in the absence of international judgment, what is in force in Essequibo is the Geneva Agreement of 1966, which did not decide on sovereignty in the region, but, in search of a peaceful solution, defined what activities would be allowed or prohibited in Essequibo. Oil exploration by foreign companies is not allowed, so, in principle, Guyana is violating the agreement and its activities could only become lawful if there was a decision by the International Court on the matter, allowing exploration. As Venezuela does not submit to the Court, the trial is impossible and, therefore, exploration remains prohibited and Guyana is committing an international offense.

However, more worrying than that is the fact that the American military is working in Essequibo, carrying out tests with the aim of intimidating Venezuela and pressuring Caracas to renounce its demands. There are American military ships in Essequibo “protecting” Exxon Mobil facilities and provoking Caracas. In addition, considering that the American company wants to publicly explore areas within Venezuelan territory, what will become of the American presence? If Caracas does not allow the activities of Exxon Mobil, it is the Venezuelan right to control or even destroy the facilities in its territory. And what would be the American reaction to that – considering Biden’s aggressive interventionist policy?

It is for these reasons that, more than ever, countries of greater international relevance must mediate the issue in order to maintain the status of illegality to the Exxon Mobil’s activities. With international pressure, it is possible that the American company will retreat or that at least the American military in the region will leave and with that we would have a reduction in tensions.

Still, it is possible that with international mediation a mutual exploration agreement will be reached that allows both countries to enjoy the local wealth, without, however, allowing companies that violate the Geneva Agreement to operate.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Territorial Dispute Growing Between Guyana and Venezuela
  • Tags: ,

Trump & Biden’s Secret Bombing Wars

March 4th, 2021 by Medea Benjamin

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***
On February 25th, President Biden ordered U.S. air forces to drop seven 500-pound bombs on Iraqi forces in Syria, reportedly killing 22 people. The U.S. airstrike has predictably failed to halt rocket attacks on deeply unpopular U.S. bases in Iraq, which the Iraqi National Assembly passed a resolution to close over a year ago. 

The Western media reported the U.S. airstrike as an isolated and exceptional incident, and there has been significant blowback from the U.S. public, Congress and the world community, condemning the strikes as illegal and a dangerous escalation of yet another Middle East conflict.

But unbeknownst to many Americans, the U.S. military and its allies are engaged in bombing and killing people in other countries on a daily basis. The U.S. and its allies have dropped more than 326,000 bombs and missiles on people in other countries since 2001 (see table below), including over 152,000 in Iraq and Syria.

That’s an average of 46 bombs and missiles per day, day in day out, year in year out, for nearly 20 years. In 2019, the last year for which we have fairly complete records, the average was 42 bombs and missiles per day, including 20 per day in Afghanistan alone.

So, if those seven 500-pound bombs were the only bombs the U.S. and its allies dropped on February 25th, it would have been an unusually quiet day for U.S. and allied air forces, and for their enemies and victims on the ground, compared to an average day in 2019 or most of the past 20 years. On the other hand, if the unrelenting U.S. air assault on countries across the Greater Middle East finally began to diminish over the past year, this bombing may have been an unusual spike in violence. But which of these was it, and how would we know?

We don’t know, because our government doesn’t want us to. From January 2004 until February 2020, the U.S. military kept track of how many bombs and missiles it dropped on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and published those figures in regular, monthly Airpower Summaries, which were readily available to journalists and the public. But in March 2020, the Trump administration abruptly stopped publishing U.S. Airpower Summaries, and the Biden administration has so far not published any either.

As with the human casualties and mass destruction that these hundreds of thousands of airstrikes cause, the U.S. and international media only report on a tiny fraction of them. Without regular U.S. Airpower Summaries, comprehensive databases of airstrikes in other war-zones and serious mortality studies in the countries involved, the American public and the world are left almost completely in the dark about the death and destruction our country’s leaders keep wreaking in our name. The disappearance of Airpower Summaries has made it impossible to get a clear picture of the current scale of U.S. airstrikes.

Here are up-to-date figures on U.S. and allied airstrikes, from 2001 to the present, highlighting the secrecy in which they have abruptly been shrouded for the past year:

Numbers of bombs and missiles dropped on other countries by the U.S. & its allies since 2001

                       Iraq (& Syria*)               Afghanistan               Yemen               Other Countries**
2001                         214                              17,500
2002                        252                               6,500                           1
2003                  29,200
2004                        285                                    86                                                            1 (Pk)
2005                        404                                   176                                                           3 (Pk)
2006                        229                                1,770                                                  7,002 (Le,Pk)
2007                     1,708                                5,198                                                          9 (Pk,S)
2008                        915                                5,051                                                        40 (Pk,S)
2009                        119                                4,184                           3                      5,554 (Pk,Pl)
2010                           18                               5,126                           2                          128 (Pk)
2011                             2                                5,411                          13                      7,763 (Li,Pk,S)
2012                                                             4,083                          41                            54 (Li, Pk,S)
2013                                                              2,758                         22                            32 (Li,Pk,S)
2014                     6,292*                             2,365                         20                     5,058 (Li,Pl,Pk,S)
2015                   28,696*                                 947                 14,191                            28 (Li,Pk,S)
2016                   30,743*                              1,337                 14,549                         529 (Li,,Pk,S)
2017                   39,577*                              4,361                 15,969                         301 (Li,,Pk,S)
2018                      8,713*                             7,362                   9,746                           84 (Li,Pk,S)
2019                     4,729*                              7,423                  3,045                           65 (Li,S)
2020               SECRET                          SECRET                   7,622                           54 (S)
2021                SECRET                          SECRET                      310                              7 (S)

Total                152,096* + ?                    81,638 + ?           65,534                    26,712

Grand Total = 325,980 + Trump & Biden’s Secret Bombing 2020-2021

**Other Countries: Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Palestine, Somalia.

These figures are based on U.S. Airpower Summaries for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria; the Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s count of drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen; the Yemen Data Project‘s count of Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen; the New America Foundation’s database of foreign airstrikes in Libya; and other published statistics. Figures for 2021 are only through January.

There are several categories of airstrikes that are not included in this table, meaning that the true numbers of airstrikes are certainly higher. These include:

  • Helicopter strikes: Military Times published an article in February 2017 titled, “The U.S. military’s stats on deadly airstrikes are wrong. Thousands have gone unreported.” The largest pool of airstrikes not included in U.S. Airpower Summaries are strikes by attack helicopters. The U.S. Army told the authors its helicopters had conducted 456 otherwise unreported airstrikes in Afghanistan in 2016. The authors explained that the non-reporting of helicopter strikes has been consistent throughout the post-9/11 wars, and they still did not know how many actual missiles were fired in those 456 attacks in Afghanistan in the one year they investigated.
  • AC-130 gunships: The airstrike that destroyed the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan in 2015 was not conducted with bombs or missiles, but by a Lockheed-Boeing AC-130 gunship. These machines of mass destruction, usually manned by U.S. Air Force special operations forces, are designed to circle a target on the ground, pouring howitzer shells and cannon fire into it, often until it is completely destroyed. The U.S. has used AC-130s in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Syria.
  • Strafing runs: U.S. Airpower Summaries for 2004-2007 included a note that their tally of “strikes with munitions dropped… does not include 20mm and 30mm cannon or rockets.” But the 30mm cannons on A-10 Warthogs and other ground attack planes are powerful weapons, originally designed to destroy Soviet tanks. A-10s fire 65 depleted uranium shells per second to blanket an area with deadly and indiscriminate fire, but that does not count as a “weapons release” in U.S. Airpower Summaries.
  • “Counter-insurgency” and “counter-terrorism” operations in other parts of the world. The United States formed a military coalition with 11 West African countries in 2005, and now has a drone base in Niger, but we have not found a database of U.S. and allied air strikes in that region, or in the Philippines, Latin America or elsewhere.

It was clearly no coincidence that Trump stopped publishing Airpower Summaries right after the February 2020 U.S. withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, reinforcing the false impression that the war in Afghanistan was over. In fact, U.S. bombing resumed after only an 11-day pause.

As our table shows, 2018 and 2019 were back-to-back record years for U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan. But how about 2020? Without the official records, we don’t know whether the withdrawal agreement led to a serious reduction in airstrikes or not.

President Biden has foolishly tried to use airstrikes in Syria as “leverage” with Iran, instead of simply rejoining the Iran nuclear agreement as he promised during the election campaign. Biden is likewise trailing along in Trump’s footsteps by shrouding U.S. airstrikes in the secrecy that Trump used to obscure his failure to “end the endless wars.”

It is entirely possible that the highly publicized February 25th airstrikes, like Trump’s April 2017 missile strikes on Syria, were a diversion from much heavier, but largely unreported, U.S. bombing already under way elsewhere, in that case the frightful destruction of Mosul, Iraq’s former second city.

The only way that Biden can reassure the American public that he is not using Trump’s wall of secrecy to continue America’s devastating airwars, notably in Afghanistan, is to end this secrecy now, and resume the publication of complete and accurate U.S. Airpower Summaries.

President Biden cannot restore the world’s respect for American leadership, or the American public’s support for our foreign policy, by piling more lies, secrets and atrocities on top of those he has inherited. If he keeps trying to do so, he might well find himself following in Trump’s footsteps in yet another way: as the failed, one-term president of a destructive and declining empire.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

Nicolas J. S. Davies is a freelance writer and a researcher with CODEPINK, and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.     

Featured image is from InfoBrics

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Trump & Biden’s Secret Bombing Wars

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Dozens of U.S. law firms have formed a coalition to fight a new $2 billion settlement proposal by Monsanto owner Bayer AG that aims to contain the company’s ongoing liability related to claims that Roundup herbicides cause a type of cancer known as non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

The settlement is designed to compensate people who have been exposed to Roundup products and either already have NHL or may develop NHL in the future, but who have not yet taken steps to file a lawsuit.

The small group of lawyers who put the plan together with Bayer say it will “save lives” and provide substantial benefits to people who believe they developed cancer from exposure to the company’s herbicide products.

But many lawyers criticizing the plan say if it is approved it would set a dangerous precedent for other types of litigation involving large numbers of people injured by the products or practices of powerful corporations.

“This is not the direction we want the civil justice system to go,” said attorney Gerald Singleton, whose firm has joined with more than 60 other law firms to oppose Bayer’s plan. “There is no scenario under which this is good for plaintiffs.”

Bayer’s settlement plan was filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Feb. 3, and must be approved by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in order to become effective. A prior settlement plan submitted last year was scorned by Chhabria and then withdrawn. The judge has been overseeing the federal multidistrict Roundup litigation involving thousands of plaintiffs from around the United States.

Responses to the settlement plan are due March 3 and a hearing on the matter is set for March 31.

A key concern is that current Roundup users who may develop cancer and want to sue in the future will automatically be subject to terms of the class settlement unless they officially opt out of the settlement within a specific time period. One of the terms they would be subject to would bar them from seeking punitive damages in any future lawsuit.

Those terms and others laid out are wholly unfair to farm workers and others who are expected to develop cancer in the future from exposure to the company’s herbicide products, according to Singleton. The plan benefits Bayer and provides “blood money” to the four law firms that worked with Bayer to design the plan, he said.

Those firms working with Bayer to draft and administer the plan would receive a proposed $170 million if the plan takes effect.

Elizabeth Cabraser, one of the lawyers who crafted the new proposed settlement, said the criticism is not a fair description of the settlement. In truth, she said, the plan “provides significant and urgently-needed outreach, education, healthcare access, and compensation benefits” for people who have been exposed to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicides but have not yet developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL).

“We seek approval of this settlement because it will save lives and enhance quality of life through early diagnosis, assist people… inform them and raise public awareness about the link between Roundup and NHL…” she said.

A spokesman for Bayer did not respond to a request for comment.

The new proposed settlement is aimed at future cases and is separate from the $11 billion Bayer has earmarked to settle existing U.S. Roundup cancer claims. The people impacted by the class settlement proposal are only individuals who have been exposed to Roundup but are not yet in litigation and have taken no steps toward any litigation.

Bayer has been struggling to figure out how to put an end to the Roundup cancer litigation since buying Monsanto in 2018. The company lost all three trials held to date and lost the early rounds of appeals seeking to overturn the trial losses.

Juries in each of the trials found not only that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides cause cancer but also that Monsanto spent decades hiding the risks.

Though the proposed settlement states that it “addresses the four concerns the Court raised regarding the prior, withdrawn settlement,” Singleton and other lawyers involved in the opposition said the new settlement proposal is just as bad as the first.

In addition to the concerns that class members would not have the right to seek claims for punitive damages, the critics also object to the four-year “standstill” period blocking the filing of new lawsuits. The critics also say the plan for notifying people of the class settlement is not sufficient. Individuals would have 150 days following the notification to “opt out” of the class. If they do not opt out, they are automatically in the class.

Critics also object to the proposed formation of a science panel that would act as a “guidepost” for an “extension of compensation options into the future” and to provide evidence about the carcinogenicity – or not – of Bayer’s herbicides.  Given Monsanto’s documented history of manipulating scientific findings, the science panel work would be suspect, said Singleton.

The initial settlement period would run for at least four years and could be extended after that period.  If Bayer elects not to continue the compensation fund after the initial settlement period, it will pay an additional $200 million as an “end payment” into the compensation fund, the settlement summary states.

“Substantial compensation” offered

The law firms that drafted the agreement with Bayer said in their filing to the court that the settlement is structured to provide potential future plaintiffs with “what most serves their interests,” including an option for “substantial compensation” if they develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The plan calls for the establishment of a compensation fund to make awards of between $10,000 and $200,000 per individual class member. “Accelerated Payment Awards” of $5,000 would be available on an expedited basis, requiring just a showing of exposure and diagnosis.

Those people first exposed to Roundup products at least 12 months prior to their diagnosis would be qualified for awards. Awards of  more than $200,000 could be made for “extraordinary circumstances.” Those qualified class members who were diagnosed with NHL before January 1, 2015, would not receive awards more than $10,000, according to the plan. 

The settlement would provide free legal advice and provide ”support to assist class members in navigating, registering, and applying for Settlement benefits.”

Additionally, the proposal states that the settlement will fund medical and scientific research into the diagnosis and treatment of NHL.

Notably, the plan states that no one will lose their right to sue unless they choose to accept compensation from the compensation fund, and no one needs to make that choice until that individual class member is diagnosed with NHL. They would not be able to seek punitive damages but could seek other compensation.

“Any class members who do not file a claim and accept individual compensation retain their right to sue Monsanto for compensatory damages on any legal theory, including personal injury, fraud, misrepresentation, negligence, fraudulent concealment, negligent misrepresentation, breach of warranty, false advertising, and violation of any consumer protection or unfair and deceptive acts or practices statute,” the plan states.

To alert people to the class action settlement, notices would be mailed/emailed to 266,000 farms, businesses and organizations and government entities where the company’s herbicides could have been used as well as to 41,000 people who have non-Hodgkin lymphoma and asked to receive information about their disease. Additionally posters would be mailed to 2,700 stores asking them to post notices of the class action settlement.

As part of the proposed settlement, Bayer said it would seek permission from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add information on the labels of its glyphosate-based products such as Roundup that would provide links to access to scientific studies and other information about glyphosate safety. But critics say providing a website links is inadequate and Bayer needs to put a straightforward warning of cancer risk on the weed killing products.

The proposed class action settlement threatens to affect “hundreds of thousands or even millions” of people who have been exposed to Roundup and “raises ‘unique’ and profound questions” under the U.S. Constitution, according to a court filing in opposition to the Bayer plan made by plaintiffs’ lawyer Elizabeth Graham.

Graham told the court that if the plan is approved it could have a “dramatic effect not only on this litigation, but on the future of mass tort litigation.”

Black farmers

 The National Black Farmers Association (NBFA) weighed in on the issue on Wednesday, submitting a lengthy filing with Chhabria’s court that states a “substantial proportion” of its more than 100,000 members “have been exposed to and potentially injured by Roundup, and its active ingredient glyphosate.”

Many of the farmers have already developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma they blame on Roundup use, and “an even larger proportion fear that they will soon develop symptoms,” the NBFA filing states.

The NBFA wants to see Roundup products removed from commerce or other changes made to protect farmers, the filing states.

The concerns of the NBFA need to be addressed by the court, particularly as Bayer looks to “settle a class action with a set of attorneys who purport to be representing the future interests of all farmers who have been exposed to Roundup but are yet to develop the cancers it causes.”

Lawsuits in Australia

As Bayer works to bring an end to Roundup litigation in the United States, the company is also dealing with similar claims by farmers and others in Australia. A class action filed against Monsanto is underway, and the lead plaintiff John Fenton, who applied Roundup as part of farm work. Fenton was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2008.

A series of key dates have been established: Monsanto has until March 1 to provide discovery documents to plaintiffs’ lawyers and June 4 is the deadline set for the exchange of expert evidence.  The parties are to enter into mediation by July 30 and if nothing is resolved the case would go to trial in March 2022.

Fenton said while he would “love the opportunity” to go to trial and tell his story, he hopes mediation will resolve the matter. “I think the consensus is starting to change thanks to what has been happening in the US. Farmers are more aware and I believe they do take more precautions than they used to.

Fenton said he hopes that Bayer ultimately will put a warning label on Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicides.

“At least with a warning the user can make up their own mind about what PPE (personal protective equipment) they choose to wear.”

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Pixavril – stock.adobe.com

The Seven-Step Path from Pandemic to Totalitarianism

March 4th, 2021 by Rosemary Frei

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

First published on GR in April 2020.

Incisive article which revealed the timeline of what has now been unfolding.

***

As if it was planned in advance, billions of people around the globe are being forced step by rapid step into a radically different way of life, one that involves far less personal, physical and financial freedoms.

Here is the template for rolling this out.

STEP 1

A new virus starts to spread around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) declares a pandemic.

International agencies, public-health officials, politicians, media and other influential voices fan fear by focusing almost exclusively on the contagiousness of the virus and the rising numbers of cases, and by characterizing the virus as extremely dangerous.

Within a few days governments at national and local levels also declare states of emergency. At lightning speed they impose lock-down measures that confine most people to their homes – starting withclosing schools – and shut down much of the global economy. World markets implode.

The stunned, fearful and credulous public – convinced over the previous few years that their bodies do not have the natural ability to react to pathogens by producing antibodies that confer long-lasting immunity – largely complies willingly.

The first weekly virtual class on local emergency and crisis responses to COVID-19 is held for mayors and other city officials around the world.Coordinated by a handful of American organizations in the academic, medical, financial, political and transportation spheres, the classes feature guests ranging from Barack Obama to Bill Gates.

STEP 2

National, state/provincial and municipal leaders, as well as public-health officials, start daily press briefings. They use them to pump out frightening statistics and modelling asserting the virus has the potential to kill many millions.

Most of this information is hard to decipher and sheds little real light on the natural course of the virus’s spread through each geographic area.

Officials and media downplay or distort inconveniently low death tolls from the virus and instead focus on alarming statistics produced by compliant academics, social-media influencers and high-profile organizations.

The main message is that this is a war and many lives are at stake unless virtually everybody stays at home. Mainstream media amplify the trope that the world is at the mercy of the virus.

Simultaneously, central banks and governments hand out massive amounts of cash largely to benefit the big banks. And they bring in giant private-sector financial firms to manage the process despite these global companies’ very poor track record in the 2008-2009 crash. Governments also rapidly start to create trillions of pounds’ worth of programs that include compensating businesses and workers for their shutdown-related losses.

STEP 3

There is a concerted effort by all levels of government and public health to very rapidly ramp up testing for viral RNA, along with production of personal protective equipment.

They push aside the need for regulation, including quality standards and independent verification of tests’ rates of accuracy, by insisting that fast approval and roll-out are imperative for saving lives.

Models are released that predict snowballing of numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths even under best-case scenarios.

At about the same time, public-health officials significantly loosen the criteria for viral infections, outbreaks and deaths, particularly in the oldest members of society. That increases the numbers of cases and deaths ascribed to the new pathogen.

The media continue to clamour for more testing and for severe punishment of people who aren’t completely compliant with the lock-down measures.

As a result, there’s little backlash as police and military with sweeping new powers enforce these measures and give stiff penalties or even jail terms to those who disobey orders. States also monitor with impunity massive numbers of people’s movements via their cellphones.

Vast human resources are focused on tracking down people who have had contact with a virus-positive individual and confining them to their homes. Thus the portion of the public exposed to the virus remains relatively small.

It also contributes to social isolation. Among many effects, this enables those in control to even further erase individual and collective choices, voices and power.

STEP 4

When the numbers of cases and deaths start to plateau, local officials claim it’s too early to tell whether the virus has finished passing through their population and therefore, restrictive measures must continue.

An alternative narrative is that if such measures aren’t kept in place there will be a resurgence of cases and deaths. Yet another is that the continuing climb in elderly persons’ deaths means all bets are off for the time being.

They admit that initial models incorrectly predicted there would be a tsunami of cases, ICU admissions and deaths. However, they assert more time is needed before it can be determined whether it’s safe to loosen some of the restrictions and let children return to school or adults go back to work.

Officials do not try to calculate the overall skyrocketing cost to their populations and economies of the shut-downs and other measures against, nor do they discuss what cost level may be too high.

They and powerful media organizations also push for the massive virus-testing over-capacity to be used to surveil the general population for viral DNA in their bodies. At the same time, the roll-out begins of widespread blood testing for antibodies to the virus.

Meanwhile, new data are published showing the virus has a high capacity to mutate. Scientists and officials interpret this as meaning a larger medical arsenal will be needed to combat it.

STEP 5

About two or three weeks later, the dramatic increase in testing for viral DNA produces the desired goal of a significant upsurge in the number of people found positive for the virus.

Public-health officials add jet fuel to the surge by adding to their case and death tallies the large number of people who are only suspected – and not lab-test-confirmed – to have had an infection. Politicians and public-health officials tell the populace this means they cannot return to their jobs or other activities outside the home for the time being.

Governments work with public-health agencies, academics, industry, the WHO and other organizations to start to design and implement immunity-passport systems for using the results of the widespread antibody testing to determine who can be released from the lock-downs. This is one of many goals of the seven steps.

Meanwhile, government leaders continue to highlight the importance of vaccines for besting the virus.

STEP 6

Large-scale human testing of many different types of antivirals and vaccines begins, thanks to a concerted push from the WHO, Bill Gatesand his collaborators, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, governments and universities.

Large swaths of the population don’t have the antibodies to the virus because they’ve been kept from being exposed to it; they eagerly accept these medications even though they’ve been rushed to market with inadequate safety testing. They believe these medical products offer the only hope for escaping the virus’s clutches.

STEP 7

Soon the new virus starts another cycle around the globe – just as influenza and other viruses have every year for millennia. Officials again fan the flames of fear by positing the potential for millions of deaths among people not yet protected from the virus.

They rapidly roll out virus and antibody testing again, while companies sell billions more doses of antivirals and booster vaccines.

Governments simultaneously cede control of all remaining public assets to global companies. This is because local and national governments’ tax bases were decimated during Step 1 and they’re virtually bankrupt from their unprecedented spending in the war against the virus in the other steps.

The overall result is complete medicalization of the response to the virus, which on a population level is no more harmful than influenza.

This is coupled with the creation of permanent totalitarianism controlled by global companies and a 24/7 invasive-surveillance police state supported by widespread blossoming of ‘smart’ technology.

The key players repeat the cycle of hysteria and massive administration of antivirals and booster shots every few months.

And they implement a variation of steps 1 to 7 when another new pathogen appears on the planet.

Sounds far-fetched? Unfortunately, it’s not.

With the arrival of COVID-19 many countries quickly completed Steps 1, 2 and 3.

Step 4 is well under way in a large number of jurisdictions.

Step 5 is on track to start in early May.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Rosemary Frei has an MSc in molecular biology from a faculty of medicine and was a freelance medical writer and journalist for 22 years. She is now an independent investigative journalist in Toronto, Ontario. You can find her earlier article on the novel coronavirus for Off-Guardian here, watch and listen to an interview she gave on COVID19 and follow her on Twitter.

All images in this article are from OffGuardian

First published March 21, 2020

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had a slip of the tongue while addressing the American people from the White House when he stated that COVID-19 is “a live exercise”.

“This is not about retribution,” Pompeo explained. “This matter is going forward — we are in a live exercise here to get this right.”

 

.

.

With a disgusted look on his face, President Trump replied: “You should have let us know.”

THE COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT: 

Pompeo’s statement might be misinterpreted when taken out of context.

It is important to focus on the broader context of Secretary of State Pompeo’s statement.

The transcript is below. Pompeo was referring to China and China’s Communist Party. This is the transcript. (emphasis added). (GR Editor)

.

Speaker 29: (01:06:57)
.
Yeah, so we were alerted by some discussions that Dr. Redfield, the director of the CDC had with Chinese colleagues on January 3rd. It’s since been known that there may have been cases in December. Not that we were alerted in December.Speaker 28: (01:07:13)
.
Mr. President, the other question I have for you, when-Donald Trump: (01:07:15)
.
Excuse me, we’ll do that in a second. Let Mike-Sec. Pompeo: (01:07:18)
.
May I just say one more thing. There’s been some discussion about China and what they knew and when they knew it, and I’ve been very critical. We need to know immediately the world is entitled to know. The Chinese government was the first to know of this risk to the world and that puts a special obligation to make sure that data, the data gets to our scientists, our professionals. This is not about retribution. This matters going forward. We’re in a live exercise here. To get this right. We need to make sure that even today the datasets that are available to every country, including datasets that are available to the Chinese communist party are made available to the whole world. It’s an imperative to keep people safe. We talk about the absence of datasets, not being able to make judgments about what to do.Sec. Pompeo: (01:08:02)
.
This is absolutely, this transparency, this realtime information sharing isn’t about political games or retribution. It’s about keeping people safe. And so when you see a delay in information flowing from the Chinese communist party to the technical people who we wanted to get into China immediately to assist in this, every moment of delay connected to being able to identify this risk vectors, creates risks to the people all around the world. And so this is why it’s not about blaming someone for this. This is about moving forward to make sure that we continue to have the information we need to do our jobs.

 

What is actually going on here? Does the White House care to explain?

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from Gage Skidmore CC BY 2.0

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Mike Pompeo Admits COVID-19 Is a “Live Exercise,” Trump Retorts “I Wish You Would Have Told Us”

First published by GR on April 18, 2020

**

For over twenty years Bill Gates and his Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) have been vaccinating foremost children by the millions in remote areas of poor countries, mostly Africa and Asia. Most of their vaccination program had disastrous results, causing the very illness (polio, for example in India) and sterilizing young women (Kenya, with modified tetanus vaccines). Many of the children died. Many of the programs were carried out with the backing of the WHO and – yes – the UN Agency responsible for the Protection of Children, UNICEF. 

Most of these vaccination campaigns were implemented without the informed-consent of the children, parents, guardians or teachers, nor with the informed-consent, or with forged consent, of the respective government authorities. In the aftermath, The Gates Foundation was sued by governments around the world, Kenya, India, the Philippines – and more.

Bill Gates has a strange image of himself. He sees himself as The Messiah who saves the world through vaccination – and through population reduction.

Around the time, when the 2010 Rockefeller Report was issued, with its even more infamous “Lock Step” Scenario, precisely the scenario of which we are living the beginning right now, Bill Gates talked on a TED show in California, “Innovating to Zero” about the use of energy.

He used this TED presentation to promote his vaccination programs, literally saying, “If we are doing a real good job vaccinating childen, we can reduce the world population by 10% to 15%”. Watch this video from TED Talk at 04:21 or watch directly below.

 

Screenshot from the transcript on TED Talk

This sounds very much like eugenics.

The video, the first 6’45”, “The Truth about Bill Gates and his Disastrous Vaccination Program”, will tell you all about it.

Read also Gates’ Globalist Vaccine Agenda: a Win-Win for Pharma and Mandatory Vaccination by Robert F Kennedy Jr

Robert F Kennedy Jr, an avid Defender of Children’s Rights and anti-vaccination activist, has launched a petition sent to the White House, calling for “Investigations into the ‘Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’ for Medical Malpractice & Crimes Against Humanity

Screenshot 

“At the forefront of this is Bill Gates, who has publicly stated his interest in “reducing population growth” by 10-15%, by means of vaccination. Gates, UNICEF & WHO have already been credibly accused of intentionally sterilizing Kenyan children through the use of a hidden HCG antigen in tetanus vaccines”. (Excerpt from text of Petition)

Link to the Petition.

If you wish to Sign the Petition click Here  

(At the time of writing, the petition had over 265,000. It requires 100,000 for an answer from the White House)

Video: Robert F. Kennedy Junior

See also brief video featuring Author Bill Still ( 6 min) entitled The Truth about Bill Gates and his disastrous Vaccination Programs around the World

Robert. F. Kennedy Exposes Bill Gates’ Vaccination Agenda

Now Mr. Gates and his allies, including Big-Pharma, WHO, UNICEF, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of NIAID / NIH, a close ally of Mr. Gates  – and of course, Agenda ID2020, are proposing to (force) vaccinate 7 billion people around the globe, with their concoction of a (so far) untested coronavirus vaccine. This is a multi-billion dollar bonanza for  Big Pharma and for all those who support the vaccine. Nobody will really know what the vaccine cocktail will contain. They intend to start with the Global South (Developing Countries) and then gradually move North (Developed Countries).

Mind you, there is no need for a vaccine to cure the corona virus. There are many cures:

French Professor Didier Raoult, who is one of the world’s top 5 scientists on communicable diseases, suggested the use of hydroxychloroquine (Chloroquine or Plaquenil), a well-known, simple, and inexpensive drug, also used to fight Malaria, and that has shown efficacy with previous coronaviruses such as SARS.  By mid-February 2020, clinical trials at his institute and in China already confirmed that the drug could reduce the viral load and bring spectacular improvement. Chinese scientists published their first trials on more than 100 patients and announced that the Chinese National Health Commission would recommend Chloroquine in their new guidelines to treat Covid-19. (Peter Koenig, April 1, 2020)

Be aware, awake, alert and warned.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press, TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Bill Gates and the Depopulation Agenda. Robert F. Kennedy Junior Calls for an Investigation

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

First published on Global Research in April 2020.

In Part 1 we looked at the reasons why questioning the coronavirus lockdown, despite the ever present allegation, does not demonstrate a callous disregard for human life. We are going to expand on why it doesn’t in this article.

I am based in the UK so much of this discussion relates to the decisions of the British State, but this is a global policy agenda and similar policies are found across the developed world. Effectively a small group of policy decision makers have placed an estimated 3.5 billion people under house arrest. It is only possible for them to do so with our consent. Consent is carefully cultivated by controlling the information we are given.

For the vast majority their only source of information is the corporate mainstream media (MSM) and the public announcements of the State. This article is written, as ever, in the hope people will do their own research and make up their own minds.

We are going to look at the evidence which strongly suggests the State and the MSM, adhering to a globalist agenda, have colluded to mislead the public into believing the COVID 19 (C19) threat is far greater than it actually is.

C19 can be fatal for those with pre-existing comorbidities, and possibly even some without, as can other forms of pneumonia and influenza-like respiratory illness. However, while every C19 death has been reported, none of the far greater number of people who have died in the UK this year from other respiratory infections have even been mentioned.

Systems have been created to ensure the C19 statistics are as terrifying as possible. Their statistical product is so vague it borders upon meaningless. It seems we have been inculcated with misplaced fear to justify the lockdown regime, to convince us to accept it and prepare us for what is to come.

I apologise for the article’s length but I hope you will read it in its entirety. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so please grab a coffee before we begin.

Lockdown advised by WHO?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is financed through a combination of assessed and voluntary contributions.

Assessed contributions are paid by nation states for WHO membership and figures are released quarterly.

Voluntary contributions are additional contributions from member states and “other partners.” For some reason these figures haven’t been reported for more than three years.

About 80% of the WHO’s finances come from voluntary contributions.

In its most recent 2017 voluntary contribution report the WHO accounted for the $2.1 billion it received from private foundations and global corporations.

This compared to just over $1 billion voluntarily provided by governments.

Contributors included GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer AG, Sanofi, Merck and Gilead Sciences whose drug remdesivir is currently being trialled, along side the off patent hydroxychloroquine, as a possible preventative treatment for COVID 19.

The remdesivir trial is part of the WHO’s SOLIDARITY trials.

The third-largest single contributor in 2017 was GAVI. Formerly called the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, they contributed nearly $134 million. GAVI are partnered with the WHO, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank to sell vaccines globally.

The World Bank contributed nearly $146 million themselves and the largest individual payment, by some margin, at nearly $325 million came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Though like many other foundations and corporations, through their various networks of interlinked partnerships, their overall contribution was much higher.

Among other beneficiaries of the BMGF’s generosity are the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium (VIMC) led by Professor Neil Ferguson.  They are based at Imperial College London and are directly funded by the BMGF and GAVI. Their objective is to provide statistical data analysis for the BMGF and GAVI in order for them to sell more vaccines.

Prof. Ferguson not only led the team who created the hopelessly inaccurate prediction which the U.S and UK governments based their lockdown regimes upon, he also co-founded the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling who worked with the WHO in 2009 to create ridiculous computer models predicting the H1N1 pandemic.

In 2009 the world went crazy after the WHO declared the H1N1 influenza pandemic. This resulted in billions being spent on very expensive H1N1 vaccines and antiviral treatments although it turned out the pandemic was indistinguishable from seasonal flu.

The only people who benefited from pointless vaccines and unnecessary medication were the manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Novartis. Each of these pharmaceutical corporations were among the largest voluntary contributors to the WHO in 2008/2009 financial year.

With an $84 million investment, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche were the largest single contributor into the WHO’s coffers that year. Luckily, as it turned out, they could afford it because sales of their unnecessary Tamiflu H1N1 medication rocketed to more than £3 billion following the WHO’s declared H1N1 pandemic. Which was just a coincidence.

The whole debacle resulted in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) launching an investigation into the WHO to look into the issue of a “falsified pandemic.” During the subsequent hearing the epidemiologist Dr Wolfgang Wodarg said:

The WHO basically held the trigger for the pandemic preparedness plans, they had a key role to play in deciding on the pandemic. Around 18 billion dollars was spent on this pandemic worldwide. Millions were vaccinated for no good reason. It is not even clear that the vaccine had a positive effect, because it was not clinically tested.”

At the same hearing Professor Dr Ulrich Keil, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Epidemiology at the University of Munster, said:

A number of scientists and others are questioning the decision of the WHO to declare an international pandemic. The H1N1 virus is not a new virus, but has been known to us for decades […] In Germany, about 10,000 deaths are attributed to seasonal ‘flu, especially among older and frail people. Only a very small number of deaths, namely 187, can be attributed to the H1N1 virus in Germany – and many of those are dubious.”

Of course nothing came of it because PACE were making allegations against the World Health Organisation. The WHO don’t break the rules, they make the rules. Amazingly, probably because no one ever learns anything from history, we all believed the WHO this time.

To imagine these huge investments made by pharmaceutical corporations and private foundations don’t buy influence is so naive it barely warrants mention. The WHO is essentially a policy lobby group for the powerful globalists who own it. Why an organisation with such significant and clear conflicts of financial interests should be considered a global health authority is anyone’s guess.

On the 11th March the WHO declared the SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic. On 15th March 2020 UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock stated that vulnerable people would be required to quarantine themselves or self isolate. 

The State issued a set of guidelines for avoiding the spread of infection. On the 16th March UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a statement advising people to practice social distancing, avoid non essential travel and warned that drastic measures may be needed to protect the NHS and the most vulnerable.

On the 18th of March the Director General of the BMGF funded WHO Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave a virtual press conference. He stated:

WHO continues to call on all countries to implement a comprehensive approach with the aim of slowing down transmission and flattening the curve. This approach is saving lives and buying time for the development of vaccines and treatments. As you know, the first vaccine trial has begun……This virus is presenting us with an unprecedented threat”

We are about to discuss why COVID 19 is not an unprecedented threat. On the 20th of March Boris Johnson ordered the closure of all venues for social gathering, such as pubs, cafes and restaurants. On March 23rd the UK State legislated for the Coronavirus Act and placed the UK in lockdown. Just as the WHO and their other partners called on them to do.

Lockdown to protect the NHS

The NHS was created to protect us, that’s why we pay for it. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when this relationship flipped on its head.

After years of chronic underfunding by successive governments of all persuasions, interminable mismanagement, savage ideologically driven austerity cuts, crippling Private Finance Initiative debts and increasing privatisation for corporate profit, there is absolutely no reason to believe the State cares about either our health or the NHS.

Every single major health policy and legislative decision, made over the last few decades, clearly demonstrates that it doesn’t.

The basic premise, apparently believed by so many, that the State has now decided to act to keep us safe is tragically comical. For us to swallow this tripe we need to be sufficiently terrified to willingly accept the imagined protection of the State. The MSM has been doing its best to make sure we are and that we do. The 24 hour fear-porn cycle is a wonder to behold.

Most of this is based upon claims about deaths and stories about desperately overloaded hospitals struggling to cope with the pressure. Meanwhile, as millions of British people remain under house arrest, glued to their TV’s and fondle pads, the data that has been released by official sources doesn’t back up any of the tales we have been spun.

This inconvenient truth has been reported by very few in the MSM print media and has been met with deafening silence on our TV’s. Rather, the data has been convincingly spun to tell a story that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Evidence of NHS overload is entirely absent. The State will claim this is thanks to the lockdown regime. Certainly the fact that people with other serious conditions haven’t been treated has alleviated pressure on the NHS. Unfortunately, the evidence also indicates the lockdown regime is probably killing them in increasing numbers. Though it seems unlikely the State will claim responsibility for that.

The Financial Times reported that close to half of the UK’s hospital beds were empty. With just 60% of acute beds occupied this is 30% less than this time last year.

In the same period last year the NHS was creaking under the pressure of demand, prompting then Prime Minister Theresa May to suggest scrapping NHS targets. Once again, the State was only concerned with how the figures looked not about people dying on trolleys in corridors. This year it cares, honest!

During a supposed global pandemic we’ve had the lowest ever national A&E attendance. Manchester hospitals report a 57% bed occupation rate compared to their average of 94%.

Most concerning is the huge drop in cardiology patients. With Heart disease killing more than 40,000 people under the age of 75 every year in the UK, and with a reported rise in fatalities last year, this prompted Professor John Howarth from North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust to express grave concern.

“I am really worried that people are not seeking the help they need for important conditions other than Covid-19.”

Indeed, if your world view is supplied by the MSM, deaths from anything other than C19 seem to have become practically irrelevant in the space of a few weeks. The Health Service journal (HSJ) reports that the NHS has four times as many empty beds as normal. Confirming that more than 40% of acute beds are unoccupied.

Even in London, the alleged epicentre of the C19 pandemic, that figure is still nearly 29%.

The much publicised Nightingale temporary hospitals, a mobilisation the MSM were keen to portray as putting the nation on a war footing, which were allegedly required to cope with the surge of C19 patients, aren’t necessary.

Of the 1,555 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds available in London 1,245 are occupied. So questions must be asked why 19 patients, who presumably needed intensive care, were seemingly moved unnecessarily into the 4,000 bed London Nightingale over the Easter weekend.

Contrary to the claimed justification for the lockdown, as many have repeatedly warned, the health consequences of the lockdown regime could far outweigh the risks presented by C19.

Excess mortality this year is higher than average but reported coronavirus deaths form a smaller part of that bigger picture.

The HSJ reported a senior NHS sources who stated:

There could be some very serious unintended consequences. While there will be a lot of covid-19 fatalities, we could end up losing more ‘years of life’ because of fatalities relating to non-covid-19 health complications.”

The deputy director of research at the Nuffield Trust Sarah Scobie echoed this concern:

The PHE [Public Health England] data suggests there could be significant problems already developing for heart disease related conditions patients, for example. Attendances relating to myocardial infarction at emergency departments have dropped right down, whereas ambulance calls in relation to chest pain have gone right up.”

Not only is there no evidence that the NHS is even close to struggling to cope with a non-existent surge, the likely severe health consequences of the State’s lockdown policy are starting to emerge. When we look at the data on claimed COVID 19 deaths the picture only becomes more alarming.

Lockdown and reported deaths

Everyday, for weeks, the MSM has reported every single UK death which was supposedly due to COVID 19. This has been central to their effort to convince us of the severity of the pandemic. The reporting always supports the State’s narrative that the lockdown is necessary.

Under normal circumstances, when someone dies, a person who knows them well, such as a family member, or someone who was physically close to the person at the time of death, is the qualified informant who can notify the registrar of the circumstances and non medical details of the death.

That is not true for suspected C19 patients. For them a funeral director, who has almost certainly never met the deceased, can be the qualified informant. This places far more emphasis on the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) as registration can take place without any input from family or anyone else familiar with the circumstances of the death.

Prior to the Coronavirus Act, the last attending doctor to the deceased had the responsibility to register the death. However, in the case of suspected C19 deaths, that duty can be discharged by a doctor who has never met the patient.

The UK State guidance for C19 patients states:

A doctor who attended the deceased during their last illness has a legal responsibility to complete a MCCD….. this duty may be discharged through another doctor who may complete an MCCD in an emergency period….In an emergency period, any doctor can complete the MCCD….For the purposes of the emergency period, the attendance may be in person, via video/visual consultation, but not audio (e.g. via telephone)….Where the certifying doctor has not seen the deceased before death they should delete the words last seen alive by me on.

When an MCCD is completed the medical causes are listed sequentially with the immediate cause of death at the top and the underlying cause of death at the bottom of the list. For example, heart failure caused by pneumonia stemming from influenza would list the immediate cause of death as a heart attack and the underlying cause as influenza. That underlying cause is usually diagnosed through positive test results.

It is crucial to understand that for C19 to be recorded on the MCCD, as the underlying cause of death, there does not need to be any test based diagnosis of the syndrome. Diagnosis can simply be from observation of symptoms or CT scans. The guidance to medical practitioners states:

if before death the patient had symptoms typical of COVID 19 infection, but the test result has not been received, it would be satisfactory to give ‘COVID-19’ as the cause of death, tick Box B and then share the test result when it becomes available. In the circumstances of there being no swab, it is satisfactory to apply clinical judgement.

Given this seeming lack of clarity, guidance from the Royal College of Pathologists (RCP) is also concerning.

In circumstances where C19 is merely believed to be a factor they advise that there is no need for a post mortem.

If a death is believed to be due to confirmed COVID-19 infection, there is unlikely to be any need for a post-mortem examination to be conducted and the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death should be issued.”

Post-mortems are not standard procedure and are normally required only where the cause of death is unknown or where the circumstances appear suspicious. However, the recommendation of the RCP is another part of a systemic approach to C19 deaths which is inexplicably opaque.

Even when a sample test is undertaken to identify C19, questions remain. The RT-PCR test commonly used to test for C19 does not appear to be very reliable, nor is it designed as a diagnostic tool for identifying viruses.

study from the Department of Microbiology, Queen Mary Hospital, University of Hong Kong found wild variations in RT-PCR accuracy. It was found to be between 22%  – 80% reliable depending on how it was applied. This general unreliability has been confirmed by other studies. Further studies show clear discrepancies between RT-PCR test results and clinical indication from CT scans.

Most of these studies indicate RT-PCR failure to detect C19 in symptomatic patients, so-called “false negative” tests. When Chinese researchers from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics School of Public Health conducted data analysis of the RT-PCR tests of asymptomatic patients they also found an 80% false positive rate.

Having passed peer review and publication the paper was subsequently withdrawn for what seem quite bizarre reasons. It was removed from the scientific literature because it “depended on theoretical deduction.” The paper was not testing an experimental hypothesis, it was an epidemiological analysis of the available statistical data. All such statistical analysis relies upon theoretical deduction. The claimed reason for withdrawal suggests that all data analysis is now considered to be completely useless.

It seems scientific claims that C19 numbers are underestimated are fine, claims they are overestimated are not. Either way, whether false negative or false positive, there is plenty of evidence to question the reliability of the RT-PCR test for diagnosing COVID 19.

The MSM has suggested that enhanced RT-PCR testing can detect the virus SARS-CoV-2 and, in particular, the amount of it in the patient’s system, the viral load. This is disinformation.

The Nobel winning scientist who devised PCR, Karry Mullis, speaking about the use of PCR to detect HIV stated:

Quantitative PCR is an oxymoron. PCR is intended to identify substances qualitatively, but by its very nature is unsuited for estimating numbers [viral load]…These tests cannot detect free, infectious viruses at all…The tests can detect genetic sequences of viruses, but not viruses themselves.”

Reported C19 deaths can be registered without a test clearly diagnosing any coronavirus, let alone C19. The death can be signed off by a doctor who has never seen the patient and can then be registered by someone who has never met the deceased and was nowhere near them when they died.

Further provision in the Coronavirus Act then allows for the body to be cremated, potentially against the family’s wishes, ensuring a confirmatory autopsy is impossible, though it is unlikely one will be conducted anyway.

To say this raises questions about the official reported statistics is an understatement. Questions in no way allege either medical malpractice or negligence. Neither are required for significant confusion to occur because the potential for widespread misreporting of causes of death seems to be a core element of the C19 MCCD process the State has constructed.

Lockdown the data

At the time of writing The UK is said to have 93,873 cases with 12,107 deaths attributed to C19. Both the infection and mortality rates are showing a declining trend.

Given the apparent haphazard reliability of tests, strange reporting procedures and oddly relaxed registration requirements, the claimed attribution is pretty weak.

Coupled with the data which shows unusually low hospital admissions, with little to no evidence of the widely anticipated “surge,” justification for the State’s lockdown of society and the economy appears painfully thin. The evidence base does not improve when we look at the official data.

ONS Data

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) have released analysis of the C19 deaths that occurred during March 2020.

In total 3,912 deaths were recorded of which 3,372 (86%) listed C19 as the underlying cause of death. Of these, 38 (1%) were cases where C19 was only suspected as the underlying cause, meaning neither a test nor any clear clinical presentation was observed. The problem is that the RT-PCR test, supposedly confirming C19, doesn’t tell us much either.

Of the 3,372 deaths recorded with underlying C19, approximately 3,068 had at least one comorbidity with the majority having more than two. Not only does the RT-PCR test fail to provide any reliable proof that these people even had C19 the existence of other comorbidities provides further reason to question if the C19 was a contributory factor.

Of the 3,912 people who died, 540 of them merely mentioned C19 on the MCCG with no indication that it contributed to the deaths. With at least 91% of patients having comorbidities, there is very little evidence that the people who died with a C19 infection wouldn’t have died without.

The age profile of the deceased is practically identical to standard all cause mortality in the UK. If C19 is a viral pandemic it is one that behaves like normal mortality.

And yet, despite all this, the MSM reported every one of them to the public as confirmed C19 deaths.

Another, perhaps even more alarming possibility has arisen. While heart disease accounts for 14% of C19 comorbidities, reported deaths from heart disease have mysteriously dropped by the corresponding amount during the same period. This clearly indicates that patients dying from other causes, such as heart failure, are being recorded, and certainly reported by the MSM, as dying from C19.

This illustrates a far more complex picture than we have been given to believe. Why have the State and the MSM made so many alarming claims about people dying from C19 when the evidence supporting those claims is, at best, questionable?

None of this is the fault of medical practitioners or bodies like the Office Of National Statistics (ONS). The ONS system has been both reliable and informative for many years. Yet once again, in the case of C19 deaths, the State felt it was necessary to make some changes.

On the March 30th the MSM reported that the UK State had instructed the ONS to change the way they record C19 deaths. Explaining the change to recording “mentions” of COVID 19 an unnamed spokesperson for the ONS said:

It will be based on mentions of Covid-19 on death certificates. It will include suspected cases of Covid-19 where someone has not been tested positive for Covid-19.”

This habit of states deciding to change the C19 mortality data, by adding in people who are assumed to have died from it, appears to be a global policy. The China CDC did the same and the U.S have just added a significant number to their statistics.

In every case the revision increases and never decreases the fatality statistics. Why do states around the world feel the need to do this? Is it because they are concerned about statistical rigour or are they more concerned about justifying their lockdown regimes?

The ONS reported all cause mortality for week 14 ending April 3rd. They recorded 16,387 deaths which was 6,082 higher than the ONS 5 year average. They stated that 21.2% of total deaths “mentioned” Covid 19. The MSM immediately pounced on this claiming this meant COVID 19 had pushed up the death toll to unprecedented levels. This was outrageous disinformation. That is not what the data showed.

The ONS stated that of the 6,082 excess deaths 3,475 “mentioned” coronavirus. Of those 1,466 also mentioned influenza and pneumonia. Consequently, while registered deaths are 6,082 above the 5 year average, only 2009 of those solely mentioned C19 with 4,073 mentioning other underlying causes. It is worth remembering only C19 deaths can be “mentioned” without a clear positive test result

Therefore, at least 67% of that excess mortality is being caused by other unknown factors that no one seems to care about. The MSM have absolutely no interests at all in this more severe health crisis. Why not? Once again they have completely misled the public and deny the existence of another, more significant reason for concern. Perhaps anticipating this the ONS stated:

“Influenza and Pneumonia” has been included for comparison, as a well-understood cause of death involving respiratory infection that is likely to have somewhat similar risk factors to COVID-19.”

Short of openly stating that C19 is no more deadly than any other pneumonia like illnesses, the ONS appear to be trying to get a message across. Perhaps they can’t say it directly.

ONS data showing mortality in 2020 comparing C19 to other respiratory illness

As the so called pandemic has progressed more in depth studies have begun to emerge. Initial findings from Chinese scientists indicate that SARS-CoV-2 has an infection fatality rate (IFR) of between 0.04% and 0.12%. which is comparable to flu pandemics with an estimated IFR of 0.1%. None of these have required a lockdown regime.

Further studies have highlighted the overestimated risk allegedly presented by SARS-CoV-2. [Including a new study released just yesterday – ed.]

For the year to date, the ONS showed a comparison of the deaths mentioning C19 and deaths mentioning pneumonia and Influenza. Deaths this year from pneumonia and influenza appear to stand at around 30,000.

Quite clearly, according to the ONS, other respiratory infections, like pneumonia and influenza, currently pose a significantly greater threat to life than COVID 19. Something is certainly pushing up mortality in the UK but, at the very most, only 33% of that increase is vaguely attributable to C19.

Lockdown to cover a myriad of sins

The MSM have recently started floating the idea that the lockdown regime could become the new normal.

According to the State it may be necessary to go in an out of various levels of the regime from time to time, depending on the State’s threat assessment. This is based on scientific research bought and paid for by pharmaceutical corporations and private foundations including GlaxoSmithKline (Wellcome Trust).

Seeing as it is increasingly evident that the C19 threat has been massively over-hyped, why would the State and its globalist partners want the economic destruction to continue?

Firstly it delivers on a number of long held globalist objectives.

A cashless society, mandatory vaccination, universal basic income, a surveillance state, restricted freedom of movement and a complete restructuring of the global economy have already been touted as necessary following the “pandemic.” All of these ambitions and economic realities existed before the pandemic first emerged in China.

The State has already moved towards censoring anyone who questions vaccines. It is vital to understand that the canard of the antivaxxer is a meaningless trope.

It is entirely possible to accept that vaccines can contribute towards effective preventative public health programs while, at the same time, questioning the efficacy and purpose of some vaccines. Vaccines are not all the same.

The State’s and the MSM’s insistence that anyone who question any vaccines is some sort of whacked out, new age, science Luddite is total nonsense. No one will be permitted to question vaccines, and that fact alone should be sufficient to raise anyone’s suspicion.

From GAVI to the WHO and from the BMGF to Imperial College the response to the C19 pandemic has been driven by foundations and pharmaceutical corporations with considerable investments in vaccine development. Of course they would like to see global mandatory vaccination.

To just ignore this, because you’ve been told by the MSM that questioning any vaccine is a “conspiracy theory”, not only evidences a lack of critical thinking it demonstrates a degree of brainwashing.

Global financial institutions, such as the IMF, have been advocating the cashless society for years. A cashless society will allow central banks to control every aspect of your life.

Everything you buy can be tracked and your purchases could easily be limited to exclude certain items.

Although there is very little evidence that handling cash presents any increased threat of infection that hasn’t stopped the MSM from selling the idea.

The impact of the lockdown regime across the globe has already had a devastating economic impact. All the indicators are that the regime will throw the global economy into a deep depression. The longer it continues the worse it will get.

The tendency of some to claim this doesn’t matter because saving life is the only concern is hopelessly myopic. The link between poverty and significantly increased mortality is beyond dispute. The cure will definitely be far worse than the disease.

As millions are forced into unemployment the outlook isn’t good. However, while the State will undoubtedly claim that unemployment has been caused by the C19 crisis, in truth the imminent economic collapse was already driving up unemployment before the crisis began.

This has led to increasing calls for the State to provide a Universal Basic Income.

This will create mass dependency upon the State for  huge swathes of the population. Affording the State immeasurable control over people’s lives. In a cashless society, people who don’t behave in accordance with State regulations, could be punished financially. Instant fines will be commonplace.

We are already seeing how that control can be deployed within a surveillance society as the State and its compliant MSM put the idea of immunity passports into the public imagination.

The link between this and mandatory vaccination is obvious. This proposed policy comes straight from the heart of the globalist think tanks.

ID2020 is a globalist initiative which intends to provide everyone on earth with an authorised identity. GAVI, Microsoft, BMGF and the Rockerfeller Foundation are among the happy ID2020 alliance who will decide who you are allowed to be.

Biometric ID controlled by your friendly ID2020 globalists – Because they care!

Comically they claim that proving who you are to the State is somehow a human right. This is utter bilge. I don’t know about you, but I know who I am and so do the people I care about. I couldn’t care less who the State thinks I am. Like everyone else on Earth you were born with inalienable human rights. The State doesn’t define what they are, they just choose to ignore them.

ID2020 is in no way objective. Your digital biometric ID can be “good” which means it can also be “bad.” Bill Gates and Rockerfellers are among those who state:

With a “good” digital identity you can enjoy your rights to privacy, security, and choice.”

Which means you can’t if its “bad.” As longs as you are a good citizen, do as you are told, get your mandatory vaccinations and don’t step out of line, you can have your rights because megalomaniacs think they are gods who have the power to allow or deny them.

Your digital ID will control the information you are allowed to access and your immunity passport will almost certainly be part of your State authorised identity as we move towards something indistinguishable from China’s social credit system.

It will be used to monitor your behaviour.

Your immunity passport status will depend upon where you go and who with. The State has decided that we all need contact tracing apps to regulate who we meet and limit our freedom of movement.

If you meet the wrong person or go to the wrong area, or perhaps fail to produce your authorisation Q-code on demand, then you will be locked down.

Perhaps the biggest deception of all is yet to come as the State manoeuvres to blame the C19 for the economic collapse.

Firstly, it isn’t C19 but rather the lockdown regime that has sped up destruction of the economy, but that destruction was inevitable anyway. The 2008 credit crunch was a failure of the banks. They speculated in the markets and lost.

As a result we have endured a decade of austerity to bail them out. Socialism only applies to those who can afford it. Austerity has reduced essential public services to rubble, and now, when we supposedly need them most, we’ve all been placed under house arrest to stop us using them while many of the most vulnerable have been ignored. The irony is laughable.

While we’ve all suffered austerity, the central banks have been printing funny money, blowing up the debt bubble to unimaginable proportions.

The result has been increasing consumer debt, staggering levels of corporate borrowing and, though government deficits have reduced, government debt is off the charts, even in comparison to 2010 levels.

This kind of debt-based economy was never sustainable and global financiers have known it for years.

What the globalists needed was a reason to reset the economy without losing power. Perhaps it is another coincidence that the C19 lockdown regime just happens to deliver both the mechanism and the excuse to press that global reset button. That it also ushers in all the globalist’s desires is just another in a very long line of remarkable coincidences.

Now that global terrorism is no longer a daily threat and global warming has been put on the back burner, the new normal of the ever shifting threat from pandemic seems to be the novel war on terrorTraining, funding and equipping terrorist groups has served the State well in the first two decades of the 21st century but now it is ready to move on to the next phase by exploiting a terror closer to the heart of every home. Disease.

In their totality, for those willing to look, it is transparent that these response measures have coalesced to create the framework for a totalitarian dictatorship. One rolling out at pace in the UK. Similar draconian diktats have sprung up across the globe.

A coordinated global effort like this doesn’t just happen. It takes years of training and planning. The only people who can’t see it are those who, for whatever reason, choose not to.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

All images in this article are from OffGuardian

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

First posted on GR on April 13, 2020

Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vaccination ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control of global health policy.

Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems to be fueled by a conviction to save the world with technology.

Promising his share of $450 million of $1.2 billion to eradicate Polio, Gates took control of India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) which mandated up to 50 doses (Table 1) of polio vaccines through overlapping immunization programs to children before the age of five. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) epidemic that paralyzed 490,000 children beyond expected rates between 2000 and 2017. In 2017, the Indian government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and asked Gates and his vaccine policies to leave India. NPAFP rates dropped precipitously.

The most frightening [polio] epidemics in Congo, Afghanistan, and the Philippines, are all linked to vaccines.

In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) reluctantly admitted that the global explosion in polio is predominantly vaccine strain. The most frightening epidemics in Congo, Afghanistan, and the Philippines, are all linked to vaccines. In fact, by 2018, 70% of global polio cases were vaccine strain.

In 2014, the Gates Foundation funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines, developed by Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) and Merck, on 23,000 young girls in remote Indian provinces. Approximately 1,200 suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders. Seven died. Indian government investigations charged that Gates-funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying parents, forging consent forms, and refusing medical care to the injured girls. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.

South African newspapers complained, ‘We are guinea pigs for the drug makers.’

In 2010, the Gates Foundation funded a phase 3 trial of GSK’s experimental malaria vaccine, killing 151 African infants and causing serious adverse effects including paralysis, seizure, and febrile convulsions to 1,048 of the 5,949 children.

During Gates’ 2002 MenAfriVac campaign in Sub-Saharan Africa, Gates’ operatives forcibly vaccinated thousands of African children against meningitis. Approximately 50 of the 500 children vaccinated developed paralysis. South African newspapers complained, “We are guinea pigs for the drug makers.” Nelson Mandela’s former Senior Economist, Professor Patrick Bond, describes Gates’ philanthropic practices as “ruthless and immoral.”

In 2010, Gates committed $10 billion to the WHO saying, “We must make this the decade of vaccines.” A month later, Gates said in a Ted Talk that new vaccines “could reduce population”. In 2014, Kenya’s Catholic Doctors Association accused the WHO of chemically sterilizing millions of unwilling Kenyan women with a  “tetanus” vaccine campaign. Independent labs found a sterility formula in every vaccine tested. After denying the charges, WHO finally admitted it had been developing the sterility vaccines for over a decade.  Similar accusations came from Tanzania, Nicaragua, Mexico, and the Philippines.

A 2017 study (Morgenson et. al. 2017) showed that WHO’s popular DTP vaccine is killing more African children than the diseases it prevents. DTP-vaccinated girls suffered 10x the death rate of children who had not yet received the vaccine. WHO has refused to recall the lethal vaccine which it forces upon tens of millions of African children annually.

[Global public health officials] say he has diverted agency resources to serve his personal philosophy that good health only comes in a syringe.

Global public health advocates around the world accuse Gates of steering WHO’s agenda away from the projects that are proven to curb infectious diseases: clean water, hygiene, nutrition, and economic development. The Gates Foundation only spends about $650 million of its $5 billion dollar budget on these areas.  They say he has diverted agency resources to serve his personal philosophy that good health only comes in a syringe.

In addition to using his philanthropy to control WHO, UNICEF, GAVI, and PATH, Gates funds a private pharmaceutical company that manufactures vaccines, and additionally is donating $50 million to 12 pharmaceutical companies to speed up development of a coronavirus vaccine. In his recent media appearances, Gates appears confident that the Covid-19 crisis will now give him the opportunity to force his dictatorial vaccine programs on American children.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from CHD

C.Y.A. and “Fraudulent Marketing”: The Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccine is an “Unapproved Product” which is “Permitted for Use”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 03 2021

Pfizer Inc, is currently involved in marketing its experimental mRNA vaccine with the relentless support of national governments. Amply documented, barely reported by the media, numerous cases of deaths and injury have occurred.

Washington’s Lopsided Bilateral Relationship with Israel

By Philip Giraldi, March 03 2021

My article last week that made some suggestions about what ordinary Americans can do to put pressure on Israel and on the lopsided bilateral relationship with Washington that has done so much damage to the United States proved to be quite popular.

Video: Pfizer $2.3 Billion 2009 Medical Fraud Settlement. US Department of Justice

By C-Span, March 03 2021

This was originally published in September 2009. Justice Department attorneys and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held a news conference dealing with a health care-related settlement. The federal government announced the largest medical fraud settlement in U.S. history.

The EU’s Participation in the New Cold War against Russia

By Clare Daly and Dr. Leon Tressell, March 03 2021

The EU has chosen to compound its many problems by becoming an enthusiastic participant in the new Cold War against Russia initiated by American imperialism.

The Khashoggi Affair: “There Is No Longer Any Political Legitimacy for Saudi MBS Crown Prince”

By Steven Sahiounie, March 03 2021

President Joe Biden has disappointed human rights activists, journalists, and many in Congress who expected him to exact a punishment on Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) in the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Home Invasions: All the Ways the Government Can Lay Siege to Your Property

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, March 03 2021

Americans are not safe in their homes. Not anymore, at least. This present menace comes from the government and its army of bureaucratized, corporatized, militarized mercenaries who are waging war on the last stronghold left to us as a free people: the sanctity of our homes.

Investigation Links Fauci to Controversial Experiments that May Have Led to Pandemic

By Children’s Health Defense, March 03 2021

Fox News investigation says there’s “reasonable grounds to suspect” that SARS-CoV-2, which may have leaked accidentally from a lab in Wuhan, China, was the product of taxpayer-funded gain-of-function experiments commissioned by the U.S. government and overseen by Fauci.

‘Freedom Bracelet’ Tracking Device Launched as Alternative to Quarantine

By Steve Watson, March 03 2021

Israel has rolled out what it is calling a ‘Freedom bracelet’, a tracking device that will serve as an alternative to a two-week quarantine for anyone entering the country from abroad.

Video: Dr. Simone Gold – The Truth About the COVID-19 Vaccine

By Dr. Simone Gold, March 03 2021

Dr. Simone Gold of America’s Frontline Doctors shared information about the experimental COVID-19 vaccines and talked about the massive disinformation campaign that has taken over America and the rest of the world.

Biden Administration Escalates “War on Russia by Other Means”. On the Target for “Regime Change”

By Stephen Lendman, March 03 2021

The US is implacably hostile toward nations free from its control. None are adversarial. None threaten US security. None are at war with other nations. None are involved in destabilizing activities.

Sky-High Levels of Fracking Chemicals Detected in Children’s Bodies

By Climate Nexus, March 03 2021

While the hazards of fracking to human health are well-documented, first-of-its-kind research from Environmental Health News shows the actual levels of biomarkers for fracking chemicals in the bodies of children living near fracking wells far higher than in the general population.

  • Posted in NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on Selected Articles: C.Y.A. and “Fraudulent Marketing”: The Pfizer Covid-19 Vaccine is an “Unapproved Product”

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Three months after losing the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan still continues his quest to find the perfect excuse.

The most recent one backfired, heavily.

On February 24th, in an interview, Pashinyan claimed that the reason Armenia lost the war against Azerbaijan was Russia’s Iskander missile.

According to his estimations the missile only exploded 10% of the time upon impact. As such, the “40-year-old weapon” was ineffective, and led to Yerevan’s defeat.

He has gone through almost every possible reason for losing the war, except admitting poor leadership and gross mismanagement of the forces.

Deputy Chief of the Armenian Armed Forces General Staff Tiran Khachatryan immediately rebuked Pashinyan, saying that his claim was “frivolous”.

In response, the Armenian Prime Minister released the official from his position.

Following that, the head of the Armenian Armed Forces General Staff, Onik Gasparyan released a statement, signed by all his deputies and other military officials demanding that Nikol Pashinyan immediately resign from the country’s leadership.

Pashinyan, in response, did what he does best – said that he had released the Chief of the General Staff, because he would not be questioned.

He called his supporters to take to the streets because this constituted a “military coup” and began “actively” leading the country through Facebook livestreams.

There are protests in Yerevan, both in support and against Nikol Pashinyan. His leadership has all but failed, and he alone undermines the vestiges of Armenia’s statehood.

Following his statements, he was mocked by the Russian Defense Ministry, which denied that the Iskander had been used in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He was also mocked by Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev, who called his statements “anecdotal”. He also entirely denied that the Iskander had been used at all during the conflict.

Even Turkey released a statement playing along with the “military coup” narrative, saying that it was against it. Understandable, for Ankara, Armenia under inadequate leadership is a perfect neighbor.

After months of excuses, various accusations against past leadership, current military leadership, its own citizens and Russia, Pashinyan went too far. He still refuses to hang onto power, but he is becoming increasingly isolated in his attempt to “leave power in the people’s hands,” as he calls refusing to resign.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

SUPPORT SOUTHFRONT:

PayPal: [email protected], http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

The US is implacably hostile toward nations free from its control. None are adversarial. None threaten US security. None are at war with other nations. None are involved in destabilizing activities.

Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, and other independent nations seek cooperative relations with other countries, confrontation with none.

Yet they’re all on the US target list for regime change — war by hot and/or other means Washington’s favored strategies by both right wings of its war party.

What’s been going on throughout most of the post-WW II period is symptomatic of a nation in decline.

At the expense of vital homeland needs, the US spends more on militarism, belligerence, so-called homeland security, and related war on humanity harshness than other major nations combined.

Living by the sword is self-defeating, a lesson not learned by US policymakers.

Washington’s rage to rule the world unchallenged, its imperial arrogance and unwillingness to change heads it for eventual arrival in history’s dustbin.

A separate article discussed coordinated US/EU sanctions on Russia — unjustifiably justified by a litany of bald-faced Big Lies.

Separately on Tuesday, the State Department defied reality with the following fabricated accusation:

Biden’s Secretary of State Blinken “determined that the Government of the Russian Federation has used a chemical weapon against its own nationals (sic).”

No evidence suggests it. None was presented by the US or EU to support the charge — invented, not legitimate, as part of longstanding US-led Western war on Russia by other means.

Along with US sanctions discussed in a same-day article, the State Department announced the following on Russia:

1. “Termination of assistance to Russia under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961…”

2. “Termination of (virtually nonexistent US) arms sales…to Russia…”

3. “Termination of (nonexistent US) foreign military financing for Russia…”

4. “Denial of (nonexistent US) credit or other financial assistance…to Russia…”

5. “Prohibition on the export to Russia of any goods or technology” related to security.

Unlawfully imposed sanctions “will remain in place for a minimum of 12 months.”

“They’ll only be removed…if the executive branch determines and certifies to Congress that the Russian government has met” its unacceptable demands.

Russian/US space cooperation is at least largely unaffected by the above.

Sanctioned Russian officials include Pavel Anatolievich Popov, Aleksei Yurievich Krivoruchko, Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko, Andrei Veniaminovich Yarin, Alexander Vasilievich Bortnikov, Igor Victorovich Krasnov and Alexander Petrovich Kalashnikov.

They’re involved in Russian Federation defense.

Russia’s Presidential Executive Office First Deputy Chief of Staff was targeted.

So was head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), its prosecutor general, and Federal Penitentiary Service director.

In response to the above, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the following:

The US and EU “teamed up (to) ma(ke) a hostile move towards Russia by announcing (unlawful) new sanctions” for fabricated reasons.

“US policy…increasingly aggravat(es) bilateral relations that Washington has already brought to a complete halt.”

Falsely claiming that Russia “poisoned” convicted embezzler, unregistered foreign agent Navalny with a “chemical warfare agent” is a phony “pretext for continuing undisguised interference in our domestic affairs, and we will not accept this.”

“Based on the principle of reciprocity, we will respond but not necessarily with symmetrical measures.”

“Any hopes to impose something on Russia by way of sanctions or other pressure have failed in the past and will fail now.”

“If the US is not ready for an equitable and reasonable dialogue, this is their choice.”

“Regardless of the US’ enthusiasm for sanctions, we will continue to consistently and resolutely uphold our national interests and rebuff any aggression.”

“As a serial violator of international treaties and agreements on arms control and the non-proliferation of weapons, Washington is, by definition, deprived of the moral right to ‘lecture’ others.”

Separately on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the following:

“We will react to (coordinated US/EU sanctions) by all means.”

“Nobody has cancelled the rules of diplomacy. Reciprocity is one of these.”

“We have already repeatedly expressed our attitude to the unlawful unilateral sanctions…introduced by (the US and EU) without practically any excuse.”

“They have nothing to present by way of substantiating the alleged poisoning of Navalny in any way.”

“Those who treated him (in Berlin) conceal the facts that could throw light on what happened to him and instead of honestly cooperating they are economical with the truth.”

“When they start ‘punishing’ us (unlawfully), such decisions do not reflect well on them.”

“We will respond to this by all means.”

Hostile US-dominated Western actions against Russia risk confrontation if things are pushed too far.

Instead of pursuing peace, stability, and cooperative relations with other countries, US policymakers wage endless wars by hot and other means to dominate them, including against invented enemies like Russia.

Britain and EU bloc countries march in lockstep with Washington’s war on humanity.

If continues unchecked, there’s no good ending to what lies ahead.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

Featured image is from OneWorld

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Biden Administration Escalates “War on Russia by Other Means”. On the Target for “Regime Change”
  • Tags:

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

The European Union faces multiple challenges as it progress into 2021. The 27 member states are struggling with simultaneous economic and health crises resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the EU which is the world’s largest trading bloc is trying to expand its geo-political and economic power with a trade deal with China that was signed in December 2020.

It faces numerous problems as it struggles to emerge from economic recession and the attendant rising wealth inequality that has seen a huge wealth transfer to European elites. The EU has chosen to compound its many problems by becoming an enthusiastic participant in the new Cold War against Russia initiated by American imperialism.

Clare Daly MEP representing Independents For Change (Ireland) is part of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, (GUE/NGL ) in the European Parliament. She took time time out to talk about the geo-political and economic challenges faces the European Union.

*
Leon Tressell: During the Obama administration the United States initiated a new Cold War with Russia. This can be dated back to the events of 2014 when the American sponsored Maidan coup overthrew the elected government of Yanukovich. Following this, an ultra-nationalist regime took power in Kiev which led Russian speaking regions in Eastern Ukraine to secede in the Donbass region. The US sponsored regime in Kiev respond to this by launching a so-called anti-terrorist offensive against the people of the Donbass region. This war has killed over 10,000 civilians and continues to this very day. Plus we saw the secession of the Crimean region which voted to rejoin Russia. Following these events the United States and its EU allies imposed a series of sanctions upon Russia which continue to the present.

The new Cold War against Russia has also been pursued in the military sphere with the build up of NATO (i.e. US and EU) forces along Russia’s western borders and the installation of missile defence systems aimed at Russia in several East European countries.

More recently, there has been growing support within the EU for American demands that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline be suspended. Last September the EU Parliament overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding a suspension of the construction of the Nord stream 2 gas pipeline. The same resolution also demanded further EU sanctions on Russia due to the imprisonment of the opposition politician Navalny by Russian authorities. Yet the EU is deafeningly silent on the continued imprisonment of journalist Julian Assange who is kept in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison in the UK. How would you explain the increasing hostility of the EU towards Russia and what dangers does this pose for peace on the continent of Europe?

Clare Daly: I’m not sure the Ukraine crisis marks the restart of Cold War politics to be honest – the proclamation of the end of the Cold War was a bit of stagecraft, but throughout the 1990s, during Clinton’s presidency and into the George W Bush years you had significant voices on both sides of US politics continuing to push for Cold War stances on Russia. Anti-Russian policy took a back seat to the so-called War on Terrorism, but NATO expansion continued. We shouldn’t forget the encroachment of American missile defence systems in Eastern Europe, which was going on throughout this period. Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which was interpreted as aggression by Russia. We’re certainly back to fever pitch now. What is different, I think, is the dangers that are present in this new chapter of relations with Russia. The late Professor Stephen Cohen put it well when he said that this is probably more dangerous than it was before, because there do not seem to be rules of behaviour or red lines on either side. It’s an unstable situation and the rhetoric in Brussels and Washington is increasingly reckless and bellicose. It’s being undertaken as a project of national security for the NATO states, and that is driving massive hikes in weapons spending in Europe, but it is actually destroying security because it treats Russia – a nuclear armed state – as an adversary.

LT: The mainstream media across the EU, UK and the United States is engaged in a ferocious propaganda campaign attacking Russia for the 3 year prison sentence given to Alexei Navalny for parole violations. Governments in all these countries have agreed that if Navalny is not released by Russia then it will face further economic sanctions. Yet, the EU Parliament is not demanding sanctions be placed upon the UK for its imprisonment of journalist Julian Assange who faces a 175 year prison sentence if he is extradited to the United States and convicted on charges relating to the 1917 Espionage Act.

It should be noted that the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Torture Professor Nils Meltzer has repeatedly stated that Julian Assange is a victim of psychological torture at the hands of the US and UK governments. How would you explain the huge discrepancy between the EU’s defence of Navalny and its shameful silence over the psychological torture and imprisonment of Julian Assange?

CD: There are two main reasons Assange is ignored in the European Parliament. The first is that he exposed the wrong countries. There is zero interest from the larger groups in the European Parliament in the fact that Western governments routinely commit human rights abuses, war crimes, etc. Zero. Any talk of it is inconvenient and embarrassing for them. So the fact that WikiLeaks’ publications in 2010 provided massive amounts of documentary evidence of US and allied war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq is the main reason his human rights don’t matter to those groups. He embarrassed these power groups and they are happy to see him punished for it. However, his human rights would very quickly matter if they could be used to attack perceived adversaries, like Russia. Unfortunately, they can’t, so they are ignored. The same goes for Navalny. Most of these groups don’t care at all about Alexei Navalny’s human rights. If he couldn’t be used to attack Russia they would leave him for dead. For example in the last few days the Biden administration found that the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman personally approved the murder and shocking dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. But the US has not sanctioned Saudi Arabia and that story will very likely sink like a stone. It just has no currency in the present geopolitical environment. For those of us who care about upholding human rights, consistency is important. But the European establishment doesn’t actually care about human rights except as a cudgel to bash official enemies. No analysis of how human rights are actually used and abused in the European Parliament could arrive at any other conclusion.

LT: Following the 2008 financial crisis EU countries pursued austerity policies for many years making ordinary people pay for the crisis of capitalism that was created by the unfettered greed of banks and other financial entities. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank pursued a policy of ultra low interest rates that made it difficult for ordinary people to save money. The ECB also printed trillions of euros through its QE programmes which continue to this day. During 2020 the European Central Bank spent over 1 trillion euros on buying government/corporate bonds. This QE programme has bought up huge quantities of government and corporate bonds yet it appears to have done little to improve the living standards of most EU citizens. This massive money printing has greatly inflated the prices of assets such as stocks and bonds and further enriched the billionaire class.

Meanwhile, social and economic inequalities have widened across Europe. We now have a situation where one arm of the capitalist state – national governments – issue huge amounts of debt. This debt is then monetised through the ECB purchasing those bonds. In effect we are seeing the ‘socialisation’ of the commanding financial heights of the economy due to the grave crisis of capitalism. Free-market capitalism which is touted as the only way to run society has effectively broken down. What economic measures are needed to effectively deal with this organic crisis of capitalism?

CD: I would take a step further back. The situation you describe cannot be addressed through purely economic measures – it arises because of a profound lack of democracy in the European Union. The only directly elected EU body is the Parliament, which does not determine the make-up of the Commission in anything but a token manner, has no ability to initiate legislation, and is not arranged on the government/opposition lines of most national parliaments. The electorate understands how little influence it has, and this is shown by the consistently low turnout in its elections. The institutions where power really lies are able to operate completely opaquely, with the public shut out. Meanwhile institutions like the Court of Justice and the ECB operate effectively without constraint. There is no counterbalance to them. Neo-liberal dogma is baked into the EU’s foundational treaties, and is basically beyond the reach of popular reform. We are well over a decade into a crisis of legitimacy for the free market dogmas on which the EU is based. The post-COVID EU will merely be the latest demonstration of the bankruptcy of that ideology. And there is widespread public appetite for a more socially just and equal EU, where the social component of EU policy becomes more than a mere alibi. The roadblock is that there is no path through the institutions for that to come into being. No such political programme has a hope of being implemented without profound reform of the institutional setup of the EU.

LT: Once the mass vaccination programs have been fully rolled out and economies begin to open up again there will no doubt be demands from some quarters for governments to take action to deal with their huge debts. Do you think the EU will return to austerity policies? If it proceeds down such a path how should ordinary people respond to a return to austerity economics?

CD: There are already indications that this is what will happen. As to what the response of ordinary people should be, that’s a more difficult question. The lack of real democracy in the EU’s structures set against the use of those structures to impose austerity has been the main problem for the left since the 2008 financial crisis. In the long run, the heedlessness of the EU institutions to the needs of ordinary people will continue to exacerbate that crisis. Crises bring about changes, and the outcome of a crisis can be either good or bad for ordinary people. To shape that outcome, it is necessary for people to organise, to have a clear vision of an alternative and to make sure they are in a position to apply decisive popular pressure. Elected politicians are reactive, not proactive, and cannot be depended on to take the initiative themselves. It is only the pressure of ordinary people that will keep them on their toes.

LT: In December last year The EU and China concluded in principle the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment. Negotiations are ongoing until the final draft can be presented to the EU Council. In a press release explaining this agreement the EU makes great fanfare regarding its demands upon China to end forced labour and implement the toothless Paris agreement on climate change. China has now replaced the United States as the EU’s largest trading partner so undoubtedly multinational corporations across Europe see the potential for making massive profits in China’s huge domestic market. Conversely, Chinese capitalists see great investment opportunities in Europe.

The documents provided by the EU on this agreement talk about protecting the property rights of Western corporations in China while paying lip service to the issue of workers rights. There is nothing in this investment treaty that specifies how workers and farmers will be protected from exploitation by foreign corporations. Nor is any explanation given as to how this Comprehensive Agreement on Investment will improve living standards for ordinary people in both China and the EU. It would appear that we are meant to believe in the widely discredited trickle-down theory of economics. In other words, the massive wealth and profits generated by multinationals under this agreement will eventually trickle down to the workers and farmers who produce the goods and services that are sold. As a member of the European Parliament what is your take on this pivotal economic treaty?

CD: It should be noted that the CAI is taking place in the context of the widening East-West divide driven by the United States over the last few years, during which we’ve seen the willingness of the EU to insist on a measure of independence from Washington, and to continue engagement with China. This is of course driven by the interests of European corporations, but in the context of increasingly bellicose rhetoric against China, the mere fact of continued engagement is not something we can overlook. It remains to be seen how this situation will develop now that there is a new president in the White House. As a general rule I am opposed to neo-liberal trade deals, because – despite lofty political declarations – they tend to create a race to the bottom, erode environmental and labour standards, entrench private sector control over public services and reinforce unequal North-South relationships. It’s premature to take a hard position on the agreement before having sight of a mature text, but there are obviously a lot of important issues embedded in this deal, especially for us on the left, and we’ll be looking at it in depth in the trade committee.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

President Joe Biden has disappointed human rights activists, journalists, and many in Congress who expected him to exact a punishment on Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) in the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi.  While sanctions were placed on 76 Saudi nationals as a result of the newly released report on the gruesome murder, the penalties did not name MBS personally.  Officials explained the need to end the war in Yemen, lower tensions in the Persian Gulf region, and ongoing counter-terrorism efforts as factors that held the administration back.  However, Biden has changed the US-Saudi relationship fundamentally: he is no longer dealing with MBS, and will only communicate with King Salman.  This effectively puts MBS in a box. Biden has started a process of the isolation of the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, and US allies may follow the US lead.  

The report

Avril Haynes, the director of US national intelligence, declassified a report on February 26 which accused the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia of ordering the murder of a dissident journalist.

“We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in the report.

“We base this assessment on the Crown Prince’s control of decision making in the Kingdom, the direct involvement of a key adviser and members of Muhammad bin Salman’s protective detail in the operation, and the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad, including Khashoggi,” it added.

The fiancée

Hatice Cengiz, the 36-year-old fiancée of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, waited patiently outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. The Turkish Ph.D. candidate was planning her upcoming marriage to Khashoggi, a US resident who wrote opinion columns for the Washington Post, and he was there to obtain routine paperwork to allow him to marry Hatice.  She waited, and waited, but he never appeared again.  Her hopes and plans were killed along with her fiancée.  Now, she demands justice.

On May 16, 2019, Cengiz testified before a US House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on “The Dangers of Reporting on Human Rights” on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Cengiz said on Twitter.

“If the crown prince is not punished, it will forever signal that the main culprit can get away with murder which will endanger us all and be a stain on our humanity.”

“Starting with the Biden administration, it is vital for all world leaders to ask themselves if they are prepared to shake hands with a person whose culpability as a murderer has been proven,” Cengiz said.

Cengiz said that “following this report, there is no longer any political legitimacy for the Crown Prince.”

“The truth – that was already known – has been revealed one more time, and it is now confirmed … Yet this is not enough since the truth can only be meaningful when it serves justice being achieved,” she warned.

Mohammed bin Nayef

Prince Muhammad smiling

Mohammed bin Nayef, the former crown prince, and cousin of MBS was deposed in 2017 by MBS. Mohammed bin Nayef was arrested last spring along with Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, his uncle. Mohammed bin Nayef was the well-established contact of the Washington security establishment.

Mohammed bin Nayef is credited with saving the lives of dozens of Americans. He was educated in Oregon before training with the FBI and Scotland Yard and is pro-American while excelling in counter-terrorism.

Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenet regarded Mohammed bin Nayef as the CIA’s closest partner in fighting Al Qaeda.

In 2010, Mohammed bin Nayef foiled a plot by Al Qaeda on UPS and FedEx planes headed from Yemen to Chicago, in which he gave President Obama’s terrorism advisor, John Brennan, the tracking numbers for the deadly containers.

Leon Panetta, former CIA director, has called Mohammed bin Nayef the “smartest and most accomplished of his generation.” Experts have assessed Mohammed bin Nayef to be the most successful intelligence officer in the Arab world.

In April 2016, King Salman promoted Mohammed bin Nayef to be his crown prince; however, without explanation, he was removed from the position in June 2017 and replaced by the king’s son, MBS, who ordered the arrest of Mohammed bin Nayef in 2020, who has not been seen since. He is reportedly unable to access medical care, and his life is threatened.

The family consensus had been the glue that bound the absolute monarchy in Saudi Arabia, but MBS determinedly forged a path to the throne through a series of palace coups and shake-downs which has left him with all the power in his hands.

Experts in the US and allied intelligence communities know that Mohammed bin Nayef is a competent, and responsible team player, who had been their partner in counter-terrorism before, and might be the only one who could steer Saudi Arabia on a new path.

Biden statements

In November 2019 Biden promised to punish senior Saudi leaders, in contrast to Trump, who gave MBS a free-pass.

“And I said it at the time. Khashoggi was, in fact, murdered and dismembered, and I believe on the order of the crown prince. And I would make it very clear we were not going to, in fact, sell more weapons to them, we were going to, in fact, make them pay the price and make them the pariah that they are.”

“There’s very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” Biden said. “They have to be held accountable.”

The Biden administration on Friday imposed a visa ban on 76 Saudis believed involved in the Khashoggi killing and placed sanctions that would freeze their US assets and prohibit Americans from dealing with them.

Last month, Biden announced he was stopping billions of dollars in arms shipments to Saudi Arabia.  He called the Saudi war in Yemen a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.” The Biden team, backed by Congress, is pushing for an end to the six-year conflict that has brought famine and disease to Yemen.

Kate Bedingfield, White House communications director, told CNN that Biden had made it clear to King Salman during their Thursday call that the US will not tolerate the crown prince’s behavior, regardless of the lack of action.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

My article last week that made some suggestions about what ordinary Americans can do to put pressure on Israel and on the lopsided bilateral relationship with Washington that has done so much damage to the United States proved to be quite popular. It also resulted in some comments by readers who saw other issues that might be considered pressure points that could be exploited to bring about change or at least to mitigate some of the damage.

Two areas that were mentioned a number of times were the possibility of recusing the most strident Israeli partisans from some discussions on Middle East policy and also refusing to issue security clearances to American government employees and politicians who are “dual national” citizens, which raises the issue of dual loyalty. Recusal is defined as removing oneself from participation to avoid a conflict of interest due to lack of impartiality while refusing to issue clearances would completely block dual national Israeli and other foreign citizens from having high level positions in the U.S. government.

Some would argue that recusal is an excessive punishment that will limit debate on a key foreign policy issue. It will also inevitably be perceived by the usual suspects as anti-Semitic since the only ones who would be excluded would be some Zionists, but they miss the point, which is that the current system does not in any way permit the review of a range of points of view on the Middle East since it is monopolized by Jews and friends of Israel. And there is a precedent. Not so long ago the U.S. State Department had an informal policy that discouraged the selection of Jewish ambassadors for Israel. The intent was to prevent any conflicts of interest and also to protect the ambassadors from inappropriate pressure. There also existed a cadre of so-called Arabists who dealt with issues in the Middle East alongside Jewish officers in the State Department. In the 1950s and 1960s a concerted effort was made by Jewish organizations and Congress to weed out the Arabists and currently nearly all the working level handling of policy formulation for that region is being done by Jews.

One might assume reasonably that the concentration of decision making in the hands of a partisan group, whether Arabists or Zionists, would inevitably not be in the U.S. national interest, and so it has proven if one looks at the shambles in the arc from Afghanistan over to Lebanon.

The following description of how the process actually works comes from Ben Rhodes, who is himself half-Jewish, and it describes the decision making on the Middle East during the administration of President Barack Obama where Rhodes served as Deputy National Security Advisor. During his time in office he observed how same 10 to 20 individuals who invariably took the position of the Israeli government were in on discussions of Middle East policy but if anyone in the White House paid attention to Arab-American or peace groups, they could “get in trouble.”

Rhodes observed that

“You meet more with outside, organized constituency groups on Israel than any other foreign policy issue. I’d actually go as far to say that… as a senior White House official working on national security… the number of people you meet from the organized pro Israel community equals all the other meetings that you might do with kind of diaspora or constituency groups on all the other issues. It’s that degree of dwarfing. I’m pretty confident that’s consistent across [presidential] administrations…

“You just have this incredibly organized pro-Israel community that is very accustomed to having access in the White House, in Congress, at the State Department. It’s taken for granted, as given, that that’s the way things are going to be done… I remember looking around the situation room on a meeting on the Israel Palestine issue and every single one of us in the meeting was Jewish or of Jewish origin like me…”

The United States has many interests in the Near East, but if every move is seen through the optic of Israel the inevitable results will not be beneficial to Americans. So, if recusal, either voluntary or forced, is employed to obtain a better mix of opinion on policy options it can only beneficial. And it will also ipso facto loosen the overweening influence that successive Israeli governments have exercised over U.S. presidents and Congress.

Preventing individuals holding two passports from obtaining sensitive government jobs would also be a highly desirable step but it will be hard to execute in practice as the Israeli government does not make available lists of American citizens who have also taken up Israeli citizenship. Holding two passports was, in fact, illegal in the United States up until 1964. New citizens were required to turn in old passports and swear loyalty to the United States. Retention of former citizenship could be punished by the loss of the American citizenship.

Numerous online lists of dual Israeli-Americans in government circulate on the internet, but it is clear from the content that most of the compilations are speculative. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer describes himself as the “shomer” or protector of Israel in the Senate and appears on such lists. So too does former Congressman Tom Lantos, described as holocaust survivor and very active in his support of Israel. And then there is former Senator Frank Lautenberg was often described as the “Senator from Israel” and Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania who tried to cover up the Jewish source of the enriched uranium that Israel stole to construct its nuclear weapon.

Protecting Israel sometimes includes bending the rules. Lautenberg, for example, was responsible for the “Lautenberg amendment” of 1990 which brought many thousands of Russian Jews into the United States as refugees, even though they were not in any danger and were therefore ineligible for that status. As refugees, they received significant taxpayer provided housing, subsistence and educational benefits.

One might also include Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff and mayor of Chicago, who reportedly served as a volunteer in the Israeli Army, and Doug Feith, who caused so much mischief from his perch at the Pentagon in the lead-up to the Iraq War. Feith had a law office in Jerusalem, suggesting that he might have obtained Israeli citizenship. Obama Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro chose to live in Israel after his term in office ended and wound up working for an Israeli national security think tank. He quite likely obtained Israeli citizenship and never registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, as required by law. Both he and Emanuel are reportedly being considered by President Biden for major ambassadorial assignments.

But in reality, few in Congress and in the federal government bureaucracy are likely to have actual Israeli citizenship even if they regularly exhibit what amounts to “dual loyalty” sympathy for the Jewish state. Nevertheless, Jews who are Zionists are vastly overrepresented in all government agencies that have anything at all to do with the Middle East.

That said, there was one individual dual national who truly stood out when it came to serving Israeli interests from inside the United States government. She might be worthy of the nickname “Queen of Sanctions” because she was the Department of the Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI), who handed the punishment out and had her hand on the throttle to crank the pain up. She is our own, unfortunately, and also Israel’s own Sigal Pearl Mandelker, and it is wonderful to be able to say that she finally resigned in late 2019!

Mandelker was born in Israel and largely educated in the United States. She is predictably a lawyer. She has never stated how many citizenships she holds while repeated inquiries as to whether she retains her Israeli citizenship have been ignored by the Treasury Department. It is not clear how she managed to obtain a security clearance given her evident affinity to a foreign country. The position that she held until October 2019 was created in 2004 by George W. Bush and is something of a “no Gentiles need apply” fiefdom. Its officials travel regularly on the taxpayer’s dime to Israel for consultations and also collaborate with pro-Israel organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). Mandelker’s predecessor was Adam Szubin and he was preceded by David Cohen and, before that, by the office’s founder Stuart Levey, who is currently Group Legal Manager and Group Managing Director for global bank HSBC. Since its creation, OFTI has not surprisingly focused on what might be described as Israel’s enemies, most notably among them being Iran.

During her time in office, Mandelker, who predictably claims to be the child of “holocaust survivors,” was clear about her role, citing her personal and business relationship with “our great partner, Israel.” Referring to her office’s imposed sanctions on Iran, she has said that “Bad actors need money to do bad things. That is why we have this massive sanctions regime … Every time we apply that pressure, that crunch on them, we deny them the ability to get that kind of revenue, we make the world a safer place.”

So the answer is pretty clearly that there are Israelis and/or dual nationals working for the federal government and possibly also ensconced in the Congress. Refusing them clearances so they would not wind up in policy making jobs would be a good step forward, particularly if it is combined with recusal from policy planning for obvious partisan representatives of organizations dedicated to protecting Israel.

As a final observation, one might only suggest that three additional bastions of “Israel-first” think that need to be assailed to permit any rational discussion of an appropriate U.S. role in the Middle East. They are the deeply flawed accepted holocaust narrative, which is used to grant Israelis and Jews special exemption due to their status as perpetual victims; the cynical use of the label anti-Semitism to silence critics; and the still undisclosed role of Israel in 9/11, which has never been adequately addressed. For more information, I would refer the reader to Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry, Ron Unz’s American Pravda piece on Mossad Assassinations and Justin Raimondo’s book on 9/11 The Terror Enigma. They are all major areas of inquiry on which some new information has developed and are worthy of separate articles in the future.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Washington’s Lopsided Bilateral Relationship with Israel
  • Tags:

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

How ‘secure’ do our homes remain if police, armed with no warrant, can pound on doors at will and … forcibly enter?”— Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the lone dissenter in Kentucky v. King

Americans are not safe in their homes.

Not anymore, at least.

This present menace comes from the government and its army of bureaucratized, corporatized, militarized mercenaries who are waging war on the last stronghold left to us as a free people: the sanctity of our homes.

The weapons of this particular war on our personal security and our freedoms include an abundance of laws that criminalize almost everything we do, a government that views our private property as its own, militarized police who have been brainwashed into believing that they operate above the law, courts that insulate police from charges of wrongdoing, legislatures that legitimize the government’s usurpations of our rights, and a populace that is so ignorant of their rights and distracted by partisan politics as to be utterly incapable of standing up to the government’s overreaches, incursions and power grabs.

This is how far the mighty have fallen.

Government agents—with or without a warrant, with or without probable cause that criminal activity is afoot, and with or without the consent of the homeowner—are now justified in mounting home invasions in order to pursue traffic violators, seize lawfully-owned weapons, carry out knock-and-talk “chats” with homeowners in the dead of night, “prevent” individuals from harming themselves, provide emergency aid, intervene in the face of imminent danger, serve as community caretakers, chase down individuals suspected of committing misdemeanor crimes, and anything else they can get away with.

This doesn’t even begin to touch on the many ways the government and its corporate partners-in-crime may be using surveillance technology—with or without the blessing of the courts—to invade one’s home: with wiretaps, thermal imaging, surveillance cameras, and other monitoring devices.

However, while the courts and legislatures have yet to fully address the implications of such virtual intrusions on our Fourth Amendment, there is no mistaking the physical intrusions by police into the privacy of one’s home: the toehold entry, the battering ram, the SWAT raid, the knock-and-talk conversation, etc.

Whether such intrusions, warranted or otherwise, are unconstitutional continues to be litigated, legislated and debated.

The spirit of the Constitution, drafted by men who chafed against the heavy-handed tyranny of an imperial ruler, would suggest that one’s home is a fortress, safe from almost every kind of intrusion. Unfortunately, a collective assault by the government’s cabal of legislators, litigators, judges and militarized police has all but succeeded in reducing that fortress—and the Fourth Amendment alongside it—to a crumbling pile of rubble.

Two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this term, Caniglia v. Strom and Lange v. California, are particularly noteworthy.

In Caniglia v. Strom, police want to be able to carry out warrantless home invasions in order to seize lawfully-owned guns under the pretext of their so-called “community caretaking” duties. Under the “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment, police can conduct warrantless searches of vehicles relating to accident investigations and provide aid to “citizens who are ill or in distress.”

At a time when red flag gun laws are gaining traction as a legislative means by which to allow police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats, it wouldn’t take much to expand the Fourth Amendment’s “community caretaking” exception to allow police to enter a home without a warrant and seize lawfully-possessed firearms based on concerns that the guns might pose a danger.

What we do not need is yet another pretext by which government officials can violate the Fourth Amendment at will under the pretext of public health and safety.

In Lange v. California, police want to be able to enter homes without warrants as long as they can claim to be in pursuit of someone they suspect may have committed a crime. Yet as Justice Neil Gorsuch points out, in an age in which everything has been criminalized, that leaves the door wide open for police to enter one’s home in pursuit of any and all misdemeanor crimes.

At issue in Lange is whether police can justify entering homes without a warrant under the “hot pursuit” exception to the Fourth Amendment.

The case arose after a California cop followed a driver, Arthur Lange, who was honking his horn while listening to music. The officer followed Lange, supposedly to cite him for violating a local noise ordinance, but didn’t actually activate the police cruiser’s emergency lights until Lange had already arrived home and entered his garage. Sticking his foot under the garage door just as it was about to close, the cop confronted Lange, smelled alcohol on his breath, ordered him to take a sobriety test, and then charged him with a DUI and a noise infraction.

Lange is just chock full of troubling indicators of a greater tyranny at work.

Overcriminalization: That you can now get pulled over and cited for honking your horn while driving and listening to music illustrates just how uptight and over-regulated life in the American police state has become.

Make-work policing: At a time when crime remains at an all-time low, it’s telling that a police officer has nothing better to do than follow a driver seemingly guilty of nothing more than enjoying loud music.

Warrantless entry: That foot in the door is a tactic that, while technically illegal, is used frequently by police attempting to finagle their way into a home and sidestep the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.

The definition of reasonable: Although the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless and unreasonable searches and seizures of “persons, houses, papers, and effects,” where we run into real trouble is when the government starts dancing around what constitutes a “reasonable” search. Of course, that all depends on who gets to decide what is reasonable. There’s even a balancing test that weighs the intrusion on a person’s right to privacy against the government’s interests, which include public safety.

Too often, the scales weigh in the government’s favor.

End runs around the law: The courts, seemingly more concerned with marching in lockstep with the police state than upholding the rights of the people, have provided police with a long list of exceptions that have gutted the Fourth Amendment’s once-robust privacy protections.

Exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement allow the police to carry out warrantless searches: if someone agrees to the search; in order to ferret out weapons or evidence during the course of an arrest; if police think someone is acting suspiciously and may be armed; during a brief investigatory stop; if a cop sees something connected to a crime in plain view; if police are in hot pursuit of a suspect who flees into a building; if they believe a vehicle has contraband; in an emergency where there may not be time to procure a warrant; and at national borders and in airports.

In other words, almost anything goes when it comes to all the ways in which the government can now invade your home and lay siege to your property.

Thus we tumble down that slippery slope which might have started out with a genuine concern for public safety and the well-being of the citizenry only to end up as a self-serving expansion of the government’s powers that makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment while utterly disregarding the rights of “we the people.”

Frankly, it’s a wonder we have any property interests, let alone property rights, left to protect.

Think about it.

That house you live in, the car you drive, the small (or not so small) acreage of land that has been passed down through your family or that you scrimped and saved to acquire, whatever money you manage to keep in your bank account after the government and its cronies have taken their first and second and third cut…none of it is safe from the government’s greedy grasp.

At no point do you ever have any real ownership in anything other than the clothes on your back.

Everything else can be seized by the government under one pretext or another (civil asset forfeiture, unpaid taxes, eminent domain, public interest, etc.).

The American Dream has been reduced to a lease arrangement in which we are granted the privilege of endlessly paying out the nose for assets that are only ours so long as it suits the government’s purposes.

And when it doesn’t suit the government’s purposes? Watch out.

This is not a government that respects the rights of its citizenry or the law. Rather, this is a government that sells its citizens to the highest bidder and speaks to them in a language of force.

Under such a fascist regime, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which declares that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation,” has become yet another broken shield, incapable of rendering any protection against corporate greed while allowing the government to justify all manner of “takings” in the name of the public good.

What we are grappling with is a government that has forfeited its purpose for existing.

Philosophers dating back to John Locke have long asserted that the true purpose of government is to protect our rights, not just our collective rights as a people, but our individual rights, specifically our rights to life, liberty and property. As James Madison concluded in the Federalist Papers, “Government is instituted no less for the protection of the property than of the persons of individuals.”

What we have been saddled with is a government that has not only lost sight of its primary reason for being—to protect the people’s rights—but has also re-written the script and cast itself as an imperial overlord with all of the neo-feudal authority such a position entails.

Let me put it another way.

If the government can tell you what you can and cannot do within the privacy of your home, whether it relates to what you eat, what you smoke or whom you love, you no longer have any rights whatsoever within your home.

If government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, gathering with friends to worship in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property.

If school officials can punish your children for what they do or say while at home or in your care, your children are not your own—they are the property of the state.

If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government.

If police can forcefully draw your blood, strip search you, probe you intimately, or force you to submit to vaccinations or lose your so-called “privileges” to move about and interact freely with your fellow citizens, your body is no longer your own—it is the government’s to do with as it deems best.

Likewise, if the government can lockdown whole communities and by extension the nation, quarantine whole segments of the population, outlaw religious gatherings and assemblies of more than a few people, shut down entire industries and manipulate the economy, muzzle dissidents, and “stop and seize any plane, train or automobile to stymie the spread of contagious disease,” then you no longer have a property interest as master of your own life, either.

This is what a world without the Fourth Amendment looks like, where the lines between private and public property have been so blurred that private property is reduced to little more than something the government can use to control, manipulate and harass you to suit its own purposes, and you the homeowner and citizen have been reduced to little more than a tenant or serf in bondage to an inflexible landlord.

If we continue down this road, the analogy shifts from property owners to prisoners in a government-run prison with local and federal police acting as prison guards. In such an environment, you have no rights.

So what can we do, short of scrapping this whole experiment in self-government and starting over?

At a minimum, we need to rebuild the foundations of our freedoms.

What this will mean is adopting an apolitical, nonpartisan, zero tolerance attitude towards the government when it oversteps its bounds and infringes on our rights.

We need courts that prioritize the rights of the citizenry over the government’s insatiable hunger for power at all costs.

We need people in the government—representatives, bureaucrats, etc.—who honor the public service oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.

Most of all, we need to reclaim control over our runaway government and restore our freedoms.

After all, we are the government. As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, “we the people” are supposed to be the ones calling the shots. As John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, rightly observed: “No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.”

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Fox News investigation says there’s “reasonable grounds to suspect” that SARS-CoV-2, which may have leaked accidentally from a lab in Wuhan, China, was the product of taxpayer-funded gain-of-function experiments commissioned by the U.S. government and overseen by Fauci.

At the outset of the COVID-19 outbreak, anyone who dared question the mainstream government and media narrative that SARS-CoV-2 evolved in the wild did so at the risk of being labeled a conspiracy theorist.

But as months passed, organizations like Children’s Health Defense (CHD), U.S. Right to Know and others began asking questions and calling for investigations.

The Washington Post eventually went out on a limb to print an op-ed suggesting that the virus might have leaked from a lab. And more recently, the Wall Street Journal waded into the controversy with its article, “China’s Reckless Labs Put the World at Risk.”

On Feb. 28, Fox News tackled the COVID origins story, not to point blame, reporter Steve Hilton said, but to make sure “we learn lessons, to prevent the next pandemic.”

The Fox News investigation reveals the connection between Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in Wuhan, China, where some scientists believe the virus originated.

“Fox News reporter Steve Hilton persuasively linked — for the first time on national TV — Dr. Anthony Fauci to the creation of COVID 19,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., CHD chairman and chief legal counsel. “Hilton explains how Fauci — despite protests from leaders of the scientific community who warned that he was playing with fire — funded the specific gain-of-function study that almost certainly created the COVID-19 virus.”

Kennedy added:

“The irony of Fauci leading the global response to a pandemic that he may have created becomes starker by the day.”

In October 2020, Kennedy, on behalf of CHD, wrote to Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) asking the Congressman to investigate the causes leading up to and contributing to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Earlier this month, Posey introduced H.R. 834, a bill calling for an independent, bipartisan national commission on the COVID-19 pandemic.

As The Defender reported last week, 28 members of Congress sent a letter on Feb. 23 to the principal deputy director of the Department of Health and Human Services demanding an investigation into the National Institutes of Health’s response to biosafety concerns raised about the taxpayer-funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology  in Wuhan, China.

Watch the video here.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is a screenshot from Fox News

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Investigation Links Fauci to Controversial Experiments that May Have Led to Pandemic
  • Tags: ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Israel has rolled out what it is calling a ‘Freedom bracelet’, a tracking device that will serve as an alternative to a two-week quarantine for anyone entering the country from abroad.

The device, which looks like a smart watch is being produced by a company called SuperCom, which has previously worked with governments of several countries on systems to track and monitor prisoners.

Ordan Trabelsi, the CEO of SuperCom, said

“We call it a ‘freedom bracelet’ because we are not locking anybody up, but rather giving them the opportunity to go home.”

…And be tracked by the government if they try to leave their house.

“Nobody is forced to do it, but for those who are interested, it gives them another option: more flexibility,” Trabelsi added.

So, the choices are be locked up for two weeks in a military-administered quarantine hotel, or take the tracking bracelet.

It doesn’t really sound like ‘freedom’.

The development comes at the same time as a court ruling demanding that the country’s domestic spy agency the Shin Bet must back off Covid-19 contact-tracing surveillance.

The court ruled that the efforts are “draconian” and a threat to democracy in the country, and can only be used in emergencies.

Israel is also operating a two tier society where those who have been vaccinated have a ‘green pass’ to go where they want, and those who haven’t must stay under lockdown.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is by Spiro Skouras

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

While the hazards of fracking to human health are well-documented, first-of-its-kind research from Environmental Health News shows the actual levels of biomarkers for fracking chemicals in the bodies of children living near fracking wells far higher than in the general population.

The research fills a gap in the science between the health harms experienced by those living near fracking and the known harms caused by fracking chemicals: whether fracking chemicals were actually in people’s bodies. They are. Of the southwestern Pennsylvania families who participated in the study, those who lived closer to fracking wells had higher levels of fracking chemicals or their biomarkers than those who lived far away.

One nine-year-old boy had biomarkers for toluene, which can damage the nervous system or kidneys, 91 times higher than the average American. Another had biomarkers for ethylbenzene and styrene, 55 times higher than the average American. Exposure to ethylbenzene and styrene is linked to skin, eye, and respiratory tract irritation, reproductive harm, endocrine disruption, and increased cancer risk. The research is part one of a multi-part series by Environmental Health News exploring the multifaceted “body burden” of fracking.

As reported by Environmental Health News:

In Texas, researchers found that babies born near frequent flaring—the burning off of excess natural gas from fracking wells—are 50 percentmore likely to be premature. In Colorado, the state Department of Health found that people living near fracking sites face elevated risk of nosebleeds, headaches, breathing trouble, and dizziness. In Pennsylvania, researchers found that people living near fracking face increased rates of infant mortality, depression, and hospitalizations for skin and urinary issues. Studies of fracking communities throughout the country have found that living near fracking wells increases the risk of premature births, high-risk pregnancies, asthma, migraines, fatigue, nasal and sinus symptoms, skin disorders and heart failure; and laboratory studies have linked chemicals used in fracking fluid to endocrine disruption—which can cause hormone imbalance, reproductive harm, early puberty, brain and behavior problems, improper immune function, and cancer.

“We have enough evidence at this point that these health impacts should be of serious concern to policymakers interested in protecting public health,” Irena Gorski Steiner, an environmental epidemiology doctoral candidate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Environmental Health News (EHN).

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image: A boy plays basketball in front of an oil well covered with large colorful flowers and located next to Beverly Hills High School. Wells like this have been hidden throughout Los Angeles. Faces of Fracking / Flickr

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Sky-High Levels of Fracking Chemicals Detected in Children’s Bodies
  • Tags:

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

With what right has the West, the US in particular, treated Iran the way it has since the CIA/MI6 coup d’etat – regime-change – in 1953?

With war threats, primary and secondary sanctions, ganging up, liquidation, demonization, closing down of media, diplomatic exclusion, shooting down a civilian plane and giving the pilot a medal, and telling Iran not to have what you can’t live without – such as nuclear weapons.

The argument is that that is how we treat somebody whose policies and behaviour we don’t like. OK, and so, what about those who do not like Western policies and behaviour?

Second, that is the way we force somebody to change and become like us.

As if ethics and philosophy mattered the slightest in international politics, I would ask: Do we have a right to do to others what we would never accept them doing to us?

And is there one example under the sky that such multi-decade, maximum – violent – pressure has lead to the desired change and solved the conflict? Vietnam? Russia? Cuba? Afghanistan? Iraq? Libya? Syria?

The US/NATO and other West need a completely new way of thinking about these things and getting its own house in order first.

But what we see is only a repetition of the outdated, intellectually poor and manifestly failed approach based on raw power and might makes right.

While trying to look strong, it is a sign of weakness and decline. It is tragically self-defeating too.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The A-symmetric West-Iran Conflict: Danger Ahead!
  • Tags:

Biden Set to Inflict Wounds on Eurasia

March 3rd, 2021 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Mikhail Gorbachev in a special interview to the Tass news agency on Monday gave a poignant message to the Kremlin by calling for the strengthening of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security treaty Organization and for mending relations with those former Soviet republics which are “at odds” with Moscow. 

Gorbachev recalled he had stated many times in the past that the Soviet Union could have been preserved “provided it was modernised and reformed and the republics were granted broad rights and real sovereignty.” He stressed that a programme of regeneration is “vitally needed” today.  

Indeed, at no time since the birth of the Russian Federation, the Eurasian landscape looked so dark and foreboding as at present. Russia’s western periphery is in a state of high turbulence. 

Ukraine never really stabilised after the regime change in 2014. Things have become much worse in many ways — rampant corruption, venality, dysfunctional political system and poverty. What used to be one of the most prosperous regions of the former USSR is in decay. The charioteers of the 2014 colour revolution from the US and Europe have no interest in nation-building. All that matters to them is that Ukraine has turned into an American colony, driven by animus against Russia. 

Transparent conversations between Washington and Moscow are needed over Ukraine’s viable future as a neutral turf where Western and Russian interests can co-habit. Moscow is open to a modus vivendii but Washington’s interest lies in the opposite direction, as evident from the role Kiev played in instigating the current turmoil in next-door Belarus. 

Things can only get worse under President Joe Biden’s watch. The Pentagon announced on Monday a new $125 million package for supply of “defensive lethal weapons to enable Ukraine to more effectively defend itself against Russian aggression” on top of the remaining unutilised $150 million in the current budget appropriated by the Congress. The US has so far provided $2 billion “security assistance” to Ukraine since 2014 to promote that country’s “Euro-Atlantic aspirations.” Clearly, a neutral Ukraine in the eastern fringes of Eurasia does not suit the US’ geopolitical agenda. 

The story of Georgia, where the US’ regime change project in the post-Soviet period was first successfully staged, is even more tragic. As in Ukraine, in Georgia too, Russia was willing to work with the US for a democratic transition. But the US agenda narrowly focused on installing a virulently anti-Russian government in Tbilisi and a brash, US-educated lawyer named Mikheil Saakashvili — with an American wife — was brought in to serve that purpose. 

Again, as in Ukraine’s Donbas and Crimea, a highly charged issue of “territorial sovereignty” was subtly brought in when Washington encouraged Saakashvili to stage an attack on Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia in 2008, which in turn led to the loss of two breakaway regions. Georgia could never quite establish itself as a democracy, either.

Even by the ranking of American think tanks, Georgia has been steadily slipping in the democracy ratings. Then came a curious twist to the tale when the free and fair presidential election last October, threw up as winner a Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili (estimated by Forbes to be worth $5 billion). 

Washington suspects that Ivanishvili who made his vast fortunes in Russia as a Russian citizen once — in metals, real estate, and banking — may be beholden to Moscow. Thus, a whispering campaign began insinuating about the Russian roots of his business empire, which has snowballed into protests demanding snap elections despite President Ivanishvili’s insistence that his loyalty to his country is not to be doubted. 

Washington is mulling its options, caught between the rock and a hard place, as turmoil and uncertainty grips Georgian politics. In a bizarre turn of events, do not rule out Biden Administration soliciting Mikheil Saakashvili’s services once again as Georgia spins out of control. (Saakashvili had fled Georgia in 2013 and is wanted on multiple criminal charges.)

The Biden administration is expected to encourage Georgia’s further NATO integration. Antony Blinken, Biden’s state secretary, has voiced support for keeping the NATO’s door open for Georgia. The point is, a new configuration of balance is taking shape in the region and Georgia is located at a strategically important crossroads in the Caucasian region between Russian and Turkey, the Caspian and the Black Sea.

While Ukraine and Belarus are Russia’s buffer zones historically, the West is interested in Georgia because it is vital to the security in the South Caucasus and could limit Russia’s influence, apart from being relevant to the transportation of oil and gas from the Caspian and Central Asia to world markets.

Yet, the crux of the matter is that Ukraine are Georgia inextricably tied to the Russian market. If Ukraine critically depends on Russian energy and was historically an inalienable part of the Soviet production chain, Georgia has long been reliant on Russia as its largest export market for its agriculture products and its famed wines and mineral waters. 

Geoeconomics ought to have been the best prescription for the revival of Ukraine and Georgia and the consolidation of their democratic foundations, but Washington instead prioritises its geopolitical  agenda. (See opinion piece in Guardian titled Why Ukraine needs Russia more than ever.) 

Clearly, when it came to Belarus, Moscow didn’t have to be convinced anymore that the US was trying to incorporate yet another country (“buffer”) on Russia’s periphery into its sphere of influence. The Kremlin decided wisely not to interfere but instead created space for President Alexander Lukashenko to weather the storm. 

Unlike Georgia or Ukraine, Belarus has a functioning economy and unemployment is virtually non-existent while its Soviet era welfare system ensured social security for the masses. Thus, the colour revolution, stirred up via the social media by the CIA could only rally a section of the population. Lukashenko resorted to deploy “smart power”, outwitting the western countries. 

Russia’s growing confrontation with the US and Europe elevates Belarus to a special status in Moscow’s security calculus. The timing of the “Navalny case” alerted Moscow that the game plan is to entrap it in a quagmire. The Kremlin doubled down to prevent the overthrow of Lukashenko while also squashing the Navalny case. 

Having successfully weathered the western assault, Lukashenko travelled to Sochi on Feb. 22 and held a six-hour meeting with President Vladimir Putin to discuss an integration model with Russia while preserving Belarus’ sovereignty. Putin and Lukashenko stated that the instruments of cooperation between Moscow and Minsk are working well. 

Alarmed by the prospect of a Russian-Belorussian integration, the US is planning a counter attack by rekindling the protests in Minsk. Mass protests are planned to restart on March 25. This time around, the objective will be to whip up xenophobia to create a groundswell of anti-Russian public mood.

Suffice to say, Gorbachev’s remarks are predicated on an assumption that Ukraine or Georgia are free agents to conduct their relations with Russia. Whereas, both are de facto western colonies and Washington will not allow them to pursue an independent policy toward Moscow. 

In a forceful speech on February 24 while addressing top officials of Russian Federal Security Bureau (KGB), Putin lashed out at the “consistent and highly aggressive policy aimed at disrupting our [Russia’s] development, at slowing it down and creating problems along our external perimeter and contour, provoking internal instability, undermining the values that unite Russian society, and ultimately, at weakening Russia and forcing it to accept external management, just as this is happening in some post-Soviet states.” 

Putin anticipates that the US’ confrontation with Russia will escalate under Biden’s watch. Simply put, the future of Russia’s relations with the former Soviet republics on its western periphery are largely America’s choice. And that choice, unfortunately, is being exercised to create bleeding wounds to weaken Russia. 

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

The Fallacy of North Korean Collapse

March 3rd, 2021 by Sang Ki Kim

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The Fallacy of North Korean Collapse

Video: Microsoft Forms “Ministry of Truth”

March 2nd, 2021 by Really Graceful

A carefully research video report on the role of Bill Gates in the “Battle Against Fake News”

Bill Gates initiative is supported by

“Adobe, Arm, BBC, Intel, Microsoft and Truepic in a coalition to develop end to end open standard for tracing the origin and evolution of digital content”

Under the helm of Bill Gates,

“Technology and media entities join forces to create standards groups aimed at building trust in online content”. 

.

Video Production by Really Graceful (RG)

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Video: Microsoft Forms “Ministry of Truth”

Selected Articles: US Foreign Policy: “War Is Peace”

March 2nd, 2021 by Global Research News

Video: Joe Biden on Iraq War: “Taking this Son of a ****, Taking Saddam Down”

By Joe Biden, March 02 2021

As documented below in a September 1998 Senate hearing, Joe Biden was a firm supporter of the Invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein “had weapons of mass destruction”.

What Jordan’s Prince Hassan Fails to Recognize: Palestinian Struggle Is an Advance Guard of the Arab Liberation Movement

By Rima Najjar, March 02 2021

Déjà vu washed over me as I read a letter by Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan addressing Israelis, published in Yedioth Ahronoth (Feb 26, 2021), the largest Israeli newspaper (Hebrew). It is a letter clearly written within the “one-homeland-two-state” initiative framework.

Joe Biden Championed the Iraq War. Will that Come Back to Haunt Him Now?

By Mark Weisbrot, March 02 2021

Biden himself had enormous influence as chair and argued strongly in favor of the 2002 resolution granting President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

On British Colonialism, Antisemitism, and Palestinian Rights

By Avi Shlaim, March 02 2021

In December 2016, then British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government formally adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism.

Biden’s Journey: Change Is Imperceptible

By Philip Giraldi, March 02 2021

The new White House Team has been in place for more than a month and it is perhaps time to consider where it is going with America’s fractured foreign policy.

US Foreign Policy: “War Is Peace”. Plans to Partition Syria

By Stephen Lendman, March 02 2021

A permanent state of war on invented enemies is longstanding US policy. It’s been this way throughout most of the post-WW II period. Terror-bombing Syria last Thursday was one of many examples — escalating US aggression against the nation and people by Biden.

Biden’s Syria Attack: An Actual Impeachable Offense

By Rep. Ron Paul, March 02 2021

Last Thursday President Biden continued what has sadly become a Washington tradition: bombing Syria. The President ordered a military strike near the Iraqi-Syrian border that killed at least 22 people.

Whistleblower: 25% of Residents in German Nursing Home Died After Pfizer Vaccine

By Children’s Health Defense, March 02 2021

Reiner Fuellmich and Viviane Fischer, attorneys and founding members of the German Corona Investigative Committee, interview a caregiver in a Berlin nursing home who describes what happened during and after the rollout of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.

Video: Violent US-backed Hong Kong-Style Mobs in Thailand Continue

By Brian Berletic, March 02 2021

US-backed anti-government protesters in Thailand have once again “rebranded” to shake off the image of an unpopular, violent mob only to stage a poorly attended, extremely violent protest as their first “rally.”
  • Posted in NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on Selected Articles: US Foreign Policy: “War Is Peace”

O compromisso de Cuba com a saúde internacional.

March 2nd, 2021 by Franklin Frederick

‘Eles descobriram armas inteligentes. Nós descobrimos algo mais importante: as pessoas pensam e sentem.’ Fidel Castro

A crise COVID-19 tem revelado o fracasso da maioria dos países capitalistas ocidentais em suas políticas de saúde pública. Décadas de austeridade neoliberal, de cortes em programas de saúde e educação induzidos por programas de reestruturação pelo FMI e pelo Banco Mundial, mostram agora seus resultados em números alarmantes de contágio e de mortes se espalhando pela América Latina, Europa e sobretudo pelos EUA.

No ocidente, Cuba tem dado um exemplo de eficiência e mostrado que um outro caminho é possível na luta contra a pandemia. Os números falam por si, basta compararmos Cuba com outros países ou mesmo grandes cidades com populações semelhantes para termos um quadro muito claro da diferença nos resultados.

Com uma população de cerca de 11,350,000 pessoas, Cuba teve até agora – 21 de fevereiro –  45,361 casos acumulados  de COVID-19  com 300 mortes. A cidade de Nova York, com cerca de 18,800,00 de habitantes, tem um total acumulado de 700,815 casos com 28,888 mortes. A Suíça, com uma população menor que a de Cuba, cerca de  8,600,000 pessoas, tem 550,224 casos acumulados de COVID-19 com  9,226 mortes. Como explicar que um país que dispõe de muito menos recursos que uma cidade como Nova York ou um país como a Suíça possa ser tão mais eficiente em sua luta contra a pandemia? A resposta é simples: a Revolução Cubana de 1959 concentrou os poucos recursos disponíveis no país na construção de um sistema de saúde que atendesse às necessidades da população – das pessoas – em primeiro lugar – e não aos interesses dos diversos setores da medicina privatizada – dos planos de saúde às grandes empresas farmacêuticas, passando pela cara medicina ‘high-tech’ da qual os países desenvolvidos tanto se orgulham.

Após a Revolução, praticamente a metade dos médicos cubanos deixou o país, limitando enormemente a capacidade do novo governo de atender às necessidades de saúde de sua população. A decisão do governo revolucionário foi de investir na formação de novos profissionais de saúde – em pessoas – e de ampliar o acesso aos cuidados médicos à população rural e sobretudo aos negros, até então deixados de fora. Deste modo, Cuba foi capaz de aumentar o número de enfermeiros e enfermeiras de 2,500 em 1958 para 4,300 em uma década. Através de suas massivas campanhas de vacinação, Cuba eliminou a polio em 1962, a malária em 1967, tetano neonatal em 1972, difteria em 1979, síndrome da rubéola congênita em 1989, meningite pós-caxumba em 1993, rubéola em 1995 e meningite tuberculosa em 1997. Atualmente, a taxa de mortalidade infantil em Cuba é menor do que a dos Estados Unidos e menos da metade do que a da população negra nos Estados Unidos.

Em 1983, pouco mais de duas décadas depois da Revolução, a expectativa de vida em Cuba já tinha aumentado para 73.8 anos, quando no período anterior era de apenas  58.8 anos. Enquanto muitos especialistas em saúde pública costuman atribuir à falta de recursos a crônica insuficiência de atendimento médico na América Latina, a Revolução Cubana mostrou na prática que quando recursos limitados são distribuídos de maneira equitativa e com ênfase em pessoas e em prevenção, pode-se obter resultados em saúde pública  antes inimagináveis. O neoliberalismo, imposto pela força em muitos países do Sul,  e escolhido pelas elites econômicas do Norte como política preferencial em seus próprios países, levou a um caminho oposto ao Cubano.

E a pandemia de COVID-19 está mostrando com muita clareza qual caminho foi o mais acertado. Nos países ricos do Norte, a austeridade neoliberal tem causados há décadas sucessivas reduções nos orçamentos da área da saúde,  sobretudo com cortes no número de pessoal qualificado disponível.Cuba, ao contrário, investiu na formação de um número cada vez maior de profissionais da saúde. Quando a pandemia chegou, era claro que Cuba já dispunha do pessoal e da capacidade de alocação de recursos necessários para enfrentar uma tal situação. Nos países do Norte , ao contrário, à falta de pessoal e de infratestrutura pública somaram-se a incapacidade de tomar as medidas corretas quando estas se opunham aos interesses privados já estabelecidos. Consequentemente, pela primeira vez,  Cuba foi solicitada a levar a sua ajuda a alguns países ricos e desenvolvidos do Norte, como a Itália. Os médicos e outros profissionais de saúde cubanos também levaram sua ajuda à Andorra e aos departamentos ultra-marinos da França no Caribe, Martinica e Guadalupe. Não se pode imaginar uma demonstração maior da falência do modelo neoliberal.

A Revolução Cubana, desde o seu início e apesar de todas as dificuldades materiais enfrentadas pelo novo governo, fez todo o possível para ajudar países mais pobres e em dificuldades. Em 1963, apenas quatro anos depois da Revolução, lutando ainda com enormes dificuldades internas, Cuba enviou sua primeira missão de ajuda médica à Algéria, nação que acabava de sair  de décadas de uma sangrenta guerra de independência contra a França. Em 1966, com a ajuda de 200.000 doses de vacinas contra poliomielite doadas pela União Soviética, Cuba e seu pessoal médico, em colaboração com o governo do Congo, coordenou a vacinação de mais de 61,000 crianças no que foi a primeira campanha de vacinação em massa na África. Até o presente, Cuba já enviou cerca de 124.000 profissionais de saúde para prestar cuidados médicos em mais de 154 países.

Ao lado desta impressionante ajuda levada pelo seu próprio pessoal médico à várias partes do mundo, uma outra contribuição fundamental de Cuba é a formação de profissionais da saúde vindos sobretudo de países pobres em sua Escola Latino Americana de Medicina, a ELAM. Fundada em 1999, a ELAM forma estudantes de acordo com o modelo cubano de Medicina Geral Integral (MGI), com o foco principalmente em saúde pública e cuidados primários, com uma abordagem holística na compreensão da saúde, incluindo disciplinas como biologia, sociologia e política. Os estudantes estrangeiros da ELAM tem todas as despesas pagas pelo Estado Cubano, exceto as passagens. Em 2020, a ELAM já havia formado 30,000 novos médicos vindos de mais de 100 países, principalmente da África. Muitos destes estudantes não teriam a menor possibilidade de estudar medicina em seus países de origem e, ao retornar, providenciarão um serviço inestimável e por vezer antes inexistente aos seus concidadãos, incluindo cuidados relativos à pandemia. De acordo com a ELAM, há cerca de 52,000 profissionais da saúde de Cuba trabalhando em 92 países, o que faz com que Cuba tenha mais médicos trabalhando no exterior do que todas as contribuições de profissionis de saúde enviados pelos países do G-8 somadas.

Devido ao seu comprometimento com a saúde de pessoas, principalmente dos mais pobres e desprovidos, e não com um sistema de saúde privatizado onde o lucro determina onde e como alocar recursos, os médicos cubanos são alvos frequentes dos ataques da extrema direita nos países onde atuam. No Brasil, em seguida ao golpe de estado contra a presidente eleita Dilma Rousseff e à ascenção ilegal ao poder de Jair Bolsonaro, os médicos cubanos tiveram que deixar o país. O mesmo ocorreu na Bolívia em seguida ao golpe contra o presidente Evo Morales e em  Honduras, depois do golpe contra o presidente Zelaya. Em todos estes casos foram sempre os pobres os mais atingidos pois ficaram sem o atendimento médico providenciado pelos profissionais cubanos, muitas vezes o único cuidado que já haviam recebido até então.  Em 1979 Cuba enviou uma missão médica para Granada e em 1982 este país apresentou uma  redução de 25% na taxa de mortalidade infantil, graças sobretudo ao trabalho realizado pelos profissionais cubanos. Mas os Estados Unidos invadiram Granada em 1983 e os trabalhadores de saúde cubanos foram obrigados a deixar o país.

Em relação à pandemia de COVID -19,  o exemplo que talvez melhor revele as consequências desastrosas que o efeito combinado da saída de médicos cubanos e imposição de reajustes estruturais podem causar num país é o caso do Equador. Em seguida à eleição do Presidente Lenin Moreno em 2017 os profissionais de saúde cubanos que trabalhavam no país com o apoio do Presidente Rafael Corrêa foram expulsos e o Fundo Monetário Internacional recomendou um corte de 36% no orçamento da saúde, medida adotada pelo Presidente Moreno. Estas duas ações deixaram o país praticamente sem um sistema de saúde e sem defesa diante da pandemia. Em consequência, só a cidade de Guayaquil, a maior do Equador, com cerca de 2,700 milhões de habitantes, teve um número estimado de  7.600 mortos devidos à pandemia, um número mais de 25 vezes maior do que o de Cuba.

As brigadas médicas e a ELAM são importantes contribuições de Cuba na luta contra a pandemia de COVID-19. Mas uma outra contribuição, decisiva, está a caminho: a vacina Soberana II, produzida pelo Instituto de Vacinação Finlay de Havana. Cuba espera imunizar ainda este ano toda a sua população com a sua própria vacina. Uma vez mais, a abordagem socialista de Cuba na produção de vacinas difere radicalmente da adotada pelas nações capitalistas do mundo. Fruto da experiência internacional acumulada de Cuba, através de suas muitas missões conduzidas em várias partes do mundo, a vacina cubana é uma esperança para as nações pobres pois, mais uma vez, pode-se contar com a solidariedade de Cuba. De acordo com um artigo de W. T. Whitney Jr. (ver https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/cuba-develops-covid-19-vaccines-takes-socialist-approach/):

“100 milhões de doses da Soberana II estão sendo preparadas, o suficiente para imunizar todos os 11 milhões de cubanos, com o  início da vacinação acontecendo  em Março ou Abril. Os 70 milhões de doses restantes irão para o Vietnam, Iran, Paquistão, Índia, Venezuela, Bolívia, e Nicarágua. A Soberana II ‘será a vacina da ALBA’,  como explicou a vice-presidente venezuelana Delcy Rodríguez, referindo-se à aliança de solidariedade estabelecida em 2004 pelo presidente venezuelano Hugo Chavez e o cubano Fidel Castro.”

E autor do artigo citado acrescentou:

“’A estratégia de Cuba na comercialização da vacina representa uma combinação do que é bom para a humanidade e o impacto na saúde mundial. Não somos uma multinacional onde um objectivo financeiro vem primeiro’, diz Vicente Vérez Bencomo, director do Instituto de Vacinas Finlay de Cuba. Os rendimentos gerados pela venda de vacinas no estrangeiro irão pagar os cuidados com saúde, educação e pensões em Cuba, tal como acontece com as exportações de serviços médicos e medicamentos.”

Em contraste com a abordagem cubana, o autor citado escreveu:

“Segundo o forbes.com em Novembro de 2020, ‘Se a [vacina] da  Moderna conseguir a aprovação da FDA (Food and Drug Administration, órgão regulador dos EUA)  e conseguir fazer doses suficientes, a sua margem superior de lucro poderá ser quase 35 mil milhões de dólares mais alta … do que … nos últimos 12 meses’. Outro relatório sugere que, ‘As empresas (Pfizer e Moderna) vão ganhar milhares de milhões de dólares em lucros com as suas vacinas COVID este ano [e] haverá mais lucros em anos posteriores’As empresas ‘reivindicam os direitos a vastas quantidades de propriedade intelectual’.”

“Com as empresas sendo responsáveis, a distribuição de vacinas COVID-19 é distorcida. Desde 27 de Janeiro, ‘foram enviadas cerca de 66,83 milhões de doses, das quais 93 por cento foram fornecidas apenas a 15 países’. Na América Latina, apenas o Brasil, Argentina, México, e Chile conseguiram contratos de compra adequados para imunizar populações inteiras. Os contratos das empresas com nações africanas permitem a imunização de apenas 30 por cento dos africanos em 2021.”

“A divisão da riqueza determina a distribuição. Os epidemiologistas da Universidade de  Duke relatam que, ‘embora os países de elevado rendimento representem apenas 16% da população mundial, possuem atualmente 60% das vacinas para a COVID-19 que foram compradas até o  momento’. O jornalista cubano Randy Alonso relata que apenas ‘27% da população total dos países de rendimento baixo e médio podem ser vacinados este ano’.”

Desde que realizou sua revolução, Cuba segue sob ininterrupto ataque do Império e de seus comparsas.Sua população sofre com as sanções e bloqueios econômicos, que comprometem muito também seus esforços de solidariedade internacional. Mesmo assim, esta pequena nação, sempre tão teimosa e generosa  segue sendo uma fonte de esperança para o mundo. Sobretudo, Cuba aponta o caminho a seguir, com muita firmeza, despojamento, coragem e uma inesgotável alegria.

                                                                                                                       Franklin  Frederick

  • Posted in Português
  • Comments Off on O compromisso de Cuba com a saúde internacional.

La pericolosa strategia Usa/Nato in Europa 

March 2nd, 2021 by Manlio Dinucci

Si sta svolgendo nello Ionio, dal 22 febbraio al 5 marzo, l’esercitazione Nato Dynamic Manta di guerra anti-sottomarino. Vi partecipano navi, sottomarini e aerei di Stati Uniti, Italia, Francia, Germania, Grecia, Spagna, Belgio e Turchia. Le due principali unità impegnate in questa esercitazione sono un sottomarino nucleare Usa da attacco della classe Los Angeles e la portaerei francese Charles de Gaulle a propulsione nucleare assieme al suo gruppo di battaglia, comprendente anche un sottomarino nucleare da attacco. La Charles de Gaulle, subito dopo, andrà nel Golfo Persico. L’Italia, che partecipa alla Dynamic Manta con navi e sottomarini, è la «nazione ospite» dell’intera esercitazione: ha messo a disposizione delle forze partecipanti il porto di Catania e la stazione elicotteri della Marina sempre a Catania, la stazione aeronavale di Sigonella (la maggiore base Usa/Nato nel Mediterraneo) e la base logistica di Augusta per i rifornimenti. Scopo dell’esercitazione è la caccia ai sottomarini russi nel Mediterraneo che, secondo la Nato, minaccerebbero l’Europa.

In questi stessi giorni la portaerei Eisenhower e il suo gruppo di battaglia stanno effettuando operazioni nell’Atlantico per «dimostrare il continuo sostegno militare Usa agli alleati e l’impegno a mantenere i mari liberi e aperti». Tali operazioni – condotte dalla Sesta Flotta, il cui comando è a Napoli e la cui base è a Gaeta – rientrano nella strategia enunciata in particolare dall’ammiraglio Foggo, già a capo del Comando Nato di Napoli: accusando la Russia di voler affondare le navi che collegano le due sponde dell’Atlantico, così da isolare l’Europa dagli Usa, egli sostiene che la Nato si deve preparare alla «Quarta battaglia dell’Atlantico», dopo quelle delle due guerre mondiali e della guerra fredda. Mentre sono in corso le esercitazioni navali, bombardieri strategici B-1, trasferiti dal Texas in Norvegia, stanno effettuando «missioni» a ridosso del territorio russo, insieme a caccia F-35 norvegesi, per «dimostrare la prontezza e capacità degli Stati uniti nel sostenere gli alleati». Le operazioni militari in Europa e nei mari adiacenti si svolgono sotto il comando del generale della US Air Force Tod Wolters, che è a capo del Comando Europeo degli Stati Uniti e allo stesso tempo della Nato, con la carica di Comandante Supremo Alleato in Europa che spetta sempre a un generale statunitense.

Tutte queste operazioni militari vengono ufficialmente motivate come «difesa dell’Europa dalla aggressione russa», capovolgendo la realtà: è stata la Nato a espandersi in Europa, con le sue forze e basi anche nucleari, a ridosso della Russia. Al Consiglio Europeo il 26 febbraio, il segretario generale della Nato Stoltenberg ha dichiarato che «le minacce che avevamo di fronte prima della pandemia sono ancora lì», mettendo al primo posto «le azioni aggressive della Russia» e, sullo sfondo, una minacciosa «ascesa della Cina». Ha quindi sottolineato la necessità di rafforzare il legame transatlantico tra Stati Uniti ed Europa, come vuole fortemente la nuova amministrazione Biden, portando a un livello superiore la cooperazione tra Ue e Nato. Oltre il 90% degli abitanti dell’Unione Europea, ha ricordato, vive oggi in paesi della Nato (di cui fanno parte 21 dei 27 paesi Ue). Il Consiglio Europeo ha ribadito «l’impegno a cooperare strettamente con la Nato e la nuova amministrazione Biden per la sicurezza e la difesa», rendendo la UE militarmente più forte.

Come ha precisato il premier Mario Draghi nel suo intervento, tale rafforzamento deve avvenire in un quadro di complementarietà con la Nato e di coordinamento con gli Usa. Quindi il rafforzamento militare della UE deve essere complementare a quello della Nato, a sua volta complementare alla strategia Usa. Essa consiste in realtà nel provocare in Europa crescenti tensioni con la Russia, così da accrescere l’influenza statunitense nella stessa Unione Europea. Un gioco sempre più pericoloso, perché spinge la Russia a rafforzarsi militarmente, e sempre più costoso. Lo conferma il fatto che nel 2020, in piena crisi, la spesa militare italiana è salita dal 13° al 12° posto mondiale scavalcando quella dell’Australia.

Manlio Dinucci

  • Posted in Italiano
  • Comments Off on La pericolosa strategia Usa/Nato in Europa 

Introductory note

As documented below in a September 1998 Senate hearing, Joe Biden was a firm supporter of the Invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein “had weapons of mass destruction”.  

Foreign policy arrogance. In the second video, see the confrontation between Senator Joe Biden and Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter.

“The American People were deceived into this war”, said Senator Dick Durbin. Do not let yourself be deceived again by Joe Biden.

The Biden administration is committed to military escalation in the Middle East with the direct participation of Israel in US Central Command (USCENTCOM). 

Currently the US military is involved in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen. The illegal war of aggression against Syria is ongoing marked by direct US-Israeli bombing raids.

The US is threatening Iran. Biden has intimated that the (illegal) US strikes against Syria are a warning to Iran to “be careful”. 

Is Biden committed to waging so-called “forever wars” under a humanitarian label?

The Project for the New American Century –formulated by the Neocons in the late 1990s, was adopted by the GWB administration.

We will “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”. (PNAC)

In 2006, under the Bush administration, The Pentagon launched The “Long War” against “Islamic Extremism”.

America’s “Long War” was to replace the “War on Terrorism”.

And in 2014, the Obama-Biden adminstration launched its “counter terrorism” bombing campaign against Iraq and Syria.

The entire foreign policy discourse is based on a Lie, namely that so-called “Islamic Extremism” (a creation of US intelligence) was threatening the American homeland, requiring  the deployment of US sponsored covert, counter-terrorist forces (also consisting of private sector mercenaries). These covert special forces are now deployed throughout the Middle East, as well as in sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and South East Asia.

Preemptive nuclear war was first put forward by the Bush administration as a “first strike” means of self defense.

And then under the Obama-Biden administration (2009-2017)  a 1 trillion dollar nuclear weapons program was launched with a means to defending the homeland…

Biden remains a firm supporter of the nuclear option.

We are at a dangerous crossroads. Biden is committed to the “globalization of war”.

The truth is a powerful and peaceful weapon. 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 2, 2021

***

Selected quotations from Video

“The primary policy is to keep sanctions in place to deny Saddam the billions of dollars that would allow him to really crank up his program, which neither you nor I believe he’s ever going to abandon as long as he’s in place,”

“You [Scott Ritter] and I believe, and many of us believe here, as long as Saddam is at the helm, there is no reasonable prospect you or any other inspector is ever going to be able to guarantee that we have rooted out, root and branch, the entirety of Saddam’s program relative to weapons of mass destruction.

“You and I both know, and all of us here really know, and it’s a thing we have to face, that the only way, the only way we’re going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we’re going to end up having to start it alone — start it alone — and it’s going to require guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert”

“You know it and I know it.”

Scott Ritter was the chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq (1991- 1998).

Renowned author and distinguished foreign policy analyst, Scott Ritter is the author of “Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein.” 

***

 

 

In this second video Senator Biden Admonishes Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, September 3, 1998

 

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Video: Joe Biden on Iraq War: “Taking this Son of a ****, Taking Saddam Down”

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

It’s déjà vu time for Palestine; we have lived through the same fiasco before only to get bogged down in the Oslo poisoned swamp.

Déjà vu washed over me as I read a letter by Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan addressing Israelis, published in Yedioth Ahronoth (Feb 26, 2021), the largest Israeli newspaper (Hebrew). It is a letter clearly written within the “one-homeland-two-state” initiative framework.

The rhetoric of Prince Hassan’s letter includes references to climate change, weapons of mass destruction (meaning nuclear), global security (meaning terrorism) and Covid19, all of which, other than Israel’s own security, were not in the political lingo or horizon of the Oslo Accords (ratified in 1993 and 1995). But the outline of the plot to draw Palestinians away from a struggle for liberation is much the same. In historian Nur Masalha’s analysis, it is even worse:

“One homeland — two states”, a solution that seeks to legitimize Zionism in all of Palestine, is a discourse much worse than the traditional “two-state solution” and the solution to full Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This initiative can only strengthen the Israeli grip on the West Bank and reinforce reactionary Arab powers (within the Palestinians and in the Arab world) that seek normalization with Israel.

Following is an excerpt of the letter [translated from an Arabic translation of the Hebrew. In the Arabic translation of the letter on which I am basing this blog post, every reference Prince Hassan makes to Israel is, oddly, in quotes.]

Jordan faces a triple threat: increased number of refugees it hosts, budget cuts, and the need to support a vulnerable population. The Corona epidemic has only worsened the situation. Of course, we are not alone in this campaign. Corona poses a threat to health and the economy in every country… This is perhaps the greatest test of solidarity and compassion the world has ever known. Within such a reality, cooperation between all parties to revive our region is essential.

… The main point is that no country in the Middle East can solve its problems on its own. We must work together to advance our common regional goals. The alternative is a reality in which competing countries are rushing to maximize domestic consumption toward unlimited resource depletion. This is a tragedy that will hurt everyone. Water cooperation in a low-potable water region would be a good place to start.

We can take inspiration from the coal and steel community in Europe or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It is encouraging to see that despite the conflicts between the countries of Southeast Asia, and despite the great and varied diversity of political systems, these countries are cooperating in the face of very few common trade challenges. This comes at a time when trade between Arab countries represents less than ten percent of its total commercial activity.

Our region is characterized by a mixture of oil and human resources that can help build pluralistic and modern societies, encourage political and economic reforms, and reduce inequality. We must work to increase the stability of the countries of the region — including the State of Palestine, which will be present alongside “Israel” in the framework of an arrangement based on a two-state solution, political affiliation and close economic cooperation. Such a political settlement must involve the division of Jerusalem; taking into account the Abrahamic religions (Islam and Judaism), maintaining the security and integrity of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and rejuvenating the Palestinian leadership to sit in Jerusalem — the capital of “Israel” and Palestine — will complete the bilateral parties. Israel and the Arab countries that are ready for this could really start the process. Other countries in the region, including Turkey and Iran, could join in due course. Time for a fresh start.

In a short introduction to the letter, the Israeli reporter Smadar Perry gushes with assurances to the Israeli reader that “Prince Hassan is keen to keep his door open to Israelis.”

Perry also assures his Israeli readers that “Senior officials in Amman with whom I spoke are convinced that Prince Hassan would not have started publishing an article he wrote in an Israeli newspaper without a green light from King Abdullah himself.”

These are mostly people he has known from the start of the peace process in which he participated deeply on the side of King Hussein … Recently, there was a secret meeting between him and a group of Israelis in key positions who did not know him personally, and most of them had never visited Jordan. Two weeks later, the prince had another conversation through Zoom with five other Israelis known to the kingdom on the topic: How can the peace process be strengthened? … In the message he sends to readers in “Israel” through these pages, he tries to open a new window, to cautiously break the deadlock in the relations between the two countries.

The letter attempts to engage Israelis as if they have agency to act, assuming they are rational, decent human beings who are capable of appreciating global economic, climate and security forces (“the creation of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction,” he says). It attempts to engage Israeli leaders as if they are capable of cooperating in good faith and as if hegemony in the region is not their raison d’être.

It’s the kind of “courting” letter Prince Hassan would never write to engage Jordanian citizens, who, in fact, don’t have agency and whose leaders have zero leverage both with Israel and in the region.

Instead, Jordanians may or may not hear of Prince Hassan’s secret meetings with Israeli officials similar to those his brother King Hussein regularly used to conduct. That’s because, decades after the 1994 Wadi Araba peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, widespread “people to people” ties have not materialized. Nor will they ever materialize without a just resolution of the Nakba.

In the letter, Prince Hassan references this same treaty between Jordan and Israel positively, as an achievement to build on:

October of this year marks the 27th anniversary of the signing of the peace treaty between Jordan and “Israel,” the same historic agreement that marked the beginning of the end of the long and tragic conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and represented an important milestone towards peace between the peoples of the region.

The Wadi Araba peace treaty had been incentivized by Washington in the same way Trump’s deal incentivized the recent “normalization” between the Gulf countries and Israel. If it has achieved anything, it is to make Jordan, a client state of the US, a perpetual supplicant to both Israel and the US.

In seeking prosperity, peace and stability “in the region,” what Prince Hassan fails to recognize is a fundamental principleof our Palestinian struggle:

The Palestinian people, recognizing their role as an advance vanguard of the Arab liberation movement in the struggle against imperialism and Zionism, calls upon all of the democratic and progressive forces and popular movements of the world to provide all forms of support to the struggle to achieve their full rights and national liberation.

Prince Hassan was 43 years old in 1991, when the Palestinian delegation attended the “Madrid Peace Conference” under cover provided by Jordan, by-passing the decisions of the Palestinian National Council. He is now 73 years old and, based on this letter, has learned hardly anything about the true nature of the “peace process” or the true nature of the Zionist regime with whom he is dealing “in secret.”

Advocates of the one-homeland/two-state confederation between what remains of Palestine and Israel believe that “in the long run, one might envision transforming the confederation into one federal state, with the autonomous regions Israel, West Bank, and Gaza.”

Given the experience of the “interim” agreement of Oslo that lasted decades and netted enormous strategic gains exclusively for Israel and the US, it is hard to understand on what exactly such advocates base their faith.

It is much saner to advocate, as Nur Masalha says, for the One Democratic State Campaign: a progressive liberation movement, an ambitious movement with a future vision that seeks to end the colonization of Palestine and change the reality on the ground from the river to the sea. These tasks are not easy and cannot be accomplished in the short term:

The discourse of “political realism” is also a refrain of the Oslo architects. In the name of “political realism”, we Palestinians found ourselves mired in the Oslo swamp…. The discourse of “one homeland— two states” is essentially the “two-state solution incomplete”: without full and effective Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank, no Israeli decolonization, and Palestinian “coexistence” with Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

The Oslo two-state “peace process” is dead. Israelis and Palestinians need to consider a just and equitable alternative, which means one democratic state, not a so-called binational state that entrenches and legitimizes the apartheid status quo, political Zionism, settler-colonialism, and Israel as a Jewish state.

In an excellent analysis of the letter published in al Arabi al Jadeed, Lamis K. Andoni wonders:

Al-Hassan bin Talal proposes a solution based on the establishment of two states, Israeli and Palestinian, at a time when it has become clear, and for some time now, the “Palestinian state” that Israel might accept, is a monolithic and isolated entity without sovereignty, in which Israel controls its outlets, its sky — literally what’s underground and what’s above. Regarding the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, it means the cancellation of all historical and legal rights, the most important of which is the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. The question here is: Why does Jordan accept giving free gifts that further weaken the already dysfunctional balance of power? How can Jordan call on the Palestinians to give up all their cards, and then talk about a solution acceptable to the Palestinians, unless there is no place for the opinion [will] of the Palestinians in the first place?

It’s time for a fresh start for Palestine, as Prince Hassan says, but a truly fresh start, not a variant mutation of the toxic past.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on What Jordan’s Prince Hassan Fails to Recognize: Palestinian Struggle Is an Advance Guard of the Arab Liberation Movement
  • Tags: , ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

This article originally published on The Intercept in January 2020 provides an incisive perspective and understanding of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy “commitment” to waging war in the Middle East.

All of this was known and documente before the 2020 elections.

So-called progressives played a key role in supporting his candidacy.

M. Ch. GR Editor

***

Former Vice President Joe Biden this week [early January 2020] continued to maintain the fiction that he stood against the war in Iraq “the very moment” it began in 2003. The claim has been easily taken apart by fact checkers — Biden publicly supported the war before, during, and after the invasion — but a 1998 Senate hearing sheds additional light on his determination to confront Iraq over weapons of mass destruction.

In 1998, U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter resigned in protest and accused the international community of not giving him and his colleagues the support they needed to carry out their job in Iraq, which had agreed in 1991 to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile. He was called to testify before the Senate in September 1998, where Biden, who was then the highest-ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations committee, grilled him. In the course of the questions, Biden made revealing remarks about where he stood on regime change in Iraq.

Biden thanked Ritter for forcing senators to “come to our milk,” by which he meant forcing them to make a decision on what to do about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction program.

Biden told Ritter that no matter how thorough the inspections, the only way to eliminate the threat was to remove Saddam Hussein.

“The primary policy is to keep sanctions in place to deny Saddam the billions of dollars that would allow him to really crank up his program, which neither you nor I believe he’s ever going to abandon as long as he’s in place,” Biden said, characterizing former President Bill Clinton’s administration’s policy. “You and I believe, and many of us believe here, as long as Saddam is at the helm, there is no reasonable prospect you or any other inspector is ever going to be able to guarantee that we have rooted out, root and branch, the entirety of Saddam’s program relative to weapons of mass destruction. You and I both know, and all of us here really know, and it’s a thing we have to face, that the only way, the only way we’re going to get rid of Saddam Hussein is we’re going to end up having to start it alone — start it alone — and it’s going to require guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking this son of a — taking Saddam down,” Biden said. “You know it and I know it.”

Hussein, it turned out, did not have an active WMD program.

During questioning, Biden mocked Ritter as “ol’ Scotty boy” and suggested that his demands — that the international community compel Iraq to cooperate with inspectors — if met, would give Ritter the unilateral authority to start a war in Iraq. Biden argued that such decisions belonged to higher-level officials. “I respectfully suggest they have a responsibility slightly above your pay grade, to decide whether or not to take the nation to war,” Biden said. “That’s a real tough decision. That’s why they get paid the big bucks. That’s why they get the limos and you don’t. I mean this sincerely, I’m not trying to be flip.”

He ended by redeploying his unusual idiom in thanking Ritter.

“The reason why I’m glad you did what you did: We should come to our milk. We should make a decision,” Biden said.

Biden’s earlier suggestion that “taking Saddam down” was the only way to guarantee an end to the WMD program left little doubt where Biden would later come down on the issue.

Biden’s grilling of Ritter is important because it gives context to claims Biden later made: First, that when he voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq as a senator, he did not mean to vote for war, but hoped the resolution would empower inspectors to get back into Iraq and monitor the program. And second, that he never believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

On the first claim, Biden told NPR last year that former President George W. Bush “looked me in the eye in the Oval Office. He said he needed the vote to be able to get inspectors into Iraq to determine whether or not Saddam Hussein was engaged in dealing with a nuclear program. … He got them in and before you know it, we had ‘shock and awe.’”

But according to Biden’s own statements in 1998, he believed that Hussein could never be trusted to eliminate his program, no matter how many inspectors were admitted.

In October 2004, by which time it had become clear there were no WMDs, Biden told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, “I never believed they had weapons of mass destruction.”

In fact, as Biden had said in 1998, he believed not only that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but no amount of inspections or diplomacy could guarantee their removal. That, he told Ritter, could only be done by “guys like you in uniform to be back on foot in the desert taking this son of a — taking Saddam down.”

Biden’s thought process puts critical hearings he held in 2002 as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee in sharper context. That summer, as the world was focused on the war in Afghanistan, from where the attacks of September 11, 2001, had been launched, Biden sought to begin “a national dialogue” on Iraq. During a series of high-profile hearings, he feigned neutrality, but his earlier questioning of Ritter leaves no doubt where he stood: Iraq had WMDs, and the only way to disarm Iraq with confidence was to depose Saddam Hussein. Biden, given his chairmanship, was a leading voice on foreign policy within the party. He had voted against the first Gulf War, waged by Bush’s father, and wasn’t considered a knee-jerk hawk. His support for the 2003 war made Democratic opposition ultimately untenable — even as Ritter, in the run up to it, loudly made the case against war, arguing that the WMD claims were overhyped.

Biden had reason to disbelieve the WMD claims. In a classified hearing on September 24, 2002, at the urging of a staff member, Biden asked then-CIA Director George Tenet what evidence of WMDs the U.S. had “technically collected.”

“None, Senator,” Tenet said, according to an account in the book “Hubris,” by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. Biden, wondering if there was some highly classified evidence, asked Tenet, “George, do you want me to clear the staff out of the room?” Tenet told him no. “There’s no reason to, Senator.”

“‘None, Senator’ — that answer will ring in my ears as long as I live,” the staffer later told the authors. Later in that same hearing, Biden heard from two government witnesses who rejected the “aluminum tubes” claim that had been circulating, and would later become a centerpiece of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations.

Biden, to be sure, was not a full-throated advocate for the war on Bush’s terms, and throughout the fall, worked with Republican Sens. Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel to try to build support for a narrower authorization, that would only allow Bush to attack Iraq for the purpose of dismantling a WMD program. But the effort was undercut by House Democratic leaders, and particularly Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., who pushed ahead with Bush’s broader resolution. “I was angry,” Biden later said, according to “Hubris.” “I was frustrated. But I never second-guess another man’s political judgment.”

Biden was also aware of the difficulty of invading and occupying Iraq, unlike some of his Republican colleagues. In February 1998, the News Journal of Wilmington reported that Biden saw invasion as unlikely.

Though some Republicans have urged the military to remove Saddam from power entirely, Biden said there was little will for that in Congress. Such a move would require a bloody ground war, the use of 300,000 to 500,000 ground troops, and some kind of continuing presence in Iraq while a new government is installed, he said.

Yet during the summer 2002 hearings, Biden claimed that “one thing is clear, these weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power.” Given that he was already on record believing that the weapons could never effectively be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, that left only one option: war. Biden voted for the Iraq war resolution on October 11, 2002, three weeks after hearing from Tenet in the classified session.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Joe Biden, Five Years Before Invasion, Said the Only Way of Disarming Iraq Is “Taking Saddam Down”
  • Tags: , ,

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Veoma cenjeni gospodine Predsedniče!

Dozvolite mi da Vam se ponovo obratim, ali najpre bih želeo da Vam uputim srdačne čestitke povodom Vašeg rodjendana.

Pošto me već poznajete iz mojih prethodnih pisama, ne moram da Vam se detaljnije predstavljam. Ja sam diplomirani psiholog, doktor pedagogije i poslednjih decenija sam radio kao profesor u Nemačkoj u obrazovanju odraslih. Duže od godinu dana živim u Srbiji zajedno sa svojom suprugom, Srpkinjom koja je penzionisani diplomata. Pošto gotovo svakodnevno do mene dolaze veoma uznemirujuće vesti iz moje bivše domovine, obraćam se sada Vama.

Za razliku od Srbije, u Nemačkoj i okolnim zemljama su već mesecima svi restorani ii barovi zatvoreni i gradjani se žale zbog veoma restriktivnih političkih mera, koje dovode do ekstremnih psihičkih, fizičkih i privrednih posledica odnosno šteta. Ljudi se žale i zbog sve jačeg pritiska da se vakcinišu vakcinama, koje posebno u domovima za stare, dovode do teških nuz pojava, šta više i do smrti. Političari tvrde da veoma nepopularne mere kao što su pomenute inekcije, nošenje maski ili socijalna distanca preduzimaju isključivo zbog zaštite zdravlja stanovništva. Gradjani, medjutim, više ne veruju u to.

Pošto ja nameravam da i nadalje živim ovde u Srbiji, želeo bih da od Vas saznam koje planove imate Vi i Vaša vlada za Srbiju? Da li će se uskoro prestati sa neprijatnim i problematičnim nošenjem maski koje izobličuju lice? Da li će i u Srbiji biti uvedena obavezna vakcinacija za sve gradjane? Pored toga bi me interesovalo, da li se i u Srbiji slušaju samo mišljenja naučnih ekseparta koja se dopadaju vladi? Ili će se moći čuti i druga gledišta – i da li će se čuti i glas naroda?

Gospodine Predsedniče, bio bih Vam veoma zahvalan, ako bi ste odgovorili na moja pitanja i ako bi ste mogli da me umirite.

U tom očekivanju ostajem s prijateljskim pozdravima,

Vaš Rudolf Hänsel

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

  • Posted in Srpski
  • Comments Off on Otvoreno pismo predsedniku Republike Srbije, Aleksandru Vučiću

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Dear Mr. President!

Let me address you again, but first I would like to send you my heartfelt congratulations on your birthday.

Since you already know me from my previous letters, I do not have to introduce myself to you in more detail. I am a graduate psychologist, doctor of pedagogy and in recent decades I have worked as a professor in Germany in adult education.

I have been living in Serbia for more than a year together with my wife, a Serbian woman who is a retired diplomat. Since very disturbing news from my former homeland comes to me almost every day, I am addressing you now.

Unlike in Serbia, in Germany and the surrounding countries, all restaurants and bars have been closed for months and citizens complain about very restrictive political measures, which lead to extreme psychological, physical and economic consequences or damage. People are also complaining about the growing pressure to get vaccinated with vaccines, which, especially in old people’s homes, lead to severe side effects, and even more to death. Politicians claim that very unpopular measures such as the mentioned injections, wearing masks or social distance are taken solely to protect the health of the population. Citizens, however, no longer believe in it.

Since I intend to continue living here in Serbia, I would like to know from you what plans do you and your government have for Serbia? Will they soon stop wearing uncomfortable and problematic masks that distort the face? Will compulsory vaccination be introduced in Serbia for all citizens? In addition, I would be interested in whether only the opinions of scientific experts who like the government are listened to in Serbia as well? Or will other views be heard – and will the voice of the people be heard?

Mr. President, I would be very grateful if you could answer my questions and if you could calm me down.

In that anticipation, I remain with friendly greetings,

Rudolf Hansel

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on No Corona Lockdown. Life in Serbia is Normal. Open Letter to Serbia’s President, Aleksandar Vučić

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

***

Below are relevant excerpts from an important article by Mark Weisbrot originally published in The Guardian in February 2020.

Click here to Access the complete article

***

….

When the war was debated and then authorized by the US Congress in 2002, Democrats controlled the Senate and Biden was chair of the Senate committee on foreign relations. Biden himself had enormous influence as chair and argued strongly in favor of the 2002 resolution granting President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

“I do not believe this is a rush to war,” Biden said a few days before the vote. “I believe it is a march to peace and security. I believe that failure to overwhelmingly support this resolution is likely to enhance the prospects that war will occur …”

But he had a power much greater than his own words. He was able to choose all 18 witnesses in the main Senate hearings on Iraq. And he mainly chose people who supported a pro-war position. They argued in favor of “regime change as the stated US policy” and warned of “a nuclear-armed Saddam sometime in this decade”. That Iraqis would “welcome the United States as liberators” And that Iraq “permits known al-Qaida members to live and move freely about in Iraq” and that “they are being supported”.

The lies about al-Qaida were perhaps the most transparently obvious of the falsehoods created to justify the Iraq war. As anyone familiar with the subject matter could testify, Saddam Hussein ran a secular government  ….

…. But Iraq in 2002 was devastated by economic sanctions, had no weapons of mass destruction, and was known by even the most pro-war experts to have no missiles that could come close to the United States. The idea that this country on the other side of the world posed a security threat to America was more than far-fetched. The idea that the US could simply invade, topple the government, and take over the country without provoking enormous violence was also implausible. It’s not clear how anyone with foreign policy experience and expertise could have believed these ideas.

…. Regardless of Biden’s intentions – which I make no claim to know or understand – the resolution granting President Bush the authority to start that war, which Biden pushed through the Senate, was a major part of that deception.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. He is the director of Worth the Price? Joe Biden and the Launch of the Iraq War (2020).

Featured image is from Oxfam International